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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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And how many social credit points do you think you should lose for criticising the gove- uhh, I mean “subversive activities”?

Because this is the universal failure mode of any attempt at conduct-prorated welfare: it would inevitably descend into political patronage.

The mistake is in assuming this won’t happen anyway. The system already ruins your life, shuts you out of flying, having a bank account, shames every would-be employer for hiring you etc if you have a disapproved-of opinion, and in most of the West you can even go to proson for it, where you are likely to be the victim of ethnic or religiously motivated gangs if you’ve said anything or done anything to offend or hurt them before your incarceration. During Covid there was even plenty of chatter about prioritizing “higher risk” Black and Brown patients over white people.

You have - by the way - stumbled across a more general reality of the welfare system or entire modern state (discussed elsewhere in this thread): the system already exists to extract money and dignity from you and give it to others; you cannot destroy it, only redirect some of that extraction and humiliation toward others and some of the loot towards yourself.