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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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I am surprised how obnoxious I'm finding this topic. Maybe selective, or maybe I no longer have patience, with war and AI looming, for endless, careful dissection of such a mundane event obviously pulled into attention for political aims. More assassinations, please.

Me too. Why are a bunch of supposedly intelligent rational people spending dozens of hours watching a video of a random tragedy and trying to dissect the relative value of blame of each individual involved? Pointless. Should I post some dashcam vids so we can argue about who had right of way?

Because it has the possibility of taking a narrative like Floyd did. This is a culture war thread. This is what we do here. What’s the confusing part?

I can’t imagine being a cop right now in the US.

Because I expect better from us. It's true that humans have a common flaw where they respond more strongly to one death than they do to thousands. If you want someone to give money to a nature conservancy, you don't say "1 million ducks were killed", you say "look at this one duck who was killed".

In theory, rationalists are supposed to be better and different. We don't overupdate on a single event. At least in theory. But then we have lots of people on this very thread saying, "at exactly 2:14 you can see where she throws the water", etc... I don't care. You shouldn't care. None of us should care.

The only interesting thing about this shooting is the meta-topic of why we care and how human brains are so easily hijacked by this garbage.

I can’t imagine being a cop right now in the US.

I agree there. Kamala is willing to throw a whole profession under the bus to win an election, damn the consequences. As a former prosecutor, it can't be just ignorance either. She knows exactly what she's doing.