Hi Folks, What has been the reaction to the "Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Following Influenza Vaccination: A Claims-Based Cohort Study Using Propensity Score Matching" study that was published last month?
Sorry to ask such a banal question, but does anyone remember the term describing how most of us treat journalism as authoritative despite recognizing that news coverage of the subjects we know something about tends to be superficial at best and not right at worst? E.g., I know enough to recognize that the NYT coverage of law and finance is garbage, yet I still assume they know something about foreign policy or particle physics.
Does anyone know if there is a list of all the ASX and SSC that are stories? My son really enjoys Scotts fiction and I would like to send him more. He's read three idols, how deep the rabbit hole goes, and in the balance.
After a few weeks off, the calm is very much gone. Has been a very stressful time, but this whole year has been stressful so I'm not sure how much that matters. Decided to resume today.
The Sri Lankan government has collapsed in rather spectacular fashion. I am interested in a balanced analysis of the causes, or barring that, differing responsible opinions. I have not paid to read Schellenberger's take, but it seems he blames the organic farming mandates. I have seen another article blaming it on COVID-19 lockdowns. I would not be surprised if I could find opinions like "Organic farming would have worked, they just didn't do it right..."
Thanks, that looks like a very good starting point. I'm not a fan of organic farming mandates, but picking that as the root cause of the trouble seemed too easy.
For any ACX regulars who fancy the idea of being able to build friendships with fellow regulars beyond the confines of these hallowed comment threads: my partners and I have just released the waiting list for our new-friend-making platform, Surf.
The initial suggestion is "find a salsa partner in London". Given that some people search follow and other leads, that's likely a question that will lead to a lot of incompatible matches. You likely want your examples to be wellformed so that you can match people with what they are actually searching for.
Point taken - that initial example was selected as we decided based on our research that it was both optimally generic and optimally appealing within a given urban population (interestingly, our organic outreach to this point obviously hasn't reached that population to any great extent, as while we've had a few dance-related requests they're not hyper-numerous yet).
Our plan when possible is to flash up a few more extant requests, with wider variety, in the Surf bar as 'tasters' when people are thinking about what they want to put in.
A further tip: the Shoreline is there if you haven't already found it and want to see what requests people have been submitting! www.imsurf.in/shoreline
As someone who has actually searched for dance partners, my mental process is "Hey, this isn't exactly what I want. I have no idea whether typing in "I'm searching for a female Salsa follow in Berlin" would actually work or get me matched with other people who are also searching for a "female Salsa follow".
Nobody, actually searches for generic Salsa dance partners.
This is an excellent point on that particular sample request - without this kind of specificity in the request we may match two leads or two follows.
Part of this onus would have to fall on the user to provide the right kind of specificity, but you've got me thinking about how we could also productise to recognise situations like this and nudge users accordingly. Thank you!
Leander, on the Ask Us Anything page I tried to submit the question "How do you match people?" but when I entered my email address and hit Submit I got Page Not Found. Can you fix this?
It amazes me how many people on this site and related places have this outright hostility towards genetic explanations for race differences, and cannot concieve of believing/caring about this expect aside from wanting to feel "superior" to other races or something. In reality, this is what happens:
"anti-racist": Black people have [lower income/lower wealth/lower school scores/higher incarceration ratios/less representation in elite jobs/etc.], this proves that systematic racism is oppressing black people and that white people have white privilege. We therefore need [policy that aims to fix this that is bad for white people]
anti-"anti-racist": No, actually if you look at this data, you'll see that these outcome disparities cannot be explained by [systematic racism/white privilege] and you believe they are based on an assumption that there are no genetic differences between races, which isn't reasonable given what we know about heritability.
"anti-racist": Wow, why do you care so much about this stuff? Are you some kind of white supremacist? Does it make you feel like less of a loser when you say that white people have higher IQ than black people?
I see it as a case of pattern-matching, or specifically what Scott's described in the past as "noticing the piles of skulls". In this particular case, claims of innate biological differences in intellectual capacity, temperament, and moral character have historically been widely used as rationalizations for white supremacy or as excuses for disparate outcomes. Most such claims that were widely accepted scientifically in past generations have since been discredited in their particulars. Thus, I can understand how people can extrapolate a prior that current proposed hypotheses about innate biological difference in those areas are also incorrect, and to suspect that in some cases they're deployed by crypto-racists to obfuscate their animus towards other races and to be concerned that even when proposed in good faith they get in the way of identifying and mitigating structural problems with our culture and institutions.
My own view is that hypotheses about genetically-rooted racial differences in IQ and similar should be approached very cautiously in light of past failures theories and their ugly relationships with white supremacy, but shouldn't be entirely taboo. My best guess of the underlying truth is that there are some underlying genetic differences in average intelligence between races, but much smaller than suggested by raw data about IQ test scores: the overall genetic differences between clusters of general ancestry seem like they're too small to explain gaps of a standard deviation or more between European, Sub-Saharan African, and East Asian descent. I'd guess something like 70-90% of the gap (and I can't confidently rule out ~100% of the gap) is due to stuff like differences in early childhood environment, acquired skills at answering IQ test questions, and cultural differences in how seriously people of different backgrounds take the testing process.
When there are sociological theories which attempt to explain different levels of intelligence in different cultural/racial groups, do they offer theories that can be described as "not junk science", and "has explanatory value"?
Most of what I've heard about are 'cultural differences' that explain differences in IQ test results, and 'structural racism' that explains differences in income and other lifetime achievements. But these factors don't appear to explain why immigrants from Nigeria to the United States do as well economically as the typical white person born in the United States. This is in great contrast to the typical Black person born in the United States, who typically has much lower income than the typical white person born in the United States.
If 'structural racism' were at work, then the racism has a weird factor of being less-racist towards Blacks born in Nigeria than towards Blacks born in the United States.
If 'cultural differences' are at work, then the cultural difference between United States and Nigeria ought to hurt Nigerians more than those born in the United States...but apparently, the effect is the opposite.
Is there a theory that has any explanatory value for these facts?
I think you have to weigh the cultural difference between being in the United States as an African-American who descended from slavery era, and the culture that most of the rest of us have experienced. There are significant differences.
A more interesting comparison is Black people from the islands. I get the sense they fall across a much broader spectrum in dealing with American culture and being successful here.
Just saw this in the Guardian. I found Wengrow's comments interesting, but I felt that the article bordered on being a fluff piece (and I'm Wengrow supporter!). If you'll recall, the ACX review of _The Dawn of All and Everything_ generated lots of strongly-worded exchanges (the result of which I don't think changed anyone's opinion). At the risk of stirring the pot again, here you go.
I'm considering writing an alternative universe novel about the forth harry potter book, with one of the changes being that the main character is a girl. That made me wonder to what extent that alone would affect the status quo. What would be the biggest changes?
One particular thing I've wondered is whether the Dursleys would treat Primrose (the girl who lived) better or worse than Harry. Is it psychologically harder to be cruel to a girl than a boy? Does sexism play a role? Are the Dursleys ever shown to be sexist? Would they still make her sleep in a cupboard up to age 11?
Can’t speak to whether the frequency is different, but literature is replete with stories of cruelty to girls. Think Cosette from Les Misérables, or Cinderella (any of the non-disney versions)
'Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Flynn brought diagrams [to Trump] to show a conspiracy theory involving Venezuela and communications via internet-connected thermostats. '
For context, there's plenty of evidence that Dominion's code is pretty bad. For example, the summary of the 2019 assessment of one of Dominion's voting products conducted for the state of Texas is here
"I counted 184 steps in their installation manual before deciding to estimate the remaining steps. I estimate a total of about 500 steps are required to install the software. I did not count steps that merely said something like “Clicks OK” or “Click Next.” This installation manual is 412 pages long with an additional 23 pages of front matter -- contents, lists of figures, and the like."
However, while there's plenty of evidence that Dominion's code is bad, I am not aware of anything that shows that it's malicious - and the Sidney Powell stuff looks so crazy that her lawyers, when she was sued for defamation, actually argued that no reasonable person could believe it was true!
I think it's most likely two entirely different things. I would guess the Venezuela thing is about the Dominion voting machines, since that story was very prominent - and how often do you have Venezuela coming up with regards to US elections?
I don't know what the story was with internet-connected thermostats, but I'll be happy to come up with one for you because I really hate those, and I would guess that security-wise they are probably a trainwreck!
ACX Harrisburg PA local group, here. We are still advertising for new members... if you're interested in coming to an event, please contact acxharrisburg (at) gmail.com.
Who we are: local ACX meetup group with monthly meetings in central PA.
Who you are: a person reading this within driving distance of Harrisburg, Lancaster, or Carlisle, PA.
I am wondering if there's some term for...being pro-capitalist (in the sense that one isn't socialist or communist, and thinks it's at minimum the best worst economic system ever tried), and also being completely disgusted with one's workplace failing to follow basic economic theory. That sense of, if this is a for-profit company, why do they seem to hate making money so much? So many $20 bills left on the ground, and bigger denominations not infrequently. I'm familiar with some of the popular explanations for organizational dysfuction; what interests me more is how directly advocating process improvements and money-saving efficiencies to management tends to go nowhere, or even paradoxically make them double down on Worse Ways of Doing Everything, how dare you criticize.
This isn't an uncompetitive industry, and margins are really thin, so lack of robust competition can't be the answer. Heck, within the same mall there are two other national chains in our same business - the competition is literally nextdoor. It also isn't because we are flush with human capital - we're constantly under-staffed and frequently turn off both veterans and fresh faces. (It's pretty damning when new hires literally quit after a single day. Massive HR expense, no profit, only pain. Who is making these asinine hiring decisions? Why isn't this considered a huge knock-on cost for Worse Ways of Doing Everything?)
I guess I'm just frustrated. The easy cop-out is to pick up my sickle and sign up to Burn Down The System, Man. But that seems so strongly like a victim-mentality culture[1] response that I just can't. That last inch of self-esteem is too precious to give up, having been raised Honour and socialized into Dignity. An appropriately rationalist response would be to solve this with Entrepreneurship(tm), but I don't think "grocery" is a ripe market for Innovative Disruption or Plucky Start-Ups. (Other previous reformers have tried to climb the management ladder to effect change. They get the ideals beaten out of them. Every time. "I'm in a cult," my manager friend openly admits.)
If capitalism is still the best worst system despite copious amounts of literally setting fire to piles of fragile Value cause no one cares enough not to, then...it sure seems like there's way more Value to go around than I thought. Perhaps it's not actually valuable. What Are We Doing Here?, as Matt Yglesias would ask. Cause it's certainly not making money efficiently.
(Frankly, it's tempting to try and monetize the ineptitude by starting a Substack or something to chronicle my daily misadventures. But at-will employment is the law of the land in CA, and I'm already far too lax here with personal information. It'd be just begging to get doxxed and subsequently canned. Likely before attracting enough paid subscribers to be worthwhile, and then where would I find new material?)
I think the non-hammer-and-sickle route would be to unionize, which provides a counterbalance to the corporate instinct to squeeze out money wherever they can even when the misery and damage to morale is worth more than they gain.
Maybe it isn't a capitalist system (whatever that means).
Maybe it isn't a for-profit company, but being subsidized by the government for political actions, such as "creating jobs."
Margins are an illusion. You can trade price with payment terms from your suppliers. European grocers have zero margins and make money on the interest on the generous loans from their suppliers, because it's a better tax categorization. Maybe your employer has low margins for the sole purpose of tricking you.
Groceries are a common sole proprietor business and also the most common source of self-made billionaires.
I really relate to this - I'm in a similar situation. One possible cause of this situation is that it's really hard for a CEO to evaluate a senior manager's performance, and it's incredibly easy for a senior manager to talk their way into a position when they don't know what they're doing or care to improve. Once they're in a high level position, they can just seek rent without contributing anything, and if their underlings manage to put out all the fires, nothing changes.
I don't know whether this will help, but I've run a tiny business and I probably have more sympathy with management than many do, which doesn't keep me from noticing the damage that bad management does.
The thing is, the people in charge are people. Some of them are stupid, some of them are crazy. There's selection from competition, but it's slow an vague.
I'm guessing from your description that your management is paralyzed. They don't feel they have enough slack to even think about what they're doing. This is from your description of them failing to adopt good new ideas, as distinct from thrashing around adopting one bad new idea after another.
I honestly don't know how to improve the situation, though I hope you find a job with a better company. Or you could start your own business, which will at least be an educational experience.
Government is subject to organizational and human limits, even if they have a somewhat different flavor than business limits-- there's a lot that government misses out on, too.
>as distinct from thrashing around adopting one bad new idea after another.
It's actually both - things were already going downhill in general, necessitating some rearguard ass-covering (covid hasn't been kind to the workers in service industries, whether the industries as a whole did well or not); but earlier this year a High Muckity-Muck tripped a little too hard on his own supply of Power. After thrashing around in psychotic fits, he had an epiphany of several bad ideas in succession, which were then subsequently rammed down the throats of subordinate management, and ultimately to us.
So it's no one's "fault" and I totally get that they can't stick their necks out or their jobs are on the line (and managers are way more attached to their jobs than we are, their entire lifestyles are built around it). But what's been outrageous is the...collective indulgence of obvious delusionary nonsense? None of these changes make economic sense, they're an entirely wrong fit for our store appropriated wholesale from how other vastly-different regional chains operate. Literally no one is happy about the changes (including management), yet nothing can be done, cause thousands of dollars and labour hours have already been committed. One simply does not cease making Sacrifices to the Gods. The High Muckity-Muck must be appeased.
There's a reason why union sentiment is reaching all-time highs here. Us grunt workers who actually keep the store running can see most clearly every problem that will come up, well in advance...and then when the bad ideas are finally implemented, lo and behold, it's exactly the problems we predicted and loudly warned management about. Strange coincidence! Not that I imagine a labour movement will help much; my coworkers talk a big game about being Really Upset, but in the end, we mostly suck it up and keep eating the shit sandwich anyway. Hence why I'm ranting about this on an obscure Substack insted of organizing a picket line.
If only management had thought to ask their workers for suggestions on improvement, many of which are cost-neutral, and none of which necessitate months of contracting work (during business hours, even!). But, nah, that's crazy talk, no one does that. Reagan misspoke, the true quip shoulda been "I'm from Management, and I'm here to help" as the scariest words of all time.
Unions do get started sometimes, and I'm not sure how it happens. Last straw from management?
Part of the problem is that in the US, unions and management are framed as adversaries, so good ideas that aren't related directly to working conditions aren't going to get adopted. Unfortunately, working for fools who are running the business into the ground isn't thought of as a bad working condition even though it's very stressful.
"But what's been outrageous is the...collective indulgence of obvious delusionary nonsense?" Good question. My first thought is that it could be worse, it could be Russia. But that isn't helpful.
Here's another big picture notion. In _Sand Talk_, there's the idea that a primary function of society is controlling sociopaths. I'm not sure that your management is sociopathic, as distinct from simply awful. In any case, it's clear that culturally, we don't have good tools for identifying and controlling sociopaths.
Why do people concerned about AI risk seem (from what I've read) to dismiss Elon Musk's proposal to use Neuralink to enhance human capabilities so we'll be less cognitively-outclassed by our creations?
They don't, because they'll be much slower to achieve superintelligence, their development will be out in the open compared to AGI, and so there will be more time and more ability to regulate it compared with an AGI. Furthermore, its unlikely than a single individual will achieve a decisive strategic advantage with their high intelligence, and that individual will likely have to have bad motives to do harm, as perverse instantiation is much less likely. Whereas, a superintelligent AGI can destroy humanity while pursuing ostensibly benevolent goals that its creators gave it.
I'm more concerned about a dystopia where the social control extends directly into your brain, which is trivial to build once everyone neuralinks themselves for convenience. I'd rather wipe humanity out than see it turn into a totalitarian hivemind.
Your skull being airgapped is a feature, not a bug.
This. I'm actually considerably more worried about human enhancement than AGI. A computer with an IQ of 2000 and no will of its own is a tool, not a threat. Even if it does somehow become independent (which I think is unlikely), it probably wouldn't care about us one way or another. It seems far more likely that a super-intelligent AGI that went rogue would choose to leave us alone and do its own thing, rather than wage a costly and potentially risky extermination campaign against us. (Yes, we're made of atoms that it could use for whatever its goals are. But the universe is full of atoms, the vast majority of which aren't in configurations that can fight back.)
Whereas an enhanced human with an IQ of 500 is a lot scarier: All of that intellectual processing power will be in the service of a being that remains, at its core, a primitive ape, with all manner of savage instincts and cruel inclinations, and a natural predisposition towards conflict with other humans.
>This. I'm actually considerably more worried about human enhancement than AGI. A computer with an IQ of 2000 and no will of its own is a tool, not a threat. Even if it does somehow become independent (which I think is unlikely), it probably wouldn't care about us one way or another
Have you actually read Superintelligence? An AI doesn't have to care about us to be an enormous threat. If an AGI becomes superintelligent, then almost any utility function has the potential to become catastrophic through perverse instantiation.
>It seems far more likely that a super-intelligent AGI that went rogue would choose to leave us alone and do its own thing
They don't need to go "rogue", they just have to pursue their final goals in a way that we wouldn't want if we were controllling it. The only way to stop this happening is to prevent the AI having any power whatsoever, and that's easier said than done.
>rather than wage a costly and potentially risky extermination campaign against us.
This isn't what AI-safety people are worried about. You should read more of what they say so you're arguing against the cutting edge arguments from their side
>Whereas an enhanced human with an IQ of 500 is a lot scarier: All of that intellectual processing power will be in the service of a being that remains, at its core, a primitive ape, with all manner of savage instincts and cruel inclinations, and a natural predisposition towards conflict with other humans.
Putting aside the fact an IQ of 500 isn't really meaningful, the difference is that if such enormous intelligence enhacements are possible, they will come about extremely slowly and gradually. We will know its coming, we can regulate it in advance, and regulating it is much easier since only a few laboratories in the world will be capable of making these advances, and its a physical thing that can be prevented (i.e. banning brain implants) compared with trying to regulate opaque code on a harddrive that protnetially any sufficiently talented computer scientist is capable of creating.
AI isn't like this. There is the potential for an intelligence explosion that will occur far too quickly to regulate. And unlike a surgical procedure, this will happen in the dark, and may come about from a team that nobody even knew were doing pioneering work in developing and AGI.
I am yet to be convinced that neural networks (the only tech that we know of that can show intelligence) can recursively self improve. Up until now, one needs to materially make the network bigger in order to make them smarter.
The answer is yet again: it's outside the Overton window. And the irony of people fighting to bring an important concept inside the window failing in exactly the same way is not lost on me.
I guess I'm kinda privileged that way, because I keep a foot in many worlds - and let me tell you, there's barely any difference in how tribal and inward looking they are. The rationalist community is slightly better just for having the tools to get out of this hole - not that they're actually using them a whole lot to correct their biases.
I apologize for being snappy and taking swings, but the inhibition of touching the holy human body is grating me really deep. I get Chesterton's fence, but we're not talking about putting a chip in every human's head. We're talking about doing the Bayesian sane thing, where the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of choices like human challenge trials, more aggressive new therapies on terminally ill, anti aging research and yes, stuff like Neuralink. Or, of course, AI alignment research.
Neuralink won't be allowed to make swift progress, because that requires experimental brain surgery on humans, and there's a strong bias against medical techs helping people overcome "normal" conditions like aging or having average intelligence.
Even if it can make rapid progress (for medical technology), Neuralink won't be as easy to change or improve as AGI systems, assuming that they're just software on commodity hardware.
In a fast takeoff scenario, an enhanced human is a slightly smarter human, not doubling in cognitive power every month / week / day.
Pro: if we assume it's going to be a close race, then even half a year of advantage might prove decisive.
Cons: human enhancement will likely give raw capability, not necessarily extra wisdom. So it might be used in creating a super AI even sooner, without actually working much on the harder problem of alignment. I'm pretty sure EY would prefer things move slower overall.
In the end we should of course do it, or at least Really Try. Not that FDA would let us move too fast.
There are multiple stated purposes for a government inflicting punishments on individuals. I've often thought of these as non-exclusive (we can have many reasons for imposing a prison sentence on someone). However, I was reading a book recently that caused me to question the legitimacy of some justifications for punishment and promote the supremacy of others. I'd like to hear the perspective from the ACX community on these. Much of my perspective is coming from a US-centric perspective.
Deterrence - The biggest problem with this theory of punishment is that it's not rooted in the individual crime and the person who committed the crime. This can lead to significant injustice being carried out in the name of punishment. Take for example a shoplifter in a quiet town where nothing much happens versus a shoplifter in San Francisco. The same crime is committed, but the small town doesn't have much incentive to promote deterrence, since this kind of thing rarely happens. That shoplifter gets a sentence commensurate to the crime (perhaps a few hours of community service) and goes on their way. Meanwhile, a shoplifter in SF sees people around them not getting caught and shoplifts anyway. Maybe they get caught and are upset that they're getting punished for something nobody else is getting punished for. Under the principle of deterrence, perhaps they have a point - they weren't given 'notice' that this was wrong through the enforcement of criminal norms. Or perhaps a new DA comes to SF seeking to crack down on shoplifting. They institute stronger sentences on shoplifters, up to and including 5 years in prison. Because they want to maximize deterrence, the DA makes this a mandatory minimum sentence.
The new scheme works and SF shoplifting drops to an all-time low. Parents empty their toddler's pockets after leaving each shop, to ensure nothing is accidentally stolen from the store. Except that the new sentences will still be applied to some undeterred shoplifters (if not just people who were caught in the initial rollout of the sentencing changes, or who were unaware of the strict policy). Deterrence failed even with the policy. However, think of what the underlying crime actually was: the SF shoplifters engaged in the same activity as the small town thief, but got much harsher punishments for their actions.
What is the justification for the harsh punishment? Not that their crimes were particularly worse than the small town thief's crime, but that there might be knock-on effects from the imposition of a greater sentence that would prevent other people from committing offenses. "You're suffering so others don't have to."
Imagine you're the person who received 5 years hard time for something that - done in isolation - would only have warranted community service. You didn't commit the other offenses, and you have nothing to do with potential future offenders. How does the harsh punishment not appear monumentally unjust to you? Indeed, it seems you're being punished more for other people's crimes than for your own.
In a way, deterrence contains an element of collective punishment being heaped on an individual. Do you belong to a class of criminals we want to deter? Congratulations, you get to serve as an example to get flogged disproportionate to your crimes for the knock-on effect that will have in promoting the public peace. Why is your fate a public resource, not a direct result of your own actions? Certainly not out of some sense of "justice".
(If your punishment isn't disproportionate, and is exactly what we would do without deterrence, then what role is deterrence playing in the justification for punishment?)
Deterrence, taken seriously, suggests a direction for criminal justice we don't want to go down. After all, if we're willing to punish people disproportionate to their crime in the name of deterrence, why are we stipulating that the people who receive the unfair treatment have to have committed a crime? Might we just go on to profile people who are disproportionately likely to commit a crime and prevent them from doing so? In a sense, this is like Minority Report, except that we've already done the hard philosophical work of accepting (through the deterrence principle) that it's okay to punish someone for the public good, and not just for crimes committed. With big data, machine learning, and a lot of hand-waving by politicians who want to appear Tough On Crime, I'm sure we can achieve the dystopian future we're all ready to vote into office.
Rehabilitation - This one seems less problematic than deterrence. After all, what's wrong with wanting to reduce recidivism? And I think that's a noble goal of government - to reduce the rate of crime. However, it walks a fine line between, "don't continue to do the thing we initially punished you for" and "go be a good person". Why wouldn't we want criminals to go be good people? I certainly think that would be great if they all got rehabilitated and went on to live good lives. But who gets to define "good"? The State, in the case of criminal justice/punishment.
Once the State gets to decide that people should be good - and more importantly, that it's the State's responsibility to ensure people are good - we have to ask again, why the State should wait for people to commit crimes before undertaking its appointed mission of making people "good" as it defines them? To the State, "good" citizens are easy to count, tax, and govern (cf. "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott). Good citizens don't smoke, get fat, lose their job, or get too involved in political organizations other than those already sanctioned as part of the status quo. Also, they die when they're supposed to, instead of living out into their 90's.
I'm not saying that the principles of deterrence and rehabilitation will necessarily lead to dystopian futures where the State rounds people up and mandates Approved behaviors. Instead, I'm trying to ask whether these justifications are workable in a rational framework for criminal punishment. Because if they're fundamentally wrong, we should probably stop using them, since they could lead to poor results, even if they're never taken to the limit.
(Also, maybe I'm wrong here? I'm kind of thinking out loud and interested in the ACX community's take on this. In principle, I like programs that seek to reduce recidivism by providing educational and job opportunities. Maybe I'm being too harsh on rehabilitation? Perhaps instead we should think of rehabilitation as an ancillary/non-coercive goal of criminal reform - something the State may advance but not require as part of a separate initiative from criminal punishment. Perhaps a similar case may be made for deterrence. The problem is that when we say, "We punish because we care!" it's necessarily a compulsory exercise. You don't get to choose whether you go to prison, the State does. That's not the same process as getting the chance to earn your GED in prison.)
Retribution - This is, I think, one of the most defensible reasons to inflict punishment by the government, but one I once thought of as prosaic. In his book, "The World Until Yesterday", Jared Diamond talks of many tribal cultures preferring the transition to centralized rule for this exact reason. A major problem tribal people face is perpetual rounds of retributive justice.
For example, say a child is killed in a car accident, and the child's parents/family/tribe are angry. They seek the life of the driver of the car in retribution. However, the driver told his people the nature of the accident, and that the driver was in no way at fault for the child's death. Instead of having a forum where both sides can make their case to an impartial party, the accused's people have to make their case to an aggrieved party. Say the child's family goes ahead and takes retribution on the driver (killing him). Now the driver's family/tribe has a grievance, so they take retribution in turn. The child's family/tribe sees this retribution for their 'just' act as illegitimate, and there's no end to the bloodshed, potentially spanning generations.
Contrast this with a centralized authority capable of hearing and adjudicating disputes. For any single case, there is a single execution of justice or injustice. In one sense, it doesn't matter whether what is served is justice or injustice, because the overall effect will be to limit the injustice to the isolated event. People on both sides of the crime will be better of no matter what the verdict is under this system, than in an ongoing feud where a single perception of the miscarriage of justice (real or not) could devolve into a series of unjust retaliations ancillary to the inciting event.
In another sense, it is absolutely vital that in most cases 'justice' is seen to be served - commensurate with the demands of the aggrieved party. The biggest threat to government-led retributive justice is vigilantism. If people don't see their legitimate complaints being served by the justice system, faith in that system may break down and return to a potential for cycles of violence. Again, what matters is the appearance of justice, as much as that actual justice is served. If the community doesn't believe criminal punishment is able to justice, at a certain point they take matters into their own hands.
Retributive justice can go wrong where the actions taken by the government are perceived as too strong or too weak in relation to the crime that was committed. If too weak, the concern about vigilantism arises. If too strong, this also raises concern that the State isn't a competent arbiter of disputes, and can't be trusted to do so.
In his book "Gang Leader For a Day", Sudhir Venkatesh outlines a situation in Chicago where an entire society's trust in the fairness and impartiality of the police had eroded. Calling the police to settle a dispute was unthinkable, because it was likely both parties would be punished regardless of the proximal dispute that brought the authorities (perhaps a domestic dispute would result in an abusive partner getting taken away, but also a mother and her child getting kicked out because they weren't on the lease). That society was deprived of an essential role of criminal justice, to the point that it stopped relying on central authority, relying instead on a system of warlords (gangs) that competed for territory.
Law-and-Order - I think this case is similar to the retributive case. The concept of a "debt to society" transfers the sense of being wronged from the person who was directly harmed by the crime to 'society' itself. This puts vigilantism one step farther away from the Overton window by making the victim's justice claim secondary to society's. It doesn't eliminate the victim, and often in court victims get a voice prior to sentencing (and may impact sentencing). However, even if you forgive your offender, the State may still pursue its case against them and punish them for their actions. This transforms the role of the state from 'impartial arbiter of personal disputes' into a principle and independent actor that takes victims into account in its decisions.
Obviously, this topic is a lot more complex than what I've outlined above.
Deterrence -- in some way you could view it as a probability. Enforcement being imperfect you have an expected value of P(being caught) * punishment. Sucks to be you to get caught, but maybe just don't do this stuff.
A toddler stealing is not relevant. Value of the item clearly matters here. Really we are most interested in armed crimes and those who go there invite capital punishment regardless of outcome.
Maybe the theory of justice goes like this: The state has a legitimate interest in protecting its citizens and 'ensuring domestic tranquility', or whatever. Given the impossibility of punishing all crimes, those who are caught receive a more severe punishment for deterrent purposes. It's not that the State believes you deserve that stiff a sentence, it's the cost of doing business in a civilized society. We're passing on that cost to those most closely related to the negative externality. Someone will disproportionately pay for the externality, so it might as well be the criminals we catch so we can generate a positive externality from the exchange.
In this case, it would only be fair for the State to offer you a chance at absolution - to prove you're not longer part of the group contributing to the negative externality. "Rehabilitation" in this sense would not be a goal of the justice system, but rather an offramp from deterrence-level excess punishment. Do you want to receive only the base-rate punishment for your crime? First prove you're no longer part of the group we wish to deter. It's part of ensuring this more complex/mature system remains just.
What would it look like if these paired principles were applied across the board? Maybe any increase in sentencing severity should include new rehabilitation programs (and vice-versa), such that the expected net effect should be no change in incarceration rates.
These are good points. Is there also a "bind the tribe together" by enforcing norms function? Like, if we all collectively agree to punish some offense, then every time we do it, it reaffirms our shared connection as members of "the group that punishes this offense"?
The best example I can think of for this from the ancestral environment is cannibalism. Norms against cannibalism are nearly universal, and serve in some way to set early humans apart from animals. There was obviously some cost to this strategy. Even if you didn't want to eat the dead members of your OWN tribe, you probably would have felt much less strongly about not eating members of the enemy tribe you just killed.
In the contemporary environment, it seems like the idea that we should get permits for a bunch of things, from driving a car to installing a shed in your backyard in urban areas, mostly serve the function of forcing people to do things to prove they are sufficiently committed to the team to do them.
Another book I was reading defended the use of capital punishment in this way. The argument was not that people would be directly deterred from committing murder, but that they would view murder as such a heinous crime, and murderers as the kind of pariah, that is unthinkable to even contemplate going in the direction that might lead someone to think about it.
(It's interesting to note that many pre-modern societies did not have the taboo against murder we know today, so maybe there's something to this? Except that same taboo is present in societies without capital punishment.)
In his book "Dreamland", Sam Quinones suggests there may be a dark side to this kind of cultural coercion. When a heroin epidemic hit a bunch of middle-class families in suburbia, nobody wanted to admit there was a problem because then THEY would be ostracized. The taboo against any association with heroin prevented people from tackling the opioid crisis until it had become well-established, partly because of the extreme social stigma associated with using such a hard drug.
I have a horrible thought about something: some of the people who were lynched in the U.S. were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. Statistically speaking, it's impossible that all of them were innocent.
I don't at all support lynching or any form of extrajudicial killing (outside of some extreme emergency situations), and I think the phenomenon of lynchings were a blight on America. At the same time, the notion of a memorial to the victims of all lynchings, regardless of their guilt, bothers me since such a thing inadvertently venerates the minority of murderers and rapists in those ranks who actually did do what their accusers claimed.
Statistically speaking, it's impossible that there were not murderers and rapists gassed by the Nazis. Do you also oppose memorializing victims of the Holocaust, since such memorials inadvertently venerate the minority of criminals in those ranks?
The victims of the Holocaust weren't gassed specifically because they were murderers/rapists. There is no particular reason to believe any individual was (we can assume children and basically all the women were innocent), instead your angle is that we can't be sure all the victims weren't given how many of them there were.
First, I don't think that many people disagree with the fact that people have the right to a fair trial, whether they are guilty or innocent. So even the victims of lynching who were guilty exactly of what they were accused of, still represent a vulnus of justice we ought to remember. Secondly, one might argue (quite reasonably) that the point of lynching was not to actually punish crimes (for which a court of law would have sufficed), but to keep the black (and Irish, and Italian, and...) community "in their place". So it might be worthwhile to remember what essentially amounted to endemic and relentless terrorism.
Third, memorials exist for the living, not for the dead. What do you think it is more important FOR US to be reminded of, of how easy it is for a society to slip into spontaneous and systemic mob violence under a veneer of righteous rationalization, or about the fate of Denzel deWashington in particular, were it deserved or not?
On the western frontier lynching was resorted to because the full legal system of trials wasn't feasible. So once they were available, lynching died down. I've heard of Italians getting targeted for lynching (particularly in Louisiana), but not Irish.
I have been thinking about this whole lynching memorial thing and have decided it is the wrong direction. What would be better is if we identified a person who forced or encouraged a group bent on extra legal action and instead persuaded them to follow the rule of law. Regardless of the guilt of the accused, this is the result we want, and it is people who make that happen that we should honor.
The black/white lynching ratio was SMALLER than the black/white incarceration ratio today. This means either that black people were committing less crimes back when they were more 'oppressed', or that lynch mobs were less racist than the criminal justice system is today. Neither possibility is congruent with modern liberal narratives around race.
When, where, according to what source, with what definition of "lynching", and is that ratio adjusted for population?
There's a lot of fundamental differences between the situation then and the situation now that we have to consider before we even propose hypotheses, much less come to conclusions.
When people think 'Lynching' in the U.S., they often think of racial-lynching. The mob finds a person of the wrong skin color, accuse them of being too uppity, and hangs them from a tree.
But what people may not know is that the act of lynching was known to be used against suspected-or-actual criminals, and sometimes in ways that aren't obviously racist.
One blogger has been trolling through old newspaper stories about mass-murder in the United States. In several places, he has found news stories about lynchings that do not fit the stereotypical mold of racial lynching.
This story claims that six black men were lynched by a black mob. On the newspaper page, look for the headline "A Just Retribution". The alleged crime was pretty brutal, and the men were in prison awaiting trial. A mob reputedly broke the men out of prison, and summarily executed them.
Is this an atypical lynching, or is it more-typical than the racist lynching that we've been told about? Are these men still worthy of being included among 'victims of lynchings', even if the men could be proven to have committed the crime that they were accused of?
Right. While a disproportionately high number of American lynchings involved white mobs murdering black victims, there were also many "white-on-white" lynchings and lynchings involving other races. This is often forgotten.
I don't like how the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that I linked to in my first post seems to overlook the white victims of American lynchings.
Would you have similar misgivings about a hypothetical memorial to all the victims of capital punishment (i.e. death penalty), regardless of their guilt? You know, operating within the established judicial system and all...since we do know many were, in fact, innocent.
That's an interesting inversion of the question. I am slightly pro-death penalty (not an important issue for me), but I wouldn't have misgivings about such a memorial, since I understand and respect the point of view that the state shouldn't have a right to kill people who have already been removed from society.
Yes. Let me be clear about something, I was never really "against" lynching memorials. For my entire adult life up until a few months ago, I hadn't given the matter any deep thought, and was "pro lynching memorial" by default.
I had my "horrible thought" a few months ago, and ever since have been undecided about lynching memorials. This discussion has switched me back into the "pro" camp.
Sure, but the overwhelming majoirty of the reason people care about lynching victims is NOT that capital puinishment/mob violence is wrong, its based on the myth that it was killing black people for being black. And it's especially silly to act like the people who believe in the lynching myth are opposed to "mob violence". They support it when it aligns with their ideology.
To me, the issue is the extra legal actions in violation of existing laws and best practices.
In both the West and the South, a conservative estimate has the lynching victim being guilty of the accused offense (which was, in the majority of all cases, murder) half or more of the time. Attempts to pretend lynching victims were largely innocent or accused of noncrimminal social offenses are both false and a distraction from the real issue - the failure to follow established judicial process.
A "we fucked up and ain't gonna do that again" memorial might well be appropriate, particularly if accompanied by a commitment from elected leaders to ensure public safety and a respect for community norms such that future communities have no justification for not following the proper rules.
A memorial that lionized the rapists, murderers, and poor souls caught up with them would be far less appropriate, imo.
See "vigilance committees" such as the ones in California. Citizen vigilante groups. Apparently they worked. In San Francisco they hanged a criminal gang of white Australians.
Not just "some", in the western frontier of the US it took a while for a formal justice system to take form so lynching would have been the norm. Lynching died down in the west as formal justice displaced it because people were basically doing the best they could at the time.
Or to put it an other way : among the Jews killed by the nazis, there were probably some pretty bad persons. I don't think this should stop us to have Shoah memorials.
That's just the law of large numbers at that point - almost any non-individual memorial can be criticized with such reasoning. Memorials are implicitly for the "good" or "innocent" members of a group, to memorialize the bravery or injustice they collectively faced. And in this instance, it's important to emphasize that whether or not any individual was guilty, they almost certainly didn't have a "fair" trail.
To give specific examples, this memorial is no worse than one to, say, soldiers in war (many of whom committed war crime) or police (many of whom even other cops admit are "bad apples"). Or for a more direct analogy, it's similar to a memorial to victims Japanese American internment camps, which (by the sheer numbers) probably held at least a few would-be or actual spies, but were inarguably a miscarriage of justice.
"Memorials are implicitly for the "good" or "innocent" members of a group, to memorialize the bravery or injustice they collectively faced."
You seem to be contradicting yourself in that sentence? Why should a memorial for the shoah or similar only be for the "good, innocent" members of the group? Surely the criminals among them, no matter which crime, faced the same injustice. Surely, the criminals would have deserved a fair trial instead of being murdered for an unrelated reason, no?
I think it's very simple: A shoah memorial is about the shoah. Every victim of the shoah is a victim of the shoah. Any other *unrelated* crime is.. unrelated and and therefore irrelevant.
People who died in Vietnam weren't killed BECAUSE of anything bad they did in the US (unless you count signing up to fight there in the first place, which would apply to the subset who volunteered).
"Tuskegee University now houses the nation’s most complete record of lynchings occurring in the U.S. during an 86-year period spanning 1882 to 1968. During this time, 4,743 people were lynched — including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states."
I hadn't realized that >25% of lynchings were of white folk or that >25% were outside of the South, though prob. should given this overlaps with 'frontier justice' and the like.
The (presumably stated) motivations for lynching are interesting too
Lynching wasn't at all exclusive to blacks. It's also suggestive that a higher proportion of the black population is now arrested and convicted for rape, murder, or other violent crime than was ever lynched. For lynching to be mostly based on racist hatred rather than any attempt at justice would seem to require either that whites became *more* racist today, or that black criminality was a sudden and modern phenomenon.
Not that extrajudicial punishment is a good thing, or even to say that it's definitely the case that any supermajority of victims were guilty. It's just not, to my mind, as clear-cut a case of "well white people were just demons back then" as people think (and how many people can name even a single one of the many, many white lynching victims?).
Hello Sam Altman ! I'm glad that you enjoyed my review.
Based on what I know, I think that those estimates are too high. But I'm sure that you have insider information about Helion.
Here's what I know about Helion's schedule: The 5th prototype, Venti, had a triple product of ~10^19 keV s / m^3, which is two orders of magnitude too small for D-T fusion. The current 6th prototype is Trenta is much larger. It has demonstrated temperatures of over 100 million Celsius, which is 4-5 times Venti. This is hot enough for D-T fusion, but still an order of magnitude too low for D-He3 fusion. I don't think that the best triple product for Trenta has been published. The 7th prototype, Polaris, should be completed in 2023, and the 8th prototype is Antares.
Your predictions sound like: 85% that Polaris will get Q>1 D-T fusion within 1-2 years of operation and 65% that Antares will be built by 2025 and will get Q>1 D-He3 fusion within 1-2 years of operation.
My predictions didn't give any individual project a greater than 70% chance of success. Even though high quality simulations that accurately model JET & other tokamaks tell us that ITER and SPARC should get Q~10. Plasmas have surprised us too many times to be that confident of individual experiments. There are some predictions that I could make with higher accuracy. For example, JET could get Q>1 if it tried (90%). I am this confident because JET has already demonstrated the triple product needed for Q>1, but using entirely deuterium plasmas instead of D-T plasmas. All they would have to do is repeat that shot with different fuel.
I am tempted to read your predictions as saying that Trenta has already demonstrated the densities and confinement times needed for D-T fusion, using pure deuterium plasmas, but hasn't published them. Otherwise, I think that 85% is too high.
The second prediction is more than 10 times harder than the first, measured using the triple product. The temperature needed for D-He3 fusion is almost an order of magnitude higher and the density * confinement time also needs to be several times larger. This is significantly different from regimes where the simulations have been tested.
I'm having a debate with someone about harmony in music, specifically in chords, and we're stuck on two separate problems.
The first is about measuring harmony mathematically. I went into the debate assuming this is easy, but that doesn't seem to be true. My understanding so far is (1) the frequency ratios from different notes in a chord are important, (2) simple ratios like 2:3 are consonant/harmonic whereas more complicated ratios are dissonant, however (3) it's unclear how to quantify it.
It seems to me that, at a minimum, a proper measure should (assuming it takes the ratio as an argument, e.g. 2/3), be applicable to arbitrary real values, be continuous, and measure the *distance* to various (all?) integer ratios. E.g., 288172993915332718882937/576345987830665437765875 should be highly consonant (since it's almost exactly 1/2) even though both integer values are big. But I haven't yet found a formula that does this.
Our other question is to what extent harmony is intrinsically pleasant versus culturally conditioned. (Answering the first question would help here; without that, it's unclear whether e.g. chords on the japanese insen system can be consonant.) On this point, it seems to me like the most relevant data would be from preferences of babies and/or animals. And preferably babies from different cultures, since otherwise they may be conditioned by e.g. hearing western music when they're still in the womb. Do we have good data on this?
Thinking of this as pure signal analysis, two factors are going to limit your capacity to tell 1:2 apart from something close to 1:2 : background noise and how long you're measuring the waves. The longer you measure, the finer the frequency resolution you get and the more spread out the noise becomes among the frequency bins.
The Pythagorean comma is an immutable obstacle to perfect harmonic consonance. How best to work around that is, to some extent, a culturally conditioned choice
Consonanace also depends a lot on the timbre and how the harmonics overlap.
That's why instruments tuned to Bohlen-Pierce tend to be cylindrical bore aerophones: they don't produce even overtones which would sound dissonant when played in intervals based on twelth roots of three.
You may want to check out "On the Sensations of Tone" by Hermann Helmholtz, translated by Henry Margenau. As I recall, Margenau added a vast amount of interesting footnotes and references.
Going from memory here, I think in one of the extensive footnotes, there is a list of the frequencies of the (mostly or possibly exclusively) pentatonic scales used by indigenous people of various Pacific Islands.
It's at least an interesting book by a giant in the field of acoustics.
Three Blue One Brown did a video on a similar theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyW5z-M2yzw It considers the question, "When is the ratio of two notes close to a fraction with a small denominator?"
I think this is related to the total period of the combined wave generated by the chord/interval. Here's a GitHub repo of someone that coded a few ideas up and refers to source articles:
Edit: Altough I guess that doesn't really cover your large integers case. Interesting. Something to do with imperfect perception? I think everyone would just hear that as 1:2. Also equal temperament tuning just working at all.. where the difference is much worse than your example.
I know that primarily, it dramatically reduces the risk of severe disease and death (waning over time).
Does it do this by shifting the entire distribution of disease severity, or by chopping off the high end of the distribution and leaving the rest about the same?
Seems like the latter. My perception of it is that if you have two immune naive people who end up with covid on the same day, one of whom will go on to die, and one of whom will recover fully in a week, they will both be about as sick on day 2. The one who will die will become sicker on day 3, whereas the one who will be fine will be less sick on day 3. Now, if you go back and vaccinate these same two people before they acquire the diseases, the vaccine created antibody response will take some time to kick in, so by day 3, it will be obliterating viruses in the lungs left and right, preventing the one who would have died from continuing to get sicker.
A bit of both, but closer to shifting the entire distribution. The hospitalization/ICU rates are also strongly decreased, though not quite as massively as the death rate.
If we look at mild infections, vaccines have less effect against these, especially for the omicron variants. "Less" does not mean zero, but it's not comparable to the pretty spectacular reduction of hospitalizations and deaths.
Mind that by medical standards, "mild infections" are everything short of hospitalization, and can range from "no symptoms" to "heavy flu-like symptoms for a week or two". I would assume from the other data points that vaccines protect a bit better against the latter than against symptom-free infections, but that is not the data that is usually available.
What's the Tory mandate going to be like going forwards? Obviously they officially have everything that they won in 2019 (minus the odd by-election) but the next government is going to be very different from the centerist Johnson ministry that the red wall voted for. Or are those seats enough of a lost cause that they're not worth worrying about?
I think it's likely that we're about to see a sharp tack to the right. Johnson was an unprincipled, a- and im-moral opportunist and a canny politician; he ran well to the centre of his party because that was where the votes are. I don't know who his successor will be, but most of the likely candidates are much more doctrinaire.
My guess (and hope) is that that will be unpopular, and be punished hard at the polls some time in the next year and a half, but I'm not confident of that.
In terms of "mandates", I'm not sure how meaningful the concept is - lots of different people can vote for the same party for different reasons, after all.
I mean in a moral? sense more than anything else. Like they're allowed to do whatever a majority of MPs want to until Jan '25 but there's a sense in which they ought to be enacting the will of the people.
I don't believe in the will (singular) of the people. People who voted for the Tories did so for a wide range of reasons, from enthusiasm for centre-right policies to enthusiasm for far-right policies to nose-holding opposition to Corbyn. And that's true of any government.
Legally, the extent of the Tory's mandate is clear: the elected MPs have the right to vote on laws, and appoint the prime minister, until the next election is held. In terms of moral mandate beyond that, you could make a case that it would be wrong for them to deviate radically from what were the boundaries of the Tory's "tent" at the time of the election (I think there's a case to be made that MPs who change party should resign), but not much can be said beyond that.
I'm a math grad student in his final year, and I want go to "all out" in terms of working hours in order to get good results/publications. I was just toying with the idea of taking modafinil in order to accomplish that.
What is the recommended dosage for producing quality research (so alertness and sharpness are important). Could I pop a pill every other day, for instance?
Standard dose for ADHD is 100 mg/day starting dose and 200 mg/day maximum dose, titrating up or down based on perceived efficacy and tolerability of side effects. Standard US prescription modafinil comes in either 100mg or 200mg pills. I have a prescription for 200mg/day and will take either a full pill or a half pill depending on how much help I think I'll need to focus that day (how much and how well I slept, how tired I feel waking up, how much trouble I've been having focusing lately, how much I need/want to get done today, etc), and I try not to take a full pill more than a few days in a row in order to give my body opportunities to ratchet down and recover.
Modafinil has also been studied (and reportedly used by the military) for sustaining performance in the face of sleep deprivation. There are several proposed dosage schedules here, such as this one proposing 100mg every eight hours of wakefulness for up to 64 hours at a stretch. I do not recommend this in a non-emergency situation.
If you want to take less than a full pill, it's better to break it in half than to do alternate day doses: modafinil has a half-live in your system of about 12 hours (11 hours for one isomer and 13 hours for the other), so to a first approximation you'll have 200mg worth of modafinil in your system at the start of day one, 50mg on day two, 212mg on day three, 53mg on day four, etc. Whereas if you take half a pill every morning, that'll give you 100mg on day one, 125mg on day two, 131mg on day three, and steady state around 133mg thereafter.
Also, the effect of modafinil on your sleep at night depends on the amount still in your system at bedtime. On a half-pill-each-day schedule, you'll have about 53mg in your system 16 hours after your dose at steady state, whereas with a full pill every other day you'll be alternating between ~85mg at bedtime on your pill days and ~21mg at bedtime on your off days.
Where did you get your half-lives? The widely reported numbers are 15 for the active isomer and 4 for the inactive isomer (which is irrelevant, except that it contributes to the meaningless number of 12 for the racemic mixture). There is individual variation.
From my memory of the pharmacokinetics section of the package insert when I first started taking modafinil. I just double-checked and the current section is consistent with your figures, so either I'm misremembering or the understanding of the pharmacokinetics of modafinil has changed some time in the past six years.
I'd be careful about fucking with your sleep in a chronic fashion. Taking anything psychotropic every other day for a year is asking for trouble, even more so when limiting a process with extreme physiological importance and unclear mechanisms.
Take as small a dose as possible. It's a double edged sword - you won't sleep as well the night you take it.
You can take it daily, but be aware the amount in your system will build up somewhat over a few days until steady state is reached. Most people find daily use isn't sustainable, except for occasional freaks like Dave Asprey.
Incidently, the s enatomer of modafinil has a shorter half life so would make sleeping easier.. but it's not available, unfortunately. =/
I find I sleep fine so long as I do some intense cardio the day I take it. Which, by the way, I highly recommend. Otherwise I end up a jittery jerk around bedtime.
There is large individual variation. The standard dose is 100mg. But you should try 50mg and see if it works. And make sure that it actually produces output, not just many hours at your desk.
In asking about doses per week, you sound like you are asking about tolerance, but it is also relevant how often you need quantity of work vs creativity.
I have used 2 mg/kg as a dose (this was not in pill form, I weighed it out). But in my experience it's really only useful for the occasional all-nighter and isn't sustainable long-term.
Sorry, I decided to try their recommendation system because I assumed it would be good for those blogs in some way. I didn't realize it would send out a mass email or else I wouldn't have done it.
I didn't get an e-mail, I'm just seeing it when I open Substack. And I'm perfectly fine with it.
There were comments about people getting unwanted 'please subscribe' features on their screen and probably that's why I put it in the category of 'probably a substack feature', especially as there is a longer blogroll just below. So it's good to know that it's your selection.
I wrote this comment in the response to the comments for the 2020 Homicide Spike piece, but was a bit late to the party so I think it may have missed the prime time for discussion. I think it might be worth considering, however, so I'll repost it here to see what people think:
I want to make the argument that the media coverage of the murder itself is what led to the increased murder rates.
It is already well known that the wide-reporting of suicides leads to an increase in suicides (and, sadly, an increase in car and commercial aircraft crashes). It is similarly known that the reporting of murders leads to an increase in murders in the areas of reporting. This is most notably observed following, again sadly, school shootings, when numerous shootings occur in succession. So, I think the argument can be made that the massive media coverage of the murder of George Floyd led, in turn, to the murder of more black men.
This would track with the logic that in reporting suicides and murders you lead to copycat suicides and murders. Where ages are reported in articles discussing suicides, the increase in suicides occurs in those within that age group/range. It seems to follow, therefore, that massive reporting of the murder of a black man would lead to copycat events. This would seem to explain why deaths of other ethnicities do not see a staggering increase. Likewise, one imagines that coverage of the murder of George Floyd was more extreme in the United States hence why the increase is only observable there (albeit I would need to actually see if the coverage was greater in the US). I would add that this explanation would also cover why media outlets have discussed other reasons; to state this is the reason would make them, in some way, complicit.
Timings wise it would also make sense. The coverage and the protests would occur contemporaneously, each feeding off the other.
I appreciate that this thought is unsourced, and low-effort in that it may have been covered by other comments, or by ACT and I have just missed it. Regardless, any discussion based on this thought would be interesting.
It is always accurate to say "the media coverage [...] is what led to". Nobody is out there directly interacting with reality; everyone is trapped in a media bubble [except of course for you, dear reader, my apologies].
How do you mean? As in does coverage of things like assassinations beget further assassinations? If so, I don't really know, but a brief look at some lists of assassinations on Wikipedia would appear to suggest so; 2016 appears to have been an especially prolific year for high-profile assassinations.
If you mean something like civil unrest then I think I would also say that publicising it leads to further civil unrest. For example, the 2011 London Riots spread to various British cities despite them having no connection to the original cause of the London riots (the shooting of Mark Duggan). Equally, throughout history there have been clear cases of civil unrest spreading internationally the 1968 Protests, 1848 Protests, and Arab Spring all spring to mind anecdotally. The extent to which social proof exacerbated feelings around underlying issues probably would need looking into in these areas however, rather than just causatively saying social proof caused the unrest to spread.
I hope this is what you meant by your question, if not, do say and I'll try to answer that!
....Are you saying that [the death by neglect/kneeling on the back of a black man by a white cop] was copycatted into [the shooting of black men by other black men] and not any other sort of murder?
(Serious question, trying to understand your point.)
Yeah that's basically what I'm saying. I understand any scepticism that kneeling can lead to shootings, but the research from the reporting of suicides indicates that the reporting of a suicides leads to an increase in car accidents and aircraft crashes. That suggests to me that, for the purposes of social proof, the methodology of the act matters less than the act itself.
I realise in the original piece that the conclusion is that it is "most likely" black people killing other black people, but this conclusion seems to be reached by virtue of a lack of increase in hate crimes, rather than statistical evidence showing as much. If the increase were based off social proof, then there would also be no increase in hate crimes, because hate would not necessarily be the reason. So, I think we would need to dive deeper into the statistics of the spike before certainly saying it is black people shooting black people.
Hate crimes are rarely significant enough to make up a large fraction of total crimes. Most crimes are intra-racial, with the exception of atypical groups like Asian-Americans who have low enough crime rates that victims have more like a coin-flip chance of being victimized by a fellow Asian. So when we see very large increases in the number of African-Americans shot, we can rely on our earlier prior about such crimes.
It would also be good to have more verification that the violence was tracking former patterns, rather than being a marked and unprecedented uptick in white-on-black crime that the (highly motivated) press didn't find at the time, but prior to that verification, I'm not inclined to support the idea that it was any new pattern.
There's another possible mechanism: everyone knows big protests (which really are mostly peaceful) follow media campaigns. Even without police pull-back, lots of folks in the streets draw off police manpower, and provide cover for the kind of crime that we don't like to talk about: dudes going out with the express intention of shooting other dudes. I don't claim to have a working grasp of how much is explicitly gang-related as opposed to the result of purely personal vendettas, but the most rational possible thought for someone who knows someone who "has it coming" seeing big media outrage of the type that ignites action in one's city is "huh maybe this weekend would be a good time, better call my friends".
Very true, but we used to hear a lot about the cycle of retaliatory violence*. People aren't shot in a vacuum. The initial spike may have been more than a temporary bump, and other factors now maintain homeostasis at a higher level.
* "We hear a lot about the cycle of violence these days. I had one of those when I was a kid. I used to ride it all over the neighborhood and beat the other kids with a length of steel pipe." -- George Carlin
I'm not sure I 100% follow your point regarding the media directly reporting on the school shootings and suicides. From what I remember, the media reported quite heavily on the murder of a black person. I think the point I was making was that the reporting of the murder of a black person would, pursuant to the social proof phenomenon, lead to an increase in murders of black people which is what the data shows. I imagine the perpetrators of such crimes would follow existing trends, which may be better viewed in socioeconomic, rather than racial, terms.
I think your point regarding media reporting also anticipates a rational decision, when social proof is something that is notable because of the lack of rational thought required in reaching the decisions that the social proof phenomenon.
I think you are correct in that it may be a combination of things. It may well be that social proof leads to the attempt of these murders (hence also the raise in aggravated assaults), and the reduced policing leads to an increased number of them succeeding (or some permutation of these factors).
Yes different mechanism absolutely. I did consider this flaw, but I don't think it obviates social proof as a possibility. The power of social proof is staggering and I have mentioned how it can transmogrify suicides of any cause into car and aeroplane crashes. As a result, I don't think I could say that the failure to copy the mechanism rules out social proof.
I saw you say elsewhere in the thread that the rate has remained high since. I did also notice this and don't really have an answer for it, beyond it being cyclical (i.e. constant reporting of the new murders). Sadly, I don't have the information to know how this pattern has repeated, but it would be interesting to look into.
I would note that if you look at the amount of reporting of the murder of George Floyd, the change in the number of articles discussing it does seem to (very) broadly match the graph of the increase in murders. The SignalAI graph I looked at only covered about a week so it was hard to pair directly with the graphs in the original pieces, but there was some observable similarity. So, I wouldn't rule it out, but like you say, there are discrepancies that would indicate it is working in tandem with other factors.
is it to be taken seriously at all? rationalist communities have been silent on this matter as far as i can tell. is it a hoax? measurement errors? or something else bit too wacky for us to comfortably admit might be real?
I think it's probably not legit aliens, but at the same time, the potential "payoff" of discovering it is aliens is so overwhelmingly gigantic that it should be taken seriously and investigated with all of the tools at humanity's disposal. There is enough circumstantial evidence that we shouldn't just write it off.
I like Mick West. Saw some of his stuff about UFO reports but I didn’t find them convincing. I find it implausible that the pentagon / NASA haven’t ruled out all of the points he raises. Is there anybody in the rationalist community taking these reports from any other angle than “well OBVIOUSLY it’s not real, because duh”?
Robin Hanson has written a bunch on this. But unfortunately, he doesn't seem to give a bunch of examples of UFO reports that he thinks are very convincing. Reason being, that he was convinced that there was something going on by the sheer amount of credible reports, of which he read a bunch, and doesn't think that citing a few cases is that useful. Note I am not saying he claims there most reports are credible. Only that there are a lot of credible reports out of a sea of trash.
Anyway, I think Robin assigns like a ~0.1% chance of it actually being aliens. He tried coming up with stories of why aliens would come to Earth and behave in such a weird way. It is a bizarre story, but this is a bizarre situation.
Of the top of my head, I think one went like this: another world had life, and through panspermia, it spread to Earth. This part of the story came about by some calculations he did on which direction transferrence of life would go and the likelihood of life being born on any given world via his grabby aliens model.
This world generated intelligent life before us, and this life decided not to spread out into the stars because they don't like being grabby. This went hand in hand with their governments uniting and becoming an inefficient singleton. Things stabilised and this species evolved around their governance/ideology, further stabilising things. Upshot is you get a fairly advanced civlisation that doesn't like being grabby and doesn't want others to be grabby. They notice the Earth has developed life, so they send off some EMs to monitor the world unobtrusively a while back, with tonnes of restrictions placed on them as that's what a highly beuracratic government would need to do to agents far away from them who can't easily query them about what to do. Plus, you know, they don't like interfering with other worlds. Again, this part of the story is due to the grabby aliens model: if they're intelligent, it's unlikely they just became intelligent, and they probably have existed for a long time (maybe millions of years). They haven't colonised the universe, so something needs to give. One way this could occur is through "rot" in institutions and lack of competitive pressures removing them.
So the UFOs keep watch on things, but can't interfere with Earth too much. Seeing some apes evolve into a potentially grabby civ, they have to intervene, but they're still bound by tonnes of rules and their own values. So they decide to make use of our obsession with following highly presitigious people and our recent ecological sustainability trend. So they signal power by remaining forever out of our reach, and the indiffernce/unflappability that comes with being high prestige. This, coupled with their lack of resource extraction and colonisation, makes them seem very "Green". This is a really weird plan, but how else can you explain the reported behaviour of UFOs? So this part of the story is really due to the constraints the UFO reports place on things.
So Robin basically combined his priors (which he derives via a Grabby aliens model) with a likelihood function over data (UFO reports + his understanding of social dynamics) to come up with this story's probability (within an order of magniture of 1/1000). Though he does believe there being some weird conspiracy is more likely.
15 years ago, Robin Hanson put the odds of UFOs being aliens at 1%. He talked about them again recently and seemed to say that recent evidence raised the odds.
But in this post he seemed put the odds at 1/1000. Is that where you get your number? He seems to slip back and forth between prior and posterior.
In the comments on that first post Paul Christiano gets him to name the Nimitz as a good example. I think he named some other incident as a good example in a comment on another recent post. (But he also cited older compilations.)
"No, the main argument against UFOs as aliens is that this is an implausible *social* scenario. People ask: why would aliens travel for light-years merely to squash some corn fields? Why wouldn’t they introduce themselves to those in power? Why haven’t they made more of a visible mark on our planet or solar system?
...
You can’t have it both ways: you can’t say we know too little social science to project our distant future and distant alien astronomical signatures, but we do know enough social science to be confident UFOs are not aliens."
Yeah, sorry, you're right about that. It was prior odds that were around 0.1% minimum, 1% for hoax. The posteriors he doesn't explicitly mention, but does state that the hoax has the highest posterior, as he doesn't mention likelihoods.
Thank you for bothering to do the research.
EDIT: I meant "... posterior. He doesn't mention likelihoods".
Also, I think there are a couple of other problems with this model. One, what could possibly make them stably non-graby (for up to millions of years!) w/o developing some effective theory of alignment or a means to prevent value drift? Two, if they do have alignment techniques, why not send out superintelligences that seek to preserve the universe? If they do that, then I find it implausible that they couldn't easily manipulate us or sabotage us into becoming non grabby. Its possible, but seems to require a fairly complex utility function to make the "act like aloof gods" the best possible plan for a superintelligence.
OK. It's not obviously not true. This doesn't mean that it is true. The evidence I've seen isn't sufficient to convince me, but I don't feel I could prove it is due to any specific cause. And I don't feel I could rule out causes that I consider rather improbable.
I think I have a lower opinion of the Pentagon and NASA than you do. UFO debunking has a history that goes back decades. Philip Klass has documented many cases of highly trained pilots, engineers, etc. who ignored or overlooked mundane explanations for seemingly mysterious sightings. And if we broaden the scope of the discussion to include paranormal claims (ESP, telekinesis, etc.), then there is a rich history of smart people fooling themselves into believing highly implausible things.
I don’t think UAPs should be placed in the same basket as ESP/telekinesis/poltergeist etc. There is no joint Japan/Canada/US data sharing program for ESP, no are the Chinese setting up governmental institutions to track telekinetic phenomena. It’s not just the US government that started to speak publicly about UAPs in the last several years. I consider myself a skeptic and I don’t think we should jump to the “they’re here!” conclusions. But I would love to see Scott or other key rationalist figures (that is not a professional debunker like Mick West) do a deep dig in this topic and hear what they have to say.
Seems like they want to get a jump ahead of the UFOlogy movement by being fair and transparent with their unexplained data. Pretty savvy move, shame it's just sixty years behind the curve. I doubt this will convince anyone who already believes in alien visitation that it isn't happening, but it might highlight some interesting phenomena and--at the extremely optimistic end--may give us insight into some new physics.
Perhaps there's no single explanation that accounts for all the events. (That's was I consider the most plausible state.) So some were mirages at some frequency or other. Some might be outright frauds. A few might be instrumental failures. Etc.
Well, if you come up with some real evidence, something other than flashing lights that isn't obviously fake, I'll reconsider. My priors say it's going to take pretty convincing evidence before I'll consider aliens seriously. (Outside of micro-organisms, that is.)
So there's this anecdotal (maybe formally quantified through studies too?) thing about how for people with ADHD, stimulants sometimes produce the opposite, a calming effect.
I am wondering whether there's a similar thing going on with musical taste, albeit not related to ADHD, which I don't (think?) I have. Obviously quite subjective, but...I just do not have the capacity to listen to "chill beats". They don't calm me down, they...make me angry? Possibly a poorly-differentiated emotion. All I know is, they definitely do not leave me feeling chill...always some variety of upset, sometimes including literal upset-stomach nausea.
The beats which do calm me down are...often ones that other people find too stimulating, such as operatic metal. (Listening to Therion's "Beloved Antichrist" while typing this.) Even classical music, which is traditionally associated with calm and repose, is *aggressively* structured and executed...there's a lot of Effort behind it, no matter the actual tempo. That somehow feels necessary for audiophilia, though not sufficient. Good music makes my heart tremble. As Bruce Lee would say, "We're looking for *emotional content*". Not numb stultification.
Kind of the same here : I frequently find chill music (mellow jazz, this kind of thing) exasperating, to the point of trying to turn it off if I can in public spaces like doctor waiting rooms. May be relatedly, I tend to find meditation irritating and not relaxing...
You might try meditation in movement. Walking, practicing martial arts, that kind of thing. I'm also too jumpy to meditate for more than a few minutes.
I think there's a theory of emotions where a lot of emotional response comes from a mismatch between your level of arousal and when you feel that level should be.
So if you listen to music that should be calming, but you're absolutely wired, that would feel frustrating and distressing.
If you're wired and listening to music where that's the intent that would feel reassuring.
Predictive coding strikes again? Interesting angle, the the mismatch of emotional valence expectations and reality. I am not sure I expect to feel wired all the time, although maybe it's a stress response thing. Work is where I'm most often forced to listen to chill beats; work is rarely actually-chill as experienced; therefore dissonant mismatch. I notice that chill beats are also prevalent in other naturally-stressful settings, like doctor's offices or riding in an Uber. Hmm!
I guess it never occurs to me to attempt listening to chill beats when actually already relaxed - why would I, since past expectation is that they're upsetting. But I notice that when I have control over the store radio and am already feeling calm, sometimes I do put on more atmospheric stuff. It just depends what mood's in the air. (Since public music is for everyone, not just me; "reading the room") Even those types of songs I put on though...highly structured, deeply predicable, major emphasis on cyclical melody. Videogame music tends to be like that. Or e.g. Wardruna's "Ragnarok" album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyzGRbbha3E
I don't have this experience as universally as you seem to have it, but I do react more strongly to a song's composition rather than its tonality, if that makes sense.
The former has this insistent pattering that's really piercing to my mind. The latter, being much faster and supposedly "agressive", actually has a very calm, soothing structure to it. That's the one I'm able to fall asleep to.
Interesting. I agree that the first track is more stimulating. The second track made me flinch at first because of the "metal" sound, but I quickly settled into the rich, calming texture.
This is incredibly reassuring! Thank you for sharing. The world is much different when at least one person confirms you're Not Completely Uniquely Weird.
I literally got out of an excruciating workday today having to listen to hours of Stuff Like The Former. A few second's sampling was enough to make me slam that tab closed in horrified recoil, you don't even know. Had to immediately detox with Kamelot or risk pop OD, it was a Close Call.
Sometimes people tell me they like chill beats because, who wouldn't want to relax and slow down and not-think-not-feel in These Difficult Times (which have spanned for at least 20 years now, funny about that, 90s sure were great)? Maybe that really does help them recharge and put forth a greater effort later...but my instinct is to fight, to get the blood pumping. Getting jazzed isn't mutually exclusive with relaxing - that's what Flow is! Who wouldn't want to be In The Zone *all the time*.
The latter link - I don't actually like my metal like I like my men or coffee, but yes. Much better, one can just relax right in. (I actually think it'd be even better without that *insistent* drum, which seems off-beat cause I can't keep up that fast anyway.) Just because something is fast doesn't make it not highly structured...even Chaos is almost entirely made of Law, and I like Lawful music. I feel like DragonForce hit upon this a long time ago, and that was the closest the concept ever got to mainstream acceptance. (Thanks, Guitar Hero!)
Is *proportionality* a thing in your legislature, especially with regard to state behaviour vis-a-vis the citizens?
Roughly it means that the state is allowed to restrict or interfere with basic rights, but only to the extend to which it is proportionate to the situation/threat or necessary to protect other important rights.
In Germany it played a big rule lately during Covid, when it resulted in quite a number of concrete Covid measures being cancelled by the courts (and probably even more being approved). To give another example, proportionality is also important in the use of force by the police, when they are allowed to use force, but only to the extend to which it is necessary in a given situation.
It's a huge thing in the relation of German state to citizens. (I'm not a legal expert, so I don't claim to be aware of the technicalities.) Two or three remarks that I read lately made me wonder: is this very common in other legal systems as well?
It comes up in the UK when dealing with the ECHR, but otherwise it's not really a feature of common law (Anglo-Saxon) legal systems. Normally, government actions have to be either reasonable (the Wednesbury test in the UK/rational basis in the US), or necessary depending whether constitutional/fundamental/human rights are engaged.
Intermediate scrutiny in US constitutional law is somewhat similar to proportionality in practice though.
Wow. 'A reasoning or decision is Wednesbury unreasonable (or irrational) if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable person acting reasonably could have made it'.
I guess I don't really I understand the of the implications of this difference yet.
That’s only half of Wednesbury - it’s also unreasonable if the decision maker failed to consider something they ought to have considered, or did consider something they ought not to consider. That’s what most JRs hang on in practice.
The Constitution mostly talks about specific things the federal government shall or must or should do, as well as specific things the government shall NEVER do. In my opinion, this maens the federal govt. should do as little as possible, with most powers invested in State (as in, the 50 states) government, or local, or not at all.
However, when the government must take action that is for the common good, but will cause harm to some citizen or group or class or citizens, there are legal precedents established. In general, the govt must accomplish it's goal in the least disruptive manner... see here, an SC ruling that COVID restrictions on religious services:
'... must meet "strict scrutiny," which requires that they be "narrowly tailored" to serve a "compelling" state interest. "...'
These phrases are essential in deciding on policies like Affirmative Action, to name just one example.
But in general, the Constitution is a fairly Talmudic document, or at least the Bill of Rights is. Full of "Thou Shalt Not" statements which, I think, mean exactly that.
The current schism in the US seems to be between a Left wing who believe in Total Government (Govt controls: health care, wages/employment, education, public speech, all financial transactions...) and a Right wing that [should want] Minimal Government, preferring to let individuals make their own life and economic choices, less regulation, less control.
"a Right wing that [should want] Minimal Government, preferring to let individuals make their own life and economic choices, less regulation, less control."
I really wish the right wing actually _was_ a proponent of minimal government. They actually tend to apply government control to what people do with their own bodies - to the level of criminalizing particular sexual positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States
'Proportionality requires that any measure that interferes with fundamental rights must pursue a legitimate public purpose and, moreover, be suitable, necessary and proportionate in the narrower sense ("appropriate"). A measure that does not meet these requirements is unlawful.'
and: 'As a principle of the rule of law, the principle of proportionality is binding on all sovereign authority.'
It's the same in Switzerland on the informal political level at least.
Our epidemic law doesn't explicitly say anything about proportionality, but it does say that measures may only last as long as necessary to stop the spread of a transmissible disease, and they have to be evaluated regularly. I don't know how a court would interpret this if push came to shove.
Re bans, I noticed that they are not "publicly" announced in the open threads anymore. Alas, given that often i mute threads, how can i know if I have some fraction of a ban?
I've forgotten to record and announce bans for the past few months, but I just went through the backlog, have banned everyone who needed banning, and will announce it next week.
Moderation is an important part of maintaining a healthy discussion forum, and since Scott isn't outsourcing that job to anyone else, I'd say it's a pretty good use of his time.
Community moderation is a good use of *somebody's* time, given the marginal benefits to the participants over an unmoderated space. Unfortunately it's a fairly intensive job to do well, is decidedly unpleasant, and outsourcing it fails to absolve the admin of the responsibility while compromising their vision for the space. It's a Hard Problem.
I agree with most of this. I think it was a particularly onerous problem for Scott when SSC became very popular. Hence it got a bit out of hand, necessitated the reign of terror, and my suspicion is that Scott has both become quite accomplished at moderating/banning, and also finds it less stressful than hitherto. I would also guess that Scott actually spends very little time involved in moderating the blog and therefore the time spent is optimal.
Have you noticed that there aren't any longer those endless arguments about who should be banned, and for how long? The people banned just disappear and the rest of us enjoy a more salubrious commenting environment while being blissfully unaware of how Scott achieves it.
So, with the acknowledgement that moderation is both necessary and thankless, and that Scott has overall done an admirable job... I do actually have a fairly lengthy list of criticisms. (Particularly of the old SSC, less so ACX.) I acknowledge that some level of critique *will* exist despite how much effort Scott puts into moderation and that can make responding to those concerns look ultimately pointless... and yet I maintain *my* criticisms as valid. Such is the Hard Problem.
The Reign of Terror was a pretty standard deterrence strategy, which aims to maintain an expected-value level of punishment by inflicting high costs infrequently to a semi-random set of offenders. These tend to be popular in online spaces and less sympathetic criminal justice systems†, because it optimizes for maximal impact of limited judicial resources - that's especially true since a permaban is actually less resource intensive then a temp ban. Unfortunately, the best metrics for shaping positive behavior are speed and certainty of punishment, and a Reign of Terror gets pretty dismal marks on both. But doing better requires a significant, *sustained* investment of moderator attention, and if Scott's doing that then it's going to directly trade off against writing.
IMO, the endless arguments have gone down mostly because the worst actors were selected out of the no-politics threads, then largely diverted to the hidden open threads and then DSL in turn. I'm maybe 70% serious about that - their Meta board is a perpetual trash fire. The best lesson to take from that might only be that containment boards work, but there was already plenty of evidence for that.
†Deterrence is inefficient in real criminal justice systems when recidivism and other factors are properly accounted for. I leave as an exercise for the reader demonstrating that it still is efficient for *the decision makers* and the resources they personally need to expend. Principal-agent problem strikes again!
Edits: footnotes take more work now, but it's a good excuse to break out the unicode dagger!
Indeed, that's exactly what happened during the move from SSC to ACX, and I think it's a big part of why the ACX forums seem to have a somewhat more confrontational atmosphere than the old SSC forums. Though thankfully most of the worst offenders (e.g. MarxBro) have been re-banned by now.
How can I find guidance to help me study myself as a data point of one, to figure out what is a healthy diet for me, in order to be as healthy as possible? I am confused about what goals to set. High fat or low fat? Is saturated fat to be avoided?
Ofcourse, being disciplined about the goals is a different thing. I just want to atleast figure out the optimal goals to set, for how to eat.
Are there smart data-driven medical professionals who do this?
I found talking to a professional nutritionist very helpful when I was trying to understand and resolve a surprising and drastic weight loss I went through earlier this year. If you have a PCP you see then they may be able to refer you to such a resource.
Just for the record: I took down the post I put up a few hours ago asking for suggestions about great countries my adventuresome daughter might move to. I found it startlingly unpleasant when a few people jumped on the very small political aspect of things and started sniding and snarking about her supposed leftiness. If you'd been talking about me, I'd have just argued, but something about knowing those comments concerned my daughter really got to me.
I did get some good suggestions before I pulled the plug though. New Zealand sounds good to me.
Oh, and Kerani, Melvin and pie_flavor? I think you are boors.
Curious - does this apply to BLM rioters who were tearing down statues in the middle of pandemic instead of social distancing, and the medical "professionals" who said it was good they were doing this? Or just trump not enforcing strong enough lockdowns (that again, BLM supporters would have totally ignored)?
No, has nothing to do with any of that shit. Even if BLM rioters upped our covid total a bit, the effect would be tiny in the big, 30-month picture. I'm going by the big picture numbers: number of covid deaths per million. Our country is rich, and yet we rank lower than more than 100 other countries (our of 155 counted) in deaths per million.
Ex-Kiwi here. NZ has such a low population that there are not many niche jobs or groups. It's kind of like a rural state of America in many economic ways. The media often portrays it unrealistically, but google "New Zealand Today - Karen wants her $20 back" for a laugh and bit of realism.
New Zealand is about as adventurous as living in Switzerland. It is a beautiful country where everyone follows orders, cuts you down if you are even slightly different from the norm, you get parking tickets for inconvenient parking and the rental agency comes and checks if your oven is spotless every six months. It is also very expensive and many are deeply racist regardless of what they put in their shopwindow. If this is your idea of adventure go for it, nature is gorgeous and the country is clean, safe and accessible for everyone for free. It also rains every day.
Can you elaborate? Serious question. I am not sure if you are pro or contra this social regulation. I was trying to portray my two years of living in NZ realistically..they really abhor excellence, wealth, outstanding talent etc. .lived around the world but never been in a country less tolerant of difference, not to talk about eccentricity.
I wouldn't say we are deeply racist compared to world or even western standards https://www.indexmundi.com/surveys/results/8. The rest sounds about right, but seems normal to me, as a Kiwi.
This is strictly anecdotal but I happened to have lived in South Africa (no 1 on the list) as well as in New Zealand. I had a Maori boyfriend in NZ and two black African boyfriends in SA. The shock amongst my acquaintances was much more palpable in NZ than in SA. This is probably due to a majority vs minority situation and many other factors but I have found the white Kiwis hypocritical.....all for equality in public fori yet comments that would shock most Americans accepted at private parties. This was 15 years ago and might have changed and at any rate I am grateful for my time in New Zealand and in no way am trying to put the country down.
To be fair, I've heard from a kiwi that the sandflies are an adventure all by themselves. I believe his comment was something like "you know how in Australia everything is trying to kill you? New Zealand is just like that except the animals are smaller and have a better PR firm."
I can't see the original post, but it looks like you were asking for a country with a good tech scene and outdoor recreation options: if so, can I recommend Scotland?
It's an open thread, you can talk about politics if you want or you can not talk about politics if you want, but I don't think you can post obvious flamebait like
> They hated Trump, think covid was and still is being bungled, & are appalled that abortion rights are being nixed. Does that make them left-leaning, or just people with common sense?
and then complain when people engage with it.
edit: Oh, and I should also point out that it's not the fact that your daughter has left-of-centre beliefs that anyone was bothered by, so much as the fact that you were portraying them as a somehow neutral and apolitical. (Have you read Scott's "Neutral vs Conservative, The Eternal Struggle" by the way?)
And may God watch over your daughter, in whatever country she decides to guest in. May she be a well mannered, self reliant traveler among tolerant hosts.
Hi Peter. Thank you for submitting an application for Clearer Thinking Regrants.
Visit the Clearer Thinking website here to learn more about our research, programs, and tools, which are designed to help you change your habits, make better decisions, and achieve your goals.
Here are the responses you gave in the application:
A brief name you can use to refer to my project is Global Warming Directory
My project aims to improve the world or the future by Collecting information about global warming in a structured and accessible way.
The group or population that will benefit from this project is The population of the Earth.
This project is important because it will lead to Better understanding of what we can do to reverse global warming.
The mechanism by which I expect my project will achieve these positive outcomes is as follows:
I have created a directory titled "How to Stop Global Warming (100 Ways to Cool Your Mother)". I have done this working by myself while living on Social Security. A larger organization could build on what I have done. Link: Rodes.pub/GlobalWarming.
In the future, a strong indicator I'll be able to look to in order to see if my project is succeeding is... The directory grows and becomes well publicized.
I am (or my team and I are) well-suited to implement this project because I have already done it.
If this project gets funded but DOESN'T achieve its desired outcomes, the MOST LIKELY reason that this would happen would be No one was interested.
If I suddenly had an extra $10,000 for my project, I (or we) would be most likely to spend it on Half for medical needs for me, and half for publicity for the directory..
This project is a single person project that is not a charity or company
So far, this project has begun to be implemented but has not yet gotten any funding
I just wanted to share this post that expands upon Scott's "moral costs of chicken vs beef" post by drawing upon the latest economic modelling (by Kevin Kuruc) of the "social cost" of animal suffering:
"While the animal welfare costs of the Standard American Diet are on the order of $100,000 per year, the climate costs are a mere $47. Combining these with Scott Alexander’s estimates of offsetting efficacy yields some interesting results..."
OK we are going to disagree I think. 'better never to have been' is not something I can agree with... I think it is almost always better to have been. And who asked the cows?
"almost always", sure, but factory farms seem a pretty exceptional circumstance (compared to the ordinary range of lives that intuitively spring to mind, and I agree are typically positive).
I would respectfully suggest that it's not correct to frame the argument in terms of welfare or suffering. Animals are sentient beings with an interest in not being exploited. Just as you wouldn't justify human slavery by treating the slaves well, you can't justify the exploitation of animals by promoting welfare standards (and, in practice, "humane" exploitation is basically a myth and a marketing scam designed to make consumers feel better about buying animal products). Philosopher/lawyer Gary Francione makes this point more eloquently in much of his writing.
I don’t think animals “interest in not being exploited” is morally relevant. Ethics are needed to prompt collective action, coordination and lack of conflict between rational-ish agents.
In this case, the "collective action" is to go vegan (at least, "collective" on the part of humans). If a system requires all agents to be rational-ish, then infants and severely disabled adults would be excluded. And I don't think we want that to happen. (We'd also have to exclude dogs and cats, though it's possible that some people view them as tools, in the same category as farm animals.)
But less suffering is better than more suffering, even if none of it is "justified" in an absolute sense. I think this post is maybe just addressing a different question from what you're interested in.
What humans forget about livestock, especially cattle, is cattle are not humans. Cattle are social animals that prefer to live in social situations and enjoy protection from predators. I spent 2 winters in Alaska, and discovered wild moose seek proximity to humans because they hope our presence will deter wolves.
Whilst working as a feedlot cowboy in the 90s, I observed cattle do like to roam outside their pens, but come racing back as soon as the feed truck drives up. We do our best to provide them with a happy life. If they weren't happy and healthy, they wouldn't thrive and grow.
In case readers are wondering how they got this result, it looks like it involves using normal human welfare functions (which work because humans are willing to trade their happiness off against money in various ways), then assuming that animals have the same value as humans.
I think most people would agree that if animals have the same moral value as humans, you definitely shouldn't eat meat. I'm not sure this paper says too much more than this, although it's nice to get confirmation that the climate costs are relatively small.
If I understand it correctly, their results are robust to discounting animal welfare (θ) by 2 - 3 orders of magnitude.
So, yeah, what I found most interesting about the paper was how much more significant the welfare costs are in comparison to the climate costs, given (it seems) almost any reasonable assignment of values in the model.
Starts with the repeated use of the inaccurate, inflammatory snarl word "factory farm" and goes on to make the assumption that the net welfare of any commercially raised animal is negative.
Could you expand a little bit more about your issue with the word 'factory farm'? When I looked into the issue the statistics are fairly clear that the majority of meat-animals are raised in a minority of institutions. That is, there is a long tail of farms raising a small herd of cows or a flock of sheep, but meat you buy from the supermarket almost certainly came from a superfarm, just as a statement about mathematics. Further, everything I read about these superfarms convinced me that they - like every other profit-making organisation on the planet - was constantly looking to cut costs and increase productivity, often at the expense of the way someone like me who cares a lot about animal welfare would prefer the animals to be treated.
Those two facts are enough for me to be happy using the term 'factory farm' for basically all farms above a certain (vague) size. What is the missing context that allows you to differentiate further between super-farms?
So, only the activists who hate modern agriculture and/or are organic/niche agriculturalists use "factory farm". It's meant as as a shouting down insult, it's not meant to persuade, and it fails to acknowledge that there are really important upsides to centralized production.
Secondly, if you have been on a variety of farms, of different sizes, philosophies, markets, etc, you know that the size, philosophy, market etc has very little determination power over animal welfare. People like yourself who use the term in an nonspecific manner for "any farm I think is too big" contribute to the perception that size alone yields bad welfare.
Thirdly, the concept of welfare is extremely poorly defined among activists - most often, a single metric is chosen and emphasized, rather than a whole animal/whole herd approach. For example - the easiest one to identify is death loss. Activists do not talk about comparative death loss among different production methods. This is because modern confined feeding operations emphasize extremely low loss rates as a percent of total population. Dead chickens can not be sold for money, nor are they experiencing good welfare. Alternative operations - organic, pastured, NAE (a particularly horrible practice) - charge much higher prices for their products because they lose more animals to death and disease than do the conventional commercial operations.
In short, I differentiate between different farms based on a variety of things, including welfare, economy of production, local community support, integrity in business dealings, and a couple of other minor things. Size is not one of them.
I think you're absolutely right to ding me that the line I'd draw between a factory and non-factory farm is vague, but I think equally you're wrong to talk about "a variety of farms, of different sizes, philosophies, markets, etc" - the majority of meat purchased by the majority of consumers comes from farms of exactly one size (massive) and with exactly one farming philosophy (maximise revenue, at the expense of animal welfare if necessary).
That is, I think what we might have is a difference of how we group up the individual units of the meat production industry. It seem to me (and apologies for putting words in your mouth) you view the individual unit of the meat production industry as the farm, and you would argue that some are bad but the majority are good (or at least, serve their individual market and philosophy in a way which makes ethical sense).
I think the individual unit of the meat production industry is the meat itself, or rather the animal which then becomes the meat. Consequently this greatly distorts how we should be talking about the meat production industry. To a first approximation, every single chicken eaten in the United States comes from a farm with over 300,000 chickens sold each year (for context, if you walked onto a random chicken farm which supplies meat to the United States you'd probably see fewer than 2000 chickens). I'd be happy to talk about whether you can treat 2000 chickens humanely, I don't think it is possible to see 300,000 chickens as anything other than a unit of production and consequently I think it is fair to say that these chickens are 'factory farmed'.
Chickens are uniquely badly treated by the American meat industry, but do you disagree that describing a 300,000 chicken-per-year farm as a 'factory' for chickens is unreasonable?
I have been on farms of various sizes, serving different markets, and working under different management philosophies. I see great variations between them in how healthy and productive their animals are. I think that the lumping together that you promote is...inaccurate, at best. And no, so long as you mean only bad things by the use of the term, I don't agree with using 'factory'.
I think that limiting this to chickens is probably a good start for this discussion. Probably we should stick with broilers, too.
Chickens are not managed on a per bird basis by anyone who depends on their meat production for the food to feed their kids or for the money to send their kids to college. Management of any food animal is on a spectrum of sorts, heavily weighted towards the herd level, but no one manages food animals like they do draft animals or pets. To attempt to assess, record, and modify the diet and environment for each individual cow on a dairy would be impossibly labor intensive, let alone for an animal of so much less value as a chicken. People who advocate such are not serious producers of food for other people to eat.
Furthermore, *chickens are flock animals and respecting their chickenness means seeing them as such.* So, the most appropriate unit for considering the handling of chickens is the flock (aka a house or barn).
(Quick side note: Relatively early layer production breeding put individual hens in divided coops because of the ease of accurate measurement of egg production. Unfortunately, the best layers in these situations were psychotic bitches that tore strips off each other when group housed. The Breeders had to go back and do trials with groups of chickens to see which layed the most per group to return to good community behavior genetics.)
Chickens are not individually housed. They are not individually treated. They are not individually feed. They are managed as a group. They are protected from the elements and predators as a group.
If you insist on the management of broilers as individuals, rather than understanding that it is not possible nor natural to manage them so, I don't know what to tell you.
As for the size and productivity of different farms - it very much depends on management. (Also, you are mixing your rates and prevalence - you are aware that farms have multiple houses, and that the flocks change over multitude times in the year, yes?)
To me, the total number of animals on the farm are unimportant. What matters is if the animals are healthy - growing well, protected from disease and injury, not dying - and if a farm has 100 chickens they raise a year and lose ten, that's a worse farm than one that raises 30,000 and looses 1000.
If your "factories" have a 3% loss rate (which they do) and your organic niche producers have a 10% loss rate (which they do) I don't know why you think it's the 'factory' that's horrible.
Sorry I might have given the wrong impression above - even though I'm about the most animal-rightsy person I know, even I don't expect professional farmers to know and love all of their chickens individually and lullaby them to sleep at night or anything like that. There's a balance between the rights of the animal and the economic reality of farming which comfortably encompasses treating chickens on the flock level.
However, I think you're being slightly disingenuous taking the step from 'We should treat chickens on a flock level' (which I agree is fine) and then claiming that a house or a barn is basically doing this. A flock of wild chickens might be around 5-6 birds. It seems that if you keep chickens as pets or ultra-low intensity egg rearing then their absolutely preferred flock size is 25-30 birds, just based on personal experience. A modern broiler barn might have 25,000 - 50,000 birds in it at one time (as you say, multiple such barns might exist on one farm - so maybe 25,000-50,000 is the more relevant figure than 300,000). Either way; when we talk about intensively rearing chickens for meat we're not talking about 'flock' management on any level that maintains the ordinary meaning of the word.
It seems perhaps another basic disagreement we have is over the loss rate and what that represents. To me, chickens dying in the production of meat isn't a hugely big deal (after all, 100% of the chickens will eventually die as a result of the farming process). I'd rather focus on the quality of their lives before this happens, and especially whether their lives are net positive or negative (that is, would they counterfactually have preferred not to have been born). I think you are basically saying the same thing (?) but using loss rate as a proxy for conditions which are severe enough to produce negative quality of life (disease etc). I agree that this is a lot harder to measure, but I think it is something we owe the animals we farm. I also think it is not really a standard that modern intensive agriculture reaches - broiler chickens appear highly distressed compared to wild or pet chickens, in my experience. Is your experience different? Slightly leading question, but do large barns of chickens usually appear contented and relaxed to you? That would be very different from my experience, so I'd be quite interested in unpicking it if so (or maybe we just interpret chicken behaviour differently, which would also be interesting)
Also to be clear - NAE is functionally abuse as far as I'm concerned; animal rights is my bag, not virtue signalling to middle class consumers who have no idea about the realities of meat production. So on that point I think we're totally aligned.
> The animal welfare costs are near zero. Because I don’t generally care about animal’s welfare, especially ones used for food.
I am assuming that you wanted to note your disagreement with the assumption in the link that the conversion factor between welfare of Americans (the vast majority of which are persons in the Singerian sense) and non-human animals (the vast majority of which are probably not persons) should be one. This would be a fair and not very controversial point.
Unfortunately, you instead asserted that conversion factor to be zero instead and phrased it as a fact, rather than stating it as an opinion. You also did not provide any reasons for your beliefs. Stating a controversial opinion as a fact is generally not conductive to high quality discussion, the technical term is flame bait.
Almost anywhere on the internet, such a comment would attract further low quality replies comparing your value judgement to historic value judgements about groups of human beings or asking you if you were ok with human suffering due to cannibalism as the victims would qualify as being used for food.
Instead, this being ACX, the reply you got by Vitor charitably assumed that you care about the welfare of your own species and gave an argument why animal welfare should then at least be an instrumental value to you.
Your reply did not engage with the argument at all but instead consisted of a false dichotomy between not caring about animal welfare and killing all animals. To which Vitor replied again in a calm and reasoned manner, something which I would describe as "feeding the troll".
I don't think I was troll feeding, it certainly seems to be a sincerely held position. I interpreted that one-liner as a handwavy reductio ad absurdum of the EA / straw-rationalist / linear-utilitarian perspective.
I think it's a flaw in communication to not spell out your position explicitly, but even so, my choice of replying or not hinges on whether my reply is good/useful/fun, and whether it can propel the conversation forward. Sometimes, bad interlocutors become good ones. Sometimes, it's a good opportunity to practice keeping a cool head and becoming more articulate myself, even if it doesn't lead anywhere. Sometimes, it's just counter-trolling for fun.
I am responding to the statements (and the first post is definitely a statement), with the exact same level of thought and nuance they are made.
“Animal suffering is worth x $ (assuming you value it on par with human suffering and your estimations of suffering are accurate).
My comment is pointing out the problem with this assertion, it is just an assertion the same as mine was.
As for the second exchange, it seemed clear it was very important to them to minimize animal suffering. Surely the best way to do that is to kill all animals!
It’s not trolling, it is pointing out the incredibly large holes in your argument. More words doesn’t make an argument stronger.
Right, but please keep in mind that me pushing back against your position here does not imply that I agree (or have even read) the article that sparked the discussion.
This seems fine if it's just a statement about your private utility function. But even if you don't care about animals, a lot of your fellow humans do, and a world with massive animal suffering is a much worse place for many of us than the alternative.
While I appreciate what you are trying to do here, I do not find that line of argument very convincing.
My counterpoints would be:
* Human beings do not have an ethical grasp of large numbers. The amount of horror we have on learning that a million animals are suffering in some way is not very different from the amount of horror we would have for ten millions. So this would mostly motivate to limit the intensity of animal suffering instead of the number of animals affected.
* One obvious way to decrease human suffering caused by animal suffering is probably to crack down on people trying to make others aware of animal suffering. Banning "Earthlings" and making it illegal to distribute videos taken in conventional farms would likely decrease the amount of human suffering due to meat production. Of course, values like freedom of speech and truth might prohibit such a strategy.
* Your argument can be generalized against anything which annoys a significant part of the population: "X should be illegal/restricted in the society of Y because it causes distress among Z" would probably work for these tuples:
While there is a trade-off in most of these cases, I do not find myself much moved by any of these arguments compared to object level considerations.
* On a meta level, this seems generally bad because it incentivises people to make people feel bad about their pet issue instead of having rational arguments about ethical issues.
--
I agree with your point about epistemic humility in your reply, though.
Right, I think it was a bit sloppy to try to make it about the *happiness* of bystanders. I guess what I'm really trying to get at is the distress that people feel over living in an unjust society. That's a real harm which is not just about momentary happiness, but also about our ability to do things collectively at all.
Yes, this could apply in different forms to some of your examples, e.g., (Gay sex, 1800 Boston, Puritans), but I guess then it comes down to the object level, where it's not reasonable to be distressed over others' private sex life, but reasonable to be distressed over others' needless suffering.
Other than ah-hoc, how do you derive "reasonable" in your two examples? Why are other people's sex lives purely a matter of their own choice, but their needless suffering is not?
Here are a couple of situations that run afoul of your dichotomy.
People into BDSM as a sexual choice? That seems an obvious problem with your two examples, as they are now directly in contention.
Sexually transmitted diseases, given that they exist, can create needless suffering based on private sex choices. Should we avoid telling people about condoms, or should we tell them to adjust their private choices? (Also, reducing the number of active sexual partners, getting checked regularly, avoiding particularly dangerous transmission vectors, all fall in the dual category of "private sex life" and "needless suffering").
Also, harm from abusive sexual partners - clearly related to both private sex life and needless suffering.
I could go on, but without any religious or separate moral considerations, there are a lot of situations that don't seem at all clear cut in what you are calling "object level" and defining in clearer terms than seems prudent.
Your examples aren't nearly as clear-cut as you think. BDSM (done right) doesn't cause suffering. Diseases are subject to the same tricky balancing act between private rights and public interest, whether or not they're sexually transmitted. Telling people about condoms interferes in their sex life only very marginally. Abusive sexual partners: do you think the solution to stopping abusive relationships is to pass laws prohibiting certain kinds of sex?
More on the meta level, I'm not really interested in defending this particular example at this point. It's completely orthogonal to the argument I was making. Also, I'm not saying that the existence of suffering makes any action interfering in others' freedom and choices morally permissible. But as a rule of thumb, it's a *necessary* condition for that.
No, I'm not convinced by the whole wild animal suffering thing. I have more thoughts on this, but to a first approximation, difficulty and even pain are orthogonal to suffering. It certainly has been that way in my own life.
I'm much more confident in saying that most animals raised for meat lead lives of suffering. You're putting them in conditions their mind isn't adapted to handle.
But anyway, my original point was that if you subscribe (even approximately) to some sort of utilitarianism, and additionally you have some epistemic humility, then the fact that people around you *are* concerned with animal suffering should give you pause.
I've interacted closely with dozens if not hundreds of animals (most of them cats). While qualia is a tricky philosophical thing, it seems very reasonable to start our priors at animals having a consciousness not too unlike ours, both due to evolutionary proximity (mammals almost by definition have wetware close to ours, which is known to be capable of generating consciousness), and due to observing their behavior. Basically all mammals seek pleasure and avoid pain, they exhibit goal-driven behavior, form memories, learn skills, interact socially with each other, from which it is not a big leap to conclude they have theory of mind.
Additionally, the stakes aren't symmetrical. Perpetuating hell on earth for billions of conscious beings is way, way worse than needlessly giving up meat eating.
It'll take quite a lot to overcome this prior. In my opinion, the "meat automaton" theory of animal suffering proves too much. If we can safely disregard the screams and pleas of an animal that is clearly acting like a conscious being in pain, what stops us from making the exact same argument w.r.t. human slaves? That they're able to express their suffering in words doesn't mean it isn't all mimicry after all.
Sorry for jumping ahead and knocking down a strawman you haven't set up, but I think it helps to clarify my position.
It would certainly change my thinking. But please, prove to me they enjoy that life to the same epistemic standard that you (the rethorical you) holds me to when I claim that animals in captivity suffer.
But I think there are other hurdles to overcome. Some things just don't feel right, even if they're arguably not causing suffering (e.g. secretly handing over a braindead orphan girl to pedophiles for their enjoyment).
What if you found that cows and chickens are generally much happier than free ones?
Certainly a human in a cage with an opium drip button might be wildly happier than a “natural living human”. Certainly right now there are issues in society with people preferring fairly limited existence because it is more pleasant.
I am not at all convinced a “cow” suffers less than a wildebeest.
I only briefly skimmed the paper but it seems very much "garbage in, garbage out".
How do you put a dollar value on the (assumed) suffering of an animal? According to this paper, you seem to do it by making up a bunch of different numbers, and then picking one in the middle.
What's interesting about it is the robustness of the result to a wide range of reasonable-seeming input values. Or, as I wrote in my post, "While this particular number is highly sensitive to the baseline parameters of the model, the broader conclusion that animal welfare costs completely swamp the climate costs of eating meat turns out to be almost unavoidable once you grant that factory-farmed animal lives are net-negative."
Obviously not everyone grants anything about large farm animal's lives. Compared to a baseline of a short and terrified life constantly in fear of predators and starvation, maybe large scale farms are in fact net-positive for chickens. Given that, which I think is true, the only relevant alternatives are to kill all chickens or assume one or both realities are somewhat net positive. The idyllic scenario of chickens as pets really doesn't work for the vast majority of chickens, and could never sustain the human population.
The only interesting point of the paper is that climate costs are rated so low.
I meant in retrospectively examining the current situation. There could be more alternatives devised, but that's not where the conversation is turning at the moment.
Equally obviously, not everyone needs to grant anything in order for a point to be interesting to the target audience of those who share the basic assumptions underlying the work.
And yes, one practical upshot of the paper is that it would be better (given the limited range of feasible alternatives) for far fewer chickens to exist. I don't know why you treat this as a reductio. It seems obvious to me that we should (a priori) regard this verdict as among the open possibilities. If you deny this, then you seem beyond the space of reasons to me, and there would be no point in conversing further.
There may not be a space for speaking further, as I think we're pretty far apart.
I would consider the outright slaughter of over 25 billion chickens to be a problem on both my scale (huge economic waste to no benefit) and on your scale, though I suppose you would look at their lives as neg negative and therefore even killing them results in at least less suffering.
My main reason for responding was for third party readers, to consider that the underlying assumptions are not necessarily true or even relevant, and if they are not in place, the outcome would be significantly different.
Perhaps because you think the meat can be produced without much animal suffering? At an extreme case, maybe you eat only wild animal meat that has been hunted in some basically humane way--shot once and dropped or quickly put out of its misery. That's a better death than most wild animals get, or for that matter than most people get, so it's hard to see how it's especially bad from an animal suffering perspective.
My not-that-informed impression is that cattle generally have a pretty decent life, whereas chickens usually have a pretty horrific life. So maybe eat beef but not chicken?
Re chickens: There are wild (feral) chickens in Hawaii.
More fundamentally, if your concern is *suffering*, then we can manage to have meat that does not require much if any suffering on the part of the food animals. This isn't about a need for consent to kill something or a right to go on living--something I don't really think animals have. (To be honest, humans don't either, as you can work out by observing any really bad disaster or walking through a cancer ward, but we make societal rules to ensure that humans have some rights, and we don't make those same rules for animals.)
Not seeking to "justify" meat-eating here. (I agree veganism is clearly better.) Just noting the value of the conditional claim that *if* one is going to eat meat, it's much, much better to eat beef than chicken.
Just jumping in here to say that there is no rational, moral distinction between eating meat on the one hand vs. consuming other animal products (e.g., eggs and dairy) on the other hand. The consumption of any animal products involves exploitation, suffering, and death. To quote animal rights lawyer/philosopher Gary Francione: "There is no coherent distinction between flesh and other animal products. They are all the same and we cannot justify consuming any of them. To say that you do not eat flesh but that you eat dairy or eggs or whatever, or that you don’t wear fur but you wear leather or wool, is like saying that you eat the meat from spotted cows but not from brown cows; it makes no sense whatsoever." (I've been vegan for over 15 years). https://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-paradigm-shift-requires-clarity-about-the-moral-baseline-veganism/
I went meat-free for nearly two years, and it absolutely tanked my mental (and to a lesser extent, physical) health. I started feeling better immediately upon reintroducing meat into my diet. So for me it's a clear choice: eat meat, or be unable to achieve anything because I'm depressed all the time and frequently suicidal. It's possible that with the right combination of supplements or whatever I could handle a meat-free diet and not be depressed all the time, but I do not want to risk going back to that state. I interpret suggestions I should give up meat again as exhortations to suicide, because that's what would happen if I went vegetarian for long enough.
I've known vegetarians that went back to eating meat because of how much they craved the meat. It felt unnatural to not eat meat.
Given that humans seem to (often, maybe not universally) crave meat - being omnivores - would it not make much more sense to expect humans to eat meat and therefore animal welfare becomes more of a humane/not unnecessarily harmful strategy? I'm not directly asking you, but your post seemed like a good place to draw out the point.
It seems that the alternative is to consider all non-human animals that eat meat to be unethical as well, and somehow try to force nature to stop eating meat. Most likely that would require the extermination of all carnivores and maybe some omnivores that can't stop eating meat. Even if it were possible that would, in turn, probably destroy every ecosystem on the planet as typical prey animals overpopulate. I can certainly see why people don't actually advocate for this approach, but I can't see how it's not the logical conclusion.
Interesting.... Something very similar happened to me when I tried the Atkins Diet (plenty of protein and fat and fresh veg, but almost no carbs). I certainly lost weight, but became mentally unwell after about two weeks of it. It wasn't till I reverted to my typical diet that I went back to normal.
I wonder if the problem isn't so much the diet but the *change* in diet that causes the trouble.
As a counterpoint, I was on a weight loss drug which went great during the first 4 months or so, then started affecting me mentally so I had to discontinue the treatment.
I think it has to do with the fact that my body at first "went along" with the plan of burning fat in lieu of consuming more calories, but at some point this noticeably stalled out, leaving me low-energy, irritable, and scatterbrained instead.
In the interest of starting a big political fight for some reason, what do people think of the so called "independent state legislature" theory, which is going to come up in the Supreme Court case Moore v Harper next term?
The two relevant parts of the Constitution:
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators."
and
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."
The argument is that this means that other organs of a state government, e.g. governor, courts, etc, can't override the legislature in setting rules for federal elections. This comes up in a couple contexts:
- the rules around mail-in ballots, etc, which were often set/changed by governors or courts in the 2020 election and not state legislatures
- redistricting/gerrymandering, who in a state gets to decide
- picking of presidential electors, who gets to decide (and when)
Argument in favor is that the constitution says the state legislature gets to decide, not the state government overall or governor or whatever; the grant of power is to the legislature itself. Argument against is that state legislatures are creatures of state constitutions and so they have no ability to operate outside of the bounds of the relevant state constitution.
Personally I'm against it, my reasons:
- insofar as anyone cares about this sort of thing, precedent goes against it. Arizona sate legislature vs Arizona independent districting commission from 2015 upheld Arizona having an independent redistricting commission; and a case from 1916, Davis v Hildebrant which allowed a referendum in Ohio to veto the legislature's districting plan. The recent case was 5-4 and conservatives have gained more seats since then. But also, Roberts's dissent in 2015 drew a distinction between the old 1916 case (where a referendum merely vetoed the legislature) and the 2015 case (where the legislature was entirely taken out of it).
- If you start granting power to a legislature independently of the state constitution, it can lead in all sorts of weird directions. Like what if the state constitution has a supermajority requirement to pass any law (like the filibuster but more formalized)? Does that not apply to a vote on redistricting? What's the difference for this purpose between a constitutional provision saying "no gerrymandering" and one saying "supermajority requirement"? They're both constitutional restrictions on what the legislature can do.
- People talk about the federal government having enumerated powers - well those enumerated powers are specifically granted *to Congress*. Similarly everyone agrees the President can't take actions that violate the first amendment, but the first amendment says that "*Congress* shall make no law..." It just reflects an idea that government power derives from the legislature, and they aren't distinguishing between giving the power to the legislature and giving it to the state government generally (I'm not sure I agree with this idea, seems like a good question for a historian).
- often it's hard to disentangle the legislature's actions from the state government's actions more broadly. What if a state law says that the courts or governor can take actions that change what the state law says? Similarly, there are always going to be details of implementation left to other branches. Is a federal election in California invalid because the legislature didn't specifically list every church, high school gym, and sports arena in the state that has voting booths?
Couple other notes:
- For the two constitutional provisions I quoted, note the one on house elections, but not presidential elections, gives the federal government power to override state government rules.
- For liberals the big worry is presidential elections. A few big swing states, though evenly split population-wise, have Republican dominated/gerrymandered state legislatures. That said, even though it's considered a conservative idea, ending the doctrine could help liberals in some ways. More blue states than red have independent redistricting commissions, if the doctrine is put in place there will probably be more blue state gerrymandering.
- It does seem kind of smarmy for a state legislature to lose a ballot initiative that stops them gerrymandering and then sue to invalidate it in federal court, so they can continue to gerrymander. Aside from the constitutional question I'd hope they all get primaried.
- Also seems smarmy for people who are normally all about respect for state governments to start having federal courts override state court interpretations of state laws, which they normally never do.
- I think this idea has gained traction due to conservatives who wanted to reject trump's claims of a stolen election while throwing a bone towards it - so they settled on this "states didn't follow their own rules" formulation. Of course states *did* follow their own rules, unless you believe in the independent state legislature idea.
Re. "Of course states *did* follow their own rules" --
Here in Pennsylvania, the state did not follow its own rules. IIRC, the state legislature passed legislation extending mail-in voting, which actually required a constitutional amendment. A Republican state senator (again, IIRC) challenged this after the 2020 Presidential election. The judge refused to hear the case on the grounds that everybody had had a year or two to complain about it, but didn't.
I think as a matter of philosophy that having the three branches engaged in governance is best. To me, this means that a court can strike down a rule, but can not write the rule itself, as that is the legislation role.
It is also important to be clear on what the laws say - if the law says only legislative body makes the rules, that means, imo, no outsourcing to executive branch or to opinion polls or cdc or ballot initiatives.
I think that a step back from the frenzied restructuring of voting process and a look at simplifying voting security would be a very good area to focus on for a number of states.
It won't be done because all the current representatives benefit from the widespread fraud. And they've managed to trick people into believing that somehow elections are "secure" when committing fraud is as simple as badly faking signatures (which are never checked) and dumping as many ballots as one wants at a drop box. If the politicians can convince people that this ridiculous system is secure, there's no way you can convince anybody that election fraud has occurred or that there's any need for added security.
It is an absurd theory that has no basis in either the history or text of the Constitution. For one, state courts at the time of the founding and throughout the first century of American history commonly heard cases on election disputes regarding federal office. Second, more importantly, the fact that a state legislature shall have the power to set T/P/M of federal elections can no more preclude judicial review than the fact that Congress has the commerce power precludes judicial review. To say otherwise is to say the state legislature has the final say on the contents of the state Constitution. If you are an anti-judicial review accelerationist, then fine but it has to apply to all areas of law, not just elections. Third, the court has already held that legislature generally means "legislative power" in Az Ind. Redistricting Comm. so this case would require overturning more precedent (Alito/Thomas dissented so it's likely). Lastly, as a matter of public policy and judicial restraint, it was an enormous mistake to take this case in the first place, considering there is no circuit split on the issue and it's basically a new theory untested in the lower courts.
There is a reason the power to run elections and modify election rules was put to the state legislatures. Each branch of government is given separate powers to ensure at least some level of infighting between them which the people will benefit from. This works at both state and the federal level. You can't just wholly neglect a grant of power to one branch and say it's ok because.... frankly I don't get why you think the grant of power to the legislature to manage elections is different from any other specific delegation of power in the Constitution. Do you think courts should be able to appoint federal officers because who cares it's just a grant of power it doesn't matter which branch gets it? The government is the government?
"frankly I don't get why you think the grant of power to the legislature to manage elections is different from any other specific delegation of power in the Constitution"
Reason I think it's different is that it's a grant of power to a specific part of a state government, not the federal government. It makes sense for the federal Constitution to grant power to specific parts of the federal government, since the federal government owes its existence to the federal Constitution - if the federal Constitution didn't grant power to, say, Congress, then Congress would just be a random group of people meeting.
But state legislatures derive their authority from state constitutions, which don't owe their existence to the federal government, and some of which are older than the US constitution (The Massachusetts state constitution is not just older than the US constitution, it's even older than the Articles of Confederation). State constitutions define who the state legislatures even are, what they can do, how they operate, etc, so it's at least a little weird to turn around and say that they have authority to do certain things in violation of the state constitutions that make them.
To give a variation of my earlier hypo - if there's a bicameral state legislature (as 49 of them are), and if you agree with the independent state legislature doctrine, can the two state legislative houses meet as one body and all vote together to pass rules regarding elections, even if those rules wouldn't pass both houses, and even if that is not allowed under the state constitution which says that all bills must pass both houses?
There are other specific grants of power to the particular branches of state governments. And more importantly, there are many grants of power specifically to the states and others specifically to the the state legislatures instead of the state as a whole. The drafters thought it important that some very important powers, such as the merger of two states or calling a constitutional convention be left to the legislatures of the states instead of their executive. Clearly, they found that the legislature is more important and better handles certain powers than state executives.
And their logic is sound. Legislatures would never have approved of the insane voting changes created for the purpose of fostering fraud in the 2020 election. State legislatures are too slow moving and too accountable to the people to be that openly evil and corrupt.
Expecting politicians to not be smarmy is silly. They are almost uniformly creatures of incredibly smarmy institutions.
As far as the jurisprudence, these days I don’t know if I am an accelerationist or not. We badly need a new constitution, but it will almost certainly be worse. So where does that leave us?
- Equal representation by state in the Senate. I think it's clearly undemocratic, and not justified by the idea that states retain some measure of sovereignty.
- Electoral college. Beyond the current debate over it, it's also the case that key elements of the electoral college *as we know it today* - popular votes for president in each state, electors who don't decide for themselves - aren't in the document. We've built somewhat-democratic machinery on top of the original non-democratic system, and things like the 2020 election show that there are problems with doing so.
- Supreme Court lifetime appointments, leading to major policy questions being decided by which old person dies when.
- Opportunity for gerrymandering
- The fact that Congress is supposed to have limited powers, but those powers are also written broadly enough that it at least arguably encompasses all sorts of things
- Similarly, the norm of judicial review combined with broad, aspirational language in the Constitution
- President has too much power (I chalk this up to the veto more than anything)
- I'm not sure we need the whole separation-of-powers thing at all, actually. Americans are taught that it's essential to safeguard liberty, but other countries manage to be free democratic societies without it. And meanwhile it leads to major policy decisions being decided in the courts, which nobody seems to actually like.
- If you believe that it is important for the constitution to safeguard certain liberties and the courts to enforce them, then there are some key things missing, or at least that have been read into the document only semi-convincingly. Actually one key thing to my mind, which is gender equality. You can say that it's in the equal protection clause (which the Supreme Court says); that certainly wasn't the original intent. You can say you don't care about the original intent (and I don't), but then you run into the point about broad, aspirational language giving the courts lots of power.
- There are opportunities for one side to seize power for itself via manipulation of the rules, and it doesn't happen only because of longstanding norms. Maybe that's inevitable, but there are some ways we should rein it in.
“I don´t for the life of me understand how intelligent people do not grasp the fact that the senate represents the states, not the people, and does so equally.”
A body which represents states and not people is by definition not democratic so smart people would be right to criticize this aspect of it if they think government should represent the interests of humans rather than locations.
"I don´t for the life of me understand how intelligent people do not grasp the fact that the senate represents the states, not the people, and does so equally."
It seems to me like whether the Senate "represents the states" or "represents the people" is a semantic argument, there's no way to prove it one way or the other, there's no concrete fact about the world that changes depending on which one it is, and as a semantic argument it doesn't carry weight with me for any practical question. But insofar as you can talk about it in concrete terms, the Senate doesn't "represent the states". Senators are elected by the people of the states; if you ask the Senators who their constituents are they will say it's the people of their state; the laws they vote on affect people.
More importantly, say that you're right and the Senate does represent the states - how is that an argument against what I said? Representing the states equally is undemocratic and I'm against it on the grounds of equality of people, not of artificial beings.
"Say what now?! What countries are that?"
UK is an example. There's no court that strikes down acts of Parliament as violating the constitution or anything. There's no separate executive from the legislature (unless you count the Queen) - the head of government and counterpart to the US President is the Prime Minister, who is also the leader of the majority in the legislature. Even the upper house of Parliament doesn't have the ability to do a whole lot. To the extent the subdivisions of the UK have powers, they're "devolved" from Parliament and Parliament can take them back.
I would say that if you follow it the country cannot work, and so we have for many decades been torturing it through the Supreme Court to come up with fanciful interpretations to make it “sort of” work.
It also is basically totally unprepared for and does not handle well the role of corporations/capitalism/wage labor or just general modern economics/technology.
I'd say the idea that a state constitution is impeding on the legislature is a little weird. Normally we think of the constitution (whether federal or state) as being the highest authority, and the legislature (again federal or state) as having to follow it. State legislature acts can be struck down by state courts as violating state constitutions, same as with Congress and the US constitution.
In fact, in theory state legislatures only exist because the state constitutions say so. The state constitutions all say something like "the legislative power of the state is vested in the state legislature, it has one/two houses, here's how many members they have, here's how the members are picked, here's when the elections are, here's what their powers are, etc".
Given all that it's a little weird to turn around and say that a state constitution is impeding on the legislature, given the legislature doesn't have any independent existence outside what the constitution says.
I think the salient point is that the state legislature wrote the constitution. So if the U.S. Constitution prevents them from delegating authority regarding federal elections, then even a popular vote to decide federal elections is unconstitutional (as apparently according to the constitution, only the legislature can decide).
In all but a few cases, the state legislature wrote the state constitution. Accordingly, if the State Supreme Court has authority to override the legislature, it is because the legislature gave it to them.
So I watched a video today where they argued that instead of trying to use the lower/middle/upper class trichotimy when discussing politics and studying things, we should instead use (and I'm using their phrasing which I'll immediately define so hold your horses) the working/capitalist dichotomy.
The working class here is meant literally: if you have to do serious physical or mental work to earn a living, you are part of the working class: laborers, service workers, and basically anything where you're helping to make money for someone else. The capitalist class represents people who earn their money off the work of others: so landlords, investors, and the owners of businesses that are large enough to run themselves. If you own a business, but it's small enough that you have to pitch in and/or do any of the work yourself, then you're also a part of the working class.
The argument is that l/m/u classes tend to be nebulously and arbitrarily defined depending on what someone is trying to do, with no standardized definition, and straight up asking people what class they belong to leads to people, with incomes anywhere from below the poverty line to over a million dollars, claiming to be middle class.
The w/c class dichotomy, on the other hand, has a definition independent of location, relative wages, home ownership, and standard of living, and classification is only dependent on the type of work (or lack thereof) necessary to obtain a person's income.
One application of this framework would be how to judge policy proposals. For instance, if you hear about a proposed budget or tax cut, you can try putting yourself in your boss's shoes, and seeing if they would be happy about it (if your boss is a small business owner, imagine Jeff Bezos or something). If they would, it's probably not going to be helpful for you, regardless of any claims or arguments that it'll help the middle class.
>One application of this framework would be how to judge policy proposals. For instance, if you hear about a proposed budget or tax cut, you can try putting yourself in your boss's shoes, and seeing if they would be happy about it (if your boss is a small business owner, imagine Jeff Bezos or something). If they would, it's probably not going to be helpful for you, regardless of any claims or arguments that it'll help the middle class.
Of course, the people proposing such a view will go on ignoring the fact that the capitalists love love love immigration, and will continue mocking working people who are understandably against it. Because so-called "anti-racism" is the only consistent principle; everything else bends around it if there's a conflict.
Qualitative differences can be very important, but you have to get them right. Workers and capitalists weren't the only classes through all of history. They weren't the right way to view feudal societies or the Soviet Union. So why are those the right classes to view America? A counterexample often discussed on this blog is credentialism.
I do not find W/C class all useful or an improvement to L/M/U class.
A retired couple that owns a duplex and rents out the other side is now in the "capitalist class" despite household income under $50k/year and a professional athlete that makes $2Mil/year is now in the "working class".
L/M/U class actually means something and is correlated with many qualities like overall standard of living, financial independence, opportunity, health outcomes, etc. It's irrelevant how you made your $20k/year, you're in the lower class and it doesn't matter how you make your $1Mil/year, you're in the upper class.
This is just Marxism. Literally, that's Marxist class analysis boiled down to a simplified form. And the w/m/u class is an old Marxist criticism of liberalism or non-Marxist socialism. The idea is that everyone who works, from a coal miner to a Fortune 500 CEO, is being exploited by people who own where they work. Plus there's a somewhat uncertain intermediate class of people who both own and work. And that they should all band together and eliminate the owners as a class.
Basically, the idea is not "some people make a lot of money and that's unfair." It's not "we can take money here and put it there to produce net utils." (That's Rawls.) Marx doesn't care at all about wealth inequality. It's also not some vague idea that we should provide things to people for free. He had little to say about welfare and was very much against taxing workers to provide... anything, really.
Marx saw a clear conflict between the distribution of profits between workers (who in his mind created them) and capital owners (who in his mind appropriated them) and saw the resolution of this as world-historically necessary. He didn't think this would produce absolute equality. Some people would be managers of Google making millions and some people would be coal miners making much less. But they would now get the full value of their labor without any given to capital owners. This might not even be good for all of them: some people might find the value of their labor lower than they thought. But it would be a wealthier, freer society in his view.
And the end is just a repetition of Marx's call for a politics of class warfare. Evaluate proposals based on which class they benefit and act accordingly.
Which isn't to say the analysis is useless. But it's already been thoroughly worked over and you might want to look into it more than just a youtube video.
Well the analysis can be divorced from any outcome he predicted. The endgame of Marxism wasn’t everybody getting their Labour value without capitalists taking their profits (thats the intermediary stage) but from each to their ability and to each according to their need. How ability or need is defined was left as an exercise to the reader.
If Marx never existed we would still be talking about capitalists and proletariat - probably though using more neutral terns like businessmen and worker
The quote is "from each according to their ability to each according to their need." Marx wrote that phrase in Critique of the Gotha Program which was, as the name suggests, a criticism. Mainly of other socialists and anarchists that he considered utopian. Indeed, he was paraphrasing several of them that had quotes that were some similar formulation. He specifically thought that was beyond current technical and social capacity but thought it would happen eventually.
Basically Marx said, "We do this now and eventually, when we have a post-scarcity society, we can have a post-scarcity utopia." Until then he suggested "to each according to his contribution" as the relevant slogan. Which was basically an elaboration of his labor theory of value.
You're right that without Marx we would still have socialism and all that. Though probably with somewhat adjusted terms. I'd prefer that because bourgeoisie and proletariat was probably the right word for what Marx said. But most socialists don't really follow that so the words have been stretched out of all meaning.
This seems like it is an attempt by people who do not actually know financial hardship to define themselves to be part of the class that does know financial hardship, for, I expect, the purpose of then being able to speak on behalf of, and more specifically over, them.
> If you own a business, but it's small enough that you *have to* pitch in and/or do any of the work yourself, then you're also a part of the working class.
I think the key part of that definition is the emphasized "have to"; i.e. if Jeff ceased to do a single thing from this moment forward, he would still be among the absolute wealthiest individuals on the planet.
Of course many people have an income partially from labor and partially from capital. That does not mean that concepts of capitalists and workers are useless, though. It might still be the case that various policies affect their labor income differently than their capital income.
Most people in the US fall within both categories. It's necessary for any use of the terms to clearly define when someone is in one category or the other. Even the same person, as they age and accumulate capital, can slowly become more of a "capitalist" even while maintaining the same job for 40+years.
I'm wary of a "primary income source" determination, specifically because people accumulate wealth as they age. I know several Custodians who purchased homes with their wage income to use as rentals. First as supplemental income, and at this point as similar to their wage income. For the purposes of the OP, did they switch from worker to capitalist? If so, when? If not, will they do so when they retire, or will their status reflect a 40+ year career as a worker and stay that way?
"It's necessary for any use of the terms to clearly define when someone is in one category or the other." No, it just isn't. As with many phenomena, there is a spectrum.
Alfred Marshall, father of modern microeconomics, put as a motto of his textbook, borrowed from Darwin, "Natura non facit saltum", i.e. nature does not make jumps. Meaning, a lot of categories in economics are overlapping. That does not make them useless.
What would be the purpose of categorization, if the categories are muddled and overlapping? There's clearly a purpose in the OP sharing this classification system, and it's distinctly meant to replace a different categorization system. That it's indistinct seems like a pretty fatal flaw in terms of use.
I agree that we can understand people to be a mix of capitalist/worker and that can be useful. I don't think the OP's plan can work, though, due to that mix.
I agree that categorization based on whether someone is upper/middle/lower class also has its uses, though it is arbitrary and underdefined.
We are just splitting hairs, though. I just wanted to defend classification based on sources of income (labor, capital plus government pension as an additional important category) as useful in certain contexts, not to claim that it should totally replace classification based on an amount of income.
It needs an addition of the third class, retirees living on government provided pensions, now far more numerous than capitalists, and with interests distinct from both workers and capitalists.
Thinking in terms of class can help with understanding certain social conflicts and how different people have different interests.
If you look at zoning laws that are designed to keep property prices high, they help the class of people who own their own homes while harming the class of people who don't own such property. In Marx terms someone who owns their own home wasn't working class.
Framing people who own their own homes, and thus have capitalist interests in having zoning laws that make homes more expensive, as working class, is how you get liberal cities like San Fransico where the poor people are treated like crap.
A lot of professional licensing is about laws that make live harder for the lower class by not allowing the lower class to do certain work even if someone would be willing to pay them to do the work.
In the last two years of COVID-19 we saw people who are actually working class having a lot of trouble with lockdown restrictions while people who work interlectually had no trouble to simply work from home. Mislabeling people who aren't working class as working class is a way to obscure important differences in political class interests in political conflicts like that.
The late David Graeber proposed that the class distrinctions we should be making are between the caring class and the mangerial class. Seeing HR and managers as being in a different social class makes a lot of sense for understanding the power dynamics of people's lived experience.
>If you look at zoning laws that are designed to keep property prices high, they help the class of people who own their own homes while harming the class of people who don't own such property
People who own their own homes do better if the value of their home goes down because they pay less taxes on the cheaper home. The value of the home benefits them if they sell it or take out a loan using it as collateral; if they live in it, hbut it also raises their expenses.
And the classifications in your last two paragraphs are vastly different. You can work intellectually and not be part of the managerial class.
property taxes rarely rise as quickly as the market price of a property. And in most of the US are less than 1% the assessed value per year. If your home goes up in value by $100k I don't think you will be too upset about paying an extra $1k in taxes. Maybe in a few unique circumstances, home owners would benefit from housing values dropping but for the vast majority of individual owners, rising values are a benefit.
"In Marx terms someone who owns their own home wasn't working class". The Great British Class survey notes that many of the people it defines as Traditional Working Class do own their homes -- unlike.the Precariat (gig economy).
Sounds like what you're arguing is that we need a whole lot more classes: "Works with hands, owns home" versus "Works with hands, rents" versus "Works on a computer, owns home" versus "Middle manager" vs "Senior manager" vs "HR drone" et cetera.
At this point we might as well throw out the word "class" and just start classifying people by whichever set of criteria are important to the discussion at hand.
I think the term "class" is useful for explaining social snobbery but shouldn't be used in economic analysis.
Strong agree (except for the last paragraph, which I don't understand at all).
Another important aspect is hand-to-mouth living vs the ability to invest. The latter gives a participation in the "capitalist" side that grows quite large even for someone who "only" saves 10-20% of their paycheck, due to the nature of compound interest. It also unlocks a whole new set of strategic choices, e.g., voluntarily giving up a job to move somewhere else, take up another profession, build a business, etc.
This bundles a ridiculously wealthy Anywhere/Virtual laptop class soy latte drinking Bay Area techie with a Somewhere/Physical barely making do Appalachian coal miner who, to quote Michael Moore, "can't even get a fucking Percocet" into the same box.
As such, is it all that useful? If you leave the typology at that, I'd say it obfuscates things more than it makes clear.
Fewer than 40k people in the US are employed as coal miners. (according to the St. Louis Fed) and their average pay was $85,581 in 2021 (according to the national mining association). I don't think coal miners should be the go to example of a working class labor job (not to mention Wyoming produces the most coal in the US, not the Appalachian states).
A better job to use is probably someone who works at a distribution facility in the exurbs of a large city (though even these jobs often pay well above the local minimum wage).
I do think Anywhere/Somewhere is a good measure to use on this subject.
If the soy latte drinker is ridiculously wealthy then he will in part be a capitalist - as his money is probably invested. If he’s just a wage earner he’s just a wage earner. It’s more likely this guy is a renter than the miner is.
So if the soy drinker is an idiot who blows all his income on Lamborghinis and knawledge then he is part do the oppressed and virtuous working class? But if he is smart and frugal and invest money in the market or in a friends business, then he is an ego capitalist who must be bled dry for exploiting the workers?
Have I got this right? These are the incentives this move wants to set up right?
If a rich man spends his money and becomes poor he is poor. That’s true. And nobody is calling here for “bleeding dry” the capitalists, it’s a discussion on class. As i pointed out in a previous comment, a person on higher income could be a proletariat and someone on lower income could be a landlord. This is just a property relationship.
Almost always when people start trying the populations into “landlord and capitalists” vs “workers” what is coming next is a call to dispossess the former.
And historically when the people who like such framing get full power, they mostly use do use it to bleed them dry, both financially, and literally.
The left loves to talk about “dehumanizing” and “othering” and yet modern society are the absolute leaders in this area. I don’t ever hear conservatives express a quarter the venom and casual sociopathy for the poor, or minority groups that is quite regular and accepted on the left as long as it is directed at the correct targets.
The person killing you for the good of society is going to do it with a lot less hesitation and at times frankly glee than the one who knows it is only for their own benefit.
a definition of classes isnt a call to a Revolution. You probably believe in some elites or other, I assume. Does talking about “Liberal elites” or any other form of elites endanger them?
Anyway I’m not a Marxist. You don’t need to be to believe in economic classes.
Well this is basically Marxism and it certainly has it’s utility even these days. Imagine 3 people living in London, Peter, Laura and Chris. Peter earns £70k a year, Laura earns 30K, Chris earns 20k.
Who do they vote for? If I tell you that Peter votes for a left wing party and the others for a right wing party would that make sense? Well it would of Peter were a renter and a worker, Laura a landlord and Chris’s earnings are from a private pension fund. The latter two are outright home owners. Peter would be comfortable with a rental freeze, or taxes on property, or unearned income, the other two would not be.
29 year-old graduate of Stanford Law School working as an associate at a major law firm and renting an apartment downtown somewhere.
A single mother of two working in the Starbucks that’s on the ground floor of his building — during the pandemic her expenses dropped and she got some stimulus relief checks so she was able to actually use the corporate 401(k) match for once.
A homeless guy who when the store isn’t crowded just kind of sits quietly at a corner table for hours sometimes.
The recent Stanford grad’s dad, a divorced and retired cop who rents a place in Florida and lives off of his pension.
The way wealth data works is that a 401(k) is wealth but a defined benefit pension is not. So the barista is the richest person in this story, followed by the retired cop, followed by the homeless guy, and poorest of all is the lawyer — he has negative wealth unlike the homeless guy, who is at zero."
I remember telling a graduate that he was poorer than a homeless person in wealth. He wasn’t impressed.
The law graduate renting the apartment is in a fairly precarious position. If things dont go well he could be out on his ear - its the sense that he probably has family backup that makes us forget that.
Seems like something L/m/u class framing already captures - as I've always seen it used, lower class work with their bodies ("blue collar"), middle class work with their minds ("white collar") and upper class (can) live off investments and usually work because they want to, in some sense.
Importantly, and this is something America in particular gets wrong often, class and income and wealth are not that correlated - a blue collar lower class tradesman can be a millionaire, while a wannabe journalist struggling to try and make ends meet in NYC is at least middle class and quite possibly upper class (depending on the parents).
I read both essays, and think they both have value. The three ladders model does a great job explaining culture and values, but the probably does a better job explaining real economic power and influence.
My thoughts are that this is an essentially useless framing for understanding the world, and quite likely harmful for trying to affect it. As several people have already pointed out to you, 'capitalists' serve very useful functions to society and they do it by working very hard. I'm reasonably confident that Jeff Bezos works, or at least has worked, much harder than 99% of the people you consider working class.
You would be much better off trying to use other frameworks to judge policy proposals. Try reading about public goods and consider how policy proposals impact them. Find out how markets expand welfare and consider whether the policy proposal you're thinking about improves or hinders market functioning. Learn about comparative advantage and trade and consider if people are being allowed to leverage their advantages instead of being blocked off by laws that should not prevent them.
If you think Paris Hilton doesn't work, you need to broaden your definition of work. You think streamers on twitch don't work either? Other reality show participants?
Bezos created his wealth by working, using the free market. Paris Hilton inherited hers. Free markets are an entirely different issue than inheritance taxes. So your example is a case where "capitalist" is a useless framing for understanding the world.
You're merely restating your definition of "capitalist", without acknowledging my observation that that definition is useless for this example. The fact that Karl Marx defined "capitalist" one way 180 years ago doesn't make that definition useful. The point at issue here is whether or not that definition is useful. You are simply ignoring the point (and also ignoring all the other distinctions made in this thread).
So I agree that the w/c dichotomy is more robust, but I'm not sure it captures the distinction people are trying to draw with l/m/u which contains more information about likely views on the world (and often political affiliation by extension).
That said, I think Matt Yglesias (and certainly others) have good points that education polarization muddles l/m/u - in a lot of ways a social works with a masters degree are more philosophically aligned with an investment banker than with someone in a road crew, even if their earnings are more similar.
That's just a rationalization of "I want to feel like a brave warrior who fights against the elites, even when I attack people who are middle class on a good day". Not very dissimilar from the epycicles created by leftists to argue that mocking trailer park white is akshually punching up IMO.
Also, as a more object-level note, if you think that the average IB and the average humanities/social work grad are "philosophically similar" (I guess you mean, they have similar philosophies), you have not spent much time around either.
Seems like you're giving cover to those elites who hide behind not being financially powerful to disguise their vast cultural power. There's a very important sense in which a journalist making 60k a year is part of the elite, while a plumber making 120k a year is not. In a society where foxes dominate, being part of the Brain from which literally everything is downstream gives you immense power.
Late reply, but I recommend qntm's Ra and Antimemetics Division stories, both available online – qntm.org is probably the best starting point.
An oldie but goodie is Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus. (And of course the Book of the New Sun if you haven't read it, but it's only very arguably SF.)
The most recent posts at my blog are reviews of Asimov's Foundation trilogy... but those are old enough that I'd already heard the basic premises so none were mind-blowing.
Some old hard science like Asimov. After spending a good bit of time in pop SF and then reading about what real spaceflight or interstellar technology would have to look like, it was an eye-opener.
Love Greg Egan. Buddy started me on Diaspora. It can take me time to get into some of his books but it’s usually worth it. Currently reading Book of all Skies.
That's not that new (1994) but strongly seconded, it has some mind-blowing concepts. Diaspora is another good one by him. His style is kind of different from most other things you'd read. If you're curious whether you'll like it you can read the first chapter "orphanogenesis" online, which is a great story in itself.
Another data point: I attempted to read his _Children of Time_ for a book club, and hated it with a raving hatred. To my mind, the world-building was arbitrary and it seemed as though the characters were being shoved around by the author to make things happen. I simply couldn't believe that a control freak would unleash an intelligence-increasing virus.
Tchaikovsky’s Books are good, but "mind-blowing" is hyperbole. He doesn't play in the same league as Asimov, Vinge, Liu Cixin, or even the above mentioned Arkady Martine.
In my ongoing project of trying to pick up more hobbies and skills, I've decided to take up drawing. I bought a cheap Canson sketchbook to work through drawabox.com's exercises. Does anyone have experience with it or another art course they can recommend? Textbooks on the subject? I'm coming at this from a level of "drew a few graphs in college chemistry" as a level of prior artistic skill.
I'm 27 years into a career as a concept artist - mostly for game development but once in a blue moon for films. I'm one of the working concept artists who have being doing it long enough to have made the transition from the 'paper era' to the 'digital era'. I bring up the digital/paper divide for reasons that I'll clarify below.
When they talk about learning 'drawing' most people are talking about one of basic goals:
1) Decoration. The /craft/ of making pen or pencil drawings on paper is a close cousin to doing watercolor paintings, sewing quilts, making pottery and so on. The end goal is to make a craftwork.
2) Self Expression. If someone is interested in doing art or becoming an artist (I'll save the debate about the distinction between 'craft' and 'art' for some other time), drawing on paper in pencil or ink seems like the most accessible way to get started on the road to expressing yourself visually.
3) Communication. If you have a visual idea in your imagination, and you'd like to develop the skills necessary to communicate that idea visually, then pencil and paper is the /traditional/ way to communicate that visual idea.
During the 'paper era' I alluded to earlier, pencil drawing on paper was the common starting point for journeys to all three destinations. But in the digital era, drawing on paper in ink or pencil is the worst way to accomplish either goals 2) or 3).
When you start to make an image, you want to match the /way/ you start the image to what it is you have in mind. When you imagine the image you intend to make, what are the mental materials you are starting with? If you are trying to make an image that somehow captures the hazy light of a dusty summer afternoon, what you probably have in mind are colors and maybe nebulous shapes. So color-shapes is what you should lay down /first/. In the paper era, you first had to /draw/ an entire scene, a framework to hang those colors on. You had to make a commitment to barns, and fences, and trees, and delineate them in graphite or ink, and only after you have done all that can you begin to dab in the colors - the colors that were the whole point of the image to begin with! In the paper era, drawing was a set of hurdles you had to jump over before you could really start adding the elements of the image that matter most to /you/.
Having to do a drawing first, before setting out upon the important aspects of an image is not merely onerous. It's usually fatal to the image, and fatal to the development of many artists. It's hard to hold an idea in your imagination for long enough to realize it in the form of an artwork. It's hard to work on an idea without accidentally dispelling it. In the paper era it was almost impossible to produce the image that you had in mind - the mental image could almost never endure the drawing phase without dissipating.
However, in the digital era, you are free to begin an image in many different ways. You don't have to /delineate/ your forms and commit to their outlines before you can do anything else. You can begin with blobs of color, if colors are what you have in mind. You can 'block out' big solid shapes if forms are what you have in mind. You can lay down big patches of dark if light and shadow are what you have in mind. You can make a 3d model if 'structure' is what you initially care about. You can google up close approximations of what you have in mind, and manipulate the photos and paint on top of them to home-in on your vision.
TLDR: pencil and ink drawing is a /specialist craft/, like engraving or needlepoint. It's not a foundational skill for image making - far from it. It only ever was considered a foundational skill during an era where there were no better alternatives. Unless you are solidly in camp 1) and your goal is to make hand-crafted objects d'art in the form of pencil drawings on paper, don't waste your time with sketchbooks.
Thanks for the response! Your 1/2/3 split for the goal of art gives me a lot to think about. When you say communication is about having a visual idea, is that a fully imaginary one or something as simple as copying what I see in front of me? Or would that fall closer to decoration?
Additionally, since you have used both, would you say that the skills from one medium transfer to the other (limiting to physical pen-and-paper and digital)? My priors would say that physical skill somewhat transfers to digital, but not the other way around.
Copying what you see in front of you, according to my typology, is 1) when done for it's own sake, and training for 2) and 3) otherwise. There's not really any reason to copy what's in front of you instead of just taking a photo, unless you want a handcrafted version of the image, right? Drawing and painting from nature is craftwork*.
The the usual reason given for copying from nature is that it's good training. Figuring out how to translate form you can see with your eyes into two-dimensional form on the canvas, as approximated by the medium of your choice, is supposedly good practice. But practice for what, exactly? Unless you're eventually going to substitute your imagination for your eyes, what is it you're practicing for?
If your goal is to eventually turn images that are in your imagination into images that other people can also see, the hand-eye coordination you get from practicing drawing from life has low utility anyhow. If you can handwrite or print, you already have all the hand eye coordination you'll ever need as an artist. The major roadblock to goals 2) and 3) is getting control over your imagination. That's the skill that needs the most urgent and continuous effort. Holding a mental image in focus in your imagination is the athletic aspect of the visual arts - it's the arts equivalent to how much you can deadlift or how fast you can run a marathon. Over the course of an artistic career, this imaginative skill will strengthen.
When I was a teenager, I could maybe hold on to a visual idea for maybe an hour or two. Now, I've got maybe 24 to 36 hours. They don't have to be continuous hours, you can usually pick up and put down a piece of the course of weeks or months, or years! But when the 'working time' has been spent up you reach a state we call 'going snow blind', where you can no longer conjure up your visual idea without getting distracted by newer, shinier ideas that obscure and eclipse it, and you kind of forget what the whole point of the idea was anyhow. It sort of melts away like a waking up from a dream. As poetic as that sounds, the the first sub-skill is pretty hard nosed - figure out how long it takes you to go snow blind and budget your working time accordingly. If you have a visual idea that seems really important to you, and you dither and waste time on failed attempts to realize it, that idea will slip away /forever/.
The second sub-skill is to figure out how to make really efficient use of the time you spend working on an image. This is why pencil drawing is such a travesty - it pretty much guarantees that you'll spend most or all of your 'working time' plodding your way through unimportant aspects of the image, like silhouette edges and textures, and inefficiently rendering tones by hatching and scribbling them. The clock is ticking while you do all that. If you can get your image 'down' on the canvas somehow, you get to keep it! It doesn't slip away! But the stuff you put down has to be the same stuff you imagine or this anchoring effect doesn't work. If you imagine colors, then you have to get the colors down. If it's light and shadow that you imagine, you have to get the value blocks down as fast as you can. Etc etc.. Unless what you are imagining is literally the mental image of a pencil drawing, a pencil is not the tool you should be using to get your idea down unless it's the only tool you have at hand.
As for skills transfer, I believe your intuition is sort of correct. I don't think digital skills transfer well to traditional media, at least not directly. But by using digital media as your training ground, you'll make way more substantial progress on the 'wrangling your imagination' front, and that will help, indirectly. Having a long 'working time' and learning to prioritize working efficiently will help with artmaking in any medium - and in life generally!
Alright - I've blathered enough and been contrarian enough that I feel I have to establish some sort of credibility, even at the expense of losing my anonymity. I haven't ever curated a portfolio website, but this Behance link has a sort of random grab bag of pieces I've done over the last twenty (!) years, of various levels of finish. https://www.behance.net/gallery/10171215/Portfolio-Pieces
Firstly, that is some incredible work you have in your portfolio.
More to the point of your argument: I can certainly see the benefits of going digital that you mention. I'll probably work on the first one or two lessons of Drawabox on paper as a test, but transition to digital for the 250 box challenge and further.
Do you have recommendations for a beginner drawing tablet (preferably one with Linux support)? Google suggests the Wacom One/Intuos, but you might have another opinion. And any opinion on small vs. medium sizes?
An iPad pro is a pretty good drawing painting tool. I don't really like Apple, but the iPad really made digital painting accessible to everyone so they deserve kudos for that. At least one of the pictures in that portfolio was done on an iPad 1 with my finger. For painting and sketching you don't need a lot of horsepower so you can get an old one for dirt cheap. I'm still rocking a 2016 iPad pro. That, an apple pencil and Procreate and Bob's your uncle. At a higher price point you could get one of the entry level Wacom Cintiqs, but they need a laptop or computer to tether to.
I just puffed a bunch of gas disparaging drawing as a foundational image making skill. It doesn't have no value, just low value compared to extending your 'working time'. But when it comes to drawing, ergonomics matters. For drawing, better ergonomics = bigger drawing surface. At art school drawing classes, the students are usually encouraged or required to draw in charcoal on big newsprint pads. This is to get them to draw with their full arm, from the shoulder downwards. You doodle with your fingers and wrist. You sketch with your elbow and wrist. You draw and paint with your whole arm. The minimum viable 'whole arm' drawing surface is probably about 18" diagonally. I work all day on a 24" Cintiq in the home office. If apple ever got around to making an 18" iPad, as absurd as it sounds, it would immediately become required basic equipment for every art school life drawing class in the country (other than those few that would reflexively emphasize traditional working methods).
As a fellow amateur, +1 for Drawabox. It is incredible value for money. If you like this course and want more, check out the Dynamic Sketching Bible, by Peter Han (he taught Uncomfortable, the drawabox guy). To contrast with some of the other advice in this thread, construction (what is taught in drawabox) is vital to being able to draw from imagination.
I recommend that when you get halfway through an exercise, check the other students submissions (they are all public). See what feedback they got and if it applies to you.
The only lesson more fundamental than how to draw a line, is how not to burn out learning art. Strength be with you on the 250 box challenge. If you can get through that you can get through everything else in the course, I promise.
My ultimate goal is to be able to draw figures well, so after I finished drawabox, I paid for Proko's figure drawing course. I think it was probably overpriced, but I found it valuable. I'm now working my way through Proko's anatomy freemium course, which is more in my price range. I feel I made the right choice in finishing drawabox before taking these courses, as they build on the notion of building body parts out of simple 3D forms and being able to manipulate them with your imagination.
I found a lot of value in listening to different artists talk about art. It turns out there is a lot of jargon that didn't exactly mean what I thought it meant and few people stop to explain what they precisely mean. Ethan Becker on youtube is someone who clearly explained the differences between fine art and animation. For example, animation needs to be less detailed for efficiency purposes, but both animation and fine art try to use shadows not to perfectly simulate lighting, but to reveal the 3D form of the object they are cast on.
Of course, there's the standard advice of draw a lot and draw with purpose. You have to keep studying and trying to improve to get better, you can't just scribble the same thing 10 000 times and expect to get good.
There are many ways to do this. My best recommendation is that you find James Gurney's blog and have a look there. He posts nearly daily so a staggering amount of information. He also has published two of the best art instruction books out there (and runs a very successful YouTube channel) although he focuses more on painting, but going back to his blog you'll find lots of information and book recommendations on drawing as well, and he often references it in his videos, since drawing skills are necessary prior to painting anything figurative anyway.
From my personal experience I'd say the best way to get better is drawing from nature (Gurney is a big advocate of outdoor painting which is related), can be still life, bust most importantly drawing from live model. As the human brain is most adept at reading the human body and face, you can tell straight away how bad your drawing is 🙂 this makes for a (relatively) quick, interesting and encouraging learning process. Best of course is from actual life, and you can sketch people in their day to day life, but you can also find live model videos on YouTube. You're missing the stereo vision of actually being there (interestingly many artists have poor stereo vision however) but it's also valuable. Get large cheap paper A3 and up. Draw a lot, 5, 10, 15 minute exercises, don't try to make anything pretty and enjoy the process.
I'd recommend drawing from nature to anyone, really. It makes very salient how we don't really look at the world but only have a model in our brain, mostly made out of symbols, to which we update a few salient points now and then, so in a way I find it truly enlightening. An artist really does look at things in a very different way.
If what you want is a fulfilling hobby, making this connection from your eyes to your fingertips and experiencing the behaviour of diferent mediums is a very rich experience. And it's a very big plus to get outside and get some daylight, or rain even, and let your eyes focus on the far distance, if you do plein air drawing or painting. This I believe has big health benefits, and you might even socialise with random interesting people.
"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is not scientifically up to date, but has classic and useful exercises.
New Masters Academy offers high quality video courses.
For adult learners, I find charcoal (vine, compressed, and white on toned paper) and pastel rather than only pencil to be a good idea, since it physically differentiates it from writing more. Half the challenge is learning to draw non-symbolically, which can be slightly harder when using the same tools as for (symbolic) writing. Also, there's more immediate feedback on pressure in charcoal -- if you press too hard, the charcoal breaks. With pencil it's easy to press too hard, and not notice until you go back to erase guide lines later, and then it's too late. Charcoal and pastel also blend much, much better, so it's easier to make a fast drawing look complete. The downside, of course, is that they're messy and need spray fixative to keep from smudging.
Looking at DrawaBox, it occurs to me that you may be more interested in technical drawing. You might already know this, but that not the way drawing is taught in art courses. It may be in engineering or architecture, I'm not sure.
A big difference between art drawing courses and the Draw a Box ones is that the regular courses have a pretty strong focus on Elements of Art and Principles of Design, and thinking through or making thumbnail sketches of where the different parts of the image will go, how they will interact, what the values will be, what the relative sizes should be, and so on. I don't know a good online resource for this off the top of my head, but if you're going for art drawings, try looking up Elements of Art and Principles of Design for an idea.
A piece of advice that stuck with me is that in shaded drawings, every contour line needs to divide different *values* -- for instance, a dark background and lighter figure. Or a darker figure and lighter background; it's rarely good practice to have lines dividing two areas of equal value. For instance, look at this drawing of a shaded sphere: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/15/ce/63/15ce63dace3826f0a7073142189609e5.jpg
Thank you for the response! "Right Side of the Brain" came up a few times in my research, and NMA seems to be affiliated with Drawabox - I'll be giving both a look. As for DaB's technical drawing focus, that wasn't something I've thought much about. I'm still unsure where I want to go with this besides "drawing". I'll keep a look out for resources that mention those Elements and Principles, though.
There used to be a thing called Literary Fiction. Around the turn of the millennium this non-genre genre seemed to have gotten over its heels turning out pretentious writerly tomes that were heavily criticized in essays like this one in the Atlantic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Reader%27s_Manifesto
Two decades later, literary fiction in the USA is non-existent yet there hasn't been a tolling of the bells. It seems to have gradually transformed unnoticed into books that middle-aged, all-female book clubs read. In other words, it didn't die, but it smells funny.
You got a lot of good and interesting answers here already, but I'm surprised nobody pointed out the obvious, that turn-of-the-millennium literary fiction was/is also a genre read, as a matter of practical fact, almost entirely by middle-aged spinster book clubs. It's just that the selling point included the false promise of some sort of highfalutin'-clout-based social status to these clubragettes for reading it.
(In fact, women make up such a large majority of readers of fiction/for pleasure that this is the case in almost all categories of literature, even ones you'd maybe think were "male" like swashbuckling adventure novels or Bond-style spy thrillers. Almost everything about what modern fiction looks like is based on this one simple fact, that men essentially abandoned literature entirely the moment it became clear that film was a better medium for action scenes.)
The Overstory by Richard Powers; Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh; Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr; A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. These are all good, from the last ten years, and I believe they're all sold as literary fiction (although all could be classified as either Historical Fiction or Science Fiction, I guess).
Maybe what you're complaining about is the same as the thing I celebrate, where literary fiction authors used to be very constrained to present-day realism, but aren't anymore. You can put a novel where the protagonist is a robot in the literary fiction section and nobody will bat an eye. But it means that, if your idea of what constitutes literary fiction ("non-genre genre") is limited to present-day/recent past realism, then yeah, I'd say there aren't quite as many good novels being written in that form these days.
While I'm talking about books, let me recommend Samanta Schweblin's Mouthful of Birds and Gabe Habash's Stephen Florida. These are avant-garde/experimental rather than literary, but if you're worried about fiction becoming uninteresting, I think they would help to reassure you.
Between Joyce and Pynchon the possibilities of the novel were exhausted. Also, to the person below questioning how much philosophy authors read, wasn’t Hemingway, like, boys with Sartre and For Whom the Bell Tolls is littered with Nietzsche allusions? And he’s as Chad-like as serious authors come.
I don't know if that's necessarily true; maybe the best stuff isn't rising to the top of all the lists? The women's Book Club genre is likely a thing. Having recently joined such a group myself, I find myself feeling completely out of place and just not liking the books we're picking. There has probably been a demographic shift in WHO gets published, and WHY they get published. I have read some acclaimed books (but not many) and found them wanting, flat or not-fleshed-out-enough or predictable.
Interesting, one of those things that you don't notice is gone until someone points at the space where it used to be.
My cynical judgement is that the English literature establishment has been fully subsumed into the social justice movement over the past couple of decades, and there's no longer status to be gained by reading obscure hard-to-understand literature, you need to be reading books by oppressed groups about how oppressed they are.
I think it was in 2007 that I picked up, practically at random, a book from the "Staff Recommendations" bookcase in our local bookstore. It was a book I'd never heard of, by an author I'd never heard of. I read a few paragraphs, saw that the writing was really good, bought the book and read it. My mind was blown. It was one of the most amazing and most beautifully written novels I'd ever read.
The book was Mark Helprin's "Winter's Tale". Neither I nor anyone I asked had ever heard of the book or the author. (I found out that Helprin himself thought, for some good reasons, that there were political reasons for his obscurity, but lets not go into that here.)
The reason I'm telling you this is that, for all you know, there might be amazing American literary fiction out there that you've never heard of and have no way of finding out about, except completely at random. I'm not sure why this country is so broken this way, but Helprin's example shows that it is.
The question of how to find that literature has been bothering me for a while. There is simply so much published - millions of books per year - and judging the quality of each is a subjective and time consuming process. In the end it seems inevitable that a great degree of filtering will take place, and certain books, by certain people, will be chosen to be elevated above all others.
How can that be fixed? I honestly don't know. I was toying with the question of whether machine learning could somehow be employed. Could a computer read a manuscript and tell you if it is worth reading, given an input of a few hundred books you felt strongly about (either positively or negatively)? Is such a thing even within the capability of machine learning?
Follow the authors you love on social media. When they're enthusiastic about a book, you'd probably like it. Blurbs don't seem to be as useful for this purpose; same with review sites and traditional reviews. But when somebody reads something they love, they can't shut up about it; and your favorite writers are more like that than normal people are.
There are two sequels, "A City in Winter" and "The Veil of Snows". They're like a stylized fairy-tale.
In what place do you live that Mark Helprin was a staff pick? (Rhetorical question, don't answer it.) I loved when Strand in NYC had its "strand 80" readers' picks, which was not the same as "Staff picks". Everywhere I live, cursory glance at staff picks has been book club fare, but I haven't looked in a long time now.
Maybe, but Helprin's "Winter's Tale" is held in high esteem by the establishment and I'm well aware of it. I haven't read it and maybe I should, but it's one of a very few books this century that I hear about that is described as literary fiction. (My main hesitation to read it is that I hated an essay Helprin wrote about literature back in the 90s).
So you even heard of that book, but since whatever the establishment says is mostly noise, you of course dismissed it as noise. I rest my case - you have no way of finding out if there's literary fiction worth reading out there.
No reason for you to take a random ACX commenter's word that it's worth reading, so do not feel nudged.
One thing I can tell you without spoiling the story too much is that it has a number of miracles in it, written the way miracles should be. I also recommend taking a look inside the book at Amazon.
I agree, but I think the process has been going on for about 100 years. If I were to pick one key turning point, it wouldn't be in literature, but in the plastic arts, just before 1910, when modern art began. Modern art is based on Platonist metaphysics, which denies that people can create or communicate anything new. This eventually led to the ascendancy of style over content in all of the arts, exemplified by writers like Gertrude Stein and Thomas Pynchon.
Several other trends all converged and contributed to this change:
- A line of mostly German philosophy, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, the Nazis, Sartre, and Foucault, denied the existence of any kind of objective truth, grounded morality in "authenticity" and "lived experience" rather than in reason, human biology, or nature, and taught that the only motivations humans had was the will to power. A corollary was that all art, including literature, is always and only political. This became the basis of continental philosophy in the 1930s when fascists kicked the philosophers who believed in objective reality out of Germany and France (and maybe Spain and Italy, but I haven't looked into that yet).
- Post-modernism made its own arguments, also based on Platonist (and Aristotelian) metaphysics (as in the writings of Derrida and Barthes) that people can't create and language can't communicate.
- The Frankfurt school of Marxism, combined with Nazi and existentialist phenomenology (subjective truth, authenticity-based ethics, and will-to-power theory), led to critical theory, an entirely political way of looking at literature. We can mark the ascendancy of critical theory in literature by the date when the Norton Anthology of Literary Theory, under the leadership of Vincent Leitch, became the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism in 2001. Leitch explicitly stated in the preface that he had removed the word "Literary" from the title because he thought people in literature departments should be more concerned with social criticism than with literature.
- The Social Justice movement intensified critical theory, turning it to identify politics rather than class struggle, and making people more comfortable with explicitly using racial and sexual politics as the highest criterion of literary value.
- The rise of other media made literary publications unprofitable, leading to today's situation in which literary imprints are run not to earn financial gain, but social capital, and are therefore tied not to the demands of readers, but the fashions of the Manhattan elite.
- Contemporary literary values, which are really little but reactions against previous, "bourgeois" literary values, were spread by Iowa-style workshops, creative writing MFA programs, and prominent literary magazines such as the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly.
- The rising power of the elite universities, starting around 1970, led to the present situation in which having an MFA from an ivy, Oxbridge, or an elite Boston college has become a prerequisite to becoming a famous literary novelist, and all of these people write "program" fiction.
Some references if you want to trace through some of this:
Lennard Davis, 1987. Resisting Novels: Ideology & Fiction. Methuen, Inc., NYC. Online [url=https://archive.org/details/resistingnovelsi034944mbp]free[/url]. Davis argues that the mission of English literature departments should be to teach students the cynical, critical, and revolutionary perspective necessary to defend them from the inherently bourgeois nature of the novel.
Lennard Davis & M. Bella Mirabella, eds., 1990. Left Politics and the Literary Profession. Columbia University Press.
Annie Dillard, 1982. Living by Fiction. Harper & Row, NY. Largely Dillard's complaints that literary fashions seem to demand that authors write bad books.
Peter Elbow, 1990. What is English? The Modern Language Association, The National Council of Teachers of English. One document showing when the MLA and the NCTE began deliberately teaching that the purpose of literature departments was not to study literature, but to spread Marxism and "social justice".
Chad Harbach, ed., 2014. MFA vs NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction. n+1, NYC.
Vincent Leitch et al., eds. 2nd ed. 2010, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. New York: Norton. Browsing its table of contents shows that there is no longer any concern with literary value in English literary studies. You can also see this by reading PMLA (https://www.mla.org/Publications/Journals/PMLA), the dominant American literary studies journal.
Richard Lloyd-Jones & Andrea Lunsford, eds., 1989. The English Coalition Conference: Democracy through Language. The Modern Language Association, The National Council of Teachers of English. Another book documenting the MLA & NCTE's turn to Marxism.
Marc McGurl 2009. The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. This is an odd book; McGurl says that contemporary literary fiction is richer and more varied than ever, then spends the rest of the book arguing that there are only 3 fictional scenarios or themes that can be written about now.
Maybe, but all of that is pretty highbrow. Seems like most people used to get passionate, if they did, about literature in their late teen years, too early in life to be exposed to all that postmodern bullshit. In fact, literature used to be a bullshit cutter. Books like Catch-22 , On the Road, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch, Gravity's Rainbow, Ham on Rye were popular because they were subversive. Seems to me if similarly subversive books were around today there would be an appetite for them, but maybe nothing can seem subversive today in book form.
I think there are so many more forms of media available now that written fiction is only going to supply a small fraction of what it once did. (Fiction podcasts, long form television, and Instagram poetry are only a small fraction of the things that are adjacent to traditional literary fiction, not to mention all the completely new things like video games and short form video.)
> A line of mostly German philosophy, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, the Nazis, Sartre, and Foucault, denied the existence of any kind of objective truth
That feels like a gross misrepresentation of Husserl.
Husserl is an important link in the chain. He's called the father of phenomenology, and the Nazis chose to push phenomenology because its subjective epistemology was extremely useful to them. Also note that Heidegger, the most-prominent Nazi philosopher, was Husserl's only protege, and took Husserl's chair at Freiburg when Husserl left.
quote from link : Edmund Husserl used phenomenology for epistemology: the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. He wanted to make philosophy a rigorous science like mathematics and physics.
And when it comes to Sartre and Husserl, we have Alfred Schutz (one of Husserls more clear-thinking students) on record saying that Sartre got Husserl totally wrong.
I don't claim to understand Husserl, or even that it's possible to understand Husserl (it would take an entire human lifetime merely to read and understand everything he wrote; he wrote faster than readers can read his writing). But I suspect you're being misled by Husserl's actual words. Husserl is known for /introducing/ subjective epistemology. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201766 . (Hegel had already done so nearly a century earlier, but in such a confused way that most Hegelians still don't realize that's what he did. Plus, I think it was in his "Science of Logic", which most Hegelians don't read.)
The term "subjective" is highly ambiguous. If, for instance, I say "I am the tallest person here," that's an empirically unambiguous question; we can all agree on its truth-value, so that truth-value is objective. Yet it depends on who speaks it and where they are; so its truth-value is subjective.
I /think/ that the cases Husserl explored were more like if you say "I am the most beautiful person here", which is subjective in that it depends on your own subjective aesthetic standards, but objective in that, given your own internal access to those standards, it may be "true for you".
Husserl, like all German idealists, was under the misconception that "science" meant "a method of deducing absolutely, logically certain deterministic conclusions without performing experiments or making observations." (In other words, "math".) Like Marx, he called anything "scientific" if it made definite, deterministic predictions and declared them infallible, without any concept of empirically testing predictions. So he thought you could treat internal conscious experience scientifically and "objectively" if you drew conclusions which you said were infallible, even though the internal sense-data was entirely subjective.
I don't think novelist read that much philosophy. How much philosophy do you think Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner read? Art is a different subject from philosophy. Kafka supposedly read a bit of philosophy in his early years but turned away from it when he decided his pure interest was literature.
Philosophy has little to do with literature. A few philosophers like Nietzsche and novelists like Musil have tried to bridge the gap, but so far nobody has made a great syncretism of the two fields.
What the "great novelists" do consciously isn't as important as who chooses the great novelists. Every 20th-century "great novelist" whose history I've investigated turned out to have been selected for ideological reasons, by a coterie of academics or intellectuals:
- Ezra Pound spend years building a network of funders, publishers, critics, and writers, in order to change the face of literature. He didn't know what he wanted; he just knew it had to be strange. He finally settled on James Joyce's Ulysses. It was serialized in 1918-1920 by two magazines Pound was an editor for (The Little Review and The Egoist), then published later by Shakespeare and Company on Pound's urging and fundraising (Tytell 1987 p. 167-8). The book came out in 1922 to a spate of ecstatic reviews, all of which were written by friends of Pound or Joyce, or by Pound himself; an even larger number of negative reviews; and (as far as I have discovered) three mostly positive, unbiased, non-anonymous reviews. See (Southam 2013) and (Deming 1970) for collections of reviews.
- William Faulkner was out-of-print and critically dismissed in 1947. In 1950, he won the (1949) Nobel for literature. That's because between 1943 and 1958, the Rockefeller Foundation spent almost $500,000 paying famous literary journals and critics to promote American writers with an anti-communist ideology. The famous critics were Southerners, and eventually decided to promote Faulkner. (Also, his novel Intruder in the Dust was made into a movie in 1949.) He wasn't their first choice; he wasn't even on their first list of candidates IIRC. (Schwartz 1988 p. 69, 80, 94.) See my post "Review--Creating Faulkner's Reputation" (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/751143).
- While speaking about Southern authors, notice that the Southern authors made respectable in the 20th centuries were mostly ones like Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, Harper Lee, and even VC Andrews and Anne Rice, who depicted Southern culture as dysfunctional, racist, incestuous, and inherently evil. I suspect that's because New York City & New England publishers had veto power over whom to publish and promote.
- Penguin paid Zadie Smith a £250,000 advance for her first novel, White Teeth, before she'd finished more than a fraction of its text, not because it was original, but because it was unoriginal: a combination of so many leftist ideological views and post-modernist tropes that they felt sure the literati would swoon before it. Plus, she was at Oxford, and she was black (Pouly 2016). She wrote it in her spare time during the end-of-term finals weeks. It won the 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the 2000 Whitbread Book Award for best first novel, the Guardian First Book Award, the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize, and the Betty Trask Award. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. See my post "White Teeth: Anatomy of a 'quality' bestseller" (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/725006).
If you read fan-fiction, you'll get a sense for how much more variety exists in what authors are writing, than in what publishers are publishing.
Marie-Pierre Pouly, 2016. "Anatomy of a 'quality' bestseller." Poetics 59 (2016): 20-34.
Lawrence Schwartz, 1988. Creating Faulkner's Reputation. Knoxville: U of Tennessee.
I would say Plato simply dismissed the possibility of art and literature. He believed its only value was educational, and that the State must therefore control it. Certainly the edits he demanded of the Iliad would have destroyed it as literature. Plato's theory of literature was put into practice in the 1930s, in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, precisely because it did unify philosophy and art, but by making art the slave of philosophy.
I think you’ve identified a lot of real and important trends here. But I think these are multiple and conflicting trends, and not a single trend. (Notice the tension between the “Ivy MFA” trend and the “Iowa workshop” trend; the tension between the identity politics strand and the economic leftism strand; the ways in which modernism and postmodernism are often at odds with each other.)
Yes, they are often conflicting, but they all devalue earlier literary values.
[Earlier I wrote "traditional literary values", but there are no traditional literary values. 20th-century English literary values were a radical reaction against 19th-century English literary values, which were a radical reaction against 18-century English literary values, which were a radical reaction against 17-century English literary values, etc.]
But also, some of the trends you noted are the ones that *created* "literary fiction", the genre that Jack Wilson was asking about, even though others lead to replacements of it.
What do you mean by "literary fiction"? The Romance of the Rose was literary fiction in 1270 AD; The Inferno, by 1320. Chaucer, Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Goethe wrote literary fiction. These books were not retrospectively identified as great literature in the 20th century.
Amazon rankings are a poor metric: determined by algorithm and changing hour by hour, never mind that you mix kindle and audible. Better for your purposes (as I assume your purposes to be) would be Goodreads ratings. Especially for titles, like these, with many thousands of reader reviews, Goodreads gives you a good sense of the popular appeal of specific titles. So far as that goes, and speaking as somebody who has read all six of the books you cite (I write about them here: https://sibilantfricative.blogspot.com/2021/09/2021-booker-prize-longlist.html ) I'd say your examples do not show what you want them to show. Of these six two (the Arudpragasm and the Galgut) are, perhaps, quote-unquote "literary", formally and stylistically experimental in a way that a reader looking for a traditional good read (absorbing narrative, interesting characters I care about) might find offputting. The rest are all very readable: the Shipstead, for instance, is a very well written blockbuster, a multi-generation saga; the Mohamed is a clearly-written retelling of an absorbing real-life miscarriage of justice, and Lockwood and Powers are both bestseller authors, highly entertaining.
Thank you for correcting me! I haven't read them--I've been avoiding any new novels that won a literary award for years now. Perhaps I'll give them another chance.
I think there's probably been a relative decline of "postmodern" literature (1000 pg Pynchon tomes and the like), but literary fiction seems to be as robust as ever (for whatever that's worth).
I guess the main question I have about it is: do college age males read it and get excited about it (Like they did about Pynchon)? Not that what the distaff likes doesn't matter but they have always been bigger readers of novels and therefore maybe less of a barometer.
I know young people who recently got excited about "Infinite Jest" (1996) and "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" (2000). But that's all. It's odd that both books are over 20 years old, yet are the literary novels I've heard mentioned most-frequently by college-age men in the past few years.
I had an experience last week of being very high on marijuana via a 50mg edible. I had some questions and thoughts coming out of the experience and thought this might be the best place to get answers and feedback. The questions I want answered are mostly that I want to verify that some of my high thoughts were stupid so I can stop thinking about them. If you want to shoot down three dumb math thoughts and ignore the marijuana high journey skip to the __ line.
To answer some potential questions before they come up:
1. Why? I was offered it, and usually I don't notice the effects of marijuana. I'd taken half of a 50mg edible only a month or two earlier and don't remember noticing much of an effect.
2. Was it enjoyable? No, and I doubt I'd do it again. Maybe if I have a day to waste. But I would have preferred being more present and aware for that day.
3. Circumstances? On the 4th of july, with my parents, wife, and kid. Tried to nap through the majority of the high, cuz it was taking forever.
My observations about my mental state:
1. My conscious mind seemed to no longer be in the driver's seat of my physical actions. I was viewing the things I was doing, but I did not feel like I was controlling those things. I would say or do things, and then think "oh that was an interesting thing to say/do".
2. I was having delusions. Mostly I was just hearing sounds that were not there, once I started realizing that these were delusions they often went away. A few times when I was very high I was imagining that scenarios I had played out in my head were real. If anyone here thinks of how a conversation might go in their head before having the conversation ... just imagine not being able to distinguish those thoughts from reality. Or how you feel when you wake up in the morning sometimes and can't tell if a dream was real or an actual memory.
3. My perception of the passage of time was very messed up. I was noticing this constantly, because time seemed to be going at a crawl. I would often notice that it felt like 30 minutes or an hour had passed, when it had instead only been a minute.
4. My situational/spatial awareness was shit. I think this might have been related to the passage of time. If you are sitting in a room for an hour staring in only one direction you might forget what the room behind you looks like. Turning around and letting your mind update the picture will solve the problem. I was constantly losing my spatial awareness and body awareness. Unless I was actively moving around or walking I seemed to have no spatial awareness. Or maybe its like spatial awareness is normally stored in ram for a while, and my mind just kept dumping whatever was in there.
5. My ability to play spider solitaire was significantly worse. I like playing spider solitaire to kill ~10 minutes. I've noticed it tends to correlate with my mental abilities, so its a poor man's IQ test. If I'm being very productive at work and step away to use the bathroom or cook some food, I can finish a game in 5-8 minutes. If I'm drunk, very tired, or heavily distracted I'll finish a game in like 8-12 minutes. When I was high I *thought* I was playing really well, but it took me 20 minutes to finish a game.
6. I spent a lot of time in my head. My main point of dread and dislike of the whole experience is that it took so damn long. I slept through the majority of my high, but it still felt like it took days rather than a few hours of my time. I have some more horror of "locked in syndrome" after the experience. Just stuck with my thoughts for what felt like hours at a time, and I'd look a clock and only a few minutes have passed. Having so much time to spend in my head meant I went over some wacky ideas and theories.
7. I was constantly feeling an "enlightenment high". Some of you may have had it while reading Scott's articles, or finally figuring out how to program something, or completing a tough sudoku puzzle. Its that sense of "Ahh! Yes! I finally get it!". I was feeling this about all my ideas. Even when I realized *while still high* that some of these ideas were dumb.
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Anyways, three of the ideas I had while high are sorta math related. And I'm not well versed enough in math to know if these ideas are dumb, or even know the terms I would need to use on a search engine to find them. There are some shared concepts between all of the ideas, so I'll try and describe those first. I might not have the right math terminology.
Dimensions and infinity. The basic whole number system we use is a one dimensional number system. It describes a line. A two dimensional number system describes a plane. A three dimension number system describes a space. We don't really have common terms for the higher dimensional number systems (maybe time and space for 4d?).
Base increment. In a 1d (one dimensional) number system the base increment is pretty simple, its just "1". In a 2d number system I think the base increment has to be (1, 1), and in a 3d system it would be (1, 1, 1).
I'll start with the more absurd one:
1. An infinite rebound. I have trouble fully remembering the steps I took to get to the conclusion. There might not have been any steps. The idea was that there is some finite maximum to infinities that describe infinities. Even writing this makes my face turn red. Only talk about it if its *not* stupid. I've already mostly dismissed it.
The other two are kinda related
2. Pairs of primes are a property of the base increment. So in the single dimension we have a bunch of mathematicians working around prime numbers (reading news stories about this is what got my mind spinning in this whole direction). My thought was that if there is a rule for pairs of primes in the 1d then those rules would apply to pairs of primes in the 2d, 3d, etc.
3. The infinite dimension is entirely prime numbers. So as you go up in number dimensions the proportion of prime numbers increases. I realize this kind of breaks with the idea I had above. Which makes it harder for me to know if they are both stupid or if one secretly makes some sense.
I can try to elaborate more if anyone has questions. But mostly I'm looking for an obvious "this is wrong" or "this has been thought of before, here is what it is called".
Sorry for the bad trip. Re: higher dimensions. We would just call these vectors. (An ordered list of numbers.) So in a dimension N we would identify a point as a string of N numbers. I've never heard of talking about primes in vector spaces, but 'at first blush', I would guess they are no different from the normal (one dimensional) primes. ie. if any of the coordinates of a point are prime. Then that vector is prime. That seems mostly self obvious to me, but I could be wrong.
> Was it enjoyable? No, and I doubt I'd do it again. Maybe if I have a day to waste. But I would have preferred being more present and aware for that day.
You took too much. 50mg is a lot, even with a high tolerance. Between 15mg and 25mg is
plenty
> Circumstances? On the 4th of july, with my parents, wife, and kid.
Taking edibles (much like psychedelics) is about set and setting, and consuming drugs among family at home doesn't sound like an ideal situation.
You mentioned not wanting to do it again, but I'd argue to cut the dose in half, double check the strain (if you want something to keep you away, go with Sativa; Indica for something to mellow you out), and adjust your activities.
"Dimensions and infinity. The basic whole number system we use is a one dimensional number system. It describes a line. A two dimensional number system describes a plane. A three dimension number system describes a space. We don't really have common terms for the higher dimensional number systems (maybe time and space for 4d?)."
Check.out quaternions and octonions. Maths is already weirder than what you came up with stoned.
Oh...it's nice to know there are other people out there with apparently really high base marijuana tolerance, who basically don't feel anything until crossing some high threshold, but after that Trip Absolute Balls. I thought I was the only one!
Had a terrible trip pretty much exactly like you describe (and at a similar dose, hmm!), the one time I got past that level...but it didn't even have the dignity of part (7). Just an all-round shitty psychotic break with complete physical incapacitation that seemed to go on forever, but only took about 4-5 hours. (Or so the clocks claimed, who knows if they're right, man...) The worst part was the...not losing rational thought part? Like, a feeling of being mentally trapped and experiencing all these really unpleasant delusions, and *not being able to get out of the car*[1] even though it was batshit insane and I really wanted to stop.
I'm completely confidently gonna state that every single wacko thought from that trip was Complete Bullshit (epistemic status: canonized reference post) and worth summarily dismissing. Math isn't my bailiwick, so can't comment on your calculations, but I'd be cautious of "garbage in, garbage out".
By comparison, the times when I've done shrooms have been pleasant and pretty productive...even when equally intense. Mostly cause they *do* enforce the "suspension of disbelief", so I can freely drown in the stream of consciousness cause I forget breathing is a thing. Lotsa good self-reflection from those types of trips. Psychoactive drugs just work really differently for different folks, I guess. Marijuana isn't one that does good things for me...and sounds like for you, too. (Which is a shame cause it's so inexpensive and accessible by comparison. I'm jealous of basically everyone else who has no problems getting pleasantly high. "Psychosis privilege"!)
Yeah its the second time this has happened to me. The first time was almost a decade ago, so maybe I'll need to relearn the lesson every so often. The other time it happened I had pot brownies, the recommended dose was a quarter brownie. I was drunk hungry and ate two brownies. Woke up high as balls the next day.
The other approximately two dozen times I've had marijuana I've only noticed an increase in appetite.
It definitely sucked feeling the "locked in syndrome". Trapped in my mind and constantly losing connection to my body and the outside world.
I've been semi-interested in shrooms. But probably won't take them for a while. I rarely have a day to lose. I tried salvia a decade ago and found that fun. Much shorter trip.
I was definitely thinking of that slatestarcodex article during the trip and writing up my comment.
Shrooms are nice cause even sub-psychotic doses are pretty pleasant...there's a nice range where everything just seems *so funny* and both body and mind are completely relaxed. It's hard to be stressed about anything when you're just staring at the walls and giggling constantly. But there's no next-day hangover or munchies-equivalent like with some other hallucinogens. Just reflections to sit with, if you choose. (Taking notes is useful.)
The strong-trip benefits are more like...I guess like lucid dreaming, for me anyway. The realization that even fundamental blocks of reality like time are highly subjective, and it is very much within my power to change how I experience and react to them. Feels like a sort of shortcut to Buddhism. "Have you tried not being sad?" - except instead of being dick advice, for a short period, you can actually totally do that via mere willpower. It's strange and powerful. Catching a glimpse of the Divine, and all that...a hard reboot of the human OS, where things may or may not recompile in the same way afterwards.
> We don't really have common terms for the higher dimensional number systems (maybe time and space for 4d?).
Quick note before I try to answer the math questions:
Not a physicist, but as I understand it, the 4D spacetime we live in is importantly mathematically distinct from 4-dimensional space as mathematicians define it.
Eg, apparently the "right" notion of the distance between two points in spacetime (x1,y1,z1,t1) and (x2,y2,z2,t2) is sqrt((x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2 + (z2-z1)^2 - (t2-t1)^2). So it's similar to the Pythagorean theorem you know for 2D and 3D space, but there's a minus sign in front of the part about distance in time! In a mathematician's 4D space, that negative sign wouldn't be there. The physicists tell me that relatively tells us that while things like simultaneity, spatial distance, and duration are totally relative and depend on the reference frame, *this* quantity, the spacetime distance between two points under the Minkowksi metric, is *absolute*; it's the same no matter what your reference frame is.
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> Base increment. In a 1d (one dimensional) number system the base increment is pretty simple, its just "1". In a 2d number system I think the base increment has to be (1, 1), and in a 3d system it would be (1, 1, 1).
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this — what's a base increment? (From my perspective, all I can see is that you named three tuples, (1), (1,1), and (1,1,1); you didn't say anything about them or do anything with them, so I'm not sure what this is getting at.)
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> An infinite rebound. I have trouble fully remembering the steps I took to get to the conclusion. There might not have been any steps. The idea was that there is some finite maximum to infinities that describe infinities.
Ordinary set theory, which studies infinities of different sizes, was kickstarted by Cantor when he proved that the powerset of a set has a larger cardinality than the original set. So if you're working in a system that lets you always take the powerset of any set (as set theorists usually do), there are infinitely many infinities — just keep taking the poweset. No upper bound.
(Obvious question: how big if the infinity that tells you how many infinite cardinalities there are? Answer: in some sense, bigger than any of those infinities. Which hopefully sounds paradoxical/self-contradictory/wrong as written; I can elaborate what "in some sense" means if you want.)
At the opposite extreme, if you had a simpler, weaker system that only let you talk about arithmetic, there wouldn't be any infinities inside the system at all, so there'd be finite maximum to infinities — namely, there'd be 0 of them.
There are intermediate options that are strong enough to talk about infinities, but weak enough that you can only finitely many of them.
So in general, the answer to "are there only finitely many different infinities?" depends on what system you're working in — the entirety of set theory? just arithemetic? somewhere in-between? People tend to think of ordinary set theory as the "implicit foundation" of math these days — the machine code that everything else could in principle be compiled down to. However, a weaker foundational system would be sufficient for almost all non-set-theorist mathematics; set theory is kinda overkill, in terms of how many infinities it provides. Most non-set-theorists rarely need more than a handful of infinities, if any.
Not sure if any of this answers your question, but if not, hopefully it's useful background info for a followup question.
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> Pairs of primes are a property of the base increment. So in the single dimension we have a bunch of mathematicians working around prime numbers (reading news stories about this is what got my mind spinning in this whole direction). My thought was that if there is a rule for pairs of primes in the 1d then those rules would apply to pairs of primes in the 2d, 3d, etc.
Not sure what this means. (What is the base increment?) By "primes in 2D", do you mean something like (5,1)? Ie, a pair of integers that can't be broken down as a product of other pairs?
I̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶2̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶r̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶3̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶p̶l̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶ Oops, didn't think that through, did I? (2,3) isn't prime: (2,3) = (2,1) * (1,3). A typical prime in 3D would be eg (17, 1, 1).
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> The infinite dimension is entirely prime numbers. So as you go up in number dimensions the proportion of prime numbers increases.
I don't think I understand what you mean by this, but if I am understanding it, it's false. It sounds like you're talking about the space ℤ^∞, which is infinite-dimensional. ℤ^∞ consists of tuples like (4, 3, 18, 0, -4, 0, 0, 0, ...). Is that the space you have in mind? If so, note that plenty of such tuples can be factored. Eg, (4,0,0,0,0,...) = (2,0,0,0,0,...)*(2,0,0,0,0,...). Ie, they're not all prime.
Re. "the spacetime distance between two points under the Minkowksi metric, is *absolute*; it's the same no matter what your reference frame is": It's important to note this. Relativity theory didn't /introduce/ relativity into physics, it /banished/ relativity from physics -- but by replacing space and time, as separate "things" or distances, with spacetime, which provides absolute distances which are the same for every observer. I think literally no one in the humanities has ever understood this. Certainly none have ever believed me when I told them.
It also proved Kant was right in positing space and time as being not absolutes, but constructions of the human mind! One of the few great victories of philosophy. But then again, it could be seen as proving Kant was incorrect in claiming that we can never know things in themselves. Spacetime seems to be a way of understanding things in themselves, based on observations of things as interpreted by human minds.
"I̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶2̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶r̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶3̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶p̶l̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶ Oops, didn't think that through, did I? (2,3) isn't prime: (2,3) = (2,1) * (1,3). A typical prime in 3D would be eg (17, 1, 1)."
I thought for a second I had made the same mistake. But instead I think I made an entirely different mistake. I was multiplying 2D/3D/XD numbers with 1D numbers.
Sorry for all the confusion. I semi-regret writing the last part of my post. If I share again it will just turn into a singular observation: "I thought I was doing some mathematical reasoning, but it was 99% nonsense."
Hmm, taking the higher dimension versions to be Z^n as Z-modules should allow for density statements, and it seems plausible that the density of primes would approach 1 as n->infinity.
Huh, yeah. For a different direction, what if instead of prime being p|ab => p|a or p|b, we used p|na => p|a or n is prime (p,a,b in the module, n in Z)? It's a bit late for me to think about this, maybe this is just obviously incoherent. (Of course, we'd probably want to call this something other than prime)
Also, how did you get the blackboard bold Z in a Substack comment?
There are some interesting thoughts in there. There’s a few things we might think of as higher dimensional number systems. A useful idea here is the notion of a “ring” or a “field”. A ring is a number system where you can add, subtract, or multiply, like the integers, and a field is a number system where you can add, subtract, multiply, or divide, like the rational numbers (fractions).
There are rings that relate to the integers in ways like the plane to the line. (People have mentioned the complex integers, but you can also add just the solution to a single other polynomial, like square root of 2, or cube root of 5, or a set of these extensions.) You can also extend this to higher dimensions.
However, it turns out that the concept of a “prime number” works out differently. In some of these rings, there are things that are “irreducible” (they have no factors other than themself and things that divide 1) but that aren’t “prime” (there isn’t unique factorization). For instance, the number 6 can be factored in two different ways in the ring consisting of integers and the square root of -5. But for any such ring, you can extend it with “ideal numbers” and some of these ideals are prime, and all ideals factor into prime ideal is in a unique way. (We don’t think of these ideals as numbers any more, but as sets of a certain sort.)
For these higher dimensional (or more abstract) rings, there isn’t always a natural way to order the numbers, so that “pairs of primes” don’t necessarily naturally make sense any more, so there’s not a lot to say about points 2 and 3.
However, there are a few more related mind blowing things. It actually makes sense to treat the set of sentences in a logical language as one of these rings. The ideals in this ring correspond to logically consistent partial theories. The prime ideals in this ring correspond to maximal descriptions of possible worlds in such a language.
Also, while that point you make about primes becoming denser in higher dimensions probably doesn’t quite make sense, there is a related idea called “concentration of measure”. If you choose some small epsilon, then on the perimeter of a circle, only a tiny fraction of the points are within epsilon of a point specified as the “middle” of that perimeter. But on the surface of a sphere, it’s a slightly bigger fraction of the points that are within epsilon of a specified “equator”. And in higher dimensions, an even greater proportion of points are within epsilon of the “perpendicular” to a given axis. And in some dimension, a majority of the surface of the hypersphere is, and in some dimension, even more than 99.9% of the surface is. Somehow, this fact is also said to explain why it looks to us at the large scale that quantum mechanical superpositions “collapse”, even if the wave function always evolves deterministically.
How can you make the set of logical formulas into a (commutative?) ring? It's quite difficult to imagine and very hard to google. I might be able to somehow turn it into a monoid with multiplication given by modus ponens, and addition is probably given by XOR, but I'm not sure whether the laws check out.
The search term is "Boolean algebra" or especially "Boolean ring". There's a lot of stuff out there about prime ideals in a Boolean ring, but most of it assumes a lot of familiarity with logic, set theory, and abstract algebra.
The role of 1 is played by a tautology, and 0 by a contradiction. Multiplication is &, and addition is XOR (as you suspected - that's usually the trickiest one to figure out). Checking commutativity and associativity of both operations, and distributivity of multiplication over addition, as well as verifying that 0 and 1 have their standard algebraic properties, is a worthwhile exercise. These rings have the slightly odd feature that 1+1=0 (but this sort of thing is common in modular arithmetic, where multiples of some number are treated as equivalent to 0, so there's some number of copies of 1 that can be added to themself to get 0).
Can you explain a bit about how adding (Sqrt(5) * i) to the ring of integers creates an factorization of 6 other than (1,6) and (2,3)? I'm missing something here.
Let k be the square root of -5. Then (1+k)(1-k)=6. It’s a little bit harder to check that (1+k) and (1-k) are not divisible by 2 or 3, and vice versa. As I recall, the way to check is to define a “norm” on this number system, which is a map from it into the integers that preserves the multiplication operation. The particular map is to take each element of this ring to the square of its distance from the origin when you represent the points in the standard complex plane. It is not hard to check that the result is always an integer and is preserved under multiplication, and that (1+k) and (1-k) are both sent to 6, while 2 is sent to 4 and 3 is sent to 9. Since these integers aren’t divisible by each other, neither are the original numbers.
Thanks! I definitely overlooked that fact that implicitly k acts more like a "basis" vector in the ring space (i.e., all ring operations including k such as 1+k, 2+k, 3k, etc. would be elements of the ring as well) so you're not restricted from performing multiplicative operations merely on k itself (which is where I was getting hung up -- I'm like "how does getting -5 or multiples thereof help here?)
Also, minor terminological point related to your explanation of the norm (quite clever! thanks for including it): my recollection (correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since I took abstract algebra and I don't use it in my day job) was that strictu senso you didn't actually have division as a defined operation within a ring, merely the concept of a multiplicative inverse (hence why the integers are a ring but the rationals are the field extension) - is that right?
That's right - when I say "x is divisible by y", what I really mean is "there is something in the ring that you can multiply y by to get x". There are some members of a ring that have multiplicative inverses (1 and -1 are always there, but there are sometimes others, like i and -i) and those are called "units", and whenever something is said to be unique or irreducible, these units can always be multiplied to various things and that doesn't count as a violation.
In a field, every element is a unit, and so most of the concepts related to divisibility are trivialized.
For "infinities of infinities", there are in fact infinitely many distinct infinities. Which infinity describes the cardinality of the complete collection of infinite cardinalities is (iirc) indeterminate, depending on the Continuum Hypothesis (approximately speaking, whether there exist infinities strictly between the sizes of the integers/rationals, and the size of the reals). I don't recall more on this subject, not an area I've studied much
> Which infinity describes the cardinality of the complete collection of infinite cardinalities is (iirc) indeterminate, depending on the Continuum Hypothesis
This is incorrect; the total number of different infinities is unrelated to the Continuum Hypothesis.
The most straightforward & conceptually useful answer to the question "how many different infinite cardinalities are there?" is "an infinity bigger than any of those cardinalities". (Giving a technically correct answer depends on which set theory you're in. In ZFC, the "collection of all infinities" is in some sense "too big to be a set", so it's not a well-formed question to ask for its "cardinality".)
"Base increment" - it would be helpful if you explained what you mean? If you mean "generate by self-addition", then you're just making parallel copies, not increasing dimension. Perhaps you mean a basis (as for a vector space), in which case it's a collection of elements, e.g. {(0,1),(1,0)}.
Also, depending on what you mean by "number system", dimensions can be quite restricted. For example, division algebras can only have dimension 1, 2, or 4 (or 8 if you drop associativity)
Sorry that the terms are confusing. I tried to read up on what a basis is for a vector space. Couldn't parse what I found.
I do remember thinking through whether {(0,1),(1,0)} were part of this "base increment" as I was defining it, and I came to think that they are not. I think my reasoning at the time is that they don't take up any area. But I'm seeing now how this whole approach is wrong, or at least not standard. From reading up on things it looks like I was basically ignoring zero. Or at least only defining rules that might apply to a "natural number" set of 2d numbers.
Ah, building off the naturals. Well, that'd give you... an additive semigroup, with a multiplicative structure on top. Not sure where to find out more about such structures, but it seems fun to play with.
As far as a basis: a set of vectors such that every other vector in your space is a (linear) combination of the basis elements, and the only way to combine them to make zero is by taking all coefficients to be zero. Standard example: every point in the plane can be written (x,y) = x(1,0) + y(0,1), so {(1,0), (0,1)} is a basis for R^2.
3. is incorrect outright, I think--complex numbers are a 2D algebra and it has its own primes, "Gaussian primes", which are actually *more* sparse than prime numbers in the Gaussian integers if I understand this correctly. 2 I can't really parse much.
This is close to being correct, but not quite right.
The ring of integers of the complex numbers is the whole ring of algebraic integers, not just the Gaussian integers. Writing down the ideals of that ring is actually quite tricky - there's a stackexchange thread on it at https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/156231/non-zero-prime-ideals-in-the-ring-of-all-algebraic-integers - and you aren't likely to ever want to compute with them, but it does contain prime ideals, and those ideals (not elements) are the "primes" of the complex numbers.
The Gaussian integers are a subring of the algebraic numbers. They're a principal ideal domain with a finite units group, which means that it's meaningful to talk about not just prime ideals but prime elements (up to rescaling by a power of i), so everything works nicely. But it's not quite right to call those the primes of the complex numbers - the square root of every Gaussian integer is an algebraic number.
Despite pronouncing my 3rd point "incorrect outright" I think you are still giving me too much credit. I don't know what gaussian integers are, and after looking them up it is definitely not what I was thinking of.
Thanks for the response, I'll add it to my bucket of "yes being high makes you come up with nonsense".
He announced the change a few open threads ago. IIRC, it was because the politics/no-politics rule was confusing for some and seemed unnecessary compared to a general "don't start flame wars" rule.
It would be really nice to get any prediction from him about the Q > 5 threshold, to compare it with some predictions from the review. (They were all about Q > 5.)
Can someone comment on how impressed I should be with his predictions? As far as I know, Q > 1 has already been achieved. Was that with other fusion equations? In a "large" experiment, while Helion uses a "medium" one?
The triple product for Q>1 for D-He3 fusion is similar to the triple product to get ignition (Q=infinity) for D-T fusion. Not quite the same because D-He3 fusion needs higher temperatures, while D-T needs density or confinement time to be higher. This prediction is at least as strong as 65% Q>5 for D-T fuel by 2026 (although they may not choose to run those experiments). My predictions were 5% by 2025 and 20% by 2030, which is much lower.
Q>1 has been achieved by NIF (inertial confinement), but with a shot frequency of 1-2 shots per day, instead of ~1 shot per second. JET and JT-60 (both tokamaks) have the capability of getting Q>1. They've gotten the triple product needed, but were using pure deuterium plasmas instead of D-T plasmas. So Q>1 in a medium experiment is not that impressive.
What is impressive is that they use an entirely different design. Their independent line of research would have caught up with 50 years of international collaborations. They also have a different method of generating electricity from the plasma, which might allow them to build a power plant with a lower Q.
To some degree, I want investors to be delusional. Hopefully there's a long tail of asymmetric upside that balances out most of these being wrong. But regardless, I expect founders and early investors to believe that they can see something no one else can. Which is almost definitionally delusional.
On the one hand, he has insider information which may enable him to make better predictions. On the other, as an investor, he is inherently biased towards believing in favorable outcomes. Even as a fusion believer, 85% Q > 1 by 2024 seems very optimistic, but I'd love for him to be right.
I just finished reading Albion's Seed (after reading Scott's review a few years ago). Judging from Wikipedia the follow-on books never materialized (but perhaps they were done by other authors), the second was supposed to be similar, but how the African Slave Trade brought folkways. Is there a (hopefully great) single book covering that?
Just something I have noticed online: posters with overtly female nicks tend to be trans women rather than cis women. I have not noticed the converse though. This is anecdotal, but sort of makes sense, being open about one's gender is something that cis women learned early to be cautious about.
At this point, looking at a discord username and seeing something like "witch", "princess", anything obviously female-coded is a 100% accurate trans signal.
Then again, you could have stopped me at "discord".
Can corroborate, as one of those trans women who mostly grew out of that habit. There's a certain...naivete? cutely adorably basic bitch thing? clumsy Baby's First Femininity?...aspect to many online trans handles, whether it's in videogames or forums or social media. Obviously, one shouldn't ever assume (especially from Fictional Evidence!), but it's always an update to my priors. Certain dress tics do the same in real life - loudly pink everything! glitter! And, hey, that works for some, more power to 'em. Whenever I meet someone who seems like a time-dilated tweenage girl, though...yeah, that's my base prior.
For a lot of trans women, there's this stage where one is just like, super super desperate to showcase capital-F Femininity(tm) in every possible way...both to influence others' perceptions, and also to convince oneself. I think of it as a form of autohypnotic suggestion. There's a *reason* most trans women tend not to adopt boringly anodyne female names, yknow? Even easier online where you don't have to potentially deal with a court clerk giving you that "really?" look for legally becoming Xrystal Hartz-Lifegiver or whatever.
It's basically the equivalent of...can't not phrase this somewhat crudely, sorry for NSFW-ness. A queer friend once described freshly-out gay men in SF as thinking of life as "full of nothing but cocks and rainbows". Fresh trans women are often like that, just gender-swapped. It's kinda painfully embarrassing and I wish all of them the utmost alacrity in growing up faster, but hey, that's part of growing up. Not like I didn't do the exact same thing at that age.
Here-here! From one of the same. It's a weird part of the growing up part and I personally feel it's part of my responsibility to gently (to sometimes somewhat firmly) nudge and shepherd them through it as quickly as possible. It's understandable but not really good for anyone.
That said, specifically on the online names thing - Cis women (especially young) _do_ do that, in the corners of the internet they mostly don't share with men. Obviously this community is very heavily male dominated, so you don't see much of it.
And finally as an anecdata example, Aella's Twitter handle is literally Aella_girl.
I guess I was trying really hard not to use the tired trope of "second puberty/being a teen for the first time", but yeah, that's definitely part of it. Everyone needs a period of crashing around to find which guard rails are comfortable for them. I mostly want them to do that faster, cause it's the most vulnerable time and it's tough to see them get hurt in entirely predictable ways. Kids gotta be allowed to fail authentically though, that's how learning happens.
(Insert the whole argument about passing being way harder but more "authentically fake" in less trans-friendly places, cause the bar is so high and it weeds out anyone who can't. Which is sad in different ways, but...trial by fire, selection effects. I certainly feel like living in SF lets me get away with many "bad gender habits" that really ought to be corrected if I'm serious about being taken seriously.)
It seems almost inevitable that there would be at least a bias in that direction: trans women pretty much by definition are people who value being perceived as women, whereas a lot of cis women don't care that much. Combine with the fact that being perceived as a woman online can carry costs I would be surprised if there wasn't an effect.
It would be useful to have actual statistics here, to see if this is one of the cases where something that is actually 10-20% “feels like” a majority in one context, because it’s so uncommon elsewhere.
It would be, but I cannot imagine how to collect it. Also, not sure if it would really be "useful" in any way. Just posted my personal anecdotal impressions, which was clearly stated in the original comment.
Sultans, obv. Actually, I don't know much Straits besides Sultans of Swing and Money for Nothing. I once listened to their eponymous album and decided that I'd only ever heard Sultans from that album for a reason. The rest did not seem as inspired as that one song.
I've never really "got" Sultans of Swing. Why am I listening to a band telling me about a different band playing in a different style? If the Sultans of Swing are so great can I please just listen to them instead? Is this like Tenacious D's "Tribute"? Do the Sultans of Swing play a song about Dire Straits?
I view it as a black comedy. You're not supposed to want to listen to the Sultans of Swing band. The song is about a band that loves their extremely niche music so much, but not many other people really care about them. I think it's supposed to be like some really particular archaic type of jazz that most people don't get, and maybe wasn't even popular back in it's own heydey. So the young guys in the corner aren't listening to them in an age of rock and roll, and think they're lame. And the band members don't get paid very well, have to take on other jobs, and may be on the verge of quitting because no one cares about their music, and they feel like it's pointless. I think it's a hilarious and also evocative piece.
Also the guitar solo is so well structured and executed, it's amazing.
Can you recommend any clinical psych topics that are in need of a good literature review, or heuristics for how to identify one? I'm an undergraduate psychology student looking for a topic for my capstone project.
Population-wise, I'm interested in gifted children, learning disabilities, twice-exceptional students, and for adults I'm interested in the psychology of technical professionals. Condition-wise I'm interested in anxiety disorders (especially eating disorders and OCD), and dissociative disorders. Treatment-wise I'm interested in IFS, Coherence Therapy, and CBT/DBT/related stuff.
(I'm in a 2-year degree-completion BA program for adult students; I started out in the humanities at a different school a while ago, so I've only had about a year and a half of psych coursework and pretty limited faculty guidance or time to think about what I'm doing. I could do observational research instead of a review paper, but again I don't have ton of institutional support and so I fear that the study might not turn out very worthwhile. I feel more optimistic that a review paper could make a real contribution, if I pick something worthwhile to dig into)
Is there anything you'd like to know more about that you think I could feasibly sort out in 6 months of work?
I'd like to know whether the "anxiety baseline" really has gone up in a population-significant way, specifically for females. On the one hand, it sure doesn't seem like Big Deal expressions such as anorexia, OCD, etc are (formally) more common now than ever. But on the other hand...I literally can't remember the last time I met a girl who *didn't* claim to have "social anxiety". (Doesn't seem to correlate at all with gregariousness or social prowess!) If this is becoming the default state for half of humanity, what does it actually mean to be anxious in modern times? Is it entirely an Intern's Syndrome sort of thing, or are actual clinical anxiety diagnoses on a historically anomalous* rise?
*yeah, I know, current event confounders..."after controlling for covid, BLM, inflation, Ukraine, Roe v Wade, Shinzo Abe, ..."
Oh yeah, those depression and predictive coding theories always sounded fascinating when they came up on the blog. Doing something with sensation/perception is a great idea, too, because although I want to go into clinical psych for grad school my current faculty mentor is a Cog Psych. Thank you for the suggestion.
I might see if there are similar topics related to anxiety disorders, though, since that's closer to my interests and some plausible PHD advisors I'm scouting.
Diagnosis, treatment & outcomes for “troubled teen/adult males.”
As far as I can tell there has been some research but there aren’t standardized research structures - so the definition of mental illness will vary from study to study. If someone did a careful lit review and tracked this stuff it would be very useful for the next researchers.
The presence of child abuse prevention laws, plus a lack of effective treatment and lack of jobs & lack of social support for non-school-focused young males, plus the increase in requirements for joining the military: adds up to we can’t kick the $&** out of them daily anymore but society has not evolved a better method of dealing with them & has little use for them.
Over the weekend I met a kid who (I think) needs to be sent to a fifteen-year martial arts, meditation and apprenticeship program. No vacations home, just sink or swim with strict rules and enforcement. But those programs don’t exist, or they’re too expensive, or are vulnerable to manipulation in other ways (if the kid runs away they have to look for him, for example, not just let him be eaten by bears or whatever.) Decent kid but insecure, aggressive & blamey. After this weekend I truly believe that societies have relied on “he met with an accident” to deal with some young men, this is under appreciated, and society’s attempts to rehabilitate everyone are overconfident and underpowered. Figure out how to deal with these kids and you greatly reduce the perpetrator class, creating profound social good. I’m not sure we can do better than historical solutions, though. If you do this lit review, please make it locatable here.
I think so - and possibly “wilderness therapy” or Outward Bound - type programs. Or even the CCC, outdoor non-military public service with a GED component. But research seems not to find these beneficial effects of the boot-camp rehabs or shorter-term therapy. I’m not versed in the field enough to know why (my guesses are too short a term or not tiring enough, or by the time drugs are involved additional ingredients are necessary for success.) But generally yes a military academy would be a good solution. I think tuition is a barrier, or people think it is.
For those who don't know, the mainland UK banned most forms of hunting in 2004 and therefore Tory leadership contests are our last remaining blood sport. Our outgoing Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, presided over one of the most dramatic reversals of political fortune in the modern era, going from a majority of 80 in the House of Commons (which you might very roughly think of as being analogous to a strong supermajority in Congress and the Senate) to being forced out last week by his own party when 50 ministers resigned on the same day. Amusingly, Johnson also sacked a longtime political rival from his job in the middle of all the resignations, apparently for no other reason than spite. It was glorious.
This now means we get to watch another Tory leadership election contest, our third in six years. These contests are deliberately designed to prevent a bloodbath happening because in contrast to our other main party, the Tories prefer to give the impression of having few internal squabbles to air. That probably won't happen this time, since the circumstances are so unusual, and there are a bunch of unedifying things happening already. Any Tory MP can put their name into the ring if they get the endorsement of a small number of other MPs (I think it is eight, but at any rate it is a formality). There's then two rounds of multiple-elimination runoff voting where you need to get 5% then 10% of the total vote to stay in the contest, followed by multiple rounds of single-elimination voting where the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Normally what happens is that around about the second round of voting a favourite 'emerges' through backroom deals and the final vote is a foregone conclusion because venal and self-serving MPs want to ingratiate themselves with the new PM (and there are quite a lot of venal and self-serving MPs in a leadership contest). That didn't happen last time and I suspect it won't happen this time because the stakes are so high.
I think this is particularly likely to be a brutal contest for a few reasons. Firstly, the norms of UK political discourse have weakened a lot under Johnson, and you have the rather unprecedented spectacle of the Prime Minister accusing the Leader of the Opposition of being a paedophile-enabler in the Commons (or recently, a minister repeating a sexist attack against the Deputy Leader of the Opposition of spreading her legs opposite the Prime Minister to distract him). We're moving towards a more US-style of adversarial and negative politics, and there are already some massively damaging leaks emerging from the contest that I think wouldn't have happened three years ago. Secondly, the Tories are probably heading towards a pretty nasty electoral defeat meaning that for many MPs this is their one and only shot at the top job and turning the ship around. That means they won't be leaving anything on the table, and they have no particular reason to care about the reputation of the eventual winner. Finally, there are unique circumstances that mean it will be particularly easy to form attack lines against the contenders.
There's two painful cleavages in the Tory party at the moment which are going to make the contest particularly fractious:
The first is that the Johnson government is *extremely* unpopular. Certainly the most unpopular government of my lifetime and I think you have to go back to before the advent of modern polling before you find incumbent parties getting less of the vote share than the Tories are predicted to get next election. The Tories will probably bounce back after the public has taught them a lesson at the polls, but anyone associated with the Johnson government is going to have an uphill battle to distance themselves from the previous administration and cast themselves as a 'true Tory' who was only serving in the government out of a sense of duty. In that respect I think Zahawi's days are completely numbered - he made a power play during the mass resignations last week that left him as Chancellor iff Johnson survived the crisis and miscalculated. On the other hand, Hunt or Mourdaunt probably have a significant palatability advantage to the general public - Hunt has actually made it a central plank of his campaign that he had nothing to do with Johnson. Javid might have a fighting chance of positioning himself that way because he was sacked once from the Johnson government and could play that angle up, while Sunak might have a harder time of it. There's a reasonably good chance Johnson will face a vote of no confidence next week which will really put the metaphorical cat amongst the metaphorical pigeons on this issue.
The second is that the UK voted to leave the European Union in a process called 'Brexit', and Johnson made the delivery of Brexit effectively the cornerstone of his campaign. The delivery of Brexit has not been the success that was promised - Johnson is currently attempting to find a way to renegotiate a Brexit treaty he signed only a few years ago because it committed the UK government to something that might re-ignite the Northern Irish 'troubles' (ie partisan terror attacks, although I accept people like Deiseach might have a different view on this than me). There are basically three theories of Brexit in the Tory party at the moment; keep Brexit and blame the bad stuff on Johnson, renegotiate Brexit from scratch and scrap Brexit. The latter two options are probably more sensible, but would be politically suicidal. However *accusing your political opponents* of wanting to do one of those two things is going to happen a lot, and be very hard to refute. I think only Sunak and Mordaunt have the Leave credentials to rise above this melee - Hunt, Javid, Truss, Tugendhat and Shapps all voted remain.
My three preferred candidates have all ruled themselves out. I like Ben Wallace, Steve Baker and Michael Gove for different reasons, but broadly because they represent to me the platonic ideal of what a politician 'should' be. Baker and Gove have some pretty nutso ideas, but they stand behind those ideas, clearly explain what would happen if they were elected and then make efforts to deliver on those ideas. Wallace is fairly untested as far as I can see but I rate him for having the same kind of temperament, based on what I've seen of him coordinating the UK COVID vaccine response. In contrast, the front runners are totally unprepared to staple their flags to the mast - they'll talk about 'change' and 'fairness' and 'a new start' or whatever, but not actually commit to anything concrete. I don't like that! There's a joke going around that you wouldn't want anyone as Tory leader who would put themselves forward for the role, but it is more than half true. Worth mentioning here is Rory Stewart, who is widely rather liked even amongst the Left for coming across as a really decent chap but left the Tories during the Johnson administration - I think he'd be a shoe-in if he was still kicking around.
So I think all in all it depends what you mean by 'best'. I think 'best for the UK' would be a middleweight like Hunt or Javid steering the Tories into a mild electoral defeat, so that they can have some time reflecting on what went wrong since Cameron and put into place processes to fix that. I think 'best for the Tories' might be Sunak - he could consolidate power around himself before the contest got too rowdy and has enough clout at the Treasury that he could potentially buy an election victory with tax cuts (or at least avoid the sort of historic humiliating defeat which I am salivating for). However I could also see a case that a very public and ostentatious break with the previous administration is absolutely required to prevent the Johnson saga looming on (like appointing Starmer after Corbyn) - Mordaunt or Hunt would really be your only sensible choice there, and I prefer Mordaunt.
"I think 'best for the Tories' might be Sunak - he could consolidate power around himself before the contest got too rowdy and has enough clout at the Treasury that he could potentially buy an election victory with tax cuts "
Everyone except Sunak is offering tax cuts. Even if he could deliver,he doesn't want to.
In terms of popularity, they're about 30% on vote share and 20% on approval. These aren't the numbers you want, but are still in the territory where an election tomorrow is a hung parliament.
1) Losing any election after more than a decade in power is going to be painful. Especially because this one seems to self-inflicted in comparison to Labour's loss in 2010. Especially especially because they did so well in 2019 so it is likely that this will be a 'historic' loss in the sense of being the largest post-war swing between parties.
2) There's no world where the Tories can form a coalition in the parliament which would occur following a snap election - a Tory / SNP coalition is simply unthinkable in the modern political landscape. So from the Tories' point of view I'm not sure how much that actually matters - similar to how it didn't really ultimately matter much to Lab that May had to form a coalition with DUP
3) In some sense a snap election would be 'Labour's to lose' - if Lab, LD and SNP entered a non-compete pact on any seat where they came second to a Tory I think you could be looking at the non-existence of Tories as a viable Parliamentary party - winning maybe as few as 100 seats. If I were Keir Starmer I'd be going for that pretty hard, but I don't think in practice the pact could hold together long enough to matter.
100 seats is probably a bit drastic - there aren't a lot of seats where Labour and the Lib Dems are both competitive, and the ones there are are mostly ones that you'd expect to swing to Labour if they did well anyway. A Greens/Lib Dem pact would probably hurt the Tories more (albeit he Greens would have to sacrifice so many seats that they'd almost not be contesting the election).
I like Jacob Rees-Mogg, I am not sure whether that makes him objectively the best candidate. I suppose that a good Prime Minister is someone who represents what Britain actually is, not what I think it aesthetically ought to be.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a middle class oddity cosplaying as an aristocrat. He is not what he presents as- it is almost certainly the case that the bizarre briefcase/top hat/cane image was something adopted at school and then university to a) be a brand and b) provide a protective barrier between his reality and public persona.
He was the son of a newspaper editor and his secretary, grandson of a lorry driver. In comparison to the genuine aristocrats like the Benns in the Labour Party, he is merely a typical upper-middle class scion who then went up to Eton. This is the same as e.g. David Cameron, not close to the bizarre image he portrays.
(Johnson, who does not portray the aristocratic persona of JRM, although he is of course part of the same Eton->Oxford pipeline, is descended via his father from minor, perhaps major German nobility)
There's probably something clever to be said about the idea that what Britain aesthetically ought to be is a new-money London newspaper Baron's son imitating the aristocracy of a century before!
Personally, I also think that in much the same way he is the stupid person's idea of a clever person. A lot of big words, pondersome speech, and surface level understanding of obscure and arcane procedure. You may disagree with that, but I see no redeeming features that would make him a good prime minister.
I think Rees-Mogg would be hilarious, but I feel like Britain chose its last PM based on who would be hilarious and they probably ought to at least alternate between that and normal competent people.
I can understand why you'd think that from outside the UK, but it doesn't match the perception I got from within it. As I saw it, the GE was called to break a constitutional deadlock over ether Brexit would actually happen; it was in effect a vote on whether to honour the first referendum, with tempers inflamed by 2 years of "The Establishment" sneering at half the country and using every legal and procedural contrivance they could to block Brexit. Boris won on a very simple platform of 'I'll give you what you voted for' + panic over Corbyn.
The 'Boris is funny man on telly so I vote Boris' meme, if it was ever true, is more likely to apply to his repeated election as Mayor of London and the Brexit vote itself than the 2019 GE. By then, the mask was pretty clearly off.
This. He became Tory leader because of a sense that they had to elect him as the unofficial leader of the Brexit movement, and won the general election on a combination of "Finish Brexit" and "Stop Corbyn."
He did become Mayor due to "Lol Boris," but the Mayor of London isn't a high-profile but largely powerless job (he oversees a few autonomous bodies that make various strategic plans but don't implement them, and has a loose supervisory power over public transport).
There were complaints in another (hidden?) open thread of the stark contrast of white against black. Someone pointed out to Scott that he could change the colour, and he did so. The original change was to a very psych-ward green that a lot of people disliked. Now it's blue.
Why are so many of the great thinkers and artists morally and/or politically compromised? Who is a great thinker or artist who also led a life that you consider morally exemplary, or else just neutral, boring?
George Orwell has always struck me as more moral than most - actually going to Spain to fight against the fascists showed genuine virtue (personal sacrifice/commitment to support what he saw as right). His later opposition to totalitarianism I think supports that; I don't think he was a saint (in the secular sense), but he opposed totalitarianism in thought and word and deed.
Among the artists, my hero Richard Diebenkorn has a biography almost totally devoid of sturm und drang despite producing very avant-garde work. The avant-garde is usually the domain of the communists but he seems to have been totally dispassionate, politically.
Dirac, Euler, Socrates (I disagree with him politically and morally, but I think he probably stuck to his morals), maybe Confucius though I'm very fuzzy on him. Godel and Turing seemed like decent chaps, though the former went insane with paranoia. Kant seemed boring, though again I know very little about him. Buddha of course, as well as some other buddhist philosophers like Santideva. He proposed what I'd call an early form of utilitarianism in practice. He was also known in his monastry as a "bhusuku", someone who only "ate, slept and defecated" and that's all he seemed to do before delivering his seminal sermon on Buddhism after people manouvered him into speaking at a festival for a lark. Though we know so little about his life, I'd say being a "bhusiku" places you pretty high on the personal morality rankings of philsophers.
JRR Tolkien comes to mind. Jane Austen. Isaac Newton and Adam Smith were strange, perhaps we'd say on the spectrum, but I don't know of any sexual deviancy or deeply unsavory opinions on their part. I think Richard Feynman was an admirable person.
Robert Heinlein; Nathaniel Hawthorne.
People who, as far as I know, had reasonable opinions, led reasonable and respectable lives, loved their spouses (at least according to wikipedia).
I find it hard to like Hawthorne between finding "The Scarlet Letter" rather tedious and, on a more morally salient axis, his famous statement regarding John Brown that "nobody was ever more justly hanged."
Newton was actually famously nasty to many people, particularly Hooke (who proposed the inverse square law of gravitation, which Newton then showed gave rise to Kepler’s laws) and Leibniz.
From my recollection (from reading a biography years ago), J. S. Bach led a life of at least average moral virtue.
If his autobiography (also read years ago) is accurate (obviously questionable), Bertrand Russell seems to have led a life that had its issues, but overall doesn't seem to have been below average morally.
From reading a more technical than personal biography (years ago, again), Barbara McClintock seems to have led a reasonably virtuous life.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the first example that popped into my mind. I looked into the details of his private life and didn't find anything the least bit juicy (one wife, two children) so I assume there's nothing.
G. K. Chesterton also pops into mind, he also doesn't seem to have anything scandalous going on.
It's probably not a coincidence that both of these gentlemen were stuffy old conservative types even in their own day, whereas most celebrated artists and thinkers were not.
I’m not at all convinced that the fraction is any larger than that of the broader population. We just aren’t used to looking into all the facets of a person and identifying their goods and bads as we are with great thinkers and artists (and political figures). A plausible null hypothesis is that at all points in the fame spectrum, most people have a complex mix of good and bad, with some having an overall more positive balance and others negative, but very few either “exemplary” or “neutral, boring”.
This seems likely to me, too. Though I'd say there are two confounding things to think about:
a. Some personal traits make you more likely to become famous--at least some of those (huge drive/obsessiveness, high intelligence, maybe hypomania) may lead to other interesting personal scandals or something.
b. Being famous creates new problems, and some of those may lead to personal scandal. As an easy example, I don't find it especially hard to remain faithful to my wife. But I might have a harder time doing so, if I were a movie star or professional athlete or musician who had lots of very attractive young women throwing themselves at me day and night. A more serious example is that people who become powerful often get surrounded by yes men, to the point that they seldom or never hear anything they don't want to hear and never have anyone around them willing to tell them they're wrong. This can cause a *lot* of problems.
Maybe because to be a great thinker/artist means to question/challenge the common ideas of politics or morality, and if you do that questioning means that sometimes you'll end up doing something groundbreaking but other times you'll end up off in left field somewhere doing something bad? Whereas someone who just follows societal norms will have less of both types of outcomes.
Hi Folks, What has been the reaction to the "Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Following Influenza Vaccination: A Claims-Based Cohort Study Using Propensity Score Matching" study that was published last month?
https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad220361
Sorry to ask such a banal question, but does anyone remember the term describing how most of us treat journalism as authoritative despite recognizing that news coverage of the subjects we know something about tends to be superficial at best and not right at worst? E.g., I know enough to recognize that the NYT coverage of law and finance is garbage, yet I still assume they know something about foreign policy or particle physics.
'Gell-mann amnesia effect' is, I think, what you're looking for.
Does anyone know if there is a list of all the ASX and SSC that are stories? My son really enjoys Scotts fiction and I would like to send him more. He's read three idols, how deep the rabbit hole goes, and in the balance.
This is the fiction tag for SSC. Not everything there fits the bill but there's a lot of good stuff.
https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/fiction/
I tried to sign up, but I never got a submit button even after I had filled out my email etc. I am doing it on the phone so maybe that’s my problem.
Lavender update:
After a few weeks off, the calm is very much gone. Has been a very stressful time, but this whole year has been stressful so I'm not sure how much that matters. Decided to resume today.
The Sri Lankan government has collapsed in rather spectacular fashion. I am interested in a balanced analysis of the causes, or barring that, differing responsible opinions. I have not paid to read Schellenberger's take, but it seems he blames the organic farming mandates. I have seen another article blaming it on COVID-19 lockdowns. I would not be surprised if I could find opinions like "Organic farming would have worked, they just didn't do it right..."
All sources I've seen agree that forcing all-organic farming cut yields in half, a devastating consequence with major negative effects on the economy.
Noah Smith recently had a comprehensive take: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic
Read that as well and it seemed pretty plausible an analysis
or perhaps just general incompetence in governance (of which the organic stuff is a part): https://twitter.com/nirbheek/status/1546590096409112576
Thanks, that looks like a very good starting point. I'm not a fan of organic farming mandates, but picking that as the root cause of the trouble seemed too easy.
For any ACX regulars who fancy the idea of being able to build friendships with fellow regulars beyond the confines of these hallowed comment threads: my partners and I have just released the waiting list for our new-friend-making platform, Surf.
You can check it out here https://www.imsurf.in/
We'll begin 'concierge matching' some of our initial matching users in the coming days and weeks!
The initial suggestion is "find a salsa partner in London". Given that some people search follow and other leads, that's likely a question that will lead to a lot of incompatible matches. You likely want your examples to be wellformed so that you can match people with what they are actually searching for.
Point taken - that initial example was selected as we decided based on our research that it was both optimally generic and optimally appealing within a given urban population (interestingly, our organic outreach to this point obviously hasn't reached that population to any great extent, as while we've had a few dance-related requests they're not hyper-numerous yet).
Our plan when possible is to flash up a few more extant requests, with wider variety, in the Surf bar as 'tasters' when people are thinking about what they want to put in.
A further tip: the Shoreline is there if you haven't already found it and want to see what requests people have been submitting! www.imsurf.in/shoreline
Very much appreciate the feedback Christian.
As someone who has actually searched for dance partners, my mental process is "Hey, this isn't exactly what I want. I have no idea whether typing in "I'm searching for a female Salsa follow in Berlin" would actually work or get me matched with other people who are also searching for a "female Salsa follow".
Nobody, actually searches for generic Salsa dance partners.
This is an excellent point on that particular sample request - without this kind of specificity in the request we may match two leads or two follows.
Part of this onus would have to fall on the user to provide the right kind of specificity, but you've got me thinking about how we could also productise to recognise situations like this and nudge users accordingly. Thank you!
So will there be a way to request fellow ACX users? Cuz I'm not really looking for a salsa dancing partner.
Yes indeed, if you just type in something to the effect of "I'm looking for fellow Astral Codex Ten/ACX users" that will do the trick
Leander, on the Ask Us Anything page I tried to submit the question "How do you match people?" but when I entered my email address and hit Submit I got Page Not Found. Can you fix this?
Thanks for the catch; we got your question, will reply directly through email!
It amazes me how many people on this site and related places have this outright hostility towards genetic explanations for race differences, and cannot concieve of believing/caring about this expect aside from wanting to feel "superior" to other races or something. In reality, this is what happens:
"anti-racist": Black people have [lower income/lower wealth/lower school scores/higher incarceration ratios/less representation in elite jobs/etc.], this proves that systematic racism is oppressing black people and that white people have white privilege. We therefore need [policy that aims to fix this that is bad for white people]
anti-"anti-racist": No, actually if you look at this data, you'll see that these outcome disparities cannot be explained by [systematic racism/white privilege] and you believe they are based on an assumption that there are no genetic differences between races, which isn't reasonable given what we know about heritability.
"anti-racist": Wow, why do you care so much about this stuff? Are you some kind of white supremacist? Does it make you feel like less of a loser when you say that white people have higher IQ than black people?
and so on
+1
I see it as a case of pattern-matching, or specifically what Scott's described in the past as "noticing the piles of skulls". In this particular case, claims of innate biological differences in intellectual capacity, temperament, and moral character have historically been widely used as rationalizations for white supremacy or as excuses for disparate outcomes. Most such claims that were widely accepted scientifically in past generations have since been discredited in their particulars. Thus, I can understand how people can extrapolate a prior that current proposed hypotheses about innate biological difference in those areas are also incorrect, and to suspect that in some cases they're deployed by crypto-racists to obfuscate their animus towards other races and to be concerned that even when proposed in good faith they get in the way of identifying and mitigating structural problems with our culture and institutions.
My own view is that hypotheses about genetically-rooted racial differences in IQ and similar should be approached very cautiously in light of past failures theories and their ugly relationships with white supremacy, but shouldn't be entirely taboo. My best guess of the underlying truth is that there are some underlying genetic differences in average intelligence between races, but much smaller than suggested by raw data about IQ test scores: the overall genetic differences between clusters of general ancestry seem like they're too small to explain gaps of a standard deviation or more between European, Sub-Saharan African, and East Asian descent. I'd guess something like 70-90% of the gap (and I can't confidently rule out ~100% of the gap) is due to stuff like differences in early childhood environment, acquired skills at answering IQ test questions, and cultural differences in how seriously people of different backgrounds take the testing process.
When there are sociological theories which attempt to explain different levels of intelligence in different cultural/racial groups, do they offer theories that can be described as "not junk science", and "has explanatory value"?
Most of what I've heard about are 'cultural differences' that explain differences in IQ test results, and 'structural racism' that explains differences in income and other lifetime achievements. But these factors don't appear to explain why immigrants from Nigeria to the United States do as well economically as the typical white person born in the United States. This is in great contrast to the typical Black person born in the United States, who typically has much lower income than the typical white person born in the United States.
If 'structural racism' were at work, then the racism has a weird factor of being less-racist towards Blacks born in Nigeria than towards Blacks born in the United States.
If 'cultural differences' are at work, then the cultural difference between United States and Nigeria ought to hurt Nigerians more than those born in the United States...but apparently, the effect is the opposite.
Is there a theory that has any explanatory value for these facts?
I think you have to weigh the cultural difference between being in the United States as an African-American who descended from slavery era, and the culture that most of the rest of us have experienced. There are significant differences.
A more interesting comparison is Black people from the islands. I get the sense they fall across a much broader spectrum in dealing with American culture and being successful here.
Indeed, "culture" does not mean "country". One country can contain multiple cultures, some of them more successful, some of them less so.
Just saw this in the Guardian. I found Wengrow's comments interesting, but I felt that the article bordered on being a fluff piece (and I'm Wengrow supporter!). If you'll recall, the ACX review of _The Dawn of All and Everything_ generated lots of strongly-worded exchanges (the result of which I don't think changed anyone's opinion). At the risk of stirring the pot again, here you go.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/12/david-wengrow-graeber-dawn-of-history-interview?CMP=share_btn_tw
I'm considering writing an alternative universe novel about the forth harry potter book, with one of the changes being that the main character is a girl. That made me wonder to what extent that alone would affect the status quo. What would be the biggest changes?
One particular thing I've wondered is whether the Dursleys would treat Primrose (the girl who lived) better or worse than Harry. Is it psychologically harder to be cruel to a girl than a boy? Does sexism play a role? Are the Dursleys ever shown to be sexist? Would they still make her sleep in a cupboard up to age 11?
> Is it psychologically harder to be cruel to a girl than a boy?
Yes, but on the other hand sexual abuse is more likely.
Can’t speak to whether the frequency is different, but literature is replete with stories of cruelty to girls. Think Cosette from Les Misérables, or Cinderella (any of the non-disney versions)
What is this referring to?
'Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Flynn brought diagrams [to Trump] to show a conspiracy theory involving Venezuela and communications via internet-connected thermostats. '
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1109999639/jan-6-hearing-livestream-how-to-watch-live-updates
The Venezuela thing has to be the crazy conspiracy theory about Dominion voting machines promoted by Sidney Powell:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/sidney-powell-trump-election-fraud-claims
For context, there's plenty of evidence that Dominion's code is pretty bad. For example, the summary of the 2019 assessment of one of Dominion's voting products conducted for the state of Texas is here
https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/forms/sysexam/oct2019-sneeringer.pdf
and it's full of gems such as:
"I counted 184 steps in their installation manual before deciding to estimate the remaining steps. I estimate a total of about 500 steps are required to install the software. I did not count steps that merely said something like “Clicks OK” or “Click Next.” This installation manual is 412 pages long with an additional 23 pages of front matter -- contents, lists of figures, and the like."
However, while there's plenty of evidence that Dominion's code is bad, I am not aware of anything that shows that it's malicious - and the Sidney Powell stuff looks so crazy that her lawyers, when she was sued for defamation, actually argued that no reasonable person could believe it was true!
I haven't seen the one about thermostats.
But the Dominion voting machines don't have anything to do with internet-connected thermostats.
I think it's most likely two entirely different things. I would guess the Venezuela thing is about the Dominion voting machines, since that story was very prominent - and how often do you have Venezuela coming up with regards to US elections?
I don't know what the story was with internet-connected thermostats, but I'll be happy to come up with one for you because I really hate those, and I would guess that security-wise they are probably a trainwreck!
I wrote a thing about predictions and why prediction markets might be super important. Would love some feed back.
https://workthejab.substack.com/p/everything-is-predictions?sd=pf
Thanks for everything you do Scott.
ACX Harrisburg PA local group, here. We are still advertising for new members... if you're interested in coming to an event, please contact acxharrisburg (at) gmail.com.
Who we are: local ACX meetup group with monthly meetings in central PA.
Who you are: a person reading this within driving distance of Harrisburg, Lancaster, or Carlisle, PA.
Hope to see you soon!
I am wondering if there's some term for...being pro-capitalist (in the sense that one isn't socialist or communist, and thinks it's at minimum the best worst economic system ever tried), and also being completely disgusted with one's workplace failing to follow basic economic theory. That sense of, if this is a for-profit company, why do they seem to hate making money so much? So many $20 bills left on the ground, and bigger denominations not infrequently. I'm familiar with some of the popular explanations for organizational dysfuction; what interests me more is how directly advocating process improvements and money-saving efficiencies to management tends to go nowhere, or even paradoxically make them double down on Worse Ways of Doing Everything, how dare you criticize.
This isn't an uncompetitive industry, and margins are really thin, so lack of robust competition can't be the answer. Heck, within the same mall there are two other national chains in our same business - the competition is literally nextdoor. It also isn't because we are flush with human capital - we're constantly under-staffed and frequently turn off both veterans and fresh faces. (It's pretty damning when new hires literally quit after a single day. Massive HR expense, no profit, only pain. Who is making these asinine hiring decisions? Why isn't this considered a huge knock-on cost for Worse Ways of Doing Everything?)
I guess I'm just frustrated. The easy cop-out is to pick up my sickle and sign up to Burn Down The System, Man. But that seems so strongly like a victim-mentality culture[1] response that I just can't. That last inch of self-esteem is too precious to give up, having been raised Honour and socialized into Dignity. An appropriately rationalist response would be to solve this with Entrepreneurship(tm), but I don't think "grocery" is a ripe market for Innovative Disruption or Plucky Start-Ups. (Other previous reformers have tried to climb the management ladder to effect change. They get the ideals beaten out of them. Every time. "I'm in a cult," my manager friend openly admits.)
If capitalism is still the best worst system despite copious amounts of literally setting fire to piles of fragile Value cause no one cares enough not to, then...it sure seems like there's way more Value to go around than I thought. Perhaps it's not actually valuable. What Are We Doing Here?, as Matt Yglesias would ask. Cause it's certainly not making money efficiently.
(Frankly, it's tempting to try and monetize the ineptitude by starting a Substack or something to chronicle my daily misadventures. But at-will employment is the law of the land in CA, and I'm already far too lax here with personal information. It'd be just begging to get doxxed and subsequently canned. Likely before attracting enough paid subscribers to be worthwhile, and then where would I find new material?)
[1] https://scholars-stage.org/honor-dignity-and-victimhood-a-tour-through-three-centuries-of-american-political-culture/
I think the non-hammer-and-sickle route would be to unionize, which provides a counterbalance to the corporate instinct to squeeze out money wherever they can even when the misery and damage to morale is worth more than they gain.
Maybe it isn't a capitalist system (whatever that means).
Maybe it isn't a for-profit company, but being subsidized by the government for political actions, such as "creating jobs."
Margins are an illusion. You can trade price with payment terms from your suppliers. European grocers have zero margins and make money on the interest on the generous loans from their suppliers, because it's a better tax categorization. Maybe your employer has low margins for the sole purpose of tricking you.
Groceries are a common sole proprietor business and also the most common source of self-made billionaires.
I really relate to this - I'm in a similar situation. One possible cause of this situation is that it's really hard for a CEO to evaluate a senior manager's performance, and it's incredibly easy for a senior manager to talk their way into a position when they don't know what they're doing or care to improve. Once they're in a high level position, they can just seek rent without contributing anything, and if their underlings manage to put out all the fires, nothing changes.
I don't know whether this will help, but I've run a tiny business and I probably have more sympathy with management than many do, which doesn't keep me from noticing the damage that bad management does.
The thing is, the people in charge are people. Some of them are stupid, some of them are crazy. There's selection from competition, but it's slow an vague.
I'm guessing from your description that your management is paralyzed. They don't feel they have enough slack to even think about what they're doing. This is from your description of them failing to adopt good new ideas, as distinct from thrashing around adopting one bad new idea after another.
I honestly don't know how to improve the situation, though I hope you find a job with a better company. Or you could start your own business, which will at least be an educational experience.
Government is subject to organizational and human limits, even if they have a somewhat different flavor than business limits-- there's a lot that government misses out on, too.
>as distinct from thrashing around adopting one bad new idea after another.
It's actually both - things were already going downhill in general, necessitating some rearguard ass-covering (covid hasn't been kind to the workers in service industries, whether the industries as a whole did well or not); but earlier this year a High Muckity-Muck tripped a little too hard on his own supply of Power. After thrashing around in psychotic fits, he had an epiphany of several bad ideas in succession, which were then subsequently rammed down the throats of subordinate management, and ultimately to us.
So it's no one's "fault" and I totally get that they can't stick their necks out or their jobs are on the line (and managers are way more attached to their jobs than we are, their entire lifestyles are built around it). But what's been outrageous is the...collective indulgence of obvious delusionary nonsense? None of these changes make economic sense, they're an entirely wrong fit for our store appropriated wholesale from how other vastly-different regional chains operate. Literally no one is happy about the changes (including management), yet nothing can be done, cause thousands of dollars and labour hours have already been committed. One simply does not cease making Sacrifices to the Gods. The High Muckity-Muck must be appeased.
There's a reason why union sentiment is reaching all-time highs here. Us grunt workers who actually keep the store running can see most clearly every problem that will come up, well in advance...and then when the bad ideas are finally implemented, lo and behold, it's exactly the problems we predicted and loudly warned management about. Strange coincidence! Not that I imagine a labour movement will help much; my coworkers talk a big game about being Really Upset, but in the end, we mostly suck it up and keep eating the shit sandwich anyway. Hence why I'm ranting about this on an obscure Substack insted of organizing a picket line.
If only management had thought to ask their workers for suggestions on improvement, many of which are cost-neutral, and none of which necessitate months of contracting work (during business hours, even!). But, nah, that's crazy talk, no one does that. Reagan misspoke, the true quip shoulda been "I'm from Management, and I'm here to help" as the scariest words of all time.
Unions do get started sometimes, and I'm not sure how it happens. Last straw from management?
Part of the problem is that in the US, unions and management are framed as adversaries, so good ideas that aren't related directly to working conditions aren't going to get adopted. Unfortunately, working for fools who are running the business into the ground isn't thought of as a bad working condition even though it's very stressful.
"But what's been outrageous is the...collective indulgence of obvious delusionary nonsense?" Good question. My first thought is that it could be worse, it could be Russia. But that isn't helpful.
Here's another big picture notion. In _Sand Talk_, there's the idea that a primary function of society is controlling sociopaths. I'm not sure that your management is sociopathic, as distinct from simply awful. In any case, it's clear that culturally, we don't have good tools for identifying and controlling sociopaths.
Manifold is hosting a prediction markets meetup in SF this wednesday (7/12) at 7pm. Details in the description of this market: https://manifold.markets/Sinclair/how-many-people-will-show-up-to-wag
You may rsvp by leaving a comment on the market or emailing me at abc (dot) sinclair (at) gmail
Why do people concerned about AI risk seem (from what I've read) to dismiss Elon Musk's proposal to use Neuralink to enhance human capabilities so we'll be less cognitively-outclassed by our creations?
Brain interfaces have even worse implications than AGI, and move the probability mass considerably in the direction of s-risk instead of x-risk.
They don't, because they'll be much slower to achieve superintelligence, their development will be out in the open compared to AGI, and so there will be more time and more ability to regulate it compared with an AGI. Furthermore, its unlikely than a single individual will achieve a decisive strategic advantage with their high intelligence, and that individual will likely have to have bad motives to do harm, as perverse instantiation is much less likely. Whereas, a superintelligent AGI can destroy humanity while pursuing ostensibly benevolent goals that its creators gave it.
https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com/2021/07/07/dont-make-me-think/
^ a well-written example of an early stage of this transition.
I'm more concerned about a dystopia where the social control extends directly into your brain, which is trivial to build once everyone neuralinks themselves for convenience. I'd rather wipe humanity out than see it turn into a totalitarian hivemind.
Your skull being airgapped is a feature, not a bug.
This. I'm actually considerably more worried about human enhancement than AGI. A computer with an IQ of 2000 and no will of its own is a tool, not a threat. Even if it does somehow become independent (which I think is unlikely), it probably wouldn't care about us one way or another. It seems far more likely that a super-intelligent AGI that went rogue would choose to leave us alone and do its own thing, rather than wage a costly and potentially risky extermination campaign against us. (Yes, we're made of atoms that it could use for whatever its goals are. But the universe is full of atoms, the vast majority of which aren't in configurations that can fight back.)
Whereas an enhanced human with an IQ of 500 is a lot scarier: All of that intellectual processing power will be in the service of a being that remains, at its core, a primitive ape, with all manner of savage instincts and cruel inclinations, and a natural predisposition towards conflict with other humans.
>This. I'm actually considerably more worried about human enhancement than AGI. A computer with an IQ of 2000 and no will of its own is a tool, not a threat. Even if it does somehow become independent (which I think is unlikely), it probably wouldn't care about us one way or another
Have you actually read Superintelligence? An AI doesn't have to care about us to be an enormous threat. If an AGI becomes superintelligent, then almost any utility function has the potential to become catastrophic through perverse instantiation.
>It seems far more likely that a super-intelligent AGI that went rogue would choose to leave us alone and do its own thing
They don't need to go "rogue", they just have to pursue their final goals in a way that we wouldn't want if we were controllling it. The only way to stop this happening is to prevent the AI having any power whatsoever, and that's easier said than done.
>rather than wage a costly and potentially risky extermination campaign against us.
This isn't what AI-safety people are worried about. You should read more of what they say so you're arguing against the cutting edge arguments from their side
>Whereas an enhanced human with an IQ of 500 is a lot scarier: All of that intellectual processing power will be in the service of a being that remains, at its core, a primitive ape, with all manner of savage instincts and cruel inclinations, and a natural predisposition towards conflict with other humans.
Putting aside the fact an IQ of 500 isn't really meaningful, the difference is that if such enormous intelligence enhacements are possible, they will come about extremely slowly and gradually. We will know its coming, we can regulate it in advance, and regulating it is much easier since only a few laboratories in the world will be capable of making these advances, and its a physical thing that can be prevented (i.e. banning brain implants) compared with trying to regulate opaque code on a harddrive that protnetially any sufficiently talented computer scientist is capable of creating.
AI isn't like this. There is the potential for an intelligence explosion that will occur far too quickly to regulate. And unlike a surgical procedure, this will happen in the dark, and may come about from a team that nobody even knew were doing pioneering work in developing and AGI.
I am yet to be convinced that neural networks (the only tech that we know of that can show intelligence) can recursively self improve. Up until now, one needs to materially make the network bigger in order to make them smarter.
Asking everyone developing AGI to wait 20 to 30 years for Neuralink to develop human-compatible cognitive enhancement implants is unlikely to work.
20 / 30 seems a rather optimistic time frame
The answer is yet again: it's outside the Overton window. And the irony of people fighting to bring an important concept inside the window failing in exactly the same way is not lost on me.
I guess I'm kinda privileged that way, because I keep a foot in many worlds - and let me tell you, there's barely any difference in how tribal and inward looking they are. The rationalist community is slightly better just for having the tools to get out of this hole - not that they're actually using them a whole lot to correct their biases.
I apologize for being snappy and taking swings, but the inhibition of touching the holy human body is grating me really deep. I get Chesterton's fence, but we're not talking about putting a chip in every human's head. We're talking about doing the Bayesian sane thing, where the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of choices like human challenge trials, more aggressive new therapies on terminally ill, anti aging research and yes, stuff like Neuralink. Or, of course, AI alignment research.
I think it's possibly more about the reasons Randall articulated below.
My own opinion is that it doesn't seem very promising; I have no ethical objection.
Neuralink won't be allowed to make swift progress, because that requires experimental brain surgery on humans, and there's a strong bias against medical techs helping people overcome "normal" conditions like aging or having average intelligence.
Even if it can make rapid progress (for medical technology), Neuralink won't be as easy to change or improve as AGI systems, assuming that they're just software on commodity hardware.
In a fast takeoff scenario, an enhanced human is a slightly smarter human, not doubling in cognitive power every month / week / day.
Can one double cognitive power (every unit of time) on commodity hardware?
Elon could bribe some small country to allow the surgeries.
Pro: if we assume it's going to be a close race, then even half a year of advantage might prove decisive.
Cons: human enhancement will likely give raw capability, not necessarily extra wisdom. So it might be used in creating a super AI even sooner, without actually working much on the harder problem of alignment. I'm pretty sure EY would prefer things move slower overall.
In the end we should of course do it, or at least Really Try. Not that FDA would let us move too fast.
[1/2]
Purposes of Justice:
There are multiple stated purposes for a government inflicting punishments on individuals. I've often thought of these as non-exclusive (we can have many reasons for imposing a prison sentence on someone). However, I was reading a book recently that caused me to question the legitimacy of some justifications for punishment and promote the supremacy of others. I'd like to hear the perspective from the ACX community on these. Much of my perspective is coming from a US-centric perspective.
Deterrence - The biggest problem with this theory of punishment is that it's not rooted in the individual crime and the person who committed the crime. This can lead to significant injustice being carried out in the name of punishment. Take for example a shoplifter in a quiet town where nothing much happens versus a shoplifter in San Francisco. The same crime is committed, but the small town doesn't have much incentive to promote deterrence, since this kind of thing rarely happens. That shoplifter gets a sentence commensurate to the crime (perhaps a few hours of community service) and goes on their way. Meanwhile, a shoplifter in SF sees people around them not getting caught and shoplifts anyway. Maybe they get caught and are upset that they're getting punished for something nobody else is getting punished for. Under the principle of deterrence, perhaps they have a point - they weren't given 'notice' that this was wrong through the enforcement of criminal norms. Or perhaps a new DA comes to SF seeking to crack down on shoplifting. They institute stronger sentences on shoplifters, up to and including 5 years in prison. Because they want to maximize deterrence, the DA makes this a mandatory minimum sentence.
The new scheme works and SF shoplifting drops to an all-time low. Parents empty their toddler's pockets after leaving each shop, to ensure nothing is accidentally stolen from the store. Except that the new sentences will still be applied to some undeterred shoplifters (if not just people who were caught in the initial rollout of the sentencing changes, or who were unaware of the strict policy). Deterrence failed even with the policy. However, think of what the underlying crime actually was: the SF shoplifters engaged in the same activity as the small town thief, but got much harsher punishments for their actions.
What is the justification for the harsh punishment? Not that their crimes were particularly worse than the small town thief's crime, but that there might be knock-on effects from the imposition of a greater sentence that would prevent other people from committing offenses. "You're suffering so others don't have to."
Imagine you're the person who received 5 years hard time for something that - done in isolation - would only have warranted community service. You didn't commit the other offenses, and you have nothing to do with potential future offenders. How does the harsh punishment not appear monumentally unjust to you? Indeed, it seems you're being punished more for other people's crimes than for your own.
In a way, deterrence contains an element of collective punishment being heaped on an individual. Do you belong to a class of criminals we want to deter? Congratulations, you get to serve as an example to get flogged disproportionate to your crimes for the knock-on effect that will have in promoting the public peace. Why is your fate a public resource, not a direct result of your own actions? Certainly not out of some sense of "justice".
(If your punishment isn't disproportionate, and is exactly what we would do without deterrence, then what role is deterrence playing in the justification for punishment?)
Deterrence, taken seriously, suggests a direction for criminal justice we don't want to go down. After all, if we're willing to punish people disproportionate to their crime in the name of deterrence, why are we stipulating that the people who receive the unfair treatment have to have committed a crime? Might we just go on to profile people who are disproportionately likely to commit a crime and prevent them from doing so? In a sense, this is like Minority Report, except that we've already done the hard philosophical work of accepting (through the deterrence principle) that it's okay to punish someone for the public good, and not just for crimes committed. With big data, machine learning, and a lot of hand-waving by politicians who want to appear Tough On Crime, I'm sure we can achieve the dystopian future we're all ready to vote into office.
Rehabilitation - This one seems less problematic than deterrence. After all, what's wrong with wanting to reduce recidivism? And I think that's a noble goal of government - to reduce the rate of crime. However, it walks a fine line between, "don't continue to do the thing we initially punished you for" and "go be a good person". Why wouldn't we want criminals to go be good people? I certainly think that would be great if they all got rehabilitated and went on to live good lives. But who gets to define "good"? The State, in the case of criminal justice/punishment.
Once the State gets to decide that people should be good - and more importantly, that it's the State's responsibility to ensure people are good - we have to ask again, why the State should wait for people to commit crimes before undertaking its appointed mission of making people "good" as it defines them? To the State, "good" citizens are easy to count, tax, and govern (cf. "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott). Good citizens don't smoke, get fat, lose their job, or get too involved in political organizations other than those already sanctioned as part of the status quo. Also, they die when they're supposed to, instead of living out into their 90's.
I'm not saying that the principles of deterrence and rehabilitation will necessarily lead to dystopian futures where the State rounds people up and mandates Approved behaviors. Instead, I'm trying to ask whether these justifications are workable in a rational framework for criminal punishment. Because if they're fundamentally wrong, we should probably stop using them, since they could lead to poor results, even if they're never taken to the limit.
(Also, maybe I'm wrong here? I'm kind of thinking out loud and interested in the ACX community's take on this. In principle, I like programs that seek to reduce recidivism by providing educational and job opportunities. Maybe I'm being too harsh on rehabilitation? Perhaps instead we should think of rehabilitation as an ancillary/non-coercive goal of criminal reform - something the State may advance but not require as part of a separate initiative from criminal punishment. Perhaps a similar case may be made for deterrence. The problem is that when we say, "We punish because we care!" it's necessarily a compulsory exercise. You don't get to choose whether you go to prison, the State does. That's not the same process as getting the chance to earn your GED in prison.)
[2/2]
Retribution - This is, I think, one of the most defensible reasons to inflict punishment by the government, but one I once thought of as prosaic. In his book, "The World Until Yesterday", Jared Diamond talks of many tribal cultures preferring the transition to centralized rule for this exact reason. A major problem tribal people face is perpetual rounds of retributive justice.
For example, say a child is killed in a car accident, and the child's parents/family/tribe are angry. They seek the life of the driver of the car in retribution. However, the driver told his people the nature of the accident, and that the driver was in no way at fault for the child's death. Instead of having a forum where both sides can make their case to an impartial party, the accused's people have to make their case to an aggrieved party. Say the child's family goes ahead and takes retribution on the driver (killing him). Now the driver's family/tribe has a grievance, so they take retribution in turn. The child's family/tribe sees this retribution for their 'just' act as illegitimate, and there's no end to the bloodshed, potentially spanning generations.
Contrast this with a centralized authority capable of hearing and adjudicating disputes. For any single case, there is a single execution of justice or injustice. In one sense, it doesn't matter whether what is served is justice or injustice, because the overall effect will be to limit the injustice to the isolated event. People on both sides of the crime will be better of no matter what the verdict is under this system, than in an ongoing feud where a single perception of the miscarriage of justice (real or not) could devolve into a series of unjust retaliations ancillary to the inciting event.
In another sense, it is absolutely vital that in most cases 'justice' is seen to be served - commensurate with the demands of the aggrieved party. The biggest threat to government-led retributive justice is vigilantism. If people don't see their legitimate complaints being served by the justice system, faith in that system may break down and return to a potential for cycles of violence. Again, what matters is the appearance of justice, as much as that actual justice is served. If the community doesn't believe criminal punishment is able to justice, at a certain point they take matters into their own hands.
Retributive justice can go wrong where the actions taken by the government are perceived as too strong or too weak in relation to the crime that was committed. If too weak, the concern about vigilantism arises. If too strong, this also raises concern that the State isn't a competent arbiter of disputes, and can't be trusted to do so.
In his book "Gang Leader For a Day", Sudhir Venkatesh outlines a situation in Chicago where an entire society's trust in the fairness and impartiality of the police had eroded. Calling the police to settle a dispute was unthinkable, because it was likely both parties would be punished regardless of the proximal dispute that brought the authorities (perhaps a domestic dispute would result in an abusive partner getting taken away, but also a mother and her child getting kicked out because they weren't on the lease). That society was deprived of an essential role of criminal justice, to the point that it stopped relying on central authority, relying instead on a system of warlords (gangs) that competed for territory.
Law-and-Order - I think this case is similar to the retributive case. The concept of a "debt to society" transfers the sense of being wronged from the person who was directly harmed by the crime to 'society' itself. This puts vigilantism one step farther away from the Overton window by making the victim's justice claim secondary to society's. It doesn't eliminate the victim, and often in court victims get a voice prior to sentencing (and may impact sentencing). However, even if you forgive your offender, the State may still pursue its case against them and punish them for their actions. This transforms the role of the state from 'impartial arbiter of personal disputes' into a principle and independent actor that takes victims into account in its decisions.
Obviously, this topic is a lot more complex than what I've outlined above.
Deterrence -- in some way you could view it as a probability. Enforcement being imperfect you have an expected value of P(being caught) * punishment. Sucks to be you to get caught, but maybe just don't do this stuff.
A toddler stealing is not relevant. Value of the item clearly matters here. Really we are most interested in armed crimes and those who go there invite capital punishment regardless of outcome.
Maybe the theory of justice goes like this: The state has a legitimate interest in protecting its citizens and 'ensuring domestic tranquility', or whatever. Given the impossibility of punishing all crimes, those who are caught receive a more severe punishment for deterrent purposes. It's not that the State believes you deserve that stiff a sentence, it's the cost of doing business in a civilized society. We're passing on that cost to those most closely related to the negative externality. Someone will disproportionately pay for the externality, so it might as well be the criminals we catch so we can generate a positive externality from the exchange.
In this case, it would only be fair for the State to offer you a chance at absolution - to prove you're not longer part of the group contributing to the negative externality. "Rehabilitation" in this sense would not be a goal of the justice system, but rather an offramp from deterrence-level excess punishment. Do you want to receive only the base-rate punishment for your crime? First prove you're no longer part of the group we wish to deter. It's part of ensuring this more complex/mature system remains just.
What would it look like if these paired principles were applied across the board? Maybe any increase in sentencing severity should include new rehabilitation programs (and vice-versa), such that the expected net effect should be no change in incarceration rates.
These are good points. Is there also a "bind the tribe together" by enforcing norms function? Like, if we all collectively agree to punish some offense, then every time we do it, it reaffirms our shared connection as members of "the group that punishes this offense"?
The best example I can think of for this from the ancestral environment is cannibalism. Norms against cannibalism are nearly universal, and serve in some way to set early humans apart from animals. There was obviously some cost to this strategy. Even if you didn't want to eat the dead members of your OWN tribe, you probably would have felt much less strongly about not eating members of the enemy tribe you just killed.
In the contemporary environment, it seems like the idea that we should get permits for a bunch of things, from driving a car to installing a shed in your backyard in urban areas, mostly serve the function of forcing people to do things to prove they are sufficiently committed to the team to do them.
Another book I was reading defended the use of capital punishment in this way. The argument was not that people would be directly deterred from committing murder, but that they would view murder as such a heinous crime, and murderers as the kind of pariah, that is unthinkable to even contemplate going in the direction that might lead someone to think about it.
(It's interesting to note that many pre-modern societies did not have the taboo against murder we know today, so maybe there's something to this? Except that same taboo is present in societies without capital punishment.)
In his book "Dreamland", Sam Quinones suggests there may be a dark side to this kind of cultural coercion. When a heroin epidemic hit a bunch of middle-class families in suburbia, nobody wanted to admit there was a problem because then THEY would be ostracized. The taboo against any association with heroin prevented people from tackling the opioid crisis until it had become well-established, partly because of the extreme social stigma associated with using such a hard drug.
I have a horrible thought about something: some of the people who were lynched in the U.S. were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. Statistically speaking, it's impossible that all of them were innocent.
I don't at all support lynching or any form of extrajudicial killing (outside of some extreme emergency situations), and I think the phenomenon of lynchings were a blight on America. At the same time, the notion of a memorial to the victims of all lynchings, regardless of their guilt, bothers me since such a thing inadvertently venerates the minority of murderers and rapists in those ranks who actually did do what their accusers claimed.
https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial
Statistically speaking, it's impossible that there were not murderers and rapists gassed by the Nazis. Do you also oppose memorializing victims of the Holocaust, since such memorials inadvertently venerate the minority of criminals in those ranks?
The victims of the Holocaust weren't gassed specifically because they were murderers/rapists. There is no particular reason to believe any individual was (we can assume children and basically all the women were innocent), instead your angle is that we can't be sure all the victims weren't given how many of them there were.
First, I don't think that many people disagree with the fact that people have the right to a fair trial, whether they are guilty or innocent. So even the victims of lynching who were guilty exactly of what they were accused of, still represent a vulnus of justice we ought to remember. Secondly, one might argue (quite reasonably) that the point of lynching was not to actually punish crimes (for which a court of law would have sufficed), but to keep the black (and Irish, and Italian, and...) community "in their place". So it might be worthwhile to remember what essentially amounted to endemic and relentless terrorism.
Third, memorials exist for the living, not for the dead. What do you think it is more important FOR US to be reminded of, of how easy it is for a society to slip into spontaneous and systemic mob violence under a veneer of righteous rationalization, or about the fate of Denzel deWashington in particular, were it deserved or not?
On the western frontier lynching was resorted to because the full legal system of trials wasn't feasible. So once they were available, lynching died down. I've heard of Italians getting targeted for lynching (particularly in Louisiana), but not Irish.
I have been thinking about this whole lynching memorial thing and have decided it is the wrong direction. What would be better is if we identified a person who forced or encouraged a group bent on extra legal action and instead persuaded them to follow the rule of law. Regardless of the guilt of the accused, this is the result we want, and it is people who make that happen that we should honor.
The black/white lynching ratio was SMALLER than the black/white incarceration ratio today. This means either that black people were committing less crimes back when they were more 'oppressed', or that lynch mobs were less racist than the criminal justice system is today. Neither possibility is congruent with modern liberal narratives around race.
When, where, according to what source, with what definition of "lynching", and is that ratio adjusted for population?
There's a lot of fundamental differences between the situation then and the situation now that we have to consider before we even propose hypotheses, much less come to conclusions.
You're neglecting an alternative: whites have gotten less criminal over time.
When people think 'Lynching' in the U.S., they often think of racial-lynching. The mob finds a person of the wrong skin color, accuse them of being too uppity, and hangs them from a tree.
But what people may not know is that the act of lynching was known to be used against suspected-or-actual criminals, and sometimes in ways that aren't obviously racist.
One blogger has been trolling through old newspaper stories about mass-murder in the United States. In several places, he has found news stories about lynchings that do not fit the stereotypical mold of racial lynching.
This story claims that six black men were lynched by a black mob. On the newspaper page, look for the headline "A Just Retribution". The alleged crime was pretty brutal, and the men were in prison awaiting trial. A mob reputedly broke the men out of prison, and summarily executed them.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95079490/1897-05-02/ed-1/seq-1/
Is this an atypical lynching, or is it more-typical than the racist lynching that we've been told about? Are these men still worthy of being included among 'victims of lynchings', even if the men could be proven to have committed the crime that they were accused of?
Right. While a disproportionately high number of American lynchings involved white mobs murdering black victims, there were also many "white-on-white" lynchings and lynchings involving other races. This is often forgotten.
I don't like how the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that I linked to in my first post seems to overlook the white victims of American lynchings.
Would you have similar misgivings about a hypothetical memorial to all the victims of capital punishment (i.e. death penalty), regardless of their guilt? You know, operating within the established judicial system and all...since we do know many were, in fact, innocent.
That's an interesting inversion of the question. I am slightly pro-death penalty (not an important issue for me), but I wouldn't have misgivings about such a memorial, since I understand and respect the point of view that the state shouldn't have a right to kill people who have already been removed from society.
Yes. Let me be clear about something, I was never really "against" lynching memorials. For my entire adult life up until a few months ago, I hadn't given the matter any deep thought, and was "pro lynching memorial" by default.
I had my "horrible thought" a few months ago, and ever since have been undecided about lynching memorials. This discussion has switched me back into the "pro" camp.
Sure, but the overwhelming majoirty of the reason people care about lynching victims is NOT that capital puinishment/mob violence is wrong, its based on the myth that it was killing black people for being black. And it's especially silly to act like the people who believe in the lynching myth are opposed to "mob violence". They support it when it aligns with their ideology.
Why is this a horrible thought?
To me, the issue is the extra legal actions in violation of existing laws and best practices.
In both the West and the South, a conservative estimate has the lynching victim being guilty of the accused offense (which was, in the majority of all cases, murder) half or more of the time. Attempts to pretend lynching victims were largely innocent or accused of noncrimminal social offenses are both false and a distraction from the real issue - the failure to follow established judicial process.
A "we fucked up and ain't gonna do that again" memorial might well be appropriate, particularly if accompanied by a commitment from elected leaders to ensure public safety and a respect for community norms such that future communities have no justification for not following the proper rules.
A memorial that lionized the rapists, murderers, and poor souls caught up with them would be far less appropriate, imo.
On the western frontier those judicial processes weren't entirely "established" early on.
See "vigilance committees" such as the ones in California. Citizen vigilante groups. Apparently they worked. In San Francisco they hanged a criminal gang of white Australians.
In that era it might be redundant to refer to Australians that way :)
Not just "some", in the western frontier of the US it took a while for a formal justice system to take form so lynching would have been the norm. Lynching died down in the west as formal justice displaced it because people were basically doing the best they could at the time.
Two wrongs don't make one right.
Or to put it an other way : among the Jews killed by the nazis, there were probably some pretty bad persons. I don't think this should stop us to have Shoah memorials.
That's just the law of large numbers at that point - almost any non-individual memorial can be criticized with such reasoning. Memorials are implicitly for the "good" or "innocent" members of a group, to memorialize the bravery or injustice they collectively faced. And in this instance, it's important to emphasize that whether or not any individual was guilty, they almost certainly didn't have a "fair" trail.
To give specific examples, this memorial is no worse than one to, say, soldiers in war (many of whom committed war crime) or police (many of whom even other cops admit are "bad apples"). Or for a more direct analogy, it's similar to a memorial to victims Japanese American internment camps, which (by the sheer numbers) probably held at least a few would-be or actual spies, but were inarguably a miscarriage of justice.
That's a very good point.
"Memorials are implicitly for the "good" or "innocent" members of a group, to memorialize the bravery or injustice they collectively faced."
You seem to be contradicting yourself in that sentence? Why should a memorial for the shoah or similar only be for the "good, innocent" members of the group? Surely the criminals among them, no matter which crime, faced the same injustice. Surely, the criminals would have deserved a fair trial instead of being murdered for an unrelated reason, no?
I think it's very simple: A shoah memorial is about the shoah. Every victim of the shoah is a victim of the shoah. Any other *unrelated* crime is.. unrelated and and therefore irrelevant.
People who died in Vietnam weren't killed BECAUSE of anything bad they did in the US (unless you count signing up to fight there in the first place, which would apply to the subset who volunteered).
Per https://www.tuskegee.edu/news/tuskegee-university-hosts-lynchings-and-liberators-exhibition-throughout-february
"Tuskegee University now houses the nation’s most complete record of lynchings occurring in the U.S. during an 86-year period spanning 1882 to 1968. During this time, 4,743 people were lynched — including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states."
http://archive.tuskegee.edu/repository/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Lynchings-Stats-Year-Dates-Causes.pdf
I hadn't realized that >25% of lynchings were of white folk or that >25% were outside of the South, though prob. should given this overlaps with 'frontier justice' and the like.
The (presumably stated) motivations for lynching are interesting too
"Causes Of Lynchings 1882-1968
Number Percent
Homicides 1,937 40.84
Felonious Assault 205 4.32
Rape 912 19.22
Attempted Rape 288 6.07
Robbery and Theft 232 4.89
Insult to White Person 85 1.79
All Other Causes 1,084 22.85
Are you sure about that?
Lynching wasn't at all exclusive to blacks. It's also suggestive that a higher proportion of the black population is now arrested and convicted for rape, murder, or other violent crime than was ever lynched. For lynching to be mostly based on racist hatred rather than any attempt at justice would seem to require either that whites became *more* racist today, or that black criminality was a sudden and modern phenomenon.
Not that extrajudicial punishment is a good thing, or even to say that it's definitely the case that any supermajority of victims were guilty. It's just not, to my mind, as clear-cut a case of "well white people were just demons back then" as people think (and how many people can name even a single one of the many, many white lynching victims?).
Hello Sam Altman ! I'm glad that you enjoyed my review.
Based on what I know, I think that those estimates are too high. But I'm sure that you have insider information about Helion.
Here's what I know about Helion's schedule: The 5th prototype, Venti, had a triple product of ~10^19 keV s / m^3, which is two orders of magnitude too small for D-T fusion. The current 6th prototype is Trenta is much larger. It has demonstrated temperatures of over 100 million Celsius, which is 4-5 times Venti. This is hot enough for D-T fusion, but still an order of magnitude too low for D-He3 fusion. I don't think that the best triple product for Trenta has been published. The 7th prototype, Polaris, should be completed in 2023, and the 8th prototype is Antares.
Your predictions sound like: 85% that Polaris will get Q>1 D-T fusion within 1-2 years of operation and 65% that Antares will be built by 2025 and will get Q>1 D-He3 fusion within 1-2 years of operation.
My predictions didn't give any individual project a greater than 70% chance of success. Even though high quality simulations that accurately model JET & other tokamaks tell us that ITER and SPARC should get Q~10. Plasmas have surprised us too many times to be that confident of individual experiments. There are some predictions that I could make with higher accuracy. For example, JET could get Q>1 if it tried (90%). I am this confident because JET has already demonstrated the triple product needed for Q>1, but using entirely deuterium plasmas instead of D-T plasmas. All they would have to do is repeat that shot with different fuel.
I am tempted to read your predictions as saying that Trenta has already demonstrated the densities and confinement times needed for D-T fusion, using pure deuterium plasmas, but hasn't published them. Otherwise, I think that 85% is too high.
The second prediction is more than 10 times harder than the first, measured using the triple product. The temperature needed for D-He3 fusion is almost an order of magnitude higher and the density * confinement time also needs to be several times larger. This is significantly different from regimes where the simulations have been tested.
I'm having a debate with someone about harmony in music, specifically in chords, and we're stuck on two separate problems.
The first is about measuring harmony mathematically. I went into the debate assuming this is easy, but that doesn't seem to be true. My understanding so far is (1) the frequency ratios from different notes in a chord are important, (2) simple ratios like 2:3 are consonant/harmonic whereas more complicated ratios are dissonant, however (3) it's unclear how to quantify it.
It seems to me that, at a minimum, a proper measure should (assuming it takes the ratio as an argument, e.g. 2/3), be applicable to arbitrary real values, be continuous, and measure the *distance* to various (all?) integer ratios. E.g., 288172993915332718882937/576345987830665437765875 should be highly consonant (since it's almost exactly 1/2) even though both integer values are big. But I haven't yet found a formula that does this.
Our other question is to what extent harmony is intrinsically pleasant versus culturally conditioned. (Answering the first question would help here; without that, it's unclear whether e.g. chords on the japanese insen system can be consonant.) On this point, it seems to me like the most relevant data would be from preferences of babies and/or animals. And preferably babies from different cultures, since otherwise they may be conditioned by e.g. hearing western music when they're still in the womb. Do we have good data on this?
Thinking of this as pure signal analysis, two factors are going to limit your capacity to tell 1:2 apart from something close to 1:2 : background noise and how long you're measuring the waves. The longer you measure, the finer the frequency resolution you get and the more spread out the noise becomes among the frequency bins.
Not a direct answer to your specific questions, but on a related note: I think you might find this book interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Polychords-Polya-Adventures-Musical-Combinatorics/dp/0963009702
The Pythagorean comma is an immutable obstacle to perfect harmonic consonance. How best to work around that is, to some extent, a culturally conditioned choice
Consonanace also depends a lot on the timbre and how the harmonics overlap.
That's why instruments tuned to Bohlen-Pierce tend to be cylindrical bore aerophones: they don't produce even overtones which would sound dissonant when played in intervals based on twelth roots of three.
If you're clever you can make an instrument where 1:2 sounds out of tune and 1:4 sounds like an octave. https://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/papers/hyperOctave.html
You may want to check out "On the Sensations of Tone" by Hermann Helmholtz, translated by Henry Margenau. As I recall, Margenau added a vast amount of interesting footnotes and references.
Going from memory here, I think in one of the extensive footnotes, there is a list of the frequencies of the (mostly or possibly exclusively) pentatonic scales used by indigenous people of various Pacific Islands.
It's at least an interesting book by a giant in the field of acoustics.
That harmony is culturally conditioned is a well documented theme in ethnomusicology.
Three Blue One Brown did a video on a similar theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyW5z-M2yzw It considers the question, "When is the ratio of two notes close to a fraction with a small denominator?"
Thanks, the video is really good. (Unfortunately, he only gets about as far as I've gotten, so I still have both questions.)
I think this is related to the total period of the combined wave generated by the chord/interval. Here's a GitHub repo of someone that coded a few ideas up and refers to source articles:
https://gist.github.com/endolith/118429
Edit: Altough I guess that doesn't really cover your large integers case. Interesting. Something to do with imperfect perception? I think everyone would just hear that as 1:2. Also equal temperament tuning just working at all.. where the difference is much worse than your example.
I'd start by considering that in a 12-note scale, the frequencies of notes are separated by a factor of 2^(1/12).
Yeah, I know. I think that's just another demonstration that distance to other ratios is important, since those aren't even rational numbers.
I have a question about covid vaccine efficacy.
I know that primarily, it dramatically reduces the risk of severe disease and death (waning over time).
Does it do this by shifting the entire distribution of disease severity, or by chopping off the high end of the distribution and leaving the rest about the same?
Seems like the latter. My perception of it is that if you have two immune naive people who end up with covid on the same day, one of whom will go on to die, and one of whom will recover fully in a week, they will both be about as sick on day 2. The one who will die will become sicker on day 3, whereas the one who will be fine will be less sick on day 3. Now, if you go back and vaccinate these same two people before they acquire the diseases, the vaccine created antibody response will take some time to kick in, so by day 3, it will be obliterating viruses in the lungs left and right, preventing the one who would have died from continuing to get sicker.
A bit of both, but closer to shifting the entire distribution. The hospitalization/ICU rates are also strongly decreased, though not quite as massively as the death rate.
If we look at mild infections, vaccines have less effect against these, especially for the omicron variants. "Less" does not mean zero, but it's not comparable to the pretty spectacular reduction of hospitalizations and deaths.
Mind that by medical standards, "mild infections" are everything short of hospitalization, and can range from "no symptoms" to "heavy flu-like symptoms for a week or two". I would assume from the other data points that vaccines protect a bit better against the latter than against symptom-free infections, but that is not the data that is usually available.
What's the Tory mandate going to be like going forwards? Obviously they officially have everything that they won in 2019 (minus the odd by-election) but the next government is going to be very different from the centerist Johnson ministry that the red wall voted for. Or are those seats enough of a lost cause that they're not worth worrying about?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "mandate".
I think it's likely that we're about to see a sharp tack to the right. Johnson was an unprincipled, a- and im-moral opportunist and a canny politician; he ran well to the centre of his party because that was where the votes are. I don't know who his successor will be, but most of the likely candidates are much more doctrinaire.
My guess (and hope) is that that will be unpopular, and be punished hard at the polls some time in the next year and a half, but I'm not confident of that.
In terms of "mandates", I'm not sure how meaningful the concept is - lots of different people can vote for the same party for different reasons, after all.
Good point, well made, on ‘mandates’
I mean in a moral? sense more than anything else. Like they're allowed to do whatever a majority of MPs want to until Jan '25 but there's a sense in which they ought to be enacting the will of the people.
I don't believe in the will (singular) of the people. People who voted for the Tories did so for a wide range of reasons, from enthusiasm for centre-right policies to enthusiasm for far-right policies to nose-holding opposition to Corbyn. And that's true of any government.
Legally, the extent of the Tory's mandate is clear: the elected MPs have the right to vote on laws, and appoint the prime minister, until the next election is held. In terms of moral mandate beyond that, you could make a case that it would be wrong for them to deviate radically from what were the boundaries of the Tory's "tent" at the time of the election (I think there's a case to be made that MPs who change party should resign), but not much can be said beyond that.
This assumes that the Tories are there to govern. My sense is that they are there to hold power. The mandate they seemed to receive in 2019 was for
1. Preventing a Corbyn/McDonnell administration
2. Getting Brexit ‘done’
Corbyn/McDonnell are gone & Brexit is ‘done’
It is discharged & no longer relevant, is the sense I have.
Recommended dose of modafinil?
I'm a math grad student in his final year, and I want go to "all out" in terms of working hours in order to get good results/publications. I was just toying with the idea of taking modafinil in order to accomplish that.
What is the recommended dosage for producing quality research (so alertness and sharpness are important). Could I pop a pill every other day, for instance?
Standard dose for ADHD is 100 mg/day starting dose and 200 mg/day maximum dose, titrating up or down based on perceived efficacy and tolerability of side effects. Standard US prescription modafinil comes in either 100mg or 200mg pills. I have a prescription for 200mg/day and will take either a full pill or a half pill depending on how much help I think I'll need to focus that day (how much and how well I slept, how tired I feel waking up, how much trouble I've been having focusing lately, how much I need/want to get done today, etc), and I try not to take a full pill more than a few days in a row in order to give my body opportunities to ratchet down and recover.
Modafinil has also been studied (and reportedly used by the military) for sustaining performance in the face of sleep deprivation. There are several proposed dosage schedules here, such as this one proposing 100mg every eight hours of wakefulness for up to 64 hours at a stretch. I do not recommend this in a non-emergency situation.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327876mp1003_3
If you want to take less than a full pill, it's better to break it in half than to do alternate day doses: modafinil has a half-live in your system of about 12 hours (11 hours for one isomer and 13 hours for the other), so to a first approximation you'll have 200mg worth of modafinil in your system at the start of day one, 50mg on day two, 212mg on day three, 53mg on day four, etc. Whereas if you take half a pill every morning, that'll give you 100mg on day one, 125mg on day two, 131mg on day three, and steady state around 133mg thereafter.
Also, the effect of modafinil on your sleep at night depends on the amount still in your system at bedtime. On a half-pill-each-day schedule, you'll have about 53mg in your system 16 hours after your dose at steady state, whereas with a full pill every other day you'll be alternating between ~85mg at bedtime on your pill days and ~21mg at bedtime on your off days.
Where did you get your half-lives? The widely reported numbers are 15 for the active isomer and 4 for the inactive isomer (which is irrelevant, except that it contributes to the meaningless number of 12 for the racemic mixture). There is individual variation.
From my memory of the pharmacokinetics section of the package insert when I first started taking modafinil. I just double-checked and the current section is consistent with your figures, so either I'm misremembering or the understanding of the pharmacokinetics of modafinil has changed some time in the past six years.
Why modafinil over ritalin/adderall?
I'd be careful about fucking with your sleep in a chronic fashion. Taking anything psychotropic every other day for a year is asking for trouble, even more so when limiting a process with extreme physiological importance and unclear mechanisms.
Take as small a dose as possible. It's a double edged sword - you won't sleep as well the night you take it.
You can take it daily, but be aware the amount in your system will build up somewhat over a few days until steady state is reached. Most people find daily use isn't sustainable, except for occasional freaks like Dave Asprey.
Incidently, the s enatomer of modafinil has a shorter half life so would make sleeping easier.. but it's not available, unfortunately. =/
I find I sleep fine so long as I do some intense cardio the day I take it. Which, by the way, I highly recommend. Otherwise I end up a jittery jerk around bedtime.
There is large individual variation. The standard dose is 100mg. But you should try 50mg and see if it works. And make sure that it actually produces output, not just many hours at your desk.
In asking about doses per week, you sound like you are asking about tolerance, but it is also relevant how often you need quantity of work vs creativity.
Biochem/stem cell grad student here.
I have used 2 mg/kg as a dose (this was not in pill form, I weighed it out). But in my experience it's really only useful for the occasional all-nighter and isn't sustainable long-term.
Gwern has an entire section on his(?) website on this that seemed pretty thoroughly researched. Googling Gwern modafinil
Substack as of today suggests me a list of eight newsletters 'recommended by Scott Alexander'.
At least I guess it's from substack, not Scott.
Sorry, I decided to try their recommendation system because I assumed it would be good for those blogs in some way. I didn't realize it would send out a mass email or else I wouldn't have done it.
Did everybody get this?
I didn't get an e-mail, I'm just seeing it when I open Substack. And I'm perfectly fine with it.
There were comments about people getting unwanted 'please subscribe' features on their screen and probably that's why I put it in the category of 'probably a substack feature', especially as there is a longer blogroll just below. So it's good to know that it's your selection.
I got an email of the sort you get when a new person starts recommending you, but nothing else.
FWIW it's been a significant bump so far, and thank you.
Would you want to share the list? It sounds interesting.
Stuart Richie, Zvi Mowshowitz, Dominic Cummings, Freddie deBoer, Global Guessing, Resident Contrarian, Matthew Yglesias, Razib Khan
I wrote this comment in the response to the comments for the 2020 Homicide Spike piece, but was a bit late to the party so I think it may have missed the prime time for discussion. I think it might be worth considering, however, so I'll repost it here to see what people think:
I want to make the argument that the media coverage of the murder itself is what led to the increased murder rates.
It is already well known that the wide-reporting of suicides leads to an increase in suicides (and, sadly, an increase in car and commercial aircraft crashes). It is similarly known that the reporting of murders leads to an increase in murders in the areas of reporting. This is most notably observed following, again sadly, school shootings, when numerous shootings occur in succession. So, I think the argument can be made that the massive media coverage of the murder of George Floyd led, in turn, to the murder of more black men.
This would track with the logic that in reporting suicides and murders you lead to copycat suicides and murders. Where ages are reported in articles discussing suicides, the increase in suicides occurs in those within that age group/range. It seems to follow, therefore, that massive reporting of the murder of a black man would lead to copycat events. This would seem to explain why deaths of other ethnicities do not see a staggering increase. Likewise, one imagines that coverage of the murder of George Floyd was more extreme in the United States hence why the increase is only observable there (albeit I would need to actually see if the coverage was greater in the US). I would add that this explanation would also cover why media outlets have discussed other reasons; to state this is the reason would make them, in some way, complicit.
Timings wise it would also make sense. The coverage and the protests would occur contemporaneously, each feeding off the other.
I appreciate that this thought is unsourced, and low-effort in that it may have been covered by other comments, or by ACT and I have just missed it. Regardless, any discussion based on this thought would be interesting.
It is always accurate to say "the media coverage [...] is what led to". Nobody is out there directly interacting with reality; everyone is trapped in a media bubble [except of course for you, dear reader, my apologies].
What about coverage of political violence?
How do you mean? As in does coverage of things like assassinations beget further assassinations? If so, I don't really know, but a brief look at some lists of assassinations on Wikipedia would appear to suggest so; 2016 appears to have been an especially prolific year for high-profile assassinations.
If you mean something like civil unrest then I think I would also say that publicising it leads to further civil unrest. For example, the 2011 London Riots spread to various British cities despite them having no connection to the original cause of the London riots (the shooting of Mark Duggan). Equally, throughout history there have been clear cases of civil unrest spreading internationally the 1968 Protests, 1848 Protests, and Arab Spring all spring to mind anecdotally. The extent to which social proof exacerbated feelings around underlying issues probably would need looking into in these areas however, rather than just causatively saying social proof caused the unrest to spread.
I hope this is what you meant by your question, if not, do say and I'll try to answer that!
Every bit of what I meant.
And murders in one's neighborhood or community might have a self sustaining dynamic
Yes I think so. Especially if these murders are then further reported upon
....Are you saying that [the death by neglect/kneeling on the back of a black man by a white cop] was copycatted into [the shooting of black men by other black men] and not any other sort of murder?
(Serious question, trying to understand your point.)
Yeah that's basically what I'm saying. I understand any scepticism that kneeling can lead to shootings, but the research from the reporting of suicides indicates that the reporting of a suicides leads to an increase in car accidents and aircraft crashes. That suggests to me that, for the purposes of social proof, the methodology of the act matters less than the act itself.
I realise in the original piece that the conclusion is that it is "most likely" black people killing other black people, but this conclusion seems to be reached by virtue of a lack of increase in hate crimes, rather than statistical evidence showing as much. If the increase were based off social proof, then there would also be no increase in hate crimes, because hate would not necessarily be the reason. So, I think we would need to dive deeper into the statistics of the spike before certainly saying it is black people shooting black people.
Very tentative, but maybe Chauvin's very publicized killing left susceptible people thinking that killing is how you show dominance.
Hate crimes are rarely significant enough to make up a large fraction of total crimes. Most crimes are intra-racial, with the exception of atypical groups like Asian-Americans who have low enough crime rates that victims have more like a coin-flip chance of being victimized by a fellow Asian. So when we see very large increases in the number of African-Americans shot, we can rely on our earlier prior about such crimes.
That's very interesting to read, thank you! The social proof would (I think) exacerbate existing trends, so that suggestion would follow in any event.
I appreciate the clarification.
It would also be good to have more verification that the violence was tracking former patterns, rather than being a marked and unprecedented uptick in white-on-black crime that the (highly motivated) press didn't find at the time, but prior to that verification, I'm not inclined to support the idea that it was any new pattern.
There's another possible mechanism: everyone knows big protests (which really are mostly peaceful) follow media campaigns. Even without police pull-back, lots of folks in the streets draw off police manpower, and provide cover for the kind of crime that we don't like to talk about: dudes going out with the express intention of shooting other dudes. I don't claim to have a working grasp of how much is explicitly gang-related as opposed to the result of purely personal vendettas, but the most rational possible thought for someone who knows someone who "has it coming" seeing big media outrage of the type that ignites action in one's city is "huh maybe this weekend would be a good time, better call my friends".
Very true, but we used to hear a lot about the cycle of retaliatory violence*. People aren't shot in a vacuum. The initial spike may have been more than a temporary bump, and other factors now maintain homeostasis at a higher level.
* "We hear a lot about the cycle of violence these days. I had one of those when I was a kid. I used to ride it all over the neighborhood and beat the other kids with a length of steel pipe." -- George Carlin
I'm not sure I 100% follow your point regarding the media directly reporting on the school shootings and suicides. From what I remember, the media reported quite heavily on the murder of a black person. I think the point I was making was that the reporting of the murder of a black person would, pursuant to the social proof phenomenon, lead to an increase in murders of black people which is what the data shows. I imagine the perpetrators of such crimes would follow existing trends, which may be better viewed in socioeconomic, rather than racial, terms.
I think your point regarding media reporting also anticipates a rational decision, when social proof is something that is notable because of the lack of rational thought required in reaching the decisions that the social proof phenomenon.
I think you are correct in that it may be a combination of things. It may well be that social proof leads to the attempt of these murders (hence also the raise in aggravated assaults), and the reduced policing leads to an increased number of them succeeding (or some permutation of these factors).
Yes different mechanism absolutely. I did consider this flaw, but I don't think it obviates social proof as a possibility. The power of social proof is staggering and I have mentioned how it can transmogrify suicides of any cause into car and aeroplane crashes. As a result, I don't think I could say that the failure to copy the mechanism rules out social proof.
I saw you say elsewhere in the thread that the rate has remained high since. I did also notice this and don't really have an answer for it, beyond it being cyclical (i.e. constant reporting of the new murders). Sadly, I don't have the information to know how this pattern has repeated, but it would be interesting to look into.
I would note that if you look at the amount of reporting of the murder of George Floyd, the change in the number of articles discussing it does seem to (very) broadly match the graph of the increase in murders. The SignalAI graph I looked at only covered about a week so it was hard to pair directly with the graphs in the original pieces, but there was some observable similarity. So, I wouldn't rule it out, but like you say, there are discrepancies that would indicate it is working in tandem with other factors.
I don’t know what to make of the UAP/UFO stuff the US gov’s been talking about recently.
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/14/nasa-uap-investigation-unidentified-aerial-phenomena
is it to be taken seriously at all? rationalist communities have been silent on this matter as far as i can tell. is it a hoax? measurement errors? or something else bit too wacky for us to comfortably admit might be real?
I think it's probably not legit aliens, but at the same time, the potential "payoff" of discovering it is aliens is so overwhelmingly gigantic that it should be taken seriously and investigated with all of the tools at humanity's disposal. There is enough circumstantial evidence that we shouldn't just write it off.
Robin Hanson has dipped a few toes: https://www.overcomingbias.com/tag/aliens
There are a number of aspects to UAP/UFO
1) Under the US Constitution, what should be the role of Government in vetting domestic information in this age of dis-information?
2) Many visual artifacts can arise in un-complicated and complicated optical situations.
For example if a black thread is placed in front of a sheet of white paper, one side will look white and one side will look grey.
Of the videos I have seen, they are almost all through curved cockpit windows and involve poor lighting between the sea and sky both with turbulence.
Google "Mick West". He does a great job at investigating (and debunking) UFO reports. In years past, the late Philip J. Klass did the same thing.
I like Mick West. Saw some of his stuff about UFO reports but I didn’t find them convincing. I find it implausible that the pentagon / NASA haven’t ruled out all of the points he raises. Is there anybody in the rationalist community taking these reports from any other angle than “well OBVIOUSLY it’s not real, because duh”?
I think James Miller is a rationalist. He comments here sometimes.
He did multiple podcast on UFOs:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/future-strategist/id1090750347
Robin Hanson has written a bunch on this. But unfortunately, he doesn't seem to give a bunch of examples of UFO reports that he thinks are very convincing. Reason being, that he was convinced that there was something going on by the sheer amount of credible reports, of which he read a bunch, and doesn't think that citing a few cases is that useful. Note I am not saying he claims there most reports are credible. Only that there are a lot of credible reports out of a sea of trash.
Anyway, I think Robin assigns like a ~0.1% chance of it actually being aliens. He tried coming up with stories of why aliens would come to Earth and behave in such a weird way. It is a bizarre story, but this is a bizarre situation.
Of the top of my head, I think one went like this: another world had life, and through panspermia, it spread to Earth. This part of the story came about by some calculations he did on which direction transferrence of life would go and the likelihood of life being born on any given world via his grabby aliens model.
This world generated intelligent life before us, and this life decided not to spread out into the stars because they don't like being grabby. This went hand in hand with their governments uniting and becoming an inefficient singleton. Things stabilised and this species evolved around their governance/ideology, further stabilising things. Upshot is you get a fairly advanced civlisation that doesn't like being grabby and doesn't want others to be grabby. They notice the Earth has developed life, so they send off some EMs to monitor the world unobtrusively a while back, with tonnes of restrictions placed on them as that's what a highly beuracratic government would need to do to agents far away from them who can't easily query them about what to do. Plus, you know, they don't like interfering with other worlds. Again, this part of the story is due to the grabby aliens model: if they're intelligent, it's unlikely they just became intelligent, and they probably have existed for a long time (maybe millions of years). They haven't colonised the universe, so something needs to give. One way this could occur is through "rot" in institutions and lack of competitive pressures removing them.
So the UFOs keep watch on things, but can't interfere with Earth too much. Seeing some apes evolve into a potentially grabby civ, they have to intervene, but they're still bound by tonnes of rules and their own values. So they decide to make use of our obsession with following highly presitigious people and our recent ecological sustainability trend. So they signal power by remaining forever out of our reach, and the indiffernce/unflappability that comes with being high prestige. This, coupled with their lack of resource extraction and colonisation, makes them seem very "Green". This is a really weird plan, but how else can you explain the reported behaviour of UFOs? So this part of the story is really due to the constraints the UFO reports place on things.
So Robin basically combined his priors (which he derives via a Grabby aliens model) with a likelihood function over data (UFO reports + his understanding of social dynamics) to come up with this story's probability (within an order of magniture of 1/1000). Though he does believe there being some weird conspiracy is more likely.
15 years ago, Robin Hanson put the odds of UFOs being aliens at 1%. He talked about them again recently and seemed to say that recent evidence raised the odds.
But in this post he seemed put the odds at 1/1000. Is that where you get your number? He seems to slip back and forth between prior and posterior.
https://www.overcomingbias.com/2021/06/on-ufo-as-aliens-priors.html
more clearly claims it as posterior:
https://www.overcomingbias.com/2022/06/ufos-as-usa-psychop.html
In the comments on that first post Paul Christiano gets him to name the Nimitz as a good example. I think he named some other incident as a good example in a comment on another recent post. (But he also cited older compilations.)
Not recent:
https://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/are-ufos-aliens.html#disqus_thread
I agree with this:
"No, the main argument against UFOs as aliens is that this is an implausible *social* scenario. People ask: why would aliens travel for light-years merely to squash some corn fields? Why wouldn’t they introduce themselves to those in power? Why haven’t they made more of a visible mark on our planet or solar system?
...
You can’t have it both ways: you can’t say we know too little social science to project our distant future and distant alien astronomical signatures, but we do know enough social science to be confident UFOs are not aliens."
Yeah, sorry, you're right about that. It was prior odds that were around 0.1% minimum, 1% for hoax. The posteriors he doesn't explicitly mention, but does state that the hoax has the highest posterior, as he doesn't mention likelihoods.
Thank you for bothering to do the research.
EDIT: I meant "... posterior. He doesn't mention likelihoods".
Also, I think there are a couple of other problems with this model. One, what could possibly make them stably non-graby (for up to millions of years!) w/o developing some effective theory of alignment or a means to prevent value drift? Two, if they do have alignment techniques, why not send out superintelligences that seek to preserve the universe? If they do that, then I find it implausible that they couldn't easily manipulate us or sabotage us into becoming non grabby. Its possible, but seems to require a fairly complex utility function to make the "act like aloof gods" the best possible plan for a superintelligence.
OK. It's not obviously not true. This doesn't mean that it is true. The evidence I've seen isn't sufficient to convince me, but I don't feel I could prove it is due to any specific cause. And I don't feel I could rule out causes that I consider rather improbable.
I think I have a lower opinion of the Pentagon and NASA than you do. UFO debunking has a history that goes back decades. Philip Klass has documented many cases of highly trained pilots, engineers, etc. who ignored or overlooked mundane explanations for seemingly mysterious sightings. And if we broaden the scope of the discussion to include paranormal claims (ESP, telekinesis, etc.), then there is a rich history of smart people fooling themselves into believing highly implausible things.
I don’t think UAPs should be placed in the same basket as ESP/telekinesis/poltergeist etc. There is no joint Japan/Canada/US data sharing program for ESP, no are the Chinese setting up governmental institutions to track telekinetic phenomena. It’s not just the US government that started to speak publicly about UAPs in the last several years. I consider myself a skeptic and I don’t think we should jump to the “they’re here!” conclusions. But I would love to see Scott or other key rationalist figures (that is not a professional debunker like Mick West) do a deep dig in this topic and hear what they have to say.
Seems like they want to get a jump ahead of the UFOlogy movement by being fair and transparent with their unexplained data. Pretty savvy move, shame it's just sixty years behind the curve. I doubt this will convince anyone who already believes in alien visitation that it isn't happening, but it might highlight some interesting phenomena and--at the extremely optimistic end--may give us insight into some new physics.
What are some possible explanations that aren’t any wackier than aliens?
You might be interested in the first couple sections of this old Scott essay: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/05/the-pyramid-and-the-garden/
Basically, the latitude of the great pyramid of Giza encodes the speed of light. How important is this epistemically?
Perhaps there's no single explanation that accounts for all the events. (That's was I consider the most plausible state.) So some were mirages at some frequency or other. Some might be outright frauds. A few might be instrumental failures. Etc.
If that's the best explanation we have, we might as well just replace all "skeptics" with a rock that has "It's Never Aliens" written on it.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work
Well, if you come up with some real evidence, something other than flashing lights that isn't obviously fake, I'll reconsider. My priors say it's going to take pretty convincing evidence before I'll consider aliens seriously. (Outside of micro-organisms, that is.)
What are some good books (or blogs) to read if I want to learn everything about rhetoric?
Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric is a good read.
Here's a list.
https://sebastiangarren.com/2022/05/09/resources-on-the-content-and-method-of-classical-tutoring/
So there's this anecdotal (maybe formally quantified through studies too?) thing about how for people with ADHD, stimulants sometimes produce the opposite, a calming effect.
I am wondering whether there's a similar thing going on with musical taste, albeit not related to ADHD, which I don't (think?) I have. Obviously quite subjective, but...I just do not have the capacity to listen to "chill beats". They don't calm me down, they...make me angry? Possibly a poorly-differentiated emotion. All I know is, they definitely do not leave me feeling chill...always some variety of upset, sometimes including literal upset-stomach nausea.
The beats which do calm me down are...often ones that other people find too stimulating, such as operatic metal. (Listening to Therion's "Beloved Antichrist" while typing this.) Even classical music, which is traditionally associated with calm and repose, is *aggressively* structured and executed...there's a lot of Effort behind it, no matter the actual tempo. That somehow feels necessary for audiophilia, though not sufficient. Good music makes my heart tremble. As Bruce Lee would say, "We're looking for *emotional content*". Not numb stultification.
I've yet to find anyone else with remotely similar musical (dis)preferences; even those that also like high-energy music can at least conceive of chilling to chill beats. I don't have that "musical empathy", at all. Is this just a weird case of https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/17/what-universal-human-experiences-are-you-missing-without-realizing-it/ ?
Kind of the same here : I frequently find chill music (mellow jazz, this kind of thing) exasperating, to the point of trying to turn it off if I can in public spaces like doctor waiting rooms. May be relatedly, I tend to find meditation irritating and not relaxing...
You might try meditation in movement. Walking, practicing martial arts, that kind of thing. I'm also too jumpy to meditate for more than a few minutes.
Thank you for the tip!
I think there's a theory of emotions where a lot of emotional response comes from a mismatch between your level of arousal and when you feel that level should be.
So if you listen to music that should be calming, but you're absolutely wired, that would feel frustrating and distressing.
If you're wired and listening to music where that's the intent that would feel reassuring.
No idea how robust that is but it's a thought.
Predictive coding strikes again? Interesting angle, the the mismatch of emotional valence expectations and reality. I am not sure I expect to feel wired all the time, although maybe it's a stress response thing. Work is where I'm most often forced to listen to chill beats; work is rarely actually-chill as experienced; therefore dissonant mismatch. I notice that chill beats are also prevalent in other naturally-stressful settings, like doctor's offices or riding in an Uber. Hmm!
I guess it never occurs to me to attempt listening to chill beats when actually already relaxed - why would I, since past expectation is that they're upsetting. But I notice that when I have control over the store radio and am already feeling calm, sometimes I do put on more atmospheric stuff. It just depends what mood's in the air. (Since public music is for everyone, not just me; "reading the room") Even those types of songs I put on though...highly structured, deeply predicable, major emphasis on cyclical melody. Videogame music tends to be like that. Or e.g. Wardruna's "Ragnarok" album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyzGRbbha3E
Search no more!
I don't have this experience as universally as you seem to have it, but I do react more strongly to a song's composition rather than its tonality, if that makes sense.
For example, I find this:
https://youtu.be/RbQtl7NPi7I?t=211
much more "stimulating" than this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdITRmYs95w
The former has this insistent pattering that's really piercing to my mind. The latter, being much faster and supposedly "agressive", actually has a very calm, soothing structure to it. That's the one I'm able to fall asleep to.
Interesting. I agree that the first track is more stimulating. The second track made me flinch at first because of the "metal" sound, but I quickly settled into the rich, calming texture.
This is incredibly reassuring! Thank you for sharing. The world is much different when at least one person confirms you're Not Completely Uniquely Weird.
I literally got out of an excruciating workday today having to listen to hours of Stuff Like The Former. A few second's sampling was enough to make me slam that tab closed in horrified recoil, you don't even know. Had to immediately detox with Kamelot or risk pop OD, it was a Close Call.
Sometimes people tell me they like chill beats because, who wouldn't want to relax and slow down and not-think-not-feel in These Difficult Times (which have spanned for at least 20 years now, funny about that, 90s sure were great)? Maybe that really does help them recharge and put forth a greater effort later...but my instinct is to fight, to get the blood pumping. Getting jazzed isn't mutually exclusive with relaxing - that's what Flow is! Who wouldn't want to be In The Zone *all the time*.
The latter link - I don't actually like my metal like I like my men or coffee, but yes. Much better, one can just relax right in. (I actually think it'd be even better without that *insistent* drum, which seems off-beat cause I can't keep up that fast anyway.) Just because something is fast doesn't make it not highly structured...even Chaos is almost entirely made of Law, and I like Lawful music. I feel like DragonForce hit upon this a long time ago, and that was the closest the concept ever got to mainstream acceptance. (Thanks, Guitar Hero!)
I think I shoulda linked to this in the original comment, had forgotten about it: https://justinehsmith.substack.com/p/songs-for-invertebrates
I didn't know that Russian coffee was a thing, but you do you ;)
All good coffees are good in the same ways, all bad coffees are bad in their own unique ways.
*sips Black coffee mixed with chocolate brotein powder*
Well that's your good deed of the day accomplished. I hadn't heard of electro swing, and now I think I'm a fan...
Is *proportionality* a thing in your legislature, especially with regard to state behaviour vis-a-vis the citizens?
Roughly it means that the state is allowed to restrict or interfere with basic rights, but only to the extend to which it is proportionate to the situation/threat or necessary to protect other important rights.
In Germany it played a big rule lately during Covid, when it resulted in quite a number of concrete Covid measures being cancelled by the courts (and probably even more being approved). To give another example, proportionality is also important in the use of force by the police, when they are allowed to use force, but only to the extend to which it is necessary in a given situation.
For some German source, see here: https://www.juraindividuell.de/pruefungsschemata/der-verhaeltnismaessigkeitsgrundsatz/ . I don't know if *proportionality* is the technically correct translation ('Verhältnismäßigkeit').
It's a huge thing in the relation of German state to citizens. (I'm not a legal expert, so I don't claim to be aware of the technicalities.) Two or three remarks that I read lately made me wonder: is this very common in other legal systems as well?
Thanks for the feedback!
It's also a principle of EU law in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law)
It comes up in the UK when dealing with the ECHR, but otherwise it's not really a feature of common law (Anglo-Saxon) legal systems. Normally, government actions have to be either reasonable (the Wednesbury test in the UK/rational basis in the US), or necessary depending whether constitutional/fundamental/human rights are engaged.
Intermediate scrutiny in US constitutional law is somewhat similar to proportionality in practice though.
Wow. 'A reasoning or decision is Wednesbury unreasonable (or irrational) if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable person acting reasonably could have made it'.
I guess I don't really I understand the of the implications of this difference yet.
That’s only half of Wednesbury - it’s also unreasonable if the decision maker failed to consider something they ought to have considered, or did consider something they ought not to consider. That’s what most JRs hang on in practice.
Thanks
The Constitution mostly talks about specific things the federal government shall or must or should do, as well as specific things the government shall NEVER do. In my opinion, this maens the federal govt. should do as little as possible, with most powers invested in State (as in, the 50 states) government, or local, or not at all.
However, when the government must take action that is for the common good, but will cause harm to some citizen or group or class or citizens, there are legal precedents established. In general, the govt must accomplish it's goal in the least disruptive manner... see here, an SC ruling that COVID restrictions on religious services:
'... must meet "strict scrutiny," which requires that they be "narrowly tailored" to serve a "compelling" state interest. "...'
(https://reason.com/2020/11/26/scotus-blocks-new-yorks-covid-19-restrictions-on-houses-of-worship-saying-they-are-not-narrowly-tailored/)
These phrases are essential in deciding on policies like Affirmative Action, to name just one example.
But in general, the Constitution is a fairly Talmudic document, or at least the Bill of Rights is. Full of "Thou Shalt Not" statements which, I think, mean exactly that.
The current schism in the US seems to be between a Left wing who believe in Total Government (Govt controls: health care, wages/employment, education, public speech, all financial transactions...) and a Right wing that [should want] Minimal Government, preferring to let individuals make their own life and economic choices, less regulation, less control.
"a Right wing that [should want] Minimal Government, preferring to let individuals make their own life and economic choices, less regulation, less control."
I really wish the right wing actually _was_ a proponent of minimal government. They actually tend to apply government control to what people do with their own bodies - to the level of criminalizing particular sexual positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States
'Proportionality requires that any measure that interferes with fundamental rights must pursue a legitimate public purpose and, moreover, be suitable, necessary and proportionate in the narrower sense ("appropriate"). A measure that does not meet these requirements is unlawful.'
and: 'As a principle of the rule of law, the principle of proportionality is binding on all sovereign authority.'
From wikipedia, translated by deepl, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verh%C3%A4ltnism%C3%A4%C3%9Figkeitsprinzip_(Deutschland)
It's the same in Switzerland on the informal political level at least.
Our epidemic law doesn't explicitly say anything about proportionality, but it does say that measures may only last as long as necessary to stop the spread of a transmissible disease, and they have to be evaluated regularly. I don't know how a court would interpret this if push came to shove.
Re bans, I noticed that they are not "publicly" announced in the open threads anymore. Alas, given that often i mute threads, how can i know if I have some fraction of a ban?
I've forgotten to record and announce bans for the past few months, but I just went through the backlog, have banned everyone who needed banning, and will announce it next week.
You don't currently have any warnings.
Surely this is a pretty sub optimal use of your time?
Moderation is an important part of maintaining a healthy discussion forum, and since Scott isn't outsourcing that job to anyone else, I'd say it's a pretty good use of his time.
Community moderation is a good use of *somebody's* time, given the marginal benefits to the participants over an unmoderated space. Unfortunately it's a fairly intensive job to do well, is decidedly unpleasant, and outsourcing it fails to absolve the admin of the responsibility while compromising their vision for the space. It's a Hard Problem.
I agree with most of this. I think it was a particularly onerous problem for Scott when SSC became very popular. Hence it got a bit out of hand, necessitated the reign of terror, and my suspicion is that Scott has both become quite accomplished at moderating/banning, and also finds it less stressful than hitherto. I would also guess that Scott actually spends very little time involved in moderating the blog and therefore the time spent is optimal.
Have you noticed that there aren't any longer those endless arguments about who should be banned, and for how long? The people banned just disappear and the rest of us enjoy a more salubrious commenting environment while being blissfully unaware of how Scott achieves it.
So, with the acknowledgement that moderation is both necessary and thankless, and that Scott has overall done an admirable job... I do actually have a fairly lengthy list of criticisms. (Particularly of the old SSC, less so ACX.) I acknowledge that some level of critique *will* exist despite how much effort Scott puts into moderation and that can make responding to those concerns look ultimately pointless... and yet I maintain *my* criticisms as valid. Such is the Hard Problem.
The Reign of Terror was a pretty standard deterrence strategy, which aims to maintain an expected-value level of punishment by inflicting high costs infrequently to a semi-random set of offenders. These tend to be popular in online spaces and less sympathetic criminal justice systems†, because it optimizes for maximal impact of limited judicial resources - that's especially true since a permaban is actually less resource intensive then a temp ban. Unfortunately, the best metrics for shaping positive behavior are speed and certainty of punishment, and a Reign of Terror gets pretty dismal marks on both. But doing better requires a significant, *sustained* investment of moderator attention, and if Scott's doing that then it's going to directly trade off against writing.
IMO, the endless arguments have gone down mostly because the worst actors were selected out of the no-politics threads, then largely diverted to the hidden open threads and then DSL in turn. I'm maybe 70% serious about that - their Meta board is a perpetual trash fire. The best lesson to take from that might only be that containment boards work, but there was already plenty of evidence for that.
†Deterrence is inefficient in real criminal justice systems when recidivism and other factors are properly accounted for. I leave as an exercise for the reader demonstrating that it still is efficient for *the decision makers* and the resources they personally need to expend. Principal-agent problem strikes again!
Edits: footnotes take more work now, but it's a good excuse to break out the unicode dagger!
> †Deterrence is inefficient in real criminal justice systems when recidivism and other factors are properly accounted for.
What would you propose we do instead?
I think Scott banning everyone who needs it is extremely optimal use of his time.
Spend a moment or two imagining just how much worse this comment section would be if all the banned commenters were magically able to re-appear.
Indeed, that's exactly what happened during the move from SSC to ACX, and I think it's a big part of why the ACX forums seem to have a somewhat more confrontational atmosphere than the old SSC forums. Though thankfully most of the worst offenders (e.g. MarxBro) have been re-banned by now.
Many thanks!
Maybe my reflection on being a small fish investor would be interesting for someone?
https://eightyfour.substack.com/p/want-to-invest-in-stocks
If you're near Seattle, there's going to be a summer ACX/LW meetup on Wednesday, Aug 3rd:
https://www.lesswrong.com/events/zPw5WLaJ9f4QEfpyR/lw-acx-seattle-summer-meetup
https://www.facebook.com/events/749612359504536/
How can I find guidance to help me study myself as a data point of one, to figure out what is a healthy diet for me, in order to be as healthy as possible? I am confused about what goals to set. High fat or low fat? Is saturated fat to be avoided?
Ofcourse, being disciplined about the goals is a different thing. I just want to atleast figure out the optimal goals to set, for how to eat.
Are there smart data-driven medical professionals who do this?
Thanks!
Andrew Huberman recommends inside tracker
I found talking to a professional nutritionist very helpful when I was trying to understand and resolve a surprising and drastic weight loss I went through earlier this year. If you have a PCP you see then they may be able to refer you to such a resource.
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” -- Michael Pollan
Just for the record: I took down the post I put up a few hours ago asking for suggestions about great countries my adventuresome daughter might move to. I found it startlingly unpleasant when a few people jumped on the very small political aspect of things and started sniding and snarking about her supposed leftiness. If you'd been talking about me, I'd have just argued, but something about knowing those comments concerned my daughter really got to me.
I did get some good suggestions before I pulled the plug though. New Zealand sounds good to me.
Oh, and Kerani, Melvin and pie_flavor? I think you are boors.
>think covid was and still is being bungled
Curious - does this apply to BLM rioters who were tearing down statues in the middle of pandemic instead of social distancing, and the medical "professionals" who said it was good they were doing this? Or just trump not enforcing strong enough lockdowns (that again, BLM supporters would have totally ignored)?
No, has nothing to do with any of that shit. Even if BLM rioters upped our covid total a bit, the effect would be tiny in the big, 30-month picture. I'm going by the big picture numbers: number of covid deaths per million. Our country is rich, and yet we rank lower than more than 100 other countries (our of 155 counted) in deaths per million.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
If that's not evidence of bungling, I don't know what would be.
Ex-Kiwi here. NZ has such a low population that there are not many niche jobs or groups. It's kind of like a rural state of America in many economic ways. The media often portrays it unrealistically, but google "New Zealand Today - Karen wants her $20 back" for a laugh and bit of realism.
Under 30s from most developed countries can apply for a 12 month working holiday visa in NZ.
I think the level of adventurousness depends on whether you're in Auckland's sprawl or Queenstown or the West Coast.
New Zealand is about as adventurous as living in Switzerland. It is a beautiful country where everyone follows orders, cuts you down if you are even slightly different from the norm, you get parking tickets for inconvenient parking and the rental agency comes and checks if your oven is spotless every six months. It is also very expensive and many are deeply racist regardless of what they put in their shopwindow. If this is your idea of adventure go for it, nature is gorgeous and the country is clean, safe and accessible for everyone for free. It also rains every day.
>cuts you down if you are even slightly different from the norm
This kind of social regulation is the only thing standing in the way of unviersal world cultures
Can you elaborate? Serious question. I am not sure if you are pro or contra this social regulation. I was trying to portray my two years of living in NZ realistically..they really abhor excellence, wealth, outstanding talent etc. .lived around the world but never been in a country less tolerant of difference, not to talk about eccentricity.
I wouldn't say we are deeply racist compared to world or even western standards https://www.indexmundi.com/surveys/results/8. The rest sounds about right, but seems normal to me, as a Kiwi.
This is strictly anecdotal but I happened to have lived in South Africa (no 1 on the list) as well as in New Zealand. I had a Maori boyfriend in NZ and two black African boyfriends in SA. The shock amongst my acquaintances was much more palpable in NZ than in SA. This is probably due to a majority vs minority situation and many other factors but I have found the white Kiwis hypocritical.....all for equality in public fori yet comments that would shock most Americans accepted at private parties. This was 15 years ago and might have changed and at any rate I am grateful for my time in New Zealand and in no way am trying to put the country down.
To be fair, I've heard from a kiwi that the sandflies are an adventure all by themselves. I believe his comment was something like "you know how in Australia everything is trying to kill you? New Zealand is just like that except the animals are smaller and have a better PR firm."
I can't see the original post, but it looks like you were asking for a country with a good tech scene and outdoor recreation options: if so, can I recommend Scotland?
It's an open thread, you can talk about politics if you want or you can not talk about politics if you want, but I don't think you can post obvious flamebait like
> They hated Trump, think covid was and still is being bungled, & are appalled that abortion rights are being nixed. Does that make them left-leaning, or just people with common sense?
and then complain when people engage with it.
edit: Oh, and I should also point out that it's not the fact that your daughter has left-of-centre beliefs that anyone was bothered by, so much as the fact that you were portraying them as a somehow neutral and apolitical. (Have you read Scott's "Neutral vs Conservative, The Eternal Struggle" by the way?)
Thank you
Thanks for posting this. It was hard to tell what OP was talking about without this context.
With that kind of opinion set, is there any need to ask?
Thank you for reminding me to check the reports repository and hand out bans and warnings where appropriate.
Bless your heart.
And may God watch over your daughter, in whatever country she decides to guest in. May she be a well mannered, self reliant traveler among tolerant hosts.
I applied
Hi Peter. Thank you for submitting an application for Clearer Thinking Regrants.
Visit the Clearer Thinking website here to learn more about our research, programs, and tools, which are designed to help you change your habits, make better decisions, and achieve your goals.
Here are the responses you gave in the application:
A brief name you can use to refer to my project is Global Warming Directory
My project aims to improve the world or the future by Collecting information about global warming in a structured and accessible way.
The group or population that will benefit from this project is The population of the Earth.
This project is important because it will lead to Better understanding of what we can do to reverse global warming.
The mechanism by which I expect my project will achieve these positive outcomes is as follows:
I have created a directory titled "How to Stop Global Warming (100 Ways to Cool Your Mother)". I have done this working by myself while living on Social Security. A larger organization could build on what I have done. Link: Rodes.pub/GlobalWarming.
In the future, a strong indicator I'll be able to look to in order to see if my project is succeeding is... The directory grows and becomes well publicized.
I am (or my team and I are) well-suited to implement this project because I have already done it.
If this project gets funded but DOESN'T achieve its desired outcomes, the MOST LIKELY reason that this would happen would be No one was interested.
If I suddenly had an extra $10,000 for my project, I (or we) would be most likely to spend it on Half for medical needs for me, and half for publicity for the directory..
This project is a single person project that is not a charity or company
So far, this project has begun to be implemented but has not yet gotten any funding
I just wanted to share this post that expands upon Scott's "moral costs of chicken vs beef" post by drawing upon the latest economic modelling (by Kevin Kuruc) of the "social cost" of animal suffering:
https://rychappell.substack.com/p/meat-externalities
"While the animal welfare costs of the Standard American Diet are on the order of $100,000 per year, the climate costs are a mere $47. Combining these with Scott Alexander’s estimates of offsetting efficacy yields some interesting results..."
Do you place any value on existing versus never existing? Quoting.
"We find that the welfare costs of global animal agriculture are very large in the case that animals do not have net-pleasurable existences:"
If we don't eat them, these animals will never be born... so how do you put a value on being?
Positive-welfare existence has positive value. Negative-welfare existence ("better never to have been") has negative value.
OK we are going to disagree I think. 'better never to have been' is not something I can agree with... I think it is almost always better to have been. And who asked the cows?
"almost always", sure, but factory farms seem a pretty exceptional circumstance (compared to the ordinary range of lives that intuitively spring to mind, and I agree are typically positive).
I would respectfully suggest that it's not correct to frame the argument in terms of welfare or suffering. Animals are sentient beings with an interest in not being exploited. Just as you wouldn't justify human slavery by treating the slaves well, you can't justify the exploitation of animals by promoting welfare standards (and, in practice, "humane" exploitation is basically a myth and a marketing scam designed to make consumers feel better about buying animal products). Philosopher/lawyer Gary Francione makes this point more eloquently in much of his writing.
I don’t think animals “interest in not being exploited” is morally relevant. Ethics are needed to prompt collective action, coordination and lack of conflict between rational-ish agents.
That isn’t a cow. A cow is a tool.
In this case, the "collective action" is to go vegan (at least, "collective" on the part of humans). If a system requires all agents to be rational-ish, then infants and severely disabled adults would be excluded. And I don't think we want that to happen. (We'd also have to exclude dogs and cats, though it's possible that some people view them as tools, in the same category as farm animals.)
But less suffering is better than more suffering, even if none of it is "justified" in an absolute sense. I think this post is maybe just addressing a different question from what you're interested in.
What humans forget about livestock, especially cattle, is cattle are not humans. Cattle are social animals that prefer to live in social situations and enjoy protection from predators. I spent 2 winters in Alaska, and discovered wild moose seek proximity to humans because they hope our presence will deter wolves.
Whilst working as a feedlot cowboy in the 90s, I observed cattle do like to roam outside their pens, but come racing back as soon as the feed truck drives up. We do our best to provide them with a happy life. If they weren't happy and healthy, they wouldn't thrive and grow.
Yes, they have one bad day, but don't we all.
In case readers are wondering how they got this result, it looks like it involves using normal human welfare functions (which work because humans are willing to trade their happiness off against money in various ways), then assuming that animals have the same value as humans.
I think most people would agree that if animals have the same moral value as humans, you definitely shouldn't eat meat. I'm not sure this paper says too much more than this, although it's nice to get confirmation that the climate costs are relatively small.
>if animals have the same moral value as humans
If I understand it correctly, their results are robust to discounting animal welfare (θ) by 2 - 3 orders of magnitude.
So, yeah, what I found most interesting about the paper was how much more significant the welfare costs are in comparison to the climate costs, given (it seems) almost any reasonable assignment of values in the model.
Starts with the repeated use of the inaccurate, inflammatory snarl word "factory farm" and goes on to make the assumption that the net welfare of any commercially raised animal is negative.
Also confuses 'cost' 'price' and 'value'.
This is an activist post, not an empirical one.
Could you expand a little bit more about your issue with the word 'factory farm'? When I looked into the issue the statistics are fairly clear that the majority of meat-animals are raised in a minority of institutions. That is, there is a long tail of farms raising a small herd of cows or a flock of sheep, but meat you buy from the supermarket almost certainly came from a superfarm, just as a statement about mathematics. Further, everything I read about these superfarms convinced me that they - like every other profit-making organisation on the planet - was constantly looking to cut costs and increase productivity, often at the expense of the way someone like me who cares a lot about animal welfare would prefer the animals to be treated.
Those two facts are enough for me to be happy using the term 'factory farm' for basically all farms above a certain (vague) size. What is the missing context that allows you to differentiate further between super-farms?
So, only the activists who hate modern agriculture and/or are organic/niche agriculturalists use "factory farm". It's meant as as a shouting down insult, it's not meant to persuade, and it fails to acknowledge that there are really important upsides to centralized production.
Secondly, if you have been on a variety of farms, of different sizes, philosophies, markets, etc, you know that the size, philosophy, market etc has very little determination power over animal welfare. People like yourself who use the term in an nonspecific manner for "any farm I think is too big" contribute to the perception that size alone yields bad welfare.
Thirdly, the concept of welfare is extremely poorly defined among activists - most often, a single metric is chosen and emphasized, rather than a whole animal/whole herd approach. For example - the easiest one to identify is death loss. Activists do not talk about comparative death loss among different production methods. This is because modern confined feeding operations emphasize extremely low loss rates as a percent of total population. Dead chickens can not be sold for money, nor are they experiencing good welfare. Alternative operations - organic, pastured, NAE (a particularly horrible practice) - charge much higher prices for their products because they lose more animals to death and disease than do the conventional commercial operations.
In short, I differentiate between different farms based on a variety of things, including welfare, economy of production, local community support, integrity in business dealings, and a couple of other minor things. Size is not one of them.
I think you're absolutely right to ding me that the line I'd draw between a factory and non-factory farm is vague, but I think equally you're wrong to talk about "a variety of farms, of different sizes, philosophies, markets, etc" - the majority of meat purchased by the majority of consumers comes from farms of exactly one size (massive) and with exactly one farming philosophy (maximise revenue, at the expense of animal welfare if necessary).
That is, I think what we might have is a difference of how we group up the individual units of the meat production industry. It seem to me (and apologies for putting words in your mouth) you view the individual unit of the meat production industry as the farm, and you would argue that some are bad but the majority are good (or at least, serve their individual market and philosophy in a way which makes ethical sense).
I think the individual unit of the meat production industry is the meat itself, or rather the animal which then becomes the meat. Consequently this greatly distorts how we should be talking about the meat production industry. To a first approximation, every single chicken eaten in the United States comes from a farm with over 300,000 chickens sold each year (for context, if you walked onto a random chicken farm which supplies meat to the United States you'd probably see fewer than 2000 chickens). I'd be happy to talk about whether you can treat 2000 chickens humanely, I don't think it is possible to see 300,000 chickens as anything other than a unit of production and consequently I think it is fair to say that these chickens are 'factory farmed'.
Chickens are uniquely badly treated by the American meat industry, but do you disagree that describing a 300,000 chicken-per-year farm as a 'factory' for chickens is unreasonable?
I have been on farms of various sizes, serving different markets, and working under different management philosophies. I see great variations between them in how healthy and productive their animals are. I think that the lumping together that you promote is...inaccurate, at best. And no, so long as you mean only bad things by the use of the term, I don't agree with using 'factory'.
I think that limiting this to chickens is probably a good start for this discussion. Probably we should stick with broilers, too.
Chickens are not managed on a per bird basis by anyone who depends on their meat production for the food to feed their kids or for the money to send their kids to college. Management of any food animal is on a spectrum of sorts, heavily weighted towards the herd level, but no one manages food animals like they do draft animals or pets. To attempt to assess, record, and modify the diet and environment for each individual cow on a dairy would be impossibly labor intensive, let alone for an animal of so much less value as a chicken. People who advocate such are not serious producers of food for other people to eat.
Furthermore, *chickens are flock animals and respecting their chickenness means seeing them as such.* So, the most appropriate unit for considering the handling of chickens is the flock (aka a house or barn).
(Quick side note: Relatively early layer production breeding put individual hens in divided coops because of the ease of accurate measurement of egg production. Unfortunately, the best layers in these situations were psychotic bitches that tore strips off each other when group housed. The Breeders had to go back and do trials with groups of chickens to see which layed the most per group to return to good community behavior genetics.)
Chickens are not individually housed. They are not individually treated. They are not individually feed. They are managed as a group. They are protected from the elements and predators as a group.
If you insist on the management of broilers as individuals, rather than understanding that it is not possible nor natural to manage them so, I don't know what to tell you.
As for the size and productivity of different farms - it very much depends on management. (Also, you are mixing your rates and prevalence - you are aware that farms have multiple houses, and that the flocks change over multitude times in the year, yes?)
To me, the total number of animals on the farm are unimportant. What matters is if the animals are healthy - growing well, protected from disease and injury, not dying - and if a farm has 100 chickens they raise a year and lose ten, that's a worse farm than one that raises 30,000 and looses 1000.
If your "factories" have a 3% loss rate (which they do) and your organic niche producers have a 10% loss rate (which they do) I don't know why you think it's the 'factory' that's horrible.
Sorry I might have given the wrong impression above - even though I'm about the most animal-rightsy person I know, even I don't expect professional farmers to know and love all of their chickens individually and lullaby them to sleep at night or anything like that. There's a balance between the rights of the animal and the economic reality of farming which comfortably encompasses treating chickens on the flock level.
However, I think you're being slightly disingenuous taking the step from 'We should treat chickens on a flock level' (which I agree is fine) and then claiming that a house or a barn is basically doing this. A flock of wild chickens might be around 5-6 birds. It seems that if you keep chickens as pets or ultra-low intensity egg rearing then their absolutely preferred flock size is 25-30 birds, just based on personal experience. A modern broiler barn might have 25,000 - 50,000 birds in it at one time (as you say, multiple such barns might exist on one farm - so maybe 25,000-50,000 is the more relevant figure than 300,000). Either way; when we talk about intensively rearing chickens for meat we're not talking about 'flock' management on any level that maintains the ordinary meaning of the word.
It seems perhaps another basic disagreement we have is over the loss rate and what that represents. To me, chickens dying in the production of meat isn't a hugely big deal (after all, 100% of the chickens will eventually die as a result of the farming process). I'd rather focus on the quality of their lives before this happens, and especially whether their lives are net positive or negative (that is, would they counterfactually have preferred not to have been born). I think you are basically saying the same thing (?) but using loss rate as a proxy for conditions which are severe enough to produce negative quality of life (disease etc). I agree that this is a lot harder to measure, but I think it is something we owe the animals we farm. I also think it is not really a standard that modern intensive agriculture reaches - broiler chickens appear highly distressed compared to wild or pet chickens, in my experience. Is your experience different? Slightly leading question, but do large barns of chickens usually appear contented and relaxed to you? That would be very different from my experience, so I'd be quite interested in unpicking it if so (or maybe we just interpret chicken behaviour differently, which would also be interesting)
Also to be clear - NAE is functionally abuse as far as I'm concerned; animal rights is my bag, not virtue signalling to middle class consumers who have no idea about the realities of meat production. So on that point I think we're totally aligned.
I had to Google 'NAE', which apparently stands for "No Antibiotics Ever" – posting here in case others are curious.
Sorry, should have clarified that. Thanks!
The animal welfare costs are near zero. Because I don’t generally care about animal’s welfare, especially ones used for food.
> The animal welfare costs are near zero. Because I don’t generally care about animal’s welfare, especially ones used for food.
I am assuming that you wanted to note your disagreement with the assumption in the link that the conversion factor between welfare of Americans (the vast majority of which are persons in the Singerian sense) and non-human animals (the vast majority of which are probably not persons) should be one. This would be a fair and not very controversial point.
Unfortunately, you instead asserted that conversion factor to be zero instead and phrased it as a fact, rather than stating it as an opinion. You also did not provide any reasons for your beliefs. Stating a controversial opinion as a fact is generally not conductive to high quality discussion, the technical term is flame bait.
Almost anywhere on the internet, such a comment would attract further low quality replies comparing your value judgement to historic value judgements about groups of human beings or asking you if you were ok with human suffering due to cannibalism as the victims would qualify as being used for food.
Instead, this being ACX, the reply you got by Vitor charitably assumed that you care about the welfare of your own species and gave an argument why animal welfare should then at least be an instrumental value to you.
Your reply did not engage with the argument at all but instead consisted of a false dichotomy between not caring about animal welfare and killing all animals. To which Vitor replied again in a calm and reasoned manner, something which I would describe as "feeding the troll".
I don't think I was troll feeding, it certainly seems to be a sincerely held position. I interpreted that one-liner as a handwavy reductio ad absurdum of the EA / straw-rationalist / linear-utilitarian perspective.
I think it's a flaw in communication to not spell out your position explicitly, but even so, my choice of replying or not hinges on whether my reply is good/useful/fun, and whether it can propel the conversation forward. Sometimes, bad interlocutors become good ones. Sometimes, it's a good opportunity to practice keeping a cool head and becoming more articulate myself, even if it doesn't lead anywhere. Sometimes, it's just counter-trolling for fun.
I am responding to the statements (and the first post is definitely a statement), with the exact same level of thought and nuance they are made.
“Animal suffering is worth x $ (assuming you value it on par with human suffering and your estimations of suffering are accurate).
My comment is pointing out the problem with this assertion, it is just an assertion the same as mine was.
As for the second exchange, it seemed clear it was very important to them to minimize animal suffering. Surely the best way to do that is to kill all animals!
It’s not trolling, it is pointing out the incredibly large holes in your argument. More words doesn’t make an argument stronger.
Right, but please keep in mind that me pushing back against your position here does not imply that I agree (or have even read) the article that sparked the discussion.
This seems fine if it's just a statement about your private utility function. But even if you don't care about animals, a lot of your fellow humans do, and a world with massive animal suffering is a much worse place for many of us than the alternative.
While I appreciate what you are trying to do here, I do not find that line of argument very convincing.
My counterpoints would be:
* Human beings do not have an ethical grasp of large numbers. The amount of horror we have on learning that a million animals are suffering in some way is not very different from the amount of horror we would have for ten millions. So this would mostly motivate to limit the intensity of animal suffering instead of the number of animals affected.
* One obvious way to decrease human suffering caused by animal suffering is probably to crack down on people trying to make others aware of animal suffering. Banning "Earthlings" and making it illegal to distribute videos taken in conventional farms would likely decrease the amount of human suffering due to meat production. Of course, values like freedom of speech and truth might prohibit such a strategy.
* Your argument can be generalized against anything which annoys a significant part of the population: "X should be illegal/restricted in the society of Y because it causes distress among Z" would probably work for these tuples:
** (Atheism, medieval Europe, Christians)
** (Gay sex, 1800 Boston, Puritans)
** (Abortions, contemporary US, Evangelicals)
** (Blasphemy, Saudi Arabia, Muslims)
** (Prison reform, Magical Britain, Askaban-loving voters)
** (Intelligence heritability research, US, woke people)
While there is a trade-off in most of these cases, I do not find myself much moved by any of these arguments compared to object level considerations.
* On a meta level, this seems generally bad because it incentivises people to make people feel bad about their pet issue instead of having rational arguments about ethical issues.
--
I agree with your point about epistemic humility in your reply, though.
Right, I think it was a bit sloppy to try to make it about the *happiness* of bystanders. I guess what I'm really trying to get at is the distress that people feel over living in an unjust society. That's a real harm which is not just about momentary happiness, but also about our ability to do things collectively at all.
Yes, this could apply in different forms to some of your examples, e.g., (Gay sex, 1800 Boston, Puritans), but I guess then it comes down to the object level, where it's not reasonable to be distressed over others' private sex life, but reasonable to be distressed over others' needless suffering.
Other than ah-hoc, how do you derive "reasonable" in your two examples? Why are other people's sex lives purely a matter of their own choice, but their needless suffering is not?
Here are a couple of situations that run afoul of your dichotomy.
People into BDSM as a sexual choice? That seems an obvious problem with your two examples, as they are now directly in contention.
Sexually transmitted diseases, given that they exist, can create needless suffering based on private sex choices. Should we avoid telling people about condoms, or should we tell them to adjust their private choices? (Also, reducing the number of active sexual partners, getting checked regularly, avoiding particularly dangerous transmission vectors, all fall in the dual category of "private sex life" and "needless suffering").
Also, harm from abusive sexual partners - clearly related to both private sex life and needless suffering.
I could go on, but without any religious or separate moral considerations, there are a lot of situations that don't seem at all clear cut in what you are calling "object level" and defining in clearer terms than seems prudent.
Your examples aren't nearly as clear-cut as you think. BDSM (done right) doesn't cause suffering. Diseases are subject to the same tricky balancing act between private rights and public interest, whether or not they're sexually transmitted. Telling people about condoms interferes in their sex life only very marginally. Abusive sexual partners: do you think the solution to stopping abusive relationships is to pass laws prohibiting certain kinds of sex?
More on the meta level, I'm not really interested in defending this particular example at this point. It's completely orthogonal to the argument I was making. Also, I'm not saying that the existence of suffering makes any action interfering in others' freedom and choices morally permissible. But as a rule of thumb, it's a *necessary* condition for that.
So you are going to kill all the animals?
No, I'm not convinced by the whole wild animal suffering thing. I have more thoughts on this, but to a first approximation, difficulty and even pain are orthogonal to suffering. It certainly has been that way in my own life.
I'm much more confident in saying that most animals raised for meat lead lives of suffering. You're putting them in conditions their mind isn't adapted to handle.
But anyway, my original point was that if you subscribe (even approximately) to some sort of utilitarianism, and additionally you have some epistemic humility, then the fact that people around you *are* concerned with animal suffering should give you pause.
>>> most animals raised for meat lead lives of suffering.
Why do you think that, and what would change your mind?
Short answer: loads of bayesian evidence.
I've interacted closely with dozens if not hundreds of animals (most of them cats). While qualia is a tricky philosophical thing, it seems very reasonable to start our priors at animals having a consciousness not too unlike ours, both due to evolutionary proximity (mammals almost by definition have wetware close to ours, which is known to be capable of generating consciousness), and due to observing their behavior. Basically all mammals seek pleasure and avoid pain, they exhibit goal-driven behavior, form memories, learn skills, interact socially with each other, from which it is not a big leap to conclude they have theory of mind.
Additionally, the stakes aren't symmetrical. Perpetuating hell on earth for billions of conscious beings is way, way worse than needlessly giving up meat eating.
It'll take quite a lot to overcome this prior. In my opinion, the "meat automaton" theory of animal suffering proves too much. If we can safely disregard the screams and pleas of an animal that is clearly acting like a conscious being in pain, what stops us from making the exact same argument w.r.t. human slaves? That they're able to express their suffering in words doesn't mean it isn't all mimicry after all.
Sorry for jumping ahead and knocking down a strawman you haven't set up, but I think it helps to clarify my position.
What if chickens were specifically bred to enjoy captivity? Would that change your thinking, to making large farms actually ideal for those chickens?
It would certainly change my thinking. But please, prove to me they enjoy that life to the same epistemic standard that you (the rethorical you) holds me to when I claim that animals in captivity suffer.
But I think there are other hurdles to overcome. Some things just don't feel right, even if they're arguably not causing suffering (e.g. secretly handing over a braindead orphan girl to pedophiles for their enjoyment).
What if you found that cows and chickens are generally much happier than free ones?
Certainly a human in a cage with an opium drip button might be wildly happier than a “natural living human”. Certainly right now there are issues in society with people preferring fairly limited existence because it is more pleasant.
I am not at all convinced a “cow” suffers less than a wildebeest.
I only briefly skimmed the paper but it seems very much "garbage in, garbage out".
How do you put a dollar value on the (assumed) suffering of an animal? According to this paper, you seem to do it by making up a bunch of different numbers, and then picking one in the middle.
What's interesting about it is the robustness of the result to a wide range of reasonable-seeming input values. Or, as I wrote in my post, "While this particular number is highly sensitive to the baseline parameters of the model, the broader conclusion that animal welfare costs completely swamp the climate costs of eating meat turns out to be almost unavoidable once you grant that factory-farmed animal lives are net-negative."
Obviously not everyone grants anything about large farm animal's lives. Compared to a baseline of a short and terrified life constantly in fear of predators and starvation, maybe large scale farms are in fact net-positive for chickens. Given that, which I think is true, the only relevant alternatives are to kill all chickens or assume one or both realities are somewhat net positive. The idyllic scenario of chickens as pets really doesn't work for the vast majority of chickens, and could never sustain the human population.
The only interesting point of the paper is that climate costs are rated so low.
"the only relevant alternatives are to kill all chickens or assume one or both realities are somewhat net positive"
Wait a minute. Earlier in the discussion, you yourself raised a third alternative:
"What if chickens were specifically bred to enjoy captivity?"
(And a fourth alternative, if it could be made cheap enough, would be wirehead chickens...)
I meant in retrospectively examining the current situation. There could be more alternatives devised, but that's not where the conversation is turning at the moment.
Fair enough. Many Thanks!
"Obviously not everyone grants anything"
Equally obviously, not everyone needs to grant anything in order for a point to be interesting to the target audience of those who share the basic assumptions underlying the work.
And yes, one practical upshot of the paper is that it would be better (given the limited range of feasible alternatives) for far fewer chickens to exist. I don't know why you treat this as a reductio. It seems obvious to me that we should (a priori) regard this verdict as among the open possibilities. If you deny this, then you seem beyond the space of reasons to me, and there would be no point in conversing further.
There may not be a space for speaking further, as I think we're pretty far apart.
I would consider the outright slaughter of over 25 billion chickens to be a problem on both my scale (huge economic waste to no benefit) and on your scale, though I suppose you would look at their lives as neg negative and therefore even killing them results in at least less suffering.
My main reason for responding was for third party readers, to consider that the underlying assumptions are not necessarily true or even relevant, and if they are not in place, the outcome would be significantly different.
Perhaps because you think the meat can be produced without much animal suffering? At an extreme case, maybe you eat only wild animal meat that has been hunted in some basically humane way--shot once and dropped or quickly put out of its misery. That's a better death than most wild animals get, or for that matter than most people get, so it's hard to see how it's especially bad from an animal suffering perspective.
My not-that-informed impression is that cattle generally have a pretty decent life, whereas chickens usually have a pretty horrific life. So maybe eat beef but not chicken?
Re chickens: There are wild (feral) chickens in Hawaii.
More fundamentally, if your concern is *suffering*, then we can manage to have meat that does not require much if any suffering on the part of the food animals. This isn't about a need for consent to kill something or a right to go on living--something I don't really think animals have. (To be honest, humans don't either, as you can work out by observing any really bad disaster or walking through a cancer ward, but we make societal rules to ensure that humans have some rights, and we don't make those same rules for animals.)
Not seeking to "justify" meat-eating here. (I agree veganism is clearly better.) Just noting the value of the conditional claim that *if* one is going to eat meat, it's much, much better to eat beef than chicken.
Just jumping in here to say that there is no rational, moral distinction between eating meat on the one hand vs. consuming other animal products (e.g., eggs and dairy) on the other hand. The consumption of any animal products involves exploitation, suffering, and death. To quote animal rights lawyer/philosopher Gary Francione: "There is no coherent distinction between flesh and other animal products. They are all the same and we cannot justify consuming any of them. To say that you do not eat flesh but that you eat dairy or eggs or whatever, or that you don’t wear fur but you wear leather or wool, is like saying that you eat the meat from spotted cows but not from brown cows; it makes no sense whatsoever." (I've been vegan for over 15 years). https://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-paradigm-shift-requires-clarity-about-the-moral-baseline-veganism/
I went meat-free for nearly two years, and it absolutely tanked my mental (and to a lesser extent, physical) health. I started feeling better immediately upon reintroducing meat into my diet. So for me it's a clear choice: eat meat, or be unable to achieve anything because I'm depressed all the time and frequently suicidal. It's possible that with the right combination of supplements or whatever I could handle a meat-free diet and not be depressed all the time, but I do not want to risk going back to that state. I interpret suggestions I should give up meat again as exhortations to suicide, because that's what would happen if I went vegetarian for long enough.
I've known vegetarians that went back to eating meat because of how much they craved the meat. It felt unnatural to not eat meat.
Given that humans seem to (often, maybe not universally) crave meat - being omnivores - would it not make much more sense to expect humans to eat meat and therefore animal welfare becomes more of a humane/not unnecessarily harmful strategy? I'm not directly asking you, but your post seemed like a good place to draw out the point.
It seems that the alternative is to consider all non-human animals that eat meat to be unethical as well, and somehow try to force nature to stop eating meat. Most likely that would require the extermination of all carnivores and maybe some omnivores that can't stop eating meat. Even if it were possible that would, in turn, probably destroy every ecosystem on the planet as typical prey animals overpopulate. I can certainly see why people don't actually advocate for this approach, but I can't see how it's not the logical conclusion.
Interesting.... Something very similar happened to me when I tried the Atkins Diet (plenty of protein and fat and fresh veg, but almost no carbs). I certainly lost weight, but became mentally unwell after about two weeks of it. It wasn't till I reverted to my typical diet that I went back to normal.
I wonder if the problem isn't so much the diet but the *change* in diet that causes the trouble.
As a counterpoint, I was on a weight loss drug which went great during the first 4 months or so, then started affecting me mentally so I had to discontinue the treatment.
I think it has to do with the fact that my body at first "went along" with the plan of burning fat in lieu of consuming more calories, but at some point this noticeably stalled out, leaving me low-energy, irritable, and scatterbrained instead.
In the interest of starting a big political fight for some reason, what do people think of the so called "independent state legislature" theory, which is going to come up in the Supreme Court case Moore v Harper next term?
The two relevant parts of the Constitution:
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators."
and
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."
The argument is that this means that other organs of a state government, e.g. governor, courts, etc, can't override the legislature in setting rules for federal elections. This comes up in a couple contexts:
- the rules around mail-in ballots, etc, which were often set/changed by governors or courts in the 2020 election and not state legislatures
- redistricting/gerrymandering, who in a state gets to decide
- picking of presidential electors, who gets to decide (and when)
Argument in favor is that the constitution says the state legislature gets to decide, not the state government overall or governor or whatever; the grant of power is to the legislature itself. Argument against is that state legislatures are creatures of state constitutions and so they have no ability to operate outside of the bounds of the relevant state constitution.
Personally I'm against it, my reasons:
- insofar as anyone cares about this sort of thing, precedent goes against it. Arizona sate legislature vs Arizona independent districting commission from 2015 upheld Arizona having an independent redistricting commission; and a case from 1916, Davis v Hildebrant which allowed a referendum in Ohio to veto the legislature's districting plan. The recent case was 5-4 and conservatives have gained more seats since then. But also, Roberts's dissent in 2015 drew a distinction between the old 1916 case (where a referendum merely vetoed the legislature) and the 2015 case (where the legislature was entirely taken out of it).
- If you start granting power to a legislature independently of the state constitution, it can lead in all sorts of weird directions. Like what if the state constitution has a supermajority requirement to pass any law (like the filibuster but more formalized)? Does that not apply to a vote on redistricting? What's the difference for this purpose between a constitutional provision saying "no gerrymandering" and one saying "supermajority requirement"? They're both constitutional restrictions on what the legislature can do.
- People talk about the federal government having enumerated powers - well those enumerated powers are specifically granted *to Congress*. Similarly everyone agrees the President can't take actions that violate the first amendment, but the first amendment says that "*Congress* shall make no law..." It just reflects an idea that government power derives from the legislature, and they aren't distinguishing between giving the power to the legislature and giving it to the state government generally (I'm not sure I agree with this idea, seems like a good question for a historian).
- often it's hard to disentangle the legislature's actions from the state government's actions more broadly. What if a state law says that the courts or governor can take actions that change what the state law says? Similarly, there are always going to be details of implementation left to other branches. Is a federal election in California invalid because the legislature didn't specifically list every church, high school gym, and sports arena in the state that has voting booths?
Couple other notes:
- For the two constitutional provisions I quoted, note the one on house elections, but not presidential elections, gives the federal government power to override state government rules.
- For liberals the big worry is presidential elections. A few big swing states, though evenly split population-wise, have Republican dominated/gerrymandered state legislatures. That said, even though it's considered a conservative idea, ending the doctrine could help liberals in some ways. More blue states than red have independent redistricting commissions, if the doctrine is put in place there will probably be more blue state gerrymandering.
- It does seem kind of smarmy for a state legislature to lose a ballot initiative that stops them gerrymandering and then sue to invalidate it in federal court, so they can continue to gerrymander. Aside from the constitutional question I'd hope they all get primaried.
- Also seems smarmy for people who are normally all about respect for state governments to start having federal courts override state court interpretations of state laws, which they normally never do.
- I think this idea has gained traction due to conservatives who wanted to reject trump's claims of a stolen election while throwing a bone towards it - so they settled on this "states didn't follow their own rules" formulation. Of course states *did* follow their own rules, unless you believe in the independent state legislature idea.
Re. "Of course states *did* follow their own rules" --
Here in Pennsylvania, the state did not follow its own rules. IIRC, the state legislature passed legislation extending mail-in voting, which actually required a constitutional amendment. A Republican state senator (again, IIRC) challenged this after the 2020 Presidential election. The judge refused to hear the case on the grounds that everybody had had a year or two to complain about it, but didn't.
I think as a matter of philosophy that having the three branches engaged in governance is best. To me, this means that a court can strike down a rule, but can not write the rule itself, as that is the legislation role.
It is also important to be clear on what the laws say - if the law says only legislative body makes the rules, that means, imo, no outsourcing to executive branch or to opinion polls or cdc or ballot initiatives.
I think that a step back from the frenzied restructuring of voting process and a look at simplifying voting security would be a very good area to focus on for a number of states.
It won't be done because all the current representatives benefit from the widespread fraud. And they've managed to trick people into believing that somehow elections are "secure" when committing fraud is as simple as badly faking signatures (which are never checked) and dumping as many ballots as one wants at a drop box. If the politicians can convince people that this ridiculous system is secure, there's no way you can convince anybody that election fraud has occurred or that there's any need for added security.
It is an absurd theory that has no basis in either the history or text of the Constitution. For one, state courts at the time of the founding and throughout the first century of American history commonly heard cases on election disputes regarding federal office. Second, more importantly, the fact that a state legislature shall have the power to set T/P/M of federal elections can no more preclude judicial review than the fact that Congress has the commerce power precludes judicial review. To say otherwise is to say the state legislature has the final say on the contents of the state Constitution. If you are an anti-judicial review accelerationist, then fine but it has to apply to all areas of law, not just elections. Third, the court has already held that legislature generally means "legislative power" in Az Ind. Redistricting Comm. so this case would require overturning more precedent (Alito/Thomas dissented so it's likely). Lastly, as a matter of public policy and judicial restraint, it was an enormous mistake to take this case in the first place, considering there is no circuit split on the issue and it's basically a new theory untested in the lower courts.
There is a reason the power to run elections and modify election rules was put to the state legislatures. Each branch of government is given separate powers to ensure at least some level of infighting between them which the people will benefit from. This works at both state and the federal level. You can't just wholly neglect a grant of power to one branch and say it's ok because.... frankly I don't get why you think the grant of power to the legislature to manage elections is different from any other specific delegation of power in the Constitution. Do you think courts should be able to appoint federal officers because who cares it's just a grant of power it doesn't matter which branch gets it? The government is the government?
"frankly I don't get why you think the grant of power to the legislature to manage elections is different from any other specific delegation of power in the Constitution"
Reason I think it's different is that it's a grant of power to a specific part of a state government, not the federal government. It makes sense for the federal Constitution to grant power to specific parts of the federal government, since the federal government owes its existence to the federal Constitution - if the federal Constitution didn't grant power to, say, Congress, then Congress would just be a random group of people meeting.
But state legislatures derive their authority from state constitutions, which don't owe their existence to the federal government, and some of which are older than the US constitution (The Massachusetts state constitution is not just older than the US constitution, it's even older than the Articles of Confederation). State constitutions define who the state legislatures even are, what they can do, how they operate, etc, so it's at least a little weird to turn around and say that they have authority to do certain things in violation of the state constitutions that make them.
To give a variation of my earlier hypo - if there's a bicameral state legislature (as 49 of them are), and if you agree with the independent state legislature doctrine, can the two state legislative houses meet as one body and all vote together to pass rules regarding elections, even if those rules wouldn't pass both houses, and even if that is not allowed under the state constitution which says that all bills must pass both houses?
There are other specific grants of power to the particular branches of state governments. And more importantly, there are many grants of power specifically to the states and others specifically to the the state legislatures instead of the state as a whole. The drafters thought it important that some very important powers, such as the merger of two states or calling a constitutional convention be left to the legislatures of the states instead of their executive. Clearly, they found that the legislature is more important and better handles certain powers than state executives.
And their logic is sound. Legislatures would never have approved of the insane voting changes created for the purpose of fostering fraud in the 2020 election. State legislatures are too slow moving and too accountable to the people to be that openly evil and corrupt.
It is a mechanism to destroy what remains of democracy in America.
Expecting politicians to not be smarmy is silly. They are almost uniformly creatures of incredibly smarmy institutions.
As far as the jurisprudence, these days I don’t know if I am an accelerationist or not. We badly need a new constitution, but it will almost certainly be worse. So where does that leave us?
What's wrong with the one that you have already?
Not the person you asked, but my list:
- Equal representation by state in the Senate. I think it's clearly undemocratic, and not justified by the idea that states retain some measure of sovereignty.
- Electoral college. Beyond the current debate over it, it's also the case that key elements of the electoral college *as we know it today* - popular votes for president in each state, electors who don't decide for themselves - aren't in the document. We've built somewhat-democratic machinery on top of the original non-democratic system, and things like the 2020 election show that there are problems with doing so.
- Supreme Court lifetime appointments, leading to major policy questions being decided by which old person dies when.
- Opportunity for gerrymandering
- The fact that Congress is supposed to have limited powers, but those powers are also written broadly enough that it at least arguably encompasses all sorts of things
- Similarly, the norm of judicial review combined with broad, aspirational language in the Constitution
- President has too much power (I chalk this up to the veto more than anything)
- I'm not sure we need the whole separation-of-powers thing at all, actually. Americans are taught that it's essential to safeguard liberty, but other countries manage to be free democratic societies without it. And meanwhile it leads to major policy decisions being decided in the courts, which nobody seems to actually like.
- If you believe that it is important for the constitution to safeguard certain liberties and the courts to enforce them, then there are some key things missing, or at least that have been read into the document only semi-convincingly. Actually one key thing to my mind, which is gender equality. You can say that it's in the equal protection clause (which the Supreme Court says); that certainly wasn't the original intent. You can say you don't care about the original intent (and I don't), but then you run into the point about broad, aspirational language giving the courts lots of power.
- There are opportunities for one side to seize power for itself via manipulation of the rules, and it doesn't happen only because of longstanding norms. Maybe that's inevitable, but there are some ways we should rein it in.
“I don´t for the life of me understand how intelligent people do not grasp the fact that the senate represents the states, not the people, and does so equally.”
A body which represents states and not people is by definition not democratic so smart people would be right to criticize this aspect of it if they think government should represent the interests of humans rather than locations.
"I don´t for the life of me understand how intelligent people do not grasp the fact that the senate represents the states, not the people, and does so equally."
It seems to me like whether the Senate "represents the states" or "represents the people" is a semantic argument, there's no way to prove it one way or the other, there's no concrete fact about the world that changes depending on which one it is, and as a semantic argument it doesn't carry weight with me for any practical question. But insofar as you can talk about it in concrete terms, the Senate doesn't "represent the states". Senators are elected by the people of the states; if you ask the Senators who their constituents are they will say it's the people of their state; the laws they vote on affect people.
More importantly, say that you're right and the Senate does represent the states - how is that an argument against what I said? Representing the states equally is undemocratic and I'm against it on the grounds of equality of people, not of artificial beings.
"Say what now?! What countries are that?"
UK is an example. There's no court that strikes down acts of Parliament as violating the constitution or anything. There's no separate executive from the legislature (unless you count the Queen) - the head of government and counterpart to the US President is the Prime Minister, who is also the leader of the majority in the legislature. Even the upper house of Parliament doesn't have the ability to do a whole lot. To the extent the subdivisions of the UK have powers, they're "devolved" from Parliament and Parliament can take them back.
I would say that if you follow it the country cannot work, and so we have for many decades been torturing it through the Supreme Court to come up with fanciful interpretations to make it “sort of” work.
It also is basically totally unprepared for and does not handle well the role of corporations/capitalism/wage labor or just general modern economics/technology.
It’s obsolete.
I'd say the idea that a state constitution is impeding on the legislature is a little weird. Normally we think of the constitution (whether federal or state) as being the highest authority, and the legislature (again federal or state) as having to follow it. State legislature acts can be struck down by state courts as violating state constitutions, same as with Congress and the US constitution.
In fact, in theory state legislatures only exist because the state constitutions say so. The state constitutions all say something like "the legislative power of the state is vested in the state legislature, it has one/two houses, here's how many members they have, here's how the members are picked, here's when the elections are, here's what their powers are, etc".
Given all that it's a little weird to turn around and say that a state constitution is impeding on the legislature, given the legislature doesn't have any independent existence outside what the constitution says.
I think the salient point is that the state legislature wrote the constitution. So if the U.S. Constitution prevents them from delegating authority regarding federal elections, then even a popular vote to decide federal elections is unconstitutional (as apparently according to the constitution, only the legislature can decide).
In all but a few cases, the state legislature wrote the state constitution. Accordingly, if the State Supreme Court has authority to override the legislature, it is because the legislature gave it to them.
So I watched a video today where they argued that instead of trying to use the lower/middle/upper class trichotimy when discussing politics and studying things, we should instead use (and I'm using their phrasing which I'll immediately define so hold your horses) the working/capitalist dichotomy.
The working class here is meant literally: if you have to do serious physical or mental work to earn a living, you are part of the working class: laborers, service workers, and basically anything where you're helping to make money for someone else. The capitalist class represents people who earn their money off the work of others: so landlords, investors, and the owners of businesses that are large enough to run themselves. If you own a business, but it's small enough that you have to pitch in and/or do any of the work yourself, then you're also a part of the working class.
The argument is that l/m/u classes tend to be nebulously and arbitrarily defined depending on what someone is trying to do, with no standardized definition, and straight up asking people what class they belong to leads to people, with incomes anywhere from below the poverty line to over a million dollars, claiming to be middle class.
The w/c class dichotomy, on the other hand, has a definition independent of location, relative wages, home ownership, and standard of living, and classification is only dependent on the type of work (or lack thereof) necessary to obtain a person's income.
One application of this framework would be how to judge policy proposals. For instance, if you hear about a proposed budget or tax cut, you can try putting yourself in your boss's shoes, and seeing if they would be happy about it (if your boss is a small business owner, imagine Jeff Bezos or something). If they would, it's probably not going to be helpful for you, regardless of any claims or arguments that it'll help the middle class.
Thoughts?
“The capitalist class represents people who earn their money off the work of others”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call “assuming your conclusion”.
>One application of this framework would be how to judge policy proposals. For instance, if you hear about a proposed budget or tax cut, you can try putting yourself in your boss's shoes, and seeing if they would be happy about it (if your boss is a small business owner, imagine Jeff Bezos or something). If they would, it's probably not going to be helpful for you, regardless of any claims or arguments that it'll help the middle class.
Of course, the people proposing such a view will go on ignoring the fact that the capitalists love love love immigration, and will continue mocking working people who are understandably against it. Because so-called "anti-racism" is the only consistent principle; everything else bends around it if there's a conflict.
Qualitative differences can be very important, but you have to get them right. Workers and capitalists weren't the only classes through all of history. They weren't the right way to view feudal societies or the Soviet Union. So why are those the right classes to view America? A counterexample often discussed on this blog is credentialism.
I do not find W/C class all useful or an improvement to L/M/U class.
A retired couple that owns a duplex and rents out the other side is now in the "capitalist class" despite household income under $50k/year and a professional athlete that makes $2Mil/year is now in the "working class".
L/M/U class actually means something and is correlated with many qualities like overall standard of living, financial independence, opportunity, health outcomes, etc. It's irrelevant how you made your $20k/year, you're in the lower class and it doesn't matter how you make your $1Mil/year, you're in the upper class.
Agree with most of the other replies here, but just want to note that this framing:
"Working class has to do work to earn a living"
"Capitalists earn their money through the work of others."
Puts welfare and disability recipients into the "Capitalist" class category.
It doesn’t, because capitalists have to have capital to be capitalists.
Not by MSteele's definition. Which was the point of Ian's objection.
This is just Marxism. Literally, that's Marxist class analysis boiled down to a simplified form. And the w/m/u class is an old Marxist criticism of liberalism or non-Marxist socialism. The idea is that everyone who works, from a coal miner to a Fortune 500 CEO, is being exploited by people who own where they work. Plus there's a somewhat uncertain intermediate class of people who both own and work. And that they should all band together and eliminate the owners as a class.
Basically, the idea is not "some people make a lot of money and that's unfair." It's not "we can take money here and put it there to produce net utils." (That's Rawls.) Marx doesn't care at all about wealth inequality. It's also not some vague idea that we should provide things to people for free. He had little to say about welfare and was very much against taxing workers to provide... anything, really.
Marx saw a clear conflict between the distribution of profits between workers (who in his mind created them) and capital owners (who in his mind appropriated them) and saw the resolution of this as world-historically necessary. He didn't think this would produce absolute equality. Some people would be managers of Google making millions and some people would be coal miners making much less. But they would now get the full value of their labor without any given to capital owners. This might not even be good for all of them: some people might find the value of their labor lower than they thought. But it would be a wealthier, freer society in his view.
And the end is just a repetition of Marx's call for a politics of class warfare. Evaluate proposals based on which class they benefit and act accordingly.
Which isn't to say the analysis is useless. But it's already been thoroughly worked over and you might want to look into it more than just a youtube video.
Well the analysis can be divorced from any outcome he predicted. The endgame of Marxism wasn’t everybody getting their Labour value without capitalists taking their profits (thats the intermediary stage) but from each to their ability and to each according to their need. How ability or need is defined was left as an exercise to the reader.
If Marx never existed we would still be talking about capitalists and proletariat - probably though using more neutral terns like businessmen and worker
The quote is "from each according to their ability to each according to their need." Marx wrote that phrase in Critique of the Gotha Program which was, as the name suggests, a criticism. Mainly of other socialists and anarchists that he considered utopian. Indeed, he was paraphrasing several of them that had quotes that were some similar formulation. He specifically thought that was beyond current technical and social capacity but thought it would happen eventually.
Basically Marx said, "We do this now and eventually, when we have a post-scarcity society, we can have a post-scarcity utopia." Until then he suggested "to each according to his contribution" as the relevant slogan. Which was basically an elaboration of his labor theory of value.
You're right that without Marx we would still have socialism and all that. Though probably with somewhat adjusted terms. I'd prefer that because bourgeoisie and proletariat was probably the right word for what Marx said. But most socialists don't really follow that so the words have been stretched out of all meaning.
Why would there ever be a post scarcity society? The main goods people want are status based goods?
This seems like it is an attempt by people who do not actually know financial hardship to define themselves to be part of the class that does know financial hardship, for, I expect, the purpose of then being able to speak on behalf of, and more specifically over, them.
Jeff Bezos earns a salary managing a business he only partly owns. Is he working class?
> If you own a business, but it's small enough that you *have to* pitch in and/or do any of the work yourself, then you're also a part of the working class.
I think the key part of that definition is the emphasized "have to"; i.e. if Jeff ceased to do a single thing from this moment forward, he would still be among the absolute wealthiest individuals on the planet.
Of course many people have an income partially from labor and partially from capital. That does not mean that concepts of capitalists and workers are useless, though. It might still be the case that various policies affect their labor income differently than their capital income.
Most people in the US fall within both categories. It's necessary for any use of the terms to clearly define when someone is in one category or the other. Even the same person, as they age and accumulate capital, can slowly become more of a "capitalist" even while maintaining the same job for 40+years.
I'm wary of a "primary income source" determination, specifically because people accumulate wealth as they age. I know several Custodians who purchased homes with their wage income to use as rentals. First as supplemental income, and at this point as similar to their wage income. For the purposes of the OP, did they switch from worker to capitalist? If so, when? If not, will they do so when they retire, or will their status reflect a 40+ year career as a worker and stay that way?
"It's necessary for any use of the terms to clearly define when someone is in one category or the other." No, it just isn't. As with many phenomena, there is a spectrum.
Alfred Marshall, father of modern microeconomics, put as a motto of his textbook, borrowed from Darwin, "Natura non facit saltum", i.e. nature does not make jumps. Meaning, a lot of categories in economics are overlapping. That does not make them useless.
What would be the purpose of categorization, if the categories are muddled and overlapping? There's clearly a purpose in the OP sharing this classification system, and it's distinctly meant to replace a different categorization system. That it's indistinct seems like a pretty fatal flaw in terms of use.
I agree that we can understand people to be a mix of capitalist/worker and that can be useful. I don't think the OP's plan can work, though, due to that mix.
Its really strange to me that people luging in capitalist society dint believe there are capitalists.
I agree that categorization based on whether someone is upper/middle/lower class also has its uses, though it is arbitrary and underdefined.
We are just splitting hairs, though. I just wanted to defend classification based on sources of income (labor, capital plus government pension as an additional important category) as useful in certain contexts, not to claim that it should totally replace classification based on an amount of income.
Jeff famously gets about $81k a year in salary, so the working class part of his total income is fairly minuscule.
It needs an addition of the third class, retirees living on government provided pensions, now far more numerous than capitalists, and with interests distinct from both workers and capitalists.
Thinking in terms of class can help with understanding certain social conflicts and how different people have different interests.
If you look at zoning laws that are designed to keep property prices high, they help the class of people who own their own homes while harming the class of people who don't own such property. In Marx terms someone who owns their own home wasn't working class.
Framing people who own their own homes, and thus have capitalist interests in having zoning laws that make homes more expensive, as working class, is how you get liberal cities like San Fransico where the poor people are treated like crap.
A lot of professional licensing is about laws that make live harder for the lower class by not allowing the lower class to do certain work even if someone would be willing to pay them to do the work.
In the last two years of COVID-19 we saw people who are actually working class having a lot of trouble with lockdown restrictions while people who work interlectually had no trouble to simply work from home. Mislabeling people who aren't working class as working class is a way to obscure important differences in political class interests in political conflicts like that.
The late David Graeber proposed that the class distrinctions we should be making are between the caring class and the mangerial class. Seeing HR and managers as being in a different social class makes a lot of sense for understanding the power dynamics of people's lived experience.
>If you look at zoning laws that are designed to keep property prices high, they help the class of people who own their own homes while harming the class of people who don't own such property
People who own their own homes do better if the value of their home goes down because they pay less taxes on the cheaper home. The value of the home benefits them if they sell it or take out a loan using it as collateral; if they live in it, hbut it also raises their expenses.
And the classifications in your last two paragraphs are vastly different. You can work intellectually and not be part of the managerial class.
property taxes rarely rise as quickly as the market price of a property. And in most of the US are less than 1% the assessed value per year. If your home goes up in value by $100k I don't think you will be too upset about paying an extra $1k in taxes. Maybe in a few unique circumstances, home owners would benefit from housing values dropping but for the vast majority of individual owners, rising values are a benefit.
"In Marx terms someone who owns their own home wasn't working class". The Great British Class survey notes that many of the people it defines as Traditional Working Class do own their homes -- unlike.the Precariat (gig economy).
Marx never said that. Ownership of property in the Marxist sense meant the means of production.
Sounds like what you're arguing is that we need a whole lot more classes: "Works with hands, owns home" versus "Works with hands, rents" versus "Works on a computer, owns home" versus "Middle manager" vs "Senior manager" vs "HR drone" et cetera.
At this point we might as well throw out the word "class" and just start classifying people by whichever set of criteria are important to the discussion at hand.
I think the term "class" is useful for explaining social snobbery but shouldn't be used in economic analysis.
There are existing ways of classifying people with five or seven categories.
Strong agree (except for the last paragraph, which I don't understand at all).
Another important aspect is hand-to-mouth living vs the ability to invest. The latter gives a participation in the "capitalist" side that grows quite large even for someone who "only" saves 10-20% of their paycheck, due to the nature of compound interest. It also unlocks a whole new set of strategic choices, e.g., voluntarily giving up a job to move somewhere else, take up another profession, build a business, etc.
This bundles a ridiculously wealthy Anywhere/Virtual laptop class soy latte drinking Bay Area techie with a Somewhere/Physical barely making do Appalachian coal miner who, to quote Michael Moore, "can't even get a fucking Percocet" into the same box.
As such, is it all that useful? If you leave the typology at that, I'd say it obfuscates things more than it makes clear.
Anywhere/Somewhere: https://mikefrost.net/people-somewhere-vs-people-anywhere/
Virtual/Physical: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/reality-honks-back
Fewer than 40k people in the US are employed as coal miners. (according to the St. Louis Fed) and their average pay was $85,581 in 2021 (according to the national mining association). I don't think coal miners should be the go to example of a working class labor job (not to mention Wyoming produces the most coal in the US, not the Appalachian states).
A better job to use is probably someone who works at a distribution facility in the exurbs of a large city (though even these jobs often pay well above the local minimum wage).
I do think Anywhere/Somewhere is a good measure to use on this subject.
If the soy latte drinker is ridiculously wealthy then he will in part be a capitalist - as his money is probably invested. If he’s just a wage earner he’s just a wage earner. It’s more likely this guy is a renter than the miner is.
So if the soy drinker is an idiot who blows all his income on Lamborghinis and knawledge then he is part do the oppressed and virtuous working class? But if he is smart and frugal and invest money in the market or in a friends business, then he is an ego capitalist who must be bled dry for exploiting the workers?
Have I got this right? These are the incentives this move wants to set up right?
If a rich man spends his money and becomes poor he is poor. That’s true. And nobody is calling here for “bleeding dry” the capitalists, it’s a discussion on class. As i pointed out in a previous comment, a person on higher income could be a proletariat and someone on lower income could be a landlord. This is just a property relationship.
Almost always when people start trying the populations into “landlord and capitalists” vs “workers” what is coming next is a call to dispossess the former.
And historically when the people who like such framing get full power, they mostly use do use it to bleed them dry, both financially, and literally.
The left loves to talk about “dehumanizing” and “othering” and yet modern society are the absolute leaders in this area. I don’t ever hear conservatives express a quarter the venom and casual sociopathy for the poor, or minority groups that is quite regular and accepted on the left as long as it is directed at the correct targets.
The person killing you for the good of society is going to do it with a lot less hesitation and at times frankly glee than the one who knows it is only for their own benefit.
a definition of classes isnt a call to a Revolution. You probably believe in some elites or other, I assume. Does talking about “Liberal elites” or any other form of elites endanger them?
Anyway I’m not a Marxist. You don’t need to be to believe in economic classes.
Well this is basically Marxism and it certainly has it’s utility even these days. Imagine 3 people living in London, Peter, Laura and Chris. Peter earns £70k a year, Laura earns 30K, Chris earns 20k.
Who do they vote for? If I tell you that Peter votes for a left wing party and the others for a right wing party would that make sense? Well it would of Peter were a renter and a worker, Laura a landlord and Chris’s earnings are from a private pension fund. The latter two are outright home owners. Peter would be comfortable with a rental freeze, or taxes on property, or unearned income, the other two would not be.
Reminds me of this:
"Consider the following four people:
29 year-old graduate of Stanford Law School working as an associate at a major law firm and renting an apartment downtown somewhere.
A single mother of two working in the Starbucks that’s on the ground floor of his building — during the pandemic her expenses dropped and she got some stimulus relief checks so she was able to actually use the corporate 401(k) match for once.
A homeless guy who when the store isn’t crowded just kind of sits quietly at a corner table for hours sometimes.
The recent Stanford grad’s dad, a divorced and retired cop who rents a place in Florida and lives off of his pension.
The way wealth data works is that a 401(k) is wealth but a defined benefit pension is not. So the barista is the richest person in this story, followed by the retired cop, followed by the homeless guy, and poorest of all is the lawyer — he has negative wealth unlike the homeless guy, who is at zero."
https://www.slowboring.com/p/student-loan-forgiveness
I remember telling a graduate that he was poorer than a homeless person in wealth. He wasn’t impressed.
The law graduate renting the apartment is in a fairly precarious position. If things dont go well he could be out on his ear - its the sense that he probably has family backup that makes us forget that.
I would think so too. Unfortunately, the way people vote is not based on self-interest, but group belonging. See "The Myth of the Rational Voter."
Seems like something L/m/u class framing already captures - as I've always seen it used, lower class work with their bodies ("blue collar"), middle class work with their minds ("white collar") and upper class (can) live off investments and usually work because they want to, in some sense.
Importantly, and this is something America in particular gets wrong often, class and income and wealth are not that correlated - a blue collar lower class tradesman can be a millionaire, while a wannabe journalist struggling to try and make ends meet in NYC is at least middle class and quite possibly upper class (depending on the parents).
Eh. I tend to think the work/work of others distinction is inaccurate/out of focus.
Micheal OChurch's 3 Ladder structure is more robust and more accurate imo.
https://indiepf.com/michael-o-churchs-theory-of-3-class-ladders-in-america-archive/
Except Michael O. Church himself now rejects that model and is back to a two-class model: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2021/01/28/a-reply-to-alex-danco-revisiting-macleod-and-the-three-ladders-in-the-wake-of-trump/
I read both essays, and think they both have value. The three ladders model does a great job explaining culture and values, but the probably does a better job explaining real economic power and influence.
Huh. I missed that - Thank you for the link!
I will have to think on the later essay longer, but I don't think I agree with his reasoning. More, much later, I should think.
The middle class “working with their minds” are working class in this definition.
I like it.
However lower/middle/upper still has utility: for example when evaluating environmental effects.
My thoughts are that this is an essentially useless framing for understanding the world, and quite likely harmful for trying to affect it. As several people have already pointed out to you, 'capitalists' serve very useful functions to society and they do it by working very hard. I'm reasonably confident that Jeff Bezos works, or at least has worked, much harder than 99% of the people you consider working class.
You would be much better off trying to use other frameworks to judge policy proposals. Try reading about public goods and consider how policy proposals impact them. Find out how markets expand welfare and consider whether the policy proposal you're thinking about improves or hinders market functioning. Learn about comparative advantage and trade and consider if people are being allowed to leverage their advantages instead of being blocked off by laws that should not prevent them.
"I'm reasonably confident that Jeff Bezos works, or at least has worked, much harder than 99% of the people you consider working class."
And Paris Hilton? Capitalists can work hard: the point is that they don't have to.
If you think Paris Hilton doesn't work, you need to broaden your definition of work. You think streamers on twitch don't work either? Other reality show participants?
>the point is that they don't have to
Maybe they don't have to NOW, but they often did to get to this point.
Bezos created his wealth by working, using the free market. Paris Hilton inherited hers. Free markets are an entirely different issue than inheritance taxes. So your example is a case where "capitalist" is a useless framing for understanding the world.
A capitalist is an owner of capital. Heirs to fortunes are capitalists or landlords, or both, not all capitalists are self made.
You're merely restating your definition of "capitalist", without acknowledging my observation that that definition is useless for this example. The fact that Karl Marx defined "capitalist" one way 180 years ago doesn't make that definition useful. The point at issue here is whether or not that definition is useful. You are simply ignoring the point (and also ignoring all the other distinctions made in this thread).
So I agree that the w/c dichotomy is more robust, but I'm not sure it captures the distinction people are trying to draw with l/m/u which contains more information about likely views on the world (and often political affiliation by extension).
That said, I think Matt Yglesias (and certainly others) have good points that education polarization muddles l/m/u - in a lot of ways a social works with a masters degree are more philosophically aligned with an investment banker than with someone in a road crew, even if their earnings are more similar.
That's just a rationalization of "I want to feel like a brave warrior who fights against the elites, even when I attack people who are middle class on a good day". Not very dissimilar from the epycicles created by leftists to argue that mocking trailer park white is akshually punching up IMO.
Also, as a more object-level note, if you think that the average IB and the average humanities/social work grad are "philosophically similar" (I guess you mean, they have similar philosophies), you have not spent much time around either.
Seems like you're giving cover to those elites who hide behind not being financially powerful to disguise their vast cultural power. There's a very important sense in which a journalist making 60k a year is part of the elite, while a plumber making 120k a year is not. In a society where foxes dominate, being part of the Brain from which literally everything is downstream gives you immense power.
What new science fiction have you read that’s blown your mind?
Late reply, but I recommend qntm's Ra and Antimemetics Division stories, both available online – qntm.org is probably the best starting point.
An oldie but goodie is Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus. (And of course the Book of the New Sun if you haven't read it, but it's only very arguably SF.)
I loved The Fifth Head of Cerberus!
The most recent posts at my blog are reviews of Asimov's Foundation trilogy... but those are old enough that I'd already heard the basic premises so none were mind-blowing.
I really like everything I've read from Anne Leckie, as well as Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire.
Ancillary Justice and A Memory Called Empire? Both ruled. Ancillary got weird, felt like it lost the thread a bit.
Not new, but I loved Baxter's Timelike Infinity
Some old hard science like Asimov. After spending a good bit of time in pop SF and then reading about what real spaceflight or interstellar technology would have to look like, it was an eye-opener.
Two Blake Crouch books: "Dark Matter" and "Recursion." He's got a new book, "Upgrade," out July 11.
I was going to say exactly this! I loved both Dark Matter and Recursion.
Greg Egan - Permutation City.
Love Greg Egan. Buddy started me on Diaspora. It can take me time to get into some of his books but it’s usually worth it. Currently reading Book of all Skies.
Should I read Quarantine first? I'm a big fan of Diaspora and some of his other novels.
Quarantine is clever, but not related to Permutation City. I liked them both but thought the latter had more meat to it.
That's not that new (1994) but strongly seconded, it has some mind-blowing concepts. Diaspora is another good one by him. His style is kind of different from most other things you'd read. If you're curious whether you'll like it you can read the first chapter "orphanogenesis" online, which is a great story in itself.
Adrian tchaikovsky’s stuff is new for me (and mind-blowing). Everyone I recommend him to is already familiar with him.
Another data point: I attempted to read his _Children of Time_ for a book club, and hated it with a raving hatred. To my mind, the world-building was arbitrary and it seemed as though the characters were being shoved around by the author to make things happen. I simply couldn't believe that a control freak would unleash an intelligence-increasing virus.
Tchaikovsky’s Books are good, but "mind-blowing" is hyperbole. He doesn't play in the same league as Asimov, Vinge, Liu Cixin, or even the above mentioned Arkady Martine.
Yeah more like that if you have any. Anathem rocked my world.
In my ongoing project of trying to pick up more hobbies and skills, I've decided to take up drawing. I bought a cheap Canson sketchbook to work through drawabox.com's exercises. Does anyone have experience with it or another art course they can recommend? Textbooks on the subject? I'm coming at this from a level of "drew a few graphs in college chemistry" as a level of prior artistic skill.
Check this out: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/portrait-challenge/
I'm 27 years into a career as a concept artist - mostly for game development but once in a blue moon for films. I'm one of the working concept artists who have being doing it long enough to have made the transition from the 'paper era' to the 'digital era'. I bring up the digital/paper divide for reasons that I'll clarify below.
When they talk about learning 'drawing' most people are talking about one of basic goals:
1) Decoration. The /craft/ of making pen or pencil drawings on paper is a close cousin to doing watercolor paintings, sewing quilts, making pottery and so on. The end goal is to make a craftwork.
2) Self Expression. If someone is interested in doing art or becoming an artist (I'll save the debate about the distinction between 'craft' and 'art' for some other time), drawing on paper in pencil or ink seems like the most accessible way to get started on the road to expressing yourself visually.
3) Communication. If you have a visual idea in your imagination, and you'd like to develop the skills necessary to communicate that idea visually, then pencil and paper is the /traditional/ way to communicate that visual idea.
During the 'paper era' I alluded to earlier, pencil drawing on paper was the common starting point for journeys to all three destinations. But in the digital era, drawing on paper in ink or pencil is the worst way to accomplish either goals 2) or 3).
When you start to make an image, you want to match the /way/ you start the image to what it is you have in mind. When you imagine the image you intend to make, what are the mental materials you are starting with? If you are trying to make an image that somehow captures the hazy light of a dusty summer afternoon, what you probably have in mind are colors and maybe nebulous shapes. So color-shapes is what you should lay down /first/. In the paper era, you first had to /draw/ an entire scene, a framework to hang those colors on. You had to make a commitment to barns, and fences, and trees, and delineate them in graphite or ink, and only after you have done all that can you begin to dab in the colors - the colors that were the whole point of the image to begin with! In the paper era, drawing was a set of hurdles you had to jump over before you could really start adding the elements of the image that matter most to /you/.
Having to do a drawing first, before setting out upon the important aspects of an image is not merely onerous. It's usually fatal to the image, and fatal to the development of many artists. It's hard to hold an idea in your imagination for long enough to realize it in the form of an artwork. It's hard to work on an idea without accidentally dispelling it. In the paper era it was almost impossible to produce the image that you had in mind - the mental image could almost never endure the drawing phase without dissipating.
However, in the digital era, you are free to begin an image in many different ways. You don't have to /delineate/ your forms and commit to their outlines before you can do anything else. You can begin with blobs of color, if colors are what you have in mind. You can 'block out' big solid shapes if forms are what you have in mind. You can lay down big patches of dark if light and shadow are what you have in mind. You can make a 3d model if 'structure' is what you initially care about. You can google up close approximations of what you have in mind, and manipulate the photos and paint on top of them to home-in on your vision.
TLDR: pencil and ink drawing is a /specialist craft/, like engraving or needlepoint. It's not a foundational skill for image making - far from it. It only ever was considered a foundational skill during an era where there were no better alternatives. Unless you are solidly in camp 1) and your goal is to make hand-crafted objects d'art in the form of pencil drawings on paper, don't waste your time with sketchbooks.
Thanks for the response! Your 1/2/3 split for the goal of art gives me a lot to think about. When you say communication is about having a visual idea, is that a fully imaginary one or something as simple as copying what I see in front of me? Or would that fall closer to decoration?
Additionally, since you have used both, would you say that the skills from one medium transfer to the other (limiting to physical pen-and-paper and digital)? My priors would say that physical skill somewhat transfers to digital, but not the other way around.
Copying what you see in front of you, according to my typology, is 1) when done for it's own sake, and training for 2) and 3) otherwise. There's not really any reason to copy what's in front of you instead of just taking a photo, unless you want a handcrafted version of the image, right? Drawing and painting from nature is craftwork*.
The the usual reason given for copying from nature is that it's good training. Figuring out how to translate form you can see with your eyes into two-dimensional form on the canvas, as approximated by the medium of your choice, is supposedly good practice. But practice for what, exactly? Unless you're eventually going to substitute your imagination for your eyes, what is it you're practicing for?
If your goal is to eventually turn images that are in your imagination into images that other people can also see, the hand-eye coordination you get from practicing drawing from life has low utility anyhow. If you can handwrite or print, you already have all the hand eye coordination you'll ever need as an artist. The major roadblock to goals 2) and 3) is getting control over your imagination. That's the skill that needs the most urgent and continuous effort. Holding a mental image in focus in your imagination is the athletic aspect of the visual arts - it's the arts equivalent to how much you can deadlift or how fast you can run a marathon. Over the course of an artistic career, this imaginative skill will strengthen.
When I was a teenager, I could maybe hold on to a visual idea for maybe an hour or two. Now, I've got maybe 24 to 36 hours. They don't have to be continuous hours, you can usually pick up and put down a piece of the course of weeks or months, or years! But when the 'working time' has been spent up you reach a state we call 'going snow blind', where you can no longer conjure up your visual idea without getting distracted by newer, shinier ideas that obscure and eclipse it, and you kind of forget what the whole point of the idea was anyhow. It sort of melts away like a waking up from a dream. As poetic as that sounds, the the first sub-skill is pretty hard nosed - figure out how long it takes you to go snow blind and budget your working time accordingly. If you have a visual idea that seems really important to you, and you dither and waste time on failed attempts to realize it, that idea will slip away /forever/.
The second sub-skill is to figure out how to make really efficient use of the time you spend working on an image. This is why pencil drawing is such a travesty - it pretty much guarantees that you'll spend most or all of your 'working time' plodding your way through unimportant aspects of the image, like silhouette edges and textures, and inefficiently rendering tones by hatching and scribbling them. The clock is ticking while you do all that. If you can get your image 'down' on the canvas somehow, you get to keep it! It doesn't slip away! But the stuff you put down has to be the same stuff you imagine or this anchoring effect doesn't work. If you imagine colors, then you have to get the colors down. If it's light and shadow that you imagine, you have to get the value blocks down as fast as you can. Etc etc.. Unless what you are imagining is literally the mental image of a pencil drawing, a pencil is not the tool you should be using to get your idea down unless it's the only tool you have at hand.
As for skills transfer, I believe your intuition is sort of correct. I don't think digital skills transfer well to traditional media, at least not directly. But by using digital media as your training ground, you'll make way more substantial progress on the 'wrangling your imagination' front, and that will help, indirectly. Having a long 'working time' and learning to prioritize working efficiently will help with artmaking in any medium - and in life generally!
Alright - I've blathered enough and been contrarian enough that I feel I have to establish some sort of credibility, even at the expense of losing my anonymity. I haven't ever curated a portfolio website, but this Behance link has a sort of random grab bag of pieces I've done over the last twenty (!) years, of various levels of finish. https://www.behance.net/gallery/10171215/Portfolio-Pieces
Firstly, that is some incredible work you have in your portfolio.
More to the point of your argument: I can certainly see the benefits of going digital that you mention. I'll probably work on the first one or two lessons of Drawabox on paper as a test, but transition to digital for the 250 box challenge and further.
Do you have recommendations for a beginner drawing tablet (preferably one with Linux support)? Google suggests the Wacom One/Intuos, but you might have another opinion. And any opinion on small vs. medium sizes?
An iPad pro is a pretty good drawing painting tool. I don't really like Apple, but the iPad really made digital painting accessible to everyone so they deserve kudos for that. At least one of the pictures in that portfolio was done on an iPad 1 with my finger. For painting and sketching you don't need a lot of horsepower so you can get an old one for dirt cheap. I'm still rocking a 2016 iPad pro. That, an apple pencil and Procreate and Bob's your uncle. At a higher price point you could get one of the entry level Wacom Cintiqs, but they need a laptop or computer to tether to.
I just puffed a bunch of gas disparaging drawing as a foundational image making skill. It doesn't have no value, just low value compared to extending your 'working time'. But when it comes to drawing, ergonomics matters. For drawing, better ergonomics = bigger drawing surface. At art school drawing classes, the students are usually encouraged or required to draw in charcoal on big newsprint pads. This is to get them to draw with their full arm, from the shoulder downwards. You doodle with your fingers and wrist. You sketch with your elbow and wrist. You draw and paint with your whole arm. The minimum viable 'whole arm' drawing surface is probably about 18" diagonally. I work all day on a 24" Cintiq in the home office. If apple ever got around to making an 18" iPad, as absurd as it sounds, it would immediately become required basic equipment for every art school life drawing class in the country (other than those few that would reflexively emphasize traditional working methods).
good luck
As a fellow amateur, +1 for Drawabox. It is incredible value for money. If you like this course and want more, check out the Dynamic Sketching Bible, by Peter Han (he taught Uncomfortable, the drawabox guy). To contrast with some of the other advice in this thread, construction (what is taught in drawabox) is vital to being able to draw from imagination.
I recommend that when you get halfway through an exercise, check the other students submissions (they are all public). See what feedback they got and if it applies to you.
The only lesson more fundamental than how to draw a line, is how not to burn out learning art. Strength be with you on the 250 box challenge. If you can get through that you can get through everything else in the course, I promise.
My ultimate goal is to be able to draw figures well, so after I finished drawabox, I paid for Proko's figure drawing course. I think it was probably overpriced, but I found it valuable. I'm now working my way through Proko's anatomy freemium course, which is more in my price range. I feel I made the right choice in finishing drawabox before taking these courses, as they build on the notion of building body parts out of simple 3D forms and being able to manipulate them with your imagination.
I found a lot of value in listening to different artists talk about art. It turns out there is a lot of jargon that didn't exactly mean what I thought it meant and few people stop to explain what they precisely mean. Ethan Becker on youtube is someone who clearly explained the differences between fine art and animation. For example, animation needs to be less detailed for efficiency purposes, but both animation and fine art try to use shadows not to perfectly simulate lighting, but to reveal the 3D form of the object they are cast on.
Of course, there's the standard advice of draw a lot and draw with purpose. You have to keep studying and trying to improve to get better, you can't just scribble the same thing 10 000 times and expect to get good.
Thanks for your response, and another vote toward Proko. It's good to hear a vote of confidence toward DaB as well.
Not an artist but know a few and have heard great things about Proko
Thanks! I've added it to my resource list!
There are many ways to do this. My best recommendation is that you find James Gurney's blog and have a look there. He posts nearly daily so a staggering amount of information. He also has published two of the best art instruction books out there (and runs a very successful YouTube channel) although he focuses more on painting, but going back to his blog you'll find lots of information and book recommendations on drawing as well, and he often references it in his videos, since drawing skills are necessary prior to painting anything figurative anyway.
From my personal experience I'd say the best way to get better is drawing from nature (Gurney is a big advocate of outdoor painting which is related), can be still life, bust most importantly drawing from live model. As the human brain is most adept at reading the human body and face, you can tell straight away how bad your drawing is 🙂 this makes for a (relatively) quick, interesting and encouraging learning process. Best of course is from actual life, and you can sketch people in their day to day life, but you can also find live model videos on YouTube. You're missing the stereo vision of actually being there (interestingly many artists have poor stereo vision however) but it's also valuable. Get large cheap paper A3 and up. Draw a lot, 5, 10, 15 minute exercises, don't try to make anything pretty and enjoy the process.
Thanks for the advice! Looking at Gurney's non-blog website reminds me of the art I see on MtG cards. I've added him to my RSS reader.
Would you recommend drawing nature to someone who is just starting out? I'd imagine the more fluid/rounded shapes would be harder for beginners.
Tangential, but my favourite of Gurney's videos to share. Just another way in which art can be touching https://youtu.be/dFmFnWlelyQ
I'd recommend drawing from nature to anyone, really. It makes very salient how we don't really look at the world but only have a model in our brain, mostly made out of symbols, to which we update a few salient points now and then, so in a way I find it truly enlightening. An artist really does look at things in a very different way.
If what you want is a fulfilling hobby, making this connection from your eyes to your fingertips and experiencing the behaviour of diferent mediums is a very rich experience. And it's a very big plus to get outside and get some daylight, or rain even, and let your eyes focus on the far distance, if you do plein air drawing or painting. This I believe has big health benefits, and you might even socialise with random interesting people.
"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is not scientifically up to date, but has classic and useful exercises.
New Masters Academy offers high quality video courses.
For adult learners, I find charcoal (vine, compressed, and white on toned paper) and pastel rather than only pencil to be a good idea, since it physically differentiates it from writing more. Half the challenge is learning to draw non-symbolically, which can be slightly harder when using the same tools as for (symbolic) writing. Also, there's more immediate feedback on pressure in charcoal -- if you press too hard, the charcoal breaks. With pencil it's easy to press too hard, and not notice until you go back to erase guide lines later, and then it's too late. Charcoal and pastel also blend much, much better, so it's easier to make a fast drawing look complete. The downside, of course, is that they're messy and need spray fixative to keep from smudging.
Looking at DrawaBox, it occurs to me that you may be more interested in technical drawing. You might already know this, but that not the way drawing is taught in art courses. It may be in engineering or architecture, I'm not sure.
A big difference between art drawing courses and the Draw a Box ones is that the regular courses have a pretty strong focus on Elements of Art and Principles of Design, and thinking through or making thumbnail sketches of where the different parts of the image will go, how they will interact, what the values will be, what the relative sizes should be, and so on. I don't know a good online resource for this off the top of my head, but if you're going for art drawings, try looking up Elements of Art and Principles of Design for an idea.
A piece of advice that stuck with me is that in shaded drawings, every contour line needs to divide different *values* -- for instance, a dark background and lighter figure. Or a darker figure and lighter background; it's rarely good practice to have lines dividing two areas of equal value. For instance, look at this drawing of a shaded sphere: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/15/ce/63/15ce63dace3826f0a7073142189609e5.jpg
Even if it's in a sketchbook, a drawing will look instantly better if it gets a bit of background -- this can involve drawing a box around where the composition ends and shading in the inside, or even just adding a bit of shading around the outside of the object. For instance, look at the bit of tone on the highlight side here https://s32625.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/gwenneth-barth-white_pastel-portraits-demo_step-8-792x1024.jpg
Thank you for the response! "Right Side of the Brain" came up a few times in my research, and NMA seems to be affiliated with Drawabox - I'll be giving both a look. As for DaB's technical drawing focus, that wasn't something I've thought much about. I'm still unsure where I want to go with this besides "drawing". I'll keep a look out for resources that mention those Elements and Principles, though.
There used to be a thing called Literary Fiction. Around the turn of the millennium this non-genre genre seemed to have gotten over its heels turning out pretentious writerly tomes that were heavily criticized in essays like this one in the Atlantic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Reader%27s_Manifesto
Two decades later, literary fiction in the USA is non-existent yet there hasn't been a tolling of the bells. It seems to have gradually transformed unnoticed into books that middle-aged, all-female book clubs read. In other words, it didn't die, but it smells funny.
Or am I entirely off base here?
You got a lot of good and interesting answers here already, but I'm surprised nobody pointed out the obvious, that turn-of-the-millennium literary fiction was/is also a genre read, as a matter of practical fact, almost entirely by middle-aged spinster book clubs. It's just that the selling point included the false promise of some sort of highfalutin'-clout-based social status to these clubragettes for reading it.
(In fact, women make up such a large majority of readers of fiction/for pleasure that this is the case in almost all categories of literature, even ones you'd maybe think were "male" like swashbuckling adventure novels or Bond-style spy thrillers. Almost everything about what modern fiction looks like is based on this one simple fact, that men essentially abandoned literature entirely the moment it became clear that film was a better medium for action scenes.)
The Overstory by Richard Powers; Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh; Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr; A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. These are all good, from the last ten years, and I believe they're all sold as literary fiction (although all could be classified as either Historical Fiction or Science Fiction, I guess).
Maybe what you're complaining about is the same as the thing I celebrate, where literary fiction authors used to be very constrained to present-day realism, but aren't anymore. You can put a novel where the protagonist is a robot in the literary fiction section and nobody will bat an eye. But it means that, if your idea of what constitutes literary fiction ("non-genre genre") is limited to present-day/recent past realism, then yeah, I'd say there aren't quite as many good novels being written in that form these days.
While I'm talking about books, let me recommend Samanta Schweblin's Mouthful of Birds and Gabe Habash's Stephen Florida. These are avant-garde/experimental rather than literary, but if you're worried about fiction becoming uninteresting, I think they would help to reassure you.
Thanks for all the recommendations.
Somewhat tongue in cheek take:
Between Joyce and Pynchon the possibilities of the novel were exhausted. Also, to the person below questioning how much philosophy authors read, wasn’t Hemingway, like, boys with Sartre and For Whom the Bell Tolls is littered with Nietzsche allusions? And he’s as Chad-like as serious authors come.
I don't know if that's necessarily true; maybe the best stuff isn't rising to the top of all the lists? The women's Book Club genre is likely a thing. Having recently joined such a group myself, I find myself feeling completely out of place and just not liking the books we're picking. There has probably been a demographic shift in WHO gets published, and WHY they get published. I have read some acclaimed books (but not many) and found them wanting, flat or not-fleshed-out-enough or predictable.
Interesting, one of those things that you don't notice is gone until someone points at the space where it used to be.
My cynical judgement is that the English literature establishment has been fully subsumed into the social justice movement over the past couple of decades, and there's no longer status to be gained by reading obscure hard-to-understand literature, you need to be reading books by oppressed groups about how oppressed they are.
I think it was in 2007 that I picked up, practically at random, a book from the "Staff Recommendations" bookcase in our local bookstore. It was a book I'd never heard of, by an author I'd never heard of. I read a few paragraphs, saw that the writing was really good, bought the book and read it. My mind was blown. It was one of the most amazing and most beautifully written novels I'd ever read.
The book was Mark Helprin's "Winter's Tale". Neither I nor anyone I asked had ever heard of the book or the author. (I found out that Helprin himself thought, for some good reasons, that there were political reasons for his obscurity, but lets not go into that here.)
The reason I'm telling you this is that, for all you know, there might be amazing American literary fiction out there that you've never heard of and have no way of finding out about, except completely at random. I'm not sure why this country is so broken this way, but Helprin's example shows that it is.
The question of how to find that literature has been bothering me for a while. There is simply so much published - millions of books per year - and judging the quality of each is a subjective and time consuming process. In the end it seems inevitable that a great degree of filtering will take place, and certain books, by certain people, will be chosen to be elevated above all others.
How can that be fixed? I honestly don't know. I was toying with the question of whether machine learning could somehow be employed. Could a computer read a manuscript and tell you if it is worth reading, given an input of a few hundred books you felt strongly about (either positively or negatively)? Is such a thing even within the capability of machine learning?
Follow the authors you love on social media. When they're enthusiastic about a book, you'd probably like it. Blurbs don't seem to be as useful for this purpose; same with review sites and traditional reviews. But when somebody reads something they love, they can't shut up about it; and your favorite writers are more like that than normal people are.
There are two sequels, "A City in Winter" and "The Veil of Snows". They're like a stylized fairy-tale.
In what place do you live that Mark Helprin was a staff pick? (Rhetorical question, don't answer it.) I loved when Strand in NYC had its "strand 80" readers' picks, which was not the same as "Staff picks". Everywhere I live, cursory glance at staff picks has been book club fare, but I haven't looked in a long time now.
The bookstore was in a college town. I'm sure some of the staff were affiliated with the college.
Maybe, but Helprin's "Winter's Tale" is held in high esteem by the establishment and I'm well aware of it. I haven't read it and maybe I should, but it's one of a very few books this century that I hear about that is described as literary fiction. (My main hesitation to read it is that I hated an essay Helprin wrote about literature back in the 90s).
So you even heard of that book, but since whatever the establishment says is mostly noise, you of course dismissed it as noise. I rest my case - you have no way of finding out if there's literary fiction worth reading out there.
That's fair. Although I do feel nudged to read that book now!
No reason for you to take a random ACX commenter's word that it's worth reading, so do not feel nudged.
One thing I can tell you without spoiling the story too much is that it has a number of miracles in it, written the way miracles should be. I also recommend taking a look inside the book at Amazon.
I agree, but I think the process has been going on for about 100 years. If I were to pick one key turning point, it wouldn't be in literature, but in the plastic arts, just before 1910, when modern art began. Modern art is based on Platonist metaphysics, which denies that people can create or communicate anything new. This eventually led to the ascendancy of style over content in all of the arts, exemplified by writers like Gertrude Stein and Thomas Pynchon.
Several other trends all converged and contributed to this change:
- A line of mostly German philosophy, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, the Nazis, Sartre, and Foucault, denied the existence of any kind of objective truth, grounded morality in "authenticity" and "lived experience" rather than in reason, human biology, or nature, and taught that the only motivations humans had was the will to power. A corollary was that all art, including literature, is always and only political. This became the basis of continental philosophy in the 1930s when fascists kicked the philosophers who believed in objective reality out of Germany and France (and maybe Spain and Italy, but I haven't looked into that yet).
- Post-modernism made its own arguments, also based on Platonist (and Aristotelian) metaphysics (as in the writings of Derrida and Barthes) that people can't create and language can't communicate.
- The Frankfurt school of Marxism, combined with Nazi and existentialist phenomenology (subjective truth, authenticity-based ethics, and will-to-power theory), led to critical theory, an entirely political way of looking at literature. We can mark the ascendancy of critical theory in literature by the date when the Norton Anthology of Literary Theory, under the leadership of Vincent Leitch, became the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism in 2001. Leitch explicitly stated in the preface that he had removed the word "Literary" from the title because he thought people in literature departments should be more concerned with social criticism than with literature.
- The Social Justice movement intensified critical theory, turning it to identify politics rather than class struggle, and making people more comfortable with explicitly using racial and sexual politics as the highest criterion of literary value.
- The rise of other media made literary publications unprofitable, leading to today's situation in which literary imprints are run not to earn financial gain, but social capital, and are therefore tied not to the demands of readers, but the fashions of the Manhattan elite.
- Contemporary literary values, which are really little but reactions against previous, "bourgeois" literary values, were spread by Iowa-style workshops, creative writing MFA programs, and prominent literary magazines such as the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly.
- The rising power of the elite universities, starting around 1970, led to the present situation in which having an MFA from an ivy, Oxbridge, or an elite Boston college has become a prerequisite to becoming a famous literary novelist, and all of these people write "program" fiction.
Some references if you want to trace through some of this:
Lennard Davis, 1987. Resisting Novels: Ideology & Fiction. Methuen, Inc., NYC. Online [url=https://archive.org/details/resistingnovelsi034944mbp]free[/url]. Davis argues that the mission of English literature departments should be to teach students the cynical, critical, and revolutionary perspective necessary to defend them from the inherently bourgeois nature of the novel.
Lennard Davis & M. Bella Mirabella, eds., 1990. Left Politics and the Literary Profession. Columbia University Press.
Annie Dillard, 1982. Living by Fiction. Harper & Row, NY. Largely Dillard's complaints that literary fashions seem to demand that authors write bad books.
Peter Elbow, 1990. What is English? The Modern Language Association, The National Council of Teachers of English. One document showing when the MLA and the NCTE began deliberately teaching that the purpose of literature departments was not to study literature, but to spread Marxism and "social justice".
Chad Harbach, ed., 2014. MFA vs NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction. n+1, NYC.
Vincent Leitch et al., eds. 2nd ed. 2010, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. New York: Norton. Browsing its table of contents shows that there is no longer any concern with literary value in English literary studies. You can also see this by reading PMLA (https://www.mla.org/Publications/Journals/PMLA), the dominant American literary studies journal.
Richard Lloyd-Jones & Andrea Lunsford, eds., 1989. The English Coalition Conference: Democracy through Language. The Modern Language Association, The National Council of Teachers of English. Another book documenting the MLA & NCTE's turn to Marxism.
Marc McGurl 2009. The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. This is an odd book; McGurl says that contemporary literary fiction is richer and more varied than ever, then spends the rest of the book arguing that there are only 3 fictional scenarios or themes that can be written about now.
Maybe, but all of that is pretty highbrow. Seems like most people used to get passionate, if they did, about literature in their late teen years, too early in life to be exposed to all that postmodern bullshit. In fact, literature used to be a bullshit cutter. Books like Catch-22 , On the Road, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch, Gravity's Rainbow, Ham on Rye were popular because they were subversive. Seems to me if similarly subversive books were around today there would be an appetite for them, but maybe nothing can seem subversive today in book form.
A subversive literary book today would have to criticize identity politics, and nobody in Manhattan is going to publish such a book.
I think there are so many more forms of media available now that written fiction is only going to supply a small fraction of what it once did. (Fiction podcasts, long form television, and Instagram poetry are only a small fraction of the things that are adjacent to traditional literary fiction, not to mention all the completely new things like video games and short form video.)
> A line of mostly German philosophy, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, the Nazis, Sartre, and Foucault, denied the existence of any kind of objective truth
That feels like a gross misrepresentation of Husserl.
And Kierkegaard. Read what he published under his own name.
Husserl is an important link in the chain. He's called the father of phenomenology, and the Nazis chose to push phenomenology because its subjective epistemology was extremely useful to them. Also note that Heidegger, the most-prominent Nazi philosopher, was Husserl's only protege, and took Husserl's chair at Freiburg when Husserl left.
There was a major shift between Husserl and Heidegger.
Husserl was decidedly anti-subjectivistic.
This link gives a short overview on Husserl and Heidegger : https://vtomole.com/blog/2021/11/06/phenomenology
quote from link : Edmund Husserl used phenomenology for epistemology: the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. He wanted to make philosophy a rigorous science like mathematics and physics.
And when it comes to Sartre and Husserl, we have Alfred Schutz (one of Husserls more clear-thinking students) on record saying that Sartre got Husserl totally wrong.
I don't claim to understand Husserl, or even that it's possible to understand Husserl (it would take an entire human lifetime merely to read and understand everything he wrote; he wrote faster than readers can read his writing). But I suspect you're being misled by Husserl's actual words. Husserl is known for /introducing/ subjective epistemology. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201766 . (Hegel had already done so nearly a century earlier, but in such a confused way that most Hegelians still don't realize that's what he did. Plus, I think it was in his "Science of Logic", which most Hegelians don't read.)
The term "subjective" is highly ambiguous. If, for instance, I say "I am the tallest person here," that's an empirically unambiguous question; we can all agree on its truth-value, so that truth-value is objective. Yet it depends on who speaks it and where they are; so its truth-value is subjective.
I /think/ that the cases Husserl explored were more like if you say "I am the most beautiful person here", which is subjective in that it depends on your own subjective aesthetic standards, but objective in that, given your own internal access to those standards, it may be "true for you".
Husserl, like all German idealists, was under the misconception that "science" meant "a method of deducing absolutely, logically certain deterministic conclusions without performing experiments or making observations." (In other words, "math".) Like Marx, he called anything "scientific" if it made definite, deterministic predictions and declared them infallible, without any concept of empirically testing predictions. So he thought you could treat internal conscious experience scientifically and "objectively" if you drew conclusions which you said were infallible, even though the internal sense-data was entirely subjective.
I don't think novelist read that much philosophy. How much philosophy do you think Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner read? Art is a different subject from philosophy. Kafka supposedly read a bit of philosophy in his early years but turned away from it when he decided his pure interest was literature.
Philosophy has little to do with literature. A few philosophers like Nietzsche and novelists like Musil have tried to bridge the gap, but so far nobody has made a great syncretism of the two fields.
What the "great novelists" do consciously isn't as important as who chooses the great novelists. Every 20th-century "great novelist" whose history I've investigated turned out to have been selected for ideological reasons, by a coterie of academics or intellectuals:
- Ezra Pound spend years building a network of funders, publishers, critics, and writers, in order to change the face of literature. He didn't know what he wanted; he just knew it had to be strange. He finally settled on James Joyce's Ulysses. It was serialized in 1918-1920 by two magazines Pound was an editor for (The Little Review and The Egoist), then published later by Shakespeare and Company on Pound's urging and fundraising (Tytell 1987 p. 167-8). The book came out in 1922 to a spate of ecstatic reviews, all of which were written by friends of Pound or Joyce, or by Pound himself; an even larger number of negative reviews; and (as far as I have discovered) three mostly positive, unbiased, non-anonymous reviews. See (Southam 2013) and (Deming 1970) for collections of reviews.
- William Faulkner was out-of-print and critically dismissed in 1947. In 1950, he won the (1949) Nobel for literature. That's because between 1943 and 1958, the Rockefeller Foundation spent almost $500,000 paying famous literary journals and critics to promote American writers with an anti-communist ideology. The famous critics were Southerners, and eventually decided to promote Faulkner. (Also, his novel Intruder in the Dust was made into a movie in 1949.) He wasn't their first choice; he wasn't even on their first list of candidates IIRC. (Schwartz 1988 p. 69, 80, 94.) See my post "Review--Creating Faulkner's Reputation" (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/751143).
- While speaking about Southern authors, notice that the Southern authors made respectable in the 20th centuries were mostly ones like Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, Harper Lee, and even VC Andrews and Anne Rice, who depicted Southern culture as dysfunctional, racist, incestuous, and inherently evil. I suspect that's because New York City & New England publishers had veto power over whom to publish and promote.
- Penguin paid Zadie Smith a £250,000 advance for her first novel, White Teeth, before she'd finished more than a fraction of its text, not because it was original, but because it was unoriginal: a combination of so many leftist ideological views and post-modernist tropes that they felt sure the literati would swoon before it. Plus, she was at Oxford, and she was black (Pouly 2016). She wrote it in her spare time during the end-of-term finals weeks. It won the 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the 2000 Whitbread Book Award for best first novel, the Guardian First Book Award, the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize, and the Betty Trask Award. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. See my post "White Teeth: Anatomy of a 'quality' bestseller" (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/725006).
If you read fan-fiction, you'll get a sense for how much more variety exists in what authors are writing, than in what publishers are publishing.
Marie-Pierre Pouly, 2016. "Anatomy of a 'quality' bestseller." Poetics 59 (2016): 20-34.
Lawrence Schwartz, 1988. Creating Faulkner's Reputation. Knoxville: U of Tennessee.
B.C. Southam, 2ed 2013. James Joyce. Routledge.
That was very interesting. Thank you!
I think of Plato as having made a great syncretism of the two fields.
I would say Plato simply dismissed the possibility of art and literature. He believed its only value was educational, and that the State must therefore control it. Certainly the edits he demanded of the Iliad would have destroyed it as literature. Plato's theory of literature was put into practice in the 1930s, in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, precisely because it did unify philosophy and art, but by making art the slave of philosophy.
I think you’ve identified a lot of real and important trends here. But I think these are multiple and conflicting trends, and not a single trend. (Notice the tension between the “Ivy MFA” trend and the “Iowa workshop” trend; the tension between the identity politics strand and the economic leftism strand; the ways in which modernism and postmodernism are often at odds with each other.)
Yes, they are often conflicting, but they all devalue earlier literary values.
[Earlier I wrote "traditional literary values", but there are no traditional literary values. 20th-century English literary values were a radical reaction against 19th-century English literary values, which were a radical reaction against 18-century English literary values, which were a radical reaction against 17-century English literary values, etc.]
But also, some of the trends you noted are the ones that *created* "literary fiction", the genre that Jack Wilson was asking about, even though others lead to replacements of it.
What do you mean by "literary fiction"? The Romance of the Rose was literary fiction in 1270 AD; The Inferno, by 1320. Chaucer, Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Goethe wrote literary fiction. These books were not retrospectively identified as great literature in the 20th century.
Erik Hoel has written about this: https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/how-the-mfa-swallowed-literature
Thanks. I had forgotten you had linked to that before.
I don't buy the "MFAs are the problem" thesis. I suspect the problem is more demand side than supply side.
No; the problem is that the demand side has been amputated. Literary publishers no longer even try to publish books that might be popular.
For instance, let's check last year's runner-ups for the Booker Prize, and their ranks on Amazon:
Bewilderment, Richard Powers: #8,114 in Kindle Store
Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead: #1,063 in Audible Books & Originals
No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood: #5,814 in Audible Books & Originals
The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed: #95,678 in Audible Books & Originals
A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam: #103,530 in Audible Books & Originals
And the winner:
The Promise, Damon Galgut: #4,986 in Audible Books & Originals
Amazon rankings are a poor metric: determined by algorithm and changing hour by hour, never mind that you mix kindle and audible. Better for your purposes (as I assume your purposes to be) would be Goodreads ratings. Especially for titles, like these, with many thousands of reader reviews, Goodreads gives you a good sense of the popular appeal of specific titles. So far as that goes, and speaking as somebody who has read all six of the books you cite (I write about them here: https://sibilantfricative.blogspot.com/2021/09/2021-booker-prize-longlist.html ) I'd say your examples do not show what you want them to show. Of these six two (the Arudpragasm and the Galgut) are, perhaps, quote-unquote "literary", formally and stylistically experimental in a way that a reader looking for a traditional good read (absorbing narrative, interesting characters I care about) might find offputting. The rest are all very readable: the Shipstead, for instance, is a very well written blockbuster, a multi-generation saga; the Mohamed is a clearly-written retelling of an absorbing real-life miscarriage of justice, and Lockwood and Powers are both bestseller authors, highly entertaining.
I don't know about Bewilderment, but Powers has some great stuff! I loved The Echo Maker.
Thank you for correcting me! I haven't read them--I've been avoiding any new novels that won a literary award for years now. Perhaps I'll give them another chance.
I think there's probably been a relative decline of "postmodern" literature (1000 pg Pynchon tomes and the like), but literary fiction seems to be as robust as ever (for whatever that's worth).
I guess the main question I have about it is: do college age males read it and get excited about it (Like they did about Pynchon)? Not that what the distaff likes doesn't matter but they have always been bigger readers of novels and therefore maybe less of a barometer.
I know young people who recently got excited about "Infinite Jest" (1996) and "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" (2000). But that's all. It's odd that both books are over 20 years old, yet are the literary novels I've heard mentioned most-frequently by college-age men in the past few years.
I had an experience last week of being very high on marijuana via a 50mg edible. I had some questions and thoughts coming out of the experience and thought this might be the best place to get answers and feedback. The questions I want answered are mostly that I want to verify that some of my high thoughts were stupid so I can stop thinking about them. If you want to shoot down three dumb math thoughts and ignore the marijuana high journey skip to the __ line.
To answer some potential questions before they come up:
1. Why? I was offered it, and usually I don't notice the effects of marijuana. I'd taken half of a 50mg edible only a month or two earlier and don't remember noticing much of an effect.
2. Was it enjoyable? No, and I doubt I'd do it again. Maybe if I have a day to waste. But I would have preferred being more present and aware for that day.
3. Circumstances? On the 4th of july, with my parents, wife, and kid. Tried to nap through the majority of the high, cuz it was taking forever.
My observations about my mental state:
1. My conscious mind seemed to no longer be in the driver's seat of my physical actions. I was viewing the things I was doing, but I did not feel like I was controlling those things. I would say or do things, and then think "oh that was an interesting thing to say/do".
2. I was having delusions. Mostly I was just hearing sounds that were not there, once I started realizing that these were delusions they often went away. A few times when I was very high I was imagining that scenarios I had played out in my head were real. If anyone here thinks of how a conversation might go in their head before having the conversation ... just imagine not being able to distinguish those thoughts from reality. Or how you feel when you wake up in the morning sometimes and can't tell if a dream was real or an actual memory.
3. My perception of the passage of time was very messed up. I was noticing this constantly, because time seemed to be going at a crawl. I would often notice that it felt like 30 minutes or an hour had passed, when it had instead only been a minute.
4. My situational/spatial awareness was shit. I think this might have been related to the passage of time. If you are sitting in a room for an hour staring in only one direction you might forget what the room behind you looks like. Turning around and letting your mind update the picture will solve the problem. I was constantly losing my spatial awareness and body awareness. Unless I was actively moving around or walking I seemed to have no spatial awareness. Or maybe its like spatial awareness is normally stored in ram for a while, and my mind just kept dumping whatever was in there.
5. My ability to play spider solitaire was significantly worse. I like playing spider solitaire to kill ~10 minutes. I've noticed it tends to correlate with my mental abilities, so its a poor man's IQ test. If I'm being very productive at work and step away to use the bathroom or cook some food, I can finish a game in 5-8 minutes. If I'm drunk, very tired, or heavily distracted I'll finish a game in like 8-12 minutes. When I was high I *thought* I was playing really well, but it took me 20 minutes to finish a game.
6. I spent a lot of time in my head. My main point of dread and dislike of the whole experience is that it took so damn long. I slept through the majority of my high, but it still felt like it took days rather than a few hours of my time. I have some more horror of "locked in syndrome" after the experience. Just stuck with my thoughts for what felt like hours at a time, and I'd look a clock and only a few minutes have passed. Having so much time to spend in my head meant I went over some wacky ideas and theories.
7. I was constantly feeling an "enlightenment high". Some of you may have had it while reading Scott's articles, or finally figuring out how to program something, or completing a tough sudoku puzzle. Its that sense of "Ahh! Yes! I finally get it!". I was feeling this about all my ideas. Even when I realized *while still high* that some of these ideas were dumb.
_______________________
Anyways, three of the ideas I had while high are sorta math related. And I'm not well versed enough in math to know if these ideas are dumb, or even know the terms I would need to use on a search engine to find them. There are some shared concepts between all of the ideas, so I'll try and describe those first. I might not have the right math terminology.
Dimensions and infinity. The basic whole number system we use is a one dimensional number system. It describes a line. A two dimensional number system describes a plane. A three dimension number system describes a space. We don't really have common terms for the higher dimensional number systems (maybe time and space for 4d?).
Base increment. In a 1d (one dimensional) number system the base increment is pretty simple, its just "1". In a 2d number system I think the base increment has to be (1, 1), and in a 3d system it would be (1, 1, 1).
I'll start with the more absurd one:
1. An infinite rebound. I have trouble fully remembering the steps I took to get to the conclusion. There might not have been any steps. The idea was that there is some finite maximum to infinities that describe infinities. Even writing this makes my face turn red. Only talk about it if its *not* stupid. I've already mostly dismissed it.
The other two are kinda related
2. Pairs of primes are a property of the base increment. So in the single dimension we have a bunch of mathematicians working around prime numbers (reading news stories about this is what got my mind spinning in this whole direction). My thought was that if there is a rule for pairs of primes in the 1d then those rules would apply to pairs of primes in the 2d, 3d, etc.
3. The infinite dimension is entirely prime numbers. So as you go up in number dimensions the proportion of prime numbers increases. I realize this kind of breaks with the idea I had above. Which makes it harder for me to know if they are both stupid or if one secretly makes some sense.
I can try to elaborate more if anyone has questions. But mostly I'm looking for an obvious "this is wrong" or "this has been thought of before, here is what it is called".
Sorry for the bad trip. Re: higher dimensions. We would just call these vectors. (An ordered list of numbers.) So in a dimension N we would identify a point as a string of N numbers. I've never heard of talking about primes in vector spaces, but 'at first blush', I would guess they are no different from the normal (one dimensional) primes. ie. if any of the coordinates of a point are prime. Then that vector is prime. That seems mostly self obvious to me, but I could be wrong.
> Was it enjoyable? No, and I doubt I'd do it again. Maybe if I have a day to waste. But I would have preferred being more present and aware for that day.
You took too much. 50mg is a lot, even with a high tolerance. Between 15mg and 25mg is
plenty
> Circumstances? On the 4th of july, with my parents, wife, and kid.
Taking edibles (much like psychedelics) is about set and setting, and consuming drugs among family at home doesn't sound like an ideal situation.
You mentioned not wanting to do it again, but I'd argue to cut the dose in half, double check the strain (if you want something to keep you away, go with Sativa; Indica for something to mellow you out), and adjust your activities.
"Dimensions and infinity. The basic whole number system we use is a one dimensional number system. It describes a line. A two dimensional number system describes a plane. A three dimension number system describes a space. We don't really have common terms for the higher dimensional number systems (maybe time and space for 4d?)."
Check.out quaternions and octonions. Maths is already weirder than what you came up with stoned.
Oh...it's nice to know there are other people out there with apparently really high base marijuana tolerance, who basically don't feel anything until crossing some high threshold, but after that Trip Absolute Balls. I thought I was the only one!
Had a terrible trip pretty much exactly like you describe (and at a similar dose, hmm!), the one time I got past that level...but it didn't even have the dignity of part (7). Just an all-round shitty psychotic break with complete physical incapacitation that seemed to go on forever, but only took about 4-5 hours. (Or so the clocks claimed, who knows if they're right, man...) The worst part was the...not losing rational thought part? Like, a feeling of being mentally trapped and experiencing all these really unpleasant delusions, and *not being able to get out of the car*[1] even though it was batshit insane and I really wanted to stop.
I'm completely confidently gonna state that every single wacko thought from that trip was Complete Bullshit (epistemic status: canonized reference post) and worth summarily dismissing. Math isn't my bailiwick, so can't comment on your calculations, but I'd be cautious of "garbage in, garbage out".
By comparison, the times when I've done shrooms have been pleasant and pretty productive...even when equally intense. Mostly cause they *do* enforce the "suspension of disbelief", so I can freely drown in the stream of consciousness cause I forget breathing is a thing. Lotsa good self-reflection from those types of trips. Psychoactive drugs just work really differently for different folks, I guess. Marijuana isn't one that does good things for me...and sounds like for you, too. (Which is a shame cause it's so inexpensive and accessible by comparison. I'm jealous of basically everyone else who has no problems getting pleasantly high. "Psychosis privilege"!)
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/
Yeah its the second time this has happened to me. The first time was almost a decade ago, so maybe I'll need to relearn the lesson every so often. The other time it happened I had pot brownies, the recommended dose was a quarter brownie. I was drunk hungry and ate two brownies. Woke up high as balls the next day.
The other approximately two dozen times I've had marijuana I've only noticed an increase in appetite.
It definitely sucked feeling the "locked in syndrome". Trapped in my mind and constantly losing connection to my body and the outside world.
I've been semi-interested in shrooms. But probably won't take them for a while. I rarely have a day to lose. I tried salvia a decade ago and found that fun. Much shorter trip.
I was definitely thinking of that slatestarcodex article during the trip and writing up my comment.
Shrooms are nice cause even sub-psychotic doses are pretty pleasant...there's a nice range where everything just seems *so funny* and both body and mind are completely relaxed. It's hard to be stressed about anything when you're just staring at the walls and giggling constantly. But there's no next-day hangover or munchies-equivalent like with some other hallucinogens. Just reflections to sit with, if you choose. (Taking notes is useful.)
The strong-trip benefits are more like...I guess like lucid dreaming, for me anyway. The realization that even fundamental blocks of reality like time are highly subjective, and it is very much within my power to change how I experience and react to them. Feels like a sort of shortcut to Buddhism. "Have you tried not being sad?" - except instead of being dick advice, for a short period, you can actually totally do that via mere willpower. It's strange and powerful. Catching a glimpse of the Divine, and all that...a hard reboot of the human OS, where things may or may not recompile in the same way afterwards.
> We don't really have common terms for the higher dimensional number systems (maybe time and space for 4d?).
Quick note before I try to answer the math questions:
Not a physicist, but as I understand it, the 4D spacetime we live in is importantly mathematically distinct from 4-dimensional space as mathematicians define it.
Eg, apparently the "right" notion of the distance between two points in spacetime (x1,y1,z1,t1) and (x2,y2,z2,t2) is sqrt((x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2 + (z2-z1)^2 - (t2-t1)^2). So it's similar to the Pythagorean theorem you know for 2D and 3D space, but there's a minus sign in front of the part about distance in time! In a mathematician's 4D space, that negative sign wouldn't be there. The physicists tell me that relatively tells us that while things like simultaneity, spatial distance, and duration are totally relative and depend on the reference frame, *this* quantity, the spacetime distance between two points under the Minkowksi metric, is *absolute*; it's the same no matter what your reference frame is.
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> Base increment. In a 1d (one dimensional) number system the base increment is pretty simple, its just "1". In a 2d number system I think the base increment has to be (1, 1), and in a 3d system it would be (1, 1, 1).
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this — what's a base increment? (From my perspective, all I can see is that you named three tuples, (1), (1,1), and (1,1,1); you didn't say anything about them or do anything with them, so I'm not sure what this is getting at.)
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> An infinite rebound. I have trouble fully remembering the steps I took to get to the conclusion. There might not have been any steps. The idea was that there is some finite maximum to infinities that describe infinities.
Ordinary set theory, which studies infinities of different sizes, was kickstarted by Cantor when he proved that the powerset of a set has a larger cardinality than the original set. So if you're working in a system that lets you always take the powerset of any set (as set theorists usually do), there are infinitely many infinities — just keep taking the poweset. No upper bound.
(Obvious question: how big if the infinity that tells you how many infinite cardinalities there are? Answer: in some sense, bigger than any of those infinities. Which hopefully sounds paradoxical/self-contradictory/wrong as written; I can elaborate what "in some sense" means if you want.)
At the opposite extreme, if you had a simpler, weaker system that only let you talk about arithmetic, there wouldn't be any infinities inside the system at all, so there'd be finite maximum to infinities — namely, there'd be 0 of them.
There are intermediate options that are strong enough to talk about infinities, but weak enough that you can only finitely many of them.
So in general, the answer to "are there only finitely many different infinities?" depends on what system you're working in — the entirety of set theory? just arithemetic? somewhere in-between? People tend to think of ordinary set theory as the "implicit foundation" of math these days — the machine code that everything else could in principle be compiled down to. However, a weaker foundational system would be sufficient for almost all non-set-theorist mathematics; set theory is kinda overkill, in terms of how many infinities it provides. Most non-set-theorists rarely need more than a handful of infinities, if any.
Not sure if any of this answers your question, but if not, hopefully it's useful background info for a followup question.
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> Pairs of primes are a property of the base increment. So in the single dimension we have a bunch of mathematicians working around prime numbers (reading news stories about this is what got my mind spinning in this whole direction). My thought was that if there is a rule for pairs of primes in the 1d then those rules would apply to pairs of primes in the 2d, 3d, etc.
Not sure what this means. (What is the base increment?) By "primes in 2D", do you mean something like (5,1)? Ie, a pair of integers that can't be broken down as a product of other pairs?
I̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶2̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶r̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶3̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶p̶l̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶ Oops, didn't think that through, did I? (2,3) isn't prime: (2,3) = (2,1) * (1,3). A typical prime in 3D would be eg (17, 1, 1).
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> The infinite dimension is entirely prime numbers. So as you go up in number dimensions the proportion of prime numbers increases.
I don't think I understand what you mean by this, but if I am understanding it, it's false. It sounds like you're talking about the space ℤ^∞, which is infinite-dimensional. ℤ^∞ consists of tuples like (4, 3, 18, 0, -4, 0, 0, 0, ...). Is that the space you have in mind? If so, note that plenty of such tuples can be factored. Eg, (4,0,0,0,0,...) = (2,0,0,0,0,...)*(2,0,0,0,0,...). Ie, they're not all prime.
Re. "the spacetime distance between two points under the Minkowksi metric, is *absolute*; it's the same no matter what your reference frame is": It's important to note this. Relativity theory didn't /introduce/ relativity into physics, it /banished/ relativity from physics -- but by replacing space and time, as separate "things" or distances, with spacetime, which provides absolute distances which are the same for every observer. I think literally no one in the humanities has ever understood this. Certainly none have ever believed me when I told them.
It also proved Kant was right in positing space and time as being not absolutes, but constructions of the human mind! One of the few great victories of philosophy. But then again, it could be seen as proving Kant was incorrect in claiming that we can never know things in themselves. Spacetime seems to be a way of understanding things in themselves, based on observations of things as interpreted by human minds.
"I̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶2̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶r̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶3̶D̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶p̶l̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶ Oops, didn't think that through, did I? (2,3) isn't prime: (2,3) = (2,1) * (1,3). A typical prime in 3D would be eg (17, 1, 1)."
I thought for a second I had made the same mistake. But instead I think I made an entirely different mistake. I was multiplying 2D/3D/XD numbers with 1D numbers.
Sorry for all the confusion. I semi-regret writing the last part of my post. If I share again it will just turn into a singular observation: "I thought I was doing some mathematical reasoning, but it was 99% nonsense."
Hmm, taking the higher dimension versions to be Z^n as Z-modules should allow for density statements, and it seems plausible that the density of primes would approach 1 as n->infinity.
I don't think so. Surely the density would be 0 for any n, no? T̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶n̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶Z̶^̶n̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶n̶-̶t̶u̶p̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶o̶r̶d̶i̶n̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶.̶ ̶S̶o̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶P̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶N̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶o̶r̶e̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶n̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶o̶x̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶w̶i̶d̶t̶h̶ ̶k̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶1̶/̶l̶n̶(̶k̶)̶^̶n̶.̶ ̶I̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶n̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶a̶r̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶g̶o̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶u̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶n̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶0̶.̶
Oh, derp, was thinking of only needing components to be relatively prime, which would allow far more tuples, but is rather weaker than being prime.
In fact, we would need tuples of distinct primes, because (2,2)=(1,2)*(2,1)
Hah, nope, we were both obviously wrong! Double-derp. (2,3) = (2,1) * (1,3). There are barely any primes. (2,1) is prime, though.
Huh, yeah. For a different direction, what if instead of prime being p|ab => p|a or p|b, we used p|na => p|a or n is prime (p,a,b in the module, n in Z)? It's a bit late for me to think about this, maybe this is just obviously incoherent. (Of course, we'd probably want to call this something other than prime)
Also, how did you get the blackboard bold Z in a Substack comment?
There are some interesting thoughts in there. There’s a few things we might think of as higher dimensional number systems. A useful idea here is the notion of a “ring” or a “field”. A ring is a number system where you can add, subtract, or multiply, like the integers, and a field is a number system where you can add, subtract, multiply, or divide, like the rational numbers (fractions).
There are rings that relate to the integers in ways like the plane to the line. (People have mentioned the complex integers, but you can also add just the solution to a single other polynomial, like square root of 2, or cube root of 5, or a set of these extensions.) You can also extend this to higher dimensions.
However, it turns out that the concept of a “prime number” works out differently. In some of these rings, there are things that are “irreducible” (they have no factors other than themself and things that divide 1) but that aren’t “prime” (there isn’t unique factorization). For instance, the number 6 can be factored in two different ways in the ring consisting of integers and the square root of -5. But for any such ring, you can extend it with “ideal numbers” and some of these ideals are prime, and all ideals factor into prime ideal is in a unique way. (We don’t think of these ideals as numbers any more, but as sets of a certain sort.)
For these higher dimensional (or more abstract) rings, there isn’t always a natural way to order the numbers, so that “pairs of primes” don’t necessarily naturally make sense any more, so there’s not a lot to say about points 2 and 3.
However, there are a few more related mind blowing things. It actually makes sense to treat the set of sentences in a logical language as one of these rings. The ideals in this ring correspond to logically consistent partial theories. The prime ideals in this ring correspond to maximal descriptions of possible worlds in such a language.
Also, while that point you make about primes becoming denser in higher dimensions probably doesn’t quite make sense, there is a related idea called “concentration of measure”. If you choose some small epsilon, then on the perimeter of a circle, only a tiny fraction of the points are within epsilon of a point specified as the “middle” of that perimeter. But on the surface of a sphere, it’s a slightly bigger fraction of the points that are within epsilon of a specified “equator”. And in higher dimensions, an even greater proportion of points are within epsilon of the “perpendicular” to a given axis. And in some dimension, a majority of the surface of the hypersphere is, and in some dimension, even more than 99.9% of the surface is. Somehow, this fact is also said to explain why it looks to us at the large scale that quantum mechanical superpositions “collapse”, even if the wave function always evolves deterministically.
How can you make the set of logical formulas into a (commutative?) ring? It's quite difficult to imagine and very hard to google. I might be able to somehow turn it into a monoid with multiplication given by modus ponens, and addition is probably given by XOR, but I'm not sure whether the laws check out.
The search term is "Boolean algebra" or especially "Boolean ring". There's a lot of stuff out there about prime ideals in a Boolean ring, but most of it assumes a lot of familiarity with logic, set theory, and abstract algebra.
The role of 1 is played by a tautology, and 0 by a contradiction. Multiplication is &, and addition is XOR (as you suspected - that's usually the trickiest one to figure out). Checking commutativity and associativity of both operations, and distributivity of multiplication over addition, as well as verifying that 0 and 1 have their standard algebraic properties, is a worthwhile exercise. These rings have the slightly odd feature that 1+1=0 (but this sort of thing is common in modular arithmetic, where multiples of some number are treated as equivalent to 0, so there's some number of copies of 1 that can be added to themself to get 0).
Can you explain a bit about how adding (Sqrt(5) * i) to the ring of integers creates an factorization of 6 other than (1,6) and (2,3)? I'm missing something here.
Let k be the square root of -5. Then (1+k)(1-k)=6. It’s a little bit harder to check that (1+k) and (1-k) are not divisible by 2 or 3, and vice versa. As I recall, the way to check is to define a “norm” on this number system, which is a map from it into the integers that preserves the multiplication operation. The particular map is to take each element of this ring to the square of its distance from the origin when you represent the points in the standard complex plane. It is not hard to check that the result is always an integer and is preserved under multiplication, and that (1+k) and (1-k) are both sent to 6, while 2 is sent to 4 and 3 is sent to 9. Since these integers aren’t divisible by each other, neither are the original numbers.
Thanks! I definitely overlooked that fact that implicitly k acts more like a "basis" vector in the ring space (i.e., all ring operations including k such as 1+k, 2+k, 3k, etc. would be elements of the ring as well) so you're not restricted from performing multiplicative operations merely on k itself (which is where I was getting hung up -- I'm like "how does getting -5 or multiples thereof help here?)
Also, minor terminological point related to your explanation of the norm (quite clever! thanks for including it): my recollection (correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since I took abstract algebra and I don't use it in my day job) was that strictu senso you didn't actually have division as a defined operation within a ring, merely the concept of a multiplicative inverse (hence why the integers are a ring but the rationals are the field extension) - is that right?
That's right - when I say "x is divisible by y", what I really mean is "there is something in the ring that you can multiply y by to get x". There are some members of a ring that have multiplicative inverses (1 and -1 are always there, but there are sometimes others, like i and -i) and those are called "units", and whenever something is said to be unique or irreducible, these units can always be multiplied to various things and that doesn't count as a violation.
In a field, every element is a unit, and so most of the concepts related to divisibility are trivialized.
I think I had "ring"s in mind. Thanks for that terminology. Last two paragraphs might have lost me a bit, but that's fine this is not my area.
For "infinities of infinities", there are in fact infinitely many distinct infinities. Which infinity describes the cardinality of the complete collection of infinite cardinalities is (iirc) indeterminate, depending on the Continuum Hypothesis (approximately speaking, whether there exist infinities strictly between the sizes of the integers/rationals, and the size of the reals). I don't recall more on this subject, not an area I've studied much
> Which infinity describes the cardinality of the complete collection of infinite cardinalities is (iirc) indeterminate, depending on the Continuum Hypothesis
This is incorrect; the total number of different infinities is unrelated to the Continuum Hypothesis.
The most straightforward & conceptually useful answer to the question "how many different infinite cardinalities are there?" is "an infinity bigger than any of those cardinalities". (Giving a technically correct answer depends on which set theory you're in. In ZFC, the "collection of all infinities" is in some sense "too big to be a set", so it's not a well-formed question to ask for its "cardinality".)
Ah, thanks for the correction! I don't recall where I got my previous misunderstanding from, but I'll be sure to update.
"Base increment" - it would be helpful if you explained what you mean? If you mean "generate by self-addition", then you're just making parallel copies, not increasing dimension. Perhaps you mean a basis (as for a vector space), in which case it's a collection of elements, e.g. {(0,1),(1,0)}.
Also, depending on what you mean by "number system", dimensions can be quite restricted. For example, division algebras can only have dimension 1, 2, or 4 (or 8 if you drop associativity)
Sorry that the terms are confusing. I tried to read up on what a basis is for a vector space. Couldn't parse what I found.
I do remember thinking through whether {(0,1),(1,0)} were part of this "base increment" as I was defining it, and I came to think that they are not. I think my reasoning at the time is that they don't take up any area. But I'm seeing now how this whole approach is wrong, or at least not standard. From reading up on things it looks like I was basically ignoring zero. Or at least only defining rules that might apply to a "natural number" set of 2d numbers.
Ah, building off the naturals. Well, that'd give you... an additive semigroup, with a multiplicative structure on top. Not sure where to find out more about such structures, but it seems fun to play with.
As far as a basis: a set of vectors such that every other vector in your space is a (linear) combination of the basis elements, and the only way to combine them to make zero is by taking all coefficients to be zero. Standard example: every point in the plane can be written (x,y) = x(1,0) + y(0,1), so {(1,0), (0,1)} is a basis for R^2.
3. is incorrect outright, I think--complex numbers are a 2D algebra and it has its own primes, "Gaussian primes", which are actually *more* sparse than prime numbers in the Gaussian integers if I understand this correctly. 2 I can't really parse much.
This is close to being correct, but not quite right.
The ring of integers of the complex numbers is the whole ring of algebraic integers, not just the Gaussian integers. Writing down the ideals of that ring is actually quite tricky - there's a stackexchange thread on it at https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/156231/non-zero-prime-ideals-in-the-ring-of-all-algebraic-integers - and you aren't likely to ever want to compute with them, but it does contain prime ideals, and those ideals (not elements) are the "primes" of the complex numbers.
The Gaussian integers are a subring of the algebraic numbers. They're a principal ideal domain with a finite units group, which means that it's meaningful to talk about not just prime ideals but prime elements (up to rescaling by a power of i), so everything works nicely. But it's not quite right to call those the primes of the complex numbers - the square root of every Gaussian integer is an algebraic number.
Despite pronouncing my 3rd point "incorrect outright" I think you are still giving me too much credit. I don't know what gaussian integers are, and after looking them up it is definitely not what I was thinking of.
Thanks for the response, I'll add it to my bucket of "yes being high makes you come up with nonsense".
Scott, I noticed you stop posting the reminder about the thread number and politics - was this intentional?
He announced the change a few open threads ago. IIRC, it was because the politics/no-politics rule was confusing for some and seemed unnecessary compared to a general "don't start flame wars" rule.
Not saying Altman's numbers are wrong but they do seem very much in conflict with just about market price and prediction market out there.
It would be really nice to get any prediction from him about the Q > 5 threshold, to compare it with some predictions from the review. (They were all about Q > 5.)
Can someone comment on how impressed I should be with his predictions? As far as I know, Q > 1 has already been achieved. Was that with other fusion equations? In a "large" experiment, while Helion uses a "medium" one?
The triple product for Q>1 for D-He3 fusion is similar to the triple product to get ignition (Q=infinity) for D-T fusion. Not quite the same because D-He3 fusion needs higher temperatures, while D-T needs density or confinement time to be higher. This prediction is at least as strong as 65% Q>5 for D-T fuel by 2026 (although they may not choose to run those experiments). My predictions were 5% by 2025 and 20% by 2030, which is much lower.
Q>1 has been achieved by NIF (inertial confinement), but with a shot frequency of 1-2 shots per day, instead of ~1 shot per second. JET and JT-60 (both tokamaks) have the capability of getting Q>1. They've gotten the triple product needed, but were using pure deuterium plasmas instead of D-T plasmas. So Q>1 in a medium experiment is not that impressive.
What is impressive is that they use an entirely different design. Their independent line of research would have caught up with 50 years of international collaborations. They also have a different method of generating electricity from the plasma, which might allow them to build a power plant with a lower Q.
Wow, thank you so much! This is exactly the information that I had hoped for!
Maybe, but also Q >1 while a milestone is very far from "useable fusion" let alone "economically competitive fusion".
To some degree, I want investors to be delusional. Hopefully there's a long tail of asymmetric upside that balances out most of these being wrong. But regardless, I expect founders and early investors to believe that they can see something no one else can. Which is almost definitionally delusional.
On the one hand, he has insider information which may enable him to make better predictions. On the other, as an investor, he is inherently biased towards believing in favorable outcomes. Even as a fusion believer, 85% Q > 1 by 2024 seems very optimistic, but I'd love for him to be right.
I just finished reading Albion's Seed (after reading Scott's review a few years ago). Judging from Wikipedia the follow-on books never materialized (but perhaps they were done by other authors), the second was supposed to be similar, but how the African Slave Trade brought folkways. Is there a (hopefully great) single book covering that?
thanks
Sailer's review here: https://www.takimag.com/article/faded-roots/
Yeah, he just published one covering that. https://www.amazon.com/African-Founders-Enslaved-Expanded-American-ebook/dp/B0984GXXFX
Just something I have noticed online: posters with overtly female nicks tend to be trans women rather than cis women. I have not noticed the converse though. This is anecdotal, but sort of makes sense, being open about one's gender is something that cis women learned early to be cautious about.
At this point, looking at a discord username and seeing something like "witch", "princess", anything obviously female-coded is a 100% accurate trans signal.
Then again, you could have stopped me at "discord".
Can corroborate, as one of those trans women who mostly grew out of that habit. There's a certain...naivete? cutely adorably basic bitch thing? clumsy Baby's First Femininity?...aspect to many online trans handles, whether it's in videogames or forums or social media. Obviously, one shouldn't ever assume (especially from Fictional Evidence!), but it's always an update to my priors. Certain dress tics do the same in real life - loudly pink everything! glitter! And, hey, that works for some, more power to 'em. Whenever I meet someone who seems like a time-dilated tweenage girl, though...yeah, that's my base prior.
For a lot of trans women, there's this stage where one is just like, super super desperate to showcase capital-F Femininity(tm) in every possible way...both to influence others' perceptions, and also to convince oneself. I think of it as a form of autohypnotic suggestion. There's a *reason* most trans women tend not to adopt boringly anodyne female names, yknow? Even easier online where you don't have to potentially deal with a court clerk giving you that "really?" look for legally becoming Xrystal Hartz-Lifegiver or whatever.
It's basically the equivalent of...can't not phrase this somewhat crudely, sorry for NSFW-ness. A queer friend once described freshly-out gay men in SF as thinking of life as "full of nothing but cocks and rainbows". Fresh trans women are often like that, just gender-swapped. It's kinda painfully embarrassing and I wish all of them the utmost alacrity in growing up faster, but hey, that's part of growing up. Not like I didn't do the exact same thing at that age.
Here-here! From one of the same. It's a weird part of the growing up part and I personally feel it's part of my responsibility to gently (to sometimes somewhat firmly) nudge and shepherd them through it as quickly as possible. It's understandable but not really good for anyone.
That said, specifically on the online names thing - Cis women (especially young) _do_ do that, in the corners of the internet they mostly don't share with men. Obviously this community is very heavily male dominated, so you don't see much of it.
And finally as an anecdata example, Aella's Twitter handle is literally Aella_girl.
I guess I was trying really hard not to use the tired trope of "second puberty/being a teen for the first time", but yeah, that's definitely part of it. Everyone needs a period of crashing around to find which guard rails are comfortable for them. I mostly want them to do that faster, cause it's the most vulnerable time and it's tough to see them get hurt in entirely predictable ways. Kids gotta be allowed to fail authentically though, that's how learning happens.
(Insert the whole argument about passing being way harder but more "authentically fake" in less trans-friendly places, cause the bar is so high and it weeds out anyone who can't. Which is sad in different ways, but...trial by fire, selection effects. I certainly feel like living in SF lets me get away with many "bad gender habits" that really ought to be corrected if I'm serious about being taken seriously.)
It seems almost inevitable that there would be at least a bias in that direction: trans women pretty much by definition are people who value being perceived as women, whereas a lot of cis women don't care that much. Combine with the fact that being perceived as a woman online can carry costs I would be surprised if there wasn't an effect.
What is a nick?
I'd assume nicknames or screen names.
Thank you! I was thinking “niche” but it didn’t quite work.
Wait. You have the ability to tell if someone on the internet is a dog?
I only include the subset of those who I interact with on chat platforms or who talk about themselves online.
It would be useful to have actual statistics here, to see if this is one of the cases where something that is actually 10-20% “feels like” a majority in one context, because it’s so uncommon elsewhere.
It would be, but I cannot imagine how to collect it. Also, not sure if it would really be "useful" in any way. Just posted my personal anecdotal impressions, which was clearly stated in the original comment.
Best Dire Straits song?
Sultans of Swing - one of the best guitar solos
Brothers in Arms or Telegraph Road
Telegraph road or Tunnel of love
Telegraph Road, with honorable mention to Romeo & Juliet
The right answer is "anything from the alchemy live album". You can pick whatever song you prefer.
I can't choose between Down to the Waterline, and Skateaway.
Sultans, obv. Actually, I don't know much Straits besides Sultans of Swing and Money for Nothing. I once listened to their eponymous album and decided that I'd only ever heard Sultans from that album for a reason. The rest did not seem as inspired as that one song.
I've never really "got" Sultans of Swing. Why am I listening to a band telling me about a different band playing in a different style? If the Sultans of Swing are so great can I please just listen to them instead? Is this like Tenacious D's "Tribute"? Do the Sultans of Swing play a song about Dire Straits?
I view it as a black comedy. You're not supposed to want to listen to the Sultans of Swing band. The song is about a band that loves their extremely niche music so much, but not many other people really care about them. I think it's supposed to be like some really particular archaic type of jazz that most people don't get, and maybe wasn't even popular back in it's own heydey. So the young guys in the corner aren't listening to them in an age of rock and roll, and think they're lame. And the band members don't get paid very well, have to take on other jobs, and may be on the verge of quitting because no one cares about their music, and they feel like it's pointless. I think it's a hilarious and also evocative piece.
Also the guitar solo is so well structured and executed, it's amazing.
Walk of life? Loved that when I was 11.
Tunnel of Love. Or possibly "Making Movies"
Why Worry (lights off, lying down) was my drug of choice to survive graduate school.
Money for Nothing seems like too obvious an answer, but only because it's correct
Sultans of Swing
I don’t know about ”best,” but side two of the eponymous album has some overlooked songs (Lions, Wild West End)
Romeo and Juliet
Scott (or anyone, really),
Can you recommend any clinical psych topics that are in need of a good literature review, or heuristics for how to identify one? I'm an undergraduate psychology student looking for a topic for my capstone project.
Population-wise, I'm interested in gifted children, learning disabilities, twice-exceptional students, and for adults I'm interested in the psychology of technical professionals. Condition-wise I'm interested in anxiety disorders (especially eating disorders and OCD), and dissociative disorders. Treatment-wise I'm interested in IFS, Coherence Therapy, and CBT/DBT/related stuff.
(I'm in a 2-year degree-completion BA program for adult students; I started out in the humanities at a different school a while ago, so I've only had about a year and a half of psych coursework and pretty limited faculty guidance or time to think about what I'm doing. I could do observational research instead of a review paper, but again I don't have ton of institutional support and so I fear that the study might not turn out very worthwhile. I feel more optimistic that a review paper could make a real contribution, if I pick something worthwhile to dig into)
Is there anything you'd like to know more about that you think I could feasibly sort out in 6 months of work?
I'd like to know whether the "anxiety baseline" really has gone up in a population-significant way, specifically for females. On the one hand, it sure doesn't seem like Big Deal expressions such as anorexia, OCD, etc are (formally) more common now than ever. But on the other hand...I literally can't remember the last time I met a girl who *didn't* claim to have "social anxiety". (Doesn't seem to correlate at all with gregariousness or social prowess!) If this is becoming the default state for half of humanity, what does it actually mean to be anxious in modern times? Is it entirely an Intern's Syndrome sort of thing, or are actual clinical anxiety diagnoses on a historically anomalous* rise?
*yeah, I know, current event confounders..."after controlling for covid, BLM, inflation, Ukraine, Roe v Wade, Shinzo Abe, ..."
I'd be interested in knowing more on depression and sensory issues - ie whether depressed people really have worse vision, hearing, etc.
You could try looking at omega-3s for psych problems, although I'm warning you it's a giant mess.
Oh yeah, those depression and predictive coding theories always sounded fascinating when they came up on the blog. Doing something with sensation/perception is a great idea, too, because although I want to go into clinical psych for grad school my current faculty mentor is a Cog Psych. Thank you for the suggestion.
I might see if there are similar topics related to anxiety disorders, though, since that's closer to my interests and some plausible PHD advisors I'm scouting.
Diagnosis, treatment & outcomes for “troubled teen/adult males.”
As far as I can tell there has been some research but there aren’t standardized research structures - so the definition of mental illness will vary from study to study. If someone did a careful lit review and tracked this stuff it would be very useful for the next researchers.
The presence of child abuse prevention laws, plus a lack of effective treatment and lack of jobs & lack of social support for non-school-focused young males, plus the increase in requirements for joining the military: adds up to we can’t kick the $&** out of them daily anymore but society has not evolved a better method of dealing with them & has little use for them.
Over the weekend I met a kid who (I think) needs to be sent to a fifteen-year martial arts, meditation and apprenticeship program. No vacations home, just sink or swim with strict rules and enforcement. But those programs don’t exist, or they’re too expensive, or are vulnerable to manipulation in other ways (if the kid runs away they have to look for him, for example, not just let him be eaten by bears or whatever.) Decent kid but insecure, aggressive & blamey. After this weekend I truly believe that societies have relied on “he met with an accident” to deal with some young men, this is under appreciated, and society’s attempts to rehabilitate everyone are overconfident and underpowered. Figure out how to deal with these kids and you greatly reduce the perpetrator class, creating profound social good. I’m not sure we can do better than historical solutions, though. If you do this lit review, please make it locatable here.
Military academies are the traditional answer here, right?
I think so - and possibly “wilderness therapy” or Outward Bound - type programs. Or even the CCC, outdoor non-military public service with a GED component. But research seems not to find these beneficial effects of the boot-camp rehabs or shorter-term therapy. I’m not versed in the field enough to know why (my guesses are too short a term or not tiring enough, or by the time drugs are involved additional ingredients are necessary for success.) But generally yes a military academy would be a good solution. I think tuition is a barrier, or people think it is.
Which prospective Tory leadership candidate would be the best?
For those who don't know, the mainland UK banned most forms of hunting in 2004 and therefore Tory leadership contests are our last remaining blood sport. Our outgoing Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, presided over one of the most dramatic reversals of political fortune in the modern era, going from a majority of 80 in the House of Commons (which you might very roughly think of as being analogous to a strong supermajority in Congress and the Senate) to being forced out last week by his own party when 50 ministers resigned on the same day. Amusingly, Johnson also sacked a longtime political rival from his job in the middle of all the resignations, apparently for no other reason than spite. It was glorious.
This now means we get to watch another Tory leadership election contest, our third in six years. These contests are deliberately designed to prevent a bloodbath happening because in contrast to our other main party, the Tories prefer to give the impression of having few internal squabbles to air. That probably won't happen this time, since the circumstances are so unusual, and there are a bunch of unedifying things happening already. Any Tory MP can put their name into the ring if they get the endorsement of a small number of other MPs (I think it is eight, but at any rate it is a formality). There's then two rounds of multiple-elimination runoff voting where you need to get 5% then 10% of the total vote to stay in the contest, followed by multiple rounds of single-elimination voting where the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Normally what happens is that around about the second round of voting a favourite 'emerges' through backroom deals and the final vote is a foregone conclusion because venal and self-serving MPs want to ingratiate themselves with the new PM (and there are quite a lot of venal and self-serving MPs in a leadership contest). That didn't happen last time and I suspect it won't happen this time because the stakes are so high.
I think this is particularly likely to be a brutal contest for a few reasons. Firstly, the norms of UK political discourse have weakened a lot under Johnson, and you have the rather unprecedented spectacle of the Prime Minister accusing the Leader of the Opposition of being a paedophile-enabler in the Commons (or recently, a minister repeating a sexist attack against the Deputy Leader of the Opposition of spreading her legs opposite the Prime Minister to distract him). We're moving towards a more US-style of adversarial and negative politics, and there are already some massively damaging leaks emerging from the contest that I think wouldn't have happened three years ago. Secondly, the Tories are probably heading towards a pretty nasty electoral defeat meaning that for many MPs this is their one and only shot at the top job and turning the ship around. That means they won't be leaving anything on the table, and they have no particular reason to care about the reputation of the eventual winner. Finally, there are unique circumstances that mean it will be particularly easy to form attack lines against the contenders.
There's two painful cleavages in the Tory party at the moment which are going to make the contest particularly fractious:
The first is that the Johnson government is *extremely* unpopular. Certainly the most unpopular government of my lifetime and I think you have to go back to before the advent of modern polling before you find incumbent parties getting less of the vote share than the Tories are predicted to get next election. The Tories will probably bounce back after the public has taught them a lesson at the polls, but anyone associated with the Johnson government is going to have an uphill battle to distance themselves from the previous administration and cast themselves as a 'true Tory' who was only serving in the government out of a sense of duty. In that respect I think Zahawi's days are completely numbered - he made a power play during the mass resignations last week that left him as Chancellor iff Johnson survived the crisis and miscalculated. On the other hand, Hunt or Mourdaunt probably have a significant palatability advantage to the general public - Hunt has actually made it a central plank of his campaign that he had nothing to do with Johnson. Javid might have a fighting chance of positioning himself that way because he was sacked once from the Johnson government and could play that angle up, while Sunak might have a harder time of it. There's a reasonably good chance Johnson will face a vote of no confidence next week which will really put the metaphorical cat amongst the metaphorical pigeons on this issue.
The second is that the UK voted to leave the European Union in a process called 'Brexit', and Johnson made the delivery of Brexit effectively the cornerstone of his campaign. The delivery of Brexit has not been the success that was promised - Johnson is currently attempting to find a way to renegotiate a Brexit treaty he signed only a few years ago because it committed the UK government to something that might re-ignite the Northern Irish 'troubles' (ie partisan terror attacks, although I accept people like Deiseach might have a different view on this than me). There are basically three theories of Brexit in the Tory party at the moment; keep Brexit and blame the bad stuff on Johnson, renegotiate Brexit from scratch and scrap Brexit. The latter two options are probably more sensible, but would be politically suicidal. However *accusing your political opponents* of wanting to do one of those two things is going to happen a lot, and be very hard to refute. I think only Sunak and Mordaunt have the Leave credentials to rise above this melee - Hunt, Javid, Truss, Tugendhat and Shapps all voted remain.
My three preferred candidates have all ruled themselves out. I like Ben Wallace, Steve Baker and Michael Gove for different reasons, but broadly because they represent to me the platonic ideal of what a politician 'should' be. Baker and Gove have some pretty nutso ideas, but they stand behind those ideas, clearly explain what would happen if they were elected and then make efforts to deliver on those ideas. Wallace is fairly untested as far as I can see but I rate him for having the same kind of temperament, based on what I've seen of him coordinating the UK COVID vaccine response. In contrast, the front runners are totally unprepared to staple their flags to the mast - they'll talk about 'change' and 'fairness' and 'a new start' or whatever, but not actually commit to anything concrete. I don't like that! There's a joke going around that you wouldn't want anyone as Tory leader who would put themselves forward for the role, but it is more than half true. Worth mentioning here is Rory Stewart, who is widely rather liked even amongst the Left for coming across as a really decent chap but left the Tories during the Johnson administration - I think he'd be a shoe-in if he was still kicking around.
So I think all in all it depends what you mean by 'best'. I think 'best for the UK' would be a middleweight like Hunt or Javid steering the Tories into a mild electoral defeat, so that they can have some time reflecting on what went wrong since Cameron and put into place processes to fix that. I think 'best for the Tories' might be Sunak - he could consolidate power around himself before the contest got too rowdy and has enough clout at the Treasury that he could potentially buy an election victory with tax cuts (or at least avoid the sort of historic humiliating defeat which I am salivating for). However I could also see a case that a very public and ostentatious break with the previous administration is absolutely required to prevent the Johnson saga looming on (like appointing Starmer after Corbyn) - Mordaunt or Hunt would really be your only sensible choice there, and I prefer Mordaunt.
"I think 'best for the Tories' might be Sunak - he could consolidate power around himself before the contest got too rowdy and has enough clout at the Treasury that he could potentially buy an election victory with tax cuts "
Everyone except Sunak is offering tax cuts. Even if he could deliver,he doesn't want to.
In terms of popularity, they're about 30% on vote share and 20% on approval. These aren't the numbers you want, but are still in the territory where an election tomorrow is a hung parliament.
Agree although:
1) Losing any election after more than a decade in power is going to be painful. Especially because this one seems to self-inflicted in comparison to Labour's loss in 2010. Especially especially because they did so well in 2019 so it is likely that this will be a 'historic' loss in the sense of being the largest post-war swing between parties.
2) There's no world where the Tories can form a coalition in the parliament which would occur following a snap election - a Tory / SNP coalition is simply unthinkable in the modern political landscape. So from the Tories' point of view I'm not sure how much that actually matters - similar to how it didn't really ultimately matter much to Lab that May had to form a coalition with DUP
3) In some sense a snap election would be 'Labour's to lose' - if Lab, LD and SNP entered a non-compete pact on any seat where they came second to a Tory I think you could be looking at the non-existence of Tories as a viable Parliamentary party - winning maybe as few as 100 seats. If I were Keir Starmer I'd be going for that pretty hard, but I don't think in practice the pact could hold together long enough to matter.
100 seats is probably a bit drastic - there aren't a lot of seats where Labour and the Lib Dems are both competitive, and the ones there are are mostly ones that you'd expect to swing to Labour if they did well anyway. A Greens/Lib Dem pact would probably hurt the Tories more (albeit he Greens would have to sacrifice so many seats that they'd almost not be contesting the election).
I like Jacob Rees-Mogg, I am not sure whether that makes him objectively the best candidate. I suppose that a good Prime Minister is someone who represents what Britain actually is, not what I think it aesthetically ought to be.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a middle class oddity cosplaying as an aristocrat. He is not what he presents as- it is almost certainly the case that the bizarre briefcase/top hat/cane image was something adopted at school and then university to a) be a brand and b) provide a protective barrier between his reality and public persona.
He was the son of a newspaper editor and his secretary, grandson of a lorry driver. In comparison to the genuine aristocrats like the Benns in the Labour Party, he is merely a typical upper-middle class scion who then went up to Eton. This is the same as e.g. David Cameron, not close to the bizarre image he portrays.
(Johnson, who does not portray the aristocratic persona of JRM, although he is of course part of the same Eton->Oxford pipeline, is descended via his father from minor, perhaps major German nobility)
There's probably something clever to be said about the idea that what Britain aesthetically ought to be is a new-money London newspaper Baron's son imitating the aristocracy of a century before!
Personally, I also think that in much the same way he is the stupid person's idea of a clever person. A lot of big words, pondersome speech, and surface level understanding of obscure and arcane procedure. You may disagree with that, but I see no redeeming features that would make him a good prime minister.
I think Rees-Mogg would be hilarious, but I feel like Britain chose its last PM based on who would be hilarious and they probably ought to at least alternate between that and normal competent people.
I can understand why you'd think that from outside the UK, but it doesn't match the perception I got from within it. As I saw it, the GE was called to break a constitutional deadlock over ether Brexit would actually happen; it was in effect a vote on whether to honour the first referendum, with tempers inflamed by 2 years of "The Establishment" sneering at half the country and using every legal and procedural contrivance they could to block Brexit. Boris won on a very simple platform of 'I'll give you what you voted for' + panic over Corbyn.
The 'Boris is funny man on telly so I vote Boris' meme, if it was ever true, is more likely to apply to his repeated election as Mayor of London and the Brexit vote itself than the 2019 GE. By then, the mask was pretty clearly off.
This. He became Tory leader because of a sense that they had to elect him as the unofficial leader of the Brexit movement, and won the general election on a combination of "Finish Brexit" and "Stop Corbyn."
He did become Mayor due to "Lol Boris," but the Mayor of London isn't a high-profile but largely powerless job (he oversees a few autonomous bodies that make various strategic plans but don't implement them, and has a loose supervisory power over public transport).
Why is the background of this website now blue?
There were complaints in another (hidden?) open thread of the stark contrast of white against black. Someone pointed out to Scott that he could change the colour, and he did so. The original change was to a very psych-ward green that a lot of people disliked. Now it's blue.
Brilliant, thank you for the detailed response! I did remember the aqua-ey blue too, thanks for clearing all that up!
I think this blue is very pleasant, better than white and the first blue
I like it a lot, if only because it makes it easier to find the tabs on my phone.
Because God made it that way.
Scott is the rightful caliph, not God.
I stand corrected!
I keep thinking that I selected all text! It’s annoying.
This, x1000! Would really like to know!
Why are so many of the great thinkers and artists morally and/or politically compromised? Who is a great thinker or artist who also led a life that you consider morally exemplary, or else just neutral, boring?
George Orwell has always struck me as more moral than most - actually going to Spain to fight against the fascists showed genuine virtue (personal sacrifice/commitment to support what he saw as right). His later opposition to totalitarianism I think supports that; I don't think he was a saint (in the secular sense), but he opposed totalitarianism in thought and word and deed.
Among the artists, my hero Richard Diebenkorn has a biography almost totally devoid of sturm und drang despite producing very avant-garde work. The avant-garde is usually the domain of the communists but he seems to have been totally dispassionate, politically.
Dirac, Euler, Socrates (I disagree with him politically and morally, but I think he probably stuck to his morals), maybe Confucius though I'm very fuzzy on him. Godel and Turing seemed like decent chaps, though the former went insane with paranoia. Kant seemed boring, though again I know very little about him. Buddha of course, as well as some other buddhist philosophers like Santideva. He proposed what I'd call an early form of utilitarianism in practice. He was also known in his monastry as a "bhusuku", someone who only "ate, slept and defecated" and that's all he seemed to do before delivering his seminal sermon on Buddhism after people manouvered him into speaking at a festival for a lark. Though we know so little about his life, I'd say being a "bhusiku" places you pretty high on the personal morality rankings of philsophers.
> Why are so many of the great thinkers and artists morally and/or politically compromised?
The modern ones tweet too much.
Kant was so boring it was weird. https://meaningring.com/2015/04/17/daily-rituals-kant-by-mason-currey/
Thomas Schelling. Elinor Ostrom.
Does our host Scott seem sufficiently morally exemplary/boring to you?
JRR Tolkien comes to mind. Jane Austen. Isaac Newton and Adam Smith were strange, perhaps we'd say on the spectrum, but I don't know of any sexual deviancy or deeply unsavory opinions on their part. I think Richard Feynman was an admirable person.
Robert Heinlein; Nathaniel Hawthorne.
People who, as far as I know, had reasonable opinions, led reasonable and respectable lives, loved their spouses (at least according to wikipedia).
Newton was rather unkind to Leibnitz
Tollers fell for a non-Catholic. Scandal!
I find it hard to like Hawthorne between finding "The Scarlet Letter" rather tedious and, on a more morally salient axis, his famous statement regarding John Brown that "nobody was ever more justly hanged."
Newton was actually famously nasty to many people, particularly Hooke (who proposed the inverse square law of gravitation, which Newton then showed gave rise to Kepler’s laws) and Leibniz.
He also got a bunch of counterfieters executed during his tenure at the Royal Mint. (problematic)
He was also privately a heretic, which we don't care about but his contemporaries would have.
From my recollection (from reading a biography years ago), J. S. Bach led a life of at least average moral virtue.
If his autobiography (also read years ago) is accurate (obviously questionable), Bertrand Russell seems to have led a life that had its issues, but overall doesn't seem to have been below average morally.
From reading a more technical than personal biography (years ago, again), Barbara McClintock seems to have led a reasonably virtuous life.
I recall in "Indignation" a student's appreciation for Russell's intellectual work is denounced due to Russell being a bad person.
A lot depends on what you care about. Russel.was an atheist an conscientious objector. He also got into trouble.for saying Masturbation is ok.
Sounds like normal youthful hijinks to me.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the first example that popped into my mind. I looked into the details of his private life and didn't find anything the least bit juicy (one wife, two children) so I assume there's nothing.
G. K. Chesterton also pops into mind, he also doesn't seem to have anything scandalous going on.
It's probably not a coincidence that both of these gentlemen were stuffy old conservative types even in their own day, whereas most celebrated artists and thinkers were not.
I’m not at all convinced that the fraction is any larger than that of the broader population. We just aren’t used to looking into all the facets of a person and identifying their goods and bads as we are with great thinkers and artists (and political figures). A plausible null hypothesis is that at all points in the fame spectrum, most people have a complex mix of good and bad, with some having an overall more positive balance and others negative, but very few either “exemplary” or “neutral, boring”.
This seems likely to me, too. Though I'd say there are two confounding things to think about:
a. Some personal traits make you more likely to become famous--at least some of those (huge drive/obsessiveness, high intelligence, maybe hypomania) may lead to other interesting personal scandals or something.
b. Being famous creates new problems, and some of those may lead to personal scandal. As an easy example, I don't find it especially hard to remain faithful to my wife. But I might have a harder time doing so, if I were a movie star or professional athlete or musician who had lots of very attractive young women throwing themselves at me day and night. A more serious example is that people who become powerful often get surrounded by yes men, to the point that they seldom or never hear anything they don't want to hear and never have anyone around them willing to tell them they're wrong. This can cause a *lot* of problems.
Do they tend to be more morally compromised than other people of similar status? I.e. great businessmen/military leaders etc.?
I expect it's mostly that high status brings with it a lot of compromising situations and temptations, especially sexual ones but not limited to them.
Even before they're world-famous, great artists and thinkers are usually high-status within their social circles
Maybe because to be a great thinker/artist means to question/challenge the common ideas of politics or morality, and if you do that questioning means that sometimes you'll end up doing something groundbreaking but other times you'll end up off in left field somewhere doing something bad? Whereas someone who just follows societal norms will have less of both types of outcomes.