site banner
PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   32403 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Nevertheless I tend to find that I am more impressed and amused by Soviet and later Russian engineering than Chinese engineering – perhaps because I have a tendency towards mild Russophilia, perhaps because I pay less attention to Chinese systems, perhaps because their innovations are still classified, but I find Soviet/Russians designs unusual and capable of solving problems in ways that are elegant even in their brutality.

I think the problem is that Westerners like gimmicks, and Russians/Soviets are not different. We all love our “no analogues!” Wunderwaffes and clever self-contained breakthroughs. That's just how European brains work I believe. But their brains work differently (see 2nd part and responses), their gimmicks are too large-scale to easily appreciate – supply chains, system integration building out entire cities, that's not just ant-like slave labor, they are just predisposed to logistical autism and a lot of cognitive effort goes into this. Yes, it doesn't result (at least not yet) in magic-looking individual devices, but does it matter much if their ships are half a generation behind when they can build literally orders of magnitude more? That's a whole different dimension of magic. I also suspect that Americans overindex on their triumphs through technological superiority – nukes, Desert Storm… But it probably won't apply to the conventional war with China. They aren't that behind, they have functional radars, they have VTOL cells on their ships, it will be reduced to a matter of quantity, which as you know has a quality of its own. Soviets even at their peak could not approach this degree of production dominance.

Semianalysis has just released a report on this Huawei server and it illustrates the philosophy well:

Huawei is a generation behind in chips, but its scale-up solution is arguably a generation ahead of Nvidia and AMD’s current products on the market. So what would be the specifications for Huawei’s CloudMatrix 384 (CM384)?

The CloudMatrix 384 consists of 384 Ascend 910C chips connected through an all-to-all topology. The tradeoff is simple: having five times as many Ascends more than offsets each GPU being only one-third the performance of an Nvidia Blackwell.

A full CloudMatrix system can now deliver 300 PFLOPs of dense BF16 compute, almost double that of the GB200 NVL72. With more than 3.6x aggregate memory capacity and 2.1x more memory bandwidth, Huawei and China now have AI system capabilities that can beat Nvidia’s.

What’s more, is the CM384 is uniquely suited to China’s strengths, which is domestic networking production, infrastructure software to prevent network failures, and with further yield improvements, an ability to scale up to even larger domains.

The drawback here is that it takes 3.9x the power of a GB200 NVL72, with 2.3x worse power per FLOP, 1.8x worse power per TB/s memory bandwidth, and 1.1x worse power per TB HBM memory capacity.

The deficiencies in power are relevant but not a limiting factor in China.

If you do not have a power constraint because of your relative power abundance, it makes sense to forgo power density and increase scale-up, including optics in the design. The CM384 design considers system-level constraints even outside of the rack, and we believe that it’s not just the relative power availability that constrains China’s AI ambitions. We think that there are multiple ways for continued scaling for Huawei’s solution.

It's truly beautiful in its own way. I am not well versed in military hardware but I think the slight qualitative edge of Western tech doesn't matter as much as production capacity.

I think the problem is that Westerners like gimmicks, and Russians/Soviets are not different.

This is true lol. I just think Russian gimmicks are often very amusing (as well as being original). But the fish doesn't know the water in which he swims.

I also suspect that Americans overindex on their triumphs through technological superiority – nukes, Desert Storm… But it probably won't apply to the conventional war with China. They aren't that behind, they have functional radars, they have VTOL cells on their ships, it will be reduced to a matter of quantity, which as you know has a quality of its own. Soviets even at their peak could not approach this degree of production dominance.

On the one hand, I agree.

On the other, I think technological edges are much more likely to matter in sea combat than in land combat. I've revised my estimation of American tech up (and correspondingly of Chinese countermeasures down) as specifically applies to naval combat after Ukraine.

On the other, I think technological edges are much more likely to matter in sea combat than in land combat

But the war in china will be naval combat for US and land combat for them.

I wouldn't say this. Any confrontation between China and the US will be predominantly by air and by sea. In a Taiwan invasion scenario the US, Taiwan, and Japan will need to sink the Chinese amphibious attack fleet to "win." The Chinese (and US!) land-based forces will be important force-multipliers, particularly the aircraft, but the ships are the vulnerable part.

What's relevant here is that in this time of warfare a single cruise missile or mine that would kill a single tank or even a single person can sink or incapacitate a warship (obviously not necessarily the same system, but the maritime equivalents.) So instead of facing 10,000 targets as you are in a land fight, you're facing a couple hundred.

The reason my analysis of the relative advantage shifted in the Ukraine war is that Russian air defenses - which are generally considered quite good (and have performed a number of impressive deeds) were unable to stop Ukraine from hitting high-value targets with their pocket force of stealthy cruise missiles. The US has a lot of stealthy cruise missiles. Counting decoys, the US can probably deploy more missile "targets" to the Taiwan Strait than the Chinese Navy has VLS cells.

But it's unlikely to need to win a war of missile attrition with China, as sea-based missile interception is notoriously difficult. So my priors have shifted from "Chinese air defense will be relatively effective" to "China is going to have serious problems with leakers" since my guesses are that Chinese air defense is as good or perhaps slightly worse than Russian (I could be persuaded they are better, but I don't see a reason to assume that), but they will perform worse simply because it's harder to do air defense at sea. (Of course this assumption might be wrong, too, because missiles can use terrain masking better at land. The problem with missile defense at sea, as I understand it, is that missiles blend into the churning sea surface very well, but perhaps newer radar systems have solved this).

And that's without even getting into mines, submarines, and simply sinking amphibious ships with artillery, unmanned boats or suicide drones in the last few miles before they hit the beach, all of which will be fundamentally a question of "naval combat" for China.

Western military might is impressive but fragile. Show that you have the capability to sink carriers and US is contained for a couple of years. You don't even have to sink them - 4000 bodies make peace negotiations hard.

You don't even have to sink them - 4000 bodies make peace negotiations hard.

Uh yes but that's not necessarily good for China.

I think his argument is that they won't destroy a carrier with personnel abroad, if they want to have negotiations. Blowing off some surface features as a show of strength would be good (though obviously not too realistic).

Yeah, I (now) realize that.

I agree with you on the realism.

China showing that they can bitch slap US naval power, but choosing not to inflict massive casualties is absolutely good for china. You can destroy as much material as you like and as long as the body count is low it will be shrugged.

You can destroy as much material as you like and as long as the body count is low it will be shrugged.

Admittedly, times have changed a lot, but this was the same calculation Japan made in 1941, which didn't quite work out for them as they had planned.

The body count was not low. And it was unprovoked attack on US state. If the same ships were doing freedom of navigation between manchuria and japan and the japanese sunk them, without too many US casualties do you think that the reaction would have been the same?

China doesn't want japan, if they want korea they just have to wait, so the only possible hot war is over taiwan.

The body count was about 2400, about half the personnel count of a modern US carrier. They were provoked by crippling embargos, albeit well-deserved ones. Hawaii was still a territory, and wouldn't be a state for nearly two more decades. If the Japanese had killed 2300 soldiers and sailors in a sneak attack before declaring war but hadn't killed 68 civilians, then yes, the reaction would have been roughly the same.

China doesn't want japan, if they want korea they just have to wait, so the only possible hot war is over taiwan.

No real arguments with any of this, though. I suppose there's also the "Thucydides Trap" possibility where the US becomes so unnerved by China's rising power that we provoke a war; that theory doesn't sound quite as silly as it used to.

Sorry, I misunderstood your comment.

This thinking reminds me a lot of the advice to police and beleaguered homeowners to "just shoot them in the leg." The Chinese have been fielding very large land-based ballistic and air-launched anti-ship missiles, I don't think they intend to tickle a supercarrier as a flex. (Now, it is quite hard to sink a super carrier).

Now, it is quite hard to sink a super carrier

I think this notion will be challenged at some point. Fairly sure that things are more fragile than expected.

Shoot them at the leg is different. If there was strong castle doctrine, killing them would be the best option.

Dealing with another country military is a bit more like trying to kill a made man. Scaring them away is usually the better approach unless you are prepared to wipe their entire organization away.

I think this notion will be challenged at some point.

I just mean they are very big, so it's actually easier to carry out what you propose (damaging them) because they can plausibly survive hits that might sink smaller vessels.

Scaring them away is usually the better approach unless you are prepared to wipe their entire organization away.

Yes, I believe the US refers to these as "off-ramps." I find the Chinese situation right now fascinating, since their most effective military strategy is arguably very much at odds with their most effective political or diplomatic strategy.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats