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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Men will endure bitter poverty, cold isolation, drink piss and eat lichen just for a chance to be free from the tyranny of the United Nations."




This is a purely hypothetical tyranny, of course. The United Nations has less power, and a lower budget per head, than your high school student council.


I also note that the internationally recognised government of Somalia has not controlled its internationally recognised territory for decades, meaning that de facto sovereignty was there for the taking. And the only people to take it were a group of locals who got their act together (Somaliland), pirates, and jihadis. And the pirates and jihadis aren't about freedom, they are about using "borrowed" Somali sovereignty as a base for predation.


I'm happy to concede that Kowloon Walled City prospered as a libertarian loophole, although every account I have written says that it wasn't as libertarian as it looked because the Triads enjoyed de facto sovereignty in the gap between Chinese and British de jure sovereignty.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting. I hadn't seen SpaceX talking about orbits higher than GTO, so I assumed that was as high as they went. If SpaceX is putting the craft in trans-lunar coast, they can definitely claim credit and blame for the lunar mission if they want, but they still don't get to cherrypick.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm saying that if Ryanair flies a climber to Chamonix who goes on to climb Mont Blanc, they haven't flown him to the summit of Mont Blanc, and they don't get credit for flying to the summit of Mont Blanc; and that if Ryanair flies a climber to Chamonix who goes on to die on Mont Blanc, they didn't kill him and don't get blame for killing him.


The successful flight to Chamonix counts to Ryanair's safety record of non-mountain flying in either case. Translating back to @pusher_robot's comments about SpaceX, I don't think it makes sense to say that "SpaceX has delivered x successful lunar missions" and include crashes in the total on the basis that SpaceX successfully got them as far as LEO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
SpaceX are the Ryanair of LEO, which is a perfectly respectable business to be in. If they don't deserve the blame for what a payload does once it goes past LEO, they don't deserve credit either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Africa hasn’t been great with Democracy or much of Latam.




Democracy has been less bad for Africa than the actually existing alternatives, which are Soviet-style communism and military juntas. There is an open question about whether British colonialism was better, but it isn't clear if Britain still produces competent colonialists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A lazy barista is the west making a mediocre cup of coffee in 5 mins which sells for £4 will register as more productive than a highly skilled and experienced coffee guru barista in Istanbul selling premium coffee which he also makes in 5 mins for 50 TRY (around £0.8).




Turkish coffee and espresso-based drinks are very different products with different traditions and are enjoyed by different people with different tastes. The espresso-based coffee in Istanbul is globohomo tier. If PPP is being calculated correctly, a cappuccino in London and a cappuccino in Istanbul are approximately the same product and count approximately the same amount to PPP GDP.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And can you guess by the color of their skin and their religion which are the most unproductive lower classes and most pandered to?




The most pandered to unproductive class is retired boomers, and particularly retired homeowning boomers. (Landowners who no longer perform the military functions of a traditional warrior elite are the most pandered to unproductive class in almost every society where they exist, of course).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So ordaining unrepentant sodomites. I agree SSPX isn't into that kind of thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You can't be excommunicated if you were never Catholic in the first place. If you are a baptized cradle Catholic who lapsed in young adulthood, you are probably excommunicated latae sententiae for apostasy. But if you are just a rando, the Church doesn't claim any authority over you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IQ tests for jobs are legal in the UK and widely used (the civil service is using them less than before because of disparate impact, with the predictable negative effects, but large private sector employers still use them fairly widely). Credential inflation has been less bad than in the US, but not much less bad. So although Griggs v Duke Power doesn't help, I don't think it is the main thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The general public, bless their hearts, think an ephebophile is a paedophile with a dictionary. I think an ephebophile is just a man with normal (straight or gay) male sexuality. In both cases, the word is not helpful.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say it is not seen as paedophilic, but widely seen as unwise for other reasons. "Society should discourage an 18year-old bf and a 16-year old gf from having penetrative sex" is just normie.


"The age of consent should be 18" is comfortably inside the Overton window.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes - the alternative for such groups to living in voluntary (real) poverty is parasitism, which notoriously doesn't scale. In Kiryas Jorel, food comes from the store, and is paid for with an EBT card. Haredim in both the US and Israel live off the government teat.


We cannot get society-wide fertility above replacement group by encouraging high-fertility parasitic subgroups for the same reason that cancer victims don't gain weight.


With Mormons succumbed (possibly due to an inability to keep men in the Church - fertility is calculated per woman and allegedly there is a problematic number of TBM spinsters for this reason), Modern Orthodoxy is the only culture that still has above-replacement fertility and a tech sector.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it's rather a scathing critique of a self important Parisian entre-soi:




Porquoi-pas tous les deux?


It's obviously both. Houellebecq is not an idiot, and good literary fiction works on multiple levels.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aren't the Palmarians basically a whacko cult with Catholic characteristics?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And it all originates with the dirty splitters of the People's Front for Judaea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Maybe it’s because he’s the equivalent of romantasy for dudes [1]




Or, in other words, why is so much allegedly highbrow literary fiction about otherwise unattractive English literature professors having sex with hot coeds?


The last third of Soumission is basically a male power fantasy about being a high-status trophy convert in the future Islamic regime.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Remember, the "it's the phones" thesis isn't that the problem is smartphones per se. It is the tech stack including:


    

  • Smartphones (so the thing is available everywhere including when you might otherwise be interacting in-person with friends)
    • 

  • Algorithmically curated social media (so the thing is both optimised for addictivity, and impossible to opt out of if your friends are on)
    • 

  • Streaming video (so the thing is more absorbing at IQ 100 than it would be if the internet was still textual)
    • 

  • Targetted advertising as the business model (with the incentives it creates to make things worse and not better)
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Actual excess deaths appear to be something in the ballpark of zero. This is probably why Nicholas "Dog Rape" Kristoff used anecdotes.




Given the inaccuracy of African demographic statistics, "something in the ballpark of zero" and "100,000 dead kids across the countries where USAID used to operate" are compatible. The numbers in the millions are not plausible given the lack of a visible macro-demographic effect.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As in so many cases, the fact that the Pope does not have the ambition to rule the US is part of why one might wish for him to do it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The phones are not agents.




No, but the people who write the code that runs on the phones are.


Tinder is designed to do specific things. Those things appear to be antisocial.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I have trouble taking the USAID crying seriously. If people really, truly cared about the pullback in aid they would do what they could to fill the gap.




Musk deliberately implemented the cuts in a way which made that almost impossible in the short term. None of the named individual victims identified by Kristof could have been saved by someone taking over funding - they all died because of the chaotic way in which USAID was shut down. If you remember Musk's bragging at the time, the point wasn't just to cut spending - it was to feed the agency into a woodchipper and create psychological distress in the staff. That had consequences, which were intended, and the people who did it are responsible for what they did. (Clearly the number of people who died specifically as a result of Musk's intentional cruelty is much lower than the big numbers being slung around, but Musk continues to insist that it is zero and threaten legal action against people who disagree). I will enjoy the schadenfreude if the screwworms get him. I will not enjoy the schadenfreude if (as is more likely) all they get is a bunch of normie Texas ranchers who voted for the Face-Eating Leopard Party.




The Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis et al have a standard of living most of us can only dream of. Are they sacrificing their luxuries to save these people they are crying about? No.




The Clinton Foundation is sufficiently notorious that one might suspect bad faith. It wasn't their own personal money, but Bill Clinton spent most of his time since leaving office fundraising and organising charitable work, either through the Clinton Foundation or through his partnership with George HW Bush. The most visible programme the Clinton foundation ran was providing AIDS drugs to kids in Africa - so the Clintons were doing precisely the thing you blithely assume they were not doing.


The Obama's and Pelosi's considerable charitable donations (hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in both cases) are also a matter of public record that I was able to find with 30 seconds googling. Obama focussed on US domestic poverty and providing scholarships for poor kids. (Like most ex-Presidents, Obama moves far more dollars by fundraising than he can donate himself - but that is just being effective in your charitable work). Paul Pelosi focussed on the usual arts and elite universities bougie philanthropy bullshit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The US is a small and radical outlier for having it




The US isn't an outlier - birthright citizenship is the default in the Americas.


It's just that nobody wants to birth tourist into Peru.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Premier of Queensland 1968-87) was a national populist in that mold, and he was from Protestant (Danish) stock. But I agree that the Anglosphere was historically (but sadly no longer) mostly immune to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In the event of a truly accidental American the IRS never finds out. You’re an Italian businessman, you’ve never applied for a US passport, your parents travel insurance paid for your birth (or they skipped town and never paid), you travel to the US solely on your Italian passport if you ever do so and are welcomed as a foreigner. If Customs sees your ‘place of birth’ as the US, they won’t care, and in the very unlikely event they do, the businessman tells them his parents were diplomats or soldiers or UN. They will not ask for proof. The IRS isn’t going to track down hospital records in Philadelphia from 50 years ago to deduce that there might be an American somewhere in the world who didn’t pay taxes.




Boris Johnson got into trouble at JFK for travelling to the US on a British passport listing a US place of birth. (US citizens are legally required to arrive and depart the US on their US passports), and the IRS attempted to collect capital gains tax on the sale of his London home. (It isn't clear if he paid or not). And the tax treaty between the US and the UK requires banks to freak out if they see a British passport with a US place of birth as part of customer due diligence. So I don't think being an accidental American is as safe as that.