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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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Feel good stories told by liberal/progressive/leftists go something like this:

To connect the dots, adoption and / or fostering seems to be a great way for this old man to plant trees, especially if biological children are completely ruled out. There is undeniably a population crisis and replacement rate is an issue, but from a (gross?) utilitarian perspective the population crisis is about productive members of society. Adopting and / or fostering well kills two birds with one stone: it reduces the population that is at-risk for homelessness, and creates more productive members of society.

Wow, very noble and inspiring. It speaks to one on an emotional level, fills you with hope and positivity for the future. There is no counter argument without being a bad person or uncouthly bringing up some giant baggage of heterodox arguments that immediately look bad and emotionally divorced.

So @WhiningCoil gave a feel bad story as a contrast. Or a 'feel reality' story. Depending on ones predispositions.

You would not be the first non-right wing extremist person to fail to engage with the direct 1:1 mirror rhetoric you would otherwise extol as just and noble. Faced with forlorn elements of reality laid bare.

One would be inclined to blame your environment for keeping you away from any competing emotionally resonating narratives, but as can be seen, you are the one picking those. And as someone who spent years of his life making the aforementioned heterodox arguments against all the feel good stories, and having that very fact used against me as an argument, I can't say I have much sympathy left to give for your self inflicted predicament.

You would not be the first non-right wing extremist person to fail to engage with the direct 1:1 mirror rhetoric you would otherwise extol as just and noble. Where the forlorn elements of reality are laid bare.

No; your example has the valency inverted. The left-wing equivalent to 'Black people are an invasive species' is @AlexanderTurok writing that MAGA people are classless retards non-elite human capital who are too dumb to go to college or get a job or do anything beyond get fat on fast food and daytime television, regardless of what he claims his politics are.

And look at the amount of seething every time Mr. Turok writes a top-level post.

Seething is fine. But throwing your toys out of the pram, downvoting and reporting before storming off in indignation is not. I say this as someone who generally disagrees with Turok posts but enjoys the fallout they generate.

I'm not equivocating the otherization and the examples. I'm contrasting the emotional message. Liberal/leftist/progressive messaging on the human condition is that it is malleable. There is an underlying reality of inspirational hope woven into the subtext of their stories. Similar to what you find in self help. The feeling that you can change, improve and make a difference with your own actions.

The opposite is what Coil wrote. A blackpilled message where the underlying reality is that some things are set in stone. There was never a chance, every effort futile beyond making more lives worse off.

In meme format: 'Future doctors and lawyers' vs 'invasive species'. The emotional message of Coils post is what offends those who hold to the opposite view. People are not hurt by hatefacts and IQ charts by race, they are offended by the implication. That's why IQ by race isn't necessarily racist until you assert that IQ is 'largely innate'.

I understand the point you're making, but

The opposite is what Coil wrote. A blackpilled message where the underlying reality is that some things are set in stone. There was never a chance, every effort futile beyond making more lives worse off.

This is true (at least from his and apparently your perspective), but you're framing it in a some non-partisan way. In a context where whiningcoil is obviously partisan and would never apply the same logic to groups near and dear to his heart, the foil is still someone writing equally inflammatory rhetoric about red tribe groups.

In other words, you're describing a symmetry between earnest/optimistic and doomer/blackpill, and I (being the braindead culture warrior that I am) am describing a symmetry between left and right. I'd guess OP is more upset by the latter than the former.