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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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I am emphatically not saying that the MV Hondius should have be dealt with using Hegseth's patented double-tap method

Eh... Anyways, the difference is that for a certain kind of mindset, "punishing" everyone is more acceptable than "punishing" a subset. Yes this is terrible and braindead; no I don't know how to solve it.

You might as well say "sooner or later, that naive tourist walking through the slums will get murdered for his wallet by someone, so I might as well stab him right now".

A utilitarian Argentine government should pay people to at minimum threaten tourists that want to go to the hantavirus garbage dump. They should just kill the birds that seem to be the main attraction.

Currently, while some people near me claim that this will be the next pandemic, I am taking the fifth until Scott publishes one of his trademark 'much more than you wanted to know' articles

I don't really expect it to be the next pandemic, but I don't think a current-Scott will be as useful or forthcoming as any of several eras of old-Scott. Maybe I'm too cynical there, Kelsey's been a bit spicier than she used to be (low bar to hit!), but... should he publish such an article it will be after most useful points. At best we catch a tweet, or if you're closer to him you hear it first or second hand conversationally.

the WHO tells us that everything is fine, but these are basically the same people who told us that masks will not prevent COVID

Current WHO recommendation is that everyone on the ship is high-risk, should be tracked for 42 days minimum, and should wear N95s. This is less than ideal but better than I expected.