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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 November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To steel-man the idea that "knowing the cost" is always possible, I'm not sure it'd be reasonable to expect my (car) mechanic to define payment terms for a fix before even popping the hood.  There are enough potential complications in complex procedures (emergency cesarean sections in childbirth, for example) that probably can't be trivially bundled up front.


That said, most of those cases are ones that don't really seem like they get much benefit from market-based economics either.  But presumably somebody has to shoulder the cost of the not-completely-expected procedures that are found to be necessary: I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to the idea of single payer for this specific sort of thing, but haven't thought through all the bounds I'd apply there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


if she went beyond renting and entered into an agreement with her family member that required her to to rent to them or gave the that family member control over the occupancy or use of the property.




It may or may not align with case law, but my first reaction to this statement is observing that most states have laws on the books controlling when and how landlords renting dwellings can re-establish control of unit occupancy and use.  "I have to wait several months to evict my current tenants" seems to imply that someone else has "control over the occupancy or use of the property".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The thing is, I don't think it's possible to make another great Star Wars movie- all the good ideas were completely used up in the original trilogy.




I think Andor was really well executed --- I worried they'd bungle a second season because a small passion project got attention and the studio execs would demand creative control and make terrible decisions (see The Mandalorian).  But I think it shows there is plenty of room for world building and character arcs that exist in the same universe galaxy, but aren't heavily tied to the Skywalker saga of the trilogies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I watched Solo and actually really enjoyed it.




IMO it wasn't bad (nor amazing) when I saw it later, but I probably would have seen it in a theater if TLJ hadn't been so bad.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I found the "ring up and sass the villains" part broke the illusion for me just a couple of minutes into the movie, and it was downhill from there (dropping bombs like a B-17, really?).  The idea that prank calls were relevant (or that secure authenticated comms wouldn't be expected) a long time ago in a galaxy far away was way too far, IMO.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The UCI started requiring helmets during the Armstrong years (there was a year or so in which they were allowed to remove them on a terminal climb in a race).  The aesthetics are maybe worse (Fignon's pony tail!), but there really have been (and continue to be, and I'm not going to look at rigorous stats right now) a number of fatal high-speed crashes in bike races that helmets may mitigate somewhat.


My understanding is that the occasionally-seen soft helmets of the 80s were less about mitigating concussion-type injuries and more about road rash on scalps.  I'd like to think the science has gotten better there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


After that, they were looking at having their airfields and critical infrastructure systematically dismantled by Iranian missile strikes.




I think "dismantled" is overselling it here.  Sure, burning through interceptors isn't great, but you seem to be comparing "Iran got in a few good hits" to "Israel was free to hit all but the hardest targets for as long as it cared to."  There seems to be this common bias towards seeing Western nations as glass cannons, where only a few good hits are required to bring them to their knees, and you can win as long as you can tank whatever they throw at you (which is maybe limited by "moral" concerns about indirectly harming civilians) until you manage that and negotiate an outcome that favors your objectives.  I think if you're against the West fighting a war they got involved in by choice, maybe this works to convince democracies to choose peace (see Vietnam, et al).  I don't think it immediately follows that this applies to something more existential (see Israel vs. Gaza, or Yamamoto at Pearl Harbor).


If landing (conventional) ballistic missiles into enemy capitals was a decisive victory, the Germans would have won WWII.




Also, this all hinges on the United States actually entering the conflict, which nowadays I would call a pretty big if.




Maybe true, but this is still a pretty big "if", and the existence of the question has prompted Europe to start actually investing in defense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most of the modernization went into magic beans (F16s, M1 tanks) that are serviceable but apparently not that magical in modern warfare.




I don't think this is as clear-cut as you want it to be: maybe it is, but we also just saw a brief war between Israel and Iran in which the former was seemingly able to establish air dominance with modern "magic beans" against a country equipped with largely modern Eastern bloc air defense systems.  I don't think Iran even claims to have shot down a manned aircraft (compare to this years' India-Pakistan skirmish, which had several).


I don't think it's completely crazy to suggest that a Russia-NATO conflict might look, in the air, like a scaled up version of the Israel-Iran conflict, and I'd expect air dominance to make it pretty one-sided.  It's also believable that it'd fall into something looking more like the present Ukraine conflict where manned air assets are of limited utility.  But for anyone thinking it's a good idea to start such a conflict, to steal a good movie quote: "You've got to ask yourself one question, 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well do you, punk?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair to Microsoft, they have been bitten several times by governments accusing them of anti-competitive practices for doing things that (which I would agree are anti-competitive) Apple gets away with on the regular because "they are a minor player" (so they can have the only default storefront for installing Mac OS software) or "the phone market is different" (so they can completely lock out other ways to install software on a major platform).  Apple has had its share of cases, but "use USB" doesn't seem as onerous as that Microsoft has been required to do for browser selection and such.


Although most PCs these days use EFI rather than BIOS, and at least a few years back, and Device Tree on ARM is, comparatively, a recent addition over the previous state I hear was even worse.  Microsoft isn't in a place to make major bets to try to displace x86 OEMs without huge legal battles, whereas Apple only needs to support it's own hardware designs, and so we're all stuck in a world of long-term backwards compatibility, although IMO it's worth most of the complexity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At least in TOS, I think the intended comparison is between the Vulcans and Jews.  The Vulcan hand sign is also used in Judaism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair, TOS Trek includes some pretty clear allegory where conflicts with the Klingons and Romulans (one episode of basically submarine warfare) are also themselves allegorical for the Cold War.  The movie Star Trek VI is pretty interesting to watch because it's loosely portraying the end of the Cold War that had just happened (complete with a coup attempt, but no *Swan Lake).


But the recycling of villains into friends did occur multiple times (see also the Ferenghi) and you have a pretty reasonable take on how that was done more broadly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But I would argue that the defining feature of a religion is a monopoly on morality, just as the defining feature of a government is a monopoly on violence.




This is the most satisfying definition I think I've ever heard for religion.  Most have trouble with the fact that there exist "religions" like (some of) Taoism and Confucianism that don't rely on the existence of divine deities per se.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


serving Christ DEI in everything you do?




I don't think it was intentional, but the fact that it is spelled the same as "of God" in Latin from a group of that seems overall against overt Christianity is funny to me in a very deep way.  "In this house we believe in DEI.  Agnus Dei to be specific." Imagine if conservatives started requiring stated support for "Graciousness, Openness, and Dialog" for red state faculty positions.


The sometimes-mentioned alternate "JEDI" also has some religious overtones.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's hard to parse out the causal factors, but one possible effect was that the most extreme factions saw this as an opportunity to push their ideology to the top




Isn't that effectively part of the game-theoretic stability of the two-party system?  If you assume voters can be mapped to a normal distribution on a single axis (a poor model, but probably serviceable here) and have democratic selection within the parties, the left half of a left party claiming 60% of the total would get better representation for their views if they shifted the center of "left" towards their side, and dropped to 51% of the total but still winning the overall.  The same applies in reverse for the right side.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My suspicions (which I'll admit are low-confidence and might be wrong) are that (1) there's a lot of smoke there, but not much fire regarding actual criminal acts on the part of major politicans, and (2) "the files" contain stuff that the government considers sensitive, but not necessarily in a way that is directly related to (1).


For (1), I'll observe that the previous blue administration previously held these files, and I doubt would have held off on either prosecuting (if sufficient evidence exists) or at least making it an embarrassing spectacle during the election (leaks or off-the-record comments).  The only reason not to is if the evidence is particularly weak, or if the story implicates enough collateral damage to other Powers That Be --- the former seems more plausible to me.  For (2), the entire investigation wasn't done anticipating direct public release, and it seems quite likely that some of the investigation would be politically damaging to reveal: someone here previously gave the example of "we were tapping Prince Andrew's phone even before we started the investigation", but generic "sources and methods" is probably correct in some sense.  Also for (2), the side demanding the release of the files has shifted and (overall) stayed with the party opposite the executive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't think the US military would want you if you can not expand quadratics?




I suspect the veterans in our midst can provide more specific anecdotes, but I think the minimum ASVAB score doesn't require this generally, and is probably lower than you seem to be thinking.  But you might not get a desirable specialization.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't even know that "ability to afford" is necessarily even financial: around here, charter (public) schools are covered by the state (with funds taken from the local district, which gets some political consternation).  There may be some cost/time differences for parents regarding bus transportation, though. I think parents who select non-default education options are likely more invested in educational outcomes than probably even the median, regardless of prices --- which may well also have an impact.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are there many near-financially-failing public (state/city) schools?  I would expect the upper half of the university system to do okay regardless of student applications dropping.  The failing schools will be the ones already struggling to put butts in seats, and I'm not sure exactly which those are.  A number of small liberal arts schools have already folded.  Are there borderline state schools unable to fill classes?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you want to see lots of math and geometry, look at the folks doing (manual) machine shop stuff.  Things like "the drawing gives this weird dimension relative to another face over there: I need to include adjustments for tolerance over the separate steps to make all the intermediate features".  Lots of concerns about reference faces, accumulating error, cutter geometry, and a fair amount of trigonometry.


Only professional cabinetry woodworkers are going to care about repeatability: for everyone else, a single piece of furniture only needs to fit together by itself, not have interchangable parts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What fraction of federal employees keep months of savings around?  I know a few that do, but I suspect that a non-trivial fraction, like a lot of Americans, live close enough to paycheck-to-paycheck that a few months is asking a lot.


But I'm sure at least some basically got a free month of unplanned vacation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are there as many boring tomes as I would expect working over evidence for minor policy changes?  I realize some of it is probably sensitive, but I'm not sure where I would go look for things like "the anticipated implications of banning [product] in [industry]" or "the impact of marginal tax rate changes"?


Are there policy works on the government side writing these, or are there just competing narratives in the regulatory docket comments and some judgement summary of the bureaucrats in making their final decisions?


Schoolhouse Rock didn't cover regulations or notice and comment periods.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aren't they allowed to do that still? IIRC it's only a gentleman's agreement that they offer to go do something else.  There have been talking filibusters within the last decade, most notably by Ted Cruz, which included reading Dr. Seuss.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Internet has undergone a massive shift since then that I'd compare to a rapidly growing town: back then we didn't have quite as much variety, but you could mostly trust someone's personal page on a .edu domain and expose ports on your machine like leaving your front door unlocked.  These days it feels very urban and while that has some advantages (variety of content), some really miss the small town vibe and we now all have to lock our doors, encrypt everything, and our kids keep getting distracted by the blinding lights of the casinos and seedy joints that have moved in.


I can understand wanting to have the Internet equivalent of a white picket fence in the 'burbs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It was certainly a common cultural trope at the time.  TV Tropes has a better list than I could come up with offhand, but it's IMO most interesting as an uncommented-on undercurrent like in movies Back to the Future II, Die Hard, or Alien, but there are some works of literature that comment on it on more directly: Crichton's Rising Sun, Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.


I think it's an interesting example of how the zeitgeist can be wrong: Japan remains a world power, but it's projected continued ascent was oversold.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC Tom Riddle's name had to change in translations to maintain the plot-relevant anagram involving his name.