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VoxelVexillologist

🇺🇸 Multidimensional Radical Centrist

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joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
User ID: 64


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
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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				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This thread really could use a link to the "that's not a knife" scene from Crocodile Dundee.


Also this seems like a good question to add to the next user survey.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It probably gets most of its use cutting boxes, zip ties, those infuriating plastic clamshell packages, and once or twice has cut and stripped copper wire.  Often enough that it's worth carrying around, but not used daily, and not always at home where I know where the scissors are.  I can't undo zip ties by hand.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I cannot fathom why anyone would carry a knife with them to a social occasion.




I carry a small multi-tool on my keychain, and other than having to remember to remove it before air travel or large venue events with metal detectors, I've never stabbed someone with it in the almost two decades I've carried it.  The closest I've gotten there has been on myself.  Also useful as a screwdriver and small pliers.  The knife on it is maybe two inches long and would be a very ineffective weapon.  I know folks that carry a full-size multi-tool around, too.


Hopefully you wouldn't kick me out of your social occasions, but I suppose standards for edged "weapons" vary a lot by country: it'd be legal here for me to concealed carry a firearm many places I go, but I don't.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The time I've heard the most complaints about these was from a friend (grad student) trying to find housing in a college town and complaining that lots of the (good) places were 55+ and obviously not available to students.  Honestly, in-context I can imagine older adults appreciating some guarantee that the neighbors won't throw a kegger and loudly play beer pong into the wee hours of the morning.


I'm less content with, but maybe understand, not wanting young families adjacent.  We should really do better about making most spaces more family-friendly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the implication is "if my lawyers say I can" is roughly the same as "in Minecraft".  I'm not sure I buy it completely here, but "I'm going to murder [person] if my lawyers say I can" does seem dumb enough to express such an intent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wasn't expressing an opinion on Baumol more broadly than the one specific example, which I think has plenty of logic to show exists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Strictly speaking, this is a pseudoscientific attitude.




Do you have a suggestion for how an above-board business that requires one employee per four paying customers (well, per infant the customers are paying for) can cost less than a quarter of a minimum employee salary for that duration?  I was suggesting it as a pretty obvious bound from a business perspective, absent subsidies (which have their own bounds).


Nobody seems to be seriously considering AI and robotics to let a single human watch more than four infants at once, and frankly I'm not really sure I would either.  But without that, the bounds apply.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Childcare is not that expensive




This particular example feels like it's a function of rising income expectations: you have to pay the help Your daycare costs more than a few bucks a day for very foreseeable reasons.  Childcare workers expect to be paid minimum wages (citation needed), and mandated child-to-caretaker ratios make the cost of infant childcare about a quarter of a minimum wage salary before even considering benefits, rent, or other business costs, which are probably nontrivial additions.


People's time is expensive, especially as living standards grow: it's perhaps not obvious, but why wouldn't worker-efficiency-capped services rise in cost at pace with (or more than!) average incomes?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Somewhere in here is an uncomfortable question about whether Von Stauffenberg is an example of a stochastic terrorist.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What sort of "think tank" are you looking for? RAND has jobs posted on their web site.  So does the Heritage Foundation even, it seems.


But I can imagine more niche options that look like billionaires' pet policy promotion are probably in practice patronage programs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Women worked. They did not work a traditional job, but they worked.




From the accounts I'm familiar with before the Industrial Revolution (and even after, if to a more limited extent), there are plenty of women-coded "traditional jobs" that can be done from the house.  Sewing, weaving, spinning, and knitting weren't always hobbies, and the results could be sold or done as services for others.  Textiles are dirt cheap these days, but accounts from history often have budgets where the cost of clothing isn't that far from rent.  Candlemaking comes to mind, too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


When your social pool of people expands from your local neighborhood to the entire country, people aren’t going to think their backyard community of individuals will ever be good enough




I guess I haven't heard so much about it more recently, but when I was a kid, the generational mentality of "Keeping up with the Jones'" was mocked frequently.  I think it's funny that social media has really taken that to 11 all the while people still mock older generations for wasting so much effort and money for social status.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Farm land stays fixed while food demand falls. Food becomes cheaper.




IIRC we have quite a bit less farmland than a couple generations ago, but produce quite a bit more total with it because of efficiency scaling.  There is a lot of no-longer-under-plow land out there, although much of it wasn't very good for farming anyway.


Food is still cheaper, although I don't think your point is completely wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The average IQ on the internet has dropped a point a year since 2010 I'd say.




We're still stuck in the Eternal September of 1993, when the powers that be decided to allow regular people, not just university students and researchers, onto the Internet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For opsec reasons I wasn't actually willing to upload the spreadsheet and have Fable one-shot it




I think "opsec reasons" are ultimately one of the big limiting factors for OpenAI, Anthropic, et al: lots of situations will really prefer something in-house, or at least an ironclad contract about confidentiality.


In the past I've wondered about the long-term market for server-side AI: I'm sure it's non-zero, but I suspect any organization of sufficient size will find themselves rolling out internal hardware and models in the medium term unless the big players keep sufficiently ahead of the commodity models and hardware prices stay high.  I've heard of it being done with open weight models already.


Even without seeing the content the AI models see, I've been curious how much intelligence Google (or governments, presumably) could glean from search queries on an aggregate basis.  Hypothetically, "Wow, internal Microsoft searches about WINE and Linux are up 100x in the last month, I wonder what they're working on?" gives away potential insider information.  Querying the local AI server doesn't give that away.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Relatedly, the UK countries compete separately at the World Cup (it's England specifically, although I think Scotland and Wales have qualified before), but as a combined "Team GB" at the Olympics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it’s natural fodder for jokes that the French team be so visibly un-French in background




Doesn't France use a definition of "French" that looks more like the American self-definition?  I suppose I can't speak to how widespread the view is within the country, but at least from here it has a reputation, far more than the rest of Europe, of considering France to be a meme, and its adherents to be French.


I guess I'd be interested in hearing a real French perspective on this, if someone is willing to volunteer one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the example of Jews here is complicated because of events last century: "there are fewer Jews than there should be" is a sentiment that I've heard expressed multiple times even as an outsider, and seems broadly believed in the community (willing to hear closer accounts, if anyone wants to offer).  That's a hugely pronatalist meme that probably outweighs things like urbanism and education.


It's unclear that there would be such a consensus on the issue without that shared generational trauma.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think that's a terrible definition, but it still ends up bounded by the amount of information in the environment available to feed into your intelligence.  A third eye would give humans "more information", but probably wouldn't improve our intelligence substantially.  I'm sure there are some perfectly capable blind physicists out there.


The other question is what a bunch of Von Neumann clones could do today.  IIRC the idea of an atomic bomb was at least known before the Manhattan Project started.  It's hard to know in foresight what sort of advances could be made in the next five years, and which will prove intractable.  It'd be awesome to solve fusion power, but it's taken well more than five years so far.  I'm not sure that the geography of "the possible future" is well enough known to make great claims about what could be there: not all advances that can be seen are inherently terrible.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I remain unconvinced about (1): it reads as plausible, but I don't think the existence of "superintelligence" is obvious.  It seems just as likely that if intelligence is, say, predictive ability, then it could be bounded by the scale of input data with diminishing returns.  As an idea, we can train a human to a decent fraction of what cutting-edge models do without needing anything near the scope of training material that the Big Kids are crunching, and with under a hundred watts for 20 years or so.


But first we'd need to iron out what intelligence is, which seems murky still beyond "I'll know it when I see it" a la the Turing test.  Is it essentially connected to consciousness (what is that, too)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe related: the "contact us" page has a warrant canary saying no warrants have yet been received in 2023.


Probably just forgetting to update, it, but you never know.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursday for July 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The US Navy in WWII lost quite a few ships and aircraft to typhoon storms in the Pacific.  Typhoon Cobra sunk three destroyers and killed 790 sailors, but there were a few other storms too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Would I be wrong to think that an artist in Eastern Europe would be more likely to recognize such symbols than a random US tattoo joint?  I certainly don't have a good feel for the zeitgeist on the ground there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


While solar power is plentiful in space, computing turns the energy consumed into heat, and radiative cooling is not very efficient, especially if you want your chips to run at 400K and not 4000K.




This is at least a solvable design problem, if not a trivial one --- terrestrial temperatures being generally comfortable compared to the extremes of hot and cold in space.  It's a bit different for LEO because the Earth is a big object in view, but otherwise the Sun is hot and dark space is very cold.


The entire planet sits in (mostly) thermal balance between solar radiation, terrestrial energy, and radiative cooling to space.  No particular reason a satellite can't do that too, although again not as trivially as "slap a heat sink and fan on it" that works down here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is that still true? I'm unconvinced "but every Tesla sold could be uploading it's driving camera data over 5G" is quite the win here.  Waymo has a lot of vehicles these days, and could be sneakernet-ing all their data (including LIDAR as a source of truth to train video models) nightly too, just without the bandwidth limits.


Not to mention the entire Street View corpus, which seems likely to cover much of the available value there.