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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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Certainly I've considered it. I would, on the whole, be surprised if there were very many whose preferences along those lines were innate to such a precise degree that nothing else - not violent sports, not hardcore BDSM - could sate their desires. Especially, in terms of the Glorious Transhumanist Future, once we bring VR into it. Now of course, again as per Scott's "short end of a trade-off" concept, I'm not saying that fulfilling those specific preferences for that tiny fringe of humanity should be a priority. But in terms of envisioning the utopia at the end of the rainbow, then yes, I do think a world in which we contrive some way for them to live out their violent fantasies, or something close to them, without actually hurting anyone is preferable to a world in which we simply keep them denied because we deem their desires Wrong.

Anyway, I don't think we were especially talking about the fulfillment of unvirtuous desires, necessarily. I think pusher_robot was saying that the unvirtuous shouldn't get common-sense nice things even if they want them, while I think the unvirtuous should indeed get nice houses and good food and safety and so on (at least once everybody else has got them).