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SkoomaDentist

The Greater Finnish Empire

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joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC 

				
User ID: 84


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
SkoomaDentist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
The Greater Finnish Empire

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 84


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Back in 2001 I had a lecturer in the university whose day job was as an engineering R&D department leader at Nokia (a company not exactly known for being "hip" or a hotbed of alternative culture). As an old school goth he naturally had long black hair and dressed in all black, with a suit jacket being his only reconciliatory gesture to corporate dresscode. Absolutely nobody batted an eye at his style.


As another example, Mikko Hyppönen has been a well known computer security researcher / expert / educator for three decades, whose hairstyle has stayed the same at least since 1995. In some ways you could call his entire career a fight against a type of counterculture.


So, yes, long hair absolutely was something you could have in many professional white collar jobs unless you perhaps happened to live in a particularly conservative place. It really was and is more about your overall conduct and presentation than about any particular subculture style attributes. As an extreme example, an acquaitance of mine was a hard core crust punk in the late 2000s. In his free time he was all about sticking it to the man, fighting the police (in a very physical sense), multiple large piercings, tattoos etc. I've also rarely met anyone who's exuded as much polite professionalism as he did in his professional role (with the piercings and all) as a technical documentation specialist for a Fortune 500 company.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Only if you consider 30+ years ago as ”quite recently”.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


using promises of goblin boobies




And I was just last week debating with myself if Yuri fiction was a step too far. Truly, I feel like practically a saint!


Also what is it with all the dysfunctional autist BS in web fiction? So. Much. Dysfunctional. Autism. You’d think getting through an engineering degree and working 20 years in the field would have prepared me, but no, even the nerdiest engineers seem like the most well adjusted normies compared to what seems to be the norm in web fiction circles.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Slightly below dead center, so I'm apparently a "Modern liberalist".


As with most such tests, it is inherently flawed by failing to distinguish between absolute and relative scale in the questions as well as the questions being much too vague. A Finn like me giving this set of answers means something very different from an American giving the exact same answers, yet the test tries to match both under the same absolute banners.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The root cause is Bluetooth, not the headphones. The only (partial) solutions to the problem require licensed codecs that must be supported on both sides of the connection and many prominent phone manufacturers are not interested in doing that (not least because to get benefit, all the headphones would have to support the same codec).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not sure if it's the absolute best but it sure is bang for buck: A good led headlamp bought directly from the Chinese specialist manufacturer. Much better quality than almost anything sold in Western stores for a much cheaper price (I paid 50e because I wanted fancy red light mode and high CRI but you can get good ones for just 30e). I hadn't realized just how useful it would be for everything from tinkering with small things to reading tiny text to trying to see the notes in the low contrast sheet music my guitar teacher had given me and how much more pleasant a good one is to use.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it's a high cost:high reward thing




It doesn't even have to be that high cost.


When I bought mine I was lucky that a local magazine (well regarded for their comparative tests) had done a large comparative review just a year or two earlier. The top two were fancy high end beds costing 5000e or more. The third winner was the highest end model Ikea sold (for around 1000e back then). No points for guessing which one I bought and have been happy with since.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


my experience on reddit is that most of the time someone gets called a bot or a shill, the accused is really an actual human who simply dared to deviate 0.01% from hivemind-approved window of opinions




My experience has been the exact opposite. The calls are about obvious giveaways in how the accused comments / writes the post and how all their replies are the exact same non-committal bullshit that LLMs are prone to generating.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The police do not issue you the ID card or the driver's license, that is done by different agents of the state that are not empowered with its monopoly on violence.




Here the police are the ones that issue me the ID, not any other agents of the state. IOW, the police have multiple duties, some which aren't in any way related to their monopoly on violence.


The claim was notably about the police / law enforcement being definitionally violent, ie. police anywhere and everywhere is always violent which is very easy to find counterexamples for that invalidate the claim.




What jobs done by the police do you think are non-violent?




Granting that (entirely optional) national ID card for one. Another is acting as a witness in various situations (eg. someone hits your car and you or they call the police to take written statements and observations on the spot so that it isn't just your vs the other guy's claims two months later in court about who has to pay damages). Guiding traffic (as opposed to observing or giving tickets) in case of major disruptions (eg. an accident requires redirecting traffic to prevent further casualties). Taking criminal complaints. Handling lost and found goods (a typical example would be finding some person's lost wallet and taking it to the police station).


Yes, one of police's duties is to enforce the state's monopoly on violence but that's far from the only thing they do. It may be that it's the only thing they do in some places but that's not part of the definition of police, just a feature of policing in that specific place (the way police behave in US vs Europe differs massively and unless I'm severely mistaken even the difference between the police in US vs Canada is striking).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


for not having a permit or not having an ID card, it granting people these things is still a violent act.




Ah, but here's the important bit: said ID card is entirely optional (around here). It's one way to identify yourself but not even the most common one. There are no negative consequences to not having one (in fact mine is past its validity date by a year or two). Nonetheless the police are the ones that grant it (because they have the means and existing infrastructure to verify the person's identity securely). If you claim that asking for an ID is an act of violence, does that mean the delivery guy who wanted to see my ID before giving me the parcel was violent? I don't think anyone reasonable would support that.


A claim that police is definitionally violent and that "every single thing the police do is something being done against the will of the person it is being done to", is like trying to prove a negative. Any counterexample invalidates it. In the case of an ID card, the thing being done is verifying that I am in fact me and it is done at my behest, not against my will. Likewise if I were to end up in a minor traffic accident, I'd call the police to witness the situation so that the other party can't make outrageous claims. They are not there in the capacity of violence (nobody is going to get arrested) but to act as impartial witnesses.


It may be that the police in US has degenerated so much that they are only capable of violence but that's a peculiarity of that particular style of policing, not a definitional feature of the concept of "the police".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nonetheless, the act of granting a drivers license is not remotely ”definitionally violent” and to even suggest that granting an ID card (for those rare situations where a drivers license isn’t accepted as an ID) is violent is completely ridiculous. The claim was that ”every single thing the police do is something being done against the person it’s being done to”.


Police do many things, some of which are violent, but police in the US leaning so heavily on that side does not mean that police is definitionally violent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wasn’t aware that having my passport and ID card renewed or being granted a drivers license was ”definitionally violent”…


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I remember when blue hair was associated mostly with anime




Was that ever really a thing outside extremely online / fan circles?


I live in a place that luckily isn't excessively contaminated with anime culture and I'd say that before "purple haired girl" became a known concept, people would have pattern matched it to punk-adjacent weirdos. Ie. definitely not politically neutral.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


probably to advance a devious scheme of human gene theft




I assume this is conducted by organic means to minimize suspicions?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Gotta say, this one made me laugh.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recently binged on This Magical Girl Is Mine on Royal Road and it has awakened a monster in me. I figured I can't be the only degenerate in this wretched hive of scum and villainy of ours, so...


Y'all got any more of them Yuri romances?


No, I don't mean lame hentai. I'm looking for the really filthy stuff, with hand holding and kisses and pining for her true love and other such sugary lewdness that's definitely not fit for polite society (although I gotta admit I probably wouldn't say no to good hentai either). Cute stories where the boy girl gets the girl and they hopefully live happily ever after. None of that eternal "will they or won't they"-bullshit and the less said about "disabled autistic BIPOC social outcast" awards bait the better. Cute girls doing things such that just reading about them probably risks giving you diabetes. Doesn't matter if it's slice of life or if they have to save the world from evil as a side quest (but horror, litrpg and traditional super hero stories aren't my cup of tea).


On a more serious note, that story is actually quite good if you're fine with the twist on magical girls (it's rather more complicated than it first appears) and the main character being willing to sacrifice everything for her unrequited love (not-so-plot-twist: things evolve). Generally well written except the author can't seem to decide exactly how to write the love interest's name (is it Sophia or Sophie?)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The UK




The UK has a different legal tradition to Continental Europe and of course rather notably isn't part of EU. They are in general not representative of the rest of Europe in anything when it comes to laws (anyone using UK as an example of European laws almost certainly has an agenda to grind and isn't participating in good faith).


Here in Finland there was a notable case involving a blog post (written as and literally titled "a bait to the chief prosecutor") which in the end lead to a trivial fine and the author getting voted into the parliament and eventually becoming the leader of the then second largest party in the parliament (because of the resulting large publicity). A rather different outcome from "throwing natives in jail over tweets".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Five - the advocates deal mostly or even exclusively with trivial codebases and have invested so much of their self worth into "being good at prompting" that they insist anyone who doesn't deal with similar boilerplate easy-mode tasks "is just using LLMs wrong".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The secret is a highly detailed claude.md file, having a code base which is hyper standardized from the beginning with standards for function naming, variable names, types etc and having a code base that is somewhat repetitive. [...] Claude breaks down when features get more complex, when there are edge cases and when the business requirements are complex.




Which is a fancier way of saying that Claude works for simple repetitive standardized boilerplate (a fact that's not very controversial).


What makes me despise LLM advocates is their persistent gaslighting that anyone whose job doesn't involve writing such code that is inherently easy mode for LLMs "is using them wrong", as if you were only ever allowed to write code where the requirements neatly fit into such narrow box.




TypeScript  [...] Java and Csharp [...] python




Yeah. I don't use any of those languages other than sometimes Python when I need to fix tools where you need a true human+ level AGI to decipher WTF the inherited / third party code is even supposed to do (and no, it doesn't involve APIs or stack overflow snippet friendly code).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If any album can be said to have birthed an entire new music genre, it would have to be Paranoid. Black Sabbath were fairly unique in that they could have played their 50 year old material at any modern metal festival without sounding one bit stylistically dated or "oldies".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But how many properties remain really popular longer than fifty years?




In music we've recently had blockbuster biopics of Queen and Elton John and Black Sabbath's farewell gig last summer was the highest grossing benefit concert of all time (third highest when adjusted for inflation), so I'd say quite a few. The Rolling Stones's tour two years ago also grossed $235 million but that might be considered too "oldies" to really count as popular.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But is it really helpful to their cause to (apparently) give everyone the impression that they are a bunch of unhinged lunatics?




Wait, are you talking about anti-ICE people or ICE officers?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Instead I'm thinking of that gulf of time between then and now, how much has happened and yet how clearly I still remember nodding along to j9461701 and BarnabyCajones, engrossed in mcjunker's stories, or bemusedly seething at darwin2500 and HlynkaCG.




Bring back TrannyPornO!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's too bad it's been already 15 years since the 80s ended and music died.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the thumbnails, specifically, have become terrible even on god channels, I assume for SEO reasons.




This is because such thumbnails generate significantly more clicks even on quality channels. I blame mobile users who can only see a tiny thumbnail so anything "surprising" sticks out.