2022-05-25
Because of travel, this entry covers June 11th through June 25th
Readings
Audubon Society’s profile of the Hoatzin, which is a particularly unusual bird: https://www.audubon.org/news/hoatzin
Apparently strategy can count for a lot in large conflicts in other species (which I would’ve guessed was largely limited to ants and wasps): https://phys.org/news/2022-06-mongoose-warfare.html
Interesting to hear of approaches to fighting pests that target developmental stages of the pest lifecycle; this describes a way to do that with mosquitoes that might have fewer effects on other species like built-up toxic chemicals: https://phys.org/news/2022-06-genetic-discovery-mosquitoes-death-knell.html
Assuming studying remnants of annihilation is a viable method, astronomers may be constraining possible particle forms of dark matter through very broad observation (although if such constraints end up wiping out all possible forms, the method may prove invalid): https://phys.org/news/2022-06-dark-annihilation-globular-clusters.html
I think this would be very hard for Google to enforce, at least partly because a lot of this kind of training can be done in domains that are translated in a way as to make them opaque to the platform provider. Although Colab is also not a great environment for training models (if you’re serious, you’ll get your own hardware or use a cloud provider), this is worrying because it may turn into a broad Google policy that is ineffective moralising. https://www.unite.ai/google-has-banned-the-training-of-deepfakes-in-colab/
The expanse of pre-European civilisations in South America is better understood thanks to more modern methods: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01458-9
Thoughts
I was interested to hear the results of a survey in the UK on genome editing to prevent severe diseases; while I haven’t translated any of this into a policy I feel is coherent yet, I generally am enthused about genetic engineering of humans, particularly to edit or select out certain illnesses (my heart condition and tendency towards migraines are things nobody should need to deal with, and a number of developmental mental issues that humans suffer could be fixed as well). I recognise the issues with such things being most available to the wealthy (and don’t have great ideas how to solve that while recognising that existing inequalities will be eventually cemented with these technologies under some policy regimes), but I am interested in those problems becoming solved - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/22/half-in-uk-back-genome-editing-to-prevent-severe-diseases
I was disappointed to find that the person who maintained the Florida Man twitter account apparently stopped because he’s adopted the “only punch up” approach to comedy. To me, “is it okay to laugh” is a question that pretty much always merits a yes, and a society that veers away from this is making a mistake. I recognise, as the person who ran it, that tabloid stuff is not always healthy for society, but I think this is best solved at an individual level by moderating our consumption, not eliminating the unhealthy for everyone; we have a need to laugh, and everyone is a valid target because everyone needs to be reminded of the folly of puritanism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/07/15/feature/is-it-okay-to-laugh-at-florida-man-2/
This is an interesting attack on Stoicism; I have my own reasons to reject Stoicism based in the search for meaning and romance, while this appeals more to a kind of moralism (one that, as underelaborated as it is, I don’t find offensive, but it’s still a direction that’s full of minefields). https://psyche.co/ideas/dont-be-stoic-roman-stoicisms-origins-show-its-perniciousness
While I have no firsthand experience of caste discrimination (having no recognisable ancestry near India), I find the arguments made in this piece weak and am generally open to caste being added as a protected class in employment; the argument the author here makes is that any caste discrimination will lead to distrust of Hindus, which doesn’t seem to be a clear argument (and is not strongly made in the piece). Maybe there’s a better argument for why my intuitions are wrong, but the author didn’t make it:
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with the Russian army continuing to pound cities in Ukraine’s east into rubble as western forces offer cheerleading and limited military support. I remain frustrated that western forces won’t enter the war and that Russian territory has suffered very little in response.
Unfortunately, the political center in France continues to disintegrate, with the sensible parties in the center being nibbled at by far-left and far-right groups. It’s unclear what this will look like long-term; it seems a slightly more civilised but ultimately still dangerous version of what the US is suffering as (mostly but not entirely right-wing) sensible and civil politics is replaced by extreme, fear-driven politics that toss all norms out the window. https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-to-lose-parliamentary-majority-in-stunning-upset/
On the same note, the Texas GOP recently wrote a new state party platform that has embedded a lot of crazy far-right ideas, including an intent to repeal the federal income tax and signing on to Trump’s attempts to steal the election. https://www.axios.com/2022/06/19/texas-gop-convention-maga
Colombia elected Gustavo Petro as President, giving them their first leader-elect on the left for awhile; it’s unfortunate that often the Latin American left is soft on left-wing authoritarians in the area (although a lack of such principled stances is not limited to the left). His past as a guerrilla leader makes me wonder whether he’ll be a good leader, but we’ll presumably start to see in about a month when he’s set to take office.
The US Supreme Court yesterday changed its stance on whether a Constitutional principle of privacy justifies a federal constitution-derived abortion policy, returning the matter to the states with their separate abortion policies and raising the prospect that some future Congress may legislate on the issue. I wrote about my views on this in the May 7th issue of this newsletter and have nothing to add
Some Republicans joined with the majority of Democrats in the US Legislature to haggle out and vote on some gun policy shifts in an attempt to curb gun violence, while the US Supreme Court also took a stance that the Second Amendment blocks some other gun restrictions in some states.
In a (in my view, welcome) pushback against male athletes competing as women in sporting events, FINA (a world swimming org) has banned some men from participating. This has been an ongoing societal topic for some time now, with it being taboo in some circles to express opinions differing from the loudest activists; any firm positions that differ from that (that are not monstrous in my view) are welcome because they open the space for the conversation we should have had ages ago; as I have held since I was first really exposed to the topic about 20 years ago, I believe official definitions of gender should be based entirely on chromosomes, with no public funding for transitioning (which should not be recognised), but claims of transgenderism should not lead people to being denied jobs or housing (although following any limitations as appropriate for their real (genetic) gender). People should also never face violence for their (admittedly strange) ideas, and any such violence should be, just like violence towards people with unusual religious beliefs, treated seriously. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/19/world-swimming-transgender-athletes-00040722
The US FDA banned Juul (an e-cigarette company) from marketing and selling their products in the US after a certain date (which was just put on hold by an appeal to a DC circuit court). And while I agree that e-cigs are unhealthy, I think the balance of interests here should lean towards allowing people to smoke things that they know are unhealthy for them, even considering that this will impose healthcare costs on society. The slow walk towards elimination of smoking is in my view just not worth the benefits of hard paternalism on this issue (I may reach different conclusions on related issues though because of differing specifics)
Reviewlets
Ghostwire Tokyo (game) - I made it through most of the game (I think), and had a pretty good time with it. It’s not particularly complex, but it’s pretty, has a definite mood, and I liked the characters. It was also fun to have the game balanced very finely on running out of ammo (I played on hard). I eventually put it down when I reached a later-game boss where the controls were not precise enough and I was locked into long animations that led to repeated death. I don’t regret playing though.
Old World (game) - This Civlike game had a long beta which I played, and only recently did I reinstall it because of its release. It’s promising and has a lot of depth; it has a much more personal and plot-driven take on the Civilisation-like series, reminding me a bit of the faction quests in Endless Space 2 except continual. I’m glad it exists, with just two downsides, one personal to my style, the other more general. The personal issue is that I generally play a defensive game in Civlikes until I have an overwhelming advantage of some sort, but this game practically requires an aggressive stance against minor civs. If you don’t do that your empire will remain small, and I have a tough time changing how I play these games. The more general issue is that the game is very complex (generally a plus) and underexplained (which plays very badly with complex games). It’s hard to do well without a good intro to these things.
Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong - (game) I’ve only started with this, and it’s pretty interesting. It goes deep into World Of Darkness lore (which is good for me as I enjoy that tabletop setting), is a visual-novel-with-rpg-elements-bolted-in, and somehow makes all that work. Kind of. Replay value might end up being poor, but I’m intrigued at the premise and maybe if this is wildly successful they’ll just make a lot more of these.
Signal shattered (book) - Having recently read the earlier book in the series, I recently reread this and it made a lot more sense. It reminds me a bit of the Fall Revolution series by Ken MacLeod, primarily Cassini Division, in that there too I started with a later book that was harder sci-fi and went back to read the earlier. On the reread this time I mused about depictions of transcendence in scifi and trying to make those still good stories. This book does an admirable job at sketching the start of such a path without it being so rapid an acceleration as to leave no story. It also does a good job at providing problems that are fanciful but giving enough traction for the reader to care and feel that they sort-of-understand them.
Dark and stormy night (film) - I like Larry Blamire films. They’re purposefully bad and silly. This one felt like a weird take on the classic movie Clue, ramping up the introspective absurdism and the weirdness of the characters.
Amusements
A great video exploring the oddity of the original Transformers theme (with a bit on the movie theme):
The physics of skateboarding is surprisingly interesting (although I find the phrasing of “needing to overcome the $something theorem” to be annoying; it’s to overcome the underlying effect of which the theorem is just an attempt to understand):
This is partly fun for the different style (which reminds me of “Look Around You”), and partly to see a past perspective on a then-emerging engineering advance:
I am tempted to buy one of these, as much as I am tempted to laugh at it - a dog bed for humans: https://laughingsquid.com/dog-bed-for-humans/
Recent Music
Temple of Ekur - Volbeat - This reminds me of Old Gods of Asgard (from the soundtrack to Control)
It’s Always Been You - Ten Foot Pole - This is candy listening; nothing particularly sophisticated about it
What’s the Good of Being Good - Weezer - The marching band intro is a bizarre preplay of the song; it took me a bit of moving back between it and the main song to fully appreciate how they relate. It’s a pity there’s not a different way to listen to the song that’d allow for toggling between to appreciate the dichotomy a bit more, as this is like a rare physical puzzle jammed into a song
Personal
Last week I visited family in Cleveland, which is why there wasn’t an entry that weekend
This coming weekend I am picking up a puppy Samoyed, which I am naming Galactose
I’m hopefully getting near the end of my need for physical therapy for some neck problems I’ve been having recently; when I started I was in constant pain, now that’s just occasional with some range-of-motion loss. This is also helping make my migraines less frequent. I like my therapist, but I’m hoping I’m just a few sessions away from not needing to have this mess with my schedule anymore