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4bpp

Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs

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joined 2022 September 05 01:50:31 UTC

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Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs

				
				
				

				

					3 followers  

					follows 2 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 01:50:31 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What exactly does "being Mossad" entail? Some people seem to imagine that you have to go through an initiation theory in a dark cellar with guys in robes chanting and skull lanterns and everything, while a weaker version at least involves an explicit interview and training or being told that you are working for Israel and are to make periodic reports on some burner phone in return for a paycheck turning up under your garbage bin. I could see many instances being much more tacit, though: at some point you are made to realise that you dodged a legal or reputational bullet in ways that seem to be more unlikely than regular luck, and then a friend of a friend asks to have a chat and strongly hints that it really was not luck after all and maybe you can casually tell him your best gossip about how much Prince Andrew enjoyed himself on your island.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As you can see from blue tribers calling anything right of Bernie sanders “Nazi”, name calling and shaming your opponents actually does work if repeated often enough.




This is cargo cult politics. You see those guys wave batons while wearing uniforms and figure that if you also do that, you too will summon planes that deliver valuable goods.


There are plenty of examples where name-calling and shaming your opponents repeatedly has not had any measurable effect (e.g. every type of name-calling and shaming that the US Right has used on the sexual wing of the US Left). In fact, these examples seem highly correlated with the Right being the one to do it. The obvious conclusion suggested by the data is that name-calling only works when you already have cultural supremacy.


(Compare also to the case of Sovereign Citizens: most Americans believe in the legitimacy of contract law, legal personae and the USCC, just as they believe that communism is bad. That does not mean that any amount of low-status guys driving pickups invoking those things to call the cop who did a traffic stop on them illegitimate will have any effect other than further discrediting the low-status guy. Legitimacy of uses of legalese flows solely from the guys with guns and jailhouses.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I find that the Quran is not as eloquent or sophisticated as other well-known religious texts, though perhaps it comes off better in Arabic.




I always suspected that grand foundational religious (and other) texts bend what is even considered good and beautiful around themselves to a nontrivial degree. If that is true, it would make sense that the Quran, which is hardly used in translation, would not be well-received in English.


As a relevant datum, perhaps, the Russian Bible translations, which I grew up with, do evoke in me qualia of beauty and eloquence, while any English and German ones just seem lame and stilted. I doubt Russian Bible translators were particularly more skilled (though some argument could be made for the Russian language being far better equipped to preserve rhetorical choices in Greek source texts - as a fairly well-known example, Russian gets to punt on the decision of how to deal with the Greek epiousion of "daily bread" fame entirely by simply calquing the Greek morpheme for morpheme), so the relevant difference probably comes down to whether you were bombarded with the assertion that this is what prose with gravitas looks like at a formative age.


(On the other hand, while my Arabic is pretty minimal, having perhaps peaked at what Europeans would call A1 level long ago, I did get the sense that the Quran in the Arabic original is at least very lyrical, in the sense of using the grammatical affordances of the language in a clever way, and more simply sounding beautiful when read out loud.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


as a retarded communist




Every time you do this, your message ends up wasted as normies only hear "...and the actual bad thing here is that this is all a ploy to make me pay taxes".


Invoking a putative communist-SJW connection might work for rallying the troops in certain sectors of the American Right, but even if you can make some argument for why it is actually justified, everyone who possibly could have their minds changed will just tl;dr and assume you are either a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks the Soviet Union never really disbanded or one of those people who think the modern societal consensus needs to be directionally corrected in the "pre-1917 capitalism" direction, Dickensian smokestacks and lumpenproles and all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You can say this, but then you don't get to complain if people on the other side demonstrate negative levels of compassion for, say, Charlie Kirk or that healthcare CEO either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The innocent do have something to fear, which is regulation justifying regulatory capture. Step 1: mandate watermarks. Step 2: "realise" that watermark mandates are unenforceable except on remotely served models in cooperating jurisdictions, and conclude that you need to ban local models and anything served from China.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There is a reason there has been a generational project by progressives in education to put that word out of your cognitive reach.




[citation needed]. I see them use it as enthusiastically as ever, it's just that they just it for different things (as you would expect from people with different values).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Perhaps the way to square the circle is to frame it as an accessibility question for war volunteers, not euthanasia. Why should the terminally ill grandma or the depressed TikToker be denied their opportunity to die to  defend Democracy in Ukraine, if they want to? If need be, we can roll their wheelchair straight into the flight path of a Russian drone, and (at $300 surcharge) even let them hold a rifle in their last moments for the aesthetics. Maybe the Russians can be persuaded to play along and provide a preagreed time and place in return for partial sanctions relief.


(I don't know what percentage of pro-lifers also has a categorical revulsion towards making women fight in a war, but surely it is much less than 100?)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't see how that is so different from the person who wants to remove the fence in Chesterton's parable. He is also implied to be an outsider (as his conversation partner is in a position to let or not let him remove the fence). On that matter, discrimination of gays can be narrated as having ended because the social structures of the Red Tribe were conquered by the Blue Tribe, who (--"--).


A properly Chestertonian course of action, and indeed one that would be in line with attempted explanations for the practice that emerged much later, would have the Spanish think something like "huh, all the peoples around here are doing human sacrifice. Maybe there is some deep reason why it is adaptive for them in these lands. We should leave it alone until we figure out why".


If you don't accept this, it seems to me, the Fence rule only really imposes any restrictions on lone maverick reformers, who are rarely in a position to make sweeping rule changes anyway. Any group that can tear down fences on the level of national moral law in the US has to have been around and building its power base for a long time, and its proposed changes more often than not are consequences of its own deep history of moral preferences.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's not a slur any more than "nigga" is; the people who use it generally consider it to include themselves (as I did here) or use it with a tinge of admiration.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not sure I see the implication that their opinion would change if the practice is not as strict or rigorous. Going solely by form, I would only expect that they make the argument because they think that your opinion would change if it is, which seems like a sensible default if you are trying to argue across value system lines with the intention to win.


(It's a separate question if we, here should expect better. Rationalist values say yes: if you can imagine an argument that would change your mind, you should help the other side make it as best as you can, "that which can be destroyed by the truth should be", Litany of Tarski et cetera. However this is one part of rationalist values that goes deeply against culture warrior values, which say that the last thing you would want is to betray your cause and people by helping others shake your faith.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you believe life would in fact be better, per your own value function, on the balance if inexplicable fences were always and everywhere respected as suggested in Chesterton's parable? You might have gotten some more decades of prohibition on homosexuality (until some threshold of medical advances is met), but you might also have gotten another 300 years of Mesoamerican human sacrifice culture (I figure it took at least this much until science had gotten to a point where it tried to give plausible rational explanations for why that tradition emerged and persisted).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, this is about right. From the other side, this juxtaposition is about as compelling as comparing trendlines of American workplace accidents resulting in loss of limb to Canadian hospital amputations and thinking it will BTFO the commies who support OSHA. ("More people are dismembered each year by Canadian doctors than by American factory floors!")


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't say I remember what exactly happened (did our stewards ever outright list what the Reddit overlords demanded of them in the end?), but I was under the impression that it was about much more than that, and there were specific demands from admins to ban particular opinions (content, not tone). Moderating on tone used to be touted as a core principle of this community, and it served it rather well, if you compare the quality of top posts when it was in place vs. now. Do slurs serve any purpose other than either pissing off those they are directed against (and their allies), or inducing camaraderie among those who know them and oppose those they are directed against? I don't see how gratuitously provoking irrational anger in some subset of readers could possibly make this forum better for its stated purpose, nor how allowing some users to bond over any shared identity (other than perhaps being a high-decoupling turboautist) would.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is there any sort of objective data on this?


I'm so looped out of the modern state of film that I had to google to even find out what she looks like, but she doesn't look less attractive to me than the median highly praised by men film star from back when I actually watched films, like, say, Keira Knightley. On a forum like this, opinions are doubly suspect; people's political opinions influence their aesthetic ones more than they tend to realise, and so I would expect many of the same people saying "slender teenage boy lacking in femininity" towards someone who apparently has a reputation for being a diversity casting prop to be gushing about her cuteness if she were a based and redpilled MAGA princess instead.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are we going to ignore the elephant in the room that is AI? It is bound to do something to the university system, even if it is just further decoupling the college experience from hard skills. If humans do not intellectually contribute to the object-level problems in the workplace anymore, then there can not be any pretense that any job requirements for them are about anything other than manners, that is, how they relate to other people; and so college will have to go all in on its role as finishing school.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think we've had this discussion here more than once before, but there's a general failure of theory of mind between men with "tits and ass, more is better" preferences towards female physique and those with "thin and elegant, strong but fragile" ones, with each suspecting the other of preference falsification or being somehow fundamentally defective.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your gloss is pretty good (and, unironically, I appreciate that you theory-of-minded me fairly there). In my defense, I don't think you were saying what you mean when you chose to use "foid" either; and I don't think I've been exactly hiding my long-standing frustration with how the community rewards and moderators allow free-wheeling use of slurs in service of right-wing positions (as long as they are not crossing the window frame against racism that was already in place ca. 1980). In this situation, detached sarcasm feels like the only available outlet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The parent poster fantasises about stoning, a punishment that is only known/relevant in our cultural context due to its preservation in the memetic time capsule of the Levant ca. 500BC that is Old Testament Christianity. The reference to Jack Chick, as one of the most internet-famous proponents of Old Testament morality, is apt enough.


(All the more so because I don't even think the Old Testament, or other historical texts, tend to opine particularly strongly on transsexualism or crossdressing per se. Once you get into "apply Old Testament punishments to modern American bugbears, while entertaining the belief that this is a human universal" territory, Jack Chick becomes a very iconic choice indeed.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't realise we were running a DEI program to increase right-wing representation in tribal brainrot here.


If we do it too hard, the betrayal will be great when it inevitably comes out that our latest 3x AAQC awarded MGTOW knuckledragger faked his CV and is actually secretly a stay-at-home husband for a muscle mommy female CEO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


foid




I might be out of the loop there, but does this term actually have a more specific meaning or is it just "woman" with a layer of incel sneering ("woman (gross and stupid in the way women are)")?




For her, all of it - literally all of her waking time - is emotional pattern matching. "Does this thing go in the "make me feel good" bucket or the "make me feel bad" bucket?. That's it. That's the rubric. There isn't even the introspection done to determine how and why she has developed various emotional attachments. Not to "Freud a Foid" too hard, but does Elon remind her of the kind austic guy she dated in college who was bad at sex yet still ended up awkwardly dumping her? Is Trump "an asshole" because he is literally the same age as her estranged father?




Paragraphs like this make me think that if you want to really understand your outgroup, talking to someone like a divorced elder millennial woman is a fundamentally misguided approach, for you in particular. Your story could be more or less glossed as "this person believes things that are diagonally opposed to what I believe. I don't see a coherent way that anyone could arrive at this, but well, she is a primitive, pathetic creature that is not at all like me. I figure she believes those things for some primitive creature reasons". You are making it entirely too easy for yourself, and wind up with a conclusion that is largely useless. What you should instead be doing is seeking out people that are the most like you, who you will not be tempted to explain away as motivated by feelings or daddy issues, and still come to the same conclusions. There is no shortage of male contrarians out there who also sympathise with the DSA, find Elon disgusting and think Trump is an asshole. Try to talk to them, and understand why they believe those things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, there are, but iirc they are the people (associated with each housecollege) you get sent to for a stern talking-to (or more) if you engaged in mischief such as copypasting your supervision work or pennying Stephen Hawking (PBUH), not part of the research hierarchy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I assume the mystery is where such an implausible story could have come from and why a certain group of people (including ones who seemingly staked their good name on it) would so tenaciously maintain that it is true, and the resolution is that there was a real story that served as a basis and got warped by a plausible misunderstanding.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The parent post was only talking about spousal visas, not whatever process there is for other relatives. I don't see why bringing in parents/siblings shouldn't be restricted.


(Quick Google search, on that matter, suggests that annual number of spousal visas issued is about 15% the number of annual naturalisations in the US, so it can't be that big a factor.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How many instances do you think are actually IQ 85 citizens inviting "another random person", as opposed to the probably far from random person that they chose to make pivotal to their self-actualisation and life plans?
A $200k cash charge would filter out not just 85 IQ citizens with mail-order brides, but the vast majority of native/foreign couples. Do you think your candidate wants to explain to his electorate why they should be denied a freedom that almost everyone in the developed world enjoys?