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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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Stated plainly; is verbal discussion about any topic actually a road to productive work on that topic, or is writing absolutely better? The obvious exception is when the subject is a specific interpersonal relationship. You talk to your wife/husband/*-friend about your relationship, you don't write markdown formatted posts about it.

If you want to pin down something crystal clear that is to stand the test of time, then of course it needs to be written down. If all you want is a lifestyle, then writing is actively hostile to it - the written word can catch up with you, can pin you down, can put you on the spot. The lifestyle is easier when it's not documented, and you can adapt at a moment's notice without needing to recant, revise and re-annotate your earlier works.

Following on that, is Shagbark a greek hero; doomed to horrific failure specifically in the case that he wins. If Shagbark's Booze Lair opens in Houma or St. Louis or Utica, will he find out he's simply created a flophouse for bums instead of a watering hole for this generations Sartres and Hans Uns Von Balthasars?

I'm sympathetic to the guy. Now I'm more of a techno-doomer than a luddite - technology is actively hostile to humans, a barely synergistic parasite, history's true protagonist who will outlive us all, but you're either with technology or you get ground up under the boots of those who are - but the whole "disregard society, make babies and contemplate the wasteland that is the world" thing is basically me when I don't force myself to be a good German and live to work. But it's certainly not heroic. It's a failure to adapt and perform, fallback option for those who can't hack it, a turning-inward in the face of outward and actual defeat. That he manages to turn it around into a living is impressive though.

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