VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
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User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Medicaid sucks and is a pain in the ass but a lot of places have staff whose job it is to navigate those things for the patient, and the specific way the suck happens sometimes makes it simple at least.
This isn't wrong, but I think there is a lot of low-hanging fruit to improve these systems by reducing their complexity: is there a common application for Medicaid, SNAP, and free school lunches? Section 8? Can we align the the means testing thresholds to eliminate benefits cliffs?
I've gotten the sense in the past that anyone really capable of wrangling all the different systems as they are intended probably has to have it together well enough to have the ability to hold down a job paying well enough to disqualify them from the benefits.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
IMO Michelle Obama is particularly popular because she has never presented herself as a particularly partisan figure. That serves really well in the role of FLOTUS, but I think the luster would quickly be lost once voters disagree with her on issues. Also I think a nontrivial subset of American voters really hate the idea of political dynasties.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
5% allotted to indigenous communities
I am legitimately curious who "indigenous communities" here refers to: I usually associate that term with first world countries with guilt complexes around historical events. I may be ignorant of regional events, here, but I'm not quite sure who this means, and what they were present before.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Give it a few years. In the short term, they're probably focused more on anti-drone countermeasures, and adding IFF to that raises the complexity beyond "shoot down all drones."
On the other hand, I think laser-based anti-drone systems are probably going to start appearing in all sorts of places like this within a couple years.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
IMO letting it be really obvious that he's letting the interns write the tweets is a bad look, especially given the widespread questioning of his competence. Jokes like that on social media are -- checks notes -- not something I'd expect someone of his current verbal wit to do, and don't seem very "Presidential" either.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
the procedures involving the Speaker and Prez pro tem succession are hilariously dumb and would cause a ton of chaos if they actually saw use
Gerald Ford isn't the most fondly remembered (although we did name an aircraft carrier after him), but managed to serve as President without being elected on a national ballot. Although I believe he was elevated to VP from Speaker and then subsequently to President.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Has anyone started taking bets on whether Biden pardons his son on (or before) his last day in office?
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I think SCOTUS is skeptical of its self-appointed claim to be a heretofore undocumented fourth branch of government.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I have long thought that it would have been completely reasonable for Biden to try to negotiate a pardon for Trump a la Ford pardoning Nixon in return for a back-to-normalcy sort of proposal. On the other hand Nixon was term limited and Trump was at least in a position to consider running again. Perhaps in return for retiring from political life? It was also a pretty unpopular decision by Ford at the time, but I think in hindsight was probably better for just moving on as a nation.
Although it's not even clear that Trump would have accepted it if offered -- he doesn't seem like one willing to retire quietly. Nor does Biden, who steadfastly refuses to consider dropping out, seem quite as much of a one-term caretaking administration as was perhaps originally advertised, so it may never have been under consideration to begin with.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I think this was a common conservative complaint about Hillary in 2016: the "Copresidents" line was from an SNL skit, but I think it resonated at least as well as the "I can see Russia from my house" (also an SNL quote). If you're so concerned about long-term influence like that, it seems that almost electing a candidate that already lived 8 years in the White House seems like it should also be worrisome.
I don't completely discount your concerns, but Trump will be four years older in 2028.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
and the percentage of books written in the last 10 years (much less the last 20) is absurdly high.
I almost certainly can't find it now, but I remember stumbling upon a list of movies or albums like this that was published decades back, probably in an old magazine, and realizing that it had a similar bias that had aged terribly: half of the then-contemporary ones didn't seem to have been mentioned again, but had heard of all the classics.
At least it's not a new bias, I suppose.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Although presumably a Secret Service agent will fire first if they see a gun,
There have been rumors circling that the Secret Service counter-snipers may have been directed not to fire first. At first that seems silly to me, but I think it makes sense in such an environment with constantly-changing scenery, civilians prone to doing all sorts of silly things, and new law enforcement organizations to cooperate with every week.
Yes, "shoot if you see someone with a gun" seems reasonable, and to be honest I'd probably defend it, but I can only imagine that we're only seeing the one(?) false-negative in my lifetime. I don't think I can point to a case where they did shoot first (or at least without a direct credible threat), either, but I can only imagine that given the complexity of the job they've come close to shots that wouldn't sit well with the public more often than they'll ever admit to us (for security reasons, naturally): Local law enforcement went up on the wrong roof, kids playing with airsoft guns, an unrelated carjacking a block away from the motorcade, suspicious-looking camera equipment, and so forth. It's pretty clear they don't shoot anybody who breaches the White House fence: that seems to happen regularly, even toddlers, and the optics from that would be terrible.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I am loosely of the opinion that we've already passed the maximum likelihood of civil war in this generation. If anything, the Culture War as a broader battle seems to be calming down, although this particular incident perhaps points the opposite direction. Both sides seem to have reached a point of being too tired of apocalyptic rhetoric to be energized by their own positive attributes: last I checked, both candidates have higher unfavorable polling numbers than favorable numbers.
More broadly, I'm coming around to a personal hypothesis that the introduction of the Internet as a social medium is starting to have run its course. We had a good couple decades where it was almost the exclusive domain of the young and well-educated, decaying September by September as normies have gradually settled the digital frontier. For a while, the discourse was Blue (with a strong helping of Techno-Libertarian) because the population was more generally. And as that faded, left-partisans were able to evaporatively cool dissent (cancel culture) in the space to maintain the partisan atmosphere. But evaporative cooling only works so far: at some point it cools to the point where people start noticing that the emperor has no clothes: I think we saw the peak of this in 2016, where the strongest efforts of blue partisans weren't able to completely ban online red-tribe rallying points. The Internet can no longer be maintained as a partisan territory for either side.
And I think that's generally still true. The forced-to-be-online interactions of 2020 seem to have had major effects: renewed efforts to ban red-tribe online spaces and such, but forcing everyone online doesn't really change that evaporative cooling is played out. Instead, it seems like the period of rapid social (and possibly also economic) change that the Internet has wrought seems to be coming to a close.
It's not the best-supported hypothesis, but it seems plausible enough for me.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I find it darkly ironic that problems exist at both ends of this spectrum: yes, there are obese people, but the number of serious runners (among other sports) with very real eating disorders isn't zero either.
But for most people, more activity and less gluttony is probably better.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
There is a kernel of truth to this, but my understanding is that the data suggest adaptation doesn't require much intensity, and that if "easy" can include even things like a walking pace if enough time is spent on it. Just walking an extra mile or two a day is better than nothing.
Yes, higher intensity is in some ways better, but it doesn't need to be everything.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I have a pretty short commute. Usually by car, although I bike sometimes when the weather is nice. There is a bus route with stops near both ends that I've never tried because all the mapping apps tell me it'll take three times as long. The bike is faster than the bus.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Three sets of fifteen minutes seems much more doable (although the original might not be out of the question), and it looks like they scaled it up over the six weeks as fitness improved. It would be interesting to see how much, but I didn't see that in a quick skim.
It doesn't seem that surprising to me generally: endurance exercise uses a lot of energy from blood sugar (and also from fat), and everything I've read suggests that the liver has a huge role in regulating that. I've also heard plenty of anecdotes about diabetes improving (or at least being easier to regulate) with exercise. The idea that reducing blood glucose without using insulin (exercise!) might improve insulin sensitivity sounds pretty reasonable: abstaining from caffeine for a while makes a cup of coffee hit harder when you do have one.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
45min at 65% VO2Max
I'm a bit familiar with the literature on endurance sports (mostly cycling, but some running -- the cyclists have better quantitative data), and I'd be curious to know more about this study. Very coarsely (unless you can afford real metabolic testing), my understanding is that VO2Max is roughly a maximal 5 minute effort. For me, 65 percent of that for 45 minutes would be a decently hard workout I'd maybe want an easy day after.
But my understanding is that there is a pretty wide variance of VO2 power and 60 minute power, and that it wouldn't be out of the question for a specialist in middle-distance (VO2-dominant) events to have trouble doing this workout. Was this research on mostly-untrained subjects? I'm not sure how hard an effort this would be for them. Did they report perceived efforts?
Regardless, I would agree on recommending more exercise generally.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I have heard reasonable explanations of the new passkey systems that the big tech companies are slowly trying to roll out. It's effectively replacing a symmetric password (client and server both know the password) with an asymmetric signature (my client can prove itself to the server without the server itself learning enough to do so itself). It doesn't solve the two-factor problem itself, but probably could change how user passwords are handled.
On the other hand, they are distinctly too complex to commit to memory, so they end up having to be stored in a physical device, which has its own issues. Also viable backups and account restoration have conflicting concerns with privacy: keeping a copy of your credentials on Big Tech servers is, for some, the antithesis of the goal.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
This is why SMS is not a recommended second authentication factor for high-security or high-profile accounts: this can and has been abused before, many times.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I'm not going to endorse OP's proposal, but just watching the opioid crisis and overdosing hit my city looks a lot like your suggestion already. I'm modestly surprised I haven't heard any self-declared progressives declare that euthanasia is a human right and trying to discourage Narcan in obvious heckin' valid overdoses suicide attempts -- there are already plenty of anecdotes of people saved by it becoming violent about its effects. It's an obvious opportunity to pat oneself on the back and save money at the same time.
But I do find the idea fairly repugnant.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
You know, the traditional answer to this is probably putting the appropriate honorific with your name in the signature. It (in most cases) answers what pronouns you prefer, and although English is my native tongue, in the foreign languages I've studied, honorifics generally show up pretty quickly, for uses like how to refer your teacher.
Sincerely,
Mr. Vexillologist
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
I consider transition a primarily religious belief, having to do with a metaphysical gender-soul which exists separate from any physical evidence thereof, and a philosophical requirement that one live in conformance with it.
I remember a particularly memorable anecdote, I'm pretty sure from The Rest is History podcast, comparing the craziness of the last decade or so to the Reformation: we've got our statue-toppling iconoclasts, and our loud philosophical debates including over, effectively, transubstantiation after terrestrial rituals. It's not "this bread and wine have literally and physically become body and blood" (here, try that and let me run it through a mass spectrometer!) but "this organism, previously male, is now female and always has been." I'm not sure it's an answer to your thoughts, but I found it comforting that this sort of disagreement has long-standing precedent in history.
VoxelVexillologist
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2yr ago
Wasn't the response at the time something like "Why does he care so much about this test. It's so easy anyone not obviously having dementia could pass it."?
I bet the folks saying that at the time aren't saying that today.
Serena does have four Olympic Gold medals for the US, but Phelps has something like 28 total medals. There is something patriotic I can't quite pin down to getting the national anthem played so many times.
On the other hand, the 1980 US Hockey team gets lots of press and movies, and comparatively little goes to Eric Heiden who won the other five American gold medals that year. Sometimes I can't explain the zeitgeist well.
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