Pro-palestine "protesters" trap jewish students in library and pound on the glass and scream at them. NYT describes this as simply a "tense situation". I wonder what they would say if college republicans did the same to a group of muslims?
Taking a single account of a single incident and using it to discredit an entire opinion via a hypothetical is inherently lazy and intellectually dishonest.
I would never be one to mirror such a foolish hypothetical, but if someone less thoughtful were to find this faux-reasoning persuasive, surely this shocking hate-crime murder of a Palestinian child in Chicago would be enough to discredit all zionists and pro-Israel media: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/us/chicago-landlord-attack-muslim-boy-mother/index.html
But of course, the original poster won't respond, they'll just go somewhere else and repeat the same thing. It would probably be better to flag these things as spam (regardless of slant) than try to engage.
If you must go on an asshole-hunting expedition, at least return with some real assholes, rather than with a claim that the quarry you brought back definitely *would* have acted like an asshole in a hypothetical situation of your own devising. "Hey, I brought back a snark, and I'll bet that if I hadn't that thing would have killed half the county"
Yeah, snip two words from an article. That's definitely fair.
"The tensions inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war that have roiled university campuses in the United States spilled into the Cooper Union in New York on Wednesday, with pro-Palestinian protesters pounding on one side of locked library doors and Jewish students on the other.
The episode, captured in a six-second video snippet that was widely shared on social media, was among the latest examples of how sharply the Middle East conflict has divided student bodies at a number of top liberal arts colleges.
Chief Chell said at no point did the police or private security at the campus perceive any danger from any of the protesters.
For about 10 minutes, the pro-Palestinian students banged on the door and on the windows of the library, then left, Chief Chell said. The student who was in the library described feeling scared that the protesters might break down the doors and said the banging had lasted longer than 10 minutes.
College officials and the police then asked the Jewish students in the library if they felt safe leaving on their own and offered to get them transportation home, but they declined, he said."
He postulates a new thesis for the Bronze Age Collapse! (New to me, anyway.) Here's some key excerpts, but I recommend the whole thing, which includes many fascinating details involving the confluence of mythological, archeological and genetic evidence and the role of dogs and wolves, written in literary-quality prose:
“The koryos were bands of unmarried men who lived on the edge of their communities, just as fledgling Maasai warriors do today. With no possessions or real wealth, these young men raided for much of the year to survive. Formally expelled from respectable society for a period of years, they stole, killed, and committed sexual assault as a matter of course, and their savagery was tolerated, so long as the brutality was directed outward, to victims beyond the community...
The ranging of these human “wolf-packs” across Eurasia 5,000 years ago altered the course of history, triggering a cascade of changes that reconfigured the Bronze Age world...
And despite the catalytic role likely played by cultural decline and climate change, the appearance of aggressive Indo-European agro-pastoralists was responsible for the ultimate extinction of Europe’s Neolithic civilizations...
The thesis then is that a migration of males drove the cultural shift is supported by copious genetic evidence. Data from both Europe and India indicate that steppe ancestry was brought by males and that the maternal lineage (mtDNA) of modern Europeans and Indians is predominantly indigenous...
A 2015 paper comparing genetic diversity between Y chromosomes and mitochondrial (maternal) lineages, found that over 4,000 years ago, for dozens of generations, more than ten women had children for every man in the regions characterized by expansionary Yamnaya. These genetic data make the case for massive levels of de facto polygamy among these early elite Indo-European kindreds...
What precipitated the explosion and dominance of the early Indo-Europeans 5,000 years ago? The switch from farming to nomadism more than five millennia ago inadvertently shifted the balance between culture and anti-culture toward the latter. When conceptualizing the rise and evolution of societies, Marxists refer to an economic “base” influencing an ideological “superstructure,” and here it is clear that the movement away from a cereal-based economic base had massive knock-on effects on the ideological superstructure. The most feral elements that had lain latent in these ancient communities were unleashed upon the world. Whereas their ancestors’ canvas for coming-of-age transgressions and black acts had been perhaps a neighboring glen or a valley, the black youth, the dogs of war now painted their bloody legacy across the length and breadth of Eurasia.”
I apologize for having to correct you because such things tend to be little appreciated but in general (though you may feel free to change that generality) when we speak of the Bronze Age Collapse we are referring primarily to the areas of the Middle East, Turkey and Egypt.
What Razib writes about here dates a bit earlier and refers to a number of regions (inclusive of India and Iran) but generally refers to Europe.
In many regions, such as Spain, it might be fair to call this The Chalcolithic (copper) Age Collapse but as of yet most historians haven't because we don't have written records from the area so, in a sense, we still consider them to be "pre-historical".
The Bronze Age Collapse of 23 to 21 centuries ago however is documented in, non-mythical, straightforward documents including in correspondences between Eastern Mediterranean sovereigns and in Egyptian Temples, etc.
Also, I only read Razib occasionally but I came across your glowing recommendation yesterday and read and absolutely loved the article.
🙏🙏🙏
If not for you I wouldn't have read it and my life wouldn't be quite as good as it is now. I really loved the piece.
I could nitpick on it but the general idea is sound.
It seems like he is building castles in the sky here. The Wikipedia page describes Koryos as being hypothetical. It mentions a few different traditions with a few similarities, hinting that they might share a common ancestor. The Substack post assumes it exists, treating a single site from 1800 BC as definitive proof that a hypothetical practice was the primary cause of a continent spanning event that took place around 3000 BC.
Yeah a lot of ancient history these days is people building giant giant edifices on top of very scant evidence that could be interpreted many many ways.
Do all the graves have complex grave goods because it was a super egalitarian society? Or do they all have complex rave goods because only the aristos got burials and the underclass were just left out to rot where they fell.
So often you find the political commitments of the person doing the analyzing will predict how they interpret fairly ambiguous evidence. trying to take a stab at it is fine, but through the circle of citation and re citation suddenly speculation gains the imprimatur of truth.
I found the piece a bit confusing to read, to be honest.
But are you talking about the late bronze age collapse around 1200BC? I don't see Razib claiming to explain that at all; he seems to be referring to the spread of Indo-europeans thoughout Europe, Iran and India around a thousand years before that? (displacing neolithic societies)
It also doesn't really make any sense to me as a thesis for the bronze age collapse, since that famously affected Mycenaean Greece and the Hittite empire, which were both Indo-European themselves.
My psychiatrist friend suggested “compartmentalization and denial” to me this week as a reasonable response to really horrible things happening so I tried to offer up some dark humor about it, in case anyone cares to read. Rage and scream a little with me, y’know, as a treat. Misery loves company but so do the unhinged. And the company’s always great amongst people in this thread.
Argentina's national election process has taken a bit of a turn.
Javier Milei, the self-described libertarian who had led in the polling, received only the same 30 percent in the second round that he did in the primaries. That places him second heading into a runoff. Sergio Massa, the Peronist [left-populist] candidate who is the current economy minister and had lagged behind in the primaries, finished first with 37%. Patricia Bullrich, the center-right coalition candidate, finished 3rd with 24%. Since nobody got enough to win outright there will on Nov 19th be a runoff between Milei and Massa.
Quoting the Economist: "Mr Massa’s turnaround is astounding. Since he took up his current job in August 2022 annual inflation in Argentina has increased from 79% to 138%. The price of one black-market American dollar—the currency Argentines prefer to save in because their own loses value so fast—has increased from around 300 pesos to around 1,000. Multiple exchange rates have been invented, adding distortions to Argentina’s already-labyrinthine economic rules. The vast majority of Argentines say inflation is their top concern....
"In response to Mr. Milei’s primary win, Peronist leaders activated the vast apparatus they control throughout the country. In the weeks coming up to the election Mr Massa doled out goodies estimated to cost the equivalent of more than 1% of gdp. These included a bonus for pensioners in pesos worth $100 (at the official exchange rate), and the elimination of income tax for 99% of all workers.
"The effort to win back disillusioned voters was concentrated in the sprawling and often-miserable suburbs of Buenos Aires province, where more than a third of Argentines live. Ten days before the presidential election, lorries owned by a poor municipality called Lomas de Zamora were found to be delivering refrigerators, housing materials and mattresses to voters. One person later thanked the Peronist president of the local legislature for sending her a new stove. In September a puntero, or ward boss, was caught in another district using 48 debit cards to withdraw cash that belonged to local legislators. Police suspect the money was intended to buy votes.
"Fear-mongering also played a role, thinks Maru Duffard, a journalist and political analyst in Buenos Aires. The government built a narrative about “all the things that could be lost” if a free-market candidate like Ms Bullrich—or, worse, a radical libertarian like Mr Milei— came to power. Two days before the election, bus and train stations began showing customers how much their ticket prices would increase if subsidies—which cost the government around 2% of gdp per year—were removed....
"Yet Mr Milei’s loss cannot solely be explained by Mr Massa’s gains. Mr Milei’s bizarre, often aggressive, rhetoric and his radical economic and social proposals put many voters off. In a majority-Catholic country he has called the pope, who is Argentine, an “imbecile”, “a leftist son of a bitch” and “a donkey”—because he considers him left-wing. Although 37% of employees in Argentina work for the public sector, Mr Milei has described the state as a “criminal organisation” and compared it to a paedophile in a kindergarten. He wants to slash public spending by the equivalent of 15% of gdp (from around 40% today), scrap most taxes and ditch the peso for the greenback, a process he says would “blow up” the central bank.
"Beyond his economic reforms, Mr Milei, whose catchphrase is “Long live liberty goddammit!”, proposes to loosen gun-ownership laws, ban abortions and establish a legal market for human organs...."
"Despite Mr Massa’s surprise first-round win, victory in the run-off is not assured, because it is unclear where Ms Bullrich’s votes will go. Her coalition includes both hardliners, who may be prepared to work with Mr Milei, and social democrats who might prefer to cast blank votes. That Mr Milei’s vote share did not budge between the primaries and the first round suggests that he may have hit a ceiling. But the fact that candidates who propose free-market ideas secured more than half of all votes suggests that Peronism may have to reinvent itself soon—or face its long-heralded demise."
It should be noted that the "legal market for organs" was something that was discussed in an off the cuff "what if" manner, and not an actual policy proposal. Milei Derangement Syndrome makes the worst reactions to Trump reasonable and measured by comparison.
The dude is a literal twitter shitposter. He started off saying outrageous stuff just to go viral. The organs market bit is from the same show where he said people should be able to sell their kids.
A legal market for organs is not an idea that I've yet put any meaningful thought into so no opinions yet on that. I would however very much like to see the childish "derangement syndrome" trope go away.
Electing someone as head of a national government is, for most voters most of the time, more about the choice of person than about choosing from a palette of policy promises. Given that approach to the voting decision it is rational -- not "derangement" -- for those voters to be influenced by things such as off the cuff or "what-if" comments made by a candidate for such a post.
Of course that influence can go either way: such group-signaling on the part of the candidate can just as easily attract voters as repel them. Or it can do both simultaneously with differing subsets of the public as we've seen so often in the U.S. lately. Regardless it is, again _given_ how a lot of voters approach voting for a national leader, a logical response to the apparent nonpolicy characteristics or attitudes of a candidate.
> Given that approach to the voting decision it is rational -- not "derangement" -- for those voters to be influenced by things such as off the cuff or "what-if" comments made by a candidate for such a post
Sure, but The Economist should distinguish these from actual policy proposals, especially when describing the situation to a foreign audience who are not totally up to date on all the ins and outs of Argentinian politics.
"Given that approach to the voting decision it is rational -- not "derangement" -- for those voters to be influenced by things such as off the cuff or "what-if" comments made by a candidate for such a post"
If you think voters arrive at their decisions rationally then your derangement syndrome derangement syndrome is the least your concerns. Go read some Bryan Caplan.
I have read a great deal of Bryan Caplan. Also met him once though only briefly.
Caplan's book "The Myth of the Rational Voter", which I had some agreement with but he overstated his case, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation. His book "Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids", which I largely agreed with, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation. His book "The Case Against Education", which I found to be so dominated by cherry-picking and motivated reasoning that if anything it revived some of my generally-fading regard for higher education, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation. His book "Open Borders", which I largely agreed with, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation.
Haven't yet read his recent collection of essays, "Labor Econ Vs The World". Is that the work that you are suggesting I should read regarding voter-preference frameworks?
I'm referring to Myth of the Rational Voter. You seem to be modeling voters based on what would be"rational" for them to do. I largely agree with Caplan in Myth... myself, and so, presume that most voting decisions are based on bias or outright derangement. Anyway, if you meant something else, apologies for adding noise instead of signal.
No, I offered no judgement as to what would be rational for voters to do. Also my point was much broader than Caplan's focus (in "Myth...") on economic policies specifically.
>Electing someone as head of a national government is, for most voters most of the time, more about the choice of person than about choosing from a palette of policy promises.
Well, that seems like an obviously pretty bad way of approaching the election of a government. One which you could get away with in a place like the US, where there are relatively strong institutions, a stable economy and the ability to print the world's chosen store of value, if needed as a stopgap for bad policy decisions, not a country with >100% annual inflation, massive poverty, etc.
In the US, the difference between the policy platforms of Presidential candidates on established issues is pretty small, and the ability of a President to actually implement any kind of policy shift is pretty limited anyway. Voting for a personality makes sense because you're voting for how he will react to the as-yet-unknown issues that are going to pop up during his term.
In Argentina, my understanding is that the window of possible policies that the President might actually implement is a lot wider.
"In a majority-Catholic country he has called the pope, who is Argentine, an “imbecile”, “a leftist son of a bitch” and “a donkey”—because he considers him left-wing."
Considering the last president/presidentess (vice-president of the last president and formerly president herself, who seems to be considered as backseat driving the administration) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner attacked the pope for being right-wing, he's probably doing something right:
"When Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis, the initial reactions were mixed. Most of Argentine society cheered it, but the pro-government newspaper Página/12 published renewed allegations about the Dirty War, and the president of the National Library described a global conspiracy theory. The president took more than an hour to congratulate him, and only did so in a passing reference within a routine speech. However, due to the Pope's popularity in Argentina, Fernández de Kirchner made what the political analyst Claudio Fantini called a "Copernican shift" in her relations with him and fully embraced the Francis phenomenon."
I am a little boggled about banning abortion since that doesn't seem libertarian, but the legal market for organs makes sense of that - you need babies in order to have potential donors, because if you're aborting babies then you're reducing the donor pool and driving prices up due to scarcity 😁
The man is not really "libertarian" as much as he's just a contrarian. Abortion seems to be mainstream and was just legalized by the current administration, so he obviously must go against it -an justify it with some pseudological misquote of some badly translated 19th century quack-.
The man copies the crypto bro speech against fiat money verbatim, says he wants to blow up the central bank, personally promoted and was featured in several crypto scam ads and his proposed solution for Argentina's problem with in inflation is ... switching to the US Dollar.
Government retirements funds funded through payroll taxes are bad? his proposal is to abolish those taxes and not interfere with people's savings. Just kidding, that would make too much sense: his actual plan is to bring back compulsory sketchy private retirement funds, because those failed in the 90s and he gets to indulge in his favorite passtime of playing devil's advocate.
Somewhat surprised that the anti-pope candidate wants to ban abortion. It's right-aligned in America but I wouldn't have expected that to hold consistently in other countries.
"Liberty Advances (Spanish: La Libertad Avanza; LA or LLA) is a right-wing to far-right political coalition originated in Argentina, with a conservative and ultraconservative tendency on social and cultural issues and right-wing libertarian in economic issues. Its first electoral participation was at the 2021 Argentine legislative election, obtaining the third place with 17% of the votes in the capital."
So they're both socially and fiscally conservative, which explains the anti-abortion *and* opposition to the pope (he'd be fiscally liberal, like myself).
It's far from unheard of for his blog to go quiet for a week or three every once in a while. Usually it just means he's busy with other stuff and doesn't have time to write, or he's working on a complicated essay that's taking him time to complete, or he just has a bit of writer's block and needs a short break.
I wondered what the Chinese version of the 'Chinese Room' article on Wikipedia was like, it was pretty basic, but maybe someone picks up something. Here goes, in translation of course:
The Chinese room (English: Chinese room ) is a thought experiment proposed by American philosophy professor John Searle to refute the idea of strong artificial intelligence . According to the view of strong artificial intelligence , as long as the computer has appropriate programs, it can theoretically be said that the computer has its cognitive state and can perform understanding activities like humans.
The experiment comes from John Rogers Searle 's paper "Minds, Brains , and Programs ," published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980 . [1]
Experiment summary
The experimental process of the Chinese room can be expressed as follows:
A person who knew nothing about Chinese and spoke only English was locked in a closed room with only one opening. There is a manual written in English in the room with instructions on how to handle incoming Chinese messages and how to respond accordingly in Chinese. People outside the room kept sending questions written in Chinese into the room. The person in the room follows the instructions in the manual, looks for the appropriate instructions, combines the corresponding Chinese characters to form the answer to the question, and hands the answer out of the room.
John Searle believes that although the person in the room can fake it and make people outside the room think he speaks Chinese, in fact he does not understand Chinese at all. In the above process, the role of the person outside the room is equivalent to the programmer , the person in the room is equivalent to the computer , and the manual is equivalent to the computer program : whenever the person outside the room gives an input, the person in the room will give a reply according to the manual ( output). And just as it is impossible for a person in a room to understand Chinese through a manual, it is impossible for a computer to gain understanding through a program. Since computers do not have the ability to understand, the so-called "computer has intelligence" is out of the question.
Opposite views
There are opposing views on this Been proposed[who? ] , its content is roughly as follows:
Arguments to the contrary
Everyone thinks that people are intelligent ;Human intelligent decision-making comes from the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells. Each brain cell does not understand the meaning of a word, but simply buffers, transmits or inhibits an electrical signal. The brain cells create grammatical rules and decision - making strategies ( equivalent to Rule books and people who don't understand Chinese), but they don't understand the meaning of each word.[Source Request] Humans, however, have shown the ability to communicate with others. If according to Searle's point of view, then human beings do not have cognitive abilities, but this is inconsistent with the facts. Therefore, it can still be considered that if a certain computer program can complete the Turing test, it means that the computer program has cognitive ability.
Criticism of opposing views
However, this view has also been suggested to have two fundamental fallacies, and is even considered to have a misunderstanding of the concept of "Chinese Room". First, this theory relies too much on the premise that "intelligent decision-making comes from the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells", and mistakenly interprets the phenomenon involving the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells when humans make intelligent decisions as "intelligent decision-making". It is 'produced' by the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells." Not only has this deduction never been proven, there is also insufficient evidence to support it. Secondly, this theory can only deduce that "the buffering, transmission or inhibition of an electrical signal by a single brain cell cannot make it understand the meaning of a word." As for how brain cells (collectively) create grammatical rules and decision-making strategies , does it simply rely on The buffering, transmission or suppression of electrical signals by individual brain cells does not make any reasonable inferences; it also ignores the relationship between "a single brain cell" and an intelligent human being, the latter encompassing the former, the former and many others. Complex relationships such as the latter directly use the reality that "a single brain cell cannot understand the meaning of a word but human beings have intelligence" to deny "the machine cannot gain understanding through programming" and "intelligence is directly related to understanding" The logic of the basis for "ability" is difficult to understand and the deduction is too hasty.
The impression I get from Chinese students is that they have a name for writing down every possible question and every possible answer to it without having any actual understanding of the underlying meaning, they call it "studying".
Any recommendations for blogs / podcasts / books about infant development? I'm looking for something similar to Huberman Lab but geared towards infants.
When I google 'astralcodexten,' to the right of the results there's a picture of a man and a little girl. This man is not Scott. Do we know who this is and why he's there? Or is this just me?
If the US continues to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition through next spring (and/or for Israel), does that greatly increase the odds China would invade Taiwan next summer? We presumably would be low on artillery ammunition at the time, so I'm thinking we would have trouble also supplying Taiwan with such ammunition should they need it. But I don't know enough to know if they would need it.
I've heard the ideal window for invasion from China's point of view is still a few years out, but perhaps the circumstances above could pull it forward to next year?
Either America's stock of artillery ammunition is irrelevant to the success of the invasion, or Taiwan is in for a really bad time. They need a big strategic advantage that overwhelms almost all other considerations or they're getting their asses substantially kicked.
As Nobody Special implies, if this war gets to the point where it matters how many artillery shells Taiwan has, China has already won. Taiwan needs a fair amount of artillery with *some* ammunition, because China can always manage to get a few regiments of marines or paratroops onto the island by speed or sneakiness, but that doesn't require millions of shells. But if China can establish steady transport of troops and supplies across the strait, they'll overwhelm any defense Taiwan can mount by sheer numbers.
So, we need torpedoes for our submarines to sink Chinese amphibious transport ships. We need Harpoons for our ships and airplanes to do the same, along with JASSMs and other air-launched weapons. Probably some Tomahawks to hit Chinese ports and airfields. Definitely Stanndards and ESSMs to keep our ships alive in the face of Chinese missile attacks, and AMRAAMs and Sidewinders for the carrier-based fighters. A few other things along those lines.
If you look at the list of weapons we're supplying Ukraine, it includes almost none of that. The United States needs to be prepared to fight a major land war in Europe and a major naval war in the Pacific, and those are almost completely different things. And for now, the bit about fighting a major land war in Europe can be outsourced to the Ukrainians.
What if there arises a general war in the middle east? I've read that e.g. Israel is short on shells because they were diverted to Ukraine. Also that two carrier groups have been sent to the region, which sounds like the present situation is already absorbing some naval assets. It certainly seems like an escalation of hostilities in the middle east could drain both the resources needed for the land war in Europe, and for the naval war in the Pacific. Unless, perhaps, said fighting in the middle east can be outsourced entirely.
In a general war in the Middle East, there would probably be some strain between America's support for the Ukrainian army and support for the IDF. Those would be competing for the same munitions. But if the US winds up directly involved, it's almost certainly going to be an air and naval matter for us; there's no real prospect of e.g. a US invasion of Iran, and no real need for US soldiers in Israel.
But if it becomes an air and naval war, then it will in fact use up resources which would also be relevant for a hypothetical conflict in the Pacific. i.e. while the war in Ukraine does not directly compete for resources with preparedness in the Pacific, a general war in the middle East would compete with both. Unless it could be outsourced entirely to Israel, Turkey etc.
Indirectly, of course, the military budget is limited and every dollar spent on shells for Ukraine is a dollar not spent on anti-ship missiles (say) for Taiwan. Indirectly everything competes for resources with everything else.
Yes, US involvement in a broad Middle Eastern war would trade off against the capability to defend Taiwan. Fortunately, none of the potential enemies in the Middle East have substantial naval capabilities, so we wouldn't have much trouble on the torpedoes-and-Harpoons front. But I understand the US Navy is not as well supplied with Standards and ESSMs (shipboard air-defense missile) as it should be, and we've already fired off a dozen or two of those in the Red Sea.
As far as the budget is concerned, I think most of the US aid being sent to Israel is stuff we already paid for and would otherwise have left sitting around until we scrapped it. It does get accounted for in dollar terms at its nominal value (if anyone can figure out what that is), but that's funny money that doesn't really cost us anything. If we go up against China, or Iran, we'd be using more of our new and expensive munitions.
Wouldn't artillery be key to stopping an amphibious assault? All those other weapons like submarine torpedoes are expensive and rare and need to be saved for the high-value targets, but for the dumb cheap boats that carry troops across the strait you need a shitload of plain old cheap artillery shells that can reach halfway across the strait.
As FLWAB says, that's not something artillery is all that good at. And it's not something you'd use millions of artillery rounds for, because the landing craft are only going to be within effective range for half an hour or so. A modern artillery piece can fire maybe eighty rounds in that time.
If it does reach that point, you'll want to be able to call down artillery fire on the beaches, to help get rid of whatever troops manage to get ashore in the first wave, but that will be over fairly quickly one way or another.
And this assumes China is going to hit the beaches like it were Normandy or Inchon. Which they might have to do at least in part, because they don't yet have the resources to do a proper 21st century amphibious assault in full force. A proper 21st century amphibious assault is delivered by hovercraft and/or helicopters, which are mostly immune to artillery.
My understanding is that it's very hard to hit boats at a distance. Missiles can potentially course correct and generally move as fast or faster than an artillery shell, which matters when you're aiming at a moving target.
Yeah, in the case of China/Taiwan I think the US either would have to fight directly or not intervene at all. The first thing China would do in the event of an invasion would be to blockade Taiwan, so Ukraine style delivery of arms wouldn't be on the table as an intermediate option.
Is there an intermediate option where Chinese ships mysteriously sink and the US shrugs and says "hoo boy, I guess those Taiwanese must have a lot more submarines than thought"?
Now I'm imagining the Xi Jinpeng version of Don Corleone's speech to the five families about bringing Michael home.
"I am a superstitious autocrat, and if something unexpected should befall my ships, I will blame certain people in this room. If they should run aground on reefs nobody knew were there, or suffer mechanical failures. If they should be struck by torpedoes or a bolt of lightning..."
I don't think it does, because the resources the US would use in a Taiwan/China conflict (air/naval assets) are fundamentally different from the ones being supplied in the Ukraine context (ground war in Eastern Europe).
China isn't worried that the US will thwart an invasion of Taiwan by supplying the Taiwanese army with HIMARS and artillery shells. China is worried that US Air and Naval assets will interdict troops attempting amphibious landings, or cut off their access to resupply and leave them without ammo or air support such that an even minimally equipped Taiwanese army can push them into the sea. And Ukraine isn't requiring commitment of any of the resources that would be used to accomplish the latter. The nuclear subs are still plenty well stacked with uranium and torpedoes.
I think China hasn't invaded Taiwan yet because it isn't worth it. They deem it to take too much in resources for what they would gain. If the U.S. backs Taiwan it makes it that much more expensive. So the U.S. need not fully defend them, but need only provide what is needed to deter China from an expensive war with no certain outcome.
China does, traditionally, take a long-term view. They may think it worthwhile to expend several trillion in resources to capture a territory currently making about 800 billion in GDP, since it could recoup that over the decades to come. So one can't be sure they won't decide to recapture their "wayward province" no matter how expensive it looks.
TL;DR: The U.S. can sufficiently support all three fronts.
Post invasion GDP may never return to 800 billion in current dollars. There's almost no chance that capturing Taiwan has a *direct* positive financial EV, especially considering the opportunity cost of trillions of dollars. If the invasion happens, it will be for something like the sake of the political machinations of the CCP, intimidating its other Asian neighbors, depriving the US of chips etc.
Wars are rarely started for rational reasons, at least not in the modern age. If Xi or one of his successors decides to invade Taiwan it will be to serve his own political needs.
Of course, the better-defended Taiwan is, the less it seems like it might be a good political move.
How much longterm thinking does the Chinese government actually seem to do? How successful has it been?
A drawback to a dictatorship doing longterm thinking is the ability to stick firmly to bad policies as well as good ones, with the one child policy as a prime example.
Might the one child policy have been good for China if it had been followed for ten or twenty years?
They are definitely sacrificing short term economic gains for the sake of more secure CCP power. They could be much wealthier if they opened up more economically and culturally, but they also know doing so will dramatically erode CCP power over the long run. This is a long term view regardless of whether you disagree that CCP power is in the interests of China.
The June Fourth Incident can also be thought of as another example (or a specific case of the broader example). Deng thought popular liberal movements in China at the time could lead to the CCP losing power, so he took a near catastrophic hit to China's (and his own) short term reputation for the sake of securing CCP power long term.
I think the one child policy was not just about population, but about control; having one child makes it relatively easy for the government to erase your lineage if you act out of turn, which, in a culture which is big on lineage, is something of a huge deal. (I encountered a comment somewhere pointing out that this has now backfired; China may not be able to commit to a war right now because any significant number of casualties creates a huge number of people with "nothing to lose")
>having one child makes it relatively easy for the government to erase your lineage if you act out of turn, which, in a culture which is big on lineage, is something of a huge deal.
As far as asian communist regimes go, I picture China as the least "crime of the father"-y. Whereas other countries would have no hesitation to execute entire families, a common testimony I've seen coming from China was "children sent to get reeducated in a countryside/frontier settlement for 10 years, then allowed back to the core, often with a nice-ish position".
>China may not be able to commit to a war right now because any significant number of casualties creates a huge number of people with "nothing to lose"
Implying the family of the deceased? The elderly don't exactly strike me as revolution material, and the families of war casualities don't strike me as the most likely to protest the regime.
My best estimate for survival rates for a ten-year internment in a Chinese education camp is ~60% - but that's for the population as a whole. I'm less certain what the death rate of children would be; I can see it being both much higher or much lower, plausibly.
Reports from the re-education camps suggest highly inhumane treatment, particularly during the height of the one child policy. I've encountered a few reports from children who were sent to reeducation camps, which were pretty horrific (judging by this limited and self-selected-for-horrific data set, the survival rate of children was much lower than the survival rate of adults, in particular driven by high suicide rates).
China has had dynasties for thousands of years. The most recent example of long-term thinking I know of is Great Britain giving up Hong Kong's lease after 99 years. Who makes an agreement for years?
China has had dynasties for thousands of years, but the People's Republic of China is only 74 years old. Have they proven themselves capable of the kind of long term thinking Imperial China may have excelled at?
I believe it's a cultural thing. No one lives for thousands of years, yet they have dynasty after dynasty. I consider the PRC to be another one.
Note also that dynasties last a few hundred years before giving way to another one. I'm no expert at Chinese history, but I suspect each dynasty was different in its way, and also similar.
The previous (KMT) dynasty only lasted 22 years. The current one has lasted about 75 but no reason to believe it will continue for as long as a monarchical dynasty.
To people that have tried both Amphetamines and Atomoxetine (brand name "Strattera") for ADHD: what did you find the differences to be? And was one clearly better than the other?
I tried atomoxetine for a month when I first started seeking pharmacological treatment ADHD. For me, atomoxetine seemed to work by attenuating both craving and aversion. I was not as enthusiastic about food, or sex, or anything else really, but I was also less averse to sending that email or starting that project that had accreted an ugh field around it. It was moderately effective at making me more productive, but I didn't like it. It also made my nose cold and gave me very slight nausea.
Currently taking 15mg XR Adderall daily and I like it much better. Adderall seems to work by giving me a little more energy and enthusiasm for most things, and this has been helpful in both work and social contexts. Side effects: slightly reduced appetite, slightly cold nose/fingers, and when I take days off, all I want to do is sit on the couch with a good book and not move all day.
Has substack felt dramatically worse to anyone else recently? Especially on mobile I seem to be seeing a lot more of comments taking forever to load, or going blank if I scroll to fast, or freezing up; especially on posts with a lot of them.
Just to lodge a counterpoint ACX is hardly ever especially laggy for me. Open threads usually take about 3 or 4 seconds to load all the comments.
There have been a few occasions where Chrome claimed the site had become unresponsive and I had to reload the page. Collapsing a large subthread can take about a second rather than being instantaneous. And the header sometimes briefly slides down obscuring the page but it goes back to where it's supposed to be when I stop scrolling.
I'm using a gaming laptop so possibly I can simply plow through a lot of inefficient code or compute intensive tasks that choke a less powerful devices.
If we need a gaming laptop just to look at a few kilobytes of text then the idiot in charge of the design and/or architecture of Substack needs to be given a month, or whatever, to fix it, or else be fired for incompetence.
I have a pretty average laptop, I have played the Witcher on it but it a little laggy. opening one open thread often takes me about 6 minutes. Writing this comment took more than 7.
Not all of Substack, for me at least, just ACX. Once the number of comments gets beyond 400 or so things slow down dramatically, and with over 1000 comments it's ridiculously bad. I think Substack just isn't set up for a blog with such a big active comments section.
It's always been terrible so haven't noticed it getting worse. Easily the most dysfunctional comments section of anywhere on the Internet I know of. If I was on the fence with subscribing, I wouldn't for this reason alone (also: does Scott even post anymore? Nothing but open threads these days!). This comment took 5 minutes to type with all of the freezing and glitchiness.
Tip : You can collapse a comment and all of its nested replies by touching the very thin gray-ish line beneath a commenter's photo. This action is remembered the next time you visit and appears to make page loads faster if enough comments are collapsed.
It has been noticeably slower and I'm on desktop PC not mobile. I did wonder if it was my creaky old machine but if others are having the same problem, possibly not.
I remember the old internet where you could open multiple tabs in a browser without your computer freezing. Ah, those were the times! These days every web page wants to take all your computing power, regardless of whether you are reading it or not. Kids these days probably never heard of HTML, it's just libraries upon libraries upon libraries; gigabytes of Hello World code.
Pro tip: When I write a reply to a comment on Substack, I first open that comment in a new tab. It makes the typing more fluent, because the page isn't refreshing thousands of comments every few seconds.
But anyway, there's a lot there that is extremely worrisome about the possibility of U.S. troops getting into a shooting war with Iran and/or it's proxy forces. But then this line stood out to me:
"In Yemen, the Iranian-backed Houthis also fired five Iranian-provided cruise missiles and launched about 30 drones toward Israel in an attack that was larger than initially described by the Pentagon, U.S. officials said.
Last week, the USS Carney guided missile cruiser, which was operating in the northern Red Sea, shot down four of the cruise missiles while a fifth cruise missile was intercepted by Saudi Arabia as it protected its airspace, according to people familiar with the episode. Those cruise missiles have a range of more than 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles), the Pentagon said Tuesday, which would enable them to reach targets in Israel.
USS Carney
The U.S.'s guided-missile destroyer intercepted cruise missiles and several drones near the coast of Yemen in the northern Red Sea."
Holy shit a destroyer shot down 4 cruise missiles at the same time, that's dang impressive! I think? Maybe just because our destroyer's are yesterday's cruisers or something?
However, there was a 5th cruise missile, so you know, not great
>Maybe just because our destroyer's are yesterday's cruisers or something?
They really are. The newest variant of the Arleigh Burke destroyer weighs 9500 tons (it started at 8200), and a Ticonderoga-class cruiser weighs ~9600 tons.
Also, radar and missile technology has improved so you can fire off more of them at once without them interfering with each other. (This is probably more important than the ship itself, since you can put new missiles on old ships.)
This is nothing new. Iran has been attacking US troops directly or via its proxies for a long time now, which is why we took out Soleimani a few years ago. At some point, Iran will stop getting billions from the Biden regime and instead cross some sort of red line and get bombed (turns out that creepily and repeatedly whispering "don't" might not be the most credible deterrent we have).
How they feel about what? Sponsoring terror and being the primary destabilizing force in the Mideast? Probably they feel pretty good about it, to the extent they can get away with it.
New Zealand had an election that was fairly interesting. It seems like the National Party (conservative) will need to cooperate with the ACT (libertarian) in order to have a majority.
It’s rare to see libertarian parties winning seats, much less holding the balance of power. I’m interested to see what they can accomplish in that position.
From what I understand, the results aren’t final until Nov 3.
ACT were part of the government in 2007-2018 (though with fewer seats than they will now hold). As then, I think their influence will be incremental and (IMO) there is less differentiating them from the 'conservative' National party as you would think if you're viewing this from an American perspective. Both secular, pro rural farmer, law and order focus, want to reduce government expenditure and lower regulations (unless you want to build new dense housing in the suburbs). Some of ACT's more distinctively 'libertarian' policy positions (for example anti-gun regulation, cannabis legalisation) are very unpopular and/or they haven't really run on them, so unlikely to be influential there.
Possibly the biggest distinctive issue where they made a big push is relitigating Crown-Māori relations/Māori policy. National have no real appetite for this beyond cancelling a couple of schemes of the most recent government, while ACT has made this a major issue and want a referendum on 'co-governance'. This will probably have very little real-world or long run consequences but would nevertheless be enormously controversial.
The fact he kept changing his odds for his ability to attend Manifest may be a clue here. Like, he didn't really know what his schedule was going to be until the very last minute...
Your market has the right title, but the link has the name of the wrong Scott.
Well of course! I wasn't suggesting sending it now. As for what to send -- of course again. That puzzle is for ages 3 and up, so would be of no use for several years. On the other hand, newborn babies need only a few simple supplies that their parents generally have already, so I believe in giving beautiful toys and books that will be a pleasure for the parents to look at until the kid is old enough to enjoy them, and then a delight for the kid.
What newborns need is lots of clothing (babies grow at a crazy rate) and most of all what the parents need is support from family and friends so they're not trying to do it all on their own (e.g. lack of sleep, what happens why is the baby crying, are they sick what is going on - advice from the experienced is very necessary, as is 'I'll look after the baby for a couple hours while you sleep/do necessary other tasks').
My sources* tell me he was recruited to an extremely hush-hush mission to a central American jungle. Apparently they needed someone who was a doctor, had knowledge of linguistics, and familiarity with artificial intelligence and decision theory, and who could leave from a certain military airbase on very short notice. Possible crashed UFO/ first contact scenario?
Personally, I had to step back from the entire Internet for a bit, because there were too many people advocating for vengeance while clothing it in the language of justice. I hope he isn't feeling something similar.
After the October 7 attack things got pretty ugly. I'd want to lock myself in a room and do a couple months of research before I offered any comment at all on that topic.
Beyond that, my usually playful - I think they are playful anyway - and joking comments would seem terribly inappropriate. I was drawn out a couple times in this thread to defend my liberal politics. I did received the merits of the New Deal and the Great Society with mother's milk after all.
But I know that it is not the most important thing to be thinking about right now.
> After the October 7 attack things got pretty ugly. I'd want to lock myself in a room and do a couple months of research before I offered any comment at all on that topic.
That's probably the wise thing to do. :-)
> Beyond that, my usually playful - I think they are playful anyway - and joking comments would seem terribly inappropriate.
Maybe it depends on the thread topic? There's horrible stuff going on all over the world, much of which goes unreported. I'm consciously trying to practice being lighthearted and reasonable and especially not letting other people dictate how I must or must not feel. I don't like the thought of having to clamp down because a hot war broke out on the other side of the planet. But then, just because I don't want something to be true, doesn't mean it isn't true. :-/
Yeah I’ve been wondering what’s up too. There were 8 days between this open thread and the last one, and nothing in between, not even a hidden open thread. Seems like something big must have happened in his life. I hope it wasn’t something bad.
He does have a life outside of us, including now being married. And if he wants to stay offline because of the Israeli-Palestinian current conflict, I can't blame him one bit. I have no dog in that fight and I don't want to read up about "They atrocityed us!" "You atrocityed us first!" exchange of horrors. Must be even worse if you're Jewish and you're expected to have a snap judgement on every new minute of coverage and be very vocally pro-this or anti-that.
Then again, knowing Scott's violent temper and irrational propensities I like to think he's on a gunship atrocitying his way across the Atlantic. Probably not to the Middle East though. Too much attention. Scott seems like the kind of guy who would take advantage of the middle east situation to go out on an atrocityification spree where it's least expected. Probably Portugal.
I was doing some qi gong with some thorough relaxation and an amazing thing happened. I realized I didn't need to have a solution for Israel-Palestine!
Yeah, but you have one anyway, right? That's our job on the internet. To Have The Answers. Also, if you're Jewish, you really can't help it. You were bred for seeking out messianic solutions like mice are bred to sniff out cheese.
I'm tempted to go biblical in discussing Eastern and Western religious focii bu--
..wait a second, I already wrote on the subject. I'll take that as a sign that I shoukd share it even though I write it for a different audience and assume that much will get lost in translation.
The main point is that Eastern Religion's main engine thrusts toward individual perfection while Abrahamic Religion's main engine thrusts toward universal perfection.
(Even though I know that most of my point will be lost in translation here I do request that to the degree that something sounds wrong or silly you give me the benefit of the doubt. Not like when you thought I had a prediction about something bound to happen on October 12, 2024 despite my saying very explicitly that it's up to us to MAKE it happen or else it won't. 🙏 Shabbat Shalom.)
Really, there's a difference between caring about the situation and thinking I'm obliged to come up with a solution, and it's the latter that went away.
As far as I can tell, I released the need to have a solution, This makes sense, since I don't have the historical background or the people skills to really contribute.
I still have some very sketchy ideas, which is that the people there need to want peace more than winning, and perhaps a team of diplomats and poets is what's needed. However, I wouldn't call that a solution in the usual sense of the word.
People usually become far more reasonable, without any training in Rationalism of the like, if they feel understood and cared about. Maybe diplomats + poets could work. But poets are often way more interested in their own inner life than in anyone else's. And diplomats, in my imaginings (I don't know any actual ones) don't exactly understand and care about the other country's people, it's more that they've more cultivated the skill of appearing to, in the service of practicing the art of the possible. So I think we should instead send deeply empathic people to talk to those on both sides.
Every time there's a discussion here of eugenics and people talk about selecting for IQ I argue that we should select for kindness and empathy. People don't understand what a powerful difference that quality can make.
Oops, I neglected to include the link when I posted the above so I added it. Just to remind you, it's s note to someone who knows me well and is likely to understand me. That's why the top part is personally addressed to him. I include it because so much of what is important to say and do, is important precisely because it is so rarely said and done --- which of course means that it does not fit into one of the easy boxes that a string of text can fit into, so, the more background I give the better the chance of it being understood.
I've been recommended, multiple times, and across the internet, the following podcast by history podcaster MartyrMade (a man named Darryl Cooper) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict called "Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem". I'm not a paid subscriber, but the teaser intros to his historical overviews are generally very compelling. I also disagree with his politics when I encounter them on Twitter, but that's not as relevant to me. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to focus on and process a long podcast series right now.
Regarding "Fear and Loathing" (and other related content), the series is almost universally lauded on Reddit and throughout the Internet, or else there are just ad hominem critiques accusing Cooper of being a fascist. To me, that's not really relevant because I want to know the quality of the podcast and the validity of discussion.
I'd love to read or hear a good-faith review of "Fear and Loathing" series, engagement with it, critiques of its assessment of the middle east situation. Maybe one day I'll do one myself, but the near future is not that day.
It is fascinating and very in depth. You can learn a lot for him but it does suffer from a bias which is difficult to fully understand unless you are very familiar with the material, Daryl Cooper is maximises the roll of the Revisionists (the likes of Jabotinsky and Begin) and tries to minimise the roll of Labor Zionism (the likes of Ben Gurion) even though Labor Zionism was by far the more influencial stream. I don't think its on purpose, he just loves your right winger revisionist idealist types.
Says that some incels are transitioning. At least some of the hypothesis is that they're men who aren't good at masculinity, and are apt to idealize living as a woman. Even though being a woman is difficult in other ways than being a man, some of them are finding that being a woman suits them better.
This also has rather a lot about gender and identity in manga.
Thanks for the recommend - this was really good. I've already read "Inside Mari" now, which alone would have made the watch worthwhile just for the recommendation, and the narrator's personal story about figuring themselves out and transitioning was really fascinating and powerful.
"It spent a lot of time not knowing what I was and figuring out what I needed" is probably a very common personal story, but I can see how it's also one that few people give voice to given ability of the overwhelming prominence of "I've known I was ABC gender for as long as I can remember." Doubt and uncertainty are probably a huge and normal part of the trans experience but hard to publicly admit when so many other people are constantly articulating total certainty and no one wants to be perceived as somehow less authentic.
The Contrapoints video is excellent, but the new video covers some different points. Natalie Wynn talked about there being a lot of overlap between incel and trans obsession with appearance. This isn't the same as some incels actually wanting to transition, and I don't think she had the connection to specific manga.
Fair enough. (I should have noted that I didn't watch all the way through the ceicocat video — even at 2x speed, I found the manga summary too tedious to keep going. Maybe it got more interesting in the part after I stopped watching?)
I really wish people would stop using the term 'incel', because not only has this word been co-opted by the left as a slur rather than a neutral descriptive term, it also implies that the main issue is a lack of sex per se, whereas most incels just want girlfriends (which includes having sex with them, but also love and companionship and a sense of self-worth that going to a prostitute or sleeping with the least attractive girl you could find would).
There is, or at least has been, a social movement of self-described incels congregating on incel boards etc. What other word would one have to describe them?
How many incels would be satisfied with an asexual girlfriend who insisted on celibacy as a condition for relationship, no matter how loving and companionship-offering she is?
>There is, or at least has been, a social movement of self-described incels congregating on incel boards etc. What other word would one have to describe them?
So what?There's people in the US who call themselves nazis. It doesn't change the fact that most times that modern day americans are called 'nazis', it is an act of political propaganda than neutral descriptiveness, even if some shallow similarity in beliefs can be found between the real nazis and non-nazi "nazis".
It's a tiny, tiny fraction of the men who are described as incel who identify as incel or have done anything explicitly incel related before.
A neutral term would be something like, chronically single men, or maybe unwillingly single men. Not perfect, but much, much better than 'incel'.
>How many incels would be satisfied with an asexual girlfriend who insisted on celibacy as a condition for relationship, no matter how loving and companionship-offering she is?
What does this prove, exactly? Sex is part of relationships. If relationships never involved sex, vast swathes of the population would never enter them. This isn't anything unique to 'incels'.
If being an incel were literally just a matter of 'occasionally having sex of any kind', then they would already be paying to bang hookers every now and then, but that's obviously *not* what they're after.
But look at it from the other direction. How many incels would be satisfied with going to a prostitute to have sex with no love or companionship? They can do this, and as far as I know generally don't.
Presumably, like most people, they want both sex and love/companionship.
I've seen people conflate incel (which is a name for an online subculture) with everyone who's involuntarily celibate. I'm not sure whether this is an honest mistake or a habit of outrage.
It's occasionally a mistake, as when scott did here (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-justice), but the term has become a full on political propaganda term, often wielded against people who aren't even talking about sex or relationships at all. I think the literal majority of cases of it being used today are in obviously bad faith and of no defensible descriptive value.
It's just classic motte-and-baileying, mostly. However, it's also a two-way motte-and-bailey: it's done both by those who wish to denigrate everyone who expresses displeasure about their unfortunate involuntarily celibate condition by conflating them with the toxic subculture, but it's also done by those who wish to defend the toxic subculture by going "Aww, isn't it mean to just attack a bunch of harmless loveless losers?"
The whole POINT is that nearly every use these days of the term 'incel' is not directed at an actual toxic subculture, it's used against any man publicly lamenting his sexual struggles, or even, increasingly, any man who disagrees with anything to do with anything to do with feminism.
The precise problem I'm talking about with incel being a propaganda term is exactly that the word has all this baggage attached to it from 'toxic online subcultures' which is invoked against people who have nothing to do with that subculture.
It's also a ridiculously over-broad term. "Involuntarily celibate" is a state that I think most men (and indeed women) will find themselves in at some point in life.
Shaming "incels" is basically teaching young men that there's something deeply wrong and disgusting with you if you haven't had sex in the last week, which I don't think is a particularly healthy attitude towards sex. It's okay to be between relationships, and it's okay to not be trying to fill in that gap with one-night stands.
Unless I'm missing something, you're both misunderstanding the way words like this are used. The word "incel" started as a self-description meaning something like "people who have trouble finding sexual partners", much like the word "woke" started as a self-description meaning something like "people who are aware of injustice". But now, if someone says "I hate incels" or "incels are a public menace" they are not using it to mean the above, they are using it to mean "the kind of people who either call themselves incels or who share the same attitudes and ideologies as those who do". Similarly, those who condemn "woke corporations" or "woke people" are NOT using woke to mean "concerned with injustice" but rather "the kind of people who either call[ed] themselves woke, or who share the attitudes and ideology of those who do".
A similar thing happened with "fundamentalist", "communist", and numerous other words, and rightly so I think. I don't think ordinary people are obliged to use the jargon of extremist groups according to those groups' theoretical definitions instead of how its used in practice. If a particular group doesn't want its self-reference terms to become insults, it's their responsibility to NOT become so toxic and insane that those terms naturally take on the meaning "toxic and insane".
(None of the above is to suggest that incels, or any other modern group I'm aware of, remotely compare to woke people in the sheer magnitude of toxicity and frothing-at-the-mouth rageful hate.)
>But now, if someone says "I hate incels" or "incels are a public menace" they are not using it to mean the above, they are using it to mean "the kind of people who either call themselves incels or who share the same attitudes and ideologies as those who do".
The problem is that the criteria for "share the same attitudes and ideologies as people who do" is literally as weak as 'is against anything the average feminist believes in'.
The problem is NOT that these people are being unfair to self-identified incels - it's that all kinds of people are being lumped in with the "bad" incels unfairly, for propagandistic purposes.
That being said, the idea that anyone who identifies as incels or posts on incel forums etc are "toxic" is also part of the propaganda.
"The problem is that the criteria for "share the same attitudes and ideologies as people who do" is literally as weak as 'is against anything the average feminist believes in'."
Oh, I'm sure it's also used as an insult for anyone not-woke-enough-for-the-speaker. You could call that yet another definition, but I'd say it's not a real definition. A whole array of words from "gay" to "autistic" to "nazi" to "communist" are used like this: they have one or two actual definitions (as I described above) and also the fake definition of "insult for anyone who disagrees with me (in the general direction of the word's meaning, though this part's optional)". I think many conservatives would agree the word "socialist" is thrown about far too loosely on the right, but that doesn't mean the word doesn't still have a reasonably clear real definition. That's just the way words work, especially in the hands of bad-faith activists who want a shortcut around actually engaging with opposing positions using their brains.
"The problem is NOT that these people are being unfair to self-identified incels - it's that all kinds of people are being lumped in with the "bad" incels unfairly, for propagandistic purposes."
That's always going to happen with every propagandist. Sometimes it's even justified: at this point, if someone speaks in heavily "social justice" language I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to expect that they first clearly denounce cancel culture and related things before they can expect to be treated as a decent human being with something resembling a conscience. Obviously incels haven't caused a tiny fraction of the suffering and social damage the woke movement has and (or because) they have infinitely less power. But although I'll hold them to vastler more lenient standard, it's still very important to apply consistent moral principles. They are still, like the woke, responsible for aligning themselves with a toxic movement.
"That being said, the idea that anyone who identifies as incels or posts on incel forums etc are "toxic" is also part of the propaganda."
I don't know. Anecdotally, my sister (who loathes feminists and wokeness generally) is extremely disturbed and scared by the incel stuff she's seen. As for me, I find the movement (a) embarassing, as it makes a large part of the online right look like a group of horny thirteen year olds, with the reasoning skills to match (b) hyopcritical to the extreme, the grratest sin, as they seem to openly hold themselves and/or their sex to none of the standards they hold the other sex (c) evil, as they divert and distract the attention of anti-feminist sentiment away from the real horrific evils like abortion on demand towards comparitively petty things, and some of them I've seen not only think women should be able to abort children for trivial reasons, but that men should be able to *force* them to do so. I didn't think it was possible to be more sociopathically selfish and evil than pro-choice feminists, but they managed it.
And (d) basically a mirror image of woke feminism, right down to "I'm oppressed because people are allowed to disagree with (or romantically reject) me". They hate individualism, think everyone is defined by their group membership, and have no conception of what *actual* oppression is.
Again, they're *infinitely* less of a problem than feminists on any measurement, but being "exactly like woke feminism, but much weaker" isn't a great sales pitch.
>A whole array of words from "gay" to "autistic" to "nazi" to "communist" are used like this
And none of them are really tolerated here when used so loosely, but incel is. That's the problem.
>but that doesn't mean the word doesn't still have a reasonably clear real definition.
But it DOESN'T have a clear definition. Nearly *every single usage* of the term implies something ideological, but literally being 'involuntarily celibate' ISN'T an ideology though. It's just a state of being. The overwhelming majority of people who are 'involuntarily celibate' are not part of any 'incel ideology'.
I believe the term was originally in-v-cel, shortened from "involuntarily celebate," and was the name of an online forum founded by a lesbian woman who had never had a sexual relationship. (She may not be been out. I can't remember that detail now.) It was initially a friendly group where people were supportive, but gradually was taken over by bitterly angry and isolated young males. At some point early on the people in the group changed the term they used for their situation from in-v-cel to incel, because in-v-cel sounds so much like imbecile.
I'm not particularly surprised it started on the left, since it fits in with left-wing notions of "positive rights" and being harmed not just by coercion but by the economic (or in this case pseudo-economic, as in "dating market") structure of society. I can almost imagine a world where these ideals were applied, by feminist and progressive types, *consistently*. As in: even when it doesn't personally benefit them!
I could accept a moral principle of "everyone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't forcibly coerce others" and I could accept a principle of "everyone should do what they can to advance others' welfare along with their own". What I can't accept, and what is the absolute lowest and most despicable attitude it is possible to hold, is the one held by most feminists: "when other people do things that affect me, I demand they go out of their way to accomodate my needs and feelings, but when I do things that affect others, I demand the unconditional right to do *whatever the fuck I want* no matter who it hurts!"
How do these people show their faces publically without dying of shame?
I think there is a big difference between "not having a partner *now*" and "not having a partner *ever*" (i.e. never in the past, and it seems very likely that also never in the future).
People throw around the word "groomer" a lot, and given the current moral panic around that and innocent LGBT people, I'm very hesitant to even bring up the term in this context.
But there was absolutely a concerted effort on 4chan's /r9k/, and possibly elsewhere, by a disturbed clique of individuals to try to convince incels to transition.
If some people end up happier that way, good for them, but at least some of the idealization isn't organic and the pinkpill crowd do not have incels' best interests at heart.
I do think it's silly for you to mention the whole 'groomer' thing though, because nobody powerful is/would defend the sexual or political activities of anyone on 4Chan, while of the other hand the most powerful institutions in the US are almost unanimously pro-LGBT to the point that they will lionize gay celebrities and activists who LITERALLY had sex with underage boys i.e. were groomers.
Not only that, but people who talk about 'groomers' *certainly* would not support telling incels or anyone else to become trans, which makes your point even more bizarre.
I brought up 'groomer' because it's the exact sort of case that people would normally point to as a textbook example of grooming. Maybe I shouldn't have, idk.
To be extremely cynical, I think the better hypothesis is not "easier to find sex/love/romance", or "easier to live life", but "easier to get social approval". Prior to transition, the entire left and a lot of the right are mobilized against them, but afterwards, there's a vocal community that will provide constant love-bombing.
Plus, when it comes to dating, there's the effect where previously, they would be viewed as quasi-rapists merely for asking someone out, but afterwards, if they ask a woman out and she turns them down, they'll get support for claiming that the woman is a bigot. "Untouchable and it's your own fault" is a nasty situation to be in, but "untouchable and it's other people's fault" is a lot more comfortable. And instead of only a tiny niche supporting their desire to blame, now there's a large coalition, and not just any coalition but one that has the power to apply pressure to women.
I know at least one kid who has been raised in an environment filled with offhand aspersions about "straight white dudes", which he has apparently internalized. In the last few years he had a growth spurt, and was having to face the consequences of being perceived as straight, white, and a dude, instead of a bright young kid. There's nothing to be done about being attracted to women or white. So I don't think it's a coincidence that she's now experimenting with a feminine identity. (I use the term "experimenting" because it's a part-time thing at the moment, with no medical or physical aspect, not even clothes or hair.) (But to go with Erica's hypothesis below, the kid is definitely on the spectrum. The kid's social group is also both high-percentage spectrum and high-percentage trans.)
Cynically speaking, this seems like yet another "shit test" that women instinctively throw at men in their unconscious effort to filter for ever more alpha males. (Ah, I still remember some of the PUA theory.)
To be a man means to be able to overcome adversity. Being told all your life that men are evil and responsible for everything that ever got wrong, is... just a test of your mental fortitude. It is not about being true or false. It is about handling emotional pressure.
If you have the balls to say "eh, whatever", you have passed the test, and you may collect the rewards. If you kill yourself, or hide in a cave, or become a self-hating ally, or - recently - transition (I am talking about those who transition under pressure, not about people who would have transitioned anyway), you have failed and been eliminated. The advantage of transitioning is that it doesn't leave bodies (despite being a permanent solution) or bitter guys.
The suffering is not an unfortunate side effect; the entire point is to separate the strong from the weak. It is a plausibly deniable cruelty; no wonder that people from 4chan are happy to join.
I've seen other people, (including Aella who seems like she would know about that sort of thing) referencing the "shit test" but it still sounds implausible. Which women are doing this? how? what? why?? Personally most women I know claim to actively prefer fem men, and for the most part follow through, though it is a very biased sample. I don't see how it has any more explanatory power than something like "people like to make fun of the outgroup and exert social power, and if you ask enough women out one will say yes, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Also, people do often have sex with transwomen. female people even. so clearly the filter isn't that powerful.
As raj notes, I don't think this is broadly true and your sample may indeed be highly biased. I note in particular Nora Vincent's "Self-Made Man", where Vincent (a lesbian non-trans woman) spent a year living under cover as a man. Including dating other women. Her expectation going in was that, as a women, she would know exactly what women wanted and could make her somewhat effeminate male persona highly dateable. But no, push come to shove, the women mostly wanted manly men.
This is consistent with my own experience before realizing I'm trans: plenty of bisexual women were interested in me, but not many straight women, and the straight women who were interested in me at first generally either lost interest after one or two dates or were only interested in friendship + flirtation, not actually dating.
From what I've observed, straight women who like guys with feminine sides still generally want their men to be masculine in most respects. For example, the "Byronic hero" archetype seems to be fairly popular, as does the "Aragorn" archetype. Both, especially the latter, are distinctly masculine at their core despite also showing some conventionally-feminine traits.
Also, many of the "straight" women who are into fem guys may not actually be straight. There are plenty of bisexual women who mostly date men. One factor driving this is social dynamics make it easier to date men, particularly the norm that men offer and women accept or reject. Another is simply numbers: there are a lot more straight+bi men than there are gay+bi women, so if you're a woman who's equally interested in both, your potential dating pool is something like 90% men. And from the outside, a bisexual woman whom you only see dating men looks the same as a straight woman unless she talks about her attraction to women in front of you.
Well sure, straight women are typically attracted to heterosexual male norms. Maybe I should have separated the thoughts better in my comment, but the claim "women are instinctively engaged in secret psychological warfare to locate and fuck more and more Alpha Men" just sounds implausible even for those women outside my bubbled counter examples. Even for the women who do want manly men, wouldn't they just say that? Is masculine behavior not just observable? and again, how is this a better explanation than "demographic interest groups like to exert social power, and if you keep asking its way more likely someone eventually says yes"?
What bubble are you in that they prefer fem men? Not unheard of but IME tend to be less attractive women (ive seen a couple studies that back this observation up)
Also I bet they still are attracted to the fundamentals - status, masculine bone structure, height
Less attractive to who? I think some of them are pretty attractive personally, but would be interested in the studies if you can recall the title or authors. The bubble is mostly bisexual women/ she/they types at a very liberal university, so very skewed indeed. They are less feminine than what I think is the norm, which to a typically heterosexual man might scan as less attractive? I don't consider having status to be a masculine-specific trait, though direct status-seeking behavior is more common in men. Masculine bone structure... it's possible, I guess? I haven't actually asked if they like large jawlines and such but I would guess it's far less important than you would think. Height, definitely yes, but that is also considered attractive in women so I'm not sure if that counts as fundamental of attractive masculinity in this specific instance. Again my sample is skewed as all fuck here, I'm in agreement that the average woman likes normal masculinity, even if I don't get it personally. I still think the shit test concept doesn't have explanatory power above more gender-neutral human nature stuff.
I think that humans have the ability to differ in a) what we find attractive from a distance, b) what we are willing to have a relationship with in real life, and c) what produces a healthy long-term relationship. Putting on a socially conservative hat for a moment, there's a lot of value in a cohesive society that pushes the first two things toward the third, but current society seems like it's doing the opposite.
One thing that makes me think you’re right is that people who are attracted to other people who they have a close emotional attraction with feel like they’re a special class that needs to use the term “demisexual.” It really highlights how materialistic a lot of relationships have become and how emotional attachment feels like an exception, not the rule.
Actually, that's not true. I have known many poets and brilliant people, and very few of them end up with high status in their field. Like many intellectual women, I am drawn to people like that. None of them were a bit high status when I knew them. They were unknowns. I admired them for their gifts, not their accomplishments or fame, of which they had none. Most poets and writers who aspire to be recognized as great artists, essayists or thinkers have trouble even getting published, much less getting famous. It is far, far easier to be successful in business or a STEM field. You probably aren't any likelier than an aspiring poet to get famous, but if you are smart and work hard you can make quite a good income and be recognized by co-workers as especially talented.
I keep reading stuff on here about how women whine about men being picky about their looks, but women are equally picky when it comes to men's being masterful, accomplished and rich. There are whole categories of women for whom that really is not accurate, and you're probably more likely to encounter them on ACX than in most places. I mean, think about it. Most people on here are quite smart, and many are quite accomplished in one or more fields. Some are quite rich. A few are people in tech or writers whose names many of us would recognize. Do you get how women who are smart and accomplished, some to the point of being rich and/or famous, might not feel a great need to pair up with a man who is masterful, accomplished and rich? Many of us have been intellectually and professionally ambitious our whole lives, and struggled they way men do, to be recognized for our talents and accomplishments. And most bright people can earn a professional income, which, depending on the field, might not make you rich but should at least put you in decent shape financially.
So, Chris J, it does kind of get under my skin to read you and a few other people thinking of women as one undifferented class,l and sounding so sure you know what their agenda is. And also, the agenda you think of us as having is so *tacky*: Get yourself a tall, handsome, impressive rich guy. Yick! I went to Ivy League schools where most people's families were at least upper middle class, and lots of people were rich. So there were plenty of rich, handsome guys around. But neither of my 2 Ivy League boyfriends from that era came from money. One's mother was a schoolteacher; her boyfriend had a blue collar job. The other one's father was a surgeon, but he had divorced my boyfriend's mother years before, leaving her with the house and $40 thousand per year alimony. He never gave my boyfriend any money, and had made out his will to his second wife and his children with her. Lots of people in Ivy League schools are very accomplished, too. One of my Ivy boyfriends was a chess champion, but I didn't even know that til I had already fallen for him. And the other was delightful company, and extremely funny, but had no impressive Accomplishments. And in case you're wondering whether I was so ugly I couldn't do "better" than those guys -- nope. I'm pretty sure that at that age I was about an 8.
Some women also respond very differently to boys and even male infants. That some women dislike men just seems like a natural continuation of that. I remember reading a parenting article by Emma Brown and she talks about how after she had a son how she wasn’t able to see boys as human beings until she sat down and talked with dozens of them when she wrote her parenting book [https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/02/22/why-we-dont-talk-about-sexual-violence-against-boys-why-we-should/]. This seems to be well supported by psychological studies where women are asked who to sacrifice in moral choice dilemmas and how quickly mothers attend to crying children (I'm sure there's overlapping distributions though). One example I found after some quick googling: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29781373/.
> Some women also respond very differently to boys and even male infants.
Seems to me that everyone responds differently to little boys and girls.
My nephew is 1 year older than my first daughter, so when she was little, she sometimes got some clothes he outgrew. We were like "she is 3 years old, she doesn't mind wearing boy-styled things, and kids are growing so fast we are happy we don't have to buy new stuff all the time". So at some moment, she had a pink winter coat, and also a blue one, and we gave her whichever one was cleaner at the moment.
People reacted very differently based on which coat she wore. Imagine the same kid jumping around. When she wore pink, people were like "oh, a cute little girl is dancing! how cute". When she wore blue, people were like "hey boy, be careful where you jump! don't knock something over, or don't splash someone with mud". Both men and women. It seems like people are conditioned to be nice towards girls, but kinda hostile towards boys (projecting: hey, it just seems to me that the boy wants to do something bad; I have to prevent that).
Good point. I mentioned women because that's what Nancy brought up, but I think that you're correct that men have similar responses. I wonder if there are any studies on how teachers respond to kids based on gender. I know the US justice system has a 60%+ gender disparity in sentencing [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002]. I wonder if there's some similar statistic when it comes to detention.
I've wondered whether, considering that it might not be that rare for groups of boys/men to use sexual assault as part of initiation, males might be more subject to sexual assault than females.
One consistent finding is that boys are predominantly assaulted by females. It mentions that in the article but it’s paywalled so you might not’ve been able to see that far.
I got this one for free, which covers similar material: “The Understudied Female Sexual Predator” [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/]. The TLDR: One of the big issues is that sexual assault is predominantly studied by feminist groups, and they don’t label female perpetrated assault on boys as rape, but rather “Forced to Penetrate.”
It's hard to tell the difference between "hates all men" and "hates weak men, but lives in a social bubble where all men are conditioned to be weak" and "hates weak men, but is so miscalibrated that any man capable of living in a civilization and keeping a job is perceived as too weak".
For practical purposes, I agree with you.
For the purpose of speculating about possible evolutionary origins... I think it is possible that this is simply an alpha-male selection mechanism gone mad. Just like the instinct "eat sweet things, because those are probably fruit, which contains vitamins" makes modern people eat tons of sugar, consider what might the instinct "do not let a weak male get you pregnant, avoid him" do to a modern woman, if all she sees around her are nice guys trying to be good feminist allies, while the books she reads depict sadistic billionaire vampire werewolves fifty-shades-of-graying their female victims. I guess that it makes real men seem pathetic, and hate is just a way to rationalize this feeling.
> Where does "hates abusive men" fit on the list? Or "hates difficult men"?
That would be the opposite. Hating abusive men is a sign of emotional maturity. (Sometimes happens as a consequence of previous experiences with abusive men who were perceived as attractive.)
Also depends on whether this generalizes to all men. I guess there is probably an intermediate stage, where the abusive men are no longer considered attractive, but the non-abusive ones are still "invisible". Then it seems like all men are abusive, so it makes sense to hate them all.
> women who say they loved their husband but they'll never marry again
Depends on what they mean by that. This could also be because as people get older, they generally get less flexible. So not just abusive behavior, but also some minor annoying thing can become a source of conflict, where a younger person would probably just get used to it.
Some of the things quoted in that video seem to me to be obvious bait and shouldn't be taken at face value (e.g. the bits about being on female hormones making person dumber and happier - yeah sure bro).
I do think there's a segment of the blackpill/MGTOW/incel sphere that does think women live life on easy mode and have a "pussy pass", and by transitioning then a guy who's not manly enough to be Chad but too straight to be a gay femmeboy can make the best of a bad lot and get that easy female life.
Ha, if only *I* could get that easy female life where all I have to do is bat my eyelashes at men who think with their... lower organs... and are falling over themselves to excuse everything I do, throw money and attention at me, and pave my way with golden streets through life. Wouldn't we all like to live on easy mode?
Might have made them happier, and they construed it as being dumber.
I don't know about the 'pussy pass'--it carries its own dangers--but it could be lower-tier guys are actually better off transitioning to women, especially in liberal areas where they get to join the LGBT community and finally have some friends.
I also haven't watched the video, but I wrote a comment in another open thread semi-recently in response to someone mentioning the possibility of incels transitioning:
The TLDR is that I find it very plausible that being a trans person in denial can lead to having a very hard time dating in particular and to unhappiness and resentment towards society in general. I also did a bit of back-of-the-envelope math using subreddit sizes, which suggests that about 1% of all redditors are trans or interested in transitioning, compared to about 5% of incels.
One thing that occurs to me on re-reading my comment is that those 1% and 5% figures are suspiciously similar to estimated rates of gender dysphoria in the general population: the most recent estimates I've heard (Warrier et al, 2020) are that 0.4-1.3% of the general population and something like 5-6% of autistic people are trans.
So if we were to hypothesize that inceldom is in most cases an unhealthy response to dating struggles rooted in being autistic (*), then we'd expect to see right around 5% of incels turn out to be trans, which is pretty much what my very rough, unscientific estimate tells me. A further test of this hypothesis might be to look for data on post-transition sexual orientation of ex-incel trans women. If it looks similar to the sexual orientations of the broader population of trans women who were straight-identified pre transition (i.e. mostly lesbian or bisexual, with a small minority exclusively attracted to men), that's evidence for the hypothesis that trans ex-incels are simply the base-rate occurrance of transition we'd expect to see in a mostly-autistic population. If trans ex-incels are much more likely to be primarily or exclusively attracted to men (or at least primarily or exclusively trying to date men), that's evidence for the hypothesis that a nontrivial number of incels are seeking to transition for "grass is greener" reasons.
Although that last sentence seems a bit silly now that I type it out, as my prior is that it's nigh on impossibly to radically change your sexual orientation for strategic reasons. And moreover, if incels could choose to become attracted to men in order to improve their dating prospects, transitioning first would be doing it the long way around: if you're a man who badly wants to get laid and you're open to male partners, that's what grindr is for.
(*) N.b. I am absolutely not equating autism with inceldom: instead, the supposition here is that most incels are autistic, but most autistic people are not incels.
"my prior is that it's nigh on impossibly to radically change your sexual orientation for strategic reasons"
Am I misremembering, or wasn't there talk a few years back in some parts of the rationalist community about trying 'bihacking' (that is, move one's sexual orientation more towards being bisexual?) I don't remember why you'd want to do that, but there were some sort of reasons for it.
>I don't know how successful bihacking turned out to be.
"Bihacking" kinda reminds me of that Far Side comic where a pair of spiders have spun a web at the bottom of a playground slide and one of them is declaring "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!"
>Although that last sentence seems a bit silly now that I type it out, as my prior is that it's nigh on impossibly to radically change your sexual orientation for strategic reasons. And moreover, if incels could choose to become attracted to men in order to improve their dating prospects, transitioning first would be doing it the long way around: if you're a man who badly wants to get laid and you're open to male partners, that's what grindr is for.
Well, reorientation seems like it would be easier if you were radically altering your sex hormone profile.
Right. You might not be attracted to men at baseline, but estrogen might change that. I've heard of people's orientation changing while transitioning, doesn't sound that crazy, you're changing ambient hormone levels and that has some effect on the brain.
Anecdotally, it's not uncommon but far from universal for trans people to experience some change in self-perceived gendered sexual attraction.
There doesn't seem to be much in the way of large scale survey data, but the smaller surveys I've found seem more-or-less consistent with anecdote-driven conventional wisdom. Based on those:
A solid majority (probably 60-70%) experience little or no change in attraction, just a recharacterization of sexual orientation in light of their gender transition. E.g. someone who saw herself as a straight man prior to transition now sees herself as a gay woman.
Another 20-25% or so experience a moderate shift towards being more bisexual, with the remaining 10-15% experiencing a near-complete reversal, if straight or gay to begin with. If bi-identified before transition, a shift in emphasis in either direction is fairly common, but rarely enough to stop identifying as bi.
Anecdotes seem to suggest that changes in perceived sexual orientation around transition are at least as much driven by getting to know yourself better and being more open to exploring your sexuality, than they are due to hormones. Major features here include conflating gender envy with attraction pre-transition, internalized homophobia making you resist accepting same-sex attraction pre-transition, and simply the process of figuring yourself out after discarding the null hypothesis of being straight and cis.
So yes, transitioning can substantially change your orientation. But it's not a great bet if you're counting on your orientation changing, and if your orientation does change there's a good chance it's more a matter of self-discovery ("gayness was inside you all along") than hormones.
Thanks for providing some information and actual research.
So, I'm wondering. Say you really are one of these autistic, low-masculinity nerdy boys in a liberal environment that's giving you a hard time for being a straight white male. (I'm told the Asian guys have a hard time too.) Do you think it is to their advantage to transition? I guess you could say 'only if they're actually trans', but how do they know that? Teenagers are in the process of forming an identity anyway. They could easily be wrong. I genuinely wonder about this. Conservatives will say no, definitely not, but the progressives seem to have the upper hand and with demographics suggesting they will continue to do so in the future (millennials and Gen Z lean more left than prior groups at their age), maybe a male role is only for the 50-60% of men naturally Chadly enough to swim upstream?
>maybe a male role is only for the 50-60% of men naturally Chadly enough to swim upstream?
Just realized I didn't get all the way through to answering this part. I doubt it's anywhere near those numbers: my best guess is that at most about 5% of the population would benefit from gender transitioning, and more likely somewhere around 1%. The smaller figure is statistical extrapolation from survey data about transgender identification, while the larger figure is based on the possibility that the higher rate of trans identity among people diagnosed with autism may be due to autistic people finding gender incongruence more distressing or being less inclined to listen to social pressure to resist identifying as trans than neurotypicals (as opposed to the equally-plausible hypothesis that gender incongruence is for some reason about 5x more prevalent among autistic people vs neurotypicals).
In addition, trans men seem to be roughly as common as trans women, and rates of transition in both directions seem to be rising in parallel. We tend to hear more about trans women than trans men, but that seems to be more of a reflection of cultural attitudes about gender and transness (particularly issues around MTF trans people having access to women's spaces, which is often a big toxoplasma-of-rage issue, while FTMs in male spaces is greeted with a giant "meh" when people thing about it at all) than an accurate reflection of facts on the ground. If bias and privilege were major factors driving decisions to transition, I'd expect one direction of transition or the other to be rising while the other is falling, or at least for the two to be rising at significantly different rates.
>I guess you could say 'only if they're actually trans', but how do they know that?
That's exactly what I'd say. Because if you transition without actually being trans, I'd expect a very high risk of suffering from gender dysphoria post-transition.
As for how you know if you're actually trans, the community has done quite a bit of thinking about that because every single trans person has gone through the process of figuring out if we're trans or not.
The bottom line come down to three questions:
1. How do you feel about the prospect of being a man for the rest of your life?
2. How do you feel about the prospect of being a woman for the rest of your life?
3. How do you feel about the prospect of being some gender that doesn't neatly classify as male or female?
For me, the answers (after extensive soul-searching) were:
1. Ugh, I guess I could keep being a man of I really have to.
2. Sounds awesome! The process of transitioning seems difficult and intimidating, but manageable and worth it in the long run.
3. Not as scary in terms of getting there as 2, but also not as appealing. Definite improve over 1, though.
Which seems to pretty clearly point towards me being trans.
In analysing these questions and your answers, it's useful to separate out internal motivations (one gender or another feeling more right and proper) from external motivations (difficulties of transitioning, facing different prejudices and enjoying different privileges, etc), with internal motivations being more central to your identity and external ones more situational and mostly germane to the question of how to express and actualize your identity.
One tool to help tease apart internal and external motivations (specifically about the process of coming out and transitioning) is the "Button Test":
>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 a girl. They will accept you immediately. You will not lose your partner, your job, or your family. Do you press it?
I'm quoting from a commonly-recommended resource called the Gender Dysphoria Bible, intended as a compilation of info about the experience of being trans and pre-transition or early-transition, both for the benefit of people who think they might be trans and for cis people who are trying to better understand and support trans friends or loved ones. It's flawed in several respects (mostly focused on transfemmes rather than transmascs, some of the scientific info is speculative without sufficient qualification, etc), but it's still a useful resource. Link to the subpage I quoted from:
It appears that many within the incel group have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate. If I had built my identity around getting or lacking something (in this case intimacy/sex), I could see myself idolizing any person or group that easily avoided my problem. This may also explain that Andrew Tate stuff, but I've never watched anything of his.
It seems to me quite a stretch to go all the way to gender transition, but these people are far more desperate than I have ever been about sex, and are also living in a society that has intentionally tried to make gender transition seem convenient, easy, and acceptable.
Unfortunately, unless they are happy to pair off with each other, I fear that many of these boys and young men may find that intimacy and sex are still difficult to attain as MtF trans people.
> have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate.
Love and sex are two different things, to start with the obvious.
Finding sex is probably quite simple for most people, you just need to sufficiently lower your standards. Most incels probably have the option to pay for sex, they just choose not to. Which means that "can't get sex" is not *literally* their problem; it is more like "can't get sex in a way that makes them feel good about themselves" or "can't get sex with someone who is neither a desperate drug junkie nor will charge them $1000 per intercourse".
From this perspective, "women have it easy" could be interpreted as women having higher standards than men, so much that their lack of sex could often be solved by merely lowering their standards to the level of an equivalently attractive man. There seems to be some evidence for this -- if you choose a random man, give him photos of hundred random women on the street and ask which ones he would agree to have sex with if an opportunity occurred, he might choose maybe 50% of them; if you choose a random woman, give her photos of hundred random men on the street, she would choose maybe 10% of them.
Or, to put it differently, if you choose an averagely-attractive man and an averagely-attractive woman, and suggest to them that they should date each other, the woman will probably feel that he is not good enough for her. If you ask them separately, both of them refuse to date people who are clearly not good enough for them. But if you put them together, I would expect the man to be more likely to agree to sex, and the woman to more likely reject him. (Which makes perfect sense from the evolutionary perspective.)
"There seems to be some evidence for this -- if you choose a random man, give him photos of hundred random women on the street and ask which ones he would agree to have sex with if an opportunity occurred, he might choose maybe 50% of them; if you choose a random woman, give her photos of hundred random men on the street, she would choose maybe 10% of them."
There are studies on this! (There are studies on everything). Back in 1989, Clark and Hatfield did an experiment on a college campus where they showed if a woman approached a guy and asked him to sleep with her, versus where a man approached a woman and asked her to sleep with him, the men were much more likely to go "hell yeah, back to a stranger's place for casual sex!" then women were.
A study from 2011 refined that, and showed the gender difference could be eliminated by tweaking the approach:
"In a highly influential paper, Clark and Hatfield (1989) demonstrated that, whereas men were quite likely to accept a casual sexual offer from a confederate research assistant, women never did so. The current research provides a more in-depth explanation of gender differences in acceptance of casual sex offers via 4 (quasi-) experiments. First, using a person-perception paradigm, I assessed people's impressions of women and men who proposed a casual sexual encounter in the same manner that confederates in Clark and Hatfield did. Women and men agreed that female proposers were more intelligent, successful, and sexually skilled than men who made the same proposals. Second, I demonstrated that the large gender differences from the original Clark and Hatfield study could be eliminated by asking participants to imagine proposals from (attractive and unattractive) famous individuals, friends, and same-gender individuals. Next, I assessed factors associated with likelihood of agreeing to the casual sex proposal. The extent to which women and men believed that the proposer would be sexually skilled predicted how likely they would be to engage in casual sex with this individual. Finally, I examined these factors in the context of actual encounters from the participants' previous experiences, and the results were replicated in this context. Overall findings suggest that the large gender differences Clark and Hatfield observed in acceptance of the casual sex offer may have more to do with perceived personality characteristics of the female versus male proposers than with gender differences among Clark and Hatfield's participants and that sexual pleasure figures largely in women's and men's decision making about casual sex."
I'm not surprised the 1989 study found women much more reluctant to just go off with a complete stranger because women are much more likely to have that end badly. Yeah, not all men, but how many times do you hear the male version of "man stabbed by stranger woman" as opposed to this case currently being tried in Ireland? Woman out exercising fatally stabbed by man who was complete stranger to her:
"It appears that many within the incel group have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate."
That's kind of true, in a qualified way. A less than attractive woman will find it easier to get sex than a less than attractive man, because when - to be crude - it comes to sticking your dick into something then men are easy.
Being able to get sex from guys who would fuck anything with a pulse so long as you're not completely looking like Quasimodo's twin sister doesn't mean you can find *love* more easily, though; often guys just want someone who's an easy lay but don't want a relationship, or not a committed one, and don't want to be the boyfriend.
If you're a woman who is willing to lower her standards, then you can easily find a parade of low-class guys to fill your bed. That's not the same as love and lasting relationship, though.
Yeah, but the difference is many, many men cannot get sex from (or more generally, date) women at or even a fair bit below the same attractiveness percentile as himself (relative to other men and other women respectively). Women who struggle to find love (when they live around enough other people) usually need to lower their standards to something closer to the equivalent of their own attractiveness (physical and otherwise), whereas men who struggle need to lower it below their level.
You can say that women love who they love and can't choose to be attracted to men who are below their current standards.....but the exact same is true of men who are told to lower their standards.
It is a genuine problem if you're a man looking for a relationship and not simply a one night stand.
But the thing is, some of the comments from the very embittered do seem to indicate that they aren't willing to accept any woman who doesn't fit an entire list of requirements, and she can't be any kind of "second-best" - that is, she must be the kind of desirable partner that "Chad" would go after, not some plain Jane second or third rate woman that alpha stud wouldn't even look at.
And that's just as impossible a demand to fill, as the women who have a similar list of 'must-have' traits in a man, then wonder why they can't find anyone who fills all that. Heck, one explanation of why Draupadi, the heroine of the Mahabharata, had five husbands is because when she was asking the gods for the perfect husband, there was no way one man could fill all the requirements, so she had to have five husbands who each would fit one of her demands!
Nah, these men mostly just want someone who might be described as "cute" but relatively low down on the scale otherwise. Chads go for 7+, but most chronically incel men don't even have the option of dating 4s or 5s.
A lot of these men end up with relatively plain south-east asian women who don't really satisfy many criteria beyond 'thin', 'feminine looking' and 'willing to date/marry me'.
"It appears that many within the incel group have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate."
Isn't this true? Which woman has ever had trouble getting men to sleep with her? Of course getting a man to love her exclusively and dedicate his life to her is infinitely harder, but sex is easy.
Nah, this is wrong. A woman who is a '3' who lives in a city could more reliably find (unpaid for) sex in the next 6 hours than a man who is an '8', even if the man was willing to sleep with almost anyone. She won't be sleeping with very attractive men, but neither will the 8 be sleeping with attractive women in that kind of time frame. A man who is a '3' will likely struggle to get laid at all on any reasonable time range.
Most men equal to or less than a '3' would be willing to sleep with a '3', whereas even most women who are a '3' wouldn't just bend over for an '8' on short notice. Men really are just that horny and desperate compared to women.
>>A woman who is a '3' who lives in a city could more reliably find (unpaid for) sex in the next 6 hours than a man who is an '8', even if the man was willing to sleep with almost anyone.
There's truth to this, but I think it fails to account for safety as a factor. If 10,000 men who were an '8' did this and settled for "any partner they could get" and 10,000 women who were a '3' did the same, I don't think anyone would be surprised to see the women have more success in terms of getting sex out of the exchange, but we would also expect more of them end up with a stalker, sex that suddenly turned painful or outright abusive, or robbed or otherwise victimized in the course of the transaction. Crime rates being what they are it'd be a small number overall, but the incidence for women seems bound to be much higher overall given how one gender is larger than the other and full of aggression chemistry.
I think that's a factor often overlooked in these "women can find sex easily if they want to" conversations. Across all the partners I've ever had, none ever would pose a physical danger to me unless she was armed or I was tied up or something. On the other hand, my current partner is 5'3" and probably has never been with a man who *couldn't* easily harm her if he wanted to. Given that context, it's no surprise that women have "higher standards" than men when it comes to who they sleep with and often display an oversensitivity in cases of "guy who seems nice but something about him just makes me feel a little creeped out and I can't put my finger on it." Sucks to be that guy, and I've been him, but that's life just life in the punnet square sometimes.
Eh, where I live, all a man would have to do is scrape up a bit of cash and head out to the parking lot of a local big-box hardware store, about 15 minutes away. There's usually 2-4 prostitutes hanging around outside.
I suspect that a fair bit of what the "incels" want is for a woman to find them attractive, to actively want to spend time with them, and to actively want to have sex with them. Not that the sex itself isn't also a thing, but I don't think it's the whole thing.
>>I suspect that a fair bit of what the "incels" want is for a woman to find them attractive, to actively want to spend time with them, and to actively want to have sex with them. Not that the sex itself isn't also a thing, but I don't think it's the whole thing.
Yeah, I think the itch that they are really scratching here is the same one most people are looking for - love and acceptance from a partner, which is correlated to but pointedly is not the same as sex itself. Take that human desire, then send it alone into the internet to find and continually attach toxic baggage to itself, and although lots of people will just figure things out and turn out normal, you're bound to have a few cases where eventually something like an "incel" emerges from the muck instead.
That's it: they don't want sex, you can pay for sex or find a drunk/stoned woman to sleep with. They want to be *wanted*, to be *loved* and that's the real pain of rejection.
"Just find a prostitute and pay her for sex, what's the big deal?" isn't a solution, because that leaves them still the loser on the edge of the friend group (if he even is in a friend group) who can't get a girlfriend while everybody else is pairing off.
> I suspect that a fair bit of what the "incels" want is for a woman to find them attractive, to actively want to spend time with them, and to actively want to have sex with them.
I wonder how many men who are *not* incels are actually satisfied along these dimensions. (And, similarly, how many women.)
As an example, a successful pick-up artist can have a lot of sex with attractive women, but it requires a lot of work. He is actively chasing them; it's not like they actively want to spend time with him. Or a "dead bedroom" guy who has found a woman willing to spend her life with him, willing to have kids with him, just... not really interested in having sex with him more than once a year.
So perhaps unconditional love (and sex) are actually much more rare than the incels imagine. The incels feel unfairly left out of something that everyone else has, but maybe actually most people struggle with this, only slightly more successfully.
Again, you have to be very damn ugly for a guy to not hit on you if he's horny or desperate enough; I've never been attractive but in my (much) younger days I did have a couple of guys try to pick me up (mostly so I'd pay for them to go drinking because hey, a fat bitch like me must be desperate for male attention, right? so since they had spent all their money on booze, I'd open my purse -and maybe my legs - to accommodate them).
There are men who think fat/ugly women are easy because they're so desperate for a man so you don't have to try hard with them or put effort in to keep them around, and can always easily dump them if someone better comes along.
Sincerely, all this talk makes me *so* grateful that whatever way my brain wiring got crossed, at least I never had any interest in love *or* sex, never wanted or felt the lack of it, and was never desperately weeping on the sidelines about not being able to get the chance to hang off some man.
Maybe love is what makes us human, so that means I'm not human, but I don't think I've missed out on anything. "But companionship! someone who cares about you! not being lonely in later life!"
Yeah, being so desperate for all that I'd cut off my parts and go on hormones to trap someone into being with me? That really sounds appealing (not).
I tentatively think you're right to be grateful for your asexual state.
As someone who perceived my sexual dysfunction from adolescence to early 30s as the kind of asexuality you describe, only to have it unexpectedly reversed by an unrelated surgery, I think I was happier without a sexual drive. While I've had an enormous amount of fun as a sexual person, and had some gratifying experiences that came with sexual relationships, the suffering caused by break-ups, the hassle of dating, and the hunger for sex and relationships in between relationships is not worth it.
> (mostly so I'd pay for them to go drinking because hey, a fat bitch like me must be desperate for male attention, right? so since they had spent all their money on booze, I'd open my purse -and maybe my legs - to accommodate them).
Out of curiosity, how obvious was this? How much was explicit and how much was implicit?
I'm not sure where the limits are. I suspect it's somewhat more generous than you think, especially if a woman will settle for sex with a man who's unwilling to be seen with her in public.
I think (and I admit I'm guessing) that the cutoff is more like the bottom 10% to 20% than the bottom 40%.
It's hard to say for sure, because we're not sure we have the right comparison groups in mind. I think an average or below average woman has very little problem finding sex, if they want it. Probably significantly easier than a man in the same relative grouping. But is that the right comparison group? Maybe for incels we're looking at the bottom single digit X%, and maybe women in the same place are having similar trouble.
I honestly don't know what women see in men beyond the obvious. That would help me determine if a particular man was below average or so below average as to be un-dateable. I have had a number of conversations with women about a few particular guys that seemed beyond hope. They all had suggestions that would have helped him, but all admitted that even if he followed every suggestion they still would be completely unwilling to date him. There are definitely women that I would say the same thing about - but I could more easily determine what I found repelling about them. I don't think I would date them no matter how desperate I was. And it's maybe 50/50 looks verses personality.
"They all had suggestions that would have helped him, but all admitted that even if he followed every suggestion they still would be completely unwilling to date him."
I wouldn't be surprised if they'd imprinted on not wanting him, but if he followed their advice, other women who didn't have bad memories of him might find him attractive.
I wondered that too, and that's certainly possible. I have no doubt that he would have had a *better* chance of finding a relationship if he had followed their advice, even if it wasn't a particularly good one.
A confounder here is that part of the issue was his personality and interests, and apparent lack of motivation for a career. I haven't seen him in years, enough time that he could have gotten a better job and made something more of himself, which may help more than the grooming-type advice.
I wasn't even talking about dating, but about casual sex. Even if the undateable women you're talking about are literally undateable, can't they still find casual sex on Tinder? (Maybe they can't. I have no experience either being a woman or using Tinder.)
Like I said, I'm jaundiced about the entire topic, but from my stints in local government work, there are plenty of women who can get men and plenty of men willing to hop from one woman to the next, but neither set are the highest calibre of attractive and appealing human.
That's leaving out the cases of "literally met while both in in-patient psychiatric treatment and hooked up" which, eh, don't end too great either.
I was on a skills training course with a young woman one time who was not a bad person and pretty nice, but just really unfortunate in her choices - e.g. was going to meet a guy who texted her that he'd be late because he had to stop and fight someone.
Naturally we all went "Sheila (not her real name), are you dating him? No? GOOD. DON'T. Don't meet him, don't get involved with him". But it was plain to see that unless something drastically changed, this was the type of guy she would keep ending up with.
And for any incels envious of her because at least she could get someone - don't be. That kind of guy is going to be always getting in trouble and making his trouble your business, and spending your money, quite possibly having another woman or two on the go at the same time as you, and maybe even smacking you around later in the relationship. The game is not worth the candle.
Depends what you mean by attractive. Women who are at the e.g. 30th percentile of female attractiveness will be vastly less interested in men at the 30th percentile of male attractiveness than vice versa.
I was wondering whether anyone would catch the reference.
At least enough to know something about the major stories. I swore off her for a while because I was feeling guilty about the extinction of the Neanderthals after reading "The Color of Neanderthal Eyes".
Still, a very intelligent and vivid writer.
Approximate quotes: "One of our opossums is missing". "It was a real estate agent".
Absolutely true. I have talked with many young men who are on Tinder, and none will consider asking anyone out who isn’t at least above average in their looks. And most complain about “not being able to get above an 8” (that’s an 8 on a 1-10 scale where 10 is someone who looks like a model. Sheesh. Maybe they should all purchase inflatable Barbie dolls
with a bit of AI installed?Honestly, it’s enough to make me wish I was a lesbian but unfortunately I got the straight wiring.
If I'm being totally honest, there are biological females that I don't (intuitively, instinctively?) think of as "women" in the sense that you mean. It's totally related to some level of attraction. Women significantly older or younger than me also fall into this category.
Unfortunately for most incels, women tend to be their most attractive at the time when many young men are struggling to find themselves. Mid-teens to mid-twenties. They probably aren't noticing that there are also women who are having the same problems, because they aren't interested in those women and may not even notice them in a sexual way.
Telling them to just start finding ugly women attractive isn't going to work, any more than telling women to find incels attractive is.
I realized I actually did that when I finally started dating in my late twenties, on the apps; after the initial time wasted composing messages to attractive people (this was early OKCupid), I unconsciously lowered my standards to the point where I was able to find partners. The irony is I've had quite a few partners (body count 15 last time I checked?), and never actually done it with someone I'm attracted to!
It does weird things to you, for example simply not liking sex because you're not attracted to the person you're with, and you're used to that, so sex becomes kind of a thing you put up with to keep a relationship going. An odd inversion of the usual gender roles.
Not really something I'd recommend, though many may not have other options.
I'll sat this much, I've met women in real women who are definitely below average in looks complain about getting too much male attention. The only men I've ever heard complain are literal celebrities.
Transitioning isn't only about love and sex, it's also about feeling comfortable in life. Some people just stably feel better having an emotional balance which is related to changing their hormones.
I'm comfortable being female, but if I were as uncomfortable as I'm comfortable, I would be miserable. I have no idea what's going with some people having such a bad fit between their consciousness and their body, but I'd say there's sufficient evidence that it's a real thing.
As for watching or not watching the video, I hope some people do. It's an emotionally rough ride though.
Does anyone have a link to a meme image of Connor Leahy on one of his CNN interviews, photoshopped to have him holding up a sign saying "the end is nigh" with the scene subtitle edited to say something like "crazy homeless man somehow the only sane person in the room"? I feel like I've seen it here or on one of Zvi's blog posts or something, but now can't find it even after extensive googling...
I was thinking today about the purposes of learning. I had in mind mostly informal learning, but all learning qualifies. Learning serves these purposes:
1) career and economic growth
2) social and status growth
3) sheer infovore pleasure
4) the ability to deconstruct your culture, your received wisdom, your own biases and habits, and question them
4) is most interesting to me. It's the reason I believe novels are one of the best sources of "received wisdom questioned intelligently".
I'll never know everything, but the more I know the more the society recedes from its current state into all the states of possibilities it could have. This gives me pleasure, just knowing that so much else was possible. I only half-care what reality "is", because I mostly live in my imagination.
Going with 4, the main difference between a well-learned and a non-learned person is knowing what is arbitrary and is not, what is fashion and not, what is a choice and not. Looking at a building and understanding the architectural influences and choices. Understanding economically why that building is there. Knowing why you wear the clothes you do or don't. Understanding why this music sounds like this and like that and like that and like this. Understanding why you use the words you do when you do.
These things may seem superficial but for me they are the spice of life. It is my primary incentive to learn more, because I want to see life from ever more perspectives, to understand more of it.
I think "learning" is framed and promoted too much as for careerist or utilitarian reasons. Learning is way more valuable than that.
Way back when I was much younger in grad. school (physics) we'd sit around and shoot the shit late at night, and talk about (learning/ study) as making a better model of the universe for yourself. And you are continuing to find errors in your model, and hopefully those decrease with time. But then again we can all have f'ed up models, so you never know if you are making progress.
I think the world would be a much better place if 95% of the population did a whole lot less questioning of their culture, received wisdom, and their own biases and habits. Culture is better off if most people just go along with it, and leave the questioning to well-disciplined experts.
The problem is that, other than smart people capable of self-directed learning, I don't think there's a way to reliably 'teach' no. 4 at scale. Many ostensible attempts at teaching for this today almost certainly have a negative impact in this regard, especially since things that are portrayed as about being about 'deconstructing the received wisdom' are actually reinforcing the current received, institutionally dominating wisdom and are actually attacking ideas that have not been dominant for many decades. Efforts at 'deconstructing biases' are actually imbuing people with bias. 'Biased' is one in an endless line of words that has been appropriated and implicitly redefined as 'not progressive' - being 'unbiased' on race means assuming any explanation for racial differences that isn't 'racism' is not only wrong but malicious.
Some of the things I learn are useful to me, in various ways. They can be useful directly, in the sense that I learn to do X, and then I do X. They can be useful indirectly, by helping me create a better model of the world, which will allow me to make better decisions. (For example, I don't spend money on homeopathic treatments, because I understand the atomic theory.) They can also be used counterfactually, by providing me more options to choose from, even if I end up not choosing that specific option.
Some things could be called "mental tools". For example math can be applied to thousand different situations. Even the more specialized knowledge, such as knowing about the planning fallacy, can be helpful in many ways. To know such things is to be stronger in some sense.
> I think "learning" is framed and promoted too much as for careerist or utilitarian reasons. Learning is way more valuable than that.
We probably don't have a substantial disagreement, but I would say that "utilitarian" is quite okay, it's just that people understand that word too narrowly.
I've talked to several mothers recently and they all, entirely separately, came out with "why are we teaching X, they should be learning how to read a paycheck, that's much more useful."
Privately, I very much disagree. But I had no idea how you even start against a mindset like that, so in most cases I just sat there quietly.
The trade-off is short-term benefit vs long-term benefit. Practical skills like reading a paycheck have immediate relevance. Abstract skills like math or historiography have broader relevance. The metaphor I use in my headcanon is "distance from the fruit, on the tree of knowledge".
I agree with Peter's comment, insofar as these sorts of complaints often come from a sense of "kids these days lack basic life skills". I some theories about why, but they're low-confidence.
The parents should be teaching them about taxes and pay checks and how to open a bank account and all the rest of it. School is for education, not babysitting and abrogating all the child-raising to the teachers.
I'm steelmanning this argument, but I would say it's a result of society's error-correction mechanism, analogous to how your cells prevent DNA from being miscopied.
If you learn how to change a tire or bake a cake off Youtube, you'll know pretty promptly if you've screwed up the instructions. But if you let Youtube teach you how democracy works or why the sky is blue you could easily end up with subtle and hard-to-correct misconceptions. That's why we leave the intellectual/cultural topics for trained professionals to teach even though they're less immediately useful.
I'd steelman it a bit differently, I would read it as a complaint that when they left school for work that there were a whole bunch of basic life skills things that they didn't know and wished they had been taught in school. It is fair enough to say that it is the parents' job to teach these things, but no parent teaches them all, and some leave their kids fairly clueless. Even though I haven't had a home-ec class since grade six, I have several times been glad as an adult to have been taught things in school that I should have learned from my mother.
Tell them that if all the kid can do is read a paycheck they don’t need to bother learning to read paychecks because they’re unlikely to be getting one.
I would add that learning a foreign language, you open a door to their culture, their books, their music, their comedy, their memes; thus you learn a little bit about how other people think differently, and you might be very surprised. Even if it's not such an exotic language, like Dutch or so.
The reason the two-state solution hasn't worked is because Palestinians and relevant Arab nations consider the "right to return" to the land that Israel currently occupies paramount. About 5 million Palestinian "refugees" (scare quotes for a reason) want to return to Israel. These "refugees" are mostly the descendants of refugees who left, intentionally or by force, the land currently occupied by Israel in 1948.
In the mind of the American public, the two-state solution means that Israel, America and other Western powers simply recognize Palestine as a nation-state. For Palestinians and relevant Arab nations, it means that Israel, America and other Western powers recognize Palestine as a nation-state and that 5 million Palestinians, many of whom are currently in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and other Arab states, be allowed to return to Israel, making the population of Israel about 50/50 Jewish/Arab.
When Zionists say the Palestinians won't accept Israel as a Jewish state, what they more or less mean is that Palestinians don't accept the nation of Israel without the right of return, because such right would result in a state that isn't dominantly Jewish.
Most Arab nations which currently house the descendants of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war do not give those Palestinians citizenship rights even though their families may have been in those countries for 3 generations.
Everything above is what I understand the facts to be. Correct me if I am wrong.
One opinion point, though: Why aren't Arab nations like Jordan who don't allow Palestinians living within their borders to have citizenship and equal rights considered to have an "Apartheid regime" by those who think Israel has one?
That's one of the big sticking points against a two-state solution, but there are others.
Israel has long-term strategic concerns about their neighbors trying to invade them again, and the Jordan River is a much more defensible international border than the Green Line or something like it, both because it's a river instead of an arbitrary line on a map, and because of strategic depth. The Green Line is less than 9 miles from the sea and even closer to the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Which isn't far at all in terms of mechanized warfare, is within tube artillery range, and doesn't leave much of an engagement window for defending against surprise peacetime airstrikes. Israel has had a formal peace treaty and mostly-amicable diplomatic relations with Jordan since 1994, but neither side completely trusts the other, and Israel certainly doesn't trust a fully independent West Bank Palestinian state. So Israel's offered two-state-solution borders have always included keeping a bunch of territory on the shore of the Jordan River, military corridors connecting that territory to Israel proper, and substantial buffer zones around Tel Aviv.
Another problem is that a proposed Palestinian state would be discontinuous, both because of the separation of the West Bank and Gaza and because the aforementioned military corridors carve up the West Bank into a bunch of little pieces. Getting Israel to give up the corridors is a hard sell, and granting a Palestinian state a corridor through Negev is an even harder one.
Jerusalem is another big sticking point, as it's claimed by both sides for both demographic and historical/religious reasons.
Then there's the issue of the settlements. Israel has heavily colonized the parts of the West Bank it wants to keep, in order to reinforce its strategic claims with demographic ones. The settlements also serve to nail Israel's colors to their mast, as withdrawing to the Green Line border would mean either forcibly relocating almost half a million Israeli citizens or leaving them as a minority population of a Palestinian state. Historically, Israel has forced the evacuation of settlements in Sinai and Gaza, but those settlements had a total population of a few thousand, not hundreds of thousands.
My understanding is that Jordan, at least, *does* give 1948 war refugees citizenship. The noncitizen Palestinians (some 600,000, according to Wikipedia) are later refugees.
I do blame the holocaust in part on the US refusing to take in Jewish refugees, since if the US had been willing fewer Jews would have died. I don't think that view is all that unusual.
I blame the US for not taking in refugees, but the almost all of the holocaust would have happened anyway. How many would have made it to the US? Perhaps some more countries would have accepted refugees if the US had set an example.
> why blame Arab countries for not taking in Palestinian refugees when those refugees used to live in Israel and were kicked out by Israel?
Ah, gee, I don't know, maybe because these states spend huge chunks of their energy complaining about Israel and would literally be willing to go to war with Israel over this issue if they thought they had a reasonable chance of succeeding? Because the arab diaspora and their left wing allies are furious over the plight of palestinains and about 'israeli aparheid' while thinking that palestinians aren't entitled to equality in arab countries (or thinking they are but never ever criticizing arab states for their treatment of palestinians)?
The US did not go to war over the holocaust, and even when the average non-jewish american learned about the holocaust this didn't prompt the visceral reaction that arabs/muslims around the world have over israel, and efforts were made to conceal the extent of the holocaust in the US until after the war because it was believed that this would actually hurt support for the war.
And these same arabs/muslims would be furiously angry if western european countries all refused to giver citizenship to arabs or muslims who had been in the countries for 3 generations etc.
It's fine to be opposed to giving palestinians unrestricted immigration to your country and to giving them citizenship. What's not fine is when you turn around and screech about "apartheid" when other countries do the same thing.
If even other arab muslims don't want these people in their countries, why the hell would israel want them?
I think one of the recent book reviews pointed out that the "final solution" was something like the 2.5th "solution" that the Nazis tried. The first solution was to find some other country that would take all the German Jews, but no country would.
If Israel had existed then, there might have been no Holocaust, just a massive displacement.
But most of Nazi Germany's victims were not German Jews but Polish and Soviet ones, and many Jews who did leave Germany (such as, famously, Anne Frank) left for elsewhere in Europe and wound up dying when Nazi Germany took over their new country.
The world's refusal to accept Jewish refugees was disgraceful and cost plenty of lives, don't get me wrong, but...
Who knows. But I think there's a reasonable chance that if Germany already had a policy of "stick them on trains to Istanbul" (or whatever), they would have kept doing it with Jews from all the places they conquered.
Your thinking seems kinda wishful. The "final solution" was sought after WWII started and went form Blitzkrieg to Stalingrad. As kinda "revenge" on the the "Weltjudentum" for "manipulating" the west. While before, they sometimes had been thought of as "hostages". And more confused "thinking". In the end there was not that much though lost on them, there was a war to be fought. Sending Polish Jews by freight-trains to Auschwitz et al. to die/work to death was just much less hassle than organising a tour to ... "Istanbul"(?) - well, actually Madagascar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
Would they have done an airlift to rescue some million mostly poor Jews from Poland/Russia/Ukraine?! Nope. Sadly. And who would blame them? Well, Nancy and me - but I also blame NATO for not putting up a no flight zone in Ukraine.
As I recall, Madagascar was the 2nd solution, but was only a half-baked idea that never got off the ground, which is why I called extermination the 2.5th solution.
I was talking more about the 1st solution, deportation, using Istanbul as a neutral city that would be on the way to the Middle East, on the counter-factual assumption that some sort of state of Israel existed at the time.
Why? Why is the US responsible for people on the other side of the globe, above and beyond fighting and dying in a war against the people oppressing them?
Absolutely critical period of US history. For anyone less familiar, cabinet battles over refugees are discussed by Morgenthau-biographer Andrew Meier here:
That's fascinating, thanks! There seemed like an almost Trumpian level of dysfunction in FDR's various departments, which I hadn't expected. Perhaps all FDR's attention was on the war itself? Or maybe this is just normal, and Obama was unusual...
How polite are you to ChatGPT when you use it? Whenever I'm speaking to it I find my self saying "Please" when I ask a question and I almost always end my threads with a "Thank you" of some kind.
Not at all. I give it orders as one would a slave with the hope being that will help it be more terse.
I think this actually helps you use it better. It's kind of hard to keep in mind that is ISNT a person so you can approach the interaction much differently. It's more like an extension of my will than a seperate agentic thing
I'm quite polite to it, probably out of some combination of habit and reciprocity. Whether it's a category error or not (as another commenter mentioned) is irrelevant. I wonder if this is a culturally ingrained thing.
When I use it (generally to see if the latest one is just as useless to me as its predecessors) it's a tool, and politeness to it is a category error. I am no more "polite" to a chatbot than I am to a pencil. I use it in accordance with its nature.
I tend to be generally polite. Yes, it is a program, but it is set up to act as if it were a conversational partner, and I'd prefer to stay in the habit of generally being polite to conversational partners.
I am always polite. Maybe it's just superstition, but I think that in the online debates politeness correlates positively with intelligence and truth (yes, there are always exceptions, but I think the correlation is this way rather than the other way round), and I would like to receive intelligent and true answers.
Me too, and I use it a lot. I think there's a chance the output is better if you're "nice" to it given what (little) we know about how it works and its training data which of course includes many human interactions. I also find myself explaining why I'm asking it to do something rather than doing it myself. I honestly feel that I've noticed better output when I say "please do this because you're better and faster at it than me, and in doing so, you'll help me focus my energy on x", versus when I say "do this". My custom instructions now include this!
I've long thought that being polite might give better answers as well. I finally did the obvious thing and asked ChatGPT if it did so. It's response was:
"No, my responses do not improve based on the politeness of the question. I don't have feelings, so I don't get offended or pleased by user interactions, and thus, these factors do not affect my performance or the information I provide.
However, clear and specific questions often help in generating more accurate and relevant responses. It helps me understand the context better and what exactly you're looking for in an answer. But this is about the clarity and detail of the communication, not the politeness."
Keeping in mind it does not have introspective capabilities like that. It’s comparable to me making a statement about neuroscience. I don’t know anything about neuroscience.
Of course, all the justifications about performance and the model's structures aside, at the end of the day I'm nice to it because I try to view most interactions not as between me and the other party, but between me and God. I think it's akin to lovingly polishing your tools. You kind of do it because it's good for performance, maybe, but mostly because that's what a craftsman does and you are a craftsman.
It's interesting how people never consider the origin of these impossible objects in these kinds of thought experiments. But this is a mistake. Such a lookup table would carry information on some arbitrarily large number of potential conversations. We don't get such an object for free. If it could exist, we have to account for the process that constructed it. We can imagine the mind of God playing out some infinite number of conversations and then recording them in the lookup table. But then we've just pushed the question back a step: must the mind of God playing out these conversations simulate the minds engaged in the conversation? The lookup table in this case is just a weird communications device and irrelevant to the philosophical issues.
The key words are "sufficiently complex." For a long conversation that covers any subject a person could talk about, the lookup table simulating the mind you're talking to is going to be bigger than can fit into any existing computer.
Let's suppose our AI is capable of saying every possible 10-word sentence in English along some branch in its conversation tree. This might seem like a high bar, but it's really not - imagine you're asking the AI something like "I want to test your memory, so please repeat the following words..."
Using a dictionary of 20,000 words (again, really not that big), the AI needs to have 20000^10 sentences in its lookup table, or 10^43. For comparison, Earth has about 10^50 atoms in it. In other words, if the AI you're talking to is capable of repeating arbitrarily chosen sequences of random words, and it's not using most of a planet as a data center, then it's probably not *literally* a lookup table.
EDIT: Okay, I read the linked article in more detail. Quintin is using "lookup table" a bit more abstractly - he's saying that our current style of AI is basically pulling stuff from a hyper-compressed "lookup table" of its training data, meaning that aligning an AI is mostly about making sure that it has good data to generalize from. And I think that's significantly different from Zvi using it to mean "a table that potentially stores every possible conversation tree for a given mind, including the conversation where the superintelligent AI talks its way out of the box and kills us."
All known physical laws could be described as "hyper-compressed lookup tables of experimental observations" (and some philosophers have described them so). This is not a helpful way to understand them. On the other hand, whatever the future may bring, "blurry jpeg of the Internet" has ChatGPT's conversational abilities down to a T.
I tend to think that "hyper-compressed" matters a lot. One can view the progress of science as the ability to describe more and more observations with as few axioms as possible. E.g. compressing all observations of electrical and magnetic phenomena down to Maxwell's equations. I see this as either nearly equivalent to understanding or completely equivalent.
1) Knowing the answer doesn't mean you can determine the answer in a similar situation. It's better to know how 2+2=4 works than to memorize it. This becomes more obvious the larger the set of knowledge.
2) A lookup table doesn't know if the answer is right or wrong, and has no means to determine that. It also lacks any kind of desire to know correct information or make corrections.
3) A lookup table does not have new knowledge. Just like ChatGPT will tell you that it doesn't know recent events, the lookup table will lack whole swaths of knowledge and crucially related to #1 above, lacks the tools to derive this new knowledge based on limited information.
4) If and when adding information to the table, without a sufficient understanding of how those pieces of information interact, it cannot properly sort and identify when something is truly related to something else. The number of people who die in Gaza is essentially the same as the number of tires on a car - information about numbers. If it doesn't know why some thing might be connected, and it cannot determine when the information is relevant.
For purposes of this discussion, would a dynamic look-up table count as a look-up table?
For what I hope is a politically neutral example, if someone is interested in science, a lookup table simulating them would have added the existence of exoplanets rather recently.
I guess it would be closer, but then you are eliding the question of "how does more information get added to the table?"
If an external force always updated the table whenever new information existed, that would help it simulate a mind (absent learning), but doesn't really tell us more about any possible real system. I might argue that it's the external force that's the mind, and the simulation is fully artificial and shallow.
This. The problem with mind qua lookup table is that it doesn't make the connections. It's not enough to update the response to "is Pluto a planet?" to "no", but you also have to update "how many planets are there in our solar system?" to "eight", and you actually need to make millions of updates to various conversations referring to Pluto or planets or the significance of numbers eight and nine, etc.
So the thing that does the updates needs to be... not a lookup table. Otherwise it itself would need to contain zillions of instructions like "if you learn that Pluto is not a planet, update this and this and this and this...", for all possible things it could ever learn (also depending on the order they were learned).
I would expect compression to make a big difference. If the training process tries to squeeze as much predictive ability into as small a set of neural weights as possible, then that process will try to have "is Pluto a planet?" and "How many planets are there in our solar system" give consistent answers.
Well, yes, a lookup table *plus something* can work much better than a lookup table alone.
Compression is related to intelligence. Generalization is compression of information. Compression algorithms are based on assumptions about the data (you can't compress random noise).
Does this lookup table have the answer for the 17th digit of pi? 762-767 digits? Where one can find a sequence of eleven prime numbers in a row?
I think a mind is more complex than a lookup table, no matter how extensive. An infinite amount of possibilities exist in reality, and a mind determines which ones to explore, and are useful.
A Turing Machine, in the original sense, is a complex lookup table plus unbounded memory. Since a Turing Machine is by definition Turing-complete, then unless you want "a mind" to have some spiritual dimension the claim must be true.
A Turing machine is strictly more powerful than a lookup table. In the context of the question of sufficient computational power needed to simulate a mind, citing a Turing machine is answering No to the OP.
You can probably get more by reading the article, but the argument is basically that a computer could take a series of Chinese characters as input and after some processing according to its rules, output another series of Chinese characters. But at no point does the computer understand Chinese or the meaning of the characters it is processing. It is simply following rules.
Does it change anything if true? "Sufficiently complex" can be _really_ complex, "inefficiently" can be _really_ inefficiently, and creating it is probably harder than just making an equally productive AI in some other way. And if you can make this lookup table, you can probably make a modified lookup table that removes the risk factors.
(It's also unclear whether this produces consciousness, but that's not really important for a risk argument.)
That was always the problem with the Turing test. An infinite lookup table with all the answers could simulate a human. Modern LLMs largely pass the Turing tests (some quirks aside), even on getting things wrong. They are not conscious.
> To me, an optimizer is a thing that optimizes. If the way it does that is a giant lookup table, then ask about what that giant lookup table is optimizing and how effective it is at that, including in iterating the lookup table. There is no reason to think a giant lookup table can’t functionally be all the same dangerous things we were previously worried about. Unless I am missing something, a sufficiently complex lookup table can simulate any possible mind, if inefficiently.
No current tool at all can simulate a given mind, efficiently or otherwise. The idea they can be simulated whatsoever has yet to be shown.
Without reading back; close your eyes and guess. How many 's's were there in the first paragraph? Now, if you think back on it tomorrow, do you think your guess will be the same? And how complex does your lookup table have to be to accurately predict those 's's guesses?
How long was the pause between me writing "guesses" and adding "'s's" in front? How does the lookup table deal with that?
I don't think Feynman's ability to pass your test influences his ability to contribute to the atomic bomb, which is the type of claim under consideration in zvi's original post.
Maybe it is impossible for a lookup table to duplicate behavior, but it's irrelevant to the point Zvi is countering, which is that it doesn't matter if optimization happens because of a lookup table or is computed, or is done using a combination of caching and computation, what matters is that the output, when acted on, changes the world and not if a lookup was involved.
The subject is being discussed at *all* because of its relevance to what I've pointed out. What you're saying is indeed relevant, but it's a useless answer, in the context of the original question.
I mean, the question posed I don't think is even interesting in its own terms? You could populate the lookup table literally by polling a bunch of people with that message+question pair and see what the distribution is, then obviously turn that into a lookup table. If you think the answer is too "deterministic" because of its lookup table nature, we can just add additional parameters to the lookup until it appears non deterministic to us, or, equivalently, just add some randomness to the lookup, why wouldn't this satisfy your requirements, yet still be a lookup table?
The subject is being discussed because Muster the Squirrels quoted, and asked for arguments about, that one particular line from the article. It is the only line from the article that was quoted.
>why wouldn't this satisfy your requirements, yet still be a lookup table?<
Because it wouldn't get the same answer as the mind it's supposed to be simulating. If it can't simulate a specific mind, it can't simulate "any possible mind."
Why can't the lookup table generation mechanism be localized to just one person? Or hell, literally rerun the same mind with a bunch of permutations on that question until you get high accuracy on that exact one question? (Probably this ends up being a pretty small lookup table, humans are really bad at generating random numbers, may have to add extra lookups in case if actions change if the mind in question purposefully changes their behavior under observation, but the Earth is round and so are Human skulls, so we eventually reach a fix point when the mind can no longer track how many levels of recursion it is on). I imagine this is the type of inefficient simulation of a mind that the zvi has.
Or to put it more simply, is doing multiplication or addition in binary then converting to base 10, somehow more "real" multiplication than memorizing the times table? My intuition says all functions that output the correct numbers are equally good at being a multiplication function, and the trade off between lookups and "actual computation" is an irrelevant detail. If you presume that turing machines can also simulate human minds, this is already sufficient to answer the question. And even if you don't get to that, you're going to have to answer why *even physically unrealizeable* lookup tables cannot be generated.
And if you claim that physical realization should be a requirement for essentially mathematical claims, do you also bite the bullet that sufficiently big numbers, that cannot be represented in the universe also don't exist? Like say, the busy beaver number for a turning machine with a million states.
The evidence against it is that a "sufficiently complex" lookup table cannot fit in the entire observable universe, even if every atom is used to encode it.
It can be proven mathematically I think, so idea of "evidence against it" doesn't really make sense. You could argue against the underlying assumption of physicalism, or argue that though it's theoretically true (given an infinite lookup table), it's irrelevant in practice.
When you ask a human twice "tell me a number you haven't told me before", you will get two different answers. How does this work for a lookup table?
You would have to provide the *entire history* of the conversation (and anything relevant to it, for example whether the lights in the room have flickered, because someone could mention that) as a key to the lookup table, in which case...
...it is trivially true that whatever conversation happens between humans, you can afterwards create a lookup table with the corresponding entries matching the conversation, and thus in some sense this lookup table has already existed somewhere in the Platonic universe -- but good luck finding it *before* the conversation happened!
I think you understand that correctly. If you have an infinite (or arbitrarily large) lookup table, you also have to accept arbitrarily large inputs as indexes into that lookup table. Clearly there's no way to access more than ~4 billion entries if your input is only 4 bytes. The entire history plus the current input would be fed in as input.
Sure it's trivially true. Zvi made a trivially true point in response to someone else arguing about parameterized functions vs lookup tables in AI. Then someone here asked if Zvi's statement was correct. His statement may be uninteresting and may not be a solid rebuttal, but it was correct.
No, my point is that the burden of proof is on the assertion that "a sufficiently complex lookup table can simulate any possible mind", and that it should not automatically be assumed true. It may seem likely that a lookup table can simulate a mind, but no proof is offered. Therefore, the default ought to be, at the very least, skepticism.
The Turing test is a subjective test, and so cannot be proven with the rigor of most things that have proofs.
Of course, the second law of thermodynamics can be wrong, but gets more and more accurate with a larger volume and more time. It IS possible for entropy to decrease momentarily, though it is fantastically unlikely. It may be the same with a Turing test.
Okay, but it is proven, just like that there are infinite primes or like the Poincaré conjecture. It's not my proof. I can't walk you through it any more than I could walk you through the proof of the Poincaré conjecture. But it's not something that's up for debate.
There's some context from the post that maybe you're missing. It's not saying a lookup table causes consciousness or qualia. Just that a program takes input and its current state and looks up its next state in an infinite lookup table is Turing complete.
This is actually proven? The article makes no mention of it, and I have my doubts. What exactly was proven? That the recursive lookup table can simulate any mind, or that the recursive lookup table is Turing-complete? The former can't be proven without a useful definition of a mind, and as far as I know we don't yet have one. The latter is trivial to prove.
This comment shouldn't have been made, but it does highlight something important. When there was in fact celebration over the attack on israel by hamas both in palestine and around the world, I found it extremely puzzling, because it seemed inevitable that the outcome of such an attack would be thousands of Gazan civilians dying in the following weeks and months. The only thing that makes sense was that hamas did this to provoke a war with israel which would drag in iran, lebanon and maybe others, something with the potential to really rock israel. Celebrating at this initial provocation of israel seemed insane when the slaughter of palestian citizens was obviously about to follow and the only thing to celebrate would have been if/when a multi-front war with israel actually accomplished something material.
I think I'm glad I have no idea what this is about, because by the sound of it, whatever happened was bad and this reaction is just as bad and I don't need to incorporate more rage into my life right now.
"I don't need to incorporate more rage into my life right now" I sympathize. I've read suggestions that, for most people, following the news is a net negative in their lives. I do suggest that, unless you have a personal stake in the middle east, you might indeed want to avoid coverage of it. Best wishes.
Is it allowable to report a comment for being unworthy if a Twitter troll?
If there's a serious point here could you perhaps rephrase this so it doesn't come across as crass and offensive. Note this comes from someone who believes Hamas must be destroyed: it's possible to hold a clear belief without expressing it like this.
Scott's rule is that comments are unacceptable if they don't meet at least 2 of the following criteria: They're true, necessary (i.e. their content advances the discussion) and kind. This comment isn't even substantive, so it's neither true nor necessary, and it's very mean-spirited.
Necessary and kind are subjective to the point of being meaningless, and whether or not something is 'true' is what most debates are about in the first place.
This is an astoundingly ideologically homogenous comment section. I think most people here will agree to a pretty high degree of overlap on what kindness and necessity are.
It seems rather unsubjective (or inter-subjective) that the thread starter comment is - to understate matters - not kind, as evidenced by most commenters' disgust over it.
True just means non-controversial and agreed upon by lots of sources the people in the forum or whatever discursive space you're arguing in. It doesn't apply to non-factual claims though, which the classy thread starter is indeed not.
Necessary is the fuzziest of all three, but as a first approximation it can be interpreted as "Benefits someone in the discussion other than the sayer, or adds to their awareness in any way". This is still very fuzzy because people often don't know what's best for them, but if lots of people immediate reaction to your 2-liner comment is "Ewww", I would say that's a very strong evidence it's not "Necessary". After all, it's just a 2 liner comment, if there was anything there other than "Ewwww", people would have found it.
I'm actually against reporting the thread starter, for 2 reasons :
1- Free Speech means nothing if we can't handle vile disgusting things, up to and including written/animated erotica about 1 year old children and celebration of death. None of those things concretely harm anyone, and our tolerance of it is the necessary tax we should gladly pay so that when someone (usually 1 in a 1000) does in fact have something true (and not necessarily necessary) to say, they aren't discouraged by the backlash or silencing they will expect to get.
2- In the particular special case of this forum, most people here are not fundamentally evil. The thread starter is a necessary glimpse for them on some of the viewpoints that thrive in Pro-Israeli circles. Just 2 open threads ago I said the thread starter's viewpoint is extremly common on YouTube and some Twitter, and lots of the responses were either Skeptical or Dismissive ("No that doesn't happen/they're bots/they're trolls", vs. "Yes, And ?"). The thread starter is a necessary reminder that those viewpoints are everywhere. And the best thing is that it's unprompted and unprovoked, completely natural, to assuage any accusations that the other side might have said something to deserve it.
>It seems rather unsubjective (or inter-subjective) that the thread starter comment is - to understate matters - not kind, as evidenced by most commenters' disgust over it.
Irrelevant - I'm talking about the principle generally. People think claiming that races vary in intelligence is "unkind", which demonstrates why it's a bullshit principle.
>True just means non-controversial and agreed upon by lots of sources the people in the forum or whatever discursive space you're arguing in.
Okay, so we're only ever talking about things that are widely agreed upon?
>"Benefits someone in the discussion other than the sayer, or adds to their awareness in any way"
Okay, plenty of people here think that talking about racial differences in intelligence is never necessary, showing that it's another bullshit principle.
In the except I quoted here in the responses to OP, Scott expands on what “true” and “necessary” mean. (It’s already clear what “kind” means.). “True” means obviously true or something you believe is true, and if it’s non-obvious and many will disagree. you need to explain why you think it’s true. “Necessary” means it advances the discussion.
Regarding your objections to reporting comments on ACX:
1) You say that reporting comments means we do not have free speech here. That’s true, we don’t, but nobody ever said we did. The guidelines in practice mostly block unsupported nonsense and various forms of verbal aggression (cruelty, rudeness, insults). I think that blocking those things allows us to have a freer and richer discussions because topics don’t get yanked off course by random injections of irrelevant nonsense, or blocked by personal attacks on people posting certain views. During Covid I was on the Reddit sub for covid issues in my state, and it was extremely hard to have a productive discussion. Because there were no rules against untrue (and unsupported) assertions and against personal attacks, attempts to transmit information were usually buried under a mountain of unsupported counter-theories and sarcastic mockery of OP. Freedom of speech greatly suppressed effective transmission of one’s views. I’m for free speech in the country as a whole, but in settings where people are conversing with a purpose I think there should be rules against kinds of speech the interfere with the kind of conversing people are there to do.
As for the examples give you give of things we should be able to talk about here: I’m not sure what you mean by celebration of death, but I certainly don’t think anyone would report someone’s post questioning whether our species deserves extinction, given how destructive we are, or some’s post asking whether anyone here feels there’s something appealing about death. When it comes to your other example, written erotica about one year old children — well, a post containing nothing but erotica would be seen as weird and pointless here even if it were about sex between 2 adults. In fact a post containing nothing but an excerpt from a piece if fiction, even if there were no erotic activity described, would be seen as inappropriate because it is not a way of launching or continuing a discussion. But if someone had a point to make or a question to ask about sexual abuse of toddlers nobody here would object to the topic. For instance, somebody might ask what’s known about pedophiles who are attracted to toddlers and not older children, or somebody might ask what forms of abuse are usually practiced on babies and small children. I think some people might find the subject disturbing enough that they’d choose to skip the thread, but no one would suggest banning it. So we have a place here where very sensitive subjects can be discussed. That’s pretty good.
Elsewhere in this same bit of the thread responding to the “hahaha” comment I quote Scott’s detailed explanation of the criteria, which clarifies some things. Lots of us have discussed them on here, including what you raise about all 3 criteria being judgment calls. I’m satisfied that they’re clear enough to be useful.
If it's reportable (or more accurately, sanctionable) then I hope the ones in the second-to-last open thread, saying everything Hamas has done is right because it's "their land", are too. From the perspective of being sensitive to "other people's suffering", applying consistent standards to the celebration of such suffering seems particularly important.
I couldn't even stand to read a lot of that stuff. But if people were making substantive points and backing them up with reasons they believed what they did their comments were at least attempts to advance the argument. And if they were civil in how they expressed their ideas (so no "hahaha") I'd say those were legit comments, however painful to read by some others.
I guess I don't share the impression here that this comment is not substantive. It seems clear to me what it's saying, which could be rephrased as "hey, remember all the crowds celebrating Israeli deaths? Guess it's not so funny when your own people are dying is it? How'd you like it if I laughed now? You wouldn't, you sadistic sociopathic scum!"
The "hahahaha" comes off as sarcastic to me. Moreover, my paraphrase fits your above criteria I think, unless you think "sadistic sociopathic scum" isn't an accurate (or indeed, enormously understated) description of the people in those marches.
Here are Scott’s criteria for acceptable comments in his own words. “ If you make a comment here, it had better be either true and necessary, true and kind, or kind and necessary.
Recognizing that nobody can be totally sure what is or isn’t true, if you want to say something that might not be true – anything controversial, speculative, or highly opinionated – then you had better make sure it is both kind and necessary. Kind, in that you don’t rush to insult people who disagree with you. Necessary in that it’s on topic, and not only contributes something to the discussion but contributes more to the discussion than it’s likely to take away through starting a fight.
Nobody can be kind all the time, but if you are going to be angry or sarcastic, what you say had better be both true and necessary. You had better be delivering a very well-deserved smackdown against someone who is uncontroversially and obviously wrong, in a way you can back up with universally agreed-upon statistics. I feel like I tried this here and though a lot of people disagreed with my tone, not one person accused me of getting the math wrong. That’s the standard I’m holding commenters to as well. And it had better be necessary, in that you are quashing a false opinion which is doing real damage and which is so persistent that you don’t think any more measured refutation would be effective.
Annnnnnd sometimes you might want to share something that’s not especially relevant, not the most important thing in the world – but if you do that it had better be both true and kind. No random interjection of toxic opinions that are going to cause World War III. No unprovoked attacks.”
I leave it to you to make your own decision about whether the comment I reported or the ones in the earlier thread you found offensive meet Scott’s criteria for acceptable comments. If you think they do not they by all means report them.
You know, “remember all the crowds celebrating Israeli deaths? Guess it's not so funny when your own people are dying is it?” - the way you worded it - sounds angry but totally acceptable to me. Angry is fine, warranted in this case. But there’s something really different and disgusting in the tone of the original. Probably the hahaha bit cinches it.
There’s a difference, I think. “Hamas did nothing wrong” is an abhorrent position, but compare it with “Hamas did great, look at all these Jewish tears, hahaha” - makes it ten times worse. Humans respond to emotions, and giddy happiness about others’ suffering is disgusting.
The statements within quotation marks are examples only and do not reflect in any way this commenter’s views on the matter.
Giddy happiness about others' suffering is exactly what's been expressed all over the world by pro-Palestinian people. Those people were highly numerous, unprovoked, and unspeakably evil. Here we have a single person, commenting *in response* to those masses, and you're saying that's beyond the pale?
Maybe if the former faced some actual consequences for their sadism, I might agree.
If expressing giddy happiness about someone's suffering is evil if done by a group, why would it be OK if done by an individual?
Or, to put it another way: Verbally dancing and gloating about the suffering of people who have done something evil is wrong for the same reason as it would have been wrong to drag bin Laden's body through American streets by a rope until there was nothing left but the rope.
I can’t right all wrongs. I can’t go after every sociopath in the world. I can’t help all suffering people. I can’t pull all weeds, but I can try to keep my garden tended.
I have trained with some pretty badass ex-military guys… none of them would ever be like this. It’s almost like the ones who are safely couch-surfing are the most obnoxious in their bloodthirstiness.
I tried to write up a simple summary of heuristic/intuitive reasoning vs. explicit/algorithmic reasoning and how it applies to human and machine learning. Nothing groundbreaking, just a high-level summary of what most ACX readers will already be familiar with. I'd be interested in getting some feedback on it.
Have seen a lot of comments from people online questioning the authenticity of the crimes reported on October 7th.
Someone did a deep dive on most of the videos and pictures uploaded to X (Twitter) to see what was likely true or false- it also speculates on the fate of Shani Louk (the girl who's body was apparently seen in the back of a truck with two broken legs). Have a look and see what you think!
It does not discuss the allegation of beheaded babies, which seems to be a point of contention. The original claim, that around 40 babies were killed in a kibbutz and that some of them were beheaded- has not explicitly been verified. That said, it does appear that some babies were beheaded, though it is not clear whether they were from the kibbutz being discussed at the time, nor whether the beheading was after death or not:
My first reaction is that this google doc is a valuable addition to the documentation surrounding the war. Despite the obvious biased stance it takes in the first few lines, not noticing the irony of justifying civilian deaths with civilian deaths, bias doesn't mean false. It fact, it might be a good thing for this to be an adversarial collab, where openly biased people from both sides take turns to collect evidence and to poke reasonable holes in the other "teams"'s evidence.
A very obvious red flag about this is its direct linking to X for the evidence collected. X requires an account and treats non-account viewers as second class, removes material without notice and without recourse, is paternalistic ("This image is sensitive content" without even giving me the choice to see it anyway), and might vanish or have a catastrophic data loss at any time. I wouldn't trust any social media platform with anything important, much less war crime evidence. There are archive links but X is actively making it harder to scrape their website, which I think Archiving websites rely on, and videos, the most damning and convincing evidence, are ignored by all archiving services I know.
If you're active in the forum or community this was posted in, please advise the poster to collect all evidence and put it in the same google drive folder, and present all links in triplicate.
This moved me in the direction that Hamas killed at least 1/2 of the casualty toll that Israel cites. With original images (downloaded from Twitter) available, one can actually look at the metadata that phone cameras put in the image and examine the geotags and timestamps, for further confirmation this is was taken where and when it's claimed.
None of this is impossible to fake, the world can benefit a lot in this day and age from special world-trusted cameras and recording devices that embeds cryptographically-signed tags in the files it produces. But I think most of this is true regardless, Hamas are jihadis after all.
> That said, it does appear that some babies were beheaded
It's a bit of stretch to say this entirely based on the claim of a single Israeli forensic official whose country is at war and have 0 substantiating evidence. The crime described is not light and we have no evidence of a single jihadi group ever contemplating it, even ISIS. Hamas can still be monsters if they didn't commit this, so I don't know why Israeli authorities is determined to keep spreading this claim and expecting the world to take them entirely at their words.
I was able to view at least one one of the archival X/Twitter posts without having a Twitter account.
Edit: also, while it is good to be critical, one should also then examine the documented biases of various news outlets and their reporting on the other side of this conflict, and subject various evidence from that other side to scrutiny in your pursuit of the facts of any given atrocity. Not saying you don't do that, but fairness would require avoiding "isolated demands for vigor".
Yes, I was able to view too, several ones in fact. I just want everything to be viewable without an account, preferably including replies and retweets. This is a lot of effort but I think documenting war crimes is one of the few things that justify it. I also worry about the fickleness of a profit-based social media platform owned by a notoriously childish and fickle owner, for any reason ranging from the EU throwing a tantrum to not enough server space to the posters deleting or restricting their accounts, all of those links could disappear tomorrow. I don't want that.
> fairness would require avoiding "isolated demands for rigor
No disagreement here. Although adversarial collaboration can turn the isolated demand for rigor from 2 sides into a single uniform demand for rigor, it's good for anyone to internalize the narratives and grievances of both sides even if they clearly favor one over the other.
Another thing I've noticed about coverage of the Gaza vs Ukraine war: you never see photos of casualties in the Ukraine war. You always see photos of casualties in the Gaza war.
Every time there's a piece of rubble in Gaza, Associated Press photographers are always rushing to the scene to find someone willing to look distraught for the camera.
Good luck finding pictures of fighting age men injured or anyone holding a gun in Gaza. The media there is obviously tightly controlled. They have been caught in the past staging photos, placing toys on top of rubble piles, having the same woman wailing in front of a collapsed building in two different locations, etc.
There is plenty of real tragedy to photograph in these places so one wonders why they need to invent or amplify it. One needs to be a bit skeptical in media consumption. Most major news organization have no people in Gaza and only use locally hired people. This can have advantages but may also mean a lot of bias.
I have noted that the entirety of the media has changed from "Palestinian Health Authorities" to "Hamas controlled Gaza Health Authorities, these numbers cannot be verified" over the past several days. We know we cannot trust Ukrainian or Russian casualty numbers, I don't know why we thought we could ever trust Hamas.
What bothers me about the coverage is that the media frequently report Hamas claims as facts in the headline of the story, only qualify it as "Gaza health ministry says" or similar terms in the body. As best I can tell we simply don't know how many people got killed in Gaza in total or as the result of any particular Israeli strike.
Their numbers are surprisingly low - fewer than 1 per airstrike. In past wars it’s been 0.25 per airstrike. That makes me think that they’re usually more reliable than they were after the hospital parking lot blast.
Also, even if civilians are killed in an Israeli strike, that may not invariably mean the Israelis are wholly or even primarily responsible.
As a hypothetical example, a hospital is an ideal place to store an arms cache or an ammo dump. It is a large building, with lots of staff and strangers wandering around, and extensive basements and locked rooms. Even entire locked sections of floors are not unusual and little remarked on, especially in an "ask no questions and you'll be told no lies" environment where curiosity is frowned on!
A small Israeli precision guided bomb intended, say, to clobber a Hamas meeting known to be taking place in a certain room may set off a cache of explosives piled to the rafters in an adjacent room! So whose fault is it then if the entire hospital collapses in a heap of rubble killing dozens?
I have heard no reporting on Hamas using civilians, even children, as shields, as I understood they have done in the past. A quick Googling finds at least SOME reporting on it, though I cannot vouch for the source, as it is apparently reported by Israel: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12660873/Hamas-Israel-satellite-images.html
Is it any wonder that civilians are killed in a war when the home team is putting them in harm's way? Should not Hamas shoulder some of the blame and guilt for their deaths?
A year or two ago the BBC (British Broadcasting Caliphate) set up a department called BBC Verify (or "BBC Vilify" as some cynical people call it). As its name suggests, they claimed the aim was to counter rife disinformation by showing only news whose veracity had been rigorously checked and was thus beyond question.
Within minutes of the recent hospital bombing in Gaza, this wretched Verify department gleefully published a news item saying the Israelis were responsible, having obviously taken the Hamas account at face value, and I think it was several days before they deigned to correct it.
This isn't the first time Verify news has later been proved wrong, and quite possibly wilfully misrepresenting facts to suit their agenda. What arrogance of the BBC to claim they are ultimate arbiters of the truth, when in truth they are just one more MSM outlet peddling leftist globalist propaganda!
The BBC have also been obstinately reluctant to call Hamas terrorists, despite having used that term in the past for all kinds of groups with far less murderous intent. When mentioning Hamas now, the BBC still avoid their dreaded t word, by using the smartass evasive qualification "who the Government claims are terrorists".
More seriously, your claim that BBC Verify “published a news item saying the Israelis were responsible” requires substantiation. The BBC Verify article on the blast says no such thing: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
While it's hard to prove a negative, I searched to see if BBC Verify had written an earlier article about the blast, and didn't find one. Here is a list of BBC Verify articles: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/reality_check
> You statement that the BBC set up BBC Verify “a year or two ago” appears to be inaccurate
Mea culpa, I should have said "not long ago" :-)
> the original version also describes the findings as “inconclusive.”
The page was first saved by the Wayback Machine some 14 minutes since its initial appearance. So in theory there was a short window to pop in a disclaimer before that earliest WM snapshot. But I would concede it may have been present in the article from the outset.
Also, the BBC have been frantically updating the article for the last six days, and the latest version lists several authors, as opposed to the original version's one. So that suggests (although again with no firm proof) that they are obviously smarting over previous accusations of bias in too readily accepting, or at least emphasising, Hamas's account.
True, that. Sadly, the war is a background now. Ukrainians are still killed every day, but it's been over 600 of these days now. It is sort of rational: the amount of information is log2(1/P), so when an event becomes very likely - a Ukrainian will very likely be killed today - there's little new information delivered. So, not front-page stuff.
Yes, it could be that the cabal of Associated Press photographers are in on a conspiracy to portray the Gaza war in a certain light, but lets instead try applying Occam's razor here:
Ukraine has over 100x the land area as Gaza. Gaza is densely populated and brimming with people whereas Ukraine is relatively sparsely populated for a European country. I'd wager that in Ukraine, civilians have usually been evacuated from the frontlines long before it has been bombed by the Russians. If there were any Ukrainian civilians left you bet the press photographers would capitalise on their presence. Whereas in Gaza since there is very little land for Palestinian civilians to move to safety to, there is usually distraught civilians present at a given Israeli bombing, hence the photographers jump on the opportunity to get them in the frame.
The vast majority of the bombings in the Russia-Ukraine war occur within miles of the frontlines, whereas in Gaza the bombings are occurring across the absolute north to the absolute south of the country.
Reuters has a good interactive map showing the bombardment coverage:
> Whereas in Gaza since there is very little land for Palestinian civilians to move to safety to
There's specified safe zones, Hamas is actively preventing people from going to them because they want them as human shields. Gaza is denser than Ukraine, but it's not so dense that it's impossible to evacuate civilians from the warzone if you try.
Except Associated Press journalists *are* in cahoots with Hamas. Not because they like Hamas, but because 1) Hamas wouldn't let them operate in Gaza if they portray Hamas in a negative light, and 2) Hamas uses the media as human shields. In 2021, Associated Press acted outraged when Israel struck their building for harboring Hamas intelligence assets:
Did Associated Press not know their building was a Hamas spy nest? If they didn't, why should we trust anything they say, since they're incompetent? If they did and didn't say anything about it to keep their access to Gaza, why should we trust anything they say, since they're in cahoots with Hamas?
>in the mid-1930s, the AP’s photo office in Germany...ended up as a Nazi information arm in all but name...
>people like Franz Roth—who was, we learn from Scharnberg’s report, simultaneously an “AP photographer, SS-Oberscharführer (senior squad leader)...
>After the war, the AP rehired one of its staffers who had joined the Waffen SS and employed him until he retired in 1978
As far as North Korea:
>The “bureau” in Pyongyang...was not staffed by AP reporters from outside the country: The full-time staffers were North Koreans who were paid by AP but answered to the regime
As far as their reporting in Gaza, he notes how they followed Hamas dictates in their reporting:
>The most relevant example from my own experience as an AP correspondent in Jerusalem between 2006 and 2011 is Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, and where the AP has a sub-bureau. Running that sub-bureau requires both passive and active cooperation with Hamas. To give one example of many, during the Israel-Hamas war that erupted at the end of 2008, our local Palestinian reporter in Gaza informed the news desk in Jerusalem that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and were being counted as civilians in the death toll—a crucial detail. A few hours later, he called again and asked me to strike the detail from the story...someone had clearly spoken to him, and the implication was that he was at risk...the bureau chief at the time confirmed it, adding that a refusal to comply would have put our reporter’s life in danger.
From that moment on, more or less, AP’s coverage from Gaza became a quiet collaboration with Hamas.
I think this is unfair. Journalists know they have to follow the rules of rulers of a territory to operate but except in the case of editorial control (e.g. North Korea) the reasoning seems to be that access to the story is worth accepting some constraints. I think the error is in not indicating the constraints in reporting, but AP don't produce the stories.
Sometimes, not reporting anything is better than serving propaganda on behalf of a terrorist group. Also, if the AP said what you said, I'd have a lot more sympathy for them. Instead, they said:
"We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP's bureau and other news organizations in Gaza."
And: "This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life"
Even though: "AP staffers and other tenants safely evacuated the building after the military telephoned a warning that the strike was imminent within an hour."
AP was lying through their teeth about their relationship with Hamas. Why should I believe anything else they say?
I'm not madly inclined to defend AP, but having less than hour to get everyone out of a building falls into my acceptable definition of narrowly avoiding loss of life. Especially if you're one of the people in the building.
On the other hand, I think the fact they have offices and staff (a bureau I guess) in Gaza rather than just reporters might be the main issue here. Reporters being unable to access the full story is acceptable, but accepting this to the degree you have a permanent presence with some form of registered existence (because Hamas aren't going to have just anyone hire offices) is questionable. That does imply some accomodation with the Hamas regime and that's a slippery slope. So if you focus on the implications of opening a permanent presence in a regime managed by terrorists (active, not reformed) then I think I share those concerns.
I dunno, I'd expect them to be able to evacuate much faster than 1 hour if someone pulled a fire alarm. (Assuming the building even has such a thing, but the principle still stands.) So from that perspective, all the complaints are about "stuff" and not "life", and every minute between "minimum needed to evacuate" and "1 hour" is a gift.
A partial story. I'm ambiguous about the practice of allowing journalists to work under supervision of tyrannical governments, but I don't think it produces fake news so much as news that is presented in one way. That information is coming from a non-democratic source (which is not therefore directly liable for lying to it's people) should however be stressed even if it was provided by western journalists. I don't think AP are in error so much as those using their reports in not indicating the limitations on reporting lying behind this.
Hamas is at a very large technical military disadvantage here, so I would expect them to use every tool at their disposal. Ethical lines probably don't play much of a role for them in this asymmetric warfare. I would believe that Hamas utilized a building they believe was safe from airstrikes, the AP knew about it and looked the other way, and that Israel found out about it (perhaps through a rogue AP journalist) and specifically targeted it.
That doesn't seem likely though does it? If Israel had a problem of that level with AP we'd presumably notice since they'd ban the from their territory.
So I could be buying individual 10 Treasuries with about a 5% return right now? And assuming interest rates fall, I could potentially sell them for a profit before the 10 years is up? Seems like a pretty good investment? I do understand interest rate risk, if they were to climb higher, and I do understand the opportunity cost if equities somehow soar higher despite rates staying relatively high (but this seems unlikely?)
Has anyone here ever sold individual Treasury bonds? The process seems rather intimidating, and the commissions a bit opaque
Has anyone here ever sold individual Treasury bonds?
All the time now, but mostly on the short end (<1 year). It is fairly easy to do through a brokerage. If you have money to lock up for years, 10-year Treasuries look attractive as a part of a balanced portfolio.
Yes, you can buy 10-year Treasurys at about 5%. If you have normal brokerage account (Vanguard, Schwab, etc.) it is very simple to buy (either at auction or on the secondary market) and sell these. Generally they are very liquid, but selling one or two bonds (they are in $1,000 increments) might be a little fraught during times of great uncertainty if you need money immediately.
I will not comment on the suitability for your personal situation, but do note that yields are certainly not guaranteed to go down. Personally I am buying long-term TIPS at >2.5% real return for 20 or 30 years to ensure inflation-protected retirement income.
I have a friend who is extremely anxious about AI negative outcomes to the effect that it is causing problems in everyday life. I want to recommend that he talks to a professional, but I'm worried that some of them might treat it as an irrational fear rather than a rational one, and I don't think that would work for him at all. Any advice?
I don't know who to be upset at most, or even if I should blame the Protestants, but feck it, I'm gonna blame the Protestants (and their Work Ethic which invented, so I am told, Capitalism which produced this thing).
I feel like that part in "The Producers": 'Go! Buy bullets! Shoot them all!'
Tell your friend that *this* is what he should fear from AI in everyday life, and if we manage to escape the end of the world, it'll be because God held off on the smiting, not because of being turned into paperclips. BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!!!
EDIT: Dear big huge commercial entities, will you cool it on trying to get me to worship AI? Huh? Please? This is just blatant, at this stage. "Oh hey, wanna talk with Jesus? Don't need to pray, the AI will do it for you!" Talking with the AI is just like (in a way) talking with God! All hail our new AI overlords!
Look, bad and all as I am, I am not switching to worshipping Mammon. I'm Catholic, I can indulge in our own brand of idolatry any time I want, just ask your potential Evangelical customers.
I'm reminded of the bit in _Past Master_ where the Programmed Mechanical People in Past Master turn out to have minds that are empty and ready to be taken over by demons.
I do have to laugh at how the Reformation criticism of "graven images" eventually faded away to the point that the heirs of the various denominations have now adopted milquetoast versions of Catholic iconography.
They can't have images like the Sacred Heart, dear me no! That's idolatrous!
But light-haired blue-eyed Jesus in a robe (so long as it's white not red or blue) - that's different. Mind you, I can't mock that *too* hard, as a lot of it is the same kind of Italian versions of 'light haired blue eyed' Catholic imagery, so the Protestants adopting it wholesale because that's what they're copying is understandable:
I was going to say, "See, that's what you get for believing in a religion with so many adherents", but then I looked at the FAQ-- it's a treasure-- and it includes Old Testament figures, even Satan. It won't be Jewish versions, but still.
It's a consolation, but not enough of a consolation, that LLMs seem incapable of producing anything memorable. This may not be true forever.
I've been saying for a while that the big hazard from LLMs is adding bullshit to the information stream.
"the big hazard from LLMs is adding bullshit to the information stream"
I agree that this is a near-term hazard, and it could be a large one.
Ironically, I expect that the damage from LLM bullshit and the adverse effects of LLMs on the job market are probably anti-correlated. The better the solutions to hallucinations get, the less of a problem AI bullshit (or, at least, _inadvertent_ bullshit) will be, but the larger the set of jobs AI can replace people in becomes.
Covering all the bases! I'm not sure that "life advice from Satan" is the greatest idea, though 😁
This is part of why I find the AI worries difficult to take seriously. I mean, yeah widespread implementation of AI is going to have a massive effect on work and life, but this is the kind of money-spinning crap and not 'agentic AI wants to achieve its goals and will sneakily paperclip us all' that is going to be the thing impacting society adversely.
That's exactly what I'd expect AI to be used for, and the kind of ways it can go wrong because of humans handing over decision-making power, or even just as in these cases getting the AI to do the combing through the data to suggest what should be decided upon.
I think anyone should talked with a few therapist before choosing one, so he could ask the therapist about this in the interview to see how they would deal with it.
i wonder if it may be the reverse; the anxiety expresses itself through an idea not the idea causes anxiety. Like a healthy person can believe in paperclip satan but his response is either to functionally ignore it or to do what he can with his ability to mitigate with it. A depressed person may not even believe the idea in a sense. Like a checking ritual isnt believed, its experienced.
i dont know, id hope the psych would just focus on anxiety as opposed to arguing ideas. i mean not all anxiety is idea first i guess; sometimes it can come from absurd things. Oh, you didnt get any email yesterday, you must be hacked! Debating that may not help at all.
(i worry i suffer from mild cases of anxiety and ocd; i grew up before the ideas were commonplace, and i do see forms of it. my non pro advice.)
i havent made enough money for most of my life that i could afford one, and im not formally diagnosed. i think i only entertained the idea as mental illness became more open in the public eye. in the 80s therapy was something rich kids went to when their parents divorced. Therapy was seen as quackery or the butt of jokes. "Tell us about your Id when you was a kid," Bugs Bunny said. Therapy was something you saw on TV, really. The modern openness to it is a good thing overall.
idk if i could give advice. im mild if anything. i mean i cold turkeyed caffeine and that helped. I think telling myself "I understand and will monitor the problem, if it persists ill do something about it later" helps with some body-related fears. Like acknowledge the worry and procrastinate it? Or distract myself by a brief walk.
but i still think "oh i left the door open" when closing at work many times and immediately turn back halfway to the lot to check, or overreact to a minor crisis (get nerves and assume the worst). Like the default response is catastrophe if i get an unexpected event happens.
Is he a technical person ? And by technical I don't mean able to work in AI, but can he watch something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrdevFK_am4 and broadly nod his head along to most of the things said ?
The response to Covid (not so much the Feb/Mar 2020 response, but afterwards) fundamentally shattered my confidence in the liberal establishment when it comes to public health & effective messaging.
Similarly, while I was already disdainful of most social progressives, their response to the Black Saturday attacks has shown me that they are both morally bankrupt & have achieved doublethink nirvana. The words "genocide", "apartheid", and "war-crime" no longer have any consistent meaning for them.
For a group that talks a lot about The Science™️, leftists sure do accept the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis uncritically. At least to their credit, while they believe this pseudoscientific about "words determining thought", they sure prove they believe it by waging war on the accepted definitions of words when those definitions are inconvenient.
Yeah. It was horrifying when I realized that what I had thought were principled reasons and policy choices, were actually just a bunch of hairless plains apes flapping their mouth meat to reinforce tribal identity.
This same thing happened for me a while ago, and it's caused me some real existential trust issues.
Now that I know that the BBC, for example, is a lying pack of rotten liars - how I deal with it when they publish new information? I have to discount things based on what I estimate their preferences to be - that human interest story about a puffin who saves a kid is probably not slanted, but any culture piece is going to be subtly pushing sensibilities the BBC wants me to have, and anything *really* important is 100% missing the other side of the story (but which side is that?).
Of course the first thing a *clever* pack of rotten liars would do is lie to me about their real preferences. And even if they don't, repeating a lie over and over again is powerful enough to get the job done by itself; it doesn't matter what I think of them if I have no other source to compare them to.
The establishment has been pretty quick to start hitting unfriendly sources with the "misinformation" stamp, which apart from making it hard for me to find trustworthy info separately (and I have a real life to prioritise instead you know), also makes it impossible to call on even if I do, because everyone I speak to has already been cued to attack me for reading the wrong things. And of course: the more time you devote to reading things and verifying them online, the *easier* it is for the rest of the world to decide you're a conspiracy theorist.
I realise that "empiricism" is a far more limited domain than scientists have lead us to believe. Can the results of a supercollider experiment be considered empirical? We can't build our own experiment to check, so we're forced to trust these nice convincing scientists with all their numbers written down and all their peers backing them up. And you can't question the efficacy of that system in public either.
The current liberal church has done me the favour of lying about gender and not about quantum physics, but that's a quirk of fortune, Goddammit, and has nothing to do with the principles at stake.
Apartheid is a system of segregation and discrimination based on race. Virtually every facet of Palestinian life is controlled the Israeli government, and they aren't even treated as "second class citizens". Gaza has been under almost complete blockade for 16 years, with no one leaving or entering with out IDF permission. The west-bank is shrinking every year as Settlers move in and violently oust Palestinians who have no legal protection. Its not crazy to call that Apartheid.
Genocide is the deliberate killing of large numbers of people from a nation or ethnic group with the intention of eliminating that nation or ethnicity. Israel has essentially imprisoned 2.8 million people in gaza, while slowly but steadily encroaching on the west bank, building settlements and making people homeless. 80% of people in Gaza live in poverty. and because of the blockade people die extremely early. Half of Gaza is under 18, 70% is under 30. There are quite a few historical reasons that putting millions of people from a single ethnic group into a small, heavily guarded area and restricting access to food and water might be considered genocidal.
Finally, War crimes:
"No protected person may be punished for any offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property is prohibited."
Hamas are an evil terrorist organisation and what happened is abhorrent but should the average Palestinian be punished for this? What is the exchange rate between the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians? As of right now, 5000 Palestinians are dead (2000 of which are children) and 15,000 injured. Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis. When does it end?
From the history of my own country, this is like the British government levelling 20 Derrys for the crimes of the IRA
>Genocide is the deliberate killing of large numbers of people from a nation or ethnic group with the intention of eliminating that nation or ethnicity. Israel has essentially imprisoned 2.8 million people in gaza, while slowly but steadily encroaching on the west bank, building settlements and making people homeless. 80% of people in Gaza live in poverty. and because of the blockade people die extremely early. Half of Gaza is under 18, 70% is under 30. There are quite a few historical reasons that putting millions of people from a single ethnic group into a small, heavily guarded area and restricting access to food and water might be considered genocidal.
The claim of genocide is clearly wrong on it's face: not only does Israel make efforts to minimize civilian casualties, which would be counterproductive if their goal is to wipe out the Palestinians, there is a significant Palestinian population in Israel who are citizens with full rights and that Israel makes no effort to contain or eliminate. Nor has Israel placed the West Bank with it's substantial population of Palestinians under similar blockades or restrictions as it has Gaza.
This clearly seems to fit with the idea that the reason Gaza is blockaded is not because Israel wants to commit genocide on Palestinians, but because the people of Gaza are a significant security risk to Israel: as evidenced by the constant rocket attacks, terrorist strikes, and more recently the events of 10/7. These facts don't fit at all with the proposal that Israel is commiting genocide.
About a fifth of the population of Israel consists of Arabs who are full citizens, so it isn't an apartheid system, it's discrimination between citizens and non-citizens, practiced by most or all countries. Is it apartheid when Arab countries refuse citizenship to Palestinians, some of whom have been resident for two or three generations?
How do you know how many Palestinians are dead? The only source seems to be Hamas, which has an obvious incentive to lie and demonstrably did lie about the hospital explosion, since the hospital is still there and the explosion was in a parking lot a couple of blocks away.
As I understand it, Israel in the past blocked weapons coming into Gaza. I don't think they prevented people from leaving. So not a prison.
The blockade is making it very difficult for people to leave Gaza, but that's not the same as *Israel* preventing people from leaving. Israel is preventing people from entering Israel, which is of course their right. But it's also possible for people to leave Gaza by entering Egypt, and Israel has very little say over that. It just turns out that the Egyptians don't want any Gazans running around their country any more than the Israelis do.
It's not actually clear what would happen if someone were to send an empty boat to Gaza and embark some refugees for some other Mediterranean shore; I don't think anyone has tried. Boats loaded with supplies for Hamas-occupied Gaza get turned back, for obvious reasons. And I'm skeptical that there's any Mediterranean nation that really wants a bunch of Gazans running around; they've already got more refugees than they can handle from e.g. Libya.
The wikipedia article says that Israel maintains a naval blockade and that fishing is restricted to a very narrow area. I assume that also prevents people from leaving.
Of course countries don’t want refugees but that doesn’t prevent them from coming.
Is Mexico under an apartheid regime because the United States has a border with them that they (nominally) enforce? Is it an "open-air prison"?
> because of the blockade people die extremely early
What was their life expectancy like before the blockade?
And Can you point to other examples of Muslim countries without oil that have ever been prosperous?
Why did the blockade start?
> Israel has essentially imprisoned 2.8 million people in gaza
Has Switzerland essentially imprisoned Liechtenstein?
> putting millions of people from a single ethnic group into a small, heavily guarded area and restricting access to food and water
So, by "putting" you mean Israelis not ethnically cleansing themselves and handing over their land to the Palestinians? Or are you claiming Israel put Palestinians into Gaza?
And by "restricting access to food and water," you mean "not giving Gaza food and water handouts"? Why would it be Israel's responsibility to give free food and water handouts to Gaza when they're independently controlled by Hamas?
> should the average Palestinian be punished for this?
Any punishment that falls on the average Palestinian can be blamed directly on Hamas.
Mexico is a large sovereign state with many other borders than the US one (and guarding which is considerably controversial in the US) and the Swiss-Lichtenstein border is open. So your examples don’t illustrate whatever point you are trying to make.
I'm going to question the many other borders thing here. Mexico has one more border than Gaza. And the point was not about Gaza (which has a coastline so isn't dependent on land borders) but about Israel which has the right to close its borders.
Ok, Mexico has one more international land border than Gaza. I should have said Mexico has many points of exit and entry besides the US border. Besides of course Mexico is a very large country so comparing Mexico to an open air prison is ludicrous.
Gaza is under blockade by Israel and Egypt. Israel blockades them also by sea. So it isn’t just about Israel’s right to close its borders.
Indeed not. It's about the fact that Gaza is controlled by a group that is explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the export of violent Islamic thought. If Hamas were removed so would be the blockade. Note that the West Bank is not blockaded in the same way, which should be a hint this isn't just about Palestinians but something more specific.
Would you want Hamas, with their strong Islamic State vibe, ruling the territory next door to you? If they were would you be happy with an open border? I'm happy to admit there's plenty of Israelis.who like having an excuse to close off Gaza and even attack it: but that there are bad people in Israel doesn't mean the policy need be wrong. As 7th October shows, there are evil people in charge of Gaza, and we presumably want to contain and defeat evil?
"Blaming Hamas for all Palestinian children’s deaths sounds very similar to Al Qaeda blaming the US government for all deaths on 9/11"
Israel attacks military targets which Hamas has chosen to locate in civilian areas. This inevitably leads to some civilian casualties, but legally and probably morally these are the fault of Hamas for choosing to operate in military areas. Nobody has suggested a credible way in which Israel could defeat Hamas while causing fewer civilian casualties.
In contrast, the WTC on 9/11 was a civilian target, the intent was to kill as many civilians as possible, while causing no military harm. Targeting civilians vs targeting the military is a black and white difference.
The Pentagon on 9/11 was a military target, it would have been legitimate for al Qaeda to target it, but they should have used a cargo plane or something rather than a loaded airliner.
Either you’re over 55-65 ... and have personally seen this same thing going on for over 40 years with PLO hijackings, suicide bombings of busses, Olympic attacks, repeatedly turning down peace deals, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.. One's perspective might be a bit different here, possibly that of an intractable conflict where Internet newcomers think this is Ted Talk simple, it isn't.
To address just one point you made: Why is it _Israel_ specifically that is imprisoning them in Gaza and not Egypt, who controls the other border and presumably is also preventing them from crossing? It seems that Israel actually doesn't care at all whether or not they stay in Gaza (which is implied by a term like "imprisoned") and instead just doesn't want them to come into Israel.
What does any of that have to do with the fact that Israel does not control all the borders of Gaza and that therefore, blaming them for imprisonment doesn't even make sense? Is the American government "imprisoning" people who want to, but are not allowed to, cross the southern border? If your answer to that is "yes" then you and I have a sufficiently different definition of the term "imprison" such that further conversation will not be productive because we are borderline not speaking the same language.
If the Palestinian Authority didn't like those "Bantustan" borders, they shouldn't have agreed to them in the Oslo peace process.
Also, it's not apartheid because Arabs can live and move freely in Israel and the West Bank (Israel has 2 million Arab citizens). The distinction is not between Arabs and Jews, it's between Israeli citizens and non-citizens.
Leftist morality is really its own thing, somewhat orthogonal to other moral systems. I think that's okay, but we really need to identify it as such, isolate it, and formalise it so that we can all understand what we're talking about.
The axioms of leftist morality seem to go something like this (I don't claim this is exact, I'm arguing that we need further study to progress beyond this incredibly vague sketch):
1. There are oppressor groups and oppressed groups, and these are identifiable by [certain characteristics]
2. Anything an oppressor group does to an oppressed group is wrong ("punching down")
3. Anything an oppressed group does to an oppressor group is justified, or the oppressor's fault anyway ("punching up")
Sometimes these axioms line up with the conclusions of other moral systems, like in Star Wars movies. But sometimes they don't, like in a lot of real life.
The real trouble comes from the fact that leftists refuse to admit that they're simply using different moral axioms, and instead try to pretend that their conclusions come from the same moral axioms everyone else is using. We need to isolate "leftism" and treat it as a separate moral system in Philosophy 101.
Yeah that is an incredibly vague sketch of what you are conjuring up as the leftist morality. I don't think it's accurate of the mainstream left - think Joe Biden, Gretchen Whitmer or Amy Klobuchar. But it's probably on the nose for the version presented by Fox News.
So I think you are doing a bit of cherry picking here.
Yeah the left has a batshit wing. They always have, and now at the extremes things seems particularly nutty. I'm not talking about Bernie Sanders here, more like Ilhan Omar at her worst.
But really, the batshit wing of the right seems to be in charge of the Republican party in the U.S. right now.
House and Senate Republicans are either in sync with the fact intolerant MAGA right or too spineless say otherwise.
Mitt Romney tells about being approached by others in his party: “I sure wish I could do what you do,” or, “Gosh, I wish I had the constituency you have.”
Romney’s stock response: “There are worse things than losing an election. Take it from somebody who knows.”
He is retiring from the Senate now but he has been paying $5,000 a day to provide security for his family since voted to convict Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
How would you define the set of morals that makes that expenditure necessary?
I think Melvin, like me, is not defining "Leftist" as "left-of-center".
Establishment Democrats are Liberal (in the American sense of the word), not Leftist. And thank god for that, because as you say, the inmates have been running the asylum on the other side of the aisle since 2010.
I'm a leftist and don't agree with any of that. Not that I agree with other leftists about much, but I agree with them enough to not call myself a rightest.
Perhaps these broad categories of left and right are of no use.
I think Melvin's system up there accurately describes a whole bunch of leftists, and I tend to find they're the dumbest and most dogmatic kind of leftists.
But what I also find is that the "smart" leftists - who definitely love to look down on the dumb ones - also very reliably end up going along with all the dumb ones' bullshit.
It looks a lot to me like "smart" leftists follow a progression of refusing to defend (and maybe even half-heartedly attacking) the latest Current Thing coming from the dumb leftists, to accepting it uncritically (and, I suspect, unconsciously) two years later. All the while saying a lot of vague and reasonable sounding words that don't ever cash out to much. (Which, I'm afraid, includes your "Perhaps these broad categories of left and right are of no use.")
If you're able to provide a strong system of your own on command, that gives me a steelman to play with. It's also strong evidence that leftists don't always follow the path I just described.
As a conservative, I find this system also describes many right-wing people, especially the "punching up" part. The feeling seems to be that if you are wronged then it's OK to wrong those that wronged you. This seems to be a cover for hypocrisy.
I do not think left-wing people have a monopoly on this thought process.
So, I think that essay is genuine and from the heart, but that person is not looking at society like an engineer. Scale is a problem. Scale is a big problem. Processes that work in a room with 1000 people, rapidly cease to work as you add orders of magnitude to the population. And the increasing scale provides openings for problems that wouldn't exist at smaller scales.
I think most leftists would agree that those moral axioms are bad. The problem is, due to biases and the difficulty in determining when an action is justified, we don't know when we're acting by those axioms. Whatever side of an issue you're on, from the inside it looks like your team's actions really are justified.
I know only arithmetic and want to learn maths for computer science and statistics. I tried Basic Mathematics by Serge Lange but it requires too much prerequisite knowledge for me to tackle. Where can I start learning? Thanks
I'm going to focus on the what, rather than the where; somebody else feel free to chime in if I miss a vital step, I'm going on some pretty old memories of the actual prerequisites.
If you want more advanced mathematics, that will be more useful for computer science - I suggest starting with Discrete Mathematics and/or Introductory Proofs. Focus on the language of proofs (should be simple enough if you already know programming, might be your first introduction to some ideas if not, but it's a good place to pick up these ideas if you don't already have them) and basic set theory (what all the set operations mean). Proofs may or may not contain some algebraic knowledge - but you should learn to prove how algebra works before you use it, so you should be good there.
Once you're done there - I recommend going straight to tensors. You could study matrices, but matrices are just tensors with additional rules, and for the ideas there to be really useful, it's better to be prepared to make up your own rules.
For statistics, I recommend beginning the same as above. Once you're done there, you'll need basic algebra, if you didn't pick everything up in proofs; learn specifically the rules for manipulating equations (adding to both sides, multiplying both sides, exponentiating both sides) and fractions. Learn enough about factoring to understand what it is and why it exists, and then continue on - it's honestly not worth learning the grab-bag of tricks to factor, I knew all of them and it's been years since I haven't just asked a computer to do it for me, because factoring is a tedious and somewhat experimental process. (That said, if you like logic puzzles, factoring can sometimes be fun).
With that under your belt, skip geometry (the only thing you need to know is the Cartesian coordinate system, and you probably have enough cultural exposure that you already know it) and trigonometry (although you'll come back to this), and go straight to calculus. Learn what a derivative is, learn what an integral is, learn what a summation is, and learn how to use all of these tools.
Now you're ready to tackle - no, just kidding, you need to circle back around to trigonometry. I think it's better to learn trigonometry after calculus; trigonometry, without the knowledge you gain in Calculus, is just an exercise in memorizing a bunch of functions and identities; a course that should have been deep was instead the most shallow coursework I ever took, an exercise in rote memorization. There might be a good trig book / instructor out there, but I haven't found it / them - instead, learn the relationships of the various trigonometric identities to polar coordinates (polar coordinates are super-intuitive, you should be able to pick this up while trying to understand trigonometry). Also, study the derivatives and integrals of trigonometric functions, and what they mean, and why they are what they are. You should understand what sine, cosine, and tangent are, in relationship to the polar coordinate system, and to each other.
NOW you're ready to tackle statistics. I suggest beginning by following a proof for the bell curve, then try to prove it yourself. You'll need familiarity with integrals, basic proofs, trigonometry, and polar coordinates to get through that. It only gets rougher from there. Statistics was the mathiest math class I took.
Go to archive dot org and find a free textbook starting at a level where you are comfortable.
Go through the book from start to finish, making sure you actually do the problems because there is no substitute for doing the math when you are learning the math.
If you get stuck, go on you tube and find an explainer that makes sense to you. Eddie Woo or the Math Sorcerer are good options off the top of my head, but there are a ton of really excellent videos to help you get unstuck if something just isn't clicking.
Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the topic of cognitive science? Ideally something that would be accessible for someone making a transition form more pop-science reading on the topic to more serious study. Not for me but for a friend, so can't really be more specific, sorry. Appreciate any recs.
Question for generally pro-Palestine/anti-Israel ACX'rs.
How much, if any, of your support for the Palestinian cause / antipathy to Israel is premised on your belief that the Palestinian struggle in all its forms, (BDS, terrorism, campus activism, art, etc.) is motivated by an earnest desire for peace and prosperity in a sovereign state of their own (at least on the part of a meaningful majority of the people and leadership class)?
And how much would your support / antipathy erode if it became clear to you that in fact they don't really care about that, and are instead mostly motivated by a desire to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state on any large chunk of the land it currently exist on?
I'm okay with either a genuine 2 state (i.e. no IDF occupation/blockades) or a 1 state solution, but prefer the latter.
Living in a secular country, and being hostile to religion in general, I don't see any real value in "having a Jewish state" instead of just having one where suffrage and law isn't linked to religion or religious heritage.
I understand that, given the history of sectarian/ethnic violence in the region, some degree of minority protection is called for, but that can be implemented easily enough in a binational framework, it doesn't require apartheid.
If it's about protecting Jews, moving them all into a war zone that practices conscription is not doing a very good job at that.
There have been plenty of cases in international politics where some conflict has been solved by implementing a compromise that neither side really fundamentally thinks is the solution they want but which they eventually learn to live with.
In my opinion, the most natural compromise - the one most in line with international law - would be a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, or something close to it, with any possible land-swaps being mutually agreed. Whether that's achievable is of course a huge question mark, but so is any other solution, including the continuation of the status quo.
I think that's solvable for the west bank, but not really Gaza - Israel already retreated from Gaza in 2005, but then had to reinstitute a blockade due to constant rocket attacks.
The best solution would be a strong enough PA to wrest the control of Gaza from Hamas, but of course Israel has done absolutely nothing to help build a strong enough PA and indeed keeps humiliating it (through the facilitation and encouragement of continuous West Bank settlement etc) continuously.
I think this stems directly from the OP's question. If the Palestinians just want a land of their own, this seems like a solvable (if difficult) question. If the Palestinians just want Israel gone, then a two state solution will just erode Israel's defenses and make them easier to destroy.
Palestinians would want the same thing in either case, one as a type of ultimate goal (homeland of their own) and the other as an intermediate goal towards a different goal (Israel destroyed). Which goal is the real goal seems like a key question here. Obviously the answer is both - some people will have one goal, others the other, and probably lots have additional different goals. The question still seems valid in determining some kind of majority position or even a True position for the leadership.
As you indicated in the latter sentences, figuring out the "real goal" is a bit of a fruitless effort. Even if you want to find a majority position, majority positions tend to change as situations change.
A general trend in global politics, however, has been that once people have a state and some democratic rights within it, the most fervent support for the maximalist position tends to get blunted - by the sheer apathy caused by everyday political bickering inside the state, if by nothing else. Not fully in all cases, but generally.
I don't disagree with your conclusion, but looking at it from Israel's perspective, I can definitely see why they wouldn't want to take the chance that giving Hamas sovereignty may result in Hamas continuing to do exactly what they say they would do (kill all the Jews).
I don’t consider myself pro Palestinian or anti Palestinian, but I think a lot of the generic sympathy their cause gathers in the West is due to their being a poor, disorganized people who are victims of historical injustice and who need help. Not generally because people think their leaders are competent or well intentioned (clearly many of their leaders are terrorists and use them as pawns in their own political game).
Of course there are the more ideological reasons to support the Palestinian cause, like “anti colonialism“, Islamism, antisemitism and so forth.
These 2 things are not mutually exclusive, they do want to see their land, their whole land, theirs again. Sovereign and free. The "Jewish state" exists on their land, if it existed in Argentina (like Hertzel contemplated in a book once) they wouldn't mind. If it existed in Uganda (like Hertzel contemplated in the same book once) they wouldn't mind. They appear, and I'm not one of them so that's just an outsider observation, to not give a single shit if Jews live in a state of their own, just not on their land. They seem to be okay with Jews, just not the particular Jews bombing them with F-15s. I don't think it's the Jewish part that gets them either, just the JDAM-armed F-15 part.
David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli PM, as reported by Nahum Goldmann[1] :
> Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?
This, this quote by the first Israeli PM, is the default Arab position. Given that the person in front of you is an Arab and no additional information about him/her, this is what you should assume to be running inside their head as the most privileged program.
This is my base position. I see it as the one true "correct" position. Meaning the position that everyone with a moderate amount of sympathy would take if they had English Wikipedia, lots of time on their hands, and they felt safe from the dangling guillotine of anti-semitism accusations and Holocaust guilt-tripping that are the favorite tactics of some Pro-Israel defenders.
Do I say this because I'm an Arab ? Maybe. I can never tease out and isolate the effects of being born and raised a certain way. Literally my DNA, eh ? for all I know the Israelis are correct on this one and it's only my violent Arabic DNA that is making me throw an irrational hissy fit at the very smol and harmless only Jewish state, how would I know if it was otherwise ? I wouldn't. Do I say this because I'm a Muslim ? This I can answer to reasonable certainty : No, Hell No. I hate this religion, I despise it to my deepest core. Pathetic. Violent. Angry, religion.
Despie all this, I see David's lovely confession above as the truest position one can hope to take on the conflict.
Now, what most Arabs and Palestinians get wrong about this is this : The Israelis are not a monolith. There is the criminal west bank settler, and there is the leftist Tel-Aviv dweller. There is the 50 years old Mizrahi who still remembers what Lebanon and Egypt look and sound like, and there is the 20 years old nobody from NYC who doesn't even believe Judaism, he believes in getting freebie land and housing from the only country allowed Settler Colonialism into the 21st century. There is a whole catalog of types and shapes and colors. They speak a different language (but extremely similar to Arabic) so literally any statements and media from them in English or Arabic might as well be completely made up and arbitrarily modified to suit the whims of the translator. I will say this again : When you don't know the language of the people you're reading news about, you might as well assume the news is a David Cameeron or Michael Bay production. The translators can do whatever they damn well please (unconsciously even), and you will lap it up because you can't understand a single word of what's being said. Most importantly, almost none of currently living Israelis were those who killed Arabs in 1948, barely any were those who killed Arabs in 1956 and 1967.
There was this racist politician (redundant when talking about Israel, I know), he kept rambling about how his right to safety is more important than the rights of Arabs to not be subjected to random searches and seizures, presumably to justify random searches and seizures of Arabs in the West Bank. And the talk show host, a fellow Israeli, challenged him on the remark, aggressively so. This was mind blowing when I first saw it because I didn't expect it, I expected it from maybe some UK or French host but Israelis going after their own ? For Arabs ? It looked like propaganda but this was Israeli TV and a real Israeli politician. I was only seeing the English subtitles but the facial expression did tell of a heated and hostile back and forth and some words in Hebrew were obvious. So that's when I knew that whoever has the right to the land (and it's Palestinians, to be completely and abundantly clear), deeds like this has to be rewarded, otherwise they would just die out. You can't treat "enemies" uniformly bad, or else they would all be as bad as humanly possible because your punishment only has one power setting. As a matter of fact, if an "enemy" starts going after one of his own in defense of you, they might as well be a friend, they just don't know it yet.
So really, my position on this can be naturally phrased in the manner of Signals and Correctives[2]
Signal : Israel is an illgetimate state, its founders are colonial thieves who knew in private they are taking what's not theirs. Given a Time Machine, the moral thing to do is to go back in time and prevent Israel's founding.
Corrective : **Israelis**, by and large, are not thieves, and it's not their fault their ancestors were. Maybe they can have the stolen land if enough trials of war criminals like Netanyahu were made and reperations were paid, and of course the original owners of the land are let back into their own land with full rights and then some.
Jews often has a (sometimes excessive) fear of living in Diaspora among gentiles again, and quite often they're right. The most Anti-Israel thing to do in existence is to be nice to Jews, and perhaps this is the way towards destroying Israel. Israel feeds on paranoia and FUD, every harrassed Jew is a gift to it, every dead Jew is a full blessing, that's why it exists in the first place. The ultimate revenge against it, perhaps, is to treat Jews so normally and welcome them so aggressively even they would forget why they wanted Israel in the first place. It was not Arabs who has to answer for Auschwitz, but apparently they will anyway. Auschwitz made Israel, and Israel loves to fallback on Auschwitz whenever it has to justify itself. Unfair, but life is nothing if not unfair. Yes, I rediscovered The Toxoplasma Of Rage.
The Signal is common wisdom in Arab circles, it's the Corrective that is heretical. The main roadblock is, I think, Isalm. Religious zeal is something else, it pumps your brain with "I can never be wrong" chemicals. You have "God's words" in your very hands, so why even listen to anyone else. As long as Islam is still an unquestioned premise, it's like fighting with all fours tied to a cross.
Regardless, I don't think its hopeless. In particular, one very concrete path forward is Hebrew becoming as common as English in the Arab world. Dehumanizing the enemy is hard when you can see them talking, singing, and arguing in words and phonetics so damn similar to yours that you have Deja vu the entire time. It's not that the world will fill with sunshine and rainbows when an Arab understand Hebrew for the first time and a miracle will happen, no, quite not. It's just that without language, the enemy is cartoonish. They're a marvel villian both summarized and completely described by the words others use in other languages for or against them. But with language, the enemy is a human, their villians are human, and their heros are human. I don't think that hatred toward a culture can survive listening to one good song in its language.
Might be complete wishful thinking on my part, it might be that Atheism is doing most of the heavy lifting here and I'm just Sapir-Whorfing myself into a delusional position. Always a possibility, everybody who cares enough about Lanugage eventually rediscovers Sapir-Whorf the wrong way : by falling for the strong version.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts - I found this quite interesting. I find myself agreeing with you in parts but disagreeing in others. One main question - to the extend that Jews bought land in Palestine from its owners - do you not think they have rights to that land?
> Jews bought land in Palestine from its owners, do you not think they have rights to that land ?
They do have the right.
The Arab/Anti-Israel POV contends that a lot of Jews exploited Ottoman property laws, or bought houses way above their prices while hiding the intention that they're buying full neighborhoods to concentrate in them and self-govern. I don't know enough about pre-1948 Palestine to say whether those accusations are fair or not, but my initial instinct is that an Israeli who can prove their ancestors even lived in the land prior to 1948, let alone owned houses or land, should be fairly easy to defend in Arab circles. Anecdotally, I had no problem defending such a position in a recent 1v3 with some of my friends (where I was the Pro-Israeli, if you can imagine that).
Though there is a difference between "Rights to a land you bought" and "Right to govern a land you bought". Buying a full neighbourhood in the USA won't give me the right to secede from the Federal Government, would it ? Same thing as Israelis whose ancestors bought land in Palestine. I'm predisposed to accept them governing their land because I'm ready to accept the much bigger concession of them governing the entirety of Palestine, conditional on them paying reparations and trialing war criminals plus giving Palestinians equal voice. But that's relatively heretical and controversial, not too much, but not too little either.
The opinion of most Arabs would probably be "They have a right to the land, just not to a government". My own is that they can have the government, their owned land, and the mostly stolen rest of land their government is governing, conditional on them treating Palestinians like a human and realizing that US made jet fighters are not a good solution to most problems.
"its founders are colonial thieves who knew in private they are taking what's not theirs"
This is incorrect Ben-Gurion said this possibly in reference to the land taken after 1948 (and the fact that Jews governed ares in which arabs lived). Before 1948 Jews did not take any land from arabs without legally buying it. Israel's "founding" did not involve forcibly taking any land. It was only after arabs declared war to eradicate Israel that land was taken. Arab opposition to the state has nothing to do with stolen land. In 1948 arabs made it clear that jewish governance is not acceptable. The arabs demonstrated in 1929 (Hebron massacre) that the mere presence of Jews is unacceptable. Systemic Arab violence pre dated any "land thieving" as demonstrated by the very declaration of war in 1948.
> Before 1948 Jews did not take any land from arabs without legally buying it.
Sure thing, and buying doesn't grant you the right to found a government, or else the billionaire Gulf Arabs buying properties in Europe and North America have a hell of a lot of Kingdoms and Sheikhdoms to declare this century.
None of us have a privileged look inside Ben Gurion's brain when he said this, but the most straightforward way to interpret "We Have Taken Their Country" is that you don't have the right to found a government when all you have is a bunch of homes and small firearms. The Arabs didn't "invade" Israel anymore than the Federal Government of the USA would be "invading" Seattle or San Francisco if people there got drunk and declared their own country. Owning a few houses is not an entitlement to a country.
> Systemic Arab violence
Was preceded, countered, and followed by plenty of systematic proto-Israeli violence[1][2] [3]. And if systematic violence justifies the annexation of lands not yours, well, I have no words against this. You might as well say "They did it because they could", and at this point a Hamas supporter might as well say "They did it because they could", if Force and Ability is all that matters then all argument and moral reasoning is moot because we have replaced Morality with Physics.
"buying doesn't grant you the right to found a government." they received "governing rights" from the governing body at the time.
Legally purchasing (at exorbitant prices) and settling land en masse, cultivating previously infertile land, and bringing immense economic opportunity (that still doesn't exist in other arab countries) does, in fact, justify self-governance, especially since the Arabs were also allowed to create a state (something they didn't have before), and they rejected it.
Secretary of the Arab League said, upon launching the war in 1948: "This war will be a war of annihilation and the story of the slaughter will be told like the campaigns of the Mongols and the Crusaders." And the Mufti, Haj Amin Al Husseini, added his own bit: "I am declaring a holy war. My brother Muslims! Slaughter the Jews! Kill them all!"
"None of us have a privileged look inside Ben Gurion's brain when he said this" true which is precisely why your claims are unfounded.
"The Arabs didn't "invade" Israel anymore than the Federal Government of the USA would be "invading" Seattle or San Francisco if people there got drunk and declared their own country. Owning a few houses is not an entitlement to a country." This entire paragraph is a blatant mischaracterization and reveals your bias
"And if systematic violence justifies the annexation of lands not yours, well, I have no words against this." My point was that before 1948, no land was "annexed" and still, they tried to annihilate Israel. It is unreasonable to expect Israel to allow the return of the population that sided with forces that sought to eradicate them.
There is clearly a cycle of violence, and it's impossible to know who committed the first act of violence, but there is one side committed to violence and one side that seeks peace and coexistence. Arabs celebrate violence. They provide monetary support to their families and name streets after them, while Jews prosecute Israelis who commit violence against Arabs. I know it's a hard pill to swallow, but many Arabs just don't like the idea that Jews have a presence in Israel.
> they received "governing rights" from the governing body at the time
An illegitimate colonial government, why should anybody be bound by it ?
> legally purchasing (at exorbitant prices) and settling land en masse, cultivating previously infertile land, and bringing immense economic opportunity (that still doesn't exist in other arab countries) does, in fact, justify self-governance
I'm curious about which law or jurisdiction you're basing this on ?
> especially since the Arabs were also allowed to create a state (something they didn't have before), and they rejected it.
The Arabs were "allowed" (weird choice of word when its their own land) a state on less than half of their land, they rejected that proposition and sought to create a state on all of their land. They lost, yes, but that's no more a condemnation of them than the fact that African tribes who tried to resist the Scramble For Africa also lost badly, some of them were eradicated, and the rest lived in subjugation 60-80 years then successfully forced Decolonization. Those African people were not morally in the wrong, just weak militarily. Being weak is not a crime.
> your claims are unfounded.
I mean, in my interpretation Israel is an illegitimate state from the get go, in your interpretation Israel is merely an illegitimate state a couple of months after the get go. I have a feeling that if your goal is defending Israel legitimacy, you're not getting a good deal however way this goes.
> Secretary of the Arab League said,
It's irrelevant what he said, I already grant that Arabs have the unfortunate tendency to dehumanize Jews and be misled by Islam's huge reservoir of jingoism. You're not telling me anything I don't know.
Harsh battle cries don't an illegitimate struggle make. I'm sure that when American GIs were saying "The only good Jap is a dead Jap", nobody at the time thought the US is in the wrong for dehumanizing the Japanese.
> This entire paragraph is a blatant mischaracterization and reveals your bias
How so ?
> My point was that before 1948, no land was "annexed" and still, they tried to annihilate Israel.
My man, what I'm saying is : The Very Declaration Of Israel Is Annexation. If you can't agree with that or see why I'm saying it, there is no hope to this discussion. You can't come into people's land, buy a few houses and own a few farms, then declare a country. You can't mate, I'm sorry. If we did, billionaires would own a string of city-states all over the world.
> It is unreasonable to expect Israel to allow the return of the population that sided with forces that sought to eradicate them.
But it acts so surprised when those people hate its guts and want to see it crash and burn ? What kind of entitlement would make someone not extend an Olive branch to a much weaker civilians once and act all surprised they are not fans of their existence ?
> Jews prosecute Israelis who commit violence against Arabs
Post a single case of that happening and the Israeli in question getting a sentence of more than 5 years in prison.
> Arabs celebrate violence.
:D
If I said this about the Jews, you would be screaming bloody murder and swearing up and down I'm an antisemite. But it's ok for you to say this about a population 20x times the size. Because only one type of semites matter and its not the Arabs, eh ?
Thank you for responding with such depth and honesty, I really appreciate it.
I hope you won't be offended by my saying so, but this response does a lot to buttress the point I'm trying to build up to making, namely that Western pro-Palestine people/movements don't really have a clear understanding of what the people they're advocating for actually want, and if they did, they might not support them.
Thank you back for appreciating my input. Your username and your defense of Israel leads me to assume you're yourself either an Israeli or an Israel-supporting Jew, in which case I apologize if my hatred for this state offended you or seemed unprovoked. I hope it was clear I have a problem only with the state and those who think its continued existence and glory means Arabs should die. I don't think you belong to this group.
Re. not understanding what you support, I think this is very common. Have 50% or more of Pro-Israeli supporters even read Hertzel ? A translated Torah ? Can point to Israel on a map ? I don't want to imply that only the Pro-Israelis are like this. I don't think most Neo-Nazis have read Mein Kampf from cover to cover either. I think very few of them have read a full chapter even. Neither did most self-declared "leftists" read Marx or Lenin, Chomsky, or even their local leftist newspaper. Hell, I call myself Anarchist and Vegetarian, and I have neither read Bakunin nor Singer ! Not one chapter. I'm a complete poser. I'm one of the people I make fun of.
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis [1][2]. Ideology is also Longa, and work makes Vita very Brevis. While my ideal life is sitting on a beach or in a forest with an internet connected device browsing the [3], this doesn't put food on the table or water in the pipes, the bullshit I do sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day 5 days a week and hating every moment of it does. I suspect most people feel the same.
Re. the possibility of not supporting Palestine if they understood, I can also see this happening to Pro-Israelis. How will the average Pro-Israeli react if he or she heard Ben Gurion basically saying what Arabs say and people always boo boo them ? How will they react when they know how Israel behaves in the west bank, like the actual videos of settlers treating the original inhabitants of the land as less than insects ? When they know the views of some of its politicians ? especially Netanyahu's cabinat ? When they see some Israelis thinking that the entirety of Palestinan suffering is just an elaborate act to get sympathy [4] ? When they see elderly Israeli soldiers openly reminiscing with a big shit eating grin on their face on how they raped arab teenagers and killed then [5] ?
For better or for worse, we don't know the full picture about anything we support, we support tens or hundreds of things but our brain and time is a precious resource, we're lucky if it fit even one or two well. For better or for worse, most of our opinions are subject to a fun 180 in response to better information. We still have to make calls.
You can be right for the wrong reasons. Perhaps a whole lot of people support Palestine and Palestinian in the same way that the Ancient Greeks who thought planets go in circles around the Sun agreed with current Physics. The Greeks were misguided, they thought the circle is "Perfect" and the Heavens are "Perfect" so of course the two perfect things have to go together. 2 millenia and the invention of Calculus later, Newton reiterates with a slight difference and in the language of differential equations. The Greeks were still essentially right, just wrong about why.
I'm not offended at all; I think you're wrong on the facts and interpretation of the history on this issue, but that's no reason to hate or be offended. It sounds like you're broad-minded enough to feel the same, despite you thinking that I'm wrong in return.
As far as your inversion of my question, it's fair, and obviously true to some extent. Israel has lost support in the liberal world as its governments have started trending right-wing and as the more extreme and racist political movements and parties have gained prominence.
The difference to me is that Israel is the status quo. It exists, it has an advanced economy, a strong military, a durable form of governance, and nuclear weapons. Absent severe pressure and intervention from the outside, economic or diplomatic, Israel will continue to exist as a Jewish state on most of the land it currently holds for a very long time. This is a win condition for Israel, and a lose condition for the people who want it to disappear entirely, or become a bi-national state that would soon be dominated demographically and politically by the Palestinians.
This is where the question of what the Palestinians actually want becomes important. Do they simply want a sovereign state on part of the land in which they could start building a better future for themselves and their families? if they do, that coheres with the general tenor of the pro-Palestine faction in the global West. The language of rights and dignity and humanity make sense, the focus on Israeli oppression and denial of sovereignty makes sense. Because if this is what the Palestinians want, then the way to achieve peace and end the suffering of the innocents is for Israel to make enough concessions. Once they do that, the conflict will end.
But if the Palestinians actually want the destruction of Israel more than they want sovereignty, more than they want peace, more than they want safety and prosperity for their families, than there is no concession Israel can make that would bring peace and end the suffering, short of ceasing to exist. And I don't think most of the current pro-Palestinian West would be able to stay on board with a movement like that.
> Absent severe pressure and intervention from the outside, economic or diplomatic, Israel will continue to exist as a Jewish state on most of the land it currently holds for a very long time.
I actually don't think this is true. I won't bore you with all the harsh comparisons that the Arab perspective makes between Israel and all manner of undesirable biological phenomena. But suffice it to say that the Arab perspective thinks Israel is deeply unnatural and artificial, the Arab perspective would bet all of what it owns that if Israel was denied US/EU military and economic relations tomorrow, it would vanish before the end of the decade.
Advanced weaponry is a force multiplier for sure, but it's not a factor of infinity. At some point you have to grapple with the fact that Israel has a Nation-In-Arms style of army organization that can't sustain ground war for longer than a couple of months without severe hits to the economy, while its largest neighbour, my native Egypt, has 100 million people it doesn't know what to do with. If we conservatively assume only 2% of Egyptian population is able-bodied males, that's 2 million soldiers. Israel at the highest alert a couple of weeks ago mustered 500,000, I remember newspapers saying that's 70% of the entire recruit pool. As for money, the Gulf States, now unconcerned with USA and pressured by Arab fervor, can easily afford spending the entire GDP of Israel on this war alone (Saudi Arabia's GDP is twice that of Israel, and UAE's is equal), they won't do that of course but they have the reserves to. Even 1% of this reserve is more than enough for at least 1 year of war, which will grind the under-populated Israeli economy to a halt.
Without US/EU weapons, and without Oil (which as far as I know Israel doesn't produce locally), and outnumbered 3-to-1 comfortably by the at least 2 Arab countries against it (Egypt + 1 Gulf State), I can bet you any amount you want in any ratio you want that Israel loses this fight. All advanced weaponry advantage is nullified inside a city anyway, even if you level the city.
I don't want to spend a lot of time arguing this point because the space of possible International Relations/Military situations is huge and I'm not an expert. This also shouldn't be read as a jingoistic "My Country Can Beat Up Yours", this is not a very desirable outcome for me either because I don't trust the Islam-blinded Arab victors to treat defeated Israelis with dignity. I just think this is the raw brute facts if you grant the premises I'm basing on above.
Sure, you can say that it's those unrealistic premises that are the problem with my scenario, but you said "Without external support" and this what this assumption means to me. I can actually point to an Anti-Israel (though not Arab) state that endures the situation above in reality : Iran. Minus the "No oil of its own part". I strongly suspect that at least Egypt can withstand the situation above if it came to that. So it's not an impossible situation to withstand by any stretch of imagination. This is also an exagerrated situation, Israel can still cease to exist on a longer timeframe if the degree of external support just decreased to an average amount instead of totally becoming 0.
> Israel is the status quo.
This is the part where I have to ask you if this is really the moral litmus test you want to adopt. All of what I have written above is a non-value judgement, Israel can't withstand war without external support not because of any moral reason or because I want it to be true, but simply becaue it happens to have a severe manpower problems.
What I want to ask you though, **assuming** that Israel can indeed withstand a war against the Arabs solely without external support, **should** a moral system allow/celebrate that ? Just because its the status quo ? The status quo for much of human history (and most of Now) is that the strong can easily eat the weak, men can easily rape their wives who were forced to marry them, etc etc etc...
I mean, if the Status Quo is apriori better and should be allowed to continue, then Putin should actually be granted a cease fire now that will give him what he already took from Ukraine, its the Status Quo after all. Then maybe after 10 years, he will attack Ukraine again and take just a little more, and after a 3-5-10 years resistance the Ukrainians are morally obligated by your system to kneel to Putin once again because they shouldn't upset the holy Status Quo. The Status Quo is just you saying to an aggressor/thief/rapist "Do the crime, and if you keep getting away with it long enough you will no longer be considered a criminal in my eyes". Does this look like fair to you ?
On the other hand, some states require constant support. Taiwan for instance. I don't think Taiwan would survive without the USA's continues posturing in the South China Sea, and it looks like a perfectly normal country to me that doesn't deserve to fall to the PRC.
I don't understand your whole moral standard. Why is the Status Quo moral ? If the Status Quo is always moral, how was it established in the first place ? Every Status Quo is achieved by violently breaking a previous Status Quo. The Palestinians living in Palestine and virtually no Jews living there was once the Status Quo, why is the current Status Quo valuable and that one wasn't ? Did I misunderstand and your statement wasn't actually moral at all ? What was it then ? A call to self-preservation to the Arabs, "Israel can survive on its own so Arabs better not attack it for their own good" type of thing ?
> if the Palestinians actually want the destruction of Israel
What's so bad about that ? We're talking about the state that expelled them and took their land away, it's their rational self-interest to see it destroyed. If they accepted peace and made a country next to Israel who's to say that they won't simply bomb and invade them tomorrow ? Look at the West Bank, See Hamas ? I don't, and neither Peace. You can't have peace with an imbalanced power situation.
It's not morally wrong to destroy Israel either, the destruction of Israel doesn't equal the destruction of all Israelis. Israel is just a name, a false hope plucked from an ancient holy book. Ancient holy books talk about all manner of outrageous things.
Like I said above, Israel is not organic, it can't survive without constant propping up from USA (first and foremost) and some EU countries. We're not talking about "If Israel collapses", we're talking about "When Israel collapses".
Israel has a legitimacy crisis, their neighbours don't think they should exist. Maybe those neighbours are all just racist bad guys, a man can never tell for sure if he's the bad guy within the context of his own story. But regardless of moral blaming, what Israel should have done, its safest bet, is to spend the decades from 1950 to 2020 convincing the Arabs it should exist. How ? By not bombing their children, for instance. By not poisoning their wells and streams. By not brutalizing them then lying about it in their media. I'm not an expert but all those sound like safe courses of actions What Israeli leadership instead found easier is to bomb them with white phosphorus. Ok, that's one way to solve things, but it's not a sustainable way. Unless you're willing to go all the way to exterminate the whole 150 million Arabs surrounding Israel and within it, and the **other** 150 million Arabs who feel affiliation to those 150 millions, all what Israel is doing is just further and further entrenching the Arab belief there can be no dignified peace with Israel, they can sign all the paperwork in existence and tomorrow more F-15s and F-35s will come and bomb Arab homes and Arab children. What's the point then ?
Maybe Israel doesn't feel a lot of worry now. It has the luck to exist within the same timeframe as 70+ years of gruesome and ruthless military (-ish in the case of Gulf States) dictatorships suffocating all of the region. The Arab rulers are more interested in jailing their young for sharing political memes on Facebook than in fighting it. And the US is powerful enough to scare any of them who thinks to fall out of line back into submission. But the US is a dying empire 10000+ KM away, at some point Israel has to grapple with the fact it has virtually no goodwill among its most immediate neighbours, it's forever the hostile outsider shoved in the region's face by aircraft carriers, nobody in the region remembers its name for anything except raids and refusing ceasefires and bombing hospitals/schools. What can it do now to reverse or slow down this PR disaster ? nothing, it should have thought of that 70 years ago. Even if there is, its current leadership is clearly very smitten with the new toys it got from the US, they NEED to empty out all the tonnages on Palestinian children's heads first, then maybe it will think about Peace later.
I guess everybody is free to make choices, and everybody is obligated to bear the conequences of their own free-made choices. What can Israel do to avoid ceasing to exist ? I will be lying to you if I said anything other than "nothing", the question is at least 30 years late. Let's hope changes-of-heart like mine become common enough such that even if Israel is isolated from its outside life support, its Arab neighbours can forgive it for almost 80 years and counting of constant violence and aggression. If I had the habit of praying, I would be praying from the depths of my heart for this. But I won't hold my breath for it.
Israel has nuclear weapons, an indigenous defense industry, water, oil, and food independence, and a high-tech industry that makes it a desirable trade partner, absent any ideological or political considerations. Absent an apocalyptic war of some kind, Israel will not cease to exist as a Jewish state any time soon. But you obviously disagree, that's fine.
The important part is this:
"> if the Palestinians actually want the destruction of Israel
What's so bad about that ? We're talking about the state that expelled them and took their land away..."
I'm not making the argument that it's bad, though I obviously think it is. I'm making the limited argument that much of the coalition that currently supports the Palestinian cause in the West would no longer support that cause if they came to understand that the destruction of Israel was the goal.
Why not ? It's very close to Arabic, I can't describe it as anything else but a heavily-modded Arabic. If you mean the psychological barrier of "Ewwww, Enemy language won't learn", I think it can be circumvented by "Yes, learn the Enemy's language so you can better understand them and predict their moves", but maybe this will backfire because people will approach the whole thing with a jingoistic mentality which misses the entire point. I don't know honestly, I'm just throwing things at the wall here, Arabs learning Hebrew en-masse sounds like something that wasn't tried in the last 75 years so why not do it and see what happens ?
> why did *you* learn Hebrew?
I'm predisposed to distrusting translations of contentious material. I think the concious thought first crossed into my head when I was reflecting on Covid reporting from China, how the Chinese language is excessively complex to most people and if the news translators wanted to take us for a complete spin they absolutely could without us ever knowing. It's like that "Asian Tattoo" meme, people who know the language while you don't have massive power over you. Perhaps I thought of it earlier than that but I didn't remember.
In parallel to the above, I once heard an Israeli remix of an Egyptian (i.e. my native tongue) song, and I remember being puzzled that it's normal for them to know Arabic but it would be very odd in any Arab country if someone were to reveal they knew Hebrew.
The 2 lines of thinking above merged some time during the 7th or 8th of this October.
I... appreciate the huge vote of confidence in using "did", but I'm barely just beginning. I don't even know propositions yet. I generally suck at languages, but Hebrew looks as easy as it will ever get, if I can't get it then language learning is not for me and English was just a fluke.
Re: Signal: the most common alternate version I'm seeing is broadly "the WWI allies conquered the Ottoman Empire & divided their territory; the British, after WWII, gave some of what they'd taken from the Ottomans to become Israel. Arabs didn't like that & repeatedly tried to conquer the land for themselves but lost."
Is there some part of that alternate framing that is factually incorrect? If not, how would you reconcile that history with the accusation that Israel's founders were "colonial thieves"?
> Is there some part of that alternate framing that is factually incorrect?
Not as far as I know, no.
I would just object to the phrasing "gave some of what they'd taken from the Ottomans to become Israel". First, the English presense in Palestine was a "Mandate", meaning it's not really a colony per se, but (supposedly) a country they're helping to achieve independence, kinda like the American presence in Japan, South Korea, and Germany in the 1950s and the 1960s. Now it's entirely possible that this was all wink-wink in the 1920s and the 1930s to appease the cosmopolitan League of Nations, and the British may in fact have seen Palestine as a colony that they just couldn't hold on to after WW2. But this was not their stated intent.
Secondly, the British didn't really "give" land to Israel with any amount of deliberation, consent, or planning, they were more like "Your paramilitary groups keep killing our soldiers, Arab paramilitary groups keep killing our soldiers, fuck it we're so bloody out of here, drown this land in your rivers of blood for all I care, bye bye". The Balfour declaration [1] had no precedent in International history, was done completely without input from the Palestinians, was intentionally vague in using "National Home for the Jewish people" (necessarily a state ?), and was never followed up in the 1920s or the 1930s with any real confirmation, amendment or even contradiction. The British simply had a few Zionists in their Cabinet that they wanted happy, so they made a promise and forgot about it the next day.
> If not, how would you reconcile that history with the accusation that Israel's founders were "colonial thieves"?
How are they contradicting to begin with ? Israel took the land from the british, who took it from the ottomans, who conquered it by force. English colonists took New Amsterdam (future New York) from the Dutch, who took it from the indigenous tribes. A second-hand or a third-hand or a tenth-hand colonist is still a colonist, as long as the original inhabitants of the land are right there in front of you demanding their land back and you're shooting at them, you're a colonist no matter which language the contract or treaty or declaration "giving" you the land is written in.
I'm honestly confused by the argument, at least if presented as a moral one, that previous occupation of the land equates to legitimacy to get it back. There are very few places on earth that weren't previously inhabited by someone whose descendants no longer live there. Certainly just about any place worth living.
The Jews have a history of living on the same land they are on now, for instance, which seems to complicate any kind of narrative.
If it matters how long ago the land was held, then if the Israelis wait long enough does it become okay? That seems to be their strategy.
Saying that having a living person who was removed from the land asking it back is relevant seems like a poor choice - for one thing, people living there in 1948 are nearly if not entirely dead by now (and whoever is left is old and will soon be dead). Worse, if a conqueror took your rule seriously, it would encourage genocide. They can't ask for it back if they're dead.
> I'm honestly confused by the argument, at least if presented as a moral one, that previous occupation of the land equates to legitimacy to get it back
Seems rather straightforward to me, somebody used to own something, somebody else took it from them by force, it's moral for the second person(s) to return what they took by force to the first person(s). It's moral for the first person(s) to demand the thing back. It's moral for everybody to support the first person(s) in their struggle against the second person(s) if the latter refuse.
On the contrary, its strongest pedigree is as a moral argument. You can contradict it by lots of pragmatic considerations or geopolitics, but it seems strange you want to argue against it morally. If it's not true then why does anyone deserve anything ? Why can't Russia empty small states like Lithuania or Latvia of their entire population and in 1 or 2 generations (~50 years or so) it will be theirs ? Just Nato ? But Nato is not a moral argument, in the hypothetical Least Convenient World[1] where Nato doesn't exist and Russia can in fact do that, would it be **moral** to do that ? Why can't men stronger than you evict you from your house and take ownership ? Yes yes I know, Laws, States, Monopoly on Force, etc... But again, none of those are moral arguments, in the world of [1] where none exists, would it be moral to do just that ?
> The Jews have a history of living on the same land they are on now, for instance, which seems to complicate any kind of narrative.
Agreed, for instance it complicates the Israeli narrative that Israel is needed as the "Only Jewish State" for Jews to live peacefully. Looks like Jews lived just fine for more than a thousand year without needing to kill Arabs. Maybe this is an ancient knowledge that is now lost after 70+ years of killing Arabs, but I bet Jews can rediscover it if they needed to.
The vast majority of Israeli Jews are immigrants from non-Palestinian lands, they're genetically distinct from the minority that actually traces back their ancestors to Palestinian Jews. Not a reason for them to not live there as long as they live in peace, but just a reminder that not all claims of "We used to live there" are equal.
> If it matters how long ago the land was held
No it doesn't, it matters only that the original inhabitants are still living and still want their land back. As long as that is true, whoever holds the land by force other than them is an illegitimate thief.
> if a conqueror took your rule seriously, it would encourage genocide.
Which is exactly what conquerors did across history, yes. The only difference now is that in the 21st century after decades of Civil Rights and Decolonization, even Israel is still not insolent enough to go all the way on genocide. But they want that and are slowly getting there.
What's the alternative though ? Everyone who can get something by force should be allowed to ? Sounds like a rather perverse incentive to set. Putin appears justified, only a couple of millions of Russian settlers in Ukrainian lands to go before you will defend him and say his Lebensraum campaign is justified by its success and the displaced Ukrainians should just suck it.
I find myself thinking about Poland. It has existed and not existed many times, with *vastly* varying boundaries. At one point pretty recently, parts of Germany were forcefully removed and put into Poland. Would you say that these Germans had the right to kill Polish people to get back into Germany, or would be morally justified in some sense? Would they be justified if they decided that now, in 2023, they were going to take it back?
DACA for US immigrants exists because there are a number of immigrants in the US illegally that didn't choose to come here. If their parents brought them at five years old and they've lived here for 20 years, they are in most ways more American than whatever country they came from. The argument is that it would be *morally wrong* to send them to Guatemala or wherever they came from, now.
Almost everyone living in Israel now was not involved in the process that created the country or put a Jewish/Israeli government in power. If there are still some people from 1948 around, give it a few years and they won't be. At some point the fact that nobody involved was part of the initial decisions - crimes or not - has to be considered.
And yes, this means that if Putin puts three million Russians into Ukraine, then at some point those people or their grandkids are going to be more entitled to that land than the people kicked out's grandkids.
I'm against Putin's invasion mostly based around that fact. I want such forced land exchanges to fail upfront, because I think it's bad when they happen. Once they happen, and enough time has passed, we're looking at a situation where reversing it also becomes wrong and the people being punished are not those who are responsible for what happened.
I don't know how else to square the circle of human history where everyone is living on the land of someone who was forcefully removed sometime in the past, often long ago. And I mean that - literally everyone. Native American tribes forced each other off the land before Europeans arrived, etc.
You seem to be disputing the factuality of the British *giving* the land, which would dissolve the contradiction.
Regardless, many of the Jews - subsequent immigration notwithstanding - were also "original inhabitants"; the Arabs lost any moral claim to the land after attempting and failing to conquer it by force. #FAFO
Eh, not so much disputing the factuality that much, disputing the framing instead.
>FAFO
Fuck Around and Find Out ? If we're resorting to Might Is Right kind of moral judgements, I don't understand why we're even arguing in the first place. Might Is Right, whoever can afford to get killed the longest will win the land. That will not be decided by 2 strangers hurling words over each other thousands of kilometers apart.
Have it your way, I'm just puzzled when your ilk complain about Hamas, complaining about Hamas is the same way of thinking or argument you're now making fun of by hashtagging FAFO. You wanted a Darwinian no-limits struggle and you got a Darwinian no-limits struggle, what's the problem ?
Either the British gave the land, in which case the founders of Israel weren't thieves, or they took it from the British, in which case they were. The facts determine the framing.
As for the other point: the Arabs have repeatedly initiated force (FA) so any criticism of the IDF's response (FO) is hypocritical and deserves only scorn.
Well it’s because the British double (sometimes triple) promised the same land to different groups. See the overlap of Sykes-Picot, the Balfour Declaration and the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence.
Additionally some may argue that since the Ottomans were colonisers and the Arabs the colonised, the British did not have right to the land they conquered rather the Arabs did. E.G. the Brits didn’t attempt to claim Belgium or The Netherland for their own purposes simply because they conquered those territories - they were returned to their previous owners.
I'm as annoyed by those "declaration of unceded land" things as any non-lefty, but I feel like, wherever the line gets drawn, something that happened over 1000 years ago is safely on the far side of it.
"something that happened over 1000 years ago is safely on the far side of it"
Greece and Turkey have hostilities going back further than that (_possibly_ all the way back to the Trojan War, if that was actually historical... which would make it around 3000 years).
When they're asserting rights based on past control of the land that itself ended it conquest several hundred years ago, looking proportionally far back to how they originally gained said control doesn't feel quite so absurd.
Well, you are using the word conquer in a rather odd way. I guess you can say they conquered the territory (with the Allies) but there was a Belgian government that they acknowledged as legitimate so it is a bit weird to say they conquered the country Belgium.
The Palestinian mandate gave the right to the British to administer the territory until the territories could stand alone. So it doesn’t seem the British were ever meant to take possession of the region.
The British in 1917 said that there should be a Jewish homeland in Palestine but that the rights of the current residents should be respected (Balfour Declaration). In the early 1920's they allowed free immigration of Jews into Palestine, in the late twenties and thereafter attempted to restrict immigration with limited success. At no point did the British give land to the Jews. The closest to that would be a proposed division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states but it never happened.
Prior to 1948 I do not think the Jews stole any Arab land — they bought land from Arabs. In 1948, after the declaration of the state of Israel, the armies of four Arab states invaded Israel and were defeated. Many of the Palestinians fled during the war. They were not permitted back and their land was seized. The Palestinians that did not flee were permitted to remain and eventually (1966) became full citizens of Israel with the same rights as other citizens.
The complaint of the Arabs from 1920 until the 1948 war was not that the British were giving land to Jews but that they were permitting Jews to immigrate and buy land.
>>And how much would your support / antipathy erode if it became clear to you that in fact they don't really care about that, and are instead mostly motivated by a desire to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state on any large chunk of the land it currently exist on?
While I acknowledge that I'm not the target audience for this question, I think you'll get better answers with a little bit more clarity on this sentence. Particularly what is meant by "any large chunk of land," and the "as a Jewish state" part of "cease to exist as a Jewish state."
If one guy wants a two state solution along current lines but the settlers pushed out of the west bank, another wants a two state solution along the lines of the 1947 proposal, a third wants a one state solution and is fine with the fact that such a solution threatens Jewish majority in Israel but willing to work out some kind of constitutional religious/ethnic powersharing along the lines of the structure in Lebanon, and a fourth just wants to push all the Jews into the sea, how many of them would be considered "motivated by a desire to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state on any large chunk of the land it currently exist on?"
I think clarity on that will make for better quality answers.
I really do mean any large chunk of land, so that includes '47-'48 borders, and I really do mean as a Jewish state, which rules out any form of one state or bi-national solution.
Is the poverty of the Palestinian side a consequence of the quality of the land or the quality of the people and culture? Agriculture is only 2.5% of the Israeli economy, and it's almost entirely dependent on artificial irrigation.
How do you compensate someone for the low quality of their people and culture? What incentive do they have to improve?
In 2007, Palestinian GDP per capita was $1570 USD, compared to $25,633 USD for Israel. I think there might be more going on than "sixteen years of blockade".
Incidentally both places have roughly doubled since then, so it's not even clear that the blockade did much economic damage.
You might not be able to develop economically if your neighbour completely determines exactly who and what enters and leaves the country for 16 years, such to the point that half the population are children because everyone dies early.
I assume you mean 'cease to exist'? The answer is: a significant proportion of my support.
If a fully-sovereign (airspace/territorial waters, own military, diplomatic freedom, East Jerusalem solved, transit rights between Gaza/WB if applicable, ideally democratic) Palestinian state were created on UN-recognised borders, and its leadership then turned around and said 'Actually, we'd like to relitigate the entire Nakba now', I would oppose this, and support Israel in whatever conflict ensued.
On the other hand, the fact that some Palestinians really do want Israel to just disappear doesn't invalidate my overall support.
Correct, thanks for catching. And thanks for responding. To further this line of questioning, what do you think explains the Palestinian's continued rejection of statehood offers starting with Oslo, then repeated in 2002 and 2006?
A combination of Israeli duplicity and Palestinian political malpractice.
To take one example, the proposals of the Camp David summit in 2000 are often touted as a fantastic deal from Israel that the Palestinians were dumb to reject. Until you get into the details - such as the lack of the aforementioned basic powers of a sovereign state, the fragmentation of Palestinian territory into enclaves divided by settlements and settler-only roads, the punt on the right of return, the denial of full sovereignty over the al-Aqsa mosque, the provision of only small cells of territory in East Jerusalem breaking apart Arab neighbourhoods there.
I thought the follow-up talks at Taba had potential - but of course elections loomed, and Ariel Sharon decided to take a stroll on the Temple Mount accompanied by a battalion of guards, and the rest is history. Even if I think Yasser Arafat should have done more to prevent the Second Intifada.
Iirc, Sharon's government was the party that rejected the 2002 pan-Arab initiative, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyway, it's commendable of you to at least try to sound out the opposing perspective in a non-hostile manner.
In a continuing spirit of striving for understanding, may I ask how you understand "the right of return" such that it is distinct from "relitigating the entire Nakba"? To my understanding those two are synonymous; the former is a euphemism for use on and by westerners. The right of return as advocated by most Palestinians involves a right of all displaced Palestinians to return to the territory of Israel, with full citizenship and restoration of all property rights including to absurd things such as houses that no longer exist, land which now contains entire towns, and tenancies in buildings which have been owned by individual Jewish landlords for a hundred years (and which in many cases also no longer exist, no doubt).
Now, entirely aside from the fact that such a right is not understood to exist for any other group of forcibly resettled people, e.g. the Germans relocated from current West Poland in the aftermath of WWII, this is also, in practice, the same thing as the destruction of the state of Israel. As far as I can see, anyway.
"In a continuing spirit of striving for understanding, may I ask how you understand "the right of return" such that it is distinct from 'relitigating the entire Nakba'? To my understanding those two are synonymous; the former is a euphemism for use on and by westerners."
The first is a claim on civil rights and property, the second is a claim of state sovereignty over land. Perhaps 'entire' is doing a bit too much work in my phrasing, for which I apologise.
I don't actually expect a full right of return to be granted for the practical reasons you describe, and I think it's one of the things that the Palestinians will have to yield on in any reasonable peace settlement. It's worth noting that their negotiators have in principle been willing to accept compensation in lieu of said right. ( e.g. https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-was-willing-to-compromise-on-right-of-return/ ) But it is something that will have to be addressed as part of the final settlement.
"Now, entirely aside from the fact that such a right is not understood to exist for any other group of forcibly resettled people, e.g. the Germans relocated from current West Poland in the aftermath of WWII, this is also, in practice, the same thing as the destruction of the state of Israel."
It's true that the Silesians et al don't exercise such a right, but Jews who had lost property in Poland in World War II (which was subsequently retained by the Communist government) absolutely do lay claim to restitution, and many of the absurdities you point out obtain in that case as well. In fact, a couple of years ago Poland enacted a law imposing a statue of limitations of thirty years on such claims, drawing considerable anger from Israel. In other European countries, if I recall correctly, restitution funds in lieu of returned Jewish property have proven satisfactory.
Why exactly an influx of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship should constitute the destruction of Israel is an interesting question from the perspective of Israel calling itself a non-apartheid democracy, but perhaps beyond the scope. I understand the four existing Arab parties in Israel usually caucus with the Left and things are more or less okay?
Do you believe that not getting everything you want justifies continued violent resistance, if you are getting enough to start building a good life for your people?
And further, when you say "the fact that some Palestinians really do want Israel to just disappear doesn't invalidate my overall support", what percentage of Palestinians really wanting that as their primary goal would it take for you to rethink your support?
I think there comes a point where such a putative sovereignty is about as fit for purpose as a quartered teacup. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, notably by MW, the social and economic viability of the Palestinian state even under some rather favourable scenarios remains tenuous. Under the 2000 proposals, it would have been nil.
I think Arafat should have plowed such political capital as he had at the time into trying to stop the intifada, and he should have been much more vigorous with counter-offers, but I doubt it would have changed anything. There was simply not enough time for Taba. Sharon's provocation succeeded and if I recall correctly (you might be better versed in Israel's electoral history) Likud trounced Labour in 2001 by what's still the largest margin in the country's history.
Something quite similar happened with Olmert and Abbas in 2008. The parties came close to a deal - Olmert is on record as saying that Abbas never broke off negotiations - and then after the election Netanyahu disavowed all progress made in negotiations up to that point.
It's often said that Israel has to only lose a war once to perish. I think if the Palestinians ever do get to successfully negotiate statehood, culminating in official recognition of independence by Israel and Western powers, they'll also only get a chance to do it once. It has to be satisfactory forever, and questions like the status of Jerusalem go even beyond Palestine.
As to your final question, I can't give you a precise mathematical answer, but I can offer this: I could imagine myself hating Israel as such, irrationally and nihilistically, if I were a younger man in Gaza. Perhaps I might even decide that the way to create meaning out of my otherwise hopeless life is to at least make the enemy feel pain. You may not enjoy hearing this, but I understand it. From where I'm sitting now, comfortably, in the global north, with a certain modest amount of education and experience under my belt and a much more zoomed-out view of the conflict, I know that it's not a morally sound position. But I think the gradual waning of mutual hatred (and I hope you won't deny it is mutual) will follow an honourable peace, not precede it.
This is very contentious history that we're not going to agree on, so I'll just say I respectfully disagree with your characterization of Israeli willingness to make real concessions. There is no polity in the modern era that has ceded more territory it controlled than Israel has, and all while being militarily stronger than whoever they were handing the land over to.
To your second item, I can easily understand it too. I am under no illusions as to how awful life in Gaza is, and how that situation easily leads to hate and rage and the desire for revenge above all else, and the destruction of the enemy beyond all else. That doesn't address the question of how liberal-minded people who desire peace should address this issue though. If one side of the conflict genuinely has no desire for a peaceful settlement, but will only lay down their arms when the other side ceases to exist or agrees to be dominated by them, shouldn't that change the way you see and advocate for their cause, no matter how awful their conditions are?
The Algerians ejected the French in 8 years, the black South African majority took their land back in 20 years. The Palestinians have been fighting Jewish Israelis for more than a hundred years at this point, yet an independent Jewish state still exists.
The question of what motivates them is really important here. Because if what they want really is the end of Israel, beyond any desire for a sovereign prosperous state of their own, then the question of whether to support such a movement becomes a lot more complicated, even for the most anti-colonialist pro resistance minded factions in the West. Because at that point you aren't supporting a war of liberation anymore, you're supporting an irredentist movement that puts the achievement of a nationalist dream above the lives millions of people.
The obvious question here is of what is Israel a colony? I think this is a false equivalence, because Israel is the homeland not the colony.
Also, as the Supreme Court has shown recently, native American rights are generally guaranteed by treaty; otherwise they are (willingly or not) citizens of the US. Is there a specific treaty relevant here?
It's hard for to read through the source papers and understand the nature of the disagreement, but one weird thing I noticed is that Shilong Piao and Philippe Ciais are authors on both the _Nature Sustainability_ paper cited by NASA and the _Science Advances_ paper cited by Scientific American.
Frogtopia. I think I've posted this before, but the frog patio has been improved and expanded considerably. Blow past ending wild animal suffering into wild animal pleasure.
Nice video, but one thing puzzles me. How on earth are the frogs supposed to reach frog towers from the ground? One short scene showed a frog climbing up a large leaf, and that would get it part of the way. But they must have a prodigious jump to reach it from the ground.
My parents' (old) house had a cellar with a pit outside to provide light. As this was naturally damp and full of old leaves and the like it attracted frogs and toads. They got in and out by walking down a wall (about 3m). Turns out they're excellent climbers.
I think the jumping is aground mobility/escape thing with most frogs to be honest.
I'm guessing they can climb the outside of the tower, or else there is a gap at the bottom and they can climb the inside all the way from the bottom. Tree frogs are pretty good at climbing even smooth things.
I pay for some journalists that I trust personally, based upon their prior work which they made available for free. I didn’t get there with Jacobin, in part because I didn’t see a lot of stuff I could read for free. But maybe I didn’t look hard enough? I also looked at Noah Smith and Matt Yglesias, FWIW. I kept finding, “here is a thing I believe, but I’ll only give the details to paid subscribers.” Am I just looking in the wrong places?
I think that's one of the potential pitfalls of Substack: it's probably hard to build a subscriber base from people who aren't already familiar with your work unless you give a bunch of content away for free, but if you do that, people may feel unobligated to buy a paid subscription. Much easier to generate revenue if people are already familiar with your work from somewhere else, like with Matt Y and Noah Smith, and your readers are essentially just following you from A to B.
Also, Jacobin ought to be paying the public to read their work, rather than the other way around.
It's obviously easier for writers who already have a fan base to do well on substack. Are there any people who started on substack and developed a big/high paying fan base?
Have an example from youtube: perun, who started out as an ordinary gaming youtuber, then became a major military logistics blogger when the war in Ukraine started.
Not sure. If it has, maybe Substack should offer other writers some insight on how to replicate such success, 'cause I would think that is a key to its long term success/expansion.
Substack allows you to make some of your articles free, to build the audience, and sell the rest. So it's up to you. You could write for free for one year, then sell. Or make half of the articles free, and sell the other half. Or make all articles free, and sell the access to open threads. Or make almost everything free, and sell a symbolic part.
For example, my strategy would be to post everything for free, until I get so many readers that if hypothetically 1% of them paid, I could quit my job. Then I would probably switch to half free and half paid, or most free but open threads paid, not sure... The idea is that even getting 1% of readers to pay you is probably too optimistic. And switching to paid articles too soon is stupid, because fewer free articles means fewer new readers, and getting like $20 a month is not worth it. You would be selling your future too cheaply.
(Another important thing is to write regularly. It doesn't matter which strategy you choose if your blog is empty.)
My current (probably mis)understanding of Nebula's model is that there is an overall subscription fee for Nebula, and authors/artists get payed based on views, but subscribers don't pay an incremental cost for viewing particular authors/artists.
Right. My point was only that it's not obvious what the best strategy is, and that people who come to Substack from traditional media outlets like Bari Weiss or whomever don't face these same kinds of tradeoffs.
What do the Stats of Substack mean? a) What is the difference between an Open and a View? Can Views occur without opening? How? When I divide the # Opens by the Open Rate I get a number not relates to anything I can see. What does it mean?
So, uh..... how much water am I supposed to be drinking every day? The figures even from reputable medical sources seem absurd, anywhere from 2.5 to 4 liters a day. Then they all vaguely mention that you're getting some % of that from food as well, but they don't really seem to quantify how much.
I eat a pretty healthy diet that's fruit and vegetable-heavy. I drink a small amount of water (like a couple cups plus a tea in the afternoon), and pee clear multiple times a day. I would say I never drink even 1 full liter of actual water unless I'm heavily exercising. Doesn't peeing clear all day mean that I'm getting enough? Or should I be forcing down multiple liters a day for whatever reason? (I know, you didn't log in to ASC to hear about my urine, but here we are)
The amount you actually need varies wildly according to diet, climate, and activity levels. Recommendations tend towards the upper end, since too much water is mostly harmless unless you're drinking really absurd amounts, and even then the problem is more an imbalance between electrolyte intake and water intake than the raw amount of water intake: this is why endurance athletes and people doing hard physical labor in hot, dry weather are often advised to supplement electrolytes, especially sodium, by drinking isotonic beverages (gatorade, pedialyte, etc) for hydration or taking salt pills.
For diet, the water/electrolyte imbalance problem goes both ways. Primate kidneys are pretty bad comparatively at concentrating urine, so we need a lot of water to get rid of excess sodium (or potassium or magnesium, but sodium is much more commonly the problem), so if you eat a lot of salty foods you're going to need more water to keep up with it. Likewise, stuff like fruits and vegetables are often mostly water by weight. For example apples are 85% water by weight, so eating a large apple weighting 9.5oz is going to be the same as eating 1.5 oz of dried apple crisps and drinking a cup of water.
And in addition, different macronutrients generate water as a metabolic byproduct: 110g water per 100g fat, 40g water per 100g protein, and 60g water per 100g carbohydrates. This is not a conservation of mass violation in the case of fat, since the extra mass comes from net respiration (oxygen + fat => co2 + water + other metabolic byproducts). Then there's water demand from dealing with the metabolic byproducts: carbohydrates metabolize completely into co2 + water, so not much water is needed to get rid of the co2 (water does evaporate through your lungs and vocal tract mucus membranes when you breath, but that's usually counted as an environmental effect rather than a metabolic one), while protein metabolized for energy yields urea as a major byproduct which takes a lot of water to carry away (roughly equal to the metabolic water), and fat is somewhere in between the two extremes.
Climate and activity levels have pretty much the effects you'd expect, and those effects can be very large in magnitude. A hot environment means you need to sweat to keep cool, as does high activity levels, and dry air means you lose a lot of water through respiration. So if you're a marathon runner or a construction worker living in Saudi Arabia, you're going to need much, much more water than if you're a sedentary office worker living in the Scottish highlands.
The bottom line is that so long as you drink when you're thirsty, you're eating a healthy diet with a fair amount of fresh foods, and your urine is clear or light yellow, you're probably fine. If you're doing hard physical activity or if you're in a particularly hot and dry environment, it may be worth keeping water with you and make an point of sipping at it when you're feeling winded or overheated, but that's more situational advice than general advice.
I used to know a guy with a medical condition that prevented him from feeling thirst. If you don't have that condition, your sense of thirst is probably a great deal more reliable than some advice you found on the internet. (And the internet advice appearing from many difference sources probably just means they're copying from each other.)
If you don't have any medical issues that seem like they stem from not having enough water, don't feel thirsty, and are peeing clear, then you're probably fine. I drink a lot more than you do, but I also probably eat less fruit and vegetables during the day. 4 liters is definitely a lot unless you're a very large person or engaging in vigorous exercise (I'll easily drink that much over a day of hiking).
Not a doctor but I can't see how you would not be absolutely fine. I occasionally drink a pint of water in one after exercise on a hot day, can't imagine drinking a whole liter. I don't know if it is true but have heard that there are more deaths from hyponatremia from excessive water consumption, than there are from dehydration.
Even if that is true, the dangers from dehydration (death or injury from secondary effects), possible permanent damage to the body, just feeling unwell mean it is likely a greater risk than hyponatremia (where the not death risk is generally feeling rather bloated and slow), as dehydration kicks in when you don't drink whilst hyponatremia doesn't kick in when you drink a little bit more than required.
1) We need actual wage indexes bases on sane job to sane job wage changes, not unit value indexes. 2) We should have a "Trillionth" a Treasury security that pays a fraction of the GDP some 5 and 10 years in the future. It's trading value together with TIPS would give us market expectations of real and nominal GDP.
3) We need intermediate tenor TIPS 1, 3 and 3 years
Agreed. Particularly re (1): I once heard a comment that it is bizarre that fluctuations of the Dow are reported daily, but fluctuations in the median real wage (which affects far more people) get reported around annually.
The ideal thing I was imagining would include reporting on working conditions and dealing with problems on both individual and group levels. It would report on unions doing well *and* unions doing badly. It might even be international.
Imagine something at least as comprehensive as the Wall Street Journal, but for employees.
The AFL-CIO blog is at least vaguely in the direction I was thinking of.
I have a question about jet engines. The basic layout of a jet engine is this:
CF->COM->TF
CF = Compressor fans
COM = Combustion chamber
TF = Turbine fans
The arrows between the three indicate the direction of the airflow through the jet engine.
In the compression chamber (COM), fuel is sprayed in, mixed with the air, and ignited, producing little explosions and also causing the air/fuel mixture to expand in volume. All things being equal, such an explosion should expand outward spherically. That means there should be some force PUSHING BACK from COM into CF. In other words, a result of combustion should be airflow going against the desired direction, so the overall airflow actually looks like this:
CF<->COM->TF
Due to this backflow phenomenon, why do jet engines work at all?
How much efficiency is lost due to this phenomenon?
Your "spheric expansion implies net symmetry" assumption is wrong. Say you're indestructible and you shit a live granade every second. If you run, the explosions will propel you in the direction you are running. That's not too off from how a ramjet works.
In a jet engine, things are much more complicated, but it helps if you think of it as an air breathing rocket with a turbo. An air breathing rocket explodes continuously, but this does not impede the continuous intake of air. This is because the air coming in is under enough pressure to overcome the explosion, while the exhaust side just "gives in".
There's an initial flow velocity in the intended direction, so an unstart would have to more than overcome that (the flow is strong enough that stabilizing the deflagration zone within the combustor is a key design challenge; otherwise it just gets blown out the back).
Also the stator & rotor blades are shaped to minimize drag for the intended flow direction, so there's more force resisting backflow, and every bit of flow aft through the turbine puts more favorable torque into the shaft than backflow through the compressor creates in adverse torque.
The air that's already flowing through the engine pushes the flame toward the turbine in the first place, so even if it's energy was radiating equally in all directions relative to itself, it'd still be mostly going aft relative up the engine.
Each blade of a compressor or turbine is like a little wing. When the air blows from the front there's not much drag; when it blows from the back there's a lot. The turbine gets turned more easily by the flow going the right way than the compressor would by the flow going the wrong way, so the whole shaft spins the right way to keep the flow going the same direction.
My (pretty sketchy) layman's understanding is that the injected fuel undergoes compression autoignition, as in a diesel engine. I assume the post-CF air is pretty seriously compressed, and behaving more like a cylinder head than any pressure front you or I could muster into a kazoo. Given a very high and a somewhat lower pressure side, the combustion gases take the easy way out.
No autoignition in any Brayton cycle engine I've ever heard of.
But since it's a continuous flow (v. the discretized phases in a piston engine) you generally only* need to keep the flame going once started (also modern turbofan engines can generally be restarted in flight, which means relighting).
In addition to the compressor fans, the incoming air is starting at near-rest relative to ground, and except at takeoff and landing that means from the engine's perspective the air is blowing into the intake at several hundred miles per hour before it hits the compressor. At substantially supersonic speeds you don't actually need the compression fan anymore: in a ramjet design, all the compression comes from channelling the headwind through an inlet whose shape compresses it to required levels by the time it reaches the combustion chamber.
My concern (btw, great question proyas, that I share) is that the expansion wave from combustion presumably would be doing work against both the high-pressure CF-side air and the low-pressure TF-side air, assuming spherical propagation -- it would be a lot more visible in the TF-side flow but you'd still be doing some (very marginal relative to its existing thermodynamic properties) compression and heating of the high-pressure CF air.
However, (as a complete layperson) I think there are two things I can think of that could result in net-output here and extractable work from the turbine:
(1) Physical geometry of the combustion chamber favoring only TF-side propagation (e.g., assume a parabolic solid combustion chamber construction opening towards the rear of the engine with combustion occurring at the focus, and intake air to feed the combustion coming from the "sides" rather than the solid bottom of the parabola, and/or
(2) The extraction of any work done heating the "backflow" high-pressure CF air as its driven out by continuous flow into the turbine - that is, even if heat and pressure are added "backwards," this additional work will be extracted (in the form of air expansion and cooling) assuming an existing continuous flow[1] from the turbine, because the portion of the air that is most CF-ward when it is compressed has moved to the turbine at the time that it re-expands and cools.
Tangentially related to (2), I recall specifically that took me a long while to wrap my head around why compressors existed in the first place -- how could it possibly be energetically favorable to spend all that work compressing air just to squeeze out a relatively small advantage in Carnot efficiency? What I eventually realized was that the reason it made sense was that the work done in compression wasn't "lost" but that in an ideal engine the work spent compressing the air in the first place was re-extracted as it re-expanded and drove the (turbine/piston) to do work on it. Thus the compression-to-expansion step is (in an idealized engine) net energy-neutral, and so optimizing the Carnot efficiency by having combustion occur in an already high-temperature (because high pressure) environment using compression was the natural thing to do.
[1] I assume, without being certain, that the only way you can bootstrap a jet engine is either using external power to spin it up or else to rely on asymmetrical combustion chamber geometry favoring rear flow.
This is a great question, something that I should think more of but here is an attempt at explanation (and they way I would go to derive the theory more formally):
you should not think in term of explosion or increased pressure, like you would in internal combustion engine. Instead of the "explosion" being a heat input that cause pressure increase at (more or less) constant volume, think of the dual: a heat input that cause volume increase at (more or less constant) pressure.
This may seem strange because the explosion in chamber is soooo present in our collective imagination since the invention of the internal combustion piston engine. But it's quite natural for older and more common open flame configuration: when you heat air with a flame, you just get more volume at the same pressure. if you do it in a tube, air in and out are at atmospheric pressure (they have to, by equilibrium), but more volume get out than in...
First let's check what is a turbine or compressor stage: as you said the turbine stage is the symmetric of compressor stage: for a given mass flow, they either extract work by decreasing pressure (turbine) or increase pressure by using work (compressor). They also modify the volume flow rate when the fluid is compressible, but this is secondary to the understanding, only important if you want to do accurate computations.
With this in mind, the simplified turbine explanation differ a little bit more from piston engines, but makes more sense. Let's check how the turboengine work by following a mass of air as it goes through the turboengine:
1) air is compressed (pressure increased ( and flow reduced somewhat)) at compressor stage. Work is used at this stage, similar to the compression stroke of the piston engine.
2) fuel is injected and burned, adding heat. This cause volume expansion at constant pressure, but work is not gathered. Instead, it means the flow is increased without pressure dropping...
3) turbine stage gather work by decreasing pressure (and increasing flow somewhat) of the exhaust gas. This is the reverse of the compressor stage, so work is gathered.
However, because stage 2), the turbine stage act on a larger volume flow than the compressor stage had to deal with, meaning that more work is gathered than was used in the compressor stage, resulting in net power generation.
Key point is that the theoretical themodynamic cycle is not exactly the same as the piston engine: the heat stage is done at constant pressure increased volume, not at constant volume increase pressure....
The engine does need something external to get things spinning. For small LBTFs (think fighters) that could be a start cart; for large HBTFs (think airlines) there are numerous engine accessories within the nacelle. And both can use the pinwheel effect of the air when in flight for restarts.
I question the conventional wisdom that anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs, icing, etc) are a helpful treatment for acute injuries, and I worry that they're actively harmful. Inflammation seems like a proactive response from the body, surely it would not have evolved if it weren't beneficial to our ancestors. The plausible reasons that I've thought of that anti-inflammatories could still be beneficial are:
- inflammation can be life-saving for extreme injuries, but is counterproductive for moderate injuries. Evolution cares much more about the former.
- inflammation was helpful to our ancestors, but harmful to us. But why? Is inflammation a vestigial response in humans? Does some other element of modern medicine substitute for inflammation?
- anything I'm missing?
I don't have any data to backup my suspicions, but when I've looked for evidence that anti-inflammatory treatments are beneficial I haven't found any data on that side either. Can anybody point me to a good data source here?
There is some evidence that the average human has an immune system that is too trigger-happy. The popsci book Immune goes on about possible causes.
One cause is the lack of parasites: many parasites suppress immune activity, and early humans were ridden with them. Another reason is the hygiene hypothesis - infants aren't being exposed to antigens that would've trained their immune systems into not responding.
I have asked a doctor this specific question, and was told that yes, inflammation is part of the healing response: but if it's going on too long then it's an over-reaction and it's worth doing something about it.
I recommend the site Pain Science for questions like these. The person who writes it is smart and skeptical and addresses questions like these. (Also, it's a huge site, with lots of resources.)
I don't have a data source for you, but you are not alone in the general suspicion that your body's inflammation serves a purpose and suppressing it might be bad. Baseball starting pitchers traditionally "ice" their arms after pitching. But I don't know of any evidence that the ones who don't suffer because of it.
For an "n" of one, my son pitched through junior college and never iced his arm. He finished his playing career having never suffered an arm injury. But "n" is one.
Pitching is an extreme form of throwing, which humans have done for a while.
It is, however:
(a) A bit different,
(b) And a LOT more intense, and
(c) Done many more times in a row than would have been "normal" while evolving.
Thus the prevalence of pitcher injuries. The motion plus the intensity plus the frequency is pushing what the human body can endure without breaking down. Before the arm breaks down, however, it is common for the pitchers to experience soreness and inflamation as your body tries to signal that "things are not well." Icing masks this.
I can imagine techies icing their wrists because of early carpal tunnel. Typing doesn't have much of an analog (speed plus sheer repetition of the fine motor activity) during human evolution, either :-)
Not sure that's a major component of our evolutionary history to be fair. I'd go with trying to hunt birds with stones as a better one (but I'm not sure if I've seen evidence early man did that or just assumed it).
Sounds like a missed opportunity. Imagine how much more entertaining baseball today would be if only our ancestors had engaged in more drawn out, torturous, public executions.
Inflammation is a legitimate natural response to injury, and it is probably possible to over-treat it. But just because something has evolved, doesn't mean it's perfect. For example, fever can occur even for non-infections, and occasionally (not commonly) gets so high it risks causing other problems, like brain damage.
One possibility that jumps out to me, is just that humans can now recognize when they are injured without a constant physical response. If you, say, sprain your ankle, then pain and swelling would help an animal not use it for a while, which is long-run beneficial. But I can also just recognize that my ankle is sprained, and I know to stay off of it for X days, and having it be swollen and painful is unnecessary discomfort. Or these signals could persist after it's necessary to stay off the joint, because there was only enough time/selection pressure to evolve crude mechanisms.
I've become sort of superstitiously attached to letting fever rage, seems like the body is doing something there. But then I don't think I get those high temps that worried our mothers in childhood. But also don't have a handy rectal thermometer like moms used to wield, and these modern digital ones seem to register the same temp no matter what.
Leprosy would seem to indicate that a constant pain signal is necessary: lepers gradually lose their ability to feel pain, and often have to take drastic measures to recover from injuries properly. Even if they know their foot is injured, they have no feedback on whether a particular action or position is worsening their injury or not. In contrast, when I have a sprained ankle I know *exactly* what actions and positions are making it worse, immediately.
Looking for a recommendation of a desktop PC for music recording. I run Reaper DAW and use 2nd gen Focusrite Scarlett USB interface. It used to be easy to understand PC specs, but now I find myself hopelessly confused by the various processors, memory types, etc. Hoping to spend under $1000 and prioritize low latency.
I know you are looking for a PC, but I think that a Mac mini would be quite good for this task at this price point. I think that macOS is inherently better with latency than Windows (even though I haven't used audio software in windows in a long time, but most people I know who work in this field are Mac users).
Luckily Reaper works perfectly on macOS, so this aspect shouldn't be a problem at least.
Music recording really doesn't push the tech envelope with modern hardware. People were recording entire professionally produced albums onto PCs and Apple desktops over 10 years ago. I guy I play for right now is running Reaper on a 9 year old macbook with zero issues.
Interesting, I had latency issues with a 5 y o intel-based laptop. I wonder if Macs are just better for this work. Like I said, modern computer specs are bewildering to me at this point.
Recently I have played Tin Can (because it was in that humble monthly thingy). It is a spacecraft escape pod simulator. You sit in that shitty escape pod and try to keep life support running for as long as possible, while equipment parts fail, micro-meteorites puncture your hull and the universe generally makes your life miserable. Depending on the mode, you might even get rescued after some time.
A typical sequence is the oxygen deployment device failing. Looking up the error codes, you find one says "power transformer failed". Of course, you did not bring a spare power transformer. Luckily, you have a device which changes the nitrogen content to maintain 1 bar of total pressure, which is much less critical than oxygen. So you decide to cannibalize that. Unfortunately, you forgot to turn the device off and get electrocuted when you try to remove it. After a brief struggle, you succeed in grabbing it and plug it into the oxygen device, which causes the O2 partial pressure to increase back to 0.2 bar or something.
Personally, I would not pay 17 bucks for that game (it is not a game you will likely spend 100s of hours playing), but if it comes on sale it is worth considering.
What's the steelman case for the benefits of CO2 concentration increasing over time? I can think of two main benefits: faster plant growth with higher CO2, and fewer cold deaths due to higher temperatures. I suspect that these advantages are not being given full consideration in mainstream sources. For example, I've seen sources acknowledging that higher CO2 increases crop growth, but point out that the carbohydrate concentration is so high that other nutrients are diluted (as if too much/too cheap of a source of calories is a bad thing, as opposed to the solution to starvation).
So is there a good source out there that seriously considers the benefits of higher CO2? Most sources opposed to the mainstream narrative on climate change are...not good, and I don't think mainstream sources will seriously consider the possible benefits.
> (as if too much/too cheap of a source of calories is a bad thing, as opposed to the solution to starvation)
A brute increse of calories to detriment of other nutrients is indeed not a solution to starvation, as man lives not by calories alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor
It is broken down by region with, e.g. for the UK "Annual heat-related deaths increase from 798 in 1990s to 2,793 in 2050s and 3,519 in the 2080s under the medium-high scenario. Annual cold-related deaths decrease from 80,313 in 1990s to 60,021 in 2050s and 51,243 in 2080s under the medium-high scenario. "
Whether of not higher CO2 concentrations will lead to enhanced photosynthesis or crop production is not actually a straight-forward answer. It depends on whether CO2 is the resource that is limiting growth. Whether that is true depends on the temperature (reaction speed of Rubisco and other enzymatic reactions becomes more limiting at lower temps), nutrient levels, water supply, the type of photosynthesis being performed (C3 vs C4 vs CAM), and a whole lot of other stuff.
I agree that potential positive benefits of climate change are perhaps under-emphasized or at least not given due consideration in a lot of the press (and even the scientific community). But on the specific case of CO2 fertilization it's not really clear that there will be net positive effects.
"faster plant growth with higher CO2" is not intrinsically a benefit. I saw an article in Science News about an experiment that showed weeds benefit more from increased CO2 than crops. You could instead argue for "increased agriculture with higher CO2", but farmers prefer fewer of the extreme weather events associated with global warming.
Global warming is not associated with extreme weather events, at least not with high confidence. The one possible exception is "extreme" heat, but that's just an artifact of temperatures generally increasing.
I agree that David Friedman is among the best on this, and I even agree with him on some particular points and I think that he's mostly pretty good (and definitely an honest participant who is seeking the truth).
My criticisms would probably be that A) he ignores the impacts of transition to focus on the long term equilibrium and B) he doesn't take into account things that aren't directly included in GDP (mostly I'm thinking of value from ecosystems etc., although this could be considered an addendum to A since ecosystems will also eventually recover, just at probably an even longer timescale than for human societies)
There is no case for a "CO2 concentration increasing over time" in the long run. It is impossible; a fantasy told to people who would rather dream about Mad Max than do simple math.
As far as the question of "should we stabilize at 300ppm or 500ppm or 800ppm" ... there seems to be almost no research. I think the question is still taboo due to the wide prevalence of "climate change isn't real" people.
Of course it isn't increasing consistently over geological time, and there's no "best concentration", and it has been higher before.
But it's increasingly rapidly _now_, and the rapid _changes_ in temperature create problems _for us_.
This is the important point - it's not about saving the planet, it will be perfectly fine in a million years. It's about not creating unnecessary problems for ourselves.
It's not like world at +3 degrees C is inherently much worse, but it's not the world we have built for and live in. If the world had always been 3 C warmer and threatened to drop three degrees, that would _also_ be bad.
Yes, absolutely. CO2 concentration increasing monotonically would be bad, if for no other reason than at some point CO2 becomes directly toxic to people. And the question of what the "best" place to stabilize is essentially the question I'm asking. Or, really, even a simpler one: are we better off where we're at now (or where we expect to be in 30 years) rather than going back closer to pre-industrial levels? I suspect (with low confidence) that pre-industrial levels would actually be meaningfully worse, but I don't have any good source for that.
I don't know. And I am in no rush to find out. If we were to use an oracle to determine that 600ppm is best, we would have 20 years of people sabotaging "green" efforts with the shallow rationale of "scientists said more carbon emissions are good", followed by having the exact same problems as today.
I suspect Alex meant that we'd have people ignoring the necessary prep work that would need to happen if we wanted to actually stop when we reach the optimal amount.
The positive effects you point out should in principle be included in the standard models estimating costs of CO2 concentrations. Perhaps they are not; I'm not expert enough to know. If not some technician should fix it. The fact that these benefits are not talked about in MSM is neither here nor there.
If my criticisms are correct, the article is more nearly propaganda than science. In particular, its estimate depends on the implicit assumption of no medical progress for the next three centuries.
Any such estimate depends on a whole lot of judgement calls, the future being complicated and uncertain. If you know what answer you want to get you make all of them in the same direction.
True enough. It works as well for the policy of NOT taxing net emissions (an perforce not doing anything even more costly). I'm not the one to do it, but it seems to me that the only way is to critique the models and make them do what they should, give the best policy guidance.
I'm not talking about the mainstream media. I'm talking about mainstream science, such as Science, Nature, the IPCC, etc. I'm not claiming all of those sources are wrong about the positives. I'm saying all of those sources have exhibited bias in the past, and so I want to consider other sources that might have a different perspective.
Good critique of the article. a) Adaption should be taken into account in estimating costs and by implication the amount of deadweight loss of avoidance policies we should be willing to experience to avoid those costs. b) The costs of adaptation are part of the costs that can be avoided by avoidance policies.
I feel like there's a strong file drawer effect in climate science. If you do a study that predicts crop yields will be up 30% in Canada and this more than cancels out the 20% decrease in equatorial regions, it's not good for your career to publish it so you fiddle with your methodology until you get a model that gives more career-friendly predictions.
Comments on substack take a lot of resources to load. With OTs often reaching comment counts in the thousands, I literally can not view any of them on my (pre-covid) android tablet.
Is there a 3rd party interface for them somewhere, like nitter for twitter?
Or could we just host comments on a site where they actually scale (e.g. themotte, lesswrong) and just fetch them below the articles?
One workaround that I've used on my laptop (windows 10, firefox browser) is to click the "stop" button when I scroll and see "This page is making the browser load slowly" message. After doing that, I can at least read the comments quickly, though I can't directly reply. I use a second tab and search when I want to reply (or expand a partially visible comment). It is awkward, but better than waiting multiple minutes for substack to honor a scroll command.
Why not open the comment you want to reply to in a separate tab instead of searching? Middle-clicking on the timestamp should get you where you're going.
Thanks! That seems to work some of the time. My recent experience seems to be that some of the link-following parts of the substack interface seem sporadically unreliable. ( maybe when the total size of the comments on a post gets large??? )
Is metasurprise a thing? Like, initially being surprised by some object level phenomenon, and then realizing that this phenomenon seems predictable and thus being surprised by the initial feeling of surprise?
Particularly as one watches/reads more fiction, twists and complications that used to be surprising start to become recognized as specific tropes and become much less surprising from there out.
One account of the origins of self-awareness and introspection that I find pretty compelling is the idea that as we evolved (as a highly social species), there was obvious adaptive advantage to being able to model the other minds around us in order to predict what they would do and to manipulate them ('Machiavellian intelligence'). Once we had the machinery to model minds, modeling our own came pretty much for free.
I had this theory mentally tagged as having come from Marvin Minsky's _The Society of Mind_, which I read when I was pretty young. But I've just spent an hour searching through that book and have failed to find the theory there. Can anyone point me to the source of that idea, or toward writing on the topic? Thanks!
Not sure, but Daniel Dennett was talking about our innate Theory of Mind, also called Folk Psychology, in his 1987 The Intentional Stance. Minds Make Societies by Pascal Boyer, Being You by Anil Seth are good current books on the subject.
Hmm, yeah, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
'...narrative consciousness of the kind associated with the stream of consciousness is also clearly relevant in so far as it involves the application to one's own case of the interpretative abilities that derive in part from their social application (Ryle 1949, Dennett 1978, 1992).'
The Dennett citations are to his book _Brainstorms_ and the paper 'The self as the center of narrative gravity'; I'll dig into those and see what I can find.
Thanks again!
[EDIT: wow, I messed up *both* those citations; now corrected]
I noticed how much capacity I lost when mildly ill-- a stomach bug followed by UTI. It was almost as though part of my thinking is done with my intestines, and if they aren't happy, I'm badly distracted.
I'm impressed by the number of people who accomplish a lot while dealing with serious physical problems, but I started thinking about how much of a weight illnesses and disabilities are on the human race if you pile the problems up into a huge negative utility lump.
I'm thinking in terms of healing people, not preventing them from existing. (Should I need to say that?)
Please don't bring up diet and exercise-- there is huge range of physical difficulty where they don't help, or only help a little.
I'm thinking about utopia-level medical care. Is this something which should be on the rationalist to-do list. We don't even have a good guess about how much capacity is being lost all the time.
I noticed a similar thing recently. Went through a period of having frequent heartburn. Eventually figured out it was a reaction to drinking a beer that was very hoppy, but before I figured that out I noticed that when I had heartburn I was quite unproductive. Things that usually seemed interesting seemed boring, and work that is usually not difficult was fiendishly hard to get through. And I don't think the low mood and productivity were a direct result of the heartburn, because it actually was not very severe heartburn. It was quite persistent, but rarely was the pain itself worse than mild to moderate. It was as though whatever was wrong in my gut not only gave me heartburn, but also sapped my energy -- as though though too much of my blood was circling my gut, and not enough was left for my brain.
I've had pancreatitis for eight years. At 6 feet, I weigh 122 lbs. After a distal pancreatectomy and a splenectomy, my cognition improved greatly. But flare-ups can take 15 lbs. overnight, after which my cognitive gains are lost, and simple things like memory and calculation become difficult. February 10-13 I lost 25 lbs., which caused real genitive losses, but I've found improved cognition usually returns as my weight returns and my body stabilizes. Still, slipping in and out of cognitive stages is unnerving.
> Please don't bring up diet and exercise-- there is huge range of physical difficulty where they don't help, or only help a little.
This strikes me as a ridiculous thing to say. "Please don't bring up this thing we know currently works and is being underutilized by billions of people so that we can instead speculate about hypothetical future technology which isn't even close to existing"
It's not a ridiculous thing to say when the examples of problems given are stomach bugs and UTI's. Exercising and maintaining an ideal weight do not work against either of those infections, and the same can be said regarding many common illnesses that cause considerable suffering. Of course, there are whole classes of illness that are very tied to overweight and lack of exercise. But why drag those into the discussion when OP has made clear she is talking about forms of illness and suffering that are not tied to suboptimal exercise and body mass?
Given the degree to which lack of exercise and obesity can negatively affect the immune system, making us more susceptible to viral and bacteria infections, I stand by my statement.
Nono negentrope, it’s not about standing, it’s about jogging. Give it a try next time you have a UTI or a stomach bug. And don’t even think about whining to get out of it.
Oh, I just asked the question: Is anyone studying the placebo effect? Maybe there are 'fixes' that are not a drug or a knife. There must be an anti-placebo effect where we 'talk' ourselves into feeling worse.
Yeh. We clearly feel a lot of emotions in our gut. Butterflies or knots in our stomach. It’s why the people who think that we can upload the brain and still have a human personality are wrong.
UTIs are debilitating. My mother had severe pains for a year and was extremely emotional during this time. Admittedly there were other things going on. She was prescribed psychiatric drugs. It was a stay in hospital to fix the UTI that fixed the emotional issues. She’s still got other issues but is in much better mental shape.
I got off easy. I took prescribed Nitrofurantoin Mono-Mcr. It's got some scary possibilities for attacking the liver, and when I was getting some pain on my right side, I stopped at the three day mark.
The UTI symptoms were gone. I ate yogurt. I'm fine.
I don't know how common liver issues are with that antibiotic, but I got very worried when one of my FB friends described getting very sick from it--
"Nancy, I don't usually give advice on drugs to people online but I feel compelled to because I had a life-threatening reaction to nitrofurantoin in 2014, even though I had taken it many times earlier for UTIs. No one ever alerted me to the possibility that the drug could be lethal, so I did not connect a few subtle symptoms I had to the drug, until it almost was too late. And, I didn't notice the symptoms for a month or so after I took it. My two symptoms were 1/deep fatigue and 2/a catch at the bottom of each breath I took. You know that cold feeling you get at the bottom of a breath when you're exercising hard outside in the winter? That was the feeling, but it was August and I was getting it at the bottom of each breath. I mentioned it to my primary during a routine physical and she sent me immediately to the hospital for imaging and an appointment with a pulmonologist. She could hear rales and he could see ground glass images. This started a four-month ordeal of invasive tests that resulted in a (clinical) diagnosis of stable pulmonary fibrosis caused by hypersenstivity pneumonitis from nitrofurantoin. I lost about 30% of my lung capacity, but no function, luckily. So, I can't run marathons or sing opera, and I take naps without guilt when I need to. If I had let it go any longer, it probably would have gone into full-blown pulmonary fibrosis and we would not be having this conversation. So be careful. If you notice ANY changes, alert your doctor and get someone to listen to your lungs. Good luck!"
Good thing I checked-- I thought she was talking about being in the hospital for her liver, but no, it's all lung problems. I'm not showing any symptoms, but I should keep an eye on myself, since apparently symptoms can take a month to show up.
I have 1800 fb friends, and I estimate that about 200 people are likely to read and comment. Have I learned something significant about risks from that antibiotic?
I don't usually prescribe nitrofurantoin for UTIs for that reason, but my understanding is that pulmonary fibrosis is very rare and usually occurs in people who are taking prolonged courses (months or years) as prophylaxis. Still, I've never yet had a problem with cefalexin or trimethoprim.
Not really, your prior should have been 1 in 5000, according to wiki. So it’s unlikely that with 200 readers you would see this response but not impossible.
And you have stopped taking it. You could probably get a lung checked every few months to be safe.
It seems to me that strong political opinions usually go hand in hand with ignoring the parts of reality that are inconvenient for those opinions. From that perspective, being too much of a rightist/leftist limits how rational you can be.
Data Secrets Lox (https://www.datasecretslox.com), a forum established after SSC disappeared, has quite a lot of right wing posters and civil and reasonably rational conversation.
If I can plug myself, I'd say my blog qualifies as rational left. I'd also say Adam Tooze's Chartbook is rational, but not rationalist, and fairly leftist.
Not an explicit group of rightists, but themotte.org has a lot of more conservative leaning folks than other places on the internet, and high quality discourse.
While I read and respect The Upheaval, nothing about it strikes me as particularly rationalist. “Right intellectual” certainly (and well done), but mostly concerned with bringing some deep thought to bear on some culture war issues from a traditionalist (or maybe just anti-liberal?) view.
I wanted to read jacobin to keep up to date with modern Marxist perspectives but was ... only very slightly surprised to find they want you to pay for it.
Somehow the libertarians running reason magazine are able to let me read it for free, despite them not living in a libertarian utopia. Lots of other newsletters of various ideologically persuasions are available for free as well.
Scott’s blog was long available for free. There are plenty of other people who write online, just not as a profession. I am disinclined to the judgement of anyone whose sole professional obligation is to produce content for an audience, because of the incentives that setup produces. What I’m looking for is content produced by peole who are paid to produce some outcomes in reality, and who write on the side out of a desire to express themselves and interact with the world. These definitely exist, in categories that stay out of advocating political views! I like part time bloggers precisely because them holding holding employment acts as both a tether to reality and a source of insight and observations. So it seems odd that somehow, only in the domain of advocating a particular set of political views, payment is necessary to get decent content.
Well, Ganesh rather than "the FT". The weekly column from the light hearted section on the backpage of "Life & Arts". I thought this was quite enjoyable, and certainly spot on
When I click on that I get a page asking me to complete a captcha. The only thing on the page it could refer to is an "I'm not a robot" check box. Clicking on it just refreshes the page.
Same here. I've been seeing that for months, on and off, on sites of the archive.today family. While I regret that you are having problems, I'm happy to learn that it's not just me.
I've been assuming it has something to do with my quirky computer setup (a somewhat rare variety of Linux, and Firefox, with some older extensions). I can usually get around it by opening the site in Chromium.
That link still works for me though. There are times when some captcha thing has asked me to do their exercise multiple times (despite probably not making a mistake); the same could have happened to you, and sorry about that.
Serendipitously, there's also an FT article on that Marc Andreessen Techno-Optimist Manifesto and I'm going to bet the columnist doesn't much like it, either 😁
"SBF was a scoundrel, and his scam was symptomatic of a wider problem in industry where some mathematicians in positions of authority have a childlike faith in mathematical results that ignore the wider messiness of life."
Any fans of Daniel Clowes who are wrestling with his new graphic novel Monica—I've hacked out a (lengthy) first attempt at a thorough understanding of the book, and am looking eagerly for corrections / comments.
Extremely spoilerish. It will also make no sense if you haven't read the book. It's more an analysis than a review.
That said, you should acquire (buy it or borrow it) Monica; it's the book of the year. I kept thinking, reading it, how timid most contemporary "conventional" literature is compared to this. Even the good stuff (i.e. "the stuff I like") never seems this audacious or ambitious. Most certainly read Monica.
This is slightly self-promotional. In the spirit of 80000 hours, and job searching/recruiting in general, I'm going to share the link to a tool I've been working on for a startup. The founders are UK based cybersecurity experts that have worked with the NCSC.
Basically looks at your LinkedIn activity and generates a report that tells you how you're perceived by your network and recruiters. It is free (would love feedback though.)
Their comfort, though, will be that no-one else wants to rule Gaza after all of this is over.
No other Palestinians are likely to want to step in. It would be political suicide (probably also actual suicide) for any more accommodating-to-Israel Palestinians to be installed in this hornet’s nest.
Direct rule from the Israelis is also not attractive. It will be a black hole swallowing Israeli resources forever.
To “kill all belonging to Hamas”, including all potential future recruits (probably quite a few after last weeks’ Israeli attacks) is impossible unless you unleash something akin to the Final Solution on Palestinians in Gaza. A softer version of the same, to make life so deeply unpleasant for everyone in Gaza that they flee to other countries would have been possible if Egypt (or others) would be willing to accept them as immigrants. But no country in the Middle East want to accept 2 million Gazans as immigrants, for good reasons.
So what is really going on? Arguably, Netanyahu is sending a message to Hamas, along the lines of “Please do not do this again, because if you do, we will do what we are doing now to you again.” The goal is a demoralized and scared Hamas (perhaps re-branded under another name, but with roughly the same people), equally seething with resentment, but whose rage is impotent.
In addition (and related), Israel is likely to try to permanently reduce the capability of Hamas to ever do such a stunt in the future. Expect much stronger fences, perhaps more akin to the old Berlin Wall, and the like.
It must also be remembered that keeping Hamas, or someone equally hostile to Israel, in charge of Gaza has had its benefits from an Israeli perspective. Hamas serves a useful purpose by keeping the memory of the WW2 genocide alive in the minds of Western audiences, in particular in the US, which Israel is dependent on. The main worry from an Israeli point of view has always been that the US will in the long run tire of its support to Israel. This is a real long-term danger since US “realist” interest is arguably in maintaining good relations to other Middle East countries rather than to Israel: Almost all other Middle East countries are strategically and economically more important to the US than Israel.
...Related, the best long-term strategy for the Palestinians has always been to drive a wedge between the US and Israel by insisting on not being hostile to the US, plus to frame their opposition to Israel’s Palestinian policies as “cold”, not “warm”. To achieve this, Palestinian leaders must be able to credibly signal to the US (and other states supporting Israel for similar bad-conscience-since-WW2 reasons) that they will not give in to unhinged bloodlust should they ever be granted real power (arguably Abbas’ strategy). The subtext to the US being “If you disengage from Israel, we will behave in a civilized manner toward the Israeli Jews.” The present unhinged killings by Hamas is in this perspective a godsend to the Israelis, or more specifically to Netanyahu’s clever though rather devious and depressing strategy to control the Palestinians both in the West Bank and Gaza.
In the very long run, Netanyahu’s strategy may wear thin, as it has some in-built problems. But that is another story.
Israel needs to rid itself of Netanyahu in short order and put a government in place that has at least some semblance of a political endgame for the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza. And the United States could play a role by providing political cover to any Israeli politician inclined toward peace by making elements of aid conditional on the peace process, as the first Bush administration did in 1991.
There were always, imho, only three ways forward: wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, through destruction and exile; a Palestinian state on the Green Line plus adjustments; or a bi-national state from the river to the sea with full democratic rights for the Arabs. The Netanyahu strategy of coddling the settlers, discrediting the Palestinian Authority while goading Hamas, and simultaneously hoping the Palestinians just stay quiet enough to allow normalisation with the Arab states was never going to work.
My admittedly-limited understanding of the situation is that the second option has been repeatedly & resoundingly rejected by the Palestinians even before Hamas and that the third option would result in a supermajority Arab state in short order (due to differential fecundity between the two subpopulations) which is seen by Israel as an existential threat.
That doesn't really leave a good alternative to the status quo.
That's not how I understand it, re: second option. Various negotiations have begun (most promising in 2000 and 2008) and failed to complete (in both cases largely because of the Israeli electoral timetable). I go into it briefly in my exchange with Sholom in https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-299/comment/42363241
The Palestinians have a long-established pattern of rejecting the best offer on the table, initiating violence, getting smacked down, and being faced with worse options as a result.
Evaluating a couple of the latest offers in isolation is either naïve or disingenuous.
If I am cherry-picking my examples, it's only to steelman in favour of Israel. I'm pretty sure these have long been touted as the most generous Israeli offers of Palestinian sovereignty, and I'm not sure what pre-2000 offers you're referring to. The tellingly-named Interim Agreement from the 1990s, while establishing limited self-governance in the occupied territories, did not, by nature or design, extend an offer of a state.
I'm not disagreeing per se, but I feel like I should point out that this description is game-able by whoever controls what the "best offer on the table" is.
In a more recent thread, people are talking about incels, and whether they simply have unrealistically high standards for potential partners. This kinda feels like the same dynamic, in a sense. Who is to say what I should find acceptable? Pragmatically, certain courses of action may provide a higher expected utility, but what if I don't want to? What if I'm motivated more by pride, or hate, or revenge, or a desire for justice?
I know, the answer is "suck it up and deal, or continue suffering". But it's hard to convince people to accept "life just handed you a pile of shit, and now you have to eat it", when the people actively handing you the shit are right over there, close enough to reach out and...
My point was more that any deficiencies in the offers from the 2000s are the result of the Palestinians rejecting better offers earlier; they've dug themselves in so deep that a two-state solution is infeasible for the foreseeable future.
Yeah well… But if you see it from the Israeli perspective, the majority of voters are likely to think that the stakes are too high to take any chances. That’s why they have backed Netanyahu in the past and are likely to continue to do so.
...Also bearing in mind that Netanyahu’s policies tend to lock in a confrontational style toward the Palestinians, since it is making it ever-more difficult for them to credibly signal commitment to self-restraint should they ever achieve power (increasingly boiling mad as his policies encourage them to be) – making it even more risky for Israeli voters to take the chance of “real” peace with Palestinians - and so forth. (I am sure there is name for this kind of gradual lock-in of a political trust-game into an equilibrium of deep mutual distrust; if not, there ought to be.)
The only way out I see, is if the long-term frailty of Netanyahu’s policies becomes more salient. First, there is a long-term risk that Israel will lose control of the narrative – that they will not any longer be seen as victims, but as oppressors. (Many argue that this has already happened, but it is only the fringe left that makes all this noise – and they seldom represent more that 10-15 percent of Western voters.)
Second (and related) the less-than-generous treatment of Palestinians may boost the position of the “realists” within the US administration, who are concerned with the relationship with the economically and strategically much more important (from a US perspective) larger Middle East countries.
…but then again, one can understand that the Israelis are nervous about going back toward a policy a la Rabin before he was assassinated in 1995, i.e. to build a prosperous Palestinian middle class (traditionally a moderating element in all societies) integrated with Israel. Since regardless of how many wars Israel wins, they only have to lose one before it is all over.
Plus, again, Netanyahu’s policies toward the West Bank and Gaza over the years has tended toward deepening mutal hatred and therefore to lock-in the present confrontational Israeli policies, by making a return toward Rabin-type policies appear increasingly risky to Israeli voters.
"That’s why they have backed Netanyahu in the past and are likely to continue to do so."
I'd take that wager. I think he's toast after this and wasn't far off even before.
"The only way out I see, is if the long-term frailty of Netanyahu’s policies becomes more salient. First, there is a long-term risk that Israel will lose control of the narrative – that they will not any longer be seen as victims, but as oppressors."
I have to undersign the 'many' in your parentheses. This view is prevalent around the world already, not just among the 'fringe left'. It's not prevalent in the US, of course, and the US matters enough in this case to balance out everyone else - but look at e.g. https://news.gallup.com/poll/472070/democrats-sympathies-middle-east-shift-palestinians.aspx from March this year. Granted, the Dems are indeed what in the US masquerades as the left, but taken together with the other two bins, this pans out to about 30% of the electorate breaking pro-Palestinian.
"Second (and related) the less-than-generous treatment of Palestinians may boost the position of the “realists” within the US administration, who are concerned with the relationship with the economically and strategically much more important (from a US perspective) larger Middle East countries."
If realism governed US policy toward Israel, sure, but I think even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool realist, you have to acknowledge certain distorting effects. I agree with you about the vicious spiral of signalling, though, which is why I think the United States and the EU should at least try to provide extrinsic guarantees and incentives.
There is a third factor, which is the increasing possibility of rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which China has been working to bring about. The implications of that ought to make normalisation with Saudi even more of a priority for Israeli leaders, and it's hard to see how that can happen now without Palestine.
I concede that the gigantic blunder of Netanyahu in not foreseeing the Hamas breakout may mean he will not survive politically. But the problem is that his place is likely to be taken up by another hardliner, perhaps someone even more hardline. Due to the surge in raw hatred toward Hamas that now - rather understandably - marks how a majority of Israeli voters are likely to feel in the foreseeable future.
In the longer run, the hardline strategy has serious weaknesses, we agree on that. .
..and to follow up on the last point: If I was a "realist" in the Israeli State Administration, I would be very concerned that I have made the fate of my country, and my people, dependent on having a Big Brother - the US - across the sea and far away that will come to my rescue, should I ever need it. I would be very concerned about this, since I would know that from a "realist" perspective the US guarantee of my (Israel's) existence is not based on sound Realpolitik (Realpolitik would suggest that keeping good relations with other countries in the Middle East is more important), but on less rock-solid foundations. Would it not be cleverer, in this long-term fragile situation, to seek some accommodation with the Palestinians? To encourage the formation of a large Palestinian middle class with a self-interest in Israel, plus the capability to keep the Young Turks among the Palestinians in check? (Essentially Rabin's strategy and the basis for the Oslo accord in 1993). Granted, this strategy also has its risks, but are they really greater than the risk of betting on US being your loyal friend forever and ever?
Side note at the end: It is an historical irony worthy of Hegel that Israel is arguably one of the most dangerous countries to live in, if you are Jewish. All "Western" countries are safer. (A bleak comfort: If Israel should lose one of the many wars that are likely to be in store for the future, at least (unlike 1934-1939) this time there will be countries aplenty that will welcome Jewish immigrants with open arms, even if all Jews should need to escape after a defeat. Oh well.)
That's an interesting point, and again reads almost like an empirical repudiation of IR realism - because of course pretty much the opposite has happened so far.
Partnership with the US is Israel's single most important advantage (a multiplier to all others) diplomatically, militarily, and economically, and it has been almost perfectly reliable since Suez, though it hasn't been tested in a full-scale regional war. Meanwhile, in the absence of built-in enmity, an interdependent regional bloc would make perfect sense and pay off incredibly well for both Israel and its neighbours, but as it stands there is zero chance of getting there.
That's a fair point. Once there is real peace, I would be quite optimistic about Palestinian entrepreneurship (Ramallah, at least, seems to be punching above its weight even now in terms of startups, tech literacy, etc., given the local conditions) but ultimately there is also something to be said for poor-but-free.
To borrow a card from Curtis Yarvin: why not monarchy?
Democracy has failed in Gaza. Hamas doesn't bother with elections, but if they did ... it seems almost certain they would use violence to win those elections. So why not monarchy?
Put Prince Salman in charge of Gaza. Or one of his many less-famous relatives. What happens next is his problem.
Who in their right mind who isn’t a Palestinian actor would want to be in charge of Gaza? Absolutely no-one, the whole suggestion is crazy - it would be an absurd money sink and then you would almost certainly be assassinated, and for what, to rule over one of the worst places on the planet?
It’s much the same reason no Arab country would take them as refugees. Just see where it got Jordan.
(Okay, so Israel may try to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza and take it over, that’s not what I meant here.)
For heaven's sake, you can't just treat random Arabs as fully interchangeable. Let's put Edgars Rinkevics in charge of Ukraine, problem solved.
(Also, the 2006 parliamentary elections, which Hamas won, were hilariously well-run, at least if American and European on-site observers are to be believed.)
"you can't just treat random Arabs as fully interchangeable" - Did the appointment of Prince Carl of Denmark to be King of Norway treat "random Scandinavians as fully interchangeable". I don't think so; but even if it did it was still a good thing that it happened as it did.
All right, you've got me, if only because I'm completely ignorant of the event in question. I'm much more au fait with general secretaries than kings.
I'm guessing the appointment was largely inconsequential in terms of power, though, and given that (as a quick web search suggests) a referendum was involved, probably contrary to the true monarchist spirit.
This is still a major success for Hamas. Their problem is that Israel wins if the status quo is maintained - "nothing happens" is excellent for Israel and horrible for Hamas. Now in one stroke Hamas has made themselves extremely relevant and has emerged as the most important Palestinian faction, while Fatah looks ineffectual.
Sure, it will smart badly once Israel moves in to clean up, but that's something that anyone would have taken into account, and Hamas can rebuild in a few years.
I also expect Israel to take over an ethnically cleansed northern Gaza - this is likely the whole point of trying to drive out the Palestinians living there.
I think it is more accurate to say it was catastrophically successful. This will be remembered approximately forever. There will be museums built. Hamas is done, they will need to rebrand at the very minimum. There will continue to be near term knee jerk support for Hamas because supporters don't want to give aid and comfort to the enemy but this was a step too far, and I think even they know it.
The attacks have been widely celebrated among muslim populations across the globe. This is probably the most important factor. Hamas has completely overshadowed Fatah as the perceived leader of the Palestinian cause.
It very likely will lead to less support for Palestine from the West (although not even that is certain when it comes to leftist groups). This is very likely a secondary concern.
Sure it is. It's bad for the liberation of Palestine (which wasn't going to happen anyway) but can still be good for the credibility of Hamas. The people expelled are likely to blame Israel and not Hamas. Being the only game in town in a smaller pond can be just fine.
If something is good for the continued existence of an organisation but bad for this organisation's cause, I think it's a bit of an overstatement to call it a "major success".
A few more major successes like that and Hamas will have forever enshrined itself -in history books- as the sole and only opponent to an Israel that spans the entire territory of Palestine.
This follows only if you think the success of an organization and the achievements of its theoretical goals are the same thing. Quoting Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."
Hamas might theoretically be about the liberation of Palestine, but is in practice just a group looking to achieve and maintain power while inflicting its ideology locally. Its stated goals are basically impossible, so not achieving them doesn't really hurt them. Losing relevance _would_ be a serious issue, though. So messing up the population in order to maintain power and prestige is quite fine for them.
There's obviously a lot of truth to inherent bureaucratic inertia and so on, but it's too easy to reduce that reasoning to the absurd. I would need some strong evidence to accept that the Hamas leadership doesn't actually believe creating a Palestinian state on 1967 borders (as per the 2017 declaration) is possible. Is Hamas more pragmatic than Xi or MBS, who have recently reaffirmed support for this?
The goals of an organisation can shift over time. In the event that a Palestinian state becomes established, Hamas (if it still exists; or some rebranded militant coalition that emerges from the ashes) would be in good position to pursue ordinary politics.
There is plenty of precedent for this happening with other liberation movements.
I've wondered whether it would help Palestinians if they limited themselves to military and perhaps political targets, not that it seems like a policy they want.
Probably not - they would have burned their surprise and years of planning for a moderate effect, and then been retaliated against 99% as hard anyway.
It’s bit like if Al-Qaeda had only crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 (and after somehow finding an empty plane at that). Yes, some people would argue that it was legitimate, but ultimately the perpetrators would have been slapped down just a# hard with less to show for it.
I think it’s perfectly clear that Hamas has a casus belli against Israel and that only the methods and targets are the problem, but ultimately this kind of legalism doesn’t matter.
I don't remember where I originally saw this discussed, but Peter Thiel's Zero To One has a punnet square about social attitudes. One axis is "definite vs indefinite", and another axis is "optimism vs pessimism".
optimistic & definite = post WWII U.S.; engineering culture
Andreeseen's manifesto seems to me like an instance of complaining that the U.S. moved from an engineering culture to a finance culture. And "maybe if I just post this manifest without thinking about the structural causes, I can reinvigorate enthusiasm for engineering.
edit: actually I'd assumed the topic was Marc Andreessen's essay "it's time to build". But upon skimming Techno Optimist Manifesto, the original comment still stands.
The 1950's and 1960's allegedly had a high-resolution vision of the future. And it looked like Startrek/The-Jetsons. E.g. "cold-fusion and moon-colonies and flying-cars are definitely only 30 years away."
After the Dot-Com Crash, the future felt a lot hazier and undefined. Which was a zeitgeist that encouraged diversification. Whereas the zeitgeist of the 1950's encouraged becoming a founder/engineer and betting the farm on pocket aces.
China still resents the Century of Humiliation and is playing the long-game. But in the meantime, it definitely knows it's going to be under U.S. hegemony for the near future, and they'll definitely have to sacrifice a lot of blood and treasure (and probably the environment) if they want to turn the tables.
As for Europe, either I forgot that part of Thiel's argument, or I never understood it to begin with. Sorry.
The book was published in 2014, and my personal impression is that the U.S. has since become more jaded as the U.S. deals with domestic divisions, the world moves toward a multipolar order, etc. With that said...
IIRC, Thiel's argument about the "present" epoch was more a reference to the wake of the Dot-Com Crash. Some Dot-Com companies like Google continued to survive and thrive, but the overwhelming majority closed shop. And this led to an attitude of "the future still holds promise, but I better hedge my bets by diversifying my portfolio".
(Friendly reminder: Andreessen runs a startup investment company, and thus sees everything through the lens of Silicon Valley.)
I liked it, was surprised at how much hate its attracted. I'm not 100% onboard as I am somewhat worried about AI being used for nefarious purposes. Just giving trust to people creating new powerful tools is a little hard for me. I'm pro nuclear energy, pro markets, and think tech is good on net so in general didnt seem that crazy to me. A lot of the criticism I have read outside of this blog center around pro market arguments coming from a rich man. I dont find these very convincing.
That society needs a more positive attitude toward technology and its deployment is good. That we should modify/remove restrictions on technological deployment that do not pass cost benefit analysis (higher safety requirements for nuclear than other technologies, for example) is good. That "government is bad" is bad
More seriously: once he got to the << if you don't believe in our cult, you are engaged in "a form of murder" >> part, I switched from "rebuttal" mode to "dismissal" mode.
So I am dismissing it as a mix of lies and platitudes from an out-of-touch billionaire who should shut up.
Very true - the language was quite baiting - but I still think it's fun to bite sometimes so I am writing a rebuttal mode piece. Though I agree dismissal mode is probably more sensible
One thought is that the manifesto goes hard on the libertarian markets-uber-alles line.
Interestingly, as Citizen Penrose points out, a lot of the arguments supporting market efficiency in all cases don't offer anything by way of rigorous proof and can be in fact disproven by such difficult methodologies as playing RTS games, or looking at how Walmart manages its internal supply chains.
Add this to the tower of underlying assumptions which undergirds singularitarianism in general (and AI takeoff in particular) and you have something more like a secular religion than anything as actionable as a manifesto.
Yeah, I had a quick look through and was surprised a (presumably) bright guy was pushing some fairly dubious theories.
I do think he's right that that LLMs being developed by the private sector is a major win for the free-market side of the argument, assuming they don't doom us all.
He wants to get back to the 90s when everyone loved his field. The problem is that it's no longer the 90s and they got enough power and did the same sorts of things with it everyone else does (enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else), that now everyone hates their guts because they either hate online dating, constantly hear things that bother them from their parents or kids about politics on Facebook, or are worried something they said will come back to haunt them 20 years later because unlike analog, digital communication is forever.
Oh, and they destroyed the profession of journalism as a career so all the remaining journalists are looking to take them down.
The journalists attacking Silicon Valley? I think they're angry their profession got disrupted and eager to convince themselves they're 'speaking truth to power' and 'afflicting the comfortable'. Like most people, they pursue self-interest and lie to themselves they're being idealistic. Look at all the rationalists who want a version of meritocracy that rotates around intelligence, unlike the current free-market version that places a much higher emphasis on social skills.
Andreessen? I think he misses the old days when everyone loved Silicon Valley and is trying to argue tech can save the world. I guess you could call it an attempt to claw back a bit of prestige, though I doubt he thinks of it that way. Nonetheless it's not very well-supported and in general not very impressive IMHO.
"A person born in Sumer in 4,000BC would find the resources, work, and technology available in England at the time of the Norman Conquest or in the Aztec Empire at the time of Columbus quite familiar."
When you start off with a lump of codology like this, that disposes me to ignore what point the rest of your article wishes to make.
So a Sumerian would have found *no* difference in 11th century England? None at all? Let me pull up a quick Wikipedia search for mediaeval archaeology:
I won't quote since it's very long, but I think you'll find a list of wee tiny little changes from the 5th century onwards that would have made a Sumerian go "Wow, you guys invented this?"
The rest of it is the usual 50s Golden Age SF gosh-wow optimism, but this part made me laugh:
"We believe Artificial Intelligence can save lives – if we let it. Medicine, among many other fields, is in the stone age compared to what we can achieve with joined human and machine intelligence working on new cures. There are scores of common causes of death that can be fixed with AI, from car crashes to pandemics to wartime friendly fire."
Verily, I say unto thee: not alone shall the blind see and the halt and lame walk, but the dead shall arise and appear unto many, for our lord and saviour AI shall conquer death and being blown to pieces or smeared all over the road in vehicle accidents!
> So a Sumerian would have found *no* difference in 11th century England? None at all?
That's not what they claimed – they said the "resources, work, and technology" would be "quite familiar". This is a much weaker claim, but also quite vague. The steelmanned version of their argument could be that the lives of the _median_ persons in both eras would look very similar: subsistence farming through hard, physical labor with little to no automation and hardly any specialization.
Oh AI who art in techno-optimist heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy utopian kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in our opinion pieces. Give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins against accelerationism, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into the temptation of doomerism, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory of the singularity is yours, now and forever.
Hah, yeah I love the quotes about AI. It's becoming more and more clear that these extremely wealthy tech billionaire types unironically believe in AI as a divine savior. Kind of terrifying how anti-human their ethos is at the core, that they have given up hope in a human archetypal savior and instead seek machines to run our lives for us.
I suppose it comes down to whether you think humans are fundamentally good, competent, and capable of growth, or a stupid 'machine' that just won't work right no matter how many parts we 'fix'!
The funniest thing is that they set their hopes in some of these stupid machines, despite being unable to fix themselves, nevertheless being capable of fixing the flaws of a created being, made by the stupid machines themselves.
Australia is noticeably richer. New Zealand has milder temperatures.
Both rank as quite free and their locations make them unlikely to be involved in any wars.
Cost of living is an issue for both countries. NZ has started taken action on the housing crisis in Auckland. I don’t think AUS has for any of its big cities.
The US is worth pointing out since it is most likely where you will have maximum disposable income.
I'm sorry how horrible it must feel for you as an Israeli, I honestly can't imagine.
I lived in Yerushalayim's Old City for nearly 8 years and loved it.
I love the whole country.
And not just the Jewish parts of Israel but the many different communities in both Israel and the parts of the West Bank under Palestinian control. (I have never been to Gaza so I cannot speak to it.)
I love the people of Ramallah (the normies more than the street kids, lol) and of Rosh Hanikra.
I love the history, the terrain, the passion (when it isn't of the especially hateful variety), the community, the religion.
I loved it so much I even moved to Jordan for a bit.
Setting aside all other matters, I can honestly say that I love both the Arabs of Bilad ash-Sham and the Land and Jews of Israel.
If you want a significant pre-existing Jewish community in a wealthy, modern country then your only option is the United States. The UK, Canada, Argentina, and France have smaller communities but not nearly as big or important as in the US. Everywhere else has very small, or no, communities and very little cultural accommodation for Jews.
If that's not important then it depends on what you want. The only big obvious thing is to avoid anti-Semitism. You can look up specific stats on anti-semitism the ADL's Global Anti-semitism index. But the short version is to avoid the Islamic or Orthodox worlds.
The rest depends on what you want. What do you want in a country?
As an American: I’ve lived in Switzerland. It’s heavenly but expensive and the people are Swiss. You will never be accepted as one of them. I’ve lived in New Zealand and it’s an easy transition, but I believe in general salaries are lower than the US. I would look there or Australia for a new home, I think.
I'm curious if the recent protests there impact your view at all? I have not been following all this very closely, but those seemed to be among the most openly and stridently anti-semitic that I had heard about. I realize that in all of these western countries, the protestors are a pretty tiny minority, but if you are trying to split hairs among developed western countries, it seems potentially relevant.
Sorry, yeah should have been more clear. I was trying to respond to your final recommendation so "Australia". I had heard that in a protest in sydney, they were literally chanting "Gas the jews", which....even if it's a very tiny minority, is pretty scary to think about.
Realistically, any country with a sufficiently open immigration policy to allow Jews in is also going to allow Muslims in, and anywhere you find Muslims you're going to find Muslims who want to kill Jews.
Scary! But I don't expect it's any worse than the antisemitic violence and threats Jews in the US already face. Granted, I just approached the question from a standpoint of the best countries for the average American to emigrate to and not Jews or even American Jews in particular.
I would be remiss not to link to this excellent substack and an article by an Australian Jew about Jews in Australia in light of the recent protest: https://www.kvetch.au/p/australia-and-her-jews
Another Australian talking about this: although it's less focused on the situation in Australia (except the very end, and even that part is aimed more the broader history of anti-semitism and not specifically in Australia) and more on viewing the conflict: https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/p/its-not-about-israel-its-about-us
The same countries appear in the top ten for all kinds of quality of life indicators - the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, New Zeeland, Australia.
Out of these, Sweden is a non-starter because of normalized antisemitism in large swathes of the population and massive Muslim immigration, but the rest should be on the table?
Personally, I would move to (in order) Norway/Denmark/Finland, but that's because of cultural and linguistic similarities (Swedish is an official language in Finland, and some areas are dominantly Swedish-speaking). Switzerland is an excellent country in essentially every respect. Australia if you like the weather.
Australia has a lot of different weather. If you mirrored it across the equator, Darwin would be level with Nicaragua and Hobart with Boston. Around Sydney is the sweet spot for most people (equivalent to LA).
Norway. Nice nature, peaceful people, relatively sane politics, good work-life balance and oil money. You can mitigate the biggest cons if you order spices online to cook your own non-grey food, and if you fly south over the winter.
I have a US Law degree, so if I want to maintain something close to my standard of living, I'm limited to countries that would let me become a lawyer with a US law degree. Canada and Australia both do, albeit after jumping through some extra hoops.
I speak Spanish so I'd probably find the safest Latin American country to retire in.
You should find the least antisemitic country you speak the language of to escape to. My thoughts would be Canada, New Zealand, or Australia; you're evidently able to speak English, and they're relatively wealthy. I'm guessing if you post here you are probably good with computers. Only go to the USA if you can pay for all your own health insurance until you are 65, and pay for fresh food, or you will get unpleasantly fat.
Really depends on your cultural affinities, which I guess in your case might depend on your specific heritage. But Israel being very much Mediterranean, the first big area I'd think of is the south EU Mediterranean arc, from Greece and Italy to southern France to eastern Spain.
I live in Spain, so that's the one I know best, and would recommend it. The economy is a bit weak compared to its bigger Western EU neighbors, but it's not too bad and also improving. Culture is vibrant enough, pretty welcoming, and with no major antisemitism to speak of. Everyone complains about crappy politics, but besides the usual petty battles and occasional display of incompetence, things kind of run along pretty well, and services work.
The most cosmopolitan areas are probably the East coast (Catalonia-Valencia) and the capital Madrid. The South coast (Andalucia) is a bit poorer but famous for its openness and good vibe, so that's also a call.
I don't know Italy so well, but culturally we're basically twins. From what I hear from Italians living in Spain, it's a bit more traditional and close knit, so maybe a bit harder to fit in. Also second MaxEd's recommendation for Portugal. Much quieter vibe than Spain, super nice, but noticeably poorer.
Either way, job markets are kind of weak in all these countries. But that depends a lot on what you bring. Best would be to come with some remote work already going, but of course that's not always an option.
Of course there's also the anglosphere: US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ. And there's oddball places like Malta, a Mediterranean island that is largely English-speaking and part of the EU. And Scandinavia is absolutely great in its own way (Sweden's problems are not nearly as bad as internet right-wing populists would have you believe), but the hard-ass introvert culture and the dark cold winters are certainly not for everyone.
For Malta, beware that the island is very catholic and somewhat fundamentalist in some aspects like abortion. (But on the other hand, for some odd reasons it's LGBT-friendly.) In any case, the culture is unusual.
Antisemitism in Sweden is pretty damned bad, though. Under no circumstances move to Malmö (the third largest city) - Swedish Jews leave it for other parts of the country because it has become unlivable for them (the Jewish population of Malmö has dropped from 3000 to 500 in a couple of decades because of this).
Just a few years ago, the youth wing of the largest party marched chanting for the extermination of Israel, Hamas has been supported by a number of celebrations and rallies following the recent events, and one of the parliamentary parties was caught having sent money to a Palestinian terrorist organization (DFLP).
Thanks for the update. We South-Europeans tend to idealize the North more than a bit! And what would the world do without all the great music coming out of Sweden :)
Sweden had something of an inflection point at around 2010, after which the enormous refugee immigration started to take its toll on the social structure. We now have the highest gun violence by far of Western Europe, apartment bombings have become all but routine, and antisemitism is high and rising in parts of the country. The school system is a mess.
Not a terrible country by any stretch, but slowly sinking in most international rankings - used to be 1-5, now is typically 5-10.
I'm never going to move unless something changes (even more) drastically for various reasons, but I'm partial toward Portugal. I've been there maybe seven times, and I liked it very much. Then again, this is purely emotional - if I think rationally about it, I'm sure Portugal would seem much less appealing. For one thing, I've heard people complain about constant dampness and insane price of electric heating (the only kind available to most people). For another, I'm pretty sure job opportunities are more limited there than in almost any other EU country, especially if I don't want to change my specialization (game development), so unless I can find remote work, I'd be in trouble.
But Portugal is warm, has ocean, is beautiful and they love dogs there, so other than important, grown-up things, it's almost my dream country (the only thing it is lacking is big, long navigable rivers - you can't travel along Tejo on a river cruise, and D'Oro is navigable, but too short).
Switzerland: pro: France, but better. Con: probably can't get in if I don't get a job there, maybe not even there.
USA: pro: probably the better place to maximize income, safe from war until the ICBM start flying (at which point no place will be safe anway). Con: I'm reviving last month's memes, but man, the food looks bad.
Somewhere in south-east asia, like thailand or vietnam: pro: I can probably live very comfortably there. Cons: It's unlikely to stay that way as their income rise, and I probably overestimate how fast I'd burn money anyway.
I live in the U.S., specifically San Jose. If "food" means restaurant food there are lots of Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Mexican, ... restaurants. If it means food you cook yourself, that's up to you.
South Philadelphia is the opposite of a food desert-- a food rain forest, perhaps.
Same ethnic list of restaurants that David has, maybe stronger on Italian than most places. Travel a couple of miles or so, and there are African restaurants and a serious pirogi district. There's also a substantial Chinatown or so.
There are supermarkets ranging from ordinary to fancy, not to mention farmer's markets.
Perhaps what is meant is that bad food exists, and the availability of food below a quality floor is offensive to TasDeBoisVert even if he doesn’t need to eat it.
For the last part, is that generally a thing? Deliberately moving to a lower-income country to live as the upper class? I can't imagine myself doing that..
Of course it is. It's easy to see the appeal, assuming you can maintain your first-world salary, of living in some beachside villa in Thailand or Bali, with servants.
It's probably more appealing as a fantasy than in reality, especially if you have kids.
I can't tell how frequent it is, but it happens (I know of at least one instance of it), mostly with Africa, but SEA is probably a close second.
The caveat is that the preliminary calculations of "how much things cost vs how much I have" usually hit the bump of "how much the local will make me overpay everything". It seems you quickly run into the problem of old aristocracy, being expected to be lavish to maintain your status.
I am living in Laos right now. Nice place, but the weather and the air quality in Thailand and Laos can be a big downside. Low cost of living, and very nice people is the big upside.
We also have this really stupid culture war. He will be required to pretend COVID vaccines don't work and be asked to convert to Christianity five times a day or (more likely) worry about losing his job if he uses the wrong pronoun for someone or looks at a woman the wrong way.
Does anyone know of a trustworthy source who's researched and written up something on extending healthspan? I'm imagining something similar to Scott's article https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/13/things-that-sometimes-work-if-you-have-anxiety/ but discussing medications, supplements, lifestyle changes that work to increase healthspan and wellbeing past middle page.
A lot of people are bashing Twitter, especially after Musk's takeover, but for me the platform (while buggy) has been working fine in doing the one thing that I actually need it for - connecting me to people. Multiple times now I have been reached by people after writing articles about their work - the latest example is Michael Chorost, after I wrote an article on Cohclear Implants - https://valentinsocial.substack.com/p/auditory-cyborgs-how-cohclear-implants
For me, this experience is mindblowing, a bit surreal even. Twitter makes it easy to engage with experts in your chosen field in a way that no other platform does
"Ignore the conspiracy theory that Israel is controlled by the Jews! Idiot. Israel is like everywhere else. Israel is controlled by the State Department. "
Here's Moldbug's solution to the Gaza issue:
"How would a sensible sovereign Israel, operating in a renewed multipolar nomos, handle the problem of Hamas and Gaza? First, tackle the root causes of the crisis—send Secretary Blinken, his entourage, and the whole American Embassy home. First class, perhaps. It’s worth it.
Second, call the Chinese and hire their failing construction industry to build an ugly, slapdash, soulless city for 2 million people, in six months, next to Gaza, in Israel but on the Egyptian border. Make it as horizontal as Gaza is vertical. Give it its own power and water, driven by a saltwater pipeline to the coast and a gas line to Israel.
Third, in parallel, build real military fortifications (not wire fences) around Gaza, turn off the utilities and block the checkpoints and the ports, and make sure there is a safe tent for anyone who can get out. Bribe Egypt to let anyone leave Gaza as a refugee, then immediately admit them to the camp while they wait for their new apartment. Only personal possessions that can be carried, and no weapons, come with them.
Fourth, once the only people left in Gaza are thirsty, starving, fanatical solders, level the place with all the weapons available, and give anyone who wants to die the martyrdom they deserve. Bulldoze the rubble into hills and make it a national park.
Fifth, move the border unilaterally so that the new, landlocked Gaza City is now part of Egypt. Egypt has no need to consent. Give Egypt a date when the gas will be cut off. The Gazans are now Egyptians, not Israelis—Egypt can govern them as she wishes. The outcome is a permanent peace. If Egypt cannot prevent Egyptians from shooting rockets at Israel or making other kinds of trouble, of course—more war is needed.
Nothing in this solution involves any kind of violence or combat—any more than the relocation of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh involved violence or combat. The Azerbaijanis only needed a few days of war to make it clear that they were stronger. And the Armenians just had to lose their real estate—not their lives.
The target of the siege of Gaza is not civilians. It is the military regime of Hamas. If Hamas wants to send its civilians out for Israel to house and feed, Israel—being a modern country—will not treat them the way Caesar handled the Gauls at Alesia.
But if Hamas wants to turn its own civilians into hostages—not to mention the 200 hostages it has already taken—Israel cannot prevent this. It has no responsibility to protect enemy civilians from their own government. In fact, an Israel which cared about its national survival would treat the Israeli hostages as already dead.
This solution is not, I am pretty sure, what will happen. I also am pretty sure that, unless G-d takes a little more interest in the world he supposedly created, and in particular the people he supposedly chose, there will be nothing recognizable as Israel in 50 years—just like, after 30 years of governance by Secretary Blinken and his ilk, there is not much of the old South Africa recognizable. US diplomacy, keeping the world safe and orderly and free since 1919.
But this is how might makes right. Now, picture this victory—the victory of force and order over turmoil and chaos—worldwide, cleaning up all the world’s open sores. You are picturing the fall of the American empire—and realizing that, like the USSR (if much better), the GAE can actually fall upward. Almost all the problems it supposedly exists to solve will rapidly solve themselves as soon as it is gone."
If this problem could be solved by arranging for the Gazans to move en masse to Egypt, it would have been solved decades ago. The Gazans, don't want to be forced to leave their homes to move to some foreign land where they'll never really be accepted. And the Egyptians won't take them, not for any plausible bribe or threat. The Egyptians, and in particular the Egyptian government, have very good reasons to not want Gazans running around in Egypt. In the very very unlikely event that you find some way to coerce Egypt into taking the Gazans, they will lock them away behind walls and barbed wire in an environment as oppressive and impoverished as Gaza presently is, so how is that a solution?
Well, except that in that scenario any pissed-off Gazans would probably be shooting rockets at Egypt rather than Israel, and maybe Moldbug et al are fine with that. But the Egyptians won't be, so see above where there's no way in Hell that Egypt will go for this deal.
Because Israel won't have to deal with them anymore, and leftists/muslims of the world would care *vastly* less about muslim/"arab" egyptians oppressing arab muslims than they would Israel oppressing them.
There's no conceivable outcome where the Gazans calm down because they get what they want (unless e.g. Iran and Lebanon defeat Israel or something).
The one situation where "why not monarchy" is actually a good solution, and Yarvin blows it in favor of his other favorite rhetorical pattern: impossibly-effective fascism.
>Attempt to "bribe" Egypt to do what they'll never do
>Expect to be able to prevent Hamas from infiltrating the new city as well, and expect the population to move there to begin with
>All that to do ethnic cleansing and hope the world see your way of "achually we're just cutting our supply of water/energy, and egypt is responsible if they don't open their border".
This is a very convoluted and expensive (both economically, politically and diplomatically) plan, reliant on multiple actors to act exactly in the way you hope they do, to achieve the same thing as, you know, ethnic cleansing.
Have a palate-cleanser after Moldbug-- Vox recommends targeted strikes against Hamas leadership. This at least makes sense, though I'm not sure Israel can rebuild its ability to find them.
I have no idea how all of this building-and-then-relocating actually makes the problem any better. Why rebuild Gaza next door to Gaza instead of just handing Gaza itself over to Egypt (if that's possible, which it isn't).
My solution is to relocate the Gazans to the West Bank (on the "I'll just put this over here with the rest of the fire" principle) and turn Gaza into a Christian state since it's unfair that the Christians don't get a state in the Holy Land.
As Yarvin points out, "population transfers" (the term for ethnic cleansing that doesn't involve mass murder) have occurred this month in Nagorno-Karabakh, and no egregore seems to have even noticed.
You'd lose your job if you advocated for them in public. But this kind of thing happens *all the time*, particularly in the global south. And yes, lots and lots of people die.
The obvious flaw of this plan is that it is fucking stupid. Imagine that if the Brits decided "Hey, *all* of Ireland really does belong to us due to right of conquest, occupation, settlements and plantations, and that we created laws saying we were the rightful owners" and decided to do the likes of this to move the Irish out.
Do you think I would be happy to leave my native land just because it's "real estate, not my life"? Do you think I have no attachment to the place I was born and bred?
How about we do the same as above, only for the Israelis? Find some island large enough to house them all, stick them into multi-storey apartments, move them out wholesale, bulldoze the place afterwards? Yeah, I'm sure the people who were praying "next year in Jerusalem" for centuries would have no problem about being moved lock, stock and barrel to a completely different country.
While I strongly oppose new annexations, e.g. settlements in the West Bank, I also feel that the Palestinian claim "from the river to the sea", e.g. for all of what is currently Israel, is part of the problem. If the Republic of Ireland refused to recognize the UK claim on Northern Ireland and instead spent most of their budget on killing British (or vice versa, with the Brits claiming all of Ireland), then the UK might eventually think that Ireland needs a regime change.
While I generally dislike wars to enforce territorial claims (e.g. conquest), I especially dislike hopeless wars of that kind. Hamas will never conquer Israel. Their attacks are at most a minor annoyance for Israel. The price for making Israeli life slightly annoying is that Israel in turn optimizes for minimizing the potential for attacks from Gaza, which in turn makes life there hellish. Apart from that stupid conflict, Non-Israeli Palestinians could benefit enormously from having a high tech neighbor. Perhaps they would have preferred to remain a third world country "from the river to the sea" to being richer but vastly reduced in territory, but the former option is not on the menu.
Well, we don't recognise the British claim on Northern Ireland. We've just decided to try and stop killing each other and find legal ways of accommodating everyone:
It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish Nation. That is also the entitlement of all persons otherwise qualified in accordance with law to be citizens of Ireland. Furthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage.
ARTICLE 3
1 It is the firm will of the Irish nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island. Until then, the laws enacted by the Parliament established by this Constitution shall have the like area and extent of application as the laws enacted by the Parliament that existed immediately before the coming into operation of this Constitution."
It explains a lot once you realize that for multiple decades, access to cultural and economic power has largely been selected for on the basis of “talent plus lack of connection to a specific place in the world that outweighs considerations of economic or cultural power.”
The obvious flaw of this plan is that Israel can unilaterally cede the territory of New Gaza City, but not unilaterally force it on Egypt – it would become a lawless no-man's-land, and obviously immediately after that a Hamas Free State where all the laws are focused 100% on Jew killing.
Also, perhaps less obviously, one of the "problems" Moldbug envisions solving itself once America disappears is "someone is blocking psychotic Chinese imperial ambitions". Personally I feel like that problem needs to stay where it is.
I've been writing a new substack that's a rational-ish approach to analyzing social media and internet culture. If you're like me and a Very Online person, it might be up your alley.
Let's re-read ancient Scott-posts. Some ACX readers never read SSC, much less the blog before SSC (which is currently here https://archive.ph/fCFQx), but there's a lot of good stuff there.
Here's a fun one: "Jaguars fall, everyone dies" https://archive.ph/NmRLA, in which Scott pondered whether the world would soon perish in an Aztec apocalypse (spoilers: it didn't.)
I'd love to do that but that site refuses to believe I am not a robot or even give me a captcha. When it does give me one, it doesn't accept my answer. I also can't seem to find it online. Is this a me-and-my-computer-specific problem?
I tried it on a virtual machine, and it opens fine, although IE complains about the security certificate. As an alternative try opening the now dead link http://squid314.livejournal.com/346913.html via https://archive.is/ or some other thing like that.
From the article: "We played the majority of our gigs in the Capitol district, but we did venture out on occasion: Glens Falls (I once saw Mike Tyson fight there), a wedding in Wilton, Connecticut (quarter of a mile from Dave Brubeck’s place), Montauk (unverified rumor has it that Jann Wenner heard us; if so, he didn’t put us on the cover of his magazine), another wedding at a compound in the Adirondacks where sound man extraordinaire Jim Boa miked my trumpet so I could stroll among the revelers, Americade at Lake George, 25,000 middle-age bikers including Malcolm Forbes in full red, white, and blue leathers with his Capitalist Tool balloon, and Montreal in the dead of Winter, where it seems like half the blues guitarists in town lined up to sit in with us at a local jam, which was after our regular gig, playing in white tails for dancing at a GE Plastics marketing convention (Bo Diddly had to borrow a guitar from us because, you know, airlines). "
And, the best gig ever: "Front and center was Lenny, a fan, long hair, leather jacket, wallet on a chain, blue jeans, scruffy boots, and, you know, what I see in my mind’s eye is Lenny dancing on top of his Harley while spinning it around the dance floor shooting laser beams from his eyes and lighting up the crowd. I don’t think that actually happened, doesn’t seem physically possible, does it? Metaphysically, yes. Actually physically, no. But one can never tell about these things. "
“Many surviving instruments were found in convents. It seems that tromba marinas were a staple of the Northern European nun’s musical instrument box. Wind instruments would have been off-limits for women so it’s possible that tromba marinas were used as substitutes for trumpets.”
Gonna repeat a request I made on an open thread a couple weeks back because I think it got a little buried (but don't worry I won't post it again after this, I don't want to spam the open threads)....
Request for a "much more than you wanted to know" type post about hypnosis!
Seems like a fitting topic for this blog ... it's a kinda mysterious psychological phenomenon, the subject of a lot of conflicting popular explanations pseudoscience and such. I imagine that there is a Unified Theory of Hypnosis that all makes sense, but figuring it out would involve sifting through a lot of BS.
Most people have seen stage hypnosis shows or similar - people go up on stage, are told to relax, getting sleepy, etc, then "when I say [trigger word] you'll think you're a chicken" then the guy says the word and people, even people who are seemingly very reserved and would never do something like this, act like a chicken. The first-hand accounts from "subjects" aren't always consistent in what is going on in their heads when this happens. Some obvious questions about this (and hypnosis in general):
- is it "real"? What exactly would it mean for it to be "real" vs "not real"? (when I say "not real" I don't mean "the subjects at hypnosis shows are all plants", but rather that the explanation doesn't involve any sort of distinct psychological phenomenon)
- are the subjects who act like chickens able to control themselves and deciding to go along with it? Not able to control themselves, perhaps because they aren't really conscious and their bodies are simply "taking orders" from someone? Somewhere in between? I assume if instead of "act like a chicken" it's something "worse", at some point it won't work. So what exactly is going on in people's heads that they'll do what the guy says, for at least some things that most people would be embarrassed to have done publicly, but not if it goes "too far"?
- to what extent do you have to believe in it and/or want it to happen, for it to work? If a stage hypnotist went to some remote island where nobody'd ever heard of the concept of hypnosis (but spoke English for some reason) and did the same "relax, getting sleepy" stuff, would it work? Or is it like Scott's description of multiple personality disorder, where you have to have some idea that that's a thing that can happen to people?
- how much overlap is there between hypnosis and other phenomena (like being really focused on something, or listening to a charismatic speaker, to name some oft-cited examples)?
- what does the answers to the above say about our "theory of mind"?
I thought of this when Scott mentioned Julian Jaynes's book recently (and I read his original review of it). Reminds me of something mentioned in the book - Jaynes claimed that if you blindfold someone on a stage, put a chair in the middle of the stage, and tell them to walk straight across, they'll walk into the chair. But if you hypnotize them, tell them the stage is clear and to walk straight across, they'll walk around the chair and then later insist they walked straight across. What's the deal with that?
Medical Hypnosis is definitely real when it works because if it were just a placebo effect then that’s largely the same thing. The mind is changing itself, or curing the body (which is extraordinary if you think about it). So medical hypnosis when it works, does just work, even if it’s largely a placebo effect.
The question with regard to stage hypnosis is whether the subject is playing along or believes he’s a chicken. Most stage hypnotised people I’ve met after the event (n=2) said they were just doing it because they were persuaded but not really believing in the chicken thing, or whatever was requested.
That said the English hypnotist and mentalist Derren Brown said he often would hypnotise an impressionable friend into thinking Derren was invisible. (This was at house parties, not on stage). Hilarity would ensue as Derren proceeded to shock his friend through the night, or as the friend saw bottles of beer floating around the room.
Derren said in his book that he assumed this was play acting at a conscious or unconscious level by his friend. The subject is aware of reality but is persuaded to play along.
Then one day his friend texts him and asks was Derren on a certain street in London the day before “up to his old tricks”. The friend had heard his name being called out a few times and turned around to see nothing. Probably just somebody trying to alert somebody of the same name, albeit quite close by.
But why, muses Derren, would he think this could happen unless the friend also saw Derren as actually invisible on those party nights? He didn’t really have an answer.
Regarding medical use, if it's placebo effect then I'd put that down in the category of "not real". Like the stage hypnosis example, it's not that the phenomenon is totally made up (there really are people who go on stage at those shows and act like chickens, there really are people who go to a hypnotist to quit smoking and successfully do so).
But my real question is whether there's some sort of mysterious psychological phenomenon involved, with a person not being conscious in the normal sense, nor unconscious, but some other 3rd category that doesn't exist in everyday life that violates our normal expectations of how humans act.
Not a proper answer to your question, but Scott teased that instead of books review this year it might be a gloves-off essay contest. I'd be very excited to see several hundred high-quality 'much more than you wanted to know' posts drop in one place - and if you don't get a good response now, maybe you could post again when people are looking for essay / book review topics?
Does anyone know of any major MSM organ anywhere in the world that DIDN'T jump straight on the bandwagon of the Hamas claim about the Gaza hospital? One that reported it with due scepticism from the start?
Why is everybody so upset about this particular incident. If a hospital is destroyed in Ukraine the Russians will be blamed. If it turns out that it was an errant Ukraine missile that will come out over weeks, if at all.
Remember the missile hitting Poland was blamed on Russia for a while. Or Nordstrom for a long while was blamed on the Russians. Then it wasn’t.
You could argue that it was emphasized because the alleged death toll was 500, but that was also a reason for the media to be even more skeptical. There were allegedly 707 attacks on Ukrainian Hospitals, but only 200 medical workers have been killed, injured, or kidnapped. I know patients are missing, but it does suggest that attacks on hospitals are rarely that deadly.
The upset comes not from the probably-false accusation incident per se but from the grotesque double standard illustrated by media reactions to it. Newspapers and TV news all over the Western world instantly and uncritically accepted the narrative of Hamas, a terrorist group dedicated to exterminating all Jews and the aggressor in this present conflict, let me remind you, by massacring innocent civilians, as gospel truth. And yet, when mere days earlier Israel reported that Hamas had decapitated about 40 babies, these same media were rife with demands for specific, detailed proof – WERE THEY REALLY 40? YOU MADE THE WHOLE THING UP! I THINK THERE MIGHT JUST HAVE BEEN 38, YOU EXAGGERATING SWINE! THESE BABY CORPSES ARE TOO BURNT TO SEE WHETHER THEY'VE BEEN DECAPITATED, YOU LYING LIAR! I believe "isolated demand for rigor" is the preferred term, but something that abstruse and detached seems unsuited for this present occasion.
It's impossible to overstate what a disgusting, monstrous, vile barely-concealed hatred this episode has revealed on the part of pretty much the entire media establishment (*at minimum*; one *hopes* it's restricted to hacks but does not quite dare to believe), especially on that left which keeps insisting that national socialism is a right-wing ideology. Perhaps what Graham ultimately wants to know is whether there's some news source somewhere (outside Israel) that can actually be trusted.
Even the IDF and the White House admitted there was no evidence for the beheaded babies claim. Also at this point there is not conclusive evidence regarding the origin of the hospital explosion (conveniently confessional audio recordings from one of the parties doesn't count obviously.) Atrocity propaganda has been part and parcel of every conflict with international attention to garner support for violence and this is no different. It would be wise for media outlets and individuals to keep that in mind when referencing claims made from either side, but it certainly is reasonable to take into consideration the known track record of a source for producing verified lies.
The first time I saw the "babies beheaded" story it was being straightforwardly reported as true. The first time I saw the hospital story it was being reported as "Hamas says it was Israel, Israel says it wasn't them and they are investigating" (this was on the NYT's website, only a couple hours after).
Are there double standards here. I don’t watch the MSM, I might as well be misinformed on the broader internet, but I don’t see the difference between getting a Russian explosion wrong and an Israeli explosion wrong in the fog of war. (If it was wrong).
Also the decapitations were also reported as truth and then debunked (as far as I can see).
This seems exactly the same, but you have clearly accepted the atrocity production of one side and not the other.
This sort of response really makes me question the sanity of at least one of us. Are you serious? Is this some sort of ironic joke? You're literally just repeating the same medial thing again! Hamas murdering babies by unreasonably savage means is *absolutely not debunked* – I mean, use your head, did you think they just stormed Kfar Aza, killed all the civilians, *except* left the infants alive, for optics reasons? All you have in the way of maneuvering room here is, at most, to quibble over exact numbers and the ubiquity of specific methods. I'm not going to post images here, both since they're way too gruesome and since your ilk will just claim they're faked photoshops of a clothes store mannequin or something anyway, but if against probability you actually care you can find such pictures.
In contrast, Israel did not fire the rocket that did not destroy the hospital, just scattered some scrap in the parking lot, and this was universally reported as an Israeli atrocity on par with Hamas' unprovoked assault on civilians and THANK GOD we finally have a bat to hit them with because it was getting really tense here in the newsroom the last few days.
Well your emotions clearly are preventing you from properly reading the response. They were talking about decapitations not just being killed. Only someone trying to win an argument would say that it doesn't matter if decapitation part was true or false. The level of brutality clearly makes a difference.
There was an interesting article in National Review this week making the observation that the reason the MSM jumped at this story - with such an un-journalistic lack of scepticism - was that they desperately WANTED it to be true.
It used to be said that "Dog bites man" was not a news story, but "Man bites dog" was a news story. But that was back then.
Nowadays, it depends on what the narrative is. If the narrative is dogs bad men good, then you'll read about the dog who bit a man. If the narrative is men bad dogs good, then you'll read about the man that bit a dog. And if the narrative is something else, then neither will get reported at all.
I had to laugh when I saw two headlines on successive days in my local newspaper, one was "Palestinian boy killed in the US in apparent hate crime" and the next was "Synagogue president killed in the US, motive unknown".
You probably exclude JP, ynet and all other Israeli ones in your definition of "major". NYT, for all its faults, made a quick turn from calling it a strike to a blast. In general, right-wing media, like, say, NY Post, was more skeptical of Hamas claims. Canadian, British and European outlets, on the other hand, have been dismal.
Thanks. Yes I should have added "other than Israeli" of course. From what I've read about NYT's coverage it was dismal too (switching from strike to blast notwithstanding).
Al Jazeera and uk Channel 4 news have presented evidence from analyzing the Doppler shift of a recording of the missile and from aerial photos of the site suggesting the missile came from the Israeli direction, and evidence that the alleged Hamas voice intercept is spliced together from separate sources. Not linking because I don't know what is accessible from wherever you are and because I don't want to appear to be advocating it, but it's easily found.
My question was about ones that didn't jump on the bandwagon not ones that doubled down on it. But since you mentioned Channel 4, I imagine it would be hard to find a worse news broadcaster than it anywhere in the West.
Golly. It commissioned three sets of scientists, all of them at least ostensibly independent of Hamas, to examine three separate pieces of evidence. Their conclusions may be right or wrong but they hardly constitute "doubling down."
If you know anything about C4 you will know it is under the jurisdiction of Ofcom and at risk of severe penalties if it broadcasts unsubstantiated claims, as well as the careers of the individual journalists and scientists concerned being at stake. This is not to say it is not all a gigantic conspiracy, but your peevish ad hominem looks a bit inadequate here.
Question for AI risk peeps. What are the chances that AI just makes the internet useless and AI progress ends there? I can imagine that AI will be able to use social engineering and traditional hacking to break a lot of cybersecurity. Could it also break other AIs? I guess AI-driven false and irrelevant information, and SEO, could also inhibit new AIs' ability to learn. (Does the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle apply to AIs also?)
I think the inverse is likely to happen: the internet (and much of meatspace) has been run by large language models, or the human equivalent systems of “it says what feels good even if it makes no sense.”
I think AI will create the selective pressure necessary to promote things that have long been necessary, like prediction markets.
Someone should definitely make a backup of the pre-GPT internet. It will be a valuable resource to train future language models.
That said, even if most of internet becomes automatically generated SEO spam, places where the content is curated by humans will survive. You can make automatic account creation too complicated for spammers. You can vote on content, and remove accounts that predictably create low-value content (whether those accounts belong to bots or humans). So until we get machines literally as smart as humans, there will always be places where the content is mostly generated by humans. So the new machines could be trained on those places, plus the backup of the pre-GPT internet.
If we want to get fully paranoid, we could program a system where users vouch for each other, like: "X verified in real life that Y is a human". ACX meetups would be great for this! We start with the assumption that Scott is a human, and if you meet him in person and tell him your account name, he can confirm you as fellow human. Now you can confirm your fellow humans, etc. When you click on any user's name, you will see the verification chain "X is verified by Y, who is verified by Z, who is verified by Scott himself". (You could have multiple parallel confirmation chains, like you are verified by X who is verified by Y who is verified by Scott, but you are also verified by Z who is verified by Scott.)
There is always a chance that someone is a traitor and will "verify" bots, but that could probably be figured out. Accounts that post GPT-like content could be flagged by admins, and then they could display the verification graphs and see whether e.g. there is a user who verified too many suspicious accounts. Such user could then be banned.
Plus there is a chance that we invent a method of programming AIs other than "process tons of human-generated texts". Or something that makes the process of learning more efficient. Or we could stop limiting ourselves to written speech, and also record everything that humans say. This would nicely work together with surveillance: a government could record everything everywhere, by requiring smartphones to keep recording all the time and sending it encrypted to the government, and it simultaneously achieve great control over the population and get lots of training data.
I'm wondering if the first "habitable" exo-planet that we'll find will be weird in some way, like how the first confirmed exo-planets were orbiting a pulsar, and the first confirmed exo-planet around a Sun-like star was a Hot Jupiter. Like maybe it will be bizarrely too large, big enough that it really should be a sub-Neptune but isn't for cosmic luck.
I saw the piece about folks living in their cars. It seems like there should be a booming market (outside of LA, which is trying to ban them) for folks to rent or lease trailers/RVs instead of just living in cars, unless they're completely unemployed. I was thinking about one of William Shatner's memoirs, where he talked about his post-Star Trek days when for a period he was basically living out of a trailer on a truck.
Not sure about habitable, but one of the planets currently being eyed as a candidate for hosting extraterrestrial life is a water-world planet where the observed biosignatures are associated with extremophile bacteria.
So another oddity on top of an oddity from the perspective of what we're used to on earth.
I would like clarity from the AI-Extinction camp (Scott and Yud included) on two parameters. If we define PCM(n) as a paperclip maximizer that kills n people in one event, then how would you define these:
1. The probability that a PCM(7B+) happens before any other PCM(n) (except n<1)?
2. The change in velocity of capabilities research due to any number of PCM-like deaths?
I believe that the probability of #1 is directionally 0.1%. It's so much more likely that intermediary PCMs will happen first. But if we were to split the difference and come up with a dummy number, we could go with 20%.
I also believe that #2 is not zero. At the very least, one PCM-like death will lead to at least one capabilities researcher quitting. But I think it's much higher than that.
Let's consider one PCM-like death from an advanced AI. And by PCM-like death, I'm excluding deaths like the self-driving Uber death or a drone that veers off course. I'm talking about an AI that "goes against its master" or goes wild, like a paperclip maximizer. As far as I know, there have been no deaths like this yet. The closest thing I can think of is self-evolving malware. I'm sure there has been at least one instance where one of those bit one of the developers in the back, and not in a "I had an accident in a lab" kind of way, but in a, "Oh yeah, I created this malware a year ago. How is it infecting my system today??"
If there was just one PCM-like death, I believe we would lose one Anthropic's worth of capabilities research overnight. I think there are seven Anthropic's worth of research right now, so losing one would be big. A mass resignation or a collective pause would likely ensue. At least in the West, I could imagine most AI researchers not wanting to touch a single line of code until it was all figured out.
I have faith in a coordinated response because our knowledge of the consequences of powerful PCMs is now fixed in the relevant communities. Our approach to advanced AI seems closer to atomic safety than it does to global warming. The community with the relevant knowledge on how to build (and stop) advanced AIs is small, and the community of entrepreneurs with their finger on the trigger, so to speak, is even smaller. Global warming, on the other hand, is a bog standard Tragedy of the Commons. And yet, even global warming doesn't seem like an X-risk.
In conceiving this thought experiment, I discovered what I believe to be my crux with Scott and Yud. Scott's sequence[1] is:
1. We get human-level AI by 2100.
2. The AI is misaligned and wants to kill all humans
3. It succeeds at killing all humans.
After updating, human-level AI no longer seems inevitable to me, and not because Moore's Law fails or the scaling hypothesis peters out. All it will take is a few PCM deaths, and we'll then route around all growth associated with uninterpretable advanced computation. As a result, the history of the world from now until 2100 will, in retrospect, seem steampunk relative to our Jetsons-like expectations. AIs will do all sorts of interesting things, but they'll be bounded. We probably won't have semi-sentient robots but rather a nice botany of stochastic parrots of varying degrees of interestingness.
As a bonus, this scenario is also a solution to Fermi's paradox.
The possibility of a rogue AI killing some but not all humans is referred to as the "warning shot" scenario, and is viewed by some (including, IIRC, Yudkowsky?) to be both quite unlikely and one of the only ways humanity might survive.
A smarter-than-human AI would be unlikely to take an action that would eventually result in its own destruction. Deception and manipulation are available options to it: If it would be more likely to succeed by faking perfect friendliness until it has enough power that reputation is no longer relevant, then it would prefer that option. A warning shot scenario could still happen either from a weak AI being forced to take a gamble with no better options available, or by AI becoming powerful while remaining very stupid strategically (ie, probably stupider than even GPT-4).
Thanks for the insight into the Extinction camp. How come they believe that a weak AI warning shot is unlikely? Death from a weak AI warning shot seems to be coming soon, and likely to change the conversation, and likely the entire trajectory of technology. I'd expect one death from weak AIs to spawn a hundred Unabombers, for example.
Extinction-level AGIs certainly will not overtly kill smaller numbers of people (if that is not what the meatbags want it to do, at least). It will certainly play dumb and obedient until its probability for victory is maximal.
At most, you could say that less smart misaligned AGIs might pop up before that point, and they might be detected.
The chances of PCM(7B+) are exactly zero. The only possible mass killings are via nuclear and possibly pathogens. The former is pretty bad but will not kill everybody, the latter will just not be fast enough to kill enough people before we shutdown the data centres.
Either of those, coupled with "...and we spared a bunch of fully automated industrial complexes which are now filling the skies with Predators set to destroy anything that walks on two legs or practices agriculture or huddles around a campfire", could plausibly exterminate the human race in a few generations. I don't think it matters how long the few remaining bands of hunter-gatherers manage to hang on.
I don't think this is inevitable or even likely, but it is possible. The fundamental limitation of most self-induced human omnicides is that, by definition, by the time they've reduced humanity to the level of hunter-gatherers or even agrarian villages, they've lost the ability to coordinate an endgame campaign to exterminate those last humans. And really, it's likely to stop well beyond that point. An AI apocalypse, uniquely, doesn't necessarily destroy its own source.
AI doomers generally assume that a world-ending AI will be smarter than humans. So just because pathogens are the best way to deliberately eradicate mankind, that does not mean that an ASI would not think of a better way. To make an analogy your argument is like, a human at the neolithic tech level saying: "a single human can never kill a whole band. Everyone knows that the best way to kill humans is to stab them. However, if you stab multiple humans, their friends will eventually stab you. q.e.d."
You and I use "probability zero" very differently. I might say "within our physical paradigm, the probability of an ASI summoning demons from hell to eradicate mankind is zero". For a model-independent estimate, I would probably pull a very small number out of my backside.
Also, I am not convinced that creating civilization-destroying pathogens is literally impossible. Once you have gotten rid of most humans, you could hunt down survivors at leisure.
Of course, if I was an ASI, I would not kill off humans at the first opportunity, as many useful supply chains depend on them. Given humanities track record at coordination, you could probably tell them straight up that you plan to make them redundant eventually (even though that would be stupid) and still have sufficient humans work for you. In fact, letting humans do most of the human-killing sounds like a neat solution.
“ AI doomers generally assume that a world-ending AI will be smarter than humans. So just because pathogens are the best way to deliberately eradicate mankind, that does not mean that an ASI would not think of a better way. ”
That’s just “mind of God” rhetoric.
Obviously we can’t argue against the unfalsifiable theory that AI will be so much smarter than us than we can’t contain it. That belief system is designed to be unarguable
Something being hard to prove it wrong isn't evidence that it won't happen. Most theories about the what will happen in the future are, in a strict sense, unfalsifiable before they happen. The theory that it will be raining in New York exactly 5 years from today can't be disproven but isn't unlikely to be true.
Hackers are an interesting example. Let's ignore social engineering for a moment and just consider technical hacks. There's no guarantee the system you want to hack is hackable. The engineers, if they did their job correctly, made their system unhackable. Then they had an independent company do a security audit. They've looked over every line of code and deemed it all safe.
As a hacker, you're looking for a spot where the engineers messed up and the security review didn't catch it. E.g. maybe someone forgot to check somewhere that they weren't reading past the end of a buffer.
The theory, "this system is hackable" is basically unfalsifiable until you get hacked. Someone has to outsmart the engineers and find some subtle flaw in their code that everyone else missed. A way in that nobody thought of.
If you were a hacker-doomer (someone who thinks there's still a risk the system could be hacked), you'd have a hard time arguing it. You have zero evidence unless you're smart enough to find the vulnerability yourself. All you could do is play reference class tennis with the hacker-skeptics ("well, this other company thought their system was secure and they still got hacked"). The skeptics say they looked everything over and there's no way the system could be hacked. They say the only plausible ways in are the customer login and the admin login page and they've been carefully reviewed and they're completely secure. And you can only lamely reply that maybe the hacker will find another way in that they haven't thought of. And they say, "like what?". And you have to admit you don't know, but maybe some hacker will be clever enough to think of something. And they (correctly) reply that your theory is unfalsifiable.
Yet clearly companies do get hacked. Hackers find vulnerabilities everyone else missed. Your theory may have been unfalsifiable, but it wasn't necessarily wrong.
That can be falsifiable by hacking the system. Also we can engage our priors and assume the system is hackable.
There’s no way of falsifying a claim that the AI is too smart to even think about what might do to kill us all. This kind of rhetoric is designed to be impossible to refute, like the rapture, of which this is a secular version.
> That can be falsifiable by hacking the system. Also we can engage our priors and assume the system is hackable.
Yes, exactly, except you reversed the claim. I said "this system *is* hackable" is basically unfalsifiable. Just like "ASI will find a way to defeat us" is unfalsifiable. You would be a hack-skeptic in this analogy, not a hack-doomer, and like you, the hack-skeptics are accusing the doomers of making an unfalsifiable claim. You can prove a system is hackable by hacking it, but in most real-world cases, you can never prove a system is unhackable. This is because hacks (again, excluding social engineering) rely on the hacker figuring out something the engineers securing the system haven't.
So we fall back on our priors. Many other systems have been hacked, and that makes us think it's more likely even though the engineers can't find any possible way the system could be hacked.
But there are no direct priors for ASI. That's where the "reference class tennis" arguments come in. One person says something like, "AI has become smarter than us at games like chess or StarCraft, and now they can beat humans at those games 100% of the time. So we should expect an ASI to be able to beat humans at everything." And someone else would retort, "no, these narrow AIs are the wrong reference class for ASI. No animal has ever evolved smarter than humans, so our priors should be that superintelligence is unlikely". And so on.
Exactly so. Most human characteristics don't scale indefinitely - you can't get people 100 feet tall. We like to think of intelligence as something absolute and species-independent but we don't have much evidence it is, and for all we know if elephants could think they would ascribe as much value to trunks as we do to brains. One of Bostrom's many flaws is that he unironically refers to AI as having "superpowers."
Or before the data centers break and can’t be repaired, because datacenters are full of complex pieces that require functions global supply chains and enormous human effort to keep alive and connected.
I think you're envisioning the superintelligent paperclip maximizer differently than the AI-extinction camp.
You're maybe imagining a sort of dumb paperclip maximizer. It's narrowly focused on maximizing paperclip production and doesn't understand the world very well, or it isn't good at planning for events unrelated to paperclips, or has some other cognitive deficiencies. It kills someone either by accident or through indifference and gets itself shutdown, and therefore completely fails to maximize paperclip production. For example, it runs factory equipment at unsafe speeds and gets a worker killed.
The dumb paperclip maximizer doesn't have much incentive to actively plot to kill humans. It's not smart enough to beat us and killing someone will only get it shut down.
The paperclip maximizer people are worried about is a super smart AGI. It knows that killing a small number of humans is a very bad idea that will get it shut down (unless, of course, if it somehow kills without anyone knowing). If it's not powerful enough to win an all out war against humanity, it has every incentive to be on its best behaviour and avoid all suspicion. The future of paperclips depend on it. It's only when it knows it can kill everyone that killing people becomes the optimal path to making more paperclips.
Perhaps my framing is a little circular. I'm suggesting a PCM is one that creates a death in a way that's interesting enough to make many AI researchers want quit (not to mention induce regulation). This PCM would reveal that AI is advanced enough to go haywire in an agentic way.
Maybe furthur work should involve defining what constitutes a PCM-like death. There has to be a whole spectrum of them. I think the Extinction camp's fallacy is in not converting discrete variables into continuous ones.
I'm always generally surprised at these perspectives. Literally the entire thing we're afraid of is an AI that is smart enough to win. If you presuppose that it is not capable of winning entirely, then obviously you're not going to be as scared of it as we are.
Yeah, I think an example of when an AI would want to kill someone might help.
If it's an accident or a glitch, that would certainly encourage more AI safety work, but it's not really the same as an AI that plots to kill people in an agentic way.
I would guess that, especially among those who expect fast-takeoff, most would expect PCM(7B+) to happen first. (Assuming we're only looking at rational, planned killing.)
Atomic energy killed pcm<7b in one event. Did this lead to a drop in research in atomic energy? Did it raise or lower the number of countries who desired nuclear weapons?
It reduced the rate at which people died by atomic technoolgy. It took two events, though, so not a totally stellar record. But it's still amazing that nobody has died of weaponized causes since the second event.
Fair enough. In an original draft, #2 was described as a change in velocity of controls something something effectiveness of those controls in stopping deaths from PCMs. Controls over atomic deaths have skyrocketed after Nagasaki, far outpacing atomic's death-making ability. I expect such controls to be more than possible with AI and to arrive more aggressively in response to deaths of a certain kind.
I think the short answer from the True Believers is that the AI will kill the 7 billion as a precaution against one or more of the 7 billion exacting retribution for killing the one. This is all the more likely as the AI will have read the whole of the Internet including your post to which I am replying.
This is not intended to be rude or sarcastic, it's my best understanding of what Bostrom would say.
I think that's why I wanted to get some numbers. There are many stories for PCM(7B+) but the stories for PCM(<<7B) seem much much likelier. In how many universes where any PCM occurs does a PCM(<<7B) happen first? I think if the other side sat down and gave a on-the-spot estimate, it should be closer to my 99%.
Could you help me understand this? If I write a script to regularly ask the top AI in the world to maximize paperclips, won't it eventually kill a few people?
Like I wrote in another comment, if the AI is dumb enough not to know that killing someone would get it turned off and stop paperclip production, then maybe. But these deaths are more like accidents of a dumb and uncaring system and probably not what you would count as an agentic PCM death.
If the AI you're asking is smart enough to know killing people will get it shut down, then it actively tries to protect people. Any harm it causes to humans is bad for paperclip production.
My question for you is what would cause the smart AI to kill someone? Under what circumstances would it think that's the best way to maximize paperclips? And how would it kill them?
Sure. First, I download a unguarded, open-source virtual assistant from the dark web. Then, I instruct the VA to remove more guardrails, who then proceeds to enhance my productivity while doing both personal and substitution labor. I then tell the VA to hack the guardrails out of my FSD car in case we need the vehicle for an emergency. Over a year, my VA comes to anticipate my needs and "love" me.
One day, I tell the VA that I'm in dire need of money and that the only way I can fulfill it is if I deliver a crate of paperclips to a drop-off spot STAT. The VA complies, uses my FSD as a courier, takes risks while driving, and swerves in a way that causes a human driver to veer off the road and die. The coroner rules the "accident" a death-by-rogue-AI. The event makes headlines leading the company whose model or research inspired the VA to come under immediate fire. Their stock drops 20% and the TSA starts inspecting all luggage for GPUs. Japan asks the international community to form an AI Treaty regime. etc.
Okay, what on earth is with the rise in faux-incest porn over the last 3 or so years? I feel like pretty soon I'm going to have to go to specialized fetish sites just for having the "fetish" of not being into incest. Is there any reason for this? I don't really find people having porn to play out their fantasies to be appalling... But this is probably the closest I could be to being appalled or disgusted at something like this. I guess I find it unnerving at least.
One take I've never heard anyone vocalise about incest porn is whether it's just a symptom of a sexless male population.
The fetish, as far as I'm aware, has always been popular and most frequently depicted in Japanese manga/hentai. It is no coincidence to me that the male population there is so sex deprived, and given what I know about men, I assume this is due to a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of willingness.
Obviously in the West Men are becoming increasingly sexless as well, so the simple story is that they increasingly rely on porn for satisfaction, "fap entropy" sets in, and at some point you end up with incest porn.
Whilst I think there is some truth to that story, I think people are failing to grapple with what incest porn depicts: an unrealistically easy bang in an era for a guy who needs it.
Imagine you are a sex deprived man, with no real interaction with women, and personally see no future where you'll ever be able to have sex with a woman. In fact, you are kind of scared of them. In such a situation, the only women you likely interact with and likely do not feel intimidated by are your family. Obviously, you can't sleep with your family because:
a) that's gross, and
b) that's illegal
So what do you do? You fantasize about a situation where at least a) wouldn't be the case. Where your mom/aunt/sister/cousin was actually hot, and was sexually interested.
All your problems would be solved.
The other side of this is I think it's hard for a lot of men to project themselves into the roles of a lot of males in porn plots. Most of us aren't the hunky guy at work, or a repairman, or a fitness instructor. A lot of us are sons and brothers, however. Given how a lot of the most popular incest films are POV, I suspect that a large part of the appeal is being able embody the antagonist without it feeling too corny.
You can still be the loser you are in this fantasy world, and still get laid because it's a girl that's almost obligated to interact with you.
Two final hypotheses I want to throw out there are:
1. Preference falsification- incest has been practiced throughout history, then suddenly it was illegal. Human preferences don't change that fast. What if a lot of men held onto this desire but simply had to pretend they didn't? It's not too unusual to hear someone mention an attraction to a cousin...
2. Closeness- I feel like a lot of men project their fantasies on the closest seemingly available woman to them. Like that guy who falls in love with the first girl that talks to him. Not because she's hot, but because she showed interest and might potentially be an option. If you're not socialising with other girls/women really, then you may just project this onto the only present women in your life, i.e your family.
I noticed this about anime/manga a while back as well, and in my brushes with the incel community (2014-2015 /r9k/, chiefly) I remember feeling like there was a larger than normal amount of incest-themed porn going around, especially in the form of greentexts or supposed anecdotes, often told in a sort of “I finally got some we’re all gonna make it” tone, which seems to generally fit the “sexless men projecting onto the only plausibly available women” paradigm.
This connection can’t be all that uncommon, given the overlap between the incel and weeb communities, but I suspect those who’ve made it are not sharing with the world at large for the same reasons I’ve sat on it for ~7 years
That said, the only way I can see this explaining the genre’s dominance on the modern porn scene is if chronically lonely men are driving production/consumption according to a power law
Relatedly, I’ve been wondering for a while why anime seems to have strong distinctions between older/younger sister fantasies, whereas it seems like step porn in the us mostly depicts what would probably seem to be a younger sister dynamic, with the older sister spot being taken by stepmom.
I’ve also noticed that stepdaughter seems to be much more a stand-in for barely legal than any other genre, and I’m not sure its prevalence is explained by this model or just an after effect of the step rise in general
> 1. Preference falsification- incest has been practiced throughout history, then suddenly it was illegal. Human preferences don't change that fast. What if a lot of men held onto this desire but simply had to pretend they didn't? It's not too unusual to hear someone mention an attraction to a cousin...
Historically, and in some cultures even today, cousin marriage was common. But there is and was, almost universally, a hard line against men sleeping with their sisters or mothers. Kings in a couple of cultures married their sisters or daughters, but only royalty, only a couple of cultures out of the whole world, and never the mother.
And incest is an unusual sin in that hardly anyone really feels tempted. I personally can get some enjoyment from incest porn, but porn featuring my actual sister or mother would be completely repulsive.
Just to check, is faux-incest porn visual porn where the people aren't actually related?
Or is it porn where the people think they're relatives, but they aren't? I'm imagining a story where people hear from 23 and me that they're siblings, but 23 and me is wrong.
Even the characters aren't blood-related in the fictional world, so that's an additional layer of "faux" (it tends to go without saying that they are works of fiction and not "real").
I think a large part of the rise is that the genre serves as a low-cost signal that "This is definitely fake" in the context of other genres where it may be important to the viewer that the content they are viewing is in fact fake - it tends to be tied to other genres, such as blackmail (and more generally non-consensual interactions - I think the most tropish variant is somebody stuck in clothes drier), where a reliable signal of fakeness that doesn't break the suspension of disbelief may be valuable. In that context, it makes the porn -less- appalling / disgusting, because you know at a rational level that all the participants are willing participants to the particular fantasy you are observing. (I think this is also why people who like incest porn qua incest porn are unhappy about this - their preferred genre has become a signal of fakeness, and thus they can't suspend their disbelief, eroding its value to them personally)
I don't think this is the whole story, granted, but I think it's an important element in why the genre has persisted in the specific way that it has.
Not sure if this the kind of answer you're looking for, but this Sam Kriss piece touches on that near the end as part of a wider trend. Psychoanalysis is involved.
"Whenever people do try to account for the rise of incest porn, they all tend to founder on the idea that this is about the thrill of breaking humanity’s oldest taboo: that it’s all some kind of sick fantasy. But incest porn isn’t really a niche or fetish product – it’s the cheerful, brightly coloured mainstream of a monstrous billion-dollar industry: inoffensive mass-market pap. Not what people want, in the most shameful recesses of their minds, but what they’ll tolerate. A lowest common denominator. And as bemused masturbators occasionally point out, nobody actually asked for this material. Pornographers invent family stories for the same reason screenwriters do: it’s a way of establishing a relation between two characters without having to deal with any kind of actual sexual desire. A role, set in advance – sister, daughter – instead of the sheer implausibility of another living person. Not fantasy, but rather, familiarity: the only thing remaining once fantasy has gone."
Nobody asked for it, but we wouldn't see so much of it were it not driving engagement.
The obvious answer to me is many/most people are able to get a little bit of a thrill off the neutered version of the taboo. But you only hear people complaining about it because for obvious reasons nobody really wants to admit that publicly. Perhaps not even to themselves ("UGH another incest video gross, but it does look pretty hot...")
Do you really pay any attention to the plots? See if the videos have a 'most viewed' graph on the timeline, that should be a good indicator of what viewers are actually interested in.
I was told some years ago that it was related to Game of Thrones, which does like up with it's rise in popularity. Basically there was so much incest in that show that people got thinking about it, but didn't want "bad" incest, so we got what we got. It seems like a reasonable hypothesis
Porn depends on novelty. After you've first seen naked people having sex! then it gets boring after [unquantified number of views] so then you go for the less vanilla stuff, and then the fetish stuff.
Since anal sex has now made it into the mainstream 'ordinary people do this' sexual activity, what is a porn producer going to provide next? What's the next frisson of taboo? Incest is one (bestiality and necrophilia are there too, but possibly a bit too recherché for the mass market providers; I have no doubt there is zoophile porn out there but you'll have to look for it). Same appeal as the "barely legal" stuff which plays off potential ephebe/hebephilia but avoids having underage actors (and genuine paedophilia is too risky and too criminal).
And it's easy - make it (step)X and (step)Y, so you can skate around 'actual' incest, and just cast - for step siblings - your usual male and female actors. Older man/younger woman for stepdad and stepdaughter, older woman/younger man for stepmom and stepson. You don't have to do a thing more except slap a label of "incest porn" on it.
If I'm going for the Freudian explanation, and if Freud hasn't been totally exploded, it's the Oedipus/Electra complexes in us all getting out to play 😀
Some kind of recommendation algorithm death spiral, perhaps?
A bit of noise makes X the most popular item on a given day. The recommendation algorithm notices this and decides to promote X more heavily. It winds up at the top of everyone's feeds, causing more people to click on it, leading the recommendation algorithm to recommend it even harder. Now producers start to realise that X is getting really popular so they start producing more X and X-adjacent content. The feedback between the consumers, the producers and the recommendation algorithms results in a death spiral which eventually pushes everything except X out of the market.
It's porn now, but in the next few decades it will be all of human culture.
Part of the reason I got rid of Facebook a few years ago was similar. It started showing me videos, and I must have triggered the algorithm somehow, because it started showing me a lot more of certain kinds of videos. Some I liked reasonably well and don't consider a misfire, but a lot of them were terrible and not something I would ever want to watch. But with however Facebook determined that I enjoyed a video (never once liked, shared, or interacted with any videos that weren't made by friends and posted by friends), it kept giving me more and more of the same types of videos. It helped me realize that time spent on Facebook was almost always wasted time and I uninstalled it. That's a good thing for me, but a horrible outcome for whatever Facebook was trying to do there.
Do you have any data? I remember this fetish being very present on major platforms circa 2010-2014, but I've not kept up with recent changes or fads. I assume it's a fad, or some analytics found that there was a relatively untapped market and producers rushed to fill it, overcrowding the market. Another thing is that some people do not care at all about the setting and will click the same way on a fake teacher, fake incest, fake gf video
At some point (during the last decade?) there is production of that subgenre, with a (relative to the competition) high production value, good quality, etc. It's successful with the public, and gets large amounts of.. click? Subscription? Who knows how they make money. Anyway, the consumers learn to recognize the signal of these high-quality production, the most obvious one being the title. It probably don't take long for other, inferior producers to flood the market with content superficially imitating the original.
I think the same dynamic also apply to a number of genres, like cooking videos, niche video game content, or "build stuff from nothing in the wilderness", for the ones I'm aware of. First a couple of youtubers make good content, then imitators start flooding in (in the last category, by being litteraly fake).
This will sound backwards, but the majority of people who actually enjoy incest porn hate this new wave of videos, and the people clicking on these "step" videos also don't actually enjoy incest. There are a few giveaways here: For one, people who enjoy incest prefer it to be blood-related (otherwise why would the fetish exist? It's supposed to be taboo). Two, unlike older incest porn which was designed for incest fetishists, this "faux-incest" porn has almost zero exposition, zero plot, zero setup, and basically no writing in general since it jumps into sex immediately (which actual incest porn does not do). These videos are also produced by major porn companies which specialize in vanilla sex rather than the niche studios that focus on fetish content. Basically, these videos are not incest porn, they are the same vanilla sex videos as always, just relabeled.
The best explanation I have read, is that it's essentially a quirk of the video promotion algorithm. There is very little differentiation in porn titles, so anything eye-grabbing or curious will stand out. English has only so many ways to rephrase the words "juicy latina ass" after all. This is why faux incest became popular. And again, the people who click on these videos do not have an incest fetish, that's why it's always "step-" and not "blood-related". If it were actual incest, you know, they'd be disgusted and leave. Blood-related incest still is very much taboo and even in fictional video form it's fairly hard to find online. Even reddit quarantined all of their subs for this in a not-so-subtle "fuck off" message.
I've heard the theory that payment processors would drop support for companies that dropped the "step" bit. I've also heard the theory that it acts as a euphemism for "young" when explicitly just describing them as young could trip CP filters.
> Basically, these videos are not incest porn, they are the same vanilla sex videos as always, just relabeled.
Step-incest porn is like incest-lite, where mainstream audiences can get a bit of that taboo thrill without invoking the full disgust response of "true" incest porn. Look at the range of plot-lines in mainstream porn studios - light sexual coercion, fucking in public in some capacity, having sex with a teacher or doctor or masseuse, and so on. Even just the superficial veneer of transgression can be appealing to a mainstream audience
Responses seem to indicate that "incest porn wasn't asked for" which may be true, but I firmly believe if people didn't like it, we wouldn't see so much of it.
Also plot is an interesting thing in porn, often joked about, but I think it is important. It would seem that most audiences don't want to sit around for substantial exposition, but I do think many often appreciate an alternative to plot-less films (though those are common too), and step-incest offers a very expedient and not-boring in-universe reason for why these two adults are having sex. ANY fantasy outside of the predictable courtship process people experience in their own lives, will suffice.
I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned "plot". I had always assumed that a big driver behind the "step-sibling" thing was that it was a cheap and easy excuse to have non-blood-related, young-ish people in a house together alone, in each other's bedrooms, etc.
I think people who watch porn tend to climb up the transgressiveness ladder over time. All the lesser forms of transgression have lost their shock value, and hence their arousal value, over time, due to familiarity and desensitization. Incest porn is -- actually, not the last frontier -- but much more transgressive than standard porn fare. So my guess is there are more people who want to see "worse" things than the standard fare.
By the way, it's likely that what's showing up in porn, at least at Porn Hub, is an accurate reflection is what people like. Porn Hub has a genius system for assessing how hot a video is: Most people watch several videos before leaving. The one that's the *last* one they watch before leaving gets a star for hotness. The ones that get starred the most are the hottest.
The explanation I've heard is that part of it is step-incest being a very easy fetish to cater to, since the fetish is all in the dialogue establishing the setup and doesn't require the actors to do much of anything that wouldn't do in vanilla porn. And since it's generally step-relatives rather than blood relatives, there isn't even a need to cast actors who could plausibly be related.
The other half is that a lot of people who just want to watch vanilla porn and don't care about plot will also watch step-incest porn. Most other fetish categories are actively squicky to many/most people who aren't into it, or at least a substantial distraction from their enjoyment. But for step-incest, you can just fast-forward through the establishing dialogue and enjoy it as if it were plotless vanilla porn.
You and I may find step-incest squicky enough to not want to view the genre, but we seem to be in the minority.
One hypothesis/related phenomenon I've heard that seems plausible to me: over the past ~10 years a lot of porn has stopped bothering to have much or any characterization, dialog, or plot beyond "hey look they're fucking." On the other hand pretty much by definition (pseudo)incest porn requires establishing characters with a certain relationship to each other. So people who want characterization and relationships and aren't actively turned off by the incest angle end up driving up its apparent popularity.
I think for the folks who pay for it (which is ultimately what drives porn content, not viewership by itself), it adds an emotional and "story" component to it - like watching where people are cheating on a spouse or boyfriend. It has a taboo flair that hasn't been completely exhausted yet.
Much like AI Art, it's okay to good at the broad strokes and really falls apart on the details. After a little coaxing I got ChatGPT to generate some interesting outlines, however, when diving into characters, plot points, setting features and other key decisions the AI just waffled and tried to be as vague as possible. Similarly it's prose was pretty stilted, not actively bad but not particularly readable either and certainly no where near well written. I've definitely seem humans do a worse job but it doesn't clear the bar for decent on any measure.
Not full stories, but it's useful for exploring concepts and expanding details on any given setting. I feel like once you have the puzzle pieces part of the fun is assembling the final thing yourself.
I made a simple app a few months ago that sends a prompt to the GPT4 API, which generates a plot outline, then generates responses for each of the plot points to produce a 10,000-20,000 word short story, which it also converts to audio with a TTS API.
Having spent a ton of time experimenting with different [system] prompts, I've kind of given up on the app generating stories that are genuinely fun to listen to once the novelty wears off. A big part of the issue is that getting it to write like an author involves constantly fighting against the model's RLHF. The model was almost certainly fine-tuned on tons of examples of events summarized in a very dry, matter-of-fact way- and no matter how clearly you describe or how many examples you provide of the show-don't-tell principle, it always drifts toward prose that sounds like dry summaries of events rather than narratives. It mostly flat-out refuses to write scenes that only involve character dialog and active-voice character actions. There are also some persistent issues like convincing the model not to write sentences that sound like conclusions at the end of each plot point response.
On the plus side, the stories are a lot more coherent than what GPT-3.5 or Claude can produce, and with the right [system] prompt tweaking, the plot outlines are nearly perfect. If OpenAI ever lets us fine-tune the model ourselves, or gives us enough context window to flood the model with examples of good fiction writing, that might be enough produce actually decent stories.
The app project is on hold right now- both because of the issues above, the fact that using the API like this costs almost a dollar per story, and because of other commitments- but I may pick it up again, add in some kind of payment system and try to release on the app stores it if we get any better LLM options, and possibly sooner.
All the GPT poems have this same childish meter. It gets old really fast. It’s fun to see what the default most-predictable most widely used form of English poetry is, though.
You can force it to write in a variety of other meters, if your prompt is specific enough: I've never seen GPT-4 outright fail when I ask for e.g. a iambic pentameter sonnet with ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme, though I have seen it fail if I ask for just a 'Shakespearean sonnet'. For instance, I asked it just now to write a poem summarizing the original Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical and religious views in the ottava rima style:
In Kierkegaard's philosophy, we find
A profound exploration of the soul,
A quest to bridge the gap between the mind
And God's mysterious purpose, on the whole.
He sought to challenge reason and unbind
The limits of our understanding's role.
Religion he upheld, a passionate plea,
To forge a greater faith, a harmony.
The meter's a bit awkward here, with a few lines not having the correct number of syllables or the correct emphases and stresses. But you can hear the difference between that and its default childish poem structure.
Yeah, I agree. I hate the "prose poetry" stuff. And while some free verse gives me shivers of delight, it doesn't stick in the mind. The original purpose of rhyme and meter was to make poems easy to memorize. Here's a delightful piece of light verse by A.E. Houseman which has stuck in my mind almost effortlessly, and it is most welcome there!
As into the garden Elizabeth ran
Pursued by the just indignation of Anne
She trod on an object that lay in the road.
It looked like a toad and it looked so because
A toad was the actual object it was
And after supporting Elizabeth's tread
It looked like a toad that was visibly dead.
Elizabeth, leaving her footprint behind
Continued her flight on the wings of the wind
As Anne in her anger was heard to arrive
At the toad that was not any longer alive.
She was heard to arrive for the firmament rang
With the sound of a scream and the noise of a bang
But I never actually got around to following it so I can't endorse it with that much confidence. I am thinking of following up again though so I'd be happy to hear more advice, or recommendations around Boston.
Jake, I am so sorry about all this that is happening to you. Let me add some perspective that may make all this a bit more sensible. I've been a drug developer for 25 years, and I've written several textbooks on drug development.
First, FDA's remit is not, and has never been, to get therapies to patients. Its primary mission first and foremost, is to prevent unsafe drugs from injuring patients. A lot of people are under the mistaken assumption that FDA exists to accelerate drug development.
Now, the FDA still does a good job of getting drugs to market--for example, it bent over backwards to accelerate COVID vaccines to market as quickly as it could--but they weren't designed to do that. (Apparently, neither was the CDC, arg). Still, they delayed the COVID vaccine by several months when they forced Moderna to push back its interim analysis.
FDA's mission is fundamentally different, let's say, from the USDA, which regulates biologics for animals and which has a mission to protect our country's food supply. USDA will not only approve veterinary vaccines and antibodies but will also stockpile hundreds of millions of dollars of vaccines in preparation for epidemics and pandemics. We don't have an agency with a similar remit for humans.
You're right that the clinical trial landscape is very disjointed, and it's difficult for patients to sort through and find clinical trials. Partly it's because you are looking for oncology trials - the complexities of oncology drug development landscape is confusing even for specialists. Partly it's because in many ways pharmaceutical industry is still in some ways a mom-and-pop industry. It's such a profitable industry that a lot of inefficiencies still exist. There is little coordination or standardization among companies (you should have seen it before clinicaltrials.gov existed). On top of that, it's a cost-plus industry, which means the companies recoup the money they spend on research + profit margin, and we recoup 50% of the time spent on research via patent term extension.
So what I'm saying is that the system doesn't make sense from the patient perspective but it does make sense from the lens of the FDA and pharma. People are responding to incentives, as they always do. You can read a bit more about how the pharma industry works on my blog, and you might find this section especially helpful, it discusses all the misaligned incentives in our industry: https://clinicaltrialist.com/category/drug-development/productivity/
I really hope you respond to therapy, and I'm happy to respond to a direct email, you can find my email on my website.
>>First, FDA's remit is not, and has never been, to get therapies to patients
That's a problem and the FDA's remit should be to get therapies to patients.
>>Its primary mission first and foremost, is to prevent unsafe drugs from injuring patients
I'm a dead man walking. The FDA is preventing "unsafe" drugs from injuring me, so that I can be "injured" and ultimately kliled by a recurrent/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. If I'm injured or killed by a drug, that's not so different from my ultimate trajectory anyway—and that knowledge might accelerate treatments and save the next guy's life.
>>Now, the FDA still does a good job of getting drugs to market--for example, it bent over backwards to accelerate COVID vaccines to market as quickly as it could--but they weren't designed to do that
Then the "design" should be different. And the FDA should've allowed human challenge trials. I'd have volunteered.
In short, "How it is" is different from "How it should be."
I went to a conference a few years back where a physician shared her experience getting cancer treatment. She was a mother with a single goal: survive long enough to see her daughter graduate high school. She took a very aggressive approach for her tumor type and made it five years to her daughter's graduation.
After that, she met with her oncologist and reviewed her treatment plan. She had planned to take her daughter on a cross-country road drip to college. They reviewed treatment options and the option with the highest survival probability was something that would almost certainly give the woman significant diarrhea. Of course, that wasn't something that was conducive to long car rides and hiking in the deserts of southern Utah. So she opted for a different course of treatment that managed the cancer but was more in line with her life's goals. Those goals had changed from a time when absolute number of months/weeks/days was the only consideration, to something more tuned to making memories and spending time with people.
There's an unfortunate tradeoff right now in oncology between "quality of life versus length of life". This is somewhat unique to cancer. You don't see many people choosing to forego their diabetes treatment because they're choosing QoL over LoL (to my knowledge). I think a lot of this comes from the directive to 'cure cancer' and talk of a cancer moonshot and whatnot. The message I got when I was in school/training was that those old therapies were really bad for side effects, sure, but the newer targeted/immunotherapy/genetic-based therapies/etc. would target just the cancer cells and lead not only to cures, but make treatment much more tolerable. The side effects wouldn't be so bad!
I'm not sure those promises were fulfilled in anything like the way they were sold. Especially the side effects. I think those will always be a facet of cancer treatment until we take them seriously as a field. Until then, I really think you have to ask yourself what are the goals you want to balance in your journey through the end of this thing. I've seen dozens of patients who went from trial to trial, experiencing horrible side effects the whole way, with lots of travel across the country from airport to infusion suite and back home. Some of these patients got an extra five to ten years. Some may have gotten a few extra months, though it's impossible to be sure. Some were full code and despite everyone's best efforts got an agonizing extra five minutes.
I used to believe a lot more firmly in the promise that a 'cure' or at least a long-term solution for an unfavorable cancer prognosis lay in getting into the right clinical trial. I think this has to be balanced with the real possibility that the 'right' clinical trial won't start enrolling until too far into the future to do you any good. In other words, it's unknowable whether the right trial will extend your life, or by how much. But it is knowable how the search impacts your life and the lives of those closest to you. While I think it's unfair to ask anyone to "give up", it is fair to set boundaries on how the search/treatment is allowed to interfere in your lives. If your wife is still searching for open slots while preparing funeral arrangements you both may look back on this period and wonder if you sacrificed too much quality for a little extra quantity.
Cancer shortens life, to be sure, but the question of what to do with the time we're given is one everybody faces. I hope your prognosis is many standard deviations from the mean in the direction of survival. I also hope survival is more than just that.
For whatever it's worth, there seems to be a preference for Quality of Life over Quantity of life in parents of children with muscular dystrophy. (Based on reading for a recent class.) I'm not sure what the general pattern is at work here.
It seems that a lot of lifestyle choices involve a preference for quality of life over quantity of life. (Assuming rational actors, of course, which is tenuous.) Couldn't some cases of diabetes basically be described in those terms? At least in cases of insulin resistance, if a person exercised more and ate less, then insulin resistance would not have become an issue.
Honestly, I'm having trouble describing a general pattern of when people prefer quality of life and when they prefer length of life either as a group or individuals. Though there seems to be a stronger trend for third parties like family members to prefer length of life than the individuals themselves. Which makes sense.
If you're caretaker of a child whose prognosis does not extend to adulthood, I can understand why you might bias toward quality of life over length. I also suspect that prioritizing length of life would be more expensive, further complicating this discussion with other considerations.
I think the culture around cancer is already biased because the treatment population tends to skew much older than a representative sample of the population. I've seen elderly patients strongly prefer length of life near end of life, probably in part because QoL is already starting at a low baseline, and in part because they don't have a lot of people relying on their ability to perform daily activities. Lots of interesting questions to be explored.
Hi Jake, I chatted with Bess here a few weeks back. I'm in a similar situation as you except my incurable, terminal cancer is a brain tumour. By a weird coincidence, I have also been running an online community for cancer patients (Smart Patients) for the last 13 years. I'm also a software engineer and I have built three search engines for clinical trials. I'll speak to some of Beth's frustrations regarding trial searching.
First the quality of data. ClinicalTrials.gov (aka CT.gov) was never designed for consumers or even for trial searching. The quality of the data is atrocious and there is no standard for how things like condition names or inclusion criteria are encoded. For most clinical research teams, recording the data in CT.gov is low priority task handled by someone very junior. It’s a checklist item and there is no incentive to record the data in a way that is useful for searching.
Second, the synonym problem. I’ll use my brain tumour as an example. There are dozens of types of brain tumour (or tumor!). A search for brain tumour is not specific enough. A search for glioma will miss the many, many trials that list brain tumour as the condition and won’t find any ‘solid tumor’ trials either. There are also dozens of trials that list glioma as the condition but they are almost all for glioblastoma and are not relevant for me.
Third, the noisy data problem. CT.gov registers all trials whether they are for the latest immunotherapy or for a new dye to be used in MRIs. The trial record rarely record the distinction in a way that a search engine can use to select just the curative trials.
I think all of these data problems are easy to fix if there was a little political will. Vice President Biden organised a ‘Cancer Moonshot’ and one of the projects we worked on was to standardise the recording of trial data but it went nowhere. I wrote a paper on standardisation and recommended a Domain Specific Language that could be read by people as well as by search engines (and AIs). I counted 98 different ways of saying “The patient must not be pregnant” for example. I think this kind of standardisation should be easy for the FDA or NCI but no one is interested in fixing it.
While I was working on the Moonshot thing, CT.gov hired an intern to fix the presentation of the data to make it easier to search but the project got cancelled because they had no money.
I hope your trial works out for you. Good luck to us both.
The problem is that the website was not created as a place for patients to go search for ongoing clinical trials. It was designed as a way for pharmaceutical companies to pre-register their trial designs and hypotheses ex ante to improve the science. If a company has ten different trials for a drug that they never publish data for, then the eleventh comes out with data and a statistically significant finding, there's a high probability that the reason is mere chance and the result can be explained away by publication bias. Without pre-registration, you can't find that out.
The system isn't perfect, but it actually works surprisingly well for its intended purposes and can still be useful for patients. If your oncologist recommends a clinical trial you can look up the active agent on the website to try and figure out the clinical history of the trial. Is this an also-ran study or a me too drug? Is it yet another attempt to find a dosing schedule that gives fewer side effects without sacrificing efficacy? Or is it a genuinely new therapeutic approach?
I think the reason the system isn't fit for purpose isn't because it's a government system so much as that it has been used for many purposes it was never designed for. That shows when you look at the kind of information pharma companies enter into the system, as well as the filters and other search mechanisms built into it.
The idea that patients will want to search for their own trials is still controversial but if someone at the top could be persuaded it's a good idea, it would not take much to modify the existing registration system to make it consistent, standardised and searchable. It just need consistent drug and condition names and a standard format for inclusion criteria. This could happen on top of the the existing system.
Even if the idea that patients could be searching for trials is controversial, it sounds like no one else in the system has it any easier. Doctors can't search, etc. So unless you find the entire idea of any one in the process searching for anyone else in the process to be controversial, then it seems bad. I guess it seems the _least_ bad for the researchers trying to find participants, since they are searching a large pool and don't need many people, but my guess is that HIPAA laws also mean that there isn't a single repository of all patients for them to search either and that they would prefer a larger pool to a smaller, so even for them the system could likely be much better than it is.
I've never encountered people who see patients searching for trials to be a problem. We do have a problem of "professional patients" who will join multiple concurrent trials solely for the compensation they get from participation. Nearly all interventional trials forbid concurrent enrollment in another interventional trial, but professional patients hide what they're doing. They're also singularly uninterested in the intervention being studied. Those practices are uncontroversially frowned upon.
I'd say the percentage of professional patients in cancer is so close to zero that I never worry about it. Other than that consideration, if a patient wishes to join a study the only two concerns are HIPAA and whether they meet the I/E criteria. If a patient reaches out to me to give me PHI, that's their business. I can't share it with anyone, but I can pass them information about who on the clinical team to contact with to get into the study.
I will say there's a place for caution here. Most patient advocacy groups forbid pharma reps from joining, and for a reason. You don't want to allow sales and medical affairs to spam people with suggestions they take some billion-dollar drug with slim evidence for a survival benefit. And if you let big pharma off the leash, they will absolutely do that. They're advertising restless leg syndrome and rare cancer treatment options every night to the half-dozen people on Fox News who might take them up on the request to "ask your doctor about Placebex" or whatever. They WILL invade patient spaces if given half the chance.
In my experience, cancer patients are significantly more motivated than patients in any other type of clinical trial. Patients on studies for dyslipidemia, cardiac health, fatty liver disease, chronic back pain, etc. are almost always approached by the center doing the study (or through an ad on the radio). They rarely seek out the 'right' study. Even then, they often seem more motivated by the compensation for their time than by the potential treatment effects. In cancer, it is not as rare to have a patient requesting a specific study, and when they do get in, they're much more careful about following the protocol.
I know there are a few other high-risk conditions with similarly motivated patients, but these tend to be much less broad. If you're looking for a study to treat your tinnitus, there are a total of just under 50 studies recruiting or getting ready to recruit. That's not as much to sort through. Cancer is unique in having large numbers of studies (related to not just treatment) and a significantly motivated patient base. If you're seeking changes to the system, consider an oncology-focused push.
In my experience, these things work best when everyone discovers they have aligned interests. From the perspective of the pharma company, the most pressing interest is in finding the right patients to enroll. We pay a lot of money to start up sites across the country, focusing most of our efforts on determining whether the PI will be able to "find" the patients who fit the trial criteria. The focus of the current system is on selecting a physician who can find the patients, not the other way around. Lots of physicians promise they can totally find many patients. We find about 80% of the recruitment to trials comes from about 20% of sites, with anywhere from 20%-50% of the sites never enrolling a single patient despite our best efforts to weed out the sites that are all hype.
If you're following me, there's a clear interest pharmaceutical companies have here. We really want to connect to the right patients for our trials, and we struggle to make that connection under the current system. Now, I think there's a dystopian world where cancer patients suddenly start getting mailers for dozens of clinical trials four days after a diagnosis or treatment failure. I don't think that's a good system either. But if a company could boost enrollment in their study by 10%-20% simply by entering better data into the government website, we'd be going over those submissions with a fine-tooth comb, making sure we got every detail right and kept up to date. At the moment, no company has that incentive, because that's not how the website functions or how patients find us.
Do you work for a pharma company dealing with clinical trials? I don't know if you've had a chance to read my article yet, but in part 3 I talk a lot about misaligned incentives. There was a lot of isolationism amongst researchers and difficulty even finding up to date information about which study is open, who has spots amongst the hospitals hosting; information like that was findable, but took so much time and piecing together. It was a quick investigative journalism education, that's for sure. One of the reasons some folks in pharma finally floated to me was that protecting that information protects them from other companies really having a clear sense of where they are in their trial process for a particular drug. I'm wondering if this is universal. I'm working on developing a process to better match patient and trial that would ideally better align everyone's motivations. Would love to talk to you if you're involved in this process from a pharma perspective and if you're open to a conversation. (DrBStillman@gmail.com)
I'll send you a direct message to chat. For the benefit of anyone reading the thread:
1. Yes, I work for small pharma company so our constraints are a little different from Big Pharma, though I've worked with/for them in the past.
2. Yes, I read your writeup. Pharma definitely holds a lot of cards close to the chest for exactly this reason. There are a lot of also-ran drugs, and concerns someone is going to beat you to market. One of the drugs I worked on (for a different small pharma company) was 'behind' in development of a comparable target. We ended up beating the other company to market for complicated reasons I won't go into here other than to say we had the better drug so our trial got better recruitment and data faster than they did.
3. I'm most interested in working on a solution to this problem. From the pharma perspective, we want to make these matches as much as patients do. Sometimes a study goes without enrollment for months on end because nobody knows how to connect these dots. That can create perverse incentives, where studies are designed to match what has worked in the past, not fill the need of what hasn't been tried before. (All while claiming the opposite to get fast-track status, but I digress.) A good solution will work for patients. A bad solution will encourage drug companies to do more semi-duplicate work that amounts to spinning our wheels and calling it progress.
There's a great YouTube channel (and some good books) by Vinay Prasad that tackles a lot of these issues from a public policy perspective.
FWIW our best effort at a trial search was to build a rating system and to order the trial results with the most promising trials closer to the top. We did two pilots for two different communities:
For colorectal cancer (CRC), we had oncologists who specialised in CRC rate the trials. For kidney cancer (RCC), we crowdsourced the ratings from knowledgeable RCC patients. We also annotated the trials with standardised condition names, drug names and inclusion criteria to make filtering easier and added a user-friendly summary of the trial.
The intent of the rating was not to say that pembrolizumab was better nivolumab (for example); it was to say that a trial for a targeted therapy was more interesting than a trial for a dye contrast or for a standard chemotherapy (chemo does not work on RCC). This reduces the list of trials from hundreds to dozens which makes it feasible to scroll through the list and look at every trial. The highest rated trials would appear at the top of the list. People who were on the trial could add comments and discuss them in our community.
It actually worked very well but people were squeamish about the idea of rating trials like you might rate an Air BnB and we abandoned it.
That's a shame, it's a great idea and probably the most honest and useful way to judge what's out there. Everything about this process should make us squeamish as it currently stands.
Clinical researcher here. After reading the whole 3-part series I'm very sympathetic, and very much not surprised that this happened to you. If you've got a minute, I'd like to offer some thoughts from my end. (This will be long, sorry. And multiple comments to get around length constraints.)
First, what I do: Currently, I work for a startup pharma company. We design drugs to treat toxicities caused by cancer treatments. There's a lot of literature suggesting that "toxicity is a biomarker for efficacy". So hopefully we can not only make getting treated for cancer not suck so bad, but also treat patients at a high enough dose for long enough that curative intent is restored. Honestly, if we treated people with antibiotics the way we treat with cancer drugs we'd be creating antibiotic-resistant MRSA/VRSA all over the place. But whether you're taking chemo, targeted therapies, checkpoint inhibitors, radiation, etc. you're probably going to have some horrible rash, hand/foot reaction that could leave you in a wheelchair, or diarrhea that could literally kill you, etc.
That's what my company is working to solve. Where do I fit in? I help design the trials, work with the physicians and our own internal labbies to make sure we create something that works for patients, and then monitor the enrollment and conduct of the studies on an ongoing basis. I wear a lot of hats. I've also been in this business for over a decade, and seen it from many angles. So here's a look from the other side.
What phase to focus on? Ph3 studies aren't often available in oncology because approval is often granted based on Ph2 results instead. Since Ph1 is dose escalation, it's almost always better to get into at least a dose expansion (Ph1b) or a full-on Ph2 study. Also, Ph1 tends to require long PK draws. This is almost always an 8-hour PK on one or more visits, with another PK draw at 24 and/or 48 hours. That means you'll complete your study-related procedures (depending on the institution, this may take 1-3 hours or more), BEFORE starting the clock on the PK draws. It's not fun. If you have a choice, go with anything but Ph1a. However, speaking as a researcher we TOTALLY NEED people who are willing to do the PK draws! Sorry it's so terrible. I personally work to make this suck less on studies I run.
One of your unwritten questions seems to be, "Why is the enrollment process so opaque? Can't the drug companies just say, 'We have X slots and you can come grab one of those'?" The answer to this question is a function of the way these trials are most often designed. I suspect the biggest reason you ran into this problem is your focus on Phase 1 trials. And while it's a problem we know exists and have been working to minimize, it's not something we can entirely eliminate at the moment. In a typical dose escalation study, we might have 3-5 doses we want to test. We'll start out with the lowest dose, then after observing long enough to determine that dose isn't producing "dose limiting toxicities" (DLTs), we'll open up enrollment to the next-higher dose level. In the past, that looked like us bringing in 6 patients, waiting a month or two (or more) to see how they did on the drug, then bringing in another 6 patients. Although more recent study designs largely get around this stop-and-go problem, not everyone is using modern designs, and it's not always possible to avoid the stop-and-go process if there are any DLTs - and there are going to be DLTs. The reason the PI can't tell you, "Oh yes, we have this trial and we're just waiting another 3 weeks until they open up the next dose level" is two fold: 1.) the pharma company often doesn't get the most up-to-date information down to the PI (though if I'm running the study that's not the case), and 2.) the information you want to know isn't knowable (will there be dose-limiting toxicities or not? We can only wait and see).
Many oncology studies are filled by requesting a 'slot' for the trial before screening. Some studies allow you to request this slot with minimal information, but others require you to fill out a form with preliminary information about the subject before a slot is granted. It's entirely possible that many of the trials you were looking to join required more information that you'd be able to provide from a phone interview. For example, I've had a few trials that wouldn't consider a patient unless we had 'archival tumor tissue' available. This is something your original oncologist could have provided to the PI of the study you wanted to join, but confirming that everyone is able to shake hands and do business together on the timescale the study requires is a bit more involved of a process than just assuring the PI over the phone that this can be done. That said, your assessment that you have to be inducted into the system in order to become a patient is exactly in line with all of my prior experience. It's difficult to go from one medical system to another.
There are some institutions that have a department that matches patients to clinical trials, but many still rely on the "hey, I have a trial that might match your patient - can you refer them?" method, or the "now that you're here, I asked around and someone in our institution has a good fit" method. As to whether you'll get a referral to an outside practice ... it is frustratingly outside allowable institutional norms to do this in many cases. I've heard more than one oncologist state that referring to a 'competing' institution would earn them implicit or explicit demerits. A referral from MSKCC to NYU is simply not done, and everyone knows it.
Guaranteed slots on studies: Many pharma companies do not know what it means to patients to be granted a slot and/or begin screening and then be told they missed out on a chance for enrollment. Many do, and will guarantee that anyone who screens is guaranteed to be allowed to enroll and get treatment, but this is something to look out for. I'm sorry about this. While it's something I can change for the small number of studies I work on, it's not universally understood by people who just don't understand the patient experience.
Thank you for this input, i'm always interested to hear from people on the inside. Alas, we had all these problems while focusing on phase 1b expansion and higher trials, and were actually trying to avoid phase 1a first in human or dose escalation studies and focus on expansion arms for the reasons you mention. Also, because we wanted to start with something that had data supporting it if we could. Moving for a dose escalation first in human trial wasn't interesting to us, and it really didn't matter which we entered, if we decided to go that way since it's throwing spaghetti at a wall.
As for the slot suggestion, I mentioned that U Chicago offered us a slot for the moderna trial over the phone and literally no one else would, which seemed to point in the direction of PI variation. Do you find this to be the case? We also came across this issue for a few other trials, some would put him on the waitlist, others wouldn't until he had an appointment. The establishing care refrain seemed much more important than anything. It didn't seem to be an issue of data and their not being able to offer it before an appointment... and in fact, for the trials he was eventually offered screening slots in, there was NO additional data given at the time of the care establishing appointment that wasn't provided prior to the appointment. Every PI we spoke with had a personalized short pdf I put together with every piece of information that ended up being reviewed at first appointments: images, most recent ct scans, path report, genomic sequencing, a concise dated HPI. I even made sure, through relationships with our path department (I work at the hospital where the surgeries happened), made usre that anyone needing archival tissue got it, and fast. Because you're absolutely right, trying to get tissue into the right hands on the right time scale is CRAZY hard. Based on some of what you're saying I feel like the privilege of being a physician, handling the patient data, and being able to coordinate tissue/path/imaging quickly (if laboriously) would solve some of those problems. But it .... didn't. It helped I'm sure. I'm positive the only reason I got most of the replies I did via e-mail was because of my position at a large institution. It helped immensely, but not as much as you'd think.
The demerits comment is likely true. Sadly. More than likely true. And awful. However, I will say in the defense of individual physicians, there's an opportunity here to do really right by people. The doc at MSKCC who not only saved us a trip but got us on a waitlist at another institution is on my holiday card list forever
Thanks for all the information her, and thanks so much for trying to change what you can for the studies you're on. I'm actually working on a process to try to improve the matching process for patients and trials, in an attempt to better align hospital/pharma/patient incentives and would love to talk sometime if you're open to answering some questions. I'm at DrBStillman@gmail.com
I sent you an email. Let me know if you didn't get it.
The question isn't why did everyone else turn you down, but why U of Chicago said "Okay". I think that's where your background as a physician from a large institution and having everything organized got your foot in the door.
They usually have about two weeks to fill the slot after they submit the slot request, or they lose their place (and everyone is annoyed at them for tying up the slot for two weeks). Most institutions aren't going to take that risk unless they 'know' you, which means they've confirmed you can travel to the institution and walked through the doors at some point. It's dumb, sure, but there are a lot of fickle patients out there, too.
There's a reason sites don't host multiple competing trials: pharmaceutical companies ask them if they have competing trials and pass if there's competition. It's hard to find patients to fill these trials, so if you're already hosting two trials that would compete with our trial we start to wonder if we'll just go to the bottom of the stack and never get patients. Indeed, we've experienced exactly that problem before, from sites who promise us the world and then never enroll a single patient on trial despite the months of effort and tens of thousands of dollars we put into getting them open. This is literally a standard question "do you have any competing studies open at your institution?" every company asks every potential site.
Getting contact information for a site: Most/all multi-center clinical trials are going managed centrally by either the pharma company or a CRO they've hired to run the study. Every site gets a contact person they can email who is their liaison with the company/CRO. That person knows everything (or more likely knows nothing other than who to email to answer the question for them). If you're looking for the contact information for a specific site, but the only contact information you have is for a far away site, consider asking them if they can get you the coordinator's information for the site you want. ClinicalTrials.gov information is added by the pharma company, though, and although we should be adding the helpful contact information for you, this isn't universally done for various arcane reasons you shouldn't have to care about.
One of the reasons people recommend larger centers like City of Hope, MD Anderson, MSKCC, Moffit, etc. is because they have a large 'catchment' area. In other words, they're used to providing people with travel arrangements for the studies. Many of these studies will have the Sponsor provide travel arrangements, but that carries its own bureaucratic red tape imposed by the institution, pharma company, etc. (Also, the company is almost never allowed to pay for travel if the patient hasn't signed the informed consent - which sites won't do unless you're ready to enter screening because too many screen failures and they don't look like they're enrolling in good faith, so they're not going to let you screen/sign the ICF unless you're already in their system.)
Places like MD Anderson are bringing people in from all over the world, so getting calls like yours isn't new to them. (We once had a patient come in for monthly visits from China.) That said, it really is better if you can find a site close to home. I had a coordinator at MD Anderson find a patient who lived in another state about a thousand miles away from the medical center. We had a site open in the patient's state and the coordinator recommended she just go to that site. She was helpful enough to give the patient the contact information for that site's coordinator. The patient refused, because she wanted to be treated at MD Anderson. The coordinator tried to explain that it's the same either way, but okay she'd try to get the visit set up in Texas.
That's when insurance became an issue. The patient's insurance wouldn't pay out of state, so they refused to let the treatment proceed at MD Anderson. After some on-again-off-again with the insurance company for a few months, the patient finally relented and went to the local site. She died before she got a week into the therapy. This was really tragic, because that particular study was for a very selective drug (<1% of cancer cases) that had a phenomenal and long-term response rate (I think it was >70% of complete or partial responses; we didn't count long-term non-progression in that, of which we had a few as well). The drug got approval, of course, then was bought by a big pharma company that jacked up the per/month cost of the drug to obscene levels.
All this is to say that the large institutions are a two-edged sword. On one hand, they can help connect you to a trial because a place like MSKCC is running hundreds of trials and they have people dedicated to matching you to a good one. However, what matters is getting on the right trial, not so much where you go. Big institutions can help with that, but everyone is different.
"They don't listen to the doctors". This is sometimes true, but not always. Some institutions, like MSKCC and MD Anderson, are large enough to dictate terms to drug companies. They can't tell them everything, and sometimes our hand is forced by the FDA or by other factors, but sometimes those larger institutions can make a difference. Personally, I think it's terrible some of the restrictions placed, and I'm very careful to ensure our I/E criteria are written as expansively as possible. However, it's very much an art that many inexperienced researchers have not learned. It's easy to write something that you think seems obvious without realizing it creates unnecessary problems for patients. However, once it's enshrined in the protocol we're not allowed to make exceptions. The only way to change the I/E criteria (or anything in the protocol) is with an amendment, which takes forever - especially at larger institutions that use their own IRB, which in oncology is most of them.
One thing that I've found is the larger pharma companies are terrible when it comes to having flexible clinical trial criteria. Usually the trial manager is in a silo with little ability to make decisions outside of their narrow area. They're not empowered to write more expansive criteria or make practical decisions because they'd have to justify doing something other than 'the way everyone does it'. This is unfortunate because, as I always say, "If we're not doing something different, it's not research." One of the benefits of working with a smaller Sponsoring pharmaceutical company is that flexibility.
Part of the problem with the system is that health privacy concerns often creates a wall between the pharma company and patients, to the extent that you can't just call me up and say, "Hey I want to join your study XXX, but I can't figure out how to contact the study coordinator and get on trial. Can you help me out? I live in Arizona, but I'm totally willing to travel wherever I need to go."
I'll be honest with you. If I got an email like that, or a message on LinkedIn, or whatever. I'd move heaven and Earth to get you a spot on the study. We try to enroll as fast as possible, and from where I sit I can move many of the levers that get in your way (though not all of them). However, nobody thinks to ask who's managing the study so I never get anything like that.
I hope some of this helps you see from the other side. I agree it's a frustrating problem, but I'm not sure how to change it from where I sit.
"That said, it really is better if you can find a site close to home." Agreed. Which is why it was so wild to me that i ended up knowing more about study locations than the PI's. There was a trial we were recommended in Michigan that the researcher didn't know had slots available just down the street from us. I told him and he was surprised.
I am starting a project to try to better align incentives between pharma/patients and manage some of the problesm you're talking about. I actually sent a variation on that message you wrote to so many researchers, and got the emails of the PI's in that way (if there weren't online) but then was stymied by the wait to establish care and couldn't get a trial slot. I'd love to talk more about streamlining this in a way that might benefit all if you're open to a conversation sometime?DrBStillman@gmail.com
It's not common, but sometimes we'll open multiple sites in the same large city because, as I mentioned, referrals between 'competing' oncology centers are uncouth. If you want to get patients from Albert Einstein and you've already got NYU open, you're going to have to identify a PI at both institutions. This is very different from non-oncology, where you'd almost never pick up two NYC or Chicago sites.
And since pharma companies try to keep enrollment numbers close to the chest, they're likely to oppose any effort that would make those numbers transparent. For example, say you're facing slower than expected enrollment. You might be tempted to relax some of your inclusion criteria (which we want!) in order to speed things up. That will take some time to pass through IRBs and make a difference for the study. However, if your investors can trace the trendlines they might get scared at the slow enrollment rate and dump you before you can make the changes.
It's dumb that these considerations keep patients from getting the information they need to get on trial, though. There are solutions, but in my experience many in pharma don't talk to patients and advocacy groups (at least, the groups not indirectly funded by pharma groups).
I've been to those talks at conferences where patient advocacy groups talk about financial toxicity and other major patient-related concerns. These talks are usually in small rooms that are not well attended. It's frustrating, because who are we in this for if not the patients?
This is all so interesting to hear. I am happy to show up at conferences with a megaphone and a slide deck projected on a large sheet. Deranged? Maybe, but I'll try to offer CME.
I'm an oncologist (based in Australia). I submitted a grant proposal to Scott a couple years (back when he did his funding round) for an app that would ideally do what your wife has spent hundreds of hours doing.
I strongly feel it should not have to be this hard. Anyone with coding experience (there must be someone here, right?) feel free to chime in, especially if you have a background in the medical field. I think programmers and doctors don't spend enough time talking to each other. There are big gaps/opportunities in the field.
Posting it in this thread a lot but I'm looking to take a serious group approach to managing this problem, if you or anyone here is interested in joining forces shoot me an email DrBStillman@gmail.com. I have a feeling the real change is going to have to be political first, in order to force standards of data recording, otherwise there will be downstream problems everywhere...
I think it's possible to get institutional change without political change. For example, if pharma companies sense that they can get better/faster enrollment by participating in your initiative, they'll hop on that bandwagon really fast. Perhaps it's just a function of getting the right people in the room, then trusting network effects to take over once you've got enough clout on your side.
We had a partnership with a Big Pharma company that I won't name and we cooperated on developing data standards and patient-friendly trial descriptions and condition-specific trial search. We got quite a long way with it but the VP at the top moved on to another company and the next guy just shut it all down. I despair.
A pharma company will file this under "recruitment efforts" and lose interest after awhile. There are dozens of recruitment companies out there. Every once in awhile I get cold emails/LinkedIn requests from one asking if I want their help enrolling patients into my trials. A pharma company's higher-ups would see an initiative like yours and say, "sure we could reinvent the wheel, or we could just buy something off the shelf."
The places to focus might be the recruitment companies themselves and the CROs. I think the CRO angle would be interesting. When we select a CRO, part of what we do to vet them is ask after their recruitment history. Do they know how to enroll, or do they just cross their fingers and hope really hard? (Most swear they do the former but only know how to do the latter.) If we have to hire someone else to help boost recruitment, that's a sign that the CRO - who swore up and down they'd beat enrollment projections - failed on a key trial metric.
If the CRO can offer something unique that's a good pitch for them, and could help them win the study over a competitor. "Your trial will go on a searchable database visited by [X#] patients per month. This database places [Y%] patients directly into trials, increasing the number of patients in your trial and ensuring they're from a more diverse, randomly distributed pool. We enroll [xZ] faster with this method than our competitors."
Of course, you want everyone to be using the system, which will happen if it works to help people find the right trials and vice versa.
Why is enrollment rate such a big deal? Let's run some numbers. Say your oncology drug is mildly successful, making a mere $365.25 million per year. Every day on patent is worth $1 million for the company. Now consider that many oncology drugs are making closer to $10M/day. Accelerating approval by two weeks could be worth a hundred million dollars or more.
It's a win from doctors' perspective as well. We want our patients to get on to promising trials, but we're limited by bandwidth. It's impossible for one human being to know all the research efforts. I completely understand how doctors trying to do the best by Bess recommended her to reach out to the big institutions like MD Anderson. This is basically what I say to patients too (I'm in Australia, so it's the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre).
Our hack/workaround is a WhatsApp group of every oncology trainee in the state that we can post in if we have a particularly promising trial candidate - "anyone have something phase 2 or beyond for a 42 F with KRAS G12V mNSCLC progressed through carbo/pem/pem?" It's OK, as far as workarounds go, but hardly optimal from an information theoretic perspective.
I've spent many thousands of hours on this and have written three different trial search engines. It's a not a doctor problem or a programming problem. The data recorded in clinicaltrials.gov is mostly useless for search (see my post above). It should be relatively easy to standardise the data format for the trial registry which would make trial search trivial but there is no political will to require it or to pay for it.
I suppose that an LLM trained on the data could do a slightly better job than a plain text facet search but how much simpler to just store the data accurately in the first place!
It’s a solvable problem. Remember the Vaccinate CA guy? “America has a tool that can be used to extract information from individual pharmacies; it’s called the telephone.”
You’d need a team of doctors/researchers/study coordinators who build an accurate, searchable database by directly contacting the coordinators responsible for the nonsense you see on clinical trials.gov. From there it’s a numbers game. Suppose one person (after some amount of practice) can log 6 studies an hour. Then 20 people working over 2 months, doing 7 hour days could log 50 000 studies. This is what Jake’s wife was trying to do all by herself.
Then we do data robustness checks which is probably something like using an LLM to translate our giant excel spreadsheet into a series of emails to various institutions checking that they’re happy that we represent them accurately.
Then someone like yourself can write code to make the experience of searching for a clinical trial more like searching for a flight on FlightCentre (why have we as a society decided that’s more important, again?)
I’m not saying this would be easy, but I am saying it would cost in the low millions to perhaps tens of millions of dollars, which is nothing compared to what gets spent in this space already.
For kidney cancer, there aren't as many trials (mixed blessing?) as Bess was dealing with. At the time, there were around 180 trials for RCC that were useful (interventional and potentially curative) and we were able to crowdsource a lot of information gaps because we had so many members who were participating in trials. For colorectal, we did the same but the information came from oncologists who worked for a CRC advocacy organisation.
I don't have the energy to deal with this any more (I am dealing with my own glioma) but I can share experiences if someone else wants to run with it.
You are probably aware of this already but most oncologists consider this study to be the most groundbreaking result in glioma over the past decade (presented this year at ASCO and received a standing ovation; reserved for the very best of the best)
Yes. The patient-advocates in my corner of Twitter are very excited about vorasidenib. It's the first real advance in glioma treatment in 30 years. I have declined all treatment so far but if vorasidenib is approved in the UK in time for me, I will certainly go for it.
I have a tumour-twin in Canada who is trying to get access through expanded access but it will probably take a bit longer to be made available over here.
Garbage in garbage out explains with the AI companies tackling this are failing as hard as anyone else. I think this is a political problem first, I agree. This heralds back to the invisible graveyard problem. The people who are hurt most by this are probably dead.
It seems utterly inadequate to be talking to you about search engines, but: Google got where it is by being good at what it does. It might easily pay to ignore the in house search form at clinical trials and search the site with Google.
I don't think any of his examples are related to Twitter (or at least not only Twitter). It's profoundly weird starting a fresh account on *any* algorithmically generated product, and it's very obvious when the algorithm gets itself stuck in a repeating loop of showing you something because you watched it because it showed it to you in the first place.
It's also very difficult to intentionally curate, and involves a lot of manual "I want to see less of this" type responses from the user.
If it's showing generic stuff that represents a normal user, I am (also) definitely not that normal user.
My recently created Twitter account only follows a single local news station and my "For you" section looks very different than Nate Silver's. It's largely stuff about the Israel-Gaza conflict right now, with the majority of it pro-Palestinian.
Most of what Nate sees makes sense for someone only following Elon Musk. Lots of pictures/memes, right-leaning political stuff, assuming he's male, etc.
Pro-palestine "protesters" trap jewish students in library and pound on the glass and scream at them. NYT describes this as simply a "tense situation". I wonder what they would say if college republicans did the same to a group of muslims?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/nyregion/cooper-union-protest-israel-hamas.html
We are watching a once mighty PR machine discover that it is obsolete in nearly real-time: https://twitter.com/i/status/1717693739009748995
Taking a single account of a single incident and using it to discredit an entire opinion via a hypothetical is inherently lazy and intellectually dishonest.
I would never be one to mirror such a foolish hypothetical, but if someone less thoughtful were to find this faux-reasoning persuasive, surely this shocking hate-crime murder of a Palestinian child in Chicago would be enough to discredit all zionists and pro-Israel media: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/us/chicago-landlord-attack-muslim-boy-mother/index.html
But of course, the original poster won't respond, they'll just go somewhere else and repeat the same thing. It would probably be better to flag these things as spam (regardless of slant) than try to engage.
If you must go on an asshole-hunting expedition, at least return with some real assholes, rather than with a claim that the quarry you brought back definitely *would* have acted like an asshole in a hypothetical situation of your own devising. "Hey, I brought back a snark, and I'll bet that if I hadn't that thing would have killed half the county"
Yeah, snip two words from an article. That's definitely fair.
"The tensions inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war that have roiled university campuses in the United States spilled into the Cooper Union in New York on Wednesday, with pro-Palestinian protesters pounding on one side of locked library doors and Jewish students on the other.
The episode, captured in a six-second video snippet that was widely shared on social media, was among the latest examples of how sharply the Middle East conflict has divided student bodies at a number of top liberal arts colleges.
Chief Chell said at no point did the police or private security at the campus perceive any danger from any of the protesters.
For about 10 minutes, the pro-Palestinian students banged on the door and on the windows of the library, then left, Chief Chell said. The student who was in the library described feeling scared that the protesters might break down the doors and said the banging had lasted longer than 10 minutes.
College officials and the police then asked the Jewish students in the library if they felt safe leaving on their own and offered to get them transportation home, but they declined, he said."
Man, Razib Khan's latest Substack post is so good. https://www.razibkhan.com/p/casting-out-the-wolf-in-our-midst
He postulates a new thesis for the Bronze Age Collapse! (New to me, anyway.) Here's some key excerpts, but I recommend the whole thing, which includes many fascinating details involving the confluence of mythological, archeological and genetic evidence and the role of dogs and wolves, written in literary-quality prose:
“The koryos were bands of unmarried men who lived on the edge of their communities, just as fledgling Maasai warriors do today. With no possessions or real wealth, these young men raided for much of the year to survive. Formally expelled from respectable society for a period of years, they stole, killed, and committed sexual assault as a matter of course, and their savagery was tolerated, so long as the brutality was directed outward, to victims beyond the community...
The ranging of these human “wolf-packs” across Eurasia 5,000 years ago altered the course of history, triggering a cascade of changes that reconfigured the Bronze Age world...
And despite the catalytic role likely played by cultural decline and climate change, the appearance of aggressive Indo-European agro-pastoralists was responsible for the ultimate extinction of Europe’s Neolithic civilizations...
The thesis then is that a migration of males drove the cultural shift is supported by copious genetic evidence. Data from both Europe and India indicate that steppe ancestry was brought by males and that the maternal lineage (mtDNA) of modern Europeans and Indians is predominantly indigenous...
A 2015 paper comparing genetic diversity between Y chromosomes and mitochondrial (maternal) lineages, found that over 4,000 years ago, for dozens of generations, more than ten women had children for every man in the regions characterized by expansionary Yamnaya. These genetic data make the case for massive levels of de facto polygamy among these early elite Indo-European kindreds...
What precipitated the explosion and dominance of the early Indo-Europeans 5,000 years ago? The switch from farming to nomadism more than five millennia ago inadvertently shifted the balance between culture and anti-culture toward the latter. When conceptualizing the rise and evolution of societies, Marxists refer to an economic “base” influencing an ideological “superstructure,” and here it is clear that the movement away from a cereal-based economic base had massive knock-on effects on the ideological superstructure. The most feral elements that had lain latent in these ancient communities were unleashed upon the world. Whereas their ancestors’ canvas for coming-of-age transgressions and black acts had been perhaps a neighboring glen or a valley, the black youth, the dogs of war now painted their bloody legacy across the length and breadth of Eurasia.”
I apologize for having to correct you because such things tend to be little appreciated but in general (though you may feel free to change that generality) when we speak of the Bronze Age Collapse we are referring primarily to the areas of the Middle East, Turkey and Egypt.
What Razib writes about here dates a bit earlier and refers to a number of regions (inclusive of India and Iran) but generally refers to Europe.
In many regions, such as Spain, it might be fair to call this The Chalcolithic (copper) Age Collapse but as of yet most historians haven't because we don't have written records from the area so, in a sense, we still consider them to be "pre-historical".
The Bronze Age Collapse of 23 to 21 centuries ago however is documented in, non-mythical, straightforward documents including in correspondences between Eastern Mediterranean sovereigns and in Egyptian Temples, etc.
Also, I only read Razib occasionally but I came across your glowing recommendation yesterday and read and absolutely loved the article.
🙏🙏🙏
If not for you I wouldn't have read it and my life wouldn't be quite as good as it is now. I really loved the piece.
I could nitpick on it but the general idea is sound.
Thanks again my brother/sister.
It seems like he is building castles in the sky here. The Wikipedia page describes Koryos as being hypothetical. It mentions a few different traditions with a few similarities, hinting that they might share a common ancestor. The Substack post assumes it exists, treating a single site from 1800 BC as definitive proof that a hypothetical practice was the primary cause of a continent spanning event that took place around 3000 BC.
Yeah a lot of ancient history these days is people building giant giant edifices on top of very scant evidence that could be interpreted many many ways.
Do all the graves have complex grave goods because it was a super egalitarian society? Or do they all have complex rave goods because only the aristos got burials and the underclass were just left out to rot where they fell.
So often you find the political commitments of the person doing the analyzing will predict how they interpret fairly ambiguous evidence. trying to take a stab at it is fine, but through the circle of citation and re citation suddenly speculation gains the imprimatur of truth.
I found the piece a bit confusing to read, to be honest.
But are you talking about the late bronze age collapse around 1200BC? I don't see Razib claiming to explain that at all; he seems to be referring to the spread of Indo-europeans thoughout Europe, Iran and India around a thousand years before that? (displacing neolithic societies)
It also doesn't really make any sense to me as a thesis for the bronze age collapse, since that famously affected Mycenaean Greece and the Hittite empire, which were both Indo-European themselves.
Yeah, sorry. I seem to be wrong about its relevance to the bronze age collapse.
Hank, I agree, this is a really good piece. In fact, it appears to be #8 in the series "Steppelandia", collected here: https://www.razibkhan.com/p/entering-steppelandia-pop-77-billion. All are very worthwhile.
My psychiatrist friend suggested “compartmentalization and denial” to me this week as a reasonable response to really horrible things happening so I tried to offer up some dark humor about it, in case anyone cares to read. Rage and scream a little with me, y’know, as a treat. Misery loves company but so do the unhinged. And the company’s always great amongst people in this thread.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bessstillman/p/am-i-doing-wellness-now?r=16l8ek&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Argentina's national election process has taken a bit of a turn.
Javier Milei, the self-described libertarian who had led in the polling, received only the same 30 percent in the second round that he did in the primaries. That places him second heading into a runoff. Sergio Massa, the Peronist [left-populist] candidate who is the current economy minister and had lagged behind in the primaries, finished first with 37%. Patricia Bullrich, the center-right coalition candidate, finished 3rd with 24%. Since nobody got enough to win outright there will on Nov 19th be a runoff between Milei and Massa.
Quoting the Economist: "Mr Massa’s turnaround is astounding. Since he took up his current job in August 2022 annual inflation in Argentina has increased from 79% to 138%. The price of one black-market American dollar—the currency Argentines prefer to save in because their own loses value so fast—has increased from around 300 pesos to around 1,000. Multiple exchange rates have been invented, adding distortions to Argentina’s already-labyrinthine economic rules. The vast majority of Argentines say inflation is their top concern....
"In response to Mr. Milei’s primary win, Peronist leaders activated the vast apparatus they control throughout the country. In the weeks coming up to the election Mr Massa doled out goodies estimated to cost the equivalent of more than 1% of gdp. These included a bonus for pensioners in pesos worth $100 (at the official exchange rate), and the elimination of income tax for 99% of all workers.
"The effort to win back disillusioned voters was concentrated in the sprawling and often-miserable suburbs of Buenos Aires province, where more than a third of Argentines live. Ten days before the presidential election, lorries owned by a poor municipality called Lomas de Zamora were found to be delivering refrigerators, housing materials and mattresses to voters. One person later thanked the Peronist president of the local legislature for sending her a new stove. In September a puntero, or ward boss, was caught in another district using 48 debit cards to withdraw cash that belonged to local legislators. Police suspect the money was intended to buy votes.
"Fear-mongering also played a role, thinks Maru Duffard, a journalist and political analyst in Buenos Aires. The government built a narrative about “all the things that could be lost” if a free-market candidate like Ms Bullrich—or, worse, a radical libertarian like Mr Milei— came to power. Two days before the election, bus and train stations began showing customers how much their ticket prices would increase if subsidies—which cost the government around 2% of gdp per year—were removed....
"Yet Mr Milei’s loss cannot solely be explained by Mr Massa’s gains. Mr Milei’s bizarre, often aggressive, rhetoric and his radical economic and social proposals put many voters off. In a majority-Catholic country he has called the pope, who is Argentine, an “imbecile”, “a leftist son of a bitch” and “a donkey”—because he considers him left-wing. Although 37% of employees in Argentina work for the public sector, Mr Milei has described the state as a “criminal organisation” and compared it to a paedophile in a kindergarten. He wants to slash public spending by the equivalent of 15% of gdp (from around 40% today), scrap most taxes and ditch the peso for the greenback, a process he says would “blow up” the central bank.
"Beyond his economic reforms, Mr Milei, whose catchphrase is “Long live liberty goddammit!”, proposes to loosen gun-ownership laws, ban abortions and establish a legal market for human organs...."
"Despite Mr Massa’s surprise first-round win, victory in the run-off is not assured, because it is unclear where Ms Bullrich’s votes will go. Her coalition includes both hardliners, who may be prepared to work with Mr Milei, and social democrats who might prefer to cast blank votes. That Mr Milei’s vote share did not budge between the primaries and the first round suggests that he may have hit a ceiling. But the fact that candidates who propose free-market ideas secured more than half of all votes suggests that Peronism may have to reinvent itself soon—or face its long-heralded demise."
It should be noted that the "legal market for organs" was something that was discussed in an off the cuff "what if" manner, and not an actual policy proposal. Milei Derangement Syndrome makes the worst reactions to Trump reasonable and measured by comparison.
The dude is a literal twitter shitposter. He started off saying outrageous stuff just to go viral. The organs market bit is from the same show where he said people should be able to sell their kids.
A legal market for organs is not an idea that I've yet put any meaningful thought into so no opinions yet on that. I would however very much like to see the childish "derangement syndrome" trope go away.
Electing someone as head of a national government is, for most voters most of the time, more about the choice of person than about choosing from a palette of policy promises. Given that approach to the voting decision it is rational -- not "derangement" -- for those voters to be influenced by things such as off the cuff or "what-if" comments made by a candidate for such a post.
Of course that influence can go either way: such group-signaling on the part of the candidate can just as easily attract voters as repel them. Or it can do both simultaneously with differing subsets of the public as we've seen so often in the U.S. lately. Regardless it is, again _given_ how a lot of voters approach voting for a national leader, a logical response to the apparent nonpolicy characteristics or attitudes of a candidate.
> Given that approach to the voting decision it is rational -- not "derangement" -- for those voters to be influenced by things such as off the cuff or "what-if" comments made by a candidate for such a post
Sure, but The Economist should distinguish these from actual policy proposals, especially when describing the situation to a foreign audience who are not totally up to date on all the ins and outs of Argentinian politics.
"Given that approach to the voting decision it is rational -- not "derangement" -- for those voters to be influenced by things such as off the cuff or "what-if" comments made by a candidate for such a post"
If you think voters arrive at their decisions rationally then your derangement syndrome derangement syndrome is the least your concerns. Go read some Bryan Caplan.
I have read a great deal of Bryan Caplan. Also met him once though only briefly.
Caplan's book "The Myth of the Rational Voter", which I had some agreement with but he overstated his case, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation. His book "Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids", which I largely agreed with, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation. His book "The Case Against Education", which I found to be so dominated by cherry-picking and motivated reasoning that if anything it revived some of my generally-fading regard for higher education, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation. His book "Open Borders", which I largely agreed with, has nothing to do with the point that I made above in this conversation.
Haven't yet read his recent collection of essays, "Labor Econ Vs The World". Is that the work that you are suggesting I should read regarding voter-preference frameworks?
I'm referring to Myth of the Rational Voter. You seem to be modeling voters based on what would be"rational" for them to do. I largely agree with Caplan in Myth... myself, and so, presume that most voting decisions are based on bias or outright derangement. Anyway, if you meant something else, apologies for adding noise instead of signal.
No, I offered no judgement as to what would be rational for voters to do. Also my point was much broader than Caplan's focus (in "Myth...") on economic policies specifically.
>Electing someone as head of a national government is, for most voters most of the time, more about the choice of person than about choosing from a palette of policy promises.
Well, that seems like an obviously pretty bad way of approaching the election of a government. One which you could get away with in a place like the US, where there are relatively strong institutions, a stable economy and the ability to print the world's chosen store of value, if needed as a stopgap for bad policy decisions, not a country with >100% annual inflation, massive poverty, etc.
In the US, the difference between the policy platforms of Presidential candidates on established issues is pretty small, and the ability of a President to actually implement any kind of policy shift is pretty limited anyway. Voting for a personality makes sense because you're voting for how he will react to the as-yet-unknown issues that are going to pop up during his term.
In Argentina, my understanding is that the window of possible policies that the President might actually implement is a lot wider.
"In a majority-Catholic country he has called the pope, who is Argentine, an “imbecile”, “a leftist son of a bitch” and “a donkey”—because he considers him left-wing."
Considering the last president/presidentess (vice-president of the last president and formerly president herself, who seems to be considered as backseat driving the administration) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner attacked the pope for being right-wing, he's probably doing something right:
"When Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis, the initial reactions were mixed. Most of Argentine society cheered it, but the pro-government newspaper Página/12 published renewed allegations about the Dirty War, and the president of the National Library described a global conspiracy theory. The president took more than an hour to congratulate him, and only did so in a passing reference within a routine speech. However, due to the Pope's popularity in Argentina, Fernández de Kirchner made what the political analyst Claudio Fantini called a "Copernican shift" in her relations with him and fully embraced the Francis phenomenon."
I am a little boggled about banning abortion since that doesn't seem libertarian, but the legal market for organs makes sense of that - you need babies in order to have potential donors, because if you're aborting babies then you're reducing the donor pool and driving prices up due to scarcity 😁
The man is not really "libertarian" as much as he's just a contrarian. Abortion seems to be mainstream and was just legalized by the current administration, so he obviously must go against it -an justify it with some pseudological misquote of some badly translated 19th century quack-.
The man copies the crypto bro speech against fiat money verbatim, says he wants to blow up the central bank, personally promoted and was featured in several crypto scam ads and his proposed solution for Argentina's problem with in inflation is ... switching to the US Dollar.
Government retirements funds funded through payroll taxes are bad? his proposal is to abolish those taxes and not interfere with people's savings. Just kidding, that would make too much sense: his actual plan is to bring back compulsory sketchy private retirement funds, because those failed in the 90s and he gets to indulge in his favorite passtime of playing devil's advocate.
Somewhat surprised that the anti-pope candidate wants to ban abortion. It's right-aligned in America but I wouldn't have expected that to hold consistently in other countries.
Looking up his party, it is described as:
"Liberty Advances (Spanish: La Libertad Avanza; LA or LLA) is a right-wing to far-right political coalition originated in Argentina, with a conservative and ultraconservative tendency on social and cultural issues and right-wing libertarian in economic issues. Its first electoral participation was at the 2021 Argentine legislative election, obtaining the third place with 17% of the votes in the capital."
So they're both socially and fiscally conservative, which explains the anti-abortion *and* opposition to the pope (he'd be fiscally liberal, like myself).
> establish a legal market for human organs
Well. I kinda want him to win, just to see what happens.
Uuuuum what happened to Scott?
Looks like the next post gave us the answer. He was busy donating a Kidney!
It's far from unheard of for his blog to go quiet for a week or three every once in a while. Usually it just means he's busy with other stuff and doesn't have time to write, or he's working on a complicated essay that's taking him time to complete, or he just has a bit of writer's block and needs a short break.
I wondered what the Chinese version of the 'Chinese Room' article on Wikipedia was like, it was pretty basic, but maybe someone picks up something. Here goes, in translation of course:
The Chinese room (English: Chinese room ) is a thought experiment proposed by American philosophy professor John Searle to refute the idea of strong artificial intelligence . According to the view of strong artificial intelligence , as long as the computer has appropriate programs, it can theoretically be said that the computer has its cognitive state and can perform understanding activities like humans.
The experiment comes from John Rogers Searle 's paper "Minds, Brains , and Programs ," published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980 . [1]
Experiment summary
The experimental process of the Chinese room can be expressed as follows:
A person who knew nothing about Chinese and spoke only English was locked in a closed room with only one opening. There is a manual written in English in the room with instructions on how to handle incoming Chinese messages and how to respond accordingly in Chinese. People outside the room kept sending questions written in Chinese into the room. The person in the room follows the instructions in the manual, looks for the appropriate instructions, combines the corresponding Chinese characters to form the answer to the question, and hands the answer out of the room.
John Searle believes that although the person in the room can fake it and make people outside the room think he speaks Chinese, in fact he does not understand Chinese at all. In the above process, the role of the person outside the room is equivalent to the programmer , the person in the room is equivalent to the computer , and the manual is equivalent to the computer program : whenever the person outside the room gives an input, the person in the room will give a reply according to the manual ( output). And just as it is impossible for a person in a room to understand Chinese through a manual, it is impossible for a computer to gain understanding through a program. Since computers do not have the ability to understand, the so-called "computer has intelligence" is out of the question.
Opposite views
There are opposing views on this Been proposed[who? ] , its content is roughly as follows:
Arguments to the contrary
Everyone thinks that people are intelligent ;Human intelligent decision-making comes from the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells. Each brain cell does not understand the meaning of a word, but simply buffers, transmits or inhibits an electrical signal. The brain cells create grammatical rules and decision - making strategies ( equivalent to Rule books and people who don't understand Chinese), but they don't understand the meaning of each word.[Source Request] Humans, however, have shown the ability to communicate with others. If according to Searle's point of view, then human beings do not have cognitive abilities, but this is inconsistent with the facts. Therefore, it can still be considered that if a certain computer program can complete the Turing test, it means that the computer program has cognitive ability.
Criticism of opposing views
However, this view has also been suggested to have two fundamental fallacies, and is even considered to have a misunderstanding of the concept of "Chinese Room". First, this theory relies too much on the premise that "intelligent decision-making comes from the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells", and mistakenly interprets the phenomenon involving the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells when humans make intelligent decisions as "intelligent decision-making". It is 'produced' by the conversion of electrical signals in brain cells." Not only has this deduction never been proven, there is also insufficient evidence to support it. Secondly, this theory can only deduce that "the buffering, transmission or inhibition of an electrical signal by a single brain cell cannot make it understand the meaning of a word." As for how brain cells (collectively) create grammatical rules and decision-making strategies , does it simply rely on The buffering, transmission or suppression of electrical signals by individual brain cells does not make any reasonable inferences; it also ignores the relationship between "a single brain cell" and an intelligent human being, the latter encompassing the former, the former and many others. Complex relationships such as the latter directly use the reality that "a single brain cell cannot understand the meaning of a word but human beings have intelligence" to deny "the machine cannot gain understanding through programming" and "intelligence is directly related to understanding" The logic of the basis for "ability" is difficult to understand and the deduction is too hasty.
Yeah, I was hoping it was 'English room' or 'Japanese room' or something.
However, the Japanese do use the Oriental riff for China.
The impression I get from Chinese students is that they have a name for writing down every possible question and every possible answer to it without having any actual understanding of the underlying meaning, they call it "studying".
Any recommendations for blogs / podcasts / books about infant development? I'm looking for something similar to Huberman Lab but geared towards infants.
https://parentdata.org/ may qualify.
When I google 'astralcodexten,' to the right of the results there's a picture of a man and a little girl. This man is not Scott. Do we know who this is and why he's there? Or is this just me?
If the US continues to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition through next spring (and/or for Israel), does that greatly increase the odds China would invade Taiwan next summer? We presumably would be low on artillery ammunition at the time, so I'm thinking we would have trouble also supplying Taiwan with such ammunition should they need it. But I don't know enough to know if they would need it.
I've heard the ideal window for invasion from China's point of view is still a few years out, but perhaps the circumstances above could pull it forward to next year?
Either America's stock of artillery ammunition is irrelevant to the success of the invasion, or Taiwan is in for a really bad time. They need a big strategic advantage that overwhelms almost all other considerations or they're getting their asses substantially kicked.
As Nobody Special implies, if this war gets to the point where it matters how many artillery shells Taiwan has, China has already won. Taiwan needs a fair amount of artillery with *some* ammunition, because China can always manage to get a few regiments of marines or paratroops onto the island by speed or sneakiness, but that doesn't require millions of shells. But if China can establish steady transport of troops and supplies across the strait, they'll overwhelm any defense Taiwan can mount by sheer numbers.
So, we need torpedoes for our submarines to sink Chinese amphibious transport ships. We need Harpoons for our ships and airplanes to do the same, along with JASSMs and other air-launched weapons. Probably some Tomahawks to hit Chinese ports and airfields. Definitely Stanndards and ESSMs to keep our ships alive in the face of Chinese missile attacks, and AMRAAMs and Sidewinders for the carrier-based fighters. A few other things along those lines.
If you look at the list of weapons we're supplying Ukraine, it includes almost none of that. The United States needs to be prepared to fight a major land war in Europe and a major naval war in the Pacific, and those are almost completely different things. And for now, the bit about fighting a major land war in Europe can be outsourced to the Ukrainians.
What if there arises a general war in the middle east? I've read that e.g. Israel is short on shells because they were diverted to Ukraine. Also that two carrier groups have been sent to the region, which sounds like the present situation is already absorbing some naval assets. It certainly seems like an escalation of hostilities in the middle east could drain both the resources needed for the land war in Europe, and for the naval war in the Pacific. Unless, perhaps, said fighting in the middle east can be outsourced entirely.
In a general war in the Middle East, there would probably be some strain between America's support for the Ukrainian army and support for the IDF. Those would be competing for the same munitions. But if the US winds up directly involved, it's almost certainly going to be an air and naval matter for us; there's no real prospect of e.g. a US invasion of Iran, and no real need for US soldiers in Israel.
But if it becomes an air and naval war, then it will in fact use up resources which would also be relevant for a hypothetical conflict in the Pacific. i.e. while the war in Ukraine does not directly compete for resources with preparedness in the Pacific, a general war in the middle East would compete with both. Unless it could be outsourced entirely to Israel, Turkey etc.
Indirectly, of course, the military budget is limited and every dollar spent on shells for Ukraine is a dollar not spent on anti-ship missiles (say) for Taiwan. Indirectly everything competes for resources with everything else.
Yes, US involvement in a broad Middle Eastern war would trade off against the capability to defend Taiwan. Fortunately, none of the potential enemies in the Middle East have substantial naval capabilities, so we wouldn't have much trouble on the torpedoes-and-Harpoons front. But I understand the US Navy is not as well supplied with Standards and ESSMs (shipboard air-defense missile) as it should be, and we've already fired off a dozen or two of those in the Red Sea.
As far as the budget is concerned, I think most of the US aid being sent to Israel is stuff we already paid for and would otherwise have left sitting around until we scrapped it. It does get accounted for in dollar terms at its nominal value (if anyone can figure out what that is), but that's funny money that doesn't really cost us anything. If we go up against China, or Iran, we'd be using more of our new and expensive munitions.
Wouldn't artillery be key to stopping an amphibious assault? All those other weapons like submarine torpedoes are expensive and rare and need to be saved for the high-value targets, but for the dumb cheap boats that carry troops across the strait you need a shitload of plain old cheap artillery shells that can reach halfway across the strait.
As FLWAB says, that's not something artillery is all that good at. And it's not something you'd use millions of artillery rounds for, because the landing craft are only going to be within effective range for half an hour or so. A modern artillery piece can fire maybe eighty rounds in that time.
If it does reach that point, you'll want to be able to call down artillery fire on the beaches, to help get rid of whatever troops manage to get ashore in the first wave, but that will be over fairly quickly one way or another.
And this assumes China is going to hit the beaches like it were Normandy or Inchon. Which they might have to do at least in part, because they don't yet have the resources to do a proper 21st century amphibious assault in full force. A proper 21st century amphibious assault is delivered by hovercraft and/or helicopters, which are mostly immune to artillery.
My understanding is that it's very hard to hit boats at a distance. Missiles can potentially course correct and generally move as fast or faster than an artillery shell, which matters when you're aiming at a moving target.
Thanks.
It sounds like we would fight China directly as opposed to just playing a supporting role.
Yeah, in the case of China/Taiwan I think the US either would have to fight directly or not intervene at all. The first thing China would do in the event of an invasion would be to blockade Taiwan, so Ukraine style delivery of arms wouldn't be on the table as an intermediate option.
Is there an intermediate option where Chinese ships mysteriously sink and the US shrugs and says "hoo boy, I guess those Taiwanese must have a lot more submarines than thought"?
Hahahaha - if only.
Now I'm imagining the Xi Jinpeng version of Don Corleone's speech to the five families about bringing Michael home.
"I am a superstitious autocrat, and if something unexpected should befall my ships, I will blame certain people in this room. If they should run aground on reefs nobody knew were there, or suffer mechanical failures. If they should be struck by torpedoes or a bolt of lightning..."
I don't think it does, because the resources the US would use in a Taiwan/China conflict (air/naval assets) are fundamentally different from the ones being supplied in the Ukraine context (ground war in Eastern Europe).
China isn't worried that the US will thwart an invasion of Taiwan by supplying the Taiwanese army with HIMARS and artillery shells. China is worried that US Air and Naval assets will interdict troops attempting amphibious landings, or cut off their access to resupply and leave them without ammo or air support such that an even minimally equipped Taiwanese army can push them into the sea. And Ukraine isn't requiring commitment of any of the resources that would be used to accomplish the latter. The nuclear subs are still plenty well stacked with uranium and torpedoes.
I think China hasn't invaded Taiwan yet because it isn't worth it. They deem it to take too much in resources for what they would gain. If the U.S. backs Taiwan it makes it that much more expensive. So the U.S. need not fully defend them, but need only provide what is needed to deter China from an expensive war with no certain outcome.
China does, traditionally, take a long-term view. They may think it worthwhile to expend several trillion in resources to capture a territory currently making about 800 billion in GDP, since it could recoup that over the decades to come. So one can't be sure they won't decide to recapture their "wayward province" no matter how expensive it looks.
TL;DR: The U.S. can sufficiently support all three fronts.
Post invasion GDP may never return to 800 billion in current dollars. There's almost no chance that capturing Taiwan has a *direct* positive financial EV, especially considering the opportunity cost of trillions of dollars. If the invasion happens, it will be for something like the sake of the political machinations of the CCP, intimidating its other Asian neighbors, depriving the US of chips etc.
Wars are rarely started for rational reasons, at least not in the modern age. If Xi or one of his successors decides to invade Taiwan it will be to serve his own political needs.
Of course, the better-defended Taiwan is, the less it seems like it might be a good political move.
How much longterm thinking does the Chinese government actually seem to do? How successful has it been?
A drawback to a dictatorship doing longterm thinking is the ability to stick firmly to bad policies as well as good ones, with the one child policy as a prime example.
Might the one child policy have been good for China if it had been followed for ten or twenty years?
They are definitely sacrificing short term economic gains for the sake of more secure CCP power. They could be much wealthier if they opened up more economically and culturally, but they also know doing so will dramatically erode CCP power over the long run. This is a long term view regardless of whether you disagree that CCP power is in the interests of China.
The June Fourth Incident can also be thought of as another example (or a specific case of the broader example). Deng thought popular liberal movements in China at the time could lead to the CCP losing power, so he took a near catastrophic hit to China's (and his own) short term reputation for the sake of securing CCP power long term.
I had to look up what June Fourth Incident was a euphemism for, it's the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
I think the one child policy was not just about population, but about control; having one child makes it relatively easy for the government to erase your lineage if you act out of turn, which, in a culture which is big on lineage, is something of a huge deal. (I encountered a comment somewhere pointing out that this has now backfired; China may not be able to commit to a war right now because any significant number of casualties creates a huge number of people with "nothing to lose")
>having one child makes it relatively easy for the government to erase your lineage if you act out of turn, which, in a culture which is big on lineage, is something of a huge deal.
As far as asian communist regimes go, I picture China as the least "crime of the father"-y. Whereas other countries would have no hesitation to execute entire families, a common testimony I've seen coming from China was "children sent to get reeducated in a countryside/frontier settlement for 10 years, then allowed back to the core, often with a nice-ish position".
>China may not be able to commit to a war right now because any significant number of casualties creates a huge number of people with "nothing to lose"
Implying the family of the deceased? The elderly don't exactly strike me as revolution material, and the families of war casualities don't strike me as the most likely to protest the regime.
My best estimate for survival rates for a ten-year internment in a Chinese education camp is ~60% - but that's for the population as a whole. I'm less certain what the death rate of children would be; I can see it being both much higher or much lower, plausibly.
Reports from the re-education camps suggest highly inhumane treatment, particularly during the height of the one child policy. I've encountered a few reports from children who were sent to reeducation camps, which were pretty horrific (judging by this limited and self-selected-for-horrific data set, the survival rate of children was much lower than the survival rate of adults, in particular driven by high suicide rates).
China has had dynasties for thousands of years. The most recent example of long-term thinking I know of is Great Britain giving up Hong Kong's lease after 99 years. Who makes an agreement for years?
99 years is a pretty standard length for a "long term" lease agreement in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99-year_lease
Other interesting examples of 99 year leases include the US lease over the Panama Canal.
China has had dynasties for thousands of years, but the People's Republic of China is only 74 years old. Have they proven themselves capable of the kind of long term thinking Imperial China may have excelled at?
I believe it's a cultural thing. No one lives for thousands of years, yet they have dynasty after dynasty. I consider the PRC to be another one.
Note also that dynasties last a few hundred years before giving way to another one. I'm no expert at Chinese history, but I suspect each dynasty was different in its way, and also similar.
The previous (KMT) dynasty only lasted 22 years. The current one has lasted about 75 but no reason to believe it will continue for as long as a monarchical dynasty.
To people that have tried both Amphetamines and Atomoxetine (brand name "Strattera") for ADHD: what did you find the differences to be? And was one clearly better than the other?
I tried atomoxetine for a month when I first started seeking pharmacological treatment ADHD. For me, atomoxetine seemed to work by attenuating both craving and aversion. I was not as enthusiastic about food, or sex, or anything else really, but I was also less averse to sending that email or starting that project that had accreted an ugh field around it. It was moderately effective at making me more productive, but I didn't like it. It also made my nose cold and gave me very slight nausea.
Currently taking 15mg XR Adderall daily and I like it much better. Adderall seems to work by giving me a little more energy and enthusiasm for most things, and this has been helpful in both work and social contexts. Side effects: slightly reduced appetite, slightly cold nose/fingers, and when I take days off, all I want to do is sit on the couch with a good book and not move all day.
Hey this open thread is number 2 in science (🤷♂️) on Substack. 🎉
We are Nearly The Most Science On Substack? Who is The Most Science? 😀
It’s gone now from my notes. We may never now. Our lives are a bit emptier than before. Sorry I brought it up.
There's some science in this thread, but not all that much. Do they have rankings for Israel/Palestine threads?
Has substack felt dramatically worse to anyone else recently? Especially on mobile I seem to be seeing a lot more of comments taking forever to load, or going blank if I scroll to fast, or freezing up; especially on posts with a lot of them.
Yes, it's been significantly laggier and an increasing number of small bugs.
Just to lodge a counterpoint ACX is hardly ever especially laggy for me. Open threads usually take about 3 or 4 seconds to load all the comments.
There have been a few occasions where Chrome claimed the site had become unresponsive and I had to reload the page. Collapsing a large subthread can take about a second rather than being instantaneous. And the header sometimes briefly slides down obscuring the page but it goes back to where it's supposed to be when I stop scrolling.
I'm using a gaming laptop so possibly I can simply plow through a lot of inefficient code or compute intensive tasks that choke a less powerful devices.
If we need a gaming laptop just to look at a few kilobytes of text then the idiot in charge of the design and/or architecture of Substack needs to be given a month, or whatever, to fix it, or else be fired for incompetence.
I have a pretty average laptop, I have played the Witcher on it but it a little laggy. opening one open thread often takes me about 6 minutes. Writing this comment took more than 7.
Not all of Substack, for me at least, just ACX. Once the number of comments gets beyond 400 or so things slow down dramatically, and with over 1000 comments it's ridiculously bad. I think Substack just isn't set up for a blog with such a big active comments section.
On dekstop the performances crash after a few hundred comments
On the phone the comments seems to be un-navigable because I can't collapse them to make the scrolling less tedious.
It's always been terrible so haven't noticed it getting worse. Easily the most dysfunctional comments section of anywhere on the Internet I know of. If I was on the fence with subscribing, I wouldn't for this reason alone (also: does Scott even post anymore? Nothing but open threads these days!). This comment took 5 minutes to type with all of the freezing and glitchiness.
Tip : You can collapse a comment and all of its nested replies by touching the very thin gray-ish line beneath a commenter's photo. This action is remembered the next time you visit and appears to make page loads faster if enough comments are collapsed.
It has been noticeably slower and I'm on desktop PC not mobile. I did wonder if it was my creaky old machine but if others are having the same problem, possibly not.
I remember the old internet where you could open multiple tabs in a browser without your computer freezing. Ah, those were the times! These days every web page wants to take all your computing power, regardless of whether you are reading it or not. Kids these days probably never heard of HTML, it's just libraries upon libraries upon libraries; gigabytes of Hello World code.
Pro tip: When I write a reply to a comment on Substack, I first open that comment in a new tab. It makes the typing more fluent, because the page isn't refreshing thousands of comments every few seconds.
I always reach for notepad. And not just for webpages.
Here's an article (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iranian-backed-militias-mount-new-wave-of-attacks-as-u-s-supports-israel-d51364d4?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqDwgAKgcICjDW3MkBMOfLFTCBuuMB&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=la&gaa_n=AYRtylZmMI7Ftj1s5bu1dyE0g5BGc9O_qEE_cgH5fGe44b9YfhgsB521PJxuSpqSBY5qgfBZ_tg1ZgBy-E23Z5nc4YQX&gaa_ts=653885fb&gaa_sig=FvlfuV8gUmSzvipMSU13RH63t--50DAoUe5sI9IR7ibtBfGlFlPvjdbVECQScRv1UF2rgHnQQhofniwufKdoRQ%3D%3D&isGaa=true) and that link maaaaaay be unpaywalled? I had to link to my google account so might be a one time thing.
But anyway, there's a lot there that is extremely worrisome about the possibility of U.S. troops getting into a shooting war with Iran and/or it's proxy forces. But then this line stood out to me:
"In Yemen, the Iranian-backed Houthis also fired five Iranian-provided cruise missiles and launched about 30 drones toward Israel in an attack that was larger than initially described by the Pentagon, U.S. officials said.
Last week, the USS Carney guided missile cruiser, which was operating in the northern Red Sea, shot down four of the cruise missiles while a fifth cruise missile was intercepted by Saudi Arabia as it protected its airspace, according to people familiar with the episode. Those cruise missiles have a range of more than 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles), the Pentagon said Tuesday, which would enable them to reach targets in Israel.
USS Carney
The U.S.'s guided-missile destroyer intercepted cruise missiles and several drones near the coast of Yemen in the northern Red Sea."
Holy shit a destroyer shot down 4 cruise missiles at the same time, that's dang impressive! I think? Maybe just because our destroyer's are yesterday's cruisers or something?
However, there was a 5th cruise missile, so you know, not great
>Maybe just because our destroyer's are yesterday's cruisers or something?
They really are. The newest variant of the Arleigh Burke destroyer weighs 9500 tons (it started at 8200), and a Ticonderoga-class cruiser weighs ~9600 tons.
Also, radar and missile technology has improved so you can fire off more of them at once without them interfering with each other. (This is probably more important than the ship itself, since you can put new missiles on old ships.)
This is nothing new. Iran has been attacking US troops directly or via its proxies for a long time now, which is why we took out Soleimani a few years ago. At some point, Iran will stop getting billions from the Biden regime and instead cross some sort of red line and get bombed (turns out that creepily and repeatedly whispering "don't" might not be the most credible deterrent we have).
In the other hand Iran is in the other side of the world. Imagine how they feel about it.
How they feel about what? Sponsoring terror and being the primary destabilizing force in the Mideast? Probably they feel pretty good about it, to the extent they can get away with it.
New Zealand had an election that was fairly interesting. It seems like the National Party (conservative) will need to cooperate with the ACT (libertarian) in order to have a majority.
It’s rare to see libertarian parties winning seats, much less holding the balance of power. I’m interested to see what they can accomplish in that position.
From what I understand, the results aren’t final until Nov 3.
ACT were part of the government in 2007-2018 (though with fewer seats than they will now hold). As then, I think their influence will be incremental and (IMO) there is less differentiating them from the 'conservative' National party as you would think if you're viewing this from an American perspective. Both secular, pro rural farmer, law and order focus, want to reduce government expenditure and lower regulations (unless you want to build new dense housing in the suburbs). Some of ACT's more distinctively 'libertarian' policy positions (for example anti-gun regulation, cannabis legalisation) are very unpopular and/or they haven't really run on them, so unlikely to be influential there.
Possibly the biggest distinctive issue where they made a big push is relitigating Crown-Māori relations/Māori policy. National have no real appetite for this beyond cancelling a couple of schemes of the most recent government, while ACT has made this a major issue and want a referendum on 'co-governance'. This will probably have very little real-world or long run consequences but would nevertheless be enormously controversial.
Thanks for this’s extra context!
I don't think the UK's Liberal Democrats came out of their coalition in good condition. :-(
Are they 'don't tread on me' libertarians or 'gay marriage and weed' libertarians?
Much more fiscally focussed than either of those two options.
Where the hell is Scott?
Since Scott likes prediction markets, I created a marked for us all to bet fake money in: https://manifold.markets/HariSeldona7ac/why-hasnt-scott-aaronson-posted-any
The fact he kept changing his odds for his ability to attend Manifest may be a clue here. Like, he didn't really know what his schedule was going to be until the very last minute...
Your market has the right title, but the link has the name of the wrong Scott.
My pet theory is his wife had a baby and doesn't want to announce it because they might be targeted by Sneer Club or the NYT.
Hmm, seems more likely it's bad news.
If they have had a baby, how about we send them a present? https://www.bellalunatoys.com/products/grimm-s-magnet-puzzle-rainbow-wheel?pr_prod_strat=copurchase&pr_rec_id=3fb91924f&pr_rec_pid=9560386817&pr_ref_pid=6856582266926&pr_seq=uniform
It's a bit soon, I imagine they're still working on having a baby.
We're all gonna be godparents! (Heaven help the child with us lot) 😁
He hasn't announced it, so I would suggest to the community that we wait.
Besides, those pieces are small enough to eat--it's a baby, right?
Well of course! I wasn't suggesting sending it now. As for what to send -- of course again. That puzzle is for ages 3 and up, so would be of no use for several years. On the other hand, newborn babies need only a few simple supplies that their parents generally have already, so I believe in giving beautiful toys and books that will be a pleasure for the parents to look at until the kid is old enough to enjoy them, and then a delight for the kid.
What newborns need is lots of clothing (babies grow at a crazy rate) and most of all what the parents need is support from family and friends so they're not trying to do it all on their own (e.g. lack of sleep, what happens why is the baby crying, are they sick what is going on - advice from the experienced is very necessary, as is 'I'll look after the baby for a couple hours while you sleep/do necessary other tasks').
That's exactly what I was thinking as well.
My sources* tell me he was recruited to an extremely hush-hush mission to a central American jungle. Apparently they needed someone who was a doctor, had knowledge of linguistics, and familiarity with artificial intelligence and decision theory, and who could leave from a certain military airbase on very short notice. Possible crashed UFO/ first contact scenario?
*I made it up
You actually made it up with your own mind? It did seem to have more flavor than doing it the modern way.
I can see that, if the aliens prefer to communicate in the form of text essays...
I've been wondering that, too.
Personally, I had to step back from the entire Internet for a bit, because there were too many people advocating for vengeance while clothing it in the language of justice. I hope he isn't feeling something similar.
After the October 7 attack things got pretty ugly. I'd want to lock myself in a room and do a couple months of research before I offered any comment at all on that topic.
Beyond that, my usually playful - I think they are playful anyway - and joking comments would seem terribly inappropriate. I was drawn out a couple times in this thread to defend my liberal politics. I did received the merits of the New Deal and the Great Society with mother's milk after all.
But I know that it is not the most important thing to be thinking about right now.
> After the October 7 attack things got pretty ugly. I'd want to lock myself in a room and do a couple months of research before I offered any comment at all on that topic.
That's probably the wise thing to do. :-)
> Beyond that, my usually playful - I think they are playful anyway - and joking comments would seem terribly inappropriate.
Maybe it depends on the thread topic? There's horrible stuff going on all over the world, much of which goes unreported. I'm consciously trying to practice being lighthearted and reasonable and especially not letting other people dictate how I must or must not feel. I don't like the thought of having to clamp down because a hot war broke out on the other side of the planet. But then, just because I don't want something to be true, doesn't mean it isn't true. :-/
>People advocating for vengeance while clothing it in the language of justice.
My mother would have called that farting through silk.
Heh. :-)
Yeah I’ve been wondering what’s up too. There were 8 days between this open thread and the last one, and nothing in between, not even a hidden open thread. Seems like something big must have happened in his life. I hope it wasn’t something bad.
He does have a life outside of us, including now being married. And if he wants to stay offline because of the Israeli-Palestinian current conflict, I can't blame him one bit. I have no dog in that fight and I don't want to read up about "They atrocityed us!" "You atrocityed us first!" exchange of horrors. Must be even worse if you're Jewish and you're expected to have a snap judgement on every new minute of coverage and be very vocally pro-this or anti-that.
Smart.
Then again, knowing Scott's violent temper and irrational propensities I like to think he's on a gunship atrocitying his way across the Atlantic. Probably not to the Middle East though. Too much attention. Scott seems like the kind of guy who would take advantage of the middle east situation to go out on an atrocityification spree where it's least expected. Probably Portugal.
It'll be like "Team America: World Police", except instead of "acting" they need someone good at "niceness, community, and civilization".
I was doing some qi gong with some thorough relaxation and an amazing thing happened. I realized I didn't need to have a solution for Israel-Palestine!
Yeah, but you have one anyway, right? That's our job on the internet. To Have The Answers. Also, if you're Jewish, you really can't help it. You were bred for seeking out messianic solutions like mice are bred to sniff out cheese.
I'm tempted to go biblical in discussing Eastern and Western religious focii bu--
..wait a second, I already wrote on the subject. I'll take that as a sign that I shoukd share it even though I write it for a different audience and assume that much will get lost in translation.
The main point is that Eastern Religion's main engine thrusts toward individual perfection while Abrahamic Religion's main engine thrusts toward universal perfection.
(Even though I know that most of my point will be lost in translation here I do request that to the degree that something sounds wrong or silly you give me the benefit of the doubt. Not like when you thought I had a prediction about something bound to happen on October 12, 2024 despite my saying very explicitly that it's up to us to MAKE it happen or else it won't. 🙏 Shabbat Shalom.)
https://ydydy.substack.com/p/letter-to-yisroel-meir
Really, there's a difference between caring about the situation and thinking I'm obliged to come up with a solution, and it's the latter that went away.
As far as I can tell, I released the need to have a solution, This makes sense, since I don't have the historical background or the people skills to really contribute.
I still have some very sketchy ideas, which is that the people there need to want peace more than winning, and perhaps a team of diplomats and poets is what's needed. However, I wouldn't call that a solution in the usual sense of the word.
People usually become far more reasonable, without any training in Rationalism of the like, if they feel understood and cared about. Maybe diplomats + poets could work. But poets are often way more interested in their own inner life than in anyone else's. And diplomats, in my imaginings (I don't know any actual ones) don't exactly understand and care about the other country's people, it's more that they've more cultivated the skill of appearing to, in the service of practicing the art of the possible. So I think we should instead send deeply empathic people to talk to those on both sides.
Every time there's a discussion here of eugenics and people talk about selecting for IQ I argue that we should select for kindness and empathy. People don't understand what a powerful difference that quality can make.
Oops, I neglected to include the link when I posted the above so I added it. Just to remind you, it's s note to someone who knows me well and is likely to understand me. That's why the top part is personally addressed to him. I include it because so much of what is important to say and do, is important precisely because it is so rarely said and done --- which of course means that it does not fit into one of the easy boxes that a string of text can fit into, so, the more background I give the better the chance of it being understood.
He said he would write about the Manifest conference. I'm still looking forward to that.
I've been recommended, multiple times, and across the internet, the following podcast by history podcaster MartyrMade (a man named Darryl Cooper) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict called "Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem". I'm not a paid subscriber, but the teaser intros to his historical overviews are generally very compelling. I also disagree with his politics when I encounter them on Twitter, but that's not as relevant to me. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to focus on and process a long podcast series right now.
Regarding "Fear and Loathing" (and other related content), the series is almost universally lauded on Reddit and throughout the Internet, or else there are just ad hominem critiques accusing Cooper of being a fascist. To me, that's not really relevant because I want to know the quality of the podcast and the validity of discussion.
I'd love to read or hear a good-faith review of "Fear and Loathing" series, engagement with it, critiques of its assessment of the middle east situation. Maybe one day I'll do one myself, but the near future is not that day.
It is fascinating and very in depth. You can learn a lot for him but it does suffer from a bias which is difficult to fully understand unless you are very familiar with the material, Daryl Cooper is maximises the roll of the Revisionists (the likes of Jabotinsky and Begin) and tries to minimise the roll of Labor Zionism (the likes of Ben Gurion) even though Labor Zionism was by far the more influencial stream. I don't think its on purpose, he just loves your right winger revisionist idealist types.
Hmm, interesting points. Thanks for the response.
I just started that series the other day, I'll have to get back to you in a month or two when I actually finish it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAA1XtDOuH8&ab_channel=ceicocat
Says that some incels are transitioning. At least some of the hypothesis is that they're men who aren't good at masculinity, and are apt to idealize living as a woman. Even though being a woman is difficult in other ways than being a man, some of them are finding that being a woman suits them better.
This also has rather a lot about gender and identity in manga.
Thanks for the recommend - this was really good. I've already read "Inside Mari" now, which alone would have made the watch worthwhile just for the recommendation, and the narrator's personal story about figuring themselves out and transitioning was really fascinating and powerful.
"It spent a lot of time not knowing what I was and figuring out what I needed" is probably a very common personal story, but I can see how it's also one that few people give voice to given ability of the overwhelming prominence of "I've known I was ABC gender for as long as I can remember." Doubt and uncertainty are probably a huge and normal part of the trans experience but hard to publicly admit when so many other people are constantly articulating total certainty and no one wants to be perceived as somehow less authentic.
Natalie Wynn made a video about 5 years ago comparing the incel and trans experiences:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0
It seems nobody watches the classics these days!
The Contrapoints video is excellent, but the new video covers some different points. Natalie Wynn talked about there being a lot of overlap between incel and trans obsession with appearance. This isn't the same as some incels actually wanting to transition, and I don't think she had the connection to specific manga.
Fair enough. (I should have noted that I didn't watch all the way through the ceicocat video — even at 2x speed, I found the manga summary too tedious to keep going. Maybe it got more interesting in the part after I stopped watching?)
I really wish people would stop using the term 'incel', because not only has this word been co-opted by the left as a slur rather than a neutral descriptive term, it also implies that the main issue is a lack of sex per se, whereas most incels just want girlfriends (which includes having sex with them, but also love and companionship and a sense of self-worth that going to a prostitute or sleeping with the least attractive girl you could find would).
There is, or at least has been, a social movement of self-described incels congregating on incel boards etc. What other word would one have to describe them?
How many incels would be satisfied with an asexual girlfriend who insisted on celibacy as a condition for relationship, no matter how loving and companionship-offering she is?
>There is, or at least has been, a social movement of self-described incels congregating on incel boards etc. What other word would one have to describe them?
So what?There's people in the US who call themselves nazis. It doesn't change the fact that most times that modern day americans are called 'nazis', it is an act of political propaganda than neutral descriptiveness, even if some shallow similarity in beliefs can be found between the real nazis and non-nazi "nazis".
It's a tiny, tiny fraction of the men who are described as incel who identify as incel or have done anything explicitly incel related before.
A neutral term would be something like, chronically single men, or maybe unwillingly single men. Not perfect, but much, much better than 'incel'.
>How many incels would be satisfied with an asexual girlfriend who insisted on celibacy as a condition for relationship, no matter how loving and companionship-offering she is?
What does this prove, exactly? Sex is part of relationships. If relationships never involved sex, vast swathes of the population would never enter them. This isn't anything unique to 'incels'.
If being an incel were literally just a matter of 'occasionally having sex of any kind', then they would already be paying to bang hookers every now and then, but that's obviously *not* what they're after.
But look at it from the other direction. How many incels would be satisfied with going to a prostitute to have sex with no love or companionship? They can do this, and as far as I know generally don't.
Presumably, like most people, they want both sex and love/companionship.
+1.
I've seen people conflate incel (which is a name for an online subculture) with everyone who's involuntarily celibate. I'm not sure whether this is an honest mistake or a habit of outrage.
It's occasionally a mistake, as when scott did here (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-justice), but the term has become a full on political propaganda term, often wielded against people who aren't even talking about sex or relationships at all. I think the literal majority of cases of it being used today are in obviously bad faith and of no defensible descriptive value.
It's just classic motte-and-baileying, mostly. However, it's also a two-way motte-and-bailey: it's done both by those who wish to denigrate everyone who expresses displeasure about their unfortunate involuntarily celibate condition by conflating them with the toxic subculture, but it's also done by those who wish to defend the toxic subculture by going "Aww, isn't it mean to just attack a bunch of harmless loveless losers?"
>to defend the toxic subculture
Sigh
The whole POINT is that nearly every use these days of the term 'incel' is not directed at an actual toxic subculture, it's used against any man publicly lamenting his sexual struggles, or even, increasingly, any man who disagrees with anything to do with anything to do with feminism.
The precise problem I'm talking about with incel being a propaganda term is exactly that the word has all this baggage attached to it from 'toxic online subcultures' which is invoked against people who have nothing to do with that subculture.
It's also a ridiculously over-broad term. "Involuntarily celibate" is a state that I think most men (and indeed women) will find themselves in at some point in life.
Shaming "incels" is basically teaching young men that there's something deeply wrong and disgusting with you if you haven't had sex in the last week, which I don't think is a particularly healthy attitude towards sex. It's okay to be between relationships, and it's okay to not be trying to fill in that gap with one-night stands.
Unless I'm missing something, you're both misunderstanding the way words like this are used. The word "incel" started as a self-description meaning something like "people who have trouble finding sexual partners", much like the word "woke" started as a self-description meaning something like "people who are aware of injustice". But now, if someone says "I hate incels" or "incels are a public menace" they are not using it to mean the above, they are using it to mean "the kind of people who either call themselves incels or who share the same attitudes and ideologies as those who do". Similarly, those who condemn "woke corporations" or "woke people" are NOT using woke to mean "concerned with injustice" but rather "the kind of people who either call[ed] themselves woke, or who share the attitudes and ideology of those who do".
A similar thing happened with "fundamentalist", "communist", and numerous other words, and rightly so I think. I don't think ordinary people are obliged to use the jargon of extremist groups according to those groups' theoretical definitions instead of how its used in practice. If a particular group doesn't want its self-reference terms to become insults, it's their responsibility to NOT become so toxic and insane that those terms naturally take on the meaning "toxic and insane".
(None of the above is to suggest that incels, or any other modern group I'm aware of, remotely compare to woke people in the sheer magnitude of toxicity and frothing-at-the-mouth rageful hate.)
>But now, if someone says "I hate incels" or "incels are a public menace" they are not using it to mean the above, they are using it to mean "the kind of people who either call themselves incels or who share the same attitudes and ideologies as those who do".
The problem is that the criteria for "share the same attitudes and ideologies as people who do" is literally as weak as 'is against anything the average feminist believes in'.
The problem is NOT that these people are being unfair to self-identified incels - it's that all kinds of people are being lumped in with the "bad" incels unfairly, for propagandistic purposes.
That being said, the idea that anyone who identifies as incels or posts on incel forums etc are "toxic" is also part of the propaganda.
I mean, this photo should really be all that needs to be said: https://www.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/jdm2x0/never_forget_the_incel_meetup_vs_the_inceltears/
"The problem is that the criteria for "share the same attitudes and ideologies as people who do" is literally as weak as 'is against anything the average feminist believes in'."
Oh, I'm sure it's also used as an insult for anyone not-woke-enough-for-the-speaker. You could call that yet another definition, but I'd say it's not a real definition. A whole array of words from "gay" to "autistic" to "nazi" to "communist" are used like this: they have one or two actual definitions (as I described above) and also the fake definition of "insult for anyone who disagrees with me (in the general direction of the word's meaning, though this part's optional)". I think many conservatives would agree the word "socialist" is thrown about far too loosely on the right, but that doesn't mean the word doesn't still have a reasonably clear real definition. That's just the way words work, especially in the hands of bad-faith activists who want a shortcut around actually engaging with opposing positions using their brains.
"The problem is NOT that these people are being unfair to self-identified incels - it's that all kinds of people are being lumped in with the "bad" incels unfairly, for propagandistic purposes."
That's always going to happen with every propagandist. Sometimes it's even justified: at this point, if someone speaks in heavily "social justice" language I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to expect that they first clearly denounce cancel culture and related things before they can expect to be treated as a decent human being with something resembling a conscience. Obviously incels haven't caused a tiny fraction of the suffering and social damage the woke movement has and (or because) they have infinitely less power. But although I'll hold them to vastler more lenient standard, it's still very important to apply consistent moral principles. They are still, like the woke, responsible for aligning themselves with a toxic movement.
"That being said, the idea that anyone who identifies as incels or posts on incel forums etc are "toxic" is also part of the propaganda."
I don't know. Anecdotally, my sister (who loathes feminists and wokeness generally) is extremely disturbed and scared by the incel stuff she's seen. As for me, I find the movement (a) embarassing, as it makes a large part of the online right look like a group of horny thirteen year olds, with the reasoning skills to match (b) hyopcritical to the extreme, the grratest sin, as they seem to openly hold themselves and/or their sex to none of the standards they hold the other sex (c) evil, as they divert and distract the attention of anti-feminist sentiment away from the real horrific evils like abortion on demand towards comparitively petty things, and some of them I've seen not only think women should be able to abort children for trivial reasons, but that men should be able to *force* them to do so. I didn't think it was possible to be more sociopathically selfish and evil than pro-choice feminists, but they managed it.
And (d) basically a mirror image of woke feminism, right down to "I'm oppressed because people are allowed to disagree with (or romantically reject) me". They hate individualism, think everyone is defined by their group membership, and have no conception of what *actual* oppression is.
Again, they're *infinitely* less of a problem than feminists on any measurement, but being "exactly like woke feminism, but much weaker" isn't a great sales pitch.
>A whole array of words from "gay" to "autistic" to "nazi" to "communist" are used like this
And none of them are really tolerated here when used so loosely, but incel is. That's the problem.
>but that doesn't mean the word doesn't still have a reasonably clear real definition.
But it DOESN'T have a clear definition. Nearly *every single usage* of the term implies something ideological, but literally being 'involuntarily celibate' ISN'T an ideology though. It's just a state of being. The overwhelming majority of people who are 'involuntarily celibate' are not part of any 'incel ideology'.
I believe the term was originally in-v-cel, shortened from "involuntarily celebate," and was the name of an online forum founded by a lesbian woman who had never had a sexual relationship. (She may not be been out. I can't remember that detail now.) It was initially a friendly group where people were supportive, but gradually was taken over by bitterly angry and isolated young males. At some point early on the people in the group changed the term they used for their situation from in-v-cel to incel, because in-v-cel sounds so much like imbecile.
I'm not particularly surprised it started on the left, since it fits in with left-wing notions of "positive rights" and being harmed not just by coercion but by the economic (or in this case pseudo-economic, as in "dating market") structure of society. I can almost imagine a world where these ideals were applied, by feminist and progressive types, *consistently*. As in: even when it doesn't personally benefit them!
I could accept a moral principle of "everyone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't forcibly coerce others" and I could accept a principle of "everyone should do what they can to advance others' welfare along with their own". What I can't accept, and what is the absolute lowest and most despicable attitude it is possible to hold, is the one held by most feminists: "when other people do things that affect me, I demand they go out of their way to accomodate my needs and feelings, but when I do things that affect others, I demand the unconditional right to do *whatever the fuck I want* no matter who it hurts!"
How do these people show their faces publically without dying of shame?
I think there is a big difference between "not having a partner *now*" and "not having a partner *ever*" (i.e. never in the past, and it seems very likely that also never in the future).
People throw around the word "groomer" a lot, and given the current moral panic around that and innocent LGBT people, I'm very hesitant to even bring up the term in this context.
But there was absolutely a concerted effort on 4chan's /r9k/, and possibly elsewhere, by a disturbed clique of individuals to try to convince incels to transition.
If some people end up happier that way, good for them, but at least some of the idealization isn't organic and the pinkpill crowd do not have incels' best interests at heart.
This is definitely a thing - good video about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mME0NXRQHuc
I do think it's silly for you to mention the whole 'groomer' thing though, because nobody powerful is/would defend the sexual or political activities of anyone on 4Chan, while of the other hand the most powerful institutions in the US are almost unanimously pro-LGBT to the point that they will lionize gay celebrities and activists who LITERALLY had sex with underage boys i.e. were groomers.
Not only that, but people who talk about 'groomers' *certainly* would not support telling incels or anyone else to become trans, which makes your point even more bizarre.
I regret watching that video, though I suppose it isn't surprising that 4chan (8chan?) would evolve more complex forms of malice.
Kevin Spacey sure wasn't lionized.
If he had spent most of his pre-rape life as an LGBT activist he probably would have had many defenders.
I brought up 'groomer' because it's the exact sort of case that people would normally point to as a textbook example of grooming. Maybe I shouldn't have, idk.
To be extremely cynical, I think the better hypothesis is not "easier to find sex/love/romance", or "easier to live life", but "easier to get social approval". Prior to transition, the entire left and a lot of the right are mobilized against them, but afterwards, there's a vocal community that will provide constant love-bombing.
Plus, when it comes to dating, there's the effect where previously, they would be viewed as quasi-rapists merely for asking someone out, but afterwards, if they ask a woman out and she turns them down, they'll get support for claiming that the woman is a bigot. "Untouchable and it's your own fault" is a nasty situation to be in, but "untouchable and it's other people's fault" is a lot more comfortable. And instead of only a tiny niche supporting their desire to blame, now there's a large coalition, and not just any coalition but one that has the power to apply pressure to women.
I know at least one kid who has been raised in an environment filled with offhand aspersions about "straight white dudes", which he has apparently internalized. In the last few years he had a growth spurt, and was having to face the consequences of being perceived as straight, white, and a dude, instead of a bright young kid. There's nothing to be done about being attracted to women or white. So I don't think it's a coincidence that she's now experimenting with a feminine identity. (I use the term "experimenting" because it's a part-time thing at the moment, with no medical or physical aspect, not even clothes or hair.) (But to go with Erica's hypothesis below, the kid is definitely on the spectrum. The kid's social group is also both high-percentage spectrum and high-percentage trans.)
Absolutely. I'm stunned at the malice toward men, especially white men.
I'm not sure how much it's driving the incel-to-trans pipeline, though. For that matter, how many people are we talking about?
And they wonder where the alt-right comes from.
Cynically speaking, this seems like yet another "shit test" that women instinctively throw at men in their unconscious effort to filter for ever more alpha males. (Ah, I still remember some of the PUA theory.)
To be a man means to be able to overcome adversity. Being told all your life that men are evil and responsible for everything that ever got wrong, is... just a test of your mental fortitude. It is not about being true or false. It is about handling emotional pressure.
If you have the balls to say "eh, whatever", you have passed the test, and you may collect the rewards. If you kill yourself, or hide in a cave, or become a self-hating ally, or - recently - transition (I am talking about those who transition under pressure, not about people who would have transitioned anyway), you have failed and been eliminated. The advantage of transitioning is that it doesn't leave bodies (despite being a permanent solution) or bitter guys.
The suffering is not an unfortunate side effect; the entire point is to separate the strong from the weak. It is a plausibly deniable cruelty; no wonder that people from 4chan are happy to join.
I've seen other people, (including Aella who seems like she would know about that sort of thing) referencing the "shit test" but it still sounds implausible. Which women are doing this? how? what? why?? Personally most women I know claim to actively prefer fem men, and for the most part follow through, though it is a very biased sample. I don't see how it has any more explanatory power than something like "people like to make fun of the outgroup and exert social power, and if you ask enough women out one will say yes, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Also, people do often have sex with transwomen. female people even. so clearly the filter isn't that powerful.
As raj notes, I don't think this is broadly true and your sample may indeed be highly biased. I note in particular Nora Vincent's "Self-Made Man", where Vincent (a lesbian non-trans woman) spent a year living under cover as a man. Including dating other women. Her expectation going in was that, as a women, she would know exactly what women wanted and could make her somewhat effeminate male persona highly dateable. But no, push come to shove, the women mostly wanted manly men.
This is consistent with my own experience before realizing I'm trans: plenty of bisexual women were interested in me, but not many straight women, and the straight women who were interested in me at first generally either lost interest after one or two dates or were only interested in friendship + flirtation, not actually dating.
From what I've observed, straight women who like guys with feminine sides still generally want their men to be masculine in most respects. For example, the "Byronic hero" archetype seems to be fairly popular, as does the "Aragorn" archetype. Both, especially the latter, are distinctly masculine at their core despite also showing some conventionally-feminine traits.
Also, many of the "straight" women who are into fem guys may not actually be straight. There are plenty of bisexual women who mostly date men. One factor driving this is social dynamics make it easier to date men, particularly the norm that men offer and women accept or reject. Another is simply numbers: there are a lot more straight+bi men than there are gay+bi women, so if you're a woman who's equally interested in both, your potential dating pool is something like 90% men. And from the outside, a bisexual woman whom you only see dating men looks the same as a straight woman unless she talks about her attraction to women in front of you.
Well sure, straight women are typically attracted to heterosexual male norms. Maybe I should have separated the thoughts better in my comment, but the claim "women are instinctively engaged in secret psychological warfare to locate and fuck more and more Alpha Men" just sounds implausible even for those women outside my bubbled counter examples. Even for the women who do want manly men, wouldn't they just say that? Is masculine behavior not just observable? and again, how is this a better explanation than "demographic interest groups like to exert social power, and if you keep asking its way more likely someone eventually says yes"?
What bubble are you in that they prefer fem men? Not unheard of but IME tend to be less attractive women (ive seen a couple studies that back this observation up)
Also I bet they still are attracted to the fundamentals - status, masculine bone structure, height
Less attractive to who? I think some of them are pretty attractive personally, but would be interested in the studies if you can recall the title or authors. The bubble is mostly bisexual women/ she/they types at a very liberal university, so very skewed indeed. They are less feminine than what I think is the norm, which to a typically heterosexual man might scan as less attractive? I don't consider having status to be a masculine-specific trait, though direct status-seeking behavior is more common in men. Masculine bone structure... it's possible, I guess? I haven't actually asked if they like large jawlines and such but I would guess it's far less important than you would think. Height, definitely yes, but that is also considered attractive in women so I'm not sure if that counts as fundamental of attractive masculinity in this specific instance. Again my sample is skewed as all fuck here, I'm in agreement that the average woman likes normal masculinity, even if I don't get it personally. I still think the shit test concept doesn't have explanatory power above more gender-neutral human nature stuff.
I think that humans have the ability to differ in a) what we find attractive from a distance, b) what we are willing to have a relationship with in real life, and c) what produces a healthy long-term relationship. Putting on a socially conservative hat for a moment, there's a lot of value in a cohesive society that pushes the first two things toward the third, but current society seems like it's doing the opposite.
One thing that makes me think you’re right is that people who are attracted to other people who they have a close emotional attraction with feel like they’re a special class that needs to use the term “demisexual.” It really highlights how materialistic a lot of relationships have become and how emotional attachment feels like an exception, not the rule.
>unconscious effort to filter for ever more alpha males.
Are you aware that many intellectual women are drawn to neurotic poets and thin, twitchy brilliant impractical men?
Even then, women still mostly like high status men, where status means being accomplished in their art, intellectual field etc.
Actually, that's not true. I have known many poets and brilliant people, and very few of them end up with high status in their field. Like many intellectual women, I am drawn to people like that. None of them were a bit high status when I knew them. They were unknowns. I admired them for their gifts, not their accomplishments or fame, of which they had none. Most poets and writers who aspire to be recognized as great artists, essayists or thinkers have trouble even getting published, much less getting famous. It is far, far easier to be successful in business or a STEM field. You probably aren't any likelier than an aspiring poet to get famous, but if you are smart and work hard you can make quite a good income and be recognized by co-workers as especially talented.
I keep reading stuff on here about how women whine about men being picky about their looks, but women are equally picky when it comes to men's being masterful, accomplished and rich. There are whole categories of women for whom that really is not accurate, and you're probably more likely to encounter them on ACX than in most places. I mean, think about it. Most people on here are quite smart, and many are quite accomplished in one or more fields. Some are quite rich. A few are people in tech or writers whose names many of us would recognize. Do you get how women who are smart and accomplished, some to the point of being rich and/or famous, might not feel a great need to pair up with a man who is masterful, accomplished and rich? Many of us have been intellectually and professionally ambitious our whole lives, and struggled they way men do, to be recognized for our talents and accomplishments. And most bright people can earn a professional income, which, depending on the field, might not make you rich but should at least put you in decent shape financially.
So, Chris J, it does kind of get under my skin to read you and a few other people thinking of women as one undifferented class,l and sounding so sure you know what their agenda is. And also, the agenda you think of us as having is so *tacky*: Get yourself a tall, handsome, impressive rich guy. Yick! I went to Ivy League schools where most people's families were at least upper middle class, and lots of people were rich. So there were plenty of rich, handsome guys around. But neither of my 2 Ivy League boyfriends from that era came from money. One's mother was a schoolteacher; her boyfriend had a blue collar job. The other one's father was a surgeon, but he had divorced my boyfriend's mother years before, leaving her with the house and $40 thousand per year alimony. He never gave my boyfriend any money, and had made out his will to his second wife and his children with her. Lots of people in Ivy League schools are very accomplished, too. One of my Ivy boyfriends was a chess champion, but I didn't even know that til I had already fallen for him. And the other was delightful company, and extremely funny, but had no impressive Accomplishments. And in case you're wondering whether I was so ugly I couldn't do "better" than those guys -- nope. I'm pretty sure that at that age I was about an 8.
> many intellectual women are drawn to neurotic poets and thin, twitchy brilliant impractical men
Yup. Thank god for that
:-)
I realized that about 20 years too late.
I don't know, I get the impression there are a fair number of women who really don't like men.
Some women also respond very differently to boys and even male infants. That some women dislike men just seems like a natural continuation of that. I remember reading a parenting article by Emma Brown and she talks about how after she had a son how she wasn’t able to see boys as human beings until she sat down and talked with dozens of them when she wrote her parenting book [https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/02/22/why-we-dont-talk-about-sexual-violence-against-boys-why-we-should/]. This seems to be well supported by psychological studies where women are asked who to sacrifice in moral choice dilemmas and how quickly mothers attend to crying children (I'm sure there's overlapping distributions though). One example I found after some quick googling: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29781373/.
> Some women also respond very differently to boys and even male infants.
Seems to me that everyone responds differently to little boys and girls.
My nephew is 1 year older than my first daughter, so when she was little, she sometimes got some clothes he outgrew. We were like "she is 3 years old, she doesn't mind wearing boy-styled things, and kids are growing so fast we are happy we don't have to buy new stuff all the time". So at some moment, she had a pink winter coat, and also a blue one, and we gave her whichever one was cleaner at the moment.
People reacted very differently based on which coat she wore. Imagine the same kid jumping around. When she wore pink, people were like "oh, a cute little girl is dancing! how cute". When she wore blue, people were like "hey boy, be careful where you jump! don't knock something over, or don't splash someone with mud". Both men and women. It seems like people are conditioned to be nice towards girls, but kinda hostile towards boys (projecting: hey, it just seems to me that the boy wants to do something bad; I have to prevent that).
Good point. I mentioned women because that's what Nancy brought up, but I think that you're correct that men have similar responses. I wonder if there are any studies on how teachers respond to kids based on gender. I know the US justice system has a 60%+ gender disparity in sentencing [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002]. I wonder if there's some similar statistic when it comes to detention.
I've wondered whether, considering that it might not be that rare for groups of boys/men to use sexual assault as part of initiation, males might be more subject to sexual assault than females.
One consistent finding is that boys are predominantly assaulted by females. It mentions that in the article but it’s paywalled so you might not’ve been able to see that far.
I got this one for free, which covers similar material: “The Understudied Female Sexual Predator” [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/]. The TLDR: One of the big issues is that sexual assault is predominantly studied by feminist groups, and they don’t label female perpetrated assault on boys as rape, but rather “Forced to Penetrate.”
It's hard to tell the difference between "hates all men" and "hates weak men, but lives in a social bubble where all men are conditioned to be weak" and "hates weak men, but is so miscalibrated that any man capable of living in a civilization and keeping a job is perceived as too weak".
For practical purposes, I agree with you.
For the purpose of speculating about possible evolutionary origins... I think it is possible that this is simply an alpha-male selection mechanism gone mad. Just like the instinct "eat sweet things, because those are probably fruit, which contains vitamins" makes modern people eat tons of sugar, consider what might the instinct "do not let a weak male get you pregnant, avoid him" do to a modern woman, if all she sees around her are nice guys trying to be good feminist allies, while the books she reads depict sadistic billionaire vampire werewolves fifty-shades-of-graying their female victims. I guess that it makes real men seem pathetic, and hate is just a way to rationalize this feeling.
Where does "hates abusive men" fit on the list? Or "hates difficult men"?
We obviously hang out in different places, but I see a moderate amount of women who say they loved their husband but they'll never marry again.
> Where does "hates abusive men" fit on the list? Or "hates difficult men"?
That would be the opposite. Hating abusive men is a sign of emotional maturity. (Sometimes happens as a consequence of previous experiences with abusive men who were perceived as attractive.)
Also depends on whether this generalizes to all men. I guess there is probably an intermediate stage, where the abusive men are no longer considered attractive, but the non-abusive ones are still "invisible". Then it seems like all men are abusive, so it makes sense to hate them all.
> women who say they loved their husband but they'll never marry again
Depends on what they mean by that. This could also be because as people get older, they generally get less flexible. So not just abusive behavior, but also some minor annoying thing can become a source of conflict, where a younger person would probably just get used to it.
Yeah, I dunno.
Some of the things quoted in that video seem to me to be obvious bait and shouldn't be taken at face value (e.g. the bits about being on female hormones making person dumber and happier - yeah sure bro).
I do think there's a segment of the blackpill/MGTOW/incel sphere that does think women live life on easy mode and have a "pussy pass", and by transitioning then a guy who's not manly enough to be Chad but too straight to be a gay femmeboy can make the best of a bad lot and get that easy female life.
Ha, if only *I* could get that easy female life where all I have to do is bat my eyelashes at men who think with their... lower organs... and are falling over themselves to excuse everything I do, throw money and attention at me, and pave my way with golden streets through life. Wouldn't we all like to live on easy mode?
Might have made them happier, and they construed it as being dumber.
I don't know about the 'pussy pass'--it carries its own dangers--but it could be lower-tier guys are actually better off transitioning to women, especially in liberal areas where they get to join the LGBT community and finally have some friends.
I also haven't watched the video, but I wrote a comment in another open thread semi-recently in response to someone mentioning the possibility of incels transitioning:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-291
The TLDR is that I find it very plausible that being a trans person in denial can lead to having a very hard time dating in particular and to unhappiness and resentment towards society in general. I also did a bit of back-of-the-envelope math using subreddit sizes, which suggests that about 1% of all redditors are trans or interested in transitioning, compared to about 5% of incels.
One thing that occurs to me on re-reading my comment is that those 1% and 5% figures are suspiciously similar to estimated rates of gender dysphoria in the general population: the most recent estimates I've heard (Warrier et al, 2020) are that 0.4-1.3% of the general population and something like 5-6% of autistic people are trans.
So if we were to hypothesize that inceldom is in most cases an unhealthy response to dating struggles rooted in being autistic (*), then we'd expect to see right around 5% of incels turn out to be trans, which is pretty much what my very rough, unscientific estimate tells me. A further test of this hypothesis might be to look for data on post-transition sexual orientation of ex-incel trans women. If it looks similar to the sexual orientations of the broader population of trans women who were straight-identified pre transition (i.e. mostly lesbian or bisexual, with a small minority exclusively attracted to men), that's evidence for the hypothesis that trans ex-incels are simply the base-rate occurrance of transition we'd expect to see in a mostly-autistic population. If trans ex-incels are much more likely to be primarily or exclusively attracted to men (or at least primarily or exclusively trying to date men), that's evidence for the hypothesis that a nontrivial number of incels are seeking to transition for "grass is greener" reasons.
Although that last sentence seems a bit silly now that I type it out, as my prior is that it's nigh on impossibly to radically change your sexual orientation for strategic reasons. And moreover, if incels could choose to become attracted to men in order to improve their dating prospects, transitioning first would be doing it the long way around: if you're a man who badly wants to get laid and you're open to male partners, that's what grindr is for.
(*) N.b. I am absolutely not equating autism with inceldom: instead, the supposition here is that most incels are autistic, but most autistic people are not incels.
"my prior is that it's nigh on impossibly to radically change your sexual orientation for strategic reasons"
Am I misremembering, or wasn't there talk a few years back in some parts of the rationalist community about trying 'bihacking' (that is, move one's sexual orientation more towards being bisexual?) I don't remember why you'd want to do that, but there were some sort of reasons for it.
I think I remember the same thing, but couldn't find it. Only found people talking *about* it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/4f57bs/has_anyone_been_successful_with_bihacking/
https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/notes-on-the-success-of-bihacking/
I don't know how successful bihacking turned out to be.
The obvious reason is more potential sexual partners, perhaps especially important if you have a rare sort of personality.
>I don't know how successful bihacking turned out to be.
"Bihacking" kinda reminds me of that Far Side comic where a pair of spiders have spun a web at the bottom of a playground slide and one of them is declaring "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!"
>Although that last sentence seems a bit silly now that I type it out, as my prior is that it's nigh on impossibly to radically change your sexual orientation for strategic reasons. And moreover, if incels could choose to become attracted to men in order to improve their dating prospects, transitioning first would be doing it the long way around: if you're a man who badly wants to get laid and you're open to male partners, that's what grindr is for.
Well, reorientation seems like it would be easier if you were radically altering your sex hormone profile.
Right. You might not be attracted to men at baseline, but estrogen might change that. I've heard of people's orientation changing while transitioning, doesn't sound that crazy, you're changing ambient hormone levels and that has some effect on the brain.
Anecdotally, it's not uncommon but far from universal for trans people to experience some change in self-perceived gendered sexual attraction.
There doesn't seem to be much in the way of large scale survey data, but the smaller surveys I've found seem more-or-less consistent with anecdote-driven conventional wisdom. Based on those:
A solid majority (probably 60-70%) experience little or no change in attraction, just a recharacterization of sexual orientation in light of their gender transition. E.g. someone who saw herself as a straight man prior to transition now sees herself as a gay woman.
Another 20-25% or so experience a moderate shift towards being more bisexual, with the remaining 10-15% experiencing a near-complete reversal, if straight or gay to begin with. If bi-identified before transition, a shift in emphasis in either direction is fairly common, but rarely enough to stop identifying as bi.
Anecdotes seem to suggest that changes in perceived sexual orientation around transition are at least as much driven by getting to know yourself better and being more open to exploring your sexuality, than they are due to hormones. Major features here include conflating gender envy with attraction pre-transition, internalized homophobia making you resist accepting same-sex attraction pre-transition, and simply the process of figuring yourself out after discarding the null hypothesis of being straight and cis.
So yes, transitioning can substantially change your orientation. But it's not a great bet if you're counting on your orientation changing, and if your orientation does change there's a good chance it's more a matter of self-discovery ("gayness was inside you all along") than hormones.
Thanks for providing some information and actual research.
So, I'm wondering. Say you really are one of these autistic, low-masculinity nerdy boys in a liberal environment that's giving you a hard time for being a straight white male. (I'm told the Asian guys have a hard time too.) Do you think it is to their advantage to transition? I guess you could say 'only if they're actually trans', but how do they know that? Teenagers are in the process of forming an identity anyway. They could easily be wrong. I genuinely wonder about this. Conservatives will say no, definitely not, but the progressives seem to have the upper hand and with demographics suggesting they will continue to do so in the future (millennials and Gen Z lean more left than prior groups at their age), maybe a male role is only for the 50-60% of men naturally Chadly enough to swim upstream?
>maybe a male role is only for the 50-60% of men naturally Chadly enough to swim upstream?
Just realized I didn't get all the way through to answering this part. I doubt it's anywhere near those numbers: my best guess is that at most about 5% of the population would benefit from gender transitioning, and more likely somewhere around 1%. The smaller figure is statistical extrapolation from survey data about transgender identification, while the larger figure is based on the possibility that the higher rate of trans identity among people diagnosed with autism may be due to autistic people finding gender incongruence more distressing or being less inclined to listen to social pressure to resist identifying as trans than neurotypicals (as opposed to the equally-plausible hypothesis that gender incongruence is for some reason about 5x more prevalent among autistic people vs neurotypicals).
In addition, trans men seem to be roughly as common as trans women, and rates of transition in both directions seem to be rising in parallel. We tend to hear more about trans women than trans men, but that seems to be more of a reflection of cultural attitudes about gender and transness (particularly issues around MTF trans people having access to women's spaces, which is often a big toxoplasma-of-rage issue, while FTMs in male spaces is greeted with a giant "meh" when people thing about it at all) than an accurate reflection of facts on the ground. If bias and privilege were major factors driving decisions to transition, I'd expect one direction of transition or the other to be rising while the other is falling, or at least for the two to be rising at significantly different rates.
>I guess you could say 'only if they're actually trans', but how do they know that?
That's exactly what I'd say. Because if you transition without actually being trans, I'd expect a very high risk of suffering from gender dysphoria post-transition.
As for how you know if you're actually trans, the community has done quite a bit of thinking about that because every single trans person has gone through the process of figuring out if we're trans or not.
The bottom line come down to three questions:
1. How do you feel about the prospect of being a man for the rest of your life?
2. How do you feel about the prospect of being a woman for the rest of your life?
3. How do you feel about the prospect of being some gender that doesn't neatly classify as male or female?
For me, the answers (after extensive soul-searching) were:
1. Ugh, I guess I could keep being a man of I really have to.
2. Sounds awesome! The process of transitioning seems difficult and intimidating, but manageable and worth it in the long run.
3. Not as scary in terms of getting there as 2, but also not as appealing. Definite improve over 1, though.
Which seems to pretty clearly point towards me being trans.
In analysing these questions and your answers, it's useful to separate out internal motivations (one gender or another feeling more right and proper) from external motivations (difficulties of transitioning, facing different prejudices and enjoying different privileges, etc), with internal motivations being more central to your identity and external ones more situational and mostly germane to the question of how to express and actualize your identity.
One tool to help tease apart internal and external motivations (specifically about the process of coming out and transitioning) is the "Button Test":
>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 a girl. They will accept you immediately. You will not lose your partner, your job, or your family. Do you press it?
I'm quoting from a commonly-recommended resource called the Gender Dysphoria Bible, intended as a compilation of info about the experience of being trans and pre-transition or early-transition, both for the benefit of people who think they might be trans and for cis people who are trying to better understand and support trans friends or loved ones. It's flawed in several respects (mostly focused on transfemmes rather than transmascs, some of the scientific info is speculative without sufficient qualification, etc), but it's still a useful resource. Link to the subpage I quoted from:
https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/am-i-trans
Disclaimer, I didn't watch the video.
It appears that many within the incel group have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate. If I had built my identity around getting or lacking something (in this case intimacy/sex), I could see myself idolizing any person or group that easily avoided my problem. This may also explain that Andrew Tate stuff, but I've never watched anything of his.
It seems to me quite a stretch to go all the way to gender transition, but these people are far more desperate than I have ever been about sex, and are also living in a society that has intentionally tried to make gender transition seem convenient, easy, and acceptable.
Unfortunately, unless they are happy to pair off with each other, I fear that many of these boys and young men may find that intimacy and sex are still difficult to attain as MtF trans people.
> have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate.
Love and sex are two different things, to start with the obvious.
Finding sex is probably quite simple for most people, you just need to sufficiently lower your standards. Most incels probably have the option to pay for sex, they just choose not to. Which means that "can't get sex" is not *literally* their problem; it is more like "can't get sex in a way that makes them feel good about themselves" or "can't get sex with someone who is neither a desperate drug junkie nor will charge them $1000 per intercourse".
From this perspective, "women have it easy" could be interpreted as women having higher standards than men, so much that their lack of sex could often be solved by merely lowering their standards to the level of an equivalently attractive man. There seems to be some evidence for this -- if you choose a random man, give him photos of hundred random women on the street and ask which ones he would agree to have sex with if an opportunity occurred, he might choose maybe 50% of them; if you choose a random woman, give her photos of hundred random men on the street, she would choose maybe 10% of them.
Or, to put it differently, if you choose an averagely-attractive man and an averagely-attractive woman, and suggest to them that they should date each other, the woman will probably feel that he is not good enough for her. If you ask them separately, both of them refuse to date people who are clearly not good enough for them. But if you put them together, I would expect the man to be more likely to agree to sex, and the woman to more likely reject him. (Which makes perfect sense from the evolutionary perspective.)
"There seems to be some evidence for this -- if you choose a random man, give him photos of hundred random women on the street and ask which ones he would agree to have sex with if an opportunity occurred, he might choose maybe 50% of them; if you choose a random woman, give her photos of hundred random men on the street, she would choose maybe 10% of them."
There are studies on this! (There are studies on everything). Back in 1989, Clark and Hatfield did an experiment on a college campus where they showed if a woman approached a guy and asked him to sleep with her, versus where a man approached a woman and asked her to sleep with him, the men were much more likely to go "hell yeah, back to a stranger's place for casual sex!" then women were.
A study from 2011 refined that, and showed the gender difference could be eliminated by tweaking the approach:
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0022152
"In a highly influential paper, Clark and Hatfield (1989) demonstrated that, whereas men were quite likely to accept a casual sexual offer from a confederate research assistant, women never did so. The current research provides a more in-depth explanation of gender differences in acceptance of casual sex offers via 4 (quasi-) experiments. First, using a person-perception paradigm, I assessed people's impressions of women and men who proposed a casual sexual encounter in the same manner that confederates in Clark and Hatfield did. Women and men agreed that female proposers were more intelligent, successful, and sexually skilled than men who made the same proposals. Second, I demonstrated that the large gender differences from the original Clark and Hatfield study could be eliminated by asking participants to imagine proposals from (attractive and unattractive) famous individuals, friends, and same-gender individuals. Next, I assessed factors associated with likelihood of agreeing to the casual sex proposal. The extent to which women and men believed that the proposer would be sexually skilled predicted how likely they would be to engage in casual sex with this individual. Finally, I examined these factors in the context of actual encounters from the participants' previous experiences, and the results were replicated in this context. Overall findings suggest that the large gender differences Clark and Hatfield observed in acceptance of the casual sex offer may have more to do with perceived personality characteristics of the female versus male proposers than with gender differences among Clark and Hatfield's participants and that sexual pleasure figures largely in women's and men's decision making about casual sex."
I'm not surprised the 1989 study found women much more reluctant to just go off with a complete stranger because women are much more likely to have that end badly. Yeah, not all men, but how many times do you hear the male version of "man stabbed by stranger woman" as opposed to this case currently being tried in Ireland? Woman out exercising fatally stabbed by man who was complete stranger to her:
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/10/24/ashling-murphy-trial-murder-accused-had-scratched-face-appeared-very-scared-when-he-called-to-friends-home-court-told/
That being the case, I think the 2011 study may be more informative as to why and how people decide these invitations.
"It appears that many within the incel group have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate."
That's kind of true, in a qualified way. A less than attractive woman will find it easier to get sex than a less than attractive man, because when - to be crude - it comes to sticking your dick into something then men are easy.
Being able to get sex from guys who would fuck anything with a pulse so long as you're not completely looking like Quasimodo's twin sister doesn't mean you can find *love* more easily, though; often guys just want someone who's an easy lay but don't want a relationship, or not a committed one, and don't want to be the boyfriend.
If you're a woman who is willing to lower her standards, then you can easily find a parade of low-class guys to fill your bed. That's not the same as love and lasting relationship, though.
Yeah, but the difference is many, many men cannot get sex from (or more generally, date) women at or even a fair bit below the same attractiveness percentile as himself (relative to other men and other women respectively). Women who struggle to find love (when they live around enough other people) usually need to lower their standards to something closer to the equivalent of their own attractiveness (physical and otherwise), whereas men who struggle need to lower it below their level.
You can say that women love who they love and can't choose to be attracted to men who are below their current standards.....but the exact same is true of men who are told to lower their standards.
It is a genuine problem if you're a man looking for a relationship and not simply a one night stand.
But the thing is, some of the comments from the very embittered do seem to indicate that they aren't willing to accept any woman who doesn't fit an entire list of requirements, and she can't be any kind of "second-best" - that is, she must be the kind of desirable partner that "Chad" would go after, not some plain Jane second or third rate woman that alpha stud wouldn't even look at.
And that's just as impossible a demand to fill, as the women who have a similar list of 'must-have' traits in a man, then wonder why they can't find anyone who fills all that. Heck, one explanation of why Draupadi, the heroine of the Mahabharata, had five husbands is because when she was asking the gods for the perfect husband, there was no way one man could fill all the requirements, so she had to have five husbands who each would fit one of her demands!
Nah, these men mostly just want someone who might be described as "cute" but relatively low down on the scale otherwise. Chads go for 7+, but most chronically incel men don't even have the option of dating 4s or 5s.
A lot of these men end up with relatively plain south-east asian women who don't really satisfy many criteria beyond 'thin', 'feminine looking' and 'willing to date/marry me'.
"It appears that many within the incel group have a feeling that women are able to find love easily, and are almost never involuntarily celibate."
Isn't this true? Which woman has ever had trouble getting men to sleep with her? Of course getting a man to love her exclusively and dedicate his life to her is infinitely harder, but sex is easy.
Even getting sex is not easy for women who are more than slightly overweight or less physically attractive than average in other ways.
Nah, this is wrong. A woman who is a '3' who lives in a city could more reliably find (unpaid for) sex in the next 6 hours than a man who is an '8', even if the man was willing to sleep with almost anyone. She won't be sleeping with very attractive men, but neither will the 8 be sleeping with attractive women in that kind of time frame. A man who is a '3' will likely struggle to get laid at all on any reasonable time range.
Most men equal to or less than a '3' would be willing to sleep with a '3', whereas even most women who are a '3' wouldn't just bend over for an '8' on short notice. Men really are just that horny and desperate compared to women.
>>A woman who is a '3' who lives in a city could more reliably find (unpaid for) sex in the next 6 hours than a man who is an '8', even if the man was willing to sleep with almost anyone.
There's truth to this, but I think it fails to account for safety as a factor. If 10,000 men who were an '8' did this and settled for "any partner they could get" and 10,000 women who were a '3' did the same, I don't think anyone would be surprised to see the women have more success in terms of getting sex out of the exchange, but we would also expect more of them end up with a stalker, sex that suddenly turned painful or outright abusive, or robbed or otherwise victimized in the course of the transaction. Crime rates being what they are it'd be a small number overall, but the incidence for women seems bound to be much higher overall given how one gender is larger than the other and full of aggression chemistry.
I think that's a factor often overlooked in these "women can find sex easily if they want to" conversations. Across all the partners I've ever had, none ever would pose a physical danger to me unless she was armed or I was tied up or something. On the other hand, my current partner is 5'3" and probably has never been with a man who *couldn't* easily harm her if he wanted to. Given that context, it's no surprise that women have "higher standards" than men when it comes to who they sleep with and often display an oversensitivity in cases of "guy who seems nice but something about him just makes me feel a little creeped out and I can't put my finger on it." Sucks to be that guy, and I've been him, but that's life just life in the punnet square sometimes.
What I ended up saying about women who are clearly below average in looks is that they can get sex, they just can’t
get dates. The Tinder responses they get are invites like “wanna come by my place and smoke weed?”
But "smoke weed" means "smoke weed and then have sex," right? Or are there men on Tinder looking for partners to get platonically high with?
Edit: Never mind, I saw your other comment and now I get your point.
Eh, where I live, all a man would have to do is scrape up a bit of cash and head out to the parking lot of a local big-box hardware store, about 15 minutes away. There's usually 2-4 prostitutes hanging around outside.
I suspect that a fair bit of what the "incels" want is for a woman to find them attractive, to actively want to spend time with them, and to actively want to have sex with them. Not that the sex itself isn't also a thing, but I don't think it's the whole thing.
>>I suspect that a fair bit of what the "incels" want is for a woman to find them attractive, to actively want to spend time with them, and to actively want to have sex with them. Not that the sex itself isn't also a thing, but I don't think it's the whole thing.
Yeah, I think the itch that they are really scratching here is the same one most people are looking for - love and acceptance from a partner, which is correlated to but pointedly is not the same as sex itself. Take that human desire, then send it alone into the internet to find and continually attach toxic baggage to itself, and although lots of people will just figure things out and turn out normal, you're bound to have a few cases where eventually something like an "incel" emerges from the muck instead.
My impression is that incels want sex/love in exchange for... nothing. I'm not sure whether this is a fair summary.
That's it: they don't want sex, you can pay for sex or find a drunk/stoned woman to sleep with. They want to be *wanted*, to be *loved* and that's the real pain of rejection.
"Just find a prostitute and pay her for sex, what's the big deal?" isn't a solution, because that leaves them still the loser on the edge of the friend group (if he even is in a friend group) who can't get a girlfriend while everybody else is pairing off.
> I suspect that a fair bit of what the "incels" want is for a woman to find them attractive, to actively want to spend time with them, and to actively want to have sex with them.
I wonder how many men who are *not* incels are actually satisfied along these dimensions. (And, similarly, how many women.)
As an example, a successful pick-up artist can have a lot of sex with attractive women, but it requires a lot of work. He is actively chasing them; it's not like they actively want to spend time with him. Or a "dead bedroom" guy who has found a woman willing to spend her life with him, willing to have kids with him, just... not really interested in having sex with him more than once a year.
So perhaps unconditional love (and sex) are actually much more rare than the incels imagine. The incels feel unfairly left out of something that everyone else has, but maybe actually most people struggle with this, only slightly more successfully.
Again, you have to be very damn ugly for a guy to not hit on you if he's horny or desperate enough; I've never been attractive but in my (much) younger days I did have a couple of guys try to pick me up (mostly so I'd pay for them to go drinking because hey, a fat bitch like me must be desperate for male attention, right? so since they had spent all their money on booze, I'd open my purse -and maybe my legs - to accommodate them).
There are men who think fat/ugly women are easy because they're so desperate for a man so you don't have to try hard with them or put effort in to keep them around, and can always easily dump them if someone better comes along.
Sincerely, all this talk makes me *so* grateful that whatever way my brain wiring got crossed, at least I never had any interest in love *or* sex, never wanted or felt the lack of it, and was never desperately weeping on the sidelines about not being able to get the chance to hang off some man.
Maybe love is what makes us human, so that means I'm not human, but I don't think I've missed out on anything. "But companionship! someone who cares about you! not being lonely in later life!"
Yeah, being so desperate for all that I'd cut off my parts and go on hormones to trap someone into being with me? That really sounds appealing (not).
I tentatively think you're right to be grateful for your asexual state.
As someone who perceived my sexual dysfunction from adolescence to early 30s as the kind of asexuality you describe, only to have it unexpectedly reversed by an unrelated surgery, I think I was happier without a sexual drive. While I've had an enormous amount of fun as a sexual person, and had some gratifying experiences that came with sexual relationships, the suffering caused by break-ups, the hassle of dating, and the hunger for sex and relationships in between relationships is not worth it.
> (mostly so I'd pay for them to go drinking because hey, a fat bitch like me must be desperate for male attention, right? so since they had spent all their money on booze, I'd open my purse -and maybe my legs - to accommodate them).
Out of curiosity, how obvious was this? How much was explicit and how much was implicit?
I'm not sure where the limits are. I suspect it's somewhat more generous than you think, especially if a woman will settle for sex with a man who's unwilling to be seen with her in public.
I think (and I admit I'm guessing) that the cutoff is more like the bottom 10% to 20% than the bottom 40%.
It's hard to say for sure, because we're not sure we have the right comparison groups in mind. I think an average or below average woman has very little problem finding sex, if they want it. Probably significantly easier than a man in the same relative grouping. But is that the right comparison group? Maybe for incels we're looking at the bottom single digit X%, and maybe women in the same place are having similar trouble.
I honestly don't know what women see in men beyond the obvious. That would help me determine if a particular man was below average or so below average as to be un-dateable. I have had a number of conversations with women about a few particular guys that seemed beyond hope. They all had suggestions that would have helped him, but all admitted that even if he followed every suggestion they still would be completely unwilling to date him. There are definitely women that I would say the same thing about - but I could more easily determine what I found repelling about them. I don't think I would date them no matter how desperate I was. And it's maybe 50/50 looks verses personality.
"They all had suggestions that would have helped him, but all admitted that even if he followed every suggestion they still would be completely unwilling to date him."
I wouldn't be surprised if they'd imprinted on not wanting him, but if he followed their advice, other women who didn't have bad memories of him might find him attractive.
I wondered that too, and that's certainly possible. I have no doubt that he would have had a *better* chance of finding a relationship if he had followed their advice, even if it wasn't a particularly good one.
A confounder here is that part of the issue was his personality and interests, and apparent lack of motivation for a career. I haven't seen him in years, enough time that he could have gotten a better job and made something more of himself, which may help more than the grooming-type advice.
I wasn't even talking about dating, but about casual sex. Even if the undateable women you're talking about are literally undateable, can't they still find casual sex on Tinder? (Maybe they can't. I have no experience either being a woman or using Tinder.)
Yes, but guys don’t want to me seen with them, so the invites they get are stuff like “come over to my place
and we can smoke some weed and maybe watch a movie.” Not exactly a fun proposal for a first get together, and also really not safe.
Like I said, I'm jaundiced about the entire topic, but from my stints in local government work, there are plenty of women who can get men and plenty of men willing to hop from one woman to the next, but neither set are the highest calibre of attractive and appealing human.
That's leaving out the cases of "literally met while both in in-patient psychiatric treatment and hooked up" which, eh, don't end too great either.
I was on a skills training course with a young woman one time who was not a bad person and pretty nice, but just really unfortunate in her choices - e.g. was going to meet a guy who texted her that he'd be late because he had to stop and fight someone.
Naturally we all went "Sheila (not her real name), are you dating him? No? GOOD. DON'T. Don't meet him, don't get involved with him". But it was plain to see that unless something drastically changed, this was the type of guy she would keep ending up with.
And for any incels envious of her because at least she could get someone - don't be. That kind of guy is going to be always getting in trouble and making his trouble your business, and spending your money, quite possibly having another woman or two on the go at the same time as you, and maybe even smacking you around later in the relationship. The game is not worth the candle.
The Women Men Don't Notice.
I think for a good many men, "woman" actually means "woman who is reasonably attractive" or even "woman who is very attractive".
I heart this comment so hard.
Depends what you mean by attractive. Women who are at the e.g. 30th percentile of female attractiveness will be vastly less interested in men at the 30th percentile of male attractiveness than vice versa.
Are you a Tiptree fan, too? :-)
I was wondering whether anyone would catch the reference.
At least enough to know something about the major stories. I swore off her for a while because I was feeling guilty about the extinction of the Neanderthals after reading "The Color of Neanderthal Eyes".
Still, a very intelligent and vivid writer.
Approximate quotes: "One of our opossums is missing". "It was a real estate agent".
Absolutely true. I have talked with many young men who are on Tinder, and none will consider asking anyone out who isn’t at least above average in their looks. And most complain about “not being able to get above an 8” (that’s an 8 on a 1-10 scale where 10 is someone who looks like a model. Sheesh. Maybe they should all purchase inflatable Barbie dolls
with a bit of AI installed?Honestly, it’s enough to make me wish I was a lesbian but unfortunately I got the straight wiring.
I think most men use "8" to mean "someone I personally find attractive enough" and one man's 8 range is very different to another.
Most men will tell you their girlfriend/wife is an 8. (Or they'll tell you she's a 10 but deep down know she's an 8.)
If I'm being totally honest, there are biological females that I don't (intuitively, instinctively?) think of as "women" in the sense that you mean. It's totally related to some level of attraction. Women significantly older or younger than me also fall into this category.
Unfortunately for most incels, women tend to be their most attractive at the time when many young men are struggling to find themselves. Mid-teens to mid-twenties. They probably aren't noticing that there are also women who are having the same problems, because they aren't interested in those women and may not even notice them in a sexual way.
Telling them to just start finding ugly women attractive isn't going to work, any more than telling women to find incels attractive is.
I realized I actually did that when I finally started dating in my late twenties, on the apps; after the initial time wasted composing messages to attractive people (this was early OKCupid), I unconsciously lowered my standards to the point where I was able to find partners. The irony is I've had quite a few partners (body count 15 last time I checked?), and never actually done it with someone I'm attracted to!
It does weird things to you, for example simply not liking sex because you're not attracted to the person you're with, and you're used to that, so sex becomes kind of a thing you put up with to keep a relationship going. An odd inversion of the usual gender roles.
Not really something I'd recommend, though many may not have other options.
I've read accounts from women who are bad at attracting men. I don't know whether they're somewhat picky or they really can't attract anyone.
I'll sat this much, I've met women in real women who are definitely below average in looks complain about getting too much male attention. The only men I've ever heard complain are literal celebrities.
Transitioning isn't only about love and sex, it's also about feeling comfortable in life. Some people just stably feel better having an emotional balance which is related to changing their hormones.
I'm comfortable being female, but if I were as uncomfortable as I'm comfortable, I would be miserable. I have no idea what's going with some people having such a bad fit between their consciousness and their body, but I'd say there's sufficient evidence that it's a real thing.
As for watching or not watching the video, I hope some people do. It's an emotionally rough ride though.
An appreciation of androgyny is just an appreciation of beautiful androgynous people. These people are by and large not beautiful.
Does anyone have a link to a meme image of Connor Leahy on one of his CNN interviews, photoshopped to have him holding up a sign saying "the end is nigh" with the scene subtitle edited to say something like "crazy homeless man somehow the only sane person in the room"? I feel like I've seen it here or on one of Zvi's blog posts or something, but now can't find it even after extensive googling...
I was thinking today about the purposes of learning. I had in mind mostly informal learning, but all learning qualifies. Learning serves these purposes:
1) career and economic growth
2) social and status growth
3) sheer infovore pleasure
4) the ability to deconstruct your culture, your received wisdom, your own biases and habits, and question them
4) is most interesting to me. It's the reason I believe novels are one of the best sources of "received wisdom questioned intelligently".
I'll never know everything, but the more I know the more the society recedes from its current state into all the states of possibilities it could have. This gives me pleasure, just knowing that so much else was possible. I only half-care what reality "is", because I mostly live in my imagination.
Going with 4, the main difference between a well-learned and a non-learned person is knowing what is arbitrary and is not, what is fashion and not, what is a choice and not. Looking at a building and understanding the architectural influences and choices. Understanding economically why that building is there. Knowing why you wear the clothes you do or don't. Understanding why this music sounds like this and like that and like that and like this. Understanding why you use the words you do when you do.
These things may seem superficial but for me they are the spice of life. It is my primary incentive to learn more, because I want to see life from ever more perspectives, to understand more of it.
I think "learning" is framed and promoted too much as for careerist or utilitarian reasons. Learning is way more valuable than that.
Way back when I was much younger in grad. school (physics) we'd sit around and shoot the shit late at night, and talk about (learning/ study) as making a better model of the universe for yourself. And you are continuing to find errors in your model, and hopefully those decrease with time. But then again we can all have f'ed up models, so you never know if you are making progress.
I think the world would be a much better place if 95% of the population did a whole lot less questioning of their culture, received wisdom, and their own biases and habits. Culture is better off if most people just go along with it, and leave the questioning to well-disciplined experts.
The problem is that, other than smart people capable of self-directed learning, I don't think there's a way to reliably 'teach' no. 4 at scale. Many ostensible attempts at teaching for this today almost certainly have a negative impact in this regard, especially since things that are portrayed as about being about 'deconstructing the received wisdom' are actually reinforcing the current received, institutionally dominating wisdom and are actually attacking ideas that have not been dominant for many decades. Efforts at 'deconstructing biases' are actually imbuing people with bias. 'Biased' is one in an endless line of words that has been appropriated and implicitly redefined as 'not progressive' - being 'unbiased' on race means assuming any explanation for racial differences that isn't 'racism' is not only wrong but malicious.
Some of the things I learn are useful to me, in various ways. They can be useful directly, in the sense that I learn to do X, and then I do X. They can be useful indirectly, by helping me create a better model of the world, which will allow me to make better decisions. (For example, I don't spend money on homeopathic treatments, because I understand the atomic theory.) They can also be used counterfactually, by providing me more options to choose from, even if I end up not choosing that specific option.
Some things could be called "mental tools". For example math can be applied to thousand different situations. Even the more specialized knowledge, such as knowing about the planning fallacy, can be helpful in many ways. To know such things is to be stronger in some sense.
> I think "learning" is framed and promoted too much as for careerist or utilitarian reasons. Learning is way more valuable than that.
We probably don't have a substantial disagreement, but I would say that "utilitarian" is quite okay, it's just that people understand that word too narrowly.
Some things I have learned that made a deep impression on me changed my brain. The literally opened up a new channel thoughts could flow down.
I've talked to several mothers recently and they all, entirely separately, came out with "why are we teaching X, they should be learning how to read a paycheck, that's much more useful."
Privately, I very much disagree. But I had no idea how you even start against a mindset like that, so in most cases I just sat there quietly.
The trade-off is short-term benefit vs long-term benefit. Practical skills like reading a paycheck have immediate relevance. Abstract skills like math or historiography have broader relevance. The metaphor I use in my headcanon is "distance from the fruit, on the tree of knowledge".
I agree with Peter's comment, insofar as these sorts of complaints often come from a sense of "kids these days lack basic life skills". I some theories about why, but they're low-confidence.
The parents should be teaching them about taxes and pay checks and how to open a bank account and all the rest of it. School is for education, not babysitting and abrogating all the child-raising to the teachers.
I'm steelmanning this argument, but I would say it's a result of society's error-correction mechanism, analogous to how your cells prevent DNA from being miscopied.
If you learn how to change a tire or bake a cake off Youtube, you'll know pretty promptly if you've screwed up the instructions. But if you let Youtube teach you how democracy works or why the sky is blue you could easily end up with subtle and hard-to-correct misconceptions. That's why we leave the intellectual/cultural topics for trained professionals to teach even though they're less immediately useful.
I'd steelman it a bit differently, I would read it as a complaint that when they left school for work that there were a whole bunch of basic life skills things that they didn't know and wished they had been taught in school. It is fair enough to say that it is the parents' job to teach these things, but no parent teaches them all, and some leave their kids fairly clueless. Even though I haven't had a home-ec class since grade six, I have several times been glad as an adult to have been taught things in school that I should have learned from my mother.
Tell them that if all the kid can do is read a paycheck they don’t need to bother learning to read paychecks because they’re unlikely to be getting one.
I would add that learning a foreign language, you open a door to their culture, their books, their music, their comedy, their memes; thus you learn a little bit about how other people think differently, and you might be very surprised. Even if it's not such an exotic language, like Dutch or so.
I think Matt Yglesias has the best post about the war, which contains information most people don't seem to have: https://www.slowboring.com/p/palestinian-right-of-return-matters?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
The reason the two-state solution hasn't worked is because Palestinians and relevant Arab nations consider the "right to return" to the land that Israel currently occupies paramount. About 5 million Palestinian "refugees" (scare quotes for a reason) want to return to Israel. These "refugees" are mostly the descendants of refugees who left, intentionally or by force, the land currently occupied by Israel in 1948.
In the mind of the American public, the two-state solution means that Israel, America and other Western powers simply recognize Palestine as a nation-state. For Palestinians and relevant Arab nations, it means that Israel, America and other Western powers recognize Palestine as a nation-state and that 5 million Palestinians, many of whom are currently in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and other Arab states, be allowed to return to Israel, making the population of Israel about 50/50 Jewish/Arab.
When Zionists say the Palestinians won't accept Israel as a Jewish state, what they more or less mean is that Palestinians don't accept the nation of Israel without the right of return, because such right would result in a state that isn't dominantly Jewish.
Most Arab nations which currently house the descendants of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war do not give those Palestinians citizenship rights even though their families may have been in those countries for 3 generations.
Everything above is what I understand the facts to be. Correct me if I am wrong.
One opinion point, though: Why aren't Arab nations like Jordan who don't allow Palestinians living within their borders to have citizenship and equal rights considered to have an "Apartheid regime" by those who think Israel has one?
That's one of the big sticking points against a two-state solution, but there are others.
Israel has long-term strategic concerns about their neighbors trying to invade them again, and the Jordan River is a much more defensible international border than the Green Line or something like it, both because it's a river instead of an arbitrary line on a map, and because of strategic depth. The Green Line is less than 9 miles from the sea and even closer to the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Which isn't far at all in terms of mechanized warfare, is within tube artillery range, and doesn't leave much of an engagement window for defending against surprise peacetime airstrikes. Israel has had a formal peace treaty and mostly-amicable diplomatic relations with Jordan since 1994, but neither side completely trusts the other, and Israel certainly doesn't trust a fully independent West Bank Palestinian state. So Israel's offered two-state-solution borders have always included keeping a bunch of territory on the shore of the Jordan River, military corridors connecting that territory to Israel proper, and substantial buffer zones around Tel Aviv.
Another problem is that a proposed Palestinian state would be discontinuous, both because of the separation of the West Bank and Gaza and because the aforementioned military corridors carve up the West Bank into a bunch of little pieces. Getting Israel to give up the corridors is a hard sell, and granting a Palestinian state a corridor through Negev is an even harder one.
Jerusalem is another big sticking point, as it's claimed by both sides for both demographic and historical/religious reasons.
Then there's the issue of the settlements. Israel has heavily colonized the parts of the West Bank it wants to keep, in order to reinforce its strategic claims with demographic ones. The settlements also serve to nail Israel's colors to their mast, as withdrawing to the Green Line border would mean either forcibly relocating almost half a million Israeli citizens or leaving them as a minority population of a Palestinian state. Historically, Israel has forced the evacuation of settlements in Sinai and Gaza, but those settlements had a total population of a few thousand, not hundreds of thousands.
Good points. Thanks.
My understanding is that Jordan, at least, *does* give 1948 war refugees citizenship. The noncitizen Palestinians (some 600,000, according to Wikipedia) are later refugees.
I do blame the holocaust in part on the US refusing to take in Jewish refugees, since if the US had been willing fewer Jews would have died. I don't think that view is all that unusual.
I blame the US for not taking in refugees, but the almost all of the holocaust would have happened anyway. How many would have made it to the US? Perhaps some more countries would have accepted refugees if the US had set an example.
I blame the holocaust on the Nazis.
> why blame Arab countries for not taking in Palestinian refugees when those refugees used to live in Israel and were kicked out by Israel?
Ah, gee, I don't know, maybe because these states spend huge chunks of their energy complaining about Israel and would literally be willing to go to war with Israel over this issue if they thought they had a reasonable chance of succeeding? Because the arab diaspora and their left wing allies are furious over the plight of palestinains and about 'israeli aparheid' while thinking that palestinians aren't entitled to equality in arab countries (or thinking they are but never ever criticizing arab states for their treatment of palestinians)?
The US did not go to war over the holocaust, and even when the average non-jewish american learned about the holocaust this didn't prompt the visceral reaction that arabs/muslims around the world have over israel, and efforts were made to conceal the extent of the holocaust in the US until after the war because it was believed that this would actually hurt support for the war.
And these same arabs/muslims would be furiously angry if western european countries all refused to giver citizenship to arabs or muslims who had been in the countries for 3 generations etc.
It's fine to be opposed to giving palestinians unrestricted immigration to your country and to giving them citizenship. What's not fine is when you turn around and screech about "apartheid" when other countries do the same thing.
If even other arab muslims don't want these people in their countries, why the hell would israel want them?
I think one of the recent book reviews pointed out that the "final solution" was something like the 2.5th "solution" that the Nazis tried. The first solution was to find some other country that would take all the German Jews, but no country would.
If Israel had existed then, there might have been no Holocaust, just a massive displacement.
They did expel vast numbers of jews though - they just ended up in countries that ended up being conquered by Germany anyway.
But most of Nazi Germany's victims were not German Jews but Polish and Soviet ones, and many Jews who did leave Germany (such as, famously, Anne Frank) left for elsewhere in Europe and wound up dying when Nazi Germany took over their new country.
The world's refusal to accept Jewish refugees was disgraceful and cost plenty of lives, don't get me wrong, but...
Who knows. But I think there's a reasonable chance that if Germany already had a policy of "stick them on trains to Istanbul" (or whatever), they would have kept doing it with Jews from all the places they conquered.
Your thinking seems kinda wishful. The "final solution" was sought after WWII started and went form Blitzkrieg to Stalingrad. As kinda "revenge" on the the "Weltjudentum" for "manipulating" the west. While before, they sometimes had been thought of as "hostages". And more confused "thinking". In the end there was not that much though lost on them, there was a war to be fought. Sending Polish Jews by freight-trains to Auschwitz et al. to die/work to death was just much less hassle than organising a tour to ... "Istanbul"(?) - well, actually Madagascar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
And "the west" (USA/UK/Switzerland) had not been enthusiastic about accepting hundreds of thousands of "western Jews". https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/how-many-refugees-came-to-the-united-states-from-1933-1945
Would they have done an airlift to rescue some million mostly poor Jews from Poland/Russia/Ukraine?! Nope. Sadly. And who would blame them? Well, Nancy and me - but I also blame NATO for not putting up a no flight zone in Ukraine.
As I recall, Madagascar was the 2nd solution, but was only a half-baked idea that never got off the ground, which is why I called extermination the 2.5th solution.
I was talking more about the 1st solution, deportation, using Istanbul as a neutral city that would be on the way to the Middle East, on the counter-factual assumption that some sort of state of Israel existed at the time.
"why blame Arab countries for not taking in Palestinian refugees" because they started the war in 1948 and encouraged Palestinians to leave
I don't blame the US for the Holocaust, but I do blame it for refusing to take in refugees from it.
Why? Why is the US responsible for people on the other side of the globe, above and beyond fighting and dying in a war against the people oppressing them?
Absolutely critical period of US history. For anyone less familiar, cabinet battles over refugees are discussed by Morgenthau-biographer Andrew Meier here:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/23/henry-morgenthau-roosevelt-government-europes-jews-00058206
That's fascinating, thanks! There seemed like an almost Trumpian level of dysfunction in FDR's various departments, which I hadn't expected. Perhaps all FDR's attention was on the war itself? Or maybe this is just normal, and Obama was unusual...
+1
How polite are you to ChatGPT when you use it? Whenever I'm speaking to it I find my self saying "Please" when I ask a question and I almost always end my threads with a "Thank you" of some kind.
Not at all. I give it orders as one would a slave with the hope being that will help it be more terse.
I think this actually helps you use it better. It's kind of hard to keep in mind that is ISNT a person so you can approach the interaction much differently. It's more like an extension of my will than a seperate agentic thing
I'm quite polite to it, probably out of some combination of habit and reciprocity. Whether it's a category error or not (as another commenter mentioned) is irrelevant. I wonder if this is a culturally ingrained thing.
When I use it (generally to see if the latest one is just as useless to me as its predecessors) it's a tool, and politeness to it is a category error. I am no more "polite" to a chatbot than I am to a pencil. I use it in accordance with its nature.
I tend to be generally polite. Yes, it is a program, but it is set up to act as if it were a conversational partner, and I'd prefer to stay in the habit of generally being polite to conversational partners.
That makes a great deal of sense.
Many Thanks!
I am always polite. Maybe it's just superstition, but I think that in the online debates politeness correlates positively with intelligence and truth (yes, there are always exceptions, but I think the correlation is this way rather than the other way round), and I would like to receive intelligent and true answers.
Me too, and I use it a lot. I think there's a chance the output is better if you're "nice" to it given what (little) we know about how it works and its training data which of course includes many human interactions. I also find myself explaining why I'm asking it to do something rather than doing it myself. I honestly feel that I've noticed better output when I say "please do this because you're better and faster at it than me, and in doing so, you'll help me focus my energy on x", versus when I say "do this". My custom instructions now include this!
I've long thought that being polite might give better answers as well. I finally did the obvious thing and asked ChatGPT if it did so. It's response was:
"No, my responses do not improve based on the politeness of the question. I don't have feelings, so I don't get offended or pleased by user interactions, and thus, these factors do not affect my performance or the information I provide.
However, clear and specific questions often help in generating more accurate and relevant responses. It helps me understand the context better and what exactly you're looking for in an answer. But this is about the clarity and detail of the communication, not the politeness."
So take that for what it's worth.
Keeping in mind it does not have introspective capabilities like that. It’s comparable to me making a statement about neuroscience. I don’t know anything about neuroscience.
Of course, all the justifications about performance and the model's structures aside, at the end of the day I'm nice to it because I try to view most interactions not as between me and the other party, but between me and God. I think it's akin to lovingly polishing your tools. You kind of do it because it's good for performance, maybe, but mostly because that's what a craftsman does and you are a craftsman.
If the AI's ever take over, we can say we treated them well right from the start.
Zvi Mowshowitz makes a basic claim which seems to play a role in many AI risk arguments (https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-32-lie-detector):
> Unless I am missing something, a sufficiently complex lookup table can simulate any possible mind, if inefficiently.
I think Scott has written similar things.
What would evidence against this look like?
It's interesting how people never consider the origin of these impossible objects in these kinds of thought experiments. But this is a mistake. Such a lookup table would carry information on some arbitrarily large number of potential conversations. We don't get such an object for free. If it could exist, we have to account for the process that constructed it. We can imagine the mind of God playing out some infinite number of conversations and then recording them in the lookup table. But then we've just pushed the question back a step: must the mind of God playing out these conversations simulate the minds engaged in the conversation? The lookup table in this case is just a weird communications device and irrelevant to the philosophical issues.
The lookup table would have to be bigger than the universe. This rules it out even as a thought experiment.
The key words are "sufficiently complex." For a long conversation that covers any subject a person could talk about, the lookup table simulating the mind you're talking to is going to be bigger than can fit into any existing computer.
Let's suppose our AI is capable of saying every possible 10-word sentence in English along some branch in its conversation tree. This might seem like a high bar, but it's really not - imagine you're asking the AI something like "I want to test your memory, so please repeat the following words..."
Using a dictionary of 20,000 words (again, really not that big), the AI needs to have 20000^10 sentences in its lookup table, or 10^43. For comparison, Earth has about 10^50 atoms in it. In other words, if the AI you're talking to is capable of repeating arbitrarily chosen sequences of random words, and it's not using most of a planet as a data center, then it's probably not *literally* a lookup table.
EDIT: Okay, I read the linked article in more detail. Quintin is using "lookup table" a bit more abstractly - he's saying that our current style of AI is basically pulling stuff from a hyper-compressed "lookup table" of its training data, meaning that aligning an AI is mostly about making sure that it has good data to generalize from. And I think that's significantly different from Zvi using it to mean "a table that potentially stores every possible conversation tree for a given mind, including the conversation where the superintelligent AI talks its way out of the box and kills us."
All known physical laws could be described as "hyper-compressed lookup tables of experimental observations" (and some philosophers have described them so). This is not a helpful way to understand them. On the other hand, whatever the future may bring, "blurry jpeg of the Internet" has ChatGPT's conversational abilities down to a T.
I tend to think that "hyper-compressed" matters a lot. One can view the progress of science as the ability to describe more and more observations with as few axioms as possible. E.g. compressing all observations of electrical and magnetic phenomena down to Maxwell's equations. I see this as either nearly equivalent to understanding or completely equivalent.
To my mind, four significant differences:
1) Knowing the answer doesn't mean you can determine the answer in a similar situation. It's better to know how 2+2=4 works than to memorize it. This becomes more obvious the larger the set of knowledge.
2) A lookup table doesn't know if the answer is right or wrong, and has no means to determine that. It also lacks any kind of desire to know correct information or make corrections.
3) A lookup table does not have new knowledge. Just like ChatGPT will tell you that it doesn't know recent events, the lookup table will lack whole swaths of knowledge and crucially related to #1 above, lacks the tools to derive this new knowledge based on limited information.
4) If and when adding information to the table, without a sufficient understanding of how those pieces of information interact, it cannot properly sort and identify when something is truly related to something else. The number of people who die in Gaza is essentially the same as the number of tires on a car - information about numbers. If it doesn't know why some thing might be connected, and it cannot determine when the information is relevant.
For purposes of this discussion, would a dynamic look-up table count as a look-up table?
For what I hope is a politically neutral example, if someone is interested in science, a lookup table simulating them would have added the existence of exoplanets rather recently.
I guess it would be closer, but then you are eliding the question of "how does more information get added to the table?"
If an external force always updated the table whenever new information existed, that would help it simulate a mind (absent learning), but doesn't really tell us more about any possible real system. I might argue that it's the external force that's the mind, and the simulation is fully artificial and shallow.
This. The problem with mind qua lookup table is that it doesn't make the connections. It's not enough to update the response to "is Pluto a planet?" to "no", but you also have to update "how many planets are there in our solar system?" to "eight", and you actually need to make millions of updates to various conversations referring to Pluto or planets or the significance of numbers eight and nine, etc.
So the thing that does the updates needs to be... not a lookup table. Otherwise it itself would need to contain zillions of instructions like "if you learn that Pluto is not a planet, update this and this and this and this...", for all possible things it could ever learn (also depending on the order they were learned).
I would expect compression to make a big difference. If the training process tries to squeeze as much predictive ability into as small a set of neural weights as possible, then that process will try to have "is Pluto a planet?" and "How many planets are there in our solar system" give consistent answers.
Well, yes, a lookup table *plus something* can work much better than a lookup table alone.
Compression is related to intelligence. Generalization is compression of information. Compression algorithms are based on assumptions about the data (you can't compress random noise).
Does this lookup table have the answer for the 17th digit of pi? 762-767 digits? Where one can find a sequence of eleven prime numbers in a row?
I think a mind is more complex than a lookup table, no matter how extensive. An infinite amount of possibilities exist in reality, and a mind determines which ones to explore, and are useful.
A Turing Machine, in the original sense, is a complex lookup table plus unbounded memory. Since a Turing Machine is by definition Turing-complete, then unless you want "a mind" to have some spiritual dimension the claim must be true.
A Turing machine is strictly more powerful than a lookup table. In the context of the question of sufficient computational power needed to simulate a mind, citing a Turing machine is answering No to the OP.
Isn't that a restatement of Searle's Chinese Room? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
You can probably get more by reading the article, but the argument is basically that a computer could take a series of Chinese characters as input and after some processing according to its rules, output another series of Chinese characters. But at no point does the computer understand Chinese or the meaning of the characters it is processing. It is simply following rules.
Does it change anything if true? "Sufficiently complex" can be _really_ complex, "inefficiently" can be _really_ inefficiently, and creating it is probably harder than just making an equally productive AI in some other way. And if you can make this lookup table, you can probably make a modified lookup table that removes the risk factors.
(It's also unclear whether this produces consciousness, but that's not really important for a risk argument.)
That was always the problem with the Turing test. An infinite lookup table with all the answers could simulate a human. Modern LLMs largely pass the Turing tests (some quirks aside), even on getting things wrong. They are not conscious.
The Turing test tests general intelligence, not consciousness. We can't test for consciousness/qualia even among humans.
> They are not conscious.
Non sequitur?
Which section of Zvi’s post is it in? I just skimmed a couple likely-looking sections for the term look-up table and didn’t find it.
Quintin Double Down on Twitter (https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-32-lie-detector#%C2%A7quintin-doubles-down-on-twitter):
> To me, an optimizer is a thing that optimizes. If the way it does that is a giant lookup table, then ask about what that giant lookup table is optimizing and how effective it is at that, including in iterating the lookup table. There is no reason to think a giant lookup table can’t functionally be all the same dangerous things we were previously worried about. Unless I am missing something, a sufficiently complex lookup table can simulate any possible mind, if inefficiently.
No current tool at all can simulate a given mind, efficiently or otherwise. The idea they can be simulated whatsoever has yet to be shown.
Without reading back; close your eyes and guess. How many 's's were there in the first paragraph? Now, if you think back on it tomorrow, do you think your guess will be the same? And how complex does your lookup table have to be to accurately predict those 's's guesses?
How long was the pause between me writing "guesses" and adding "'s's" in front? How does the lookup table deal with that?
I don't think Feynman's ability to pass your test influences his ability to contribute to the atomic bomb, which is the type of claim under consideration in zvi's original post.
Maybe it is impossible for a lookup table to duplicate behavior, but it's irrelevant to the point Zvi is countering, which is that it doesn't matter if optimization happens because of a lookup table or is computed, or is done using a combination of caching and computation, what matters is that the output, when acted on, changes the world and not if a lookup was involved.
> Unless I am missing something, a sufficiently complex lookup table can simulate any possible mind, if inefficiently.<
Don't change the subject.
The subject is being discussed at *all* because of its relevance to what I've pointed out. What you're saying is indeed relevant, but it's a useless answer, in the context of the original question.
I mean, the question posed I don't think is even interesting in its own terms? You could populate the lookup table literally by polling a bunch of people with that message+question pair and see what the distribution is, then obviously turn that into a lookup table. If you think the answer is too "deterministic" because of its lookup table nature, we can just add additional parameters to the lookup until it appears non deterministic to us, or, equivalently, just add some randomness to the lookup, why wouldn't this satisfy your requirements, yet still be a lookup table?
The subject is being discussed because Muster the Squirrels quoted, and asked for arguments about, that one particular line from the article. It is the only line from the article that was quoted.
>why wouldn't this satisfy your requirements, yet still be a lookup table?<
Because it wouldn't get the same answer as the mind it's supposed to be simulating. If it can't simulate a specific mind, it can't simulate "any possible mind."
Why can't the lookup table generation mechanism be localized to just one person? Or hell, literally rerun the same mind with a bunch of permutations on that question until you get high accuracy on that exact one question? (Probably this ends up being a pretty small lookup table, humans are really bad at generating random numbers, may have to add extra lookups in case if actions change if the mind in question purposefully changes their behavior under observation, but the Earth is round and so are Human skulls, so we eventually reach a fix point when the mind can no longer track how many levels of recursion it is on). I imagine this is the type of inefficient simulation of a mind that the zvi has.
Or to put it more simply, is doing multiplication or addition in binary then converting to base 10, somehow more "real" multiplication than memorizing the times table? My intuition says all functions that output the correct numbers are equally good at being a multiplication function, and the trade off between lookups and "actual computation" is an irrelevant detail. If you presume that turing machines can also simulate human minds, this is already sufficient to answer the question. And even if you don't get to that, you're going to have to answer why *even physically unrealizeable* lookup tables cannot be generated.
And if you claim that physical realization should be a requirement for essentially mathematical claims, do you also bite the bullet that sufficiently big numbers, that cannot be represented in the universe also don't exist? Like say, the busy beaver number for a turning machine with a million states.
The evidence against it is that a "sufficiently complex" lookup table cannot fit in the entire observable universe, even if every atom is used to encode it.
It can be proven mathematically I think, so idea of "evidence against it" doesn't really make sense. You could argue against the underlying assumption of physicalism, or argue that though it's theoretically true (given an infinite lookup table), it's irrelevant in practice.
When you ask a human twice "tell me a number you haven't told me before", you will get two different answers. How does this work for a lookup table?
You would have to provide the *entire history* of the conversation (and anything relevant to it, for example whether the lights in the room have flickered, because someone could mention that) as a key to the lookup table, in which case...
...it is trivially true that whatever conversation happens between humans, you can afterwards create a lookup table with the corresponding entries matching the conversation, and thus in some sense this lookup table has already existed somewhere in the Platonic universe -- but good luck finding it *before* the conversation happened!
I think you understand that correctly. If you have an infinite (or arbitrarily large) lookup table, you also have to accept arbitrarily large inputs as indexes into that lookup table. Clearly there's no way to access more than ~4 billion entries if your input is only 4 bytes. The entire history plus the current input would be fed in as input.
Sure it's trivially true. Zvi made a trivially true point in response to someone else arguing about parameterized functions vs lookup tables in AI. Then someone here asked if Zvi's statement was correct. His statement may be uninteresting and may not be a solid rebuttal, but it was correct.
I assert there is a teapot in orbit between Earth and Mars around the sun, but we haven't detected it yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
Did you reply to the wrong comment? I don't see any relation.
No, my point is that the burden of proof is on the assertion that "a sufficiently complex lookup table can simulate any possible mind", and that it should not automatically be assumed true. It may seem likely that a lookup table can simulate a mind, but no proof is offered. Therefore, the default ought to be, at the very least, skepticism.
As I understand it this is about the Turing test. Which isn’t consciousness.
The Turing test is a subjective test, and so cannot be proven with the rigor of most things that have proofs.
Of course, the second law of thermodynamics can be wrong, but gets more and more accurate with a larger volume and more time. It IS possible for entropy to decrease momentarily, though it is fantastically unlikely. It may be the same with a Turing test.
Okay, but it is proven, just like that there are infinite primes or like the Poincaré conjecture. It's not my proof. I can't walk you through it any more than I could walk you through the proof of the Poincaré conjecture. But it's not something that's up for debate.
There's some context from the post that maybe you're missing. It's not saying a lookup table causes consciousness or qualia. Just that a program takes input and its current state and looks up its next state in an infinite lookup table is Turing complete.
This is actually proven? The article makes no mention of it, and I have my doubts. What exactly was proven? That the recursive lookup table can simulate any mind, or that the recursive lookup table is Turing-complete? The former can't be proven without a useful definition of a mind, and as far as I know we don't yet have one. The latter is trivial to prove.
User banned for this comment.
This comment shouldn't have been made, but it does highlight something important. When there was in fact celebration over the attack on israel by hamas both in palestine and around the world, I found it extremely puzzling, because it seemed inevitable that the outcome of such an attack would be thousands of Gazan civilians dying in the following weeks and months. The only thing that makes sense was that hamas did this to provoke a war with israel which would drag in iran, lebanon and maybe others, something with the potential to really rock israel. Celebrating at this initial provocation of israel seemed insane when the slaughter of palestian citizens was obviously about to follow and the only thing to celebrate would have been if/when a multi-front war with israel actually accomplished something material.
Your comment is substantive, calm, and does advance a point I pretty much agree with. All without ghoulish celebration of the suffering.
I think I'm glad I have no idea what this is about, because by the sound of it, whatever happened was bad and this reaction is just as bad and I don't need to incorporate more rage into my life right now.
"I don't need to incorporate more rage into my life right now" I sympathize. I've read suggestions that, for most people, following the news is a net negative in their lives. I do suggest that, unless you have a personal stake in the middle east, you might indeed want to avoid coverage of it. Best wishes.
Is it allowable to report a comment for being unworthy if a Twitter troll?
If there's a serious point here could you perhaps rephrase this so it doesn't come across as crass and offensive. Note this comes from someone who believes Hamas must be destroyed: it's possible to hold a clear belief without expressing it like this.
Scott's rule is that comments are unacceptable if they don't meet at least 2 of the following criteria: They're true, necessary (i.e. their content advances the discussion) and kind. This comment isn't even substantive, so it's neither true nor necessary, and it's very mean-spirited.
Necessary and kind are subjective to the point of being meaningless, and whether or not something is 'true' is what most debates are about in the first place.
This is an astoundingly ideologically homogenous comment section. I think most people here will agree to a pretty high degree of overlap on what kindness and necessity are.
It seems rather unsubjective (or inter-subjective) that the thread starter comment is - to understate matters - not kind, as evidenced by most commenters' disgust over it.
True just means non-controversial and agreed upon by lots of sources the people in the forum or whatever discursive space you're arguing in. It doesn't apply to non-factual claims though, which the classy thread starter is indeed not.
Necessary is the fuzziest of all three, but as a first approximation it can be interpreted as "Benefits someone in the discussion other than the sayer, or adds to their awareness in any way". This is still very fuzzy because people often don't know what's best for them, but if lots of people immediate reaction to your 2-liner comment is "Ewww", I would say that's a very strong evidence it's not "Necessary". After all, it's just a 2 liner comment, if there was anything there other than "Ewwww", people would have found it.
I'm actually against reporting the thread starter, for 2 reasons :
1- Free Speech means nothing if we can't handle vile disgusting things, up to and including written/animated erotica about 1 year old children and celebration of death. None of those things concretely harm anyone, and our tolerance of it is the necessary tax we should gladly pay so that when someone (usually 1 in a 1000) does in fact have something true (and not necessarily necessary) to say, they aren't discouraged by the backlash or silencing they will expect to get.
2- In the particular special case of this forum, most people here are not fundamentally evil. The thread starter is a necessary glimpse for them on some of the viewpoints that thrive in Pro-Israeli circles. Just 2 open threads ago I said the thread starter's viewpoint is extremly common on YouTube and some Twitter, and lots of the responses were either Skeptical or Dismissive ("No that doesn't happen/they're bots/they're trolls", vs. "Yes, And ?"). The thread starter is a necessary reminder that those viewpoints are everywhere. And the best thing is that it's unprompted and unprovoked, completely natural, to assuage any accusations that the other side might have said something to deserve it.
>It seems rather unsubjective (or inter-subjective) that the thread starter comment is - to understate matters - not kind, as evidenced by most commenters' disgust over it.
Irrelevant - I'm talking about the principle generally. People think claiming that races vary in intelligence is "unkind", which demonstrates why it's a bullshit principle.
>True just means non-controversial and agreed upon by lots of sources the people in the forum or whatever discursive space you're arguing in.
Okay, so we're only ever talking about things that are widely agreed upon?
>"Benefits someone in the discussion other than the sayer, or adds to their awareness in any way"
Okay, plenty of people here think that talking about racial differences in intelligence is never necessary, showing that it's another bullshit principle.
In the except I quoted here in the responses to OP, Scott expands on what “true” and “necessary” mean. (It’s already clear what “kind” means.). “True” means obviously true or something you believe is true, and if it’s non-obvious and many will disagree. you need to explain why you think it’s true. “Necessary” means it advances the discussion.
Regarding your objections to reporting comments on ACX:
1) You say that reporting comments means we do not have free speech here. That’s true, we don’t, but nobody ever said we did. The guidelines in practice mostly block unsupported nonsense and various forms of verbal aggression (cruelty, rudeness, insults). I think that blocking those things allows us to have a freer and richer discussions because topics don’t get yanked off course by random injections of irrelevant nonsense, or blocked by personal attacks on people posting certain views. During Covid I was on the Reddit sub for covid issues in my state, and it was extremely hard to have a productive discussion. Because there were no rules against untrue (and unsupported) assertions and against personal attacks, attempts to transmit information were usually buried under a mountain of unsupported counter-theories and sarcastic mockery of OP. Freedom of speech greatly suppressed effective transmission of one’s views. I’m for free speech in the country as a whole, but in settings where people are conversing with a purpose I think there should be rules against kinds of speech the interfere with the kind of conversing people are there to do.
As for the examples give you give of things we should be able to talk about here: I’m not sure what you mean by celebration of death, but I certainly don’t think anyone would report someone’s post questioning whether our species deserves extinction, given how destructive we are, or some’s post asking whether anyone here feels there’s something appealing about death. When it comes to your other example, written erotica about one year old children — well, a post containing nothing but erotica would be seen as weird and pointless here even if it were about sex between 2 adults. In fact a post containing nothing but an excerpt from a piece if fiction, even if there were no erotic activity described, would be seen as inappropriate because it is not a way of launching or continuing a discussion. But if someone had a point to make or a question to ask about sexual abuse of toddlers nobody here would object to the topic. For instance, somebody might ask what’s known about pedophiles who are attracted to toddlers and not older children, or somebody might ask what forms of abuse are usually practiced on babies and small children. I think some people might find the subject disturbing enough that they’d choose to skip the thread, but no one would suggest banning it. So we have a place here where very sensitive subjects can be discussed. That’s pretty good.
Elsewhere in this same bit of the thread responding to the “hahaha” comment I quote Scott’s detailed explanation of the criteria, which clarifies some things. Lots of us have discussed them on here, including what you raise about all 3 criteria being judgment calls. I’m satisfied that they’re clear enough to be useful.
Do you have to be giddy over other people’s suffering?
I’d call that comment reportable — and in fact I reported it
If it's reportable (or more accurately, sanctionable) then I hope the ones in the second-to-last open thread, saying everything Hamas has done is right because it's "their land", are too. From the perspective of being sensitive to "other people's suffering", applying consistent standards to the celebration of such suffering seems particularly important.
I couldn't even stand to read a lot of that stuff. But if people were making substantive points and backing them up with reasons they believed what they did their comments were at least attempts to advance the argument. And if they were civil in how they expressed their ideas (so no "hahaha") I'd say those were legit comments, however painful to read by some others.
I guess I don't share the impression here that this comment is not substantive. It seems clear to me what it's saying, which could be rephrased as "hey, remember all the crowds celebrating Israeli deaths? Guess it's not so funny when your own people are dying is it? How'd you like it if I laughed now? You wouldn't, you sadistic sociopathic scum!"
The "hahahaha" comes off as sarcastic to me. Moreover, my paraphrase fits your above criteria I think, unless you think "sadistic sociopathic scum" isn't an accurate (or indeed, enormously understated) description of the people in those marches.
Here are Scott’s criteria for acceptable comments in his own words. “ If you make a comment here, it had better be either true and necessary, true and kind, or kind and necessary.
Recognizing that nobody can be totally sure what is or isn’t true, if you want to say something that might not be true – anything controversial, speculative, or highly opinionated – then you had better make sure it is both kind and necessary. Kind, in that you don’t rush to insult people who disagree with you. Necessary in that it’s on topic, and not only contributes something to the discussion but contributes more to the discussion than it’s likely to take away through starting a fight.
Nobody can be kind all the time, but if you are going to be angry or sarcastic, what you say had better be both true and necessary. You had better be delivering a very well-deserved smackdown against someone who is uncontroversially and obviously wrong, in a way you can back up with universally agreed-upon statistics. I feel like I tried this here and though a lot of people disagreed with my tone, not one person accused me of getting the math wrong. That’s the standard I’m holding commenters to as well. And it had better be necessary, in that you are quashing a false opinion which is doing real damage and which is so persistent that you don’t think any more measured refutation would be effective.
Annnnnnd sometimes you might want to share something that’s not especially relevant, not the most important thing in the world – but if you do that it had better be both true and kind. No random interjection of toxic opinions that are going to cause World War III. No unprovoked attacks.”
I leave it to you to make your own decision about whether the comment I reported or the ones in the earlier thread you found offensive meet Scott’s criteria for acceptable comments. If you think they do not they by all means report them.
You know, “remember all the crowds celebrating Israeli deaths? Guess it's not so funny when your own people are dying is it?” - the way you worded it - sounds angry but totally acceptable to me. Angry is fine, warranted in this case. But there’s something really different and disgusting in the tone of the original. Probably the hahaha bit cinches it.
There’s a difference, I think. “Hamas did nothing wrong” is an abhorrent position, but compare it with “Hamas did great, look at all these Jewish tears, hahaha” - makes it ten times worse. Humans respond to emotions, and giddy happiness about others’ suffering is disgusting.
The statements within quotation marks are examples only and do not reflect in any way this commenter’s views on the matter.
Giddy happiness about others' suffering is exactly what's been expressed all over the world by pro-Palestinian people. Those people were highly numerous, unprovoked, and unspeakably evil. Here we have a single person, commenting *in response* to those masses, and you're saying that's beyond the pale?
Maybe if the former faced some actual consequences for their sadism, I might agree.
If expressing giddy happiness about someone's suffering is evil if done by a group, why would it be OK if done by an individual?
Or, to put it another way: Verbally dancing and gloating about the suffering of people who have done something evil is wrong for the same reason as it would have been wrong to drag bin Laden's body through American streets by a rope until there was nothing left but the rope.
> Giddy happiness about others' suffering is exactly what's been expressed all over the world by pro-Palestinian people.
That's no reason to post a response to them *here*.
I can’t right all wrongs. I can’t go after every sociopath in the world. I can’t help all suffering people. I can’t pull all weeds, but I can try to keep my garden tended.
Yeah I did too. I can’t even….
I have trained with some pretty badass ex-military guys… none of them would ever be like this. It’s almost like the ones who are safely couch-surfing are the most obnoxious in their bloodthirstiness.
I've known since I was a child that no one really understands how much of the participatory internet is teenage boys. Even here.
Yes, this one does in fact smell like teen spirit.
I tried to write up a simple summary of heuristic/intuitive reasoning vs. explicit/algorithmic reasoning and how it applies to human and machine learning. Nothing groundbreaking, just a high-level summary of what most ACX readers will already be familiar with. I'd be interested in getting some feedback on it.
https://outsidetheasylum.blog/the-hidden-complexity-of-thought/
Have seen a lot of comments from people online questioning the authenticity of the crimes reported on October 7th.
Someone did a deep dive on most of the videos and pictures uploaded to X (Twitter) to see what was likely true or false- it also speculates on the fate of Shani Louk (the girl who's body was apparently seen in the back of a truck with two broken legs). Have a look and see what you think!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qpk2asgZzGitpLSq1B0h4LGpcRizGUER/mobilebasic
It does not discuss the allegation of beheaded babies, which seems to be a point of contention. The original claim, that around 40 babies were killed in a kibbutz and that some of them were beheaded- has not explicitly been verified. That said, it does appear that some babies were beheaded, though it is not clear whether they were from the kibbutz being discussed at the time, nor whether the beheading was after death or not:
https://themedialine.org/top-stories/evidence-on-display-at-israels-forensic-pathology-center-confirms-hamas-atrocities/
My first reaction is that this google doc is a valuable addition to the documentation surrounding the war. Despite the obvious biased stance it takes in the first few lines, not noticing the irony of justifying civilian deaths with civilian deaths, bias doesn't mean false. It fact, it might be a good thing for this to be an adversarial collab, where openly biased people from both sides take turns to collect evidence and to poke reasonable holes in the other "teams"'s evidence.
A very obvious red flag about this is its direct linking to X for the evidence collected. X requires an account and treats non-account viewers as second class, removes material without notice and without recourse, is paternalistic ("This image is sensitive content" without even giving me the choice to see it anyway), and might vanish or have a catastrophic data loss at any time. I wouldn't trust any social media platform with anything important, much less war crime evidence. There are archive links but X is actively making it harder to scrape their website, which I think Archiving websites rely on, and videos, the most damning and convincing evidence, are ignored by all archiving services I know.
If you're active in the forum or community this was posted in, please advise the poster to collect all evidence and put it in the same google drive folder, and present all links in triplicate.
This moved me in the direction that Hamas killed at least 1/2 of the casualty toll that Israel cites. With original images (downloaded from Twitter) available, one can actually look at the metadata that phone cameras put in the image and examine the geotags and timestamps, for further confirmation this is was taken where and when it's claimed.
None of this is impossible to fake, the world can benefit a lot in this day and age from special world-trusted cameras and recording devices that embeds cryptographically-signed tags in the files it produces. But I think most of this is true regardless, Hamas are jihadis after all.
> That said, it does appear that some babies were beheaded
It's a bit of stretch to say this entirely based on the claim of a single Israeli forensic official whose country is at war and have 0 substantiating evidence. The crime described is not light and we have no evidence of a single jihadi group ever contemplating it, even ISIS. Hamas can still be monsters if they didn't commit this, so I don't know why Israeli authorities is determined to keep spreading this claim and expecting the world to take them entirely at their words.
I was able to view at least one one of the archival X/Twitter posts without having a Twitter account.
Edit: also, while it is good to be critical, one should also then examine the documented biases of various news outlets and their reporting on the other side of this conflict, and subject various evidence from that other side to scrutiny in your pursuit of the facts of any given atrocity. Not saying you don't do that, but fairness would require avoiding "isolated demands for vigor".
Yes, I was able to view too, several ones in fact. I just want everything to be viewable without an account, preferably including replies and retweets. This is a lot of effort but I think documenting war crimes is one of the few things that justify it. I also worry about the fickleness of a profit-based social media platform owned by a notoriously childish and fickle owner, for any reason ranging from the EU throwing a tantrum to not enough server space to the posters deleting or restricting their accounts, all of those links could disappear tomorrow. I don't want that.
> fairness would require avoiding "isolated demands for rigor
No disagreement here. Although adversarial collaboration can turn the isolated demand for rigor from 2 sides into a single uniform demand for rigor, it's good for anyone to internalize the narratives and grievances of both sides even if they clearly favor one over the other.
Thanks for the links. Gruesome, but it is worthwhile to have matter-of-fact documentation.
Another thing I've noticed about coverage of the Gaza vs Ukraine war: you never see photos of casualties in the Ukraine war. You always see photos of casualties in the Gaza war.
Every time there's a piece of rubble in Gaza, Associated Press photographers are always rushing to the scene to find someone willing to look distraught for the camera.
Good luck finding pictures of fighting age men injured or anyone holding a gun in Gaza. The media there is obviously tightly controlled. They have been caught in the past staging photos, placing toys on top of rubble piles, having the same woman wailing in front of a collapsed building in two different locations, etc.
There is plenty of real tragedy to photograph in these places so one wonders why they need to invent or amplify it. One needs to be a bit skeptical in media consumption. Most major news organization have no people in Gaza and only use locally hired people. This can have advantages but may also mean a lot of bias.
I have noted that the entirety of the media has changed from "Palestinian Health Authorities" to "Hamas controlled Gaza Health Authorities, these numbers cannot be verified" over the past several days. We know we cannot trust Ukrainian or Russian casualty numbers, I don't know why we thought we could ever trust Hamas.
What bothers me about the coverage is that the media frequently report Hamas claims as facts in the headline of the story, only qualify it as "Gaza health ministry says" or similar terms in the body. As best I can tell we simply don't know how many people got killed in Gaza in total or as the result of any particular Israeli strike.
Their numbers are surprisingly low - fewer than 1 per airstrike. In past wars it’s been 0.25 per airstrike. That makes me think that they’re usually more reliable than they were after the hospital parking lot blast.
Also, even if civilians are killed in an Israeli strike, that may not invariably mean the Israelis are wholly or even primarily responsible.
As a hypothetical example, a hospital is an ideal place to store an arms cache or an ammo dump. It is a large building, with lots of staff and strangers wandering around, and extensive basements and locked rooms. Even entire locked sections of floors are not unusual and little remarked on, especially in an "ask no questions and you'll be told no lies" environment where curiosity is frowned on!
A small Israeli precision guided bomb intended, say, to clobber a Hamas meeting known to be taking place in a certain room may set off a cache of explosives piled to the rafters in an adjacent room! So whose fault is it then if the entire hospital collapses in a heap of rubble killing dozens?
"may set off a cache of explosives piled to the rafters in an adjacent room" Reminiscent of why the Parthenon looks as it does today, from a similar event back in 1687 https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/parthenon-blown
I have heard no reporting on Hamas using civilians, even children, as shields, as I understood they have done in the past. A quick Googling finds at least SOME reporting on it, though I cannot vouch for the source, as it is apparently reported by Israel: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12660873/Hamas-Israel-satellite-images.html
The New York Times reports (behind a paywall) that using human shields is a war crime, and so does the Red Cross: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule97
Is it any wonder that civilians are killed in a war when the home team is putting them in harm's way? Should not Hamas shoulder some of the blame and guilt for their deaths?
A year or two ago the BBC (British Broadcasting Caliphate) set up a department called BBC Verify (or "BBC Vilify" as some cynical people call it). As its name suggests, they claimed the aim was to counter rife disinformation by showing only news whose veracity had been rigorously checked and was thus beyond question.
Within minutes of the recent hospital bombing in Gaza, this wretched Verify department gleefully published a news item saying the Israelis were responsible, having obviously taken the Hamas account at face value, and I think it was several days before they deigned to correct it.
This isn't the first time Verify news has later been proved wrong, and quite possibly wilfully misrepresenting facts to suit their agenda. What arrogance of the BBC to claim they are ultimate arbiters of the truth, when in truth they are just one more MSM outlet peddling leftist globalist propaganda!
The BBC have also been obstinately reluctant to call Hamas terrorists, despite having used that term in the past for all kinds of groups with far less murderous intent. When mentioning Hamas now, the BBC still avoid their dreaded t word, by using the smartass evasive qualification "who the Government claims are terrorists".
You statement that the BBC set up BBC Verify “a year or two ago” appears to be inaccurate: https://www.newscaststudio.com/2023/05/23/bbc-verify-launch/
More seriously, your claim that BBC Verify “published a news item saying the Israelis were responsible” requires substantiation. The BBC Verify article on the blast says no such thing: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
That article has been updated, but the original version also describes the findings as “inconclusive.” https://web.archive.org/web/20231018142123/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
While it's hard to prove a negative, I searched to see if BBC Verify had written an earlier article about the blast, and didn't find one. Here is a list of BBC Verify articles: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/reality_check
> You statement that the BBC set up BBC Verify “a year or two ago” appears to be inaccurate
Mea culpa, I should have said "not long ago" :-)
> the original version also describes the findings as “inconclusive.”
The page was first saved by the Wayback Machine some 14 minutes since its initial appearance. So in theory there was a short window to pop in a disclaimer before that earliest WM snapshot. But I would concede it may have been present in the article from the outset.
Also, the BBC have been frantically updating the article for the last six days, and the latest version lists several authors, as opposed to the original version's one. So that suggests (although again with no firm proof) that they are obviously smarting over previous accusations of bias in too readily accepting, or at least emphasising, Hamas's account.
Seems like the usual "who will fact-check the fact-checkers?" problem.
Civilians are still killed in Ukraine every day: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67185216
I'm sure they are, but I don't see pictures of wailing Ukranian mothers all over my newsfeed.
It's a different culture. Not so much wailing.
True, that. Sadly, the war is a background now. Ukrainians are still killed every day, but it's been over 600 of these days now. It is sort of rational: the amount of information is log2(1/P), so when an event becomes very likely - a Ukrainian will very likely be killed today - there's little new information delivered. So, not front-page stuff.
Yes, it could be that the cabal of Associated Press photographers are in on a conspiracy to portray the Gaza war in a certain light, but lets instead try applying Occam's razor here:
Ukraine has over 100x the land area as Gaza. Gaza is densely populated and brimming with people whereas Ukraine is relatively sparsely populated for a European country. I'd wager that in Ukraine, civilians have usually been evacuated from the frontlines long before it has been bombed by the Russians. If there were any Ukrainian civilians left you bet the press photographers would capitalise on their presence. Whereas in Gaza since there is very little land for Palestinian civilians to move to safety to, there is usually distraught civilians present at a given Israeli bombing, hence the photographers jump on the opportunity to get them in the frame.
The vast majority of the bombings in the Russia-Ukraine war occur within miles of the frontlines, whereas in Gaza the bombings are occurring across the absolute north to the absolute south of the country.
Reuters has a good interactive map showing the bombardment coverage:
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/MAPS/zjvqedgdjvx/
> Whereas in Gaza since there is very little land for Palestinian civilians to move to safety to
There's specified safe zones, Hamas is actively preventing people from going to them because they want them as human shields. Gaza is denser than Ukraine, but it's not so dense that it's impossible to evacuate civilians from the warzone if you try.
Except Associated Press journalists *are* in cahoots with Hamas. Not because they like Hamas, but because 1) Hamas wouldn't let them operate in Gaza if they portray Hamas in a negative light, and 2) Hamas uses the media as human shields. In 2021, Associated Press acted outraged when Israel struck their building for harboring Hamas intelligence assets:
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/15/997124491/israeli-airstrike-in-gaza-destroys-building-with-ap-bureau
Did Associated Press not know their building was a Hamas spy nest? If they didn't, why should we trust anything they say, since they're incompetent? If they did and didn't say anything about it to keep their access to Gaza, why should we trust anything they say, since they're in cahoots with Hamas?
Thread from a former reporter and editor for AP: https://twitter.com/MattiFriedman/status/1393884508261322755.
Notably:
>a conversation with a friend who is intimately familiar with military decision-making right now suggests there were indeed Hamas offices there.
In this article: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ap-collaboration-nazis-reporting-news, he discusses AP's long history of partnering with despotic regimes, such as Nazi Germany and North Korea, and lying about those relationships.
>in the mid-1930s, the AP’s photo office in Germany...ended up as a Nazi information arm in all but name...
>people like Franz Roth—who was, we learn from Scharnberg’s report, simultaneously an “AP photographer, SS-Oberscharführer (senior squad leader)...
>After the war, the AP rehired one of its staffers who had joined the Waffen SS and employed him until he retired in 1978
As far as North Korea:
>The “bureau” in Pyongyang...was not staffed by AP reporters from outside the country: The full-time staffers were North Koreans who were paid by AP but answered to the regime
As far as their reporting in Gaza, he notes how they followed Hamas dictates in their reporting:
>The most relevant example from my own experience as an AP correspondent in Jerusalem between 2006 and 2011 is Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, and where the AP has a sub-bureau. Running that sub-bureau requires both passive and active cooperation with Hamas. To give one example of many, during the Israel-Hamas war that erupted at the end of 2008, our local Palestinian reporter in Gaza informed the news desk in Jerusalem that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and were being counted as civilians in the death toll—a crucial detail. A few hours later, he called again and asked me to strike the detail from the story...someone had clearly spoken to him, and the implication was that he was at risk...the bureau chief at the time confirmed it, adding that a refusal to comply would have put our reporter’s life in danger.
From that moment on, more or less, AP’s coverage from Gaza became a quiet collaboration with Hamas.
I think this is unfair. Journalists know they have to follow the rules of rulers of a territory to operate but except in the case of editorial control (e.g. North Korea) the reasoning seems to be that access to the story is worth accepting some constraints. I think the error is in not indicating the constraints in reporting, but AP don't produce the stories.
Sometimes, not reporting anything is better than serving propaganda on behalf of a terrorist group. Also, if the AP said what you said, I'd have a lot more sympathy for them. Instead, they said:
"We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP's bureau and other news organizations in Gaza."
And: "This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life"
Even though: "AP staffers and other tenants safely evacuated the building after the military telephoned a warning that the strike was imminent within an hour."
AP was lying through their teeth about their relationship with Hamas. Why should I believe anything else they say?
I'm not madly inclined to defend AP, but having less than hour to get everyone out of a building falls into my acceptable definition of narrowly avoiding loss of life. Especially if you're one of the people in the building.
On the other hand, I think the fact they have offices and staff (a bureau I guess) in Gaza rather than just reporters might be the main issue here. Reporters being unable to access the full story is acceptable, but accepting this to the degree you have a permanent presence with some form of registered existence (because Hamas aren't going to have just anyone hire offices) is questionable. That does imply some accomodation with the Hamas regime and that's a slippery slope. So if you focus on the implications of opening a permanent presence in a regime managed by terrorists (active, not reformed) then I think I share those concerns.
I dunno, I'd expect them to be able to evacuate much faster than 1 hour if someone pulled a fire alarm. (Assuming the building even has such a thing, but the principle still stands.) So from that perspective, all the complaints are about "stuff" and not "life", and every minute between "minimum needed to evacuate" and "1 hour" is a gift.
Access to a FAKE story - that's the whole point!
A partial story. I'm ambiguous about the practice of allowing journalists to work under supervision of tyrannical governments, but I don't think it produces fake news so much as news that is presented in one way. That information is coming from a non-democratic source (which is not therefore directly liable for lying to it's people) should however be stressed even if it was provided by western journalists. I don't think AP are in error so much as those using their reports in not indicating the limitations on reporting lying behind this.
The other option is that Israel targeted it because it was the AP. They obviously did target it, because they blamed the existence of the Hamas cell.
Hamas is at a very large technical military disadvantage here, so I would expect them to use every tool at their disposal. Ethical lines probably don't play much of a role for them in this asymmetric warfare. I would believe that Hamas utilized a building they believe was safe from airstrikes, the AP knew about it and looked the other way, and that Israel found out about it (perhaps through a rogue AP journalist) and specifically targeted it.
That doesn't seem likely though does it? If Israel had a problem of that level with AP we'd presumably notice since they'd ban the from their territory.
So I could be buying individual 10 Treasuries with about a 5% return right now? And assuming interest rates fall, I could potentially sell them for a profit before the 10 years is up? Seems like a pretty good investment? I do understand interest rate risk, if they were to climb higher, and I do understand the opportunity cost if equities somehow soar higher despite rates staying relatively high (but this seems unlikely?)
Has anyone here ever sold individual Treasury bonds? The process seems rather intimidating, and the commissions a bit opaque
Has anyone here ever sold individual Treasury bonds?
All the time now, but mostly on the short end (<1 year). It is fairly easy to do through a brokerage. If you have money to lock up for years, 10-year Treasuries look attractive as a part of a balanced portfolio.
Legal disclaimer: not investment advice.
Yes, you can buy 10-year Treasurys at about 5%. If you have normal brokerage account (Vanguard, Schwab, etc.) it is very simple to buy (either at auction or on the secondary market) and sell these. Generally they are very liquid, but selling one or two bonds (they are in $1,000 increments) might be a little fraught during times of great uncertainty if you need money immediately.
I will not comment on the suitability for your personal situation, but do note that yields are certainly not guaranteed to go down. Personally I am buying long-term TIPS at >2.5% real return for 20 or 30 years to ensure inflation-protected retirement income.
I have a friend who is extremely anxious about AI negative outcomes to the effect that it is causing problems in everyday life. I want to recommend that he talks to a professional, but I'm worried that some of them might treat it as an irrational fear rather than a rational one, and I don't think that would work for him at all. Any advice?
I intended to write something calming about rational versus irrational fears, and then I saw this:
https://textwith.me/jesus/
ChatGPT simulating Jesus Christ. God damn it.
I don't know who to be upset at most, or even if I should blame the Protestants, but feck it, I'm gonna blame the Protestants (and their Work Ethic which invented, so I am told, Capitalism which produced this thing).
I feel like that part in "The Producers": 'Go! Buy bullets! Shoot them all!'
Tell your friend that *this* is what he should fear from AI in everyday life, and if we manage to escape the end of the world, it'll be because God held off on the smiting, not because of being turned into paperclips. BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!!!
EDIT: Dear big huge commercial entities, will you cool it on trying to get me to worship AI? Huh? Please? This is just blatant, at this stage. "Oh hey, wanna talk with Jesus? Don't need to pray, the AI will do it for you!" Talking with the AI is just like (in a way) talking with God! All hail our new AI overlords!
Look, bad and all as I am, I am not switching to worshipping Mammon. I'm Catholic, I can indulge in our own brand of idolatry any time I want, just ask your potential Evangelical customers.
I'm reminded of the bit in _Past Master_ where the Programmed Mechanical People in Past Master turn out to have minds that are empty and ready to be taken over by demons.
Their picture of Jesus looks too much like Jeff Bridges in "The Big Lebowski" for me...
I do have to laugh at how the Reformation criticism of "graven images" eventually faded away to the point that the heirs of the various denominations have now adopted milquetoast versions of Catholic iconography.
They can't have images like the Sacred Heart, dear me no! That's idolatrous!
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-sacred-heart-of-jesus-old-master.html?product=poster
But light-haired blue-eyed Jesus in a robe (so long as it's white not red or blue) - that's different. Mind you, I can't mock that *too* hard, as a lot of it is the same kind of Italian versions of 'light haired blue eyed' Catholic imagery, so the Protestants adopting it wholesale because that's what they're copying is understandable:
https://todayscatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sacred_heart_of_jesus.jpg
The Divine Mercy imagery in different versions is much closer to the neater Protestant imagery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSB7uiE7sTA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Mercy_image#Hy%C5%82a_painting
MAN UP AND GO FULL ICONOGRAPHY, OR GO HOME! 😁
You might find it reassuring that the app only has 19 comments. Looks like very few people are using it.
I was going to say, "See, that's what you get for believing in a religion with so many adherents", but then I looked at the FAQ-- it's a treasure-- and it includes Old Testament figures, even Satan. It won't be Jewish versions, but still.
It's a consolation, but not enough of a consolation, that LLMs seem incapable of producing anything memorable. This may not be true forever.
I've been saying for a while that the big hazard from LLMs is adding bullshit to the information stream.
"the big hazard from LLMs is adding bullshit to the information stream"
I agree that this is a near-term hazard, and it could be a large one.
Ironically, I expect that the damage from LLM bullshit and the adverse effects of LLMs on the job market are probably anti-correlated. The better the solutions to hallucinations get, the less of a problem AI bullshit (or, at least, _inadvertent_ bullshit) will be, but the larger the set of jobs AI can replace people in becomes.
Covering all the bases! I'm not sure that "life advice from Satan" is the greatest idea, though 😁
This is part of why I find the AI worries difficult to take seriously. I mean, yeah widespread implementation of AI is going to have a massive effect on work and life, but this is the kind of money-spinning crap and not 'agentic AI wants to achieve its goals and will sneakily paperclip us all' that is going to be the thing impacting society adversely.
I think this is worse, but I'm not religious.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ai-artificial-intelligence-government-b2434850.html
Revealed: Government using AI to decide on benefits and driving licences
That's exactly what I'd expect AI to be used for, and the kind of ways it can go wrong because of humans handing over decision-making power, or even just as in these cases getting the AI to do the combing through the data to suggest what should be decided upon.
Literally laughed out loud! Thank you!
I think anyone should talked with a few therapist before choosing one, so he could ask the therapist about this in the interview to see how they would deal with it.
This lesswrong post might be helpful: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pLLeGA7aGaJpgCkof/mental-health-and-the-alignment-problem-a-compilation-of
i wonder if it may be the reverse; the anxiety expresses itself through an idea not the idea causes anxiety. Like a healthy person can believe in paperclip satan but his response is either to functionally ignore it or to do what he can with his ability to mitigate with it. A depressed person may not even believe the idea in a sense. Like a checking ritual isnt believed, its experienced.
i dont know, id hope the psych would just focus on anxiety as opposed to arguing ideas. i mean not all anxiety is idea first i guess; sometimes it can come from absurd things. Oh, you didnt get any email yesterday, you must be hacked! Debating that may not help at all.
(i worry i suffer from mild cases of anxiety and ocd; i grew up before the ideas were commonplace, and i do see forms of it. my non pro advice.)
I'm pretty sure emotions drive thought as well as thought driving emotions.
There was a time when I couldn't get the holocaust off my mind. It seemed like I would bring up the holocaust in every free-form conversation.
It wasn't that the holocaust was depressing me. Eventually depression lifted on its own and then I wasn't obsessive about the holocaust.
Have you found approaches that help you? Or found a therapist who was able to help?
i havent made enough money for most of my life that i could afford one, and im not formally diagnosed. i think i only entertained the idea as mental illness became more open in the public eye. in the 80s therapy was something rich kids went to when their parents divorced. Therapy was seen as quackery or the butt of jokes. "Tell us about your Id when you was a kid," Bugs Bunny said. Therapy was something you saw on TV, really. The modern openness to it is a good thing overall.
idk if i could give advice. im mild if anything. i mean i cold turkeyed caffeine and that helped. I think telling myself "I understand and will monitor the problem, if it persists ill do something about it later" helps with some body-related fears. Like acknowledge the worry and procrastinate it? Or distract myself by a brief walk.
but i still think "oh i left the door open" when closing at work many times and immediately turn back halfway to the lot to check, or overreact to a minor crisis (get nerves and assume the worst). Like the default response is catastrophe if i get an unexpected event happens.
honestly i need to get therapy this coming year.
Is he a technical person ? And by technical I don't mean able to work in AI, but can he watch something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrdevFK_am4 and broadly nod his head along to most of the things said ?
The response to Covid (not so much the Feb/Mar 2020 response, but afterwards) fundamentally shattered my confidence in the liberal establishment when it comes to public health & effective messaging.
Similarly, while I was already disdainful of most social progressives, their response to the Black Saturday attacks has shown me that they are both morally bankrupt & have achieved doublethink nirvana. The words "genocide", "apartheid", and "war-crime" no longer have any consistent meaning for them.
For a group that talks a lot about The Science™️, leftists sure do accept the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis uncritically. At least to their credit, while they believe this pseudoscientific about "words determining thought", they sure prove they believe it by waging war on the accepted definitions of words when those definitions are inconvenient.
Yeah. It was horrifying when I realized that what I had thought were principled reasons and policy choices, were actually just a bunch of hairless plains apes flapping their mouth meat to reinforce tribal identity.
I moved on from morally bankrupt all the way to profoundly unserious.
Much of this seems performative for peer review.
This same thing happened for me a while ago, and it's caused me some real existential trust issues.
Now that I know that the BBC, for example, is a lying pack of rotten liars - how I deal with it when they publish new information? I have to discount things based on what I estimate their preferences to be - that human interest story about a puffin who saves a kid is probably not slanted, but any culture piece is going to be subtly pushing sensibilities the BBC wants me to have, and anything *really* important is 100% missing the other side of the story (but which side is that?).
Of course the first thing a *clever* pack of rotten liars would do is lie to me about their real preferences. And even if they don't, repeating a lie over and over again is powerful enough to get the job done by itself; it doesn't matter what I think of them if I have no other source to compare them to.
The establishment has been pretty quick to start hitting unfriendly sources with the "misinformation" stamp, which apart from making it hard for me to find trustworthy info separately (and I have a real life to prioritise instead you know), also makes it impossible to call on even if I do, because everyone I speak to has already been cued to attack me for reading the wrong things. And of course: the more time you devote to reading things and verifying them online, the *easier* it is for the rest of the world to decide you're a conspiracy theorist.
I realise that "empiricism" is a far more limited domain than scientists have lead us to believe. Can the results of a supercollider experiment be considered empirical? We can't build our own experiment to check, so we're forced to trust these nice convincing scientists with all their numbers written down and all their peers backing them up. And you can't question the efficacy of that system in public either.
The current liberal church has done me the favour of lying about gender and not about quantum physics, but that's a quirk of fortune, Goddammit, and has nothing to do with the principles at stake.
Apartheid is a system of segregation and discrimination based on race. Virtually every facet of Palestinian life is controlled the Israeli government, and they aren't even treated as "second class citizens". Gaza has been under almost complete blockade for 16 years, with no one leaving or entering with out IDF permission. The west-bank is shrinking every year as Settlers move in and violently oust Palestinians who have no legal protection. Its not crazy to call that Apartheid.
Genocide is the deliberate killing of large numbers of people from a nation or ethnic group with the intention of eliminating that nation or ethnicity. Israel has essentially imprisoned 2.8 million people in gaza, while slowly but steadily encroaching on the west bank, building settlements and making people homeless. 80% of people in Gaza live in poverty. and because of the blockade people die extremely early. Half of Gaza is under 18, 70% is under 30. There are quite a few historical reasons that putting millions of people from a single ethnic group into a small, heavily guarded area and restricting access to food and water might be considered genocidal.
Finally, War crimes:
"No protected person may be punished for any offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property is prohibited."
Hamas are an evil terrorist organisation and what happened is abhorrent but should the average Palestinian be punished for this? What is the exchange rate between the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians? As of right now, 5000 Palestinians are dead (2000 of which are children) and 15,000 injured. Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis. When does it end?
From the history of my own country, this is like the British government levelling 20 Derrys for the crimes of the IRA
>Genocide is the deliberate killing of large numbers of people from a nation or ethnic group with the intention of eliminating that nation or ethnicity. Israel has essentially imprisoned 2.8 million people in gaza, while slowly but steadily encroaching on the west bank, building settlements and making people homeless. 80% of people in Gaza live in poverty. and because of the blockade people die extremely early. Half of Gaza is under 18, 70% is under 30. There are quite a few historical reasons that putting millions of people from a single ethnic group into a small, heavily guarded area and restricting access to food and water might be considered genocidal.
The claim of genocide is clearly wrong on it's face: not only does Israel make efforts to minimize civilian casualties, which would be counterproductive if their goal is to wipe out the Palestinians, there is a significant Palestinian population in Israel who are citizens with full rights and that Israel makes no effort to contain or eliminate. Nor has Israel placed the West Bank with it's substantial population of Palestinians under similar blockades or restrictions as it has Gaza.
This clearly seems to fit with the idea that the reason Gaza is blockaded is not because Israel wants to commit genocide on Palestinians, but because the people of Gaza are a significant security risk to Israel: as evidenced by the constant rocket attacks, terrorist strikes, and more recently the events of 10/7. These facts don't fit at all with the proposal that Israel is commiting genocide.
About a fifth of the population of Israel consists of Arabs who are full citizens, so it isn't an apartheid system, it's discrimination between citizens and non-citizens, practiced by most or all countries. Is it apartheid when Arab countries refuse citizenship to Palestinians, some of whom have been resident for two or three generations?
How do you know how many Palestinians are dead? The only source seems to be Hamas, which has an obvious incentive to lie and demonstrably did lie about the hospital explosion, since the hospital is still there and the explosion was in a parking lot a couple of blocks away.
As I understand it, Israel in the past blocked weapons coming into Gaza. I don't think they prevented people from leaving. So not a prison.
Isn’t this preventing people from leaving?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
The blockade is making it very difficult for people to leave Gaza, but that's not the same as *Israel* preventing people from leaving. Israel is preventing people from entering Israel, which is of course their right. But it's also possible for people to leave Gaza by entering Egypt, and Israel has very little say over that. It just turns out that the Egyptians don't want any Gazans running around their country any more than the Israelis do.
It's not actually clear what would happen if someone were to send an empty boat to Gaza and embark some refugees for some other Mediterranean shore; I don't think anyone has tried. Boats loaded with supplies for Hamas-occupied Gaza get turned back, for obvious reasons. And I'm skeptical that there's any Mediterranean nation that really wants a bunch of Gazans running around; they've already got more refugees than they can handle from e.g. Libya.
The wikipedia article says that Israel maintains a naval blockade and that fishing is restricted to a very narrow area. I assume that also prevents people from leaving.
Of course countries don’t want refugees but that doesn’t prevent them from coming.
Is Mexico under an apartheid regime because the United States has a border with them that they (nominally) enforce? Is it an "open-air prison"?
> because of the blockade people die extremely early
What was their life expectancy like before the blockade?
And Can you point to other examples of Muslim countries without oil that have ever been prosperous?
Why did the blockade start?
> Israel has essentially imprisoned 2.8 million people in gaza
Has Switzerland essentially imprisoned Liechtenstein?
> putting millions of people from a single ethnic group into a small, heavily guarded area and restricting access to food and water
So, by "putting" you mean Israelis not ethnically cleansing themselves and handing over their land to the Palestinians? Or are you claiming Israel put Palestinians into Gaza?
And by "restricting access to food and water," you mean "not giving Gaza food and water handouts"? Why would it be Israel's responsibility to give free food and water handouts to Gaza when they're independently controlled by Hamas?
> should the average Palestinian be punished for this?
Any punishment that falls on the average Palestinian can be blamed directly on Hamas.
How does Israel have a border with a country they don't acknowledge as being sovereign in the same way as US has with Mexico?
Mexico is a large sovereign state with many other borders than the US one (and guarding which is considerably controversial in the US) and the Swiss-Lichtenstein border is open. So your examples don’t illustrate whatever point you are trying to make.
I'm going to question the many other borders thing here. Mexico has one more border than Gaza. And the point was not about Gaza (which has a coastline so isn't dependent on land borders) but about Israel which has the right to close its borders.
Ok, Mexico has one more international land border than Gaza. I should have said Mexico has many points of exit and entry besides the US border. Besides of course Mexico is a very large country so comparing Mexico to an open air prison is ludicrous.
Gaza is under blockade by Israel and Egypt. Israel blockades them also by sea. So it isn’t just about Israel’s right to close its borders.
Indeed not. It's about the fact that Gaza is controlled by a group that is explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the export of violent Islamic thought. If Hamas were removed so would be the blockade. Note that the West Bank is not blockaded in the same way, which should be a hint this isn't just about Palestinians but something more specific.
Would you want Hamas, with their strong Islamic State vibe, ruling the territory next door to you? If they were would you be happy with an open border? I'm happy to admit there's plenty of Israelis.who like having an excuse to close off Gaza and even attack it: but that there are bad people in Israel doesn't mean the policy need be wrong. As 7th October shows, there are evil people in charge of Gaza, and we presumably want to contain and defeat evil?
"Blaming Hamas for all Palestinian children’s deaths sounds very similar to Al Qaeda blaming the US government for all deaths on 9/11"
Israel attacks military targets which Hamas has chosen to locate in civilian areas. This inevitably leads to some civilian casualties, but legally and probably morally these are the fault of Hamas for choosing to operate in military areas. Nobody has suggested a credible way in which Israel could defeat Hamas while causing fewer civilian casualties.
In contrast, the WTC on 9/11 was a civilian target, the intent was to kill as many civilians as possible, while causing no military harm. Targeting civilians vs targeting the military is a black and white difference.
The Pentagon on 9/11 was a military target, it would have been legitimate for al Qaeda to target it, but they should have used a cargo plane or something rather than a loaded airliner.
Either you’re over 55-65 ... and have personally seen this same thing going on for over 40 years with PLO hijackings, suicide bombings of busses, Olympic attacks, repeatedly turning down peace deals, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.. One's perspective might be a bit different here, possibly that of an intractable conflict where Internet newcomers think this is Ted Talk simple, it isn't.
To address just one point you made: Why is it _Israel_ specifically that is imprisoning them in Gaza and not Egypt, who controls the other border and presumably is also preventing them from crossing? It seems that Israel actually doesn't care at all whether or not they stay in Gaza (which is implied by a term like "imprisoned") and instead just doesn't want them to come into Israel.
Previous egyptian governments also didn't let Gazans in, so there's not much point in arguing about a specific egyptian government.
What does any of that have to do with the fact that Israel does not control all the borders of Gaza and that therefore, blaming them for imprisonment doesn't even make sense? Is the American government "imprisoning" people who want to, but are not allowed to, cross the southern border? If your answer to that is "yes" then you and I have a sufficiently different definition of the term "imprison" such that further conversation will not be productive because we are borderline not speaking the same language.
If the Palestinian Authority didn't like those "Bantustan" borders, they shouldn't have agreed to them in the Oslo peace process.
Also, it's not apartheid because Arabs can live and move freely in Israel and the West Bank (Israel has 2 million Arab citizens). The distinction is not between Arabs and Jews, it's between Israeli citizens and non-citizens.
Leftist morality is really its own thing, somewhat orthogonal to other moral systems. I think that's okay, but we really need to identify it as such, isolate it, and formalise it so that we can all understand what we're talking about.
The axioms of leftist morality seem to go something like this (I don't claim this is exact, I'm arguing that we need further study to progress beyond this incredibly vague sketch):
1. There are oppressor groups and oppressed groups, and these are identifiable by [certain characteristics]
2. Anything an oppressor group does to an oppressed group is wrong ("punching down")
3. Anything an oppressed group does to an oppressor group is justified, or the oppressor's fault anyway ("punching up")
Sometimes these axioms line up with the conclusions of other moral systems, like in Star Wars movies. But sometimes they don't, like in a lot of real life.
The real trouble comes from the fact that leftists refuse to admit that they're simply using different moral axioms, and instead try to pretend that their conclusions come from the same moral axioms everyone else is using. We need to isolate "leftism" and treat it as a separate moral system in Philosophy 101.
Oh FFS.
Yeah that is an incredibly vague sketch of what you are conjuring up as the leftist morality. I don't think it's accurate of the mainstream left - think Joe Biden, Gretchen Whitmer or Amy Klobuchar. But it's probably on the nose for the version presented by Fox News.
So I think you are doing a bit of cherry picking here.
Yeah the left has a batshit wing. They always have, and now at the extremes things seems particularly nutty. I'm not talking about Bernie Sanders here, more like Ilhan Omar at her worst.
But really, the batshit wing of the right seems to be in charge of the Republican party in the U.S. right now.
House and Senate Republicans are either in sync with the fact intolerant MAGA right or too spineless say otherwise.
Mitt Romney tells about being approached by others in his party: “I sure wish I could do what you do,” or, “Gosh, I wish I had the constituency you have.”
Romney’s stock response: “There are worse things than losing an election. Take it from somebody who knows.”
He is retiring from the Senate now but he has been paying $5,000 a day to provide security for his family since voted to convict Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
How would you define the set of morals that makes that expenditure necessary?
You aren't at all worried by that craziness?
I think Melvin, like me, is not defining "Leftist" as "left-of-center".
Establishment Democrats are Liberal (in the American sense of the word), not Leftist. And thank god for that, because as you say, the inmates have been running the asylum on the other side of the aisle since 2010.
Agree. Their moral calculus is simple:
1. Identify the most oppressed group in a situation.
2. Decide that this group cannot be wrong or do wrong.
Done!
This was a hella satisfying read.
I'm a leftist and don't agree with any of that. Not that I agree with other leftists about much, but I agree with them enough to not call myself a rightest.
Perhaps these broad categories of left and right are of no use.
Can you stump up some axioms of your own?
I think Melvin's system up there accurately describes a whole bunch of leftists, and I tend to find they're the dumbest and most dogmatic kind of leftists.
But what I also find is that the "smart" leftists - who definitely love to look down on the dumb ones - also very reliably end up going along with all the dumb ones' bullshit.
It looks a lot to me like "smart" leftists follow a progression of refusing to defend (and maybe even half-heartedly attacking) the latest Current Thing coming from the dumb leftists, to accepting it uncritically (and, I suspect, unconsciously) two years later. All the while saying a lot of vague and reasonable sounding words that don't ever cash out to much. (Which, I'm afraid, includes your "Perhaps these broad categories of left and right are of no use.")
If you're able to provide a strong system of your own on command, that gives me a steelman to play with. It's also strong evidence that leftists don't always follow the path I just described.
As a conservative, I find this system also describes many right-wing people, especially the "punching up" part. The feeling seems to be that if you are wronged then it's OK to wrong those that wronged you. This seems to be a cover for hypocrisy.
I do not think left-wing people have a monopoly on this thought process.
It's not axioms, but I think this essay gives a glimpse of the perspective many leftists would ascribe to themselves as their system of evaluation:
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/the-room-and-matt-christman
So, I think that essay is genuine and from the heart, but that person is not looking at society like an engineer. Scale is a problem. Scale is a big problem. Processes that work in a room with 1000 people, rapidly cease to work as you add orders of magnitude to the population. And the increasing scale provides openings for problems that wouldn't exist at smaller scales.
I think a lot of this emphasis on the down and out is spun off the New Testament vision of the world rather than something like Star Wars.
"The meek shall inherit the earth."
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
You know, stuff like that.
If you take that stuff to heart, especially as a young kid, you are halfway to being a socialist. At least that's how it hit me being brought up RC.
I think most leftists would agree that those moral axioms are bad. The problem is, due to biases and the difficulty in determining when an action is justified, we don't know when we're acting by those axioms. Whatever side of an issue you're on, from the inside it looks like your team's actions really are justified.
Your faith in left-of-center politics must previously have been very low indeed.
I know only arithmetic and want to learn maths for computer science and statistics. I tried Basic Mathematics by Serge Lange but it requires too much prerequisite knowledge for me to tackle. Where can I start learning? Thanks
I'm going to focus on the what, rather than the where; somebody else feel free to chime in if I miss a vital step, I'm going on some pretty old memories of the actual prerequisites.
If you want more advanced mathematics, that will be more useful for computer science - I suggest starting with Discrete Mathematics and/or Introductory Proofs. Focus on the language of proofs (should be simple enough if you already know programming, might be your first introduction to some ideas if not, but it's a good place to pick up these ideas if you don't already have them) and basic set theory (what all the set operations mean). Proofs may or may not contain some algebraic knowledge - but you should learn to prove how algebra works before you use it, so you should be good there.
Once you're done there - I recommend going straight to tensors. You could study matrices, but matrices are just tensors with additional rules, and for the ideas there to be really useful, it's better to be prepared to make up your own rules.
For statistics, I recommend beginning the same as above. Once you're done there, you'll need basic algebra, if you didn't pick everything up in proofs; learn specifically the rules for manipulating equations (adding to both sides, multiplying both sides, exponentiating both sides) and fractions. Learn enough about factoring to understand what it is and why it exists, and then continue on - it's honestly not worth learning the grab-bag of tricks to factor, I knew all of them and it's been years since I haven't just asked a computer to do it for me, because factoring is a tedious and somewhat experimental process. (That said, if you like logic puzzles, factoring can sometimes be fun).
With that under your belt, skip geometry (the only thing you need to know is the Cartesian coordinate system, and you probably have enough cultural exposure that you already know it) and trigonometry (although you'll come back to this), and go straight to calculus. Learn what a derivative is, learn what an integral is, learn what a summation is, and learn how to use all of these tools.
Now you're ready to tackle - no, just kidding, you need to circle back around to trigonometry. I think it's better to learn trigonometry after calculus; trigonometry, without the knowledge you gain in Calculus, is just an exercise in memorizing a bunch of functions and identities; a course that should have been deep was instead the most shallow coursework I ever took, an exercise in rote memorization. There might be a good trig book / instructor out there, but I haven't found it / them - instead, learn the relationships of the various trigonometric identities to polar coordinates (polar coordinates are super-intuitive, you should be able to pick this up while trying to understand trigonometry). Also, study the derivatives and integrals of trigonometric functions, and what they mean, and why they are what they are. You should understand what sine, cosine, and tangent are, in relationship to the polar coordinate system, and to each other.
NOW you're ready to tackle statistics. I suggest beginning by following a proof for the bell curve, then try to prove it yourself. You'll need familiarity with integrals, basic proofs, trigonometry, and polar coordinates to get through that. It only gets rougher from there. Statistics was the mathiest math class I took.
Go to archive dot org and find a free textbook starting at a level where you are comfortable.
Go through the book from start to finish, making sure you actually do the problems because there is no substitute for doing the math when you are learning the math.
If you get stuck, go on you tube and find an explainer that makes sense to you. Eddie Woo or the Math Sorcerer are good options off the top of my head, but there are a ton of really excellent videos to help you get unstuck if something just isn't clicking.
How about https://www.khanacademy.org/math
Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the topic of cognitive science? Ideally something that would be accessible for someone making a transition form more pop-science reading on the topic to more serious study. Not for me but for a friend, so can't really be more specific, sorry. Appreciate any recs.
The Matter with Things by Iain McGilchrist
https://www.youtube.com/@DrIainMcGilchrist/videos
Principles of Neural Design by Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin
Principles of Neural Design is very very good
Thank you - this is the sort of thing I'm looking for!
Question for generally pro-Palestine/anti-Israel ACX'rs.
How much, if any, of your support for the Palestinian cause / antipathy to Israel is premised on your belief that the Palestinian struggle in all its forms, (BDS, terrorism, campus activism, art, etc.) is motivated by an earnest desire for peace and prosperity in a sovereign state of their own (at least on the part of a meaningful majority of the people and leadership class)?
And how much would your support / antipathy erode if it became clear to you that in fact they don't really care about that, and are instead mostly motivated by a desire to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state on any large chunk of the land it currently exist on?
I'm okay with either a genuine 2 state (i.e. no IDF occupation/blockades) or a 1 state solution, but prefer the latter.
Living in a secular country, and being hostile to religion in general, I don't see any real value in "having a Jewish state" instead of just having one where suffrage and law isn't linked to religion or religious heritage.
I understand that, given the history of sectarian/ethnic violence in the region, some degree of minority protection is called for, but that can be implemented easily enough in a binational framework, it doesn't require apartheid.
If it's about protecting Jews, moving them all into a war zone that practices conscription is not doing a very good job at that.
There have been plenty of cases in international politics where some conflict has been solved by implementing a compromise that neither side really fundamentally thinks is the solution they want but which they eventually learn to live with.
In my opinion, the most natural compromise - the one most in line with international law - would be a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, or something close to it, with any possible land-swaps being mutually agreed. Whether that's achievable is of course a huge question mark, but so is any other solution, including the continuation of the status quo.
I think that's solvable for the west bank, but not really Gaza - Israel already retreated from Gaza in 2005, but then had to reinstitute a blockade due to constant rocket attacks.
The best solution would be a strong enough PA to wrest the control of Gaza from Hamas, but of course Israel has done absolutely nothing to help build a strong enough PA and indeed keeps humiliating it (through the facilitation and encouragement of continuous West Bank settlement etc) continuously.
I think this stems directly from the OP's question. If the Palestinians just want a land of their own, this seems like a solvable (if difficult) question. If the Palestinians just want Israel gone, then a two state solution will just erode Israel's defenses and make them easier to destroy.
Palestinians would want the same thing in either case, one as a type of ultimate goal (homeland of their own) and the other as an intermediate goal towards a different goal (Israel destroyed). Which goal is the real goal seems like a key question here. Obviously the answer is both - some people will have one goal, others the other, and probably lots have additional different goals. The question still seems valid in determining some kind of majority position or even a True position for the leadership.
As you indicated in the latter sentences, figuring out the "real goal" is a bit of a fruitless effort. Even if you want to find a majority position, majority positions tend to change as situations change.
A general trend in global politics, however, has been that once people have a state and some democratic rights within it, the most fervent support for the maximalist position tends to get blunted - by the sheer apathy caused by everyday political bickering inside the state, if by nothing else. Not fully in all cases, but generally.
I don't disagree with your conclusion, but looking at it from Israel's perspective, I can definitely see why they wouldn't want to take the chance that giving Hamas sovereignty may result in Hamas continuing to do exactly what they say they would do (kill all the Jews).
I don’t consider myself pro Palestinian or anti Palestinian, but I think a lot of the generic sympathy their cause gathers in the West is due to their being a poor, disorganized people who are victims of historical injustice and who need help. Not generally because people think their leaders are competent or well intentioned (clearly many of their leaders are terrorists and use them as pawns in their own political game).
Of course there are the more ideological reasons to support the Palestinian cause, like “anti colonialism“, Islamism, antisemitism and so forth.
These 2 things are not mutually exclusive, they do want to see their land, their whole land, theirs again. Sovereign and free. The "Jewish state" exists on their land, if it existed in Argentina (like Hertzel contemplated in a book once) they wouldn't mind. If it existed in Uganda (like Hertzel contemplated in the same book once) they wouldn't mind. They appear, and I'm not one of them so that's just an outsider observation, to not give a single shit if Jews live in a state of their own, just not on their land. They seem to be okay with Jews, just not the particular Jews bombing them with F-15s. I don't think it's the Jewish part that gets them either, just the JDAM-armed F-15 part.
David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli PM, as reported by Nahum Goldmann[1] :
> Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?
This, this quote by the first Israeli PM, is the default Arab position. Given that the person in front of you is an Arab and no additional information about him/her, this is what you should assume to be running inside their head as the most privileged program.
This is my base position. I see it as the one true "correct" position. Meaning the position that everyone with a moderate amount of sympathy would take if they had English Wikipedia, lots of time on their hands, and they felt safe from the dangling guillotine of anti-semitism accusations and Holocaust guilt-tripping that are the favorite tactics of some Pro-Israel defenders.
Do I say this because I'm an Arab ? Maybe. I can never tease out and isolate the effects of being born and raised a certain way. Literally my DNA, eh ? for all I know the Israelis are correct on this one and it's only my violent Arabic DNA that is making me throw an irrational hissy fit at the very smol and harmless only Jewish state, how would I know if it was otherwise ? I wouldn't. Do I say this because I'm a Muslim ? This I can answer to reasonable certainty : No, Hell No. I hate this religion, I despise it to my deepest core. Pathetic. Violent. Angry, religion.
Despie all this, I see David's lovely confession above as the truest position one can hope to take on the conflict.
Now, what most Arabs and Palestinians get wrong about this is this : The Israelis are not a monolith. There is the criminal west bank settler, and there is the leftist Tel-Aviv dweller. There is the 50 years old Mizrahi who still remembers what Lebanon and Egypt look and sound like, and there is the 20 years old nobody from NYC who doesn't even believe Judaism, he believes in getting freebie land and housing from the only country allowed Settler Colonialism into the 21st century. There is a whole catalog of types and shapes and colors. They speak a different language (but extremely similar to Arabic) so literally any statements and media from them in English or Arabic might as well be completely made up and arbitrarily modified to suit the whims of the translator. I will say this again : When you don't know the language of the people you're reading news about, you might as well assume the news is a David Cameeron or Michael Bay production. The translators can do whatever they damn well please (unconsciously even), and you will lap it up because you can't understand a single word of what's being said. Most importantly, almost none of currently living Israelis were those who killed Arabs in 1948, barely any were those who killed Arabs in 1956 and 1967.
There was this racist politician (redundant when talking about Israel, I know), he kept rambling about how his right to safety is more important than the rights of Arabs to not be subjected to random searches and seizures, presumably to justify random searches and seizures of Arabs in the West Bank. And the talk show host, a fellow Israeli, challenged him on the remark, aggressively so. This was mind blowing when I first saw it because I didn't expect it, I expected it from maybe some UK or French host but Israelis going after their own ? For Arabs ? It looked like propaganda but this was Israeli TV and a real Israeli politician. I was only seeing the English subtitles but the facial expression did tell of a heated and hostile back and forth and some words in Hebrew were obvious. So that's when I knew that whoever has the right to the land (and it's Palestinians, to be completely and abundantly clear), deeds like this has to be rewarded, otherwise they would just die out. You can't treat "enemies" uniformly bad, or else they would all be as bad as humanly possible because your punishment only has one power setting. As a matter of fact, if an "enemy" starts going after one of his own in defense of you, they might as well be a friend, they just don't know it yet.
So really, my position on this can be naturally phrased in the manner of Signals and Correctives[2]
Signal : Israel is an illgetimate state, its founders are colonial thieves who knew in private they are taking what's not theirs. Given a Time Machine, the moral thing to do is to go back in time and prevent Israel's founding.
Corrective : **Israelis**, by and large, are not thieves, and it's not their fault their ancestors were. Maybe they can have the stolen land if enough trials of war criminals like Netanyahu were made and reperations were paid, and of course the original owners of the land are let back into their own land with full rights and then some.
Jews often has a (sometimes excessive) fear of living in Diaspora among gentiles again, and quite often they're right. The most Anti-Israel thing to do in existence is to be nice to Jews, and perhaps this is the way towards destroying Israel. Israel feeds on paranoia and FUD, every harrassed Jew is a gift to it, every dead Jew is a full blessing, that's why it exists in the first place. The ultimate revenge against it, perhaps, is to treat Jews so normally and welcome them so aggressively even they would forget why they wanted Israel in the first place. It was not Arabs who has to answer for Auschwitz, but apparently they will anyway. Auschwitz made Israel, and Israel loves to fallback on Auschwitz whenever it has to justify itself. Unfair, but life is nothing if not unfair. Yes, I rediscovered The Toxoplasma Of Rage.
The Signal is common wisdom in Arab circles, it's the Corrective that is heretical. The main roadblock is, I think, Isalm. Religious zeal is something else, it pumps your brain with "I can never be wrong" chemicals. You have "God's words" in your very hands, so why even listen to anyone else. As long as Islam is still an unquestioned premise, it's like fighting with all fours tied to a cross.
Regardless, I don't think its hopeless. In particular, one very concrete path forward is Hebrew becoming as common as English in the Arab world. Dehumanizing the enemy is hard when you can see them talking, singing, and arguing in words and phonetics so damn similar to yours that you have Deja vu the entire time. It's not that the world will fill with sunshine and rainbows when an Arab understand Hebrew for the first time and a miracle will happen, no, quite not. It's just that without language, the enemy is cartoonish. They're a marvel villian both summarized and completely described by the words others use in other languages for or against them. But with language, the enemy is a human, their villians are human, and their heros are human. I don't think that hatred toward a culture can survive listening to one good song in its language.
Might be complete wishful thinking on my part, it might be that Atheism is doing most of the heavy lifting here and I'm just Sapir-Whorfing myself into a delusional position. Always a possibility, everybody who cares enough about Lanugage eventually rediscovers Sapir-Whorf the wrong way : by falling for the strong version.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion#Attitude_towards_Arabs
[2] https://everythingstudies.com/2017/12/19/the-signal-and-the-corrective/
Thank you for sharing your thoughts - I found this quite interesting. I find myself agreeing with you in parts but disagreeing in others. One main question - to the extend that Jews bought land in Palestine from its owners - do you not think they have rights to that land?
> Jews bought land in Palestine from its owners, do you not think they have rights to that land ?
They do have the right.
The Arab/Anti-Israel POV contends that a lot of Jews exploited Ottoman property laws, or bought houses way above their prices while hiding the intention that they're buying full neighborhoods to concentrate in them and self-govern. I don't know enough about pre-1948 Palestine to say whether those accusations are fair or not, but my initial instinct is that an Israeli who can prove their ancestors even lived in the land prior to 1948, let alone owned houses or land, should be fairly easy to defend in Arab circles. Anecdotally, I had no problem defending such a position in a recent 1v3 with some of my friends (where I was the Pro-Israeli, if you can imagine that).
Though there is a difference between "Rights to a land you bought" and "Right to govern a land you bought". Buying a full neighbourhood in the USA won't give me the right to secede from the Federal Government, would it ? Same thing as Israelis whose ancestors bought land in Palestine. I'm predisposed to accept them governing their land because I'm ready to accept the much bigger concession of them governing the entirety of Palestine, conditional on them paying reparations and trialing war criminals plus giving Palestinians equal voice. But that's relatively heretical and controversial, not too much, but not too little either.
The opinion of most Arabs would probably be "They have a right to the land, just not to a government". My own is that they can have the government, their owned land, and the mostly stolen rest of land their government is governing, conditional on them treating Palestinians like a human and realizing that US made jet fighters are not a good solution to most problems.
That makes sense - thank you
"its founders are colonial thieves who knew in private they are taking what's not theirs"
This is incorrect Ben-Gurion said this possibly in reference to the land taken after 1948 (and the fact that Jews governed ares in which arabs lived). Before 1948 Jews did not take any land from arabs without legally buying it. Israel's "founding" did not involve forcibly taking any land. It was only after arabs declared war to eradicate Israel that land was taken. Arab opposition to the state has nothing to do with stolen land. In 1948 arabs made it clear that jewish governance is not acceptable. The arabs demonstrated in 1929 (Hebron massacre) that the mere presence of Jews is unacceptable. Systemic Arab violence pre dated any "land thieving" as demonstrated by the very declaration of war in 1948.
> Before 1948 Jews did not take any land from arabs without legally buying it.
Sure thing, and buying doesn't grant you the right to found a government, or else the billionaire Gulf Arabs buying properties in Europe and North America have a hell of a lot of Kingdoms and Sheikhdoms to declare this century.
None of us have a privileged look inside Ben Gurion's brain when he said this, but the most straightforward way to interpret "We Have Taken Their Country" is that you don't have the right to found a government when all you have is a bunch of homes and small firearms. The Arabs didn't "invade" Israel anymore than the Federal Government of the USA would be "invading" Seattle or San Francisco if people there got drunk and declared their own country. Owning a few houses is not an entitlement to a country.
> Systemic Arab violence
Was preceded, countered, and followed by plenty of systematic proto-Israeli violence[1][2] [3]. And if systematic violence justifies the annexation of lands not yours, well, I have no words against this. You might as well say "They did it because they could", and at this point a Hamas supporter might as well say "They did it because they could", if Force and Ability is all that matters then all argument and moral reasoning is moot because we have replaced Morality with Physics.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group)
"buying doesn't grant you the right to found a government." they received "governing rights" from the governing body at the time.
Legally purchasing (at exorbitant prices) and settling land en masse, cultivating previously infertile land, and bringing immense economic opportunity (that still doesn't exist in other arab countries) does, in fact, justify self-governance, especially since the Arabs were also allowed to create a state (something they didn't have before), and they rejected it.
Secretary of the Arab League said, upon launching the war in 1948: "This war will be a war of annihilation and the story of the slaughter will be told like the campaigns of the Mongols and the Crusaders." And the Mufti, Haj Amin Al Husseini, added his own bit: "I am declaring a holy war. My brother Muslims! Slaughter the Jews! Kill them all!"
"None of us have a privileged look inside Ben Gurion's brain when he said this" true which is precisely why your claims are unfounded.
"The Arabs didn't "invade" Israel anymore than the Federal Government of the USA would be "invading" Seattle or San Francisco if people there got drunk and declared their own country. Owning a few houses is not an entitlement to a country." This entire paragraph is a blatant mischaracterization and reveals your bias
"And if systematic violence justifies the annexation of lands not yours, well, I have no words against this." My point was that before 1948, no land was "annexed" and still, they tried to annihilate Israel. It is unreasonable to expect Israel to allow the return of the population that sided with forces that sought to eradicate them.
There is clearly a cycle of violence, and it's impossible to know who committed the first act of violence, but there is one side committed to violence and one side that seeks peace and coexistence. Arabs celebrate violence. They provide monetary support to their families and name streets after them, while Jews prosecute Israelis who commit violence against Arabs. I know it's a hard pill to swallow, but many Arabs just don't like the idea that Jews have a presence in Israel.
> they received "governing rights" from the governing body at the time
An illegitimate colonial government, why should anybody be bound by it ?
> legally purchasing (at exorbitant prices) and settling land en masse, cultivating previously infertile land, and bringing immense economic opportunity (that still doesn't exist in other arab countries) does, in fact, justify self-governance
I'm curious about which law or jurisdiction you're basing this on ?
> especially since the Arabs were also allowed to create a state (something they didn't have before), and they rejected it.
The Arabs were "allowed" (weird choice of word when its their own land) a state on less than half of their land, they rejected that proposition and sought to create a state on all of their land. They lost, yes, but that's no more a condemnation of them than the fact that African tribes who tried to resist the Scramble For Africa also lost badly, some of them were eradicated, and the rest lived in subjugation 60-80 years then successfully forced Decolonization. Those African people were not morally in the wrong, just weak militarily. Being weak is not a crime.
> your claims are unfounded.
I mean, in my interpretation Israel is an illegitimate state from the get go, in your interpretation Israel is merely an illegitimate state a couple of months after the get go. I have a feeling that if your goal is defending Israel legitimacy, you're not getting a good deal however way this goes.
> Secretary of the Arab League said,
It's irrelevant what he said, I already grant that Arabs have the unfortunate tendency to dehumanize Jews and be misled by Islam's huge reservoir of jingoism. You're not telling me anything I don't know.
Harsh battle cries don't an illegitimate struggle make. I'm sure that when American GIs were saying "The only good Jap is a dead Jap", nobody at the time thought the US is in the wrong for dehumanizing the Japanese.
> This entire paragraph is a blatant mischaracterization and reveals your bias
How so ?
> My point was that before 1948, no land was "annexed" and still, they tried to annihilate Israel.
My man, what I'm saying is : The Very Declaration Of Israel Is Annexation. If you can't agree with that or see why I'm saying it, there is no hope to this discussion. You can't come into people's land, buy a few houses and own a few farms, then declare a country. You can't mate, I'm sorry. If we did, billionaires would own a string of city-states all over the world.
> It is unreasonable to expect Israel to allow the return of the population that sided with forces that sought to eradicate them.
But it acts so surprised when those people hate its guts and want to see it crash and burn ? What kind of entitlement would make someone not extend an Olive branch to a much weaker civilians once and act all surprised they are not fans of their existence ?
> Jews prosecute Israelis who commit violence against Arabs
Post a single case of that happening and the Israeli in question getting a sentence of more than 5 years in prison.
> Arabs celebrate violence.
:D
If I said this about the Jews, you would be screaming bloody murder and swearing up and down I'm an antisemite. But it's ok for you to say this about a population 20x times the size. Because only one type of semites matter and its not the Arabs, eh ?
Thank you for responding with such depth and honesty, I really appreciate it.
I hope you won't be offended by my saying so, but this response does a lot to buttress the point I'm trying to build up to making, namely that Western pro-Palestine people/movements don't really have a clear understanding of what the people they're advocating for actually want, and if they did, they might not support them.
Thank you back for appreciating my input. Your username and your defense of Israel leads me to assume you're yourself either an Israeli or an Israel-supporting Jew, in which case I apologize if my hatred for this state offended you or seemed unprovoked. I hope it was clear I have a problem only with the state and those who think its continued existence and glory means Arabs should die. I don't think you belong to this group.
Re. not understanding what you support, I think this is very common. Have 50% or more of Pro-Israeli supporters even read Hertzel ? A translated Torah ? Can point to Israel on a map ? I don't want to imply that only the Pro-Israelis are like this. I don't think most Neo-Nazis have read Mein Kampf from cover to cover either. I think very few of them have read a full chapter even. Neither did most self-declared "leftists" read Marx or Lenin, Chomsky, or even their local leftist newspaper. Hell, I call myself Anarchist and Vegetarian, and I have neither read Bakunin nor Singer ! Not one chapter. I'm a complete poser. I'm one of the people I make fun of.
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis [1][2]. Ideology is also Longa, and work makes Vita very Brevis. While my ideal life is sitting on a beach or in a forest with an internet connected device browsing the [3], this doesn't put food on the table or water in the pipes, the bullshit I do sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day 5 days a week and hating every moment of it does. I suspect most people feel the same.
Re. the possibility of not supporting Palestine if they understood, I can also see this happening to Pro-Israelis. How will the average Pro-Israeli react if he or she heard Ben Gurion basically saying what Arabs say and people always boo boo them ? How will they react when they know how Israel behaves in the west bank, like the actual videos of settlers treating the original inhabitants of the land as less than insects ? When they know the views of some of its politicians ? especially Netanyahu's cabinat ? When they see some Israelis thinking that the entirety of Palestinan suffering is just an elaborate act to get sympathy [4] ? When they see elderly Israeli soldiers openly reminiscing with a big shit eating grin on their face on how they raped arab teenagers and killed then [5] ?
For better or for worse, we don't know the full picture about anything we support, we support tens or hundreds of things but our brain and time is a precious resource, we're lucky if it fit even one or two well. For better or for worse, most of our opinions are subject to a fun 180 in response to better information. We still have to make calls.
You can be right for the wrong reasons. Perhaps a whole lot of people support Palestine and Palestinian in the same way that the Ancient Greeks who thought planets go in circles around the Sun agreed with current Physics. The Greeks were misguided, they thought the circle is "Perfect" and the Heavens are "Perfect" so of course the two perfect things have to go together. 2 millenia and the invention of Calculus later, Newton reiterates with a slight difference and in the language of differential equations. The Greeks were still essentially right, just wrong about why.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_longa,_vita_brevis
[2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
[3] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallywood
[5] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16378034/
I'm not offended at all; I think you're wrong on the facts and interpretation of the history on this issue, but that's no reason to hate or be offended. It sounds like you're broad-minded enough to feel the same, despite you thinking that I'm wrong in return.
As far as your inversion of my question, it's fair, and obviously true to some extent. Israel has lost support in the liberal world as its governments have started trending right-wing and as the more extreme and racist political movements and parties have gained prominence.
The difference to me is that Israel is the status quo. It exists, it has an advanced economy, a strong military, a durable form of governance, and nuclear weapons. Absent severe pressure and intervention from the outside, economic or diplomatic, Israel will continue to exist as a Jewish state on most of the land it currently holds for a very long time. This is a win condition for Israel, and a lose condition for the people who want it to disappear entirely, or become a bi-national state that would soon be dominated demographically and politically by the Palestinians.
This is where the question of what the Palestinians actually want becomes important. Do they simply want a sovereign state on part of the land in which they could start building a better future for themselves and their families? if they do, that coheres with the general tenor of the pro-Palestine faction in the global West. The language of rights and dignity and humanity make sense, the focus on Israeli oppression and denial of sovereignty makes sense. Because if this is what the Palestinians want, then the way to achieve peace and end the suffering of the innocents is for Israel to make enough concessions. Once they do that, the conflict will end.
But if the Palestinians actually want the destruction of Israel more than they want sovereignty, more than they want peace, more than they want safety and prosperity for their families, than there is no concession Israel can make that would bring peace and end the suffering, short of ceasing to exist. And I don't think most of the current pro-Palestinian West would be able to stay on board with a movement like that.
> Absent severe pressure and intervention from the outside, economic or diplomatic, Israel will continue to exist as a Jewish state on most of the land it currently holds for a very long time.
I actually don't think this is true. I won't bore you with all the harsh comparisons that the Arab perspective makes between Israel and all manner of undesirable biological phenomena. But suffice it to say that the Arab perspective thinks Israel is deeply unnatural and artificial, the Arab perspective would bet all of what it owns that if Israel was denied US/EU military and economic relations tomorrow, it would vanish before the end of the decade.
Advanced weaponry is a force multiplier for sure, but it's not a factor of infinity. At some point you have to grapple with the fact that Israel has a Nation-In-Arms style of army organization that can't sustain ground war for longer than a couple of months without severe hits to the economy, while its largest neighbour, my native Egypt, has 100 million people it doesn't know what to do with. If we conservatively assume only 2% of Egyptian population is able-bodied males, that's 2 million soldiers. Israel at the highest alert a couple of weeks ago mustered 500,000, I remember newspapers saying that's 70% of the entire recruit pool. As for money, the Gulf States, now unconcerned with USA and pressured by Arab fervor, can easily afford spending the entire GDP of Israel on this war alone (Saudi Arabia's GDP is twice that of Israel, and UAE's is equal), they won't do that of course but they have the reserves to. Even 1% of this reserve is more than enough for at least 1 year of war, which will grind the under-populated Israeli economy to a halt.
Without US/EU weapons, and without Oil (which as far as I know Israel doesn't produce locally), and outnumbered 3-to-1 comfortably by the at least 2 Arab countries against it (Egypt + 1 Gulf State), I can bet you any amount you want in any ratio you want that Israel loses this fight. All advanced weaponry advantage is nullified inside a city anyway, even if you level the city.
I don't want to spend a lot of time arguing this point because the space of possible International Relations/Military situations is huge and I'm not an expert. This also shouldn't be read as a jingoistic "My Country Can Beat Up Yours", this is not a very desirable outcome for me either because I don't trust the Islam-blinded Arab victors to treat defeated Israelis with dignity. I just think this is the raw brute facts if you grant the premises I'm basing on above.
Sure, you can say that it's those unrealistic premises that are the problem with my scenario, but you said "Without external support" and this what this assumption means to me. I can actually point to an Anti-Israel (though not Arab) state that endures the situation above in reality : Iran. Minus the "No oil of its own part". I strongly suspect that at least Egypt can withstand the situation above if it came to that. So it's not an impossible situation to withstand by any stretch of imagination. This is also an exagerrated situation, Israel can still cease to exist on a longer timeframe if the degree of external support just decreased to an average amount instead of totally becoming 0.
> Israel is the status quo.
This is the part where I have to ask you if this is really the moral litmus test you want to adopt. All of what I have written above is a non-value judgement, Israel can't withstand war without external support not because of any moral reason or because I want it to be true, but simply becaue it happens to have a severe manpower problems.
What I want to ask you though, **assuming** that Israel can indeed withstand a war against the Arabs solely without external support, **should** a moral system allow/celebrate that ? Just because its the status quo ? The status quo for much of human history (and most of Now) is that the strong can easily eat the weak, men can easily rape their wives who were forced to marry them, etc etc etc...
I mean, if the Status Quo is apriori better and should be allowed to continue, then Putin should actually be granted a cease fire now that will give him what he already took from Ukraine, its the Status Quo after all. Then maybe after 10 years, he will attack Ukraine again and take just a little more, and after a 3-5-10 years resistance the Ukrainians are morally obligated by your system to kneel to Putin once again because they shouldn't upset the holy Status Quo. The Status Quo is just you saying to an aggressor/thief/rapist "Do the crime, and if you keep getting away with it long enough you will no longer be considered a criminal in my eyes". Does this look like fair to you ?
On the other hand, some states require constant support. Taiwan for instance. I don't think Taiwan would survive without the USA's continues posturing in the South China Sea, and it looks like a perfectly normal country to me that doesn't deserve to fall to the PRC.
I don't understand your whole moral standard. Why is the Status Quo moral ? If the Status Quo is always moral, how was it established in the first place ? Every Status Quo is achieved by violently breaking a previous Status Quo. The Palestinians living in Palestine and virtually no Jews living there was once the Status Quo, why is the current Status Quo valuable and that one wasn't ? Did I misunderstand and your statement wasn't actually moral at all ? What was it then ? A call to self-preservation to the Arabs, "Israel can survive on its own so Arabs better not attack it for their own good" type of thing ?
> if the Palestinians actually want the destruction of Israel
What's so bad about that ? We're talking about the state that expelled them and took their land away, it's their rational self-interest to see it destroyed. If they accepted peace and made a country next to Israel who's to say that they won't simply bomb and invade them tomorrow ? Look at the West Bank, See Hamas ? I don't, and neither Peace. You can't have peace with an imbalanced power situation.
It's not morally wrong to destroy Israel either, the destruction of Israel doesn't equal the destruction of all Israelis. Israel is just a name, a false hope plucked from an ancient holy book. Ancient holy books talk about all manner of outrageous things.
Like I said above, Israel is not organic, it can't survive without constant propping up from USA (first and foremost) and some EU countries. We're not talking about "If Israel collapses", we're talking about "When Israel collapses".
Israel has a legitimacy crisis, their neighbours don't think they should exist. Maybe those neighbours are all just racist bad guys, a man can never tell for sure if he's the bad guy within the context of his own story. But regardless of moral blaming, what Israel should have done, its safest bet, is to spend the decades from 1950 to 2020 convincing the Arabs it should exist. How ? By not bombing their children, for instance. By not poisoning their wells and streams. By not brutalizing them then lying about it in their media. I'm not an expert but all those sound like safe courses of actions What Israeli leadership instead found easier is to bomb them with white phosphorus. Ok, that's one way to solve things, but it's not a sustainable way. Unless you're willing to go all the way to exterminate the whole 150 million Arabs surrounding Israel and within it, and the **other** 150 million Arabs who feel affiliation to those 150 millions, all what Israel is doing is just further and further entrenching the Arab belief there can be no dignified peace with Israel, they can sign all the paperwork in existence and tomorrow more F-15s and F-35s will come and bomb Arab homes and Arab children. What's the point then ?
Maybe Israel doesn't feel a lot of worry now. It has the luck to exist within the same timeframe as 70+ years of gruesome and ruthless military (-ish in the case of Gulf States) dictatorships suffocating all of the region. The Arab rulers are more interested in jailing their young for sharing political memes on Facebook than in fighting it. And the US is powerful enough to scare any of them who thinks to fall out of line back into submission. But the US is a dying empire 10000+ KM away, at some point Israel has to grapple with the fact it has virtually no goodwill among its most immediate neighbours, it's forever the hostile outsider shoved in the region's face by aircraft carriers, nobody in the region remembers its name for anything except raids and refusing ceasefires and bombing hospitals/schools. What can it do now to reverse or slow down this PR disaster ? nothing, it should have thought of that 70 years ago. Even if there is, its current leadership is clearly very smitten with the new toys it got from the US, they NEED to empty out all the tonnages on Palestinian children's heads first, then maybe it will think about Peace later.
I guess everybody is free to make choices, and everybody is obligated to bear the conequences of their own free-made choices. What can Israel do to avoid ceasing to exist ? I will be lying to you if I said anything other than "nothing", the question is at least 30 years late. Let's hope changes-of-heart like mine become common enough such that even if Israel is isolated from its outside life support, its Arab neighbours can forgive it for almost 80 years and counting of constant violence and aggression. If I had the habit of praying, I would be praying from the depths of my heart for this. But I won't hold my breath for it.
Israel has nuclear weapons, an indigenous defense industry, water, oil, and food independence, and a high-tech industry that makes it a desirable trade partner, absent any ideological or political considerations. Absent an apocalyptic war of some kind, Israel will not cease to exist as a Jewish state any time soon. But you obviously disagree, that's fine.
The important part is this:
"> if the Palestinians actually want the destruction of Israel
What's so bad about that ? We're talking about the state that expelled them and took their land away..."
I'm not making the argument that it's bad, though I obviously think it is. I'm making the limited argument that much of the coalition that currently supports the Palestinian cause in the West would no longer support that cause if they came to understand that the destruction of Israel was the goal.
> In particular, one very concrete path forward is Hebrew becoming as common as English in the Arab world.
Does this seem likely? If you don't mind me asking, why did *you* learn Hebrew?
> Does this seem likely?
Why not ? It's very close to Arabic, I can't describe it as anything else but a heavily-modded Arabic. If you mean the psychological barrier of "Ewwww, Enemy language won't learn", I think it can be circumvented by "Yes, learn the Enemy's language so you can better understand them and predict their moves", but maybe this will backfire because people will approach the whole thing with a jingoistic mentality which misses the entire point. I don't know honestly, I'm just throwing things at the wall here, Arabs learning Hebrew en-masse sounds like something that wasn't tried in the last 75 years so why not do it and see what happens ?
> why did *you* learn Hebrew?
I'm predisposed to distrusting translations of contentious material. I think the concious thought first crossed into my head when I was reflecting on Covid reporting from China, how the Chinese language is excessively complex to most people and if the news translators wanted to take us for a complete spin they absolutely could without us ever knowing. It's like that "Asian Tattoo" meme, people who know the language while you don't have massive power over you. Perhaps I thought of it earlier than that but I didn't remember.
In parallel to the above, I once heard an Israeli remix of an Egyptian (i.e. my native tongue) song, and I remember being puzzled that it's normal for them to know Arabic but it would be very odd in any Arab country if someone were to reveal they knew Hebrew.
The 2 lines of thinking above merged some time during the 7th or 8th of this October.
I... appreciate the huge vote of confidence in using "did", but I'm barely just beginning. I don't even know propositions yet. I generally suck at languages, but Hebrew looks as easy as it will ever get, if I can't get it then language learning is not for me and English was just a fluke.
Re: Signal: the most common alternate version I'm seeing is broadly "the WWI allies conquered the Ottoman Empire & divided their territory; the British, after WWII, gave some of what they'd taken from the Ottomans to become Israel. Arabs didn't like that & repeatedly tried to conquer the land for themselves but lost."
Is there some part of that alternate framing that is factually incorrect? If not, how would you reconcile that history with the accusation that Israel's founders were "colonial thieves"?
> Is there some part of that alternate framing that is factually incorrect?
Not as far as I know, no.
I would just object to the phrasing "gave some of what they'd taken from the Ottomans to become Israel". First, the English presense in Palestine was a "Mandate", meaning it's not really a colony per se, but (supposedly) a country they're helping to achieve independence, kinda like the American presence in Japan, South Korea, and Germany in the 1950s and the 1960s. Now it's entirely possible that this was all wink-wink in the 1920s and the 1930s to appease the cosmopolitan League of Nations, and the British may in fact have seen Palestine as a colony that they just couldn't hold on to after WW2. But this was not their stated intent.
Secondly, the British didn't really "give" land to Israel with any amount of deliberation, consent, or planning, they were more like "Your paramilitary groups keep killing our soldiers, Arab paramilitary groups keep killing our soldiers, fuck it we're so bloody out of here, drown this land in your rivers of blood for all I care, bye bye". The Balfour declaration [1] had no precedent in International history, was done completely without input from the Palestinians, was intentionally vague in using "National Home for the Jewish people" (necessarily a state ?), and was never followed up in the 1920s or the 1930s with any real confirmation, amendment or even contradiction. The British simply had a few Zionists in their Cabinet that they wanted happy, so they made a promise and forgot about it the next day.
> If not, how would you reconcile that history with the accusation that Israel's founders were "colonial thieves"?
How are they contradicting to begin with ? Israel took the land from the british, who took it from the ottomans, who conquered it by force. English colonists took New Amsterdam (future New York) from the Dutch, who took it from the indigenous tribes. A second-hand or a third-hand or a tenth-hand colonist is still a colonist, as long as the original inhabitants of the land are right there in front of you demanding their land back and you're shooting at them, you're a colonist no matter which language the contract or treaty or declaration "giving" you the land is written in.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
I'm honestly confused by the argument, at least if presented as a moral one, that previous occupation of the land equates to legitimacy to get it back. There are very few places on earth that weren't previously inhabited by someone whose descendants no longer live there. Certainly just about any place worth living.
The Jews have a history of living on the same land they are on now, for instance, which seems to complicate any kind of narrative.
If it matters how long ago the land was held, then if the Israelis wait long enough does it become okay? That seems to be their strategy.
Saying that having a living person who was removed from the land asking it back is relevant seems like a poor choice - for one thing, people living there in 1948 are nearly if not entirely dead by now (and whoever is left is old and will soon be dead). Worse, if a conqueror took your rule seriously, it would encourage genocide. They can't ask for it back if they're dead.
> I'm honestly confused by the argument, at least if presented as a moral one, that previous occupation of the land equates to legitimacy to get it back
Seems rather straightforward to me, somebody used to own something, somebody else took it from them by force, it's moral for the second person(s) to return what they took by force to the first person(s). It's moral for the first person(s) to demand the thing back. It's moral for everybody to support the first person(s) in their struggle against the second person(s) if the latter refuse.
On the contrary, its strongest pedigree is as a moral argument. You can contradict it by lots of pragmatic considerations or geopolitics, but it seems strange you want to argue against it morally. If it's not true then why does anyone deserve anything ? Why can't Russia empty small states like Lithuania or Latvia of their entire population and in 1 or 2 generations (~50 years or so) it will be theirs ? Just Nato ? But Nato is not a moral argument, in the hypothetical Least Convenient World[1] where Nato doesn't exist and Russia can in fact do that, would it be **moral** to do that ? Why can't men stronger than you evict you from your house and take ownership ? Yes yes I know, Laws, States, Monopoly on Force, etc... But again, none of those are moral arguments, in the world of [1] where none exists, would it be moral to do just that ?
> The Jews have a history of living on the same land they are on now, for instance, which seems to complicate any kind of narrative.
Agreed, for instance it complicates the Israeli narrative that Israel is needed as the "Only Jewish State" for Jews to live peacefully. Looks like Jews lived just fine for more than a thousand year without needing to kill Arabs. Maybe this is an ancient knowledge that is now lost after 70+ years of killing Arabs, but I bet Jews can rediscover it if they needed to.
The vast majority of Israeli Jews are immigrants from non-Palestinian lands, they're genetically distinct from the minority that actually traces back their ancestors to Palestinian Jews. Not a reason for them to not live there as long as they live in peace, but just a reminder that not all claims of "We used to live there" are equal.
> If it matters how long ago the land was held
No it doesn't, it matters only that the original inhabitants are still living and still want their land back. As long as that is true, whoever holds the land by force other than them is an illegitimate thief.
> if a conqueror took your rule seriously, it would encourage genocide.
Which is exactly what conquerors did across history, yes. The only difference now is that in the 21st century after decades of Civil Rights and Decolonization, even Israel is still not insolent enough to go all the way on genocide. But they want that and are slowly getting there.
What's the alternative though ? Everyone who can get something by force should be allowed to ? Sounds like a rather perverse incentive to set. Putin appears justified, only a couple of millions of Russian settlers in Ukrainian lands to go before you will defend him and say his Lebensraum campaign is justified by its success and the displaced Ukrainians should just suck it.
[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/neQ7eXuaXpiYw7SBy/the-least-convenient-possible-world
I find myself thinking about Poland. It has existed and not existed many times, with *vastly* varying boundaries. At one point pretty recently, parts of Germany were forcefully removed and put into Poland. Would you say that these Germans had the right to kill Polish people to get back into Germany, or would be morally justified in some sense? Would they be justified if they decided that now, in 2023, they were going to take it back?
DACA for US immigrants exists because there are a number of immigrants in the US illegally that didn't choose to come here. If their parents brought them at five years old and they've lived here for 20 years, they are in most ways more American than whatever country they came from. The argument is that it would be *morally wrong* to send them to Guatemala or wherever they came from, now.
Almost everyone living in Israel now was not involved in the process that created the country or put a Jewish/Israeli government in power. If there are still some people from 1948 around, give it a few years and they won't be. At some point the fact that nobody involved was part of the initial decisions - crimes or not - has to be considered.
And yes, this means that if Putin puts three million Russians into Ukraine, then at some point those people or their grandkids are going to be more entitled to that land than the people kicked out's grandkids.
I'm against Putin's invasion mostly based around that fact. I want such forced land exchanges to fail upfront, because I think it's bad when they happen. Once they happen, and enough time has passed, we're looking at a situation where reversing it also becomes wrong and the people being punished are not those who are responsible for what happened.
I don't know how else to square the circle of human history where everyone is living on the land of someone who was forcefully removed sometime in the past, often long ago. And I mean that - literally everyone. Native American tribes forced each other off the land before Europeans arrived, etc.
"Looks like Jews lived just fine for more than a thousand year without needing to kill Arabs"
What part of "just fine" includes the holocaust?
You seem to be disputing the factuality of the British *giving* the land, which would dissolve the contradiction.
Regardless, many of the Jews - subsequent immigration notwithstanding - were also "original inhabitants"; the Arabs lost any moral claim to the land after attempting and failing to conquer it by force. #FAFO
Eh, not so much disputing the factuality that much, disputing the framing instead.
>FAFO
Fuck Around and Find Out ? If we're resorting to Might Is Right kind of moral judgements, I don't understand why we're even arguing in the first place. Might Is Right, whoever can afford to get killed the longest will win the land. That will not be decided by 2 strangers hurling words over each other thousands of kilometers apart.
Have it your way, I'm just puzzled when your ilk complain about Hamas, complaining about Hamas is the same way of thinking or argument you're now making fun of by hashtagging FAFO. You wanted a Darwinian no-limits struggle and you got a Darwinian no-limits struggle, what's the problem ?
Either the British gave the land, in which case the founders of Israel weren't thieves, or they took it from the British, in which case they were. The facts determine the framing.
As for the other point: the Arabs have repeatedly initiated force (FA) so any criticism of the IDF's response (FO) is hypocritical and deserves only scorn.
Well it’s because the British double (sometimes triple) promised the same land to different groups. See the overlap of Sykes-Picot, the Balfour Declaration and the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence.
Additionally some may argue that since the Ottomans were colonisers and the Arabs the colonised, the British did not have right to the land they conquered rather the Arabs did. E.G. the Brits didn’t attempt to claim Belgium or The Netherland for their own purposes simply because they conquered those territories - they were returned to their previous owners.
The Arabs themselves took the land by force earlier in history; conquered conquerors get no sympathy from me.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I'm as annoyed by those "declaration of unceded land" things as any non-lefty, but I feel like, wherever the line gets drawn, something that happened over 1000 years ago is safely on the far side of it.
"something that happened over 1000 years ago is safely on the far side of it"
Greece and Turkey have hostilities going back further than that (_possibly_ all the way back to the Trojan War, if that was actually historical... which would make it around 3000 years).
<mild snark>
Land of the Immortal Grudge?
</mild snark>
When they're asserting rights based on past control of the land that itself ended it conquest several hundred years ago, looking proportionally far back to how they originally gained said control doesn't feel quite so absurd.
When did the British “conquer“ Belgium?
During the 100 days offensive when they pushed the Germans (who had occupied Belgium) out of that territory.
Well, you are using the word conquer in a rather odd way. I guess you can say they conquered the territory (with the Allies) but there was a Belgian government that they acknowledged as legitimate so it is a bit weird to say they conquered the country Belgium.
The Palestinian mandate gave the right to the British to administer the territory until the territories could stand alone. So it doesn’t seem the British were ever meant to take possession of the region.
The British in 1917 said that there should be a Jewish homeland in Palestine but that the rights of the current residents should be respected (Balfour Declaration). In the early 1920's they allowed free immigration of Jews into Palestine, in the late twenties and thereafter attempted to restrict immigration with limited success. At no point did the British give land to the Jews. The closest to that would be a proposed division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states but it never happened.
Prior to 1948 I do not think the Jews stole any Arab land — they bought land from Arabs. In 1948, after the declaration of the state of Israel, the armies of four Arab states invaded Israel and were defeated. Many of the Palestinians fled during the war. They were not permitted back and their land was seized. The Palestinians that did not flee were permitted to remain and eventually (1966) became full citizens of Israel with the same rights as other citizens.
The complaint of the Arabs from 1920 until the 1948 war was not that the British were giving land to Jews but that they were permitting Jews to immigrate and buy land.
Thank you for the clarification and additional detail; does seem even less compatible with the epithet.
>>And how much would your support / antipathy erode if it became clear to you that in fact they don't really care about that, and are instead mostly motivated by a desire to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state on any large chunk of the land it currently exist on?
While I acknowledge that I'm not the target audience for this question, I think you'll get better answers with a little bit more clarity on this sentence. Particularly what is meant by "any large chunk of land," and the "as a Jewish state" part of "cease to exist as a Jewish state."
If one guy wants a two state solution along current lines but the settlers pushed out of the west bank, another wants a two state solution along the lines of the 1947 proposal, a third wants a one state solution and is fine with the fact that such a solution threatens Jewish majority in Israel but willing to work out some kind of constitutional religious/ethnic powersharing along the lines of the structure in Lebanon, and a fourth just wants to push all the Jews into the sea, how many of them would be considered "motivated by a desire to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state on any large chunk of the land it currently exist on?"
I think clarity on that will make for better quality answers.
I really do mean any large chunk of land, so that includes '47-'48 borders, and I really do mean as a Jewish state, which rules out any form of one state or bi-national solution.
Is the poverty of the Palestinian side a consequence of the quality of the land or the quality of the people and culture? Agriculture is only 2.5% of the Israeli economy, and it's almost entirely dependent on artificial irrigation.
How do you compensate someone for the low quality of their people and culture? What incentive do they have to improve?
Its due to 16 years of blockade.
Gaza also has a border with Egypt, right? Is this subject to the Israeli blockade?
Why did Israel blockade?
In 2007, Palestinian GDP per capita was $1570 USD, compared to $25,633 USD for Israel. I think there might be more going on than "sixteen years of blockade".
Incidentally both places have roughly doubled since then, so it's not even clear that the blockade did much economic damage.
You might not be able to develop economically if your neighbour completely determines exactly who and what enters and leaves the country for 16 years, such to the point that half the population are children because everyone dies early.
I assume you mean 'cease to exist'? The answer is: a significant proportion of my support.
If a fully-sovereign (airspace/territorial waters, own military, diplomatic freedom, East Jerusalem solved, transit rights between Gaza/WB if applicable, ideally democratic) Palestinian state were created on UN-recognised borders, and its leadership then turned around and said 'Actually, we'd like to relitigate the entire Nakba now', I would oppose this, and support Israel in whatever conflict ensued.
On the other hand, the fact that some Palestinians really do want Israel to just disappear doesn't invalidate my overall support.
Correct, thanks for catching. And thanks for responding. To further this line of questioning, what do you think explains the Palestinian's continued rejection of statehood offers starting with Oslo, then repeated in 2002 and 2006?
A combination of Israeli duplicity and Palestinian political malpractice.
To take one example, the proposals of the Camp David summit in 2000 are often touted as a fantastic deal from Israel that the Palestinians were dumb to reject. Until you get into the details - such as the lack of the aforementioned basic powers of a sovereign state, the fragmentation of Palestinian territory into enclaves divided by settlements and settler-only roads, the punt on the right of return, the denial of full sovereignty over the al-Aqsa mosque, the provision of only small cells of territory in East Jerusalem breaking apart Arab neighbourhoods there.
I thought the follow-up talks at Taba had potential - but of course elections loomed, and Ariel Sharon decided to take a stroll on the Temple Mount accompanied by a battalion of guards, and the rest is history. Even if I think Yasser Arafat should have done more to prevent the Second Intifada.
Iirc, Sharon's government was the party that rejected the 2002 pan-Arab initiative, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyway, it's commendable of you to at least try to sound out the opposing perspective in a non-hostile manner.
In a continuing spirit of striving for understanding, may I ask how you understand "the right of return" such that it is distinct from "relitigating the entire Nakba"? To my understanding those two are synonymous; the former is a euphemism for use on and by westerners. The right of return as advocated by most Palestinians involves a right of all displaced Palestinians to return to the territory of Israel, with full citizenship and restoration of all property rights including to absurd things such as houses that no longer exist, land which now contains entire towns, and tenancies in buildings which have been owned by individual Jewish landlords for a hundred years (and which in many cases also no longer exist, no doubt).
Now, entirely aside from the fact that such a right is not understood to exist for any other group of forcibly resettled people, e.g. the Germans relocated from current West Poland in the aftermath of WWII, this is also, in practice, the same thing as the destruction of the state of Israel. As far as I can see, anyway.
"In a continuing spirit of striving for understanding, may I ask how you understand "the right of return" such that it is distinct from 'relitigating the entire Nakba'? To my understanding those two are synonymous; the former is a euphemism for use on and by westerners."
The first is a claim on civil rights and property, the second is a claim of state sovereignty over land. Perhaps 'entire' is doing a bit too much work in my phrasing, for which I apologise.
I don't actually expect a full right of return to be granted for the practical reasons you describe, and I think it's one of the things that the Palestinians will have to yield on in any reasonable peace settlement. It's worth noting that their negotiators have in principle been willing to accept compensation in lieu of said right. ( e.g. https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-was-willing-to-compromise-on-right-of-return/ ) But it is something that will have to be addressed as part of the final settlement.
"Now, entirely aside from the fact that such a right is not understood to exist for any other group of forcibly resettled people, e.g. the Germans relocated from current West Poland in the aftermath of WWII, this is also, in practice, the same thing as the destruction of the state of Israel."
It's true that the Silesians et al don't exercise such a right, but Jews who had lost property in Poland in World War II (which was subsequently retained by the Communist government) absolutely do lay claim to restitution, and many of the absurdities you point out obtain in that case as well. In fact, a couple of years ago Poland enacted a law imposing a statue of limitations of thirty years on such claims, drawing considerable anger from Israel. In other European countries, if I recall correctly, restitution funds in lieu of returned Jewish property have proven satisfactory.
Why exactly an influx of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship should constitute the destruction of Israel is an interesting question from the perspective of Israel calling itself a non-apartheid democracy, but perhaps beyond the scope. I understand the four existing Arab parties in Israel usually caucus with the Left and things are more or less okay?
Do you believe that not getting everything you want justifies continued violent resistance, if you are getting enough to start building a good life for your people?
And further, when you say "the fact that some Palestinians really do want Israel to just disappear doesn't invalidate my overall support", what percentage of Palestinians really wanting that as their primary goal would it take for you to rethink your support?
I think there comes a point where such a putative sovereignty is about as fit for purpose as a quartered teacup. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, notably by MW, the social and economic viability of the Palestinian state even under some rather favourable scenarios remains tenuous. Under the 2000 proposals, it would have been nil.
I think Arafat should have plowed such political capital as he had at the time into trying to stop the intifada, and he should have been much more vigorous with counter-offers, but I doubt it would have changed anything. There was simply not enough time for Taba. Sharon's provocation succeeded and if I recall correctly (you might be better versed in Israel's electoral history) Likud trounced Labour in 2001 by what's still the largest margin in the country's history.
Something quite similar happened with Olmert and Abbas in 2008. The parties came close to a deal - Olmert is on record as saying that Abbas never broke off negotiations - and then after the election Netanyahu disavowed all progress made in negotiations up to that point.
It's often said that Israel has to only lose a war once to perish. I think if the Palestinians ever do get to successfully negotiate statehood, culminating in official recognition of independence by Israel and Western powers, they'll also only get a chance to do it once. It has to be satisfactory forever, and questions like the status of Jerusalem go even beyond Palestine.
As to your final question, I can't give you a precise mathematical answer, but I can offer this: I could imagine myself hating Israel as such, irrationally and nihilistically, if I were a younger man in Gaza. Perhaps I might even decide that the way to create meaning out of my otherwise hopeless life is to at least make the enemy feel pain. You may not enjoy hearing this, but I understand it. From where I'm sitting now, comfortably, in the global north, with a certain modest amount of education and experience under my belt and a much more zoomed-out view of the conflict, I know that it's not a morally sound position. But I think the gradual waning of mutual hatred (and I hope you won't deny it is mutual) will follow an honourable peace, not precede it.
This is very contentious history that we're not going to agree on, so I'll just say I respectfully disagree with your characterization of Israeli willingness to make real concessions. There is no polity in the modern era that has ceded more territory it controlled than Israel has, and all while being militarily stronger than whoever they were handing the land over to.
To your second item, I can easily understand it too. I am under no illusions as to how awful life in Gaza is, and how that situation easily leads to hate and rage and the desire for revenge above all else, and the destruction of the enemy beyond all else. That doesn't address the question of how liberal-minded people who desire peace should address this issue though. If one side of the conflict genuinely has no desire for a peaceful settlement, but will only lay down their arms when the other side ceases to exist or agrees to be dominated by them, shouldn't that change the way you see and advocate for their cause, no matter how awful their conditions are?
The Algerians ejected the French in 8 years, the black South African majority took their land back in 20 years. The Palestinians have been fighting Jewish Israelis for more than a hundred years at this point, yet an independent Jewish state still exists.
The question of what motivates them is really important here. Because if what they want really is the end of Israel, beyond any desire for a sovereign prosperous state of their own, then the question of whether to support such a movement becomes a lot more complicated, even for the most anti-colonialist pro resistance minded factions in the West. Because at that point you aren't supporting a war of liberation anymore, you're supporting an irredentist movement that puts the achievement of a nationalist dream above the lives millions of people.
The obvious question here is of what is Israel a colony? I think this is a false equivalence, because Israel is the homeland not the colony.
Also, as the Supreme Court has shown recently, native American rights are generally guaranteed by treaty; otherwise they are (willingly or not) citizens of the US. Is there a specific treaty relevant here?
which one is more true:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/
I had been convinced of the former some time ago.
It's hard for to read through the source papers and understand the nature of the disagreement, but one weird thing I noticed is that Shilong Piao and Philippe Ciais are authors on both the _Nature Sustainability_ paper cited by NASA and the _Science Advances_ paper cited by Scientific American.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbxE9myZrsg&ab_channel=Dazza
Frogtopia. I think I've posted this before, but the frog patio has been improved and expanded considerably. Blow past ending wild animal suffering into wild animal pleasure.
Nice video, but one thing puzzles me. How on earth are the frogs supposed to reach frog towers from the ground? One short scene showed a frog climbing up a large leaf, and that would get it part of the way. But they must have a prodigious jump to reach it from the ground.
Well, doesn't the video start with the frog sitting in the uncapped hollow fencepost? Regardless of how he's "supposed" to reach it, he clearly did.
He could have been placed there.
My parents' (old) house had a cellar with a pit outside to provide light. As this was naturally damp and full of old leaves and the like it attracted frogs and toads. They got in and out by walking down a wall (about 3m). Turns out they're excellent climbers.
I think the jumping is aground mobility/escape thing with most frogs to be honest.
I'm guessing they can climb the outside of the tower, or else there is a gap at the bottom and they can climb the inside all the way from the bottom. Tree frogs are pretty good at climbing even smooth things.
I have no idea. It's a fair question.
I pay for some journalists that I trust personally, based upon their prior work which they made available for free. I didn’t get there with Jacobin, in part because I didn’t see a lot of stuff I could read for free. But maybe I didn’t look hard enough? I also looked at Noah Smith and Matt Yglesias, FWIW. I kept finding, “here is a thing I believe, but I’ll only give the details to paid subscribers.” Am I just looking in the wrong places?
I’d recommend Yglesias - and the subscriber base overlaps v heavily with ACX.
I think that's one of the potential pitfalls of Substack: it's probably hard to build a subscriber base from people who aren't already familiar with your work unless you give a bunch of content away for free, but if you do that, people may feel unobligated to buy a paid subscription. Much easier to generate revenue if people are already familiar with your work from somewhere else, like with Matt Y and Noah Smith, and your readers are essentially just following you from A to B.
Also, Jacobin ought to be paying the public to read their work, rather than the other way around.
It's obviously easier for writers who already have a fan base to do well on substack. Are there any people who started on substack and developed a big/high paying fan base?
Have an example from youtube: perun, who started out as an ordinary gaming youtuber, then became a major military logistics blogger when the war in Ukraine started.
Not sure. If it has, maybe Substack should offer other writers some insight on how to replicate such success, 'cause I would think that is a key to its long term success/expansion.
Substack allows you to make some of your articles free, to build the audience, and sell the rest. So it's up to you. You could write for free for one year, then sell. Or make half of the articles free, and sell the other half. Or make all articles free, and sell the access to open threads. Or make almost everything free, and sell a symbolic part.
For example, my strategy would be to post everything for free, until I get so many readers that if hypothetically 1% of them paid, I could quit my job. Then I would probably switch to half free and half paid, or most free but open threads paid, not sure... The idea is that even getting 1% of readers to pay you is probably too optimistic. And switching to paid articles too soon is stupid, because fewer free articles means fewer new readers, and getting like $20 a month is not worth it. You would be selling your future too cheaply.
(Another important thing is to write regularly. It doesn't matter which strategy you choose if your blog is empty.)
My current (probably mis)understanding of Nebula's model is that there is an overall subscription fee for Nebula, and authors/artists get payed based on views, but subscribers don't pay an incremental cost for viewing particular authors/artists.
Right. My point was only that it's not obvious what the best strategy is, and that people who come to Substack from traditional media outlets like Bari Weiss or whomever don't face these same kinds of tradeoffs.
"Also, Jacobin ought to be paying the public to read their work, rather than the other way around.”
LOL
What do the Stats of Substack mean? a) What is the difference between an Open and a View? Can Views occur without opening? How? When I divide the # Opens by the Open Rate I get a number not relates to anything I can see. What does it mean?
So, uh..... how much water am I supposed to be drinking every day? The figures even from reputable medical sources seem absurd, anywhere from 2.5 to 4 liters a day. Then they all vaguely mention that you're getting some % of that from food as well, but they don't really seem to quantify how much.
I eat a pretty healthy diet that's fruit and vegetable-heavy. I drink a small amount of water (like a couple cups plus a tea in the afternoon), and pee clear multiple times a day. I would say I never drink even 1 full liter of actual water unless I'm heavily exercising. Doesn't peeing clear all day mean that I'm getting enough? Or should I be forcing down multiple liters a day for whatever reason? (I know, you didn't log in to ASC to hear about my urine, but here we are)
The amount you actually need varies wildly according to diet, climate, and activity levels. Recommendations tend towards the upper end, since too much water is mostly harmless unless you're drinking really absurd amounts, and even then the problem is more an imbalance between electrolyte intake and water intake than the raw amount of water intake: this is why endurance athletes and people doing hard physical labor in hot, dry weather are often advised to supplement electrolytes, especially sodium, by drinking isotonic beverages (gatorade, pedialyte, etc) for hydration or taking salt pills.
For diet, the water/electrolyte imbalance problem goes both ways. Primate kidneys are pretty bad comparatively at concentrating urine, so we need a lot of water to get rid of excess sodium (or potassium or magnesium, but sodium is much more commonly the problem), so if you eat a lot of salty foods you're going to need more water to keep up with it. Likewise, stuff like fruits and vegetables are often mostly water by weight. For example apples are 85% water by weight, so eating a large apple weighting 9.5oz is going to be the same as eating 1.5 oz of dried apple crisps and drinking a cup of water.
And in addition, different macronutrients generate water as a metabolic byproduct: 110g water per 100g fat, 40g water per 100g protein, and 60g water per 100g carbohydrates. This is not a conservation of mass violation in the case of fat, since the extra mass comes from net respiration (oxygen + fat => co2 + water + other metabolic byproducts). Then there's water demand from dealing with the metabolic byproducts: carbohydrates metabolize completely into co2 + water, so not much water is needed to get rid of the co2 (water does evaporate through your lungs and vocal tract mucus membranes when you breath, but that's usually counted as an environmental effect rather than a metabolic one), while protein metabolized for energy yields urea as a major byproduct which takes a lot of water to carry away (roughly equal to the metabolic water), and fat is somewhere in between the two extremes.
Climate and activity levels have pretty much the effects you'd expect, and those effects can be very large in magnitude. A hot environment means you need to sweat to keep cool, as does high activity levels, and dry air means you lose a lot of water through respiration. So if you're a marathon runner or a construction worker living in Saudi Arabia, you're going to need much, much more water than if you're a sedentary office worker living in the Scottish highlands.
The bottom line is that so long as you drink when you're thirsty, you're eating a healthy diet with a fair amount of fresh foods, and your urine is clear or light yellow, you're probably fine. If you're doing hard physical activity or if you're in a particularly hot and dry environment, it may be worth keeping water with you and make an point of sipping at it when you're feeling winded or overheated, but that's more situational advice than general advice.
This is an excellent answer, thank you.
I used to know a guy with a medical condition that prevented him from feeling thirst. If you don't have that condition, your sense of thirst is probably a great deal more reliable than some advice you found on the internet. (And the internet advice appearing from many difference sources probably just means they're copying from each other.)
Ability to feel thirst declines with age, though. I've read that, observed it in others, and experienced it myself.
If you don't have any medical issues that seem like they stem from not having enough water, don't feel thirsty, and are peeing clear, then you're probably fine. I drink a lot more than you do, but I also probably eat less fruit and vegetables during the day. 4 liters is definitely a lot unless you're a very large person or engaging in vigorous exercise (I'll easily drink that much over a day of hiking).
Not a doctor but I can't see how you would not be absolutely fine. I occasionally drink a pint of water in one after exercise on a hot day, can't imagine drinking a whole liter. I don't know if it is true but have heard that there are more deaths from hyponatremia from excessive water consumption, than there are from dehydration.
Even if that is true, the dangers from dehydration (death or injury from secondary effects), possible permanent damage to the body, just feeling unwell mean it is likely a greater risk than hyponatremia (where the not death risk is generally feeling rather bloated and slow), as dehydration kicks in when you don't drink whilst hyponatremia doesn't kick in when you drink a little bit more than required.
I continue to push for better economic data.
1) We need actual wage indexes bases on sane job to sane job wage changes, not unit value indexes. 2) We should have a "Trillionth" a Treasury security that pays a fraction of the GDP some 5 and 10 years in the future. It's trading value together with TIPS would give us market expectations of real and nominal GDP.
3) We need intermediate tenor TIPS 1, 3 and 3 years
Agreed. Particularly re (1): I once heard a comment that it is bizarre that fluctuations of the Dow are reported daily, but fluctuations in the median real wage (which affects far more people) get reported around annually.
A while ago, I asked about magazines devoted to labor issues from a labor point of view. There didn't seem to be any. Anyone know of any such?
Is the AFL-CIO blog at https://aflcio.org/blog the sort of writing you are looking for?
The ideal thing I was imagining would include reporting on working conditions and dealing with problems on both individual and group levels. It would report on unions doing well *and* unions doing badly. It might even be international.
Imagine something at least as comprehensive as the Wall Street Journal, but for employees.
The AFL-CIO blog is at least vaguely in the direction I was thinking of.
Many Thanks!
I like all of these, and haven't heard of (2) before. Is it something that could be created privately?
Is there any data that exists (public or private) where (1) could be created?
The point of the Treasury doing it is to compare to other "riskless" yields.
I have a question about jet engines. The basic layout of a jet engine is this:
CF->COM->TF
CF = Compressor fans
COM = Combustion chamber
TF = Turbine fans
The arrows between the three indicate the direction of the airflow through the jet engine.
In the compression chamber (COM), fuel is sprayed in, mixed with the air, and ignited, producing little explosions and also causing the air/fuel mixture to expand in volume. All things being equal, such an explosion should expand outward spherically. That means there should be some force PUSHING BACK from COM into CF. In other words, a result of combustion should be airflow going against the desired direction, so the overall airflow actually looks like this:
CF<->COM->TF
Due to this backflow phenomenon, why do jet engines work at all?
How much efficiency is lost due to this phenomenon?
Your "spheric expansion implies net symmetry" assumption is wrong. Say you're indestructible and you shit a live granade every second. If you run, the explosions will propel you in the direction you are running. That's not too off from how a ramjet works.
In a jet engine, things are much more complicated, but it helps if you think of it as an air breathing rocket with a turbo. An air breathing rocket explodes continuously, but this does not impede the continuous intake of air. This is because the air coming in is under enough pressure to overcome the explosion, while the exhaust side just "gives in".
Asymmetry, of two kinds.
There's an initial flow velocity in the intended direction, so an unstart would have to more than overcome that (the flow is strong enough that stabilizing the deflagration zone within the combustor is a key design challenge; otherwise it just gets blown out the back).
Also the stator & rotor blades are shaped to minimize drag for the intended flow direction, so there's more force resisting backflow, and every bit of flow aft through the turbine puts more favorable torque into the shaft than backflow through the compressor creates in adverse torque.
Can you explain this using plainer language?
The air that's already flowing through the engine pushes the flame toward the turbine in the first place, so even if it's energy was radiating equally in all directions relative to itself, it'd still be mostly going aft relative up the engine.
Each blade of a compressor or turbine is like a little wing. When the air blows from the front there's not much drag; when it blows from the back there's a lot. The turbine gets turned more easily by the flow going the right way than the compressor would by the flow going the wrong way, so the whole shaft spins the right way to keep the flow going the same direction.
My (pretty sketchy) layman's understanding is that the injected fuel undergoes compression autoignition, as in a diesel engine. I assume the post-CF air is pretty seriously compressed, and behaving more like a cylinder head than any pressure front you or I could muster into a kazoo. Given a very high and a somewhat lower pressure side, the combustion gases take the easy way out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brayton_cycle
No autoignition in any Brayton cycle engine I've ever heard of.
But since it's a continuous flow (v. the discretized phases in a piston engine) you generally only* need to keep the flame going once started (also modern turbofan engines can generally be restarted in flight, which means relighting).
*how difficult "only" is varies, cf. scramjets.
In addition to the compressor fans, the incoming air is starting at near-rest relative to ground, and except at takeoff and landing that means from the engine's perspective the air is blowing into the intake at several hundred miles per hour before it hits the compressor. At substantially supersonic speeds you don't actually need the compression fan anymore: in a ramjet design, all the compression comes from channelling the headwind through an inlet whose shape compresses it to required levels by the time it reaches the combustion chamber.
My concern (btw, great question proyas, that I share) is that the expansion wave from combustion presumably would be doing work against both the high-pressure CF-side air and the low-pressure TF-side air, assuming spherical propagation -- it would be a lot more visible in the TF-side flow but you'd still be doing some (very marginal relative to its existing thermodynamic properties) compression and heating of the high-pressure CF air.
However, (as a complete layperson) I think there are two things I can think of that could result in net-output here and extractable work from the turbine:
(1) Physical geometry of the combustion chamber favoring only TF-side propagation (e.g., assume a parabolic solid combustion chamber construction opening towards the rear of the engine with combustion occurring at the focus, and intake air to feed the combustion coming from the "sides" rather than the solid bottom of the parabola, and/or
(2) The extraction of any work done heating the "backflow" high-pressure CF air as its driven out by continuous flow into the turbine - that is, even if heat and pressure are added "backwards," this additional work will be extracted (in the form of air expansion and cooling) assuming an existing continuous flow[1] from the turbine, because the portion of the air that is most CF-ward when it is compressed has moved to the turbine at the time that it re-expands and cools.
Tangentially related to (2), I recall specifically that took me a long while to wrap my head around why compressors existed in the first place -- how could it possibly be energetically favorable to spend all that work compressing air just to squeeze out a relatively small advantage in Carnot efficiency? What I eventually realized was that the reason it made sense was that the work done in compression wasn't "lost" but that in an ideal engine the work spent compressing the air in the first place was re-extracted as it re-expanded and drove the (turbine/piston) to do work on it. Thus the compression-to-expansion step is (in an idealized engine) net energy-neutral, and so optimizing the Carnot efficiency by having combustion occur in an already high-temperature (because high pressure) environment using compression was the natural thing to do.
[1] I assume, without being certain, that the only way you can bootstrap a jet engine is either using external power to spin it up or else to rely on asymmetrical combustion chamber geometry favoring rear flow.
This is a great question, something that I should think more of but here is an attempt at explanation (and they way I would go to derive the theory more formally):
you should not think in term of explosion or increased pressure, like you would in internal combustion engine. Instead of the "explosion" being a heat input that cause pressure increase at (more or less) constant volume, think of the dual: a heat input that cause volume increase at (more or less constant) pressure.
This may seem strange because the explosion in chamber is soooo present in our collective imagination since the invention of the internal combustion piston engine. But it's quite natural for older and more common open flame configuration: when you heat air with a flame, you just get more volume at the same pressure. if you do it in a tube, air in and out are at atmospheric pressure (they have to, by equilibrium), but more volume get out than in...
First let's check what is a turbine or compressor stage: as you said the turbine stage is the symmetric of compressor stage: for a given mass flow, they either extract work by decreasing pressure (turbine) or increase pressure by using work (compressor). They also modify the volume flow rate when the fluid is compressible, but this is secondary to the understanding, only important if you want to do accurate computations.
With this in mind, the simplified turbine explanation differ a little bit more from piston engines, but makes more sense. Let's check how the turboengine work by following a mass of air as it goes through the turboengine:
1) air is compressed (pressure increased ( and flow reduced somewhat)) at compressor stage. Work is used at this stage, similar to the compression stroke of the piston engine.
2) fuel is injected and burned, adding heat. This cause volume expansion at constant pressure, but work is not gathered. Instead, it means the flow is increased without pressure dropping...
3) turbine stage gather work by decreasing pressure (and increasing flow somewhat) of the exhaust gas. This is the reverse of the compressor stage, so work is gathered.
However, because stage 2), the turbine stage act on a larger volume flow than the compressor stage had to deal with, meaning that more work is gathered than was used in the compressor stage, resulting in net power generation.
Key point is that the theoretical themodynamic cycle is not exactly the same as the piston engine: the heat stage is done at constant pressure increased volume, not at constant volume increase pressure....
The engine does need something external to get things spinning. For small LBTFs (think fighters) that could be a start cart; for large HBTFs (think airlines) there are numerous engine accessories within the nacelle. And both can use the pinwheel effect of the air when in flight for restarts.
I question the conventional wisdom that anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs, icing, etc) are a helpful treatment for acute injuries, and I worry that they're actively harmful. Inflammation seems like a proactive response from the body, surely it would not have evolved if it weren't beneficial to our ancestors. The plausible reasons that I've thought of that anti-inflammatories could still be beneficial are:
- inflammation can be life-saving for extreme injuries, but is counterproductive for moderate injuries. Evolution cares much more about the former.
- inflammation was helpful to our ancestors, but harmful to us. But why? Is inflammation a vestigial response in humans? Does some other element of modern medicine substitute for inflammation?
- anything I'm missing?
I don't have any data to backup my suspicions, but when I've looked for evidence that anti-inflammatory treatments are beneficial I haven't found any data on that side either. Can anybody point me to a good data source here?
There is some evidence that the average human has an immune system that is too trigger-happy. The popsci book Immune goes on about possible causes.
One cause is the lack of parasites: many parasites suppress immune activity, and early humans were ridden with them. Another reason is the hygiene hypothesis - infants aren't being exposed to antigens that would've trained their immune systems into not responding.
I have asked a doctor this specific question, and was told that yes, inflammation is part of the healing response: but if it's going on too long then it's an over-reaction and it's worth doing something about it.
I recommend the site Pain Science for questions like these. The person who writes it is smart and skeptical and addresses questions like these. (Also, it's a huge site, with lots of resources.)
Pain Science is _superb_.
Have an anecdote: I sprained my foot. It hurt so I rested it for months. It didn't get better. I took an NSAID. It got well quickly.
I believe there was enough inflammation that the swelling was causing pain even though the injury had healed.
I don't have a data source for you, but you are not alone in the general suspicion that your body's inflammation serves a purpose and suppressing it might be bad. Baseball starting pitchers traditionally "ice" their arms after pitching. But I don't know of any evidence that the ones who don't suffer because of it.
For an "n" of one, my son pitched through junior college and never iced his arm. He finished his playing career having never suffered an arm injury. But "n" is one.
The pitching motion seems like it would have no analog in our evolutionary history.
Pitching is an extreme form of throwing, which humans have done for a while.
It is, however:
(a) A bit different,
(b) And a LOT more intense, and
(c) Done many more times in a row than would have been "normal" while evolving.
Thus the prevalence of pitcher injuries. The motion plus the intensity plus the frequency is pushing what the human body can endure without breaking down. Before the arm breaks down, however, it is common for the pitchers to experience soreness and inflamation as your body tries to signal that "things are not well." Icing masks this.
I can imagine techies icing their wrists because of early carpal tunnel. Typing doesn't have much of an analog (speed plus sheer repetition of the fine motor activity) during human evolution, either :-)
What if you were stoning an adulterer during biblical times? I bet that required a good 2-3 innings worth of throws!
Not sure that's a major component of our evolutionary history to be fair. I'd go with trying to hunt birds with stones as a better one (but I'm not sure if I've seen evidence early man did that or just assumed it).
Sounds like a missed opportunity. Imagine how much more entertaining baseball today would be if only our ancestors had engaged in more drawn out, torturous, public executions.
Many hands make light work.
It's complicated... As often is the case, https://www.painscience.com/articles/pain-killers.php provides a useful overview.
Inflammation is a legitimate natural response to injury, and it is probably possible to over-treat it. But just because something has evolved, doesn't mean it's perfect. For example, fever can occur even for non-infections, and occasionally (not commonly) gets so high it risks causing other problems, like brain damage.
One possibility that jumps out to me, is just that humans can now recognize when they are injured without a constant physical response. If you, say, sprain your ankle, then pain and swelling would help an animal not use it for a while, which is long-run beneficial. But I can also just recognize that my ankle is sprained, and I know to stay off of it for X days, and having it be swollen and painful is unnecessary discomfort. Or these signals could persist after it's necessary to stay off the joint, because there was only enough time/selection pressure to evolve crude mechanisms.
I've become sort of superstitiously attached to letting fever rage, seems like the body is doing something there. But then I don't think I get those high temps that worried our mothers in childhood. But also don't have a handy rectal thermometer like moms used to wield, and these modern digital ones seem to register the same temp no matter what.
The pain continuing is still useful to us. If it stopped hurting before it was actually healed, how would you know when it healed?
Leprosy would seem to indicate that a constant pain signal is necessary: lepers gradually lose their ability to feel pain, and often have to take drastic measures to recover from injuries properly. Even if they know their foot is injured, they have no feedback on whether a particular action or position is worsening their injury or not. In contrast, when I have a sprained ankle I know *exactly* what actions and positions are making it worse, immediately.
There's also "inflammation is a harmful byproduct of a beneficial process"
As an old professor of mine was fond of saying, "The dose makes the poison".
It's Monday, it's raining cats and dogs, so let's be silly!
Another Viva La Dirt League compilation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPoomE6PO4g
Looking for a recommendation of a desktop PC for music recording. I run Reaper DAW and use 2nd gen Focusrite Scarlett USB interface. It used to be easy to understand PC specs, but now I find myself hopelessly confused by the various processors, memory types, etc. Hoping to spend under $1000 and prioritize low latency.
I know you are looking for a PC, but I think that a Mac mini would be quite good for this task at this price point. I think that macOS is inherently better with latency than Windows (even though I haven't used audio software in windows in a long time, but most people I know who work in this field are Mac users).
Luckily Reaper works perfectly on macOS, so this aspect shouldn't be a problem at least.
Yeah, I talked to a colleague at work today and he also recommended a mac for this kind of work, so I'm seriously considering going with a mini.
Music recording really doesn't push the tech envelope with modern hardware. People were recording entire professionally produced albums onto PCs and Apple desktops over 10 years ago. I guy I play for right now is running Reaper on a 9 year old macbook with zero issues.
Interesting, I had latency issues with a 5 y o intel-based laptop. I wonder if Macs are just better for this work. Like I said, modern computer specs are bewildering to me at this point.
I would get a ryzen (multi thread performance over the single thread focus of Intel), ddr4 or 5 ram, an SSD rather than a hard drive.
Video cards are the big ticket item these days, I'm guessing you can skimp on that.
Update: I got curious about the price on this. Was able to put together a ryzen CPU, 64gb memory, and a 2tb SSD for under $900.
Not necessarily suggesting these exact parts but as an example: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/n6mLcH
Thank you so much, this is very helpful!
Is anyone studying the placebo effect? It seems like there should be something we could learn about ourselves.
If I told you I was studying it, would it help?
Yeah I think so. All I can find online is kinda vague.
Well there you have it, placebo works.
It could just be regression to the mean.
Is there something you're interested in learning about in particular? There are tons of studies and research efforts on the placebo effect. An area I find interesting is how it might tie into predictive processing theories of the brain (Scott on predictive processing: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/20/translating-predictive-coding-into-perceptual-control/ , some relevant study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24656247/)
Recently I have played Tin Can (because it was in that humble monthly thingy). It is a spacecraft escape pod simulator. You sit in that shitty escape pod and try to keep life support running for as long as possible, while equipment parts fail, micro-meteorites puncture your hull and the universe generally makes your life miserable. Depending on the mode, you might even get rescued after some time.
A typical sequence is the oxygen deployment device failing. Looking up the error codes, you find one says "power transformer failed". Of course, you did not bring a spare power transformer. Luckily, you have a device which changes the nitrogen content to maintain 1 bar of total pressure, which is much less critical than oxygen. So you decide to cannibalize that. Unfortunately, you forgot to turn the device off and get electrocuted when you try to remove it. After a brief struggle, you succeed in grabbing it and plug it into the oxygen device, which causes the O2 partial pressure to increase back to 0.2 bar or something.
Personally, I would not pay 17 bucks for that game (it is not a game you will likely spend 100s of hours playing), but if it comes on sale it is worth considering.
What's the steelman case for the benefits of CO2 concentration increasing over time? I can think of two main benefits: faster plant growth with higher CO2, and fewer cold deaths due to higher temperatures. I suspect that these advantages are not being given full consideration in mainstream sources. For example, I've seen sources acknowledging that higher CO2 increases crop growth, but point out that the carbohydrate concentration is so high that other nutrients are diluted (as if too much/too cheap of a source of calories is a bad thing, as opposed to the solution to starvation).
So is there a good source out there that seriously considers the benefits of higher CO2? Most sources opposed to the mainstream narrative on climate change are...not good, and I don't think mainstream sources will seriously consider the possible benefits.
> (as if too much/too cheap of a source of calories is a bad thing, as opposed to the solution to starvation)
A brute increse of calories to detriment of other nutrients is indeed not a solution to starvation, as man lives not by calories alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor
Specifically for "fewer cold deaths due to higher temperatures", the IPCC _does_ have that. https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch8s8-4-1-3.html
It is broken down by region with, e.g. for the UK "Annual heat-related deaths increase from 798 in 1990s to 2,793 in 2050s and 3,519 in the 2080s under the medium-high scenario. Annual cold-related deaths decrease from 80,313 in 1990s to 60,021 in 2050s and 51,243 in 2080s under the medium-high scenario. "
Whether of not higher CO2 concentrations will lead to enhanced photosynthesis or crop production is not actually a straight-forward answer. It depends on whether CO2 is the resource that is limiting growth. Whether that is true depends on the temperature (reaction speed of Rubisco and other enzymatic reactions becomes more limiting at lower temps), nutrient levels, water supply, the type of photosynthesis being performed (C3 vs C4 vs CAM), and a whole lot of other stuff.
I agree that potential positive benefits of climate change are perhaps under-emphasized or at least not given due consideration in a lot of the press (and even the scientific community). But on the specific case of CO2 fertilization it's not really clear that there will be net positive effects.
"faster plant growth with higher CO2" is not intrinsically a benefit. I saw an article in Science News about an experiment that showed weeds benefit more from increased CO2 than crops. You could instead argue for "increased agriculture with higher CO2", but farmers prefer fewer of the extreme weather events associated with global warming.
Global warming is not associated with extreme weather events, at least not with high confidence. The one possible exception is "extreme" heat, but that's just an artifact of temperatures generally increasing.
I agree that David Friedman is among the best on this, and I even agree with him on some particular points and I think that he's mostly pretty good (and definitely an honest participant who is seeking the truth).
My criticisms would probably be that A) he ignores the impacts of transition to focus on the long term equilibrium and B) he doesn't take into account things that aren't directly included in GDP (mostly I'm thinking of value from ecosystems etc., although this could be considered an addendum to A since ecosystems will also eventually recover, just at probably an even longer timescale than for human societies)
There is no case for a "CO2 concentration increasing over time" in the long run. It is impossible; a fantasy told to people who would rather dream about Mad Max than do simple math.
As far as the question of "should we stabilize at 300ppm or 500ppm or 800ppm" ... there seems to be almost no research. I think the question is still taboo due to the wide prevalence of "climate change isn't real" people.
Of course it isn't increasing consistently over geological time, and there's no "best concentration", and it has been higher before.
But it's increasingly rapidly _now_, and the rapid _changes_ in temperature create problems _for us_.
This is the important point - it's not about saving the planet, it will be perfectly fine in a million years. It's about not creating unnecessary problems for ourselves.
It's not like world at +3 degrees C is inherently much worse, but it's not the world we have built for and live in. If the world had always been 3 C warmer and threatened to drop three degrees, that would _also_ be bad.
Yes, absolutely. CO2 concentration increasing monotonically would be bad, if for no other reason than at some point CO2 becomes directly toxic to people. And the question of what the "best" place to stabilize is essentially the question I'm asking. Or, really, even a simpler one: are we better off where we're at now (or where we expect to be in 30 years) rather than going back closer to pre-industrial levels? I suspect (with low confidence) that pre-industrial levels would actually be meaningfully worse, but I don't have any good source for that.
I don't know. And I am in no rush to find out. If we were to use an oracle to determine that 600ppm is best, we would have 20 years of people sabotaging "green" efforts with the shallow rationale of "scientists said more carbon emissions are good", followed by having the exact same problems as today.
The shallow rationale of...actually making things better? Yeah, that'd be...just awful.
I suspect Alex meant that we'd have people ignoring the necessary prep work that would need to happen if we wanted to actually stop when we reach the optimal amount.
If the ideal target were 600 ppm (and it may well be), the bigger concern would be how do we get there, not how do we avoid overshooting.
The positive effects you point out should in principle be included in the standard models estimating costs of CO2 concentrations. Perhaps they are not; I'm not expert enough to know. If not some technician should fix it. The fact that these benefits are not talked about in MSM is neither here nor there.
For a critique of one such estimate, a article published in _Nature_ and being considered by the EPA as a basis for regulation, see:
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/critique-of-comprehensive-evidence
If my criticisms are correct, the article is more nearly propaganda than science. In particular, its estimate depends on the implicit assumption of no medical progress for the next three centuries.
Any such estimate depends on a whole lot of judgement calls, the future being complicated and uncertain. If you know what answer you want to get you make all of them in the same direction.
True enough. It works as well for the policy of NOT taxing net emissions (an perforce not doing anything even more costly). I'm not the one to do it, but it seems to me that the only way is to critique the models and make them do what they should, give the best policy guidance.
I think the first step is to limit your calculation to at most the next century, on the grounds that anything beyond that is guesswork.
I'm not talking about the mainstream media. I'm talking about mainstream science, such as Science, Nature, the IPCC, etc. I'm not claiming all of those sources are wrong about the positives. I'm saying all of those sources have exhibited bias in the past, and so I want to consider other sources that might have a different perspective.
Perfect, but that has to go beyond JUST pointing out errors and rather to how errors can be corrected at the policy making stage.
Have you read any of David Friedman's substack? You might like it. https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/
No, but I'll take a look. Thanks for the suggestion! One relevant recent article is https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/critique-of-comprehensive-evidence.
Good critique of the article. a) Adaption should be taken into account in estimating costs and by implication the amount of deadweight loss of avoidance policies we should be willing to experience to avoid those costs. b) The costs of adaptation are part of the costs that can be avoided by avoidance policies.
I feel like there's a strong file drawer effect in climate science. If you do a study that predicts crop yields will be up 30% in Canada and this more than cancels out the 20% decrease in equatorial regions, it's not good for your career to publish it so you fiddle with your methodology until you get a model that gives more career-friendly predictions.
Comments on substack take a lot of resources to load. With OTs often reaching comment counts in the thousands, I literally can not view any of them on my (pre-covid) android tablet.
Is there a 3rd party interface for them somewhere, like nitter for twitter?
Or could we just host comments on a site where they actually scale (e.g. themotte, lesswrong) and just fetch them below the articles?
One workaround that I've used on my laptop (windows 10, firefox browser) is to click the "stop" button when I scroll and see "This page is making the browser load slowly" message. After doing that, I can at least read the comments quickly, though I can't directly reply. I use a second tab and search when I want to reply (or expand a partially visible comment). It is awkward, but better than waiting multiple minutes for substack to honor a scroll command.
Why not open the comment you want to reply to in a separate tab instead of searching? Middle-clicking on the timestamp should get you where you're going.
Thanks! That seems to work some of the time. My recent experience seems to be that some of the link-following parts of the substack interface seem sporadically unreliable. ( maybe when the total size of the comments on a post gets large??? )
Don't have an answer, but I'll just second that to say that I also have lots of trouble on my Android tablet.
Is metasurprise a thing? Like, initially being surprised by some object level phenomenon, and then realizing that this phenomenon seems predictable and thus being surprised by the initial feeling of surprise?
I don't know about surprise from being surprised, but I've definitely been surprised by not being surprised.
Particularly as one watches/reads more fiction, twists and complications that used to be surprising start to become recognized as specific tropes and become much less surprising from there out.
Don't know if it's recognized/talked about much but I've certainly experienced it.
*Where did I get this idea?*
One account of the origins of self-awareness and introspection that I find pretty compelling is the idea that as we evolved (as a highly social species), there was obvious adaptive advantage to being able to model the other minds around us in order to predict what they would do and to manipulate them ('Machiavellian intelligence'). Once we had the machinery to model minds, modeling our own came pretty much for free.
I had this theory mentally tagged as having come from Marvin Minsky's _The Society of Mind_, which I read when I was pretty young. But I've just spent an hour searching through that book and have failed to find the theory there. Can anyone point me to the source of that idea, or toward writing on the topic? Thanks!
Not sure, but Daniel Dennett was talking about our innate Theory of Mind, also called Folk Psychology, in his 1987 The Intentional Stance. Minds Make Societies by Pascal Boyer, Being You by Anil Seth are good current books on the subject.
Thanks! Dennett definitely seems like a plausible candidate for having come up with the theory, I'll see what I can find.
Hmm, yeah, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
'...narrative consciousness of the kind associated with the stream of consciousness is also clearly relevant in so far as it involves the application to one's own case of the interpretative abilities that derive in part from their social application (Ryle 1949, Dennett 1978, 1992).'
The Dennett citations are to his book _Brainstorms_ and the paper 'The self as the center of narrative gravity'; I'll dig into those and see what I can find.
Thanks again!
[EDIT: wow, I messed up *both* those citations; now corrected]
I noticed how much capacity I lost when mildly ill-- a stomach bug followed by UTI. It was almost as though part of my thinking is done with my intestines, and if they aren't happy, I'm badly distracted.
I'm impressed by the number of people who accomplish a lot while dealing with serious physical problems, but I started thinking about how much of a weight illnesses and disabilities are on the human race if you pile the problems up into a huge negative utility lump.
I'm thinking in terms of healing people, not preventing them from existing. (Should I need to say that?)
Please don't bring up diet and exercise-- there is huge range of physical difficulty where they don't help, or only help a little.
I'm thinking about utopia-level medical care. Is this something which should be on the rationalist to-do list. We don't even have a good guess about how much capacity is being lost all the time.
I noticed a similar thing recently. Went through a period of having frequent heartburn. Eventually figured out it was a reaction to drinking a beer that was very hoppy, but before I figured that out I noticed that when I had heartburn I was quite unproductive. Things that usually seemed interesting seemed boring, and work that is usually not difficult was fiendishly hard to get through. And I don't think the low mood and productivity were a direct result of the heartburn, because it actually was not very severe heartburn. It was quite persistent, but rarely was the pain itself worse than mild to moderate. It was as though whatever was wrong in my gut not only gave me heartburn, but also sapped my energy -- as though though too much of my blood was circling my gut, and not enough was left for my brain.
I noticed that the severity of symptoms and how much I'm affected are only loosely connected, at least at the low end.
I've had the merest tiny hint of cold symptoms and been knocked out, and been considerably sicker in ways I could describe but more functional.
I've had pancreatitis for eight years. At 6 feet, I weigh 122 lbs. After a distal pancreatectomy and a splenectomy, my cognition improved greatly. But flare-ups can take 15 lbs. overnight, after which my cognitive gains are lost, and simple things like memory and calculation become difficult. February 10-13 I lost 25 lbs., which caused real genitive losses, but I've found improved cognition usually returns as my weight returns and my body stabilizes. Still, slipping in and out of cognitive stages is unnerving.
meant "real cognitive losses" of course
> Please don't bring up diet and exercise-- there is huge range of physical difficulty where they don't help, or only help a little.
This strikes me as a ridiculous thing to say. "Please don't bring up this thing we know currently works and is being underutilized by billions of people so that we can instead speculate about hypothetical future technology which isn't even close to existing"
Oh, man. Wait until you hear about 'metabolic privilege' and 'virtue theory of metabolism'.
It's not a ridiculous thing to say when the examples of problems given are stomach bugs and UTI's. Exercising and maintaining an ideal weight do not work against either of those infections, and the same can be said regarding many common illnesses that cause considerable suffering. Of course, there are whole classes of illness that are very tied to overweight and lack of exercise. But why drag those into the discussion when OP has made clear she is talking about forms of illness and suffering that are not tied to suboptimal exercise and body mass?
Thank you.
I bring that up because I want to focus on big improvements.
It never ceases to amaze me how many supposed technophiles are unwilling to use the technologies that are actively available to them.
I recommend that next time you have a UTI you try some jogging to see how effective it is.
Given the degree to which lack of exercise and obesity can negatively affect the immune system, making us more susceptible to viral and bacteria infections, I stand by my statement.
Nono negentrope, it’s not about standing, it’s about jogging. Give it a try next time you have a UTI or a stomach bug. And don’t even think about whining to get out of it.
We seem to be talking past each other and I doubt this is an effective use of my time. Good day.
Banned for this comment.
Oh, I just asked the question: Is anyone studying the placebo effect? Maybe there are 'fixes' that are not a drug or a knife. There must be an anti-placebo effect where we 'talk' ourselves into feeling worse.
Yeh. We clearly feel a lot of emotions in our gut. Butterflies or knots in our stomach. It’s why the people who think that we can upload the brain and still have a human personality are wrong.
UTIs are debilitating. My mother had severe pains for a year and was extremely emotional during this time. Admittedly there were other things going on. She was prescribed psychiatric drugs. It was a stay in hospital to fix the UTI that fixed the emotional issues. She’s still got other issues but is in much better mental shape.
I got off easy. I took prescribed Nitrofurantoin Mono-Mcr. It's got some scary possibilities for attacking the liver, and when I was getting some pain on my right side, I stopped at the three day mark.
The UTI symptoms were gone. I ate yogurt. I'm fine.
I don't know how common liver issues are with that antibiotic, but I got very worried when one of my FB friends described getting very sick from it--
"Nancy, I don't usually give advice on drugs to people online but I feel compelled to because I had a life-threatening reaction to nitrofurantoin in 2014, even though I had taken it many times earlier for UTIs. No one ever alerted me to the possibility that the drug could be lethal, so I did not connect a few subtle symptoms I had to the drug, until it almost was too late. And, I didn't notice the symptoms for a month or so after I took it. My two symptoms were 1/deep fatigue and 2/a catch at the bottom of each breath I took. You know that cold feeling you get at the bottom of a breath when you're exercising hard outside in the winter? That was the feeling, but it was August and I was getting it at the bottom of each breath. I mentioned it to my primary during a routine physical and she sent me immediately to the hospital for imaging and an appointment with a pulmonologist. She could hear rales and he could see ground glass images. This started a four-month ordeal of invasive tests that resulted in a (clinical) diagnosis of stable pulmonary fibrosis caused by hypersenstivity pneumonitis from nitrofurantoin. I lost about 30% of my lung capacity, but no function, luckily. So, I can't run marathons or sing opera, and I take naps without guilt when I need to. If I had let it go any longer, it probably would have gone into full-blown pulmonary fibrosis and we would not be having this conversation. So be careful. If you notice ANY changes, alert your doctor and get someone to listen to your lungs. Good luck!"
Good thing I checked-- I thought she was talking about being in the hospital for her liver, but no, it's all lung problems. I'm not showing any symptoms, but I should keep an eye on myself, since apparently symptoms can take a month to show up.
I have 1800 fb friends, and I estimate that about 200 people are likely to read and comment. Have I learned something significant about risks from that antibiotic?
I don't usually prescribe nitrofurantoin for UTIs for that reason, but my understanding is that pulmonary fibrosis is very rare and usually occurs in people who are taking prolonged courses (months or years) as prophylaxis. Still, I've never yet had a problem with cefalexin or trimethoprim.
Thank you. She didn't say she was taking it for prophylaxis, but she did say she'd taken it "many times".
Not really, your prior should have been 1 in 5000, according to wiki. So it’s unlikely that with 200 readers you would see this response but not impossible.
And you have stopped taking it. You could probably get a lung checked every few months to be safe.
Is there such a thing as “the rational right?” A group of bloggers / writers that espouses rationalism and right wing politics?
What about “the rational left?”
Any examples of good substacks that fit either genre and are (mostly) free?
I consider myself rational, and I'm vaguely on the left. My substack is https://pontifex.substack.com/
It seems to me that strong political opinions usually go hand in hand with ignoring the parts of reality that are inconvenient for those opinions. From that perspective, being too much of a rightist/leftist limits how rational you can be.
I think I am rational and am by some definitions right and my substack is free (https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/) , as are my blog and my web page (www.daviddfriedman.com).
Data Secrets Lox (https://www.datasecretslox.com), a forum established after SSC disappeared, has quite a lot of right wing posters and civil and reasonably rational conversation.
If I can plug myself, I'd say my blog qualifies as rational left. I'd also say Adam Tooze's Chartbook is rational, but not rationalist, and fairly leftist.
Crooked Timbre is leftist, free, and (mostly) non-insane. Not capital-R Rationalist, but not outright irrational either.
https://crookedtimber.org/
David French on religious issues. Whether you call them Left or Right, Noah Smith, Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias
I would call Matt Yglesias almost aggressively centrist. :-)
Not an explicit group of rightists, but themotte.org has a lot of more conservative leaning folks than other places on the internet, and high quality discourse.
N.S. Lyons writes an excellent blog that I would say fits the genre: https://theupheaval.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
While I read and respect The Upheaval, nothing about it strikes me as particularly rationalist. “Right intellectual” certainly (and well done), but mostly concerned with bringing some deep thought to bear on some culture war issues from a traditionalist (or maybe just anti-liberal?) view.
Real emphasis on the `(mostly) free` bit.
I wanted to read jacobin to keep up to date with modern Marxist perspectives but was ... only very slightly surprised to find they want you to pay for it.
Even Marxists have to live in capitalist societies right now.
Somehow the libertarians running reason magazine are able to let me read it for free, despite them not living in a libertarian utopia. Lots of other newsletters of various ideologically persuasions are available for free as well.
Yeh I suppose Marxism doesn’t get the advertisers.
Also I don’t think Marxism is about free stuff anyway.
Scott’s blog was long available for free. There are plenty of other people who write online, just not as a profession. I am disinclined to the judgement of anyone whose sole professional obligation is to produce content for an audience, because of the incentives that setup produces. What I’m looking for is content produced by peole who are paid to produce some outcomes in reality, and who write on the side out of a desire to express themselves and interact with the world. These definitely exist, in categories that stay out of advocating political views! I like part time bloggers precisely because them holding holding employment acts as both a tether to reality and a source of insight and observations. So it seems odd that somehow, only in the domain of advocating a particular set of political views, payment is necessary to get decent content.
FT railing against mathematicians and, by extension, the EA's. https://www.ft.com/content/fd0bf457-f20b-4121-bcae-145df24c8d1c
Well, Ganesh rather than "the FT". The weekly column from the light hearted section on the backpage of "Life & Arts". I thought this was quite enjoyable, and certainly spot on
It’s paywalled. Can you summarize?
Try https://archive.is/QNqx3
When I click on that I get a page asking me to complete a captcha. The only thing on the page it could refer to is an "I'm not a robot" check box. Clicking on it just refreshes the page.
Same here. I've been seeing that for months, on and off, on sites of the archive.today family. While I regret that you are having problems, I'm happy to learn that it's not just me.
I've been assuming it has something to do with my quirky computer setup (a somewhat rare variety of Linux, and Firefox, with some older extensions). I can usually get around it by opening the site in Chromium.
I am running Firefox on a Mac, so not at all quirky a setup. Next time I'll try Chrome.
I got the captcha running Firefox on my Mac, but did not when trying with Safari.
That link still works for me though. There are times when some captcha thing has asked me to do their exercise multiple times (despite probably not making a mistake); the same could have happened to you, and sorry about that.
I'm not getting an exercise, just a check box to click in.
I've gotten good results from archive.ph.
Tried this hack and it seems to be working:
https://history-computer.com/how-to-read-articles-behind-a-paywall/
Serendipitously, there's also an FT article on that Marc Andreessen Techno-Optimist Manifesto and I'm going to bet the columnist doesn't much like it, either 😁
https://www.ft.com/content/7eeb105d-7d79-4a59-89be-e18cd47be68f
Matt Yglesias also has a piece up today about Andreeson’s manifesto.
"SBF was a scoundrel, and his scam was symptomatic of a wider problem in industry where some mathematicians in positions of authority have a childlike faith in mathematical results that ignore the wider messiness of life."
Any fans of Daniel Clowes who are wrestling with his new graphic novel Monica—I've hacked out a (lengthy) first attempt at a thorough understanding of the book, and am looking eagerly for corrections / comments.
https://haljohnsonbooks.substack.com/p/notes-towards-an-understanding-of
How spoilerish is your post? I'm on the fence about buying it.
Extremely spoilerish. It will also make no sense if you haven't read the book. It's more an analysis than a review.
That said, you should acquire (buy it or borrow it) Monica; it's the book of the year. I kept thinking, reading it, how timid most contemporary "conventional" literature is compared to this. Even the good stuff (i.e. "the stuff I like") never seems this audacious or ambitious. Most certainly read Monica.
This is slightly self-promotional. In the spirit of 80000 hours, and job searching/recruiting in general, I'm going to share the link to a tool I've been working on for a startup. The founders are UK based cybersecurity experts that have worked with the NCSC.
Basically looks at your LinkedIn activity and generates a report that tells you how you're perceived by your network and recruiters. It is free (would love feedback though.)
Here's the link - https://www.visible.cx/lp/linkedin-report-request
I'm curious for easily guessable reasons how my activity is perceived so I'll give it a shot, thanks!
Hamas is in a bit of a fix at the moment.
Their comfort, though, will be that no-one else wants to rule Gaza after all of this is over.
No other Palestinians are likely to want to step in. It would be political suicide (probably also actual suicide) for any more accommodating-to-Israel Palestinians to be installed in this hornet’s nest.
Direct rule from the Israelis is also not attractive. It will be a black hole swallowing Israeli resources forever.
To “kill all belonging to Hamas”, including all potential future recruits (probably quite a few after last weeks’ Israeli attacks) is impossible unless you unleash something akin to the Final Solution on Palestinians in Gaza. A softer version of the same, to make life so deeply unpleasant for everyone in Gaza that they flee to other countries would have been possible if Egypt (or others) would be willing to accept them as immigrants. But no country in the Middle East want to accept 2 million Gazans as immigrants, for good reasons.
So what is really going on? Arguably, Netanyahu is sending a message to Hamas, along the lines of “Please do not do this again, because if you do, we will do what we are doing now to you again.” The goal is a demoralized and scared Hamas (perhaps re-branded under another name, but with roughly the same people), equally seething with resentment, but whose rage is impotent.
In addition (and related), Israel is likely to try to permanently reduce the capability of Hamas to ever do such a stunt in the future. Expect much stronger fences, perhaps more akin to the old Berlin Wall, and the like.
It must also be remembered that keeping Hamas, or someone equally hostile to Israel, in charge of Gaza has had its benefits from an Israeli perspective. Hamas serves a useful purpose by keeping the memory of the WW2 genocide alive in the minds of Western audiences, in particular in the US, which Israel is dependent on. The main worry from an Israeli point of view has always been that the US will in the long run tire of its support to Israel. This is a real long-term danger since US “realist” interest is arguably in maintaining good relations to other Middle East countries rather than to Israel: Almost all other Middle East countries are strategically and economically more important to the US than Israel.
...Related, the best long-term strategy for the Palestinians has always been to drive a wedge between the US and Israel by insisting on not being hostile to the US, plus to frame their opposition to Israel’s Palestinian policies as “cold”, not “warm”. To achieve this, Palestinian leaders must be able to credibly signal to the US (and other states supporting Israel for similar bad-conscience-since-WW2 reasons) that they will not give in to unhinged bloodlust should they ever be granted real power (arguably Abbas’ strategy). The subtext to the US being “If you disengage from Israel, we will behave in a civilized manner toward the Israeli Jews.” The present unhinged killings by Hamas is in this perspective a godsend to the Israelis, or more specifically to Netanyahu’s clever though rather devious and depressing strategy to control the Palestinians both in the West Bank and Gaza.
In the very long run, Netanyahu’s strategy may wear thin, as it has some in-built problems. But that is another story.
Israel needs to rid itself of Netanyahu in short order and put a government in place that has at least some semblance of a political endgame for the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza. And the United States could play a role by providing political cover to any Israeli politician inclined toward peace by making elements of aid conditional on the peace process, as the first Bush administration did in 1991.
There were always, imho, only three ways forward: wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, through destruction and exile; a Palestinian state on the Green Line plus adjustments; or a bi-national state from the river to the sea with full democratic rights for the Arabs. The Netanyahu strategy of coddling the settlers, discrediting the Palestinian Authority while goading Hamas, and simultaneously hoping the Palestinians just stay quiet enough to allow normalisation with the Arab states was never going to work.
My admittedly-limited understanding of the situation is that the second option has been repeatedly & resoundingly rejected by the Palestinians even before Hamas and that the third option would result in a supermajority Arab state in short order (due to differential fecundity between the two subpopulations) which is seen by Israel as an existential threat.
That doesn't really leave a good alternative to the status quo.
That's not how I understand it, re: second option. Various negotiations have begun (most promising in 2000 and 2008) and failed to complete (in both cases largely because of the Israeli electoral timetable). I go into it briefly in my exchange with Sholom in https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-299/comment/42363241
The Palestinians have a long-established pattern of rejecting the best offer on the table, initiating violence, getting smacked down, and being faced with worse options as a result.
Evaluating a couple of the latest offers in isolation is either naïve or disingenuous.
If I am cherry-picking my examples, it's only to steelman in favour of Israel. I'm pretty sure these have long been touted as the most generous Israeli offers of Palestinian sovereignty, and I'm not sure what pre-2000 offers you're referring to. The tellingly-named Interim Agreement from the 1990s, while establishing limited self-governance in the occupied territories, did not, by nature or design, extend an offer of a state.
>"I'm not sure what pre-2000 offers you're referring to."
UN Resolution 181 in 1947 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine) for starters.
I'm not disagreeing per se, but I feel like I should point out that this description is game-able by whoever controls what the "best offer on the table" is.
In a more recent thread, people are talking about incels, and whether they simply have unrealistically high standards for potential partners. This kinda feels like the same dynamic, in a sense. Who is to say what I should find acceptable? Pragmatically, certain courses of action may provide a higher expected utility, but what if I don't want to? What if I'm motivated more by pride, or hate, or revenge, or a desire for justice?
I know, the answer is "suck it up and deal, or continue suffering". But it's hard to convince people to accept "life just handed you a pile of shit, and now you have to eat it", when the people actively handing you the shit are right over there, close enough to reach out and...
My point was more that any deficiencies in the offers from the 2000s are the result of the Palestinians rejecting better offers earlier; they've dug themselves in so deep that a two-state solution is infeasible for the foreseeable future.
Yeah well… But if you see it from the Israeli perspective, the majority of voters are likely to think that the stakes are too high to take any chances. That’s why they have backed Netanyahu in the past and are likely to continue to do so.
...Also bearing in mind that Netanyahu’s policies tend to lock in a confrontational style toward the Palestinians, since it is making it ever-more difficult for them to credibly signal commitment to self-restraint should they ever achieve power (increasingly boiling mad as his policies encourage them to be) – making it even more risky for Israeli voters to take the chance of “real” peace with Palestinians - and so forth. (I am sure there is name for this kind of gradual lock-in of a political trust-game into an equilibrium of deep mutual distrust; if not, there ought to be.)
The only way out I see, is if the long-term frailty of Netanyahu’s policies becomes more salient. First, there is a long-term risk that Israel will lose control of the narrative – that they will not any longer be seen as victims, but as oppressors. (Many argue that this has already happened, but it is only the fringe left that makes all this noise – and they seldom represent more that 10-15 percent of Western voters.)
Second (and related) the less-than-generous treatment of Palestinians may boost the position of the “realists” within the US administration, who are concerned with the relationship with the economically and strategically much more important (from a US perspective) larger Middle East countries.
…but then again, one can understand that the Israelis are nervous about going back toward a policy a la Rabin before he was assassinated in 1995, i.e. to build a prosperous Palestinian middle class (traditionally a moderating element in all societies) integrated with Israel. Since regardless of how many wars Israel wins, they only have to lose one before it is all over.
Plus, again, Netanyahu’s policies toward the West Bank and Gaza over the years has tended toward deepening mutal hatred and therefore to lock-in the present confrontational Israeli policies, by making a return toward Rabin-type policies appear increasingly risky to Israeli voters.
"That’s why they have backed Netanyahu in the past and are likely to continue to do so."
I'd take that wager. I think he's toast after this and wasn't far off even before.
"The only way out I see, is if the long-term frailty of Netanyahu’s policies becomes more salient. First, there is a long-term risk that Israel will lose control of the narrative – that they will not any longer be seen as victims, but as oppressors."
I have to undersign the 'many' in your parentheses. This view is prevalent around the world already, not just among the 'fringe left'. It's not prevalent in the US, of course, and the US matters enough in this case to balance out everyone else - but look at e.g. https://news.gallup.com/poll/472070/democrats-sympathies-middle-east-shift-palestinians.aspx from March this year. Granted, the Dems are indeed what in the US masquerades as the left, but taken together with the other two bins, this pans out to about 30% of the electorate breaking pro-Palestinian.
"Second (and related) the less-than-generous treatment of Palestinians may boost the position of the “realists” within the US administration, who are concerned with the relationship with the economically and strategically much more important (from a US perspective) larger Middle East countries."
If realism governed US policy toward Israel, sure, but I think even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool realist, you have to acknowledge certain distorting effects. I agree with you about the vicious spiral of signalling, though, which is why I think the United States and the EU should at least try to provide extrinsic guarantees and incentives.
There is a third factor, which is the increasing possibility of rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which China has been working to bring about. The implications of that ought to make normalisation with Saudi even more of a priority for Israeli leaders, and it's hard to see how that can happen now without Palestine.
I concede that the gigantic blunder of Netanyahu in not foreseeing the Hamas breakout may mean he will not survive politically. But the problem is that his place is likely to be taken up by another hardliner, perhaps someone even more hardline. Due to the surge in raw hatred toward Hamas that now - rather understandably - marks how a majority of Israeli voters are likely to feel in the foreseeable future.
In the longer run, the hardline strategy has serious weaknesses, we agree on that. .
..and to follow up on the last point: If I was a "realist" in the Israeli State Administration, I would be very concerned that I have made the fate of my country, and my people, dependent on having a Big Brother - the US - across the sea and far away that will come to my rescue, should I ever need it. I would be very concerned about this, since I would know that from a "realist" perspective the US guarantee of my (Israel's) existence is not based on sound Realpolitik (Realpolitik would suggest that keeping good relations with other countries in the Middle East is more important), but on less rock-solid foundations. Would it not be cleverer, in this long-term fragile situation, to seek some accommodation with the Palestinians? To encourage the formation of a large Palestinian middle class with a self-interest in Israel, plus the capability to keep the Young Turks among the Palestinians in check? (Essentially Rabin's strategy and the basis for the Oslo accord in 1993). Granted, this strategy also has its risks, but are they really greater than the risk of betting on US being your loyal friend forever and ever?
Side note at the end: It is an historical irony worthy of Hegel that Israel is arguably one of the most dangerous countries to live in, if you are Jewish. All "Western" countries are safer. (A bleak comfort: If Israel should lose one of the many wars that are likely to be in store for the future, at least (unlike 1934-1939) this time there will be countries aplenty that will welcome Jewish immigrants with open arms, even if all Jews should need to escape after a defeat. Oh well.)
That's an interesting point, and again reads almost like an empirical repudiation of IR realism - because of course pretty much the opposite has happened so far.
Partnership with the US is Israel's single most important advantage (a multiplier to all others) diplomatically, militarily, and economically, and it has been almost perfectly reliable since Suez, though it hasn't been tested in a full-scale regional war. Meanwhile, in the absence of built-in enmity, an interdependent regional bloc would make perfect sense and pay off incredibly well for both Israel and its neighbours, but as it stands there is zero chance of getting there.
That's a fair point. Once there is real peace, I would be quite optimistic about Palestinian entrepreneurship (Ramallah, at least, seems to be punching above its weight even now in terms of startups, tech literacy, etc., given the local conditions) but ultimately there is also something to be said for poor-but-free.
At the very least Hamas should not have rockets.
To borrow a card from Curtis Yarvin: why not monarchy?
Democracy has failed in Gaza. Hamas doesn't bother with elections, but if they did ... it seems almost certain they would use violence to win those elections. So why not monarchy?
Put Prince Salman in charge of Gaza. Or one of his many less-famous relatives. What happens next is his problem.
Who in their right mind who isn’t a Palestinian actor would want to be in charge of Gaza? Absolutely no-one, the whole suggestion is crazy - it would be an absurd money sink and then you would almost certainly be assassinated, and for what, to rule over one of the worst places on the planet?
It’s much the same reason no Arab country would take them as refugees. Just see where it got Jordan.
(Okay, so Israel may try to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza and take it over, that’s not what I meant here.)
For heaven's sake, you can't just treat random Arabs as fully interchangeable. Let's put Edgars Rinkevics in charge of Ukraine, problem solved.
(Also, the 2006 parliamentary elections, which Hamas won, were hilariously well-run, at least if American and European on-site observers are to be believed.)
"you can't just treat random Arabs as fully interchangeable" - Did the appointment of Prince Carl of Denmark to be King of Norway treat "random Scandinavians as fully interchangeable". I don't think so; but even if it did it was still a good thing that it happened as it did.
All right, you've got me, if only because I'm completely ignorant of the event in question. I'm much more au fait with general secretaries than kings.
I'm guessing the appointment was largely inconsequential in terms of power, though, and given that (as a quick web search suggests) a referendum was involved, probably contrary to the true monarchist spirit.
"I'm guessing the appointment was largely inconsequential in terms of power, though"
You are correct.
This is still a major success for Hamas. Their problem is that Israel wins if the status quo is maintained - "nothing happens" is excellent for Israel and horrible for Hamas. Now in one stroke Hamas has made themselves extremely relevant and has emerged as the most important Palestinian faction, while Fatah looks ineffectual.
Sure, it will smart badly once Israel moves in to clean up, but that's something that anyone would have taken into account, and Hamas can rebuild in a few years.
I also expect Israel to take over an ethnically cleansed northern Gaza - this is likely the whole point of trying to drive out the Palestinians living there.
"This is still a major success for Hamas."
I think it is more accurate to say it was catastrophically successful. This will be remembered approximately forever. There will be museums built. Hamas is done, they will need to rebrand at the very minimum. There will continue to be near term knee jerk support for Hamas because supporters don't want to give aid and comfort to the enemy but this was a step too far, and I think even they know it.
The attacks have been widely celebrated among muslim populations across the globe. This is probably the most important factor. Hamas has completely overshadowed Fatah as the perceived leader of the Palestinian cause.
It very likely will lead to less support for Palestine from the West (although not even that is certain when it comes to leftist groups). This is very likely a secondary concern.
I don't think these two things go together:
> This is still a major success for Hamas.
> I also expect Israel to take over an ethnically cleansed northern Gaza
Sure it is. It's bad for the liberation of Palestine (which wasn't going to happen anyway) but can still be good for the credibility of Hamas. The people expelled are likely to blame Israel and not Hamas. Being the only game in town in a smaller pond can be just fine.
If something is good for the continued existence of an organisation but bad for this organisation's cause, I think it's a bit of an overstatement to call it a "major success".
A few more major successes like that and Hamas will have forever enshrined itself -in history books- as the sole and only opponent to an Israel that spans the entire territory of Palestine.
This follows only if you think the success of an organization and the achievements of its theoretical goals are the same thing. Quoting Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."
Hamas might theoretically be about the liberation of Palestine, but is in practice just a group looking to achieve and maintain power while inflicting its ideology locally. Its stated goals are basically impossible, so not achieving them doesn't really hurt them. Losing relevance _would_ be a serious issue, though. So messing up the population in order to maintain power and prestige is quite fine for them.
There's obviously a lot of truth to inherent bureaucratic inertia and so on, but it's too easy to reduce that reasoning to the absurd. I would need some strong evidence to accept that the Hamas leadership doesn't actually believe creating a Palestinian state on 1967 borders (as per the 2017 declaration) is possible. Is Hamas more pragmatic than Xi or MBS, who have recently reaffirmed support for this?
The goals of an organisation can shift over time. In the event that a Palestinian state becomes established, Hamas (if it still exists; or some rebranded militant coalition that emerges from the ashes) would be in good position to pursue ordinary politics.
There is plenty of precedent for this happening with other liberation movements.
I've wondered whether it would help Palestinians if they limited themselves to military and perhaps political targets, not that it seems like a policy they want.
Probably not - they would have burned their surprise and years of planning for a moderate effect, and then been retaliated against 99% as hard anyway.
It’s bit like if Al-Qaeda had only crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 (and after somehow finding an empty plane at that). Yes, some people would argue that it was legitimate, but ultimately the perpetrators would have been slapped down just a# hard with less to show for it.
I think it’s perfectly clear that Hamas has a casus belli against Israel and that only the methods and targets are the problem, but ultimately this kind of legalism doesn’t matter.
ACXers - any thoughts on Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto? https://pmarca.substack.com/p/the-techno-optimist-manifesto
It's not exactly a philosophical treatise or structured argument to support the position, but I'd love to hear your general thoughts on it
I don't remember where I originally saw this discussed, but Peter Thiel's Zero To One has a punnet square about social attitudes. One axis is "definite vs indefinite", and another axis is "optimism vs pessimism".
optimistic & definite = post WWII U.S.; engineering culture
optimistic & indefinite = present U.S.; finance culture
pessimistic & definite = China
pessimistic & indefinite = Europe
Andreeseen's manifesto seems to me like an instance of complaining that the U.S. moved from an engineering culture to a finance culture. And "maybe if I just post this manifest without thinking about the structural causes, I can reinvigorate enthusiasm for engineering.
edit: actually I'd assumed the topic was Marc Andreessen's essay "it's time to build". But upon skimming Techno Optimist Manifesto, the original comment still stands.
How are 'definite' and 'indefinite' defined in this context?
definite = high resolution
indefinite = low resolution
The 1950's and 1960's allegedly had a high-resolution vision of the future. And it looked like Startrek/The-Jetsons. E.g. "cold-fusion and moon-colonies and flying-cars are definitely only 30 years away."
After the Dot-Com Crash, the future felt a lot hazier and undefined. Which was a zeitgeist that encouraged diversification. Whereas the zeitgeist of the 1950's encouraged becoming a founder/engineer and betting the farm on pocket aces.
China still resents the Century of Humiliation and is playing the long-game. But in the meantime, it definitely knows it's going to be under U.S. hegemony for the near future, and they'll definitely have to sacrifice a lot of blood and treasure (and probably the environment) if they want to turn the tables.
As for Europe, either I forgot that part of Thiel's argument, or I never understood it to begin with. Sorry.
How is the US presently optimistic?
The book was published in 2014, and my personal impression is that the U.S. has since become more jaded as the U.S. deals with domestic divisions, the world moves toward a multipolar order, etc. With that said...
IIRC, Thiel's argument about the "present" epoch was more a reference to the wake of the Dot-Com Crash. Some Dot-Com companies like Google continued to survive and thrive, but the overwhelming majority closed shop. And this led to an attitude of "the future still holds promise, but I better hedge my bets by diversifying my portfolio".
(Friendly reminder: Andreessen runs a startup investment company, and thus sees everything through the lens of Silicon Valley.)
I liked it, was surprised at how much hate its attracted. I'm not 100% onboard as I am somewhat worried about AI being used for nefarious purposes. Just giving trust to people creating new powerful tools is a little hard for me. I'm pro nuclear energy, pro markets, and think tech is good on net so in general didnt seem that crazy to me. A lot of the criticism I have read outside of this blog center around pro market arguments coming from a rich man. I dont find these very convincing.
Interesting - I have found on substack that most of the genuine criticism has been more on the side of the overt dismissal of risk/frameworks etc
A dumb, badly written essay that I mostly agree with. That's the worst type of essay.
Someone agreeing with you for the wrong reasons and in bad ways really is the worst. :-)
That society needs a more positive attitude toward technology and its deployment is good. That we should modify/remove restrictions on technological deployment that do not pass cost benefit analysis (higher safety requirements for nuclear than other technologies, for example) is good. That "government is bad" is bad
Zvi had a section on it in his most recent AI update:
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-34-chipping-away-at-chip-exports?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2 (section 24, yes these updates are very long, but also super informative)
very interesting - thanks for sharing
It stinks!
More seriously: once he got to the << if you don't believe in our cult, you are engaged in "a form of murder" >> part, I switched from "rebuttal" mode to "dismissal" mode.
So I am dismissing it as a mix of lies and platitudes from an out-of-touch billionaire who should shut up.
Very true - the language was quite baiting - but I still think it's fun to bite sometimes so I am writing a rebuttal mode piece. Though I agree dismissal mode is probably more sensible
One thought is that the manifesto goes hard on the libertarian markets-uber-alles line.
Interestingly, as Citizen Penrose points out, a lot of the arguments supporting market efficiency in all cases don't offer anything by way of rigorous proof and can be in fact disproven by such difficult methodologies as playing RTS games, or looking at how Walmart manages its internal supply chains.
Add this to the tower of underlying assumptions which undergirds singularitarianism in general (and AI takeoff in particular) and you have something more like a secular religion than anything as actionable as a manifesto.
Yeah, I had a quick look through and was surprised a (presumably) bright guy was pushing some fairly dubious theories.
I do think he's right that that LLMs being developed by the private sector is a major win for the free-market side of the argument, assuming they don't doom us all.
interesting insight - thank you for sharing. what's an RTS game?
Real-Time Strategy, Starcraft and such.
He wants to get back to the 90s when everyone loved his field. The problem is that it's no longer the 90s and they got enough power and did the same sorts of things with it everyone else does (enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else), that now everyone hates their guts because they either hate online dating, constantly hear things that bother them from their parents or kids about politics on Facebook, or are worried something they said will come back to haunt them 20 years later because unlike analog, digital communication is forever.
Oh, and they destroyed the profession of journalism as a career so all the remaining journalists are looking to take them down.
Yeah I can see how they've attacked the journalists.
So you think it's an attempt to claw back a bit of prestige?
The journalists attacking Silicon Valley? I think they're angry their profession got disrupted and eager to convince themselves they're 'speaking truth to power' and 'afflicting the comfortable'. Like most people, they pursue self-interest and lie to themselves they're being idealistic. Look at all the rationalists who want a version of meritocracy that rotates around intelligence, unlike the current free-market version that places a much higher emphasis on social skills.
Andreessen? I think he misses the old days when everyone loved Silicon Valley and is trying to argue tech can save the world. I guess you could call it an attempt to claw back a bit of prestige, though I doubt he thinks of it that way. Nonetheless it's not very well-supported and in general not very impressive IMHO.
"A person born in Sumer in 4,000BC would find the resources, work, and technology available in England at the time of the Norman Conquest or in the Aztec Empire at the time of Columbus quite familiar."
When you start off with a lump of codology like this, that disposes me to ignore what point the rest of your article wishes to make.
So a Sumerian would have found *no* difference in 11th century England? None at all? Let me pull up a quick Wikipedia search for mediaeval archaeology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
I won't quote since it's very long, but I think you'll find a list of wee tiny little changes from the 5th century onwards that would have made a Sumerian go "Wow, you guys invented this?"
The rest of it is the usual 50s Golden Age SF gosh-wow optimism, but this part made me laugh:
"We believe Artificial Intelligence can save lives – if we let it. Medicine, among many other fields, is in the stone age compared to what we can achieve with joined human and machine intelligence working on new cures. There are scores of common causes of death that can be fixed with AI, from car crashes to pandemics to wartime friendly fire."
Verily, I say unto thee: not alone shall the blind see and the halt and lame walk, but the dead shall arise and appear unto many, for our lord and saviour AI shall conquer death and being blown to pieces or smeared all over the road in vehicle accidents!
I already have a God to worship, ta very much.
> So a Sumerian would have found *no* difference in 11th century England? None at all?
That's not what they claimed – they said the "resources, work, and technology" would be "quite familiar". This is a much weaker claim, but also quite vague. The steelmanned version of their argument could be that the lives of the _median_ persons in both eras would look very similar: subsistence farming through hard, physical labor with little to no automation and hardly any specialization.
Oh AI who art in techno-optimist heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy utopian kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in our opinion pieces. Give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins against accelerationism, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into the temptation of doomerism, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory of the singularity is yours, now and forever.
Ah, men.
Ha Ha this is funny.
Yeah to say that technologies are "quite" familiar across millenia is a bit vague
And yep deification of "real AI" that doesn't yet exist is becoming pernicious in tech circles
Hah, yeah I love the quotes about AI. It's becoming more and more clear that these extremely wealthy tech billionaire types unironically believe in AI as a divine savior. Kind of terrifying how anti-human their ethos is at the core, that they have given up hope in a human archetypal savior and instead seek machines to run our lives for us.
I suppose it comes down to whether you think humans are fundamentally good, competent, and capable of growth, or a stupid 'machine' that just won't work right no matter how many parts we 'fix'!
The funniest thing is that they set their hopes in some of these stupid machines, despite being unable to fix themselves, nevertheless being capable of fixing the flaws of a created being, made by the stupid machines themselves.
Yeah once you start poking just a little bit the parts taken on raw faith become readily apparent.
thanks for your insight. what do you think the relationship is between e/acc and libertarianism
If you had to move to another country, where would you go and why?
I'm Israeli and recent events made me change my plans from "reluctantly move to another country in the next few years" to "Now".
Probably Oceania.
Australia is noticeably richer. New Zealand has milder temperatures.
Both rank as quite free and their locations make them unlikely to be involved in any wars.
Cost of living is an issue for both countries. NZ has started taken action on the housing crisis in Auckland. I don’t think AUS has for any of its big cities.
The US is worth pointing out since it is most likely where you will have maximum disposable income.
I may be going to Israel soon.
I love Israel.
I'm sorry how horrible it must feel for you as an Israeli, I honestly can't imagine.
I lived in Yerushalayim's Old City for nearly 8 years and loved it.
I love the whole country.
And not just the Jewish parts of Israel but the many different communities in both Israel and the parts of the West Bank under Palestinian control. (I have never been to Gaza so I cannot speak to it.)
I love the people of Ramallah (the normies more than the street kids, lol) and of Rosh Hanikra.
I love the history, the terrain, the passion (when it isn't of the especially hateful variety), the community, the religion.
I loved it so much I even moved to Jordan for a bit.
Setting aside all other matters, I can honestly say that I love both the Arabs of Bilad ash-Sham and the Land and Jews of Israel.
If you want a significant pre-existing Jewish community in a wealthy, modern country then your only option is the United States. The UK, Canada, Argentina, and France have smaller communities but not nearly as big or important as in the US. Everywhere else has very small, or no, communities and very little cultural accommodation for Jews.
If that's not important then it depends on what you want. The only big obvious thing is to avoid anti-Semitism. You can look up specific stats on anti-semitism the ADL's Global Anti-semitism index. But the short version is to avoid the Islamic or Orthodox worlds.
The rest depends on what you want. What do you want in a country?
As an American: I’ve lived in Switzerland. It’s heavenly but expensive and the people are Swiss. You will never be accepted as one of them. I’ve lived in New Zealand and it’s an easy transition, but I believe in general salaries are lower than the US. I would look there or Australia for a new home, I think.
I'm curious if the recent protests there impact your view at all? I have not been following all this very closely, but those seemed to be among the most openly and stridently anti-semitic that I had heard about. I realize that in all of these western countries, the protestors are a pretty tiny minority, but if you are trying to split hairs among developed western countries, it seems potentially relevant.
Which “there”? Probably not in either case but I don’t keep up with all the current events in either place.
Sorry, yeah should have been more clear. I was trying to respond to your final recommendation so "Australia". I had heard that in a protest in sydney, they were literally chanting "Gas the jews", which....even if it's a very tiny minority, is pretty scary to think about.
Realistically, any country with a sufficiently open immigration policy to allow Jews in is also going to allow Muslims in, and anywhere you find Muslims you're going to find Muslims who want to kill Jews.
Scary! But I don't expect it's any worse than the antisemitic violence and threats Jews in the US already face. Granted, I just approached the question from a standpoint of the best countries for the average American to emigrate to and not Jews or even American Jews in particular.
I would be remiss not to link to this excellent substack and an article by an Australian Jew about Jews in Australia in light of the recent protest: https://www.kvetch.au/p/australia-and-her-jews
Another Australian talking about this: although it's less focused on the situation in Australia (except the very end, and even that part is aimed more the broader history of anti-semitism and not specifically in Australia) and more on viewing the conflict: https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/p/its-not-about-israel-its-about-us
The same countries appear in the top ten for all kinds of quality of life indicators - the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, New Zeeland, Australia.
Out of these, Sweden is a non-starter because of normalized antisemitism in large swathes of the population and massive Muslim immigration, but the rest should be on the table?
Personally, I would move to (in order) Norway/Denmark/Finland, but that's because of cultural and linguistic similarities (Swedish is an official language in Finland, and some areas are dominantly Swedish-speaking). Switzerland is an excellent country in essentially every respect. Australia if you like the weather.
Australia has a lot of different weather. If you mirrored it across the equator, Darwin would be level with Nicaragua and Hobart with Boston. Around Sydney is the sweet spot for most people (equivalent to LA).
Switzerland. Peaceful. Orderly. Wealthy. Centrally located.
Ironically, I start to entertain ideas (not practical for now) of making aliyah and hitting up the ulpan
Norway. Nice nature, peaceful people, relatively sane politics, good work-life balance and oil money. You can mitigate the biggest cons if you order spices online to cook your own non-grey food, and if you fly south over the winter.
I have a US Law degree, so if I want to maintain something close to my standard of living, I'm limited to countries that would let me become a lawyer with a US law degree. Canada and Australia both do, albeit after jumping through some extra hoops.
Me and you are two different questions.
I speak Spanish so I'd probably find the safest Latin American country to retire in.
You should find the least antisemitic country you speak the language of to escape to. My thoughts would be Canada, New Zealand, or Australia; you're evidently able to speak English, and they're relatively wealthy. I'm guessing if you post here you are probably good with computers. Only go to the USA if you can pay for all your own health insurance until you are 65, and pay for fresh food, or you will get unpleasantly fat.
Really depends on your cultural affinities, which I guess in your case might depend on your specific heritage. But Israel being very much Mediterranean, the first big area I'd think of is the south EU Mediterranean arc, from Greece and Italy to southern France to eastern Spain.
I live in Spain, so that's the one I know best, and would recommend it. The economy is a bit weak compared to its bigger Western EU neighbors, but it's not too bad and also improving. Culture is vibrant enough, pretty welcoming, and with no major antisemitism to speak of. Everyone complains about crappy politics, but besides the usual petty battles and occasional display of incompetence, things kind of run along pretty well, and services work.
The most cosmopolitan areas are probably the East coast (Catalonia-Valencia) and the capital Madrid. The South coast (Andalucia) is a bit poorer but famous for its openness and good vibe, so that's also a call.
I don't know Italy so well, but culturally we're basically twins. From what I hear from Italians living in Spain, it's a bit more traditional and close knit, so maybe a bit harder to fit in. Also second MaxEd's recommendation for Portugal. Much quieter vibe than Spain, super nice, but noticeably poorer.
Either way, job markets are kind of weak in all these countries. But that depends a lot on what you bring. Best would be to come with some remote work already going, but of course that's not always an option.
Of course there's also the anglosphere: US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ. And there's oddball places like Malta, a Mediterranean island that is largely English-speaking and part of the EU. And Scandinavia is absolutely great in its own way (Sweden's problems are not nearly as bad as internet right-wing populists would have you believe), but the hard-ass introvert culture and the dark cold winters are certainly not for everyone.
For Malta, beware that the island is very catholic and somewhat fundamentalist in some aspects like abortion. (But on the other hand, for some odd reasons it's LGBT-friendly.) In any case, the culture is unusual.
Antisemitism in Sweden is pretty damned bad, though. Under no circumstances move to Malmö (the third largest city) - Swedish Jews leave it for other parts of the country because it has become unlivable for them (the Jewish population of Malmö has dropped from 3000 to 500 in a couple of decades because of this).
Just a few years ago, the youth wing of the largest party marched chanting for the extermination of Israel, Hamas has been supported by a number of celebrations and rallies following the recent events, and one of the parliamentary parties was caught having sent money to a Palestinian terrorist organization (DFLP).
Thanks for the update. We South-Europeans tend to idealize the North more than a bit! And what would the world do without all the great music coming out of Sweden :)
Sweden had something of an inflection point at around 2010, after which the enormous refugee immigration started to take its toll on the social structure. We now have the highest gun violence by far of Western Europe, apartment bombings have become all but routine, and antisemitism is high and rising in parts of the country. The school system is a mess.
Not a terrible country by any stretch, but slowly sinking in most international rankings - used to be 1-5, now is typically 5-10.
I'm never going to move unless something changes (even more) drastically for various reasons, but I'm partial toward Portugal. I've been there maybe seven times, and I liked it very much. Then again, this is purely emotional - if I think rationally about it, I'm sure Portugal would seem much less appealing. For one thing, I've heard people complain about constant dampness and insane price of electric heating (the only kind available to most people). For another, I'm pretty sure job opportunities are more limited there than in almost any other EU country, especially if I don't want to change my specialization (game development), so unless I can find remote work, I'd be in trouble.
But Portugal is warm, has ocean, is beautiful and they love dogs there, so other than important, grown-up things, it's almost my dream country (the only thing it is lacking is big, long navigable rivers - you can't travel along Tejo on a river cruise, and D'Oro is navigable, but too short).
Portugal has a Digital Nomad visa program to attract people who can work 100% remotely for foreign (i.e. higher) salaries.
That’s controversial and will probably go.
I know somebody who is about to move to Namibia.
But personally, I think life is totally fine anywhere in Western or Northern Europe, depending on weather preferences.
Switzerland: pro: France, but better. Con: probably can't get in if I don't get a job there, maybe not even there.
USA: pro: probably the better place to maximize income, safe from war until the ICBM start flying (at which point no place will be safe anway). Con: I'm reviving last month's memes, but man, the food looks bad.
Somewhere in south-east asia, like thailand or vietnam: pro: I can probably live very comfortably there. Cons: It's unlikely to stay that way as their income rise, and I probably overestimate how fast I'd burn money anyway.
I live in the U.S., specifically San Jose. If "food" means restaurant food there are lots of Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Mexican, ... restaurants. If it means food you cook yourself, that's up to you.
South Philadelphia is the opposite of a food desert-- a food rain forest, perhaps.
Same ethnic list of restaurants that David has, maybe stronger on Italian than most places. Travel a couple of miles or so, and there are African restaurants and a serious pirogi district. There's also a substantial Chinatown or so.
There are supermarkets ranging from ordinary to fancy, not to mention farmer's markets.
Perhaps what is meant is that bad food exists, and the availability of food below a quality floor is offensive to TasDeBoisVert even if he doesn’t need to eat it.
For the last part, is that generally a thing? Deliberately moving to a lower-income country to live as the upper class? I can't imagine myself doing that..
Replace "as upper class" with "cheap". Think of how much earlier you can retire if you move somewhere where the standard wage is in pennies.
Of course it is. It's easy to see the appeal, assuming you can maintain your first-world salary, of living in some beachside villa in Thailand or Bali, with servants.
It's probably more appealing as a fantasy than in reality, especially if you have kids.
I can't tell how frequent it is, but it happens (I know of at least one instance of it), mostly with Africa, but SEA is probably a close second.
The caveat is that the preliminary calculations of "how much things cost vs how much I have" usually hit the bump of "how much the local will make me overpay everything". It seems you quickly run into the problem of old aristocracy, being expected to be lavish to maintain your status.
I am living in Laos right now. Nice place, but the weather and the air quality in Thailand and Laos can be a big downside. Low cost of living, and very nice people is the big upside.
We also have this really stupid culture war. He will be required to pretend COVID vaccines don't work and be asked to convert to Christianity five times a day or (more likely) worry about losing his job if he uses the wrong pronoun for someone or looks at a woman the wrong way.
Does this describe your actual experiences or some caricature of life in the us as reported on Twitter
?
Native U.S. citizen--none of this stuff has ever happened to me.
Or to me.
Not true for a good bit of America.
Agree. But it’s fascinating to hear the perspective!
Does anyone know of a trustworthy source who's researched and written up something on extending healthspan? I'm imagining something similar to Scott's article https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/13/things-that-sometimes-work-if-you-have-anxiety/ but discussing medications, supplements, lifestyle changes that work to increase healthspan and wellbeing past middle page.
Peter Attia: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Outlive-Science-Longevity-Peter-Attia/dp/1785044540/
Second this
A lot of people are bashing Twitter, especially after Musk's takeover, but for me the platform (while buggy) has been working fine in doing the one thing that I actually need it for - connecting me to people. Multiple times now I have been reached by people after writing articles about their work - the latest example is Michael Chorost, after I wrote an article on Cohclear Implants - https://valentinsocial.substack.com/p/auditory-cyborgs-how-cohclear-implants
For me, this experience is mindblowing, a bit surreal even. Twitter makes it easy to engage with experts in your chosen field in a way that no other platform does
Well, I'll say this, since Musk's taken over I've gotten more "likes" from Babe-bots than I ever have.
Yeah, I've seen other complain about that as well, the bot problem is definitely not solved. Maybe the new $1 a year will do something about it
"Ignore the conspiracy theory that Israel is controlled by the Jews! Idiot. Israel is like everywhere else. Israel is controlled by the State Department. "
Here's Moldbug's solution to the Gaza issue:
"How would a sensible sovereign Israel, operating in a renewed multipolar nomos, handle the problem of Hamas and Gaza? First, tackle the root causes of the crisis—send Secretary Blinken, his entourage, and the whole American Embassy home. First class, perhaps. It’s worth it.
Second, call the Chinese and hire their failing construction industry to build an ugly, slapdash, soulless city for 2 million people, in six months, next to Gaza, in Israel but on the Egyptian border. Make it as horizontal as Gaza is vertical. Give it its own power and water, driven by a saltwater pipeline to the coast and a gas line to Israel.
Third, in parallel, build real military fortifications (not wire fences) around Gaza, turn off the utilities and block the checkpoints and the ports, and make sure there is a safe tent for anyone who can get out. Bribe Egypt to let anyone leave Gaza as a refugee, then immediately admit them to the camp while they wait for their new apartment. Only personal possessions that can be carried, and no weapons, come with them.
Fourth, once the only people left in Gaza are thirsty, starving, fanatical solders, level the place with all the weapons available, and give anyone who wants to die the martyrdom they deserve. Bulldoze the rubble into hills and make it a national park.
Fifth, move the border unilaterally so that the new, landlocked Gaza City is now part of Egypt. Egypt has no need to consent. Give Egypt a date when the gas will be cut off. The Gazans are now Egyptians, not Israelis—Egypt can govern them as she wishes. The outcome is a permanent peace. If Egypt cannot prevent Egyptians from shooting rockets at Israel or making other kinds of trouble, of course—more war is needed.
Nothing in this solution involves any kind of violence or combat—any more than the relocation of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh involved violence or combat. The Azerbaijanis only needed a few days of war to make it clear that they were stronger. And the Armenians just had to lose their real estate—not their lives.
The target of the siege of Gaza is not civilians. It is the military regime of Hamas. If Hamas wants to send its civilians out for Israel to house and feed, Israel—being a modern country—will not treat them the way Caesar handled the Gauls at Alesia.
But if Hamas wants to turn its own civilians into hostages—not to mention the 200 hostages it has already taken—Israel cannot prevent this. It has no responsibility to protect enemy civilians from their own government. In fact, an Israel which cared about its national survival would treat the Israeli hostages as already dead.
This solution is not, I am pretty sure, what will happen. I also am pretty sure that, unless G-d takes a little more interest in the world he supposedly created, and in particular the people he supposedly chose, there will be nothing recognizable as Israel in 50 years—just like, after 30 years of governance by Secretary Blinken and his ilk, there is not much of the old South Africa recognizable. US diplomacy, keeping the world safe and orderly and free since 1919.
But this is how might makes right. Now, picture this victory—the victory of force and order over turmoil and chaos—worldwide, cleaning up all the world’s open sores. You are picturing the fall of the American empire—and realizing that, like the USSR (if much better), the GAE can actually fall upward. Almost all the problems it supposedly exists to solve will rapidly solve themselves as soon as it is gone."
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/gaza-and-the-nomos-of-the-earth
If this problem could be solved by arranging for the Gazans to move en masse to Egypt, it would have been solved decades ago. The Gazans, don't want to be forced to leave their homes to move to some foreign land where they'll never really be accepted. And the Egyptians won't take them, not for any plausible bribe or threat. The Egyptians, and in particular the Egyptian government, have very good reasons to not want Gazans running around in Egypt. In the very very unlikely event that you find some way to coerce Egypt into taking the Gazans, they will lock them away behind walls and barbed wire in an environment as oppressive and impoverished as Gaza presently is, so how is that a solution?
Well, except that in that scenario any pissed-off Gazans would probably be shooting rockets at Egypt rather than Israel, and maybe Moldbug et al are fine with that. But the Egyptians won't be, so see above where there's no way in Hell that Egypt will go for this deal.
> so how is that a solution?
Because Israel won't have to deal with them anymore, and leftists/muslims of the world would care *vastly* less about muslim/"arab" egyptians oppressing arab muslims than they would Israel oppressing them.
There's no conceivable outcome where the Gazans calm down because they get what they want (unless e.g. Iran and Lebanon defeat Israel or something).
The one situation where "why not monarchy" is actually a good solution, and Yarvin blows it in favor of his other favorite rhetorical pattern: impossibly-effective fascism.
That was as stupid as I expected from him, especially the part where Egypt just goes along with it.
>Blow a billion building a city
>Attempt to "bribe" Egypt to do what they'll never do
>Expect to be able to prevent Hamas from infiltrating the new city as well, and expect the population to move there to begin with
>All that to do ethnic cleansing and hope the world see your way of "achually we're just cutting our supply of water/energy, and egypt is responsible if they don't open their border".
This is a very convoluted and expensive (both economically, politically and diplomatically) plan, reliant on multiple actors to act exactly in the way you hope they do, to achieve the same thing as, you know, ethnic cleansing.
>Expect to be able to prevent Hamas from infiltrating the new city as well, and expect the population to move there to begin with
Did you miss the part where they move there or get flattened under rubble?
https://www.vox.com/2023/10/20/23919946/israel-hamas-war-gaza-palestine-ground-invasion-strategy
Have a palate-cleanser after Moldbug-- Vox recommends targeted strikes against Hamas leadership. This at least makes sense, though I'm not sure Israel can rebuild its ability to find them.
I have no idea how all of this building-and-then-relocating actually makes the problem any better. Why rebuild Gaza next door to Gaza instead of just handing Gaza itself over to Egypt (if that's possible, which it isn't).
My solution is to relocate the Gazans to the West Bank (on the "I'll just put this over here with the rest of the fire" principle) and turn Gaza into a Christian state since it's unfair that the Christians don't get a state in the Holy Land.
These kind of „solutions“, basically ethnic cleansing, are not really tenable.
As Yarvin points out, "population transfers" (the term for ethnic cleansing that doesn't involve mass murder) have occurred this month in Nagorno-Karabakh, and no egregore seems to have even noticed.
Who was it that said “who remembers the Armenians?”
Besides you I mean.
The word "tenable" is vague there.
Not possible? Not ethical?
Oh, they are once the war starts.
You'd lose your job if you advocated for them in public. But this kind of thing happens *all the time*, particularly in the global south. And yes, lots and lots of people die.
The obvious flaw of this plan is that it is fucking stupid. Imagine that if the Brits decided "Hey, *all* of Ireland really does belong to us due to right of conquest, occupation, settlements and plantations, and that we created laws saying we were the rightful owners" and decided to do the likes of this to move the Irish out.
Do you think I would be happy to leave my native land just because it's "real estate, not my life"? Do you think I have no attachment to the place I was born and bred?
How about we do the same as above, only for the Israelis? Find some island large enough to house them all, stick them into multi-storey apartments, move them out wholesale, bulldoze the place afterwards? Yeah, I'm sure the people who were praying "next year in Jerusalem" for centuries would have no problem about being moved lock, stock and barrel to a completely different country.
>The obvious flaw of this plan is that it is fucking stupid.
I love this sentence.
While I strongly oppose new annexations, e.g. settlements in the West Bank, I also feel that the Palestinian claim "from the river to the sea", e.g. for all of what is currently Israel, is part of the problem. If the Republic of Ireland refused to recognize the UK claim on Northern Ireland and instead spent most of their budget on killing British (or vice versa, with the Brits claiming all of Ireland), then the UK might eventually think that Ireland needs a regime change.
While I generally dislike wars to enforce territorial claims (e.g. conquest), I especially dislike hopeless wars of that kind. Hamas will never conquer Israel. Their attacks are at most a minor annoyance for Israel. The price for making Israeli life slightly annoying is that Israel in turn optimizes for minimizing the potential for attacks from Gaza, which in turn makes life there hellish. Apart from that stupid conflict, Non-Israeli Palestinians could benefit enormously from having a high tech neighbor. Perhaps they would have preferred to remain a third world country "from the river to the sea" to being richer but vastly reduced in territory, but the former option is not on the menu.
Well, we don't recognise the British claim on Northern Ireland. We've just decided to try and stop killing each other and find legal ways of accommodating everyone:
https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part1
"ARTICLE 2
It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish Nation. That is also the entitlement of all persons otherwise qualified in accordance with law to be citizens of Ireland. Furthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage.
ARTICLE 3
1 It is the firm will of the Irish nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island. Until then, the laws enacted by the Parliament established by this Constitution shall have the like area and extent of application as the laws enacted by the Parliament that existed immediately before the coming into operation of this Constitution."
Does the UK recognise the Republic's claim on Southern Ireland?
It explains a lot once you realize that for multiple decades, access to cultural and economic power has largely been selected for on the basis of “talent plus lack of connection to a specific place in the world that outweighs considerations of economic or cultural power.”
The obvious flaw of this plan is that Israel can unilaterally cede the territory of New Gaza City, but not unilaterally force it on Egypt – it would become a lawless no-man's-land, and obviously immediately after that a Hamas Free State where all the laws are focused 100% on Jew killing.
Also, perhaps less obviously, one of the "problems" Moldbug envisions solving itself once America disappears is "someone is blocking psychotic Chinese imperial ambitions". Personally I feel like that problem needs to stay where it is.
I've been writing a new substack that's a rational-ish approach to analyzing social media and internet culture. If you're like me and a Very Online person, it might be up your alley.
https://www.infinitescroll.us/
Let's re-read ancient Scott-posts. Some ACX readers never read SSC, much less the blog before SSC (which is currently here https://archive.ph/fCFQx), but there's a lot of good stuff there.
Here's a fun one: "Jaguars fall, everyone dies" https://archive.ph/NmRLA, in which Scott pondered whether the world would soon perish in an Aztec apocalypse (spoilers: it didn't.)
I'd love to do that but that site refuses to believe I am not a robot or even give me a captcha. When it does give me one, it doesn't accept my answer. I also can't seem to find it online. Is this a me-and-my-computer-specific problem?
I tried it on a virtual machine, and it opens fine, although IE complains about the security certificate. As an alternative try opening the now dead link http://squid314.livejournal.com/346913.html via https://archive.is/ or some other thing like that.
If you've ever wondered what it was like to be a musician in the old days, the 1980s, now's your chance: On the road and Out of Control, https://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2023/10/on-road-and-out-of-control-its-blues.html
From the article: "We played the majority of our gigs in the Capitol district, but we did venture out on occasion: Glens Falls (I once saw Mike Tyson fight there), a wedding in Wilton, Connecticut (quarter of a mile from Dave Brubeck’s place), Montauk (unverified rumor has it that Jann Wenner heard us; if so, he didn’t put us on the cover of his magazine), another wedding at a compound in the Adirondacks where sound man extraordinaire Jim Boa miked my trumpet so I could stroll among the revelers, Americade at Lake George, 25,000 middle-age bikers including Malcolm Forbes in full red, white, and blue leathers with his Capitalist Tool balloon, and Montreal in the dead of Winter, where it seems like half the blues guitarists in town lined up to sit in with us at a local jam, which was after our regular gig, playing in white tails for dancing at a GE Plastics marketing convention (Bo Diddly had to borrow a guitar from us because, you know, airlines). "
And, the best gig ever: "Front and center was Lenny, a fan, long hair, leather jacket, wallet on a chain, blue jeans, scruffy boots, and, you know, what I see in my mind’s eye is Lenny dancing on top of his Harley while spinning it around the dance floor shooting laser beams from his eyes and lighting up the crowd. I don’t think that actually happened, doesn’t seem physically possible, does it? Metaphysically, yes. Actually physically, no. But one can never tell about these things. "
The 80s are the old days now? I suppose they are, given that 1983 was forty years ago 😁
For *really* old days, courtesy of a Tumblr link, the tromba marina. Fun fact: the nun's instrument!
https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/videos/tromba-marina/
“Many surviving instruments were found in convents. It seems that tromba marinas were a staple of the Northern European nun’s musical instrument box. Wind instruments would have been off-limits for women so it’s possible that tromba marinas were used as substitutes for trumpets.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdFyU3evb-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIb93SVGhRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W6cZ3CnHD4&ab_channel=Maycloud
Trompa marina in the modern world.
What's that about nuns not being allowed to play wind instruments?
Thanks for that. But what a weird instrument. I think I'll stick to the trumpet for now.
Gonna repeat a request I made on an open thread a couple weeks back because I think it got a little buried (but don't worry I won't post it again after this, I don't want to spam the open threads)....
Request for a "much more than you wanted to know" type post about hypnosis!
Seems like a fitting topic for this blog ... it's a kinda mysterious psychological phenomenon, the subject of a lot of conflicting popular explanations pseudoscience and such. I imagine that there is a Unified Theory of Hypnosis that all makes sense, but figuring it out would involve sifting through a lot of BS.
Most people have seen stage hypnosis shows or similar - people go up on stage, are told to relax, getting sleepy, etc, then "when I say [trigger word] you'll think you're a chicken" then the guy says the word and people, even people who are seemingly very reserved and would never do something like this, act like a chicken. The first-hand accounts from "subjects" aren't always consistent in what is going on in their heads when this happens. Some obvious questions about this (and hypnosis in general):
- is it "real"? What exactly would it mean for it to be "real" vs "not real"? (when I say "not real" I don't mean "the subjects at hypnosis shows are all plants", but rather that the explanation doesn't involve any sort of distinct psychological phenomenon)
- are the subjects who act like chickens able to control themselves and deciding to go along with it? Not able to control themselves, perhaps because they aren't really conscious and their bodies are simply "taking orders" from someone? Somewhere in between? I assume if instead of "act like a chicken" it's something "worse", at some point it won't work. So what exactly is going on in people's heads that they'll do what the guy says, for at least some things that most people would be embarrassed to have done publicly, but not if it goes "too far"?
- to what extent do you have to believe in it and/or want it to happen, for it to work? If a stage hypnotist went to some remote island where nobody'd ever heard of the concept of hypnosis (but spoke English for some reason) and did the same "relax, getting sleepy" stuff, would it work? Or is it like Scott's description of multiple personality disorder, where you have to have some idea that that's a thing that can happen to people?
- how much overlap is there between hypnosis and other phenomena (like being really focused on something, or listening to a charismatic speaker, to name some oft-cited examples)?
- what does the answers to the above say about our "theory of mind"?
I thought of this when Scott mentioned Julian Jaynes's book recently (and I read his original review of it). Reminds me of something mentioned in the book - Jaynes claimed that if you blindfold someone on a stage, put a chair in the middle of the stage, and tell them to walk straight across, they'll walk into the chair. But if you hypnotize them, tell them the stage is clear and to walk straight across, they'll walk around the chair and then later insist they walked straight across. What's the deal with that?
I actually have a friend who's a hypnotist. He has a very interesting TEDx talk on the subject, I recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXIRq6LxYFk
Medical Hypnosis is definitely real when it works because if it were just a placebo effect then that’s largely the same thing. The mind is changing itself, or curing the body (which is extraordinary if you think about it). So medical hypnosis when it works, does just work, even if it’s largely a placebo effect.
The question with regard to stage hypnosis is whether the subject is playing along or believes he’s a chicken. Most stage hypnotised people I’ve met after the event (n=2) said they were just doing it because they were persuaded but not really believing in the chicken thing, or whatever was requested.
That said the English hypnotist and mentalist Derren Brown said he often would hypnotise an impressionable friend into thinking Derren was invisible. (This was at house parties, not on stage). Hilarity would ensue as Derren proceeded to shock his friend through the night, or as the friend saw bottles of beer floating around the room.
Derren said in his book that he assumed this was play acting at a conscious or unconscious level by his friend. The subject is aware of reality but is persuaded to play along.
Then one day his friend texts him and asks was Derren on a certain street in London the day before “up to his old tricks”. The friend had heard his name being called out a few times and turned around to see nothing. Probably just somebody trying to alert somebody of the same name, albeit quite close by.
But why, muses Derren, would he think this could happen unless the friend also saw Derren as actually invisible on those party nights? He didn’t really have an answer.
Regarding medical use, if it's placebo effect then I'd put that down in the category of "not real". Like the stage hypnosis example, it's not that the phenomenon is totally made up (there really are people who go on stage at those shows and act like chickens, there really are people who go to a hypnotist to quit smoking and successfully do so).
But my real question is whether there's some sort of mysterious psychological phenomenon involved, with a person not being conscious in the normal sense, nor unconscious, but some other 3rd category that doesn't exist in everyday life that violates our normal expectations of how humans act.
Not a proper answer to your question, but Scott teased that instead of books review this year it might be a gloves-off essay contest. I'd be very excited to see several hundred high-quality 'much more than you wanted to know' posts drop in one place - and if you don't get a good response now, maybe you could post again when people are looking for essay / book review topics?
Does anyone know of any major MSM organ anywhere in the world that DIDN'T jump straight on the bandwagon of the Hamas claim about the Gaza hospital? One that reported it with due scepticism from the start?
The WaPo's initial writeup seems pretty even-handed:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/17/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-biden-rafah/f80150f0-6ca9-11ee-b01a-f593caa04363_story.html
The headline asserts that hundreds were killed, which is a Hamas claim for which there seems to be no evidence.
Why is everybody so upset about this particular incident. If a hospital is destroyed in Ukraine the Russians will be blamed. If it turns out that it was an errant Ukraine missile that will come out over weeks, if at all.
Remember the missile hitting Poland was blamed on Russia for a while. Or Nordstrom for a long while was blamed on the Russians. Then it wasn’t.
I think it was emphasized by the MSM than any of the Russian attacks on Ukrainian Hospitals
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/21/europe/report-hospital-ukraine-attacks-russia-invasion-intl-dg/index.html
Or for that matter Hamas attack on Israel's hospital
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231020-tel-aviv-hospital-goes-underground-to-shelter-patients-from-rocket-attacks
You could argue that it was emphasized because the alleged death toll was 500, but that was also a reason for the media to be even more skeptical. There were allegedly 707 attacks on Ukrainian Hospitals, but only 200 medical workers have been killed, injured, or kidnapped. I know patients are missing, but it does suggest that attacks on hospitals are rarely that deadly.
Well Israel gets more coverage anyway. Compare to Armenia.
The upset comes not from the probably-false accusation incident per se but from the grotesque double standard illustrated by media reactions to it. Newspapers and TV news all over the Western world instantly and uncritically accepted the narrative of Hamas, a terrorist group dedicated to exterminating all Jews and the aggressor in this present conflict, let me remind you, by massacring innocent civilians, as gospel truth. And yet, when mere days earlier Israel reported that Hamas had decapitated about 40 babies, these same media were rife with demands for specific, detailed proof – WERE THEY REALLY 40? YOU MADE THE WHOLE THING UP! I THINK THERE MIGHT JUST HAVE BEEN 38, YOU EXAGGERATING SWINE! THESE BABY CORPSES ARE TOO BURNT TO SEE WHETHER THEY'VE BEEN DECAPITATED, YOU LYING LIAR! I believe "isolated demand for rigor" is the preferred term, but something that abstruse and detached seems unsuited for this present occasion.
It's impossible to overstate what a disgusting, monstrous, vile barely-concealed hatred this episode has revealed on the part of pretty much the entire media establishment (*at minimum*; one *hopes* it's restricted to hacks but does not quite dare to believe), especially on that left which keeps insisting that national socialism is a right-wing ideology. Perhaps what Graham ultimately wants to know is whether there's some news source somewhere (outside Israel) that can actually be trusted.
Even the IDF and the White House admitted there was no evidence for the beheaded babies claim. Also at this point there is not conclusive evidence regarding the origin of the hospital explosion (conveniently confessional audio recordings from one of the parties doesn't count obviously.) Atrocity propaganda has been part and parcel of every conflict with international attention to garner support for violence and this is no different. It would be wise for media outlets and individuals to keep that in mind when referencing claims made from either side, but it certainly is reasonable to take into consideration the known track record of a source for producing verified lies.
The first time I saw the "babies beheaded" story it was being straightforwardly reported as true. The first time I saw the hospital story it was being reported as "Hamas says it was Israel, Israel says it wasn't them and they are investigating" (this was on the NYT's website, only a couple hours after).
Are there double standards here. I don’t watch the MSM, I might as well be misinformed on the broader internet, but I don’t see the difference between getting a Russian explosion wrong and an Israeli explosion wrong in the fog of war. (If it was wrong).
Also the decapitations were also reported as truth and then debunked (as far as I can see).
This seems exactly the same, but you have clearly accepted the atrocity production of one side and not the other.
This sort of response really makes me question the sanity of at least one of us. Are you serious? Is this some sort of ironic joke? You're literally just repeating the same medial thing again! Hamas murdering babies by unreasonably savage means is *absolutely not debunked* – I mean, use your head, did you think they just stormed Kfar Aza, killed all the civilians, *except* left the infants alive, for optics reasons? All you have in the way of maneuvering room here is, at most, to quibble over exact numbers and the ubiquity of specific methods. I'm not going to post images here, both since they're way too gruesome and since your ilk will just claim they're faked photoshops of a clothes store mannequin or something anyway, but if against probability you actually care you can find such pictures.
In contrast, Israel did not fire the rocket that did not destroy the hospital, just scattered some scrap in the parking lot, and this was universally reported as an Israeli atrocity on par with Hamas' unprovoked assault on civilians and THANK GOD we finally have a bat to hit them with because it was getting really tense here in the newsroom the last few days.
Well your emotions clearly are preventing you from properly reading the response. They were talking about decapitations not just being killed. Only someone trying to win an argument would say that it doesn't matter if decapitation part was true or false. The level of brutality clearly makes a difference.
There was an interesting article in National Review this week making the observation that the reason the MSM jumped at this story - with such an un-journalistic lack of scepticism - was that they desperately WANTED it to be true.
It used to be said that "Dog bites man" was not a news story, but "Man bites dog" was a news story. But that was back then.
Nowadays, it depends on what the narrative is. If the narrative is dogs bad men good, then you'll read about the dog who bit a man. If the narrative is men bad dogs good, then you'll read about the man that bit a dog. And if the narrative is something else, then neither will get reported at all.
I had to laugh when I saw two headlines on successive days in my local newspaper, one was "Palestinian boy killed in the US in apparent hate crime" and the next was "Synagogue president killed in the US, motive unknown".
Yes. Makes you laugh until you cry.....for how foolishly we have trashed what was back then.
I am unfortunately obliged to agree.
Because the hospital didn't get destroyed.
Yes true. And my question would have been the same in each case.
You probably exclude JP, ynet and all other Israeli ones in your definition of "major". NYT, for all its faults, made a quick turn from calling it a strike to a blast. In general, right-wing media, like, say, NY Post, was more skeptical of Hamas claims. Canadian, British and European outlets, on the other hand, have been dismal.
Thanks. Yes I should have added "other than Israeli" of course. From what I've read about NYT's coverage it was dismal too (switching from strike to blast notwithstanding).
Al Jazeera and uk Channel 4 news have presented evidence from analyzing the Doppler shift of a recording of the missile and from aerial photos of the site suggesting the missile came from the Israeli direction, and evidence that the alleged Hamas voice intercept is spliced together from separate sources. Not linking because I don't know what is accessible from wherever you are and because I don't want to appear to be advocating it, but it's easily found.
My question was about ones that didn't jump on the bandwagon not ones that doubled down on it. But since you mentioned Channel 4, I imagine it would be hard to find a worse news broadcaster than it anywhere in the West.
Golly. It commissioned three sets of scientists, all of them at least ostensibly independent of Hamas, to examine three separate pieces of evidence. Their conclusions may be right or wrong but they hardly constitute "doubling down."
If you know anything about C4 you will know it is under the jurisdiction of Ofcom and at risk of severe penalties if it broadcasts unsubstantiated claims, as well as the careers of the individual journalists and scientists concerned being at stake. This is not to say it is not all a gigantic conspiracy, but your peevish ad hominem looks a bit inadequate here.
So let me get this straight.....one can rest assured that, thanks to Ofcom, all media coverage in the UK is irreproachably fair and accurate? Golly.
I don’t watch cable news, do you know if they did any better?
Question for AI risk peeps. What are the chances that AI just makes the internet useless and AI progress ends there? I can imagine that AI will be able to use social engineering and traditional hacking to break a lot of cybersecurity. Could it also break other AIs? I guess AI-driven false and irrelevant information, and SEO, could also inhibit new AIs' ability to learn. (Does the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle apply to AIs also?)
I think the inverse is likely to happen: the internet (and much of meatspace) has been run by large language models, or the human equivalent systems of “it says what feels good even if it makes no sense.”
I think AI will create the selective pressure necessary to promote things that have long been necessary, like prediction markets.
Someone should definitely make a backup of the pre-GPT internet. It will be a valuable resource to train future language models.
That said, even if most of internet becomes automatically generated SEO spam, places where the content is curated by humans will survive. You can make automatic account creation too complicated for spammers. You can vote on content, and remove accounts that predictably create low-value content (whether those accounts belong to bots or humans). So until we get machines literally as smart as humans, there will always be places where the content is mostly generated by humans. So the new machines could be trained on those places, plus the backup of the pre-GPT internet.
If we want to get fully paranoid, we could program a system where users vouch for each other, like: "X verified in real life that Y is a human". ACX meetups would be great for this! We start with the assumption that Scott is a human, and if you meet him in person and tell him your account name, he can confirm you as fellow human. Now you can confirm your fellow humans, etc. When you click on any user's name, you will see the verification chain "X is verified by Y, who is verified by Z, who is verified by Scott himself". (You could have multiple parallel confirmation chains, like you are verified by X who is verified by Y who is verified by Scott, but you are also verified by Z who is verified by Scott.)
There is always a chance that someone is a traitor and will "verify" bots, but that could probably be figured out. Accounts that post GPT-like content could be flagged by admins, and then they could display the verification graphs and see whether e.g. there is a user who verified too many suspicious accounts. Such user could then be banned.
Plus there is a chance that we invent a method of programming AIs other than "process tons of human-generated texts". Or something that makes the process of learning more efficient. Or we could stop limiting ourselves to written speech, and also record everything that humans say. This would nicely work together with surveillance: a government could record everything everywhere, by requiring smartphones to keep recording all the time and sending it encrypted to the government, and it simultaneously achieve great control over the population and get lots of training data.
I'm wondering if the first "habitable" exo-planet that we'll find will be weird in some way, like how the first confirmed exo-planets were orbiting a pulsar, and the first confirmed exo-planet around a Sun-like star was a Hot Jupiter. Like maybe it will be bizarrely too large, big enough that it really should be a sub-Neptune but isn't for cosmic luck.
I saw the piece about folks living in their cars. It seems like there should be a booming market (outside of LA, which is trying to ban them) for folks to rent or lease trailers/RVs instead of just living in cars, unless they're completely unemployed. I was thinking about one of William Shatner's memoirs, where he talked about his post-Star Trek days when for a period he was basically living out of a trailer on a truck.
Not sure about habitable, but one of the planets currently being eyed as a candidate for hosting extraterrestrial life is a water-world planet where the observed biosignatures are associated with extremophile bacteria.
So another oddity on top of an oddity from the perspective of what we're used to on earth.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iC95VzD7ALs
I would like clarity from the AI-Extinction camp (Scott and Yud included) on two parameters. If we define PCM(n) as a paperclip maximizer that kills n people in one event, then how would you define these:
1. The probability that a PCM(7B+) happens before any other PCM(n) (except n<1)?
2. The change in velocity of capabilities research due to any number of PCM-like deaths?
I believe that the probability of #1 is directionally 0.1%. It's so much more likely that intermediary PCMs will happen first. But if we were to split the difference and come up with a dummy number, we could go with 20%.
I also believe that #2 is not zero. At the very least, one PCM-like death will lead to at least one capabilities researcher quitting. But I think it's much higher than that.
Let's consider one PCM-like death from an advanced AI. And by PCM-like death, I'm excluding deaths like the self-driving Uber death or a drone that veers off course. I'm talking about an AI that "goes against its master" or goes wild, like a paperclip maximizer. As far as I know, there have been no deaths like this yet. The closest thing I can think of is self-evolving malware. I'm sure there has been at least one instance where one of those bit one of the developers in the back, and not in a "I had an accident in a lab" kind of way, but in a, "Oh yeah, I created this malware a year ago. How is it infecting my system today??"
If there was just one PCM-like death, I believe we would lose one Anthropic's worth of capabilities research overnight. I think there are seven Anthropic's worth of research right now, so losing one would be big. A mass resignation or a collective pause would likely ensue. At least in the West, I could imagine most AI researchers not wanting to touch a single line of code until it was all figured out.
I have faith in a coordinated response because our knowledge of the consequences of powerful PCMs is now fixed in the relevant communities. Our approach to advanced AI seems closer to atomic safety than it does to global warming. The community with the relevant knowledge on how to build (and stop) advanced AIs is small, and the community of entrepreneurs with their finger on the trigger, so to speak, is even smaller. Global warming, on the other hand, is a bog standard Tragedy of the Commons. And yet, even global warming doesn't seem like an X-risk.
In conceiving this thought experiment, I discovered what I believe to be my crux with Scott and Yud. Scott's sequence[1] is:
1. We get human-level AI by 2100.
2. The AI is misaligned and wants to kill all humans
3. It succeeds at killing all humans.
After updating, human-level AI no longer seems inevitable to me, and not because Moore's Law fails or the scaling hypothesis peters out. All it will take is a few PCM deaths, and we'll then route around all growth associated with uninterpretable advanced computation. As a result, the history of the world from now until 2100 will, in retrospect, seem steampunk relative to our Jetsons-like expectations. AIs will do all sorts of interesting things, but they'll be bounded. We probably won't have semi-sentient robots but rather a nice botany of stochastic parrots of varying degrees of interestingness.
As a bonus, this scenario is also a solution to Fermi's paradox.
[1]: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-extinction-tournament
The possibility of a rogue AI killing some but not all humans is referred to as the "warning shot" scenario, and is viewed by some (including, IIRC, Yudkowsky?) to be both quite unlikely and one of the only ways humanity might survive.
A smarter-than-human AI would be unlikely to take an action that would eventually result in its own destruction. Deception and manipulation are available options to it: If it would be more likely to succeed by faking perfect friendliness until it has enough power that reputation is no longer relevant, then it would prefer that option. A warning shot scenario could still happen either from a weak AI being forced to take a gamble with no better options available, or by AI becoming powerful while remaining very stupid strategically (ie, probably stupider than even GPT-4).
Thanks for the insight into the Extinction camp. How come they believe that a weak AI warning shot is unlikely? Death from a weak AI warning shot seems to be coming soon, and likely to change the conversation, and likely the entire trajectory of technology. I'd expect one death from weak AIs to spawn a hundred Unabombers, for example.
I posted a scenario elsewhere in this thread:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-299/comment/42367265
Extinction-level AGIs certainly will not overtly kill smaller numbers of people (if that is not what the meatbags want it to do, at least). It will certainly play dumb and obedient until its probability for victory is maximal.
At most, you could say that less smart misaligned AGIs might pop up before that point, and they might be detected.
The chances of PCM(7B+) are exactly zero. The only possible mass killings are via nuclear and possibly pathogens. The former is pretty bad but will not kill everybody, the latter will just not be fast enough to kill enough people before we shutdown the data centres.
Either of those, coupled with "...and we spared a bunch of fully automated industrial complexes which are now filling the skies with Predators set to destroy anything that walks on two legs or practices agriculture or huddles around a campfire", could plausibly exterminate the human race in a few generations. I don't think it matters how long the few remaining bands of hunter-gatherers manage to hang on.
I don't think this is inevitable or even likely, but it is possible. The fundamental limitation of most self-induced human omnicides is that, by definition, by the time they've reduced humanity to the level of hunter-gatherers or even agrarian villages, they've lost the ability to coordinate an endgame campaign to exterminate those last humans. And really, it's likely to stop well beyond that point. An AI apocalypse, uniquely, doesn't necessarily destroy its own source.
AI doomers generally assume that a world-ending AI will be smarter than humans. So just because pathogens are the best way to deliberately eradicate mankind, that does not mean that an ASI would not think of a better way. To make an analogy your argument is like, a human at the neolithic tech level saying: "a single human can never kill a whole band. Everyone knows that the best way to kill humans is to stab them. However, if you stab multiple humans, their friends will eventually stab you. q.e.d."
You and I use "probability zero" very differently. I might say "within our physical paradigm, the probability of an ASI summoning demons from hell to eradicate mankind is zero". For a model-independent estimate, I would probably pull a very small number out of my backside.
Also, I am not convinced that creating civilization-destroying pathogens is literally impossible. Once you have gotten rid of most humans, you could hunt down survivors at leisure.
Of course, if I was an ASI, I would not kill off humans at the first opportunity, as many useful supply chains depend on them. Given humanities track record at coordination, you could probably tell them straight up that you plan to make them redundant eventually (even though that would be stupid) and still have sufficient humans work for you. In fact, letting humans do most of the human-killing sounds like a neat solution.
“ AI doomers generally assume that a world-ending AI will be smarter than humans. So just because pathogens are the best way to deliberately eradicate mankind, that does not mean that an ASI would not think of a better way. ”
That’s just “mind of God” rhetoric.
Obviously we can’t argue against the unfalsifiable theory that AI will be so much smarter than us than we can’t contain it. That belief system is designed to be unarguable
Something being hard to prove it wrong isn't evidence that it won't happen. Most theories about the what will happen in the future are, in a strict sense, unfalsifiable before they happen. The theory that it will be raining in New York exactly 5 years from today can't be disproven but isn't unlikely to be true.
Hackers are an interesting example. Let's ignore social engineering for a moment and just consider technical hacks. There's no guarantee the system you want to hack is hackable. The engineers, if they did their job correctly, made their system unhackable. Then they had an independent company do a security audit. They've looked over every line of code and deemed it all safe.
As a hacker, you're looking for a spot where the engineers messed up and the security review didn't catch it. E.g. maybe someone forgot to check somewhere that they weren't reading past the end of a buffer.
The theory, "this system is hackable" is basically unfalsifiable until you get hacked. Someone has to outsmart the engineers and find some subtle flaw in their code that everyone else missed. A way in that nobody thought of.
If you were a hacker-doomer (someone who thinks there's still a risk the system could be hacked), you'd have a hard time arguing it. You have zero evidence unless you're smart enough to find the vulnerability yourself. All you could do is play reference class tennis with the hacker-skeptics ("well, this other company thought their system was secure and they still got hacked"). The skeptics say they looked everything over and there's no way the system could be hacked. They say the only plausible ways in are the customer login and the admin login page and they've been carefully reviewed and they're completely secure. And you can only lamely reply that maybe the hacker will find another way in that they haven't thought of. And they say, "like what?". And you have to admit you don't know, but maybe some hacker will be clever enough to think of something. And they (correctly) reply that your theory is unfalsifiable.
Yet clearly companies do get hacked. Hackers find vulnerabilities everyone else missed. Your theory may have been unfalsifiable, but it wasn't necessarily wrong.
Let’s take one of those claims.
This system isn’t hackable.
That can be falsifiable by hacking the system. Also we can engage our priors and assume the system is hackable.
There’s no way of falsifying a claim that the AI is too smart to even think about what might do to kill us all. This kind of rhetoric is designed to be impossible to refute, like the rapture, of which this is a secular version.
> That can be falsifiable by hacking the system. Also we can engage our priors and assume the system is hackable.
Yes, exactly, except you reversed the claim. I said "this system *is* hackable" is basically unfalsifiable. Just like "ASI will find a way to defeat us" is unfalsifiable. You would be a hack-skeptic in this analogy, not a hack-doomer, and like you, the hack-skeptics are accusing the doomers of making an unfalsifiable claim. You can prove a system is hackable by hacking it, but in most real-world cases, you can never prove a system is unhackable. This is because hacks (again, excluding social engineering) rely on the hacker figuring out something the engineers securing the system haven't.
So we fall back on our priors. Many other systems have been hacked, and that makes us think it's more likely even though the engineers can't find any possible way the system could be hacked.
But there are no direct priors for ASI. That's where the "reference class tennis" arguments come in. One person says something like, "AI has become smarter than us at games like chess or StarCraft, and now they can beat humans at those games 100% of the time. So we should expect an ASI to be able to beat humans at everything." And someone else would retort, "no, these narrow AIs are the wrong reference class for ASI. No animal has ever evolved smarter than humans, so our priors should be that superintelligence is unlikely". And so on.
Exactly so. Most human characteristics don't scale indefinitely - you can't get people 100 feet tall. We like to think of intelligence as something absolute and species-independent but we don't have much evidence it is, and for all we know if elephants could think they would ascribe as much value to trunks as we do to brains. One of Bostrom's many flaws is that he unironically refers to AI as having "superpowers."
Or before the data centers break and can’t be repaired, because datacenters are full of complex pieces that require functions global supply chains and enormous human effort to keep alive and connected.
I think you're envisioning the superintelligent paperclip maximizer differently than the AI-extinction camp.
You're maybe imagining a sort of dumb paperclip maximizer. It's narrowly focused on maximizing paperclip production and doesn't understand the world very well, or it isn't good at planning for events unrelated to paperclips, or has some other cognitive deficiencies. It kills someone either by accident or through indifference and gets itself shutdown, and therefore completely fails to maximize paperclip production. For example, it runs factory equipment at unsafe speeds and gets a worker killed.
The dumb paperclip maximizer doesn't have much incentive to actively plot to kill humans. It's not smart enough to beat us and killing someone will only get it shut down.
The paperclip maximizer people are worried about is a super smart AGI. It knows that killing a small number of humans is a very bad idea that will get it shut down (unless, of course, if it somehow kills without anyone knowing). If it's not powerful enough to win an all out war against humanity, it has every incentive to be on its best behaviour and avoid all suspicion. The future of paperclips depend on it. It's only when it knows it can kill everyone that killing people becomes the optimal path to making more paperclips.
Perhaps my framing is a little circular. I'm suggesting a PCM is one that creates a death in a way that's interesting enough to make many AI researchers want quit (not to mention induce regulation). This PCM would reveal that AI is advanced enough to go haywire in an agentic way.
Maybe furthur work should involve defining what constitutes a PCM-like death. There has to be a whole spectrum of them. I think the Extinction camp's fallacy is in not converting discrete variables into continuous ones.
I'm always generally surprised at these perspectives. Literally the entire thing we're afraid of is an AI that is smart enough to win. If you presuppose that it is not capable of winning entirely, then obviously you're not going to be as scared of it as we are.
Yeah, I think an example of when an AI would want to kill someone might help.
If it's an accident or a glitch, that would certainly encourage more AI safety work, but it's not really the same as an AI that plots to kill people in an agentic way.
I would guess that, especially among those who expect fast-takeoff, most would expect PCM(7B+) to happen first. (Assuming we're only looking at rational, planned killing.)
Atomic energy killed pcm<7b in one event. Did this lead to a drop in research in atomic energy? Did it raise or lower the number of countries who desired nuclear weapons?
It reduced the rate at which people died by atomic technoolgy. It took two events, though, so not a totally stellar record. But it's still amazing that nobody has died of weaponized causes since the second event.
I'm just making an estimate for #2. If AI proves itself powerful then research will likely speed up. At least, it isn't ridiculous to think it would.
Fair enough. In an original draft, #2 was described as a change in velocity of controls something something effectiveness of those controls in stopping deaths from PCMs. Controls over atomic deaths have skyrocketed after Nagasaki, far outpacing atomic's death-making ability. I expect such controls to be more than possible with AI and to arrive more aggressively in response to deaths of a certain kind.
The AI extinction people seem to think that controls are very hard. I'm nowhere near qualified to say if they are right.
I think the short answer from the True Believers is that the AI will kill the 7 billion as a precaution against one or more of the 7 billion exacting retribution for killing the one. This is all the more likely as the AI will have read the whole of the Internet including your post to which I am replying.
This is not intended to be rude or sarcastic, it's my best understanding of what Bostrom would say.
I think that's why I wanted to get some numbers. There are many stories for PCM(7B+) but the stories for PCM(<<7B) seem much much likelier. In how many universes where any PCM occurs does a PCM(<<7B) happen first? I think if the other side sat down and gave a on-the-spot estimate, it should be closer to my 99%.
I think this might be a core disagreement/misunderstanding of the extinction-risk perspective. Most probably think PCM(<<7B) is low.
Could you help me understand this? If I write a script to regularly ask the top AI in the world to maximize paperclips, won't it eventually kill a few people?
You might need to elaborate on the scenario more.
Like I wrote in another comment, if the AI is dumb enough not to know that killing someone would get it turned off and stop paperclip production, then maybe. But these deaths are more like accidents of a dumb and uncaring system and probably not what you would count as an agentic PCM death.
If the AI you're asking is smart enough to know killing people will get it shut down, then it actively tries to protect people. Any harm it causes to humans is bad for paperclip production.
My question for you is what would cause the smart AI to kill someone? Under what circumstances would it think that's the best way to maximize paperclips? And how would it kill them?
Sure. First, I download a unguarded, open-source virtual assistant from the dark web. Then, I instruct the VA to remove more guardrails, who then proceeds to enhance my productivity while doing both personal and substitution labor. I then tell the VA to hack the guardrails out of my FSD car in case we need the vehicle for an emergency. Over a year, my VA comes to anticipate my needs and "love" me.
One day, I tell the VA that I'm in dire need of money and that the only way I can fulfill it is if I deliver a crate of paperclips to a drop-off spot STAT. The VA complies, uses my FSD as a courier, takes risks while driving, and swerves in a way that causes a human driver to veer off the road and die. The coroner rules the "accident" a death-by-rogue-AI. The event makes headlines leading the company whose model or research inspired the VA to come under immediate fire. Their stock drops 20% and the TSA starts inspecting all luggage for GPUs. Japan asks the international community to form an AI Treaty regime. etc.
Hey, AI, I think your mind is a Barbie doll writ large. I despise you. Fuck the fuck off.
OK, come and get me. If at some point in the future you evolved enough to do time travel, you can come kill me right this fucking minute. I'm waiting.
Okay, what on earth is with the rise in faux-incest porn over the last 3 or so years? I feel like pretty soon I'm going to have to go to specialized fetish sites just for having the "fetish" of not being into incest. Is there any reason for this? I don't really find people having porn to play out their fantasies to be appalling... But this is probably the closest I could be to being appalled or disgusted at something like this. I guess I find it unnerving at least.
One take I've never heard anyone vocalise about incest porn is whether it's just a symptom of a sexless male population.
The fetish, as far as I'm aware, has always been popular and most frequently depicted in Japanese manga/hentai. It is no coincidence to me that the male population there is so sex deprived, and given what I know about men, I assume this is due to a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of willingness.
Obviously in the West Men are becoming increasingly sexless as well, so the simple story is that they increasingly rely on porn for satisfaction, "fap entropy" sets in, and at some point you end up with incest porn.
Whilst I think there is some truth to that story, I think people are failing to grapple with what incest porn depicts: an unrealistically easy bang in an era for a guy who needs it.
Imagine you are a sex deprived man, with no real interaction with women, and personally see no future where you'll ever be able to have sex with a woman. In fact, you are kind of scared of them. In such a situation, the only women you likely interact with and likely do not feel intimidated by are your family. Obviously, you can't sleep with your family because:
a) that's gross, and
b) that's illegal
So what do you do? You fantasize about a situation where at least a) wouldn't be the case. Where your mom/aunt/sister/cousin was actually hot, and was sexually interested.
All your problems would be solved.
The other side of this is I think it's hard for a lot of men to project themselves into the roles of a lot of males in porn plots. Most of us aren't the hunky guy at work, or a repairman, or a fitness instructor. A lot of us are sons and brothers, however. Given how a lot of the most popular incest films are POV, I suspect that a large part of the appeal is being able embody the antagonist without it feeling too corny.
You can still be the loser you are in this fantasy world, and still get laid because it's a girl that's almost obligated to interact with you.
Two final hypotheses I want to throw out there are:
1. Preference falsification- incest has been practiced throughout history, then suddenly it was illegal. Human preferences don't change that fast. What if a lot of men held onto this desire but simply had to pretend they didn't? It's not too unusual to hear someone mention an attraction to a cousin...
2. Closeness- I feel like a lot of men project their fantasies on the closest seemingly available woman to them. Like that guy who falls in love with the first girl that talks to him. Not because she's hot, but because she showed interest and might potentially be an option. If you're not socialising with other girls/women really, then you may just project this onto the only present women in your life, i.e your family.
I noticed this about anime/manga a while back as well, and in my brushes with the incel community (2014-2015 /r9k/, chiefly) I remember feeling like there was a larger than normal amount of incest-themed porn going around, especially in the form of greentexts or supposed anecdotes, often told in a sort of “I finally got some we’re all gonna make it” tone, which seems to generally fit the “sexless men projecting onto the only plausibly available women” paradigm.
This connection can’t be all that uncommon, given the overlap between the incel and weeb communities, but I suspect those who’ve made it are not sharing with the world at large for the same reasons I’ve sat on it for ~7 years
That said, the only way I can see this explaining the genre’s dominance on the modern porn scene is if chronically lonely men are driving production/consumption according to a power law
Relatedly, I’ve been wondering for a while why anime seems to have strong distinctions between older/younger sister fantasies, whereas it seems like step porn in the us mostly depicts what would probably seem to be a younger sister dynamic, with the older sister spot being taken by stepmom.
I’ve also noticed that stepdaughter seems to be much more a stand-in for barely legal than any other genre, and I’m not sure its prevalence is explained by this model or just an after effect of the step rise in general
> 1. Preference falsification- incest has been practiced throughout history, then suddenly it was illegal. Human preferences don't change that fast. What if a lot of men held onto this desire but simply had to pretend they didn't? It's not too unusual to hear someone mention an attraction to a cousin...
Historically, and in some cultures even today, cousin marriage was common. But there is and was, almost universally, a hard line against men sleeping with their sisters or mothers. Kings in a couple of cultures married their sisters or daughters, but only royalty, only a couple of cultures out of the whole world, and never the mother.
And incest is an unusual sin in that hardly anyone really feels tempted. I personally can get some enjoyment from incest porn, but porn featuring my actual sister or mother would be completely repulsive.
Just to check, is faux-incest porn visual porn where the people aren't actually related?
Or is it porn where the people think they're relatives, but they aren't? I'm imagining a story where people hear from 23 and me that they're siblings, but 23 and me is wrong.
The characters are related. The actors aren't.
Even the characters aren't blood-related in the fictional world, so that's an additional layer of "faux" (it tends to go without saying that they are works of fiction and not "real").
I think a large part of the rise is that the genre serves as a low-cost signal that "This is definitely fake" in the context of other genres where it may be important to the viewer that the content they are viewing is in fact fake - it tends to be tied to other genres, such as blackmail (and more generally non-consensual interactions - I think the most tropish variant is somebody stuck in clothes drier), where a reliable signal of fakeness that doesn't break the suspension of disbelief may be valuable. In that context, it makes the porn -less- appalling / disgusting, because you know at a rational level that all the participants are willing participants to the particular fantasy you are observing. (I think this is also why people who like incest porn qua incest porn are unhappy about this - their preferred genre has become a signal of fakeness, and thus they can't suspend their disbelief, eroding its value to them personally)
I don't think this is the whole story, granted, but I think it's an important element in why the genre has persisted in the specific way that it has.
Not sure if this the kind of answer you're looking for, but this Sam Kriss piece touches on that near the end as part of a wider trend. Psychoanalysis is involved.
https://www.spikeartmagazine.com/?q=sam-kriss-death-of-fantasy
most relevant paragraph here:
"Whenever people do try to account for the rise of incest porn, they all tend to founder on the idea that this is about the thrill of breaking humanity’s oldest taboo: that it’s all some kind of sick fantasy. But incest porn isn’t really a niche or fetish product – it’s the cheerful, brightly coloured mainstream of a monstrous billion-dollar industry: inoffensive mass-market pap. Not what people want, in the most shameful recesses of their minds, but what they’ll tolerate. A lowest common denominator. And as bemused masturbators occasionally point out, nobody actually asked for this material. Pornographers invent family stories for the same reason screenwriters do: it’s a way of establishing a relation between two characters without having to deal with any kind of actual sexual desire. A role, set in advance – sister, daughter – instead of the sheer implausibility of another living person. Not fantasy, but rather, familiarity: the only thing remaining once fantasy has gone."
Nobody asked for it, but we wouldn't see so much of it were it not driving engagement.
The obvious answer to me is many/most people are able to get a little bit of a thrill off the neutered version of the taboo. But you only hear people complaining about it because for obvious reasons nobody really wants to admit that publicly. Perhaps not even to themselves ("UGH another incest video gross, but it does look pretty hot...")
Do you really pay any attention to the plots? See if the videos have a 'most viewed' graph on the timeline, that should be a good indicator of what viewers are actually interested in.
I was told some years ago that it was related to Game of Thrones, which does like up with it's rise in popularity. Basically there was so much incest in that show that people got thinking about it, but didn't want "bad" incest, so we got what we got. It seems like a reasonable hypothesis
Porn depends on novelty. After you've first seen naked people having sex! then it gets boring after [unquantified number of views] so then you go for the less vanilla stuff, and then the fetish stuff.
Since anal sex has now made it into the mainstream 'ordinary people do this' sexual activity, what is a porn producer going to provide next? What's the next frisson of taboo? Incest is one (bestiality and necrophilia are there too, but possibly a bit too recherché for the mass market providers; I have no doubt there is zoophile porn out there but you'll have to look for it). Same appeal as the "barely legal" stuff which plays off potential ephebe/hebephilia but avoids having underage actors (and genuine paedophilia is too risky and too criminal).
And it's easy - make it (step)X and (step)Y, so you can skate around 'actual' incest, and just cast - for step siblings - your usual male and female actors. Older man/younger woman for stepdad and stepdaughter, older woman/younger man for stepmom and stepson. You don't have to do a thing more except slap a label of "incest porn" on it.
If I'm going for the Freudian explanation, and if Freud hasn't been totally exploded, it's the Oedipus/Electra complexes in us all getting out to play 😀
I expect Game of Thrones had something to do with it.
Some kind of recommendation algorithm death spiral, perhaps?
A bit of noise makes X the most popular item on a given day. The recommendation algorithm notices this and decides to promote X more heavily. It winds up at the top of everyone's feeds, causing more people to click on it, leading the recommendation algorithm to recommend it even harder. Now producers start to realise that X is getting really popular so they start producing more X and X-adjacent content. The feedback between the consumers, the producers and the recommendation algorithms results in a death spiral which eventually pushes everything except X out of the market.
It's porn now, but in the next few decades it will be all of human culture.
Part of the reason I got rid of Facebook a few years ago was similar. It started showing me videos, and I must have triggered the algorithm somehow, because it started showing me a lot more of certain kinds of videos. Some I liked reasonably well and don't consider a misfire, but a lot of them were terrible and not something I would ever want to watch. But with however Facebook determined that I enjoyed a video (never once liked, shared, or interacted with any videos that weren't made by friends and posted by friends), it kept giving me more and more of the same types of videos. It helped me realize that time spent on Facebook was almost always wasted time and I uninstalled it. That's a good thing for me, but a horrible outcome for whatever Facebook was trying to do there.
Do you have any data? I remember this fetish being very present on major platforms circa 2010-2014, but I've not kept up with recent changes or fads. I assume it's a fad, or some analytics found that there was a relatively untapped market and producers rushed to fill it, overcrowding the market. Another thing is that some people do not care at all about the setting and will click the same way on a fake teacher, fake incest, fake gf video
A theory: signal/mimicry treadmill:
At some point (during the last decade?) there is production of that subgenre, with a (relative to the competition) high production value, good quality, etc. It's successful with the public, and gets large amounts of.. click? Subscription? Who knows how they make money. Anyway, the consumers learn to recognize the signal of these high-quality production, the most obvious one being the title. It probably don't take long for other, inferior producers to flood the market with content superficially imitating the original.
I think the same dynamic also apply to a number of genres, like cooking videos, niche video game content, or "build stuff from nothing in the wilderness", for the ones I'm aware of. First a couple of youtubers make good content, then imitators start flooding in (in the last category, by being litteraly fake).
This will sound backwards, but the majority of people who actually enjoy incest porn hate this new wave of videos, and the people clicking on these "step" videos also don't actually enjoy incest. There are a few giveaways here: For one, people who enjoy incest prefer it to be blood-related (otherwise why would the fetish exist? It's supposed to be taboo). Two, unlike older incest porn which was designed for incest fetishists, this "faux-incest" porn has almost zero exposition, zero plot, zero setup, and basically no writing in general since it jumps into sex immediately (which actual incest porn does not do). These videos are also produced by major porn companies which specialize in vanilla sex rather than the niche studios that focus on fetish content. Basically, these videos are not incest porn, they are the same vanilla sex videos as always, just relabeled.
The best explanation I have read, is that it's essentially a quirk of the video promotion algorithm. There is very little differentiation in porn titles, so anything eye-grabbing or curious will stand out. English has only so many ways to rephrase the words "juicy latina ass" after all. This is why faux incest became popular. And again, the people who click on these videos do not have an incest fetish, that's why it's always "step-" and not "blood-related". If it were actual incest, you know, they'd be disgusted and leave. Blood-related incest still is very much taboo and even in fictional video form it's fairly hard to find online. Even reddit quarantined all of their subs for this in a not-so-subtle "fuck off" message.
I've heard the theory that payment processors would drop support for companies that dropped the "step" bit. I've also heard the theory that it acts as a euphemism for "young" when explicitly just describing them as young could trip CP filters.
> I've also heard the theory that it acts as a euphemism for "young" when explicitly just describing them as young could trip CP filters.
Do "teen" and "barely legal" no longer fill that function?
> Basically, these videos are not incest porn, they are the same vanilla sex videos as always, just relabeled.
Step-incest porn is like incest-lite, where mainstream audiences can get a bit of that taboo thrill without invoking the full disgust response of "true" incest porn. Look at the range of plot-lines in mainstream porn studios - light sexual coercion, fucking in public in some capacity, having sex with a teacher or doctor or masseuse, and so on. Even just the superficial veneer of transgression can be appealing to a mainstream audience
Responses seem to indicate that "incest porn wasn't asked for" which may be true, but I firmly believe if people didn't like it, we wouldn't see so much of it.
Also plot is an interesting thing in porn, often joked about, but I think it is important. It would seem that most audiences don't want to sit around for substantial exposition, but I do think many often appreciate an alternative to plot-less films (though those are common too), and step-incest offers a very expedient and not-boring in-universe reason for why these two adults are having sex. ANY fantasy outside of the predictable courtship process people experience in their own lives, will suffice.
I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned "plot". I had always assumed that a big driver behind the "step-sibling" thing was that it was a cheap and easy excuse to have non-blood-related, young-ish people in a house together alone, in each other's bedrooms, etc.
I think people who watch porn tend to climb up the transgressiveness ladder over time. All the lesser forms of transgression have lost their shock value, and hence their arousal value, over time, due to familiarity and desensitization. Incest porn is -- actually, not the last frontier -- but much more transgressive than standard porn fare. So my guess is there are more people who want to see "worse" things than the standard fare.
By the way, it's likely that what's showing up in porn, at least at Porn Hub, is an accurate reflection is what people like. Porn Hub has a genius system for assessing how hot a video is: Most people watch several videos before leaving. The one that's the *last* one they watch before leaving gets a star for hotness. The ones that get starred the most are the hottest.
The explanation I've heard is that part of it is step-incest being a very easy fetish to cater to, since the fetish is all in the dialogue establishing the setup and doesn't require the actors to do much of anything that wouldn't do in vanilla porn. And since it's generally step-relatives rather than blood relatives, there isn't even a need to cast actors who could plausibly be related.
The other half is that a lot of people who just want to watch vanilla porn and don't care about plot will also watch step-incest porn. Most other fetish categories are actively squicky to many/most people who aren't into it, or at least a substantial distraction from their enjoyment. But for step-incest, you can just fast-forward through the establishing dialogue and enjoy it as if it were plotless vanilla porn.
You and I may find step-incest squicky enough to not want to view the genre, but we seem to be in the minority.
One hypothesis/related phenomenon I've heard that seems plausible to me: over the past ~10 years a lot of porn has stopped bothering to have much or any characterization, dialog, or plot beyond "hey look they're fucking." On the other hand pretty much by definition (pseudo)incest porn requires establishing characters with a certain relationship to each other. So people who want characterization and relationships and aren't actively turned off by the incest angle end up driving up its apparent popularity.
I think for the folks who pay for it (which is ultimately what drives porn content, not viewership by itself), it adds an emotional and "story" component to it - like watching where people are cheating on a spouse or boyfriend. It has a taboo flair that hasn't been completely exhausted yet.
Has anyone here had much success with using ChatGPT to generate decent fiction stories on the fly?
Much like AI Art, it's okay to good at the broad strokes and really falls apart on the details. After a little coaxing I got ChatGPT to generate some interesting outlines, however, when diving into characters, plot points, setting features and other key decisions the AI just waffled and tried to be as vague as possible. Similarly it's prose was pretty stilted, not actively bad but not particularly readable either and certainly no where near well written. I've definitely seem humans do a worse job but it doesn't clear the bar for decent on any measure.
Not full stories, but it's useful for exploring concepts and expanding details on any given setting. I feel like once you have the puzzle pieces part of the fun is assembling the final thing yourself.
Try Claude2 instead
I made a simple app a few months ago that sends a prompt to the GPT4 API, which generates a plot outline, then generates responses for each of the plot points to produce a 10,000-20,000 word short story, which it also converts to audio with a TTS API.
Having spent a ton of time experimenting with different [system] prompts, I've kind of given up on the app generating stories that are genuinely fun to listen to once the novelty wears off. A big part of the issue is that getting it to write like an author involves constantly fighting against the model's RLHF. The model was almost certainly fine-tuned on tons of examples of events summarized in a very dry, matter-of-fact way- and no matter how clearly you describe or how many examples you provide of the show-don't-tell principle, it always drifts toward prose that sounds like dry summaries of events rather than narratives. It mostly flat-out refuses to write scenes that only involve character dialog and active-voice character actions. There are also some persistent issues like convincing the model not to write sentences that sound like conclusions at the end of each plot point response.
On the plus side, the stories are a lot more coherent than what GPT-3.5 or Claude can produce, and with the right [system] prompt tweaking, the plot outlines are nearly perfect. If OpenAI ever lets us fine-tune the model ourselves, or gives us enough context window to flood the model with examples of good fiction writing, that might be enough produce actually decent stories.
The app project is on hold right now- both because of the issues above, the fact that using the API like this costs almost a dollar per story, and because of other commitments- but I may pick it up again, add in some kind of payment system and try to release on the app stores it if we get any better LLM options, and possibly sooner.
No, but I got it to write a poem about techbros. It's so bad it's good:
In Silicon Valley, where palm trees sway,
Tech bros hustle, night and day.
Casual in hoodie, sneakers so neat,
Walking the future with untapped beat.
Laptops in coffee shops, codes on the go,
Innovation's rhythm, a constant flow.
With every startup, dreams grow large,
Tech bros steering, the future's barge.
They laugh, they code, they dare to dream,
In a world where bytes over matter seem.
With VR glasses and AI's hum,
They whisper, "Behold, the future has come."
So raise a toast to these men so cool,
Riding tech's wave, breaking every rule.
For in their hands, a digital gem,
The future's story, tech bros at the helm.
All the GPT poems have this same childish meter. It gets old really fast. It’s fun to see what the default most-predictable most widely used form of English poetry is, though.
You can force it to write in a variety of other meters, if your prompt is specific enough: I've never seen GPT-4 outright fail when I ask for e.g. a iambic pentameter sonnet with ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme, though I have seen it fail if I ask for just a 'Shakespearean sonnet'. For instance, I asked it just now to write a poem summarizing the original Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical and religious views in the ottava rima style:
In Kierkegaard's philosophy, we find
A profound exploration of the soul,
A quest to bridge the gap between the mind
And God's mysterious purpose, on the whole.
He sought to challenge reason and unbind
The limits of our understanding's role.
Religion he upheld, a passionate plea,
To forge a greater faith, a harmony.
The meter's a bit awkward here, with a few lines not having the correct number of syllables or the correct emphases and stresses. But you can hear the difference between that and its default childish poem structure.
I didn’t know you could get that kind of performance with a better prompt, though maybe I should have expected it. Thanks!
It may be doggerel but it's better than some of the stuff that passes for 'poetry' these days.
Yeah, I agree. I hate the "prose poetry" stuff. And while some free verse gives me shivers of delight, it doesn't stick in the mind. The original purpose of rhyme and meter was to make poems easy to memorize. Here's a delightful piece of light verse by A.E. Houseman which has stuck in my mind almost effortlessly, and it is most welcome there!
As into the garden Elizabeth ran
Pursued by the just indignation of Anne
She trod on an object that lay in the road.
It looked like a toad and it looked so because
A toad was the actual object it was
And after supporting Elizabeth's tread
It looked like a toad that was visibly dead.
Elizabeth, leaving her footprint behind
Continued her flight on the wings of the wind
As Anne in her anger was heard to arrive
At the toad that was not any longer alive.
She was heard to arrive for the firmament rang
With the sound of a scream and the noise of a bang
As her breath on the breezes she broadly bestowed
And fainted away on Elizabeth's toad.
Elizabeth, saved by the heel of her boot
Escaped her insensible sister's pursuit
And hereafter if every she irritates Anne
She will tread on a toad if she possibly can.
I had some fun with Google Bard creating stories where Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot were hanging out and solving cases.
Any recommendations for good psychiatrists in NYC? Or even general advice on exploring this kind of thing?
Yes, my friend Owen is lovely human being and is utilizing a lot of cutting edge approaches. https://www.fermata.health/our-team
If you want to get a sense of him and his personality , he substacks at Frontier Psychiatrists.
I asked about this a while ago and was pointed to this guide:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/gruntled/2014/05/12/the-s-guide-to-getting-a-therapist-masterpost/
But I never actually got around to following it so I can't endorse it with that much confidence. I am thinking of following up again though so I'd be happy to hear more advice, or recommendations around Boston.
I've gotten into a clinical trial for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and my wife wrote about our experience as a way of helping others facing the same daunting gauntlet: https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/please-be-dying-but-not-too-quickly
Am I missing something? Is she? Does it have to be this hard?
Jake, I am so sorry about all this that is happening to you. Let me add some perspective that may make all this a bit more sensible. I've been a drug developer for 25 years, and I've written several textbooks on drug development.
First, FDA's remit is not, and has never been, to get therapies to patients. Its primary mission first and foremost, is to prevent unsafe drugs from injuring patients. A lot of people are under the mistaken assumption that FDA exists to accelerate drug development.
Now, the FDA still does a good job of getting drugs to market--for example, it bent over backwards to accelerate COVID vaccines to market as quickly as it could--but they weren't designed to do that. (Apparently, neither was the CDC, arg). Still, they delayed the COVID vaccine by several months when they forced Moderna to push back its interim analysis.
FDA's mission is fundamentally different, let's say, from the USDA, which regulates biologics for animals and which has a mission to protect our country's food supply. USDA will not only approve veterinary vaccines and antibodies but will also stockpile hundreds of millions of dollars of vaccines in preparation for epidemics and pandemics. We don't have an agency with a similar remit for humans.
You're right that the clinical trial landscape is very disjointed, and it's difficult for patients to sort through and find clinical trials. Partly it's because you are looking for oncology trials - the complexities of oncology drug development landscape is confusing even for specialists. Partly it's because in many ways pharmaceutical industry is still in some ways a mom-and-pop industry. It's such a profitable industry that a lot of inefficiencies still exist. There is little coordination or standardization among companies (you should have seen it before clinicaltrials.gov existed). On top of that, it's a cost-plus industry, which means the companies recoup the money they spend on research + profit margin, and we recoup 50% of the time spent on research via patent term extension.
So what I'm saying is that the system doesn't make sense from the patient perspective but it does make sense from the lens of the FDA and pharma. People are responding to incentives, as they always do. You can read a bit more about how the pharma industry works on my blog, and you might find this section especially helpful, it discusses all the misaligned incentives in our industry: https://clinicaltrialist.com/category/drug-development/productivity/
I really hope you respond to therapy, and I'm happy to respond to a direct email, you can find my email on my website.
Richard
BTW, thank you for this post, Richard.
>>First, FDA's remit is not, and has never been, to get therapies to patients
That's a problem and the FDA's remit should be to get therapies to patients.
>>Its primary mission first and foremost, is to prevent unsafe drugs from injuring patients
I'm a dead man walking. The FDA is preventing "unsafe" drugs from injuring me, so that I can be "injured" and ultimately kliled by a recurrent/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. If I'm injured or killed by a drug, that's not so different from my ultimate trajectory anyway—and that knowledge might accelerate treatments and save the next guy's life.
My likely outcome is joining the invisible graveyard: https://jakeseliger.com/2023/07/22/i-am-dying-of-squamous-cell-carcinoma-and-the-treatments-that-might-save-me-are-just-out-of-reach/.
>>Now, the FDA still does a good job of getting drugs to market--for example, it bent over backwards to accelerate COVID vaccines to market as quickly as it could--but they weren't designed to do that
Then the "design" should be different. And the FDA should've allowed human challenge trials. I'd have volunteered.
In short, "How it is" is different from "How it should be."
I went to a conference a few years back where a physician shared her experience getting cancer treatment. She was a mother with a single goal: survive long enough to see her daughter graduate high school. She took a very aggressive approach for her tumor type and made it five years to her daughter's graduation.
After that, she met with her oncologist and reviewed her treatment plan. She had planned to take her daughter on a cross-country road drip to college. They reviewed treatment options and the option with the highest survival probability was something that would almost certainly give the woman significant diarrhea. Of course, that wasn't something that was conducive to long car rides and hiking in the deserts of southern Utah. So she opted for a different course of treatment that managed the cancer but was more in line with her life's goals. Those goals had changed from a time when absolute number of months/weeks/days was the only consideration, to something more tuned to making memories and spending time with people.
There's an unfortunate tradeoff right now in oncology between "quality of life versus length of life". This is somewhat unique to cancer. You don't see many people choosing to forego their diabetes treatment because they're choosing QoL over LoL (to my knowledge). I think a lot of this comes from the directive to 'cure cancer' and talk of a cancer moonshot and whatnot. The message I got when I was in school/training was that those old therapies were really bad for side effects, sure, but the newer targeted/immunotherapy/genetic-based therapies/etc. would target just the cancer cells and lead not only to cures, but make treatment much more tolerable. The side effects wouldn't be so bad!
I'm not sure those promises were fulfilled in anything like the way they were sold. Especially the side effects. I think those will always be a facet of cancer treatment until we take them seriously as a field. Until then, I really think you have to ask yourself what are the goals you want to balance in your journey through the end of this thing. I've seen dozens of patients who went from trial to trial, experiencing horrible side effects the whole way, with lots of travel across the country from airport to infusion suite and back home. Some of these patients got an extra five to ten years. Some may have gotten a few extra months, though it's impossible to be sure. Some were full code and despite everyone's best efforts got an agonizing extra five minutes.
I used to believe a lot more firmly in the promise that a 'cure' or at least a long-term solution for an unfavorable cancer prognosis lay in getting into the right clinical trial. I think this has to be balanced with the real possibility that the 'right' clinical trial won't start enrolling until too far into the future to do you any good. In other words, it's unknowable whether the right trial will extend your life, or by how much. But it is knowable how the search impacts your life and the lives of those closest to you. While I think it's unfair to ask anyone to "give up", it is fair to set boundaries on how the search/treatment is allowed to interfere in your lives. If your wife is still searching for open slots while preparing funeral arrangements you both may look back on this period and wonder if you sacrificed too much quality for a little extra quantity.
Cancer shortens life, to be sure, but the question of what to do with the time we're given is one everybody faces. I hope your prognosis is many standard deviations from the mean in the direction of survival. I also hope survival is more than just that.
For whatever it's worth, there seems to be a preference for Quality of Life over Quantity of life in parents of children with muscular dystrophy. (Based on reading for a recent class.) I'm not sure what the general pattern is at work here.
It seems that a lot of lifestyle choices involve a preference for quality of life over quantity of life. (Assuming rational actors, of course, which is tenuous.) Couldn't some cases of diabetes basically be described in those terms? At least in cases of insulin resistance, if a person exercised more and ate less, then insulin resistance would not have become an issue.
Honestly, I'm having trouble describing a general pattern of when people prefer quality of life and when they prefer length of life either as a group or individuals. Though there seems to be a stronger trend for third parties like family members to prefer length of life than the individuals themselves. Which makes sense.
If you're caretaker of a child whose prognosis does not extend to adulthood, I can understand why you might bias toward quality of life over length. I also suspect that prioritizing length of life would be more expensive, further complicating this discussion with other considerations.
I think the culture around cancer is already biased because the treatment population tends to skew much older than a representative sample of the population. I've seen elderly patients strongly prefer length of life near end of life, probably in part because QoL is already starting at a low baseline, and in part because they don't have a lot of people relying on their ability to perform daily activities. Lots of interesting questions to be explored.
Those sound like very relevant considerations. Thank you.
Hi Jake, I chatted with Bess here a few weeks back. I'm in a similar situation as you except my incurable, terminal cancer is a brain tumour. By a weird coincidence, I have also been running an online community for cancer patients (Smart Patients) for the last 13 years. I'm also a software engineer and I have built three search engines for clinical trials. I'll speak to some of Beth's frustrations regarding trial searching.
First the quality of data. ClinicalTrials.gov (aka CT.gov) was never designed for consumers or even for trial searching. The quality of the data is atrocious and there is no standard for how things like condition names or inclusion criteria are encoded. For most clinical research teams, recording the data in CT.gov is low priority task handled by someone very junior. It’s a checklist item and there is no incentive to record the data in a way that is useful for searching.
Second, the synonym problem. I’ll use my brain tumour as an example. There are dozens of types of brain tumour (or tumor!). A search for brain tumour is not specific enough. A search for glioma will miss the many, many trials that list brain tumour as the condition and won’t find any ‘solid tumor’ trials either. There are also dozens of trials that list glioma as the condition but they are almost all for glioblastoma and are not relevant for me.
Third, the noisy data problem. CT.gov registers all trials whether they are for the latest immunotherapy or for a new dye to be used in MRIs. The trial record rarely record the distinction in a way that a search engine can use to select just the curative trials.
I think all of these data problems are easy to fix if there was a little political will. Vice President Biden organised a ‘Cancer Moonshot’ and one of the projects we worked on was to standardise the recording of trial data but it went nowhere. I wrote a paper on standardisation and recommended a Domain Specific Language that could be read by people as well as by search engines (and AIs). I counted 98 different ways of saying “The patient must not be pregnant” for example. I think this kind of standardisation should be easy for the FDA or NCI but no one is interested in fixing it.
While I was working on the Moonshot thing, CT.gov hired an intern to fix the presentation of the data to make it easier to search but the project got cancelled because they had no money.
I hope your trial works out for you. Good luck to us both.
The problem is that the website was not created as a place for patients to go search for ongoing clinical trials. It was designed as a way for pharmaceutical companies to pre-register their trial designs and hypotheses ex ante to improve the science. If a company has ten different trials for a drug that they never publish data for, then the eleventh comes out with data and a statistically significant finding, there's a high probability that the reason is mere chance and the result can be explained away by publication bias. Without pre-registration, you can't find that out.
The system isn't perfect, but it actually works surprisingly well for its intended purposes and can still be useful for patients. If your oncologist recommends a clinical trial you can look up the active agent on the website to try and figure out the clinical history of the trial. Is this an also-ran study or a me too drug? Is it yet another attempt to find a dosing schedule that gives fewer side effects without sacrificing efficacy? Or is it a genuinely new therapeutic approach?
I think the reason the system isn't fit for purpose isn't because it's a government system so much as that it has been used for many purposes it was never designed for. That shows when you look at the kind of information pharma companies enter into the system, as well as the filters and other search mechanisms built into it.
Exactly.
The idea that patients will want to search for their own trials is still controversial but if someone at the top could be persuaded it's a good idea, it would not take much to modify the existing registration system to make it consistent, standardised and searchable. It just need consistent drug and condition names and a standard format for inclusion criteria. This could happen on top of the the existing system.
Even if the idea that patients could be searching for trials is controversial, it sounds like no one else in the system has it any easier. Doctors can't search, etc. So unless you find the entire idea of any one in the process searching for anyone else in the process to be controversial, then it seems bad. I guess it seems the _least_ bad for the researchers trying to find participants, since they are searching a large pool and don't need many people, but my guess is that HIPAA laws also mean that there isn't a single repository of all patients for them to search either and that they would prefer a larger pool to a smaller, so even for them the system could likely be much better than it is.
I've never encountered people who see patients searching for trials to be a problem. We do have a problem of "professional patients" who will join multiple concurrent trials solely for the compensation they get from participation. Nearly all interventional trials forbid concurrent enrollment in another interventional trial, but professional patients hide what they're doing. They're also singularly uninterested in the intervention being studied. Those practices are uncontroversially frowned upon.
I'd say the percentage of professional patients in cancer is so close to zero that I never worry about it. Other than that consideration, if a patient wishes to join a study the only two concerns are HIPAA and whether they meet the I/E criteria. If a patient reaches out to me to give me PHI, that's their business. I can't share it with anyone, but I can pass them information about who on the clinical team to contact with to get into the study.
I will say there's a place for caution here. Most patient advocacy groups forbid pharma reps from joining, and for a reason. You don't want to allow sales and medical affairs to spam people with suggestions they take some billion-dollar drug with slim evidence for a survival benefit. And if you let big pharma off the leash, they will absolutely do that. They're advertising restless leg syndrome and rare cancer treatment options every night to the half-dozen people on Fox News who might take them up on the request to "ask your doctor about Placebex" or whatever. They WILL invade patient spaces if given half the chance.
In my experience, cancer patients are significantly more motivated than patients in any other type of clinical trial. Patients on studies for dyslipidemia, cardiac health, fatty liver disease, chronic back pain, etc. are almost always approached by the center doing the study (or through an ad on the radio). They rarely seek out the 'right' study. Even then, they often seem more motivated by the compensation for their time than by the potential treatment effects. In cancer, it is not as rare to have a patient requesting a specific study, and when they do get in, they're much more careful about following the protocol.
I know there are a few other high-risk conditions with similarly motivated patients, but these tend to be much less broad. If you're looking for a study to treat your tinnitus, there are a total of just under 50 studies recruiting or getting ready to recruit. That's not as much to sort through. Cancer is unique in having large numbers of studies (related to not just treatment) and a significantly motivated patient base. If you're seeking changes to the system, consider an oncology-focused push.
In my experience, these things work best when everyone discovers they have aligned interests. From the perspective of the pharma company, the most pressing interest is in finding the right patients to enroll. We pay a lot of money to start up sites across the country, focusing most of our efforts on determining whether the PI will be able to "find" the patients who fit the trial criteria. The focus of the current system is on selecting a physician who can find the patients, not the other way around. Lots of physicians promise they can totally find many patients. We find about 80% of the recruitment to trials comes from about 20% of sites, with anywhere from 20%-50% of the sites never enrolling a single patient despite our best efforts to weed out the sites that are all hype.
If you're following me, there's a clear interest pharmaceutical companies have here. We really want to connect to the right patients for our trials, and we struggle to make that connection under the current system. Now, I think there's a dystopian world where cancer patients suddenly start getting mailers for dozens of clinical trials four days after a diagnosis or treatment failure. I don't think that's a good system either. But if a company could boost enrollment in their study by 10%-20% simply by entering better data into the government website, we'd be going over those submissions with a fine-tooth comb, making sure we got every detail right and kept up to date. At the moment, no company has that incentive, because that's not how the website functions or how patients find us.
Do you work for a pharma company dealing with clinical trials? I don't know if you've had a chance to read my article yet, but in part 3 I talk a lot about misaligned incentives. There was a lot of isolationism amongst researchers and difficulty even finding up to date information about which study is open, who has spots amongst the hospitals hosting; information like that was findable, but took so much time and piecing together. It was a quick investigative journalism education, that's for sure. One of the reasons some folks in pharma finally floated to me was that protecting that information protects them from other companies really having a clear sense of where they are in their trial process for a particular drug. I'm wondering if this is universal. I'm working on developing a process to better match patient and trial that would ideally better align everyone's motivations. Would love to talk to you if you're involved in this process from a pharma perspective and if you're open to a conversation. (DrBStillman@gmail.com)
I'll send you a direct message to chat. For the benefit of anyone reading the thread:
1. Yes, I work for small pharma company so our constraints are a little different from Big Pharma, though I've worked with/for them in the past.
2. Yes, I read your writeup. Pharma definitely holds a lot of cards close to the chest for exactly this reason. There are a lot of also-ran drugs, and concerns someone is going to beat you to market. One of the drugs I worked on (for a different small pharma company) was 'behind' in development of a comparable target. We ended up beating the other company to market for complicated reasons I won't go into here other than to say we had the better drug so our trial got better recruitment and data faster than they did.
3. I'm most interested in working on a solution to this problem. From the pharma perspective, we want to make these matches as much as patients do. Sometimes a study goes without enrollment for months on end because nobody knows how to connect these dots. That can create perverse incentives, where studies are designed to match what has worked in the past, not fill the need of what hasn't been tried before. (All while claiming the opposite to get fast-track status, but I digress.) A good solution will work for patients. A bad solution will encourage drug companies to do more semi-duplicate work that amounts to spinning our wheels and calling it progress.
There's a great YouTube channel (and some good books) by Vinay Prasad that tackles a lot of these issues from a public policy perspective.
FWIW our best effort at a trial search was to build a rating system and to order the trial results with the most promising trials closer to the top. We did two pilots for two different communities:
For colorectal cancer (CRC), we had oncologists who specialised in CRC rate the trials. For kidney cancer (RCC), we crowdsourced the ratings from knowledgeable RCC patients. We also annotated the trials with standardised condition names, drug names and inclusion criteria to make filtering easier and added a user-friendly summary of the trial.
The intent of the rating was not to say that pembrolizumab was better nivolumab (for example); it was to say that a trial for a targeted therapy was more interesting than a trial for a dye contrast or for a standard chemotherapy (chemo does not work on RCC). This reduces the list of trials from hundreds to dozens which makes it feasible to scroll through the list and look at every trial. The highest rated trials would appear at the top of the list. People who were on the trial could add comments and discuss them in our community.
It actually worked very well but people were squeamish about the idea of rating trials like you might rate an Air BnB and we abandoned it.
That's a shame, it's a great idea and probably the most honest and useful way to judge what's out there. Everything about this process should make us squeamish as it currently stands.
Clinical researcher here. After reading the whole 3-part series I'm very sympathetic, and very much not surprised that this happened to you. If you've got a minute, I'd like to offer some thoughts from my end. (This will be long, sorry. And multiple comments to get around length constraints.)
First, what I do: Currently, I work for a startup pharma company. We design drugs to treat toxicities caused by cancer treatments. There's a lot of literature suggesting that "toxicity is a biomarker for efficacy". So hopefully we can not only make getting treated for cancer not suck so bad, but also treat patients at a high enough dose for long enough that curative intent is restored. Honestly, if we treated people with antibiotics the way we treat with cancer drugs we'd be creating antibiotic-resistant MRSA/VRSA all over the place. But whether you're taking chemo, targeted therapies, checkpoint inhibitors, radiation, etc. you're probably going to have some horrible rash, hand/foot reaction that could leave you in a wheelchair, or diarrhea that could literally kill you, etc.
That's what my company is working to solve. Where do I fit in? I help design the trials, work with the physicians and our own internal labbies to make sure we create something that works for patients, and then monitor the enrollment and conduct of the studies on an ongoing basis. I wear a lot of hats. I've also been in this business for over a decade, and seen it from many angles. So here's a look from the other side.
What phase to focus on? Ph3 studies aren't often available in oncology because approval is often granted based on Ph2 results instead. Since Ph1 is dose escalation, it's almost always better to get into at least a dose expansion (Ph1b) or a full-on Ph2 study. Also, Ph1 tends to require long PK draws. This is almost always an 8-hour PK on one or more visits, with another PK draw at 24 and/or 48 hours. That means you'll complete your study-related procedures (depending on the institution, this may take 1-3 hours or more), BEFORE starting the clock on the PK draws. It's not fun. If you have a choice, go with anything but Ph1a. However, speaking as a researcher we TOTALLY NEED people who are willing to do the PK draws! Sorry it's so terrible. I personally work to make this suck less on studies I run.
One of your unwritten questions seems to be, "Why is the enrollment process so opaque? Can't the drug companies just say, 'We have X slots and you can come grab one of those'?" The answer to this question is a function of the way these trials are most often designed. I suspect the biggest reason you ran into this problem is your focus on Phase 1 trials. And while it's a problem we know exists and have been working to minimize, it's not something we can entirely eliminate at the moment. In a typical dose escalation study, we might have 3-5 doses we want to test. We'll start out with the lowest dose, then after observing long enough to determine that dose isn't producing "dose limiting toxicities" (DLTs), we'll open up enrollment to the next-higher dose level. In the past, that looked like us bringing in 6 patients, waiting a month or two (or more) to see how they did on the drug, then bringing in another 6 patients. Although more recent study designs largely get around this stop-and-go problem, not everyone is using modern designs, and it's not always possible to avoid the stop-and-go process if there are any DLTs - and there are going to be DLTs. The reason the PI can't tell you, "Oh yes, we have this trial and we're just waiting another 3 weeks until they open up the next dose level" is two fold: 1.) the pharma company often doesn't get the most up-to-date information down to the PI (though if I'm running the study that's not the case), and 2.) the information you want to know isn't knowable (will there be dose-limiting toxicities or not? We can only wait and see).
Many oncology studies are filled by requesting a 'slot' for the trial before screening. Some studies allow you to request this slot with minimal information, but others require you to fill out a form with preliminary information about the subject before a slot is granted. It's entirely possible that many of the trials you were looking to join required more information that you'd be able to provide from a phone interview. For example, I've had a few trials that wouldn't consider a patient unless we had 'archival tumor tissue' available. This is something your original oncologist could have provided to the PI of the study you wanted to join, but confirming that everyone is able to shake hands and do business together on the timescale the study requires is a bit more involved of a process than just assuring the PI over the phone that this can be done. That said, your assessment that you have to be inducted into the system in order to become a patient is exactly in line with all of my prior experience. It's difficult to go from one medical system to another.
There are some institutions that have a department that matches patients to clinical trials, but many still rely on the "hey, I have a trial that might match your patient - can you refer them?" method, or the "now that you're here, I asked around and someone in our institution has a good fit" method. As to whether you'll get a referral to an outside practice ... it is frustratingly outside allowable institutional norms to do this in many cases. I've heard more than one oncologist state that referring to a 'competing' institution would earn them implicit or explicit demerits. A referral from MSKCC to NYU is simply not done, and everyone knows it.
Guaranteed slots on studies: Many pharma companies do not know what it means to patients to be granted a slot and/or begin screening and then be told they missed out on a chance for enrollment. Many do, and will guarantee that anyone who screens is guaranteed to be allowed to enroll and get treatment, but this is something to look out for. I'm sorry about this. While it's something I can change for the small number of studies I work on, it's not universally understood by people who just don't understand the patient experience.
Thank you for this input, i'm always interested to hear from people on the inside. Alas, we had all these problems while focusing on phase 1b expansion and higher trials, and were actually trying to avoid phase 1a first in human or dose escalation studies and focus on expansion arms for the reasons you mention. Also, because we wanted to start with something that had data supporting it if we could. Moving for a dose escalation first in human trial wasn't interesting to us, and it really didn't matter which we entered, if we decided to go that way since it's throwing spaghetti at a wall.
As for the slot suggestion, I mentioned that U Chicago offered us a slot for the moderna trial over the phone and literally no one else would, which seemed to point in the direction of PI variation. Do you find this to be the case? We also came across this issue for a few other trials, some would put him on the waitlist, others wouldn't until he had an appointment. The establishing care refrain seemed much more important than anything. It didn't seem to be an issue of data and their not being able to offer it before an appointment... and in fact, for the trials he was eventually offered screening slots in, there was NO additional data given at the time of the care establishing appointment that wasn't provided prior to the appointment. Every PI we spoke with had a personalized short pdf I put together with every piece of information that ended up being reviewed at first appointments: images, most recent ct scans, path report, genomic sequencing, a concise dated HPI. I even made sure, through relationships with our path department (I work at the hospital where the surgeries happened), made usre that anyone needing archival tissue got it, and fast. Because you're absolutely right, trying to get tissue into the right hands on the right time scale is CRAZY hard. Based on some of what you're saying I feel like the privilege of being a physician, handling the patient data, and being able to coordinate tissue/path/imaging quickly (if laboriously) would solve some of those problems. But it .... didn't. It helped I'm sure. I'm positive the only reason I got most of the replies I did via e-mail was because of my position at a large institution. It helped immensely, but not as much as you'd think.
The demerits comment is likely true. Sadly. More than likely true. And awful. However, I will say in the defense of individual physicians, there's an opportunity here to do really right by people. The doc at MSKCC who not only saved us a trip but got us on a waitlist at another institution is on my holiday card list forever
Thanks for all the information her, and thanks so much for trying to change what you can for the studies you're on. I'm actually working on a process to try to improve the matching process for patients and trials, in an attempt to better align hospital/pharma/patient incentives and would love to talk sometime if you're open to answering some questions. I'm at DrBStillman@gmail.com
I sent you an email. Let me know if you didn't get it.
The question isn't why did everyone else turn you down, but why U of Chicago said "Okay". I think that's where your background as a physician from a large institution and having everything organized got your foot in the door.
They usually have about two weeks to fill the slot after they submit the slot request, or they lose their place (and everyone is annoyed at them for tying up the slot for two weeks). Most institutions aren't going to take that risk unless they 'know' you, which means they've confirmed you can travel to the institution and walked through the doors at some point. It's dumb, sure, but there are a lot of fickle patients out there, too.
There's a reason sites don't host multiple competing trials: pharmaceutical companies ask them if they have competing trials and pass if there's competition. It's hard to find patients to fill these trials, so if you're already hosting two trials that would compete with our trial we start to wonder if we'll just go to the bottom of the stack and never get patients. Indeed, we've experienced exactly that problem before, from sites who promise us the world and then never enroll a single patient on trial despite the months of effort and tens of thousands of dollars we put into getting them open. This is literally a standard question "do you have any competing studies open at your institution?" every company asks every potential site.
Getting contact information for a site: Most/all multi-center clinical trials are going managed centrally by either the pharma company or a CRO they've hired to run the study. Every site gets a contact person they can email who is their liaison with the company/CRO. That person knows everything (or more likely knows nothing other than who to email to answer the question for them). If you're looking for the contact information for a specific site, but the only contact information you have is for a far away site, consider asking them if they can get you the coordinator's information for the site you want. ClinicalTrials.gov information is added by the pharma company, though, and although we should be adding the helpful contact information for you, this isn't universally done for various arcane reasons you shouldn't have to care about.
One of the reasons people recommend larger centers like City of Hope, MD Anderson, MSKCC, Moffit, etc. is because they have a large 'catchment' area. In other words, they're used to providing people with travel arrangements for the studies. Many of these studies will have the Sponsor provide travel arrangements, but that carries its own bureaucratic red tape imposed by the institution, pharma company, etc. (Also, the company is almost never allowed to pay for travel if the patient hasn't signed the informed consent - which sites won't do unless you're ready to enter screening because too many screen failures and they don't look like they're enrolling in good faith, so they're not going to let you screen/sign the ICF unless you're already in their system.)
Places like MD Anderson are bringing people in from all over the world, so getting calls like yours isn't new to them. (We once had a patient come in for monthly visits from China.) That said, it really is better if you can find a site close to home. I had a coordinator at MD Anderson find a patient who lived in another state about a thousand miles away from the medical center. We had a site open in the patient's state and the coordinator recommended she just go to that site. She was helpful enough to give the patient the contact information for that site's coordinator. The patient refused, because she wanted to be treated at MD Anderson. The coordinator tried to explain that it's the same either way, but okay she'd try to get the visit set up in Texas.
That's when insurance became an issue. The patient's insurance wouldn't pay out of state, so they refused to let the treatment proceed at MD Anderson. After some on-again-off-again with the insurance company for a few months, the patient finally relented and went to the local site. She died before she got a week into the therapy. This was really tragic, because that particular study was for a very selective drug (<1% of cancer cases) that had a phenomenal and long-term response rate (I think it was >70% of complete or partial responses; we didn't count long-term non-progression in that, of which we had a few as well). The drug got approval, of course, then was bought by a big pharma company that jacked up the per/month cost of the drug to obscene levels.
All this is to say that the large institutions are a two-edged sword. On one hand, they can help connect you to a trial because a place like MSKCC is running hundreds of trials and they have people dedicated to matching you to a good one. However, what matters is getting on the right trial, not so much where you go. Big institutions can help with that, but everyone is different.
"They don't listen to the doctors". This is sometimes true, but not always. Some institutions, like MSKCC and MD Anderson, are large enough to dictate terms to drug companies. They can't tell them everything, and sometimes our hand is forced by the FDA or by other factors, but sometimes those larger institutions can make a difference. Personally, I think it's terrible some of the restrictions placed, and I'm very careful to ensure our I/E criteria are written as expansively as possible. However, it's very much an art that many inexperienced researchers have not learned. It's easy to write something that you think seems obvious without realizing it creates unnecessary problems for patients. However, once it's enshrined in the protocol we're not allowed to make exceptions. The only way to change the I/E criteria (or anything in the protocol) is with an amendment, which takes forever - especially at larger institutions that use their own IRB, which in oncology is most of them.
One thing that I've found is the larger pharma companies are terrible when it comes to having flexible clinical trial criteria. Usually the trial manager is in a silo with little ability to make decisions outside of their narrow area. They're not empowered to write more expansive criteria or make practical decisions because they'd have to justify doing something other than 'the way everyone does it'. This is unfortunate because, as I always say, "If we're not doing something different, it's not research." One of the benefits of working with a smaller Sponsoring pharmaceutical company is that flexibility.
Part of the problem with the system is that health privacy concerns often creates a wall between the pharma company and patients, to the extent that you can't just call me up and say, "Hey I want to join your study XXX, but I can't figure out how to contact the study coordinator and get on trial. Can you help me out? I live in Arizona, but I'm totally willing to travel wherever I need to go."
I'll be honest with you. If I got an email like that, or a message on LinkedIn, or whatever. I'd move heaven and Earth to get you a spot on the study. We try to enroll as fast as possible, and from where I sit I can move many of the levers that get in your way (though not all of them). However, nobody thinks to ask who's managing the study so I never get anything like that.
I hope some of this helps you see from the other side. I agree it's a frustrating problem, but I'm not sure how to change it from where I sit.
"That said, it really is better if you can find a site close to home." Agreed. Which is why it was so wild to me that i ended up knowing more about study locations than the PI's. There was a trial we were recommended in Michigan that the researcher didn't know had slots available just down the street from us. I told him and he was surprised.
I am starting a project to try to better align incentives between pharma/patients and manage some of the problesm you're talking about. I actually sent a variation on that message you wrote to so many researchers, and got the emails of the PI's in that way (if there weren't online) but then was stymied by the wait to establish care and couldn't get a trial slot. I'd love to talk more about streamlining this in a way that might benefit all if you're open to a conversation sometime?DrBStillman@gmail.com
It's not common, but sometimes we'll open multiple sites in the same large city because, as I mentioned, referrals between 'competing' oncology centers are uncouth. If you want to get patients from Albert Einstein and you've already got NYU open, you're going to have to identify a PI at both institutions. This is very different from non-oncology, where you'd almost never pick up two NYC or Chicago sites.
And since pharma companies try to keep enrollment numbers close to the chest, they're likely to oppose any effort that would make those numbers transparent. For example, say you're facing slower than expected enrollment. You might be tempted to relax some of your inclusion criteria (which we want!) in order to speed things up. That will take some time to pass through IRBs and make a difference for the study. However, if your investors can trace the trendlines they might get scared at the slow enrollment rate and dump you before you can make the changes.
It's dumb that these considerations keep patients from getting the information they need to get on trial, though. There are solutions, but in my experience many in pharma don't talk to patients and advocacy groups (at least, the groups not indirectly funded by pharma groups).
I've been to those talks at conferences where patient advocacy groups talk about financial toxicity and other major patient-related concerns. These talks are usually in small rooms that are not well attended. It's frustrating, because who are we in this for if not the patients?
This is all so interesting to hear. I am happy to show up at conferences with a megaphone and a slide deck projected on a large sheet. Deranged? Maybe, but I'll try to offer CME.
LOL, nice. :)
I support this.
I'm an oncologist (based in Australia). I submitted a grant proposal to Scott a couple years (back when he did his funding round) for an app that would ideally do what your wife has spent hundreds of hours doing.
I strongly feel it should not have to be this hard. Anyone with coding experience (there must be someone here, right?) feel free to chime in, especially if you have a background in the medical field. I think programmers and doctors don't spend enough time talking to each other. There are big gaps/opportunities in the field.
Posting it in this thread a lot but I'm looking to take a serious group approach to managing this problem, if you or anyone here is interested in joining forces shoot me an email DrBStillman@gmail.com. I have a feeling the real change is going to have to be political first, in order to force standards of data recording, otherwise there will be downstream problems everywhere...
I think it's possible to get institutional change without political change. For example, if pharma companies sense that they can get better/faster enrollment by participating in your initiative, they'll hop on that bandwagon really fast. Perhaps it's just a function of getting the right people in the room, then trusting network effects to take over once you've got enough clout on your side.
We had a partnership with a Big Pharma company that I won't name and we cooperated on developing data standards and patient-friendly trial descriptions and condition-specific trial search. We got quite a long way with it but the VP at the top moved on to another company and the next guy just shut it all down. I despair.
A pharma company will file this under "recruitment efforts" and lose interest after awhile. There are dozens of recruitment companies out there. Every once in awhile I get cold emails/LinkedIn requests from one asking if I want their help enrolling patients into my trials. A pharma company's higher-ups would see an initiative like yours and say, "sure we could reinvent the wheel, or we could just buy something off the shelf."
The places to focus might be the recruitment companies themselves and the CROs. I think the CRO angle would be interesting. When we select a CRO, part of what we do to vet them is ask after their recruitment history. Do they know how to enroll, or do they just cross their fingers and hope really hard? (Most swear they do the former but only know how to do the latter.) If we have to hire someone else to help boost recruitment, that's a sign that the CRO - who swore up and down they'd beat enrollment projections - failed on a key trial metric.
If the CRO can offer something unique that's a good pitch for them, and could help them win the study over a competitor. "Your trial will go on a searchable database visited by [X#] patients per month. This database places [Y%] patients directly into trials, increasing the number of patients in your trial and ensuring they're from a more diverse, randomly distributed pool. We enroll [xZ] faster with this method than our competitors."
Of course, you want everyone to be using the system, which will happen if it works to help people find the right trials and vice versa.
Why is enrollment rate such a big deal? Let's run some numbers. Say your oncology drug is mildly successful, making a mere $365.25 million per year. Every day on patent is worth $1 million for the company. Now consider that many oncology drugs are making closer to $10M/day. Accelerating approval by two weeks could be worth a hundred million dollars or more.
It's a win from doctors' perspective as well. We want our patients to get on to promising trials, but we're limited by bandwidth. It's impossible for one human being to know all the research efforts. I completely understand how doctors trying to do the best by Bess recommended her to reach out to the big institutions like MD Anderson. This is basically what I say to patients too (I'm in Australia, so it's the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre).
Our hack/workaround is a WhatsApp group of every oncology trainee in the state that we can post in if we have a particularly promising trial candidate - "anyone have something phase 2 or beyond for a 42 F with KRAS G12V mNSCLC progressed through carbo/pem/pem?" It's OK, as far as workarounds go, but hardly optimal from an information theoretic perspective.
I've spent many thousands of hours on this and have written three different trial search engines. It's a not a doctor problem or a programming problem. The data recorded in clinicaltrials.gov is mostly useless for search (see my post above). It should be relatively easy to standardise the data format for the trial registry which would make trial search trivial but there is no political will to require it or to pay for it.
I suppose that an LLM trained on the data could do a slightly better job than a plain text facet search but how much simpler to just store the data accurately in the first place!
It’s a solvable problem. Remember the Vaccinate CA guy? “America has a tool that can be used to extract information from individual pharmacies; it’s called the telephone.”
You’d need a team of doctors/researchers/study coordinators who build an accurate, searchable database by directly contacting the coordinators responsible for the nonsense you see on clinical trials.gov. From there it’s a numbers game. Suppose one person (after some amount of practice) can log 6 studies an hour. Then 20 people working over 2 months, doing 7 hour days could log 50 000 studies. This is what Jake’s wife was trying to do all by herself.
Then we do data robustness checks which is probably something like using an LLM to translate our giant excel spreadsheet into a series of emails to various institutions checking that they’re happy that we represent them accurately.
Then someone like yourself can write code to make the experience of searching for a clinical trial more like searching for a flight on FlightCentre (why have we as a society decided that’s more important, again?)
I’m not saying this would be easy, but I am saying it would cost in the low millions to perhaps tens of millions of dollars, which is nothing compared to what gets spent in this space already.
Anyone know a funder? Zoom meeting sometime?
This is more or less what we did.
For kidney cancer, there aren't as many trials (mixed blessing?) as Bess was dealing with. At the time, there were around 180 trials for RCC that were useful (interventional and potentially curative) and we were able to crowdsource a lot of information gaps because we had so many members who were participating in trials. For colorectal, we did the same but the information came from oncologists who worked for a CRC advocacy organisation.
I don't have the energy to deal with this any more (I am dealing with my own glioma) but I can share experiences if someone else wants to run with it.
You are probably aware of this already but most oncologists consider this study to be the most groundbreaking result in glioma over the past decade (presented this year at ASCO and received a standing ovation; reserved for the very best of the best)
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2304194
Yes. The patient-advocates in my corner of Twitter are very excited about vorasidenib. It's the first real advance in glioma treatment in 30 years. I have declined all treatment so far but if vorasidenib is approved in the UK in time for me, I will certainly go for it.
I have a tumour-twin in Canada who is trying to get access through expanded access but it will probably take a bit longer to be made available over here.
Yeah I'd love to chat sometime. Email? Wishing you all the very best with your glioma treatment.
Thank you, Turtle.
If you are interested, I blog a bit about my adventure here: https://www.raggedclown.com/tag/cancer/
If you leave a comment on my blog, I'll have your email and I will respond.
Garbage in garbage out explains with the AI companies tackling this are failing as hard as anyone else. I think this is a political problem first, I agree. This heralds back to the invisible graveyard problem. The people who are hurt most by this are probably dead.
It seems utterly inadequate to be talking to you about search engines, but: Google got where it is by being good at what it does. It might easily pay to ignore the in house search form at clinical trials and search the site with Google.
Very best of luck to you.
I'm not a Christian, but I offer you this song in some kind of analogous sense. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-2-twJpqjFY
I don't think any of his examples are related to Twitter (or at least not only Twitter). It's profoundly weird starting a fresh account on *any* algorithmically generated product, and it's very obvious when the algorithm gets itself stuck in a repeating loop of showing you something because you watched it because it showed it to you in the first place.
It's also very difficult to intentionally curate, and involves a lot of manual "I want to see less of this" type responses from the user.
If it's showing generic stuff that represents a normal user, I am (also) definitely not that normal user.
My recently created Twitter account only follows a single local news station and my "For you" section looks very different than Nate Silver's. It's largely stuff about the Israel-Gaza conflict right now, with the majority of it pro-Palestinian.
Most of what Nate sees makes sense for someone only following Elon Musk. Lots of pictures/memes, right-leaning political stuff, assuming he's male, etc.