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BahRamYou


				

				

				

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BahRamYou


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2023 December 05 02:41:55 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


negative valence




This is the most important phrase to know when consuming any sort of media. The facts don't matter nearly so much as, what sort of emotion are they creating around it? That will lead the public to mimic that emotion, no matter what it is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok, find and replace "any" with "a significant amount of." Five barges is not the sort of invasion force that threatens WW3.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Or to put it another way: when Xi Jinping told the PLA to prepare the capability to invade Taiwan in 2027 (he said this multiple years ago), do you think that he wasn't being serious?




Let me ask you this. How much time do you spend listening to Xi Jinping speeches? Are you fluent in Chinese? Do you keep up with all of his internal briefings and read all of his essays?


I'm going to guess the answer is no. Me neither. It's impossible to keep up with everything like that unless its your professional job. So I rely on trusting those professionals, instead of trying to figure it all out myself. But that means we can't take one statement out of context from a foreign leader and take it literally- let the professionals who analyze this stuff figure out what it means. If they're not worried, I'm not either.


Politicians love to talk, it's what they do. Most of it is aimed at whatever audiencee they're talking to at the time, not for foreign nations. So it sounds to me like he made some rah-rah patriotic "make the PLA great again!" speech to encourage the troops, which then got picked up by foreign media, and they've been scaremongering us for years. Because that's what media does.


Notice Xi Jinping hasn't done. He hasn't loudly repeated the threat over and over again, like real warmongers do. He's never said anything to Taiwan at all. He hasn't significantly increased military spending, or built any amphibious invasion craft, or worked the general public up into a militaristic frenzy like the leaders did before WW1. There's just no parallel at all in modern times to the massive nationalistic arms race that preceded WW1.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm well aware that France has nuclear reactors, and probably I should have mentioned that, but didn't want to get to into the weeds about a side point. France is very much an outlier and Europe, and their fleet of reactors was mostly built in the 80s and 90s, and it was built mostly to serve their own national needs, not to be the powerhouse for all of Europe. They can export some energy, but not nearly enough to power the continent.


I also don't think the solar situation is at all comparable to China. Europe is significantly further north than China, like 10 degrees or more, with only the northern parts of China overlapping with the southern parts of Europe. That massively increases the seasonality problems of solar. Building solar panels in Spain to export energy all the way out to Germany, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe doesn't seem like a real solution, even if you ignore the difficulty of crossing multiple international borders. I know they've gotten some energy from solar and wind, and that's great, but they haven't increased capacity nearly as much as they would need to "just stop burning oil," let alone the natural gas they import.


None of this is to say that Europe is doomed, or anything, it's just that they're facing strong headwinds in energy that will limit their growth. Meanwhile in the US we just have a huge abundance of seemingly every source of energy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not Shakes, but I do share some of his American triumphalist views.


First, I want to push back on the idea that this is a cold war. I feel like that pays a disservice to just how serious and deadly the real cold war was. The world had just emerged from WW2, and everyone was armed to the hilt, epecially the Soviets. Both sides were building and testing nukes as fast as possible, with the main plan for WW3 to simply annihilate the other with mass nukes. Everyone was on a hair trigger alert, to the point where they had to make a special hotline between Washington and the Kremlin to de-escalate dangerous situations. US military spending as a percentage of GDP reached 13% in the 1950s Korean war, then 9% in the 60s Vietnam war, then 7% in the 80s. Soviet spending is hard to measure, but was likely an even greater burden for them, as they needed a massive military to keep their empire together.


Currently the US spends 3.4%, and that's projected to go down in the future. China spends around 1.5% (although with mass draft that doesn't count as spending). In other words, neither side is actually spending, or acting, as if there's a cold war. I feel like we're the two biggest kids in PE class, and everyone else around us keeps trying to get us to fight, when we really just want to play basketball. We can travel to each others countries as tourists quite easily and freely, which usually wasn't possible during the cold war. We're both each other's largest trade partner. These are peaceful times.


For right now the US still has the edge in Space and AI tech. Is it possible that China could catch up and take the lead? Sure, maybe. Maybe they land on the moon a few months ahead of us, or hit a new AI benchmark first. So what. The US would still have amazing tech in that area. I don't see a future where the US isn't at least a major player in tech, and the most likely possibility is that we'll still be the leader, since so many of the world's experts come here to work in AI. We're also, for what it's worth, investing heavily in using robotics and AI to compete with China in manufacturing- they used to have a huge advantage there with their large cheap labor force, but robots are even cheaper than that. For example, the US is now growing startups to break China's monopoly on rare earth refining.


You didn't even mention energy, where China is still massively dependant on oil and coal imports. They've handled the Iran crisis by... importing and burning even more coal, leading to horrendous pollution. Meanwhile the US just pumps more oil (and can now get it from Venezuela, as well as Canada or Mexico when necessary). Not to mention the interesting advances being made in new forms of nuclear. That said, I'm impressed with how much cheap solar PV China has been able to produce, and I wish them all the best in continuing to produce more. That seems like a huge win for humanity as a whole, not some cold war sputnik moment. (and the US is also producing lots of new solar. I worry about Europe's energy situation though... they don't have much oil, they seem culturally dead set against nuclear, and they have terrible geography for solar.)


Then there's demographics. The US has issues here too of course, but China really has issues. They're down to just 1 child per woman on average, despite a lot of effort to boost it, and they can't really do immigration like the US does. So in about 20-40 years, they'll be in a very awkward spot with massive population of retirees, very few working-age people to support them, and almost no children. That will put a huge strain on their economy and technological growth, unless of course the singularity comes along to change everything before then.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I had a similar reaction. Well, I wouldn't laugh, but I wouldn't be super horrified either. I haven't seen the movie but from this description, it just sounds like she was going through a dark time, had some revenge fantasies, did a little practice shooting with her dad's gun, but then ultimately thought better of it. The stuff that the other characters say seems worse, because they actually did things that hurt people in the real world, instead of just imagining it in their mind. But maybe I'm just biased because I can't imagine a pretty feminine woman like Zendaya ever really being a school shooter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wonder if, to some extent, this is another side effect of the breakdown in monoculture?


When I was a young lad, reading was easy. I could go to any big box bookstore, pull some pulp fantasy or sci fi off the shelf, and chances are it would suit my tastes. But those were also a relatively small set of books, published by traditional publishers with lots of gatekeeping and editing. If you liked it, there was also probably a lively fandom for it.


Now, there's so many forms of entertainment coming out that it's hard to even know where to start. I'm sure I could go to Amazon and find an ebook that might interest me, probably even one published this year. But it would also be hidden behind thousands of other books, which I'd have a hard time wading through to find the one I like. That book would then have essentially no fandom, and anyone I mentioned it to in real life would have no idea what I was talking about. It makes reading a very lonely and somewhat pointless hobby if there's no one to discuss it with. Easier to just read one of the old classics instead.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, in his story it seems like not a matter of "convincing a jury of normal people," but simply convincing 1 or 2 highly emotional women, who then browbeat the rest of the jury into going along with them because they're all under financial pressure to get out of there and get back to their real job as fast as possible. The standard advice I've always heard is to avoid jury trials as much as possible and take a plea deal or arbitration instead, because juries are just so random you never know what's going to happen. So yes, there's a very low level of understanding and trust in the legal system right now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm much more worried about the racial split, which seems sharply divided between the "white party" and "Blacks (with capital B!) + associated allies party." That is a really toxic divide, and it seems to be getting worse, not better.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I appreciate this look into the inner workings of a jury on a non-famous case. I've never been on a jury myself, but always suspected it would be something of a mess like this. I've always favored replacing random-citizen juries with pools of professional jurors that have law degrees. I don't see the point in having a complex trial with all sorts of legal rules and precedent, if it's all going to get throw away when the jury goes behind closed doors and does whatever the hell it wants.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would argue that most wars after WW2 have been a bit messy and complicated to explain "who won." Now that it's frowned upon (and risking nuclear war) to just march in and plant your flag everywhere, wars become even more an extension of politics. Like you said, Iraq was a quick victory over their official army, but it took a very long time grinding down insurgents and backing questionable political factions until it's become enough of a self-sustaining democratic state to really call that a victory. Vietnam was even more of a mess, but it did eventually end with a Vietnam being a free, democratic state allied with the US... I'm not sure if anyone would call that a victory though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree in principle, but I think you should word it differently. "Trump won. Iran lost" is both too simple and guaranteed to stir up anger.


Tbh, I'm not sure how much "Trump" is really in command of this war. He's an 80 yr old man, a lame-duck president, and never showed much interest for a war in Iran before. This feels like something he was talked in to and then leaves the details to others.


I'm very uncertain what's going on in Iran. Who the hell is in charge over there? Certainly not the "Supreme Leader" who hasn't been seen in public even once since his assencion. And certainly not the regular people of Iran, who have been suffering even worse since it began. It seems like the IRGC has increased it's level of control, but it's a very decentralized control. Does anyone there even have the power to negotiate terms of surrender?


Certainly in the short term, Iran can't develop nukes. But we need a long term solution there, and I'm not sure what that would be without a regime change. Is it enough to just perpetually bomb Pickaxe mountain where they store the nuclear material? Maybe it is, it seems like their air defense is in shambles and the big ground penetrating bombs are pretty good at that sort of thing. But it's a messy solution.


And finally oil. yes, world oil prices are at reasonable levels, despite some predictions of doom and gloom. A lot of that is from workarounds and demand reduction. Some oil is getting through, but not as much as before. I still want the USN and allies to go full power and destroy every single cave along the Iranian coast until it becomes clear that they can do nothing to stop oil tankers going through. But in the meantime I'll take this as good enough.


Biggest problem is really the propaganda war. A lot of people on the internet seem convinced that that Iran (represented by one all-powerful Supreme Leader I guess) has the entire world oil supply in its control, and will put the squeeze on real soon. And frankly I think a lot of that is driven by Russian and/or Chinese bots. We need to do something about that, or the US is going to give up right on the verge of victory after the Dems take power in the midterm elections.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It hasn't really helped and I think Reddit itself may be the problem, but either way I just hate that place, and I think it's completely toxic and is a window into why humanity sucks.




fully agreed with this. Of course you can still find occasional good posts here and there, maybe even the occasional good (small) sub. But the site overall has long since gone to hell. It rewards the worst sort of posters and drives away all decency. At this point, you just have to expect a massive circlejerk response there no matter what you write.