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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 January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Children and other learning difficulty havers, and the rate at which the parents would be dual high-flyer doctors, surgeons, academics, engineers or whatever and then the child just gets too much of the secret sauce... It happens.




An interesting aside is that there are other significant risk factors that have nothing to do with parents on the spectrum. Specifically, lack of vitamin D during development seems to increase the risk manyfold as observed in children of immigrants with much darker skin tone who moved to Finland: https://www.laakarilehti.fi/tieteessa/alkuperaistutkimukset/maahanmuuttajien-lapsilla-on-suomessa-paljon-vaikeita-autismikirjon-hairioita/ (article in Finnish, feed it to google translate or something).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Chocolate is just another example of humans being in some ways insanely tolerating of dangerous substances and damage compared to most animals. We just don't think of ourselves that way because of the specific exception of food poisoning which has a lot to do with differences in digestive tract and us not noticing as easily when animals also get the shits & parasites.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Heh, this reminds me of the time I realized I was no longer the scrawny kid I was in school and college.




Am I the only one who never thought of themselves as scrawny and always found the pencil-neck geek stereotype baffling?


Not that I was fat or buff as a teen but my clothes size made it pretty clear "scrawny" or "thin" really didn't apply.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


One thing that stands out to me though is how compositionally simple those examples are. They seem to all consist of one character in the foreground and then some kind of dramatic stylistic background.




This is why I consider 99% of examples of any new AI image generator basically useless since they're only exhibiting the ultra-easy mode of one or two clear concepts where the layout, position, exact pose and such are irrelevant.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Meanwhile Pixiv embraced AI and is basically a unifans export vehicle.




Likewise many stock photo sites are now so full of AI slop that they're becoming useless unless they have a search feature to only search pre-2022 era photos. Otherwise the results are full of the same generic third rate obviously AI photos.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Swedes are all gay anyway so why would you ever believe what they say? And for Danes that's of course a moot point because it's not like you can understand them in the first place with their potato-in-mouth speech impediment.


Before any mods get their knickers in a twist, it's a time honored tradition that Nordics shit on each other. Which is of course particularly justifiable when the targets are Swedes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The thing about internet and this site is that it's international (as my flair says I'm in Finland while @self_made_human is an Indian living in Britain) which means the norms differ between countries.  Where I live "shorts and t-shirt" is normal summer attire when it's hot and "band t-shirt" is simply what a lot of guys would wear in the late 90s and 2000s. Hell, I've had most of my bosses dress occasionally in shorts and t-shirt on hot summer days because why wouldn't you when it's hot outside and you work in an engineering department where nobody cares about it?


Which is to say that there is nothing "performative" about shorts and band t-shirt around here. Frankly the vast majority of engineers just don't care about signaling in the first place and who would you even be signaling to when the only people who see you in the office are your coworkers who also don't care. You dress in shorts and band t-shirt because it's convenient and that's how you'd dress if you eg. went out for drinks with mates on such day, not to "stick it to the man" or to flaunt anything.


Sure, it'd be different if you dressed in some tight gym shorts (that you wouldn't use elsewhere outside gym / sports either), "programming socks" or similar ridiculous things that are actually outside the social norms in public - which is why people don't do it here either (barring perhaps some rare socially maladjusted exceptions).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The problem with intelligence is that it makes you retarded.




No. Being deep enough on the autism spectrum makes you retarded about some things. People keep (often intentionally) conflating that with intelligence.


Scott is much more an example of someone on the autism spectrum than he is an example of the modal intelligent person.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Die Hard meets Hobo With A Shotgun with a bit of From Dusk Till Dawn thrown in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean, can you even be considered true aristocracy if you weren't around in the /r/SlateStarCodex culture war thread days?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How would you check if a 17 year old pre-med student will make for a good neurosurgeon if he won't do any neurosurgery for another 10 years?




It helps to throw away the entire concept of pre-med and just have entrance exams to study medicine in university that test both relevant biology knowledge (to be self studied from common reference book(s)) and requisite math and physics ability. It's not perfect but it's better than just sailing in with high IQ score or using some utterly bullshit proxy like freeform essay or having the right after school activities.


Incidentally the same also works for engineering: Entrance exam that tests (highschool plus level) math and physics which, not surprisingly, are exactly what's required to manage almost all engineering studies. Too bad they fucked up that tried and true system in favor of very noisy high school matriculation exam scores here some years ago :(


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I worked for a FAANG-adjacent company




Yeah, that's very different from just a "programming company". California woke tech-adjacent culture is its whole own microcosm which cannot be generalized to the entire programming profession, particularly in international conversations (what with self_made_human being an Indian in Scotland). To put it slightly less charitably, the vast majority of programming profession isn't filled with cliche autist weirdos to even remotely the same extent as that particular subculture of it is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


However, I still think it's clear that genuine eccentricity is better tolerated in programming circles. Fursuits, blahajs and programming socks are more prevalent in programming circles.




I don't think any of those would be tolerated in any of the workplaces I've ever been involved with. Sure, worn jeans and an old metal band t-shirt don't even get a second look - that was practically a uniform some 10-15 years ago. Same with combat boots and camo pants. Business as usual.


But straight up "WTF is this shit, that guy is weirding everyone out, what is his issue?"-eccentricity? No. The boss would have a Talk with them.




The SBF types are gaming a second-order effect (convincing investors and managers that they're geniuses), but the underlying infrastructure still requires first-order competence (actually building the thing).




SBF types are basically reverse signaling the same thing the same way that overpaid hype consultanst in fancy suits are signaling to the upper management. Both are trying to use looks and behavior to convince someone who isn't technically competent that "Trust us bro, we're so good that we'll totally deliver you massive benefits".




aristocratic standards are more gameable by the wealthy precisely because they're so trainable. If you have money, you can buy the suit, hire the etiquette coach, send your kid to the right boarding school.




I've gotten the impression from some older comments here that such gameability was almost the point. That by having the money and acting like you were old money, in a generation or two you'd be considered if not actual aristocracy, at least upper class.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Today, it reflects precisely the opposite, tech-bros compete over who can performatively display their slobbery and betrayal of social norms as evidence of their talent.




In what alternate reality besides truly tiny niche examples?


I've been in the programming workforce for close to 30 years and I have never seen actual slobbery nor any betrayal of social norms there. Peoples clothes (including my own) have ranged from shorts and band t-shirt to straight pants and a fancy collared shirts and I've even seen one or two guys wearing a suit (due to intentional personal style). That is to say, people have dressed exactly as other men of similar age in non-public facing (*) office jobs that don't have status games attached to looks.


The only actual flaunting would be to dress in a business suit with a tie (unless you work in the financial sector) because you'd then be essentially signaling that you're trying to hide your lack of technical substance by over dressing .


*: The one time I ended up presenting a product at an industry trade fair my attire was black jeans, black dress shirt and black leather jacket which was chosen because it was my normal style at the time and also happened to blend in perfectly with the other industry people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


With advanced math even the latest models will still hallucinate on me when they're just asked to immediately spew output tokens




The other day I needed the equation for the voltages of two capacitors over time when charged initially to different voltages and connected via a resistor. That's simplest possible system of two differential equations, first term of the first year university level math. IOW it's the very opposite of "advanced math".


I wrote down the equations and asked ChatGPT to solve for V1(t) and V2(t). It spent a long time thinking and gave a confident answer with a bunch of "I can also give ..." extras. Too bad it was wrong. I changed the variable names to make it look closer to a basic textbook problem and after a bunch more thinking it gave a different wrong answer. Finally I simplified the problem so much that it became useless (fixed initial values to 1 and 0 respectively) to make it even more textbooky and I finally got a correct answer. Too bad it was useless. Finally I just ended up googling how to present such systems to Matlab symbolic math toolbox and got the answer I actually needed in the first place.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, with our hands! Come, join the revolution!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Don't forget physics. We're probably nowhere near the limit of how many computational operations it takes to get a given "intelligence" level of output, but whatever that limit is will combine with various physical limits on computation to turn even our exponential improvements into more logistic-function-like curves that will plateau (albeit at almost-incomprehensible levels) eventually.




What people seem to fairly consistently forget is that the exponential improvements in computation have come at an exponential development and build resource cost. It doesn't matter if a hypothetical AI can keep improving the core design part when everything else required to actually use that new core design keeps increasing exponentially in cost.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Surströmming is less food and more chemical warfare.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I understand people who like the multiplayer aspect wouldn't want to play like that and I have no problem with it. Any implementation could essentially be just another variant of easy level difficulty purely for the single player campaign.


That wasn't what the comments said, though (in that and some other similar conversations elsewhere). They were all about me supposedly playing an entirely wrong game genre (as if single player RTSes are somehow inherently about braindead unit AI and twitchy mouse clicks) and I essentially got told that I should just play turn based strategy games (a completely different genre that I have zero interest in). Essentially that only people who people who have play with "proper" meta should be allowed to play games like that and everyone else should stick to simple casual games.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The prevalence of metagaming and net decking is a great example.




I don't play much but I've noticed people have very strong opinions on The One True Allowed Way To Play a game and what sorts of game types others should even be allowed to play at all based on their preferred play style. This is exemplified by the assumption that anyone who isn't a hardcore competitive gamer who's willing to invest in a $5000 gaming computer should only ever play ultra lightweight casual games. I think it was even on /r/themotte some years ago where I pretty much got jumped on for saying I'd like a version of Starcraft 2 that nearly completely eliminated "actions per minute" as a relevant metric in single player game (which is to say, a version of SC2 with the artificial stupidity of unit AI removed and some basic action automation features added).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


We keep because it functions as a deliberate barrier to entry that wards off people who are uncomfortable with million word walls of text.




Somewhat ironically I tend to mostly ignore main posts because they are so often million word walls of text or worse, links to the authors’ substack with megazillion word wall of text.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ehh... The harvested energy pales compared to the work that has to be put in to build the "reactor" and refine the fuel. Besides, that particular "containment" method has only ever been used in prototype tests and never in actual production use.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I tell you, we will have energy net positive nuclear fusion in just 20 years!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The hostility of the IRS is quite a thing to behold. [...] This actually works in Europe! If you actively confess before they catch you, they don't even charge interest.




There is much to complain about Finnish taxes but the tax office's customer service certainly isn't one of them. I haven't heard a single complaint about them and apart from the rather long queuing times on phone (billed as a regular private phone number, not as a typical expensive service number) and some services only being open a few hours per day, their service has always been excellent and friendly. Taxes are of course calculated automatically and most changes and declarations can be done online but if you need to do something Right Now, you may need to call them on the phone.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, they manage to somehow have even worse usability on phones ("Hey, let's prevent zooming just so people older than 25 can't read any of the tiny text or images!").