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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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What many Americans fail to understand about most major Western European cities (ie not Belfast) is that the battle has been lost a long time ago. In Paris, London, Brussels and in many tier two cities in these countries (Birmingham, Marseille, Rotterdam), natives are far below 50% of the population, and most of those who remain are old. My personal calculation is that perhaps as little as 20-25% of London’s young male population (unless you stretch to include outer, outer suburbs practically in Essex) is wholly indigenous, maybe the bottom end of that range. Other major cities like Vienna, Malmo, Frankfurt, Berlin, Lyon, even Geneva and Zurich are not too far behind.

You can’t start a revolt with those demographics. In fact other than the sectarian history, the reason these riots are happening in Belfast and didn’t happen in London after eg Lee Rigby is precisely because even then the demographics just didn’t exist to riot. The only riots in the last 20 years in London were the largely immigrant ones in 2011.

One hundred and fifty Britons held back three thousand Africans at Rorke's Drift. Individual IQ matters in war. It could still be done, even at 3:1 odds, if only whites would wake up.

I mean, I get your point but, cowhide shields and spears vs carbines. Yes: industrialized warfare stomps down on tribal warriors. Race war fantasies aren't that though. And now days the tribal warriors have AKs and technicals. They aren't going to be as vulnerable as during those golden few decades in which colonial armies had modern guns and the natives had spears.

See here:

The Effectiveness of Rifle Fire Across Cultures by Kulak.

Long story short, even with the same guns the minds of the people using them count for a lot.

There's a pay wall. But anyways I assume it discusses Muslims literally not aiming and trusting Allah to guide their bullets. Which sounds incredible but supposedly enough Muslims have said it so it may be true.

There's a pay wall.

Open Seame.

Thanks. Also that's much better than I would have thought.

It's not war, it's low-level ethnic conflict (serious warfare risks drawing in state employees pushed to stop it who're probably going to be more competent than random Sudanese people)

The recent Southport riots have shown that a lot of people just aren't that competent at rioting, the downsides of a comfy life. There's some reports that the Irish are doing better but I wouldn't draw too much on Twitter reports yet.

The recent Southport riots have shown that a lot of people just aren't that competent at rioting,

Please define "competent at rioting"?

by what metrics are we judging a rioter's proficiency? Property damage? Amount of favorable press coverage?

I'm thoroughly disappointed at rioters. At no point does anyone throw a bunch of water balloons filled with paint at the riot cops plastic faceplate/shields. The riot cops are allowed to establish a defensive line and use line tactics vs the rioters and the rioters never just drive a truck through them or use heavy truck/bulldozer equipment to blockade ingress points denying the authorities access with riot vans/water cannons.

‘Whatever happens, we have got The maxim gun, and they have not’

Rotor’s drift was a British victory because the British couldn’t retreat and had guns. The zulus lost a lot of people, but Isandlwana shows that they were highly effective at war.

Do you believe that the median Silicon Valley Tech-Bro has a higher IQ than the median 19th century Tommy? If so, do you believe that if the historical defenders were to be magically replaced with a randomly selected band of tech-bros, that the tech-bros would perform better than the Tommys did?

I think the more relevant way to look at the matter is whether there are important IQ floors below which substantial efficacy is lost. Replacing hard men with above-floor IQs with much softer men who happen to be even smarter wouldn't go great, I think, no. I also don't think it's especially pertinent to mention.

I think it is extremely pertinent.

There is a common assumption here on theMotte that a high verbal IQ is a direct proxy for knowledge, competence, virtue, grit, etc... and it is that assumption that I am challenging.

See @HereAndGone2's comment on "midwits" down thread.