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MaiqTheTrue

Renrijra Krin

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MaiqTheTrue


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Renrijra Krin

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Have you considered that having only the negative aspects displayed in media is pretty biased?  I get that at least some families have negative aspects to them.  Some families are neglectful or overly critical or strict or even abusive.  But when looking at the mainstream media shows, I’m finding that you have to look pretty darn far to find a show that has a positive view of family life — present, active, competent parents who love and care for their children and know how to help them navigate through life.  Likewise, it’s rare to find shows in which the parents are happily married and aren’t constantly spitting out one-line put-downs of their spouse and who actually seem to like being together.  I would personally guess that less than a quarter of families are actually negative forces in each other’s lives.  Maybe less than 10% are neglectful or abusive, maybe a bit more common to see people struggling a bit, though generally doing okay.  Yet, to watch mainstream media, you have the opposite viewpoint.  They show, at best, a Simpson’s style family that features a pair of idiot parents (especially a clueless dad) who don’t seem to like each other much and who are generally unaware of anything going on in their children’s lives or how to handle those issues.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t think that you actually can get away from social media entirely.  But more to the point, I think beyond a certain level, interactions with media in general is probably not good for you simply because you’re interacting with news and opinions of other people all the time and thus imbibing the thoughts and opinions and agendas of other people all the time.


For most purposes, I think getting your news once a day in less than half an hour is really the maximum I’d recommend.  And as far as social media, again, doing less is better.  The thing is, that back in the dinosaur ages before 24 hour news cycles and social media, people didn’t obsess about politics.  Sure if you wanted you could listen to Rush Limbaugh in your car for an hour a day.  And because of that politics wasn’t seen as a major part of anyone’s life and thus it didn’t “trigger” people.  There was no wailing and gnashing of teeth when Reagan won in 1980.  Hell, I don’t think most people cared all that much about Nixon.  Watergate was seen as a bad thing, but people hadn’t yet turned politics into a lifestyle so Nixon was important, sure, but people were more interested in watching MASH or sports or playing with the kids or whatever else was going on.


I personally think even politics themselves would vastly improve if people weren’t interested in it.  Compromise and doing the job aren’t sexy parts of politics, but they’re why things actually get done.  It can’t happen when everyone is watching all the time and commenting and so on.  The best way for almost any government to run is in semi darkness where backroom dealing and horse trading can happen, and where people can make decisions for the good of the country without the proles interfering.  Name any issue and I guarantee that it’s possible to come to a solution that would work, but that the general public would see as betrayal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that the propaganda machine is to blame as well.  Look at just about anything on television or any movie, music, etc. The resounding themes are family is a drag, parents are idiots or don’t care, and that the point of life is hedonistic pleasure which things like family and religion are drags on.  I’ve challenged people with this, and it’s hard to do it.  Find four mainstream television shows that show intact, loving, and competent families.  Find four such shows where religion and particularly Christianity is portrayed as good wholesome, and not full of hypocrisy and repression.  When the entire culture tells you over and over that families and traditions and religion are a drag on your individual hedonistic pleasure seeking, and that the highest good of life is hedonistic pleasures, it’s not shocking to me that families are dying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think my culture war angle on this is that most safety enforcement is too easily weaponized against ordinary people to be actually effective in preventing the worst excesses.  Worse, they created a situation in which activities that are not only not dangerous, but actually good for kids are forbidden lest some overactive Karen decide to insert themselves into your life and use CPS to punish you.


Helicopter parenting has been shown to causing negative effects (https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/06/helicopter-parenting).  Ordinary milestones like being able to play without a parent present, let alone walk to a neighbors house, are now pushed so far forward that a child is likely to be a pre-teen before doing anything away from the prying eyes of parents.  This is something that harms kids because the normal avenues for learning to problem solve and be independent are now pushed to nearly adulthood where the stakes are much higher.  At ten, outside of edge cases of kidnapping (which are pretty rare) the worst a kid could do is maybe stay out later than he should or cause minor trouble.  At 16, the kid can get into drugs and alcohol and vandalism and so on.  He hasn’t yet learned to handle peer relationships, knowing what is dangerous and what isn’t, and has no skills to handle himself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s relevant in the same sense most Cathedral media is important — it’s to inform you of what the establishment wants you to believe.  And thus if you’re trying to outwardly fit in so you can stay out of the Eye of Sauron, knowing what the establishment thinks and wants outward compliance with is useful.


I think the lack of big “everyone must watch this” stuff is not the sign of a dying twitch.  It’s the complete domination of the thought life.  Keep in mind that the modern HR departments and trust/safety systems are enforcement mechanisms and because of the way that most of us are locked into a single career path dependent on other people for employment we have an informal Social Credit system.  If you run afoul of the stuff HR enforces, you can get black listed essentially.  So you no longer need to create great, compelling propaganda about stuff you’re supposed to think because those who question will be unjobbed as a cautionary tale for others.  I suspect there are a lot of dissidents in offices who are secretly heretics but know better than to say so publicly.


It’s been a truism for decades that coming out as a conservative is more of a risk than coming out as gay.  No one gets fired for being too gay. You can be too conservative.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At the time that Ron Desantis was running for president, there was a huge controversy about him banning books.  Specifically many of these kids books were pro-LGBT.  They also contained very graphic descriptions of sex acts.  There was also a series of fantasy books written by Sarah J Maas that contained descriptions of sex acts.


https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/roughly-300-books-were-removed-from-libraries-in-florida-last-school-year-heres-the-full-list/3113184/


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursday for November 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think they’re playing chicken hoping that the threat of nuclear war with Russia will make the weapons appear.  It’s saying “well, if you won’t fund us, we’ll have to use nukes, and Russia will retaliate.”  You probably don’t want that.  So they get conventional weapons and things go on.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think even if they “distance themselves” this one is going to be hard to get trust back on.  They’ve already been caught several times outright lying on this issue, and worse, lying about exactly what they’re doing in schools.  Millions of parents are not only aware, but angry.  I know a person I’m working with who has a daughter who briefly decided she was queer.  Her mother was absolutely terrified of this because she knew what would happen the minute a psychiatrist heard any sort of gender confusion from her daughter.  At school, this stuff was encouraged.  The girl seems to be growing out of it now, bullet dodged.  But multiply that by all the parents out there knowing that the schools are teaching this and going behind their backs, who know that trans identified men can go into any locker room they want, and that books that are nearly pornographic are available to grade school kids.  I don’t think you can slip one by here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because I don’t honestly think she was cheating.  There just aren’t any statistical red flags of cheating that I’m aware of in any direction.  There are no wild swings that don’t match the polling data, there aren’t any places with oddly high turnout.  Even in the other direction, the places she lost match perfectly with the places with high Pro-Palestinian sentiment who might well have chosen not to vote for her out of anger over her tepid support of Israel.  Those numbers are pretty consistent with ordinary population growth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m honestly not surprised other than that it’s taken this long for schools to make it official that only right-thinking people will be granted access to the prestige of high end universities. I suspect it’s been there informally for a while and gleaned from student essays (don’t talk too much about traditional Christianity, and certainly don’t ever mention working for a GOP campaign).  It’s just too easy for schools to use that influence culture and to weaken their enemies by making support for them a career limiting choice.  I’m not even sure it’s safe to be openly GOP in “polite” PMC type jobs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t like either one.  If we’re to have an open and honest conversation on any political topic, basic facts are key to the discussion.  Knowing where Ukraine is, why it matters, its key economic outputs, population, etc matters.  For that matter knowing what Russia wants Ukraine for and why Crimea is so important to it’s perceived national security interests, or why having Ukraine potentially join EU and NATO is such a risk is vitally important here.  But if you have no idea where Ukraine is, or the history of Russia being invaded because it has no natural features on its borders, or that Crimea was one of the Soviet Union’s main warm water ports to Europe, it’s hard to make sense out of the issue.


Likewise on anything science.  If you don’t understand the basics of how the science in question works, or if it’s a legal question, what the law in question actually says, there’s no real point.  It’s just vibes based conversation.  I lean left you lean right, whatever.


My main beef with modern university education (outside of some job-skills based training) is that it’s not creating people capable of learning and understanding for themselves so much as people who simply believe the consensus views and have large doses of credential-based smugness.  They don’t bother to look up the facts before deciding that their side is right.  They don’t read books, or bother to find out what the other side of the issue actually thinks.  We spend more time and energy on critical thinking and higher education than any generation in human history only to produce a society of people who are the least curious about the world, least interested in finding out the facts before making a decision, least able or willing to think logically than previous generations who had less schooling.  My grandfather who didn’t even graduate from college was pretty well educated because he was constantly reading nonfiction books about whatever topics interested him.  He was a pretty careful and logical thinker as well and able to make good decisions in business because of that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nobody is saying it’s easy, but Trump leaning people do exactly that.  Trump’s base has absolutely no problem going onto any platform available to them.  They have no problem putting up signs — even in hostile places — or wearing Trump gear, or posting pro-Trump messages on social media.  Trumpers are like CrossFit fans, you don’t have to ask, because they will absolutely tell you.


I think it’s a belief problem.  Liberals don’t seem to actually believe in the message.  They don’t advertise in hostile environments, they don’t put out signs or wear gear, they don’t talk about it with friends and family.  They mostly flee.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Exactly.  What’s weird about democrats is that they spend so much time and energy to reach out to people who already agree with them and are already going to “vote blue no matter who”.  It’s just a stupid idea.  Even if you win, you’re winning the converted.  If you wanted to astroturf, going for a neutral to semi hostile media network might convince a Trump voter or two.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Honestly I don’t think this is just the foreign affairs people, it’s becoming endemic to most PMCs through the creeping credentialism promoted by university.  There’s a large and growing population of people— most of them college graduates— who think that unless you have studied a topic in a college classroom, you cannot have possibly learned it.  No, you cannot just read the Western canon and understand it.  No, you cannot possibly learn philosophy without a lecture hall.  No, you don’t understand math or statistics until you have gotten college credits.


I find the whole notion doubly ridiculous.  First because people have self educated for hundreds of years, and it used to be the standard.  Abraham Linchpin taught himself law by reading law books.  Most of his peers did the same thing.  And it wasn’t just law.  If you wanted to run a business, you taught yourself accounting, and so on.  Books, video, internet and other sources are much more available now than ever before, and any determined person can teach themselves just about anything they want to.  They might have to work a bit harder than their peers who get spoon fed readings and practice sets, but in return, they will absolutely know their stuff as they aren’t studying for a test (and going to forget it afterwards) but trying to learn and understand it.


But much more importantly, I see a lot of ignorance in college grads that make me doubt the process does anything more than what they did in high school on most topics.  They don’t actually understand the outside world.  They don’t understand that electric cars are plugged into the electrical grid and thus would cause whatever types of pollution that our current electric grid causes. They don’t know anything concrete about other countries.  Gays for Palestine is a joke that’s been told a million times, but it’s true, they don’t know what Islam has to say about LGBT rights.  They don’t know the whole history of the conflict or why Jews went to Palestine in the first place.  They cannot find Ukraine on an unlabeled map, nor do they know anything about its population, industry, minerals, or strategic importance.  They have no idea why Russia wants it, nor the history of the region. Go down the list and it’s just amazing how the education that’s supposed to make you a better citizen of the country and the world produces a population with strong opinions but no knowledge.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Machiavellian.  There’s already a name for it.  And to be fair, what they’re describing is exactly how politics actually works in a democratic system.  The name of the game is to get people to vote for you and you do that by convincing people to want to vote for you.  Propaganda is constant in our system driven into every media and cultural outlet it can be.  You’ve been taught to want certain things, to believe certain policies will give you a better life.  That’s manipulation, and quite often lying to people, and almost certainly “hiding poison pills under the carpet”.


The truism of politics, no matter what the system actually looks like is pretty simple.  If you get power, you get to rule, if you don’t, you watch other people rule.  There’s nothing unusual about the concept.  In autocratic systems, you have to overthrow the current government, in democratic ones, you have to get voted in.  Either way, you have to get access to the levers of power before the policies you have in mind actually count for anything.


And treating peasants like peasants is fairly common.  It would be the same in any type of system with any party or faction you care to name.  Most people in a nation are peasants or even serfs with little to no political control over anything.  The sneering condescension is simply reality — despite what both parties tell the voters every couple of years, you actually don’t matter to them, and they actually do hold you to be beneath them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, the more friction you can place between you and your addiction the better.  Yes, people can and do blow their life savings at casinos.  But that’s worlds harder than blowing through your savings when the casino is on an always online phone you carry in your pocket.  When you have to go to a casino to gamble, you need to get dressed, get your wallet, drive for 10-15 minutes to the casino, walk across the parking lot, into the casino, find a machine and put in the credit card.  Those actions probably mean about 20-30 minutes of being able to talk yourself out of it.


This kind of thing in reverse is true of exercising.  The more friction between you and exercise, the less likely you are to actually do it.  So they advise keeping your gym clothes and shoes on your dresser, having any needed equipment at home, etc. because at every step you can talk yourself out of it.  Do I really feel like fighting traffic to get to the gym?  And if the answer is anything other than a very firm yes, chances are you’ll be on the couch Motte-posting instead of exercising.  Or maybe you want to eat healthier.  The standard advice is stop buying junk food and instead buy the healthy stuff.  The reason is that inertia will work in your favor here.  You’ll be hungry and all the food in your home is healthy, you don’t necessarily want carrot sticks, but getting potato chips means getting in the car, driving in traffic to the store, walking to the chip aisle, buying the chips, paying, driving through traffic back home before you can finally eat them.  The extra effort isn’t worth it most of the time, so carrot sticks it is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is a textbook case of the wisdom of keeping things that will be addictive as hard to ge5 as possible.  Sports gambling in a casino might not be so terrible.  The steps necessary to get to a casino for any sort of gambling serve as an important brake on the behavior.  The fact that such gambling can now but done using stored credit card information on a device that is carried in the pocket makes it almost impossible for anyone with the proclivity to addiction to ever have control.  And this is true of other potentially addictive behaviors— if you have your addiction always available, you can’t easily say no to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m not sure it’s naughty thoughts so much as a deep need for a cause to fight for.  For most people the dominant issue is boredom in some sense.  There’s no greater thing in most people’s lives than going to work and coming home.  It’s a bit empty and quite boring.  At the same time our culture has been heavily promoting the idea of heroes saving the world.  We’re part of the culture of the spectacle and our dominant way of interacting with the outside world is screens.  We’re seeing a movie and want to be the heroes of the movie.


I think there is a rather large dose of narcissism involved here.  They’re hoping for disaster so they can be a hero or heroine.  I just don’t under the need to put yourself in the center of historic events.  I’m hoping for a nice quiet, boring life.  I can’t imagine that it’s going to even be helpful to anyone caught in the crosshairs to have the fight taken up by people doing it out of boredom.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean it’s not for everyone because it requires major lifestyle changes.   But for the right set of individuals, major lifestyle changes are possible. People do it all the time.  Immigrants leave their homes and businesses and families behind and move to places with alien cultures.  People join the military which is a huge change from civilian life.  Such major changes aren’t for everyone, but even modest changes can be accessible to most people.  It’s harder than most people think, but it’s perfectly doable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trans people I’d kinda get, there’s a plausible explanation n the fact that the far right wants to delay transition until adulthood, as well as remove trans people from opposite sex changing areas, restrooms and women’s sports.  That’s at least a cause.  The women crying in their cars are none of that.  Even if abortion were illegal, most women making cry TikTok’s could afford to fly to Toronto to get an abortion as needed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that’s a bit obtuse.  While you can’t go join the Amish church, you can in fact quite easily band together with likeminded people and build a homestead in some rural area.


To me I think a lot of what’s missing is the community.  Being poor in the modern world to me sucks a bit more because you’re an atomized individual with much less support in a world that rubs the lifestyle of your betters in your face through the media.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there’s some subset of people who at least unconsciously want these bizarre nightmare 1984 and literally Hitler and handmaid fantasies to be real.  I say that because most of the people doing this seem to have similar profiles: almost invariably white, upper middle class, professional, college educated, and highly likely to be female as well.  Which if you’re keeping track, is the one demographic, that even if the absolute worst nightmare scenario happens is going to be affected the least.  It just doesn’t make sense that the people worried about an illegals roundup are the richest, whitest, best educated people in the country and who live in a bright blue state to boot.


Further, the “resistance” thus far, is the opposite of serious.  The protesters in Hong Kong were seriously trying to protest the Chinese government crackdown.  They weren’t doing things to make themselves easily identifiable, they weren’t posting about it on social media, they weren’t making videos of themselves #protesting.  They did things like wear masks, carry cash and leave phones at home so as not to be tracked.  They did things like black bloc does.  Our #resistance is doing things like shaving their heads and wearing cute little blue bracelets they bought for $25 on Etsy.  These actions as well as the constant posts, videos, selfies, etc., are absolutely not the actions of a people actually afraid that the government is going to go after them.  I say that because if you’re afraid of being singled out, you’re probably going to try to blend in, and while they might protest, they’re not going to do so in ways they know can identify them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Except that you have the same issue that makes adding more lanes a bad idea.  Which is that people who ordinarily would not be looking to Eugene OR as a potential place to live suddenly do because housing is more available there.  If there are 50 apartments and you’re looking between several areas, you might pick Eugene, even if without the extra housing you’d probably say F it and move to some nearby town or suburb or exurb instead.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hype can certainly help.  Without some positive attention even the best product will sit on the shelf.  On the other hand most people will be smart enough to notice when the sales pitch is overselling the actual product.


Kamala had a lot of negatives that were pretty obvious.  She’s annoying and has a nervous laugh that’s obnoxious.  She can’t give interviews, and when she does, her obvious non-answers are barely comprehensible.  She cannot generate enthusiasm for her own ideas.  Her rallies needed concerts just to get people to show up.  At the end of the day, all the marketing in the world can’t make New Coke taste good.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think pure data is a directionally useful way of looking at the world, and useful for most problem-solving purposes.  I am a theist so I think there’s more beyond just physical reality, but whether or not it’s true, I think that for most projects, reducing the universe to data is going to work just fine.  Consciousness is produced in the brain, and definitely experienced there, so I think you can get something like a conscious AI simply by recreating a brain.  Might be easier to start with a dog or something like that, but I think even though there’s a metaphysical aspect to consciousness, that doesn’t mean that there’s no point to studying it in brains.