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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   30284 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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Piggybacking on this most-recent Mangione-related top-level to provide an update on the traction of the "gray tribe shooter" narrative: Besides the Independent article, the LA Times has now jumped on board the Mangione-as-gray-tribe narrative.

I now have high confidence that "exposes" from places like the Guardian and the Atlantic will be published in the near-ish future. I'm not entirely sure of the angle that the Atlantic will likely take (the Guardian's I expect will be "gray men bad, but especially rocket man bad").

I could see the Atlantic digging deeper than just dragging TPOT, Thiel and Musk. What are the implications when the Vice President elect, the Supreme Court, and a lone-wolf assassin "with a dark fandom" have all signaled that they've read or been exposed to a niche online writer by the name of Scott Alexander (prospective Atlantic title: "50 Shades of Grey")? What role have long-form bloggers had in reshaping the political landscape since 2020 (e.g. tie-in Scott to Substack's rise and maybe drag Moldbug et. al, maybe featuring some form of "Joe Rogan, but for the techno-literati")? Is Trump's victory not an affirmation of Trump but a political realignment by an ascendant gray (neither red-nor-blue) identity?

Lots of places it could go from here, but I don't see any of them ending in a great place for public perception.

EDIT: And a bonus (because I don't see anyone else talking about it except journos, Mangione's likely reddit account was found for anyone that's interested. Nothing groundbreaking in there, but more corroboration that it was likely a back-pain related meltdown.

When you click it has an important-looking warning banner that "This Account Has Been Suspended!"

The content is archived here.

How did they find it?

Frankly, I'm still giggling that after years of redditors claiming themotte users would do spree killings, the first rat murderer came right out of /r/GeorgistFuckCarsAnticapitalismTEDtalks, and got the most uncritical support from the same people who were faking performing hysteria over "violent right wing extremism" in 2020. They went straight from claiming the motte needed to be banned before nybbler shot up a synagogue to fedposting about shooting up a board meeting, with zero cognitive dissonance.

Noticed theschism has been pointedly avoiding discussing it

Mangione's politics appear to be all over the place, and I still wouldn't be shocked to find out he had an account on the motte at some point.

Why do you think the schism is "avoiding talking about it"? What is your model of their thinking that leads to this pointed avoidance of the topic? I skim the schism now and then and they are so low volume that many big events don't get a single post.

Is that the theschism pointedly avoiding discussing, or is there a general lack of discussion at theschism?

True, discussion did sort of peter out rather than just avoid that particular topic. It's strange the way it goes through bursts of activity like that. Guess it's inevitable for a smaller community that doesn't have a rolling boil going.

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