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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   30970 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Oh, see, upon reading your initial response I thought your point was that the endgame is approaching, the knives are coming out, and there's nothing to be done for it but live accordingly and start shrinking one's personal circle of concern to that which might be preserved. And I'd have agreed.

Now it seems that you think this plan will actually work to somehow put the cat back in the bag. I really don't think so.

Game over, man. Game over!

Why would the game be over? The game has barely even started. Do you think, if this last election had gone the other way, that would have been game, set, match? Would the Death Star have appeared in orbit and engaged primary ignition?

If Trump dies tomorrow, the Culture War will go on. If Blue Tribe jails Elon, the Culture War will go on. If another pandemic breaks out, the culture war will go on. And as I was arguing ten years ago, I argue today: Red Tribe is not only going to win, but is clearly going to win. The question is how and at what cost, but all the plausible costs seem acceptable to me.

“So yeah, the war. It is everything. Is this really how you want it? We’ll win.”

I rather think you won’t, actually. Your side seems to have a much easier time making enemies than friends, in my experience. Your comrades hate too fast and forgive too slow, and the obvious problems with your ideology keep expressing themselves in open fratricide. By de facto embracing a “revolutionary conscience” model of ethics, the movement generates an endless series of hypocrisies that must be covered up or explained away, thereby burning good-will it might otherwise turn to the cause. Social Justice’s gains have been significant, but it seems to me that the current generation is trading on goodwill amassed by their forebears, and that most of their success comes easy because the general population does not see where the movement is leading them.

Red Tribe is not only going to win, but is clearly going to win.

I will again reiterate, for our audience, that I, for one, do not think it's "clear" at all, that you have not provided sufficient evidence to back this claim, and that from what I have seen, if any tribe is "clearly going to win," it's Blue.

I will again reiterate, for our audience, that I, for one, do not think it's "clear" at all, that you have not provided sufficient evidence to back this claim

This is true, I have repeatedly refused to lay out my evidence, publicly or to you. You have claimed I'm lying, and I have agreed that by refusing to provide the full evidence behind my claim, your interpretation is reasonable.

On the other hand, you have a well-established reputation of advocating suicidal despair or mass murder, and so detailed discussions of the mechanics of rebellion with you or with the public generally are probably not a good idea.

We've just had an election. My prediction was that Trump was going to win. What was your prediction?

And as I was arguing ten years ago, I argue today

How are people pulling up old comments from themselves and others like this? Perhaps that was an especially memorable blogpost, for you, but people also link to old comments from five year old culture war threads.

I trolled through the posts on thing of things, searching for my old handle till I got a hit, and worked it from there... I was pretty sure that conversation was one of the last I had on that blog, so it wasn't that hard to work through posts until I found it.

Well, damn.

What worries me isn’t that you think some weird nerdy guys might deserve to be critiqued using hurtful names. What worries me is that you seem to measure offense and acceptable punishment on different scales for different groups of people, presumably for Social Justice reasons. If your fundamental ethics differ based on whether “friends” or “enemies” are involved, where does Charity go from there?

Helluva paragraph, hoss. I've been having that argument for years and only wish I had yours to build on. Thank you for being around.

My God, that was you? I've had that conversation in the back of my mind for most of this decade.

Actually tried to look up "Veronica D" recently. Anyone have a clue?

And then people wonder how Superman gets away with putting on a pair of glasses.

Everyone here may well as well posting as “anon” to me. How do you keep track?

I mean, you can't keep track of everyone, but there is obviously a lot of overlap in the different rat-adjacent communities, so some names just stand out.

In this case, I guess it's a matter of knowing the context: Anonymous Coward -> Faceless Craven -> FCfromSSC

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