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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 April 28, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings;




I am curious how you feel about the War of Northern Imperialism Civil War: the American founding documents talk a lot about "just consent of the governed" but when some of the (state governments as proxies for) regions decided they no longer consented, Lincoln sent in troops.  My own thoughts are complicated: I think the US is, for a variety of reasons (ending slavery, combined economic power) better off for the Union winning, but it does seem against the general principle of self-governance.  It's not even hard to find takes today justifying curtailing the rights of the region on the basis of the actions of their forefathers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


By default any arrangement which makes it easier for NATO to defend Ukraine from a Russian attack in future is something that could, in theory, make it easier for NATO to attack Russia from Ukrainian territory.




Why not just attack from NATO territory in Poland, Finland (only decided to forego neutrality because of the Ukraine invasion), or the Baltics?  They are closer to the presumable targets anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The supposedly new legal theory is that that applies to other federal crimes, not just state crimes.




Wouldn't this at least plausibly punt the jurisdiction for this crime to a federal court?  There are all sorts of odd cross-jurisdictional questions this brings up like whether or not a pardon for the federal crime would bar state prosecution.  Aren't there several immigration cases suggesting that states don't have the authority to enforce federal law by themselves?


But I'm not a Real Lawyer, so perhaps I'm missing something.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


should I have any faith that the Effective Altruism movement has any handle on existential risk or any capability to determine what actions will increase or decrease said risk?




My personal guidance has long been that faith in individuals (and small groups) is almost always misplaced.  Faith in principles can do pretty well, but IRL humans are quite fallible and rarely live up to our expectations.  There is no living person whose word I would treat as sacrosanct without a willingness to do my own research.


IMO nobody has satisfactorily explained why AI risk outweighs, say, the existential risk of an extinction event by anthropogenic (nuclear war or catastrophic ecological disaster) or other (asteroid, supervolcano, nearby supernova).  I don't think we have good handles on the relative magnitudes of risk on these.  At some point you're really just acting on your priors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We also don't have any jurisprudence I'm aware of on how rules for "foreign propaganda" mesh with the First Amendment.  Could FDR ban publishing Der Stürmer by German sympathizers in 1942?  That looks a lot like an act of Congress restricting the press, but honestly you'd have trouble getting me to march in support of the publishers.  What about in less-declared conflicts?  Did the Soviets ever try to just publish Pravda above-board in America?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


seems like there's no reason humans WOULDN'T push out into space as far as they possibly can if the cost of doing so was brought within reason.




As a thought experiment, I'm curious what sort of frame of mind you think would convince people to leave Earth en masse to start a space colony.  I grew up watching Star Trek, so I like the idea, I just can't really reasonably picture people of 2024 electing to go live their lives in such confined quarters.  What are we missing to make that palatable, or am I just not the target audience?  Maybe "fully automated", but we can't even deliver that terrestrially.


The reasons previous generations packed up and left their homelands are pretty well documented: religion, economics, escaping conflicts, and such.  I don't see as clean a mapping there into moving into space, but I'm curious to hear ideas.  Are we waiting for a cult explicitly based on sending it's followers to live in the Promised Land Sea of Tranquility?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


People might have to take time off work since voting is often on a work day and can involve a wait of hours.




There are quite a few states (and potentially smaller jurisdictions) that require employers to either allow reasonable employee absence to vote or, in many cases, provide paid time to do so.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even in its current state, this statue holds together better than the Lost Cause mythos. It’s more defensible than the Confederacy, too.




I don't know.  Personally, I consider myself a rather patriotic American, and I have no particular sadness that it remains a single country, and no particular fondness for the idea of the Confederacy.  In general, I'm of the opinion that while political division is sometimes necessary, union is preferable because we really are stronger together when we peacefully work out our differences.


That said, I find it amusing at a principled level that modern neoliberalism doesn't seem to have met a separatist group it doesn't like:  see the cause of Scottish secession, 20th century ex-colonial independence movements, and more recent splits like Kosovo and South Sudan, or even supporting an independent Ukraine against Russia.  There's a lot of political momentum behind the idea of self determination -- as long as you're not from Virginia or Georgia: American jurisdiction is indivisible for any reason.  One could point to slavery as the key point of contention, but that rule isn't exactly applied consistently: France's interests in North Africa were originally justified as ending the Barbary slave trade, and ongoing human trafficking in the region to this day apparently doesn't justify external political control (which I personally agree with!).


Under my principles, I'd rather maintain the US as it is, but I think one can make a reasonable argument about "Biden's 120,000 active-duty troops at Fort Benning Moore occupying Georgia" that comes across a reasonable fraction as convincing as the Chinese in Tibet, US troops in Afghanistan, or any number of similar cases that the world seems to agree are morally-questionable "occupation".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


An elderly woman will be tortured to death unless you...




Can I say that for all human-constructed trolley problems, I categorically place the moral blame for all outcomes on the constructor, not the one holding the switch?  I get it they're unavoidable in some cases from natural causes, but this case is really just negotiating with terrorists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't speak to the exact systems they are using, but my laptop from 15 years ago had two levels of BIOS passwords.  You could set one (and I did) to prevent booting without the password, and another to actually making changes to the system.  Assuming this is similar, I'd bet it's the password to just turn the thing on, not change it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even if she can somehow double the supply of housing, this will destroy housing as an investment.




I am slowly becoming convinced that this is eventually necessary, but will be incredibly painful for many.  There still are places we can build -- home prices in Texas are mostly down from two years ago, and California is trying statewide zoning changes that might work somewhat.


But we seem stuck with the choice of following other Anglosphere countries in making housing cost a lifetime or more of wages, or burning a whole lot of folks who thought it would be a nest egg.  IMO the best course is probably to spread the hurt over a generation or so rather than rip off the bandaid into a culture where housing isn't expected to appreciate (Japan, somewhat?), even though that will probably hit my net worth too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Just from following the news, I have felt a sense of, I dunno, listlessness in this administration in the last couple years.  There have been a lot of mixed messages, which makes it feel like either they're steering the entire ship on the basis of which way the winds public opinion polls are blowing, or it's the unchecked infighting of a royal court's competing fiefdoms without a strong executive to force high-level alignment.  And honestly, it feels pretty depressing that "running almost exclusively on opinion polls" is the charitable option.


We saw executive orders on immigration from the first week of the administration get mostly rescinded recently after claiming congressional action was necessary.  The administration came out opposing transgender surgeries for minors within the last week, but its appointed members were advocating to remove age limits from the professional guidance just a couple years ago.  Nobody is stepping forward to give speeches giving us a bigger picture and answering hard questions on the changing directions.  It works for a while, but it seems like the wheels are starting to come off.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In keeping with that, I will smugly note that I don’t drink that shit anyway and I’ll be cracking an IPA from a real industry underdog - Lagunitas(tm), a tiny subsidiary of a little-known international parent company.




I know at least a few people who actively avoid beers produced by AB InBev and Heineken (owns Lagunitas) and all their subsidiaries.  This is harder than it sounds, because it's not always obvious on the packaging.  I'm not going to say that I do so exclusively myself, but I do prefer locally-owned brands where possible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Their tactic will be to gain control of the sea and pressure Taiwan into making agreements, while offering a reunification bonanza of government handouts along the way.




The impression I've gotten is that this might have been practical before the "one country, two systems" deal for Hong Kong was revealed to be less-than-advertised.  Since then, Taiwan has been drifting away from China's orbit, and it's unclear what Xi could do to rebuild sufficient credibility to make a believable offer that sounds better than what the West can offer.


It's unclear to me that "control of the sea" is as practical as advertised.  Blockade is (debatably) an act of war, and China's reliance on imports of food and oil are vulnerable to a tit-for-tat retaliation from the West.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If the concern is that AI will drive us to (near) extinction like humans have whales, I would observe that culling humans seems to lack the economic incentives of whaling -- although it's unclear from the whales' perspective what those incentives are, I suppose.  Matrix-like human farming arrangements seem like fiction tropes, but not practical future realities.


Compared to our ancestors a few centuries ago, we consider ourselves wiser in many ways, and we appreciate the conserving wildlife is worth dollars we might spend elsewhere in many cases (although admittedly our actions fare quite poorly).  I see the particular case of AGI capable of consistently outsmarting and overpowering humans but also incapable of having a rational discussion about why human culture is worth preserving over paperclips seems unlikely.  Worth considering, certainly, but the singular focus on it seems driven by a God-less eschatology in which humans are presumed to be not worth saving.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Perhaps overly charitably: I wouldn't expect the DA to write "The victim recanted and we have no physical evidence", "We no longer believe the crime occurred", or even "We think the officer lied in their report" or anything like that which would disparage their case or work generally.  I could imagine "In the interest of justice" could be a euphemism for cases that aren't exclusively covering up crimes that would raise a politically-charged rabble.  But the less charitable reading seems viable as well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Imagine trying to defend yourself against 10 bullet-size drones flying towards your face with a small but lethal explosive charge at the tip.




I'm not itching for the chance here, but I'd be very surprised if Western R&D isn't cooking up mostly-autonomous, short-range anti-drone weapons (lasers, small caliber guns) that they intend to strap to pretty much everything bigger than a jeep.  I imagine that modern electronics manufacturing could build a miniature CIWS for not too much more than the drone it's targeting: the RF and compute electronics to do this are much more ubiquitous than they were when the original technology was deployed on ships.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Destruction of the Rafah Ghetto




Why is the obvious World War II comparison of Rafah to the Warsaw Ghetto?  I can think of a number of other plausible comparisons that are probably worth considering.  This is, admittedly, a rather hot take, but why not compare Rafah to Berlin in 1945?  After the Third Reich invaded most of Eastern Europe, including rampant raping and pillaging across the countryside, and that entire campaign of deliberate ethnic cleansing and genocide, nobody looks at the Allied decision to demand complete, unconditional surrender as unreasonable, or that they kept fighting all the way to Berlin.  Nobody argues that Stalin was deliberately unprepared at the start of the war to justify flattening Germany and running parts of it as a puppet state for Soviet gain.  Nobody of import says "countless German civilians died because Roosevelt and Stalin were unwilling to enact a unilateral ceasefire at the Rhine and the Oder."  Nobody serious mourns the Volkssturm civilians (frequently children) that were handed primitive weapons for futile resistance, without also recognizing the broader context of the tragedy of the entire war.  And I'm not even going to even try to deny that the Red Army was infamous for its war crimes against civilians in the East, or the decades of subsequent political repression the Soviets brought to Eastern Europe during the Cold War.


The Axis powers entered the war in the late 1930s even though almost all modern historians consider their possibility of overall victory bleak.  Maybe they could have bargained for an advantageous quick peace, but even Yamamoto has (possibly-apocryphal) quotes about expecting to lose a longer war.  Hamas had even lower chances of winning in October.  I'm not convinced that this merits assuming that either power, as the "underdog," merits obvious sympathy, although that seems to be in vogue these days in certain circles.  Heck, if you look at ratios of civilian casualties -- as I've seen some argue makes Israel's actions unjustified -- America had almost none (generally counted as a few thousand if you include territories and civilian ship crews).  The British claim 70,000.  More civilians than that died in the Battle of Berlin alone, and Allied bombing campaigns killed hundreds of thousands.  Not to mention the nuclear weapons.


I have trouble embracing the progressive worldview on Gaza because those same principles, applied to WWII, would have me side with the Axis powers.  And I am quite certain that the world is a better place because the (Western) Allies won the day.  Not that they are perfect (ha!), but I'll certainly stan them over the major Axis players.


Not that I'd wholly endorse Israel to hit Rafah like Zhukov hit Berlin: I don't think the situation really warrants it, or that the situations are immediately similar.  Heck, I won't even try to argue that Israel hasn't committed atrocities in this situation.  But on the other, it seems about as reasonable as comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and I'd be pretty amused to see some Tankies argue that the Red Army was in the wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At this point, Tuesday is a tradition that has been Federal law since the mid-1800s, although there are jurisdictions that choose to have local or state elections on other days: IIRC Louisiana votes on Sundays on odd years, and a few states have made it a civic holiday.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That sounds right, but I think there is some room for debate (in particular, in the court of public opinion) about whether "within the scope of their federal duties" includes targeted assassinations and literal (and incompetent) firearms trafficking.  I think both sides would probably be wary of allowing such an explicit precedent, but quietly closing the case does seem a likely outcome.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my darker moments, I wonder if "decolonization" in practice is somewhat genocidal.  For all the lofty "self governance" rhetoric, there are uncomfortably many examples, of which I'd consider the Subcontinent one (also Palestine, Rwanda, and many others), in which some of the first actions with newfound independence were to start killing and forcibly relocating each other.


Even some places that set out with lofty rhetoric (South Africa) haven't really been able to realize those stated values. I recognize that the colonial powers weren't exactly saints either, so I don't have a better suggestion.  Just the sad state of the world.  On the other hand, there are success stories: Singapore, for example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Cynical response: imagine if DOGE eight years ago had instead cut US grant funding the EcoHealth Alliance for gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China that was already banned by Congress.  I'm sure they'd be whining like there was when they cut their funding in 2020, reinstated it after "prominent scientists" complained, and then finally banned it again after the OIG of HHS reported significant compliance problems.


I'm not completely certain of the lab leak hypothesis, but it seems a pretty plausible and concrete harm to consider.  And I'm not going to Stan for the cuts more generally, because it doesn't really seem like they're neutrally considering value proposition either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my experience, hospitals are more than happy to screw over patients in billing as long as they don't complain too much after the fact.  Surprise out-of-network anaesthesiologists used to be common (now prohibited), and I've seen hospitals try to tack on not-covered-by-insurance fees that show up much later and weren't disclosed in advance (not that they ever give straightforward billing answers in advance).  Yeah, they'll "kindly" remove or waive those if you call and complain a bunch (probably marking it down as "charity"), but it's really annoying and not always worth my billing rate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but the EU has exhausted its disposable stocks of arms and armor and the US, which has enough disposable firepower to zone rouge a medium-sized country, is a) not a charity and b) kinda getting busy with other stuff.




One point that I think bears mentioning more often is that there is a back-channel game at play here: the US probably could fund or supply this war itself, but has been trying to pressure (Western) Europe into properly funding it's own defense.


There is that video of the Germans at the UN laughing at Trump suggesting their military expenditures were inadequate and that Russia was not to be trusted, but official statements about missing NATO GDP targets on defense spending have been going on for multiple administrations.  Here is an easy chance for the EU to do so, and it's failing in a tragedy of the commons: Germany isn't likely to get invaded soon, so why should they pay for it instead of Poland?


Also worth mentioning is a political zeitgeist in which the EU has often historically protested American foreign policies (most notably the 2003 Iraq adventure, which I will concede probably deserved it, but also the presence of US troops in the EU, support of Israel, and a few other military activities like Libya), but also expected Team America, World Police to show up when war came to their doorstep.  The US seems to be trying to balance its hardware support with a goal of getting the EU to pull it's share.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have no particular claims regarding the 2020 election, but the 1997 Miami mayor race in which Xavier Suarez was removed from office for ballot fraud is probably the most obvious recent memory example of what some are claiming happened.  Per the wiki article:




While Suarez was not personally implicated, the prosecuting circuit court judge cited the district as ''the center of a massive, well-conceived and well-orchestrated absentee ballot voter fraud scheme.'' People working for Suarez's campaign were found forging voter signatures, including at least one of a dead citizen.




The 1997 race was particularly recent during the 2000 election controversy in Florida.  I have no information regarding more recent elections, but while I'd like to think it can't happen these days it doesn't seem completely impossible.