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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 September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Iraq?




I sometimes consider the hypothetical world in which the 2003 invasion was skipped.  It's obviously hard to predict such outcomes, but I think it's not implausible a continued Hussein regime might not be better for the average Iraqi.  It's not like they had a particularly good human rights record.


Sure, there was a lot of destruction from the war (which I'd generally agree was poorly-conceived), but how would Iraq have faced the Arab Spring?  It seems plausible that could have ended less like ISIS and more like the still-ongoing Syrian Civil War, likely complete with Russia intentionally bombing civilian targets and waves of refugees fleeing to Europe.


For all it's faults in the invasion, the country now could be much worse than it is today.  Which is distinctly not an endorsement of the operation, merely a pause for consideration.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a non-lawyer, it's fairly well known that lying on the ATF Form 4473 basically never results in charges (as of the 2018 GAO report, at least -- they claim they're trying to increase those numbers).  In FY 2017, 8.6M reported transactions led to 112k denials, 12.7k investigations, and 12 prosecutions.  Presumably every one of those denials lied about eligibility on that form, barring questionable corner cases like "I forgot I have a felony conviction."


Note that Form 4473 here is the one that asks "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?" and notes in bold that lying on the form is itself a felony.  I most often see this referenced by people in gun circles complaining that the law as-written is not enforced.


As much as I wish we'd actually, like, enforce laws in this country, starting to enforce previously-mostly-ignored laws specifically with people close to politicians is a bit of a bad look.  OTOH, I'd really like to see us hold those in positions of power to a higher standard, rather than a lower one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is one of the places where I find the current left/right divide to be incongruous: the left here sees a strong need to protect people from themselves, but only in certain instances.  Your argument is a general one for banning the sale of potentially dangerous objects to prevent self-harm.   But at the same time we're told that the addicts shooting up heroin on the streets are Living Their Best Lives and we couldn't possibly try to take away substances that demonstrably cause harm to individuals and society as a whole, because Individual Freedoms, although we can try to ban large soft drinks.  This largely holds in reverse for the right.


Fundamentally, society is a coordination problem, and those are hard and seem to lack generalized solutions.  Different scales have different optima: I unironically run my household as a socialist collective (from each, to each...) but wouldn't vote for such policies in even small town government.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Price deflation is still pretty bad because it shifts gains towards capital and away from workers.




While economists seem pretty convinced that modest inflation is preferable to modest deflation, I'm personally unconvinced that for modest, predictable rates (which plausibly excludes Gold or Bitcoin) it matters much either direction.  There are examples of specific commodities deflating (specifically, "for the same price in dollars next year I can get more/better product": computers, flat-panel TVs, cell phones, even cars) and none of the promised miserly spending habits have really appeared that I can tell.  Apple didn't become a trillion dollar company because everyone is patiently waiting to get a better iPhone next year rather than this year.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the Russians did not establish Nazi-style concentration camps for industrialized slaughter




I think it's worth noting that while the camps are the most well-publicized part of the Holocaust, a decent fraction of the deaths, especially early in the war were attributable to death squads with guns rounding up "undesirables."


There have definitely been recorded mass graves in places like Bucha that at least seem to resemble this sort of policy of wanton death.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Destruction of the Rafah Ghetto




Why is the obvious World War II comparison of Rafah to the Warsaw Ghetto?  I can think of a number of other plausible comparisons that are probably worth considering.  This is, admittedly, a rather hot take, but why not compare Rafah to Berlin in 1945?  After the Third Reich invaded most of Eastern Europe, including rampant raping and pillaging across the countryside, and that entire campaign of deliberate ethnic cleansing and genocide, nobody looks at the Allied decision to demand complete, unconditional surrender as unreasonable, or that they kept fighting all the way to Berlin.  Nobody argues that Stalin was deliberately unprepared at the start of the war to justify flattening Germany and running parts of it as a puppet state for Soviet gain.  Nobody of import says "countless German civilians died because Roosevelt and Stalin were unwilling to enact a unilateral ceasefire at the Rhine and the Oder."  Nobody serious mourns the Volkssturm civilians (frequently children) that were handed primitive weapons for futile resistance, without also recognizing the broader context of the tragedy of the entire war.  And I'm not even going to even try to deny that the Red Army was infamous for its war crimes against civilians in the East, or the decades of subsequent political repression the Soviets brought to Eastern Europe during the Cold War.


The Axis powers entered the war in the late 1930s even though almost all modern historians consider their possibility of overall victory bleak.  Maybe they could have bargained for an advantageous quick peace, but even Yamamoto has (possibly-apocryphal) quotes about expecting to lose a longer war.  Hamas had even lower chances of winning in October.  I'm not convinced that this merits assuming that either power, as the "underdog," merits obvious sympathy, although that seems to be in vogue these days in certain circles.  Heck, if you look at ratios of civilian casualties -- as I've seen some argue makes Israel's actions unjustified -- America had almost none (generally counted as a few thousand if you include territories and civilian ship crews).  The British claim 70,000.  More civilians than that died in the Battle of Berlin alone, and Allied bombing campaigns killed hundreds of thousands.  Not to mention the nuclear weapons.


I have trouble embracing the progressive worldview on Gaza because those same principles, applied to WWII, would have me side with the Axis powers.  And I am quite certain that the world is a better place because the (Western) Allies won the day.  Not that they are perfect (ha!), but I'll certainly stan them over the major Axis players.


Not that I'd wholly endorse Israel to hit Rafah like Zhukov hit Berlin: I don't think the situation really warrants it, or that the situations are immediately similar.  Heck, I won't even try to argue that Israel hasn't committed atrocities in this situation.  But on the other, it seems about as reasonable as comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and I'd be pretty amused to see some Tankies argue that the Red Army was in the wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is there a different video you would say provides the best evidence that the explosion was due to a rocket failure?




IIRC this launch corresponded to PIJ announcing they were using one of their new longer-range (read: bigger) rockets, so the prior spontaneous failure rate probably should be estimated to be pretty high.


As someone who is reasonably familiar with high-power rocketry and has at least read the literature on making large solid motors (which is what these are), scaling up is hard: even small imperfections in the solid grain can cause explosive failures.  Fail to get all the bubbles out when casting? Your burn rate (and thus chamber pressure, which can cause explosive failures) will vary drastically.  Or maybe your grain cracks and pieces clog the nozzle: now you have a bomb.


Best results require starting with precisely-sized powders, high-grade chemicals, and some industrial equipment (mixing, vacuum casting) that scales with the size of motor you're trying to make.  Most of that is something Hamas is having to make or smuggle in.  And even for well-prepared amateurs it doesn't always succeed the first time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


if a particular building is bombed in Gaza nowadays I wouldn't need anyone's word to think it 99% likely that Israel did it




Even if the Bayesian statistics bear this out (I'm not quite as confident as you, but it is probably more likely than not), the better question is whether or not it's sufficient confidence to run "Israel bombs hospital, killing 500" headlines.  In this case, it seems like it probably shouldn't have been.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One of the most relevant parts of that game theory, though, is how to re-establish trust and fairness given a history of defection.  Given a historically bipartisan-ly corrupt system, how do you begin enforcing the rules without appearing to play favorites?


Honestly it's a hard problem of soft skills: if there were an easy answer, any number of longstanding grudges (Israel/Palestine, etc) could be settled.  There are a few successful examples: Northern Ireland seems pretty peaceful these days.


For the record, I'd much prefer a non-corrupt system, but I think a partisanly corrupt system is probably even worse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
These statements aren't strictly contradictory, although both are probably stronger claims than I would make.  One lesson I've only recently begun to understand about WWII is that, at the scale of warfare required, seizing territory and, by extension, it's populace, gives fodder for larger armies.


This doesn't come up for discussion of American (or even Commonwealth, really) involvement in the war because the Western Allies weren't conscripting from recently-annexed territory, but the German army was much larger for having conscripted Czech and Austrian soldiers.  It's not inconceivable that the same units currently armed by the West could be, after a surrender, rearmed by the Russians and marched west.


The only reason I don't find that situation hugely likely is that I'm pretty sure that most anyone can see that, in the case of a true hot war in Europe that NATO was involved in, the result would be a pretty decisive curb stomping on the scale of Desert Storm.  Which is, to my mind, a huge argument for maintaining that technical and armament superiority, and also for Europe to step up their commitment to those alliances.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's worth mentioning the Dutch famine in the winter of '44-45, which was largely caused by the German occupation, and during which the Allies (and others) tried to get food into the area.


But that's really just an interesting relevant anecdote and doesn't really disprove your general point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


On the contrary, I think you're building a big assumption in here, that countries could simply provide "quality of life worth a damn" to everyone living under their umbrella and are electing not to out of spite. Instead, as that thread covered, even providing a low-quality of life for someone that can't fully care for themselves is incredibly expensive and a massive burden on nations that are dealing with inverted population pyramids.




I haven't really had a chance to rigorously think through this, but I've occasionally had an economics thought experiment involving total economic output being measured in working hours, rather than hard currency: given that the law demands specific caregiver-to-resident ratios for these communities (the reasons for which are not unreasonable, in my opinion), we can quantify what fraction of our cumulative efforts goes into providing for our elderly and infirm.  It seems reasonable that a society that spends more of its time this way isn't spending it on, say, fundamental research and technology.  Ultimately it seems like technology is, other than demographics, our only way to improve this number in the long run.


On the other hand, that presupposes that research and invention is a better use of our time, which quite possibly isn't always the case: would you trade grandma for yet another cryptocurrency startup?  So maybe this is just a derivative "increasing GDP doesn't reflect improving my societal preferences" complaint.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Israel uses conventional bombs and openly abandons any attempts at targeting.




I would observe that the easiest way to present this would be "Sorry, our budget for JDAM kits has run out.  We're switching to dumb bombs, and we have to drop them from high altitude (inaccurately, in larger numbers) because Hamas probably has MANPADs."  Comparatively few these days seem complain about Russia's use of unguided munitions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
On the schools: urban districts in my experience have economies of scale going for them, and are able to have more magnet schools and AP coursework available.  Some (many, even) urban schools rank poorly academically compared to the suburbs, but their special programs can easily outperform smaller districts.


When someone tells me they are moving to the suburbs for better schools, I believe them: it's probably true for average students, but that isn't true of the schools you enumerated.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The volume and scale of ammunition required to keep the guns firing with an overmatch to make very slow gains over relatively basic trench systems created a tension of how much is needed versus how vulnerable you are moving that much ammo forward.




I think this statement also vindicates decades and billions of dollars of American research and deployment of precision guided weapons: the logistical tail is greatly reduced when you can just, not fire the huge fraction of dumb rounds that would miss anyway.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't see it as likely, but a Georgist modification to the existing property tax system could be interesting: adjust the relative rates on land value and improvement value in a potentially revenue-neutral fashion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One obvious line of attack would be for Republicans to take a straight party-line vote to impeach (as if a ham sandwich, which prosecutors can famously charge with anything) any and all accessible current office holders who might run on the other side under (Trumped up, one might say) charges of "insurrection" against the Constitution and demand that states remove them from ballots too.


But I don't think that is a good idea, nor are they currently well-enough aligned together to actually pull it off, probably for the better.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, the school district was probably a similar situation, but I don't remember any similar dates of convenience for, say, Eid, Diwali, or Lunar New Year even though those probably had at least as many practitioners as there were Jews in the district.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Amazon is really hard to buy decent clothing from. I've tried buying stretch knit dresses, which is the easiest thing possible to fit, and they were still off and basically unwearable, high waisted for a very short, wide person in that case.




Completely anecdotally, my experience has been the opposite.  But I'm looking at menswear, not dresses.  In particular, I found a business casual shirt that fit me well in my closet, and I was able to find the exact same brand/size on Amazon.  The first one fit, and I've since bought a few extra colors when the price is reduced (I might grump a small amount that even these change slightly over time, and that back pleats on men's shirts seem to be out-of-fashion these days).   I've also bought quite a few pairs of jeans in rather the same way, which saves rummaging through the racks at the store to find the right size: there are surprisingly few longer-than-wide pairs of pants at modern American stores, but Amazon always has them in stock.  Socks don't have much variation in sizing, either.


In terms of athletic wear, a few years back I bought a pair of running shorts for a good price on a whim from a Chinese brand I hadn't heard of, and they have honestly been some of the best I've used (not a connoisseur).  I've since bought a few more (and a couple of other items), and not been disappointed.  Sportswear in stores, especially anything sport-specific, is generally comparatively expensive in stores near me.


Admittedly, I can imagine works for me primarily because I'm trying to buy identically-cut garments, which I'd bet only works for male fashion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In this case it's primarily that the one I have is the wrong color.  Also, styles change.  I tried it on, and fortunately it fits well enough that I might consider tailoring it in the future (I haven't gotten bigger, most notably), but given how often I wear them I'll probably keep it stored safely until I need it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For the record, I agree with your take.  The comment is more referencing cases in which people rhetorically imply that the country is worse off than otherwise, which I think is less clear.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't say I have too much experience with using machine translation, so I'm probably not the right person to give you such a comparison. It's reasonably fast and produces English prose that reads pretty naturally when I've used it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've been surprisingly impressed with the Firefox Translations extension, which does the ML translation locally.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wasn't aware of the other gun crimes.  The original article says "it would not prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 during a period when he was using drugs," which seems to dance around the details of post-purchase behavior, although I hardly expect to see charges filed for that either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


to ban free speech at universities




You know, the folks that take umbrage with this (outside of a few truly principled libertarian types) were probably completely fine with the speech banning here, they just disagree on the targets.  Free speech absolutism on campus sailed probably a century or so ago.  The Obama Administration helpfully defined "sexual harassment" banned for the purposes of Title IX to include "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature" including "verbal conduct".  Democrats were completely on board with these rulings at the time, and similar ones about racial slurs.  But now that Republicans are passing rules that students can't cheer "gas the Jews" (or, admittedly, several more modest phrases that still advocate for ethnic cleansing) and remain in good standing, that is clearly a bridge too far.


I'm not sure anyone is really being principled here, which as someone with centrist-to-principled-libertarian views is rather frustrating.