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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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I'm sympathetic to the idea that my gut instincts have evolved over millions of years of pressure, and wouldn't have done so for no reason.

Check what were instinctive "gut reactions" of "the people" to wearing glasses, autopsy of the dead, vaccination, anesthesia, open body surgery, blood transfusion, organ transplants and other medical treatments we now take for granted when they were first introduced.

ANCESTOR: Grandson? Are you mad? You let a Jew to poison you till you are unconscious, cut you open with knife, and then suck blood from someone else and pump it into your body? And you even pay the Christkiller for this satanic black magic? Are you even good Christian?

Check what were instinctive "gut reactions" of "the people" to wearing glasses, autopsy of the dead, vaccination, anesthesia, open body surgery, blood transfusion, organ transplants and other medical treatments we now take for granted when they were first introduced.

"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

You're using cherry-picked examples. I'm sure you can think of plenty of other things that people's gut reactions told them to laugh at and which turned out to be laughable.

And even your cherrypicked list includes things that didn't work well when they were introduced (operations before sterile conditions were understood, blood transfusions before blood types were known.) And I know of no evidence that glasses were ever rejected using gut feelings.

Pointing out the lack of limiting principles is always fun, and the best part about it is that it can be done both ways.

DESCENDANT: Happy birthday Grandpa! Go ahead open it! It's a gift card for the local CRISPR clinic, they have a new treatment for making penises grow out of your forehead, the first 5 are free! What do you mean you don't want it? Why do you always have to stand in the way of progress, grandpa?

Comparing my gut reaction to getting a dick on my forehead somewhere in old age to my gut reaction of succumbing to dementia and osteoporosis in old age... I'll take the dicks, thanks.

Sure. If there weren't obvious temptations to transhumanism, I wouldn't find it half as dangerous as I do.

That said, are you going to stop at dicks, gramps?

Dangerous to what?

To humanity.

If you mean the danger of growing too many extra dicks to be classified as homo sapiens sapiens, then I'm not terribly sympathetic to the survival of humanity in that meaning of the word.

What is your meaning of humanity? Will Matt Walsh have to make a new documentary titled "What Is A Human" in the culture war to come?

If you want the dictionary meaning, you can refer to the dictionary. Suffice to say that if it, as another poster advocates, takes becoming space North Korea forever to remain "human", then I am against remaining human, whatever its definition.

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