@EyesAlight's banner p

EyesAlight

Formerly blendorgat

1 follower   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 04 22:18:44 UTC 

				
User ID: 207


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
EyesAlight


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Formerly blendorgat

				
				
				

				

					1 follower  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 22:18:44 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 207


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom New Old Controversial
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It feels vaguely alt-right-twitter-fascist to argue aesthetics like this, but come on. Everyone in that illustration is obese, save the two women wearing burkas, and though I personally rather like the way they look, the intention of a burka is to make women less attractive. Both buildings in the background have graffiti, including a delightful short paean to "CLIT" on the front door of the apartment building.


Opinions differ on the aesthetic quality of tattoos and piercings, but if you ask me they can be attractive only in isolation. When everyone in the foreground has a tattoo, piercings, or both, it's hard to argue that looks good.


And, sigh, though I don't personally have a problem with it.... it's worth saying the quiet part out loud: less than a third of the people in that illustration could be mistaken for ethnic Germans. That's a fine vision for America, but in a country where ~90% of citizens have European ancestry, what is that trying to say? What would it say if I put together a poster of my vision for South Africa and 3/4 of the people depicted were white?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can't rule out that line of thinking, but no normal soft ballistic vest will protect against rifle rounds. They're certainly not strapping up presidents with ceramic plate armor these days, right?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem is, immigration is useful for a range of things, and 100k is either far too low or far too high, depending on the cohort in question. If you're trying to attract middle aged successful white collar workers from China and Europe, the number needs to be north of 500k or you'll get overwhelmed. If you're trying to alleviate local low skill labor shortages like immigration from central America has historically, 10k might be too high.


It's just price discrimination in action - Apple would make less money if they only sold one model of iphone, and if they could get away with exponentially distributed prices they'd do it in a second.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Negligible, unless retroactively incorporated into the story of WW3 just because it occurred around the same time.


There aren't any great powers on the side of Hamas, only Iran, and only partially. There are chances it could escalate to a war with Iran, but that would not be a world war.


The reality is: the next world war occurs either because China attacks Taiwan, or Russia invades a NATO country. The latter is... extremely unlikely.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm also quite curious for an uncensored perspective on this. I knew it was bad, but the story below about being site-banned for coloring a pixel in the canvas thing is so far beyond what I knew about it really threw me. I've always pushed back against the ring of Gyges story, but if admins are willing to go that far just because they know no one will ever find out...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've gotten stuck in a rut of reading Lit-RPG recently, which I really need to extricate myself from. Just finished the published books of Defiance of the Fall, which was a nice mix of the Chinese cultivation genre with lit-RPG. Still, if I just read 3,000 pages of something with more substance, I imagine I would feel better about my reading habits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Tinker Tuesday for September 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you're looking for an alpha reader, give me a shout - at this point my litRPG addiction seems terminal, so I might as well stop resisting. Are you aiming for the Eastern/cultivation style or more of a gamelit approach?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Tinker Tuesday for August 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recently purchased a Bambulabs 3d printer, and while I have been loving the thing overall, the automatic filament switcher has been giving me some trouble. The "AMS" holds four spools of filament, and has a pretty clever design where it can switch between the materials mid-print, so you can have multi-color or multi-material prints.


My problem is, the 1st, 2nd, and 4th spools work perfectly. The third spools starts to ingest filament, then proceeds to grind it to shreds while not feeding.


I've disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the thing four times now, to no avail thus far, but tonight I make attempt number five. Wish me luck?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Australian and Canadian real estate has been rendered ludicrously expensive by Australians and Canadians making it difficult to build housing. There's no reasonable level of demand that can't be supplied by the market, when not constrained. (Not to say that I suggest their approach to immigration as an exemplar!)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Eh, I think the use of the word "race" in that quote misleads a bit. All Churchill is really getting across is the old reply to Melos: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.


Not a very Christian perspective of Churchill, and not one I agree with, but he's not just saying that there's a hierarchy of races, and if you're lower you have no moral claim against your betters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree, the writing seems significantly above average for a CRPG. Characterization is a bit weak for non-companions, and I do agree with the complaint that the world feels too small. But compared to most of the dreck you see nowadays, it's really quite good. (Still, when the "fate of the world" is at stake, I'm level 9, and Elminster dips into my camp to say hi then leaves, it feels a little silly.)


The big defining feature of Larian games is the way they try to simulate everything: you can throw a bottle of water to put out a fire, or throw somebody off a cliff to kill them, or pickpocket your enemies Big Sword before the fight. If anything, it's like Skyrim as a CRPG.  There are pluses and minuses to that, and honestly, I would prefer an old-Bioware or Obsidian take on the gameplay, but it's still fun.


The most recent CRPG I'd played was Wrath of the Righteous, which I liked more, if only because it had a really defined identity of its own. That, and Pathfinder/3.5 is strictly superior to 5e.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think I'm about due for a reread of Blindsight - I read it years ago online and loved it, but at the time I hadn't read much about consciousness. My (vague) recollection was that it mostly elides the hard problem of consciousness. I remember there was an idea that the crew's linguist was able to prove the non-consciousness of the aliens from their text communications.


In the era of LLMs, that seems pretty silly, since ChatGPT (or at least the un-neutered Bing) can do a great job of pretending to experience. But maybe there was less hand-waving than I'm remembering?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Biological reproduction rates pale in comparison to memetic ones. Ignoring the unfortunate reality that effectively no one has found a policy capable of flipping fertility declines, what use is a Russia of 400 million if 300 million read the New York Times, or at least watch Marvel movies?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As with so many things in space, I think the timeline is driven by one binary variable: does SpaceX's vision of a rapidly reusable Starship come to fruition?


If it does, asteroid mining goes from a pipe dream to a reality in the blink of an eye. So many things that work in principle work in reality once you can toss a hundred tons to orbit every day of the week.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is there a transcript available? I'm enjoying Network State so far, but spending 7 hours listening to a podcast which I could read in a half hour is not going to work.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Old Culture War Thread: Your good books list
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Have any of the Borges essays stood out to you? I've had that on my bookshelf for years, but I didn't ever get into it like I do his short stories. (I've read straight through Ficciones several times...)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Also took the change to change my name; never really liked "blendorgat". I used to use a random phrase generator for all my usernames, but my paranoia levels have decreased somewhat. (Which is to say, I'm still using a randomly generated phrase, but not distinguishing between sites anymore...)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's unfortunate that our society so fully understands the necessity of this in some contexts, yet seems ignorant of it in others. We take a strong, appropriate stance on cases of financial fraud - witness SBFs 25 year sentence, or Madoff's effective life sentence. Yet in science and medicine we seem to let fraudsters play in a fake world with no consequences to their actions.


Perhaps it's simply an issue of legibility: it's easy to measure when money goes missing, but when studies fail to replicate and medicines fail to work, there are so very many explanations other than, "that man lied".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Exactly - there are consumers to whom $50k is perceptually the same as $1k to the average consumer - if Apple could sell them a model of iphone for $50k to take advantage of that without the inevitable backlash, they would.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Absent allegations of corruption or intentionally allowing the incident, what more would you suggest is appropriate for the director here? Seems like a straightforward organizational failure. If you headed a division at some mid-sized company tasked with some goal and brazenly failed that mission, you'd be fired and that would be the end of it. Why would this differ?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Last I checked, China supplies ~100% of the calories necessary for their people, albeit mostly in cereals that they then put to other purposes. Of course they import enormous amounts of luxuries, but no one ever fought a total war and fed every family pork for dinner.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Since we don't use it to order or hide posts (I think?), I don't think having downvotes hurts too much. What I'd like to see are additional or replacement dimensions. LessWrong added an "Agree/Disagree" vote, which I like, with the original upvotes indicating quality alone. That can make it easier to get the highly upvoted, highly disagreed with posts that are really the ideal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
English, courtesy of GPT4: https://pastebin.com/UPGRajKA


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are a few places like this which really stuck out to me. At the beginning of Act III, some refugees are squatting in a merchants house, and you come across him asking his guards to clear out the house. The situation is presented as a moral dilemma, which is immediately undermined when you read the merchants mind and find out he's smuggling terrorist bombs into the city, okaying your inevitable slaughter of the guards and the man.


Seems to shirk away from any actual dilemma: if an apparent conflict between the players incentives (XP + GOLD) and morality arises, there's always an out so you can satisfy your desire to be good and still get the cash.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Motte Glossary
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Keeping your shibboleths opaque is good practice if you're trying to identify true descendants of Jacob in ancient Canaan, but is it really a concern here?


As I see it, if people post in line with the local post-rationalist idiolect, and do it in a thoughtful and considered way, who cares if they were reading EY on LW in 2008 or if they first heard about SSC from the NYT? There isn't some Platonic ideal of a Mottian which one can possess or not. (Or maybe there is and we need to institute a series of membership trials? That would be fun, if somewhat impractical)


If somebody comes in and tries to dissemble by talking about their "priors" while simultaneously arguing that certain ideas are harmful and we ought to censor them,  they're going to stick out like a sore thumb. Using the right lingo won't hide that.