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magnax1


				

				

				

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joined 2022 October 16 02:42:14 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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magnax1


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 October 16 02:42:14 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The excess deaths are probably caused by the after effects of Corona. Myocarditis and other heart issues are moderately common in people who didn't even have severe cases. Most of the people who have these issues probably don't know they have them. Then there are the severe cases, of which there were a lot, where people were stuck on ventilators and likely had all sorts of complications. Those people often aren't long for this world. There's also a case to be made that isolation caused by the pandemic has increased all cause mortality, bit that's pretty foggy and may not be true. It's also possible that the data is just off.


If the vaccines caused noticeable health risks it would be absurdly easy to see a correlation. Vaccination=higher mortality. That correlation isn't there. Also, hiding a health issue caused by a drug is so outside of the FDAs historical behavioral pattern that it's really ridiculous to lean into some conspiratorial coverup. Remember, when 2 J&J vaccine patients had heart issues out if millions (a rate which is far less than the rate in the random population) the FDA pulled the vaccine immediately. Yet they're covering up mass sickness from other vaccines?


This is one of those conspiracies that's really hard not to be condescending about because it's just so thinly supported.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would bet there is no reliable data in unvaccinated countries. Every country developed enough for a vaccine campaign (except for China) has used the Western mrna vaccines. Also, if there was good data it wouldn't be comparable. Africa's mortality is not comparable to countries where half the country is over 50 (or whatever it is). Especially when you factor in all the excess mortality in Africa from other things (AIDS, untreated diseases that wouldn't matter in the developed world, etc)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This assumes there is no such thing as a free market. Sure, a single company can suicide by keeping a significant dead weight in its workforce, but they'll just be outcompeted by companies who don't, or maybe even countries who don't. Markets are just entropy, and entropy always wins out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that some people saw greedy bankers im a fantasy world and immediately went "Wow! Those are jews! How dare she!" Says more about them than anything else. There is just so little connection that it doesn't deserve a counterargument.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I cannot express just how confident I am that the price of a square foot of housing in the United States is not an important driver of low fertility rates




You are absolutely wrong. Population density and it's associated costs are maybe the biggest difference in variation between tfr of developed countries.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1693032/


This is why France, Russia, and the US have had relatively higher birth rates than other developed countries--they all still have quite a bit of low cost free space. On the other end of the spectrum, extremely densely populated over urbanized countries with high cost per square foot of property in east asia, such as Korea, China, and Japan, are on the opposite end of the spectrum.


You can easily see this within the US as well. Places like NYC have abnormally low birth rates, especially among native populations.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Neoliberal is definitely not woke. Neoliberal is Reagan and Thatcher and maybe Tony Blair if you're stretching it. Only in fringe online circle (like the reddit neoliberal sub) does neoliberal have anything to do with woke. When the average person uses neoliberal, usually in a pejorative sense, they mean "Those bad people who supported free market reforms at the expense of unions or the coal miners (or whatever)"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a big fan of scifi and an aspiring writer myself, I feel the need to point out that a lot of "classic" scifi that won awards is actually probably much worse than this. A lot of stuff by early guys like Asimov is incredibly dry and has no character development. It was often a vehicle for a concept more than a story. The only modern scifi writer who gets away with that now is the "three body problem" author, Liu Cixin. Outside of his original book, the three body problem, which is a masterpiece, his other books are total dumpster fires. (EDIT:I probably shouldn't have said the only one, but having a good concept and nothing else and finding success is rare now)


So you may be right about this book (I havent read it) but your insinuation that writers couldn't have gotten away with this poor quality in the past is definitely wrong. In the past scifi novels catered to young men with little exposure to good writing, and it showed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Would you trust data from Peru or Hungary? I sure wouldn't. I suspect even US data is quite fuzzy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Society won't collapse because a few companies might lose out to French, Japanese or maybe Chinese companies, and then have to reform, create new organizations, or limp on as a second rate economy (like Europe has been doing for 50+ years without a sign of collapse). The gap between where the US is now and collapse is monumental. It is the most powerful, rich, and culturally dominant nation in human history. It basically has to conjure up boogiemen to create competitive incentives. Undoubtedly the US will collapse someday, just like every other civilization or nation ever, but woke won't be the cause.


Btw I'm not saying woke stuff is good. It's just an exaggerated threat to terminally online right leaning types. You could realistically go a month in a wealthy suburb living out your life and never have it affect you at work, home or your kids school's. One of the actual biggest  issues in America right now is a huge gap between the perceived importance of a problem (Global warming, school shootings, woke, or whatever) and actual significant problems.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The line is far less distinct then you're letting on. What one person sees as too pushy is often times completely effective and other times will make a woman quite uncomfortable or even angry. It's difficult to know which is which until you try, and the threshold is actually far below the aforementioned case of trying to get some women to join what amounts to a harem.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Very few to none. Almost all significant jail time for marijuana is for intent to distribute. Most states which haven't made it legal decriminalized it in small quantities or don't actively prosecute cases as of decades ago.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That double blind trial data is a lot better and very clear that this isn't the case. We don't have to do guessing games with outside factors (such as risk taking when you know you're vaccinated), so why would we?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
By European standards no growth since 06 is excellent. That's second best record, basically tied with France and behind Germany (And Russia, but their economy is trash anyways) Most of Southern Europe hasn't grown since ~1990.


Edit: I'm only referring to the major economies here. There's still limited growth in the nordics and small eastern euro countries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Forcing individuals to accept outside group cultural norms out of some moral imperative seems very communal, not individualistic. We should note that almost all of the debate about trans issues are their ideological normalization in society. If this were an individualist issue, you would expect one side to be against their very existence. I've never seen a serious proposal to ban them from wearing their preferred clothes, or from taking hormones (with the exception of children) Almost all the debate is over forcing people to take part in their image of themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's an AI. There is no joke. It's regurgitating patterns.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is no good economic argument that slavery was an integral part of the north's development, or the south's in terms of opportunity cost. You can clearly see the impact of slavery as an institution was highly negative just by comparing outcomes across borders of states with and without slavery. Slavery's incentives were totally counterproductive to long term economic growth. It shouldn't take a genius to see why--it's not worth it to build up skilled labor, either slave or non slave, with slavery dominating the labor market. It's not too dissimilar to the resource curse where you're incentivized to dig money out of the ground instead of build up long term economic prospects like education and infrastructure. It might be worse because even on an individual level people have little reason to better themselves whereas resource curses mostly suck up expensive corporate and state level capital.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


However I sometimes feel like the metoo movement and some parts of feminist groups want a completely asexual workplace




Their actions seem to align more with a group looking for a sexual dynamic that is totally dominated by the female sex than an asexual workplace. For example, it seems that their opposition here lies in the man benefiting from his status, not the sex in itself.


I think you could argue that this set of beliefs or values is espoused because men are more likely to benefit from workplace hierarchies and status in terms of sexual benefits. I also think to effectively argue that you would need to build up a very blank slate view of gender dynamics and values thereof that doesn't hold up to scrutiny because status games are an intrinsic part of male attractiveness (although I won't go into detail there simply because it would take a lot of time) This seems more and more like a deconstruction of that dynamic under nebulous claims of misogyny than any principled criticism of workplace dating dynamics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but then its solution is the platitude of "parental responsibility"




I'm not sure how its really a platitude. Culture is a far more effective weapon against many civilizational threats than state policy making. The state forcing policy from the top has significant costs and limited effectiveness. (See covid) People deciding on their own that something is taboo and shunning it is effective in a way the state just isn't. If you're saying organizing bottom up cultural changes is hard, that's true, but that's kind of why they work. They're not "organized" in any real sense. They just happen so long as the state gets out of the way. Not always, and not necessarily in ideal ways, but that's true of any other method as well.


Edit:And just as a note, calling tiktok a civilizational threat is pretty absurd anyways.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They have trials for all the boosters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Someone should tell Musk that since he sure doesn't seem to care and is the richest man alive.


The nasdaq and banking sector are themselves part of the free market. I also suspect you overestimate the rigidity of these guidelines anyways (someone look up Walmarts board real quick and tell me when they're going to be blacklisted), Either way, the banking sector itself has a lot of competition internationally and internally. Most startups don't finance themselves off bank loans.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Making Cognitive Enhancement Palatable
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why would gene selection technology be limited to the .01%? I can see a case it would be limited to developed countries, or be limited to the very wealthy in those countries for a short period, bit fundamentally technologies like crispr do not require significant resources to use other than the initial investment required to learn how to use them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They used copies of them, so basically. Not sure about Ukraine but Russia and Belarus did.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The cause of death and data surrounding it would be more what I'm worried about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Some are easier than others. Mass shootings are a very easy problem to dismiss. If you are less likely or roughly equally as likely to be harmed by something as a lightning strike, then it is a non issue in my view. Mass shootings are within the rough range of lightning strikes. Children drowning in pools is a much bigger issue, albeit also a total non issue in relative terms.


Other problems are indeed more complex. I don't really want to go into detail on global warming right now (I've spent way too much time on here today, I need to get work done), but I think it's quite easy to see that if you do a very pessimistic estimate of economic and technological growth on the timescales where global warming might be devastating (100+ years) and then include the opportunity cost of the measures taken to deal with it (which are all basically growth dampening) then I think it's quite clear that its at best a non-issue and at worst the policies are significant cost to society with little to no benefit. It seems to me very similar to the panic in the early late 19th and early 20th century about malthusian population collapse. It probably would not have taken much of a leap in 1890 to take an extremely pessimistic economic model, look at it, and say "This is fucking dumb, we're going to be too rich for this to matter."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It seems to me that people associate and conflate nimbyism with multiple different issues. It's understandable, maybe even beneficial, that people might oppose things like housing projects in areas with lots of families. One could argue those things need to go somewhere, but I think ultimately housing projects in modern urban america have been failures. Its time to try something else.


Then there's the more common somewhat related problem of regulatory burden, where people oppose construction of basic housing, apartments, businesses, or infrastructure, through arcane laws that basically upend the function of property rights (I can do with my property as I will). This seems less defensable and ultimately is one of the main cruxes of the housing crisis in high cost west coast cities.


Then there's this recent left leaning obsession with dense urban living that gets thrown in (without any logical connection IMO). The claim is that it's more environmentally friendly, would lead to more equitable or equal outcomes, and also just seems to be an aesthetic choice. The method to achieve this seems to be scrapping suburban infrastructure, regulating away cars, and generally centralizing government authority so people cannot resist. There are a lot of obvious reasons not to do this (dense urban areas have poorer outcomes than suburbs in income inequality, mental health, self reported happiness, crime and basically every metric you can think of outside of average income, which may or may not still exist when adjusted for cost of living) If it isn't obvious I think the value of this argument approaches nill, and is just signal boosted by the location and recruiting pool of media conglomerates. If anything, as the internet makes your location more and more economically irrelevant, it seems that dense urban living makes less sense than ever.