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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025

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You could write the exact same thing about classical liberalism, except the relevant time period was the late-1800s/early-1900s (objectively, the freest time period ever to exist on planet Earth- rich enough for people to rapidly distinguish themselves, scientific progress was making quantum leaps [ironically, the discovery of quantum mechanics actually marks the end of this era], demand for industrial labor was so high that even single-digit-aged children were gainfully employed, and very little effective State capacity to enforce any sort of morality whatsoever).

Actually, you can do that with sexual liberation in the '60s and '70s, too: yes, some people are capable of maintaining the kinds of relationships categorically called evil by some tradition or other, but those people are not you. And the tools and concepts we left laying around have been misused as weapons in their hands; words like "homophobia", "consent", and "orientation" are incredibly useful/necessary tools when minds like ours talk amongst ourselves, but they're thermonuclear-grade infohazards to normies. (And just because someone is in a special sexual category, that doesn't mean they're like us.)

that despite looking up and admiring those people for various reasons, the horde wandering said field now has to contend with the revelation that they are not those people

And now they're resentful of the people who went before simply for having dared to go before- you can usually identify this group through their virtue Georgism (they believe things can be "ruined for everyone" for that reason).

So, now we've seen the end-game - a group of people with a very tenuous relationship on sanity whom carry the shield of rationalism by murdering their enemies, and the same people whom have considered themselves rationalists are now stuck in a very uncomfortable position with some very awkward questions to answer.

Those people are generally called "Jacobins" (also "progressives"). Liberalism in France never truly recovered after the Revolution.

As for where we'll go from here? Well. I don't know. I guess we'll see.

At this point I'm mostly just focused on self-defense- defending both my right and responsibility to be better than everyone else, one person at a time. It's not sustainable, and it tires me out, but I do what I can.