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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35633 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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At the risk of TMI, you don't have to be interested in women to be interesting in women's underwear, although the gay take looks significantly different from the straight one (and is usually far less interested in used women's underwear). "Male/male, crossdressing, lingerie" picks up 7 pages on e621, and there's a few artists that specialize in that as a theme.

From my understanding, Brinton's reasonably qualified, but that's kinda damning for the whole credentialing system in a radically different way: eg, this thesis is a lot of work done on a hard problem... in the most "What if we play a word game instead?" way imaginable. And while the modular small reactor stuff has some technical aspects, the waste fuel management side's more recent programs that Brinton's been involved in championing are even further down that scope.

You can find a lot of pervy people with deep interests in hard fields -- I'd like to think I'm one of them, if with better judgement, and while Brinton seems more furry-adjacent (the 'pups' here are a leather thing) than actually furry, you don't have to go looking hard at the furry fandom to find the obsessively bright. It's just that there's no signs of that sorta thing in Brinton's public profile. And people in the nuclear industry defended them in the sense that they believe that this emphasis on word games is not just the correct way forward, but the only one.

Afriad I only got as far as "The Department is committed to a consent-based approach to siting that enables broad participation and centers equity and environmental justice", but boy that sure reads like "taking all the study money and smearing it around political allies to do sociology studies and learning the ancient nuclear engineering wisdom of the Waquampa tribe"

It's just more federal money down the hole accomplishing nothing, so it shouldn't be so upsetting, but the intro speech about how nuclear is necessary to save the earth makes it chafe.

nuclear is necessary to save the earth makes it chafe.

But I happen to believe this.

And while you sniff at the DEI-flavored position, I will note that nuclear waste handling was a bit more...lax in the mid-20th Century, so it would indeed behoove the FedGov to try and ask the Waquampa Tribe nicely if they're at all okay with being near a waste site.

It is definitely true that nobody wants a nuclear waste storage site in their backyard, so that does create difficulties for finding someplace to store the waste. It is necessary to store it someplace, especially if the future of energy generation looks like it's dependent on nuclear power.

So consent is needed, that is also true. And it's probably also true that the way you get consent is finding a way to funnel federal money to the interested parties in the area and buying them off. So Brinton's work (if that is what they are doing) on that could indeed be useful and valuable - how do we structure a system of bribes so that it doesn't too obviously look and sound like a system of bribes? One way certainly would be to paint over it a coat of "we are deferring to the ancestral wisdom of the Waquampa tribe"; to be cynical, if anyone objects "hey, this is a scheme of bribery!", the Waquampa make good cats-paws to deflect criticism.

To me it reads as "this latest round of funding is obviously just for us to smear around for political purposes rather than solve the problem. Btw if we don't solve the problem earth is doomed, whoops my bad lmao"

The pro forma earth being doomed bit makes it worse for me.

I think Brinton identifies as bisexual, so at least theoretically interested in women. But this is the whole problem right there on a plate: why are we talking about this guy's potential or possible sex life? Because they went out and made it a big part of their public identity. And now this particular theft has come along, and it was a woman's suitcase with women's clothing inside it, and now the guy who was loud and proud about their kinks is having "was there a sexual kink reason behind this event?" discussion around whatever the hell happened.

At this stage, it would be less incriminating to confess "Okay, I'm a cheap bastard with irredeemably middle-middle class tastes, and I stole this suitcase because I adore Vera Wang (oops wrong Vera) Bradley's stuff but I can't justify to my inner Scrooge McDuck spending my own money on buying one, so what?" instead of the rest of what is being dragged out for speculation.

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