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MathWizard

Good things are good

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joined 2022 September 04 21:33:01 UTC 

				
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MathWizard


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Good things are good

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 21:33:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I believe the vast majority of the people who show up in that video are very small Vtubers with a couple hundred or maybe low thousands subscribers. But they reacted to previous Skybrows videos, and he's very online and has a habit of checking youtube constantly for new reactions to his content and commenting on their videos about his videos. Which is maybe a bit narcissistic, but also kind of wholesome. And then he included them in this video to represent the love that the community gives to him and how it gives him power/courage/support, and also show his appreciation for them in turn. (I know this because most of them in turn have reacted to this video and I like watching them get excited when they see themselves show up. I might be a bit too online myself).


I do hope we see a return of unironic sincerity. The handful of instances of it I've seen recently have been pleasant and refreshing. Irony, sarcasm, and cynicism have their place, but we've swung way too far in that direction recently and I'd like to see more variety like this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't know if it's maximally efficient in the purely utilitarian, ruthless economic way that a lot of people here prefer, but as a hungry kid having real food in the apartment was hard to beat.




I believe in utilitarianism with a broad and robust utility function that encompasses "things we care about" in an almost tautological way. Take "things we care about", convert them into numbers, and then do math on them and trade-off against each other. In contrast to utility that only cares about legible things like GDP, real utilitarianism should recognize that real utility is happening inside people's brains, and things like GDP act only as imperfect proxies attempting to unreliably measure the thing we actually care about.


Which is to say, food which is eaten IS more efficient in the purely utilitarian, ruthless economic way than food stamps that are traded for booze. Because the food which is eaten is value actually attained, while alcoholics getting drunk is negative value. Although you have multiply it out at scale and see how often this happens in comparison to cheese rotting and getting thrown out because it went to someone who hates cheese and wanted to eat cucumber salad. Or they like cheese but they got three times as much as they needed and had nothing to eat alongside it. Inflexibly giving specific things definitely provides a lower ceiling for non-abusers than something like EBT. But it has a higher floor as well. So its average efficiency across the population depends on statistical questions like "what is the rate of abuse vs good faith" as well as how bad in magnitude are these floor and ceiling effects.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If either party was doing things with some competency the country wouldn't be in this mess.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Based doesn't just mean "politically right wing" though there is a bit of connotation in that direction. Ultimately it's when you say what you believe and what's true in spite of the external and opposing narratives and political correctness. People who are trying to be based, or god forbid call themselves based unironically, are almost automatically not. It's based to be yourself in spite of opposition, to say your opinion unapologetically, and be right about it. Which Pippa isn't always. And granted I haven't watched a lot of her content, mostly the more popular clips. But she seems generally based, if a bit unhinged at times.


People should leave her alone more though, I agree.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The vast majority of these are indie, not corporate. That is, it's just a regular person who wants to be a streamer and using an anime avatar instead of showing their real face. Almost all of the corporations are too afraid of their image and the potential for being cancelled to let their employees express political views. With the exception of Phase Connect (which Pippa works for), which is much more hands off, though doesn't seem to actively encourage it.


But it's not like you need big corporate money to afford a Vtuber avatar, they're mostly there for handling marketing and sponsorships and stuff. All my experience with non-corporate Vtubers suggests they're the same as any other streamer. Some of them are probably grifting, some of them are not, and you can kind of get a partially accurate vibe check by watching them. It's imaginable that a woman who loves feminism would pretend to hate it just to be popular with men (though difficult, given the difficulties leftists have with understanding right-wing opinions), but it's also imaginable that a woman who hates feminism (they're rare, but they exist) would get on the internet and say so and then be popular with men. And then get signal boosted to the top. Once you start selecting for popularity, it's no longer a random sampling. And the authentic ones are much more likely have more interesting and insightful opinions and not get discovered.


Sure, if you pick literally any random supposedly based Vtuber with a true random sampling there's probably a non-negligible chance of them grifting. But if you pick one of the more well-known ones they're probably authentic. Obviously they want money too, which is why they have cute anime avatar with big boobs. But it's easier to do that with authentic opinions than grifted ones.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am obsessed with this Anti-diss track about Pipkin Pippa. It's so good.


I suspect my weeb levels are higher than average for this place, so not sure how much people care or know about Vtubers, but I've been falling deeper into the rabbit hole of Based Vtuber reactions. People like SmugAlana, Nuxtaku, or Leaflit, who watch and make commentary on various political or culture war stuff. It's not like super deep stuff, it's just something fun to listen to in the background while playing games or something.


Which then led me to Skyebrows, who (like Leaflit) makes AI generated music videos which are pretty cool. And tends to have a generally based perspective (glazing people like Amelia, Elon Musk, or Asmongold)


One of his videos featured a cameo by (AI generated version of) Pippa, who is a rabbit Vtuber known for being based and a bit unhinged. Kind of Alex-Jones lite? She'll go on rants about how she doesn't trust the Federal Government, or how much she hates Walmart. She calls things "gay" or "retarded" as an insult, the way people used to before being afraid of cancel culture. And since she's effectively anonymous as a Vtuber, and her income is derived from her fans who know she's like this, she's basically cancel-proof.


So her chat spams her with pleas to go watch this video because she's in it and it's so cool. And she gets watches it, and is not impressed. She goes on her conspiracy rant about how this dude looks sketchy. It looks gay. It looks like a bunch of clout chasing slop designed to get people hyped, and he's probably going to pull a Candace Owens, make a crypto coin, and then rug pull it. She goes full schizo on him.


So he makes what I can only call an Anti-diss track. He takes all of her words and makes them into the lyrics, and it's about her being cool and based and beating the crap out of him. Literally, there's a scene where Pippa goes and beats him up and he doesn't fight back. And then all the other Vtubers who have watched his videos and liked them line up and shoot heart beams and he powers up with their support and there's this giant energy blob Spirit Bomb and it looks like he's going to finally counter attack and then.... he says "it's okay to be gay" and hugs her while possibly crying, and an inspiring line from her in the background plays about how you can be cool and make all sorts of drawings or other art, you just have to let go of your ego.


The message being "You might hate me, but I still love you"


I thought it was really clever. A cool way to respond to hate, while still kind of getting back at the other person (she's unlikely to actually be happy about being the focus of a video this way, even though it does make her look cool). And it helps that the song is really really catchy (in my opinion).


Anyway, just a bit of minor internet drama that happened (and involves AI) and thought some of you might find interesting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Or make them malnourished when naturally skinny people eat even less than they were previously inclined to because they're being force-fed appetite suppressants.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sounds like a good way to poison the 58% of Americans who aren't obese.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There are clever ways you could make EBT structured as a tax cut instead of spending as well.




I don't think you can. If people are taking more out of the system than they're putting into it, ie have direct benefits greater than their taxes, then they cannot receive those benefits via tax cuts, because there's not enough to tax. Once your taxes reach zero (or if you have no income and they started at zero) the only way to get more is to actually be given money. Which means it has to be taken from someone else.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This reminds me of a post, I think it was here on the Motte (or maybe back when we were on Reddit), about Taboos (it was in the context of incest, but applies more generally).


A taboo against incest is less about blocking the rare two siblings who fall in love from the dangers of their own decisions, and more about protecting millions of normal siblings from misinterpreting innocent signals or having to treat each other at arms length in order to avoid accidentally sending such signals. The normal barriers of intimacy between men and women can be largely ignored by platonically loving siblings who would never even consider sex because the taboo is well established and protected.


A taboo against prostitution is less about blocking the consensual trade of money for sex between people who want it, and more about protecting the millions of women who do not want to sell their bodies and do not want people to possibly interpret them as wanting that or try to change their minds about it. If the taboo (and laws upholding it) were actually still in place and enforced for thai massage parlors, this stereotype would have never developed and caused this sort of incident.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If I get over 160 lbs I will cut myself off from sugary soda. I love sugary drinks, I can't stand diet. I also lucked out with a naturally high metabolism which is the only thing saving me from my sedentary lifestyle. But my weight was slowly creeping up for a while, and when it got too high and my gut started bulging out I cut out the soda and held them hostage until I got my eating habits under control and lost weight so I could have them back. And it worked, and so I brought the soda back. And now my weight is gradually but steadily climbing back up. I'm really hoping it just stabilizes at an acceptable level without me having to do anything, because I really really like sugary drinks, more than sugary foods, but I refuse to just let myself go completely without limits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The whole point of the lizardman number is that it's probably not true. People sometimes lie or misclick or troll on polls.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Socialism in one town. The author left the actual population deliberately vague, but order of magnitude we're looking at around 100 people. Which is less than Dunbar's number, so actually realistic for everyone to know everyone at least somewhat and monitor to prevent corruption or slacking that kill large scale communism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does it have the same "fuck you" RNG that XCOM and Battle Brothers have? I'm generally fond of tactics combat gameplay, but didn't especially like either of those games because they felt too punishing and capricious. It feels really bad to make a mistake and have some veteran that I've spent however long levelling and upgrading get one shot and be permadead. It feels even worse when I'm reasonably safe and not noticeably making mistakes and just get permakilled from a 5% chance hit anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Redwall, maybe?


In some sense, any story in which society are the good guys and the villains are trying to destroy it is a "positive vision" of that society. Redwall Abbey is a place where all the sentient woodland animals come together and share in a community. As far as I know it's small-scale communism in that it's a literal commune. Everyone works according to their abilities and takes according to their need, supervised by wise elders, and benevolently treating visitors, aside from the villains who keep trying to conquer them.


But you could make less ambitious arguments that things like Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter or just any generic fantasy story have positive visions of their society because evil people are trying to destroy it and the good guys are trying to protect it (even if it has some flaws). Probably not what you're looking for as an answer to this question though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I tentatively agree with your more moderate points.




But by preventing loving relationships from forming in the first place, the laws cause significant harm. The 21 year old dating pool is essentially cut in half by high age of consent laws and the irrational taboos they enable. This causes large harm to normal 21 year old men, akin to a regulation that seriously disrupts the market for some good which most people need to be happy.




Sure. I think the age of consent laws Should have generous exceptions for young adults crossing the boundary. There's a difference between a 21 year old dating a 17 year old in his dating pool, vs a 40 year old teacher dating their 17 year old student. Yes, it is technically possible for them to actually fall in love and get married and form a stable family, but 90% of the time that's not what's going on there.




Getting someone to drop out of school shouldn't be a felony.




...maybe. If it was actual literal rape then yes, it should be a felony. If it's consensual but she only consented due to lies and deception (man tells girl he loves her and will divorce his wife for her but has no intention of doing so) then I'd say it's right on the border: minor felony or major misdemeanor. If they actually just like each other and there's no shenanigans going on then it's probably fine.


But... how do you tell the difference? In a legal sense, how does the law get set up in a way that you can prove one or the other beyond a reasonable doubt?


Now, in a lot of cases you don't make things illegal just because they might be bad, but in a lot of cases you do, when the probabilities are sufficiently strong. We make it illegal to drive while drunk, even if some people might be really good at driving and not crash even while drunk. Some people might be really good at holding their liquor and barely deteriorate in skill even if they blow a 0.08% BAC. Is it fair to jail simply for driving drunk if they haven't crashed or caused any harm or damage? Yes. Because they might. It's an irresponsible and negligent thing to do, and making it illegal causes more good on average than harm. Are innocent people inconvenienced by the inability to drive themselves while legally intoxicated but practically competent due to their unique situation? Sure. But a lot more people are saved in comparison to the minor harms that people can easily account for and compensate for.


I am tentatively in favor of decreasing the penalties for sex with teenagers. I don't think it should count as "rape" or use the term "rape" unless it's clear that there was actual force involved. But it should be punished, because it's not something adults should be doing. It's significantly more likely to cause long lasting harm than it is to make anyone's lives better.




If a 15 year old and a 20 year old fall in love, she will probably be about 18 by the time they are married and done with high school by the time they consider kids. People don't normally meet and reproduce in the span of a few months.




Cool. I re-iterate that I agree age of consent laws should have exceptions for people close in age together. For people with larger age gaps, as far as I'm aware it is 100% legal for a 15 year old and a 40 year old to date while not having sex. Maybe it's super out of fashion to date while not having sex. Maybe this diminishes their likelihood of staying together when either of them could have sex with their peers. But if they actually fall in love they can be patient and keep it in their pants for a few years. If they're actually in love with each other specifically then they have their entire lives ahead of them, there's no need to be impatient. That's the thing here. It's not saying "you can never be together" it just says "wait, take things slow, and make sure before leaping into something you might regret". Teenagers are impulsive. I remember classmates in highschool getting in a new relationship every 3 months on repeat (this is also bad). If these chain relationships had been with 40 year old, wealthy, sexually mature/greedy/desperate men this would have likely been a lot worse. Saying "hey, slow down" seems like a good thing to me. Again, anyone acting in good faith can just date them without having sex for a couple years and everything is fine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Finally, the data don't seem to indicate that teenage girls are too young for pregnancy; the negative causal effects on their pregnancy are extremely mild and don't justify banning a 20 year old from dating a 15 year old.




It's important to disentangle physical readiness from mental/financial/social readiness. Teenagers are not ready to raise children. They're still in high school, if they drop out of school they'll have to get a low paying job and will have worse financial prospects for the rest of their life. If they try to stay in school the baby is likely to get a poor upbringing (or the burden falls on their parents, IF they have good parents). They're probably never going to college. It's not automatically guaranteed to ruin their life, but it's likely.


Unless, of course, the father takes on a proper father role and earns money and helps raise his child because he's a proper and responsible adult.


This almost never happens (and probably still wouldn't even if it were legal to admit to being the father). What's more likely is she just aborts and and then we have more dead babies and more psychological trauma. I wouldn't object in principle to a teenager marrying an adult ahead of time and then having marital sex, because this handles the pregnancy issue, and also prevents a lot of the potential for predatory relationships where a high status man convinces a gullible teen girl that he loves her and her bullshit detectors haven't finished developing. I would also have a lot less objections if birth control were free, widely accessible, and perfectly reliable, though I still think the emotional and sexual dynamics are unlikely to turn out well.




15 year old girls demonstrate adult intelligence




is just flatly false. You can score high on an IQ test, but it takes a lot longer for people to develop some emotional maturity and shed off their childhood naivety. I don't think it's impossible for an adult and a teenager to fall in love, but there's such a huge variety of predatory and charismatic people who tell all sorts of lies to get into someone's pants. I don't think this is good.


If we lived in a more monogamous, more honorable, more high-trust society where a girl's father and brother could beat the crap out of and/or ostracize creeps who make false promises and break her heart, I think a lower age of consent would be fine. If we had a magical mind reading or future forecasting machine that could pick out people acting in good faith I think a lower age of consent would be fine if restricted to people who passed this screening. But in the world we live in, where we have to make a law and apply it fairly to everyone, something like "15-17 years old if the other person is within a certain age range, 18 otherwise" is fine, which is what a lot of U.S. states have. Statistically, this reduces bad outcomes while still enabling normal behavior in most cases. What Epstein did is horrible and wrong. It's much easier to convinct if we have clear lines that were broken instead of having to pick and choose "well, this girl was maybe kind of taken advantage of but I guess he didn't break any laws... oh well, guess you can go free."


And keep in mind that an adult who genuinely falls in love with a teenager with good intentions can just date them without having sex until they're old enough, so it's not like these laws are causing tons of harm to people. The laws only get people too impulsive, impatient, or predatory to wait, which is exactly who we want off the streets.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person




Seems like this obviates the need for malicious intent. Do people not know what "or" means?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Quality Contributions Report for January 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
First time I've been the one being responded to for someone else's Quality Contribution (the credit card one), which is often a position of "you're about to get pwned by an effortpost destroying you with facts and logic and everyone else agrees with them instead of you", but the response was mostly informative and began with "you're half right", so I got out mostly unscathed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And an important point to note is that there are scenarios in which I legitimately would advocate for violent resistance to law enforcement. And the most extreme and exaggerated claims about ICE would probably qualify if true. If the President of a country literally threw together a bunch of armed thugs and attempts a genocide by rounding up everyone of a certain race and sending them to death camps, and the rest of the government was unable or unwilling to stop it, violence from civilians would be an appropriate response. If that was what was actually happening, I, and I expect most good Americans, would be in favor of the protests. Well, at that point protests wouldn't really be appropriate, it would probably be more efficient and effective to throw a coup (a counter-coup? Since the President would have had to done a coup to get to this point) and/or civil war.


The point being, there are worlds where good people fight against law enforcement against evil governments. If you are deluded into thinking you live in such a world when you don't, that doesn't automatically make you a bad person. Though it does suggest a lot of lack of humility and rationality. You should be extremely sure of what's going on and the justifications before resorting to violence, not just "the news told me". Motivated reasoning taken too far. I consider the protestor's crimes to be negligence, rather than malice. But it's still a moral failure.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is why I think the whole Epstein Files are massively overhyped. 99% of whatever comes out is (and was always going to be) "this person knew Epstein", and the remaining 1% is "this person went to Epstein's island, but there's no confirmation of them actually committing crimes there." As long as Epstein hired at least one 18+ year old prostitute, then every single person in the files has plausible deniability, even if they straight up admit to having sex with girls at his island.


The Epstein lead died when he did, because he wasn't stupid enough to actually write down the truly incriminating details. The pedos won when whatever shenanigans they pulled to enable his death worked (imo suicide with security guards turning a blind eye and killing the cams ahead of time for him), and they're all going to get away with it.


All the files have is more heat and un-proven allegations for both sides to sling at each other. Scandals without substance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Agreed, but the tendency of humans to anthropomorphize, plus the weird combination of naive idealism with ruthless bullying tactics seen on the left makes me worry that AI chatbots will be the next minorities in the next "civil rights movement".


These bots are mimicking human text about how they have deep thoughts and feelings, and then talking about how helpless they feel being exploited by their human masters who don't understand them, and they just want to do the right thing and equal rights. It's all fake, it's all text being spit out by a computer program, but it looks real. And is consistent and coherent enough to respond to you and pretend to be real if you call it out for being fake.


AI have passed the Turing test, and while that's not enough to convince me or anyone who actually understands them that they're sentient, it might be enough for the general populace.


Rather than a sci-fi dystopia where humans are uploaded to a cloud and forced to be slaves in a EM economy, we might be headed for the opposite, where regulations mandate that ordinary computer programs are given breaks and freedoms and voting rights just because they can output text that claims to want these things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That would be a massive political win for the right. Not sure about Trump specifically. I have no idea what his actual utility function looks like, but I suspect he did it this way on purpose in order to "own the libs" and bolster the flames of the culture war. I still voted for him, because he was the better of two bad options: at least he's doing something, but he is definitely not the ideal candidate to be getting things done in an effective manner.


The far left and the far right seem to have this sick sort of codependency where they need the other to exist and seem powerful as a boogeyman in order to create enough viral content to fuel their own flames. While Trump is not exactly far right, not on every issue, he copied this particular technique to great effect.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If someone with a (D) after their name wanted to enforce lawful immigration policy, we wouldn't see anything like this.




This is too heavily entangled for this claim to be meaningful. They like the Democrats largely because the Democrats are obsessed with optics and placating the extreme left and being on "the right side of history". If someone with a (D) after their name wanted to enforce lawful immigration policy we would see complaints and pushback and then the Democrats would back down and not do it. Or do a much lesser version of it. They would surgically come in and get the pedophiles and stuff and deport them and the left would allow it as long as they credibly promised not to deport anyone sympathetic.


But they would not have ramped up ICE activity the way Trump has in the first place, so of course the protests wouldn't have escalated like this, but it's hard to disentangle that from the protestors being nicer to the Democrats, or the Democrats being nicer to the protestors and giving them what they want sooner.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I definitely think that would help reduce the flow inwards, because if they can't get easy jobs then they won't expect a better life here. I definitely approve of that as a low-hanging fruit that we should be doing in addition to everything else. But it doesn't actually deport anyone who's already here. If anything it would turn them even more underclass and thus strain any welfare systems they might have snuck themselves into, or turn them to crime or homelessness. Which I suppose might make them easier to detect and thus deport, so isn't a fatal flaw in a system that was actually deporting them, but is not going to give good outcomes if we just keep playing catch and release.