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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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And you didn't

I linked to a prior conversation that in turn linked to Anthropic's regulatory framework, and in your reply you acknowledged that.

But you don't seem at all interested in engaging with regulation as if it's a valid end at all. You make arguments that generalize to all regulation in all cases is bad because you can make up a story for how this somehow helps incumbent companies.

As I said, "This does not necessarily mean that regulations are bad." I've been trying to figure out your position, which seems to be that regulation wouldn't hurt the little guys but would cost them money but it's not a regulatory moat. It seems quite possible that regulations can be good and be a regulatory moat, there's no contradiction there. But you've been arguing that they wouldn't serve as a moat, not that they are good or bad.

They're part of the a16z group that broadly opposes all regulation and actively funds pacs to this effect(leading the future). [...] They also oppose all regulation in general because they fear if some AI regulatory organization got some teeth they might come after their slop, which the public widely hates.

Okay, see this makes sense to me! Thank you! (Sincerely!) I don't think you would have gotten so many downvotes if you had said "a16z thinks regulation of the frontier is a camel's nose under the tent to ban their shady services that have been implicated in suicide and cheating.* I appreciate you taking the time to lay that out for me.

As I said, "This does not necessarily mean that regulations are bad." I've been trying to figure out your position, which seems to be that regulation wouldn't hurt the little guys but would cost them money but it's not a regulatory moat. It seems quite possible that regulations can be good and be a regulatory moat, there's no contradiction there. But you've been arguing that they wouldn't serve as a moat, not that they are good or bad.

Yes, I don't think they'd be a moat. It's up in the air, as they're not strongly defined, if they'd net help or hinder catch up, as written I would guess they would help catch up. Slowing the front runners down gives those behind to fast follow at leisure. This is actually a negative in a sense to me because it lets chinese labs catch up relatively and there are world where that is quite bad by my values.

Okay, see this makes sense to me! Thank you! (Sincerely!) I don't think you would have gotten so many downvotes if you had said "a16z thinks regulation of the frontier is a camel's nose under the tent to ban their shady services that have been implicated in suicide and cheating.* I appreciate you taking the time to lay that out for me.

I don't like to make the arguments from incentives on this subject because I don't think they're the right frame of the argument. It's the frame the a16z/accelerationists want to push because then it's a matter of their interests vs anthropic and don't you really care about freedom of speech ect ect? But I don't think the important point here is about who's interests should prevail, even if that's also for contingent circumstantial reasons an argument my side can win against them. Because even if the balanced tipped and from interests alone the labs came out looking worse through this cynical lens I still don't want everyone to die. If entrenching AI control into a handful of companies actually was the only way to keep everyone from dying then we should do that, albeit probably it would be best to nationalize them in that case. I don't think that's the case but I don't want to hinge my defense of regulations on this unstable ground.