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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026

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I do find it funny that the one biggest problem with libertarianism is the paradox (though admittedly it's true for all of them) that yes, people like that are more suited to leadership (in the sense that they know better than anyone else that they need to make sure there's enough room and tolerance of risk to keep future options open, rather than other systems/leaders that are openly proud of the fact they eat their seed corn) than basically anyone else... except for the fact they don't want to (either it's not lucrative enough, since being better than everyone else usually means you get paid better too), and/or are just as worried about the inevitable revolution of the not-so-worthy as anyone else when it comes to building systems and organizations that would making space for those like them in the future.