VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
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User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
I think you have to narrow "military" there to "combat": Dubya served in the National Guard but never deployed to Vietnam, which was a source of plenty of drama circa 2004.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
in charge of regulating showerhead flow
Every time I'm outside the US I remark at how awesome the showers are. Probably largely a function of the flow rate. I'm sympathetic to the idea that saving water is good, especially in Western states that are quite arid, but residential water use is pretty small compared to everything else anyway. IMO it'd be better if we let the flow restrictions be required only in California and Nevada.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
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.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
that any head of state who routinely wore military attire was most likely a dictator or a warlord.
Most of the examples I can think of that would have suggested this wear dress military uniforms: Franco, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and such. Although I suppose there is an association of more field-style uniforms (usually with a rifle or equivalent) with something like an African coup. I don't think Zelenskyy's attire really embodies either, but that is just my opinion. The association I remember learning also involved dictators frequently giving all their yes-men medals to wear on excessively elaborate uniforms: somewhere there is a picture from North Korea of comical numbers of medals.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
China also has looming demographic issues that are far worse than America's: I don't think it has a sustainable path to long-term superpower status because the legacy of the one-child policy will have the median age in China rapidly pass that in the US within the next decade or so. Even if, God forbid, war breaks out, how many only sons (and only grandsons) can be sent home in boxes before the Mandate of Heaven is lost? I don't know, or want to find out, but to me it'd at least be a real concern.
I think China has at least another good decade going for it, and may well stay relevant beyond that too.
the UK are now organising a coalition of the willing so maybe there are countries that want to do more than virtue signalling
While not personally holding an overly positive view of Trump's policies vis-à-vis Ukraine, I will observe that it has been quite successful in convincing Europe and the rest of the West to step up defense spending, which has been one of his stated policies since his first administration. Whether this is the actual intent (4D chess meme here) or worth the costs to American foreign relations is less clear to me.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
IIRC US bulk crop production has expanded even though the amount of farmed acreage has declined substantially in the last few decades. It's a huge change and not one that gets talked about often.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
the ethnic similarity of the two peoples,
I think this is very much in the eye of the beholder: Western progressives happily lump together "White" Poles and Germans, but that didn't stop any number of atrocities on the ground in WWII. They also wouldn't generally distinguish between "Black" Hutu and Tutsi in any context that wasn't directly related to the relevant genocide. From someone far away (maybe you are not, but I am), it's hard to qualify feelings on the ground. Surely those genetically similar, Abrahamic-religion-followers in the former British mandate of Palestine are getting along nicely.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
Bell Labs existed in a weird corporate/government liminal space because it was funded by the profits of AT&T's government-granted monopoly on telecommunication through the Reagan administration. I'm not sure it's the right example of corporate research.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
that DOGE or whoever basically just ctrl+f'd "diverse", "underrepresented", and "minority" and axed all matches.
This feels particularly pernicious because, at least to me, it seems the vibe under the previous administration (and possibly it's predecessors) strongly encouraged sneaking in these terms for effectively opposite reasons to prevent summary rejection by federal funding agencies. There are probably a bunch of projects that, in saner times, would be mostly apolitical, but are going to get sacrificed in this tribal tug-of-war. I guess the folks sneaking diversity statements into particle accelerator funding proposals aren't completely blameless, but I do feel a bit bad for those just going along with the zeitgeist.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
Basically, the troops manning the nuclear weapons were not loyal to Ukraine
I am rather curious to whom the troops of the crumbling nominally-Soviet empire were, or were expected, to be loyal to. It may well be that the nuclear folks were distinctly Russian, but more broadly I can't see everyone swearing fealty to Moscow when their families now live in independent nations.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
A substantial amount (majority, IIRC) of US debt is owed to other Americans. Defaulting looks a lot more like "safe" treasury bills not being paid back. Which would probably be disastrous for banks, pension funds, and the lot. But inflation isn't popular either.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
We need to put aside our pride and end the war, saving the lives of real men, not lines on a map.
As much as I think this statement is true (continued meat grinder is bad), the last century has plenty of examples of it not working out this way. A bunch of territorial concessions to Nazi Germany (Austria, Czechoslovakia) for "Peace in our Time" only saw the men and materiel of those nations conscripted into the larger war. See the Czech conscripts depicted in Saving Private Ryan and similar.
I don't think a negotiated settlement for territory works without a much stronger "but never again" guarantee. Something like EU or NATO tripwire peacekeeping forces would be a very strong form of this, but there are foreseeably other alternatives.
Most of the time I hear "voting against their own self-interest" it rubs me the wrong way because the speaker is pretty clearly trying to implicitly smuggle their own value system for what "self-interest" means. "Why would [red jurisdiction] vote for [red politician]?" If you have to ask, you're playing out the "No, it's the children who are wrong" meme.
With respect to higher taxes, I will observe that the blue denizens of my local jurisdiction (high on property values, low on children per capita) strongly dislike the fraction of their property taxes that gets transfered within the state to poorer school districts. Which also doesn't really align with the stated blue preference for progressive tax policies and wealth redistribution.
ETA: Probably not completely charitable, but it would be at least coherent to see a revealed preference here of "I want myself and others to pay higher taxes for things that align with my values."
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
Overdose deaths are suicides.
Philosophy question: to what extent do we as people owe each other to stop suicide attempts? Discuss.
On one hand, we've put up nets and installed phones and nationwide hotlines and circulated narcan. On the other, some Western states have legalized euthanasia for increasingly minor medical issues. To me, the former feels reasonable (although I find OPs argument about narcan to be at least darkly intriguing), and the latter feels like it starts reasonably but quickly slides down the slippery slope. I know some moral codes (Catholicism, for one) are blanket-opposed to aiding suicide.
I'm interested to hear other opinions on where the line should be.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
I think this anecdote shows there is an interesting debate to be had about the role of "science" in governance. When the court defers to "experts" opaquely like this, it subverts the intentional democratic structure of government. As someone who has had "scientist" in their job title before, I'm actually of mixed feelings about this. It might feel better if we pushed for science literacy on the courts, or maybe just published the science and let The People decide what to do with it.
I think the misunderstanding, IMO is that "science" is, as-designed, value neutral. It should inform political decisions, not make them directly.
Although maybe this was a question of federalism? Certain powers in the US are reserved for states or feds (regulating alcohol sales vs. international trade). But that doesn't seem like what happened in Canada here.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
I had to look it up a while back, but my (urban) school district required Hep A/B (and it was at least generally recommended at the time) and I recall many universities required meningitis vaccination when I was applying. Both of those may have been fairly recent at the time. I think you're right about PCV.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
Most people on this board aren't vaccinated for a lot of the stuff in the US schedule these days.
Do you have specific examples? The US schedule is mostly met with the standard childhood vaccines. I got all the recommended ones when I was a child, and it looks at a quick glance that HPV and chickenpox are the only new additions there. Beyond childhood, I think tetanus and the flu are the only ones recommended regularly. I've had to get some fun bonus ones for international travel, too. I'm pretty sure I'm up to date on most everything (except the COVID boosters), although I didn't ever really set out to get a bunch of shots for fun. If I were much older (or made certain, um, "lifestyle choices") I'd be missing a few.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
Ideally this is the sort of thing cryptographic signatures are supposed to be good for. "Email from the CEO asking us to buy gift cards? Did he sign it with a valid RSA key that is signed by our CA? No? Then I'll just wait for clarification."
Even though much of the infrastructure for this exists in the large organization I work in, it doesn't get used for the broadcast emails that go to everyone (actually, a small subset are, but only one department seems to care), even though it would seemingly be useful. But I suppose the crypto dream of the '90s will always be "the future" because normies non-nerds don't understand or appreciate it.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
This makes me wonder about a tangential question: what fraction of federal workers use their email on a daily basis? It seems a very desk-jockey centric view to send out a bulk email and expect all employees to respond in days.
What about the park rangers in remote places: I've been to National Park offices that didn't take credit cards because they were mostly off-grid within the last couple years. Wildland firefighters? Do USPS mail carriers have work email? TSA agents? Or anyone taking a whole week of vacation? There are whole classes of useful (well, we can debate the TSA separately) jobs that involve showing up, doing the work, and calling it a day without ever sitting at a desk deliberately taking time to answer emails on a daily basis, and government-wide emails seem unlikely to be a good medium to reach everyone on their levels.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
It worked for Elizabeth Warren.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
From a "race is a social construct" perspective, isn't this just code switching? Presumably scoped here to people who ambiguously pass as either.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
We're not going to agree about Twitter.
We might, actually. The doom-selling I remember that I'm calling out as inaccurate was from the technical side regarding site reliability. The cultural side, whether it can maintain relevance and cachet as X, I think you're correct still remains to be seen, and isn't trending great for them (although I think it was previously on a different course, if perhaps slower, for irrelevance by losing the political zeitgeist in the other direction).
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1yr ago
I don’t think they’ll believe it until a serious, serious recession hits the economy and tanks their income.
I think this is how voters would take it if there is a recession (which seems at least plausible, IMO, but certainly not guaranteed). On the other hand, I've seen a lot of ink spilled about how "essential" all these roles are, and if there isn't a recession, or worse, there is a period of perceived prosperity, it'll hurt the credibility of the left's messaging with those voters going forward. I'm thinking about how many said Twitter would fall apart without half its employees, and despite a few extra "fail whale" pages it's still online, at least. Or how Reagan effectively won the standoff with the ATC strike.
My libertarian friends back in the day would have you know this line was crossed and the ship sailed the better part of a century ago. I'm not going to say I'm broken-hearted over the people that lost in the '60s, but when masked protesters [1] blocked students from getting to schools and engaged in the sorts of violence that sound a lot like the Hamasniks at Ivy League schools this past year, JFK mobilized 30,000 troops. Various Federal civil rights laws clamp down pretty harshly on certain kinds of speech in schools and workplaces (or effectively force those places to clamp down) [2], even if the penalties aren't always technically "criminal".
It feels like the broader Left is only really complaining about "authoritarianism" here because the levers controlling speech regulations that they championed are no longer under their firm control, and are no longer solely against their outgroup.
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