@MathWizard's banner p

MathWizard

Good things are good

0 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 04 21:33:01 UTC 

				
User ID: 164


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
MathWizard


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Good things are good

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 21:33:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 164


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					
					Month
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think this is quite right. Because obviously a significant fraction of westerners have played Japanese visual novels and are aware of what can be done. And while this is not the normie, even the normie anime-viewer, neither are the people making western visual novels. The average normie does not write their own visual novel. And when someone who clearly does know and care about visual novels makes one, like DDLC, it's still not a full length visual novel. Not because they don't know or care, but because they can't.


The real issue is infrastructure. The big fancy good mansion visual novels in Japan cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, involve many high quality writers, artists, and voice actors. Anyone in the West who imagines a full length real visual novel cannot get the funding to make it, and cannot find/hire voice actors who would both be willing to work on the project, and good enough to do it well. There ARE no Western equivalents to Rie Kugimiya, Tomokazu Sugita, or Mamoru Miyano.


It's not merely an issue of imagination. Anyone can imagine things. It's the technology and infrastructure required to take that imagination and turn it into reality. And I suppose in some sense this is downstream of culture and imagination. The majority of Western audience imagine and ask for log cabins, so none of the investors or talents try to create this infrastructure. And if some rich visionary made an expensive AAA visual novel it probably wouldn't sell enough to recoup its costs, so the investors aren't wrong. But it's more complicated than simply "no one can imagine anything better". We can clearly see the better things, which is how you and I are talking about them right now. But even the most skilled and creative architect can't go out into the woods with nothing more than a rusty hatchet and make themselves a mansion. Individual people with ideas can only make indie games.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
All of your criticisms are directionally true, I just think the quality of the games is high enough to make up for this (with the exception of Meikyuu which... meh, they could have done better). Maybe they just uniquely appealed to me and my sense of humor. I laughed throughout the entire (quite lengthy) common route in Kajitsu and would gladly have played more (which is why I've replayed it two more times over the years). The character routes, especially the flashbacks, can be a bit of a slog but are still quite good. Likewise, I think Steins;Gate is peak when it is making jokes and being hilarious, while the sad drama stuff does drag on a bit. Overall though, I think they needed the sadder slower parts to tell a meaningful story, and they did, and nothing the West has ever made is even slightly close.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree with your object level criticisms about how Westerners have approached this problem, but would categorize all of that under the second way. If a certain culture or group of people publish a bunch of smut novels and can't figure out how to write a decent novel they're still "novels", just not very good ones. If they start filming and publishing porn films, they're still "films". It's the same type of media, even if it's only one specific genre within that media. Visual novel is a form of media, and it's trivial to make something that's in the media. It's highly nontrivial to make one that's good. A mansion is a type of house. A building is a structure which can contain many different types and serve many different purposes. I argue that the word "visual novel" is more akin to "building", and the West can make those. You don't look at a log cabin and say "it's not a building because it's smaller than this mansion". They're not the same, they're not really in the same ballpark in terms of quality. But in a literal and linguistic way they are still the same category of object.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't generally do spooky horror stuff, so haven't played either of them. That said, they appear to still be small scale indie games with stylized but clearly budget art styles, little to no voice acting, and about 4 hours of content each. They are small indie games. Their target audiences apparently like them for what they are, but they are not what I'm talking about. Stein's Gate is about 30 hours and Grisaia no Kajitsu is about 60 if you play all routes. (And both have sequels with even more content, albeit slightly less amazing) These are big meaty stories with intricate details, whole casts of characters, recurring jokes, themes. They develop characters and make you feel for them. They go into backstories. They have slice of life and action and drama. They do everything because they are not constrained by the limitations of a 90 minute cinema timer or the indie creator's non-existent budget.


They are to full visual novels what Five Nights and Freddy's is to Elden Ring. They're different things which cater to different target audiences (with some overlap). But there's a difference in scale and ambition which (in visual novels) the West can't realistically match.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you're just comparing quick cheap goonslop and/or small indie projects, then sure both of them can make some passable stuff. But if we look at proper visual "novels", masterpieces like Grisaia no Kajitsu, G Senjou no Maou, or Steins Gate, there just is nothing in the West even remotely comparable. The West does not have a sufficiently large audience, nor a sufficiently talented voice acting scene, nor the level of culture to put forth the kind effort and budget required to make a proper visual novel.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Visual novels are the video game version of anime and manga and as a consequence, they can only be produced in the Japan region of Asia.




Do you mean this in a literal linguistic way, as in if it doesn't come in Japan it doesn't technically count as a "visual novel" even if it's identical in every way, as in the Champagne example? Because this is entirely false. Neither "visual" nor "novel" are Japanese words. We don't have an equivalent word in English because that's what these are.


Or do you mean this in a less literal but more meaningful way, as in only the Japanese have the cultural competence to actually make one of these any good. Because I would mostly agree with that, I don't think I've ever seen a decent visual novel come from anywhere other than Japan even if hypothetically one could.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'd argue the defining line is that you know exactly who the KKK are and how they are likely to react.




They don't know every single individual member of the KKK, they're still casting mistrust into the void, it's just a smaller void. If they speak in the public streets of a town with 10% KKK membership is that suddenly acceptable? Is it 1%? I'd argue the KKK meeting is a more egregious example in degree, but not in kind. We live in a society where you know mentally ill schooler shooter wannabes are a non-negligible fraction of the population and how they are likely to react. They want the fame and martyrdom that the media implicitly promises them, and if it didn't give them that attention then most of them wouldn't bother. Nobody was surprised that there have been multiple assassination attempts at Trump. This was expected behavior. I argue that, for a subset of the media, bloggers etc, this was literally intended behavior. That they deliberately incited anger and hatred in the public with the hope that it would inspire literal violence against Trump. And that most of these people did not meet the legal requirements for "incitement to violence" and got in no legal trouble and kept their jobs.




I think a relatively good and objective bar is the line between simply publicly wishing bad things on your enemies and specifically trying to convince someone to commit criminal acts.




For legal purposes that is the best we can do. For moral purposes the bar is much much further into ambiguous territory.


I want you to imagine, for a moment, an ideal stochastic terrorist. A person (or AI agent) who has two main goals:


    

  1. Maximize the probability that violence occurs against target X
    2. 

  2. Do not meet the legal definition of incitement to violence.
    3. 



That is, stochastic terrorism is literally their goal and intended behavior, not an accidental side effect. What sorts of behaviors would you expect this person to engage in? What sorts of words would they use? How does this compare to prominent left-wing media and blog posters in the real world? And more importantly, is this behavior morally good? Are you actually unironically arguing that this hypothetical ideal stochastic terrorist has done nothing wrong because they avoided breaking the law? Or are you arguing that they don't exist and every single person inspiring violence in the real world is doing it accidentally (and that this makes it perfectly acceptable)? I disagree with both of those, but I'm not sure how to focus my arguments because I'm not really sure where you're coming from.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Let's suppose the year is 1880, and someone who is not a member goes to a KKK meeting and tells them all about how their black neighbor is a rapist. They have no proof or evidence, they just make up a story about it and get everyone riled up. They do not literally advocate for violence, but they went there on purpose and told this story on purpose in this location to these people.


Some of the members, but not the storyteller, go and lynch the accused man.


Is the storyteller merely guilty of slander, equal to anyone else who makes any false rape accusation? Are going to the KKK and telling them in particular this story neutral acts which do not change the moral culpability of the action? Because that seems decidedly non-consequentialist. I agree with Scott that we can't really outlaw stochastic terrorism because it's too easily confused with regular criticism to avoid false positives.


But nobody is ever going to apologize for accidentally committing stochastic terrorism because it is almost by definition not an accident. It's primarily a crime of intent. If someone literally wants to someone to die but wants to skirt around legal prohibitions against inciting violence then all they have to do is carefully moderate their words to just fall short of the boundary and phrase them in a way that wink wink, nudge nudge everyone they're talking to knows mean "please commit violence". Adding "in minecraft" after wishing death on someone does not fool anyone that you literally mean you hope their character dies while playing minecraft but the person lives. Celebrating after someone gets assassinated is not consistent with an ordinary person who didn't realize their words might inspire a psychopath. If the death of the person is an intended outcome of the speech, a feature not a bug, then the people who encouraged it are morally guilty of stochastic terrorism, even if the law can't pin them down.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
All are saved if they repent their sins and seek forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ. As prerequisites this requires


    

  1. A basic understand/belief of Jesus, including his Divinity, Sacrifice, and offer of Forgiveness.
    2. 

  2. A basic understanding of sins., including what they are, why they're bad, and why you specifically are a sinner.
    3. 



Any distorted version of Christianity which teaches "Jesus was a wise human Prophet" or "You only have to apologize for sins that you personally agree are bad" is unlikely to result in salvation. There is some debate about exactly how strict the requirements for salvation are, but making up your own rules because you think you know better than God is not what they mean by "repentance".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is clearly and obviously not intended as a threat. This is their attempt to signal "we're paying attention to your concerns and are going to try to take them into account while we go forward".


The ad is not actually answering the questions, because they don't have answers. They're not explicitly saying "we are going to solve these problems", but they're definitely not saying "we don't care about these problems. They are implying they are going to solve the problems without making any explicit claims or promises. It's ultimately a hollow attempt at placating anti-AI concerns, but there is no reasonable way to interpret it as a "threat". It's just empty corporate "we care" slop.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My wife and I met online about 7 years ago, which came after 5 years of my trying online dating on and off because I lack the social awareness to avoid being awkward and/or creepy, but am self-aware/self-conscious enough about it to avoid hitting on anyone unless I am unambiguously allowed to (ie, online dating).


We have never officially gone out on "a date", in terms of going out and sitting down at a restaurant or movie and having it be a thing. Both of us are introverts, both of us are frugal, and we lived 3.5 hours away by car, so didn't meet in person for quite some time. We spent several weeks chatting, and then did video calls, and then found some co-op games to play on Steam together. I half-ironically credit the foundation of our relationship to Gloomhaven for being a fantastic game with a ~200 hour campaign. We did eventually meet up in person, but it was 4 months after we had been talking and playing games together and she sent me the address to her apartment and I drove the 3.5 hours there. She's not going to not show up: she lives there.


But this came when I finally met someone who actually liked me and wanted to interact with me, and someone I thought was actually worth spending time with and stepping out of my introvert shell for, after years and hundreds of failed conversations prior to that.


So... I'm not quite sure what advice to give other than "get lucky". If you go through a few hundred stupid people you'll eventually encounter some in the top 1% in terms of mutual likability (you like them more than other people like them, and they like you more than other people like you). But my other advice, which may vary in actionability depending on your hobbies and preferences, is to try to enable yourself to filter out the stupid people with less effort than setting up a date and getting stood up at it. Find someone who is fun to talk to and do things together with online. Write poems, tell stories, get to know each other. Do all the things you're supposed to do on a first date on the internet by typing on a keyboard, and drop anyone who isn't both interesting and interested in you. Maybe even do a video call as your "first date". This is going to massively filter out a lot of people who might be turned off by this sort of dynamic. I consider that a good thing, because I didn't want someone who wasn't interesting and interested in talking to me, and good with words (and spelling and grammar). But if this isn't the kind of person/experience you're looking for then my only advice is to try to figure out other ways to minimize your cost per person. Because it is a numbers game and you are going to have to go through a lot of people before you find someone actually good.