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FirmWeird

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joined 2022 September 05 23:38:51 UTC 

				
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FirmWeird


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If the goal is to cut costs or remove ideology from government spending, this is counterproductive.




I actually disagree here despite ostensibly being on the other side. The alternative to these programs getting cut isn't that they just stick around and everyone is happy - the US is currently on an utterly unsustainable course and if nothing serious is done the US will lose the ability to actually pay for all these jobs anyway when reserve currency status goes out the window. Given your stated priorities you probably don't care about the environmental/resource issues underlying these problems in the same way I do, but I'm sure you can recognise that fiscally at least there's no option to just leave these jobs or spending as they are forever - just the option to kick the can down the road, building up even more of a hangover for when the bill finally comes due. The cut is coming no matter what - ending these positions now, when there's still a lot more slack left in society, is a kindness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The two that jump to mind first are Danny Danon and David Ben-Gurion, the latter of whom is considered fairly influential in Israel to my knowledge - but I've got a long list of Israelis making public statements along these lines to bring up if those don't satisfy (and anecdotal stories of people at protests talking about it, but I didn't actually catch their names).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This is a dead giveaway that you're actually attacking Jews, not Israel.




Are you serious? Are you applying any charity to that comment at all? There's very obviously a religious factor to the existence of Israel and their claim to the land and they will proudly tell you that they are taking this land because God promised it to them. I don't think there's any point to litigating this kind of argument on the motte because Israel and Jewishness are so tightly linked that the only point to saying something like this is to uncharitably attack somebody.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The arrangement is awful for gazans largely because they dump resources into poking the bear next door instead of developing themselves.




Israel explicitly forbids them from developing themselves, to the point of making it illegal to harvest rainwater because they consider the rain to be their property.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In particular, they were much more concerned about the RESPONSE to putting rocket launchers in schools, than the rocket launchers in schools.




This entire line of argument was just thoroughly discredited and devalued by the Israeli treatment of Gazan hospitals (and the Lebanese hospital with a pile of gold bullion supposedly being kept underneath it). Look, this is the Motte - you don't have to pretend that the IDF is "the most moral army in the world" or anything, you can just speak truthfully about what they intend and what they're doing. People aren't saying "don't blow up the hospitals and schools" because they're trying to preserve Hamas' rocket-launching capabilities, but because doing so has immense humanitarian costs and leads to people around the world viewing you as an evil, genocidal state on the same level as Hitler's Germany.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If Russia has been struggling to crush Ukraine for the past 3 years even with their munitions advantage, then they can't beat a force vastly larger and stronger than Ukraine.




This is because the majority of EU munitions were actually sent to Ukraine, along with a lot of "instructors" and other technical staff who used those weapons. They aren't struggling to crush Ukraine by itself - they're dealing with EU's stocks as well. The EU currently has a massive ammunition shortfall, and according to people who are actually involved in the EU defence industry they need at least 3-4 years to build their stocks back up, and 10 years to be fully prepared. I will freely admit that if you give the EU a decade's warning to prepare in advance that they'd do substantially better, but that's not the situation we're in now.




They're just trapped in the EU aura of omnishambles and are dragging their feet.




They currently don't have enough materiel to put up a fight against Russia - it was all shipped to Ukraine. That weakness you're identifying is actually lethal if the conflict took place now as opposed to ten years in the future. It doesn't matter how many warm bodies and soldiers you can produce if you can't actually give them bullets to shoot or guns to shoot them from.




And this whole discussion is silly because Europe does have nuclear weapons and wouldn't be attacked anyway.




And in this situation (assuming a kindly wizard has disarmed all nuclear weapons) Russia would just threaten EU leaders with Oreshnik strikes and let them know that it isn't just grunts and poor people who would be in danger - and the EU would immediately surrender.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It looks like the very attempt to actively restrict illegal immigration is making this perceived problem worse.




Let's say that I have a knife wound on my arm. If I get a hammer and then break my arm in an attempt to treat the knife wound, is this evidence that attempting to treat injuries is a bad idea that just makes injuries worse?


Restricting illegal immigration means that these people are deported or otherwise not in the country. Keeping them in the country but legally prohibiting them from working is the exact situation that most immigration opponents are trying to avoid, because illegal guest workers lack worker protections and violate the society-wide bargain between labour and capital. The best answer is to vigorously enforce laws against employing them and to simultaneously send them home.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


European NATO would crush Russia in a conventional war. 500 million Europeans beat 140 million Russians 100% of the time. They're only behind in nuclear weapons but still retain the power to cause Russia a lot of damage.




"They're only behind in nuclear weapons" - this is blatantly untrue. Russia has substantial technological advantages in multiple fields, especially hypersonics for which there are only theoretical missile interdiction systems. Additionally, Russia and her allies have an immense military materiel manufacturing advantage - look at the disparity in artillery ammunition supplies in Ukraine. If you cut off foreign aid (so no China/North Korea/Iran for Russia and no US for EU Nato) the disparity becomes overwhelming - it doesn't matter how many warm bodies you can supply if you don't have weapons for them to fire or bullets for them to shoot. If they're telling the truth about the Oreshnik's availability the conflict would be even more one-sided.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And that's what I also find mind-boggling about voting for Trump — he is so rich that he doesn't have to work anymore, yet promises the restricting immigration will solve my, the peasant's problem, rather than redistributing his very own capital? I don't know, but that looks like deception to me.




What is Trump's personal net worth as a proportion of the total resources available to and under the control of the US government?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The result tends to be that they approach the problem by driving a bulldozer through Chesterton's fence.




I am a big fan of Chesterton's fence but I don't think that it really applies here. The US government's wasteful spending on creating novel coronaviruses in countries with poor biolab security policies is in no way a tradition that we don't understand the reason for. These programs aren't fences, they're noxious externality generators that have caused an incredible amount of suffering and economic damage. Furthermore, we actually understand the reasons behind this spending to a great degree - to hand out wealth to people who know how to manipulate the machinery of the US government. This cutting of funding might be bad for the infrastructure of the deep state, but nobody objects to chemotherapy on the basis that you might hurt the tumor.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As someone who drank like a fish when I was younger, but then had an experience which reduced my alcohol consumption to a few glasses per year, I have to wholeheartedly agree with you that modifying behavior is in fact possible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I honestly hope it does - I am not a supporter of the American Empire by any means.


But right now America has the whip hand, and the desperate circumstances of the ruling classes means that they're going to abuse the Europeans until they grow a pair (and a complete replacement for SWIFT, US financial markets etc). That might be a big problem for the America of the future, who will potentially regret this hostility when the Europeans break away, but that's not something the incredibly short-sighted people running the empire care about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think that private equity is a particularly new thing - it was how Mitt Romney made his money, after all.


My personal belief, which I freely admit has no actual verifiable statistical backing, is that the main reason you're hearing more about them is that the proboscises of parasitic capital are being turned inward. A lot of financial instruments and practices, whatever their legality or the finer points of how they work, essentially functioned as wealth pumps that funneled treasure from various parts of the world to the imperial core. But those wealth pumps develop constituencies and dependents, so they can't just turn off when the flow of lucre begins to slow, and as a result they're forced to target the interior of the empire. These engines of exploitation, which have for years been going into poorer countries and exploiting them for profit, are being forced to turn to the US heartland because that's where the easiest money is. Now, instead of buying hospitals and dramatically raising prices while lowering quality in the global south, they do things like buy Red Lobster and suck out so much capital it dies, or set up cartels in the firefighting equipment manufacturing sector, driving up costs of equipment massively while also simultaneously creating shortages in both repair parts and finished vehicles (https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/did-a-private-equity-fire-truck-roll).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Society wouldn't collapse if we had to cut our oil (and coal and gas) consumption by 3/4.




This isn't true at all, and I don't think you have an accurate understanding of exactly how reliant modern industrial societies are on fossil fuels. You wouldn't necessarily end up in Mad Max land overnight, but you must have an extremely strong estimation of modern levels of social cohesion. How, exactly, would this 75% cut in living standards be distributed? How would your hypothetical society be able to handle the rise of voices talking about how this is all the fault of those coastal elites/rural poors/rootless cosmpolitans/blacks/whites/mexicans/women/trans/gays/christians/hindus? Don't forget the massive increase in the cost of food and actual famines that would result from the sudden cutting of 3/4 of hydrocarbons that are used to produce fertiliser. If you did not implement sweeping, incredibly unpopular changes to the basic rules and fundamental contracts of society you would experience an involuntary collapse as various power/influence groups compete for their share of the pie.


Would society survive that kind of cut? Yes, it would survive - but if you define "collapse" as an involuntary loss of social complexity (which most writers on the topic do), a 3/4 cut in fossil fuel consumption would immediately qualify.




Even among mainstream progressive climate scientists, and in the IPCC, the consensus is that it's unlikely we're getting the civilization-destroying disaster climate change scenarios.




My take on it is the one proposed by Greer in "riding the climate toboggan". Even if you ignore the long term trends (which won't matter in your lifetime anyway) the short term problems that are encountered along the way are actually quite severe - notice any major natural disasters recently? Fires, storms and floods are all going to be on the rise, and even the doomers don't think that this will end society, but the economic costs associated with these adverse weather events are going to be another piece of pressure adding to the strain.




But, like, people would notice very quickly that was the case and stop going outside. It'd suck, but 50% of the population wouldn't actually die, and it wouldn't destroy civilization.




What were the economic impacts of the Covid pandemic? Sure, society doesn't collapse during pandemics like that - but there are measurable negative impacts from these events, and while those negative impacts aren't a big deal for a strong and healthy society... I don't think we're living in a strong and healthy society anymore, and I don't see it getting better in a world with a changing climate, greater levels of natural disasters and substantially more expensive energy/material resources.




I mean, the actual answer is that AGI is going to be as or more significant a transformation than societal collapse, and even if I bought all of those ideas, which I don't, they're all coming after AGI.




That's a big bet - and for everyone's sake, I hope that not only is it correct, but that the alignment issue is comprehensively solved well before the consequences of these current trends make it a necessity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Thanks for this reply. I am indeed a Greer-nik




Welcome to the club. I've been posting along similar themes on here for several years, and it is nice to see someone else taking his points seriously. I've personally eaten vast numbers of downvotes for advocating his position on nuclear energy, but a lot of his other articles have gotten decent receptions here.




Localizing agriculture and manufacturing are really important for preserving the innovations that this civilization has built, and we are really not doing that at all.




I think that this is something that can only be done by people in their own individual lives. I'm personally doing what I can (though part of me protests and says I could be doing more...), and while it would be nice if society actually turned around and wanted to implement this, I don't think the incentive structures and interest groups that actually run and control western governments would endorse this in the slightest.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I believe the actual answer to this is "Private Equity firms". Where the money eventually goes after that is incredibly complicated to track (by design), but last I checked they played a fairly important role in cost inflation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why should our allies care about what we want when we demonstrate such hostility?




Because they're completely and totally dependent upon the US economically and militarily. They have no hand they can play without being wiped out, and the previous administration has done far worse to them - preventing the Europeans from buying Russian gas is a hundred times worse for them than whatever Trump is doing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that the defence and moral justification of what Israel has done in Gaza is an extremely bad thing for the jews in the long term for these (and other) reasons. Setting a precedent that inconvenient minorities can just be liquidated and murdered to acquire more living space for your ethnicity is not, in my opinion, going to be particularly pleasant for the diaspora - especially when you look at how quickly antisemitism is rising around the world. Most people agreed with "Never again" as a general principle, but if it turns out that it just meant "Never again to us, we can do it to others" a lot of that support is going to evaporate, and fast.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That could explain a small percentage of the difference, but not all. Several of these "proposals" were actually specific policies - minimum wage increases, protections for unionising workers, paid sick leave, etc.


The main difference is that the DNC is hopelessly and unaccountably corrupt. Again, they preferred to lose the election rather than take any action at all on Gaza. If a left-wing political party attempts to make the argument that genocide is a worthwhile trade for maybe potentially having a slightly lower rate of inflation (this was the official Kamala Harris position) there's no point to them even existing. They're hopelessly co-opted by vested interests, and there's no possibility of changing the party from within due to the corruption of the DNC establishment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


kind of hard to erase being caught trying to kill a child* when it's international news




Not at all! International news will actually help you erase the murder of children - look at how Hind Rajab's death was reported as the death of a "Palestinian woman" in the international press/media despite her being five years old.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Actually you'll find that vast swathes of it just unaccountably vanish into the private pockets of well connected individuals. Not only is that spending not worthwhile, the beneficiaries of it often use their newfound wealth to ensure their continued access to the levers of power and ability to give themselves more. It's strictly socially negative and solely for the good of private interests who are actively looting societal commons. Plenty of it wouldn't be worthwhile even if it was used!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But this is not the topic of the day, instead I was thinking on how, strategically, the Left could respond.




Destroy the democratic party. I'm serious - that's the most effective option they could take right now. Blow the entire thing up and make sure that nobody in the executive or administration of the party as it exists now has any influence, control or respect in the new party which replaces it.


Left wing political ideals and policies poll substantially better than the DNC does, and for good reason. The corruption and malfeasance in the DNC is so great that it simply is no longer fit for purpose. The DNC heard their base's views on Gaza, told them to fuck off, then got destroyed in the election. They handed Trump win after win(negotiating the ceasefire, banning TikTok) for no reason other than their own corruption. The DNC party establishment would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie - they want to ensure they can continue to personally advance themselves even if it means throwing every single left wing political value into the toilet. They need to go. Yesterday.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The alleged reasoning is that the pardons only apply to those already convicted convicted of a crime




I have no opinion on the actual legal validity of this claim, but team Trump would be perfectly happy if this standard gets used because now all of Biden's ass-covering pardons are invalid and politically motivated prosecutions of the Biden family and Fauci are back on the table... which is why I think this novel legal strategy will fail or be withdrawn in short order.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The first lesson of history is that nobody ever learns any lessons from history.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Further, the knowledge that lawfare is a thing and that the state will come after you creates a huge chilling effect. How many people would be afraid to go to a protest if they had reason to believe that the state would start combing through their past to find something they could be jailed for? Or that tge state might well just make something up. Even expressing support might make you a target.




This is a good point and I feel like further adding that this was actually done to Trump in his first term - people who earnestly and in good faith signed up to work in this administration knew that the Eye of Sauron would be pointed directly at them. It claimed multiple scalps as well. While a lot of the people who ended up in trouble had actually done bad things, if the same standard and scrutiny was placed on just about anyone in Washington you'd be able to find deeds that were worse or just as bad.