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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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Nothing is gained or lost by saying it.

Others differ, and judge accordingly. I want to talk to those others about matters of import, and that is going to be difficult enough with the opinions I actually hold. Why make it harder by violating taboos for no actual benefit? I'm here to have conversations with people I disagree with. Those conversations actually benefit me. Misspelling "naggers" does not.

To a first approximation, everyone has taboos. I can accept that some rare, uncanny individuals are sufficiently... outlier... that they honestly don't, but this seems more like a disability than a superpower from where I'm sitting. It doesn't enable conversation in any way that I see. It doesn't gain knowledge or grow understanding. Those are the things I'm here for, so I'm going to argue that it's a net-negative, and self-censoring, while a bit silly, is still the superior play. Some might see this as abdication to Blue dominance. I think that is silly, and is more an appeal to magical words than any self-censorship argument ever could be.

It's not brave. It doesn't make a point. no one's impressed. We've all heard the arguments for and against for decades. I'm quite comfortable predicting that the mods here aren't going to ban mentions, so there's no inherent slippery slope argument greater than the implicit one from attempting communication across a steadily-widening tribal divide. All there is is what you want to do, and why.