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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   3076 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% 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.

Suppose a time traveler comes to 1920 and tells people that in 1944, there are hardly any Jews left in Poland. What do you think had happened? Do you think the gentile Poles (or even the Germans) thrived?

Generally, societies which are willing to enact ethnic purges are also shitty in a lot of other ways. You do not get to 99% white simply by removing the recent immigrants, you would need to round up Asians whose ancestors have lived here since 1970.

Likewise, unless Jesus starts granting his followers spell slots, I do not think that 94% Christianity would happen by organically. My read on the 94% is that in 1951, parishes filled important social functions and most people who had doubts about theism found it wiser to stay in the closet. It is hard to make parishes great again, but easy enough to drive the non-theists back into the closet, Cromwell could do that.

Repressive regimes do not go away simply because they have arrived at an ethnically homogeneous society. Any Britain which will go back to 99% white and 94% Christian will be orders of magnitude more terrible than 1951 was.

Also, one might wonder how a country would become more Christian while deporting or otherwise doing away with a substantial portion of the populace.

I don't think the proposals that would result in this outcome would be very Christ-like.

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