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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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You know this has lead me to an important realization. If it came down to it, I would choose to be ruled by the wokest HR lady on Earth before this guy. As much as wokeness disgusts me it doesn’t really scare me, it doesn’t strike me as outright evil or insane. I’m switching teams as of now.

I kind of like Thiel, but you have a point. If it came out in five years that Peter Thiel had been abducting wayward teenage boys and keeping them in a lovingly accurate recreation of a 13th-century Burgundian dungeon under his mansion, I’d be mildly surprised but not shocked.

Can’t imagine a woke HR overlady doing that.

You're clearly grappling with the way his (uninhibited by resource scarcity) gayness makes you feel. I don't disagree, but if that's how it is we should probably be more willing to generalize.

I was riffing off the blood boys thing primarily!

The "blood boys thing" was just him investing in longevity research companies looking into the thing where mice given blood transfusions from younger mice are seemingly rejuvenated. That got media outlets that hated him running sensationalist titles about him being a vampire and the TV show Silicon Valley taking inspiration from them. I think investing in medical research is good and not an indication of being a serial killer, especially longevity research which seems badly neglected.

Incidentally last I heard there was some research on the subject indicating it also works with saline + 5% albumin instead of young blood, but that's from 2020 and I don't know what the current state of the research is. A quick search finds this 2025 study claiming it's about "diluting age-elevated proteins as the way to re-calibrate systemic proteome to its younger state" but I don't know if that's the mainstream view. I don't know whether any of this is close to applications in humans.

I'm aware. I still don't think it's all that unfair to have fun with "blood boys" imagery when we're talking about the guy who sounds like a Metal Gear Solid villain.

Again, I say this as someone who kind of likes him! I'd actually like to have thought of half of the cyberpunk things he's invested in, or had my shit together enough to apply to be a Thiel fellow.

Can’t imagine a woke HR overlady doing that.

Yeah, her dungeon would be extremely inauthentic.

Yes, I'd like to be plowed by billionaire cock in the much more authentic BDSM dungeon.

Wokeness isn’t insane? Do you want examples?

Not the OP, but it's insane to me in a way that I can understand, unlike The Reptile, whom I don't understand.

It's just a question of higher familiarity then.

If you think there isn't weird satanic shit over on the woke side, you don't know Marina Abramaovic.

Marina Abramaovic

She's mostly pre-woke, isn't she?

Sure, she's still alive, but her heyday and peak relevancy are long behind her. Now she's just one of those old ladies that gets trotted out whenever there is a slow news week and people need to be reminded of what a Legendary and Influential Artistᵀᴹ she is.

She's been around forever, but was still having major exhibitions last year. Her connection to woke/leftism is mostly through her association with Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

Welcome to the Good Side. I've been feeling like effing von Papen these past 9 months...

  • -10

Papen in which year?

Like 1934 maybe, not the later years when he decided to willingly collaborate with the Nazis anyways despite his reservations.

I'm always surprised he survived the Night of the Long Knives. Von Schleicher didn't, so Hitler wasn't afraid of killing off Hindenberg's buddies.