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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

					4 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 896


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That is a French domestic case - I don't think many countries are that lackadaisical about sophisticated international criminals who get caught.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have multiple type 1 diabetic friends and family members, and an aggressive infection (particularly one which causes unpredictable loss of appetite) throwing off diabetic control in a way which would put someone off work for an extra week is a thing that happens. Type 1 diabetics are on the list of people who are told "people like you can die of 'flu - it isn't just a bad cold" when the annual vaccine is being handed out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If the Israeli rape dog story had been published as news, it would have been a scandal. The NYT's response was, correctly according to the rules of conventional journalism, "We don't fact check opinion pieces and are not responsible for Kristof's use of lying sources".


English libel law does not distinguish between false defamatory statements in news and opinion articles, so a newspaper like the Daily Mail whose standards are roughly "we will publish anything that won't get us sued" is going to refuse to publish something that a US paper would relegate to the "opinion" section due to a lack of fact-checking.


Under English law, republishing defamatory gossip and speculation without checking it is one of the main things reporters have to be taught not to do - there is a whole family of legal jokes about various ways of saying "I didn't say it was true, I just said other people were saying it" - none of which hold up in court if the defamatory statement turns out to be false.  The 2013 Defamation Act which codified British libel law and removed most of the objectionable aspects did not change this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No, but deliberately allowing North Koreans to remotely defrost French freezers is an act of war by North Korea against France*, and French nukes work and North Korean ones don't.


* Technically a criminal one, as an attack on the civilian food supply chain.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Writing the password on the device (in a place that isn't visible to shoppers with ordinary effort) seems obviously correct - you want a tech to be able to access the controls even if the manager who knows the password is out or has forgotten it. And protecting freezers from people who already have physical access to them is pointless.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
MO seems more Russian than Chinese, Iranian is also technically possible. But I agree that hostile nation-state is the most likely motive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Was that e-mail spam in roughly the modern sense? The word "spam" was originally used to describe off-topic posts repeatedly posted to Usenet, and only later became a term for unsolicited bulk e-mail.  (In both cases, the junk was mostly but not entirely commercial ads, initially for legitimate businesses like immigration law firms but over time only for scams as spam became illegitimate)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And I think "outsiders should be spending time and effort trying to make peace in the Middle East when the locals are actually happier fighting each other" is a dumb message to send.


My position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is shared by the vast majority of normies, is "not my circus, not my monkeys".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The background to the point I am making is that all the standard objective indicators of economic welfare for ordinary Americans, including CPI inflation, have been benign since about 2022, with not much to choose between the late-Biden and early-Trump economies unless you own Nvidia stock. (And far better in the US than in other 1st-world countries). But ordinary Americans weren't feeling it under Biden, and aren't feeling it now. "Hard-working middle-class Americans don't have nice things any more because the rich men north of Richmond took them away" is still an effective emotional appeal to the median voter, whether true or not.


From outside the US, where I can see the statistics but not the vibes, it looks like a temper tantrum by entitled voters. And Biden acted and Trump acts like they see it that way to, and the voters are punishing them for it.


In both 2024 and 2026, if you ask low-information swing voters what the most important election issue is they say "cost of living" or something similar, they think (correctly) that the incumbent President doesn't care, and they are planning to vote against his party.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The vibe now is that Trump does not give a **** about the cost of living, because he is doing highly visible things that both economically literate Republicans and MSM business/finance/economics talking heads expect to raise consumer prices. (Tariffs, Iran, above a certain IQ level the attacks on the Fed and the calls for tax cuts and spending increases). The lesson of 2024 is that that hurts more at the ballot box than the difference between 2% and 4% CPI inflation. Biden's problem in 2024 was that - whatever was driving voter concern about the cost of living, probably the sticker shock as people started doing things again at post-pandemic inflated prices - his response was to signal that he didn't give a **** by telling voters that the official numbers were benign and they should stop worrying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Building a gun-type bomb (similar to the one used at Hiroshima) out of a critical mass of weapons-grade uranium is so easy that the Manhattan Project didn't bother testing it - although apparently the Norks managed to dud one anyway.


The nth-country experiment in 1964 implied that it isn't that difficult to build a Nagasaki-style plutonium bomb if you have the plutonium.


As long as Iran still has their stockpile of buried 60%-enriched uranium, they are 1-2 years away from a bomb as soon as they have working centrifuges. Similarly, the fact that they accumulated the stockpile in the first place indicates that they had the technical capability to go to weapons grade and build a bomb well before 2025, but chose not to for reasons which are not clear, but I suspect has something to do with the amount of rope their patrons in Moscow and Beijing were willing to give them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The GOP establishment doesn't care in the slightest about losing the midterms, and, even before the war, it seemed to be actively trying to throw them. They could've passed any number of bills, including voter ID, that would've motivated supporters and demoralized opponents, but instead they passed a left-leaning housing bill and blocked Trump from making recess appointments.




I think the marginal Republican senators not voting for Trump's policies are retiring senators who were successfully primaried by MAGA (Cassidy, Cornyn), too chicken to contest a primary against MAGA (Tillis), or undead (McConnell). All of these guys have reasons for their recalcitrance which do not apply to the GOPe as a whole. "I'm going to use my lame duck vote to push back against the guy who ended my political career" may be an ignoble motive, but it is not exactly a surprising one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The goal for Iran is to establish that attacking them is a mistake which will cost the ruling party their majority.




In so far as psychoanalysing a regime with multiple decision-makers makes sense, I think there is a much simpler explanation. Trump presents his regime more generally as personal (whether or not you think it is), and in particular has presented the US decision to attack Iran as a decision that he took personally because the rest of the US elite was too weak. For Khamenei Jr or whoever else is making the decisions in Iran to treat the conflict as being with Trump personally makes sense, and in that case "We want to hurt Trump personally" is a good and sufficient reasons for adjusting tactics around the mid-terms.




While it was psychologically important for Trump to negotiate a better deal with Iran than Obama's deal, he will not sacrifice his presidency on the alter of keeping Iran from having nukes. The plan was clearly to bomb Iran, hopefully get a regime change, ...




I think Trump thought that Mossad had a cunning plan to make a regime change happen. I am struggling at work at the moment and we have also just acquired two rescue cats, so I don't know if my planned effortpost on this point will ever happen.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Rechecking the list, Teddy Roosevelt got the 1906 Nobel (solo) for ending the Russia-Japan war of 1905, which would be a clear-cut exception. Ralph Bunche got the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his attempts to mediate the incipient Arab-Israeli conflict (also solo - in that case it is of course very clear that none of the principals deserved it) - the prize citation implies that he won it for mediating the ceasefire agreements that ended the Israeli War of Independence, but Wikipedia implies that it was a kind of lifetime achievement award.


The famous cases I was thinking of were the awards for Locarno (1925-6), Vietnam (1973), Israel-Egypt (1978), South Africa (1993), Israel-Palestine (1994) and Northern Ireland (1998) which were shared between principals. So looking more closely I wouldn't say the mediator never gets the prize, but by default it would go to the principals, and the Abraham Accords doesn't look like an exception.


1973 and 1994 were, of course, two of the worst Peace Prize awards in the undistinguished history of the prize. I think 1950 was below average - the most notable thing about attempts to mediate the Israel-Palestine conflict (including Bunche's) is how utterly they failed. And I don't think mediating an ugly freeze-the-status-quo armistice that doesn't lead to a peace treaty is close to a Nobel-worthy achievement.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A different Nobel Committee might reasonably have given a Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords, although I think with Saudi Arabia still not signed up it would have been a poor choice. But Nobel Peace Prizes for that type of deal almost always go to the principals (here Netanyahu and AbZ for the deal done to date, and Salman if Saudi joins) and not the third-party mediator. For example, Carter did not share the 1978 prize with Begin and Sadat. And even if they did award the prize to a mediator, Kushner has earned it and Trump, personally, has not.


So the chance of Donald Trump personally getting a Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords would be negligible even if he hadn't started three wars of choice since 2024, which is and probably should be disqualifying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I won't say "British right-wing thought never gave a shit about blood purity" because I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's a good approximation to the truth. The British aristocracy, and the trad-right that wished to preserve it with its power and privilege intact, were unusually lackadaisical about blood purity compared to other similar aristocracies.


Under the British rules, Harry Potter is a legitimate Potter and inherits the status of the Potter family regardless of Lily Evans' Muggle-born status. Rowling's Malfoy understands this immediately - he sees Harry as a member of his class who is betraying its values by socialising with oiks (i.e. the Weasleys). So does the Sorting Hat.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Best friend's little sister and little sister's best friend are two of the softest targets in school age romance - both in RL and fiction, although a 16yo dating a 14yo is probably taboo in today's climate even if you aren't implying under-age consumation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Salazar Slytherin and the Sorting Hat seem to disagree about whether sufficiently ambitious halfbloods like Tom Riddle, Severus Snape and Harry Potter belonged in Slytherin. The Hat would absolutely have sorted Vance into Slytherin, and unlike Potter I don't think he would have objected.


We don't see a healthy House Slytherin in the books, but ambition and family pride are virtues and a healthy community of people who possess them is entirely possible. If it worked anything like the Muggle one, most of the work of building the Wizarding British Empire would have been done by Slytherins.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Although Dr D'Eath (an actual maths lecturer at Cambridge) eschewed all forms of ligature maths, preferring a more direct approach - he lectured on Killing's equations.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


TBH I haven't looked into the actual algorithms involved here, but given the length of the proof I'd expect the constant term (call it overhead) to be quite high compared to existing methods -- considering the tiny difference in the exponents, you would need n to be literally approaching infinity for the proposed algo to make any difference at all. In the case of the integer math, this would mean that multiplying integers of ~infinite length could be somewhat faster -- but we can't even test it, because computers don't have infinite memory.




Per wikipedia, the existing O(n log n) algorithm for integer multiplication that the AI improved on is already considered "galactic" - i.e. only optimal for impossibly large data sets. The practical algorithm for the largest numbers we can realistically multiply is a FFT-based approach which is O(n log n log log n)


To my non-expert eye, using the new slightly-faster DFT in the AI papers in the bog standard FFT-based multiplication algorithm should give you a faster multiplier than the new multiplier the AI found explicitly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean that I am one of the people who care about AI safety but don't understand the technical detail.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Duels of honour were not, in fact, a gentlemanly combat sport, although they often pretended to be. The point was to demonstrate the seriousness of whatever the duel was about, plus a certain level of physical courage, on both sides. This was ideally accomplished by imposing a low, but real, risk of death on both participants following which the seconds could send them home with honour satisfied. Hence pistol duels fought in morning fog using antique pistols, or epee duels fought to first blood.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Be it remembered that Justin Trudeau won the Canadian Premiership in the boxing ring.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This is a plan that has a nonzero chance of success - though I think Scott's way overestimating it - and could possibly fit the "better plans are too hard" argument. But you still need a pause for that, just not as long of one.)




Yes - Plan A is a good plan if you think that aligned ASI is a win condition. Part of what is going on in the circle of "people who care about AI safety but don't understand it" (ipse dixit) is that there is a fairly widespread view, on all sides of the political divide, that ASI aligned to Altman and Amodei is not a win condition for humanity - they are both profoundly blue-tribe (which offends Reds) and sociopathic billionaires (which offends Blues). Altman and Amodei are living in a paradigm where "If we build ASI, we will get Clippy or the Culture, so we should build it carefully to maximise the chance of the Culture". I am not alone in thinking "If we build ASI, we will get Clippy or the Culture. Both of these are bad outcomes, so we should not build it". Based on reading the report proposing Plan A, Plan S (ban development of new models for the forseeable future, AI companies who want to keep their GPUs have to accept inspections to confirm they are using them for inference only) is obviously superior, and I am not unsympathetic to a full-on Butlerian Jihad.


The limit on the potential of LLMs to improve the human condition is not the speed at which more powerful models can be developed, it is the speed at which we can incorporate LLMs into our workflows and institutions without breaking anything loadbearing. This is a generation's work even if the frontier models don't get any better than they already are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's the one, yes. There is a reason why, as @zeke5123a points out, the states that pull this off are not generally democracies. Dubai is proof that it is possible, not that it is popular.