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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26703 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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What is this about Arthur Chu?

Chu rather famously wrote a couple Facebook posts back in the early gamergate / late rationalist diaspora days where, as while mockingly taking the terms from LW discussion of the time, produced this copypasta. I don't know if it got archived fully in context at any point.

In one of his many many rants against rationalism and in favour of social justice Arthur Chu said:

"“I rigorously manage my own thinking and purge myself of dangerous ‘unthinkable’ thoughts—‘mindkill’ myself—on a regular basis.

This is what you have to do to be a feminist anti-racist progressive, i.e. a social justice stormtrooper, You have to recognize that there is no neutral culture, neutrality is impossible, that culture is a cutthroat war of memes and that you have to commit to picking a side and setting yourself up as a neutral arbiter of memes is impossible and is a form of surrender. You have to constantly “check your privilege” and “unpack the knapsack” and all those other buzzwords.

You need to understand that the only way to be “rational” in this world is to be irrational, that the only way to be “fair” is to pick the right side and fight for it.

The people who genuinely win are the people who do this. The people who refuse to do this are the ones who sit on the sidelines and never even lose because they aren’t really playing.”

For more wisdom from the "Asian American icon" (his words, sorry Asian Americans), check out In favour of niceness, community and civilisation. (I know you're familiar with it grognard, but for anyone else who sees this who is less familiar with the history.)

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