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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7772 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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'If this goes badly, that makes it even more important to do it!' That's a Kafka trap.

These are talking points not fully fleshed out arguments, but I find the quality of discussion on this latest conflict to be far below what I usually see here.

Example: "Rubio said Israel dragged us into this war." No. Just no.

And as to this specific point, I should not need to write a full length essay in order for you to be able to connect the dots here. It's not a Kafka trap, it's an army sitting outside a castle building siege weapons shouting "when these are done are we'll kill you all with these weapons." You attack before they are done, and "wow that was fucking close."

I understand that a lot of people are using this conflict to funnel anti-Trump, American, and Jew feelings, but a lot of people are actively cheering for America to lose and to support Iran, a country that is recently accused of killing tens of thousands of its own population and actively, joyfully supports global terrorism.

Likewise the U.S. isn't an amazing hegemon, but people cheering for China or Russia to take over? Jesus Christ.

"when these are done are we'll kill you all with these weapons."

Kind of a big assumption here. Are you confident that Iran, if they developed both nuclear weapons and some form of nuclear triad to be enable to credibly threaten retaliation against a first-strike, would then immediately use these new nukes to commit suicide by triggering MAD?

North Korea talks an absurd amount of shit, has nukes, and has never used them. India and Pakistan enjoy a little slap & tickle now and again and yet don't go nuclear.

You really, actually, genuinely think that the people in charge of Iran, and all the people who are involved in the functioning of a nuclear triad/delivery systems/C&C/etc are all down to, what, land a few nukes on Israeli soil (best case) and then get promptly glassed by H bombs? That seems realistic to you?

It's not a Kafka trap, it's an army sitting outside a castle building siege weapons shouting "when these are done are we'll kill you all with these weapons." You attack before they are done, and "wow that was fucking close."

Alternatively, it's seeing a big fortress, choosing to attack it directly from the front, taking heavy casualties, failing to take the fortress and then going "Whew, we sure took heavy casualties but if we had waited longer for them to improve their defenses then we would have lost even harder" while failing to consider the possibility of attacking from a less defensible angle or even avoiding the fortress entirely.

Iran is an aggressor and has been for decades, they are very upfront and explicit about some aspects of it, and other aspects are very well understood by those paying attention (like cyberattacks, proxies).

This is not North Korea that utilizes some strategic ambiguity for face saving purposes.

Iran and its proxies have gotten very good at using gaps in Western cultural thinking to engage in violence without triggering an immune response.

Ultimately this is a defensive war and needs to be modeled as such - Iran is an attacker who is attacking now, was attacking previously, and stated they will attack again in the future.

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