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SkoomaDentist

The Greater Finnish Empire

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joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC 

				
User ID: 84


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
SkoomaDentist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
The Greater Finnish Empire

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 84


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We already have the Eurovision song contest. We don’t need another one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Gen X is old enough (just about) to be grannies




I know (personally) at least one Millennial granny and she isn’t even white trash or anything.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's West Coast Swing. Very PMC / "white". It's mostly danced to contemporary pop music and the form has changed enough that grumpy old timers at least used to complain that it barely resembles what was called WCS in the 70s / 80s (ie. it's definitely not retro).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What is this "Britain" country that you speak of?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Clinton's Oral Office sounded straightforward respectable




I maintain that the only people who cared about Clinton's shenanigans in his office were conservative Americans and even for them much of it was just a performative way to express their existing dislike of Clinton.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I have always assumed the reason for that not to be trans-curiosity, but the well-known fact that men like visual stimulation. "If I'm going to spend hours staring at a wizard's backside, she might as well be leggy and plump. And if I'm going to have to worry about which amour to play dress-up with, there better be cleavage."




Likewise if you had to actually play female avatars as having typically female behaviors, I'd wager few men would persist at that for very long.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Meanwhile I see artists collectively having a full blown psychotic break about AI, hence indie gaming dev awards banning any and all uses of AI etc.




It's quite revealing comparing the criticisms of AI from programmers vs from artists. From programmers the complaint is "I've tried AI and it sucks at doing X. Why are you trying to force me to use it for X?" when from artists it's "AI is bad because it steals from artists / has no soul / lacks creativity / other vague complaint. Nobody should be allowed to use AI."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So it's always been kind of surreal to me that they became principally associated with femboys and transbians and... programmers??. I've definitely met a few of the Discord creatures that wear these as a mark of identity.




Wait, are you saying that non-femboy / non-trans programmers actually wear thigh high socks instead of just memeing about it?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


[sound warning, rdrama warning, bright colors warning]




I have to ask: How can anyone use that site when it's explicitly been made so user hostile?


Truly, it is a wonder that The Motte is usable at all given the origin of the codebase.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Men, and teens, don't like to share their emotions.




Correction: Men and teens don't like to share their emotions in female-typical and approved way.


Get men together in a suitable context and they will share freely enough emotions but it won't be the same way women stereotypically do so.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


you can be sure that any time someone gets loud, aggressive, crazy, or weird, someone will start recording it and uploading it




You say that as if it was a bad thing. Frankly the world would be a getter place if loud, agressive crazy and weird people got immediately slapped (literally or figuratively) but since that doesn't look to be happening, the best we can hope is at least some face negative consequences via such videos.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For a similar example to the body cam discussion, see blind auditions. It's a nice view into the mind of the left - the way blind auditions were pushed, they most likely genuinely thought they would be good. And it's hard to argue that blind auditions aren't the most fair and meritocratic approach, which was a common primary justification.




Didn't blind auditions essentially succeed at what they were meant to do, ie. eliminate gender bias in classical musician auditions?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Exactly. There have been high quality sophisticated comics that have come out of US but Marvel and DC sure as hell aren't those.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Back in 2001 I had a lecturer in the university whose day job was as an engineering R&D department leader at Nokia (a company not exactly known for being "hip" or a hotbed of alternative culture). As an old school goth he naturally had long black hair and dressed in all black, with a suit jacket being his only reconciliatory gesture to corporate dresscode. Absolutely nobody batted an eye at his style.


As another example, Mikko Hyppönen has been a well known computer security researcher / expert / educator for three decades, whose hairstyle has stayed the same at least since 1995. In some ways you could call his entire career a fight against a type of counterculture.


So, yes, long hair absolutely was something you could have in many professional white collar jobs unless you perhaps happened to live in a particularly conservative place. It really was and is more about your overall conduct and presentation than about any particular subculture style attributes. As an extreme example, an acquaitance of mine was a hard core crust punk in the late 2000s. In his free time he was all about sticking it to the man, fighting the police (in a very physical sense), multiple large piercings, tattoos etc. I've also rarely met anyone who's exuded as much polite professionalism as he did in his professional role (with the piercings and all) as a technical documentation specialist for a Fortune 500 company.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Only if you consider 30+ years ago as ”quite recently”.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


using promises of goblin boobies




And I was just last week debating with myself if Yuri fiction was a step too far. Truly, I feel like practically a saint!


Also what is it with all the dysfunctional autist BS in web fiction? So. Much. Dysfunctional. Autism. You’d think getting through an engineering degree and working 20 years in the field would have prepared me, but no, even the nerdiest engineers seem like the most well adjusted normies compared to what seems to be the norm in web fiction circles.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Slightly below dead center, so I'm apparently a "Modern liberalist".


As with most such tests, it is inherently flawed by failing to distinguish between absolute and relative scale in the questions as well as the questions being much too vague. A Finn like me giving this set of answers means something very different from an American giving the exact same answers, yet the test tries to match both under the same absolute banners.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The root cause is Bluetooth, not the headphones. The only (partial) solutions to the problem require licensed codecs that must be supported on both sides of the connection and many prominent phone manufacturers are not interested in doing that (not least because to get benefit, all the headphones would have to support the same codec).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not sure if it's the absolute best but it sure is bang for buck: A good led headlamp bought directly from the Chinese specialist manufacturer. Much better quality than almost anything sold in Western stores for a much cheaper price (I paid 50e because I wanted fancy red light mode and high CRI but you can get good ones for just 30e). I hadn't realized just how useful it would be for everything from tinkering with small things to reading tiny text to trying to see the notes in the low contrast sheet music my guitar teacher had given me and how much more pleasant a good one is to use.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it's a high cost:high reward thing




It doesn't even have to be that high cost.


When I bought mine I was lucky that a local magazine (well regarded for their comparative tests) had done a large comparative review just a year or two earlier. The top two were fancy high end beds costing 5000e or more. The third winner was the highest end model Ikea sold (for around 1000e back then). No points for guessing which one I bought and have been happy with since.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


my experience on reddit is that most of the time someone gets called a bot or a shill, the accused is really an actual human who simply dared to deviate 0.01% from hivemind-approved window of opinions




My experience has been the exact opposite. The calls are about obvious giveaways in how the accused comments / writes the post and how all their replies are the exact same non-committal bullshit that LLMs are prone to generating.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The police do not issue you the ID card or the driver's license, that is done by different agents of the state that are not empowered with its monopoly on violence.




Here the police are the ones that issue me the ID, not any other agents of the state. IOW, the police have multiple duties, some which aren't in any way related to their monopoly on violence.


The claim was notably about the police / law enforcement being definitionally violent, ie. police anywhere and everywhere is always violent which is very easy to find counterexamples for that invalidate the claim.




What jobs done by the police do you think are non-violent?




Granting that (entirely optional) national ID card for one. Another is acting as a witness in various situations (eg. someone hits your car and you or they call the police to take written statements and observations on the spot so that it isn't just your vs the other guy's claims two months later in court about who has to pay damages). Guiding traffic (as opposed to observing or giving tickets) in case of major disruptions (eg. an accident requires redirecting traffic to prevent further casualties). Taking criminal complaints. Handling lost and found goods (a typical example would be finding some person's lost wallet and taking it to the police station).


Yes, one of police's duties is to enforce the state's monopoly on violence but that's far from the only thing they do. It may be that it's the only thing they do in some places but that's not part of the definition of police, just a feature of policing in that specific place (the way police behave in US vs Europe differs massively and unless I'm severely mistaken even the difference between the police in US vs Canada is striking).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


for not having a permit or not having an ID card, it granting people these things is still a violent act.




Ah, but here's the important bit: said ID card is entirely optional (around here). It's one way to identify yourself but not even the most common one. There are no negative consequences to not having one (in fact mine is past its validity date by a year or two). Nonetheless the police are the ones that grant it (because they have the means and existing infrastructure to verify the person's identity securely). If you claim that asking for an ID is an act of violence, does that mean the delivery guy who wanted to see my ID before giving me the parcel was violent? I don't think anyone reasonable would support that.


A claim that police is definitionally violent and that "every single thing the police do is something being done against the will of the person it is being done to", is like trying to prove a negative. Any counterexample invalidates it. In the case of an ID card, the thing being done is verifying that I am in fact me and it is done at my behest, not against my will. Likewise if I were to end up in a minor traffic accident, I'd call the police to witness the situation so that the other party can't make outrageous claims. They are not there in the capacity of violence (nobody is going to get arrested) but to act as impartial witnesses.


It may be that the police in US has degenerated so much that they are only capable of violence but that's a peculiarity of that particular style of policing, not a definitional feature of the concept of "the police".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nonetheless, the act of granting a drivers license is not remotely ”definitionally violent” and to even suggest that granting an ID card (for those rare situations where a drivers license isn’t accepted as an ID) is violent is completely ridiculous. The claim was that ”every single thing the police do is something being done against the person it’s being done to”.


Police do many things, some of which are violent, but police in the US leaning so heavily on that side does not mean that police is definitionally violent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wasn’t aware that having my passport and ID card renewed or being granted a drivers license was ”definitionally violent”…