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VoxelVexillologist

🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist

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joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
User ID: 64


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
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 October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


looks good on paper, was actually good for people when it came into effect, but over time it degenerates, and all actors involved learn how to subvert it, and the end result a few generations down the line is an entirely new kind of horror.




IMO that sounds like the Internet giving everyone a soap box, which is (partly) what beget the Culture War.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think an under-acknowledged challenge of AI is that it will dramatically increase the opacity of systems that everyday people use




Interesting: my guess would have been the other way in practice.  Not that the full stack will be better understood necessarily, but because AI as a personal assistant may cut through existing red tape and friction.  "Make an appointment with my dentist" is much easier than going through a phone tree and waiting on hold, and not even necessarily worse for the counterparty if they automate their answering service.  I expect it to be better than static text for things like tax forms in answering "are my prediction market winnings 'gambling'?".  But I will admit it's a bit of a loose prediction.


In software land, I see that early predictions of opacity armageddon aren't fully panning out.  You can vibe code things, certainly, but in complex products it really works well in well-written software.  It helps to have good, accurate comments and traceable links to requirements and documentation.  In my usage I largely try to clean up things it found confusing, which I think has strong overlap with naive human developers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Mark Zuckerberg burned the democratic commons in order to get people to click on more adverts. I actually believe this.




He certainly wasn't alone in this: Reddit and Twitter also made out like bandits, and I'm probably forgetting a few.


But it did seem a bit inevitable: the seeds were  already there.  Skirmishes had been ongoing for decades, even, in public fora.  The Internet was the modern industrialism to the Culture War's WWI.  But lots of people were happy to get rich as arms dealers.


Also, how do we get the equivalent of a treaty of Westphalia, not Versailles?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Outside the UK, I've been surprised as an American to see real, battle-kitted soldiers with long guns (not ceremonial ones, either) out in public spaces in the EU: airports, tourist sites, etc.  And the US doesn't really have the concept of a gendarme either.  Our officers are all packing, but you almost never see the guns out of their holsters.


That doesn't happen in the US unless we've called in the National Guard for a specific purpose, which is pretty rare and a special occasion.  Are they still out in DC?  Did they even carry rifles for that?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The grenade drop drones, as an example, might not even be destructive devices on their own.  "Why yes officer, it's for dropping biodegradable gender reveal streamers".  IIRC Ukraine was, for a while, importing and only lightly modifying non-military drones.


For all our firearms, explosives are AFAIK rather hard to come by, but not impossible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think mental health in general is overrated when it comes to predicting or stopping future shooters.




I see lots of comments about needing better mental healthcare, but is the baseline treatment there really such that we can choose an arbitrary person with a mental illness and "fix" them?  There are quite a few around here that know better than me.  I've always assumed no on the basis that there are plenty of examples of people, even from families of means, not getting better.  I get that addiction and tendencies to violence are hard, but it seems like we'd have figured it out by now if it was just a few pills and some therapy.


I wonder if AI would give us the tools to really handle this, either directly with models or on the basis of understanding and aligning complex unknown neural systems.  But that has its own draconian failure modes to worry about: the Ministry of Love would, uh, love such tools.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For limited areas, sure.  But recurring issues at national borders, January 6, and any number of "fiery but mostly peaceful protests" have me convinced it's not a general solution: I have trouble believing all of those are deliberate incompetence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That seems to be the current meta.




There isn't really a good response to a mass of unarmed, calmly-moving people trying to do something.  Opening fire has terrible optics unless you're, like, protecting nuclear warheads or something similarly weighty.  On one hand I'm proud of the human sense of fairness there, but it does seem an exploitable meta generally.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, it's also somewhat the opposite of your exact quote: that this is how it went in the stories, and how they rather wish they didn't have to be in one.




But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Okay, Chris Christie.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"This wasn't how it went in the stories!"




There is a great bit in The Two Towers where Sam and Frodo get to discussing Great Stories, but I think that one works really well because they recognize their part is, maybe reluctantly, to be in one.  It can be done well, IMO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Midway through As I Lay Dying.  The prose (for most of the characters) is not quite the "Faulkner" I was expecting, and I see why kids forced to read it in high school might not have liked it: the story requires some active attention to follow.  I've always had some trouble with following characters in books, but maybe that's just me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


AI is changing the security landscape more than privacy at the moment.




It's certainly changing the security landscape, but changes in access control stances seem to be happening very rapidly too: Reddit doesn't allow read access without a login, and I semi-consistently get captchas to do Google searches in browser incognito mode.  I've even had Cloudflare get stuck "verifying" and not allowing page loads.  And Cloudflare sits in front of even static content these days.  The walls are really tightening in, and I'm not sure I buy the "trying to keep out bots" argument: I'd bet a "bot test" is more expensive than serving small static pages, but maybe those are rare enough to be lost in the noise.  At this rate, I expect an implicit fingerprinted "social credit score" by user is going to become normalized before anyone realizes it and rallies opposition.


But it's certainly happening more quietly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think "AI only really got the idea to kill all humans from reading AI doomers" would be an amusing fiction writing prompt.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Its been at least a decade since I saw it: I don't remember any specific scenes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From what I remember of the first few seasons, yes.  But it has been a while.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


where are the female versions of this type of character?




I haven't watched all of it, but Bones comes to mind: it ran contemporaneously, and the title character is an autistic-coded female pathologist forensic anthropologist who often rubs the other characters the wrong way.  I don't think she was a Mary Sue type, but had to be paired with a cop archetype for the actual "dealing with violent criminals" parts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


does anyone think House is incompetent?




Isn't it a semi-recurring theme in the show that he can't get (some) people to take him seriously?  The audience isn't shown him that way, though, from what I remember.  The conflict is often "mad genius vs. The System".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are plenty of interesting stories to tell that aren't really about the characters.  Often more exploring the limits (as in "as x goes to infinity") of principles.  Science fiction often does this, but it's not alone in doing so.


While I thought "dark, gritty" characters were interesting two decades ago, the idea won so heavily that no popular writing I've seen today demonstrates strong principles and I think we've lost something civilizationally aspirational in doing so.  We've seemingly decided not to transcend the human condition, but to wallow in it.


But that's just, like, my opinion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The world would be a better place if more people had the integrity to not make up problems where none exist.




I see where you're going, but most, maybe even all human progress seems a function of rejecting the status quo because of its maybe-not-yet-evident problems.  Most technology exists to solve problems we previously just accepted, or didn't even consider to exist (problem: I can't fly like a bird).  Not sure where I'd draw the line, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Grey's anatomy




Christian Grey is the title character of Fifty Shades of Grey, not Anatomy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is done occasionally at smaller scales.  Although the example that comes to mind is the NYC building that partially collapsed over the summer while they were trying to do so; obviously not all roses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Unless you attach the outer end to the pole, or use some unusually stiff cloth, it will partially unwrap like you see in the example here.  But not impossible, I suppose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Worth noting that, AFAIK, none of them consider themselves "trans" either: the eligibility rules here don't purely exist to handle transgender athletes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The American flag, at least, is prominently blue on top with white stars when hung on a vertical pole like this.  Flipping it would make the top section red-and-white striped, and look IMO completely wrong.