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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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Thanks for the kind words! Ah, Central Festival, I went there a few times- I stayed closer to some of the other malls but made the trip out to that one once in a while. Super fun. Small world!

I read your post about India when you posted it yesterday. I have very little knowledge of the country but the situation sounds pretty dire from your post. If I read correctly, it looks like the right wing Hindu party announced a census. Does this not benefit the right wing Hindu upper caste? If not, why did they agree to do a census? I think that you're opposed to the census because it will be used by the lower castes to demand reparations or better treatment from the right? (Sorry if I'm way off base with anything here)

Though I know very little about India, I do work in ecommerce and lots of people are eying India as an alternative manufacturing base post China tariff apocalypse, is this something that people in India are aware of? Would you see this as a benefit to your country, bringing in jobs and money, or not really because they are low paying jobs with long hours? (In my mind, the manufacturing is what built China from dirt poor to where they are today so I don't see it as a negative but feel free to tell me I'm wrong)

China

I didn't mention China in my original post at all because I haven't been there. But I believe they've grown massively in the past 2 or 3 decades. I imagine people feel great about themselves and their prospects. I'd love to have someone make an effortpost (or even a short post) about the way China would fit in with my analysis of things.

Plenty of small towns are employed by one or two giant factories or industries, these people are at gods mercy if the owner packs up shop and leaves.

This is pretty true. The fates of entire cities in Ohio, Kentucky, Eastern PA etc definitely operate this way

I was in Chiang Mai, and it seemed dead

So fascinated by this take! I found it super exciting and not dead at all. Then again I grew up in the midwestern rust belt so my standard for dead has to be way lower than someone from India.