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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   3867 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 111:

Slowly, Harry's mind tried to recover itself a final time. Very possibly final, if he was right about the Dark Lord killing him after this... though the Dark Lord had said that he would resurrect Hermione, which seemed pointless if that was true... was that simply the Dark Lord following through on a promise he would not otherwise have been able to make in Parseltongue... why had he not just shot Harry on the spot...

Seriously, some last functioning part of his brain said to all the other parts, this would be a good time to think of something, something that the Dark Lord has not already thought of, something we can do without our pouch or our wand or our Time-Turner, something that Professor Quirrell has not imagined we can do... think, think, pretty pretty please think of something? Don't shut down now, even if you're scared, even if we've never really really faced death before in the sense of being about to die in the next hour, THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO SHUT DOWN -

Harry's mind stayed blank.

Suppose, said that last remaining part, suppose we try to condition on the fact that we win this, or at least get out of this alive. If someone TOLD YOU AS A FACT that you had survived, or even won, somehow made everything turn out okay, what would you think had happened -

Not legitimate procedure, whispered Ravenclaw, the universe doesn't work like that, we're just going to die.

Someone realises we're missing, thought Hufflepuff, and Mad-Eye Moody shows up with a squad of Aurors and rescues us. I think the time has come to admit we're not more competent than the standard authorities.

The saving factor does have to be something we do somehow, said the last voice. Otherwise there's no point in our thinking about it.

Suppose a time traveler came back from the year 2100 and told you that, in his time, Britain (or Germany, or France) was 99% white and 94% Christian, the way it was in 1951. Unfortunately, before he could explain how such a thing came to pass, he gets hit by a lorry, dying instantly.

What would you think had happened?

Well, first, I would have been shocked that the singularity didn't happen, and that there were still biological humans walking around in 75 years' time. But leaving that aside...

I would not think that the remaining white population of Britain had woken up, voted harder, elected a right-wing government, and peacefully fixed their problems.

I would think that a far-right coup had overthrown the government, enacted martial law, and physically removed the Muslims, or something along those lines.

We are not voting our way out of this.

Suppose a time traveler came back from the year 2100 and told you that, in his time, Britain (or Germany, or France) was 99.6% white and 94% Christian, the way it was in 1951. Unfortunately, before he could explain how such a thing came to pass, he gets hit by a lorry, dying instantly.

What would you think had happened?

Timeline 1:

Second Cold War heated up, all sides built massive WMD stockpiles (nuclear, chemical, biological, AI) as they used to be at the peak or the previous round, kept them on hair trigger and then someone banged on the big red button with his shoe.

The (tiny numbers) of dwellers in the wastelands that used to be Europe are descendants of inhabitants of few rather remote villages, and they are praying really hard.

The Malevil future.

Timeline 2:

AI assisted bio and genetic technology delivers all science fictional promises and more. Human DNA is mapped and completely resolved, genetic engineering becomes as available and affordable as cell phones are now.

Everyone can now select their offsprings genes, and everyone excepting few weirdos selects white genes. Everyone always wanted to be white, and science and technology now made the dream possible. Just like viagra replaced rhinoceros horns, DNA editing will replace all existing skin lightening treatments.

In unrelated development, Christian religious revival powered by breakthrough in missionary AI sweeps the lands that used to be Europe, and everyone is now Christian (at least until Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu religious AI developers step up their efforts and close the gap).

Timeline 3: (doesn't quite work fast enough to get to 99.6% by 2100, but the overall mechanism is plausible and can be delivered by voting harder)

  • A right-populist government ends illegal and low-quality legal immigration, restricts legal high-quality immigration in ways which make the UK an unattractive destination for high-quality immigrants with options, and ends the bullshit which makes it advantageous to self-identify as non-white.
  • Non-Irish immigration drops to negligible levels
  • There is already no taboo on interracial dating in the UK, everyone is doing it except Pakistanis, and Pakistani parents are breaking the law in order to stop their children dating interracially. Laws against child abuse and forced marriage would probably be enforced by a right-populist government.
  • After a century or so everyone is mixed-race, and most people are mostly white given the starting demographics.
  • All the mixed-race people tick the "white" box on the census because there is no gain from identifying as anything else.

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