site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I would say that being uninterested in JQ is quite a condemnation of intelligence – or maybe just social intelligence – of anyone who is so uninterested in JQ, because obviously Jews as the sample of humanity with the highest effective raw intelligence

Obviously, not "Jews" but Ashkenazi Jews.

Other kinds of Jews are as interesting and as world historically important as Alawites, Copts, Maronites, Mandeans or Yazidis but Ashkenazi are indeed sui generis group.

Descendants of few hundred Middle Eastern merchants and Italian women (presumably from merchant families too) who wandered around Europe until they found home on deadly desert planet in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, where the nobles needed managers for their estates willing to squeeze the peasants as hard as humanly possible. The rest is history.

which is abundantly claimed and demonstrated from the kids' television with that silly Einstein photo, to surnames in 20th century history textbooks and billions still affected by "Marxism", to creative products consumed every day to the grave

If billions are affected by Marxism, it is by its lingering memory, classical Marxism is as dead as Pharaoh's worship (together with Freudianism and other high IQ fads of the past), but in its heyday it was indeed world changing force.

How would world look like without Askhenazi Jews? In broad strokes, not so different. The scientific, commercial, agricultural, industrial, intellectual and political revolutions that created modernity happened with minimal Jewish influence. Old feudal and monarchic systems undid themselves, no "subversion" was necessary.

In smaller strokes, you can make any alternate timeline you wish. Maybe world of sunny smiley face Russia :-)

There are other interesting people – SMPY sample, Thiel fellowship, Jains, Parsis, Tamil Brahmins, AGP transsexuals, Furries, IMO winners etc. – but one can be forgiven for being ignorant of their properties. Nobody is ignorant of Jews, they've made that impossible.

Another interesting subgroup that recently appeared: if @KulakRevolt report is representative, Free State libertarians, who are actually doing something to promote cause of liberty, including breeding new generation of liberty lovers.