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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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So let me try to clarify: I do think most of the incels complaining about how society has done them wrong and just wait and see, they're going to rise up, are weak and ineffectual men who aren't going to do shit, and this does correlate with them being sexually undesirable.

Yes, I agree with this mostly. I just think that this also probably applied to most the early supporters of most movements that were eventually successful. I doubt your average communist in Russia in 1900 was much of anything other than a loser, same with your average German far rightist in 1920. Now does this guarantee the revenge of the nerds? No, because there have also been plenty of losers who were supporters of fringe ideologies who have gone nowhere. But it does mean that them going nowhere is hardly guaranteed.

Does that mean I think it's "mostly impossible" that lonely, unhappy men in general might cause social change and even unrest? No, but I do not see that taking the form of your LARPs.

What's the difference between my "LARPs" and the actual forms in which they might cause such unrest in your view?

To answer your question literally, yes, I agree that the probability "is by no means guaranteed to be zero." Is that really what you're asking? Because almost no prediction has a probability "guaranteed to be zero."

Well fair, but what I was getting at is whereas I would put it as probably no less likely than 1 out of 1000, it seems like you would put it at more like 1 out of 10 million. And again, just based on how many people it affects, I simply don't see the justification for such a low valuation.

This is not 1928 Germany. Or if it is, not on the sexual front.

I mean yes, you're correct. On the sexual front, it's far worse.

I don't scoff at traditionalism so much as compelled traditionalism, which is what guys like you usually turn out to be after.

In the aggregate and long-run, there is no traditionalism other than compelled traditionalism, same as there are no pigs who don't wallow in mud who haven't been forced not to. As individuals, humans are weak, lustful, and impulse-driven animals. Only a strong social structure can free them from their base desires.

So short of that, I think all the various culture wars we discuss here regularly are pretty bad for society and contributing to widespread unhappiness.

They contribute to widespread unhappiness worse than at least 20-25% of the population (at least) being denied one of the most basic human psychological needs and all of the knock-on effects that result (along with all of the other maladies of abandoning traditionalism, like the proliferations of addiction, pornography, and obesity)? Somehow I doubt that.

In general, however, as individuals we could do a much better of job of extending charity, grace, and compassion, rather than darkly rubbing our hands together as we await the Day of the Knife.

Nah. I genuinely psychologically value savoring even a .1% chance of a grand Day of the Rope over the mutual extending of charity, grace, and compassion with those who I feel are evil and deserve punishment. My enemies are my enemies. I want their misery, not their charity. Anything else is simply a tactic or unfortunate but necessary compromise.

Btw, why did you even suggest we discuss "more practical solutions" if you were just planning on readily admitting right after that you don't really have any (other than substance-free "Let's just all try to get along!"-ism (which I both don't think has ever worked in human history and is almost always, at least as far I've seen, simply an excuse for one side to try to more covertly suppress the other without their opposition, as I think it still is in your formulation))?

Btw, why did you even suggest we discuss "more practical solutions" if you were just planning on readily admitting right after that you don't really have any (other than substance-free "Let's just all try to get along!"-ism (which I both don't think has ever worked in human history and is almost always, at least as far I've seen, simply an excuse for one side to try to more covertly suppress the other without their opposition, as I think it still is in your formulation))?

I have practical solutions, but they are long term, a lot of work, incremental, and unsatisfying to people who just want to flip the table. I'm mostly a moderate normie who'd rather work within the system, and probably one of the people you want to put up against the wall, so this is me extending charity, grace, and compassion.

Well then assume I'm like you, an ally. What would you suggest to me in that case? Or make a top-level post or something. Sorry but it's just kind of disingenuous to claim you have the goods contrary to my pie-in-the-sky notions and then not deliver.

Btw, why do you think I'd want to put you up against the wall?

I doubt your average communist in Russia in 1900 was much of anything other than a loser, same with your average German far rightist in 1920.

I mean the average Russian communist in 1900 was likely some kind of urban intellectual or other educated or semi-educated young man with big plans. The average German far rightist in 1920 was in the Freikorps if he was a younger fellow maybe, but they spanned a wide range of social classes and status categories.

Plenty of guys nowadays that you can describe with the same adjectives nowadays are still losers, at least romantically/sexually speaking. In any case I doubt having truly fringe political beliefs has ever helped your romantic chances with women much on average, with the exception of a few guys with enough charisma to act as charming rebel types. (Obviously young Stalin slayed. Just look at him.)