1. A good-faith shorthand for "surely it's *really* obvious to both of us why those two things are not at all comparable, and listing all those reasons would be a waste of time. Are you aware of this and you were just making a snarky comment that wasn't meant to be taken seriously, or do you honestly think it *is* a valid comparison and could you elaborate on why?"
2. A bad-faith response that's one of the most obnoxious ever in my opinion, that's basically trying to enforce a social taboo against your position instead of engaging rationally with it. Translates to "you've just crossed the line into Formal Heresy", with equivalents like "wow, just wow!" and "get a load of this guy". I've seen this used by almost every group and it makes my blood boil; does anyone know if it has a name? Of course if you really *were* breaking a widely-held and clearly-justified taboo (like defending slavery or paedophilia) then this response would be understandable, but it's invariably not a real taboo at all, just something they think should be one or that is one only in their political group.
If it might be the first case I'd respond with "yes I did, could you explain why you object to that?" If it's clearly the second, I'd probably repeat my previous paragraph to them if they seem otherwise reasonable and it's the first time they've done this, and if they do it again, never try to interact rationally with them again.
Depends what you're trying to counter. Typically I take that as a sign they aren't trying to engage in good faith and are just there for ego-inflating rabble-rousing. So if there's an audience (or if it's, like, a small child or something), you may want to stay dignified and make your point all classy-like, but if there isn't (or if it's an ego audience) then it's time to start flicking water in that stubborn horse's face.
Either way a simple "yes" acts as a return volley that will make them actually say something.
It seemed as though he was having a bit of a meltdown - getting involved in a lot of culture war threads and being very direct in his responses. It was unusual for him to be that involved, though I wouldn't say that he hid his beliefs otherwise.
Maybe he gave himself a time out for getting too heated.
Scott doesn't tend to delete posts from people who got banned, especially those that didn't result in a ban.
I tried searching the 4 most recent threads for "bann" and "treb", and didn't find anything. Usually Scott replies with something like "user was banned for this comment", if I remember right? It looks like from some of the responses other people made in this thread, that a discussion got a bit heated, so I'm guessing that had something to do with it.
A) you keep speaking out of both sides of your mouth saying the _school_ is doing it to them. It's not clear what that would mean or that it's happening. Evidence please, and not of the anecdote variety.
B) Do you have literally any other examples? Anything at all? Are we really just in "extremism is anything I don't like" land? You say piles big - what else is in there? Evidence please.
This Saturday we are fortunate to have a special guest speaker, Professor Michael Rose, one of the leading researchers in the world on the evolution of aging and scientific strategies for health and life extension. His experiments and analysis point towards a heterodox approach to human life extension that has immediate implications on lifestyle and that provides a new scientific paradigm to develop advanced life extension technologies.
Please read the following outline of his research and approach to healthy long life, and bring your questions, comments, and criticisms for the presentation and lively discussion that will follow.
Embracing the power of evolution to stop aging | Dr. Michael Rose
Walk & Talk: We usually have an hour-long walk and talk after the meeting starts. Two mini-malls with hot takeout food are easily accessible nearby. Search for Gelson's or Pavilions in the zip code 92660.
Share a Surprise: Tell the group about something unexpected that changed your perspective on the universe.
Future Direction Ideas: Contribute ideas for the group's future direction, including topics, meeting types, activities, etc.
Here is a summary from Claude 2:
Aging as a Decline in Adaptation
Aging reflects a progressive decline in adaptation due to weakening natural selection after the onset of reproduction, not inherent biochemical deterioration. Some organisms exhibit no senescence, demonstrating that aging is not inevitable.
Experimental Evolution of Aging
Shifting onset of reproduction in fruit flies quickly changes lifespan and aging rates, demonstrating the malleability of aging by altering natural selection.
Role of Natural Selection in Patterns of Aging
Comparative biology reveals correlations between ecological mortality factors and aging rates, evidencing the role of natural selection in shaping aging.
Human Aging in Evolutionary Context
Humans likely evolved slow aging due to reduced extrinsic mortality from tools, hunting, and sociality attenuating the age-dependent decline in the forces of natural selection.
Impact of Agriculture on Human Aging
Agriculture initially decreased health but populations adapted genetically to cereal and milk diets, primarily during high selection pressure juvenile phases. Older adults retain poor adaptation to agriculture.
Cessation of Aging
There is a late-life cessation of aging where mortality/fertility plateaus due to negligible natural selection. Some populations may exhibit early cessation, investigable with hunter-gatherer lifestyles and medicine. Experiments shifting cessation of reproduction alter timing of aging cessation in flies, demonstrating it is evolvable.
Antagonistic Pleiotropy
Trade-offs between early reproduction and late survival due to antagonistic pleiotropy of genetic variants accelerate senescence. Natural selection favors sacrificing later health for early fertility due to asymmetric forces of natural selection declining with age.
Evolutionary Basis for Life Extension
Evolutionary experimental research provides the strongest framework for understanding the plasticity of aging rates and cessation. Mainstream molecular damage theories inadequately explain aging. Aging should be understood as an evolvable decline in adaptation amenable to genetic and environmental manipulation.
If we look at the historical dramas/biographies that won Best Picture at the Oscars, it seems that some decades of history get a lot more love than other decades. If we look at the decade in which the movies' characters achieved their fame/greatest achievement/etc., it seems that the 1940s and 1960s are really well represented. (So I'd attribute Lawrence of Arabia with the 1910s, because that's when Lawrence when to Arabia even though the movie also includes his death in 1935. But that's not why he's famous).
By my unscientific calculations, no one has yet made a historical drama/biography that won Best Picture set in the 1980s or the 1990s. There have been winners in every other decade since 1910. (Lawrence of Arabia for the 1910s, Chariots of Fire for the 1920s, The King's Speech for the 1930s, Patton for the 1940s, A Beautiful Mind for the 1950s, Green Book for the 1960s, Argo for the 1970s, Spotlight for the 2000s, probably too early for the 2010s and yet we already have Nomadland).
So my first question is: will we ever get a historical drama/biography that wins Best Picture and is centered primarily around people who became famous in the 1980s or 1990s?
When should we expect this movie to come out? How long until we no longer expect this movie to come out?
From what I understand of the Oscar process, it will wait until a director makes a very good movie (in year N-1), which should have won Best Picture except that the Academy gave it to someone else, and then next year (N) makes a serious biopic which the Academy can then give Best Picture to, in order to make up for the previous year (N-1). Of course, that means that a more deserving movie of the current year (N) doesn't get it, but that's OK, they'll give it to that director next year (N+1).
This is mostly tongue in cheek, but having dated a film studies person for a few years, it seems entirely too plausible.
Entirely plausible - looking through the past few years of Best Picture nominees, I'm not seeing any big snubs. Moreover, the nominees seem to really tilt towards the 1940s and 1960s. In fact, there seem to have been more World War I movies getting Best Picture nominations than historical drama/biographies about the 1980s and 1990s.
So maybe we're moving in the opposite direction and we're going to have more movies about the distant past rather than the recent past.
Originally I was going to idly speculate on Fukuyama's "end of history", and the problem with setting things in the Information Age, where there's too much data that could be dug up to undermine a 2-hour narrative. And maybe wonder about polarization, and whether that's going to have an effect - the Academy is solidly left, but that might not prevent problems coming from the other half of the country being incentivized to attack whatever film it is. It might just be safer, in terms of getting a big hit, to set things back in a time when fewer keyboard warriors were alive, when there was less data to contradict a good story.
Hey, idly speculate away. That's what makes this fun!
I agree with your take that newer historical dramas/biographies are more prone to culture war battles. That may also play a role in the rise of nonfiction movies about products, rather than people. For example, in the last year there have been movies about Air Jordans, Tetris and Flaming Hot Cheetos. I doubt we would have seen such movies 20 years ago.
It's easier to make a movie about your favorite product than your favorite politician when the past isn't settled. So we should expect historical films to focus on something other than historical figures from here on out.
I agree, but I also think that being faced with a large number of critical "all the things wrong with X" articles can diminish a movie's reception; take the sheen off, as they say. So part of my hunch (not even worthy of the name "theory") is that to avoid this effect, rather than improving accuracy, Hollywood instead sets movies in times and places where it's harder for people to be critical about them.
The 80s seems a tough sell for Hollywood because it would probably have to be pretty pro-Reagan, and that is like arsenic to most of the voters. Same with the 90s. Rudy Guiliani is like the seminal positive figure of that decade. I dont think there is much appetite to make a Clinton one either.
Yeah, Giuliani's rise and fall from competent mayor to incompetent lawyer is very Shakespearean actually, and intersects with many important figures of both times, but Hollywood's left-wing politics means they would see the 'rise' as bad. The liberals of the time hated Giuliani, I remember that.
I think that fits with some observations I've been reading that historical movies are more likely to center around products now than at any point in the past.
If you can't get behind Reagan, surely you can get behind Air Jordans, Tetris and Cheetos.
However, I'd wager these product-based movies are less likely to win a prestigious Oscar than a comparably well done biography.
The guy famously "cleaned up New York", but maybe it wasn't all that famous to people who weren't in the area? When I was nearby, it was getting noticeably less sketchy year by year, which was about how often I visited.
I have never lived in NY and have no particular reason to know anything about their mayors, and felt like it was common knowledge Rudy was instrumental in turning the city around from a really low point.
I left the state for good a decade before Giuliani, and never cared about the city even when I did live in upstate NY. But, yeah, Rudy was common knowledge even from my vantage point in LA.
It didn't win the Best Picture Oscar but The Social Network won 4 Golden Globes and 3 other Oscars. Winning best picture is a pretty arbitrary metric - the process is notoriously political and doesn't really select for quality. A less noisy analysis would probably use something like box office or award nominations. Really what you're looking for are mainstream serious movies. There have been big-budget films about George W Bush and Steve Jobs. The Devil Wears Prada was about Anna Wintour. Private Parts was about Howard Stern. I, Tonya was set in the 80s/90s. American Sniper was about a guy who did his stuff in the 2000's. Any of those films could conceivably have won Best Picture. It would be interesting to plot the trends over time though.
In truth, the reason I picked "Best Picture winner" as the metric was because the data set was small enough I could review it on my lunch break.
I also agree it'd be interesting to plot the trends over time - particularly in light of the 30-year nostalgia cycle I keep hearing about. I kinda feel like we should be expecting more 90s nostalgia and that we may have had less-than-normal amounts of 80s nostalgia. But that's just a vibe, and the data would be really cool to look at.... but not to assemble myself.
I don't have any metric to compare to others, but we've had a lot of 80s nostalgia recently. Peak probably in Stranger Things, but there's been others. Lots of movie remakes from that decade as well recently.
I would expect the countries that survive a zombie outbreak to be the ones that did well keeping Covid out. So that's New Zealand by virtue of geography, and China by virtue of a willingness to kill millions without hesitation.
Realistically, *no* country would be at serious risk in the event of a zombie outbreak, because they just aren't much of a threat as commonly portrayed. The only reason they are even a threat is because they somehow outnumber humans 100:1 and can teleport around offscreen and half the humans are invariably traitors to boot. In order to get anything like the Stock Zombie Setting, you basically need to posit a Thanos Snap magically turning 95% of the population into zombies, and presumably, New Zealand is not any more reistant to Thanos Snapping than the US is.
I was implying he would Flame of Anor away the Thanos Snap, but even if he's zombified we all know Gandalf recovers from death after a couple of adventures. It's fine in the long run.
The question isn't which countries would be well positioned to survive zombies. The real question is *how do you make zombies into a threat in the first place?*
The stock pop cultural zombie apocalypse is a bit paradoxical, because the zombies are slow, weak and uncoordinated, making them less of a threat than say, a herd of angry cows. And yet they somehow took over the world and regularly kill red shirts and so on. The only reason they are even a threat is because they somehow outnumber humans 100:1 and can teleport around offscreen and half the humans are invariably traitors to boot.
There's also the issue of how the apocalypse comes about in the first place. In order to get anything like the Stock Zombie Setting, you basically need to posit a Thanos Snap magically turning 95% of the population into zombies. Pandemics Do Not Work That Way, especially when you're talking about a disease where carriers have obvious visual symptoms and which is harder to spread than Ebola.
Government and military are largely irrelevant because the Stock Zombie Setting assumes that they got Thanos Snapped away before the start of the story. If your setting still has a functioning government, it can barely even be considered a zombie story any more.
Lastly, I have no idea what gun ownership is supposed to do with anything, unless it's just meant as a proxy for other societal factors. Sure Pop Cultural Zombies take +200% damage from Shotgun To The Face like they're vampires against garlic and stakes or something, but from a physics perspective, there's no reason why you couldn't just go at the zombies with an ordinary sword or even improvised weaponry, unless you're fighting the kind of zombie with magical regeneration powers, in which case guns aren't going to help you either.
At the beginning many people turn to zombies because the infection spreads very quickly. You become a new zombie in a few minutes, sometimes in a few seconds, after getting bitten by a zombie. Compare to e.g. covid, where I think you start spreading the viruses on the third day. So the exponential curve goes more than 1000 times faster, initially, in places with high population density.
And there is the element of surprise: before people start to understand what is happening and how to defend themselves, many already got zombified. Imagine yourself as an armed soldier or a policeman, if your teammates suddenly started behaving strangely, right now, would you immediately start shooting them in the head? It would take some time for "this is actually a zombie apocalypse, I am not joking" to become common knowledge.
Public order can be maintained by the police and army because most of the population complies with their orders, at least when the guns are pointed in their general direction. And when you actually start shooting, it causes panic, and most of the wannabe revolutionaries disperse. None of this happens with zombies. You can't stop a zombie apocalypse by taking out the zombie leaders.
A military unit would be perfectly able to protect its own members (as long as it does not run out of ammo), but I doubt they could take control of a city. I think they could protect a few high-priority targets, but other than that, they would simply see the civilization collapse all around them, because they couldn't simultaneously protect the factories, the fields, the offices, the streets, the trains, etc.
I agree that it would be unlike the typical zombie movie. The government and the military would survive. But most of the population would probably die during the first week. Then the military would eliminate the zombie mobs, and teach the survivors some basic self-defense against zombies. Civilization would start again, but the economical situation would be dramatically worse; too many things disrupted. (Housing might become cheaper, though -- so maybe it's not so bad, all things considered.) Political changes would probably happen, too; most likely in a direction most of us would not approve of.
First off, most zombie fiction I'm aware of as conversion be a *much* slower process, since that lets you write those sweet drama plots about whether to kill your infected teammates or not.
Second, even if we grant that, you're *still* vastly overestimating the zombie threat. And while you may not *shoot* your friends if they start acting strangely, you're certainly going to try to dodge and run away if they suddenly shamble over to you and physically attack you.
If a bunch of angry chimpanzees were teleported into a crowded mall, I'm sure they'd kill a bunch of people just due to the surprise factor. But I'm also confident that most people would escape unscathed. And chimpanzees are *much* more dangerous than zombies.
You're also ignoring physical constraints. You can't just say "exponential, but 1000 times faster" because that's not how zombie outbreaks work. The zombies have to *physically* move to the location of their victims and physically bite them, which put sharp constraints on the rate of spread, especially as zombies are slow and easily avoided. They're also stupid and uncoordinated, so they're not going to systematically go door to door searching for victims like real life death squads do.
You might like "All of Us Are Dead", where zombies are about as fast as humans, and the military is competent (after overcoming the initial surprise).
The speed of zombification... I like to imagine that it depends on the initial virus load. If a zombie bites you to a neck, or ten zombies bite you all over the body, you die and zombify quickly; but if you only get a small bite or scratch to your hand or leg, you may merely feel pain for a few hours, and then suddenly you get fever and die and zombify quickly. This allows quick exponential zombification of crowded areas *and* infected people being in denial and infiltrating safe spaces.
I think that in movies, unrealistically many doors just happen to be locked at the wrong moment. Also the zombies, despite being completely stupid, usually happen to block the door. The walls are easily broken when the zombies need to get into the room, but the humans in the room cannot similarly break them to escape from the room. Without these factors... yes, if a zombie was randomly teleported to the middle of a school, probably less than ten people would actually die from the bites, ten to twenty might die in the stampede, and everyone else would probably leave the school alive (because the doors wouldn't be locked, or someone would just kick them out because they wouldn't be armored).
Most of continental Europe would be screwed. Too dense, lots of passenger rail and other transport, fractured politics but interconnected economies and social ties.
I’m not sure that the US is invulnerable but it would definitely bounce back more quickly than other countries. I greatly enjoyed HBOs The Last of Us, but found it crazy that after 20 years!! the country would still be over run with zombies, lacking any formalized economy, and without at least a semi functioning government (or multiple regional ones). This didn’t hurt the story but really jumped out to me.
Guns are a poor countermeasure against zombie outbreaks, aside from the bit where the whole point of imaginary zombie outbreaks is that they give us an excuse to fantasize about shooting lots of people. But taking the premise as given, headshots are too unreliable to count on, suppressive fire doesn't work, and you don't need much range to deal with attackers who can only engage hand-to-hand.
Ability to quickly produce improvised flamethrowers, armor both body and vehicular tailored to the zombie threat, and secure fortified compounds, will be much more important. And much more widespread.
I'll grant 1, but 2-4 seem much less common in big US cities, which creates a worrying weak spot. Have you seen "All of Us Are Dead", a Korean high-school zombie series on Netflix?
But to answer your question, how about Haiti? (Putting aside the irony of Hollywood zombies in Haiti.)
A sufficiently strong outbreak along the southern border would probably stop and even reverse the immigration flow with Mexico, so that's half the country in favor right there. And once it's pointed out that eating brains is a simple application of equity, the other half would fall in line. I think we've got a winner!
Assuming that the United States is a spherical cow composed of two equal-sized, completely homogeneous parts which perfectly map to media stereotypes, yeah, I'll stand by the joke.
At any more detailed level of analysis it completely falls apart, of course.
Keep in mind the large oceans on either side, with limited population north of the US.
I think the worst candidates would be:
1) Large population, high density
2) Limited or no gun ownership
3) Geographic access to other populated areas (no oceans or mountains, etc.)
4) Lower levels of technology and/or infrastructure
From that list, I'm thinking that both India and China would be hard hit, though authoritarian willingness to kill their own citizens may help China. Places with smaller populations but more problems might include large African nations, Eastern Europe, or the Middle East.
Island nations would likely do better, as would very rural areas such as Siberia, the Sahara, and northern Canada.
I need help calculating how far from the Sun a Dyson Swarm would need to orbit to function efficiently. Assume the Swarm uses solar energy emitted by the Sun. The hotter the solar panels are, the less efficient they are at converting sunlight to energy.
At the Earth's distance from the Sun (93 million miles), a solar panel floating in space, receiving full sunlight, would heat up to 120°C. (If the solar panel were shaded by another object, it would cool down to only 3 Kelvin.)
At Mars' distance from the Sun (152 million miles), how hot would the solar panel get? Maybe the Dyson Swarm satellites should orbit at that distance.
Note that it's only 120 degrees if both a) you have the full swarm such that the effective area for reradiation is *only* the back, b) all the power generated by the panel is used onboard the satellite such that waste heat = sunlight striking the satellite (as opposed to waste heat = sunlight striking the satellite - power transferred off-satellite via laser).
With either of those not holding, it's significantly less than 120 degrees.
In any case, since both of those are simple multipliers, they don't complicate the question of moving things outward to Mars. Mars' orbit is actually substantially eccentric, so its distance from the Sun changes quite a lot (1.38-1.67 AU, or in Imperial units, 128-154 million miles). If you take Mars' average distance from the Sun (1.53 AU) as the distance of your sphere, then the temperature of a solar panel there is going to be sqrt(1/1.53) = 80.8% of the temperature (in Kelvin) of an equivalent solar panel at 1 AU (Earth orbit). Note, of course, that you will need 1.53^2 = 2.34x as much material in order to build a sphere in Mars orbit compared to Earth orbit, because the sphere will be larger.
Thank you. I also asked a NASA engineer about this, and to complicate things, he said different types of solar panels were optimized to work at different temperatures.
No, it doesn't. It says they get to ~150F. 150F =/= 150C (it's about 66C, though he says 70C, so I'm not sure which way he buggered up the conversion).
Do note also that the ISS receives significant amounts of Earthlight and probably a little drag heating from the atmosphere (it's well inside the exobase).
Also, "how well the solar panels can dissipate the energy that they're not capturing" is not an unknown in space; conduction = convection = 0 because space is an approximately-perfect thermal insulator, and radiation is directly linked to temperature by the Stefan-Boltzmann law. There is *some* variability based on geometry of the collectors, but it's not especially large.
I didn't meant heat dissipation was an unknown in a physics sense, what I meant was that how big you're willing to make a heatsink matters. My (very low) understanding is that you could dissipate a ton of heat with a sufficiently large heatsink. Of course if you have a Dyson swarm you might be radiating that waste heat onto other satellites, so I guess you need some clever geometry? I definitely don't think the situation is as simple as "a solar panel at distance X will reach temperature Y"
A heat sink only stores heat; I think you're thinking of a radiator.
And yes, the issue is that the geometry of the system limits the useful area of your radiators. Any given outgoing sightline can only have one radiator radiating along it, because if there were two then one would block the other. For a full Dyson swarm with ~100% of the star's light absorbed, then unless your radiators extend outward by a significant distance *relative to the swarm size* (which would be thousands of kilometres, not happening), your effective radiator area is limited to the surface area of the sphere - and this limit is very nearly attained by simply making the satellites flat panels in synchronous rotation (the side opposite the star being the "radiator"), so there's no real room for getting clever.
It's not quite as simple as "a solar panel at distance X will reach temperature Y", no, because if the solar panel is transmitting energy somewhere else then that's energy it doesn't radiate as heat. It's more like "a solar panel at distance X with absorbed -> beamed power efficiency Y will reach temperature Z". But the setup really does impose hard limits (limits which would indeed not apply to a solar panel on its own, as it could extend a radiator behind the panel to increase effective radiating area and without all the other satellites this would actually work).
I mean, I suppose if you had multiple different geometries of satellites, then you could make some of them get slightly warmer than Z and some slightly cooler, but that doesn't seem amazingly useful.
Consonants are more straight forward but they can be interesting too. I didn’t learn to distinguish the voiced alveolar stop ‘d’ from a voiced dental stop ‘d̪’ until I had a South Asian coworker who’s name used them.
I didn’t really pick up on the difference until she white boarded the respective tongue positions.
"In 529 AD Damascius, the last head of the Academy in Athens, closed down the philosophical school and, with several fellow scholars, went into exile in Persia. This is often portrayed as the final act in “the closing of the western mind” and the beginning of “the darkening age”; the symbolic closing of an institution founded by Plato himself almost a millennium earlier. It is regularly portrayed in popular writing and anti-theist polemic as the end of ancient science and rationalism in the west and the beginning of a one thousand year medieval dark age. But is this true? What was the Academy and why did it close? And what does this tell us about Christianity and intellectual history?"
Given this preliminary snippet, and given I detested Nixey's take, I'm hoping for a good old barney here, though maybe he might be a bit more sympathetic to Jones:
"In 2017 Jones gave newspaper arts journalist Catherine Nixey a glowing pre-publication review for her notorious book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, (Macmillan, 2017), which featured prominently on the book’s cover and in its publicity material. Jones announced enthusiastically that “Nixey’s debut challenges our whole understanding of Christianity’s earliest years and the medieval society that followed” and declared her “a formidable classicist and historian”. Actual experts in the relevant period and subject matter, on the other hand, were rather less than impressed with Nixey’s biased and polemical work, with Oxford Classicist Peter Thonemann pointing to her reliance on “quite a bit of nifty footwork” and Dame Averil Cameron calling it “overstated and unbalanced” and “a travesty” (see “Review – Catherine Nixey ‘The Darkening Age'” for my full critique of Nixey’s rather terrible book).
So perhaps Jones was depending on Nixey when he turned his attention to the subject of Christian responses to Classical philosophy and learning while writing Power and Thrones."
Hi, I've never posted but wanted to give it a try. I found ACX as a senior in college through my bff Daniel and have been reading on and off for a few years now. This blog brought me into to the worlds of Substack, rationalism, and EA, all of which helped shape my current principles and beliefs, so I'm eternally grateful for this community. My favorite posts are the book reviews from ACX readers-- I might ingest more new ideas during the book review contest than any other time of year.
I started blogging daily as an experiment and want to plug it here: https://splattern.substack.com/. I've had a lot of fun writing it. Currently all my readers are close friends, but I think it'd be interesting to share it more broadly. The content has no particular angle, it's whatever I feel like writing about. Thanks.
On some corners of the internet (e.g. reddit) there's commonly-cited advice that you should never, ever talk to the police about anything, and instead you should immediately call a lawyer. This video seems to come up pretty often as support https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE ... of course it's no surprise that the people most keen to promote this meme are criminal defence lawyers.
This seems to me like outstandingly bad advice, assuming you're either not guilty of anything or are guilty of some minor infraction. In the case where you're innocent, the police officer will usually ascertain this after a couple of questions and you'll be on your way. In the case where you're guilty of some minor infraction, if you're polite then you've got a good chance they'll warn you to stop it and send you on your way. Even in the case where they give you a ticket for something, you're much better off paying a few hundred dollars for a ticket than getting arrested and wasting the day in a cell while you pay a lawyer a few grand to stand around and tell them that you're not answering any questions. In all the videos I've seen where someone tries to be as uncooperative as legally possible, they usually wind up making things worse for themselves, not better.
The other day the police approached me to ask me what I was doing in a particular place at a particular time of night. I told them, and they went on their way. I hate to think what would have happened if I'd followed the internet's advice and refused to answer any questions.
Cops are no better than the citizenry that they're drawn from, and are more likely to be worse because of selection effects and job effects. Any plan that relies on a cop being kind or reasonable is more risky than the same plan involving a random citizen.
There's some probability/game theory math you could do. Cooperating with the police:
(1) Increases the chances that they correctly solve the crime at issue, which is good for you if you are somewhat altruistic and did not commit the crime.
(2) Increases the chances that they leave you alone, which reduces the hassle and legal expense you are likely to encounter if they don't.
On the other hand, if you (a) are guilty of a crime the police are interested in or (b) the police have a strong desire to find you guilty, cooperating can make your situation worse.
I pretty much always cooperate if I'm the only one involved. On the other hand, when the police really wanted in to my frat house in college following a noise complaint, I was very polite but absolutely didn't let them in because I didn't know how the other people in the house might be affected.
My brother in law took a field sobriety test (after two drinks!), which every lawyer will tell you not to do even when sober because it's too subjective, but the police let him go, and if he had refused, they would have held him until they could do a breathalyzer or blood test, so he saved himself a lot of hassle.
Well, if it's a 200$ ticket, who really cares, but what if it's something much more substantial?Scenario: you come home one day and find your wife dead, appearing to have slipped in the shower and hit her head. What do you do? I would call 911, report what happened, and then immediately lawyer up.
That's the most sociopathic rebuttal to "you're a sociopath" I have ever seen.
Michael Druggan's point was that neurotypical people would freak out when they unexpectedly find their loved ones dead at home – not because they're weighing their options and choosing the path which "makes them look good in front of others", but precisely BECAUSE they're NOT weighing their options and choosing the path with the highest utilitarian gain for all of society in such a situation.
What if you knew that there was someone out there who would love to frame you for a crime? What if you knew that there was systemic bias against a group of people of which you're a member?
I live in a pretty small community and actually know quite a few of the local police, including the chiefs of police for several local jurisdictions. It would be beyond weird if I just clammed up when around them. They're people, who operate like normal people. Acting weird and saying nothing is a great way to increase suspicion and start them looking when they weren't otherwise.
I think the advice from the internet can apply in many cases - when people are actually guilty or doing something that is suspicious. If you've committed a crime, then saying as little as possible ("I would like to speak with my lawyer") is actually really good advice. I guess it may be good advice if you're the kind of person that the cops would find suspicious even if you haven't done anything.
In a normal interaction with police, your best bet is to be friendly and polite. The trouble is that it is not always obvious that the police suspect you of some serious illegality. Then the very unequal nature of the situation becomes very important to understand. One of the few things you may have going for you is that the police are not permitted to act on any suspicion they have based on your refusal to answer questions or consent to a search.
Police interactions are often designed to encourage you to forget about these rights, or to think that waiving them could be to your advantage - you need to be aware that this is a trap.
Of course you should be polite to the police. And still you don't have to say anything.
They often start with the question: "Do you know why we stopped you?" If you do, and start to apologize: "Sorry, I drove too fast because [some sob story]", bang!, you did it on purpose, and the fine is higher.
Here's a story of a man who was standing alone on a field next to a warm car, drunk and without license --- and they couldn't prove that he had actually been driving because he said nothing.
The absolutism of "never ever say ANYTHING to the police" is primarily to help stupid Americans (eg criminals who bad at crime) remember to not confess their serious crimes to the police. It's not *really* intended for the soccer mom who just rolled a stop sign right in front of a traffic cop's dash cam. In her situation, saying she's sorry she rolled it, but that's little Savannah just projectile-vomited from the backseat onto the center console, might earn her a little grace.
That said, the general principle of "don't volunteer information" isn't exactly *terrible* if it helps regular folk avoid talking so much that they inadvertently introduce probable cause (to search a home, vehicle, etc).
In my jurisdiction, paying a Penalty Charge Notice isn't self-incrimination, and you don't get a criminal record, so in that case I agree it's best to just pay it and move on.
The claim is: in the US, during interrogation, the police can lie to you about why they are interviewing you, and in court, hearsay rules enable cherry picking of any statements you make.
I don't know how I'd react to a random convo with the police on the street, probably the urge to be polite would get the better of me.
It's legal advice, not practical advice. Meaning it has the best chance of getting you out of legal trouble.
But you've correctly pointed out that cops can impose lots of penalties without getting a conviction. As they say, "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."
It is worth asking why we even have a right against self-incrimination in the first place. After all, it would make things a lot simpler - instead of harassing people who are "as uncooperative as legally possible", just make it criminal to be uncooperative. It's a much clearer and more defensible legal system than the one we currently have, wherein we give people a right that they invoke at their own peril.
The right was in place from the start, and should be in place. That [some of] the police have developed work-arounds to try to reduce the value of those rights is unfortunate but perhaps necessary in their line of work. Imagine working with career criminals who lie about everything all day long.
In Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths (https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths) (which Scott also wrote an essay about here: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/a-cyclic-theory-of-subcultures) David Chapman argues that as a subculture grows, "geeks" (the true fans) welcome "mops" (casual fans) as it validates their status as "cool" and makes the subculture grow. This seems to make sense on a rational level, as growth of a subculture also means there's a natural increase in The Thing the subculture cares about.
However, my experience is the opposite—as a subculture grows to the point where it's starting to become "mainstream" (i.e. it's starting to lose its status as a subculture), "geeks" usually start gatekeeping aggressively. (Chapman does mention this as well—"successful subcultures always do create costly barriers to entry, to keep out the uncommitted"—but I don't think this really captures the spirit of the kind of gatekeeping I'm thinking of)
Here are some phenomena which, to me, all seem to stem from this effect:
* Eternal September - geeks complaining about "normies" invading the Internet.
* Music - back when people cared more about music than they do now, "casual fans" were derided as "posers" that didn't truly appreciate the music, or did something else that upset the status quo of the ingroup.
* Gamergate seems to have been an expression of this phenomenon, where admittance of women into a traditionally male-dominated hobby seemed to cross some kind of threshold.
Usually the "geeks" don't explicitly state that they're engaging in gatekeeping behaviour—instead of saying "we don't want to dilute our in-group, so you can't join" they usually use some other argument related to lack of skill or understanding, or not fulfilling some very specific set of criteria ("you're not a real X unless..."). To some extent they might not themselves be aware of what they're doing, as protecting the status quo of the in-group is probably a subconscious instinct.
Sorry, now I feel like I'm rambling. Anyhow, have you experienced similar phenomena? And do you agree / disagree that the examples I posted above are caused by the same social dynamic? If so, is there a common name for this phenomenon? (I think "gatekeeping" is a bit too broad to describe it)
I think the primary reason for gatekeeping any group is the preservation of status. For example, if I'm a member of an exclusive society of rich people, my membership alone grants me high social status. However, if they opened the club up to everyone I would lose the status boost my membership gave me, and so it is in my best interest to keep the group small.
I think the same phenomenon can be applied to the status roles within subcultures. Even if a person has low social status outside the subculture, they might still have a shot at high social status within it, by virtue of having skills, knowledge or other attributes that the subculture appreciates. However, as the group fills up with mops, members start caring less about special skills or knowledge, and possession of them no longer grants the same status. Eventually the in-group is completely assimilated into the mainstream and the status boost is gone.
A minority of "geeks" start gatekeeping aggressively, and for the most part ineffectually. Their occasional local victories do little to undermine Chapman's thesis.
Or are there examples of *successful* geek gatekeeping efforts, leading to something more than tiny irrelevant enclaves of geek purity? I can't think of any offhand, but presumably there must be some.
That's a good point; the gatekeeping is usually a lost cause, so you're right in that it doesn't undermine Chapman's ideas. However, what got me interested in this was the aggressive gatekeeping itself—as Chapman observed, growing the group should be in the group's best interest, but some social dynamic is prompting members to try to keep new members out.
They don't gatekeep in the beginning not because they won't gatekeep but because there's very few people to gatekeep against.
Imagine a society, the Chrekists, dedicated to the study of Chrekology, a new science. In the beginning nearly nobody cares about them. Some people drift in because they discover some basic chrekological principles and want to learn more. But most people aren't even aware they exist. Now, if someone showed up and said, "the primary goal of chrekology should be the advancement of American national interest" they'd likely shoo them out of the room. And this would be gatekeeping. But it also wouldn't happen very often because everyone there would be preselected for high interest in chrekology.
However, eventually a company (Woomazon) gets founded using chrekological principles and it becomes successful making a great many chrekologists billionaires and millionaires and giving them almost complete control over the refining of oil. (Turns out chrekology is great for refining oil.) Suddenly a bunch of people with a passing interest in chrekology but a HUGE interest in money or power or environmentalist or whatever will want to enter chrekist communities. And at this point the same gatekeeping behaviors that have always existed will be applied to many, many more people. Who will not like this and might even feel entitled to police chrekist communities in line with their moral values.
At this point there will be a battle for who is to blame: the chrekists for enforcing standards on the activists, journalists, new members, etc or the activists, journalists, new members etc for entering the space without due respect or investment in the existing culture? If the former wins then the space becomes assimilated to general culture. If the latter wins it remains a united subculture but this does limit its influence on the wider outside world. Your statement amounts to asserting the first view is correct: it's their fault for desiring to enforce community standards. Which is certainly a common position.
My real issue is that it's often held hypocritically. "When you come into my spaces you must respect my norms but when I come into your spaces then you must respect my norms." Which in turn makes it into a social power game.
Another counter-phenomenon that I've noticed personally is that once the subculture becomes popular enough I stop caring as much about it, even if I was originally a hardcore evangelist. There's no longer the hipster cache of telling people about the cool new thing that they're not privy to, because it's no longer new and they probably already know about it.
The most prominent recent example of this for me has been ML & neural nets, which I've been talking people's ears off about for over a decade now, but has become so mainstream at this point that it no longer feels special.
I know, right? Once upon a time I felt cutting-edge for using insights from neural networks to more accurately model my mental processes. But two decades later, and now everyone's doing it! At least it's still as accurate as ever. :-)
> Gamergate seems to have been an expression of this phenomenon, where admittance of women into a traditionally male-dominated hobby seemed to cross some kind of threshold.
That's a strawman written by one side of the conflict. It is easy to believe, because it follows the known stereotypes and blames the low-status people. It fails to explain facts, if you happen to know any -- for example, why did these allegedly gatekeeping misogynists organize a game development contest for female developers? Also, why the sudden explosion in 2014?
The story of the opposite side, if I remember it correctly after almost ten years, is that two seemingly unrelated things happened...
1) Gamers kept complaining that game reviews in mainstream media are completely unrelated to how good the games actually are. Like, the most popular game of the year would get an average score; and then a crappy piece of software, more like a proof of concept than an actual game, something that a skilled high-school student could produce over a weekend, got the highest score and the journalists couldn't stop writing about how awesome it was. For the gaming community this mattered a lot, among other reasons because game developers in large companies often had their bonuses tied to the score in mainstream media.
2) A random guy wrote a blog about his relationship with an incredibly jealous rich girl, describing how she prevented him from meeting any of his female friends, and how she kept reminding him that if he ever cheats on her, that would technically mean that he raped her, because she only gave consent to an exclusive relationship. One day he got suspicious too, and started following her, and found out that she was actually cheating on him, not with one, but with five guys simultaneously.
...and then someone noticed that the girl described in the blog happens to be the author of the crappy but highly rated game, and two or three of the guys she cheated on her ex with, were game journalists who wrote the stellar reviews. And the internet exploded -- except, it did not, because any mention of the connection (or even her name) was immediately deleted, across dozens of seemingly unrelated subreddits. Overnight, gaming subreddits became a nuclear wasteland. Which of course only made people more curious, and they started finding out other interesting details.
Long story short, the journalist guys started the story of "akschually, the gamers simply hate women, there is nothing else to see here"; the story was repeated by other media, and thus became the official version on Wikipedia. The rich girl called her family lawyers and achieved a gag order against her ex; a year or more later it was revoked as unconstitutional, but by that time the narrative was already established.
There was never a significant complaint against women playing computer games / developing computer games / being computer game protagonists (various people believe different versions of the libel). Despite utterly losing the PR war, an important victory of Gamergate was that FTC finally noticed that game development is no longer an insignificant nerdy hobby, but became a billion-dollar business, and therefore reporting on games is now regulated; for example, game journalists are now legally required to disclose the conflict of interest, so the same story could not happen again today without potential legal consequences.
I remember seeing the word mentioned in various places, looking it up to find out what the controversy was about, and being only able to find completely biased descriptions from either side, each with an entirely different set of facts and claims. You might say every political controversy is like this, but this was particularly bad; usually you can easily find at least one neutral description of the controversy that summarises both sides. In this case, after heaps of searching I couldn't find a single explanation along the lines of "gamergate is a controversy which started when this group claimed this happened, but that other group said that was a lie and this happened instead".
So, has anyone actually investigated the factual claims in a remotely neutral way? The fact that both sides are still apparently recylcing the same "clearly, this is what happened" with no substantive evidence, makes it seem like the answer is no. Which makes this seem like one of the most sterile things to argue about, until there's a judicial verdict in a defamation case, or a transparent investigation by an unbiased media outlet (if such a thing is even possible at the moment).
Until then, I wonder if a way to partially resolve an issue like this where the basic facts are in dispute, would be to ask both sides to affirm certain moral principles in the abstract: "do you both accept that cheating is always despicable, no matter who does it?", "do you both accept that people of any demographic should be accepted as members of an online community?", regardless of whether they think these things happened in this particular case. If one side isn't willing to make those declarations, then I'd feel comfortable dismissing their entire position.
Ah, this is complicated. I completely understand your desire for a neutral person to come and provide a neutral description. I wish for that, too.
The problem is that whenever something like this happens -- a formerly neutral person comes, investigates the claims impartially, and concludes that the facts mostly (although not perfectly, there is of course a lot of exaggeration and misinterpretation) support one side -- such person is no longer considered neutral, at least by the opposing side, right? The former neutral now becomes "one of them", and as such is no longer trustworthy.
(It's like asking for a neutral person to decide whether it is better that Democrats or Republicans should win the election. No matter what position the person starts with, as long as they conclude e.g. "there are good arguments for both sides, but all things considered, it is better for the country if the Democrats win", such person is now considered pro-Democrat, rather than neutral. And people will complain again: if only we had a neutral person to explore the situation neutrally and tell us whether we should trust the pro-Democrats or the pro-Republicans.)
I mean, just the fact that I wrote the previous comment probably made everyone conclude that I am not neutral. And such reasoning makes perfect sense; I am not blaming you! Similarly, anyone I would quote or link, by the same logic, would not be neutral. The only way to keep your neutral creds is to either say "I have no idea" or to conclude that "both sides are exactly 50% right and 50% wrong" (but what is the neutral supposed to say if they conclude that this is *not* the case?). Going with the mainstream is also a relatively safe choice, if people consider the mainstream reporting neutral by definition.
It seems like the solution is to abstain from commentary and only link facts. Problem is, sometimes the facts only make sense in context. For example, I could link the game-making competition for the female developers (google "The Fine Young Capitalists"), but it would not be obvious from the link that this is related to GG at all. To achieve that, I would also need to add links to e.g. tweets supporting the competition by pro-GG people, and tweets attacking the competition by anti-GG people. Except, you probably do not know the pro-GG and anti-GG people by name, so I would need to add even more links to prove that. (In other words, the information is fragmented.) And if I sent you a list of 50 links supporting all of this, you could dismiss me as a crazy conspiracy theorist, based on a reasonable heuristic that sane people usually do not need 50 links to prove a trivial claim. Possible replies include "well, these 5, or 10, or 20 people do not represent their entire side" and "yeah, maybe they did this one thing, but otherwise everything their opponents said is true, so they are still the bad guys".
> "do you both accept that people of any demographic should be accepted as members of an online community?"
This sounds a bit like asking Scott to publicly affirm that women are allowed to read his blog and comment on it. Yes, they are; they never needed a special permission to do that; and they have actually been here from the very beginning -- the fact that Scott never made this specific public statement is irrelevant. The situation with GG was analogical, women were a part (although a minority) of the gaming community (and GG) since ever, and at one time there was a popular hashtag "#notyourshield" to specifically express the idea that they resent the accusations made by journalists that the gaming community is excluding them. So, the declaration you would like to see kinda exists, but again it requires a bit more context to understand.
Yes, it's complicated. My main point is not that there *should* be a neutral resolution, but that absent one, something like this is pointless and destructive to talk much about, especially in a place like this. Debates about political and moral values can be constructive and illuminating, and debates about the interpretation of widely available facts and statistics can be constructive and illuminating (particularly in a rational space with strong norms of logically defending your positions)...it may be naive to expect any progress *would* be made on those debates, but it's perfectly theoretically possible it *can* be.
But in a debate like this centering entirely around differing claimed facts: who did what when, who said what in response to what, whether this person on the internet really represents this other vaguely defined group on the internet and what their true motivations were in writing this article at this particular time...it's all just a horrible mess. No one's ever going to come to an agreement, not even if everyone is completely rational, acting in good faith, and enthusiastically willing to change their mind. So what's the point?
Imagine someone reading this thread who supports the feminist side of this controversy, or who just assumed that side was correct. How are they supposed to react to your description above? There's no way for them evaluate the claims logically (because they're not logical arguments) nor to test or confirm them evidentially...they're just claims. I know you described yourself as just giving the other side of the story, but the feel of the thread (and a lot of similiar threads like this) is kind of "we all know this is what really happened". And maybe it did, maybe how you described it is exactly what happened...or maybe it's completely false, and a set of lies that have become widely accepted in certain circles as true, despite their lack of proof. I have no clue. None at all. Not in the sense that it would be too difficult to figure out, but in the sense that the answer seems basically unknowable.
So the account here is no different from the other side's "clearly this happened" account, with no real debate expected or even possible. It doesn't brazenly state that the matter is not up for debate the way the other side often does (and let there be no doubt that whoever does *that* is always without exception infinitely more contemptible than whoever doesn't) but it's still not much more enlightening.
Also, I don't think neutral investigations are impossible. Let's say two feminist-leaning people thoroughly investigated the pro-gamergate claims, concluded that they were substantively corrrect, and then continued being generally pro-feminist while maintaining the feminists were wrong about this. That would look pretty good for the pro- side. Or if multiple critics of feminism said, "look I have heaps of problems with feminism, but this gamergate stuff is just batshit, it's all crap, and it's embarassing" that would be pretty strong for the anti- side. (This is what has happened with Trump's stolen election claims I think). On the other hand if someone previously pro-feminist investigated gamergate, concluded it was true, and shortly afterwards switched their whole attitude and became anti-feminist on everything...people would underatandably be suspicious (that their real motivation was separate and had nothing to do with the facts). And the same if it happened vice-versa.
And finally, I think public affirmations denouncung your own side's worst elements are hugely underrated. Scott is suspected by some of supporting scientific race differences, I believe. If he hasn't already, it would surely make a lot of sense for him to either publically state he doesn't support those, or state that if he did they would have absolutely no impact on how people of any race should be treated in any practical context. Likewise, I can't possibly describe how much my sympathy for any given feminist would increase if she were to make the following two statements: "I don't believe anyone is being fired or ostracised for good-faith disagreement with feminism, but if that has happened I condemn it utterly and unequivocally stand with those people" and "I don't believe a fetus is at all sentient, but if I was convinced of that I would of course become pro-life".
The difference between "I'm not doing this, and if I were it would be contemptible" and "I'm not doing this, but even if I were who cares, because your rights don't matter" is the difference between someone who I can reasonably disagree with, and someone who I have no choice but to conclude is simply evil.
If they really cared about Ethics in Games Journalism, why did they spend all their time talking about the alleged relationships of one random woman who made a game they'd never heard of, instead of getting outraged at the rampant corruption in AAA games journalism (i.e. the games people actually play and care about)? Their battlecry should have been "Kane and Lynch", not "Five Guys".
Why did black people get outraged over Rosa Parks not allowed to sit in the bus? I am sure there were way more serious examples of discrimination happening at the same time. Why didn't they discuss those instead?
First, your question contains a false dilemma; people in GG discussed both those topics, and many others. The relationship itself was never a major topic for GG -- the opponents kept talking about it all the time, to keep the story simple and draw away attention from all the other topics. (The woman herself was a repeated topic of the debate, but for other things she allegedly did, such as embezzling money ostensibly collected to support female game developers, organizing Twitter mobs, abusing the legal system against her ex. Probably other things I forgot.)
Second, the straw that breaks the camel's back is not necessarily the heaviest straw in the cargo. Sometimes people's patience wears off at a random moment.
Third, there was Streisand effect in action; of course people enjoyed discussing the one topic they were not allowed to discuss anywhere else. But that was in the beginning; the debate soon turned to other topics.
Because that was what drew the over-the-top instaultrabanning.
The woman in question was a long-time lolcow (as were others that managed to jump in front of the parade and claim those sweet victim points) but until GG, those controversies flared up and died out. It was the response from reddit et. al. that made GG happen.
There's a convenient Wikipedia entry that documents the controversy but says that all the "unethical relationships" with just one journalist were "falsely claimed", and that these claims were *largely* dismissed conspiracy theories.
Now, when I read Wikipedia or ant media and see words like "debunked" or "false claimed" I am immediately suspicious and wonder if it has truth to it and can't go check footnotes right now for whether they're legit, say what they're claimed to prove, is a citation ring... Also Wikipedia is completely ideologically taken over as well.
Edit: the Wikipedia goes into more detail but also contests the above account of events, but again, hard to tell which is true.
The creation of that article was a wonderful real-time demonstration of how terrible wikipedia can be. The... "creative" enforcement of WP:OWN , WP:AGF and WP:RS was breathtaking. If there's any evidence left online of ryulong, that can give you an insight into the anti-GG movement.
In defense of Wikipedia, it is not often the case that "journalists" is literally one side of a famous conflict. But when that happens, the policy "only journalists are considered reliable sources" basically results in one side writing the Wikipedia article, and the other side not even allowed to express their point (only the strawmen made by their opponents are allowed per policy).
Fun fact: After getting banned on Wikipedia, user Ryulong moved to RationalWiki, spend one year single-handedly producing some of the longest articles on that website; then disappeared. (I think 7 out of the 10 longest articles on RationalWiki were about GG, as of 2015. Later Trump happened, and pushed them out of top 10.)
This is insane, and frankly kind of disgusting as you described it! Is this documented somewhere in a place that's linkable and more easily shareable then this comment? If want to share and discuss with my friends.
You've got a group with a culture, which has been capable of propagating itself and absorbing newcomers. But now a bunch of new immigrants show up, and while they're willing to adopt the trappings of your culture, they continue on doing their thing, having their own culture, arguing about their own politics, using their own language. And then there's more of them than there are of you, and suddenly their culture and their politics become the most important thing in the group. Their taboos matter, while yours are backwards bigotry. Their language is spoken everywhere, while speaking your language marks you as an outsider with questionable ethics. They look down on you, mock your quaint ways, and push you out to the fringes. Eventually they herd you onto reservations, while taking your children away and immersing them in their own culture until they don't even speak your language fluently.
Not to me; cultural assimilation is a thing, and is pretty much the only way online communities grew, back in the day. We want immigrants, we welcome them, but they ought to read the FAQ and lurk enough to grok the vibe. What we don't want are a lot of people showing up and collectively dominating the discourse with discussions identical to those in hundreds of other locations.
And central to the idea of immigration is an acceptance that culture will change, over the long run. That's life and growth, rather than death and stagnation. But too much change at once can create environmental collapse.
Agreed. Some of the better online spaces that I've been a part of had aggressive rules that newcomers were forced to follow until such time as they became acculturated. The downside, of course, is that in successfully preserving and maintaining a specific online culture, you risk having the space fizzle and die a slow death as the cultural space ossifies.
Your really need to cultivate an ethos of open citizenship - where anyone, no matter where they're from, can become natives if they they're willing to follow some specific ground norms and rules (and rulebreakers are punished aggressively), but also where the established citizens are willing to let the newbies in once they've shown themselves to be good actors. This means consciously allowing some aspects of your group culture to change, even if you don't agree with it, so long as they don't run contra to the ground rules.
I do not have an answer to your specific question, but an analogous scenario that sprang to mind. It loses some of the behavioral complexity of your "geekdom" example, but as such also makes for a slightly more measurable thought experiment. Hopefully it can help seed some discussion.
The scenario:
A company that builds a weight loss mobile application is setting goals for the year. One executive suggests a goal to increase the effectiveness of their program, as measured in average pounds lost per app user. This is tabled, and other goals are prioritized around revenue growth, including the number of new users they'd like to acquire for the year. This number is much larger than in past years because they'd like to expand their market share.
When the lbs/user goal is revisited, everyone agrees that it is a good values-based (or at least mission-based) goal to balance the pure revenue goals.
As the year progresses, success in meeting these two goals seems inversely proportional. When one is on track or pacing ahead, the other is almost certainly trailing behind expected progress.
This makes sense, because in order to expand market share, the company pushed beyond their market bubble of users seeking 100-200lb loss, and was now appealing to those with smaller weight loss goals. Seeing success with these audiences, the company continues to expand.
Eventually, they are abandoned and spoken poorly of by their previous audience of users with large weight loss goals, many of whom move to a different app.
Where is the tipping point, and what was a better goal? Helping more people achieve their goals, or helping people with the most pressing goals achieve them? Promoting the popularity of something you value, or protecting a space for the most devoted of the geekdom?
(This is a scenario I witnessed as a consultant. Sharing it is not an expression of any opinion on body weight or weight loss!)
Thanks for your comment! I guess this is the other side of the coin, where you’re sort of moving the lever for what should constitute the “in-group”.
Have you read Crossing the Chasm? I’ve only heard it summarized, but from what I understand it deals with the issue of how to transition from catering to early adopters towards mainstream users
Good to put your preferred pronouns up front - let's people know more about who you are than the rest of the dating doc does (for better or for much, much worse).
I'm genuinely curious here: why are you single and why do you think a dating doc is necessary? I ask because you're an attractive young woman whose career and social lives both intersect with heavily male-dominated spaces. It's surprising to me that you don't have a long list of high-iq men waiting in line to date you. Are you simply unsatisfied with the men in your circles, and if so why? Do you not like STEM types or something?
Curious: how many responses have you gotten to it so far? "Woman working in AI alignment" seems like an ideal match for 70% of readers of this blog :-)
Since I posted this over 12 hours ago, none! I think the demographics might be a bigger bottleneck than many think, between location, gender, age, and relationship interest. The last time I posted on an open thread I got three responses, two of which became dates, and all of whom were people I was excited about.
If you're in the right demographic buckets, and you're reading this, you're likely in my ideal dating pool! Please don't be shy about sending me a message :)
A tight space is sometimes described as being claustrophobic. A person who is afraid of tight spaces is also claustrophobic. This only works for tight spaces -- you wouldn't describe a wide open space as agoraphobic, or a spider as arachnophobic. But the adjective "claustrophobic", for some reason, applies to both the fearing subject and the feared object.
Another example: suspicious. A suspicious person can either be a person who is suspicious, or a person about whom suspicions are formed.
Are there other examples of this sort of thing, and does it have a name?
"English Usage can be so challenging that sometimes even very experienced writers and speakers need guidance."
When I am wracked with doubt, I try saying the words or the sentence out loud. If it sounds awkward and terrible, it pretty much *IS* awkward and terrible. The simple guidance, "Does it sound right/wrong?" works for 99% of all cases, and that comforts me.
Almost all of these edge case are words almost nobody ever says out loud or would ever use in real conversation. Hence the confusion. They are still great and useful words. Oh, and we are nerds.
This phenomenon has many names! Contronyms, enantiosemic terms, auto-antonyms, even Janus words. It’s interesting that usage hasn’t really favored a single term over the others.
The accident was caused by an oversight of the oversight comittee: they sanctioned behaviour that they should have sanctioned. Then then didn't hold it fast so it went too fast.
"Nauseous" is an example, although I was taught that correct usage is actually to describe sickening things as nauseous, but people experiencing nausea as nauseated.
"Nauseous" is a word so fraught and misundsterstood that I don't even want to think about it. I have no idea what is right,.
Legend has it that David Foster Wallace's entire interview for a faculty position at Pomona College consisted of him ranting for 10 minutes about the misuse of those words, he filled up two blackboards and broke every stick of chalk and stormed out.
I think"nauseous" is one of those words whose usage has changed over time. The distinction I mention was the rule, for a while, but people began to ignore it, and now using nauseous to mean nauseated is so common that it's the new correct.
Maybe because I was thinking about my mother today (w/r/t Watergate), I realize that I am terrified of the judgement and disapproval of people who are long dead. But being dead doesn't mean they are not right, nor does it make my mistakes less wrong (see what I did there...?)
Crushing self-judgment is much easier to take when it is both externalized and internalized. I guess that's why kids today like turn-by-turn directions coming out of their phone. Personally, if I want a disembodied woman's voice telling me what to do at literally every turn, I have my dead mother for that.
Maybe that's harsh, but I *never* get lost and I *never* make grammatical mistakes.
French also has "louer" and "apprendre". It's quite interesting to consider which are enantiosemic across languages and which are not. "Louer" can be translated as "lease" for both meanings (lease an apartment to someone, lease an apartment from someone) but the same doesn't hold of "apprendre" (learn and teach aren't enantiosemic).
The more you know! I looked it up and apparently that meaning is "criticized", "nonstandard", or "obsolete", though perhaps not in certain regional varieties of the language.
True, it's not used in the most prestigious dialects of English. Some people have the opinion that only the most prestigious dialects are "correct", and that only those dialects should be used, and that deviation is "bad English". Other people, including most linguists, have the opinion that being able to speak the prestige dialect is an important skill and something that should be taught, but that other dialects aren't "backward" or "obsolete", and that it's fine to also speak those.
Dictionaries do tend to be written by and for speakers of prestigious dialects. I think the qualifier "nonstandard" used by most dictionaries in this case captures the appropriate nuance well.
As one does, I periodically see memes like "Trans lesbians sure do love X, Y, and Z!" And X, Y, and Z do seem like things I like/would like if I tried...except I'm a straight cis man. Is there a psychological commonality between me and the average trans lesbian? I believe I have found a contender.
I believe I experience a trans lesbian-like feeling that I would describe as a "revulsion to masculinity." E.g., I don't watch porn with audio because sometimes the man talks, and at no point do I ever want to listen to a man talk. This revulsion has a partial exception for myself, but imagining myself with the physique of a professional bodybuilder grosses me out (not that there is any danger of this ever happening). But what if I didn't make this exception?
I hypothesize that there is a psychological dial in the XY brain labeled "Masc = Ew." If you set this dial to Medium, you get someone like me; if you set it to High, you get a trans lesbian. Trans lesbian-typical interests come along for the ride when the dial moves.
Well, trans lesbians are just relabelled men so you both share that. It shouldn't be shocking that your tastes overlap somewhat. Out of curiosity, what are examples of X, Y, and Z?
FWIW I (straight man) also hate hearing men speak in porn and I interpret that as being extremely repulsed by gay sex. When I'm having sex (or masturbating or whatever) I don't want another man anywhere NEAR me: I don't want to think of men, see men (except as an avatar that I can mentally project myself onto), or hear men. It's probably also why I hate MMF 3some porn.
So I would guess that you're just really straight with a strong natural revulsion to gay stuff. Do you hate masculinity in non-sexual contexts, like sports?
At one point I've figured out that the way my sexual attraction works is much more similar to the way trans lesbian's sexual attraction works than cis man's.
It was a hard thing to pin down and details are hard to explain. But in broad strokes, I'm not really attracted to a central example of submissive gender-conforming cis heterosexual woman. She may have a beautiful body but the patterns in behaviour and expectations are an instant turn off. On the other hand, typically lesbian behavior patterns, social clues and vibes are attractive to me. There is also a deep feeling that I'm supposed to be pursued and not be the pursuer. Or at least be equally initiative about the relationship as my partner. And I had some issues with my dating life due to it.
Thus I prefer to date bisexual women because they tend to have different mode of relating to their partner which I'm more comfortable with. I've never heard about such thing but talking to several trans women validated that they have similar experiences with their sexuality.
It's interesting how many heterosexual males out there have similar attraction patterns. They do not identify as women, they do not find the idea of being woman sexually arosing, they are just attracted to women in the way other women usually are. My first thought was about incels. How many of them also had troubles with dating because they were after not the type of women they are actually attracted to? What if what they actually need is an initiative feminist girlfriend instead of a trad wife?
Sexual differentiation during early development and puberty is enacted by sex hormones. They seem to operate on both self-perceptions of gender identity, as well as preferences of sexuality. (Though in both cases theres certainly more going on as well, but differentiation seems to be important)
It seems that things that can alter the normal differentiation of gender and the normal differentiation of sexuality are separate and merely correlated mechanisms. That is - natal exposure to testosterone seems to pretty reliably make someone female-attracted (true for women too)
Theres not a psychological dial, its just that you can break the mechanism that properly differentiates gender-self-perception into having some ambiguity, without breaking the mechanism that makes someone female-attracted, and vice-versa. My own speculative just-so proposed model is:
Early sexual differentiation can be broken in a variety of ways, notably separately gender and sexuality -
If your gender differentiates properly but your sexuality doesnt youre a gay man
If your gender differentiates ambiguously but your sexuality differentiates properly youre a trans lesbian
If both gender and sexuality differentiate ambiguously youre a bi or straight trans woman
The two properties are correlated - if youre ambiguous in one youre likely to be at least a little ambiguous in another - but they are separate things.
That said, theres a notable _difference_ in stereotype between trans lesbians and straight and bi trans women. Probably theres some important feedback loops between sexuality and personality. (Its certainly the case that lesbian cis women have different stereotypes from straight and bi cis women)
I, too, relate this, especially the bodybuilder fear. On the rare occasion when I think about my own gender, I think of it as oriented towards masculinity but with very low magnitude. I imagine that if it were truly costless to change gender presentations, I'd switch back and forth from time to time.
For what its worth, I've been working out with two cis friends, one a man and one a woman. They're both very strong, and it's helped me separate "strong" from "masculine" a bit, which has helped me enjoy going to the gym more. That's a healthy habit regardless of gender, so I'm grateful for that attitude shift.
>I don't watch porn with audio because sometimes the man talks<
There are men in your porn? Gaaay.
Seriously though, porn is not the standard for revulsion to masculinity. Would you dislike a sports game (or cooking show or whatever) with male commentators?
Bodybuilding bodies are a very particular thing that most people don't actually want. What other features have you imagined yourself having? How do you feel about being a foot taller, or a different skin tone, or a wider/thinner nose, or a foot-long schlong (or an inch-long schlong)? Is it revulsion to the bodybuilding, or revulsion to any change?
> Would you dislike a sports game (or cooking show or whatever) with male commentators?
Yes, at least relative to the same thing with female commentators.
> How do you feel about being a foot taller
Probably inconvenient. Half a foot taller would be nice.
> a different skin tone, or a wider/thinner nose
Don't care, assuming my relatives magically change too to prevent awkwardness.
> a foot-long schlong (or an inch-long schlong)?
It's fine the way it is, thanks.
It's revulsion to looking hyper-masculine. I suppose suddenly becoming 6'2" would make me *slightly" more masculine, but it's not enough to set off the disgust reaction.
This is pretty similar to my experience as a guy. I thought I was trans-female when I was a teenager, but now I feel that I don't really care one way or the other? I think some would say I'm an egg, but I don't really want to be a girl either. Gendered behavior often seems cliche, but then I also feel that I detect cliches too much, such as getting annoyed by repetition in a music, even when I simultaneously judge it as appropriate, so I don't trust my disgust/cringe response to be meaningful.
In your hypothetical diverse religion class, are the ideas of the various religions being presented by people who believe in them? Does it still qualify as intellectual diversity if lots of religions are covered but all of them are described by the same person, someone who believes in one or none of them?
That's still a perspective in and of itself. Someone who believes Christianity is the one true religion and if you don't follow it you're going to hell is unlikely to have their beliefs fairly represented by a perennialist
I think it is impractical to hire a teacher for each religion, and limiting the religions to those you can hire believers thereof would probably go against the original intent (getting familiar with a wider range of religions).
So I'd say the person has to pass the "intellectual Turing test", i.e. be able to give a description that a true believer of the religion would consider fair. Also, to answer additional questions from the students (and probably keep contact with actual theologians of those religions, to verify the answers later).
This of course assumes that the religions are "open". I don't have a good solution for religions that lie to their followers... ahem, have different spiritual truths for the followers on different levels, and only disclose each truth when the followers are ready, and quite often the truth is that the previous truth was utter bullshit. -- Technically, this could be simulated by a teacher gradually role-playing different spiritual levels. But I assume the true believers would strongly disapprove of this approach. (They would probably prefer to only teach the first level, which I would disapprove of, as it goes against the goal of actually knowing the religion.)
"Does it still qualify as intellectual diversity if lots of religions are covered but all of them are described by the same person, someone who believes in one or none of them?"
<mild snark>
A couple of additional possibilities come to mind:
All of them are described by the same person, someone who believes in two or more mutually incompatible ones.
All of them are described by the same person, who has multiple personality disorder (which I'm probably misdescribing - not my field), where each religion is described by a personality that believes in it.
Or in other words you are absolutely confident in an opinion that everyone you know shares and that you have never heard a coherent defense of — although you know that you know less about the society in question than did a large number of people who lived in it and held the opposite opinion.
Thus demonstrating the virtues of intellectual diversity and the problem with its absence.
I am not, as it happens, a supporter of apartheid, although I am less confident than you are those who supported it were wrong. But there are other issues, some of which I know quite a lot about, where I have encountered the same pattern of ignorant certainty coming out of the same lack of intellectual diversity in the relevant environment. You can probably guess some of them from my first substack post or the post two before this.
I think that there are cases where ignorant certainty is at least only mildly damaging. I'm not a fan of KIllerBee's phrasing about "outmoded beliefs", which sounds like it includes beliefs and preferences which were suppressed by force of arms -
but consider purely factual claims. At one point, for instance, continental drift was a hotly contested hypothesis. I'm sure that there were very plausible sounding arguments against it - and, I admit, I am ignorant of these arguments. These days, we can measure the movements of Earth's plates with GPS and watch the continents move, inch by inch. Some science does get settled to the point where omitting the contrary arguments no longer matters.
I assume this was directed at my reply (if not, please indicate).
I have said none of those things. You have replied to none of my counterarguments about why a University would have legitimate interest in not hiring an advocate of racial apartheid.
Your argument that universities should hire for intellectual diversity of beliefs like advocacy for racial apartheid: "you know less about the society in question than did a large number of people who lived in it and held the opposite opinion....thus demonstrating the virtues of intellectual diversity." This argument could be applied to any outmoded belief set that was supported by a large number of people. As an argument, it is so insipid that I can copy paste it as a defense of hiring a geocentrist, someone who believes that onanism is the source of evil, etc.
I am happy to keep demolishing your arguments, but keep in mind that I do have other pressing matters like dinner to get to.
You've done nothing but display your own intolerance and ignorance of alternative viewpoints - a hostility to REAL intellectual diversity. If your conception of intellectual diversity is one in which you disagree on nothing truly fundamental with anyone else, then it's a trivial kind of diversity that should in no way be expected to pay any kind of intellectual dividends. The fact that you cannot conceive of how there could be at least valid utilitarian reasons in principle for supporting apartheid shows that you're extraordinarily close minded.
Geocentrism can be scientifically demonstrated to be false. Whether or not apartheid is morally acceptable cannot be, and to the extent that we can know whether or not it empirically produced superior utilitarian outcomes compared with the alternative, the evidence is far closer to the affirmative than you're imagining. You're the perfect example of what happens when people live in an echo chamber and aren't ever exposed to genuinely conflicting viewpoints. You probably recall in shock and outrage if somebody suggests intelligence differences between races not only exist but are substantially genetic in nature, despite the significant evidence in favor of this viewpoint, because again, you don't value and don't seek true intellectual diversity.
RE: 'real intellectual diversity' -- I haven't argued for (or against) intellectual diversity here, merely pointed out that the most naïve definition does not make sense as a hiring criteria. Let alone 'true' or 'real' intellectual diversity. In fact my first response to Friedman points out that the term is ambiguous -- Friedman really ought to define it. 'Bistromathtician' has a nice comment in the original thread (top level comment is by 'ClocksAndMetersticks') breaking down many reasons why Universities are unlikely to actually want a fully naïve definition like 'representative of the full array of intellectual experiences'. More generally, I advise you to click on the the Wikipedia entry for apartheid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid), read it entirely, and reflect on why recovery from apartheid may be difficult and take time. Consider, as a point of comparison, how long it has take for China to throw off colonial reigns and approach its historical level of power. And China was only foreign-controlled for about 100 years!
Back to your post: I have made the same argument (that Friedman is mistaken) since my initial response to Friedman. Instead of acknowledging his error, Friedman has doubled down and invited a swarm of sycophants like you to accuse me of ignorance, intolerance, and other rubbish. This is ironic, considering that you really should treasure my intellectual diversity, no? Anyway, I'll paste my initial post below:
[Friedman's example is about a University being bad by disfavoring a candidate a professor position who advocates for racial apartheid. Me:] "Your example muddies things by mixing intellectual diversity (which is ambiguous) and premises that blunt credible research, teaching, and service (like advocacy for racial apartheid):
1) Intellectual diversity is ambiguous. It could be said that it is 'diverse' to believe that the world is flat: ~20% of the US population are at least unsure about it (see https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-a-survey-of-us-public-beliefs). There is no clear public or private good served by recruiting racial apartheid advocates or flat earthers to University merely because people in a population hold those views.
2) Universities and departments want candidates to do credible research, teaching, and service. Advocating racial apartheid is a take that blunts the credibility of a candidate's research, teaching, and service contributions: such a person is less likely to be capable of credibly researching, doing research with, teaching, or serving non-White people."
You didn't demolish his argument, though. Apparently all you did was affirm that there are multiple cases to which that argument applies - which I take as a claim that you know little about a great many societies. That leaves little to respond to.
Thank you for finding this article! (I haven't been following the LK-99 replications or such since the initial news broke in late July - this is exactly the kind of accessible-to-a-general-audience writing I've wanted.)
I don't know what Ramaswamy is proposing, but a commodity basket currency is an old idea — I discussed it in the context of private money in this piece:
In that context it works just like an ordinary commodity system, where the issuer agrees to give anyone who brings in one of his notes a fixed amount of silver. If anyone brings in a million Friedman dollars I give him two ounces of gold, a hundred bushels of grade B wheat, four hundred pounds of class A steel, ...
It's price fixing, but the price that is fixed is the price of the currency. If the Friedman dollar is worth less than the commodity bundle backing it dollars come in to my bank, the number of Friedman dollars in circulation goes down, and the value of the Friedman dollar goes up. Just like a standard fractional reserve system based on silver or gold.
The U.S. at one time had a commodity system based on gold, and there is no reason it couldn't have one based on a commodity bundle. If the summed price of the commodities in the bundle that a million dollars exchanged for was more than a million dollars people would demand redemption of their dollars and the issuer, the Treasury or the Fed, would have to reduce the money supply, since the alternative is to keep issuing dollars and having to buy them back with commodities at a loss.
There are two advantages to a commodity bundle over a single commodity. It results in a more stable price level, since you don't get inflation when a new source of the commodity is discovered and its value goes down, or deflation when the demand for the commodity increases and the supply doesn't. And you don't have to tie up real resources digging gold up in order to put it in bank vaults, because the issuer can go out and buy as much of the commodities as it needs when it has to redeem — the monetary demand is a tiny fraction of the total demand.
Review of the review: For readability would have been nice to link the video. I thought your charitable notes at the end hinted at areas where you had lots of thoughts I would have been interested to hear more about. I'd lean into your instincts to write about something you found interesting or funny about his view rather than feeling obliged to be comprehensive. I worry it's hard to digest the big picture implications of the review, for no fault of your own, because Ramaswamy's views on the fed aren't really nailed down. They seem kind of mix of mainstream policy and some Paul-esque talking points on precious metals put in a blender, is that right?
Since candidates are pretty boring on fed policies, I'd be even more interested in your take on fictional radically new fed policies that you think would be interesting to see some fictional candidate adopt. Like, what would happen if the fed got to set the boundaries of fiscal policy too? What if Congress was forced to add some third mandate, what might be a good candidate in your view?
Scott's done some of these "policies of imaginary states" pieces, they can be a lot of fun, and I think you might have some good ideas for something like that.
> It could mean legally defining the dollar as x grams of gold, y grams of silver, z grams of nickel, q kilos of wheat (of defined characteristics), etc., ... This would have the effect of legislating the relative prices of the commodities in the basket.
This doesn't sound right to me. Say the basket contains 10 mg of gold and a pound of flour. The government isn't promising to sell you 10mg of gold for 50 cents and a lb of flour for 50 cents, they're only making a promise about the price of the bundle. If gold gets more expensive, they could spend 66 cents on the gold and 34 cents on the flour.
Step 1, the market price of flour stays fixed at 50 cents a pound and gold goes up to 97 cents per 10 mg.
Step 2, everybody math skills notices that if they give a dollar to the government then the government will give them stuff they can sell in the market for one dollar and forty-seven cents. Everybody with dollars and math skills, does as much of this as they can manage.
Step 3, so many dollars have been diverted into this arbitrage circle, ultimately winding up in government vaults, that the supply of dollars available for buying everything else is reduced. The amount of stuff being delivered to market for sale, is not reduced (or at least not as quickly as the money gets sucked into arbitrage schemes). In order for merchants to sell their goods, they have to reduce prices. Of everything. Reduced money supply = deflation.
Step 4. When the dollar has deflated by 32%, the price of flour is (50)(1-0.32) = 34 cents per pound and the price of gold is (97)(1-0.32) = 66 cents per pound. It is no longer possible to make a profit selling dollars to the government and taking the flour and gold to the market, so the money supply stabilizes.
And really, the four steps will proceed in parallel and quite quickly.
In a plain gold standard, if the price of gold jumps from 50 cents per 10 mg to 97 cents per 10 mg, the dollar will deflate by over 48%. This is bad. In a two-commodity market basket standard, the same gold price spike only deflates the dollar by 32%, which is less bad. What happens when you get a 94% price spike in one element of a ten-commodity market basket standard is left as an exercise for the student.
The government is controlling the general price level by issuing or burning currency. If the bundle is worth more than a dollar that means the dollar is worth less than the bundle, and the government increases the value of the dollar by reducing the number of dollars in circulation. Doing that pushes down the price of both gold and flour.
In practice you want many more commodities, and you do redemption a million dollars at a time not one dollar.
I fancy I have devised the Master Counterargument Against Every Conceivable Atheist Argument. It's very simple really, as it's based on the observation that every argument for atheism omits the conclusion, which is always the same:
> [Some argument that there is no God]
> ... and in conclusion, I know more than Jesus, am therefore better than him, and you should listen to me and not Jesus!
They never say this, and yet, it is always entailed, because really, if Jesus was not the Son of God and you know this to be so, you definitely are better than Jesus: you are right and Jesus was wrong about something extremely central to Jesus. As this conclusion is as false as stating that 1 = 0, you can be certain the preceding argument had some sort of flaw, even if you can't pinpoint it.
It's like I experienced in college, when a math professor solved a very complex equation, and the calculation ended in 1 = 0. He dared us to find where he had made an error. None did. Yet, you could be sure there was some kind of mistake somewhere, because one does not equal zero.
Aside from the other problems with this, you're missing the part that atheists aren't disputing Jesus' known beliefs and mindset - they're disputing what he possibly believes based on accounts from others of what he possibly said and what he possibly intended by those things. You're taking it as absolutely true that what the bible says is what Jesus believed to be true, which is almost certainly not completely true.
Well, if Jesus died 2000 years ago, I am pretty sure I know more about quantum physics and science in general. But he probably knew more about carpentry.
> am therefore better than him
Can't comment on this; I usually don't do this kind of unqualified comparisons.
> and you should listen to me and not Jesus!
Depends on the topic.
> you are right and Jesus was wrong about something extremely central to Jesus.
I imagine that people are wrong about things central to them quite often.
Fun argument. Though I don’t think many atheists would be the least bit embarrassed to claim that they know more than Jesus did. As you point out, it quite literally goes without saying.
Leaving aside the scientific, philosophical, and technological advances that have happened in the last 2000 years, and the improved quality of public education, what is it Jesus would have infallible knowledge about?
I don’t think his claim was that he was the son of god, in the sense that he was at home playing with his toys when god came home from the office, and then they had dinner together around the kitchen table. Yes, Jesus would have known a thing or two about that.
But that’s not the claim. Part of it is about how he was conceived, and I don’t necessarily accept that anyone knows (or wants to know) the details around how they were conceived. (“Yeah, I’ll just take your word for it, mom!”)
Unless Jesus took a DNA test, he probably shouldn’t be too confident about who his father was.
Of course, the claim could mean something different, spiritual or metaphorical, but then ... What does it even mean to be the son of God? Jesus could theoretically be “right” without atheists being wrong. (“Oh, I just meant I’m a child of nature.”)
Then there’s the possibility that Jesus was just a delusional vagrant, that he was an L.Ron Hubbard style con man, that he didn’t exist at all, or that he existed but was misquoted about being the son of god (“I said son of Gad! Mom’s old boyfriend, from before she met Joe.”) in which case we’d just have to know better than whatever randos wrote stories about him.
Anyway... I don’t know how seriously you take the argument, but it’s fun to engage with ideas like that.
This also "works" as a counterargument against anyone denying that I am Napoleon Bonaparte, should I advance such a claim. If you say that I am not Napoleon, then you are saying you know more about me than I do and that you are better than me. For me to not be Napoleon would mean that I am wrong about something very central to me. As this conclusion is supposedly as false as stating that 1=0, you can bet your last dollar that I am in fact Napoleon Bonaparte.
Jesus' knowledge manifests in many ways, it's not just the Son of God claim. I brought that up because if he was wrong about that it puts everything else into question
C. S. Lewis adopts a similar argument in Mere Christianity, that one must believe Jesus was either insane, a con artist, or the messiah.
One should note though that there have been thousands of messianic mystics, many of them alive today. Sathya Sai Baba has millions of followers and countless eye witnesses claim he has performed magical feats in front of them, as Sam Harris describes here:
So you have to kind of run this argument with this whole class of people. And after you study enough of these cases, one option is to just sort of accept this as part of human nature. Somehow nonnegligible number of humans either convince themselves they have magic powers, exaggerate facts to emphasize their spiritual experiences, or are just conmen, and it's not trivial to discern which is which.
And I suppose you could pick any particular case as a true savior, many people do. But you're going to face a bit of a sheep and goats problem after you encounter more than one of these, figuring out why to take some of these claims credibly while discounting others. I'm not saying it can't be done but it's nontrivial work.
I take C. S. Lewis at his word, that this is a fine way for him to ground his faith, and believe that this reaffirms your position for you. I similarly take Sam Harris at his word, with some extrapolation, that this is not a knockdown argument for him. Both of those can probably be true.
Incidentally I feel like Lewis and Harris are both worth reading if you care about this issue, regardless of what side you're on.
Ah how I miss the early internet. It's been a long time since we've done all this. Seems fun in moderation.
Yes, I read Mere Christianity. Personally, I think Jesus' greatest miracle was his teachings, that's the part you know is real.
And yeah, Messiahs and God-men are an ever present phenomenon. I happen to believe many of them are for real, though I have no rule for discerning. Well, I guess it's how Jesus said: by their fruits ye shall know them.
It's quite possible for person A to know more than person B about one thing, but for person B to know more than person A about another. In fact it's inevitable between almost any pair of people, past or present, you choose. So who is better, A or B?
If Jesus is wrong about being the Son of God, does he know anything? All those claims that can't be empirically verified?
Hmmmm, though perhaps it is possible that the first person to say what Jesus said, in the way he said it, would've been remembered for millennia anyway, even if they never claimed godhood.
Maybe even Jesus himself claimed that:
> The Heavens and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Doesn't your logic believe lead us to conclude that we should believe many of the modern people who claim to be reincarnations of people in the bible? When I meet someone with such claims, I tend to be dubious. In fact there are many people all claiming to be the same person, so it feels like a pretty safe bet that many of them are wrong about something central to themselves. I'm not sure that I'm better than them, just that their claims seem pretty improbable.
No, because those people never say anything as impressive as what Jesus taught. It's more like through the teachings, you know there is something special about Jesus. The teachings legitimize the Son of God claim, not the other way around.
Aren't you adding a new claim though, now that the teachings ascribed to Jesus are more special than those of other people? I think that this destroys any claim to simplicity, because now someone who disagrees with you is free to throw any other meaningful, but contradictory, teachings at you (I'd probably start with Homer, the Buddha, and Mohammed). At this point it devolves into an argument about whose teachings are most impressive, which I think is probably subjective to the point that your argument is doomed
“if Jesus was not the Son of God and you know this to be so, you definitely are better than Jesus:”
No, we are neither better nor worse just we differ on this opinion. However given that Jesus is making an extraordinary claim the burden of proof is in him (or his modern apologists).
“you are right and Jesus was wrong about something extremely central to Jesus. As this conclusion is as false as stating that 1 = 0”
There’s a fairly large jump in logic there. That something is central to Jesus (or his followers) and atheists deny it does not form a contradiction of the type 1 = 0.
The 1 = 0 contradiction is the claim to being better than Jesus. There or there not being a God is not a difference in opinion: if there is no God, it really calls Jesus' wisdom into question.
But you know, reading through the replies, I really am coming to the conclusion the teachings stand on their own anyway, and that Jesus may even have claimed that.
You don’t need to claim board “superiority” to someone just to question one or more of their moral/philosophical positions. And “Jesus’s teachings minus claims to the word of God” is just a loose collection of moral/philosophical musings, even if you permit all the stuff that takes the form of stating God’s preferences by treating them as a metaphor for virtue.
That said, having instant access to that and all the other moral philosophies gathered from across the globe, accumulated over 2,000+ years, and refined through at least a few centuries of lively debate, does give a modern human a big advantage over an Abrahamic preacher from 2,000 years ago, should they choose to exercise it.
Ok I’ll bite. If Jesus was in fact not the Son of God, but thought he was, why is it so implausible for a modern to imply that he is better than Jesus?
Lewis said Jesus was either a fool, a liar, or the Son of God. I sort of go along with that in broad terms, but I did not accept Lewis’s argument for choosing the way he did.
Part of why I said “in broad terms”. Lewis has scholarly reasons for believing that the historical account of Jesus is mainly true. I’m not completely convinced of this either, but given that premise I think Lewis’s three choices are fair. But I think too much of the burden is on the connotations of “fool” and “liar” — I don’t think it’s plausible that (on the usual telling) Jesus was a central example of either, but Lewis hopes we will agree to rule them out because of the connotations.
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I have a stats question that is probably pretty simple, but I'm rusty enough with stats I can't figure out how to do it, and can't find the answer with some moderate effort online. Google did't give a link to an answer in the first dozen or so responses, and GPT4 gave a clearly wrong answer.
If someone got a z score of A the first time they take a test, what is the probability they will get a higher score B or better the second time? Assume there is no practice effect, and let's call the test-retest reliability of the test R.
Thank you, mathematicians. I'm fond of math and wish I knew more. It most be fun to be able to roam around mentally over this kind of terrain. I understand the logic of what you said, too, even if not the math behind it, so I'm wiser now. I think I will probably use Michael Druggan's formula for now. It may be imperfect, but its only competition right now is people using their intuition & saying things like "I'd say the chance is one is 500 . . . or 20,000 . . ."
Assuming normal error everywhere the answer is the inverse z score of (B-AR)/(sqrt(1-R^2))
So for example if you scored 2.5 standard deviations over the mean the first time and you want to score 3 standard deviations the second time and R=0.8 then your probability would be the inverse z score of (3-2.5(0.8))/(sqrt(1-0.8^2)) equals z^-1(5/3) = 4.8%
Isn't z score a red herring here? How likely they are to get a higher score depends on the range of scores for the test, not the spread of the test-takers. If you roll a d20 and get a 17, you have a 15% chance of rolling an 18 or higher. What's the mean roll here, what's the z score? Doesn't matter, it only improves if you roll higher and there's only 3 higher numbers out of 20.
Test scores aren't random like a d20, though. I'd think if someone scores 17/20 the first time, then the second time they're more likely to get 16/20 or 18/20 than 1/20 or 2/2, because that 17/20 likely reflects some amount of knowledge.
It's still based on the spread of the test and not the test-takers. If you take an easy test that everyone gets 100% on, you'll have a z score of 0 and a 0% chance of raising it.
If we're assuming clustering and infinite score it's just going to be around 50%: 1/2 of getting slightly lower, 1/2 of getting slightly higher, 1 in (max score) of hitting the exact same.
I'll invoke Cunningham's law and post a (maybe bad) guess.
I'm assuming we don't have the probability distribution function for this kid. Otherwise, just compute the cumulative distribution function, convert his z score into a raw score i, and then take 1 minus the CDF(i).
We can take the z score and plug it into Chebyshev's inequality (assuming some stuff that should be present for most test takers, like finite non-zero variance). We can get a maximum percentage of values that lie beyond z standard deviations from the mean. Then we have a problem because I have no idea what percentage of that is above the mean and what percentage is below the mean. Maybe it's symmetrical, but I kinda feel like it's not. So let's just take all of it and put it on the right hand side and use that as an upper bound.
So if the kid got a score that's 3 standard deviations above his mean, then at most he's got an 11% chance of doing better. But probably less than that.
> I'm assuming we don't have the probability distribution function for this kid.
Assuming normality everywhere with a test retest reliability of R the probability distribution for person with a first score of A is normal with a mean of AR and a SD of sqrt(1-R^2)
So I just looked up probability distribution function, and it says it's a mathematical description that gives the probabilities of different outcomes. So I'm not sure what you're getting at. Isn't transforming a set of scores into z scores already a form of probability distribution info? For any z-score, you know how many people out of 100 will get it. So for the higher z-score the kid wants to get we know the probability for the population taking the test of getting the desired z-score of B. But what we want to know is the probability that this one kid could get a score this high on the next test. We need a probability distribution function for the kid for test 2. Is there a way to calculate that, given his z score on test 1? Clearly the likeliest thing is for him to get a score close to the score he got on test 1, while scores higher and lower are less likely, and the further they are from test 1 score the more unlikely they are.
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that would you are describing is the likelihood that anyone in the test population would get a score of B or higher, not the chance that the kid in question would.
There are 2 different probability distributions here. First you can choose a person at random from the population and test their score. This is the distribution represented by the z score (and in fact the use of z scores makes the assumption that this distribution is an example of what's called a normal or gaussian distribution).
Secondly you can have a single person take the test and because there is some variance in test conditions and day to day performance there will be a range of scores they can get.
The second distribution is the one you need to calculate the retest reliability. I see that you've specified this as R. I think some people missed that as I also missed it the first time I read your comment. You forgot a word and it makes the comment kind of cut off. I've left another reply with the answer
>For any z-score, you know how many people out of 100 will get it.
Not as I understand it., although I'm just looking stuff up online and quoting it here.
The "z score" seems to be another word for what I know as the sigmage - the number of standard deviations above the mean your result is.
So for a coin toss, 50% of observations get a z score of +1 and 50% get a z score of -1, whereas for a normal distribution the z score is distributed as N(0,1)
So if you want to assume that both ability and test error are normally distributed you can chase through some results (as Matthieu does below), but that ,may not be a safe assumption.
It seems to me that you guys are being too fancy and fussy here. The test in question is the LSAT. My understanding is that the distribution of scores is close enough to normal for one to do the kinds of stats appropriate for normal distribution. The test re-test reliability is pretty high, I think around .90, though that's from memory. I have no idea whether test error is normally distributed, but it does not seem plausible to me that the distribution of test error would be so far from normal that straightforward approaches to this problem cannot be used.
The high test-reliability is a measure of how likely getting very different scores on 2 tests in succession is. Regression to the mean will be working against second test result being further from the mean than first. Seems like test 1 score, hoped-for test 2 score, score standard deviation, test-retest reliability and effect of regression to the mean should be all that needs to be represented in the math to solve this, without a bunch of bells and whistles.
Thank you. I understand most of this, but there's one bit I don't. I am not familiar with E, "standard normal noise." I have used statistics entirely for social science, though also read medical and science research, and have never run across that term. If you have a bunch of raw test scores, or scores expressed as z scores, what is E? How would one calculate it, given a batch of normally distributed scores?
If I'm reading/remembering/interpreting this correctly, E2, "standard normal noise" is a random variable picked from a distribution with gaussian statistics, zero mean, and unit standard deviation, and, as Matthieu said, independent from X1 (and therefore uncorrelated with it). ( IIRC, "normal" == gaussian, "standard" == zero mean, unit standard deviation )
OK, I understand what you said, but here's what I don't get. We already know something about this data that takes into account something I'd call noise -- that is, variation that has nothing to do with what we're trying to measure. What we have is test-retest reliability, which is correlation between pairs of successive test scores of a number of individuals. The correlation is, let's say, .90. To figure out amount of variance in the thing we're measuring accounts for, we square the correlation. So 81% of the variance in Test 2 score is accounted for by Test 1 score, and 19% is
unaccounted for. Just looking at this problem in a conceptual way, it seems to me that the correlation figure or the variance one already take care of random variation. Exactly how one of those 2 numbers should be folded into the equation so as to take this aspect of things into account I do not know. But I have literally never encountered E in social science or medical research, which is the stuff I read these days with stats in it. So I'm wondering if its used in physics or in some more exact science where people need to be extraordinarily precise. You have any idea about that?
"Just looking at this problem in a conceptual way, it seems to me that the correlation figure or the variance one already take care of random variation."
Yes. The problem is that knowing the correlation figure isn't enough on its own to answer the question that you are interested in. We have to add in some additional assumptions (albeit plausible ones) in order to answer the question of "given test result A, what is the conditional probability of getting result B or better".
As an example, one could create a model similar to the one Matthieu built, but slightly different which would still match all the data we have but give a different answer for the conditional probability. In particular, we could assume that the noise is drawn from a _uniform_ distribution, flat over an interval, instead of a gaussian distribution. I think we then need a scale
factor in the analog to Matthieu's
X2 = R*X1 + sqrt(1- R^2)*E2
( I'm fuzzy on what the standard form of a uniform distribution is. If it is
p=0.5 in (-1,1), then the standard deviation for it is 1/3, so to get R to come out right we would need
X2 = R*X1 + sqrt(1- R^2)*sqrt(3)*E2 )
Given this change, we wind up back at the right value of R for this
alternate model - but the conditional probability winds up different.
In Matthieu's model it winds up being the integral of the gaussian noise
distribution that he assumed. In this alternate model it instead winds up
being the integral of the uniform noise distribution it assumes (linear in the distance to the top of the uniform distribution). Either answer might
be right, and the test/retest correlation doesn't distinguish between them.
That's why we need to introduce E2 - we need a way to introduce the
additional assumption about the shape of the noise distribution, as well
as scaling it to obey the information on the correlation that we _do_ have.
OK, thanks, I get the general idea. I loved the math I took, but never went beyond calculus one and the kind of pretty straightforward stats done in social science research, so I am still not able to judge how big a difference this fine tuning makes. Someone I know who is tutoring people for the LSAT wants to be able to give them a reasonably accurate estimate of what their chances are of reaching their goal score if the do no special preparation. This will be a lead in to talking with them about the importance of doing everything possible to improve their odds, i.e. to work hard. Also, he'd like a standard to use in judging how much he improves people's score, and the measure I'm asking about seems more valid than just number of points by which the raw score increases.
So here's my question: Is introducing E2 basically fine-tuning, or is it something that could make a very substantial difference in the conditional probability we get? Or is the difference it could make more on the order of 10% one way or the other? (By that I mean for a score 1 of 160 out of 180 on test a and a goal score of 172 out of 180, let's say the simpler method gives an answer of 20% conditional probability. But since we calculated that number the quick and easy way, the correct answer, if calculated the fancy way, is somewhere between 18% and 22%). Because if the error is of that size we could live with it. We really just want a decent ballpark number.
What's the latest on ocean fertilization? Why aren't countries with large fishing industries all over this: couldn't it dramatically increase fishing yields? Who are the players who are pushing to make it reality and what support do they need?
Fish farms seem like a more profitable direction to work on. Why go out into the ocean instead of just farming tens of thousands of fish right by the shore?
Epistemic status: I'm a fish ecologist, not a biological oceanographer, but I got my master's degree at the institution where ocean iron limitation was first observed/described, so it got talked about decently often in classes, but I don't have specific domain expertise.
My understanding is that we are very confident that oceanic plankton is iron-limited, but experiments to try and scale up iron supplementation have had extremely mixed effects. In other words, we don't yet know a good way to do ocean fertilization in a way that scales, and results in blooms of "good" plankton. At least, that was my understanding from 5+ years ago when I was in school.
I don't know what the current state of research is into this. My guess on what's limiting it is some combination of interest and funding to do the experiments necessary to figure out effective ways of doing ocean fertilization.
Maybe I'm naive, but can't we just try to dump different substances into the ocean and see what works? Don't we already know that e.g. windblown sand from the Sahara causes blooms of good plankton?
Yes, that's basically what the experiments boil down to, but there's actually a lot of different substances you could potentially dump in the ocean, and then there's variation in how exactly you dump it, how you get it to stay in the water column for as long as possible, what kind of formulation, size of particles, etc etc etc. There's a ton of variation in how you would apply it and I don't think there's been all that much research into the topic. And the few experiments we have done, as I recall, haven't yielded particularly inspiring results
Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, case matters in the story. HRT is an acronym, so it has capital letters; similarly, "Christ" demands a capital "C".
The Last Psychiatrist said this about the Barbie movie on Twitter:
> #Barbie is fun, spiteful, and so un-self-aware it needs Haldol, or Jesus. E.g. it despises fascist patriarchy, but only the patriarchy part. It longs for the fascism. I looked from pig to man and man to pig and pig to man again, but it was impossible to say which was which.
What might they have meant by that? What parts of the movie do you think stood out to them, and why? What was your interpretation of the Barbie movie?
Oh, he's tweeting again! But his tweets are so... useless... compared to his old blog entries. I guess this is what Twitter does to humans. "The medium is the message" and all that...
If you've seen the movie it's clear what they mean, the resolution of the Barbieland plot is that all the Barbies are once again in power and their main competitors (the Kens) are for the most part completely out of power. I'm not sure I'd call it 'un-self-aware' though, I think Gerwig realizes that the film is at-odds with itself, but really what else would you expect from a Mattel funded Barbie film?
(Sorry, comment went in wrong place due to Substack wanting me to sign in every five seconds, grrr)
Haven't seen it, not interested, but was amused to learn it outdid Avatar (at least in Irish cinema attendance records) and from the mixed bag of reviews, it is all things to all people. It's feminist, it's anti-feminist, it's the Ken Movie, Ken is a laughing stock, it's about patriarchy, it's about matriarchy - every kind of interpretation has been put on it.
Me? It's a movie to sell more dolls to modern little girls, now that Mattel think they can try that without being excoriated as outdated sexists.
Huh, everyone’s saying different things than what I thought the standard interpretation would be. I thought it was about the end game of neuroticism, that the thing causing everyone suffering is their compulsiveness and overthinking of the structures of the world they think define them. Sadly, the movie didn’t elaborate on this point in the ending.
I certainly didn't think Kendom looked any more fun than Barbieland! I took it as a caricature of things about men that annoy women, broadly speaking. I for one would rather live under the authoritarianism of the Barbies than of the Kens. It really is a Rorschach blot of a movie, like another commenter said, if we can interpret it so differently.
It definitely doesn’t seem to me to embrace it - the most biting line of the movie was a condescending matriarchal point about how maybe Ken will some day have as much representation on courts in the Barbie world as women do in the real world. It doesn’t sound like it’s endorsing that at all.
Does anyone else have trouble understanding Zvi’s blog? It seems like he focuses on including as much information as possible, as opposed to making it clear and easy to read (unlike Scott).
It takes quite a lot of context to understand some paragraphs. I can suggest using ChatGPT to explain parts you don't quite follow, it usually does a good job. And Zvi is good at answering questions in comments if ChatGPT isn't good enough.
I wish his posts were more structured, numbered headings etc. Some of the posts are just walls of text with paragraphs having no relation to the one that came before it.
I find it hard to believe any blog could be as terse (in style, not length) and dense as Dominic Cummings's. For information density it is the blog equivalent of a neutron star!
It is ostensibly mostly about UK politics, so possibly of limited interest to US readers. But his articles include a fair amount of general insight, and are shockingly revealing about how deluded and incompetent most politicians and civil servants are. I believe Scott follows Dominic's blog.
"and are shockingly revealing about how deluded and incompetent most politicians and civil servants are"
Mmmm. From a guy who thought he could take on the permanent civil service and win (he didn't) and got thrown under the (bendy) bus when it suited his BFF for political survival. There's a lot of sour grapes in there. 'They're all stupid and useless and they were jealous of me which is why they schemed against me!'
There's certainly an element of sour grapes, but the main reason the establishment hate him is that his Brexit campaign was successful, despite the massive resources thrown at the official Remain campaign! By BFF I presume you mean the "wonky shopping trolley", as Cummings aptly calls Boris Johnson!
I've no doubt Cummings is a genius, but his technocratic approach seems too radical and alien to British politics, without firm public support from ministers and others. But Johnson pulled the rug out from under him, partly as you say for political reasons but also I've heard at the instigation of his partner Carrie Symonds ("Princess Nut Nut" in Cummingspeak).
A former great prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, made a wise observation, in a speech at the Knightsbridge Young Ladies Riding Academy (of all places) in 1861:
"You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest quality in public life".
Looking at the current crop of risk-averse cowardly custards in office recently, i.e. May, Johnson, Sunak, all one can say is "Boy, was he ever right!" (The only one with any guts, Liz Truss, was ejected by the blob in a matter of weeks!)
Yes, in a sense. It's dense, and he covers a large area in a small amount of time. It definitely requires a different reading style than narrative writing does. And there are a number of times where he uses a word or a phrase as a pointer to a more complicated discussion/argument/concept, to the point where I'm almost certain I miss a few things each post. But it's not as bad as reading late 19th-century English social satire, which is my current fiction.
I wouldn't want him to change; I feel like he's optimizing for a type of value that I appreciate.
Yes, I agree he's optimizing for something very worth optimizing. I also get the feeling that he has found a way to use his smarts and communicate what he knows that is a very good fit for the kind of mind he has. If he ever had yearnings to come across as a certain kind of thinker & writer that he in fact is not, he has totally moved past all that.
His posts are very dense. His style is to be brusque and brief, and that allows him to transmit a great deal of info in a post of manageable length. I often have to choose whether to just have a general idea of what he's referring or do so some searches & reading to clarify things. Scott serves a meal, Zvi heaves heavy boxes of ingredients off a truck. Both bloggers are valuable. I admire Zvi for his thoroughness and efficiency. And for his smarts, of course.
Yeah, I get most of it, but he does have a tendency to *imply* things without spelling them out, expecting the readers to connect the dots, and seems to rely a bit more on a sort of 'lexicon' of ideas that he will reference without expanding on.
I read it for a bit back when he was doing COVID updates. He usually is sensible, but you have to really dig it out. It's almost as if he writes to obfuscate than to clarify.
I've been here (and on SlateStarCodex, and on Scott's livejournal before that) a long time, previously commenting as Eric Rall. I've semi-recently realized I'm trans, and I'm in the later stages of coming out publicly now. So going forwards, I'm Erica, with she/her pronouns.
Also, I would like to apologize for inadvertently tainting the autogynophilia dataset from the 2020 SSC survey. I'd responded to that survey with how I'd thought of myself at the time (straight cis man), which I have since realized to be in error.
Thank you! I'm a little less than a year in to my transition, and I've definitely noticed some awkward patches, but I'd say things are going well so far. I've been blessed that most of my family, close friends, and coworkers have been as supportive and accepting as I could hope for, and the few who aren't are at least making an effort to not be jerks about it.
I have had one or two near-strangers go out of their ways to be jerks to me, but I've experienced a lot less transphobia than I'd feared I would.
I do not think your answers at the time were errors. You can only answer survey questions with how you are in the moment. (If you CAN answer by seeing the future I have a great survey for you: What are the winning lottery numbers?)
Though it would be interesting if Scott added a question in the next survey about how many people followed that specific
My answers were sincere, yes, but honest and unavoidable inaccuracies remain inaccuracies. Or looking at it in a different way, Scott was using gender identity (i.e. do you think of yourself as cis or trans) as a proxy for what might be termed gender orientation (i.e. what one might mean by trans in contexts like saying "I was trans but didn't realize it yet"), and in my case that proxy produced misleading data.
I second the desire to add survey questions to try to assess how common my pattern is. Eyeballing the 2020 survey data, self-identified cis men do seem to follow a bit of a bimodal distribution with a big peak at 1 and a small peak a 4, which would be consistent with a nontrivial population of people with transfemme gender orientations but cis male gender identities.
In addition to the retrospective questions, it might be useful to also ask a question that tries to assess gender orientation separately from identity. For example, the classic "button test", where you're offered a magic button that will permanently transform you into the opposite sex with a minimum of social and legal complications as of you'd been born that sex. On a 1-5 scale, how likely/tempted are you to press the button? For cis-identified respondents asked the question straight, and for trans-identified respondents, ask how they would have answered a year or so before consciously realizing they were trans.
I'm not convinced this button test measures the right thing. If you offered me a magic button which would make me ethnically Jewish, I would be basically neutral on whether to press it, because I think being Jewish would probably be about as good as being my actual race. Does that make me race-queer?
No, I'd say that makes you gentile-by-default. Race-queer would be if you strongly wanted to press a magic button that made you some specific mix of characteristics of different ethnicities.
I think the magic sex change button question will have a lot of false positives. For example I think most self-identified male incels will want to press it, to reroll the dice on their love lives.
There no doubt would be false positives, although I suspect there's be less than you'd think because most cis people seem to be significantly attached to their natal genders despite practical and social considerations. The question is useful so long as it correlates meaningfully with trans inclinations among those who don't consciously identify as trans, since then you could do things like run cross tabs of autogynophylia levels among self-identified cis men by their button-question answers. Used that way, the question is informative so long as there are proportionately a lot more eggs (i.e. people who currently identify as cis despite being subconsciously trans) in the higher button scores than the lower button scores.
As for incels in particular, I suspect that a nontrivial fraction of incels are actually eggs. For one thing, unrecognized gender dysphoria can manifest in all sorts of ways, including as general unhappiness and resentment at society (I suspect this is a contributing factor to so many trans women being radical leftists, and a lot of the ones who aren't being rather extreme libertarians), and also including "gender envy" which if you don't know what it is usually feels like a mix of sexual attraction and self-loathing with undertones of "she's gorgeous and I'm gross".
I've also encountered a number of anecdotes among trans women in trans subreddits recounting being incels or incel-adjacent before realizing they were trans.
For another, in hindsight I had a lot of problems with my dating life in my teens and twenties (although I am now happily married, coming up on our eighth anniversary next month) that were almost certainly exacerbated by me being an egg:
1. Very few straight women considered me dating/relationship material. Almost every woman I have been romantically involved with is bi.
2. I have always felt deeply uncomfortable with the conventional male role in initiating romantic overtures, but because it feels horribly unnatural to me and because I empathize far more strongly with the female perspective (and am thus inclined to be hypervigilant about not coming off as a pest or a creep) than most cis men. The latter part admittedly seems antithetical to the incels mindset, though.
3. I've always had more conventionally female attitudes about sex and relationships, to the point that at least one bisexual woman I've dated has told me that dating me felt like being in a lesbian relationship. These attitudes also tend get in the way of trying to date while identifying and living as a cishet man.
While I never went substantially in an incel-ish direction, I could see how someone with similar experiences but fewer female friends and less empathy for the female perspective could take the combination of unrecognized dysphoria, gender envy, and romantic frustration into inceldom.
There does seem to be a community (called "transmaxxing", apparently) within incels that talks about pursuing gender transition as a dating strategy, but that seems to be very small. Small enough to be a combination of lizardman's constant effects and dysphoria/euphoria motivated trans women who are rationalizing their transness through incel ideology.
Doing some quick estimates based on subreddit size: r/transmaxxing has about 4k members. R/incels had about 41k members when it was banned in 2017 (so would be more like 70-80k now if it had survived and grown proportionately to reddit's user base), giving us a first-order estimate that a bit over 5% of incels are interested enough in the idea in transitioning for incels reasons to join the subreddit.
By comparison, r/trans has 426k members, while r/AskReddit has 42.8MM members, giving a control group ratio of the general trans subreddit being 1% the size of the biggest general interest subreddit. So incels are about 5x as likely as redditors in general to be interested in at least discussing transitioning, which is within the range of what I'd expect of incels being both somewhat more likely to be eggs and much more likely to be trolls than the corresponding general population.
Perhaps the question could be phrased more like, "how much value would you put on the ability to push the button", although that gets into some very subjective value measurements. Possibly there'd need to be a poker-esque "all in" option.
And it might be good to follow it up with something like, "if someone had pushed the button for you, how much would you value pushing the button again to change back?"
The point being to see how strong preferences are in both directions, and how many people don't care that much. But it would need to control for stuff like currently having an established family which could be disrupted...
Agree it needs to be worded carefully. Here's the formulation from the Gender Dysphoria Bible I linked in response to @Firanx below:
>You are given a magical button that will permanently swap your gender, giving you an “opposite-gendered” body that is equivalent to your own in age, fitness, and attractiveness. If you press the button, everybody in your life will have always known you as [your swapped gender]. They will accept you immediately. You will not lose your partner, your job, or your family. Do you press it?
I thought about the "how much value" formulation of the question, which I agree would give interesting data, but I decided against proposing it because of the problems of subjective valuation, particularly of the effects of your personal and financial situation on the exchange rate between marginal dollars and marginal utility.
"an “opposite-gendered” body that is equivalent to your own in age, fitness, and attractiveness"
Aw, hell no. What's the point of changing if I can't trade up? Gimme the Chris Hemsworth/Henry Cavill makeover (Cavill is pertinent because he was a chubby kid who got teased about it and that motivated him to get fit) but if I'm just going to be me, but in the male version of my current body, no thanks! There are 5' 4" men in older generations of my paternal family which is my current height, but unless I get at least 5' 11" in the new version, forget about it. I want to reach the top shelves of cupboards without going up on my tippy-toes or hauling out the stepladder, damn it!
That wording does take care of part of what I worried about. But I'm actually quite interested in how much people value this. I really want to see what the distribution is. Right now, the question as it stands doesn't get into that at all, and I worry that its binary nature obscures the existence of people in the middle.
That's what I was getting at with the idea of a 1-5 scale of how desirable you find the idea of pressing the button. Back when I was "cis", I would have found the idea of the button very tempting (probably about a 3 or 4 on a 1-5 scale) but probably would have said no to a binary yes/no survey question (since saying yes would have contradicted my self-conception of being cis). Put it in money terms, and I would have spent $0 to press it, but little or no money to unpress it, so the money form of the question in my case at least would have failed to distinguish between near-indifference and a thin veneer of denial.
> On a 1-5 scale, how likely/tempted are you to press the button?
0. But if I were born a woman with the same level of cisness I might've said something like 3. I'm not attached to my gender, I just don't think I'd enjoy the experience of having a female body or, debatably, being subjected to what our society has in store for women. So I'm not sure if this test actually tests gender orientation, or only does so in people who feel very strongly about it.
Since you were reading Scott back in the squid days, I assume you're at least in your mid-20s and probably older? That seems like a late point to realize that you prefer to identify as the other gender. If you share your story anywhere or plan to do so in the future, I'd be interested in reading it.
"But if I were born a woman with the same level of cisness I might've said something like 3."
Yeah, I think for this question there's an awful lot of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill". When I was much younger (mid-teens) I thought boys had it easier, mainly due to the "girls can't/shouldn't do this and can/should do that" socialisation.
But as I got older, I realised it's tough for everybody. Men have it easier in some ways, women have it easier in other ways. And it's the case that if you're smart, attractive, extrovert, and reasonably financially okay, you will have it way better regardless of whether you're a man or a woman.
>When I was much younger (mid-teens) I thought boys had it easier, mainly due to the "girls can't/shouldn't do this and can/should do that" socialisation.
>But as I got older, I realised it's tough for everybody. Men have it easier in some ways, women have it easier in other ways.
Some of this may also be change in the outside world, not change in your perceptions of it - gender politics have changed a lot since you were in your mid-teens.
Yes, I'm 41. It's actually a lot less uncommon than you might think: trans folk in general and transfemmes in particular tend to divide into two clusters: early transitioners who develop a conscious trans identity as children or early teenagers, and late-transitioners who don't develop a conscious trans identity until well into adulthood. Late transitioners almost universally report clear-in-hindsight signs of being trans going back at least to their teens (about 10 years old for me), and it's very common for people who know us well to react to us coming out with variations of, "Oh, good, you finally figured it out."
Having been a trans person in denial is an interesting case study in the stupendous human facility for rationalization. For three quarters of my life, I've been fascinated by (and somewhat envious of) the process of gender transition, I've regularly fantasized about being or becoming a woman, I've enthusiastically seized on socially acceptable venues to present femme in public (Rocky Horror Picture Show, kink parties, etc) while still maintaining a cis male identity, going through phases of wearing androgynous nail polish and jewelry, preferring to play female characters in games, etc. I even have memories of in my early 20s "joking" about being a lesbian trapped in a straight man's body.
The typical reasons for denial and rationalization by late transitioners are a combination of internalized transphobia (i.e. you've absorbed a measure negative societal attitudes about transness and transitioning), fear of the potential social and practical consequences of transitioning, fear that medical transition won't work well enough for you to be worthwhile, epistemological inertia (i.e. many/most people start out with a very strong prior of being cis, and it takes a lot of bayesian evidence to overcome that), and misunderstanding the typical trans experience (especially by focusing mainly on the early transitioner experience) enough that you don't recognize yourself in it. I checked pretty much all the boxes. Particularly the "not recognizing yourself in your understanding of the typical trans experience" part: I had the experience, which I now realize is fairly common, of not consciously experiencing gender dysphoria in a recognizable form. I experienced very strong "gender euphoria" from feminine expressions, but I didn't consciously feel bad about being male. I emphasize "consciously" here: what I did feel was a persistent sense of anxiety and unhappiness with no clear external cause and which was only partially alleviated by medication and therapy. Since I realized I was trans and started transitioning, that unhappiness has cleared up for long periods and when it is present it's clearly linked to the stresses of the transitioning process and to noticing aspects of myself that I'm still reading as masculine.
Two resources I'd recommend if you're interested in learning more about transness in general and the late transitioner experience in particular are the Gender Dysphoria Bible (a webpage attempting to compile info on the subject for the purposes of helping people in the early stages of transitioning), and Abigail Thorn's youtube video "Identity" in which she came out as trans at the age of 27. At timestamp 28:00 in the latter, Abigail gives an analogy comparing background-noise dysphoria as being like a soul-crushing job that you don't feel like you can quit: watching that video for the first time several months into my own transition really resonated with me, particularly that analogy.
If I decide to share my own story in more detail (which I might: I've been considering launching my own blog or youtube channel in the medium-term future), I'll try to remember to ping you.
My own experiments had the opposite result, I guess: I did not feel particularly good about feminine expressions, and while it was not something that felt too unnatural to *me*, it was a relief to drop them because they complicated interactions with people I chose to share it with, were a liability in case someone I did not choose to share it with found out, and in hindsight they just mostly feel awkward. But not in the sense that this role would be hard to maintain if that was expected of me. I did confirm for myself that I don't have any particular attachment to my gender (except I feel very lucky to not be born with a uterus), and am what I later saw Scott calling cis-by-default. Living alone on an island I just wouldn't care at all.
The gender dysphoria bible has some well-written sections, but the biochemical dysphoria page oversimplifies the science to my knowledge. It isn’t actually true that every cis person would quickly experience dysphoria on HRT. Some detrans people now identify as cis women and did not experience dysphoria after being on testosterone for years. The document is also short on transmasculine and straight perspectives in general.
Agreed. It definitely has its flaws, in terms of overstating scientific claims as well as gaps in the perspectives it covers. I linked it despite these flaws because I don't know off the top of my head of a better similar compilation of info on gender dysphoria and how it can manifest.
I see it as more a matter of the massive social forces pushing "certain types of men" to suppress and deny the want/need to go down this path have eased up somewhat.
trebuchet, I just wanted to share with you my current view of human sexuality, and I will first say that much of this is most likely wrong, but that doesn't matter so much as just being a different view. And secondly, this view is that the scrambling of sexuality in humans is a spandrel of some other selected for thing. (What that selected for thing is really doesn't matter for this discussion, just imagine that scrambling sex is a spandrel.) So as a spandrel, the scrambling of sex is not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing that gets dragged along. So then, how should I feel about people with their sex scrambled?
And let me say again, this is just my view, and others can have different views and disagree with me. And I feel mostly compassion, I don't think people choose this harder (than normie) lifestyle. And it's also f-ing awesome, because out of this group of scrambled sex people, comes a lot of creativity. And it's also f-ing tragic, because many of them die young.
And Erica and others, please forgive me if it bothers you that I call you one of the scrambled sex people. No disrespect it meant.
> So as a spandrel, the scrambling of sex is not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing that gets dragged along
How is it not a bad thing? It's so "not bad" that people claim that they need to have their genitals mutilated in order to not feel like killing themselves.
>And it's also f-ing awesome, because out of this group of scrambled sex people, comes a lot of creativity.
This just does not square at all with how many of the people who transition are happier and more successful after transitioning than before.
And I know you think this doesnt "pass the laugh test" but you just have no on-the-ground experience. Theres a number of very visible celebrities and semi-celebrities - the data that does exist places outcomes as very positive, my personal experience and those close to me is overwhelmingly positive, and the trans people in my local community are all overwhelmingly positive.
I know two who detransitioned - they are explicit that it wasnt the right move for them but they are happy they tried it rather than wonder. The plural of anecdote is not data, but all the data paints the same narrative collectively.
I can view with compassion your worry that some impressionably young people will make hasty decisions and regret them. I think the incidence of this is overblown, the long term risks are systematically overstated and ultimately in a free society people should be allowed to make their own mistakes, and if its children then the parents need to consent too.
In any event, Erica (presumably) does not at all fit the picture of those likely to not be fully informed or regret it later. So at the very least in her case, you have no reason to think she'll regret it or that it wont be the right choice.
Fair enough. I receive.your advice in the spirit in which it was intended. I do not intend to heed it, however: I have a great deal of information on my own life and past and present mental states to which you are not privy, and in light of that it is my considered opinion that taking your advice would be a horrible mistake.
As a matter of norms in the comments section, I'd rather that every communication online weren't taken as an invitation for a person to express an unsolicited opinion.
If we're talking about opinions, then yes, cool. But I read your post as "this is who I am now" and not "what's your opinion of who I am and what I'm doing?"
If we were all chatting in person -- which I think for community norms we'd do better to imagine -- it would be really rude for someone in a group conversation to respond to "my pronouns are this now" by saying "I think you're making a huge mistake with your life and I think all your loved ones are letting you down."
"I want to let everyone know I started a new job. Here's the link."
"God, what a terrible choice you made to take that job. You're going to regret it and your friends should have told you if they cared about you."
I'd rather we didn't do that here.
Please no need to respond to me, I was making an aside. I was glad you posted here as a long-time reader. I was really not glad to see that response to you and that kind of unsolicited criticism makes this feel like a place I want to spend less time.
Although I understand the point you're making, I think a big part of this is a reaction to statements like "my pronouns are this now". I cannot describe how arrogant this comes across to those of us who are not initiated, so to speak, into this culture. The feel of it (and often the explicit meaning) is not "this is how I'd like to be refered to, if it's not too much trouble" or even "this is what I believe I have a right to for the following reasons", but rather "this is how you are going to address me from now on." Phrased not only as a demand, but as one that it's taken for granted you won't even *consider* you have a right to question. Not saying the OP was doing this, though it can still be interpreted that way because that's how it's usually meant. And when it is meant like that, a very natural response is to ignore the substantive issues and say in essence "who the f**k do you think you are?"
Tl;dr -- if you don't want people telling you how you're allowed to live, don't phrase your announcements in ways that include telling other people how they're allowed to interact with you.
(As a side note, did Trebuchet get banned? I'll admit he was unusually aggressive and troll-like by the standards here, but I'm a bit disturbed at a long-time user getting banned so suddenly; I thought Scott highly valued free speech. And having all his comments deleted is both Orwellian and makes it hard to follow many threads.)
Kind of you to say so, but I'm taking Trebuchet at face value that their heart is in the right place, even if I vehemently disagree with them on questions of fact and values that are vitally personally important to me. One of my favorite things about the ACX/SSC community is that we're able to have civilized discussions about contentious disagreements, and I aimed to respond in that spirit.
Is there a well-known range as to how tan white people can get with prolonged sun exposure? I'm a standard-looking white guy with dark hair and blue eyes, and as far as I know based on family history all of my descendants were northern European, mostly from the British isles. (Also if I grow my beard out it's partially red). Without a lot of sun you couldn't pick me out from a crowd of 'normal' white folks. But under prolonged sun (like a summer of hiking, or construction when I was a kid) I get tan enough that people ask if I'm part Native or Middle Eastern. I become like an Italian with blue eyes.
Is there just a huge spectrum on potential skin tone? Of course I could have a darker skinned ancestor somewhere back there in the gene pool. But then wouldn't my baseline skin tone be slightly darker all the time, not just after tanning? Again without a lot of sun I am 100% pasty, my legs are like disturbingly pale in the winter
You might look at homeless people in your city for an estimate, as well as mountain climbers and surfers. They often spend a lot of time in the sun, and often develop very tan and leathery skin as a result. Some get quite dark while still looking ethnically “white” in their facial structures.
I'm mixed race (white/Arab) and I can get super pasty skin over the winter months. As soon as the sun comes out again I become proper dark in a very short time.
Given the wide ranges of genetic composition we all have the likelihood that you have a dark skined strain in your history seems highly likely.
Has anyone done analysis on what sorting mechanisms produce true intellectual diversity? I'm a university student, and after conversing with a friend about the decision banning affirmative action in the US, we came to the conclusion that it's a good thing because race is a poor proxy for true intellectual diversity. That being said, what sorts of things should colleges weight their admissions by in order to produce intellectually diverse campuses?
We did come to the conclusion that race could have a small weight, as it affects your experience of living in the us, but I personally like ethnicity better as a factor. I'm a white Cuban, but culturally I'm much more Latin than the average white person--and culture seems a much better factor to seek diversity in, than skin color. Some other factors I would think important to sorting for intellectual diversity: socioeconomic status, religion, political beliefs, desired area of study (which they already do), hobbies(?), Etc. Some of these seem impossible to sort by in the current environment (can you imagine the headlines if a university started letting in Republicans preferentially because they were underrepresented on campus), but perhaps there's some mix of factors that can replace affirmative action while still achieving one of its goals, which was intellectual diversity (if I'm to believe the emails I've gotten from my university).
This is ignoring the "account for racism" part of affirmative action, ie letting in more black people because due to racism they haven't had the same scholastic resources growing up. This is an admirable goal, also with it's faults, but not what I'm curious about.
"True intellectual diversity" isn't really a meaningful phrase. I suspect that what you actually mean by "produce true intellectual diversity" is probably "hire more people who aren't woke", and you're trying to make that narrow, specific demand sound like a broad appeal to a general principle, but I don't think it's possible to articulate a non-absurd principle that broad.
There are many, many axes to "how/what people think". On many of those, universities are already extremely diverse, and on many others, they shouldn't be - I don't want people who think that 2+2=5, or fundamentalist Islamists who think women should be barred from driving, represented in academia. So if "true intellectual diversity" means "many ways of thinking represented" then we have that, and if it means "all possible ways of thinking represented", we don't but shouldn't.
A slightly more sophisticated interpretation would be "ways of thinking represented in proportion to their presence in the general population", but a) this is still bad - I don't want creationists or antivaxxers in academia, and b) the choice of "the general population" is kind of arbitrary - I don't want one sixth of my academics to be Chinese communists.
For what it's worth, I think that "increase the proportion of academics who aren't woke, and the acceptance of them" is an excellent goal. But I think it should be stated explicitly, and I think that the general principles it is derived from need to be articulated much more specifically than just "we want true intellectual diversity" - you need to talk about why this specific axis is one of the ones where diversity in academia is desirable rather than one of the ones where it isn't.
Replying to the top level comment now, I think this is a really interesting question. The area that seems to be missing (at least explicitly) in your analysis is intersectionality: that the are interactions between identity characteristics.
Ideally, race isn't used as proxy for the 'true' intersectional analysis of diversity that is (presumably) behind a university's quest for 'true' intellectual diversity. But, it's understandable why it would be considered: race is important for daily life, dealing with institutions, community (dis)organization, norms of behavior, etc. Think about it - how much does race correlate with your list of cultures, 'socioeconomic status, religion, political beliefs, desired area of study (which they already do), hobbies(?), etc'.
Of course, elite institutions - rather than really sample on that full scale of diversity - often sampled for a range of race and geography for rich elites. Rich elites tend to be more homogeneous (they mostly speak English, can go to a restaurant, are well-educated, etc.). So, it failed to be inclusive or as intellectually diverse as most people might expect. Relevant video clip that highlights these differences (which are related to, but not mechanically determined by, race): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGemNT7urY
I don't think you need any special mechanism to insure intellectual diversity. You can just select purely on talent and you'll get enough of it. I'm basing this off the groups of people I've met through elite Quant trading roles (Jane Street and SIG) and through math Olympiads. There was plenty of intellectual diversity even though the filter criteria in both cases was pure math ability
Fair, and I agree. My only issue with that is that I don't trust college admissions officers to evaluate talent well, especially since they're not going to shift away from their precious "holistic decision making" anytime soon. So I was looking for mechanisms that might theoretically fit within the current college admissions model. Although many sorting factors, if used in the same way race was in affirmative action, would cause an uproar--so I suppose it's all theoretical anyways.
If universities actually wanted `intellectual diversity' the low hanging fruit would be affirmative action hiring of open Republicans. They are a lot more underrepresented in the professoriate (relative to fraction of the population) than racial `URM's are, and yet I am almost certain that open Republicanism would count as a strong negative in the evaluation of someone's candidacy, not a positive.
I would completely agree except that people's political opinions are pretty underdeveloped at the time kids are entering college. I'd hope to find more deeply rooted factors than this, although I would guess it's still a pretty good proxy given how little people's political opinions seem to change overall throughout their lifetimes, especially along party lines (ie, very few go from Republican to Democrat). That's just my intuition though, I'm not sure if that really is that uncommon.
1. Colleges do not care about this, and it has exactly 0% to do why they have racially discriminatory admissions policies - literally zero. They let in intellectually sub-standard black people to make themselves look good (or avoid looking bad) - to other students, staff, to donors, the government and most importantly for the top colleges...The New York Times.
2. Do you have any evidence that the kind of 'intellectual diversity' that any of these demographic diversities would supposedly bring is even valuable? I trust the diversity in opinion between a group of 10 very high IQ Ashkenazi jewish men on a matter of physics to arrive at truth better than that of a mix of jews and signifcantly lower IQ blacks. And this will be true
A literal majority of scientific and technological progress throughout history has been accomplished by a very undiverse group of people. It would be very weird if scientific performance could be improved by bringing in the perspectives of people with no great scientific tradition whatsoever, and it would also be extremely convenient considering the fact that the people advocating for this kind of diversity are the sort of people who advocate for their in gorup to be 'included' no matter what. It's like if white nationalists went around proclaiming that the NBA would be much better if there were more white players in it because 'diversity of abilities' or something - everyone should be very suspect of this even if we ignore the evidence of what a more 'diverse' NBA looked like.
>because due to racism they haven't had the same scholastic resources growing up.
Do you actually have a source for this? It's the sort of thing that gets endlessly repeated without evidence. And affirmative action is mostly benefitting rich blacks, and college doesn't close intellectual gaps between blacks and whites at all in any case. Even if you're saying youre 'ignoring this factor', having it repated again uncritically just implicitly reinforces its validity to people.
How do you distinguish "intellectual diversity" from "being wrong", such that you allow vigorous and rigorous discussions of controversial topics, while treating New Chronology with the seriousness it deserves, and mostly avoiding jokers who say that 2+2=11 (unless they can tell you what base it's in)?
Well, we can start by distinguishing between oughts and is-es.
Intellectual diversity should mean having a diverse and roughly societally representative spectrum of viewpoints on "ought" questions, combined with an as-broad-as-reasonably-consistent-with-the-facts diversity of viewpoints on "is" questions.
No clue. I would hope that some level of sorting is inherent in people that want to come to a university that teaches empirically backed, rational knowledge. I suppose that isn't fully true of universities, but in my ideal world the content taught at the university would sort applicants well enough
Well, I think we should first acknowledge actual "intellectual diversity" is not really what colleges are after, despite any protestations to the contrary. Actual intellectual diversity would include people who are low IQ and low consciousness. But those are generally people colleges would never admit (and for good reason - though I suspect it would be enlightening, since I think a lot of college students almost never interact with people >2 standard deviations below them in IQ).
But to actually address the spirit of your question, my first thought was geography, since people who come from rural counties and "flyover states" are probably going to have more diverse perspectives than typical children of the urban/suburban Professional Managerial Class. But then I considered that the children of professors in small liberal arts colleges would probably qualify as diverse based on their geography, but would likely have more in common intellectually with the children of other professors than other residents of their communities.
So, I think parents' professions might be the easiest way to get at some actual intellectual diversity. I think you should absolutely require tests/grades (though that is an extremely low-value signal) to prove the student is intellectually capable of whatever the college will expect of them, but after that bar is cleared, I think extra weight should be given to the children of low SES professions. But that needs to also take into account the status of the profession, not just income! The scions of doctors and lawyers probably have more in common with the children of journalists than either do with the children of a fast food cashier and roofer, despite the (plausible) similarities in incomes of the latter two. A diversity of status/upbringing seems more likely to promote actual intellectual diversity than whatever universities are doing now.
Dang, that's really interesting, love that idea. Definitely the most actionable process I've heard.
As to your first point, (as you clearly understood but I'm still responding too because it's interesting), what I meant by intellectual diversity is not diversity of intellect, but a collection of intellectuals who are diverse with respect to their ideas. Essentially, diverse along dimensions orthogonal to intelligence (but still relating to their mind; physical diversity is low on my list of priorities). Anyways, you clearly understood the spirit of the question but for completeness I thought I'd include a more exact definition.
How do you define "true intellectual diversity"? Are you sure that it's intrinsically valuable to increase this metric?
Imagine that Karl Marx is having Friedrich Hayek for dinner. Does the "true intellectual diversity" of the gathering increase or decrease if youtube flat earther Nathan Thompson shows up uninvited?
To find a definition, I think it helps to go back to what I think is the mathematical bedrock behind the “diversity leads to better outcomes” idea. Jury majority vote success increases with decreasing correlation among jurors [1]. With n jurors, each with P > 0.5 of being “correct”, the majority vote over n jurors is more likely to be “correct” as the correlation between jurors decreases. A person’s marginal value to a coalition is a combination of (1) their likelihood of having correct ideas and (2) their uncorrelation with existing members. It is entirely possible that a person can provide more marginal value to a jury than another even if they have lower prob of being correct if they are sufficiently uncorrelated. (For machine learning people: We use the same argument to explain the effectiveness of “ensembling”)
We want people that are more likely than not to be correct but for uncorrelated reasons. The flat earther can be discarded for that reason (juror with P < 0.5 being correct is bad regardless of correlation). In the context of university admissions, we would need to change what we mean by “correct” but that could be something like raw academic achievements. And as “ClocksAndMetersticks” says, something like a questionnaire of belief/value system might provide a correlation measure. How to tradeoff between these measures would depend on how exactly you model the problem but I find this a useful framework.
[1] Ladha, Krishna K. "The Condorcet jury theorem, free speech, and correlated votes." American Journal of Political Science (1992): 617-634
British scientists alone have produced more scientific breakthroughs than a majority of other countries *combined*. If intellectual diversity is really important, this implies that it correlates extremely, *extremely* poorly with diversity in almost any demographic category.
I mean, I'd imagine that would be a fun dinner to take part in. But you're right, that's not what I'd like at universities as it would probably lower productivity. For practicality's sake, probably: variety of belief systems where members of those belief systems can productively engage with one another, and the material learned in the courses offered at the university is trusted as common ground for the members at least X% (idk what the right number would be, or whether it is a quantity that could be well defined).
I think you will do yourself a disservice if you want every student to be able to productively engage every other student, even if you restrict it to students in the same field. I think you can find a trusted common ground in STEM, but the softer sciences have preciously little material that everyone agrees on.
I would suggest that we ditch the idea of "true intellectual diversity" and focus on meritocracy and advancement of the field. If someone wants to learn the field, they can be a student. If someone advances the field (i.e. does new things and provides new results), they should be welcome as a professor. We only need to worry about intellectual diversity as far as the risk of some fields getting too insular and loses contact with reality, and then the public should cut funding.
I suppose my question relies on the premise that intellectual diversity is a prerequisite for academic advancement. As we know from Godel's theorem, any formal system (it seems likely that the brain is a formal system), no matter how sophisticated, has propositions which are undecideable within the system. So, to attain more truth on more propositions, we should have diverse formal systems.
If this is true, then a true meritocracy would be fine and would produce intellectually diverse students and professors. However, college admissions are not and probably will never be a true meritocracy, so I expect that we will have to "hard code" decision criteria into college admissions for the foreseeable future. Hence, my question. Supposing someone wants true intellectual diversity in college campuses (see some of my other comments and Mark's), what should these criteria be?
Why would cultural diversity produce intellectual diversity? I bet Oxford in England is, at least historically, very intellectually diverse but culturally upper class English.
I suppose I'd include cultural diversity by definition? Like, there are many ways to be intellectually diverse, and Oxford is surely diverse in many ways. However, all other things being equal, I would say Oxford would be more intellectually diverse if it were more culturally diverse.
I don't think intellectual diversity has ever been a motivating factor for racial quotas in university admissions.
If a university wanted intellectual diversity in its student population, I think a good way of doing that might be to e.g. have one nth admitted by grades, one nth by an intelligence test, one nth by who's willing to pay the most, and so on.
My impression is that the people in universities who are in favor of affirmative action are mostly opposed to intellectual diversity. My standard example is to imagine a department looking for a new hire that has two candidates who appear about equally well qualified. They then discover that one of them is an articulate defender of South African apartheid.
If they wanted intellectual diversity that would be an argument for hiring him, since it is a position that nobody in the department holds, probably nobody is familiar with the arguments for. Judging by my experience of academia, at almost any university it will be a strong argument against hiring him.
This is a poor take. Your example muddies things by mixing intellectual diversity (which is ambiguous) and premises that blunt credible research, teaching, and service (like advocacy for racial apartheid):
1) Intellectual diversity is ambiguous. It could be said that it is 'diverse' to believe that the world is flat: ~20% of the US population are at least unsure about it (see https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-a-survey-of-us-public-beliefs). There is no clear public or private good served by recruiting racial apartheid advocates or flat earthers to University merely because people in a population hold those views.
2) Universities and departments want candidates to do credible research, teaching, and service. Advocating racial apartheid is a take that blunts the credibility of a candidate's research, teaching, and service contributions: such a person is less likely to be capable of credibly researching, doing research with, teaching, or serving non-White people.
>Advocating racial apartheid is a take that blunts the credibility of a candidate's research, teaching, and service contributions: such a person is less likely to be capable of credibly researching, doing research with, teaching, or serving non-White people.
This is 100% special pleading. By your logic, colleges should be rejecting people with strong left-wing views given their documented hatred of white people:
So diverse opinions that most people disagree with aren't actually useful contributions to diversity? But opinions that 90% of the faculty disagree with are? You do you propose telling the difference?
You seem to suppose that apartheid was pure in-your-face muhuhuhaha evil, rather than something that at least a few intelligent people could make articulate arguments for. Neither of us would probably be convinced by them, but is there no value in wrestling with them?
Apartheid was genuinely a "muahaha evil" kind of thing. There are no genuinely good intellectual positives to it.
Diversity is on the broad Left is simply this scenario. Imagine that you want a world religion class that is as diverse as you can make it. You would want to include a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Shinto, Zoroastrian, Native American tribal, Papua New Guinea tribal, South American tribal, Confucianism, strong atheist, weak atheism/agnostic, Gnostic, Eastern Orthodox, Amish, Sikh, Taoist, etc... You'd want to include as much and as many diverse strong group-oriented ideas as you could possibly provide for. This is what people on the Left in general mean by 'diversity', adding the caveat that for some topics it means the inclusive/positive/wholesome part of diversity not the "let's have nazi ideas at the table, cuz that's diverse ideas too!" Paradox of Tolerance is definitely in play, and yes what is 'tolerated' has greatly changed in the modern era.
>Apartheid was genuinely a "muahaha evil" kind of thing. There are no genuinely good intellectual positives to it.
Absolutely false. COMPLETELY false.
Apartheid existed to maintain order in South Africa. South Africa's leaders didn't initially have apartheid - they introduced it after the experiences of dealing of a country full of black africans. And what was the result? South Africa became one of if not the most prosperous and safe countries in all of sub-saharan african history. And what has happened since? South Africa is basically a failed state (but I'm sure you have a convenient just-so explanation for South Africa's precipitous decline that has nothing to do with black rule).
There was never some weird sadistic satisfaction with 'oppressing' the blacks. It was done so that a good country could be built. And if you think it's not necessary, just look at the majority of the rest of sub-saharan africa.
"There are no genuinely good intellectual positives to it."
Have you ever discussed it with an intelligent supporter? If not, perhaps you should not be so confident that there are no reasonable arguments for it.
Your response might be that there are no intelligent supporters — but then you have to explain how you know that and why, if there were no good arguments for it, a large number of white South Africans were in favor of it.
For my hypothetical, assume the position is in physics or mathematics or statistics, so the candidate's view of apartheid tells you nothing about his professional competence — unless you believe that the only reason someone would hold a position you consider indefensible is that he is stupid or evil.
It might not be the true underlying reason, but it is certainly one of their stated reasons (at least, by my university). Which means there is at least some people at the university who believe it to be the reason, and further I believe it to be a valuable goal.
Your idea seems reasonable, although I would add that all sections should probably have to have a minimum aptitude for schooling, ie, a minimum ability to pass classes and learn from them, for it to be reasonable at all. But still, my main question is exactly what are the best categories to admit on--you've put score on intelligence test, grades in school, and how much you're willing to pay. I'm not convinced those are the best options.
>Which means there is at least some people at the university who believe it to be the reason
If we could show with 100% confidence that racially discriminatory admissions didn't lead to more intellectual diversity, what percentage of these people would stop supporting such a policy and would be fine with all white/asian student populations?
No, but in a big organization where the views are not homogeneous I expect some (possible small) proportion of the members of the organization to believe in the stated ideals--presumably the stated ideals are attractants for some staff that want to make them reality
How would you define ethnicity as distinct from race or even nationality?
Nation states change over very short periods, populations migrate and re-home constantly and always mate with the existing local pool producing new varieties of human offspring.
The US lays no claim to be a race, as is evident by its modern history of migration, but comprises many different races based on the source of original immigration.
Are Irish Americans a separate race, or Dutch or Nordic or is race used only as surrogates for skin colour?
It seems from an outside perspective that using race as a category is way more divisive that inclusive.
I totally agree on the last comment. What I mean by ethnicity is admittedly poorly defined. In my head, race is purely skin color/other phenomic/genetic features, whereas ethnicity is cultural differences such as the role of the family, value judgements, styles of upbringing, etc. There's probably no good way to measure ethnicity (as is also true with race); I would guess the best way is self-report, which obviously has its problems when there's incentives through college admissions.
In a perfect world, however, it does strike me as highly valuable to have diverse ethnicity on a college campus to increase exposure to many value systems and ideas to all students, but a diversity of race (ie, just skin color etc. with no regard to culture) doesn't strike me as particularly valuable, which is what I'm trying to get at with my question; what other sorts of measures produce such diversity of ideas?
Inclusion would seem to me to be the key. If a group has been outside conventional academic circles for whatever reason, then drawing them in and allowing for the usual synergies to flourish would be a step in the right direction. Facilitating this requires encouragement of outgroups to participate.
Many ethnic groups fear the results of exposure to academic rigor as it quickly challenges traditional values in a way that can be perceived as a threat.
Also the reality of racism on many campuses is bound to have a negative impact on any recruitment initiatives.
There's a whole discussion around power which somehow needs to be worked into the mix but that's probably a bit beyond the scope of this medium.
I agree--but again, race is no longer an allowed factor and I believe it was probably a poor proxy for intellectual diversity in the first place. Ignoring systemic issues with actually getting diverse groups into the college campus, what should universities sort on to produce intellectual diversity?
For example, an interesting one might be "how much does your family matter to you" or "do you want kids in the future?" I've found that people who don't want kids and those who do have very different views on the world, so I would hope that an intellectually diverse place has both groups. This is just theoretical--i understand that practically no college could ask that question on applications and not get lambasted.
Not sure if I can post links on here, but here goes.
Also not convinced that wanting to preserve ancient burial grounds is a great example of hindering academic enquiry. These places belong to the indigenous peoples who have an absolute right to protect their own heritage. This should be pretty self evident really.
My point was more about the resistance that parents often display wrt to the type of exposure their kids have that makes them want to lean away from their culture. Not a good thing or a bad thing, but it can be a major factor in determining educational preferences for some groups.
I attended college at one of today's most-infamous campuses (deservedly so in my opinion) for craven caving to woke mobs. And I've little doubt that today's college administrators will now attempt to evade the SCOTUS ruling; some of them have already floated that idea as a trial balloon.
All that said, your historical assertion is false. Belief in student-body diversity as a vital goal was standard in elite academia during the 1970s (when I was a high school "townie" with lots of adult family friends on faculty at one such school), and the 1980s (when I attended collage as a humanities major at another of them), and the 1990s (when my wife attended college and grad school at another of them). If academics do now settle on a consensus basis for evading the Court's "SFFA" ruling, they will not also discard their strong shared belief in student-body diversity.
Well, I'm a university student and I value intellectual diversity. For this discussion, I don't particularly care about the history of it since I'm just trying to get a theoretical understanding of what kinds of criteria could bring it about.
How important is visualization w.r.t. the interpretability (or broader alignment) problem? Specifically, is there need+opportunity for impact of frontend engineers in that space?
For background I’ve got 10 years of experience, most of which has been on frontend data visualization stuff, currently at Google. I looked around at some different teams within Google and saw Tensorboard and the Learning Interpretability Tool, but it’s unclear to me how much those teams are bottlenecked by visualization implementation problems vs research problems of knowing where/how to even look, and I’d like to have more background before I cold-call them directly
As someone who does not have a tech background but reads a lot about things like alignment and interpretability, I have the feeling there's something lacking in the approaches people are taking to these problems. My intuition (which may be dead wrong, of course) is that they call for some sort of radical cleverness -- some new paradigm -- and nobody is thinking that way. People are trying different combos and tweaks of old good ideas -- things like having a second AI do something to the target AI, trying RF but with a tweak, etc.
I've been playing around with Claude 2 (an LLM optimised for analysing texts) and I'm extremely impressed with it's general reasoning abilities. Talking to it feels a lot like talking to a humanities professor that reads and writes super humanly fast, is on a light dose of psychedelics and only suffers from mild dementia. You can ask it to review essays, responses to that essay other essays on the same topic with different perspectives, and its response is usually very convincing.
I'm wondering if we're rapidly approaching the end of the age where it's reasonable for humans to argue with each other about how the world works.
when Claude 3+, instead of arguing over different interpretations of economics we'll just ask the 300IQ AI that's read every text ever written on the topic and contemplated the issue for the human equivalent of 10,000 years to weigh in, and it'' answer "with 87% certainty the correct view is a synthesis of Neo-Keynesianism mixed with anarcho-primitivist elements."
In a few years are we likely to have something close to definitive answers to our long run ideological disputes?
"In a few years are we likely to have something close to definitive answers to our long run ideological disputes?"
Even given an infinitely smart AI, it is still limited by the available data. If e.g. some question requires running randomized controlled (and possibly blinded) trials on firms, or, worse, whole nations, and, as a result, such experiments would be fiendishly expensive and have never been run, the AI is still going to come up with: "No one really knows." ( This is even setting aside value disputes and sticking to purely factual questions about e.g. optimal organizations for some agreed-on metric. )
There will be a neo-Keyensian AI and a a Hayekian AI and a Marxist AI and so on and so forth. They will all sound fairly convincing at first blush, and you will still have no objective way of measuring their views' correctness against each other.
Can't be done, we value different things and there is no non-horrible way to get people to agree on everything because the is-ought problem has no solution.
I find that extremely hard to believe. But let's say it's true. What, exactly, are we going to think about and do all day? Get our minds turned into those of 2 year olds so that we can experience fascination and delight and the illusion that there are things yet to learn? Get mind links to dolphins, octopi, and, I dunno, Tasmanian devils? Get perpetual orgasm implants?
You need to factor in the need for power that drives so many of the conflicts we experience from day to day. One of the more absurd things said during the UK Brexit debate (sorry), was that we didn’t need experts... translated as the experts would subvert our position..
The debate wasn't just about immigration. The comments about experts were aimed at those who were warning against the economic impacts of leaving the Union.
Arguments are always skewed but my issue was with the attempt to drown out any criticism by attacking 'experts' rather than address the facts.
We know that Brexit was a populist coup engineered by the libertarian Right but the toxicity of the the debate reached new heights (lows)
It seems that the influence of US style debates has been far reaching and one can only expect more of the sane for the election next year, with added AI fakery no doubt.
“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”
Michael Gove was talking about people being fed up with, and distrusting, economists and economic institutions in the wake of the global financial crisis. It has been memed into something different.
I really doubt it. We might get to pick some of the lower-hanging fruit if we're lucky, but even assuming AIs get really good, people will just turn to their AIs and say 'write me a sophisticated argument for why the position i already hold is probably correct' and it'll just become a war between plausible-sounding high-end rationalisations of the views everyone has already. Some views, like young earth creationism, might be too unsupportable for this to work well, but people will just complain the AI training data was biased against them or something.
In any case, getting *definitive* answers to a lot of these questions is impossible without serious superintellegence, since a full enough grasp of the issues isn't just a little bit beyond human understanding, but way, way beyond.
I posted this argument into Claude and it agreed initially. After a bit of back and forth I pushed it into a position more in the middle ground. Which it summarised as:
"I [Claude] initially expressed strong skepticism about AI's ability to produce "definitive answers" to complex ideological debates, even in the next few years, due to challenges like subjective values, limitations of current systems, confirmation bias, and the combinatorial explosion of perspectives.
You suggested that if we restrict the scope to purely factual matters, and have multiple reliable, "truth-tracking" AIs converge on the same analysis, this could overcome some objections and produce high confidence answers.
I agreed factual questions within constrained domains could potentially be more definitively resolved, but maintained that issues around reliability, availability of systems, interpretability, and outlier dissent would still pose challenges to AI conclusively settling complex real-world ideological disputes in the next few years.
You pointed out that developing more reliable, less biased AI is a focus in the field which could help, and that predictive accuracy can serve as one test of reliability. You also noted it would be hard for reasonable people to dismiss a consensus of reliable AIs.
I acknowledged those were fair points, but still doubted technical challenges around bias and general intelligence could be fully resolved in a few years. I also noted factual consensus could still leave room for reasonable disagreement on causal interpretations."
There’s a common fallacy (very pronounced in most politics) where people overestimate the importance and contribution of certain factors in their understanding and explanation of complex phenomena. Often to the exclusion of all other factors. (E.g. “We failed in Iraq because of X”, “I’m obese because of my genes”, “the only reason people associate with the right or the left politically, is tribal”.)
Does this have a catchy name? Has anyone done any interesting work on it, and written anything good and accessible? I’d like to understand better how some things grow to seemingly outsized importance in our mind, and how we can become better and more accurate in assessing factors. (Not that I think I’m particularly bad at it, but it seems like such an important thing to get right, calibrate correctly, and be able to talk about effectively, in constructive discussions.)
I think this is related to how people confuse the outcome of multi-way winner take all elections: winning with a plurality is not the same as winning with a bare majority is not the same as winning with a supermajority. And yet people, myself included, tend to elide the distinction whenever politically convenient.
Compare the "Red State Blue State" map, to the purple state map, to the same two types but by counties, to distortions or 3-D versions that take population density into account.
In a probability/statistics POV, this is essentially conflation of the mode with the distribution (if the certain factor even is the "most dominant" single factor, that is)
Yes, that seems to fit the bill. Or rather, even if the factor is not the most dominant, that might be a good way to approach it in discussion with someone who believes it is.
Now… If I only had a cuter way of saying that, by naming it after a movie everyone has seen or a story everyone knows.
This is exactly what Philip Tetlock used to characterize “hedgehogs” as opposed to the “foxes” who do well in his prediction challenges.
For what it’s worth, although I think that hedgehogism tends to make one a less accurate forecaster, it probably makes you a more useful theorist for coming up with explanations and ideas that others can then choose to accept or reject in making their own predictions. The foxes get things right, but the hedgehogs provide them the raw materials.
I refer to it as a unicausal model, but usually not a model someone believes in but a theory A attributes to B in order to explain wny B's belief is wrong.
Suppose I argue that one problem with providing welfare payments to single mothers is that it will increase the number of children born to unmarried women. I get accused of believing that women have children in order to get welfare payments — a unicausal model and an implausible one.
Your question makes me think you would enjoy the book The Enigma of Reason by Mercier and Sperber. The central point is that human reasoning is not in the first instance aimed at finding truth. Rather, it’s a social competence used to solidify status in group interactions. The currently popular focus on logical errors is what they call “the intellectualist” approach. Their “interactionist” approach is a more insightful starting point in evaluating arguments.
Yeah, complexity theory may be a good jumping off point. I'll load up my Kindle queue with books on complexity theory for noobs. Let me know if you have any recommendations.
For negative phenomena purported to be caused by a single human's decisions, my favorite term is "The Hero Theory of Disaster". The countervailing model, where you attribute the phenomenon instead to the alignment of many factors, is "The Swiss Cheese Model of Failure".
That's a good phrase. Possibly made even better by having been directed at a book by Mearsheimer (who, in my admittedly limited experience, seems to be someone whose "realism" suffers from just the fallacy I'm talking about. I'm not sure that it's monocausal, but it certainly seems poorly calibrated to me.)
Mearsheimer is literally the first example that popped into my mind upon reading the comment that started this thread.
(His ongoing success at getting mainstream mediots to slobber all over him is impressive in a sense. A bit like how, somehow, there are still people who think Paul Erhlich was/is some sort of prophet.)
Could you elaborate on your critique of Mearsheimer? I was not familiar with him until recently, and am still not very familiar. At first glance he seems to be running circles around his NATO warhawk opponents.
As I mentioned, I don't know his work well, and I know I am going to regret posting a three-paragraph of my impression of him, and my objection. Take it with the many, many grains of salt it deserves:
Mearsheimer can argue very forcefully and convincingly for his geopolitical "realist" interpretation of events – a kind of "right of the stronger" that simply has to be acknowledged. He would probably insist that he is being descriptive, not prescriptive, but that line gets really blurry when you start making and hedging predictions.
In his interpretation, however, he tends to downplay the importance (even the rationality) of ideological, cultural, moral considerations in one's analysis, and largely dismiss them as vanities. The only thing that really matters is the economic, geographic and military reality on the ground – like in a game of Risk. "Monocausal" may be too strong a word, but "causal reductionism" seems apt.
As I see it, when intangible aspects feed back into the "real" power balance, there's never a straight-forward exchange rate. The inputs are intangible, and the mechanics are convoluted and oblique. The outcomes are tangible, but the outcomes are just more economic, geographic and military reality on the ground, which is convenient to Mearsheimer, because that can't really prove him wrong. He doesn't even have to admit anything inconvenient about how such outcomes manifest, as alternative post-hoc explanations and motivations are easy to come by.
Ergo, the only thing that really counts is "real" power, and everything else is a vanity. Mearsheimer can scoff at how much money and energy we spent on silly politicking and empty talk, when what won the day was, of course, the reality on the battlefield, and it couldn't have gone any other way.
Yes. Mearsheimer has had one descriptive hammer in his hand for 50 years, which he insists is the best fit for every international-relations nail that pops up anywhere in the world, and he just keeps swinging that same hammer.
Much like with Ehrlich there are people who at some level _want_ Mearsheimer's particular worldview to be accurate. Hence each of them retains and gains believers without regard to the fact of having been a decades-long failure at successfully predicting future events.
I'll call it unifactorialism or monofactorialism. You can then abbreviate it to 'mono' so it sounds like a social disease. "Only one reason? That's mono..." On the other hand, maybe it would lead to polyamory jokes.
Catchphrase: Beware the Man of One Explanation...
I'm actually not sarcastic; this is a really good point. How about unifactorialism? Not catchy though...
You're onto something. But I'd love something less accusatory, that doesn't alienate, but rather invites people to join the search for a helpful level of complication and understanding.
Would this be the single cause fallacy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause. Not sure if there has been any empirical work done in the area; the wikipedia references don't seem to lead anywhere interesting, and searching for things like "causal reductionism" seems to just lead to philosophical papers.
Ironically, the commenter saying "stupidity" seems to be making this fallacy himself; stupidity may have a causal effect on one making the "single cause fallacy", but it is likely not the only factor which could cause one to make this fallacy.
Thanks. Yes, I guess it's at least related to that. Though it doesn't have to be an oversimplification – often people will accept that the causality is complex, but dramatically over- or underestimate the impact of one cause relative to others.
Racism comes to mind as a contentious example where people can't seem to agree on how much of an impact it has on specific life-outcomes, even if reasonable people will agree that life-outcomes have complex causes.
I feel like we don't have enough good language, cultural touchstones, shared memes, to tell someone, in a nice and constructive way that "sure, racism played a part in XYZ event, but what other factors might have played a part, and to what extent" without seeming like you're minimizing the racism, and so that conversation almost always devolves into something grotesque.
Why isn't there at least a fairy tale about "the three little pigs who argued over a multifactorial problem and only lived happily ever after once they solved it correctly"?
It is a mark of intelligence that being able to understand an argument does not in itself predispose you also to believe it correct. This is an insight I had by myself, then learned was previously pointed out by Aristotle, then learned is in fact falsely attributed to Aristotle. Whatever: the stupid light upon an explanation they understand, therefore also believe it, therefore think: job done, phenomenon explained, no need to cloud the issue by examining other factors.
> the stupid light upon an explanation they understand, therefore also believe it
I saw a classic example of that the other day in a forum discussion about "wobbles" in the Earth's axis over time influencing the climate. That much is beyond doubt, but the person who posted it ascribed the whole effect to the 26,000 year cycle of the precession of the equinox.
When I explained that precession of the rotation axis occurs steadily around a circular cone, and thus solar coverage of the Earth's surface is completely symmetric over the period of a year so that precession per se is not a "wobble", either in part or whole, I was taken to task for not understanding it at all! After a couple of exchanges, I gave up the attempt.
Ah Yes but: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." This was said by Saul Bellow and - when you think about the oceans of woke nonsense believed by the 'highly intelligent' 'highly educated' millions who have poured out of the academia sheep-dip in recent decades - I think he got that exactly right
E.g. It may be at least partially correct to say that the US failed in Iraq because the military was unprepared and ill-suited to the job of nation building. Someone pretty smart making that claim might admit that it was a complex set of reasons, but talk as though they ascribe 75-80% of the failure to that one salient factor – and propose solutions that reflect that – when the real number (which the best solutions should reflect) might be just, say, 35%. (Completely made up numbers, if that wasn't clear.)
When I discuss topics like that, too often people's arguments seem to pull them toward the extremes – either/or, black or white, 100% or 0%. That's fun for spirited debate, but not useful for interrogating the arguments and getting closer to the truth and good solutions.
So, I wish I had a better way to talk about these things that did more to uncover the nuance and complexity. A language and an easily shareable mental model, similar to Bayesian reasoning, but for explanations, rather than probability and prediction.
We are an adversarial lot and we therefore tend to focus on praiseworthy/blameworthy causes at the expense of others. This isn't the same as ignoring or denying them. “I’m obese because of my genes” doesn't deny that factors like the easy availability of hamburgers and the metabolic effect of eating them come in to the causal nexus, it focuses on a claim which tends to exonerate the speaker. Similarly - and this is purely an example, not an argument I want to have here and now - I am a believer in the thesis that the Industrial Revolution, and modern capitalism, arise out of the slave trade. Now, obviously the existence of iron and coal and science and the profit motive have a part to play in the explanation as well, but that is understood by all parties because iron and coal are not, for these purposes, on trial.
Oh well, I have to admit that‘s exactly how I approach things. If there‘s an explanation that sounds good to me, then I‘m finished (until someone points out a problem with it, or I notice one myself). And even if a phenomenon is „complex“, by default I would still expect one factor to be the dominant cause (Occam‘s razor).
My favourite example is how whenever homo sapiens appeared in some new place, the megafauna disappeared shortly afterwards. Now, when you look up official accounts of why a big animal species died out in a certain location, climate change is often cited as a factor as well —- but I don‘t see the point of adding another factor to homo sapiens.
That's not what Occam was on about. He was against hypothesising new entities whose existence if proven would merely make an argument easier (the prime example being God, but he would presumably have disagreed). Climate exists, changes, and has ecological effects, so doesn't fall foul of the principle. Complex events often have complex causes: small birds are in decline because there are too many cats and also not enough insects (and for other reasons, they apparently fly into wind turbines), more cats has different causes than fewer insects, etc etc.
The wind turbine thing doesn't hold up under analysis from my recall. But it gets trotted out as an objection to green energy projects for other motivations.
An objection to those numbers I've heard voiced is that wind turbines as of 2017 were far less widespread in the US than electrical power lines or glass buildings. That per installation, wind turbines may be more deadly to birds than those other things are.
That objection is theoretically plausible. Perhaps the ranges that the USFWS came up with for turbines today are like what they would have found from tall buildings in 1910 or something? But....honestly I've no idea and neither does anybody else. That hypothesis requires some major projecting based on a vast array of nested assumptions, it's much more of a wild-assed guess than a documented reality.
I suspect that the reformation and counter- reformation both emphasized the role of linguistically describable reasons, rather than mental practices that can’t be explained. This is probably somehow related to the role of Protestantism in the enlightenment and the scientific Revolution.
Meditation is an ancient concept in western society as you can tell from the Latin roots of the word and its use going back to Roman times. While eastern and western meditation share a great deal of overlap they are also distinct in many ways.
The big difference is that the Buddhist goal of using prayer to overcome the self was condemned as heresy by Christians and so never gained widespread popularity. (Buddhism sees reason as worldly attachment while Christians see reason as divine.) But even in the east this was not the only idea of meditation.
As said below, it was indeed a Christian tradition (and remains so). There's a slight difference in usage; what is generally considered as "meditation" is known as "contemplation" in Christianity and these are all considered forms of prayer. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopaedia, though wordy, gives a handy distinction:
"Meditation is a form of mental prayer consisting in the application of the various faculties of the soul, memory, imagination, intellect, and will, to the consideration of some mystery, principle, truth, or fact, with a view to exciting proper spiritual emotions and resolving on some act or course of action regarded as God's will and as a means of union with Him."
Whereas contemplation is "The idea of contemplation is so intimately connected with that of mystical theology that one cannot be clearly explained independent of the other ...Mystical states are called, first, supernatural or infused, by which we mean manifestly supernatural or infused; secondly, extraordinary, indicating that the intellect operates in new way, one which our efforts cannot bring about; thirdly, passive, to show that the soul receives something and is conscious of receiving it. The exact term would be passivo-active, since our activity responds to this reception just as it does in the exercise of our bodily senses. By way of distinction ordinary prayer is called active."
The example of meditative prayer is contained in the prayer after saying the rosary:
"O God, whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us
the rewards of eternal life; grant, we beseech Thee, that, meditating upon these mysteries
of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain
and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen."
"Spiritual reading of Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels, is an important form of meditation. This spiritual reading is traditionally called lectio divina or divine reading. Lectio divina is prayer over the Scriptures.
1. The first element of this type of prayer is reading (lectio): you take a short passage from the Bible, preferably a Gospel passage and read it carefully, perhaps three or more times. Let it really soak-in.
2. The second element is meditation (meditatio). By using your imagination enter into the Biblical scene in order to "see" the setting, the people, and the unfolding action. It is through this meditation that you encounter the text and discover its meaning for your life.
3. The next element is prayer (oratio) or your personal response to the text: asking for graces, offering praise or thanksgiving, seeking healing or forgiveness. In this prayerful engagement with the text, you open yourself up to the possibility of contemplation.
4. Contemplation (contemplatio) is a gaze turned toward Christ and the things of God. By God's action of grace, you may be raised above meditation to a state of seeing or experiencing the text as mystery and reality. In contemplation, you come into an experiential contact with the One behind and beyond the text."
There are different 'schools' of mediation, such as the Ignatian (developed by St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits), Sulpician Method, or the Alphonsian Method, the Carmelite or Franciscan method, etc.
"The Spiritual Exercises (Latin: Exercitia spiritualia), composed 1522–1524, are a set of Christian meditations, contemplations, and prayers written by Ignatius of Loyola, a 16th-century Spanish priest, theologian, and founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Divided into four thematic "weeks" of variable length, they are designed to be carried out over a period of 28 to 30 days. They were composed with the intention of helping participants in religious retreats to discern the will of God in their lives, leading to a personal commitment to follow Jesus whatever the cost."
With this rather fun summary of it by a Theosophist:
"Sulpician Meditation
A method of meditation adopted by the inmates at the Society of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France, based on the teaching of the French mystic Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-57). Olier was suddenly struck blind and when he regained his sight in a seemingly miraculous fashion he was impelled toward a more spiritual view of life. He founded the seminary of Saint-Solpice and developed his method of meditation which consists of three seemingly simple acts; communion (Jesus in the heart); cooperation (Jesus in the hands); adoration (Jesus before the eyes). The soul draws near to Jesus, opens itself to Him and submits its active will to Him. These three Sulpician meditative acts have obvious parallels with the Indian systems of Jñāna, Karma, and Bhakti Yoga respectively, which seem to be combined in the Bhagavad-Gītā (as they are by the Sulpicians) into a single yogic discipline, usually called rājā yoga, although with either Krishna (Sk. Krsna) or some other deity, rather than Jesus, as their focus."
The Carmelites are really more famed for their contemplative prayer life (which maps more onto Buddhist meditation) as they and the enclosed orders are the powerhouses of that, than the meditation method, but they do that too:
I feel like I semi-regularly come across accounts of this Catholic or that Catholic researching deeply into meditation and contemplation, perhaps travelling to the East and learning from Buddhist monks, perhaps studying the works of various monastics and hermits, and writing long, complicated accounts of methods that must be followed, and orders that one must go in, to achieve appropriate contemplation of the divine. Only for them to discover (and, generally, honestly reveal this in their writing) that the elderly people in their parish have already been doing this all along without any of the study or travel.
I feel like this is a thing, as I say, I come across semi-regularly in people’s own writings about themselves (not as heartwarming chicken soup stories). And yet, my mind has gone blank.
Do you happen to have a few examples to mind that you could share? It seems like the sort of thing you usually know.
I know what you mean, but I don't have any personal stories of that nature. It's either people trying to get Rosary devotion up and running, but nothing deeper. Maybe Perpetual Adoration. Used to be promoting things like Garabandal and Fatima but those seem to have gone out of style.
In real life round here it's very bread-and-butter Catholicism and in fact I'd be happier if there were a few more ordinary devotions of the old style, rather than the modern version they learn in school. Ah, well!
I think you might need to be clear about what you mean by ‘recently’ and by ‘meditation’.
For example, the rosary is a really well known prayer in which most experienced practitioners do something that I think most people would consider ‘meditation’, and has existed for quite a long time by the scale of human lifetimes.
To a degree, yes, but the focus of these practices is very much external, God , Jesus etc, whereas recent secular practices are about developing an understanding of the internal self without reference to any external construct.
Well yes. But then again the question was about why historically there was nothing like it. You can also argue secular versions of meditation are different in nature from traditional Buddhist ones or whatever. At the end of the day of course historically no modern version of meditation arose before modern times
In a dystopian mirror universe, a highlight of the Olympic Games is the random selection of one person between the ages of 12 and 72 [1] from each country to compete in the sport of their choosing at the next Games [2].
If that random person fails to medal [3], they will be thrown into the Olympic Cauldron to die by fire.
If a panel of experts agree that an elite athlete has deliberately lost in order to put a random person on the medal podium, the athlete will be tossed into the Cauldron along with the random person (but that has never happened because this practice has always been part of the mirror universe's Olympics culture and only a tiny minority of bleeding heart weirdos find it problematic).
Please note that the randomly selected people have unlimited access to every resource the elite athletes might have; the very best training facilities, equipment, emotionally invested elite athlete team members (if applicable), coaches, sports medicine / psychologists as well as bleeding-edge general medical care, the finest nutrition, comfortable housing for the random person and their entire family, and so on. Furthermore, the random person's job will be held for them and their income from the job will be replaced by the M.U.I.O.C. while they are in training. In addition, they will receive fame, prizes, and promotional opportunities if they medal.
You are the random person selected to compete for your country in the next Olympic Games.
Which sport do you choose, and why?
[1] Twelve and 72 because that is the historical age range of Olympic medalists.
[2] For the sake of simplicity, the mirror universe holds the Summer and Winter Games concurrently. The randomly selected people may choose any Olympic sport (https://olympics.com/en/sports/) and have the usual four years to train for it.
[3] Note that those who never compete at all, like alternates, do not receive medals.
Can you devise your own sport, such as "Firefighting the Olympic cauldron" where the team who can put out the fire fastest with extinguishers wins?
Failing that, I'd opt for a solo sport such as rifle shooting and practice like crazy for the four years. As others observed, for a team sport all members except possibly one would be professionals. So the odds would be much the same as if there were no randoms in the teams (unless the nature of the sport is such that any poor performers in a team totally sabotage that team's results, rowing for example perhaps or another synchronized sport).
Maybe another solution is to look at recent historical medal results for one's country, and choose the team sport occurring most frequently in these and for which one is physically suitable and can reach a reasonable standard in four years of training.
Side runner for the four-man bobsleigh. The guy that sits in the middle and doesn't have to drive or brake. I can totally sit down at an Olympic level.
I like the idea that whichever athlete I'm replacing is just going to have to go do my job for the next four years.
I think the four-man bobsled actually requires a short burst of elite athleticism to achieve a competitive launch, no?
Also, having trained in both dressage and jumping, I think a random person is going to have a better chance of managing to hang on through a clean round than they would building a connection with a specific horse and executing every subtle cue required in dressage.
Of course, jumping has a much higher physical risk of catastrophic injury during training and competition, so that's something to consider, too.
Seriously though, you would want to choose a sport that the other random people think would be easiest. That way, you will compete against other random people instead of real athletes.
Well, of course there is something to be said for picking an individual sport where there are fewer elite athletes, but you still have to account for the performance of the other randoms, who have the same access to training that you do. Most people think of shooting first, so probably the shooting sports would be crammed up with mostly randos, which is fine, except now you have to be better than all of your peers *and* a few elite athletes from countries whose randos chose other sports.
That's why I tend to think that training to do one's absolute best on a team of elite athletes is more likely to succeed - it's about acknowledging that you're a handicap on them and then minimizing it as much as possible.
Sitting in an Adirondack chair and making an accurate list of 10 things nobody but me knows because I was the only person present and never shared the information. (Just to be clear, other competitors would also have to make a list of 10 things nobody but me knows.)
Spend four years lobbying for a new sport to be added to the Olympics. It doesn't really matter which sport that is; your goal is to be just barely successful, so that it makes it in, but there's not a lot of competition. (And if the sport is obscure enough that the top competitor in the world currently doesn't have the equivalent of 4 years of elite training, all the better.)
Yeah, curling was also my answer - even ignoring the team aspect (where you might be 'carried' by better players), it's a sport that leans a lot more towards the strategic side and less on being in absolute prime physical condition.
It's also, AFAICT, mostly a 'hobby' sport - I don't know that there are a lot of people who are 'professional curlers' - AFAICT, the entire gold medalist US Men's team all have day jobs. (The lead, John Landsteiner, is a civil engineer) So spending four years doing nothing but practicing the curl is probably a pretty legitimate advantage towards the 'random' person.
So it's conceivable that, after four years of full-time intensive curling training plus high performance athletic conditioning, all the randoms who select curling might actually be better curling athletes than the legitimate Olympians.
It’s probably true. Particularly for the team member who throws the first two stones.
A good skip - team leader and final stone thrower- can make use of just about any early stone positions.
As far as training goes, if you can carry a bag of groceries and a gallon of milk out to your car from the checkout, you are probably good to go.
A curler does have to swing a 40 or so pound stone above the ice by its handle on the backswing but it’s mostly a ‘lift with your legs’ thing.
Most reasonably healthy 13 or 72 year olds can handle that just fine.
There is a a matter of retaining balance as the player slides forward from ‘the hack’ - like starting blocks for sprinters - but again no super athleticism involved. The sole of the forward shoe is covered with Teflon to allow a longer slide making aiming the shot easier.
When I introduced this topic, I thought it likely that the ACX hive mind would hone in on one "best" sport for most people. But there's been a surprisingly diverse range of opinions and rationales for one sport over another.
I think you're probably right that curling might indeed be the best option for most people, but then it gets into the area of personal preference, and thinking about what you'd actually want to spend four years obsessively training to do.
I think there's a good argument that most American women should pick Women's Basketball, train obsessively on passing and free throws, and hope that the superstars on the team are so good they can work around the handicap of having a slightly skilled rando on their team.
But, well...I don't like basketball!
I grew up with horses, so I have rusty riding skills, and just discovered a love of rowing, so either of those sports would probably be a pleasurable training experience (aside from the anxiety about being tossed in the Olympic Cauldron), and luckily for mirror universe me, both sports involve literally riding someone else's elite athletic efforts (assuming one is the cox in rowing), so they might even be a viable medal.
Curling seems more achievable than riding or rowing, but...like, I don't like walking around on ice!
My small hometown - 5,000 or so - was so well off financially because of mining tax revenue early and mid 20th century that they could afford to bring a Scottish curler over to Minnesota to teach locals the sport. I believe his surname was Dunbar.
And of course they built a curling facility too. The building went on to become an Arrow Shirt factory. I worked there after school and on Saturdays in high school.
I did my share of curling too back in the days of straw brooms. The Beavers model had a leather strap inside that made a loud popping sound that the skip would have to shout over to call sweeping.
Okay I did a little research and I got the lore about Dunbar wrong.
Assuming there end up being a few choices that most people gravitate toward, the fact that someone from *every* country had to do this week significantly change how those sports are played at the Olympic level, which then recursively affects the right decision (and is interesting in itself). One might choose eg soccer not only because of the reasons that it's an obvious choice (large team sport) but also simply because it is the obvious choice, so many other countries will also have a rando on their team as well, making them less competitive. Or if, as others have pointed out, something less athletic like pistol shooting is seen as the choice of the critical mass, it would be good to follow the crowd and compete in an event where many countries' team spots are taken up by non-professionals.
If that is the case, how pro soccer players and pistol shooters react to having non-pro teammates forced upon them would be fascinating. I could also imagine a sport's superfan *not* choosing their preferred sport out of patriotic martyrdom so their country team has a better shot at gold. If
For team sports, you are going going to get people from the top few nations joining the team, and not anyone else. Sure, the team will carry you, but if the team _without_ you has almost no chance of medaling, not much point in joining.
The randomly selected person from San Marino should not join their soccer team.
Do you replace a professional athlete or just get added? And how much time do you need to actually compete? Like, typically in (European) football you'd get a medal if you were a substitute in a winning team.
Assuming you must be on all the time and don't replace anyone, big team makes sense. But if you replace someone then it could make sense for all such people to Schelling agree to all do the same not-very-physical individual sport (maybe archery or shooting or whatever) so they'd all get a small but non-pratically-null probability of survival
In this hypothetical, you replace a professional athlete, and you must *actually* compete at some point (you can't be an alternate or sit a bench the entire Games).
There are a zillion Olympic sports so I don't want to make any rules about what "actually compete" means in a specific sport! Basically, it's whatever it would take to medal in that actual sport IRL.
So, like, sure, you could ask to be added as an alternate to the Olympic artistic gymnastics team, but if they win Gold and you never got out of alternate status, you go in the Cauldron.
In that case, definitely big team sport where I can just come in at the final minutes of one game to tick all the boxes. I'm sure with football 1min of play over the whole tournament earns you a medal.
I mean, sure, this kind of answer routinely comes up when I pose the hypothetical to people, which is why I added the part about it being a perfectly normal practice in the mirror universe that virtually no one objects to (and thus cannot be effectively fought against).
Would your answer be the same if you were very confident that your act of defiance would only result in contemptuous booing?
Skill issue. I would fight it and succeed. People believe things are impossible right until the point that someone does it. To play along with the tyrant's game is to embody tyranny itself.
You should always do the right thing regardless of social consequences.
The lesser man would save himself. The superior man would save all competitors. Or die trying.
No. I don't think a gun would be the appropriate tool for your hypothetical situation anyway. I think I could win without engaging in violence. But if violence were necessary you wouldn't use guns.
I was asking the question about personal firearm use because your general "I will come out on top" attitude is pretty common in the 2A firearms-for-self-defense community, and your response (insisting you wouldn't be a victim rather than buy into the thought experiment) is similar to a couple of 2A enthusiasts I know.
Lest this seem critical, I've been legally carrying since I was 18 years old, so it's not like I think there's something wrong with guns.
That was my thought as well, but I deleted it out of fear of giving someone the ability to smear ACX as encouraging violence. I guess this is enough of a thought experiment it doesn't matter.
I'd choose shooting, then spend four years doing what I love with my friends and family and not pick up a gun. On the day I'd step out and immediately shoot myself in the head to avoid dying in a cauldron of fire.
I mean, sure, except that it might be surprisingly difficult to kill oneself with a piece of Olympic equipment, especially if one literally never picked up a gun enough to be familiar with it or understood its properties. An air pistol is the easiest to aim at one's head, but unless one is *exceedingly* careful and disciplined about where it's aimed, it's unlikely to kill reasonably quickly (if at all). I mean, people routinely manage to bungle shooting themselves in the head with actual large-caliber firearms.
That leaves the rifle and shotgun, which both have the issue of being awkward to point at one's head, especially under the pressure of a) imminent death and b) an official leaping to stop you.
I know enough about guns that I wouldn't risk it, anyway.
As a person who just completed a learn-to-row class and then joined the rowing club literally last week, I'll say there's a *wee* little bit more to coxing than simply making weight and working the rudder. The coxswain steers, yes, but they also dictate the pace and strategy based on what the other teams are doing. They need a very deep knowledge of rowing and what their teammates are experiencing.
That said, I think I agree with you, and at 42 years old and 5'2" (terrible for rowing, great for coxing) it would probably be my personal choice, not in small part because I've fallen in love with rowing and would probably enjoy four years of rowing more than either of the sports which used to be my go-to.
Sure. I used to cox fours at school, so I know there's more to it than pulling the strings. But it's the runaway winner of your contest, among summer Olympic sports. If you allow winter, being a middleman in the 4 man bob just involves ensuring that gravity affects your body the same way it affects every other object in the universe, once you've jumped in.
Ha! Makes sense you rowed/coxed; the sport doesn't seem to occur to people unless they have some closer experience with it.
I used to select team equestrian show-jumping for myself, because the horse does most of the athletic work (to the degree that it's the only sport not divided by gender!). If you had access to the *very very very* best horse and coaches, you might have a pretty good chance. I had my first horse at 11 years old and got well out of the rank-beginner phase, and although I've forgotten a lot as an adult, I'm still skilled enough that with four years of elite training, I could maybe manage to make it around a jumping ring on a veteran superstar horse.
But now that I know a teeny bit about rowing, coxing is a strong contender. It would probably depend on which sport my country can medal in.
My hypothetical does allow either winter or summer sports, and bobsled occasionally comes up! But I think it requires quite a lot of athletic power to competitively launch the sled, more than it would to cox.
My odds would be really bad, but the best bet would probably be to choose a sport with a small professional scene and moderate athletic requirements, like rifle shooting, sailing or curling, and hope that it turns out that I'm really talented (and don't drag down my teammates too much, in case of a team/ crew sport).
I have plenty of experience in martial arts... enough to know that any world-class competitor in judo or boxing would wipe the floor with me, even if I had four more years to focus on training. I strongly suspect the same would hold in the other sports, but at least I wouldn't get my ass kicked before I die.
> at least I wouldn't get my ass kicked before I die.
Actual LOL.
A friend once answered this question with "figure skating," because though she knew there was no chance of winning, she'd rather spend her four years training at an activity she really loved as a teen, than pick a "safer" equipment-based and/or team sport and be bored/anxious/resentful for four years.
A couple questions - can we compete in multiple events? I'm leaning heavily towards air pistol shooting and there are a couple variations of that (10 meter, 25 meter rapid fire pistol, and mixed 10 meter team). I'd like to compete in all three if possible.
Additionally, do we have to pick the event before we start training, or the day of the competition? Because I'd probably want to give every shooting type a try (rifle, pistol and shotgun) to see which I'm the most naturally gifted at.
Looking at the champions in 2020, the gold medalist was born in 1979, the silver was born in 1984 and the bronze in 1986. This strongly suggests that age is not going to be dispositive. While that does mean that the competitors will have loads more experience than me, it reduces one variable that would otherwise be completely out of my ability to affect. I can't turn back time after all. Additionally, my naive view is that the body conditioning will be minimal compared to strength-based sports or endurance-based sports.
Finally, copying the other commenters, there is a team version of air pistol shooting which could allow someone else to carry me. I'm leaning toward competing in an individual competition - the uncertainty of a team sport would complicate training too much. Competing in an individual sport clarifies things: if I don't improve, I'm not going to live.
I don't think any of us would really be Olympic-level athletes even if we trained; the role of biology is just too big. A team sport really is your best chance at survival!
Multiple events is a good idea, though! Theoretically, you should ask to compete in *every single team sport*; if your country wins *even one* gold medal despite you dragging them down, you live. (Of course you might have to leave the country afterward.)
I think this is true if your country is really dominant at a team sport. I'm in the USA, so that's not a bad assumption. If I were living in a different country, I might not want to bet my life on the performance of their (slightly-handicapped) national team.
I actually know one person IRL who is already so good at pistol shooting that I think that with four years of focused, elite training he might indeed be capable of medaling at the Olympics.
But he's the only person I can think of who has the existing talent and skillset and would just need the four years of unlimited elite training and equipment to manage a medal.
Huh! In all the years I've been asking this question (at parties, on dates), I've never had anyone ask about increasing their chances to medal by competing in multiple events! But, like, duh!
I suppose...yes? Unless someone has a good argument for why the answer should be "no" which would improve the hypothetical?
I'm glad I posted this question here! :)
To your second question about how much time one has to select the event - I think for dramatic purposes, the sport ("swimming," "basketball," "figure skating," etc, as listed here: https://olympics.com/en/sports/) has to be selected semi-immediately (like, within an hour of being notified of your selection for the games), but the event itself doesn't have to be selected until Olympic trials begin.
So, for example, if you happened to already be an elite collegiate athlete in diving, you could pick diving immediately and then think about platform vs springboard and individual vs synchronized.
[edited elite collegiate athlete example because I didn't know anything about weightlifting apparently, LOL]
Looking at the sports that my country does well in, I think my best chance of free riding off the efforts of others is in the two-man sailing events. Unfortunately there's no sailing events with teams of more than two, but if I can get a world's best team-mate and just do what they say (with four years to actually learn a little bit about sailing and work on my rope-pulling muscles) then maybe I can be a reasonably effective piece of ballast.
My other plan would be archery, which has the fewest athletes of any sport in the Olympics (64 men and 64 women) and surely has some kind of luck factor involved.
My third alternative plan would be just to treat it like a terminal disease diagnosis. I'm probably not going to survive anyway so I might as well spend the next four years doing things I like instead of desperately practicing archery.
Huh, I didn't even know sailing was an Olympic sport!
I bet with four years to train and (effectively) unlimited resources to both get fit and build a skill set, a lot of people could pull off a much more elite performance at sailing than they might imagine.
I've been asking people this hypothetical for years and I added the "death by Olympic cauldron fire" detail to discourage people from discarding the whole premise by embracing inevitable failure, even though treating the situation like a terminal diagnosis is probably the wisest thing to do.
If I wanted to *maximize my chances of survival*, I'll go with Kuiperdolin's idea of looking for a larger team. I think American football has the biggest team size, but that doesn't go to the Olympics. Rugby has 15 players. I wonder if I would really spend 4 years playing rugby for a slim chance at survival, and in any case my country's not good at it. The USA does pretty well at the Olympics, but it's largely in individual sports in which case I couldn't free-ride off the teammates. The USA's best team sport is crew, and the team is pretty big, so I guess I'd go with that to maximize my chances of survival.
If I wanted to *assume defeat and make the most of my last 4 years*, weightlifting would probably give me a body I could do quite a lot with. Quite a few nerd women would probably be into a smart guy with a weightlifter's body.
Rugby needs all 15 players. When a player goes off the other team has some huge advantages - I think it’s worth on average ten points. Also a non athlete couldn’t be a forward - as these guys need to hold up the scrum, losing the scum in a game generally means losing the game. Putting a non athlete in there would be dangerous.
The backs are the lighter players, but there are specialist positions a non athlete can’t do, and if you ever did get the ball the other team would waste no time targeting you. The only way to survive intact is to not get the ball, which could see you interfering with play anyway, as you tried to get out if the way. In fact it would be worse, for the team you are on, than a red card.
And there would be multiple games. Chance of survival would be lower than the chance of winning a medal.
In Soccer you could more easily stay out of the way.
Rugby at the olympics is not Rugby Union but Rugby Sevens, so it has actually 7 players per team. I would really not advise to go for that one, as it has a much faster pace than America Football or Rugby Union.
Sure I would definitely recommend that option to Fijians, and I guess to New Zealanders of both sexes as well.
But if your national team has a chance to make a top 8 in both football (soccer) and rugby sevens, definitely football is the best option to go with.
Edit: Even if your team has the potential to make top 8 in rugby sevens and little chance to make it in football, I would think football is the better option.
I think there's an argument that if your country is equally likely to medal in either basketball or football, you might want to go with basketball - truly elite superstar players don't need to be as collaborative as soccer players in order to score points, plus when it comes to individual performance, free throws are probably going to be easier to reliably make than penalty kicks, if for no other reason than that there's no one attempting to thwart the point.
Thanks for factoring in the competence of your country's particular athletes in a given sport!
Perhaps counterintuitively, basketball might be one of the best options for an American woman, as individual performance matters a lot more there than in some other team sports, and the USA women's team has some real megastars. If a regular woman spent four years practicing passing and free throws (especially underhand ones, which don't look cool but tend to be more successful), her four superstar teammates might be able to carry the game with exceedingly minimal input from her.
>It's going to make things a lot harder for people in less athletically successful countries, that's for sure.
Yeah, for sure, that's not really fair!
I thought about having the premise say: "Only the top 10 countries in medal count are required to select a random person for their Olympic team, and if you don't live in one of those countries already, pick one at random," but I didn't want to add to the length of the premise.
Sure, I think this is most people's intuition, but that *really* depends on the sport and how much you would have to contribute to game play!
Some team sports are much more collaborative than others. For example, soccer is more collaborative than basketball, at least according to Malcolm Gladwell (https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/why-companies-need-to-become-more-like-soccer-teams-20210430-p57nte). So if your country regularly medals in both soccer and basketball, you really have to think about which one your teammates could best work around/without you, how good you could get at scoring points individually if you are fouled, etc.
Mostly facetiously, I sometimes wonder if the apparently widespread cultural idea in current America that licorice (‘black’ licorice) and raisins are foul, unpleasant foods rather than delicious sweet treats that people devoted a lot of time and resources into making because they are so delicious, indicates some actual shift in the perception of taste, flavour, and texture.
Ah, the Turkish delight syndrome. As a child i used to read Enid Blyton, her child protagonists used to love that candy (sweet) - they were in raptures over it. When I first ate it I found it very disappointing. I realised that my palette had moved on, I was living in an era of chocolate super abundance.
(That said Fry’s chocolate - which is from the Victorian era - still seems sweet to the modern palette, has fine chocolate and nice minty centre. But they never ate that).
Black licorice, like tomatoes or cilantro, is one of the most frequently disliked foods. Possibly due to genetic variation, a large fraction of the population enjoy it and another large fraction hates it. No idea if the ratio of those who like it vs dislike it has changed over time. Anise and star anise (which taste like licorice and are usually disliked by the same people) remain popular ingredients.
People are surprisingly bad at really accepting that other people have different taste than them, which may cause people to say, either seriously or facetiously, that "licorice is vile" rather than "licorice is not to my tastes".
Ketchup also often makes it on lists of most disliked foods. But the people who dislike ketchup aren't the same as the people who dislike tomatoes. Cooked, pickled, or dried tomatoes don't taste like fresh tomatoes.
Like with nearly all common foods, the haters are a minority, but still common enough to make various most hated food lists like this: https://soyummy.com/most-hated-foods-world/
"People are surprisingly bad at really accepting that other people have different taste than them, which may cause people to say, either seriously or facetiously, that "licorice is vile" rather than "licorice is not to my tastes""
"VARIATION in taste sensitivity to the bitter compound phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is one of the best known Mendelian traits in human populations, ranking alongside eye color and blood types in the canon of classic examples. Much of PTC's appeal arises from the fact that it is nearly impossible to guess one's phenotype until explicitly tested, yet, when tested, the phenotype is so striking as to be amusing."
Ever since I learned about PTC, I've assumed that taste preferences are as likely as not to be genetic (or a novel taste/illness experience). Of _course_ there are big differences between people.
I've gone back and forth on liking or disliking raisins; they're quite sweet but there's something unpleasant about the texture that's a little hard to explain. Like it's too hard of a soft food. Or something. I avoid them where I can.
I think everyone recognizes that licorice has a very strong and distinctive taste, and that it is bitter. In these sorts of cases, it is often hard to understand all the people who like it. (See how people feel about alcohol and coffee, if they don’t actually drink it themself - and especially how kids stereotypically think of both when they sip it.)
I’ve never heard anyone make the same sort of claim about raisins.
Interestingly, Europeans often seem to have some sort of aversion to peanut butter, which is a bit harder to understand, since it’s flavor is so mild (though maybe it’s about the texture?)
What? Licorice is not bitter, it's not even the kind of bitter that people usually say "this is not bitter once you get used to it" about like coffee and dark chocolate. I could find the strongest tasting licorice on a supermarket shelf here in the Netherlands and it still wouldn't taste bitter.
If licorice tastes bad to someone, it's probably because of either the salt or the ammonium chloride. Any nitrogen-containing compound is likely to taste bad, because nitrogen is an element that animals always have an excess of and try to expel through the synthesis of urea. Evolutionarily speaking, you would not be predisposed to like it. But bitterness is an entirely different way for your brain to discourage you from eating something.
> Any nitrogen-containing compound is likely to taste bad
That would include every single protein, proteins being indeed the source of almost all nitrogenous waste. I think there should be something more specific there.
I haven't been able to find a direct link in google when I searched for licorice and PTC. There was an NPR transcript that suggested that nontasting PTC was due to a change in one bitter taste receptor out of 25 that we have https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1099210375
My guess is that similar taste receptor allele differences could be responsible for analogous genetic differences with one of the other 24 bitter receptors. Wikepedia also has an article on supertasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster which cites the PTC result and describes some possibly analogous food tasting differences (and licorice is in the list), but doesn't seem to report anything definitive. No "People hate licorice if and only if they taste PTC"
> I think everyone recognizes that licorice has a very strong and distinctive taste, and that it is bitter. In these sorts of cases, it is often hard to understand all the people who like it. (See how people feel about alcohol and coffee, if they don’t actually drink it themself - and especially how kids stereotypically think of both when they sip it.)
I can definitely see that (although I don’t actually find licorice bitter, it’s definitely a strong, distinctive, sweet taste), but my interest is that I don’t think licorice has fundamentally changed in America, but the cultural idea of its flavour has changed.
Like if you lived in a country where coffee was widely drunk, and everyone sought it out, and then the idea emerged that actually it was disgusting and everyone seemed to agree that it was disgusting: you’d wonder if something had changed.
Except licorice is a flavour which historically, and still today in many other countries, children sought out and wanted in their sweet products. You consider it obvious that children would not like it, as with alcohol and coffee, and yet we know that children in other countries (and in America in the past) do seek it out as something delicious and sweet.
So I have to wonder if, when you eat the same licorice product as me, you are experiencing something different, and if this is something that has become more common in America over the last few decades.
I definitely see all sorts of weird comments by Americans about raisins being disgusting, or hating things with raisins in, in a way that they seem to expect the same social response as if they say they hate licorice.
Peanut butter, I have often felt alone in my hatred of. I hate the taste and smell of peanuts, but everyone around me in the UK who isn’t allergic to them seems to think they are delicious.
My experience (as an immigrant into the US) has been that Americans like this weird "licorice" substance that I just don't get and don't want. But maybe Americans secretly don't like it either?
It's hard to find data. There's also Twizzlers, but they might not count as real licorice?? This is all opening up a new frontier of inquiry I had not previously considered.
I love liquorice flavours, but I have had to stop eating liquorice due to blood pressure effects. But I think the UK/Irish version of black liquorice isn't as strong as Finnish, Dutch, etc. versions (or as salty).
"Dutch, German and Nordic liquorice typically contains ammonium chloride instead of sodium chloride, prominently so in salty liquorice, which carries a salty rather than sweet flavour."
> But I think the UK/Irish version of black liquorice isn't as strong as Finnish, Dutch, etc. versions (or as salty).
I believe so. But American standard liquorice seemed about as strong (or less strong) as the UK/Irish stuff, and I think that’s the stuff Americans discuss as being obviously disgusting?
I think this makes my point stronger (also, I deliberately consume licorice to increase my blood pressure).
Brussels Sprouts are culturally considered disgusting in the UK (despite many people enjoying eating them), especially for children, given their bitter taste. But they are considered “good for you”, and so children are encouraged to eat them, regardless.
Licorice is widely considered delicious around the world, and until relatively recently in the US, too. It was incorporated into sweet foods, and eaten, purely because of its deliciousness, not because of health benefits. Children sought it out, as they often do in other countries. But culturally, the US considers it an obviously disgusting food which children are expected to hate, like sprouts.
That this seems to resonate with a lot of Americans suggests to me that something has changed in America about how people perceive taste and flavour. I suppose the texture thing might feature, too, although Americans seem to not be as negative about the red gummy candy they call “red licorice”.
Indeed. Selectively bred for less bitterness. But culturally, we still consider them disgusting. It is an easy reference to make in comedies, or even in science textbooks, where everyone will understand that it is intended to be a disgusting food, and we understand that this is because they are bitter, and that people would still eat them because they are healthy.
And people will talk about liking them in the context of knowing they are supposed to be disgusting, and will talk about modern sprouts being less bitter.
But I don’t think anything has changed about licorice in America: just how Americans perceive it.
My perception is that ‘sprouts are disgusting’ is slowly fading in the UK. I pretty regularly eat sprouts, serve them for friends etc and most people express a love for sprouts (probably more often that they would for a random vegetable I served, so this may well be downstream from the old meme) but rarely even discuss the trope of them being disgusting.
I do remember sprouts being a frequent punchline on tv and so on as a kid. I wonder if it’s still a thing in that sort of media?
I do think it does make some difference what flavor(s) of anxiety you're talking about.
Exposure, CBT, and various mindfulness practices will help (as well as medication, supplements, and exercise), but to untangle it a bit more at the roots it can help to understand how your specific flavor is constructed.
I remember being really anxious about role call in school one year, with every name building tension approaching the time I would have to speak. Then they called my name, and my heart leapt up... and another kid answered because it was his name too and he was ahead of me. And after that, all the tension evaporated, and they called me and I answered and life went on.
So, my advice is, whatever you're anxious about, try to trigger it in some other circumstance. Get all the emotional shock out of the way, and then just deal with the event. The more often you can do that the less tension will build in the first place.
Building up a tolerance for it through manageable amounts at somewhat regular intervals. A mildly stressful job, going out with friends, talking to a stranger on the phone - they don't need to be super stressful to help. As you build tolerance you will find that things which used to bother you no longer do, and you can move on to bigger and tougher things.
I think someone else mentioned exposure therapy, which I believe is the same thing.
What kind of anxiety are we talking about? There are many varieties, and different approaches that may work better for one than another.
Personally (with panic disorder and health anxiety), I have found SSRIs and short courses of CBT to be quite useful. There are also some anxiety-focused podcasts that can be good for helping to identify and counter unhealthy thought patterns. Check out Fearcast, Disordered, The Anxious Truth, or The OCD Stories to start.
Oh, and one technique that is kind of amazing is worry-postponement. Basically, if you start ruminating about something, set an appointment for when to focus on it and drop it for the moment. Often you will find at the appointed time you no longer really want to do your worry session. At first you should still make yourself do it—even say the worries out loud, looking in the mirror.
The key is learning to drop rumination and recognizing the utter futility of it.
Check out A Liberate Mind, by Steven Hayes, the originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. He talks about the practice of turning toward the feelings that Susan mentions in her response, plus lots of specific practices.
This works a treat for those willing to take the somewhat counterintuitive step of turning towards the feelings. We are more used to seeking an antidote or turning way from uncomfortable feelings…I did it all my life till I came across this approach. Now it’s the only thing I do when anxiety appears, it’s been a game changer for me, and some of my clients.
This is what I used initially to give courage. It’s a short guided talk on turning towards feelings. To be used with caution with those with a lot of trauma https://youtu.be/lPP7ih7xQUo?si=XC9uf53A7e-TR1cb (it’s a Buddhist guy called Tsoknyi Rinpoche, but don’t let that put you off, there’s no Buddhist ideology in it, he developed it with Daniel Goleman’s wife Tara who is also a psychologist. Daniel Goleman and he wrote an excellent book on it explaining the science too called Why we Meditate)
Have you tried L-theanine? There's also weight lifting, being more muscular helps with self-assurance and probably shifts your endorphins and hormones in a less anxiety probe direction.
Shouldn't we put negative weight toward the contribution of AI Safety experts to making AI forecasts?
By way of analogy, consider that since 1947, the Doomsday Clock from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has been an average of approximately 7 minutes away from midnight. If this is a rough forecast of the imminence of nuclear war, the Atomic Safety experts have not only kind of wrong but horribly wrong on nuclear predictions. Setting aside the possibility of some anthropic principle, there hasn't been a single nuclear attack since 1945. Even the most reluctant Bayesian would have to be embarrassed on behalf of these Atomic Safety experts.
But, just as I would seek the advice of an Atomic Safety expert for securing our nuclear stockpile, I would still ask AI Safety experts how best to align AIs. The cautionary tale of the Doomsday Clock simply suggests I should bet against the actual forecasts of AI Safety experts.
Picking the right experts to inform forecasts is not only not trivial, it's frequently adversarial. Professional stock pickers, for example, are anti-experts. Nurses were often terrible relayers of COVID conspiracy theories during the Pandemic. It's almost as if we need a special mention of the Dunning-Kruger effect but for proximate experts.
I don’t think Bayesians need to be embarrassed at following an expert who is usually off in one direction, provided that one expects them in the long run to be occasionally off in the other direction, and better on average than any other expert.
You don’t treat someone as negative information just because they are usually wrong - you treat them as negative information because they are anti-correlated with the truth. If AI safety people were something saying that AI was safe when it turns out dangerous, and dangerous when it turns out safe, then you weight them negatively. But if their judgments of relative safety covary with the truth, then they should be a reasonable positive part of your estimate, even if they are always more pessimistic than others.
What would it mean for a stock picker to be an anti-expert? That they pick stocks which *aren't* successful (in which case you could still use them to generate successful stock picks), or that they pick stocks that are indistinguishable from random picks entirely (in which case surely they're neither experts not anti-experts but rather just another form of random-number generator)?
Re. the Doomsday clock, I note that it's administered by "atomic scientists", not specifically "atomic safety experts". Perhaps that isn't actually a big distinction in nuclear safety, I have no idea - but it definitely does seem to be a big distinction in AI safety.
Also, there have been a whole bunch of incredibly, horrifyingly narrow escapes (the Petrov Incident; the Arkhipov Incident; the 1967 solar flare incident; that incident featuring Peter Sellers....) wherein it was only down to right-person-right-time luck that nuclear war was averted. Given how many times this has happened, I don't think we can dismiss off hand the people setting the Doomsday Clock. In maritime and aviation risk-management, near-misses play as important a factor - sometimes a more important factor - as worst-outcome incidents; I would expect this to be true of nuclear risk-management too.
1) The order to launch a counter-strike would have had to go up 2-3 levels of command before executing.
2) In general, at that time, the Soviets did not have a launch-on-warning system.
In other words, the Soviet Union would have waited for a confirmed nuclear detonation before striking back. None of this negates your point, but instead builds towards my larger point against "there are no fire alarms for AI safety." Asserting as such is the same as saying, "there are no damage gradients for AI safety," which would require way-off assumptions about how the world works.
I suppose I see the Doomsday clock as (a) not a true prediction, rather a deliberately provocative call to action and (b) a comment on politics rather than science proper.
I think this has been pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention from the outset, but it isn't being sold as such. Rather, the positioning of the hands is held to be based on some sort of expert knowledge.
This, to my mind, drops the BAS straight in the "dishonest politickers, likely with an agenda intended to directly harm me" bucket. I've yet to see any evidence that this isn't the correct approach to the matter.
Warning about the risk of violent crime seems also pretty straightforward, but if someone says that every time we elect a Democrat we are moving right up to the precipice of a hellscape of urban violence and every time we elect a Republican things are looking good, then I'm going to suspect they are up to no good. Not because they are "trying to deprive me of the benefits of violent crime", but because they're dishonestly promoting an unstated agenda and trying to trick people into making bad decisions.
Yes, they are advocates. You say that like it is an intrinsically good thing.
If they can demonstrate convincingly that republicans are more likely to use nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons that democrats aren't willing to do, then they'd be correct.
Yeah. If they just said that we are constantly within a heartbeat of nuclear war, it might be defensible. But they twitch it back and forth for reasons that are obviously about policy and politics, and not about atomic science, their alleged area of expertise.
The Doomsday Clock is propaganda intended to make people scared about atomic weapons. I don't think it should be taken seriously as a good example of expertise.
I don't think stock pickers are actually anti-experts; if that was true, you could beat the market by doing the opposite of what they say, which would be amazing. I think they're about as good as the market, but do worse when you add in their fees. It's not surprising that they're about as good as the market, because the market is set by other smart people picking stocks. It's impossible for all stock pickers to be better (or worse) than average; they should all average out to being average. I think it's slightly more complicated than this but not too much more.
I think nurses were less likely to relay COVID conspiracy theories than the average non-nurse, but also, nobody thinks of nurses as "the" COVID experts - that would be epidemiologists or something. They didn't do perfectly, but I think did better than the average guy on the street.
I also think all these examples are cherry-picked - I would rather have an expert doctor treat my disease than a rando, or an expert engineer design my bridge, or an expert lawyer write a contract for me, or an expert chef cook my food, or an expert pollster tell me who is likely to win the next election.
Thanks! However, by parallel, couldn't the same be said for AI Safety?
> the contents of the [letter for The (AI) Pause] is propaganda intended to make people scared about [the dangers of AI]. I don't think it should be taken seriously as a good example of expertise.
Just listened to a podcast interview of Jan Leike, head of alignment at Open AI. He sounded smart, energetic, reasonable and fairly optimistic, and he clearly did not have an agenda to frighten people. Interviewer at one point says it's very hard to estimate chance of catastrophic outcome from AI development, and that his own estimate has big error bars -- sees range as 10% - 90%. Leike said his estimate is about the same.
The head of alignment at open AI thinks the chance of a catastrophic outcome, even taking into consideration his own efforts to ensure a good outcome, is at least 10%. Does that give anyone but me pause?
Yes. And 10% was his minimum. The figures he agreed with were a 10%-90% chance. Hey philosophistry, want to go on the new roller coaster they just put up? I know one of the engineers who built it, and he said that the chance it would go off the rails was 10-90%.
I daresay the Doomsday Clock's complete arbitrariness has rendered it... well, at least more ineffectual as a propaganda tool than previously. My subjective view is that it gets less attention than even two decades ago.
I despise the experts. The nurse who sees boatloads of patients, and rubs shoulders with boatloads of other nurses is the one who really knows disease. The expert epidemiologist who sits in his cave reading the whitterings of other cave-dwelling experts wouldn't know a covid if it smacked him in the face. Like Nasim Taleb says, Fat Tony, who trades green lumber, and has no clue what green lumber is, but watches the waves is the successful trader. Likewise, you want your surgeon to look like a corner butcher, not like a self-help guru.
Like in the beginning of the COVID crisis, all the media were dumping on Trump, because he said his conversations with experts said mortality is under 1%, whilst Fauci and the other talking heads said 3.4%. I looked at the data from the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship with a big outbreak, 3770 passengers, ten died, mortality of 0.26%, and that's in elderly cruise ship passengers. Now it comes out that mortality is between 0.2 and 0.3%.
I was onboard with masks, got vaccinated twice and boosted. Lived in relative fear of the disease ... then I got sick, twice. What is it we're hearing about the disease? Well for one, corona virus infections are poorly controlled by vaccinations. There were probably good anti-viral meds, and off-label meds that helped to control infection. Downplaying meds was a requirement for emergency use of vaccinations—which apparently don't work anyhow. Masking for a virus which is 100x smaller than the filter is probably not very useful. Shutdowns and lockdowns where probably more harmful than not. Shutdowns and lockdowns were devastating, especially for children, especially for poor children and poor families. Locking down parks and beaches was most likely a disaster on several fronts, it prevented people from getting exercise, outside exposure is very low risk, getting sunlight on your face leads to beneficial vitamin D production, it was a bold step into totalitarian control. The experts were monstrous control freaks.
Most 'expert chefs' are buffoons who put on a show, wowing the rubes with exotically renamed common foods dressed up in flashy appearances, properly buffing our egos whilst fitting us with 'the king's new clothes'
You've got some info wrong. The fact that infections are poorly controlled by vaccinations -- are you presenting this as something the experts were wrong about? Because that is not the case. I was following 30 or so epidemiologists , virologists and infectious disease experts on Twitter through the whole pandemic. They all were quite clear about the fact that after a brief post-vaccination honeymoon during which you are unlikely to be infected, vaccination does not protect much against infection. However, it protects quite well for quite a long period against severe illness and death if you do become infected. Far more unvaxed than vaxed people were hospitalized for covid, even after you control for other factors such as age and wealth. Before omicron came through the difference vax made in chances of hospitalization were enormous -- as I recall the unvaxed were something like 15x as likely to be hospitalized. The difference is smaller now, since so many unvaxed people have immunity from infection, but even now it is not trivial.
As for the virus being 100x time smaller than the holes in masks: (1) The bits of virus that are aerosolized, i.e. that are hanging out in the air for an hour or more, are not single naked virus molecules. They are tiny water droplets that pour out of us when we breathe and talk, each containing mutiple virus molecules if we're infected, and they are far far bigger than a single virus molecule. (2) Also, masks and other filters do not strain out the droplets the way colanders strain out peas. A great deal of how they stop droplets has to do with electrostatic attraction. There have been many many tests done in which aerosolized droplets of the size that contain covid are blown towards masks or mask material at the approx rate they would be hitting masks in real life, and very few get through.
>Downplaying meds was a requirement for emergency use of vaccinations—which apparently don't work anyhow.
I don't understand why this is such a popular narrative. (Well, I do, but I'd hoped that people here would be above the reductive binary "100% effective or it don't work" mentality). The vaccines were and still are a huge reduction in both hospitalizations and deaths (like 90% for serious hospitalizations):
Yes, they didn't give full immunity, but neither does getting the freaking virus itself, so it would be silly to expect that. The main disappointments are that they don't last as long as we'd hoped, and didn't have as much of an effect on transmission as we'd have liked.
>Masking for a virus which is 100x smaller than the filter is probably not very useful.
That's not how air filters work. The physics involved causes them to completely block particles much smaller than their pore size:
And besides, the masks were never primarily about blocking virus particles, they were about reducing the spread of *droplets* (much bigger than virus particles) *from the wearer*.
No, I'm not a binary thinker, I know vaccines don't provide 0%, nor 100% immunity. Likewise vaccines aren't 0 risk, but we have to balance the risk of vaccinations and level of immunity with the risk of death or impairment. Does the vaccine provide a positive result for all people? Probably not, and it appears to provide negative immunity to infection in the T cell response according to some banned professionals.
OK, Michael, but now you're changing the subject a bit wihout fully responding the disagreement you've gotten about points you made so far. Seems to me you were saying the experts had it wrong about the fact that vax does not protect much against infection. Was that one of your points? Yes or no? Because if it was, you were just wrong, as I explained.
So now you're talking about sliding scales of vaccine effectiveness, rather than saying the experts thought they made you immune but they were wrong. As for sliding scales of effectiveness: Yes, nobody who's looked at the data disagrees with that. They make more difference the older and sicker you are. By the time you get up to seniors, the difference they make is enormous. They may make the illness milder for young people. but it's pretty mild anyway and chance of death is nil, so they may not be worth the nuisance for younger people. A very small percent of young males develop myocarditis as a result of vax, and so for that group especially seems to make sense to skip the vax. Just so you know, all of the cases of vax-induced myocarditis cleared up with treatment leaving no damage, and no young males died of it. However, covid itself causes more and more serious cases of myocarditis than vax does. So your idea that the vax is dangerous, and that we should balance the danger of covid against the danger of vax also does not hold up.
What else? Oh, Fauci's remark about masks. Look, Fauci said all kinds of shit as a mouthpiece for the government. If you want to know about the effectiveness of masks, look at the research. That's what I did.
"According to some banned professionals" is not a credible source; the whole premise of this thread is that professionals can be *wrong*. Be specific. Where is this data? Why should we listen to their opinion over the wider consensus? Which individuals that are known to have a reputation for accuracy or prediction have vouched for their opinions? Answering any two of these questions should be sufficient.
It was Dr. Malone, who stated the vaccine suppressed T cell either formation or activation, I don't recall which. Though I do believe it came out to be the spike protein itself, which of course is the contents of both the virus and product of the vaccine mRNA which had this effect.
The last time I looked at the numbers, transmission rates were no lower for the vaccinated, and some studies even showed higher. Masks were never shown to be effective, and the medical profession pre-COVID agreed that masks were useless. Why they went back and forth I have no idea, but recent studies looking back at the whole pandemic say little to no effect. Lockdowns were a disaster from almost any metric. Far better would have been a plan to have the extra vulnerable sequester, rather than the majority. You could still have given them paid days off from work or whatever, like we already put into place.
Vaccines were effective at reducing severe symptoms and death. If that had been the message early (and not the false information or outright lies), then I think that message would have stuck and more people would have been vaccinated. Of course, vaccine mandates were also a mistake. Healthy young people gained almost no benefit from them, and that was at least somewhat contradicted by side effects (both effects and side effects very small for that group).
The experts lied and spread misinformation regularly. That they were right about 1/4 of the most pressing topics of the pandemic. That's not a good track record and they did a lot of damage to expert opinions generally.
Except that the news reports (here in the US) were 95+% effective against contracting covid when the Pfizer vaccine was released and the statement that once vaccinated it was impossible to transmit the disease. Which of course gets walked back and people such as yourself saying "well OF COURSE you couldn't expect that degree of efficacy!" Which like the "two weeks to flatten the curve" was an overblown promise to persuade compliance.
It matches very well to someone who wants you to obey, and is willing to lie to you to achieve it. And then declaring that someone is stupid or immoral for not believing a demonstrated lair just builds up more aggression.
> Except that the news reports (here in the US) were 95+% effective against contracting covid when the Pfizer vaccine was released and the statement that once vaccinated it was impossible to transmit the disease.
On the short term, and with the original strain and the early variants—and thus in the studies available at that time—it was true.
- No one "expected" mRNA vaccines to even be realistically possible in the first place, so the priors weren't calibrated as to how effective they should be. Hence, it would be silly to "expect" more immunity than the disease itself. Nonetheless, the initial data suggested a 90+% reduction in serious disease. It's reasonable to have extrapolated from the data that a 90% reduction in serious infection would go hand-in-hand with a 90% reduction in cases in general.
- Early data was so confounded with the fact that we didn't realize just how common asymptomatic cases were; and the fact that they're *still* common means we can't actually know for certain how effective they really were.
None of that makes "the vaccines don't work" a correct statement. They demonstrably did have a huge effect and were a major factor in allowing the lockdowns to safely end, even though COVID is still an epidemic.
It DOES mean they don't work as (initially) described in the media. Retroactively redefining what was said matches (again) with "I am willing to say whatever it takes."
Lockdowns were unnecessary for most people so “ending lockdowns due to vaccines” is very doubtful statement.
While agreeing that vaccines reduced mortality from covid by 80-90% in elderly, they less useful in younger population and practically made no difference in this population.
Be that as it may, I've lived through about a dozen end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it situations that were predicted by experts that never came to pass. I've come to the conclusion that expert opinions about risks are generally poor indicators of outcomes. Whether this is due to the innate but unintentioned biases of the experts or whether their predictions are ideological propaganda—or a combination of both these reasons—I can't take anyone's doomsday predictions seriously anymore.
To be fair, most doomsday predictors seem to agree that the chances of the particular doom is less than 50% (less likely than it not happening) but also that it's unnecessarily high.
If you think the chances of doom is 3% but also that such a rate is unbearably high, I'm not sure what you do about that. Leading with just that number likely means everyone ignores it as unlikely. Leading with "DOOOOOOOOM!!!" just makes people think you're a crank, especially the 97% of the time you're wrong.
I don't mind AI people slowing down to look at failsafes before plowing ahead with new radical technology. That they are scaring people about a scenario they even agree is far less likely than not hurts their credibility, but I'm pretty sure the problem would have been ignored otherwise.
It's hard not to be cynical after hearing enough of somebody's doom scenarios though.
It was like clockwork—every year around the same time Helen Caldicott and Kostas Tsipas would come to campus. They'd pack our biggest auditorium, and harangue us all with graphic descriptions of the horrible deaths we faced in the coming nuclear armageddon—"if we didn't disarm NOW!" And a week later the Campus Crusade for Christ would come through like exploitive remora fish saving the souls of fearful. "Yes, you're all going die in the coming nuclear armageddon (but that's God's will) but your souls will be safe in bosom of the LORD!"
No one ever went broke by marketing fear.
And I heard that the suicide hotline would always add extra staff the night of and the week following the Caldicott-Tsipas fear tour.
"The Doomsday Clock is propaganda intended to make people scared about atomic weapons."
So how is AI doomerism distinguished from the Doomsday Clock? If we're having letters about the dangers of AI and similar pronouncements being delivered in public, isn't this too propaganda for the purpose of scaring?
I don't think the Doomsday Clock is serious expertise and I agree about the propaganda, but it's hard to make the case that "this bunch of people willing to put their names down as Experts are only scaremongering but that bunch of people willing to put their names down as Experts are in the know".
I agree it's evidence against, but OP is cherry-picking the worst experts so we shouldn't expect the average expert to be as bad. It's like "how can we trust Wall Street funds when Bernie Madoff stole all his clients' money?" Well, because you picked the worst one and most ones aren't that bad.
I don't think that experts did well during covid pandemic. In fact, they were awful, they caused unnecessary and prolonged lockdowns, restrictions on businesses, travel restrictions, school closures, mask mandates and vaccine mandates that didn't have and still don't have evidence base that they had any effect.
Other experts did better like Tegnell in Sweden. I would have chosen experts like him not because I don't like lockdowns but because he talked about public health exactly in a way how we were taught about it at public health courses at the university. However, most politicians chose wrong experts and caused immense damage.
If I compare this with building a bridge, then it is something that I will never need to do in my life. I would chose wrong experts if suddenly put in a position to oversee bridge building because I don't have necessary qualifications to understand this industry.
The same happened with public health during pandemic. Politicians who had to select experts selected them wrong because they didn't know how to tell a qualified expert from a doomer.
It is not even about elderly: a 29 year-old American have 4 times higher mortality than 29 year-old British whereas the first covid infection only doubled your mortality. Being an American was more risky than catching covid during the first wave. Why did we have lockdowns for covid and not for living in the US then?
Unrelated to our current discussion, which I think is best resolved by you reading the link, I think your argument here (about relative risk in Britan vs. America) is invalid.
Why does Britain ban drunk driving? After all, even living in a Britain that didn't ban drunk driving would be safer than living in the US! I think you have to answer that countries don't make policies to approach or retreat from parity with other countries, they make them through a cost-benefit analysis of local risks vs. benefits, which your Britain vs. American argument doesn't touch on. I try to go through that analysis at the link above.
There are other problems attached to running a mutual fund.
For one, there's the whole PR problem. If the smart thing to do is simply to do nothing for a while, people start to wonder why you're not doing anything. You also are in business and have to make quarterly targets and so on. Because you want to keep money in your fund, there's pressure to do what your customers want instead of what the smart thing is. If everyone starts bailing and takes their money back, you look bad, so you might sell before it's appropriate instead of holding on through a temporary dip.
Second, trading costs. I imagine this is smaller for the really big funds that can cut sweetheart deals. You lose money on every transaction, so the fewer transactions, the better. The costs compound over time in a way anyone who understands exponential growth can understand intuitively.
Finally, a fund that gets really successful gets big enough to move markets by itself, and then your upside is limited--to take an extreme example, once Warren Buffett picks a stock, everyone sees that and bids up the price.
Why can't you just short the pickers' picks? Because, in aggregate, their picks will be similar to the market as a whole. You could pick a specific picker's pick (as Robert Leigh says you can short Cathie Wood or Jim Cramer), but you still run into the transaction cost problem above.
You're like, "well, some jerk is going to make a fund that buys and holds every single stock and..." Yeah, his name is Jack Bogle, he started the First Index Investment Trust holding every stock in the S&P 500 in 1975, and his company, Vanguard, now holds $7 trillion in assets under management. The 5 biggest mutual funds? As of 2022... Vanguard's total market fund ($1.3T), Vanguard's S&P 500 fund ($800B), Vanguard's international fund($385B), Fidelity's S&P 500 fund ($381B), and Vanguard's bond fund ($301B). It's a solved problem, the solution's just...boring.
I agree that, net trading costs, they underperform the market. That seems different from "experts aren't real". If an expert outperforms the market by 5%, but charges 10% fees, then they're both 1) a very impressive person, such that an AI expert of their same caliber would be worth listening to 2) technically "underperforming the market" by your definition.
There are two kinds of professional stock pickers that should be considered for this discussion, both of which are adversarial.
There are the analysts which you can find on TipRanks who announce Buy-Sell ratings. They don't have skin-in-the-game or if they do, they have to disclose it. Essentially they are reputation farmers. They are anti-experts, because they reflect whatever the crowd is feeling, which is a negative indicator if you wanna be ahead of the crowd. Although some people say the momentum-investing is good, but still the analysts' advice backfires because they reflect information that Mr. Market has already moved on. Empirically, their track record isn't great, but I don't have the papers on that at my fingertips.
The other professional stock picker would be a fund manager. You could have the ones that publicly discuss their decisions, but they do so after the fact, like Cathie Wood. These are anti-experts, because they are trying to hype positions that they hold and they're also trying to attract customers to their fund. They parade on CNBC and collect their fee.
And then there are the managers that are just quiet about their advice. There are tons of empirical studies about how fund managers are hot and then they're not. It's a sort of Heisenberg effect. The mechanic is hotly debated, but one is that as soon as managers top the charts, their strategies get co-opted by everyone else. If the fund manager cannot adapt to the new landscape, such as adapting to neural network investing, then their ideology and strategies are "ruined."
There are managers who have out-performed the market consistently over multiple cycles, though, such as Buffett and Soros. But as a category themselves, you don't want to bet on successful fund managers. And definitely don't listen to your stock broker. It's weird that this would be the case, but not really if you follow the money. Atomic safety experts are paid to warn people. Successful managers/borkers are paid by their fees. Nurses are evaluated by other nurses. Doctors by other doctors.
On a related note, one of my bubble-piercing thought experiments on AGI is to imagine how well an AGI would do on the stock market. And let's assume that this is a Level 1 AGI, one that has superhuman intelligence, but not necessarily the ability to manipulate people and control society into creating malicious insider trading scams. This is just a maximally high IQ bot that consumes the same public information that everyone else has. I would expect this AGI would be a great manager for a decade, assuming there are no other AGIs, but then would lose their position. Omniscience is not all its cracked up to be.
There's real ETFs with real money (in one case $240m) invested in shorting the long positions/recommendations of stockpickers like Jim Cramer and Cathie Wood
Yes. There is serious money in the short Cathie Wood SARK etf though, $400m or something. It made a fortune in 2022 and is actually a justifiable strategy - if you think there's a bubble you short it, and if you want the bubbliest stocks in the bubble, looking at what a high profile picker has picked is the way to go.
Probably an unpopular opinion: if you're an English speaker, I don't think there's any point in learning a second language unless you have a very specific reason to. Eg. you just accepted a job in Spain, or your wife's family speaks only Korean.
People talk about only speaking one language as if it's an intellectual shortcoming, but it's a huge time investment with very little payoff for 99% of people.
I've come to this conclusion after spending years on and off learning French and German, only to spend several weeks in France and Germany and not need anything but English. Nor did I need to speak local languages in advance of weeks of travelling southeast Asia. AI based translation now makes monolingual travel even easier.
Yes I'm sure being able to read Russian poetry would be enriching, but it's not like I've exhausted English poetry yet. And there's a lot of enriching activities I could do in the hundreds or thousands of hours it takes to learn a language.
Edit: thanks for your thoughtful replies. After reading lots of them I realise I've underestimated how many people intrinsically enjoy learning languages for it's own sake. Consider my comment one side of a bravery debate (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-debates/), aimed at people like my younger self who didn't enjoy learning languages but felt they were supposed to. If you enjoy learning languages then the equation will be completely different for you.
I do think that non-elective language subjects in school are utterly pointless though.
Hitler was less than a century ago. Couple decades before him, Lenin and the communist revolution. Couple years after Hitler, Chinese revolution. Latin America, seems like every few years in the 20th century. Putin was 1.5 years ago (to this day). Niger today. Who's to say the next dictator/nationalist movement/coup/revolution doesn't march you to a concentration camp/processing station/detention facility? Knowing foreign language(s) and having ties somewhere in foreign countries MIGHT be your escape ticket before They come for you.
I estimate that English is the only language spoken at a basic level by at least a tenth of the adult population in at least half of all countries. Would you agree?
If so, how does being monolingual in English prevent someone from developing foreign ties? It seems like the best language of all for doing so.
Maybe it works if you restrict your travel to major European countries, but let me tell you that knowing even a little Japanese makes getting around Japan much, much easier. Being able to go up to anyone, ask for directions, and be reasonably sure of understanding the answer was a huge weight off my shoulders while traveling there a few years ago. Meanwhile a lot of Japanese people don't speak English all that well, even if they will try when they see you're not Japanese.
As a native English speaker who studies foreign languages for fun, I agree. For Americans, the only language that might plausibly be useful is Spanish. Everything else is just a hobby. I'm pretty annoyed by the occasional European who shows up in online language learning discussions and acts all superior to monolingual Anglophones just because they happened to learn English at a later age than us.
I don't think this is really an "unpopular" opinion though.
It's not like there are *no* benefits to learning other languages, even in this era of Google Translate and English-friendly tourism. But it's definitely not worth it from a cold cost-benefit perspective, any more than say, gardening or knitting would be.
To me this is a little like saying there's no point to appreciating art or music. Yes, you probably can get by as a well-resourced person with a smart phone without knowing any other languages, but also life is richer knowing other languages.
If learning language isn't your cup of tea, that seems fine, right? Just like no one has a moral obligation to listen to jazz or admire the stars in the night sky. One of the nice things about life is that you can pick what you do with your spare time.
I think the problem is that there's a lot of pro-foreign language propaganda, that makes people think it is easier and more useful than it actually is, and the OP is bitter after getting bitten by that. Then again, the situation for forcing kids to learn musical instruments is pretty similar.
Oh I see, yeah, that makes sense too. A whole lot of schooling entails propaganda about the usefulness of a whole bunch of things that turn out not to be so useful seems like.
Even in an officially bilingual (English-dominant) region, it is inessential. It only matters if you want to work in a public-facing / senior position of the public sector. If you expect to work in government, then it's worth thinking about, but even then it really depends on what you want to do.
For myself, to justify learning a language I'd expect to be able to use it in every day life relatively consistently. Use it or lose it. Languages can be interesting but if you don't immerse yourself in an environment with that long-term, you'll have a fickle grasp and lose most of it. That said, it can be enriching. Supposing you wanted to make the jump to living in another country for over a year (as an expat or otherwise), the investment could still be worth it even knowing you will eventually return.
There is some cultural baggage in areas that have assimilated to English-speaking over time. They hammer on a nationalistic pride of using the maternal language, making it out to be a virtue. This type of messaging never reached me. Your cultural identity is made up of what your surrounding culture is actually doing, not some abstraction about how your ancestors spoke. At any rate, I still know my maternal language from engaging with family and others in society, or consuming media. It's useful, hence I use it. Were it the case that there were cleaner tribal divides along language lines, I may have felt differently - that was well before my time.
There is value, I think, in seeing the world through the eyes of a person whose culture is not the dominant culture. There are probably several ways to do it, but reading how a woman sees the world as a woman is still going to be a bit foreign to me. It will be academic, not in the gut. Going to a small country and getting to know the people on their own terms--including their language, part of their natural state of existing--and becoming part of it for a while, learning their worldview, is an experience you simply can't get being monolingual in English. I don't know, maybe in some Caribbean Islands, but you still have access to your regular media there, so you're not fully immersed in the local culture. To cut the tie entirely for a while and immerse in the other culture will mean learning the second language.
Agree 100 percent with this. One of my regrets regarding college is the time I wasted in foreign language classes simply because everyone was sure that it was something we should be doing.
You phrased a fairly uncontroversial point in a maximally controversial way. "Thanks to technology and the ubiquity of the English language, it is easier than ever for English speakers to travel abroad without learning the local language." That is basically your point, and it is undeniably true. Sure, you don't need to learn the language to have a good time and enjoy your visit.
Like anything else, learning a language has an opportunity cost. For many people, it is not feasible or worthwhile to pay that cost. Totally fine.
That said, I think you are severely understating the upside of learning a language. If you learned Russian, 'reading Russian poetry' would be a fringe benefit, not the main selling point.
Think about taking up a new hobby/interest - surfing, hunting, Magic the Gathering, whatever. Suddenly, you have a lot more in common with millions of people who share that interest. You add more depth and color to your world, while enhancing your ability to connect with other people.
Language learning is the same, but on steroids. Every language has it's own content ecosystem. Learning Russian doesn't just allow you to speak with Russians (or Kazakhs, etc...) when you visit. It gives you access to the entire Russian speaking world - movies, tv shows, music, podcasts, comedy, novels, memes... and yes, poetry.
I'm currently traveling through Latin America and learning Spanish. Near the end of my second month learning Spanish, I stumbled into a relationship with a girl who does not speak any English. Obviously, that would not have been possible if I hadn't been learning. I've also made friends who don't speak any English. I'm still a ways away from truly being able to get the most out of movies/podcasts/novels etc..., but a 1-2 year investment in Spanish gets you lifetime access to the culture of over 20 different countries. Whether that's a good investment for any particularly person is up to them, but it's definitely rewarding in a massive variety of ways.
One other point that occurred to me. If you’re goal when you travel is to get around effectively and do what you wanna do, you’ll be fine in most places with English. If, however, you have an interest in learning about the culture and the country, I think it’s worth exploring the limitations of English. It in terms of language, but in terms of worldview.
I’ve lived my entire live in the South. It consistently amuses me to hear people from other parts of the country describe what it’s like to live there. There’s a chick from Portland in my hotel that had a hard time believing me when I told her that Nashville is a liberal city. (I thought everybody knew that basically all us cities are blue?) She found it hard to swallow when I described Nashville as reasonably diverse, both politically and ethnically. (Lots of Egyptians, Kurds, Moroccans, etc...)
If you only ever heard someone from Portland describe the South, you might not have a perfectly accurate map of the territory.
Point being, learning English as a second language is a very specific filter. I would imagine it correlates pretty well with levels of education, cosmopolitanism, ambition, socioeconomic status, appreciate for Western culture and values, etc...
So, even if you are talking to natives about their country, you are probably getting a pretty narrow window if you only talk to people who have learned English. Personally, I’ve found the most interesting people to talk to are those who have never seen a Marvel movie and couldnt give two shits about what’s going on in the US elections. Obviously, ymmv
Last year I was helping my daughter remodel. We'd taken down the window coverings, and put up those temporary paper blinds. I wanted to get some clothes pins to help hold the blinds up. So I went to a local discount store, and in trying to ask for clothes pins, discovered none of the employees spoke English. And as is often typical for older Mexican Women immigrants, the workers just ignored me and walked away. One non-English speaking Asian woman tried to help me. I tried to mime washing clothes, and said "lavarse de ropa" then mimed hanging laundry and said "secata de ropa", to no avail. With the Asian lady, we discovered there were no clothes pins in the shop. So I went to a shop across the street to another discount store. Again, staffed by Mexican women who spoke no English. The security guard for the mall—an older Mexican man who spoke good English—came in, and helped me find clothes pins.
This was in Hayward, California, just across the bay from San Francisco.
Clothes pins is Pinzas de Ropa, I didn't think to use my phone.
I'm sure my Great Grandmother turned in her grave, she was one of the Berryessa family.
I took French in school-- four or five years starting at age 14.
It was mostly a waste. I have very little ability to remember arbitrary sounds, and less ability to reproduce them. French was possibly a bad choice because there are so many silent letters and homonyms. (Did you know there are transcription contests for French the way there are spelling bees for English?)
My limited ability to read French has turned out to be pleasant, though it doesn't come with the ability to write it nor with an appreciation of a different worldview that comes with the language.
What specific talents do folks think make learning languages easy?
While most young Germans speak English that is not vaguely true of France. Even in Paris. Where were you in France?
Regardless, you can always specialize labor. If you don't speak foreign languages then you can simply hire people who do (or buy from companies staffed by people who do). Nothing wrong with having a weakness. I'm sure many translators can't... I don't know, program computers or manufacture shoes.
Where I disagree is two ideas here: 1.) That AI based translation is even vaguely comparable to speaking the language and 2.) that the skill doesn't have a use. For 1: AI translation still makes errors pretty frequently and the experience of not being able to choose exact tone or word choice is going to be a problem for a long time. Perhaps forever. While no doubt AI will speed up and ease language acquisition it's not going to end it. AI is definitely a better alternative to standing there and gesturing at each other. But trust me, being able to speak is much better.
For 2: If you work in a purely domestic field with no foreign competition or import/export and you have no significant foreign presence in the city then sure. But I cannot think of such a field. Oil and gas is full of Arabic speakers. Coal maybe? Computer programming has a ton of non-English speakers. And you open up all kinds of personal opportunities by being able to bridge that gap and do a fairly good service.
Of course, you can just ignore such opportunities, stick to the English speaking slice of a population, etc. And plenty of people do and that's fine. But it's not that the people who are taking those opportunities are wasting their time. Again, it's just specialization of labor.
I struggled with french as a school kid. When I was 29 I decided to take the plunge and learn mandarin. 3 years later and I have experiences, relationships and ideas that are impossible for an English speaker.
Pay attention to the phenomenon in your brain that occurs when you can't recall a word for something, and what this phenomenon is telling you: You can have a concept you don't have a word for!
You don't need a word to have experiences/relationships/ideas. But many people simply don't notice these things unless they have a word for it, so that their running internal narrative can use it.
I spent a few months a few years back researching words in foreign languages for different emotions, with the goal of improving my understanding of my own emotions. The project failed, in respect to giving me improved understanding; everything I learned, I already knew. It mostly showed me how bad the vocabulary surrounding internal experiences is, no matter how many languages you employ to the purpose.
Perhaps the most useful word I learned was "equanimity", which you may notice is already an English word, but one which I hadn't grokked prior to learning another language's version of this word. In particular, I learned that equanimity can be considered as something like "capacity for dealing with excess emotional state", as opposed to its literal definition as "the state of not experiencing excess emotional state" - this distinction is captured in the modern vernacular as "spoons". Even without the exact word, we still have/had this idea - the word merely gave voice to it.
There's another concept I've encountered which is also useful, which translates in English to something like "okay", as expressed in the phrase "Bad things happen, but it's okay, life goes on." The concept, although difficult to translate exactly, is also expressed in phrases like "Don't cry over spilt milk." We have these concepts in English, even though there is no perfect translation; "okay" doesn't quite capture the correct meaning, although it comes close.
Turkish was a somewhat randomly chosen language for me. When I saw the layers of meaning that get draped over individual words during centuries of history and culture that I had never learned about, then realise that the same must be true of any language that I might have chosen to learn, it really opened my eyes to how big the world is.
I do find it interesting to consider things through different language perspectives sometimes (I think pretty differently in different languages), it's an interesting experience.
Mostly though I disagree about the cost, especially for children. Almost everything kids learn in school is a waste of time, learning a language may not be the best possible use of time but it's a heck of a lot better than the average school activity.
I don't think kids end up learning anything if you try teach them language in school though. From my experience, learning and retaining language requires regularity and immersion. Occasional classes with one teacher to thirty disinterested children accomplishes nothing. I forgot that I even did language at school when I was writing my comment above (one year of Japanese, for which I can count to 5 and say "my name is ___". I don't plan on visiting Japan.)
It probably depends on the school though. And if it's an elective subject then it makes way more sense.
In most urban or touristic places you will indeed find enough people speaking English good enough, so you will not have problem in your day to day life.
But if you spend enough time in a foreign country, the investment is probably worth it, at least if you are not extremely bad at learning a new language. For me it's being constantly surrounded by conversations I don't understand at all that feel uncomfortable (and smartphone dor not help much for that). I am not good at language (not especially bad either), but I spend a little bit of effort learning the language of places I go often just for this reason.
My rule of thumb: when you get exposed to a language enough to accidentally learn a few words, it's probably worth trying to deliberately learn it a little bit more ;-)
I would add, even if you want to you can't, because everybody speaks English and insists on speaking it to you. I spent a month in Ethiopia (not in cities) and thought I would come away with a working knowledge of Amharic and a bit of Tigrigna, and found everybody wants to discuss English Premier League soccer in flawless English.
Has anyone ever managed to get the block or mute functions on Substack working properly? I've tried a couple of times to block or mute certain users whose comments I find irritating and unenlightening, but without it making any apparent difference (i.e. I can still see their comments).
I'm generally very frustrated by substack's tech, at first it did great at beating WordPress by just having a simple basic set of features that just worked. Over the last few months as they've decided to try to be twitter they've pushed a bunch of new features that work terribly and increasingly basic stuff is also kinda crap.
Oh I didn't even notice that it blocked email notifications. Thanks for that tip and I will now start using the mute feature, that's at least something.
Would be way better if it actually muted of course.
The problem, as I understand it, is that bloggers in the usual sense of the word, are not Substack's intended customers.
(Not even Scott. He was invited here, because he was popular at the moment and needed a new place to write; and Substack needed more advertising. But it's not like Substack had him in mind when deciding their business model.)
The intended customer, guessing by the existing features, is simply someone who in the past would be spamming their paying customers with e-mails containing random pieces of wisdom (multi level marketing, seduction advice, quantum healing, stuff like that). Substack takes care of maintaining their mailing list and their web page, in return for a fraction of the income. If you think about it, all features necessary for this purpose are present. Everything else is neglected.
But the problem isn't a lack of features, it's that they added a bunch of bad ones (even the web page is less readable than it was, and the "new post" button is now hidden behind like three menus, while the twitter knockoff button is omnipresent).
I guess this is kind of similar to Google where everything not search gets a ton of crappy bloatware because the engineers need to look busy and there's no pressure to have good results, and substack probably hired a bunch of non-founding engineers who need to justify their existence but don't have the same level of quality control. Still, this usually only happens after a company gets bigger than this.
Hey, Scott, the New York City meetup is confusingly listed as "Manhattan, New York". This will cause a lot of people to fail to find it and think there isn't one. Could you change it to "New York City, New York" or "New York, New York" so people can actually find it? Thanks!
It actually probably makes sense for every meetup in a large metro area to be labeled with the metro area name as well as the more precise location. No reason not to list San Francisco and Los Angeles for the Berkeley and Newport Beach ones, because some people in those areas may well be close to one of these without realizing that they are.
Well, it’s unlikely that someone in the east bay will fail to look for “Berkeley”, knowing what most people in that area on this blog know about where readers hang out, but there’s a good chance that people in Orange County or Long Beach will fail to notice the Newport Beach meetup, even though they would notice one listed with “Los Angeles” or “Orange County” in the name.
In a couple of cases the local organizer mentioned that when telling me about the event- Mannheim and Heidelberg come to mind, as does Kitchener and Waterloo. The main problem with not doing this "automatically" is that it really isn't obvious when I'm looking at a big map of the area what name people will think to look for.
San Francisco and Berkeley look close on a map to me, and they even have a transit line running between them! But in practice that transit can take half an hour or more, and SF wanted its own meetup. I live in Boston (actually, no, I live in a suburb about half an hour out of Boston, but that's my point) and have heard people sincerely refer to the southernmost parts of New Hampshire as "Boston."
Basically, I'd be happy to help with this problem by listing nearby areas somehow, but it's either going to rely on people looking at a map (Thank you LessWrong team!) or locals telling me what other cities people might look for.
The New York City meetup is mainly listed as Manhattan, New York, because that's what Robi put for the city. Right now, there's a redirect for New York City, New York that just says "see Manhattan" similar to the redirects for Oakland->Berkeley, and Waterloo->Kitchener.
Since a couple of people sounded like they think this is insufficient, I'm about to go through and flesh out the redirects to have the full entry plus a line mentioning the duplication.
This has been pointed out in the comments on the meetup post, which is curated by the meetups coordinator and not Scott. You should leave your comments there.
"This right is undermined by the use of ‘surrogate’ motherhood, which exploits and commodifies women’s reproductive capacity. The exploitation and commodification of women’s reproductive capacity also underpins medical research which is aimed at enabling men to gestate and give birth to children."
An attack on a voluntary agreement, in the first sentence of the quote. An attack on a potential medical option for individuals in the second.
Is this that transphobic one that was going around a while ago? Hard pass from me and most Leftists, sizable chunk of centrists, and a tiny slice of right wingers.
I looked at the summary. First point was "We reaffirm motherhood as an exclusively female status." What does this mean in practice? What actual lifestyle features, laws or ways of talking about things are signers reaffirming as OK, and which are they rejecting?
I think what they are rejecting is any use of male words or pronouns for people who are capable of giving birth. That is, the denial of the existence of trans-men, because they see this acknowledgement as itself an erasure of women. They even object to purely neutral terminology like “birthing parent”.
Some people seem to think life is an a la carte dinner at a high end restaurant, and their task is to deploy their sensibility as richly and fully as possible in all of their choices.
I think there's a possibility you're being a little trolly as this blog is known for its hostility to this subject among many commenters, perhaps even trying to raise a fuss so some progressive outlet can leap and yell, "See, Scott Alexander's commenters hate women!"
But I'll treat this as a good faith inquiry (it may very well be...one of the effects of knowing you're bad at reading people is always extending the possibility the other person is acting in good faith) and explain why you're unlikely to find a welcoming audience here.
There are actually two separate issues.
One is the debate *within* feminism over to what degree trans women should be considered women (particularly with access to women's spaces such as battered women's shelters and bathrooms and sports teams), the 'gender critical feminists' or TERFs saying no and most progressive or intersectional feminists saying yes. Most modern progressives are very hostile to any form of 'biodeterminism'. I'm talking a little from outside of my sphere but while there are, in fact, a few progressives on here curious about heterodox thinking, they are likely to not be TERFs. As per the 2022 survey, commenters are 85% cisgender male (next largest cisgender female at 9%, with trans women at 3%) and 83% heterosexual (11% bi, 3% gay) the dreaded 'cishet men' of the left). Members of the LGBTQ community are thus likely to be bi men who probably aren't going to see this as an issue.
Writers in this vein like Julie Bindel and Louise Perry tend to focus heavily on the evils of men, which naturally doesn't endear them to people here. There's also a strong anti-sex work strain (many are either the intellectual descendants of the antiporn second-wave feminists of the 70s or actual surviving activists from that era), and Aella's pretty popular here. I'd be willing to bet a few of the guys have visited a sex worker out of simple loneliness. (I haven't.)
Two, of course, there's the problem that nerds (by which I will denote its common slang use of 'socially inept technically or academically adept man, or man with interests typical of such men such as anime or video games') really, really don't like feminism. (Exception, of course, is female nerds, but they're few and far between.) A lot are fine with a lot of its effects--they have no problem with women having careers or abortions, but...
1. There's much more of a trend to elevate what had previously thought to be unpleasant awkwardness (unwanted propositions, for instance) to 'sexual misconduct' that's fireable or even prosecutable. Additionally, contra the Constitution, the new rules are even applied ex post facto! Now while I realize a lot of abusers actually use this one as a cover to get away with stuff ranging from groping to threats, the side effect is that a lot of young men have no idea how to approach a woman in a way that won't blow up in their faces 20 years later. Go to the apps, you say, but then they can screenshot your message and make it go viral and get you fired.
2. There's a larger emotional issue (better discussed by Scott Aaronson's Comment 171) in that a lot of us have been taught that any heterosexual desire for a woman is bad, because you are thinking about her as a body not a person, and you might make her feel uncomfortable. I get this is a corrective to more aggressive men who grope and leer freely, but one of the side effects is that a lot of the shyer guys just think their desires are evil and well...shaming the gay men of the 50s didn't turn them straight.
3. This is more of a side issue, and Richard Hanania, whatever his prior nasty work as Richard Hoste, has said it better than I can, but the elevation of women's concerns and the idea of 'hurting feelings equalling violence' particularly hurts people on the spectrum who aren't good at reading people or guessing when they're going to hurt feelings. In short, I think whenever you elevate women, you're specifically going to damage the sort of men who aren't good at navigating women's spaces, and nerds are usually a big fraction of those.
A lot of these are just side effects of things that have allowed women to participate more fully in the economy. From a utilitarian point of view, women are half the population, and nerds a small fraction of the other half, so it's still the right thing to do. (There are female nerds, but they're usually pro-feminist for the reasons above, and may even have gender-specific grievances like being propositioned at work or harassed at conventions.) As they say, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Well, *we're* the eggs.
In short, both pro-trans feminists and antifeminists are going to come after you on this one. You're not likely to get many signatories as the conservatives will probably find this too liberal, most rationalists are hostile to feminism (are all rationalists nerds? no, but an awful lot are, and the ones that aren't are usually sympathetic to them), and the few progressives around here think you're anti-trans.
EDIT: looked at your blog, you're on the level. Cool. I do wonder why conservative guys are allying with radical feminists on this one. Being so eager to stop trans people you're allying with people who hate men?
Thank you for this, but I was already aware of pretty much everything you wrote. FWIW I am a cis het male nerd, age 67, and a lifelong (until 2022) liberal Democrat and activist; over the decades I've worked as a volunteer on mutiple Democrat campaigns. I also consider myself a strong rationalist, not in the sense of feeling part of the lesswrong community per se, but in the (attempted) pure sense of genuinely trying to reason rationally and overcome my own biases. The shortest summary of my overall views is that they are closely aligned with those of Scott Aaronson. My support of women's sex-based rights is based on a population-wide utilitarian maximize-happiness analysis (to the extent that this is a feasible task), and certainly not on "being so eager to stop trans people". Indeed I utterly reject that description. There is a real genuine conflct between the needs/wants/rights of AMABs who identify as female and AFABs who identify as female. I come down solidly with the AFABs on these conflicts, and believe I have a rigorously rational justification for this (which I admit that I have not explained here). Furthermore I believe that most cis het male nerds would do so as well, if they better understood the social dynamics at play. If I can find the time and energy, I will explicate further on this in later open threads. Meanwhile I am happy to have to gotten the conversation started here.
There are several things you mention here which seem to me quite central to the flaws of this community and why it isn't more influential.
First, it would be really great if this community's focus on rationality and intelligent discussion were more widespread, but that's kind of undermined by the existence of widely-held dogmas within it, like pro-trans and anti-feminist, that basically ensure it alienates all consistent progressives (who think feminism is good), consistent conservatives (who think the trans movement is insane) and consistent centrists (who dislike sweeping claims and strong dogmas in any direction), leaving only a very particular subset of people feeling at home here, which further insulates itself. And it explains a lot about there being virtually no women, virtually no Christians, and virtually no members of many other large groups (at least according to the surveys).
Second, the fact that as you describe it the "male nerds" here have no problem with abortions but are horribly paranoid about a sexual proposition they make being deemed harassment and punished for it, goes a long way to explaining what makes them, to use the phrasing common around here, "low-status". It comes across as so unbelievably self-centered and morally unprincipled, to be terrified of accidentally committing harassment because that might harm *you*, but completely unconcerned with the destruction of human life because you're just certain it's not *real* human life. To be kept up at night by the fear your one-night-stand might in twenty years be declared rape but not at all by the fear the baby who was aborted as a result of it might have actually been sentient. And again, this particular combination of views alienates almost everyone.
Third, this paranoia among "nerds" about the MeToo hysteria doesn't make alot of sense. First, its targets were mostly the total opposite of nerds: Hollywood actors. Second, has something like "being fired for an online dating message, or other proposition outside work" actually happened? Third, there's something weird about this that I found particularly striking in Scott Aaronson's famous comment: most of this paranoia about violating crazy feminist dating rules is not based on the rules actually being enforced, but on a self-imposed sense of duty to be a "good feminist". I think these draconian sexual harassment rules are mostly part of the "safety state" that started in the 90s, along with mandatory disability accomodations and the unworkable regulations on scientific research that Scott has talked about. They consist of absurdly overreaching rules that aren't actually intended to be followed, which is contemptible and should be condemned in the strongest terms, but there's something incoherent about knowing this and following them anyway out of some kind of stockholm syndrome instead of dismissing them as obviously insane rules that normal people clearly don't follow (the way you surely do with religious sexual rules).
(And also, refraining from behaviour that is acceptable now on the grounds that it might get you punished in twenty years makes no sense, because it could just as well be the opposite behaviour that gets you punished by whatever faction is in power at that time. It's the same problem as Pascal's Wager.)
Fourth, calling "hurt feelings is oppression" a feature of women, instead of a feature of a certain subset of entitled scum of either sex, is firstly horribly unfair to all the women who aren't like that and are perfectly capable of engaging with different opinions rationally instead of screaming that disagreement is a literal act of genocide, and secondly lets the women who *do* do that off the hook by letting them think they're just acting like normal women instead of completely abnormal bullies and narcisists who can't cope with a world where people are allowed to disagree with them about anything. Not to mention ignoring all the men (particularly of woke-favoured minority groups) who do exactly the same thing.
And fifth, as a mostly-conservative guy I can admire the fact that the man-hating radical feminists, as unpleasant as they are, at least have a consistent philosophy (that women are biologically in subjugation to innately aggressive men, or something similar). Unlike the woke feminists who have no consistent principles whatsoever and change them from minute to minute depending on whether it favours the groups in their movement: one moment women need special spaces protected from men, the next moment any man who says he's a woman must be treated like one in all instances, one moment religious freedom doesn't excuse sexism (when we're talking about Christians) the next moment it does (when we're talking about Muslims). I don't have to like or agree with the first group, but I can respect them in a way I can't respect the second.
Those are all really good points. All I can say is I wish I had been more concise to get such a consistent critique from more people. ;)
I'm not entirely defending the view I describe (and I think I tried to give the opposition's arguments), though obviously I have some sympathy or I wouldn't be here. I also can't say I speak for all rationalists, or even that I really am one (I have little interest in EA, haven't read the Sequences, and think Yudkowsky's nuts). I was trying to explain why the OP got as much pushback as he did. Finally, I don't have the charisma to sway rationalists or, really, anyone else in one direction or another. I'm mostly here to read Scott's writing, hear about the AI stuff, and blow off a little steam before or after I go off to pretend to be a Progressive In Good Standing to keep my job. (Yes, I am very interested in FIRE, and theoretically have the assets, but that's for another day.)
1. I agree, basically. Every group's going to have its shibboleths, and you just find one that has ones that don't offend you that much. I don't even think the focus on rationality is all that rational--if you accept some of the evo-psych arguments about reason being developed to convince people, you're basically just snorting your own fumes. All the 'dumb normies' who follow instinct and convention into a family are probably going to be happier over the long term. One interesting point you raise is that the group is pro-trans (coded left) and anti-feminist (coded right), which means you either have liberals or libertarians with problems with feminism or conservatives who are open-minded on the trans issue, which is a small fraction of both groups. So it limits reach substantially, as you say. (It has the ironic benefit of making the comments section more interesting, as you have Catholic cons arguing with trans libertarians, but it also makes any kind of a political movement impossible.)
2. Another good point. I can't speak for anyone else here, but I spent so much time in a liberal bubble that, while I've read the anti-abortion position as part of my researches of the right and it makes sense to me intellectually (if you think abortion is murder you should oppose it and it's a huge number of deaths equal to the great genocides of the 20th century), I think I failed to consider the true importance of it to conservatives. You keep hearing how it's all just a plot to control women and you start to believe it.
3. That's a good point. What I think you're seeing is the discontents of people raised in an ideology that doesn't fit them but they can't bring themselves to question fully. (Aaronson in particular, in his defense, may have needed to keep his academic job.) I think nerds in particular, because so much of our thinking is done at the explicit, formal level, and we're not good at reading social cues, have a hard time telling which rules you're supposed to ignore. There's also the point that making rules nobody can follow and then attacking people selectively for not following them (in addition to being an old piece of the Soviet playbook) is very bad, but I think people who grow up around them tend to internalize them and just have a vague idea that everything they do is wrong.
(BTW, I've got nothing against Christians, and you seem to have a good thing going, but I just can't get myself to believe in God. Doesn't make sense to me. I'm not going to rehash the Internet arguments of the 2000s here. Oh well.)
4. I think Hanania did have a point about the rise of women enabling this sort of culture, though. I think the thing is at least until recently minority-group men and women (and white leftists of any gender) weren't numerous enough to force this stuff down everyone's throats, but turn white women and you now have enforcers for your leftist scheme because you have almost half the population. (I believe this was the New Left's strategy back in the 60s, and it's worked swimmingly.) As you point out NAWALT, but I think the thing is it's always easier to get angry guys with poor romantic track records to blame women--just like you can get the neurotic women at the NYT and similar places to blame men.
(I was reading one weird book (hey, it said it was about Shakespeare) that was supposed to be how the author and her husband got together, I looked up what happened to the author--yup, divorced a few years later. And he was the one who asked for it if I read the Twitter feed right. So, you know, these are unhappy women with problems, and this is the equivalent for men.)
5. Oh, there's a strategic aspect to it I should have mentioned (and I'm sure you knew). The TERFs, being feminists, have a much wider reach in the media conservatives don't have. It also gives them more of a feel of a left-right coalition, which is useful for convincing centrists. I have to say the whole 'at least they have principles' thing doesn't seem like a great argument to me--it's like a Jew saying 'say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ideology'. They hate you and wish you ill.
Anyway, neither you nor I are going to save the rationalist movement (and I doubt I would even try), but thanks for the detailed and sincere engagement. You rarely see this kind of thing anymore.
I'm glad someone appreciates my obsessively long and detailed replies. Even around here, they often don't get much of a response.
1. The comments are refreshingly balanced, yes, at least to some extent. The actual readership based on the surveys, though, is much more skewed. And there are still huge groups, from religious conservatives to woke progressives to socialists, that seem very under-represented in the comments here relative to other places. Maybe those groups just lack the patience and nuance to meet the standard of discourse here, though.
2. I'm a bit confused who you're talking about here: before it was "nerds" in general, now it's yourself, but in the past tense as though you've changed. Whatever the case, I feel like there's a disconnect about the concept of a nerd (and I'm also a bit bewildered at the insistent use of such a silly and childish term as a self-description, which seems unbecoming of the type of mature, educated people with good vocabularies that nerds are supposed to be, but I guess that ship has sailed). I've generally thought of nerds as something like: introverted, thoughtful, obsessively analytical (which definitely describes me). The kind of people who want to understand everything, and who care about truth even if it's unpopular. So I can't comprehend how this sort of person could just unquestioningly accept abortion without much thought, and just believe the propaganda that surrounds them. As someone who has thought an enormous amount about the issue, examined it from nearly every possible angle, and changed my mind substantially multiple times...I can only say we must have a very different idea of "nerd".
(And I'm sure most Southerners felt the same way about abolitionism: kept hearing it was "all just a plot" to take away their culture and sovereignty, and believed it without thinking about it too much).
3. Again, I'm finding your concept of a nerd is not what I'd expect. Surely questioning everything, thinking analytically about everything, demanding reasoned justifications for every position before you accept them, are key characteristics of a nerd? How is this consistent with accepting an ideology that surrounds you so mindlessly? I see the point about difficulty grasping informal rules, though, and I share that too I think. It seems to me that living by moral principles, particularly ones that most ordinary people share, might go a long way to mitigate this. The difference between asking someone single on a chaste date and propositioning someone's wife for casual sex, regardless of whether one or both is within or outside the official rules of whatever environment, is surely going to be immense (in terms of sympathy from other people). Vaguely written rules are, after all, often deliberately relied on as a way to punish things everyone agrees are bad but are hard to codify. The hedonistic tendency of many nerds to want to defy established moral norms is surely part of the problem here.
4. I find this just bizzare and can't comprehend it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics 55% of white women voted to re-elect Trump. Not voted for a generic conservative candidate, not even voted for Trump as an outsider before he was president, but voted to re-elect him and endorse his entire presidency (that the woke left had spent four years screaming was the worst oppression in all of history). How does the idea that women are generally champions of wokeness and cancel culture have any remote connection to reality? Of course women of certain demographics and industries probably are, but so are the men of same, generally. Making this a gendered thing is what I expect of feminists, no matter how illogical it is, but why the hell is it being pushed by people on the right? What's the sense of this?
5. Actually, although it's a dark example, I think it would be perfectly logical for a Jew to say they'd rather die in the holocaust than in a random soviet purge on the grounds that "if I'm going to be murdered, I'd rather it be by someone who hates me and is jealous of my group's achievments, than to fulfil a bureaucratic quota". More generally, consistency also means predictability, you know what they're going to do, and you can negotiate and reason with them because they actually believe in something and have concrete goals, they're not just completely self-serving power-hungry bullies. Also, as an additional and probably more apt point, the radical feminists have virtually no power, while the woke ones control large parts of the western world.
1. Patience and nuance? You've given pretty good reasons why woke progressives, religious conservatives (we have a few!), and centrists wouldn't like this place. As for the socialists...I dunno. Sneer Club seems pretty heavy on those and I get the sense they hate Scott for some un-PC stuff he said a decade ago. I get the sense it's sort of a leftist solidarity. I'm not under any illusions this is some kind of agora of rationality; the people here have their own biases, as with any group of humans, they're just more congenial to my own.
2. I think I said in my response I was changing it to specifically refer to me, though one concern I have is I'm projecting my experiences out on the larger rationalist sphere. (It's interesting nobody contradicted me though, so I may have been onto something!) As for 'nerd'; I don't know, seems to describe a certain personality type that exists in the West (there are Ancient Greek jokes about the scholastikos) that everyone recognizes and has become important with the rise of information technology. (It seems to have gotten a little more respect in the East for a while, from what I can tell.) Of the ten richest men in the world, the only ones who don't have an IT connection are Bernard Arnault and Warren Buffett, and Buffett's probably as close to a finance nerd as you're going to find in that macho industry.
But as to why introverted analytical people wouldn't challenge the abortion arguments: they tell us for a long time as men we're not supposed to have opinions on abortion. Ah, but rationalists love to read all this forbidden IQ stuff (look at the trouble Hanania got himself into), not to mention evo psych stuff about game, why not challenge the status quo there too?
I think the answer (and I'm just going on my limited experience both online and offline) is that most rationalists lean libertarian and don't like to tell people what to do. Abortion is framed as telling women what they can't do with their bodies, so to us it seems more like an invasion of privacy to ban it. Most of the people making the anti-abortion argument are doing so from a religious point of view, and we usually don't read Christian arguments, so we don't think of it that way that much.
4. That's another good point, and strikes me as 'restriction of range' on my part (and possibly Hanania's as well). Most of the women I know are pretty liberal; if you hang out with a lot of right-wing women that's not something you would assume (women are pretty big in the pro-life movement). Hanania could still be correct in that rising status of women *in the liberal enclaves where opinion is formed* is producing a lot of the safetyism and obsession with hurt feelings we see. Conservative women have other priorities--QAnon seems like kind of a right-wing equivalent in terms of weaponization of fear of child predators. Of course, I imagine most conservative women are concerned with making a living and keeping family happy and safe.
5. I'm trying to find the quote, but it now gets swamped by stuff about the current Russia-Ukraine war. Anyway, some really unfortunate rabbi actually had to deal with just this situation (don't forget Stalin and Hitler fought over Eastern Europe with the expected huge casualties), and said something like: when the Russians kill you, they kill you as a person who's done something bad by being a capitalist, but when the Nazis kill you, they kill you as a dog.
Actually strikes me as cope for one of the worst situations imaginable, but I guess if you were Jewish your chances of survival were better with the Soviets. You can change your class, not your ancestry.
Regarding nerd as a type everyone recognises...I sort of recognise it. The type that does seem natural to me is the civilised intelligent person who rejects the law of the jungle (violence, promiscous sex, mob popularity) in favour of a more ordered lifestyle focused on thought and principle. But this doesn't seem to fit at all with the type of internet nerds who are extremely hedonistic and share a lot of the same values as the "jocks" who are their supposed enemies.
Regarding women driving wokeness, it seems you're now making a very general point (that political movements change over time due in part to different demographics gaining influence) in a very controversial way (women have ruined the left). So it's similar to how increasing influence of the rural working class changed the Republican Party. This is just how politics works, always, and it seems like the only people this would matter much to are male liberals who liked what the left used to be but not what it is now.
And I'm also suspiscious of how much women are driving this given how small the partisan gap along with other political measures on particular questions is between men and women. Age is more determinative I think, and race overwhelmingly so.
Regarding which extremists are more dangerous, my understanding is the soviets murdered tens if millions of people, several times the nazis, for often no reason other than to fulfil a quota. Certainly it didn't require having done anything "capitalist". I see your point about being killed for who you are (nazis and radical feminists) versus for resisting the ideology (wokeness). But on the other hand, if the former come for me I'd have every man on my side, while the woke ones do the insidious thing of dividing each group against each other (white men against black men etc).
All rationalists in this community are nerds of some flavor. I challenge anyone to produce a long time reader / active poster that isn't. We are anti-normie by default.
The part about reproductive integrity torpedoes it all for me:
"Reaffirming the rights of women and girls to physical and reproductive integrity
(a) States should ensure that the full reproductive rights of women and girls, and unhindered access to comprehensive reproductive services, are upheld.
(b) States should recognize that harmful practices such as forced pregnancies, and the commercial or altruistic exploitation of women’s reproductive capacities involved in ‘surrogate’ motherhood, are violations of the physical and reproductive integrity of girls and women, and are to be eliminated as forms of sex-based discrimination.
(c) States should recognize that medical research which is aimed at enabling men to gestate and give birth to children is a violation of the physical and reproductive integrity of girls and women, and is to be eliminated as a form of sex-based discrimination."
The minute you start yakking about "forced pregnancies", you've sold the pass. If you're giving in on contraception and abortion because sex should be without consequences, then along comes no limits to that. Abortion at any time for any reason or no reason, just because you want one. And if sex has no consequences, then you can't talk about "enabling men to gestate is a violation of the integrity of girls/women", because it's nothing to do with women getting pregnant or not getting pregnant, and if it all comes under the umbrella of "reproductive rights" and "unhindered access", then it's a right to have a child if you want one, and if you're a trans woman who wants to gestate their own foetus in their own transplanted donor womb, nobody is entitled to tell them "no".
You have to have a consistent philosophy around sex and reproduction, because giving in and chipping away at parts of it over time means you've sawed off the branch.
I am in agreement about surrogate pregnancies being economic exploitation, but that ship has sailed long ago. Once you legalise surrogacy, money is going to be involved, and if everyone bar the human incubator is making money out of it, then simply pay them a token amount to make it all okay.
It is possible to remove the money aspect of surrogacy. Especially in countries with socialized medicine where the pregnancy is taken care of via taxed money. In the USA you'd just allow for reasonable costs(min-max set by looking at the past 3 years of pregnancy data across public hospitals) to be paid for the pre, during, and post birth.
The words "altruistic exploitation" sound interesting, but I need to spend some time thinking about this idiom. (Google is not very helpful here; there is ~1 article using these words, and it's paywalled.)
The meta point is that different people are differently triggered by different keywords. :D
I am struggling to understand "enabling men to gestate and give birth to children is a violation of the physical and reproductive integrity of girls and women, and is to be eliminated as a form of sex-based discrimination."
My problem is not whether this argument is good or bad, but I struggle to see the thought process leading here (which one typically sees even for bad arguments).
I also got snagged on this section. As a feminist, I love the idea of men being able to gestate and give birth. Give the women a break already! I would probably have had about five more children if my husband had been able to share the load.
There is a certain segment of the feminist anti-trans movement that is really hung up on this Victorian idea of women's special purpose, which I find bizarre.
These are 1st/2nd wavers, so it's not too shocking they're hung up on Victorian ideals of womanhood. Dare I say, they're bio-essentialists that believe women can only be feminine/womanly in a certain way.
They also have a ton of language that is anti-stud/butch/tomboy in that document. They basically view masculine women as traitors.
Is there a good survey of 1st/2nd wave feminism that gives examples of how masculine women were viewed as traitors? How prevalent was that notion among popular first/second wave feminists?
(Also I am embarrassed to say I didn't spend too much time with that document; if you could indulge me and quote a specific anti-tomboy language that will be appreciated).
It's a wonderful historical record of collegiate/academic feminism of its day. It may not comform to the format you'd desire, but it is what/how they thought/communicated.
At the time I was reading it (in dead tree format of course):
-True Feminists had to be lesbians.
-Penetrative sex toys were ok, though not everyone agreed. They did all agree that they should NOT be shaped like penes.
-It was right and good to be a mother. It was a fierce point of debate as to whether male fetuses should be aborted or if it were possible to raise a "good" man.
I'm presuming first, the reliance on donor wombs which may end up in a trade of women donating their wombs while alive, due to financial necessity as with surrogacy, see the recent story about the successful womb transplant between two sisters:
I did find it strange that the immediate leap in commentary afterwards was "does this mean men could get pregnant?" and forecasts about how this would work for trans women (rather gruesomely, if you're a dinosaur like me: first the transplant, then a ton of anti-rejection drugs, then implant the embryo from donor eggs and hope it takes, if the gestation goes to the point of delivery do it by C-section, and then you can have one more go if you want before removing and discarding the uterus in order not to have to remain on immunosuppressant drugs long term).
Secondly is the more theoretical objection: that this removes the distinction between the sexes and encroaches on the 'reproductive integrity' of women as being the ones capable of gestating and delivering babies. If we're currently re-defining language to refer not to "men and women" but to "people who menstruate" or "people who have uterus" then womb transplants completely destroy any distinctions left. Now biological males can be uterus-possessors.
I’m not sure whether the economics would actually work out exploitatively re: uterus transplants. A common type of joke in trans spaces involves, eg, trans men who get hysterectomies volunteering to send their uteruses to the women (or women who get bottom surgery joking about donating their junk). Cis women also get hysterectomies for a variety of reasons.
There's a tidy little business in developing country surrogacies, with clinics offering their US (and I presume UK etc.) based clients that they can have the procedure done in an American clinic, with American egg donors and surrogates, *or* they can have the surrogacy done by their associated clinic in Mexico/India/etc. which will be cheaper.
"A healthy overall budget for UK surrogacy can vary from £20,000 to £80,000+, comprising:
Surrogate expenses
Fertility treatment costs
Agency or organisation fees
Legal fees
Contingency such as failed transfers, travel and accommodation and unexpected life changes
Surrogacy in the UK takes place in a range of different ways, with friends or family members or surrogates previously unknown to the intended parents, via non-profit UK surrogacy organisations or independent matches online, and via both traditional and gestational surrogacy. All these variables have an impact on the budget, and so anyone planning UK surrogacy should budget carefully for their particular circumstances.
How much does surrogacy in the USA cost?
A healthy overall budget for US surrogacy for UK parents is £200,000 to £300,000+, comprising:
Agency fees (covering all relevant agencies)
Surrogate (and donor) expenses and compensation
Fertility treatment costs
US health insurance (both for surrogate and newborn)
US legal fees
UK /international legal fees
Other professional fees
Personal travel and accommodation
A contingency
Anyone planning US surrogacy should budget carefully for their personal circumstances. International intended parents need to take particular care since US professionals often offer packaged fee which, in combining some but not all of the elements, can suggest that a US surrogacy journey will cost less than it actually does: advertised packages rarely represent a true ‘all in’ cost for parents from overseas.
The costs of a US surrogacy journey are not all paid upfront, but are paid in advance of each stage, so understanding the timing of when funds will be needed is important as well as planning the overall budget. Generally speaking, parents can expect funding to be expected in three major tranches: on engaging the professionals they are working with at the outset, prior to embryo transfer (when the escrow account is funded for the treatment and pregnancy expenses), and from the second half of the pregnancy (in relation to legal costs and travel for the birth).
Costs in the other main international surrogacy destinations
Other international surrogacy destinations typically cost less than the US, although lower cost typically means a very different kind of service and/or a much longer wait to bring your baby home after the birth.
Surrogacy in Canada – £80,000 to £120,000, covering surrogacy consultant fees (with consultants working in a different way to US surrogacy agencies, with less screening and longer timescales), surrogate/donor expenses (with limits in Canada), fertility treatment costs, Canadian legal fees, Canadian health insurance, UK legal fees and travel and accommodation.
Surrogacy in Ukraine and Georgia – £30,000 to £70,000, covering the fee charged by the agency/clinic for the whole surrogacy process (including surrogate recruitment, IVF treatment, surrogate compensation, antenatal and delivery care, some administrative and legal services to help with birth registration), UK legal fees and personal travel and accommodation (bearing in mind that it typically takes 3-5 months for a surrogate baby to be issued with a UK passport)."
So I could see, if uterine transplants do indeed become a thing, a parallel business springing up. You're a poor woman in India or the Philippines, you have three kids already (so your fertility and ability to bring pregnancies to successful term is proven), why not have the operation to sell off the organ you no longer require? It'll save on the cost of contraception and the risk of unintended pregnancy, and you'll make a tidy sum (by the standards of your own situation) which will improve the lives of your family. If there is enough of a demand for surrogacy, there will surely be a corresponding demand for uterine transplants.
The bit about the "altruistic exploitation" is because I've read previous articles about surrogates in the West (mostly USA) and when this procedure started, it wasn't permissible to pay for it, so a lot of it was pitched as altruism - helping people who couldn't have their own families to do so. A halo was placed upon the head of the surrogate as a selfless philanthropist.
But that led to later dissatisfaction, as an amount of ego-stroking then became expected on the part of the surrogate from the clients, and the clients complained about being held hostage to the whims of the surrogate and having to get involved with them. A tidy business transaction was much better, particularly if it was some woman in a different country whose only job was to incubate the pregnancy then hand over the resulting offspring, no strings attached.
So that's why the pressure about being "altruistic" is included in this Rights Declaration, as women may be pressured to do this on behalf of family members, or not to expect payment for the costs incurred during the pregnancy.
An international surrogacy can lower your cost by $50,000 or more. Or you can go with independent surrogacy, meaning you do not hire an agent to manage the process. That can reduce your costs by $10,000 to $25,000, but you will have to work with the surrogate directly.
The Bottom Line
The average cost of surrogacy in the U.S. is about $100,000, a total that includes the cost of fertility treatments, embryo creation, surrogate compensation, as well as legal and delivery fees. Fortunately, an increasing number of employers are including fertility benefits in their health plans, reducing the amount patients pay out-of-pocket for treatments like fertility tests and egg collection.
Many fertility clinics and surrogacy agencies work with partner institutions to offer patients agreeable loans that allow them to finance their surrogacy without being penalized for dipping into retirement savings or taking on the risk of tapping into home equity."
If you're looking at the bones of $100k for a surrogate pregnancy, a uterine transplant may not be that much more expensive, you can have two pregnancies out of it, and you can carry your own baby/babies to term (if you aren't using donor eggs) to be 'traditionally' pregnant.
Sure, right now it probably would be prohibitively expensive except for the very rich (or very desperate) but give them a few years to work the bugs out, get the techniques down, and the costs will accordingly come down by the workings of the market. Ain't Progress Wonderful!
Seems long, meandering and poorly thought through. The three founders (https://www.womensdeclaration.com/en/about/) are extremely ideological and do not inspire confidence at all. One is described by the Guardian as "a revolutionary lesbian feminist". No, thanks.
In the future I would prefer for comments that are this potentially inflammatory to be more effortful, eg include why you support this position and not the opposite.
I thought the document itself was sufficiently self-explanatory to make further explication by me superfluous, but I take note of your preference and will endeavor to follow it going forward.
Meanwhile, if you want a book-length treatment, I recommend "The Abolition of Sex" by Kara Dansky.
It's less that the document isn't self-explanatory, and more that as an artificial bar to everyone posting propaganda and calls-to-action for their chosen side, I'd like commenters to invest some effort into explaining their own perspective.
Which is so bizzare I can barely comprehend it. It seems to me that about 10% of feminism is downright evil (e.g. late-term abortion on demand), 10% is insane (e.g. women never lie about rape, except for all the proven times they have), 30% is highly disputable and 50% is clearly reasonable. While 10% of trans ideology is evil (e.g. transitioning children who can't consent), 80% is insane (numerous different forms of "objective reality doesn't exist") and 10% is maybe reasonable if you squint. Both movements are militantly in favour of cancel culture and despise freedom of discussion with the fury of a thousand suns. I struggle to see the logic of supporting the second and condemning the first.
I really wish you knew more trans people in your real life. Saying 90% are evil/insane is such a bizarre take especially in this community that has some prominent trans people, SA dated a trans person for a brief time and seemingly loved them for who they are, etc.
I said 80% of the *positions* of the movement are insane. Rewriting the past of someone after they "transition" to remove all references to their biological sex...letting people into a women's sporting event on criteria that have little or no connection to the reason the sport was sex-segregated in the first place...getting people canceled for literally saying that gender is more complicated than *purely* self-identification...how else can these be described?
There are variant positions that would be rationally principled and might have decent arguments for them, but I basically never see advocated for. For example, saying that sex should be irrelevant to public life and that bathrooms and sports should be unisex and everyone assessed only as an individual. But it's never that, it's always: keep all the sex-segregated facilities but let me use the other one because to say I'm anything other than whatever I say I am is an act of oppression.
It's not about the people at all, I'm perfectly willing to believe 90% of them are opposed to the toxic, hateful movement that represents them. If only they would all raise their voices to condemn the movement, and in particular affirm their unequivocal committment to freedom of speech, that might do wonders for their general acceptance. But for whatever reason, I'm pretty confident that's not about to happen.
Thats more or less exactly what I try to do and for exactly the reasons you say but the fact of the matter, for reasons well expressed by Scott on this blog, movements do not condemn their extremists unless they go way, way beyond the pale. And not just the trans ones - the religious nuts and the proud boys and antifa etc etc. Individuals may condemn the extremists, but movements do not survive if they spend their time condemning their extremists.
You cant wash your hands of a rational treatment of the moderate policy that might help people just because theres some dumb/cringy/gross people out there who are in the same group. You get no credit for a good faith exploration of christianity if all you say is "Those westboro baptists I heard about on the news seem pretty awful - I never see moderate christianity advocated for".
Ill grant rational trans policy is not nearly so easy to find as moderate christianity - but its out there and its not by any means _hard_ to find. You just certainly wont see it on twitter.
I appreciate your moderate stance and I'll take your word that you condemn the extremists (which, as you imply, is the whole movement at the moment). Part of my problem is, as I elaborated in another reply to you, the extremists seem responsible for many of the trans policy victories, using their hateful and extreme tactics. Thus there's a strong argument for fighting those policies regardless of their merits, as otherwise it's like negotiating with terrorists.
Separately from that, I have two issues with your "ignore the extremists, focus on the merits of the moderate policies".
First, you can't separate the moderate policies from the extreme ones in a clear causal way. Imagine if, in one of the jurisdictions that held a popular referendum on same-sex marriage (Ireland, Australia, Washington, Minnesota) the voters could look into a crystal ball and see the things that would be happening in the following decade (destruction of women's sport, human rights violations of children, people's lives ruined for saying gender issues are complicated), that would almost certainly not have happened had SSM been defeated. Would they be justified in voting no, regardless of the merits of SSM itself, on the grounds that it would causally lead to these horrific things? I think the answer is yes. If you know A will likely lead to B, and B is bad, you have a good reason to oppose A. The same is true of moderate trans policies. Given the way the left works at the moment, any policy gain is always treated as an opportunity to demand more and more, with exponentially increasing zeal. It seems almost impossible to me that a moderate trans victory in any place won't make it much more likely there'll soon be an extreme one in the same place. Thus there's an argument for opposing all trans policies (when the harms of the extreme ones are so horrifying) until the left fundamentally changes, and starts treating policy and cultural victories as a reason to become less angry and more conciliatory, instead of the exact opposite.
Second, I think movements SHOULD condemn their extremists, and I see no reason not to hold a failure to do that against any movement. I want to create a society where movements not only *do* survive if they condemn extremists but also *don't* survive if they don't. (Where did Scott discuss this anyway? Is it the Toxoplasma of Rage?) That means rewarding the first and punishing the second.
Tell me, what would you say to a hypothetical person who, despite disagreeing with Obama on several major things, voted for him in 2012 because they found the right in general (but not Romney personally) too extreme. Then voted for Trump in 2016 because many on the left had become too extreme, and then, despite Trump having not done anything *particularly* bad in policy terms, voted him out due to his extreme rhetoric and being disturbed by the rise of far-right groups in cultural influence? This probably describes a fair number of Americans, and (aside from not being American and having changed my ideological beliefs substantially several times) it largely describes me. It seems you would have to say this person should have voted for Trump in 2020, and shouldn't have voted for Obama, because the presence of extremists associated with the main movement shouldn't matter.
And importantly, the significant decrease in religious belief in recent times has surely a lot to do with the number of prominent religious extremists, and a reaction to that. And this decrease has a lot to do with the rise of trans and gay acceptance. Would you rather that hadn't happened, and people hadn't held religion as a whole responsible for its extremists?
(With all that said, I'm willing to consider moderate policies if they're rationally argued for, but the above considerations will still weigh on my mind).
You should probably read 'the categories were made for man' again.
Trans rights people and anti-trans people disagree on almost zero actual empirical facts, and where they do disagree on empirical facts the trans-right side is ussually correct because this *actually affects their lives* so they have *been forced to find out the truth*.
When people on your side say they are 'denying reality', what they ussually mean is 'they are defining words differently than I do'.
Disagree, it's more that words were defined with less specificity in the past and now both sides want to define words more narrowly and in different ways.
Man/woman was never commonly understood as being defined by chromosomes until the anti-trans side ran out of other ways to distinguish cis and trans women, no one blinked at calling Swyer patients women and most people didn't know what a chromosome was.
The words used to have a much broader cluster definition that included things like chromosomes and self-ID and presentation and birth certificate and etc, and no one cared much about narrowing it down to a single qualifying feature because all of those things agreed with each other in almost all publicly visible cases. Now both sides want to narrow it for political reasons.
But either way, it's tangential to the claim I was making, which is that there's not much in the way of empirical disagreements, and people who call semantic disagreements 'insanity' are being disingenuous.
No, man and woman were and overwhelmingly still are the words used for people with genital type A or B. That was observed at birth. From the appearance of the genitals you can infer gamete production with 100% accuracy. Until modern medicine you couldn't tell if there were any disorders of the system internally or not, but you could still tell which system it was. That's sex, as it refers to sexual reproduction.
While you can't typically see someone's genitals in day to day life, we're a dimorphic species with plenty of features that we can use to distinguish between the sexes - these are on a spectrum certainly, unlike sex itself, which is binary.
Medical advances have allowed us to see much more deeply into variations within the sex classes, but hasn't changed our fundamental understanding at all.
Moot point however - most trans people like the population generally, are typical members of their reproductive class.
There's certainly an argument to be made that some people would not like to be referred to with reference to their reproductive class in contexts where it's irrelevant. But I can't see the argument that says Refer to me as a member of the other reproductive class.
I had always thought it possible and indeed obviously correct for society to make accommodations for transpeople. 99% of the time it can be done without impinging on other peoples' rights. But I had never thought it would get to the stage where we're denying reality , not just downplaying aspects of reality - and that's where trans activism loses my support. I suspect I'm not alone in that.
2 points, first,They are almost never the same people. This blog has readers from all over the political spectrum, so most are either anti-femisnits or pro trans. The one thing we really don't see here are TERFs. Because of Scott's views, there is little reason for them to read him.
Interesting that you classify transitioning children as "evil". That seems to be more or less emerging as the default intervention, given that it's low risk and not doing it is high risk.
Trans people generally support all three. Surgical 16+ except in very rare cases(FTMs with extremely large breasts as an example, but this is also something cis girls also get).
Anti-trans side doesn't even support social transitioning, and is a complete no-go on medical inteventions.
Ah, the old '41% of trans youth committed suicide' which is not actually the case, but which is used to stampede parents into decisions about "do you want a trans child or a dead child?" and in ten to twenty years time, there are going to be many more cases like the ones at the Tavistock Clinic, where people will go "I was 14! Why the fuck did you let me chop off my breasts and go on hormones? You were supposed to be the adults!" to their parents.
The figure comes from a study which relates not actual suicides but that:
"41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. The rates were highest for young people who are not cisgender — meaning they do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth: transgender men (56%) transgender women (48%) and nonbinary/genderqueer young people (48%)."
That's "considering" and not even "attempting". An Ontario study pushes the same fraught language:
"According to the study, in the past year, an estimated 35.1 per cent of trans Ontarians seriously considered suicide and 11.2 per cent reported a suicide attempt. A total of 433 respondents participated in the study."
But worry not, if you're properly supportive, then you can reduce 'serious consideration of suicide':
"The study found that high social support, specifically parental support, is associated with the potential prevention of 170 cases of serious consideration of suicide per 1000 trans individuals. The data also showed if transgender people are protected from transphobia, 160 cases of serious consideration of suicide could be potentially prevented per 1000 trans persons. Having one or more identity documents which match expressed gender, such as a passport or driver’s license, is associated with the potential prevention of 90 cases of considering suicide.
The study estimated that most of these factors had the potential to reduce the suicide attempt rate among those who were considering suicide.
Completing a medical transition has a strong beneficial impact. By completing medical transitions as quickly as possible, 170 cases of serious consideration could be prevented per 1000 trans persons. Additionally, 240 suicide attempts could be prevented out of 1000 people seriously considering suicide."
And the 41% figure has gone on to a life of its own (article is paywalled so you'll have to pony up if you want to read the full thing):
""Forty-one percent?” the man said with anguish on his face as he addressed the author, clutching my handout. “We’re talking about my granddaughter here.” He was referring to the finding from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) that 41% of 6,450 respondents said they had attempted suicide at some point in their lives. The author had passed out the executive summary of the survey’s findings during a panel discussion at a family conference to illustrate the critical importance of acceptance of transgender people. During the question and answer period, this gentleman rose to talk about his beloved 8-year-old granddaughter who was in the process of transitioning socially from male to female in her elementary school. The statistics that the author was citing were not just numbers to him; and he wanted strategies—effective ones—to keep his granddaughter alive and thriving. The author has observed that the statistic about suicide attempts has, in essence, developed a life of its own. It has had several key audiences—academics and researchers, public policymakers, and members of the community, particularly transgender people and our families. This article explores some of the key takeaways from the survey and the ways in which the 41% statistic has affected conversations about the injustices transgender people face and the importance of family and societal acceptance."
Though suicidality amongst transgender people is high at *every* stage, so even being affirming and supportive may not be enough:
Out of 5107 trans women (median age at first visit 28 years, median follow‐up time 10 years) and 3156 trans men (median age at first visit 20 years, median follow‐up time 5 years), 41 trans women and 8 trans men died by suicide. In trans women, suicide deaths decreased over time, while it did not change in trans men. Of all suicide deaths, 14 people were no longer in treatment, 35 were in treatment in the previous two years. The mean number of suicides in the years 2013–2017 was higher in the trans population compared with the Dutch population.
Conclusions
We observed no increase in suicide death risk over time and even a decrease in suicide death risk in trans women. However, the suicide risk in transgender people is higher than in the general population and seems to occur during every stage of transitioning. It is important to have specific attention for suicide risk in the counseling of this population and in providing suicide prevention programs."
"There is a need for continued research on suicidality outcomes following gender-affirming treatment. Future research that incorporates multiple measures of suicidality and adequately controls for the presence of psychiatric comorbidity, substance use, and other suicide risk-enhancing factors is needed to strengthen the validity and increase the robustness of the results. There may be implications for the informed consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed."
Trans people who transition as teenagers can pass. Not passing leads to a lifetime of dealing with transphobes, just to add to the underlying challenges of being trans - sounds pretty shit.
There seems now to be a strand of militant(?) transness which isn't that concerned about 'passing' and after all, if we're blowing up gender roles, why expect someone to 'pass' by the standards of an antiquated ideal of what a woman (or man) 'should' look like?
Butch women and femme men don't look like the rigid standards, so why should trans women and trans men have to be the ones who adhere to 'passing'?
Something amusing about this study is that it simultaneously poses a big problem for everyone. Another thing it found is that people who begin the process before they are of age are significantly less likely to die by suicide.
"Four suicide deaths occurred in individuals who were referred to the clinic before the age of 18 (0.2%), which is a lower risk than in adults (0.7%, P = 0.010)."
Though that might be the consequence of the cohort's overall younger age. Less time lived, less time to die. But then it should be remembered that social rejection is correlated with suicidality, most transgender people do not pass, and once you do transition you paint an enormous target on your back for all sorts of folks. So if transitioning does not *increase* suicidality then that implies that part of the process at least counteracts that. Which raises the question of how the numbers would look in a society that does not feature widespread mistreatment of identifiably transgender individuals.
Complex indeed. Lots of data, and lots of ways to interpret it. Which ultimately does make me think that either course is risky. We do not know how the child will feel 10, 20, 30 years down the line. The only thing we can do is practice prudence and make an educated guess.
Wait, what? Medically transitioning children and teenagers is increasingly coming under scrutiny in European countries that were on board with it for a while, because there is a dearth of evidence that it improves the mental health of patients, whereas it's clear that it turns them into infertile lifelong medical patients.
Gender transition for teenagers is definitely attracting a great deal of criticism. It just so happens that almost none of this criticism is from medical scientists.
I agree social transition is low risk, and even puberty blockers are probably low risk. I think hormones and surgical interventions are high risk, especially since there are plenty of trans people that will want children, and should not be deciding if they will be child free before puberty.
I say this as someone who is non-binary with a child who would probably be a trans women if I was raised in the current regime. My child is much more important to me thany appearance.
There are fertility preserving techniques. These were not just heavily advertised, I had to have an in person meeting with the Doc saying no, I really didn't want to freeze sperm before starting.
With AFABs eggs can be frozen easily and early, with AMABs you do have to at least wait for sufficient sexual maturity for banked sperm to be viable - in either case fertility can be saved.
Hormones themselves aren't especially high risk, for AMABs at least. None of the changes are permanent within the first year or so. And fertility will return if you stop hormones for a while if you are within about 3 years (according to Duke Endocrinology)
For AFABs they have even longer where fertility will return if they stop hormones, though the appearance changes from testosterone are harder to undo, but not impossible, see transwomen.
Surgery is high risk. I'd propose no surgery before the age of majority, and with parental consent. Adults can do what they want.
I don't think that it is low risk. I think both "transitioning" and "non-transitioning" are high-risk paths. There is a quite high fraction of transitioned people who are deadly unhappy about it after a few years, and of course also a high fraction of non-transitioned people who are deadly unhappy about being non-transitioned.
That makes the whole affair so complicated. There is no low-risk path, and we are not great with predicting which people profit from transitioning and which don't.
(a) these days, puberty blockers allow a large amount of time for children, their parents, psychologists and doctors to make the decision whether to transition
(b) the proportion of detransitioners is extremely low (maybe 1%)
"There is a quite high fraction of transitioned people who are deadly unhappy about it after a few years..."
I don't think this is true. 'Deadly unhappy' would imply a desire to detransition, and the fraction of detransitioners is, according to the majority of studies available, below 10%, with the 2% figure turning up twice (Dhejne et al, 2014, van der Loos et al 2022).
The only study that I'm aware of that bucks this trend is a recent one drawing on US military records, in which 30% of trans personnel discontinued gender-affirming treatment within four years. I don't have an explanation for the outlier, but it does not survey discontent directly, and given the unusual qualities of a military cohort, I'm inclined to trust it less.
Which is not to say that detransitioners don't matter, and that tightening protocols to discern them early and head them off at the pass isn't worth trying. That some people accuse them of betrayal is just another sad side-effect of trans rights still being treated around the world as a flaming political football instead of an ordinary subset of human rights.
What's more, the last time I checked the most popular reason for detransition wasn't the realisation that the person gender identity has been matching the assigned gender at birth. Instead it's lack of support from friends and family.
So only a small minority of trans people detransition and only a small minority of this small minority detransition for the particular reason, that people, who would like to restrict transition more, are worried about.
Hm, interesting. I try to square it with the different numbers and reports that I have heard in the past, and also with my personal experience - I only ever knew a handful of trans people, and two of them detransitioned. But perhaps all this used to be different and simply has changed. The de-transitionings were long ago (one more than 25 years ago), and being trans 25 years ago was surely different from today.
That's always been my big issue with this. I know there are trans people who need to transition, I know there are probably some people who are doing this because it's a social contagion, and I have no idea of the size of each group.
In a free society, a parent, child, and physician should be allowed to come to the arrangement they think best, even if it has risks. The state should not be the tool to impose a solution.
My own personal experience is that the "social contagion" group is approximately 20% but that they mostly don't seek medical intervention and so who cares.
Most people who seek medical intervention have om average very good outcomes from it. Better average outcomes than birth control or anti depressants.
So the pro-trans position is a lot more fringe, which means people supporting 10% of it will probably be identified as pro-trans, while feminism is so mainstream that supporting 50% of it will probably still be identified as anti-feminist.
(I'm also not sure I agree with those numbers (on both sides), but that's not really critical to this argument).
I think you're right. If your position is, "I don't think people who transition male-to-female post-puberty should be allowed to play women's sports, but otherwise I think they should be legally and functionally treated as women by society," that's pretty pro-trans. But if you think "I think women should be able to hold any job a man can, even heavy infantry, as long as they meet the same physical requirements, but I don't agree with third-trimester abortions and I think the stats on the gender pay gap are faulty, " many feminists would see you as a hopeless reactionary.
I mean the reason feminists would have issues with the latter is that they believe there are solid evidence data points that they can provide this person that claims to be a feminist, to switch their thinking on those issues to a more mainstream feminist position. If you believe two very interconnected things and discount the third interconnected thing, then obviously something weird is going on in your decision making analysis of that interconnected thing.
I think what you call "trans movement" or "trans ideology" is a loud and visible, but rather distorted and small minority of trans people.
You can be supporting trans rights and still disagree with statements like "trans women should be allowed to compete in women sports", and certainly disagree with extremist positions like "transition is always positive for teenagers who feel that they are assigned the wrong gender".
If you believe that those are statements that are generally supported by the pro-trans movement, then you should get to know it better.
Making myself known as a trans woman who doesn't think we should play on women's teams high school and up, thinks children should need parental consent to start medical interventions and surgery needs to wait til the age of majority.
The trans women in my own community also feel this way and we are broadly exhausted by the "movement" which we don't feel represents and is often feel gives us a bad name.
There is a rational, scientifically supported, moderate trans social policy. I wish anyone ever could have any nuance so we could talk about it.
I'm not sure this matters to you, but as someone who often disagrees with trans ideology (as presented to the public), I appreciate that you have and are willing to share different viewpoints.
Right now it's a distorted and small minority, but over time creep will set in. After all, if trans women are women legally and socially, why *shouldn't* they be permitted to compete in female sports? That's just discrimination, and we're doing away with discrimination in all other areas.
The way I see it, it is because in sports we don't really have a separation between men and women, but rather (in most sports de facto, in others also de iure) we have an "open competition" vs "separate competition for testosterone-disadvantaged people" (to use a crude simplification). The reason why we have separation instead of fully mixed leagues is that otherwise in most sports from hockey to chess women wouldn't even have a chance to participate (sometimes literally, as women's world record isn't sufficient to qualify to attempt to compete in men's olympics), so we have made separate exclusive divisions so that a large group that's valued but disadvantaged can participate in sports without interference of men - that's the whole reason of existence for most separate womens' leagues.
And from that perspective, it becomes very simple - are you 100% compliant with the disadvantaged group? Go play with them; are you anything else - FtM trans, MtF trans, nonbinary, someone who has had hormone replacement therapy for any other reasons - you're free to participate in that sport but go compete in the open division together with men; we're not saying that you're not female, but just saying that you don't qualify for the protected "testosterone-disadvantaged" (again, not literally about testosterone) group, as letting any random participants there will disrupt that division's reason of existence, unlike the men's tournaments where you should be free to participate as long as you can get competitive results.
Everything about this issue is distorted around extremely small minorities of people.
Take the women's sports thing. Women's sports makes astonishingly low levels of money and employs hardly anyone. The WNBA makes at the absolute highest $200,000,000 per year in revenue.
In comparison, Daktronics, a South Dakota electronics manufacturer, makes $600,000,000 per year in revenue. Three times more than the WNBA. I have never heard anyone speak a single word regarding Daktronics, or the effects of any policy whatsoever on Daktronics, or whether we're being fair to the employees of Daktronics, etc. Moreover, Daktronics employs something like 10x more people than the WNBA does.
The only reason anyone is bringing up women's sports is because of its proximity to a hot-button culture war issue. There is literally nothing else at stake here - the economic impact of women's sports cannot be understated.
The other reason women's sports is a big issue is it is a 0 sum competition with futures on the line. College gets more expensive every year, and sports scholarships are often the only way some students can afford to attend their school of choice. That is where the issue is most important, since there are a fairly large number of athletic scholarships.
This reads a little bit like, "It's wrong or mistaken to care about things that aren't big or rich". Presumably people who care about the WNBA (disclaimer: pretty sure I've never met any of these people and am basing this off my experience with grass-roots sport in general) do so for reasons other than how much money it makes or how many people are involved in it. Presumably you yourself care more about your own sports team, family, country, whatever, even if there's a bigger or richer sports team, family, or country out there that you could care about instead.
I'm not sure that's necessarily how the world necessarily should always work - it does seem less-than-optimally utilitarian, I admit! - but it's how the world *does* work, and I don't think we need to hold people who care about the WNBA to a standard so rigorously utilitarian that we never ever apply it to anybody else and that, were they to follow it, they'd switch en masse from WNBA fanship to Daktronics fanship (breathtaking though that would be to behold!)
Yes, I'm sure there are people who *don't* care about the WNBA but relentlessly weigh in on debates about gender in WNBA anyway - because they relentlessly weigh in on debates about gender in everything - these people are also motivated by principles other than how big or rich the WNBA is, just like everybody else.
Sorry! I wasn't trying to delegitimize caring about things for non-economic reasons. I do that all the time.
For example, I learned today that El Segundo (an LA team) won the Little League World Series. I was ecstatic. Not because I've ever cared about children playing baseball, but because I care a lot about LA. I'm happy that LA won, and I think my happiness is fine and totally valid.
When we do the same for transgender people in women's sports, I think it's important to assess how much we really care about women's sports, and how much women's sports is just a vehicle for us to talk about transgender people (or to talk about women, for that matter).
I used revenue because it's an imperfect, but objective, measurement of how much people care about a given thing. It suggests strongly to me that the reason that women's sports is in our national conversation is because of its proximity to hot-button cultural issues (women's rights, transgender people) and not because there are loads of WNBA fans whose lives will be impacted by decisions regarding women's sports.
So it's fine to care about this stuff, but I want to be really clear about what we actually care about.
Personally I don't feel like late-term abortion on demand is "downright evil". I can probably be convinced that it's the greater of two evils (the second one being forced to one or the other form of torture against your will should you change your mind about your previous consent).
What's "healthy" doing there? You "pro-lifers" want to force women to birth diseased and inferior offspring because of religion. Don't try to hide your dysgenic agenda behind the mask of wholesomeness.
To me, the core value of humans comes from our intellectual abilities that take years to develop. Animal lives and well-being are still valuable but not on the same level (if the choice was between torturing a human and killing an animal, I think most wouldn't call the preference for the latter evil).
Further, given the abysmal results of historical attempts to draw lines between "real" humans and biological humans who fail some other criteria, I accept that This Is Just Not Done is a good rule. But we don't need to extend the same rights all the way to zygotes, societies that allow abortions aren't all turning to the worst forms of ableism/racism/fascism. I am fine with the status quo where childbirth is the most prominent watershed, it also seems the most natural Schelling point.
So drowning a baby, aside from being unnecessary killing of a living being, needs to be punished because that's what we agreed on as a society. Also because of my upbringing in that society I am indeed inclined to think of it as evil, and don't think this is something that needs to be changed, but if I was instead brought up in a society that only gave full human rights at the age when the median person can pronounce their first two-word sentence (15 months or something like that?), and it wasn't leading to terrible forms of ableism/racism/fascism, I probably wouldn't consider that society evil.
“and it wasn't leading to terrible forms of ableism/racism/fascism”
Why would it being ableist or not make it worse? That’s a certainty anyway. In the society you are contemplating terminating a child before 15 months would almost always be eugenic. Like Sparta.
Its one of the traditional methods of population control. It was practiced by the classical Greeks, among numerous others. This doesn't mean it isn't evil, of course, but it also doesn't mean that it is. It's repulsive, but possibly so are all the other choices.
" which conservative perfectly understand and accept, but pretend not to when it comes to trans-rights."
*spits on me fist*
Okay, if we're going to do it this way...
(1) I don't believe there are any such things as trans "rights", the same way I don't believe there are any such things as abortion "rights". You have rights as a human being, but there is no "right" to be a particular anything.
(2) "Gender and sex are two different things" is *so* ten minutes ago. Now it's 'my gender *is* my biology' and, lest we go back to the 'it's only a few crazy kids on campus" (or Twitter/X, as it may be) defence, let me remind you that this specimen was able to use the law, thanks to ACLU, to get what he wanted.
You have to love the phrasing in this article weeping over poor, poor Demi:
"Because of an incident between her and inmates at the all-female Edna Mahan Correctional Facility which resulted in two pregnancies". What incident could that be? Did the stork flap its wings and arrive in the jail twice? Did they plant cabbages or gooseberry bushes in the prison garden? Remind me again, how is it babies are made, hmmmm?
This is a man, with functional male reproductive organs, who gets to bend reality that he is really a woman, and we're all supposed to go along with it as enforced by court cases. But it's we conservatives who are the ones pretending when it comes to the trans rights. Uh-huh.
Do you acknowledge that women in prison get pregnant somewhat frequently from guards, conjugals, etc? Both women have told prison officials that they are happy they're pregnant by that person. There's another similar case that a trans inmate got her prison roommate pregnant and they also reported being happy about it. If cis lesbians could impregnant in prison, they absolutely would. In fact there's been a few cases of bi-sexual women in prison doing just that.
Yeah, women in prison get pregnant. By men. If "she" is able to knock women up, "she" is not a woman.
Look, a trans woman who is not a violent offender, who is on hormones and maybe even surgically transitioning, and is not fucking her fellow inmates pregnant? No problem there.
A violent criminal who decides he'll have an easier time in the women's jail and suddenly discovers that he is really 'she' but does nothing else save change 'her' name? He can stay with the boys.
"(As for the jail example, come on now — we've known for decades that sexual assault was rampant in both men and women's prisons; conservatives suddenly caring about the issue *only* when trans-women are involved is an ugly farce)."
Well, we've moved from "this isn't happening" to "this is happening but really who cares blah blah blah can't hear you."
“ This is my conclusion from seeing the most frequent anti-trans argument: that trans activists "deny the reality of biological sex".”
trans activists deny both the reality of biological sex and gender roles. They say that we are all socialised into roles, but this wouldn’t explain trans at all - since people who feel different from their birth sex are overcoming socialisation. Therefore gender as roles has nothing to do with it.
Conservatives have always believed in gender roles, separate from sex. They just tend to believe that the roles follow from the reality of biological sex (i.e. women stay home to care for babies because they nurse them, something men physically can't do).
What conservatives are primarily against is merging the ideas of sex and gender into a state where gender (feelings) override sex (biology) and are used to make important decisions about where this person is permitted to go - as with the biological male knocking women up in prison.
And as is typical of conservatives, we're very concerned about changing what society considers normal/okay because it can and will cause unintended consequences. Requiring significant medical transition before a biological male is permitted in a women's prison verses permitting it just based on expressed feeling is a very important distinction. If I were in prison and allowed to go to a women's prison just on my say-so, where I'm suddenly significantly higher up in the hierarchy of size and power (and may get to have sex with women)? Too much incentive to lie, and too little reason not to.
"Except trans activists, for the most part, don't do that. They're talking about gender roles, not biological sex."
Oh, Willy-Willy-Woo, you're not keeping up with the crazy, I can see. The science is settled that taking artificial hormones is exactly the same thing as being a menopausal cis woman and what about intersex anyway, checkmate bigot!
As for the Real True Woman Demi, the claim is that the sexual encounters with *two* female inmates that got them *both* pregnant were all consensual. Now, how a Real True Woman can impregnate other women, well you tell me. That seems to be going even beyond 'gender roles', don't you think?
There are both objective and social aspects to physical disability.
Parking spaces set aside for the disabled are part of the latter group (social), but you still do not get to park your car there if you simply choose to identify as disabled (rather than objectively being so).
Besides, gender is a property of words - not people.
Your last paragraph is utter nonsense. Most cultures have recognised biological sex and applied different social roles according to that sex, observed at birth. It didn’t need the scientific revolution.
Besides, I doubt some hypothetical world where the term 'gender' were indeed restricted to linguistics - and we had settled on e.g. 'biological sex' and 'social sex' instead - would look much different.
Some conservatives understand this, but I've talked to plenty of Trump Supporters that think Sex and Gender are synonyms, were taught that way since birth, and trying to convince them they are different is essentially impossible. They do not understand or accept it.
The word "gender" outside its use describing grammar tends to result in the word being used equivocally. Sometimes it is a genteel substitute for "sex." Sometimes it is used for sex role stereotypes. Sometimes it is used for characteristics which are somewhat sex linked, but do not help much determining what sex someone is. Besides these things, it is used for an internal sense that some people apparently have of whether they are or ought to be a man or a woman. Any discussion where "gender" is used to mean more than one of these things without drawing clear distinctions is in serious danger of ending up as nonsense.
I identify as conservative (not Republican), think Trump wasn't as bad as I expected him to be, and think sex is biological/a physical trait, and gender is socially constructed. I am willing to be convinced, with appropriate scientific arguments, of a different viewpoint.
I'm a trans woman, I'd also consider myself conservative but not republican, and I think your terms are proper. I don't know your prior disposition towards trans issues or trans people but I'd ask you to consider that the biology really is sufficiently messy and error prone to result in a small percentage of people biologically sexually differentiated in complicated ways that seem suggestive of leading to trans identification. You are not taking a scientific position to say that biology determines man or woman end of story - biologists would laugh.
I'd ask you to consider that if a parent, a child and a physician agree on a particular medical course of action, then perhaps the state should not be involving itself in this way. There's a lot of quibbling over little evidence or worries about harm - but the first part of that is that harm from anything except surgery is dramatically overstated, and surgery basically only happens to adults; and the other part of that is that living in a free society is supposed to mean that people are allowed to take risks to themselves, eyes wide open, especially if the parent child and physician are all in agreement.
Lastly I'd like to say that I understand most trans women are somewhere between liberal and insanely liberal and so conservatives consider all trans people and trans issues as enemies by default. I'd just like to say that's not all of us - I don't think trans women should be in women's sports high school and up. I don't think it's wrong to exclude them from certain women's spaces. I don't think children should be able to transition without parental consent. I don't think identifying as something makes it so, there's a real truth to the matter, and the real truth is that there are some people who are trans. We are not going to break down the social order, your kids are safe just don't consent to their transition if you aren't convinced it's right; _there is a moderate version of trans policy that is not a threat to you_.
"Consider themselves"? Well, OK. But that's really an impossible position to defend, everyone has ideologies that they base their opinions on. Believing that God doesn't mess around with buried bones is an ideological position. So is believing that he does. Or that She does. So is insisting that arguments be consistent.
This site favors an unusual mix of ideological positions that are heavy in accepting statistics and Bayesian reasoning, but that doesn't make them non-ideological.
Ideally yeah, which is why I think people will respond with arguments instead of flaming. But (a) this doesn't mean people don't have ideologies, and (b) your original claim asked people to support this based on ideology (without argument), so it requires people to have that ideology for it to work.
Deciding what criteria to use involves lots of judgment calls and value judgments, that's how ideology comes in. It's like deciding whether it makes sense to call a chiropractor a medical practitioner, a Buddhist roshi a religious leader, or, to be biological, whether to call platypuses mammals (they are classed as mammals, but that's clearly a judgment call, since they lay eggs and have cloacas).
Investors buying housing as a store of value causes a price bubble, which makes regular people unable to afford it. (Some would call this a crisis.)
I am not sure how much this affects North America in particular or how much worse it makes things compared to [everything else that's already fucked up]. However, as several European countries have found out in recent decades, it most certainly makes things much worse compared to a policy of keeping a sufficient pool of public housing.
Totally inaccurate. At least here in California, we've had a housing shortage for 50 years. If you look at the data for Los Angeles, the housing shortage jumps off the page. There were 250,000 housing units built in the 1950s. There were less than 100,000 built in the 2010s. Los Angeles estimates that it needs about 450,000 more units to fix the problem (i.e., we've got ~40 years worth of deficit to fix).
A few years ago, the local scuttlebutt in my west coast city was about rich Asians buying properties as investments, most specifically rich Chinese buying homes through some complicated legal structure and then leaving them vacant, as hedges against wealth confiscation by the CCP. I have no idea how much of that was true, and I don't hear much about it now, so I'm inclined to suspect that it was a small thing that got blown out of proportion by the rumor mill, and that now the rumor mill has moved on to more hate-able targets.
Some private equity firms have been buying single family homes, but Blackrock isn't one of them: Blackrock invests in commercial real estate and various real estate construction projects, as well as investing indirectly through mortgage backed securities, but they aren't buying up existing single family houses. (Source: public statements by Blackrock, which Melvin has already cited).
Total private equity ownership residential real estate is pretty small relatively to the overall US housing market: about a million apartments and 200k single-family homes according to an alarmist article I found by Americans for Financial Reform citing those numbers as if they were a huge problem rather than being less than 1% of the 145 million total housing units in the country as of Q3 2023 (source: FRED statistics).
For another thing, private equity buying up housing only causes a housing shortage if they're incompetent at managing their property. If they actually rent it out, then they're bidding up purchase prices a bit while bidding down rental prices a bit without lowering the total number of dwelling units available between the purchase and rental markets. They may even be increasing the total housing supply of despite NIMBYs' best efforts the market responds to higher purchase prices by building more housing.
However as the link points out, these purchased homes are unevenly distributed, and the fraction they own is very different to the fraction they're buying. If large firms are, for reasons known only to themselves, buying up a large fraction of homes in the particular area you want to buy in, that might be annoying.
The possibly legitimate argument against corporate home buyers is that there's some evidence they're ruthless and unscrupulous landlords.
Here's an article from the New Yorker, about how bringing sophisticated investors in the trailer park business (previously more of a local mom and pop business) might have made it tougher on the renters:
This doesn't have to do with housing supply though, just the balance of power between renters and landlords. I'm not sure the degree to which it's true, but it strikes me as highly plausible. Merciless landlords do make life tougher, and a lot of landlords offer a lot more grace than they are legally required to -- but even some small landlords do not.
How are you supposed to counter when someone responds to an analogy of yours with "Did you *really* just compare X and Y?"
Related problem: when you *didn't* even make an analogy, but still someone responds the same way.
A: "Technology T needs to be banned, because people use it for a bad purpose X."
B: "It's complicated, because people also use technology T for a good purpose Y."
A: "Did you really just compare X and Y?"
I think this response can mean one of two things:
1. A good-faith shorthand for "surely it's *really* obvious to both of us why those two things are not at all comparable, and listing all those reasons would be a waste of time. Are you aware of this and you were just making a snarky comment that wasn't meant to be taken seriously, or do you honestly think it *is* a valid comparison and could you elaborate on why?"
2. A bad-faith response that's one of the most obnoxious ever in my opinion, that's basically trying to enforce a social taboo against your position instead of engaging rationally with it. Translates to "you've just crossed the line into Formal Heresy", with equivalents like "wow, just wow!" and "get a load of this guy". I've seen this used by almost every group and it makes my blood boil; does anyone know if it has a name? Of course if you really *were* breaking a widely-held and clearly-justified taboo (like defending slavery or paedophilia) then this response would be understandable, but it's invariably not a real taboo at all, just something they think should be one or that is one only in their political group.
If it might be the first case I'd respond with "yes I did, could you explain why you object to that?" If it's clearly the second, I'd probably repeat my previous paragraph to them if they seem otherwise reasonable and it's the first time they've done this, and if they do it again, never try to interact rationally with them again.
Depends what you're trying to counter. Typically I take that as a sign they aren't trying to engage in good faith and are just there for ego-inflating rabble-rousing. So if there's an audience (or if it's, like, a small child or something), you may want to stay dignified and make your point all classy-like, but if there isn't (or if it's an ego audience) then it's time to start flicking water in that stubborn horse's face.
Either way a simple "yes" acts as a return volley that will make them actually say something.
Looks like we lost trebuchet. :-(
Huh, I was interacting with him... I can only find responses on old email.
Maybe he'll be back?
I hope so, but I doubt it. :-/
It seemed as though he was having a bit of a meltdown - getting involved in a lot of culture war threads and being very direct in his responses. It was unusual for him to be that involved, though I wouldn't say that he hid his beliefs otherwise.
Maybe he gave himself a time out for getting too heated.
Scott doesn't tend to delete posts from people who got banned, especially those that didn't result in a ban.
I did a search and it appears all his comments are deleted. Was he banned? Or is this self imposed exile?
I tried searching the 4 most recent threads for "bann" and "treb", and didn't find anything. Usually Scott replies with something like "user was banned for this comment", if I remember right? It looks like from some of the responses other people made in this thread, that a discussion got a bit heated, so I'm guessing that had something to do with it.
Banned people get a big (banned) notification next to their screen name.
A) you keep speaking out of both sides of your mouth saying the _school_ is doing it to them. It's not clear what that would mean or that it's happening. Evidence please, and not of the anecdote variety.
B) Do you have literally any other examples? Anything at all? Are we really just in "extremism is anything I don't like" land? You say piles big - what else is in there? Evidence please.
Meant to be a reply not comment
Thanks. Mobile substack is really bad
ACXLW Longevity (special guest speaker) 9/2/23
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wu69N0x-dvEN3NImEDCEZfd0MOeCQe6cS4AolAdiCuc/edit?usp=sharing
Hello Folks!
We are excited to announce the 41st Orange County ACX/LW meetup, happening this Saturday and most Saturdays thereafter.
Host: Michael Michalchik
Email: michaelmichalchik@gmail.com (For questions or requests)
Location: 1970 Port Laurent Place
(949) 375-2045
Date: Saturday, Sept 2, 2023
Time: 2 PM
This Saturday we are fortunate to have a special guest speaker, Professor Michael Rose, one of the leading researchers in the world on the evolution of aging and scientific strategies for health and life extension. His experiments and analysis point towards a heterodox approach to human life extension that has immediate implications on lifestyle and that provides a new scientific paradigm to develop advanced life extension technologies.
Please read the following outline of his research and approach to healthy long life, and bring your questions, comments, and criticisms for the presentation and lively discussion that will follow.
This link is the summary:
https://55theses.org/the-55-theses/
The full text starts on this web page and continues on linked pages in the sidebar:
https://55theses.org/2011/03/18/thesis-1/
Or, if you want the 55 theses on evolutionary strategies for aging and commentary, a full-length PDF is here:
https://michaelroses55.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/55-theses-explained-final.pdf
A 20 minute audio is available here:
https://youtu.be/vd6Dm978dbg?si=_X6noVVrCKw9T-tD
Embracing the power of evolution to stop aging | Dr. Michael Rose
Walk & Talk: We usually have an hour-long walk and talk after the meeting starts. Two mini-malls with hot takeout food are easily accessible nearby. Search for Gelson's or Pavilions in the zip code 92660.
Share a Surprise: Tell the group about something unexpected that changed your perspective on the universe.
Future Direction Ideas: Contribute ideas for the group's future direction, including topics, meeting types, activities, etc.
Here is a summary from Claude 2:
Aging as a Decline in Adaptation
Aging reflects a progressive decline in adaptation due to weakening natural selection after the onset of reproduction, not inherent biochemical deterioration. Some organisms exhibit no senescence, demonstrating that aging is not inevitable.
Experimental Evolution of Aging
Shifting onset of reproduction in fruit flies quickly changes lifespan and aging rates, demonstrating the malleability of aging by altering natural selection.
Role of Natural Selection in Patterns of Aging
Comparative biology reveals correlations between ecological mortality factors and aging rates, evidencing the role of natural selection in shaping aging.
Human Aging in Evolutionary Context
Humans likely evolved slow aging due to reduced extrinsic mortality from tools, hunting, and sociality attenuating the age-dependent decline in the forces of natural selection.
Impact of Agriculture on Human Aging
Agriculture initially decreased health but populations adapted genetically to cereal and milk diets, primarily during high selection pressure juvenile phases. Older adults retain poor adaptation to agriculture.
Cessation of Aging
There is a late-life cessation of aging where mortality/fertility plateaus due to negligible natural selection. Some populations may exhibit early cessation, investigable with hunter-gatherer lifestyles and medicine. Experiments shifting cessation of reproduction alter timing of aging cessation in flies, demonstrating it is evolvable.
Antagonistic Pleiotropy
Trade-offs between early reproduction and late survival due to antagonistic pleiotropy of genetic variants accelerate senescence. Natural selection favors sacrificing later health for early fertility due to asymmetric forces of natural selection declining with age.
Evolutionary Basis for Life Extension
Evolutionary experimental research provides the strongest framework for understanding the plasticity of aging rates and cessation. Mainstream molecular damage theories inadequately explain aging. Aging should be understood as an evolvable decline in adaptation amenable to genetic and environmental manipulation.
If we look at the historical dramas/biographies that won Best Picture at the Oscars, it seems that some decades of history get a lot more love than other decades. If we look at the decade in which the movies' characters achieved their fame/greatest achievement/etc., it seems that the 1940s and 1960s are really well represented. (So I'd attribute Lawrence of Arabia with the 1910s, because that's when Lawrence when to Arabia even though the movie also includes his death in 1935. But that's not why he's famous).
By my unscientific calculations, no one has yet made a historical drama/biography that won Best Picture set in the 1980s or the 1990s. There have been winners in every other decade since 1910. (Lawrence of Arabia for the 1910s, Chariots of Fire for the 1920s, The King's Speech for the 1930s, Patton for the 1940s, A Beautiful Mind for the 1950s, Green Book for the 1960s, Argo for the 1970s, Spotlight for the 2000s, probably too early for the 2010s and yet we already have Nomadland).
So my first question is: will we ever get a historical drama/biography that wins Best Picture and is centered primarily around people who became famous in the 1980s or 1990s?
When should we expect this movie to come out? How long until we no longer expect this movie to come out?
From what I understand of the Oscar process, it will wait until a director makes a very good movie (in year N-1), which should have won Best Picture except that the Academy gave it to someone else, and then next year (N) makes a serious biopic which the Academy can then give Best Picture to, in order to make up for the previous year (N-1). Of course, that means that a more deserving movie of the current year (N) doesn't get it, but that's OK, they'll give it to that director next year (N+1).
This is mostly tongue in cheek, but having dated a film studies person for a few years, it seems entirely too plausible.
Entirely plausible - looking through the past few years of Best Picture nominees, I'm not seeing any big snubs. Moreover, the nominees seem to really tilt towards the 1940s and 1960s. In fact, there seem to have been more World War I movies getting Best Picture nominations than historical drama/biographies about the 1980s and 1990s.
So maybe we're moving in the opposite direction and we're going to have more movies about the distant past rather than the recent past.
Originally I was going to idly speculate on Fukuyama's "end of history", and the problem with setting things in the Information Age, where there's too much data that could be dug up to undermine a 2-hour narrative. And maybe wonder about polarization, and whether that's going to have an effect - the Academy is solidly left, but that might not prevent problems coming from the other half of the country being incentivized to attack whatever film it is. It might just be safer, in terms of getting a big hit, to set things back in a time when fewer keyboard warriors were alive, when there was less data to contradict a good story.
Hey, idly speculate away. That's what makes this fun!
I agree with your take that newer historical dramas/biographies are more prone to culture war battles. That may also play a role in the rise of nonfiction movies about products, rather than people. For example, in the last year there have been movies about Air Jordans, Tetris and Flaming Hot Cheetos. I doubt we would have seen such movies 20 years ago.
It's easier to make a movie about your favorite product than your favorite politician when the past isn't settled. So we should expect historical films to focus on something other than historical figures from here on out.
Hollywood feels no great need to get the facts right, even when they do know (or could find out) the facts.
I agree, but I also think that being faced with a large number of critical "all the things wrong with X" articles can diminish a movie's reception; take the sheen off, as they say. So part of my hunch (not even worthy of the name "theory") is that to avoid this effect, rather than improving accuracy, Hollywood instead sets movies in times and places where it's harder for people to be critical about them.
Well not always. Off the top of my head theres The Big Short and W, or in its day All the Presidents Men.
The 80s seems a tough sell for Hollywood because it would probably have to be pretty pro-Reagan, and that is like arsenic to most of the voters. Same with the 90s. Rudy Guiliani is like the seminal positive figure of that decade. I dont think there is much appetite to make a Clinton one either.
Yeah, Giuliani's rise and fall from competent mayor to incompetent lawyer is very Shakespearean actually, and intersects with many important figures of both times, but Hollywood's left-wing politics means they would see the 'rise' as bad. The liberals of the time hated Giuliani, I remember that.
And that fall is still in motion....
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/politics/rudy-giuliani-georgia-election-workers/index.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rudy-giuliani-jack-smith-donald-trump-jan6-1234814129/
A few 80s and 90s biopics (or otherwise historical pics based on real people) that were nominated but didn't win:
King Richard (2022)
American Sniper (2014)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
The Queen (2006)
If we're restricted to US subjects, yea. But a good rich biopics could be made about, say,
Gorbachev
Bhutto
Desmond Tutu
Thatcher
Deng Xiaopeng
Maradona
I thought Maradona might have been a typo for Madonna.
Yea a US-centered list of 80s/90s candidates for big-budget biopics should include her. Also:
Michael Jordan
Bill Clinton
Ross Perot (calling Oliver Stone...)
Oprah Winfrey
I think that fits with some observations I've been reading that historical movies are more likely to center around products now than at any point in the past.
If you can't get behind Reagan, surely you can get behind Air Jordans, Tetris and Cheetos.
However, I'd wager these product-based movies are less likely to win a prestigious Oscar than a comparably well done biography.
> Same with the 90s. Rudy Guiliani is like the seminal positive figure of that decade.
I'm pretty sure I never heard of the guy until 2001.
The guy famously "cleaned up New York", but maybe it wasn't all that famous to people who weren't in the area? When I was nearby, it was getting noticeably less sketchy year by year, which was about how often I visited.
I have never lived in NY and have no particular reason to know anything about their mayors, and felt like it was common knowledge Rudy was instrumental in turning the city around from a really low point.
Maybe age of the viewer? I'm middle aged.
I left the state for good a decade before Giuliani, and never cared about the city even when I did live in upstate NY. But, yeah, Rudy was common knowledge even from my vantage point in LA.
It didn't win the Best Picture Oscar but The Social Network won 4 Golden Globes and 3 other Oscars. Winning best picture is a pretty arbitrary metric - the process is notoriously political and doesn't really select for quality. A less noisy analysis would probably use something like box office or award nominations. Really what you're looking for are mainstream serious movies. There have been big-budget films about George W Bush and Steve Jobs. The Devil Wears Prada was about Anna Wintour. Private Parts was about Howard Stern. I, Tonya was set in the 80s/90s. American Sniper was about a guy who did his stuff in the 2000's. Any of those films could conceivably have won Best Picture. It would be interesting to plot the trends over time though.
In truth, the reason I picked "Best Picture winner" as the metric was because the data set was small enough I could review it on my lunch break.
I also agree it'd be interesting to plot the trends over time - particularly in light of the 30-year nostalgia cycle I keep hearing about. I kinda feel like we should be expecting more 90s nostalgia and that we may have had less-than-normal amounts of 80s nostalgia. But that's just a vibe, and the data would be really cool to look at.... but not to assemble myself.
I don't have any metric to compare to others, but we've had a lot of 80s nostalgia recently. Peak probably in Stranger Things, but there's been others. Lots of movie remakes from that decade as well recently.
Is the U.S. uniquely positioned to survive a zombie outbreak? Consider its relevant advantages:
1) Large, strong military
2) Large government that is reasonably good at organizing things in emergencies
3) Widespread personal gun ownership
4) Common for people to have large amounts of food in their houses that doesn't quickly go bad (e.g. - boxes of pasta, canned foods)
Which countries are uniquely VULNERABLE to zombie outbreaks?
I would expect the countries that survive a zombie outbreak to be the ones that did well keeping Covid out. So that's New Zealand by virtue of geography, and China by virtue of a willingness to kill millions without hesitation.
The US doesn't stand a chance, sorry.
Realistically, *no* country would be at serious risk in the event of a zombie outbreak, because they just aren't much of a threat as commonly portrayed. The only reason they are even a threat is because they somehow outnumber humans 100:1 and can teleport around offscreen and half the humans are invariably traitors to boot. In order to get anything like the Stock Zombie Setting, you basically need to posit a Thanos Snap magically turning 95% of the population into zombies, and presumably, New Zealand is not any more reistant to Thanos Snapping than the US is.
New Zealand has Gandalf, they'll be fine.
95% probability that New Zealand has Zombie Gandalf. I don't think you've considered the implications of that.
I was implying he would Flame of Anor away the Thanos Snap, but even if he's zombified we all know Gandalf recovers from death after a couple of adventures. It's fine in the long run.
The question isn't which countries would be well positioned to survive zombies. The real question is *how do you make zombies into a threat in the first place?*
The stock pop cultural zombie apocalypse is a bit paradoxical, because the zombies are slow, weak and uncoordinated, making them less of a threat than say, a herd of angry cows. And yet they somehow took over the world and regularly kill red shirts and so on. The only reason they are even a threat is because they somehow outnumber humans 100:1 and can teleport around offscreen and half the humans are invariably traitors to boot.
There's also the issue of how the apocalypse comes about in the first place. In order to get anything like the Stock Zombie Setting, you basically need to posit a Thanos Snap magically turning 95% of the population into zombies. Pandemics Do Not Work That Way, especially when you're talking about a disease where carriers have obvious visual symptoms and which is harder to spread than Ebola.
Government and military are largely irrelevant because the Stock Zombie Setting assumes that they got Thanos Snapped away before the start of the story. If your setting still has a functioning government, it can barely even be considered a zombie story any more.
Lastly, I have no idea what gun ownership is supposed to do with anything, unless it's just meant as a proxy for other societal factors. Sure Pop Cultural Zombies take +200% damage from Shotgun To The Face like they're vampires against garlic and stakes or something, but from a physics perspective, there's no reason why you couldn't just go at the zombies with an ordinary sword or even improvised weaponry, unless you're fighting the kind of zombie with magical regeneration powers, in which case guns aren't going to help you either.
At the beginning many people turn to zombies because the infection spreads very quickly. You become a new zombie in a few minutes, sometimes in a few seconds, after getting bitten by a zombie. Compare to e.g. covid, where I think you start spreading the viruses on the third day. So the exponential curve goes more than 1000 times faster, initially, in places with high population density.
And there is the element of surprise: before people start to understand what is happening and how to defend themselves, many already got zombified. Imagine yourself as an armed soldier or a policeman, if your teammates suddenly started behaving strangely, right now, would you immediately start shooting them in the head? It would take some time for "this is actually a zombie apocalypse, I am not joking" to become common knowledge.
Public order can be maintained by the police and army because most of the population complies with their orders, at least when the guns are pointed in their general direction. And when you actually start shooting, it causes panic, and most of the wannabe revolutionaries disperse. None of this happens with zombies. You can't stop a zombie apocalypse by taking out the zombie leaders.
A military unit would be perfectly able to protect its own members (as long as it does not run out of ammo), but I doubt they could take control of a city. I think they could protect a few high-priority targets, but other than that, they would simply see the civilization collapse all around them, because they couldn't simultaneously protect the factories, the fields, the offices, the streets, the trains, etc.
I agree that it would be unlike the typical zombie movie. The government and the military would survive. But most of the population would probably die during the first week. Then the military would eliminate the zombie mobs, and teach the survivors some basic self-defense against zombies. Civilization would start again, but the economical situation would be dramatically worse; too many things disrupted. (Housing might become cheaper, though -- so maybe it's not so bad, all things considered.) Political changes would probably happen, too; most likely in a direction most of us would not approve of.
First off, most zombie fiction I'm aware of as conversion be a *much* slower process, since that lets you write those sweet drama plots about whether to kill your infected teammates or not.
Second, even if we grant that, you're *still* vastly overestimating the zombie threat. And while you may not *shoot* your friends if they start acting strangely, you're certainly going to try to dodge and run away if they suddenly shamble over to you and physically attack you.
If a bunch of angry chimpanzees were teleported into a crowded mall, I'm sure they'd kill a bunch of people just due to the surprise factor. But I'm also confident that most people would escape unscathed. And chimpanzees are *much* more dangerous than zombies.
You're also ignoring physical constraints. You can't just say "exponential, but 1000 times faster" because that's not how zombie outbreaks work. The zombies have to *physically* move to the location of their victims and physically bite them, which put sharp constraints on the rate of spread, especially as zombies are slow and easily avoided. They're also stupid and uncoordinated, so they're not going to systematically go door to door searching for victims like real life death squads do.
You might like "All of Us Are Dead", where zombies are about as fast as humans, and the military is competent (after overcoming the initial surprise).
The speed of zombification... I like to imagine that it depends on the initial virus load. If a zombie bites you to a neck, or ten zombies bite you all over the body, you die and zombify quickly; but if you only get a small bite or scratch to your hand or leg, you may merely feel pain for a few hours, and then suddenly you get fever and die and zombify quickly. This allows quick exponential zombification of crowded areas *and* infected people being in denial and infiltrating safe spaces.
I think that in movies, unrealistically many doors just happen to be locked at the wrong moment. Also the zombies, despite being completely stupid, usually happen to block the door. The walls are easily broken when the zombies need to get into the room, but the humans in the room cannot similarly break them to escape from the room. Without these factors... yes, if a zombie was randomly teleported to the middle of a school, probably less than ten people would actually die from the bites, ten to twenty might die in the stampede, and everyone else would probably leave the school alive (because the doors wouldn't be locked, or someone would just kick them out because they wouldn't be armored).
Most of continental Europe would be screwed. Too dense, lots of passenger rail and other transport, fractured politics but interconnected economies and social ties.
I’m not sure that the US is invulnerable but it would definitely bounce back more quickly than other countries. I greatly enjoyed HBOs The Last of Us, but found it crazy that after 20 years!! the country would still be over run with zombies, lacking any formalized economy, and without at least a semi functioning government (or multiple regional ones). This didn’t hurt the story but really jumped out to me.
Guns are a poor countermeasure against zombie outbreaks, aside from the bit where the whole point of imaginary zombie outbreaks is that they give us an excuse to fantasize about shooting lots of people. But taking the premise as given, headshots are too unreliable to count on, suppressive fire doesn't work, and you don't need much range to deal with attackers who can only engage hand-to-hand.
Ability to quickly produce improvised flamethrowers, armor both body and vehicular tailored to the zombie threat, and secure fortified compounds, will be much more important. And much more widespread.
Since the only reasonable explanation for a zombie outbreak is the Wrath of God, this question reduces to "which religion is correct?"
I'll grant 1, but 2-4 seem much less common in big US cities, which creates a worrying weak spot. Have you seen "All of Us Are Dead", a Korean high-school zombie series on Netflix?
But to answer your question, how about Haiti? (Putting aside the irony of Hollywood zombies in Haiti.)
Why should we fight the zombies and if one runs for president why shouldn't I vote for him?
A sufficiently strong outbreak along the southern border would probably stop and even reverse the immigration flow with Mexico, so that's half the country in favor right there. And once it's pointed out that eating brains is a simple application of equity, the other half would fall in line. I think we've got a winner!
Half the country?
Assuming that the United States is a spherical cow composed of two equal-sized, completely homogeneous parts which perfectly map to media stereotypes, yeah, I'll stand by the joke.
At any more detailed level of analysis it completely falls apart, of course.
Keep in mind the large oceans on either side, with limited population north of the US.
I think the worst candidates would be:
1) Large population, high density
2) Limited or no gun ownership
3) Geographic access to other populated areas (no oceans or mountains, etc.)
4) Lower levels of technology and/or infrastructure
From that list, I'm thinking that both India and China would be hard hit, though authoritarian willingness to kill their own citizens may help China. Places with smaller populations but more problems might include large African nations, Eastern Europe, or the Middle East.
Island nations would likely do better, as would very rural areas such as Siberia, the Sahara, and northern Canada.
I need help calculating how far from the Sun a Dyson Swarm would need to orbit to function efficiently. Assume the Swarm uses solar energy emitted by the Sun. The hotter the solar panels are, the less efficient they are at converting sunlight to energy.
At the Earth's distance from the Sun (93 million miles), a solar panel floating in space, receiving full sunlight, would heat up to 120°C. (If the solar panel were shaded by another object, it would cool down to only 3 Kelvin.)
At Mars' distance from the Sun (152 million miles), how hot would the solar panel get? Maybe the Dyson Swarm satellites should orbit at that distance.
Note that it's only 120 degrees if both a) you have the full swarm such that the effective area for reradiation is *only* the back, b) all the power generated by the panel is used onboard the satellite such that waste heat = sunlight striking the satellite (as opposed to waste heat = sunlight striking the satellite - power transferred off-satellite via laser).
With either of those not holding, it's significantly less than 120 degrees.
In any case, since both of those are simple multipliers, they don't complicate the question of moving things outward to Mars. Mars' orbit is actually substantially eccentric, so its distance from the Sun changes quite a lot (1.38-1.67 AU, or in Imperial units, 128-154 million miles). If you take Mars' average distance from the Sun (1.53 AU) as the distance of your sphere, then the temperature of a solar panel there is going to be sqrt(1/1.53) = 80.8% of the temperature (in Kelvin) of an equivalent solar panel at 1 AU (Earth orbit). Note, of course, that you will need 1.53^2 = 2.34x as much material in order to build a sphere in Mars orbit compared to Earth orbit, because the sphere will be larger.
Thank you. I also asked a NASA engineer about this, and to complicate things, he said different types of solar panels were optimized to work at different temperatures.
It seems like a big unknown is how well these solar panels can dissipate the energy that they're not capturing. The better they dissipate it, the closer you can keep them while still being efficient. It looks like the situation near earth may be worse than you thought, since this post says the ISS's solar panels get above 150C: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/14256/what-is-the-temperature-of-solar-panels-used-in-space-missions-such-as-iss
No, it doesn't. It says they get to ~150F. 150F =/= 150C (it's about 66C, though he says 70C, so I'm not sure which way he buggered up the conversion).
Do note also that the ISS receives significant amounts of Earthlight and probably a little drag heating from the atmosphere (it's well inside the exobase).
Also, "how well the solar panels can dissipate the energy that they're not capturing" is not an unknown in space; conduction = convection = 0 because space is an approximately-perfect thermal insulator, and radiation is directly linked to temperature by the Stefan-Boltzmann law. There is *some* variability based on geometry of the collectors, but it's not especially large.
I didn't meant heat dissipation was an unknown in a physics sense, what I meant was that how big you're willing to make a heatsink matters. My (very low) understanding is that you could dissipate a ton of heat with a sufficiently large heatsink. Of course if you have a Dyson swarm you might be radiating that waste heat onto other satellites, so I guess you need some clever geometry? I definitely don't think the situation is as simple as "a solar panel at distance X will reach temperature Y"
A heat sink only stores heat; I think you're thinking of a radiator.
And yes, the issue is that the geometry of the system limits the useful area of your radiators. Any given outgoing sightline can only have one radiator radiating along it, because if there were two then one would block the other. For a full Dyson swarm with ~100% of the star's light absorbed, then unless your radiators extend outward by a significant distance *relative to the swarm size* (which would be thousands of kilometres, not happening), your effective radiator area is limited to the surface area of the sphere - and this limit is very nearly attained by simply making the satellites flat panels in synchronous rotation (the side opposite the star being the "radiator"), so there's no real room for getting clever.
It's not quite as simple as "a solar panel at distance X will reach temperature Y", no, because if the solar panel is transmitting energy somewhere else then that's energy it doesn't radiate as heat. It's more like "a solar panel at distance X with absorbed -> beamed power efficiency Y will reach temperature Z". But the setup really does impose hard limits (limits which would indeed not apply to a solar panel on its own, as it could extend a radiator behind the panel to increase effective radiating area and without all the other satellites this would actually work).
I mean, I suppose if you had multiple different geometries of satellites, then you could make some of them get slightly warmer than Z and some slightly cooler, but that doesn't seem amazingly useful.
I wonder what are y'all's favorite vowels.
(I like "A", as in "ah", because I'm boring.)
I like O, as in "oh say can you see."
I've never thought of this before, but I suppose "ɑ", the open back unrounded vowel. It's got a nice resonant quality to it.
U because it sounds pretentious.
The comfiest vowel, the one you get from "up" saying "surf's up" in an exaggerated California accent. Symbol is /ɐ/ I think
Consonants are more straight forward but they can be interesting too. I didn’t learn to distinguish the voiced alveolar stop ‘d’ from a voiced dental stop ‘d̪’ until I had a South Asian coworker who’s name used them.
I didn’t really pick up on the difference until she white boarded the respective tongue positions.
I've... never really thought about it, I like them all. Ah is hard to beat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlIz0q8aWpA "Perhaps he was dictating", indeed. 'oo' as in "Scooby Doo" is the heart of comedy. You can't find a funnier noise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo-qweh7nbQ
But I'll go with Chaucer's 'oo' pronounced 'oh', because "he was as wood" (woe-d) is supremely memorable.
Honorable mention to 'y', pronounced however the mood may strike at the moment.
Are you talking about the mid central vowel, schwa - ə - now?
Probably not. If I had to spell schwa I would go with something like ‘uh’. Vowels can be tricky though.
I like schwa okay. I’m probably pretty boring too though.
No I'm talking about /a/.
Ah, I see.
Huzzah, History for Atheists has a new post up and it's a book review!
https://historyforatheists.com/2023/08/the-closing-of-the-athenian-academy/
"In 529 AD Damascius, the last head of the Academy in Athens, closed down the philosophical school and, with several fellow scholars, went into exile in Persia. This is often portrayed as the final act in “the closing of the western mind” and the beginning of “the darkening age”; the symbolic closing of an institution founded by Plato himself almost a millennium earlier. It is regularly portrayed in popular writing and anti-theist polemic as the end of ancient science and rationalism in the west and the beginning of a one thousand year medieval dark age. But is this true? What was the Academy and why did it close? And what does this tell us about Christianity and intellectual history?"
Given this preliminary snippet, and given I detested Nixey's take, I'm hoping for a good old barney here, though maybe he might be a bit more sympathetic to Jones:
"In 2017 Jones gave newspaper arts journalist Catherine Nixey a glowing pre-publication review for her notorious book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, (Macmillan, 2017), which featured prominently on the book’s cover and in its publicity material. Jones announced enthusiastically that “Nixey’s debut challenges our whole understanding of Christianity’s earliest years and the medieval society that followed” and declared her “a formidable classicist and historian”. Actual experts in the relevant period and subject matter, on the other hand, were rather less than impressed with Nixey’s biased and polemical work, with Oxford Classicist Peter Thonemann pointing to her reliance on “quite a bit of nifty footwork” and Dame Averil Cameron calling it “overstated and unbalanced” and “a travesty” (see “Review – Catherine Nixey ‘The Darkening Age'” for my full critique of Nixey’s rather terrible book).
So perhaps Jones was depending on Nixey when he turned his attention to the subject of Christian responses to Classical philosophy and learning while writing Power and Thrones."
Hi, I've never posted but wanted to give it a try. I found ACX as a senior in college through my bff Daniel and have been reading on and off for a few years now. This blog brought me into to the worlds of Substack, rationalism, and EA, all of which helped shape my current principles and beliefs, so I'm eternally grateful for this community. My favorite posts are the book reviews from ACX readers-- I might ingest more new ideas during the book review contest than any other time of year.
I started blogging daily as an experiment and want to plug it here: https://splattern.substack.com/. I've had a lot of fun writing it. Currently all my readers are close friends, but I think it'd be interesting to share it more broadly. The content has no particular angle, it's whatever I feel like writing about. Thanks.
Olly’s writing smooth like honey with golden nuggets inside. AND he does it all while sleeping on the floor!
I have really been enjoying the latest series of posts, like your life is a Russian novel and each post is a new chapter
On some corners of the internet (e.g. reddit) there's commonly-cited advice that you should never, ever talk to the police about anything, and instead you should immediately call a lawyer. This video seems to come up pretty often as support https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE ... of course it's no surprise that the people most keen to promote this meme are criminal defence lawyers.
This seems to me like outstandingly bad advice, assuming you're either not guilty of anything or are guilty of some minor infraction. In the case where you're innocent, the police officer will usually ascertain this after a couple of questions and you'll be on your way. In the case where you're guilty of some minor infraction, if you're polite then you've got a good chance they'll warn you to stop it and send you on your way. Even in the case where they give you a ticket for something, you're much better off paying a few hundred dollars for a ticket than getting arrested and wasting the day in a cell while you pay a lawyer a few grand to stand around and tell them that you're not answering any questions. In all the videos I've seen where someone tries to be as uncooperative as legally possible, they usually wind up making things worse for themselves, not better.
The other day the police approached me to ask me what I was doing in a particular place at a particular time of night. I told them, and they went on their way. I hate to think what would have happened if I'd followed the internet's advice and refused to answer any questions.
Cops are no better than the citizenry that they're drawn from, and are more likely to be worse because of selection effects and job effects. Any plan that relies on a cop being kind or reasonable is more risky than the same plan involving a random citizen.
There's some probability/game theory math you could do. Cooperating with the police:
(1) Increases the chances that they correctly solve the crime at issue, which is good for you if you are somewhat altruistic and did not commit the crime.
(2) Increases the chances that they leave you alone, which reduces the hassle and legal expense you are likely to encounter if they don't.
On the other hand, if you (a) are guilty of a crime the police are interested in or (b) the police have a strong desire to find you guilty, cooperating can make your situation worse.
I pretty much always cooperate if I'm the only one involved. On the other hand, when the police really wanted in to my frat house in college following a noise complaint, I was very polite but absolutely didn't let them in because I didn't know how the other people in the house might be affected.
My brother in law took a field sobriety test (after two drinks!), which every lawyer will tell you not to do even when sober because it's too subjective, but the police let him go, and if he had refused, they would have held him until they could do a breathalyzer or blood test, so he saved himself a lot of hassle.
Well, if it's a 200$ ticket, who really cares, but what if it's something much more substantial?Scenario: you come home one day and find your wife dead, appearing to have slipped in the shower and hit her head. What do you do? I would call 911, report what happened, and then immediately lawyer up.
If your first thought in such a situation is making sure you don't look guilty in front of the police you truly are a sociopath
I tend to think of morality primarily in terms of behaving in ways that help people and avoiding behaviors that harm people.
Others think of morality in terms of "make sure I look good in front of my associates."
It's the dichotomy of "do good" vs "look good."
In the given situation, a normal person would not be thinking about morality or pragmatism in any way whatsoever.
That's the most sociopathic rebuttal to "you're a sociopath" I have ever seen.
Michael Druggan's point was that neurotypical people would freak out when they unexpectedly find their loved ones dead at home – not because they're weighing their options and choosing the path which "makes them look good in front of others", but precisely BECAUSE they're NOT weighing their options and choosing the path with the highest utilitarian gain for all of society in such a situation.
What if you knew that there was someone out there who would love to frame you for a crime? What if you knew that there was systemic bias against a group of people of which you're a member?
I had a really jumpy cop tell me there was a warrant on record for someone charged with murder with my given name and surname.
Fortunately our physical descriptions weren’t at all close.
I’m glad he wasn’t so jumpy that he didn’t stop to see the mismatch in age, height and eye color.
Whew. I'm glad you're OK. I have a unique enough name that that probably won't happen to me, but there are some out there, according to Google Alerts.
I live in a pretty small community and actually know quite a few of the local police, including the chiefs of police for several local jurisdictions. It would be beyond weird if I just clammed up when around them. They're people, who operate like normal people. Acting weird and saying nothing is a great way to increase suspicion and start them looking when they weren't otherwise.
I think the advice from the internet can apply in many cases - when people are actually guilty or doing something that is suspicious. If you've committed a crime, then saying as little as possible ("I would like to speak with my lawyer") is actually really good advice. I guess it may be good advice if you're the kind of person that the cops would find suspicious even if you haven't done anything.
In a normal interaction with police, your best bet is to be friendly and polite. The trouble is that it is not always obvious that the police suspect you of some serious illegality. Then the very unequal nature of the situation becomes very important to understand. One of the few things you may have going for you is that the police are not permitted to act on any suspicion they have based on your refusal to answer questions or consent to a search.
Police interactions are often designed to encourage you to forget about these rights, or to think that waiving them could be to your advantage - you need to be aware that this is a trap.
Of course you should be polite to the police. And still you don't have to say anything.
They often start with the question: "Do you know why we stopped you?" If you do, and start to apologize: "Sorry, I drove too fast because [some sob story]", bang!, you did it on purpose, and the fine is higher.
Here's a story of a man who was standing alone on a field next to a warm car, drunk and without license --- and they couldn't prove that he had actually been driving because he said nothing.
https://www.lawblog.de/archives/2019/07/24/wer-nichts-sagt-macht-jedenfalls-nichts-falsch/
On the other hand, even a minor utterance might have bad consequences.
https://www.lawblog.de/archives/2011/07/08/vier-worte-zu-viel/
(Google translate does quite a fine job on these)
The absolutism of "never ever say ANYTHING to the police" is primarily to help stupid Americans (eg criminals who bad at crime) remember to not confess their serious crimes to the police. It's not *really* intended for the soccer mom who just rolled a stop sign right in front of a traffic cop's dash cam. In her situation, saying she's sorry she rolled it, but that's little Savannah just projectile-vomited from the backseat onto the center console, might earn her a little grace.
That said, the general principle of "don't volunteer information" isn't exactly *terrible* if it helps regular folk avoid talking so much that they inadvertently introduce probable cause (to search a home, vehicle, etc).
In my jurisdiction, paying a Penalty Charge Notice isn't self-incrimination, and you don't get a criminal record, so in that case I agree it's best to just pay it and move on.
The claim is: in the US, during interrogation, the police can lie to you about why they are interviewing you, and in court, hearsay rules enable cherry picking of any statements you make.
I don't know how I'd react to a random convo with the police on the street, probably the urge to be polite would get the better of me.
It's legal advice, not practical advice. Meaning it has the best chance of getting you out of legal trouble.
But you've correctly pointed out that cops can impose lots of penalties without getting a conviction. As they say, "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."
It is worth asking why we even have a right against self-incrimination in the first place. After all, it would make things a lot simpler - instead of harassing people who are "as uncooperative as legally possible", just make it criminal to be uncooperative. It's a much clearer and more defensible legal system than the one we currently have, wherein we give people a right that they invoke at their own peril.
The right was in place from the start, and should be in place. That [some of] the police have developed work-arounds to try to reduce the value of those rights is unfortunate but perhaps necessary in their line of work. Imagine working with career criminals who lie about everything all day long.
In Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths (https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths) (which Scott also wrote an essay about here: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/a-cyclic-theory-of-subcultures) David Chapman argues that as a subculture grows, "geeks" (the true fans) welcome "mops" (casual fans) as it validates their status as "cool" and makes the subculture grow. This seems to make sense on a rational level, as growth of a subculture also means there's a natural increase in The Thing the subculture cares about.
However, my experience is the opposite—as a subculture grows to the point where it's starting to become "mainstream" (i.e. it's starting to lose its status as a subculture), "geeks" usually start gatekeeping aggressively. (Chapman does mention this as well—"successful subcultures always do create costly barriers to entry, to keep out the uncommitted"—but I don't think this really captures the spirit of the kind of gatekeeping I'm thinking of)
Here are some phenomena which, to me, all seem to stem from this effect:
* Eternal September - geeks complaining about "normies" invading the Internet.
* Music - back when people cared more about music than they do now, "casual fans" were derided as "posers" that didn't truly appreciate the music, or did something else that upset the status quo of the ingroup.
* Gamergate seems to have been an expression of this phenomenon, where admittance of women into a traditionally male-dominated hobby seemed to cross some kind of threshold.
Usually the "geeks" don't explicitly state that they're engaging in gatekeeping behaviour—instead of saying "we don't want to dilute our in-group, so you can't join" they usually use some other argument related to lack of skill or understanding, or not fulfilling some very specific set of criteria ("you're not a real X unless..."). To some extent they might not themselves be aware of what they're doing, as protecting the status quo of the in-group is probably a subconscious instinct.
Sorry, now I feel like I'm rambling. Anyhow, have you experienced similar phenomena? And do you agree / disagree that the examples I posted above are caused by the same social dynamic? If so, is there a common name for this phenomenon? (I think "gatekeeping" is a bit too broad to describe it)
My working theory is this:
I think the primary reason for gatekeeping any group is the preservation of status. For example, if I'm a member of an exclusive society of rich people, my membership alone grants me high social status. However, if they opened the club up to everyone I would lose the status boost my membership gave me, and so it is in my best interest to keep the group small.
I think the same phenomenon can be applied to the status roles within subcultures. Even if a person has low social status outside the subculture, they might still have a shot at high social status within it, by virtue of having skills, knowledge or other attributes that the subculture appreciates. However, as the group fills up with mops, members start caring less about special skills or knowledge, and possession of them no longer grants the same status. Eventually the in-group is completely assimilated into the mainstream and the status boost is gone.
A minority of "geeks" start gatekeeping aggressively, and for the most part ineffectually. Their occasional local victories do little to undermine Chapman's thesis.
Or are there examples of *successful* geek gatekeeping efforts, leading to something more than tiny irrelevant enclaves of geek purity? I can't think of any offhand, but presumably there must be some.
That's a good point; the gatekeeping is usually a lost cause, so you're right in that it doesn't undermine Chapman's ideas. However, what got me interested in this was the aggressive gatekeeping itself—as Chapman observed, growing the group should be in the group's best interest, but some social dynamic is prompting members to try to keep new members out.
They don't gatekeep in the beginning not because they won't gatekeep but because there's very few people to gatekeep against.
Imagine a society, the Chrekists, dedicated to the study of Chrekology, a new science. In the beginning nearly nobody cares about them. Some people drift in because they discover some basic chrekological principles and want to learn more. But most people aren't even aware they exist. Now, if someone showed up and said, "the primary goal of chrekology should be the advancement of American national interest" they'd likely shoo them out of the room. And this would be gatekeeping. But it also wouldn't happen very often because everyone there would be preselected for high interest in chrekology.
However, eventually a company (Woomazon) gets founded using chrekological principles and it becomes successful making a great many chrekologists billionaires and millionaires and giving them almost complete control over the refining of oil. (Turns out chrekology is great for refining oil.) Suddenly a bunch of people with a passing interest in chrekology but a HUGE interest in money or power or environmentalist or whatever will want to enter chrekist communities. And at this point the same gatekeeping behaviors that have always existed will be applied to many, many more people. Who will not like this and might even feel entitled to police chrekist communities in line with their moral values.
At this point there will be a battle for who is to blame: the chrekists for enforcing standards on the activists, journalists, new members, etc or the activists, journalists, new members etc for entering the space without due respect or investment in the existing culture? If the former wins then the space becomes assimilated to general culture. If the latter wins it remains a united subculture but this does limit its influence on the wider outside world. Your statement amounts to asserting the first view is correct: it's their fault for desiring to enforce community standards. Which is certainly a common position.
My real issue is that it's often held hypocritically. "When you come into my spaces you must respect my norms but when I come into your spaces then you must respect my norms." Which in turn makes it into a social power game.
Another counter-phenomenon that I've noticed personally is that once the subculture becomes popular enough I stop caring as much about it, even if I was originally a hardcore evangelist. There's no longer the hipster cache of telling people about the cool new thing that they're not privy to, because it's no longer new and they probably already know about it.
The most prominent recent example of this for me has been ML & neural nets, which I've been talking people's ears off about for over a decade now, but has become so mainstream at this point that it no longer feels special.
I know, right? Once upon a time I felt cutting-edge for using insights from neural networks to more accurately model my mental processes. But two decades later, and now everyone's doing it! At least it's still as accurate as ever. :-)
> Gamergate seems to have been an expression of this phenomenon, where admittance of women into a traditionally male-dominated hobby seemed to cross some kind of threshold.
That's a strawman written by one side of the conflict. It is easy to believe, because it follows the known stereotypes and blames the low-status people. It fails to explain facts, if you happen to know any -- for example, why did these allegedly gatekeeping misogynists organize a game development contest for female developers? Also, why the sudden explosion in 2014?
The story of the opposite side, if I remember it correctly after almost ten years, is that two seemingly unrelated things happened...
1) Gamers kept complaining that game reviews in mainstream media are completely unrelated to how good the games actually are. Like, the most popular game of the year would get an average score; and then a crappy piece of software, more like a proof of concept than an actual game, something that a skilled high-school student could produce over a weekend, got the highest score and the journalists couldn't stop writing about how awesome it was. For the gaming community this mattered a lot, among other reasons because game developers in large companies often had their bonuses tied to the score in mainstream media.
2) A random guy wrote a blog about his relationship with an incredibly jealous rich girl, describing how she prevented him from meeting any of his female friends, and how she kept reminding him that if he ever cheats on her, that would technically mean that he raped her, because she only gave consent to an exclusive relationship. One day he got suspicious too, and started following her, and found out that she was actually cheating on him, not with one, but with five guys simultaneously.
...and then someone noticed that the girl described in the blog happens to be the author of the crappy but highly rated game, and two or three of the guys she cheated on her ex with, were game journalists who wrote the stellar reviews. And the internet exploded -- except, it did not, because any mention of the connection (or even her name) was immediately deleted, across dozens of seemingly unrelated subreddits. Overnight, gaming subreddits became a nuclear wasteland. Which of course only made people more curious, and they started finding out other interesting details.
Long story short, the journalist guys started the story of "akschually, the gamers simply hate women, there is nothing else to see here"; the story was repeated by other media, and thus became the official version on Wikipedia. The rich girl called her family lawyers and achieved a gag order against her ex; a year or more later it was revoked as unconstitutional, but by that time the narrative was already established.
There was never a significant complaint against women playing computer games / developing computer games / being computer game protagonists (various people believe different versions of the libel). Despite utterly losing the PR war, an important victory of Gamergate was that FTC finally noticed that game development is no longer an insignificant nerdy hobby, but became a billion-dollar business, and therefore reporting on games is now regulated; for example, game journalists are now legally required to disclose the conflict of interest, so the same story could not happen again today without potential legal consequences.
I remember seeing the word mentioned in various places, looking it up to find out what the controversy was about, and being only able to find completely biased descriptions from either side, each with an entirely different set of facts and claims. You might say every political controversy is like this, but this was particularly bad; usually you can easily find at least one neutral description of the controversy that summarises both sides. In this case, after heaps of searching I couldn't find a single explanation along the lines of "gamergate is a controversy which started when this group claimed this happened, but that other group said that was a lie and this happened instead".
So, has anyone actually investigated the factual claims in a remotely neutral way? The fact that both sides are still apparently recylcing the same "clearly, this is what happened" with no substantive evidence, makes it seem like the answer is no. Which makes this seem like one of the most sterile things to argue about, until there's a judicial verdict in a defamation case, or a transparent investigation by an unbiased media outlet (if such a thing is even possible at the moment).
Until then, I wonder if a way to partially resolve an issue like this where the basic facts are in dispute, would be to ask both sides to affirm certain moral principles in the abstract: "do you both accept that cheating is always despicable, no matter who does it?", "do you both accept that people of any demographic should be accepted as members of an online community?", regardless of whether they think these things happened in this particular case. If one side isn't willing to make those declarations, then I'd feel comfortable dismissing their entire position.
Ah, this is complicated. I completely understand your desire for a neutral person to come and provide a neutral description. I wish for that, too.
The problem is that whenever something like this happens -- a formerly neutral person comes, investigates the claims impartially, and concludes that the facts mostly (although not perfectly, there is of course a lot of exaggeration and misinterpretation) support one side -- such person is no longer considered neutral, at least by the opposing side, right? The former neutral now becomes "one of them", and as such is no longer trustworthy.
(It's like asking for a neutral person to decide whether it is better that Democrats or Republicans should win the election. No matter what position the person starts with, as long as they conclude e.g. "there are good arguments for both sides, but all things considered, it is better for the country if the Democrats win", such person is now considered pro-Democrat, rather than neutral. And people will complain again: if only we had a neutral person to explore the situation neutrally and tell us whether we should trust the pro-Democrats or the pro-Republicans.)
I mean, just the fact that I wrote the previous comment probably made everyone conclude that I am not neutral. And such reasoning makes perfect sense; I am not blaming you! Similarly, anyone I would quote or link, by the same logic, would not be neutral. The only way to keep your neutral creds is to either say "I have no idea" or to conclude that "both sides are exactly 50% right and 50% wrong" (but what is the neutral supposed to say if they conclude that this is *not* the case?). Going with the mainstream is also a relatively safe choice, if people consider the mainstream reporting neutral by definition.
It seems like the solution is to abstain from commentary and only link facts. Problem is, sometimes the facts only make sense in context. For example, I could link the game-making competition for the female developers (google "The Fine Young Capitalists"), but it would not be obvious from the link that this is related to GG at all. To achieve that, I would also need to add links to e.g. tweets supporting the competition by pro-GG people, and tweets attacking the competition by anti-GG people. Except, you probably do not know the pro-GG and anti-GG people by name, so I would need to add even more links to prove that. (In other words, the information is fragmented.) And if I sent you a list of 50 links supporting all of this, you could dismiss me as a crazy conspiracy theorist, based on a reasonable heuristic that sane people usually do not need 50 links to prove a trivial claim. Possible replies include "well, these 5, or 10, or 20 people do not represent their entire side" and "yeah, maybe they did this one thing, but otherwise everything their opponents said is true, so they are still the bad guys".
> "do you both accept that people of any demographic should be accepted as members of an online community?"
This sounds a bit like asking Scott to publicly affirm that women are allowed to read his blog and comment on it. Yes, they are; they never needed a special permission to do that; and they have actually been here from the very beginning -- the fact that Scott never made this specific public statement is irrelevant. The situation with GG was analogical, women were a part (although a minority) of the gaming community (and GG) since ever, and at one time there was a popular hashtag "#notyourshield" to specifically express the idea that they resent the accusations made by journalists that the gaming community is excluding them. So, the declaration you would like to see kinda exists, but again it requires a bit more context to understand.
Yes, it's complicated. My main point is not that there *should* be a neutral resolution, but that absent one, something like this is pointless and destructive to talk much about, especially in a place like this. Debates about political and moral values can be constructive and illuminating, and debates about the interpretation of widely available facts and statistics can be constructive and illuminating (particularly in a rational space with strong norms of logically defending your positions)...it may be naive to expect any progress *would* be made on those debates, but it's perfectly theoretically possible it *can* be.
But in a debate like this centering entirely around differing claimed facts: who did what when, who said what in response to what, whether this person on the internet really represents this other vaguely defined group on the internet and what their true motivations were in writing this article at this particular time...it's all just a horrible mess. No one's ever going to come to an agreement, not even if everyone is completely rational, acting in good faith, and enthusiastically willing to change their mind. So what's the point?
Imagine someone reading this thread who supports the feminist side of this controversy, or who just assumed that side was correct. How are they supposed to react to your description above? There's no way for them evaluate the claims logically (because they're not logical arguments) nor to test or confirm them evidentially...they're just claims. I know you described yourself as just giving the other side of the story, but the feel of the thread (and a lot of similiar threads like this) is kind of "we all know this is what really happened". And maybe it did, maybe how you described it is exactly what happened...or maybe it's completely false, and a set of lies that have become widely accepted in certain circles as true, despite their lack of proof. I have no clue. None at all. Not in the sense that it would be too difficult to figure out, but in the sense that the answer seems basically unknowable.
So the account here is no different from the other side's "clearly this happened" account, with no real debate expected or even possible. It doesn't brazenly state that the matter is not up for debate the way the other side often does (and let there be no doubt that whoever does *that* is always without exception infinitely more contemptible than whoever doesn't) but it's still not much more enlightening.
Also, I don't think neutral investigations are impossible. Let's say two feminist-leaning people thoroughly investigated the pro-gamergate claims, concluded that they were substantively corrrect, and then continued being generally pro-feminist while maintaining the feminists were wrong about this. That would look pretty good for the pro- side. Or if multiple critics of feminism said, "look I have heaps of problems with feminism, but this gamergate stuff is just batshit, it's all crap, and it's embarassing" that would be pretty strong for the anti- side. (This is what has happened with Trump's stolen election claims I think). On the other hand if someone previously pro-feminist investigated gamergate, concluded it was true, and shortly afterwards switched their whole attitude and became anti-feminist on everything...people would underatandably be suspicious (that their real motivation was separate and had nothing to do with the facts). And the same if it happened vice-versa.
And finally, I think public affirmations denouncung your own side's worst elements are hugely underrated. Scott is suspected by some of supporting scientific race differences, I believe. If he hasn't already, it would surely make a lot of sense for him to either publically state he doesn't support those, or state that if he did they would have absolutely no impact on how people of any race should be treated in any practical context. Likewise, I can't possibly describe how much my sympathy for any given feminist would increase if she were to make the following two statements: "I don't believe anyone is being fired or ostracised for good-faith disagreement with feminism, but if that has happened I condemn it utterly and unequivocally stand with those people" and "I don't believe a fetus is at all sentient, but if I was convinced of that I would of course become pro-life".
The difference between "I'm not doing this, and if I were it would be contemptible" and "I'm not doing this, but even if I were who cares, because your rights don't matter" is the difference between someone who I can reasonably disagree with, and someone who I have no choice but to conclude is simply evil.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up; I haven't heard this side of the story before.
If they really cared about Ethics in Games Journalism, why did they spend all their time talking about the alleged relationships of one random woman who made a game they'd never heard of, instead of getting outraged at the rampant corruption in AAA games journalism (i.e. the games people actually play and care about)? Their battlecry should have been "Kane and Lynch", not "Five Guys".
Why did black people get outraged over Rosa Parks not allowed to sit in the bus? I am sure there were way more serious examples of discrimination happening at the same time. Why didn't they discuss those instead?
First, your question contains a false dilemma; people in GG discussed both those topics, and many others. The relationship itself was never a major topic for GG -- the opponents kept talking about it all the time, to keep the story simple and draw away attention from all the other topics. (The woman herself was a repeated topic of the debate, but for other things she allegedly did, such as embezzling money ostensibly collected to support female game developers, organizing Twitter mobs, abusing the legal system against her ex. Probably other things I forgot.)
Second, the straw that breaks the camel's back is not necessarily the heaviest straw in the cargo. Sometimes people's patience wears off at a random moment.
Third, there was Streisand effect in action; of course people enjoyed discussing the one topic they were not allowed to discuss anywhere else. But that was in the beginning; the debate soon turned to other topics.
Because that was what drew the over-the-top instaultrabanning.
The woman in question was a long-time lolcow (as were others that managed to jump in front of the parade and claim those sweet victim points) but until GG, those controversies flared up and died out. It was the response from reddit et. al. that made GG happen.
There's a convenient Wikipedia entry that documents the controversy but says that all the "unethical relationships" with just one journalist were "falsely claimed", and that these claims were *largely* dismissed conspiracy theories.
Now, when I read Wikipedia or ant media and see words like "debunked" or "false claimed" I am immediately suspicious and wonder if it has truth to it and can't go check footnotes right now for whether they're legit, say what they're claimed to prove, is a citation ring... Also Wikipedia is completely ideologically taken over as well.
Edit: the Wikipedia goes into more detail but also contests the above account of events, but again, hard to tell which is true.
The creation of that article was a wonderful real-time demonstration of how terrible wikipedia can be. The... "creative" enforcement of WP:OWN , WP:AGF and WP:RS was breathtaking. If there's any evidence left online of ryulong, that can give you an insight into the anti-GG movement.
In defense of Wikipedia, it is not often the case that "journalists" is literally one side of a famous conflict. But when that happens, the policy "only journalists are considered reliable sources" basically results in one side writing the Wikipedia article, and the other side not even allowed to express their point (only the strawmen made by their opponents are allowed per policy).
Fun fact: After getting banned on Wikipedia, user Ryulong moved to RationalWiki, spend one year single-handedly producing some of the longest articles on that website; then disappeared. (I think 7 out of the 10 longest articles on RationalWiki were about GG, as of 2015. Later Trump happened, and pushed them out of top 10.)
Some context for those out of the loop: https://web.archive.org/web/20190115042106/https://techraptor.net/content/wikipedia-article-concerning-gamergate-controversy-battles-controversy
Ryulong? But everything remotely controversial is like this on Wikipedia, by the way.
He was the OWNer of that article, and so batshit he got kicked out of rationalwiki.
While all controversial articles are like that, I don't know of any that were as well documented by third parties as they were happening.
Someone should really write this up so it can be documented and linked to.
Wonder if he writes down a snopes or splc type place now!
This is insane, and frankly kind of disgusting as you described it! Is this documented somewhere in a place that's linkable and more easily shareable then this comment? If want to share and discuss with my friends.
Be careful. Among people who know about it, this is about as politicized as Jan 6, if not more so.
Isn't this basic anti-colonialist behavior?
You've got a group with a culture, which has been capable of propagating itself and absorbing newcomers. But now a bunch of new immigrants show up, and while they're willing to adopt the trappings of your culture, they continue on doing their thing, having their own culture, arguing about their own politics, using their own language. And then there's more of them than there are of you, and suddenly their culture and their politics become the most important thing in the group. Their taboos matter, while yours are backwards bigotry. Their language is spoken everywhere, while speaking your language marks you as an outsider with questionable ethics. They look down on you, mock your quaint ways, and push you out to the fringes. Eventually they herd you onto reservations, while taking your children away and immersing them in their own culture until they don't even speak your language fluently.
I feel like the more general term "anti-immigration" would be more appropriate than the more specific "anti-colonialist".
Not to me; cultural assimilation is a thing, and is pretty much the only way online communities grew, back in the day. We want immigrants, we welcome them, but they ought to read the FAQ and lurk enough to grok the vibe. What we don't want are a lot of people showing up and collectively dominating the discourse with discussions identical to those in hundreds of other locations.
And central to the idea of immigration is an acceptance that culture will change, over the long run. That's life and growth, rather than death and stagnation. But too much change at once can create environmental collapse.
Agreed. Some of the better online spaces that I've been a part of had aggressive rules that newcomers were forced to follow until such time as they became acculturated. The downside, of course, is that in successfully preserving and maintaining a specific online culture, you risk having the space fizzle and die a slow death as the cultural space ossifies.
Your really need to cultivate an ethos of open citizenship - where anyone, no matter where they're from, can become natives if they they're willing to follow some specific ground norms and rules (and rulebreakers are punished aggressively), but also where the established citizens are willing to let the newbies in once they've shown themselves to be good actors. This means consciously allowing some aspects of your group culture to change, even if you don't agree with it, so long as they don't run contra to the ground rules.
Absolutely. It's a hard line to walk.
I do not have an answer to your specific question, but an analogous scenario that sprang to mind. It loses some of the behavioral complexity of your "geekdom" example, but as such also makes for a slightly more measurable thought experiment. Hopefully it can help seed some discussion.
The scenario:
A company that builds a weight loss mobile application is setting goals for the year. One executive suggests a goal to increase the effectiveness of their program, as measured in average pounds lost per app user. This is tabled, and other goals are prioritized around revenue growth, including the number of new users they'd like to acquire for the year. This number is much larger than in past years because they'd like to expand their market share.
When the lbs/user goal is revisited, everyone agrees that it is a good values-based (or at least mission-based) goal to balance the pure revenue goals.
As the year progresses, success in meeting these two goals seems inversely proportional. When one is on track or pacing ahead, the other is almost certainly trailing behind expected progress.
This makes sense, because in order to expand market share, the company pushed beyond their market bubble of users seeking 100-200lb loss, and was now appealing to those with smaller weight loss goals. Seeing success with these audiences, the company continues to expand.
Eventually, they are abandoned and spoken poorly of by their previous audience of users with large weight loss goals, many of whom move to a different app.
Where is the tipping point, and what was a better goal? Helping more people achieve their goals, or helping people with the most pressing goals achieve them? Promoting the popularity of something you value, or protecting a space for the most devoted of the geekdom?
(This is a scenario I witnessed as a consultant. Sharing it is not an expression of any opinion on body weight or weight loss!)
Thanks for your comment! I guess this is the other side of the coin, where you’re sort of moving the lever for what should constitute the “in-group”.
Have you read Crossing the Chasm? I’ve only heard it summarized, but from what I understand it deals with the issue of how to transition from catering to early adopters towards mainstream users
Dating ad: I’m a 28-year-old woman (she / her pronouns) who works as an AI alignment researcher and lives in Berkeley, CA. I’m looking for a man, aged ~24-34, who lives in the Bay Area and is looking for a primary, monogam-ish, or monogamous partner. Check out my dating doc! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n_O2nBYJwsZDSXXrVCo9zZHVioeHyvjNWRk6TVCauS8/edit?usp=sharing
(And Scott, please let me know if this kind of content isn't what you want in the open thread.)
Good to put your preferred pronouns up front - let's people know more about who you are than the rest of the dating doc does (for better or for much, much worse).
Rude.
I'm genuinely curious here: why are you single and why do you think a dating doc is necessary? I ask because you're an attractive young woman whose career and social lives both intersect with heavily male-dominated spaces. It's surprising to me that you don't have a long list of high-iq men waiting in line to date you. Are you simply unsatisfied with the men in your circles, and if so why? Do you not like STEM types or something?
Curious: how many responses have you gotten to it so far? "Woman working in AI alignment" seems like an ideal match for 70% of readers of this blog :-)
Since I posted this over 12 hours ago, none! I think the demographics might be a bigger bottleneck than many think, between location, gender, age, and relationship interest. The last time I posted on an open thread I got three responses, two of which became dates, and all of whom were people I was excited about.
If you're in the right demographic buckets, and you're reading this, you're likely in my ideal dating pool! Please don't be shy about sending me a message :)
Grammar time!
A tight space is sometimes described as being claustrophobic. A person who is afraid of tight spaces is also claustrophobic. This only works for tight spaces -- you wouldn't describe a wide open space as agoraphobic, or a spider as arachnophobic. But the adjective "claustrophobic", for some reason, applies to both the fearing subject and the feared object.
Another example: suspicious. A suspicious person can either be a person who is suspicious, or a person about whom suspicions are formed.
Are there other examples of this sort of thing, and does it have a name?
It seems to be analogous to the concept of labile verbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labile_verb , but I can't find if it has been named for adjectives.
"English Usage can be so challenging that sometimes even very experienced writers and speakers need guidance."
When I am wracked with doubt, I try saying the words or the sentence out loud. If it sounds awkward and terrible, it pretty much *IS* awkward and terrible. The simple guidance, "Does it sound right/wrong?" works for 99% of all cases, and that comforts me.
Almost all of these edge case are words almost nobody ever says out loud or would ever use in real conversation. Hence the confusion. They are still great and useful words. Oh, and we are nerds.
BR
This phenomenon has many names! Contronyms, enantiosemic terms, auto-antonyms, even Janus words. It’s interesting that usage hasn’t really favored a single term over the others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym
How fun that there are so many terms for one concept, when that concept is one term meaning many things!
Not exactly the same but I think the word ‘sanction’ is fun because it has meanings that are the opposite of each other.
The accident was caused by an oversight of the oversight comittee: they sanctioned behaviour that they should have sanctioned. Then then didn't hold it fast so it went too fast.
And the verb “dust” which can mean to add or remove dust from something.
"cleave" is another one like that.
"Nauseous" is an example, although I was taught that correct usage is actually to describe sickening things as nauseous, but people experiencing nausea as nauseated.
"Nauseous" is a word so fraught and misundsterstood that I don't even want to think about it. I have no idea what is right,.
Legend has it that David Foster Wallace's entire interview for a faculty position at Pomona College consisted of him ranting for 10 minutes about the misuse of those words, he filled up two blackboards and broke every stick of chalk and stormed out.
He had them at, "David" of course....
I think"nauseous" is one of those words whose usage has changed over time. The distinction I mention was the rule, for a while, but people began to ignore it, and now using nauseous to mean nauseated is so common that it's the new correct.
Maybe because I was thinking about my mother today (w/r/t Watergate), I realize that I am terrified of the judgement and disapproval of people who are long dead. But being dead doesn't mean they are not right, nor does it make my mistakes less wrong (see what I did there...?)
Crushing self-judgment is much easier to take when it is both externalized and internalized. I guess that's why kids today like turn-by-turn directions coming out of their phone. Personally, if I want a disembodied woman's voice telling me what to do at literally every turn, I have my dead mother for that.
Maybe that's harsh, but I *never* get lost and I *never* make grammatical mistakes.
"Fearful" is another example.
French also has "louer" and "apprendre". It's quite interesting to consider which are enantiosemic across languages and which are not. "Louer" can be translated as "lease" for both meanings (lease an apartment to someone, lease an apartment from someone) but the same doesn't hold of "apprendre" (learn and teach aren't enantiosemic).
The more you know! I looked it up and apparently that meaning is "criticized", "nonstandard", or "obsolete", though perhaps not in certain regional varieties of the language.
True, it's not used in the most prestigious dialects of English. Some people have the opinion that only the most prestigious dialects are "correct", and that only those dialects should be used, and that deviation is "bad English". Other people, including most linguists, have the opinion that being able to speak the prestige dialect is an important skill and something that should be taught, but that other dialects aren't "backward" or "obsolete", and that it's fine to also speak those.
Dictionaries do tend to be written by and for speakers of prestigious dialects. I think the qualifier "nonstandard" used by most dictionaries in this case captures the appropriate nuance well.
Thoughts on gender:
As one does, I periodically see memes like "Trans lesbians sure do love X, Y, and Z!" And X, Y, and Z do seem like things I like/would like if I tried...except I'm a straight cis man. Is there a psychological commonality between me and the average trans lesbian? I believe I have found a contender.
I believe I experience a trans lesbian-like feeling that I would describe as a "revulsion to masculinity." E.g., I don't watch porn with audio because sometimes the man talks, and at no point do I ever want to listen to a man talk. This revulsion has a partial exception for myself, but imagining myself with the physique of a professional bodybuilder grosses me out (not that there is any danger of this ever happening). But what if I didn't make this exception?
I hypothesize that there is a psychological dial in the XY brain labeled "Masc = Ew." If you set this dial to Medium, you get someone like me; if you set it to High, you get a trans lesbian. Trans lesbian-typical interests come along for the ride when the dial moves.
You've been reading Brendan's Just So Stories.
Well, trans lesbians are just relabelled men so you both share that. It shouldn't be shocking that your tastes overlap somewhat. Out of curiosity, what are examples of X, Y, and Z?
FWIW I (straight man) also hate hearing men speak in porn and I interpret that as being extremely repulsed by gay sex. When I'm having sex (or masturbating or whatever) I don't want another man anywhere NEAR me: I don't want to think of men, see men (except as an avatar that I can mentally project myself onto), or hear men. It's probably also why I hate MMF 3some porn.
So I would guess that you're just really straight with a strong natural revulsion to gay stuff. Do you hate masculinity in non-sexual contexts, like sports?
I've always thought that team sports were disturbingly homoerotic.
That comports with a strong anti-gay response. Maybe you're just really straight.
At one point I've figured out that the way my sexual attraction works is much more similar to the way trans lesbian's sexual attraction works than cis man's.
It was a hard thing to pin down and details are hard to explain. But in broad strokes, I'm not really attracted to a central example of submissive gender-conforming cis heterosexual woman. She may have a beautiful body but the patterns in behaviour and expectations are an instant turn off. On the other hand, typically lesbian behavior patterns, social clues and vibes are attractive to me. There is also a deep feeling that I'm supposed to be pursued and not be the pursuer. Or at least be equally initiative about the relationship as my partner. And I had some issues with my dating life due to it.
Thus I prefer to date bisexual women because they tend to have different mode of relating to their partner which I'm more comfortable with. I've never heard about such thing but talking to several trans women validated that they have similar experiences with their sexuality.
It's interesting how many heterosexual males out there have similar attraction patterns. They do not identify as women, they do not find the idea of being woman sexually arosing, they are just attracted to women in the way other women usually are. My first thought was about incels. How many of them also had troubles with dating because they were after not the type of women they are actually attracted to? What if what they actually need is an initiative feminist girlfriend instead of a trad wife?
I dont think its quite like this -
Sexual differentiation during early development and puberty is enacted by sex hormones. They seem to operate on both self-perceptions of gender identity, as well as preferences of sexuality. (Though in both cases theres certainly more going on as well, but differentiation seems to be important)
It seems that things that can alter the normal differentiation of gender and the normal differentiation of sexuality are separate and merely correlated mechanisms. That is - natal exposure to testosterone seems to pretty reliably make someone female-attracted (true for women too)
Theres not a psychological dial, its just that you can break the mechanism that properly differentiates gender-self-perception into having some ambiguity, without breaking the mechanism that makes someone female-attracted, and vice-versa. My own speculative just-so proposed model is:
Early sexual differentiation can be broken in a variety of ways, notably separately gender and sexuality -
If your gender differentiates properly but your sexuality doesnt youre a gay man
If your gender differentiates ambiguously but your sexuality differentiates properly youre a trans lesbian
If both gender and sexuality differentiate ambiguously youre a bi or straight trans woman
The two properties are correlated - if youre ambiguous in one youre likely to be at least a little ambiguous in another - but they are separate things.
That said, theres a notable _difference_ in stereotype between trans lesbians and straight and bi trans women. Probably theres some important feedback loops between sexuality and personality. (Its certainly the case that lesbian cis women have different stereotypes from straight and bi cis women)
I, too, relate this, especially the bodybuilder fear. On the rare occasion when I think about my own gender, I think of it as oriented towards masculinity but with very low magnitude. I imagine that if it were truly costless to change gender presentations, I'd switch back and forth from time to time.
For what its worth, I've been working out with two cis friends, one a man and one a woman. They're both very strong, and it's helped me separate "strong" from "masculine" a bit, which has helped me enjoy going to the gym more. That's a healthy habit regardless of gender, so I'm grateful for that attitude shift.
>I don't watch porn with audio because sometimes the man talks<
There are men in your porn? Gaaay.
Seriously though, porn is not the standard for revulsion to masculinity. Would you dislike a sports game (or cooking show or whatever) with male commentators?
Bodybuilding bodies are a very particular thing that most people don't actually want. What other features have you imagined yourself having? How do you feel about being a foot taller, or a different skin tone, or a wider/thinner nose, or a foot-long schlong (or an inch-long schlong)? Is it revulsion to the bodybuilding, or revulsion to any change?
> Would you dislike a sports game (or cooking show or whatever) with male commentators?
Yes, at least relative to the same thing with female commentators.
> How do you feel about being a foot taller
Probably inconvenient. Half a foot taller would be nice.
> a different skin tone, or a wider/thinner nose
Don't care, assuming my relatives magically change too to prevent awkwardness.
> a foot-long schlong (or an inch-long schlong)?
It's fine the way it is, thanks.
It's revulsion to looking hyper-masculine. I suppose suddenly becoming 6'2" would make me *slightly" more masculine, but it's not enough to set off the disgust reaction.
This is pretty similar to my experience as a guy. I thought I was trans-female when I was a teenager, but now I feel that I don't really care one way or the other? I think some would say I'm an egg, but I don't really want to be a girl either. Gendered behavior often seems cliche, but then I also feel that I detect cliches too much, such as getting annoyed by repetition in a music, even when I simultaneously judge it as appropriate, so I don't trust my disgust/cringe response to be meaningful.
@JMJ:
In your hypothetical diverse religion class, are the ideas of the various religions being presented by people who believe in them? Does it still qualify as intellectual diversity if lots of religions are covered but all of them are described by the same person, someone who believes in one or none of them?
The ideal teacher would have to be a perennialist: one who believes all religions are fundamentally valid.
That's still a perspective in and of itself. Someone who believes Christianity is the one true religion and if you don't follow it you're going to hell is unlikely to have their beliefs fairly represented by a perennialist
I think it is impractical to hire a teacher for each religion, and limiting the religions to those you can hire believers thereof would probably go against the original intent (getting familiar with a wider range of religions).
So I'd say the person has to pass the "intellectual Turing test", i.e. be able to give a description that a true believer of the religion would consider fair. Also, to answer additional questions from the students (and probably keep contact with actual theologians of those religions, to verify the answers later).
This of course assumes that the religions are "open". I don't have a good solution for religions that lie to their followers... ahem, have different spiritual truths for the followers on different levels, and only disclose each truth when the followers are ready, and quite often the truth is that the previous truth was utter bullshit. -- Technically, this could be simulated by a teacher gradually role-playing different spiritual levels. But I assume the true believers would strongly disapprove of this approach. (They would probably prefer to only teach the first level, which I would disapprove of, as it goes against the goal of actually knowing the religion.)
"Does it still qualify as intellectual diversity if lots of religions are covered but all of them are described by the same person, someone who believes in one or none of them?"
<mild snark>
A couple of additional possibilities come to mind:
All of them are described by the same person, someone who believes in two or more mutually incompatible ones.
All of them are described by the same person, who has multiple personality disorder (which I'm probably misdescribing - not my field), where each religion is described by a personality that believes in it.
</mild snark>
Or in other words you are absolutely confident in an opinion that everyone you know shares and that you have never heard a coherent defense of — although you know that you know less about the society in question than did a large number of people who lived in it and held the opposite opinion.
Thus demonstrating the virtues of intellectual diversity and the problem with its absence.
I am not, as it happens, a supporter of apartheid, although I am less confident than you are those who supported it were wrong. But there are other issues, some of which I know quite a lot about, where I have encountered the same pattern of ignorant certainty coming out of the same lack of intellectual diversity in the relevant environment. You can probably guess some of them from my first substack post or the post two before this.
I think that there are cases where ignorant certainty is at least only mildly damaging. I'm not a fan of KIllerBee's phrasing about "outmoded beliefs", which sounds like it includes beliefs and preferences which were suppressed by force of arms -
but consider purely factual claims. At one point, for instance, continental drift was a hotly contested hypothesis. I'm sure that there were very plausible sounding arguments against it - and, I admit, I am ignorant of these arguments. These days, we can measure the movements of Earth's plates with GPS and watch the continents move, inch by inch. Some science does get settled to the point where omitting the contrary arguments no longer matters.
I assume this was directed at my reply (if not, please indicate).
I have said none of those things. You have replied to none of my counterarguments about why a University would have legitimate interest in not hiring an advocate of racial apartheid.
Your argument that universities should hire for intellectual diversity of beliefs like advocacy for racial apartheid: "you know less about the society in question than did a large number of people who lived in it and held the opposite opinion....thus demonstrating the virtues of intellectual diversity." This argument could be applied to any outmoded belief set that was supported by a large number of people. As an argument, it is so insipid that I can copy paste it as a defense of hiring a geocentrist, someone who believes that onanism is the source of evil, etc.
I am happy to keep demolishing your arguments, but keep in mind that I do have other pressing matters like dinner to get to.
You've done nothing but display your own intolerance and ignorance of alternative viewpoints - a hostility to REAL intellectual diversity. If your conception of intellectual diversity is one in which you disagree on nothing truly fundamental with anyone else, then it's a trivial kind of diversity that should in no way be expected to pay any kind of intellectual dividends. The fact that you cannot conceive of how there could be at least valid utilitarian reasons in principle for supporting apartheid shows that you're extraordinarily close minded.
Geocentrism can be scientifically demonstrated to be false. Whether or not apartheid is morally acceptable cannot be, and to the extent that we can know whether or not it empirically produced superior utilitarian outcomes compared with the alternative, the evidence is far closer to the affirmative than you're imagining. You're the perfect example of what happens when people live in an echo chamber and aren't ever exposed to genuinely conflicting viewpoints. You probably recall in shock and outrage if somebody suggests intelligence differences between races not only exist but are substantially genetic in nature, despite the significant evidence in favor of this viewpoint, because again, you don't value and don't seek true intellectual diversity.
RE: 'real intellectual diversity' -- I haven't argued for (or against) intellectual diversity here, merely pointed out that the most naïve definition does not make sense as a hiring criteria. Let alone 'true' or 'real' intellectual diversity. In fact my first response to Friedman points out that the term is ambiguous -- Friedman really ought to define it. 'Bistromathtician' has a nice comment in the original thread (top level comment is by 'ClocksAndMetersticks') breaking down many reasons why Universities are unlikely to actually want a fully naïve definition like 'representative of the full array of intellectual experiences'. More generally, I advise you to click on the the Wikipedia entry for apartheid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid), read it entirely, and reflect on why recovery from apartheid may be difficult and take time. Consider, as a point of comparison, how long it has take for China to throw off colonial reigns and approach its historical level of power. And China was only foreign-controlled for about 100 years!
Back to your post: I have made the same argument (that Friedman is mistaken) since my initial response to Friedman. Instead of acknowledging his error, Friedman has doubled down and invited a swarm of sycophants like you to accuse me of ignorance, intolerance, and other rubbish. This is ironic, considering that you really should treasure my intellectual diversity, no? Anyway, I'll paste my initial post below:
[Friedman's example is about a University being bad by disfavoring a candidate a professor position who advocates for racial apartheid. Me:] "Your example muddies things by mixing intellectual diversity (which is ambiguous) and premises that blunt credible research, teaching, and service (like advocacy for racial apartheid):
1) Intellectual diversity is ambiguous. It could be said that it is 'diverse' to believe that the world is flat: ~20% of the US population are at least unsure about it (see https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-a-survey-of-us-public-beliefs). There is no clear public or private good served by recruiting racial apartheid advocates or flat earthers to University merely because people in a population hold those views.
2) Universities and departments want candidates to do credible research, teaching, and service. Advocating racial apartheid is a take that blunts the credibility of a candidate's research, teaching, and service contributions: such a person is less likely to be capable of credibly researching, doing research with, teaching, or serving non-White people."
You didn't demolish his argument, though. Apparently all you did was affirm that there are multiple cases to which that argument applies - which I take as a claim that you know little about a great many societies. That leaves little to respond to.
Hope your dinner went all right.
It was great, thanks!
Oh, well. Better luck next time...
"How Science Sleuths Showed LK-99 Isn't a Superconductor"...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02585-7
Thank you for finding this article! (I haven't been following the LK-99 replications or such since the initial news broke in late July - this is exactly the kind of accessible-to-a-general-audience writing I've wanted.)
I have a "review" of Ramaswamy's proposal for backing the dollar with a basket of commodities: https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/ramaswamy-and-the-fed
I don't know what Ramaswamy is proposing, but a commodity basket currency is an old idea — I discussed it in the context of private money in this piece:
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/gold-paper-oris-there-better-money
In that context it works just like an ordinary commodity system, where the issuer agrees to give anyone who brings in one of his notes a fixed amount of silver. If anyone brings in a million Friedman dollars I give him two ounces of gold, a hundred bushels of grade B wheat, four hundred pounds of class A steel, ...
It's price fixing, but the price that is fixed is the price of the currency. If the Friedman dollar is worth less than the commodity bundle backing it dollars come in to my bank, the number of Friedman dollars in circulation goes down, and the value of the Friedman dollar goes up. Just like a standard fractional reserve system based on silver or gold.
The U.S. at one time had a commodity system based on gold, and there is no reason it couldn't have one based on a commodity bundle. If the summed price of the commodities in the bundle that a million dollars exchanged for was more than a million dollars people would demand redemption of their dollars and the issuer, the Treasury or the Fed, would have to reduce the money supply, since the alternative is to keep issuing dollars and having to buy them back with commodities at a loss.
There are two advantages to a commodity bundle over a single commodity. It results in a more stable price level, since you don't get inflation when a new source of the commodity is discovered and its value goes down, or deflation when the demand for the commodity increases and the supply doesn't. And you don't have to tie up real resources digging gold up in order to put it in bank vaults, because the issuer can go out and buy as much of the commodities as it needs when it has to redeem — the monetary demand is a tiny fraction of the total demand.
Review of the review: For readability would have been nice to link the video. I thought your charitable notes at the end hinted at areas where you had lots of thoughts I would have been interested to hear more about. I'd lean into your instincts to write about something you found interesting or funny about his view rather than feeling obliged to be comprehensive. I worry it's hard to digest the big picture implications of the review, for no fault of your own, because Ramaswamy's views on the fed aren't really nailed down. They seem kind of mix of mainstream policy and some Paul-esque talking points on precious metals put in a blender, is that right?
Since candidates are pretty boring on fed policies, I'd be even more interested in your take on fictional radically new fed policies that you think would be interesting to see some fictional candidate adopt. Like, what would happen if the fed got to set the boundaries of fiscal policy too? What if Congress was forced to add some third mandate, what might be a good candidate in your view?
Scott's done some of these "policies of imaginary states" pieces, they can be a lot of fun, and I think you might have some good ideas for something like that.
> It could mean legally defining the dollar as x grams of gold, y grams of silver, z grams of nickel, q kilos of wheat (of defined characteristics), etc., ... This would have the effect of legislating the relative prices of the commodities in the basket.
This doesn't sound right to me. Say the basket contains 10 mg of gold and a pound of flour. The government isn't promising to sell you 10mg of gold for 50 cents and a lb of flour for 50 cents, they're only making a promise about the price of the bundle. If gold gets more expensive, they could spend 66 cents on the gold and 34 cents on the flour.
How does the government drive the price of flour down from 50 cents a pound to 34 cents a pound in response to the price of gold going up?
For a numerical example:
Step 1, the market price of flour stays fixed at 50 cents a pound and gold goes up to 97 cents per 10 mg.
Step 2, everybody math skills notices that if they give a dollar to the government then the government will give them stuff they can sell in the market for one dollar and forty-seven cents. Everybody with dollars and math skills, does as much of this as they can manage.
Step 3, so many dollars have been diverted into this arbitrage circle, ultimately winding up in government vaults, that the supply of dollars available for buying everything else is reduced. The amount of stuff being delivered to market for sale, is not reduced (or at least not as quickly as the money gets sucked into arbitrage schemes). In order for merchants to sell their goods, they have to reduce prices. Of everything. Reduced money supply = deflation.
Step 4. When the dollar has deflated by 32%, the price of flour is (50)(1-0.32) = 34 cents per pound and the price of gold is (97)(1-0.32) = 66 cents per pound. It is no longer possible to make a profit selling dollars to the government and taking the flour and gold to the market, so the money supply stabilizes.
And really, the four steps will proceed in parallel and quite quickly.
In a plain gold standard, if the price of gold jumps from 50 cents per 10 mg to 97 cents per 10 mg, the dollar will deflate by over 48%. This is bad. In a two-commodity market basket standard, the same gold price spike only deflates the dollar by 32%, which is less bad. What happens when you get a 94% price spike in one element of a ten-commodity market basket standard is left as an exercise for the student.
The government is controlling the general price level by issuing or burning currency. If the bundle is worth more than a dollar that means the dollar is worth less than the bundle, and the government increases the value of the dollar by reducing the number of dollars in circulation. Doing that pushes down the price of both gold and flour.
In practice you want many more commodities, and you do redemption a million dollars at a time not one dollar.
Vivek Ramaswamy gets high profile endorsement.
From O J Simpson.
Ain't he lucky.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/27/vivek-ramaswamy-oj-simpson-nfl-football-debate-george-soros-murder-1994/
I desperately want to make a snarky comment here, but it would be in very bad taste. Alas.
I fancy I have devised the Master Counterargument Against Every Conceivable Atheist Argument. It's very simple really, as it's based on the observation that every argument for atheism omits the conclusion, which is always the same:
> [Some argument that there is no God]
> ... and in conclusion, I know more than Jesus, am therefore better than him, and you should listen to me and not Jesus!
They never say this, and yet, it is always entailed, because really, if Jesus was not the Son of God and you know this to be so, you definitely are better than Jesus: you are right and Jesus was wrong about something extremely central to Jesus. As this conclusion is as false as stating that 1 = 0, you can be certain the preceding argument had some sort of flaw, even if you can't pinpoint it.
It's like I experienced in college, when a math professor solved a very complex equation, and the calculation ended in 1 = 0. He dared us to find where he had made an error. None did. Yet, you could be sure there was some kind of mistake somewhere, because one does not equal zero.
The same with atheism.
Aside from the other problems with this, you're missing the part that atheists aren't disputing Jesus' known beliefs and mindset - they're disputing what he possibly believes based on accounts from others of what he possibly said and what he possibly intended by those things. You're taking it as absolutely true that what the bible says is what Jesus believed to be true, which is almost certainly not completely true.
> ... and in conclusion, I know more than Jesus
Well, if Jesus died 2000 years ago, I am pretty sure I know more about quantum physics and science in general. But he probably knew more about carpentry.
> am therefore better than him
Can't comment on this; I usually don't do this kind of unqualified comparisons.
> and you should listen to me and not Jesus!
Depends on the topic.
> you are right and Jesus was wrong about something extremely central to Jesus.
I imagine that people are wrong about things central to them quite often.
Fun argument. Though I don’t think many atheists would be the least bit embarrassed to claim that they know more than Jesus did. As you point out, it quite literally goes without saying.
Leaving aside the scientific, philosophical, and technological advances that have happened in the last 2000 years, and the improved quality of public education, what is it Jesus would have infallible knowledge about?
I don’t think his claim was that he was the son of god, in the sense that he was at home playing with his toys when god came home from the office, and then they had dinner together around the kitchen table. Yes, Jesus would have known a thing or two about that.
But that’s not the claim. Part of it is about how he was conceived, and I don’t necessarily accept that anyone knows (or wants to know) the details around how they were conceived. (“Yeah, I’ll just take your word for it, mom!”)
Unless Jesus took a DNA test, he probably shouldn’t be too confident about who his father was.
Of course, the claim could mean something different, spiritual or metaphorical, but then ... What does it even mean to be the son of God? Jesus could theoretically be “right” without atheists being wrong. (“Oh, I just meant I’m a child of nature.”)
Then there’s the possibility that Jesus was just a delusional vagrant, that he was an L.Ron Hubbard style con man, that he didn’t exist at all, or that he existed but was misquoted about being the son of god (“I said son of Gad! Mom’s old boyfriend, from before she met Joe.”) in which case we’d just have to know better than whatever randos wrote stories about him.
Anyway... I don’t know how seriously you take the argument, but it’s fun to engage with ideas like that.
This also "works" as a counterargument against anyone denying that I am Napoleon Bonaparte, should I advance such a claim. If you say that I am not Napoleon, then you are saying you know more about me than I do and that you are better than me. For me to not be Napoleon would mean that I am wrong about something very central to me. As this conclusion is supposedly as false as stating that 1=0, you can bet your last dollar that I am in fact Napoleon Bonaparte.
Jesus' knowledge manifests in many ways, it's not just the Son of God claim. I brought that up because if he was wrong about that it puts everything else into question
C. S. Lewis adopts a similar argument in Mere Christianity, that one must believe Jesus was either insane, a con artist, or the messiah.
One should note though that there have been thousands of messianic mystics, many of them alive today. Sathya Sai Baba has millions of followers and countless eye witnesses claim he has performed magical feats in front of them, as Sam Harris describes here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JI-0py-YQY
So you have to kind of run this argument with this whole class of people. And after you study enough of these cases, one option is to just sort of accept this as part of human nature. Somehow nonnegligible number of humans either convince themselves they have magic powers, exaggerate facts to emphasize their spiritual experiences, or are just conmen, and it's not trivial to discern which is which.
And I suppose you could pick any particular case as a true savior, many people do. But you're going to face a bit of a sheep and goats problem after you encounter more than one of these, figuring out why to take some of these claims credibly while discounting others. I'm not saying it can't be done but it's nontrivial work.
I take C. S. Lewis at his word, that this is a fine way for him to ground his faith, and believe that this reaffirms your position for you. I similarly take Sam Harris at his word, with some extrapolation, that this is not a knockdown argument for him. Both of those can probably be true.
Incidentally I feel like Lewis and Harris are both worth reading if you care about this issue, regardless of what side you're on.
Ah how I miss the early internet. It's been a long time since we've done all this. Seems fun in moderation.
Yes, I read Mere Christianity. Personally, I think Jesus' greatest miracle was his teachings, that's the part you know is real.
And yeah, Messiahs and God-men are an ever present phenomenon. I happen to believe many of them are for real, though I have no rule for discerning. Well, I guess it's how Jesus said: by their fruits ye shall know them.
It's quite possible for person A to know more than person B about one thing, but for person B to know more than person A about another. In fact it's inevitable between almost any pair of people, past or present, you choose. So who is better, A or B?
If Jesus is wrong about being the Son of God, does he know anything? All those claims that can't be empirically verified?
Hmmmm, though perhaps it is possible that the first person to say what Jesus said, in the way he said it, would've been remembered for millennia anyway, even if they never claimed godhood.
Maybe even Jesus himself claimed that:
> The Heavens and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away.
That is, it's all in the teachings.
Doesn't your logic believe lead us to conclude that we should believe many of the modern people who claim to be reincarnations of people in the bible? When I meet someone with such claims, I tend to be dubious. In fact there are many people all claiming to be the same person, so it feels like a pretty safe bet that many of them are wrong about something central to themselves. I'm not sure that I'm better than them, just that their claims seem pretty improbable.
No, because those people never say anything as impressive as what Jesus taught. It's more like through the teachings, you know there is something special about Jesus. The teachings legitimize the Son of God claim, not the other way around.
Which teachings were so impressive?
Aren't you adding a new claim though, now that the teachings ascribed to Jesus are more special than those of other people? I think that this destroys any claim to simplicity, because now someone who disagrees with you is free to throw any other meaningful, but contradictory, teachings at you (I'd probably start with Homer, the Buddha, and Mohammed). At this point it devolves into an argument about whose teachings are most impressive, which I think is probably subjective to the point that your argument is doomed
This argument is very weak.
“if Jesus was not the Son of God and you know this to be so, you definitely are better than Jesus:”
No, we are neither better nor worse just we differ on this opinion. However given that Jesus is making an extraordinary claim the burden of proof is in him (or his modern apologists).
“you are right and Jesus was wrong about something extremely central to Jesus. As this conclusion is as false as stating that 1 = 0”
There’s a fairly large jump in logic there. That something is central to Jesus (or his followers) and atheists deny it does not form a contradiction of the type 1 = 0.
The 1 = 0 contradiction is the claim to being better than Jesus. There or there not being a God is not a difference in opinion: if there is no God, it really calls Jesus' wisdom into question.
But you know, reading through the replies, I really am coming to the conclusion the teachings stand on their own anyway, and that Jesus may even have claimed that.
You don’t need to claim board “superiority” to someone just to question one or more of their moral/philosophical positions. And “Jesus’s teachings minus claims to the word of God” is just a loose collection of moral/philosophical musings, even if you permit all the stuff that takes the form of stating God’s preferences by treating them as a metaphor for virtue.
That said, having instant access to that and all the other moral philosophies gathered from across the globe, accumulated over 2,000+ years, and refined through at least a few centuries of lively debate, does give a modern human a big advantage over an Abrahamic preacher from 2,000 years ago, should they choose to exercise it.
To summarize your argument: Jesus said he was the son of God and Jesus knows better than we do.
It’s just the ontological argument wearing a mustache.
Ok I’ll bite. If Jesus was in fact not the Son of God, but thought he was, why is it so implausible for a modern to imply that he is better than Jesus?
Lewis said Jesus was either a fool, a liar, or the Son of God. I sort of go along with that in broad terms, but I did not accept Lewis’s argument for choosing the way he did.
Isn't there a fourth option - that he never actually said he was the son of God and the gospels were written by people who wanted to push that story?
Yes, this feels akin to accusing the other participants in a game of "Telephone" of being fools or liars.
Part of why I said “in broad terms”. Lewis has scholarly reasons for believing that the historical account of Jesus is mainly true. I’m not completely convinced of this either, but given that premise I think Lewis’s three choices are fair. But I think too much of the burden is on the connotations of “fool” and “liar” — I don’t think it’s plausible that (on the usual telling) Jesus was a central example of either, but Lewis hopes we will agree to rule them out because of the connotations.
Potentially of interest to young professionals and promising students who want to pursue entrepreneurship, research, or general social impact.
Future Academy is an ambitious five-month program with three tracks: An incubator, a researcher fellowship, and a general career fellowship. The 2023 edition will give talent (especially from India) the opportunity to learn important principles and skills around effective impact and work together on ambitious projects - culminating in a demo day with prizes of up to $50,000.
The program will run from November (2023) to end of March (2024).
You can learn more about the program at https://impactacademy.org/future-academy/ and apply at https://airtable.com/appXZX9Gd8QRdoLWn/shrTfEhXGPbR3ORp1
I have a stats question that is probably pretty simple, but I'm rusty enough with stats I can't figure out how to do it, and can't find the answer with some moderate effort online. Google did't give a link to an answer in the first dozen or so responses, and GPT4 gave a clearly wrong answer.
If someone got a z score of A the first time they take a test, what is the probability they will get a higher score B or better the second time? Assume there is no practice effect, and let's call the test-retest reliability of the test R.
Thank you, mathematicians. I'm fond of math and wish I knew more. It most be fun to be able to roam around mentally over this kind of terrain. I understand the logic of what you said, too, even if not the math behind it, so I'm wiser now. I think I will probably use Michael Druggan's formula for now. It may be imperfect, but its only competition right now is people using their intuition & saying things like "I'd say the chance is one is 500 . . . or 20,000 . . ."
Assuming normal error everywhere the answer is the inverse z score of (B-AR)/(sqrt(1-R^2))
So for example if you scored 2.5 standard deviations over the mean the first time and you want to score 3 standard deviations the second time and R=0.8 then your probability would be the inverse z score of (3-2.5(0.8))/(sqrt(1-0.8^2)) equals z^-1(5/3) = 4.8%
Isn't z score a red herring here? How likely they are to get a higher score depends on the range of scores for the test, not the spread of the test-takers. If you roll a d20 and get a 17, you have a 15% chance of rolling an 18 or higher. What's the mean roll here, what's the z score? Doesn't matter, it only improves if you roll higher and there's only 3 higher numbers out of 20.
Test scores aren't random like a d20, though. I'd think if someone scores 17/20 the first time, then the second time they're more likely to get 16/20 or 18/20 than 1/20 or 2/2, because that 17/20 likely reflects some amount of knowledge.
It's still based on the spread of the test and not the test-takers. If you take an easy test that everyone gets 100% on, you'll have a z score of 0 and a 0% chance of raising it.
If we're assuming clustering and infinite score it's just going to be around 50%: 1/2 of getting slightly lower, 1/2 of getting slightly higher, 1 in (max score) of hitting the exact same.
It's a test with a possible raw score between 0 and 180, and the results form a bell curve -- not a perfect one, but a decent one.
Yes, that's why test-retest reliability is .90 for the standardized test in question, but zero for dice throw-dice rethrow results.
I'll invoke Cunningham's law and post a (maybe bad) guess.
I'm assuming we don't have the probability distribution function for this kid. Otherwise, just compute the cumulative distribution function, convert his z score into a raw score i, and then take 1 minus the CDF(i).
If we don't have the PDF, then maybe we use Chebyshev's inequality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chebyshev%27s_inequality.
We can take the z score and plug it into Chebyshev's inequality (assuming some stuff that should be present for most test takers, like finite non-zero variance). We can get a maximum percentage of values that lie beyond z standard deviations from the mean. Then we have a problem because I have no idea what percentage of that is above the mean and what percentage is below the mean. Maybe it's symmetrical, but I kinda feel like it's not. So let's just take all of it and put it on the right hand side and use that as an upper bound.
So if the kid got a score that's 3 standard deviations above his mean, then at most he's got an 11% chance of doing better. But probably less than that.
> I'm assuming we don't have the probability distribution function for this kid.
Assuming normality everywhere with a test retest reliability of R the probability distribution for person with a first score of A is normal with a mean of AR and a SD of sqrt(1-R^2)
So I just looked up probability distribution function, and it says it's a mathematical description that gives the probabilities of different outcomes. So I'm not sure what you're getting at. Isn't transforming a set of scores into z scores already a form of probability distribution info? For any z-score, you know how many people out of 100 will get it. So for the higher z-score the kid wants to get we know the probability for the population taking the test of getting the desired z-score of B. But what we want to know is the probability that this one kid could get a score this high on the next test. We need a probability distribution function for the kid for test 2. Is there a way to calculate that, given his z score on test 1? Clearly the likeliest thing is for him to get a score close to the score he got on test 1, while scores higher and lower are less likely, and the further they are from test 1 score the more unlikely they are.
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that would you are describing is the likelihood that anyone in the test population would get a score of B or higher, not the chance that the kid in question would.
There are 2 different probability distributions here. First you can choose a person at random from the population and test their score. This is the distribution represented by the z score (and in fact the use of z scores makes the assumption that this distribution is an example of what's called a normal or gaussian distribution).
Secondly you can have a single person take the test and because there is some variance in test conditions and day to day performance there will be a range of scores they can get.
The second distribution is the one you need to calculate the retest reliability. I see that you've specified this as R. I think some people missed that as I also missed it the first time I read your comment. You forgot a word and it makes the comment kind of cut off. I've left another reply with the answer
>For any z-score, you know how many people out of 100 will get it.
Not as I understand it., although I'm just looking stuff up online and quoting it here.
The "z score" seems to be another word for what I know as the sigmage - the number of standard deviations above the mean your result is.
So for a coin toss, 50% of observations get a z score of +1 and 50% get a z score of -1, whereas for a normal distribution the z score is distributed as N(0,1)
So if you want to assume that both ability and test error are normally distributed you can chase through some results (as Matthieu does below), but that ,may not be a safe assumption.
It seems to me that you guys are being too fancy and fussy here. The test in question is the LSAT. My understanding is that the distribution of scores is close enough to normal for one to do the kinds of stats appropriate for normal distribution. The test re-test reliability is pretty high, I think around .90, though that's from memory. I have no idea whether test error is normally distributed, but it does not seem plausible to me that the distribution of test error would be so far from normal that straightforward approaches to this problem cannot be used.
The high test-reliability is a measure of how likely getting very different scores on 2 tests in succession is. Regression to the mean will be working against second test result being further from the mean than first. Seems like test 1 score, hoped-for test 2 score, score standard deviation, test-retest reliability and effect of regression to the mean should be all that needs to be represented in the math to solve this, without a bunch of bells and whistles.
Thank you. I understand most of this, but there's one bit I don't. I am not familiar with E, "standard normal noise." I have used statistics entirely for social science, though also read medical and science research, and have never run across that term. If you have a bunch of raw test scores, or scores expressed as z scores, what is E? How would one calculate it, given a batch of normally distributed scores?
If I'm reading/remembering/interpreting this correctly, E2, "standard normal noise" is a random variable picked from a distribution with gaussian statistics, zero mean, and unit standard deviation, and, as Matthieu said, independent from X1 (and therefore uncorrelated with it). ( IIRC, "normal" == gaussian, "standard" == zero mean, unit standard deviation )
OK, I understand what you said, but here's what I don't get. We already know something about this data that takes into account something I'd call noise -- that is, variation that has nothing to do with what we're trying to measure. What we have is test-retest reliability, which is correlation between pairs of successive test scores of a number of individuals. The correlation is, let's say, .90. To figure out amount of variance in the thing we're measuring accounts for, we square the correlation. So 81% of the variance in Test 2 score is accounted for by Test 1 score, and 19% is
unaccounted for. Just looking at this problem in a conceptual way, it seems to me that the correlation figure or the variance one already take care of random variation. Exactly how one of those 2 numbers should be folded into the equation so as to take this aspect of things into account I do not know. But I have literally never encountered E in social science or medical research, which is the stuff I read these days with stats in it. So I'm wondering if its used in physics or in some more exact science where people need to be extraordinarily precise. You have any idea about that?
"Just looking at this problem in a conceptual way, it seems to me that the correlation figure or the variance one already take care of random variation."
Yes. The problem is that knowing the correlation figure isn't enough on its own to answer the question that you are interested in. We have to add in some additional assumptions (albeit plausible ones) in order to answer the question of "given test result A, what is the conditional probability of getting result B or better".
As an example, one could create a model similar to the one Matthieu built, but slightly different which would still match all the data we have but give a different answer for the conditional probability. In particular, we could assume that the noise is drawn from a _uniform_ distribution, flat over an interval, instead of a gaussian distribution. I think we then need a scale
factor in the analog to Matthieu's
X2 = R*X1 + sqrt(1- R^2)*E2
( I'm fuzzy on what the standard form of a uniform distribution is. If it is
p=0.5 in (-1,1), then the standard deviation for it is 1/3, so to get R to come out right we would need
X2 = R*X1 + sqrt(1- R^2)*sqrt(3)*E2 )
Given this change, we wind up back at the right value of R for this
alternate model - but the conditional probability winds up different.
In Matthieu's model it winds up being the integral of the gaussian noise
distribution that he assumed. In this alternate model it instead winds up
being the integral of the uniform noise distribution it assumes (linear in the distance to the top of the uniform distribution). Either answer might
be right, and the test/retest correlation doesn't distinguish between them.
That's why we need to introduce E2 - we need a way to introduce the
additional assumption about the shape of the noise distribution, as well
as scaling it to obey the information on the correlation that we _do_ have.
OK, thanks, I get the general idea. I loved the math I took, but never went beyond calculus one and the kind of pretty straightforward stats done in social science research, so I am still not able to judge how big a difference this fine tuning makes. Someone I know who is tutoring people for the LSAT wants to be able to give them a reasonably accurate estimate of what their chances are of reaching their goal score if the do no special preparation. This will be a lead in to talking with them about the importance of doing everything possible to improve their odds, i.e. to work hard. Also, he'd like a standard to use in judging how much he improves people's score, and the measure I'm asking about seems more valid than just number of points by which the raw score increases.
So here's my question: Is introducing E2 basically fine-tuning, or is it something that could make a very substantial difference in the conditional probability we get? Or is the difference it could make more on the order of 10% one way or the other? (By that I mean for a score 1 of 160 out of 180 on test a and a goal score of 172 out of 180, let's say the simpler method gives an answer of 20% conditional probability. But since we calculated that number the quick and easy way, the correct answer, if calculated the fancy way, is somewhere between 18% and 22%). Because if the error is of that size we could live with it. We really just want a decent ballpark number.
If you are in NYC, I'll be in this show at KGB Bar on Friday. Probably, you have weekend plans. If you don't, tho, you should come!
It's a story telling show (like The Moth, but not The Moth)
This is my second time on the show. My story this time will be about my initiation into the advanced debate team at my high school in Kansas.
There's a gun.
Tickets are like $12? Get them here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tale-nycs-finest-storytelling-tickets-701121943607
It's a fun space. I'm sure the other performers are good, too, but I don't know them.
What's the latest on ocean fertilization? Why aren't countries with large fishing industries all over this: couldn't it dramatically increase fishing yields? Who are the players who are pushing to make it reality and what support do they need?
Fish farms seem like a more profitable direction to work on. Why go out into the ocean instead of just farming tens of thousands of fish right by the shore?
Same question about serpentine weathering.
My understanding is that Project Vesta are the main guys who are pushing this forward: https://www.vesta.earth/
I might guess it simply isn’t cost effective. The ocean is big, changing the concentrations in noticeable amounts is hard.
I do wonder a bit about artificial reefs, that always seems very promising to me.
Epistemic status: I'm a fish ecologist, not a biological oceanographer, but I got my master's degree at the institution where ocean iron limitation was first observed/described, so it got talked about decently often in classes, but I don't have specific domain expertise.
My understanding is that we are very confident that oceanic plankton is iron-limited, but experiments to try and scale up iron supplementation have had extremely mixed effects. In other words, we don't yet know a good way to do ocean fertilization in a way that scales, and results in blooms of "good" plankton. At least, that was my understanding from 5+ years ago when I was in school.
I don't know what the current state of research is into this. My guess on what's limiting it is some combination of interest and funding to do the experiments necessary to figure out effective ways of doing ocean fertilization.
Maybe I'm naive, but can't we just try to dump different substances into the ocean and see what works? Don't we already know that e.g. windblown sand from the Sahara causes blooms of good plankton?
Yes, that's basically what the experiments boil down to, but there's actually a lot of different substances you could potentially dump in the ocean, and then there's variation in how exactly you dump it, how you get it to stay in the water column for as long as possible, what kind of formulation, size of particles, etc etc etc. There's a ton of variation in how you would apply it and I don't think there's been all that much research into the topic. And the few experiments we have done, as I recall, haven't yielded particularly inspiring results
I just realized that in the study of anglophysics, a cis person taking HRT would have trans-cended to godhood and become christ.
Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, case matters in the story. HRT is an acronym, so it has capital letters; similarly, "Christ" demands a capital "C".
I think the kids these days use alternate case to indicate sarcasm? So: "cHRisT" might work if you don't look at it too hard.
An innately-sarcastic god sounds like it might not be very safe.
Over 95% of US journalists have – at least – a bachelor's degree.
Diana Marcum didn't. And she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015.
https://fragmentsintime.substack.com/p/the-tenth-island
Yeah it used to be a working man's gig, as Matt Taibbi often points out
I am a journalist who has a B.A.
And can confirm it's all college people anymore.
Appreciate your share!
The Last Psychiatrist said this about the Barbie movie on Twitter:
> #Barbie is fun, spiteful, and so un-self-aware it needs Haldol, or Jesus. E.g. it despises fascist patriarchy, but only the patriarchy part. It longs for the fascism. I looked from pig to man and man to pig and pig to man again, but it was impossible to say which was which.
What might they have meant by that? What parts of the movie do you think stood out to them, and why? What was your interpretation of the Barbie movie?
What's TLP's Twitter account?
Oh, he's tweeting again! But his tweets are so... useless... compared to his old blog entries. I guess this is what Twitter does to humans. "The medium is the message" and all that...
https://twitter.com/thelastpsych
This is sounding like a Rorschach blot of a movie.
I wonder what the difference is between people who see in it something that they agree with, and people who see in it something that they don't.
If you've seen the movie it's clear what they mean, the resolution of the Barbieland plot is that all the Barbies are once again in power and their main competitors (the Kens) are for the most part completely out of power. I'm not sure I'd call it 'un-self-aware' though, I think Gerwig realizes that the film is at-odds with itself, but really what else would you expect from a Mattel funded Barbie film?
(Sorry, comment went in wrong place due to Substack wanting me to sign in every five seconds, grrr)
Haven't seen it, not interested, but was amused to learn it outdid Avatar (at least in Irish cinema attendance records) and from the mixed bag of reviews, it is all things to all people. It's feminist, it's anti-feminist, it's the Ken Movie, Ken is a laughing stock, it's about patriarchy, it's about matriarchy - every kind of interpretation has been put on it.
Me? It's a movie to sell more dolls to modern little girls, now that Mattel think they can try that without being excoriated as outdated sexists.
I just noticed how odd it is that patriarchy ascribes power to all men, but matriarchy only to mothers.
I think it's aspirational?
Huh, everyone’s saying different things than what I thought the standard interpretation would be. I thought it was about the end game of neuroticism, that the thing causing everyone suffering is their compulsiveness and overthinking of the structures of the world they think define them. Sadly, the movie didn’t elaborate on this point in the ending.
I certainly didn't think Kendom looked any more fun than Barbieland! I took it as a caricature of things about men that annoy women, broadly speaking. I for one would rather live under the authoritarianism of the Barbies than of the Kens. It really is a Rorschach blot of a movie, like another commenter said, if we can interpret it so differently.
It definitely doesn’t seem to me to embrace it - the most biting line of the movie was a condescending matriarchal point about how maybe Ken will some day have as much representation on courts in the Barbie world as women do in the real world. It doesn’t sound like it’s endorsing that at all.
Does anyone else have trouble understanding Zvi’s blog? It seems like he focuses on including as much information as possible, as opposed to making it clear and easy to read (unlike Scott).
It takes quite a lot of context to understand some paragraphs. I can suggest using ChatGPT to explain parts you don't quite follow, it usually does a good job. And Zvi is good at answering questions in comments if ChatGPT isn't good enough.
I wish his posts were more structured, numbered headings etc. Some of the posts are just walls of text with paragraphs having no relation to the one that came before it.
Well he usually covers a dozen or so topics per post. There's an index of the different topics at the beginning of the each post.
I find it hard to believe any blog could be as terse (in style, not length) and dense as Dominic Cummings's. For information density it is the blog equivalent of a neutron star!
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/
It is ostensibly mostly about UK politics, so possibly of limited interest to US readers. But his articles include a fair amount of general insight, and are shockingly revealing about how deluded and incompetent most politicians and civil servants are. I believe Scott follows Dominic's blog.
"and are shockingly revealing about how deluded and incompetent most politicians and civil servants are"
Mmmm. From a guy who thought he could take on the permanent civil service and win (he didn't) and got thrown under the (bendy) bus when it suited his BFF for political survival. There's a lot of sour grapes in there. 'They're all stupid and useless and they were jealous of me which is why they schemed against me!'
There's certainly an element of sour grapes, but the main reason the establishment hate him is that his Brexit campaign was successful, despite the massive resources thrown at the official Remain campaign! By BFF I presume you mean the "wonky shopping trolley", as Cummings aptly calls Boris Johnson!
I've no doubt Cummings is a genius, but his technocratic approach seems too radical and alien to British politics, without firm public support from ministers and others. But Johnson pulled the rug out from under him, partly as you say for political reasons but also I've heard at the instigation of his partner Carrie Symonds ("Princess Nut Nut" in Cummingspeak).
A former great prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, made a wise observation, in a speech at the Knightsbridge Young Ladies Riding Academy (of all places) in 1861:
"You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest quality in public life".
Looking at the current crop of risk-averse cowardly custards in office recently, i.e. May, Johnson, Sunak, all one can say is "Boy, was he ever right!" (The only one with any guts, Liz Truss, was ejected by the blob in a matter of weeks!)
Yes, in a sense. It's dense, and he covers a large area in a small amount of time. It definitely requires a different reading style than narrative writing does. And there are a number of times where he uses a word or a phrase as a pointer to a more complicated discussion/argument/concept, to the point where I'm almost certain I miss a few things each post. But it's not as bad as reading late 19th-century English social satire, which is my current fiction.
I wouldn't want him to change; I feel like he's optimizing for a type of value that I appreciate.
Yes, I agree he's optimizing for something very worth optimizing. I also get the feeling that he has found a way to use his smarts and communicate what he knows that is a very good fit for the kind of mind he has. If he ever had yearnings to come across as a certain kind of thinker & writer that he in fact is not, he has totally moved past all that.
His posts are very dense. His style is to be brusque and brief, and that allows him to transmit a great deal of info in a post of manageable length. I often have to choose whether to just have a general idea of what he's referring or do so some searches & reading to clarify things. Scott serves a meal, Zvi heaves heavy boxes of ingredients off a truck. Both bloggers are valuable. I admire Zvi for his thoroughness and efficiency. And for his smarts, of course.
Yeah, I get most of it, but he does have a tendency to *imply* things without spelling them out, expecting the readers to connect the dots, and seems to rely a bit more on a sort of 'lexicon' of ideas that he will reference without expanding on.
Moral mazes, simulacrum levels, etc.
I read it for a bit back when he was doing COVID updates. He usually is sensible, but you have to really dig it out. It's almost as if he writes to obfuscate than to clarify.
I've been here (and on SlateStarCodex, and on Scott's livejournal before that) a long time, previously commenting as Eric Rall. I've semi-recently realized I'm trans, and I'm in the later stages of coming out publicly now. So going forwards, I'm Erica, with she/her pronouns.
Also, I would like to apologize for inadvertently tainting the autogynophilia dataset from the 2020 SSC survey. I'd responded to that survey with how I'd thought of myself at the time (straight cis man), which I have since realized to be in error.
Good luck, Erica.
Thank you.
That's fine, obviously you can only answer the survey with what you know at the time.
Good to hear from you again after so long, and good luck with your transition.
Thank you for the good wishes (and the absolution for providing flawed survey data)!
I've been reading the whole time, although I suppose I've been kinda quiet late, both here and on facebook.
Best of luck to you, I speak from experience, the first two years are the hardest.
Sorry theres so many people determined to be assholes about it.
>Sorry theres so many people determined to be assholes about it.
Yep, super simple issue, black and white, assholes and non-assholes.
I think its a pretty uncontroversial statement :)
You can have a nuanced opinion about it without being an asshole. Im not saying everyone who thinks differently is an asshole.
But golly there sure are a lot of assholes.
Thank you! I'm a little less than a year in to my transition, and I've definitely noticed some awkward patches, but I'd say things are going well so far. I've been blessed that most of my family, close friends, and coworkers have been as supportive and accepting as I could hope for, and the few who aren't are at least making an effort to not be jerks about it.
I have had one or two near-strangers go out of their ways to be jerks to me, but I've experienced a lot less transphobia than I'd feared I would.
I do not think your answers at the time were errors. You can only answer survey questions with how you are in the moment. (If you CAN answer by seeing the future I have a great survey for you: What are the winning lottery numbers?)
Though it would be interesting if Scott added a question in the next survey about how many people followed that specific
My answers were sincere, yes, but honest and unavoidable inaccuracies remain inaccuracies. Or looking at it in a different way, Scott was using gender identity (i.e. do you think of yourself as cis or trans) as a proxy for what might be termed gender orientation (i.e. what one might mean by trans in contexts like saying "I was trans but didn't realize it yet"), and in my case that proxy produced misleading data.
I second the desire to add survey questions to try to assess how common my pattern is. Eyeballing the 2020 survey data, self-identified cis men do seem to follow a bit of a bimodal distribution with a big peak at 1 and a small peak a 4, which would be consistent with a nontrivial population of people with transfemme gender orientations but cis male gender identities.
In addition to the retrospective questions, it might be useful to also ask a question that tries to assess gender orientation separately from identity. For example, the classic "button test", where you're offered a magic button that will permanently transform you into the opposite sex with a minimum of social and legal complications as of you'd been born that sex. On a 1-5 scale, how likely/tempted are you to press the button? For cis-identified respondents asked the question straight, and for trans-identified respondents, ask how they would have answered a year or so before consciously realizing they were trans.
I'm not convinced this button test measures the right thing. If you offered me a magic button which would make me ethnically Jewish, I would be basically neutral on whether to press it, because I think being Jewish would probably be about as good as being my actual race. Does that make me race-queer?
No, I'd say that makes you gentile-by-default. Race-queer would be if you strongly wanted to press a magic button that made you some specific mix of characteristics of different ethnicities.
I think the magic sex change button question will have a lot of false positives. For example I think most self-identified male incels will want to press it, to reroll the dice on their love lives.
There no doubt would be false positives, although I suspect there's be less than you'd think because most cis people seem to be significantly attached to their natal genders despite practical and social considerations. The question is useful so long as it correlates meaningfully with trans inclinations among those who don't consciously identify as trans, since then you could do things like run cross tabs of autogynophylia levels among self-identified cis men by their button-question answers. Used that way, the question is informative so long as there are proportionately a lot more eggs (i.e. people who currently identify as cis despite being subconsciously trans) in the higher button scores than the lower button scores.
As for incels in particular, I suspect that a nontrivial fraction of incels are actually eggs. For one thing, unrecognized gender dysphoria can manifest in all sorts of ways, including as general unhappiness and resentment at society (I suspect this is a contributing factor to so many trans women being radical leftists, and a lot of the ones who aren't being rather extreme libertarians), and also including "gender envy" which if you don't know what it is usually feels like a mix of sexual attraction and self-loathing with undertones of "she's gorgeous and I'm gross".
I've also encountered a number of anecdotes among trans women in trans subreddits recounting being incels or incel-adjacent before realizing they were trans.
For another, in hindsight I had a lot of problems with my dating life in my teens and twenties (although I am now happily married, coming up on our eighth anniversary next month) that were almost certainly exacerbated by me being an egg:
1. Very few straight women considered me dating/relationship material. Almost every woman I have been romantically involved with is bi.
2. I have always felt deeply uncomfortable with the conventional male role in initiating romantic overtures, but because it feels horribly unnatural to me and because I empathize far more strongly with the female perspective (and am thus inclined to be hypervigilant about not coming off as a pest or a creep) than most cis men. The latter part admittedly seems antithetical to the incels mindset, though.
3. I've always had more conventionally female attitudes about sex and relationships, to the point that at least one bisexual woman I've dated has told me that dating me felt like being in a lesbian relationship. These attitudes also tend get in the way of trying to date while identifying and living as a cishet man.
While I never went substantially in an incel-ish direction, I could see how someone with similar experiences but fewer female friends and less empathy for the female perspective could take the combination of unrecognized dysphoria, gender envy, and romantic frustration into inceldom.
There does seem to be a community (called "transmaxxing", apparently) within incels that talks about pursuing gender transition as a dating strategy, but that seems to be very small. Small enough to be a combination of lizardman's constant effects and dysphoria/euphoria motivated trans women who are rationalizing their transness through incel ideology.
Doing some quick estimates based on subreddit size: r/transmaxxing has about 4k members. R/incels had about 41k members when it was banned in 2017 (so would be more like 70-80k now if it had survived and grown proportionately to reddit's user base), giving us a first-order estimate that a bit over 5% of incels are interested enough in the idea in transitioning for incels reasons to join the subreddit.
By comparison, r/trans has 426k members, while r/AskReddit has 42.8MM members, giving a control group ratio of the general trans subreddit being 1% the size of the biggest general interest subreddit. So incels are about 5x as likely as redditors in general to be interested in at least discussing transitioning, which is within the range of what I'd expect of incels being both somewhat more likely to be eggs and much more likely to be trolls than the corresponding general population.
Perhaps the question could be phrased more like, "how much value would you put on the ability to push the button", although that gets into some very subjective value measurements. Possibly there'd need to be a poker-esque "all in" option.
And it might be good to follow it up with something like, "if someone had pushed the button for you, how much would you value pushing the button again to change back?"
The point being to see how strong preferences are in both directions, and how many people don't care that much. But it would need to control for stuff like currently having an established family which could be disrupted...
Agree it needs to be worded carefully. Here's the formulation from the Gender Dysphoria Bible I linked in response to @Firanx below:
>You are given a magical button that will permanently swap your gender, giving you an “opposite-gendered” body that is equivalent to your own in age, fitness, and attractiveness. If you press the button, everybody in your life will have always known you as [your swapped gender]. They will accept you immediately. You will not lose your partner, your job, or your family. Do you press it?
I thought about the "how much value" formulation of the question, which I agree would give interesting data, but I decided against proposing it because of the problems of subjective valuation, particularly of the effects of your personal and financial situation on the exchange rate between marginal dollars and marginal utility.
"an “opposite-gendered” body that is equivalent to your own in age, fitness, and attractiveness"
Aw, hell no. What's the point of changing if I can't trade up? Gimme the Chris Hemsworth/Henry Cavill makeover (Cavill is pertinent because he was a chubby kid who got teased about it and that motivated him to get fit) but if I'm just going to be me, but in the male version of my current body, no thanks! There are 5' 4" men in older generations of my paternal family which is my current height, but unless I get at least 5' 11" in the new version, forget about it. I want to reach the top shelves of cupboards without going up on my tippy-toes or hauling out the stepladder, damn it!
Oh, and congratulations! :-)
Thanks!
That wording does take care of part of what I worried about. But I'm actually quite interested in how much people value this. I really want to see what the distribution is. Right now, the question as it stands doesn't get into that at all, and I worry that its binary nature obscures the existence of people in the middle.
That's what I was getting at with the idea of a 1-5 scale of how desirable you find the idea of pressing the button. Back when I was "cis", I would have found the idea of the button very tempting (probably about a 3 or 4 on a 1-5 scale) but probably would have said no to a binary yes/no survey question (since saying yes would have contradicted my self-conception of being cis). Put it in money terms, and I would have spent $0 to press it, but little or no money to unpress it, so the money form of the question in my case at least would have failed to distinguish between near-indifference and a thin veneer of denial.
> On a 1-5 scale, how likely/tempted are you to press the button?
0. But if I were born a woman with the same level of cisness I might've said something like 3. I'm not attached to my gender, I just don't think I'd enjoy the experience of having a female body or, debatably, being subjected to what our society has in store for women. So I'm not sure if this test actually tests gender orientation, or only does so in people who feel very strongly about it.
Since you were reading Scott back in the squid days, I assume you're at least in your mid-20s and probably older? That seems like a late point to realize that you prefer to identify as the other gender. If you share your story anywhere or plan to do so in the future, I'd be interested in reading it.
"But if I were born a woman with the same level of cisness I might've said something like 3."
Yeah, I think for this question there's an awful lot of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill". When I was much younger (mid-teens) I thought boys had it easier, mainly due to the "girls can't/shouldn't do this and can/should do that" socialisation.
But as I got older, I realised it's tough for everybody. Men have it easier in some ways, women have it easier in other ways. And it's the case that if you're smart, attractive, extrovert, and reasonably financially okay, you will have it way better regardless of whether you're a man or a woman.
>When I was much younger (mid-teens) I thought boys had it easier, mainly due to the "girls can't/shouldn't do this and can/should do that" socialisation.
>But as I got older, I realised it's tough for everybody. Men have it easier in some ways, women have it easier in other ways.
Some of this may also be change in the outside world, not change in your perceptions of it - gender politics have changed a lot since you were in your mid-teens.
Yes, I'm 41. It's actually a lot less uncommon than you might think: trans folk in general and transfemmes in particular tend to divide into two clusters: early transitioners who develop a conscious trans identity as children or early teenagers, and late-transitioners who don't develop a conscious trans identity until well into adulthood. Late transitioners almost universally report clear-in-hindsight signs of being trans going back at least to their teens (about 10 years old for me), and it's very common for people who know us well to react to us coming out with variations of, "Oh, good, you finally figured it out."
Having been a trans person in denial is an interesting case study in the stupendous human facility for rationalization. For three quarters of my life, I've been fascinated by (and somewhat envious of) the process of gender transition, I've regularly fantasized about being or becoming a woman, I've enthusiastically seized on socially acceptable venues to present femme in public (Rocky Horror Picture Show, kink parties, etc) while still maintaining a cis male identity, going through phases of wearing androgynous nail polish and jewelry, preferring to play female characters in games, etc. I even have memories of in my early 20s "joking" about being a lesbian trapped in a straight man's body.
The typical reasons for denial and rationalization by late transitioners are a combination of internalized transphobia (i.e. you've absorbed a measure negative societal attitudes about transness and transitioning), fear of the potential social and practical consequences of transitioning, fear that medical transition won't work well enough for you to be worthwhile, epistemological inertia (i.e. many/most people start out with a very strong prior of being cis, and it takes a lot of bayesian evidence to overcome that), and misunderstanding the typical trans experience (especially by focusing mainly on the early transitioner experience) enough that you don't recognize yourself in it. I checked pretty much all the boxes. Particularly the "not recognizing yourself in your understanding of the typical trans experience" part: I had the experience, which I now realize is fairly common, of not consciously experiencing gender dysphoria in a recognizable form. I experienced very strong "gender euphoria" from feminine expressions, but I didn't consciously feel bad about being male. I emphasize "consciously" here: what I did feel was a persistent sense of anxiety and unhappiness with no clear external cause and which was only partially alleviated by medication and therapy. Since I realized I was trans and started transitioning, that unhappiness has cleared up for long periods and when it is present it's clearly linked to the stresses of the transitioning process and to noticing aspects of myself that I'm still reading as masculine.
Two resources I'd recommend if you're interested in learning more about transness in general and the late transitioner experience in particular are the Gender Dysphoria Bible (a webpage attempting to compile info on the subject for the purposes of helping people in the early stages of transitioning), and Abigail Thorn's youtube video "Identity" in which she came out as trans at the age of 27. At timestamp 28:00 in the latter, Abigail gives an analogy comparing background-noise dysphoria as being like a soul-crushing job that you don't feel like you can quit: watching that video for the first time several months into my own transition really resonated with me, particularly that analogy.
Links:
https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AITRzvm0Xtg
If I decide to share my own story in more detail (which I might: I've been considering launching my own blog or youtube channel in the medium-term future), I'll try to remember to ping you.
Thank you for your reply, it's very interesting!
My own experiments had the opposite result, I guess: I did not feel particularly good about feminine expressions, and while it was not something that felt too unnatural to *me*, it was a relief to drop them because they complicated interactions with people I chose to share it with, were a liability in case someone I did not choose to share it with found out, and in hindsight they just mostly feel awkward. But not in the sense that this role would be hard to maintain if that was expected of me. I did confirm for myself that I don't have any particular attachment to my gender (except I feel very lucky to not be born with a uterus), and am what I later saw Scott calling cis-by-default. Living alone on an island I just wouldn't care at all.
The gender dysphoria bible has some well-written sections, but the biochemical dysphoria page oversimplifies the science to my knowledge. It isn’t actually true that every cis person would quickly experience dysphoria on HRT. Some detrans people now identify as cis women and did not experience dysphoria after being on testosterone for years. The document is also short on transmasculine and straight perspectives in general.
Agreed. It definitely has its flaws, in terms of overstating scientific claims as well as gaps in the perspectives it covers. I linked it despite these flaws because I don't know off the top of my head of a better similar compilation of info on gender dysphoria and how it can manifest.
I see it as more a matter of the massive social forces pushing "certain types of men" to suppress and deny the want/need to go down this path have eased up somewhat.
At least Erica is old enough to know her own mind, and to cope with whatever fallout happens.
Until and unless we get into culture war territory, it's none of my beeswax.
trebuchet, I just wanted to share with you my current view of human sexuality, and I will first say that much of this is most likely wrong, but that doesn't matter so much as just being a different view. And secondly, this view is that the scrambling of sexuality in humans is a spandrel of some other selected for thing. (What that selected for thing is really doesn't matter for this discussion, just imagine that scrambling sex is a spandrel.) So as a spandrel, the scrambling of sex is not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing that gets dragged along. So then, how should I feel about people with their sex scrambled?
And let me say again, this is just my view, and others can have different views and disagree with me. And I feel mostly compassion, I don't think people choose this harder (than normie) lifestyle. And it's also f-ing awesome, because out of this group of scrambled sex people, comes a lot of creativity. And it's also f-ing tragic, because many of them die young.
And Erica and others, please forgive me if it bothers you that I call you one of the scrambled sex people. No disrespect it meant.
George H.
> So as a spandrel, the scrambling of sex is not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing that gets dragged along
How is it not a bad thing? It's so "not bad" that people claim that they need to have their genitals mutilated in order to not feel like killing themselves.
>And it's also f-ing awesome, because out of this group of scrambled sex people, comes a lot of creativity.
Source?
This just does not square at all with how many of the people who transition are happier and more successful after transitioning than before.
And I know you think this doesnt "pass the laugh test" but you just have no on-the-ground experience. Theres a number of very visible celebrities and semi-celebrities - the data that does exist places outcomes as very positive, my personal experience and those close to me is overwhelmingly positive, and the trans people in my local community are all overwhelmingly positive.
I know two who detransitioned - they are explicit that it wasnt the right move for them but they are happy they tried it rather than wonder. The plural of anecdote is not data, but all the data paints the same narrative collectively.
I can view with compassion your worry that some impressionably young people will make hasty decisions and regret them. I think the incidence of this is overblown, the long term risks are systematically overstated and ultimately in a free society people should be allowed to make their own mistakes, and if its children then the parents need to consent too.
In any event, Erica (presumably) does not at all fit the picture of those likely to not be fully informed or regret it later. So at the very least in her case, you have no reason to think she'll regret it or that it wont be the right choice.
So is there any possibility in your mind that what people say about themselves is real? Or is it all the media?
>That's all I have to say on the matter.
Fair enough. I receive.your advice in the spirit in which it was intended. I do not intend to heed it, however: I have a great deal of information on my own life and past and present mental states to which you are not privy, and in light of that it is my considered opinion that taking your advice would be a horrible mistake.
As a matter of norms in the comments section, I'd rather that every communication online weren't taken as an invitation for a person to express an unsolicited opinion.
If we're talking about opinions, then yes, cool. But I read your post as "this is who I am now" and not "what's your opinion of who I am and what I'm doing?"
If we were all chatting in person -- which I think for community norms we'd do better to imagine -- it would be really rude for someone in a group conversation to respond to "my pronouns are this now" by saying "I think you're making a huge mistake with your life and I think all your loved ones are letting you down."
"I want to let everyone know I started a new job. Here's the link."
"God, what a terrible choice you made to take that job. You're going to regret it and your friends should have told you if they cared about you."
I'd rather we didn't do that here.
Please no need to respond to me, I was making an aside. I was glad you posted here as a long-time reader. I was really not glad to see that response to you and that kind of unsolicited criticism makes this feel like a place I want to spend less time.
Although I understand the point you're making, I think a big part of this is a reaction to statements like "my pronouns are this now". I cannot describe how arrogant this comes across to those of us who are not initiated, so to speak, into this culture. The feel of it (and often the explicit meaning) is not "this is how I'd like to be refered to, if it's not too much trouble" or even "this is what I believe I have a right to for the following reasons", but rather "this is how you are going to address me from now on." Phrased not only as a demand, but as one that it's taken for granted you won't even *consider* you have a right to question. Not saying the OP was doing this, though it can still be interpreted that way because that's how it's usually meant. And when it is meant like that, a very natural response is to ignore the substantive issues and say in essence "who the f**k do you think you are?"
Tl;dr -- if you don't want people telling you how you're allowed to live, don't phrase your announcements in ways that include telling other people how they're allowed to interact with you.
(As a side note, did Trebuchet get banned? I'll admit he was unusually aggressive and troll-like by the standards here, but I'm a bit disturbed at a long-time user getting banned so suddenly; I thought Scott highly valued free speech. And having all his comments deleted is both Orwellian and makes it hard to follow many threads.)
Yes as Paul says, full marks for being gracious. And the best of luck to you.
Thank you.
Erica you are vastly more gracious than was warranted.
Kind of you to say so, but I'm taking Trebuchet at face value that their heart is in the right place, even if I vehemently disagree with them on questions of fact and values that are vitally personally important to me. One of my favorite things about the ACX/SSC community is that we're able to have civilized discussions about contentious disagreements, and I aimed to respond in that spirit.
Is there a well-known range as to how tan white people can get with prolonged sun exposure? I'm a standard-looking white guy with dark hair and blue eyes, and as far as I know based on family history all of my descendants were northern European, mostly from the British isles. (Also if I grow my beard out it's partially red). Without a lot of sun you couldn't pick me out from a crowd of 'normal' white folks. But under prolonged sun (like a summer of hiking, or construction when I was a kid) I get tan enough that people ask if I'm part Native or Middle Eastern. I become like an Italian with blue eyes.
Is there just a huge spectrum on potential skin tone? Of course I could have a darker skinned ancestor somewhere back there in the gene pool. But then wouldn't my baseline skin tone be slightly darker all the time, not just after tanning? Again without a lot of sun I am 100% pasty, my legs are like disturbingly pale in the winter
>I become like an Italian with blue eyes.
Most italians are pale
You might look at homeless people in your city for an estimate, as well as mountain climbers and surfers. They often spend a lot of time in the sun, and often develop very tan and leathery skin as a result. Some get quite dark while still looking ethnically “white” in their facial structures.
I'm mixed race (white/Arab) and I can get super pasty skin over the winter months. As soon as the sun comes out again I become proper dark in a very short time.
Given the wide ranges of genetic composition we all have the likelihood that you have a dark skined strain in your history seems highly likely.
Just be grateful you don't turn pink and burnt!
Has anyone done analysis on what sorting mechanisms produce true intellectual diversity? I'm a university student, and after conversing with a friend about the decision banning affirmative action in the US, we came to the conclusion that it's a good thing because race is a poor proxy for true intellectual diversity. That being said, what sorts of things should colleges weight their admissions by in order to produce intellectually diverse campuses?
We did come to the conclusion that race could have a small weight, as it affects your experience of living in the us, but I personally like ethnicity better as a factor. I'm a white Cuban, but culturally I'm much more Latin than the average white person--and culture seems a much better factor to seek diversity in, than skin color. Some other factors I would think important to sorting for intellectual diversity: socioeconomic status, religion, political beliefs, desired area of study (which they already do), hobbies(?), Etc. Some of these seem impossible to sort by in the current environment (can you imagine the headlines if a university started letting in Republicans preferentially because they were underrepresented on campus), but perhaps there's some mix of factors that can replace affirmative action while still achieving one of its goals, which was intellectual diversity (if I'm to believe the emails I've gotten from my university).
This is ignoring the "account for racism" part of affirmative action, ie letting in more black people because due to racism they haven't had the same scholastic resources growing up. This is an admirable goal, also with it's faults, but not what I'm curious about.
"True intellectual diversity" isn't really a meaningful phrase. I suspect that what you actually mean by "produce true intellectual diversity" is probably "hire more people who aren't woke", and you're trying to make that narrow, specific demand sound like a broad appeal to a general principle, but I don't think it's possible to articulate a non-absurd principle that broad.
There are many, many axes to "how/what people think". On many of those, universities are already extremely diverse, and on many others, they shouldn't be - I don't want people who think that 2+2=5, or fundamentalist Islamists who think women should be barred from driving, represented in academia. So if "true intellectual diversity" means "many ways of thinking represented" then we have that, and if it means "all possible ways of thinking represented", we don't but shouldn't.
A slightly more sophisticated interpretation would be "ways of thinking represented in proportion to their presence in the general population", but a) this is still bad - I don't want creationists or antivaxxers in academia, and b) the choice of "the general population" is kind of arbitrary - I don't want one sixth of my academics to be Chinese communists.
For what it's worth, I think that "increase the proportion of academics who aren't woke, and the acceptance of them" is an excellent goal. But I think it should be stated explicitly, and I think that the general principles it is derived from need to be articulated much more specifically than just "we want true intellectual diversity" - you need to talk about why this specific axis is one of the ones where diversity in academia is desirable rather than one of the ones where it isn't.
Replying to the top level comment now, I think this is a really interesting question. The area that seems to be missing (at least explicitly) in your analysis is intersectionality: that the are interactions between identity characteristics.
Ideally, race isn't used as proxy for the 'true' intersectional analysis of diversity that is (presumably) behind a university's quest for 'true' intellectual diversity. But, it's understandable why it would be considered: race is important for daily life, dealing with institutions, community (dis)organization, norms of behavior, etc. Think about it - how much does race correlate with your list of cultures, 'socioeconomic status, religion, political beliefs, desired area of study (which they already do), hobbies(?), etc'.
Of course, elite institutions - rather than really sample on that full scale of diversity - often sampled for a range of race and geography for rich elites. Rich elites tend to be more homogeneous (they mostly speak English, can go to a restaurant, are well-educated, etc.). So, it failed to be inclusive or as intellectually diverse as most people might expect. Relevant video clip that highlights these differences (which are related to, but not mechanically determined by, race): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGemNT7urY
I don't think you need any special mechanism to insure intellectual diversity. You can just select purely on talent and you'll get enough of it. I'm basing this off the groups of people I've met through elite Quant trading roles (Jane Street and SIG) and through math Olympiads. There was plenty of intellectual diversity even though the filter criteria in both cases was pure math ability
Fair, and I agree. My only issue with that is that I don't trust college admissions officers to evaluate talent well, especially since they're not going to shift away from their precious "holistic decision making" anytime soon. So I was looking for mechanisms that might theoretically fit within the current college admissions model. Although many sorting factors, if used in the same way race was in affirmative action, would cause an uproar--so I suppose it's all theoretical anyways.
If universities actually wanted `intellectual diversity' the low hanging fruit would be affirmative action hiring of open Republicans. They are a lot more underrepresented in the professoriate (relative to fraction of the population) than racial `URM's are, and yet I am almost certain that open Republicanism would count as a strong negative in the evaluation of someone's candidacy, not a positive.
I would completely agree except that people's political opinions are pretty underdeveloped at the time kids are entering college. I'd hope to find more deeply rooted factors than this, although I would guess it's still a pretty good proxy given how little people's political opinions seem to change overall throughout their lifetimes, especially along party lines (ie, very few go from Republican to Democrat). That's just my intuition though, I'm not sure if that really is that uncommon.
1. Colleges do not care about this, and it has exactly 0% to do why they have racially discriminatory admissions policies - literally zero. They let in intellectually sub-standard black people to make themselves look good (or avoid looking bad) - to other students, staff, to donors, the government and most importantly for the top colleges...The New York Times.
2. Do you have any evidence that the kind of 'intellectual diversity' that any of these demographic diversities would supposedly bring is even valuable? I trust the diversity in opinion between a group of 10 very high IQ Ashkenazi jewish men on a matter of physics to arrive at truth better than that of a mix of jews and signifcantly lower IQ blacks. And this will be true
A literal majority of scientific and technological progress throughout history has been accomplished by a very undiverse group of people. It would be very weird if scientific performance could be improved by bringing in the perspectives of people with no great scientific tradition whatsoever, and it would also be extremely convenient considering the fact that the people advocating for this kind of diversity are the sort of people who advocate for their in gorup to be 'included' no matter what. It's like if white nationalists went around proclaiming that the NBA would be much better if there were more white players in it because 'diversity of abilities' or something - everyone should be very suspect of this even if we ignore the evidence of what a more 'diverse' NBA looked like.
>because due to racism they haven't had the same scholastic resources growing up.
Do you actually have a source for this? It's the sort of thing that gets endlessly repeated without evidence. And affirmative action is mostly benefitting rich blacks, and college doesn't close intellectual gaps between blacks and whites at all in any case. Even if you're saying youre 'ignoring this factor', having it repated again uncritically just implicitly reinforces its validity to people.
How do you distinguish "intellectual diversity" from "being wrong", such that you allow vigorous and rigorous discussions of controversial topics, while treating New Chronology with the seriousness it deserves, and mostly avoiding jokers who say that 2+2=11 (unless they can tell you what base it's in)?
Well, we can start by distinguishing between oughts and is-es.
Intellectual diversity should mean having a diverse and roughly societally representative spectrum of viewpoints on "ought" questions, combined with an as-broad-as-reasonably-consistent-with-the-facts diversity of viewpoints on "is" questions.
That does sound like a good first step.
No clue. I would hope that some level of sorting is inherent in people that want to come to a university that teaches empirically backed, rational knowledge. I suppose that isn't fully true of universities, but in my ideal world the content taught at the university would sort applicants well enough
Well, I think we should first acknowledge actual "intellectual diversity" is not really what colleges are after, despite any protestations to the contrary. Actual intellectual diversity would include people who are low IQ and low consciousness. But those are generally people colleges would never admit (and for good reason - though I suspect it would be enlightening, since I think a lot of college students almost never interact with people >2 standard deviations below them in IQ).
But to actually address the spirit of your question, my first thought was geography, since people who come from rural counties and "flyover states" are probably going to have more diverse perspectives than typical children of the urban/suburban Professional Managerial Class. But then I considered that the children of professors in small liberal arts colleges would probably qualify as diverse based on their geography, but would likely have more in common intellectually with the children of other professors than other residents of their communities.
So, I think parents' professions might be the easiest way to get at some actual intellectual diversity. I think you should absolutely require tests/grades (though that is an extremely low-value signal) to prove the student is intellectually capable of whatever the college will expect of them, but after that bar is cleared, I think extra weight should be given to the children of low SES professions. But that needs to also take into account the status of the profession, not just income! The scions of doctors and lawyers probably have more in common with the children of journalists than either do with the children of a fast food cashier and roofer, despite the (plausible) similarities in incomes of the latter two. A diversity of status/upbringing seems more likely to promote actual intellectual diversity than whatever universities are doing now.
Dang, that's really interesting, love that idea. Definitely the most actionable process I've heard.
As to your first point, (as you clearly understood but I'm still responding too because it's interesting), what I meant by intellectual diversity is not diversity of intellect, but a collection of intellectuals who are diverse with respect to their ideas. Essentially, diverse along dimensions orthogonal to intelligence (but still relating to their mind; physical diversity is low on my list of priorities). Anyways, you clearly understood the spirit of the question but for completeness I thought I'd include a more exact definition.
How do you define "true intellectual diversity"? Are you sure that it's intrinsically valuable to increase this metric?
Imagine that Karl Marx is having Friedrich Hayek for dinner. Does the "true intellectual diversity" of the gathering increase or decrease if youtube flat earther Nathan Thompson shows up uninvited?
To find a definition, I think it helps to go back to what I think is the mathematical bedrock behind the “diversity leads to better outcomes” idea. Jury majority vote success increases with decreasing correlation among jurors [1]. With n jurors, each with P > 0.5 of being “correct”, the majority vote over n jurors is more likely to be “correct” as the correlation between jurors decreases. A person’s marginal value to a coalition is a combination of (1) their likelihood of having correct ideas and (2) their uncorrelation with existing members. It is entirely possible that a person can provide more marginal value to a jury than another even if they have lower prob of being correct if they are sufficiently uncorrelated. (For machine learning people: We use the same argument to explain the effectiveness of “ensembling”)
We want people that are more likely than not to be correct but for uncorrelated reasons. The flat earther can be discarded for that reason (juror with P < 0.5 being correct is bad regardless of correlation). In the context of university admissions, we would need to change what we mean by “correct” but that could be something like raw academic achievements. And as “ClocksAndMetersticks” says, something like a questionnaire of belief/value system might provide a correlation measure. How to tradeoff between these measures would depend on how exactly you model the problem but I find this a useful framework.
[1] Ladha, Krishna K. "The Condorcet jury theorem, free speech, and correlated votes." American Journal of Political Science (1992): 617-634
British scientists alone have produced more scientific breakthroughs than a majority of other countries *combined*. If intellectual diversity is really important, this implies that it correlates extremely, *extremely* poorly with diversity in almost any demographic category.
I mean, I'd imagine that would be a fun dinner to take part in. But you're right, that's not what I'd like at universities as it would probably lower productivity. For practicality's sake, probably: variety of belief systems where members of those belief systems can productively engage with one another, and the material learned in the courses offered at the university is trusted as common ground for the members at least X% (idk what the right number would be, or whether it is a quantity that could be well defined).
I think you will do yourself a disservice if you want every student to be able to productively engage every other student, even if you restrict it to students in the same field. I think you can find a trusted common ground in STEM, but the softer sciences have preciously little material that everyone agrees on.
I would suggest that we ditch the idea of "true intellectual diversity" and focus on meritocracy and advancement of the field. If someone wants to learn the field, they can be a student. If someone advances the field (i.e. does new things and provides new results), they should be welcome as a professor. We only need to worry about intellectual diversity as far as the risk of some fields getting too insular and loses contact with reality, and then the public should cut funding.
I suppose my question relies on the premise that intellectual diversity is a prerequisite for academic advancement. As we know from Godel's theorem, any formal system (it seems likely that the brain is a formal system), no matter how sophisticated, has propositions which are undecideable within the system. So, to attain more truth on more propositions, we should have diverse formal systems.
If this is true, then a true meritocracy would be fine and would produce intellectually diverse students and professors. However, college admissions are not and probably will never be a true meritocracy, so I expect that we will have to "hard code" decision criteria into college admissions for the foreseeable future. Hence, my question. Supposing someone wants true intellectual diversity in college campuses (see some of my other comments and Mark's), what should these criteria be?
Why would cultural diversity produce intellectual diversity? I bet Oxford in England is, at least historically, very intellectually diverse but culturally upper class English.
I suppose I'd include cultural diversity by definition? Like, there are many ways to be intellectually diverse, and Oxford is surely diverse in many ways. However, all other things being equal, I would say Oxford would be more intellectually diverse if it were more culturally diverse.
I don't think intellectual diversity has ever been a motivating factor for racial quotas in university admissions.
If a university wanted intellectual diversity in its student population, I think a good way of doing that might be to e.g. have one nth admitted by grades, one nth by an intelligence test, one nth by who's willing to pay the most, and so on.
My impression is that the people in universities who are in favor of affirmative action are mostly opposed to intellectual diversity. My standard example is to imagine a department looking for a new hire that has two candidates who appear about equally well qualified. They then discover that one of them is an articulate defender of South African apartheid.
If they wanted intellectual diversity that would be an argument for hiring him, since it is a position that nobody in the department holds, probably nobody is familiar with the arguments for. Judging by my experience of academia, at almost any university it will be a strong argument against hiring him.
This is a poor take. Your example muddies things by mixing intellectual diversity (which is ambiguous) and premises that blunt credible research, teaching, and service (like advocacy for racial apartheid):
1) Intellectual diversity is ambiguous. It could be said that it is 'diverse' to believe that the world is flat: ~20% of the US population are at least unsure about it (see https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-a-survey-of-us-public-beliefs). There is no clear public or private good served by recruiting racial apartheid advocates or flat earthers to University merely because people in a population hold those views.
2) Universities and departments want candidates to do credible research, teaching, and service. Advocating racial apartheid is a take that blunts the credibility of a candidate's research, teaching, and service contributions: such a person is less likely to be capable of credibly researching, doing research with, teaching, or serving non-White people.
Only righteous ideas can be diverse. Got it.
>Advocating racial apartheid is a take that blunts the credibility of a candidate's research, teaching, and service contributions: such a person is less likely to be capable of credibly researching, doing research with, teaching, or serving non-White people.
This is 100% special pleading. By your logic, colleges should be rejecting people with strong left-wing views given their documented hatred of white people:
https://ideasanddata.wordpress.com/2020/06/03/american-racism-and-the-anti-white-left/
So diverse opinions that most people disagree with aren't actually useful contributions to diversity? But opinions that 90% of the faculty disagree with are? You do you propose telling the difference?
You seem to suppose that apartheid was pure in-your-face muhuhuhaha evil, rather than something that at least a few intelligent people could make articulate arguments for. Neither of us would probably be convinced by them, but is there no value in wrestling with them?
Apartheid was genuinely a "muahaha evil" kind of thing. There are no genuinely good intellectual positives to it.
Diversity is on the broad Left is simply this scenario. Imagine that you want a world religion class that is as diverse as you can make it. You would want to include a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Shinto, Zoroastrian, Native American tribal, Papua New Guinea tribal, South American tribal, Confucianism, strong atheist, weak atheism/agnostic, Gnostic, Eastern Orthodox, Amish, Sikh, Taoist, etc... You'd want to include as much and as many diverse strong group-oriented ideas as you could possibly provide for. This is what people on the Left in general mean by 'diversity', adding the caveat that for some topics it means the inclusive/positive/wholesome part of diversity not the "let's have nazi ideas at the table, cuz that's diverse ideas too!" Paradox of Tolerance is definitely in play, and yes what is 'tolerated' has greatly changed in the modern era.
>Apartheid was genuinely a "muahaha evil" kind of thing. There are no genuinely good intellectual positives to it.
Absolutely false. COMPLETELY false.
Apartheid existed to maintain order in South Africa. South Africa's leaders didn't initially have apartheid - they introduced it after the experiences of dealing of a country full of black africans. And what was the result? South Africa became one of if not the most prosperous and safe countries in all of sub-saharan african history. And what has happened since? South Africa is basically a failed state (but I'm sure you have a convenient just-so explanation for South Africa's precipitous decline that has nothing to do with black rule).
There was never some weird sadistic satisfaction with 'oppressing' the blacks. It was done so that a good country could be built. And if you think it's not necessary, just look at the majority of the rest of sub-saharan africa.
"There are no genuinely good intellectual positives to it."
Have you ever discussed it with an intelligent supporter? If not, perhaps you should not be so confident that there are no reasonable arguments for it.
Your response might be that there are no intelligent supporters — but then you have to explain how you know that and why, if there were no good arguments for it, a large number of white South Africans were in favor of it.
For my hypothetical, assume the position is in physics or mathematics or statistics, so the candidate's view of apartheid tells you nothing about his professional competence — unless you believe that the only reason someone would hold a position you consider indefensible is that he is stupid or evil.
It might not be the true underlying reason, but it is certainly one of their stated reasons (at least, by my university). Which means there is at least some people at the university who believe it to be the reason, and further I believe it to be a valuable goal.
Your idea seems reasonable, although I would add that all sections should probably have to have a minimum aptitude for schooling, ie, a minimum ability to pass classes and learn from them, for it to be reasonable at all. But still, my main question is exactly what are the best categories to admit on--you've put score on intelligence test, grades in school, and how much you're willing to pay. I'm not convinced those are the best options.
>Which means there is at least some people at the university who believe it to be the reason
If we could show with 100% confidence that racially discriminatory admissions didn't lead to more intellectual diversity, what percentage of these people would stop supporting such a policy and would be fine with all white/asian student populations?
"Which means there is at least some people at the university who believe it to be the reason"
In your world, do you find that people always tell the truth about the reasons for what they do?
No, but in a big organization where the views are not homogeneous I expect some (possible small) proportion of the members of the organization to believe in the stated ideals--presumably the stated ideals are attractants for some staff that want to make them reality
How would you define ethnicity as distinct from race or even nationality?
Nation states change over very short periods, populations migrate and re-home constantly and always mate with the existing local pool producing new varieties of human offspring.
The US lays no claim to be a race, as is evident by its modern history of migration, but comprises many different races based on the source of original immigration.
Are Irish Americans a separate race, or Dutch or Nordic or is race used only as surrogates for skin colour?
It seems from an outside perspective that using race as a category is way more divisive that inclusive.
I totally agree on the last comment. What I mean by ethnicity is admittedly poorly defined. In my head, race is purely skin color/other phenomic/genetic features, whereas ethnicity is cultural differences such as the role of the family, value judgements, styles of upbringing, etc. There's probably no good way to measure ethnicity (as is also true with race); I would guess the best way is self-report, which obviously has its problems when there's incentives through college admissions.
In a perfect world, however, it does strike me as highly valuable to have diverse ethnicity on a college campus to increase exposure to many value systems and ideas to all students, but a diversity of race (ie, just skin color etc. with no regard to culture) doesn't strike me as particularly valuable, which is what I'm trying to get at with my question; what other sorts of measures produce such diversity of ideas?
Inclusion would seem to me to be the key. If a group has been outside conventional academic circles for whatever reason, then drawing them in and allowing for the usual synergies to flourish would be a step in the right direction. Facilitating this requires encouragement of outgroups to participate.
Many ethnic groups fear the results of exposure to academic rigor as it quickly challenges traditional values in a way that can be perceived as a threat.
Also the reality of racism on many campuses is bound to have a negative impact on any recruitment initiatives.
There's a whole discussion around power which somehow needs to be worked into the mix but that's probably a bit beyond the scope of this medium.
I agree--but again, race is no longer an allowed factor and I believe it was probably a poor proxy for intellectual diversity in the first place. Ignoring systemic issues with actually getting diverse groups into the college campus, what should universities sort on to produce intellectual diversity?
For example, an interesting one might be "how much does your family matter to you" or "do you want kids in the future?" I've found that people who don't want kids and those who do have very different views on the world, so I would hope that an intellectually diverse place has both groups. This is just theoretical--i understand that practically no college could ask that question on applications and not get lambasted.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-05763-005
Not sure if I can post links on here, but here goes.
Also not convinced that wanting to preserve ancient burial grounds is a great example of hindering academic enquiry. These places belong to the indigenous peoples who have an absolute right to protect their own heritage. This should be pretty self evident really.
My point was more about the resistance that parents often display wrt to the type of exposure their kids have that makes them want to lean away from their culture. Not a good thing or a bad thing, but it can be a major factor in determining educational preferences for some groups.
I attended college at one of today's most-infamous campuses (deservedly so in my opinion) for craven caving to woke mobs. And I've little doubt that today's college administrators will now attempt to evade the SCOTUS ruling; some of them have already floated that idea as a trial balloon.
All that said, your historical assertion is false. Belief in student-body diversity as a vital goal was standard in elite academia during the 1970s (when I was a high school "townie" with lots of adult family friends on faculty at one such school), and the 1980s (when I attended collage as a humanities major at another of them), and the 1990s (when my wife attended college and grad school at another of them). If academics do now settle on a consensus basis for evading the Court's "SFFA" ruling, they will not also discard their strong shared belief in student-body diversity.
Well, I'm a university student and I value intellectual diversity. For this discussion, I don't particularly care about the history of it since I'm just trying to get a theoretical understanding of what kinds of criteria could bring it about.
How important is visualization w.r.t. the interpretability (or broader alignment) problem? Specifically, is there need+opportunity for impact of frontend engineers in that space?
For background I’ve got 10 years of experience, most of which has been on frontend data visualization stuff, currently at Google. I looked around at some different teams within Google and saw Tensorboard and the Learning Interpretability Tool, but it’s unclear to me how much those teams are bottlenecked by visualization implementation problems vs research problems of knowing where/how to even look, and I’d like to have more background before I cold-call them directly
As someone who does not have a tech background but reads a lot about things like alignment and interpretability, I have the feeling there's something lacking in the approaches people are taking to these problems. My intuition (which may be dead wrong, of course) is that they call for some sort of radical cleverness -- some new paradigm -- and nobody is thinking that way. People are trying different combos and tweaks of old good ideas -- things like having a second AI do something to the target AI, trying RF but with a tweak, etc.
I've been playing around with Claude 2 (an LLM optimised for analysing texts) and I'm extremely impressed with it's general reasoning abilities. Talking to it feels a lot like talking to a humanities professor that reads and writes super humanly fast, is on a light dose of psychedelics and only suffers from mild dementia. You can ask it to review essays, responses to that essay other essays on the same topic with different perspectives, and its response is usually very convincing.
I'm wondering if we're rapidly approaching the end of the age where it's reasonable for humans to argue with each other about how the world works.
when Claude 3+, instead of arguing over different interpretations of economics we'll just ask the 300IQ AI that's read every text ever written on the topic and contemplated the issue for the human equivalent of 10,000 years to weigh in, and it'' answer "with 87% certainty the correct view is a synthesis of Neo-Keynesianism mixed with anarcho-primitivist elements."
In a few years are we likely to have something close to definitive answers to our long run ideological disputes?
"In a few years are we likely to have something close to definitive answers to our long run ideological disputes?"
Even given an infinitely smart AI, it is still limited by the available data. If e.g. some question requires running randomized controlled (and possibly blinded) trials on firms, or, worse, whole nations, and, as a result, such experiments would be fiendishly expensive and have never been run, the AI is still going to come up with: "No one really knows." ( This is even setting aside value disputes and sticking to purely factual questions about e.g. optimal organizations for some agreed-on metric. )
There will be a neo-Keyensian AI and a a Hayekian AI and a Marxist AI and so on and so forth. They will all sound fairly convincing at first blush, and you will still have no objective way of measuring their views' correctness against each other.
Can't be done, we value different things and there is no non-horrible way to get people to agree on everything because the is-ought problem has no solution.
The AI would not have contemplated anything, it would have calculated a series of statistically likely next tokens given how humans write.
I find that extremely hard to believe. But let's say it's true. What, exactly, are we going to think about and do all day? Get our minds turned into those of 2 year olds so that we can experience fascination and delight and the illusion that there are things yet to learn? Get mind links to dolphins, octopi, and, I dunno, Tasmanian devils? Get perpetual orgasm implants?
You need to factor in the need for power that drives so many of the conflicts we experience from day to day. One of the more absurd things said during the UK Brexit debate (sorry), was that we didn’t need experts... translated as the experts would subvert our position..
Eh...they wanted to cut immigration and couldn't admit it.
Didn't work from what I can tell.
The debate wasn't just about immigration. The comments about experts were aimed at those who were warning against the economic impacts of leaving the Union.
Hmm. I’m no brexiter but many of those arguments were exaggerated, or wrong.
Arguments are always skewed but my issue was with the attempt to drown out any criticism by attacking 'experts' rather than address the facts.
We know that Brexit was a populist coup engineered by the libertarian Right but the toxicity of the the debate reached new heights (lows)
It seems that the influence of US style debates has been far reaching and one can only expect more of the sane for the election next year, with added AI fakery no doubt.
It hasn’t worked but that’s also a political decision. And many Brexit supporters were clear about the immigration restriction position.
“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”
Michael Gove was talking about people being fed up with, and distrusting, economists and economic institutions in the wake of the global financial crisis. It has been memed into something different.
I really doubt it. We might get to pick some of the lower-hanging fruit if we're lucky, but even assuming AIs get really good, people will just turn to their AIs and say 'write me a sophisticated argument for why the position i already hold is probably correct' and it'll just become a war between plausible-sounding high-end rationalisations of the views everyone has already. Some views, like young earth creationism, might be too unsupportable for this to work well, but people will just complain the AI training data was biased against them or something.
In any case, getting *definitive* answers to a lot of these questions is impossible without serious superintellegence, since a full enough grasp of the issues isn't just a little bit beyond human understanding, but way, way beyond.
I posted this argument into Claude and it agreed initially. After a bit of back and forth I pushed it into a position more in the middle ground. Which it summarised as:
"I [Claude] initially expressed strong skepticism about AI's ability to produce "definitive answers" to complex ideological debates, even in the next few years, due to challenges like subjective values, limitations of current systems, confirmation bias, and the combinatorial explosion of perspectives.
You suggested that if we restrict the scope to purely factual matters, and have multiple reliable, "truth-tracking" AIs converge on the same analysis, this could overcome some objections and produce high confidence answers.
I agreed factual questions within constrained domains could potentially be more definitively resolved, but maintained that issues around reliability, availability of systems, interpretability, and outlier dissent would still pose challenges to AI conclusively settling complex real-world ideological disputes in the next few years.
You pointed out that developing more reliable, less biased AI is a focus in the field which could help, and that predictive accuracy can serve as one test of reliability. You also noted it would be hard for reasonable people to dismiss a consensus of reliable AIs.
I acknowledged those were fair points, but still doubted technical challenges around bias and general intelligence could be fully resolved in a few years. I also noted factual consensus could still leave room for reasonable disagreement on causal interpretations."
This Claude thing does seem pretty impressive. Maybe I should tell it to start rationalising my politics...
There’s a common fallacy (very pronounced in most politics) where people overestimate the importance and contribution of certain factors in their understanding and explanation of complex phenomena. Often to the exclusion of all other factors. (E.g. “We failed in Iraq because of X”, “I’m obese because of my genes”, “the only reason people associate with the right or the left politically, is tribal”.)
Does this have a catchy name? Has anyone done any interesting work on it, and written anything good and accessible? I’d like to understand better how some things grow to seemingly outsized importance in our mind, and how we can become better and more accurate in assessing factors. (Not that I think I’m particularly bad at it, but it seems like such an important thing to get right, calibrate correctly, and be able to talk about effectively, in constructive discussions.)
I've just been using Tangible Details from FilmCritHulk. https://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/hulk-essay-your-ass-tangible-details-and-the-nature-of-criticism/
Thanks. Yes, I see how that might be a good perspective on the same phenomenon. (At least after running it through ChatGPT to make it readable.)
I think this is related to how people confuse the outcome of multi-way winner take all elections: winning with a plurality is not the same as winning with a bare majority is not the same as winning with a supermajority. And yet people, myself included, tend to elide the distinction whenever politically convenient.
Compare the "Red State Blue State" map, to the purple state map, to the same two types but by counties, to distortions or 3-D versions that take population density into account.
In a probability/statistics POV, this is essentially conflation of the mode with the distribution (if the certain factor even is the "most dominant" single factor, that is)
Yes, that seems to fit the bill. Or rather, even if the factor is not the most dominant, that might be a good way to approach it in discussion with someone who believes it is.
Now… If I only had a cuter way of saying that, by naming it after a movie everyone has seen or a story everyone knows.
This is exactly what Philip Tetlock used to characterize “hedgehogs” as opposed to the “foxes” who do well in his prediction challenges.
For what it’s worth, although I think that hedgehogism tends to make one a less accurate forecaster, it probably makes you a more useful theorist for coming up with explanations and ideas that others can then choose to accept or reject in making their own predictions. The foxes get things right, but the hedgehogs provide them the raw materials.
Thanks. I guess I need to lift Superforecasting to the top of my "waiting to be read" pile again… 😉
I refer to it as a unicausal model, but usually not a model someone believes in but a theory A attributes to B in order to explain wny B's belief is wrong.
Suppose I argue that one problem with providing welfare payments to single mothers is that it will increase the number of children born to unmarried women. I get accused of believing that women have children in order to get welfare payments — a unicausal model and an implausible one.
Your question makes me think you would enjoy the book The Enigma of Reason by Mercier and Sperber. The central point is that human reasoning is not in the first instance aimed at finding truth. Rather, it’s a social competence used to solidify status in group interactions. The currently popular focus on logical errors is what they call “the intellectualist” approach. Their “interactionist” approach is a more insightful starting point in evaluating arguments.
Thanks. Added to my Kindle.
I just think of it as a simple Newtonian reflex.
Look to Complexity Theory to get a clearer view.
Yeah, complexity theory may be a good jumping off point. I'll load up my Kindle queue with books on complexity theory for noobs. Let me know if you have any recommendations.
Check out the Complexity Explorer site run by the Santa Fe institute.
Also Complexity podcast by the same organisation.
Oh, man! That's a very attractive rabbit hole … 😀
Oh yes it most definitely is. Enjoy 😉
For negative phenomena purported to be caused by a single human's decisions, my favorite term is "The Hero Theory of Disaster". The countervailing model, where you attribute the phenomenon instead to the alignment of many factors, is "The Swiss Cheese Model of Failure".
Dan Drezner used the phrase “piss-poor, monocausal social science”, which is less a fallacy (some things do have one cause) than an insult. https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/08/02/in-which-we-learn-through-the-logical-reasoning-of-a-33-year-old-book-that-b-h-liddell-hart-wasnt-all-that/
That's a good phrase. Possibly made even better by having been directed at a book by Mearsheimer (who, in my admittedly limited experience, seems to be someone whose "realism" suffers from just the fallacy I'm talking about. I'm not sure that it's monocausal, but it certainly seems poorly calibrated to me.)
Mearsheimer is literally the first example that popped into my mind upon reading the comment that started this thread.
(His ongoing success at getting mainstream mediots to slobber all over him is impressive in a sense. A bit like how, somehow, there are still people who think Paul Erhlich was/is some sort of prophet.)
Could you elaborate on your critique of Mearsheimer? I was not familiar with him until recently, and am still not very familiar. At first glance he seems to be running circles around his NATO warhawk opponents.
As I mentioned, I don't know his work well, and I know I am going to regret posting a three-paragraph of my impression of him, and my objection. Take it with the many, many grains of salt it deserves:
Mearsheimer can argue very forcefully and convincingly for his geopolitical "realist" interpretation of events – a kind of "right of the stronger" that simply has to be acknowledged. He would probably insist that he is being descriptive, not prescriptive, but that line gets really blurry when you start making and hedging predictions.
In his interpretation, however, he tends to downplay the importance (even the rationality) of ideological, cultural, moral considerations in one's analysis, and largely dismiss them as vanities. The only thing that really matters is the economic, geographic and military reality on the ground – like in a game of Risk. "Monocausal" may be too strong a word, but "causal reductionism" seems apt.
As I see it, when intangible aspects feed back into the "real" power balance, there's never a straight-forward exchange rate. The inputs are intangible, and the mechanics are convoluted and oblique. The outcomes are tangible, but the outcomes are just more economic, geographic and military reality on the ground, which is convenient to Mearsheimer, because that can't really prove him wrong. He doesn't even have to admit anything inconvenient about how such outcomes manifest, as alternative post-hoc explanations and motivations are easy to come by.
Ergo, the only thing that really counts is "real" power, and everything else is a vanity. Mearsheimer can scoff at how much money and energy we spent on silly politicking and empty talk, when what won the day was, of course, the reality on the battlefield, and it couldn't have gone any other way.
Yes. Mearsheimer has had one descriptive hammer in his hand for 50 years, which he insists is the best fit for every international-relations nail that pops up anywhere in the world, and he just keeps swinging that same hammer.
Much like with Ehrlich there are people who at some level _want_ Mearsheimer's particular worldview to be accurate. Hence each of them retains and gains believers without regard to the fact of having been a decades-long failure at successfully predicting future events.
I'll call it unifactorialism or monofactorialism. You can then abbreviate it to 'mono' so it sounds like a social disease. "Only one reason? That's mono..." On the other hand, maybe it would lead to polyamory jokes.
Catchphrase: Beware the Man of One Explanation...
I'm actually not sarcastic; this is a really good point. How about unifactorialism? Not catchy though...
You're onto something. But I'd love something less accusatory, that doesn't alienate, but rather invites people to join the search for a helpful level of complication and understanding.
Would this be the single cause fallacy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause. Not sure if there has been any empirical work done in the area; the wikipedia references don't seem to lead anywhere interesting, and searching for things like "causal reductionism" seems to just lead to philosophical papers.
Ironically, the commenter saying "stupidity" seems to be making this fallacy himself; stupidity may have a causal effect on one making the "single cause fallacy", but it is likely not the only factor which could cause one to make this fallacy.
Thanks. Yes, I guess it's at least related to that. Though it doesn't have to be an oversimplification – often people will accept that the causality is complex, but dramatically over- or underestimate the impact of one cause relative to others.
Racism comes to mind as a contentious example where people can't seem to agree on how much of an impact it has on specific life-outcomes, even if reasonable people will agree that life-outcomes have complex causes.
I feel like we don't have enough good language, cultural touchstones, shared memes, to tell someone, in a nice and constructive way that "sure, racism played a part in XYZ event, but what other factors might have played a part, and to what extent" without seeming like you're minimizing the racism, and so that conversation almost always devolves into something grotesque.
Why isn't there at least a fairy tale about "the three little pigs who argued over a multifactorial problem and only lived happily ever after once they solved it correctly"?
You spotted my little recursive jeu d'esprit...
Stupidity.
It is a mark of intelligence that being able to understand an argument does not in itself predispose you also to believe it correct. This is an insight I had by myself, then learned was previously pointed out by Aristotle, then learned is in fact falsely attributed to Aristotle. Whatever: the stupid light upon an explanation they understand, therefore also believe it, therefore think: job done, phenomenon explained, no need to cloud the issue by examining other factors.
> the stupid light upon an explanation they understand, therefore also believe it
I saw a classic example of that the other day in a forum discussion about "wobbles" in the Earth's axis over time influencing the climate. That much is beyond doubt, but the person who posted it ascribed the whole effect to the 26,000 year cycle of the precession of the equinox.
When I explained that precession of the rotation axis occurs steadily around a circular cone, and thus solar coverage of the Earth's surface is completely symmetric over the period of a year so that precession per se is not a "wobble", either in part or whole, I was taken to task for not understanding it at all! After a couple of exchanges, I gave up the attempt.
"Eddies in the space-time continuum"
have to Disagree
Ah Yes but: "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." This was said by Saul Bellow and - when you think about the oceans of woke nonsense believed by the 'highly intelligent' 'highly educated' millions who have poured out of the academia sheep-dip in recent decades - I think he got that exactly right
That quote would be just as true if the word "illusion" was replaced by "conformity".
Yes that's true.....too.
Thanks.
Not convinced it is stupidity, however.
E.g. It may be at least partially correct to say that the US failed in Iraq because the military was unprepared and ill-suited to the job of nation building. Someone pretty smart making that claim might admit that it was a complex set of reasons, but talk as though they ascribe 75-80% of the failure to that one salient factor – and propose solutions that reflect that – when the real number (which the best solutions should reflect) might be just, say, 35%. (Completely made up numbers, if that wasn't clear.)
When I discuss topics like that, too often people's arguments seem to pull them toward the extremes – either/or, black or white, 100% or 0%. That's fun for spirited debate, but not useful for interrogating the arguments and getting closer to the truth and good solutions.
So, I wish I had a better way to talk about these things that did more to uncover the nuance and complexity. A language and an easily shareable mental model, similar to Bayesian reasoning, but for explanations, rather than probability and prediction.
We are an adversarial lot and we therefore tend to focus on praiseworthy/blameworthy causes at the expense of others. This isn't the same as ignoring or denying them. “I’m obese because of my genes” doesn't deny that factors like the easy availability of hamburgers and the metabolic effect of eating them come in to the causal nexus, it focuses on a claim which tends to exonerate the speaker. Similarly - and this is purely an example, not an argument I want to have here and now - I am a believer in the thesis that the Industrial Revolution, and modern capitalism, arise out of the slave trade. Now, obviously the existence of iron and coal and science and the profit motive have a part to play in the explanation as well, but that is understood by all parties because iron and coal are not, for these purposes, on trial.
Oh well, I have to admit that‘s exactly how I approach things. If there‘s an explanation that sounds good to me, then I‘m finished (until someone points out a problem with it, or I notice one myself). And even if a phenomenon is „complex“, by default I would still expect one factor to be the dominant cause (Occam‘s razor).
My favourite example is how whenever homo sapiens appeared in some new place, the megafauna disappeared shortly afterwards. Now, when you look up official accounts of why a big animal species died out in a certain location, climate change is often cited as a factor as well —- but I don‘t see the point of adding another factor to homo sapiens.
That's not what Occam was on about. He was against hypothesising new entities whose existence if proven would merely make an argument easier (the prime example being God, but he would presumably have disagreed). Climate exists, changes, and has ecological effects, so doesn't fall foul of the principle. Complex events often have complex causes: small birds are in decline because there are too many cats and also not enough insects (and for other reasons, they apparently fly into wind turbines), more cats has different causes than fewer insects, etc etc.
The wind turbine thing doesn't hold up under analysis from my recall. But it gets trotted out as an objection to green energy projects for other motivations.
https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds
An objection to those numbers I've heard voiced is that wind turbines as of 2017 were far less widespread in the US than electrical power lines or glass buildings. That per installation, wind turbines may be more deadly to birds than those other things are.
That objection is theoretically plausible. Perhaps the ranges that the USFWS came up with for turbines today are like what they would have found from tall buildings in 1910 or something? But....honestly I've no idea and neither does anybody else. That hypothesis requires some major projecting based on a vast array of nested assumptions, it's much more of a wild-assed guess than a documented reality.
Why was meditation never a Western tradition until recently? Is it simply due to the prevalence of prayer in a Judeo Christian society?
I suspect that the reformation and counter- reformation both emphasized the role of linguistically describable reasons, rather than mental practices that can’t be explained. This is probably somehow related to the role of Protestantism in the enlightenment and the scientific Revolution.
Meditation is an ancient concept in western society as you can tell from the Latin roots of the word and its use going back to Roman times. While eastern and western meditation share a great deal of overlap they are also distinct in many ways.
The big difference is that the Buddhist goal of using prayer to overcome the self was condemned as heresy by Christians and so never gained widespread popularity. (Buddhism sees reason as worldly attachment while Christians see reason as divine.) But even in the east this was not the only idea of meditation.
Meditation has been important among certain Christian communities for centuries; look up the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola for one example.
As said below, it was indeed a Christian tradition (and remains so). There's a slight difference in usage; what is generally considered as "meditation" is known as "contemplation" in Christianity and these are all considered forms of prayer. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopaedia, though wordy, gives a handy distinction:
"Meditation is a form of mental prayer consisting in the application of the various faculties of the soul, memory, imagination, intellect, and will, to the consideration of some mystery, principle, truth, or fact, with a view to exciting proper spiritual emotions and resolving on some act or course of action regarded as God's will and as a means of union with Him."
Whereas contemplation is "The idea of contemplation is so intimately connected with that of mystical theology that one cannot be clearly explained independent of the other ...Mystical states are called, first, supernatural or infused, by which we mean manifestly supernatural or infused; secondly, extraordinary, indicating that the intellect operates in new way, one which our efforts cannot bring about; thirdly, passive, to show that the soul receives something and is conscious of receiving it. The exact term would be passivo-active, since our activity responds to this reception just as it does in the exercise of our bodily senses. By way of distinction ordinary prayer is called active."
The example of meditative prayer is contained in the prayer after saying the rosary:
"O God, whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us
the rewards of eternal life; grant, we beseech Thee, that, meditating upon these mysteries
of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain
and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen."
https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/meditations
"Spiritual reading of Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels, is an important form of meditation. This spiritual reading is traditionally called lectio divina or divine reading. Lectio divina is prayer over the Scriptures.
1. The first element of this type of prayer is reading (lectio): you take a short passage from the Bible, preferably a Gospel passage and read it carefully, perhaps three or more times. Let it really soak-in.
2. The second element is meditation (meditatio). By using your imagination enter into the Biblical scene in order to "see" the setting, the people, and the unfolding action. It is through this meditation that you encounter the text and discover its meaning for your life.
3. The next element is prayer (oratio) or your personal response to the text: asking for graces, offering praise or thanksgiving, seeking healing or forgiveness. In this prayerful engagement with the text, you open yourself up to the possibility of contemplation.
4. Contemplation (contemplatio) is a gaze turned toward Christ and the things of God. By God's action of grace, you may be raised above meditation to a state of seeing or experiencing the text as mystery and reality. In contemplation, you come into an experiential contact with the One behind and beyond the text."
There are different 'schools' of mediation, such as the Ignatian (developed by St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits), Sulpician Method, or the Alphonsian Method, the Carmelite or Franciscan method, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatian_spirituality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_Exercises
"The Spiritual Exercises (Latin: Exercitia spiritualia), composed 1522–1524, are a set of Christian meditations, contemplations, and prayers written by Ignatius of Loyola, a 16th-century Spanish priest, theologian, and founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Divided into four thematic "weeks" of variable length, they are designed to be carried out over a period of 28 to 30 days. They were composed with the intention of helping participants in religious retreats to discern the will of God in their lives, leading to a personal commitment to follow Jesus whatever the cost."
The Sulpician method:
https://www.generalsaintsulpice.org/en/allcategories-en-gb/2-non-categorise/102-prayer-of-father-olier
With this rather fun summary of it by a Theosophist:
"Sulpician Meditation
A method of meditation adopted by the inmates at the Society of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France, based on the teaching of the French mystic Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-57). Olier was suddenly struck blind and when he regained his sight in a seemingly miraculous fashion he was impelled toward a more spiritual view of life. He founded the seminary of Saint-Solpice and developed his method of meditation which consists of three seemingly simple acts; communion (Jesus in the heart); cooperation (Jesus in the hands); adoration (Jesus before the eyes). The soul draws near to Jesus, opens itself to Him and submits its active will to Him. These three Sulpician meditative acts have obvious parallels with the Indian systems of Jñāna, Karma, and Bhakti Yoga respectively, which seem to be combined in the Bhagavad-Gītā (as they are by the Sulpicians) into a single yogic discipline, usually called rājā yoga, although with either Krishna (Sk. Krsna) or some other deity, rather than Jesus, as their focus."
The Carmelites are really more famed for their contemplative prayer life (which maps more onto Buddhist meditation) as they and the enclosed orders are the powerhouses of that, than the meditation method, but they do that too:
https://www.karmel.dk/contemplative-prayer-in-the-carmelite-tradition/
https://carmelitesofboston.org/prayer/methods-of-contemplative-prayer/meditation/
I feel like I semi-regularly come across accounts of this Catholic or that Catholic researching deeply into meditation and contemplation, perhaps travelling to the East and learning from Buddhist monks, perhaps studying the works of various monastics and hermits, and writing long, complicated accounts of methods that must be followed, and orders that one must go in, to achieve appropriate contemplation of the divine. Only for them to discover (and, generally, honestly reveal this in their writing) that the elderly people in their parish have already been doing this all along without any of the study or travel.
I feel like this is a thing, as I say, I come across semi-regularly in people’s own writings about themselves (not as heartwarming chicken soup stories). And yet, my mind has gone blank.
Do you happen to have a few examples to mind that you could share? It seems like the sort of thing you usually know.
I know what you mean, but I don't have any personal stories of that nature. It's either people trying to get Rosary devotion up and running, but nothing deeper. Maybe Perpetual Adoration. Used to be promoting things like Garabandal and Fatima but those seem to have gone out of style.
In real life round here it's very bread-and-butter Catholicism and in fact I'd be happier if there were a few more ordinary devotions of the old style, rather than the modern version they learn in school. Ah, well!
Thanks, all the same.
I think you might need to be clear about what you mean by ‘recently’ and by ‘meditation’.
For example, the rosary is a really well known prayer in which most experienced practitioners do something that I think most people would consider ‘meditation’, and has existed for quite a long time by the scale of human lifetimes.
Agreed. I also immediately thought of praying the rosary.
Exactly. Traditions like adoration, the way of the cross, and more mystical practices within Christianity may also apply
To a degree, yes, but the focus of these practices is very much external, God , Jesus etc, whereas recent secular practices are about developing an understanding of the internal self without reference to any external construct.
Well yes. But then again the question was about why historically there was nothing like it. You can also argue secular versions of meditation are different in nature from traditional Buddhist ones or whatever. At the end of the day of course historically no modern version of meditation arose before modern times
Yup, can't argue with that. Jon Kabat Zinn and his associates along with the psychedelic movement have certainly stirred the pot quite vigorously.
I guess the post Buddhist variants speak to an evolving need for contemplation but without the hierarchy of religious paradigms.
All very good points
In a dystopian mirror universe, a highlight of the Olympic Games is the random selection of one person between the ages of 12 and 72 [1] from each country to compete in the sport of their choosing at the next Games [2].
If that random person fails to medal [3], they will be thrown into the Olympic Cauldron to die by fire.
If a panel of experts agree that an elite athlete has deliberately lost in order to put a random person on the medal podium, the athlete will be tossed into the Cauldron along with the random person (but that has never happened because this practice has always been part of the mirror universe's Olympics culture and only a tiny minority of bleeding heart weirdos find it problematic).
Please note that the randomly selected people have unlimited access to every resource the elite athletes might have; the very best training facilities, equipment, emotionally invested elite athlete team members (if applicable), coaches, sports medicine / psychologists as well as bleeding-edge general medical care, the finest nutrition, comfortable housing for the random person and their entire family, and so on. Furthermore, the random person's job will be held for them and their income from the job will be replaced by the M.U.I.O.C. while they are in training. In addition, they will receive fame, prizes, and promotional opportunities if they medal.
You are the random person selected to compete for your country in the next Olympic Games.
Which sport do you choose, and why?
[1] Twelve and 72 because that is the historical age range of Olympic medalists.
[2] For the sake of simplicity, the mirror universe holds the Summer and Winter Games concurrently. The randomly selected people may choose any Olympic sport (https://olympics.com/en/sports/) and have the usual four years to train for it.
[3] Note that those who never compete at all, like alternates, do not receive medals.
Can you devise your own sport, such as "Firefighting the Olympic cauldron" where the team who can put out the fire fastest with extinguishers wins?
Failing that, I'd opt for a solo sport such as rifle shooting and practice like crazy for the four years. As others observed, for a team sport all members except possibly one would be professionals. So the odds would be much the same as if there were no randoms in the teams (unless the nature of the sport is such that any poor performers in a team totally sabotage that team's results, rowing for example perhaps or another synchronized sport).
Maybe another solution is to look at recent historical medal results for one's country, and choose the team sport occurring most frequently in these and for which one is physically suitable and can reach a reasonable standard in four years of training.
Side runner for the four-man bobsleigh. The guy that sits in the middle and doesn't have to drive or brake. I can totally sit down at an Olympic level.
I like the idea that whichever athlete I'm replacing is just going to have to go do my job for the next four years.
This is the clear answer (along with dressage) and I am surprised it took so long for someone to suggest it.
I think the four-man bobsled actually requires a short burst of elite athleticism to achieve a competitive launch, no?
Also, having trained in both dressage and jumping, I think a random person is going to have a better chance of managing to hang on through a clean round than they would building a connection with a specific horse and executing every subtle cue required in dressage.
Of course, jumping has a much higher physical risk of catastrophic injury during training and competition, so that's something to consider, too.
This one: https://youtu.be/LwWt3jNhsv4?t=140
Seriously though, you would want to choose a sport that the other random people think would be easiest. That way, you will compete against other random people instead of real athletes.
Edit because I misunderstood the question.
Well, of course there is something to be said for picking an individual sport where there are fewer elite athletes, but you still have to account for the performance of the other randoms, who have the same access to training that you do. Most people think of shooting first, so probably the shooting sports would be crammed up with mostly randos, which is fine, except now you have to be better than all of your peers *and* a few elite athletes from countries whose randos chose other sports.
That's why I tend to think that training to do one's absolute best on a team of elite athletes is more likely to succeed - it's about acknowledging that you're a handicap on them and then minimizing it as much as possible.
Sitting in an Adirondack chair and making an accurate list of 10 things nobody but me knows because I was the only person present and never shared the information. (Just to be clear, other competitors would also have to make a list of 10 things nobody but me knows.)
Spend four years lobbying for a new sport to be added to the Olympics. It doesn't really matter which sport that is; your goal is to be just barely successful, so that it makes it in, but there's not a lot of competition. (And if the sport is obscure enough that the top competitor in the world currently doesn't have the equivalent of 4 years of elite training, all the better.)
Curling. It take minimal skill to play lead - the person that slides the first 2 of their team’s 8 stones per end (think inning) -
Even a beginner could serve as a competent lead in a 4 person rink (team).
And I’ll add that contrary to Gospel, the lead doesn’t have to be without sin to throw the first stone. - I know, I groaned myself as I was typing.
Yeah, curling was also my answer - even ignoring the team aspect (where you might be 'carried' by better players), it's a sport that leans a lot more towards the strategic side and less on being in absolute prime physical condition.
It's also, AFAICT, mostly a 'hobby' sport - I don't know that there are a lot of people who are 'professional curlers' - AFAICT, the entire gold medalist US Men's team all have day jobs. (The lead, John Landsteiner, is a civil engineer) So spending four years doing nothing but practicing the curl is probably a pretty legitimate advantage towards the 'random' person.
Ha!
So it's conceivable that, after four years of full-time intensive curling training plus high performance athletic conditioning, all the randoms who select curling might actually be better curling athletes than the legitimate Olympians.
That's fun!
It’s probably true. Particularly for the team member who throws the first two stones.
A good skip - team leader and final stone thrower- can make use of just about any early stone positions.
As far as training goes, if you can carry a bag of groceries and a gallon of milk out to your car from the checkout, you are probably good to go.
A curler does have to swing a 40 or so pound stone above the ice by its handle on the backswing but it’s mostly a ‘lift with your legs’ thing.
Most reasonably healthy 13 or 72 year olds can handle that just fine.
There is a a matter of retaining balance as the player slides forward from ‘the hack’ - like starting blocks for sprinters - but again no super athleticism involved. The sole of the forward shoe is covered with Teflon to allow a longer slide making aiming the shot easier.
Wow, I had no idea curling was so accessible!
When I introduced this topic, I thought it likely that the ACX hive mind would hone in on one "best" sport for most people. But there's been a surprisingly diverse range of opinions and rationales for one sport over another.
I think you're probably right that curling might indeed be the best option for most people, but then it gets into the area of personal preference, and thinking about what you'd actually want to spend four years obsessively training to do.
I think there's a good argument that most American women should pick Women's Basketball, train obsessively on passing and free throws, and hope that the superstars on the team are so good they can work around the handicap of having a slightly skilled rando on their team.
But, well...I don't like basketball!
I grew up with horses, so I have rusty riding skills, and just discovered a love of rowing, so either of those sports would probably be a pleasurable training experience (aside from the anxiety about being tossed in the Olympic Cauldron), and luckily for mirror universe me, both sports involve literally riding someone else's elite athletic efforts (assuming one is the cox in rowing), so they might even be a viable medal.
Curling seems more achievable than riding or rowing, but...like, I don't like walking around on ice!
My small hometown - 5,000 or so - was so well off financially because of mining tax revenue early and mid 20th century that they could afford to bring a Scottish curler over to Minnesota to teach locals the sport. I believe his surname was Dunbar.
And of course they built a curling facility too. The building went on to become an Arrow Shirt factory. I worked there after school and on Saturdays in high school.
I did my share of curling too back in the days of straw brooms. The Beavers model had a leather strap inside that made a loud popping sound that the skip would have to shout over to call sweeping.
Okay I did a little research and I got the lore about Dunbar wrong.
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/dunbar_robert_henry_16E.html
But here is the original curling and ice hockey building.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eveleth_Recreation_Building#:~:text=The%20Eveleth%20Recreation%20Building%2C%20later,rink%20on%20the%20second%20floor.
Air rifle. It's notoriously the low-hanging fruit for medals.
I’m waiting for shore fishing with a bobber to be added to the competition before I get serious about training.
Assuming there end up being a few choices that most people gravitate toward, the fact that someone from *every* country had to do this week significantly change how those sports are played at the Olympic level, which then recursively affects the right decision (and is interesting in itself). One might choose eg soccer not only because of the reasons that it's an obvious choice (large team sport) but also simply because it is the obvious choice, so many other countries will also have a rando on their team as well, making them less competitive. Or if, as others have pointed out, something less athletic like pistol shooting is seen as the choice of the critical mass, it would be good to follow the crowd and compete in an event where many countries' team spots are taken up by non-professionals.
If that is the case, how pro soccer players and pistol shooters react to having non-pro teammates forced upon them would be fascinating. I could also imagine a sport's superfan *not* choosing their preferred sport out of patriotic martyrdom so their country team has a better shot at gold. If
For team sports, you are going going to get people from the top few nations joining the team, and not anyone else. Sure, the team will carry you, but if the team _without_ you has almost no chance of medaling, not much point in joining.
The randomly selected person from San Marino should not join their soccer team.
Do you replace a professional athlete or just get added? And how much time do you need to actually compete? Like, typically in (European) football you'd get a medal if you were a substitute in a winning team.
Assuming you must be on all the time and don't replace anyone, big team makes sense. But if you replace someone then it could make sense for all such people to Schelling agree to all do the same not-very-physical individual sport (maybe archery or shooting or whatever) so they'd all get a small but non-pratically-null probability of survival
In this hypothetical, you replace a professional athlete, and you must *actually* compete at some point (you can't be an alternate or sit a bench the entire Games).
There are a zillion Olympic sports so I don't want to make any rules about what "actually compete" means in a specific sport! Basically, it's whatever it would take to medal in that actual sport IRL.
So, like, sure, you could ask to be added as an alternate to the Olympic artistic gymnastics team, but if they win Gold and you never got out of alternate status, you go in the Cauldron.
In that case, definitely big team sport where I can just come in at the final minutes of one game to tick all the boxes. I'm sure with football 1min of play over the whole tournament earns you a medal.
I make a public display of condemning the practice and commit suicide in protest. If I'm going to be killed anyway, better to do it in my own terms.
Maybe try to organize with a group of people to take out as many of the event organizers as possible.
Maybe try to take out as many event collaborators as possible in the hopes of inspiring copycats and ultimately having the event abolished.
I mean, sure, this kind of answer routinely comes up when I pose the hypothetical to people, which is why I added the part about it being a perfectly normal practice in the mirror universe that virtually no one objects to (and thus cannot be effectively fought against).
Would your answer be the same if you were very confident that your act of defiance would only result in contemptuous booing?
Skill issue. I would fight it and succeed. People believe things are impossible right until the point that someone does it. To play along with the tyrant's game is to embody tyranny itself.
You should always do the right thing regardless of social consequences.
The lesser man would save himself. The superior man would save all competitors. Or die trying.
Just curious: I realize this only seems semi-related, but I don't think it is.
Are you an American who exercises their 2A rights in real life?
No. I don't think a gun would be the appropriate tool for your hypothetical situation anyway. I think I could win without engaging in violence. But if violence were necessary you wouldn't use guns.
I was asking the question about personal firearm use because your general "I will come out on top" attitude is pretty common in the 2A firearms-for-self-defense community, and your response (insisting you wouldn't be a victim rather than buy into the thought experiment) is similar to a couple of 2A enthusiasts I know.
Lest this seem critical, I've been legally carrying since I was 18 years old, so it's not like I think there's something wrong with guns.
That was my thought as well, but I deleted it out of fear of giving someone the ability to smear ACX as encouraging violence. I guess this is enough of a thought experiment it doesn't matter.
I'd choose shooting, then spend four years doing what I love with my friends and family and not pick up a gun. On the day I'd step out and immediately shoot myself in the head to avoid dying in a cauldron of fire.
I mean, sure, except that it might be surprisingly difficult to kill oneself with a piece of Olympic equipment, especially if one literally never picked up a gun enough to be familiar with it or understood its properties. An air pistol is the easiest to aim at one's head, but unless one is *exceedingly* careful and disciplined about where it's aimed, it's unlikely to kill reasonably quickly (if at all). I mean, people routinely manage to bungle shooting themselves in the head with actual large-caliber firearms.
That leaves the rifle and shotgun, which both have the issue of being awkward to point at one's head, especially under the pressure of a) imminent death and b) an official leaping to stop you.
I know enough about guns that I wouldn't risk it, anyway.
Bungling it is still not a bad outcome all things considered. I got four years of life and then made a statement instead of going quietly
Cox an eight in the rowing; you already have the needed skills if you can steer a car or a bicycle. getting down to weight (121 lb) is the only issue.
That thought crossed my mind. Problem is, I normally weigh 185 lbs. That would be a serious weight cut...
As a person who just completed a learn-to-row class and then joined the rowing club literally last week, I'll say there's a *wee* little bit more to coxing than simply making weight and working the rudder. The coxswain steers, yes, but they also dictate the pace and strategy based on what the other teams are doing. They need a very deep knowledge of rowing and what their teammates are experiencing.
That said, I think I agree with you, and at 42 years old and 5'2" (terrible for rowing, great for coxing) it would probably be my personal choice, not in small part because I've fallen in love with rowing and would probably enjoy four years of rowing more than either of the sports which used to be my go-to.
Sure. I used to cox fours at school, so I know there's more to it than pulling the strings. But it's the runaway winner of your contest, among summer Olympic sports. If you allow winter, being a middleman in the 4 man bob just involves ensuring that gravity affects your body the same way it affects every other object in the universe, once you've jumped in.
Ha! Makes sense you rowed/coxed; the sport doesn't seem to occur to people unless they have some closer experience with it.
I used to select team equestrian show-jumping for myself, because the horse does most of the athletic work (to the degree that it's the only sport not divided by gender!). If you had access to the *very very very* best horse and coaches, you might have a pretty good chance. I had my first horse at 11 years old and got well out of the rank-beginner phase, and although I've forgotten a lot as an adult, I'm still skilled enough that with four years of elite training, I could maybe manage to make it around a jumping ring on a veteran superstar horse.
But now that I know a teeny bit about rowing, coxing is a strong contender. It would probably depend on which sport my country can medal in.
My hypothetical does allow either winter or summer sports, and bobsled occasionally comes up! But I think it requires quite a lot of athletic power to competitively launch the sled, more than it would to cox.
My odds would be really bad, but the best bet would probably be to choose a sport with a small professional scene and moderate athletic requirements, like rifle shooting, sailing or curling, and hope that it turns out that I'm really talented (and don't drag down my teammates too much, in case of a team/ crew sport).
I have plenty of experience in martial arts... enough to know that any world-class competitor in judo or boxing would wipe the floor with me, even if I had four more years to focus on training. I strongly suspect the same would hold in the other sports, but at least I wouldn't get my ass kicked before I die.
> at least I wouldn't get my ass kicked before I die.
Actual LOL.
A friend once answered this question with "figure skating," because though she knew there was no chance of winning, she'd rather spend her four years training at an activity she really loved as a teen, than pick a "safer" equipment-based and/or team sport and be bored/anxious/resentful for four years.
A couple questions - can we compete in multiple events? I'm leaning heavily towards air pistol shooting and there are a couple variations of that (10 meter, 25 meter rapid fire pistol, and mixed 10 meter team). I'd like to compete in all three if possible.
Additionally, do we have to pick the event before we start training, or the day of the competition? Because I'd probably want to give every shooting type a try (rifle, pistol and shotgun) to see which I'm the most naturally gifted at.
Looking at the champions in 2020, the gold medalist was born in 1979, the silver was born in 1984 and the bronze in 1986. This strongly suggests that age is not going to be dispositive. While that does mean that the competitors will have loads more experience than me, it reduces one variable that would otherwise be completely out of my ability to affect. I can't turn back time after all. Additionally, my naive view is that the body conditioning will be minimal compared to strength-based sports or endurance-based sports.
Finally, copying the other commenters, there is a team version of air pistol shooting which could allow someone else to carry me. I'm leaning toward competing in an individual competition - the uncertainty of a team sport would complicate training too much. Competing in an individual sport clarifies things: if I don't improve, I'm not going to live.
I don't think any of us would really be Olympic-level athletes even if we trained; the role of biology is just too big. A team sport really is your best chance at survival!
Multiple events is a good idea, though! Theoretically, you should ask to compete in *every single team sport*; if your country wins *even one* gold medal despite you dragging them down, you live. (Of course you might have to leave the country afterward.)
I think this is true if your country is really dominant at a team sport. I'm in the USA, so that's not a bad assumption. If I were living in a different country, I might not want to bet my life on the performance of their (slightly-handicapped) national team.
I actually know one person IRL who is already so good at pistol shooting that I think that with four years of focused, elite training he might indeed be capable of medaling at the Olympics.
But he's the only person I can think of who has the existing talent and skillset and would just need the four years of unlimited elite training and equipment to manage a medal.
Huh! In all the years I've been asking this question (at parties, on dates), I've never had anyone ask about increasing their chances to medal by competing in multiple events! But, like, duh!
I suppose...yes? Unless someone has a good argument for why the answer should be "no" which would improve the hypothetical?
I'm glad I posted this question here! :)
To your second question about how much time one has to select the event - I think for dramatic purposes, the sport ("swimming," "basketball," "figure skating," etc, as listed here: https://olympics.com/en/sports/) has to be selected semi-immediately (like, within an hour of being notified of your selection for the games), but the event itself doesn't have to be selected until Olympic trials begin.
So, for example, if you happened to already be an elite collegiate athlete in diving, you could pick diving immediately and then think about platform vs springboard and individual vs synchronized.
[edited elite collegiate athlete example because I didn't know anything about weightlifting apparently, LOL]
Looking at the sports that my country does well in, I think my best chance of free riding off the efforts of others is in the two-man sailing events. Unfortunately there's no sailing events with teams of more than two, but if I can get a world's best team-mate and just do what they say (with four years to actually learn a little bit about sailing and work on my rope-pulling muscles) then maybe I can be a reasonably effective piece of ballast.
My other plan would be archery, which has the fewest athletes of any sport in the Olympics (64 men and 64 women) and surely has some kind of luck factor involved.
My third alternative plan would be just to treat it like a terminal disease diagnosis. I'm probably not going to survive anyway so I might as well spend the next four years doing things I like instead of desperately practicing archery.
Huh, I didn't even know sailing was an Olympic sport!
I bet with four years to train and (effectively) unlimited resources to both get fit and build a skill set, a lot of people could pull off a much more elite performance at sailing than they might imagine.
I've been asking people this hypothetical for years and I added the "death by Olympic cauldron fire" detail to discourage people from discarding the whole premise by embracing inevitable failure, even though treating the situation like a terminal diagnosis is probably the wisest thing to do.
If I wanted to *maximize my chances of survival*, I'll go with Kuiperdolin's idea of looking for a larger team. I think American football has the biggest team size, but that doesn't go to the Olympics. Rugby has 15 players. I wonder if I would really spend 4 years playing rugby for a slim chance at survival, and in any case my country's not good at it. The USA does pretty well at the Olympics, but it's largely in individual sports in which case I couldn't free-ride off the teammates. The USA's best team sport is crew, and the team is pretty big, so I guess I'd go with that to maximize my chances of survival.
If I wanted to *assume defeat and make the most of my last 4 years*, weightlifting would probably give me a body I could do quite a lot with. Quite a few nerd women would probably be into a smart guy with a weightlifter's body.
Rugby needs all 15 players. When a player goes off the other team has some huge advantages - I think it’s worth on average ten points. Also a non athlete couldn’t be a forward - as these guys need to hold up the scrum, losing the scum in a game generally means losing the game. Putting a non athlete in there would be dangerous.
The backs are the lighter players, but there are specialist positions a non athlete can’t do, and if you ever did get the ball the other team would waste no time targeting you. The only way to survive intact is to not get the ball, which could see you interfering with play anyway, as you tried to get out if the way. In fact it would be worse, for the team you are on, than a red card.
And there would be multiple games. Chance of survival would be lower than the chance of winning a medal.
In Soccer you could more easily stay out of the way.
Rugby at the olympics is not Rugby Union but Rugby Sevens, so it has actually 7 players per team. I would really not advise to go for that one, as it has a much faster pace than America Football or Rugby Union.
I think it also depends on how good your country's rugby team is. Are they likely to medal?
Sure I would definitely recommend that option to Fijians, and I guess to New Zealanders of both sexes as well.
But if your national team has a chance to make a top 8 in both football (soccer) and rugby sevens, definitely football is the best option to go with.
Edit: Even if your team has the potential to make top 8 in rugby sevens and little chance to make it in football, I would think football is the better option.
I think there's an argument that if your country is equally likely to medal in either basketball or football, you might want to go with basketball - truly elite superstar players don't need to be as collaborative as soccer players in order to score points, plus when it comes to individual performance, free throws are probably going to be easier to reliably make than penalty kicks, if for no other reason than that there's no one attempting to thwart the point.
Thanks for factoring in the competence of your country's particular athletes in a given sport!
Perhaps counterintuitively, basketball might be one of the best options for an American woman, as individual performance matters a lot more there than in some other team sports, and the USA women's team has some real megastars. If a regular woman spent four years practicing passing and free throws (especially underhand ones, which don't look cool but tend to be more successful), her four superstar teammates might be able to carry the game with exceedingly minimal input from her.
You're welcome, basketball was actually my second choice before I noticed crew did slightly better and had a bigger team, lessening my impact.
As you say, for women the USA is likely to have better options given that women's sports are a much bigger thing here than in many places.
It's going to make things a lot harder for people in less athletically successful countries, that's for sure.
>It's going to make things a lot harder for people in less athletically successful countries, that's for sure.
Yeah, for sure, that's not really fair!
I thought about having the premise say: "Only the top 10 countries in medal count are required to select a random person for their Olympic team, and if you don't live in one of those countries already, pick one at random," but I didn't want to add to the length of the premise.
Sure, I think this is most people's intuition, but that *really* depends on the sport and how much you would have to contribute to game play!
Some team sports are much more collaborative than others. For example, soccer is more collaborative than basketball, at least according to Malcolm Gladwell (https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/why-companies-need-to-become-more-like-soccer-teams-20210430-p57nte). So if your country regularly medals in both soccer and basketball, you really have to think about which one your teammates could best work around/without you, how good you could get at scoring points individually if you are fouled, etc.
Huh, nothing at all to contribute? You wouldn't even practice penalty kicking?
Mostly facetiously, I sometimes wonder if the apparently widespread cultural idea in current America that licorice (‘black’ licorice) and raisins are foul, unpleasant foods rather than delicious sweet treats that people devoted a lot of time and resources into making because they are so delicious, indicates some actual shift in the perception of taste, flavour, and texture.
See also fruit cake, and less soft gummies. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/american-gummy-candy-chewy-food-texture-preferences/674635/
"the apparently widespread cultural idea in current America that licorice (‘black’ licorice) and raisins are foul, unpleasant foods"
That's odd. I, personally, like both. Any pointers to where this idea is prevalent?
Ah, the Turkish delight syndrome. As a child i used to read Enid Blyton, her child protagonists used to love that candy (sweet) - they were in raptures over it. When I first ate it I found it very disappointing. I realised that my palette had moved on, I was living in an era of chocolate super abundance.
(That said Fry’s chocolate - which is from the Victorian era - still seems sweet to the modern palette, has fine chocolate and nice minty centre. But they never ate that).
Black licorice, like tomatoes or cilantro, is one of the most frequently disliked foods. Possibly due to genetic variation, a large fraction of the population enjoy it and another large fraction hates it. No idea if the ratio of those who like it vs dislike it has changed over time. Anise and star anise (which taste like licorice and are usually disliked by the same people) remain popular ingredients.
People are surprisingly bad at really accepting that other people have different taste than them, which may cause people to say, either seriously or facetiously, that "licorice is vile" rather than "licorice is not to my tastes".
Tomatoes? Really?
Admittedly, the entire world is not North or South America, but between ketchup\, various salsa rioja, and tomato sauce I find this surprising.
Tomato-based sauces are not widely disliked, I think, but actual non-saucified tomatoes are another matter. See also peanuts vs peanut butter.
Ketchup also often makes it on lists of most disliked foods. But the people who dislike ketchup aren't the same as the people who dislike tomatoes. Cooked, pickled, or dried tomatoes don't taste like fresh tomatoes.
Like with nearly all common foods, the haters are a minority, but still common enough to make various most hated food lists like this: https://soyummy.com/most-hated-foods-world/
"People are surprisingly bad at really accepting that other people have different taste than them, which may cause people to say, either seriously or facetiously, that "licorice is vile" rather than "licorice is not to my tastes""
Hmm https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1456409/ begins:
"VARIATION in taste sensitivity to the bitter compound phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is one of the best known Mendelian traits in human populations, ranking alongside eye color and blood types in the canon of classic examples. Much of PTC's appeal arises from the fact that it is nearly impossible to guess one's phenotype until explicitly tested, yet, when tested, the phenotype is so striking as to be amusing."
Ever since I learned about PTC, I've assumed that taste preferences are as likely as not to be genetic (or a novel taste/illness experience). Of _course_ there are big differences between people.
I don't have strong opinions on licorice, but I have never heard a fellow American say that raisins are disgusting.
I've gone back and forth on liking or disliking raisins; they're quite sweet but there's something unpleasant about the texture that's a little hard to explain. Like it's too hard of a soft food. Or something. I avoid them where I can.
When I was a kid, I didn't like cooked raisins, but I was more sensitive to some soft textures than I am now.
It's usually in the context of expecting chocolate chips (e.g. in a cookie), with exaggerated disappointment on tasting raisins instead.
That's more a matter of expectations. They wanted chocolate, and got raisins.
I don't think raisins are a stereotypically "bad" food outside of that context.
I think everyone recognizes that licorice has a very strong and distinctive taste, and that it is bitter. In these sorts of cases, it is often hard to understand all the people who like it. (See how people feel about alcohol and coffee, if they don’t actually drink it themself - and especially how kids stereotypically think of both when they sip it.)
I’ve never heard anyone make the same sort of claim about raisins.
Interestingly, Europeans often seem to have some sort of aversion to peanut butter, which is a bit harder to understand, since it’s flavor is so mild (though maybe it’s about the texture?)
What? Licorice is not bitter, it's not even the kind of bitter that people usually say "this is not bitter once you get used to it" about like coffee and dark chocolate. I could find the strongest tasting licorice on a supermarket shelf here in the Netherlands and it still wouldn't taste bitter.
If licorice tastes bad to someone, it's probably because of either the salt or the ammonium chloride. Any nitrogen-containing compound is likely to taste bad, because nitrogen is an element that animals always have an excess of and try to expel through the synthesis of urea. Evolutionarily speaking, you would not be predisposed to like it. But bitterness is an entirely different way for your brain to discourage you from eating something.
> Any nitrogen-containing compound is likely to taste bad
That would include every single protein, proteins being indeed the source of almost all nitrogenous waste. I think there should be something more specific there.
You're right. Maybe it's specifically ammonium chloride, or ammonium-containing salts, but I would be surprised if it's limited to that.
Yes, ammonium might be a better candidate -- I don't think we have any biochemical need of it.
"What? Licorice is not bitter" or to me either. See my comment above about the PTC bitterness sensing allele.
Does licorice contain this compound?
I haven't been able to find a direct link in google when I searched for licorice and PTC. There was an NPR transcript that suggested that nontasting PTC was due to a change in one bitter taste receptor out of 25 that we have https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1099210375
My guess is that similar taste receptor allele differences could be responsible for analogous genetic differences with one of the other 24 bitter receptors. Wikepedia also has an article on supertasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster which cites the PTC result and describes some possibly analogous food tasting differences (and licorice is in the list), but doesn't seem to report anything definitive. No "People hate licorice if and only if they taste PTC"
> I think everyone recognizes that licorice has a very strong and distinctive taste, and that it is bitter. In these sorts of cases, it is often hard to understand all the people who like it. (See how people feel about alcohol and coffee, if they don’t actually drink it themself - and especially how kids stereotypically think of both when they sip it.)
I can definitely see that (although I don’t actually find licorice bitter, it’s definitely a strong, distinctive, sweet taste), but my interest is that I don’t think licorice has fundamentally changed in America, but the cultural idea of its flavour has changed.
Like if you lived in a country where coffee was widely drunk, and everyone sought it out, and then the idea emerged that actually it was disgusting and everyone seemed to agree that it was disgusting: you’d wonder if something had changed.
Except licorice is a flavour which historically, and still today in many other countries, children sought out and wanted in their sweet products. You consider it obvious that children would not like it, as with alcohol and coffee, and yet we know that children in other countries (and in America in the past) do seek it out as something delicious and sweet.
So I have to wonder if, when you eat the same licorice product as me, you are experiencing something different, and if this is something that has become more common in America over the last few decades.
I definitely see all sorts of weird comments by Americans about raisins being disgusting, or hating things with raisins in, in a way that they seem to expect the same social response as if they say they hate licorice.
Peanut butter, I have often felt alone in my hatred of. I hate the taste and smell of peanuts, but everyone around me in the UK who isn’t allergic to them seems to think they are delicious.
My experience (as an immigrant into the US) has been that Americans like this weird "licorice" substance that I just don't get and don't want. But maybe Americans secretly don't like it either?
It's hard to find data. There's also Twizzlers, but they might not count as real licorice?? This is all opening up a new frontier of inquiry I had not previously considered.
Where do you come from, that liquorice root is not consumed or used as a flavouring? It’s a pretty globally-consumed plant.
I'm sure it was also consumed in parts of Russia by some Russians, but not by my family, and I had never encountered it before.
Black licorice is legitimately toxic though. See: https://denovo.substack.com/p/licorice-sucks
I love liquorice flavours, but I have had to stop eating liquorice due to blood pressure effects. But I think the UK/Irish version of black liquorice isn't as strong as Finnish, Dutch, etc. versions (or as salty).
"Dutch, German and Nordic liquorice typically contains ammonium chloride instead of sodium chloride, prominently so in salty liquorice, which carries a salty rather than sweet flavour."
> But I think the UK/Irish version of black liquorice isn't as strong as Finnish, Dutch, etc. versions (or as salty).
I believe so. But American standard liquorice seemed about as strong (or less strong) as the UK/Irish stuff, and I think that’s the stuff Americans discuss as being obviously disgusting?
I think this makes my point stronger (also, I deliberately consume licorice to increase my blood pressure).
Brussels Sprouts are culturally considered disgusting in the UK (despite many people enjoying eating them), especially for children, given their bitter taste. But they are considered “good for you”, and so children are encouraged to eat them, regardless.
Licorice is widely considered delicious around the world, and until relatively recently in the US, too. It was incorporated into sweet foods, and eaten, purely because of its deliciousness, not because of health benefits. Children sought it out, as they often do in other countries. But culturally, the US considers it an obviously disgusting food which children are expected to hate, like sprouts.
That this seems to resonate with a lot of Americans suggests to me that something has changed in America about how people perceive taste and flavour. I suppose the texture thing might feature, too, although Americans seem to not be as negative about the red gummy candy they call “red licorice”.
I believe Brussel sprouts themselves have also changed (become a lot less bitter) over the past few decades. New varietals or something.
I don't know, I tried them a few years ago. They weren't horribly bitter, but they were still mushy and kinda gross.
Then again, I have a terrible diet, so my taste my just be off.
Mushy is a function of incorrect preparation. Properly prepared (Ie roasted) sprouts should not be mushy.
Indeed. Selectively bred for less bitterness. But culturally, we still consider them disgusting. It is an easy reference to make in comedies, or even in science textbooks, where everyone will understand that it is intended to be a disgusting food, and we understand that this is because they are bitter, and that people would still eat them because they are healthy.
And people will talk about liking them in the context of knowing they are supposed to be disgusting, and will talk about modern sprouts being less bitter.
But I don’t think anything has changed about licorice in America: just how Americans perceive it.
My perception is that ‘sprouts are disgusting’ is slowly fading in the UK. I pretty regularly eat sprouts, serve them for friends etc and most people express a love for sprouts (probably more often that they would for a random vegetable I served, so this may well be downstream from the old meme) but rarely even discuss the trope of them being disgusting.
I do remember sprouts being a frequent punchline on tv and so on as a kid. I wonder if it’s still a thing in that sort of media?
Anyone know who won the AI Worldview Contest?
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/open-philanthropy-ai-worldviews-contest/
I was curious about this too! Apparently "the winners have been selected & notified, to be announced at the end of Sep": https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rvMirJZGLePztjHp8/reminder-ai-worldviews-contest-closes-may-31
In your opinion, what's the best way to deal with anxiety?
I'm not sure what's *best*, but I'm told by a reputable source there are a bunch of things that sometimes work if you have anxiety.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/13/things-that-sometimes-work-if-you-have-anxiety/
There are some great answers here.
I do think it does make some difference what flavor(s) of anxiety you're talking about.
Exposure, CBT, and various mindfulness practices will help (as well as medication, supplements, and exercise), but to untangle it a bit more at the roots it can help to understand how your specific flavor is constructed.
I remember being really anxious about role call in school one year, with every name building tension approaching the time I would have to speak. Then they called my name, and my heart leapt up... and another kid answered because it was his name too and he was ahead of me. And after that, all the tension evaporated, and they called me and I answered and life went on.
So, my advice is, whatever you're anxious about, try to trigger it in some other circumstance. Get all the emotional shock out of the way, and then just deal with the event. The more often you can do that the less tension will build in the first place.
Building up a tolerance for it through manageable amounts at somewhat regular intervals. A mildly stressful job, going out with friends, talking to a stranger on the phone - they don't need to be super stressful to help. As you build tolerance you will find that things which used to bother you no longer do, and you can move on to bigger and tougher things.
I think someone else mentioned exposure therapy, which I believe is the same thing.
CBT and exposure therapy is extremely effective for many anxiety problems, but of course there are situations and people for whom it's not a good fit.
What kind of anxiety are we talking about? There are many varieties, and different approaches that may work better for one than another.
Personally (with panic disorder and health anxiety), I have found SSRIs and short courses of CBT to be quite useful. There are also some anxiety-focused podcasts that can be good for helping to identify and counter unhealthy thought patterns. Check out Fearcast, Disordered, The Anxious Truth, or The OCD Stories to start.
Oh, and one technique that is kind of amazing is worry-postponement. Basically, if you start ruminating about something, set an appointment for when to focus on it and drop it for the moment. Often you will find at the appointed time you no longer really want to do your worry session. At first you should still make yourself do it—even say the worries out loud, looking in the mirror.
The key is learning to drop rumination and recognizing the utter futility of it.
Check out A Liberate Mind, by Steven Hayes, the originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. He talks about the practice of turning toward the feelings that Susan mentions in her response, plus lots of specific practices.
IMO CBT Techniques/Exposure Therapy. Of course there isn't one answer for everyone, and if it's very severe/very general medication may be appropriate
Medication. Hydroxyzine has been a lifesaver for me, but there are plenty of others. I have Panic Disorder specifically.
This works a treat for those willing to take the somewhat counterintuitive step of turning towards the feelings. We are more used to seeking an antidote or turning way from uncomfortable feelings…I did it all my life till I came across this approach. Now it’s the only thing I do when anxiety appears, it’s been a game changer for me, and some of my clients.
This is what I used initially to give courage. It’s a short guided talk on turning towards feelings. To be used with caution with those with a lot of trauma https://youtu.be/lPP7ih7xQUo?si=XC9uf53A7e-TR1cb (it’s a Buddhist guy called Tsoknyi Rinpoche, but don’t let that put you off, there’s no Buddhist ideology in it, he developed it with Daniel Goleman’s wife Tara who is also a psychologist. Daniel Goleman and he wrote an excellent book on it explaining the science too called Why we Meditate)
Strong +1, sitting with my anxiety helped me more than trying to distract myself ever did.
Yes, Sam Harris says that really boring into a feeling robs it of its valence. It has often worked for me.
Have you tried L-theanine? There's also weight lifting, being more muscular helps with self-assurance and probably shifts your endorphins and hormones in a less anxiety probe direction.
Shouldn't we put negative weight toward the contribution of AI Safety experts to making AI forecasts?
By way of analogy, consider that since 1947, the Doomsday Clock from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has been an average of approximately 7 minutes away from midnight. If this is a rough forecast of the imminence of nuclear war, the Atomic Safety experts have not only kind of wrong but horribly wrong on nuclear predictions. Setting aside the possibility of some anthropic principle, there hasn't been a single nuclear attack since 1945. Even the most reluctant Bayesian would have to be embarrassed on behalf of these Atomic Safety experts.
But, just as I would seek the advice of an Atomic Safety expert for securing our nuclear stockpile, I would still ask AI Safety experts how best to align AIs. The cautionary tale of the Doomsday Clock simply suggests I should bet against the actual forecasts of AI Safety experts.
Picking the right experts to inform forecasts is not only not trivial, it's frequently adversarial. Professional stock pickers, for example, are anti-experts. Nurses were often terrible relayers of COVID conspiracy theories during the Pandemic. It's almost as if we need a special mention of the Dunning-Kruger effect but for proximate experts.
Previously: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-290/comment/36856231
I don’t think Bayesians need to be embarrassed at following an expert who is usually off in one direction, provided that one expects them in the long run to be occasionally off in the other direction, and better on average than any other expert.
You don’t treat someone as negative information just because they are usually wrong - you treat them as negative information because they are anti-correlated with the truth. If AI safety people were something saying that AI was safe when it turns out dangerous, and dangerous when it turns out safe, then you weight them negatively. But if their judgments of relative safety covary with the truth, then they should be a reasonable positive part of your estimate, even if they are always more pessimistic than others.
What would it mean for a stock picker to be an anti-expert? That they pick stocks which *aren't* successful (in which case you could still use them to generate successful stock picks), or that they pick stocks that are indistinguishable from random picks entirely (in which case surely they're neither experts not anti-experts but rather just another form of random-number generator)?
Re. the Doomsday clock, I note that it's administered by "atomic scientists", not specifically "atomic safety experts". Perhaps that isn't actually a big distinction in nuclear safety, I have no idea - but it definitely does seem to be a big distinction in AI safety.
Also, there have been a whole bunch of incredibly, horrifyingly narrow escapes (the Petrov Incident; the Arkhipov Incident; the 1967 solar flare incident; that incident featuring Peter Sellers....) wherein it was only down to right-person-right-time luck that nuclear war was averted. Given how many times this has happened, I don't think we can dismiss off hand the people setting the Doomsday Clock. In maritime and aviation risk-management, near-misses play as important a factor - sometimes a more important factor - as worst-outcome incidents; I would expect this to be true of nuclear risk-management too.
These are all good points. I looked into the details of Petrov, and it appears there were two fail-safes:
https://russianforces.org/blog/2022/10/did_stanislav_petrov_save_the_.shtml
1) The order to launch a counter-strike would have had to go up 2-3 levels of command before executing.
2) In general, at that time, the Soviets did not have a launch-on-warning system.
In other words, the Soviet Union would have waited for a confirmed nuclear detonation before striking back. None of this negates your point, but instead builds towards my larger point against "there are no fire alarms for AI safety." Asserting as such is the same as saying, "there are no damage gradients for AI safety," which would require way-off assumptions about how the world works.
I suppose I see the Doomsday clock as (a) not a true prediction, rather a deliberately provocative call to action and (b) a comment on politics rather than science proper.
I think this has been pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention from the outset, but it isn't being sold as such. Rather, the positioning of the hands is held to be based on some sort of expert knowledge.
This, to my mind, drops the BAS straight in the "dishonest politickers, likely with an agenda intended to directly harm me" bucket. I've yet to see any evidence that this isn't the correct approach to the matter.
Warning about the risk of violent crime seems also pretty straightforward, but if someone says that every time we elect a Democrat we are moving right up to the precipice of a hellscape of urban violence and every time we elect a Republican things are looking good, then I'm going to suspect they are up to no good. Not because they are "trying to deprive me of the benefits of violent crime", but because they're dishonestly promoting an unstated agenda and trying to trick people into making bad decisions.
Yes, they are advocates. You say that like it is an intrinsically good thing.
Except that their prime driver of nuclear war probability is "Republicans having power in the US."
So they're not advocating against nuclear war, they're advocating against Republicans.
If they can demonstrate convincingly that republicans are more likely to use nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons that democrats aren't willing to do, then they'd be correct.
Sure, but as far as I know they haven't done that. If they have I'm open to being corrected.
Yeah. If they just said that we are constantly within a heartbeat of nuclear war, it might be defensible. But they twitch it back and forth for reasons that are obviously about policy and politics, and not about atomic science, their alleged area of expertise.
(I didn't see SA's reply when I wrote this)
Disagree.
The Doomsday Clock is propaganda intended to make people scared about atomic weapons. I don't think it should be taken seriously as a good example of expertise.
I don't think stock pickers are actually anti-experts; if that was true, you could beat the market by doing the opposite of what they say, which would be amazing. I think they're about as good as the market, but do worse when you add in their fees. It's not surprising that they're about as good as the market, because the market is set by other smart people picking stocks. It's impossible for all stock pickers to be better (or worse) than average; they should all average out to being average. I think it's slightly more complicated than this but not too much more.
I think nurses were less likely to relay COVID conspiracy theories than the average non-nurse, but also, nobody thinks of nurses as "the" COVID experts - that would be epidemiologists or something. They didn't do perfectly, but I think did better than the average guy on the street.
I also think all these examples are cherry-picked - I would rather have an expert doctor treat my disease than a rando, or an expert engineer design my bridge, or an expert lawyer write a contract for me, or an expert chef cook my food, or an expert pollster tell me who is likely to win the next election.
Thanks! However, by parallel, couldn't the same be said for AI Safety?
> the contents of the [letter for The (AI) Pause] is propaganda intended to make people scared about [the dangers of AI]. I don't think it should be taken seriously as a good example of expertise.
Just listened to a podcast interview of Jan Leike, head of alignment at Open AI. He sounded smart, energetic, reasonable and fairly optimistic, and he clearly did not have an agenda to frighten people. Interviewer at one point says it's very hard to estimate chance of catastrophic outcome from AI development, and that his own estimate has big error bars -- sees range as 10% - 90%. Leike said his estimate is about the same.
The head of alignment at open AI thinks the chance of a catastrophic outcome, even taking into consideration his own efforts to ensure a good outcome, is at least 10%. Does that give anyone but me pause?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "pause." The 10% gives you pause because that's a scary high of a number?
Yes. And 10% was his minimum. The figures he agreed with were a 10%-90% chance. Hey philosophistry, want to go on the new roller coaster they just put up? I know one of the engineers who built it, and he said that the chance it would go off the rails was 10-90%.
Heh, yeah! It's a scary number on its own, but I don't give any credence to AI Safety experts' forecasts (on a high-level), so no, I'm not scared.
I daresay the Doomsday Clock's complete arbitrariness has rendered it... well, at least more ineffectual as a propaganda tool than previously. My subjective view is that it gets less attention than even two decades ago.
au contraire ...
I despise the experts. The nurse who sees boatloads of patients, and rubs shoulders with boatloads of other nurses is the one who really knows disease. The expert epidemiologist who sits in his cave reading the whitterings of other cave-dwelling experts wouldn't know a covid if it smacked him in the face. Like Nasim Taleb says, Fat Tony, who trades green lumber, and has no clue what green lumber is, but watches the waves is the successful trader. Likewise, you want your surgeon to look like a corner butcher, not like a self-help guru.
Like in the beginning of the COVID crisis, all the media were dumping on Trump, because he said his conversations with experts said mortality is under 1%, whilst Fauci and the other talking heads said 3.4%. I looked at the data from the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship with a big outbreak, 3770 passengers, ten died, mortality of 0.26%, and that's in elderly cruise ship passengers. Now it comes out that mortality is between 0.2 and 0.3%.
I was onboard with masks, got vaccinated twice and boosted. Lived in relative fear of the disease ... then I got sick, twice. What is it we're hearing about the disease? Well for one, corona virus infections are poorly controlled by vaccinations. There were probably good anti-viral meds, and off-label meds that helped to control infection. Downplaying meds was a requirement for emergency use of vaccinations—which apparently don't work anyhow. Masking for a virus which is 100x smaller than the filter is probably not very useful. Shutdowns and lockdowns where probably more harmful than not. Shutdowns and lockdowns were devastating, especially for children, especially for poor children and poor families. Locking down parks and beaches was most likely a disaster on several fronts, it prevented people from getting exercise, outside exposure is very low risk, getting sunlight on your face leads to beneficial vitamin D production, it was a bold step into totalitarian control. The experts were monstrous control freaks.
Most 'expert chefs' are buffoons who put on a show, wowing the rubes with exotically renamed common foods dressed up in flashy appearances, properly buffing our egos whilst fitting us with 'the king's new clothes'
You've got some info wrong. The fact that infections are poorly controlled by vaccinations -- are you presenting this as something the experts were wrong about? Because that is not the case. I was following 30 or so epidemiologists , virologists and infectious disease experts on Twitter through the whole pandemic. They all were quite clear about the fact that after a brief post-vaccination honeymoon during which you are unlikely to be infected, vaccination does not protect much against infection. However, it protects quite well for quite a long period against severe illness and death if you do become infected. Far more unvaxed than vaxed people were hospitalized for covid, even after you control for other factors such as age and wealth. Before omicron came through the difference vax made in chances of hospitalization were enormous -- as I recall the unvaxed were something like 15x as likely to be hospitalized. The difference is smaller now, since so many unvaxed people have immunity from infection, but even now it is not trivial.
As for the virus being 100x time smaller than the holes in masks: (1) The bits of virus that are aerosolized, i.e. that are hanging out in the air for an hour or more, are not single naked virus molecules. They are tiny water droplets that pour out of us when we breathe and talk, each containing mutiple virus molecules if we're infected, and they are far far bigger than a single virus molecule. (2) Also, masks and other filters do not strain out the droplets the way colanders strain out peas. A great deal of how they stop droplets has to do with electrostatic attraction. There have been many many tests done in which aerosolized droplets of the size that contain covid are blown towards masks or mask material at the approx rate they would be hitting masks in real life, and very few get through.
>Downplaying meds was a requirement for emergency use of vaccinations—which apparently don't work anyhow.
I don't understand why this is such a popular narrative. (Well, I do, but I'd hoped that people here would be above the reductive binary "100% effective or it don't work" mentality). The vaccines were and still are a huge reduction in both hospitalizations and deaths (like 90% for serious hospitalizations):
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/covid-33122-more-of-the-same
Yes, they didn't give full immunity, but neither does getting the freaking virus itself, so it would be silly to expect that. The main disappointments are that they don't last as long as we'd hoped, and didn't have as much of an effect on transmission as we'd have liked.
>Masking for a virus which is 100x smaller than the filter is probably not very useful.
That's not how air filters work. The physics involved causes them to completely block particles much smaller than their pore size:
https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/#on-physics
And besides, the masks were never primarily about blocking virus particles, they were about reducing the spread of *droplets* (much bigger than virus particles) *from the wearer*.
No, I'm not a binary thinker, I know vaccines don't provide 0%, nor 100% immunity. Likewise vaccines aren't 0 risk, but we have to balance the risk of vaccinations and level of immunity with the risk of death or impairment. Does the vaccine provide a positive result for all people? Probably not, and it appears to provide negative immunity to infection in the T cell response according to some banned professionals.
Even Dr. Fauci stated masks were theatre.
OK, Michael, but now you're changing the subject a bit wihout fully responding the disagreement you've gotten about points you made so far. Seems to me you were saying the experts had it wrong about the fact that vax does not protect much against infection. Was that one of your points? Yes or no? Because if it was, you were just wrong, as I explained.
So now you're talking about sliding scales of vaccine effectiveness, rather than saying the experts thought they made you immune but they were wrong. As for sliding scales of effectiveness: Yes, nobody who's looked at the data disagrees with that. They make more difference the older and sicker you are. By the time you get up to seniors, the difference they make is enormous. They may make the illness milder for young people. but it's pretty mild anyway and chance of death is nil, so they may not be worth the nuisance for younger people. A very small percent of young males develop myocarditis as a result of vax, and so for that group especially seems to make sense to skip the vax. Just so you know, all of the cases of vax-induced myocarditis cleared up with treatment leaving no damage, and no young males died of it. However, covid itself causes more and more serious cases of myocarditis than vax does. So your idea that the vax is dangerous, and that we should balance the danger of covid against the danger of vax also does not hold up.
What else? Oh, Fauci's remark about masks. Look, Fauci said all kinds of shit as a mouthpiece for the government. If you want to know about the effectiveness of masks, look at the research. That's what I did.
"According to some banned professionals" is not a credible source; the whole premise of this thread is that professionals can be *wrong*. Be specific. Where is this data? Why should we listen to their opinion over the wider consensus? Which individuals that are known to have a reputation for accuracy or prediction have vouched for their opinions? Answering any two of these questions should be sufficient.
It was Dr. Malone, who stated the vaccine suppressed T cell either formation or activation, I don't recall which. Though I do believe it came out to be the spike protein itself, which of course is the contents of both the virus and product of the vaccine mRNA which had this effect.
The last time I looked at the numbers, transmission rates were no lower for the vaccinated, and some studies even showed higher. Masks were never shown to be effective, and the medical profession pre-COVID agreed that masks were useless. Why they went back and forth I have no idea, but recent studies looking back at the whole pandemic say little to no effect. Lockdowns were a disaster from almost any metric. Far better would have been a plan to have the extra vulnerable sequester, rather than the majority. You could still have given them paid days off from work or whatever, like we already put into place.
Vaccines were effective at reducing severe symptoms and death. If that had been the message early (and not the false information or outright lies), then I think that message would have stuck and more people would have been vaccinated. Of course, vaccine mandates were also a mistake. Healthy young people gained almost no benefit from them, and that was at least somewhat contradicted by side effects (both effects and side effects very small for that group).
The experts lied and spread misinformation regularly. That they were right about 1/4 of the most pressing topics of the pandemic. That's not a good track record and they did a lot of damage to expert opinions generally.
I would like to see the numbers that back up these points, especially from someone trustworthy like Zvi.
Except that the news reports (here in the US) were 95+% effective against contracting covid when the Pfizer vaccine was released and the statement that once vaccinated it was impossible to transmit the disease. Which of course gets walked back and people such as yourself saying "well OF COURSE you couldn't expect that degree of efficacy!" Which like the "two weeks to flatten the curve" was an overblown promise to persuade compliance.
It matches very well to someone who wants you to obey, and is willing to lie to you to achieve it. And then declaring that someone is stupid or immoral for not believing a demonstrated lair just builds up more aggression.
> Except that the news reports (here in the US) were 95+% effective against contracting covid when the Pfizer vaccine was released and the statement that once vaccinated it was impossible to transmit the disease.
On the short term, and with the original strain and the early variants—and thus in the studies available at that time—it was true.
Motte and bailey.
- No one "expected" mRNA vaccines to even be realistically possible in the first place, so the priors weren't calibrated as to how effective they should be. Hence, it would be silly to "expect" more immunity than the disease itself. Nonetheless, the initial data suggested a 90+% reduction in serious disease. It's reasonable to have extrapolated from the data that a 90% reduction in serious infection would go hand-in-hand with a 90% reduction in cases in general.
- Early data was so confounded with the fact that we didn't realize just how common asymptomatic cases were; and the fact that they're *still* common means we can't actually know for certain how effective they really were.
- As for "impossible to transmit the disease", yes that was hyperbole, but that's more of the reductive "100% or nuthin'" false dichotomy; the evidence we have suggest that the original booster actually *did* have a 75%-90% reduction in transmission against early strains (before it mutated), which was *huge*: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-transmission/fact-check-preventing-transmission-never-required-for-covid-vaccines-initial-approval-pfizer-vax-did-reduce-transmission-of-early-variants-idUSL1N31F20E
None of that makes "the vaccines don't work" a correct statement. They demonstrably did have a huge effect and were a major factor in allowing the lockdowns to safely end, even though COVID is still an epidemic.
It DOES mean they don't work as (initially) described in the media. Retroactively redefining what was said matches (again) with "I am willing to say whatever it takes."
Lockdowns were unnecessary for most people so “ending lockdowns due to vaccines” is very doubtful statement.
While agreeing that vaccines reduced mortality from covid by 80-90% in elderly, they less useful in younger population and practically made no difference in this population.
Be that as it may, I've lived through about a dozen end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it situations that were predicted by experts that never came to pass. I've come to the conclusion that expert opinions about risks are generally poor indicators of outcomes. Whether this is due to the innate but unintentioned biases of the experts or whether their predictions are ideological propaganda—or a combination of both these reasons—I can't take anyone's doomsday predictions seriously anymore.
To be fair, most doomsday predictors seem to agree that the chances of the particular doom is less than 50% (less likely than it not happening) but also that it's unnecessarily high.
If you think the chances of doom is 3% but also that such a rate is unbearably high, I'm not sure what you do about that. Leading with just that number likely means everyone ignores it as unlikely. Leading with "DOOOOOOOOM!!!" just makes people think you're a crank, especially the 97% of the time you're wrong.
I don't mind AI people slowing down to look at failsafes before plowing ahead with new radical technology. That they are scaring people about a scenario they even agree is far less likely than not hurts their credibility, but I'm pretty sure the problem would have been ignored otherwise.
It's hard not to be cynical after hearing enough of somebody's doom scenarios though.
welcome fellow survivor.
If the younger generations only knew the number of existential crises we've survived, how we muddled through.
It was like clockwork—every year around the same time Helen Caldicott and Kostas Tsipas would come to campus. They'd pack our biggest auditorium, and harangue us all with graphic descriptions of the horrible deaths we faced in the coming nuclear armageddon—"if we didn't disarm NOW!" And a week later the Campus Crusade for Christ would come through like exploitive remora fish saving the souls of fearful. "Yes, you're all going die in the coming nuclear armageddon (but that's God's will) but your souls will be safe in bosom of the LORD!"
No one ever went broke by marketing fear.
And I heard that the suicide hotline would always add extra staff the night of and the week following the Caldicott-Tsipas fear tour.
If nothing else, it's going to be harder to predict very rare or even unique events.
"The Doomsday Clock is propaganda intended to make people scared about atomic weapons."
So how is AI doomerism distinguished from the Doomsday Clock? If we're having letters about the dangers of AI and similar pronouncements being delivered in public, isn't this too propaganda for the purpose of scaring?
I don't think the Doomsday Clock is serious expertise and I agree about the propaganda, but it's hard to make the case that "this bunch of people willing to put their names down as Experts are only scaremongering but that bunch of people willing to put their names down as Experts are in the know".
I agree it's evidence against, but OP is cherry-picking the worst experts so we shouldn't expect the average expert to be as bad. It's like "how can we trust Wall Street funds when Bernie Madoff stole all his clients' money?" Well, because you picked the worst one and most ones aren't that bad.
I don't think that experts did well during covid pandemic. In fact, they were awful, they caused unnecessary and prolonged lockdowns, restrictions on businesses, travel restrictions, school closures, mask mandates and vaccine mandates that didn't have and still don't have evidence base that they had any effect.
Other experts did better like Tegnell in Sweden. I would have chosen experts like him not because I don't like lockdowns but because he talked about public health exactly in a way how we were taught about it at public health courses at the university. However, most politicians chose wrong experts and caused immense damage.
If I compare this with building a bridge, then it is something that I will never need to do in my life. I would chose wrong experts if suddenly put in a position to oversee bridge building because I don't have necessary qualifications to understand this industry.
The same happened with public health during pandemic. Politicians who had to select experts selected them wrong because they didn't know how to tell a qualified expert from a doomer.
It sounds like you think Sweden did an unusually good job in the pandemic - see https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness-much-more for my response.
Almost every country did an awful job especially the US. Noah Smith writes a new stack how the US life expectancy is comparatively bad: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americans-are-coping-ourselves-to
It is not even about elderly: a 29 year-old American have 4 times higher mortality than 29 year-old British whereas the first covid infection only doubled your mortality. Being an American was more risky than catching covid during the first wave. Why did we have lockdowns for covid and not for living in the US then?
Unrelated to our current discussion, which I think is best resolved by you reading the link, I think your argument here (about relative risk in Britan vs. America) is invalid.
Why does Britain ban drunk driving? After all, even living in a Britain that didn't ban drunk driving would be safer than living in the US! I think you have to answer that countries don't make policies to approach or retreat from parity with other countries, they make them through a cost-benefit analysis of local risks vs. benefits, which your Britain vs. American argument doesn't touch on. I try to go through that analysis at the link above.
In fact, the pickers do substantially worse than average.
https://advisor.visualcapitalist.com/success-rate-of-actively-managed-funds/
Source data's on page 9:
https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/documents/spiva/spiva-us-year-end-2022.pdf
There are other problems attached to running a mutual fund.
For one, there's the whole PR problem. If the smart thing to do is simply to do nothing for a while, people start to wonder why you're not doing anything. You also are in business and have to make quarterly targets and so on. Because you want to keep money in your fund, there's pressure to do what your customers want instead of what the smart thing is. If everyone starts bailing and takes their money back, you look bad, so you might sell before it's appropriate instead of holding on through a temporary dip.
Second, trading costs. I imagine this is smaller for the really big funds that can cut sweetheart deals. You lose money on every transaction, so the fewer transactions, the better. The costs compound over time in a way anyone who understands exponential growth can understand intuitively.
Finally, a fund that gets really successful gets big enough to move markets by itself, and then your upside is limited--to take an extreme example, once Warren Buffett picks a stock, everyone sees that and bids up the price.
Why can't you just short the pickers' picks? Because, in aggregate, their picks will be similar to the market as a whole. You could pick a specific picker's pick (as Robert Leigh says you can short Cathie Wood or Jim Cramer), but you still run into the transaction cost problem above.
You're like, "well, some jerk is going to make a fund that buys and holds every single stock and..." Yeah, his name is Jack Bogle, he started the First Index Investment Trust holding every stock in the S&P 500 in 1975, and his company, Vanguard, now holds $7 trillion in assets under management. The 5 biggest mutual funds? As of 2022... Vanguard's total market fund ($1.3T), Vanguard's S&P 500 fund ($800B), Vanguard's international fund($385B), Fidelity's S&P 500 fund ($381B), and Vanguard's bond fund ($301B). It's a solved problem, the solution's just...boring.
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/biggest-mutual-funds/
(BTW, Fidelity now has lower fees.)
I agree that, net trading costs, they underperform the market. That seems different from "experts aren't real". If an expert outperforms the market by 5%, but charges 10% fees, then they're both 1) a very impressive person, such that an AI expert of their same caliber would be worth listening to 2) technically "underperforming the market" by your definition.
There are two kinds of professional stock pickers that should be considered for this discussion, both of which are adversarial.
There are the analysts which you can find on TipRanks who announce Buy-Sell ratings. They don't have skin-in-the-game or if they do, they have to disclose it. Essentially they are reputation farmers. They are anti-experts, because they reflect whatever the crowd is feeling, which is a negative indicator if you wanna be ahead of the crowd. Although some people say the momentum-investing is good, but still the analysts' advice backfires because they reflect information that Mr. Market has already moved on. Empirically, their track record isn't great, but I don't have the papers on that at my fingertips.
The other professional stock picker would be a fund manager. You could have the ones that publicly discuss their decisions, but they do so after the fact, like Cathie Wood. These are anti-experts, because they are trying to hype positions that they hold and they're also trying to attract customers to their fund. They parade on CNBC and collect their fee.
And then there are the managers that are just quiet about their advice. There are tons of empirical studies about how fund managers are hot and then they're not. It's a sort of Heisenberg effect. The mechanic is hotly debated, but one is that as soon as managers top the charts, their strategies get co-opted by everyone else. If the fund manager cannot adapt to the new landscape, such as adapting to neural network investing, then their ideology and strategies are "ruined."
There are managers who have out-performed the market consistently over multiple cycles, though, such as Buffett and Soros. But as a category themselves, you don't want to bet on successful fund managers. And definitely don't listen to your stock broker. It's weird that this would be the case, but not really if you follow the money. Atomic safety experts are paid to warn people. Successful managers/borkers are paid by their fees. Nurses are evaluated by other nurses. Doctors by other doctors.
On a related note, one of my bubble-piercing thought experiments on AGI is to imagine how well an AGI would do on the stock market. And let's assume that this is a Level 1 AGI, one that has superhuman intelligence, but not necessarily the ability to manipulate people and control society into creating malicious insider trading scams. This is just a maximally high IQ bot that consumes the same public information that everyone else has. I would expect this AGI would be a great manager for a decade, assuming there are no other AGIs, but then would lose their position. Omniscience is not all its cracked up to be.
There's real ETFs with real money (in one case $240m) invested in shorting the long positions/recommendations of stockpickers like Jim Cramer and Cathie Wood
https://www.investmentnews.com/mad-money-etf-to-close-after-attracting-just-1-3m-241291
The headline is actually about a Long Jim Cramer fund, but that's folded while the Short is still going.
Do not underestimate the degree to which the Short Jim fund is intended as satire / a rib against Mr Cramer.
Yes. There is serious money in the short Cathie Wood SARK etf though, $400m or something. It made a fortune in 2022 and is actually a justifiable strategy - if you think there's a bubble you short it, and if you want the bubbliest stocks in the bubble, looking at what a high profile picker has picked is the way to go.
Probably an unpopular opinion: if you're an English speaker, I don't think there's any point in learning a second language unless you have a very specific reason to. Eg. you just accepted a job in Spain, or your wife's family speaks only Korean.
People talk about only speaking one language as if it's an intellectual shortcoming, but it's a huge time investment with very little payoff for 99% of people.
I've come to this conclusion after spending years on and off learning French and German, only to spend several weeks in France and Germany and not need anything but English. Nor did I need to speak local languages in advance of weeks of travelling southeast Asia. AI based translation now makes monolingual travel even easier.
Yes I'm sure being able to read Russian poetry would be enriching, but it's not like I've exhausted English poetry yet. And there's a lot of enriching activities I could do in the hundreds or thousands of hours it takes to learn a language.
Edit: thanks for your thoughtful replies. After reading lots of them I realise I've underestimated how many people intrinsically enjoy learning languages for it's own sake. Consider my comment one side of a bravery debate (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-debates/), aimed at people like my younger self who didn't enjoy learning languages but felt they were supposed to. If you enjoy learning languages then the equation will be completely different for you.
I do think that non-elective language subjects in school are utterly pointless though.
Hitler was less than a century ago. Couple decades before him, Lenin and the communist revolution. Couple years after Hitler, Chinese revolution. Latin America, seems like every few years in the 20th century. Putin was 1.5 years ago (to this day). Niger today. Who's to say the next dictator/nationalist movement/coup/revolution doesn't march you to a concentration camp/processing station/detention facility? Knowing foreign language(s) and having ties somewhere in foreign countries MIGHT be your escape ticket before They come for you.
I estimate that English is the only language spoken at a basic level by at least a tenth of the adult population in at least half of all countries. Would you agree?
If so, how does being monolingual in English prevent someone from developing foreign ties? It seems like the best language of all for doing so.
Maybe it works if you restrict your travel to major European countries, but let me tell you that knowing even a little Japanese makes getting around Japan much, much easier. Being able to go up to anyone, ask for directions, and be reasonably sure of understanding the answer was a huge weight off my shoulders while traveling there a few years ago. Meanwhile a lot of Japanese people don't speak English all that well, even if they will try when they see you're not Japanese.
As a native English speaker who studies foreign languages for fun, I agree. For Americans, the only language that might plausibly be useful is Spanish. Everything else is just a hobby. I'm pretty annoyed by the occasional European who shows up in online language learning discussions and acts all superior to monolingual Anglophones just because they happened to learn English at a later age than us.
I don't think this is really an "unpopular" opinion though.
It's not like there are *no* benefits to learning other languages, even in this era of Google Translate and English-friendly tourism. But it's definitely not worth it from a cold cost-benefit perspective, any more than say, gardening or knitting would be.
To me this is a little like saying there's no point to appreciating art or music. Yes, you probably can get by as a well-resourced person with a smart phone without knowing any other languages, but also life is richer knowing other languages.
If learning language isn't your cup of tea, that seems fine, right? Just like no one has a moral obligation to listen to jazz or admire the stars in the night sky. One of the nice things about life is that you can pick what you do with your spare time.
I think the problem is that there's a lot of pro-foreign language propaganda, that makes people think it is easier and more useful than it actually is, and the OP is bitter after getting bitten by that. Then again, the situation for forcing kids to learn musical instruments is pretty similar.
Oh I see, yeah, that makes sense too. A whole lot of schooling entails propaganda about the usefulness of a whole bunch of things that turn out not to be so useful seems like.
Even in an officially bilingual (English-dominant) region, it is inessential. It only matters if you want to work in a public-facing / senior position of the public sector. If you expect to work in government, then it's worth thinking about, but even then it really depends on what you want to do.
For myself, to justify learning a language I'd expect to be able to use it in every day life relatively consistently. Use it or lose it. Languages can be interesting but if you don't immerse yourself in an environment with that long-term, you'll have a fickle grasp and lose most of it. That said, it can be enriching. Supposing you wanted to make the jump to living in another country for over a year (as an expat or otherwise), the investment could still be worth it even knowing you will eventually return.
There is some cultural baggage in areas that have assimilated to English-speaking over time. They hammer on a nationalistic pride of using the maternal language, making it out to be a virtue. This type of messaging never reached me. Your cultural identity is made up of what your surrounding culture is actually doing, not some abstraction about how your ancestors spoke. At any rate, I still know my maternal language from engaging with family and others in society, or consuming media. It's useful, hence I use it. Were it the case that there were cleaner tribal divides along language lines, I may have felt differently - that was well before my time.
There is value, I think, in seeing the world through the eyes of a person whose culture is not the dominant culture. There are probably several ways to do it, but reading how a woman sees the world as a woman is still going to be a bit foreign to me. It will be academic, not in the gut. Going to a small country and getting to know the people on their own terms--including their language, part of their natural state of existing--and becoming part of it for a while, learning their worldview, is an experience you simply can't get being monolingual in English. I don't know, maybe in some Caribbean Islands, but you still have access to your regular media there, so you're not fully immersed in the local culture. To cut the tie entirely for a while and immerse in the other culture will mean learning the second language.
Agree 100 percent with this. One of my regrets regarding college is the time I wasted in foreign language classes simply because everyone was sure that it was something we should be doing.
You phrased a fairly uncontroversial point in a maximally controversial way. "Thanks to technology and the ubiquity of the English language, it is easier than ever for English speakers to travel abroad without learning the local language." That is basically your point, and it is undeniably true. Sure, you don't need to learn the language to have a good time and enjoy your visit.
Like anything else, learning a language has an opportunity cost. For many people, it is not feasible or worthwhile to pay that cost. Totally fine.
That said, I think you are severely understating the upside of learning a language. If you learned Russian, 'reading Russian poetry' would be a fringe benefit, not the main selling point.
Think about taking up a new hobby/interest - surfing, hunting, Magic the Gathering, whatever. Suddenly, you have a lot more in common with millions of people who share that interest. You add more depth and color to your world, while enhancing your ability to connect with other people.
Language learning is the same, but on steroids. Every language has it's own content ecosystem. Learning Russian doesn't just allow you to speak with Russians (or Kazakhs, etc...) when you visit. It gives you access to the entire Russian speaking world - movies, tv shows, music, podcasts, comedy, novels, memes... and yes, poetry.
I'm currently traveling through Latin America and learning Spanish. Near the end of my second month learning Spanish, I stumbled into a relationship with a girl who does not speak any English. Obviously, that would not have been possible if I hadn't been learning. I've also made friends who don't speak any English. I'm still a ways away from truly being able to get the most out of movies/podcasts/novels etc..., but a 1-2 year investment in Spanish gets you lifetime access to the culture of over 20 different countries. Whether that's a good investment for any particularly person is up to them, but it's definitely rewarding in a massive variety of ways.
One other point that occurred to me. If you’re goal when you travel is to get around effectively and do what you wanna do, you’ll be fine in most places with English. If, however, you have an interest in learning about the culture and the country, I think it’s worth exploring the limitations of English. It in terms of language, but in terms of worldview.
I’ve lived my entire live in the South. It consistently amuses me to hear people from other parts of the country describe what it’s like to live there. There’s a chick from Portland in my hotel that had a hard time believing me when I told her that Nashville is a liberal city. (I thought everybody knew that basically all us cities are blue?) She found it hard to swallow when I described Nashville as reasonably diverse, both politically and ethnically. (Lots of Egyptians, Kurds, Moroccans, etc...)
If you only ever heard someone from Portland describe the South, you might not have a perfectly accurate map of the territory.
Point being, learning English as a second language is a very specific filter. I would imagine it correlates pretty well with levels of education, cosmopolitanism, ambition, socioeconomic status, appreciate for Western culture and values, etc...
So, even if you are talking to natives about their country, you are probably getting a pretty narrow window if you only talk to people who have learned English. Personally, I’ve found the most interesting people to talk to are those who have never seen a Marvel movie and couldnt give two shits about what’s going on in the US elections. Obviously, ymmv
Last year I was helping my daughter remodel. We'd taken down the window coverings, and put up those temporary paper blinds. I wanted to get some clothes pins to help hold the blinds up. So I went to a local discount store, and in trying to ask for clothes pins, discovered none of the employees spoke English. And as is often typical for older Mexican Women immigrants, the workers just ignored me and walked away. One non-English speaking Asian woman tried to help me. I tried to mime washing clothes, and said "lavarse de ropa" then mimed hanging laundry and said "secata de ropa", to no avail. With the Asian lady, we discovered there were no clothes pins in the shop. So I went to a shop across the street to another discount store. Again, staffed by Mexican women who spoke no English. The security guard for the mall—an older Mexican man who spoke good English—came in, and helped me find clothes pins.
This was in Hayward, California, just across the bay from San Francisco.
Clothes pins is Pinzas de Ropa, I didn't think to use my phone.
I'm sure my Great Grandmother turned in her grave, she was one of the Berryessa family.
I took French in school-- four or five years starting at age 14.
It was mostly a waste. I have very little ability to remember arbitrary sounds, and less ability to reproduce them. French was possibly a bad choice because there are so many silent letters and homonyms. (Did you know there are transcription contests for French the way there are spelling bees for English?)
My limited ability to read French has turned out to be pleasant, though it doesn't come with the ability to write it nor with an appreciation of a different worldview that comes with the language.
What specific talents do folks think make learning languages easy?
Did you know there are no spelling bees in Spanish speaking countries?
While most young Germans speak English that is not vaguely true of France. Even in Paris. Where were you in France?
Regardless, you can always specialize labor. If you don't speak foreign languages then you can simply hire people who do (or buy from companies staffed by people who do). Nothing wrong with having a weakness. I'm sure many translators can't... I don't know, program computers or manufacture shoes.
Where I disagree is two ideas here: 1.) That AI based translation is even vaguely comparable to speaking the language and 2.) that the skill doesn't have a use. For 1: AI translation still makes errors pretty frequently and the experience of not being able to choose exact tone or word choice is going to be a problem for a long time. Perhaps forever. While no doubt AI will speed up and ease language acquisition it's not going to end it. AI is definitely a better alternative to standing there and gesturing at each other. But trust me, being able to speak is much better.
For 2: If you work in a purely domestic field with no foreign competition or import/export and you have no significant foreign presence in the city then sure. But I cannot think of such a field. Oil and gas is full of Arabic speakers. Coal maybe? Computer programming has a ton of non-English speakers. And you open up all kinds of personal opportunities by being able to bridge that gap and do a fairly good service.
Of course, you can just ignore such opportunities, stick to the English speaking slice of a population, etc. And plenty of people do and that's fine. But it's not that the people who are taking those opportunities are wasting their time. Again, it's just specialization of labor.
I THINK ONE SHOULD LEARN ALL HUMAN LANGUAGES. THAT IS YOUR ASSIGNMENT FOR THE COMING WEEK. -- Archangel Uriel
I struggled with french as a school kid. When I was 29 I decided to take the plunge and learn mandarin. 3 years later and I have experiences, relationships and ideas that are impossible for an English speaker.
Pay attention to the phenomenon in your brain that occurs when you can't recall a word for something, and what this phenomenon is telling you: You can have a concept you don't have a word for!
You don't need a word to have experiences/relationships/ideas. But many people simply don't notice these things unless they have a word for it, so that their running internal narrative can use it.
I spent a few months a few years back researching words in foreign languages for different emotions, with the goal of improving my understanding of my own emotions. The project failed, in respect to giving me improved understanding; everything I learned, I already knew. It mostly showed me how bad the vocabulary surrounding internal experiences is, no matter how many languages you employ to the purpose.
Perhaps the most useful word I learned was "equanimity", which you may notice is already an English word, but one which I hadn't grokked prior to learning another language's version of this word. In particular, I learned that equanimity can be considered as something like "capacity for dealing with excess emotional state", as opposed to its literal definition as "the state of not experiencing excess emotional state" - this distinction is captured in the modern vernacular as "spoons". Even without the exact word, we still have/had this idea - the word merely gave voice to it.
There's another concept I've encountered which is also useful, which translates in English to something like "okay", as expressed in the phrase "Bad things happen, but it's okay, life goes on." The concept, although difficult to translate exactly, is also expressed in phrases like "Don't cry over spilt milk." We have these concepts in English, even though there is no perfect translation; "okay" doesn't quite capture the correct meaning, although it comes close.
That sounds like it was a fun project. Here's a good example that I hope you saw in your research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B8%A4uzn
Turkish was a somewhat randomly chosen language for me. When I saw the layers of meaning that get draped over individual words during centuries of history and culture that I had never learned about, then realise that the same must be true of any language that I might have chosen to learn, it really opened my eyes to how big the world is.
I do find it interesting to consider things through different language perspectives sometimes (I think pretty differently in different languages), it's an interesting experience.
Mostly though I disagree about the cost, especially for children. Almost everything kids learn in school is a waste of time, learning a language may not be the best possible use of time but it's a heck of a lot better than the average school activity.
I don't think kids end up learning anything if you try teach them language in school though. From my experience, learning and retaining language requires regularity and immersion. Occasional classes with one teacher to thirty disinterested children accomplishes nothing. I forgot that I even did language at school when I was writing my comment above (one year of Japanese, for which I can count to 5 and say "my name is ___". I don't plan on visiting Japan.)
It probably depends on the school though. And if it's an elective subject then it makes way more sense.
In most urban or touristic places you will indeed find enough people speaking English good enough, so you will not have problem in your day to day life.
But if you spend enough time in a foreign country, the investment is probably worth it, at least if you are not extremely bad at learning a new language. For me it's being constantly surrounded by conversations I don't understand at all that feel uncomfortable (and smartphone dor not help much for that). I am not good at language (not especially bad either), but I spend a little bit of effort learning the language of places I go often just for this reason.
My rule of thumb: when you get exposed to a language enough to accidentally learn a few words, it's probably worth trying to deliberately learn it a little bit more ;-)
I would add, even if you want to you can't, because everybody speaks English and insists on speaking it to you. I spent a month in Ethiopia (not in cities) and thought I would come away with a working knowledge of Amharic and a bit of Tigrigna, and found everybody wants to discuss English Premier League soccer in flawless English.
Has anyone ever managed to get the block or mute functions on Substack working properly? I've tried a couple of times to block or mute certain users whose comments I find irritating and unenlightening, but without it making any apparent difference (i.e. I can still see their comments).
I think it blocks notifications but nothing else.
I'm generally very frustrated by substack's tech, at first it did great at beating WordPress by just having a simple basic set of features that just worked. Over the last few months as they've decided to try to be twitter they've pushed a bunch of new features that work terribly and increasingly basic stuff is also kinda crap.
Oh I didn't even notice that it blocked email notifications. Thanks for that tip and I will now start using the mute feature, that's at least something.
Would be way better if it actually muted of course.
The problem, as I understand it, is that bloggers in the usual sense of the word, are not Substack's intended customers.
(Not even Scott. He was invited here, because he was popular at the moment and needed a new place to write; and Substack needed more advertising. But it's not like Substack had him in mind when deciding their business model.)
The intended customer, guessing by the existing features, is simply someone who in the past would be spamming their paying customers with e-mails containing random pieces of wisdom (multi level marketing, seduction advice, quantum healing, stuff like that). Substack takes care of maintaining their mailing list and their web page, in return for a fraction of the income. If you think about it, all features necessary for this purpose are present. Everything else is neglected.
But the problem isn't a lack of features, it's that they added a bunch of bad ones (even the web page is less readable than it was, and the "new post" button is now hidden behind like three menus, while the twitter knockoff button is omnipresent).
I guess this is kind of similar to Google where everything not search gets a ton of crappy bloatware because the engineers need to look busy and there's no pressure to have good results, and substack probably hired a bunch of non-founding engineers who need to justify their existence but don't have the same level of quality control. Still, this usually only happens after a company gets bigger than this.
My own experience is the same; neither feature works at all.
Muting doesn't work, in my experience.
Hey, Scott, the New York City meetup is confusingly listed as "Manhattan, New York". This will cause a lot of people to fail to find it and think there isn't one. Could you change it to "New York City, New York" or "New York, New York" so people can actually find it? Thanks!
It actually probably makes sense for every meetup in a large metro area to be labeled with the metro area name as well as the more precise location. No reason not to list San Francisco and Los Angeles for the Berkeley and Newport Beach ones, because some people in those areas may well be close to one of these without realizing that they are.
Well, it’s unlikely that someone in the east bay will fail to look for “Berkeley”, knowing what most people in that area on this blog know about where readers hang out, but there’s a good chance that people in Orange County or Long Beach will fail to notice the Newport Beach meetup, even though they would notice one listed with “Los Angeles” or “Orange County” in the name.
In a couple of cases the local organizer mentioned that when telling me about the event- Mannheim and Heidelberg come to mind, as does Kitchener and Waterloo. The main problem with not doing this "automatically" is that it really isn't obvious when I'm looking at a big map of the area what name people will think to look for.
San Francisco and Berkeley look close on a map to me, and they even have a transit line running between them! But in practice that transit can take half an hour or more, and SF wanted its own meetup. I live in Boston (actually, no, I live in a suburb about half an hour out of Boston, but that's my point) and have heard people sincerely refer to the southernmost parts of New Hampshire as "Boston."
Basically, I'd be happy to help with this problem by listing nearby areas somehow, but it's either going to rely on people looking at a map (Thank you LessWrong team!) or locals telling me what other cities people might look for.
What is confusing about it?
The New York City meetup is mainly listed as Manhattan, New York, because that's what Robi put for the city. Right now, there's a redirect for New York City, New York that just says "see Manhattan" similar to the redirects for Oakland->Berkeley, and Waterloo->Kitchener.
Since a couple of people sounded like they think this is insufficient, I'm about to go through and flesh out the redirects to have the full entry plus a line mentioning the duplication.
This has been pointed out in the comments on the meetup post, which is curated by the meetups coordinator and not Scott. You should leave your comments there.
I urge everyone to sign the international Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights: https://www.womensdeclaration.com
"This right is undermined by the use of ‘surrogate’ motherhood, which exploits and commodifies women’s reproductive capacity. The exploitation and commodification of women’s reproductive capacity also underpins medical research which is aimed at enabling men to gestate and give birth to children."
An attack on a voluntary agreement, in the first sentence of the quote. An attack on a potential medical option for individuals in the second.
I do not support this declaration.
Is this that transphobic one that was going around a while ago? Hard pass from me and most Leftists, sizable chunk of centrists, and a tiny slice of right wingers.
Signed! Thanks!
I looked at the summary. First point was "We reaffirm motherhood as an exclusively female status." What does this mean in practice? What actual lifestyle features, laws or ways of talking about things are signers reaffirming as OK, and which are they rejecting?
I think what they are rejecting is any use of male words or pronouns for people who are capable of giving birth. That is, the denial of the existence of trans-men, because they see this acknowledgement as itself an erasure of women. They even object to purely neutral terminology like “birthing parent”.
Some people seem to think life is an a la carte dinner at a high end restaurant, and their task is to deploy their sensibility as richly and fully as possible in all of their choices.
I think there's a possibility you're being a little trolly as this blog is known for its hostility to this subject among many commenters, perhaps even trying to raise a fuss so some progressive outlet can leap and yell, "See, Scott Alexander's commenters hate women!"
But I'll treat this as a good faith inquiry (it may very well be...one of the effects of knowing you're bad at reading people is always extending the possibility the other person is acting in good faith) and explain why you're unlikely to find a welcoming audience here.
There are actually two separate issues.
One is the debate *within* feminism over to what degree trans women should be considered women (particularly with access to women's spaces such as battered women's shelters and bathrooms and sports teams), the 'gender critical feminists' or TERFs saying no and most progressive or intersectional feminists saying yes. Most modern progressives are very hostile to any form of 'biodeterminism'. I'm talking a little from outside of my sphere but while there are, in fact, a few progressives on here curious about heterodox thinking, they are likely to not be TERFs. As per the 2022 survey, commenters are 85% cisgender male (next largest cisgender female at 9%, with trans women at 3%) and 83% heterosexual (11% bi, 3% gay) the dreaded 'cishet men' of the left). Members of the LGBTQ community are thus likely to be bi men who probably aren't going to see this as an issue.
Writers in this vein like Julie Bindel and Louise Perry tend to focus heavily on the evils of men, which naturally doesn't endear them to people here. There's also a strong anti-sex work strain (many are either the intellectual descendants of the antiporn second-wave feminists of the 70s or actual surviving activists from that era), and Aella's pretty popular here. I'd be willing to bet a few of the guys have visited a sex worker out of simple loneliness. (I haven't.)
Two, of course, there's the problem that nerds (by which I will denote its common slang use of 'socially inept technically or academically adept man, or man with interests typical of such men such as anime or video games') really, really don't like feminism. (Exception, of course, is female nerds, but they're few and far between.) A lot are fine with a lot of its effects--they have no problem with women having careers or abortions, but...
1. There's much more of a trend to elevate what had previously thought to be unpleasant awkwardness (unwanted propositions, for instance) to 'sexual misconduct' that's fireable or even prosecutable. Additionally, contra the Constitution, the new rules are even applied ex post facto! Now while I realize a lot of abusers actually use this one as a cover to get away with stuff ranging from groping to threats, the side effect is that a lot of young men have no idea how to approach a woman in a way that won't blow up in their faces 20 years later. Go to the apps, you say, but then they can screenshot your message and make it go viral and get you fired.
2. There's a larger emotional issue (better discussed by Scott Aaronson's Comment 171) in that a lot of us have been taught that any heterosexual desire for a woman is bad, because you are thinking about her as a body not a person, and you might make her feel uncomfortable. I get this is a corrective to more aggressive men who grope and leer freely, but one of the side effects is that a lot of the shyer guys just think their desires are evil and well...shaming the gay men of the 50s didn't turn them straight.
3. This is more of a side issue, and Richard Hanania, whatever his prior nasty work as Richard Hoste, has said it better than I can, but the elevation of women's concerns and the idea of 'hurting feelings equalling violence' particularly hurts people on the spectrum who aren't good at reading people or guessing when they're going to hurt feelings. In short, I think whenever you elevate women, you're specifically going to damage the sort of men who aren't good at navigating women's spaces, and nerds are usually a big fraction of those.
A lot of these are just side effects of things that have allowed women to participate more fully in the economy. From a utilitarian point of view, women are half the population, and nerds a small fraction of the other half, so it's still the right thing to do. (There are female nerds, but they're usually pro-feminist for the reasons above, and may even have gender-specific grievances like being propositioned at work or harassed at conventions.) As they say, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Well, *we're* the eggs.
In short, both pro-trans feminists and antifeminists are going to come after you on this one. You're not likely to get many signatories as the conservatives will probably find this too liberal, most rationalists are hostile to feminism (are all rationalists nerds? no, but an awful lot are, and the ones that aren't are usually sympathetic to them), and the few progressives around here think you're anti-trans.
EDIT: looked at your blog, you're on the level. Cool. I do wonder why conservative guys are allying with radical feminists on this one. Being so eager to stop trans people you're allying with people who hate men?
Thank you for this, but I was already aware of pretty much everything you wrote. FWIW I am a cis het male nerd, age 67, and a lifelong (until 2022) liberal Democrat and activist; over the decades I've worked as a volunteer on mutiple Democrat campaigns. I also consider myself a strong rationalist, not in the sense of feeling part of the lesswrong community per se, but in the (attempted) pure sense of genuinely trying to reason rationally and overcome my own biases. The shortest summary of my overall views is that they are closely aligned with those of Scott Aaronson. My support of women's sex-based rights is based on a population-wide utilitarian maximize-happiness analysis (to the extent that this is a feasible task), and certainly not on "being so eager to stop trans people". Indeed I utterly reject that description. There is a real genuine conflct between the needs/wants/rights of AMABs who identify as female and AFABs who identify as female. I come down solidly with the AFABs on these conflicts, and believe I have a rigorously rational justification for this (which I admit that I have not explained here). Furthermore I believe that most cis het male nerds would do so as well, if they better understood the social dynamics at play. If I can find the time and energy, I will explicate further on this in later open threads. Meanwhile I am happy to have to gotten the conversation started here.
There are several things you mention here which seem to me quite central to the flaws of this community and why it isn't more influential.
First, it would be really great if this community's focus on rationality and intelligent discussion were more widespread, but that's kind of undermined by the existence of widely-held dogmas within it, like pro-trans and anti-feminist, that basically ensure it alienates all consistent progressives (who think feminism is good), consistent conservatives (who think the trans movement is insane) and consistent centrists (who dislike sweeping claims and strong dogmas in any direction), leaving only a very particular subset of people feeling at home here, which further insulates itself. And it explains a lot about there being virtually no women, virtually no Christians, and virtually no members of many other large groups (at least according to the surveys).
Second, the fact that as you describe it the "male nerds" here have no problem with abortions but are horribly paranoid about a sexual proposition they make being deemed harassment and punished for it, goes a long way to explaining what makes them, to use the phrasing common around here, "low-status". It comes across as so unbelievably self-centered and morally unprincipled, to be terrified of accidentally committing harassment because that might harm *you*, but completely unconcerned with the destruction of human life because you're just certain it's not *real* human life. To be kept up at night by the fear your one-night-stand might in twenty years be declared rape but not at all by the fear the baby who was aborted as a result of it might have actually been sentient. And again, this particular combination of views alienates almost everyone.
Third, this paranoia among "nerds" about the MeToo hysteria doesn't make alot of sense. First, its targets were mostly the total opposite of nerds: Hollywood actors. Second, has something like "being fired for an online dating message, or other proposition outside work" actually happened? Third, there's something weird about this that I found particularly striking in Scott Aaronson's famous comment: most of this paranoia about violating crazy feminist dating rules is not based on the rules actually being enforced, but on a self-imposed sense of duty to be a "good feminist". I think these draconian sexual harassment rules are mostly part of the "safety state" that started in the 90s, along with mandatory disability accomodations and the unworkable regulations on scientific research that Scott has talked about. They consist of absurdly overreaching rules that aren't actually intended to be followed, which is contemptible and should be condemned in the strongest terms, but there's something incoherent about knowing this and following them anyway out of some kind of stockholm syndrome instead of dismissing them as obviously insane rules that normal people clearly don't follow (the way you surely do with religious sexual rules).
(And also, refraining from behaviour that is acceptable now on the grounds that it might get you punished in twenty years makes no sense, because it could just as well be the opposite behaviour that gets you punished by whatever faction is in power at that time. It's the same problem as Pascal's Wager.)
Fourth, calling "hurt feelings is oppression" a feature of women, instead of a feature of a certain subset of entitled scum of either sex, is firstly horribly unfair to all the women who aren't like that and are perfectly capable of engaging with different opinions rationally instead of screaming that disagreement is a literal act of genocide, and secondly lets the women who *do* do that off the hook by letting them think they're just acting like normal women instead of completely abnormal bullies and narcisists who can't cope with a world where people are allowed to disagree with them about anything. Not to mention ignoring all the men (particularly of woke-favoured minority groups) who do exactly the same thing.
And fifth, as a mostly-conservative guy I can admire the fact that the man-hating radical feminists, as unpleasant as they are, at least have a consistent philosophy (that women are biologically in subjugation to innately aggressive men, or something similar). Unlike the woke feminists who have no consistent principles whatsoever and change them from minute to minute depending on whether it favours the groups in their movement: one moment women need special spaces protected from men, the next moment any man who says he's a woman must be treated like one in all instances, one moment religious freedom doesn't excuse sexism (when we're talking about Christians) the next moment it does (when we're talking about Muslims). I don't have to like or agree with the first group, but I can respect them in a way I can't respect the second.
Those are all really good points. All I can say is I wish I had been more concise to get such a consistent critique from more people. ;)
I'm not entirely defending the view I describe (and I think I tried to give the opposition's arguments), though obviously I have some sympathy or I wouldn't be here. I also can't say I speak for all rationalists, or even that I really am one (I have little interest in EA, haven't read the Sequences, and think Yudkowsky's nuts). I was trying to explain why the OP got as much pushback as he did. Finally, I don't have the charisma to sway rationalists or, really, anyone else in one direction or another. I'm mostly here to read Scott's writing, hear about the AI stuff, and blow off a little steam before or after I go off to pretend to be a Progressive In Good Standing to keep my job. (Yes, I am very interested in FIRE, and theoretically have the assets, but that's for another day.)
1. I agree, basically. Every group's going to have its shibboleths, and you just find one that has ones that don't offend you that much. I don't even think the focus on rationality is all that rational--if you accept some of the evo-psych arguments about reason being developed to convince people, you're basically just snorting your own fumes. All the 'dumb normies' who follow instinct and convention into a family are probably going to be happier over the long term. One interesting point you raise is that the group is pro-trans (coded left) and anti-feminist (coded right), which means you either have liberals or libertarians with problems with feminism or conservatives who are open-minded on the trans issue, which is a small fraction of both groups. So it limits reach substantially, as you say. (It has the ironic benefit of making the comments section more interesting, as you have Catholic cons arguing with trans libertarians, but it also makes any kind of a political movement impossible.)
2. Another good point. I can't speak for anyone else here, but I spent so much time in a liberal bubble that, while I've read the anti-abortion position as part of my researches of the right and it makes sense to me intellectually (if you think abortion is murder you should oppose it and it's a huge number of deaths equal to the great genocides of the 20th century), I think I failed to consider the true importance of it to conservatives. You keep hearing how it's all just a plot to control women and you start to believe it.
3. That's a good point. What I think you're seeing is the discontents of people raised in an ideology that doesn't fit them but they can't bring themselves to question fully. (Aaronson in particular, in his defense, may have needed to keep his academic job.) I think nerds in particular, because so much of our thinking is done at the explicit, formal level, and we're not good at reading social cues, have a hard time telling which rules you're supposed to ignore. There's also the point that making rules nobody can follow and then attacking people selectively for not following them (in addition to being an old piece of the Soviet playbook) is very bad, but I think people who grow up around them tend to internalize them and just have a vague idea that everything they do is wrong.
(BTW, I've got nothing against Christians, and you seem to have a good thing going, but I just can't get myself to believe in God. Doesn't make sense to me. I'm not going to rehash the Internet arguments of the 2000s here. Oh well.)
4. I think Hanania did have a point about the rise of women enabling this sort of culture, though. I think the thing is at least until recently minority-group men and women (and white leftists of any gender) weren't numerous enough to force this stuff down everyone's throats, but turn white women and you now have enforcers for your leftist scheme because you have almost half the population. (I believe this was the New Left's strategy back in the 60s, and it's worked swimmingly.) As you point out NAWALT, but I think the thing is it's always easier to get angry guys with poor romantic track records to blame women--just like you can get the neurotic women at the NYT and similar places to blame men.
(I was reading one weird book (hey, it said it was about Shakespeare) that was supposed to be how the author and her husband got together, I looked up what happened to the author--yup, divorced a few years later. And he was the one who asked for it if I read the Twitter feed right. So, you know, these are unhappy women with problems, and this is the equivalent for men.)
5. Oh, there's a strategic aspect to it I should have mentioned (and I'm sure you knew). The TERFs, being feminists, have a much wider reach in the media conservatives don't have. It also gives them more of a feel of a left-right coalition, which is useful for convincing centrists. I have to say the whole 'at least they have principles' thing doesn't seem like a great argument to me--it's like a Jew saying 'say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ideology'. They hate you and wish you ill.
Anyway, neither you nor I are going to save the rationalist movement (and I doubt I would even try), but thanks for the detailed and sincere engagement. You rarely see this kind of thing anymore.
I'm glad someone appreciates my obsessively long and detailed replies. Even around here, they often don't get much of a response.
1. The comments are refreshingly balanced, yes, at least to some extent. The actual readership based on the surveys, though, is much more skewed. And there are still huge groups, from religious conservatives to woke progressives to socialists, that seem very under-represented in the comments here relative to other places. Maybe those groups just lack the patience and nuance to meet the standard of discourse here, though.
2. I'm a bit confused who you're talking about here: before it was "nerds" in general, now it's yourself, but in the past tense as though you've changed. Whatever the case, I feel like there's a disconnect about the concept of a nerd (and I'm also a bit bewildered at the insistent use of such a silly and childish term as a self-description, which seems unbecoming of the type of mature, educated people with good vocabularies that nerds are supposed to be, but I guess that ship has sailed). I've generally thought of nerds as something like: introverted, thoughtful, obsessively analytical (which definitely describes me). The kind of people who want to understand everything, and who care about truth even if it's unpopular. So I can't comprehend how this sort of person could just unquestioningly accept abortion without much thought, and just believe the propaganda that surrounds them. As someone who has thought an enormous amount about the issue, examined it from nearly every possible angle, and changed my mind substantially multiple times...I can only say we must have a very different idea of "nerd".
(And I'm sure most Southerners felt the same way about abolitionism: kept hearing it was "all just a plot" to take away their culture and sovereignty, and believed it without thinking about it too much).
3. Again, I'm finding your concept of a nerd is not what I'd expect. Surely questioning everything, thinking analytically about everything, demanding reasoned justifications for every position before you accept them, are key characteristics of a nerd? How is this consistent with accepting an ideology that surrounds you so mindlessly? I see the point about difficulty grasping informal rules, though, and I share that too I think. It seems to me that living by moral principles, particularly ones that most ordinary people share, might go a long way to mitigate this. The difference between asking someone single on a chaste date and propositioning someone's wife for casual sex, regardless of whether one or both is within or outside the official rules of whatever environment, is surely going to be immense (in terms of sympathy from other people). Vaguely written rules are, after all, often deliberately relied on as a way to punish things everyone agrees are bad but are hard to codify. The hedonistic tendency of many nerds to want to defy established moral norms is surely part of the problem here.
4. I find this just bizzare and can't comprehend it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics 55% of white women voted to re-elect Trump. Not voted for a generic conservative candidate, not even voted for Trump as an outsider before he was president, but voted to re-elect him and endorse his entire presidency (that the woke left had spent four years screaming was the worst oppression in all of history). How does the idea that women are generally champions of wokeness and cancel culture have any remote connection to reality? Of course women of certain demographics and industries probably are, but so are the men of same, generally. Making this a gendered thing is what I expect of feminists, no matter how illogical it is, but why the hell is it being pushed by people on the right? What's the sense of this?
5. Actually, although it's a dark example, I think it would be perfectly logical for a Jew to say they'd rather die in the holocaust than in a random soviet purge on the grounds that "if I'm going to be murdered, I'd rather it be by someone who hates me and is jealous of my group's achievments, than to fulfil a bureaucratic quota". More generally, consistency also means predictability, you know what they're going to do, and you can negotiate and reason with them because they actually believe in something and have concrete goals, they're not just completely self-serving power-hungry bullies. Also, as an additional and probably more apt point, the radical feminists have virtually no power, while the woke ones control large parts of the western world.
1. Patience and nuance? You've given pretty good reasons why woke progressives, religious conservatives (we have a few!), and centrists wouldn't like this place. As for the socialists...I dunno. Sneer Club seems pretty heavy on those and I get the sense they hate Scott for some un-PC stuff he said a decade ago. I get the sense it's sort of a leftist solidarity. I'm not under any illusions this is some kind of agora of rationality; the people here have their own biases, as with any group of humans, they're just more congenial to my own.
2. I think I said in my response I was changing it to specifically refer to me, though one concern I have is I'm projecting my experiences out on the larger rationalist sphere. (It's interesting nobody contradicted me though, so I may have been onto something!) As for 'nerd'; I don't know, seems to describe a certain personality type that exists in the West (there are Ancient Greek jokes about the scholastikos) that everyone recognizes and has become important with the rise of information technology. (It seems to have gotten a little more respect in the East for a while, from what I can tell.) Of the ten richest men in the world, the only ones who don't have an IT connection are Bernard Arnault and Warren Buffett, and Buffett's probably as close to a finance nerd as you're going to find in that macho industry.
But as to why introverted analytical people wouldn't challenge the abortion arguments: they tell us for a long time as men we're not supposed to have opinions on abortion. Ah, but rationalists love to read all this forbidden IQ stuff (look at the trouble Hanania got himself into), not to mention evo psych stuff about game, why not challenge the status quo there too?
I think the answer (and I'm just going on my limited experience both online and offline) is that most rationalists lean libertarian and don't like to tell people what to do. Abortion is framed as telling women what they can't do with their bodies, so to us it seems more like an invasion of privacy to ban it. Most of the people making the anti-abortion argument are doing so from a religious point of view, and we usually don't read Christian arguments, so we don't think of it that way that much.
4. That's another good point, and strikes me as 'restriction of range' on my part (and possibly Hanania's as well). Most of the women I know are pretty liberal; if you hang out with a lot of right-wing women that's not something you would assume (women are pretty big in the pro-life movement). Hanania could still be correct in that rising status of women *in the liberal enclaves where opinion is formed* is producing a lot of the safetyism and obsession with hurt feelings we see. Conservative women have other priorities--QAnon seems like kind of a right-wing equivalent in terms of weaponization of fear of child predators. Of course, I imagine most conservative women are concerned with making a living and keeping family happy and safe.
5. I'm trying to find the quote, but it now gets swamped by stuff about the current Russia-Ukraine war. Anyway, some really unfortunate rabbi actually had to deal with just this situation (don't forget Stalin and Hitler fought over Eastern Europe with the expected huge casualties), and said something like: when the Russians kill you, they kill you as a person who's done something bad by being a capitalist, but when the Nazis kill you, they kill you as a dog.
Actually strikes me as cope for one of the worst situations imaginable, but I guess if you were Jewish your chances of survival were better with the Soviets. You can change your class, not your ancestry.
Regarding nerd as a type everyone recognises...I sort of recognise it. The type that does seem natural to me is the civilised intelligent person who rejects the law of the jungle (violence, promiscous sex, mob popularity) in favour of a more ordered lifestyle focused on thought and principle. But this doesn't seem to fit at all with the type of internet nerds who are extremely hedonistic and share a lot of the same values as the "jocks" who are their supposed enemies.
Regarding women driving wokeness, it seems you're now making a very general point (that political movements change over time due in part to different demographics gaining influence) in a very controversial way (women have ruined the left). So it's similar to how increasing influence of the rural working class changed the Republican Party. This is just how politics works, always, and it seems like the only people this would matter much to are male liberals who liked what the left used to be but not what it is now.
And I'm also suspiscious of how much women are driving this given how small the partisan gap along with other political measures on particular questions is between men and women. Age is more determinative I think, and race overwhelmingly so.
Regarding which extremists are more dangerous, my understanding is the soviets murdered tens if millions of people, several times the nazis, for often no reason other than to fulfil a quota. Certainly it didn't require having done anything "capitalist". I see your point about being killed for who you are (nazis and radical feminists) versus for resisting the ideology (wokeness). But on the other hand, if the former come for me I'd have every man on my side, while the woke ones do the insidious thing of dividing each group against each other (white men against black men etc).
All rationalists in this community are nerds of some flavor. I challenge anyone to produce a long time reader / active poster that isn't. We are anti-normie by default.
The part about reproductive integrity torpedoes it all for me:
"Reaffirming the rights of women and girls to physical and reproductive integrity
(a) States should ensure that the full reproductive rights of women and girls, and unhindered access to comprehensive reproductive services, are upheld.
(b) States should recognize that harmful practices such as forced pregnancies, and the commercial or altruistic exploitation of women’s reproductive capacities involved in ‘surrogate’ motherhood, are violations of the physical and reproductive integrity of girls and women, and are to be eliminated as forms of sex-based discrimination.
(c) States should recognize that medical research which is aimed at enabling men to gestate and give birth to children is a violation of the physical and reproductive integrity of girls and women, and is to be eliminated as a form of sex-based discrimination."
The minute you start yakking about "forced pregnancies", you've sold the pass. If you're giving in on contraception and abortion because sex should be without consequences, then along comes no limits to that. Abortion at any time for any reason or no reason, just because you want one. And if sex has no consequences, then you can't talk about "enabling men to gestate is a violation of the integrity of girls/women", because it's nothing to do with women getting pregnant or not getting pregnant, and if it all comes under the umbrella of "reproductive rights" and "unhindered access", then it's a right to have a child if you want one, and if you're a trans woman who wants to gestate their own foetus in their own transplanted donor womb, nobody is entitled to tell them "no".
You have to have a consistent philosophy around sex and reproduction, because giving in and chipping away at parts of it over time means you've sawed off the branch.
I am in agreement about surrogate pregnancies being economic exploitation, but that ship has sailed long ago. Once you legalise surrogacy, money is going to be involved, and if everyone bar the human incubator is making money out of it, then simply pay them a token amount to make it all okay.
It is possible to remove the money aspect of surrogacy. Especially in countries with socialized medicine where the pregnancy is taken care of via taxed money. In the USA you'd just allow for reasonable costs(min-max set by looking at the past 3 years of pregnancy data across public hospitals) to be paid for the pre, during, and post birth.
"Altruistic exploitation" is straight out of Ayn Rand.
The words "altruistic exploitation" sound interesting, but I need to spend some time thinking about this idiom. (Google is not very helpful here; there is ~1 article using these words, and it's paywalled.)
The meta point is that different people are differently triggered by different keywords. :D
I am struggling to understand "enabling men to gestate and give birth to children is a violation of the physical and reproductive integrity of girls and women, and is to be eliminated as a form of sex-based discrimination."
My problem is not whether this argument is good or bad, but I struggle to see the thought process leading here (which one typically sees even for bad arguments).
I also got snagged on this section. As a feminist, I love the idea of men being able to gestate and give birth. Give the women a break already! I would probably have had about five more children if my husband had been able to share the load.
There is a certain segment of the feminist anti-trans movement that is really hung up on this Victorian idea of women's special purpose, which I find bizarre.
These are 1st/2nd wavers, so it's not too shocking they're hung up on Victorian ideals of womanhood. Dare I say, they're bio-essentialists that believe women can only be feminine/womanly in a certain way.
They also have a ton of language that is anti-stud/butch/tomboy in that document. They basically view masculine women as traitors.
Is there a good survey of 1st/2nd wave feminism that gives examples of how masculine women were viewed as traitors? How prevalent was that notion among popular first/second wave feminists?
(Also I am embarrassed to say I didn't spend too much time with that document; if you could indulge me and quote a specific anti-tomboy language that will be appreciated).
Here:
https://www.jstor.org/journal/offourbacks
It's a wonderful historical record of collegiate/academic feminism of its day. It may not comform to the format you'd desire, but it is what/how they thought/communicated.
At the time I was reading it (in dead tree format of course):
-True Feminists had to be lesbians.
-Penetrative sex toys were ok, though not everyone agreed. They did all agree that they should NOT be shaped like penes.
-It was right and good to be a mother. It was a fierce point of debate as to whether male fetuses should be aborted or if it were possible to raise a "good" man.
I'm presuming first, the reliance on donor wombs which may end up in a trade of women donating their wombs while alive, due to financial necessity as with surrogacy, see the recent story about the successful womb transplant between two sisters:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/24/first-edition-uk-womb-transplant
I did find it strange that the immediate leap in commentary afterwards was "does this mean men could get pregnant?" and forecasts about how this would work for trans women (rather gruesomely, if you're a dinosaur like me: first the transplant, then a ton of anti-rejection drugs, then implant the embryo from donor eggs and hope it takes, if the gestation goes to the point of delivery do it by C-section, and then you can have one more go if you want before removing and discarding the uterus in order not to have to remain on immunosuppressant drugs long term).
Secondly is the more theoretical objection: that this removes the distinction between the sexes and encroaches on the 'reproductive integrity' of women as being the ones capable of gestating and delivering babies. If we're currently re-defining language to refer not to "men and women" but to "people who menstruate" or "people who have uterus" then womb transplants completely destroy any distinctions left. Now biological males can be uterus-possessors.
Interesting. It is still difficult for me to wrap my head around this, but I certainly cannot improve on your theory.
I’m not sure whether the economics would actually work out exploitatively re: uterus transplants. A common type of joke in trans spaces involves, eg, trans men who get hysterectomies volunteering to send their uteruses to the women (or women who get bottom surgery joking about donating their junk). Cis women also get hysterectomies for a variety of reasons.
There's a tidy little business in developing country surrogacies, with clinics offering their US (and I presume UK etc.) based clients that they can have the procedure done in an American clinic, with American egg donors and surrogates, *or* they can have the surrogacy done by their associated clinic in Mexico/India/etc. which will be cheaper.
https://brilliantbeginnings.co.uk/how-much-does-surrogacy-cost/
"A healthy overall budget for UK surrogacy can vary from £20,000 to £80,000+, comprising:
Surrogate expenses
Fertility treatment costs
Agency or organisation fees
Legal fees
Contingency such as failed transfers, travel and accommodation and unexpected life changes
Surrogacy in the UK takes place in a range of different ways, with friends or family members or surrogates previously unknown to the intended parents, via non-profit UK surrogacy organisations or independent matches online, and via both traditional and gestational surrogacy. All these variables have an impact on the budget, and so anyone planning UK surrogacy should budget carefully for their particular circumstances.
How much does surrogacy in the USA cost?
A healthy overall budget for US surrogacy for UK parents is £200,000 to £300,000+, comprising:
Agency fees (covering all relevant agencies)
Surrogate (and donor) expenses and compensation
Fertility treatment costs
US health insurance (both for surrogate and newborn)
US legal fees
UK /international legal fees
Other professional fees
Personal travel and accommodation
A contingency
Anyone planning US surrogacy should budget carefully for their personal circumstances. International intended parents need to take particular care since US professionals often offer packaged fee which, in combining some but not all of the elements, can suggest that a US surrogacy journey will cost less than it actually does: advertised packages rarely represent a true ‘all in’ cost for parents from overseas.
The costs of a US surrogacy journey are not all paid upfront, but are paid in advance of each stage, so understanding the timing of when funds will be needed is important as well as planning the overall budget. Generally speaking, parents can expect funding to be expected in three major tranches: on engaging the professionals they are working with at the outset, prior to embryo transfer (when the escrow account is funded for the treatment and pregnancy expenses), and from the second half of the pregnancy (in relation to legal costs and travel for the birth).
Costs in the other main international surrogacy destinations
Other international surrogacy destinations typically cost less than the US, although lower cost typically means a very different kind of service and/or a much longer wait to bring your baby home after the birth.
Surrogacy in Canada – £80,000 to £120,000, covering surrogacy consultant fees (with consultants working in a different way to US surrogacy agencies, with less screening and longer timescales), surrogate/donor expenses (with limits in Canada), fertility treatment costs, Canadian legal fees, Canadian health insurance, UK legal fees and travel and accommodation.
Surrogacy in Ukraine and Georgia – £30,000 to £70,000, covering the fee charged by the agency/clinic for the whole surrogacy process (including surrogate recruitment, IVF treatment, surrogate compensation, antenatal and delivery care, some administrative and legal services to help with birth registration), UK legal fees and personal travel and accommodation (bearing in mind that it typically takes 3-5 months for a surrogate baby to be issued with a UK passport)."
So I could see, if uterine transplants do indeed become a thing, a parallel business springing up. You're a poor woman in India or the Philippines, you have three kids already (so your fertility and ability to bring pregnancies to successful term is proven), why not have the operation to sell off the organ you no longer require? It'll save on the cost of contraception and the risk of unintended pregnancy, and you'll make a tidy sum (by the standards of your own situation) which will improve the lives of your family. If there is enough of a demand for surrogacy, there will surely be a corresponding demand for uterine transplants.
The bit about the "altruistic exploitation" is because I've read previous articles about surrogates in the West (mostly USA) and when this procedure started, it wasn't permissible to pay for it, so a lot of it was pitched as altruism - helping people who couldn't have their own families to do so. A halo was placed upon the head of the surrogate as a selfless philanthropist.
But that led to later dissatisfaction, as an amount of ego-stroking then became expected on the part of the surrogate from the clients, and the clients complained about being held hostage to the whims of the surrogate and having to get involved with them. A tidy business transaction was much better, particularly if it was some woman in a different country whose only job was to incubate the pregnancy then hand over the resulting offspring, no strings attached.
So that's why the pressure about being "altruistic" is included in this Rights Declaration, as women may be pressured to do this on behalf of family members, or not to expect payment for the costs incurred during the pregnancy.
US costs run the gamut as below:
https://www.investopedia.com/how-much-does-a-surrogate-cost-6752258
"How Can I Lower the Cost of Surrogacy?
An international surrogacy can lower your cost by $50,000 or more. Or you can go with independent surrogacy, meaning you do not hire an agent to manage the process. That can reduce your costs by $10,000 to $25,000, but you will have to work with the surrogate directly.
The Bottom Line
The average cost of surrogacy in the U.S. is about $100,000, a total that includes the cost of fertility treatments, embryo creation, surrogate compensation, as well as legal and delivery fees. Fortunately, an increasing number of employers are including fertility benefits in their health plans, reducing the amount patients pay out-of-pocket for treatments like fertility tests and egg collection.
Many fertility clinics and surrogacy agencies work with partner institutions to offer patients agreeable loans that allow them to finance their surrogacy without being penalized for dipping into retirement savings or taking on the risk of tapping into home equity."
If you're looking at the bones of $100k for a surrogate pregnancy, a uterine transplant may not be that much more expensive, you can have two pregnancies out of it, and you can carry your own baby/babies to term (if you aren't using donor eggs) to be 'traditionally' pregnant.
Sure, right now it probably would be prohibitively expensive except for the very rich (or very desperate) but give them a few years to work the bugs out, get the techniques down, and the costs will accordingly come down by the workings of the market. Ain't Progress Wonderful!
Seems long, meandering and poorly thought through. The three founders (https://www.womensdeclaration.com/en/about/) are extremely ideological and do not inspire confidence at all. One is described by the Guardian as "a revolutionary lesbian feminist". No, thanks.
In the future I would prefer for comments that are this potentially inflammatory to be more effortful, eg include why you support this position and not the opposite.
I thought the document itself was sufficiently self-explanatory to make further explication by me superfluous, but I take note of your preference and will endeavor to follow it going forward.
Meanwhile, if you want a book-length treatment, I recommend "The Abolition of Sex" by Kara Dansky.
It's less that the document isn't self-explanatory, and more that as an artificial bar to everyone posting propaganda and calls-to-action for their chosen side, I'd like commenters to invest some effort into explaining their own perspective.
Got it, will do.
This seems like the worst ideology fit for here, most people here are either pro-trans or antifeminist (or both).
Which is so bizzare I can barely comprehend it. It seems to me that about 10% of feminism is downright evil (e.g. late-term abortion on demand), 10% is insane (e.g. women never lie about rape, except for all the proven times they have), 30% is highly disputable and 50% is clearly reasonable. While 10% of trans ideology is evil (e.g. transitioning children who can't consent), 80% is insane (numerous different forms of "objective reality doesn't exist") and 10% is maybe reasonable if you squint. Both movements are militantly in favour of cancel culture and despise freedom of discussion with the fury of a thousand suns. I struggle to see the logic of supporting the second and condemning the first.
I really wish you knew more trans people in your real life. Saying 90% are evil/insane is such a bizarre take especially in this community that has some prominent trans people, SA dated a trans person for a brief time and seemingly loved them for who they are, etc.
I said 80% of the *positions* of the movement are insane. Rewriting the past of someone after they "transition" to remove all references to their biological sex...letting people into a women's sporting event on criteria that have little or no connection to the reason the sport was sex-segregated in the first place...getting people canceled for literally saying that gender is more complicated than *purely* self-identification...how else can these be described?
There are variant positions that would be rationally principled and might have decent arguments for them, but I basically never see advocated for. For example, saying that sex should be irrelevant to public life and that bathrooms and sports should be unisex and everyone assessed only as an individual. But it's never that, it's always: keep all the sex-segregated facilities but let me use the other one because to say I'm anything other than whatever I say I am is an act of oppression.
It's not about the people at all, I'm perfectly willing to believe 90% of them are opposed to the toxic, hateful movement that represents them. If only they would all raise their voices to condemn the movement, and in particular affirm their unequivocal committment to freedom of speech, that might do wonders for their general acceptance. But for whatever reason, I'm pretty confident that's not about to happen.
Thats more or less exactly what I try to do and for exactly the reasons you say but the fact of the matter, for reasons well expressed by Scott on this blog, movements do not condemn their extremists unless they go way, way beyond the pale. And not just the trans ones - the religious nuts and the proud boys and antifa etc etc. Individuals may condemn the extremists, but movements do not survive if they spend their time condemning their extremists.
You cant wash your hands of a rational treatment of the moderate policy that might help people just because theres some dumb/cringy/gross people out there who are in the same group. You get no credit for a good faith exploration of christianity if all you say is "Those westboro baptists I heard about on the news seem pretty awful - I never see moderate christianity advocated for".
Ill grant rational trans policy is not nearly so easy to find as moderate christianity - but its out there and its not by any means _hard_ to find. You just certainly wont see it on twitter.
I appreciate your moderate stance and I'll take your word that you condemn the extremists (which, as you imply, is the whole movement at the moment). Part of my problem is, as I elaborated in another reply to you, the extremists seem responsible for many of the trans policy victories, using their hateful and extreme tactics. Thus there's a strong argument for fighting those policies regardless of their merits, as otherwise it's like negotiating with terrorists.
Separately from that, I have two issues with your "ignore the extremists, focus on the merits of the moderate policies".
First, you can't separate the moderate policies from the extreme ones in a clear causal way. Imagine if, in one of the jurisdictions that held a popular referendum on same-sex marriage (Ireland, Australia, Washington, Minnesota) the voters could look into a crystal ball and see the things that would be happening in the following decade (destruction of women's sport, human rights violations of children, people's lives ruined for saying gender issues are complicated), that would almost certainly not have happened had SSM been defeated. Would they be justified in voting no, regardless of the merits of SSM itself, on the grounds that it would causally lead to these horrific things? I think the answer is yes. If you know A will likely lead to B, and B is bad, you have a good reason to oppose A. The same is true of moderate trans policies. Given the way the left works at the moment, any policy gain is always treated as an opportunity to demand more and more, with exponentially increasing zeal. It seems almost impossible to me that a moderate trans victory in any place won't make it much more likely there'll soon be an extreme one in the same place. Thus there's an argument for opposing all trans policies (when the harms of the extreme ones are so horrifying) until the left fundamentally changes, and starts treating policy and cultural victories as a reason to become less angry and more conciliatory, instead of the exact opposite.
Second, I think movements SHOULD condemn their extremists, and I see no reason not to hold a failure to do that against any movement. I want to create a society where movements not only *do* survive if they condemn extremists but also *don't* survive if they don't. (Where did Scott discuss this anyway? Is it the Toxoplasma of Rage?) That means rewarding the first and punishing the second.
Tell me, what would you say to a hypothetical person who, despite disagreeing with Obama on several major things, voted for him in 2012 because they found the right in general (but not Romney personally) too extreme. Then voted for Trump in 2016 because many on the left had become too extreme, and then, despite Trump having not done anything *particularly* bad in policy terms, voted him out due to his extreme rhetoric and being disturbed by the rise of far-right groups in cultural influence? This probably describes a fair number of Americans, and (aside from not being American and having changed my ideological beliefs substantially several times) it largely describes me. It seems you would have to say this person should have voted for Trump in 2020, and shouldn't have voted for Obama, because the presence of extremists associated with the main movement shouldn't matter.
And importantly, the significant decrease in religious belief in recent times has surely a lot to do with the number of prominent religious extremists, and a reaction to that. And this decrease has a lot to do with the rise of trans and gay acceptance. Would you rather that hadn't happened, and people hadn't held religion as a whole responsible for its extremists?
(With all that said, I'm willing to consider moderate policies if they're rationally argued for, but the above considerations will still weigh on my mind).
I know two trans people IRL, both of whom have severe mental health issues apart from the transgenderism.
You should probably read 'the categories were made for man' again.
Trans rights people and anti-trans people disagree on almost zero actual empirical facts, and where they do disagree on empirical facts the trans-right side is ussually correct because this *actually affects their lives* so they have *been forced to find out the truth*.
When people on your side say they are 'denying reality', what they ussually mean is 'they are defining words differently than I do'.
It's the trans side who've unilaterally been refining words though, that's evident.
That effects more lives than just one cohort so other people have had to find out the truth also.
Disagree, it's more that words were defined with less specificity in the past and now both sides want to define words more narrowly and in different ways.
Man/woman was never commonly understood as being defined by chromosomes until the anti-trans side ran out of other ways to distinguish cis and trans women, no one blinked at calling Swyer patients women and most people didn't know what a chromosome was.
The words used to have a much broader cluster definition that included things like chromosomes and self-ID and presentation and birth certificate and etc, and no one cared much about narrowing it down to a single qualifying feature because all of those things agreed with each other in almost all publicly visible cases. Now both sides want to narrow it for political reasons.
But either way, it's tangential to the claim I was making, which is that there's not much in the way of empirical disagreements, and people who call semantic disagreements 'insanity' are being disingenuous.
No, man and woman were and overwhelmingly still are the words used for people with genital type A or B. That was observed at birth. From the appearance of the genitals you can infer gamete production with 100% accuracy. Until modern medicine you couldn't tell if there were any disorders of the system internally or not, but you could still tell which system it was. That's sex, as it refers to sexual reproduction.
While you can't typically see someone's genitals in day to day life, we're a dimorphic species with plenty of features that we can use to distinguish between the sexes - these are on a spectrum certainly, unlike sex itself, which is binary.
Medical advances have allowed us to see much more deeply into variations within the sex classes, but hasn't changed our fundamental understanding at all.
Moot point however - most trans people like the population generally, are typical members of their reproductive class.
There's certainly an argument to be made that some people would not like to be referred to with reference to their reproductive class in contexts where it's irrelevant. But I can't see the argument that says Refer to me as a member of the other reproductive class.
I had always thought it possible and indeed obviously correct for society to make accommodations for transpeople. 99% of the time it can be done without impinging on other peoples' rights. But I had never thought it would get to the stage where we're denying reality , not just downplaying aspects of reality - and that's where trans activism loses my support. I suspect I'm not alone in that.
2 points, first,They are almost never the same people. This blog has readers from all over the political spectrum, so most are either anti-femisnits or pro trans. The one thing we really don't see here are TERFs. Because of Scott's views, there is little reason for them to read him.
Second people that read psychiatry blogs tend to have more empathy and compassion for the insane. One of Scott's posts from nearly a decade ago explained this position rather eloquently. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/
Between that post and his early anti-feminisim posts, it's not surprising that readers draw from those camps.
Does the petition ask for late term abortion on demand? I didn’t find that in it but I didn’t read the whole thing.
Interesting that you classify transitioning children as "evil". That seems to be more or less emerging as the default intervention, given that it's low risk and not doing it is high risk.
Is this about social transition, hormonal transition, or surgical transition?
Trans people generally support all three. Surgical 16+ except in very rare cases(FTMs with extremely large breasts as an example, but this is also something cis girls also get).
Anti-trans side doesn't even support social transitioning, and is a complete no-go on medical inteventions.
Pro women's and children's rights side, you mean.
What's your explanation for why we didn't have this problem in 1880?
Do you think we "had a civil rights problem" in 1880?
"Problem"?
You're ignoring my question.
"not doing it is high risk."
Ah, the old '41% of trans youth committed suicide' which is not actually the case, but which is used to stampede parents into decisions about "do you want a trans child or a dead child?" and in ten to twenty years time, there are going to be many more cases like the ones at the Tavistock Clinic, where people will go "I was 14! Why the fuck did you let me chop off my breasts and go on hormones? You were supposed to be the adults!" to their parents.
The figure comes from a study which relates not actual suicides but that:
https://edsource.org/updates/survey-41-of-lgbtq-young-people-seriously-considered-suicide-in-last-year
"41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. The rates were highest for young people who are not cisgender — meaning they do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth: transgender men (56%) transgender women (48%) and nonbinary/genderqueer young people (48%)."
That's "considering" and not even "attempting". An Ontario study pushes the same fraught language:
https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/about/news/2015/june/study_finds_that_risk_of_suicide_in_transgender_community_may_be_reduced_by_changing_policy_and_societal_factors_.html
"According to the study, in the past year, an estimated 35.1 per cent of trans Ontarians seriously considered suicide and 11.2 per cent reported a suicide attempt. A total of 433 respondents participated in the study."
But worry not, if you're properly supportive, then you can reduce 'serious consideration of suicide':
"The study found that high social support, specifically parental support, is associated with the potential prevention of 170 cases of serious consideration of suicide per 1000 trans individuals. The data also showed if transgender people are protected from transphobia, 160 cases of serious consideration of suicide could be potentially prevented per 1000 trans persons. Having one or more identity documents which match expressed gender, such as a passport or driver’s license, is associated with the potential prevention of 90 cases of considering suicide.
The study estimated that most of these factors had the potential to reduce the suicide attempt rate among those who were considering suicide.
Completing a medical transition has a strong beneficial impact. By completing medical transitions as quickly as possible, 170 cases of serious consideration could be prevented per 1000 trans persons. Additionally, 240 suicide attempts could be prevented out of 1000 people seriously considering suicide."
And the 41% figure has gone on to a life of its own (article is paywalled so you'll have to pony up if you want to read the full thing):
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fort0000200
""Forty-one percent?” the man said with anguish on his face as he addressed the author, clutching my handout. “We’re talking about my granddaughter here.” He was referring to the finding from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) that 41% of 6,450 respondents said they had attempted suicide at some point in their lives. The author had passed out the executive summary of the survey’s findings during a panel discussion at a family conference to illustrate the critical importance of acceptance of transgender people. During the question and answer period, this gentleman rose to talk about his beloved 8-year-old granddaughter who was in the process of transitioning socially from male to female in her elementary school. The statistics that the author was citing were not just numbers to him; and he wanted strategies—effective ones—to keep his granddaughter alive and thriving. The author has observed that the statistic about suicide attempts has, in essence, developed a life of its own. It has had several key audiences—academics and researchers, public policymakers, and members of the community, particularly transgender people and our families. This article explores some of the key takeaways from the survey and the ways in which the 41% statistic has affected conversations about the injustices transgender people face and the importance of family and societal acceptance."
Though suicidality amongst transgender people is high at *every* stage, so even being affirming and supportive may not be enough:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7317390/
"Results
Out of 5107 trans women (median age at first visit 28 years, median follow‐up time 10 years) and 3156 trans men (median age at first visit 20 years, median follow‐up time 5 years), 41 trans women and 8 trans men died by suicide. In trans women, suicide deaths decreased over time, while it did not change in trans men. Of all suicide deaths, 14 people were no longer in treatment, 35 were in treatment in the previous two years. The mean number of suicides in the years 2013–2017 was higher in the trans population compared with the Dutch population.
Conclusions
We observed no increase in suicide death risk over time and even a decrease in suicide death risk in trans women. However, the suicide risk in transgender people is higher than in the general population and seems to occur during every stage of transitioning. It is important to have specific attention for suicide risk in the counseling of this population and in providing suicide prevention programs."
It's complex topic:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10027312/
"There is a need for continued research on suicidality outcomes following gender-affirming treatment. Future research that incorporates multiple measures of suicidality and adequately controls for the presence of psychiatric comorbidity, substance use, and other suicide risk-enhancing factors is needed to strengthen the validity and increase the robustness of the results. There may be implications for the informed consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed."
Trans people who transition as teenagers can pass. Not passing leads to a lifetime of dealing with transphobes, just to add to the underlying challenges of being trans - sounds pretty shit.
There seems now to be a strand of militant(?) transness which isn't that concerned about 'passing' and after all, if we're blowing up gender roles, why expect someone to 'pass' by the standards of an antiquated ideal of what a woman (or man) 'should' look like?
Butch women and femme men don't look like the rigid standards, so why should trans women and trans men have to be the ones who adhere to 'passing'?
>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7317390/
Something amusing about this study is that it simultaneously poses a big problem for everyone. Another thing it found is that people who begin the process before they are of age are significantly less likely to die by suicide.
"Four suicide deaths occurred in individuals who were referred to the clinic before the age of 18 (0.2%), which is a lower risk than in adults (0.7%, P = 0.010)."
Though that might be the consequence of the cohort's overall younger age. Less time lived, less time to die. But then it should be remembered that social rejection is correlated with suicidality, most transgender people do not pass, and once you do transition you paint an enormous target on your back for all sorts of folks. So if transitioning does not *increase* suicidality then that implies that part of the process at least counteracts that. Which raises the question of how the numbers would look in a society that does not feature widespread mistreatment of identifiably transgender individuals.
Complex indeed. Lots of data, and lots of ways to interpret it. Which ultimately does make me think that either course is risky. We do not know how the child will feel 10, 20, 30 years down the line. The only thing we can do is practice prudence and make an educated guess.
The first thing we should do is find out WHY there's been such an increase lately.
Wait, what? Medically transitioning children and teenagers is increasingly coming under scrutiny in European countries that were on board with it for a while, because there is a dearth of evidence that it improves the mental health of patients, whereas it's clear that it turns them into infertile lifelong medical patients.
Gender transition for teenagers is definitely attracting a great deal of criticism. It just so happens that almost none of this criticism is from medical scientists.
I highly recommend this doco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzNHvhxuja4&pp=ygUOYWJjIHRyYW5zIGtpZHM%3D
Learn more.
I agree social transition is low risk, and even puberty blockers are probably low risk. I think hormones and surgical interventions are high risk, especially since there are plenty of trans people that will want children, and should not be deciding if they will be child free before puberty.
I say this as someone who is non-binary with a child who would probably be a trans women if I was raised in the current regime. My child is much more important to me thany appearance.
There are fertility preserving techniques. These were not just heavily advertised, I had to have an in person meeting with the Doc saying no, I really didn't want to freeze sperm before starting.
With AFABs eggs can be frozen easily and early, with AMABs you do have to at least wait for sufficient sexual maturity for banked sperm to be viable - in either case fertility can be saved.
Hormones themselves aren't especially high risk, for AMABs at least. None of the changes are permanent within the first year or so. And fertility will return if you stop hormones for a while if you are within about 3 years (according to Duke Endocrinology)
For AFABs they have even longer where fertility will return if they stop hormones, though the appearance changes from testosterone are harder to undo, but not impossible, see transwomen.
Surgery is high risk. I'd propose no surgery before the age of majority, and with parental consent. Adults can do what they want.
I don't think that it is low risk. I think both "transitioning" and "non-transitioning" are high-risk paths. There is a quite high fraction of transitioned people who are deadly unhappy about it after a few years, and of course also a high fraction of non-transitioned people who are deadly unhappy about being non-transitioned.
That makes the whole affair so complicated. There is no low-risk path, and we are not great with predicting which people profit from transitioning and which don't.
It is low risk because:
(a) these days, puberty blockers allow a large amount of time for children, their parents, psychologists and doctors to make the decision whether to transition
(b) the proportion of detransitioners is extremely low (maybe 1%)
"There is a quite high fraction of transitioned people who are deadly unhappy about it after a few years..."
I don't think this is true. 'Deadly unhappy' would imply a desire to detransition, and the fraction of detransitioners is, according to the majority of studies available, below 10%, with the 2% figure turning up twice (Dhejne et al, 2014, van der Loos et al 2022).
For surgery regret specifically, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8099405/
The only study that I'm aware of that bucks this trend is a recent one drawing on US military records, in which 30% of trans personnel discontinued gender-affirming treatment within four years. I don't have an explanation for the outlier, but it does not survey discontent directly, and given the unusual qualities of a military cohort, I'm inclined to trust it less.
Which is not to say that detransitioners don't matter, and that tightening protocols to discern them early and head them off at the pass isn't worth trying. That some people accuse them of betrayal is just another sad side-effect of trans rights still being treated around the world as a flaming political football instead of an ordinary subset of human rights.
I think it's not so much "wanting to detransition" as "the other mental co-morbidities are still there and weren't magically fixed by transitioning".
What's more, the last time I checked the most popular reason for detransition wasn't the realisation that the person gender identity has been matching the assigned gender at birth. Instead it's lack of support from friends and family.
So only a small minority of trans people detransition and only a small minority of this small minority detransition for the particular reason, that people, who would like to restrict transition more, are worried about.
Hm, interesting. I try to square it with the different numbers and reports that I have heard in the past, and also with my personal experience - I only ever knew a handful of trans people, and two of them detransitioned. But perhaps all this used to be different and simply has changed. The de-transitionings were long ago (one more than 25 years ago), and being trans 25 years ago was surely different from today.
That's always been my big issue with this. I know there are trans people who need to transition, I know there are probably some people who are doing this because it's a social contagion, and I have no idea of the size of each group.
In a free society, a parent, child, and physician should be allowed to come to the arrangement they think best, even if it has risks. The state should not be the tool to impose a solution.
My own personal experience is that the "social contagion" group is approximately 20% but that they mostly don't seek medical intervention and so who cares.
Most people who seek medical intervention have om average very good outcomes from it. Better average outcomes than birth control or anti depressants.
So the pro-trans position is a lot more fringe, which means people supporting 10% of it will probably be identified as pro-trans, while feminism is so mainstream that supporting 50% of it will probably still be identified as anti-feminist.
(I'm also not sure I agree with those numbers (on both sides), but that's not really critical to this argument).
I think you're right. If your position is, "I don't think people who transition male-to-female post-puberty should be allowed to play women's sports, but otherwise I think they should be legally and functionally treated as women by society," that's pretty pro-trans. But if you think "I think women should be able to hold any job a man can, even heavy infantry, as long as they meet the same physical requirements, but I don't agree with third-trimester abortions and I think the stats on the gender pay gap are faulty, " many feminists would see you as a hopeless reactionary.
I mean the reason feminists would have issues with the latter is that they believe there are solid evidence data points that they can provide this person that claims to be a feminist, to switch their thinking on those issues to a more mainstream feminist position. If you believe two very interconnected things and discount the third interconnected thing, then obviously something weird is going on in your decision making analysis of that interconnected thing.
I think what you call "trans movement" or "trans ideology" is a loud and visible, but rather distorted and small minority of trans people.
You can be supporting trans rights and still disagree with statements like "trans women should be allowed to compete in women sports", and certainly disagree with extremist positions like "transition is always positive for teenagers who feel that they are assigned the wrong gender".
If you believe that those are statements that are generally supported by the pro-trans movement, then you should get to know it better.
Making myself known as a trans woman who doesn't think we should play on women's teams high school and up, thinks children should need parental consent to start medical interventions and surgery needs to wait til the age of majority.
The trans women in my own community also feel this way and we are broadly exhausted by the "movement" which we don't feel represents and is often feel gives us a bad name.
There is a rational, scientifically supported, moderate trans social policy. I wish anyone ever could have any nuance so we could talk about it.
The problem is that the loudest voices, especially online, are the ones that get heard, and some of the loudest voices are the crazy people.
I'm not sure this matters to you, but as someone who often disagrees with trans ideology (as presented to the public), I appreciate that you have and are willing to share different viewpoints.
I do appreciate it, really, I'm glad when people will let there be nuance.
It really, really sucks being a culture war battleground
Right now it's a distorted and small minority, but over time creep will set in. After all, if trans women are women legally and socially, why *shouldn't* they be permitted to compete in female sports? That's just discrimination, and we're doing away with discrimination in all other areas.
The way I see it, it is because in sports we don't really have a separation between men and women, but rather (in most sports de facto, in others also de iure) we have an "open competition" vs "separate competition for testosterone-disadvantaged people" (to use a crude simplification). The reason why we have separation instead of fully mixed leagues is that otherwise in most sports from hockey to chess women wouldn't even have a chance to participate (sometimes literally, as women's world record isn't sufficient to qualify to attempt to compete in men's olympics), so we have made separate exclusive divisions so that a large group that's valued but disadvantaged can participate in sports without interference of men - that's the whole reason of existence for most separate womens' leagues.
And from that perspective, it becomes very simple - are you 100% compliant with the disadvantaged group? Go play with them; are you anything else - FtM trans, MtF trans, nonbinary, someone who has had hormone replacement therapy for any other reasons - you're free to participate in that sport but go compete in the open division together with men; we're not saying that you're not female, but just saying that you don't qualify for the protected "testosterone-disadvantaged" (again, not literally about testosterone) group, as letting any random participants there will disrupt that division's reason of existence, unlike the men's tournaments where you should be free to participate as long as you can get competitive results.
In places with the legal right to change gender it has to be illegal to ban any of this. There has been little in the way of case law, yet.
Everything about this issue is distorted around extremely small minorities of people.
Take the women's sports thing. Women's sports makes astonishingly low levels of money and employs hardly anyone. The WNBA makes at the absolute highest $200,000,000 per year in revenue.
In comparison, Daktronics, a South Dakota electronics manufacturer, makes $600,000,000 per year in revenue. Three times more than the WNBA. I have never heard anyone speak a single word regarding Daktronics, or the effects of any policy whatsoever on Daktronics, or whether we're being fair to the employees of Daktronics, etc. Moreover, Daktronics employs something like 10x more people than the WNBA does.
The only reason anyone is bringing up women's sports is because of its proximity to a hot-button culture war issue. There is literally nothing else at stake here - the economic impact of women's sports cannot be understated.
The other reason women's sports is a big issue is it is a 0 sum competition with futures on the line. College gets more expensive every year, and sports scholarships are often the only way some students can afford to attend their school of choice. That is where the issue is most important, since there are a fairly large number of athletic scholarships.
That's a very good point that I hadn't considered.
This reads a little bit like, "It's wrong or mistaken to care about things that aren't big or rich". Presumably people who care about the WNBA (disclaimer: pretty sure I've never met any of these people and am basing this off my experience with grass-roots sport in general) do so for reasons other than how much money it makes or how many people are involved in it. Presumably you yourself care more about your own sports team, family, country, whatever, even if there's a bigger or richer sports team, family, or country out there that you could care about instead.
I'm not sure that's necessarily how the world necessarily should always work - it does seem less-than-optimally utilitarian, I admit! - but it's how the world *does* work, and I don't think we need to hold people who care about the WNBA to a standard so rigorously utilitarian that we never ever apply it to anybody else and that, were they to follow it, they'd switch en masse from WNBA fanship to Daktronics fanship (breathtaking though that would be to behold!)
Yes, I'm sure there are people who *don't* care about the WNBA but relentlessly weigh in on debates about gender in WNBA anyway - because they relentlessly weigh in on debates about gender in everything - these people are also motivated by principles other than how big or rich the WNBA is, just like everybody else.
Sorry! I wasn't trying to delegitimize caring about things for non-economic reasons. I do that all the time.
For example, I learned today that El Segundo (an LA team) won the Little League World Series. I was ecstatic. Not because I've ever cared about children playing baseball, but because I care a lot about LA. I'm happy that LA won, and I think my happiness is fine and totally valid.
When we do the same for transgender people in women's sports, I think it's important to assess how much we really care about women's sports, and how much women's sports is just a vehicle for us to talk about transgender people (or to talk about women, for that matter).
I used revenue because it's an imperfect, but objective, measurement of how much people care about a given thing. It suggests strongly to me that the reason that women's sports is in our national conversation is because of its proximity to hot-button cultural issues (women's rights, transgender people) and not because there are loads of WNBA fans whose lives will be impacted by decisions regarding women's sports.
So it's fine to care about this stuff, but I want to be really clear about what we actually care about.
Personally I don't feel like late-term abortion on demand is "downright evil". I can probably be convinced that it's the greater of two evils (the second one being forced to one or the other form of torture against your will should you change your mind about your previous consent).
Delivering a healthy baby and drowning her in a bucket ... isn't evil?
What's "healthy" doing there? You "pro-lifers" want to force women to birth diseased and inferior offspring because of religion. Don't try to hide your dysgenic agenda behind the mask of wholesomeness.
To me, the core value of humans comes from our intellectual abilities that take years to develop. Animal lives and well-being are still valuable but not on the same level (if the choice was between torturing a human and killing an animal, I think most wouldn't call the preference for the latter evil).
Further, given the abysmal results of historical attempts to draw lines between "real" humans and biological humans who fail some other criteria, I accept that This Is Just Not Done is a good rule. But we don't need to extend the same rights all the way to zygotes, societies that allow abortions aren't all turning to the worst forms of ableism/racism/fascism. I am fine with the status quo where childbirth is the most prominent watershed, it also seems the most natural Schelling point.
So drowning a baby, aside from being unnecessary killing of a living being, needs to be punished because that's what we agreed on as a society. Also because of my upbringing in that society I am indeed inclined to think of it as evil, and don't think this is something that needs to be changed, but if I was instead brought up in a society that only gave full human rights at the age when the median person can pronounce their first two-word sentence (15 months or something like that?), and it wasn't leading to terrible forms of ableism/racism/fascism, I probably wouldn't consider that society evil.
"that's what we agreed on as a society. "
...
"terrible forms of ableism/racism/fascism"
This is so circular it's downright spherical.
“and it wasn't leading to terrible forms of ableism/racism/fascism”
Why would it being ableist or not make it worse? That’s a certainty anyway. In the society you are contemplating terminating a child before 15 months would almost always be eugenic. Like Sparta.
Its one of the traditional methods of population control. It was practiced by the classical Greeks, among numerous others. This doesn't mean it isn't evil, of course, but it also doesn't mean that it is. It's repulsive, but possibly so are all the other choices.
Horseshoe theory in action
Kathleen stock does a good explanation of that in her book. There are three definitions of gender:
1) gender as a synonym for sex - ie being asked your gender rather than sex in a form from the 1950s on.
2) gender as roles we ascribe to people born a certain sex.
3) gender as identity - which triumphs over both 1) and 2).
" which conservative perfectly understand and accept, but pretend not to when it comes to trans-rights."
*spits on me fist*
Okay, if we're going to do it this way...
(1) I don't believe there are any such things as trans "rights", the same way I don't believe there are any such things as abortion "rights". You have rights as a human being, but there is no "right" to be a particular anything.
(2) "Gender and sex are two different things" is *so* ten minutes ago. Now it's 'my gender *is* my biology' and, lest we go back to the 'it's only a few crazy kids on campus" (or Twitter/X, as it may be) defence, let me remind you that this specimen was able to use the law, thanks to ACLU, to get what he wanted.
You have to love the phrasing in this article weeping over poor, poor Demi:
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/07/the-transgender-woman-who-impregnated-2-women-in-prison-now-fears-for-her-life-opinion.html
"Because of an incident between her and inmates at the all-female Edna Mahan Correctional Facility which resulted in two pregnancies". What incident could that be? Did the stork flap its wings and arrive in the jail twice? Did they plant cabbages or gooseberry bushes in the prison garden? Remind me again, how is it babies are made, hmmmm?
This is a man, with functional male reproductive organs, who gets to bend reality that he is really a woman, and we're all supposed to go along with it as enforced by court cases. But it's we conservatives who are the ones pretending when it comes to the trans rights. Uh-huh.
Do you acknowledge that women in prison get pregnant somewhat frequently from guards, conjugals, etc? Both women have told prison officials that they are happy they're pregnant by that person. There's another similar case that a trans inmate got her prison roommate pregnant and they also reported being happy about it. If cis lesbians could impregnant in prison, they absolutely would. In fact there's been a few cases of bi-sexual women in prison doing just that.
Yeah, women in prison get pregnant. By men. If "she" is able to knock women up, "she" is not a woman.
Look, a trans woman who is not a violent offender, who is on hormones and maybe even surgically transitioning, and is not fucking her fellow inmates pregnant? No problem there.
A violent criminal who decides he'll have an easier time in the women's jail and suddenly discovers that he is really 'she' but does nothing else save change 'her' name? He can stay with the boys.
"(As for the jail example, come on now — we've known for decades that sexual assault was rampant in both men and women's prisons; conservatives suddenly caring about the issue *only* when trans-women are involved is an ugly farce)."
Well, we've moved from "this isn't happening" to "this is happening but really who cares blah blah blah can't hear you."
“ This is my conclusion from seeing the most frequent anti-trans argument: that trans activists "deny the reality of biological sex".”
trans activists deny both the reality of biological sex and gender roles. They say that we are all socialised into roles, but this wouldn’t explain trans at all - since people who feel different from their birth sex are overcoming socialisation. Therefore gender as roles has nothing to do with it.
Conservatives have always believed in gender roles, separate from sex. They just tend to believe that the roles follow from the reality of biological sex (i.e. women stay home to care for babies because they nurse them, something men physically can't do).
What conservatives are primarily against is merging the ideas of sex and gender into a state where gender (feelings) override sex (biology) and are used to make important decisions about where this person is permitted to go - as with the biological male knocking women up in prison.
And as is typical of conservatives, we're very concerned about changing what society considers normal/okay because it can and will cause unintended consequences. Requiring significant medical transition before a biological male is permitted in a women's prison verses permitting it just based on expressed feeling is a very important distinction. If I were in prison and allowed to go to a women's prison just on my say-so, where I'm suddenly significantly higher up in the hierarchy of size and power (and may get to have sex with women)? Too much incentive to lie, and too little reason not to.
"Except trans activists, for the most part, don't do that. They're talking about gender roles, not biological sex."
Oh, Willy-Willy-Woo, you're not keeping up with the crazy, I can see. The science is settled that taking artificial hormones is exactly the same thing as being a menopausal cis woman and what about intersex anyway, checkmate bigot!
As for the Real True Woman Demi, the claim is that the sexual encounters with *two* female inmates that got them *both* pregnant were all consensual. Now, how a Real True Woman can impregnate other women, well you tell me. That seems to be going even beyond 'gender roles', don't you think?
There are both objective and social aspects to physical disability.
Parking spaces set aside for the disabled are part of the latter group (social), but you still do not get to park your car there if you simply choose to identify as disabled (rather than objectively being so).
Besides, gender is a property of words - not people.
Your last paragraph is utter nonsense. Most cultures have recognised biological sex and applied different social roles according to that sex, observed at birth. It didn’t need the scientific revolution.
Besides, I doubt some hypothetical world where the term 'gender' were indeed restricted to linguistics - and we had settled on e.g. 'biological sex' and 'social sex' instead - would look much different.
Some conservatives understand this, but I've talked to plenty of Trump Supporters that think Sex and Gender are synonyms, were taught that way since birth, and trying to convince them they are different is essentially impossible. They do not understand or accept it.
To be fair "gender" was used as a euphemism for that naughty-adjacent word "sex."
The word "gender" outside its use describing grammar tends to result in the word being used equivocally. Sometimes it is a genteel substitute for "sex." Sometimes it is used for sex role stereotypes. Sometimes it is used for characteristics which are somewhat sex linked, but do not help much determining what sex someone is. Besides these things, it is used for an internal sense that some people apparently have of whether they are or ought to be a man or a woman. Any discussion where "gender" is used to mean more than one of these things without drawing clear distinctions is in serious danger of ending up as nonsense.
I identify as conservative (not Republican), think Trump wasn't as bad as I expected him to be, and think sex is biological/a physical trait, and gender is socially constructed. I am willing to be convinced, with appropriate scientific arguments, of a different viewpoint.
I'm a trans woman, I'd also consider myself conservative but not republican, and I think your terms are proper. I don't know your prior disposition towards trans issues or trans people but I'd ask you to consider that the biology really is sufficiently messy and error prone to result in a small percentage of people biologically sexually differentiated in complicated ways that seem suggestive of leading to trans identification. You are not taking a scientific position to say that biology determines man or woman end of story - biologists would laugh.
I'd ask you to consider that if a parent, a child and a physician agree on a particular medical course of action, then perhaps the state should not be involving itself in this way. There's a lot of quibbling over little evidence or worries about harm - but the first part of that is that harm from anything except surgery is dramatically overstated, and surgery basically only happens to adults; and the other part of that is that living in a free society is supposed to mean that people are allowed to take risks to themselves, eyes wide open, especially if the parent child and physician are all in agreement.
Lastly I'd like to say that I understand most trans women are somewhere between liberal and insanely liberal and so conservatives consider all trans people and trans issues as enemies by default. I'd just like to say that's not all of us - I don't think trans women should be in women's sports high school and up. I don't think it's wrong to exclude them from certain women's spaces. I don't think children should be able to transition without parental consent. I don't think identifying as something makes it so, there's a real truth to the matter, and the real truth is that there are some people who are trans. We are not going to break down the social order, your kids are safe just don't consent to their transition if you aren't convinced it's right; _there is a moderate version of trans policy that is not a threat to you_.
(er, not to be too critical or gatekeepy. Our whole thing is accepting weird ideologies, we should accept normie ones too).
I was under the impression that people here considered themselves to be highly rational, as opposed to ideological.
"Consider themselves"? Well, OK. But that's really an impossible position to defend, everyone has ideologies that they base their opinions on. Believing that God doesn't mess around with buried bones is an ideological position. So is believing that he does. Or that She does. So is insisting that arguments be consistent.
This site favors an unusual mix of ideological positions that are heavy in accepting statistics and Bayesian reasoning, but that doesn't make them non-ideological.
Ideally yeah, which is why I think people will respond with arguments instead of flaming. But (a) this doesn't mean people don't have ideologies, and (b) your original claim asked people to support this based on ideology (without argument), so it requires people to have that ideology for it to work.
In what sense is a Declaration of Sex Based Rights non ideological?
It’s biological, innit.
Deciding what criteria to use involves lots of judgment calls and value judgments, that's how ideology comes in. It's like deciding whether it makes sense to call a chiropractor a medical practitioner, a Buddhist roshi a religious leader, or, to be biological, whether to call platypuses mammals (they are classed as mammals, but that's clearly a judgment call, since they lay eggs and have cloacas).
There’s nothing biological about a Declaration of Rights. It’s entirely ideological.
A woman is born with XX chromosomes- that’s science. But the idea that a set of rights come attached to those chromosomes is inherently political.
Biology is ideology.
Investors buying housing as a store of value causes a price bubble, which makes regular people unable to afford it. (Some would call this a crisis.)
I am not sure how much this affects North America in particular or how much worse it makes things compared to [everything else that's already fucked up]. However, as several European countries have found out in recent decades, it most certainly makes things much worse compared to a policy of keeping a sufficient pool of public housing.
Totally inaccurate. At least here in California, we've had a housing shortage for 50 years. If you look at the data for Los Angeles, the housing shortage jumps off the page. There were 250,000 housing units built in the 1950s. There were less than 100,000 built in the 2010s. Los Angeles estimates that it needs about 450,000 more units to fix the problem (i.e., we've got ~40 years worth of deficit to fix).
Blackrock was founded in 1988 - 10 years after Los Angeles passed its first law aimed at fixing the "City's housing crisis." https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/los_angeles/latest/lamc/0-0-0-195213
A few years ago, the local scuttlebutt in my west coast city was about rich Asians buying properties as investments, most specifically rich Chinese buying homes through some complicated legal structure and then leaving them vacant, as hedges against wealth confiscation by the CCP. I have no idea how much of that was true, and I don't hear much about it now, so I'm inclined to suspect that it was a small thing that got blown out of proportion by the rumor mill, and that now the rumor mill has moved on to more hate-able targets.
Hardly at all, I suspect.
Some private equity firms have been buying single family homes, but Blackrock isn't one of them: Blackrock invests in commercial real estate and various real estate construction projects, as well as investing indirectly through mortgage backed securities, but they aren't buying up existing single family houses. (Source: public statements by Blackrock, which Melvin has already cited).
Total private equity ownership residential real estate is pretty small relatively to the overall US housing market: about a million apartments and 200k single-family homes according to an alarmist article I found by Americans for Financial Reform citing those numbers as if they were a huge problem rather than being less than 1% of the 145 million total housing units in the country as of Q3 2023 (source: FRED statistics).
https://ourfinancialsecurity.org/2022/06/letters-to-congress-new-afr-research-estimating-minimum-number-of-private-equity-owned-housing-units/
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ETOTALUSQ176N
For another thing, private equity buying up housing only causes a housing shortage if they're incompetent at managing their property. If they actually rent it out, then they're bidding up purchase prices a bit while bidding down rental prices a bit without lowering the total number of dwelling units available between the purchase and rental markets. They may even be increasing the total housing supply of despite NIMBYs' best efforts the market responds to higher purchase prices by building more housing.
Blackrock says they do not buy individual houses. https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/insights/buying-houses-facts
Blackrock does own some real estate, but the total value is only $60 billion, which is a tiny fraction of all US real estate https://www.ablison.com/how-much-real-estate-does-blackrock-own/
Similarly: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/blackrock-ruining-us-housing-market/619224/.
Still a pretty small fraction.
https://ourfinancialsecurity.org/2022/06/letters-to-congress-new-afr-research-estimating-minimum-number-of-private-equity-owned-housing-units/#:~:text=Nationwide%2C%20private%20equity%20owns%20about,rental%20homes%20(1.6%20percent).
However as the link points out, these purchased homes are unevenly distributed, and the fraction they own is very different to the fraction they're buying. If large firms are, for reasons known only to themselves, buying up a large fraction of homes in the particular area you want to buy in, that might be annoying.
The possibly legitimate argument against corporate home buyers is that there's some evidence they're ruthless and unscrupulous landlords.
Here's an article from the New Yorker, about how bringing sophisticated investors in the trailer park business (previously more of a local mom and pop business) might have made it tougher on the renters:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-happens-when-investment-firms-acquire-trailer-parks
This doesn't have to do with housing supply though, just the balance of power between renters and landlords. I'm not sure the degree to which it's true, but it strikes me as highly plausible. Merciless landlords do make life tougher, and a lot of landlords offer a lot more grace than they are legally required to -- but even some small landlords do not.