VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
No bio...
User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Trump has always preferred gangster foreign policy and now we've got a direct statement that we won't be supporting Machado
I can at least imagine a hypothetical (but won't put huge confidence on it) that this sort of situation might call for two leaders to install: one for the immediate governance problem (a skilled administrator, I'd guess from armed services) on a limited term, and a second that you plan to win the first election. From what I know of Machado (admittedly not too much), she seems maybe a better fit for the latter role. Whether or not that's the case here seems questionable, but maybe plausible.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Maybe? The recent drama with tankers (one seized, one running away and claiming a sudden Russian flag) seems relevant. Either a nominal oil producing state needs more oil, or they were carrying something else the US didn't want getting through. Trying to import a bunch of air defenses (whether MANPADS or S-400s) seems like a good way to deter this operation if successful, or to trigger it while it's still a viable option.
Large operations are hard to hide logistically. Given the complete lack of rumors about troop deployments (Iraq had announced call-ups of tens of thousands of reserves in advance), I have trouble believing this is more than a few already-deployed special forces and airstrikes. How many (active duty, even) folks could go missing from their normal places without being missed? Any "military exercises" going on, like Russia was doing in Belarus in 2022? IMO the number of pieces on the board can't be that large.
ETA: Nonzero chance it's already over, and the rest of us don't know it yet: the US-Iran conflict this year lasted a few hours.
Will starting a war be what drives his supporters away from him? Or will this be considered largely justified?
The Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires are pretty well known, but Reagan was re-elected after (successfully) invading Grenada, and I doubt most Americans think of it at all these days. HW lost re-election after (successfully) invading Panama, but I think it's generally considered to be for other reasons. JFK and the failure at Bay of Pigs is a harder comparison, but probably relevant.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
As I’ve argued here before, if you are a middle class or above taxpayer in America, you should be fighting for single payer. Why? Because the dregs, the scum, the homeless, the degenerates, the old and sick who never contributed much, the welfare queens and trailer trash and lifelong can-never-works already get free single payer at the point of use and forever. They already have this.
I think the average middle class person you're trying to get this message to is also aware that American single-payer is far more likely to look like Universal Medicaid rather than Medicare-for-all. And also that Medicaid is known for being, for lack of a better word, "cheaper" [1] [2] [3] [4] than Medicare. Few of the good doctors take Medicaid (more, but not all, take regular Medicare), or there's frequently a waiting list unless you have private insurance or pay cash (I've literally overheard a receptionist having this conversation while waiting for an appointment before). Even within Medicare, Part C private-insurer-run ("Advantage") plans are more popular than vanilla single-payer Medicare (A and B) these days.
Ultimately, I think the biggest part of the problem is that even once cooler heads prevail (we're pretty good at throwing out ideas here, at least), the American Healthcare ship is huge and can't be steered on a dime. We need not just a valid concept and details of a final system, but also how we get there from here. Simplify the complexity of medical billing and procedure payouts (IMO the easiest starting point)? What do we do with the 200k odd medical billing specialists (plus whomever at the health care networks and insurers negotiate prices annually), and who's going to be checking for fraud? Cut doctor salaries? Not going to be popular and the AMA has huge power, plus many really do have student loans for med school to pay for. Someone's (or many's) oxen will have to get gored, and most politicians don't seem willing to make the sorts of enemies-for-life we're talking about here.
Universal Medicaid does seem the most viable option, and it's not that different from what I hear is done in Germany, which I understand is a two-ish tier system, and it's much easier to get appointments with private insurance. That isn't to say that I like it, it just seems easiest. Gradually reducing the Medicare eligibility age at least sounds promising as well, but probably has pitfalls I'm not considering at the moment.
[4] Correlation does not imply causation, but I've also heard plenty of horror stories anecdotes of Medicaid providers doing worse/old-style and maybe-unnecessary procedures.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
ban all open-weight models
This seems harder than it sounds. Some of the best models aren't published by the West (DeepSeek is probably the best open text model at the moment, I hear [1]), so you'd need global agreement to start cracking down. And the small models aren't that big: Hollywood wasn't able to keep rips off of torrent sites a decade back, and from what I hear they're still around, and international VPNs are pretty ubiquitous too. Short of constructing your own Great Firewall, this isn't really feasible (and even then, it's just a matter of practicality, from what I hear).
- Funny note: a while back I was talking to a friend at Unnamed Defense Co (TM) who was excited about their new entirely in-house AI service for engineers. When asked about which models they were running, "DeepSeek" was one of the sheepish responses, admittedly next to GPT-OSS.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
I would be very surprised if OSHPark could figure out the use of a printed circuit board design from just the layout files you send them. They don't need a parts list or schematic. Sure, a lot of PCBs have text on them, but I've sent lots of PCBs out for fabrication with just part reference designators, design ID number, and maybe company name on them. Then send your parts order off to Mouser or DigiKey, and the parts list for a simple flight controller look a lot like pretty much any other project these days: a microcontroller, accelerometer chips, GPS parts, motor drivers -- none of those are out of place going into a car, wristwatch, cell phone, or anything else these days even if you do order them all at once. Sure, you'd like a tactical grade IMU and a better GPS receiver but those were out of your budget anyway and do get you put on a list (for existing EAR/ITAR reasons). Then put it together with a soldering iron. All in, you could probably manage something functional to drive a quadrotor for a couple hundred bucks.
It'd be hard to prevent folks from putting those parts together without kneecapping a bunch of US industry that is currently wrestling with tariff-induced redesigns ("can you make it cheaper now with non-Chinese parts?"). Quadrotor (and even fixed-wing) control is just not a particularly difficult problem in 2025 (nor was it really a decade ago).
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
Remember that massive culture-war issue and how it completely disappeared?
In hindsight, the many and various traffic patterns on the Internet make strictly-defined "network neutrality" difficulty from a technical perspective, at best: I want my VOIP traffic to get minimal latency, but I want real-time fixed bandwidth for video streaming (or is that variable bitrate these days?), and sometimes I'm downloading, um, Debian ISOs and just want them eventually. Add in LTE bandwidth and I really want my 911 call to take precedence over dozens of zoomers on TikTok. Over-provisioning to avoid real QoS questions is darn expensive.
At the time the concern was that (landline!) ISPs (often cable companies) would start charging for data usage, pricing out competitor then-new streaming services, or worse, start charging for access to sites and services. Despite the official repeal of the neutrality policy, no landline services seem to have started charging for specific site access --- and the obvious sites to charge extra for now (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+) have more money and lawyers than the ISPs ever did. Metered landline bandwidth never was accepted by consumers, although I'm not sure if it's actually prohibited specifically and it's a bit outside of the scope of "neutrality". Honestly, the worst offence against the former policy I recall seeing was a mobile provider teaming with a streaming service to not count against your bandwidth limit.
IMO, the culture war fight was maybe a bit overblown, but if it did something it provided enough cover for our Big Streaming to take off. Is that the win the kids wanted? It is what they were asking for, I guess. Go ask them how they feel about streaming slop now, and maybe opinions would be different.
But it is an interesting observation that active CW fronts just sometimes up and fade away.
And there is even a flight controller which can accept open source software which is (allegedly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's fraud) made in the US, so the recent ban wouldn't even make bad actors smuggle.
Honestly it's just a few engineer-months of work to spit out a prototype of such a thing, and I'm well aware of similar hobby projects. What you're asking for can also be produced pretty easily domestically (there are domestic PCB vendors and contractors that will place and solder parts, or just do it by hand). Whether anyone is actually is making it in the US a separate question.
ETA: The designs for such a controller are probably already on GitHub somewhere, to be honest.
I think you could maybe get away with an active transponder requirement (challenge/response cryptographic signature, at a minimum) for trusted airspace, otherwise authorities are allowed to shoot down first and ask questions later. And over time uncontrolled access could be limited to relatively safe areas (farmland or equivalent). As someone who has been at least a bit involved in the space since before DJI made drones good Christmas gifts, I feel for the RC plane community that has had to work hard to carve out their legal niche.
I thought it interesting that the wildlife specialist role required enough paperwork to get a security clearance (I assume for access to customs spaces? Maybe they're already doing drone things quietly).
On the topic of brushless motors, they're pretty high frequency drivers, but I don't think could work practically (OTOH it'd be "near field", which is well out of my wheelhouse).
You can (if you have a ton of money, and are a US citizen, and don't mind getting probed) just buy a commercial 'drone signal tracker' box and antenna kit.
IMO one of the few sane solutions for legitimate drone usage would be locking down the controllers somewhat. Some drone analog of ADS-B (I hear that actual ADS-B won't take kindly to 1000 drones in line-of-sight), combined with (real-time?) geofencing rules might at least be practical. "Won't fly without GPS fix. Won't fly where it's not supposed to. Sends location telemetry in real-time." is at least the right direction.
Oh, I think it's much worse than that. I'd like to be in a world where the meta favors some type of tightly-targeted EMI weapon that burns out drone motor controllers -- that would still be costly to legitimate drones if misused, but mostly just drones. I don't think we live in that world, though.
I think the only "EMI" weapon that even remotely fits the bill is laser weapons hitting drone batteries or other weak parts. "Some things in this room drone don't react well to bullets directed energy". I won't be surprised if a decade from now semi-autonomous anti-drone laser SHORAD is openly fielded in a few places. Maybe even not military ones.
EDIT: It's worth noting that large airports nationwide have full-time teams scaring birds away from airports as aviation hazards. Would an equivalent size anti-drone team even get noticed in the noise?
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4d ago
In the United States, driving at 75 miles per hour on the highway is against the law, but normally it's not thought of as an immoral act.
There exists no shortage of 75mph speed limit signs in my neck of the woods. Not usually inside cities, but plenty on interstates in rural areas. Texas even has a few spots with 85mph signs.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4d ago
People react more to what they see as opposed to what is written.
Honestly, I think they react more to anything resembling what they want to see versus what is actually in front of them. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
I feel similarly, but "bubble" always feels like a Russell's Conjugation: I am getting in on the ground floor in a promising new technology, you are investing, and that guy over there is inflating a bubble that is obviously going to pop and make a mess for the rest of us.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
vibecession
Partisan media hacks on both sides are always incentivised to sell how [opposite administration] is handling the economy poorly. Whether or not this effects reality is a separate matter. As is whether reality is reflected at the ballot box --- it's conceivably quite possible for the median voter to see a different economic direction than the sum (mean) economic measures.
I can't think of a time in my life in which there weren't bear headlines from time to time. Some of those times were, in hindsight, very good.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
I think the claim here is that red state public universities might lean left, but they're ultimately responsible to red state government in ways that prevent them from going full blue partisan, lest the legislature take away their toys funding, or the governor replace their board of trustees. Just because this could happen in Oklahoma doesn't mean the vibe in, say, UC schools or the Ivy League has changed.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13d ago
IIRC a judge in Massachusetts tried to do similar in Trump's first term, but it looks like that case was settled (not sure if by previous administration) for merely a public reprimand.
Maybe it's that I still have older hardware, but the step change from 1080p to 4k seems a lot smaller than the previous generation jump from TV or DVD resolutions to 1080p. Do you find that playing at 4k native resolution dramatically improves the gaming experience? Again, it might be a selection bias that I've been playing fewer cutting-edge games.
Do you mind if I ask what titles you're playing?
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13d ago
It certainly used to be true that a better gaming system improved the quality of the rendered image, or improved frame rates to give a marginal competitive advantage (tried playing PowerPoint Quake? It's hard to hit enemies playing a slide show).
That said, I think the days of marginal GPU improvements improving the experience ended at least a decade ago. Yes, real-time ray tracing looks amazing, but honestly modern games aren't limited by graphics, but by mechanics and storytelling. Nintendo has known this for a while. My favorite games are ones that maximize novel, fun gameplay, not push triangles (Factorio, for example). But maybe there's a factor of me getting older and having nostalgia for older sorts of games. Heck, Roller Coaster Tycoon still manages to be a classic, despite being written in x86 assembly for a machine that probably underperforms some toasters today.
Honestly I think Hollywood has a version of the same pox: modern VFX makes it possible to realistically show pretty much anything. Effects alone no longer sell movies, and that puts more focus on the writing and directing.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13d ago
If a product is made in Vietnam, shipped to Hainan for "processing," and then shipped to Europe, what is its origin? If a product is made in Hainan and shipped to the US, does it get hit with the "China Tariff"?
I have heard economists begrudgingly admit that the "Made in X" system used in American law is and has long been a huge mess, and that the one positive long-term outcome they saw from the tariffs was revisiting those definitions. It seemed like a VAT-like definition could actually be tolerable (pay "China Tariff" on fraction of value added in China), but isn't a trivial change in how business is done.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
15d ago
Yet Trump made it so Citgo couldn't do what limited business they were doing down there at the time.
Was that before or after Venezuela took six Citgo executives hostage in 2017?
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
15d ago
I think there are plenty of examples of internecine purges on the far right as well. The Night of the Long Knives is probably the most obvious example.
Honestly, I suspect it's a generic hazard of being a moderate in an extremist organization.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
16d ago
The UBI skeptic's worldview is a fundamentally aristocratic one which does not share your faith in the average individual.
I will observe that the tension between "libertarian" (people flourish best left to their own devices) and, for lack of a better word "progressive" (we can steer people to be better souls) long predates AI. I don't think either side has clearly won there: drug addicts living on the streets of San Francisco are, IMO, pretty clearly neither living their best lives nor making the world a better place for the rest of us. I'll leave aside religious discussion of the innate value of human souls here.
The failures of the opposite extreme, trying to "immanetize the eschaton", as it were, are also pretty well documented in these parts. But this also isn't new with AI: it's the same argument as for alcohol prohibition a century ago. Ditto for similar vices throughout history. While I can accept universal Maslow-style enlightenment as an ideal post-scarcity society, I'm not convinced that it's possible to push people into that. That said, I think part of the role of a successful society is to achieve that self-actualization more broadly, although the methods for doing so are left as an exercise for the reader.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
16d ago
The future, I think may well be East Asian much like tge seat of civilization was Islamic after the collapse of Rome.
If you're looking to the East because of concerns about TFR and population collapse in the West, I have some bad news for you. China's median citizen is already older than the median American, and is only getting moreso every year. I'm not going to count them out, but an arc like Japan (which was taking over the world in the '80s according to pop culture) seems quite plausible: the country and government are still there and a major power, but rent in Tokyo is no longer the highest in the world and economically has grown slower than it's competitors.
China has a much larger population to work with, and probably still has a moderate decade of growth left, but there are already signs of slowing.
Observation: Child rearing expenses are cumulatively huge, and there's a bit of a One Weird Trick to stop having kids and spend that money on growth elsewhere. It works in the short term, at least. US total education spending is around $1.8T annually, enough to close the budget deficit, although I would distinctly caution against doing so.
As best as I can tell, American law considers jurors selected by the Southern District of New York to be peers for darn near about anyone.
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