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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24391 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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And finally, the ad hoc reconstruction of certain norms and rules from 'first principles' whilst almost never acknowledging that's what they're doing. "We went through a very circuitous journey of discovery and we've wound up in almost the exact place that things started out, and we learned so many useful things along the way (that most 'normal' folks already know and consider 'common sense')! How fun!"

I have a hard time faulting anyone for doing this, because the "common sense" norms were already thrown out decades ago, long before the rationalists came onto the scene. On matters of sex, we has the Sexual Revolution back in the 60's, and now we're in a state of complete social anarchy, by which I mean that social shaming is ineffective because you can always find someone else who agrees with you. If I deign to judge anyone for their sex life, now I'm the one who's causing a problem. Even in the last remaining areas where laws are still on the books (rape and underage stuff), enforcement is spotty at best (viz. Epstein) and you'll find people muddying the waters with various postmodern-style arguments ("rape just means she regretted it later", "no actually all sex is rape", "but ephebophilia"...)

So along come the rationalists (and others perhaps), who find that since appealing to social consensus doesn't work, it has become necessary to argue every point in long-winded detail. When you're born in the wilderness, you have no choice but to wander.

So along come the rationalists (and others perhaps), who find that since appealing to social consensus doesn't work, it has become necessary to argue every point in long-winded detail. When you're born in the wilderness, you have no choice but to wander.

I'm going to bite the bullet here and say that ethics based on reason is progress and ethics based on la favela abuela's vibes is bad, actually. No, we should not persecute people because a bunch of dirty villagers who believe in magic get an ick response to their behaviors. We actually need a high bar of evidence to justify persecuting people.

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