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VoxelVexillologist

🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist

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joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
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VoxelVexillologist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Previous results have been basically irrelevant to the sciences.




I don't know if you'd consider it, but Anthropic (Mythos) found an issue with HAWK, one of the finalists (but not the finalized standard) for post-quantum cryptographic signatures.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Does anyone think that an ethnically English Aussie granted UK citizenship would fall under the same danger of being deported as a Pakistani for these people?




The most likely scenario seems that "these people" (Reform? AfD?) would enact fascially-neutral laws to deport, say, convicted violent or sex criminals.  That such laws would have a disparate impact on your English-descent Aussie and a Pakistani seems to follow from a lot of data discussed here regularly.  I doubt even most of "these people" would support anything strictly based on ethnicity.


And that just gets you back to the Culture War: see left-leaning judges lowering sentences or dropping charges to avoid deportation thresholds, or the State in Rotherham looking the other way at violent sex crimes for years.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But they haven’t done that in 40 years.




Ann Richards won the 1990 governor election, which isn't quite 40 years ago, and there were a few other statewide offices through the mid 90s that Democrats won.  Texas hasn't been a red state, much less a very red one,  as long as most people seem to think.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One thing I hadn't considered until it was pointed out to me recently is that a lot of domestic heating in Europe is done with in-room radiators circulating hot water.  You can't just reverse that and cool using cold water because you'll get condensation that it wasn't designed for.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Ken Paxton isn't a nationally important race,




How do you feel about Talarico's chances?  It'd be nationally important if the Republicans lose control of the Senate by a losing seat in Texas, of all places.  Paxton's odds feel much worse than Cornyn's would have been, and the decision to primary a long-time incumbent with someone of Paxton's, uh, moral character seems at least a potential own-goal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Because if anything was found to be better than MMA, it would get integrated into MMA.




Are there any (effective) strategies that are banned on the basis of risking death or permanent injury?  I'm pretty sure MMA has at least a few rules on sportsmanship that might lose in a true Thunderdome competition.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


EU leadership escalates the war towards an outcome where Russia straight loses




I think the classic concern is that their ideas of "winning" and "losing" might differ enough that the conflict won't end on a time scale the EU can tolerate.  I'd be concerned that "we can inflict casualties on them tenfold [an optimistic assumption itself, maybe], but can't politically sustain 10,000 combat deaths" might go poorly against an army that is demonstrably willing to lose 100k men.


Exact ratios there are difficult to plan for: the Gulf War (1991) was close to 100-to-1, Ukraine seems much closer to even.  And whether or not American forces were involved would also impact how things would unfold.


Earnestly, "the only winning move is not to play fight", and I like the Baltics as countries.  But it's not trivial to make your counterparties accept that peace is the best choice if they feel otherwise.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Of course this only shows the fragility of the our democracy™ sometimes also known as liberal democracy.




A lot of platitudes about the ideals of democracy completely gloss over the "two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner" part.  If your electorate is sufficiently homogeneous (all sheep, or even all wolves) this isn't an issue, but in practice a heterogeneous democracy really depends on a shared sense of liberal civic values: voters need to accept that nobody gets blasphemy laws, or they'll keep voting for them.  Sure, you can set higher thresholds for changing your constitutions, but that only leans on a balance of voters and isn't really stable when increasing fractions of your voters don't like it.  Demographics there do matter, especially relative to cosmopolitanism.


And worse, there isn't even broad agreement on what "a shared sense of liberal civic values" should be.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I suppose you're probably right on a literal level here, but it seems like there needs to be some level of notoriety to the claims, or it's almost trivially true of any public figure.  It's probably true for every member of Congress.  It might be true for most city council persons nationwide, even.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Every single Republican candidate has been literally Hitler since literally Hitler,




Was Eisenhower ever accused of this?  His, uh, "punching Nazis" bona fides are effectively unquestionable. I'd buy it for every other one, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For all the things that "woke" did, it frustrates me that "CSI is garbage science" wasn't one of them.  TV shows gives unrealistic expectations, and the actual forensic science has longstanding, real concerns about accuracy in certain not-uncommon uses (bite marks, splatter patterns).  AFAIK DNA and fingerprints are fairly robust, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why don't every murderer in Massachusetts just go for the insanity defense?




I don't think our insanity defenses are really as coherent as I'd like them to be.  I don't have a much better proposal, but the combination of "no sane person willfully kills another (involuntarily, to disclaim euthanasia)" and "it's only murder if it's done by someone sane in the moment", neither of which strike me as incontrovertibly wrong at an axiomatic level, implies "murder is not a commit-able crime", which strikes me as obviously wrong.


Any recommendations on how we're supposed to square that circle?


And that's in addition to dramatic unclarity about "reasonable doubt" and P-values (the law seems to refuse to specify a number).  I can only hope if I'm charged with a crime to have a particle physicist on my jury for whom five sigma (p < 3e-7) is a reasonable threshold for conclusions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for September 4, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nevada (not Las Vegas, though) is much closer to LA.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's a Russell conjugation, like many things: "My preferred rights are inalienable and self-evident.  Yours deserve legal protection.  That guy over there only has them subject to the next referendum."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Socialists" tend to stop at their own borders




Ask Finland about how the USSR stopped at its own borders.  Or eastern Poland.


And even when they do stop at borders, they do things like build "anti-fascist" walls to keep their serfs "citizens" in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ah, the classic 2021 Yglesias tweet:




It's kinda weird that deplatforming Trump just like completely worked with no visible downside whatsoever




I'm not sure if I've seen him comment on that one with recent hindsight.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It seems quite plausible to me that Fable was expected to be profitable, and the promised multibillion-dollar capital moat to afford training compute has not held back competitors as much as expected.  And Sam, at least, has to make good on his promise to buy all the RAM, cynically I'd say to keep prices high for competitors.


At some philosophical level, it seems worth noting that the real Claude Shannon was effectively "trained" with a much smaller pile of books and a couple decades of a few dozen watts.  I'm not convinced training will always be so expensive.


I'm also reminded of the National Ignition Facility, which uses huge lasers for, uh, "fusion research".  It was designed at a time when lasers were very inefficient, and we can do much better these days.  However, it wasn't built for economical energy production (under 1% laser efficiency) and does make the pulses it needs to, so they have no reason to replace it.  If it were a commercial effort for energy production, they'd have lost their shirts to smaller startups with cheap diode lasers (50%+ efficient).  Sometimes moats don't work like you planned.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It does seem interesting that the high-end model guardrails have converged on IT security and biology as their two focuses.  I don't have a third branch of "existential dangers easily triggered by AI" to suggest, but if I did I wouldn't be posting about it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see the logic in that, but if you accept that I'm not sure where you'd draw a bright line in technology from checks notes agriculture to AI.  If you believe technology inevitably puts us on the path to the Great Filter, "retvrn to hunter gatherer" isn't like, obviously wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


what if it turns out even very "hard" or concrete fields like electrical engineering or chemistry are built on a bunch of stupidity that has just enough facade to be convincing to the in-field expert and certainly more than enough to the layman?




Your phone works, doesn't it?  Everything from the 5G radio protocols through the processors and OLED screens here isn't trivial and relies on a lot of in-field expertise that can demonstrably be taught, but isn't obvious to the layman.


If it's a facade, it's one that is at least very functional and works reliably day in and day out.  Sociology isn't demonstrating it's functional correctness billions of times per second on each of billions of devices.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The complaints I recall hearing from the less-theoretical physicists is that the string theorists were taking up a large share of the available funding effectively navel-gazing daydreaming about the pretty symmetries of strings without actually producing testable hypotheses even at "LHC" scales of "testable".  Those folks are used to expensive tests, but the string theory results needed like 3-4 or more orders of magnitude in scale.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm curious why our self-declared experts thought "alignment" was a solvable problem.  It's quite possible that the same logic and operation will be drastically different in ethics in ways that aren't discernable to the low-level workers.  The same designs and production lines making potentially-civilization-ending Titan II ICBMs were used to make the launchers for the peaceful Gemini missions.  Sometimes it's clear from the context and we feel comfortable assigning blame (where did all those box cars of people go?), but there are plenty of historical examples of humans not knowing the moral valence of the larger efforts they worked on.


As much as I find the idea of Asimov's laws of robotics comforting, the stories he wrote are mostly about the inadequacies of those rules.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In physics, you usually can turn a model into predictions which will eventually be measurable,




For a while, the String Theory folks got a lot of funding, but never seemed to deliver practically testable predictions.  I'm not sure this is as true in physics as you'd like it to be, but it is certainly moreso than the humanities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Sam himself seems spooked by the HF hack (as he should be).




I'm not sure if I believe this is his earnest take, or an act.  Really for the whole company.  These are the folks that have been telling us how dangerous this AI thing could be.  And they are the ones that seemingly took off the guardrails and put their model behind only a proxy with open Internet access.  What did they think would happen?  I'm not sure if I believe they are that stupid.  There are well-known ways to make different levels of air-gapped systems!


The whole thing reads like Ian Malcolm (played by a shirtless Jeff Goldblum) was found to have, while decrying the dangers of Jurassic Park, an incident at his own live dinosaur theme park, but it turns out that they built their Velociraptor paddock relying only a single strand of barbed wire for containment.  Quite the conflict of interest, to say the least.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the increase of salt concentrations in the soil of the Fertile Crescent due to poor irrigation practices also doomed that region to relative irrelevance in the modern era.




Looks at map.  While you're probably right in terms of its agricultural output, I'm not sure I'd describe a region including modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait to be "irrelevant" in the modern era.  It definitely punches well above its geographic-area or population weight in news headlines.