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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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it's a central political/moral/philosophical development of modern history

And where do central developments of modern history come from, are they by any chance deliberately implemented?

and they're much more concerned about stuff like freeing women from domination than they are overpopulation.

I mean, it's only so long you can twirl mustaches and laughing like a me monocled villain, without people noticing. Also the reaction to fertility concern belies them supposedly not caring about it.

And where do central developments of modern history come from, are they by any chance deliberately implemented?

I honestly do not understand how one can have this perspective while also having read, like, multiple wikipedia articles or a single book. It indicates what appears to me to be a complete misunderstanding of history? Like, are you implying that the reason liberalism and progressivism exist is that it's a ploy by the elites to reduce the global population? I don't get it.

I mean, it's only so long you can twirl mustaches and laughing like a me monocled villain, without people noticing.

Yeah real life isn't a movie where the villains are indicated to the audience with artistic foreshadowing.

Also the reaction to fertility concern belies them supposedly not caring about it.

This is the same bad logic as "the conservative reaction to concerns about structural racism proves they're actually racist nazis". In politics, people on all sides have a lot of insane reactions to a lot of things, often without particularly deep philosophical reasons.

I honestly do not understand how one can have this perspective while also having read, like, multiple wikipedia articles or a single book

Uh... which wikipedia article (interesting argument, by the way) conclusively proves central developments of history aren't deliberately implemented?

I don't get it.

Yeah, because you're used to not having to spell out the core assumptions of your arguments. I'd like you to actually do that.

Yeah real life isn't a movie where the villains are indicated to the audience with artistic foreshadowing.

Well, but speaking of listening of actual, historical, progressives, they did kinda sound like mustache-twirling villains.

This is the same bad logic as "the conservative reaction to concerns about structural racism proves they're actually racist nazis".

Step me through it. If I react negatively against, say, "let's make abortion easily accessible", I think it's reasonable to conclude that I am against making abortion easily accessible. When I react negatively to the concept of structural racism, it's reasonable to conclude I disagree with the validity of the concept of structural racism (or at least the way it's applied to the current society). When do racist Nazis enter into it? Likewise, when I react negatively to "hey, let's find a way to keep fertility rates from crashing", I think it's reasonable to conclude I don't want to keep fertility rates from crashing. I don't see any flaw in the logic of my argument, only in the example you gave.

Uh... which wikipedia article (interesting argument, by the way) conclusively proves central developments of history aren't deliberately implemented?

Just, like, a holistic understanding of history? Like, in one sense, progressivism and liberalism were very much deliberately implemented, propagandized, and put onto the masses by the elites. But they did that because of some combination of really believing it, it being in their material interests, and all sorts of other things. I don't think there's room for 'womens rights movements exist mostly because some people (who?) wanted to do population control'

You didn't answer:

Like, are you implying that the reason liberalism and progressivism exist is that it's a ploy by the elites to reduce the global population

Which was the most important question. I strongly disagree with what I understand you to have said so far, but I still don't really understand what your core point is.

Step me through it

Most directly, they just pattern-match it to a 'thing conservatives say' and then react negatively because it's a thing conservatives say. That's most of it.

Likewise, when I react negatively to "hey, let's find a way to keep fertility rates from crashing", I think it's reasonable to conclude I don't want to keep fertility rates from crashing.

They imagine, because politics makes people insane, that you want to force women to have children and not ever have abortions and be submissive religious housewives. If you made them choose between a fertility rate of 1.2 and 2.0 they'd choose 2.0, but people generally don't have reasonable preferences about society as a whole, so they just don't think about it