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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
User ID: 896


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Nigger" isn't harsh because of the sound or the meaning, it is harsh because of the history. "Bugger" used to refer to male homosexuality (which is not the primary meaning in modern British English) has the same issue.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Sherlock TV show fandom had almost as strong a Britpicking culture as the Harry Potter fandom - if you wanted to write fanfic you were expected to get it Britpicked, and there were lots of British fans willing to Britpick it for you. But I guess the Doyle's Sherlock Holmes doesn't have the same kind of organised fandom.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Private medical insurance in the UK pays you £100-200 a day if you receive NHS treatment for a covered condition. Almost nobody takes up the offer.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Basically, they have terrible pricing models for rating the evilness of actions.




NOOOOOO. You just gave me a brainworm about trying to develop a market risk or counterparty credit model downstream of such a terrible pricing model and now I want to drink a pitcher of sulphuric acid or zip all my confidential e-mails and leak them to FT Alphaville or something similarly stupid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In contemporary America, you expect everybody to know and accept that murder is bad.




Gangster movies are almost always written with an implied moral framework where murder is not bad if done in a way which complies with the unwritten rules of gangsterism - with the paradigmatic example being the various killing Michael Corleone is involved with in The Godfather.


The child murder in In Bruges was bad because Colin Farrell's character killed (a) the wrong person by mistake and (b) a child. A clean hit on the priest he had been paid to kill would not have been a problem in gangster movie world. Although I agree with other posters that In Bruges is not actually written in this moral framework, and is arguably satirising it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I thought it was fairly explicitly tied into Japanese spirituality via martial arts, so presumably some mix of Shinto and Buddhism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Cunt" would be at least a write-up in a white-collar workplace in the UK, and probably a firing offence for someone without unfair dismissal protection*.  The Australian usage is Australian-only. (There was a survey about what words were unacceptable on British TV even after the watershed, and "cunt", "nigger" and "Paki" were in a class of their own for offensiveness, well above "fuck")


The difference between the US and UK usage of "cunt" is that in the US the primary meaning is as a misogynistic slur (so the cuntiest cunt in America is Hilary Clinton) whereas the primary usage in the UK is as an generic slur for obnoxious and/or unpopular people (so the cuntiest cunt in the UK is Boris Johnson).


* Under British employment law, once you have been in post for two years you can't be fired for a single offence unless it meets the legal bar for "gross misconduct". Calling a male cow-orker a cunt would be misconduct, but would only be gross misconduct if your workplace had a written policy saying that foul language was gross misconduct.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That usage of "bugger" - basically as a milder version of the nonsexual use of "fuck" also exists in BrE. When turned into a noun, it becomes "buggeration".* "Bugger off" means "go away", with the implication that the person you are telling to bugger off is annoying but not necessarily hostile - you could tell a friend trying to strike up a conversation while you are busy to bugger off but not to fuck off.


* "Bugger" as a noun is an extremely severe homophobic slur unless it is obvious from the context that you are talking about Ender's Game. @gattsuru below is correct to point out that "silly bugger" is another exception.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The difference is that the innocent meaning does not exist in BrE, so even where the innocent meaning is clear from context, British ears default to the obscene one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The classic is "fanny" which means "bum" in USE and "vagina" in BrE, although it is now an old-fashioned term that suggests "Carry On" films rather than pornos. But American tourists talking about their fanny packs will definitely still be laughed at.


Also "jock" is a stereotypical high-school athlete or a piece of male underwear in USE and a mild slur for Scottish people in BrE (and a nickname for "John" in Scots dialect, like "Jack" is in standard BrE). I don't know how you get an easy innuendo out of that, but it should be possible.


Also endorsing @FtttG below - "pants" has a lot of potential.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Media coverage makes three arguments for a mild daughter preference in the modern rich world:


    

  • When US IVF clinics offer sex selection at no or trivial extra cost, most patients choose girls. (Patients who explicitly seek out sex selection and are willing to pay a premium for it are mostly non-whites with a cultural preference for boys).
    • 

  • Adoption agencies say boys are harder to place than girls, and are able to extract more money from adoptive parents who get a healthy girl than they do from parents who get a healthy boy.
    • 

  • Last children skew female, suggesting that couples who have a girl are satisfied but couples who have a boy are more likely to try for a girl.
    • 



In the west it is an issue where people lie on surveys because "no preference" is definitely the politically correct answer (except for families with one child preferring the opposite sex for the second - "one of each" remains an acceptable, and common, preference for two-child families), but see for example this Korean poll showing a dramatic, recent shift in Korean preferences, with people now openly preferring daughters in surveys.


There is a lot of discussion about mechanism, but my suspicion is the dominant one is that most parents in cisHajnal societies have an own-sex preference, coupled with the feminist norm that having children is something women should make the decisions about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Chesterton's Fence is the obvious one: the sex ratio, and the genes that cause it, affect so many things that its impossible to predict the effects. Doing such a big change without being able to predict the effects is imprudent.




Chesterton's Fence doesn't apply here because we know why the 1:1 sex ratio exists - evolutionary equilibrium requires an equal chance of having grandchildren between boyparents and girlparents - and the reason serves no human purpose. At a more basic level Chesterton's Fence only applies to man-made fences, not facts of nature.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Based on my understanding of the restaurant industry which comes from Kitchen Nightmares, 86 means to temporarily take an item off the menu, normally due to a sold-out ingredient but on the show often due to an impulse decision by an insane manager or a gross kitchen screwup.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Rich people are morally obliged to contribute to society in ways which reflect the level and type of resources they control" is a social norm, as is "Influential people should form coalitions to punish non-contributing rich people". "This should be centralised and formalised through high taxes" is the political norm, and I don't think it enjoyed supermajority acceptance as a political norm in any time or place except 1945-1975.


The underlying social norms are a lot older than Andrew Carnegie. The Athenian liturgy system is a compulsory but informal version, Republican Rome doesn't institutionalise it but the idea that rich Romans should personally fund public entertainments is a major theme in Roman politics. Medieval feudalism is the idea that rich people should personally fund the very expensive military equipment (warhorse and steel armour) that they and their retainers perform compulsory military service with. (They were also expected to make large donations to the Church). The Victorian concept of noblesse oblige which is probably part of what inspired Carnegiesque philanthropy was based around the idea that rich people who no longer needed to work should take on prestigious-but-burdensome unpaid roles in local government.


The explicit and public rejection of the underlying norm by the Tech Right, with Musk saying that rich people should continue to invest their wealth in for-profit businesses and calling out Bill Gates for letting the side down by donating it, is historically unusual, and the rest of America co-ordinating to punish them would be historically normal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Social workers are sufficiently badly paid that they wouldn't be doing the job if they didn't genuinely believe that they were helping. I think this is a case where Occam's Razor points to mistake theory and not conflict theory.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Two doctor couples in the UK routinely hire a full-time nanny and a part-time housekeeper, and we have less inequality and higher taxes than you do, so there is something other than taxes or wage compression preventing Americans hiring servants.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The petit bourgeois (as defined by Marx) in modern society consists mostly of self-employed tradesmen and microbusiness owners. These are the most right-wing occupational group and largely define themselves in opposition to the PMC, which by stereotype consists of employees of large (public and private sector) organisations with large salaries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My suspicion is that the costs Presidential security imposes on third parties (road closures, airspace restrictions etc.) are significantly more than the Secret Service budget.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Israel's response to Palestinian terrorism was mostly to harden the outer perimeter by ending the use of Palestinian day-labour.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you normalise sex-selective IVF for white normies, families wanting two children will have one of each and most of the families wanting one child will choose a girl.  I suspect the same is true of black babymamas and well-assimilated Asians.


The problem is that you preferentially need to remove the bottom 20% of males to get the benefits of @Testing's idea, whereas this policy would preferentially remove above average males.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But do people really desire this? I would say the evidence points to people in general wanting to live around and interact with people in their own economic class, not live as a king among the poors.




America is unusual among societies with relatively high inequality in that the "rich" class arranges things to make it easier to avoid poors 100% of the time, not to make it easier to hire servants with the tradeoff of only being able to avoid the other poors 90% of the time. I don't know if this is because America has a cultural norm of fake egalitarianism which makes people want servants less, or if it is because America is worse at policing such that people are willing to make more tradeoffs to avoid poors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Arutyunian counts by the criteria I gave, even if GWB wasn't the actual target. His motives for trying to kill Saakashvili make perfect sense.


I think Oswald is marginal. He seems more of a nihilist who picked up communism as an expression his nihilism while living in the US, and then abandoned it as an expression of his nihilism while living in the USSR. And of course "was Oswald a communist or a nihilist" is something I can't find accurate information about with ordinary effort because it touches on Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Very much agreed. When was the last time someone sane enough to have comprehensible political motives that make sense tried to assassinate a US President? I think it was the turn-of-the-century anarchists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the athletes are doing most of the work - the guys running 2-hour marathons with supershoes were running sub-2:15 marathons without them.


Also these are $500 trainers - i.e. well within the budget of a middle-class American, an upper-middle-class Europoor, or a DIII college athletics programme - not $15 million F1 cars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Liberals don’t care about most of that. They have zero interest in fixing local majority minority schools.




I think this is false. The amount of money shovelled, with the full support of liberal elites and the votes of liberal non-elites, into uplifting children from historically disadvantaged groups (very much including white oiks and chavs in the UK - I'm not sure if class counts in the US) through education and anciliary services is more than we have spent on almost any other social problem except for elder poverty (which we have managed to bankrupt the west over, but we did at least solve the problem).


It is true that this spending has been ineffective for "bad apples and bad bets" reasons, but that doesn't imply zero interest in fixing poor schools, just an inability to triage.