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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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The Bud Light boycott continues. Anheuser-Busch is responding by sponsoring vet groups and commissioning ads that "will play heavily on themes such as football and country music". A glance at conservative comment sections reveals a few vocal consumers vowing that no amount of patriotic pandering will change their mind and that they will continue the boycott no matter what.

I am reminded of this apocryphical exchange between two Chinese officers late for battle:

What is the punishment for being late?

Death.

What is the punishment for rebellion?

Death.

Rebellion it is.

That is to say, a proper incentive structure should not only contain costs for injecting woke politics into business but also rewards for backpedalling.

On the other hand, the undisputed champions of pushing business and people around do not seem too keen on accepting apology. Or do they? The bottom line seems to be: If your public kowtow is more valuable for the propagation of the movement than the display of your head on a spike, you may get another chance (unless and untilyou even slightly step out of line again).

This seems ideal because the incentives for the victim thus contain an effectiveness criterion. Mouthing platitudes is not enough, you need to actually further the cause of your attackers. The uncertainty ups the ante for the victim.

On the other other hand, woke shaming campaigns might not be the ideal blue print for convervatives, given their lack of clout and high-brow media capture.

On an unrelated note, it's weird to me that you lot in the West drink beers with 4-5% abv. In India, that's the alcohol content of alcopop, whereas Real Men™ drink the stuff that's 8%, right at the legal limit for beer.

Miss me with what weak watery stuff.

Do you want a beer that you can drink all day or a few strong beers?

We don't have a culture of sipping on beer all day, so the vast majority of people just want 1 or 2 bottles at a time.

I can't see why you couldn't drink 8% all day though.

Are people starting to drink at cricket matches like Aussies?

Traditionally at that Gabba, people will be downing schooners of XXXX all day long. They get pretty smashed, but it's still only 4%ish so it's manageable.

(Nowadays they have better beer at the Gabba, but I don't approve. If it's not XXXX, it doesn't taste like Cricket).

drink at cricket matches like Aussies?

Like Queenslanders, please.

I have met many sober Aussies in my day, and even a few with a taste for decent beer. They all came from points south of the 29th parallel. The suggestion that "Aussies" in general drink XXXX is as offensive as the idea that "Americans" in general shoot varmints out of the back of moving pickup trucks.

First of all, I am Aussie, and I only said that we drink XXXX at the Gabba. I also said that they nowadays have better beer there, but I'm the traditionalist who sticks to the XXXX.

In other states, they traditional beer on tap was, Tooheys, or some other local equivalent of XXXX. These are affordable, not-very-strong beers that some people do indeed drink all day. I have seen the practice many times, and participated in it on occasion. These same people might sip wine and fine whisky at other occasions, but for them cricket calls for continuous rounds of beer.