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Texas is freedom land

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joined 2022 September 05 17:27:40 UTC 

				
User ID: 647


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
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Texas is freedom land

				
				
				

				

					9 followers  

					follows 3 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 17:27:40 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 647


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Friday Fun Thread for July 11, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wish I could bet money against anything happening on this front. I guess that’s just normal investing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sorry, I'm not trying to speak for you, specifically.


I am assuming that maiq, who thinks the people in charge of crappy media got their jobs "without ever meeting a person that isn’t upper middle to upper class professionals," would view such volunteering as a stunt.




if it's significantly less common




Sure. But is it? Do you have any reason to believe that the modal screenwriter used to be more in touch? Because I keep running into examples that look pretty similar to today's.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How am I supposed to interpret this, then?




These are not people who had traveled widely and read, they go to college to learn to write (or make films)




I think there’s a no-true-Scotsman where each of these boring, normal careers gets recast as something exciting and meaningful. Is a stint working as a busboy really that unusual? Is speeding? Surely someone in today’s Hollywood has cleared this bar.


High-schoolers can volunteer in foreign countries and people will wave it off as PMC strivers padding their resumes. But when a rich kid stumbles into film school he must have collected some valuable experience. It’s a double standard in service of the age-old complaint. Those darn kids just don’t respect their elders.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
While I have a soft spot for Fantastic Mr. Fox, I’m not really going to disagree. I got Anderson by randomly sampling 90s films. Here’s a few more:


    

  • Jumanji (1995). Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, a lawyer who got his start writing TV episodes. Directed by Joe Johnston, who studied special effects in college.
    • 

  • Men in Black (1997). Written by Ed Solomon, who studied economics but dabbled as a stand-up comedian. The jokes write themselves. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. I think the worldliness of his brief career in porn is counteracted by the fact it was photography.
    • 

  • Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Director James Foley, studied psychology and film. Writer David Mamet despite winning numerous awards, appears to have had a normal if liberal childhood in Chicago.
    • 



While I tried to pick a different movies, these were literally the first three I clicked.


I stand by my theory that getting a liberal arts degree, plus a film masters, has been pretty normal for decades. The view of writer or director as Romantic auteur is what the kids call “cope.”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Firstly, they draw from pop culture products that are now twice or thrice-removed from the 'real' source (instead of WW2 aircraft dogfight films, the Star Wars sequels were inspired mostly by previous Star Wars)




Right, I think this is a big part of it, but…




and the creators have PMC childhoods followed by college and adulthood which are more boring and scripted than 60's kids had.




No! Not with any consistency, at least. Maybe I’m just skeptical of the evergreen argument that the current generation is coddled and sheltered, but it just doesn’t add up. George had exactly the kind of wealthy educated youth that Maiq was complaining about. It even fits the theory about not understanding dialogue! But because he was successful, his life must have been interesting, must have been in some way better than those miserable PMCs.


I think that’s pretty silly. I think you could sample veteran directors at random and find plenty that had boring, upper-middle-class upbringings. Or pick a young one and find something at least as irresponsible as George’s hobby. Not do I think it would correlate very well with critical or audience success, because I think your other factors are carrying all the weight.




Secondly, both low-brow pulp fiction and high-brow literature are dead. Of pulp era media products, only the withering remains of comics are left. Pulp provided scripts and training ground and filter for aspiring writers whereas high-brow literature provided an aspirational ideal, and occasional script, too.




This is really important. We have unprecedented access to the preserved corpses of existing projects. For the unimaginative, that’s a license to play it safe. Reboot the continuity and deploy a new line of toys. For the visionaries, though, having a rich world in which to play has its own advantages. We get commentary, metafiction, callbacks and fanservice. It’s opportunity. But it absolutely warps the market for intellectual property.


Entertainment is a commodity. You can’t sell Star Wars today because that spot is taken. You have to do something legally and perhaps even creatively distinct. Shot for shot remakes are a bizarre attempt to clear that bar. So are reboots. So are pivots to streaming, or AI, or whatever economic models promise market share without mining for good ideas.


The millennials barely even come into it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Welcome back.




be as polite as possible without being insincere




I like this a lot. Politeness is a good proxy for a bunch of our ideals. I might even argue that it’s implicit in our rules about kindness, charity, and especially antagonism. It signals willingness to play the classical-liberal game, and it makes it significantly harder to get that cheap thrill of tribalism.


Not impossible, of course. You’re also almost certainly correct about the subset of this board which wants, at most, a French-style controlled opposition. That contingent is not in charge.


The moderation remains opposed to the capture of innocent leftists for our nature preserve. We only collect injured specimens who are at risk in the wild. Upon making a full recovery, they are released to Substack.


But I digress.


We moderate on tone because hostility invites tribalism. Closing ranks. Soldier mindset, whatever you want to call it. Maybe the audience feels vulnerable: “they hated Jesus because He told the truth!” Other times they just suspect bad faith. What matters is that any chance of a decent conversation goes down the toilet.


Politeness is one of our best signs that someone is willing to play along and avoid these failure modes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But that is literally what Lucas did. Screwed around getting into car accidents in high school. Ended up in a fancy college for exactly what he wanted. Made a shitload of money. If at any point he had some enriching experiences in third-world countries, he’s not advertising them.


How many of our greatest writers actually fit your Renaissance man archetype?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That’s obviously wrong.


You’ve got the George Lucases of the world: studied film at USC. No interesting life experiences. No ability to write human dialogue. Clearly capable of making a movie anyway. His whole cohort of Coppola and Spielberg and so on have similar stories.


Then there’s the Wes Andersons, whose ivory-tower philosophy degrees don’t appear to have prevented them from writing competent films. Or branch out to weirdos like Hideo Kojima. It’s not like he had an exotic childhood. He just thought movies were cool, so he started writing something resembling screenplays.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 4, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good. Vive la révolution!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, they probably do. Maybe even in these specific cases!


That doesn’t make a series of anecdotes into evidence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hmm, what can “we” learn by summing your entire outgroup up as one monolithic movement, then gaming out an elaborate social strategy?


Probably not much. Definitely nothing “optimal.” I think you’re overfitting a model, and in a way that just happens to bait agreement from a certain sort of ambiguously-autistic Internet commenter.


I suppose I also think you’re assuming the conclusion. Perhaps, for bait, that goes without saying?


Point is, your model kind of sucks.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, sure. I am absolutely willing to believe that the government covered up one or more of these things. But not on the basis of one guy listing his favorite coincidences. If the only reason you encounter a data point is because someone picked it for you, it’s not evidence. It’s trivia. It’s an excuse to repeat whatever you already believe, maybe feel a bit clever about it.


What’s the expected fatality rate for training? Is there historical data? Previous spikes whenever a U.S. ally fights some terrorists? Who knows? Who the fuck cares? Some guy on the Internet said special forces “tend to” do this, so it must be real.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe you don’t know about them because they’re not actually reasonable?


Like, the same reasoning applies here as to underwater pyramids. Or moon landing skeptics. Or celebrity gossip. It’s bad epistemics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Bastards? No, I’m saying ugly couples are willing to have plenty of kids in wedlock. A guy whose farm feeds 10 is liable to end up with 10 kids whether he pairs off with the prettiest girl in the village or an absolute goblin.


Also I guess I doubt the bastard survivability claim.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
First I’ve heard of it.


You know what I have seen, recently? Broccoli.


If you search “kids hate broccoli,” you can find countless articles parroting this un-American talking point. Some even suggest that “science” has solved this classic mystery. They’re citing the same study from 2021 which something something enzymes something sulfur.


Is this a psy-op? Maybe a ploy by those regulators over in Brussels?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That doesn’t make a ton of sense.


You’d only get a selection pressure if love matches offered a competitive advantage to attractive/attractive couples over attractive/ugly or ugly/ugly ones. My understanding of male sexuality suggests that partner hotness was not actually the limiting factor. Ugly/ugly couples were and are definitely willing to pop out as many kids as they can afford.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Miles, Mutants and Microbes, a Miles Vorkosigan anthology. It’s got a very different voice than either the stereotypical or reactionary flavors of modern sci-fi. More to say on this once I’ve finished it.


I’m reading it as a palate cleanser from those John McPhee geology essays. The last one was about California fault lines, which are simultaneously awe-inspiringly massive and, uh, kind of dull. Not my favorite. Plus, I was too young to remember the 1989 World Series earthquake which kind of inspired the piece, so that was lost on me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There’s nothing wrong with saying that you find a comparison ludicrous, but we ask that you leverage a more substantial complaint than “TDS.”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 4, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Normally I like reading your legal dispatches, but I don’t see how these are fun at all!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If they’re coming to opposite conclusions, then I don’t see what makes you say they’re using the same calculus.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure they are. Some more than others.


You’re treating “cruelty-free” like it’s “vegan,” which has an obvious single condition to meet. But it’s more like “pescatarian,” an awkward wastebasket taxon that doesn’t quite match the literal name. It’s just that most people don’t bother distinguishing oysters from lobsters from tuna even though they are happy to draw the line at whales. We could add prefixes until we partitioned out the 12 principled pescatarians, but it is not generally considered relevant.


The partition for “Cruelty-free” means not complicit in a subset of acts which are considered cruel. It’s not exhaustive, and you can catch practitioners in weird edge cases. But 99% of the time you can get them to agree, hey, that thing they do to male chickens is in the “cruel” category, right? Then they’re supposed to avoid it.


How is this different from asking pescatarians if whales are fish?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If I’m willing to pay $5 for a coffee, and someone else says it’s worth $100, why wouldn’t I think that person is misguided?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t think this is true, but I suppose it’s rather hard to prove.


There’s no particular statement that crossed the line, but if I had to point to the biggest red flag, I’d blame the scare quotes.




Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m not convinced that most people make decisions on that timescale.


It’s the kind of sentiment that convinced communists the world revolution was coming any…minute…now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Probably not.


AI is on the part of the hype curve where it will get included in press releases for any and all reasons. If the news is bad, AI will be mentioned as a mitigation strategy. If it’s good, it becomes a growth plan.


My company had a little mini-reorg recently. It also consisted of shuffling some matrix management, and it also gave lip service to new AI tools. I hope no one expects a defense contractor to lead the charge in adopting AI-driven requirements.