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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Yes liberalism is dying and for reasons that won’t come as a shock to anyone who has spent a good deal of time here.

There are certain principles of liberalism that are fraught with tension with realities on the ground. Specifically, liberals believe in a psychic unity of man, that all human beings are tabula rasas upon which magic dirt renders them their behaviour and social-economic functioning. This, paired with the idea that whites are inherently guilty and owe a debt to BIPOC that can never, ever be repaid, borders are therefore deemed hindrances and oppressive. Unlimited migration is the inevitable conclusion of the above, and since Caplan-esque Dubai policies are anathema to liberals, we get utility monster sub groups that are net-tax negative, coming in and bleeding the liberal welfare state dry (as an aside, it still amazes me that people think immigration is a solution to social security pension problems. It’s like throwing gasoline on the fire!). Only those deemed “far right” seem capable of the basic solution of enforcing borders and deportations, with the notable exception of Denmark, which may be the only way liberalism survives.

(What do you mottezins think? Is it possible that we all follow the danish model of strict outgrouping of foreigners? Or will that remain taboo among the centrists and liberals?)

I also see HBD as basically a time bomb waiting to explode. The advances in population genetics and cognitive neuroscience are going forward at an astounding rate. Everyone here already knows what I mean, and it’s only a matter of time before data and research seeps its way further into public consciousness, which it definitely can do faster now that right wingers are winning the war for social media platforms. We have accounts like cremiux and I/O basically churning out nonstop data supporting HBD at a rapid clip to an audience of millions, something previously completely unthinkable. All that remains is for the public to “get woke” to the IQ question, and it’s a matter of when, not if, that will happen. Maybe one way out is a Gattaca-style future only with publicly available embryo dna engineering for IQ.

We have accounts like cremiux and I/O basically churning out nonstop data supporting HBD at a rapid clip to an audience of millions, something previously completely unthinkable.

Inconceivable! I learned about HBD reading the wikipedia article on intelligence fifteen years ago.

Hardly surprising. Fifteen years ago Wikipedia was a lot less censored or redacted to fit an ideological line.

Liberalism is just the sum of its parts. One such part is freedom of speech. Censoring HBD is illiberal, and any ‘time bomb’ that results from censoring HBD should be laid at illiberalism’s feet. Illiberalism is the easy choice that never works out.

Sure, then let's end this charade and declare Liberalism dead already, because it seems we have about three principled liberals in the world, seven zillion illiberals wearing liberalism for a skin-suit.

No matter how unpopular it gets – and it was never that popular to begin with– liberalism will remain the best solution to organize human society, so I don’t know what it means for it to be ‘declared dead’. Critiques of liberalism on this forum are rarely specific and grounded in alternatives. Rather liberalism is pitted against an impossibly high standard. Often the failures of its enemies are assigned to it (HBD censorship).

liberalism will remain the best solution to organize human society

How do you know that, if we don't currently have it?

so I don’t know what it means for it to be ‘declared dead’

It means we're not currently living under a liberal regime, and there's maybe a handful of liberals alive on Earth.

Critiques of liberalism on this forum are rarely specific and grounded in alternatives.

I disagree. Most criticism here are very specific, I can grant there's something to be said about putting forward alternatives, but if you're going to to say that the examples of it's failures were falsely attributed to it, you're essentially saying "true liberalism has never been tried", and therefore are just as empty-handed.

Rather liberalism is pitted against an impossibly high standard.

I don't see where anyone has done this.

It means we're not currently living under a liberal regime, and there's maybe a handful of liberals alive on Earth.

See that’s what I’m talking about impossibly high standards, it’s not one or zero, you can be more or less liberal. And OP thinks liberalism failed because... people voted for less centrist candidates?

Freedom of speech is a liberal policy. You can't just point to a relative lack of freedom of speech to do the 'liberalism fails yet again!' schtick.

Specifically, liberals believe in a psychic unity of man, that all human beings are tabula rasas upon which magic dirt renders them their behaviour and social-economic functioning. This, paired with the idea that whites are inherently guilty and owe a debt to BIPOC that can never, ever be repaid, borders are therefore deemed hindrances and oppressive.

This is also not liberalism.

See that’s what I’m talking about impossibly high standards, it’s not one or zero

But that's the standard you brought up. If it's not none or zero, than you can be a liberal while censoring people, and you can't automatically attribute censorship to the enemies of liberalism.

This is also not liberalism.

It's extremely reductive, but it's basically Rousseau? Has he been cast out of the Liberal canon?

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