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Soteriologian

Unstammering Papageno

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joined 2023 June 30 23:52:08 UTC

Lo, those who are entombed are cast on high grounds.

Men stir up strife unopposed.

Groaning is throughout the land, mingled with laments.

See now the land is deprived of kingship.

What the pyramid hid is empty.

The people are diminished.

-Ipuwer


				
User ID: 2538


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Soteriologian


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Unstammering Papageno

				
				
				

				

					1 follower  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2023 June 30 23:52:08 UTC
				


				
					

					
Lo, those who are entombed are cast on high grounds.


Men stir up strife unopposed.


Groaning is throughout the land, mingled with laments.


See now the land is deprived of kingship.


What the pyramid hid is empty.


The people are diminished.


-Ipuwer



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 2538


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the labour union left has much more in common with the Tucker Carlson right than the LGBT activists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They aren't. To quote the popular right-wing retort: "Stalin would have had these people shot."


The labour left is -- and I know this may come as a shock -- the people doing the actual labour who believe they should be paid more for it. Notice how they get basically nothing, while the LGBT people get every megacorp changing their logos and firing anyone who won't use pronouns. The labour advocacy is rhetorical only; the LGBT has the actual teeth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Chemically speaking, coffee (well, caffeine) doesn't wake you up so much as it inhibits you from getting sleepy. The reason to drink coffee early isn't that it wakes you up, it's that if you drink it late in the day, it will inhibit your ability to fall asleep come bedtime.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The social activism left has much, more more political power than the labour left (which the labour left claims is due to the capitalists hijacking actual leftism to replace it with this caricature which poses no threat to them.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Personally, I'm very bearish on all this. I think the buff LLMs give to serious contributors are minimal, while the buff LLMs give to spammers are... well, the largest buff they've received since the advent of the internet itself.


I think the effect of this is going to be competent people who were once enthusiastic and cared about software will say "Alright, that's enough. I'm out."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The casting couch isn't a rich people thing, it's a theatre thing. Theatre has been associated with promiscuous behaviour for millennia.


In general, I see no evidence that the increased capacity of the wealthy to buy access to sex results in their doing so any more than their capacity to buy unlimited Doritos and Mountain Dew results in their doing so.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem with this thesis is there’s a baseline rate of sexual crimes, and despite all conspiritard claims to the contrary, I do not actually see evidence that the rate for powerful people exceeds the baseline rate—especially given the obvious misincentive to accuse powerful people of things in hopes to score media views or even extort settlement money.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Philosophy makes so little progress because every time it actually works, it gets reclassified as something other than "philosophy." Much like magic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wish liberalism would just be liberalism instead of erase-the-whites-while-masquerading-as-liberalism.




Perhaps this is just the standard libertarian to fascism pipeline




There is no libertarian to fascism pipeline. The "libertarian" tech right like Thiel and Musk is not and has never been libertarian in the sense that any legacy American would use the term: everything these people do increases the centralisation of power, especially in ways that enable control over mass media and surveillance to direct public opinion. Nothing about that is libertarian, regardless of whatever nice things they say in interviews or whether they share our annoyance with shrill blue-haired activists. Twitter raced to implement Age Verification via State ID before this was even a topic of public discussion! Racing to implement censorship and surveillanceware before any government can even get around to mandating it is not, in fact, what libertarians do.


And obviously the reason all the governments across the planet began mandating it in sync is because the big tech companies are paying them to. "Oh, no, Mr. Government, don't force all my users to hand me their government IDs to access my platform! Stahp!" Unfortunately, we're ruled by people with room temperature IQ, who will blissfully hand over their populations to megacorp control without even realising what's been done.


Of course, that's also part of the game: anyone with above room temperature IQ will be primaried: the ads will be fed to the district voters via the mass media control towards a foolish candidate that can be controlled with "advisors."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can only assume, in protest of Leo, they donned Android watches instead of Apple watches at the event.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The emergent tech right seems to have switched sides for reasons unrelated to this: it was at best discontent with the social justice nonsense, though more likely as the leftists contend, because the left is actually somewhat capable of wielding regulatory power, while the right is basically clueless and incapable of wielding this power at all.


The reason I say this is JD Vance, the tech anointed heir, has an Indian wife and children that look far more like her than him. And the RNC featured a tattooed pornstar and an Indian praying to a Hindu god. This does not sound like "rightward drift": it sounds like a hostile takeover of the Republican party. The mass import of Indians and degeneracy promotion will continue just as it did when the Democrats were in power. All the right-wing voters got some token oppression of LatAm immigrants for a short period, and even that was executed with all the enthusiasm of a geriatric bingo club.


But hey, we got some WWE on the White House lawn. And I love WWE Smackdown!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Part of the reason I'm so distrusting of this is that these visas are de facto Indian mass immigration pipelines. Yet if I look at the open source software I depend and use every day, it's... not built by Indians. It's built mostly by western Europeans, followed by ex-Soviet demographics and white Americans, with India being barely represented at all.


So, if we're so thirsty for talent, why aren't we mass importing the Swedes and Swiss?


I just find the whole thing extremely dishonest. The problem with the Kalergi conspiracy theory is even if it's not "true" in some sense, it's hard to find a more accurate model of the world.


And to the extent that capitalists are indeed responsible for the Great Replacement under some well-intentioned chart-maxxing myopia, well... I don't know, I'm kinda inclined to not object too hard when the commies have their way with them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I probably should have specified "American Protestants" in the first instance, rather than the second. There is, in fact, a difference between people who cross an ocean to brave a frontier with their own little religious sect and a monarch who wants to get a divorce.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're probably right.


Still, I find Elon baffling because he does sound moderately sentient when he talks. Of course, then you see his Elden Ring build and.... yeesh, one can understand why he started paying people to play on his accounts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most people these days encounter thee/thou/thy in either Shakespeare and or the King James Bible (early modern English), which makes it sound more formal.




For Shakespeare, you're going to get a severe misreading of the text if you conflate these!


Regarding the King James translation, any distinction here is chosen by the translators rather than the authors, as Koine Greek does not have a T-V distinction, and neither does ancient Hebrew afaik.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I honestly don't understand why companies are so pumped to hire this sort of person. In my experience, they contribute little, and it's all in a very metric-chasing but not-actually-value-adding sort of way. Yet people like Elon Musk are, in his own words, willing to go to war to let this sort of person in.


And Elon Musk is nowhere near the most smoothbrained capitalist out there running our world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, they're all valid constructions, at least to my ear, just like discarding T and always using V is a valid construction. Rather, I'm accenting a shift in linguistic preference toward more formal and less colloquial constructions, a shift that has been long underway but accelerated thanks to the rise of ESL.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think theological liberalisation or even a loss of faith among Protestants necessarily entails a decay into centralised power. In fact, if anything, I'd say libertarianism is the more fundamental ideology that was hallucinated into existence as a way of dealing with religious fracture. I wouldn't say things like homesteading, having solar panels, raising cattle, hosting your own git server, self-custody of your Bitcoin, etc., have any particular rooting in Protestant theology itself (although I won't pretend some Protestants don't try to contend so; but I think this is them failing to recognise their own reflection in the Rorschach dots, rather than remotely serious exegesis of what's actually being said in the text).


As for whether theological liberalism resulted in a loss of power, I mean, kind of? But the Jews who are actually in power are not the sort who take the Torah particularly seriously. I mean, they do in a sort of "It's tradition, and it's our tradition" sense. It's clear Scott in Unsong has great affection for Jewish tradition. But it's also definitely not the same sort of respect as religious fundamentalists have.


And the Catholics in power today... well, as has been questioned on this very forum: "Is the pope Catholic?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I think Catholics/Jews/Protestants all somewhat misunderstand each other, but they do have distinct and conflicting models of the world, and I think the US is substantially worse since letting Catholics and Jews into positions of influence.


The biggest point of conflict is that unlike Catholics and Jews, Protestants have no will to power in the sense of large state or quasi-state institutions, while Catholics and Jews do. To American Protestants, the dream is to be self-sovereign and free not merely from control by the centralised state, but free even from dependency on it in the first place. As far as I can tell from extensive interaction with Catholics and Jews, this dream is... not at all shared by them. This entire thought paradigm doesn't even exist in their heads, and to the extent they try to entertain it, it seems silly and quaint. Their model of the world is there is centralised power and we need to be in control of it. The Catholic view is they're the rightful shepherds of the sheeple, and the sheeple ought to defer to their expertise, and this is the rightful way of the world; the Jewish view is to exploit the discrepancy in cognitive ability and offer the sheeple bad deals which put the Jews in charge of everything, then say "Well, the sheeple signed off on it right here! Look at the contract they signed!" Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, basically. Or Mark Zuckerberg.


As someone from a Protestant-adjacent background, I do find both of these views naturally repulsive. But at the same time, the root problem of the Protestant model is that the sheeple are indeed completely retarded, and trying to give them a say in anything really does just result in them putting shysters in charge of everything. As is abundantly displayed in software choice, if you offer people sovereignty and freedom, they don't want it: they want the mass surveillance, censorship, and ads. I don't fault the Jews for the slur "goyim": it's completely justified.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The biggest difficulty with pushing a second language is that non-English second languages are mostly useless: everything interesting in the world happens in English. Yes, if you live in a non-English-speaking country, you need to communicate with the locals in the regional language (e.g., Russian), but even in Russia, every intelligent person under 40 speaks English, and even many of the intelligent people over 40. Even in countries like China, where there is the most cultural and technological independence from the Anglosphere, a large chunk of the interesting conversation and research happens in English among the under-40s.


That said, regarding local languages, even for English itself there is the emergence of an "International English" which is distinct from native English dialects. American English is already kind of like this compared to British dialects, but the mass influx of ESL speakers across the globe into public and business discourse has rendered even native American English a regional dialect rather than a de facto international standard. Key changes are dropping the arcane rules over auxiliary verbs like "do" ("I do see the benefit of that" -> "I see the benefit of that.", "How do you start a business?" -> "How to start a business?"), dropping the redundancy in continuous verb conjugations ("I'm using Arch Linux" -> "I use Arch Linux"), use of formal verbs over colloquial constructions using "get" ("My cough got better" -> "I recovered from my cough"). Revealingly, all of these represent a move from informal to formal constructions. In fact, this is consistent with the trajectory of English since the early modern period. Most languages feature some form of T-V distinction or similar formality management, but English has lost this distinction, and in exactly the opposite direction of the stereotype: English has lost the informal form and retained only the formal form! It's not that Anglos began classifying foreigners as family: it's that they began classifying their own families as strangers. In fact, informality has been so lost that even native English speakers often perceive the T-V formality backwards: "thou" is often perceived as formal!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Scott, I think your legislation on trans issues and your legislation specifically protecting queers on sex offender registry is fantastic. Like, I really applaud you for that and I think you deserve to be here for that".


You did not just say that.




That is indeed my contention. That a leftist didn't say it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"The Epstein Class" is a right-wing shibboleth. An actual leftist would say "the capitalist class" or "the bourgeoisie."


While they're often talking about largely the same group, the worldviews are quite different: one world model runs on sexual blackmail, and the other on asymmetric bargaining power enabled by control of capital.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's not about pushing internal schism stuff. It's about trying to tar and feather the Jews and any pro-Israeli sentiment as pedophile-coded. And yes, that reeks of rightoid mentality. Leftists do not think or talk that way.


The leftists don't passionately oppose pedophilia because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded, so just like they don't oppose Israel or the Jews because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded. The way the left phrases these things is they're against sexual abuse of the vulnerable and against the colonialism of marginalised groups like Palestinians.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The vocalisation doesn't sound sincere at all to me. It sounds like a right-wing activist LARPing as a leftist.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Remigration isn't a solution. First, because I can't imagine how to do it remotely ethically.




Something sooner or later will snap, and whatever happens will not be "ethical." Either the parasites will successfully consume the host, at which point there will be no more host to feast on so they'll die, or the host immune response will trigger and maybe the host can burn them off before it dies (much of the time when the body dies "from disease", it's actually dying from being unable to endure the force of its own immune response!)


Regardless, I'd say the prognosis is not good.