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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Eh, I made a mess of the whole chain now. Anyway, yes I think you communicated poorly. It didn't look like you were accusing him of personnaly wanting to kill Trace / his side, the post in question contained some boogaloo rhetoric, so "calling for war", like you described it originally is reasonable. Since wars that have ended in the total annihilation of one of the belligerents aren't a central example when people usually discuss warfare, "killing Trace and everyone on his side" is an insanely uncharitable interpretation. Trace may have said that, but your original post didn't make it clear you were citing him, and instead sounded like you're expressing your own opinion.

Okay, well - at this point we're both kind of speaking after the fact about what we think other parties meant. I personally read FC's post at the time as someone about to go off the deep end and basically saying "I hate you all!" but I did not think he was literally threatening to go kill people (though I was worried he was starting to consider it). I read Trace's response as saying that he felt, not personally threatened by FC, but that FC (and other accelerationists) were no longer interested in good faith discussion or coexistence, were at least hinting at violence, and thus he no longer wanted to interact with them.

It probably would do us well to actually go reread the original posts (I'm sure my memory could stand to be refreshed as well) if we are going to keep referring to them, but unless I can plead for someone else with bookmarks to post them, you're gonna have to wait until I have the time to go looking.

but that FC (and other accelerationists) were no longer interested in good faith discussion or coexistence, were at least hinting at violence, and thus he no longer wanted to interact with them.

So this circles back to our earlier conversation. I think this is mostly right, but it highlights the issue I was trying to raise. FC's "I hate you all!" post could understandably raise concerns about all 3, but to me Trace seemed more concerned with radical ideas gaining traction here, than either good faith discussion, or violence. Case in point, FC's much calmer demeanor that came about after that schismatic post did little alleviate Traces concerns, and if anything seems to spook him even more. Currently I don't think anyone can accuse FC of bad faith, and while he mentions civil war as a grim possibility sometimes, he's hardly advocating for it. Trace's issues all seem to boil down to "coexistence" (under the same political jurisdiction).