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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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That's not going to happen. If the trans side loses the whole thing is getting memory holed

Might be naive, but I don't think things like that can get memory-holed.

The fucking President met with Dylan Mulvaney, on HD video, visible from the little clairvoyant in everyone's pocket. It's over.

There used to be leftist groups in the UK and elsewhere in Western Europe advocating the decriminalization and normalization of pedophilia / man-boy-love. After they failed to replicate the success of the Civil Rights Movement as they wanted, they faded away and their entire existence was memory-holed. The same happened to the wing of radical feminists advocating for lesbian separationism. The fact that gay rights groups didn't promote the legalization of gay marriage as their main goal until the early 2000s is also memory-holed. So yes, it can actually be done.

To use an example that makes my side look bad, as somebody pro-trans.

How many people do you think knew about Donald Rumsfeld happily shaking hands with Saddam only about 15-20 years before treating him like the most dangerous man in the world? Probably not a lot. Or I'll put it more accurately if you put that picture in front of somebody who was pro-Iraq War, would their opinion have changed? Probably not.

90% of people don't put much thought into politics, 9% put only a little, another 0.9% put a lot, and the last 0.1% are weirdos like us.

If it turns out the gender-critical/anti-trans side is completely right, nobody is going to get punished, there will be no massive shift in societal or political views. We'll just move on to the next fight, and you'll move on to the next fight, trying to block us.

To use an example that makes my side look bad, as somebody pro-trans.

Wait, you're neocon? Or did you mean it was going to be an example where his side looks as bad as the pro-trans side? What makes you think the anti-gender side is not already overwhelmingly against the Iraq war, and would want to put the neocons on trial?

The fucking President met with Dylan Mulvaney, on HD video, visible from the little clairvoyant in everyone's pocket. It's over.

Sure, and in 2083 this will get the same treatment as the "Democrats" in the KKK

(Byrd), and the ones who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the ones who voted to expand slavery into every new state at the 1860 Democratic Convention. To wit, "Those were actually Republicans."

In a year or two most people are going to barely remember what all that was even about. The ones that will vaguely remember something will struggle to find said video because Google / GPT5000 will suck at historical searchers relating to culture war. As years go by the few internet contrarians that will remember it fully, and have the video on hand, might elicit a reaction similar to the one you get when someone posts a from the 90's relating to the current culture war.

One of my first top level comments I made after we moved here was about this very question because I already felt the vibes shifting, and if at all possible, I would like to preserve the historical memory of this particular culture war exchange, and one of the most compelling responses was that I don't have a chance. A culture war issue has to be constantly reinforced to maintain it's position in our awareness. As an illustration, you may have heard about lobotomies, but have you heard their sequel: psychosurgery? From what I gather it was a massive culture fight spanning a decade, with choirs of Expert Trusters shouting down dissent. It even got it's own Hollywood movie. How much have you heard about it?

This might be counting my chickens before they hatch, but still, if you have any ideas for how to preserve the memory of what is happening now around this subject, please share them. This is the second most important thing after winning the issue itself.