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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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Is it out of the box, or is her box just one filled with low status grifting? Even if I valued out of the box thinking, I wouldn't value the kind of thinking I associate with the underclass or sociopaths.

I don't consider it a good thing to do either, I was just describing why @_brentbaum called it agentic in the first place. I presume he was ok with the status quo (feeling cold), and hadn't considered doing something to feel less cold (problem solving is agentic), let alone deceiving a hotel and taking other people's stuff.