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Butlerian

Not robot-ist just don't like 'em

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joined 2022 October 11 15:37:12 UTC 

				
User ID: 1558


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Butlerian


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Not robot-ist just don't like 'em

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 October 11 15:37:12 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1558


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


At first blush it may appear simple, that the left opposes war when the enemy is leftist (Red China, USSR, North Vietnam) and the right opposes war when the enemy is rightist (Confederacy, Axis powers, Russia)




Yeah, it's this.


The outliers are post-9-11 Afghanistan and Iraq, and I'm old enough to remember these: the motivating power of the anti-war movement, certainly in my neck of the woods, was "We oppose whatever a Republican president supports".


So both during and after the Cold War, the left isn't anti-war per se. During it was just led by fifth columnists (so it was anti-"War against these specific countries, comrade"), and after that it was standard domestic partisanship (anti-"any war that Dubya leads").


Mexico 1846 is... a case of trying to impose post-WW2 alignments on stuff that happened a century prior. Mores were so different then that I think, as you say, totalizing conclusions are impossible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm sure that's what they said about Korea and Vietnam, too.


The game of "claiming that my warmongering is defensive" has a long history.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the near-total absence of, not only anti-war sentiment, but of any consideration of foreign policy at all, from 2023 leftism.




A trillion dollars sent to Ukraine isn't foreign policy to you?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


just a 1000 km away




This is a very... American diagnosis of the European psyche.


Europe is smaller, and more crowded than America. And psychologically, Europeans are used to implacable hatred of everyone in the next valley. So 1000km away to a European may as well be on the moon. It is as much "not worth worrying about" as 13000km is to an American. So as far as agenda-setting of national policies goes, Russia may as well be as distant and irrelevant to European countries as it is from the USA.


Estonia, maybe, has cause for concern. But the Western European nations who are gun-running to Kiev? They have zero legitimate interest in Ukraine, just like America.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Russia has to spend blood and treasure to secure the rest of Ukraine. We just have to spend treasure to make their cost go up! And we’ve decided the exchange rate looks pretty good.




Who's "we", and what was the calculus? Because I have a strong suspicion that the "we" is just seething third-generation Russian emigrants still mad that great-grandpa was run off the shetl, lobbying and donating until the US's pay-for-play foreign policy let's them use America like a golem to smash their ancestral enemy.


I'm a citizen of the West and certainly no-one asked me about sending all my money to Kiev.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This would represent an extremely small number of edge cases and therefore is not worth calibrating the system around.


I'm more concerned about the "I had an affair because I was bored, now my husband's divorcing me, please toast his votes" demographic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I did think Rishi reading "We give thanks to Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the son of God and etc. etc." was particularly farcical.


I guess it just feels like an extra notch in the subsumption of British particularism into the soup of globohomo when the Establishment doesn't respect the culture enough to even try to maintain the kayfabe. I mean, sure, I doubt Bojo's a sincere Christian at heart and him reading epistles would be rank hypocrisy, but even purely nominal Christianity is better than official Hinduism. With Rishi, you know it's just his mouth making sounds and the words are not believed. With Bojo, you'd merely strongly suspect it.


Much was made during the Trump years of "Why are you supporting this man who from his actions clearly doesn't give a shit about the white working class", and the answer was often "I can't get positive actions from any of the candidates, so I'll take the one that at least one pretends to care over the others who don't even bother with the pretense". Having a Hindu read homilies during the King's official pledge to protect the Christian spirit of Britain? That has to me the taste of a ceremony that didn't even pretend to care about the ancient mores of the sceptred isle.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But who says 'slaughter the innocent, treasure and protect the guilty!'




I can actually defend Neely in the context of your analogy from a right-wing perspective. Bombing Afghan aid workers and not giving a shit but handling Neely with kid gloves is right and proper because he's American and the Afghan aid worker isn't. One of our guys is worth a hundred foreigners, that's the whole point of being a nation with national in-group preference.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's fair. I don't dispute that Neely should have been in jail already for his previous crimes against Americans.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


and even if you think it's in pursuit of a pointless or harmful goal it is actual things being done and work produced.




The definition of a Bullshit Job, as per Graeber's original essay, is exactly as you describe: one in which the product is useless or harmful, not one where there is no work done at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is there any historical precedence for this? Has there been a time and place where popular culture so heavily converged on recycling products that the flow of new products was stymied.




Well, there's "literally every point in history except between the Enlightenment and now", as a starting point. The culture of the 1420s was not exactly fresh and original compared to the 1410s. Hell, pretty much everyone believed that history writ large was cyclical before then, not just culture.




(Alternatively, maybe most of the cinematic creativity is flowing into television where for a variety of technical and cost reasons, interesting stuff can still be made on a big budget (ie. HBO).




Then again, your main analysis is probably too doomer and I think it's more likely this. Due to some strange pathology in specifically Hollywood blockbuster financing, movie moguls like rehashes this season. You don't see the same trend in TV, or in literature, or in any other center of cinema production (Bollywood? China?), so I don't think it's time to start sounding the horns of the apocalypse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don’t think that diminishes Shakespeare’s place in the canon.




...although it should. 35/37? What a hack.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You're all fucked, some just about to be fucked before the others.




Aren't you Indian?


Don't you have a ridiculous civil service which people kill to get into because once you're there, some quirk of iron rice bowls and pork barrels and constituency building has basically made Indian civil service jobs a sinecure where you never have to do any work but also you can't be fired, and this situation has persisted for 70 years despite the grinding poverty of all other sections of the Indian economy, because it's politically impossible to untangle this snarl?


And you think people are going to lose their jobs... because new labour saving tools become available?


Most jobs don't exist to fulfil tasks. Most jobs exist to fulfil government kayfabe. That an AI can perform a task is therefore completely irrelevant to the question of who has a job.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Calling all Lurkers: Share your Dreams of Effortposting
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How the internet causes radicalization because there is too much information, causing tribalism as an easy and ineffective method to filter information.




Ironic, I wanted to write an effortpost about how the internet causes radicalization because there is too much information, causing tribalism  because you are finally seeing your opposing ideology's true, grassroots, mask-off arguments, not the laundered-for-public-consumption ones you get from their more tactful, tactical, official mouthpieces, and the truth is worse than most suspected. The radicalisation comes from less biased information on the other tribe, not a self-imposed more bias due to sloppy filtration.


What a shame that we can't fight about it because we're both too lazy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Also, there's a distinction between bullshit jobs that are de-facto jobs programs, and those that arise as a necessary consequence of poor regulation and incentives.




Do please elaborate how you make this distinction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I love this comment as a glittering example of "Comes so close to noticing but then the crimestop kicks in"


To wit: don't you think it a little... suspicious... that the """reports from IRL""" that your news media pipes you from Ukraine, map so neatly into the tropes you've been fed for decades from your entertainment?


Does that not strike you as a little, err, improbable to be an organic occurrance?


(So no-one accuses me of not speaking plainly: I am forwarding this as circumstantial evidence that Western reporting from the Ukraine War is very, very contaminated by  Western attempts to narrative craft it into the pre-prepared slot in the Western psyche of "Just like my Indiana Jones movies".)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


how much info is ideal?




I've been to enough rodeos where my prejudices were thoroughly vindicated that I'm going for "Zero, my priors are great, judge purely from them".


We're a discussion forum, not a court of law. themotte.org has no standards of evidence, and that's fine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They need the specific kind of legibility, for an illiterate dirt farmer in an emerging economy who just got his first internet connected smartphone on a microloan. Corporate Memphis is distilled lowest-common-denominator art.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


By their revealed preferences, many (more like most) women rather enjoy being sex objects to the extent they can.




This sounds a bit isomorphic to "Men must want to wear a suit and tie and sit in a cubicle being a wagie for 8 hours a day, look how many of them do it!"


I work in my wagie cube grudgingly because I need the money. It is not beyond imagination that Instagram/TikTok/SnapChat thots have similar ulterior motives.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is just about the worst link you could have attached to support your argument because Amouranth is extremely obviously fabricating her husband's "abuse" to facilitate more simp donations.


Indeed, you're on to a losing battle whenever you claim that we can "know" (justified true belief) that something is happening based on the evidence of an lewd streamer's Twitter self-reporting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If women stated that the issue was avoiding runaway intrasexual competition it'd be one thing.




"Ban this ad because other women are hotter than me" is not a sentiment that any woman wants to admit to others or herself, a'la cognitive dissonance. To out yourself as an uggo is to lower your own social status, so I can't really begrudge women for not making that argument any more than I begrudge myself for not making the argument that all gyms should be banned so fewer guys are buffer than me so I can get more chicks. I would like it if they were but I can't make the argument.


We can nevertheless infer that this is their true motive by mapping out their incentive structures.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Women buy an exceedingly large number of excessively expensive swimsuits. Do you have an explanation why?




Perhaps they know that they live in an attention economy, even as they wish they did not? They think it would be better if they were valued for their opinions and not their curves, but alas, it is not so.


(Also I don't think they're spending their own money on those swimsuits)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I liked the second book because of how ridiculously misogynistic it is.


The third book goes so soft sci-fi it breaks my suspension of disbelief.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


(remember that the military, the police, small-town local elites, organised religion and Fox News are all objectively part of the establishment)




This can't be a general rule - look how often establishments get military coup'd in Africa. Do you mean specifically in America 2023?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Huh? That doesn't even make sense. How can the "risks bigger than AI" , which includes nuclear war, be bigger than the possible risk of AI starting a nuclear war?




If we say that nuclear war has a disutility of 0.9 and a human-started nuclear war has a probability of 0.2 this puts human-started nuclear war at a risk factor of 0.18.


If we say that unfriendly AI has a 0.3 chance of occuring and then a 0.6 chance of successfully starting nuclear war, this gives it a risk factor of 0.162: lower than human-started nuclear war.