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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 January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This seems like the sort of thing where one only needs to procure a "reasonable physician" or two to testify that they would have reached the same conclusion.  Perhaps the state could impugn the reasonableness of such witnesses, but in this case you could probably rustle up a signed letter from half the doctors at [local hospital] and I think even the craziest jury would have trouble finding all of them "unreasonable".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think to some extent cultural conservatives are doomed to always hate whatever new thing "the kids" are into.  A few decades back it was heavy metal and skateboarding.


Which isn't to say it's the only reason, but I think it's one of the larger elements at play.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Have there been cases, or plausible threats, of doctors getting into trouble for not performing a second test?




Have any doctors gotten into trouble at all since Dobbs?  I can only imagine those cases would have been shouted about even louder.


I can understand the entire Sword of Damocles argument, but I've been surprised that none felt passionately about it enough to pull a Kevorkian and openly violate the rules: it feels to me that people are far more passionate about abortion rights compared to euthanasia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When a close friend had ACL surgery, the doctor mentioned that even full tears healing naturally  isn't unheard of, but in that case (full tear) the surgery was still recommended.  I was surprised that "just live with no ACL" was considered a viable option for anything short of playing sports like soccer.


In that case, I think an outpatient surgery was perhaps a bit optimistic, but the overall recovery prognosis wasn't otherwise inaccurate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Heh, I've come to consider "I can see the spectrum of light sources" as an amusing-but-useless superpower.  It's pretty easy to discern between natural light and color LEDs, for example.  But yeah, it could see it being disorienting pretty easily.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
China has long banned foreign social media companies from operating in its borders, and in 2021 passed severe restrictions on companies taking data on Chinese citizens outside its jurisdiction.  If TikTok were willing to keep its US data in a US subsidiary that operated entirely domestically by employees under US jurisdiction, we'd be having a different conversation, I think.  IIRC Facebook et al already have to keep EU data within the EU too under GDPR.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


creativity levels independently of IQ




As often as it's observed that many of these quantities are correlated, even strongly, I think compressing a notion as complex as "intelligence" to a single axis does a large disservice to the complexity of actual human skillsets.  It feels like a very crude metric for what it is.  Maybe with AGI approaching we'll gain a better understanding of what "intelligence" actually is, because it still feels pretty poorly-defined to me, even if I can't counter with a better suggestion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think there are a few lenses with which to view the "TikTok ban": you can call it protectionism for American social networks, but I think in practice it makes more sense as a tit-for-tat response to a tightening global market for social networks.  Many other countries have, at this point, adopted measures attempting to limit the exfiltration of their social information.  Europe has GDPR, which attempts to apply extraterritorial jurisdiction to its citizens against (largely-American) multinational corporations.  China simply banned American companies like Facebook and Twitter, requires its allowed networks to be subject to state surveillance, and has tried to place limits on foreign companies collecting data on its' citizens.


Until TikTok, the United States has never found itself needing these things: all the other major networks are domestically-controlled, and probably aren't shipping user data to potentially-hostile nations for cloud processing even if it wasn't explicitly banned previously.  For all the concerns about "surveillance capitalism" here, I think simple "trade war retaliation" is a much easier angle, and Trump's positions on those elsewhere suggest that either he'll try to leverage the ban for something in return (unlikely: I can't see China unblocking Facebook) or let it go into effect.  I don't think this is a sympathetic battlefield for even absolutist libertarian-minded free-tradeniks to take a stand.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


HBD therefore socialism argument.




To be fair, I have long been uncertain whether widespread acceptance of HBD (to which I claim no strong opinion) isn't the right-wing slam dunk that I see it occasionally presented as.  In particular, a very extreme left view of it is pretty terrifying too: "comrade, we've discovered a way to measure ability.  You know, from each according to his (or her, or their) ability, and we've deemed you to have lots."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The failure of all parties involved to acknowledge the 1099 borders, under which Jerusalem clearly belongs to the Holy See, has brought untold death and destruction on the region for centuries.


/s


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but the title is clearly getting at something




I find it interesting that my primary take at the title is that anyone that finds themselves with the power (tools) to dismantle the system has enough power that merely taking over the system (house) becomes much easier and more enjoyable.  And I think that bears out: quite a few "freedom fighters" have really just ended with taking the throne for themselves.  The (rare) principled exceptions to that seem IMO to prove the rule.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fair, I suppose.  But the same comment could easily be applied to the vast majority of the content on your average porn site too: most of the content is IMO off-putting, although I won't deny some degree of prurient interest in the most vanilla parts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My reaction has me wondering if my (heterosexual male) sexual desires are unusual in their, uh, vanilla-ness. I remember briefly stumbling into the fanfic community long ago and realizing that the tags were helpful because anything beyond "MF" was probably not for me.  Which isn't even a comment on volume, just that the entire "kink" scene is a pretty instant turn-off for me, and honestly fulfilling monogamy sounds great to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Arguing for stricter environmental regulations because of the disproportionate impact of air pollution on communities of color is.




IMO there is some reasonable ground for considering "systems of oppression" that I would be willing to not consider "woke".  Claiming that slavery or segregation happened, or that women (often) weren't allowed to have certain roles isn't so by itself.  I think it also requires a component of looking at those axes in exclusion of others.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've had great luck with the Discworld books.  Although that stretches "chapter book" a bit because Pratchett wasn't a fan of chapter breaks.  If you like classic science fiction, the Heinlein juvenile series have been pretty well-received.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


No blog is comparable to a Great Book, etc.




I'm pretty sure I remember it from this article, but the joke at the beginning stuck with me and seems relevant:




There is an old joke. A student at Oxford attends a cocktail party with members of the faculty. Hoping to impress these august dons, the student casually mentions, “I was reading Gibbon the other night …” Later, the student’s faculty mentor pulls him aside to chide him for the comment. “One must never say one is reading Gibbon,” he says. “One must always say one is re-reading Gibbon.”




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that's a valid concern in the short term, but I wouldn't expect access control features like permissive action links to prevent a nuclear-capable nation (Ukraine has nuclear plants and engineers) from repurposing weapons it its possession for an extended duration.  I assume it's more like a password on a locked computer, but maybe it's more intrinsic than that (I doubt the details are public enough to know).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this makes some questionable assumptions about the "rightful" structure of the Soviet empire.  As far as I know, those were Soviet weapons, paid for and made by Soviet citizens, some of whom were Ukrainian, and the other SSRs.  That permanent control would belong to the (former!) capital unreasonably privileges it over the other fragmenting client states.


I don't think it would be reasonable, for example, for the British to have demanded back all their military assets from newly-independent nations as their empire fragmented.  "But those ships and guns belong to London!" seems an odd rallying cry for things in many cases the colonies themselves funded.


But in realpolitik terms, I suppose it did make sense at the time to limit the number of resulting nuclear states for proliferation reasons.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The support for Ukraine has been haphazard because western leaders have been utterly convinced Russia is going to collapse any moment




I think also because Western leaders have (potentially-legitimate) concerns about the chain of custody of their high-tech weapons, and their massed dumb munitions production has largely wilted to the point where it's taken time to be able to manufacture large numbers of dumb artillery shells in numbers not needed in probably two generations.  We spent something like a trillion dollars getting the F-35 to active service, and remember what happened when a few B-29s landed in (Allied!) Soviet airfields: the Soviets quickly fielded the Tu-4 that looked just like it.


The last few decades haven't seen a need for Lend-Lease sorts of military support rather than direct conflict with supporting allies.  Maybe giving Stingers to Afghan resistance?
And as far as I can tell, some of the Western concern is also as you said (or early on, the reverse: arms to Ukraine are just going to end in Russian hands when they surrender).  And also financial costs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't speak for your family, but a few generations back large parts of the state were speaking German.  Which went away between 1917 and 1945 for reasons, but I'm sure there were some complaining about three languages back then.




Conversely, if in some counterfactual world I had learned Spanish and I read this comment, I'd likely roll my eyes and think, "Skill issue."




It does seem like bilingualism, at least moderately ability, seems to be becoming more common, especially with intermarriage.  It seems to (mostly) work for Canada, but I also expect ubiquitous machine translation to make things hopefully smoother.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Stranger in a Strange Land, Dune




I just happened to have these next to each other on my reading list a few years back, and I think you've right that the two feel very related, and I approve of your comparison.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks.  I suppose publishing a white paper at least opens them up to more serious scrutiny (which I've seen in serious-ish forums like HN).  But my initial response is rather skeptical still, though.  The encryption methods seem like they should be far more expensive than Apple is letting on [1], and they say they're using this for querying remote databases with encrypted queries.  They're less clear on how these databases (for photographic landmarks, URLs, and such) are encrypted in a manner that actually hides the query from Apple.  Are the encryption keys different per-device?  If so, how do they avoid needing a separate database per device?  And if not, it seems there's a lot of trust that they would be unable to figure out which rows matched.


I know Google's approach to similar issues has been focused more on device side ML models.  Pixel phones support offline song recognition (I've noticed it's fairly limited to popular songs), and Google Translate can work (in a limited fashion) offline.  Why does Apple need to do cloud-based POI recognition in photos?  The whitepaper only shows 6 very well known landmarks, but it seems like it'd be easy enough (and secure!) to do this on-device.  Given the known computational costs of FHE, it might even be better for battery life.


    

  1. Quoting the linked FV paper: "As to whether any of these [previous] proposals is really practical, the answer is simply
“no”.... The most recent paper manages to execute one AES encryption homomorphically
in eight days using a massive amount (tens of GBs) of RAM memory."  That's before their proposed algorithm, but they don't directly seem to claim many-orders-of-magnitude improved tractability.
    2. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There was a fairly infamous case in Cleveland, TX in 2010. Some might debate "Western men" here, but those charged were American citizens as far as I know, not MENA immigrants.  Maybe some of them were Muslim, but probably not all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


pathological need to double down at every opportunity.




Isn't there a classic stock trading scam where you send 2^N Boolean tips ("will go up or down today") for N days, then focus on the small-but-nonempty group that got N correct tips in a row to try to convince them to trust your judgement?  It seems like given enough VCs (monkeys) and opportunities (typewriters), even random chance will give you a few coherent words of Shakespeare and a fawning audience expecting great wisdom.


Of course, I do think your average VC billionaire is much brighter than random chance, but there is a huge selection bias when you find the one (of an unknown size set) that has consistently doubled down and won and assume this to be representative generally.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


homomorphic encryption




Are they currently claiming they do this today?  My understanding of homomorphic encryption (admittedly a bit outside my wheelhouse) is that it's nowhere near as well-trod a space as, say, RSA.  When I last looked, it was possible -- with a bunch of caveats -- to do simple things with a whole bunch of overhead, and certainly no equivalent of a NIST standard (if you trust those: say "Dual EC" with me) for it.


I didn't think the technology to do this well was ready for prime time today, but maybe I'm just a bit out of date.  Do they have a white paper, or, better, a bunch of academic papers?