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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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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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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I did mention those. Is it a problem, though, if the city gets plundered, if you are just running it for the benefit of the host nation with the intent to eventually hand it over to them anyway? If they have the most basic sense of what's good for them, they will at least let you develop it for some time before plundering it, which gives you some years to (right-wing view) educate the natives in your image or (left-wing view) let the natives benefit from safety, money and good governance, and moreover if they have the sense they will let you start a new one after plundering the old one. If you don't value the third-worlders, in your eyes this will be throwing the same money down the drain regardless of whether the city is reverted peacefully, operated by you in perpetuity, plundered/captured forcefully, or you let the same people move to your own country to feed/clothe/police them here instead, with the added benefit that unlike in the last option, they do not wind up in your country, and perhaps even that you are making some infinitesimal progress towards making the humans you have to share the planet with better. If you do value them, you are still spending the same resources on them, and in addition are actually improving things in their home countries rather than simply draining them of everyone capable of leaving.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Keep in mind that there is a less-polite two-sided version of the paradox, too: not only do you not notice the unfunny plain people, the people who are funny and beautiful also go so far in life that they do not have to put themselves in front of the likes of you. There are more pleasant occupations out there than "stand-up comedian", if someone abundantly blessed with both wits and looks even has to work at all (as opposed to, say, being a cocktail party regular on some rich guy's yacht).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Right, I find it quite tragic myself that the taboo against colonialism gets in the way of that solution. Even if we have an issue with perpetually ruling over the minorities as second-class citizens, a scheme like building one colony at the source of migration and being ready to hand it over to the locals if a majority asks, to then start a new one, would probably not leave anyone disenfranchised for longer than they are if they come here and go through the normal citizenship process.


The problem is also that leftists don't want to make any concessions to those who think certain classes of immigrants might be anything but good for the main country, while rightists don't want to make any concessions to the idea that state coffers should be used for the benefit of foreigners at all. So, even though enterprising private individuals would in principle be well-placed to show viability, the only charter cities we get are business bro drug dens rather than uplift projects.


(I really think that a pure charity-colony would be a fantastic thing. Offer some country like Ghana the following deal: they will hand you(r NGO) a sliver of coastal land. You may rule it dictatorially, and treat it as a sovereign fiefdom, including the right to point weapons at the host if they aggress against you. You may freely let any subset of the host's population immigrate. The only stipulations are that once a year, you run a plebiscite of all adults on your territory, and if more than half vote to that effect, the territory immediately reverts to the host; and that it also does so if your population ever falls below some threshold. To discourage secessionist/country-building aspirations, you also may not extend the franchise to any natives. Make it clear that their only way to "graduate" and earn self-determination is to return to the donor country.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wonder if it will ever be possible again to get a proper, ideological-Turing-test-passing account of the Blue worldview on this website, because your quote from @MaiqTheTrue for sure is not. You depict a right-winger being dramatic over an essentially true development, and imagine lined up against him an array of left-wing delusions. How easy it would be, if only we could get our opponents to see reality! (Maybe they just need to go outside and touch some grass.)


The actual fundamental disconnect between Right and Left that your juxtaposition fails to capture is that both are driven by real urgencies based on their respective circles of concern, in a way that relief is mutually exclusive. Just zooming in on immigration concerns, the right-wing doomer view is essentially something like "are there no brakes on the replacement train at all? You already got like 20% Muslims or something in and we understand that in practical terms those 20% will never leave or decrease, why can't you even have so much grace as to pause and let us see the consequences?". In this lament, the left-wing doomer hears something like: "of all the people that are actively living and dying in misery at our hands as we speak, you have managed to save some. This horrifies us. Can't you at least take a break for a few years where you let them all die?". The Right watches in horror the irreversible ratchet of their nation being diluted; the Left watches the irreversible ratchet of lives being wasted.


Perhaps a comparison with abortion would be apt. Third-world immigrants are to right-wingers roughly as fetuses are to left-wingers. One sees a group they care about (natives/women) enslaved and oppressed for the benefit of some prop that has negligible moral value (uncivilised foreigners/lumps of cells). The other one sees uniquely vulnerable human beings who they have a special duty to protect (babies/victims of their ancestors' cupidity) being callously left to die for the comfort of the spoiled and morally reprehensible (slutty women/narrow-minded nativists).
The right-wing perspective, to the Left, then winds up sounding about as monstrous as "you have already forced so many women to give birth unwillingly. Can't we at least take a break for a few years where we abort all/most of the pregnancies?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That might make for a reasonable starting point for a peace prize that will be considered "fair and balanced" by Americans, but the rest of the world would care about it as much as it does about this year's Superbowl winner. Hardly anyone out here could even point out Oklahoma on a map.


The circumstance that American political theatre is a hyperstimulus would also further sabotage any attempts at global appeal: much like Europeans are more captured by anti-Red propaganda and Russians are more captured by anti-Blue propaganda than most Americans, the shit-slinging that would inevitably ensue to try and influence the choice within the inside baseball league alone would leak out, and make outsiders walk away very confident that the selection process is hopelessly biased in whatever direction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Throughout the 20th century, they also managed to stay nominally neutral and peaceful in most major conflicts (while, perhaps not entirely deservedly, staying clear of the Swiss smell of profiteering off others' misery too), and gained a certain reputation for individual activism for the greater good (Fridtjof Nansen etc.).


Is there even anyone who would be a more credible arbiter?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I find Hossenfelder absolutely insufferable. Sure, she sometimes talks about interesting things, but her whole personality seems to have been consumed by a massive persecution complex since long before she quit academia (and, indeed, I reckon her not entirely voluntary departure was the social immune system doing its job). Some of her earlier videos had her explaining why exactly she came to hate her workplace, and it entirely had the energy of the sort of person who would go to all the seminars, eat 60% of the snacks, complain to the organiser that she didn't like them, and then when her turn to organise came around just scream "WHERE IN MY CONTRACT DOES IT SAY I HAVE TO DO THIS" at the head of department. Probably had a story ready about how the seminar snacks are really important for her blood sugar and therefore she should be consulted about the selection too. Now that she moved on, her content flywheel seems to disproportionately rely on peddling malicious gossip and peanut-gallerying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


so much that even leftist Europeans who today condemn Trump realize their by-then-former allies have gone too far.






But Europeans should really ask if they want the US to leave them alone entirely, because sometimes by their own standards,




I do not feel that Europeans nowadays generally have standards beyond tribalism either. They were cheering when the leading candidate got excluded from elections in Romania (likely with significant American fire support), and they will cheer if this happens to AfD or FN or whomever.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You haven't had a president who did the equivalent of the Charlie Kirk thing, though. Maybe AOC is capable of something like it, but "I punch you now because you might punch me afterwards", while painfully common, is not politics that leads to a good equilibrium.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, if you hold your president to the standard of a tiktoker...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why do people use Canadian/Dutch/Swiss euthanasia services when they could just off themselves? Why is the right-wing set so offended by the existence of those if offing oneself is an equivalent option? Clearly precommitting to having someone else do it is psychologically a lot easier.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


and that there may be others who are in some way deterred, even marginally, from future criminality




This is one of the parts where death penalty advocates really lose me. I've done my share of fantasising about the sort of actions you only admit to taking in Minecraft (TM), and I'm very sure that for each of them the certainty of a swift end by firing squad would be greatly encouraging compared to the reality of a lifetime in a US supermax prison. I might be somewhat persuadable by statistics showing that death penalty candidate criminals really prefer life imprisonment, if those exist, but in this particular case the perp was a jihadi! Throwing away their life is their whole schtick.


I can understand death penalty advocates feeling moral revulsion at criminals being kept alive and healthy on their dime, but hoping for increased deterrence to me really seems like an instance of "what feels good must be good" just-world fallacy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Harry is the self-insert, so his identity and traits barely matter to the interpretation. The story reads as "(You) should pine for hot blonde pureblood women", not "hot blonde pureblood women should get with filthy impure men". In a properly SJW view, suggesting that Harry should prefer female Malfoy over a hypothetical overweight black Hermione itself is problematic - there's a reason why it is generally said that (mixed) Barack Obama choosing to marry (fully black) Michelle was a tactical move.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What's the archetype here, the young coquette who machine-learned that a certain kind of awkwardness that comes naturally gets her male attention? That would be fair enough for the Turgenev paragraphs, but I don't really see it in the female Malfoy samples, unless you want to lump together any and all forms of non-self-aware romantic behaviour (I think even saying "affection" here would be reading too much into Turgenev as quoted).