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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 23, 2024

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Weaponizing what is actually a very useful soft power tool against your new allies after one online disagreement is right up there with other "Elite Human Capital" moves like offering a solution to save some trapped kids, then calling someone closer to the situation a pedophile because he disagreed.

Can't believe Hanania has successfully sold "being an asshole on Twitter" as a sign of EHC.

Elon is a thin-skinned narcissist. Which is fine. But his new political project relies on maintaining an alliance with an even bigger one. Going around de-verifying Trump acolytes over some bullshit is not probably not a good play.

"Elite Human Capital" moves like offering a solution to save some trapped kids, then calling someone closer to the situation a pedophile because he disagreed.

What I've always found interesting about the insult is that I thought way more people knew what goes on in Thailand, but then a ton of people were bewildered about Musk "randomly" calling "some guy" a pedophile.

The man in question is a white expat living in Thailand, and white men don't move to Thailand for the diving.

exactly how high a percentage of child prostitution do you think is necessary to be justified in calling someone a pedo for moving to that country, with no other evidence?

Less percentage, though as the article says it's believed a minimum of 40%. Thailand is the sex tourism capital of the world, it's also the child prostitution capital of the world. Legal prostitution where almost half are children, very bad signaling from a white man living there not for obvious foreign professional reasons — such as being: a director or otherwise highly-compensated role in a multinational corporation; an entrepreneur on a temporary visit pursuing a deal; a journalist on assignment; a diplomat or attaché — and making it fair to suspect ill motive. It gets worse, the man, Vernon Unsworth, lives or lived in Chiang Rai, that's a city in Thailand's rural and mountainous north. So it's not just that he moved to the country that's the world capital of child prostitution, he moved to the region in that country where it's most prolific.

I wouldn't accuse him of being a pedophile on this alone but I would tell him honestly, the choices he has made have drastically increased the probability and consequently the reasonability of suspecting him of pedophilia. Enough he has forfeited fair indignation when someone calls him a pedo.

I would sooner suspect a man who has been to the sex tourism capital of the world than the one who chose to live there. The former man's motivation is scrutable, the latter's more complicated. I have not heard of many people who love brothels so much they'd live next door for the convenience.

That's why I find Musk's signaling worse, he went on the tangent of a largely baseless accusation in a personal spat.

I thought the child prostitution had moved to... Cambodia now? I'm not wise to the ways of the early access passport bros, but I do remember some BBC article about how the thai govt crackdown had pushed it to poorer countries.

"ping pong ball"

I think his actions are incredibly based but utterly lacking in 5D chess by not holding it together even until Trump is inaugurated.

Going to go wash my fingers after typing that.