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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Can someone steelman why “pride” is still necessary? Seems that you can be gay, bi or trans and it’s more than accepted - there’s a huge increase in kids claiming lgbt status so if there’s stigma it’s not apparent anymore. At what point does it make sense to call a moratorium for social movements that have lost their purpose? What are the “victory conditions” for what homophobia is considered no longer a major issue?

Homosexuality is, conjecturally, naturally disgusting for the heterosexual. This doesn’t seem learned — no one taught me that two guys kissing is gross, it was just gross to consider until the normalization propaganda reduced the innate “disgust” alarm. (This would be a very useful instinct because it disincentivizes men to take out their lust on each other; in the same way, humans develop a disgust for the idea of sex with people they grew up with). So there may need to be a constant stream of reinforcement to keep homosexuality normalized. Additionally, if LGBeTc is in any way associated with a desire to transverse norms and exhibit oneself (IMO 60% likely), then its public push could be considered part of the sexuality. It’s also beneficial for Democrats to incense LGBTs against “tradition” or anything that codes right wing… until their polling says the trade off isn’t worth it anymore. Lastly, LGBT pride has a covert psychological effect that may or may not be intended by the deep state, in that it reduces sum total non-sexualized pride; if you want to reduce straight men having pride period (the most dangerous cohort), you would associate pride with gays, transvestites, and transgenders. This is a good technique for reducing people proud of their culture, for instance; there really aren’t many synonyms to the sophisticated construct of “having pride”.

Homosexuality is, conjecturally, naturally disgusting for the heterosexual. This doesn’t seem learned — no one taught me that two guys kissing is gross, it was just gross to consider until the normalization propaganda reduced the innate “disgust” alarm.

I think it is similar to training cats to be okay with being picked up. Most cats' natural disposition is to not like being picked up by a large primate, but with the right training you can use steps to make them more okay with first having your hands on them, then getting their paws on you shoulder, then picking them up all the way.

My guess is that cats might still have slight discomfort with being picked up, but they can be trained to accept that it is safe enough that the discomfort is dialed down to the absolute minimum.

Honestly, the more I interact with cats, the less I understand their psychology. That’s not a metaphor. I just watched one reach out to bat a pet rabbit, get no response, and then go back to peacefully (?) coexisting. Somehow this has been a stable equilibrium.