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SnapDragon


				

				

				

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SnapDragon


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're not wrong.  I just don't think there are many good reasons to truly hate Israel, as it's a democratic country that generally respects human rights, in direct contrast to all of its hostile neighbours.  (Like Bill Maher says, "one side is accused of genocide but doesn't do it, the other side actually would love to do it.")  You can disagree with its politics, and hold it accountable when it crosses over the line (which it certainly has done occasionally - being constantly at war sucks).  But I don't think the anti-Israel posters here are capable of that level of restraint - I've just seen too many barely-filtered rants about how the US is being controlled by their evil Israeli mind-control overlords.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have my doubts, but you make a good point.  A lot of the other emergent capabilities have been quite surprising, so there's no guarantee that this is out of the question, either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think LLMs can generate meaningful human-like feedback of what it feels like to use the software.  They just don't see the UI in the way that humans do.  And it's not clear that increasing their capabilities can ever fix this.


Still, I do expect that they'll get better and better at iterating quickly and nondestructively based on your feedback, so while it won't be a fully automated dev cycle, I wouldn't be surprised if bespoke AI software replaces giant professional products eventually.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The FDA, obviously...?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Uh, ok, as long as you weren't unlucky enough to be outside the country, being subject to a mandatory 14 day quarantine when you return.  And the border was closed to non-citizens for 20 months.  Australia overreacted more than almost any other country in the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Regarding challenge trials, 1Day Sooner came into being as a result of our clear failure here.  COVID was a ridiculously good candidate for challenge trials: a disease that spreads quickly, so every day matters, and which is dangerous to one segment of the population but relatively harmless to everyone else.  Our global failure here doesn't speak well for our prospects if a genuinely dangerous plague comes along.  (Imagine if the disease had a 30% fatality rate to everyone.  Challenge trials would be even more important, and a lot harder to justify ethically.)


I guess the most optimistic take is that if a real threat to society comes along (i.e. a plague which doesn't mostly just replace the "cause of death" for unhealthy seniors), we might actually be spurred to take appropriate measures.  It's "only" the threat of creeping totalitarianism which we utterly failed at, enthusiastically cheering on lockdowns and unpersoning anybody who said "uh, wait a minute".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I guess it's entirely possible that was part of the reason!  I actually kinda liked Paimon's old voice, but I know I'm in the minority.  The new actress is doing quite a good job - the voice isn't too different, but definitely less grating.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can't speak for the public in general, but that is absolutely why I got into Genshin Impact.  (Which is Chinese, so technically not anime, but it's absolutely free of woke BS and performative virtue signaling.)  It's so refreshing playing a game (or watching a show or movie) where I don't immediately know who the bad guys are because they're white and male.  And where girls are allowed to look sexy, and heterosexual relationships are allowed to exist.


Interestingly, the English voice actress for Paimon (who is the most important character in the game, basically voicing 50% of the lines) actually was a woke lunatic, complete with performative "neurodivergence", an online persecution complex, and claims of being "non-binary".  Finally HoYoverse had enough, and 4.5 years into the game's release, they actually replaced her with a proper professional actress.  I couldn't imagine a Western studio doing that - if anything, they'd applaud her "bravery" and try to get her on staff permanently to fill out their quotas.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, we have the right to a trial for a reason.  It's kind of stupid to cancel people in the court of public opinion for dubious "unreported" crimes that are decades old.  But hey, at least Chavez is dead and doesn't care any more, unlike when that happened to Kavanagh.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there are likely a bunch of us that are just casually in favour or on the fence.  (While I'm worried about the fallout, I am always going to tilt in the direction of good old Team America deposing dictators.)  Probably not too many people who are rabidly gung-ho about the whole thing and willing to argue it extensively, so they're going to lose out in wordcount to our local antisemites who will take any excuse to post multipage slop essays about the joooooooz.  It's a shame, but the ideals of free speech do require a little bit of sacrifice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Chesterton's Pill
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sadly, I know most of my online acquaintances would burn me in effigy if I was ever honest about my trans thoughtcrimes.  But maybe I'm overestimating how common site-wide permabans are on Reddit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Chesterton's Pill
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My account's still going at just shy of 15 years.  The only place I'd ever expressed any political views were the SSC and Motte reddits.  Anywhere else, exposing my preference to believe things that are true rather than politically convenient would have definitely gotten me banned.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That said, I don't think kids should be given unfettered Internet access. I know what can happen: I was there, and the Internet was in many ways a less scary place back then.




Hmm, I'd argue the opposite.  Sure, there's more bad stuff out there, but there's more ANY stuff out there, and the bad stuff is a much smaller percentage and guarded by things like "safe search" and browser/site warnings, so it's harder to stumble across inadvertently.  In the old days it was trivial to just get trolled by somebody and end up at goatse or lemonparty or the Anarchist's Cookbook, and that was just the common stuff.  I stumbled across hentai """porn""" that I'd shudder to even describe - I honestly don't think I would even know how to find stuff that fucked up, nowadays.  It might not even exist outside of an Onion link.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Point taken.  We just need to hurry up and invent that Epstein Drive!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Cool, I learned something from this.  I didn't realize nuclear rockets couldn't be used for the early stages.  Thanks.  I think you're wrong about them being the most efficient engines extant today - ion engines still have much higher specific impulse, but are only viable in space.  And you're still sidestepping the point that upper-stage nuclear rockets (the original topic) and large nuclear payloads are completely separate issues.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hmm, I think you're talking about two different things.  One is the launch, from Earth, of a nuclear-powered rocket (e.g. NERVA).  Even if it contains hundreds of kilos of uranium, it's a lot fairer to compare that to an A-bomb like Little Boy (64kg) rather than just the primer of an H-bomb.  And, like you said, in an accident a lot less of it is going to vaporize than it would in a proper nuclear bomb.


But I wasn't talking about the payload at all.  I guess you're thinking that you'd want to lift 100 tons of U-235 to orbit for space-based nuclear rockets?  I agree that's a different kind of risk.  And I'm not even sure how valuable nuclear rockets would be for long space trips (there are lots of options once you're up there).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fissile material is extremely valuable per unit mass, and we're never going to run out of it on Earth, so you wouldn't save much by farming it out of the gravity well.  What WOULD be valuable is mining and smelting a large amount of metal or rock that you can use to build large structures in space.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Er, yes, that's what "fallout" means.  You missed @RandomRanger's point.  One rocket's worth of nuclear material in the atmosphere is barely a blip.  Note that even a normal rocket is chock-full of toxic chemicals, which is why we don't launch near population centers.  Most normies tend to be off by many orders of magnitude when they intuit how dangerous "nucular" things are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hey, I'm not a biologist, and you might be right (...although I don't know why you listed "process" and "skillset" as not being knowledge-based?).  But are you willing to bet civilization on it?  The stakes are pretty high here, so I think it's fair to raise the burden of proof that "this is actually hard" beyond the normal level of an Internet argument.


Note that entire nations have tried and failed to create nuclear weapons for 80 years, which is good evidence that it's genuinely hard.  Meanwhile, it's conceivable (if not proven) that a worldwide pandemic spread inadvertently from a small biolab in Wuhan.  The two levels of effort are orders of magnitude apart.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good lord!  Their devious perfidy goes back all the way to moving "Zeta" from the 6th position of the Greek alphabet to the last of the Latin!  Now THAT'S true control of the media!!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hey, I'm quite libertarian, but there's good reason to believe that our comfortable society would not survive long if small groups had the ability to make deadly, highly infectious pathogens.  We're at least lucky that there's not an easy, cheap, undetectable way to make nuclear weapons.


Yes, "we overlords need to prevent you from doing X for safety" CAN BE and IS abused all the time, and I'm with you in beating that drum as often as I can.  Unfortunately, that does not mean that there aren't a few Xs that the overlords really do need to prevent us from doing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That doesn't make a difference, does it? A professor dating his student is an obvious power imbalance, no matter how aware both of them are at the start.




It does if you accept that women have, y'know, agency, even to make (what you think are) mistakes.  It's not even like the professor example where the student might be left in an awkward situation if she turns him down.  Here, she could have just not dated the guy with money and career prospects.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But none of what you're describing would have been unknown, to either party, even at the start of the relationship.  I don't know, to me it just sounds like they're both giving something up (money or choice of where to live) and both getting a lot out of the relationship.  Maybe it's not perfectly balanced, but life seldom works out that way.


Admittedly I'm biased, because I finally escaped from a relationship that would have pattern-matched to a "power imbalance" from outside, but from inside was soul-crushingly bad for me.  Appearances can be deceiving.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Properly-done NPCs wouldn't have the same "yesman" prompt as the current chatbots.  LLMs are a brand new kind of magic and we're all still figuring out the right incantations.  There's going to be a big learning curve as we figure out how to make AI-driven NPCs that feel natural, but IMO it's perfectly possible to get there (once the cost of decent models falls to where it makes economic sense).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Assuming that the facts are as reported, I hope you're right that this will be a nothingburger.  My guess is the informant is just some acquaintance who didn't approve, but we'll never know (and in general it's not a good idea to track down whistleblowers, even for laws I don't like).