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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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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I find it hard to believe that the role of the US in the Arab Spring was non-central,




I see why it could look that way: at the time, it looked like a plausible hypothesis.  But I'll also note that the deposed governments were a mix of traditional US/West enemies (Libya) and at least soft allies (Egypt, Yemen).  Egypt, in particular, became much less Western-aligned during the tenure of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Western relations with Syria had been improving prior to the kickoff of its civil war in 2011, then got worse quickly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is a reasonable tactical concern, but at some point in practice, yielding to Iran (and its funding of terror groups across the Middle East) lest it start attacking other states in the region (even relatively uninvolved ones like Oman and Azerbaijan) and disrupt the global economy, starts to look like paying the Danegeld.


Although I'm not personally going to endorse this position, I think it sounds reasonable on principle.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


no one had a more destabilizing effect on the world in general, and the Middle East in particular than the United States.




I think there's a decent case to be made that Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi had an effect at least comparable to the United States in the Middle East since 2011, being the spark that ultimately deposed 4 governments in the region (Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen), and indirectly kicked off regional wars (ISIS) in Iraq, Syria (ultimately deposing that regime as well), and Yemen.  Longer term, several other countries have also seen major changes.  Yeah, the US was involved in some of those peripherally (Libya, Yemen, likely political pressure on Egypt), but I hardly consider it central to those events.


Although I'm not an expert on the region and would be interested in hearing other opinions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was thinking things like size, envelope, and things like that.  IIRC norovirus is physically robust as viruses go: is that a trade off against airborne transmission?  But it's been a long time since I took a biology class.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aren't some of the known Spanish Flu gene sequences from exhumed victims in polar regions?  I don't think we have any other source for that data.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Out of curiosity, are airborne and droplet borne viruses that structurally similar to contact or food/water borne viruses?  Is airborne Ebola like worrying about cars suddenly flying like planes, or are we talking a few base pairs for smaller adaptations?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I feel like it's worth noting that there have been 4 prominent apparent terrorism incidents in just the last few weeks with ties to the Iran war.  I'm not sure whether to also read this as "I told them it'd potentially cause incidents" or "I'm unable to actually stop terrorism".


ETA: some of those might be "domestic" legally, but probably not under the eye of public scrutiny.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


most Government Forms of ID require paying a small amount of money to discourage people from losing theirs and to help offset the costs of printing the card and maintaining the ID system




IIRC states with existing voter ID requirements have been required to provide no-cost IDs.  Those free IDs may say "not valid except for elections", though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is right at about the 25-ish year nostalgia peak.  I expect to see The Matrix show up a bunch more in the zeitgeist soon.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am convinced that the modern "rules-based order" is actually might-makes-right order, it's just that at the time the rules were established in 1945, "might" was on the side of Western Liberalism and generally wrote them down in its favor.  It's quite evident in practice that the rules are never applied to the major powers evenhandedly: in fact, they quite explicitly gave themselves vetos at the UN for most such issues!.


But the principles of rules-based order do sound good on paper, if that means anything.  I like the idea, but I don't think they're enforceable without a higher power enforcing them.  And Team America: World Police is a poor simulacrum of such a thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Every people has the right to self-determination (free determination of political status and free pursuit of economic, social, and cultural development).




If anyone truly believed this, surely they'd conclude that the South should have been allowed to peacefully secede from the Union.  I'm sure someone is going to pipe in with "but slavery", but wars of aggression to change economic and social models is directly against the third point (and if it weren't, we can talk about fascist Italy ending slavery in Ethiopia, or the British ending widow-burning in India).


I see roughly what the authors were intending to codify, but I don't think it can be done even-handedly, and in practice it's going to end up being a lot of "who, whom?" and unwritten assumptions about what counts as a "people" that privilege certain parties.  Not even always unreasonably: we couldn't practically take every sovereign citizen at face value.  And for the record, I think Southern secession was a bad idea for a bunch of reasons, and slavery abhorrent.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I confess that I'm also not sure what you mean by neoliberalism here.




I'm trying somewhat (maybe unsuccessfully) to see similarities in patterns that arc from local NIMBYism to limp-wristed international diplomacy in that we often find ourselves biased toward classes of answers that "sound nice", but in practice get taken advantage of by powerful actors (not infrequently masquerading as weak actors for sympathy) leading to worse outcomes for everyone else.  Perhaps "neoliberalism" isn't quite the right term for what I'm looking to describe, but it's a related flavor.


I see this pattern all over the place: We can't build affordable market housing in California because it might obstruct rich homeowners' views.  We can't build nuclear power plants because other countries have done it poorly in the past a couple times.  We can't do anything about illegal immigration because it'd have bad optics. We can't reduce crime because it might require putting people in jail. We can't stop the flow of drugs in small boats because someone might get hurt.  We can't automate our major ports and transit systems because unions might lose (economically-not-necessary) jobs.  We can't means-test Social Security because (rich!) pensioners will go destitute.  We can't do anything about foreign provocation against our friend nations and allies because it might escalate to war.


None of these things have easy answers. I won't even endorse any particular motion on any of them at this moment, but it feels like nobody in politics can: optics seems like all that matters, not outcomes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, but every time the topic of "we invented intelligence" comes up, the fact that we really don't have a definition for it beyond Descartes' feels relevant.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For the record I agree with you here: war is always a terrible choice, although maybe there are times when it's the best available one.  I don't know details here, but it feels like there were other, better options here.


My claim in the lateral thread is more observing that, generally, preferencing some definition of "inaction" can lead to worse outcomes, and it feels like this is related to the perceived indecisive malaise of modern neoliberalism.


For a more relevant, concrete example, I've heard at least one or two historians opine that if the Allies had responded more firmly to the German annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, they might not have needed to do so at a much more dramatic scale when it attacked Poland (heck, the immediate response to that was anemic, too, until the Germans had turned around to attack France).  Declaring "peace at all costs" is a sucker move from a game theory perspective.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Typically discovered, but as you get into more niche parts of mathematics, I think the construction of useful, novel axioms and the proofs therefrom move closer to invented. "The Rubicks Cube group has always existed" is a valid take, but feels weird to me.


I suppose this is related to the question of whether the basic axioms and concepts are truly universal (true in any universe), or whether, say, a hypothetical universe with different prime numbers could exist.  Did God create the integers?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There is no proof-of-work or proof-of-humanity




With apologies to Descartes, "always has been".  While cogito, ergo sum manages to demonstrate that I exist to myself (at least, I find the argument compelling), I've never been able to satisfactorily prove that the rest of the world and everyone else as I perceive it exists, and isn't some big simulation demonic manifestations or imagination.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Be the change you want to see in the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because despite both political sides complaining that it's stupid (with different reasoning), the One Drop Rule seems as powerful as ever.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wait, is this "smoke machine as in theater" or would a Catholic censer count?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Famously, nuclear reactors were never historically involved in previous weapons projects (yes, not for "enrichment", but for producing plutonium).


Whether or not this specific reactor is well-suited for that purpose is unclear from the context and the quote.  IIRC the standard US research reactors were designed to be difficult to use this way.  I'd trust the nonproliferation folks to know how all the physics works, but somewhere between them and the journalists the context was lost, possibly deliberately.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be clear, I agree it'd be a massive loss for all involved, and I'd much prefer to never see it happen.  I think China could have played its cards differently and probably achieved voluntary unification, in much the same way that Trump's unify-with-Canada comments set back what is probably a good long-term idea by a generation.  Violent subjugation is a terrible choice on all accounts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You can't use the general existence of unpleasant tradeoffs to justify a particular set of actions; you need to actually articulate a defense of why a particular tradeoff is worth it.




This feels like a common generalized critique of modern neoliberalism, though: "You can't do [THING], it might cause [UNPLEASANTNESS]", where [THING] ranges from "Invade foreign nation", which has pretty obvious unpleasantness in most cases, to "enforce existing immigration law", all the way down to "build that apartment complex" for values of unpleasantness like "would require destroying a historic, um, laundromat" or "would cast 1% extra shadow on a public park".  We've very much used this set of unpleasant tradeoffs to justify privileging inaction in lots of cases, many with pretty clear consequences for the rest of us, although I think there is certainly reasonable ground for not blindly charging ahead with everything.


It's much the same as when it shows up in international politics: "Palestinians are firing weapons (rockets) at Israeli population centers again.  But we can't allow them to respond -- someone might get hurt!".  I'm not going to claim that any particular action is justifiable, but I've seen a lot of long-term bad consequences enabled by choosing inaction as a response assuming it'll be free in the long-term, just because the short-term "unpleasantness" is pretty clearly defined.  And it's clear that some parties take advantage of these stated values to push boundaries and normalize worse outcomes.


I suppose somewhere in here could arise a principled (anti-woke?) political philosophy that prioritizes "we make hard choices, not because we relish them, but because we don't want them badly chosen for us."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A decent chunk of the right at the time thought Clinton was bombing Belgrade (including the presumably-innocent Chinese embassy!) to distract from the scandal of dalliances with (among others) a 22-year-old subordinate in the Oval Office and lying about it to Congress.  That accusation at least had specific damning evidence and testimony behind it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Pakistan




Note that the Saudis aren't a nuclear-armed nation for the purposes of the claim.  That they're being funded to do so as a proxy for a non-nuclear power seems to be relevant to the discussion, but they aren't in the "nuclear club".




South Africa




This is a better example, but nobody has ever clarified what the specific "assistance" was: was Israel a nuclear-armed nation at the time, or was it a joint project to become such.  I'd point to the US-UK cooperation in the Manhattan Project as perhaps an Ur-example of my claim: it was a joint project through the end of the war, but as soon as the Americans had the bomb, the British found it wasn't quite so "joint" anymore, and had to mostly redevelop it on their own.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The post-1945 nuclear club of nations has always been pretty exclusive.  I can't think of any example where a nuclear-armed nation has deliberately aided a non-armed nation's nuclear weapons development programs, even between otherwise allied states (lots of spycraft, though).  I haven't heard hints of Russia helping with Iranian or North Korean weapons development (although civil nuclear is a different story).  Nuclear ambitions have typically gotten states international pariah status: China's relationship with North Korea has demonstrably soured since it became a nuclear state, and India and Pakistan both got some level of sanctions for a time before and after they tested weapons.


As to specific responses from specific parties, I'm sure someone's been paid to debate those, and I don't think I have any particularly insightful ideas there.