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professorgerm

clutching my imitation pearls

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professorgerm


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
clutching my imitation pearls

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 12 12:41:49 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1157


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
a comment on skibboleth's style and regardlessness for facts of the relevant cases, as you pointed out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
why let facts get in the way of hating the rest of the forum?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You better believe it's priced in




You can't do much about people already here.


You can absolutely do something about not importing more of the most violent and rapey people in the world.


And yet! Only one European country has done anything to slow down on that, instead of spending billions of dollars bringing them in and billions more covering up that they brought them in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I can assure you that it compares to what happened 1939-45 like a sparrow compares to an A380




Completely opposite models of failure play out in different time scales.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the expression of Europeans' collective preference




Indeed, to stop immigration effectively would likely require destroying the ECHR, and ultimately completely undoing/redoing the EU.




the reality is that if people consistently voted against immigration as one of their absolute upper-echelon top priorities, they would get politicians who actually stop immigration




I think this underestimates the effectiveness of the last 50-75 years of propaganda on what kind of behavior is acceptable and for whom.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Edit: whoops totally misread the last line, nvm


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It’s good that public figures are calling for calm. That is the most important part of their jobs.




Moving my response here. I don't think it makes you Leftist Shill, exactly, more like Usefully Naive Centrist.


Public figures calling for calm have burned all their credibility over and over, and to keep giving them the benefit of the doubt is Einstein's supposed definition of insanity.




Elected officials are incentivized to call for calm, procedural responses no matter what




Surely we can accept by now that in fact no, they're pretty specific about when they call for that and exactly how they put it down, and how they pressure victim's families into making hostage statements? None of them called for calm when they were promoting BLM riots, as far too many Europeans and their politicians did!


While #notallimmigrants is true, why would anyone believe that it's more than mealymouthed slop when it's coming from the cultureless, soulless cretins that promote pure propaganda like Adolescence? It's not like this is a one-off, or a tenth-off. It's just the Norm Macdonald tweet, over and over.




It’s hard to make that clear when the very act of calling for restraint is treated as a naked emotional appeal




Is there any evidence that it's not? At some point, they have to do something, ANYTHING, to credibly display that they care more about actual violent crime than about "community relations."


It's hard to make that balance clear when everyone's lying eyes tell them that the ruling class of the UK would rather let low-class girls be raped in perpetuity and a growing number of random civilians be stabbed to death, than to be called racist. Hell, the police would rather let a man bleed to death in the street than help him because he was accused of racism! People like Starmer would, seemingly, rather start slitting throats themselves than restrict immigration at all or change any policy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


15% of the population of Algeria was French in 1962, approaching 60% in some of the cities, after a hundred years of settlement.




Quite a different pattern of involvement and, ah, cultural sympathies at play, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Anyway, all of this recent discourse combined is making me feel more and more like a retarded schmuck for working a 'real job,' as opposed to just leeching off the government, doing some sort of NGO/media grift, or even just getting a random remote job and going to live cheap in Thailand or some other extremely cheap country. And this is someone who has a pretty chill office job where I don't have to work too hard, and get to work from home a few days a week.




Amen to that, man. I've been pretty resentful about some of my life choices regarding choosing a pro-social and highly-stable career path over higher-risk options, and it's really been hitting how much those choices... suck.


Living well is its own reward, so they say, but it sure doesn't feel like it in the moment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


when you look at his positions he's reliably liberal down the line.




He quoted the Prophet Muhammed in an Easter sermon.


Maybe I'm too used to Southern Baptists and other conservative Protestant sects but I can't imagine any quoting Muhammed, calling him The Prophet, especially at Easter.


For all that certain twitter posters are sure he affirmed the Nicene Creed, I am quite sure he's a moralistic therapeutic deism "multiple paths" sort. His beliefs have no teeth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


show that she was a credulous hack




Exactly, he proved she's a real journalist, not just some tiktoker.




you have this absurd and burning hatred the one time it's mildly done against your own hack pundit.




Wrong direction, I would suspect. Burning hatred is less about LoTT and more that Trace was "one of our guys" that took a... certain kind of turn, made a bad decision, and got treated quite poorly for it. Bad blood on both sides.


I don't think he's doxxed anyone. Shamed, certainly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I haven't seen other commenters present more than a few other anecdotal examples. I'm willing to change my mind on this though if someone has a more rigorous look.




There's apparently no public-facing list exactly, you have to dig through various databases and hope it's accurate. Someone like DataRepublican has probably done some of that work on twitter but it's not the kind of thing I'll be spending project time on.




This is getting into the issue where people redefine corruption




My goal is less to redefine corruption, and instead suggest that the difference between caring about one versus the other is almost entirely partisan.


From my perspective as a taxpayer, Trump is undignified, but fraud costs a helluva lot more.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I am not sure that a society that can't do "moon mining" isn't an industrial society




I was building off Gattsuru's example with chips and rockets; Industrial Revolution era England is the eponymous industrial society with much lower requirements than a modern industrial society.




I am more interested in "now that we have Einstein and all the other guys, how far could we slide without losing that."




Maintenance is quite hard and some forms of knowledge are easier to lose than others. See again, the Congo and Empire of Dust. At the higher scale than that, high-quality machining is apparently quite difficult to automate and a form of knowledge that's easy to lose.


Precise details and Fermi estimates will depend on exactly what technologies you want the minimum viable industrial society to have, of course.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The New York Times seemingly does, and if Pikers become the future of the party, I'm counting Platner as close enough, people like MattY will reliably delete any tweets to the contrary. He will do and say whatever he thinks The Party needs, and indeed, does already support Platner regardless of his... foibles.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But are all 6000 grants funding things as contemptible as Columbian trans operas?




I'm guessing around 5900 of them but who knows. other commenters have provided some further examples involving much higher dollar amounts.


AFAICT USAID had a small handful of truly defensible grants that rationalists like Scott and Kelsey really liked defending for a couple weeks, but then they got bored and moved on like the rest of us. or maybe they got drowned out in the volume of shitty grants like the culture war stuff or like caravaning migrants through the darien gap.




isn't something most politicians would defend




we disagree on this, I suspect. Perhaps also some passive/active distinction around "defend." Most politicians are happy to ignore it and bury any reports that demosntrate how much there is, but as I recall Tim Walz got pretty snippy about people trying to investigate it.




It's categorically different




ah, there's always some reason. Can we just admit it's partisanship?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


people thinking an open fraudster and convicted felon might do more fraud and more felonies




Not the best callout since there is a significant and influential strain of liberal-progressivism that doesn't think you should judge people based on past behavior.


well, if they're rapists and murderers and serial assaulters, those guys you can't judge. for political enemies they should always be assumed evil to the core.




thinking an open liar might tell lies




lol. Matt Yglesias still has a job! Shall we coin YDS? Does every journalist and 2020-era bestseller get their own acronym?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
clearly i've forgotten how to argue here and how many people will pretend not to understand things.


thank you for improving the context.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
damn i really chose the cheapest of the bullshit line items and everyone got to pretend that it was a meaningless amount instead of a synecdoche for a larger set of problems.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The infamously prone to squabble center, left, and far left?




In the sense that there's a rounding error of liberals that are really, truly willing to oppose progressives and leftists, they're interchangeable. They squabble, absolutely, but no one to their left is an enemy.


They'll fire a Mexican construction worker for making the OK sign, while thinking odious weasel Hasan Piker is the future of the party. Racism is fine as long as it has a progressive gloss. Advocating for violence is okay as long as it has a progressive gloss. Having a full-on Nazi tattoo and saying women are responsible for getting raped is peachy if there's a D next to your name, but god forbid Elon move his arm in a silly way.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Pardoning his son was easily the most despicable act in Biden's presidency




Pardoning his son was one of the few human acts Biden did as president, and he shouldn't have lied about it.


All the other political pardons were despicable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Woke ended in 2019




What definition of "woke" are you using that doesn't include the Great Uprising of 2020? Or that there's still not a single elected Democrat willing to say anything less than trans maximalism.


Eh, maybe Fetterman has. So there's one but also kind of a joke.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Consider the sheer volume of people you need to create, say, a viable rocket to reach the moon and return. Several different kinds of engineer to create the circuits and fuel and engine and craft, right? Support staff. Miners to mine coal and ore, refiners and smelters to make steel for parts and silicon for chips, drillers for oil and refiners for the fuel, construction workers to build their homes and the launch pads and everything else, farmers to grow food to feed all the miners/drillers/refiners/construction workers/support staff/engineers. Doctors to care for all of the above. Et cetera- what about entertainment? Other desires? Is reaching the moon the sole telos of this civilization, and every job aimed at that goal? If not, the scale balloons as people take other jobs towards other goals. And I've left off huge numbers of other factors and 'needs.' Some could be left out or leapfrogged, but not easily.


An industrial civilization is a massive pyramid. One can imagine an ideal civilization perfectly following a tech tree with no deviations and no waste at a smaller population number, but one can imagine six impossible things before breakfast.


There's some Greater Variability there too. Written language only developed independently a few times, so think of Sequoyah- once the idea was demonstrated he sat down and spent years developing the Cherokee syllabary. He had the ability to create written language, but not the spark. In the thousand years before him, how many of his people had the ability and not the spark, and how many lacked even the ability? A bigger population gives you more rolls of the dice to generate people who even have the possibility of doing new things.


Or look at the Congo and Empire of Dust. Or Google Maps of certain parts of Johannesburg 10 years ago versus today. Or Detroit, 1950 versus today (though in some ways it's recovered from rock bottom). Without the right kind of support, the right sort of culture, an industrial civilization decays quite rapidly, and maintaining that requires a lot of people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


these petty amounts




One grant is a petty amount, but a memorable synecdoche.


Are 6000 grants a petty amount?


Is the total of Medicare fraud, home health fraud, home child care fraud, disability fraud a "petty amount"?


Nobody "serious" seems to give a shit about fraud when it happens on their team or by their favored constituencies, but I'm quite certain that all the other kinds of fraud are orders of magnitude more expensive than whatever Trump has done. His is concentrated and gaudy; the other kinds are diffuse. Cutting off a finger or two versus death by a thousand cuts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, good point, my understanding is that was the total number of current grants before they got slashed.


Definitely not the total number of lifetime grants.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


$47K is quite small.




It's one memorable and culture-warry grant out of 6,000.