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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 July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I always assume that anyone unironically quoting Schenck agrees with its conclusion that distributing anti-draft pamphlets is akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater.  Which seems like a downright fascist perspective, but what do I know?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To respectfully break the rules on recruiting for a cause: anyone want to join me in distributing pamphlets advocating for disbanding the Selective Service in Washington some time soon?  We can call it a performance art piece.


(sarcasm, if unclear, but only mostly)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your spring metaphor reminds me of a fair amount of literature on athletic performance: everyone agrees that training makes you stronger, but not immediately.  Asking folks who just finished a marathon to run another immediately -- but faster now because they've trained more -- is not going to go well.  You actually get stronger when resting after training.  But rest too long and you start to lose form.


Sports science has figured out all sorts of (imperfect) models for human performance.  Generally best results come from periodizing training and recovery to optimize fitness in competition, rather than year-round.


I think your idea generalizes "strong" here to include more than athletic feats.  But even accepting that model doesn't make it easy: motivation for self-improvement purely for stoic self-actualization -- thanks, Maslow! -- doesn't in my experience work that well.  I try (and do okay, I think) but my greatest efforts and successes in life have had non-actualization driving factors.


Even if we assume it would work -- of which I'm not certain -- it's unclear to me how we'd encourage this at a population level.  There have been plenty of pop culture books that have tried, but getting people to clean their room, or even exercise modestly and eat healthier, seems to prove quite difficult for the average human wealthy enough to have a choice in the matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It strikes me that "society attempts to engineer strong men to create/maintain good times" would be an interesting fiction writing prompt.  It seems plausible that this could encounter all sorts of pitfalls and ironic outcomes.  But I'm sure some authors have already considered this idea ("service guarantees citizenship"), if not head-on.  Artificially inducing hard times seems ethically fraught, and seems likely to backfire when discovered.  But I'm not much of a fiction writer.


EDIT: I guess Ender's Game largely fits this description, as well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


My own model is (and note that these are deliberately twee and modern-vocab terms) Chad, Normie, and Degen. Chads exist as a result of hard times, and are both the stereotypical hard men of the saying, and further them via violence and intra-Chad competition. Normies move hard times to good times as the result of cooperation and coordination. And Degens exploit the social structures of Normies, weakening them to the point where the structure no longer benefits people, and then people either drift away or some combination of environmental pressure and incomnig Chads breaks the organization entirely, you get chaos, the Chads start to thrive, and the cycle begins again.




This sounds pretty similar to the dicks/pussies/assholes trichotomy popularized by Team America: World Police.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That was the source of the "service guarantees citizenship" quote. :)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A first generation, in which people primarily followed real-life friends or acquaintances of those friends (and so on). Those real-life friends shared their thoughts, pictures, ideas, inane ramblings and so on. This was Facebook and its predecessors like MySpace and Friendster.




I am, to be honest, a little sad that the Facebook of 10-15 years ago isn't really around anymore.  To some extent, the friend network is still there and it's interesting to me to follow what my classmates and friends at the time are now up to.  I think there's till a market for a good service like that for mainly keeping in touch and tracking major life events ("births, deaths, and marriages"), but modern Facebook seems to aggressively recommend Instagram-like creators rather than creating an environment where I can see "oh, this friend from college just moved to the same town as me" and stimulate real communities.  But maybe I'm just getting old and reaching the "old man yells at someone else's computer cloud" stage.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I sometimes think that a not-for-(huge)-profit social network could work.  Something like how Craigslist still has a comparatively austere website but manages to stick around modestly.  I'm not sure what I'd want it to be, really: Facebook (driven by a web of social connections) is a very different platform from Reddit (pseudonymous shitposting) in ways that in strongly want to keep both, as long as the streams never cross.


It does seem like the hyper-capitalist market-maximizing nature of social media drives a lot of the dark patterns like introducing unrelated scissor statements and Instagram models into a feed I'd otherwise want to be strictly topical because they're not wrong that it probably increases median visit time.


It makes me glad that places like this one exist (thanks, Zorba!).  I wonder if we'll see a resurgence of old-school sites at some point like how retro-style video games (pixel art!) have become popular.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO Top Gun: Maverick did a good job of scriptwriting without throwing its title character under the bus.  But that may be the only modern sequel/remake I can think of that does a passable job.  Disney (really, Lucasfilm in particular) seems to like bringing up old characters and showing that despite when we last saw them victorious at the end of the movie, they've gotten old and have their lives falling apart.


On the other hand, Maverick is probably the only good example I've seen in the last few years.  I've long wondered why filmmakers can't spend, I don't know, twice as much on hiring a good writer up front and making a good story, presumably saving tons of money in re-shoots and major CGI edits-on-edits.  At least from the outside, it seems obvious that many of these movies are going to be trainwrecks long before release.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not sure those that would be in favor of using the SAT would really be comfortable enshrining the College Board with sole authority in ranking college admissions.  Witness Florida battling over AP course curricula.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When I took it, the list of possible essay questions was public, but also very large.  I remember I had at least read the prompt I had to answer before the exam.  A quick search suggests ETS still publishes them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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 July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think The Book of Eli (2010) with Washington and Mila Kunis might also qualify, but it's been a while since I've seen it.  Notable perhaps also because the book in question is a Bible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think it's an interaction of a few things, a big one being an old trope about an old bear male figure coming out of retirement for one last score/mission/whatever.




For Otto and Gran Torino, I think there's actually a more specific sub-trope here about a widowed, childless (or at least functionally childless), outwardly-seen-as-cantankerous old man resigned to retirement and death revealed to be complex and charitable to a younger character in need of a father figure, ultimately becoming the loving parent of an ad-hoc family.  My initial thought on watching Otto was to compare it to Pixar's Up, which hits many of the same plot beats, but the resulting family consists of a (white) eight-year-old and a talking dog.


In this case, I think at least part of OP's trope may be that modern Hollywood is very reluctant to portray minorities (and also women) with strong negative personality traits: I have trouble imagining a film portraying a minority lead as "cantankerous" or "grumpy" regardless of later character development without accusations of racism.  Honestly I'd be happy to watch such a movie, but I can't think of an example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Why Don't Normies Trust Cryptocurrency?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


No, crypto's limits to adoption as a day to day currency have to do mostly with friction, complexity and uncertainty.




As someone familiar with cryptography, I can appreciate that at a purely mathematical level, cryptocurrency works (assuming secure algorithms, and acknowledging huge computational inefficiencies).  But whenever someone asks me about it, I generally point to the economic and sociological side of things.  "Does it work?" and "should I exchange it for goods and services?"  are two very different questions.


In general, the crypto community seems to have speed-run rediscovering why our financial and legal systems are as complicated as they are: chains forking, bank runs, bugs in smart contracts, and all sorts of scams.  It'd be pretty funny if it was only wealthy tech bros losing money, but it isn't exclusively. And any poorly-regulated financial service is likely to be used for crime like OPs letter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They notably got in quite a bit of hot water last year over accusing Ukraine of committing war crimes by defending populated areas.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

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


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				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.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Every time I've looked at it, it's struck me as high-effort in its own way.  It seems to have poorly-documented, frequently-changing text filters and lots of inside jokes. Admittedly, I've never posted, but this place feels more welcoming because we only demand plain English, albeit frequently at a college writing level.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm sure they all start somewhere, but some of the more classic examples of social contagion aren't ubiquitous in the modern era.  Various dancing manias and speaking in tongues come to mind as two likely-social phenomena that you don't see as often as a few hundred years ago.


I would be interested if anyone has any numbers on this, though.  If nothing else, the rate of spontaneous genesis seems akin to the frequency of appearance of physical pathogens: frequent zoonotic crossover makes substantial differences in how we treat influenza versus smallpox, for example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In fact I've wondered if PrEP is going to usher in a wave of STDs as it makes not wearing condoms seems like a valid choice for some.




I have seen quite prominent "GONORRHEA ALERT" billboards in some jurisdictions, and apparently the numbers suggest this is actually happening, as the common strains are now antibiotic-resistant.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can vouch that I've seen separate beds for real married couples in a few period recreations and museums.  The curators have always mentioned it wasn't an unusual ideal at the time. Although upper classes always get more depiction in the historic record.


Back to the original TV question, observers of modern television often note that characters have far larger and nicer apartments than their demographics should be able to afford.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


is obvious that if I would have boxes of top secret documents I would not get treatment like Trump or Obama got.




Do you hold (or have ever held) a clearance? I'm not aware of any cases of people without a prior NDA being charged for mere possession of classified documents with maybe a few exceptions of obvious spycraft.  The New York Times had copies of all the Snowden files and nobody ever came at them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Isn't there evidence that despite the Congressional ban, there was US-funded GoF research going on at WIV?  I at least recall seeing links here to grant requests to do so.