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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
User ID: 896


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					4 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, but I suspect most mil-sf writers are not faking it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Joseph Smith was a freemason before he founded Mormonism and there are numerous Masonic elements in Mormon ritual, so it would be Masonic. Catholic is plausible based on my read of Mormon doctrine - that there is an anti-anti-Catholic strand - as if Smith was pushing back against the radical Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening - but Masonic is obviously correct in this case.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Please don't - that is confusing, particularly given the high rate at which leftists and theatre kids actually troon out in the strict sense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the strict meaning is useful and should be retained. There isn't an alternative short word for the process of deciding that one is transgender.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Stable oligarchies are possible at a range of intervening ratios. The most famous is the Venetian Republic, with a hereditary Great Council of about 2000 people, out of a total population of 2.5 million (1000 ruled to each ruler) of whom about a tenth were nominal citizens with certain privileges and the vestigial right to approve the Great Council's choice of Doge (100 citizens to each ruler, or about 25 adult male citizens to each ruler). I would argue that the same is true of England from the 1688 Glorious Revolution (when the Commons became the most powerful part of the constitution) to either 1868 (when all urban heads of household got the vote) or 1884 (when rural heads of household got the vote) - the property-owning middle class* who had the vote was about 7% of the population or 20% of the adult male population (5 adult male citizens to each ruler).


The Roman Republic is a more complex case because it had different assemblies for different purposes with different franchises, but the centuriate assembly which elected the consuls was de facto controlled by the patricians, eques, and first class of plebians - which collectively represent probably 10-20% of the adult male citizen population (with the vote further weighted in favour of the higher classes and men over 47 years old within each class). This arrangement lasted a few hundred years from the fall of Tarquins to the rise of Marius and Sulla.


* The famous 1832 Reform Act was mostly about fixing the constituency map so that the middle class vote was meaningful, not enfranchising more people. Although it did widen the franchise a bit by updating the definition of property-owning middle class to reflect Victorian social realities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the US right has never really made "blood and soil" or ethnic tribalism in general a core pillar of it's identity




If by "the US right" you mean the conservative movement and not the GOP, "never" is an exaggeration. Buckley is absolutely explicit that Jim Crow is part of what he is trying to conserve in the 1950s, and he staffs his movement with southern segregationists. The Falwell/Robertson religious right was also lousy with segregationists (including Falwell but not Robertson) and made protecting segregated Christian schools one of its core issues.


Buckley himself recanted in the 1960's, but the movement eventually got rid of the segregationists one funeral at a time. If I had to pick a date when the American conservative movement (again, not the GOP) stopped being led by segregationist dead-enders I would run with the handover to a younger generation of leadership (in particular, Gingrich) around 1994. Not coincidentally, this is also the date at which the distinction between the conservative movement in the country and the non-RINO GOP ceased to matter.


It is definitely the case that the US right has been far less prone to ethnic tribalism than right-wing movements in Continental Europe or democratic countries in Asia. It isn't obvious how it compares to right-wing traditions in the rest of the Anglosphere.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ward Churchill would have got away with it if he hadn't made crass comments about 9-11. And I assume there are more male fake Indians who didn't do anything cancellable who did get away with it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You can publish mil-sf without doing any of those things. I know women who have published mil-sf.


But you are right that Baen books or Black Library doesn't care how many disabilities you can fake.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There have been 11 witnesses of the golden plates who have maintained their accounts to be true




And none of those accounts establish a causal link between the inscriptions on the plates and the English urtext of the Book of Mormon revealed to Joseph Smith through the use of the seer stones. That is what I mean by Mormonism not needing the plates.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I detect cope in at least one sense of the word.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Native" anything as a racial or ethnic descriptor was never a standard way of talking about civilised people - most of the Google hits on "Native British" are for plants. In 1900 as in 2026, people using "native", "indigenous" or "aboriginal" to refer to a subset of British people were probably comparing more-indigenous white British people to less-indigenous white British people - either Welsh/Scottish/Cornish Celts to the Anglo-Saxon invaders, or the English to Norman invaders. We have deep enough recorded history that people whose family came over less than 1000 years ago don't generally self-identify as any of those things.


Native (in the proper sense of the word) British English speakers who want to draw the distinction DHH is making just say "White British" which is in practice unambiguous. I have heard "Indigenous British" used as by intelligent racists as a deliberate trolling of anti-colonialist types. "Native Brit" as used by DHH is mostly a tell that DHH himself isn't one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As I remember London says that the fraction of "native Brits" in London has dropped to about a third. Clicking the link (which is to the Wikipedia article on ethnic groups in London) suggests that he uses "native Brits" to refer to people who tick the "White British" box on the census. (I tick "Irish" because it won't hurt me professionally and might help, so according to DHH I am not a "native Brit" despite having four grandparents who were drafted in WW2). The literal English meaning of "native Brit" is, of course, someone born in Britain - and London is still about 60% British-born.


"Britishness is tied to skin colour and being born in London does not make you a native Brit if you have the wrong ancestry" was cancellable back in the 1970s when Enoch Powell was cancelled for it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They are being held up for public ridicule in the Boston Globe, which is somewhat to the left of Pravda. That isn't exactly being disowned and purged, but the only more official way that the pro-establishment left could say "We're sick of these people" is to say it in the New York Times.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I've read someone who claimed that democratic republics live around 250 years on average. The only exception is Switzerland, but it is a very unusual polity.




Switzerland hasn't been a country for 250 years, let alone a democratic republic. Before the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, Switzerland didn't claim to be a sovereign federal state - it was a treaty alliance between cantons that were de facto separately sovereign under the Treaty of Westphalia. The Canton of Bern was by far the largest and most powerful canton, and was notoriously oligarchic.


If you count America as continuously republican since 1776 or 1789, you would say that Switzerland has been a democratic republic since it was reconstituted after the Congress of Vienna (i.e. 200 years, a slightly worse run than the US). If you think a constitutional rewrite as a result of a civil war is a break in continuity, then Switzerland has been continuously democratic and republican since the end of the Sonderbund war in 1848. (Which is a slightly better run than the US)


Switzerland's political stability is remarkable given the multi-lingual, multi-confessional nature of the country, but it wouldn't stand out against the Anglosphere countries. Part of this, of course, is that the Anglosphere countries have the advantage of not having land borders with Napoleonic France/Nazi Germany/etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
These clowns (and not just the ones that went to clown school) managed to flip Bernie Sanders, or at least get him to put up a "Workers of the World Unite" sign while doing lefty politics. And Bernie is a much bigger man than Kamala.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Noire paints himself




Does anyone know if "gender-expansive lesbian using he/him pronouns" is a new type of bulldyke or a new type of autogynephile?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And incorporated or not, all of these community types can be a "suburb" in the legal sense - the legal definition of a suburb, which is simple and useful and should be retained even if we have an alternative definition based on urban form, is a municipality that isn't the core of it's metro area.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's cheap enough if you buy that insulation collectively the way first-world Asian cities do.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I very much agree. There are two great questions about the self-driving car era that we don't know the answer to yet:


    

  • Will self-driving cars be hired like taxis or will they be privately owned? Or in other words, will people still own a car once renting it on the spot market not longer adds the cost of a chauffeur.
    • 

  • What is the geometric constraint on cities in the world where self-driving cars are the main form of transit? (From Babylon to the Victorians, it was walking distance. In the private car era, it was parking scarcity first and carriageway scarcity for moving vehicles second)
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My experience is that Dr Google isn't great at differential diagnosis, and absolutely sucks at "What are the potential diagnoses I should be thinking about - either because they are likely or because they are moderately likely but serious - as a Bayesian inference from this set of symptoms?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The only reason we "know" that WIV was doing gain of function research on-site is that a virus leaked and caused a pandemic. There is weak circumstantial evidence that they were doing gain of function, but officially they were only collecting the virus samples and the dangerous work was happening elsewhere.


If John is known to hang out with fraudsters, this is Bayesian evidence that his lottery win is fraudulent, but it is much weaker evidence than knowing that John is a criminal himself. The lottery operator would need something better than "While not a known criminal, John hangs out with fraudsters, so his lottery win is probably fraudulent" to deny a payout.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At the level of handwaving where lab leak is "one entirely banal human accident", zoonosis requires exactly one step of unlikely shit, namely that the next big zoonotic virus coincidentally showed up in the city that hosts the WIV.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Assigning blame serves an important function for vulnerability patching. If no one involved is ever responsible than why would they spend the effort to fix anything?




Given the existence of two plausible origin theories, both of which involve large-scale idiocy rather than individual criminality (which is not to say that nobody committed a crime - just that under both theories there is no criminality needed to end up with a pandemic), attempting to assign blame makes vulnerability patching harder because it creates high-powered incentives to hide the root causes. In practice, it also makes it harder to create common knowledge about root causes and appropriate responses because you require a higher standard of proof to assign blame to individuals than to identify patchable vulnerabilities.


In fact this is a more general point. If a disaster requires systemic vulnerabilities (whether in place of or in addition to individual culpability) then attempting to identify culpable individuals after the fact makes root cause identification, and therefore vulnerability patching, harder. There is a reason why both medicine and aviation try as far as possible to have blame-free accident investigation processes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I typically hesitate to say that people aren't seriously believing their claims but Lab leak theorists have a major missing mood problem going on.




The best versions of both theories imply similar levels of culpability on the part of the Chinese. Zoonosis implies that the Chinese continue to allow an unsanitary practice (the sale of live-caught wild animals in wet markets) that is banned in most western countries, had already caused at least one pandemic (OG SARS) and had been called out as likely to cause others in the future. Lab leak implies that the Chinese were doing a type of dangerous research that was controversial but not banned in the west with grossly inadequate containment practices.


The claim that COVID-19 was deliberately developed as a bioweapon, as opposed to being the result of civilian gain-of-function research of the type proposed in the DEFUSE grant and promoted by Fauci, does not make sense. SARS-like coronaviruses make shitty bioweapons for reasons which should by now be all too obvious, and nukes (which China has) work better than sci-fi doomsday viruses as credible MAD.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Yet, if you look at a random US "city" in Google Maps, you will see lots of single-family houses with their own backyards and limited access to mass transit.






So, what do you actually mean when you say "urban", "suburban", and "rural" living? Maybe it's something like this.






Urban living: Row houses and apartment buildings, with incidental retail
Suburban living: Single-family and two-family houses, and nothing else
Rural living: Incidental single-family houses in land that is largely agricultural or undeveloped




My personal tongue-in-cheek definition:


    

  • Urban living: cars are an optional purchase to support specific careers and/or lifestyles.  Middle-class aspiration for non-car owners includes frequent taxi/Uber use.
    • 

  • Suburban living: Working-class respectability requires one car per family (with carless living possible for the childless possible but not ideal). Middle-class aspiration is one car per employed adult.
    • 

  • Exurban or rural living: Working-class respectability requires one car per employed adult. Middle-class aspiration is one car per licensed driver, with the car being a pickup, SUV or 4x4 if the driver is an employed adult who doesn't drive a van for work reasons.
    • 



Note that on this definition, a lot of American "suburbia" falls into the exurban/rural category. This is deliberate.  "Urban" living by my definition is compatible with upper-middle-class people having houses with private gardens (many such neighbourhoods in London zone 2/3), though probably not detached ones.