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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 April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t think point three works.


Asking social media platforms to detoxify and make their platforms less compulsive for users more or less is like asking a food company to make their food worse.  Their entire business model is “deliver attention-paying eyeballs to a platform where businesses can pay to make them watch ads.”  To the product of course they pretend to be about connecting people to things they like, but it’s really not the point.  TikTok doesn’t care about your enjoyment, they care about your engagement.  So asking a private company to just … stop doing your business model isn’t going to work.


Parental control is not that great either.  Unless you are skilled enough to IP block those sites at the router (which only works for a device using your Wi-Fi anyway) most controls are easily disabled.  It’s not something you could rely on.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m not convinced it’s a bubble.  It might be, but gaging that from random commentary on HN isn’t a good way to figure it out.  There are all kinds of reasons that sentiment might be going south, a lot of it being that people are expecting it to come much faster than it actually can.  Early LLMs fed this in my view because at the start minor changes were big improvements.  Going from an AI that could barely understand a simply question to one that can write an essay on a topic was quick, maybe 3-4 releases.  If it takes 6-10 to get AI to get you a publication worthy book on the topic of the query, I don’t think that’s a problem for AI — which will eventually get there — though it probably means a much harder time getting funding to work on the next projects.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean im not suggesting that the algo is the only thing that can cause terrorism, but it works quite well to spread it, and I would argue that it’s doing so in relatively good times when in ordinary circumstances before social media, it would take a good bit more to get people thinking in terroristic or politically radical ways.  You couldn’t easily curate your life to the degree necessary without upending it, you had to meet in person most of the time which imposes both cost and risk (as if anything happened you were a member of the group that did it and would be in danger of arrest.  Now you can get a good dose of radicalism in line at Walmart or between classes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It’s all counterproductive in the very real sense of the world, whether you double down or fall for peer pressure simply because a society full of opposing radical factions is going to quickly tear itself apart.  The society full of people cheering every ICE raid and with people convinced that ICE raids are (and I’ve seen this phrase used in the wild) the boxcar phase of the holocaust is going to come to blows rather quickly.


And the problem to me isn’t which side gets radicalized, tbh especially since my exit from a lot of online political discourse, both sides are pretty darn radical at this point, and it’s going to get worse as the algorithm rewards radical content and silos people into political tribes.  At the moment, because only one group of radicals is being monitored and warned against, it’s easier for the other side to push the envelope farther until we start seeing it acted out in very violent public ways.


And again, this is a problem that happens on all sides.  But until you can talk about the general process and incentives in the social media space that are creating radicalization, it’s hard to stop it.  The problem isn’t the teen doing a TikTok dance on hearing about the Kirk assassination.  The problem is the social media creating an environment that encourages and rewards radicalization and keeps people in radicalization silos.  Fixing that before we blow up Western civilization for likes is the challenge of our time.  At present, we only want to talk about the issue in terms of incels and “fascism” and “the manosphere” all of which, from the liberal perspective is “those weirdos over there”.  And as long as everyone is saying “it’s not us, it’s those people over there,” no one will solve the problem.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think you are largely correct about the state of things, except that it’s not just women.  The rise of social media and thus social media politics is very radicalizing.  This works in both directions, to the point that I’d suggest that there is a correlation between time spent on political social media (and later activism) and radicalism.  It works by creating a tight feedback loop that rewards people for saying the most radical versions of what they believe, and for liking and sharing that content.  This is made worse by the filter bubbles that feed content that affirms the politics you hold and paints your out group as evil and stupid and possibly subhuman.


The problem with this is that only one set of these communities is seen as the problem.  Male and conservative communities are constantly being considered as radicalized communities of potentially dangerous individuals who are going to be violent or totalitarian.  The other side gets a complete pass.  Mainstreamish media can get away with referring to the right as fascist, and the current ideology as fascist, even referring to the current government as soft dictatorship.  They can talk about disruptive protests, and not even sit-ins, but directly interfering in ICE raids.  No one is handwringing about liberals being radicalized online.  No one is concerned about protecting women from toxic feminist or radical left ideologies.


This is bad from two angles.  First, focus on one group makes it almost impossible to talk about the actual phenomenon and the mechanisms that drive it.  Social media is perfectly designed to promote engagement and it turns out that the best way to do that is to radicalize everyone so they keep doomscrolling and hate posting.  Second, the large blind spot on the left makes it extremely likely that there will be political violence coming from the left where this is allowed to go on unhindered.  Bluesky is liberal twitter.  But while twitter is regularly called out as dangerous radicalization, blue sky gets a pass.  Liberals can get mainstream publication for a book called “On Tyranny” that pretty much calls Trump and MAGA fascist.  No one would have touched a similar book about Biden.  When that happens, it seems pretty likely that the group getting a pass for violent and dehumanizing speech is going to create radicals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean I can go along with mere membership doesn’t prove much maybe the first or second time something happens.  If the pattern is revealing itself and you can find a half dozen people who all were part of one community and despite never meeting and not even sharing the same culture start doing the same thing over and over, it’s not reasonable to keep saying “anyone who sees this specific group of people doing this thing is just misrepresenting reality”.  Those people specifically keep doing that thing.  Despite being in different circles in separate countries and not having the same language.  If I found that most of the current crop of school spree shooters all liked speed skating, it would be worth talking about especially if the people shooting had few or no other points of connection.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean if they were emotionally healthy, connected to real people in the real world, had lots of hobbies and interests outside of anime, online forums, social media, and probably gaming they wouldn’t have thought they were the übermensch and probably wouldn’t have thought the solution to people disagreeing with them was found in shooting up the Turkish equivalent of a junior high school.  All of his beliefs are based to my mind in a profound separation from reality— his body, his identity, his overestimated view of his own superiority, his living in Anime to the point of name change is pretty much mentally unstable in itself.  This person’s identity was uncoupled by spending so much time online that he had no idea that the real world wasn’t like his fantasy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just don’t understand this one.  The democrats have never cared about “blasphemy” in any form, in fact they quite often (especially with regard to Christianity) celebrate “transgressive” art that is often by it’s nature blasphemy against Christianity.  The democrats defended the film “Last Temptation of Christ” that depicted Christ as struggling with homosexuality, they defended an art display that was literally a crucifix in a jar of urine. This only makes sense if the people using this incident are doing a pretty classic KTO-KEGO.  If this were anyone other than Trump, no one would be talking about it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is that why they all sleep in the overpasses?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s actually very likely.  There aren’t any examples of people building “Disneyland” for people unrelated to them, particularly people who do nothing to benefit those paying for it.  Keep in mind that this scenario would entail the majority of the population, and those with the money to pay for it also have the power to murder the population in Disneyland who are a drain with no benefit.  They are essentially pets.  But no one will spend billions on the pets.  Elon Musk isn’t the insane cat lady who’s going to keep 500 bums in his mansion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean by such standards, just about any science fiction series ever written (and probably fantasy fiction as well) is fascist.  It seems a bit odd to suggest that any time an action adventure genre piece depicts a war between factions it’s fascism.  The negative version isn’t even possible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean I keep looking at the people who use it — a lot of them are in IT and using it to build useful tools.  In a very broad sense they clearly work and build good code often enough that using them is a net benefit to their business.  The benchmarks for most things are mostly about marketing the product.  It’s something the sales guys use to show that their AI works to people who don’t know what the benchmarks actually measure.  I don’t believe for a second that anyone who understands the technology is choosing their model based on a benchmark.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It doesn’t prove either one actually, and it’s probable that Israel has prevented it more often than we know about (the Suxnet incident where Israel destroyed centrifuges).  So it could be that they want to have nukes, and left alone would have them but they’re being artificially prevented.  I don’t see why else they’d have such a fixation on nuclear power in the most oil rich region of the world and while being sanctioned for having nuclear energy.  Especially given their reluctance to fully comply with inspections.


The things they’re doing certainly are consistent with wanting a nuke, and at least believing that one could be made in Iran.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Two minutes hate.  There’s a rather large demand for content calling Trump evil.  And thus any thing that can be used to make Trump look bad is popular among people who need to consume such content and share such content to prove themselves loyal to the resistance even if the reason is something that is immaterial to any other issue they care about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s context.  Intraracial relationships are contextualized by the fact that a person of the opposite gender but the same race is part of the same community.  I am much more likely to have a brother or spouse or husband who is male than I am to have a strong relationship with someone of a different race or religion.  So there’s a sense of this being friendly fire rather than othering. You are talking about your own tribe, not someone who out there.  It’s not a threat because every black woman complaining about a black man or white woman complaining about white men are in some relationship with those men.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t think it’s untethered.  It’s more complicated because the big reason that no conservative wants to criticize Trump is sort of that the Libs have been screeching about Trump hating democratic values since … he first ran for office.  They’ve done everything they can think of to call the man evil and stupid at the same time.  And the feeling seems less that “MAGA Republicans are in a cult” and more “Why should they do the enemies’s work for him?”  Jews feel the same about criticizing Israel.  They know the rest of the world doesn’t like them much and wishes that state would just go away, so they know any negative statements made will be used to paint Israel and by extension Jews as evil and manipulative and secretly running the world etc. so why should a Jew feed antisemitism?  No people want to make their tribe an easy target.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this communication strategy makes sense in the context of the Middle East and Iran in particular.  The region is pretty well known for its bombast.  The videos of political rhetoric I’ve seen from that region sound pretty bombastic as they chant for the deaths of their enemies.  There are videos of toddlers chanting for the death of Assad, feel good news stories about a kid healing from the death of his father by playing video games (in which he pretends the enemies he’s killing are Jews). You can’t convince those people you’re serious if you’re not over the top bombastic and ready to kill them and destroy their country.  This isn’t Sweden, and you can’t talk to an Iranian Shia Muslim like he’s a Swedish Lutheran.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Be born in a booming economy to wealthy families.  Go to extremely cheap college when college graduates a rare enough to be valuable.


I don’t think most people really benefit from most financial advice simply because until you have enough generational wealth to invest,  you’re stuck in the lower middle class or below where you have nothing but the income you can get from working for someone else.  I just sort of laugh at retirement advice simply because if you have enough money to be able to invest a substantial sum of money, you already have enough experience with money to do okay.  If you don’t, the advice of “just invest 10,000 dollars” kinda assumes a person having a spare ten grand laying around.  Most would struggle to find enough to save for emergencies, and have no money to invest on the idea of retirement.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We don’t think much about Europe because post British Empire, your will to do anything other than issue bland statements and hand wring about problems has waned to the point that Europe is impotent.  You won’t arrest the heads of US companies if they come to your shores.  You know it and so do we.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But the constitution was written in a completely different context.  When Jefferson wrote the declaration, and even up to the end of the civil war, coming to another country was a fairly difficult task.  You had to be at sea for a few weeks at minimum, often having to sell off most of your assets to get here.  Given that our southern border was mostly wilderness at the time, marching across that border wasn’t really a feasible plan.  Birth tourism would be impossible.  You simply cannot do that kind of thing.  So it’s not clearly the original intent to allow 8 billion people to hop a jet and give birth on the LAX tarmac.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think anything that ends with “USA leaves without meeting the objectives of ending Iranian support for terrorism and ending the nuclear ambitions of Iran” are failure with extra steps.  And really leaving Iran in control of Hormuz is also pretty much a dead end.  If you go to war, you can’t stop without a victory of some sort unless you want to destroy credibility as a war-fighting civilization. Nations can easily detect weakness and will exploit it for their advantage.  If Iran can defeat the USA with commodity prices, every other country with natural resources or the ability to destroy them with missiles is going to do so rather than be invaded or submissive to the USA.  China can do so with rare earths, any country in the Middle East can do so with oil, Egypt and Panama can close their shipping lanes and disrupt trade.  That’s not a good place to be in because any time these countries want something or want to stymie the West, the hostage situation “don’t you dare stop us or the global economy gets it” comes out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I find this to be pretty accurate.  I look at modern art and I don’t think it’s real in the sense that it’s trying to explore or explain something the creators feel deeply about.  I can generally enjoy well-made art that has a viewpoint I disagree with.  But most modern art — films, books, paintings, or sculptures seem to be a very fraudulent thing.  They make great claims of being great avant garde art, but their entire existence is the opposite.  There’s no real commentary.  A sculpture of broken glass that is commentary on the holocaust that begins with “the night of broken glass” isn’t clever commentary.  It’s fraud, in my mind because it’s not deep, not even surprising (surprising commentary shouldn’t be identical to the accepted wisdom of the era.  Being against the holocaust isn’t much of an original thought).  It also takes little thought or skill to make something that says little and does so in ways that don’t make sense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
First of all, Japan rebuilt under American occupation, which included a lot of cultural changes forced upon them notably demilitarization (in fact any weapon longer than 6 inches were banned, and a lot of Japanese culture that was too martial was banned.  It wasn’t like Japan got nuked and just suddenly changed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for March 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m sort of mixed on the @self_made_human post on space exploration.  While im sure that if everything turns out to work out as he assumes (costs continue to fall, colonies can eventually be self sustaining, and that eventually there will be value to extract from the colonies) it’s still probably at least several centuries of spending about 500 million a cosmonaut to build these colonies.  The problem, to be blunt is even if it all works there are lots of other ways to use trillions of dollars besides trying to build those colonies.  You can give the entire population of the USA universal basic income.  You could build lots of AI data centers.  You could give universal healthcare.  Send every kid in the Americas to college.  You can take care of most of the superfund sites.  Transition to nuclear energy.  You could probably do all of these at once, and they’d be likely to deliver value within a couple of generations.  Space may not pay off for centuries if at all.  The cheat code used is that of course the peasant isn’t being taxed to pay for the eventually valuable new world land.  He just gets the benefits later (much later, obviously).  Space isn’t free, though.  We pay for the rockets, we will pay to build the colonies, and we will pay to supply them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t think this is true.  We make the appropriate noises, but Theres just no way to say that we treat the Arby’s employee as an equal to the MIT professor.  The latter is given all sorts of deference in most situations.