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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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An article is making the rounds on rat-adjacent twitter entitled "The Nerdy Escorts Cashing In On Silicon Valley’s AI Boom."

I can't bypass the paywall, but someone posted on X:

Five years ago, it was rare for escorts to charge more than $1K per hour. Now, a handful of women charge much, much more: $3k, $5k an hour. $23k a day. $30k a weekend. Inside the shifting economics of intimacy in Silicon Valley...

I know that aella, the famous rationalist whorelord, popularized this niche of pseudo-intellectual prostitutes appealing to rationalists and other tech nerds for extreme amounts of money. It's obvious that aella has become obscenely wealthy and gained a ton of social status from her pursuits, but I'm still somewhat shocked at the sheer amount these women are making.

I work a pretty boring, standard corporate marketing job, and apparently these prostitutes are taking home almost my entire after-tax yearly income in one weekend.

Even regardless of the moral aspect of the situation, the fact that a prostitute can make so much money is a huge slap in the face to people working hard for a living. That, combined with the fact that close to 18% of the economy is now in healthcare, has got me a bit depressed on the economy.

Also, Tyler Cowen had a bit of a viral moment yesterday saying he wouldn't be surprised if 15 to 20% of all jobs in the near future are elder care. This of course sandwiched in a talk where he insists AI is great and making jobs not losing them!

Anyway, all of this recent discourse combined is making me feel more and more like a retarded schmuck for working a 'real job,' as opposed to just leeching off the government, doing some sort of NGO/media grift, or even just getting a random remote job and going to live cheap in Thailand or some other extremely cheap country. And this is someone who has a pretty chill office job where I don't have to work too hard, and get to work from home a few days a week. I can't imagine how people who actually bust their asses in physical labor and make less than me feel!

Either way, the optimism from the pundit class around AI and the economy is feeling more and more hollow to me by the day. If the numbers keep going up but everyone is employed wiping the asses of boomers and sexually pleasuring tech AI millionaires, have we really improved society? How will things go otherwise without some sort of relatively radical disruption? I try not to be a 'doomer' about AI, but I'm increasingly finding it hard to be optimistic on the impact of it on society.

In grand scheme of things these whores like aella are the very bottom of intellectual courtesans. They are vastly overshadowed by lovers of powerful men who can amass properties, jewels or even yachts and other luxury items worth much more - cases such as Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, who was a lover of King of Spain and recieved property in Marakesh and $70 million in literal direct wire transfer. And even those are of course nothing compared to wealthy divorcees such as Bezo's ex wife MacKenzie Scott. There are many more such cases such as Jocelyn Wildenstein who got $3.8 billion divorce settlement etc. If you look in top 100 wealthiest women, almost 80% inherited their wealth often from deceased spouses. Only around 14 of them are self-made. It is almost inverse of men, who are almost 80% self-made billionaires. This is how things simply work for women.

Bezos' wife was paid because she wasn't a whore or a lover. She was a real partner. If anyone "deserves" to get such a large share of their spouse's earnings it's probably her.

It really is the best case scenario for the feminist divorce laws at this level of wealth. It wasn't like he married a model who counted the hours until she could get the biggest payoff.

This is just wordplay. In that sense even Aella is not just a lover or a whore, she is partner of sorts for powerful, intellectually stimulating them toward higher success. Maybe she also "deserves" billions of dollars. The word "deserves" carries a lot of weight here, even today there are countries where divorcees do not get shit when it comes to wealth - the whole Middle East and North Africa for instance. Similar rules exist for widows, where wealth is inherited by closest male relatives. All these countries apparently decided that wives do not deserve shit.

The point stands. Golddiging under various circumstances is highly profitable for women, even an utter bimbo without any hard skills outside of seduction can amass huge wealth and power that way. That is in fact vast majority of cases how women do it all around the world.

This is just wordplay. In that sense even Aella is not just a lover or a whore, she is partner of sorts for and powerful, intellectually stimulating them toward higher success.

No, this is the wordplay. Comparing a person in a monogamous marriage for more than a decade through your hard times and providing material support to a whore you rented for thousands an hour after you already became rich is not really credible. We've been allowing whores to make this argument in public without laughing them out of the room for too long.

I come from an Islamic society, I have no problem with the idea that women's upside in divorce should be capped. But those are polygamous societies.

But that's not the sort of society Bezos got married in. In the one he did, monogamy is the law and women are considered partners in a more substantial sense by both the feminists and Christians, even if they manage it differently. It's doubtful that Western civilization has suffered from treating the one wife as more important and precious, even if the idea of giving away half your earnings to someone now incentivized to take it is galling.

The point stands. Golddiging under various circumstances is highly profitable for women, even an utter bimbo without any hard skills outside of seduction can amass huge wealth and power that way. That is in fact vast majority of cases how women do it all around the world.

Yes, sure? First off: a lot of men do that to themselves. Men chase these women like they chase them. Bezos chose to abandon the wife of his youth for a sexpot despite knowing the costs.

Second, I said this was the best case argument precisely because that's just not Mackenzie Scott's bio.

But that's not the sort of society Bezos got married in. In the one he did, monogamy is the law and women are considered partners in a more substantial sense by both the feminists and Christians, even if they manage it differently. It's dubious if Western civilization has suffered from treating the one wife as more important and precious, even if the idea of giving away half your earnings to someone now incentivized to take it is galling.

There are two different arguments here. On one level, we can look at relationship between man and woman overall, which ranges from whores, suggar babies/daddies, friends with benefits, situationships, cohabitation, common-law marriage to secular marriage or religious marriage and many other forms between. The modern secular western view constantly blurs difference between these relationships, just look at so called toothbrush case from Australia 16 years ago. So if a regular escort like Aella has toothbrush in your home, she can be your defacto wife. That is the actual legal minimum when a whore "deserves" half of your wealth for her "partnership", so who are we kidding here.

I as a Catholic also agree with you, but I am also much more strict even than many of my fellow believers. I do not consider anything other than religious marriage as such, I do not see a point why should I in any way respect the aforementioned bastardization of this sacred institution. I do not care about "she is my monogamous partner" and other such nonsense - including divorced couples - which is something that should not happen in the first place. It is all just heathens doing their depraved shit, up and including gay "marriages" and various polycules and some such. I take it as a wordgame, where degenerates appropriated the word and completely inverted its meaning beyond recognition, transforming it to something completely different as usual. To me it is all just cohabitation in some concubinage and people having basically business contracts between themselves, especially if you include various semi-crazy prenups. Again, it is a farce.

So I do not see any issues for me to hold both of these points. If a supposed believer divorces her husband, she automatically falls under category of oathbreaker and I cannot find any sympathy for any case of how she deserves wealth for some vague concept of "partnership", that is not a standard I recognize or respect. The fact is, that she herself turned her sacred marriage into moneygrabbing operation as opposed to acting according to her duties.