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TheAntipopulist

Voltaire's Viceroy

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TheAntipopulist


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Voltaire's Viceroy

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 02:32:36 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 373


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For instance, I came from /r/moderatepolitics . It has a similar nature to The Motte, but with a different moderation style. You can argue almost anything if you do it in a very specific way, but the mods are both hypersensitive to and arbitrarily define what is and isn't a personal attack. It leads to things like not being able to accuse someone of being disingenuous




Limiting personal attacks and heat between posters is a good policy, one which I wish the Motte would follow more closely. It's almost never productive to accuse someone of being disingenuous if your goal is test ideas, rather than to "win debates" in some nebulously defined way.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
European dependence on Russian energy was an obvious vulnerability. The Soviets never cut off supplies during the Cold War since there was never a conflict as divisive as Ukraine is today, while when Russia invaded Ukraine it did weaponize energy flows. The US was right to oppose gas dependence and stuff like the Nordstream pipeline, in terms of both liberal idealism and simple power politics.


Most of what you've written here isn't wrong, but it's mixed with a lot of rhetoric implying the US is a uniquely evil, conniving nation that wanted to sabotage Good Guy Russia from living in peace and harmony with the rest of Europe.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Their preference for welfare over weapons can be seen as rational, since the only country they have any realistic chance of fighting a major war with in the foreseeable future is Russia, and Russia is not strong enough to seriously endanger anything more than the Baltic states.




I mean, you're not wrong. There's not much of a European identity, so nations are happy to treat every nation to their east as a buffer state against Russia. And if the buffers haven't fallen yet then there's no need to really worry.


As a (classical) liberal I had hoped that Europe would rise to the call of a changing world order, but it seems they're happy enough to rest on their laurels as 2, or really 3, illiberal powers run roughshod over the planet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Most of the earlier parts of his post has telltale signs of not being AI generated, it's only in the latter parts where it looks more like a mix between AI and human.


IMO the incisiveness is what really matters. AI is good at structuring sentences but bad at naturally coming up with incisive ideas on-par with the average higher quality substack or poster here. A little bit of AI use shouldn't trigger a modhat, though I'm fine with a post that looks entirely AI-made and which has no real ideas other than vague AIisms being modded.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Counterplan: Stop the war, and abandon US involvement in the Middle East more broadly.


    

  1. Doesn't matter much politically since Trump can just emphasize how much destruction was wrought on Iran and MAGA will buy it while the Dems would never buy any explanation he would ever give anyways. MAGA has been very accommodating to Trump in this war, and the isolationist excuse of "we're not the world police any more" is right there.
    2. 

  2. Doesn't matter much if the US abandons the Middle East.
    3. 

  3. Doesn't matter much if the US abandons the Middle East.
    4. 

  4. Higher oil prices hurt a little bit in the short term, but in the medium term more oil producers will come online if oil prices remain high, and the US can more efficiently deal with high oil prices through electrification subsidies, which would be a far more efficient use of money than everything we've spent on Middle East adventures in the past few decades.
    5. 



All this assumes a relatively worst-case scenario of Iran remaining ascendant afterwards and other countries not reacting. In practical terms it's likely that a coalition of Gulf nations come in and try to deal with Iran tolling the straits if it's clear the US won't. They're just free-riding now because they think the US will spend the blood and treasure so they don't need to.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
First off your link is broken and is pointing to this article when I think this article was your intention.




is this a good example of Trump playing 4D chess.




It's never "4D chess" when it comes to Trump. The 4D chess argument is cope MAGAs use when Trump does something blatantly foolish or contrary to MAGA principles. That's not to say the actions Trump takes never have beneficial second-order effects. But Trump is clearly flying by the seat of his pants, as basically all leaders have done, even the greatest ones you can think of. At most they have 1 or 2 major priorities that they angle towards.




a strong Europe is in Americas interests




Agreed, but this would be a lot less true if Trump shreds the US alliance system. Also, it must contend with Trump promoting pro-Russian political parties like AfD and Fidesz that tend to naturally be anti-American (though that may be becoming less true these days), and which try to sabotage the EU. Without the EU individual European countries just won't matter that much in the modern world. It'd be like if every US state was independent. The EU has problems, but the only solution that would keep Europe relevant is reform, not obliteration.


Europeans claimed the Ukraine war woke them up, and to some extent it did, but 4+ years after Russian tanks rolled across the border it's pretty clear that the awakening was only moderate at best. It's not clear if much of anything could shake them out of their preference for welfare over weapons, but each reminder driving home the current state of the world is not a bad thing.


As to whether the US needs to open the straits, the answer is probably "no" as long as the US is willing to lose some face and perhaps abandon the Middle East entirely, the latter of which is something I've been advocating for for like a decade.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Nothing I have around me I have built myself; It's all just bought.






Satisfaction is when you (either alone or in a group; sometimes even not you yourself but someone very closely related to you) have created something lasting, look back on it and, to quote a well known book: And He saw that it was good. It's having build a house, or planted a tree.




Disagree here on 2 points.


First, a lot of people (myself as an example) really DGAF that they buy most of the things they own. I might get a sense of accomplishment from building something, but it's more from the skill expression of having done it (and the convenience it will bring me, but that's a different discussion) than the fact that "I" made "the thing".


Second, you're overestimating how much our ancestors made themselves. Barter amongst the tribe was a constant occurrence, and there was even a decent amount of trade between tribes although that was less important on a day-to-day basis. "As long as there have been humans, there has been trade" is as close to a universal as you can get. It would be weird for a species that got a lot of satisfaction from making things themselves to have a big emphasis on specialization even in the archeological record.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fully agreed. If I was an animal in the wild then it very well may be true that life would be consistently painful enough that suicide was the better choice in the long term. Maybe this could even be extended to medieval peasants and early factory workers. But today? Modern life has so many conveniences and entertainment options that we're all functionally living in a cornucopia. I do 5-10 hours of real work per week to maintain a solidly middle class lifestyle, then spend the remainder of my time doing whatever I want.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It will correct itself in a generation or two




I highly doubt this will happen automatically, as birthrates were a nonissue basically everywhere 100 years ago, but now they're affecting basically every society. The Amish + Orthodox Jews seem exempt for now, but they're very strange societies that both see a decent chunk of people leaving the farm every generation, and which aren't sustainable plans for entire societies -- a lot of the Orthodox Jewish birthrate is propped up by insane welfare leeching, for instance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Spicy AF take, and one that I fully agree with! A lot of parents will say that kids are worth it overall in some metaphysical sense, even while they complain constantly about all the object-level problems kids cause. I've heard a lot of parents claim that you only like kids after they've been born, that your body flips a switch or something and forces you to be happy about them. Maybe this is true for some people, but it kind of sounds like a combination of cope + reciting the only socially acceptable line. What, are people going to say "no, I wish I didn't have kids"? I've pressed a few parents in private and it has sort of seemed like they angle that way, although they'll never explicitly say anything like it since that makes it sounds like they don't love their kids.




Anyways I find it likely that the cratering of birthrates across the entire world is a mass viral sensation where the lie is breaking down.




It's almost certain that the increasing quality of childless life in terms of entertainment is a big contributor. I don't think a lot of people remember how boring everything was even just 20-30 years ago, but now we have an endless stream of high-quality entertainment constantly at our fingertips. With that competition, kids frequently get bumped off the to-do list. A lot of people would like to have them as a "feather in the cap" sort of achievement, but they require an absurd amount of commitment relative to literally anything else that the opportunity costs are just too great.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Gamers and neckbeards complained endlessly about these things on online fora, but curiously the gaming journalists always seemed to take the side of the industry, calling gamers entitled manchildren for caring about this stuff.




This is not my recollection. Some sites probably did this, but there was always a significant chunk that decried this sort of stuff either implicitly (e.g. consistently highlighting bad industry practices) or explicitly. I remember Oblivion Horse Armor being pointed out by journalists as a bad omen. I don't recall them doing any sort of concerted, major push for "you need to just accept this, losers!" The Xbox One reveal was similarly panned. Heck, some former journalists became full time commentators calling all that stuff out, like Jim Sterling.


Probably the biggest difference between the mainstream gaming press and regular gamers was the reaction to Mass Effect 3's ending. I recall most sites at the time going "meh", like it was bad but not terrible. Eventually they basically got bullied into adopting the popular view that it was the video game Crime of the Decade, but there was indeed that initial week or 2 where they underplayed it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't know what exactly is your point with this post. A lot of people presumably went through similar phases that you did, although I doubt anyone had a nearly identical path. I remember GamerGate vividly as well as New Atheism, but I never seriously watched people like Sargon of Akkad or Peter Molyneux. Is your post just to talk about that entire vague blob? Sure, OK, I'll add my 2c.


GamerGate didn't start in 2008-2013. The inciting incident was in 2014, although it's functionally irrelevant other than as a red herring for people to describe what the "movement" was "really about". I'm sure some people were genuinely concerned about ethics in video game reviews, with the reviewers being a little too cozy with the developers and not making that clear. In practice, the movement always really was primarily concerned with feminist/leftist encroachment in video games. Anita Sarkeesian's breakthrough kickstarter in 2012 ought to mentioned alongside that. There were likely smaller events as well, but Anita Sarkeesian was when I first really started noticing the culture war battle lines being drawn. In any case, there was a lot of embarrassment in polite spaces about being seen as "against feminism" in the days of proto-woke, so people liked to pretend GamerGate was about something else, but no, that was never really true in practice. I'm glad we can all just drop the guise and talk about that stuff openly now. It's perfectly valid to push back on the types of cultural changes that Feminists would want, which is mostly redesigning characters so they don't appeal to male sexual preferences, as well as accepting sectarian leftist propaganda as a passive backdrop.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Woke leftists usually get away with quite a bit more than a median poster here.




Certainly not! If you have any examples, I'd like to see them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think most people think it's fine, including you.




Very strongly disagree with this, especially when it comes to myself. I happen to be something of an authority on myself, actually.


I think if woke leftists came around and starting speaking like this, they would get banned pretty quickly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You can criticize the speaker as well, there's nothing wrong with that.




No, personal criticism of the person you're debating with almost never goes well. It breeds defensiveness, vitriol, and one-upsmanship.




Yeah, that's what Amadan said, "We just don't always agree with you what constitutes an attack".




OK, they're free to do that, but I do not think this is within the realm of "reasonable people could disagree". I'd say most people would think these types of statements cross a line. At the very least they don't add productively to the conversation, and it would be better without them.




Sometimes I think you just read posts, decide who's expressing the "conservative" (bad) position, and reflexively argue the opposite.






a lot of people think you are and always have been a bad faith borderline troll






you are either being astoundingly clueless or just flat out disingenuous.






You have actually spouted a ton of bullshit






Transparent straw man. Stop this kind of disingenuous whining.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Right, but personal criticism is.




Attack the argument, not the speaker! I think personal criticism should be avoided as much as possible as it never tends to be on the positive side of the light:heat ratio. So no, I don't think "it's personal criticism" is a great defense.




Replacing [thing that can be good or bad, depending on how you do it] with [thing that's always bad no matter how you do it] completely changes the discussed scenario.




Again, I really disagree with the notion that calling someone a "bad faith borderline troll" would ever be a "good" thing for a conversation. It's not quite as terrible as "lying shitbag", but it's quite clearly still "bad" in my eyes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


precisely because "bad faith borderline troll" is fine, actually,




Name calling like this isn't fine. If his argument was that it was fine, he could have just said that instead of claiming the issue was that I quoted out of context.


If his argument was that it was fine because he had some "justification" in the rest of his post... well that would indeed be different to the argument I thought he was making and which I responded to, but it would be even sillier. You could justify practically anything in that case, including "lying shitbag".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The principle exists outside the specific words used. I presume he would think "bad faith borderline troll" is bad, but I couldn't be sure. I wanted to demonstrate the principle clearly without having to worry about whether he'd come back with "bad faith borderline troll" is fine, actually.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was not changing the principle of "selective editing", nor of "relaying what other people think".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Again, I was demonstrating the principle.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
His whole point was that it was a "selective edit".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I want to make the principle clear. I think accusing someone of being a "bad faith borderline troll" is bad enough that it should be sufficient, but a lot of people on this site seem to think that's perfectly fine as far as debate etiquette goes. I don't think anyone would defend "lying shitbag" though. Hopefully I'm not wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I guess a lot of it comes down to what exactly you're building too. I doubt I'd get as much pleasure from the end product if I was designing something like medical device firmware that hardly anyone would ever interact with, and they mainly only get upset if it stops working. In my job I'm designing data reporting tools which let me see a big difference compared to the old version, and I have end-users telling me "oh wow, this is a lot better than what we had before". In my free time I design little video games and ad hoc apps that let me automate things I had previously done manually, both of which have intrinsic appeal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This isn't the gotcha you think it is. For what it's worth I'll include the "a lot of people think" part to the front of it for fuller context going forward, but it's still quite bad even with that included. Claiming you're just relaying what other people think shouldn't be a shield that lets you just write whatever inflammatory stuff you want.


E.g. if I wrote something like this, I ought to get moderated:




You know Amadan, a lot of people think you're just a total lying shitbag. For a long time I urged people to give you the benefit of the doubt, but goddamn I really get what they were saying now.




I do not think it would be a great defense if I said: Oh hey, technically I wasn't saying that about you, it's just what other people have said about you that I'm informing you of ;)


(If it's not clear, this was for illustrative purposes only. I would never describe you as a "lying shitbag" or "bad faith borderline troll" no matter what our differences of opinion were.)


Also you're saying I didn't include enough context, and then you turn around and clip out the context of the next sentence in that post of yours:




I guess this is the point where I say "Goddamn, I get it now," because frankly, you are either being astoundingly clueless or just flat out disingenuous.




The important bit is the "I get it now", which I'd say isn't a far leap from saying you agree with them, at least somewhat.


"Very bad form", as they say.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm glad you enjoyed reading it! And yes, it's mildly frustrating in a lot of ways to have a CTO that doesn't know much about tech. I wish ours had a handler that knew what they were talking about.