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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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You don’t need a foolproof system. You need a system that imposes enough friction to meaningfully reduce the fraction of teens on social media.

Sure, but again consider China. They went really really restrictive and have managed to only get ~20% off. Is that meaningful enough to you?

The level of friction necessary is to be a Mega China. Maybe Mega China is worth it, but the debate needs to be honest about just how strict internet access needs to become to be worth a damn.

Otherwise it's the same logic as the crazy climate bureaucrats who, because they can't implement harsh climate restrictions, decide to put water limiters on our showers and low flow toilets. Making everyone's life worse just so they don't feel bad about their complete failure. People should either be honest and admit that Mega China is a fine tradeoff for them or give up on the theater and take the L.

The most important factor in anyone’s life before a certain age- probably more like 21 for most people, but certainly before 15 or so for the vast majority- is not government policy. It’s parents. And parents in the US are unusually willing to exercise their authority to curtail screen time/electronic entertainments. That they do so imperfectly is a much more eminently fixable problem than screens being bad.

Banning social media before a certain age, for example, will meaningfully convince parents to enact and enforce that rule in a way that Chinese gaming laws likely won’t, because American society is different from Chinese society and the inherently subsidiarist nature of minority allows this solution to work better.