@VoxelVexillologist's banner p

VoxelVexillologist

Multidimensional Radical Centrist

1 follower   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC 

				
User ID: 64


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
VoxelVexillologist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Multidimensional Radical Centrist

				
				
				

				

					1 follower  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 18:24:54 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 64


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for December 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If, despite her skinniness and near-veganism, she's strong as an ox and endures like a camel, then there is no problem with her diet.




I think this is probably a good starting point, but I will observe that there are plenty of professional athletes, even successful ones, who have eating disorders.  The term of art there seems to be RED-S these days.  For those, the concerns are more "are they getting injured more often than they should" (energy deficiency can cause bone density issues), and, for women, if they are menstruating regularly (hormonal birth control can mask this issue).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have lately wondered if what we're missing is a bunch of, I suppose, nuns with rulers or the equivalent to punish modest anti-social behavior (defecting, in this conversation) promptly with a transient painful stimulus that neither leaves lasting marks nor a permanent legal record.


But I don't think it would work in all cases, or maybe even at all.  And it's almost certainly disallowed by the Constitution.  And suffers from a lot of ambiguity as to where to draw the lines.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There are some fairly highly ranked red state public schools that are probably less-left-leaning than most given the leverage state elected officials have over the institutions: Texas and Florida have both explicitly banned school-sponsored DEI initiatives.  At least Texas A&M has a bit of a reputation for conservativism, and at least in the past when I've talked to lefties from Colorado they treat Colorado Springs as a very red part of the state because of the Air Force Academy there, but that may be a bit out of date at that point.


I'd bet any heavily-Greek school is "conservative" in at least a change-averse, slightly-social-conservative fashion that might not map to politica, but I don't have direct experience there.  And this isn't to say that these schools are necessarily right-of-center, but more right-leaning than most universities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my experience, the few folks that care about "noon is noon" (say, those aligning telescopes) already aren't using UTC because the second granularity of leap seconds isn't good enough, and the statement is only true for a single meridian within your time zone anyway.


For example, almost all satellite navigation (also used for time synchronization of local clocks) uses monotonic time on the backend.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The fact that Unix time is based on UTC, which observes leap seconds, and not TAI, which is monotonic, is IMO a pretty poor decision.  It's not "the number of seconds since the epoch", it has weird jumps and skips.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO Mars doesn't necessarily seem like it will be the most interesting destination:  It seems likely that once we have the technology for extended in-space habitation to get there, the bottom of a large gravity well seems a relatively boring place to hang out.  What does the planet get you? Gravity? Spinning habitations seem easy enough.  Meteorite protection?  We'll need to have figured that out anyway.  Land? Is it really easier for farming than in-space?


The asteroid belt looks a lot more tempting to me because even if resources are scarcer (unclear), they are easier to move elsewhere.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I feel like I've seen plenty of Christians do this too: see gosh or geez for long-standing examples of the practice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks!  I guess for context I considered you as "part of the Anglosphere", although there are different degrees of centrality to that concept.  I remember you had a couple (interesting, IMHO) posts a while back about how difficult the US regime would have made transferring your education credentials.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Do these people want to come? I'm not sure they do.




I would be interested to hear @self_made_human respond to this, if willing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Noah Smith: Insurance companies aren't the main villain of the U.S. health system
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Heh, I had a (mostly-indirect) experience with this as a patient once: I got the letters from my insurance denying a claim (twice!) because the provider, according to the letters, neglected to put their tax ID on the paperwork.  It got sorted out mostly without my involvement, but I did spend time worrying about it and even calling the provider to inquire about it.


I assume they filled out the form correctly on the third attempt, but it presumably behooves the insurance companies to have increasingly Byzantine processes for paying providers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Noah Smith: Insurance companies aren't the main villain of the U.S. health system
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wasn't that roughly the idea behind HMOs?  Those seem to have fallen out of favor because they always require referrals and heavily limit providers in practice.  But I'll admit I've never had (or even been offered) such a plan.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Captain Planet was never particularly subtle about being political agitprop for kids: I think I understood that even at the time, and I'm not even one opposed to rational environmental protection laws.  I think this to some extent merits the Ohio meme: "Wait, all kids shows have some element of propaganda to them?" "Always has been."


I remember my parents looking down at Power Rangers because it was kinda violent (dunno, haven't watched much because of that, although kids really do act out scenes from TV shows and such).  And The Simpsons because the humor was often lowbrow, which I have more complex thoughts about.


Although I would highly recommend Bluey if you're looking for something modern.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So apparently European values are that they get to influence others thinking and no one else does.




Looks at last few thousand years of history.  The answer has pretty clearly been yes until maybe 1945.  And even then, I'm not completely sure whether that was a change in values or just the rhetoric used to express them in polite company.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We also don't have any jurisprudence I'm aware of on how rules for "foreign propaganda" mesh with the First Amendment.  Could FDR ban publishing Der Stürmer by German sympathizers in 1942?  That looks a lot like an act of Congress restricting the press, but honestly you'd have trouble getting me to march in support of the publishers.  What about in less-declared conflicts?  Did the Soviets ever try to just publish Pravda above-board in America?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Part of the problem here is that for all its claims to be a valid currency (medium exchanged for goods and services) the most important factor is user buy-in.  Gold is at least rare, shiny, and has practical uses.  Fiat at least has governments willing to issue it, pay with it, and expect taxes in it.  Bitcoin has, I guess, a decade of history and meteoric rising valuations.


Which isn't to say that we couldn't rapidly lose trust in fiat or gold either (goldbugs when the philosophers stone is invented, or asteroid mining), but I do have doubts people would take Bitcoin as seriously if the US Treasury owned a majority stake in it.  Although I suppose that feels less existential to crypto as the idea has matured and people hear about it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
On one hand, allowing countries to subvert foreign elections seems obviously bad [1].  On the other, throwing out election results based on foreign social media posts seems liable to create a valid threat of a denial of service for elections absent something like The Great Firewall (which is itself a potential threat to open society).


I see why both sides would presumably be frustrated by this, but I don't have a real Platonic ideal of an alternative to suggest.  Governance, at least good/fair/democratic governance, is hard.


    

  1. For some value of bad that is pretty nebulous.  For all the allegations in the US in 2016, the actual posts entered into evidence in followup investigations were IMO almost embarrassingly bad and not really shown to be effective.
    2. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


UnitedHealth bid a lower cost for the contract, won it, and promptly started denying most claims on the first pass. Only clinics which sent appeals would get paid, and almost always did.




The scummy behavior isn't just on the insurance companies: [redacted] went to a medical provider that decided to code every (scheduled!) specialist office visit with an ER facility fee, and the insurer just shrugged and said it wasn't their problem and wouldn't do anything about it until the out-of-pocket maximum, even though they would have covered such fees for a real ER visit (conveniently, this happened to save them money).  Not really much you can do unless you have a competent HR department on your side, which I've been fortunate enough to personally have in the past, except pay it, call and complain until they reduce the charges, and/or leave poor reviews.


I'm not sure I'm qualified to make good suggestions about how to improve medical billing, but it's pretty clearly a mess of opaque charges.  Trump in 2019 forced providers to publish price lists, which I'd have though might improve things, but it doesn't really seem to have.  Active price-fixing is generally bad for all the well-known reasons even if more uniformity in prices for, say, appendectomies would make arbitrage easier.  Are there any real proposals with a sound economic basis for improving things?  As much as I don't like throwing up my hands in not understanding complex systems (and deferring to Chesterton on the subject of fences), I don't exactly have a better suggestion at hand.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Inside you are two wolves investors: the first sells the stock on the expectation that a short-term leadership vacuum will hurt profitability;  the second buys the stock because the first sold on basis that the long-term fundamentals are unchanged.  And they're both bewildered that the price seems unmoved, I suppose.  I guess that means this isn't a taxable event.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The other obvious lawfare strategies would be to find a red state prosecutor with whatever nebulous nexus to bring state charges not subject to the pardon according to lots of blue media ink ("lied to a patrol officer about the nature of his travel").  Or to use the pardon to compel unfavorable testimony (voids the fifth amendment right to avoid self-incrimination) or face even further charges.


Not that I'd endorse these, they just seem the logical escalating responses.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it makes sense to require eg engineering students to take some English and history classes for gen-ed reasons.




Snarkly, I think it makes sense for humanities students to take some math and physics classes for gen-ed reasons.  I see lots of pontificating from the self-declared "educated" classes that clearly lack an understanding of calculus and other entry-level numeracy concepts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would believe its purveyors may claim that, but I've never seen "critical theory" come to a positive conclusion about any real pretty much anything.  There is a lot of pontificating about how pretty much everyone suffers from pervasive, say, racism, but I don't think I've ever come across "actually, X is good enough" except about some perfect hypothetical.  I don't really see much depth to the field (happy to consider otherwise) beyond tearing imperfect things down and wanting to replace them with nothing.


As someone raised Christian it pattern matches really well into "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God" (true), but lacks the radical forgiveness that is supposed to accompany that phrase.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Which raises concerns about how "critical" it is in the first place.




"Critical" in English has a few surprisingly different meanings.  After all this time, I've realized that "critical theory" is "critical" in the sense of "inclined to criticize severely and unfavorably", while I might have naively assumed it meant "of, relating to, or being a turning point or specifically important juncture" (both quotes from Merriam-Webster).


IMO we should find a new name for "critical thinking" that less strongly suggests it should be about tearing things down.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Think 1 meter of sea level rise in the next 100 years, assuming no mitigation.




Sea level has been rising (possibly slower than that) for several thousand years.  We know this because there are underwater archaeology sites like Doggerland and Heracleion (that one may be more a matter of localized geology) where people at one time lived on dry land.


Admittedly the rates of rise may be changing, but assuming a null hypothesis of completely static sea levels seems wrong too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, that's what I was trying to describe.  Front-end web development is a lot heavier on "user experience" and, for lack of a better term, art, while something like fintech C++ developers are concerned about absolute minimal latency (processor cache misses, pipeline hazards, memory access patterns), and your automotive embedded developers are tuning physical control systems.  My guess would be that user-facing developers, especially for non-business users, are more likely to lean more progressive because they really do need to worry more about accessibility (internationalization, screen reader support, color-blindness-friendly palettes) than kernel developers, which seems to me to at least loosely fit the people-focused vs. thing-focused spectrum that seems to already have a bit of a political valence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


From personal experience, the vast majority of competent and brilliant software engineers are either progressive or turbo-liberals.




By "turbo-liberal" here are you including libertarian types?  They have existed as a consistent minority within software development since at least ESR's day, but I don't think they're as party-aligned as they might have been at the time.


I do think there's probably a poorly-researched difference in political alignment across the software spectrum: there are big differences in how front-end, back-end, embedded, and medical/aviation/automotive/defense (validation!) developers are tasked with thinking that probably selects for political persuasions.  For example, I wouldn't be surprised if more left-leaning developers are prone to be more involved with public development (open source, conferences, etc), while self-driven solo developers (Linus circa 1993, Carmack, and such) have a different bent.