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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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professorgerm


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
clutching my imitation pearls

				
				
				

				

					3 followers  

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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 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Millwall Bushwhackers




Huh, fun to have context on why Bernard chooses Millwall supporters to punch him out on Black Books.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is a major plot driver of Law Abiding Citizen, the prosecutor accepts a plea deal to protect his conviction rate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
seems like one of those "movement versus ideology" questions.


there are many perfectly normal EAs, but they don't really form EA. They do EA, they don't lead the organizations or write about it that much.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You can not both optimize for pulling people's heartstrings and for the actual impact of your interventions. Do the former and you will turn off the people who are interested in the latter.




Fully disagree that they care about the actual impact in legible and clear terms, especially if we're talking about rationalism more than EA. Or at least, the impact they care about is not always the stated impact.


You only have to look at what they won't question to see that, or how badly they fumble when push comes to shove and they have to work with normies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


why can't the US incubate some subcultures that are deviant from its prevalent norms?




If anything the US incubates too many subcultures that are deviant from its prevalent norms, such that its prevalent norms have been replaced many times.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Here in old Europe, nude beaches have been a thing since at least 1960, I guess. My understanding is that this is very much non-sexual nudity, generally... I think kids should be definitely shielded... even more if it is strangers fucking who might be into all sorts of kinks.




Strikes me that there's a certain cultural gestalt to the consideration too? Nude beaches are A Thing, knowingly nonsexual, from certain kinds of cultures.


One knows that Vibecamp largely pulls from, ah, very different kind of culture. Aella has attended in the past but not this year afaict. There is insufficient cultural gestalt to mix the kind of things they're mixing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Who are all these parents taking their kids to vibe camp and having bad experiences? Who are you offended on behalf of?




isn't it also quite expensive to attend? or does it only look expensive to us lowly peons in the real world and not to folx with more money than brains?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm with St. Rev. Dr. Rev.


But also, yeah, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary high openness and social status depends on his not understanding it. They refuse to wrestle with their inability to understand normal human intuitions, they only question the things that are comfortably acceptable to question in their social groups, none of this is surprising and there will be more suffering generated by it than prevented.




I hope that these issues don't completely derail the movement




Possibly my first direct interaction with Scott was commenting that if the movement wanted to reach normal people, the whole poly obsession (during one of its many peaks) was an unnecessary expense of weirdness points. He replied that the people that said that were a much worse cost of weirdness points among people he cared about (or something like that).


Meaningful rationalism is dead, if it ever really lived. The decent parts of EA can live on as ideas but the movement is exactly what anyone should've expected up front.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Woo, me too!


I found the religion questions a bit annoying but overall not the most ridiculous of these things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Denmark, where the left also adopted a moderate anti-immigration attitude. I don't know exactly how successful it's been but at least they're not arresting people for complaining or trying to ban any party that pushes back.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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?