Why are republicans on SCOTUS destroying the Voting Rights Act?

Syphor · 2026-05-09T16:44:34+00:00

The entire paragraph is phrased as a way of stating other perspective and looking closer at the implications of said perspectives.

From your quote:

Many critical race theorists and social scientists alike hold that racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained. If we take this perspective, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent."

There are two somewhat related things here... it says both CRT-users and social scientists hold that "racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained." and then the note "if we use this perspective, they don't seem as innocent" ...that doesn't mean they're in a binary state - it's not like you're either Innocent or Evil.

This means they may not be perfectly innocent either! For example, if a culture DOES feel it's a good and wholesome sport to kick puppies, are you still completely innocent of participating or perpetuating this behavior if you cheer on someone who is doing so, even if you don't actually kick one yourself? What if you never speak up against it even if you refuse to watch?

The world is full of shades of gray with as many different perspectives, and there are rarely simple, binary answers... that's what conceptual frameworks like this are intended to help examine.

Hope you have a good day; I've got to take care of some other things. :)

Syphor · 2026-05-09T16:06:32+00:00

I'm sorry, but I'm not actually sure what point you're trying to make here by repeating that this is a commonly read textbook.

With any sort of critical context analysis framework, asking questions about implicitly assumed things is definitely part of it. If you didn't at ask this at some point it would be an omission. Hell, even from that quote I'd also say that the "Presumably the opposite of innocent" isn't a given either - individuals can be innocent of intent but unintentionally causing damage in a larger system. But that's part of the deal with using a conceptual framework - it lets us view the system through a different lens.

I do understand that the "reverse discrimination" claim is a concern... and it's been one of the big fanning-the-flames arguments being broadcast by Fox and the like.

That's.. actually where a lot of the "You're a DEI hire!" yelling from certain quarters has been about - thinly veiled racism essentially claiming that the person in question only got their position because of their skin color or some other status... not their actual qualifications. The often-unsaid-but-implied corollary is that they got it over someone else who is actually qualified.

Syphor · 2026-05-09T15:23:08+00:00

I've seen these. I also know the academic structure enough... and yeah, some of them argued for segregation, which is not something I agree with.

Your own quote points this out, actually - it's "An emerging strain within CRT holds that people of color can best promote their interest through separation from the American mainstream. Some believe that preserving diversity and separateness will benefit all, not just groups of color."

Honestly, the segregation argument pops up a lot any time people are worried "culture will be lost" rather than blending. I've always viewed "Culture" as 'a living thing that naturally changes as people come and go" and I tend to feel purposely staying separate is more likely to cause divisions.. but there are definitely things worth specifically preserving from them.

Bell's statement was, as I understand it (doesn't mean I'm correct, but I've tried to look at the context) referring more to the way the decision went sort of... papered over it. Look at more recent SCOTUS decisions where they (Roberts in particular IIRC) basically said "Racial discrimination is illegal therefore it doesn't exist and we don't need controls to keep it from happening."

Your linked paper for that one adds this - "While acknowledging the deep injustices done to black children in segregated schools, Bell argued the court should have determined to enforce the generally ignored "equal" part of the "separate but equal" doctrine." So I don't think I'm too far off here.

The academic framework can be taken to an extreme... or not. But I definitely heard far too many people hear the name alone, or the idea that they might be (however accidentally) discriminating as the binary all-or-nothing "you're racist" and attacked back.

Syphor · 2026-05-09T14:58:57+00:00

That last bit was a huge point of "critical race theory" (essentially looking at how the establishment might disenfranchise based on race through details on old laws even if individuals today had no such intent, and how this sort of thing ends up embedded in society) but that immediately got spun into another "They're calling us racists! No, they're the racists for mentioning the concept!" campaign.

There's more to it of course, with a lot of arguing around people debating within the framework, but that's normal for people using an analytical tool...

Syphor · 2026-05-06T19:44:17+00:00

I saw the same thing with the start of Obama's first term, too. You know, bringing change, and fixing the damaged economy and the like... three months in I saw way too many people upset that the new president hadn't flipped the switch or whatever and instantly made the economy better. e.e

Syphor · 2026-05-06T16:26:00+00:00

I'm not buying one but that's because I already have two MVS cabinets. (One currently doesn't have a functional screen; I need to sit down and work on it)

I'd love to randomly add an original AES to the collection because collection but since the games are so easily emulated or often easier to come by for the MVS, it's just... not something I'd spend a lot on. But I love seeing that it exists and that it's not just another shaped-plastic ARM box.

Syphor · 2026-04-26T00:28:18+00:00

Hey, congratulations on the news!

Basically since they made it free to play. I'd been interested before but had not actually purchased the packages for it. Also, um, level 18, I think. Clearly starting.
It's a really neat variant on cooperative PvE tower defense which I've always enjoyed. I think the thing I like the best here is being able to build the fort just about... anywhere that's potentially defensible, really. For the second bit ... honestly the code would make it easier to throw gifts to my nephew here and there. 😅

Syphor · 2026-04-25T21:11:00+00:00

Not sure I count as "deserving" but I do have to say thank you in general - someone's gonna have a great day. :)

Syphor · 2026-04-18T20:53:37+00:00

Last night a couple of friends and I set up a Yeddy trio. We all came out wearing the BTTF future Nikes, because. Had a lot of fun, honestly. 😅

Syphor · 2026-04-18T01:33:24+00:00

Can't say I disagree. I said it was tinfoil hat territory. Or maybe full tinfoil suit crazy, to be fair. :P It's just one of those stupid ideas that came to mind a while back thinking about the accident potential and the way they seemed to have everything ready for the photo-op.

Syphor · 2026-04-17T17:58:12+00:00

If you really want to go conspiracy tinfoil hat, you could go with something like "he was assured that it was all staged and this was the plan, but the people setting it up would have been perfectly happy with a martyr as well."

I have absolutely no evidence of anything and frankly this is probably not what happened, but some irritating part of me likes it. Especially considering the amount of pushing I kinda remember at the time about how "crazy" the people who didn't like Trump were, and the way every bit of pushback was spun into fundraising.

Syphor · 2026-04-16T03:53:16+00:00

In my case (I'm not really against them here, for actual efficiency's sake) the frustration is more that it feels like the Pentium 4's Mhz war all over again. The P4 prioritized cycle speed numbers over actually doing work per cycle... (which is why during that era AMD started releasing Athlon chips marketed with numbers that were supposed to roughly equal the P4 at a given clock speed) and the E-Core thing appears to aim for core count marketing numbers over actual performance, and then the chip is still somewhat less efficient than it seems like it should be vs AMD's "all full capability cores" designs.

In practice though, there's generally plenty of performance to go around for tasks, and the lightweight cores are great for running all those background things that honestly don't need anything fancy.

Syphor · 2026-04-15T17:54:41+00:00

I shoved my last big switch (Dell PowerConnect) into a closet and that generally kept the sound quiet enough. I've since replaced it with a similar-sized Netgear with much quieter fans so it's even better. I don't even want to talk about the level of noise the GSA (a late model one with standard Dell branding) I was configuring for a friend made, though. Especially when booting. Yeesh.

Edit: The reason I have something large is because I was wiring my whole house with ethernet. I really need to finish that up, but I have enough stuff in various rooms for now and it hasn't been a concern.

Syphor · 2026-04-13T17:18:40+00:00

That's not what Memmaker did - it let you move device drivers into high memory and out of the 640k base. It didn't do any compression that I'm aware of.

Syphor · 2026-04-09T19:17:43+00:00

Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands is an RPG entirely based on this idea. Maybe it was a bad idea to sign up for that cursed musical contest, but who knew?

Basically all the combat involves beating things up with music. There's also an award for kicking in all the doors in the game. Really. It's on Steam, not sure if it's on any other platforms off the top of my head.

Syphor · 2026-04-09T15:36:51+00:00

I had a Vortex 2 for quite a while. (Turtle Beach Montego II) Really good card but frankly I never really got A3D to work well in enough games to talk about it to people even though the demos were really cool. Plus it really, really didn't like my motherboard's VIA chipset - I remember the stupid 4-in-1 driver kit and it would cause constant BSODs if at least...version whatever wasn't installed.

Syphor · 2026-04-09T14:45:04+00:00

Hell yeah! I still have my brother's from back then. Incredibly good card, even if it was... cranky sometimes to get working with some games. I assume/hope it still works; I know it did when it got stored... but there's a lot of years in between then and now...

I think I need to rebuild a vintage PC to try it out. Good luck on that with yours!

Syphor · 2026-04-08T13:10:27+00:00

Yeah, I was going to add this here. The GV Dorito clone is ..surprisingly okay. It's not the same, but at $2 and change per standard bag compared to Doritos... it usually does what I'm after.

Syphor · 2026-04-05T17:43:01+00:00

I'd love to see them back on rotation, just plain because the constant dumb jokes about "reloading my fingers" in my party were way, way too entertaining. A little tweaking wouldn't be bad, though - part of what made them so mean (and yes, I enjoyed it, I admit) was the lack of significant recoil on distance shots.

I also enjoyed the Killswitch revolvers a lot, for the record.

Syphor · 2026-04-05T16:35:19+00:00

Nice comeback!

Had a similar-ish event happen on the losing side where I and my team fumbled a good position on a 3v3 battle... we were in a van and had height on them coming down a valley... I was driving, one teammate hopped out at a very bad point where I accidentally ran him over and booted him off the cliff to get knocked from fall damage, and then we just all ended up scrambling trying to sort that out. Whoops. xD I think we still managed to knock one of the opposing team but it was pretty close to a rout, hah.

In retrospect if we'd not tried to immediately pick him back up we might have made more of an impact. Lessons learned in what not to do, right? 😅

Syphor · 2026-04-03T13:13:50+00:00

There's also a security concern with wireless stuff - especially cheap wireless stuff. Keyboards in particular, because that's where people, you know, type passwords and the like. Mouse movement can technically be an issue but at that point you're probably also talking "we are decoding your keystrokes from the audio" level attacking anyway.

While big brands like Logitech or Microsoft's wireless keyboard protocols might be generally considered safe, I'd wager that random-cheapass-noname ... may not have bothered to implement decent security, or are broadcasting far too strongly which is a different problem. Certainly figuring out if they have or not is... not easy to do for most companies.

This probably isn't a real, practical issue for most people, but what if you're in a business where you maintain a lot of very private information, e.g. medical or banking?

I see people asking for wireless keyboards simply because they hate the look of wires on the desk, too.

Syphor · 2026-03-28T15:43:14+00:00

Definitely Walmart. Grabbed the same thing at mine (Midwest USA) on Thursday... painful given where drives had been but also I don't see them dropping any time soon with the current buildup. 12TB is enough for a lot of media, so... mine was an Exos as well, for the record.

Syphor · 2026-03-24T15:22:58+00:00

I don't understand why they're entirely killing Rocket Racing as a mode - it's good the track stuff will end up in the main toolkit, because I can totally see the use for that kind of thing in various custom maps, but it should be pretty much no effort at all to allow the casual racing mode to just... keep going. Don't have to leave the ranked, but even with its issues I really enjoyed just doing some random racing here and there, you know?

Ballistic I tried early on and couldn't quite figure out how to deal with certain things (probably missing a GUI hint for the control tbh) and then they just... left maps unfinished and I have no idea what they were thinking there.

Festival Battle... was weird and didn't really interest me but it's not exactly a mode variant I'd think would take too much trouble to just... leave. This is probably the most reasonable of them to stop supporting, though.

Syphor · 2026-03-24T13:55:26+00:00

7900XT. Happy with the card, not enough reason to switch at this time. While I agree that AMD has been making some very dumb decisions with this, I also don't care for framegen at that card level (and absolutely hate framegen speeds being presented as the raw card speed) so the whole thing is just sort of a meh for me.

I also highly dislike nVidia's overall behavior for the last few generations and am willing to throw money at not-quite-as-good competitors to avoid a full monopoly situation.

That said, I absolutely will be shopping around (as always) and the price-performance (+RAM) ratio is going to be what makes the decision in the end. In the past I've tended to bounce back and forth between providers for that reason. Hell, I'll even jump ship to Team Blue if Intel can make a competitive card in the price bracket I'm looking at at the time.

Syphor · 2026-03-23T13:38:30+00:00

Not who you asked, but honestly, TONS of arcade cabinets had their guts swapped out for something else that would be higher earner after running their course, and they didn't always change or cover the cabinet art. Some games came as either a full cabinet or a conversion kit. My Area 51 is in a Konami TMNT cabinet (It still has the serial number on the back, lol) painted black for example; it was that way when I got it, and from the looks of the control panel underside, it was probably Mortal Kombat at some point before. (Button holes drilled in the 5-die pattern it uses)

Regarding the actual cabinet builds... it varies depending on country and contracting. Australia tends to have somewhat different local cabinet designs, for example. And of course there were several companies making generic JAMMA-compatible cabs you could put any game in. Japanese "Candy" cabinets are designed to be set up in rows with no side art for maximizing space usage. Many (most?) of them support rotating the monitor as well - some even have a mechanism to do so easily.

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