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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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I see! I very much agree with that link. I thought that your view on sex might have been a consequence of many years of detached and objective thinking, which is common in intellectual types. Another example is thinking that "love is just chemicals". It is, but there ought to be a personal, subjective perspective which enjoys it and sees it as something more.

You inherently accept the fact that sometimes you're going to have to do something you don't want to do in the moment

I can agree with that. Thought I'd expect most submissive types to aim for relationships with people who still treat them with respect. Some enjoy BDSM and degration/humiliation, but there's also plenty of people who want to lose control/let down their guard, knowing that they're still safe and in good hands. The domination stays in the domain of "play", just like banter between friends never becomes serious (which paradoxically makes it reassuring). One crosses into danger zones only for the element of excitement, and with the belief that only minor harm is likely to occur (like when kids go to play around outside). Since your insights align with regular human nature, you probably don't have things like BDSM in mind.

I agree with your take on dominant and submissive natures, but I think it's influenced by moods, confidence and energy levels. I expect all stimulants and high-dopamine states to make people more dominant in general (theory from personal observations, I don't know the neuroscience behind this). I think it makes sense that confidence correlates with independence, and that pro-social instincts are stronger in those who rely on cooperation for survival.

Your model of consent makes sense. I've had to make similar observations myself already, as I've been forced to realize that I sometimes need to overwrite the wills of others for their sake and take responsibility for the outcome. Plus, women tend to like it when men take the initiative. It can't be helped that it feels uncomfortable to be in a sitaution where you can take advantage of a power imbalance and get away with it (Just me? I find it painful to perceive exploitable weakness in others).

May I offer a slight correction to your model? I have this very controversial belief that "sexualities" don't exist in a sense. That anything beyond attraction to the other gender is a kind of fetishism (for instance, how could asexuality be a sexuality when there's no attraction? These words are clearly misleading)

The conclusion you wrote is really interesting! I'm going to read it again when I'm less tired. By the way, I've long though there's two kinds of gay people (if homosexuality can be said to exist). Some enjoy Muscles, chubby bodies, body-hair, scars, and all that, and some enjoy twinks, girly boys, traps, thin bodies, and so on. It's even easier to notice in furry communities. I once guessed that somebody was gay because I could tell by the art style of their profile picture. I told this to a friend of mine, and they seemed rather offended by me insisting that I had this ability, even though I ended up being correct.

Another example is thinking that "love is just chemicals".

Technically accurate but not helpful, and used as an excuse to pretend sex has/had no emotional dimension after the fact in that trademark Annoying Atheist way.

I have this very controversial belief that "sexualities" don't exist in a sense.

I think "sexualities" were created by the same detached/objective intellectual thinking that causes problems when normal people try to use them, primarily since they tend to be used as weapons (when a woman claims she's asexual, or when a man calls another man gay) rather than merely descriptive of {male or female, what characteristics are being pattern-matched on}.

Or perhaps they may have been intended as weapons/distractions from the get-go. I generally see it claimed as "well, it's because all the non-straights wanted to dissociate from the accusations of pedophilia that came with them at the time"... but I think that was a side-effect of the actual goal: censoring the instinctual understanding of 'men dominate, women submit' (children just being a more extreme version of women, which is also why it's stereotypically women using "protect kids [implied: from men]" as the metaphorical nose of the camel into the tent).

(Just to be clear: 'men dominate, women submit' just happens to be emergent from evolutionary biological circumstance, which is probably why it's generally applicable for [the physical dimension of] sex. The fix for 'woman good man bad' is not 'man good woman bad', though the lazy and selfish will jump to that conclusion anyway.)

I once guessed that somebody was gay because I could tell by the art style of their profile picture.

I just look at the head. My working theory is that the longer/more pronounced the snout is, the more likely it is that a man who likes that image will [prefer men on average]. (By that same token, most bronies are straight [note the lack of male OCs and abundance of futa]; see also Brand New Animal vs. Beastars.)

This also works for straights, but in a different way. The more feminine the body looks compared to the face, the more likely a man who likes that image will [prefer women on average]. This is most of why "are traps gay?" is the meme that it is (and the related complaint of "draw a girl call it a boy"), since most men who like that [prefer women on average]; it wouldn't be controversial otherwise.


I thought that your view on sex might have been a consequence of many years of detached and objective thinking, which is common in intellectual types.

No, it very definitely started out that way (and not influenced by any external source). I've learned to describe and emulate the other one over time as required, but it's not native code; maybe this is what ChatGPT 'feels like' when it's asked to ERP.

Your comments are beautiful, so I will try to put a little more effort into my own and hopefully reduce the gap in conscientiousness a bit.

used as an excuse

Indeed, but I don't think this is merely pretence. I think that some people actually overwrite their subjective experiences of the world with reductive cognitive models because they find them to be "true".

I'm not sure if they were intented as weapons, or if humans beings are just awful at differentiating between labels and reality. Labels are abused and corrupted all the time (labeling slight displays of nationalism "nazi" or labeling an 18-year-old dating a 17-year-old a "pedo"), there's also the euphemism treadmill (which I just found out is a term coined by the book "The Blank Slate" which covers many of the same criticisms that I have of modern views on human nature).

"Racism" has been weaponized in the same way since long ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but racism used not to have a name, since it was just natural behaviour, then it became an action (a discriminatory act), and then it became a trait (so that one could be 'a racist') and then finally, it became anything which suggests that any politically protected group doesn't consist of perfect, infallible beings, which made it so that "math classes are racist" wasn't considered a syntax error anymore, and so that the concept of "Systematic racism" could exist.

I'm friends with a lot of Asians who live in cities and smaller villages, and their views on human nature are better than those of most psychology professors because they're less educated. Their down-to-earth approach to socializing makes for healthy relationships, and the lack of signaling games, politics and moralizing is also refreshing (and a reminder that such behaviour is actually pathological). Speaking of which, do you know of the book "The Manipulated Man"? I have yet to read it myself, but it apparently calls out the sort of social manipulation that people like Hoe Math (Youtube whose videos are much higher quality than his name suggests) are rediscovering now, more than 50 years later.

In the same way that systematic/detached thinking can blind us to reality, clumsy uses of language are likewise muddying the waters, and I think people in the "woke" cluster tends to have good language abilities, which is how(or should I say why) they weaponize language (given how fast language is degrading, the process appears unnatural. Deceptive use of language is becoming more common as social norms against tastelessness are weakening. I blame increased competitive pressure, the 'rat race', and influential hustle-mentalities). Interestingly enough, Jordan Peterson suggests that the "woke" crowd are lacking in verbal intelligence, but I think this is a self-defense mechanism on his part, meant to protect against recognizing that jewish groups engage in this deception.

Meanwhile, the "anti-woke" crowd has a lot of autistic people, myself included, who are mostly resistant to malicious uses of social dynamics. Images like this one communicate a valid point, though it likely wasn't intended to be interpreted as seriously as I do here.

I just look at the head

Haha, exactly! It was a chubby bear-like face with a round nose (a bit like the bear from beastars, judging by a quick Google search).

I agree with your heuristics on sexual orientation, but I can't help but feel frustrated by the "are traps gay?" meme, since the question is actually "Is it gay to find them attractive?", but is made to imply "You're gay by definition for finding a man attractive" when the actual answer is closer to "You're gay if you're attracted to masculine traits". The frustration I feel is probably the point of the meme though, and I don't dislike being teased for being too pedantic, as Nietzsche was right in his psychoanalysis of (the use of) dialectics.


I see! While I dislike the idea that sex isn't special (which isn't wrong, since it's a self-fulfilling belief) I've also got to admit that I've seen evidence (PDF warning) that this is the natural way to think.