Oceans Yet to Burn

Can you see the strength which is uncultivated?

[mitigatedchaos]

Reading through George Washington's Farewell Address (for the 250th, as one does)...

The unity of government which constitutes you [as] one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. ...you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to [your national Union]... Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism...

There is an implicit distinction, here: the individual and the country (his society) are of different kinds.

An individual is quite limited in what he can do to secure his own liberty. If he has to fight an enemy dictator and all of that enemy's men alone, then he is likely to lose. Human beings depend on the knowledge and resources of others, including the knowledge and resources of the past, which are passed on to them; without those, a lone man can do very little.

A country can fight an enemy army successfully. Likewise, a society can create an environment within which liberty can be exercised. However, a country cannot exercise or enjoy liberty, because a country is not a person.

Washington, it would seem, believes in a relationship between citizen and country which is reciprocal and non-totalizing. The country does what a country is good at, and the citizen does what a citizen is good at, and the two support each other. Thus, a man can owe something to his society without owing everything to his society; the work of a man's hands is his own work, while society provides positioning and leverage that make that work go farther.

Society, hierarchy, and laws are always shifting; they cannot be made or kept good through mindless loyalty. Thus, true patriotism requires "affection" – genuine cooperation.

[mitigatedchaos]

A new streaming series in the Ghost in the Shell franchise, known as The Ghost in the Shell, has been released, and is now available on Amazon Prime Video (as of July 7).

While video adaptations of Shirow Masamune's acclaimed 1989 manga Ghost in the Shell have tended to be more cold and philosophical (2002's Standalone Complex, for example, concerned a wave of copycat crimes without an original), judging from the first episode, this series sticks a lot closer to the manga – it's warmer, funnier, more cartoonish, and the characters are less competent – while being no less action-packed.

How is the animation quality? If you sent this episode back in time to 2003 and told me it came from the year 2026, I could believe you; it stacks up favorably against Standalone Complex, which IGN described as "the most expensive season of TV anime ever produced at the time." It's good enough that I'm tempted to look for other series by this same studio.

How is the dub? Not bad. The music? Better than 2013's ARISE. Neither quite live up to the standard set by Standalone Complex, but both the dub and the score on that show were legendary, so few things do.

How is the decision to stick closer to the manga? Time will tell (only one episode is out so far), but it's probably the right call. The presence of tube televisions is reminiscent of Netflix's 2024 reboot of Ranma ½, choosing to present a classic manga as of a time period.

I look forward to watching the entire season.

[mitigatedchaos]

For this test, please zoom in to view the image at a larger size and have a look at it before answering.

My personal feeling is that something about AI-generated images makes them uncomfortable to look at when observing the details, but I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it. I usually try to make the "AI Generated" stamp large enough so that it's always within the field of view while looking at an AI-generated image, but for this test, I have deliberately made it much smaller.

How comfortable is this image to look at?

5 - very comfortable

4 - comfortable

3 - somewhere in-between

2 - uncomfortable

1 - very uncomfortable

show results

Remaining time: 21 hours 7 minutes

Replies, reblogs, and comments are welcome.

[mitigatedchaos]

There are three important questions when it comes to war (and political violence in general):

Can this problem be solved without a war?

Can a war actually solve this problem?

If this problem is solved with a war, will it stay solved?

People who openly support political violence are often wrong about at least one of these three, sometimes more than one.

[mitigatedchaos]

I don't enable memories for LLMs, and (as of 2026) would recommend against doing so (from what I've heard about it).

LLM responses are (deliberately) somewhat random, but an LLM will attempt to maintain consistency with its own prior posts in a conversation. If it makes an error (as they do), then it is likely to go uncorrected. If it makes a judgment, then it will likely not depart from it. This means that the errors (and the judgments) may compound. The longer the conversation runs, the more opportunity there is for it to drift.

The LLM drawing from past conversations provides three additional opportunities for error: (1) the LLM could draw from an unrelated conversation or document (e.g. a fictional document about an SCP Foundation task force), (2) the LLM could misread the information in the conversation (as they sometimes do), or (3) the information itself (possibly at the end of a long conversation) could already be an error.

While an LLM seeming to develop a strong opinion might add some flavor, it would also be deceptive about the nature of what an LLM is.

[mitigatedchaos]

One more monday exception: Bots are now doing fake Tumblr age verification.

[mitigatedchaos]

July 4, 2026

There was once a time when the United States of America was new. In 1796, when George Washington published what is now called his farewell address, 1776 was only 20 years prior, and the Constitution had only been in effect since 1789.

Things that started before we were born often feel as though they are the way the world has always been. By the start of the U.S. Civil War, a man born in 1789 would be 72, having lived a full lifetime under the Constitution; that is about how long the Soviet Union lasted.

Succession is a tricky business:

Was the system the work of one man, tied together by his unique genius, or can it support itself?

Will successors agree to maintain the process of succession, or attempt to stop it?

Can the system of succession carry its own weight without any of its original architects?

250 years is a long time. America made it past the first few successions, and then it made it past the first lifetime, and then it made it past a second lifetime, and now a third. It pre-existed the Soviet Union, and then continued on after it.

Cheers, America. May there be 250 more.

[mitigatedchaos]

Ah, good. The fireworks have started.

[mitigatedchaos]

[mitigatedchaos]

[ grousehuntingseason ]

I am not entertained.

Hmn. I can't be Sam Kriss, and becoming u/KulakRevolt would be a type of failure.

Let's see what we have (>100 notes only):

Rock Island Willerbean, 2017, 5,600 notes, 92 words, political cartoon (topical issue: exotic pet trade)

Near-Future Sci-Fi Politics Chart, 2017, 248 notes, 101 words, political cartoon / futurist joke post

"Okay, but what if like instead of cars, it was golf carts.", 2018, 101 notes, 151 words, art (simple 3D rendering) / autodialogue

Duterte Speedrun, 2018, 279 notes, 950 words, futurist joke post / political satire

Go read all 5,640 posts again., 2020, 73,400 notes, 15 words, tweet dunk

Reverse Harry Potter, 2021, 229 notes, 22 words, tweet (pop fandom)

Billionaire Relocation Act, 2021, 167 notes, 62 words, political satire / futurist joke post

'art over 30 years old is right-wing', 2021, 312 notes, 45 words, political satire / provocation

'cruising the galaxy solving weekly moral puzzles', 2022, 432 notes, 16 words, tweet (pop fandom)

'guy that uses scale models for his underground windows', 215 notes, 22 words, tweet

Moon/Cyber/Cryo Prison, 2023, 237 notes, 258 words, futurist joke post / poll / philosophy problem

Re: The ‘Chillers’ Discourse, 2023, 113 notes, ~1,200 words, futurist joke post / political satire

The Swift Pill, 2024, 133 notes, 200 words, absurd joke poll

'Omelas but we made one guy the outgroup', 2025, 375 notes, 35 words, pop philosophy joke tweet

imported twitter discourse w/ pre-provided answer (that somehow gets more discourse anyway)

I see. "Social media is a conversation. Each potential reader also has followers. A post might get reblogged if it helps someone to better express their thoughts and feelings, or as 'hey guys look at this cool thing,' or if it sets up an opportunity for self-expression."

[mitigatedchaos]

Comrade. In your second most recent post, the links to the post about "poverty" and "you can't beat trump at his own game," are broken.

Patched. I should probably stick to drafting in HTML instead of Markdown.

[mitigatedchaos]

[ @noobnoob814 ]

Diagrams can massively cut down on word count with basically no loss in content. Consider if a given paragraph could be replaced with a picture you threw together in PowerPoint.

A good point.

[mitigatedchaos]

More Rules

[ from previous ]

Compared to the Release the Leopards post from 2022, for example, it's demanding too much intellectual work, not providing enough scaffolding, and not making the payoff for that work clear.

A few other notable discourse posts as examples (from Tumblr Top):

The Monster of Castle Von Wokenstein (1,300 words, 2019)

'power skeptics support privacy' (96 words, 2022)

'poverty is the most intersectional criteria' (245 words, 2023))

Thinking about what changed…

I can write more words faster since around late 2025.

While writing Now, Melt, I used LLMs to measure density and comprehensibility to manually make the text denser.

Inspired by the Analects and Dao Dejing, I had sentences or paragraphs serve more purposes simultaneously.

Increasing length and interconnectedness predates this (see 2024's 5,500-word "You Won't 'Beat Trump at His Own Game'"), but not at the same density.

Let's introduce some more rules for this experiment:

Monday Law - All posts will be queued for a specific day of the week (the return of Monday Law).

Weekly Word Limit - The weekly post limit will be ~1,200 words (about 3 of the shorter posts).

Office Hours - Since this 'blogging about blogging' arc can't run indefinitely, let's also add an 'office hours' post once a month, listing the posts for that month, to gather feedback and answer questions.

[mitigatedchaos]

[ @samueldays posted ]

I think part of what comes across as “too many words” is a problem of “not enough grounding”. […] Your posts are all you, […] talking about yourself and your ideas instead of something outside your head, and what passes for a conclusion after a page of [mitigatedchaos theorizes airily] is shit like this: [blockquote from post] …“We can theorize more”.

I think that you would consider the following, on some level, to be "historical common sense," not requiring specific citations or examples:

[a] Elites are neither totally unified, nor totally opposed (people can gain or lose elite status; different industries/interest groups lobby and this is inherently somewhat zero-sum).

[b] Wealth is a form of power, but not the only form of power (governments can regulate, tax, and nationalize; revolutions can expropriate).

[c] Inter-ethnic conflict risk is neither 0 nor 1 (there is peace, but there is also conflict from mild (Curley Effect) to extreme (WW2, Rwanda, etc)).

[d] All else being equal, the influence of a political force scales roughly with its size (voting blocs, armies).

That's what the post is working from, and is not the problem.

The problem is that the post is too abstract. It is trying to, tactically, avoid giving specific examples in order to invite a potential opposed reader to engage it on the level of general rules, and in the act of attempting to form a general rule, notice the absence of historical common sense.

It's also trying to do too much in one post. Compared to the Release the Leopards post from 2022, for example, it's demanding too much intellectual work, not providing enough scaffolding, and not making the payoff for that work clear.

[mitigatedchaos]

[ @grousehuntingseason ]

i mean, both. Jesus fuck, dude. Can you find a single person who believes that they regularly get everything you mean out of a post?

If I thought that the mechanism were irrelevant, I would not have included it. This is good editorial criticism, though.

To go over what I've gathered so far:

Posts should generally be limited to 150-350 [1] words (typical Tumblr screen length amount). [ghs] (A small handful of exceptions could stretch to 1,200 words, but no more.) [kitswulf]

Pay more attention to the surface layer of the text. If a point is important, foreground it, so that it's visible while skimming. [ghs]

Material for a close reading or second pass can be included, but don't assume a close reading. [ghs] It's essentially "bonus content."

If it doesn't fit in 350 words without a close reading, then it doesn't fit; it may be better to break it up into multiple posts, or to focus on only one branch of an argument at a time.

The post should focus mostly on one concept, rather than providing a 'wall of insights' or pursuing multiple simultaneous objectives,[2] so that it can be linked externally to quickly explain a concept. [kitswulf]

The content of what a post will cover and why should be clearly signposted, so that the reader knows not only what they can expect to get out of the post, but also what they are looking for. (Making the post shorter also makes the payoff sooner.) [bithy]

Even Substack is 'high-quality news-magazine content,' so the long essays are too long. [irradiatespace]

Some of this is similar to some experiments I've been doing offline, but I see some potential software-style dependency graph and modularity/integration issues.

[1] Ideally closer to a max of 325, so that the bottom of the post is visible on a laptop or desktop computer.

[2] "Multiple simultaneous objectives" might be a big one; many posts are taking a "model + weights" approach, rather than an "arguments" approach.

[mitigatedchaos]

[ @grousehuntingseason ]

yeah, dude, whatever. You know you *are* way less smart and way less important than you seem to think you are, and that you do write a huge amount while not saying much, yeah? Like, I substantially *agree* with this dismissal of you. Use. Fewer. Words. And fuck, dude, if you're going to post all these essay-length posts, do it on substack, right? Part of what is so fucking ridiculous about you is you're making substack posts that no one would care about on fucking Tumblr.

The things that I say are obvious to you because you're grousehuntingseason.

They take fewer words to communicate to you because you're grousehuntingseason.

I don't seem all that intelligent to you because you're grousehuntingseason.

I myself think that a lot of the things that I say are obvious. I got into politics posting because I thought a lot of people were missing things that I thought were obvious. In my extremely long essay, I wrote that from my perspective, the point of my blog is to explain things that are obvious. I got into the habit of breaking things down into their foundations, from which the conclusions logically follow, in part for that reason. When I break things down, more people go "...oh," or "I disagree, but it makes sense now."

And there will be people who send anons like, "I used to read you, and you helped me to develop a better understanding of politics, but why are you still fighting these lowbies?"

And like, I'm still testing things and working on my health, but a lot of the problems are in more basic misunderstandings. If people get to arguing about 1% differences in marginal tax rates, I'm actually not smart and technically experienced enough to contribute to that! But if that becomes the norm then it means that I can quit politics and go make video games or something.

My experience from the outside is that you're rather abrasive, which can work sometimes, not work other times, and frankly more cynical and harsher than I like, but that's necessary sometimes.

If you have successful practice in convincing people of things or helping them to learn complex-to-them or unintuitive-to-them ideas and have some recommendations, I'm open to hearing them.

My experience is that using fewer words to get through to people who aren't you is actually really difficult, because it will just bounce off, like telling them some short but correct piece of ancient Chinese wisdom or something. It's possible sometimes but it takes a lot of practice. (It's only something I'm just now getting better at.)

Like I dunno man, is that something you do and I'm just not picking up on it?

[grousehuntingseason]

If you have successful practice in convincing people of things or helping them to learn complex-to-them or unintuitive-to-them ideas and have some recommendations, I'm open to hearing them.

No one wants to be convinced of anything. They want to be entertained. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything at this point, but everyone who seems to do that does so by being entertaining.

Maybe go back to pretending to be a right-wing time-traveler, that was fun.

My experience is that using fewer words to get through to people who aren't you is actually really difficult, because it will just bounce off, like telling them some short but correct piece of ancient Chinese wisdom or something.

If you can't explain any version of something to a child, you do not really understand that thing. That sounds harsh, intuitively, and the obvious counterargument is like... jet engines or something. But the obvious counter-counter argument is that I could in fact explain jet engines to a child and they would probably love it.

is that something you do and I'm just not picking up on it?

Is what? Using few words? Convincing people? Some third thing?

[mitigatedchaos]

In few words: I'm using more words now so that I can use fewer words later.

Rather than the blog as the main product, I'm writing notes, conducting experiments, and practicing.

Very long posts such as Now, Melt are partly stamina testing, partly getting things down (for greater mastery, recall, and for the record), and partly format experiments, not just communication.

Stamina testing might sound like a strange thing to be doing, but stamina is an issue that I have with projects. It was a surprise to me that I've kept this blog going for as long as I have, for example.

[grousehuntingseason]

In few words: I'm using more words now so that I can use fewer words later.

Wow, how many years has that project been in the works? Is your plan that I skip reading 99% of your words for years because there's too many of them and there's pornography I could be getting on with, only to eventually, 10 years from now read a single word from you? Is it "Chartreuse"? Will my mind be utterly blown and rewritten with a copy of yours?

Very long posts such as Now, Melt are partly stamina testing

that is not a good goal to have in communication

Stamina testing might sound like a strange thing to be doing, but stamina is an issue that I have with projects. It was a surprise to me that I've kept this blog going for as long as I have, for example.

Look, as someone who also has ADHD I get and respect that. I actually honestly do, and sympathize with this. Maybe as a sort of internal exercise this has value solely to you. But in terms of the external world...

[mitigatedchaos]

This is too vague. Pick a chunk of text, take a knife to it, and either cut it up or rewrite it so that I can see the operation you want performed.

[grousehuntingseason]

You pick the chunk of text, I'll tell you the operation.

[mitigatedchaos]

Let's try this one, which was directed at morlock-holmes:

What we will call the "Theory X" way of thinking is that control of access to a territory is one of the most important forms of power, and therefore migration is (in the presence of demand) mostly imposed by the ruling class, and if they are not able to either impose or contest immigration, then who controls the territory (and thus who constitutes the ruling class) is under contest.

[grousehuntingseason]

Based on the whole post, cut down: "It is broadly held that political power = control of territory = control of who can immigrate to that territory. I think that you think that this means that immigrants are a scourge upon the masses wielded by the elites, while Morlock thinks that the power-holding whites owe it to the natives to let in more immigrants (who Morlock thinks have interests in common with native) as a form of restitution for past (white) wrongs.

I think that both you and Morlock agree with what everyone influences migration policy (academics, think tank members, journalists, political donors, politicians, etc) all seem to assume:

that true ruling class is always someone else than themselves."

[mitigatedchaos]

As Yud would say, "I notice that I am confused."

isaacsapphire wouldn't describe immigrants as a "scourge upon the masses wielded by elites."

morlock-holmes would probably say that it isn't really about "white" wrongs per se, but about the U.S. government more generally

you threw out the mechanism where immigration can increase the risk of conflict without this being the fault of one group or the other

Even if we say that the post is draft quality (vs. that "prima facie" post just now), that doesn't say whether you threw the mechanism out because you think it's not relevant, or because the way it was presented is too opaque.

[mitigatedchaos]

Is there a prime facie duty to obey the law?

From Wikipedia:

The phrase is also used in academic philosophy. Among its most notable uses is in the theory of ethics first proposed by W. D. Ross in his 1930 book The Right and the Good, often called the Ethic of Prima Facie Duties, as well as in epistemology, as used, for example, by Robert Audi. It is generally used in reference to an obligation. "I have a prima facie obligation to keep my promise and meet my friend" means that I am under an obligation, but this may yield to a more pressing duty. A more modern usage prefers the title pro tanto obligation: an obligation that may be later overruled by another more pressing one; it exists only pro tempore.

This is not an at-length philosophy text response, and I have not read W.D. Ross's book.

"There is a default obligation to obey the law, unless some other more pressing obligation arises" is a good first approximation in many times and places.

Laws, contracts, and such can be viewed as a kind of "capital" that makes cooperation cheaper and easier. They lay out specific expectations, synchronizing knowledge about those expectations among a group of people, both making it easier to conform for cooperation, and making it easier to identify and punish defectors.

Since actually enforcing law is costly, good results depend on people having good behavior even when they aren't being observed or might get away with cheating.

People can internalize law as morally binding. When law is well-aligned with morality, a person's ability to outsource judgment to law makes it cheaper and easier for them to be good and treat others well.

This internalization or treatment of law as morally binding can be viewed as a kind of resource. People can view or experience law as more binding, or as less binding.

Law should be in harmony with morality, human nature, and conditions simultaneously.

If law is in harmony with human nature and conditions, but not morality, then an opportunity to make or keep the world better is being wasted.

If law is in harmony with morality and human nature, but not conditions, then an opportunity to ease cooperation in the moment is being wasted.

If law is in harmony with morality and conditions, but not human nature, then in practice it will not be obeyed.

These three goals are in tension. They are not binaries, but degrees. They trade off against each other. There can be laws which are better or worse on all three, or where a large benefit in one goal comes at a small cost to another.

Bad law is bad in part because it normalizes disrespect for the law, by requiring either moral or practical actors to routinely ignore law, rather than treating it as binding. This makes cooperation more difficult, and less expected.

The appropriate scope and scale of law is contingent. A law might be bad because it is too large, or because it is too small; it might be bad because it is too vague, or because it is too specific. A full explanation is beyond the scope of this post.

[mitigatedchaos]

I'm still trying to make sense of the criticism lately (poll respondents split on length, density, and clarity), so let's try something that I've never done on this blog before.

Assessment

The below example questions are not a test of your intellect, but a test of how well the above text fits the needs of the audience. Your participation is appreciated.

Please read each question and then consider how confident you would be in answering it.

1 - True or false: according to the above explanation, a good person should obey all laws under a tyrant.

2 - Suppose that the existing laws in a city-state were good ten years ago. The laws on the books have not been revised, and remain in tune with morality and human nature, but are no longer suitable. Based on the above explanation, what changed?

3 - Consider some particular window of time, like a given year. According to the above explanation, could two different laws have the same or very similar value during that time? If so, how might the laws be different while having a similar value?

4 - All ambulances in a town are busy due to a natural disaster. Tom owns a car. His sister is severely injured, and may not survive unless she is taken to the hospital very swiftly. According to the above explanation, should Tom violate the speed limit?

5 - Consider question 4. Does the explanation say what Tom should do, or what should happen to Tom, in response to breaking the speed limit, after the emergency is over?

I would feel confident answering...

5 of 5 questions

4 of 5 questions

3 of 5 questions

2 of 5 questions

1 of 5 questions

see poll results

Voting ended onJun 23

If one of the questions feels particularly difficult, or any of the concepts in the explanation post seem confusing, feel free to mention this in the replies.