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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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User ID: 355


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
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 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How many streets are named after Catholic priests at all?


If society mostly celebrates characters that we interpret as left-wing, it stands to reason that most rapists society celebrates are also left-wing. You have not made a case that P(rapist|celebrated left-wing hero)>P(rapist|celebrated hero).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You aren't even saying "fascism and communism", but comparing it to socialism, which is more or less incumbent all over Europe for some 80 years now without operating any concentration camps or starting world wars? Is this just mirroring the "everything to the right of me is literally fascism" line as "everything to the left of me is literally equivalent to fascism"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The steelman, I guess, is that American elections are sufficiently Molochian that if the possibility (that you can stop someone from voting for your enemy party by making them fail an ID requirement) is put out there, someone will find a way to exploit it against people who constitutionally should be allowed to vote. The toolkit exists: you can charge money for valid forms of ID, or require a postal address, or make the process involve forms that are beyond the ability of the illiterate and low-executive-function to fill in and submit. If America wants to limit the franchise to those with $100 to spare, fixed housing, the literate and organised, then perhaps it may do so, but this seems like a change that should be performed explicitly through a constitutional amendment, rather than through the backdoor by people who will rub their hands and do the this-isn't-happening-and-it's-good-that-it-is denial dance.


You can moreover argue that even if we weigh disenfranchised Americans against wrongly enfranchised non-Americans who slip in under an ID-less voting procedure, the former should individually be given far greater weight as wrongs to avoid, by reasoning somewhat mirroring the "better n guilty men to go free than 1 innocent man to be punished" precept: one inappropriately counted vote only wrongs Americans by 1/(10s of millions) of an election outcome, but one American denied the franchise is one American wronged greatly by being excluded from the great civic ritual that tells them they are an equal member of their country (+1/(10s of millions) of an election outcome damage to everyone). This is a big deal under the Omelas-style non-additive ethics many subscribe to.


I also was under the impression (and very much [citation needed]) that historically, Anglo opposition to mandatory ID actually had a nontrivial undercurrent of Christian "this pattern-matches to the Mark of the Beast" thinking.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You do realise that airplanes, being optimised for low weight, are nothing like your typical machinery? Handgun bullets can likely penetrate through the aluminium exterior walls quite easily (and while the idea of explosive decompression through a bullet-sized hole is bogus, the implications of fuel leaking into the body through one in the fuel tank are plenty concerning), but more importantly, the interior side of the wall, separated from the passenger cabin by only some plastic lining, is dense with sensitive cabling and hydraulics. I recommend checking out some airplane maintenance videos for reference, or any of the numerous series of plane crash investigation media for instances of how tiny pieces of shrapnel and localised fires due to bad insulation severed some or another critical control and made the plane uncontrollable.


Don't just take it from me, either: this problem was recognised immediately when the idea of armimg any "good guys" in planes became popular.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you not believe there is anyone who would bring down an airplane, if it were sufficiently easy? Forget about terrorists with an agenda, what about all the random spree shooters that the US gets every other month?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is an open carrier executing both pilots without warning, or emptying his magazine into the wing/fuel tank, or the avionics console, or taking his gun to the rear lavatory and emptying it in the general direction of the rear elevator assembly (a not very redundant piece of plane that has a bad track record of allowing recovery when it fails), all considered a "trivial risk", or did you not consider those possibilities at all? (Too many cases of gun activist fantasies running on shounen anime rules, villains pausing to give a speech about their motivations and all.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hope I have something for every need!



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Self-determination" is a concept that really could use some expounding here, since we are talking about absolute monarchies. Who sets the boundaries of the "self" here? You seem to think that Arabs under a dictatorship of Arabs are satisfactorily self-determining. If you are a Hindu Shudra in a Brahmin dictatorship, are you enjoying self-determination? What about a hypothetical Wakanda project of US census "black"s, where Ethiopians in the vein of Timnit Gebru rule over Haitians?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sounds like those events where everyone has to wear a name tag with pronouns and identity markers to make the progressive stack enforcement easier. Israel continues being uniquely good at eliciting far left/far right horseshoe effects.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there is an argument to be made that somewhat independently of the ideological drift, the discussion culture of the forum has degenerated (because moderators have all but stopped moderating on tone, and the community stopped caring). The ideological drift somewhat masked this, because there was simply not all that much disagreement (the few token left-wingers usually are either on the verge of meltdown or necessarily have pathologically low agreeableness so it's easy to dismiss bad interactions involving them as being their fault). Now we have a topic that splits the dominant camp, and thus throws the degraded discussion culture into relief.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Last election you said you were probably voting BSW




...for a list of reasons that only include one thing that maybe codes left ("anti-surveillance"), and increasingly only a very oldschool form of it that is now obsolete since the Left has become establishment and therefore favours control.




You seem to think Palestinians are and always will be justified to "fight back" in any and every way because of past grievance




How do you get that out of the post you linked, and how to you get from that to "total innocence of the wretched"? At most, I was arguing about their justifications vis-a-vis Israelis (though I don't see where in that post I implied "any and every way" - indeed, I do think there is a level of retaliation that will fully exhaust any moral license they have to engage in revenge, which is short of "Israel ceases existing and its residents are forced to leave for other countries", and in that case them hunting down the former Israelis in exile would certainly, in my estimation, not be just), which does not imply any sort of general "innocence". As far as I can tell, the Palestinians are a miserable people perpetuating anti-human superstitions and repeatedly making the informed choice to inflict misery upon themselves and others. That still doesn't mean that another people (which anyhow is almost as bad) is free to rob and slaughter them.


Are you just trying to impute these views that I don't hold to me because in your eyes everyone who disagrees with your views ought to fit a particular template? This might be hard to grok if you are one of those people who think that every conflict must have a side that is the "good guys", but I'm quite comfortable saying that in a conflict between A and B A is morally justified but actually A and B are both evil crooks. Like, without any implied sympathy for any of the narcos involved in absolute terms, I think it's probably morally fine (with the caveat that I only just googled up this case, so who knows) for El Mayo's followers to take brutal revenge on El Chapito's.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I do really suspect it depends on where you are; Scandinavia was already much more Philoamerican than the parts of Europe (DE, FR) I was familiar with back then.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What is your (interpretation of the) definition of treason such that it being a lie rather than the truth makes a difference?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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.