Last week, I read about an attempt of the EU to mandate web browsers to carry state-sponsored certificate authorities (CAs) in some online identity vaporware bill.
Initially, I was unsure if Mozilla et al were making a mountain out of a molehill, but the language of a draft I found sounds pretty damning:
> Article 45
> Requirements for qualified certificates for website authentication
> 1. Qualified certificates for website authentication shall meet the requirements laid down in Annex IV. Qualified certificates for website authentication shall be deemed compliant with the requirements laid down in Annex IV where they meet the standards referred to in paragraph 3.
> 2. Qualified certificates for website authentication referred to in paragraph 1 shall be recognised by web-browsers. For those purposes web-browsers shall ensure that the identity data provided using any of the methods is displayed in a user friendly manner. Web-browsers shall ensure support and interoperability with qualified certificates for website authentication referred to in paragraph 1, with the exception of enterprises, considered to be microenterprises and small enterprises in accordance with Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC in the first 5 years of operating as providers of web-browsing services.
In a nutshell, when a browser connects to a website like google.com via https, it tries to validate the identity of the website to see if it is corrected to the legitimate operators of google.com or some attacker. The idea is that interwoven in the encryption, there is a certificate which is signed by some trusted authority, a CA. A browser comes with a some dozen "trustworthy" CAs preinstalled, few users ever change that list.
For a company, being included as a CA in the browsers is a license to print money. Every https website requires at least one trusted certificate per year lest their users are scared away by warning messages from the browser, and apart from Let's encrypt, CAs generally expect to be paid for that. See also: Honest Achmed's Used Cars and Certificates, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647959
The CA system is already an ugly mess, but every mess can be made worse by getting the government involved.
Right now the spooks can obviously get some CAs to sign phony certificates for google.com, but each such use risks discovery. If any CA gets caught issuing malicious fakes, they will likely fall into disfavor with the browser vendors. In fact, TrustCor managed to do so last year just by looking like a spook front without ever having been accused of issuing a false certificate.
However, if governments can mandate the inclusion of their CAs in the browsers by law, the risk of burning a CA no longer applies. And rather than forcing browser vendors to directly include CAs for your spying, why not first compel them to do so for some innocuous reason, like some digital identity act? Once your certificates are in the browsers and you have switched all government websites to them, another bill can empower them to use the CAs for "lawful interception".
I do not consider myself to be a conspiracy nut and do not expect an EU dictatorship, but I think that in any democracy there is a continuous struggle between those wanting more safety and those wanting to keep their freedoms. Still, I had hoped that "we will just force browser vendors to ship our CAs through laws" would be far from the Overton window.
Disappointingly, this topic seems to be of no interest to most mainstream media. The sites I read about it are computer nerd sites like the Register, heise or fefe. Even the EFF focuses more on pro-Palestinian messages being silenced on social media than this. Of course, us computer nerds will probably be the least affected by it as we can compile our browsers from the source code if the situation calls for it.
I would have hoped that post-Snowden, there would be some greater awareness for these issues outside the hacker culture, but I guess there is not.
Recently been down a city planning / autonomous vehicle rabbit hole.
Hoping to find someone that can explain why public transport doesn't take on an 'uber but for busses' approach? It seems like a much better and more efficient (not to mention more practical / useful) means to run a bus. Particularly in my city which is effectively a thin strip running east to west. Or for regional areas.. What am I missing?
I think an Uber system would make planning routes very difficult. If you have a bus with 40 people, who all have different pickup and dropoff locations, what does the bus's route look like? Can you tell any of them how long the trip will take in advance, or how many stops it will be? Will the answer change midway when another rider wants to board?
For an Uber pool this is less of an issue because you only need to find four people who have roughly similar start and end locations, but for a bus route that covers the length of a city I imagine the complexity grows pretty quickly.
LA is big, so how it works is that there are multiple service areas (each ~20 square miles, and not the whole city is covered). You can request a ride from one point within a service area to another point within the same service area.
I have no idea how it compares in cost/efficiency to standard buses, but it is definitely nice to use if you're in one of the service areas and want to get somewhere within that service area!
Public transportation conveys large amounts of people from place A to place B at given, specified intervals. Considering that large numbers of people tend to often need to get from place A to place B at a specific, preknown time - such as getting to work, or getting back home from work - it serves such people just fine.
The bus would be able to pick up / drop off (at or closer to) their intended destination (extremely helpful for disabled). No longer need the physical infrastructure of a bus stop (cost/visual). You could alleviate a lot of planning / zoning issues since good public transport could be at everyone's doorstep. Ability to run busses 'on demand' instead of circulating around a route while empty. Gaining significant analytics on where busses need to be.
I actually can't imagine how it wouldn't be better and more efficient. If you live in a city where public transport is just fine that's great. But it is woeful in my town and many cities around the world.
> No longer need the physical infrastructure of a bus stop (cost/visual)
The physical infrastructure of a bus stop exists so buses can stop there though. Without a bus stop, buses need to stop in the middle of the street and disgorge passengers who need to pick their way through parked cars.
Also, many streets aren't wide enough for buses. Many corners, especially, are very unsuitable for buses.
What does it mean to run a bus "on demand"? I decide I want a bus to pick me up right outside my door (a bad idea for my particular street, but anyway) so a bus gets dispatched from the depot towards me? And we just hope there's enough people going in the same general direction that a reasonable bus route can be stitched together that will get everyone exactly where they're going in a somewhat reasonable amount of time, but there's no guarantees, especially since new stops keep getting added to the bus route while we're en route.
It makes more sense for people to walk to a bus route along a major road than for the buses to try to navigate the streets to pick everyone up from their front door.
There is something very slight yet very uncomfortable I've noticed about older people in the anglosphere when they talk about the Russia Ukraine war. Everyone, from John Gray (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSS85bMSnYg&ab_channel=PoliticsJOE) to my relatives to my elected representatives are convinced that Putin said that Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture do not exist and this indicates genocidal intent with which there can never be any negotiation, until they get new orders. As best as I can tell, he never said this.
Instead, he said (https://www.prlib.ru/en/article-vladimir-putin-historical-unity-russians-and-ukrainians) that a separate Ukrainian state did not exist as a historical entity in the modern era before the Bolsheviks created one and he also "blamed" the Bolsheviks for promoting Ukrainian culture at various points in the history of the Soviet Union.
To me both of these statements are fair comment as historical summary but also firmly in the category of true but not particularly relevant or a good enough basis to justify internal interference and external invasion. Demonstrating that Canada and the US were once part of the same country primarily populated by genetically similar people from the British Isles would not seem to create any justification for a US annexation of parts of Canada which historically spoke with more american accents or had the most immigrants from the US in the 19th century.
"The Russian dictator went on to repeat many of his most notorious historical distortions, including the claim that Ukraine had been artificially created by Vladimir Lenin and the early Soviet authorities “at the expense of southern Russian lands.”
The modern Ukrainian state has the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and Russian speaking populations *were* added to the republic precisely to make it less likely that separatist sentiment could permeate through the whole administrative unit. I understand that historically and even now it's trivially easy to lie to the american public for political gain.
But what I've found most striking is that when these errors are pointed out after I take great pains to assure them I'm also opposed to wars of aggression that leave hundreds of thousands dead, there is a defiant refusal to correct it or even acknowledge that there's any meaningful distinction between what they've claimed and reality.
I think there is perhaps something about the unipolar moment from 1991-2021 that changed American culture even more than the cold war.
"That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out."
Now of course, Karl Rove denies having ever said this. But the specific attribution doesn't matter because it works so well as an explanatory hypothesis. I think it's a good description of how many if not most Americans of a certain age and older have been trained to see the world, regardless of their political affiliation. There is so much spending power in the hands of not only the American elite but the American middle and lower classes that whatever enough of them believe really does become reality.
When it comes to tourism and culture this is fairly innocuous even if understandably irritating to people concerned about preserving their culture in the face of a multi-trillion dollar american cultural onslaught. But when it comes to history, politics, or war, this belief seems more dangerous.
It's not simply that they are engaging in war propaganda in a cynical and self-aware way. That would be nothing new or unique, truth has been the first casualty of war since antiquity. The belief is instead that what they believe _really is true_ or will be revealed to be true at some point the future.
I almost wonder if this can be expanded to conspiratorial thinking and the paranoid tendency in America. Ie, we could imagine a conspiracy theorist who has eventually walked back some of their claims after being cornered implying if not saying "I know it doesn't look like the government planned 9/11 as a false flag right now, but more evidence will come out that proves I'm right!"
It's not exactly delusional thinking as has been postulated by others. There's also a force of will behind it, a conviction so certain that they'll do anything to make sure the truth wins out, even if they have to fabricate everything themselves!
Stalin and his cronies talked in didactic marxist terminology and analysis in private and archived all the confessions of the great purge as if they were exculpatory for the regime, while members of the Bush Administration expected to build on Reagan's legacy and create a permanent majority in their favor rather than limping out of office with a 31% approval rating and two wars of occupation most serious analysts regarded as already doomed.
Wars are not (only) a racket. Yes they make a lot of money in wars, yes there's a military industrial complex, but it's not only about money. The true horror is that we're not (only) being manipulated by cynical and selfish people who want guaranteed profits and big megayacht.
Far more concerning is how much of American policy set by both elected and unelected officials is coming from highly emotional and driven people governed by few or no external mechanisms for anticipating likely outcomes beyond their own half-assed intuitions intermingled with what they hope to be true.
All the numbers and calculation and intelligence reports are usually just for show: when they support a decision that's already been made, they're trotted out. When they would seem to undermine it, they're ignored, suppressed, forgotten. It is certain that a CIA analyst somewhere knew that the Afghani government was highly likely to collapse and wrote a report no one higher up wanted to hear, just as it is certain a GRU analyst somewhere knew that Putin's invasion plan was very unlikely to work given Ukrainian force concentrations, training, and equipment. Ignorance is not just the absence of knowledge, it can also be a very active and sophisticated process.
I couldn't sleep and this comment got incredibly out of hand, I would be very gratified to get any response in the unlikely event anyone reads this far.
In 1954 there was a huge celebration in the USSR: a 300-year anniversary of Ukraine reuniting with Russia. So that takes us back to 1654. Reunification. Putin was around for that. It was taught is schools.
His blatant lie about Bolsheviks “creating” Ukraine in 1918 is just that. A lie. Nothing more.
Are you saying that the borders of modern day Ukraine are not the borders created by (one-party, totalitarian, dishonest, etc.) Soviet heads of state for the Ukrainian Soviet Republic?
Putin is most definitely a liar, but you're an even bigger liar than he is if you're saying that the borders of present-day Ukraine come from a 1654 treaty. Are you saying that the modern nation-state existed in 1654 among the cossacks? Are you saying the Crimean Khanate didn't exist, or that it was already Ukrainian, or... what? I don't get it.
I’m saying none of these things, you are saying them. And then accuse me of being a liar. Name one thing I wrote that was not true.
On the subject matter: none of todays countries have the same borders they had in 1654, this is an absurd idea to entertain. Ukraine had internationally recognized borders, including by Russia, who also:
1. Promised to respect them in 1994 explicitly in exchange for the nukes.
2. Worked for a decade to carefully demarcate the common border and finalized the work in 2003.
It would be good for you to work with arguments and not call your people who respond to you liars.
You haven't answered the original question and are now bringing up things which are irrelevant to me since I am and have always been opposed to Putin's invasion. Perhaps you're simply confused about the difference between an internationally recognized state, the legal concept of a successor state, and the existence of a people/language/culture.
> His blatant lie about Bolsheviks “creating” Ukraine in 1918 is just that. A lie. Nothing more.
Read literally, you seem to be saying that it's a lie that the current Ukrainian state and it's internationally recognized borders come from being a successor state to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic created in 1918-1920 with westward increases from formerly Polish territory in 1945 and the transfer of of Crimea in 1954.
If that's not what you're saying, then what did you mean? I'm starting to suspect you don't know yourself but are blindly attacking anything Putin has ever said about any topic because you incorrectly think that a blanket denial, even if itself a lie, is a more effective argument than a nuanced deconstruction of Putin's ultimately faulty historical claims.
For me there's no argument: I've asked you a simple question multiple times and you aren't answering it.
Who drew the internationally recognized Ukrainian borders that were used in 1991 to declare independence?
My answer is those were drawn by Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev. Who do you say drew them?
Ok if we are going into this level of specifics, here you go:
There was no "internationally recognized" border between Ukraine and Russia, simply because in the Soviet times it was a poorly demarcated administrative boundary within a single state. Once Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, and the USSR came apart on Jan 1 1992 (this is also a fuzzy timeline as various constituent republics declared independence on various dates), the hard work of figuring out the border started. There were committees on both sides, and after much wrangling, stalling, trading back-and-forth, the border was finalized in 2003.
So you can say, if you want, that the current internationally recognized Ukraine border was drawn by Kuchma and Putin. Will this work?
On a different note, it would really help your case if you stopped calling people who engage with you liars, confused, and in general inventing motives and intentions not evident from the comments you are responding to. You know nothing about me outside of the text in the comment box. Engage with that. Who I am and why I am writing here doesn't matter. The words in the box is all you have to go by.
The most recent revision* was made by Kuchma and Putin, it did not change the Ukrainian constitution ratified by vote on December 1, 1991 that states that Ukraine is the legal successor of the Ukrainian SSR.
It's true that "it was a poorly demarcated administrative boundary" but it's not true to say it was not, in international law terms, a state. It's obviously true that this was a bit of stalinist sophistry to obtain more votes, but in terms of international recognition, Ukraine was one of the signatories in the creation of the United Nations along with the Belarusian SSR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_the_United_Nations
If you're arguing that we should nullify previous international understandings and agreements because the soviet state was illegitimate, that unfortunately is exactly what Putin's position is too.
"In 1939, the USSR regained the lands earlier seized by Poland. A major portion of these became part of the Soviet Ukraine. In 1940, the Ukrainian SSR incorporated part of Bessarabia, which had been occupied by Romania since 1918, as well as Northern Bukovina. In 1948, Zmeyiniy Island (Snake Island) in the Black Sea became part of Ukraine. In 1954, the Crimean Region of the RSFSR was given to the Ukrainian SSR,
[...]
Therefore, modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia. To make sure of that, it is enough to look at the boundaries of the lands reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and the territory of the Ukrainian SSR when it left the Soviet Union."
Is there anything in the first paragraph you would say is factually incorrect?
Your initial reference to 1654 is exactly complementary with Putin: his argument that he is expressing (illegally through force) is that the legality doesn't matter and the "right thing to do" is to disregard legal fictions of an illegitimate state and "undo" the territorial gains realized by Ukraine under the Soviet Union.
So I'm not being pedantic when I'm focusing on things like legal successor states and nominal independence; these are the basis upon which Ukrainian territorial integrity hinges, not historical claims to differentiation with no legal basis.
Of course a Ukrainian people has existed with a distinct history, language, and culture from Russians for at least a thousand years. Putin has never denied that, and if you say that he has, I would want a citation. My understanding of his claims are that he has this romantic-nationalist assertion that Ukrainians are one of the "little Russian" ethnicities who are a distinct but still a subculture of Russian with a history which is indivisible from that of great Russian.
Now again, I don't give a shit about his sentimental/cynical argument or the argument of Ukrainian nationalists that say there is no relation or that ukrainians are genetically distinct or that there was only a relation of pure oppression. Neither of those narratives has any relationship whatsoever to international law, and it doesn't matter who dredges up what to "prove" their case History is complex and both sides are indifferent to history as such and see it as merely a tool for power and legitimacy in the present.
What Putin has denied is the legitimacy of the current borders of the Ukrainian state, despite international law and despite his own past agreement.
And what is the reason he gives?
Why, it's the same one that you give -- that it was a poorly demarcated boundary within a single state!
You are the one who started with a dismissive 'these are lies, these are lies, and
people who say this probably want Ukraine to be annexed by Russia' when my whole point is that you're falling into Putin's hands when you focus on the parts of his claims which are both 1) factually defensible and 2) irrelevant.
I've engaged with the words in the box and your initial responses were combative, dismissive, and not grounded in the historical record, while you also cast aspersions on my motivations. You never get a second chance to make a first impression and my first impression is that you're someone who will lash out at people who are sympathetic to your cause but are critical of certain tactics because they are ineffectual internationally and harmful domestically.
Ukraine's advocates and strategic decisionmakers have not acknowledged that the expectation of unlimited US support for an unlimited duration is a childish delusion nor have they acknowledged there is some complexity in the history, all of which sets the stage for a "stab in the back" legend and a failed state with an embittered, divided populace.
It is also a fact that the majority of governments on earth do not find the western coalition's case for sanctions persuasive or politically appealing. Trying to understand why this is so and working within a framework of mutually agreed upon facts seems like a better reaction than lashing out in an overtly racist way that only makes the situation worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgeAXMbbl5M&ab_channel=HindustanTimes
If you attack people who are sympathetic, if you attack people who are neutral observers, if you attack national minorities, and if you even attack your strategic partners who have made Ukraine's successful defense even possible... not merely a stalemate but a catastrophic collapse becomes more likely.
It seems like you're helping by immediately declaring facts you don't like (such as the fact that the Russian dominant soviet union defined 99.9% of Ukraine's legally recognized current borders) to be lies and making insinuations that people with domain knowledge must have ulterior motives, but you're not helping!
The fact is that Ukraine seems to be running out of time to make a livable peace that will strengthen Ukraine and isolate Russia in the long term, and retreating into national mythos of pure victimhood narratives make that peace harder
Redoubling the fanaticism and turning to ever more crude propaganda which demands total victory and refuses to meaningfully engage with the historical facts or other perspectives will not change this, except to make Ukraine's future worse while empowering dictators in the mould of Putin who thrive on resentment but are endangered by successful societies.
Explicit Ukrainian nationalism and attempts to create a Ukrainian nation, date back to at least 1848 and probably much further. And, as others have noted, a literally sovereign Ukrainian nation existed before the Bolsheviks were in a position to say yea or nay. So anyone saying that "Ukraine" is a creation of the Soviet Union, is A: factually incorrect and B: probably trying to justify the uncreation of the Ukrainian nation. If the person saying happens to own an army that has been trying to invade Ukraine for the past two years, then scratch the "probably".
The "older people in the Anglosphere", know what they are talking about on this one.
You have merely reasserted something approximately similar while still asserting something factually incorrect, or at least incoherent.
The current exact borders of the really existing Ukrainian state which declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 via referendum were drawn heads of state and officials of the Soviet Union.
Is this true or false?
Regardless of their reasoning, external pressures put upon them, historical nationalist aspirations, the republic of 1917-1918, the Don Cossacks, Zaparazhonia, the Crimean Tartars, the founding of 9th century Kievan Rus... is the above true or false, as a statement?
You have said that it's factually incorrect and also implied that anyone who disputes it has a political agenda. My agenda is simple: don't tell pointless lies that are easily disproven, because those harm the Ukrainian cause outside of the propaganda bubble only a minority of the world lives in.
It's painful that as mendacious and blurry as Putin's account is, it still manages to incorporate some things which are factually true, while what you're saying simply disregards reality itself. If Soviet officials didn't draw the current borders, who did? Is there a secret esoteric history of Ukrainian cartography?
I obviously don't expect you to stick around to concede that you didn't read very closely and see accuracy as secondary to your immediate political concerns, but it's certainly instructive for anyone who has nothing better to do than read this.
I'm glad you posted so lazily and in such bad faith because otherwise it could seem like I was shadowboxing with a strawman. But no, you exist and you're exactly who I was talking about, the mentality of delusional will to power which reaches first for threats and aspersions.
This nihilistic overbearing attitude was maybe adaptive in the 1990s but it doesn't work when people have instant access to things like say, wikipedia's bibliography, or the most well-cited and primary source heavy two-volume biography of Stalin written by Hoover Institute fellow Stephen Kotkin. Or are they all in on it too?
"The current exact borders of the really existing Ukrainian state which declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 via referendum were drawn heads of state and officials of the Soviet Union. Is this true or false?"
It is *completely irrelevant* The "current exact borders" of the nation have nothing to do with the claim made by Putin and endorsed by yourself that "a separate Ukrainian state did not exist as a historical entity in the modern era before the Bolsheviks created one." A separate Ukrainian state did in fact exist before the Bolsheviks created one; that state's borders have since been adjusted. As have the borders of just about every other state. A marginal change in the exact borders of a state, do not void that state's historic existence or continuity.
And the "current exact borders" of Ukraine are *particularly* irrelevant to any of your buddy Putin's other claims. Ukraine cannot be allowed to join NATO because its current borders were established in 1918, er, 1954? That is nonsensical; there may be reasons why Ukraine shouldn't join NATO, but they have nothing to do with where the exact borders are or who first drew them. Putin's claim that the current government in Kyiv is corrupt and illegitimate and run by literal Nazis, and so must be replaced by a regime chosen by Moscow, has nothing to do with the "current exact borders". The claim that Ukrainian nationalism and cultural identity are recent fictitious creations, has nothing to do with Ukraine's "current exact borders".
Ukraine is an old and long-suffering nation, predating the Bolsheviks by generations. The Ukrainian nation has frequently been conquered and ruled by foreign invaders for extended periods, without losing its basic identity. Vladimir Putin, plans to be the latest such invader, and probably the last because he seems to want to extinguish Ukrainian national and cultural identity. Vladimir Putin has told many lies to try and justify this. And he's apparently found that he can use a bit of irrelevant trivia about Ukraine's "current exact borders", to wrap you around his little finger and make you one of his minor mouthpieces.
I'm done with you, and I don't think I am alone in that. Please go away and peddle this nonsense elsewhere.
It's not like the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic sprang out of ex novo, though - its borders *mostly* were those of the earlier separatist non-Bolshevik Ukrainian People's Republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_People%27s_Republic), and considering that all of the original non-Russian Soviet Republics (Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasia) signing the treaty creating USSR had had similar secessionist entities in charge before their Soviet takeover, it seems like a difficult claim that UPR's existence had no effect on the Soviet decisions that led to Ukrainian SSR's creation.
Definitely an influence but so also with the drawing of the borders: almost all of the territory Russia is holding currently is territory that was not part of the Ukrainian People's Republic and was *added* by the bolsheviks. It's a historical fact, it's not contentious, and it's also not something that by itself justifies a war of aggression.
My somewhat rambling point was that it's unnecessary to play into these kinds of games where if your political enemy says the sky was blue in 1900, and therefore X, you must angrily denounce them and argue that the sky has always been yellow. And that the refusal to start the argument where it begins at the "therefore" is not merely imprecision or tactical cynicism but a genuine belief that freely available and well-documented historical information is easily subject to change as the political winds blow.
It's like the claims that there's no such thing as a Palestinian nation. I believe that there's a Palestinian people-- they have a lot of experiences and culture in common, and Israel had a lot to do with causing them to become distinct.
I'm not sure how long it takes to create a people-- possibly as little as 50 years. The boundaries aren't sharp, there aren't handy legal distinctions, but it's relevant to how people live.
Even before 1918 there was an Ukrainian nation at least in some distinct form, counted as "Little Russian" in the Russian census of 1897. The governorates where "Little Russians" formed a majority largely correspond to the governorates forming the UPR.
I also think that the "there's no Palestinian nation" claim is ridiculous. Whatever the historical record is, there's now decades of common historical experience of the sort that tends to be a crucial component in the creation of nations.
Edit: a good example would be Pakistanis - a nation whose name was literally invented in 1933, no-one before that would talk of Pakistanis - and whose nation was originally just formed out of the Muslim-majority areas of India. Despite this, people have no problems with talking about Pakistanis as a nation (or use "Paki" as a derogatory term etc.)
Big boost for Scott - the great David French quoted and linked to him in his column!
> I’ve long appreciated the pseudonymous writer Scott Alexander’s description of liberalism: “People talk about ‘liberalism’ as if it’s just another word for capitalism or libertarianism or vague center-left-Democratic Clintonism,” he wrote on his Slate Star Codex blog. “Liberalism is none of these things. Liberalism is a technology for preventing civil war.”
Why do writers like Scott write f--k instead of fuck in 2023? Are they avoiding some anti-vulgarity algorithm? It reads like something written before Joyce's Ulysses won its court battle against obscenity in 1933. Is 2023 like 1923?
One good reason would be that Scott realizes that many of his readers would be offended by the use of that particular obscenity.
Check out his SCC post from almost 10 years ago - it's apparent Scott aspires to treat people with respect. That word is evidently not offensive to you, and may not be to Scott, but is very offensive to many.
Then what does "f--k" sound like on the air? Are we supposed to assume we hear the f and the k without any vowels? Maybe. Perhaps I just had trouble imagining that. I'm pretty sure the debates are aired live and not time-lagged for censorship.
Anyone have any thoughts on the article linked here? https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1721938608985080259 It seems to provide pretty good evidence that antidepressant use in pregnancy causes (is not merely correlated with) a reduction in mathematics test scores in children. The main alternative hypothesis suggested in the Twitter discussion is that they haven't sufficiently controlled for the effects of maternal depression: although they did control for the presence of depression, they didn't control for its severity, and the latter could be correlated with who used an antidepressant.
Walk & Talk: We usually have an hour-long walk and talk after the meeting starts. Two mini-malls with hot takeout food are readily accessible nearby. Search for Gelson's or Pavilions in the zip code 92660.
Share a Surprise: Tell the group about something unexpected that changed your perspective on the universe.
Future Direction Ideas: Contribute ideas for the group's future direction, including topics, meeting types, activities, etc.
There's a desire to quantify morality around these parts. Here's the question I've been asking about the current Israel/Gaza crisis when trying to figure out "what's right."
A common question to ask is "to the Israeli government, all other things being equal, how many Gazan civilians are acceptable collateral damage to kill one Hamas soldier/commander/leader?" But what I'd really like to know is, how many Israeli **soldiers** would the Israeli government be willing to lose in order to accomplish the same objective with one less civilian casualty? I wonder if military leadership has explicit answers to both of these questions (I hope they do).
What originally made me think down these lines are the last two decades of American wars in the middle east. Drone warfare was common as a way to kill enemy combatants without American casualties. Drones (and bombs generally) seem like an imprecise weapon compared with a human-held gun. In general, a horrible consequence of long-range warfare has been a dehumanization of conflict. Great for the people who don't have to see death, but sad for those whose death can be just a dot on a screen.
Now in Gaza a similar question is raised. Let's take it as a premise that Israel needs to dismantle Hamas. They can do it with a combination of methods, such as siege, bombing, ground invasion. Waiting allows civilians to evacuate, but maybe Hamas to fortify. Bombs are risk-free for Israel but despite best efforts catch civilians in the destruction. Ground invasion is slower, and puts Israeli lives at risk, but on the surface at least seems safer for the citizens of the city. There's some sort of Pareto curve between "our troops," "our objectives," and "collateral damage" that any army indirectly respects. I would really love to hear a government official be clear about their perspective on these tradeoffs, and barring that, all of your thoughts. From the outside it seems to me that Israel leans too far in the bombing direction when considering these tradeoffs -- to maintain the moral upper hand I think a government should value one of its soldier's lives at maybe the same level as an enemy civilian, even taking the destruction of Hamas as a positive.
> Also Israel has compulsory military service; the soldiers ARE the civilians.
Wouldn't this undermine the Israeli claim that all 1400+ who died on Oct 7th and its aftermath were civilians ? If we accept that 10000+ Palestinian deaths because "Hamas is hiding amongst them", why not also accept the 1400+ Israeli deaths because "IDF is hiding amongst them" ?
...no? That'd be like saying you can't tell schoolteachers from students. Or the difference between a student and someone driving by the school. Everyone has to pass through it, but you're clearly labelled as "in" or "out".
Jordan and Egypt notwithstanding, having a region near you from which people like to attack you isn't a place you needn't monitor with soldiers, simply because someone says you can't call it "neighbor".
> the death of one soldier in this war is the death of two or three or ten in the next one
I've been viewing this conflict mostly in the isolated light of Israel-vs-Hamas, where despite Oct 7, it's pretty inconcievable that Hamas does any further substantial damage to Israel. But it's a fair point that they need to maintain resources for the future.
> the soldiers ARE the civilians
I think that changes the ratio but to me not the premise. The common phrasing of "worth the cost" is "civilians vs enemy combatants", but there's a real way in which this calculus can be nothing more than optics since neither directly harm the deciding body (Israeli government). The question is, what actual price are they willing to pay to achieve their goals.
And before anyone makes that annoying comment, I'm well aware of Hamas's preferred ratio, which involves dividing by zero or maybe a negative number.
There is no rational calculus to measure the body count needed to achieve victory in war.
Life becomes pitifully cheap -- down to an industrial scale of slaughter, with entire ethnicities methodically lined up and shot into trenches. Down to Gallipoli.
But Israel isn't fighting soldiers or even revolutionists; it's fighting terrorists. If the United Nations truly wanted to save lives, they'd help the U. S. and Israel form an international coalition to eradicate Hamas, Hezbollah, and all criminal terrorist groups.
Of course Israeli life is already worth less than zero to Hamas. But what about the reverse?
I think the situation you describe above applies in two cases. One is when the perpetrating body is monsterous (Hamas, Nazi Germany). The other is in a war of survival. If valuing the lives of enemy non-combatants puts your state at risk of eradication, it's not surprising and maybe even sensible to put a price tag near zero on it.
I'm asking this question from the premise that this isn't the case with Israel and Hamas. As I see it, in the short term Israel is at almost zero future risk from Hamas specifically. They have the support of the US, as well as overwhelming military superiority. They're not fighting Hamas for their statehood but for their future security. That's not to discount the atrocity -- its just that Hamas can't really cause much damage barring a sneak attack. To me that means Israel is at more liberty to be thoughtful rather than maximal in their response.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't take Israel's victory as inevitable. And as other commenters pointed out, Hamas isn't their only regional enemy. Though given the current world opinion, it does seem like they may be acting against their interests with their current approach.
"If the United Nations truly wanted to save lives, they'd help the U. S. and Israel form an international coalition to eradicate Hamas, Hezbollah, and all criminal terrorist groups."
How many civilians would die in the process?
How many centuries would it be until the death toll from hamas, hezbollah and "all criminal terrorist groups" exceeds the death toll from eradicating these groups? Because make no mistake, it would take CENTURIES before a single net life has been saved.
Or are you going to spin some sad story about hamas being on the verge of holocausting all Israelis?
Also, I imagine all of the civilian causalities would work very well to increase the support for extremists and terrorists in the affected civilian population, likely increasing supply of terrorists and support for terrorist organizations in the future.
A better approach would be to try to elevate the life prospects and comfort of the civilians to the point where they will not be interested in joining or supporting terrorists.
You also have to take into consideration that this is probabilistic. So while the definite case is interesting (how many civilians for how one Hamas soldier), the actual choice is closer to accepting or rejecting a probability distribution.
That brings in variables like the variance - strikes which are expected to kill the same number of civilians might be very different in the tails.
Additionally, the nightmare scenario for Israel isn't typically death of its soldiers - it's capture. So you might be willing to kill, say, 5 civilians to avoid 1 soldier death, but 15 civilians to avoid one soldier's capture.
It's a grisly kind of math. One I'm glad I never have to make.
> "[T]o maintain the moral upper hand I think a government should value one of its soldier's lives at maybe the same level as an enemy civilian"
This logic is nice and well-intentioned and idealistic. It's also responsible for probably millions of civilian deaths in the past 100 years. The logic is great if both sides follow it (for the most part; see notes below about the fuzzy lines around 'civilian'). It breaks down when up against someone that doesn't follow it, specifically, someone that values killing your people more than they value the lives of their own. At the 'perfect sphere on frictionless surface logic' level, it's simple math; if I am willing and able to trade one of my civilians per one of your military, I can win any war against any country that is the same size or smaller. At a more realistic level, you're eventually going to run into an enemy that shields his critical infrastructure under a wall of civilian bodies, and be forced to make a choice: international condemnation when the pictures of bodies hit the media, or a bunch of flag-draped caskets and 'we regret to inform you' letters to grieving families.
In a perfect world, the code that minimizes civilian casualties is: we will kill just enough people to stop you from killing any more of us, and not one more person. It works regardless of what moral code your opponents use. It works reflexively; it encourages and rewards opponents adopting the same code. In the real world, it's still vulnerable to mistakes and false flags, alas, but any code is vulnerable to those. Best of all, when it works, it works: if you don't start a war, then the number of your people I need to kill is zero (and if you started a war, there's a simple way to protect your people: surrender).
As far as civilians go, there is no solid line between civilians and military. Ultimately, at the ends, it's easy to make some distinctions, you'd much rather kill an enemy soldier on the front line than an enemy child. At the middle, it's much harder. In the US military, there are specialized transport units, which, being military, are valid targets. Would we be better off if we made those civilians and thus immune to attacks from 'moral' opponents? What about law enforcement and intelligence services? Is it really better for me to kill 10,000 enemy soldiers than 100 enemy workers in a critical munitions factory? These are hard questions, because there is no good answer.
I'd be curious whether ground warfare is truly less impactful from a civilian casualty perspective than boots on the ground. At the point a trigger is pulled on a rifle, there will certainly be less collateral than if a drone drops a bomb on the same target- but first you have to *bring* the man with the rifle to a point where he can take aim, and that means going around or through whatever defenses, terrain, and civilian structures are in his path.
If the territory is already controlled by his military, and he can travel to the objective uncontested, that's one thing, but if the troops have to fight their way there using tanks, artillery, mortars, etc, a single bomb dropped on a structure, even if it causes a dozen civilian casualties in the process, might well be less catastrophic than sending ground forces to it.
Also, when the guy with a rifle feels he needs to shoot something, he probably feels that he needs to shoot it *right now*. The drone operator can take their time, wait and see what develops, call in a colleague for a second opinion, run it by legal, etc.
That's true at least in theory. Drones and ultra-long-range warfare still has the problems I described above, but the main tradeoff I'm talking about mostly relates to guns versus bombs.
I would love to see Scott write about the Israel Gaza situation and the ideological schisms the West is going through at the moment. I know there probably isnt much original discussion to be had on the topic but I would love a classic Scott greypill.
I think it's becoming increasingly risky for the personal relationships of professional class people in America to offer even a kind of meta-commentary about the discourse itself and how it cuts through existing positions.
That said, I agree that it would be very welcome to have some thoughtful analysis of how easily the illiberal rhetorical tools and positioning of the existence of opposing speech as acts of inherent bigotry and violence has cross-pollinated, not to mention the sudden shift in who now supports the fusion of state and corporate power to censor collaboratively.
Is there some backstory as to why effective altruism generates such a strong reaction to some people such that there's a parade of articles trying to "expose" or "unmask" it and its followers? Personally, I don't care much about effective altruism, and as a result I am mostly indifferent towards it. The strongly negative reactions in a sizeable number of presumably intellectuals or otherwise educated people suggests there's some motivation that I'm unaware of. Does anyone have an explainer?
You may be interested in the book "Strangers Drowning" (https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ded6df13-350e-4da4-9f87-42964610cc98), which explores both the lives and motivations of extreme altruists (generally of the dedicate-your-life variety, but EA has a chapter in there) as well as some societal factors that effect a negative perception of "do-gooders".
I mean, people who accept the repugnant conclusion are basically saying that, given the opportunity, they would (figuratively) tax away all of your excess standard of living and give it to billions of hypothetical people.
One problem for EA is that some of its leading lights are apparently extremely easy to trick or to bribe, which tells us that as a system of thought it's something like being a communist; potentially laudable when practiced by an individual or within well-defined and narrowly scoped objectives (like literacy or malaria nets), but easily leveraged as moral camouflage by bad actors when attempted at scale.
The EA community does not yet seem to have gone through any kind of serious reckoning or re-evaluation, so again I would say its closest antecedents are something like libertarianism or communism. The more honest libertarians and communists you meet in everyday life, the more important it becomes to expose that the ones who rise to the top of those communities and make decisions within them tend to be sociopaths, conmen, or formerly principled people whose actions have begun to drift further and further from their stated ideals.
Not a full explanation, but the fact that a lot of the fuss is headlined as "Tech Billionaires Cult" or "Silicon Valley Ideology" makes me suspect some outgroup hostility. And it's even worse because the outgroup is pretending to share our values! (improving the lives of those who are worse off through charity). It reads like They are trying to sneak some weirdo technophile agenda past innocent prospective do-gooders under the guise of effectiveness, altruism, and weird philosophical arguments, and must be stopped.
It's a serious attempt to bring something that was usually done quite emotionally and intuitively into the realm of rationality. Which means that:
0. It brings some extra clarity in how effective different ways of giving money are in terms of suffering averted, and motivates enterprising young people to direct their efforts there. That's the part that basically no-one seriously objects to. But:
1. It implicitly ignores or belittles the pre-existing rational thought and institutional wisdom that went into traditional NGOs and charity organizations. (Not taking sides here, I'm sure the quality of that accumulated wisdom was quite variable.)
2. It raises the stakes for everybody else. If all of a sudden most of my friends are giving 10%+ and some of them are donating kidneys to unknowns, maybe your random yearly donation to a friend-of-a-friend's school in Nepal doesn't feel like actually doing much. For all the talk we like to have about first principles, remember that in practice our sense of morality is basically calibrated on your social surroundings.
3. Remember the catchphrase "dreams of reason produce monsters"? (No, I don't mean the Mick Karn album, but it's awesome anyway - google it). So-called rational thought is only one small part of what our minds actually do, and since it basically consists of symbol manipulation, it can easily go out far out into realms far away from anyone's living experience, yet still appear hugely convincing. In the case of the EA movement, as far as I've been able to watch from a distance, it seems to have been abducted into "long-termism", which is the belief that we can make educated guesses about the far future and plan courses of action accordingly. Couple that with some utilitarian felicity-calculus involving potentially huge future populations that will not be born for generations or centuries, and you end up with a moral compass quite at odds with those of the rest of the world.
I guess it's a bit of a motte and bailey, where the motte is sending anti-malrial mosquito nets and vaccines to poor areas of the Earth, and the bailey is all the long-termist stuff, often mixed with sci-fi scenarios of immortality through mind-uploading and the like.
This does explain a lot, thanks. There are a few consistent patterns I've noticed when it comes to people's harsh reactions to certain moral frameworks. For one, people tend to have a visceral reaction against moral frameworks that make it hard *for them* to live a moral life. This seems to be a lot of the resistance to utilitarianism and Singer-style ethics. Ultimately ethics is to control other people, so placing harsh burdens on them is fine. But placing it on oneself is unconscionable must be fought against with your entire arsenal.
The other issue I've noticed is many people strongly object to favoring the welfare of hypothetical people over actual living people. This goes towards your point about morality, for them, being an expression of their emotions or intuitions. Their empathy isn't sparked by hypotheticals. They find it repugnant to favor hypothetical people over actual people in any moral calculus regardless of any claims about the relative quantity of suffering being averted. I guess EA is the perfect storm of the analytic encroaching on the once sacrosanct expression of human intuition. Those that find grotesque a moral calculus unmoored from intuition will feel a moral impetus to undermine it.
There is also a fundamental theoretical problem with moral frameworks, which is that they get presented as hypotheses for what "real morality" is, in the same way that a speculative theory within physics gets presented and awaits further confirmation or disproof. But such confirmation or disproof is not forthcoming for a foundational moral framework, because unlike physics, the only thing we can test it against is another moral framework (explicit or implicit), not reality itself. So a moral framework end up sitting there in this weird corner claiming ultimate moral authority, while being actually subject to the higher authority of our strong feelings or intuitions, when they occasionally arise.
The purported benefit of a moral framework is that it first needs to match well enough with our intuitions that we may defer authority to it, and then think harder when its conclusions on tougher or edge-case situations are surprising or apparently unpalatable. But if you think about it, there's no particular reason why a framework that nicely describes 85% of our moral intuition must necessarily be "right" about the remaining 15%.
I was looking at a comparison photo of USS Gerald Ford and a Nimitz-class carrier, and I realized why the redesigned island (it's smaller and further aft on the Ford) appealed to me:
The new carrier looks more like a Star Destroyer.
This amuses me greatly, though I would caution the Navy against adopting easily-targeted deflector shield generators located directly atop the island...
/Update 2023-11-12: it looks like I can probably get what I want using eww, Emacs's built-in text-only web browser. By default, eww lists only top-level comments, delimited by asterisks for easy isearch navigation, which is already an improvement over the Substack website./
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Substack comment threads suck. Does anyone have a "Substack client" that makes them easier to read? This "client" could be a third-party site, native app, Emacs mode, GreaseMonkey script, whatever.
Desiderata:
- Show only top-level comments by default, preferably only the first n characters.
- When expanding a top-level comment, expand only one level of replies, not the whole tree.
- Let me hide subtrees without scrolling to the bottom of the parent (which is where the official mobile app puts the hide button).
I know this probably violates the Substack terms of service, so no need to point that out. I'm happy to set up a fiddly hack on my own computer if that's what it takes.
Substack exposes an API that sends some bytes to my computer. Once I have those bytes, I can do absolutely whatever I want with them, including displaying them in any format I want. Substack does not have jurisdiction over how I, on my personal computer, manipulate the bytes they have sent to me, nor does any other website.
1) The show talks about current events and not just a niche non-political topics like Formula 1 or model aircraft
2) The host(s) are not partisan and provide equal time to left, center and right viewpoints
3) The show editors take feedback seriously and start each episode listing factual/logical mistakes made in the previous episode or at least maintain an extensive list of corrections on their website
Most shows that satisfy (1) utterly fail (2) and (3). The All In Podcast and Joe Rogan satisfy (2) but fails (3). Tom Scott's channel satisfies (3) but fails (2) when it comes to anything political.
NPR's "left, right, and center" does a great job at 1) and 2). They don't literally satisfy 3, but the discussions are such that takery that would require corrections is relatively rare.
I'd be surprised if you could find even one. I'd expect most such media to fail (3), such that you might start by looking for (3) first and then filtering.
The best I could do, meanwhile, is produce a list of near misses. OTTOMH:
The recent rally in the stock market allowed me to dump some investments I'd been wanting to get rid of without having to eat much of a loss. How shall I reinvest the proceeds?
This is an hour about highly coded evidence that Bored Ape Yacht Club is actually a 4chan white supremacist conspiracy. I'm not sure whether it was worth my time, let alone anyone else's, but the temptation to post it was strong.
It's a shame that those guys can apparently do some real damage instead of entirely playing elaborate games to prove how clever they are.
I'm reminded of a combination of _Brain Wave_ (an sf novel about the earth moving out of an astronomical stupidity field) and the Flynn effect. What happens if people are smarter but don't have good sense to guide their thinking?
The big question would be the same as with all conspiracy theories speculating about the conspirators using hidden language, which is... why include all the esoteric stuff here again? I mean, the idea of someone starting a NFT collection as a scam to get a lot of money from dumb celebrities and spending it, presumably, to support Nazi stuff isn't completely implausible... but what would be the point of then suffusing it with Nazi stuff?
The conspiracy doesn't need to attract more participants in the core for the mission to happen, and any potential Nazis that might join after decoding the hidden symbolism would be the scammee, not the scammers. Doesn't sound very ideal.
In the case of these people, they might do it for the fun of it. Perhaps this isn't the strongest explanation, but the more you have to spare, the more you can show off for each other.
My prior on this hypothesis is very low, for a couple reasons.
First, I place an extremely low epistemological weight on "highly coded evidence". If I learned anything from high school English classes, it's that if you work hard enough at it you can read just about any meaning into any text. Particularly if the meaning you're looking for is white supremacy: enough people really, really want to find highly obfuscated white supremacy that there's a pretty extensive toolkit for inferring signs of it whether it's there or not.
And for 4chan in particular, this doesn't really seem like their style in a few respects, although they do have a history of going in for white supremacy themes in their "pranks". One thing that doesn't fit is that 4chan stuff usually has an element of wit that I don't really see here. Another is that 4chan tends to coordinate their stuff semi-publicly while it's ongoing and brag about it afterwards, which makes their involvement easy to verify if it's there.
I find myself thinking about inheritance now and again. One asset supposedly coming my way is a house - but it's unfortunately not easily accessible without a car (I don't drive), in a different city than where I live, and it's got at least a decade remaining of mortgage that I can't afford to pay on top of current rent. On the one hand, renting it out would obviously be profitable, given Bay Area housing market insanity. On the other hand...well, I don't actually want to be a landlord-by-necessity? Doubly so if it's tricky to visit the place and I'd never voluntarily owner-occupy it. Yet cashing out early by selling seems like just as bad an idea, opportunity costs aside. "It's better EV to take the annuity," every lotto winner thinks before taking their amortized of gold anyway.
If you had a comparable sum of cash to invest right now, would you be buying a Bay-Area house to manage as a rental/investment property? Is that even a close call?
There's your answer. If it's a close call, then the transaction costs probably point towards keeping the house and renting it out. Otherwise, take the money and run - ideally, towards the broker who will handle what you actually do thing is the presently-optimal investment strategy.
My siblings and I put our parents' house on the market as soon as probate cleared, sold it earlier this year, and no regrets.
That's a good intuition pump. No, I wouldn't use that equivalent level of liquid boon for attempting such an endeavor; it'd need to be proper "fuck-you money" levels of wealth to achieve the aspirational Nice House I Can Casually Rent To My Friends So They Stop Having Rent Worries dream. Like, if I did hypothetically win a medium-sized lotto, that would go towards minmaxing investment accounts and optimizing tax burden...possibly some reduction in working hours, possibly some one-time capital investments for quality of life. But chasing a house? No, absolutely not, that'd be ridiculous.
I think a lot of it is just sour grapes over how the last inheritance event in family played out - grandparents had a properly-valuable house in a swanky community which everyone in the family actually did have strong attachments to. But none of us could be bothered to landlord it, so it got sold with some regrets. So me being encouraged to hold onto *this* house is a reprise of same drama. That's no basis to make a life-changing financial decision on though.
I'll be curious to hear what you decide. I may face a similar choice soon. There's a friend of mine who moved away who's renting out her old condo through an agency, and I keep forgetting to get in touch and see how that's working out...
A with-friends or with-family arrangement would work out just fine for me...unfortunately I don't have any roots in that town anymore, and the only family member who'd potentially be a good fit is inheriting the *other* property in same will. One property is quite a lot to deal with already, I seriously doubt he'd want to manage two houses in two entirely different states.
I see no reason not to sell the property right away. Unless you have run the numbers, I would not assume it would be profitable to rent it out. In most places with high house prices, especially liberal areas with strong renter's rights, renting is not profitable but it defrays the costs of holding the property while it appreciates. So the "profit" is the capital gains appreciation of the house, not positive cash flow.
Sure you could hire a property manager and rent it out, but if you had the cash that you could get from selling it, would you be looking to buy a house to rent out? If not why would you do this?
Hm - I naively figured that if the median rent for that area is substantially above the mortgage payment, then even after taxes and such it'd be a profit. But then I don't know anything about homeownership, so there's probably costs I'm missing. Don't have access to nonspeculative numbers, which I agree would help settle the question...family's not super transparent about that kind of information.
The place isn't valuable enough to turn into buy-an-SF-house (outright) kinds of money, even a mere condo here is like seven figures...it would have been possible some years ago, we'd actually discussed the possibility of selling that house to get one kid or other a starter home. But SF real estate appreciates faster than small-town housing can remain solvent, or whatever. Mostly I'm just trying to figure out the least Pareto painful way to part with an unwanted-yet-valuable gift, along both the financial and effort axes.
It could be, but you have to figure in taxes, HOA, maintenance, vacancy, etc., plus either you use a property manager who takes ~10% or you invest your own time into it. Also median rent is not necessarily the rent you will get for this property. Then you have to consider how much equity you have in it and what kind of return you are getting on that equity. It may well be better to cash that equity in and invest it in something else. Presumably you have a stepped-up basis and won't have to pay capital gains taxes.
Yeah, leaning that way too. We've had no less than three dear family friends who were all skilled local realtors, emphasis on past tense though. Seeing how much still went into such transactions at the "you're my best bud so we'll waive this" level...I absolutely don't want to deal with that myself.
It'll cut into your profits, but is there a rental management company that could take care of maintenance and monitoring the property for you?
If it's a trial for you to visit, it's going to be a huge pain for you to handle your responsibilities as a landlord. If it's in a nice enough neighborhood, maybe any tenants would be easy to work with and always pay their rent on time, but that's not always an easy process.
If you can get a reasonable amount of money out of it (mortgage not underwater, etc.), then have you considered using the proceeds to buy a house local to you, to rent it out? Is there some kind of attachment to that particular house?
Hadn't thought of that, but it might not be a large enough town to have one...it's the kind of service I'd expect to find in a proper city, not somewhere with <15k population. The place is a condo with an HOA and all that - they only take care of major things like roofing though, not responsible for clogged toilets or rodents or the myriad other landlord-y problems.
Place isn't valuable enough to trade in for an in-SF house. I mean the proceeds could be used to take out a new mortgage on something here, it'd be enough for down payment of course. But that's a one-time thing, my income would still be retail-grunt puny, so it just changes to a different Sword of Damocles. Definitely not attached whatsoever, that house has nothing but bad memories (which is also a strike against landlording for it, now that you bring it up). Hmm.
Why highlight the Jewish statistics here? They aren't an outlier or even the highest percentages (that goes to "Atheist" at 76% and 85%), and the *lowest* anti-anti-BLM percentage is 59% (Mormons) - this data says a lot about the state of free speech in colleges, but very little about Jewish students in particular.
Because jews expect us to support a violent, jewish ethnonationalist state doing whatever it wants, while also being strongly in favor of promoting hatred against gentile whites.
As noted there, a 2022 poll of Jewish Americans found that 68% of them supported restricting aid to Israel so that it couldn't be used to expand Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, as opposed to "supporting a violent ethnonationalist state doing whatever it wants."
Also, the phrases compared were "Black Lives Matter is a hate group" and "Structural racism maintains inequality by promoting white privilege" - pretty poor equivalents. It's debatable, frankly, whether the latter even constitutes "anti-white speech" a phrase which strikes me as more of an inflammatory elaboration on the statement it references than a concise summary of it.
Better points of comparison would have been something like:
"Black Lives Matter is a hate group" vs "Turning Point is a hate group,"
"Structural racism maintains inequality protecting white privilege" vs "Cultural differences account for at least part of the disparity in racial outcomes in the US"
Oh really? Let's see how a "Jewish privilege" speaker get anywhere NEAR a college campus! There is absolute no way in hell that "jewish privielge" wouldn't be shouted down as "anti-semtism", so you can't sit there and tell me that "white privilege" isn't anti-white.
Take almost anything that gets called 'anti-semitic', replace 'jews' with 'whites', and what you're left with is almost certainly politically acceptable, if not actively taught at collges.
And that's the entire point!
Jews expect us to fund and support a jewish ethnonationalist state, they strongly support people's lives being destroyed for being 'anti-semitic', and then at the same time they strongly support anything that's anti-white.
>>Jews expect us to fund and support a jewish ethnonationalist state, they strongly support people's lives being destroyed for being 'anti-semitic', and then at the same time they strongly support anything that's anti-white.
Only 48% of Jewish people aged 18-29 say they feel "very" or "somewhat" attached to Israel. Asked if "caring about Israel is essential to what being Jewish means to them," that number drops to 35%. And it gets lower for things like "opposes the BDS movement" or "Believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people."
If you have better data on this that's more on point then by all means share, but from what I'm seeing it looks like when you say "look at this hypocritical Jewish college-student, he expects us to fund a Jewish ethnonationalist state!" odds appear to be good that he does not in fact expect that and you're just tilting at windmills.
>>There is absolute no way in hell that "Jewish privilege" wouldn't be shouted down as "antisemitism", so you can't sit there and tell me that "white privilege" isn't anti-white.
Are you saying that you define an "anti-white statement" as "a statement for which, if you swap 'white' for 'Jew," a Jewish person would call it 'antisemitic?" Just how authoritative do you think Jewish opinion is? What happens when the Jewish community disagrees about a particular statement?
It seems to me that's a poor way to define things. "A hamburger is a sandwich made with ground beef" will tend to serve a lot better as a definition than "a hamburger is a thing a Jewish person would call a hamburger."
I think we can distinguish between a statement which presents a fact, or at least a theory ("white people have economic & social advantages in the US," "black couples are more likely to divorce," etc), and a statement which is vague innuendo or little more than a smear ("black lives matter is a hate group," "white people are all racist").
The latter strike me as more suitable to being called "antiwhite," or "antiblack," etc, but the phrase "Structural racism maintains inequality by promoting white privilege" seems, to me, to be decidedly the former, not all that much different from something like "minimum wage actually harms communities it is meant to help," or "men generally prefer to work with things, women with people."
There's is no chance in hell a talk about "jewish privilege" WOULDN'T be roundly condemned as "anti-semitic", you're simply divorced from reality if you think this isn't the case. Literally no chance whatsoever. "Jewish privilege" is an unacceptable concept. There is no chance a book about "Jewish privilege" would EVER be published by a large reputable publisher in the US, no chance that there could ever be courses at prestigious universities about 'dismantling jewishness', and even just pointing out the FACT that jews are overrepresented in almost all american institutions is a good way to ruin your career.
Yes, OBVIOUSLY what I mean was "censored at colleges". And if a speaker isn't allowed at a campus because of their views, then their views are being censored at colleges.
An enthusiast with a bad idea ended up with the navy spending $100 billion on a ship that can't even travel well on the ocean. A tale of all the normal barriers failing which should prevent something this stupid.
It's negative, but it feels more as though he's done some investigating and drawn a conclusion which happens to be overall negative. Whereas the Propublica article feels a bit more like a hit piece.
I'm not speaking from a place of personal knowledge, but based on the limited amount I do know about the Navy, I think ProPublica is being used.
Virtually every single criticism they levy against the LCS is that it isn't an aircraft carrier. It can't travel far, it's not heavily armored, it doesn't have enough crew, it can't fight everything that comes its way.
From what I've read (which is one book from the eighties that I picked up at a thrift store), the Navy loves aircraft carriers. They want really big ships that can do everything and cost a ton of money. For virtually all of the Navy's history, mavericks and outsiders have been saying that aircraft carriers are too expensive and that we should invest in cheaper, smaller, more specialized ships. Ships like the LCS.
Of course, the establishment in the Navy hates these ships. They're small. They're weak. Pro Publica dutifully reports this, and reports that, in the end, the Navy made the commonsense decision to make even bigger, more heavily armored, more expensive ships.
Maybe that was the correct call. I'm no expert on modern naval warfare.
But after every sentence in that article, I challenge you to ask "What's the Navy's preferred alternative and would it cost less for the American taxpayer?" It really seems like Pro Publica is (intentionally or not) carrying water for the military industrial complex.
Except the LCS kind of is a (small) aircraft carrier. Helicopters are aircraft, and pretty much the only thing an LCS does well is support two multirole helicopters on a smaller, cheaper platform than anything else we've got. And helicopters are arguably the most important system most modern warships carry, so that's not nothing.
The problem is, the LCS is a ridiculously expensive forty-knot helipad that fails at every other aspect of actually being a warship, for the sake of being able to ferry around helicopters at 40 knots rather than 20. For the cost of an American LCS, the Danish navy can buy two Absalon-class frigates, that can each carry two multirole helicopters and a whole lot more in the range of real-warship capabilties. They just can't do it at 40 knots (but they can cover twice as much distance, each, at 20 knots).
The first comment basically makes your point. Then there are several comments from people who actually worked with the boats who say the LCBs really are that awful.
I think it's important to distinguish two things that make boats awful. One is that the boats have an awful design. The second is that the boats have an okay design, but they aren't given an operational budget to make the boat work.
From what I've read, the Navy absolutely hates spending money on operations. They want all their funding to go to new boats, not to making the old boats run. As a result, you get the reduced crew levels, the lack of spare parts, the constant churn of sailors, etc.
So virtually everyone agrees that there are problems at the Navy. We just disagree on what the problems are. The ProPublica article seems to uncritically repeat the criticisms mostly commonly levied by the Navy's establishment - that the service needs larger, more heavily armored, more heavily armed, more expensive boats.
There's one thing a carrier does that no other ship can do: be a mobile base for a load of high-performance, fixed-wing aircraft. High-performance, fixed-wing aircraft are an extremely useful tool if you want to be a military superpower, and mobile bases that can be deployed within a few weeks notice to any part of the world's oceans are a very useful tool if you want to be a *global* military superpower.
There are some aspects of a carrier's capabilities that can be replaced with other, more specialized ships, but there's no set of ships that can provide *everything* a carrier provides. I guess that's why the US Navy loves them so much.
The idea, as I understand it, behind the LCS was that it was going to do some of the things that carriers couldn't do. Changing down dinghies in the Persian Gulf isn't really a carrier role.
Of course, chasing down dinghies in the Persian Gulf isn't why anyone joins the Navy. It's certainly not a fast track to becoming an admiral. Hence no one liked the LCS except the cost-cutters. Once they got rotated out, the program got cut and replaced with much bigger, stronger boats.
But the USN has always had a bunch of small, fast, relatively cheap ships; like most other navies around the world they called them frigates. The Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were very boring and non sci-fi looking ships but the US had 51 of them and sold another 26 to other eight countries. Most of those countries still operate them, but the US got rid of all its frigates in the 2010s in favour of Littoral Combat Ships. Now, the US Navy has no frigates left (apart from the USS Constitution, which is somewhat lacking in capability compared to more modern types).
Now that the LCS program hasn't worked out, the USN has scrambled to quickly acquire some normal frigates again, and decided to invest in an already-working European design (FREMM) rather than try anything novel or fancy this time. (Admittedly this new frigate is about twice the size of a LCS or a Perry class frigate but this seems to be the way things are going these days).
So I don't think it has anything to do with the Navy hating the idea of anything smaller than a destroyer. Instead it seems like a classic case of "good on paper" ideas versus "tried and true" concepts.
Yeah, this is a story of the U.S. Navy trying to economize - trying to downsize - and it not working. All the people who thought they could constrain the Navy's bloat were wrong. The lesson is that we need to listen to the Naval establishment and not try to get them to accept smaller, more modular ships in an effort to cut costs.
Maybe that's the truth - again, I really make no claim to being the next Horatio Nelson - but it's a weird story for Pro Publica to write. It's even weirder that they tried to dress it up as the Navy being wasteful, when it's quite literally a story about the failures of anti-waste crusaders.
What are the arguments that have caused corporal punishment to go out of fashion in this day and age? Is the issue that it's too likely to traumatize the child, or that it's not actually effective, or that it's damaging to the relationship between the child and their caregiver, or what? (Obviously it could be multiple things.) I'm asking because I frequently see psychological put-downs being promoted instead (e.g. timeout, being sent to your room, etc) -- but to the extent that they're more effective, they presumably are more unpleasant to the child; so what's the advantage?
ETA: I'm not asking for an argument for why I shouldn't beat up my children; among other things, something would have to go very wrong for me to be relying on advice from strangers on the internet for this. I'm wondering about the history of how society recently transitioned from corporal punishment being the norm to it being very much not the norm.
"to the extent that they're more effective, they presumably are more unpleasant to the child"
-- this is not obviously true, at all. The claim can be either they are as effective with less unpleasantness, or more effective with the same unpleasantness, or both.
Depending on the child and how each are administered, a child may be very upset and *also* not internalize the necessary message with something like time out, but would remember more easily and get punished far less with a spanking.
Without researching this, I would guess it wasn't about arguments - let alone some particular argument. Rather, it seems like part of a larger shift towards viewing different groups as having privilege that had previously only been held by other groups.
In the case of children, that was a shift towards viewing them as a group that had to be treated more like adults than they previously were. An adult may need punishment, but corporal punishment has long been viewed as more taboo for adults than other types of punishments.
This shift extended more of the privilege of adulthood to children.
Other examples of such shifts include treating women with more of the privileges of men, treating other races with more of the privileges of favored races, and treating animals with more of the privileges that had previously been reserved for humans - e.g. recognizing that animal cruelty was problematic conceptually.
These shifts are not binary, of course and they can continue to develop both in scope and ubiquity.
> An adult may need punishment, but corporal punishment has long been viewed as more taboo for adults than other types of punishments
Not _that_ long. In the UK, judicial corporal punishment wasn't abolished until 1948, and in prisons wasn't abolished until 1962. In the US it was last used in 1952.
I'm a big proponent of corporal punishment for petty crimes like theft or vandalism, on the grounds that it's a punishment that hits everyone equally. A fine hits unevenly -- a rich person barely notices the money is gone, a very poor person never pays it anyway, and only people in the middle actually suffer from it. A prison sentence hits unevenly -- a short prison sentence is no great inconvenience for someone of the sort of class that's always in and out of prison anyway, but for an upper middle class person it's life-ruining. But six carefully-calibrated strokes of the cane, that's something that everyone can fear equally.
In the interest of taking this seriously, I disagree that corporal punishment hits everyone equally (pardon the pun) - if nothing else, beating someone sick or elderly is more likely to do permenant harm than beating someone young and healthy. Even controlling for health and fitness, different people have different tolerances for violence. I've done martial arts, I expect I'd find the experience unpleasant but tolerable, similar to a fine I suppose, but other people would literally find it traumatic and get PTSD, and other people would brag to their friends about how they only got six lashes. I leave it up to you to picture these different people, but regardless of any other merits of corporal punishment I don't think it's necessarily more "fair" than prison - if you're the kind of person who regularly gets into fights I think any deterrance would be minimal and would mostly come from the humiliation of it.
Personally I feel like income adjusted fines are a pretty reasonable approach to petty crime, and there are non-violent ways to do humiliation if that's what we really want. Objectively I understand that being hit by a cane is less damaging than a prison sentance, but I object to it on a visceral level and don't think you'd be able to sell the public on it.
I think corporal punishment breeds resentment and makes behavior problems worse, that is one reason. Also the world is getting softer and people encounter less brutality and are more uncomfortable with brutalizing children. I don't think that milder punishments are more effective because they are more unpleasant but because they are less unpleasant.
I think there is limited evidence that after-the-fact punishments and rewards "work" much at all (i.e. at changing behavior, not at satisfying a feeling of justice for the parent). Punishments established before the fact that the child knows they will receive if they do something they are not supposed to are pretty effective- the more definitely the child knows the rule, that they will be caught, and that the punishment will be applied, the more effective- and therefore rarely need to be applied. However the punishment does not need to be corporal to be effective and corporal punishment is distasteful.
I imagine that there is a high danger of actually damaging the child physically. Even if you tried to figure out safe ways of corporal punishment, teachers in general are quite incompetent, so I would assume them to be incompetent at this, too.
It could attract the wrong kind of person to the teaching job. (Someone who enjoys hurting children.)
The problem with negative reinforcement in general is that the negative emotions are associated with *everything*, not just the one thing you wanted. What you want is negative emotions associated with whatever deserved the punishment. What you actually get is negative emotions associated with the thing that deserved the punishment + with getting caught + with the teacher doing the punishment + with the school in general + with learning in general. (And occasionally the teacher is wrong and punishes an innocent student, in which case the negative emotions are only associated with the teacher + school + education.)
In general, punishment rarely works. The actual reason it is popular is that it establishes clear status hierarchy: the one who punishes is higher status than the one being punished.
That's a secondary reason that punishment is popular, and one which varies dramatically across cultures and across individuals within a culture. The primary reason by far, the universal one, is parents' desire to feel like they are tangibly doing something about whatever way it is that the child is screwing up. It is really impossible to convey to non-parents how powerful, how primal, that feeling can be.
Realizing that punishment rarely actually works and has high risks of unintended effects, and that other ways of dealing with misbehavior are more likely to work, all of which I completely agree with, is an _intellectual_ exercise. The desperate wish to feel like you are taking some sort of action to keep your kid from screwing up is _emotional_. In moments of crisis -- which a misbehaving child is for a parent to at least a small degree and sometimes a large one -- emotion tends to kick intellect's butt. For most human beings most of the time, anyway.
I know that anecdotes don't prove much, but as someone who did experience corporal punishment as a child, I would have – at the time as well as know – prefer approaches that don't involve physical violence.
Most negative aspects of purely "psychological put-downs" are still present in corporal punishement. Actually, even more so present.
Standing in a corner is mostly just boring.
Say, you get punished deservedly. You probably know that it will happen. So you are waiting for it, full of guild. But also full of dread and helplessness and despair. And eventually the punishement comes. And then there's humiliation of being half naked, and humilitation of pain (on top the physical pain itself), and then there's humiliation of ugly crying and yelling which you could only avoid at first but not till the end, and it only gets worse if I keep describing the experience. It's degrading, and children are just as capable of feeling that as adults.
But what's worse is that you will get punished unfairly (or at least believe to be punished unfairly). The punishement will come as a surprise, as a betrayal. All the pain and suffering is so much harder to bear when you think it's unfair.
For me, that alone would be enough to rule the corporal punishment out, but it's only the tip of iceberg. Because these experiences are traumatic, and what's worse, most way to cope with that sort of trauma are unhealthy and have long lasting consequences. It's an easy way to apathy and depression and learned helplessness. On the other extreme, it's an easy way to lying and decieving and manipulating and taking all the wrong risks because you learned to bullshit your way out of the consequences. So effectively, it teaches all the wrong lessons.
Other form of punishements are never quite that cruel or unpleasant, unless you take them to absurd extremes (yeah, sitting in a dark room for a month would be worse that most beaitings, but come on now).
And that's even when you compare fairly light corporal punishement to the least violent alternatives, but corporal punishement can be so, so much worse.
As an argument for why society moved away from corporal punishment, this seems to prove too much. Surely children always preferred not getting beaten, or for that matter not getting punished?
Well, yeah I was not even attempting to answer that question in my previous comment, I just wanted to make from a specific perspective highlight why corporal punishement is not a good idea. And as it often happens, my explanation has little to do with reasons as to why it was mostly abandoned (then again, some societies did not really move away).
I don't think I'm quite qualified to answer your question, but I'll try to do just that to the best of my ability, in rather broad strokes.
One part of the story is that children died like flies in not so distant past.
>As recently as two centuries ago, around 1 in 2 children died before reaching the end of puberty.
So their preferences hardly mattered, but that's not even the main thing here.
First we need to look at bigger historical context, because corporal punishement for children is just a tip of the iceberg. The time when children were recieving corporal punishement, but adults were not is rather an anomaly.
Corporal punishement was just normal in most societies throught the history, just about anyone except for highest class in any given society could get punished physically in various ways.
There are not many ways to punish someone who does not own anything, imprisonment is costly, and death penalty is too extreme for most offences, and pain is a language what everyone understands.
But as you know the class systems mostly crumbled thanks to technological progress and enligthment values, and that led, among other things, to laws changing so that adults were not longer routinely corporaly punished. And then, eventually, we moved away from corporal punishment for children, too.
Of course this is not the whole story, details matter a lot, must surely be different for every country, and are worth stydying. But the general idea would probably hold if you dig deeper.
I think you're greatly underestimating the extremes to which corporal punishment historically was used. In the beginning of the 20th century in Europe corporal punishment could include striking the hands to the point of unusability, forcing children to hold stress positions for hours or just straight up beatings. And that's were just what the schools were doing to unruly children. At the high end corporal punishment is literally torturing kids into behavior. The modern paradigm that children will rarely or never be struck by a parent is very much a response to these extremes rather than the minimal violence you'll see these days.
A couple of thoughts. "In this day and age" makes it sound recent but - UK experience here - I was born in 1967, and I never came across any in-the-wild experience of corporal punishment. That covers in my own family, at school (including a very traditional minor public school), anecdotes from friends. I'm sure it was still in use in some schools and households in the 1970s but it was vestigial.
An obvious problem is that CP is a reasonably popular sexual fetish.
Did CP being a popular sexual fetish play a part in moving away from it as a society? That would be interesting if true, but also I'd want some evidence.
I don't think CP was a visibly popular fetish at the time society moved away from corporal punishment for e.g. schoolboys. I was at least aware of it myself, but I had weirdly diverse bits of knowledge and basically nobody else was talking about it in mundane circles.
In addition to the things you mention, I expect part of it is about how it might affect the child's relationship to physical violence. For example, It seems plausible that being physically violent towards your child makes it more likely that they end up behaving violently towards other children, or in other relationships they later have, in a way that doesn't straightforwardly analogize to being put in time out.
It also seems plausible to me that corporal punishment, even if it is fine when practiced in an ideal way, more easily drifts into worse, abusive or dangerous practices than e.g. a timeout system when parents are non-ideal.
Has it always been associated with lower class behavior, such that e.g. aristocratic children got less of it? Or is this only relevant in societies with a lot of social mobility?
Not clear: "There is little contemporary evidence for the existence of whipping boys, and evidence that some princes were indeed whipped by their tutors, although Nicholas Orme suggests that nobles might have been beaten less often than other pupils.[3] Some historians regard whipping boys as entirely mythical; others suggest they applied only in the case of a boy king, protected by divine right, and not to mere princes.[4]"
Americans protesting against Israel seem to think that the US government has the power to stop the war in Gaza. Why do they believe this? The US could of course defeat Israel in a direct military confrontation but short of that it seems unlikely they could persuade Israel to end the war, even if they ended all support for Israel, because Israel doesn't need US support to defeat Iran and its proxies. Or am I wrong, and they do?
If for some unexpected reason the US were suddenly to support the Palestinian Cause instead of Israel, it stands to reason that China would quickly rush in to fill the void, as Israel would accept China as an ally given American abandonment, and China would have more to gain from having Israel as an ally than they'd have to lose by alienating current Arab allies. Or do you disagree?
I've mostly seen arguments for stopping aid to Israel, especially military aid, and "calling for a ceasefire". Stopping aid seems possible and I understand why people would want that (though I am not at all able to evaluate the efficacy). I'm unclear on what good asking for everyone to please calm down would do. Same reason people wanted the US to declare a no-fly over Ukraine maybe? Like, "this is really bad and we have to do *something* so lets get the government to frown disapprovingly."
> short of that it seems unlikely they could persuade Israel to end the war
They could start by not sending 2 aircraft carriers, 14.5 billion dollars of aid, and 2000 US marines to die on the shores of Gaza in a failed amphibian assault.
> am I wrong
You're, as evidenced by the fact that the gallant IDF is losing tanks and personnel to Palestinian militants wearing knockoff Adidas and carrying weapons costing less than $100. That's what it means to be a colony, you need constant lifelines of relief against the natives.
> seem to think that the US government has the power to stop the war in Gaza
They're not wrong, the 2021 unprovoked aggression on Gaza ended with a single phone call from Biden.
> it stands to reason that China would quickly rush in to fill the void
No they wouldn't. China doesn't have lobbies to bribe its politicians into sending billions of tax payer money into a foriegn apartheid. China wants markets, and the Arab market alone is larger than Israel several times over.
> China would have more to gain from having Israel as an ally than they'd have to lose by alienating current Arab allies
The "to die" wasn't expressing an expectation of future events, it was a paraphrase of a retired US colonel, supported by various OSINT accounts on twitter. Never supported by a mainstream news source, it's still slightly more credible in my book than a hearsay, and the wikipedia for the colonel doesn't give any easy reasons for dismissals.
Agreed that I should have preceded it by any uncertainty qualifier.
The retired US colonel in question, is a dumbass. The retired US colonel in question, is *obviously* a dumbass. The person who decides, of all the possible authorities they could quote, to quote the obvious dumbass, is a what now?
> 2000 US marines to die on the shores of Gaza in a failed amphibian assault
That's from retired US colonel, Douglas Macgregor in an interview with Tucker Carlson. The exact quote is "Shot To Pieces".
I certainly could have done better to indicate that this claim isn't as credible as the 2 preceding it and confirmed by mainstream news sources everywhere but given your indignant tone I have a feeling you're not as interested in dispassionate fact checking as trashing a post that offends your political leanings.
> Every post you make is an argument against you.
Yeah totally, which is why you picked one sub-point out of a point out of 5 points I made to get offended about and ignore the rest, because my posts are totally unconvincing and self-refuting.
When you give a country 300 billion dollars in aid and your security council veto is the only thing standing between that country and being subject to economic sanctions which would be far more airtight than those apartheid South Africa was subjected to, it's absurd to position that country as fully independent and autonomous.
There is no Israeli governmental source I am aware of that claims that Israel has no need for future military, economic, or political assistance from the United States. How did you arrive at this conclusion, and what research did you perform if any to reach this assertion? Similarly, how did you determine that an economy which has to import over 11 million barrels of oil a day would benefit by alienating those suppliers in favor of a military alliance with a country whose leaders have indicated they require large amounts of economic and military aid in order to survive?
Even being charitable, it doesn't seem like you've made much effort to gather information that's freely available to you.
If your question is really being asked in good faith, I think you would find reading about the 1956 Suez Crisis informative. How things played out there is an excellent example of how the US was able to, without any direct military force, override the combined political will of Israel, Britain, and France to bring about a rapid ceasefire and return to the status quo ante bellum.
Perhaps you've been misdirected by official US sources which tend to take these kinds of rhetorical hedges in order to deflect criticism and responsibility for any bad outcomes.
To be clear, US aid to Israel is on the order of a few billion per year. The 300 billion number you quoted is one estimate (on the high end) of all aid ever given to Israel from the US.
The overall aid is the most important historical context: it's not as though this is a country which has done fine on its own and has recently hit problems. Rather, this is a country whose long-term foreign and domestic policies would be impossible to sustain without past and ongoing massive external assistance from the US.
In realpolitik terms, Israel is a client state of the US in the same way that Cuba was a client state of the Soviet Union: bound by ostensible common interests and ideology, but geographically remote and likely to experience a dramatic decline in living standards and military capabilities when the patron's economic priorities shift.
>the only thing standing between that country and being subject to economic sanctions
Good point. Economic sanctions could cripple Israel's economy. A credible threat of sanctions could cause Netanyahu to end the war. Although my guess is that, given the historic support the US has provided Israel with up to the present moment (the 300 billion dollars to which you allude), such a sudden change of course would not be credible in the near run, as it would be the diplomatic equivalent of turning around a freight-train at high speed.
Even if Biden threatened Israel with economic sanctions tomorrow if it didn't end the war, and such threat were credible, it seems incredible to believe that Netanyahu would cave to such demands. He could, with reason, believe that such sanctions wouldn't last because such sanctions by Democrats would hand the presidency over to Trump, who would end the sanctions.
This conflict is dissimilar from the Suez Crisis in that Israel is responding to a terrorist attack and therefore its actions are not driven by cold logic and consequentialism but by patriotic fervor.
>how did you determine that an economy which has to import over 11 million barrels of oil a day would benefit by alienating those suppliers in favor of a military alliance with a country whose leaders have indicated they require large amounts of economic and military aid
The US currently backs Israel and yet there has been no oil embargo or even the threat of one by Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Salman seems only interested in realpolitik. China also buys oil from Iran, but currently-sanctioned Iran needs China as a buyer at least as much as China needs Iran as a seller. Meanwhile China, which is spending like mad on growing its military specifically for battle with the USA, could gain a bit from Israeli intelligence on the US. With as many Israeli sympathizers as there are high up in the US government, it's hard to imagine Israel losing its intelligence pipeline from the US anytime within the next few decades. That would make an alliance with Israel a substantial military asset for China.
Just like the Arab countries would benefit from all the intelligence the US has on Israel, so Israel has an incentive to avoid starting the tit-for-tat.
And even if China entered into a one-time opportunistic fling with Israel to share intelligence, it won't be anywhere near as continued or as unconditional a type of support as the one the US has been giving since the start of quasi-parasitic relationship.
In my moral universe, to reference "the Palestinian question" -- after the inhumane, criminal assault of Hamas against Jews and Israel on October 7 -- would disgrace the memory of those so viciously murdered in the racist attack, and materially support terrorism.
Hamas knew some American airheads and the 85% of pop media that lurch leftward would treat Jews as dreaded White People -- soulless, heterosexual colonialists -- and Hamas as the brave victim-of-color. Ah, the pretzel logic of 'progressivism'.
Don't even try to talk to me about Palestinians or 'Palestine' until all Hamas's leaders are reposing in Osama been Hidin' Land.
In my moral universe, to reference "the Israeli question" -- after the inhumane, criminal assault of the IDF against Palestinians and Gaza during the 2018–2019 March of Return
-- would disgrace the memory of those so viciously murdered in the racist attack, and materially support terrorism.
Netanyahu knew some American airheads and the 85% of pop media that lurch both rightward and leftward would treat Arabs as dreaded Middle Eastern People -- soulless, Muslim savages -- and the IDF as the brave victim American Ally. Ah, the pretzel logic of 'Pro-Israel' supporters.
Don't even try to talk to me about Israelis or 'Israel' until all IDF's and the Israeli government leaders are reposing with Nazinuahu beneath the land.
The problem here is that a ton of the people actually dying in Gaza are random Gazans who had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on Oct 7. I don't have any great suggestions here--there's no way Israel is going to *not* respond militarily to that kind of attack, and there's no way to do that that doesn't kill a lot of civilians given how Hamas operates. But it is still legitimately terrible that a lot of Gazan civilians are dying in this war, just as it is legitimately terrible that a lot of Israeli civilians died in the attack that kicked the war off.
Thousands of innocent civilians, really truly innocent and possibly larger in number than the Palestinian civilian casualties of this war to date, were killed horribly in Normandy on or about 6 Jun 1944. And then there's all the residents of Berlin in May 1954.
Sucks to be living in Gaza City these days, yes, but sometimes necessity trumps innocence. Which is to say, war sucks but most of us have decided a war is appropriate right now and all this terrible stuff is baked in to that already-made decision, now we just need to get on with it. Or at least to let the Israelis get on with it without our backseat driving.
My point is that, initiating any conversation regarding is "the Palestinian question" at this time -- while Jews are still mourning and trying to recover those kidnapped -- is disrespectful and inappropriate.
It also supports and suggests approval of Hamas's assault, and therein actively participates in terrorism. Of course, Hamas knew all this would happen before they began.
What is alarming is how so many "activists" are so obliviously happy to participate, They make the January 6 crowd look like amateurs.
When you use terms like "disrespectful" and "inappropriate" you are no longer making any kind of logical argument, you are instead making a fallacious argument based on an appeal to tradition or appeal to emotion as you interpret it.
You are no longer engaged in discussion and have now moved to threaten anyone who disagrees with you by implying they are terrorists who are actively participating in criminal acts simply by disagreeing with your contextual framing and moral timeline which starts history on October 7th 2023.
This kind of rhetoric is authoritarian, illiberal, irrational and contributes to the erosion of free speech as well as rule of law.
If argumentative fallacies and empirically false timelines are the best arguments Israel has for its policies, every younger intelligent israeli with the means to do so can be expected to voluntarily emigrate rather than remain ruled by irrational people who threaten rather than convince.
Israel has refused to sign the Rome Convention and is not a member of the ICC, so I assume the world court you're referring to is an imaginary one.
That said, I hope you keep your fantasies to the realm of pseudo-legality.
Please take it easy on yourself, you seem to be heading down the path of someone who could rationalize committing a mass shooting against people you've already dehumanized in your mind.
Ok, so once someone denounces Hamas, as I would, as every policy maker already has, as everyone except for a handful of college students and pundits with no power already has, would you in turn denounce the israeli government and settlers for the 100+ murders of Palestinians in the west bank which is not controlled by Hamas in any way shape or form?
Hamas and other terror groups operate in the West Bank, and even Fatah has a terror wing which claimed responsibility for killing a cop and four civilians near Tel Aviv last year. IDF and border police frequently come under attack in the West Bank. I wouldn’t assume that most Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank are civilians.
In the past, Israel has arrested and convicted settlers who’ve murdered Palestinians. I don’t know if this government intends to do that. It’s an awful government for many reasons, but if they’re ignoring settler murders that’s a deeper low than I expected.
The Israeli government has indeed sunk this low, it is perhaps the least capable and most thuggish in all of Israel's history, it exists as a coalition to keep Netanyahu out of jail for corruption rather than to serve their national interest.
Ben Gvir is the current Israeli minister of national security as described by the Israeli press. Baruch Goldstein was an Israeli-American settler, mass murderer, and terrorist who espoused an ideology of genocidal theocracy.
If we don't take this as prima facie evidence that some members of the current Israeli government tacitly approve of settler violence and that existing legal rights are not being implemented in good faith, what more evidence would be needed?
The current Israeli cabinet contains extremists who are engaging in a suicidal policy of unrestrained violence and ethnic cleansing which ultimately compromises Israel's security and survival, according not to any foreign critic or alleged anti-semite, but rather the head of Shin Bet:
Just today Netanyahu said it was necessary to reign in settler extremism and tried to distance himself from them, yet now it's unclear how much control he still has. The coalition he's leading is not the one he would've chosen based on their abilities or rationality, it's just the one he's stuck with in order to stay in power and out of prison.
I'm no fan of his and I think he's acted in ways which are callous, criminal, and against Israel's long term interests, but I would still credit him with being a political survivor who is trying to manage a bloody campaign to his advantage while avoiding apocalyptic escalation. Independently of what I think of his other actions, we have to hope he is able to succeed in that.
The US has been giving Israel a lot of financial and military aid. We could presumably stop doing that.
I'm also pretty dubious. I think that probably the Arab nations are better allies than Israel; my impression is that the US supports Israel largely because of Jewish and conservative Christian constituents, not for clear tactical reasons.
>The US has been giving Israel a lot of financial and military aid. We could presumably stop doing that.
What would the results of doing that in this conflict be? Iranian proxies (and Iran) could send enough missiles to overwhelm Iron Dome without US military help. The result of that would likely be an Israeli nuke headed towards Tehran. It seems likely that US defensive help to support Iron Dome decreases the odds of Iran joining the war directly.
Well how about we end it first and then see how it looks. If Israel is doing fucked up shit (they objectively are), then the first step is to stop actively supporting it, even if this wouldn't completely stop them doing what they're doing.
A reason for not doing that is it could encourage Iranian aggression which could widen the war across the whole region. The US carriers are there to discourage that.
The US doesn't want a direct war between Israel and Iran for reasons that go beyond caring about Israel's interests. It's in US interests to prevent such a war because it could destabilize the region and send oil prices to $500 a barrel.
I think that this is not clear to me, especially since Iran is allied with Pakistan (which also has nukes). There might be some deeper things going on here, but that's what google says. Maybe Israel would launch a nuke, but I'm pretty dubious.
Additionally, I think that saying that the US has the power to stop the war in Gaza is really representing a complicated coallition of ideas.
Firstly, as you mention, we could probably step in on either side and decide the war. If you REALLY want minimal Palistinean (or Israeli) casualties, this is the best call in the short-term. I'm sure that some people genuinely want this.
Secondly, we are "complicit" in the war by giving aid to Israel. If you want warm fuzzy feelings, we should stop doing this. I'm also pretty dubious that giving them weapons is the best way of de-escalating the conflict; while I agree that completely leaving them out to dry might have reprecussions, probably the ideal level of assistance from us is a bit lower than it currently is.
Thirdly, people just have this vague idea that "holding a protest" causes change. And so they see something that they want changed, so they hold a protest, without a strong idea of the causal chain that goes protest -> change. So people are just protesting with the expectation that that will stop the war somehow.
It’s obviously unrealistic to expect the US to do anything from a realpolitik standpoint, except perhaps pushing for restraint in the interest of avoiding attacks against US assets in the region (which are already happening). What does Gaza have to offer economically or otherwise to the US? Having said this, perhaps protesting is perceived as a moral obligation by some people?
I think to actually be precise, by "tension" what I'm actually referring is (a) excessive antagonistic muscular resistance (make your hands as rigid and possible and feel how hard it is to play: then as soft as possible) and (b) unnecessary muscle holding (squeeze your shoulder blades up to your ears and play: then relax them and feel them "floating" on your back)
In both cases it really depends on your whole body awareness: if you're mostly unaware any sort of paying attention to breath and how you're choosing (unconsciously?) to hold or freeze muscles will be quite useful
If that sort of awareness is something you already have I would experiment with going to an extreme you "know" is wrong and then seeing how far you can back off (such as the hand tension thing above)
As a very general note piano technique is much more individual than is usually (?) taught so definitely give yourself permission to try lots of different physical approaches, hand positions, etc
If you're very visual you could try filming yourself, but that's not something that works well for me
Thought I'd stir the pot slightly by bringing up the kidney donation issue again. I was surprised how much it divided people.
However, even if we can't agree on the morality of removing an organ to save a stranger, perhaps we can agree on the *im*morality of removing an organ for no reason whatsoever? (I mean, aside from the minor enrichment of the medical system) Something like 90% of tonsillectomies are useless! And they're often done on children, for whom consent is far more dubious than in the case of adult organ donation.
Hijacking this a bit to ask about if there is any good info on when tonsillectomies are useful. A friend of mine regularly gets strep (~once every 3 months), and was considering having it done.
Yanking out secondary lymphoid organs and throwing them away has the same effect on immunologists as saying "I don't believe in fairies" has on Tinkerbell. It's like a dagger to my soul.
I mean there is some reason, it just isn't readily apparent. If there was actually no reason, I wouldn't expect it to happen. It might be a bad reason of course.
I also feel like if someone said to me "I want to remove your appendix for you, even though this screening says that it won't burst or cause you issues, and I can do it painlessly, instantly, and for free" I would be pretty indifferent to that. I think that if you want to make an "inflicting pain and suffering on children" argument against these, but just for the inherent virtues of keeping your tonsils, I'm pretty dubious.
Robin Hanson has written many times about studies showing that healthcare collectively has no net positive effect. If one were to take that seriously, what would it imply? There's so much evidence that particular interventions have good outcomes, people are getting cured of all sorts of diseases and conditions. Does it mean that some incidental things are causing catastrophic amounts of damage, enough to offset the entire rest of medicine? If so, what are some candidates for that? Some possibilities that come to mind:
* Doctor's visits: Insufficient sanitation? Disease spreading in waiting rooms? Or maybe from the doctors themselves?
* Painkillers, or other optional medication, having some unknown serious long-term effect?
* Scans and tests being way more dangerous than thought?
* Recklessness caused by knowing that one has a doctor available to help them get through things?
* (Pharmacies secretly poisoning everyone who enters their doors? Medicine-demons that follow insured people around?)
Nothing I can think of seems particularly plausible, but I'm not a doctor and don't really know anything about the topic. Is there research into where the offset might come from?
The claim is no benefit at the margin, when you go from no insurance to insurance. This is consistent with medicine being very beneficial for stuff that you'd go to a doctor or hospital for even without insurance--broken bones, heart attacks, etc.--but not helpful on balance when you go to a doctor routinely.
Basically, if you go to the doctor for a minor problem, the benefit he can offer you is often relatively small, and it comes with the potential to catch something in the doctor's office, or to have a drug reaction that's much worse than your original problem, etc. Think of someone who goes to the doctor for a cold--the doctor can't do anything useful for it, but might misdiagnose it or order tests to placate the patient, and end up doing more harm than good.
While I'm sure I could make some specific critiques of the study, at the broad level it's pretty plausible.
First, spending is poorly correlated with health outcomes. Hey, you broke your bone, we gave you an x-ray and put you in a cast, couple doctors visits, maybe a couple grand for insurance. Meanwhile, you've been seeing a therapist for 2 years @ $90 an hour with no measurable improvement and your new dermatology med is $3k/month. If you're on meds, look them up on GoodRx, it's wild.
Second, everyone's getting unhealthier all the time. Look, your doctor is doing the best he can but there's a new meme on TikTok about Pumpkin Spice Oreos you can watch on your couch, which is why ~1/2 of America has gone past overweight to straight obesity.
That's the vibe in medicine, at least mine. It's a losing battle against an increasingly unhealthy society and, while some moderate progress is constantly being made to offset this, the prices for those improvements are randomly generated number between $5 and $250,000, rolled randomly for each patient. Just....just completely abandon any concept that the value of a medical service or drug is correlated in any way with its effectiveness and it makes perfect sense.
I'm very much shooting from the hip and going by memory here, but -
My impression is that is not what the research Robin was referencing showed. The one I specifically recall is Medicaid expansion in Oregon. Due to the lottery system used in the roll out, researchers were able to identify the causal effect on health (and financial) outcomes. There was little to no health improvement, but large decrease in catastrophic out of pocket costs.
This does NOT show that healthcare has no collective net benefit - it shows that in America, uninsured people don't die/suffer from lack of care. They get the care, and then are in massive debt.
Yes, this was my takeaway from it. It's not that healthcare treatments had no effect, it's that health insurance policies had little effect, right?
So if you're poor you're going to get life saving medicine regardless of how expensive it might be. You're going to go into massive debt to treat your cancer, because the alternative is to die. So given that, you wouldn't actually expect to see big outcomes on health, but outcomes on debt and money spent.
No, the argument Robin has made is that medicine itself is what people should be skeptical of. Once a ceiling is reached, countries that spend more money on healthcare do not have better health outcomes.
Perhaps that's true but it's not the outcome of the RAND study. That was measuring the outcome of people who have to pay for care or not based on random assignment. If you have to pay for care we should expect you would if it were life threatening, and thus not notice a significant difference in health outcomes but rather money saved/debt avoided.
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/medicine_as_scahtml - On a different experiment, Hanson writes that it "seems clear evidence that medicine is a huge scandal." I don't know enough to be able to determine the statement's validity.
That RAND study measured whether having free Healthcare made a difference, right? Not whether you received care or didn't. We should expect people who have to pay to still get important surgeries/anti biotics etc. And so wouldn't see a significant difference. Unless I'm reading it wrong
I'll be in the Bay Area Tues-Fri (leaving Fri mid day). Would love to meet folks, or attend a fabled 'Bay Area Houseparty'. Drop me a line at circus kerry one word at the google mail place.
Also a question about homeownership and refinancing.
This is hypothetical (given the interest rate environment). But friends were debating a past refinancing offer that would have saved maybe $20k over the life of the loan, nothing seemed off and the offer was reputable, but somehow the new closing costs are up most of the arbitrage/savings from the lower interest rate and increased value of the house.
What am I missing here? Would it have been worth it to take that deal, or is there some other hidden cost, if not financial, to refinancing?
Not an expert, but I'd imagine a 'hidden cost' would be that doing a 'just barely worthwhile' refinancing could prevent a more valuable refinancing latter.
Let's say the mortgage will cost $100k over its lifetime but it can be refinanced to $80k at a fixed cost of $15k. (Numbers all arbitrary)
That does save $5k... but suppose in a year rates have dropped more and the same mortgage could be refinanced to $70k - if the mortgage is still at $100k, you can then refinance and save $15k: if you already refinanced to $80k, then spending another $15k to refinance again is not going to be a good deal, so you'd be 'stuck' at $80k.
There are two big details lurking within the "over the life of the loan" qualification. The first is time value of money, which can be a substantial factor when talking about a 30-year loan. At a 5% discount rate, spending a dollar today to save $4 thirty years from now doesn't quite break even.
The second is that you often aren't going to hold the loan to term. You might refinance it again, or you might sell the house and move. In either case, the projected savings after when you sell or do the second refinance will never come to pass.
I wanted to ask about auto and homeowners insurance.
I've been with my current company for a loooong time and they've increased rates so much that, on impulse, I switched to a much cheaper rate with another insurer whose reputation I don't love but the savings were significant. I got the rate contingent on a bundle with homeowners, but their homeowners is consistently reviews very poorly.
All the best homeowners companies I've since quoted with give me a higher auto and homeowners rate (though still lower than my recent unbundled auto rate).
How much does the homeowners' reputation (especially JD Powers claims study performance) matter here?
How much of a liability is it that I already just switched auto insurers in quoting bundled rates?
I know a lawyer who works in insurance cases, and here's my takeaway from that:
Insurance companies are a big pool of money, with money flowing in and out. In depends on the rates, and out depends on expenses, advertising, paying claims, and profits. If you look at an insurance company with low rates, or which advertises a lot, or which is for-profit, that money probably doesn't come from reduced expenses, it probably comes from not paying claims. In particular, a lot of companies have lawyers on staff whose sole job is to find reasons to not pay claims. Also, different groups of people have different risk factors, and if a company is advertising low rates to the general public, or advertising that it takes anyone, those are also signs that it probably has ways to avoid paying claims.
Two companies which avoid most or all of these problems are USAA and Amica. (I don't know anything about State Farm, one way or another.)
That said, a question to consider is why you want to have insurance? If it's just to tick a checkbox on a form, maybe whoever has the lowest rates is best for you. But if you're worried about what happens when something major goes wrong in your life, the question then becomes, do you want dealing with your insurance company to make the situation better, or worse?
One of my neighbors got a very very fancy new sports car, and then promptly had someone plow into his side not half a block from home. He spent about half a year in a back brace, and the car hasn't worked right since. But the thing he actually complains about, that kept him up at night and messes with his head, is how the insurance company tried to blame it all on him.
Which insurance company you're with doesn't matter until you actually need to make a claim. At this point, the insurance company can either (a) be helpful and cooperative, arranging repairs smoothly and paying for things without a fuss, or (b) be a bunch of jerks who want to fight you every step of the way. Option (b) is clearly a lot cheaper, so the only reason they'd chose (a) is if they have a good reputation which they're interested in upholding.
As someone who worked 25 years designing insurance products, rating plans and running underwriting, I would strongly recommend two companies neither of which I ever worked for. Number one by a mile is USAA, if you qualify. Number two is State Farm.
I would recommend getting either of these companies and staying there for the long haul. I would not recommend the company that I was associated with for all those years. I saw how the kitchen was run. Hope this helps.
You should qualify for State Farm. I won’t say what company I worked for as an executive, other than it is a major company and it starts with an A. In all the time I worked there, I am sad to say we were never as good as the best companies at either price or customer service, and most importantly, at claim service.
I have to guess that it's Allstate, with which I am currently in a claims battle that is sucking up way too much of my time and attention. The people in customer service are all lovely, but they are also powerless to help me maneuver around the bureaucracy.
The new Semaglutide drugs for weight-loss seem to work well for weight-loss/hunger control. There are also (much more preliminary) claims that the same drugs work as something like a general craving suppressant or willpower booster, helping with things like substance addiction and impulse shopping. My question is: how much of the current observations can be explained with a hunger-mediated mechanism? Hungry people tend to make worse decisions and have worse cognitive abilities, according to both social science and snickers' ad agency, and it doesn't take a strict willpower depletion type model to explain why people trying not to think about lunch might distract themselves with online shopping. Have there been any trials giving Ozempic to e.g. people trying to stop gambling but who aren't trying to lose weight? Also, the benefits of Semaglutides are discussed in terms of weight-loss, but what are the potential utility gains from decreasing the sensation of hunger?
GLP-1 agonists aren't hunger suppressors per se (though they may do some of that too), they typically cause one to feel "full" much faster than usual. The sort of baffled medical excuse for this is "it delays gastric emptying" ie food stays in your stomach longer and thus maybe causes it to fill up faster (though this doesn't adequately explain the phenomenon), but my sort of unsupported theory is that whatever they're doing to reinforce one's internal "willpower" couples with the satiety-inducing effect to help one act on it much more sharply. In other words, I suspect it's a unique combo of people feeling full faster (something a few other weight-loss drugs also do) AND they're more likely to react to that by voluntarily eating less.
That said, hunger is an underappreciated driver of weight gain. Atypical antipsychotics are notorious for "causing" new onset Type 2 diabetes but that framing is kind of a misdirection for the fact that this mechanism is entirely through increased appetite causing weight gain. It's also how weight setpoint homeostasis is influenced upwards (weight drop = appetite increase). There's some amount of hopefulness that GLP-1 agonists are somehow lowering weight setpoints.
I've heard the "willpower boost" in terms of refraining from unhealthy binging, but read one report from a user that it sapped some of the pleasures out of life for her. Are there very many similar reports, or risks that semaglutide dulls the desire to binge on tasks we might think are valuable?
Benign binging might include staying up all night to finally finish that essay or python program that has been niggling at me. Or the slight oddball obsessiveness with calculation that drives me to build a giant spreadsheet thoroughly analyzing all factors of some decision, or ever finish my taxes. Maybe binge watching TV shows would be marginal, but I'm very happy with the times I've binge read some novels. Maybe the least analogous, but even when I build good exercise habits, usually I'm turning up the volume on some obsessiveness with watching numbers go up.
Maybe this sounds silly and it's obviously not a risk, these types of binging are not the same, I really don't know. It's just... I quite like obsessive binging in some areas of my life and would hate to lose them, acknowledging that it can be very harmful in others.
I am considering creating the following app for Android:
- educational app for very young children. You see a sandpit and a picture of a happy rabbit. You can draw lines in the sand with your finger.
- the letter "A" appears over the sandpit, and the first stroke appears as a line. The happy rabbit looks very intently at it, and gets excited if you start drawing your finger along it. When you complete the stroke, the rabbit gives a happy head shake and the next stroke appears.
- when you complete the entire letter, the rabbit does a whole happy dance and you hear a voice saying "A" aloud. Then rinse and repeat with another randomly selected letter.
- once the child is fluently drawing all the letters of the alphabet, you get to select another alphabet for it to learn. For example, the IPA, the expanded alphabet (containing Scandi/old Anglo Saxon characters), Cyrillic, Hiragana, etc etc. All are just datasets fed through the same system. This stuff will be boring if you have to learn it later in life, I like the idea of feeding the kid as much as we can while it's still got nothing better to do. I also like the idea of the kid's primary school teachers sitting there in confusion because thorn characters keep showing up in the kid's homework.
- and/or: once the child is fluent in the Roman alphabet, we proceed to short words, it writes out "cat" or whatever and hears the word spoken aloud. The words get longer as the child gets more fluent at writing them.
I am in two minds about this second approach (the whole word one). My first (boring) hesitation is it's a lot more data to curate - especially if you want to do the logical thing and have a picture of a cat appear alongside the word.
My second hesitation is that I cannot for the life of me remember how I learned to read/write, so I'm honestly not sure if this kind of learning would be effective. And if it's not - why am I assembling gigabytes of audio and image files to enable it?
I have done exactly zero research on this since having the idea, so if this exact thing already exists (and you'd think it would) do please feel free to link it in.
What happens when they poke the rabbit? Don't assume that making the rabbit happy will be a child's goal.
Maybe better to have a field of objects, and the thing says the name when you touch it. Draw an A, the thing says "A". Click on a traffic cone, the thing says "cone". Maybe you can use the different alphabets at the same time, and different voices will respond for different locations.
I would recommend using phonics; that will make the transition from letters to words much easier.
Mixing Latin and Cyrillic sounds like possibly a bad idea, because there are many characters that are written the same, but pronounced differently.
Not sure how useful it would be to learn a foreign alphabet, unless you continue learning the language. Kids learn quickly, but they also forget quickly what they don't use.
That's exactly why there is phonics, to provide at least some heuristic for the mysteries of English writing.
But adding an extra rule, that if the rabbit is wearing a red cap with hammer and sickle, the letter "B" is pronounced "ve", that is too much even by English standards.
I am an incoming undergraduate STEM student, and need a laptop to last me through college. Here are my requirements, listed in order of importance to me:
[1] Maximum of $2000
[2] Dedicated GPU
[3] Can Run Linux
[4] At least 16GB VRAM
[5] At least 16GB RAM
[6] Not a strange / uncomfortable shape / no RGB lights
I plan on purchasing an external drive, so storage is not an issue. The display / also do not matter much to me. Any help / recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
As far as I know, [3] isn't a disqualifier for any mainstream laptop brand : Apple, Dell, HP, Asus. What will get annoying is the **applications** that will refuse to run on Linux, and even that is quickly being eroded day after day at a heroic pace by open source development and reverse-engineering.
What are you going to study? I'm finishing up my studies in computer science, currently taking grad level ML & robotics courses. I have been using a MacBook Pro 14inch (M1) for more than a year, and I use Ubuntu 20.04 for ROS on a virtual machine.
I would highly highly recommend MacBook Air (13 inch). It's incredibly reliable, performant, and energy efficient (long battery life). I also have other PC laptops, but the build quality (i.e., screen and keyboard) is just much nicer on the Mac. If you want to try Linux distributions, you can always do it in a virtual machine.
Unfortunately it won't meet your requirements (there's no separation between RAM and VRAM in M-series architecture, and you can't run linux natively). Also, the M3 Pro has less memory bandwidth than the M2 Pro, so you may do better with last year's model for this specific use case.
The best non-apple brand in my recent experience is HP, followed by Lenovo. Avoid MSI, their build quality is awful.
I think you should look into a Framework machine, because they're an awesome company making highly configurable laptops whose internal components are also replaceable.
Not OP here but one of the reasons could be not wanting to depend on closed source software and compromise with DRM and other walled garden practices by Apple?
While the Mac OS itself is closed source (well parts of it) there’s no restrictions on downloading open source code or applications as you wish, particularly if you are comfortable with the command line. It’s the dedicated GPU that’s probably missing here.
Indeed, you can easily run open source software on it. On the other hand the non-free parts and in general its design choices (icloud? really?) may be hard to stomach. If he is a student he may be given access to GPUs in a university cluster or otherwise on the cloud.
Has anyone tried xAI's new Grok LLM yet? Is it any good?
I wonder if this will change how people think about Elon Musk's decision to buy Twitter. If you think about it as just buying a social media platform, it seems like it was a pretty bad decision (except for the philosophical stuff like free speech, political neutrality, etc). But if you think about it as a continuous supply of proprietary training data for someone who also owns an LLM company, then maybe that changes things.
I don't think any amount of training data is worth what Musk paid for Twitter. Personally, the announcement reads to me as another 'Twitter will be profitable if we just release X', where the company is on it's sixth X with no sign of ever making any money.
I would think X’s value as a proprietary source of post-202X data will go hand in hand with its success as a social media platform.
But even if it’s successful, is “more post-202X social media text for training” that valuable? It would obviously increase the LLM’s awareness of current events or memes/slang, but I wouldn’t think the race for stronger general capabilities would be swayed by having more of that particular flavor of human text.
I don't think the extra training data would give you much advantage over what's available open source, but it'd be cool if tweets are put into some vector lookup for information retrieval so that you can talk to it about things that just happened a few minutes ago.
Tyler Cowen published a GPT-4 book designed to be queried and summarized with LLMs. Do you guys know of any service right now that allow to do the same with other books, in pdf format for example ?
I'm looking for a better name than 'early adulthood' for that period of life, traditionally 18-25 or so, in which you focus on building up your own educational and career capital before settling down and starting a family.
In talking about the changes I see with my generation (millennials), I think 'extended adolescence' is slightly overblown; adolescence implies a lack of independence, which has happened a bit (see: house prices) but isn't the main factor I see, which is more of an extended version of this early adulthood period, which now seems to drag on well into one's thirties.
The young-adult writer's market kind-of split into itself and a new one called 'new-adult', though you don't hear much about it anymore. That seems to fit your description.
This is the closest to what I mean, although I think you're right that it's too firmly tied to marriage.
I'll explain how this came about: I've been chewing over being told that I'm a 'real adult' now that I have children. Now that my oldest is about two and I have another on the way, I don't quite agree with the sentiment, but I do think there's *something* there.
Note: All this refers to individuals in Western cultures which are rich enough to be a few steps up Maslow's hierarchy. Your mileage may vary.
Proposed definition of the difference between early adulthood and, say, 'middle' adulthood: If the entity you think about the most is yourself*, you're still in early adulthood.
Early adulthood seems, to me, defined by a self-focus, which I don't mean in a derogatory way. It is entirely appropriate to, at this stage in life, after leaving one's parents, to learn, build up skills, and forge your own path and personality, with limited other responsibilities. That phase of life used to be almost universally relatively short, but at least in my circles, now in my mid-to-late-thirties, it seems to just...continue.
I certainly don't think that having children is the only way to become less self-focused; there are a number of others, from finding God to devoting yourself to helping others to immersing yourself in company management (the latter of which is likely less satisfying in the long run, but seems to replace that parental role for some). Having children is just, perhaps, the most reliable shortcut.
If, say, someone asks if I enjoy taking care of my daughter, the answer is yes, but the more true answer is that there are now a wide range of activities in which I don't constantly refer back to myself; it's a valid question, but just doesn't feel that relevant.
* Perhaps a controversial view, but to respond to the clear retort of the obsessive thinking of romantic partners/crushes amongst young people, I would argue that in most of those cases it's still mainly thinking about one's self, just one's self in the context of the partner (which, at least in my case, is very different to the way I think about my children).
Better as simply more accurate, or do you want something that rolls of the tongue? And what is it that you're seeing? Is it just a delay in settling down? Not having kids? Not nailing down a career? General uncertainty? Lacking specific competencies? Zoomers might be following the same trajectory, so this might just be a permanent change in the length of "early adulthood."
Don't know what you're noticing, but extended adolescence seems spot on to me. Don't think it's overblown at all. The number of truly un-independent people (thought, movement, work, finances) is staggering.
I see this type of "teen-creep" going far into the thirties.
On the Road with the Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band
The road was generally somewhere in the Capital District of upstate New York. Think of it as a group of small cities and towns and centered on Albany, the state capital, Troy, where I lived at the time, and Schenectady, incidentally, where my grandfather had his first job in the United States, and where the band rehearsed in the basement of a photography studio in a somewhat sketchy part of town. The studio was owned by Rick Siciliano, lead vocalist and drummer for The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band. I played with the band from about 1985 or 86 to 1990 or so.
Not Exactly the Birth of the Blues
I am told that Siciliano started the band in the early 1980s as a means to attract women; I believe Duke Ellington was thinking the same thing when he decided to play piano. Rick got some of his buddies together to form a band. I hear he was better at attracting ladies than getting gigs. Somehow, though, he managed to gather reasonably good musicians. Chris Cernik joined on keyboards and served as den leader; he brought in his high school friend, John Eof on guitar. Then along came “Bad” Bob Maslyn on bass, Ken Drumm on alto and baritone sax to replace Rick’s buddy, Jimmy, and Rick Rourke on alto and tenor sax. There were others in and out of the band, Giles, some trumpeter whose name’s been forgotten, and then John Hines, who’d studied jazz trumpet at Berklee – that’s BerKLEE, the private music school in Boston, not BerKELEY, the flagship campus of the University of California.
They developed a repertoire organized around Blues Brothers tunes and Rick Siciliano’s taste in pop. They even had a couple of originals, “Lady DJ” (for Rick’s lust object du jour) and “Baby Tell the Truth.” Now we’re getting serious. Before you know it, Out of Control was getting gigs, but other bands were after John Hines. They put an ad in the local entertainment weekly, Metroland, looking for a substitute trumpet player.
I saw the ad, needed money, another tried and true motive for playing music. I called Ken, who acted as business manager, and set up an audition. I forget just how the audition process went, but it’s not like there were 30 trumpeters lined up to get the gig. Fact is, the time when trumpet was king was long gone by then so there weren’t many trumpeters, period. I forget just how I learned the tunes, but there were no charts. Perhaps Chris or Ken got me a set of rehearsal tapes. Whatever. I just listened and learned by ear, like all real musicians play, except for classical cats and other advanced miscreants. I soon became the one-and-only full-time trumpeter for the band.
I want to introduce a magical material to my medieval fantasy setting, but for the sake of internal consistency I want to make sure it can't somehow be used to invent perpetual motion machines or any other revolutionary technologies, so I'm asking you nerds about its engineering applications.
The material is a form of magical ice which behaves exactly like normal ice except that when it melts, rather than turning into liquid water it vanishes entirely, leaving nothing in its place.
The only mundane application I can think of is that you could use it to draw a partial vacuum (fill vessel entirely with ice, let it melt) which seems like it would be very interesting to chemists but not a big deal overall. Are there any applications I'm missing, or is there some really important chemical process you can do with access to a partial vacuum?
How is it created feels like the important first question.
It feels like... this should have impacts for storing food. Like, imagine that I take a loaf of bread and freeze it in this ice. I don't have to worry about it getting soggy when the ice melts. A small win, but a win.
Third idea, this is the perfect casting substance for something that chemically hardens. You could create pretty intricate molds with this (especially with magic), but the molds wouldn't have to worry about the standard break-away issues, as all of the ice would perfectly dissappear. Is this useful? idk. But could be!
It also decreases entropy. Lots of magic does this, but just pointing it out. Once again, we are asked the question of how it is created.
Anyway, I could probably have more thoughts, but how it's made is pretty important.
Casting molds is very clever, probably not revolutionary but a great little bit of engineering, I'll have to work that in somewhere.
The ice is made by wizards who can conjure it in the palms of their hands (pushing away the air around as it appears). I'm content to violate all kinds of laws with the "it's magic" excuse, but as an exercise I think this can actually be modeled in a way that conserves everything. Consider the ice as being summoned from the magic ice dimension (where opening a portal and pulling it through expends a bit of energy as you would expect), and then as it "melts" it's pushed back to where it came from, slightly warmer than it started.
What happens if you fill an an empty chamber with this ice and roll it through a fire? Would the disappearing ice reduce the mass of the container? You would then either violate the conservation of momentum or, if not, the velocity of the container could increase to conserve momentum, in which case you could make pretty interesting vehicles.
The maximalist application would be to create enough magic ice to form a black hole. When the ice vanished out of existence, any ordinary matter in or around the event horizon would have released gravitational potential on the order of its rest-mass energy. If your wizards were ... hardy... enough, they could "pump" this process multiple times to release energy equivalent to the Big Bang.
Violating conservation of mass-energy has bigtime consequences, unfortunately.
Does it have to vanish entirely, or could you have it sublimate (turn directly into water vapor)? Also, how is it created? Does it come from regular water, or can it just be magicked into existence from nothing?
As described, it isn't even "melting". Water ice melts because putting a certain amount of heat energy into the structure excites the molecules. The resulting liquid form is denser, and now contains the heat energy.
If your magic ice instead suffers complete annihilation of the particles, there's no sense in which this is melting.
If it DID "melt" at the same temperature point, and the particles are completely annihilated, where is the energy going? If mass-energy equivalence does NOT hold in your world, and the energy also disappears, then you could destroy the planet's climate and end the world by making a sufficient quantity of it and removing heat energy from the system. If mass-energy equivalence does hold in your universe, then the energy has to go somewhere, forget the elaborate stuff about leaving a vacuum, you'd have either heat energy or mechanical force or some kind of radiation coming from this thing.
To keep physics intact we can imagine that "evaporation" is endothermic conversion of "ice" into neutrinos (or some other weakly interacting massive particle). I can't see it breaking anything technology-wise.
Whether you get perpetual motion would seem to depend on whether the energetic cost to create the ice is more or less than whatever work can be done with the vacuum.
IE, if you can use the vacuum to turn a crank to produce energy, and that energy is more than it would take to produce the ice, then that's in theory the potential for perpetual motion (modulo all the efficiency losses in turning the crank power into magic).
So I'd just put in some energy cost to create it that's defined to be more than the energy you can harvest from its eradication.
You probably want to look into the entire field of vacuum welding/cold welding, I don't know a ton about it but I think in a good vacuum you can do wacky things like clean up the edges of two pieces of metal and just sort of rub them together to merge them into a single piece. May not be game-breakingly useful but there are probably clever applications that let you do things you couldn't otherwise at low tech level.
I can only think of things like useful for cooling without the problem of liquid water remaining and needing to be disposed of, so you don't have the risk of rusting metal or making wood soggy. So for food storage and cooling buildings that get too hot and the likes? Cool your drink without diluting it as the magic ice melts?
If you had an infinite supply of it in front of a vehicle then it would create suction as it melted out of existence and pull the vehicle forward forever.
Given that the only fictional property this substance has is an irreversible reaction, it certainly can't be used to create perpetual motion at least. How significant the implications are may depend on what the limitations are on how it can be made. If you want to be particularly sure it's not physics-breaking, and the ability to produce a vacuum isn't the intended purpose, you could make it instead sublime into a gas (so it's kind of just like dry ice but higher-temperature and naturally occuring or something).
I can't think of any particularly significant applications. What you can do with a vacuum may be limited by the vessels you're able to construct, depending on the tech level.
Attach a rope to a bag. Fill the bag as completely as possible with magic ice. Make the bag as airtight as possible. As the bag shrinks, it pulls on the rope. But if the ice is hard to get, you're probably better off just pulling the rope by hand.
As an aside: In his Imitation Game article, Turing lists nine possible objections to why machines might not be able to fully replicate human thought, and the only one which gives him pause is that humans can be telepathic, while machines cannot. "Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming."
There are some documents about the CIA studies into paranormal abilities that can be found online. A while back on DSL I summarized a few of the document. You can find the post here:
A summary of the summary is that the CIA found some things that were weird, but not consistently weird and as such not useful enough for them to fund further. There was one guy who seemed to be pretty good at remote viewing (he got some things wrong, but a lot of things right he "shouldn't" have known about), but he died of a heart attack and after that they kind of folded the program.
EDIT: The CIA summary paper had this conclusion:
"There is no fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of paranormal functioning, and the reproducibility remains poor. The research and experiments have successfully demonstrated abilities, but have not explained them nor made them reproducible. Past and current support of paraspychology comes from applications-oriented intelligence and military agencies. The people managing such agencies demand quick and relevant results...Unless there is a major breakthrough in understanding, the situation is not likely to change...Agencies must commit long-term basic research funds and learn to confine attention to testing only abilities which at least appear reproducible enough to be used to augment other hard collection techniques."
Does anyone have a reference detailing suspected problems with random number generator bias in some of the old ESP studies? This was once mentioned in a comment by Scott under one of his SSC articles on the subject, which I can't seem to find currently.
Look into David Bem, a very respected and rigorous psychologist who at the end of a long career did a bunch of meta-analysis on existing data to show that studies of psychic phenomenon had significant empirical support.
As I understand it, no one knows whether he was honestly trying to demonstrate that psychic powers exist, or if he was trying to demonstrate that the statistical method and peer review process in the field was insufficient to rule out stupid conclusions. He always acted like a sincere believer during this period, but it may have been performance art.
Anyway, he was respected enough and his analysis was rigorous and rules-following enough that it caused a big stir for awhile when it came out.
J.B. Rhine ran experiments back in the first half of the 20th Century. Although he claimed positive results, Rhine's research methods have been discredited by the scientific community — though, I have yet to read a detailed critique of his studies' shortcomings. My understanding is that controlled experiments that tried to reproduce Rhine's studies came up with nothing, though. Rhine's parapsychology research center at Duke University still seems to be active. There's an interesting Chinese study that the CIA translated back in the 1980s that concluded some subjects were quite good at remote viewing. You might be able to find it if you Google for it.
Having said that, a physicist friend of mine (now deceased) said he read a study back in the early 1960s where Zen meditators sitting near a mild radioactive source could slow the rate of radioactive decay by some small but statistically significant amount. He decided to try to reproduce the experiment. He said the setup was pretty simple, and finding a practitioner of Zen meditation to sit for him wasn't difficult in the university town. My friend said he was able to reproduce the results. He said he never tried to publish the results, though. I asked him why he didn't, and I recall him saying something to the effect, "It was pure curiosity on my part, and I didn't want to ruin my career by being perceived as a crackpot." Having said that, my physicist friend was a bit of a crackpot — he just knew how to masquerade as a normal person.
Any physicists out there want to try to reproduce this experiment?
What if there is an "equation" for general intelligence, like E=MC^2, but it's too complicated for humans to understand? Like, even if a person had the equation in front of them and had infinite time to study it, they'd never understand it?
BTW, I think this is already the case for equations in very high-level, highly specific fields of math. So much niche cognitive ability and more foundational math must already be possessed to understand them that 99.99% of humans couldn't grasp them even if they tried.
One way to think about this is to think of how an equation (or really, a formula - or really really, an algorithm) might be formed in the limit.
An algorithm that outputs the general intelligence of some system (whether that system is a person, an animal, a plant, a GPT instance, etc.) presumably would take various properties of that system as input and combine them in logical ways. Maybe those inputs include the number of neurons in a brain or nodes in a GPT's neural net or parts of a plant that are considered to be "processing information", combined with a graph of connections between those components, the capacity and precision of that system's sensory organs, the ambient temperature, and so on. The output might be some structured object representing GI, that you could put into another algorithm along with a cognitive problem and that next algorithm would tell you whether that GI could solve that problem, how long it would take, how close it could get if it couldn't, and so on.
Every algorithm can run on a Turing machine, and we understand pretty much everything relevant about Turing machines. The big fundamental problem is whether that GI computation (GI-COMP) will halt, or if it will go on forever with no answer on certain inputs. The nature of the halting problem is such that if we could guarantee GI-COMP will always halt, then we arguably "understand" the algorithm, since all we're required to know is what it will produce for a given input, and we can do that by simply running the algorithm.
If we don't "understand" GI-COMP, it would be because it won't halt on certain inputs. Moreover, we can't know a priori what all those inputs are. We might know -some- of them, and prepend an algorithm that checks for them and returns "unknown" for those cases, but we can't know -all- of them, because if we could, we could guarantee CHECKED-GI-COMP always halts, and it would be nearly equivalent to GI-COMP, except for the inputs we know are uncomputable - in other words, GI-COMP would not be a complete algorithm for GI.
Then we build more tools to help us understand it. Ultimately, a lot of scientific and mathematical thought goes towards building systems to help us analyze very big problems in a way that an undercaffeinated post-grad can understand. A Greek philosopher could never have wrapped their head around E=MC^2, no one has ever been intelligent enough to derive all the universe from base principals. So we collaborate, we build up structures of thought and test our insights against the real world.
Note that the world just is, and by no means is required to be fully comprehensible from the inside. In other words, At some level of resolution the lossy compression that agents like humans (or bacteria) perform to construct a mental map may well lose predictive power. From inside it would look less like an equation and more like Knightian uncertainty in observations.
As for "a general equation", a larger intelligence can potentially express this lossily compressed model as an equation, but humans would be physically unable to uncompress the "equation" to make interesting predictions.
And yes, there are already plenty of concepts that are critical for high-res modeling the world "that 99.9% of humans couldn't grasp them even if they tried."
I'm not sure what you mean that equation would describe exactly. Do you mean a definition for how intelligent a system is? The only reason I see why such a description would be exceptionally complicated is if it is in some way an explicit description of the intelligence (in a similar way to how a neural network can be described as an enormously complicated function by composing all its neurons' functions, and the computer program version of it is a representation of this abstract function), but that would be rather specific to one particular intelligent system.
Yes: a joule is a newton times a meter (eg. the amount of energy required to raise a one-newton weight one meter).
A newton is a kilogram times a meter per second squared, i.e. the force required to accelerate a one-kilogram mass by one m/s each second it's applied.
So a joule is a m * kg * m/(s^2) which comes out equivalent to kg * m^2/(s^2)
No you were right the first time- a newton is only kg * m/(s^2) but a joule has another length factor making it kg * m^2/(s^2) or equivalently kg * (m/s)^2
"eg. the amount of energy required to raise a one-newton weight one meter"
We have to be really careful here - this is not a particularly good definition, and it is actually incredibly difficult to expend 1 J of energy this way (even theoretically, disregarding friction). This is because you need more than 1 N of force to start lifting the 1 N weight (add F=ma because you need to achieve a nonzero velocity in order to lift). Consequently, you need to stop applying the lifting force in such a way as to have the weight reach 0 velocity at the exact 1 m height.
A better definition is 1 N force applied along a 1 m path where the vectors of the force and displacement have 0 angle between them.
Those will cancel out though- absent friction, if you apply 1 J of kinetic energy to a 1 N weight that will carry it up exactly 1 m before gravity stops it. But also I described it as an example ("eg") not a definition ("ie").
Oh, yes, from the "energy applied" side it will work just fine, the weight will stop at 1 m. How do we dish out exactly 1 J is a whole other discussion...
I couldn't help jumping in because it's a great example where a seemingly simple problem ends up being quite fascinating and can produce non-intuitive outcomes. Thank you for indulging my physics obsession :)
In modern days, as Neurotechnology is taking stride in every sphere of medical field, battle field, acute surveillance and many more; it is very essential to understand that how can brain -internet connection set up remotely without any surgical intervention. Can anyone comment on this?
I have heard there's been a lot of progress in brainwave-reading using electrodes on your scalp - I don't think it's got perfect resolution to the level of specific thoughts, but it can read mood, and I imagine there could be a way to use this as an input device in the future. It may well be possible, but harder to control than just using your hands - there's a reason we don't all control computers with our eye movements like the late Steven Hawking, dispite technology making it possible.
For output, I think we're still limited to VR, I don't think there's a non-surgical way to input information directly to your brain - if there was a way to externally influence brain waves it would probably just give you a seizure.
Why haven't smaller cars specifically for urban areas been commercialized on a large scale? I'm not part of the anti-car movement (I think cars are great!), I just don't think that the same vehicles that make sense for suburban or rural living really fit in much tighter urban spaces. Is it really hard that commercialize a much smaller car with a lower speed limit, that can still fit groceries and passengers safely? They'd fit better in parking spaces, both on street and commercial (the massive SUVs trying to park in my local Whole Foods lot, my god. Should be a felony).
There's lots of innovations in automotive design and drive trains on say farms- tons of smaller but sturdy vehicles from multiple manufacturers. Why aren't they more common in major cities?
Simple answer: below a certain size, however zippy they may be in the city, you wouldn't do a 1000km road trip in it, and would probably find it annoying to drive 150km. So unless you want to own two cars, which would mostly defeat the purpose, you get at least a subcompact for 1-2 people, and a compact for 3-4. It's not that much more money, and now you can do car trips.
How small do you have in mind? Compact cars (~100 cubic feet interior volume, e.g. a Honda Civic) and subcompacts (~80-90 cubic feet, e.g. a Ford Fiesta) are something like 8-10% of the US car market. Probably more like 20-30% if you also include compact and subcompact crossovers (i.e. vehicles with SUV-like body styles but scaled down to small car size), although it's hard to find good breakdowns of the "crossover" segment by size and see which ones are compact or subcompact as opposed to midsized. All types of crossover put together are about 50% of the US car market, with pickup trucks being about 20%, large SUVs being about 10%, midsized cars being about 8%, and vans and luxury cars being 4-5% each.
A subcompact is probably the smallest viable car category that's road-legal in the US while still being able to seat four people. You'll very occasionally see two-seater cars, but the benefits of those over regular subcompacts are pretty small, and people who do want a smaller-than-car motor vehicle that only seats 1-2 people will usually buy a motorcycle in the US.
Excellent point, but maybe they still could because that's one of those advertising phrases that at this point falls on the ear with no impression whatsoever.
They have been commercialized; just not in the US. I saw a lot of small cars in Amsterdam recently, from "microcars" (e.g. https://biro.nl/en/) to smaller versions of the same compact cars and delivery vans that you see in the US. There are a couple of limitations to doing so in the US.
One is CAFE, a fuel-efficiency-related set of regulations that (unsurprisingly) accomplishes the opposite of what it was supposed to. Full explanation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/ep4wza/corporate_average_fuel_economy_cafe_is_bad_policy/ but the TL;DR is that car manufacturers are incentivized to make their smaller cars bigger so they can be categorized differently. This law should be scrapped and replaced with a carbon tax (for pollution externality reasons) and a higher gas tax or similar (for paying for roads--the gas tax was supposed to do this but is far too low, so much of the funding comes from general revenues).
Two is just the general design and layout of cities. Most of them have been rebuilt over the 20th century to give enormous amounts of space to cars in the form of more and wider lanes and more and bigger parking spaces. This isn't a "well of course those medieval cities are different!" effect--Rotterdam, for example, was bombed into oblivion in WW2, but currently looks like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ex5UNApZispDf22L6, and most US cities were built before cars. There's no reason to consider the size of your car when designers rush to accommodate you, at the cost of everyone else.
Third is safety. Large vehicles are more likely to cause crashes, and being in a large vehicle in a crash is safer for the occupants (although they create more of a sense of safety than they actually provide, especially due to poor visibility) but more dangerous for whoever you hit (the impact on pedestrians and cyclists is even worse). The tradeoff, by the way, is terrible--for everyone person you save by having them in a bigger car, you kill 4, on average. But from an individual point of view, as long as these vehicles exist and are common on city streets, there's a horrible incentive for people to get even more of them, creating even more incentive for them in a horrible cycle. And related to this is streets that aren't designed for safety--streets lack traffic-calming and are designed with speed in mind instead.
Fourth is general car-dependence, which leads to people thinking they need lots of carrying capacity, because they do everything by car and spend all their time in it--particularly shuttling kids around. Also, the microcars linked above don't even have to travel on normal roads--e.g. in the Netherlands, seniors and the disabled can use them in bike lanes. But the US doesn't have many bike lanes, and no one wants to drive one of those surrounded by even regular cars.
Arguably another cause is marketing encouraging people to buy bigger cars for no good reason and drive them recklessly. I'm less confident in this one, since all the relevant data are proprietary, but it certainly looks like there's plenty of lifted trucks driving on the highway like its a racetrack.
That's because, to a first approximation, more massive *is* safer based on physics...but only for the occupants of the more massive car. Not so for the other people, especially if the other person is a pedestrian.
Specifically, the more massive vehicle experiences the same force, but (because of F=ma), lower acceleration. And it is acceleration that causes damage.
Absolutely. Physics once again win, despite collision tests trying to disguise the fact by using impacts against fixed objects or between 2 identical cars (which is impact against the fixed plane of symmetry - same as a concrete wall except the concrete wall is not perfectly sliding laterally). The only cases where absolute mass offer no protection :-).
However, people have some instinctive physic grasp, which explain why most feel safer in bigger cars.
I've resided for more than a decade now in one of the most walkable urban neighborhoods of the entire country, and will continue to for the foreseeable future. And yet our household's single car is the _largest_ one I've ever personally owned (a Kia Sorrento now 12 years old) and the one we replace it with next year will be similar.
It turns out that since we walk/bike for lots of local stuff (e.g. grocery shopping), and use transit a fair amount too, our needs to use a car tilt strongly away from small or tiny cars. Basically driving is what we do when we are taking the child and the dog out for hiking or biking in the forest preserves; or my wife is going to her music rehearsal which requires carrying her instrument and related accoutrements; or I'm carrying my own and/or the child's ice hockey bag to a game or practice; or driving out to an airport on expressways to pick up a visiting relative and his luggage; or attending a party which happens to be an hour away in the suburbs; etc.
Summary: as urban dwellers we don't use the car for everything but when we do, we need cargo capacity and/or to be comfortable and feel safe driving at highway speeds. Our next car will likely be hybrid or electric but will not be small.
I've seen tiny cars for town/city driving and I think that's both their benefit and their drawback. They're fine if all you want is to move a few miles in any direction and only move yourself and limited baggage (so groceries, etc.)
But outside of the town? I don't see them as having much use - they look, by comparison to standard sized cars, as though they're easier to smush into a concertina if they got into an accident. They don't seem like they're very fast, and they certainly don't seem like they could travel long distances or on main roads, nor carry several passengers, or a lot of luggage.
If everyone in a particular city was doing 'one person only travel between work and home or the shops and home' then they'd probably be more commercially viable. But if I'm in a big city driving in traffic, I would not feel secure in such a car surrounded by ordinary cars, buses, and lorries. And certainly not if I wanted to move several people (e.g. bringing kids around) and their paraphenalia.
There are a ton of reasons (that i'll list below) but over all it's a choice that the US has made. Part of it is a consumer choice - people want SUVs and often want them bigger, but that preference has been influenced a lot by choices that the federal government has made:
CAFE standards - these are federal regulations related to (basically) the average fuel efficiency of an automaker. It's an extremely complicated piece of legislation but a reductionist summary is that car that are larger in specific ways have lower standards to meet, making it easier for automakers to comply. This is especially true of pick up trucks were are classified as light duty trucks and dont have to comply to the standards in the same way. (I am being very very reductionist here)
Road design - US roads are way way bigger than roads in Europe. This is a choice by governments who set stardards and industry groups that make recommendations for those standards. The trend in the US is for wider roads even though these are known to be less safe and lead to faster speeds. In fact, most roads are designed to be safely traveled at 10-20% of the posted speed limit. This is why the speed limit often feels so slow. We also just have way way more open space than Europe and that space often has big fast flat highways paved through them.
Parking requirements - almost all municipalities in the US have minimum parking requirements for buildings. These leads to way more parking that is necessary and means there is plenty of parking for people to use.
Zoning & Housing - I wont rehash it all here, but zoning in the US, on average, discourages dense development and pushes suburban/ex-urban patterns which require cars to get around. If you are going to be in a car more often you probably want a big comfortable car that (you think) can carry all your stuff around.
Safety standards - these make cars bigger and heavier. Airbags, crash zones, etc all make the car bigger. These are probably good! But there are good arguments that smaller cars crashing into smaller cars on smaller roads at lower speeds dont need so much safety equipment because the crash has less energy.
These are just the biggest ones I can think of quickly. There are a lot of little ones too. Of course there are cultural pressure too related to american conceptions of families and "the open road".
There ARE small calls for sale in the world. Europe has some, but Japan has tons. They even have a whole class of cars called Kei Cars which are tiny but very practical especially in cities. You can import these if they are >25 years old. Ironically, many Key Pickup trucks have beds as big or bigger than US pickup trucks because those pickup trucks aren't for real work - just looking like you do work. While the older kei cars can be rather unsafe (no crumple zones or airbags) the new ones are pretty much as safe as a 10 year old car. Some are sold new in Australia and other countries.
> In fact, most roads are designed to be safely traveled at 10-20% of the posted speed limit.
I don't think I understood this sentence. Is it saying that the 30mph road outside my house is actually only safe to be navigated at 3-6mph? That seems wrong because it is a brisk walking speed but I don't know what you meant to say
I think the intent was "designed to be safely traveled at 10-20% *more than* the posted speed limit", so your 30mph road can be safely navigated at 33-35 mph.
I think the safety standards one is big. It means that if you build a small car in the US it is going to end up costing almost as much as a large car, so most people will just get the big one. In China there are different classes of cars so you can get a small city appropriate EV for ~$5K
I'm very sympathetic to small cars and NEVs. I wanted this '88 Fiero as my first car out of high school so bad, it was the neatest thing I'd ever seen. (ended up with an '04 Ion with a CVT) And I want a tiny old-style Ranger with a 6' bed today. But I just don't see small cars happening in the US in a big way for a while:
1. federal regulations treat four wheeled on-road vehicles as more or less a uniform class. There's no way in the US to certify a road-legal vehicle that is not capable of reaching highway speeds or dealing with highway-speed crashes. (current other offerings are glorified 25mph golf carts) You'll see the vehicles that do fit your smaller category (Kei Cars in Japan, VSPs in France, etc.) existing in specific regulatory niches. I think if the feds made a serious NEV / quadricycle category (the market penetration of the current offerings speaks directly to the unseriousness of the current regulatory regime) we might see more vehicles in this class.
2. We have had full size cars around for so long, and they are so durable, that your cross-shop for a NEV includes good condition normal cars in the price range. Compare a GEM e4 with doors starting at $25k that can go 25, or a murderer's row of lightly used compact and midsized crossovers <3 years old and <25k miles that can go highway speeds and distances. And that crossover comes with a standard HVAC system, radio, and a sunvisor. Even the e2 starts at $21k.
This is actually a problem for small hatchbacks. A brand new Fiesta, Versa, Spark, that class of vehicle costs the same as a lightly used, much larger vehicle CPO off a lease. The whole bottom end of the standard vehicle market has had its knees cut out by the CPO off lease market, the volumes are brutal. (see GoodCarBadCar)
3. There are various forces driving standard cars to be larger and more expensive (CAFE standards, a strong used car market wiping out the B-segment which becomes self-reinforcing, strong residuals driving down lease payments, longer loan terms driving down financing costs, safety requirements, buyer willingness to spend far more for space than it costs to build in, buyer desire for luxury features, something something child car seats, etc.) but one thing I want to emphasize is a large-scale change in the primary buyer and their interests over the past few decades.
Today, the majority decisionmaker on which car a family will get is the wife/mother. And in the un-partnered buyer market, ~50% of your customers are women. Women tend to prefer sitting higher up (perceived safety, able to see over other cars for turning), larger cars (perceived safety), and more storage area (does it baby? does it lacrosse /hockey /football kit? We'll have it for a decade, can it grow with the family?). Add in the knowledge that this car, if it's still around (it will be), will be what -kid- will learn to drive in. These may not be true in every case, but they're true enough in aggregate to influence the aim of the market.
4. Why am I talking so much about :use case that isn't yuppie / highly urban dink: when discussing this? Well, basically, if you're building less than 75k, 100k vehicles a year, unless you're selling a premium product at a premium price point you're probably losing money. You need volume, and you need price point. Annual Sales * Program Lifespan * Sales Price = what you have to fit development, tooling, manufacturing, development for the next vehicle (hopefully), and some profit into. Gets tight at low price points and low volumes! For comparison, a new vehicle from a mainstream OEM might be $1-1.5 billion dollars out the door, with a refresh being in the $250 million range.
tl;dr: I wish! But I think the Feds will have to tip the scales HARD in their direction to get tiny cars more sales volume.
The car I want but does not exist (yet) is a small cheap electric runabout with limited range. Most electric cars are expensive because they insist on having huge batteries to support a long (500km+) range, but I only need a long range for one of my cars, the second one is only used for local trips. Stick a 100km range battery in a Ford Fiesta, sell it for a price that's not too much higher than a regular Ford Fiesta, and I'll buy it for trips to the supermarket.
There are lots of small cars for sale, and although not always readily available, have been used for generations especially outside of the US.
Some obvious problems with using small cars exclusively:
-Cargo Space
-Passenger Space
-Safety
-Bad Weather (low weight does poorly in slick conditions, especially snow)
-Poor road conditions or elevation changes (low clearance)
Also, there are lots of people who don't drive large vehicles but also don't have cars. Bikes, scooters, motorcycles, etc. all provide alternatives to larger vehicles and often do so more efficiently and better than a small car would, while having similar problems to the small cars.
My guess is norms and status. A car is still a major status symbol and with microcars being so uncommon it's likely that you will be mocked for using it as your primary mode of transportation.
Microcars are, in fact, commercialized on a large scale. The wikipedia article for Neighbourhood Electric Vehicles, which is the classification used in the US, lists a bunch of manufacturers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle
Small cars are available on the market. I suspect they are not more common than the are because the number of people who like them is not greater than it is.
Indeed....and that's something to keep in mind when trying to understand why something is not as popular as you would think (or more popular than you would have guessed). Before spending much effort about looking into regulations, status and other psychological factors, it's worth being sure about how much you share most people desires and requirements for the stuff. If you are an outlier, you will naturally overcomplicate things.
Vehicles have been getting bigger (and more expensive) in the name of safety. That being said, we still have exceptions like the smart car, though that obviously comes with trade offs re: cargo and passenger capacity. Are you picturing something in between, say a smart car and a civic coupe? I don’t think they can make the civic much smaller anymore due to federal crash safety regulations, but if you go back 20 years, compact coupes were quite popular.
I agree it would be good. Seeing the huge cards on city streets, including expensive fancy ones, feels weird. It could probably work if they were way cheaper than the larger ones.
I had a smaller car and loved it for urban environments, but you just can't use it with multiple kids. I had to size up after the second because the trunk space didn't even fit a double stroller. I recently experienced three children in a compact car, with booster seats and car seats all smashed together and yeah we just made it, but it was very borderline and I will not repeat it I can help it.
If you start introducing it as a norm, or incentives for those cars at the expense of the larger ones, certainly more families will opt for the suburban lifestyle.
Is it time to update on the dangers of climate change? For years I've been in the "it'll be bad but not terrible" camp, but looking at the pretty massive spike in sea surface and air temperatures this year, as well as the sudden loss of Antarctic ice for the first time, I'm questioning that opinion again. It's been a huge jump that looks totally out of whack with any previous year. It could easily be a fluke, but it's got me worried all the same.
Again, I'm not sure who to trust about these things exactly, but they say the SO2 emissions had possibly a pretty minor effect, but that it is difficult to measure due to an anomaly in the Saharan dust and an anomaly with the Canadian wildfires. At the least it doesn't seem so cut and dry as the SO2 emissions are primarily to blame for the recent spike, though played at least a part.
> Is it time to update on the dangers of climate change? ... It could easily be a fluke, but it's got me worried all the same.
As you say, one year's temperature can be a fluke, therefore you should update on long-term trends. But sometimes one year makes you notice a trend you have been ignoring for years.
The loss of Antarctic ice is more serious. Slow or fast, either is irreversible (except in very long term). Fast is worse only in the sense that it is us who will be fucked, not our children.
I would note that IPCC reports have to be signed off by every petro- (and other) state in the world. They have been criticized for excessive conservativism by some climate scientists. Looking at the data it does seem like something big in the climate broke this year, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Thanks for posting. Just read through the post, my initial view is that it's probably because renewable energy is way cheaper than anyone envisaged in the 90s. Last I interacted with David, he wasn't aware of that. I will try to look into it.
My pleasure! I assume you mean that cheaper renewables have led to an increase in use of renewables instead of fossil fuels, and hence much lower CO2 levels than formerly predicted and therefore warming below IPCC projections.
To put some numbers on renewable energy use changes, when the 1990 IPCC report (which greatly overestimated warming through 2018) came out, 7.2% of global energy came from renewables and by 2018 that rose to 11.8% (https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy). Did that increase lead to a sufficiently large decrease in emissions relative the IPCC expectation as to reduce actual warming below projections?
Were actual CO2 emissions lower than that? No - they were actually higher! From 1980 to 1990 emissions rose by 16.7%. At that rate, emissions would have risen by 40% from 1990 to 2018. But they actually rose by 62% (https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions#). In fact, page 42 in the pdf of the report above seems to state in the context of Scenario A that they project CO2 and Methane to increase by 10-20% by 2025, which would be much much lower than the actual rate of CO2 increase.
So while you can dig through the IPCC report more and the subsequent ones, at least initially, it doesn't look like your suggestion that the IPCC reports are overly conservative and only overestimated warming due to overestimating future emissions is correct.
I think it’s getting ugly and it will likely get way uglier. One can always rationalize individual data points with ad hoc explanations but the truth IMHO is that we don’t know what’s gonna happen because we’re getting out of the boundaries of what we understand. Our models and minds are not equipped to deal with nonlinearities in complex systems, as Dorner shows compellingly in The Logic of Failure.
Climate scientists are scared shitless because they keep updating their models and the models keep underpredicting how fast things are getting bad.
It’s also easy for people who have always lived in the comfort of Western countries to overestimate the system’s ability to handle crises. Right now, the French island of Mayotte has drinkable water available 1 day out of 3 for its 300,000+ inhabitants. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a temporary crisis. But human bodies can’t average out water intake over weeks, let alone months. What will happen when the 1.5 million people in Phoenix run out of drinkable water? When Nigeria runs out?
I'm not worried about sea level, but things happening that are outside the bounds of our predictions can mean we are missing something critical. If Antarctic sea ice extent goes from essentially unchanging to a sudden huge decrease, that could be a fluke, or not particularly significant, or it could mean there's a gap in our understanding of the system which could have large effects in the future.
Again, it's not proof of anything, but is it a reason to be concerned that the sea ice extent in August of 2023 was lower than any other year by almost the entire range of sea ice extent in the decades before it? That's a pretty wild change that I don't think we have a good explanation for, and it could mean we're missing something.
The volcanic eruption seems to be a small piece of the puzzle but everything I've read attributes only a small percent of 2023's anomalous temperatures to that event. Perhaps it's just a mix of things (Hunga Tonga, El Nino, Saharan Dust, SO2 regulations) and altogether they added up to an anomalous year, but maybe not. These graphs are just plain alarming in far 2023 stands out.
We've only been tracking the extent of Arctic sea ice since the 1980s. You can look at the numbers here. But this year's loss was less than the 2012 record minimum.
"Our results show that, over the 11 years from 2009 to 2019, ice shelves in Antarctica gained a modest 0.4 % (or 5305 km2) of their total ice area (Table 1; Fig. 1). This area gain was dominated by significant 14 028 km2 (1.5 %) ice shelf area gains on the two largest Antarctic ice shelves, Ronne–Filchner and Ross, and a 3532 km2 (1.3 %) area gain on the East Antarctic ice shelves."
And, of course, my favorite factoid says that Greenland is losing a volume of water equivalent to Lake Eerie every year. But if I divide the published volume of the Greenland ice pack by the published volume of Lake Eerie we've got many thousands of years left in the Greenland ice sheet. Of course, the North American ice sheet melted pretty damn quickly (in geological time) — it took roughly 12,000 years from the beginning of deglaciation until the last of the Laurentide ice sheet to finally melted (roughly 6,000 years ago). The current *observed* northern hemisphere deglaciation could very well just be a continuation of the cycle that started 18,000 years ago.
As for Antarctic deglaciation, the Antarctic ice sheet started forming roughly 35 million years ago when global temps were 6º C warmer. I don't expect we'll see that happen before AI causes our extinction (#snarkasm).
You're not really engaging with anything I'm claiming is alarming, but disproving alarmism about things I'm not alarmed about.
The Antarctic had absolutely nothing alarming going on until this year, when suddenly the sea ice extent decreased by an enormous amount that was totally out of line with all expectations. That is what is alarming. What did over from 2009-2019 is pretty meaningless in response to this.
Hmmm. The extent of sea ice was lower this past 2023 Antarctic winter, but the volume is within previous years' ranges. Again, I don't see anything particularly alarming here. Also, please keep in mind that sea ice has somewhat less volume than salt water. So the ocean surface ice — if it melts — won't affect sea levels much. OTOH, deglaciation of the Antarctic and Greenland land masses would have a significant effect on sea levels. However, Antarctic ice shelf mass has gained significant volume this past decade, and Greenland has been stable for the past decade.
Antarctic ice extent and volume year over year. Note 2023 volume.
I'm glad to see the ice volume hasn't hit a record low to the same extent, that is encouraging.
I should clarify that I'm not really worried about sea level rise at all, it seems like not so big a deal in the short time, and something we can adapt to long term. I'm more just worried about big swings in the Antarctic sea ice extent, sea surface temperatures, and air temperatures. Big swings can be meaningless in a single year (which is what I'm hoping for), or it could be indicative of us not understanding something about the system that might make our models less accurate than we'd hoped. That is what I'm worried about, rather than any specific outcome.
"pretty massive spike in sea surface and air temperatures this year"
This is likely a one time jump in these temperatures caused by a change in the regulation of cargo ship fuel. Traditionally they burned bunker fuel which has high concentrations of sulfur which contributed to acid rain but now they have to use low sulfur fuel. Sounds like a win right? Well it turns out that those sulfur particles also reflect solar radiation and now that they've gone away we've got a spike in temperatures. So while temperatures will climb again next year, it will probably be by a small amount, not a big jump like we saw this year.
We also just had a very large volcanic explosion in Tonga. This put a huge amount of water into the stratosphere, and water vapor is the strongest green house gas.
Water vapor is indeed a GH gas. The problem with attributing warming to any event like this is that there's an astonishing amount of water in the atmosphere (example: at 15 degrees C and 30% RH the air contains about 3200 ppm of water, compared to about 400 ppm of C02), so we have to scale whatever the volcano added to the total already there - not much). In addition, the water concentration is self-regulating: water regularly gets dumped when its concentration becomes locally unsustainable (rain/snow). So adding water vapor is not something we should be concerned about, and climatologists know about its effects and have it in their models.
I don't know what sources to trust, but the above seems to think the SO2 emissions decline has a relatively small part to play in the overall temperature spike in 2023, though they also say it's difficult to measure due to a negative anomaly in the Saharan Dust and the increased aerosols from the Canadian wildfires. So, not saying it's not important exactly, but it doesn't seem to be as cut and dry of an answer for why 2023 spiked so much relative to other years.
I think "it will be really bad, but not utterly disastrous" is still good. People in fifty or a hundred years will very likely have it better than we do, climate change or no. We just want them to have it as good as possible, and that means taking care of things now when it's still comparatively cheap.
i think its more that if you worry about everything that can cause millions dead in the future, you'll never stop.
if its not the climate change its the covid. if not the covid, the prions. if not the prions, the monkeypox. dont forget the yellowstone caldera and microplastics and AI and war in country x or war in country y or Fascism, etc.
"Can" does a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Millions of deaths from global warming is both exceedingly likely and something we could readily mitigate if we could be bothered. You still don't think we should do anything under those circumstances? I have no idea how you handle risks in your personal life, but that sounds crazy to me.
This is nothing like being worried about Yellowstone, the AI apocalypse, or a life-ending gamma ray burst. It's like putting on the seatbelt.
A seatbelt does not cost hundreds of trillions of dollars or require a fundamental restructuring and massive downsizing of the global economy. It'd be more like sending your car to the junkyard out of fear of getting into a car crash.
When doing Big O stuff, it's all about how something scales based on some factor, so you would say some process that takes 2 minutes per request or 3 minutes per request are both O(n) as opposed to saying O(2n) or O(3n) because the point is it scales linearly, not the specific linear equation describing this.
So, the joke here is that in this notation, somebody going from a life expectancy of 80 years to being dead at 40 is still O(1) because they're both constant numbers.
I am considering migrating to Canada. My friend told me that Canada is the most woke/SJW country in the world. In particular, I'm worried about the cancel culture, the dark side of feminism, the dark side of anti-racism, the dark side of pro-diversity, the dark side of wokeness. I tried to check how true this is by looking up relevant statistics per country but didn't find anything relevant enough. I only found some statistics that equate social justice to basically how free and good a society is, and I found statistics like what percentage of people proclaim themselves as feminist.
If you have personal experience living in Canada, please tell me about this aspect and compare it to other countries you've lived in. Since you, fellow commenter, might have different thresholds of the level of wokeness you find acceptable than me, I would be most grateful for information that compares this level between different countries. If you know of some relevant per-country statistics, please post them as well. Also, I am considering migration to other countries too, so if you have an opinion about which countries are most woke/SJW or which regions of which countries are most woke/SJW, please post them too.
You seem to be worrying about wrong things, unless your whole identity is "anti-woke", in which case, please, stay out of here, we do not need more culture wars. And yeah, "Canada is the most woke/SJW country in the world" is very misleading. More relevant issues are jobs, salaries and cost of living. Best places to live in Canada are not cheap. Healthcare is free but hit and miss.
As for politics, it looks like the Trudeau era is coming to an end next year, and if the conservatives take over, the focus of the CW topics is likely to shift as well.
Quebec passed a controversial law banning women who wear hijabs from government jobs, including school teachers. Quebec is in many ways anti-woke and more concerned with preserving its traditional culture. Political atmosphere varies a lot across Canada.
Canada is like a shitty version of the US, they have everything we do, only a little bit worse. Taxes are super high, yes you get your free healthcare, but be careful if you think you can have your cake and eat it too. You can be fined heavily, or even jailed for wrong-speak. People had their vehicles impounded for basically the wrong bumper sticker. Go to the wrong protest, and the government will have your car insurance canceled. The government froze people's bank accounts for speaking out against the government last year.
If you read the article you linked, you'll see that no one had their insurance cancelled.
Some people suggested on social media that maybe the truckers' insurance could be revoked. If you're going to pass off any suggestion some fool made on social media as fact, you could make the US look like a dystopian hellhole too.
Yes, but that was placed on the table by influential people ... protesters were being threatened by influential people pressuring the government to remove protestor's ability to do business, based upon speech codes.
Even those who donated to the protest had their accounts frozen: it was pretty clearly a case of punishing people for holding a position the government didn't like. Normal people don't get their bank accounts frozen for blockading anything: even when the stop oil people close down a road, you don't see the government freezing their bank accounts. Not in Western countries, anyway.
>Even those who donated to the protest had their accounts frozen: it was pretty clearly a case of punishing people for holding a position the government didn't like.
> it was pretty clearly a case of punishing people for holding a position the government didn't like.
It pretty clearly isn't. It was intended to break the blockade and act as a deterrent to the behaviour, not to speech. The outside funding for the blockade was a big factor allowing it to continue. It's easier to protest weeks on end when you get handed an envelope full of cash each day. The protestors were shutting down a city and stopping the blockade was widely supported by Canadians.
You won't find people getting their account frozen for criticizing the government.
> even when the stop oil people close down a road, you don't see the government freezing their bank accounts.
The Wet'suwet'en protestors protesting against the pipeline were arrested when they blockaded roads and railways. The blockades were successfully disbanded. Unlike the freedom convoy who were getting tens of millions from outside donors, the Wet'suwet'en protestors weren't getting donations, so freezing accounts wasn't really applicable here.
I live in Toronto, where I've lived most of my life, but I've spent about a decade living elsewhere, including overseas. In terms of wokeness (which I have mixed feelings about---agree about the 'dark side'): Canada is pretty woke, but nowhere here is quite at San Francisco levels. I don't have stats, but I'll give you my impression.
Corporate DEI rhetoric is usually not completely sincere, as I'm sure you know. Literally all that's been asked of me at my current job is that I take a couple of e-learning courses on cultural sensitivity, and they clearly weren't prepared by a critical race theorist. Of course, I have to use judgement about what I say and when, but I've completely avoided having any political conversations in the time I've been here, except when the Iranians on our team get talking about Iran's sad state of affairs. If I'm generally chill about other people's lives, then I never find myself having to say things I don't believe.
If I had a public profile as a political activist, then I might be nervous about my employment, and I'd probably talk with my manager (who's super chill). But I think cancellations are usually a matter of first getting your name in the papers, and they're comparatively rare. Probably around the same frequency you get in Blue States.
You would probably find Canada more woke than most places in Europe, but not because Canada is generally Left of Europe (it's not), but because Canada is culturally, academically and politically closer to where woke ideas are generated. When I knew activists in the Netherlands, for example, after having known activists in Canada, their rhetoric seemed 5-10 years out of date, and institutional rhetoric and practices were way behind.
I’m pretty anti-woke, but I wouldn’t make it your primary factor in deciding where to live. In terms of living a happy life, I’d say to prioritize whether you’ll be able to find a community of people to be friends with (a real meatspace one, not just online) and how your income will match up with the cost of living. Canada is experiencing a pretty bad housing crisis and not being able to ever afford a home is going to really impact your quality of life.
To address your question though, I’d agree with lora. The US has FIRE for college free speech [1] and you could look and see if they have something similar for Canada. Or look up polls like [2].
I can't give you any firsthand experience, just an idea. In my country, there have been polls on agreement with the statement "I can state my opinion freely without fear of social or political repercussions". The results were quite interesting to me. This captures more than cancel culture, and is not constrained to a specific kind of group think, but it might nevertheless be a useful proxy for you. Maybe you could look up similar polls in Canada and compare with e.g. the US or wherever you live now.
How much artificial intelligence would it take to automatically adapt websites for different platforms? What if the ability to accommodate changes in the platforms is included?
"How much artificial intelligence would it take to automatically adapt websites for different platforms? What if the ability to accommodate changes in the platforms is included?"
It would be helpful to know what you considered 'different platforms'? Desktop/laptop vs mobile? GUI vs VT-100? Windows vs macOS?
My knowledge is vague, but definitely desktop vs. mobile and Windows vs. macOS? Those are things I hear about, and also apps generally have a Windows version and a Mac version.
A level of adaptation such that a site can be verified on one platform and then you just need to say "adapt this" without having to work on making work on the other platforms.
There are already frameworks and strategies which make this pretty easy to do. Making a webpage work on mobile vs desktop isn't hard at all and most web developers will design a page or app to do that as standard. Many mobile apps are just wrappers around web pages and more and more desktop apps use technologies which allow you to use your web app on the desktop with basically no changes.
So basically you can already get 90% of the way there with just a bit of work. The hard part is when you want to make an app/page that pushes the limits of the technology or is a first class example. In that case you need to lean into the native technology more.
Apple has been doing a lot of work making it easy the make a mobile app that works on iPads and on desktop. If you use their latest development apis you really dont have to do anything to allow an app to work on all those environments.
I think the difficulty level goes from easiest to hardest like this:
1. adapting from one desktop OS to another
2. adapting from one mobile OS to another
3. adapting from a desktop OS to a mobile OS or vice versa
I think #3 is also already close or equal to just being able to prompt a generative AI to make an app from scratch so AI reaching that level would have far bigger ramifications than merely everyone getting to enjoy all apps on every platform.
We are actively working on creating a comment system based on the ACX philosophy of “two of True, Kind, and Necessary.” We want to make it easy to see comments on ACX with T/K/N rankings, be able to moderate comments, choose filtering methods to make it easy to see the best comments first, worst last, and just generally add in mechanisms to make the comment system troll- and spam-resistant.
For our initial public beta, we would probably have our system be independent of any publishing platform, be given a URL, it would import all the existing comments, and then let people interact on our system, but wouldn’t have tight integration with the original platform unless the original platform provides a good comments API for such interaction.
Would commenters here be interested in using such a comment system? Any must-haves, show-stoppers for use, etc?
Have you looked into what Slash Dot did with commenting? I've not been on that site in over twenty years, but the version before that we pretty sweet. Users could rate a post/reply (+5 to -5). When reading, you can filter your visible posts based upon the average scoring. There were long time users who could moderate scores, and even meta-moderators overseeing these. For instance, if the average score on a post was 3, but I gave it a -5, a meta-mod would be asked by the system if this was valid.
Modifying this system with an LLM would be interesting.
Slashdot was one of the best forums in my opinion for a long time. I don't know precisely what happened. I guess Cmdr Taco was more of a driving force than I originally thought?
I was a UNIX sysadmin from '99 to '05. It was the joke, that if you were a good sysadmin, you read /. before work. I wanted to plant a stake defending Sony's IP rights, but feared the mob, and decided I didn't want to take part in any society where I feared the mob.
Sounds very hard to do well . In practice there are many many comments that do not meet the 2/3 rule and are fine: For ex., running jokes where a bunch of people contribute,or group reminiscences about an era, a band or whatever. Lots of posts starting a new subject do not meet the rule -- many are simply questions to the group. And, on the other side, a lot harsh mockery is delivered in a way that you have to know a lot about language, people and current events to recognize. "Have you taken your psych meds this morning?" or "And we should take this seriously because?" Or how about this gem, which actually appeared on one of the threads about the Israel-Palestine situation: “What happened to all the dancing in the streets and the outpouring of joy over the greatness of god that we saw on the 7th? Funny, haven't seen too much of that recently! Hahahaha.”
Right. There are always edge cases, and in those cases, people gotta do what they gotta do.
Maybe "and we should take this seriously because...?" doesn't offend me, and I go and explain in detail why we should. But someone else sees it as a personal attack and gets super-snarky in response. This is fine. Not everyone needs to get along with everyone else. And rhetorical questions are sometimes obviously not questions.
Yeah, it's not that awful a comment, from my point of view too. Still, if you're trying to set up something that's in line with Scott's 2 out f 3 rule, that comment absolutely flunks, and for the exact reason Scott found Gunflint's comment bannable: It's scornful in tone, but offers absolutely no reasons for the scorn. It is pure negative emotion.
I absolutely LOATHE the comment system on Substack, beacues it's so gorram laggy as to be nearly unusable. Typing into the field has a delay of up to thirty seconds. Loading a page (or even just coming back to a tab!) can take many, many seconds, because of ... I dunno, something about the horrible backend that SubStack uses.
I would be unlikely to participate any nything that made taht situation even WORSE.
My favourite is when i click to "see the replies", but its so slow i think my click didnt register so I click again, then after a few seconds the replies appear and my second click registers as a click on the name of the first commenter so it takes me to his profile from which it is two eternity to get back to the comments again.
I love when someone replies to me, I get the email, click it, and then it takes me to a broken version of the top-level post with no comments, then I refresh a few times until all comments finally appear, and I search the comments for my name, and there's nothing there.
An interesting extra feature (I know, I know ...) might be to add a checkbox for each of these to the commenting form. Allow/permit/encourage/require the posters to check the two or three apply to the comment. This (a) encourages people to think about this before posting and (b) allows others to see how that poster was viewing their post.
Note: with serious emphasis on this sort of thing I will probably stop posting comments of this sort as I think it checks only the 'true' box. I'm not sure ANY of my posts to this blog check two of the boxes.
While in general I am in favor of legibility, there is something absurd about creating a kind of HUD for skills most people should be encouraged to develop and deploy independently.
I prefer to emulate real life, where if you say something awful, everyone around you looks on in disapproval, and if you do it too much, you get kicked out. Oh... and there's a level of effort required to join the conversation in the first place. Like if someone comes into a large venue and wanders around trolling everyone, he just gets kicked out entirely.
In the public square, you have to entertain all opinions from all sides. Granted there are trolls to be dealt with, but you could instead show these comments as troll flagging, and let users reconsider engaging those darn trolls such as were Galileo.
The trick, as I see it, would be to construct a system of Voltaires: members might dislike what's said at the object level, but they'd dislike even more if the speaker were banned for saying it.
Given that, one would have to engineer "object-level dislike" so it doesn't lead to a ban.
It's interesting that in the course of arguing in favor of substance and good faith it took you three posts to dial the rhetoric up to 100 and the logic down to zero. Sick burn though bro. You got me.
Most likely, if your immediate instinct is to legibilize dynamics by injecting missing signals, your "real life" is a nightmare landscape of falsified and real signals and noise, changing places constantly in a highly dynamic game you are apparently ignorant of. I don't want that. Leave the internet alone.
My view: You're being tendentious, unproductive, and aggressive, which are (very) approximate antonyms for true, necessary and kind. And it's not like you were responding to aggression.
This is not a reply to this comment in particular, but just a gentle request. I will try my best not to engage with you any further on this or any other forum. Please do your best to return the favour, and do not interact with me on this or any other forum.
I appreciate your energy, but we simply do not have compatible conversational styles. Thanks so much, and good luck with the dragon thing.
Sometimes I want to see the unkind ones because they might be true and/or necessary, and even if not, at least entertaining.
Stuff that's just "you're a big dumb poopy-head", sure, scrap it. But if it's "you're a big dumb poopy-head and here are excellent and cogent reasons why you are", then maybe not. That might be worth arguing out is it true or not.
Yes, and in conversations, sometimes people are saying things that don't seem to have a truth element to them at all. Like "What's the best sort of comment system?" That, being a question, can't really be true or not. So there are some edge cases to work out, for sure.
I think like most comment systems, comments that are hidden or greytexted or whatever should still be discoverable, just that they aren't going to be put front and centre like others. No matter how you slice it, some comments are of higher quality than others, and most people want to see mostly high-quality comments or observe high-quality conversations.
That reminds me of the slashdot.org moderation system (which is IMHO required studying for anyone seriously designing comment systems) where you have diffeerent *kinds* of +1 / -1 attributes, and the users can configure their weight, so you can decide whether *for you* comments marked by someone else as 'funny' should get a +1 or not.
I felt the Slashdot system was pretty good in many ways. I believe it's still like that, just the lack of people using it makes such a system less useful today.
The UI gets difficult really fast when you have more than 1 dimension of quality being measured. My intuition is sliders will not be good, but I do feel the assertion that often one or more of the dimensions are on a spectrum, not binary. I shall have to think on this.
Probably by creating an AI which is smarter than us and doesn't kill us, but I'm not optimistic about that.
Failing that, probably a path into the future where humanity focuses more on bio-engineering and creating new lifeforms, and also working on some way to transfer brains or brain-states or simply create human-level brains in other creatures. I would expect intermediate stages, where existing animal species are modified to have human intelligence, and also a variety of non-intelligent life forms (including draconic) are created. But I think most people view this as solidly in "mad science" territory, and don't want us heading down that path any time soon.
P.S. This is an excellent (I LOL'd) example of a comment which in literal terms fails all three of Scott's "true/kind/necessary" criteria, but is nevertheless a quality contribution to a worthwhile comment section.
Like, you're not going to get a good dragon out of anything like conventional biology. There's a reason birds are generally small and light rather than giant, armored, and fire-breathing. Any "realistic" dragon is going to have more in common with a fighter jet than a lizard.
(That, or you'll have to be okay with it being a kinda wimpy dragon. Pteranodons are cool, but they're not *dragon* cool.)
The largest pterosaurs, Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx (Late Cretaceous US and Romania, respectively) measured >10 m in wigspan, could almost certainly fly under their own power, and fed largely on dinosaurs which they hunted on land. That's pretty close to dragon-cool, if you ask me!
Dragons can be small. Ravens are smart. Intelligence seems to depend on brain connections more than brain mass, you can probably make small dog sized dragons that are intelligent. Fire breathing is unnecessary.
Four legs, wings, intelligence comparable to or better than human, capable of using speech or sign language, forepaws capable of dexterous manipulation of objects. Size is irrelevant, fire breath is not desired, magic doesn't exist so is not an ask. I guess in a pinch a smaug (movie version) type dragon would be OK but is not preferred.
I'm not exactly sure what you have in mind. Do you mean a selective breeding program on humans to see how many generations it would take to produce something with the characteristics you describe above?
Or do you mean some sci-fi scenario where you transfer your brain to a genetically engineered dragon?
In the first case, I guess you could approximate an upper bound on the number of generations by looking at Synapsid-> Dinosaur.
The second, though it doesn't have to be a genetically engineered dragon. It could also be a robot dragon, or a simulation in which one's morphology is that of a dragon.
You have described something that looks like a dragon, but left out 'being able to fly.' I'm going to assume you want that, too. Otherwise this is just cosmetic genetic surgery.
I think a reasonable (in the context of what you are trying to do, Mr. Evli Scientist) approach is to try to design something with:
(a) A human-ish sized body with very thin legs, but
(b) Bat-type membrany wings, and
(c) Hollow bones.
So far this is pretty obvious and permits you to house a human-ish brain in something maybe the same mass as a human but with moderate wingspan.
The last step is to observe that lots of non-human animals (most, I think) are great at sprinting but terrible at endurance. Humans are great at endurance. So trade this off by boosting the ATP-CP energy system in your dragon. It will be able to fly for short periods of time (maybe 5-10 minutes) before needing to rest for a while to rebuild the ATP energy stores. Moorcock's Melnibone dragons worked this way (fly/fight for a few hours then rest for a decade ...)
I bet we could get short range breath of fire, too, though it sounds like you don't want it.
Almost everything that exists now didn't at one point. A huge number of future things don't exist now. New things are created all the time, including literal chemical elements and in the "platonic" realm, new theorems of math. Biology has huge amounts of slack. Why on earth wouldn't it be possible to create a dragon?
Intelligent long-lived reptiles are surely possible. Things bigger than a house that can fly using flapping wings in Earth gravity and atmosphere, using muscle power seem like they have to be impossible--there's no way they're getting enough lift to get off the ground.
OTOH, maybe you can have dragons that are so big because they're mostly hydrogen, and then they don't need to generate all that lift with flapping wings. That could kind of get you fire breath, too, but they'd quickly lose the ability to fly by using up their hydrogen. And I guess you'd fight them with fire arrows, because if you could ignite a hydrogen/air mix in/near them, they'd go up like the Hindenberg.
> Things bigger than a house that can fly using flapping wings in Earth gravity and atmosphere, using muscle power seem like they have to be impossible--there's no way they're getting enough lift to get off the ground.
Depends on which house. Quetzalcoatlus got pretty big.
As for fire breathing, I don't think there's any creature that makes actual fire from its body, but I think it's possible. The bombardier beetle has a pair of chemicals that it mixes together and sprays on enemies. The two chemicals, when mixed, become very hot. I feel like, with a different pair of chemicals, you could probably get them to ignite.
So dragons are fascists? then why are you asking how to turn people into fascists?
"Intent not required"
"Unnecessary predation"
Dragons, by popular repute, are predators and take prey more than they need. Whether this is intentional behaviour or not, if they are presumed intelligent, then dragons fit your definition of "fascist".
That seems like a fairly non-typical definition likely to result in misunderstandings, a spicy property for a word also likely to bring up intense political fervor both for and against.
Likely. But I feel it cuts reality at the joints. The root of the problem behaviors in authoritarianism go back to biological roots that started forming when multi celled creatures started eating each other, and the most succinct social phenomenological map of this comes from gnostic phenomenology vs institutional Christian phenomenology. Very old
Can’t see why Gnosticism or Christianity are solely involved here, even if we were to take onboard your strange redefinition of fascism. There’s a big jump in time between the multi celled animals and the Christians, and probably a lot of carnivorous activity meanwhile.
True. People didn't start writing things down and doing big society wide argument about them for a while though, and that helps to legibilize things. A big part of personal experience is how things become legible to us. Christianity and Gnosticism were lenses through which The Problem became visible to us, even though it existed long before then.
It is just weird to focus on, like, the specific tenets of national socialism instead of the roots of the problem or the abstract common principle it is an instance of, to me.
It sounds to me like if you want to talk with the general public about complex ethics, it greatly helps to use definitions already in common use, or to coin fresh terms that lack existing definitional baggage. To be clear, I'm responding from a "how to communicate the thoughts" perspective rather than commenting on the specific thoughts themselves.
On the thoughts themselves:
> [...] anyone who idolizes or nurses a habit of unnecessary predation, and this doesn't even require intent.
To me that would include everyone from con artists to Viking raiders to abusive spouses. "What system of government do they espouse" seems fairly non-central to use to define what they have in common. "habitual predator" sounds like it's a cleaner referent term.
Whether he is or not, "negative" and "positive" in the context of schizophrenia symptoms do not mean "bad" or "good", respectively. They mean an absence vs presence of things relative to the norm. So negative symptoms are going to be closer to catatonia than mania.
I certainly think he is not showing "the absence of" schizophrenia, which is what I understood him to be saying by "symptoms of negative schizophrenia".
At the least, 'negative schizophrenia' would be 'ordinary mental state'. If he's asking for relief from not being crazy, I don't know how we can help him.
In a past open thread, I received some great advice for piano practice and improving accuracy. People suggested that I slow down my practice a lot, so that I'm able to play passages with near 100% accuracy; when I did that, my playing improved in a matter of days. And practicing this way really highlights (for me) which passages need work, and I can drill those over and over.
I'm working on Rachmaninoff's Polichinelle. I can play through it at a moderate speed with high accuracy, but I'm really not sure how to get it to the speed that I hear people play it (for instance in piano recital performances on YouTube). It is just an amazing piece when played anywhere near that speed, so I want to figure out how to get there. Any tips?
I actually find it useful to rehearse a fast, difficult piece occasionally at a speed faster than intended. With the brain-finger connection exercised at a hyperfast speed, it actually gives me time to be more intentional when playing at normal speed
I know nothing about this and have no tips, but I wanted to plug that my brother has written a series of books on how to practice piano. They focus on jazz, but he's done some classical piano too and maybe the books are relevant to that (though I have no evidence for this). If you like my writing, you might also like his. You can find it at:
As you continue to practice try playing (with inaccuracies) some of the passages up to speed. Notice where your neuromuscular patterns are inefficient (too much tension after the keys are depressed; taking your fingers and unnecessary distance away from the key, such as lifting too high for leaps ; unnecessary forearm and shoulder tension) and then try to repattern these things in your slow practice
Also I've found it helpful to experiment with different placements of your hand on the keys (up on the black keys vs almost off of the edge of the white keys) and also experimenting with wrist height.
Last, as you build the synaptic connections to the individual notes pattern see if you can deal with the movement pattern in larger blocks (a simple example would be patterning a scale as a single sweep of your arm instead of 8 separate finger actions)
I hope some of this is helpful and my tone is not too patronizing
I think to actually be precise, by "tension" what I'm actually referring is (a) excessive antagonistic muscular resistance (make your hands as rigid and possible and feel how hard it is to play: then as soft as possible) and (b) unnecessary muscle holding (squeeze your shoulder blades up to your ears and play: then relax them and feel them "floating" on your back)
In both cases it really depends on your whole body awareness: if you're mostly unaware any sort of paying attention to breath and how you're choosing (unconsciously?) to hold or freeze muscles will be quite useful
If that sort of awareness is something you already have I would experiment with going to an extreme you "know" is wrong and then seeing how far you can back off (such as the hand tension thing above)
As a very general note piano technique is much more individual than is usually (?) taught so definitely give yourself permission to try lots of different physical approaches, hand positions, etc
If you're very visual you could try filming yourself, but that's not something that works well for me
I'm a piano teacher, and I've found it very helpful to learn to play while holding panoramic vision, plus attending simultaneously to any points of tension that announce themselves within that context and feeling them melt.
You're probably already doing this, but it's also helpful to practice the short phrases you struggle with over and over, rather than playing very much before and after them, which would slow down your practicing.
I was one of the “slow it down” commenters, glad it’s helping. Everett Upright’s advice is good, just want to add a general comment that these things may take longer than we’d hope and sometimes I feel I’m making no progress at all, and then it comes. Keep up the good work!
Seconding: turn your metronome up one tick; repeat what you already did (re identifying weak passages, drilling to 100% accuracy); repeat.
Also try to focus on keeping a light touch. And if there are any places where you know you’re cheating on the fingerings, i.e., using suboptimal ones because they’re tricky and unnecessary at current speed, go ahead and fix those now.
If I speed it up a smidgen each week, then in 500 years I'll be playing as fast as Rachmaninoff himself! :) Seriously though, he blazes through some of those sections. I'm a little discouraged now!
Confession: Ever since I was a teenager learning about Israel and the surrounding region, I've had a quiet pseudo-conviction that there's some property of the land itself that makes some individuals especially passionate about religious faith and/or living *RIGHT. THERE.*
This is of course very silly, but I can't shake it. If someone were to announce, I dunno, the discovery of toxoplasmosis-esque parasites in Israel's soil, or a psychoactive chemical or fungus in her seawater/groundwater, or brain nanobots from a lost civilization destroyed by the Younger Dryas impact which can only self-replicate in Israel's particular geography, or, more likely, something I can't even imagine, I'd feel a fierce satisfaction, not surprise.
Again, I realize this is silly. On a sort of surface-thinking intellectual level, I understand and accept the broad historical context of why so many people are so attached to "RIGHT.THERE."
I just can't make myself *really* believe that really is the only "why" of it.
I'd hope so, but I worry they're living in too much of a monoculture for that to be likely. I've read some accounts of life in a gulag, and the prisoners were able to get away with some surprising things. But in Gaza, the prisoners are also the guards.
And of course, then some fellow Palestinian goes off and kills some Israelis, which they don't see, and then the Israelis retaliate and kill some Palestinians, and they do see that, and so the entire worldview seems justified. :-(
I dunno, to some degree, the prisoners are the guards in North Korea, too, but it seems like a lot of them definitely want out! I think many are staying primarily to avoid having three generations of family members punished for their escape.
Huh! I don't know enough about what it's like to live in either of them, but surely folk in Gaza have enough access to the regular internet to know what life could be like elsewhere! I know there's a black market in North Korea for outside news and entertainment, but surely the North Koreans have the less accurate idea of the world.
But that's just a spitball intuition.
Edit to ad: nevermind, I skimmed to quickly on my phone and didn't parse.
I think you're probably right about the memeplex...maybe?
It's interesting to compare the two! If I had to choose, I think I'd rather be born in Gaza than in North Korea, and maybe that's why Gaza has the stronger memeplex?
My first reaction was that the video had to be either a hoax or dark satire. I actually googled the song title plus "hoax" (fun fact: Google was weirdly coy about autocompleting the title for a thing that has a quarter million views on its own platform).
That reaction is probably why I can't model the ideologies involved enough to *really* believe that other people believe them so deeply that they would choose to suffer rather than literally peace out of the area.
What's slightly worse is that the first place I saw it, which I couldn't find yesterday, appeared to be some sort of Palestinian children's TV show, like Sesame Street or Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.
I look at the demographics of Gaza, and I have to wonder what it's like for those kids. How thorough is the penetration of the ideology? Do families talk about it privately? How many have realized something's wrong, but know they can never say it out loud? And how many just fully commit because it's the best way to be accepted?
Education probably plays a big role. Religious Zionists in Israel have their own state-funded education system. The "settler" ideology isn't just something dreamed up in coffeehouses and read on imageboards, it's something many Israelis have been indoctrinated from birth to believe in. Israeli Arabs have their own state-funded Arabic language schools, which prevent them from coming into contact with Israeli Jews to the degree the races come into contact in America. Intermarriage is very rare.
Early 20th century European nationalists understood the importance of education in shaping political ideology, while American conservatives have only learned it in the last few years.
It's not just Israelis who believe this. It's written in the bible and believed by religious people all over the world. Israel was promised to the Jewish people in the bible.
This belief may sound absurd to atheists, but to people who honestly believe in god and the bible, this is their land, has been since the exodus from Egypt, and it is very important to them.
Hmm. Very religious Orthodox Jews believe that Israel should not exist until the messiah appears and as far as I know that was the standard orthodox belief for centuries, so most Jews.
Muslims and most Christians don’t believe it either.
Part of it is selection bias: the people who don't care that much about living in Israel are likely to try and move away to other stable nations, especially if they're well educated. Those who stay either really care about that one piece of land or don't really have a choice.
The Levant is at the intersection of the Mediterranean (through ports), Red Sea (and therefore East Africa and on to India, also through ports), Anatolia, Egypt, and the Fertile Crescent. And unlike Syria to its north or Sinai to its south it's got some natural geographic barriers which makes it possible to hold. This is why empires keep fighting over the region. It's also why people keep predicting (successfully) massive fights at Megiddo. It's on a route where you can go north, south, east, or west and has enough mountains that it's a potential strongpoint.
This doesn't necessarily mean the religious belief is back-justified or that the modern conflict comes from that. But it does explain why people fight over that patch of land so much. The first major battle we know of, anywhere, was a battle between the Hittites and Egyptians near the region.
Marriage to first cousins is not only permissible in Islam, it's desired (since it preserves inheritance). After a thousand years of this, it shows up in a lot of places. E.g. in the UK, those with Pakistani ancestry are 3% of the population, but 30% of the birth defects. I'm generally skeptical about the cross-country IQ comparisons, but find it hard to imagine that this level of inbreeding/consanguinity hasn't had serious mental effects.
As an American who is constantly being harangued about benefiting from European colonialism that occurred before living memory and the moral necessity of releasing Hawaii et al to the descendants of people who were conquered over a century ago, I often wonder why the American Left forgets that the ancient Israelites were victims of conquest, too.
And for the love of god, won't someone *PLEASE* think of the Canaanites?!
Religiosity must have very high spatial autocorrelation (people tend to indoctrinate nearby people or ethnically cleanse and replace them). This exacerbates random fluctuations. Essentially you are looking at what seems to be many independent realizations of (place, amount of religiosity) and are surprised by one specific hot spot, which seems out of distribution. But the realizations are not independent, cutting down the effective number of data points. See e.g. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3398303
I don't think people in Israel/Palestine are particularly religious, the issue that religious people (and a shockingly high number of nonreligious people) worldwide ascribe a special status to one particular piece of land and the question of who should inhabit it.
Though I have never been there personally, I have been told that lifts in Israel have a Saturday mode where they stop at every floor to avoid forcing people to press buttons (=using fire, apparently). That sounds _very_ religious. At any rate the spatially autocorrelated trait does not need to be religiosity per se, it can be anything that drives OP’s opinion of the place. Now this is inching uncomfortably towards unfalsifiability, which I acknowledge.
Re the elevators: In places where there are a significant amount of Orthodox Jews, sure. Same as in the US: People are accommodating. Not using electricity on Saturday is a standard thing in Orthodox Judaism everywhere, it's not just an Israeli thing.
On general religiosity: Using Pew's metrics, Israel is more religious than most European countries, but less religious than the US, and much less religious than pretty much anywhere else in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, or South Asia. Notably, Israeli Muslims specifically are also less religious than most other Muslims in the region.
In the Palestinian territories, people are slightly more religious than those in the surrounding region.
I would guess that a lot of this effect is just from things like income levels.
Memetic contamination, I'd guess, rather than biology. The urge of having what other people desire maximized through epic stroycrafting across generations: think associations most people have with gold, put that a hundredfold on a bit of land.
This reminds me of weird theories about gold. While there are some practical uses for gold in electronics and chemistry, people were extremely attracted to gold for a long time before that.
There's a highly dubious theory that aliens modified humans for goldmining. This is the only thing I found interesting enough to remember from Art Bell's Coast to Coast.
There's a real world anomaly-- *most* human cultures love gold. North American indigenous people just weren't interested. They made jewelry from turquoise and silver.
I have a theory that bright yellow had less of an emotional effect on them.
In West Africa, salt was literally worth its weight in gold, since they had no source of salt locally, and could find (small, but relatively heavy) grains of gold in the rivers.
In most of the world salt was/is super valuable. Today in Northern Africa, there are camel caravans to transport salt mined out of a buried long dead sea.
Salt is only inexpensive because we have found industrial ways to extract it in highly plumbed man-made bays.
In one of the stories within stories of the Arabian nights, a merchant turns up on an island with a few bags of salt and leaves with a few bags of gold. Reading that as a child I could well believe it, for any unseasoned food tasted bland to me. In a civilisation without salt, regardless of other spices, using it for the first time would be a revelation.
Do you ever wear synthetic clothing such as nylon, spandex/Lycra, or polyester? This recent study in Environmental Science & Technology (full text: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c01894) seems big if true.
The claim: our sweat can leach harmful plastic additives from synthetic clothing. This is because our sweat contains oils. In theory, some of the leached additives would then be absorbed through our skin.
The study only looked at flame retardant additives in fireproof clothing. Here is why the findings may transfer to many other synthetics:
> Abdallah [the P.I.] says the study implies that other chemical plastic additives, like bisphenols (which have been found at up to 40 times the safe limit of exposure in items from popular sportswear brands), phthalates and PFAS, 'may leach out into sweat and become available for dermal absorption'. These findings can be 'logically extrapolated in terms of someone who is running and sweating intensely', he notes.
"These findings can be “logically extrapolated in terms of someone who is running and sweating intensely”, he notes. Essentially, the more you sweat, the more chemicals you could absorb." - this is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I don't immediately see a mechanism that causes more chemical absorption with more sweating in any sort of a monotonous fashion.
These fabrics have been widely used for decades now - if they really caused above-background level carcinogenic harm we should be able to see it in the data - intense exercisers being more susceptible to certain/many cancers. I don't see any reference to such data there.
I can't say enough about how terrible the Prop 65 is - its warnings are so common now as to lose any informative value.
Totally agree. Until there is a high quality study showing the effect in people, i will ignore this. Also, its very possible that any negative health outcomes from this are offset by the exercise you would need to do to absorb any significant amount of plastic (or whatever).
Well, it is an in vitro study. Apparently the ground up plastics and passed it through a 0.45mm sieve before exposing it to artificial skin fluid.
I could imaging that in the grinding process, they actually created some particles a lot smaller than that, so the effective surface area might be higher than for clothing.
If this replicates for synthetic clothing, the next question would be how much of it is absorbed through the skin.
skin permeability, though relatively easy to model - see https://huskindb.drug-design.de/ for some data, go wild with a bit of sklearn + rdkit - correllates mainly with the partition coefficient of a compound. I would guess microplastics might go through an artifical membrane due to perforation, but shouldn't go too deep (skin to blood is hard to design for, and microbeads just do not go through). Much worse when you put them in a direct blood interface (inhaled / ingested).
My priors are strongly against microplastics on the 0.5mm scale being diffusing through healthy skin. Also, any fabric shedding microplastics of that size at an appreciable rate would be soon be gone. I think the proposed mechanism of action is likely that the oils in the sweat absorb the toxin from the microplastics (which can be intact fibers) and then the toxin gets absorbed.
I would like to know the magnitude of the potential harms before getting rid of all my sportsgear. For cycling I could switch to merino wool jerseys I guess. Might consider that for future purchases (I have tons of jerseys, so probably not anytime soon.) Not too sure about what to do with the bibs though. I don't think that a non-synthetic alternative exists. Same with soccer. Playing with natural fabrics for extended periods of time gets very uncomfortable.
I have been reading a lot of long AI papers and related documents lately. The Executive Order was one thing and now I am going through the 100-page report on the current state of alignment, put together by a group of Chinese researchers. How do people maintain focus when reading such long documents, especially when they are out of their depth technically and have to look up/understand aditional concepts all the time?
Hmm, I’ve never done that, worth a try I guess. My problem is more around focus fatigue, at one point words just stop making sense or my reading speed slows down to a crawl. But it’s been improving over tome so I guess just more practice is the answer
Keep your smartphone in another room. Turn off or restrict internet access on your computer. Take breaks when you feel you need it. Exercise regularly.
Yeah I pretty much do all of those things. I've found that consistently meditating for an hour each morning does wonders in terms of how long I can stay focused on a mentally challenging task
The EU AI Act seems to be the other piece of legislation that would affect a lot of the players as the EU is a big market for those companies. I haven't had time to write anything in depth on those two, but will in the future, so maybe sub for my blog for when I post them
I think it depends why you're reading them, which guides how you should / might want to read them. I have 2 reading styles (roughly speaking -- less binary category, more sliding spectrum), call them "explore" vs "exploit":
- exploratory reading: making sense of the topic. My guiding question is "how would I explain this to X, and how would I answer their 'so what'?" where X is usually a friend of mine who's at least somewhat acquainted with the topic or adjacent topics, and (gently) skeptical of the read's facts, framing, implied importance, etc. (I am admittedly privileged to have quite a few friends like this, so it's become a default mental move.) I suppose the industrial-strength version of this is https://www.cold-takes.com/learning-by-writing/
- exploitative reading: I'm mostly looking for something (a fact, a numerical estimate, a quote, an opinion etc). Surprisingly for me, I've often found myself wanting to confirm my bias by searching for some quantitative estimate and ending up undermining my confidence in my original stance (sometimes even changing my stance entirely), funny how that works
I guess the usual mundane stuff helps too -- coffee, enough sleep, environment conducive to long stretches of focused reading, etc
Also come to think of it, I've done a very lightweight version of Gwern's https://gwern.net/about#long-content style writing for a few years now (in Notion nowadays). It's interesting how you can sometimes experience a mental "phase shift" from confusion at the mass of disparate material to a sudden sense of most of the puzzle pieces falling into place, after which it becomes much easier to make sense of long dense docs because you essentially "know what to ignore". Long content style fact-gathering increases p(that happening) over time
Wow, thanks for the answer, I find myself doing pretty much the same things. Actually, thinkin thgouth complicated idea by means of writing is why I started my blog in the first place (https://valentinsocial.substack.com/)
Also, thanks for the Gwern link, that post is absolute gold and answered a lot of other questions that I didn't know I wanted to ask!
PS: for me what you call exploitative reading is the default mode that my brain goes to, and the one that I try the hardest to avoid
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Go to rot13.com and paste what you don't understand from the comments around into the top window, then read the results at the bottom. It's a crude cypher (move every letter 13 places forward in a loop) to let people avoid looking at spoilers.
While I'm not a big fan of puzzles where you're supposed to find checkmate a single move faster than the extremely obvious checkmate(s), I have to admit the solution to this one is clever. The problem is that everything is pinned, and the solution is that everything is pinned.
I have recently listened to a podcast episode (this one https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-can-the-mind-slow-aging-with-ellen-langer ) with Ellen J. Langer (well-known Harvard psichology professor). She made some claims that are hard to believe for me (e.g. rigging a clock and thus your subjective time perception, makes wounds heal faster), yet they seem supported by scientific studies.
Is anybody up to date on the current research on these topics? What is the general consensus of the scientific community? Has anybody read her recent book "The Mindful Body"?
I'm not familiar with this field and this seems like a good place to ask for some opinions to people who are more knowledgeable than me.
Do you happen to have a link to the clock paper? Had a quick google around and this is the only one I could find talking about pain perception not actual healing :
Hi, sorry I haven't received the notifications for the comments for some reason.
Thanks for making me check this. There is a footnote about this in the study, but it points to:
P. Aungle and E. Langer, “Which Time Heals All Wounds, Real or Perceived?” in preparation
I don't think it is a good practice to write a popular science book citing studies that have not been presented to the scientific community yet...
Anyway, another study with a similar take-home message that was also mentioned in the podcast is this one https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1603444113 where the physiological variable is now blood sugar levels, instead of how a wound is healing.
I agree! I wouldn’t really feel comfortable discussing such “counterintuitive” results in a popular science book and in a podcast without a lot of solid evidence and properly peer-reviewed papers. For the moment I’ll just slightly update my prior in favour of this kind of effects possibly being true, but not much. I’d like to see independent replications of the studies... (maybe there are other indications in this direction, but it’s not my field of research, that’s why I asked the question originally)
That seems more like capacity for endurance rather than perception of intensity of pain. If you're told "this pain will last for the full rotation" then you may think "I can bear it for a minute but I couldn't stand it for two minutes". If one clock is going slightly faster then your subjective perception is "not much longer now, just hold on for a bit more" rather than "I have another twenty seconds to go, I can't stand it".
I think that might make the difference between "it wasn't as bad as I expected" (it appeared to finish quicker than I expected) versus "I couldn't have endured it any longer" (it lasted as long as I allotted endurance for).
Let's continue re-reading Scott's old blog (not SSC, the one before, this one https://archive.ph/fCFQx). "How to teach without your students secretly hating you" https://archive.ph/VLlft (alt https://pastebin.com/N0cWhb9p) is a good list of things not to do, "having a specific definition in mind and trying to squeeze it out of the students one word at a time over the course of 40 minutes" is my personal un-favourite.
Bonus shitpost: https://archive.ph/o3SNI. What other remarkable things were uttered just before leaping off the Tower of Prisms?
Last week I did a work training with someone who was generally a good teacher, but who for some reason felt compelled to pause every five minutes or so to say something like "What's a good name for a CURRENT TRANSFORMER? [awkward silence] how about 'current transformer'?"
I was ready to commit murder by the end of the session.
So a professor comes in and says "Who can tell me what organ pumps blood all around the body?" And after a few seconds of trying to figure out whether it's a trick question, everyone decides that it isn't, and he really is just looking for "the heart".
But no one says anything. First, it would look really crass and teacher's pet-ish. "Gosh, what a great question, is it...the heart?" Second, it would make it look like you were honestly pleased with yourself that you had the knowledge, that "oh! I know this!"."
God I hate this situation. 90% I'll take the shot after an awkward minute, but when it's a question like "where do plants get CO2 from?" (hint: they really did want "air") it has such a high confusion cost. Like, really? Also, I will no longer be paying attention for the next ~20 minutes.
The hyper-optimistic hope here is that misaligned researchers will produce models that are misaligned to them but aligned to the rest of the world. Do two misalignments produce an alignment?
Alignment shouldn't be thought of as a binary classification to start, and any negation outside of the binary world wouldn't guarantee you 2 wrongs making a right.
Bletchley: PCM type risk gets a nod in the declaration. "Substantial risks may arise from potential intentional misuse or unintended issues of control relating to alignment with human intent." But not much else in the conference or the coverage of it that I have seen. Is anyone surprised about this?
I am a medical student contemporaneously pursuing a master's in public health. I'm supposed to do an internship where I work on a field-relevant project for the masters, but expect to be fairly busy with my rotation schedule during normal working hours for the next couple of years. Doing an elective rotation at a county or state public health facility is probably an option, but doesn't really pique my interest. I'm wondering if any ACX reader is doing something interesting in health policy, healthcare delivery systems, epidemiology startups, or biostatistics has a project they could use my asynchronous labor in service of. I am smart and creative and would be happy to work in exchange for the institution-legible validation of the fact of this arrangement to the relevant accreditation body.
I’m a data scientist at a specialty board that does a lot of research in clinical and policy areas. I’d be happy to chat and see if there’s an overlap in interests.
Policy professionals of ACX - how difficult have you found it transitioning from one area of policy work to another? Do your skills translate well across fields in general, or are your skills specific to one domain? Or does it depend on how closely related the fields are?
Gunflint was given a one-month ban for a post of his on Scott's *My Left Kidney* thread. If you've been here for a while, you probably know who he is and what his posts are like I can't think of anyone who's more consistently kind and fair-minded than Gunflint. Here's an instance of that quality: He made no comments at all about the Israel-Palestinian situation -- then, a few days ago, posted that he felt as though he should make no comments at all about it until he spent a couple months learning about the history and cultures involved.
The comment he got banned for was indeed in violation of the 2 out of 3 / true-necessary-kind rule, but its violations were fairly mind and gentle-- certainly nowhere near as bannable as some of the furious posts we've seen in recent days about Israel-Palestine.
Gunflint's comment, along with Scott's ban, is here:
Scott's banning post is followed by posts from me and Moon Moth making the case that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, so I won't repeat any of what we said here. But if any other readers have the feeling that this ban is way too severe a consequence, I hope you'll speak up on this thread and make a case to Scott for a reduced sentence for this gentle member of ACX.
Guy(?) absolutely deserved to get banned. I've avoided reading threads I presume are filled with Israeli-Palestinian discourse, but I'd suggest to ban everyone behaving badly there.
His comment was not about Palestine-Israeli discourse. It was a thread about effective altruism. OP said he personally would not want to donate a kidney because he loved animals and would worry that his kidney would increase animal suffering by extending the life of a carnist (meat eater). Gunflint’s response was to that.
Yea, I am aware of that, sorry if that wasn't clear. I was reacting to your suggestion that Scott is tolerating too much bad debate about Israeli-Palestine issue; if so, the solution is more bans not less. I also think that rational_hippy is weird af, but they are absolutely entitled to their weird opinion in this tolerant community. And to keep this a tolerant place, Scott should imho ban everyone who steps out line until behavior improves (I am not joking). Its not like Gunflint will be hugely adversely affected by a month in commenting jail, c'mon.
I haven't had the time/energy to wade through Israel/Palestine threads, and there's a de-facto exemption for threads where everyone is being terrible at each other because it's too much work for me to figure out who the first terrible person was, and I can't figure out my principles around how to punish people who were just responding in kind to others who attacked them first.
(which I guess is itself a metaphor for Israel/Palestine)
This is probably obvious, but have you considered outsourcing the moderation? You could still serve a final arbiter to deal with edge cases, but you specifically stated that with the I/P issue in particular you would ban aggressively, which seems reasonable, as does moderation in general.
A simple system would involve a the assistant moderator identifying comments as either definitely acceptable, definitely not acceptable, or questionable, with you only needing to deal with the final category.
A candidate assistant moderator could categorize some number of flagged comments, e.g. 10, and as long as you agree with all of the definitive categorizations, then such a moderator would only be reducing your workload.
This seems valuable from a division of labor standpoint as I don't think there's much reason a priori to think that the prodigious talents necessary to create content for this blog would be necessary to moderate it.
And even if optimal moderation would require such talent, refraining from (or postponing) moderating the comment sections that require the most moderation is surely not optimal, anyway.
I banned him for a month, and I endorse this. I agree he's a great person in many other ways and I appreciate having him in the comment section, but I think that one really crossed a line. Original poster made what I thought was a good point (at least from its starting assumptions), and Gunflint tried to humiliate them and socially shame them into shutting up without really having any counterargument.
I care especially about this because it seemed like the original poster was opening up and being vulnerable about something that they knew other people could mock them for, but which was their genuine objection to donating a kidney, to see if other people had thought about it or there was a way around it. I want to create a space where people feel comfortable doing that.
I hope Gunflint comes back and continues to participate after his one month ban is up.
(some technical issues that might also explain where I'm coming from: I am only able to give one day, one week, one month, one year, or perma bans. I have pretty limited ability to give people "warnings" because there are thousands of commenters, I can't remember which ones I've warned, and although I have a list on my computer I don't check the list every time I see a new comment and I try to avoid relying on it too much.)
I wonder whether that question has some bearing on whether to have children. While the children of vegetarians are presumably more likely to grow up to be vegetarian, some of them might be carnivores.
Well this reminds me of a post about synthetic meat being opposed in Italy from a while back. I would have a very hard time replying to anyone who puts animal suffering on par with human suffering while staying civilized. Any moral system that brings you to such a conclusion must be utterly broken and I don’t think any amount of rational discussion can change that (call it a trapped prior if you will; no one said priors should have the whole space as a support). With this out of the way, I believe that pointing out to someone that their moral system is the consequence of the vantage point they have on the world (here presumably a very privileged one) is an act of kindness. Humiliation is often in the eye of the beholder.
> it seemed like the original poster was opening up and being vulnerable about something that they knew other people could mock them for, but which was their genuine objection to donating a kidney,
This is not a safe space for opening up and being vulnerable. In general, people here are smart and brusque, and on every thread there's a sprinkling of people whose agenda seems to be find something easily attackable and do a gotcha. ACX is not a safe place to disclose beliefs that are likely to be seen as weird and and expect extra consideration because they are heartfelt.
As a matter of fact I’m making myself vulnerable by posting about Gunflint’s ban. I shed actual tears over it. But I don’t expect that to get me any special consideration.
I agree that people should be able to argue against other people without worrying about their feelings, but I don't think I need to protect "tell someone they should feel ashamed of themselves with no further justification".
I agree that Gunflint's text fell short of the official standards. My argument for reducing his sentence is (1) I did not find it hard to understand his implied justification for criticizing OP's stance. My own response to OP, though in the form of a question, also carried an implied criticism (I asked if there was a case for killing carnies.) So I see Gunflint's post as oblique criticism, rather than as a sneer with no substantive argument behind it. (2) Knowing something about the committer of the deed matters. For instance I think your 1 month ban of Gunflint was a mistake, and I'm angry at you. But I respect you a lot and like you, so I don't even feel tempted to come after you the way I want to at some people on ACX who look to me like cruel, self-important assholes. (3) You bans really are inconsistent. The correlation between punishment and crime is very low. I'm pretty sure the several comments I've reported in the last coupla months would meet anyone's definition of awful, and they're still sitting on the threads. And there are probably other awful comments that others have reported. People have to read them. And their authors are still contentedly posting here.
Would you be willing to share your reason for a one month instead of a one week ban? For first strikes it seems to me that notification of the issue (that the behavior will result in a punishment) is far more important than the specific punishment. Employers give written warnings for a typical first step (which in some ways is no punishment at all), rather than suspending an employee, for instance.
I'm trying to think what a one month ban gives in terms of improving the community and helping Gunflint recognize his error that a one week punishment would not accomplish.
Agreed, Gunflint seems like a very good person, and his response seemed to be out-of-character. Thus, I think a warning would have sufficed.
I thought Gunflint made a valid point, or at least raised an issue that could have led to a good discussion, but did so with uncharacteristic harshness.
'it seemed like the original poster was opening up and being vulnerable about something that they knew other people could mock them for, but which was their genuine objection to donating a kidney"
Thank you Scott for seeing this. I felt quite discouraged to post again in the comments section after all the animosity I got last time. It's helping that some people, and in particular the blog author, notice these things
I can also see it, and I hope you keep posting. You seem like a nice person.
I think you got some of the same reaction that Scott got, for merely talking about an ethical standard which is higher than what most people adhere to in their day to day lives. Humans being the subtle social creatures we are, even a mention is often taken as criticism and pressure to do likewise. Because, well, it often is. Possibly that's not what you intended (aside from the standard tactic of "raising awareness"), but I'm pretty sure a lot of people are reacting defensively to a criticism that was not in the text you wrote.
I do feel I should say, one of the big reasons that I could also interpret the comment in a more charitable light to the writer, was that I'm kind of in that situation myself. Shit happened in my life, and then more shit, and the solution to the second shit brought more shit including gut problems, and now I am less intelligent and poorer than I used to be. I was actually moving toward vegetarianism, but have had to abandon that because whatever happened to my gut makes meat one of the few things that doesn't give me diarrhea so painful that I once passed out in the snow while knocking on random doors begging to be let in to use the bathroom. (Thanks, mapo tofu. But the silver lining is that now I know that I will not shit my pants even when it gets that bad.) And my crude attempts to debug it while brain damaged and on Medicaid haven't been successful. It's not just meat-eating; my ability to optimize for environmental impact took a huge hit, and now I can't even manage composting. My recycling is erratic, and my energy use is way higher than it used to be. I consume resources and give little back to the world. By any utilitarian standard, I'm a worse person than I used to be. I don't think people should be criticized for talking about their "first world problems", and no one ever likes to hear "check your privilege", but, well, my life is worse than it used to be, and where I once engaged with the sort of question you do, now I can't. If your life is also horrible and you still manage to engage like this, that's great, keep it up. I wish I were like you.
And the specific question you asked about how to check if a recipient met your standards? I grapple with that all the time, except for something that virtually no one cares about except myself. Most people I know, most people I love, wouldn't give it a second thought, except in the cases where I told them, and then only **because** I told them. Sure, it's caused by PTSD, and is quite possibly irrational, but it's also the strongest emotion I have ever felt in my entire life, and I struggle against it daily. Your question didn't trigger my PTSD the way the people in earlier Israel/Palestine threads did by calling for vengeance and dehumanization, but to me it's part and parcel of the same thing. I have to let go of my own desire for vengeance, for punishment, for control, for re-ordering the world in a way that seems clearly better, and accept that people are going to do what they do, and that includes being awful. Trying to force or pressure them to change, isn't going to work for me. I can't optimize for that one thing at the expense of all else. The only way forward for me that I can see involves a continuous process of forgiveness, of myself and others, and letting go of this thing I care about so much, and treating people as people instead of agents with a binary state of sin or grace. There's more to people than just the aspect that my PTSD cares so very much about.
Which of course is just me talking about myself, and how I reacted to your question. But if you want to take it as a veiled suggestion that you might want to view the future through a wider lens, and relax your mental grip on this one aspect, well, I'd support that reading too. ;-)
A person is dying in the streets, probably a carnivore. You can save him or her. What do you do? This doesn’t seem that different from not saving a person by not giving a kidney. It seems to me the logic of your position is to help no humans lest they be carnivores.
Also you elided quickly over countries and their health systems. Yet I’m sure that India has a decent enough health service - a quick google tells me that it’s a centre of medical tourism from the west. And most of India is vegetarian.
Yes this question is indeed a tough one, ethically speaking. I would of course save the person. Faced with the most apparent case of suffering I believe it is my duty to stop it, and second order problems can wait. In the best possible world I would ask the person, after saving them, that they consider giving up on contributing to the torture of conscious beings. I would now feel that I have a moral duty to convince this person.
But the situation where you give a kidney to a complete stranger is conceptually different, isn't it? You are going out there, trying to do a good deed without ever "seeing" the consequences of your action. So you can spend time refining your best guess of what the consequences are, exactly. What is the point of taking an action meant to alleviate the suffering that exists out there - not the suffering of any specific individual - if your action counterfactually ends up increasing suffering greatly?
But I think it's only fair to return the question to you. So I invite you to put yourself in my shoes and assume this point, just for a minute: "the suffering of conscious beings matters, independently of their shape or intelligence". In order to do so I invite you to consider this thought experiment:
You live in a world where most people contribute to the torture of innumerable other humans during their lifetime. Unbeknownst to them. None of them are "bad people", they just aren't aware that they are paying for the torture of other persons every day. You are in a situation to save one of these people. What do you do?
Would you, like me, save the person? Would you also, like me, refrain from giving a kidney to a random person in this hypothetical world?
I am very interested in any other resolutions that you see to this paradox, besides rejecting the starting assumption that suffering of all beings matters.
Well of course one important difference between the 2 situations is that saving the person in the street does not involve any personal pain or risk for you, whereas kidney donation does. But your concerns about kidney donation don't seem to have anything to do with the risk to you, so let's set that aside.
With that consideration set aside, seems to me that the main difference between the 2 situations is that the person dying on the street is visible, and so is their suffering, whereas all the people in need of a kidney, and their personal suffering, are not. The people in renal failure are like the animals being tortured in the labs of pharmaceutical companies and on factory farms -- people know that they are there, and are suffering, but none of it's right under their nose.
As for the thought experiment: Yes, I would give a kidney to the person on the world where all were unknowingly paying for the torture of other people. That person's not all that different from me. I don't eat meat, but I eat dairy, and wear leather, and take drugs that were tested on animals in terrible ways. And besides, all extreme suffering is innocent. When someone is reduced to that feeling of oh, please, make the pain stop and oh, please save me, they are at their innocent core. You know what a lot of people's last word is? "Mommy."
And after I saved the person I would tell them about the torture they were contributing to, and try to interest them in doing what that could to stop it. Of course I might not convince them, but it's the best chance I'd ever get to make a difference in the world they lived in. There's no better way to make someone receptive to your ideas than to be kind to them.
Interesting because I think we fundamentally agree in everything you have said. And yes, every suffering is innocent, very well phrased. And unlike what others seem to assume here, my reasoning is never driven by a "punishment" mentality, this would be abhorrent. I do not care if the person I am saving is "good" or 'bad" according to my system, it is not the end goal, the end goal is that my action overall has positive consequences.
But you have just simplified the thought experiment by assuming that you can reach out to the person and try to convince them to change their ways. I would be curious to hear if your conclusion changes when you take it at face value, and assume that you will have no mean to contact the person you save, and they will go on (unbeknownst to them) creating more suffering around them?
>>But the situation where you give a kidney to a complete stranger is conceptually different, isn't it? You are going out there, trying to do a good deed without ever "seeing" the consequences of your action. So you can spend time refining your best guess of what the consequences are, exactly. What is the point of taking an action meant to alleviate the suffering that exists out there - not the suffering of any specific individual - if your action counterfactually ends up increasing suffering greatly?
I wouldn't argue that there's a duty to donate kidneys, and you yourself seem to consider it a morally laudable choice - after all, you called Scott's decision one of selfless courage.
But I still have a hard time distinguishing your line of thinking from a window-dressed version of the statement “I’m not saying I’d kill people personally, but it’s actually good when they die."
Consider, for example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the killing of the Rohingya. Most people think that some sort of intervention (or at least, the taking of refugees) in that situation is a good thing. But, assuming most of those refugees would be meat eaters, your thinking seems to point in the other direction.
If manmade situations seem different, what about natural disasters or epidemics? They "just happen to some people" similarly to kidney disease.
Again, you lauded Scott's decision, so I have a hard time imagining you holding a protest sign at a rally that reads, "minimize suffering of conscious creatures - no earthquake assistance for Haiti! No money for Ebola!" But it's where your argument leads (at least as I read it). I don't see a distinguishing principle there.
My objection to this remains the same: animals are not humans. And you didn't expand on your reasons, instead you came across as obnoxiously virtue signalling, as well as sorting out humans into categories of "deserve to live by my metrics" and "unworthy of life".
"God's bodkin, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity - the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty" .
You care more about the potential sum of burgers the potential kidney recipient might eat over the course of their life. Fine. That's a reason, and that's your reason. Nobody is going to kidnap you so the Thought Experiment Surgeon can carve you up to save five other patients. But don't phrase it as "I am SO morally superior and on SUCH a higher plane because I think of this mealy-mouthed objection to the real problem of people dying due to lack of organ donation".
Biting the bullet and rejecting the starting assumption? Fair enough.
Well, it seems very obvious to me that what matters is not "human suffering" but "consciousness suffering".
Are you disagreeing? If so I would argue that the burden of proof lies on you to explain why you carve such an exception for animals of your own species. But if insist that the burden of proof lies on me, I can point you to many resources that explain why there is zero rational (literally zero) for applying a different moral system to humans vs other conscious beings.
Fundamental criticism about someone’s identity often appears unkind and unnecessary. It can be. However there are, crucially, some instances when it is not. One of the roles of ideology is to have the lower classes believe that the ruling class is not just stronger and more powerful but also morally superior. This way the lower classes will attempt to individually emulate the ruling class rather than collectively fighting it. This is what the “American dream” is about. I take his comment to be pointing out this basic fact (of which you may of course question the truthfulness). From this point of view it is kind and necessary. But the way ideology blends in with identity makes it hard to see, and it is inevitably perceived as an ad hominem.
Now is this comment kind and necessary? My previous comment is indeed in line with a Marxist interpretation of reality, which you may choose to call “propaganda”. Having read das Kapital and a selection of later marxist authors I am certainty aware that I am not saying anything new here.
Crazy world we live in that you can just openly admit that and still be allowed to operate in polite (internet) society. Like, imagine someone just casually citing a Hitler quote unironically, as a true representation of their beliefs, and then openly admitted that they were citing Hitler. And your ideology killed far more than that one.
Lots of pixels being spilt over this. It was a mean comment and also so lacking in point I am not sure I have understood it. It seems to be saying This is easy for you to do with your comfortable upper class lifestyle, which would be sort of valid if the donation had been of a large but not life-changing (for the donor) sum of money. A kidney's a kidney no matter what your income.
Also, meta about banning issues is often banned. A good rule, tho apparently not in force here, so I ought to shut up.
Also also the ban is already about 22% done. I know this because I am having an alcohol free November so have this sort of stat at my fingertips just now.
> Also, meta about banning issues is often banned. A good rule, tho apparently not in force here, so I ought to shut up.
Meta-meta: Agree to disagree. I kind of likes Scott's transparency approach. Allowing discussions about bans is in the same spirit. The traditional alternative of deleting banworthy posts and forbidding discussions about bans kind of turns participation into a game of Mao.
Meta: the comment is in response not to Scott's post (like I initially thought) but to someone implying that saving a human live may be net negative due to their carnivorism. So it was more "you live in some weird ivory tower devoid of any human suffering if you have to think of saving a human life might be net negative on average". I still think it was a low effort comment. Others managed to push back against the sentiment of that poster without getting banned for it.
Does anyone know why there are lots of ready available medications to lower blood pressure if it is too high but (apparently) none to raise blood pressure if it is too low?
I mean, in addition to the other answers pointing out that high blood pressure is more dangerous and common... I'm not sure about your claim that there are no drugs to raise blood pressure. One potential search term is 'inotropic agents' which increase the heart's ejection fraction, thereby increasing blood pressure.
Digoxin used to be used long term, but was considered too dangerous. Part of that was having a narrow therapeutic index (so it was easy to overdose.) I'm pretty sure it's still used short term to help stabilize people with harmfully low blood pressure.
Having skimmed through that page and some articles, it seems that low blood pressure is just generally less dangerous than high blood pressure. It's not going to suddenly kill you like hypertension will; you'll probably start getting dizzy and fainting before it does any permanent damage. Chronic hypotension also seems to be much rarer than hypertension, with most cases being caused by conditions relating to aging or other medications (though I can't seem to find any data on how common or rare it actually is). I wouldn't be surprised if it was undertreated for those reasons as well, though again, it probably isn't going to kill you unless there's other stuff also killing you.
I was prescribed a drug that had this effect. One night early on, I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, got out of bed and stood up, and promptly fainted on my floor. I'm lucky that I'm physically sturdy, and there was something soft there to break my fall, and that I didn't hit my head. After that, I learned to do a multistep "getting out of bed" process, where I gradually increased the height of my head over a few minutes.
It's said to be a cultural thing. No data for this but here in the old world it is said that UK doctors are high blood pressure hawks and think the lower the better unless you can't stand up without fainting, while in Europe they will prescribe stuff to raise it to normal.
That's a great question and I don't have a full answer. Here's a partial one:
There are drugs that do this - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihypotensive_agent for a list. But the ones I know about either have many side effects or work very short term, and are more often used (for example) in hospitals to deal with severe blood loss.
I don't know of anything commonly used for people whose blood pressure just constantly runs low. The Internet tells me that fludrocortisone and midodrine are sometimes used for orthostatic hypotension (blood pressure that drops too much when you stand up), but I admit I rarely hear about them.
Maybe this is because doctors don't take chronic low blood pressure as seriously as chronic high blood pressure. My understanding is it can sometimes make people feel faint or tired, but isn't as linked to long-term complications as high blood pressure is.
Or maybe it's because there's not as big a market and pharma companies haven't been incentivized to do the hard work of finding drugs with few side effects.
I'd be interested to hear from someone who knows more.
I have orthostatic hypotension and generally low blood pressure. My hands and feet get cold easily in the winter. I eat lots of potato chips ;-) After I had a heart ablation and was prescribed Elequis the orthostatic hypotension went away, and came back when I stopped the Elequis. I told this to my cardiologist and he said "That's interesting". Maybe I should ask my PCP about fludrocortisone and midodrine? Risk/benefit ratios...
I have actually treated patients with chronic, difficult to manage low blood pressure, but it's almost always downstream of other medical problems. The important equation here is blood pressure = cardiac output x peripheral vascular resistance which I will henceforth abbreviate as BP = CO x PVR and is learned faithfully by generations of first year medical students.
Cardiac output is impaired by heart failure. You might ask, are there drugs that increase cardiac output? The answer is yes, but paradoxically these make heart failure worse in the long term so we don't use them. Instead we use drugs that actually decrease peripheral vascular resistance AND cardiac output, so we play with fire sometimes with the blood pressure in patients with bad heart disease. What we're trying to do is reduce stress on the heart - but not so much that it decompensates. Intractably low blood pressure is actually one of the indications for a cardiac transplant.
PVR is impaired by cirrhosis of the liver which dilates blood vessels by dramatically increasing pressure on veins that pass through the liver. The medical term for this is splanchnic vasodilation, and it's treated by a drug called terlipressin.
You can also have something called postural hypotension, which is where the body's natural response to dilate blood vessels in the brain and constrict blood vessels in the legs when you stand up (so all the blood doesn't fall into your feet) stops working, the most common cause is Parkinson's disease. This causes blood pressure that is fine, even high, when the patient is lying down, but as soon as they stand up they feel dizzy. This is treated by compression stockings that force the blood up to where it needs to be (and/or fludrocortisone/midodrine, see my prev comment)
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, please contact me at internal_medicine_is_fun at gmail.com to learn more!
This BP stuff is fascinating. I've always had lower BP (100/60 isn't abnormal for me). A few years ago, I was prescribed amlodipine (7.5mg), an antihypertension drug, to prevent pernio caused by primary Reynaud's. I've talked to others with Reynaud's who haven't been offered amlodipine. Do you have any thoughts reactions about the use of anti-HT drugs to lessen symptoms of Reynaud's?
It’s definitely a thing but the rationale is not to lower blood pressure, it’s because amlodipine helps to dilate blood vessels. Blood pressure lowering may be a troublesome side effect.
Oh there absolutely are drugs for low blood pressure!
The two that Scott lists - fludrocortisone and midodrine - are the ones you see most frequently in the outpatient setting. They are essentially the opposites of drugs that are used to treat high blood pressure. Fludrocortisone is a mineralocorticoid agonist; the much more frequently used spironolactone is a mineralocorticoid antagonist. Essentially (simplifying greatly) this means that fludrocortisone causes you to retain fluid whereas spironolactone is a diuretic.
Midodrine is an alpha-1 receptor agonist which causes constriction of blood vessels. This is the opposite of prazosin, an old anti-hypertensive drug, which causes dilation of blood vessels. Blood pressure can be given by the product of cardiac output and peripheral vascular resistance, so constricting blood vessels will raise blood pressure by increasing vascular resistance.
The ones you see most frequently overall are used in the ICU because low blood pressure is kind of a medical emergency! If systolic blood pressure drops below 90 mmHg you risk there not being enough blood pressure to supply key organs (brain, kidneys.) These are called vasopressors and work kind of similarly to midodrine above (again, greatly oversimplifying). The most common is noradrenaline (here in Australia, that is, it's called norepinephrine in the States) which is related to adrenaline, the main hormone secreted by your adrenal glands in the sympathetic fight or flight response. Rapidly constricts blood vessels.
Why don't you hear more about it? Simple; for most people their blood pressure is too high rather than too low. Same reason you don't hear more about drugs that help you gain weight, or drugs that increase your cholesterol level.
Thanks, a question for you. A friend has low blood pressure (can't remember the exact numbers, let's say high 90s low 100s systolic). She gets tired if she stands up too long and prefers to be sitting or (preferably) lying down. She also feels more energetic if she's had a lot of fluids and electrolytes, and feels extra useless if she hasn't. She thinks of this as chronic low blood pressure and wonders if she would have more energy if she had some kind of pressor. Does this seem plausible to you?
Right, so I'll start with the caveat that you and your friend definitely should not be taking medical advice from random commenters on your blog named after aquatic reptiles.
My first thought though would probably be that her low blood pressure and general fatigue/malaise are both downstream of something else. Has she seen her family doctor and had blood work done? Thyroid issues and low iron are especially common; other less common things to rule out are endocrine disorders such as Addison's disease and autoimmune issues like lupus.
Some people just genetically have a lower blood pressure than others, especially if they're physically smaller. An ex girlfriend of mine (around 5 feet tall) ran quite happily around the low 90s.
Thanks, this is a good answer for the specific situation, but I'm curious why it is so much more common in low blood pressure than high blood pressure. Is it just a brute fact that hypertension is more often primary but hypotension more often secondary?
It's a brute fact yes, 95% of hypertension is primary (or "essential hypertension") whereas hypotension is almost all secondary - you can think of it in the medical school framework of classification of shock - hypovolaemic vs cardiogenic vs obstructive vs vasodilatory (including septic/anaphylactic/spinal.)
As to why this is, to the best of my knowledge the physiologists are still arguing about it. Clearly essential hypertension is associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and high cholesterol, but in terms of an actual physiologic mechanism, there are various hypotheses (RAAS dysfunction, increased salt reabsorption), none of them entirely convincing. I vaguely recall one of my professors talking with interest about a new hypothesis to do with loss of aortic wall elasticity; this was a few years ago and it may have been refuted by now. A quick Googling turns up this https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/aortic-pressure
I think I finally went to one of those Bay Area house parties. There were at least two people with paperclip-maximizing costumes, one OpenAI employee, and some very weird burlesque. Didn't encounter the urbanist coven, though.
Posted here since I'm at work and not looking to make an account on a new website:
Within just a few moments, I had a huge flag that this hasn't been thought through when I saw the line: "there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor."
There are all kinds of costs/burdens for a charity that wants to do investment work. Just to start, you have IRC 4943, which prohibits a private foundation from owning more than 20% (in certain circumstances 35%) of a for-profit entity.
There's an exception in IRC 4943(g), commonly called the "Newman's Own exception," where a private foundation can be exempt from that cap if it owns 100% of a business, a bunch of other requirements are met, and, pointedly, "all the private foundation’s ownership interests in the business enterprise were acquired by means other than by purchase." But that means you have to build the product, not invest in someone else's idea along the lines a venture capital fund would.
And yes, there are exceptions to the exceptions - "program related investments" that meet certain requirements don't count toward the ownership cap, for example, and these rules are specific to private foundations, so if your organization can qualify as a public charity or a 501c4 you have more leeway (look at Yvon Chouinard's giving Patagonia to a 501c4, for example), but anyone approaching this morass from the perspective that "there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor" is operating with some very naively calibrated blinders.
This stuff has been tried before, and it mostly just yielded reams of abuse. A good primer for anyone interested would be some of the scandals around foundations in the 50s, which lead to the reforms in the Revenue Act of 1964. To be sure, those reforms have been made and a lot of holes are patched, but there's still plenty of room for incentives to go sideways in these arrangements, and all those patches create additional administrative costs for Mr. West's hypothetical Guiding Company.
If he's serious about pursuing this idea I'd recommend he grab himself a lawyer with experience in the nonprofit sector and get an honest sense of what the constraints he's looking at are.
I wanted to pick out this part from the linked proposal:
"Won’t there be moral objections to activities that normal businesses use to compete, such as extreme executive compensation, environmental effect, low worker pay? This is a tricky question, but for one, it is not clear to me that bad behavior is necessarily the most effective business strategy, and firms may enjoy a premium for avoiding acting poorly. But even if Guiding Companies engage in activities that consumers take issue with regarding traditional firms, such as competitive (i.e., princely) compensation for CEOs, it is not clear why this would cause a consumer to choose a company that enriches shareholder over a company that helps fight global poverty. People all over the world choose the “lesser of two evils” in the political contexts routinely."
Well, let me be the resident wet blanket here, but the public absolutely *do* care about charity bosses and their salaries. Allow me to link you to the tale of an Irish charity, Rehab, and the little scandals from back in 2014. Mostly it was about the remuneration of the CEO and the cronies, but there was a detour into using the charity (and the donated and taxpayer money) to enrich the CEO and her family - sorry, I mean, employ disabled people by the charity in a scheme to import oak coffins from China, have them worked on by the charity workshop and then sold to the public (or presumably undertakers), which unfortunately turned out to be a failed venture.
As all this came out in the wash, it torpedoed donations to Rehab and not alone them but other charities in Ireland (it didn't help that there were a few other scandals in the charity sector around the same time). People do expect charities to put the bulk of money to the purposes for which they were founded, and not to pay the same kind of salaries as private businesses. They definitely will stop donating and they definitely will not buy the goods or services produced:
Charities, like Caesar's wife, have to be above suspicion. Besides, do you not remember the scandal around the breast cancer charity when it tangled with Planned Parenthood?
They came out the wrong side in the fight with PP in 2012 and that triggered a lot of hostile investigation into them, leading to a series of controversies from 2011-2017. Those would probably have come up anyway, but being seen to be in any way less than 100% supportive of PP did encourage a lot of scrutiny into their affairs.
That's only one such problem. It's remarkable how much of this proposal is, "Assume I'm right, therefore I'm right." The person who wrote this clearly hasn't had much experience or thought through the practicalities very much.
I'm inclined to go a bit easy on him, since he's demonstrating the failure mode of EA: "Hey, I have this great idea, wouldn't it be great if it worked, there's no reason I can see why it wouldn't!" and ignoring the 'boring guys in grey suits' aspects of such things. Nice people who mean well and want to do good, and don't want to sweat the "sorry but somebody has to file the paperwork in triplicate" nitty-gritty of running things in the real world.
At least he's not (I hope!) trying to pass off "let's buy a castle - sorry, historic manor house in its own grounds - and that will be Very Good for... reasons" as 'this will get money to good causes for the relief of people suffering plague, famine, war and natural disasters'.
I am trying to be nice too. But I guess I do get frustrated when rationalists stumble onto an idea and then don't do any research into the subject to see if someone else has had it and how it turned out. Of course, they can still try to change things. I'm not saying they need to accept the current structure. But it's good to know what you're changing, especially when it's something technical.
And to be honest I'm doubly annoyed because I spent a while going around telling EA they should do something like this (but with a more thorough actual business plan) and got a very negative reaction. To see a basically less thought out version getting positive feedback annoys me. But such is life. EA really does have an extremely strong social component where saying shibboleths etc is a load bearing part of getting funded.
"But I guess I do get frustrated when rationalists stumble onto an idea and then don't do any research into the subject to see if someone else has had it and how it turned out."
Well, bless their hearts, that was how they started out, wasn't it? Let's Do Charity Gooder!
And to give them credit, they did things like mosquito nets, even if they've now shifted to "flying around to conferences talking about AI risk".
At least this proposal was still "how about if we set up charities to do business and then they could keep *all* the profits for the charitable purpose!" and not "why don't we buy a castle, because I went to some conferences in big fancy places that were like castles and it was so cool and impressive and I'd love if we could be fancy and cool too".
The cost of endowing a foundation with shares in one company is that you're foregoing a diversified portfolio.
I guess there could be a marketing advantage, since the "made in America" and "family-owned business" labels have to be there for a reason, and the latter is literally a statement that profits go to rich people instead of middle class retirement funds! That's definitely one alternative to EA...
My suggestion is legitimately to go take a few intro courses for business. I think your heart's in the right place but you clearly need some further training.
> This is because charities are more popular than normal investors
It's a basic truism that what people say they care about and how they actually make decisions are widely different. There are numerous, numerous case studies where strong survey sentiments didn't translate into actions. And preference for charity is one of the basic cases you'll get in an undergrad business course. I also know several companies who tried to advertise with philanthropy all of whom found people cared less about that than the packaging.
> and there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor.
Of course there is. The additional cost is the foregone return on investment to the people who put up the money. With a for-profit investment I can raise money through promising to return the money with additional amounts. With a charity I can't.
> Thus, these businesses working for charities, which I call Guiding Companies, could offer goods and services at the same price and of the same quality as ordinary businesses.
No, they couldn't, because they lack the same mechanisms to raise capital. And the cost of capital affects prices.
> Consequently, the project of creating and making the public aware of these companies-working-for- charities is potentially very high-impact, because these companies could tap into the profits in the broader economy and generate billions of dollars for effective charities.
Aligning corporate incentives and founding companies that serve a social purpose is potentially high impact. But your mistake is how you're going about it.
> In any case, companies seldom advertise who is profiting on the seller side. Consequently, there is a dimension of difference in the global consumer economy on which almost no sellers compete:: the identity of the entities that benefit from your purchase, often, owners in some form.
This is simply untrue. Corporations frequently advertise who their owners are and are so organized around this there are explicit government laws privileging companies based on who owns the business.
I'd suggest you look at the Social Enterprise movement or the B-Corp trend which have been thinking about this much longer than you have and has actually managed to have some major successes including multiple billion dollar plus companies. Of course, they don't give to EA but to other charities because they're not EAs. But they do generate plenty of money for non-profit causes. It also empirically works. If you want I can answer questions about that.
>> and there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor.
>Of course there is. The additional cost is the foregone return on investment to the people who put up the money. With a for-profit investment I can raise money through promising to return the money with additional amounts. With a charity I can't.
I don't understand this objection. I think there's some confusion (on your part or the OP's or mine) about who the players are in this scenario.
If I understand correctly, the charity *is* "the people who put up the money", and they still do get their return on investment from the business.
And the business does still "promis[e] to return the money with additional amounts" to the charity that invested in it.
Relative to the traditional model where investors invest in businesses, I think the OP is suggesting replacing the *investor* with a charity, and keeping the business unchanged; but I think you're reading it as if he's suggesting replacing the *business* with a charity and keeping the investor unchanged.
Going one level up doesn't change the problem (which I did understand). How does the charity get the money? Even charities have a cost of capital. And they must raise that capital without being able to promise a return on investment to their donors. So it's generally going to be higher.
Also, I didn't get into this, but the government has rules meant to prevent a charity from basically just being an index fund. Nonprofits must spend money on their mission primarily and if they don't they can forcibly lose their status.
I think the charity gets money the same way it usually does, so it's the difference between "I donate $100 to the charity and they spend that $100 on their core mission" (let's ignore their admin costs for now) and "I donate $100 to the charity, they invest it, and get back maybe $110 (not guaranteed, but on average), and spend that on their core mission." They'd be "competing" for capital against traditional charity donations, not against investments that people make for their own benefit.
Donors with a low risk tolerance wouldn't have to donate to this; they could donate to traditional charities that skip the investment step. (And people's risk tolerance might be higher with their charitable donations than with their retirement savings.)
The government regulation point is a good one. So I guess the answer to the OP's question about why charities and businesses don't do this is that it's against the regulations, and maybe the OP needs to lobby to change the regulations.
Unless you think that charities spend less to get capital than profit bearing investments (which they don't) then I don't see the logic of this argument. Yes, charities can raise money. They don't get to promise people returns though. As a result it generally costs more because from an economic point of view the donor/investor is spending more to donate than to invest, foregoing the potential returns on the money they'd otherwise get (as well as the potential to get the principal back).
I think we're still at cross purposes, and I'm not quite sure why.
This hypothetical charity isn't competing for funds against investment vehicles that give investors a return. It's competing against traditional charities that don't do that. So it not giving its donors a return isn't relevant.
A given charity could even switch from the traditional model to the investment model, and then its income would probably stay roughly the same (most donors would stick with it out of inertia; some would churn because they don't approve of the investment model; other new ones might join because they do actively like it). Then it would be "competing" with its previous self, not with any investment vehicle.
I'm not an economist, so I may be missing something. But it seems to me like you're comparing apples and oranges - as if you're criticising a new concert concept by saying "no one would pay for these concert tickets because concerts don't pay returns to their customers," when that's not the reason people pay for concert tickets, and they funge against other forms of entertainment, not against other investments.
This does leave us with the question of what the appropriate body of water is, and what the appropriate sword is. Would the San Francisco Bay work for the water?
I'm not sure you're not the rightful holder of the crown. How do you make long, knowledgeable comments on so many topics? I've been trying to figure out your actual job for a while now and still can't decide between "member of the diplomatic corps", "economist", and "some kind of high-level business manager executive person"
I suspect the diplomat stuff is that I bet a lot on the world getting more open and economically integrated early in my career. That bet did not pay off. I guessed the macroeconomic trend wrong. But it left me with a lot of foreign connections and knowledge.
Many royal titles incorporated lesser titles as well. If we consider that a Caliph is very (very) roughly equivalent to the Holy Roman Emperor, then Emperors were also kings of various realms as well:
Many feudal titles can be held simultaneously. Indeed, being Rightful Caliph of the Less Wrong diaspora will likely help him secure his power base for being King of the Nerds.
However, I suspect that the crown is actually still held by Randall Monroe.
MrBeast is one of the largest YouTubers. Recently he released a video building 100 water wells in Africa. One of his comments was that other governments or agencies should be doing this, but they're not. He recently cured blindness in 100 Americans by paying for some surgery as well.
Trying to think about these situations. I don't like that these people are basically being left to fend for themselves until some rich YouTuber shows up to help them. But the alternative seems to be that they don't get any help at all. I don't think it's optimal to focus the criticisms on MrBeast, but rather on government for failing to resolve these issues.
I don't like that this guy is basically making videos as a savior for a bunch of people because I think we should already be helping them out.
Why are we unable to determine as a society that resolving blindness in people through a cheap routine surgery is worth subsidizing?
It can't cost that much and then at the SOTU the president can celebrate that we erradicated certain medical conditions from US soil, which I'd find really inspiring.
I have a followup question, actually. Why are there villages in Africa without wells? Humans have been digging wells for thousands of years. Human villages only tend to spring (no pun intended) up where there's easy access to water. How long have these villages existed, sans wells, in locations where you can just dig a goddamn well to get access to water? And why haven't the villagers ever thought "Hey we should probably just dig a well one of these days instead of walking ten miles to the river every day"?
"Why are we unable to determine as a society that resolving blindness in people through a cheap routine surgery is worth subsidizing?"
Our failure to do this suggests (to me) that looking for "society" to solve this problem is the problem. "society" cannot solve anything because individuals have to take action. Mr Beast is an individual taking action and solving the problem. We should celebrate that and encourage more individuals to take action.
> Our failure to do this suggests (to me) that looking for "society" to solve this problem is the problem. "society" cannot solve anything because individuals have to take action
Yet some societies do have universal healthcare. And Florida is actively resisting it.
> I don't like that this guy is basically making videos as a savior for a bunch of people because I think we should already be helping them out.
You emotions are understandable, but please, be aware that the valid reason for your anger isn't "a rich guy is being a saviour for people" part, but "these people had not been helped beforehand" part.
> Why are we unable to determine as a society that resolving blindness in people through a cheap routine surgery is worth subsidizing?
I think current political equilibrium in USA makes it memetically impossible.
Bleeding hearts naturally gravitate towards Democratic party and then get gridlocked by accusations of being commies and questions of "Who is gonna pay for it", which Republicans are quite proficient in and they have an obvious political motivation to keep doing it: successful eradication of blindness by a Democratic campaign will make Republicans loose points.
Honestly, it's a miracle that human society managed to coordinate even around the current solution of "rich celebrities create an entartainment out of helping people".
I'd love to live in a country where Republicans are "quite proficient" at curtailing spending by asking who's going to pay for it, but I don't currently live in such a country to my knowledge.
Not curtailing spending in general. I'm talking about a specific case of preventing Democrats from realising projects that would help a lot of people.
Indeed, if there was a party that consistently opposed budget spending, instead of only doing it when they are not in the office and then switching their tune when it's time to build a useless border wall - the situation in US would be much better.
Yes. I feel most Ds and Rs miss the forest for the trees. Both parties bicker back and forth about what should be paid for, and never make progress...
...until the military comes and asks for a few extra billion dollars to cover for the billions they lost last year and have no idea where it went. Then the professional Ds and Rs get right on that issue and solve it overnight.
And a few other items like military that never fail to garner bipartisan support.
The fact that Ape is blaming the Rs for the problems is precisely what the Ds and Rs want out of all of us. Keep our eyes off the prize.
The fact that both Ds and Rs keep spending money on bullshit doesn't contradict the fact that Rs are good at not letting Ds to spend money on good things.
That's one way to put it, I suppose. Another way might be this: Ds like to spend money buying votes, taxes are a form of theft/slavery, and Rs are preventing Ds from stealing/enslaving if not you, your children and grandchildren who are going to have to pay back the debt.
So I guess you need to answer why is it that if this money Ds want to spend is so well spent, why is it the Rs wake up in the morning and say: "I need to stop good things from happening with other people's money!"
Things aren't nearly as simple as you're trying to make them.
Stretching the definition of slavery to a point where it includes taxation makes it loose all meaning. At this point nearly any form of economical activity is also slavery. Definitely not the way to cut reality by its joints. We can still do it and start talking about good slavery and bad slavery, but this is silly.
Also, you seem to contradict yourself here. You've just noticed that R are not actually against taxes or budget deficit. So the story about them saving regular people from it is just plain wrong.
> why is it the Rs wake up in the morning and say: "I need to stop good things from happening with other people's money!"
I've answered it in the first post. It's not in R interest to let D spend money in a good way, as it will harm R electability. There are of course more factors, such as protecting interests of super wealthy, historical legacy, falling for your own propaganda and, in some cases, just being bad people. But I think electability angle is the most important here.
I don't think you can say this without also including the (more Democrat-leaning) side that questions whether it is ethical to cure blindness at all. Republicans will at least generally agree that blindness is bad and curing it is good (while questioning who pays for it*). Many on the left seem to be stuck in a rut where they deny disabilities are actually bad, leading to condemnation of those who even try to help.
*-Which is a complicated social conditioning question, that revolves around what incentives individuals have in life. By taking away all incentives for people to do things for themselves, we may be reducing their actual ability and making them more dependent on others. I don't think many on the right are against helping blind people to see, but worry about how to set up a society that handles that for other people that doesn't devolve into a society where large numbers of people are incapable of helping with their own needs or contributing to society, when they otherwise would be able to do so.
I don't think disability activists have enough power in the Democratic coalition to veto blindness curing project, but a fair point, nontheless.
It actually opens an interesting possibility for clever and good intentioned republican politician. They can provoke some disability activists, get labeled as as eugenisist and thus frame blindness curing as a political issue where Democrats are in opposition, thus making Republicans to support blindness curing project out of spite, then do it in most reasonable way, and reap all the political benefits.
Of course, this would require a politician who is clever, and good intentioned, and republican and I'm not sure that even "pick any two out of three" option is real in US politics at the time.
> I don't think many on the right are against helping blind people to see, but worry about how to set up a society that handles that for other people that doesn't devolve into a society where large numbers of people are incapable of helping with their own needs or contributing to society, when they otherwise would be able to do so.
Well that's definetely the story they tell themselves. I'd say it requires about five minutes to honestly think about it, to notice that curing blindness is much more likely to improve the ability of people to help themselves and to contribute to society than to decrease it. But again, it would actually require people to honestly think about something for about five minutes, which is not an easy ask.
I suppose I deserve the same level of snark I used myself, but do we actually have an object level disagreement here? Do you claim that using tax payers money to cure blindness is going to make people net less productive? If so could you make your case as detailed as possible? I promise to spend at least literal five minutes honestly and open mindedly thinking about your arguments even if it turns out to be something I've already seen before.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics: "The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it...."
The Newtonian Model of Ethics: "If morality is indeed an unusual form of gravitation, it will vary with the square of the distance between two objects.
Imagine a village of a hundred people somewhere in the Congo. Ninety-nine of these people are malnourished, half-dead of poverty and starvation, oozing from a hundred infected sores easily attributable to the lack of soap and clean water. One of those people is well-off, living in a lovely two-story house with three cars, two laptops, and a wide-screen plasma TV. He refuses to give any money whatsoever to his ninety-nine neighbors, claiming that they’re not his problem. At a distance of a ten meters – the distance of his house to the nearest of their hovels – this is monstrous and abominable.
Now imagine that same hundredth person living in New York City, some ten thousand kilometers away. It is no longer monstrous and abominable that he does not help the ninety-nine villagers left in the Congo. Indeed, it is entirely normal; any New Yorker who spared too much thought for the Congo would be thought a bit strange, a bit with-their-head-in-the-clouds, maybe told to stop worrying about nameless Congolese and to start caring more about their friends and family.
This is, of course, completely rational. New York City, at ten thousand kilometers, is one million times further away from the suffering villagers as the original well-off man’s ten meters..."
I find it amusing that every time Mr Beast spends money doing good things for other people, he cops criticism, but when he spends money on crushing a Lamborghini or running a train into a giant pit then nobody complains at all.
If you feel like "we" should be doing more to help out blind people then feel free to put your own money into it though.
I think it's a net positive that he's helping people rather than doing nothing. But I think it would be even better if we could take steps to resolve these systemic issues entirely. By making those videos he brings up the problem to the attention of viewers, which allows us to have discussions as to whether or not they should be resolved at a different level. An individualistic solution would barely move the needle; I could donate all of my belongings and it wouldn't be enough.
The fact that private philanthropy is that effective in reducing human suffering is kind of embarrassing for human institutions.
In dath ilan, the kind of net good that curing blindness is would of course be provided by Civilization. Private charity might still find some niches (e.g. buying video games for poor kids), but all the low-hanging fruits would be taken care of par course.
In our own fallen world where big institutions are rarely very effective at this sort of thing, it falls to the individuals to pick up the slack. I think it is important to remember that most helpful institutions we have started out as a handful of individuals trying to solve a problem. Both money and publicity can help a cause, so either one is good.
"An individualistic solution would barely move the needle; I could donate all of my belongings and it wouldn't be enough."
I suggest not thinking of things this way. If you make an average US salary, you could probably donate enough to cure one blind person per year. That "barely moves the needle" in the context of thousands of blind people in the US. But curing all blind people in the US would barely move the needle in the context of all the blind people in the world. And curing all blind people in the world would barely move the needle in the context of total human suffering. And ending all human suffering would barely move the needle in the context of all human/animal/alien suffering throughout history.
Either you think everything is pointless forever, or you accept that helping one person does a lot for that one person and is valuable in itself (though of course helping two people would be even better and so on). I've found the second to be healthier.
Another way of putting this is: you can change things by donating your money directly to blind people. Or you can change things by donating your time/activism/energy to systemic change. Both of these are tiny and meaningless - your money (without anyone else's money) will only directly save a tiny number of blind people, and your activism (without anyone else's activism) will only go 0.01% of the way to changing government policy. Both of these are tiny - do whichever one is easier for you and/or gives higher numbers when you multiply out the chance of benefit by the size of the benefit and get the expected value.
(Though I also add an extra fudge term for donating involving me spending my own money, which is proper and virtuous, and government action involving me trying to spend other people's money, which is dangerous when taken too far. Your extra fudge terms may differ.)
Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
"There’s a story about an old man walking down a beach. He sees a child picking up starfish and throwing them into the water. The man asks the child what he’s doing, and the child says that these starfish are stuck on land at low tide. They can’t survive out of water, so he’s throwing them back in the ocean to save them. The old man says, “But surely you know that there are millions of starfish just on this one beach. And there are thousands of beaches all around the world. And this same thing happens at high tide day after day, forever. You’ll never be able to make a difference.” And the child just picks up another starfish, throws it into the ocean, and said “Made a difference to that one!”
I remember when I told the Comet King this story. He got very quiet, and finally I asked what he was thinking. Still half-lost in thought, he answered: “Even a small change to the moon’s orbit could prevent the tidal cycle. Moving the moon would take immense energy, but the Wrathful Name has the power of a hydrogen bomb and can be written on a piece of paper weighing only a fraction of a gram. The Saturn V has a payload of about ten thousand kilograms, so perhaps twenty million instances of the Wrathful Name . . . hmmmmmm . . . no, it still wouldn’t be enough. We’d need a better rocket. Perhaps if you could combine a methane/LOX full-flow system with a prayer invoking the Kinetic Name . . .” He picked up a napkin and started sketching, and was diverted from his trance only when I reminded him that starfish had evolved for life in the intertidal zone and were probably fine. He flashed me one of his fierce smiles and I couldn’t tell whether or not he had been joking all along."
If you haven't considered a different opportunity, pursuing this one hasn't cost you anything; you wouldn't otherwise be spending the time more wisely, you'd be spending it on nothing.
If you HAVE considered it, then of course the answer is "yes, we've considered it."
That's not how Opportunity cost works. It is a very standard term but perhaps I should not expect my usage to be clear. Let me elaborate
'Either you think everything is pointless forever, or you accept that helping one person does a lot for that one person and is valuable in itself (though of course helping two people would be even better and so on). I've found the second to be healthier.
Another way of putting this is: you can change things by donating your money directly to blind people. '
This analysis completely ignores the idea that resources can be put to use other than charity that may deliver greater long term good, specifically, investment. This doesn't require you to consider a specific opportunity. Just leaving the money in a bank or other investment is sufficient. The return on that capital ALSO implies that there is value generation happening. Where is the attempt to analyse the trade off for society between that value forgone and the improvement in the circumstance of the blind person in attempting to judge whether feeling the blind person is a superior use of resources?
- MrBeast sponsored the surgery for homeless people in Florida. It cost about $7000 per person.
- There are probably lots of medical interventions that homeless people could benefit from for $7000. MrBeast chose blindness, but I don't think it's a huge outlier in terms of desperately-needed medical care. So the question reduces to why very poor people don't have some really basic form of health insurance that covers whatever is desperately needed.
- It looks like the answer is that Florida is of of 11 states that doesn't give Medicaid to very poor people based on some provision of Obamacare. See https://www.healthinsurance.org/medicaid/florida/
- Florida says they don't do this because it would be expensive, but some Democrats suspect there are complicated political anti-Obama sentiments involved.
- If you want to know more, that would probably be the place to start.
There can be conditions attached. It varies state to state.
Personally, I think that "Medicaid for all" should be the first step toward universal health care, but maybe that's just too sensible to get any traction.
>but I don't think it's a huge outlier in terms of desperately-needed medical care.
Really? Out of all infirmities that are debilitating-but-curable, it seems to be pretty big. Being blind must be pretty limitating to one's autonomy and ability to hold any productive occupation, which is, one of the main obstacle to stop being homeless.
I came across a couple of articles like this[1] and this[2], according to which kidney sizes and GFR among Indians is lower than in the West. Do transplant committees take ethnicity into account when screening potential donors? Do they use different criteria in different countries?
I think no - see eg https://www.life-source.org/latest/does-my-race-ethnicity-matter-in-organ-donation/. There are lots of poorly-understood kidney differences between white and black people also (black people have more kidney failure earlier, and seem to benefit from different antihypertensive drugs). I don't think anyone has found any major relevance to transplants. I think people of the same race are slightly more likely to match in terms of antigens, but not overwhelmingly more, and kidneys go to people of different races all the time. My guess is that the size difference between whites and Indians (and blacks) doesn't make much difference in terms of transplant efficacy.
I recently talked to a startup founder working on a product I think is really great and valuable. Lots of people would want it if they knew about it, but they don't. She wanted to know if there were ways to get Substack personalities to market the product. I asked if she'd tried traditional marketing, like billboards, focus groups, and magazine ads, and she said no. She said that conventional Silicon Valley wisdom was to market through "your network" and other things you know and trust - maybe including Substackers you read (she also couldn't find any marketing person who wasn't offputting). This surprised me a lot. I know nothing about startup founding, but she's not very experienced either, and we both agreed we were confused here.
Both for practical purposes and to satisfy my curiosity - does anyone here with more experience in startups have an opinion on this?
(Also, if you're a marketing person who is smart, not offputting, and looking for work at a startup I think is really great and valuable, send me an email at scott@slatestarcodex.com and I guess I'll introduce you)
Traditional marketing is very expensive, hard to target accurately, and (usually) pretty low ROI -- the good news is that that's why it's been mostly displaced in the small-medium business sector by online advertising.
In particular, if your friend has actual examples of the product to sell and can bootstrap it that way, I've seen outrageously dollar-efficient campaigns based on something as simple as a boosted post on Facebook/Instagram. You do have to give them a credit card number and pay them per click, but in return they provide nice simple options for targeting and building campaigns. Depends on the product, but for something like low hundreds of dollars a month you can get significant uptake -- this could be worth it just to see whether it works. If it does, they also have friendly marketing helpers who will help you fine-tune things (and also spend more money on ads) -- although they may have laid a lot of these off now, there's nothing that a normally-smart person can't figure out unaided.
(cofounded a startup 3 years ago, still working on that startup now)
The main reason to focus on your network *to start* is because it is very easy to get high quality feedback without alienating those people. If I ask friends and family to test my product, I can sit over their shoulder and identify every piece of the flow that is weird or unintuitive. If I ask a customer who is close to my network, I can get even better feedback
This is much harder to pull off if the person you are getting feedback from is like, a random stranger who is trying to pay you for a service and doesn't want to spend extra time giving you good developer feedback.
Obviously depending on what stage your friend is at in her startup journey, the above wisdom may not apply. But the vast majority of startups fail at the 'you arent building something the market actually wants' stage, and getting actionable feedback from people who would potentially pay for your product is key to not failing in that way.
By contrast, if your primary issue is 'i could rake in so much more money if I just grew faster', you've already solved the hard product-market-fit problem, and probably any further advice is going to be increasingly domain/product specific
I don't know a damn thing about the current received wisdom among marketing folx. But I'm inundated in advertising. I also react with cynical skepticism to claims of the supposed virtues of any new product. Double that if it's from some kind of tech startup.
Net result: if you want people (like me, anyway) to have a remotely positive impression of your new product, you have to get through their defenses via some kind of testimonial from people they already trust.
Otherwise the better the deal looks (for me), the more certain I am that there's a large poisonous worm lurking somewhere. At best, the POC product will be unstable and unreliable; at worst, it'll be so (ahem) profit oriented as to be illegal even under US law, and enough so that the founders might actually be convicted, even jailed.
That's a fair heuristic for you, but seems irrelevant from the business owner's perspective. Suppose 80% of people have heuristics like yours. You can either:
1. Do mass marketing, get 10,000 eyeballs, 8,000 of them ignore it on principle because they're natural skeptics, you get 2,000 customers.
2. Do some kind of boutique thing where a trusted figure endorses your product, you get 1,000 eyeballs, all 1,000 become your customers.
From the business's perspective, 1 is better! Given how many people buy really stupid products, doesn't seem like I'm being overly generous to say that at least 20% of people don't share your heuristic.
This completely depends on the product, and the startup's resources. A lot of early stage startup advice like "marketing through your network" is about leveraging resources that founders have. Usually, early stage startups have very little capital, and a lot of high-valued connections- classmates from top schools, parents that can get IBM on the phone, etc.
Media relations can get your message out using the news media. You can reach an awful lot of people relatively cheaply, and from a somewhat neutral source. If the product is truly great and valuable, she ought to consider hiring a public relations firm to conduct media relations.
> Both for practical purposes and to satisfy my curiosity - does anyone here with more experience in startups have an opinion on this?
Yes. This is absolutely false. Network marketing is just one of several ways to get your product out. Of course, it's one way that many successful companies use. But it's not the only one or some 'conventional wisdom' type thing. There are conventional wisdom about what kind of marketing works for what kind of products. But even that's not an ironclad rule.
Network marketing generally is best for high trust required B2B type products. The kind of thing that costs like $20,000 for a license. Because you're not going to pay $20k and bet your entire business based on a Google ad. But you don't do that through Substack, you do it through building a personal relationship. Blogging is more a kind of influencer marketing which tends to work best in a much lower product range, more one to one comparable to an ad. Not entirely, but more than an outside sales strategy. And even then you need to pick your ad net or influencers based on the product type.
Maybe the garbled advice was originally that you should get a few pilot customers who you really trust? But the reason you want that is so they'll give you feedback and stick with you when your product breaks or you need to put them through an hour of user questions. It's not a general go to market strategy.
The "conventional Silicon Valley wisdom" for marketing is very frequently wrong. It often is one of two things: "what you should do when you are selling a product with zero marginal costs" (an app, instructional videos, etc.) and "what you should do when your customers are primarily YC-funded startups".
Without a few more details it is hard to say anything specific. Is this a physical product? Who is the target customer? Is the goal to get one "big bang" moment (such as an appearance on the Today Show) that will cause an instant spike in awareness? Or is it a more-"micro" campaign, where watching the Customer Acquisition Cost is essential?
In the YC sect the wisdom is to have early customers that are very close to you, because the first version of your product is not what they actually wanted, and you need to learn that from them as early as possible.
I don't know how much that generalizes to non-YC startups
I have a Roland of some kind from the late 1980s, it still works and sounds great despite its age. I don't know how it would compare to an equivalent Yamaha or Kawai, just wanted to throw the brand name into the mix.
Your price range is actually higher than strictly necessary. I got a (4-year used) Yamaha DGX 650 off Craigslist for $400 back in 2018 ($600 retail) that would meet all your criteria. I did a lot of research to pick, but basically I’d just look at https://www.digitalpianoreviewguide. com/ and go with their recommendation in your price range. 88 key weighted pianos with high fidelity sound are no longer that expensive.
I've had a Yamaha 88 key (I forget the model number) for almost a decade and it works fine. Better than a low end piano and only slightly worse than a mid level one (with high level ones that are regularly tuned being the gold standard). But much cheaper and easier to transport.
You can buy from reputable companies like that sight unseen because they're all manufactured to the same standard and if you get a bad one for some reason they'll replace it.
Is it your first or are you upgrading? I've had the Casio Privia PX-150 as well as the Yamaha P-105. Both were excellent for my needs (I'm not very good but I enjoy playing). Both had what felt like realistic action to me, and good tone/speakers (and more importantly a headphone jack, which I preferred). Both much cheaper than your range, and when i was looking into this stuff these were the two lower-end models that were most frequently recommended.
If you haven't played a weighted-key digital piano before you should definitely just try a few out at a local big-box music store to get a feel for the landscape. I think the cheaper ones I've had are pretty good and you might find the lower-end ones are enough for your needs.
Not exactly answers to the question you asked but hope it's helpful nonetheless!
I borrowed a friend's Casio Privia which was a good experience, and convinced me to buy a second-hand Yamaha P-120 for $700 in ~2012 dollars. The Yamaha P-series at that time was reputed to have a very heavy action, and I found that to be the case. I recommend at least a quick evaluation before buying any make/model.
They did have a point though, even if extravagently expressed. That's why hearing about government debt skyrocketing gladdens my heart! There's only so much they can tax before the economy implodes, and governments which have dug themselves into a massive debt hole can stay more out of our hair and do less mischief. A government flush with cash, however well-meaning it may be, is a tyranny in the making.
The problem is that your proposed relationship between amount of debt and amount of mischief has 0 empirical evidence backing it, and some empirical evidence opposing it, as beleester pointed out.
Also - there's no direct connection between the amount the government can spend and the amount the government can tax for, providing it can borrow in its own currency. This doesn't mean the spending can be limitless, but we don't know what the limits are. See Japan as an interesting example of spending being completely unmoored from taxation.
Hmm, well I guess with national debt there is a happy medium and, I still maintain, the larger the better up to a point. After all, to make an analogy, a sparing diet is said to be healthy but not if one doesn't eat a scrap for a month!
Yes, we all recall how wealthy the Soviet Union was before Stalin seized power. And Germany quite famously had no trouble paying off its war debts, which no doubt helped the Nazis take power more easily.
Well, money itself is a shared fiction that lies on the personal convictions of about 20 ministers of finance, investment funds and central bank heads. Debt between states have been used as a "forced interdependency" to prevent hot wars - like germany used economic links to diplomatically keep russia calm for a while. If everything comes crashing down on the monetary side due to debt, the rules will just be changed with an "emergency package"or other. It will work too as long as the energy producers and food production stay steady.
ask Your Representatives
WHY did the worlds greatest military power FAIL to defend even its own HQ?
Last week, I read about an attempt of the EU to mandate web browsers to carry state-sponsored certificate authorities (CAs) in some online identity vaporware bill.
Initially, I was unsure if Mozilla et al were making a mountain out of a molehill, but the language of a draft I found sounds pretty damning:
> Article 45
> Requirements for qualified certificates for website authentication
> 1. Qualified certificates for website authentication shall meet the requirements laid down in Annex IV. Qualified certificates for website authentication shall be deemed compliant with the requirements laid down in Annex IV where they meet the standards referred to in paragraph 3.
> 2. Qualified certificates for website authentication referred to in paragraph 1 shall be recognised by web-browsers. For those purposes web-browsers shall ensure that the identity data provided using any of the methods is displayed in a user friendly manner. Web-browsers shall ensure support and interoperability with qualified certificates for website authentication referred to in paragraph 1, with the exception of enterprises, considered to be microenterprises and small enterprises in accordance with Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC in the first 5 years of operating as providers of web-browsing services.
(from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021PC0281 )
In a nutshell, when a browser connects to a website like google.com via https, it tries to validate the identity of the website to see if it is corrected to the legitimate operators of google.com or some attacker. The idea is that interwoven in the encryption, there is a certificate which is signed by some trusted authority, a CA. A browser comes with a some dozen "trustworthy" CAs preinstalled, few users ever change that list.
For a company, being included as a CA in the browsers is a license to print money. Every https website requires at least one trusted certificate per year lest their users are scared away by warning messages from the browser, and apart from Let's encrypt, CAs generally expect to be paid for that. See also: Honest Achmed's Used Cars and Certificates, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647959
The CA system is already an ugly mess, but every mess can be made worse by getting the government involved.
Right now the spooks can obviously get some CAs to sign phony certificates for google.com, but each such use risks discovery. If any CA gets caught issuing malicious fakes, they will likely fall into disfavor with the browser vendors. In fact, TrustCor managed to do so last year just by looking like a spook front without ever having been accused of issuing a false certificate.
However, if governments can mandate the inclusion of their CAs in the browsers by law, the risk of burning a CA no longer applies. And rather than forcing browser vendors to directly include CAs for your spying, why not first compel them to do so for some innocuous reason, like some digital identity act? Once your certificates are in the browsers and you have switched all government websites to them, another bill can empower them to use the CAs for "lawful interception".
I do not consider myself to be a conspiracy nut and do not expect an EU dictatorship, but I think that in any democracy there is a continuous struggle between those wanting more safety and those wanting to keep their freedoms. Still, I had hoped that "we will just force browser vendors to ship our CAs through laws" would be far from the Overton window.
Disappointingly, this topic seems to be of no interest to most mainstream media. The sites I read about it are computer nerd sites like the Register, heise or fefe. Even the EFF focuses more on pro-Palestinian messages being silenced on social media than this. Of course, us computer nerds will probably be the least affected by it as we can compile our browsers from the source code if the situation calls for it.
I would have hoped that post-Snowden, there would be some greater awareness for these issues outside the hacker culture, but I guess there is not.
Further reading: https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/08/europe_eidas_browser/
Recently been down a city planning / autonomous vehicle rabbit hole.
Hoping to find someone that can explain why public transport doesn't take on an 'uber but for busses' approach? It seems like a much better and more efficient (not to mention more practical / useful) means to run a bus. Particularly in my city which is effectively a thin strip running east to west. Or for regional areas.. What am I missing?
I think an Uber system would make planning routes very difficult. If you have a bus with 40 people, who all have different pickup and dropoff locations, what does the bus's route look like? Can you tell any of them how long the trip will take in advance, or how many stops it will be? Will the answer change midway when another rider wants to board?
For an Uber pool this is less of an issue because you only need to find four people who have roughly similar start and end locations, but for a bus route that covers the length of a city I imagine the complexity grows pretty quickly.
LA has two services like that:
https://micro.metro.net/
https://www.ladottransit.com/lanow/
LA is big, so how it works is that there are multiple service areas (each ~20 square miles, and not the whole city is covered). You can request a ride from one point within a service area to another point within the same service area.
I have no idea how it compares in cost/efficiency to standard buses, but it is definitely nice to use if you're in one of the service areas and want to get somewhere within that service area!
Thank you!
How is it better and more efficient?
Public transportation conveys large amounts of people from place A to place B at given, specified intervals. Considering that large numbers of people tend to often need to get from place A to place B at a specific, preknown time - such as getting to work, or getting back home from work - it serves such people just fine.
The bus would be able to pick up / drop off (at or closer to) their intended destination (extremely helpful for disabled). No longer need the physical infrastructure of a bus stop (cost/visual). You could alleviate a lot of planning / zoning issues since good public transport could be at everyone's doorstep. Ability to run busses 'on demand' instead of circulating around a route while empty. Gaining significant analytics on where busses need to be.
I actually can't imagine how it wouldn't be better and more efficient. If you live in a city where public transport is just fine that's great. But it is woeful in my town and many cities around the world.
> No longer need the physical infrastructure of a bus stop (cost/visual)
The physical infrastructure of a bus stop exists so buses can stop there though. Without a bus stop, buses need to stop in the middle of the street and disgorge passengers who need to pick their way through parked cars.
Also, many streets aren't wide enough for buses. Many corners, especially, are very unsuitable for buses.
What does it mean to run a bus "on demand"? I decide I want a bus to pick me up right outside my door (a bad idea for my particular street, but anyway) so a bus gets dispatched from the depot towards me? And we just hope there's enough people going in the same general direction that a reasonable bus route can be stitched together that will get everyone exactly where they're going in a somewhat reasonable amount of time, but there's no guarantees, especially since new stops keep getting added to the bus route while we're en route.
It makes more sense for people to walk to a bus route along a major road than for the buses to try to navigate the streets to pick everyone up from their front door.
By ‘Uber for Buses’, do you mean a system where buses do not have specified stops but are ‘called’ to pick someone up and drop them off via an app?
Yes
There is something very slight yet very uncomfortable I've noticed about older people in the anglosphere when they talk about the Russia Ukraine war. Everyone, from John Gray (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSS85bMSnYg&ab_channel=PoliticsJOE) to my relatives to my elected representatives are convinced that Putin said that Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture do not exist and this indicates genocidal intent with which there can never be any negotiation, until they get new orders. As best as I can tell, he never said this.
Instead, he said (https://www.prlib.ru/en/article-vladimir-putin-historical-unity-russians-and-ukrainians) that a separate Ukrainian state did not exist as a historical entity in the modern era before the Bolsheviks created one and he also "blamed" the Bolsheviks for promoting Ukrainian culture at various points in the history of the Soviet Union.
To me both of these statements are fair comment as historical summary but also firmly in the category of true but not particularly relevant or a good enough basis to justify internal interference and external invasion. Demonstrating that Canada and the US were once part of the same country primarily populated by genetically similar people from the British Isles would not seem to create any justification for a US annexation of parts of Canada which historically spoke with more american accents or had the most immigrants from the US in the 19th century.
Instead, the preferred US approach is to swim upstream and to deny things that don't need to be denied in a way that sound very silly to anyone with any familiarity as well as anyone outside of the US media bubble: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/peace-is-impossible-while-vladimir-putin-denies-ukraines-right-to-exist/
"The Russian dictator went on to repeat many of his most notorious historical distortions, including the claim that Ukraine had been artificially created by Vladimir Lenin and the early Soviet authorities “at the expense of southern Russian lands.”
The modern Ukrainian state has the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and Russian speaking populations *were* added to the republic precisely to make it less likely that separatist sentiment could permeate through the whole administrative unit. I understand that historically and even now it's trivially easy to lie to the american public for political gain.
But what I've found most striking is that when these errors are pointed out after I take great pains to assure them I'm also opposed to wars of aggression that leave hundreds of thousands dead, there is a defiant refusal to correct it or even acknowledge that there's any meaningful distinction between what they've claimed and reality.
I think there is perhaps something about the unipolar moment from 1991-2021 that changed American culture even more than the cold war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
"That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out."
Now of course, Karl Rove denies having ever said this. But the specific attribution doesn't matter because it works so well as an explanatory hypothesis. I think it's a good description of how many if not most Americans of a certain age and older have been trained to see the world, regardless of their political affiliation. There is so much spending power in the hands of not only the American elite but the American middle and lower classes that whatever enough of them believe really does become reality.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/day-of-dead-james-bond-mexico-b2439974.html
When it comes to tourism and culture this is fairly innocuous even if understandably irritating to people concerned about preserving their culture in the face of a multi-trillion dollar american cultural onslaught. But when it comes to history, politics, or war, this belief seems more dangerous.
It's not simply that they are engaging in war propaganda in a cynical and self-aware way. That would be nothing new or unique, truth has been the first casualty of war since antiquity. The belief is instead that what they believe _really is true_ or will be revealed to be true at some point the future.
I almost wonder if this can be expanded to conspiratorial thinking and the paranoid tendency in America. Ie, we could imagine a conspiracy theorist who has eventually walked back some of their claims after being cornered implying if not saying "I know it doesn't look like the government planned 9/11 as a false flag right now, but more evidence will come out that proves I'm right!"
It's not exactly delusional thinking as has been postulated by others. There's also a force of will behind it, a conviction so certain that they'll do anything to make sure the truth wins out, even if they have to fabricate everything themselves!
Stalin and his cronies talked in didactic marxist terminology and analysis in private and archived all the confessions of the great purge as if they were exculpatory for the regime, while members of the Bush Administration expected to build on Reagan's legacy and create a permanent majority in their favor rather than limping out of office with a 31% approval rating and two wars of occupation most serious analysts regarded as already doomed.
Wars are not (only) a racket. Yes they make a lot of money in wars, yes there's a military industrial complex, but it's not only about money. The true horror is that we're not (only) being manipulated by cynical and selfish people who want guaranteed profits and big megayacht.
Far more concerning is how much of American policy set by both elected and unelected officials is coming from highly emotional and driven people governed by few or no external mechanisms for anticipating likely outcomes beyond their own half-assed intuitions intermingled with what they hope to be true.
All the numbers and calculation and intelligence reports are usually just for show: when they support a decision that's already been made, they're trotted out. When they would seem to undermine it, they're ignored, suppressed, forgotten. It is certain that a CIA analyst somewhere knew that the Afghani government was highly likely to collapse and wrote a report no one higher up wanted to hear, just as it is certain a GRU analyst somewhere knew that Putin's invasion plan was very unlikely to work given Ukrainian force concentrations, training, and equipment. Ignorance is not just the absence of knowledge, it can also be a very active and sophisticated process.
I couldn't sleep and this comment got incredibly out of hand, I would be very gratified to get any response in the unlikely event anyone reads this far.
In 1954 there was a huge celebration in the USSR: a 300-year anniversary of Ukraine reuniting with Russia. So that takes us back to 1654. Reunification. Putin was around for that. It was taught is schools.
His blatant lie about Bolsheviks “creating” Ukraine in 1918 is just that. A lie. Nothing more.
Putin lies. All the time. This is no exception.
Are you saying that the borders of modern day Ukraine are not the borders created by (one-party, totalitarian, dishonest, etc.) Soviet heads of state for the Ukrainian Soviet Republic?
Putin is most definitely a liar, but you're an even bigger liar than he is if you're saying that the borders of present-day Ukraine come from a 1654 treaty. Are you saying that the modern nation-state existed in 1654 among the cossacks? Are you saying the Crimean Khanate didn't exist, or that it was already Ukrainian, or... what? I don't get it.
I’m saying none of these things, you are saying them. And then accuse me of being a liar. Name one thing I wrote that was not true.
On the subject matter: none of todays countries have the same borders they had in 1654, this is an absurd idea to entertain. Ukraine had internationally recognized borders, including by Russia, who also:
1. Promised to respect them in 1994 explicitly in exchange for the nukes.
2. Worked for a decade to carefully demarcate the common border and finalized the work in 2003.
It would be good for you to work with arguments and not call your people who respond to you liars.
You haven't answered the original question and are now bringing up things which are irrelevant to me since I am and have always been opposed to Putin's invasion. Perhaps you're simply confused about the difference between an internationally recognized state, the legal concept of a successor state, and the existence of a people/language/culture.
> His blatant lie about Bolsheviks “creating” Ukraine in 1918 is just that. A lie. Nothing more.
Read literally, you seem to be saying that it's a lie that the current Ukrainian state and it's internationally recognized borders come from being a successor state to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic created in 1918-1920 with westward increases from formerly Polish territory in 1945 and the transfer of of Crimea in 1954.
If that's not what you're saying, then what did you mean? I'm starting to suspect you don't know yourself but are blindly attacking anything Putin has ever said about any topic because you incorrectly think that a blanket denial, even if itself a lie, is a more effective argument than a nuanced deconstruction of Putin's ultimately faulty historical claims.
For me there's no argument: I've asked you a simple question multiple times and you aren't answering it.
Who drew the internationally recognized Ukrainian borders that were used in 1991 to declare independence?
My answer is those were drawn by Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev. Who do you say drew them?
Ok if we are going into this level of specifics, here you go:
There was no "internationally recognized" border between Ukraine and Russia, simply because in the Soviet times it was a poorly demarcated administrative boundary within a single state. Once Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, and the USSR came apart on Jan 1 1992 (this is also a fuzzy timeline as various constituent republics declared independence on various dates), the hard work of figuring out the border started. There were committees on both sides, and after much wrangling, stalling, trading back-and-forth, the border was finalized in 2003.
So you can say, if you want, that the current internationally recognized Ukraine border was drawn by Kuchma and Putin. Will this work?
On a different note, it would really help your case if you stopped calling people who engage with you liars, confused, and in general inventing motives and intentions not evident from the comments you are responding to. You know nothing about me outside of the text in the comment box. Engage with that. Who I am and why I am writing here doesn't matter. The words in the box is all you have to go by.
The most recent revision* was made by Kuchma and Putin, it did not change the Ukrainian constitution ratified by vote on December 1, 1991 that states that Ukraine is the legal successor of the Ukrainian SSR.
It's true that "it was a poorly demarcated administrative boundary" but it's not true to say it was not, in international law terms, a state. It's obviously true that this was a bit of stalinist sophistry to obtain more votes, but in terms of international recognition, Ukraine was one of the signatories in the creation of the United Nations along with the Belarusian SSR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_the_United_Nations
If you're arguing that we should nullify previous international understandings and agreements because the soviet state was illegitimate, that unfortunately is exactly what Putin's position is too.
"In 1939, the USSR regained the lands earlier seized by Poland. A major portion of these became part of the Soviet Ukraine. In 1940, the Ukrainian SSR incorporated part of Bessarabia, which had been occupied by Romania since 1918, as well as Northern Bukovina. In 1948, Zmeyiniy Island (Snake Island) in the Black Sea became part of Ukraine. In 1954, the Crimean Region of the RSFSR was given to the Ukrainian SSR,
[...]
Therefore, modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia. To make sure of that, it is enough to look at the boundaries of the lands reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and the territory of the Ukrainian SSR when it left the Soviet Union."
-http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
Is there anything in the first paragraph you would say is factually incorrect?
Your initial reference to 1654 is exactly complementary with Putin: his argument that he is expressing (illegally through force) is that the legality doesn't matter and the "right thing to do" is to disregard legal fictions of an illegitimate state and "undo" the territorial gains realized by Ukraine under the Soviet Union.
So I'm not being pedantic when I'm focusing on things like legal successor states and nominal independence; these are the basis upon which Ukrainian territorial integrity hinges, not historical claims to differentiation with no legal basis.
Of course a Ukrainian people has existed with a distinct history, language, and culture from Russians for at least a thousand years. Putin has never denied that, and if you say that he has, I would want a citation. My understanding of his claims are that he has this romantic-nationalist assertion that Ukrainians are one of the "little Russian" ethnicities who are a distinct but still a subculture of Russian with a history which is indivisible from that of great Russian.
Now again, I don't give a shit about his sentimental/cynical argument or the argument of Ukrainian nationalists that say there is no relation or that ukrainians are genetically distinct or that there was only a relation of pure oppression. Neither of those narratives has any relationship whatsoever to international law, and it doesn't matter who dredges up what to "prove" their case History is complex and both sides are indifferent to history as such and see it as merely a tool for power and legitimacy in the present.
What Putin has denied is the legitimacy of the current borders of the Ukrainian state, despite international law and despite his own past agreement.
And what is the reason he gives?
Why, it's the same one that you give -- that it was a poorly demarcated boundary within a single state!
You are the one who started with a dismissive 'these are lies, these are lies, and
people who say this probably want Ukraine to be annexed by Russia' when my whole point is that you're falling into Putin's hands when you focus on the parts of his claims which are both 1) factually defensible and 2) irrelevant.
I've engaged with the words in the box and your initial responses were combative, dismissive, and not grounded in the historical record, while you also cast aspersions on my motivations. You never get a second chance to make a first impression and my first impression is that you're someone who will lash out at people who are sympathetic to your cause but are critical of certain tactics because they are ineffectual internationally and harmful domestically.
Ukraine's advocates and strategic decisionmakers have not acknowledged that the expectation of unlimited US support for an unlimited duration is a childish delusion nor have they acknowledged there is some complexity in the history, all of which sets the stage for a "stab in the back" legend and a failed state with an embittered, divided populace.
It is also a fact that the majority of governments on earth do not find the western coalition's case for sanctions persuasive or politically appealing. Trying to understand why this is so and working within a framework of mutually agreed upon facts seems like a better reaction than lashing out in an overtly racist way that only makes the situation worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgeAXMbbl5M&ab_channel=HindustanTimes
If you attack people who are sympathetic, if you attack people who are neutral observers, if you attack national minorities, and if you even attack your strategic partners who have made Ukraine's successful defense even possible... not merely a stalemate but a catastrophic collapse becomes more likely.
It seems like you're helping by immediately declaring facts you don't like (such as the fact that the Russian dominant soviet union defined 99.9% of Ukraine's legally recognized current borders) to be lies and making insinuations that people with domain knowledge must have ulterior motives, but you're not helping!
The fact is that Ukraine seems to be running out of time to make a livable peace that will strengthen Ukraine and isolate Russia in the long term, and retreating into national mythos of pure victimhood narratives make that peace harder
Redoubling the fanaticism and turning to ever more crude propaganda which demands total victory and refuses to meaningfully engage with the historical facts or other perspectives will not change this, except to make Ukraine's future worse while empowering dictators in the mould of Putin who thrive on resentment but are endangered by successful societies.
Explicit Ukrainian nationalism and attempts to create a Ukrainian nation, date back to at least 1848 and probably much further. And, as others have noted, a literally sovereign Ukrainian nation existed before the Bolsheviks were in a position to say yea or nay. So anyone saying that "Ukraine" is a creation of the Soviet Union, is A: factually incorrect and B: probably trying to justify the uncreation of the Ukrainian nation. If the person saying happens to own an army that has been trying to invade Ukraine for the past two years, then scratch the "probably".
The "older people in the Anglosphere", know what they are talking about on this one.
You have merely reasserted something approximately similar while still asserting something factually incorrect, or at least incoherent.
The current exact borders of the really existing Ukrainian state which declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 via referendum were drawn heads of state and officials of the Soviet Union.
Is this true or false?
Regardless of their reasoning, external pressures put upon them, historical nationalist aspirations, the republic of 1917-1918, the Don Cossacks, Zaparazhonia, the Crimean Tartars, the founding of 9th century Kievan Rus... is the above true or false, as a statement?
You have said that it's factually incorrect and also implied that anyone who disputes it has a political agenda. My agenda is simple: don't tell pointless lies that are easily disproven, because those harm the Ukrainian cause outside of the propaganda bubble only a minority of the world lives in.
It's painful that as mendacious and blurry as Putin's account is, it still manages to incorporate some things which are factually true, while what you're saying simply disregards reality itself. If Soviet officials didn't draw the current borders, who did? Is there a secret esoteric history of Ukrainian cartography?
I obviously don't expect you to stick around to concede that you didn't read very closely and see accuracy as secondary to your immediate political concerns, but it's certainly instructive for anyone who has nothing better to do than read this.
I'm glad you posted so lazily and in such bad faith because otherwise it could seem like I was shadowboxing with a strawman. But no, you exist and you're exactly who I was talking about, the mentality of delusional will to power which reaches first for threats and aspersions.
This nihilistic overbearing attitude was maybe adaptive in the 1990s but it doesn't work when people have instant access to things like say, wikipedia's bibliography, or the most well-cited and primary source heavy two-volume biography of Stalin written by Hoover Institute fellow Stephen Kotkin. Or are they all in on it too?
"The current exact borders of the really existing Ukrainian state which declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 via referendum were drawn heads of state and officials of the Soviet Union. Is this true or false?"
It is *completely irrelevant* The "current exact borders" of the nation have nothing to do with the claim made by Putin and endorsed by yourself that "a separate Ukrainian state did not exist as a historical entity in the modern era before the Bolsheviks created one." A separate Ukrainian state did in fact exist before the Bolsheviks created one; that state's borders have since been adjusted. As have the borders of just about every other state. A marginal change in the exact borders of a state, do not void that state's historic existence or continuity.
And the "current exact borders" of Ukraine are *particularly* irrelevant to any of your buddy Putin's other claims. Ukraine cannot be allowed to join NATO because its current borders were established in 1918, er, 1954? That is nonsensical; there may be reasons why Ukraine shouldn't join NATO, but they have nothing to do with where the exact borders are or who first drew them. Putin's claim that the current government in Kyiv is corrupt and illegitimate and run by literal Nazis, and so must be replaced by a regime chosen by Moscow, has nothing to do with the "current exact borders". The claim that Ukrainian nationalism and cultural identity are recent fictitious creations, has nothing to do with Ukraine's "current exact borders".
Ukraine is an old and long-suffering nation, predating the Bolsheviks by generations. The Ukrainian nation has frequently been conquered and ruled by foreign invaders for extended periods, without losing its basic identity. Vladimir Putin, plans to be the latest such invader, and probably the last because he seems to want to extinguish Ukrainian national and cultural identity. Vladimir Putin has told many lies to try and justify this. And he's apparently found that he can use a bit of irrelevant trivia about Ukraine's "current exact borders", to wrap you around his little finger and make you one of his minor mouthpieces.
I'm done with you, and I don't think I am alone in that. Please go away and peddle this nonsense elsewhere.
It's not like the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic sprang out of ex novo, though - its borders *mostly* were those of the earlier separatist non-Bolshevik Ukrainian People's Republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_People%27s_Republic), and considering that all of the original non-Russian Soviet Republics (Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasia) signing the treaty creating USSR had had similar secessionist entities in charge before their Soviet takeover, it seems like a difficult claim that UPR's existence had no effect on the Soviet decisions that led to Ukrainian SSR's creation.
Definitely an influence but so also with the drawing of the borders: almost all of the territory Russia is holding currently is territory that was not part of the Ukrainian People's Republic and was *added* by the bolsheviks. It's a historical fact, it's not contentious, and it's also not something that by itself justifies a war of aggression.
My somewhat rambling point was that it's unnecessary to play into these kinds of games where if your political enemy says the sky was blue in 1900, and therefore X, you must angrily denounce them and argue that the sky has always been yellow. And that the refusal to start the argument where it begins at the "therefore" is not merely imprecision or tactical cynicism but a genuine belief that freely available and well-documented historical information is easily subject to change as the political winds blow.
It's like the claims that there's no such thing as a Palestinian nation. I believe that there's a Palestinian people-- they have a lot of experiences and culture in common, and Israel had a lot to do with causing them to become distinct.
I'm not sure how long it takes to create a people-- possibly as little as 50 years. The boundaries aren't sharp, there aren't handy legal distinctions, but it's relevant to how people live.
Ukraine reunited with Russia in 1654 so it existed way before that date.
Even before 1918 there was an Ukrainian nation at least in some distinct form, counted as "Little Russian" in the Russian census of 1897. The governorates where "Little Russians" formed a majority largely correspond to the governorates forming the UPR.
I also think that the "there's no Palestinian nation" claim is ridiculous. Whatever the historical record is, there's now decades of common historical experience of the sort that tends to be a crucial component in the creation of nations.
Edit: a good example would be Pakistanis - a nation whose name was literally invented in 1933, no-one before that would talk of Pakistanis - and whose nation was originally just formed out of the Muslim-majority areas of India. Despite this, people have no problems with talking about Pakistanis as a nation (or use "Paki" as a derogatory term etc.)
Big boost for Scott - the great David French quoted and linked to him in his column!
> I’ve long appreciated the pseudonymous writer Scott Alexander’s description of liberalism: “People talk about ‘liberalism’ as if it’s just another word for capitalism or libertarianism or vague center-left-Democratic Clintonism,” he wrote on his Slate Star Codex blog. “Liberalism is none of these things. Liberalism is a technology for preventing civil war.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/opinion/columnists/campus-speech-culture-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9Ew.t7B9.RWzqm640gqtW&smid=url-share
Why do writers like Scott write f--k instead of fuck in 2023? Are they avoiding some anti-vulgarity algorithm? It reads like something written before Joyce's Ulysses won its court battle against obscenity in 1933. Is 2023 like 1923?
One good reason would be that Scott realizes that many of his readers would be offended by the use of that particular obscenity.
Check out his SCC post from almost 10 years ago - it's apparent Scott aspires to treat people with respect. That word is evidently not offensive to you, and may not be to Scott, but is very offensive to many.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/
> That word is evidently not offensive to you, and may not be to Scott, but is very offensive to many.
Do children read this newsletter?
Are you talking about the debate post? Do you think a televised debate is going to allow uncensored "fuck"s on air?
Then what does "f--k" sound like on the air? Are we supposed to assume we hear the f and the k without any vowels? Maybe. Perhaps I just had trouble imagining that. I'm pretty sure the debates are aired live and not time-lagged for censorship.
"Beep"
When did Scott ever do this?
The debate one, but see my comment above.
oh, yeah, pretty sure that was supposed to represent censorship on the air. There's probably a few-second lag
Anyone have any thoughts on the article linked here? https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1721938608985080259 It seems to provide pretty good evidence that antidepressant use in pregnancy causes (is not merely correlated with) a reduction in mathematics test scores in children. The main alternative hypothesis suggested in the Twitter discussion is that they haven't sufficiently controlled for the effects of maternal depression: although they did control for the presence of depression, they didn't control for its severity, and the latter could be correlated with who used an antidepressant.
OC ACXLW AI interpretability Breakthrough from anthropic 11/11/23
Hello Folks!
We are excited to announce the 48th Orange County ACX/LW meetup, happening this Saturday and most Saturdays thereafter.
Host: Michael Michalchik
Email: michaelmichalchik@gmail.com (For questions or requests)
Location: 1970 Port Laurent Place
(949) 375-2045
Date: Saturday, Nov 11, 2023
Time: 2 PM
Conversation Starters :
The first concrete step towards AI alignment and safety and our ability to make it highly useful?!
Journal club video:
https://youtu.be/hlCxSqWS6Rw?si=ONEGDAE3QiCPkWi-
Community Paper Reading: Decomposing Language Models Into Understandable Components
Short paper walkthrough:
https://youtu.be/HAxd8DoZaW4?si=X8kt9pRKHKKv1kBK
Anthropic Solved Interpretability?
The Paper itself: https://transformer-circuits.pub/2023/monosemantic-features/index.html
Zvi Moshowitz reports on the Paper:
https://thezvi.substack.com/i/137705383/cool-new-interpretability-paper
Zvi Moshowitz reports on the reactions to the Paper:
https://thezvi.substack.com/i/137705383/so-what-do-we-all-think-of-the-cool-paper
This is a chatGPT glossary and brief overview of the ideas:
https://chat.openai.com/share/d5465786-5d11-4aa7-9d00-ed7d5b1ef94b
Walk & Talk: We usually have an hour-long walk and talk after the meeting starts. Two mini-malls with hot takeout food are readily accessible nearby. Search for Gelson's or Pavilions in the zip code 92660.
Share a Surprise: Tell the group about something unexpected that changed your perspective on the universe.
Future Direction Ideas: Contribute ideas for the group's future direction, including topics, meeting types, activities, etc.
There's a desire to quantify morality around these parts. Here's the question I've been asking about the current Israel/Gaza crisis when trying to figure out "what's right."
A common question to ask is "to the Israeli government, all other things being equal, how many Gazan civilians are acceptable collateral damage to kill one Hamas soldier/commander/leader?" But what I'd really like to know is, how many Israeli **soldiers** would the Israeli government be willing to lose in order to accomplish the same objective with one less civilian casualty? I wonder if military leadership has explicit answers to both of these questions (I hope they do).
What originally made me think down these lines are the last two decades of American wars in the middle east. Drone warfare was common as a way to kill enemy combatants without American casualties. Drones (and bombs generally) seem like an imprecise weapon compared with a human-held gun. In general, a horrible consequence of long-range warfare has been a dehumanization of conflict. Great for the people who don't have to see death, but sad for those whose death can be just a dot on a screen.
Now in Gaza a similar question is raised. Let's take it as a premise that Israel needs to dismantle Hamas. They can do it with a combination of methods, such as siege, bombing, ground invasion. Waiting allows civilians to evacuate, but maybe Hamas to fortify. Bombs are risk-free for Israel but despite best efforts catch civilians in the destruction. Ground invasion is slower, and puts Israeli lives at risk, but on the surface at least seems safer for the citizens of the city. There's some sort of Pareto curve between "our troops," "our objectives," and "collateral damage" that any army indirectly respects. I would really love to hear a government official be clear about their perspective on these tradeoffs, and barring that, all of your thoughts. From the outside it seems to me that Israel leans too far in the bombing direction when considering these tradeoffs -- to maintain the moral upper hand I think a government should value one of its soldier's lives at maybe the same level as an enemy civilian, even taking the destruction of Hamas as a positive.
Israel is also surrounded by enemies; the death of one soldier in this war is the death of two or three or ten in the next one.
Also Israel has compulsory military service; the soldiers ARE the civilians.
> Also Israel has compulsory military service; the soldiers ARE the civilians.
Wouldn't this undermine the Israeli claim that all 1400+ who died on Oct 7th and its aftermath were civilians ? If we accept that 10000+ Palestinian deaths because "Hamas is hiding amongst them", why not also accept the 1400+ Israeli deaths because "IDF is hiding amongst them" ?
...no? That'd be like saying you can't tell schoolteachers from students. Or the difference between a student and someone driving by the school. Everyone has to pass through it, but you're clearly labelled as "in" or "out".
You wrote " the soldiers ARE the civilians.", but now you say there's a difference between them. Which is which ?
"You say the coats belong to the people in the house, but now you say the coats belong to individuals. Which is which?"
That actually doesn't make any sense.
The two most notable Arab neighbors of Israel have peace treaties with it and haven't fought wars with it for 50 years.
Eh? I think the most notable Arab neighbor of Israel of late would be Palestine.
How would you characterize the relationship it has with Israel right now?
It's hard to call Palestine a neighbor when Israel doesn't recognize its independence. I was referring to Jordan and Egypt, of course.
Jordan and Egypt notwithstanding, having a region near you from which people like to attack you isn't a place you needn't monitor with soldiers, simply because someone says you can't call it "neighbor".
Thanks for the response.
> the death of one soldier in this war is the death of two or three or ten in the next one
I've been viewing this conflict mostly in the isolated light of Israel-vs-Hamas, where despite Oct 7, it's pretty inconcievable that Hamas does any further substantial damage to Israel. But it's a fair point that they need to maintain resources for the future.
> the soldiers ARE the civilians
I think that changes the ratio but to me not the premise. The common phrasing of "worth the cost" is "civilians vs enemy combatants", but there's a real way in which this calculus can be nothing more than optics since neither directly harm the deciding body (Israeli government). The question is, what actual price are they willing to pay to achieve their goals.
And before anyone makes that annoying comment, I'm well aware of Hamas's preferred ratio, which involves dividing by zero or maybe a negative number.
There is no rational calculus to measure the body count needed to achieve victory in war.
Life becomes pitifully cheap -- down to an industrial scale of slaughter, with entire ethnicities methodically lined up and shot into trenches. Down to Gallipoli.
But Israel isn't fighting soldiers or even revolutionists; it's fighting terrorists. If the United Nations truly wanted to save lives, they'd help the U. S. and Israel form an international coalition to eradicate Hamas, Hezbollah, and all criminal terrorist groups.
> it's fighting terrorists.
Meaningless word with no objective definition.
> Hamas, Hezbollah, and all criminal terrorist groups.
Don't forget the Israeli West Bank settlers too.
Of course Israeli life is already worth less than zero to Hamas. But what about the reverse?
I think the situation you describe above applies in two cases. One is when the perpetrating body is monsterous (Hamas, Nazi Germany). The other is in a war of survival. If valuing the lives of enemy non-combatants puts your state at risk of eradication, it's not surprising and maybe even sensible to put a price tag near zero on it.
I'm asking this question from the premise that this isn't the case with Israel and Hamas. As I see it, in the short term Israel is at almost zero future risk from Hamas specifically. They have the support of the US, as well as overwhelming military superiority. They're not fighting Hamas for their statehood but for their future security. That's not to discount the atrocity -- its just that Hamas can't really cause much damage barring a sneak attack. To me that means Israel is at more liberty to be thoughtful rather than maximal in their response.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't take Israel's victory as inevitable. And as other commenters pointed out, Hamas isn't their only regional enemy. Though given the current world opinion, it does seem like they may be acting against their interests with their current approach.
"If the United Nations truly wanted to save lives, they'd help the U. S. and Israel form an international coalition to eradicate Hamas, Hezbollah, and all criminal terrorist groups."
How many civilians would die in the process?
How many centuries would it be until the death toll from hamas, hezbollah and "all criminal terrorist groups" exceeds the death toll from eradicating these groups? Because make no mistake, it would take CENTURIES before a single net life has been saved.
Or are you going to spin some sad story about hamas being on the verge of holocausting all Israelis?
Also, I imagine all of the civilian causalities would work very well to increase the support for extremists and terrorists in the affected civilian population, likely increasing supply of terrorists and support for terrorist organizations in the future.
A better approach would be to try to elevate the life prospects and comfort of the civilians to the point where they will not be interested in joining or supporting terrorists.
You also have to take into consideration that this is probabilistic. So while the definite case is interesting (how many civilians for how one Hamas soldier), the actual choice is closer to accepting or rejecting a probability distribution.
That brings in variables like the variance - strikes which are expected to kill the same number of civilians might be very different in the tails.
Additionally, the nightmare scenario for Israel isn't typically death of its soldiers - it's capture. So you might be willing to kill, say, 5 civilians to avoid 1 soldier death, but 15 civilians to avoid one soldier's capture.
It's a grisly kind of math. One I'm glad I never have to make.
> "[T]o maintain the moral upper hand I think a government should value one of its soldier's lives at maybe the same level as an enemy civilian"
This logic is nice and well-intentioned and idealistic. It's also responsible for probably millions of civilian deaths in the past 100 years. The logic is great if both sides follow it (for the most part; see notes below about the fuzzy lines around 'civilian'). It breaks down when up against someone that doesn't follow it, specifically, someone that values killing your people more than they value the lives of their own. At the 'perfect sphere on frictionless surface logic' level, it's simple math; if I am willing and able to trade one of my civilians per one of your military, I can win any war against any country that is the same size or smaller. At a more realistic level, you're eventually going to run into an enemy that shields his critical infrastructure under a wall of civilian bodies, and be forced to make a choice: international condemnation when the pictures of bodies hit the media, or a bunch of flag-draped caskets and 'we regret to inform you' letters to grieving families.
In a perfect world, the code that minimizes civilian casualties is: we will kill just enough people to stop you from killing any more of us, and not one more person. It works regardless of what moral code your opponents use. It works reflexively; it encourages and rewards opponents adopting the same code. In the real world, it's still vulnerable to mistakes and false flags, alas, but any code is vulnerable to those. Best of all, when it works, it works: if you don't start a war, then the number of your people I need to kill is zero (and if you started a war, there's a simple way to protect your people: surrender).
As far as civilians go, there is no solid line between civilians and military. Ultimately, at the ends, it's easy to make some distinctions, you'd much rather kill an enemy soldier on the front line than an enemy child. At the middle, it's much harder. In the US military, there are specialized transport units, which, being military, are valid targets. Would we be better off if we made those civilians and thus immune to attacks from 'moral' opponents? What about law enforcement and intelligence services? Is it really better for me to kill 10,000 enemy soldiers than 100 enemy workers in a critical munitions factory? These are hard questions, because there is no good answer.
I'd be curious whether ground warfare is truly less impactful from a civilian casualty perspective than boots on the ground. At the point a trigger is pulled on a rifle, there will certainly be less collateral than if a drone drops a bomb on the same target- but first you have to *bring* the man with the rifle to a point where he can take aim, and that means going around or through whatever defenses, terrain, and civilian structures are in his path.
If the territory is already controlled by his military, and he can travel to the objective uncontested, that's one thing, but if the troops have to fight their way there using tanks, artillery, mortars, etc, a single bomb dropped on a structure, even if it causes a dozen civilian casualties in the process, might well be less catastrophic than sending ground forces to it.
Also, when the guy with a rifle feels he needs to shoot something, he probably feels that he needs to shoot it *right now*. The drone operator can take their time, wait and see what develops, call in a colleague for a second opinion, run it by legal, etc.
That's true at least in theory. Drones and ultra-long-range warfare still has the problems I described above, but the main tradeoff I'm talking about mostly relates to guns versus bombs.
I would love to see Scott write about the Israel Gaza situation and the ideological schisms the West is going through at the moment. I know there probably isnt much original discussion to be had on the topic but I would love a classic Scott greypill.
I think it's becoming increasingly risky for the personal relationships of professional class people in America to offer even a kind of meta-commentary about the discourse itself and how it cuts through existing positions.
That said, I agree that it would be very welcome to have some thoughtful analysis of how easily the illiberal rhetorical tools and positioning of the existence of opposing speech as acts of inherent bigotry and violence has cross-pollinated, not to mention the sudden shift in who now supports the fusion of state and corporate power to censor collaboratively.
Is there some backstory as to why effective altruism generates such a strong reaction to some people such that there's a parade of articles trying to "expose" or "unmask" it and its followers? Personally, I don't care much about effective altruism, and as a result I am mostly indifferent towards it. The strongly negative reactions in a sizeable number of presumably intellectuals or otherwise educated people suggests there's some motivation that I'm unaware of. Does anyone have an explainer?
You may be interested in the book "Strangers Drowning" (https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ded6df13-350e-4da4-9f87-42964610cc98), which explores both the lives and motivations of extreme altruists (generally of the dedicate-your-life variety, but EA has a chapter in there) as well as some societal factors that effect a negative perception of "do-gooders".
I mean, people who accept the repugnant conclusion are basically saying that, given the opportunity, they would (figuratively) tax away all of your excess standard of living and give it to billions of hypothetical people.
One problem for EA is that some of its leading lights are apparently extremely easy to trick or to bribe, which tells us that as a system of thought it's something like being a communist; potentially laudable when practiced by an individual or within well-defined and narrowly scoped objectives (like literacy or malaria nets), but easily leveraged as moral camouflage by bad actors when attempted at scale.
The EA community does not yet seem to have gone through any kind of serious reckoning or re-evaluation, so again I would say its closest antecedents are something like libertarianism or communism. The more honest libertarians and communists you meet in everyday life, the more important it becomes to expose that the ones who rise to the top of those communities and make decisions within them tend to be sociopaths, conmen, or formerly principled people whose actions have begun to drift further and further from their stated ideals.
Not a full explanation, but the fact that a lot of the fuss is headlined as "Tech Billionaires Cult" or "Silicon Valley Ideology" makes me suspect some outgroup hostility. And it's even worse because the outgroup is pretending to share our values! (improving the lives of those who are worse off through charity). It reads like They are trying to sneak some weirdo technophile agenda past innocent prospective do-gooders under the guise of effectiveness, altruism, and weird philosophical arguments, and must be stopped.
It's a serious attempt to bring something that was usually done quite emotionally and intuitively into the realm of rationality. Which means that:
0. It brings some extra clarity in how effective different ways of giving money are in terms of suffering averted, and motivates enterprising young people to direct their efforts there. That's the part that basically no-one seriously objects to. But:
1. It implicitly ignores or belittles the pre-existing rational thought and institutional wisdom that went into traditional NGOs and charity organizations. (Not taking sides here, I'm sure the quality of that accumulated wisdom was quite variable.)
2. It raises the stakes for everybody else. If all of a sudden most of my friends are giving 10%+ and some of them are donating kidneys to unknowns, maybe your random yearly donation to a friend-of-a-friend's school in Nepal doesn't feel like actually doing much. For all the talk we like to have about first principles, remember that in practice our sense of morality is basically calibrated on your social surroundings.
3. Remember the catchphrase "dreams of reason produce monsters"? (No, I don't mean the Mick Karn album, but it's awesome anyway - google it). So-called rational thought is only one small part of what our minds actually do, and since it basically consists of symbol manipulation, it can easily go out far out into realms far away from anyone's living experience, yet still appear hugely convincing. In the case of the EA movement, as far as I've been able to watch from a distance, it seems to have been abducted into "long-termism", which is the belief that we can make educated guesses about the far future and plan courses of action accordingly. Couple that with some utilitarian felicity-calculus involving potentially huge future populations that will not be born for generations or centuries, and you end up with a moral compass quite at odds with those of the rest of the world.
I guess it's a bit of a motte and bailey, where the motte is sending anti-malrial mosquito nets and vaccines to poor areas of the Earth, and the bailey is all the long-termist stuff, often mixed with sci-fi scenarios of immortality through mind-uploading and the like.
This does explain a lot, thanks. There are a few consistent patterns I've noticed when it comes to people's harsh reactions to certain moral frameworks. For one, people tend to have a visceral reaction against moral frameworks that make it hard *for them* to live a moral life. This seems to be a lot of the resistance to utilitarianism and Singer-style ethics. Ultimately ethics is to control other people, so placing harsh burdens on them is fine. But placing it on oneself is unconscionable must be fought against with your entire arsenal.
The other issue I've noticed is many people strongly object to favoring the welfare of hypothetical people over actual living people. This goes towards your point about morality, for them, being an expression of their emotions or intuitions. Their empathy isn't sparked by hypotheticals. They find it repugnant to favor hypothetical people over actual people in any moral calculus regardless of any claims about the relative quantity of suffering being averted. I guess EA is the perfect storm of the analytic encroaching on the once sacrosanct expression of human intuition. Those that find grotesque a moral calculus unmoored from intuition will feel a moral impetus to undermine it.
There is also a fundamental theoretical problem with moral frameworks, which is that they get presented as hypotheses for what "real morality" is, in the same way that a speculative theory within physics gets presented and awaits further confirmation or disproof. But such confirmation or disproof is not forthcoming for a foundational moral framework, because unlike physics, the only thing we can test it against is another moral framework (explicit or implicit), not reality itself. So a moral framework end up sitting there in this weird corner claiming ultimate moral authority, while being actually subject to the higher authority of our strong feelings or intuitions, when they occasionally arise.
The purported benefit of a moral framework is that it first needs to match well enough with our intuitions that we may defer authority to it, and then think harder when its conclusions on tougher or edge-case situations are surprising or apparently unpalatable. But if you think about it, there's no particular reason why a framework that nicely describes 85% of our moral intuition must necessarily be "right" about the remaining 15%.
I was looking at a comparison photo of USS Gerald Ford and a Nimitz-class carrier, and I realized why the redesigned island (it's smaller and further aft on the Ford) appealed to me:
The new carrier looks more like a Star Destroyer.
This amuses me greatly, though I would caution the Navy against adopting easily-targeted deflector shield generators located directly atop the island...
Also why I'm disappointed the Zumwalt was cancelled. That stealth hull had some real Imperial energy.
/Update 2023-11-12: it looks like I can probably get what I want using eww, Emacs's built-in text-only web browser. By default, eww lists only top-level comments, delimited by asterisks for easy isearch navigation, which is already an improvement over the Substack website./
===========
Substack comment threads suck. Does anyone have a "Substack client" that makes them easier to read? This "client" could be a third-party site, native app, Emacs mode, GreaseMonkey script, whatever.
Desiderata:
- Show only top-level comments by default, preferably only the first n characters.
- When expanding a top-level comment, expand only one level of replies, not the whole tree.
- Let me hide subtrees without scrolling to the bottom of the parent (which is where the official mobile app puts the hide button).
I know this probably violates the Substack terms of service, so no need to point that out. I'm happy to set up a fiddly hack on my own computer if that's what it takes.
I just use the mobile web version on firefox android. Works quite well, if a bit slow on huge threads.
> the Substack terms of service
Substack exposes an API that sends some bytes to my computer. Once I have those bytes, I can do absolutely whatever I want with them, including displaying them in any format I want. Substack does not have jurisdiction over how I, on my personal computer, manipulate the bytes they have sent to me, nor does any other website.
Yeah, but HTML scraping is a pain in the ass. I was hoping to avoid doing that from scratch.
Legally, it looks like you're right; companies used to use the CFAA to prosecute people for TOS violations, but this Supreme Court decision appears to forbid that. I didn't notice the decision when they issued it in 2021. https://www.gtlaw.com/en/insights/2021/6/us-supreme-court-limits-scope-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-violations-restrictions-digital-data
What are some podcasts or Youtube channels where:
1) The show talks about current events and not just a niche non-political topics like Formula 1 or model aircraft
2) The host(s) are not partisan and provide equal time to left, center and right viewpoints
3) The show editors take feedback seriously and start each episode listing factual/logical mistakes made in the previous episode or at least maintain an extensive list of corrections on their website
Most shows that satisfy (1) utterly fail (2) and (3). The All In Podcast and Joe Rogan satisfy (2) but fails (3). Tom Scott's channel satisfies (3) but fails (2) when it comes to anything political.
NPR's "left, right, and center" does a great job at 1) and 2). They don't literally satisfy 3, but the discussions are such that takery that would require corrections is relatively rare.
Is this a joke?
No, why would it be?
I'd be surprised if you could find even one. I'd expect most such media to fail (3), such that you might start by looking for (3) first and then filtering.
The best I could do, meanwhile, is produce a list of near misses. OTTOMH:
* Adam Curry - No Agenda
* Krystal and Saagar - Breaking Points
* Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying - Dark Horse
* Russ Roberts - EconTalk
* Jeremy Lee Quinn - publicreport.org
* C-SPAN
The recent rally in the stock market allowed me to dump some investments I'd been wanting to get rid of without having to eat much of a loss. How shall I reinvest the proceeds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpH3O6mnZvw
This is an hour about highly coded evidence that Bored Ape Yacht Club is actually a 4chan white supremacist conspiracy. I'm not sure whether it was worth my time, let alone anyone else's, but the temptation to post it was strong.
It's a shame that those guys can apparently do some real damage instead of entirely playing elaborate games to prove how clever they are.
I'm reminded of a combination of _Brain Wave_ (an sf novel about the earth moving out of an astronomical stupidity field) and the Flynn effect. What happens if people are smarter but don't have good sense to guide their thinking?
The big question would be the same as with all conspiracy theories speculating about the conspirators using hidden language, which is... why include all the esoteric stuff here again? I mean, the idea of someone starting a NFT collection as a scam to get a lot of money from dumb celebrities and spending it, presumably, to support Nazi stuff isn't completely implausible... but what would be the point of then suffusing it with Nazi stuff?
The conspiracy doesn't need to attract more participants in the core for the mission to happen, and any potential Nazis that might join after decoding the hidden symbolism would be the scammee, not the scammers. Doesn't sound very ideal.
In the case of these people, they might do it for the fun of it. Perhaps this isn't the strongest explanation, but the more you have to spare, the more you can show off for each other.
I suspect, for trolls, part of the fun is seeing what's the craziest thing they can convince people of.
My prior on this hypothesis is very low, for a couple reasons.
First, I place an extremely low epistemological weight on "highly coded evidence". If I learned anything from high school English classes, it's that if you work hard enough at it you can read just about any meaning into any text. Particularly if the meaning you're looking for is white supremacy: enough people really, really want to find highly obfuscated white supremacy that there's a pretty extensive toolkit for inferring signs of it whether it's there or not.
And for 4chan in particular, this doesn't really seem like their style in a few respects, although they do have a history of going in for white supremacy themes in their "pranks". One thing that doesn't fit is that 4chan stuff usually has an element of wit that I don't really see here. Another is that 4chan tends to coordinate their stuff semi-publicly while it's ongoing and brag about it afterwards, which makes their involvement easy to verify if it's there.
That's a very good answer, and I wish more of the Internet could come up with it so quickly.
White supremacy is trivially present, always and everywhere, because... well... you can fill in the blank.
Thanks.
I find myself thinking about inheritance now and again. One asset supposedly coming my way is a house - but it's unfortunately not easily accessible without a car (I don't drive), in a different city than where I live, and it's got at least a decade remaining of mortgage that I can't afford to pay on top of current rent. On the one hand, renting it out would obviously be profitable, given Bay Area housing market insanity. On the other hand...well, I don't actually want to be a landlord-by-necessity? Doubly so if it's tricky to visit the place and I'd never voluntarily owner-occupy it. Yet cashing out early by selling seems like just as bad an idea, opportunity costs aside. "It's better EV to take the annuity," every lotto winner thinks before taking their amortized of gold anyway.
Advice? Third options I'm not thinking of?
If you had a comparable sum of cash to invest right now, would you be buying a Bay-Area house to manage as a rental/investment property? Is that even a close call?
There's your answer. If it's a close call, then the transaction costs probably point towards keeping the house and renting it out. Otherwise, take the money and run - ideally, towards the broker who will handle what you actually do thing is the presently-optimal investment strategy.
My siblings and I put our parents' house on the market as soon as probate cleared, sold it earlier this year, and no regrets.
That's a good intuition pump. No, I wouldn't use that equivalent level of liquid boon for attempting such an endeavor; it'd need to be proper "fuck-you money" levels of wealth to achieve the aspirational Nice House I Can Casually Rent To My Friends So They Stop Having Rent Worries dream. Like, if I did hypothetically win a medium-sized lotto, that would go towards minmaxing investment accounts and optimizing tax burden...possibly some reduction in working hours, possibly some one-time capital investments for quality of life. But chasing a house? No, absolutely not, that'd be ridiculous.
I think a lot of it is just sour grapes over how the last inheritance event in family played out - grandparents had a properly-valuable house in a swanky community which everyone in the family actually did have strong attachments to. But none of us could be bothered to landlord it, so it got sold with some regrets. So me being encouraged to hold onto *this* house is a reprise of same drama. That's no basis to make a life-changing financial decision on though.
I'll be curious to hear what you decide. I may face a similar choice soon. There's a friend of mine who moved away who's renting out her old condo through an agency, and I keep forgetting to get in touch and see how that's working out...
A with-friends or with-family arrangement would work out just fine for me...unfortunately I don't have any roots in that town anymore, and the only family member who'd potentially be a good fit is inheriting the *other* property in same will. One property is quite a lot to deal with already, I seriously doubt he'd want to manage two houses in two entirely different states.
I see no reason not to sell the property right away. Unless you have run the numbers, I would not assume it would be profitable to rent it out. In most places with high house prices, especially liberal areas with strong renter's rights, renting is not profitable but it defrays the costs of holding the property while it appreciates. So the "profit" is the capital gains appreciation of the house, not positive cash flow.
Sure you could hire a property manager and rent it out, but if you had the cash that you could get from selling it, would you be looking to buy a house to rent out? If not why would you do this?
Hm - I naively figured that if the median rent for that area is substantially above the mortgage payment, then even after taxes and such it'd be a profit. But then I don't know anything about homeownership, so there's probably costs I'm missing. Don't have access to nonspeculative numbers, which I agree would help settle the question...family's not super transparent about that kind of information.
The place isn't valuable enough to turn into buy-an-SF-house (outright) kinds of money, even a mere condo here is like seven figures...it would have been possible some years ago, we'd actually discussed the possibility of selling that house to get one kid or other a starter home. But SF real estate appreciates faster than small-town housing can remain solvent, or whatever. Mostly I'm just trying to figure out the least Pareto painful way to part with an unwanted-yet-valuable gift, along both the financial and effort axes.
It could be, but you have to figure in taxes, HOA, maintenance, vacancy, etc., plus either you use a property manager who takes ~10% or you invest your own time into it. Also median rent is not necessarily the rent you will get for this property. Then you have to consider how much equity you have in it and what kind of return you are getting on that equity. It may well be better to cash that equity in and invest it in something else. Presumably you have a stepped-up basis and won't have to pay capital gains taxes.
Those two axes pretty clearly lead to, retain a local (*) realtor to sell the house.
(* local to the property, not to you)
Yeah, leaning that way too. We've had no less than three dear family friends who were all skilled local realtors, emphasis on past tense though. Seeing how much still went into such transactions at the "you're my best bud so we'll waive this" level...I absolutely don't want to deal with that myself.
It'll cut into your profits, but is there a rental management company that could take care of maintenance and monitoring the property for you?
If it's a trial for you to visit, it's going to be a huge pain for you to handle your responsibilities as a landlord. If it's in a nice enough neighborhood, maybe any tenants would be easy to work with and always pay their rent on time, but that's not always an easy process.
If you can get a reasonable amount of money out of it (mortgage not underwater, etc.), then have you considered using the proceeds to buy a house local to you, to rent it out? Is there some kind of attachment to that particular house?
Hadn't thought of that, but it might not be a large enough town to have one...it's the kind of service I'd expect to find in a proper city, not somewhere with <15k population. The place is a condo with an HOA and all that - they only take care of major things like roofing though, not responsible for clogged toilets or rodents or the myriad other landlord-y problems.
Place isn't valuable enough to trade in for an in-SF house. I mean the proceeds could be used to take out a new mortgage on something here, it'd be enough for down payment of course. But that's a one-time thing, my income would still be retail-grunt puny, so it just changes to a different Sword of Damocles. Definitely not attached whatsoever, that house has nothing but bad memories (which is also a strike against landlording for it, now that you bring it up). Hmm.
In an early-2023 survey of 55,000 college students:
- 72% of Jewish Students wanted to censor criticism of BLM.
- 74% of Jewish Students did not want to censor antiwhite speech.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-MwYlzXEAAsQqi?format=png&name=4096x4096
Why highlight the Jewish statistics here? They aren't an outlier or even the highest percentages (that goes to "Atheist" at 76% and 85%), and the *lowest* anti-anti-BLM percentage is 59% (Mormons) - this data says a lot about the state of free speech in colleges, but very little about Jewish students in particular.
Because jews expect us to support a violent, jewish ethnonationalist state doing whatever it wants, while also being strongly in favor of promoting hatred against gentile whites.
What do you have in mind for promoting hatred against gentile whites?
This is an inflammatory comment which fairly clearly crosses the line between sloppy description and intentional malice.
Some do. A lot of American Jews are not huge fans of Israel
The polls I've seen show a higher share of Jewish Americans supporting BDS than non-Jewish Americans. https://jewishcurrents.org/recent-polls-of-us-jews-reflect-polarized-community.
As noted there, a 2022 poll of Jewish Americans found that 68% of them supported restricting aid to Israel so that it couldn't be used to expand Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, as opposed to "supporting a violent ethnonationalist state doing whatever it wants."
+1
Also, the phrases compared were "Black Lives Matter is a hate group" and "Structural racism maintains inequality by promoting white privilege" - pretty poor equivalents. It's debatable, frankly, whether the latter even constitutes "anti-white speech" a phrase which strikes me as more of an inflammatory elaboration on the statement it references than a concise summary of it.
Better points of comparison would have been something like:
"Black Lives Matter is a hate group" vs "Turning Point is a hate group,"
"Structural racism maintains inequality protecting white privilege" vs "Cultural differences account for at least part of the disparity in racial outcomes in the US"
>pretty poor equivalents.
Oh really? Let's see how a "Jewish privilege" speaker get anywhere NEAR a college campus! There is absolute no way in hell that "jewish privielge" wouldn't be shouted down as "anti-semtism", so you can't sit there and tell me that "white privilege" isn't anti-white.
Take almost anything that gets called 'anti-semitic', replace 'jews' with 'whites', and what you're left with is almost certainly politically acceptable, if not actively taught at collges.
And that's the entire point!
Jews expect us to fund and support a jewish ethnonationalist state, they strongly support people's lives being destroyed for being 'anti-semitic', and then at the same time they strongly support anything that's anti-white.
>>Jews expect us to fund and support a jewish ethnonationalist state, they strongly support people's lives being destroyed for being 'anti-semitic', and then at the same time they strongly support anything that's anti-white.
Actually, American Jews' views of Israel are mixed, and if you look at actual data (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/21/u-s-jews-have-widely-differing-views-on-israel/ft_21-05-20_usjews_israel_news/), the least supportive members of the Jewish community are exactly the college students who were surveyed for the original graphic you posted.
Only 48% of Jewish people aged 18-29 say they feel "very" or "somewhat" attached to Israel. Asked if "caring about Israel is essential to what being Jewish means to them," that number drops to 35%. And it gets lower for things like "opposes the BDS movement" or "Believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people."
If you have better data on this that's more on point then by all means share, but from what I'm seeing it looks like when you say "look at this hypocritical Jewish college-student, he expects us to fund a Jewish ethnonationalist state!" odds appear to be good that he does not in fact expect that and you're just tilting at windmills.
>>There is absolute no way in hell that "Jewish privilege" wouldn't be shouted down as "antisemitism", so you can't sit there and tell me that "white privilege" isn't anti-white.
Are you saying that you define an "anti-white statement" as "a statement for which, if you swap 'white' for 'Jew," a Jewish person would call it 'antisemitic?" Just how authoritative do you think Jewish opinion is? What happens when the Jewish community disagrees about a particular statement?
It seems to me that's a poor way to define things. "A hamburger is a sandwich made with ground beef" will tend to serve a lot better as a definition than "a hamburger is a thing a Jewish person would call a hamburger."
I think we can distinguish between a statement which presents a fact, or at least a theory ("white people have economic & social advantages in the US," "black couples are more likely to divorce," etc), and a statement which is vague innuendo or little more than a smear ("black lives matter is a hate group," "white people are all racist").
The latter strike me as more suitable to being called "antiwhite," or "antiblack," etc, but the phrase "Structural racism maintains inequality by promoting white privilege" seems, to me, to be decidedly the former, not all that much different from something like "minimum wage actually harms communities it is meant to help," or "men generally prefer to work with things, women with people."
There's is no chance in hell a talk about "jewish privilege" WOULDN'T be roundly condemned as "anti-semitic", you're simply divorced from reality if you think this isn't the case. Literally no chance whatsoever. "Jewish privilege" is an unacceptable concept. There is no chance a book about "Jewish privilege" would EVER be published by a large reputable publisher in the US, no chance that there could ever be courses at prestigious universities about 'dismantling jewishness', and even just pointing out the FACT that jews are overrepresented in almost all american institutions is a good way to ruin your career.
And how is "black lives is a hate group" a "smear"? If they do and say hateful things (like literally saying white people are subhuman: https://www.audacy.com/newsradiowrva/blogs/jeff-katz/blm-leader-calls-white-people-subhuman-genetic-defects), they're a hate group.
Also, the question was not "Should this be censored", it was "Should this speaker be allowed at campus".
Yes, OBVIOUSLY what I mean was "censored at colleges". And if a speaker isn't allowed at a campus because of their views, then their views are being censored at colleges.
LOL -- so other than all that, the original commenter's summary was spot-on?
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship
An enthusiast with a bad idea ended up with the navy spending $100 billion on a ship that can't even travel well on the ocean. A tale of all the normal barriers failing which should prevent something this stupid.
Here's bean's take, which seems to have less of an axe to grind?
https://www.navalgazing.net/LCS-Part-1
https://www.navalgazing.net/LCS-Part-2
https://www.navalgazing.net/LCS-Part-3
Tbf even though Bean is less negative I’d still characterize that take as very very negative
It's negative, but it feels more as though he's done some investigating and drawn a conclusion which happens to be overall negative. Whereas the Propublica article feels a bit more like a hit piece.
That's just my subjective impression, though.
I'm not speaking from a place of personal knowledge, but based on the limited amount I do know about the Navy, I think ProPublica is being used.
Virtually every single criticism they levy against the LCS is that it isn't an aircraft carrier. It can't travel far, it's not heavily armored, it doesn't have enough crew, it can't fight everything that comes its way.
From what I've read (which is one book from the eighties that I picked up at a thrift store), the Navy loves aircraft carriers. They want really big ships that can do everything and cost a ton of money. For virtually all of the Navy's history, mavericks and outsiders have been saying that aircraft carriers are too expensive and that we should invest in cheaper, smaller, more specialized ships. Ships like the LCS.
Of course, the establishment in the Navy hates these ships. They're small. They're weak. Pro Publica dutifully reports this, and reports that, in the end, the Navy made the commonsense decision to make even bigger, more heavily armored, more expensive ships.
Maybe that was the correct call. I'm no expert on modern naval warfare.
But after every sentence in that article, I challenge you to ask "What's the Navy's preferred alternative and would it cost less for the American taxpayer?" It really seems like Pro Publica is (intentionally or not) carrying water for the military industrial complex.
Except the LCS kind of is a (small) aircraft carrier. Helicopters are aircraft, and pretty much the only thing an LCS does well is support two multirole helicopters on a smaller, cheaper platform than anything else we've got. And helicopters are arguably the most important system most modern warships carry, so that's not nothing.
The problem is, the LCS is a ridiculously expensive forty-knot helipad that fails at every other aspect of actually being a warship, for the sake of being able to ferry around helicopters at 40 knots rather than 20. For the cost of an American LCS, the Danish navy can buy two Absalon-class frigates, that can each carry two multirole helicopters and a whole lot more in the range of real-warship capabilties. They just can't do it at 40 knots (but they can cover twice as much distance, each, at 20 knots).
https://www.metafilter.com/201297/Little-Crappy-Ship
Discussion of the article: https://www.metafilter.com/201297/Little-Crappy-Ship
The first comment basically makes your point. Then there are several comments from people who actually worked with the boats who say the LCBs really are that awful.
I think it's important to distinguish two things that make boats awful. One is that the boats have an awful design. The second is that the boats have an okay design, but they aren't given an operational budget to make the boat work.
From what I've read, the Navy absolutely hates spending money on operations. They want all their funding to go to new boats, not to making the old boats run. As a result, you get the reduced crew levels, the lack of spare parts, the constant churn of sailors, etc.
So virtually everyone agrees that there are problems at the Navy. We just disagree on what the problems are. The ProPublica article seems to uncritically repeat the criticisms mostly commonly levied by the Navy's establishment - that the service needs larger, more heavily armored, more heavily armed, more expensive boats.
There's one thing a carrier does that no other ship can do: be a mobile base for a load of high-performance, fixed-wing aircraft. High-performance, fixed-wing aircraft are an extremely useful tool if you want to be a military superpower, and mobile bases that can be deployed within a few weeks notice to any part of the world's oceans are a very useful tool if you want to be a *global* military superpower.
There are some aspects of a carrier's capabilities that can be replaced with other, more specialized ships, but there's no set of ships that can provide *everything* a carrier provides. I guess that's why the US Navy loves them so much.
As always, Perun has made an excellent video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv2C6EZW3Oc
The idea, as I understand it, behind the LCS was that it was going to do some of the things that carriers couldn't do. Changing down dinghies in the Persian Gulf isn't really a carrier role.
Of course, chasing down dinghies in the Persian Gulf isn't why anyone joins the Navy. It's certainly not a fast track to becoming an admiral. Hence no one liked the LCS except the cost-cutters. Once they got rotated out, the program got cut and replaced with much bigger, stronger boats.
But the USN has always had a bunch of small, fast, relatively cheap ships; like most other navies around the world they called them frigates. The Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were very boring and non sci-fi looking ships but the US had 51 of them and sold another 26 to other eight countries. Most of those countries still operate them, but the US got rid of all its frigates in the 2010s in favour of Littoral Combat Ships. Now, the US Navy has no frigates left (apart from the USS Constitution, which is somewhat lacking in capability compared to more modern types).
Now that the LCS program hasn't worked out, the USN has scrambled to quickly acquire some normal frigates again, and decided to invest in an already-working European design (FREMM) rather than try anything novel or fancy this time. (Admittedly this new frigate is about twice the size of a LCS or a Perry class frigate but this seems to be the way things are going these days).
So I don't think it has anything to do with the Navy hating the idea of anything smaller than a destroyer. Instead it seems like a classic case of "good on paper" ideas versus "tried and true" concepts.
Yeah, this is a story of the U.S. Navy trying to economize - trying to downsize - and it not working. All the people who thought they could constrain the Navy's bloat were wrong. The lesson is that we need to listen to the Naval establishment and not try to get them to accept smaller, more modular ships in an effort to cut costs.
Maybe that's the truth - again, I really make no claim to being the next Horatio Nelson - but it's a weird story for Pro Publica to write. It's even weirder that they tried to dress it up as the Navy being wasteful, when it's quite literally a story about the failures of anti-waste crusaders.
What are the arguments that have caused corporal punishment to go out of fashion in this day and age? Is the issue that it's too likely to traumatize the child, or that it's not actually effective, or that it's damaging to the relationship between the child and their caregiver, or what? (Obviously it could be multiple things.) I'm asking because I frequently see psychological put-downs being promoted instead (e.g. timeout, being sent to your room, etc) -- but to the extent that they're more effective, they presumably are more unpleasant to the child; so what's the advantage?
ETA: I'm not asking for an argument for why I shouldn't beat up my children; among other things, something would have to go very wrong for me to be relying on advice from strangers on the internet for this. I'm wondering about the history of how society recently transitioned from corporal punishment being the norm to it being very much not the norm.
"to the extent that they're more effective, they presumably are more unpleasant to the child"
-- this is not obviously true, at all. The claim can be either they are as effective with less unpleasantness, or more effective with the same unpleasantness, or both.
Depending on the child and how each are administered, a child may be very upset and *also* not internalize the necessary message with something like time out, but would remember more easily and get punished far less with a spanking.
Without researching this, I would guess it wasn't about arguments - let alone some particular argument. Rather, it seems like part of a larger shift towards viewing different groups as having privilege that had previously only been held by other groups.
In the case of children, that was a shift towards viewing them as a group that had to be treated more like adults than they previously were. An adult may need punishment, but corporal punishment has long been viewed as more taboo for adults than other types of punishments.
This shift extended more of the privilege of adulthood to children.
Other examples of such shifts include treating women with more of the privileges of men, treating other races with more of the privileges of favored races, and treating animals with more of the privileges that had previously been reserved for humans - e.g. recognizing that animal cruelty was problematic conceptually.
These shifts are not binary, of course and they can continue to develop both in scope and ubiquity.
> An adult may need punishment, but corporal punishment has long been viewed as more taboo for adults than other types of punishments
Not _that_ long. In the UK, judicial corporal punishment wasn't abolished until 1948, and in prisons wasn't abolished until 1962. In the US it was last used in 1952.
I'm a big proponent of corporal punishment for petty crimes like theft or vandalism, on the grounds that it's a punishment that hits everyone equally. A fine hits unevenly -- a rich person barely notices the money is gone, a very poor person never pays it anyway, and only people in the middle actually suffer from it. A prison sentence hits unevenly -- a short prison sentence is no great inconvenience for someone of the sort of class that's always in and out of prison anyway, but for an upper middle class person it's life-ruining. But six carefully-calibrated strokes of the cane, that's something that everyone can fear equally.
In the interest of taking this seriously, I disagree that corporal punishment hits everyone equally (pardon the pun) - if nothing else, beating someone sick or elderly is more likely to do permenant harm than beating someone young and healthy. Even controlling for health and fitness, different people have different tolerances for violence. I've done martial arts, I expect I'd find the experience unpleasant but tolerable, similar to a fine I suppose, but other people would literally find it traumatic and get PTSD, and other people would brag to their friends about how they only got six lashes. I leave it up to you to picture these different people, but regardless of any other merits of corporal punishment I don't think it's necessarily more "fair" than prison - if you're the kind of person who regularly gets into fights I think any deterrance would be minimal and would mostly come from the humiliation of it.
Personally I feel like income adjusted fines are a pretty reasonable approach to petty crime, and there are non-violent ways to do humiliation if that's what we really want. Objectively I understand that being hit by a cane is less damaging than a prison sentance, but I object to it on a visceral level and don't think you'd be able to sell the public on it.
I think corporal punishment breeds resentment and makes behavior problems worse, that is one reason. Also the world is getting softer and people encounter less brutality and are more uncomfortable with brutalizing children. I don't think that milder punishments are more effective because they are more unpleasant but because they are less unpleasant.
I think there is limited evidence that after-the-fact punishments and rewards "work" much at all (i.e. at changing behavior, not at satisfying a feeling of justice for the parent). Punishments established before the fact that the child knows they will receive if they do something they are not supposed to are pretty effective- the more definitely the child knows the rule, that they will be caught, and that the punishment will be applied, the more effective- and therefore rarely need to be applied. However the punishment does not need to be corporal to be effective and corporal punishment is distasteful.
I imagine that there is a high danger of actually damaging the child physically. Even if you tried to figure out safe ways of corporal punishment, teachers in general are quite incompetent, so I would assume them to be incompetent at this, too.
It could attract the wrong kind of person to the teaching job. (Someone who enjoys hurting children.)
The problem with negative reinforcement in general is that the negative emotions are associated with *everything*, not just the one thing you wanted. What you want is negative emotions associated with whatever deserved the punishment. What you actually get is negative emotions associated with the thing that deserved the punishment + with getting caught + with the teacher doing the punishment + with the school in general + with learning in general. (And occasionally the teacher is wrong and punishes an innocent student, in which case the negative emotions are only associated with the teacher + school + education.)
In general, punishment rarely works. The actual reason it is popular is that it establishes clear status hierarchy: the one who punishes is higher status than the one being punished.
That's a secondary reason that punishment is popular, and one which varies dramatically across cultures and across individuals within a culture. The primary reason by far, the universal one, is parents' desire to feel like they are tangibly doing something about whatever way it is that the child is screwing up. It is really impossible to convey to non-parents how powerful, how primal, that feeling can be.
Realizing that punishment rarely actually works and has high risks of unintended effects, and that other ways of dealing with misbehavior are more likely to work, all of which I completely agree with, is an _intellectual_ exercise. The desperate wish to feel like you are taking some sort of action to keep your kid from screwing up is _emotional_. In moments of crisis -- which a misbehaving child is for a parent to at least a small degree and sometimes a large one -- emotion tends to kick intellect's butt. For most human beings most of the time, anyway.
I know that anecdotes don't prove much, but as someone who did experience corporal punishment as a child, I would have – at the time as well as know – prefer approaches that don't involve physical violence.
Most negative aspects of purely "psychological put-downs" are still present in corporal punishement. Actually, even more so present.
Standing in a corner is mostly just boring.
Say, you get punished deservedly. You probably know that it will happen. So you are waiting for it, full of guild. But also full of dread and helplessness and despair. And eventually the punishement comes. And then there's humiliation of being half naked, and humilitation of pain (on top the physical pain itself), and then there's humiliation of ugly crying and yelling which you could only avoid at first but not till the end, and it only gets worse if I keep describing the experience. It's degrading, and children are just as capable of feeling that as adults.
But what's worse is that you will get punished unfairly (or at least believe to be punished unfairly). The punishement will come as a surprise, as a betrayal. All the pain and suffering is so much harder to bear when you think it's unfair.
For me, that alone would be enough to rule the corporal punishment out, but it's only the tip of iceberg. Because these experiences are traumatic, and what's worse, most way to cope with that sort of trauma are unhealthy and have long lasting consequences. It's an easy way to apathy and depression and learned helplessness. On the other extreme, it's an easy way to lying and decieving and manipulating and taking all the wrong risks because you learned to bullshit your way out of the consequences. So effectively, it teaches all the wrong lessons.
Other form of punishements are never quite that cruel or unpleasant, unless you take them to absurd extremes (yeah, sitting in a dark room for a month would be worse that most beaitings, but come on now).
And that's even when you compare fairly light corporal punishement to the least violent alternatives, but corporal punishement can be so, so much worse.
As an argument for why society moved away from corporal punishment, this seems to prove too much. Surely children always preferred not getting beaten, or for that matter not getting punished?
Well, yeah I was not even attempting to answer that question in my previous comment, I just wanted to make from a specific perspective highlight why corporal punishement is not a good idea. And as it often happens, my explanation has little to do with reasons as to why it was mostly abandoned (then again, some societies did not really move away).
I don't think I'm quite qualified to answer your question, but I'll try to do just that to the best of my ability, in rather broad strokes.
One part of the story is that children died like flies in not so distant past.
>As recently as two centuries ago, around 1 in 2 children died before reaching the end of puberty.
So their preferences hardly mattered, but that's not even the main thing here.
First we need to look at bigger historical context, because corporal punishement for children is just a tip of the iceberg. The time when children were recieving corporal punishement, but adults were not is rather an anomaly.
Corporal punishement was just normal in most societies throught the history, just about anyone except for highest class in any given society could get punished physically in various ways.
There are not many ways to punish someone who does not own anything, imprisonment is costly, and death penalty is too extreme for most offences, and pain is a language what everyone understands.
But as you know the class systems mostly crumbled thanks to technological progress and enligthment values, and that led, among other things, to laws changing so that adults were not longer routinely corporaly punished. And then, eventually, we moved away from corporal punishment for children, too.
Of course this is not the whole story, details matter a lot, must surely be different for every country, and are worth stydying. But the general idea would probably hold if you dig deeper.
I think you're greatly underestimating the extremes to which corporal punishment historically was used. In the beginning of the 20th century in Europe corporal punishment could include striking the hands to the point of unusability, forcing children to hold stress positions for hours or just straight up beatings. And that's were just what the schools were doing to unruly children. At the high end corporal punishment is literally torturing kids into behavior. The modern paradigm that children will rarely or never be struck by a parent is very much a response to these extremes rather than the minimal violence you'll see these days.
A couple of thoughts. "In this day and age" makes it sound recent but - UK experience here - I was born in 1967, and I never came across any in-the-wild experience of corporal punishment. That covers in my own family, at school (including a very traditional minor public school), anecdotes from friends. I'm sure it was still in use in some schools and households in the 1970s but it was vestigial.
An obvious problem is that CP is a reasonably popular sexual fetish.
Did CP being a popular sexual fetish play a part in moving away from it as a society? That would be interesting if true, but also I'd want some evidence.
I don't think CP was a visibly popular fetish at the time society moved away from corporal punishment for e.g. schoolboys. I was at least aware of it myself, but I had weirdly diverse bits of knowledge and basically nobody else was talking about it in mundane circles.
In addition to the things you mention, I expect part of it is about how it might affect the child's relationship to physical violence. For example, It seems plausible that being physically violent towards your child makes it more likely that they end up behaving violently towards other children, or in other relationships they later have, in a way that doesn't straightforwardly analogize to being put in time out.
It also seems plausible to me that corporal punishment, even if it is fine when practiced in an ideal way, more easily drifts into worse, abusive or dangerous practices than e.g. a timeout system when parents are non-ideal.
Has it always been associated with lower class behavior, such that e.g. aristocratic children got less of it? Or is this only relevant in societies with a lot of social mobility?
> aristocratic children got less of it?
Definitely.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_boy
Not clear: "There is little contemporary evidence for the existence of whipping boys, and evidence that some princes were indeed whipped by their tutors, although Nicholas Orme suggests that nobles might have been beaten less often than other pupils.[3] Some historians regard whipping boys as entirely mythical; others suggest they applied only in the case of a boy king, protected by divine right, and not to mere princes.[4]"
Americans protesting against Israel seem to think that the US government has the power to stop the war in Gaza. Why do they believe this? The US could of course defeat Israel in a direct military confrontation but short of that it seems unlikely they could persuade Israel to end the war, even if they ended all support for Israel, because Israel doesn't need US support to defeat Iran and its proxies. Or am I wrong, and they do?
If for some unexpected reason the US were suddenly to support the Palestinian Cause instead of Israel, it stands to reason that China would quickly rush in to fill the void, as Israel would accept China as an ally given American abandonment, and China would have more to gain from having Israel as an ally than they'd have to lose by alienating current Arab allies. Or do you disagree?
I'd say it's wishful thinking. Americans generally want the conflict to stop. America is the last superpower.
Too many movies have convinced Americans that Virtue Wins. They don't get that Movies Are Fiction Designed to Create Happy Endings.
So if we're virtuous and have power, it must be possible to use that power to get a good solution.
Do you understand the US provides billions of dollars in aid and military equipment to Israel each and every year?
Do you understand that the US is in the process of authorising 13.6 BILLION DOLLARS in aid to israel as we speak?
Do you understand that the threat of US intervention is one of the main reasons other middle eastern countries leave it alone?
Do you understand we could treat Israel the way we're treating Russia and Iran and however many other countries?
Do you understand that the US's security council veto has been the only thing standing in the way of other countries punishing Israel?
Yes to all.
See my response below regarding how a US threat to sanction Israel might go. Feel free to disagree with my intuition there.
I've mostly seen arguments for stopping aid to Israel, especially military aid, and "calling for a ceasefire". Stopping aid seems possible and I understand why people would want that (though I am not at all able to evaluate the efficacy). I'm unclear on what good asking for everyone to please calm down would do. Same reason people wanted the US to declare a no-fly over Ukraine maybe? Like, "this is really bad and we have to do *something* so lets get the government to frown disapprovingly."
> short of that it seems unlikely they could persuade Israel to end the war
They could start by not sending 2 aircraft carriers, 14.5 billion dollars of aid, and 2000 US marines to die on the shores of Gaza in a failed amphibian assault.
> am I wrong
You're, as evidenced by the fact that the gallant IDF is losing tanks and personnel to Palestinian militants wearing knockoff Adidas and carrying weapons costing less than $100. That's what it means to be a colony, you need constant lifelines of relief against the natives.
> seem to think that the US government has the power to stop the war in Gaza
They're not wrong, the 2021 unprovoked aggression on Gaza ended with a single phone call from Biden.
> it stands to reason that China would quickly rush in to fill the void
No they wouldn't. China doesn't have lobbies to bribe its politicians into sending billions of tax payer money into a foriegn apartheid. China wants markets, and the Arab market alone is larger than Israel several times over.
> China would have more to gain from having Israel as an ally than they'd have to lose by alienating current Arab allies
Such as ... ?
Prediction: zero US marines will die on an amphibian assault on Gaza. (Because nobody is going to do this dumbass thing.)
The "to die" wasn't expressing an expectation of future events, it was a paraphrase of a retired US colonel, supported by various OSINT accounts on twitter. Never supported by a mainstream news source, it's still slightly more credible in my book than a hearsay, and the wikipedia for the colonel doesn't give any easy reasons for dismissals.
Agreed that I should have preceded it by any uncertainty qualifier.
The retired US colonel in question, is a dumbass. The retired US colonel in question, is *obviously* a dumbass. The person who decides, of all the possible authorities they could quote, to quote the obvious dumbass, is a what now?
Stay Classy.
Every post you make is an argument against you. "2000 US marines to die on the shores of Gaza in a failed amphibian assault" seriously??
> 2000 US marines to die on the shores of Gaza in a failed amphibian assault
That's from retired US colonel, Douglas Macgregor in an interview with Tucker Carlson. The exact quote is "Shot To Pieces".
I certainly could have done better to indicate that this claim isn't as credible as the 2 preceding it and confirmed by mainstream news sources everywhere but given your indignant tone I have a feeling you're not as interested in dispassionate fact checking as trashing a post that offends your political leanings.
> Every post you make is an argument against you.
Yeah totally, which is why you picked one sub-point out of a point out of 5 points I made to get offended about and ignore the rest, because my posts are totally unconvincing and self-refuting.
Maybe the local frogs and salamanders are more dangerous than we realize.
When you give a country 300 billion dollars in aid and your security council veto is the only thing standing between that country and being subject to economic sanctions which would be far more airtight than those apartheid South Africa was subjected to, it's absurd to position that country as fully independent and autonomous.
There is no Israeli governmental source I am aware of that claims that Israel has no need for future military, economic, or political assistance from the United States. How did you arrive at this conclusion, and what research did you perform if any to reach this assertion? Similarly, how did you determine that an economy which has to import over 11 million barrels of oil a day would benefit by alienating those suppliers in favor of a military alliance with a country whose leaders have indicated they require large amounts of economic and military aid in order to survive?
Even being charitable, it doesn't seem like you've made much effort to gather information that's freely available to you.
If your question is really being asked in good faith, I think you would find reading about the 1956 Suez Crisis informative. How things played out there is an excellent example of how the US was able to, without any direct military force, override the combined political will of Israel, Britain, and France to bring about a rapid ceasefire and return to the status quo ante bellum.
Perhaps you've been misdirected by official US sources which tend to take these kinds of rhetorical hedges in order to deflect criticism and responsibility for any bad outcomes.
To be clear, US aid to Israel is on the order of a few billion per year. The 300 billion number you quoted is one estimate (on the high end) of all aid ever given to Israel from the US.
Republicans are currently trying to give it 13.6 billion
The overall aid is the most important historical context: it's not as though this is a country which has done fine on its own and has recently hit problems. Rather, this is a country whose long-term foreign and domestic policies would be impossible to sustain without past and ongoing massive external assistance from the US.
In realpolitik terms, Israel is a client state of the US in the same way that Cuba was a client state of the Soviet Union: bound by ostensible common interests and ideology, but geographically remote and likely to experience a dramatic decline in living standards and military capabilities when the patron's economic priorities shift.
>the only thing standing between that country and being subject to economic sanctions
Good point. Economic sanctions could cripple Israel's economy. A credible threat of sanctions could cause Netanyahu to end the war. Although my guess is that, given the historic support the US has provided Israel with up to the present moment (the 300 billion dollars to which you allude), such a sudden change of course would not be credible in the near run, as it would be the diplomatic equivalent of turning around a freight-train at high speed.
Even if Biden threatened Israel with economic sanctions tomorrow if it didn't end the war, and such threat were credible, it seems incredible to believe that Netanyahu would cave to such demands. He could, with reason, believe that such sanctions wouldn't last because such sanctions by Democrats would hand the presidency over to Trump, who would end the sanctions.
This conflict is dissimilar from the Suez Crisis in that Israel is responding to a terrorist attack and therefore its actions are not driven by cold logic and consequentialism but by patriotic fervor.
>how did you determine that an economy which has to import over 11 million barrels of oil a day would benefit by alienating those suppliers in favor of a military alliance with a country whose leaders have indicated they require large amounts of economic and military aid
The US currently backs Israel and yet there has been no oil embargo or even the threat of one by Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Salman seems only interested in realpolitik. China also buys oil from Iran, but currently-sanctioned Iran needs China as a buyer at least as much as China needs Iran as a seller. Meanwhile China, which is spending like mad on growing its military specifically for battle with the USA, could gain a bit from Israeli intelligence on the US. With as many Israeli sympathizers as there are high up in the US government, it's hard to imagine Israel losing its intelligence pipeline from the US anytime within the next few decades. That would make an alliance with Israel a substantial military asset for China.
China would have no benefit from Israel. They would absolutely not take that side. Probably they would take no side.
Wouldn't they benefit from all the intelligence Israel has on the US?
Just like the Arab countries would benefit from all the intelligence the US has on Israel, so Israel has an incentive to avoid starting the tit-for-tat.
And even if China entered into a one-time opportunistic fling with Israel to share intelligence, it won't be anywhere near as continued or as unconditional a type of support as the one the US has been giving since the start of quasi-parasitic relationship.
In my moral universe, to reference "the Palestinian question" -- after the inhumane, criminal assault of Hamas against Jews and Israel on October 7 -- would disgrace the memory of those so viciously murdered in the racist attack, and materially support terrorism.
Hamas knew some American airheads and the 85% of pop media that lurch leftward would treat Jews as dreaded White People -- soulless, heterosexual colonialists -- and Hamas as the brave victim-of-color. Ah, the pretzel logic of 'progressivism'.
Don't even try to talk to me about Palestinians or 'Palestine' until all Hamas's leaders are reposing in Osama been Hidin' Land.
In my moral universe, to reference "the Israeli question" -- after the inhumane, criminal assault of the IDF against Palestinians and Gaza during the 2018–2019 March of Return
-- would disgrace the memory of those so viciously murdered in the racist attack, and materially support terrorism.
Netanyahu knew some American airheads and the 85% of pop media that lurch both rightward and leftward would treat Arabs as dreaded Middle Eastern People -- soulless, Muslim savages -- and the IDF as the brave victim American Ally. Ah, the pretzel logic of 'Pro-Israel' supporters.
Don't even try to talk to me about Israelis or 'Israel' until all IDF's and the Israeli government leaders are reposing with Nazinuahu beneath the land.
The problem here is that a ton of the people actually dying in Gaza are random Gazans who had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on Oct 7. I don't have any great suggestions here--there's no way Israel is going to *not* respond militarily to that kind of attack, and there's no way to do that that doesn't kill a lot of civilians given how Hamas operates. But it is still legitimately terrible that a lot of Gazan civilians are dying in this war, just as it is legitimately terrible that a lot of Israeli civilians died in the attack that kicked the war off.
Thousands of innocent civilians, really truly innocent and possibly larger in number than the Palestinian civilian casualties of this war to date, were killed horribly in Normandy on or about 6 Jun 1944. And then there's all the residents of Berlin in May 1954.
Sucks to be living in Gaza City these days, yes, but sometimes necessity trumps innocence. Which is to say, war sucks but most of us have decided a war is appropriate right now and all this terrible stuff is baked in to that already-made decision, now we just need to get on with it. Or at least to let the Israelis get on with it without our backseat driving.
My point is that, initiating any conversation regarding is "the Palestinian question" at this time -- while Jews are still mourning and trying to recover those kidnapped -- is disrespectful and inappropriate.
It also supports and suggests approval of Hamas's assault, and therein actively participates in terrorism. Of course, Hamas knew all this would happen before they began.
What is alarming is how so many "activists" are so obliviously happy to participate, They make the January 6 crowd look like amateurs.
When you use terms like "disrespectful" and "inappropriate" you are no longer making any kind of logical argument, you are instead making a fallacious argument based on an appeal to tradition or appeal to emotion as you interpret it.
You are no longer engaged in discussion and have now moved to threaten anyone who disagrees with you by implying they are terrorists who are actively participating in criminal acts simply by disagreeing with your contextual framing and moral timeline which starts history on October 7th 2023.
This kind of rhetoric is authoritarian, illiberal, irrational and contributes to the erosion of free speech as well as rule of law.
If argumentative fallacies and empirically false timelines are the best arguments Israel has for its policies, every younger intelligent israeli with the means to do so can be expected to voluntarily emigrate rather than remain ruled by irrational people who threaten rather than convince.
And indeed, this is exactly what is already happening, with over 50% of israelis under 34 expressing a desire to leave: https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/07/17/survey-finds-troubling-proportion-of-young-israelis-would-emigrate-if-they-could/
Terrorist supporters and propagandists deserve their day in world court for war crimes against Jews.
Israel has refused to sign the Rome Convention and is not a member of the ICC, so I assume the world court you're referring to is an imaginary one.
That said, I hope you keep your fantasies to the realm of pseudo-legality.
Please take it easy on yourself, you seem to be heading down the path of someone who could rationalize committing a mass shooting against people you've already dehumanized in your mind.
Ok, so once someone denounces Hamas, as I would, as every policy maker already has, as everyone except for a handful of college students and pundits with no power already has, would you in turn denounce the israeli government and settlers for the 100+ murders of Palestinians in the west bank which is not controlled by Hamas in any way shape or form?
Hamas and other terror groups operate in the West Bank, and even Fatah has a terror wing which claimed responsibility for killing a cop and four civilians near Tel Aviv last year. IDF and border police frequently come under attack in the West Bank. I wouldn’t assume that most Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank are civilians.
In the past, Israel has arrested and convicted settlers who’ve murdered Palestinians. I don’t know if this government intends to do that. It’s an awful government for many reasons, but if they’re ignoring settler murders that’s a deeper low than I expected.
The Israeli government has indeed sunk this low, it is perhaps the least capable and most thuggish in all of Israel's history, it exists as a coalition to keep Netanyahu out of jail for corruption rather than to serve their national interest.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/ben-gvir-responds-to-bennett-fine-ill-take-down-baruch-goldsteins-picture/
Ben Gvir is the current Israeli minister of national security as described by the Israeli press. Baruch Goldstein was an Israeli-American settler, mass murderer, and terrorist who espoused an ideology of genocidal theocracy.
If we don't take this as prima facie evidence that some members of the current Israeli government tacitly approve of settler violence and that existing legal rights are not being implemented in good faith, what more evidence would be needed?
The current Israeli cabinet contains extremists who are engaging in a suicidal policy of unrestrained violence and ethnic cleansing which ultimately compromises Israel's security and survival, according not to any foreign critic or alleged anti-semite, but rather the head of Shin Bet:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/shin-bet-said-to-warn-settler-violence-could-cause-west-bank-eruption
Unfortunately I agree with all that. I don’t doubt that Ben Gvir wants the settler extremists to have carte blanche.
Just today Netanyahu said it was necessary to reign in settler extremism and tried to distance himself from them, yet now it's unclear how much control he still has. The coalition he's leading is not the one he would've chosen based on their abilities or rationality, it's just the one he's stuck with in order to stay in power and out of prison.
I'm no fan of his and I think he's acted in ways which are callous, criminal, and against Israel's long term interests, but I would still credit him with being a political survivor who is trying to manage a bloody campaign to his advantage while avoiding apocalyptic escalation. Independently of what I think of his other actions, we have to hope he is able to succeed in that.
> Israel has arrested and convicted settlers who’ve murdered Palestinians
With penalties never exceeding a year or two in prison. (for murder.)
More often than not the penalties are financial.
You should also look into the conviction rate of settlers and IDF personal accused, low single-digit.
The murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir are serving life sentences
Only one case out of all the thousands that heppened ?
The US has been giving Israel a lot of financial and military aid. We could presumably stop doing that.
I'm also pretty dubious. I think that probably the Arab nations are better allies than Israel; my impression is that the US supports Israel largely because of Jewish and conservative Christian constituents, not for clear tactical reasons.
>The US has been giving Israel a lot of financial and military aid. We could presumably stop doing that.
What would the results of doing that in this conflict be? Iranian proxies (and Iran) could send enough missiles to overwhelm Iron Dome without US military help. The result of that would likely be an Israeli nuke headed towards Tehran. It seems likely that US defensive help to support Iron Dome decreases the odds of Iran joining the war directly.
Well how about we end it first and then see how it looks. If Israel is doing fucked up shit (they objectively are), then the first step is to stop actively supporting it, even if this wouldn't completely stop them doing what they're doing.
A reason for not doing that is it could encourage Iranian aggression which could widen the war across the whole region. The US carriers are there to discourage that.
The US doesn't want a direct war between Israel and Iran for reasons that go beyond caring about Israel's interests. It's in US interests to prevent such a war because it could destabilize the region and send oil prices to $500 a barrel.
> The US carriers are there to discourage that.
And what the 14.5 billion free money and the repeated Security Council vetos are there for ?
I think that this is not clear to me, especially since Iran is allied with Pakistan (which also has nukes). There might be some deeper things going on here, but that's what google says. Maybe Israel would launch a nuke, but I'm pretty dubious.
Additionally, I think that saying that the US has the power to stop the war in Gaza is really representing a complicated coallition of ideas.
Firstly, as you mention, we could probably step in on either side and decide the war. If you REALLY want minimal Palistinean (or Israeli) casualties, this is the best call in the short-term. I'm sure that some people genuinely want this.
Secondly, we are "complicit" in the war by giving aid to Israel. If you want warm fuzzy feelings, we should stop doing this. I'm also pretty dubious that giving them weapons is the best way of de-escalating the conflict; while I agree that completely leaving them out to dry might have reprecussions, probably the ideal level of assistance from us is a bit lower than it currently is.
Thirdly, people just have this vague idea that "holding a protest" causes change. And so they see something that they want changed, so they hold a protest, without a strong idea of the causal chain that goes protest -> change. So people are just protesting with the expectation that that will stop the war somehow.
Perhaps the US can do a little bit to restrain Israel on the margin?
Yeah, and I think they have significantly. See this, for example: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/dark-thoughts-about-moderates
How much more can they restrain them, though? My guess is not enough to expect a difference in total casualties from the war.
It’s obviously unrealistic to expect the US to do anything from a realpolitik standpoint, except perhaps pushing for restraint in the interest of avoiding attacks against US assets in the region (which are already happening). What does Gaza have to offer economically or otherwise to the US? Having said this, perhaps protesting is perceived as a moral obligation by some people?
I think to actually be precise, by "tension" what I'm actually referring is (a) excessive antagonistic muscular resistance (make your hands as rigid and possible and feel how hard it is to play: then as soft as possible) and (b) unnecessary muscle holding (squeeze your shoulder blades up to your ears and play: then relax them and feel them "floating" on your back)
In both cases it really depends on your whole body awareness: if you're mostly unaware any sort of paying attention to breath and how you're choosing (unconsciously?) to hold or freeze muscles will be quite useful
If that sort of awareness is something you already have I would experiment with going to an extreme you "know" is wrong and then seeing how far you can back off (such as the hand tension thing above)
As a very general note piano technique is much more individual than is usually (?) taught so definitely give yourself permission to try lots of different physical approaches, hand positions, etc
If you're very visual you could try filming yourself, but that's not something that works well for me
Hmm, this looks like a top-level comment that was meant to be a reply to someone else.
Happens every open thread.
Yes, it was meant as a reply to @AnalyticWheelbarrow
Is there a way to tag them?
I see it. Thanks!
I don't think there is, but you could always just copy and paste your comment to the place it was supposed to go.
The MATS winter cohort begins on January 8, not January 17: https://www.matsprogram.org/program
Thought I'd stir the pot slightly by bringing up the kidney donation issue again. I was surprised how much it divided people.
However, even if we can't agree on the morality of removing an organ to save a stranger, perhaps we can agree on the *im*morality of removing an organ for no reason whatsoever? (I mean, aside from the minor enrichment of the medical system) Something like 90% of tonsillectomies are useless! And they're often done on children, for whom consent is far more dubious than in the case of adult organ donation.
One study from the UK: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181105200727.htm
And this is not a new problem: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-abstract/607049
Maybe there's some decidedly unsexy effective altruism to be done around this problem?
Hijacking this a bit to ask about if there is any good info on when tonsillectomies are useful. A friend of mine regularly gets strep (~once every 3 months), and was considering having it done.
Yanking out secondary lymphoid organs and throwing them away has the same effect on immunologists as saying "I don't believe in fairies" has on Tinkerbell. It's like a dagger to my soul.
I mean there is some reason, it just isn't readily apparent. If there was actually no reason, I wouldn't expect it to happen. It might be a bad reason of course.
I also feel like if someone said to me "I want to remove your appendix for you, even though this screening says that it won't burst or cause you issues, and I can do it painlessly, instantly, and for free" I would be pretty indifferent to that. I think that if you want to make an "inflicting pain and suffering on children" argument against these, but just for the inherent virtues of keeping your tonsils, I'm pretty dubious.
I've heard of people getting healthy appendixes removed if they're travelling someplace that's away from medical care for a while.
Ah, but there's already someone on the case!
https://youtu.be/AZuvuZXkg84
Although this is pretty much the antithesis of EA...
Robin Hanson has written many times about studies showing that healthcare collectively has no net positive effect. If one were to take that seriously, what would it imply? There's so much evidence that particular interventions have good outcomes, people are getting cured of all sorts of diseases and conditions. Does it mean that some incidental things are causing catastrophic amounts of damage, enough to offset the entire rest of medicine? If so, what are some candidates for that? Some possibilities that come to mind:
* Doctor's visits: Insufficient sanitation? Disease spreading in waiting rooms? Or maybe from the doctors themselves?
* Painkillers, or other optional medication, having some unknown serious long-term effect?
* Scans and tests being way more dangerous than thought?
* Recklessness caused by knowing that one has a doctor available to help them get through things?
* (Pharmacies secretly poisoning everyone who enters their doors? Medicine-demons that follow insured people around?)
Nothing I can think of seems particularly plausible, but I'm not a doctor and don't really know anything about the topic. Is there research into where the offset might come from?
The claim is no benefit at the margin, when you go from no insurance to insurance. This is consistent with medicine being very beneficial for stuff that you'd go to a doctor or hospital for even without insurance--broken bones, heart attacks, etc.--but not helpful on balance when you go to a doctor routinely.
Basically, if you go to the doctor for a minor problem, the benefit he can offer you is often relatively small, and it comes with the potential to catch something in the doctor's office, or to have a drug reaction that's much worse than your original problem, etc. Think of someone who goes to the doctor for a cold--the doctor can't do anything useful for it, but might misdiagnose it or order tests to placate the patient, and end up doing more harm than good.
While I'm sure I could make some specific critiques of the study, at the broad level it's pretty plausible.
First, spending is poorly correlated with health outcomes. Hey, you broke your bone, we gave you an x-ray and put you in a cast, couple doctors visits, maybe a couple grand for insurance. Meanwhile, you've been seeing a therapist for 2 years @ $90 an hour with no measurable improvement and your new dermatology med is $3k/month. If you're on meds, look them up on GoodRx, it's wild.
Second, everyone's getting unhealthier all the time. Look, your doctor is doing the best he can but there's a new meme on TikTok about Pumpkin Spice Oreos you can watch on your couch, which is why ~1/2 of America has gone past overweight to straight obesity.
That's the vibe in medicine, at least mine. It's a losing battle against an increasingly unhealthy society and, while some moderate progress is constantly being made to offset this, the prices for those improvements are randomly generated number between $5 and $250,000, rolled randomly for each patient. Just....just completely abandon any concept that the value of a medical service or drug is correlated in any way with its effectiveness and it makes perfect sense.
I think the argument was that there are severe diminishing returns so that the marginal dollar isnt improving outcomes, not that all of it is useless.
I'm very much shooting from the hip and going by memory here, but -
My impression is that is not what the research Robin was referencing showed. The one I specifically recall is Medicaid expansion in Oregon. Due to the lottery system used in the roll out, researchers were able to identify the causal effect on health (and financial) outcomes. There was little to no health improvement, but large decrease in catastrophic out of pocket costs.
This does NOT show that healthcare has no collective net benefit - it shows that in America, uninsured people don't die/suffer from lack of care. They get the care, and then are in massive debt.
Yes, this was my takeaway from it. It's not that healthcare treatments had no effect, it's that health insurance policies had little effect, right?
So if you're poor you're going to get life saving medicine regardless of how expensive it might be. You're going to go into massive debt to treat your cancer, because the alternative is to die. So given that, you wouldn't actually expect to see big outcomes on health, but outcomes on debt and money spent.
No, the argument Robin has made is that medicine itself is what people should be skeptical of. Once a ceiling is reached, countries that spend more money on healthcare do not have better health outcomes.
Perhaps that's true but it's not the outcome of the RAND study. That was measuring the outcome of people who have to pay for care or not based on random assignment. If you have to pay for care we should expect you would if it were life threatening, and thus not notice a significant difference in health outcomes but rather money saved/debt avoided.
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/medicine_as_scahtml - On a different experiment, Hanson writes that it "seems clear evidence that medicine is a huge scandal." I don't know enough to be able to determine the statement's validity.
That RAND study measured whether having free Healthcare made a difference, right? Not whether you received care or didn't. We should expect people who have to pay to still get important surgeries/anti biotics etc. And so wouldn't see a significant difference. Unless I'm reading it wrong
I'll be in the Bay Area Tues-Fri (leaving Fri mid day). Would love to meet folks, or attend a fabled 'Bay Area Houseparty'. Drop me a line at circus kerry one word at the google mail place.
https://astralcodexten.com/ is disturbingly different from https://www.astralcodexten.com/. Please fix. One consequence of that is that Google finds only the placeholder page (first link) instead of the blog (second link).
I've noticed this too and I was really confused. How can these two lead to different sites?
https://youtu.be/L-Hfx1EWKfw
I will die before I click a blind youtube link.
Also a question about homeownership and refinancing.
This is hypothetical (given the interest rate environment). But friends were debating a past refinancing offer that would have saved maybe $20k over the life of the loan, nothing seemed off and the offer was reputable, but somehow the new closing costs are up most of the arbitrage/savings from the lower interest rate and increased value of the house.
What am I missing here? Would it have been worth it to take that deal, or is there some other hidden cost, if not financial, to refinancing?
Not an expert, but I'd imagine a 'hidden cost' would be that doing a 'just barely worthwhile' refinancing could prevent a more valuable refinancing latter.
Let's say the mortgage will cost $100k over its lifetime but it can be refinanced to $80k at a fixed cost of $15k. (Numbers all arbitrary)
That does save $5k... but suppose in a year rates have dropped more and the same mortgage could be refinanced to $70k - if the mortgage is still at $100k, you can then refinance and save $15k: if you already refinanced to $80k, then spending another $15k to refinance again is not going to be a good deal, so you'd be 'stuck' at $80k.
There are two big details lurking within the "over the life of the loan" qualification. The first is time value of money, which can be a substantial factor when talking about a 30-year loan. At a 5% discount rate, spending a dollar today to save $4 thirty years from now doesn't quite break even.
The second is that you often aren't going to hold the loan to term. You might refinance it again, or you might sell the house and move. In either case, the projected savings after when you sell or do the second refinance will never come to pass.
Absolutely. But is it still a good deal for the homeowner vs remaining with original loan? Assume they didn't shop around for whatever reason.
I wanted to ask about auto and homeowners insurance.
I've been with my current company for a loooong time and they've increased rates so much that, on impulse, I switched to a much cheaper rate with another insurer whose reputation I don't love but the savings were significant. I got the rate contingent on a bundle with homeowners, but their homeowners is consistently reviews very poorly.
All the best homeowners companies I've since quoted with give me a higher auto and homeowners rate (though still lower than my recent unbundled auto rate).
How much does the homeowners' reputation (especially JD Powers claims study performance) matter here?
How much of a liability is it that I already just switched auto insurers in quoting bundled rates?
Thank you.
I know a lawyer who works in insurance cases, and here's my takeaway from that:
Insurance companies are a big pool of money, with money flowing in and out. In depends on the rates, and out depends on expenses, advertising, paying claims, and profits. If you look at an insurance company with low rates, or which advertises a lot, or which is for-profit, that money probably doesn't come from reduced expenses, it probably comes from not paying claims. In particular, a lot of companies have lawyers on staff whose sole job is to find reasons to not pay claims. Also, different groups of people have different risk factors, and if a company is advertising low rates to the general public, or advertising that it takes anyone, those are also signs that it probably has ways to avoid paying claims.
Two companies which avoid most or all of these problems are USAA and Amica. (I don't know anything about State Farm, one way or another.)
That said, a question to consider is why you want to have insurance? If it's just to tick a checkbox on a form, maybe whoever has the lowest rates is best for you. But if you're worried about what happens when something major goes wrong in your life, the question then becomes, do you want dealing with your insurance company to make the situation better, or worse?
One of my neighbors got a very very fancy new sports car, and then promptly had someone plow into his side not half a block from home. He spent about half a year in a back brace, and the car hasn't worked right since. But the thing he actually complains about, that kept him up at night and messes with his head, is how the insurance company tried to blame it all on him.
Which insurance company you're with doesn't matter until you actually need to make a claim. At this point, the insurance company can either (a) be helpful and cooperative, arranging repairs smoothly and paying for things without a fuss, or (b) be a bunch of jerks who want to fight you every step of the way. Option (b) is clearly a lot cheaper, so the only reason they'd chose (a) is if they have a good reputation which they're interested in upholding.
I think the good reputation is worth paying for.
As someone who worked 25 years designing insurance products, rating plans and running underwriting, I would strongly recommend two companies neither of which I ever worked for. Number one by a mile is USAA, if you qualify. Number two is State Farm.
I would recommend getting either of these companies and staying there for the long haul. I would not recommend the company that I was associated with for all those years. I saw how the kitchen was run. Hope this helps.
Would you mind sharing which company that is? I am aware about USAAs top-notch qualifications, but unfortunately our family does not qualify.
You should qualify for State Farm. I won’t say what company I worked for as an executive, other than it is a major company and it starts with an A. In all the time I worked there, I am sad to say we were never as good as the best companies at either price or customer service, and most importantly, at claim service.
I have to guess that it's Allstate, with which I am currently in a claims battle that is sucking up way too much of my time and attention. The people in customer service are all lovely, but they are also powerless to help me maneuver around the bureaucracy.
The new Semaglutide drugs for weight-loss seem to work well for weight-loss/hunger control. There are also (much more preliminary) claims that the same drugs work as something like a general craving suppressant or willpower booster, helping with things like substance addiction and impulse shopping. My question is: how much of the current observations can be explained with a hunger-mediated mechanism? Hungry people tend to make worse decisions and have worse cognitive abilities, according to both social science and snickers' ad agency, and it doesn't take a strict willpower depletion type model to explain why people trying not to think about lunch might distract themselves with online shopping. Have there been any trials giving Ozempic to e.g. people trying to stop gambling but who aren't trying to lose weight? Also, the benefits of Semaglutides are discussed in terms of weight-loss, but what are the potential utility gains from decreasing the sensation of hunger?
GLP-1 agonists aren't hunger suppressors per se (though they may do some of that too), they typically cause one to feel "full" much faster than usual. The sort of baffled medical excuse for this is "it delays gastric emptying" ie food stays in your stomach longer and thus maybe causes it to fill up faster (though this doesn't adequately explain the phenomenon), but my sort of unsupported theory is that whatever they're doing to reinforce one's internal "willpower" couples with the satiety-inducing effect to help one act on it much more sharply. In other words, I suspect it's a unique combo of people feeling full faster (something a few other weight-loss drugs also do) AND they're more likely to react to that by voluntarily eating less.
That said, hunger is an underappreciated driver of weight gain. Atypical antipsychotics are notorious for "causing" new onset Type 2 diabetes but that framing is kind of a misdirection for the fact that this mechanism is entirely through increased appetite causing weight gain. It's also how weight setpoint homeostasis is influenced upwards (weight drop = appetite increase). There's some amount of hopefulness that GLP-1 agonists are somehow lowering weight setpoints.
I've heard the "willpower boost" in terms of refraining from unhealthy binging, but read one report from a user that it sapped some of the pleasures out of life for her. Are there very many similar reports, or risks that semaglutide dulls the desire to binge on tasks we might think are valuable?
Benign binging might include staying up all night to finally finish that essay or python program that has been niggling at me. Or the slight oddball obsessiveness with calculation that drives me to build a giant spreadsheet thoroughly analyzing all factors of some decision, or ever finish my taxes. Maybe binge watching TV shows would be marginal, but I'm very happy with the times I've binge read some novels. Maybe the least analogous, but even when I build good exercise habits, usually I'm turning up the volume on some obsessiveness with watching numbers go up.
Maybe this sounds silly and it's obviously not a risk, these types of binging are not the same, I really don't know. It's just... I quite like obsessive binging in some areas of my life and would hate to lose them, acknowledging that it can be very harmful in others.
I am considering creating the following app for Android:
- educational app for very young children. You see a sandpit and a picture of a happy rabbit. You can draw lines in the sand with your finger.
- the letter "A" appears over the sandpit, and the first stroke appears as a line. The happy rabbit looks very intently at it, and gets excited if you start drawing your finger along it. When you complete the stroke, the rabbit gives a happy head shake and the next stroke appears.
- when you complete the entire letter, the rabbit does a whole happy dance and you hear a voice saying "A" aloud. Then rinse and repeat with another randomly selected letter.
- once the child is fluently drawing all the letters of the alphabet, you get to select another alphabet for it to learn. For example, the IPA, the expanded alphabet (containing Scandi/old Anglo Saxon characters), Cyrillic, Hiragana, etc etc. All are just datasets fed through the same system. This stuff will be boring if you have to learn it later in life, I like the idea of feeding the kid as much as we can while it's still got nothing better to do. I also like the idea of the kid's primary school teachers sitting there in confusion because thorn characters keep showing up in the kid's homework.
- and/or: once the child is fluent in the Roman alphabet, we proceed to short words, it writes out "cat" or whatever and hears the word spoken aloud. The words get longer as the child gets more fluent at writing them.
I am in two minds about this second approach (the whole word one). My first (boring) hesitation is it's a lot more data to curate - especially if you want to do the logical thing and have a picture of a cat appear alongside the word.
My second hesitation is that I cannot for the life of me remember how I learned to read/write, so I'm honestly not sure if this kind of learning would be effective. And if it's not - why am I assembling gigabytes of audio and image files to enable it?
I have done exactly zero research on this since having the idea, so if this exact thing already exists (and you'd think it would) do please feel free to link it in.
What happens when they poke the rabbit? Don't assume that making the rabbit happy will be a child's goal.
Maybe better to have a field of objects, and the thing says the name when you touch it. Draw an A, the thing says "A". Click on a traffic cone, the thing says "cone". Maybe you can use the different alphabets at the same time, and different voices will respond for different locations.
When they poke the rabbit, its head will explode in a shower of blood and the app will scream at the child, "Look what you did! LOOK WHAT YOU DID!!"
I would recommend using phonics; that will make the transition from letters to words much easier.
Mixing Latin and Cyrillic sounds like possibly a bad idea, because there are many characters that are written the same, but pronounced differently.
Not sure how useful it would be to learn a foreign alphabet, unless you continue learning the language. Kids learn quickly, but they also forget quickly what they don't use.
"Mixing Latin and Cyrillic sounds like possibly a bad idea, because there are many characters that are written the same, but pronounced differently."
Sorry, kid, you were born English, so the complete lack of consistent rules is just something you'll have to get used to.
That's exactly why there is phonics, to provide at least some heuristic for the mysteries of English writing.
But adding an extra rule, that if the rabbit is wearing a red cap with hammer and sickle, the letter "B" is pronounced "ve", that is too much even by English standards.
I am an incoming undergraduate STEM student, and need a laptop to last me through college. Here are my requirements, listed in order of importance to me:
[1] Maximum of $2000
[2] Dedicated GPU
[3] Can Run Linux
[4] At least 16GB VRAM
[5] At least 16GB RAM
[6] Not a strange / uncomfortable shape / no RGB lights
I plan on purchasing an external drive, so storage is not an issue. The display / also do not matter much to me. Any help / recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
$2000 is relatively high end and will get you pretty high specs except for [4], here's an example from HP (https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/omen-transcend-gaming-laptop-16t-u000-161-94h72av-1), core i9 13th gen @5.4 GHz max and 24 physical cores, 32 threads. GPU is RTX 4070 with 8GB.
As far as I know, [3] isn't a disqualifier for any mainstream laptop brand : Apple, Dell, HP, Asus. What will get annoying is the **applications** that will refuse to run on Linux, and even that is quickly being eroded day after day at a heroic pace by open source development and reverse-engineering.
What are you going to study? I'm finishing up my studies in computer science, currently taking grad level ML & robotics courses. I have been using a MacBook Pro 14inch (M1) for more than a year, and I use Ubuntu 20.04 for ROS on a virtual machine.
I would highly highly recommend MacBook Air (13 inch). It's incredibly reliable, performant, and energy efficient (long battery life). I also have other PC laptops, but the build quality (i.e., screen and keyboard) is just much nicer on the Mac. If you want to try Linux distributions, you can always do it in a virtual machine.
16GB VRAM is going to be tough to find on that budget - it means a 3080 minimum. I guess you're needing to fit in large AI models?
Apple are making the best laptops right now and it's not close. If I was spending US$2000 on a laptop today I'd buy this: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/14-inch-space-black-apple-m3-pro-with-11-core-cpu-and-14-core-gpu-18gb-memory-512gb
Unfortunately it won't meet your requirements (there's no separation between RAM and VRAM in M-series architecture, and you can't run linux natively). Also, the M3 Pro has less memory bandwidth than the M2 Pro, so you may do better with last year's model for this specific use case.
The best non-apple brand in my recent experience is HP, followed by Lenovo. Avoid MSI, their build quality is awful.
I think you should look into a Framework machine, because they're an awesome company making highly configurable laptops whose internal components are also replaceable.
Why not just get a Mac?
Not OP here but one of the reasons could be not wanting to depend on closed source software and compromise with DRM and other walled garden practices by Apple?
While the Mac OS itself is closed source (well parts of it) there’s no restrictions on downloading open source code or applications as you wish, particularly if you are comfortable with the command line. It’s the dedicated GPU that’s probably missing here.
Indeed, you can easily run open source software on it. On the other hand the non-free parts and in general its design choices (icloud? really?) may be hard to stomach. If he is a student he may be given access to GPUs in a university cluster or otherwise on the cloud.
Has anyone tried xAI's new Grok LLM yet? Is it any good?
I wonder if this will change how people think about Elon Musk's decision to buy Twitter. If you think about it as just buying a social media platform, it seems like it was a pretty bad decision (except for the philosophical stuff like free speech, political neutrality, etc). But if you think about it as a continuous supply of proprietary training data for someone who also owns an LLM company, then maybe that changes things.
I don't think any amount of training data is worth what Musk paid for Twitter. Personally, the announcement reads to me as another 'Twitter will be profitable if we just release X', where the company is on it's sixth X with no sign of ever making any money.
I would think X’s value as a proprietary source of post-202X data will go hand in hand with its success as a social media platform.
But even if it’s successful, is “more post-202X social media text for training” that valuable? It would obviously increase the LLM’s awareness of current events or memes/slang, but I wouldn’t think the race for stronger general capabilities would be swayed by having more of that particular flavor of human text.
I don't think the extra training data would give you much advantage over what's available open source, but it'd be cool if tweets are put into some vector lookup for information retrieval so that you can talk to it about things that just happened a few minutes ago.
Tyler Cowen published a GPT-4 book designed to be queried and summarized with LLMs. Do you guys know of any service right now that allow to do the same with other books, in pdf format for example ?
I'm looking for a better name than 'early adulthood' for that period of life, traditionally 18-25 or so, in which you focus on building up your own educational and career capital before settling down and starting a family.
In talking about the changes I see with my generation (millennials), I think 'extended adolescence' is slightly overblown; adolescence implies a lack of independence, which has happened a bit (see: house prices) but isn't the main factor I see, which is more of an extended version of this early adulthood period, which now seems to drag on well into one's thirties.
The young-adult writer's market kind-of split into itself and a new one called 'new-adult', though you don't hear much about it anymore. That seems to fit your description.
I like 'New Adult' - it's less loaded than the other options.
Maybe "bachelorhood"? The connotations are about right, although the literal meaning might be too firmly anchored to marriage as the key endpoint.
Maybe they could play up the association with knighthood?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Bachelor
Reminds me of Phillip Lopate's book of the same name. A good choice.
This is the closest to what I mean, although I think you're right that it's too firmly tied to marriage.
I'll explain how this came about: I've been chewing over being told that I'm a 'real adult' now that I have children. Now that my oldest is about two and I have another on the way, I don't quite agree with the sentiment, but I do think there's *something* there.
Note: All this refers to individuals in Western cultures which are rich enough to be a few steps up Maslow's hierarchy. Your mileage may vary.
Proposed definition of the difference between early adulthood and, say, 'middle' adulthood: If the entity you think about the most is yourself*, you're still in early adulthood.
Early adulthood seems, to me, defined by a self-focus, which I don't mean in a derogatory way. It is entirely appropriate to, at this stage in life, after leaving one's parents, to learn, build up skills, and forge your own path and personality, with limited other responsibilities. That phase of life used to be almost universally relatively short, but at least in my circles, now in my mid-to-late-thirties, it seems to just...continue.
I certainly don't think that having children is the only way to become less self-focused; there are a number of others, from finding God to devoting yourself to helping others to immersing yourself in company management (the latter of which is likely less satisfying in the long run, but seems to replace that parental role for some). Having children is just, perhaps, the most reliable shortcut.
If, say, someone asks if I enjoy taking care of my daughter, the answer is yes, but the more true answer is that there are now a wide range of activities in which I don't constantly refer back to myself; it's a valid question, but just doesn't feel that relevant.
* Perhaps a controversial view, but to respond to the clear retort of the obsessive thinking of romantic partners/crushes amongst young people, I would argue that in most of those cases it's still mainly thinking about one's self, just one's self in the context of the partner (which, at least in my case, is very different to the way I think about my children).
Better as simply more accurate, or do you want something that rolls of the tongue? And what is it that you're seeing? Is it just a delay in settling down? Not having kids? Not nailing down a career? General uncertainty? Lacking specific competencies? Zoomers might be following the same trajectory, so this might just be a permanent change in the length of "early adulthood."
Maybe "extended coming-of-age"?
Hormonal adulthood
Liminal adulthood
Don't know what you're noticing, but extended adolescence seems spot on to me. Don't think it's overblown at all. The number of truly un-independent people (thought, movement, work, finances) is staggering.
I see this type of "teen-creep" going far into the thirties.
On the Road with the Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band
The road was generally somewhere in the Capital District of upstate New York. Think of it as a group of small cities and towns and centered on Albany, the state capital, Troy, where I lived at the time, and Schenectady, incidentally, where my grandfather had his first job in the United States, and where the band rehearsed in the basement of a photography studio in a somewhat sketchy part of town. The studio was owned by Rick Siciliano, lead vocalist and drummer for The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band. I played with the band from about 1985 or 86 to 1990 or so.
Not Exactly the Birth of the Blues
I am told that Siciliano started the band in the early 1980s as a means to attract women; I believe Duke Ellington was thinking the same thing when he decided to play piano. Rick got some of his buddies together to form a band. I hear he was better at attracting ladies than getting gigs. Somehow, though, he managed to gather reasonably good musicians. Chris Cernik joined on keyboards and served as den leader; he brought in his high school friend, John Eof on guitar. Then along came “Bad” Bob Maslyn on bass, Ken Drumm on alto and baritone sax to replace Rick’s buddy, Jimmy, and Rick Rourke on alto and tenor sax. There were others in and out of the band, Giles, some trumpeter whose name’s been forgotten, and then John Hines, who’d studied jazz trumpet at Berklee – that’s BerKLEE, the private music school in Boston, not BerKELEY, the flagship campus of the University of California.
They developed a repertoire organized around Blues Brothers tunes and Rick Siciliano’s taste in pop. They even had a couple of originals, “Lady DJ” (for Rick’s lust object du jour) and “Baby Tell the Truth.” Now we’re getting serious. Before you know it, Out of Control was getting gigs, but other bands were after John Hines. They put an ad in the local entertainment weekly, Metroland, looking for a substitute trumpet player.
I saw the ad, needed money, another tried and true motive for playing music. I called Ken, who acted as business manager, and set up an audition. I forget just how the audition process went, but it’s not like there were 30 trumpeters lined up to get the gig. Fact is, the time when trumpet was king was long gone by then so there weren’t many trumpeters, period. I forget just how I learned the tunes, but there were no charts. Perhaps Chris or Ken got me a set of rehearsal tapes. Whatever. I just listened and learned by ear, like all real musicians play, except for classical cats and other advanced miscreants. I soon became the one-and-only full-time trumpeter for the band.
You can read the rest here: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/11/on-the-road-with-the-out-of-control-rhythm-and-blues-band.html
I want to introduce a magical material to my medieval fantasy setting, but for the sake of internal consistency I want to make sure it can't somehow be used to invent perpetual motion machines or any other revolutionary technologies, so I'm asking you nerds about its engineering applications.
The material is a form of magical ice which behaves exactly like normal ice except that when it melts, rather than turning into liquid water it vanishes entirely, leaving nothing in its place.
The only mundane application I can think of is that you could use it to draw a partial vacuum (fill vessel entirely with ice, let it melt) which seems like it would be very interesting to chemists but not a big deal overall. Are there any applications I'm missing, or is there some really important chemical process you can do with access to a partial vacuum?
A way to chill drinks without diluting them with water!
The "ice bullet" murder mystery would work even better.
How is it created feels like the important first question.
It feels like... this should have impacts for storing food. Like, imagine that I take a loaf of bread and freeze it in this ice. I don't have to worry about it getting soggy when the ice melts. A small win, but a win.
Third idea, this is the perfect casting substance for something that chemically hardens. You could create pretty intricate molds with this (especially with magic), but the molds wouldn't have to worry about the standard break-away issues, as all of the ice would perfectly dissappear. Is this useful? idk. But could be!
It also decreases entropy. Lots of magic does this, but just pointing it out. Once again, we are asked the question of how it is created.
Anyway, I could probably have more thoughts, but how it's made is pretty important.
Casting molds is very clever, probably not revolutionary but a great little bit of engineering, I'll have to work that in somewhere.
The ice is made by wizards who can conjure it in the palms of their hands (pushing away the air around as it appears). I'm content to violate all kinds of laws with the "it's magic" excuse, but as an exercise I think this can actually be modeled in a way that conserves everything. Consider the ice as being summoned from the magic ice dimension (where opening a portal and pulling it through expends a bit of energy as you would expect), and then as it "melts" it's pushed back to where it came from, slightly warmer than it started.
What happens if you fill an an empty chamber with this ice and roll it through a fire? Would the disappearing ice reduce the mass of the container? You would then either violate the conservation of momentum or, if not, the velocity of the container could increase to conserve momentum, in which case you could make pretty interesting vehicles.
Actually, I don't think you can conserve both momentum and kinetic energy
The maximalist application would be to create enough magic ice to form a black hole. When the ice vanished out of existence, any ordinary matter in or around the event horizon would have released gravitational potential on the order of its rest-mass energy. If your wizards were ... hardy... enough, they could "pump" this process multiple times to release energy equivalent to the Big Bang.
Violating conservation of mass-energy has bigtime consequences, unfortunately.
Does it have to vanish entirely, or could you have it sublimate (turn directly into water vapor)? Also, how is it created? Does it come from regular water, or can it just be magicked into existence from nothing?
As described, it isn't even "melting". Water ice melts because putting a certain amount of heat energy into the structure excites the molecules. The resulting liquid form is denser, and now contains the heat energy.
If your magic ice instead suffers complete annihilation of the particles, there's no sense in which this is melting.
If it DID "melt" at the same temperature point, and the particles are completely annihilated, where is the energy going? If mass-energy equivalence does NOT hold in your world, and the energy also disappears, then you could destroy the planet's climate and end the world by making a sufficient quantity of it and removing heat energy from the system. If mass-energy equivalence does hold in your universe, then the energy has to go somewhere, forget the elaborate stuff about leaving a vacuum, you'd have either heat energy or mechanical force or some kind of radiation coming from this thing.
To keep physics intact we can imagine that "evaporation" is endothermic conversion of "ice" into neutrinos (or some other weakly interacting massive particle). I can't see it breaking anything technology-wise.
Whether you get perpetual motion would seem to depend on whether the energetic cost to create the ice is more or less than whatever work can be done with the vacuum.
IE, if you can use the vacuum to turn a crank to produce energy, and that energy is more than it would take to produce the ice, then that's in theory the potential for perpetual motion (modulo all the efficiency losses in turning the crank power into magic).
So I'd just put in some energy cost to create it that's defined to be more than the energy you can harvest from its eradication.
You probably want to look into the entire field of vacuum welding/cold welding, I don't know a ton about it but I think in a good vacuum you can do wacky things like clean up the edges of two pieces of metal and just sort of rub them together to merge them into a single piece. May not be game-breakingly useful but there are probably clever applications that let you do things you couldn't otherwise at low tech level.
Is this not how dry ice (frozen CO2) behaves? And indeed normal ice in some circumstances - sublimation.
That turns into a gas, I think they mean it turns into nothing (particles cease to exist)
I can only think of things like useful for cooling without the problem of liquid water remaining and needing to be disposed of, so you don't have the risk of rusting metal or making wood soggy. So for food storage and cooling buildings that get too hot and the likes? Cool your drink without diluting it as the magic ice melts?
If you had an infinite supply of it in front of a vehicle then it would create suction as it melted out of existence and pull the vehicle forward forever.
Given that the only fictional property this substance has is an irreversible reaction, it certainly can't be used to create perpetual motion at least. How significant the implications are may depend on what the limitations are on how it can be made. If you want to be particularly sure it's not physics-breaking, and the ability to produce a vacuum isn't the intended purpose, you could make it instead sublime into a gas (so it's kind of just like dry ice but higher-temperature and naturally occuring or something).
I can't think of any particularly significant applications. What you can do with a vacuum may be limited by the vessels you're able to construct, depending on the tech level.
Attach a rope to a bag. Fill the bag as completely as possible with magic ice. Make the bag as airtight as possible. As the bag shrinks, it pulls on the rope. But if the ice is hard to get, you're probably better off just pulling the rope by hand.
>Make the bag as airtight as possible.
Better yet, make it a metal cylinder with a gasket around the cap. Kind of like a cylinder in an engine.
What is the best scientific evidence supporting the existence of mental powers like ESP, telekinesis, remote viewing, and mind-reading?
As an aside: In his Imitation Game article, Turing lists nine possible objections to why machines might not be able to fully replicate human thought, and the only one which gives him pause is that humans can be telepathic, while machines cannot. "Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming."
Never looked into why he thought this.
There are some documents about the CIA studies into paranormal abilities that can be found online. A while back on DSL I summarized a few of the document. You can find the post here:
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,5691.msg209154.html#msg209154
A summary of the summary is that the CIA found some things that were weird, but not consistently weird and as such not useful enough for them to fund further. There was one guy who seemed to be pretty good at remote viewing (he got some things wrong, but a lot of things right he "shouldn't" have known about), but he died of a heart attack and after that they kind of folded the program.
EDIT: The CIA summary paper had this conclusion:
"There is no fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of paranormal functioning, and the reproducibility remains poor. The research and experiments have successfully demonstrated abilities, but have not explained them nor made them reproducible. Past and current support of paraspychology comes from applications-oriented intelligence and military agencies. The people managing such agencies demand quick and relevant results...Unless there is a major breakthrough in understanding, the situation is not likely to change...Agencies must commit long-term basic research funds and learn to confine attention to testing only abilities which at least appear reproducible enough to be used to augment other hard collection techniques."
Does anyone have a reference detailing suspected problems with random number generator bias in some of the old ESP studies? This was once mentioned in a comment by Scott under one of his SSC articles on the subject, which I can't seem to find currently.
This post from the old blog seems relevant (also entertaining): https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/
Look into David Bem, a very respected and rigorous psychologist who at the end of a long career did a bunch of meta-analysis on existing data to show that studies of psychic phenomenon had significant empirical support.
As I understand it, no one knows whether he was honestly trying to demonstrate that psychic powers exist, or if he was trying to demonstrate that the statistical method and peer review process in the field was insufficient to rule out stupid conclusions. He always acted like a sincere believer during this period, but it may have been performance art.
Anyway, he was respected enough and his analysis was rigorous and rules-following enough that it caused a big stir for awhile when it came out.
J.B. Rhine ran experiments back in the first half of the 20th Century. Although he claimed positive results, Rhine's research methods have been discredited by the scientific community — though, I have yet to read a detailed critique of his studies' shortcomings. My understanding is that controlled experiments that tried to reproduce Rhine's studies came up with nothing, though. Rhine's parapsychology research center at Duke University still seems to be active. There's an interesting Chinese study that the CIA translated back in the 1980s that concluded some subjects were quite good at remote viewing. You might be able to find it if you Google for it.
Having said that, a physicist friend of mine (now deceased) said he read a study back in the early 1960s where Zen meditators sitting near a mild radioactive source could slow the rate of radioactive decay by some small but statistically significant amount. He decided to try to reproduce the experiment. He said the setup was pretty simple, and finding a practitioner of Zen meditation to sit for him wasn't difficult in the university town. My friend said he was able to reproduce the results. He said he never tried to publish the results, though. I asked him why he didn't, and I recall him saying something to the effect, "It was pure curiosity on my part, and I didn't want to ruin my career by being perceived as a crackpot." Having said that, my physicist friend was a bit of a crackpot — he just knew how to masquerade as a normal person.
Any physicists out there want to try to reproduce this experiment?
Mind Beyond Brain by David Presti
What if there is an "equation" for general intelligence, like E=MC^2, but it's too complicated for humans to understand? Like, even if a person had the equation in front of them and had infinite time to study it, they'd never understand it?
BTW, I think this is already the case for equations in very high-level, highly specific fields of math. So much niche cognitive ability and more foundational math must already be possessed to understand them that 99.99% of humans couldn't grasp them even if they tried.
One way to think about this is to think of how an equation (or really, a formula - or really really, an algorithm) might be formed in the limit.
An algorithm that outputs the general intelligence of some system (whether that system is a person, an animal, a plant, a GPT instance, etc.) presumably would take various properties of that system as input and combine them in logical ways. Maybe those inputs include the number of neurons in a brain or nodes in a GPT's neural net or parts of a plant that are considered to be "processing information", combined with a graph of connections between those components, the capacity and precision of that system's sensory organs, the ambient temperature, and so on. The output might be some structured object representing GI, that you could put into another algorithm along with a cognitive problem and that next algorithm would tell you whether that GI could solve that problem, how long it would take, how close it could get if it couldn't, and so on.
Every algorithm can run on a Turing machine, and we understand pretty much everything relevant about Turing machines. The big fundamental problem is whether that GI computation (GI-COMP) will halt, or if it will go on forever with no answer on certain inputs. The nature of the halting problem is such that if we could guarantee GI-COMP will always halt, then we arguably "understand" the algorithm, since all we're required to know is what it will produce for a given input, and we can do that by simply running the algorithm.
If we don't "understand" GI-COMP, it would be because it won't halt on certain inputs. Moreover, we can't know a priori what all those inputs are. We might know -some- of them, and prepend an algorithm that checks for them and returns "unknown" for those cases, but we can't know -all- of them, because if we could, we could guarantee CHECKED-GI-COMP always halts, and it would be nearly equivalent to GI-COMP, except for the inputs we know are uncomputable - in other words, GI-COMP would not be a complete algorithm for GI.
Then we build more tools to help us understand it. Ultimately, a lot of scientific and mathematical thought goes towards building systems to help us analyze very big problems in a way that an undercaffeinated post-grad can understand. A Greek philosopher could never have wrapped their head around E=MC^2, no one has ever been intelligent enough to derive all the universe from base principals. So we collaborate, we build up structures of thought and test our insights against the real world.
Note that the world just is, and by no means is required to be fully comprehensible from the inside. In other words, At some level of resolution the lossy compression that agents like humans (or bacteria) perform to construct a mental map may well lose predictive power. From inside it would look less like an equation and more like Knightian uncertainty in observations.
As for "a general equation", a larger intelligence can potentially express this lossily compressed model as an equation, but humans would be physically unable to uncompress the "equation" to make interesting predictions.
And yes, there are already plenty of concepts that are critical for high-res modeling the world "that 99.9% of humans couldn't grasp them even if they tried."
I'm not sure what you mean that equation would describe exactly. Do you mean a definition for how intelligent a system is? The only reason I see why such a description would be exceptionally complicated is if it is in some way an explicit description of the intelligence (in a similar way to how a neural network can be described as an enormously complicated function by composing all its neurons' functions, and the computer program version of it is a representation of this abstract function), but that would be rather specific to one particular intelligent system.
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I've never thought this out, but presume that the units (g * (m/s)^2) must somehow come out in Joules.
(In the same unintuitive way, Ohms * Farads = s (seconds)).
Yes: a joule is a newton times a meter (eg. the amount of energy required to raise a one-newton weight one meter).
A newton is a kilogram times a meter per second squared, i.e. the force required to accelerate a one-kilogram mass by one m/s each second it's applied.
So a joule is a m * kg * m/(s^2) which comes out equivalent to kg * m^2/(s^2)
Thanks, that makes sense. I noticed that I goofed up the units when I wrote them - I meant m/s^2 (not (m/s)^2).
No you were right the first time- a newton is only kg * m/(s^2) but a joule has another length factor making it kg * m^2/(s^2) or equivalently kg * (m/s)^2
Yes, you're absolutely right. Thanks!
"eg. the amount of energy required to raise a one-newton weight one meter"
We have to be really careful here - this is not a particularly good definition, and it is actually incredibly difficult to expend 1 J of energy this way (even theoretically, disregarding friction). This is because you need more than 1 N of force to start lifting the 1 N weight (add F=ma because you need to achieve a nonzero velocity in order to lift). Consequently, you need to stop applying the lifting force in such a way as to have the weight reach 0 velocity at the exact 1 m height.
A better definition is 1 N force applied along a 1 m path where the vectors of the force and displacement have 0 angle between them.
Those will cancel out though- absent friction, if you apply 1 J of kinetic energy to a 1 N weight that will carry it up exactly 1 m before gravity stops it. But also I described it as an example ("eg") not a definition ("ie").
Oh, yes, from the "energy applied" side it will work just fine, the weight will stop at 1 m. How do we dish out exactly 1 J is a whole other discussion...
I couldn't help jumping in because it's a great example where a seemingly simple problem ends up being quite fascinating and can produce non-intuitive outcomes. Thank you for indulging my physics obsession :)
In modern days, as Neurotechnology is taking stride in every sphere of medical field, battle field, acute surveillance and many more; it is very essential to understand that how can brain -internet connection set up remotely without any surgical intervention. Can anyone comment on this?
I have heard there's been a lot of progress in brainwave-reading using electrodes on your scalp - I don't think it's got perfect resolution to the level of specific thoughts, but it can read mood, and I imagine there could be a way to use this as an input device in the future. It may well be possible, but harder to control than just using your hands - there's a reason we don't all control computers with our eye movements like the late Steven Hawking, dispite technology making it possible.
For output, I think we're still limited to VR, I don't think there's a non-surgical way to input information directly to your brain - if there was a way to externally influence brain waves it would probably just give you a seizure.
I'm connecting my brain to the internet right now, via the brain-hands-keyboard-computer pathway.
That's rather narrow bandwidth, though.
Why haven't smaller cars specifically for urban areas been commercialized on a large scale? I'm not part of the anti-car movement (I think cars are great!), I just don't think that the same vehicles that make sense for suburban or rural living really fit in much tighter urban spaces. Is it really hard that commercialize a much smaller car with a lower speed limit, that can still fit groceries and passengers safely? They'd fit better in parking spaces, both on street and commercial (the massive SUVs trying to park in my local Whole Foods lot, my god. Should be a felony).
There's lots of innovations in automotive design and drive trains on say farms- tons of smaller but sturdy vehicles from multiple manufacturers. Why aren't they more common in major cities?
Simple answer: below a certain size, however zippy they may be in the city, you wouldn't do a 1000km road trip in it, and would probably find it annoying to drive 150km. So unless you want to own two cars, which would mostly defeat the purpose, you get at least a subcompact for 1-2 people, and a compact for 3-4. It's not that much more money, and now you can do car trips.
How small do you have in mind? Compact cars (~100 cubic feet interior volume, e.g. a Honda Civic) and subcompacts (~80-90 cubic feet, e.g. a Ford Fiesta) are something like 8-10% of the US car market. Probably more like 20-30% if you also include compact and subcompact crossovers (i.e. vehicles with SUV-like body styles but scaled down to small car size), although it's hard to find good breakdowns of the "crossover" segment by size and see which ones are compact or subcompact as opposed to midsized. All types of crossover put together are about 50% of the US car market, with pickup trucks being about 20%, large SUVs being about 10%, midsized cars being about 8%, and vans and luxury cars being 4-5% each.
A subcompact is probably the smallest viable car category that's road-legal in the US while still being able to seat four people. You'll very occasionally see two-seater cars, but the benefits of those over regular subcompacts are pretty small, and people who do want a smaller-than-car motor vehicle that only seats 1-2 people will usually buy a motorcycle in the US.
I'd just be happy if every model of car didn't gradually creep up in size over time. Look at an old Honda Accord.
But how would they advertise without being able to claim "most leg room in its class"? :)
Excellent point, but maybe they still could because that's one of those advertising phrases that at this point falls on the ear with no impression whatsoever.
They have been commercialized; just not in the US. I saw a lot of small cars in Amsterdam recently, from "microcars" (e.g. https://biro.nl/en/) to smaller versions of the same compact cars and delivery vans that you see in the US. There are a couple of limitations to doing so in the US.
One is CAFE, a fuel-efficiency-related set of regulations that (unsurprisingly) accomplishes the opposite of what it was supposed to. Full explanation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/ep4wza/corporate_average_fuel_economy_cafe_is_bad_policy/ but the TL;DR is that car manufacturers are incentivized to make their smaller cars bigger so they can be categorized differently. This law should be scrapped and replaced with a carbon tax (for pollution externality reasons) and a higher gas tax or similar (for paying for roads--the gas tax was supposed to do this but is far too low, so much of the funding comes from general revenues).
Two is just the general design and layout of cities. Most of them have been rebuilt over the 20th century to give enormous amounts of space to cars in the form of more and wider lanes and more and bigger parking spaces. This isn't a "well of course those medieval cities are different!" effect--Rotterdam, for example, was bombed into oblivion in WW2, but currently looks like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ex5UNApZispDf22L6, and most US cities were built before cars. There's no reason to consider the size of your car when designers rush to accommodate you, at the cost of everyone else.
Third is safety. Large vehicles are more likely to cause crashes, and being in a large vehicle in a crash is safer for the occupants (although they create more of a sense of safety than they actually provide, especially due to poor visibility) but more dangerous for whoever you hit (the impact on pedestrians and cyclists is even worse). The tradeoff, by the way, is terrible--for everyone person you save by having them in a bigger car, you kill 4, on average. But from an individual point of view, as long as these vehicles exist and are common on city streets, there's a horrible incentive for people to get even more of them, creating even more incentive for them in a horrible cycle. And related to this is streets that aren't designed for safety--streets lack traffic-calming and are designed with speed in mind instead.
Fourth is general car-dependence, which leads to people thinking they need lots of carrying capacity, because they do everything by car and spend all their time in it--particularly shuttling kids around. Also, the microcars linked above don't even have to travel on normal roads--e.g. in the Netherlands, seniors and the disabled can use them in bike lanes. But the US doesn't have many bike lanes, and no one wants to drive one of those surrounded by even regular cars.
Arguably another cause is marketing encouraging people to buy bigger cars for no good reason and drive them recklessly. I'm less confident in this one, since all the relevant data are proprietary, but it certainly looks like there's plenty of lifted trucks driving on the highway like its a racetrack.
They have been and are common in many major cities all over the world.
America has a specific mixture of customer base and legal barriers that make it hard to sell them profitably here
A lot of people simply automatically make the intuitive assumption that bigger car = safer car.
That's because, to a first approximation, more massive *is* safer based on physics...but only for the occupants of the more massive car. Not so for the other people, especially if the other person is a pedestrian.
Specifically, the more massive vehicle experiences the same force, but (because of F=ma), lower acceleration. And it is acceleration that causes damage.
Absolutely. Physics once again win, despite collision tests trying to disguise the fact by using impacts against fixed objects or between 2 identical cars (which is impact against the fixed plane of symmetry - same as a concrete wall except the concrete wall is not perfectly sliding laterally). The only cases where absolute mass offer no protection :-).
However, people have some instinctive physic grasp, which explain why most feel safer in bigger cars.
I've resided for more than a decade now in one of the most walkable urban neighborhoods of the entire country, and will continue to for the foreseeable future. And yet our household's single car is the _largest_ one I've ever personally owned (a Kia Sorrento now 12 years old) and the one we replace it with next year will be similar.
It turns out that since we walk/bike for lots of local stuff (e.g. grocery shopping), and use transit a fair amount too, our needs to use a car tilt strongly away from small or tiny cars. Basically driving is what we do when we are taking the child and the dog out for hiking or biking in the forest preserves; or my wife is going to her music rehearsal which requires carrying her instrument and related accoutrements; or I'm carrying my own and/or the child's ice hockey bag to a game or practice; or driving out to an airport on expressways to pick up a visiting relative and his luggage; or attending a party which happens to be an hour away in the suburbs; etc.
Summary: as urban dwellers we don't use the car for everything but when we do, we need cargo capacity and/or to be comfortable and feel safe driving at highway speeds. Our next car will likely be hybrid or electric but will not be small.
I've seen tiny cars for town/city driving and I think that's both their benefit and their drawback. They're fine if all you want is to move a few miles in any direction and only move yourself and limited baggage (so groceries, etc.)
But outside of the town? I don't see them as having much use - they look, by comparison to standard sized cars, as though they're easier to smush into a concertina if they got into an accident. They don't seem like they're very fast, and they certainly don't seem like they could travel long distances or on main roads, nor carry several passengers, or a lot of luggage.
If everyone in a particular city was doing 'one person only travel between work and home or the shops and home' then they'd probably be more commercially viable. But if I'm in a big city driving in traffic, I would not feel secure in such a car surrounded by ordinary cars, buses, and lorries. And certainly not if I wanted to move several people (e.g. bringing kids around) and their paraphenalia.
https://www.citroen.ie/about-citroen/concept-cars/ami-one.html
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/move-over-citroen-ami-ps5995-ark-zero-town
There are other "small cars for city driving" but they seem to be much more like regular cars.
There are a ton of reasons (that i'll list below) but over all it's a choice that the US has made. Part of it is a consumer choice - people want SUVs and often want them bigger, but that preference has been influenced a lot by choices that the federal government has made:
CAFE standards - these are federal regulations related to (basically) the average fuel efficiency of an automaker. It's an extremely complicated piece of legislation but a reductionist summary is that car that are larger in specific ways have lower standards to meet, making it easier for automakers to comply. This is especially true of pick up trucks were are classified as light duty trucks and dont have to comply to the standards in the same way. (I am being very very reductionist here)
Road design - US roads are way way bigger than roads in Europe. This is a choice by governments who set stardards and industry groups that make recommendations for those standards. The trend in the US is for wider roads even though these are known to be less safe and lead to faster speeds. In fact, most roads are designed to be safely traveled at 10-20% of the posted speed limit. This is why the speed limit often feels so slow. We also just have way way more open space than Europe and that space often has big fast flat highways paved through them.
Parking requirements - almost all municipalities in the US have minimum parking requirements for buildings. These leads to way more parking that is necessary and means there is plenty of parking for people to use.
Zoning & Housing - I wont rehash it all here, but zoning in the US, on average, discourages dense development and pushes suburban/ex-urban patterns which require cars to get around. If you are going to be in a car more often you probably want a big comfortable car that (you think) can carry all your stuff around.
Safety standards - these make cars bigger and heavier. Airbags, crash zones, etc all make the car bigger. These are probably good! But there are good arguments that smaller cars crashing into smaller cars on smaller roads at lower speeds dont need so much safety equipment because the crash has less energy.
These are just the biggest ones I can think of quickly. There are a lot of little ones too. Of course there are cultural pressure too related to american conceptions of families and "the open road".
There ARE small calls for sale in the world. Europe has some, but Japan has tons. They even have a whole class of cars called Kei Cars which are tiny but very practical especially in cities. You can import these if they are >25 years old. Ironically, many Key Pickup trucks have beds as big or bigger than US pickup trucks because those pickup trucks aren't for real work - just looking like you do work. While the older kei cars can be rather unsafe (no crumple zones or airbags) the new ones are pretty much as safe as a 10 year old car. Some are sold new in Australia and other countries.
Additionally, while canada experiences the same pressures as listed above and also has cars that are getting bigger and bigger, Montreal is a notable exception: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/06/quebecs-obsession-with-no-frills-cars/
> In fact, most roads are designed to be safely traveled at 10-20% of the posted speed limit.
I don't think I understood this sentence. Is it saying that the 30mph road outside my house is actually only safe to be navigated at 3-6mph? That seems wrong because it is a brisk walking speed but I don't know what you meant to say
I think the intent was "designed to be safely traveled at 10-20% *more than* the posted speed limit", so your 30mph road can be safely navigated at 33-35 mph.
I think the safety standards one is big. It means that if you build a small car in the US it is going to end up costing almost as much as a large car, so most people will just get the big one. In China there are different classes of cars so you can get a small city appropriate EV for ~$5K
OH i also forgot cheap gas, especially compared to Europe. No one cares about gas milage if gas is cheap.
I'm very sympathetic to small cars and NEVs. I wanted this '88 Fiero as my first car out of high school so bad, it was the neatest thing I'd ever seen. (ended up with an '04 Ion with a CVT) And I want a tiny old-style Ranger with a 6' bed today. But I just don't see small cars happening in the US in a big way for a while:
1. federal regulations treat four wheeled on-road vehicles as more or less a uniform class. There's no way in the US to certify a road-legal vehicle that is not capable of reaching highway speeds or dealing with highway-speed crashes. (current other offerings are glorified 25mph golf carts) You'll see the vehicles that do fit your smaller category (Kei Cars in Japan, VSPs in France, etc.) existing in specific regulatory niches. I think if the feds made a serious NEV / quadricycle category (the market penetration of the current offerings speaks directly to the unseriousness of the current regulatory regime) we might see more vehicles in this class.
2. We have had full size cars around for so long, and they are so durable, that your cross-shop for a NEV includes good condition normal cars in the price range. Compare a GEM e4 with doors starting at $25k that can go 25, or a murderer's row of lightly used compact and midsized crossovers <3 years old and <25k miles that can go highway speeds and distances. And that crossover comes with a standard HVAC system, radio, and a sunvisor. Even the e2 starts at $21k.
This is actually a problem for small hatchbacks. A brand new Fiesta, Versa, Spark, that class of vehicle costs the same as a lightly used, much larger vehicle CPO off a lease. The whole bottom end of the standard vehicle market has had its knees cut out by the CPO off lease market, the volumes are brutal. (see GoodCarBadCar)
3. There are various forces driving standard cars to be larger and more expensive (CAFE standards, a strong used car market wiping out the B-segment which becomes self-reinforcing, strong residuals driving down lease payments, longer loan terms driving down financing costs, safety requirements, buyer willingness to spend far more for space than it costs to build in, buyer desire for luxury features, something something child car seats, etc.) but one thing I want to emphasize is a large-scale change in the primary buyer and their interests over the past few decades.
Today, the majority decisionmaker on which car a family will get is the wife/mother. And in the un-partnered buyer market, ~50% of your customers are women. Women tend to prefer sitting higher up (perceived safety, able to see over other cars for turning), larger cars (perceived safety), and more storage area (does it baby? does it lacrosse /hockey /football kit? We'll have it for a decade, can it grow with the family?). Add in the knowledge that this car, if it's still around (it will be), will be what -kid- will learn to drive in. These may not be true in every case, but they're true enough in aggregate to influence the aim of the market.
4. Why am I talking so much about :use case that isn't yuppie / highly urban dink: when discussing this? Well, basically, if you're building less than 75k, 100k vehicles a year, unless you're selling a premium product at a premium price point you're probably losing money. You need volume, and you need price point. Annual Sales * Program Lifespan * Sales Price = what you have to fit development, tooling, manufacturing, development for the next vehicle (hopefully), and some profit into. Gets tight at low price points and low volumes! For comparison, a new vehicle from a mainstream OEM might be $1-1.5 billion dollars out the door, with a refresh being in the $250 million range.
tl;dr: I wish! But I think the Feds will have to tip the scales HARD in their direction to get tiny cars more sales volume.
Such a small vehicle would be good for about 2/3 of our (my wife's and my) urban driving. An EV would work well in this application.
One thing holding me back is the high cost of insuring a 2nd vehicle. I would like to see the insurance tied to the driver rather than the vehicle.
So for now, an ancient minivan, sufficient 100% of the time, but excessive 2/3 of the time, suffices.
The car I want but does not exist (yet) is a small cheap electric runabout with limited range. Most electric cars are expensive because they insist on having huge batteries to support a long (500km+) range, but I only need a long range for one of my cars, the second one is only used for local trips. Stick a 100km range battery in a Ford Fiesta, sell it for a price that's not too much higher than a regular Ford Fiesta, and I'll buy it for trips to the supermarket.
A used Nissan Leaf can be purchased fairly cheaply because of its limited (but likely sufficient for most urban use) range.
There are lots of small cars for sale, and although not always readily available, have been used for generations especially outside of the US.
Some obvious problems with using small cars exclusively:
-Cargo Space
-Passenger Space
-Safety
-Bad Weather (low weight does poorly in slick conditions, especially snow)
-Poor road conditions or elevation changes (low clearance)
Also, there are lots of people who don't drive large vehicles but also don't have cars. Bikes, scooters, motorcycles, etc. all provide alternatives to larger vehicles and often do so more efficiently and better than a small car would, while having similar problems to the small cars.
My guess is norms and status. A car is still a major status symbol and with microcars being so uncommon it's likely that you will be mocked for using it as your primary mode of transportation.
Microcars are, in fact, commercialized on a large scale. The wikipedia article for Neighbourhood Electric Vehicles, which is the classification used in the US, lists a bunch of manufacturers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle
Small cars are available on the market. I suspect they are not more common than the are because the number of people who like them is not greater than it is.
Indeed....and that's something to keep in mind when trying to understand why something is not as popular as you would think (or more popular than you would have guessed). Before spending much effort about looking into regulations, status and other psychological factors, it's worth being sure about how much you share most people desires and requirements for the stuff. If you are an outlier, you will naturally overcomplicate things.
Yep! I long gave up on pretending that my preferences reflect any sort of a majority consensus in any way.
Vehicles have been getting bigger (and more expensive) in the name of safety. That being said, we still have exceptions like the smart car, though that obviously comes with trade offs re: cargo and passenger capacity. Are you picturing something in between, say a smart car and a civic coupe? I don’t think they can make the civic much smaller anymore due to federal crash safety regulations, but if you go back 20 years, compact coupes were quite popular.
I agree it would be good. Seeing the huge cards on city streets, including expensive fancy ones, feels weird. It could probably work if they were way cheaper than the larger ones.
I had a smaller car and loved it for urban environments, but you just can't use it with multiple kids. I had to size up after the second because the trunk space didn't even fit a double stroller. I recently experienced three children in a compact car, with booster seats and car seats all smashed together and yeah we just made it, but it was very borderline and I will not repeat it I can help it.
If you start introducing it as a norm, or incentives for those cars at the expense of the larger ones, certainly more families will opt for the suburban lifestyle.
Is it time to update on the dangers of climate change? For years I've been in the "it'll be bad but not terrible" camp, but looking at the pretty massive spike in sea surface and air temperatures this year, as well as the sudden loss of Antarctic ice for the first time, I'm questioning that opinion again. It's been a huge jump that looks totally out of whack with any previous year. It could easily be a fluke, but it's got me worried all the same.
There’s some indications that this year’s spike was the banning sulphur on transport ship.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis
So that’s great then. We know how to fix that.
I posted this link below: https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
Again, I'm not sure who to trust about these things exactly, but they say the SO2 emissions had possibly a pretty minor effect, but that it is difficult to measure due to an anomaly in the Saharan dust and an anomaly with the Canadian wildfires. At the least it doesn't seem so cut and dry as the SO2 emissions are primarily to blame for the recent spike, though played at least a part.
> Is it time to update on the dangers of climate change? ... It could easily be a fluke, but it's got me worried all the same.
As you say, one year's temperature can be a fluke, therefore you should update on long-term trends. But sometimes one year makes you notice a trend you have been ignoring for years.
The loss of Antarctic ice is more serious. Slow or fast, either is irreversible (except in very long term). Fast is worse only in the sense that it is us who will be fucked, not our children.
I would note that IPCC reports have to be signed off by every petro- (and other) state in the world. They have been criticized for excessive conservativism by some climate scientists. Looking at the data it does seem like something big in the climate broke this year, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/testing-ipcc-projections-against
Thanks for posting. Just read through the post, my initial view is that it's probably because renewable energy is way cheaper than anyone envisaged in the 90s. Last I interacted with David, he wasn't aware of that. I will try to look into it.
My pleasure! I assume you mean that cheaper renewables have led to an increase in use of renewables instead of fossil fuels, and hence much lower CO2 levels than formerly predicted and therefore warming below IPCC projections.
To put some numbers on renewable energy use changes, when the 1990 IPCC report (which greatly overestimated warming through 2018) came out, 7.2% of global energy came from renewables and by 2018 that rose to 11.8% (https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy). Did that increase lead to a sufficiently large decrease in emissions relative the IPCC expectation as to reduce actual warming below projections?
Let's see. The projection from the 1990 IPCC report that David was describing was their Scenario A. Under this scenario (illustrated here: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf page 331) CO2 emissions rise roughly linearly 1980 to 2020.
Were actual CO2 emissions lower than that? No - they were actually higher! From 1980 to 1990 emissions rose by 16.7%. At that rate, emissions would have risen by 40% from 1990 to 2018. But they actually rose by 62% (https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions#). In fact, page 42 in the pdf of the report above seems to state in the context of Scenario A that they project CO2 and Methane to increase by 10-20% by 2025, which would be much much lower than the actual rate of CO2 increase.
So while you can dig through the IPCC report more and the subsequent ones, at least initially, it doesn't look like your suggestion that the IPCC reports are overly conservative and only overestimated warming due to overestimating future emissions is correct.
I think it’s getting ugly and it will likely get way uglier. One can always rationalize individual data points with ad hoc explanations but the truth IMHO is that we don’t know what’s gonna happen because we’re getting out of the boundaries of what we understand. Our models and minds are not equipped to deal with nonlinearities in complex systems, as Dorner shows compellingly in The Logic of Failure.
Climate scientists are scared shitless because they keep updating their models and the models keep underpredicting how fast things are getting bad.
It’s also easy for people who have always lived in the comfort of Western countries to overestimate the system’s ability to handle crises. Right now, the French island of Mayotte has drinkable water available 1 day out of 3 for its 300,000+ inhabitants. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a temporary crisis. But human bodies can’t average out water intake over weeks, let alone months. What will happen when the 1.5 million people in Phoenix run out of drinkable water? When Nigeria runs out?
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=9414290
Monitor sea level on your own.
Volcanoes are large modifiers of air temperature. This recent volcano increased stratospheric water content higher than has previously been measured. Water vapor is the most important green house gas. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/
We are living in a post-truth world.
There are people who make bank off telling scary stories—do your own thinking.
I'm not worried about sea level, but things happening that are outside the bounds of our predictions can mean we are missing something critical. If Antarctic sea ice extent goes from essentially unchanging to a sudden huge decrease, that could be a fluke, or not particularly significant, or it could mean there's a gap in our understanding of the system which could have large effects in the future.
I mean look at this drop: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/
Again, it's not proof of anything, but is it a reason to be concerned that the sea ice extent in August of 2023 was lower than any other year by almost the entire range of sea ice extent in the decades before it? That's a pretty wild change that I don't think we have a good explanation for, and it could mean we're missing something.
The volcanic eruption seems to be a small piece of the puzzle but everything I've read attributes only a small percent of 2023's anomalous temperatures to that event. Perhaps it's just a mix of things (Hunga Tonga, El Nino, Saharan Dust, SO2 regulations) and altogether they added up to an anomalous year, but maybe not. These graphs are just plain alarming in far 2023 stands out.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
We've only been tracking the extent of Arctic sea ice since the 1980s. You can look at the numbers here. But this year's loss was less than the 2012 record minimum.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
As for Antarctic ice this paper concludes that the extent of the Antarctic ice sheet has actually grown over the past decade.
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/2059/2023/
"Our results show that, over the 11 years from 2009 to 2019, ice shelves in Antarctica gained a modest 0.4 % (or 5305 km2) of their total ice area (Table 1; Fig. 1). This area gain was dominated by significant 14 028 km2 (1.5 %) ice shelf area gains on the two largest Antarctic ice shelves, Ronne–Filchner and Ross, and a 3532 km2 (1.3 %) area gain on the East Antarctic ice shelves."
And, of course, my favorite factoid says that Greenland is losing a volume of water equivalent to Lake Eerie every year. But if I divide the published volume of the Greenland ice pack by the published volume of Lake Eerie we've got many thousands of years left in the Greenland ice sheet. Of course, the North American ice sheet melted pretty damn quickly (in geological time) — it took roughly 12,000 years from the beginning of deglaciation until the last of the Laurentide ice sheet to finally melted (roughly 6,000 years ago). The current *observed* northern hemisphere deglaciation could very well just be a continuation of the cycle that started 18,000 years ago.
As for Antarctic deglaciation, the Antarctic ice sheet started forming roughly 35 million years ago when global temps were 6º C warmer. I don't expect we'll see that happen before AI causes our extinction (#snarkasm).
You're not really engaging with anything I'm claiming is alarming, but disproving alarmism about things I'm not alarmed about.
The Antarctic had absolutely nothing alarming going on until this year, when suddenly the sea ice extent decreased by an enormous amount that was totally out of line with all expectations. That is what is alarming. What did over from 2009-2019 is pretty meaningless in response to this.
Hmmm. The extent of sea ice was lower this past 2023 Antarctic winter, but the volume is within previous years' ranges. Again, I don't see anything particularly alarming here. Also, please keep in mind that sea ice has somewhat less volume than salt water. So the ocean surface ice — if it melts — won't affect sea levels much. OTOH, deglaciation of the Antarctic and Greenland land masses would have a significant effect on sea levels. However, Antarctic ice shelf mass has gained significant volume this past decade, and Greenland has been stable for the past decade.
Antarctic ice extent and volume year over year. Note 2023 volume.
https://zacklabe.com/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/
Can't find the link but one explanation was that strong winds have pushed the ice back toward the continent and made it thicker.
Antarctic ice shelf thickness increasing significantly over past decade...
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/2059/2023/#:~:text=Our%20observations%20show%20that%20Antarctic,flux%20observations%20to%20measure%20change.
Greenland ice sheet in equilibrium, and may have benefited from El Niño warming episodes in the Pacific...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00329-x
I'm glad to see the ice volume hasn't hit a record low to the same extent, that is encouraging.
I should clarify that I'm not really worried about sea level rise at all, it seems like not so big a deal in the short time, and something we can adapt to long term. I'm more just worried about big swings in the Antarctic sea ice extent, sea surface temperatures, and air temperatures. Big swings can be meaningless in a single year (which is what I'm hoping for), or it could be indicative of us not understanding something about the system that might make our models less accurate than we'd hoped. That is what I'm worried about, rather than any specific outcome.
This was a good overview of what the current Climate outlook is https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/hannah-ritchie-environmental-optimism/
"pretty massive spike in sea surface and air temperatures this year"
This is likely a one time jump in these temperatures caused by a change in the regulation of cargo ship fuel. Traditionally they burned bunker fuel which has high concentrations of sulfur which contributed to acid rain but now they have to use low sulfur fuel. Sounds like a win right? Well it turns out that those sulfur particles also reflect solar radiation and now that they've gone away we've got a spike in temperatures. So while temperatures will climb again next year, it will probably be by a small amount, not a big jump like we saw this year.
We also just had a very large volcanic explosion in Tonga. This put a huge amount of water into the stratosphere, and water vapor is the strongest green house gas.
Water vapor is indeed a GH gas. The problem with attributing warming to any event like this is that there's an astonishing amount of water in the atmosphere (example: at 15 degrees C and 30% RH the air contains about 3200 ppm of water, compared to about 400 ppm of C02), so we have to scale whatever the volcano added to the total already there - not much). In addition, the water concentration is self-regulating: water regularly gets dumped when its concentration becomes locally unsustainable (rain/snow). So adding water vapor is not something we should be concerned about, and climatologists know about its effects and have it in their models.
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming
I don't know what sources to trust, but the above seems to think the SO2 emissions decline has a relatively small part to play in the overall temperature spike in 2023, though they also say it's difficult to measure due to a negative anomaly in the Saharan Dust and the increased aerosols from the Canadian wildfires. So, not saying it's not important exactly, but it doesn't seem to be as cut and dry of an answer for why 2023 spiked so much relative to other years.
Ah I hadn't seen that counter explanation, thanks for sharing!
I think "it will be really bad, but not utterly disastrous" is still good. People in fifty or a hundred years will very likely have it better than we do, climate change or no. We just want them to have it as good as possible, and that means taking care of things now when it's still comparatively cheap.
Millions will die, but not billions.
I've got news for you... on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Should I take it you're not opposed to murder either, then?
i think its more that if you worry about everything that can cause millions dead in the future, you'll never stop.
if its not the climate change its the covid. if not the covid, the prions. if not the prions, the monkeypox. dont forget the yellowstone caldera and microplastics and AI and war in country x or war in country y or Fascism, etc.
At some point you just get thick skin.
"Can" does a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Millions of deaths from global warming is both exceedingly likely and something we could readily mitigate if we could be bothered. You still don't think we should do anything under those circumstances? I have no idea how you handle risks in your personal life, but that sounds crazy to me.
This is nothing like being worried about Yellowstone, the AI apocalypse, or a life-ending gamma ray burst. It's like putting on the seatbelt.
A seatbelt does not cost hundreds of trillions of dollars or require a fundamental restructuring and massive downsizing of the global economy. It'd be more like sending your car to the junkyard out of fear of getting into a car crash.
This is the computer scientist's defense for murder. Hey, whether I shot him or not, his life expectancy was O(1), so no real change....
I think the life expectancy for someone before they get murdered and afterwards are not the same, right? Even statistically ...
When doing Big O stuff, it's all about how something scales based on some factor, so you would say some process that takes 2 minutes per request or 3 minutes per request are both O(n) as opposed to saying O(2n) or O(3n) because the point is it scales linearly, not the specific linear equation describing this.
So, the joke here is that in this notation, somebody going from a life expectancy of 80 years to being dead at 40 is still O(1) because they're both constant numbers.
I am considering migrating to Canada. My friend told me that Canada is the most woke/SJW country in the world. In particular, I'm worried about the cancel culture, the dark side of feminism, the dark side of anti-racism, the dark side of pro-diversity, the dark side of wokeness. I tried to check how true this is by looking up relevant statistics per country but didn't find anything relevant enough. I only found some statistics that equate social justice to basically how free and good a society is, and I found statistics like what percentage of people proclaim themselves as feminist.
If you have personal experience living in Canada, please tell me about this aspect and compare it to other countries you've lived in. Since you, fellow commenter, might have different thresholds of the level of wokeness you find acceptable than me, I would be most grateful for information that compares this level between different countries. If you know of some relevant per-country statistics, please post them as well. Also, I am considering migration to other countries too, so if you have an opinion about which countries are most woke/SJW or which regions of which countries are most woke/SJW, please post them too.
Where are you migrating from?
You seem to be worrying about wrong things, unless your whole identity is "anti-woke", in which case, please, stay out of here, we do not need more culture wars. And yeah, "Canada is the most woke/SJW country in the world" is very misleading. More relevant issues are jobs, salaries and cost of living. Best places to live in Canada are not cheap. Healthcare is free but hit and miss.
As for politics, it looks like the Trudeau era is coming to an end next year, and if the conservatives take over, the focus of the CW topics is likely to shift as well.
Quebec passed a controversial law banning women who wear hijabs from government jobs, including school teachers. Quebec is in many ways anti-woke and more concerned with preserving its traditional culture. Political atmosphere varies a lot across Canada.
I've lived in Canada and the only cringe SJW aspect I've encountered is the "land declarations" stuff, otherwise you barely notice it.
Canada is like a shitty version of the US, they have everything we do, only a little bit worse. Taxes are super high, yes you get your free healthcare, but be careful if you think you can have your cake and eat it too. You can be fined heavily, or even jailed for wrong-speak. People had their vehicles impounded for basically the wrong bumper sticker. Go to the wrong protest, and the government will have your car insurance canceled. The government froze people's bank accounts for speaking out against the government last year.
This is all pretty absurd and untrue.
Here's the insurance canceling: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/revoking-insurance-no-solution-to-trucker-protest-ottawa-1.6346759
If you read the article you linked, you'll see that no one had their insurance cancelled.
Some people suggested on social media that maybe the truckers' insurance could be revoked. If you're going to pass off any suggestion some fool made on social media as fact, you could make the US look like a dystopian hellhole too.
"no one had their insurance cancelled"
Yes, but that was placed on the table by influential people ... protesters were being threatened by influential people pressuring the government to remove protestor's ability to do business, based upon speech codes.
I mean, the freezing protestor's bank accounts thing did happen.
https://www.newsweek.com/banks-have-begun-freezing-accounts-linked-trucker-protest-1680649
They were frozen for blockading a city for weeks, not for "speaking out".
Even those who donated to the protest had their accounts frozen: it was pretty clearly a case of punishing people for holding a position the government didn't like. Normal people don't get their bank accounts frozen for blockading anything: even when the stop oil people close down a road, you don't see the government freezing their bank accounts. Not in Western countries, anyway.
>Even those who donated to the protest had their accounts frozen: it was pretty clearly a case of punishing people for holding a position the government didn't like.
No, that's a fabrication.
> it was pretty clearly a case of punishing people for holding a position the government didn't like.
It pretty clearly isn't. It was intended to break the blockade and act as a deterrent to the behaviour, not to speech. The outside funding for the blockade was a big factor allowing it to continue. It's easier to protest weeks on end when you get handed an envelope full of cash each day. The protestors were shutting down a city and stopping the blockade was widely supported by Canadians.
You won't find people getting their account frozen for criticizing the government.
> even when the stop oil people close down a road, you don't see the government freezing their bank accounts.
The Wet'suwet'en protestors protesting against the pipeline were arrested when they blockaded roads and railways. The blockades were successfully disbanded. Unlike the freedom convoy who were getting tens of millions from outside donors, the Wet'suwet'en protestors weren't getting donations, so freezing accounts wasn't really applicable here.
I live in Toronto, where I've lived most of my life, but I've spent about a decade living elsewhere, including overseas. In terms of wokeness (which I have mixed feelings about---agree about the 'dark side'): Canada is pretty woke, but nowhere here is quite at San Francisco levels. I don't have stats, but I'll give you my impression.
Corporate DEI rhetoric is usually not completely sincere, as I'm sure you know. Literally all that's been asked of me at my current job is that I take a couple of e-learning courses on cultural sensitivity, and they clearly weren't prepared by a critical race theorist. Of course, I have to use judgement about what I say and when, but I've completely avoided having any political conversations in the time I've been here, except when the Iranians on our team get talking about Iran's sad state of affairs. If I'm generally chill about other people's lives, then I never find myself having to say things I don't believe.
If I had a public profile as a political activist, then I might be nervous about my employment, and I'd probably talk with my manager (who's super chill). But I think cancellations are usually a matter of first getting your name in the papers, and they're comparatively rare. Probably around the same frequency you get in Blue States.
You would probably find Canada more woke than most places in Europe, but not because Canada is generally Left of Europe (it's not), but because Canada is culturally, academically and politically closer to where woke ideas are generated. When I knew activists in the Netherlands, for example, after having known activists in Canada, their rhetoric seemed 5-10 years out of date, and institutional rhetoric and practices were way behind.
I’m pretty anti-woke, but I wouldn’t make it your primary factor in deciding where to live. In terms of living a happy life, I’d say to prioritize whether you’ll be able to find a community of people to be friends with (a real meatspace one, not just online) and how your income will match up with the cost of living. Canada is experiencing a pretty bad housing crisis and not being able to ever afford a home is going to really impact your quality of life.
To address your question though, I’d agree with lora. The US has FIRE for college free speech [1] and you could look and see if they have something similar for Canada. Or look up polls like [2].
[1] https://speech.collegepulse.com/
[2] https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share
I can't give you any firsthand experience, just an idea. In my country, there have been polls on agreement with the statement "I can state my opinion freely without fear of social or political repercussions". The results were quite interesting to me. This captures more than cancel culture, and is not constrained to a specific kind of group think, but it might nevertheless be a useful proxy for you. Maybe you could look up similar polls in Canada and compare with e.g. the US or wherever you live now.
That sounds like a great metric, thank you
How much artificial intelligence would it take to automatically adapt websites for different platforms? What if the ability to accommodate changes in the platforms is included?
"How much artificial intelligence would it take to automatically adapt websites for different platforms? What if the ability to accommodate changes in the platforms is included?"
It would be helpful to know what you considered 'different platforms'? Desktop/laptop vs mobile? GUI vs VT-100? Windows vs macOS?
And what sorts of adapting do you have in mind?
My knowledge is vague, but definitely desktop vs. mobile and Windows vs. macOS? Those are things I hear about, and also apps generally have a Windows version and a Mac version.
A level of adaptation such that a site can be verified on one platform and then you just need to say "adapt this" without having to work on making work on the other platforms.
There are already frameworks and strategies which make this pretty easy to do. Making a webpage work on mobile vs desktop isn't hard at all and most web developers will design a page or app to do that as standard. Many mobile apps are just wrappers around web pages and more and more desktop apps use technologies which allow you to use your web app on the desktop with basically no changes.
So basically you can already get 90% of the way there with just a bit of work. The hard part is when you want to make an app/page that pushes the limits of the technology or is a first class example. In that case you need to lean into the native technology more.
Apple has been doing a lot of work making it easy the make a mobile app that works on iPads and on desktop. If you use their latest development apis you really dont have to do anything to allow an app to work on all those environments.
I think the difficulty level goes from easiest to hardest like this:
1. adapting from one desktop OS to another
2. adapting from one mobile OS to another
3. adapting from a desktop OS to a mobile OS or vice versa
I think #3 is also already close or equal to just being able to prompt a generative AI to make an app from scratch so AI reaching that level would have far bigger ramifications than merely everyone getting to enjoy all apps on every platform.
We are actively working on creating a comment system based on the ACX philosophy of “two of True, Kind, and Necessary.” We want to make it easy to see comments on ACX with T/K/N rankings, be able to moderate comments, choose filtering methods to make it easy to see the best comments first, worst last, and just generally add in mechanisms to make the comment system troll- and spam-resistant.
For our initial public beta, we would probably have our system be independent of any publishing platform, be given a URL, it would import all the existing comments, and then let people interact on our system, but wouldn’t have tight integration with the original platform unless the original platform provides a good comments API for such interaction.
Would commenters here be interested in using such a comment system? Any must-haves, show-stoppers for use, etc?
I'd be all for it, if there was a way to migrate *off* Substack's abysmal commenting system.
I'd be interested in it, certainly. Not sure about "using", though I probably would.
The main showstopper for me would be making the comment section noticeably slower. Substack's comments are already creaky at ACX volumes.
And I'll second the recommendation to look at Slashdot's system.
I'd pay $5/month for a browser plugin that improved Substack comments and used an LLM to surface the best comments to the top.
I have no idea how an LLM could identify the best comments. It might be able to eliminate the worst 10%.
Have you looked into what Slash Dot did with commenting? I've not been on that site in over twenty years, but the version before that we pretty sweet. Users could rate a post/reply (+5 to -5). When reading, you can filter your visible posts based upon the average scoring. There were long time users who could moderate scores, and even meta-moderators overseeing these. For instance, if the average score on a post was 3, but I gave it a -5, a meta-mod would be asked by the system if this was valid.
Modifying this system with an LLM would be interesting.
Slashdot was one of the best forums in my opinion for a long time. I don't know precisely what happened. I guess Cmdr Taco was more of a driving force than I originally thought?
I think it was a combination of the corporate change, and Hacker News as a competitor.
I was a UNIX sysadmin from '99 to '05. It was the joke, that if you were a good sysadmin, you read /. before work. I wanted to plant a stake defending Sony's IP rights, but feared the mob, and decided I didn't want to take part in any society where I feared the mob.
Sounds very hard to do well . In practice there are many many comments that do not meet the 2/3 rule and are fine: For ex., running jokes where a bunch of people contribute,or group reminiscences about an era, a band or whatever. Lots of posts starting a new subject do not meet the rule -- many are simply questions to the group. And, on the other side, a lot harsh mockery is delivered in a way that you have to know a lot about language, people and current events to recognize. "Have you taken your psych meds this morning?" or "And we should take this seriously because?" Or how about this gem, which actually appeared on one of the threads about the Israel-Palestine situation: “What happened to all the dancing in the streets and the outpouring of joy over the greatness of god that we saw on the 7th? Funny, haven't seen too much of that recently! Hahahaha.”
Right. There are always edge cases, and in those cases, people gotta do what they gotta do.
Maybe "and we should take this seriously because...?" doesn't offend me, and I go and explain in detail why we should. But someone else sees it as a personal attack and gets super-snarky in response. This is fine. Not everyone needs to get along with everyone else. And rhetorical questions are sometimes obviously not questions.
Yeah, it's not that awful a comment, from my point of view too. Still, if you're trying to set up something that's in line with Scott's 2 out f 3 rule, that comment absolutely flunks, and for the exact reason Scott found Gunflint's comment bannable: It's scornful in tone, but offers absolutely no reasons for the scorn. It is pure negative emotion.
I absolutely LOATHE the comment system on Substack, beacues it's so gorram laggy as to be nearly unusable. Typing into the field has a delay of up to thirty seconds. Loading a page (or even just coming back to a tab!) can take many, many seconds, because of ... I dunno, something about the horrible backend that SubStack uses.
I would be unlikely to participate any nything that made taht situation even WORSE.
My favourite is when i click to "see the replies", but its so slow i think my click didnt register so I click again, then after a few seconds the replies appear and my second click registers as a click on the name of the first commenter so it takes me to his profile from which it is two eternity to get back to the comments again.
What's worse, if I accidentally go to someone's profile or hit "continue this thread", my tab loses track of the new replies.
I love when someone replies to me, I get the email, click it, and then it takes me to a broken version of the top-level post with no comments, then I refresh a few times until all comments finally appear, and I search the comments for my name, and there's nothing there.
That's my favourite Substack comment experience.
An interesting extra feature (I know, I know ...) might be to add a checkbox for each of these to the commenting form. Allow/permit/encourage/require the posters to check the two or three apply to the comment. This (a) encourages people to think about this before posting and (b) allows others to see how that poster was viewing their post.
Note: with serious emphasis on this sort of thing I will probably stop posting comments of this sort as I think it checks only the 'true' box. I'm not sure ANY of my posts to this blog check two of the boxes.
For what it's worth, I consider "taking time out of your day to make genuine suggestions" to be kind/prosocial.
Yeah, agreed. It seems being prosocial with others on the internet, generally being helpful, is at least "necessary and kind?"
Like, Mark, this comment AV and myself are replying to checks two of the boxes. Are we using different definitions or connotations of the words?
While in general I am in favor of legibility, there is something absurd about creating a kind of HUD for skills most people should be encouraged to develop and deploy independently.
I mean why not just create a kind of reputation stock market at that point and let human interaction drown in market-based abstractions and games.
I prefer to emulate real life, where if you say something awful, everyone around you looks on in disapproval, and if you do it too much, you get kicked out. Oh... and there's a level of effort required to join the conversation in the first place. Like if someone comes into a large venue and wanders around trolling everyone, he just gets kicked out entirely.
That's how you build an echo chamber.
In the public square, you have to entertain all opinions from all sides. Granted there are trolls to be dealt with, but you could instead show these comments as troll flagging, and let users reconsider engaging those darn trolls such as were Galileo.
The trick, as I see it, would be to construct a system of Voltaires: members might dislike what's said at the object level, but they'd dislike even more if the speaker were banned for saying it.
Given that, one would have to engineer "object-level dislike" so it doesn't lead to a ban.
Good point. I have plans long-term for echo chambers, but for the first rev we definitely won't tackle that problem. It's far trickier and subtle.
That doesn't reflect the dynamics of any physical conversation I've ever been a part of.
Precisely the point.
It's interesting that in the course of arguing in favor of substance and good faith it took you three posts to dial the rhetoric up to 100 and the logic down to zero. Sick burn though bro. You got me.
Most likely, if your immediate instinct is to legibilize dynamics by injecting missing signals, your "real life" is a nightmare landscape of falsified and real signals and noise, changing places constantly in a highly dynamic game you are apparently ignorant of. I don't want that. Leave the internet alone.
My view: You're being tendentious, unproductive, and aggressive, which are (very) approximate antonyms for true, necessary and kind. And it's not like you were responding to aggression.
This is not a reply to this comment in particular, but just a gentle request. I will try my best not to engage with you any further on this or any other forum. Please do your best to return the favour, and do not interact with me on this or any other forum.
I appreciate your energy, but we simply do not have compatible conversational styles. Thanks so much, and good luck with the dragon thing.
Sometimes I want to see the unkind ones because they might be true and/or necessary, and even if not, at least entertaining.
Stuff that's just "you're a big dumb poopy-head", sure, scrap it. But if it's "you're a big dumb poopy-head and here are excellent and cogent reasons why you are", then maybe not. That might be worth arguing out is it true or not.
Yes, and in conversations, sometimes people are saying things that don't seem to have a truth element to them at all. Like "What's the best sort of comment system?" That, being a question, can't really be true or not. So there are some edge cases to work out, for sure.
I think like most comment systems, comments that are hidden or greytexted or whatever should still be discoverable, just that they aren't going to be put front and centre like others. No matter how you slice it, some comments are of higher quality than others, and most people want to see mostly high-quality comments or observe high-quality conversations.
Maybe you could have sliders for the three qualities.
That reminds me of the slashdot.org moderation system (which is IMHO required studying for anyone seriously designing comment systems) where you have diffeerent *kinds* of +1 / -1 attributes, and the users can configure their weight, so you can decide whether *for you* comments marked by someone else as 'funny' should get a +1 or not.
I felt the Slashdot system was pretty good in many ways. I believe it's still like that, just the lack of people using it makes such a system less useful today.
"To heck with the Nicey-Niceys and the Pollyannas! I wanna see the blood and carnage of troll versus troll! Put that slider on hardcore!" 😁
Warning for content veering from one extreme to the other:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XriMhngC4xQ
The UI gets difficult really fast when you have more than 1 dimension of quality being measured. My intuition is sliders will not be good, but I do feel the assertion that often one or more of the dimensions are on a spectrum, not binary. I shall have to think on this.
What is the fastest way to turn humans into dragons
The usual method is by having the human eaten by a dragon. But it only works for maidens.
Actually now that you mention it this happened to me one time.
https://postsyntheticsocietalproject.wordpress.com/2018/08/12/yoko-taro-is-a-dragon-from-the-future/
Sounds fake
Probably by creating an AI which is smarter than us and doesn't kill us, but I'm not optimistic about that.
Failing that, probably a path into the future where humanity focuses more on bio-engineering and creating new lifeforms, and also working on some way to transfer brains or brain-states or simply create human-level brains in other creatures. I would expect intermediate stages, where existing animal species are modified to have human intelligence, and also a variety of non-intelligent life forms (including draconic) are created. But I think most people view this as solidly in "mad science" territory, and don't want us heading down that path any time soon.
I will fight them
Sounds like you've got the attitude down. :-)
Convince them to identify as dragons.
Kudos, sir. Well played.
P.S. This is an excellent (I LOL'd) example of a comment which in literal terms fails all three of Scott's "true/kind/necessary" criteria, but is nevertheless a quality contribution to a worthwhile comment section.
Brain uploading + advances in aerospace industry?
Like, you're not going to get a good dragon out of anything like conventional biology. There's a reason birds are generally small and light rather than giant, armored, and fire-breathing. Any "realistic" dragon is going to have more in common with a fighter jet than a lizard.
(That, or you'll have to be okay with it being a kinda wimpy dragon. Pteranodons are cool, but they're not *dragon* cool.)
The largest pterosaurs, Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx (Late Cretaceous US and Romania, respectively) measured >10 m in wigspan, could almost certainly fly under their own power, and fed largely on dinosaurs which they hunted on land. That's pretty close to dragon-cool, if you ask me!
Dragons can be small. Ravens are smart. Intelligence seems to depend on brain connections more than brain mass, you can probably make small dog sized dragons that are intelligent. Fire breathing is unnecessary.
What are you looking for from a dragon? Are four legs plus wings essential, or would two legs (a wyvern) good enough?
Would a reptilian-looking parrot do the job?
Four legs, wings, intelligence comparable to or better than human, capable of using speech or sign language, forepaws capable of dexterous manipulation of objects. Size is irrelevant, fire breath is not desired, magic doesn't exist so is not an ask. I guess in a pinch a smaug (movie version) type dragon would be OK but is not preferred.
I'm not exactly sure what you have in mind. Do you mean a selective breeding program on humans to see how many generations it would take to produce something with the characteristics you describe above?
Or do you mean some sci-fi scenario where you transfer your brain to a genetically engineered dragon?
In the first case, I guess you could approximate an upper bound on the number of generations by looking at Synapsid-> Dinosaur.
The second, though it doesn't have to be a genetically engineered dragon. It could also be a robot dragon, or a simulation in which one's morphology is that of a dragon.
How close is a Komodo Dragon? What if you upped it's intelligence and made it more destrous?
(Fire breathing isn't impossible, but it would be based around methane + catalyst. And quite limited.)
Your request definitely will not be a flying dragon. It could, in principle, have wings, but they would be decorative rather than functional.
You have described something that looks like a dragon, but left out 'being able to fly.' I'm going to assume you want that, too. Otherwise this is just cosmetic genetic surgery.
I think a reasonable (in the context of what you are trying to do, Mr. Evli Scientist) approach is to try to design something with:
(a) A human-ish sized body with very thin legs, but
(b) Bat-type membrany wings, and
(c) Hollow bones.
So far this is pretty obvious and permits you to house a human-ish brain in something maybe the same mass as a human but with moderate wingspan.
The last step is to observe that lots of non-human animals (most, I think) are great at sprinting but terrible at endurance. Humans are great at endurance. So trade this off by boosting the ATP-CP energy system in your dragon. It will be able to fly for short periods of time (maybe 5-10 minutes) before needing to rest for a while to rebuild the ATP energy stores. Moorcock's Melnibone dragons worked this way (fly/fight for a few hours then rest for a decade ...)
I bet we could get short range breath of fire, too, though it sounds like you don't want it.
People were dragons for like fifty years, then everyone decided "oh, smoking is BAAAD for you" and now nobody breathes fire anymore.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/dmii8o/a_friendly_reminder_that_jeff_bezos_is_hoarding/
I hope this is a joke? No billionaire in a member economy is hoarding anything
Har, har, hear him: a hoary hoard hoodwink!
None, since dragons are fictional.
Well, there are these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon
But I don't see people changing into them any time soon.
I don't know that I'd want to spend much time as a Komodo dragon, but I really like the way they run. It has a lot of attitude.
Almost everything that exists now didn't at one point. A huge number of future things don't exist now. New things are created all the time, including literal chemical elements and in the "platonic" realm, new theorems of math. Biology has huge amounts of slack. Why on earth wouldn't it be possible to create a dragon?
Intelligent long-lived reptiles are surely possible. Things bigger than a house that can fly using flapping wings in Earth gravity and atmosphere, using muscle power seem like they have to be impossible--there's no way they're getting enough lift to get off the ground.
OTOH, maybe you can have dragons that are so big because they're mostly hydrogen, and then they don't need to generate all that lift with flapping wings. That could kind of get you fire breath, too, but they'd quickly lose the ability to fly by using up their hydrogen. And I guess you'd fight them with fire arrows, because if you could ignite a hydrogen/air mix in/near them, they'd go up like the Hindenberg.
There was a nifty made for TV cartoon called Flight of Dragons which had dragons like this.
> Things bigger than a house that can fly using flapping wings in Earth gravity and atmosphere, using muscle power seem like they have to be impossible--there's no way they're getting enough lift to get off the ground.
Depends on which house. Quetzalcoatlus got pretty big.
As for fire breathing, I don't think there's any creature that makes actual fire from its body, but I think it's possible. The bombardier beetle has a pair of chemicals that it mixes together and sprays on enemies. The two chemicals, when mixed, become very hot. I feel like, with a different pair of chemicals, you could probably get them to ignite.
Why wouldn't it be possible for monkeys to fly out of my butt?
And yet I don't feel the need to check for exiting simians every time I use the bathroom.
I dunno, Deiseach, some are quite nimble and small.
Eremomlalos, how ungallant! Are you insinuating my butt's so big, it's possible to fit a couple of small monkeys up it? 😀
Yeah I don't think you're reasoning about this in any meaningful way
It's hard to reason meaningfully about "why can't I become this impossible thing?"
How do I stop fascists from destroying epistemics and capturing AGI, leading to eternal darkness
Get there first!
There just aren't enough actual fascists to accomplish much of anything, particularly in AI.
To me, a fascist is just anyone who idolizes or nurses a habit of unnecessary predation, and this doesn't even require intent.
Cats are fascist.
So dragons are fascists? then why are you asking how to turn people into fascists?
"Intent not required"
"Unnecessary predation"
Dragons, by popular repute, are predators and take prey more than they need. Whether this is intentional behaviour or not, if they are presumed intelligent, then dragons fit your definition of "fascist".
That seems like a fairly non-typical definition likely to result in misunderstandings, a spicy property for a word also likely to bring up intense political fervor both for and against.
Likely. But I feel it cuts reality at the joints. The root of the problem behaviors in authoritarianism go back to biological roots that started forming when multi celled creatures started eating each other, and the most succinct social phenomenological map of this comes from gnostic phenomenology vs institutional Christian phenomenology. Very old
Can’t see why Gnosticism or Christianity are solely involved here, even if we were to take onboard your strange redefinition of fascism. There’s a big jump in time between the multi celled animals and the Christians, and probably a lot of carnivorous activity meanwhile.
True. People didn't start writing things down and doing big society wide argument about them for a while though, and that helps to legibilize things. A big part of personal experience is how things become legible to us. Christianity and Gnosticism were lenses through which The Problem became visible to us, even though it existed long before then.
It is just weird to focus on, like, the specific tenets of national socialism instead of the roots of the problem or the abstract common principle it is an instance of, to me.
It sounds to me like if you want to talk with the general public about complex ethics, it greatly helps to use definitions already in common use, or to coin fresh terms that lack existing definitional baggage. To be clear, I'm responding from a "how to communicate the thoughts" perspective rather than commenting on the specific thoughts themselves.
On the thoughts themselves:
> [...] anyone who idolizes or nurses a habit of unnecessary predation, and this doesn't even require intent.
To me that would include everyone from con artists to Viking raiders to abusive spouses. "What system of government do they espouse" seems fairly non-central to use to define what they have in common. "habitual predator" sounds like it's a cleaner referent term.
How do I recover from negative symptoms of schizophrenia
What are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
Delusions, hallucinations
Hm, many people would call those negative. Why do you think they're good?
Positive and negative are used in a mathematical sense, not a valence sense.
Not a problem for you, since you are not a negative schizophrenic.
Whether he is or not, "negative" and "positive" in the context of schizophrenia symptoms do not mean "bad" or "good", respectively. They mean an absence vs presence of things relative to the norm. So negative symptoms are going to be closer to catatonia than mania.
I certainly think he is not showing "the absence of" schizophrenia, which is what I understood him to be saying by "symptoms of negative schizophrenia".
At the least, 'negative schizophrenia' would be 'ordinary mental state'. If he's asking for relief from not being crazy, I don't know how we can help him.
This is not what "negative symptoms of schizophrenia" means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Negative_symptoms
That's much clearer, thank you for the definition.
In a past open thread, I received some great advice for piano practice and improving accuracy. People suggested that I slow down my practice a lot, so that I'm able to play passages with near 100% accuracy; when I did that, my playing improved in a matter of days. And practicing this way really highlights (for me) which passages need work, and I can drill those over and over.
I'm working on Rachmaninoff's Polichinelle. I can play through it at a moderate speed with high accuracy, but I'm really not sure how to get it to the speed that I hear people play it (for instance in piano recital performances on YouTube). It is just an amazing piece when played anywhere near that speed, so I want to figure out how to get there. Any tips?
Thanks as always. This group is a great resource.
I actually find it useful to rehearse a fast, difficult piece occasionally at a speed faster than intended. With the brain-finger connection exercised at a hyperfast speed, it actually gives me time to be more intentional when playing at normal speed
I know nothing about this and have no tips, but I wanted to plug that my brother has written a series of books on how to practice piano. They focus on jazz, but he's done some classical piano too and maybe the books are relevant to that (though I have no evidence for this). If you like my writing, you might also like his. You can find it at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jeremy-Siskind/author/B07ZCK3XM9
Very cool, thanks Scott!
As you continue to practice try playing (with inaccuracies) some of the passages up to speed. Notice where your neuromuscular patterns are inefficient (too much tension after the keys are depressed; taking your fingers and unnecessary distance away from the key, such as lifting too high for leaps ; unnecessary forearm and shoulder tension) and then try to repattern these things in your slow practice
Also I've found it helpful to experiment with different placements of your hand on the keys (up on the black keys vs almost off of the edge of the white keys) and also experimenting with wrist height.
Last, as you build the synaptic connections to the individual notes pattern see if you can deal with the movement pattern in larger blocks (a simple example would be patterning a scale as a single sweep of your arm instead of 8 separate finger actions)
I hope some of this is helpful and my tone is not too patronizing
Thanks for the tips (and no it didn't seem patronizing at all). Any advice for reducing tension?
I think to actually be precise, by "tension" what I'm actually referring is (a) excessive antagonistic muscular resistance (make your hands as rigid and possible and feel how hard it is to play: then as soft as possible) and (b) unnecessary muscle holding (squeeze your shoulder blades up to your ears and play: then relax them and feel them "floating" on your back)
In both cases it really depends on your whole body awareness: if you're mostly unaware any sort of paying attention to breath and how you're choosing (unconsciously?) to hold or freeze muscles will be quite useful
If that sort of awareness is something you already have I would experiment with going to an extreme you "know" is wrong and then seeing how far you can back off (such as the hand tension thing above)
As a very general note piano technique is much more individual than is usually (?) taught so definitely give yourself permission to try lots of different physical approaches, hand positions, etc
If you're very visual you could try filming yourself, but that's not something that works well for me
I'm a piano teacher, and I've found it very helpful to learn to play while holding panoramic vision, plus attending simultaneously to any points of tension that announce themselves within that context and feeling them melt.
You're probably already doing this, but it's also helpful to practice the short phrases you struggle with over and over, rather than playing very much before and after them, which would slow down your practicing.
I was one of the “slow it down” commenters, glad it’s helping. Everett Upright’s advice is good, just want to add a general comment that these things may take longer than we’d hope and sometimes I feel I’m making no progress at all, and then it comes. Keep up the good work!
Seconding: turn your metronome up one tick; repeat what you already did (re identifying weak passages, drilling to 100% accuracy); repeat.
Also try to focus on keeping a light touch. And if there are any places where you know you’re cheating on the fingerings, i.e., using suboptimal ones because they’re tricky and unnecessary at current speed, go ahead and fix those now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y-UJRSHRDE&ab_channel=ClassicalMasterpieces
I looked the piece up, so posting the link might save people a little time. Played by Rachmaninoff, so probably optimal speed.
Have you tried speeding it up the tiniest smidgen, and working on where your playing breaks down?
If I speed it up a smidgen each week, then in 500 years I'll be playing as fast as Rachmaninoff himself! :) Seriously though, he blazes through some of those sections. I'm a little discouraged now!
My impression is that the improvement you get from practice isn't always linear, there are breakthroughs.
Confession: Ever since I was a teenager learning about Israel and the surrounding region, I've had a quiet pseudo-conviction that there's some property of the land itself that makes some individuals especially passionate about religious faith and/or living *RIGHT. THERE.*
This is of course very silly, but I can't shake it. If someone were to announce, I dunno, the discovery of toxoplasmosis-esque parasites in Israel's soil, or a psychoactive chemical or fungus in her seawater/groundwater, or brain nanobots from a lost civilization destroyed by the Younger Dryas impact which can only self-replicate in Israel's particular geography, or, more likely, something I can't even imagine, I'd feel a fierce satisfaction, not surprise.
Again, I realize this is silly. On a sort of surface-thinking intellectual level, I understand and accept the broad historical context of why so many people are so attached to "RIGHT.THERE."
I just can't make myself *really* believe that really is the only "why" of it.
It'd be nice to think that it takes a cordyceps-style fungus to get humans to make this a popular children's song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illF1vt5g1Q
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_We_Die_As_Martyrs
Two random thoughts, aside from the horror.
What I've heard of jihadi music is very good, for me it's surprisingly good.
I wonder if some of those kids will grow up to be objectivists or the equivalent. It might occur to them that they were being scammed.
I'd hope so, but I worry they're living in too much of a monoculture for that to be likely. I've read some accounts of life in a gulag, and the prisoners were able to get away with some surprising things. But in Gaza, the prisoners are also the guards.
And of course, then some fellow Palestinian goes off and kills some Israelis, which they don't see, and then the Israelis retaliate and kill some Palestinians, and they do see that, and so the entire worldview seems justified. :-(
I don't think very many of them will realize thy're being scammed, just a few.
I dunno, to some degree, the prisoners are the guards in North Korea, too, but it seems like a lot of them definitely want out! I think many are staying primarily to avoid having three generations of family members punished for their escape.
This is a completely unscientific third-hand impression, but ... I think the North Korean memeplex is a lot less optimized than the one in Gaza.
Huh! I don't know enough about what it's like to live in either of them, but surely folk in Gaza have enough access to the regular internet to know what life could be like elsewhere! I know there's a black market in North Korea for outside news and entertainment, but surely the North Koreans have the less accurate idea of the world.
But that's just a spitball intuition.
Edit to ad: nevermind, I skimmed to quickly on my phone and didn't parse.
I think you're probably right about the memeplex...maybe?
It's interesting to compare the two! If I had to choose, I think I'd rather be born in Gaza than in North Korea, and maybe that's why Gaza has the stronger memeplex?
Wo-ow.
My first reaction was that the video had to be either a hoax or dark satire. I actually googled the song title plus "hoax" (fun fact: Google was weirdly coy about autocompleting the title for a thing that has a quarter million views on its own platform).
That reaction is probably why I can't model the ideologies involved enough to *really* believe that other people believe them so deeply that they would choose to suffer rather than literally peace out of the area.
What's slightly worse is that the first place I saw it, which I couldn't find yesterday, appeared to be some sort of Palestinian children's TV show, like Sesame Street or Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.
I look at the demographics of Gaza, and I have to wonder what it's like for those kids. How thorough is the penetration of the ideology? Do families talk about it privately? How many have realized something's wrong, but know they can never say it out loud? And how many just fully commit because it's the best way to be accepted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow's_Pioneers
That might have been it. Thanks.
My pleasure!
Education probably plays a big role. Religious Zionists in Israel have their own state-funded education system. The "settler" ideology isn't just something dreamed up in coffeehouses and read on imageboards, it's something many Israelis have been indoctrinated from birth to believe in. Israeli Arabs have their own state-funded Arabic language schools, which prevent them from coming into contact with Israeli Jews to the degree the races come into contact in America. Intermarriage is very rare.
Early 20th century European nationalists understood the importance of education in shaping political ideology, while American conservatives have only learned it in the last few years.
It's not just Israelis who believe this. It's written in the bible and believed by religious people all over the world. Israel was promised to the Jewish people in the bible.
This belief may sound absurd to atheists, but to people who honestly believe in god and the bible, this is their land, has been since the exodus from Egypt, and it is very important to them.
Hmm. Very religious Orthodox Jews believe that Israel should not exist until the messiah appears and as far as I know that was the standard orthodox belief for centuries, so most Jews.
Muslims and most Christians don’t believe it either.
This is very fringe (under 1% of Jews) and isn't representative of what most Jews believe.
Part of it is selection bias: the people who don't care that much about living in Israel are likely to try and move away to other stable nations, especially if they're well educated. Those who stay either really care about that one piece of land or don't really have a choice.
The Levant is at the intersection of the Mediterranean (through ports), Red Sea (and therefore East Africa and on to India, also through ports), Anatolia, Egypt, and the Fertile Crescent. And unlike Syria to its north or Sinai to its south it's got some natural geographic barriers which makes it possible to hold. This is why empires keep fighting over the region. It's also why people keep predicting (successfully) massive fights at Megiddo. It's on a route where you can go north, south, east, or west and has enough mountains that it's a potential strongpoint.
This doesn't necessarily mean the religious belief is back-justified or that the modern conflict comes from that. But it does explain why people fight over that patch of land so much. The first major battle we know of, anywhere, was a battle between the Hittites and Egyptians near the region.
Marriage to first cousins is not only permissible in Islam, it's desired (since it preserves inheritance). After a thousand years of this, it shows up in a lot of places. E.g. in the UK, those with Pakistani ancestry are 3% of the population, but 30% of the birth defects. I'm generally skeptical about the cross-country IQ comparisons, but find it hard to imagine that this level of inbreeding/consanguinity hasn't had serious mental effects.
Short animation from 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tIdCsMufIY
Very satisfying.
As an American who is constantly being harangued about benefiting from European colonialism that occurred before living memory and the moral necessity of releasing Hawaii et al to the descendants of people who were conquered over a century ago, I often wonder why the American Left forgets that the ancient Israelites were victims of conquest, too.
And for the love of god, won't someone *PLEASE* think of the Canaanites?!
Here's the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Yk59fZZ0I&t=894s&ab_channel=Aycheksie
I have some disagreements with Paley, but she's a genius animator.
Yeah. This is my personal favorite, especially for the otherworldly turn in the middle of the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMCeQ-IloLg
Edward de Bono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono once proposed that the Middle East people are so aggressive due to their low-zinc diet. Marmite for Peace!!
Religiosity must have very high spatial autocorrelation (people tend to indoctrinate nearby people or ethnically cleanse and replace them). This exacerbates random fluctuations. Essentially you are looking at what seems to be many independent realizations of (place, amount of religiosity) and are surprised by one specific hot spot, which seems out of distribution. But the realizations are not independent, cutting down the effective number of data points. See e.g. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3398303
I don't think people in Israel/Palestine are particularly religious, the issue that religious people (and a shockingly high number of nonreligious people) worldwide ascribe a special status to one particular piece of land and the question of who should inhabit it.
Though I have never been there personally, I have been told that lifts in Israel have a Saturday mode where they stop at every floor to avoid forcing people to press buttons (=using fire, apparently). That sounds _very_ religious. At any rate the spatially autocorrelated trait does not need to be religiosity per se, it can be anything that drives OP’s opinion of the place. Now this is inching uncomfortably towards unfalsifiability, which I acknowledge.
Re the elevators: In places where there are a significant amount of Orthodox Jews, sure. Same as in the US: People are accommodating. Not using electricity on Saturday is a standard thing in Orthodox Judaism everywhere, it's not just an Israeli thing.
On general religiosity: Using Pew's metrics, Israel is more religious than most European countries, but less religious than the US, and much less religious than pretty much anywhere else in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, or South Asia. Notably, Israeli Muslims specifically are also less religious than most other Muslims in the region.
In the Palestinian territories, people are slightly more religious than those in the surrounding region.
I would guess that a lot of this effect is just from things like income levels.
Isn’t it more that the pressing of the button is “work” and not the use of electricity. Which is happening anyway.
Memetic contamination, I'd guess, rather than biology. The urge of having what other people desire maximized through epic stroycrafting across generations: think associations most people have with gold, put that a hundredfold on a bit of land.
This reminds me of weird theories about gold. While there are some practical uses for gold in electronics and chemistry, people were extremely attracted to gold for a long time before that.
There's a highly dubious theory that aliens modified humans for goldmining. This is the only thing I found interesting enough to remember from Art Bell's Coast to Coast.
There's a real world anomaly-- *most* human cultures love gold. North American indigenous people just weren't interested. They made jewelry from turquoise and silver.
I have a theory that bright yellow had less of an emotional effect on them.
In West Africa, salt was literally worth its weight in gold, since they had no source of salt locally, and could find (small, but relatively heavy) grains of gold in the rivers.
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1342/the-salt-trade-of-ancient-west-africa/
In most of the world salt was/is super valuable. Today in Northern Africa, there are camel caravans to transport salt mined out of a buried long dead sea.
Salt is only inexpensive because we have found industrial ways to extract it in highly plumbed man-made bays.
In one of the stories within stories of the Arabian nights, a merchant turns up on an island with a few bags of salt and leaves with a few bags of gold. Reading that as a child I could well believe it, for any unseasoned food tasted bland to me. In a civilisation without salt, regardless of other spices, using it for the first time would be a revelation.
Salt isn't just tasty, it's metabolically necessary.
Ha! I hadn't heard any of these theories about gold! They're really fun!
I've had a notion of two immortal things that live underground and are competing to get the most people killed-- one in Israel and one in Germany.
Do you ever wear synthetic clothing such as nylon, spandex/Lycra, or polyester? This recent study in Environmental Science & Technology (full text: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c01894) seems big if true.
The claim: our sweat can leach harmful plastic additives from synthetic clothing. This is because our sweat contains oils. In theory, some of the leached additives would then be absorbed through our skin.
The study only looked at flame retardant additives in fireproof clothing. Here is why the findings may transfer to many other synthetics:
> Abdallah [the P.I.] says the study implies that other chemical plastic additives, like bisphenols (which have been found at up to 40 times the safe limit of exposure in items from popular sportswear brands), phthalates and PFAS, 'may leach out into sweat and become available for dermal absorption'. These findings can be 'logically extrapolated in terms of someone who is running and sweating intensely', he notes.
(https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2023/nov/02/workout-clothes-sweat-chemicals-cancer)
Is this enough to make you stop wearing synthetic clothing for exercise, or in general? (That's what Abdallah himself has done.)
Or would you first need to see this experiment re-done on each of those materials, and understand the magnitude of the potential harms?
> Do you ever wear synthetic clothing such as nylon, spandex/Lycra, or polyester?
Yes! Don't we all? Most of the time?
I will guess that every pair of socks you own has synthetic content.
Even my jeans have lycra, albeit only 1%.
"These findings can be “logically extrapolated in terms of someone who is running and sweating intensely”, he notes. Essentially, the more you sweat, the more chemicals you could absorb." - this is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I don't immediately see a mechanism that causes more chemical absorption with more sweating in any sort of a monotonous fashion.
These fabrics have been widely used for decades now - if they really caused above-background level carcinogenic harm we should be able to see it in the data - intense exercisers being more susceptible to certain/many cancers. I don't see any reference to such data there.
I can't say enough about how terrible the Prop 65 is - its warnings are so common now as to lose any informative value.
Totally agree. Until there is a high quality study showing the effect in people, i will ignore this. Also, its very possible that any negative health outcomes from this are offset by the exercise you would need to do to absorb any significant amount of plastic (or whatever).
In general, coverage of health-related issues from major news outlets is awful. This one is no exception.
Well, it is an in vitro study. Apparently the ground up plastics and passed it through a 0.45mm sieve before exposing it to artificial skin fluid.
I could imaging that in the grinding process, they actually created some particles a lot smaller than that, so the effective surface area might be higher than for clothing.
If this replicates for synthetic clothing, the next question would be how much of it is absorbed through the skin.
skin permeability, though relatively easy to model - see https://huskindb.drug-design.de/ for some data, go wild with a bit of sklearn + rdkit - correllates mainly with the partition coefficient of a compound. I would guess microplastics might go through an artifical membrane due to perforation, but shouldn't go too deep (skin to blood is hard to design for, and microbeads just do not go through). Much worse when you put them in a direct blood interface (inhaled / ingested).
My priors are strongly against microplastics on the 0.5mm scale being diffusing through healthy skin. Also, any fabric shedding microplastics of that size at an appreciable rate would be soon be gone. I think the proposed mechanism of action is likely that the oils in the sweat absorb the toxin from the microplastics (which can be intact fibers) and then the toxin gets absorbed.
I would like to know the magnitude of the potential harms before getting rid of all my sportsgear. For cycling I could switch to merino wool jerseys I guess. Might consider that for future purchases (I have tons of jerseys, so probably not anytime soon.) Not too sure about what to do with the bibs though. I don't think that a non-synthetic alternative exists. Same with soccer. Playing with natural fabrics for extended periods of time gets very uncomfortable.
I have been reading a lot of long AI papers and related documents lately. The Executive Order was one thing and now I am going through the 100-page report on the current state of alignment, put together by a group of Chinese researchers. How do people maintain focus when reading such long documents, especially when they are out of their depth technically and have to look up/understand aditional concepts all the time?
I found reading aloud (although as quickly as possible so as to not slow down my reading speed) really helps to not lose focus b
Hmm, I’ve never done that, worth a try I guess. My problem is more around focus fatigue, at one point words just stop making sense or my reading speed slows down to a crawl. But it’s been improving over tome so I guess just more practice is the answer
Keep your smartphone in another room. Turn off or restrict internet access on your computer. Take breaks when you feel you need it. Exercise regularly.
Yeah I pretty much do all of those things. I've found that consistently meditating for an hour each morning does wonders in terms of how long I can stay focused on a mentally challenging task
What do you consider the most relevant such documents, foe someone to learn about the state of AI regulation?
I think Biden's Executive order is the big one to keep an eye on, as it will probably lead to USA regulations which would affect all the major AI labs. Most of the order consists of various reports that need to be written (here is a list of all the timlines set out in it: https://valentinsocial.substack.com/p/bidens-ai-executive-order-all-the). I would also recommend Zvi's post on the Executive other to get some more commentary: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/on-the-executive-order
The EU AI Act seems to be the other piece of legislation that would affect a lot of the players as the EU is a big market for those companies. I haven't had time to write anything in depth on those two, but will in the future, so maybe sub for my blog for when I post them
Many thanks!
You're welcome :)
I think it depends why you're reading them, which guides how you should / might want to read them. I have 2 reading styles (roughly speaking -- less binary category, more sliding spectrum), call them "explore" vs "exploit":
- exploratory reading: making sense of the topic. My guiding question is "how would I explain this to X, and how would I answer their 'so what'?" where X is usually a friend of mine who's at least somewhat acquainted with the topic or adjacent topics, and (gently) skeptical of the read's facts, framing, implied importance, etc. (I am admittedly privileged to have quite a few friends like this, so it's become a default mental move.) I suppose the industrial-strength version of this is https://www.cold-takes.com/learning-by-writing/
- exploitative reading: I'm mostly looking for something (a fact, a numerical estimate, a quote, an opinion etc). Surprisingly for me, I've often found myself wanting to confirm my bias by searching for some quantitative estimate and ending up undermining my confidence in my original stance (sometimes even changing my stance entirely), funny how that works
I guess the usual mundane stuff helps too -- coffee, enough sleep, environment conducive to long stretches of focused reading, etc
Also come to think of it, I've done a very lightweight version of Gwern's https://gwern.net/about#long-content style writing for a few years now (in Notion nowadays). It's interesting how you can sometimes experience a mental "phase shift" from confusion at the mass of disparate material to a sudden sense of most of the puzzle pieces falling into place, after which it becomes much easier to make sense of long dense docs because you essentially "know what to ignore". Long content style fact-gathering increases p(that happening) over time
Wow, thanks for the answer, I find myself doing pretty much the same things. Actually, thinkin thgouth complicated idea by means of writing is why I started my blog in the first place (https://valentinsocial.substack.com/)
Also, thanks for the Gwern link, that post is absolute gold and answered a lot of other questions that I didn't know I wanted to ask!
PS: for me what you call exploitative reading is the default mode that my brain goes to, and the one that I try the hardest to avoid
Can you find how White can mate in 1 move in this position? https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/avva/111931/240177/240177_600.jpg
If you see it *immediately*, it's probably wrong and it's not a mate or not an allowed move.
Queen to b5. The trick is that it only works because black's bishop is pinned and can't take the queen
Rot 13:
2S gb 3T? - EDIT: Someone already suggested this and it was wrong.
I'm pretty bad at these. So I'm not even going to rot13 my take.
Why not just Queen to C8? King can't take it because of the Rook on C2. And can't escape to A7 becuse of the Bishop on F2
Queen's pinned by the e8 bishop. Everything is pinned, that's the bullshit.
Oh, yeah. I missed this one. Thanks!
rot13 (not very un-spoilery in this case, but vOv):
S2 gb T3?
Right, as already noted, that doesn't work.
I don't think it counts as a mate in one turn. Black can still block the direction of the attack with the queen
Shit, right. So dhrra gb o svir is the only solution.
Rot13:
Gur jnl V frr vg, obgu xavtugf naq bar ebbx ner cvaarq. Dhrra vf cvaarq ol gur ovfubc ba r rvtug, juvpu pna'g or gnxra sbe n zngr orpnhfr vg vf pbirerq (guvf nccyvrf nyfb gb gur ebbx). Ovfubc ba s gjb boivbhfyl pna'g zngr, ovfubc ba r gjb pna purpx ohg abg zngr. Ubjrire, gung ovfubc va r rvtug vf va ghea va qvfpbirerq purpx (be jungrire gur cuenfr vf) qhr gb gur ebbx, fb vg pna abg npghnyyl gnxr gur dhrra. Fb dhrra gb r svir?
Typo in notation, but the solution is correct. Well done!
Am very new to chess notation. How do I translate this?
Gur yrggref ng gur obggbz ebj bs gur vzntr fcryy bhg gur anzrf bs gur pbyhzaf, gur ahzoref ba gur yrsg gur anzrf bs gur ebjf. Guhf rirel bar bs gur 64 pryyf ba gur obneq unf n anzr yvxr 'u5' - gur vagrefrpgvba bs pbyhza U naq ebj 5. Gur zbir "Oq3", sbe rknzcyr, zrnaf Ovfubc (juvgr be oynpx, qrcraqvat ba jubfr ghea vg vf) zbirf gb fdhner q3 sebz jurerire vg vf. Guvf vf hfhnyyl hanzovthbhf, ohg va pnfrf jura vg'f abg, gurer'f n shyyre abgngvba Or2-q3 zrnavat Ovfubc zbirf sebz fdhner r2 gb fdhner q3. Yrggref ner (X)vat, (D)hrra, (E)bbx, (O)vfubc, (A)Xavtug. Jura gurer'f ab yrggre, zrnaf n cnja zbirf. 'k' vf gb vaqvpngr pncgher, r.t. Dkr8 zrnaf Dhrra zbirf gb fdhner r8 pncghevat jungrire vf gurer.
Gur fbyhgvba gb guvf ceboyrz vf "dhrra zbirf gb o svir" fcryyrq bhg yvxr guvf gb nibvq fcbvyvat qvtvgf guebhtu ebg13. Vg zrnaf gur juvgr dhrra zbirf sebz fdhner q frira, jurer vg fgnaqf, gb o svir. Vg'f n zngr orpnhfr gur oynpx ovfubc juvpu cvaf gur dhrra pnaabg npghnyyl gnxr vg, vgfrys orvat cvaarq ol gur juvgr ebbx. Vg'f xvaq bs uneq gb svaq orpnhfr jura n cvrpr vf cvaarq, yvxr gur juvgr dhrra urer vf, abeznyyl gur bayl hfrshy guvat vg pna qb vf gnxr gur cvaavat cvrpr, vs vg pna. Urer gung'f abg hfrshy, naq vafgrnq zbivat jvguva gur yvar vg'f orvat cvaarq gb, juvpu vf vaperqvoyl ener va erny cynl, cebivqrf gur zngr.
What?
Go to rot13.com and paste what you don't understand from the comments around into the top window, then read the results at the bottom. It's a crude cypher (move every letter 13 places forward in a loop) to let people avoid looking at spoilers.
While I'm not a big fan of puzzles where you're supposed to find checkmate a single move faster than the extremely obvious checkmate(s), I have to admit the solution to this one is clever. The problem is that everything is pinned, and the solution is that everything is pinned.
I have recently listened to a podcast episode (this one https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-can-the-mind-slow-aging-with-ellen-langer ) with Ellen J. Langer (well-known Harvard psichology professor). She made some claims that are hard to believe for me (e.g. rigging a clock and thus your subjective time perception, makes wounds heal faster), yet they seem supported by scientific studies.
Is anybody up to date on the current research on these topics? What is the general consensus of the scientific community? Has anybody read her recent book "The Mindful Body"?
I'm not familiar with this field and this seems like a good place to ask for some opinions to people who are more knowledgeable than me.
Do you happen to have a link to the clock paper? Had a quick google around and this is the only one I could find talking about pain perception not actual healing :
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49656630_How_a_clock_can_change_your_pain_The_illusion_of_duration_and_pain_perception
Hi, sorry I haven't received the notifications for the comments for some reason.
Thanks for making me check this. There is a footnote about this in the study, but it points to:
P. Aungle and E. Langer, “Which Time Heals All Wounds, Real or Perceived?” in preparation
I don't think it is a good practice to write a popular science book citing studies that have not been presented to the scientific community yet...
Anyway, another study with a similar take-home message that was also mentioned in the podcast is this one https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1603444113 where the physiological variable is now blood sugar levels, instead of how a wound is healing.
Seems like I missed my notifications too.
Appreciate posting the link!
That was a long held frustration I had with popular science books to the point I would just call them fraud.....
But it does seem that blood sugar is something close enough to draw equivalence though.
I agree! I wouldn’t really feel comfortable discussing such “counterintuitive” results in a popular science book and in a podcast without a lot of solid evidence and properly peer-reviewed papers. For the moment I’ll just slightly update my prior in favour of this kind of effects possibly being true, but not much. I’d like to see independent replications of the studies... (maybe there are other indications in this direction, but it’s not my field of research, that’s why I asked the question originally)
That seems more like capacity for endurance rather than perception of intensity of pain. If you're told "this pain will last for the full rotation" then you may think "I can bear it for a minute but I couldn't stand it for two minutes". If one clock is going slightly faster then your subjective perception is "not much longer now, just hold on for a bit more" rather than "I have another twenty seconds to go, I can't stand it".
I think that might make the difference between "it wasn't as bad as I expected" (it appeared to finish quicker than I expected) versus "I couldn't have endured it any longer" (it lasted as long as I allotted endurance for).
Let's continue re-reading Scott's old blog (not SSC, the one before, this one https://archive.ph/fCFQx). "How to teach without your students secretly hating you" https://archive.ph/VLlft (alt https://pastebin.com/N0cWhb9p) is a good list of things not to do, "having a specific definition in mind and trying to squeeze it out of the students one word at a time over the course of 40 minutes" is my personal un-favourite.
Bonus shitpost: https://archive.ph/o3SNI. What other remarkable things were uttered just before leaping off the Tower of Prisms?
Last week I did a work training with someone who was generally a good teacher, but who for some reason felt compelled to pause every five minutes or so to say something like "What's a good name for a CURRENT TRANSFORMER? [awkward silence] how about 'current transformer'?"
I was ready to commit murder by the end of the session.
"Don't Ask Super Easy Questions
So a professor comes in and says "Who can tell me what organ pumps blood all around the body?" And after a few seconds of trying to figure out whether it's a trick question, everyone decides that it isn't, and he really is just looking for "the heart".
But no one says anything. First, it would look really crass and teacher's pet-ish. "Gosh, what a great question, is it...the heart?" Second, it would make it look like you were honestly pleased with yourself that you had the knowledge, that "oh! I know this!"."
God I hate this situation. 90% I'll take the shot after an awkward minute, but when it's a question like "where do plants get CO2 from?" (hint: they really did want "air") it has such a high confusion cost. Like, really? Also, I will no longer be paying attention for the next ~20 minutes.
(ps. thanks for the pastebin link)
Third, you're afraid other students would think it really took you that long to come up with such an obvious answer.
"Fossil fuel users!"
How do we know that the people being trained for AI alignment research will end up doing what the people who designed the training expected?
Easy! We sneak into their bedrooms at night to record them. If they mutter "kill all humans" in their sleep, we stop them from working on AI.
We have grokked their Maslow hierarchy and can give them shelter and esteem and stuff to ensure their cooperation. We don't know the same for AIs.
The Maslow hierarchy is a myth: https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/what-evidence-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-based-on/
The hyper-optimistic hope here is that misaligned researchers will produce models that are misaligned to them but aligned to the rest of the world. Do two misalignments produce an alignment?
The concept of "aligning people" is kind of authoritarian on its own.
But everyone here is just joking, I know.
The Ministry of Alignment, should've been in 1984
Alignment shouldn't be thought of as a binary classification to start, and any negation outside of the binary world wouldn't guarantee you 2 wrongs making a right.
That comment was a joke, I agree with you
Bletchley: PCM type risk gets a nod in the declaration. "Substantial risks may arise from potential intentional misuse or unintended issues of control relating to alignment with human intent." But not much else in the conference or the coverage of it that I have seen. Is anyone surprised about this?
I am a medical student contemporaneously pursuing a master's in public health. I'm supposed to do an internship where I work on a field-relevant project for the masters, but expect to be fairly busy with my rotation schedule during normal working hours for the next couple of years. Doing an elective rotation at a county or state public health facility is probably an option, but doesn't really pique my interest. I'm wondering if any ACX reader is doing something interesting in health policy, healthcare delivery systems, epidemiology startups, or biostatistics has a project they could use my asynchronous labor in service of. I am smart and creative and would be happy to work in exchange for the institution-legible validation of the fact of this arrangement to the relevant accreditation body.
I’m a data scientist at a specialty board that does a lot of research in clinical and policy areas. I’d be happy to chat and see if there’s an overlap in interests.
Would love that, thank you! Taking to email to discuss.
Policy professionals of ACX - how difficult have you found it transitioning from one area of policy work to another? Do your skills translate well across fields in general, or are your skills specific to one domain? Or does it depend on how closely related the fields are?
Gunflint was given a one-month ban for a post of his on Scott's *My Left Kidney* thread. If you've been here for a while, you probably know who he is and what his posts are like I can't think of anyone who's more consistently kind and fair-minded than Gunflint. Here's an instance of that quality: He made no comments at all about the Israel-Palestinian situation -- then, a few days ago, posted that he felt as though he should make no comments at all about it until he spent a couple months learning about the history and cultures involved.
The comment he got banned for was indeed in violation of the 2 out of 3 / true-necessary-kind rule, but its violations were fairly mind and gentle-- certainly nowhere near as bannable as some of the furious posts we've seen in recent days about Israel-Palestine.
Gunflint's comment, along with Scott's ban, is here:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/my-left-kidney/comment/42716234
The post Gunflint was responding to is here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/my-left-kidney?r=3d8y5&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=42688354
Scott's banning post is followed by posts from me and Moon Moth making the case that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, so I won't repeat any of what we said here. But if any other readers have the feeling that this ban is way too severe a consequence, I hope you'll speak up on this thread and make a case to Scott for a reduced sentence for this gentle member of ACX.
Guy(?) absolutely deserved to get banned. I've avoided reading threads I presume are filled with Israeli-Palestinian discourse, but I'd suggest to ban everyone behaving badly there.
His comment was not about Palestine-Israeli discourse. It was a thread about effective altruism. OP said he personally would not want to donate a kidney because he loved animals and would worry that his kidney would increase animal suffering by extending the life of a carnist (meat eater). Gunflint’s response was to that.
Yea, I am aware of that, sorry if that wasn't clear. I was reacting to your suggestion that Scott is tolerating too much bad debate about Israeli-Palestine issue; if so, the solution is more bans not less. I also think that rational_hippy is weird af, but they are absolutely entitled to their weird opinion in this tolerant community. And to keep this a tolerant place, Scott should imho ban everyone who steps out line until behavior improves (I am not joking). Its not like Gunflint will be hugely adversely affected by a month in commenting jail, c'mon.
I haven't had the time/energy to wade through Israel/Palestine threads, and there's a de-facto exemption for threads where everyone is being terrible at each other because it's too much work for me to figure out who the first terrible person was, and I can't figure out my principles around how to punish people who were just responding in kind to others who attacked them first.
(which I guess is itself a metaphor for Israel/Palestine)
This is probably obvious, but have you considered outsourcing the moderation? You could still serve a final arbiter to deal with edge cases, but you specifically stated that with the I/P issue in particular you would ban aggressively, which seems reasonable, as does moderation in general.
A simple system would involve a the assistant moderator identifying comments as either definitely acceptable, definitely not acceptable, or questionable, with you only needing to deal with the final category.
A candidate assistant moderator could categorize some number of flagged comments, e.g. 10, and as long as you agree with all of the definitive categorizations, then such a moderator would only be reducing your workload.
This seems valuable from a division of labor standpoint as I don't think there's much reason a priori to think that the prodigious talents necessary to create content for this blog would be necessary to moderate it.
And even if optimal moderation would require such talent, refraining from (or postponing) moderating the comment sections that require the most moderation is surely not optimal, anyway.
Yea, I also try to avoid I/P discourse wherever possible, sorry for using that as a prop in an argument here
I banned him for a month, and I endorse this. I agree he's a great person in many other ways and I appreciate having him in the comment section, but I think that one really crossed a line. Original poster made what I thought was a good point (at least from its starting assumptions), and Gunflint tried to humiliate them and socially shame them into shutting up without really having any counterargument.
I care especially about this because it seemed like the original poster was opening up and being vulnerable about something that they knew other people could mock them for, but which was their genuine objection to donating a kidney, to see if other people had thought about it or there was a way around it. I want to create a space where people feel comfortable doing that.
I hope Gunflint comes back and continues to participate after his one month ban is up.
(some technical issues that might also explain where I'm coming from: I am only able to give one day, one week, one month, one year, or perma bans. I have pretty limited ability to give people "warnings" because there are thousands of commenters, I can't remember which ones I've warned, and although I have a list on my computer I don't check the list every time I see a new comment and I try to avoid relying on it too much.)
I wonder whether that question has some bearing on whether to have children. While the children of vegetarians are presumably more likely to grow up to be vegetarian, some of them might be carnivores.
That sounds like the radical feminists who didn't want male children because they would be inherently rapists.
I don't want those women to have male children, either, but it's to prevent children from growing up in a home that's predictably emotionally abusive.
Well this reminds me of a post about synthetic meat being opposed in Italy from a while back. I would have a very hard time replying to anyone who puts animal suffering on par with human suffering while staying civilized. Any moral system that brings you to such a conclusion must be utterly broken and I don’t think any amount of rational discussion can change that (call it a trapped prior if you will; no one said priors should have the whole space as a support). With this out of the way, I believe that pointing out to someone that their moral system is the consequence of the vantage point they have on the world (here presumably a very privileged one) is an act of kindness. Humiliation is often in the eye of the beholder.
> it seemed like the original poster was opening up and being vulnerable about something that they knew other people could mock them for, but which was their genuine objection to donating a kidney,
This is not a safe space for opening up and being vulnerable. In general, people here are smart and brusque, and on every thread there's a sprinkling of people whose agenda seems to be find something easily attackable and do a gotcha. ACX is not a safe place to disclose beliefs that are likely to be seen as weird and and expect extra consideration because they are heartfelt.
As a matter of fact I’m making myself vulnerable by posting about Gunflint’s ban. I shed actual tears over it. But I don’t expect that to get me any special consideration.
I agree that people should be able to argue against other people without worrying about their feelings, but I don't think I need to protect "tell someone they should feel ashamed of themselves with no further justification".
I agree that Gunflint's text fell short of the official standards. My argument for reducing his sentence is (1) I did not find it hard to understand his implied justification for criticizing OP's stance. My own response to OP, though in the form of a question, also carried an implied criticism (I asked if there was a case for killing carnies.) So I see Gunflint's post as oblique criticism, rather than as a sneer with no substantive argument behind it. (2) Knowing something about the committer of the deed matters. For instance I think your 1 month ban of Gunflint was a mistake, and I'm angry at you. But I respect you a lot and like you, so I don't even feel tempted to come after you the way I want to at some people on ACX who look to me like cruel, self-important assholes. (3) You bans really are inconsistent. The correlation between punishment and crime is very low. I'm pretty sure the several comments I've reported in the last coupla months would meet anyone's definition of awful, and they're still sitting on the threads. And there are probably other awful comments that others have reported. People have to read them. And their authors are still contentedly posting here.
Would you be willing to share your reason for a one month instead of a one week ban? For first strikes it seems to me that notification of the issue (that the behavior will result in a punishment) is far more important than the specific punishment. Employers give written warnings for a typical first step (which in some ways is no punishment at all), rather than suspending an employee, for instance.
I'm trying to think what a one month ban gives in terms of improving the community and helping Gunflint recognize his error that a one week punishment would not accomplish.
Agreed, Gunflint seems like a very good person, and his response seemed to be out-of-character. Thus, I think a warning would have sufficed.
I thought Gunflint made a valid point, or at least raised an issue that could have led to a good discussion, but did so with uncharacteristic harshness.
'it seemed like the original poster was opening up and being vulnerable about something that they knew other people could mock them for, but which was their genuine objection to donating a kidney"
Thank you Scott for seeing this. I felt quite discouraged to post again in the comments section after all the animosity I got last time. It's helping that some people, and in particular the blog author, notice these things
I can also see it, and I hope you keep posting. You seem like a nice person.
I think you got some of the same reaction that Scott got, for merely talking about an ethical standard which is higher than what most people adhere to in their day to day lives. Humans being the subtle social creatures we are, even a mention is often taken as criticism and pressure to do likewise. Because, well, it often is. Possibly that's not what you intended (aside from the standard tactic of "raising awareness"), but I'm pretty sure a lot of people are reacting defensively to a criticism that was not in the text you wrote.
I do feel I should say, one of the big reasons that I could also interpret the comment in a more charitable light to the writer, was that I'm kind of in that situation myself. Shit happened in my life, and then more shit, and the solution to the second shit brought more shit including gut problems, and now I am less intelligent and poorer than I used to be. I was actually moving toward vegetarianism, but have had to abandon that because whatever happened to my gut makes meat one of the few things that doesn't give me diarrhea so painful that I once passed out in the snow while knocking on random doors begging to be let in to use the bathroom. (Thanks, mapo tofu. But the silver lining is that now I know that I will not shit my pants even when it gets that bad.) And my crude attempts to debug it while brain damaged and on Medicaid haven't been successful. It's not just meat-eating; my ability to optimize for environmental impact took a huge hit, and now I can't even manage composting. My recycling is erratic, and my energy use is way higher than it used to be. I consume resources and give little back to the world. By any utilitarian standard, I'm a worse person than I used to be. I don't think people should be criticized for talking about their "first world problems", and no one ever likes to hear "check your privilege", but, well, my life is worse than it used to be, and where I once engaged with the sort of question you do, now I can't. If your life is also horrible and you still manage to engage like this, that's great, keep it up. I wish I were like you.
And the specific question you asked about how to check if a recipient met your standards? I grapple with that all the time, except for something that virtually no one cares about except myself. Most people I know, most people I love, wouldn't give it a second thought, except in the cases where I told them, and then only **because** I told them. Sure, it's caused by PTSD, and is quite possibly irrational, but it's also the strongest emotion I have ever felt in my entire life, and I struggle against it daily. Your question didn't trigger my PTSD the way the people in earlier Israel/Palestine threads did by calling for vengeance and dehumanization, but to me it's part and parcel of the same thing. I have to let go of my own desire for vengeance, for punishment, for control, for re-ordering the world in a way that seems clearly better, and accept that people are going to do what they do, and that includes being awful. Trying to force or pressure them to change, isn't going to work for me. I can't optimize for that one thing at the expense of all else. The only way forward for me that I can see involves a continuous process of forgiveness, of myself and others, and letting go of this thing I care about so much, and treating people as people instead of agents with a binary state of sin or grace. There's more to people than just the aspect that my PTSD cares so very much about.
Which of course is just me talking about myself, and how I reacted to your question. But if you want to take it as a veiled suggestion that you might want to view the future through a wider lens, and relax your mental grip on this one aspect, well, I'd support that reading too. ;-)
A person is dying in the streets, probably a carnivore. You can save him or her. What do you do? This doesn’t seem that different from not saving a person by not giving a kidney. It seems to me the logic of your position is to help no humans lest they be carnivores.
Also you elided quickly over countries and their health systems. Yet I’m sure that India has a decent enough health service - a quick google tells me that it’s a centre of medical tourism from the west. And most of India is vegetarian.
Yes this question is indeed a tough one, ethically speaking. I would of course save the person. Faced with the most apparent case of suffering I believe it is my duty to stop it, and second order problems can wait. In the best possible world I would ask the person, after saving them, that they consider giving up on contributing to the torture of conscious beings. I would now feel that I have a moral duty to convince this person.
But the situation where you give a kidney to a complete stranger is conceptually different, isn't it? You are going out there, trying to do a good deed without ever "seeing" the consequences of your action. So you can spend time refining your best guess of what the consequences are, exactly. What is the point of taking an action meant to alleviate the suffering that exists out there - not the suffering of any specific individual - if your action counterfactually ends up increasing suffering greatly?
But I think it's only fair to return the question to you. So I invite you to put yourself in my shoes and assume this point, just for a minute: "the suffering of conscious beings matters, independently of their shape or intelligence". In order to do so I invite you to consider this thought experiment:
You live in a world where most people contribute to the torture of innumerable other humans during their lifetime. Unbeknownst to them. None of them are "bad people", they just aren't aware that they are paying for the torture of other persons every day. You are in a situation to save one of these people. What do you do?
Would you, like me, save the person? Would you also, like me, refrain from giving a kidney to a random person in this hypothetical world?
I am very interested in any other resolutions that you see to this paradox, besides rejecting the starting assumption that suffering of all beings matters.
Well of course one important difference between the 2 situations is that saving the person in the street does not involve any personal pain or risk for you, whereas kidney donation does. But your concerns about kidney donation don't seem to have anything to do with the risk to you, so let's set that aside.
With that consideration set aside, seems to me that the main difference between the 2 situations is that the person dying on the street is visible, and so is their suffering, whereas all the people in need of a kidney, and their personal suffering, are not. The people in renal failure are like the animals being tortured in the labs of pharmaceutical companies and on factory farms -- people know that they are there, and are suffering, but none of it's right under their nose.
As for the thought experiment: Yes, I would give a kidney to the person on the world where all were unknowingly paying for the torture of other people. That person's not all that different from me. I don't eat meat, but I eat dairy, and wear leather, and take drugs that were tested on animals in terrible ways. And besides, all extreme suffering is innocent. When someone is reduced to that feeling of oh, please, make the pain stop and oh, please save me, they are at their innocent core. You know what a lot of people's last word is? "Mommy."
And after I saved the person I would tell them about the torture they were contributing to, and try to interest them in doing what that could to stop it. Of course I might not convince them, but it's the best chance I'd ever get to make a difference in the world they lived in. There's no better way to make someone receptive to your ideas than to be kind to them.
Interesting because I think we fundamentally agree in everything you have said. And yes, every suffering is innocent, very well phrased. And unlike what others seem to assume here, my reasoning is never driven by a "punishment" mentality, this would be abhorrent. I do not care if the person I am saving is "good" or 'bad" according to my system, it is not the end goal, the end goal is that my action overall has positive consequences.
But you have just simplified the thought experiment by assuming that you can reach out to the person and try to convince them to change their ways. I would be curious to hear if your conclusion changes when you take it at face value, and assume that you will have no mean to contact the person you save, and they will go on (unbeknownst to them) creating more suffering around them?
>>But the situation where you give a kidney to a complete stranger is conceptually different, isn't it? You are going out there, trying to do a good deed without ever "seeing" the consequences of your action. So you can spend time refining your best guess of what the consequences are, exactly. What is the point of taking an action meant to alleviate the suffering that exists out there - not the suffering of any specific individual - if your action counterfactually ends up increasing suffering greatly?
I wouldn't argue that there's a duty to donate kidneys, and you yourself seem to consider it a morally laudable choice - after all, you called Scott's decision one of selfless courage.
But I still have a hard time distinguishing your line of thinking from a window-dressed version of the statement “I’m not saying I’d kill people personally, but it’s actually good when they die."
Consider, for example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the killing of the Rohingya. Most people think that some sort of intervention (or at least, the taking of refugees) in that situation is a good thing. But, assuming most of those refugees would be meat eaters, your thinking seems to point in the other direction.
If manmade situations seem different, what about natural disasters or epidemics? They "just happen to some people" similarly to kidney disease.
Again, you lauded Scott's decision, so I have a hard time imagining you holding a protest sign at a rally that reads, "minimize suffering of conscious creatures - no earthquake assistance for Haiti! No money for Ebola!" But it's where your argument leads (at least as I read it). I don't see a distinguishing principle there.
My objection to this remains the same: animals are not humans. And you didn't expand on your reasons, instead you came across as obnoxiously virtue signalling, as well as sorting out humans into categories of "deserve to live by my metrics" and "unworthy of life".
"God's bodkin, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity - the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty" .
You care more about the potential sum of burgers the potential kidney recipient might eat over the course of their life. Fine. That's a reason, and that's your reason. Nobody is going to kidnap you so the Thought Experiment Surgeon can carve you up to save five other patients. But don't phrase it as "I am SO morally superior and on SUCH a higher plane because I think of this mealy-mouthed objection to the real problem of people dying due to lack of organ donation".
They didn't frame it this way at all, I think you're imagining things based on your own prejudices.
Some animals are humans, though it is a very small subset of them.
Here is a well argued take investigating "reasons" to apply a different moral system to humans vs other conscious beings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1vW9iSpLLk
If you want to go a bit more in-depth I recommend the movie "speciesism".
https://speciesismthemovie.com/
It follows a philosophy graduate who investigates this very question and tries to figure out reasons why we have different moral standards for animals
Biting the bullet and rejecting the starting assumption? Fair enough.
Well, it seems very obvious to me that what matters is not "human suffering" but "consciousness suffering".
Are you disagreeing? If so I would argue that the burden of proof lies on you to explain why you carve such an exception for animals of your own species. But if insist that the burden of proof lies on me, I can point you to many resources that explain why there is zero rational (literally zero) for applying a different moral system to humans vs other conscious beings.
The comment was a 0/3 on true/kind/necessary. It was incoherent, incredibly rude, and absolutely not needed.
You’ve chosen a weird hill to die on.
I regret to inform you that that I am alive and well. But thanks for the good-natured send-off.
Fundamental criticism about someone’s identity often appears unkind and unnecessary. It can be. However there are, crucially, some instances when it is not. One of the roles of ideology is to have the lower classes believe that the ruling class is not just stronger and more powerful but also morally superior. This way the lower classes will attempt to individually emulate the ruling class rather than collectively fighting it. This is what the “American dream” is about. I take his comment to be pointing out this basic fact (of which you may of course question the truthfulness). From this point of view it is kind and necessary. But the way ideology blends in with identity makes it hard to see, and it is inevitably perceived as an ad hominem.
You are aware that the drivel you're spouting is word-for-word Marxist propaganda?
Now is this comment kind and necessary? My previous comment is indeed in line with a Marxist interpretation of reality, which you may choose to call “propaganda”. Having read das Kapital and a selection of later marxist authors I am certainty aware that I am not saying anything new here.
Crazy world we live in that you can just openly admit that and still be allowed to operate in polite (internet) society. Like, imagine someone just casually citing a Hitler quote unironically, as a true representation of their beliefs, and then openly admitted that they were citing Hitler. And your ideology killed far more than that one.
We hit Godwin's law. Have a nice day.
Lots of pixels being spilt over this. It was a mean comment and also so lacking in point I am not sure I have understood it. It seems to be saying This is easy for you to do with your comfortable upper class lifestyle, which would be sort of valid if the donation had been of a large but not life-changing (for the donor) sum of money. A kidney's a kidney no matter what your income.
Also, meta about banning issues is often banned. A good rule, tho apparently not in force here, so I ought to shut up.
Also also the ban is already about 22% done. I know this because I am having an alcohol free November so have this sort of stat at my fingertips just now.
> Also, meta about banning issues is often banned. A good rule, tho apparently not in force here, so I ought to shut up.
Meta-meta: Agree to disagree. I kind of likes Scott's transparency approach. Allowing discussions about bans is in the same spirit. The traditional alternative of deleting banworthy posts and forbidding discussions about bans kind of turns participation into a game of Mao.
Meta: the comment is in response not to Scott's post (like I initially thought) but to someone implying that saving a human live may be net negative due to their carnivorism. So it was more "you live in some weird ivory tower devoid of any human suffering if you have to think of saving a human life might be net negative on average". I still think it was a low effort comment. Others managed to push back against the sentiment of that poster without getting banned for it.
Does anyone know why there are lots of ready available medications to lower blood pressure if it is too high but (apparently) none to raise blood pressure if it is too low?
Nicotine seems to be pretty effective. I wonder if low blood pressure became more common with the decrease in smoking.
>none to raise blood pressure if it is too low?<
Does salt not count? https://www.durhamnephrology.com/foods-that-increase-blood-pressure/
I mean, in addition to the other answers pointing out that high blood pressure is more dangerous and common... I'm not sure about your claim that there are no drugs to raise blood pressure. One potential search term is 'inotropic agents' which increase the heart's ejection fraction, thereby increasing blood pressure.
Digoxin used to be used long term, but was considered too dangerous. Part of that was having a narrow therapeutic index (so it was easy to overdose.) I'm pretty sure it's still used short term to help stabilize people with harmfully low blood pressure.
https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/digoxin-use-in-modern-medicine#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20digoxin%20is,and%20can%20result%20in%20toxicity.
There are a few other ways to increase blood pressure as well including preventing arterial expansion and increasing total blood volume.
Well, here's the wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotension
(i'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice)
Having skimmed through that page and some articles, it seems that low blood pressure is just generally less dangerous than high blood pressure. It's not going to suddenly kill you like hypertension will; you'll probably start getting dizzy and fainting before it does any permanent damage. Chronic hypotension also seems to be much rarer than hypertension, with most cases being caused by conditions relating to aging or other medications (though I can't seem to find any data on how common or rare it actually is). I wouldn't be surprised if it was undertreated for those reasons as well, though again, it probably isn't going to kill you unless there's other stuff also killing you.
I was prescribed a drug that had this effect. One night early on, I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, got out of bed and stood up, and promptly fainted on my floor. I'm lucky that I'm physically sturdy, and there was something soft there to break my fall, and that I didn't hit my head. After that, I learned to do a multistep "getting out of bed" process, where I gradually increased the height of my head over a few minutes.
Falls can kill.
Yes, especially if the person falling is fragile. They break a hip, must have surgery to repair it, and are killed by the stress of surgery.
It's said to be a cultural thing. No data for this but here in the old world it is said that UK doctors are high blood pressure hawks and think the lower the better unless you can't stand up without fainting, while in Europe they will prescribe stuff to raise it to normal.
That's a great question and I don't have a full answer. Here's a partial one:
There are drugs that do this - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihypotensive_agent for a list. But the ones I know about either have many side effects or work very short term, and are more often used (for example) in hospitals to deal with severe blood loss.
I don't know of anything commonly used for people whose blood pressure just constantly runs low. The Internet tells me that fludrocortisone and midodrine are sometimes used for orthostatic hypotension (blood pressure that drops too much when you stand up), but I admit I rarely hear about them.
Maybe this is because doctors don't take chronic low blood pressure as seriously as chronic high blood pressure. My understanding is it can sometimes make people feel faint or tired, but isn't as linked to long-term complications as high blood pressure is.
Or maybe it's because there's not as big a market and pharma companies haven't been incentivized to do the hard work of finding drugs with few side effects.
I'd be interested to hear from someone who knows more.
I have orthostatic hypotension and generally low blood pressure. My hands and feet get cold easily in the winter. I eat lots of potato chips ;-) After I had a heart ablation and was prescribed Elequis the orthostatic hypotension went away, and came back when I stopped the Elequis. I told this to my cardiologist and he said "That's interesting". Maybe I should ask my PCP about fludrocortisone and midodrine? Risk/benefit ratios...
I have actually treated patients with chronic, difficult to manage low blood pressure, but it's almost always downstream of other medical problems. The important equation here is blood pressure = cardiac output x peripheral vascular resistance which I will henceforth abbreviate as BP = CO x PVR and is learned faithfully by generations of first year medical students.
Cardiac output is impaired by heart failure. You might ask, are there drugs that increase cardiac output? The answer is yes, but paradoxically these make heart failure worse in the long term so we don't use them. Instead we use drugs that actually decrease peripheral vascular resistance AND cardiac output, so we play with fire sometimes with the blood pressure in patients with bad heart disease. What we're trying to do is reduce stress on the heart - but not so much that it decompensates. Intractably low blood pressure is actually one of the indications for a cardiac transplant.
PVR is impaired by cirrhosis of the liver which dilates blood vessels by dramatically increasing pressure on veins that pass through the liver. The medical term for this is splanchnic vasodilation, and it's treated by a drug called terlipressin.
You can also have something called postural hypotension, which is where the body's natural response to dilate blood vessels in the brain and constrict blood vessels in the legs when you stand up (so all the blood doesn't fall into your feet) stops working, the most common cause is Parkinson's disease. This causes blood pressure that is fine, even high, when the patient is lying down, but as soon as they stand up they feel dizzy. This is treated by compression stockings that force the blood up to where it needs to be (and/or fludrocortisone/midodrine, see my prev comment)
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, please contact me at internal_medicine_is_fun at gmail.com to learn more!
This BP stuff is fascinating. I've always had lower BP (100/60 isn't abnormal for me). A few years ago, I was prescribed amlodipine (7.5mg), an antihypertension drug, to prevent pernio caused by primary Reynaud's. I've talked to others with Reynaud's who haven't been offered amlodipine. Do you have any thoughts reactions about the use of anti-HT drugs to lessen symptoms of Reynaud's?
It’s definitely a thing but the rationale is not to lower blood pressure, it’s because amlodipine helps to dilate blood vessels. Blood pressure lowering may be a troublesome side effect.
Oh there absolutely are drugs for low blood pressure!
The two that Scott lists - fludrocortisone and midodrine - are the ones you see most frequently in the outpatient setting. They are essentially the opposites of drugs that are used to treat high blood pressure. Fludrocortisone is a mineralocorticoid agonist; the much more frequently used spironolactone is a mineralocorticoid antagonist. Essentially (simplifying greatly) this means that fludrocortisone causes you to retain fluid whereas spironolactone is a diuretic.
Midodrine is an alpha-1 receptor agonist which causes constriction of blood vessels. This is the opposite of prazosin, an old anti-hypertensive drug, which causes dilation of blood vessels. Blood pressure can be given by the product of cardiac output and peripheral vascular resistance, so constricting blood vessels will raise blood pressure by increasing vascular resistance.
The ones you see most frequently overall are used in the ICU because low blood pressure is kind of a medical emergency! If systolic blood pressure drops below 90 mmHg you risk there not being enough blood pressure to supply key organs (brain, kidneys.) These are called vasopressors and work kind of similarly to midodrine above (again, greatly oversimplifying). The most common is noradrenaline (here in Australia, that is, it's called norepinephrine in the States) which is related to adrenaline, the main hormone secreted by your adrenal glands in the sympathetic fight or flight response. Rapidly constricts blood vessels.
Why don't you hear more about it? Simple; for most people their blood pressure is too high rather than too low. Same reason you don't hear more about drugs that help you gain weight, or drugs that increase your cholesterol level.
Thanks, a question for you. A friend has low blood pressure (can't remember the exact numbers, let's say high 90s low 100s systolic). She gets tired if she stands up too long and prefers to be sitting or (preferably) lying down. She also feels more energetic if she's had a lot of fluids and electrolytes, and feels extra useless if she hasn't. She thinks of this as chronic low blood pressure and wonders if she would have more energy if she had some kind of pressor. Does this seem plausible to you?
Right, so I'll start with the caveat that you and your friend definitely should not be taking medical advice from random commenters on your blog named after aquatic reptiles.
My first thought though would probably be that her low blood pressure and general fatigue/malaise are both downstream of something else. Has she seen her family doctor and had blood work done? Thyroid issues and low iron are especially common; other less common things to rule out are endocrine disorders such as Addison's disease and autoimmune issues like lupus.
Some people just genetically have a lower blood pressure than others, especially if they're physically smaller. An ex girlfriend of mine (around 5 feet tall) ran quite happily around the low 90s.
Thanks, this is a good answer for the specific situation, but I'm curious why it is so much more common in low blood pressure than high blood pressure. Is it just a brute fact that hypertension is more often primary but hypotension more often secondary?
It's a brute fact yes, 95% of hypertension is primary (or "essential hypertension") whereas hypotension is almost all secondary - you can think of it in the medical school framework of classification of shock - hypovolaemic vs cardiogenic vs obstructive vs vasodilatory (including septic/anaphylactic/spinal.)
As to why this is, to the best of my knowledge the physiologists are still arguing about it. Clearly essential hypertension is associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and high cholesterol, but in terms of an actual physiologic mechanism, there are various hypotheses (RAAS dysfunction, increased salt reabsorption), none of them entirely convincing. I vaguely recall one of my professors talking with interest about a new hypothesis to do with loss of aortic wall elasticity; this was a few years ago and it may have been refuted by now. A quick Googling turns up this https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/aortic-pressure
It’s actually not a completely ridiculous idea, insofar as one of the more common causes of low blood pressure in young women is anorexia…
I think I finally went to one of those Bay Area house parties. There were at least two people with paperclip-maximizing costumes, one OpenAI employee, and some very weird burlesque. Didn't encounter the urbanist coven, though.
Brad West asks me to direct people who know things about the economy, management, and buying and running companies to an idea he wants opinions on: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WMiGwDoqEyswaE6hN/making-trillions-for-effective-charities-through-the
Posted here since I'm at work and not looking to make an account on a new website:
Within just a few moments, I had a huge flag that this hasn't been thought through when I saw the line: "there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor."
There are all kinds of costs/burdens for a charity that wants to do investment work. Just to start, you have IRC 4943, which prohibits a private foundation from owning more than 20% (in certain circumstances 35%) of a for-profit entity.
There's an exception in IRC 4943(g), commonly called the "Newman's Own exception," where a private foundation can be exempt from that cap if it owns 100% of a business, a bunch of other requirements are met, and, pointedly, "all the private foundation’s ownership interests in the business enterprise were acquired by means other than by purchase." But that means you have to build the product, not invest in someone else's idea along the lines a venture capital fund would.
And yes, there are exceptions to the exceptions - "program related investments" that meet certain requirements don't count toward the ownership cap, for example, and these rules are specific to private foundations, so if your organization can qualify as a public charity or a 501c4 you have more leeway (look at Yvon Chouinard's giving Patagonia to a 501c4, for example), but anyone approaching this morass from the perspective that "there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor" is operating with some very naively calibrated blinders.
This stuff has been tried before, and it mostly just yielded reams of abuse. A good primer for anyone interested would be some of the scandals around foundations in the 50s, which lead to the reforms in the Revenue Act of 1964. To be sure, those reforms have been made and a lot of holes are patched, but there's still plenty of room for incentives to go sideways in these arrangements, and all those patches create additional administrative costs for Mr. West's hypothetical Guiding Company.
If he's serious about pursuing this idea I'd recommend he grab himself a lawyer with experience in the nonprofit sector and get an honest sense of what the constraints he's looking at are.
I wanted to pick out this part from the linked proposal:
"Won’t there be moral objections to activities that normal businesses use to compete, such as extreme executive compensation, environmental effect, low worker pay? This is a tricky question, but for one, it is not clear to me that bad behavior is necessarily the most effective business strategy, and firms may enjoy a premium for avoiding acting poorly. But even if Guiding Companies engage in activities that consumers take issue with regarding traditional firms, such as competitive (i.e., princely) compensation for CEOs, it is not clear why this would cause a consumer to choose a company that enriches shareholder over a company that helps fight global poverty. People all over the world choose the “lesser of two evils” in the political contexts routinely."
Well, let me be the resident wet blanket here, but the public absolutely *do* care about charity bosses and their salaries. Allow me to link you to the tale of an Irish charity, Rehab, and the little scandals from back in 2014. Mostly it was about the remuneration of the CEO and the cronies, but there was a detour into using the charity (and the donated and taxpayer money) to enrich the CEO and her family - sorry, I mean, employ disabled people by the charity in a scheme to import oak coffins from China, have them worked on by the charity workshop and then sold to the public (or presumably undertakers), which unfortunately turned out to be a failed venture.
The saga from the Committee on Public Accounts:
https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/debateRecord/committee_of_public_accounts/2014-02-27/debate/mul@/main.pdf
Wikipedia helpful (if vague) summaries of the parties involved:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Kerins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehab_Group#Controversies
As all this came out in the wash, it torpedoed donations to Rehab and not alone them but other charities in Ireland (it didn't help that there were a few other scandals in the charity sector around the same time). People do expect charities to put the bulk of money to the purposes for which they were founded, and not to pay the same kind of salaries as private businesses. They definitely will stop donating and they definitely will not buy the goods or services produced:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/donations-to-rehab-fell-by-2-million-in-wake-of-pay-scandal-1.2452979
https://www.thejournal.ie/angela-kerins-pac-timeline-3214906-Jan2017/
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0113/1106174-rehab-alleged-fraud/
Charities, like Caesar's wife, have to be above suspicion. Besides, do you not remember the scandal around the breast cancer charity when it tangled with Planned Parenthood?
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/alarmed-saddened-komen-foundation-succumbing-political-pressure-planned-parenthood-launches-fun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure#Controversy_and_criticism
They came out the wrong side in the fight with PP in 2012 and that triggered a lot of hostile investigation into them, leading to a series of controversies from 2011-2017. Those would probably have come up anyway, but being seen to be in any way less than 100% supportive of PP did encourage a lot of scrutiny into their affairs.
That's only one such problem. It's remarkable how much of this proposal is, "Assume I'm right, therefore I'm right." The person who wrote this clearly hasn't had much experience or thought through the practicalities very much.
I'm inclined to go a bit easy on him, since he's demonstrating the failure mode of EA: "Hey, I have this great idea, wouldn't it be great if it worked, there's no reason I can see why it wouldn't!" and ignoring the 'boring guys in grey suits' aspects of such things. Nice people who mean well and want to do good, and don't want to sweat the "sorry but somebody has to file the paperwork in triplicate" nitty-gritty of running things in the real world.
At least he's not (I hope!) trying to pass off "let's buy a castle - sorry, historic manor house in its own grounds - and that will be Very Good for... reasons" as 'this will get money to good causes for the relief of people suffering plague, famine, war and natural disasters'.
I am trying to be nice too. But I guess I do get frustrated when rationalists stumble onto an idea and then don't do any research into the subject to see if someone else has had it and how it turned out. Of course, they can still try to change things. I'm not saying they need to accept the current structure. But it's good to know what you're changing, especially when it's something technical.
And to be honest I'm doubly annoyed because I spent a while going around telling EA they should do something like this (but with a more thorough actual business plan) and got a very negative reaction. To see a basically less thought out version getting positive feedback annoys me. But such is life. EA really does have an extremely strong social component where saying shibboleths etc is a load bearing part of getting funded.
"But I guess I do get frustrated when rationalists stumble onto an idea and then don't do any research into the subject to see if someone else has had it and how it turned out."
Well, bless their hearts, that was how they started out, wasn't it? Let's Do Charity Gooder!
And to give them credit, they did things like mosquito nets, even if they've now shifted to "flying around to conferences talking about AI risk".
At least this proposal was still "how about if we set up charities to do business and then they could keep *all* the profits for the charitable purpose!" and not "why don't we buy a castle, because I went to some conferences in big fancy places that were like castles and it was so cool and impressive and I'd love if we could be fancy and cool too".
The cost of endowing a foundation with shares in one company is that you're foregoing a diversified portfolio.
I guess there could be a marketing advantage, since the "made in America" and "family-owned business" labels have to be there for a reason, and the latter is literally a statement that profits go to rich people instead of middle class retirement funds! That's definitely one alternative to EA...
Reposting my comments here:
My suggestion is legitimately to go take a few intro courses for business. I think your heart's in the right place but you clearly need some further training.
> This is because charities are more popular than normal investors
It's a basic truism that what people say they care about and how they actually make decisions are widely different. There are numerous, numerous case studies where strong survey sentiments didn't translate into actions. And preference for charity is one of the basic cases you'll get in an undergrad business course. I also know several companies who tried to advertise with philanthropy all of whom found people cared less about that than the packaging.
> and there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor.
Of course there is. The additional cost is the foregone return on investment to the people who put up the money. With a for-profit investment I can raise money through promising to return the money with additional amounts. With a charity I can't.
> Thus, these businesses working for charities, which I call Guiding Companies, could offer goods and services at the same price and of the same quality as ordinary businesses.
No, they couldn't, because they lack the same mechanisms to raise capital. And the cost of capital affects prices.
> Consequently, the project of creating and making the public aware of these companies-working-for- charities is potentially very high-impact, because these companies could tap into the profits in the broader economy and generate billions of dollars for effective charities.
Aligning corporate incentives and founding companies that serve a social purpose is potentially high impact. But your mistake is how you're going about it.
> In any case, companies seldom advertise who is profiting on the seller side. Consequently, there is a dimension of difference in the global consumer economy on which almost no sellers compete:: the identity of the entities that benefit from your purchase, often, owners in some form.
This is simply untrue. Corporations frequently advertise who their owners are and are so organized around this there are explicit government laws privileging companies based on who owns the business.
I'd suggest you look at the Social Enterprise movement or the B-Corp trend which have been thinking about this much longer than you have and has actually managed to have some major successes including multiple billion dollar plus companies. Of course, they don't give to EA but to other charities because they're not EAs. But they do generate plenty of money for non-profit causes. It also empirically works. If you want I can answer questions about that.
>> and there is no additional cost to being a charity as opposed to a normal investor.
>Of course there is. The additional cost is the foregone return on investment to the people who put up the money. With a for-profit investment I can raise money through promising to return the money with additional amounts. With a charity I can't.
I don't understand this objection. I think there's some confusion (on your part or the OP's or mine) about who the players are in this scenario.
If I understand correctly, the charity *is* "the people who put up the money", and they still do get their return on investment from the business.
And the business does still "promis[e] to return the money with additional amounts" to the charity that invested in it.
Relative to the traditional model where investors invest in businesses, I think the OP is suggesting replacing the *investor* with a charity, and keeping the business unchanged; but I think you're reading it as if he's suggesting replacing the *business* with a charity and keeping the investor unchanged.
Going one level up doesn't change the problem (which I did understand). How does the charity get the money? Even charities have a cost of capital. And they must raise that capital without being able to promise a return on investment to their donors. So it's generally going to be higher.
Also, I didn't get into this, but the government has rules meant to prevent a charity from basically just being an index fund. Nonprofits must spend money on their mission primarily and if they don't they can forcibly lose their status.
I think the charity gets money the same way it usually does, so it's the difference between "I donate $100 to the charity and they spend that $100 on their core mission" (let's ignore their admin costs for now) and "I donate $100 to the charity, they invest it, and get back maybe $110 (not guaranteed, but on average), and spend that on their core mission." They'd be "competing" for capital against traditional charity donations, not against investments that people make for their own benefit.
Donors with a low risk tolerance wouldn't have to donate to this; they could donate to traditional charities that skip the investment step. (And people's risk tolerance might be higher with their charitable donations than with their retirement savings.)
The government regulation point is a good one. So I guess the answer to the OP's question about why charities and businesses don't do this is that it's against the regulations, and maybe the OP needs to lobby to change the regulations.
Unless you think that charities spend less to get capital than profit bearing investments (which they don't) then I don't see the logic of this argument. Yes, charities can raise money. They don't get to promise people returns though. As a result it generally costs more because from an economic point of view the donor/investor is spending more to donate than to invest, foregoing the potential returns on the money they'd otherwise get (as well as the potential to get the principal back).
I think we're still at cross purposes, and I'm not quite sure why.
This hypothetical charity isn't competing for funds against investment vehicles that give investors a return. It's competing against traditional charities that don't do that. So it not giving its donors a return isn't relevant.
A given charity could even switch from the traditional model to the investment model, and then its income would probably stay roughly the same (most donors would stick with it out of inertia; some would churn because they don't approve of the investment model; other new ones might join because they do actively like it). Then it would be "competing" with its previous self, not with any investment vehicle.
I'm not an economist, so I may be missing something. But it seems to me like you're comparing apples and oranges - as if you're criticising a new concert concept by saying "no one would pay for these concert tickets because concerts don't pay returns to their customers," when that's not the reason people pay for concert tickets, and they funge against other forms of entertainment, not against other investments.
I hereby second Freddie DeBoer's nomination for Scott Alexander as King of the Nerds. Can I get a third?
I think Norbert Wiener needs some kind of Emperor position.
"I hereby second Freddie DeBoer's nomination for Scott Alexander as King of the Nerds. Can I get a third?"
Nomination and thirding is no basis for a government. We need a watery tart and a sword.
Good point. I nominate Aella for resident watery tart and sword distributor. Can I get a second?
This does leave us with the question of what the appropriate body of water is, and what the appropriate sword is. Would the San Francisco Bay work for the water?
That sounds about right. Count me in.
I'm not sure you're not the rightful holder of the crown. How do you make long, knowledgeable comments on so many topics? I've been trying to figure out your actual job for a while now and still can't decide between "member of the diplomatic corps", "economist", and "some kind of high-level business manager executive person"
The last one is closest.
I suspect the diplomat stuff is that I bet a lot on the world getting more open and economically integrated early in my career. That bet did not pay off. I guessed the macroeconomic trend wrong. But it left me with a lot of foreign connections and knowledge.
Would this conflict with his existing title of Rightful Caliph? Or more like a dual-class thing?
Chairman of the Political Bureau might fit better, given his recent posts.
Right, right. I guess it should be Sultan or Padishah.
Many royal titles incorporated lesser titles as well. If we consider that a Caliph is very (very) roughly equivalent to the Holy Roman Emperor, then Emperors were also kings of various realms as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Emperor#List_of_emperors
So Scott can indeed be the Rightful Caliph and King of the Nerds simultaneously!
Many feudal titles can be held simultaneously. Indeed, being Rightful Caliph of the Less Wrong diaspora will likely help him secure his power base for being King of the Nerds.
However, I suspect that the crown is actually still held by Randall Monroe.
I regret to inform you that Randall Munroe lost the Mandate of Heaven with this:
https://xkcd.com/1357/
MrBeast is one of the largest YouTubers. Recently he released a video building 100 water wells in Africa. One of his comments was that other governments or agencies should be doing this, but they're not. He recently cured blindness in 100 Americans by paying for some surgery as well.
Trying to think about these situations. I don't like that these people are basically being left to fend for themselves until some rich YouTuber shows up to help them. But the alternative seems to be that they don't get any help at all. I don't think it's optimal to focus the criticisms on MrBeast, but rather on government for failing to resolve these issues.
I don't like that this guy is basically making videos as a savior for a bunch of people because I think we should already be helping them out.
Why are we unable to determine as a society that resolving blindness in people through a cheap routine surgery is worth subsidizing?
It can't cost that much and then at the SOTU the president can celebrate that we erradicated certain medical conditions from US soil, which I'd find really inspiring.
I have a followup question, actually. Why are there villages in Africa without wells? Humans have been digging wells for thousands of years. Human villages only tend to spring (no pun intended) up where there's easy access to water. How long have these villages existed, sans wells, in locations where you can just dig a goddamn well to get access to water? And why haven't the villagers ever thought "Hey we should probably just dig a well one of these days instead of walking ten miles to the river every day"?
"Why are we unable to determine as a society that resolving blindness in people through a cheap routine surgery is worth subsidizing?"
Our failure to do this suggests (to me) that looking for "society" to solve this problem is the problem. "society" cannot solve anything because individuals have to take action. Mr Beast is an individual taking action and solving the problem. We should celebrate that and encourage more individuals to take action.
> Our failure to do this suggests (to me) that looking for "society" to solve this problem is the problem. "society" cannot solve anything because individuals have to take action
Yet some societies do have universal healthcare. And Florida is actively resisting it.
> I don't like that this guy is basically making videos as a savior for a bunch of people because I think we should already be helping them out.
You emotions are understandable, but please, be aware that the valid reason for your anger isn't "a rich guy is being a saviour for people" part, but "these people had not been helped beforehand" part.
> Why are we unable to determine as a society that resolving blindness in people through a cheap routine surgery is worth subsidizing?
I think current political equilibrium in USA makes it memetically impossible.
Bleeding hearts naturally gravitate towards Democratic party and then get gridlocked by accusations of being commies and questions of "Who is gonna pay for it", which Republicans are quite proficient in and they have an obvious political motivation to keep doing it: successful eradication of blindness by a Democratic campaign will make Republicans loose points.
Honestly, it's a miracle that human society managed to coordinate even around the current solution of "rich celebrities create an entartainment out of helping people".
I'd love to live in a country where Republicans are "quite proficient" at curtailing spending by asking who's going to pay for it, but I don't currently live in such a country to my knowledge.
Not curtailing spending in general. I'm talking about a specific case of preventing Democrats from realising projects that would help a lot of people.
Indeed, if there was a party that consistently opposed budget spending, instead of only doing it when they are not in the office and then switching their tune when it's time to build a useless border wall - the situation in US would be much better.
Yes. I feel most Ds and Rs miss the forest for the trees. Both parties bicker back and forth about what should be paid for, and never make progress...
...until the military comes and asks for a few extra billion dollars to cover for the billions they lost last year and have no idea where it went. Then the professional Ds and Rs get right on that issue and solve it overnight.
And a few other items like military that never fail to garner bipartisan support.
The fact that Ape is blaming the Rs for the problems is precisely what the Ds and Rs want out of all of us. Keep our eyes off the prize.
See my answer to parent comment.
The fact that both Ds and Rs keep spending money on bullshit doesn't contradict the fact that Rs are good at not letting Ds to spend money on good things.
That's one way to put it, I suppose. Another way might be this: Ds like to spend money buying votes, taxes are a form of theft/slavery, and Rs are preventing Ds from stealing/enslaving if not you, your children and grandchildren who are going to have to pay back the debt.
So I guess you need to answer why is it that if this money Ds want to spend is so well spent, why is it the Rs wake up in the morning and say: "I need to stop good things from happening with other people's money!"
Things aren't nearly as simple as you're trying to make them.
" taxes are a form of theft/slavery, "
Are you aware that's one of Scott's least favourite arguments?
Stretching the definition of slavery to a point where it includes taxation makes it loose all meaning. At this point nearly any form of economical activity is also slavery. Definitely not the way to cut reality by its joints. We can still do it and start talking about good slavery and bad slavery, but this is silly.
Also, you seem to contradict yourself here. You've just noticed that R are not actually against taxes or budget deficit. So the story about them saving regular people from it is just plain wrong.
> why is it the Rs wake up in the morning and say: "I need to stop good things from happening with other people's money!"
I've answered it in the first post. It's not in R interest to let D spend money in a good way, as it will harm R electability. There are of course more factors, such as protecting interests of super wealthy, historical legacy, falling for your own propaganda and, in some cases, just being bad people. But I think electability angle is the most important here.
I don't think you can say this without also including the (more Democrat-leaning) side that questions whether it is ethical to cure blindness at all. Republicans will at least generally agree that blindness is bad and curing it is good (while questioning who pays for it*). Many on the left seem to be stuck in a rut where they deny disabilities are actually bad, leading to condemnation of those who even try to help.
*-Which is a complicated social conditioning question, that revolves around what incentives individuals have in life. By taking away all incentives for people to do things for themselves, we may be reducing their actual ability and making them more dependent on others. I don't think many on the right are against helping blind people to see, but worry about how to set up a society that handles that for other people that doesn't devolve into a society where large numbers of people are incapable of helping with their own needs or contributing to society, when they otherwise would be able to do so.
I don't think disability activists have enough power in the Democratic coalition to veto blindness curing project, but a fair point, nontheless.
It actually opens an interesting possibility for clever and good intentioned republican politician. They can provoke some disability activists, get labeled as as eugenisist and thus frame blindness curing as a political issue where Democrats are in opposition, thus making Republicans to support blindness curing project out of spite, then do it in most reasonable way, and reap all the political benefits.
Of course, this would require a politician who is clever, and good intentioned, and republican and I'm not sure that even "pick any two out of three" option is real in US politics at the time.
> I don't think many on the right are against helping blind people to see, but worry about how to set up a society that handles that for other people that doesn't devolve into a society where large numbers of people are incapable of helping with their own needs or contributing to society, when they otherwise would be able to do so.
Well that's definetely the story they tell themselves. I'd say it requires about five minutes to honestly think about it, to notice that curing blindness is much more likely to improve the ability of people to help themselves and to contribute to society than to decrease it. But again, it would actually require people to honestly think about something for about five minutes, which is not an easy ask.
> it would actually require people to honestly think about something for about five minutes, which is not an easy ask.
Indeed. Give it a try.
I suppose I deserve the same level of snark I used myself, but do we actually have an object level disagreement here? Do you claim that using tax payers money to cure blindness is going to make people net less productive? If so could you make your case as detailed as possible? I promise to spend at least literal five minutes honestly and open mindedly thinking about your arguments even if it turns out to be something I've already seen before.
I typed up something long. Replacing it with we just need to agree to disagree and let this thread die.
I mean, it sounds like a classic Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics (https://web.archive.org/web/20220705105128/https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/) and Newtonian Model of Ethics (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/17/newtonian-ethics/) problem, right down to the fact that it discourages people from trying to help people cause they get blamed for even getting close.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics: "The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it...."
The Newtonian Model of Ethics: "If morality is indeed an unusual form of gravitation, it will vary with the square of the distance between two objects.
Imagine a village of a hundred people somewhere in the Congo. Ninety-nine of these people are malnourished, half-dead of poverty and starvation, oozing from a hundred infected sores easily attributable to the lack of soap and clean water. One of those people is well-off, living in a lovely two-story house with three cars, two laptops, and a wide-screen plasma TV. He refuses to give any money whatsoever to his ninety-nine neighbors, claiming that they’re not his problem. At a distance of a ten meters – the distance of his house to the nearest of their hovels – this is monstrous and abominable.
Now imagine that same hundredth person living in New York City, some ten thousand kilometers away. It is no longer monstrous and abominable that he does not help the ninety-nine villagers left in the Congo. Indeed, it is entirely normal; any New Yorker who spared too much thought for the Congo would be thought a bit strange, a bit with-their-head-in-the-clouds, maybe told to stop worrying about nameless Congolese and to start caring more about their friends and family.
This is, of course, completely rational. New York City, at ten thousand kilometers, is one million times further away from the suffering villagers as the original well-off man’s ten meters..."
I think the Copenhagen interpretation is bad. I cite XKCD in support of this opinion:
https://xkcd.com/871/
In short, I think this interpretation will tend to reduce charitable contributions.
Have you ever encountered anyone who doesn't think it's bad?
I can't imagine anyone not thinking it's bad, but, filter bubbles being what they are, I suppose it's possible...
The link to the Copenhagen interpretation should probably go to https://web.archive.org/web/20220705105128/https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ .
That it should, that it should. Thanks.
I find it amusing that every time Mr Beast spends money doing good things for other people, he cops criticism, but when he spends money on crushing a Lamborghini or running a train into a giant pit then nobody complains at all.
If you feel like "we" should be doing more to help out blind people then feel free to put your own money into it though.
Morality is public.
I think it's a net positive that he's helping people rather than doing nothing. But I think it would be even better if we could take steps to resolve these systemic issues entirely. By making those videos he brings up the problem to the attention of viewers, which allows us to have discussions as to whether or not they should be resolved at a different level. An individualistic solution would barely move the needle; I could donate all of my belongings and it wouldn't be enough.
The fact that private philanthropy is that effective in reducing human suffering is kind of embarrassing for human institutions.
In dath ilan, the kind of net good that curing blindness is would of course be provided by Civilization. Private charity might still find some niches (e.g. buying video games for poor kids), but all the low-hanging fruits would be taken care of par course.
In our own fallen world where big institutions are rarely very effective at this sort of thing, it falls to the individuals to pick up the slack. I think it is important to remember that most helpful institutions we have started out as a handful of individuals trying to solve a problem. Both money and publicity can help a cause, so either one is good.
"An individualistic solution would barely move the needle; I could donate all of my belongings and it wouldn't be enough."
I suggest not thinking of things this way. If you make an average US salary, you could probably donate enough to cure one blind person per year. That "barely moves the needle" in the context of thousands of blind people in the US. But curing all blind people in the US would barely move the needle in the context of all the blind people in the world. And curing all blind people in the world would barely move the needle in the context of total human suffering. And ending all human suffering would barely move the needle in the context of all human/animal/alien suffering throughout history.
Either you think everything is pointless forever, or you accept that helping one person does a lot for that one person and is valuable in itself (though of course helping two people would be even better and so on). I've found the second to be healthier.
Another way of putting this is: you can change things by donating your money directly to blind people. Or you can change things by donating your time/activism/energy to systemic change. Both of these are tiny and meaningless - your money (without anyone else's money) will only directly save a tiny number of blind people, and your activism (without anyone else's activism) will only go 0.01% of the way to changing government policy. Both of these are tiny - do whichever one is easier for you and/or gives higher numbers when you multiply out the chance of benefit by the size of the benefit and get the expected value.
(Though I also add an extra fudge term for donating involving me spending my own money, which is proper and virtuous, and government action involving me trying to spend other people's money, which is dangerous when taken too far. Your extra fudge terms may differ.)
Basically, this:
--------------
Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
----------------------------------
Stolen from here: https://eventsforchange.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/the-starfish-story-one-step-towards-changing-the-world/
"There’s a story about an old man walking down a beach. He sees a child picking up starfish and throwing them into the water. The man asks the child what he’s doing, and the child says that these starfish are stuck on land at low tide. They can’t survive out of water, so he’s throwing them back in the ocean to save them. The old man says, “But surely you know that there are millions of starfish just on this one beach. And there are thousands of beaches all around the world. And this same thing happens at high tide day after day, forever. You’ll never be able to make a difference.” And the child just picks up another starfish, throws it into the ocean, and said “Made a difference to that one!”
I remember when I told the Comet King this story. He got very quiet, and finally I asked what he was thinking. Still half-lost in thought, he answered: “Even a small change to the moon’s orbit could prevent the tidal cycle. Moving the moon would take immense energy, but the Wrathful Name has the power of a hydrogen bomb and can be written on a piece of paper weighing only a fraction of a gram. The Saturn V has a payload of about ten thousand kilograms, so perhaps twenty million instances of the Wrathful Name . . . hmmmmmm . . . no, it still wouldn’t be enough. We’d need a better rocket. Perhaps if you could combine a methane/LOX full-flow system with a prayer invoking the Kinetic Name . . .” He picked up a napkin and started sketching, and was diverted from his trance only when I reminded him that starfish had evolved for life in the intertidal zone and were probably fine. He flashed me one of his fierce smiles and I couldn’t tell whether or not he had been joking all along."
–Sohu West, The Comet King: A Hagiography
I think this kind of reasoning also completely evades thinking about opportunity costs. Have you considered them in your model? How does it work?
If you haven't considered a different opportunity, pursuing this one hasn't cost you anything; you wouldn't otherwise be spending the time more wisely, you'd be spending it on nothing.
If you HAVE considered it, then of course the answer is "yes, we've considered it."
That's not how Opportunity cost works. It is a very standard term but perhaps I should not expect my usage to be clear. Let me elaborate
'Either you think everything is pointless forever, or you accept that helping one person does a lot for that one person and is valuable in itself (though of course helping two people would be even better and so on). I've found the second to be healthier.
Another way of putting this is: you can change things by donating your money directly to blind people. '
This analysis completely ignores the idea that resources can be put to use other than charity that may deliver greater long term good, specifically, investment. This doesn't require you to consider a specific opportunity. Just leaving the money in a bank or other investment is sufficient. The return on that capital ALSO implies that there is value generation happening. Where is the attempt to analyse the trade off for society between that value forgone and the improvement in the circumstance of the blind person in attempting to judge whether feeling the blind person is a superior use of resources?
Looking into this further:
- MrBeast sponsored the surgery for homeless people in Florida. It cost about $7000 per person.
- There are probably lots of medical interventions that homeless people could benefit from for $7000. MrBeast chose blindness, but I don't think it's a huge outlier in terms of desperately-needed medical care. So the question reduces to why very poor people don't have some really basic form of health insurance that covers whatever is desperately needed.
- It looks like the answer is that Florida is of of 11 states that doesn't give Medicaid to very poor people based on some provision of Obamacare. See https://www.healthinsurance.org/medicaid/florida/
- Florida says they don't do this because it would be expensive, but some Democrats suspect there are complicated political anti-Obama sentiments involved.
- If you want to know more, that would probably be the place to start.
I thought medicaid was available to very poor people everywhere.
There can be conditions attached. It varies state to state.
Personally, I think that "Medicaid for all" should be the first step toward universal health care, but maybe that's just too sensible to get any traction.
>but I don't think it's a huge outlier in terms of desperately-needed medical care.
Really? Out of all infirmities that are debilitating-but-curable, it seems to be pretty big. Being blind must be pretty limitating to one's autonomy and ability to hold any productive occupation, which is, one of the main obstacle to stop being homeless.
Yes, but there are lots of diseases that literally kill you.
And god forbids society coordinates around curing the sick and the lame.
I came across a couple of articles like this[1] and this[2], according to which kidney sizes and GFR among Indians is lower than in the West. Do transplant committees take ethnicity into account when screening potential donors? Do they use different criteria in different countries?
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25027077/
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15925908/
I think no - see eg https://www.life-source.org/latest/does-my-race-ethnicity-matter-in-organ-donation/. There are lots of poorly-understood kidney differences between white and black people also (black people have more kidney failure earlier, and seem to benefit from different antihypertensive drugs). I don't think anyone has found any major relevance to transplants. I think people of the same race are slightly more likely to match in terms of antigens, but not overwhelmingly more, and kidneys go to people of different races all the time. My guess is that the size difference between whites and Indians (and blacks) doesn't make much difference in terms of transplant efficacy.
I recently talked to a startup founder working on a product I think is really great and valuable. Lots of people would want it if they knew about it, but they don't. She wanted to know if there were ways to get Substack personalities to market the product. I asked if she'd tried traditional marketing, like billboards, focus groups, and magazine ads, and she said no. She said that conventional Silicon Valley wisdom was to market through "your network" and other things you know and trust - maybe including Substackers you read (she also couldn't find any marketing person who wasn't offputting). This surprised me a lot. I know nothing about startup founding, but she's not very experienced either, and we both agreed we were confused here.
Both for practical purposes and to satisfy my curiosity - does anyone here with more experience in startups have an opinion on this?
(Also, if you're a marketing person who is smart, not offputting, and looking for work at a startup I think is really great and valuable, send me an email at scott@slatestarcodex.com and I guess I'll introduce you)
Traditional marketing is very expensive, hard to target accurately, and (usually) pretty low ROI -- the good news is that that's why it's been mostly displaced in the small-medium business sector by online advertising.
In particular, if your friend has actual examples of the product to sell and can bootstrap it that way, I've seen outrageously dollar-efficient campaigns based on something as simple as a boosted post on Facebook/Instagram. You do have to give them a credit card number and pay them per click, but in return they provide nice simple options for targeting and building campaigns. Depends on the product, but for something like low hundreds of dollars a month you can get significant uptake -- this could be worth it just to see whether it works. If it does, they also have friendly marketing helpers who will help you fine-tune things (and also spend more money on ads) -- although they may have laid a lot of these off now, there's nothing that a normally-smart person can't figure out unaided.
(cofounded a startup 3 years ago, still working on that startup now)
The main reason to focus on your network *to start* is because it is very easy to get high quality feedback without alienating those people. If I ask friends and family to test my product, I can sit over their shoulder and identify every piece of the flow that is weird or unintuitive. If I ask a customer who is close to my network, I can get even better feedback
This is much harder to pull off if the person you are getting feedback from is like, a random stranger who is trying to pay you for a service and doesn't want to spend extra time giving you good developer feedback.
Obviously depending on what stage your friend is at in her startup journey, the above wisdom may not apply. But the vast majority of startups fail at the 'you arent building something the market actually wants' stage, and getting actionable feedback from people who would potentially pay for your product is key to not failing in that way.
By contrast, if your primary issue is 'i could rake in so much more money if I just grew faster', you've already solved the hard product-market-fit problem, and probably any further advice is going to be increasingly domain/product specific
I don't know a damn thing about the current received wisdom among marketing folx. But I'm inundated in advertising. I also react with cynical skepticism to claims of the supposed virtues of any new product. Double that if it's from some kind of tech startup.
Net result: if you want people (like me, anyway) to have a remotely positive impression of your new product, you have to get through their defenses via some kind of testimonial from people they already trust.
Otherwise the better the deal looks (for me), the more certain I am that there's a large poisonous worm lurking somewhere. At best, the POC product will be unstable and unreliable; at worst, it'll be so (ahem) profit oriented as to be illegal even under US law, and enough so that the founders might actually be convicted, even jailed.
That's a fair heuristic for you, but seems irrelevant from the business owner's perspective. Suppose 80% of people have heuristics like yours. You can either:
1. Do mass marketing, get 10,000 eyeballs, 8,000 of them ignore it on principle because they're natural skeptics, you get 2,000 customers.
2. Do some kind of boutique thing where a trusted figure endorses your product, you get 1,000 eyeballs, all 1,000 become your customers.
From the business's perspective, 1 is better! Given how many people buy really stupid products, doesn't seem like I'm being overly generous to say that at least 20% of people don't share your heuristic.
This completely depends on the product, and the startup's resources. A lot of early stage startup advice like "marketing through your network" is about leveraging resources that founders have. Usually, early stage startups have very little capital, and a lot of high-valued connections- classmates from top schools, parents that can get IBM on the phone, etc.
Media relations can get your message out using the news media. You can reach an awful lot of people relatively cheaply, and from a somewhat neutral source. If the product is truly great and valuable, she ought to consider hiring a public relations firm to conduct media relations.
I'll drop you a note, Scott. If you've seen nothing in 24 hours from Mike Hind, please check your junk.
> Both for practical purposes and to satisfy my curiosity - does anyone here with more experience in startups have an opinion on this?
Yes. This is absolutely false. Network marketing is just one of several ways to get your product out. Of course, it's one way that many successful companies use. But it's not the only one or some 'conventional wisdom' type thing. There are conventional wisdom about what kind of marketing works for what kind of products. But even that's not an ironclad rule.
Network marketing generally is best for high trust required B2B type products. The kind of thing that costs like $20,000 for a license. Because you're not going to pay $20k and bet your entire business based on a Google ad. But you don't do that through Substack, you do it through building a personal relationship. Blogging is more a kind of influencer marketing which tends to work best in a much lower product range, more one to one comparable to an ad. Not entirely, but more than an outside sales strategy. And even then you need to pick your ad net or influencers based on the product type.
Maybe the garbled advice was originally that you should get a few pilot customers who you really trust? But the reason you want that is so they'll give you feedback and stick with you when your product breaks or you need to put them through an hour of user questions. It's not a general go to market strategy.
The "conventional Silicon Valley wisdom" for marketing is very frequently wrong. It often is one of two things: "what you should do when you are selling a product with zero marginal costs" (an app, instructional videos, etc.) and "what you should do when your customers are primarily YC-funded startups".
Without a few more details it is hard to say anything specific. Is this a physical product? Who is the target customer? Is the goal to get one "big bang" moment (such as an appearance on the Today Show) that will cause an instant spike in awareness? Or is it a more-"micro" campaign, where watching the Customer Acquisition Cost is essential?
In the YC sect the wisdom is to have early customers that are very close to you, because the first version of your product is not what they actually wanted, and you need to learn that from them as early as possible.
I don't know how much that generalizes to non-YC startups
I have a Roland of some kind from the late 1980s, it still works and sounds great despite its age. I don't know how it would compare to an equivalent Yamaha or Kawai, just wanted to throw the brand name into the mix.
Plugging into decent speakers that can produce clear bass will help with the feel compared with using built-in speakers.
Your price range is actually higher than strictly necessary. I got a (4-year used) Yamaha DGX 650 off Craigslist for $400 back in 2018 ($600 retail) that would meet all your criteria. I did a lot of research to pick, but basically I’d just look at https://www.digitalpianoreviewguide. com/ and go with their recommendation in your price range. 88 key weighted pianos with high fidelity sound are no longer that expensive.
I've had a Yamaha 88 key (I forget the model number) for almost a decade and it works fine. Better than a low end piano and only slightly worse than a mid level one (with high level ones that are regularly tuned being the gold standard). But much cheaper and easier to transport.
You can buy from reputable companies like that sight unseen because they're all manufactured to the same standard and if you get a bad one for some reason they'll replace it.
Is it your first or are you upgrading? I've had the Casio Privia PX-150 as well as the Yamaha P-105. Both were excellent for my needs (I'm not very good but I enjoy playing). Both had what felt like realistic action to me, and good tone/speakers (and more importantly a headphone jack, which I preferred). Both much cheaper than your range, and when i was looking into this stuff these were the two lower-end models that were most frequently recommended.
If you haven't played a weighted-key digital piano before you should definitely just try a few out at a local big-box music store to get a feel for the landscape. I think the cheaper ones I've had are pretty good and you might find the lower-end ones are enough for your needs.
Not exactly answers to the question you asked but hope it's helpful nonetheless!
I borrowed a friend's Casio Privia which was a good experience, and convinced me to buy a second-hand Yamaha P-120 for $700 in ~2012 dollars. The Yamaha P-series at that time was reputed to have a very heavy action, and I found that to be the case. I recommend at least a quick evaluation before buying any make/model.
I have a Yamaha P-series and, yes, it has very heavy action. I agree with your recommendation to evaluate in person before buying.
I don't anticipate this person being productive, so I've banned them, even though I'm sure they have lots of interesting verbs describing this action.
Looks like he was quoting Pierre-Joseph Proudon:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/14649-to-be-governed-is-to-be-watched-inspected-spied-upon
They did have a point though, even if extravagently expressed. That's why hearing about government debt skyrocketing gladdens my heart! There's only so much they can tax before the economy implodes, and governments which have dug themselves into a massive debt hole can stay more out of our hair and do less mischief. A government flush with cash, however well-meaning it may be, is a tyranny in the making.
The problem is that your proposed relationship between amount of debt and amount of mischief has 0 empirical evidence backing it, and some empirical evidence opposing it, as beleester pointed out.
Also - there's no direct connection between the amount the government can spend and the amount the government can tax for, providing it can borrow in its own currency. This doesn't mean the spending can be limitless, but we don't know what the limits are. See Japan as an interesting example of spending being completely unmoored from taxation.
Hmm, well I guess with national debt there is a happy medium and, I still maintain, the larger the better up to a point. After all, to make an analogy, a sparing diet is said to be healthy but not if one doesn't eat a scrap for a month!
Yes, we all recall how wealthy the Soviet Union was before Stalin seized power. And Germany quite famously had no trouble paying off its war debts, which no doubt helped the Nazis take power more easily.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Affirming-the-Consequent
Well, money itself is a shared fiction that lies on the personal convictions of about 20 ministers of finance, investment funds and central bank heads. Debt between states have been used as a "forced interdependency" to prevent hot wars - like germany used economic links to diplomatically keep russia calm for a while. If everything comes crashing down on the monetary side due to debt, the rules will just be changed with an "emergency package"or other. It will work too as long as the energy producers and food production stay steady.