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4bpp

Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs

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joined 2022 September 05 01:50:31 UTC

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4bpp


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs

				
				
				

				

					3 followers  

					follows 2 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 01:50:31 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 355


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think I'm that left-wing by most measures. Anti-NATO, yes. Pro-Palestine, a bit more complex again; if a Palestinian state was founded, I would be against providing it with any sort of aid. I just want any organisation/country that represents me to wash its hands of the whole business, and stop supporting either side, because I think it's a moral quagmire with no winners. Since currently most organisations that represent me are staunchly pro-Israel and anti-Palestine, this directionally winds up being mistaken for a pro-Palestine view.


Either way, as I said, we are talking about a time when I was not even in my teens. I don't think my political views back then were that developed or similar to my current ones. Later, during my teenage edgelord years, I used to tell people that my preferred solution for the Middle East is to offer anyone who is willing to take it a large lump sum of money to move away, and then glass the entire area together with anyone left who refused to take the deal, figuring those people are part of the problem. Does this sound like a "pro-Palestine" view? Whatever I believed during 9/11 is further away from my current beliefs than that.


Either way (2), "left-wing, anti-nato, pro-Palestine" taken together still do not entail belief in an "innocence of the Wretched of the World" or support for the Khmer Rouge.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't understand how you leap from "4bpp saw these things around him" to "4bpp personally championed this view". There was, to my best knowledge, only one other kid of Eastern Bloc origin in my entire school at the time, and he was Ukrainian, and I didn't interact with him. Besides, I don't think the attitude had much to do with nostalgia for the East, any more than American "deplorable" Trump voting is due to nostalgia for Jim Crow or whatever its detractors claim, but rather a very similar impulse of defiance against constant moralising by richer, more successful self-proclaimed betters.


Even if you were right and I was just merely secretly reporting on the ostalgic ideations of my pre-teen self rather than a snapshot of what my corner of East Germany believed, the set of beliefs you impute to me is wild (and not very accurate). Innocence of the Wretched? Please! My attitude has long been that the Wretched of the World all deserve each other and utility would increase if they went extinct. I just find those who could not leave their grubby fingers off of them before their self-inflicted demise to be detestable in a different way.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was in, essentially, middle school (analogous age bracket) back then. I'm just relaying the general vibes that I perceived around me (from other kids, and by extension presumably their parents because I'm not sure how they would develop those views independently). It might be relevant that this was in East Germany, which by then already had started entering its ongoing phase of Smug Westerner Fatigue.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, my point isn't about it being good or bad, just about the sentiment existing organically (contra the idea that only bots would hold such views in force). Regarding the reverse situation, I really can't comment on it for myself because I am too rootless to take insult or injury against any country personally (every country I'm somehow associated with has had its share of terrorism and outside gloating, and all of those left me cold), but certainly going by newspaper comment sections people did seem upset about Americans projecting their narratives e.g. on the Breivik event.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I meant it was not personal in the sense that it was not about the individuals who died. Of course it was indeed about Israel, just like the reaction about 9/11 was about the USA.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursday for March 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But then, your own politicians assert that 2000+ year old literature has everything to do with the question...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Considering increase in parental age relative to increase in life expectancy, I'd rather say that at most we can expect a return to the evolutionary normal after a brief golden age of grandparenting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Two years later I am able to be a good deal more amused than traumatized by the repulsive shenanigans of the bot army. Partly it's because I am now more aware that much of it is a bot army, a carefully coordinated effort not organic sentiment.




Sorry to burst your bubble, but I think the idea that it is a bot army is a cope (or, more precisely, you taking something that is meant primarily as a propaganda message for a different audience as accurate information). I'm just about old enough to have consciously experienced 9/11 as a European, and the reactions were very similar. Of course back then there was no mass social media, and traditional media was understood to be under the watchful gaze of people who are respectable and have political obligations; but on the ground, already, in my perfectly respectable, mainstream, upper middle class environment, the reaction was almost universally a certain giddiness and excitement, because the underdog managed to land a most spectacular punch straight to the face of the smug snake who had been grating everyone with their smug strutting around. It's not that, individually, people even liked Islam or Islamists, or, imagining an individual American, were happy for them to die a violent death; rather, this did not figure at all, because the American deaths were as much of an abstract statistic to us as the deaths in random US bombings of targets in Sudan. All that mattered is that the Americans had been doing all the hitting, seemed very secure and self-assured in doing so, but finally got hit. People like stories where the plucky underdog embarrasses the Empire.


I don't see the balance or nature of sentiment regarding Oct 7 as significantly different from that at all. The only thing that changed is that now there is an internet where you can share your edgy thoughts with the like-minded, rather than there only being mass media where your edgy thoughts will be judged by schoolmarms with well-paid political consulting gigs. You do also have to understand that, just like 9/11, it is in a way nothing personal; Israelis are simply (1) abstract distant foreigners and (2) the smug overdogs who had been running circles around everyone else with impunity. ((2) might grate when in your internal narrative you see yourself as the underdog.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I have. The key reason for why I have dismissed it as unlikely (at least in the context of this exchange) is that my experiences mesh with those of others in my friend circles, which are selected from an environment with no obvious correlation to relationship quality beyond what factors through educational attainment (universities, random language-learning social clubs), while yours seem to be primarily backed by people from internet forums with an "I hate the opposite sex" theme (obvious negative correlation to relationship quality).


Even if you think that TRP is actually more representative of the general population than universities, that doesn't necessarily make its outlook particularly more applicable to people on this forum, it presumably being a haven for the heavily schooled.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There seems to be a general pattern on the internet of miserable people convinced that everyone else is miserable in the same way they are, and some might just not be aware of it yet (and it is imperative to convince those people that they in fact are). Seen e.g. with transsexualism, mental illnesses, every variant of bad relationships and digestive disorders. Misery loves company.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Have you considered the possibility that whatever relationship you were in was unusually dysfunctional (and in your choice of internet forums, you sought out a selected crowd with similar experiences)? Over here in relatively functional land, I don't think I know anyone who would consider being asked about their day "dangerous and/or demeaning", don't know any couples who don't keep each other updated about their day or suffer any danger to their health or status from providing accurate information, and see a shared understanding that anyone suggesting otherwise would soon be met with advice to break up for their own and their partner's good.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If the problem was a lack of skill to engage in healthy eating, surely the gain of weight would not correlate so neatly with marriage (in plentiful-food patriarchal societies). It's not like being unmarried shields you from weight gain due to unhealthy food all by itself.