site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2377 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 18, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

@cjet79 thank you for the recommendation for Captain of Industry. Your description of "Factorio + terrain leveling simulator" really sounded fun, and I have indeed been having a blast. I started on what I think is the hardest map ("You Shall Not Pass") because I thought the name was funny + a friend declared "no balls" when I was going to go with one of the beginner friendly maps. But other than the fact I've had to spend a lot of time making level ground to work with, I haven't found it too bad. Factory game experience is helping me a lot, I imagine.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Try Timberborn next if you want to mess around with water

Oh yeah, already played that one. It's very fun and the beavers are cute. Timberborn has actually been the reference point I've been giving friends for CoI, because both games kind of feel like someone had fun programming a physics engine (water/soil), and then came up with a game to make use of it. Which isn't a knock on either game, I think they're both great! Just a funny similarity that stood out to me.

Our summer cabin is close to a certain civilian infrastructure object. This night Ukraine decided to attack it. Four Five drones shot down so far. The kid is sleeping like a log, the wife is freaking out, because the house is shaking every time a drone is destroyed.

It was her idea to stay there, I must add.

The kid is sleeping like a log

Sleeping through bombardment, a veteran already.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=76SFfeW4N5w

Didn’t realize you are Russian. Good luck, don’t get hit by shrapnel, hope the war wraps up soon.

Thanks. We're fine, the neighbors will need the services of a roofer and a glazer, though.

I just found out that Total War Medieval II is available on mobile devices, and I'm tempted to buy it. It's one of the few entries in the franchise I missed out on, I played more than my fair share of Rome 1, it ran surprisingly well on a shitty 'netbook'.

Unsure whether to buy it there, on pc, or just hold out for a remaster.

I can't fathom Total War working well on mobile. And why not get it on PC, where you can use one of the many mods? I just don't see any upside here, get it on PC imo.

On a related note, I have no idea what Netflix is thinking with their games strategy. Who wants to play Grand Theft Auto on a cell phone?

San Andreas and Chinatown wars play pretty well on mobile, at least the stand alone versions did and they controlled surprisingly well (maybe even preposterously well - I got up to Las Venturas before I got distracted by something else, and if you had ever heard me bitch about touch controls for phones and tablets you'd be very impressed. Although based on the reviews it sounds like Netflix did something to tank the performance - no doubt adding some data mining shit. Considering GTASA ran perfectly well on my pixel 3 there is no reason it shouldn't run well on pretty much anything available today.

You're probably right. The biggest driver was just being able to sneak in games while work was slow.

I'm usually shy of card games or deck builders, but I've heard good things about it. I'll give it a shot!

@fmac thinks that you (plural) would be interested in the following summary of the several mods that I've written for Victoria 3. I am inclined to think that this comment is both too narcissistic and too niche to be interesting, but whatever. Maybe I'm a bad judge and you'll find this comment more interesting than this week's court-opinion summary, which seems to have fallen rather flat.

In an effort to make this comment less narcissistic, I will emphasize that you do not need to be a 1337 h@xx0r to mod this game. It's just editing plaintext files, not compiling code like some other games.

Premise: In the vanilla game, slaves are created from poor people in countries with the Debt Slavery law, and thence are exported to countries with the Slave Trade law.

Problem: It makes no sense that countries with Slave Trade do not enslave their own low-acceptance (i. e., discriminated-against) people.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, a country with Slave Trade now will enslave its own low-acceptance people (using the same logic that the vanilla game uses to re-enslave recently-freed people when slavery is abolished and then reinstated).

Premise: In the vanilla game, a colonizing AI country will spread its focus across up to five different colonies, depending on how much population it has. Colony growth also is capped, so focusing on a single colony is detrimental.

Problem: I don't see any reason for these mechanics. Splitting focus between multiple colonies only increases the chance that multiple countries will split a colonial state, which I dislike. And what's wrong with rushing a single colony?

Solution: In a mod that I have written, a colonizing AI country now will focus on only a single colony, and the cap on colony growth is removed.

Premise: In the vanilla game, the AI will never incorporate a state that contains fewer than 100,000 people.

Problem: I'm not really a big fan of this limitation. Yes, the sparsely-populated territories of northern Canada and northern Australia are legally "unincorporated" even in year 2025. But Rhode Island barely had reached a population of 100,000 in the time period of Victoria 3. Am I really supposed to believe that Rhode Island should not have been incorporated until after year 1830?

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the minimum population for incorporating a state is set to 1—i. e., effectively removed.

Premise: In the vanilla game, several different fonts are used—Garamond, Open Sans, Noto Serif, a custom font called Paradox Victorian, et cetera.

Problem: I dislike seeing a zillion different random fonts.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the game uses only Open Sans.

Premise: In the vanilla game, in order to avoid losing its "civilized" status (as opposed to "uncivilized", like China and Egypt), the Ottoman Empire must complete four of seven available missions. One of those missions, "Tanzimat: Urbanization", requires that 75 percent of the Ottoman Empire's states be both incorporated and urbanized.

Problem: This doesn't make much sense to me. What's wrong with having unincorporated states?

Solution: In a mod that I have written, "Tanzimat: Urbanization" requires that 75 percent of the Ottoman Empire's incorporated states be urbanized.

Premise: In the vanilla game, an AI country will incorporate a state if a culture that calls that state region a homeland shares a trait (whether a heritage trait indicating race or a cultural trait indicating a non-race characteristic) with a primary culture of that country.

Problem: Under this criterion, both a fascist Britain with the Ethnostate law and an open-minded Britain with the Multiculturalism law will incorporate all European states and all Anglophone states (including the black ones in the Caribbean), with no regard for whether the cultures living there are actually accepted. That doesn't make any sense.

Solution: In a mod that I have written: The AI incorporation logic is disabled. Instead, a country (whether AI or human) will automatically incorporate a state if a culture that calls that state a homeland is accepted under that country's current laws, and will automatically disincorporate a state if no culture that calls that state a homeland is accepted under that country's current laws.

Premise: In the vanilla game, most countries start with all or nearly all of their states incorporated. It is generally expected that a country will have most of its states incorporated.

Premise: In the vanilla game, once a civilized country has acquired a bunch of land in Africa, it can organize that land into a "colonial administration" country, which is created with all its states incorporated.

Problem: These two mechanics are completely contrary to the AI incorporation logic (whether vanilla or modded) that I described in the previous section! It makes absolutely ZERO sense that the British and Dutch East India Companies have incorporated all of their states at the start of the campaign, despite having NOTHING in common with the Indian and Indonesian cultures. Also, when the mod that I described in the previous section is enabled, the complete absence of incorporated states in the two aforementioned countries causes some problems.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, if a subject country has zero incorporated states, then it is automatically annexed by its overlord. In a different mod that I have written, the colonial-administration mechanic is disabled.

Premise: In the vanilla game, up to five autosaves will be retained, and any older autosaves will be deleted.

Problem: A campaign of Victoria 3 lasts for a hundred years! If you've set your autosave interval to six months, you will not be able to look back even one decade to see how the world has evolved.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the autosave limit is set to 99999—i. e., effectively removed.

Premise: In the vanilla game, if a state region is split between multiple states that belong to different countries, a state will receive the unmodified name of the state region (e. g., "Guyana") if it includes a majority of the state region's provinces, and will receive a modified name ("British Guyana") otherwise.

Problem: If one country owns almost all of of a state region and another country owns just one or two provinces (such as a treaty port) in the same state region, it can be difficult to realize that the state is split, because the first state will have an unmodified name and the second state will be very small and unobtrusive.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the threshold for a state to have an unmodified name is increased from 50 percent to 99.9 percent—i. e., effectively never.

Premise: Several different factors affect an AI country's enthusiasm about the prosecution of a war. In the vanilla game, one of these factors is time. An AI country becomes more interested in ending a war as time passes: −100 when the war starts, increasing quickly to +0 at 10 months, and then increasing gradually to +100 at 110 months.

Problem: The quick increase in peace desire before the 10-month mark (before the battle fronts and the participants' economies have had a chance to get settled) makes sense, but the gradual increase in peace desire after the 10-month mark does not make sense (is duplicative of the factors for angry population, war-ravaged land, and high debt; often causes an AI country to make a white peace when it is on the precipice of victory).

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the gradual increase in peace desire after the 10-month mark is eliminated.

Premise: The USA starts the game with the Legacy Slavery law. In the vanilla game: If the USA experiences a civil war caused by the anti-slavery movement, then the other side becomes the FSA (Free States of America) and enacts Slavery Banned immediately (without going through the normal law-change process); and, if the USA experiences a civil war caused by the pro-slavery movement, then the other side becomes the CSA (Confederate States of America) and enacts Slave Trade immediately.

Problem: These forced law changes are unnecessarily heavy-handed. If the CSA wants to enact Slave Trade or the FSA wants to enact Slavery Banned, then let it; if it doesn't, don't force it.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the aforementioned forced law changes are eliminated.

Premise: In the vanilla game, some important countries are formed through the "major unification" mechanic. Most prominently, in order to form Germany, Prussia normally declares a "Unification War", which automatically (1) annexes all German members of its sphere of influence and (2) declares war on any non-sphered, non-former-unification-candidate countries that hold German states (i. e., France, but not Austria-Hungary).

Problem: This is disgustingly ahistorical. Historically, Prussia did not attack France for Alsace-Lorraine. Rather, Bismarck tricked France into attacking despite being weak!

Solution: In a mod that I have written, all major unifications are eliminated and must be formed the normal way (by acquiring the required states through means other than a unification war).

Premise: In the vanilla game, different still-uncolonized states in the North American frontier are claimed by different countries, and therefore are not colonizable by other countries. The USA claims Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas; Mexico claims Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas; and the Republic of Texas claims New Mexico and Texas; while Nevada, Colorado, and Oklahoma are claimed by no one.

Problem: Historically, Nevada was claimed by Mexico, Colorado was claimed half by the USA and half by Mexico and Texas, Oklahoma was claimed by the USA, and only half of New Mexico was claimed by Texas.

Solution: In a mod that I have written, Nevada is claimed by Mexico, Colorado is split into two state regions of which one is claimed by the USA and the other is claimed by Mexico and Texas, New Mexico is split into two state regions of which one is claimed by Texas and both are claimed by Mexico, and Oklahoma <del>is claimed by the USA</del><ins>is not claimed by the USA (because that causes problems with premature annexation of the Indian Territory, due to the game's limited mechanics), but instead the state region of Texas is extended through the Oklahoma panhandle (as it historically was prior to 1850) and the Indian Territory is expanded to eliminate all uncolonized land in Oklahoma</ins>.

Premise: In the vanilla game, canals can be built in the state regions of Panama and Sinai, and nowhere else.

Problem: Historically, the USA actually picked Nicaragua for a canal, and switched to Panama only after getting a lower price for the assets of France's bankrupt Panama Canal Company.

Problem: Due to Victoria 3's focus on states rather than on provinces, if Colombia refuses to sell the Panama Canal Zone to a great power that wants to buy it, the great power then receives a claim, not just on the Canal Zone, but on the entire state region of Panama. The same applies to Sinai. This is absolutely nonsensical.

Premise: In the vanilla game, armies can march from Colombia proper to Panama.

Problem: Historically, this was impossible.

Solution: In the same mod (necessary due to limitations of map modding): Panama has been split into three state regions, western, central (Canal Zone), and eastern, and the eastern state is disconnected from Colombia proper in the invisible pathing system. Nicaragua has been split into two state regions, northern and southern (Lake Nicaragua), and the Panama Canal events have been copied-and-pasted for a Nicaragua Canal. [Sinai has been split into two state regions, eastern and western (Canal Zone).](not yet complete)

Premise: After the USA annexes northern Mexico, the annexed states become homelands of the USA's primary cultures. The Yankee culture gets California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, while the Dixie culture gets Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Problem: Historically, California could have been divided into a free north and a slave south. And I find it unfair that Dixie doesn't get a window to the Pacific.

Solution: In the same mod (necessary due to limitations of map modding), California is divided into two state regions, northern and southern, and the southern portion goes to Dixie rather than to Yankee after the Mexican–American War.

Premise: In the vanilla game, the Corsican culture has three traits: European, Francophone, and Italophone.

Problem: Francophone??

Solution: In a mod that I have written, the Francophone trait is removed from the Corsican culture.

The mods can be downloaded here, if anybody cares.

I’m not seeing the problem with Francophone. Vicky 3 starts in 1830, right? They’ve been doing business in French for longer than the U.S. has existed.

Speaking of which—how likely is it that a pro/anti-slavery culture which has triggered a civil war actually would enact the relevant policy? I would expect it to be near 100%, which is presumably why Paradox hardcoded it. And are there other hardcoded war->policies?

Most of your other mods either look reasonable or are beyond my understanding of the mechanics. You’re going to have to explain what “incorporation” is supposed to represent if you want commentary on those :)

I’m not seeing the problem with Francophone. Vicky 3 starts in 1830, right? [At that time, t]hey’ve been doing business in French for longer than the U.S. has existed.

IMO, allowing Corsicans to have two different languages is unreasonable when other cultures do not get such an opportunity. It enables gamey behavior like playing as Germany, releasing the country of Corsica as a puppet, and granting to it both French land and Italian land. And it makes Corsicans more accepted by the French govt. than they should be.

For an analogous situation, look at the Ashkenazi culture. Realistically, Ashkenazi should speak German as well as Yiddish. But a comment in the game files explicitly notes that the German-Speaking trait was not given to the Ashkenazi in the game because it would increase their acceptance to an unrealistic degree.

Speaking of which—how likely is it that a pro/anti-slavery culture which has triggered a civil war actually would enact the relevant policy? I would expect it to be near 100%, which is presumably why Paradox hardcoded it. And are there other hardcoded war→policies?

Normally, the USA will be in the middle of enacting Slavery Banned, the CSA will secede rolled back to Legacy Slavery through the normal secession mechanic, and then the events will immediately force the USA into Slavery Banned and the CSA into Slave Trade. If the forced law changes are removed: It is possible but unlikely that a CSA politician with the Slaver ideology will enact Slave Trade. (Note that the Pro-Slavery ideology espoused by the CSA's Landowners interest group likes Slave Trade no more strongly than it likes Legacy Slavery, so without a special Slaver leader it will not go all the way to Slave Trade.) And it is possible but unlikely that the USA's in-progress natural law change to Slavery Banned will fail, causing it to keep Legacy Slavery.

Likewise, I imagine that a pro-slavery USA could enact Slave Trade, and then a seceding FSA could roll back only to Legacy Slavery rather than going all the way to Slavery Banned. But that's just speculation, as I haven't actually seen it happen.

If there are any other forced law changes, I haven't noticed them.

You’re going to have to explain what “incorporation” is supposed to represent if you want commentary on those.

Essentially, Victoria's "incorporated states" are the same as Europa Universalis's "core provinces" and Crusader Kings's "de jure subject titles". The people in incorporated states have to pay taxes, but also can vote and receive the benefits of govt. policies like schools and hospitals.

In the words of Wikipedia: "American territories are under American sovereignty and may be treated as part of the U.S. proper in some ways and not others (i.e., territories belong to, but are not considered part of the U.S.). Unincorporated territories in particular are not considered to be integral parts of the U.S., and the Constitution of the United States applies only partially in those territories."

I'm not at my computer this weekend but I'll add my mods when home

Goldbugs in shambles (if and when anyone actually makes fusion power): https://x.com/MasterTimBlais/status/1946291116954763388

Also some nominative determinist fun.

Let's be very generous and say $0.07 per kilowatt hour (approximately retail prices). 1 gigawatt year is therefore $613.7M, while 5000 kg of gold (at $150k/kg, which is slightly high) is $750M.

So it's not even a powerplant that produces gold as a coproduct, it's a gold plant that also produces power.

Wouldn't the next step be to actually do this? We've "made fusion power" quite some time ago, it's just not significantly energy positive, so not super-useful as a generating station.

There's no such requirement if it's a method of making gold -- it doesn't even need to be net-positive in terms of gold value for it to be an interesting thing to try in the lab.

So I'm a bit suspicious that it's not actually that easy to do -- although maybe they are kicking off Project Rumplestiltskin at Livermore Labs as we speak, who knows.

Claude tells me it's basically 'self-sustaining fusion reactor +++' since you have hundreds of tonnes of high-temperature, enriched mercury and lithium in there too somehow being restrained by a material under intense neutron bombardment. It needs months and years of sustained neutron production to work.

Probably easier to do the 'we made like 6 atoms of gold in a particle accelerator' thing in a lab.

This was a really fun paper to read, especially since I just noted that I'm going through an MIT OCW nuclear course right now. My actual knowledge on the topic still rounds to approximately zero, but it was actually enjoyable to just go through the proposed reactions/decays, just pull up the same tables they're using, do the incredibly simple energetics calculations, and see that they are, indeed, correct. I would have had no clue how to do even that just a few months ago.

So, can confirm that the stone simple energetics work; they're not so far out to lunch that they've made such a stupidly basic error (we're not dealing with total cranks). I can't say much of anything on any of the many many other questions involved concerning reactor/process design, materials handling, economics of it, etc. They do point out some prior works that had looked into this in the past, so it's also not unprecedented, but the current authors get an order of magnitude more production in their calculations. The current authors, correctly in my view, point out that the prior works (in the 80s) didn't really show their work for how they got their estimate for gold production, as they were focused on cobalt (and the current authors write reasonably significantly on mercury enrichment, which prior works didn't, and I don't have the knowledge to evaluate). There may be (and probably is?) some other technical barrier to the rest of the scheme that an experienced nuclear engineer would spot in an instant, but if not...

What a time to be alive!

I'm going through an MIT OCW nuclear course right now.

Then you seem like the best person to ask this rather obvious question: why is nobody doing that in conventional fission reactors right now? At least the fast breeders should have suitable neutron flux, right?

@Lizzardspawn for visibility

I think there is a 'basic' answer here, just in terms of energetics.

Looking at a single atom version of the reaction they're talking about to create gold, the idea is that you have an atom of mercury-1981, and you hit it with a neutron. If all goes well, the end result is one atom of mercury-1972 and two neutrons coming out. You can just compute the energetics of this reaction just from mass/energy conservation. This is, indeed, one of the first things I computed when going through the paper. The answer is that the reaction is endothermic, which is similar to what you might have seen in chemistry - the reaction requires you to put energy in in order for it to happen. The way you typically put energy in is to have a fast-moving neutron that is flying in to hit the mercury-198 atom. When you do the calculation, the required energy in for the neutron is just under 8.5MeV. You must have a neutron flying at least this fast into a mercury-198 atom to accomplish the desired reaction.

Common uranium-235 fission reactors do produce neutrons flying around; that's necessary for them to keep the chain reaction going. But the energy of those neutrons is low in comparison. It does produce a spectrum of neutron energies, but the peak of that spectrum (the most number of neutrons produced) is around 0.7MeV, the average being about 1.9MeV (it's a bit skewed)3. You can find that the spectrum does continue to tail off toward the higher energies, but eyeballing the chart, you have about a two-and-a-half order of magnitude reduction in the production of neutrons that are at the sufficient >8.5MeV range than you have at the lower energies. If I actually integrated the curve, the number of sufficiently energetic neutrons produced would surely be <<1% of the total neutrons produced, and the question really is about the number of zeros I should put after the decimal point before we get something non-zero.

Now, fast breeder reactors. They do also split plutonium, which does produce a slightly faster neutron spectrum... but it's not much. The curves are quite close to U235. The 'fast' part of the name is just that they use the (primarily ~1-2MeV) neutrons they have directly (when they're "fast", where "fast" means >1MeV) rather than slowing them wayyyy down with a moderator like they do in traditional reactors.

That is, the short answer is that existing fission reactors just don't produce enough neutrons that have enough energy to convert mercury isotopes (see footnote 2 again). Whereas with deuterium-tritium fusion reactors, the primary reaction is just H2+H3=>He4+neutron. If you do the energetics here, assuming worst case scenario with no kinetic energy coming from the input hydrogen atoms, you still get neutrons coming out with just over 14MeV. That's plenty of energy to hit some mercury and get what you want. If, of course, you can design your reactor right (and there are a bunch of other considerations that I won't get into here; just this basic consideration of energetics should be sufficient for the instant question).

1 - Mercury-198 is a 'relatively' abundant natural isotope, about ten percent of all the naturally-existing mercury in the world. In gathering it up, you'll likely be digging it out of the ground. Then, you take that ore and process it until it's the kind of stuff you want. Generally, people use chemical/physical means to get rid of other stuff and 'isolate' the 'good stuff'. This is the 'enrichment' bit.

2 - Thereafter, Mercury-197 naturally decays to gold with a half-life of like 20-70 hours (I didn't go back and look up the exact numbers for this comment).

3 - A weirdness that requires getting into looking at cross-sections is that they actually prefer even slower neutrons for further U235 fission. This is why they have 'moderators' in reactors - to slow neutrons down to a speed that is best for further fission events. There's fun back story here in the history of the development of ideas for the possibility of sustained fission; it took some work to figure out which isotopes of uranium would split with different energies of incoming neutrons; it turned out to be important that U235 would do fine with slower neutrons (which it could, itself, readily produce), whereas U238 required faster neutrons and couldn't sustain itself with its own production of neutrons.

The way you typically put energy in is to have a fast-moving neutron that is flying in to hit the mercury-198 atom. When you do the calculation, the required energy in for the neutron is just under 8.5MeV.

[Uranium/plutonium fission] produce a spectrum of neutron energies, but the peak of that spectrum (the most number of neutrons produced) is around 0.7MeV, the average being about 1.9MeV

That is, the short answer is that existing fission reactors just don't produce enough neutrons that have enough energy to convert mercury isotopes

Makes perfect sense, thank's for writing it all out!

just asked myself the same. My wild guess is - it requires some major redesign.

There's little reason to believe D-T fusion will ever be employed for grid power generation. Here's a good read on it. Power density of D-T fusion reactors is inherently lower, so reactors have to be much bigger to have the same power.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power

Between nuclear reactors already being more expensive, a more expensive radiation-producing method of power generation doesn't seem likely to ever be employed at scale.

What do we think about chess? My 5 year old daughter has become enamored with it lately, wants to play multiple times a day, doing some puzzles, all that good stuff. She's definitely improving fast - she impresses adults she plays who know how to play but aren't good haha - I'd benchmark at her at like a Class G player (ELO in the 600-700 range). I'm probably around an 1100 ELO, maybe a bit higher when I'm really focused.

Basically, trying to decide how much to encourage improvement in this vs other skills she enjoys (soccer, reading, etc) given Chess is a bit of a dead end? But if she enjoys it then it is a fun hobby and I like playing her...thinking we might try out a local scholastic club and see what we think.

Strongly in favor. In particular, if you become good at it it's a good chip to impress people with. I've also found it a good way to dump my need for cognition when needed.

The biggest benefit of her being into chess that I can see is that she'll find it easier to find a very intelligent husband if she sticks with it into womanhood. Given the sex ratio of the game, she'll have her pick of the litter.

Reading is nice, but antisocial. Soccer is social and involves exercise, so that's good.

The others are right, chess at its highest level doesn't feed into anything but itself. If your daughter had that rare acumen and you wanted to support her and she made WGM, chess would be her work and her life. I think you might wonder if this would be so bad. WFM Anna Cramling is the daughter of WGM Pia Cramling and GM Juan Manuel Bellón López. There's this video of her watching as her mother plays an amateur at a chess bar in Paris, and it's idyllic. Titled chess players also generally come from moneyed families; there are worse people to fall into crowd with.

But there are examples of highly successful non-career chess players who were good at it, namely Stanley Kubrick and Peter Thiel. I'm not attributing, obviously it's that the traits that made Kubrick a superb filmmaker as an adult, saw him interested and successful in chess as an adolescent, same with Thiel. Maybe chess is the nascent flame of something much brighter in her future, why not encourage it?

If you want to brush up yourself, IM Jeremy Silman wrote the best general book: How to Reassess Your Chess

Edit: linked the wrong vid, updated the link, the old vid is below

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_xFS2X-sHlQ

I am a serious chess nerd, and to be honest, I enjoy it purely as an end in itself. I don't think it's making me smarter or better at anything - I just really like chess, and so I play it and study it because it's fun. It brings me great happiness to have something like that.

I wonder if this is sort of a luxury of the middle-aged: I do not need to be getting better at "real" skills to give myself a shot in life, because I'm married, mid-career and so on. It certainly would be more valuable to do something else with her time from that perspective. But it's not as useless as some other things. Like others have said, it's socially acceptable and even cool to some people; and it is certainly possible to meet folks and make friends (admittedly odd ones) through it.

Chess is a fun hobby, and definitely a healthier way to spend time than staring at a screen, but it's not really useful in any way. As the siblings note, it is one of those tournament professions where only a tiny handful of people can ever hope to make a living, so unless you want to go full Polgar and make an all out attempt at raising a champion, that's out. Transfer of learning doesn't exist, so all those quotes about how chess teaches foresight and vigilance are full of shit; learning chess teaches you to play chess, period. And we are not in an age or place where it is a common pastime, so it is not particularly useful as a social skill, either.

I would say it depends on what it's funging against. If chess time or money comes out of the soccer budget, which keeps the body healthy, or the reading budget, which is useful in general, it's probably not worth it. If, on the other hand, time at the chess club would otherwise be spent on Instagram and YouTube, by all means go ahead.

Transfer of learning doesn't exist, so all those quotes about how chess teaches foresight and vigilance are full of shit; learning chess teaches you to play chess, period. And we are not in an age or place where it is a common pastime, so it is not particularly useful as a social skill, either.

I would not be categorical about it, I think there are a lot of lessons that a child would learn from chess. Mostly character lessons, not intellectual lessons, and not because it's chess specifically, but because it's a competitive game. It would teach a child humility; even if the kid is good, she will meet people who can effortlessly curbstomp her at it, so she will have to learn to deal with that. She will also learn that if she studies and practices hard, she can improve at something; a valuable insight that eludes a surprising amount of adults.

There's a few pitfalls too though, it's important that she understands that just because she can beat some people at chess, especially adults, it does not make her better, superior or even really more intelligent than them. And vice-versa. But I can easily imagine a kid losing respect for adult autority because she thinks she's more intelligent than them.

Yeah this is what I've emphasized - you will improve at this if you work at it, but doing so will result in a lot of losing along the way. We went to a chess club event recently and I prefaced it with "everyone here is going to be much better than you, but you will learn some things". She had a very good attitude, and I thought played some very solid moves that even I hadn't seen. She said she wanted to go again, so I think for now I keep nurturing it. Hopefully can find some people more her level for her to play soon.

Similarly I suspect it's good for a kid to have something that they are better than adults at, for giving a sense of "being adult like".

They can play in competition at an adult level without being condescended in skill. And in theory learn how to gracefully win as well.

Chess has limited transfer effects. It won't "develop the brain" very much except for getting better at chess/recognizing its patterns. I do like one thing about it though: It teaches the value of looking more than one step ahead when evaluating anything.

There's no career option in it, unless you're a very rare talent. Pretty much a dead end, as you say.

Chess players are usually kinda weird/nerdy. It takes a somewhat special person to spend hours every day on plugging away at it. Chicken or egg problem. Not sure how good the socializing aspect would be, I suspect not that good. I usually try to chat when I play online chess with mediocre results. But as deluxev2 says, it is pretty much respectable. Moreso than playing MMOs every day or something. Chess is "cleaner".

I guess I would encourage soccer just as much as chess? Decent hobby to spend a limited amount of time on though.

Paul Morphy said: "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."

One of the weirdest things I noticed is that the best chess player in the family (he was in top 20 nation wide(small country tho) in his prime, I think) is so scatter-brained that car maintenance and dealing with paperwork was something his wife did.

He has legendary skills at messing up anything computer related.

That sounds like someone who went savant-like in for one thing at the expense of many other things he should have learned.

Makes me wonder if some types of activities that require focus have transfer effects while others don't. Meditation has improved my focus on anything and everything. Perhaps practicing chess does not.

His day job was mostly medical research and teaching. Wasn't unsuccessful at it, quite well regarded. Became a full professor eventually. (it's a bigger deal/more rare in eastern Europe than in US) Personally I think he wasn't (when younger) as scatter-brained as he pretended to be and used it as an excuse.

I find meditation really cool and its promises really interesting, and then every time I look further into it I’m reminded that the end goal is, essentially, voluntary ego death.

You talk about meditation a lot, so please forgive me for asking directly: does it not creep you out that this practice is supposed to end in you realising that you don’t really exist? Am I mistaken about the end result? Not the rhetoric, but the actual purpose of realising that theee isn’t a real you.

It's not "ego death". That's a bullshit term used by people who don't understand anything about awakening.

I've attained anatta (not-self) insight and I didn't lose anything I would have wanted to keep. You lose a delusion. You see that the "self" was just a peculiar form of content in your consciousness, consisting of a combination of physical sensations, feelings, images, and a very strong and convincing belief/concept. You see it as being a mirage and a process, a verb, rather than a noun. I'm still a human being with a body, mind, consciousness, feelings, perceptions. I just don't get fooled by combinations of phenomena in those aspects of human experience making up a "self". I still have an ego, I know who I am and the difference between me and other persons. It's kind of like, after having played an MMO with an avatar every day of your life thus far, you see it for an avatar, rather than a real physical thing that could somehow ever have inherent existence.

So when you realise that you don't exist, that's just about dropping a false belief and seeing the truth: that feeling of being a self was never born except as a mirage-like construct of the mind, and cannot die because it never truly existed. That's a relief. You still take care of your body and mind. Chop wood, carry water.

As far as hobbies go, I think chess is pretty well respected. Socially being known to be good at chess won't typecast her as the wrong type of person. Practically unlikely to go anywhere big as you note (but the same is true of soccer, reading, etc). It might be a good place for practicing how to learn e.g. how to find good sources of information, when to rely on mental shortcuts, how to intentionally memorize things.

The chances of going pro are about the same as your odds of making a living in the NFL, about 0. But if she has fun playing then sure why not.

Fun Friday music: OUT DEMONS OUT (weirdo hippie music by the Edgar Broughton Band covering The Fugs)

The Edgar Broughton Band was a British blues band who had an early entry to the mashup genre by combining Captain Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" and the Shadows' "Apache" into "Apache Dropout." They recorded a live album at Abbey Studios in late 1969, but the only song released at the time was "Out Demons Out," which is a cover of The Fugs' "Exorcising the Demons Out Of the Pentagon." The rest of the live album isn't very good (it was released in full in 2004 and is available on YT), but "Out Demons Out" is a fun piece of schizo hippie weirdness.

My novel is up to 248k words and change. That's almost the length of the original Game of Thrones, and half the length of the entire LOTR trilogy.

Huh. It's the first time I've checked, and I genuinely wasn't keeping track. I guess I shouldn't feel so bad about the inconsistent update cycle when there's around 20 hours of material to read, which I've definitely spent hundreds writing.

I certainly don't feel like I'm near a conclusion, the main reason I opted for a web serial format is that it frees me from worrying about word count, and I can give every chapter and concept room to breathe.

Nice! I just hit 200 on my current story, nipping at your tail! I put yours on my to-read list, always looking for good new scifi. Haven't really found anything recent that scratched the itch since Theft of Fire.

I'd be happy to take a look at yours if you share a link!

(Theft of Fire was great, the author needs one lit under his ass so he comes out with the sequel quick)

I write https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/104317/between-beast-and-buddha-a-drunken-monkeys-journey , a vaguely JttW inspired xianxia story about an alcoholic monkey daoist.

You have me sold. More novels need alcoholic monkeys, Daoist or not.

I mean, given the whole one of his wives having cancer thing, idk he does.

One of his wives? That's taken me aback more than the cancer has.

On the plus side, he has wives to spare. Smart man.

Yeah, they're interesting people. But she recently came back cancer free, so that's nice at least.

Do you use LLMs when writing? If so, what percentage of your novel has been written by LLMs?

I'm an early adopter of LLMs, but using them to "write" the thing would be counterproductive. If I had to give an estimate, less than 1%.

I use LLMs for:

  1. Editing
  2. Brainstorming
  3. Research
  4. As an alpha reader

Research is the big one. I remember, back in the GPT-4 days, I asked it to help make a certain Jamaican character's patois more realistic. Didn't think much of it, till six months later, when an actual Jamaican reader left a comment saying that he was really impressed at how authentic it was, and asked me if I'd asked a native speaker.

Writers are often advised to write what they know, and it's remarkable how easy it is to know more these days. I used to trawl Wikipedia articles and crib notes back in the day, now you can just ask an alien intelligence.

Hmm.. What else? There are half a dozen chapters I illustrated with the help of AI image generators. More of a novelty than anything, but it was super cool that it was even an option.

The heck is going on with the motte servers, or is it just me? Got a nginx crash homepage a day or two ago, and loading slowly for me today.

It's been slow for the last month for me. Server struggling?

just noticed this too - went to check the subreddit and it has 19k readers?? Since when? Is it just a bot paradise haha

The subreddit is in a frozen state, with the only posts being Nara's links to our AAQC roundups. I wasn't keeping track of the subscriber count, so I don't know if 19k is a jump or just what we had when we turned off the lights.

Fuck You

You get up 2.5m dollars any asshole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system 3-5% to pay your taxes, and that's your base, get me? That puts you for the rest of your life at the level of "Fuck you". Someone wants you to do something? "Fuck You." Boss pisses you off? "Fuuuuck You." I have a car, and a house, and a family, and it's all paid for "Fuuuuuuuck You."

I remember seeing this clip go viral years and years ago. It's inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, and supposedly the movie it's from isn't even that good.

I am tantalizing close to reaching this goal. Got the house, got the paid off cars, got the family, and the last several years my investments have appreciated more than my yearly income. One year it lapped it. I still contribute to my investments, though my contributions are dwarfed by appreciation to such a degree it makes me question the utility of it. I originally wrote a post about what lessons I'd thought I'd learned to get here, but it felt like I was jacking myself off to much. Lets leave it at a combination of luck, thrift, relatively high income, and commitment to a plan.

Best of luck to you all, and here's hoping I didn't speak too soon.

Congrats! I got interested in the financial independence/retire early (FIRE) movement after I left college (because I really didn't enjoy my job). I'm much less strict about it these days since I'm married and have a new career I love - for instance, we just purchased an unnecessarily large dream house - but I'm still looking to retire in the next ten years or so.

the last several years my investments have appreciated more than my yearly income

tantalizing close

My man you have already arrived. A while ago in fact! Relevant post from my favorite FIRE blogger.

If it weren't for health insurance and my daughter with a chronic condition, I'd consider myself done. It's not a super bad chronic condition, mind you. Honestly it's barely an inconvenience we've gotten so used to it. But... it still exist and could theoretically rear it's ugly head in a major way.

Massive congrats. Probably ~5 years behind you which basically means it's so close I can almost taste it at this point.

Not to be the Debbie downer, but how much have you hedged against exogenous black-swan type risks?

Being able to say fuck you to any given job or walk away from any situation where they treat you unfairly is truly powerful.

But its always the thing you didn't expect coming in from the angle you weren't guarding that gets you.

Divorce, or credible accusation of criminal conduct, or randomly getting on the bad side of some psychotic, violent asshole are hard to ward off just with "fuck you" money.

I'm in an intermediate stage, I'm aggressively paying down (unsecured) debts, and I've got some money saved up to throw towards a big play the second I see one.

Good luck.

Don't forget that the government is currently setting the precedent for forcing you to make social media accounts public, meaning we're all fucked here.

Better to get divorced, charged, or threatened when you've got a million in the bank, a paid off house, and an umbrella liability policy than when you don't have any of the above. For some things, there's preparation. For others there's not much more you can do than have a good attitude and a steady hand.

Trying to mitigate every possible risk just ends with becoming Brian Johnson and probably dying at 82 anyway.

No argument from me, really.

I am just paranoid enough to think that making yourself 'untouchable' on an economic and social level could have the unintended effect of making you a target for malicious actors who want your wealth.

I did used to believe in 'security through obscurity' (i.e. just blend in and make yourself 'beneath notice') but that can be compromised at any time given how freely information flows, you can't rely on or maintain that indefinitely.

So situating yourself in a location where it is hard for attackers to even reach you is... probably wise.

And yeah, if you take risk mitigation to an extreme, then you might decide to not even have a wife and kids since they can be a tool to blackmail you or a weakness in your security scheme.

Obviously that is not an ideal way to live.

I don't really think that's true though. It's not a substantial risk factor. Acting rich is far more likely to make you a target than merely prudently investing a modest amount of wealth. The majority of retirees fit that criteria, and most of them make it through life just fine without becoming a target. Like, the very idea you should forgo a wife and kids in order to avoid being targeted for having a modest amount of money sounds absolutely insane to me? That just doesn't happen.

Define "Substantial."

The majority of retirees fit that criteria, and most of them make it through life just fine without becoming a target.

Ahem.

Like, the very idea you should forgo a wife and kids in order to avoid being targeted for having a modest amount of money sounds absolutely insane to me? That just doesn't happen.

No, I'm agreeing. I'm pointing out how going FULL Hermit mode is really the only way to mitigate certain risks created by having people you care about enough that you'd pay lots of money to avoid them getting hurt.

Realize that in several countries, kidnapping for ransom is a big business.

You should not live in such countries if your goal is to keep your 'fuck you' money. This is not an excuse not to have a family, just a vector by which you might get fucked in spite of having the fuck you money.

Total risk mitigation is just miserable. Every time you drive somewhere, you are accepting a small probability of dying horribly in a car crash. Yet very few people are content to become hermits who work from home and get everything delivered. At some point, you simply have to accept the tradeoffs of a life worth living.

From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 20:

Professor Quirrell was silent for a moment, then smiled. "Tell me, Mr. Potter, can you guess what thought went through my mind when I finished assembling the thirty-seven items on the list of things I would never do as a Dark Lord? Put yourself in my shoes - imagine yourself in my place - and guess."

Harry imagined himself looking over a list of thirty-seven things not to do once he became a Dark Lord.

"You decided that if you had to follow the whole list all the time, there wouldn't be much point in becoming a Dark Lord in the first place," Harry said.

"Precisely," said Professor Quirrell.

Total risk mitigation is just miserable. Every time you drive somewhere, you are accepting a small probability of dying horribly in a car crash.

Well, if you drive around in a a modern large Pickup truck, you're probably going to survive almost any accident short of getting pancaked by a freight train. I argue that you also shouldn't dismiss the risk of a debilitating injury that you have to live with, as well.

Me, I mitigated that risk by making sure that every part of my daily commute falls within a 5 mile radius of my house, and almost entirely in the same direction, and almost entirely off of main artery roads.

Minimizing road time is pretty much the best practice, as I see it. You can't control what other people on the road do. Also my dad had me take a defensive driving course almost as soon as I got my license, which has saved my bacon a few times.

I think many people underestimate the magnitude of certain risks they absorb, and overestimate how much it costs to mitigate most of said risk. Not counting people for whom the risk is the point. I've seen like six different videos in the past month of people blowing their hands to smithereens by holding lighted fireworks, for instance.

Speaking of that, Famed risk-seeker Felix Baumgartner just died at age 56 while doing something characteristically risky. Ken Block, despite his skills handling vehicles, died in a snowmobile accident at 55.

Felix apparently had a wife but no children. Ken had a wife and three daughters. Now sure which one seems 'worse' to me. Block at least has a genetic legacy.

Although sometimes its the mundane that gets you. Robbie Knievel died of Cancer, his dad died of Diabetes and some lung disease.

I can certainly say that I'm glad I don't have whatever genetic quirk gives makes for that level of adrenaline junkie.

Not to be the Debbie downer, but how much have you hedged against expgenous black-swan type risks?

Yeah, this is going to be relatively humble "Fuck You" money. The longer before I have to tell someone "Fuck You", the larger the pile grows. Maybe it could handle being cut in half ala divorce at a certain point. For the psychotic violent asshole problem I moved to a conservative area with strong self defense policies and 2a right.

But end of the day, you can't stop all bad things from happening. Whatever happens the "Fuck You" money will hopefully cushion the blow if it can't stop it.

Yeah I was specifically thinking of WHERE you would reside to mitigate a lot of the random elements of life.

And having enough money to pick up and move if you need to is, IMHO, the final "fuck you" step.

How long did it take?

Any major financial setbacks along the way? (Medical bills, non-insured damage to the house etc.)

Well, the 401k has been trucking along about 20 years, with 9% of my income (5% contribution, 4% match). The brokerage account I've had about 10 years, and bitcoin has been an 8 year accumulation. Most of my "active" investing has taken place in the last 8 years.

There were a smattering of minor setbacks that came out of the emergency fund. New well pump, birth of my child, etc. Nothing in the six figure range, or even much above $10,000 at a shot. Buying a house with 20% down in 2021 was probably the largest "set back" if all you care about is maximizing contributions to an investment account. But despite the opportunity cost of being out around $100,000 for the down payment, it's been worth it. I don't really include the appreciation on the house in my "Fuck You" goal, but I do include the fixed cost of keeping a roof over my head compared to the rental market, as well as avoiding all the instability of having to deal with a market for shelter at all. You see debates on the rent vs buy math all the time, but I can promise you the buy in 2021 versus rent today math absolutely works out in favor of "buy in 2021"

Congrats! What did you invest in? I'm similarly trying to save, and watching it grow. Sometimes I wonder if it's just inflation in action; as the number goes up in today money.

Short version, the ratio went something like 8:4:1 for 401k split 50/50 between growth and value funds, my regular brokerage account with my own stock picks, and then just bitcoin. Despite how heavily the ratio skews towards the 401k, all three accounts as of this post are within spitting distance of each other. My private brokerage account has almost doubled the growth of my 401k, and my bitcoin had almost quadrupled the growth of my brokerage account.

Happy Birthday! IMHO 25 is peak cockiness. If you took the short path you've completed your education, begun your career, are getting attention from the opposite sex, and are in the full flower of adulthood such that all the old farts of jealous. Enjoy it.

Just don't ask about your 30's.

Happy birthday! Over the past several years you definitely sound like you've found a more solid footing in life, and I'm really happy for you. Any big plans to celebrate?

Happy birthday!

At the age of 25, you're at your physical and cognitive peak, and it's all downhill from here. Your mind slows down, though your productivity is kept up by knowledge/wisdom compensating for decreased fluid intelligence. Your body slows down, becomes weaker and frailer, but this can be temporarily alleviated with exercise and a fastidious attitude towards your health.

Don't worry, it doesn't become obvious until about a decade later. The initial slope of the decline is gentle, you can make a good picnic on that plateau.

At the age of 25, you're at your physical and cognitive peak, and it's all downhill from here.

I really have to wonder how much of this is people just not taking care of themselves. Personally I'd probably put my physical peak around 32 when I was fighting fit and winning tournaments. But that might have been an artifact of not really having proper training or nutrition until my late 20's. It's more difficult to assess my mental peak, or separate alacrity of though from wisdom, since wisdom provides so many shortcuts. I will say, when I was pre-diabetic I thought my mental acuity was falling off and I was just aging. Then my doctor caught it, I cut out a ton of sugar and snacking, started intermittent fasting, and now I'm right as rain again in my 40's.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you peaked at 25, maybe see a doctor, nutritionist or trainer?

I'm talking exclusively about peak capabilities with intense training. If you're a couch potato till 25 and only later start exercising seriously, you can certainly do much better. Conversely, if you're already physically maxing yourself out, then you won't be able to get any better, and will likely notice decline. Someone claimed this can be further broken down into strength and endurance, which I'll have to check out later.

I really have to wonder how much of this is people just not taking care of themselves.

For people complaining on the internet, it's mostly this. All sorts of complaints about random aches and pains and injuring themselves in their 30s that bears no resemblance to my experience.

Personally I'd probably put my physical peak around 32 when I was fighting fit and winning tournaments.

Interesting choice. For longer-distance endurance races, men's performance seems to peak around age 33. I would expect an earlier peak for more explosive/fast-twitch dominated events.

For longer-distance endurance races, men's performance seems to peak around age 33. I would expect an earlier peak for more explosive/fast-twitch dominated events.

Depends heavily on the sport, the individual, and the degree of chemical assistance available.

But I also think high-level athletic research (while still being the only really valid research on the topic) is going to be biased towards people who peak earlier. To become elite at most high end sports, you have to be an elite youth-level competitor by the time you're 20 at the latest. And the flipside to this is that the mileage on the body and the injuries start accumulating earlier. We don't actually have much of a model for what happens if someone starts competing seriously at 25, because to get to the point where they're competing seriously at 25 most people have been competing seriously at 18. A tommy john surgery, or a blown out knee, or accumulating concussions, are going to get you started on your decline even if your athletic peak was still ahead of you.

UFC champions, who have tended to start out in MMA later as they train something different-but-related before switching to MMA professionally, average 33, and fighters typically begin their decline at 34. MLB players peak between 27 and 30, but that curve has moved up a few years after the beginning of steroid testing. MMA is notably poor on testing compared to the other major pro sports, and the individual sports are generally more poorly tested than the major professional team sports where the league has some degree of physical control over the players. Soccer players peak at 27 on average, but speedy wingers peak earlier and decline faster than burly centerbacks. NFL running backs decline almost immediately, while offensive linemen can often stick it out well into their 30s.

All that being said, I'm in the best shape of my life right now, this year, at 33. But I don't disagree with @self_made_human about 25 either: at 25 I had more potential, I could be anything, even if at 33 I currently am more. Athletically, at 25 I could still have runway to develop skills that, at this point, I won't reach. My hair was thicker, I could sleep off a hangover easier, I could eat bad food and worry about it less. I was in my last year of grad school, which is the peak of a certain kind of status for many people: you've accomplished a lot so you have something to stand on when you boast, but you haven't found your level in the professional world yet, so you can talk all the shit you want about what you might do. 25 was a very good year

Do people still invite you to their birthday parties? Come on, give him the transhumanism eternal life pitch, not this lifelong decay whine, not today.

This rant was only 50% serious! Alas, transhumanist immortality is, at present, aspirational, and the weakness of the flesh as it inevitably decays and fails you is not.

Gotta get to work on building implants so you can serve the Omnissiah better. ;)

A while back, when I was younger and less jaded, I did consider a career as a neurosurgeon specializing in brain implants. I (wisely) desisted, because neurosurgery is brutally difficult to break into, and I'd be in training or struggling to build a name for myself for a decade or more.

I wouldn't recommend anyone get their brain implants from me, though I will shill affiliate links when Neuralink cuts me a cheque.

Both endurance and physical strength usually peak around age 30.

Explosive strength and recovery time peak earlier though, so depending on what you value you may or may not peak by 25.

IIRC, you looked pretty smexy when you posted a photograph of yourself (with face censored) with two soon-to-die-by-methanol tourist women. How many dozens of hawt gurlz have you fucked in your 25 years, you tiger? Lord it over this forum of incel chuds.

Slightly more (but still not very) seriously: When are you going to improve your goddamned English punctuation skills?

AMA? What would we even A you about? Come on man, you can do better than this. Give us a little more to work with.

What's the most interesting place you've traveled and why

Sounds like a fun place for a young person! Shame it leaves you with a longing for the people instead of any lasting connection though.

Court opinion with map:

  • Within New Jersey, Berkeley Township* contains 41,000 inhabitants. Within Berkeley, the neighborhood of South Seaside Park contains 490 inhabitants. Prior to year 1875, the entire area was a contiguous mass called Dover Township, with South Seaside Park sitting at the tip of a barrier <del>island</del><ins>peninsula</ins> that was connected directly to the rest of Dover with a bridge. However, over the years, the creation of Berkeley from Dover's land, and the creation of other municipalities from Berkeley's land, caused South Seaside Park to become separated from the rest of Berkeley by a 13-mile (21-kilometer) drive that takes 30 minutes at the best of times, and during summer can be as long as 45 minutes due to beach traffic.

  • Under New Jersey law, a neighborhood can secede from its municipality if (1) three-fifths of its registered voters sign a petition requesting secession, and (2) (a) the municipal council grants consent by a two-thirds vote, or (b) the municipal council refuses consent but (i) the refusal is arbitrary or unreasonable, (ii) the refusal is detrimental to the well-being of the neighborhood, and (iii) the secession would not significantly injure the rump municipality. Accordingly, in year 2014, two-thirds of South Seaside Park's registered voters sign such a petition, seeking to secede from Berkeley Township and join Seaside Park Borough, which is South Seaside Park's sole neighbor on the barrier peninsula. The resulting hearings last into year 2019. In year 2020, the Berkeley council finally refuses consent, and the petitioners file a lawsuit, alleging that the refusal met the aforementioned criteria i–iii.

  • In year 2022, the trial judge rules for the petitioners. (i) The members of the municipal council were supposed to be impartial arbiters, but instead they were vociferously opposed to the secession, and even enlisted the municipality's contracted licensed planner to help them argue against it. (ii) "Substantially all" of Berkeley's services are based in the mainland, a zillion miles away from South Seaside Park. Inhabitants of South Seaside Park can't even watch Berkeley's council meetings on their cable-television subscriptions because South Seaside Park has a different cable provider. It would be much more convenient for South Seaside Park's inhabitants if they could get municipal services from Seaside Park Borough instead. (iii) Despite constituting only 1 percent of Berkeley's population, the beachfront community of South Seaside Park contains a whopping 11 percent of Berkeley's taxable property value. So it is true that the secession would cause taxes in the rump Berkeley to rise by 3 percent. But that does not rise to the level of "significant injury" that the law requires, and the calculation of 3 percent does not even take into account the ameliorating facts that (1) secession would let the rump Berkeley save money by ceasing to provide any services to distant South Seaside Park, and (2) South Seaside Park already is completely developed, while rump Berkeley still would have lots of empty land to be built on**, so South Seaside Park's proportion of Berkeley's taxable property value would shrink in the future. Therefore, South Seaside Park must be permitted to secede. The appeals panel affirms in year 2024, and the state supreme court follows suit in year 2025 (linked at the top of this comment).

Note that Seaside Park Borough has not actually agreed to annex South Seaside Park. It would be a hilarious anticlimax if Seaside Park did not agree. Apparently, though, this anticlimax really did happen fifty years ago, after a similar petition-plus-lawsuit rigmarole was won by the father of the leader of the current secession initiative.

*In many states of the USA, a township is an "unincorporated" subdivision of a county, and exists only on paper. However, New Jersey is one of the few states where a township is just an ordinary "incorporated", fully realized municipality.

**The empty portion of South Seaside Park that is visible on the map is an unbuildable state park. The empty portion of rump Berkeley does have a lot of overlap with New Jersey's protected Pinelands area, but that makes building merely difficult, not impossible.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats