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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 July 1, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Today I learned.  Thanks!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


TurboVictorian




You know, we have a new monarch on the throne, so it seems like the time to coin a new adjective here, but "Charlesian" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.


Although Elizabeth II doesn't really have a good unique one either that I've come across.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Just from following the news, I have felt a sense of, I dunno, listlessness in this administration in the last couple years.  There have been a lot of mixed messages, which makes it feel like either they're steering the entire ship on the basis of which way the winds public opinion polls are blowing, or it's the unchecked infighting of a royal court's competing fiefdoms without a strong executive to force high-level alignment.  And honestly, it feels pretty depressing that "running almost exclusively on opinion polls" is the charitable option.


We saw executive orders on immigration from the first week of the administration get mostly rescinded recently after claiming congressional action was necessary.  The administration came out opposing transgender surgeries for minors within the last week, but its appointed members were advocating to remove age limits from the professional guidance just a couple years ago.  Nobody is stepping forward to give speeches giving us a bigger picture and answering hard questions on the changing directions.  It works for a while, but it seems like the wheels are starting to come off.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Well, realistically I'd guess that the reason no one wants to do that now is that recognising Palestinian statehood comes off as "I am taking the Palestinian side against Israel".




I recognize that this is largely true in practice, but I have been surprised at the complete lack of a middle ground internationally on this.  One could imagine a hypothetical "we recognize a Palestinian state, with borders that  explicitly do not span from the Jordan to the Mediterranean," which isn't exactly accepting maximalist Palestinian territorial claims.


There may well be good reasons this hasn't been done, but it's not like there aren't historical examples of this: Germany's post-1945 borders were effectively drawn by everyone else at the table, and they've pretty universally accepted this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


To be fair, the only time Trump has accepted the outcome of an election he was involved in was when the election went in his favor.




This is probably excessively pedantic, but despite winning several states, he withdrew from the Reform Party primary for president in 2000 with a fair amount of drama, but not denying the outcome of the elections.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Democrats insist that the right to vote for one's representatives is sacrosanct, that voting is "Democracy," that the country is "Democracy," and that the Democrats are "Democracy."




Rhetorically, this might be true, but if you look at the actual comments on the issues, "democracy" seems to get quickly pushed aside in almost every instance I can think of where a democratic vote doesn't lead to the "correct" outcome.  Look at the reaction to California's Proposition 8 in 2008 where the state voted to ban same-sex marriage: did Democrats adhere to the will of the people expressed at the ballot box?  Or the reaction to Dobbs, which wasn't rallying the democratically-elected (blue!) majority in Congress to pass an abortion rights bill, but to largely rally around the idea that such rights are absolute and don't even deserve codification by the legislature.  Or the entire Russia-gate thing, which seems to have been largely based on the idea that a bunch of questionably-funded internet ads might sway naive voters to the extent that we should question the validity of their counted ballots.


But I think it's really only true rhetorically: in practice it seems to be far more pragmatic questions of what power can let them get away with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In addition to the natural law questions, outright banning circumcision pokes some very interesting (and difficult) questions of religious freedom.  As a cultural practice for some groups, it long predates pretty much all written law.


While I'm against the practice generally, the thought of banning it (even just for minors) gives me pause.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If that worked, you'd think that this would be the case today, but there seem to be fairly obvious counterexamples.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 26, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A quick google search suggests that your average American (who is overweight if not obese) consumes 3600 calories a day




That is, um, more than I expected.  I'm personally closer to OP, and thought my 2500-3000 calories was a lot, although admittedly I try to make it pretty healthy within that allotment.  There have been times in my life where absurd volumes of low-intensity exercise (think through-hiking) have actually made it difficult to physically eat enough in a day to keep up, some of that is having to carry the food and not sitting down often to eat it.  I hear the polar explorers of a century ago (and perhaps still today) were eating butter by the stick just to cram in enough calories.


That said, I think OP should worry about getting a sufficiently well-balanced diet: macros are important even for endurance athletes (who frequently need more carbs than weightlifters), and I've heard enough anecdotes about various micronutrient deficiencies that I try to balance things out a bit.  But while running, especially longer races?  Even the professionals there are consuming lots of sugar to maximize performance.  I do recall an anecdote from a professional triathlete trying to explain to his dentist that he deliberately consumes about a gallon of sugary sports drink daily, because that can still cause issues for teeth.


I realize they're probably not unusual, but your roommate's diet as you describe it sounds terrifying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This isn't strictly an answer to your question, but it seems like health insurance (and its government regulators) has acquired at least a bit of a role of gatekeeping which procedures are actually worthwhile in terms of efficacy and reasonable expenditures.  Honestly, I think there's probably a place for a more formal adversarial role in medicine asking whether any given intervention is the right choice, both for the patient and for the rest of us who bear the aggregate burden of paying for treatment (through taxes and insurance).  But that would probably require a serious national discussion (we never really have those) about the massive cost and questionable benefit of a lot of primarily-end-of-life care -- "death panels."  I think we already have a broad consensus that most elective cosmetic surgeries should be treated differently than reconstructive ones.


More practically, while I'm generally sympathetic to doctors and (adult) patients making their own decisions, there are examples where the government has seemingly-successfully cracked down on perceived excesses.  The examples that come to mind are mostly Medicare/Medicaid fraud (see prescriptions for power wheelchairs about a decade ago) and the opioid crisis, where credentialed doctors have become much more reluctant to prescribe opioids, and have to jump through lots of hoops to track the prescriptions that are issued -- the last time I saw such a prescription issued, it involved time-sensitive two-factor authentication codes to write a electronic prescription for just a couple pills that ended up costing less than a dollar.  Although I've heard anecdotes complaining that doctors are now too stingy with painkillers that I can't personally confirm.  And that isn't even considering that "doctor shopping" in this context plausibly includes the "undocumented pharmacist" on the streetcorner depending on how you measure your outcomes.


I think the answer you're looking for is that if taxpayers voters have a sufficiently strong preference, the government can at least make it difficult for doctor shopping to be viable, although probably not impossible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Assange was arrested by US allies and kept in limbo under various political pressures. The US obviously pushed for extradition, so he could be prosecuted there. Other governments worried about such a fate and pushed back.




I think the real problem here is that The Powers That Be see his actions as criminal (which I don't have the strongest objections to, honestly), but that the actual written laws across The West aren't written today to cover such actions.  It's not a good look for US authorities to prosecute someone who as far as I know, other than online interactions, never set foot in the US, even though he worked American sources (who have themselves been prosecuted) and published what they consider to be US secrets.  But, as far as I know, the actions weren't directly against the laws of the (Western!) countries he was in.


Spycraft has its own sets of ethics and rules, but non-state-affiliated actors like Wikileaks aren't really subject to them.  But at a fundamental level, those actions aren't particularly dissimilar to Bellingcat publishing exposes of Russian cruise missile targeting.  It's not generally seen as a crime for Americans to snoop on and publish details of Russian military units.  But the State Department already looks askance at Chinese law enforcement reaching overseas, and would probably loudly object if they started arresting, extraditing, or even just intimidating Bellingcat.


Realistically, Western-aligned governments should probably sit down and establish what the acceptable rules are: this entire case would have been easier if Australia had a law on the books that private citizens soliciting and/or publishing secrets of Australian allies (like the US) was subject to similar rules as Australian secrets.  But that has some subtleties, because broad laws like this could threaten IMHO reasonable things like Western journalists criticizing the way Western allies fight wars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wasn't there to have a personal historical anecfote, but I think how we remember the canonical "jocks v. nerds" conflict is heavily skewed because, to a large extent, the nerds won in the huge financial jackpot of the tech industry starting in probably the late 80s.


Although I think the categories are also poorly defined (sometimes to sway arguments being made): at least in my experience most of the sharpest, most technical people I've worked with manage to find enough time to stay at least moderately physically fit, so I don't think it's as well-defined a boundary as is frequently presented.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Please look into the ninth amendment, which was put in place to counter exactly the argument you are advancing.




Are there any examples of a court reading a right to exist from the ninth amendment?  Not that I disagree in principle, but every time I've mentioned it in the past, people more knowledgeable than I have observed that it's never actually cited in practice.  IMO this means that the Anti-Federalists were right: All the rights we didn't enumerate basically don't exist.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I do think mainstream left-leaning media (NYT et al) have been tacking more toward center of late because of the visible success of new platforms and publications with more moderate, rationalist-adjacent takes.  I'm thinking of Substack (Nate Silver, Matt Yglesias), or The Free Press, for examples.  Not necessarily huge success in what has long been described as a dying market, but enough that mainstream media is at least taking notes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My intuition is that no guy watching (straight) porn -- which is the overwhelming majority of its market, from what I can tell -- actually pays any attention to the male actors.  I'd bet eye tracking would show a big lack of interest in that part of the screen, and I'd bet relatively few viewers could pick such a guy out of a lineup even an hour later if not prompted to pay attention beforehand.  So I'd bet getting outed for that is much less of a concern, although probably not unheard of.


But I would be curious if there are any data or anecdotes the other direction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


paperclip maximizer




IMO if a few billion mostly-sapient humans can't even agree on goals and values, expecting an artificial intelligence to converge on one very specific metric (and I realize paperclips are meant abstractly here) seems doubtful.  Possible, maybe, but I would be surprised.


But that particular example doesn't even have any humans unironically advocating for it, although the mental image of tossing a curveball "How many paperclips would your administration produce?" in the upcoming presidential debate is, IMO, hilarious.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is what the game theory bears out for the partisans, but IMO taking it seriously is hurting the party with moderate voters who don't like the the associations with the crazies.  I think the administration, and indeed the country, would have been better off, for example, cutting the more extreme college protesters loose and daring them to vote for the other guy.


It feels to me like they're hemorrhaging swing voters because the one I know best (me!) has basically decided that the blue platform is largely unprincipled, and falls well short of its promises of egalitarianism and competent governance.  Someone like Bill Clinton could have had my vote in this red state.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the only way that my vote matters in terms of who gets elected is if one of the elections in which I voted was decided by exactly 1 vote, after all the recounts and such




I think this is underselling it a bit: my mental model as a self-identified swing voter is that my vote or the votes of others like me could be the deciding factor in an otherwise-close race.  My vote is worthwhile, because if everyone who felt that way voted together, it would actually merit attention from The Powers That Be.


But I will also support casting a blank ballot as a better, valid protest vote over not casting a ballot at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 12, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes on her side, not on my side.  The cousins are a lot of fun, but I wish there were more of them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 12, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For various reasons, that was the only option that was on the table to start with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for June 12, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So I've found myself at a bit of an impasse in life, and I'm hoping the wisdom of The Motte can provide some guidance because this touches several topics that are frequently brought up around here.


I've been pretty happily married a bit over a decade.  My wife and I are both in our mid 30s.  We have a child who was a bit of a surprise (hormonal birth control is not one hundred percent effective, even when taken as directed) who was born a couple years after we got married.  We're both gainfully employed and make good money.


I really enjoy being a dad, and really would like to have another.  But as they say, it takes two to tango, and my wife is very uninterested.  In part, this may be because the birth of the one was somewhat traumatic (involving an unplanned cesarean and some other complications), and we've been told that any others would be higher risk.  She also dealt with a lot more trauma, as the kids would say, growing up.  But also it would mean a few years of pretty heavy restrictions on our usual activities, and our families aren't as spry as they were a decade ago in terms of helping out.


This year, she's decided to go off (a different form of) hormonal birth control, which I think is reasonable, and has effectively demanded that either I get a vasectomy or she gets a tubal ligation.  Of the two, the vasectomy is a much more minor (and more reversible, although not hugely so) procedure, and I have one scheduled sooner than I would like.


But I'm having second thoughts.  I really enjoy doing things with my son, and the siren call that maybe I could get a second chance at it all (even the diapers!) is hard to ignore.  Maybe this is a bit of an early mid-life crisis.  It doesn't help that my (older) siblings haven't had any of their own and that prospect doesn't seem imminently likely.  But I also really love my wife and son, and think he deserves a two-parent household: divorce, especially in a otherwise-good case like this, isn't the mark of a good dad, nor does it even guarantee "success" given the state of the dating world in 2024.


So I've been feeling pretty melancholy recently, between unsuccessfully trying to change minds, or wondering how I'll feel about it afterwards.  Will I be able to get over the sadness of what might have been?  Open to advice or words of wisdom.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 9, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC in the 2020 election, and possibly various times before, there were more ballots cast without a choice for president than the margin of victory in several important swing states.  To me, at least, that seems a powerful message to politicians: I vote, but you don't have my vote, and you should do better.  It also gives you a chance to vote on down ballot issues which your vote generally has more sway on anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even within engineering, the "enjoyable" jobs are known for lower pay and worse work-life balance: most game development houses and places like SpaceX are notoriously bad for this.


They don't want you to know this, but the guy working for a defense contractor filling out TPS reports (or programming in COBOL or whatever) is getting paid a lot, and gets to go home at 5:00 every day.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wouldn't you need to include the net present value of the insurance plan, which would be nonzero before the death, and zero afterwards?  Although that may not be the letter of accounting law in terms of marking asset values.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At a very high level, the entire structure here -- life insurance to the company's benefit to de-facto benefit a specific shareholder -- seems like an end-run around inheritance taxes from just gifting the shares in the estate.  Even if you just gave the shares from the estate to the company to retire, I assume it would get taxed.


I guess the limits of that are a bit more fuzzy: if this was a broadly-held public company that benefit to shareholders would be a bit less clear, although plausibly still true.