VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
No bio...
User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Courts have read some very expensive definitions of "franchise" (see Gingles, which is admittedly under SCOTUS review at the moment), and it's not impossible to see something like a policy of "must make as many majority-minority districts as possible" (which isn't that different from the Louisiana v. Callais case previously mentioned) would probably get past at least a few blue judges, although probably not the current high court.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Culinary fashions have changed, at least. I've been to a few semi-fancy restaurants (usually catering to an older clientele) and felt "blast from the past" about some of the menu choices: tortilla chips weren't standard at Tex-Mex places in the 60s, relying on demi glace or hollandaise on an otherwise-bland entree, or tossing some steamed vegetables on the side. On the cheaper side, I've been to small-town diners that, while IMO fine, seem to be someone's home cooking scaled up and offered for guests without formal chef training. I get the sense from movies (not a great historical source) that this was pretty common in the past, but that the bar has mostly shifted upwards or gotten more specialized.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
As an interesting thought experiment, consider GDP per capita denominated in any of the following:
- Square feet of median available residence (rental or purchase)
- iPhones: not that different from exchange rates, but drops to zero if you go back far enough.
- Minimum/average wage: how many hours of other people's labor can a median person purchase?
- Calories: subsistence farming, you say?
- Some other basket of desirable goods: airplane tickets? Kids toys?
Honestly, I think these same sorts of metrics relative to percentile income are the right way to answer OP's question. And notably (3) seems like a driver of lots of major changes: employing other people seems to have been much cheaper in the pre-mechanization era: the extra cost of elaborate hand-carved decorations for your cathedral over a bare-bones space of the same size might be closer before power cranes to lift stone blocks: the cost factor there seems much worse than it used to be.
But it's also not clear to me what percentile in the past employed staff directly. Even today, personal assistants are a thing, but the salary tier to justify one has probably risen too, and even though more people can buy iPhones, the number with "staff" is relatively constant.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
IIRC there have been a few cases where courts have found one administration (Trump's) can't cancel a previous administration's orders
I believe most of these have been APA related: you can't cancel them arbitrarily or capriciously, and there are required notice and comment periods before enacting (some) changes. Of course, then there was the DACA case where apparently the APA comment period was required to cancel something that never had such a period to enact --- we were close to dueling federal (nationwide) injunctions demanding "X" and "not X" in ways that are probably very related to the SCOTUS decision to limit nationwide injunctions.
I'm not sure offhand if it's strictly covered, but as a thought experiment it'd be interesting to see if the APA were to allow, say, changing the comment period: "whoops, the next administration needs to wait 4 years to enact policy changes, conveniently including changing the comment period back." Or the rules as passed by Congress aren't constitutional, I suppose. I wouldn't endorse such a wrench in the works, but I won't be surprised if it gets tried.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
It's obvious if you assume the models will improve up to, and then past human level intelligence.
It continues to frustrate me that nobody seems to have found (or be seriously looking into, as far as I can tell) theoretical bounds on "intelligence", and some philosophers in these parts seem to assume that something "smart enough" can derive a complete physics, the universe, and divine the state of everything in it given nothing more than the text of the ten hundred most relevant books, which feels very ontologically lazy.
Although I'd be interested in reading anyone looking at this mathematically, presumably needing a very heavy dose of information and complexity theory. Links are appreciated.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
I liked the suggestion elsewhere in this thread that "white collar" work is that which the mythical man month does not apply to: 40 different rides with 40 Uber drivers is pretty much linear scaling, but 40 software engineers working 1 hour a week won't get anything done where one working solo full-time might.
Notably, medicine has adopted grueling shift lengths because shift changeovers are bad for patient outcomes.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
2d ago
I think you also see changes in how quality is perceived: it's easy enough to put printed posters on your walls and sit in injection-molded chairs, but many (probably not all) who possess that sort of slop, to use a term coined by AI skeptics, will wish they had hand-crafted wood chairs and original paintings.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
I have definitely heard the rules the scouts maintain for youth protection --- no one-on-one contact, two adults at all times, for example --- described as protecting both the kids and the adults.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4d ago
My rule of thumb (coming from engineering, but probably applicable elsewhere) is "cool" (desirable), well-paying, and work-life balance, pick at most two. There is a reason trendy startups can expect 60 hour weeks, but if you don't want those I'd recommend something less sexy but still necessary.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
5d ago
Your definition here feels tautological: we only apply "indigenous" as a label to people whose lands have been colonized. Hardly anyone applies that label to Anglo-Saxons, or Jews in Israel. And there are a few: Thailand and Ethiopian were never fully controlled by Western powers.
For fun, consider that Vikings settled Greenland before "Native Americans" got there.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
5d ago
I don't have time to post a longer thought here, but these comments have me wondering if the '90s office drudgery (TPS reports and such) is really the last gasp of jobs that have mostly been replaced by the spreadsheet and friends. We finally became aware that those jobs weren't really necessary --- they started getting replaced in some areas, probably the most important first, and by the end it really did seem pretty useless.
At least the guy in the '50s operating the adding machine all day in the accounting department didn't immediately (or even indirectly) think about how a computer (heh, possibly his job title) could do the hard work instead, and the value of finishing the quarterly report is at least somewhat tangible.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
5d ago
they'd launch tactical nuclear weapons at American air bases in Europe
Hey, at least we'd get a chance to test my personal conspiracy theory that the US has at least 10x as many counter-ballistic missiles as it has advertised.
I have literally no evidence of this, but it seems like it'd have been a pretty obvious good idea to have done quietly years ago (and not a good idea to advertise the end of MAD), and would maybe explain why we were so open to using them in Israel earlier this year.
Troops, yes. They already have had other types of co-ed units: Venturing (age 14-21) and Cub Scouts (elementary school), for example. The chaperoning policies include a semi-annual multi-hour training course for adults.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
7d ago
It’s not that I think girls can’t enjoy or benefit from mostly the same program and activities that Boy Scouts runs, it’s that the moment you insert 12-17 year old girls into the group, it can no longer be self governing.
I believe most scout troops (age 12-17) are still single-sex. There are some pairs of boy and girl troops that meet at the same time, but where I've seen this the young girls seem to be much better at taking charge of things (girlboss memes?) and there doesn't seem to be any pressure on the boys to step up and actually lead, which despite cultural memes doesn't actually seem to be something little boys want to do without a leadership vacuum or adult prompting. Most troops seem to still be single-sex in practice, but this may somewhat depend on your area.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
8d ago
It's not hard to find examples of people (mostly not in the collective West) following through on "the ugly stuff". ISIS and friends are the obvious example, but I won't say the other two are completely guilt-free either.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
8d ago
I have seen beef sashimi on a menu before. It's at least not considered unsafe like raw pork.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
8d ago
There's no stable HBD argument that rules out antisemitism.
Does this argument apply to anti-Asian bias? I know there is some animosity between parts of the right and South Asians, but the success of East Asian immigrants in the US hasn't seen anywhere near the animosity that Jews get, especially from "protestant whites."
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
9d ago
Hasn't enrollment in English programs actually dropped in the last few decades? Despite meme status (I assume from Avenue Q), the folks I know who are passionate about the English language specifically tend to be surprisingly focused --- one carries around a print copy of the complete works of Shakespeare wherever he goes. I think anyone looking for an "easy" major without concern for career prospects ends up in the ones you listed at the bottom. Sadly, that doesn't mean the employment prospects for English majors are actually much better.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
9d ago
If you're talking about the entire continent, I think it's worth observing that Cannae is generally considered to be one of the most tactically successful battles in recorded history.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
9d ago
I wonder if elected officials could be banned from social media.
There are a few court cases now suggesting that elected officials don't have (on their bon-personal accounts?) the right to block people on social media. I think you'd need to go fishing for a precedent that this encompasses chosing platforms that "block people" in the same ways. Which doesn't sound completely crazy: Trump blocking people on Twitter and getting Truth Social as a platform to ban people (also blocking them from sending DMs) both limit contact with public officials.
On the other hand, if you go too far in that precedent you'll block politicians from email spam filtering (I was trying to petition my elected leadership to help me save this member of Nigerian royalty!) or attending events in any access-controlled spaces.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
9d ago
When I was in college, they added a universally-required undergraduate writing course (fortunately with a test-out option). I suppose "Graduates of $PRESTIGIOUS_INSTITUTION should be able to string two sentences together write persuasively" makes sense from the board's perspective, but at the time I remember thinking that requiring calculus would probably improve those outcomes more ("should be able to understand derivatives and complex statistics"). In some ways it felt more like an excuse to hire a lot of adjunct faculty and grad students to teach those classes, although it might have made sense targeting international (mostly graduate) students.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
10d ago
I'd like to think I am considering the object level: Maybe it's not the most direct accusation, but I do think the "Stormfront or SJW?" comparisons have a concerning kernel of truth to them more broadly. In this instance, the fact that they're German is mostly being played for dark irony, and I don't really think (currently) makes them inherently better or worse than other SJWs.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
This seems like one of the better ways of handling it, although it does demand that healthcare providers become sufficiently actuarially competent to properly forecast costs as part of their operations: maybe not great for small-time practices at a time when lots are getting bought up by larger networks as it is. For better or worse, many hospitals already have to do things like that to handle EMTALA and the fact that they can't actually expect all their patients to, you know, pay.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
Imagine what the Germans will do with a cultural narrative dominated by how one nefarious minority group has willfully and surreptitiously organized to keep those righteous, industrious workers at the bottom of the totem pole of economic, cultural, and world power.
Wait, I think I've heard this story before...
I guess I'm modestly sympathetic here to the idea that the Senate gets to make it's own rules, and that time on the Senate floor at least should be precious. I can at least understand the chamber deciding on the current rules, under which I believe the presiding party could demand a talking filibuster, or choose to pivot to other business.
I suppose I could also be sympathetic to the Executive setting it's own clear rules (by Executive Order, I suppose) for official decrees, but in this case it seems the process isn't really that clear, as are the limits on delegating specific powers.
More options
Context Copy link