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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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User ID: 64


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


After that, they were looking at having their airfields and critical infrastructure systematically dismantled by Iranian missile strikes.




I think "dismantled" is overselling it here.  Sure, burning through interceptors isn't great, but you seem to be comparing "Iran got in a few good hits" to "Israel was free to hit all but the hardest targets for as long as it cared to."  There seems to be this common bias towards seeing Western nations as glass cannons, where only a few good hits are required to bring them to their knees, and you can win as long as you can tank whatever they throw at you (which is maybe limited by "moral" concerns about indirectly harming civilians) until you manage that and negotiate an outcome that favors your objectives.  I think if you're against the West fighting a war they got involved in by choice, maybe this works to convince democracies to choose peace (see Vietnam, et al).  I don't think it immediately follows that this applies to something more existential (see Israel vs. Gaza, or Yamamoto at Pearl Harbor).


If landing (conventional) ballistic missiles into enemy capitals was a decisive victory, the Germans would have won WWII.




Also, this all hinges on the United States actually entering the conflict, which nowadays I would call a pretty big if.




Maybe true, but this is still a pretty big "if", and the existence of the question has prompted Europe to start actually investing in defense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most of the modernization went into magic beans (F16s, M1 tanks) that are serviceable but apparently not that magical in modern warfare.




I don't think this is as clear-cut as you want it to be: maybe it is, but we also just saw a brief war between Israel and Iran in which the former was seemingly able to establish air dominance with modern "magic beans" against a country equipped with largely modern Eastern bloc air defense systems.  I don't think Iran even claims to have shot down a manned aircraft (compare to this years' India-Pakistan skirmish, which had several).


I don't think it's completely crazy to suggest that a Russia-NATO conflict might look, in the air, like a scaled up version of the Israel-Iran conflict, and I'd expect air dominance to make it pretty one-sided.  It's also believable that it'd fall into something looking more like the present Ukraine conflict where manned air assets are of limited utility.  But for anyone thinking it's a good idea to start such a conflict, to steal a good movie quote: "You've got to ask yourself one question, 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well do you, punk?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair to Microsoft, they have been bitten several times by governments accusing them of anti-competitive practices for doing things that (which I would agree are anti-competitive) Apple gets away with on the regular because "they are a minor player" (so they can have the only default storefront for installing Mac OS software) or "the phone market is different" (so they can completely lock out other ways to install software on a major platform).  Apple has had its share of cases, but "use USB" doesn't seem as onerous as that Microsoft has been required to do for browser selection and such.


Although most PCs these days use EFI rather than BIOS, and at least a few years back, and Device Tree on ARM is, comparatively, a recent addition over the previous state I hear was even worse.  Microsoft isn't in a place to make major bets to try to displace x86 OEMs without huge legal battles, whereas Apple only needs to support it's own hardware designs, and so we're all stuck in a world of long-term backwards compatibility, although IMO it's worth most of the complexity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At least in TOS, I think the intended comparison is between the Vulcans and Jews.  The Vulcan hand sign is also used in Judaism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair, TOS Trek includes some pretty clear allegory where conflicts with the Klingons and Romulans (one episode of basically submarine warfare) are also themselves allegorical for the Cold War.  The movie Star Trek VI is pretty interesting to watch because it's loosely portraying the end of the Cold War that had just happened (complete with a coup attempt, but no *Swan Lake).


But the recycling of villains into friends did occur multiple times (see also the Ferenghi) and you have a pretty reasonable take on how that was done more broadly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But I would argue that the defining feature of a religion is a monopoly on morality, just as the defining feature of a government is a monopoly on violence.




This is the most satisfying definition I think I've ever heard for religion.  Most have trouble with the fact that there exist "religions" like (some of) Taoism and Confucianism that don't rely on the existence of divine deities per se.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


serving Christ DEI in everything you do?




I don't think it was intentional, but the fact that it is spelled the same as "of God" in Latin from a group of that seems overall against overt Christianity is funny to me in a very deep way.  "In this house we believe in DEI.  Agnus Dei to be specific." Imagine if conservatives started requiring stated support for "Graciousness, Openness, and Dialog" for red state faculty positions.


The sometimes-mentioned alternate "JEDI" also has some religious overtones.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's hard to parse out the causal factors, but one possible effect was that the most extreme factions saw this as an opportunity to push their ideology to the top




Isn't that effectively part of the game-theoretic stability of the two-party system?  If you assume voters can be mapped to a normal distribution on a single axis (a poor model, but probably serviceable here) and have democratic selection within the parties, the left half of a left party claiming 60% of the total would get better representation for their views if they shifted the center of "left" towards their side, and dropped to 51% of the total but still winning the overall.  The same applies in reverse for the right side.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My suspicions (which I'll admit are low-confidence and might be wrong) are that (1) there's a lot of smoke there, but not much fire regarding actual criminal acts on the part of major politicans, and (2) "the files" contain stuff that the government considers sensitive, but not necessarily in a way that is directly related to (1).


For (1), I'll observe that the previous blue administration previously held these files, and I doubt would have held off on either prosecuting (if sufficient evidence exists) or at least making it an embarrassing spectacle during the election (leaks or off-the-record comments).  The only reason not to is if the evidence is particularly weak, or if the story implicates enough collateral damage to other Powers That Be --- the former seems more plausible to me.  For (2), the entire investigation wasn't done anticipating direct public release, and it seems quite likely that some of the investigation would be politically damaging to reveal: someone here previously gave the example of "we were tapping Prince Andrew's phone even before we started the investigation", but generic "sources and methods" is probably correct in some sense.  Also for (2), the side demanding the release of the files has shifted and (overall) stayed with the party opposite the executive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't think the US military would want you if you can not expand quadratics?




I suspect the veterans in our midst can provide more specific anecdotes, but I think the minimum ASVAB score doesn't require this generally, and is probably lower than you seem to be thinking.  But you might not get a desirable specialization.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't even know that "ability to afford" is necessarily even financial: around here, charter (public) schools are covered by the state (with funds taken from the local district, which gets some political consternation).  There may be some cost/time differences for parents regarding bus transportation, though. I think parents who select non-default education options are likely more invested in educational outcomes than probably even the median, regardless of prices --- which may well also have an impact.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are there many near-financially-failing public (state/city) schools?  I would expect the upper half of the university system to do okay regardless of student applications dropping.  The failing schools will be the ones already struggling to put butts in seats, and I'm not sure exactly which those are.  A number of small liberal arts schools have already folded.  Are there borderline state schools unable to fill classes?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you want to see lots of math and geometry, look at the folks doing (manual) machine shop stuff.  Things like "the drawing gives this weird dimension relative to another face over there: I need to include adjustments for tolerance over the separate steps to make all the intermediate features".  Lots of concerns about reference faces, accumulating error, cutter geometry, and a fair amount of trigonometry.


Only professional cabinetry woodworkers are going to care about repeatability: for everyone else, a single piece of furniture only needs to fit together by itself, not have interchangable parts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What fraction of federal employees keep months of savings around?  I know a few that do, but I suspect that a non-trivial fraction, like a lot of Americans, live close enough to paycheck-to-paycheck that a few months is asking a lot.


But I'm sure at least some basically got a free month of unplanned vacation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are there as many boring tomes as I would expect working over evidence for minor policy changes?  I realize some of it is probably sensitive, but I'm not sure where I would go look for things like "the anticipated implications of banning [product] in [industry]" or "the impact of marginal tax rate changes"?


Are there policy works on the government side writing these, or are there just competing narratives in the regulatory docket comments and some judgement summary of the bureaucrats in making their final decisions?


Schoolhouse Rock didn't cover regulations or notice and comment periods.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aren't they allowed to do that still? IIRC it's only a gentleman's agreement that they offer to go do something else.  There have been talking filibusters within the last decade, most notably by Ted Cruz, which included reading Dr. Seuss.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Internet has undergone a massive shift since then that I'd compare to a rapidly growing town: back then we didn't have quite as much variety, but you could mostly trust someone's personal page on a .edu domain and expose ports on your machine like leaving your front door unlocked.  These days it feels very urban and while that has some advantages (variety of content), some really miss the small town vibe and we now all have to lock our doors, encrypt everything, and our kids keep getting distracted by the blinding lights of the casinos and seedy joints that have moved in.


I can understand wanting to have the Internet equivalent of a white picket fence in the 'burbs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It was certainly a common cultural trope at the time.  TV Tropes has a better list than I could come up with offhand, but it's IMO most interesting as an uncommented-on undercurrent like in movies Back to the Future II, Die Hard, or Alien, but there are some works of literature that comment on it on more directly: Crichton's Rising Sun, Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.


I think it's an interesting example of how the zeitgeist can be wrong: Japan remains a world power, but it's projected continued ascent was oversold.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC Tom Riddle's name had to change in translations to maintain the plot-relevant anagram involving his name.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Having not seen all (most?) of these before, would you mind providing links to the media claims and the evidence that they're incorrect for these cases?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Oh the horror. Next thing you know, they'll be sending agents with guns into schools to tell kids not to use drugs.




This was literally done with the DARE program?  At least when I was in school it involved an active police officer (armed, as US cops tend to be) going into an elementary school classroom to talk about how drugs were bad.  I do remember at least one of the student questions was "Is that a real gun?".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Isn't part of the problem that 'diversity' is somewhat fundamentally at-odds with 'next likeliest token' (or the equivalent for image generation models)?  Except for whatever thermal noise is being added intentionally (which should be small) and active efforts to the contrary (which is, I think, dominating what we're seeing), the model isn't wrong to assume that "draw a person" merits a response that looks like a modal person.


Expecting "[minority fraction] of the outputs should look like [minority]" is maybe not completely crazy, but doesn't seem to align with the math as far as I'm aware.  Nor is it even necessarily well-defined: which population? Should "draw an NBA player" match the NBA's demographics?  Should it draw all players equally likely, or weight towards popular ones?  Do we just mean current players?  These are questions that have mostly been sidestepped for representation in political arenas --- affirmative action never has been asked to specify specific percentage targets, nor do I think it could do so without controversy.  But for large scale computer-automated systems, it's not hard to start running cross tabs for things and finding imbalance everywhere.  Not even sure myself what to do about all of that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Australia has been successful without actively sinking boats, and the US' former "wet foot dry foot" policy seemed a IMO decent way to balance the incentives.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is it just me, or has the vibe of "nonprofit" shifted in the last couple years?  A decade back, "I work with a nonprofit" was generally seen as a positive contribution, but it seems today there is a lot more cynicism about how those nonprofits compensate their management (sometimes heavily), and whether their mission is even good (no, the world doesn't need even more puppies).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think one of the biggest things the president does there is act as a bellwether (and sometimes steerer) of the zeitgeist.  I don't think Carter's malaise speech was wrong ("a crisis of confidence" reads accurate describing the present), but the economy's direction ultimately depends a lot on individual decisions like "should I open my own shop?" which are heavily weighed in by emotional factors.  There is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy that I think really needs maybe-irrational confidence at the helm.  IMO Carter's mistake was thinking you can just tell people to be confident.


But the policy decisions clearly do have some weight too.