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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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That risks running into the Heckler's Veto

This is true of virtually everything, is it not? So either we run the risk of the Heckler's Veto or we say that nothing outside of their words provide additional information or context for their beliefs, and I think that is an unreasonable standard that people do not hold unless they are already sympathetic to the person/group in question.

entirely involve mutually consenting adults

Red Means No gets at the bleeding edge of the limits of consent and while it's not "eating the babies" levels of evil and/or nonsense, it's sufficient for me to say "I do not trust anyone within a few degrees of contact with having meaningful influence over anything." Not to mention the rest of the history of the community in dealing, ah, less-than-effectively with charming sociopaths until some utilitarian threshold of victims gets crossed. Consent is not magic, and apparently, it can be retroactively withdrawn anyways under current mores.

Aella has probably included "would you eat a baby for reason X" on a survey or camp application somewhere to select for sufficiently open-minded and edgy people so maybe that's not the best example. (This is a semi-joking exaggeration based on her Plzdontkillus creator camp that asked "if you had to have sex with a cow, would you rather it be alive or dead?" and her general history of asking sophomoric shock questions for... entertainment? Community filtering? etc)