The author strikes me as someone not really in touch with popular culture or even global politics. > NATO is an institution that does not, for instance, seem a

The author strikes me as someone not really in touch with popular culture or even global politics. > NATO is an institution that does not, for instance, seem able to withstand the thick desires of Vladimir Putin because it scarcely recognizes that he has any. As a Polish citizen I have to say that the initial reaction to Putin's invasion, aside from shock, was a feeling that this could have been us hadn't we joined NATO over 20 years ago. Still no guarantee that he won't do it(there was a major scare in 2014), but it's obvious that he's picking non-NATO members first. ---- On to another topic: Sex. That paragraph is the most out of touch in my view, because it's deeply rooted in the "war on drugs" mentality. I was of the impression that nowadays vices are seen as more of a symptom of a deeper problem than the problem itself. Or is it just my bubble? Also pornography is not any more the pinnacle of degeneracy the author thinks it to be[0]. With the advent of curated content, platforms with safe, functional payments and performers increasingly securing their rights - especially to privacy, it has become somewhat of a mainstream thing. Case in point: OnlyFans is essentially a household name now. [0] I suppose the author only wrote this because he's unaware of the existence of the furry fandom or anime waifus. Those two phenomenons went where traditional pornography can't and won't go. ---- As for art: most of modern art doesn't happen in galleries or closed meetings with expensive wine and other cartoonishly stereotypical attributes. Modern art is chiefly memes produced and shared by the public for the public - anonymously at that. It even went through a series of trends, each spanning a few years, like the enigmatic, surreal "E" memes, with their characteristic "deep fried" art style. To this day it isn't clear how did this achieve mainstream adoption, what were they actually expressing and for what purpose. There probably wasn't any and people just collectively decided to make it so, which makes this the purest manifestation of art possible.