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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Meh. This just looks like a gloomy and pessimistic worldview that conveniently absolves the one holding it from any need for action, while staying sufficiently vague to resist falsification.

Such people are ideal, from the perspective of Leviathan/Cthulhu.

Leviathan and Cthulhu are mythical creatures - they don't exist. You're talking about vague impersonal forces, but those typically don't act like agents that plan for outcomes - unless there is an actual organization making out those plans and carrying them out. There are two pretty different views:

  • An actual conspiracy, with a shadowy group orchestrating the things you point at

  • No such group, just a lot of people each following their individual incentives.

I find the "individuals and their incentives" story much more believable, and (to me) your post comes off as gesturing towards the "shadowy conspiracy" while avoiding spelling it out.

And the incentives are much more fruitful to talk about - you can actually talk about facts, about things that could be changed. For example, why aren't people having kids ? Could be the cost of real estate, could be the cost of schools, could be dumb laws about car seats, etc. - and each of those are topics that can be analyzed, evaluated, solutions can be found, etc.

Not OP, and I could be reading between the lines in a wishful thinking kinda way, but I took the post differently. You seem to have read it as if they are defining causation for the described conditions. I read it more as observing the conditions and pointing out what results, and who benefits. I don't think that's incompatible with your "individuals following their own incentives" (which I agree with, btw).

As for Leviathan and Cthulhu, it seems pretty clear to me that these are invoked in the same way as Scott Alexander's legendary Moloch.

But here I am putting words in someone else's mouth, which is not usually productive or wise. Apologies in advance if I should have stayed quiet instead.

(minor edit for accuracy)