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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 October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that's true in the short term, but children are also, as much as I dislike the phrase, "an investment in the future": if we decide to stop having kids (experiment ongoing in South Korea, among others), we can save so much money in childhood education and improve industrial output.  Surely this won't have any consequences on a longer time horizon. /s


I'm not sure how I'd recommend aligning the incentives more broadly, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


perhaps also shortsighted that the writers of the 22nd amendment




Honestly I think their biggest sin was writing in the passive voice.  The amendment text is rather unclear as to who is empowered to keep such a person from becoming elected by the electoral college.  To be fair, it's a bit of a problem with the qualifications listed in the original text too: SCOTUS had to weigh in on whether each of the states got to decide that independently (apparently not, at least for those details).  It's unclear what is supposed to happen if some state decides to put him on the top of the ballot (I suspect SCOTUS would weigh in, but I don't know what they'd decide), the voters choose him, and the electoral college convenes to elect him.


This would all be much clearer if it included something like the 18th's "The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."  And if such legislation had been drafted and passed, I suppose.  Then we'd get an answer to "which birth certificate forms can [state A] expect to certify that a candidate was born a citizen in [state B]?" (or even the John McCain case) and similar seemingly-trivial-but-devil-in-the-details questions like "Are you sure this is the same Donald J. Trump born in 1946 that was president previously?".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm increasingly of the opinion that standard economic measures like GDP are flawed insofar as they only capture production and not reproduction, when it's pretty clear that the latter means a lot more in the long term.




I've occasionally mused that we should have a separate GDP term that captures "investment into The Future (tm)", specifically with an eye to things like capital investments that are net efficiency improvements.  Something like "how much discretionary spending are spending above and beyond the cost of keeping the economy going?"  But I think as a measure it's poorly-defined because "The Future" isn't necessarily something we all agree upon: is California's meandering, super-expensive high-speed rail project such a capital investment?  I think it's easier to defend that (most) healthcare spending isn't a long-term investment because in many cases it's just fixing something that maybe didn't need to be broken: in an ideal world (let's assume Fully Automated Gay Space Communism, but that's probably a less-universal ideal than when Star Trek TNG was still on the air) we'd have relatively few doctors because people wouldn't get injured, at least as often.


But it's a hard metric to fully define.  I'd be interested in reading more if any economists are looking this direction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm curious what you'd peg as the "Golden Age" here, because complaints about the Internet going downhill have been evergreen since the endless September of 1994 began.


I'm not sure where I'd put the peak generally: in a few ways it's actually better than back then, if you're looking for scientific papers (open access at least exists as a concept) or niche hobby groups.  The small-town "trust" feel does seem gone --- that analogy aligns with my "closing of the Western Cyber Frontier" narrative I've wanted to try putting to long-form words some time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Will it be Obama or Trump?




Why not both?  It seems boomerlibs do blame everything on Reagan, but boomercons like to blame Carter and/or "the hippies" similarly ("JFK started the closings of asylums, and the ACLU was for it").  Two screens and all that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it loosely has an assumed connotation of "generally agreed upon", even if the word doesn't directly imply that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And people are still making JD Vance couch jokes referencing a completely fake quote from his book.  Many of those same fine folks were concerned about "misinformation" within the last few years.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that there are essentially no constitutional limits on political spending and advertising. At the time, it was widely anticipated that this would turn American politics into the wild west of corruption, crony capitalism, and corporate propaganda.




Is there someone interested in a steelman of ruling Citizens United in the opposite direction?  The initial oral argument featured a claim that federal election law gave the government the authority to literally ban books.  A redux argument in that case rather memorably featured Solicitor General Kagan (now a SCOTUS Justice) had the following dialog (PDF warning):




CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: But we don't put our
-- we don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands
of FEC bureaucrats; and if you say that you are not
going to apply it to a book, what about a pamphlet?


GENERAL KAGAN: I think a -- a pamphlet
would be different. A pamphlet is pretty classic
electioneering, so there is no attempt to say that 441 b
only applies to video and not to print. It does --


JUSTICE ALITO: Well, what if the
particular -- what if the particular movie involved here
had not been distributed by Video on Demand? Suppose
that people could view it for free on Netflix over the
internet? Suppose that free DVDs were passed out.
Suppose people could attend the movie for free in a
movie theater; suppose the exact text of this was
distributed in a printed form. In light of your
retraction, I have no idea where the government would
draw the line with respect to the medium that could be
prohibited.


GENERAL KAGAN: Well, none of those things,
again, are covered.


JUSTICE ALITO: No, but could they? Which
of them could and which could not? I understand you to
say books could not.


GENERAL KAGAN: Yes, I think what you --
what we're saying is that there has never been an
enforcement action for books. Nobody has ever
suggested -- nobody in Congress, nobody in the
administrative apparatus has ever suggested that books
pose any kind of corruption problem, so I think that
there would be a good as-applied challenge with respect
to that.


JUSTICE SCALIA: So you're -- you are a
lawyer advising somebody who is about to come out with a
book and you say don't worry, the FEC has never tried to
send somebody to prison for this. This statute covers
it, but don't worry, the FEC has never done it. Is that
going to comfort your client? I don't think so.


JUSTICE GINSBURG: But this -- this statute
doesn't cover. It doesn't cover books.


GENERAL KAGAN: No, no, that's exactly
right. The only statute that is involved in this case
does not cover books. So 441b which --


CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Does cover books.


GENERAL KAGAN: -- which does cover books,
except that I have just said that there would be a good
as-applied challenge and that there has been no
administrative practice of ever applying it to the
books. And also only applies to express advocacy,
right? 203 has -- is -- is -- has a broader category of
the functional equivalent of express advocacy, but 441b
is only express advocacy, which is a part of the reason
why it has never applied to a book. One cannot imagine
very many books that would meet the definition of
express advocacy as this Court has expressed that.


CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Oh, I'm sorry, we
suggested some in the last argument. You have a history
of union organizing and union involvement in politics,
and the last sentence says in light of all this, vote
for Jones.


GENERAL KAGAN: I think that that wouldn't
be covered, Mr. Chief Justice. The FEC is very careful
and says this in all its regulations to view matters as
a whole. And as a whole that book would not count as
express advocacy.


CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, General.




I personally don't find the government's argument here persuasive, especially in light of why Fahrenheit 9/11 (a documentary very critical of the Bush administration released during the 2004 election cycle), clearly a corporate work, was deemed acceptable by the FEC, but Hillary: The Movie was somehow not.  I'd love to hear a steelman of the FEC's choices there, because I find it really unpersuasive.  Maybe there's something on the "corporate" angle there, but I have trouble with the idea that such an important constitutional right disappears as soon as you band together.  And if you go that route, it seems like you're limiting rights only to the monied class: it prevents crowdfunding to fly a branded blimp, but wouldn't preclude, say, Elon Musk deciding to fund that same blimp by himself.  If you think "paying other people" for that blimp comes into play, I hope you don't need to pay someone else to put up billboards.  It's just turtles all the way down, even if I'm not completely happy with the final decision.


ETA: I'm not even convinced that current Justice Kagan would side with General Kagan of the time here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That does seem like the most likely outcome, especially with the current high court, but there have been cases where courts have "pressed X to doubt" on questionable factual assertions by the executive.  "Is there lawlessness on the streets of [several cities] sufficient to send in the National Guard?" is one such case that's ongoing (I largely expect SCOTUS to side with the executive there, for better or worse).  But I guess half a century of Tradition! in this case is only one of "arbitrary and capricious".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
WRT Hemani, it really seems like some court at some point needs to question whether marijuana really fits the definition of a Schedule I controlled substance.  I'm not a user, or even a fan of it, but "no known medical use" seems pretty flat on its face given that most states have accepted medical uses.  But I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath for government policy to have to, uh, actually make sense to a lay person like me, and it doesn't impact me directly anyway.


Maybe if a hypothetical right wing administration tried to put Mifepristone on that list would we actually see some questions about "rational basis" here.  But (fortunately, at least for my moderate views on abortion) the broader right seems mostly-okay(?) with the status quo where the FDA has legalized and regulated it nationwide, despite newfound state regulation of other (non-drug-induced) methods.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
TIL: It had only one until 2022 (and had two previously last century).  My  memory wasn't completely wrong there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Without drastically changing how representatives work, Montana's one house seat isn't going to reflect its entire populace.  By some definitions, single-seat states are the most gerrymandered (slaps roof "this district can fit so many minorities without giving any of them representation!"), although clearly not so by local legislative intent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even that straightforward approach has some interesting questions to handle about rounding.  In this case, 1/3 of 6 seats works out, but it's not hard to look at other states and imagine "24.9 percent of two seats" or things like that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Most opinions get issued over the summer, so that seems pretty typical.  Although IIRC this one was argued last year too, so it's a bit of an odd duck.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


total upending of the VRA house of cards, but this is the consequence of previous pragmatisms from SCOTUS.




IIRC most of the legislation in question from the 60s is, as-written, race-neutral.  Those laws generally say "on the basis of race", not "against Black people".  In practice there was an agreed-upon direction, and nobody until fairly recently (if now) has gotten much push-back on discrimination against white people, especially those in the South ("segregation" always brings to mind George Wallace, and never redlining in Detroit or Chicago --- not endorsing, just observing), and most of the interpretation of the text of the law by the judicial branch has been heavily-colored by this expectation.


But it is an interesting set of questions about how existing norms adopted against an era of bipolar segregation apply to a modern multi-polar racial society.  Maybe there are some echoes of how some world leaders (Putin comes to mind) are attempting to claim a multi-polar world.  Once we start considering, I dunno, French-speaking Cajuns, it isn't clear that our ideal districts can be planar.  And what we'd do if we "ended segregation" and lived in homogenized neighborhoods (IIRC Singapore does this by fiat), how would we achieve what Gingles asks if the other reasons for the decision were still present?


That said, I think the easiest fix to gerrymandering is to move away from geographic districting, probably to a slate-of-candidates system.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The nannies are not breastfeeding in crucial early life years




A brief search suggests wet nursing still exists as a practice in the US, but isn't terribly common.  Maybe that'd see a resurgence, but honestly formula babies seen to turn out mostly okay too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Canada, the UK, or China also have decent universities, and at least the first two are much less likely to cancel my visa over political views expressed online.




Note that Canada is changing policies to reduce the number of student visas issued going forward, and the UK is considering some similar changes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most people are racist, but very few Americans publicly gloss their racism as racism.




I'm sad Avenue Q doesn't seem to have any productions going around anymore.  There is a high school adaptation, but I feel like that wouldn't be quite the same.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe we could start a left-wing group chat called "The Young Turks", named in honor of the group behind the Armenian genocide.  Nah, that'd be too obviously bait.


/s


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This reads a lot like the "50 Stalins" dialog, and I at least see a plausible reading where "That would be Hitler" is rhetorically "No, 50 Stalins!" in a way that is pointing out the extremism of one's own side.


I guess it depends on how earnestly "Hitler" is supposed to be taken here, or if it's a clearly-over-the-top suggestion.  Still relatively unprofessional for such an organizational forum, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is a different argument from the typical "words are violence".  This seems to come from the libertarian view that "government is [a monopoly on] violence", and ultimately that all laws the legislators craft are enforced at the threat of violence.  You do something that sounds banal like banning the sale of "loosie" individual cigarettes to enforce tax laws and maybe wave hands about "public health", and ultimately if some of the populace resists this seemingly-nonviolent policy, your enforcers will end up killing them.  I doubt there's a single law of the state for which sufficiently determined noncompliance won't end with physical violence.


That said, while I think the libertarians have a mostly-self-coherent ethical view (which is more than many can say), I think some level of civilization is worth the trade off in terms of absolute freedoms.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think you're being crazy here: there have been a number of announced foiled plots to attack EU arms manufacturers.


But it's not inconceivable that it was a garden-variety industrial accident, which do happen from time to time.  PEPCON in 1988 in Nevada has some loose ends, but I haven't seen foreign sabotage seriously suggested even though the company was supplying solid rocket fuel for both the Space Shuttle and ICBMs.  The USCSB series of videos on chemical plant accidents is sobering, if nothing else.


On the gripping hand, telling the public even if there were evidence of malfeasance inherently would raise the stakes towards calls for open warfare, and I can see an argument for responding in a subtle, yet clear-to-the-counterparty way under the table.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Seems like one of those pervasive labeling problems: the Mormons in question label themselves as "Christian", which I think makes the use of it in this context within the realm of reasonable takes, even if the Pope, or maybe even the majority of self-identified Christendom don't accept that label.


Analogously, I don't think "Islamic fundamentalism" as defined from the outside in the West needs to take into detailed account which groups think of each other as infidels.  "Actually Hamas aren't Islamic Fundamentalists because Ali was the rightful heir to the throne" is, uh, a take.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I believe this (maybe less on the specifics of "heresy") is part of Tom Holland's thesis in Dominion.  And I think it is true that Social Justice does hew closely to some teachings ("blessed are the poor", "and the last shall be first") which were first popularized by Christianity in a world where vae victus was much closer to the norm.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 12, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


dunce tutoring




I assume this is a typo for "dance", but I find it rather amusing.


ETA: This dumb brought to you by not being fully awake.