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netstack

The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.

10 followers   follows 3 users  
joined 2022 September 05 17:27:40 UTC 

				
User ID: 647


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
netstack


								

								

								
								
									
								
								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.

				
				
				

				

					10 followers  

					follows 3 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 17:27:40 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 647


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not sure I understand what you’re envisioning. A few million tea partiers? A few thousand TPs hiding in a few million Americans?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I know! The latter are a big chunk of what I had in mind. Bolt-actions with integrated or at least very limited magazines, which are probably the most likely gun to get a carve out from wider bans.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
See, this is what I’m talking about.


When someone gives you a measured, qualified answer, you accuse them of cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning. That looks—looks!—like bad faith. Why is it so surprising that people might not want to engage with such a gotcha?


I understand that you think this is only possible because your opinion is simple, pure, and obviously correct. I promise you do not have a monopoly on that feeling.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nah.


Small arms haven’t been the deciding factor in state warfare since the proliferation of high explosives. The 2A remained relevant because you still have to interact with the population. Boots on the ground, as it were. That part hasn’t changed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Eh, you can’t really compare rights indirectly. You’ve got to look for places they come into direct conflict: my rights to fist-swinging vs. your right to facial integrity, your life vs. my self-defense, and so on.


Cars are very heavily regulated when it comes to other people. But they have a lot more uses which don’t involve others.


The closest gun comparison is hunting rifles, which not coincidentally tend to get the most slack from regulators.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Upheld.


You have been previously warned about substituting LLMs for effort. This instance is not any better.


@Shirayuki2 @roystgnr


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Right.




There is an obvious third reason: you aren’t an abuser, but it takes more verbiage to explain so, because the question is stacked against you. Both of the one-word answers are inadequate by design. You are forced to spend more time structuring your defense than the opponent had to spend making the attack.




Adding qualifiers makes your answer weaker. Doubly so if your every word is being mined for sound bites. The most charismatic and agile speakers can still manage it, making a “gotcha” look like a normal question. (I was reading some of the Lincoln-Douglas highlights, and they’re chock full of qualifiers and hypotheticals. It was a different time.) These clips are not particularly charismatic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Asking gotcha questions is not bulverizing. Watching someone answer such a question, then theorizing on how they must be a turncoat, lunatic, or dishonest coward, though?


There is an excluded option, what I thought was the obvious one: they don’t want to play a rigged game. They recognize a loaded question, or outrage bait, and try not to walk into the minefield. Sometimes this works out. Sometimes it looks cringey and gives the baiters what they wanted. Regardless, it doesn’t require lunacy or cowardice or even cognitive dissonance.


Trying to rehabilitate “gotchas” as a totally legitimate strategy, one that only works on the deluded, is wishful thinking at best. One can score rhetorical points playing for any team.




Whose team do you think I’m on, exactly?




As the prophet once said:




How virtuous, how noble I must be! Never stooping to engage in petty tribal conflict like that silly Red Tribe, but always nobly criticizing my own tribe and striving to make it better.

Yeah. Once I’ve written a ten thousand word essay savagely attacking the Blue Tribe, either I’m a very special person or they’re my outgroup. And I’m not that special.




I’m not trying to accuse you of bad faith. I think you have a standard human blind spot for tribal affiliation, and right now, it’s telling you that this weapon only works on the outgroup. That’s wrong. It works on whomever you can put on the spot.




I imagine might I feel like some liberal US Muslim leader, when he goes on the O’Reilly Show, and O’Reilly ambushes him and demands to know why he and other American Muslims haven’t condemned beheadings by ISIS more, demands that he criticize them right there on live TV. And you can see the wheels in the Muslim leader’s head turning, thinking something like “Okay, obviously beheadings are terrible and I hate them as much as anyone. But you don’t care even the slightest bit about the victims of beheadings. You’re just looking for a way to score points against me so you can embarass all Muslims. And I would rather personally behead every single person in the world than give a smug bigot like you a single microgram more stupid self-satisfaction than you’ve already got.”




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What? No, this is base Bulverism. You are ruling out the only answer which matters.


Have you stopped beating your wife?


    

  • If you answer “yes,” you’re either a liar or an (reformed?) abuser.
    • 

  • If you answer “no”, you’re either an abuser or a pedant.
    • 

  • If you refuse to answer, or give a waffly non answer, what does it mean?
    • 



As you’ve framed it, the only reasons to take the third option are if you aren’t an abuser, but feel the need to pretend you are, or if you are an abuser, but realize you can’t say it out loud. Hence “dishonest coward.”


This is stupid. There is an obvious third reason: you aren’t an abuser, but it takes more verbiage to explain so, because the question is stacked against you. Both of the one-word answers are inadequate by design. You are forced to spend more time structuring your defense than the opponent had to spend making the attack.


Yes, this is a bad thing.


In the simple case, the accuser only gets a little mileage from an asymmetric question. Extending “no” to “no, because I never beat her at all” is relatively cheap. Anyone who cares can see the full version.


But we don’t live in the simple case. Setting aside intentional misrepresentation, a bad actor can get more advantage by extending the question. “Have you stopped beating your wife?” has an obvious gotcha. “Where were you on the night of September 13th, 1987?” is not immediately obvious, even if it eventually unfurls into the same accusation. Asymmetrical questions are the simplest building block of narrative control. Narrative control does not converge on the truth.


Okay, but I like it when my team controls the narrative!


Great. Unfortunately, so does everyone else. I think you should uphold norms which favor the truth rather than ones which flatter whomever has the initiative. Right now that involves some gender-critical congressmen. In two to four years, who can say?


For a different perspective, consider this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It doesn’t seem hard to you, one of our highest-effort and most rules-compliant users. I am quite confident that you could do it. Most users are not you.


The asterisks and the pretty words are useful because they slow down the burbling outrage which usually drives people to make this category of argument. Requiring a certain level of detachment is our negative feedback loop. It filters out a large fraction of the most reflexive arguments.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The phone zombies thing is probably real (…I type from my phone).


I don’t want to speculate on TikTok sluts, or on the specific environment of Bath courses, but I note that imitating American thirst traps is not exactly new.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Judging public opinion based on standup might not be an unbiased estimate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Amadan’s explanation is good.


If you took away the laundry list of Things My Outgroup Did, what would be left? The single last paragraph, which is pure culture war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Please do not use this thread to wage the culture war. That includes personal attacks, painting your enemies with a broad brush, and yes, picking inflammatory phrasing. You are clearly going for heat over light.


It’s been some time since your last ban, but not much time at all since you were last given a final warning for the same attitude. 30 day ban this time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, it’s you again. You appear to have learned the wrong lesson from your last appearance.




Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War.

This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another




Three day ban this time. Expect it to escalate if you don’t use that time to actually read the paragraphs at the top of the page.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Krystal ball




Genuinely surprised that we never got a Metal Gear character with this name.


Anyway, I’m not really seeing the problem here. I don’t like an ethnostate. I think that claiming Israel is one but Palestine wouldn’t be is misguided at best. Therefore, I’m sympathetic to people who rank the current situation over the palette-swapped version. That seems to be Smith’s position.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sorry. No sarcasm was intended.


My understanding is that the warming itself is easy to measure. We have thermometer records going back to the 1800s and reasonable proxies going back further. This would make 3) well-attested.


I do not believe that 3) is controversial. I have seen people argue that 3) was correlated with, not caused by, 2). I have also seen people accept 3) and then propose 4) it won’t be that bad. Those are both consistent positions, and I respect the people who are trying to seriously find evidence for them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But 3) is the most well-attested part! It’s the whole reason Al Gore could get up on stage and point to those sawtooth curves. I don’t think I’ve seen an argument that the planet is actually cooler than it was before the Industrial Revolution.


If 3) is hard, the correct response is not to throw up our hands and let God decide. And there are some skeptics out there trying to make their own models say, yeah, it’s alarming but okay. Here’s a feedback mechanism, here’s a reversal, we’ll be alright if we bring back bunker fuels. Stuff like that.


But the mainstream version of climate skepticism is to accuse the people working on 3) of being paid degrowth shills who hate America. You can see it all over this thread. The motte is that spending money on climate research is wasteful and rewards the wreckers. The bailey is that it’s all fake and gay by default. Is that truth-seeking behavior?


I think your food analogy is wrongheaded. What you’ve seen are the fads, the contrarians, the countersignals. The people selling something by contrasting it with a mainstream. Climate science is the mainstream! That’s why so much time and effort has to go into discrediting it! The dynamics are completely different than the market for fad diets.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you.


It’s amazing how many things are explained by sampling bias.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Raising a generation of subs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Evangelion is about a cast of weirdos undergoing their own personal mental breakdowns. You know, on account of the impending apocalypse. Uncomfortable sexual tension is one of many, many ways it turns up the pressure. That has artistic value!


Doubly so if you’re young enough that all the show’s uncritical gooner bait doesn’t trigger the same “ick.” But that window is limited, and at some point it gets awfully hard to recommend rather than just defend. So it goes.




I agree with some of the others that you’re seeing a wider distribution. Actually, I suspect Goblin Slayer came at a bit of a low point; the fantasy LN market was pretty saturated by 2016. Whenever you get a glut of genre-chasers, some of them compete on edginess.


Point is, lots of modern anime avoids the worst excesses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There’s a difference between informed and uninformed criticism, though.


Exhibit A: this thread.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
“It’s over. C.S. Lewis has already depicted you as the wojak, and me as the Chad.”


Alternately: Twitter delenda est. Seriously, I think this whole “storm” can be explained by an extremely online generation which is starting to actually raise kids. They’re getting parenting advice filtered through the attention economy. This was probably true for, like, parenting magazines. But anons randos strangers on Twitter have different incentives than magazine contributors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If the baton would be taken as evidence of ill intent, maybe the bat would signal that you’re planning a comedy sketch?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wallet, phone, keys.


The latter used to have a small folding leatherman but I always forget to put it back on after flying. There’s enough stuff on there as it is. The tiny scissors saw much more use than the blade. The tiny screwdriver probably saw less, but was indispensable when it did come up. One time I actually needed the file to take a plastic nub off of something.


If I’m going somewhere remotely outdoors, I will usually bring a 2.5” folding knife.