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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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Why do trans issues keep getting posted, over and over, when it’s a largely irrelevant issue to the vast majority of people?

Trans issues are ideal for generating toxoplasma of rage. They affect a vanishingly small number of people, but touch on core fundamental attitudes that everyone has strong opinions on: you can take whichever side you want without ever having to interact with real people who care about it in a deeply personal sense. Regardless of whether someone is Right or Left, if someone lists trans war stuff as a top ten issue affecting the world, I think it's a safe assumption that they're full of shit (unless they identify as trans, in which case I give some leeway).

That's not to say it's irrelevant: different public policy around trans issues can affect O(1M) people, and there are pros and cons for both sides. But education, tax policy, foreign relations (as well as other things) are far more important and seemingly get a tenth the media attention that trans stuff does.

There's an additional wrinkle on social media (and Reddit in particular) where egregiously heavy handed moderation of anything that can be construed as even vaguely anti-locomotive drives a strong oppositional reaction. But it's silly for people to let that drive them to centering their worldview on it to the point of hysteria.

O(1M)

What kind of Big O notation is that?

An egregious abuse, I recognize.