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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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I don't think people, say, in 17th century London saw themselves as part of "London community" any more than people of New York now see themselves as parts of "New York community". Hanging haven't got anything to do with it. I mean, sure, you could hang the thief in the village. Or you could expel him from the village and he'd probably die anyway (unless he's particularly talented at highway robbery and then maybe he'll stick around for a while until it becomes annoying to the local lord and he sends a squad to get rid of him). But those times are so far in the past we can't recreate them by any means short of dismantling our whole civilization infrastructure. The days of living in Dunbar-number communities are past for most of us (numerically). I mean, you still can find many real Dunbar communities, if you are either rich enough or ready to downshift enough, but vast majority of people aren't living in them and never will.