VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
No bio...
User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
but 0 about the Roosevelt (D)'s camps,
You know, it is surprising that, say, Farewell to Manzanar doesn't have a movie adaptation. Are there really none? I certainly can't think of any.
I look forward to reading your effortpost! It sounds interesting.
EDIT: that Foreign Affairs article seems pretty reasonable. Thanks for the link!
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I personally find the "Russian trolls" narratives to be really frustrating because, whether or not the subject actually originated, or even was just amplified by them, the discussion tends to devolve into Westerners (Americans) accusing each other of being Russian trolls. Which is itself a loss in social trust "making it worse" in ways far beyond what the Russians would have been able to do themselves. Bickering about Russian trolls is, in itself, a victory for those trolls! The long-running inquisition into the Russian activities in the 2016 election seems to me to have been far more damaging to American institutions than anything the Russians themselves directly did.
Which isn't to say that they don't exist -- they do -- but most coverage I see of the issue seems, at best, counterproductive.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
a white guy rushing the Divine Nine would be pilloried as a racist for showing up looking white
Not a perfect comparison, but some HBCUs have been quite successful at recruiting non-Black students, even though they've suffered the same sort of "taking of the talented tenth" that the Divine Nine have mentioned in OP. Not saying that I can't see it going this way, but I don't think it's strictly inevitable.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Mid-air collisions happen more often than you might expect given the size of, well, the atmosphere even in spots that aren't busy disaster zones. There was one just a few weeks ago in Nevada in clear weather, and there have been several over the years in tourist flight hotspots like Alaska. The automated systems (TCAS) are getting better, but still aren't going to prevent everything.
Although in this case, I think we should, as a society, consider that reducing safety standards (in a limited capacity) is an acceptable risk in response to the much more imminent risk to life and limb. I'm not sure exactly what my judgement would be in this case.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I can't speak to the state of actual relief efforts, but there does seem to be a bit of an effort to manufacture this as a mirror image to Bush's Katrina response, which dragged on Republicans for a long time: see Kanye's infamous "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" line.
Which is funny to me because in hindsight it's less clear that it was purely the Bush administration's doing. Much can be said about the (blue!) city and state leadership not taking the imminent storm seriously even as the National Weather Service issued extremely dire warnings, but Mike Brown's leadership of FEMA wasn't exactly a "heckuva job" either.
At least that's how I see it under the "politics is unprincipled conflict" lens. I suspect there are real challenges to providing useful aid with so many roads inaccessible (as there were in 2005), and I doubt anyone is actually slow-walking aid, even if they are trying to play political football ("FEMA is running out of funds" "that's because you spent it all on migrants"). Personally, I don't know much more to do than pray, although I'm open to suggestions.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I hear those are also highly recommended in earthquake-prone regions.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Could you expound on that difference? My understanding of American immigrant crime syndicates is that they were also historically quite involved in machine politics like Tammany Hall. I'm not sure if the mafia, for example, became a bipartisan bugbear of its own volition, or more because it became politically expedient to oppose organized crime circa the 1930s. There are probably still rumors of involvement by organized crime in politics -- maybe see the current longshoremen union?
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
"Police state" isn't just a function of uniformed officers. I don't totally agree with the description, but if you consider "fearing the police" a critical part of a police state, I'd point to the absurd conviction rate and the idea that you'd just expect to get arrested if you started any sort of disruptive crime as indicators that the Japanese largely "fear" (probably uncharitable, more like "respect and comply with" in practice, I think) law enforcement.
As compared to the US where I've seen no shortage of people doing (minor, mostly non-violent) crimes right in front of police officers.
Many Muslim nations still have drug problems, but with drugs other than alcohol: qat and captagon come to mind most prominently, and aren't to my knowledge issues in the West. Opium was an issue in Afghanistan, but IIRC the Taliban was actually against it.
I don't know if the quintessential Western hard drugs (meth, fentanyl, probably missing a few because I like my life boring) are major issues elsewhere in the world these days.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I believe they're largely prohibited in the US, but the European (?) model of non-adversarial, or at least less-adversarial, unions is something I think we should give more consideration. IIRC it involves things like board representation for labor.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
There's only certain situations that one can be granted asylum for (and that was narrowed recently by the Biden administration), and asylum-seekers are expected to appear in court
Wasn't the entire process that largely started or at least hugely expanded under the Biden administration "show up at or across the border, say the shibboleth 'asylum', and we'll have you take a number for your court date. Conveniently that's years down the line due to the volume in cases, so we'll let you loose to show up then, and let you apply for am multi-year work permit once your case has been pending 150 days, but nobody is going to look at any details within that time anyway. Here's a list of government-funded NGOs that can provide for you during that time".
That's hardly "certain situations" and only very loosely "expected to appear." Charitably, it sounds like a well-meaning policy to help people fleeing oppression amid an overcrowded system, but I see why it's opponents characterize it as opening the floodgates and shrugging at the idea that any effort could be put into it.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I think you're right about the technology aspect, but I sometimes worry that we've normalized lethal force (literal in-flight ballistic missiles) as sub-casus belli because the (expensive!) technology exists to block those attacks, and that Peace In Our Timeniks believe that actually hitting back in these sorts of cases is the dreaded "escalation", rather than inaction normalizing escalating attacks everywhere.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I probably sound like a woman most of the time I speak Japanese.
I seem to recall reading, probably either here or on Hacker News, that native Japanese speakers can identify those who mostly learned the language from their (opposite gender) significant other because they don't do well following the gender conventions. I don't know much Japanese --- I tried Duolingo on it for a few months --- but I appreciate the examples you've listed, even if I don't understand much of it at all.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I get nervous about the death penalty for the same reason I think it should probably be legal: death is irrecoverable. When the state puts someone to death in error, that is an error that should shake the government to its foundations.
Amusingly, for largely the same reasons, I find myself mostly ambivalent (and maybe weakly in favor of) the death penalty. IMO for all the advocacy of "life in prison instead," that lifetime in prison isn't recoverable either: "Sorry grandpa, we realize you didn't do it 50 years ago. Here's some cash in exchange for the life you never got" isn't much, if any, better than a mistaken execution. They deserve the same standards of evidence as death penalty cases, at which point we shouldn't really be questioning guilt. The state already claims the right to expend lives in its service or at its discretion --- see The Draft and plenty of generally-approved-of kinetic actions against adversaries, even when those adversaries are citizens, or even the actuarial acceptance of marginal, but measurable increased risks of death in exchange for other goals, like banning DDT.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
So, what are you reading?
Finished The Diamond Age: some interesting thoughts on child rearing, nanotechnology, and AI. A bit ironic to be reading it on a Kindle, although not one equipped with an LLM to tell me a custom story — give it a few years. The neo-Victorian aesthetic was an interesting touch (modern culture comparisons to Victorianism are a bit en vogue these days). I see how that was supposed to contrast with
Started A Fire Upon the Deep. Not far enough to have an opinion.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
a firing pin that strikes the primer only
As far as I'm aware, most higher-power cartridges are center-fire (there's a clear ring on the back that's the primer). There are also rimfire cartridges like 22LR that you might be able to set off by hitting the corner.
The bullet probably won't gain a lot of velocity without a barrel to contain the pressure, though.
Please don't do this while holding the cartridge. Or without significant thought given to protecting yourself (remotely, while behind cover). It probably won't send the bullet terribly fast, but the expanding gas alone can be quite dangerous (blanks have killed people), and the brass will likely do something interesting like shatter when not supported by a barrel.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I feel like this is going to be biased toward declaring groups that get along to be "homogeneous", and those that don't are subdivided into smaller groups until they do, with the broader discording factions declared "heterogeneous". You could divide the English into Anglos, Saxons, Normans, and so on, but they still mostly get along so you'll call them all "English".
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
As someone who once unwittingly had all his car radio stations tuned to country FM stations, I am surprised that more of The Motte hasn't embraced its "be like my elders: buy some land, marry someone you love, raise some hell, then some kids, and go to church" aesthetic.
As for me, I would describe it like root beer: "insidious, just like The Federation".
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
The other told me point blank there were way too many Indians arriving, that it is ruining the country and that they would vote for Trump if they lived in America. The former was a white Canadian of colonial stock and the latter was a first-gen Pakistani replete with accent.
Was this an attitude toward South Asian immigrants generally, or a reflection of Indian-Pakistani animosity? I'm assuming the former, but I've seen the latter around from time to time (my favorite example was a mixed group of second-generation students mocking that their parents probably hated each other).
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I have heard at least one (blue-voting!) New Yorker complain about the stranglehold the transit unions have on the city's mass transit. In particular that the leverage of a strike halting the subway prevents investment in some better technology that would improve the rider experience. In particular, this included any sort of automatic driving system, which (I'm told) limits total system throughput and those self-aligning train and platform doors that have existed elsewhere in the world for decades and would probably improve safety substantially.
I'm not wholly opposed to unions, but I don't think they uniformly make everyone's life better either. See also the Chicago plumbers union and lead pipes. But I suppose most of the time they probably ask for more reasonable concessions.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Climate Change advocacy, for all its faults, actually makes a serious attempt at this
I would also point at the astroid folks, who are diligently cataloging near-Earth asteroids and recently attempted an impact test as a proof of concept for redirection. The infectious disease folks are also at least trying, even if I have my doubts on gain-of-function research.
I haven't seen any serious proposals from the AI folks, but I also identify as part of the graygreen goo that is cellular life.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Is Clive here American (and directing a UK charity), or is he speaking in outrage-inducing hypotheticals? Because if I were British, I'd be ashamed at the Crown's tyrannical encroachment on the free speech rights of Man.
But I'm not British.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
And if that timeframe is shorter than other European countries,
In yet another failure of attempted federalism, I expect the EU is going to have to unify citizenship rules, or at least specify minimums, to prevent something like the old Irish corporate tax rules.
Sometimes it seems pretty obvious from the outside that a given production is going to fail miserably: Borderlands, as another example. This conversation has me wondering if it always looks like a train wreck on the inside (reshoots, recutting, extra VFX) in ways that we just don't see as outsiders. Was the set of a great movie, say Jurassic Park, less chaotic in these ways than Waterworld? It's conceivably sampling bias to see the trainwrecks from the outside.
More options
Context Copy link