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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 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.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for August 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Old and new reddit do that inconsistently, even.  I found using the URL percent escape code for close paren %29 works most reliably across implementations, but YMMV.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I could see that angle, but in the Star Wars universe I assume it'd be Empire-skepticism: "fought in the Clone Wars, now just getting by with the Imperial overlords with some chafing".


That "today's Hollywood might decide to stan the Empire (literal Stormtroopers carrying kit-bashed Nazi MG 34s) over a potentially-problematic weak lost cause allegory" seems to succinctly describe what is wrong with the political zeitgeist today, IMO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Currently on Seveneves.  So far my least favorite Stephenson book, but I guess I'm comparing it to Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicron, probably two of which are in my "top 10 books I've read" list.  It's okay, about a third of the way through.  Feels very much "of its time" (2008 2015): drops Internet references (Reddit/YouTube), and two of the characters seem obvious NDT and Elon Musk ("when he was still cool") stand-ins.  No questions asked international cooperation.  It's long (800+ pages).  Not exactly a slog, but I'm tempted to set it aside for something more interesting.  Thinking As I Lay Dying, since I've found I like "in the style of Faulkner" AI memes.


Previous was True Grit, which is a short read I'd recommend.  Might watch the movies at some point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Same recipe, fresh ingredients.




Given that Disney owns both now, I've been thinking a spiritual successor to Firefly would fit well in the Star Wars universe.  But I wouldn't trust the company blindly to produce a good show these days.


Andor was good, though.  Same idea; new characters and setting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They even managed a popular spin off TV show from it!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It does seem under this definition like the parties aren't really as conservative/progressive aligned as the messaging would have you think.  Under "don't do anything new", California is arguably a conservative state when it clamps down on building housing, sets strong environmental laws discouraging industry, and blocking data center construction.  Alternatively, Texas's libertine rules encouraging solar build out, natural gas, and encouraging industry are progressive.  Don't tell Gavin and Greg.


But that seems part of both party's ongoing civil wars: blue team seems to have inherited a lot of conservative (lacking a better term) seniors for whom that means "hands off my Medicare" and a general preference for maintaining late 20th century neoliberalism, which clashes with the DSA types wanting radical changes.  Red team has a similar clash between traditionally-labelled conservatives and "you can just build things", although I'm not sure if that fight is still ongoing these days.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for August 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Lots of running training literature encourages "strides", which are a lot like what you're describing.  I'm not sure I'd start with 20 seconds, but it's within the range.  Often they encourage only going, say, 95% of all-out to minimize injury risk.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


see the botched circumcision they inflicted on some poor artillery shells




You're supposed to circumcise the gun, not the ammunition.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Ammunition factory" here is probably only making reasonably-precise metal things into which explosives will later be installed.  Those are, AFAIK, not usually done in the same places.  At least some of that probably still follows from a WWII US policy that explosives factories were to be far from the coasts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the general implicit argument for this is that a Taiwan conflict either (1) doesn't result in land battle (invasion), in which case large tube artillery is not tremendously useful, or (2) does have land combat, indicating a degradation of naval/air forces to the point where supply lines for artillery aren't necessarily available.


By the pound, anti-ship and anti-air weapons are probably more useful up front.  There could be some role for tube artillery as anti-ship, but I'm not familiar with options there.  Or that some weird middle ground appears where supply lines are still functional and there is a land war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A bit of both: the Mark 14 Torpedo had to walk fail utterly at the start of the war so the ice cream ships could run at the end.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not going to say your approach is crazy, but it isn't quite the same threat model the typical PKI infrastructure was intended to secure.  You probably have more network connections at hand than was envisioned 30 years ago.


But how do you know you got the "real" bitcoin chain?  Is each party resolving it separately, or are you keeping DNS servers (those have been difficult-to-authenticate, but proposed solutions rely on those darn CAs again)?  Because you know the time and expect a rough block number?  Secure time transfer is one of the classic difficult cryptographic problems.  There are solutions, but the classical ones rely on pre-trusted servers (CAs!) and local trusted randomness.  Using the cell network or GPS wasn't an option at the time, and even today there are real concerns about those (fake base stations!).  And injecting bad notions of time is also a classic attack vector for using broken or revoked credentials.


In practice, I'm not sure you'd be wrong to trust a consensus time from multiple mechanisms, but that sort of thing is a very different model than the classical PKI exists to secure.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How do you know the NSA SPLC didn't pre-register themotte.org, and the pass all your queries on to what you think is the real site while logging all your traffic?  Or that the block chain you see is the real one and not swapped out by your ISP with fake certs?


The PKI system we have is flawed, but you generally start with certificates delivered out-of-band (even if you use Chrome, you downloaded that with TLS in Edge, for example) that would loudly fail if your ISP tries this.  Doing everything in-band is a "turtles all the way down" problem.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How do you trust your counterparty to keep your conversation private without knowing they are who you think they are, and not a leaky proxy?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you're that concerned about censorship, why use TLS at all?  It makes sense if you're concerned about privacy -- assuming your counterparty's certs are actually secured -- but then you also want to make sure your counterparty is who they say they are so you don't leak messages to the wrong parties.


There is a very real privacy-censorship tradeoff here that is inherent in any indirect trust scheme: unless you're trading RSA keys out-of-band with your servers (not bad if you can), the PKI problem isn't really escapable.  Web of trust never worked as an alternative.  Any centralized solution there begets censorship.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is what you want "the certificate shows this server verifiably is run by the owner of the domain (or an approved proxy)?"  That's not all the current regime is doing: there is a nonzero amount of "and is an upright business interest" there that crypto has well-known issues with.  How would you revoke or reject certs from malware hosts?  Even if LetsEncrypt isn't checking site contents, the browser vendors are still doing so, functionally replicating the original centralized PKI complaints.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Imagine if you will that data centers have been built in some old industrial area that regular industry has left.




"Replace shuttered Rust Belt factories with new data centers" has IMO a bit of a nice-sounding vibe to it.  Less clear if the infrastructure would be what you want -- less a railyard and more a substation.  The telecom connections are probably the easy part.  But I don't live in the Rust Belt, so it's not me you'd need to sell on the idea.  The "and you have to clean up the Superfund site" is probably a sticking point, too.