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ulyssessword


				

				

				

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joined 2022 September 05 00:37:14 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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ulyssessword


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 00:37:14 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Also relevant to this: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio: The greatest terror threat facing the world now comes from the far left (July 16).


Very, very abridged:




For 25 years, the term “counter-terrorism,” at least in the West, has meant first and foremost the fight against radical Islamist extremism.






For far too long, however, our counter-terrorism doctrine has had a blind spot. A blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left.






Left-wing violence was not just excused. It was treated as sacrosanct, a protected class unto itself. That era has to end.






You are here because this is real, and it is getting worse. And it can no longer be denied, and it can no longer be ignored, because it is time to crush this evil forever.






Today’s far-left terrorists can raise money in one country. They can host their communications in a second country. They can receive training in a third country. They can recruit militants in a fourth country, and then together strike a target in a fifth country. And so we have no choice but to confront this menace together.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Fellas, Dr. Crouse, a tenured professor at Princeton acting as the face of her entire discipline failed to meet the moment in a big way. Perhaps only in a way she or someone like her could.




If someone less prominent gave an identical interview, I'd be tempted to call them a weak man.  I wouldn't worry about overselling it.


If you're on the fence about reading it, then I'll quote the start of her first answer, as a teaser:




They used AI. It’s an embarrassment of embarrassments. I don’t know what methods they used. They do not distinguish a fact from a truth from wisdom.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


lots of the (good) places were 55+ and obviously not available to students.




and if there was student housing on that magic dirt, I'm sure the neighborhood would be just as good. (neighborhoods can be geographically advantaged, but that generally isn't the determining factor.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll add a few split up by (non-traditional) genre:


    

  • Simulations: Interact with systems that are complex enough that you can't hold them in your mind, and require abstraction

      

    • Factorio, Kerbal Space Program,
      • 

    

    • 

  • Puzzles: Interact with systems that are simple enough that you can hold them in your mind, but require optimization

      

    • Opus Magnum, Portal,
      • 

    

    • 

  • Short term, single goal progression: You have (about) half an hour to improve and grow your character before facing the final challenge.  Then you start again from (almost) nothing.

      

    • Slay the Spire, Binding of Issac, Hades
      • 

    

    • 

  • Cozy: low pressure, nice looking, slow paced with gentle progression and practically no consequences for "failure".

      

    • Stardew Valley, Book of Hours
      • 

    

    • 

  • Story: Explore a world with a character, and do things in it

      

    • Fallout (probably New Vegas, but the rest too), Cyberpunk 2077, Skyrim
      • 

    

    • 

  • Nostalgia bait: The same as the old games you played, but newer.

      

    • Xenonauts, Endless Sky, Stardew Valley
      • 

    

    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't know what your threshold for "verified" is, but non-Anthropic companies are making that same claim based on their own tests.  For example, Exploitbench shows Mythos (and GPT 5.5, but nothing else) gaining full control of a PC in their tests, and UK AISI found that it could take over a (simulated, weak) corporate network.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I get most of my AI news from Zvi, and he suspects its real capabilities are less than its benchmark scores would suggest.


Also, everything since Mythos (except Fable) has been overhyped as being able to do some of the same tasks as Mythos can, where the "same tasks" they can do are the easy and less dangerous ones.  The difficult and dangerous work of building an end-to-end exploit given a codebase remains otherwise out of reach.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Canada, not the US, but close enough.  One very strong confounder is that we aren't seeing a representative sample of society.  Even if there was the same rate in different areas (and we both saw the same number of people out and about), they might stay at home or be institutionalized in one country and "in the community" in another.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


when was the last time you've seen a child with Down's?




Yesterday, if you'll allow (presumptive) early-teenagers.  It happens every couple months or so, it's not common but not exceptional either.


Claude says 1/630 live births have Down's and about 50% abortion rate (with bad tracking/stats), which suggests 1/315 conception rate.  Compare it to 1/790 live birth rate in the 1970s (same source), and increased screening+abortion isn't even keeping pace with the increased incidence due to aging parents.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm pretty much with you.  Native apps are more powerful than web pages, but developers don't reliably use that power to improve the experience.


Sometimes they simply don't develop the (easy) features that web developers would struggle to make, and other times they make user-hostile features that web developers can't.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it suffers from another kind of representation problem, the opposite of what Fivehour was talking about. In an apparent effort to avoid offending any constituency, the critics who made the selections cast as wide a net as possible.




There's a place for surveys of the field like that.  Unfortunately, "The 30 greatest living American songwriters" is punchier than "A selection of 30 great living American songwriters, which is representative of the field as a whole", so misrepresenting it is easy.


Any fair individual ranking system would (most likely) be heavily concentrated in whatever subcategory matched the rating criteria.  The same goes for greatest athletes, greatest politicians, or anything else.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is that how "right of first refusal" usually works?  I was under the impression that they would run the auction as normal, then take the $410k (or whatever) bid to the family/charity and give them the chance to overrule the otherwise-winning bidder.


The participants in the auction might not like that their highest bid got rejected, but that's just business.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wait, how is that any different?  Just because it adds up all the time in any office instead of just the one position?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've been halfway-considering making an LLM workflow for it.  They aren't that complicated, and teaching them my taste shouldn't be that hard either.  If I wanted to go super-fancy, it could intercept my traffic (when permitted, of course...) and rewrite the sites on the fly to avoid ads, dark patterns, distractions, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Hilarious. I was thinking that by the time I posted this, he might already have dropped out.




Lol, he posted two minutes before you, but spent 7 minutes on preliminaries before clearly dropping out (I skimmed it, so there might be another one before the 7:00 and 8:40 statements).


I don't think they could stop him from running as an independent, but they can pull all their support and tank his campaign that way.  I don't know how fundraising works (is it money for Platner, who will spend it on his campaign, or for the Democrats, who sourced it through him and will spend it on the Senate race, or what), which affects how much he could even spend.  If it was party funds sourced from his campaign and earmarked for its use, then he might be simply out of luck.  If it was personally-allocated funds, then he still needs to have staff willing to accept his money to do work etc.


It would be very difficult to run a campaign of that scale without a political machine backing you.  If the Democrat membership as a whole (not just the leaders) reject him, then he won't get any volunteers, staffers, analysts, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As of now, this is a moot point: Platner has suspended his campaign and plans to withdraw.


EDIT: canonical link, (@8:40 for suspending his campaign and intending to withdraw)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you want to actually tame the pyromane, though, you gotta shell out five bucks, and you won't get the notice until the tame fails, either.




I get annoyed at a door I can't walk through without shelling out money.  I'd probably uninstall the game if that happened to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


(At least according to https://starship-spacex.fandom.com/wiki/Starship_Flight_Test_13)




I made a blocklist for uBlock Origin to make fandom.com links readable.  With those in place, it's better than vanilla Wikipedia IMO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Mine is getting the relationship between things backwards.  It's indistinguishable from yours when it's like "1 is more than 2", but very different when it's "Alice is Bob's brother".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's the more common variant, for sure (EDIT: but I know it as "...the musical fruit").  But it doesn't lay out the cardiovascular benefits, so it doesn't point to any weekly thread in particular.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I humbly request @fribble chooses one type of weekly thread for the Rancho Gordo saga so that I can more effectively monitor the bean situation.




May I suggest the Wednesday Wellness thread?


Beans, beans they're good for the heart

the more you eat, the more you fart

the more you fart the better you feel

so eat your beans with every meal


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


only 20 years old. This is in my opinion a severe flaw in the worldbuilding. It means that Lily and James had basically no impact post Hogwarts,




Wasn't Percy working directly under the Minister of Magic by the time he was that old?  Hadn't Bill already explored new ruins and contributed to research?  Didn't Fred and George have an innovative, independent, and thriving business?  And they all came from a (traditionally) unremarkable family not noted for its successes?


20 years old is plenty if you just do things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Here's the great Ronald Reagan on immigration




If someone lives in America but does not "become an American" (like it's impossible to "become a German"), then they are not who the letter-writer is talking about.  Something like 90% of the immigration debate is about assimilation, and you can't dismiss concerns about poorly-assimilated residents by pointing out that it's not impossible in America.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Xth Amendment clearly says Y. Therefore Y.




lol.  lmao, even.  It's a great ideal, but it's very clearly not the reality.


    

  • 

    The second amendment guarantees the right to keep weapons of war in case military action is needed, and yet people have trouble getting their hands on a duck gun.
    

    • 

  • 

    The fourth guarantees personal property, and yet that property can be suspected of a crime and seized through civil asset forfeiture without triggering those protections.
    

    • 

  • 

    The fifth protects against self-incrimination, but a judge can still jail you if you forget (or "forget") how to decrypt a harddrive.
    

    • 



I'm sure people could add more to the list.




The US is a small and radical outlier for having it; almost every other country on Earth is more sane.




I wish I could include Canada in that list.  As of the start of the year we don't just have birthright citizenship, we have ancestryright citizenship, where you are Canadian if any of your ancestors were Canadian, back to the founding of the country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Would those federal agents be from the blue city, or elsewhere? EDIT: and if they're from the city, are they meaningfully different than local authorities?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm betting it's a repeat of this misinformation.  Neither Claude nor Grok (for Twitter search) could find anything, not even an uptick in rumors.  Two hours is easily enough time for things to spread to the mainstream sources on something like this.