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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34440 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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I had never heard of this before.

In my circles, I tend to hear complaints of people being on their phones too much, and it seems to be low status to have a lot of apps, or even a phone that lets you install a lot of apps, probably including iPhones. The priest was recommending $200 phones that were basically like iPhones that wouldn't let you install apps on them. These were advertised as being clean or simple or pure or some such virtuous sounding thing.

Anyway, at the $80 - $500 mini computer range, I doubt it's about conspicuous consumption to any large degree, but more about signaling adherence to community values. I'm not completely sure what those values are among those who care, but probably something like good taste and conventional aesthetics.

Orthodox crunchy-cons. Rod Dreher is one of the better know representatives of this subculture, at least around these parts. (Ha, I went to look up his blog, and there he is with a substack and writing about Aella. He has the capacity to write about one good piece a month, but unfortunately blasts out up to a dozen blogs a day instead).

The priest was recommending $200 phones that were basically like iPhones that wouldn't let you install apps on them.

$200 will get you a perfectly functional smartphone. Whoever is selling a $200 dumbphone must have great profit margins.

(I do know a few people who intentionally chose to not use smartphones, but not many.)

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