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VoxelVexillologist

Multidimensional Radical Centrist

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joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
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VoxelVexillologist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Multidimensional Radical Centrist

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 64


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting!  Any good papers or summary articles you'd recommend?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


with the prosecutor's personal interests diverging from the interests of the public.




IMO this problem already exists with absolute immunity: career prosecutors are highly incentivized to win prominent cases.  There are plenty of examples of prosecutors withholding defense-friendly evidence or otherwise violating constitutional rights.  I don't see a clear reason that prosecutorial immunity needs to be unqualified: at least we recognize theoretical bounds in the extent that police officers can violate rights before civil and criminal penalties should apply.


But thank you for the explanation, this thread has definitely made me consider a new-to-me reason why the legal system may be ill-suited to policing itself with respect to the broader public's constitutional rights and general interests.  I'll have to ponder on how it could be better-aligned.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Both sides would have issues with serious criminals running off to the other state.




IIRC I've seen discussion here about states issuing non-extradition warrants as, effectively, exile.  It allows them to re-arrest criminals that stay in-state, but not shoulder the cost of trials or prison if they just go elsewhere.  I don't know what the relative rates of such things are, but I think there are cases in which "running off to another state" is actually a desired result.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
All of the active shooter training I've seen at the university and corporate level emphasizes "run, hide, fight" (in order).  Admittedly, I think K-12 does still emphasize locking doors and emptying hallways, but they have invested in better doors and access control in the last decade.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Griner could trivially avoid interaction with the hostile foreign government by not going to their territory and breaking their laws.




I haven't been following this case terribly closely, but is it completely clear that she did break the law?  The Russian state doesn't (currently or even historically) have a particular reputation for honesty.  As such, I have do wonder (without evidence) that the case may have been staged to garner a political prisoner as a potential future bargaining chip.  Or that she actually did bring in the contraband, but was subjected to additional scrutiny in the hopes of finding a charge.  But I'll concede that it's perfectly possible the charges are actually above board.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


is that Ukraine disproves the classic supposition among many military and geopolitical strategists that a society with a very low birth rate would be unlikely to be motivated to fight a total war with very high casualties due to the comparatively high investment in individual children (eg. if you have only one child, him dying is a bigger deal than being an Afghan with 7 kids and 2 of them dying).




I have a slight suspicion that post-war Ukraine may see a bump in birth rates in the same way the US did after WWII.  I don't know that I would be qualified to speculate on the causes if that were to happen, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is a long history of fighting with questionably-motivated conscripts.  I'm not convinced individual interest really matters: they seem to either get thrown to the worst fighting on the front, or to quiet rear defensive positions.  On the other hand, as far as I'm aware, Vichy French and Norwegian troops didn't see much combat action on behalf of the Axis during WWII.


I think you're right that after two years of brutal fighting, there is too much animosity for that to work today, but early in the current invasion Russia was fielding all the troops they could conscript from separatist regions, so it's not completely out of the question, I think.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The volume and scale of ammunition required to keep the guns firing with an overmatch to make very slow gains over relatively basic trench systems created a tension of how much is needed versus how vulnerable you are moving that much ammo forward.




I think this statement also vindicates decades and billions of dollars of American research and deployment of precision guided weapons: the logistical tail is greatly reduced when you can just, not fire the huge fraction of dumb rounds that would miss anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be clear, it didn't really upset me much: I still liked the show quite a bit overall.  But now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I've seen a WWII movie written from a British perspective.  The war has a very prominent place in American (and Russian) culture, but I'm not sure if I've seen a purely British take on it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Plenty of bad behavior happens among the Silicon Valley elite.




As much as I find the statement itself reprehensible, I think there's a kernel of truth in an infamous quote from a former president:




And when you're a star, they let you do it.  You can do anything.




High status lets people (almost exclusively men, in this case) get away with a lot, in part because people are willing to put up with more to be with someone high status: Christian Grey's romance plays don't work for anyone who isn't a hot, young billionaire.  The quid pro quo is implicit, and rarely spoken about, although I seem to recall a few blow-ups in recent memory where it seemed part of the drama involved (by deceit or misreading) mistakes about how high-status one party was.


And nobody really complains because it's hard to declare that behavior with "groupies" (for lack of a better word) is categorically non-consensual.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Everyone is free to build their own GNU/Linux distribution




If anything, GNU/Linux is, itself, an example of voting with feet.  There's a reason we're not running GNU Hurd for a full GNU stack.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the Dallas-Houston route is well served by commuter flights and luxury buses which puts an upper floor on the price tag for rail tickets.




I've long been wondering whether a better application of HSR wouldn't be to urban centers directly, but to major airports.  Ideally, the airport already has transit options into the city available, are generally on the outskirts of town where routing rail travel would be easier, and, while airlines might be unhappy about losing short flights, there are lots of short connections to hubs that could probably be faster by train than an extra connecting flight.  Austin and San Antonio to Dallas or Houston, Chicago to Milwaukee, Oklahoma City to Dallas, Phoenix to Tuscon.  All these flights are about an hour, and fly more than half a dozen flights daily each way, many of which are, I assume, to take a much longer flight from the larger airport, because driving would take a similar amount of time and solve getting around at the destination.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Generally, "electromagnets" as far as I know.  So, cheaper/smaller MRIs, improved efficiency of motors and generators for everything under the sun, more viable mag-lev systems.


While there are probably some improvements for computers, I doubt it'd be a sea change, but a double digit efficiency improvement isn't terrible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But if I want half-monitor-width columns of text, do I size my browser to half a screen (I've done this before)?  When I want to view images, videos, or even tabular data (calendars, for example) though, I frequently want full-screen, widescreen presentation.  The "multi-media" nature of web pages makes this difficult generally.


Although, I think the web would have developed very differently if the browser were allowed to specify maximum column width like it can text sizes or accessibility features.  Not certain if that'd be better (light/dark theming is only now starting to work tolerably), but certainly different.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd be curious to read more if you have any sources to recommend.  I'm less concerned for this particular point about proliferation while the plant is monitored and controlled from the West and more about a dictator that nationalizes it and is free to (ignoring workplace safety, as is dictatorial tradition) disassemble it and focus on a weapons program.  But I'm not really an expert here, so perhaps that's not the concern, or we just exclude countries at risk of such things, although that hasn't been the most predictable in the past.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't see it as likely, but a Georgist modification to the existing property tax system could be interesting: adjust the relative rates on land value and improvement value in a potentially revenue-neutral fashion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for December 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


When we someday leave the cradle of Mother Earth forever we might switch to a kilo- and mega- second timekeeping method,




Multi-planetary timekeeping is something that doesn't really have a firm academic basis currently.  Relativistic time dilation means that clocks, even Cesium sources, run at perceptually (for an Earth-based observer) different rates due to differing gravitational potential.  I have talked with experts in the field before, and there is general agreement that the current "time is defined relative to Earth sea-level" probably doesn't work for precise applications (notably navigation) even on the Moon.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One obvious line of attack would be for Republicans to take a straight party-line vote to impeach (as if a ham sandwich, which prosecutors can famously charge with anything) any and all accessible current office holders who might run on the other side under (Trumped up, one might say) charges of "insurrection" against the Constitution and demand that states remove them from ballots too.


But I don't think that is a good idea, nor are they currently well-enough aligned together to actually pull it off, probably for the better.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd be curious if Section 5 of the 14th Amendment ("The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.") indicates that Congress, and not Colorado, is responsible for its enforcement.  But it doesn't feel like a slam dunk argument.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I only recently learned about dry-fire as a training tool;




I have always been told that dry-firing (most?) guns is bad mechanically because certain pieces aren't meant to hit together repeatedly (hardened firing pins on non-brass surfaces?).  Maybe more modern designs account for this? Or are you using dummy training rounds?


I'm definitely not an expert on this, so I'd be curious to hear more from someone who knows.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Shouldn't the Rule Against Perpetuities bar infinite mortgages?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


On the contrary, I think you're building a big assumption in here, that countries could simply provide "quality of life worth a damn" to everyone living under their umbrella and are electing not to out of spite. Instead, as that thread covered, even providing a low-quality of life for someone that can't fully care for themselves is incredibly expensive and a massive burden on nations that are dealing with inverted population pyramids.




I haven't really had a chance to rigorously think through this, but I've occasionally had an economics thought experiment involving total economic output being measured in working hours, rather than hard currency: given that the law demands specific caregiver-to-resident ratios for these communities (the reasons for which are not unreasonable, in my opinion), we can quantify what fraction of our cumulative efforts goes into providing for our elderly and infirm.  It seems reasonable that a society that spends more of its time this way isn't spending it on, say, fundamental research and technology.  Ultimately it seems like technology is, other than demographics, our only way to improve this number in the long run.


On the other hand, that presupposes that research and invention is a better use of our time, which quite possibly isn't always the case: would you trade grandma for yet another cryptocurrency startup?  So maybe this is just a derivative "increasing GDP doesn't reflect improving my societal preferences" complaint.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Israel uses conventional bombs and openly abandons any attempts at targeting.




I would observe that the easiest way to present this would be "Sorry, our budget for JDAM kits has run out.  We're switching to dumb bombs, and we have to drop them from high altitude (inaccurately, in larger numbers) because Hamas probably has MANPADs."  Comparatively few these days seem complain about Russia's use of unguided munitions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Iraq?




I sometimes consider the hypothetical world in which the 2003 invasion was skipped.  It's obviously hard to predict such outcomes, but I think it's not implausible a continued Hussein regime might not be better for the average Iraqi.  It's not like they had a particularly good human rights record.


Sure, there was a lot of destruction from the war (which I'd generally agree was poorly-conceived), but how would Iraq have faced the Arab Spring?  It seems plausible that could have ended less like ISIS and more like the still-ongoing Syrian Civil War, likely complete with Russia intentionally bombing civilian targets and waves of refugees fleeing to Europe.


For all it's faults in the invasion, the country now could be much worse than it is today.  Which is distinctly not an endorsement of the operation, merely a pause for consideration.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


    

  • when I dieted, I maintained a small deficit (up to 500 calories) and suffered no adverse effects beyond really looking forward to the next meal
    • 

  • the guy that has tried dozens of diets (can't find the link) tried a deficit of 1000 calories and stopped after one week of feeling hungry and lethargic
    • 





At least in my experience (I'm not obese, but I've occasionally tried to lose modest amounts of weight to improve sports performance), my best results have come from trying to always be slightly hungry.  Trying to be very hungry (presumably a large deficit) quickly led to poor decisionmaking -- "oh, just a small snack" doesn't stay limited very easily, although I've had some success with snacks I don't like, which starts sounding a lot like the potato diet.


But I have observed that this takes active thought, reminders, and is harder when I'm dealing with more IRL just because I have other things to think about.




if you reduce CI to 0, CO won't get reduced to 0 until you look like a walking skeleton and die of starvation




There are at least a few recorded cases of people doing this: the linked guy lost 276 pounds by fasting for 392 days in the '60s.  Not recommending this, but not impossible.