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joined 2022 September 05 00:50:11 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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AnotherSiteAnotherName


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 00:50:11 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Here's a question for you that is less war and more straight culture. What makes a piece of media truly inspiring? What qualities does something need to possess so that things based on it will be great? I don't mean this in the sense of expertly turning your IP into a multimedia franchise through judicious licensing or whatever. I want to know what happens in the case of something like Dune where licensing doesn't seemed to be handled well at all. Yet it still not only managed to spawn a great movie. It also inspired a legendary board game, hugely influential video game, etc.


What makes Dune such fertile ground compared to, say, Lord of the Rings?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Right, but that is why I chose Lord of the Rings for comparison. For all of its impact, for all the media based on it directly and indirectly, it has a much worse pound for pound showing than Dune. Sure, it has a forgettable RTS, but Dune II practically invented the genre. Sure, one of the Lord of the Rings board games ended up being great, but Dune has, again, a hugely influential game that people loved so much they were still playing it when it had been print for nearly 30 years.


Was this just luck that Dune has such a stronger showing than a more popular, older IP? Or is there some quality that can be analyzed?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aside from generally being unpleasant and mischaracterizing my post, I'm not sure what your point is.


Are you mad that I'm not listing more fun Dune media? That I'm not getting further into the weeds? Or do you think that talking about another game that you have already described as fun and unique somehow disproves my point about Dune having disproportionately better media than Lord of the Rings?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Really? The guy coming from the religion that believes in Eruv wants to criticize intellectual nonsense?


Infinity can be divided into multiple sets, so the Trinity makes perfect sense. Hanging a line around a city to try and trick God is literal nonsense. Does God believe in the rules you have for the Sabbath or not?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But this is just vague handwaving. I'm not arguing the popularity of Lord of the Rings or its cultural impact. I'm talking about the impact, in turn, of the licensed media that followed.


Lord of the Rings, as a book series, is hugely impactful on the culture. Lord of the Rings the multimedia franchise is, on average, middling and most of it will be forgotten. Dune, on the other hand, has been less impactful overall. Yet, despite having far less adaptations and licensed media (before the most recent movie. I'm not young and free enough to keep up with everything that is coming out now), what exists is both of a much higher average quality and often hugely impactful on their own mediums.


Just shrugging that off is simply being obtuse and ignoring the actual subject.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It’s often paired with claims that females—not women—are the real hypergamists. Thus it becomes “sorry fellas, so long as society is willing to tolerate women acting like whores, your married/responsible/trad ass can’t expect fair treatment.”




Maybe we should look up a word before we write an analysis. Your search bar is right there. Type hypergamy into it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's not bizarre at all if you remember that ChatGPT has no inner qualia. It does not have any sort of sentience or real thought. It writes what it writes in an attempt to predict what you would like to read.


That is close enough to how people often think while communicating that it is very useful. But that does not mean that it somehow actually has some sort of higher order brain functions to tell it if it should lie or even if it is lying. All that it has are combinations of words that you like hearing and combinations of words that you don't, and it tries to figure them out based on the prompt.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What do I have to argue against, even if I wanted to? You say that Dune II is mostly generic with its ships and units, as if that is somehow a strike against the idea. But a couple of other people already made the point that the ability to fill in the gaps and details of Frank Herbert's universe is one of the things it has going for it when creating media.


Are they wrong? Maybe. Feel free to make that argument. It could be interesting, but you haven't actually made it yet.


Instead you seem to think you have proven some point when all you have done is attack me, state some facts about Dune games, and declared that I am "wrecked" because of my "grand-sounding theory."


If you step out of your weird fanboy-rage for a second, you'll see that I don't actually have a theory at all. I have three statements, only two of which are at all controversial. One is the assertion that some media inspires higher-quality derivatives than others (even if the media itself is not necessarily higher quality). This is a hypothesis. It has none of the characteristics of a theory because it is currently a blank page. A thesis statement looking for a body.


My second assertion was that Dune has inspired quite a lot of high-quality media. This was an illustration of the hypothesis. Because abstracts without concrete examples don't get engagement.


My final assertion, the one that seems to have filled you with such weird, fanboyish rage, is that Lord of the Rings has a much lower average level of quality. This is also part of the illustration for comparison and contrast. This isn't a theory. Now, I'm not going to say that I don't understand why the statement is controversial, and I'd be happy if people were disagreeing in a way that even broached the thesis statement, but again, you aren't doing it. You haven't even actually engaged with the concept.


You are so mad that you think that you can somehow knock down my "grand-sounding theory" without even engaging it. You can't. Even if you were to somehow prove that I am totally wrong and Lord of the Rings has much higher quality media, that still wouldn't disprove my hypothesis. Because that would just fit the hypothesis in the opposite direction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't ask about number. I asked about quality. Sure, Lord of the Rings has a great board game. Some of the video games are even pretty decent. But I'm talking about percentage of hits here. Lord of the Rings, for all of its numbers and popularity, is comparatively underwhelming when you compare the average quality of what it gets in comparison to Dune. Sure, War of the Ring is considered a classic, but what about Lord of the Rings that came before it? Or the Lord of the Rings TCG? Etcetera.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't see how you can say that masculinity is significantly different in Japan or Korea than the West. Societies where men were still considered leaders, fighters, and those who valued the same masculine attributes/virtues as their counterparts in the West (loyalty, strength/competence, aggression, pursuit of women, stoicism, etc.)


There isn't perfect overlap, (e.g. the aesthetics vary significantly), but I don't see how someone can look at something with 90% similarity and say that it is arbitrary because of that 10%.


If these things were actually arbitrary, you should see massive, significant differences from culture to culture. Women in lots of places should be the sexual/romantic aggressors. Men in lots of places should be considered more sensitive. You shouldn't have to go to the other side of the world, find gender norms that are similar in most ways, and say that because they aren't identical, it must all just be arbitrary.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You are describing a fairly anodyne observation, that women are more social status conscious and care more about that in their partners, and using Urban Dictionary's almost unrecognizable definition and describing them as whores, which conflates hypergamy with being sexually loose for money.


I don't think many of the people you are describing would primarily think of women as whores. They would describe them as gold diggers. Or maybe they would describe them as whores. But not because of hypergamy. They are very distinct traits, even if they are both leveraging sex appeal for personal benefit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Saying that the rules are divine commands and then trying to hack them so that they are effectively rendered null is not believing in the rules.


Hanging a line around an area is purely a hack for convenience, not a principled distinction. Hanging a line around an entire city is a hack of a hack for convenience.


If the law is a divine mandate, you should actually follow it! Creating your own loopholes and then acting like observing the Sabbath is still somehow sacrosanct is pure intellectual nonsense


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't use the word prove, so I don't understand why you are once again attributing words to me to mischaracterize what I wrote. Is this intellectual dishonesty or just poor reading comprehension?


Edit: Oh, you think I "accidentally" admitted that this is unfalsifiable. Just poor reading comprehension, then.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Define "stuff."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm surprised that you didn't expect people to watch replays in the most tryhard game in the world. People doing that sort of thing wasn't even an open secret. It was just open.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursdays 25
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If Biden gives Xi Jinping anything, I will consider him a total failure as a president. The rise in hostile actions from China came entirely during Xi's regime, and they came amid reassurances that they wouldn't happen.


He is crawling back now because China is in a position of weakness, but things will go back to the way they were the moment he feels confident.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for August 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pretense is just the hater's word for atmospheric.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


yes it is the same problem




No, it is a financially different problem for the exact same reason that hardware is different than software. Software has infinite do-overs at malleable speed. Hardware has to work in reality. Sure, after enough refining, ML will be able to manufacture a complete car. But how many attempts would it have to undergo first? Even ignoring the iterations on the manufacturing hardware itself, how much money would you have to spend on materials and energy in your tens of thousands of attempts to teach the ML how to manufacture a car? And then there is the political cost. What defect rate will people be willing to put up with from entirely autonomous robotic manufacturing? Almost certainly, it will be a lower rate than what we put up with from humans. Especially if it is from a black box like current ML.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you want to say I'm being petty and condescending, that's fine.  But you're going to say that someone is being petty and condescending after he misquotes me and says that I'm "accidentally" admitting that my extremely abstract idea is unfalsifiable? No, he's being hostile and antagonistic. Don't do some false equivalence here. He mischaracterizes what people write and seems to only be here to "win" discussions. I get annoyed by his hostility and get prickly. We are not the same.jpeg


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, because I wanted a more universal examination. People just got really attached to the Lord of the Rings and Dune game comparison. Even the licensing aspect was less about importance for the principle and more about trying to head off nerdy arguments about what counts as influenced by these books. (E.G. how much inspiration does Star Wars take from Dune?)


I mean, if comparing Dune II to War in Middle Earth is a particularly useful comparison for insights, sure, compare away. But I was hoping for universalizable principles here, not just comparisons of these two franchises.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You say 11% and 12% with the implication that therefore it could be 100%. That doesn't really follow.


There are many things that can vary somewhat from environment, but remain mostly biological. Height would be an obvious example. People can vary in height by 10% based on nutrition while they were growing, but that doesn't mean that it can vary 100% or that it is arbitrary. If you want to argue that gender roles are in a different category, then you need a better argument than that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just looked this up because I find this hard to believe. The mountain-dwelling, hairy, clannish, greedy dwarves check off more Scottish stereotypes than Jewish ones.


I found this link: https://www.timesofisrael.com/are-tolkiens-dwarves-an-allegory-for-the-jews/ saying that Tolkien didn't intend the Jewish-Dwarf analogue


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a very strong rule, this is not the case for financial news Corps. WSJ and Bloomberg are paywalled and subscriber only because their reporting is considered financially worthwhile for their subscribers. They are very different than most media, which is primarily for entertainment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The fawning tone is undeniable, but on the other hand, users on this site wage the culture war often. It is just usually with a more negative tone/perspective. The truth is that users on this site are far more comfortable with wholly negative criticism because it can be passed off as analysis. Never mind the fact that critical analysis is far child's play next to strong positive claims.


There is a growing miasma of pseudo-intellectual sneering here, perhaps because of its connection to another site. At least this user leaned the other way. At least there was something earnest about his post. It is something this userbase really lacks these days.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So what do you think makes Dune so much more alien? It can't simply be cultural. Western fantasy, at least as an aesthetic, has certainly found fans in Asia. Is it the focus on politics and big, weird ideas like transhumanism? Is it the focus on the macro scale compared to LotR, which made it less character focused but better lent to the strategy games that I ended up having to talk to so much about?