@VoxelVexillologist's banner p

VoxelVexillologist

Multidimensional Radical Centrist

1 follower   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
User ID: 64


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
VoxelVexillologist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Multidimensional Radical Centrist

				
				
				

				

					1 follower  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 64


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom New Old Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				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 September 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wouldn't say it's perfect, but "thinking people are human garbage is itself a human rights violation" is usually the train of thought I go with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Amazon is really hard to buy decent clothing from. I've tried buying stretch knit dresses, which is the easiest thing possible to fit, and they were still off and basically unwearable, high waisted for a very short, wide person in that case.




Completely anecdotally, my experience has been the opposite.  But I'm looking at menswear, not dresses.  In particular, I found a business casual shirt that fit me well in my closet, and I was able to find the exact same brand/size on Amazon.  The first one fit, and I've since bought a few extra colors when the price is reduced (I might grump a small amount that even these change slightly over time, and that back pleats on men's shirts seem to be out-of-fashion these days).   I've also bought quite a few pairs of jeans in rather the same way, which saves rummaging through the racks at the store to find the right size: there are surprisingly few longer-than-wide pairs of pants at modern American stores, but Amazon always has them in stock.  Socks don't have much variation in sizing, either.


In terms of athletic wear, a few years back I bought a pair of running shorts for a good price on a whim from a Chinese brand I hadn't heard of, and they have honestly been some of the best I've used (not a connoisseur).  I've since bought a few more (and a couple of other items), and not been disappointed.  Sportswear in stores, especially anything sport-specific, is generally comparatively expensive in stores near me.


Admittedly, I can imagine works for me primarily because I'm trying to buy identically-cut garments, which I'd bet only works for male fashion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In this case it's primarily that the one I have is the wrong color.  Also, styles change.  I tried it on, and fortunately it fits well enough that I might consider tailoring it in the future (I haven't gotten bigger, most notably), but given how often I wear them I'll probably keep it stored safely until I need it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For the record, I agree with your take.  The comment is more referencing cases in which people rhetorically imply that the country is worse off than otherwise, which I think is less clear.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't say I have too much experience with using machine translation, so I'm probably not the right person to give you such a comparison. It's reasonably fast and produces English prose that reads pretty naturally when I've used it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've been surprisingly impressed with the Firefox Translations extension, which does the ML translation locally.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wasn't aware of the other gun crimes.  The original article says "it would not prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 during a period when he was using drugs," which seems to dance around the details of post-purchase behavior, although I hardly expect to see charges filed for that either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The one I'm most familiar with is the Texas Open Meetings Act, which seems to place some stricter requirements on "meetings" with  although that would depend on the details of city governance (were these "meetings" with the mayor and city council or is the mayor authorized to directly command the police department without deliberation?) and the text messages at play.  Anecdotally, I've heard that politicians are advised to not discuss business outside of announced, scheduled meetings, but charges are infrequent (although not non-existent).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting: I thought there were more Filipino Spanish speakers (perhaps the ones I've met have been a biased sample).  The official Census definition seems to specify Spanish for the definition of "Hispanic", but there's some disagreement from other parties on whether or not Portuguese should be included.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


to ban free speech at universities




You know, the folks that take umbrage with this (outside of a few truly principled libertarian types) were probably completely fine with the speech banning here, they just disagree on the targets.  Free speech absolutism on campus sailed probably a century or so ago.  The Obama Administration helpfully defined "sexual harassment" banned for the purposes of Title IX to include "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature" including "verbal conduct".  Democrats were completely on board with these rulings at the time, and similar ones about racial slurs.  But now that Republicans are passing rules that students can't cheer "gas the Jews" (or, admittedly, several more modest phrases that still advocate for ethnic cleansing) and remain in good standing, that is clearly a bridge too far.


I'm not sure anyone is really being principled here, which as someone with centrist-to-principled-libertarian views is rather frustrating.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


To be clear the practical consequences of conversion therapy being legal/accepted is parents imprisoning their children in facilities against their will and subjecting them to unbelievable cruelty for months or sometimes years at a time.




I'm rather skeptical this is a common occurrence.  One could point to this 2018 NYT editorial by Sam Brinton and plenty of other press of their accounts, but the author has since been fired from the Office of Nuclear Energy after being caught stealing women's suitcases from airports in Minneapolis, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC, and even queer-friendly publications have published pieces doubting those conversion therapy stories.


Like many things, I don't doubt that bad examples have happened somewhere, but I've seen far more stories claiming nebulously abusive therapy and surprisingly few examples of people naming names and testifying in court about their published accounts of what I can't imagine a jury finding to be anything other than child abuse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll add that the Culture War could end because No One Came: it exists for now because people show up to argue, and care (or pretend to care).  It fills headlines because nothing more notable is going on.  I suppose it's similar to (1), but I don't think it needs catastrophe to the level of "no more historians", but something more on the scale of 9/11, which I remember basically dropped the floor out from under partisan bickering in the US (which wasn't unheard of in early 2001) for a few years.  I've previously described Kulturkampf as akin to bike-shedding, where we argue most about comparatively trivial details that we think we understand instead of the actual hard questions -- I don't know that I completely endorse the position, but it's worth consideration.


And sometimes time moves on and leaves political positions behind. Historically, the original progressive era met its end in the World Wars of the last century.  Not all of its policies went away (the forty hour work week seems generally-accepted), but things like Prohibition and eugenics were largely pushed out.  Notably, eugenics became strongly associated with Nazi Germany, and some progressive leaders (most notably Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh) were seen as sympathizing with them.  Far left political parties generally were sidelined during the Cold War as communist-adjacent, leading the "progressive" label to fade until probably around 2000 or so.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are there international treaties that would in other instances require Israel to let any traffic cross it's borders with a nominally-independent Gaza?  South Korea has a northern border that's even more fortified and doesn't get as much scrutiny.  It's not like the average North Korean has free passage to China or Russia either.  If a landlocked country decides to piss off it's neighbors, are they required to let any traffic through?


Gaza has a sea border, which does complicate the question, but also isn't generally recognized as an independent nation either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Barrett has several adopted children, IIRC two of which are from Haiti and would presumably benefit from affirmative action.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


they say they're talking about suicide rates,




Perhaps a bit uncharitably, I personally am not convinced that suicide rates alone are worth high levels of sympathy.  I suppose sometimes, but as you mention that is complicated by social contagions.  Should we end euthanasia protocols to improve suicide rates? Personally not convinced.  Does the fate of the Jeffrey Epsteins [citation needed] and Adolf Hitlers of this world suggest we should change government policies to make their specific lives better?  No.  Just no.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it's worth considering that if this were a Russian operation (likeliness unknown), it could look something like an intentional Crossing the Rubicon moment.  It would serve as both an outward proclamation that Putin wishes to punish Germany and other parts of the EU for opposing him, but also burns easy pathways for anyone toppling the regime to return to the previous status quo.  I'm reminded of how Cortés burned his ships on reaching Mexico to prevent mutiny.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You know, I can acknowledge that the pattern you're seeing exists, but I've never taken that much umbrage at it, probably because I mostly limit my content to older, or really highly reviewed stuff.  Similar, to the question of whether the demographics of the cast need to match the source material.  But I did come across an instance of it recently that bothered me a little, and felt notable.


I really enjoyed Masters of the Air: it was really excellent on most of the axes I care about -- screenwriting, visuals, acting, and such.  But at one point, during an ensemble shot of the American air crews, I thought to myself "those guys all look British," so I looked into it on IMDB -- most of the main cast are British or Irish.  Even the Tuskegee Airmen weren't played by African-American actors.  Some of that might have been due to pandemic restrictions, or using local actors for logistical reasons, but it felt off.  Not that there aren't lots of Americans of such descent, but a group of (white, 1940s) Americans should look more diverse than that: I had a [redacted] whose family had recently immigrated from [Europe, not Britain] that served and died in a B-24 over Germany.


Maybe it's that it's intended as a historical account, but it feels like it cheapens the narrative ("heroic American airmen bring the fight to Nazi Germany"), and it's not as if the British weren't there and similarly heroic at the time.  A similar series portraying RAF Bomber Command would probably be pretty interesting!


That said, I would recommend the series overall as a worthy followup to Band of Brothers and The Pacific.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In the last decade or so, this seems largely true, although the last few months have shown some serious fractures in the left-leaning coalition that is in power in most of the West.  Specifically there have been some rhetorically effective memes -- university presidents testifying to Congress, genocide-adjacent slogans at left-led protests -- that, at least to me, feel like they've moved the needle on what has previously been sold to the median voter as "just being nice".  But it could get swept under the rug like the Canadian Truckers (nor am I particularly invested in partisan outcomes, personally).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even in cases where they nominally don't have any discretionary power




This may be the platonic ideal of what this sort of role should entail, but I don't know that, even if desirable, this sort of job is actually possible.  Outside of maybe the most rote service and industrial jobs (and honestly, even then), nobody leaves their personal values and opinions completely at the door.


The civil service jobs we're talking about are often given regulatory authority explicitly by Congress.  One could argue that they delegate too much (and courts have agreed occasionally), but the system does allow for much faster pivots than passing bills through Congress would allow.  Congress says "The Department of Transportation shall promulgate regulations to improve motor vehicle safety," and after the gears of civil service churn a while get tomes of rules about mirrors, lighting, and crash-safety standards.


But our vehicle regulations aren't written in a vacuum: the YIMBY transit crowd frequently observe that pedestrian safety is basically ignored (this is, slowly, starting to change, it seems) compared to the EU.  It seems likely to me that this exists because the bureaucrats charged with writing the standards happily drive their pickup trucks to the office and don't see many pedestrians day-to-day.


Is this the Deep State? By some definitions yes, but this particular example probably isn't hugely political, not do I immediately assume malice.  Yes, this sort of thing also exists in politically charged decisions, but I'm not sure it's deliberately by design, or even necessarily avoidable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Mitt Romney is white, as far as I know none of his ancestors are non-European or descended from Europeans. Does he have a Mexican grandpa I'm not aware of?




Romney's father was born in Mexico, which as far as I know has birthright citizenship.  The fact that it was in a Mormon settlement started by his great grandfather fleeing American anti-polygamy laws in 1885 probably complicates things, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The British Caribbean possessions, Jamaica, Barbados, etc, achieved independence directly with the British government without American involvement.




I realize it's a complicated history, but how would you describe Grenada, which was invaded by the Reagan administration within a decade of formal independence?


Also worth noting would be American possessions: the Philippines were granted independence from the US in a decade-long process that started before WWII.  Cuba was won from Spain in 1898 and granted independence (mostly) by the US in 1902.


There are also quite a few quasi-colonial possessions still floating around under various flags and governance: Puerto Rico, Tahiti, the Falklands, Aruba, Guyane, American Samoa, and so forth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO the fact that the universe exists is a fairly compelling argument for theism generally.  Any science undergraduate will understand that zero everywhere is a very satisfactory solution to all of the relevant field equations, but the fact that anything is here at all implies a far more complicated arrangement.  I personally find it more compelling than life, even intelligent life, existing within the universe.


But that's just my opinion and it's hardly conclusive ontological proof.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The NYPD claims that its rollout of body cameras to "all Police Officers, Detectives, Sergeants and Lieutenants regularly assigned to perform patrol duties throughout the city" was completed in August 2019, for a total of around 24,000 cameras.  There are approximately 6400 subway cars in NYC.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One of the tragic parts of the Kursk incident is that Russia declined several Western offers  of aid (from the US and parts of Europe) until such time as it's own efforts had completely failed several days later.  In particular putting national pride above the lives of it's sailors seems like quite a tragedy for the families of those lost.


But perhaps that also speaks to attitudes toward the current situation that I have trouble understanding from a Western perspective.