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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   30473 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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Anyone have any inside information on the riots in France? Are they de-escalating yet? From the outside it seems hard to find undigested information.

It certainly looks like the riots are dying down (the number of arrests per night have gone down), but this impression may also be an effect of the government leaning on the media (this is a tried and tested method in order to limit competition between different suburban groups).

The government is also testing the waters for possibly imposing a black out on social media, I assume in part to encourage social media companies to self censor incitement to riots.

There might be flare-ups though in case of deadly shootings, or also on Bastille day next week. Some people were asking last week: why don't they start shooting? I guess that shooting makes a few people dead, but a whole lot of people very angry.

For the moment, the situation appears to be one of exhaustion in many relevant groups. The easy targets have been looted, and looters caught in the act have been sentenced immediately and harshly. Finally, messing with the police is much less fun if your mum is angry with you because she now has to walk much longer to find a supermarket that hasn't been looted or burnt down.

It is also an easy way to limit unapproved narratives that are damaging to the current government and support the out of power party (parties).

The next election is four years away, it’s less of a problem than if this had happened two years ago.

All the better to get the precedents sorted out now, so you have them ready when you really need them.

Is that falsifiable?

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