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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Re: the tweets about Someone's Dad knew Somebody Else, that is and isn't sinister. It's not sinister because it's not some big planned out conspiracy, it's just family using contacts and networking to help out their kids, like most people would do if they needed to. Johnny is looking for a summer job while he's in college, Uncle Bob knows a guy in the field, Uncle Bob is Mom's brother so she asks him to ask his friend to give Johnny an internship.

It is sinister insofar as these are the kids of rich, or influential, or rich and powerful and connected people. So they have an immediate advantage over anybody else; when your dad is an old college pal of the head of the SEC, then you have an in that very few other people do, and you have access to the circles where there is a lot of money that they might be willing to send your way.

As for the rest of it, eh, Utilitarianism. I'm sticking with deontology 😁 There's such a thing as being so smart, you're an idiot. I can admire sticking to a position even when the hard conclusion comes out and people won't like it or you, but then you can go so far along the path as to reach the reductio ad absurdum and it would be a lot better to go "Okay, so far and no further".