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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 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Before mass migration we could functionally ignore HBD and be nice and get along because the country was 87% white




I'm not going to say you're fully wrong here, but history suggests that the 87% of what is currently considered "white" did not self-identify at the time as homogeneous.  The largest single lynching in US history was of Italians (and why we celebrate Columbus Day).  And they're hardly the only such group.


The perceived unity of the mid-twentieth century seems IMO more a product of the trauma-bonding of the wars, the looming Cold War threat to unite against, and mass-market broadcast culture.  TV, radio, and print media all existed, but were restricted to scales that gate kept access and enforced some degree of "same screen".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Epstein seems an interesting comparison, because he also killed himself [citation needed], doubtlessly because of, at least in part, a bunch of negative press coverage.  Surely if we need these sorts of protections for plagiarizing, fabulist sociology professors, we also need them for pedophile financier socialites: think of how much blood is on those journalist's hands, too!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As an example, does anyone even remember that Stanford's (white) president was forced to resign in 2023 over research misconduct brought forward by the student newspaper?  Fabricating (literal data manipulation!) Alzheimer's research in Nature you'd think would be a bigger deal.  He's still a professor there, even.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have observed in the past that warfare has gotten, for lack of a better term, more abstract in the last century or two.  Time was, you fight because the enemy would sack your cities, take your lands, put you and yours to the sword, or similar.  But those things are unseemly by modern Western standards (not saying they don't happen, though).  Modern states fight for principles or alliances or things like that, and we'd likely prefer to force surrender (or at least negotiations) rather than aim for maximum destruction.  See the current Iran conflict: we certainly could strike bridges and power plants, but that's not abstract like we'd like it (not judging, merely observing).


It seems the logical conclusion is that we'll move to warfare between entirely-robotic forces, with any human casualties seen as "gross, icky, war-crime material".  On the other hand, the abstraction only works when all parties accept the implication: the Taliban didn't have the good sense to give up in the face of overwhelming force that wasn't accompanied by wanton destruction.  Neither does Iran, it seems.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Symbolic AI which was a thing in the 70s-80s, ie almost 3 decades before the transformer.




I have a few AI books from that era that I've been meaning to flip through again just to get a kick out of the huge vibe shift in the field.  When I remember acquiring them 15-20 years ago, it seemed it was all attempts to create bespoke approaches to each aspect of the human experience.  Hand-coded language models ("verb", "subject", "object"), visual edge detection, spectrograms for speech recognition, physical world models, and so forth.  Nowadays, "lolz, just throw data and compute at it" seems the preferred approach.


To be fair, the limitations of the bespoke methods were known at the time: different words can serve different roles in different contexts.  Sometimes we noun verbs and verb nouns.  And so on for the other spaces.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I would love to get Epsteins ability to get random super successful people to email me back.




In the academic/philanthropic space here I think it might be sufficient to just have money.  Full professors at research institutions are, from having talked with several, largely focused on raising money to pay for grad students and postdocs to do the real work (and a large fraction for university overhead).  Other university leadership is looking to put names on new buildings or departments.  The startup/VC ecosystem seems largely similar, where I've seen founders stoop to surprising levels in the interest of closing a funding round, and only later go on to great success.  These people aren't fools, but having it known that there are nine or more digits in your bank account makes them take you seriously, laugh at your dumb jokes, and tell you how great your ideas are.  The comparisons to, uh, escorts (which Epstein also seemed to like hanging out with) write themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From knowing a bit about the topic (very peripherally related to some research interests), I doubt it'll do as much as they propose.  Existing algorithms might well work, but can't allow for an open "is this watermarked?" oracle, or it becomes fairly straightforward to start stripping watermarks, or even deriving the ways to generate them.


And if every attempt to check the watermarks requires going through Anthropic, it doesn't seem to be that much better than "is this in our set of generated artifacts?".


And that's in addition to the inherent fragility of such watermarks against edits and the amount of background data needed to hide one (I don't have a quantity in mind).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for August 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm legitimately curious about how attorney-client privilege here interacts with therapist-client privilege.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for August 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As tempting as it is to socialize with the people you know at a conference (fellow attendees from your organization, most likely), I'd recommend you at least make an effort to talk to someone new (daily?).  It'll vary based on field, but "what is your research interest?" or "are you presenting?  Tell me about your topic" are pretty evergreen.  Some conferences provide meals, which I've found to be a good time for this.  I'd expect many/most of these attempts to go nowhere (maybe they're a vendor of something you don't need), but the practice of talking about it and making connections is useful, and sometimes you learn something or meet someone interesting.  If you want to be particularly savvy, find a paper/presentation that sounds interesting to you and try to chat with the specific author/speaker.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


communists to start a total extermination race war




Can I ask the Finns, or the eastern half of Poland?  Or Tibet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I assure you that women with dance training DO do it though.




I'm not going to say the video was my favorite, but to describe it as "silly walks" probably undersells the grace in the motions.  The movements are quick, fluid, and precise, and not something an untrained person flailing about could do.  It looks qualitatively different from, say, the Raygun breakdancing performance (which itself was better than most could manage).  I might have missed a double being composited in, but I think Qualley did at least the bulk of the shots.


Aesthetically, I'm on the fence, but at least on a technical level it's impressive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most "girl pretty" outside the Asian sphere of influences make female faces more masculine, not less.




I think I understand what you're getting at, although it has varied over the years a bit.  Not exactly a shortage of angular-jawed models and actresses, especially a decade back.  But I'm not sure if I understand what direction you're trying to describe as "more feminine".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Doing a barrel roll with a passenger plane has likely never been done before, and likely never will ever again.




"Tex" Johnson somewhat famously did a barrel roll in a test demo for the Boeing 707.  There is video of that event.  Bob Hoover was also famous for doing aerobatics in business aircraft at airshows, to say nothing of the time he escaped a German POW camp and stole a German plane to fly home.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Would you kindly construct The Torment Nexus?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It seems like you're asking to take more of a producer (maybe director) role on the project, to use the cinematic terms.  I doubt those roles are really "one-shot" even for human workers.  Maybe the executive producers for auteur directors are hands off, but a lengthy timeline of "lets review the progress and the plan" at various stages (storyboards, production planning) is what I'd expect there.  The producer isn't designing the costumes, say, but does provide feedback on them and how the whole project fits together to steer the final product.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Lauren pays her taxes, stays employed, doesn't break the law more than a speeding ticket here and there, and some technically still illegal marijuana at her apartment. This is exactly the kind of person who I want to have feel like they are engaged with society so that they are thinking about society. But that's not happening. What made Lauren feel bad today? What made her feel good?




I was talking about roughly this with some friends recently, and it came up that in some ways post-industrial humans seem to be suffering the same sorts of malaise that zoo animals do.  Sure, we have plenty of food and are kept safe, but we've socially isolated ourselves, and many of us are, at a fundamental level, mentally and physically unhealthy.  We engage in over-grooming and self-destructive activities.  Can't get pandas in captivity to maintain species-wide TFR either.


But this is entirely of our own making, and we're not truly stuck here.  I wish I could say exactly which factors it is here: I really don't know.  The Right would tell you we're coddled and incapable of facing the real-world situations.  The Left would tell you we're just not comfortable enough.  I'm not really convinced by either case there, but certain elements of both ring true.  If I were a sci-fi writer, I think Do Not Create the Human Zoo would be an interesting book to write.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If the US won this war, then it has to go down as the first war in history that required Op-eds to convince anyone that we had won.




I have at least read op-eds attempting to convince me that Vietnam and Iraq were, in hindsight, successful (or at least not complete failures).  Vietnam is, despite the ultimate victory of the North in its civil war, today a closer ally of the US than of nominally-communist China (somehow a win for Domino theory stans?).  Iraq is, while imperfect, a much more stable and Western-aligned nation than under the Hussein regime.  I'm not sure I really agree with either, but I don't think they're completely false.  The "what if" of the Arab Spring on a non-Iraq-war hypothetical seems difficult, but the current timeline is at least plausibly better than a Syria-like alternate timeline.


I don't find the others a very persuasive argument, but it might at least not be the first.  This one is maybe a bit early to call, but isn't screaming great success.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's amusing to watch the downstream implications of this: a decent chunk of local discussion I see (very blue neighborhood in red state) is "vote blue", but also "why are plumbers/electricians/HVAC visits so expensive?"  What did you think paying blue collar workers more meant, and why didn't it include what you pay them for services?  I don't like paying the rates, but I at least appreciate that "living wage" isn't, like, free, man.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The increase in single-hood seems relevant here: even without the gender roles arguments directly, cooking for two (or a family!) is a lot easier to amortize than two people cooking for one.  I (male) cook for our household probably more than half the meals we eat at home (we do eat out more than we probably should, but for us it's not a financial concern).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is this true? Obama would seem to be the leading brand. And he definitely played the DEI game.




It's certainly not universal or consistent, but there are examples.  Clarence Thomas has described affirmative action as a "badge of inferiority" and wrote a concurrence in Students for Fair Admissions (2023) against it.  There are at least a few Hispanic writers that have criticized the practice (Richard Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory is, I think, the one I read in school).  Kemi Badenoch is also on the record against it, if you want a non-American example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How does one waste four months of investigation on this?




I'm not familiar with how law enforcement works here.  Does "four months of investigation" imply more than "this was theoretically on someone's desk for four months before officially closing the case, but actual time may or may not have been spent on it"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Imagine if we'd held a plebiscite on whether universities should continue spending money on this "Internet" thing in friggin' 1973




If it helps, if you held this retroactively today, I'm still not sure how I'd personally vote.  I get a lot out of the Internet, but I do sometimes wonder if it's worth all the downsides.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Partly it's happening, just slower than you think




This is always the case with technology: it can take a surprising amount of time to replace existing infrastructure even when new technology is clearly better.  Existing equipment was expensive and still works, teaching staff new workflows  has overhead, and the impetus to actually change things is often low.  OPM was still processing paper records for employee retirement until very recently.  How many industrial machines are still running DOS out there?


I can imagine AI being both transformative and seemingly-ubiquitous, but still not reaching all the dark corners of the workforce for a generation or two.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You may grumble at an auto factory, but you do, at least, understand why cars are necessary. Even if you personally don't own a car and rely on public transport to get everywhere, it's obvious that there's real public demand for cars, on the basis of their obvious usefulness. You might not want a factory near you, but you understand why there need to be factories somewhere. LLMs have not cleared that hurdle.




I don't think you're completely wrong here, but in this case the comparison to make if you think AI will be extremely useful would be if the anti-car urbanists started showing up to protest your car factory.  Sure, you might not want it in your neighborhood, but you buy a new (to you, at least) car every so often and don't want them to become scarce resources, and people show up to protest every single car factory on the basis of "induced demand" traffic claims, "just walk, bruh", accident statistics, and a demand that you commute by never-to-be-finished passenger rail instead.  They are convinced cars have no real use, and it'd be rather frustrating to normies if they doubled car prices without delivering any of the promised better alternatives first.


How to tell which framing is more relevant seems difficult from inside the situation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Texas is an interesting case there because ERCOT has long-term (2032) forecasts expecting peak grid demand to rise from 91GW (last month) to 370GW.  More than 4x!  I'm frankly not sure where they expect energy to come from, but solar (and battery storage), wind, and natural gas have been growing pretty fast for years now.  But probably more important is that someone is at least thinking about the distribution infrastructure to do so.