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SkoomaDentist

The Greater Finnish Empire

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joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC 

				
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SkoomaDentist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
The Greater Finnish Empire

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So what?


The EU makes no laws about that. The EU has no police force or court. The EU can’t jail anyone. What matters is what the member states do and UK (which isn’t even a member) and Germany are simply not representative about the rest of the EU countries when it comes to free speech.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suppose it makes some sort of perverted sense if you think everyone except America, Russia and China are just NPC pawn pieces that cannot have their own motivations or act independently.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No. UK is at one extreme end (particularly when it comes to libel) as is Germany in a different way.


People on The Motte like to claim that you'll go to jail or get taken in by the police for hate speech which is very much not the case in Scandinavia unless it involves persistent stalking of specific individuals or outright threats.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We need another reminder whenever free speech comes up that UK and Germany are very much not the norm for Europe.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Its just tired pro-Z bullshit that insists the west is the big bad conspirator funding colour revolutions and that actually everyone would be happy to live under any autocrats thumb so long as the west is opposed.




I'm surprised by how popular this view is here on The Motte, either as-is or as a lite version where it's not directly stated but heavily implied. I could understand Russians saying that but seeing people who are clearly Americans based on their other comments embrace it is just so weird.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Germany != EU


For a significant portion of Northern and Eastern EU Russia is an existential threat. That a bunch of German youth are mindkilled by pacifist propaganda does not mean that the EU (which has 26 other countries in addition to Germany) is not willing to go to actual war in such situation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So the notion that AI would allow non-artists to get those ideas out of their heads and onto the page through bypassing the actual need to learn the foundations of a craft ends up being inert.




Why would that be the case?


It won't allow them to get their ideas in same detail as a trained artist but it's worlds better than getting nothing onto the page which is the remaining option when you take away AI.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Political correctness had barely begun to seep in thankfully.




And political correctness was almost universally seen as a bad thing by younger people as something out of touch moral guardians were trying to impose to remove everything fun.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would agree with that except the fans of said genres themselves make the claim that they're "retro" to those decades when that is very obviously not the case. One such claim is right here in this thread. More commonly this happens with synthwave where people always claim it's "back to the 80s" when the actual 80s were nothing like that either in vibe, compositions, arrangements or sounds (the only thing "80s" about synthwave is the drum sounds and the visuals which harken to a very specific subset of 80s cover art).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I could see having a PC or Mac being a big deal in 1987 but to get one in the family only in 1997 would have been either intentional ludditism (typically by old people), a rare Amiga holdout or a major outlier here (likely due to never recovering from getting laid off during the early 90s recession). The question in 1997 was whether you already had dialup internet or were only planning on getting it soonish. If someone had suggested then that "computers were just for 50 year old suits in IBM and insurance companies", they would have been laughed at by the normies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The TV ads were stuffy garbage but it's not like consumers cared about those. Those ads were aimed at companies (and particularly managers) due to a 486 still costing a small fortune in 1992 and showing typical "manager pie chart" on the screen. There's a reason Apple made this campaign to poke fun at the corporate PC ad aesthetic.


And yes, I'm very sure my experience was typical for the era. If anything, I personally was lagging behind my peers with us only getting a computer in 1990 (money was somewhat tight with my mom being a single mother with three kids). When I started high school in the mid 90s, I distinctly recall all the teachers going out of their way to say "For gods sake, please write your home essays on a computer instead of by hand" (which stuck in my mind because our bitchy upper elementary school Finnish teacher liked to claim "You'll need to write everything with cursive in high school" which turned out to be the exact opposite of the truth). Computing was ubiquituous but the TV ads and similar "official" media representation lagged behind the situation on the ground. In 1994 when I had finally saved enough money to buy a decent computer of my own (a 486sx with a whopping 4 MB of ram - far from what would have been high end at the time), a school acquaitance practically begged me to play dialup Doom multiplayer with him and he was the very opposite of any sort of computer nerd (I had to walk him through the modem setup on the phone).


The problem with basically all the -wave "genres" (except new wave which looked to the future instead of to a fake past) is that they get the timeline wildly incorrect and mix and match made up fake "memories", assumptions from a bunch of hand drawn magazine cover art and only bits and pieces of what was the historical reality of the purported eras.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People don’t go to stock image sites for AI. The problem is ”creators” flood the sites with AI images that then drown out ”manual” images while being almost entirely slop with a few very similar looks.


If they want AI images, they’ll just prompt AI themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it is not supposed to be nostalgia for the general 90s/00s but nostalgia for the computing of the era. This was when computing was still primarily by and for 50 year old suits working in drop-ceiling cubicles at IBM or some insurance company, plus their occasional tone-deaf attempts at reaching out to wider markets.




Lolwhut?


That might describe the early to mid 80s but in the early 90s nearly every one of the people in my upper elementary school class had a computer at home and gaming was usually one of the main uses. By the mid to late 90s every desk job was computerized and IBM and insurance companies were known mostly for being particularly stuffy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes but no. Many were sloppy but now they've been flooded with very specific looking slop and it's not just stock clipart but also stock photo sites that have been the target where the difference is much worse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
AI has already essentially destroyed stock imagery. Both in terms of being able to make any meaningful money from stock images but also from the other side by polluting stock image sites so badly that it’s becoming harder and harder to find suitable non-AI-slop images.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just had people get mad at me for saying that a shower curtain having intentionally generic flower pattern made by AI should be a complete non-issue because it’s a fucking shower curtain, not anything that even pretends to be art.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Sometimes the past actually was just better.






There's something about vaporwave that's deeply resonant for me. I was a small child in the 90s, but I do still have a number of distinct memories of those years.




I basically only listen to polular music from the very late 70s to 1990 or so. The catch: I only started doing so in my early 30s. I didn't really listen to music seriously until in my late teens at which point I started with metal and then classic rock and prog from the late 60s / early 70s. If the "we get stuck to what was popular when we were teens / young adults" actually applied, I'd be listening to completely different music than what actually I listen to.


Anything made after 1990 is tainted by either what they now call r'n'b (aka ”urban contemporary”), rap / hiphop or grunge influences or is generic shitty pop or EDM slop and I’ve always detested all of those. I can take any number of pop hits (as in actual ”pop” genre, not just pop rock) from the 80s like Madonna, Michael Jackson, A-Ha, Duran Duran, Phil Collins etc and they still sound massively better than any pop music made since. I’ll even take what would now be considered ”B-list artists” like Bananarama any day over any modern popular music.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recall literally discussing about our favorite 80s action movies with my friends as a teenager in the mid 90s. The transition to 90s wasn’t super abrupt but Terminator 2 clearly started to look and feel different compared movies made in the mid 80s.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


otherwise you’d have to discard 90% of the franchise including the prequels too.




I rather liked the first season of Mandalorian (never got around to watching the second) but discarding the prequels would be a complete no-brainer. Jar Jar Binks, anyone?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Don’t know about that but very few people could beat him in sound and sample design back in the day. There was a very noticeable drop in the quality of new sounds and sample rom contents after he left Roland. D-50, JDs, JVs and the early expansion cards were brilliant and iconic in all sorts of popular music. Anything for the next 15+ years was solidly meh at best and total garbage at worst even though being technologically far more capable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The problem is that the entire educational establishment is absolutely dedicated to keeping them in the same classroom




I don't think that's actually the case. It's more accurate to say that the educational elite (who design curriculums and whatnot) is dedicated to that. These are the same people who keep thinking that "open classrooms", major emphasis on group work and so on are a must have even though the people on the ground tell them those are just making everything shit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I learned way back in the reddit days that I should add any writer commonly referenced on The Motte to my "never read them"-ignore list.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baby Don't Fear the Reaper
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I suspect it's something to do with this, and also the Protestant roots. Protestants took the infernalist rhetoric and turned it up to never before seen extremes. Contemporary Protestant churches have chilled out a lot, but besides the Quakers, most of the early sects were all-in on motivation through fear via fire and brimstone preaching.




Didn't Martin Luther, the OG protestant, basically say that as long as you Believe, your sins are forgiven and you avoid hell?


I'm far from a theologian or historian but to me it seems that the "fire and brimstone" preaching was less a general feature of protestantianism and more related to those denominations that originated from Calvinism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, US and UK were retarded about it. That does not mean that the only options were "do nothing" or "be completely retarded" and we have examples of western nations that had generally sane responses that didn't involve locking everyone indoors or forcibly shutting down workplaces but also didn't literally tell people to go out to bars and restaurants (which Sweden did in 2020 spring) or keep elderly and other high risk groups during the highest case peaks without masks or any visiting restrictions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That’s been common advice for voles locally for decades because the only native hantavirus is transmitted by vole droppings. It isn’t deadly but can be nasty, particularly if you have any kidney issues and applying basic precautions is so easy that you’d have to be a stupid not to take them (ie. wear a mask).