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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024

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I'm going by feeling myself. I feel like the way people think is changing to be more materialistic, so that people say "good" and "bad" without considering these as value judgements or opinions, but instead experience them as answers which are found and that one can learn if they have enough information. People also increasingly assume that if something doesn't make sense to them, then it's wrong, and like one should have to prove something in order for it to be valid. And yet reality is simply how it is, and if doesn't make sense then the sense-making is wrong, not reality. I often interact with Asians, since I like doing so. I always notice the change when I go back to interacting in English, it's like we value models of reality more than reality, and believe in them too much. There's a similar tendency towards optimization and efficiency as "best", even though there's a clear tradeoff in both aesthetics and morals. I hear things like "Of course X group will lie to you, they want to make money" said in a way which seem to support lying, rather than calling out liars or explaining why they exist. As if throwing away a personal advantage because of personal values is something strange. I hope I'm just over-sensitive to things that I dislike, and that they're actually rare, though.

Magick Tomes

Got any recommendations? It just seems like normal psychology to me (where the magic is speaking to your subconsciousness directly), but if it works, I will give it a try, even if it's strange.