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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34792 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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The anti-porn policies of 1st-world payment processing may be rooted in social conservatism, but they play nicely with the liberal-progressive strong-arming many worry about.

You say this like you're describing two different sets of people; social conservatives are best modeled as temporarily-disgraced (or is it temporally-disgraced?) progressives. The term "progressive-conservative" exists for a reason; and rather humorously, each tries desperately to lay claim to the liberals, who switch from one "side" to the other as the multi-dimensional pendulum of power swings back and forth.

I suspect (and nodding to the other post downthread) there's probably a gender angle to this; under the lens of rational self-interest it makes more sense for women to be progressive-conservative (PC for short), because reinforcing power structures is their evolutionary specialization (being the supply-side gender, they want their prices as high as possible), and more sense for men to be liberal, since they prosper when power structures flatten (more available and accessible ways to pay said price). Which is probably why that's what we see borne out in opinion polls, voting splits, and chosen professions.

For any country more worried about losing access to international money because they crossed some cultural or social red-line of the West

This isn't going to be fixed with crypto, for that matter; while it is possible to "launder" cash from the enemy's point of view, it's not immune to the "fine, we'll just stop buying your [dollars] entirely until you submit to our cultural standards" Russian-style sanctions. Sure, that might be guaranteed to cause some riots, but since when has the US been shy of starting actual wars to further geopolitical interests "because fuck you"?

I suspect (and nodding to the other post downthread) there's probably a gender angle to this; under the lens of rational self-interest it makes more sense for women to be progressive-conservative (PC for short), because reinforcing power structures is their evolutionary specialization (being the supply-side gender, they want their prices as high as possible), and more sense for men to be liberal, since they prosper when power structures flatten (more available and accessible ways to pay said price). Which is probably why that's what we see borne out in opinion polls, voting splits, and chosen professions.

This is an intriguing framing and something I'd like to learn more about. Do you have any references to recommended reading?

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