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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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User ID: 64


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Unless someone finds an uninhabited island with guano deposits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Leaning on other Gulf states like that works, until it doesn't: at some level of retaliation, they presumably will think it's easier to rip the band-aid off and support regime change.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


mass domestic surveillance




What do people even mean by this anymore?  Do people think they stopped after the Snowden leaks?  I'm old enough to remember liking candidate "constitutional law professor" Barack Obama criticizing the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, then disliking his choice to promptly decide to continue and expand it once he was elected.  Or tech companies opposing PRISM leaks before promptly jumping at the chance to (algorithmically, I'm sure) ban things that the Biden administration asked them to.  Very stunning and brave moral record they've got going there.


I'm not sure I should trust Anthropic to be a better moral actor than the government here: they were willing to dance with the devil they already knew was doing this sort of thing, selling a product for which this is probably one of the clearest use cases.  To be clear, I'm not the biggest fan of such programs continuing (although I can acknowledge they might be quietly stopping all kinds of bad actors), I'm just jaded from literal decades of "principled" stands against it mostly just sweeping things under the rug.


ETA:




Anthropic wanted contractual guarantees against things that are supposedly already illegal.




If I had to guess, Anthropic wants to be the ultimate arbiter of what "the law" says here (or at least, what their "contractual guarantees" mean).  So does the administration (and I'm sure the judiciary is willing to fight them on that on occasion).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thinking about it, this isn't exactly new policy: The second half of 1990 included "Operation Desert Shield", the operation just to relocate the assets for the actual Gulf War took almost 6 months, and wasn't quiet.  The bombardment took a few weeks, and the actual ground invasion just a few days.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC the last NDAA also had strong opinions on Chinese AI models, and presumably the companies behind them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are a couple of western nations who pretty strongly manage to avoid procurements with such foreign entanglements and presumably veto powers.  The Americans are probably best known for it,  but France also spends a lot on domestic-first procurement, which presumably avoids such clauses, and their exported hardware (Exocets, for one) have a few historical incidents of being fired at Western armed forces.


If it's longstanding DOD policy to refuse procurements with morality clauses, I think this would make at least some sense, but they haven't done the best job selling this.  But the image of our corporate overlords demanding the right to overrule our elected decision makers and their military leaders seems a dystopian avenue, even for some definition of "autonomous weapons" or "mass surveillance", which nobody involved seems inclined to rigorously define.  Imagine if Ukraine had to ask defunct Soviet arms companies before they could use Eastern Block hardware on invading Russians.


Charitably, I think Anthropic's request sounds reasonable, although the government has arguably deployed both types of systems in recent memory, and probably doesn't want to debate the finer points in court.  Uncharitably, this is tech bros leveraging "morality" arguments to enshrine corporateocracy such that the government has to ask companies for permission before it can exercise it's usual government powers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC a paper from a few years back on Smallpox has caused most "produce DNA matching this sequence" printing companies to start checking for at least some examples of what people shouldn't be printing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
AFAIK the US didn't provide direct financial aid to the French in Vietnam or Libya (although it did provide aid to South Vietnam), but did get dragged into a French-started conflict in ways that involved active service members, which is in many ways worse than merely providing materiel.


If direct aid is your metric, Ukraine seems quite relevant: they've gotten hundreds of billions in materiel aid, including no small number of ABM interceptors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Was there ever any good theory of "alignment" that went beyond "don't allow wrongthink"? As much as I love Asimov's laws of robotics, actually implementing them seems like a pipe dream.  Even IRL humans are frequently conned into doing things they wouldn't with broader context, and it's unclear to me that it's even generally solvable.


I don't strictly fault them for focusing on what they could feasibly do, but I do for not acknowledging their uncertainty and the scope of the problem while claiming to be experts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A good faith ranking at least conceivably puts the Anglosphere on top ("Murdoch was a long con by the Queen" is probably a bit far, though), followed by the rest of NATO.  The French have gotten us into multiple wars (Vietnam, Libya, arguably other conflicts in Africa and the Middle East) with higher casualty counts than Israel even if you accept conspiracy theories.  At the time, both World Wars had relatively strong isolationist movements who would argue our involvement there was similarly "serving foreign interests".


And I'd give honorable mention to Japan and Korea, which punch well above their weight culturally and (arguably) the US keeps getting yanked along to serve their "contain China" interests, even if many argue it's also in American interests.  In fact, that's probably how most of these examples work anyway: convincing people that "$country interests are American interests".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC the Somalis in Minnesota are not fans of the idea of an independent Somaliland.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Can anyone point to a historical (right- or left-) populist movement in a culturally Christian country that didn't eventually turn anti-semitic?




While if you look hard enough you can find a anti-Semitism anywhere, I don't think the American Populist Party of the 1890s ever gained strong such associations.  And I'm less familiar with them, but most other populists and even strongmen I can think of in the Western Hemisphere don't IIRC have strong such associations either (Peron, Chavez, even Pinochet).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see this point, but it's also true that the women's team has expressed far more political animosity for Trump than the men's team.  "I have to invite them [too], even though they hate me [and won't show up]" was my first line of thought there, but I'll admit your reading is reasonable as well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The first duty of the American government is to obey the Constitution.




I see where you're going with this, and to some extent agree that a shared commitment to the words is what embodies the power of the American government, but I wouldn't go wholesale on this because it'd be too easy to See Like A State and circularly define that the first duty of American Government is to protect American Government (defined as a polity that obeys the Constitution), and governments protecting themselves qua governments over the actual opinions of The People is basically the definition of totalitarianism.


So I think I'll argue that there is a Zeroth Principle in the Constitution that the American people choose to bind themselves by it until and unless they decide to change it (via the established procedures) or replace it, for which some procedures have been written, but other routes are implied to exist by the Declaration of Independence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"We should replace our Dear Leader"


"Why? Is he that bad?"


"Well if he wasn't, the Americans would have killed him by now.  That's all the vote of no confidence I need."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It flows back to societally valuing youth in women and age/experience in men (common idea in this thread), doesn't it?  "Boy" is almost insulting to an of-age male in various instances (some related to racism), while "girl" is acceptable because it's considered flattering.


Not endorsing, just observing linguistic implications.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"[Cultural leaders] are always preparing to fight the last [culture] war" sounded funny when I initially considered it, but I think may have a ring of truth to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would be rather interested to interact with an intelligence that only knows the natural numbers on this basis, but I suspect all the existing LLMs are too polluted with children's books with counting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd like to add a third theory: properly doing immersion is more expensive than single-instructor blackboard teaching.  I'm not sure you can do it properly with the same resources you'd have for some other class.  From personal experience taking Spanish, "you can only speak Spanish until the bell" doesn't help that much if only a few native speakers are in the room, leads to "immersive" conversation between two students are barely speaking the language.


Although maybe there is a space for "fun" language learning media to exist --- I know a at least a few people who learned Japanese to read manga and watch anime.


ETA: LLMs probably introduce ways to do authentic immersion better/cheaper, but also can automate translation in ways that abrogate language learning requirements.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One philosophy question I've wondered about is how pure pure mathematics truly is: questions like whether "the integers" a true abstract concept, or can it only be explained to an intelligence that has a world model that includes the notion of "counting" or something similar.  The math definitions seem crafted to be purely abstract, but my thinking about them always ends up grounded in the real world.  Can a true abstract intelligence (which an LLM trained on human text isn't, but is perhaps closer than a flesh-and-blood human) derive all of modern mathematics given only the selected axioms?  Some of this, I think, comes back to the IMO still-poorly-answered "what is intelligence?" question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, most of the phonetic ones that come to mind predate standardized spellings, so a few hundred years.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO English is at least in part "as she is spoke" because we tend in modern times to borrow loanwords from Latin alphabet languages as-written, but inconsistently keep the pronunciation as-borrowed, so the phonetics are literally all over the place and you need a decent understanding of etymology to know why the "ll" in quesadilla is (usually) pronounced so differently from allay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Battles over loanwords are pretty common:  The Académie Francaise (nominally the authority on French as a language, but opinions differ) would love to excommunicate Francophones who use "email" rather than «courriel».  IIRC Spanish as a language isn't quite as centralized given among other things how many countries use it: a decent chunk of its speakers even call it "Castilian".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There already are categories for SNAP EBT: you can't use it for hot foods (rotisserie chicken is probably the most common complaint).  WIC also exists and has comparatively tiny set of eligible products.


We should do better about teaching basic cooking, though.  Removal of life skills from k-12 education (compared to what my parents' generation talks about: home ec, shop class, etc) has been, IMO, a bad choice overall.  Although I'm not sure I'd bring those back exactly as they were.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I will observe that EBT exists in parallel with WIC, which does have a pretty set of eligible items --- judging from the WIC signs on the price tags at my grocery store.


WIC covers literal rice-and-beans, but not frozen dino chicken nuggets.