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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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Either The Post Millennial is providing a skewed version of events, or a defense attorney just defeated Andy Ngo's civil case against two of his attackers through blatant juror intimidation. I tend to assume the media takes things out of context, especially openly partisan media, but it's hard for me to believe that a lawyer wearing an "I am Antifa" t-shirt every day in court, rather than formal attire, is anything other than a breach of protocol. Maybe the "I will remember all your faces" line was taken out of context, and she was just talking about her photographic memory. Maybe the Post Millennial was exaggerating when they said that the arguments were all ad hominem attacks. Or maybe this really is as bad as it seems.

Regardless, I'm surprised that the Motte isn't talking about the case.

I don't know what happened in that one defendant's life to make his face like that, but holy hell.

Looks like a burn victim to me. Why Antifa always seem to have something horribly wrong with their appearance is an interesting question though.

It might be an interesting question if the typical American isn't a trainwreck appearance-wise. Without objective data backing up the comparison, this comment is just "boo outgroup".

There’s definitely geographic differences that might lead some to be in a bubble where they don’t realize what’s normal, but antifa mugshots are at least a standard deviation more unattractive than anywhere I’ve been in America.

Socrates belonged, in his origins, to the lowest folk: Socrates was rabble. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But ugliness, which in itself is an objection, was among the Greeks virtually a refutation. Was Socrates Greek in the first place? Ugliness is often enough the expression of interbreeding, of a development thwarted by interbreeding. In other cases it appears as a development in decline. Forensic anthropologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo [monster in the face, monster in the soul]. But the criminal is a décadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal?—At any rate this wouldn’t contradict that well-known judgment of a physiognomist which sounded so offensive to Socrates’ friends. A visitor who knew about faces, when he passed through Athens, said to Socrates’ face that he was a monstrum—that he contained all bad vices and cravings within him. And Socrates simply answered: “You know me, sir!”

–Friedrich Nietzsche

Spandrell fashioned an entire thesis around precisely this question: bioleninism

While I’d been based and redpilled for a while, reading Spandrell’s initial posts in early 2018 resonated with me on a deep level.

Sorry, I just experienced a vision of the next generation’s college app essays.

Most just look like average walmart-americans with a crustpunk wrapper.

/pol/ loves doing this (and so do leftists on twitter in the reverse case) where they make a collage of how ugly/fat/weedy/lame all the antifa types are. And sure, they are, but the same goes for the average utility belt militia fatty in camo. Most Americans are overweight, the remainder are sedentary skinnyfat or just skinny. Maybe 5% of the population are 'fit' (meaning they exercise regularly and aren't fat) and maybe 1% have a lean, athletic, muscular physique.