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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26701 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Mellowing*. This is what the market is, this is what the market does. It connects your country to the global super culture; which overwhelms you with it's fitness. They managed to maintain their shitty standards because they were decoupled from the global economy; as they become actual states that need to do shit instead of just saying shit and as they want to participate in the market, they mellow.

It's like how republicans and libertarians talk a big game, but when they get elected what they do is cut taxes and take the most minor possible step in the culture war as red meat for the base, which immediately gets shouted down and rolled back usually while they are in office.

*You can avoid lots of the supercultre effects by being a totalitarian dictatorship, but you also miss out on lots of the benefits. Trading ideological purity strength, as it were

The problem with this is that The Mellowing that comes from constructive interaction with capitalism is dependent on actually being able to interact with capitalism. The average banlieue resident doesnt have much to offer in the French marketplace, and even their unskilled labor is mostly devalued and surplus. I dont see this situation improving, either.

I agree that market activity tends to reduce ideological fervor. But as you note, that doesn't necessarily happen if the government becomes totalitarian, which you also agree is a distinct possibility. So I'm not even sure what your claim is anymore. "Progressivism always wins except when it doesn't"?

Pretty much. My claim is that the American right has to choose between their economic and social goals; they can't have both. They (and other conservatives in free market/free association states) have goals which I believe to be contradictory.

Makes sense, I think I agree. And AI just makes this happen faster and on a larger scale - humans will be outcompeted unless we put a stop to basically all competitive pressures.

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