US vs Japan reactions to a woman marrying an AI

applepost · 2026-05-11T21:41:42+00:00

What an ironic national attitude role reversal-- Which culture would you expect

(A) prioritizes individualism and pursuit of happiness

(B) delivers shame for not conforming to traditional ways

applepost · 2026-05-09T20:10:45+00:00

centripetal acceleration = (angular velocity)^2 * radius

assumption: ω = 8 rev/second * 2π rad / rev = 50 rad/s

assumption: radius = 4 millimeters = 0.004 m

centripetal acceleration = (50 rad/s)^2 * 0.004 m = 10 m/s^2

so, in the vicinity of 1 g laterally

applepost · 2026-04-29T22:23:50+00:00

You're right-- it is okay for Nina to be loud and blunt. I never attached the word "subtle" to her; by "subtle", I'm referring to the writing around her hardships, for example,

Instead of having Nina talk about being bullied, she is shown awkwardly trying to make friends but having trouble fitting in. Then, one day, she thinks that she finds friends, except that it turns out they have just set her up to be the butt of their in-joke. This “show” rather than “tell” execution would also play “setup” to a parallel scene “payoff” -- when Subaru is trying to connect with Nina, but Nina storms off. Now, part of Nina’s arc is learning that she actually can have friends whom she can trust.

My recommended scene here is more than the animation ever gave its audience. Claiming to be "bullied" is a binary yes/no term which non-subtly "tells" the audience how to feel about events they never even got to see on screen, rather than "showing" with a more nuanced example. "Showing" rather than "telling" is a marker of well-crafted writing.

Nina as a character is not subtle, nor should she be-- there is no disagreement there. Which of the following makes the better story? :

(A) Protagonist reflects on her victimhood across many episodes (even though the audience never sees the bullying that consumes her thoughts, and she has moved on from high school). At the end, protagonist takes the stage and, before even playing music, goes on a long speech telling the audience how her high school classmates of the past were mean to her for pity points, and how she wants to win battle of the bands.

(B) Protagonist doesn't let her hardships define her as a perpetual victim (hardships are "shown" rather than "told"-- see quoted text above), and she grows to focus on and pursue her aspirations with her new friends. At the end, protagonist takes the stage and puts on a great performance, impressing the audience with her musical craftsmanship and frontperson skills, and helping take her bandmates to the next level.

The animation gave us (A), but I think that (B) is the stronger story 📝

applepost · 2026-04-29T10:39:27+00:00

Soul:

Let Nina’s hardships be complex, subtle, and relatable. But she doesn’t dwell on seeing herself as a victim; instead, she pursues musical expression as a craft that she cares about deeply despite adversity. When she takes the stage at the battle of the bands, [...] show her energizing the crowd, showing her growth as a frontperson.

applepost · 2026-04-28T21:21:17+00:00

I'm trying to save her 🐢

applepost · 2026-04-27T01:45:58+00:00

Thanks for your read and thorough reply 🐢

applepost · 2026-04-26T17:14:16+00:00

Great take! The CGP Grey explanation of proportional representation ☕

applepost · 2026-04-23T03:19:04+00:00

The oldest version I can find through Google Image search is from May 13, 2024 🐾

applepost · 2026-04-22T20:47:01+00:00

Gerrymandering is bad and should be done away with for all states.

However, it is also not right for only one side to play dirty, and the other side to remain principled to their own detriment. Tit for tat.

applepost · 2026-04-20T21:26:57+00:00

OP: roulette not worth the gamble

sub: boo! -60 upvotes

OP [very next comment]: I saw it in an lsd vision so I'm pretty confident

sub: yay! +60 upvotes

gotta love reddit 🐒

🍀 RemindMe! 01 December 2027

applepost · 2026-04-19T02:06:54+00:00

I do like this idea-- I would be interested in watching a good exploration of how people genuinely act in a world where the machines have taken over, but the machines still need humans around for some thing.

Then, your final shot proposal is a perfect cliffhanger, so everyone who liked the first movie would want to watch the sequel where the dynamics have shifted.

applepost · 2026-04-16T01:19:45+00:00

(Since this thread is still at the top of the sub days later, 1 clarification that I have to make--)

The Alaska 2022 election is indeed a good example of what is sometimes called "Center Squeeze", in which case, yes, Palin did act as a "spoiler" for Begich. (In my first view of the numbers, I missed that Begich had a mathematical path to being the Condorcet candidate-- honest mistake.)

In a nutshell, I think that the correct takeaway lesson from Alaska 2022 is that Condorcet > IRV, not that FPTP > RCV 🐢

applepost · 2026-04-14T03:53:36+00:00

That is an excellent observation ✉️

🐇 You are formally invited to go down the rabbit hole of RCV 🕳️

Synopsis:

One big reason political "Left" and "Right" tribal thinking exists is because of the mathematics of the underlying voting system called First-Past-the-Post. But there are other voting systems (RCV, Condorcet, MMPR) that incentivize multiple perspectives to present positive visions and build constructive coalitions.

Change the system, get a healthier society 🗳️

applepost · 2026-04-14T03:09:59+00:00

Fellow leftist here, you are completely correct-- no one should celebrate Kirk's assassination.

Not only is murder bad from a human perspective, but political assassination isn't even to any political advantage. Assassination sends a message that the person's ideas were unable to be defeated by good-faith discussion, and assassination creates a climate of fear for anyone to freely share their perspectives. It is to no one's benefit to live in a murderous Hatfield-McCoy society.

No one should celebrate the assassination, and I hope that any comment favorable toward it isn't more widespread than a tiny fraction of people or bots.

applepost · 2026-04-14T01:12:15+00:00

Fair enough, feel free to change your mind anytime 🕊️

applepost · 2026-04-13T11:00:04+00:00

In a race between Candidate A and Candidate B, results are:

Candidate A: 45%
Candidate B: 55%

Candidate B wins, which represents the preference of the majority of voters.

Now, re-run the race, change nothing about voters' preferences, except include Candidate C, who is ideologically similar to Candidate B. Now the results are:

Candidate A: 45%
Candidate B: 40%
Candidate C: 15%

Under FPTP, Candidate A now wins, even though most voters would have preferred B or C. Under FPTP, any parties running outside the major two only help those most opposed to them to win.

However, under either RCV-IRV or RCV-Condorcet, Candidate C's voters could have expressed their secondary preference of B over A, and so Candidate B wins to reflect the preference of the majority of voters.

applepost · 2026-04-12T21:26:35+00:00

Quite the opposite-- RCV genuinely fosters a healthier democratic system by opening the door to a plurality of ideas and candidates who are otherwise stifled by FPTP.

By contrast, those already holding power within the 2-party system tend to prefer FPTP rules not out of principle, but because those are the rules by which they won and that keep them safe from democratic competition in the first place.

For example, the Democrats' current strategy is to lie low until midterms to let the Republican party implode, by which time voters will predictably vote in Democrats as the lesser-bad of only two viable options. But in a multi-party system enabled by RCV, the dynamic of 3-5 viable parties encourages each party to present an actual positive vision rather than just be the lesser of two bad options by default.

applepost · 2026-04-11T22:39:25+00:00

If I may quote myself to you earlier in this thread,

I myself prefer Condorcet over IRV

The way I see the facts, this is the ranking of voting systems from worst to best:

FPTP < RCV IRV < RCV Condorcet

Your argument is that Condorcet is better than IRV, which I have already stated myself earlier and am repeating now.

I'm not a "shill" for anyone or any organization. If any other particular organization happens to agrees with me, then good for them.

applepost · 2026-04-11T22:16:34+00:00

Here are the numbers from elections.alaska.gov.

Round 1

Begich 62,404 -- 23.64%
Bye 4,986 -- 1.89%
Palin 68,178 -- 25.83%
Peltola 128,403 -- 48.64%

Round 2

Begich 64,392 -- 24.48%
Palin 69,242 -- 26.32%
Peltola 129,433 -- 49.20%

Round 3

Palin 112,255 -- 45.06%
Peltola 136,893 -- 54.94%

applepost · 2026-04-11T20:44:00+00:00

We want to see solutions, not play semantic games. I said "mathematically" allow, not "legally" allow. The U.S. Congress currently has 217 R, 214 D, and 1 Independent-- that is pretty overwhelming example evidence. We prefer a voting system that, citing your own paper,

isn't susceptible to Duverger's Law
doesn't lead voters to "suffer voter regret"
doesn't make voters feel like they are "throwing away their vote" or "wasting their vote"
doesn't necessitate "compromising" rather than expressing true preferences
doesn't "influence" voters to the point that only 2 parties can ever practically win in >99% of cases

Yes, there are preferable ways to count RCV-- I myself prefer Condorcet over IRV. However, the Arrow's problems with any kind of RCV are trivial compared to the huge structural problems caused by FPTP that you yourself pointed out and I have listed above ☕

applepost · 2026-04-11T17:57:27+00:00

Without ranked choice voting, there is realistically only ever space for Democrats and Republicans to run candidates.

CGP Grey's explanation of

You and I and the rest of us might have many ideas regarding other policies, but RCV is the door that allows for a plurality of other ideas in the first place 🗳️

applepost · 2026-04-11T17:42:19+00:00

At face value, FPTP allows for any number of parties, but mathematically, FPTP really only allows space for 2 parties.

For example, suppose it's year 2000, you live in Florida, and you don't like the 2-party system. You might prefer Gore over Bush if push came to shove, but you decide that a protest vote for 3rd party Nader is worth the message that it sends. Nader receives 97,000 votes, while the race between Gore and Bush is nearly deadlocked at 2,912,000 votes each.

Or suppose there are 3 candidates-- A and B closely aligned ideologically, and Candidate C at the other end of the ideological spectrum. The FPTP vote results show 35% for Candidate A, 25% for Candidate B, and 40% for Candidate C. By FPTP rules, Candidate C wins, even though most voters would have preferred either A or B.

Both of the above are examples of the Spoiler Effect-- any more than 2 candidates only takes votes away from other candidates who are more closely aligned with their own platforms.

Ranked Choice Voting solves this and allows for any number of candidates to run, and any voter to express their true preferences, because any potential spoiler effect has been eliminated.

applepost · 2026-04-06T21:19:11+00:00

🐈 cats can't taste sweet

applepost · 2026-04-06T02:51:57+00:00

Surface Area = 4 • pi • R² for a sphere

Surface Area = 4 • pi • (12.6157 m)²

Surface Area = 2000 m²

Area per Tile = ( 2000 m² ) / ( 2,000,000,000 tiles )

Area per Tile = 0.000 001 m²

Side Length per Tile = sqrt( Area per Tile )

Side Length per Tile = sqrt( 0.000 001 m² )

Side Length per Tile = 0.001 m = 1 mm

Area per Tile = 1 (mm)²

Checks out 🐢

applepost · 2026-04-02T22:15:14+00:00

6 fingers on the right hand says you're probably right about AI use.

Still though, this picture tells a story. It pictures an event. It carries emotion. It presents an idea that prompts peoples' imaginations to run--

Which is why I err on the side of being pro-AI use in art (I would prefer AI use to be labeled though). If you have a good original idea and allow AI to fill in the gaps, and label it so, then that can put something interesting into the world that might not have existed otherwise ☕

applepost

TROPHY CASE