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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26965 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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I favour the 'giant messy bureaucracies blocking you from doing everything' angle rather than the omni-competence angle. Today James Bond would spend half an hour of the film filling out his License to Kill, going through compulsory workplace seminars about bullying and sexism, then trying to get legal clearance so he doesn't then get prosecuted for doing his duty (probably gets prosecuted anyway).

Most of us aren't James Bond. But we do have to sit through this nonsense.

The real-life version of James Bond would be a bunch of British bureaucrats sitting in meetings for months, punting a decision down the road until a disaster strikes and they are forced to announce that the perpetrator was on their radar the whole time. Meanwhile James Bond becomes a depressed alcoholic doing a desk job and waiting for retirement. High-agency people working in a gay and retarded bureaucracy ruins suspension of disbelief. They either find a new job, or stop being high-agency.

The British once understand the art form of political and economic bureaucracy. Then the wrecking ball of stupidity came in with Thatcher and the Friedmanites and the British lost touch with that side of their historic traditions. Them and the Chinese were masters of the concept at one point. I’ll always be satisfied when the Keynesians smacked him around a bit on their turf. His neoliberal policies have done so much damage to this country.

See also: Shin Godzilla.

Shin Godzilla is one of my favorite movies of the last decade and probably the best thing Anno made that isn't the rocket launch sequence from Honnêamise. It irritates me immensely because Shin KR and Shin Ultraman were nowhere near as good and I am a fan of both those properties.

The real-life version of James Bond would be The Sandbaggers, where they do sit in meetings a lot but it's also the greatest spy show ever made and one of the best media recommendations I got from this forum.

I just started watching this. The writing is amazing. Why can't we make shows like this any more? This reminds me of the decline in the aesthetics of architecture and makes me sad.

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