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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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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The problems is that Israeli propagandist in the west always try to make every attack on them some major moral and civilizational issue.




I feel like this argument burned out for me during the first Trump term when the "Muslim bans" were castigated for clear racial/religious animus and disparate impact on a subset (even a fairly limited one) of (mostly-)Muslim nations.  I thought the arguments were somewhat reasonable and compelling that the combination of a history of disparaging remarks and policies (which may perhaps have been defensible in isolation) was at least arguably a bridge too far (see a near-divided SCOTUS in Trump v. Hawaii).


But in the case of Israel, self-styled "anti-Zionists" (many of whom were clearly against Trump's travel bans on the above basis) manage to make no shortage of religious/ethnic animus comments, and propose policies that disparately impact the (unitary) set of Jewish-majority states:  Your rules, applied fairly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They stopped naming COVID variants after Greek letters right when they got to 'Xi'.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are a ton of confounding variables here, but IIRC we're finally seeing a significant decrease in opioid deaths (a surprisingly high count) in ways that might be significant but were rising well before COVID.  The reasons are a bit unclear (dark prospect: populations particularly vulnerable to addiction have largely died already).


But surprisingly few care substantially about overdoses (or traffic accidents) because, I suppose, that's something that happens to "other people".  Nobody really cares about addicts in practice, judging by the relative alarm compared with COVID. I try to care, at least abstractly, about causes of death (and non-death harm) but I'm not sure the loud "harm reduction" advocates have actually been helpful either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It is crazy to me that most people alive today will be around to see how this - this journey of civilization, this grand process of technological development - ends, or at least moves far, far beyond us.




Maybe you're right, but there are plenty of times in history where people have felt this way before, and most of those examples I can think of are from long before I was born.  Most recently, the Atomic Scientists would have you believe we've been on a knife-edge of nuclear armageddon -- maybe they're right, but never materialized during the Cold War.  Or you could go back and look at any number of doomsday cults, even including early Christians anxiously awaiting Christ's return in their lifetimes.


The pattern has held long enough that I'd personally discourage making any huge life changes assuming it won't matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why don’t universities simply put out fake studies with made up data that flatters the current administration’s priorities in order to get money? That’s just not how universities think.




Given the general direction of the replication crisis in the the social sciences, retracted questionable applications of statistics, and the number of high-profile plagiarism accusations against university leadership in the humanities, are you sure they don't?  I don't think anyone is doing it out loud, but it's at least happening in practice through some combination of only studying problems that could have the flattering solution, or just hiding the report when you don't like its results.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Given that we are animals and so have self-preservation instinct, it doesn't surprise me that "of course life is good" is what all right wingers think




I think this is generally true, but there are right-coded (religious, at least) "anti-natalists" like the Shakers (there are two left), or, more arguably, any absolute-celibacy endorsing religious order (nuns and monks, for example).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is also some variance in wisdom teeth: most people have 4, but other numbers happen from time to time.  I know some family members of mine had only 2 or 3.  More than 4 is possible too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


People pushed luggage around on wheeled carts for decades before figuring out we should just put wheels on the damn suitcases.




Is this true, though?  Wheels are only effective if they're large relative to the bumps on the surface you're using them on.  Modern wheeled luggage (2 inch wheels) is only effective on smooth, swept concrete surfaces.  And those are a quite modern invention (maybe we can blame the ADA here?), at least in quantity as far as I can tell.  Having once lugged a wheeled suitcase a mile on cobbled European roads, a cart would have worked better.  I wouldn't even try on an unpaved road.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 16, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hot take: "Europe" is only a separate continent because geographers have a very eurocentric view in drawing the lines.  Every other continent has a pretty clear separation from its neighbors by sea or at least small isthmus.  "Eurasia" makes more sense from the map.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


same sort of threat as attempting to invade the house floor as member of congress are fleeing.




If I were far more right-wing than I am and feeling snarky, I'd probably say something about the right to petition one's government here, but I'd generally agree with the "play stupid games" line in this sort of scenario.  Maybe that particular argument would be different if members of Congress were known for ignoring their constituents generally.


But it's also not terribly out of line with the times for police shooting "unarmed" but hostile citizens: Ferguson settled with the family of Mike Brown — of "hands up, don't shoot" fame where forensic evidence suggests his hands were not, in fact, up — for a bit under $2M 8 years ago, which is not that different adjusted for inflation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Are anti-natalists citing Marx or the Frankfurt School?




I feel like you could also reference communist China's deliberate embrace of Malthusian ethics in adopting the One Child Policy.  I can maybe imagine a right-leaning government adopting such a plank — I've heard radicals suggest that legalized abortion is a deliberate policy to depress the TFR of certain supposedly-less-desirable subgroups — but in practice I associate it with left groups.  There is also a left-coded streak of anti-human environmentalism that seems relevant (the right-coded environmentalists have a religious concept of human "dominion" that the left lacks).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Singapore has a pretty large chemical refinery business, although the plants are operated by multinationals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for May 14, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Status-wise, there's no doubt Spanish has a lower socioeconomic association, so if you're trying to raise your kid to me a major climber, Chinese might be better if that's your primary goal.




At least in my part of the US, there is a niche for small business owners who use Spanish to communicate with (some of) their workers.  This may be less status than you are looking for (construction contractors, restaurant franchise owners, ranchers), but it is something.


Analogously, I've at least heard of Chinese-speakers being pulled in to negotiate with "the factory" (mainland or Taiwan) building products.


On the gripping hand, our Brave New World today could easily spell major changes in both of these with changes in immigration and tariffs, so my confidence would be low.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Matthew Yglesias has a repeated line that the middle class should not be able to afford full-service dining (except as an occasional splurge purchase) in a country with a functioning labour market.




I think this might have some truth to it, but there is an element of cultural choice involved.  Some cultures have different expectations of "full-service dining" — I'm thinking of how American ones tend to push table turnover, whereas other countries expect to serve each table maybe once per evening.


But there is some reasonable bound on "how much time we spend on each other." One could total up "hours wiping butts" versus total hours worked and see that yes, having the median worker work 40 hours, 10 of which are spent wiping butts, is probably not sustainable.  Maybe it'd be at 60 hour weeks, but I'd really prefer more leisure time.  There are some real culture choices to be made about the relative merits of time spent on arts, capital investments (building stuff!), research, and medicine — is medicine an end, or just a means to it.  It's honestly a pretty open question I'd love to see more debate on, rather than neoliberal "we can have it all" platitudes.


I suppose also that some historic cultures adopted senicide rather than spend time wiping (elderly) butts, although to my modern sensibilities that's rather abhorrent, but perhaps a bit understandable in resource-constrained situations.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One other obvious technology solution would be to automate butt-wiping.  I suspect there are fewer qualms about automating geriatric care versus infant care, too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good question.  But it's at least part of the formal curriculum for AP US History, so the answer is hopefully nonzero even if some have forgotten since.


There is some advantage to knowing what (shared) curriculum can be pointed to.  Even here, we have a somewhat understood corpus of "things I can refer to and expect readers to understand", but there is always some context dependence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even today, bright right-leaning politicians come out of left-wing institutions.  Vance graduated from Yale Law in 2013, and multiple Republican-appointed SCOTUS and other justices have come out of Harvard.


I think the academics would consider a "based" take (I'm assuming you mean yeschad.jpg to colonization) to be a very facile response to an actually hard topic.  A better response might be to examine the incoherence of the progressive views on the subject: "Can well-meaning maybe-benevolent (government) intervention improve lives?  The Spanish missionaries in the New World certainly thought they were doing so, and there are some 'based' examples of them ending human sacrifice, for example."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


better off for having studied history at university, in a way I doubt I could have achieved by pure dilettantism.




As someone who majored in engineering, I've come across a few largely-self-taught coworkers.  Some of them are quite talented, but most seem to have more trouble than the degreed folks when we get into the deeper parts of the subject that aren't quite as fun to study (linear algebra, complex analysis, there is probably part of this in any field).  I think there is real value to an engineering curriculum that makes us study the useful but un-fun parts that puts tools in the tool belt to solve real-world problems.


I've seen analogous outcomes from home-school students that were allowed to focus near-exclusively on their interests, and, even while otherwise bright, can't have a coherent conversation about some reasonably-part-of-the-curriculum topics -- for example, "the Spanish-American war and its consequences".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


companies were saying that with the tariff's they would lose $100+ selling a $100 PC case for example.




Everyone has been saying that the $100 case will now cost $200, but it seems the companies here aren't willing to raise prices and bet on that.


If nothing else, this seems like it will provide some interesting data on the exact shape of supply/demand curves.  I doubt either extreme is exactly right: prices will probably go up (if nothing else, to cover the tariff), and demand will probably go down.  But as to exactly how much of each, nobody wants to admit it's a bit unknown.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Surely the REAL ID Act and Alabama's decision to certify its driver's licenses to comply have a lot to say about names the DMV prints on licenses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I didn't see his name on those lists in the media about Top Sixteen Picks For Pope, which doesn't surprise me.




Were Francis or Benedict on those lists?  I may not be recalling well now, but I seem to recall "wait, who now?" as the response to some of the papal announcements in my lifetime despite lots of commentary on likely candidates.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				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 May 5, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I suspect Rowling is simply completely unaware of the real-world implications of Defense against Dark Arts, and would instinctively shy away from recognizing the analogy.




I think half the fun of these "misreadings" of the text is that it forces us to acknowledge the complexities of reality: even in a constructed magical world, "but what if I need to use (near) lethal force to defend myself?" is in fact a question that doesn't have a trivial answer.  Well, some partisans on both sides would have you think it has two different ones, but I'll accept some level of nuance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recognize this is a bit pithy, but "If only there were a genre of fiction regarding how humans interact with technology to consider the moral and ethical implications of current-year AI as applied to human civilization, specifically how it impacts creators and consumers in these sorts of cases." Sci-Fi a weird genre to have effectively adopted neo-Luddite tendencies.


I think there are probably some interesting ideas  to explore. "The dialog for the ship's computer was generated entirely by ChatGPT, which is why it uses 'delve' and em-dashes (verbally!) and won't shut up.  At some point the characters end up on a different, older vessel whose computer is hellishly inspired by Clippy: 'It looks like you're trying to land this thing!' at only peripherally appropriate times." Show how these tools are helpful -- or not helpful -- to the broader human condition.  Does viable alignment even exist?  Have a congenitally blind person talk to an AI about what color means to two different things with vastly different exposure to the concept.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you're not careful, you'll think that everything is LARPing.  And there is an element of truth to that: "all the world's a stage" and such.  Systems in practice are less rigid and formal than they look from the outside: for all the pomp and circumstance, your local sports team is just a bunch of dudes playing a game; most of the magic there is actually imparted by the audience watching it.