@big-city-gay's banner p

big-city-gay


				

				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					

					
joined 2022 November 01 02:55:17 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 1772


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
big-city-gay


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 November 01 02:55:17 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 1772


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Mr. Beast was recently the subject of…I hate to say “cancel culture”, it’s rapidly become a thought-terminating cliche…but he was the subject of a recent cancel culture overreach that was possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.


https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kelseyweekman/mrbeast-helping-blind-people-youtube-stunt-philanthropy


The awful radioactive naked singularity that spawned this cancel being…


https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/10/mrbeasts-blindness-video-puts-systemic-ableism-on-display/


…an article which posits that there is no such thing as disability, and all people are valid, and it’s charity porn to cure blindness, because how do we even know the “cure” will work?


A truly, shockingly stupid take, given it’s cataract surgery, which obviously works.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's too much “Great Man of History” analysis. I think Disney was boned no matter what.


    

  • Huge amounts of Disney’s revenue came from linear commercial TV, which is dying, and big tentpole franchises like Marvel, which—no matter how brilliant of a creative team you hire—are going to get tired at some point.
    • 

  • They get plenty of cruise line and theme park revenue, but if you jack up the prices and/or degrade the service quality too much with nickel-and-diming with Fast Passes, demand shrinks.
    • 

  • It's incredibly hard to change the institutional culture of a company that is that big and that old.
    • 



I doubt the DeSantis thing or the board room drama doesn't really mean a damn thing, versus the economic and cultural flow that's adjusting to a giant surplus of entertainment that's available everywhere all the time whenever you want it. Post-scarcity entertainment killed the music industry long ago, and now it's time that everything else gets shanked too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Study by Dan Freeman and his Chinese-American wife in Nature:






https://sci-hub.ru/10.1038/2241227a0




The study…is that really the fully study, or just the abstract…has a total of 48 infants. And the primary criteria is quite subjective—besides blink rate, it was all unquantified “oh the baby struggled more quickly”. (And even the blink rate isn’t actually display in a table anywhere.)


And, it’s the least blinded study I could imagine. The authors quite obviously knew they were looking at white or Asian babies, so there’s a huge potential for bias…up to and including pushing some of the babies harder.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, that’s some thin gruel from a leaker.


I am sure there’s some elaborate game theoretical reasoning as to why he wouldn’t reveal in-depth details right now, but really, nothing on that materials science thing? Not even one truly specific claim? Nothing like…


    

  • 

    Stable transuranic elements
    

    • 

  • 

    Novel stable isotopes of known elements
    

    • 

  • 

    Exotic baryonic matter/“strange” matter with some weird configuration of quarks
    

    • 

  • 

    New metamaterials. Hell, just claim “novel metamaterials”, which sounds super-scifi but then also plausible enough to make skeptics look up with interest
    

    • 



But no specific claims? Hmmmmm, Occam’s Razor time: we are being visited by alien intelligences across the vast reaches of space, or the guy is a nutter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What or who is stopping him?




Could that be…Donald Trump?


https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-to-stay-on-his-truth-social-amid-elon-musk-twitter-takeover


Who is invested in a Twitter clone that is trying to go public?


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/28/truth-social-merger-partner-stock-falls-after-trump-lauds-elon-musk-twitter-deal.html


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I honestly thing the Ansari Incident was a turning point for Me Too—as in, that’s when it jumped the shark. For the briefest of recaps:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Ansari#Allegation_of_sexual_misconduct


I am woke. I am rather sensitive to lack of consent. But…girl, “Grace”, if you think that a date like that is the “worst night of my life”, then oh sweet summer child. That is nothing. He was a tad too forceful about wanting sex, and he chose a wine you don’t prefer. If you think that’s awful, if you think that’s misconduct by a man, oh my, we have such sights to show you.


Such vapid, trivializing stories like that made Me Too look like a tempest in a teapot, or a flake in a snow globe. That is the most comically candy-ass incident, that is nothing, nothing compared to what lurks out there in the dark, and what preys on truly disadvantaged women.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Now I think space frontiers should be explored, but we do run up against some pretty hard problems here.




Understatement of the millennium.


People will say “humanity needs to become an interplanetary civilization to avoid extinction”, even though Mars…


    

  • Has far less gravity
    • 

  • A thin, inhospitable atmosphere, with no plausible way to make it thicker
    • 

  • No magnetosphere
    • 

  • An unknown amount of geothermal energy, but presumably far less than Earth, and you'd have to drill way deeper to get at it
    • 

  • 44% less available solar energy than Earth, and that's the best case scenario, as what's atmosphere it as kicks up horrifying black-out dust storms for major portions of the year
    • 



The idea Mars would be some outpost of a catastrophe on Earth is farcical. We could fuck up the ecosystem good and proper, and at least Earth would still have gravity and a magnetic shield—we have absolutely no ability to create a sustainable biosphere on Mars.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What's there to read? The federal budget is dominated by stuff that is pretty much untouchable.


    

  • 

    Social Security, 21%, can't touch that, old people vote.
    

    • 

  • 

    Medicare/Medicaid, 25%, good lucking touching that, because again, old people vote, and poor people are a cross-party voting block.
    

    • 

  • 

    Defense, 13%, haha, by all means touch that live wire, why do you hate America and freedom?
    

    • 

  • 

    Interest on the debt, 7%, sure can't touch that.
    

    • 

  • 

    Benefits for government employees and veterans, 7%, have fun touching that, it's great PR to screw with veterans.
    

    • 



And then past that, it's really, really popular programs like SNAP until you get down to the 1% range, where the vaunted “waste, fraud, and abuse and funding Piss Christ” programs live, and messing with those bends the cost curve not even a teeny, tiny bit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


First off, safety: it's true that nuclear has a much better safety record so far, but nuclear seems to have the potential for black swan disasters in a way that coal is not.




It feels like that, but the number of direct, identifiable deaths from nuclear power plant accidents is tiny.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll


Fukushima, which is the big one in living memory for most people, killed, directly…one person. Maybe. Arguably.


Now, scale that way up, and who knows. Maybe there is a big black swan lurking out there, but it’s hard to predict that…and it’s hard to predict how a more mature nuclear reactor industry could design systems that are much more fault tolerance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I ask because there are a few really remote college towns, and if you've never been to one of them you might not understand just how isolated it can be moving there.




Welcome to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a truly notable research university with a rich history of computer and materials science, located in the middle of fucking nowhere.


    

  • 



I don't even understand what the culture war aspect of "spousal hiring" is here. Yeah, there are a lot of land grant universities in the United States, they're in the boonies, so they create their own economic ecosystem around them to support the families of the faculty. And that's…bad? Good? Who cares?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd like to drop a link this thoroughly researched and footnoted article about metabolic adaptation.


https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/


This doesn't immediately support or refute the 300 calorie a day delta here…but it's within the realm of plausibility that when an obese person loses a lot of weight, their system down-regulates non-exercise activity thermogenesis by somewhere in that range.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but what's a healthy normal number of times to shower/bathe per day?




Depends on context, namely weather, activity levels, and socializing.


    

  • 

    Summer? Once a day, absolute bare minimum. Depths of winter, like late January? Every other day, otherwise my skin gets way too dry.
    

    • 

  • 

    If I went to the gym? Shower. Rest day? Meh, maybe not.
    

    • 

  • 

    Going to a club or party that night? Shower. Hermit-mode, working on a project? Probably not prioritizing a shower.
    

    • 



So it all depends. 85° and circuit party season, I’m in the shower up to 3 times a day, but if it’s the crushing 0° depths of winter, well, my dog isn’t judging me all that much.


Though, of course, I’m washing my face twice a day, moisturizing in the morning, and using an astringent followed by a heavier moisturizer at night. I’m not a monster.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For consumer-facing banking stuff:


Machine learning for detection of credit card fraud. Which is hard to notice, as you just don’t tend to think to yourself “oh huzzah I didn’t get my identity stolen today”. But the banks put a lot of effort into this, because they sure don’t want to be on the hook for a stolen card number.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because that post posits an extremely unlikely scenario where people can actually vote for RFK.


You briefly, very briefly, mention ballot access. As if that isn’t the whole shebang right there. Even if he has some groundswell of support, what’s the plausible plan to find those voters, get signatures, get signatures in a way that comply with the arcane bits of local election law, and then defend against the DNC’s very experienced legal teams that know exactly how to stifle ballot access?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is actually a really interesting question that sounds superficial. Because what is “best” for humans, and how do we know that, and can we possibly map that to animals?


In particular…Labrador Retrievers. They have a mutation that really, really, really makes ’em hungry chonkers. But does that mean they “want” to eat? Do they desire it? Does it make them fulfilled, whatever that means for a dog, or does that just make them not starving?


And, is it “best” for them to get a lil’ fat? Even if their blood calls out for it, they also want to fetch and fetch and fetch, which is hard when the pounds are packed on, especially when it’s hot outside. And, they are extremely prone to hip dysplasia, which extra body fatness can make far worse.


I don’t particularly have answers. But it is fun to consider.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But you're right to point out that the important thing here is the change, the increase - why wasn't this as big a problem thirty years ago?




Wait, in the Senate? Did you never hear of Strom Thurmond?


The Senate is a bizarre institution, and extrapolating…anything…from an N=100 dataset is folly. Once you’re in the Senate, it takes a LOT to get you out of the Senate, as seen from this list. There’s only 2 Senators from each state, and once you’re in you immediately accumulate a huge amount of power but then also pretty much vote along party lines, and unless you do something truly wildly insanely wrong, your state party has no particular reason to kick you out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


CNN is rumored to be suffering serious financial issues




I don't know if that's a "rumor". Well, I suppose the specifics of how CNN itself is doing is slightly a rumor.


But the stitched-together shambling corpse that is Warner Bros. Discovery is objectively in terrible shape.


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/06/david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery-cash-flow-debt.html


NYTimes has done some fantastic reporting on the gamma ray burst of stupid that caused all this nonsense with Warner, but, paywall.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/business/media/att-time-warner-deal.html


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I had to do some looking here. I figured the fixation on not killing insects was an allegory for empathy for humans outside your tribe.


Nope. Dude has spent a lot of time really fixated on insect suffering. But not just suffering caused by humans. Oh no: he is seriously considering how to intervene in nature to reduce predation in all contexts. As in, he is torn up about spiders killing flies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Perhaps this is a sign of really good public speaking that he can be aggressive in one venue and come off compassionate in a different venue.




Or perhaps it's the sign of a grifter who views the circus of the Republican primary as a nice platform to set up himself up for a cushy consulting and lobbying gig, and he flip-flopped because it's good marketing to the base.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Except for that bit in the Sermon On the Mount.




And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Tutanota, an encrypted email service…


https://tutanota.com/faq


…that I use for buying steroids er, I mean conducting hard-hitting journalism, which is definitely what these email services are for, and they are definitely not for drug dealing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Compared to DeSantis? Yeah.


Trump is an omega-level asshole…but he can schmooze. He can work a crowd, and he can do interviews. I have seen no evidence yet DeSantis can do that. Have you actually heard him speak? He has zero charisma—none. Trump has a toxic, used car salesman charisma, but at least he has it, whereas DeSantis is an awkward blank.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have no idea what the strategy on Musk’s part here as to the rollout of these files.


Not the rollout to “alternative” journalists—he is probably right that the “mainstream” media would not cover this. (Emphasis on probably, because the Times absolutely loves to hate on big tech, and if they had any scoop on this shit going down inside of Facebook/Meta, they’d be on it like flies.)


I mean, why is this getting dribbed and drabbed out during one of the lowest media engagement weeks of the year in messy Twitter threads? This is not actively ongoing suppression. There is no upcoming election or policy debate that is immediately impacted by this. Nobody outside the extremely motivated and extremely online and extremely right is going to give even the slightest notice to this, as it’s presented in such a slapdash way during the peak of holiday season.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So you’re proposing recreating the mid-century Chicago political machine, but on a national level.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine


There…are a few issues with that concept.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Or at least a bifurcation of the salt of the earth EA types away from the navel gazing longtermists.




Then what, exactly, is novel about EA once you get past the navel-gazers? I still do not understand what is new or interesting about EA.


Pledging to donate part of your income up front? Well, tithing is a well-known concept, and automatic paycheck withdrawals to your retirement account is a pretty well-established and useful concept.


Having metrics and quality control in regards to charities? It’s debatable when exactly effective altruism cohered as a concept, but critiquing donations to red tape-burdened inefficient charities is certainly not a new concept.


Like…once you strip out the funding for battling paperclip-optimizing super AIs, which still seems a silly concept given we can barely build a good Roomba to vacuum up my dog hair, let alone grey goo that will reshape physical reality…what is EA besides common sense? We don’t need Scottish philosophers to construct an elaborate taxonomy and praxis for automatic savings accounts and spending a solid 5 minutes to ponder that we are in fact quite well-aware of breast cancer by this point, and don’t need a month of NFL games to remind us.