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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 February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the only viable option here, which maybe is the needle Trump is trying to thread, is to stagnate housing prices while everything else inflates around them.  A sudden drop in asset price is bad (underwater mortgages), but a slow loss in relative value --- in your example, house still $1M, but so is starting salary --- could at least be palatable to existing homeowners and approve relative affordability.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


One would expect the real value of the average house to go down with time.




As a specific example, my understanding is that the Japanese housing market does work this way, largely because there is a strong cultural demand for new houses, to the extent of replacing usable existing structures being common.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The crew is diverse.




"We're sending the first woman, first person of color, and, uh, first Canadian around the moon."


Although I think a decent chunk of the Artemis program success has been a lack of prominent news coverage.  The last few decades of space exploration have largely been dictated by political decisions regularly yanking the chain of the current project in whatever shiny direction appeals to the elected officials "Moon! No, Mars! No, Moon! Shuttle-derived Constellation! No, SLS!".  It seemed we'd change things up every time the party in office changed over.  If anything. It seems we're here because Artemis might be the only Trump first-term agenda item that Biden didn't summarily cancel (uncertain if due to agreement on direction, or just lack of concern about NASA budget).  They "let them cook", as the kids would say.


Which isn't to say that concerns about cost effectiveness are wrong, per se.  SLS is hilariously expensive (and I'm sure Orion is too), but the SpaceX fanboys originally advertised Starship HLS on the Moon in 2024, and we haven't even seen the base variant make orbit yet, much less hit the advertised payload numbers (and there aren't public numbers on Starship dev costs).  Dino space is at least mostly competent at building things that don't go boom unexpectedly too often: SLS worked on its first launch, as did Vulcan and even New Glenn.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The need for an agreed-upon null hypothesis is one of the common criticism of frequentist statistics by Bayesians...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Samsung has made automated turrets for the Korean DMZ for a long time, and armed uncrewed ground vehicles have started popping up in Ukraine.  I think you're right about Western moral qualms about such things, but they have started popping up.  In applications where they're more clearly defensive and not typically anti-personnel (autonomous CIWS, for example), they have been accepted for decades at this point.


Smart munitions are going to win at longer ranges where gun accuracy starts falling off, though.  That isn't always the case, but I think it's another factor in the decisionmaking there.