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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 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"We should replace our Dear Leader"


"Why? Is he that bad?"


"Well if he wasn't, the Americans would have killed him by now.  That's all the vote of no confidence I need."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It flows back to societally valuing youth in women and age/experience in men (common idea in this thread), doesn't it?  "Boy" is almost insulting to an of-age male in various instances (some related to racism), while "girl" is acceptable because it's considered flattering.


Not endorsing, just observing linguistic implications.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"[Cultural leaders] are always preparing to fight the last [culture] war" sounded funny when I initially considered it, but I think may have a ring of truth to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would be rather interested to interact with an intelligence that only knows the natural numbers on this basis, but I suspect all the existing LLMs are too polluted with children's books with counting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd like to add a third theory: properly doing immersion is more expensive than single-instructor blackboard teaching.  I'm not sure you can do it properly with the same resources you'd have for some other class.  From personal experience taking Spanish, "you can only speak Spanish until the bell" doesn't help that much if only a few native speakers are in the room, leads to "immersive" conversation between two students are barely speaking the language.


Although maybe there is a space for "fun" language learning media to exist --- I know a at least a few people who learned Japanese to read manga and watch anime.


ETA: LLMs probably introduce ways to do authentic immersion better/cheaper, but also can automate translation in ways that abrogate language learning requirements.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One philosophy question I've wondered about is how pure pure mathematics truly is: questions like whether "the integers" a true abstract concept, or can it only be explained to an intelligence that has a world model that includes the notion of "counting" or something similar.  The math definitions seem crafted to be purely abstract, but my thinking about them always ends up grounded in the real world.  Can a true abstract intelligence (which an LLM trained on human text isn't, but is perhaps closer than a flesh-and-blood human) derive all of modern mathematics given only the selected axioms?  Some of this, I think, comes back to the IMO still-poorly-answered "what is intelligence?" question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, most of the phonetic ones that come to mind predate standardized spellings, so a few hundred years.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO English is at least in part "as she is spoke" because we tend in modern times to borrow loanwords from Latin alphabet languages as-written, but inconsistently keep the pronunciation as-borrowed, so the phonetics are literally all over the place and you need a decent understanding of etymology to know why the "ll" in quesadilla is (usually) pronounced so differently from allay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Battles over loanwords are pretty common:  The Académie Francaise (nominally the authority on French as a language, but opinions differ) would love to excommunicate Francophones who use "email" rather than «courriel».  IIRC Spanish as a language isn't quite as centralized given among other things how many countries use it: a decent chunk of its speakers even call it "Castilian".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There already are categories for SNAP EBT: you can't use it for hot foods (rotisserie chicken is probably the most common complaint).  WIC also exists and has comparatively tiny set of eligible products.


We should do better about teaching basic cooking, though.  Removal of life skills from k-12 education (compared to what my parents' generation talks about: home ec, shop class, etc) has been, IMO, a bad choice overall.  Although I'm not sure I'd bring those back exactly as they were.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I will observe that EBT exists in parallel with WIC, which does have a pretty set of eligible items --- judging from the WIC signs on the price tags at my grocery store.


WIC covers literal rice-and-beans, but not frozen dino chicken nuggets.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Title IX dates to at least 50 years ago.  Admittedly, the Civil Rights Act they're leaning on to push ending affirmative action is even older.


I think there is an element of truth to this, but it also doesn't apply to every progressive value, only those that have become widely-adopted and successful.  Most conservatives aren't strongly in favor of organized labor, or the century-ago progressivism of eugenics and temperance, but probably are okay with the Pure Food and Drug Act and the CCC/TVA/adjacent infrastructure (some progressives would advocate for removing dams these days).  And I'd be skeptical of the conservativism of anyone who embraced "indigo children" and such in the current era.