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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7924 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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Trump is uncouth. He's more uncouth than any president since Lyndon Baines Johnson. But that is all that it is.

What future observations would change your mind?

No, if you want to change my mind it's your job to convince me, not my job to hand you levers with which do to so.

Ideally, I don't do anything to convince you. Ideally, you will have a mental model of what the actual physical world will look like, and then you will notice what that model predicts about the physical world, and then you will look at the world and at those predictions and see whether they align with each other. The world in which Trump is crashing out and likely to lash out in counterproductive ways looks different from the one in which he's playing six dimensional chess. I am asking you to determine, in advance, what you think each one looks like. What will Trump definitely not do?

You don't even have to write it down. But if you find yourself resistant to making those advance predictions, even in the privacy of your own head, I think you should interrogate that resistance.

Ideally, perhaps. But in practice if I give out a lever -- for example, suppose I say I'd change my mind if Trump used nuclear weapons -- that lever will be used to abuse me. For what should be a silly example but is actually similar a discussion I've been part of, someone will say I SHOULD change my mind or be foresworn because depleted uranium penetrators were used.

suppose I say I'd change my mind if Trump used nuclear weapons -- that lever will be used to abuse me.

See this is exactly the sort of lever I would really, really hope you expect wouldn't be used to "abuse" you, because you expect Trump wouldn't use nuclear weapons. If you expect Trump to pop a nuke I don't understand why you support him and what he's doing.

Or are you saying that people would claim that using DU ammo is using "nuclear weapons"?

Or are you saying that people would claim that using DU ammo is using "nuclear weapons"?

Yes, that is what he is saying

Well the correct answer to people claiming the use of DU ammo constitutes the use of "nuclear weapons" is to encourage them to speak directly into the microphone, not to try to tailor your own communication to ensure that malicious misinterpretation at that level is not possible.

I don't understand your point. A bunch of scaremongering about nuclear radiation and uranium and "dirty weapons" is a powerful rhetorical weapon to hand someone knowing they will use it against you.

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