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MadMonzer

Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is a very strange word use problem that I suspect stems from the stick up the arse of the USMC. US Marines are not an elite amphibious expeditionary force like the modern Royal Marines, or seaborne troops who specialise in boarding actions like the OG marines. (In so far as that latter expertise still exists, it sits in the law enforcement function of the Coast Guard). US Marines are, in fact, soldiers in the traditional English meaning of the word, which is the sense that Dr Deveraux of ACOUP and the Angry Staff Officer are using. But as part of their effort to maintain a distinctive culture, mission etc. from the army the USMC profoundly object to being called "soldiers".


My guess is that someone sympathetic to the USMC started using "warrior" as a general term for soldiers and marines and it stuck, rather than someone deliberately trying to end up on the wrong side of the soldier/warrior distinction.


When British politicians want to talk about soldiers in a way which includes things like the Royal Marines and the RAF Regiment, they tend to say "troops".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is an alternative reading where Scrooge represents Puritan austerity (which was specifically opposed to the secular aspects of Christmas celebrations, with Cromwell's major-generals sending their most pious soldiers out to confiscate overly-rich Christmas dinners) and the Weberian "Protestant work ethic". The arguments Scrooge uses on the pleasant portly gentlemen were real political positions used by real right-liberals as the basis for important legislation at the time Dickens was writing, and the real people saying these things saw themselves as pious Protestants and justified their positions in Weberian terms.


Given the social context Dickens was writing in, the anti-Weberian reading seems more plausible than the antisemitic reading, although the nature of great fiction is that both are present in the text, and it is almost certain that both were present in Dickens' brain.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Jews see all conspiracy theories as latently antisemitic because of bitter experience - most conspiracy theorists and conspiracy-focused political movements will eventually graduate to Jewish conspiracies and old-fashioned anti-semitism. This process appears to be happening to Zoomer MAGA as we speak.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So "declare war on Islam" means treating Muslims roughly the same way you want to treat all nonwhite immigrants in the US? That isn't a standard sense of the term "war".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Most Israelis marrying outside Israel are heterosexual secular Jews who don't want a religious marriage for one of any number of good and sufficient reasons, or who the official Rabbinate refuses to marry for reasons which I am sure the Rabbis find very persuasive. I have met multiple couples in such marriages, including one case where the Israeli Rabbinate considered a British-born Reform Rabbi insufficiently Jewish to marry an Israeli Jew.


That Israel recognises foreign marriages, including foreign marriages between Israeli Jews, and therefore including same-sex marriages, is a load-bearing part of the social contract between secular and religious Jews in Israel.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


American Jews support the American left (for now, although they are shifting right). Jews everywhere else are right wing. Especially the Israeli Jews.




Secular, Conservative and Reform Jews support the left. Modern Orthodox Jews support the right, although they only do so noisily in Israel. Haredi and Hasidic Jews support whoever the Rebbe sells their votes to, which in both the US and Israel in 2025 is mostly the right. (In 20th century Israel the auction was more blatant and sometimes the left was the high bidder).


The reason why American Jews are left-wing is that they are less likely to be Orthodox. I rounded up some statistics here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This is true, but the institution also wasn't averse to competent people at that time. If it were, he probably would have left and gone somewhere else, as many competent people have done recently.




The fact that an institution (namely King's) was averse to competent women at the time was utterly fundamental to the story of DNA. Franklin was in the process of winding up her research on DNA and moving to Birckbeck at the time Watson and Crick made their discovery, which was a clear downgrade in institution quality and a move she would not have made if she had felt welcome at King's. It isn't clear how much the issue was pervasive sexism vs. pervasive anti-semitism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think "liberalism" (here being used to refer to the prevailing value system of the pro-establishment left in the early 21st century Anglosphere) rejects the masculine virtues. The problem is that "liberalism" has decided that it needs to focus on promoting the masculine virtues in women through "Lean in" culture, physically badass women in popular entertainment etc.


The strong form of this claim is that liberalism hasn't rejected men or masculinity, but it has rejected masculinity in men.


The weaker form of this claim is that the culture-directing institutions of liberalism don't actually reject masculinity in men, but it has decided that it doesn't have the bandwidth to promote it given the dire need to create more girlbosses and warrior women.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The rise and fall of trans self-ID was a phenomenon that happened entirely within the subset of the Blue Tribe who might use tumblr to share something other than cat pictures or pr0n.  I don't think these people have gone away, I just think a lot of them are identifying as something other than trans. In the educated British circles I move in, "neurospicy" people (and particularly "neurospicy" people with vaginas - noughties autism advocacy was a bit boy-centric) can now identify with and be proud of their "disability" without needing to question their gender identity.


[The more cynical would say that this is because the Yookay will give you a subsidised Motability car for having a mild mental illness but not for being transgender, but as far as I can see the same vibe shift is happening among people who wouldn't think of rorting Motability]


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Put simply, HBD is the most straightforward way to explain the vast differences in societal development we see at a global level:






Countries with lots of Muslims and Blacks tend to be hellscapes with ...




I agree with you that Muslim-majority countries usually underperform non-Muslim countries with similar biological stock (North Africa vs Southern Europe, Muslim Africa vs Christian Africa, Pakistan vs India, Iran vs Indian Parsis), but critically Muslims are not a biological group and "Muslim-majority countries underperform" is a cultural explanation, not an HBD one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've never missed the last train while sober enough to drive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The full guidelines give offence levels of 43 and 38 for 1st and 2nd degree murder respectively. Cross-referencing against the table in your link gives a life sentence as the only option for 1st degree murder and 235-293 months (c. 20-29 years, of which 85% will be served behind bars) for someone with a clean record whose 1st offence is 2nd degree murder.


I don't know whether US (or NY) law knocks premediated murder down from 1st degree to 2nd on the basis of "diminished responsibility because he was batshit in a way which falls short of legal insanity". But that looks like Luigi's best hope.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"This is a canary in the coal mine. People are getting fed up. There's going to be more of this. CEOs better take note."




Boogaloo rhetoric is bad, and I think PMC Blue Tribers engaging in it may be a new low, but it is very LARPy. If everyone is thinking "I'm mad as hell, but I'm too pro-social to raise the black flag and start slitting throats myself. There are other people like me are just as angry and not as restrained so I'm hopefully anticipating things going down when someone else does." then nothing goes down, or worst-case you get a bunch of disorganised pseudo-political violence by people who aren't quite right in the head, which is what we are seeing in the US now.


I don't know why 2020's America, a society which produces mass material prosperity on a grander scale than any other in human history, is full of people (on both sides of the aisle) claiming that they are suffering to the point where raising the black flag and starting slitting throats would be an understandable response. But empirically 2020's America is not full of people who are actually suffering to the point where raising the black flag and starting slitting throats is a likely response.


But given that all the cool kids online are raising metaphorical black flags in their mothers' basements, it doesn't surprise me that people who should know better are talking like this. And given the taboo against assassinating elected politicians, health insurance CEOs are the closest thing to an acceptable target in places where the high-status politics is pro-establishment left.


I don't think this is particularly a partisan issue - online pro-2nd amendment culture definitely includes sharing wish-fulfillment fantasies about how one more Blue outrage will finally drive other Reds (but definitely not the poaster) to take back the country by force of arms. The one time I went shooting IRL with American 2nd amendment activists, everyone spent the drive to and from the range talking smack about shooting Democrats, but reverted to talking like grownups as soon as their hand was anywhere near an actual gun. I particularly remember ESR's post about armed anti-lockdown protests in Michigan because he has written a lot about healthy gun culture and is definitely smart enough to know better than to engage in Boogaloo fantasies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The way my model of Trump thinks about dealmaking is that if the weaker party walks away smiling, the stronger party has screwed up.


This is a phenomenological model based on looking at his behaviour across four careers - I don't have a strong theory about what psychological traits make him think this way, so I doubt we have a real difference of opinion here. I see "Trump is viscerally attracted to strength and repelled by weakness" as a (probably correct) mechanistic explanation for why he behaves in the way predicted by my phenomenological model, not a rival model.


Fred Trump's money and connections meant that Donald has always had the option of refusing to play if he isn't the biggest dick in the game. Negotiations with China are the first time he has had no choice but to enter a negotiation where pointing his finger and saying "You're Fired" isn't an option, and he got a lousy deal in his first term and appears to be surrendering like a Frenchman in his second term.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The point I am making is that the Amish communities that have tractors don't have tractor factories. If every community tried to regress to an Amish tech level, society as a whole would end up regressing further than that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Teens did work more, and that was a good thing in terms of the transition to adulthood. I don't think they did the jobs that are now being done by illegal immigrants. Teens couldn't do seasonal agricultural work or heavy construction unless it was in their own family or a close friend's business. The classic teen jobs in the 1990s UK I grew up in were seasonal tourism-related work, waiting tables, and retail, which AFAIK are now more likely to be done by undergraduates. Some older teens did warehouse work or entry-level office admin, but that tended to be restricted to the summer between school and university.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trump managed to lose Canadians who would naturally be MCGA Conservatives by shitposting about invading.  That is why Carney beat Poilievre.


While binge-watching Canadian anti-Trump Youtube videos one dull evening, I was surprised that most of them were on channels that had previously been posting right-coded patriotic content up to and including British Empire nostalgia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is amazing how many literary novels include literature professors having sex with hot coeds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes - there is unmet demand for non-shit urban living in the US, which is why the places with less-shit urban living (like Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn, the bits of SF with no shit) command such a large price premium relative to upper-middle-class suburbs. Some of the families living in McMansions in the Woodlands would choose to live in 1300 sq ft 3-bed apartments in a neighborhood like Neuilly or Holland Park if the option existed.


In contrast, the UK has unmet demand for American-style areas where even the urban core is auto-orientated and you never need to get out of your car except to walk across a parking lot, so Milton Keynes commands a significant price premium even though it is a miserable soulless commuter town.  If someone built Indianapolis in a green field in the English Midlands, it would fill up quickly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
While I am 80% with BurdensomeCount on this point, the cultural sensitivity is a furphy. The Americans don't do cultural sensitivity, they have been powerful enough not to need to since the 1920's, and the rest of the pro-American world is used to dealing with that.


The point is that the American-led system used to be (by design) win-win for the countries participating in it - very much including the US. The EU and first-world Asia don't pay directly for US military protection, but the willingness to trade goods and services for portraits of Benjamin Franklin is part of the package deal. This would all be clearer if the BEP put Nuclear Gandhi* on the forthcoming $200 bill instead of Donald Trump.


Trump doesn't like win-win arrangements (and nor do his dumber supporters in the country), and wants to replace the status quo with a setup where the US wins and the EU and first-world Asia lose. The danger is that he blows up a system which (and I am pulling numbers out of my ass here) generates 6% of GDP in net benefits in order to extract 1.5% of GDP in tribute.


There is a separate issue that including Red China in the system has turned out to probably be a mistake, because the CCP was talking about win-win outcomes while seeking win-lose ones quietly. But Trump isn't trying to kick the Chinese out - China gets a better deal than traditional US allies do.


Looking at dysfunction in domestic politics, America is less governable than any other large democracy except France - even with a trifecta, neither party can pass a deficit-reducing budget. The cost is eaten by UST holders accepting a lousy return. You could try to replace that with actual extractive imperialism, but @BurdensomeCount and I come from a culture that had some idea how to do that right (and how and why it ceased to be profitable in the first half of the twentieth century), and you don't. The skill level issues America experiences when it tries to do imperialism are well-known.


* The adoptive child of Sid Meier, born at Microprose HQ, and therefore American under the 14th amendment.  Dead in later versions of Civ, and therefore eligible to be on a banknote.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are a number of options here, assuming that government schools exist. ("Every school a charter school" type approaches are clearly possible, but they don't have a particularly good record in practice) In order of desirability I would put them as:


    

  1. Elected politicians of the normal level of competence for national politics (or state politics in well-run US state) supervise teachers
    2. 

  2. Headteachers/school principals supervise teachers and nobody supervises them
    3. 

  3. The sort of person who becomes a manager in a large school district supervises teachers
    4. 

  4. The sort of crazy retiree who ends up holding unpaid local elected office in a small town supervises teachers. PTA mums supervising teachers is a minor variant of this, which is why British schools ended up sidelining elected parent-governors.
    5. 



In the UK, (1) got us acceptable outcomes under Blair's rotation of education secretaries, and very good outcomes under Gove, (2) got us okay outcomes for most kids but some schools decided not to teach the kids to read, (3) got us "The perfect Ofsted lesson - how to impress school inspectors by never, ever teaching the kids anything" and (4) is outside the Overton window.


I suspect most Motteposters would disagree with me and rate (4) above (3). They may be right in a US context.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't think the real contention was that America CAN'T build.




There are three issues here - a skill level issue where the hard costs of a big project are a lot higher than they would be in a country that didn't suck, a political culture issue where either NIMBYs kill the project or soft costs explode fighting them off, and a bloat issue where projects get overspecified because it isn't anyone's job to control costs.


As regards large-scale civil engineering, the US has all three problems, such that the overall cost of new roads is 3-5x the cheapest European countries * and the cost of new rail infrastructure is 5-10x (10-20x in NYC).


With data centres, I suspect the skill level issue is mitigated because Google and suchlike can hire first-rate people to do unglamorous work in a way neither the government nor the big construction contractors can. The NIMBY issue can be managed by building in red states, or by Big Tech buying the Government of California en bloc. I suspect Google eats the bloat, and Elon personally trims bloated projects at 3am with his hands while shitposting with his feet, or some other similar feat of workaholism.


* Per Alon Levy, these are Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the less corrupt parts of Italy. France is slightly better than average, Germany slightly worse, and the UK shockingly bad when compared to anywhere except North America.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Amish are commensals living on the fringe of a technological society. If the whole world regressed to late medieval technology, we would get late medieval outcomes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In a community without widespread knowledge of genetics, or one like ours where most people learn genetics in school but compartmentalise it as dangerous knowledge only be used on biology exams, "family" or "blood" or "lineage" or equivalent is the emic unit and genes are an etic unit. To be emic, it has to be something that the community under discussion bellyfeels.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think there is any disagreement here. In Texas you have Texas Democrats who want to build up in their cities (and Texas Republicans don't try to stop them) and Texas Republicans who want to build out in their cities (and Texas Democrats don't try to stop them). But in the deep blue states (definitely including CA, OR and NY - I am not an expert on the US-wide situation) - and the rest of the Anglosphere with the appropriate recolouration - you have blue state Democrats who mostly don't want to build up in their cities (and blue state Republicans try to stop them when they do, and sometimes succeed) and blue state Republicans who are kind of meh about building out in their cities (and blue state Democrats try to stop them when they do, and often succeed).


This is unusual because it is a difference between blue state and red state political culture, not a difference between blue tribe and red tribe beliefs.