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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30114 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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I think what strikes me most about the article is, well, how much it's about nothing? Just genuinely nothing. A friend of Marcotte's wrote something on Twitter that Marcotte found vaguely intriguing as an issue, which sets Marcotte off on a wave of wild speculations (there are a lot of maybes and perhapses in the middle!), and which she actually backs down from repeatedly:

Educating the public about their secret ballot rights is good, but don't expect it to have a measurable impact on the 2024 outcome. [...] Truthfully, I doubt many women want to vote for Harris and hide it from their husbands. Voting behavior, marriage, and identity don't work like that. People tend to be married to people they agree with politically.

But at this point, what remains of the thesis? Marcotte still finds 'the picture of a wife thumbing her nose at her MAGA husband by voting for Harris... arresting'? Okay? But that's... not news, or even a respectable thesis of any kind. That's just Marcotte imagining a thing that she thinks is neat.

...okay?

Good for her?

What's the actual content here? Marcotte really doesn't like the GOP, big shock there, and she has concocted a wholly imaginary fantasy scenario that she herself admits probably isn't going to exist, and written an essay about it?

I know pumping out an essay every week like clockwork must be hard, but still, this is really weak.

I have a friend in the industry. They can be pumping out multiple essays a day. And to be fair, we click on them.

90+% of “news” articles I see are of this form. Someone somewhere said something and now I’m gonna ramble about it a bit and cross-link a bunch of other ramblings.

No wonder ChatGPT seems like it will displace these jobs.

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