Just came across this article (https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/american-vulcan-palmer-luckey-anduril), which is a pretty wild interesting story. But I also found it very ironic, because right after talking about how Luckey was smeared by inaccurate media articles, the article itself proceeds to smear Facebook the same way!
As i may have mentioned before, I am currently struggling with Grave's disease (overactive thyroid0.
The cardiology department has just had the bright idea they could prescribe spironolactone for thw water retention (edema) I get as a symptom of the thyroid condition. Which will probably work, yes.
And, I am thinking to myself... spironolactone? I just happen to know what *else* that is prescribed for, having been following the news about restrictions on prescribing puberty blockers. It's a testosterone blocker, also often prescribed for MtF transsexuals. Fine. Fine. I shall play dumb and pretend that I do not know this.
I started some of his books and liked them but haven't finished anything yet. I mostly liked his analysis of the psychology of the modern man, I didn't get a lot of insights on AI.
I'm not saying that the Unabomber wasn't a smart guy, but I am going to say that someone who couldn't even manage to keep himself from blowing up buildings and airplanes probably isn't who we should turn to when it comes to keeping AI from doing likewise.
I also question the wisdom of linking to one of the premiere resources for literary piracy, personally.
I thought this might have been a clip from an SNL skit — sort of a reprise of their classic Bass-O-Matic skit — but, no, it's a real company with a real product! And how much development time was required to make its lips sync with its voice?
What would be the optimal immigration policy for the USA? I don't believe it is either Open Borders or Zero Immigrants. My best guess is we need to allow way, way more immigrants with college degrees and maybe the same or fewer without degrees? In either category, what would be a method for determining what the optimum number per year would be?
The critical question is whether we maintain a welfare state for the immigrants. If we do, then we don't want poor immigrants, since they cost us more than they pay us. That leads to the popular policy of letting in only high end immigrants.
But the immigrants who we, and they, can gain most from are at the other end of the scale, poor people happy to do unskilled work at a wage high for them, low for us, and work their way up from there, the equivalent of my ancestors who came in from eastern Europe to work in sweatshops in New York a century and more ago. They are better off coming in without the protections of a welfare state than being kept out — but that option is barred by current ideology.
Don't you need to consider the labour capital ration as well? Expanding the labour supply will probably push down per capita gdp and wages for a fixed amount of capital.
Also, if the source of higher incomes in developed countries is non-rivalous, like institutions or governance, surely it makes more sense to extend them to low-income countries rather than concentrating everyone in places that are already high income.
Does it depend at all on the particular state? My guess is that unskilled immigrants to Texas, which has a relatively small welfare state, are a net positive to the economy whereas low skilled immigrants to California are a net negative, but I don't know what the data says.
I'll perversely say, more unskilled laborers and fewer skilled or degreed immigrants. Also, dismantle the H1-B visa system which is really a soft form of indentured servitude.
Something like Australian / NZ point system would be a good start. Less “family re-unification”, more “we have shortage of this labor type, come in”. Our immigration system is such a hopeless mess, any streamlining and simplification would be welcome at this point.
The optimal immigration policy is a Schengen Area within the core American Empire (US, Anglosphere, EU, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel) and a MrBeast style gameshow at the southern border open to any IQ > 115, where contestants have to pass through several rounds of challenges testing intelligence, fitness, creativity, patience, sociability, and adherence to American Empire cultural norms.
It sounds like you are looking for workers who will add value: I don't know if your strategy for achieving that is right or not, but more importantly I don't know if it's the right aim - or more to the point the aim most people would agree on.
There's a review of the book "Then I Am Myself the World" by Christof Koch in the latest Science News. Koch is into ITT (integrated information theory), which postulates you can measure a system's consciousness by measuring the amount of integrated information within it. Koch did this with the generative AI ChatGPT, and the money quote is -
"(it) has an itsy bitsy bit of consciousness" but experiences the world something much less than a worm with only 300 neurons.
So maybe we're safe from AI doom for a little while.
Can you say a bit about what Koch means by integrated information? What's an example? Is what is integrated things about self and things about world? (So, for instance, GPT4 will tell you it's an LLM, and whether LLM's like itself can or can't do a certain task. That seems to me like some knowledge about self integrated with knowledge about the world. )
I didn't read Koch's book. Integrated information theory (IIT, got the acronym wrong the first time) is something I tried to learn about by reading Erik Hoel's book "The World Behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science", but it was over my head and, altho he helped develop the theory, he winds up trashing it. If only someone more expert than me could write up a review of either of these books for next years contest.
I wasn't asked and have no idea what he means with the fluffy phrase "integrated information" but I think his overall idea is panpsychism plus the assumption that an atom has a different - and vastly poorer experience - than a fox because an atom can do viewer and less complex actions than a fox. That's my interpretation of him saying that what matters is how much "irreducible causal power" a thing has.
My example is, a fox can do actions that its individual atoms can't. Not its atoms hunt rats, the fox does.
And I think, for sure: hunting a rat feels much different than to only swing arround a few nanometer. I know, I've done both.
I don't get it. Clearly, my group is right, and the other group is wrong. So why don't all utilitarians join my group and declare a war on the other group? Is it because they are stupid, or because they are hypocrites? What cause could possibly bring more utility than making my group win?
I am also baffled. Me and my in-group are clearly utility monsters, so why aren't utilitarians fulfilling our every whim at the expense of the out-group?
For the benefit of folks who haven’t watched The Big Lebowski a half a dozen time that’s a reference to The Dude describing his time in the music business. As a roadie for Metallica, along with his opinion of the group. Mettalica loved the joke BTW.
I didn’t get that when I played it. I’ll delete the link.
Edit; I’m finding YouTube clips for a lot of Big Lebowski scenes. Not that one though.
Further Edit: I did find it dubbed into French, Japanese and a language I can only guess at with non ASII character set letters with diacritics and other ornamentations I don’t know the names of.
I've heard time and again that in Chasidic culture, men don't work. And I've said it.
At least for Williamsberg Chasidim, it just isn't true, and I'm wondering to what extent it's true elsewhere.
The video is an overview of the lively business culture of Williamsberg, with a lot of work being done by men. What they generally don't have is college degrees, but you can do a lot without a degree. There are many business supplying specialized cultural products (kosher food, wigs for women, etc.), non-religious products and services (plumbing, extermination), and selling outside the community. Computers are more of factor than they used to be, and so is entertainment.
Note that my link is about Chasidic culture where men work, but there's a possibility (if I can trust what I keep hearing about Israel) where Chasidic men (at least in some groups) don't work.
What's up with that is that the universe is out to get you. You think you have a nice handy generalization, and wham! the universe hits you with an exception. This is especially true for biology and for humans.
An interesting idea of "the bezzle", the window of time after a fraud has been committed when the action appears positive-sum, since the fraudster benefited, and the mark hasn't realized anything is amiss.
It helps explain why people get mad at whistleblowers, because everyone is happier *before* the whistle is blown, even if in reality some of the parties were worse off.
Whistleblowers probably aren't very popular even before they blow the whistle. In order to be willing to do it, you probably need to have a bond with the company and your coworkers that's defective, i.e. falls short of what's needed by the other parties. The thing that makes someone capable of blowing the whistle also generally makes them a bad team player. Still, we need them. If every crew rebelled against their Capt. Bligh there would be no Navy. But if there were many Capt. Blighs there also would be no Navy.
Every place I've worked there has been a huge glob of stuff that everybody knows is bad, but everybody thinks of it as stuff you can't acknowledge, much less challenge. The first place I ever worked was a small diner in the south. I was a waitress. The owner came in most days to check on things and punch and smack the busboys (all black, by the way) for not moving as fast as the thought they should. I remember him tasting the day's special and saying "Jesus, they must be hungry today!"
Whistleblowers are people who see something wrong in an organization and want to fix it. If they're not getting along with the rest of the organization, whistleblowing is one of the primary ways we hear about them. If they *are* getting along with the rest of the organization, then they're probably just working with their management (upwards or down; some of these people are themselves managers), getting the change that way, and we people outside the organization never hear of them.
Therefore, by the time we hear of someone in the news as a whistleblower, it's virtually certain they didn't get along with their team.
There's a catch here, though. Some people don't get along with their team because their team is corrupt and doing illegal things and then they go to the press. Others don't get along with their team because their team is trying to do its job and it's the individual who's corrupted by delusions of speaking truth to power and goes to the press. The press doesn't have a very large incentive to tell one from the other, but it often has a large incentive to report pot stirring and underdog stories, so both types of people are reported as whistleblowers, and it falls to us readers to figure out whether the person reported as a whistleblower actually *is* one, assuming we ourselves have any incentive to do so.
What makes you think I'm saying people who blow the whistle are immoral? I'm saying they're bad team players. They do not bond deeply with coworkers or the organization itself, are less loyal to it and its workers, less willing to forgive the organization its various lies and injustices, more skeptical of its view of how it should be seen. That's not equivalent to their being immoral. As a matter of fact, I think I am a bad team player. I have never been able to feel affection and loyalty for the places where I worked and went to school. I have tried to do a good job, and treat my coworkers fairly, but I have always been angry and creeped out by the lies and injustices that went on at the place, that everybody else seemed to shrug off as part of the package.
If you're going to pull Reddit-style rude gotchas on here, how about you at least try first to get clear what people are saying, and ask for clarification if it sounds ridiculous, instead of pulling out your dick and whizzing a steam of exclamatory question marks?
> I have tried to do a good job, and treat my coworkers fairly, but I have always been angry and creeped out by the lies and injustices that went on at the place, that everybody else seemed to shrug off as part of the package.
Then it isnt *your* cope, but all the same.
The chance your the person who take credit for others work, or makes delusional shots in basketball rather then passing, sound low. i.e. a bad team player.
> As a matter of fact, I think I am a bad team player. I have never been able to feel affection and loyalty for the places where I worked and went to school.
Actions are what matter
> If you're going to pull Reddit-style rude gotchas on here, how about you at least try first to get clear what people are saying, and ask for clarification if it sounds ridiculous, instead of pulling out your dick and whizzing a steam of exclamatory question marks?
Why? Im no less angry at the statement, but presumably mean girls turned hr ladies have convinced you of something
<Why? I'm no less angry at the statement, but presumably mean girls turned hr ladies have convinced you of something
ACX reasons: Because this is not Reddit, and if you engage in Reddit style rudeness, especially in response to someone who has not been rude to you, a lot of people are going to think you're a jackass and not take your posts seriously.
My reasons: I am not exactly distressed by your various negative takes on me, but I am irritated, and am likely in the future to skip over comments by you because, ugh, it's that monky guy who adds extra y's or something to monky. I have the impression that you read my posts on this thread not trying to get what I was saying, but scanning for bits that will give you a chance to exclaim about ways I am lame and dumb and wrong. Specifically: (1) A quick reading of my first post gave you the impression that I thought whistleblowers were bad people because honesty is less important than team players. Unless you have lousy reading comprehension skills you will have noticed, though, that I was not expressing any anger at or personal disapproval of whistleblowers, so it would be natural to wonder whether your first interpretation is correct. But you just went with your first impression, rather than re-reading, or asking me whether I was saying that being a team player is more important than being honest. So then you posted exclamations about how INCREDIBLY WRONG AND DUMB I WAS -- WAHHHHHHH!
(2) So then I clarify what I meant, and you let me off the hook for being a bad player who hogs the ball, but you still ended with an insult: I am calling myself a bad player because I am pussy-whipped by the HT lady. Again, rather than assuming I have been intimidated by a mean cunt into thinking I am Bad when actually I am a Good Guy, you could have asked me why I was calling myself a bad team player even though I believe I treat my coworkers fairly and pull my weight. But nope, you went for pussy whip.
> A quick reading of my first post gave you the impression that I thought whistleblowers were bad people because honesty is less important than team players. Unless you have lousy reading comprehension skills you will have noticed, though, that I was not expressing any anger at or personal disapproval of whistleblowers, so it would be natural to wonder whether your first interpretation is correct.
I quoted a statement because I was responding to a statement
> So then you posted exclamations about how INCREDIBLY WRONG AND DUMB I WAS -- WAHHHHHHH!
>> Then it isnt *your* cope, but all the same.
>> The chance your the person who take credit for others work, or makes delusional shots in basketball rather then passing, sound low. i.e. a bad team player.
I granted/clarified it wasn't a cope about your actions.
> I pulled my weight....
I believe you confused by my lazy sentence structure on this comment, to rephrase it verbosely
1. the definition of a bad team player is related to taking undue credit
2. given your claims you dont sound like you do that
3. qed you are there not a bad team player
I was also hoping to imply that that a "bad team player" commits local anti social behavior, a whistle blower commits high-cost, pro-socail behavior at a higher level of abstraction and its extremely unlikely for an ethical person to actually be less ethical at less abstract, lower cost, situations
> a mean cunt
From my point of view this is the first direct(i.e. about people here) insult in this thread
I pulled my weight, and did the hospital equivalent of passing the ball. But here are they ways I was not a team player: If I had a patient to refer, I sent them to whoever I thought was best, not to the person who had recently done me a favor, or the person I knew needed to pick up some more patients. I did not make an effort to pretend to like and respect various people on staff that I thought were dishonest, greedy and self-serving. I made a few friends on staff, but did not feel a bond with the rest of staff — skipped their baby showers, holiday parties, retirement parties, etc. Did not schmooze with them. Did not respect the head of the unit where I worked, and sometimes warned people to beware of his tendency to do various unscrupulous and unfair things. Had some major objections to certain hospital policies, and spoke about them bluntly whenever it was relevant. Overall, I just did not exude the “I’m OK you’re OK” feeling that organizations want and need from staff. I was respected, and was not disliked, but I definitely did not pull my weight when it came to working to create an atmosphere of “we’re all fine folks here.”
> but presumably mean girls turned hr ladies have convinced you of something
Is hr Human Relations? I don't think I ever spoke with one, or even knew who the hospital HR staff were. What on earth do you think one convinced me of? And what makes you expect that it's easy to convince me of things? You sure didn't get very far with convincing me I'm immoral.
At the risk of receiving a whizzing stream of exclamatory question marks, I wonder if Monkyyy could explain his Simiiforme reasoning for his belief that honesty is necessarily a prosocial behavior? Honesty is usually perceived by those on the receiving-end of it as an antisocial behavior.
Id draw the line closer to kant's axe murder then most. Everything depends on truth surviving lies, charitys that work rather then are money laundering schemes. If theres to much causal lying in society, something like giving to charity could easily break down and your giving money to a gold plated throne of the middle ages church. The proper use of violence depends on finding the right guy, etc etc etc etc
One of my friends lost a job because he wouldn't pad his expense account. He didn't report that everyone else was padding their expense accounts, but they were afraid he would.
Lorien made a question earlier asking why utilitarians more in favor of gender roles. A good discussion came from that. I have a similar comment, but different enough that I want to post about it separate from the discussion thread that Lorien started.
My question is... why aren't utilitarians more active in opposing what's called wokeness? At this point, in 2024, it's pretty clear that what's called "wokeness" has made people less happy, particularly the woke themselves. This philosophy/ideology is known for deriding toxicity, but is itself highly toxic. It focuses the mind almost exclusively on negative externalities, and it actively encourages very uncharitable interpretations of the words/actions of others through the promotion of ideas like micro-aggressions.
The art/entertainment that arises from it is widely considered inferior to what came before, as we can see with various viewer satisfaction metrics and falling ratings for several major franchises (Dr. Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, MCU TV shows).
I think it's pretty clear that most people in the west would like less "wokeness" in their world. That most people dislike it. And it could even be argued that many of the woke themselves would enjoy greater emotional well-being from not being woke.
So opposing wokeness seems to me as both a way to genuinely serve utilitarian goals while also making utilitariansm more popular with the general population. With such a win/win proposition just sitting there, completely consistent with utilitarian goals/beliefs, it's odd to me that the movement doesn't go for it more than it does.
Is it that "wokeness" isn't defined as well as most utilitarians would like? Is it that utilitarians believe it'll implode on its own? Is it just that... actively opposing wokeness would feel like being pro-Republican, and most utilitarians really don't want that? I'm genuinely curious here.
I think a utilitarian would say that specialization is good, and if we have a gender that is born a bit more empathic and another that is born with a bit more innate understanding of how objects work then it is good that they specialize on that. The issue is that it is only true on the average with many outliers.
Don't woke people think that wokeness will be beneficial in the long run? And perhaps in the short run, at least for some people (eg, supposed victims of racism, speech wokesters deem harmful, etc). Unless a utilitarian knows those things are untrue, wouldn't a utilitarian be agnostic?
Note also that the Civil Rights Movement likely made 80% of the people in much of the Deep South unhappy in the short term. What should utilitarian at the time have believed about it?
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Since you raised the Civil Rights Movement, I thought it only fitting to raise this famous quote from arguably the greatest leader involved in that movement.
Do you think that modern wokism is consistent with Dr. King's statement here? To me, the answer is very clear. Even if it's not clear to your, I hope you'll think about it, and maybe keep it in mind when you read woke commentary in the future.
I really don't understand what you are talking about. Did you somehow misinterpret my comment as an endorsement of "wokism"? It was neither an endorsement nor a criticism.
The Civil Rights movement has very strong moral valiance. That might not be why you raised it, but even if not, it gives strength to your question.
So I'm replying by saying "Ok... but does modern wokism share the same moral valiance and moral values of the civil rights movement?" And I'm saying no, it doesn't... so it shouldn't get to benefit from the comparison.
It's entirely possible you're just being fair and neutral and raising open questions here. I fully respect that. Still, I feel that wokism gets far too easy of a pass by simply equating itself with things like the Union side of the Civil War, the armies that fought against the Nazis on D-Day, and the American Civil Rights movement. Wokeness is very different from these 3, it has very different values propelling it forward than these 3, so it shouldn't get to benefit from the widespread agreement that modern people have with these three.
Honestly, you need to read more carefully. It is very clear why I mentioned the Civil Rights Movement: Because it made people happier in the long term, and hence a utilitarian might support it, even if it made most people unhappy in the short-term. That is the same for wokeness: unless we are sure that wokesters are incorrect that wokeness will increase happiness in the long term, then it makes sense for utilitarians to be agnostic. That is true even though wokeness is not the moral equivalent of the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, it is true of permitting reform and NIMBYism and YIMBYism and 1000 other things that are not the moral equivalent of the Civil Rights Movement.
> At this point, in 2024, it's pretty clear that what's called "wokeness" has made people less happy
I don't think this is clear at all, at least for a definition of 'happy' that you could get a utilitarian to agree to
First of all, you don't present any evidence that wokeness has made people less happy _in toto_. That seems like a prerequisite for a utilitarian caring / taking action. Quality of media is just one part of the rich tapestry of human experience, and not even really something utilitarians typically care much about. On the assumption that you reckon you have such evidence but just haven't presented it (for brevity), I still don't think it is obvious all utilitarians should oppose wokeness.
Even the worst critics of wokeness view the process as being one of redistributing power and prestige. Therefore for every loser (typically characterised as being straight white men) there are winners (typically characterised as racial or sexual minorities). Maybe the utility gain isn't zero sum, but it isn't like woke utilitarians are totally ignorant of the fact that the utility gain *might not* be zero sum; they just believe that in fact the gains of making the worst off better are worth the costs of harming the better off. So the evidence you would need to convince a utilitarian is not just that things have got worse in the last decade, and that this is a direct result of wokeness, but also that the specific utility function of the utilitarian you are talking to is not satisfied by this state of affairs. This is nontrivial.
Arguing that media has got worse over the last decade is totally irrelevant to a woke utilitarian. Even if they agreed with you - and they probably wouldn't - they would say that worse media is a totally reasonable tradeoff to ensure that historic power imbalances were corrected
Even if it were true, it seems like *opposing* wokeness has made a lot of people unhappy. If you look at anti-woke media review channels, the personalities on those channels seem to be in a constant state of heightened anger at finding slights (real and imagined) in that media. For example a bunch of people got really, genuinely, non-performatively angry that Princess Peach was wearing trousers in the Mario movie trailer (her karting outfit, which she has worn since we'll before wokeness was a thing). Those people would be much happier if they stopped opposing wokeness, because opposing wokeness clearly causes them to tilt at ridiculous windmills. A utilitarian must at least consider that efforts to oppose wokeness would cause misery, such that even if it would have been better to oppose it ten years ago, it is too late to do it now and it is better to settle into a slightly suboptimal equilibrium than to perpetuate the culture war
Overall I think your argument requires that nobody genuinely believes wokeness is good. But since some people clearly do believe this, it is unlikely that you'll convince them by appealing to the 'obviousness' of your position
Going by this study, 80% of Americans believe that political correctness is a problem. Political Correctness/SJWism/Wokism... these terms have been used pretty interchangably in my experience. They don't always mean exactly the same thing, but there's substantial overlap here.
If 80% of Americans (strongly) dislike political correctness, then that means 80% of American (strongly) dislike at least a core part of what's considered "wokeness".
If this 80% is even close to accurate, then your suggestion of an even trade-off between "winners" and "losers" is very incorrect. It's not 1-for-1, it's 4 losers-for-1 winner (at best), and at that point it's anti-utilitarian and should be opposed.
I'm going to guess, from your reply, that you yourself are at least somewhat woke or progressive. Fair enough. Wanting greater equality, in at least practical terms, is understandable and admirable. Wokism is just one of many ways to try to achieve that, and a good argument can be made that there are much better and less counter-productive ways to achieve it. Utilitarians in general, and the effective altruism movement specifically, have a good philosophical framework to suggest different ways of achieving that. And to be fair, EA does address this some with the way it promotes altruistic and charitable living, much healthier than actively encouraging people to interpret the words of others in the most uncharitable way possible.
That being said, wokism is a competitor to EA, arguably the main competitor given its prominence in the modern American media landscape. The woke themselves recognize this, which is why the owner of this substack had a NY Times hitpiece wrote against him. Simply ignoring a major competitor, especially one that is not ignoring you, doesn't seem wise or prudent to me.
Given what you wrote about "quality of media", I get the impression you don't care much about it, so probably not worth getting into the various Rotten Tomatoes scores and IMDB scores and TV show ratings at a specific level. Plus, most of this information is not hard to find.
To be clear, I'm not a conservative. On a political compass, I'd consider myself Center-Left. My impression is that wokism has horribly distracted us from much more practical economy inequality concerns, while simultaneously creating a media and narrative landscape that actively repulses most people, thus making for a much less pleasure cultural atmosphere to live within.
Asian-made entertainment, largely free of woke elements, has been dramatically on the rise in recent years and decades. I don't think this is purely a coincidence. I considered getting into detail on this, but again, given what you wrote on "quality of media" probably pointless.
Have a good day. Thanks for the thorough and thought-provoking reply.
Interestingly enough I think we actually totally agree on the fundamental-level issues (I too would consider myself on the economic left and I too consider the culture war a distraction from actually pressing issues of economic inequality). I'd hazard a guess we agree in every particular on the harm that identity politics has wrought on the classic economic left as a political block.
However I'd also consider myself a strong utilitarian, and therefore I bristle at suggestions that the good is something that is trivially easy to determine, particularly when a large number of people think otherwise. I'd be incredibly surprised if at one point 80% of people didn't oppose interracial marriage, or gay marriage, or assisted dying, or anything like that, and it would have been terrible if utilitarians had let them get away with saying 'Since it is obviously wrong that X, we should make it a cornerstone of utilitarian philosophy to oppose X'. It is the 'obvious' bit I disagreed with, rather than the suggestion that in the final accounting we might find wokeness has caused more harm than good.
If I might - I appreciate the polite and good faith indication that you've got better things to do than go back and forth with me (in which case no problem at all) - but it I'd possible your reply indicates a bit of an error in your thinking. Imagine a world where 80% of people had more than enough to eat and 20% of people were starving. You could make the 20% vastly vastly better off by redistributing food from the 80% so that everyone had exactly enough to eat. If you asked 'Are you better off before or after redistribution?' you'd get 80/20 against it. But if you asked 'Solve for U(x) where U(x) is the utility you gain from your next marginal calorie' you'd get an average score much higher in the post-redistribution world. Almost all (possibly all?) utilitarians believe utility is better thought about in the second kind of terms, and woke utilitarians believe that this is true PLUS we actually live in a world like this except it is power / prestige which is inadequately distributed. So your evidence wouldn't convince them. I thought you might be interested in this feedback just in case you had a different expectation of what your evidence would prove to a utilitarian
Utilitarianism isn't a movement, it's just a philosophical position, compatible with all sorts of object-level political beliefs. You'll find utilitarians supporting all sorts of different things.
According to Aristotle we have two appetites - the concupiscible appetite directs us towards good things which are pleasant - food etc. while the irascible appetite directs us towards good things which are difficult to achieve e.g hiking up a mountain. The irascible appetite needs to be put in its place but we all need some difficult goals in life. I assume the woke are relatively unhappy while focused on the difficult goal of achieving equality as they see it, but many will have concupiscible goals that balance this.
Utilitarians are well aware that wokeness is a strawman that pretends that every form of egalitarianism is part of the over-corrective push of an outspoken minority, so they focus their utils on things that actually matter.
Some random thoughts on the Qur'an, in no particular order, since I've been reading it*:
- The Qur'an is extremely rambly and meandering, which makes it a bit hard to read. Most of the chapters cover a very, very wide range of topics, except for those at the end, which only cover one topic because they're only one paragraph or so long. There are a few anecdotes that are interesting enough to read (mostly various abbreviated versions of corresponding incidents from the Bible), but it's kinda hard to fish them out of the sheer mass of purple prose about how Allah is great and nonbelievers are evil. A lot of modern translations (eg Clear Quran) tend to only intensify the purple prose, making it even more unreadable.
- For example, surah 2 relates the tale of how Moses told the Israelites to slaughter a cow. In the Qur'an's version, this is apparently a one-off incident to resolve a disputed murder. In Deuteronomy 21's version, however, God commands the Israelites to slaughter a cow *every time* there is a disputed murder.
- There are a few points it really, *really*, likes to drive home. Some version of this is repeated in nearly every chapter.
- In Islam, all Muslims will go to Paradise, but all non-Muslims will go to "the fire", which is how the Qur'an *always* refers to the Islamic version of hell.
- Allah is almighty, wise, all-seeing, all-knowing, and so on.
- There are two or three cryptic-looking letters at the beginning of each chapter. (By the way, these are called the "muqatta'at", and have fueled a truly insane amount of speculation.)
Any further thoughts on this? Am I misunderstanding anything?
*proofreading it on Wikisource, as a matter of fact!
- Are you reading it in the traditional order, or the chronological order in which it was written and received by Mohammed (the latter makes much more sense)?
- The biography of Mohammed by Karen Armstrong is a highly readable book which I would strongly recommend as a companion piece to the Quran, especially when reading the surahs in chronological order.
- These taken together highlight how much many parts of the Quran are highly relevant to Mohammed's day to day live and evolving circumstances, including a few bits highly convenient to the prophet himself at that particular point.
I only just started a few days ago and haven't mustered the patience to get past the second surah, but what you describe fits with my impressions - it's like a fire-and-brimstone preacher riffing on vaguely-alluded-to Old Testament stories, with the stringency of a Trump campaign rally speech. You really have to wonder if Allah the All-Knowing couldn't afford a better editor.
I was gifted a Quran by a Muslim coworker a few years ago. I found it difficult to read too. I’ve read that in the original Arabic the repetition that I found frustrating reads as poetic and is actually a pleasure to read.
All that babbling by the concern trolls on the right and in the MSM about Kamala's issues and positions is just noise. Anna Navarro (a Republican BTW) reminds us that's there only one big issue we need to be concerned about this election. And it's the GOP elephant in the room...
"Let's be serious. Donald Trump and his minions have called Kamala a communist. I know communism. I fled communism from Nicaragua when I was eight years old. I don't take it lightly. And let me tell you what communist dictators do, and it's never just for one day. They attack the free press. They call them the enemy of the people like Ortega does in Nicaragua. They put their unqualified relatives in cushy government jobs so they can get rich off their positions like the Castros do in Cuba. And they refuse to accept legitimate elections when they lose and call for violence to stay in power like Maduro is doing right now in Venezuela. Now you tell me something. Do any of those things sound familiar? Is there anyone running for president who reminds you of that? And I know one thing. It's not Kamala Harris..."
I will at least give her points for saying something negative about Maduro and Ortega and the Castros, which must have annoyed the base and given the Democratic establishment in the State Department and the White House heartburn. It's kind of lame that the best she can come up with is "they're almost as bad as Trump!" but beggars can't be choosers.
Politics is the mind-killer. It is the little death that precedes total obliteration. I will face the hot takes and I will permit them to pass over me and through me. And when the thinkpieces and quips have gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the dunks have gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Kamala is a Communist the same way Trump is a Fascist, which is to say it's all very damn stupid, I'm not even going to touch "but *they* started it!" by both sides, and it's just the way modern politics is going.
Party A says Party B is not alone stupid but evil, and trying to bring back Bad Thing X.
Party B says Party A is not alone evil but stupid, and trying to bring back Bad Thing Y.
Stop calling Trump a Fascist, stop calling Harris a Communist. I would like that, but it's not gonna happen.
Help me out here. I find it hard to distinguish authoritarian communists from authoritarian fascists. What criteria make them different?
1. Authoritarian fascists and authoritarian communists both try to control the media, and penalize vocal and active dissent.
2. Authoritarian fascists and communists both try to control the courts to get the desired results politically and legally, and to veil their illegal actions in a cloak of legality.
3. Authoritarian fascists and communists both promote corruption to divert money and power into their hands — and authoritarian fascist and communist leaders give cushy positions to family and friends so they can profit from their control of the state.
4. Authoritarian fascists and communists both promote nationalist agendas, identifying themselves as true patriots and their enemies as enemies of the nation.
5. Authoritarian fascists and communists both target out-groups such as ethnic minorities or religious minorities for persecution to direct their citizens' anger at the out-groups rather than the leadership.
6. Authoritarian fascists and communists both try to distort the economy for their own and the benefit of the leadership clique.
The only difference that I can see between the two is that communists try to micro-manage businesses with a command-and-control economy, while fascists allow favored businesses to create monopolies (in return for kickbacks) that put pressure on businesses that don't play along. Either way, independent entrepreneurial activities are stifled.
The simplest way to tell fascists from communists is that fascists identify as fascists while communists identify as communists. Trying to make up some list of criteria for who belongs to a particular political movement just seems like a bad idea.
I'm pretty sure that nobody outside the lunatic fringe self-identifies as fascist or communist anymore, except in the latter case for a few historical ruling parties that are stuck with "communist" in their name and everybody then says that the Chinese aren't *really* communist.
And, yeah, the Chinese probably don't count as communist any more, but the people who do mostly call themselves "socialist". Close enough, I suppose. The fascists call themselves a bunch of other things, depending on the local political clime, and their critics then say "but with policies like those, they're basically admitting they're fascists".
Started out with Lexapro to try and improve my mood and sociability... and WOW! Absolutely amazing effects on day 4, though on days 5 and 6 things have gone back to baseline so far. Is there a reason why the effects haven't been consistent? Perhaps there's a way to speed up the onset of Lexapro to get me to feel great again sooner?
I'm 100% sure its not placebo: I track my mood every day consistently and three days ago was THE best mood of my entire year, by far. I was also skeptical the SSRI would actually do anything so I don't think it was placebo.
Wrote an answer but somehow it didn't get through. Here tis again: Most drugs in this class take 4 weeks plus to work, but lexapro is unusually fast, with some feeling a difference in 1 week. So maybe you are just an unusually fast responder. If what you felt was a drug effect then you can expect the mood lift to be stable once the drug fully kicks in. Don't discount placebo completely, though. Scott was sure he was microdosing on the real deal, but found out at end of study he's been taking placebo.
I hadn't really been following the story of the luxury superyacht which was sunk by a waterspout off the coast of Sicily, until I learned the name of it.
It was renamed "Bayesian" or "the Bayesian", thanks to the owner (?) who is the wife (now widow) of a guy involved in tech and finance:
"Built in 2008, the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht was manufactured by Italian company Perini Navi, Reuters reported. According to the Associated Press, the boat has been available for charter for $215,000 (€195,000) per week.
Lynch’s wife is linked to the yacht. The Bayesian is held by the company Revtom Limited, according to records from the maritime information service Equasis. The company’s latest annual return from April lists Bacares as the proprietor.
“Bayesian,” the name given to the vessel, is linked to the statistical theory on which Lynch built his fortune, according to Reuters."
That is not all, however, The man, Michael Lynch, was involved in a long legal battle with Hewlett-Packard over the sale of his company, Autonomy, to them, along with his VP of finance and another company member. Allegations of financial jiggery-pokery, which is all being covered in detail over at The Motte: https://www.themotte.org/post/1131/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week
So Lynch is acquitted, goes on a celebratory yacht trip, and ends up dead. But wait, there's more! That same weekend, his co-defendant *also* ends up dead after being struck by a car:
What's that quote from "The Importance of Being Earnest"? "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."?
To have one Rationalist or Rationalist-adjacent billionaire involved in financial shenanigans (SBF) may be a misfortune, to have two (Lynch and Bayesianism) looks like carelessness 😁
I know, it's "throw a stone and hit one" territory. But for a movement all about winning bigly, maybe try and avoid the appearance of criminality because you assume you are just that much smarter than the normies?
It's all sorts of ironic. The boat's problem was probably that it had one very tall mast not two shorter ones. Tallest aluminium mast in the world. You would expect a statistician to ask: what are the odds of someone making a bigger one? If they do is it likely to be twice as high, or one metre higher? What do the constraints governing that question tell me about my own mast?
There is also some question about whether the keel of the yacht was in its lowered position or not, and whether some hatchways had been left open in spite of a storm warning.
I'm moving to Buenos Aires in 2 weeks and thus I want to learn Spanish. What are the best resources for learning Spanish? Both English and Russian work for me as "source" language.
1. Download anki and spend a bit of time each day learning the most common words so you fast-forward to the point where you can read and watch tv. Recommend downloading a deck that includes audio with the most common 500-1000 words. Even better if there are example sentences. I like using the "low-key" anki setup: https://refold.la/roadmap/stage-1/a/anki-setup. 15-30 minutes per day.
2. https://www.dreamingspanish.com/. Any form of comprehensible input, but this is the most popular one for spanish. 15-30 minutes per day.
3. https://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-spanish. Some sort of site that teaches the fundamentals of the language, this one is popular for spanish. 15-30 minutes per day. Also if studying through reading or listening and you encounter something weird don't hesitate to google grammar questions.
4. Read books aimed at beginners. Use a kindle because it lets you long-press a word to see the translation (if the spanish-english dictionary is not automatically enabled there's a way to do that on your kindle). If you don't have a kindle you can get one for cheap on https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/.
Overall the more time you spend on the language the more you will learn, but don't burn yourself out. Aiming for an hour a day is reasonable for most people (15 minutes of each type of practice) but you can feel free to play around with how much you spend on each type.
I just heard someone say 83-86% of Democrats are in favor of a cease-fire in Israel. So apparently people think polls should influence policy. Or is this just an American thing?
This is not about Israel, Gaza, or even specifically Democrats. But people seem to think their non-expert opinion matters. Don't we appoint people to government positions so they can make the best decisions for us? They should be giving us what we NEED, which isn't necessarily what we WANT.
It's ridiculous to think something as complex as foreign policy should be determined by how people feel about a situation.
In general issue polling is terrible and cursed, since people will say they support more services, less taxes, lower deficits, and whatever else you want them to answer in your poll. Unless it's very careful to explicitly list the tradeoff involved in a neutral way, issue polling should be completely ignored.
As of 2024, approximately 92% of Republicans believe that violent crime in the United States is increasing, while all the data seems to suggest that violent crime is lower than at the beginning of the 1960s. Why should something as complex as the criminal justice system be left up to people who have no clue on how to look at the data?
Because you see the bigger pattern if you zoom out. Unfortunately, I can't post graphs as a response. But there's this — the age-adjusted homicide rates since 1900. For some reason, they're tracking it against the inflation rate (post 1962 there *does* seem to visually be a rough correlation). The three most recent peaks were 1974, 1981, and 1991. In this chart the 2022 COVID peak is about half the height of those three peaks and has fallen since then. The un-age-adjusted homicide rate has dropped from 6.8/100K in 2022 to 4.8/100K (2Q of this year). This in line with late 1950s and the early 1960s.
What's interesting to me is that the age-adjusted homicide rate back in the 1920s and early 1930s was nearly as high as the later 20th Century peaks. I wonder if other categories of violent crimes were also as high back then as they were in early 1990s? See, you learn new things when you zoom out. ;-)
Because you see the bigger pattern if you zoom out. Unfortunately, I can't post graphs as a response. But there's this — the age-adjusted homicide rates since 1900. For some reason, they're tracking it against the inflation rate (post 1962 there *does* seem to visually be a rough correlation). The three most recent peaks were 1974, 1981, and 1991. In this chart the 2022 COVID peak is about half the height of those three peaks and has fallen since then. The un-age-adjusted homicide rate has dropped from 6.8/100K in 2022 to 4.8/100K (2Q of this year). This in line with late 1950s and 1960s.
What's interesting to me is that the age-adjusted homicide rate back in the 1920s and early 1930s was nearly as high the later 20th Century peaks. I wonder if other categories of violent crimes were also as high back then as they were in early 1990s? See, you learn new things when you zoom out. ;-)
I don't think many Democrats look at the data either. I don't think most people look at the data. Seems to me most people vote based on vibes, group identification, and what's currently being said in their echo chamber.
Sometimes I wonder whether the modern world is too complex for democracy toe even sort of work. I have no idea what a better alternative would be, though.
The alternative is to have a permanent stable of experts and lobby groups that are indirectly influenced by public opinion. Which is roughly what we ended up with.
I must be misunderstanding. The only place I can find for public opinion in your point of view is in choosing who we elect to office. After that, people should pipe down and do what they’re told?
Shouldn’t policy makers continue to consider the will of the people after they’re elected? And isn’t polling a tool to help them understand the people’s will?
Yes, policy makers should CONSIDER the will of the people, but people seem to think their collective will should be the policy. As Professor Feynman said, one cannot claim to be smarter than 1000 other people, but can certainly claim to be smarter than the average of 1000 other people.
So long as people only express their opinion, that is reasonable. If others, even policy-makers, find it reasonable, it can influence policy. I just find it unreasonable for the mob to think it can dictate policy.
I think you are directionally correct that people want to exert too much influence over the fine details of policy, and that people should leave more questions up to the experts, and judge them by long-term results.
However, I think you picked a really bad example to start with. "Should that war stop?" is exactly the kind of question the average voter is pretty well capable of judging for themselves.
Maybe they THINK they are, but I opine they are not. It's much more complicated than should they stop trying to kill people. Here are some points to consider:
* What can they do to prevent a 10/7 again? If they let them rearm, maybe they will plot another one.
* They don't want to kill more people, but having their own citizens killed is worse than killing more people.
* Some people in the US support the Palestinians, and some support the Israelis. This is not trivial to resolve.
* Consider other countries participating: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. One must also consider potential impacts of China's influence, and others.
* If we support Israel less, could those resources be better used at home? Abroad? What pushback will happen for any of these choices?
I'm not an expert, as I have said, and there are probably dozens of other implications to consider. I have no reason to think this is a bad example.
If the public couldn't dictate policy, the policy would be to give all the money to policymakers. It happens in every country without a working democratic system.
The public informs policy by voting out people who make decisions they don't like. They don't dictate it.
For this particular instance, I doubt anyone would vote for Trump because of a disagreement on the Israel thing, but they might stay "uncommitted" and not vote at all, which is close to the same thing for this election.
To be precise, I believe those who run the country should take expert advice into consideration to make decisions for running the country. I don't expect the leaders to be experts in all things, not even all the things for which they have charge.
Yeah, direct democracy for every choice would be a disaster--a majority vote for which drugs should be approved by the FDA or something would make no sense. I think the main value of democracy is that when lots of people are unhappy about how things are going or about big visible decisions made by public officials, they can provide feedback that the elected officials have to care about. So the public isn't voting on specific FDA approvals, but if they are sufficiently unhappy about FDA actions, they can make the president and many congressmen care about that, and apply pressure to the FDA's leadership.
It all depends on the terms of the cease-fire, right?
The poll answer might as well be saying "war is bad", perhaps extending to "Palestinian civilians dying is bad" (given that Israel is inflicting most of the casualties).
Technically, there's also a difference between "being in favor of a cease-fire" and thinking that the US government should use carrots and sticks to get both sides to agree to something they'd otherwise not agree to. (Which, I think, they're already trying.)
Ultimately, though, this is a tension in any representative democracy: whether the representative should merely reflect the will of their constituents, or whether they were chosen to exercise their independent judgement? (And in practice, where in between should an individual politician fall at a given moment?)
And there's also the civil service, which in theory exists to provide expertise and consistency to governmental affairs. The State Department probably has it's own views on this situation.
I think no one, especially in this forum, would think war is not bad. My point isn't whether Israel should cease fire, but that people think they know what's best for the country based on their limited knowledge and experience. Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion, but only informed opinions should make policy, whether foreign or some other kind.
I know this may shock you, but some people actually believe in democracy, and I don't just mean picking between one of two multimillionaire oligarchs every couple years
Democracy works if people do what they think is best for the country, not for themselves. It is not two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And uninformed, ignorant people have no credibility for their opinions on policy, just because of how they feel.
In terms of being uninformed I’d say the pro Israel lobby tops that list. So much so that future historians and their students will find it hard to explain the support.
Democracy IS two wolves voting to eat the one sheep. The usual objection to that is to advocate some kind of "individual rights"-based "liberalism" instead. You can just admit you don't care much for either, and prefer some kind of oligarchy/aristocracy, instead of misrepresenting them.
This could be the basis of an ad to encourage voting. Show the wolves voting over how to allocate the sheep (we don't want to be gory, something like Claymation would be good). Then the punchline: "If you don't vote, you are the sheep!"
It is the strict definition of democracy, just as Bob is outvoted as one vote in 10 in lifeboat survivors (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/lifeboat-games-and-backscratchers). But as a system of governing, no, that is a bad idea. It's simply self-interest, first and foremost, and do you really need government for that?
So democracy works when people vote not necessarily for what is best for them, but for the right thing to do, about which there can be legitimate disagreements.
There is not yet any perfect form of government discovered or invented.
A Kissinger-like policy of acting in "US interests," would not (and did not!) result in a lot of support for Israel, which is hated by oil-rich neighbors. Our support is floating on a raft of humanitarian interest. Without getting into a long recounting of the emergence of US support, Israel has always been upsetting to advisors and forced through over their objections by elected officials.
Fortunately, I guess, opinions on foreign policy don't matter as much since people in the US usually rate FP at the bottom of what they care about. This is why the Biden regime has largely been able to (correctly) support Israel to allow them to pursue their terror eradication goal, while the potential for more direct US involvement has constituted a credible threat to Hezbollah/Iran, keeping them to the periphery of the conflict. Much of the pro-Palestine movement is just an opportunity for "socially conscious" people to get pictures of themselves supporting The Current Thing on social media, thereby boosting their own social status, and is not representative of anything like an informed opinion.
Russia news. Russia welcomes Westerners who are willing to abandon liberal values, except if they are Evangelicals, because then they will be killed (in Ukraine) or imprisoned (in Russia). I don't link because it is all over Google. Are these people really stupid? Alienating the largest anti-liberal group in the West? This does not look like a coherent state. One cannot at the same time drain away Western conservatives and be murderously paranoid about everyone who might be an American agent...
Isn't the largest anti-liberal group in the West Roman Catholics? At least they seem to be the only ones who sometimes manage to get their countries to not be too liberal on abortion and divorce.
Russia lies about this. I was surprised how few people knew that the free world has far more religious freedom. It's also the more religious of the two sides including theocratic Iran. I thought it was one of those things we all learned in school. Ukraine sometimes flies over Russian Evangelicals to talk with American Evangelicals to impress this fact on them.
Anyway, if you want to leave the decadent US for a place where your dollar goes farther and people are more religious and traditional then there's much better options. Russia is a world leader in divorce and alcoholism. It has the same church attendance as Sweden. It also has a lot of crime and a life expectancy comparable to North Korea. You can argue that China's doing well but not Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, etc.
This is partly false (alcoholism) and partly misleading. Russian (and Ukrainian) life expectancy are very similar and very close to the world average. The murder rate (a proxy for the crime level as murders are harder to ignore) is similar to that of the US.
It's true that it's mostly secular but why invent things?
The WHO shows Russia as either the highest or second highest in alcohol addiction rate. It trades with Belarus though Hungary is creeping up close. It is not number one in alcohol consumption but that's not the claim.
The Russian murder rate is about 15% higher than the US which is still fairly significant. And its life expectancy at birth is about the same as North Korea, 73 years, vs 79 in the US.
Well, why did you choose North Korea rather than any other country having approximately the same (world average) life expectancy like Paraguay, Dominican Republic or Ukraine?
Russia is definitely one of heavy-drinking countries (breaking news!), I just think this data doesn't tell us whether it's "normal East European drinking" or "a world leader in alcoholism" on par with Hungary, of all places.
Because they're allies that border each other and both undemocratic. But if you want to compare them to Paraguay then go ahead.
The WHO statistics are based on people who have long term addictive behaviors, not on raw consumption, because the WHO is interested in alcoholism as a disease. By most measures Russia is unusually socially dysfunctional even compared to Eastern Europe. I don't really care whether a country drinks. Finland drinks a lot. Saudi Arabia drinks very little. But people who need treatment for alcoholism is unambiguously a social issue in a way that Italians drinking wine is not.
Alcoholism and per capita alcohol consumption are (naturally) correlated but not exactly the same. Russia has a high concentration of substance abusers of various types and alcohol is among them.
Again - a lot of people in Russia (and other ex-USSR states) were hit hard by USSR collapse, and turned to alcohol (and other substances)... but they largely dies out by mid-00
It's WHO data. And while you're right alcoholism rates declined after the late 1990s/2000s they still remain higher than pretty much everyone else. The main competitors are Belarus or Hungary. And looking at the latest data it does look like Russia's slipped into second behind Belarus and, if trends continue, might slip into third behind Hungary. But this is due to Hungary/Belarus going up rather than Russia going down. And they're all neck in neck anyway.
At a purely pragmatic level, persecuting Evangelicals is likely to increase US support for Ukraine.
But also: do you *really* want to incur the wrath of the kind of Evangelical that donates a Red Heifer to Israel for .. um ... Biblical prophetic reasons. Those guys mioht not have any qualms about nuking Russia into annihilation.,
My wife and I do IVF to do genetic testing (we need to) and we want a large family. Based on our experiences I suspect that the Dr isn’t trying hard enough to optimize for a large family. Anyone have any thoughts on how to go about optimizing the process to get more out of each retrieval, increase the chances of successful transfers etc..?
Feel free to reply or email me at iz8162k23 at gmail
Try and convince the doctor that yes, you really *do* want a large family and won't end up with frozen embryos that you then leave in storage forever because "eh, we changed our minds, one kid is enough" or that, if you end up with twins/triplets in the successful round of implantation, you won't go to court over "we wanted ONE baby not THREE".
Multiple births seem to be considered a risk, and the recommendation is "selective reduction":
"What can I do to reduce the risk of multiple births?
During a fertility treatment cycle when fertility drugs are used with timed intercourse or insemination, your doctor will monitor your cycle very carefully. The use of fertility medications makes it more likely that one or more eggs will be fertilized. However, if it appears that too many eggs are developing, your doctor may cancel your cycle and tell you not to have an insemination or intercourse to reduce or eliminate your risk of multiple births. During in vitro fertilization (IVF), the egg and sperm are joined (fertilized) in the laboratory. The resulting embryo (fertilized egg) is then placed into the womb (uterus). Multiple gestations are least likely when one embryo is placed in the womb. ASRM has published guidelines on the number of embryos to transfer when undergoing an IVF cycle. These guidelines can be found at www.asrm.org.
Some pregnancies may start as a multiple gestation but undergo what’s called a “spontaneous reduction”. This is when one of the pregnancies stops growing (miscarriage) and the other pregnancy continues normally. No treatment is needed when this occurs, and ultrasounds can determine if the remaining pregnancy is growing normally. In some cases, the risk of a multiple gestation is too great. A doctor may suggest that you consider a procedure called selective reduction. Selective reduction is a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses to one or two. Usually, the procedure is done after the risk of a miscarriage, but still early in the pregnancy to increase the chance of a healthy and successful pregnancy. Choosing to do this procedure is difficult. Individuals and couples who are thinking about this option should talk to their doctor and a counselor."
I suspect my dr is too conservative with this but Idk. We’re hopefully going to be working with an advocate\concierge of sorts going forward but all the info I can get is good as I’m sure they aren’t perfectly informed either
There may be some disadvantages of getting lots of eggs per cycle. You would need to check on that. It def uses up the woman's remaining eggs faster. But whether it reduces quality of eggs or is hard on the woman's system I don't know. I had IVF and only made about 4 eggs per cycle. Talked with other women who were making a dozen or so per cycle, and nobody seemed worried about that. You will probably also have speak up to the doctor and tell him your preferences. If there are some disadvantages to doing it the way you want to, let him explain that. Then, if you decide that the disadvantages are outweighed by the advantages, just state clearly that you understand the pros and cons, but have some unusual priorities and would like treatment to be carried out in the way you prefer, rather than the usual way. Many docs would be OK with that, so long as what you're proposing isn't actually dangerous for the woman. Others, however, are not able to see you as in informed consumer of their services. But to be heard even by the responsive ones you have to speak up really loudly and clearly (but in a polite friendly way).
It is probably easier for all docs to do their jobs if their patients accept the role of compliant children, so docs give subtle cues that that is what they prefer. However, into every life a little rain must fall, and there are situations where active patient involvement complicates the docs life and slows them down, but leads to a better outcome. I would recommend speaking up despite the cues that smiling compliance is preferred. You can start with something not a bit argumentative, something like "we've been thinking things over and would like to ask what is done in situations where people would like to have a large family. Are there adjustments that favor that outcome?" And then ask about pros and cons of the adjustments. You have to be willing to say things that defy the cues and make things awkward. Obviously if the doctor says, "I never do that, if you want someone who will then go elsewhere," then there's no point in continuing. But most are not that rigid.
Could be 'Ozempic undoes the specific toxic effects of the modern environment', those being large amounts of calories in the form of ultraprocessed food and lack of exercise, and those toxic effects including, but not limited to, obesity.
I'm skeptical that brainwashing is a useful concept on average - I mean the chance that you or anyone you know has been brainwashed or will be brainwashed is low enough to consider other options first: horses not zebras.
External evidence for brainwashing [alternative explanation]:
- Membership of a niche political or religious organisation [the English speaking world prizes such groups highly in its history and culture, even if this or that group is cringe]
- Devotion to a charismatic leader [also cringe, but also the human condition - ancestor worship; monarchism; great man theory of history; fan culture]
- Refusal to engage in reasoned argument [an idea can be useful X% of the time and still break down the rest of the time. Many people find this embarrassing and don't like talking about it]
- breaks off contact with people outside the organisation [half-empty: teenage angst or mid-life crisis. Half-full: having constantly to defend your treasured imperfect idea to friends and family is exhausting, even if they are right that doesn't stop them being assholes about it, cutting off may be rational]
- sudden change in personality [half-empty: teenage angst or midlife crisis; half-full: “find yourself” is a trope but personality is a compromise, encountering a transformative idea can make a person e.g less agreeable and that is a good thing if they were too agreeable previously]
People delude themselves into believing ridiculous nonsense all the time, based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence. Human belief systems are far more of a social construct than anything else. So the odds of any one person you meet with outlandish views having been brainwashed is extremely low. But there are clearly psychological mechanisms to get people to believe in obvious nonsense, and someone with access to those mechanisms would be a very effective brainwasher.
Having an idea that works less than 100% of the time seems pretty universal! And if culture is brainwashing then we don't have a word for what real cults do and that seems a shame.
I think you left off most of the traits that distinguish cults from people being raised in a culture that carries with it a few assumptions about the world. Such as,
- Sleep deprivation.
- Replacement of normal activities with ideological reinforcement.
- Threat of isolation from group for deviation made the subject of continual, active concern.
- Near-term promises of an apocalypse or great change, intended to promote near-term thinking.
There is also the matter of degree or quantity. Threats of isolation for deviance are universal, but not a continual, active threat for very small deviations or lack of devotion.
I don't deny there really are cults that really do brainwash - I deny that the next crazy person you meet on the Internet has been brainwashed (on average).
This community really loves truth. Is it widely known that learning one true statement in isolation can lead to a less accurate view or worse decision?
Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
Basically investigate an issue thoroughly or shut up about it. But "truthbombing" is not helpful.
Thinking about this, I am much less sympathetic to free speech concerns. People just throwing 14/50 out (purported US racial crime stats) are really not helping anyone to understand this well. It is better if they shut up.
Understand that we are in a new historic situation. The legacy media obsessing about listening to both sides can be sometimes ridiculous but handles this kind of situation really well. Instagram memes do not. In the past free speech was more defensible, because the standards of argumentation and attention spans were higher.
I know there are dangers of people having too much power, I really wish this was somehow democratized.
> Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
No it doesnt, its probabilistic for a reason
>Thinking about this, I am much less sympathetic to free speech concerns.
>I know there are dangers of people having too much power, I really wish this was somehow democratized.
what if PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY, we lived in a system when you were accused of a crime you got to say your side of the story before a judgement was ruled; and maybe imagine "rights" such as something about everyone saying what they wanted
Your link goes to an assertion that being aware of a stereotype, even when the stereotype is true, can cause people to make worse decisions. And of course, that is possible, if the person has a poor understanding of probability. But that certainly doesn't go against Bayesianism. In fact it is the opposite! The point of Bayesianism is to help make an accurate assessment in the context of numerous sources of information, even if many are somewhat inconclusive.
What you are saying is pretty old and trite: that we should promote the well-intentioned lie in the hope of attaining a happier future. What you neglect is that people have memory and you can only go to that well so many times before it dries up. Maybe if people were more aware of the 14/50 statistic (it's for homicides collated by the FBI and I believe it's gotten worse over the last few years; "purported" is an adjective with little justification) they might be less eager to leap to simplistic explanations of the statistics of fatal interactions with police - but I don't see you complaining about *those* errors.
Or is your quibble just with statements made in isolation? But they never are; even if someone just posts "14/50", they are posting it in a context of implied assertions, some of which may well be false, and it is right to challenge those. But by that token, your argument also provides only a small part of the picture...
What makes you think this community loves truth? I'd say that's a false statement right off the bat. Most of the interactions on these threads seem to be people arguing their opinions without any supporting data.
I'd say it's better than most places for discussing things, but not great. Things weighing in favor of people being responsive when they hear the case for an unfamiliar truth is that people are are less identified with groups united by common views; and are smart and have trained minds, so can understand complex arguments and data. Things weighing against are that many people are very identified with their smarts and erudition, and so experience attacks on things they believe as attacks on them; many people are not good listeners; and many people are not good introspectionists, so are much less likely to be consciously aware that they are rejecting an idea because of wounded vanity.
The best set-up I ever heard about for fruitful idea exchange was the Yale Political Union, who had (and may still have -- I don't know) the idea that all debaters could expect to be "broken" in some debate, i.e. to say at some point, "I have no rebuttals for your main argument. You have convinced me you are right." Most debaters broke others and were broken from time to time, and having some of each on their record earned people respect.
Nothing drives soi-disant rationalists crazier than someone who swamps their preconceived notions with contrary data. I hang out here for those moments, and I cherish them. Can you provide a link to the exchange? ;-)
So in the abstract, I think it's worth refining the concept of "true" into three variants.
* illustrative = correspondence between signifier and signified
* faithful = correspondence between signified and referent
* factual = correspondence between signifier and referent
In the ivory tower, "factual" (i.e. "truth" being a property of whether propositions are descriptive of reality) tends to be privileged over the others. But what's often more important is "faithfullness" (i.e. whether your mental model is faithful to reality). Because mental-models (not blobs of ink) are what pay the rent.
So when I hear
> Is it widely known that learning one true statement in isolation can lead to a less accurate view or worse decision?
my initial reaction is: "focusing on statements over models is a red-herring to begin with". E.g. this is the issue with statements like "dihydrogen monoxide is a key component of acid rain". Technically correct, but pragmatically misleading for those who slept through chemistry class.
----
> Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
To reiterate, I think it's a mistake to privilege statements over models. E.g. copper is a micronutrient. Copper is needed for a healthy diet, but you can't just eat copper ingots in isolation and expect to live very long. Likewise, a proposition is often just a single node in a bayesian network. That node might be *needed* to achieve 100% accuracy. But of course it's not *sufficient* to achieve 100% accuracy. And there's no guarantee that adding that particular node to the model will result in a monotonic increase in accuracy, on the margin. This is what Peter is really getting at, when he talks about conditionalization.
----
Yes, epistemology is hard work. No royal road. Dunning Kruger. Facts are cheaper than models. Etc. So on the individual level, I'd agree that "deep dive or stfu" is probably a good heuristic. That being said,
> Understand that we are in a new historic situation.
> In the past free speech was more defensible, because the standards of argumentation and attention spans were higher.
As I understand, no actually, we're in an old historical situation. The Pull Request [0] tells me (don't remember where exactly, but I'll look if asked) that Ben Franklin, et al would have felt right at home with modern shitposters on twitter. It's the post-WWII era that's unique in the quality of its information environent. The theories I've heard on why include: A) market segmentation was not as advanced; B) government regulation. I wish I could comment more on this, but I don't really understand it that well myself at the moment.
The idea "freedom of speech" was predicated on the idea that the media environment is a market, and bad ideas would lose to their competition. So an advocate for freedom of speech would probably counter that the best counter to "truthbombing about the 13%" is for others to advocate for the contrary position. Personally, I have some reservations about why this might not always be the case, which I find hard to articulate [1] at the moment. But I think it's worth acknowledging that the original solution was to have the racists, the antiracists, and any other willing contenders, to duke it out in an epistemic battle royale. Rather than to expect one's ideological rivals to cultivate a sense of discipline and rigor.
A) the idea that "truth always wins" seems sort of optimistic to me. I do think truth tends to win the long-run. But, as the saying goes: "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent". I think falsehoods can be very effective in the short-term/medium-term.
B) I think the market incentives for falsehood can be stronger than the market incentives for verisimilitude, even in the long-term, if the falsehoods are loadbearing components of the simulacrum.
The problem with info hazards in the real world is that they are usually highly contextual: a fact that might challenge one person's deeply held incorrect belief can push another further down the road of confirmation bias. Free speech is a concern because people who are challenged by a true fact can claim to just be preventing confirmation bias and protecting everyone from true but misleading info and thus suppress it. Allowing only true information is the worst solution, except for all the others.
Following on from the interesting "slave/master morality" discussion I had with Concerned Citizen in the previous thread, I've now written a more sustained criticism of Nietzsche's work:
As well as criticising his idea, I try to work through the political implications for us. Basically, the master/slave thing is lurking in the background of the Culture War, even when not explicitly invoked -- so dissolving it makes the whole debate look a lot less intractable (at least to me).
Even if you have no interest in Nietzsche, please take a look at Section 4, which is the politically juicy part (but fairly short and simple).
Does anyone know anything about mold-related respiratory issues? I’ve been having intermittent breathing issues for the past year, which I have finally, (nearly) conclusively linked to mold exposure. I’ve seen doctors for this a few times, but they have tended to focus on the wrong things, and I have yet to actually be diagnosed with anything.
The problem started with my car: within a week or so of getting it back from a body shop (where it had sat idle for two months last summer) I started having symptoms while driving it and for some time afterwards. Once I figured this out I mostly stopped driving it, but the symptoms persisted intermittently for weeks afterwards, slowly fading in frequency and intensity. For the next several months I made repeated attempts to clean the car (not knowing what exactly was responsible), only to have the symptoms return at full intensity if I tried driving it again. In December I discovered mold growing under the seats, which I assumed was responsible, but my best efforts to clean it still didn’t render it safe to drive. We ultimately just got rid of the car, but that didn’t solve the problem: I had several recurrences of high-intensity symptoms in the months following (which led me to doubt the mold had been responsible), before gradually returning to something like normalcy during the middle of the summer. Then, towards the end of July, I started gradually having symptoms return in my apartment. I’ve managed to play whack-a-mold with several clusters–one of which I identified conclusively, dispelling my remaining doubts as to the cause–and intend to scour the apartment thoroughly, but that won’t happen instantly.
The major symptoms have been aching lungs, shortness of breath (sometimes extreme but generally short-lived) and a strange, altered-state-of-consciousness feeling that’s a little like (but not exactly like) dizziness, lightheadedness or being high. Each of these differs in its pattern of presentation, and they don’t necessarily occur all at the same time. There’s a long list of other possible minor symptoms, but none of them have the same combination of consistency, frequency and
Just came across this article (https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/american-vulcan-palmer-luckey-anduril), which is a pretty wild interesting story. But I also found it very ironic, because right after talking about how Luckey was smeared by inaccurate media articles, the article itself proceeds to smear Facebook the same way!
Tablet is at war with Facebook for a while: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation
This is kind of funny..
As i may have mentioned before, I am currently struggling with Grave's disease (overactive thyroid0.
The cardiology department has just had the bright idea they could prescribe spironolactone for thw water retention (edema) I get as a symptom of the thyroid condition. Which will probably work, yes.
And, I am thinking to myself... spironolactone? I just happen to know what *else* that is prescribed for, having been following the news about restrictions on prescribing puberty blockers. It's a testosterone blocker, also often prescribed for MtF transsexuals. Fine. Fine. I shall play dumb and pretend that I do not know this.
And are you okay with having less testosterone?
Before the pedants point this out: puberty blocker ban applies to e..g triptorelin but not to testosterone blockers like spironolactone.
Has anyone read [Anti-tech revolution: Why and How](https://annas-archive.org/md5/5d393d7d4b253ea73308250affeb4098) or anything by the same author?
Chapter 2 has some interesting and plausible (to me) insights on AI safety.
I started some of his books and liked them but haven't finished anything yet. I mostly liked his analysis of the psychology of the modern man, I didn't get a lot of insights on AI.
I'm not saying that the Unabomber wasn't a smart guy, but I am going to say that someone who couldn't even manage to keep himself from blowing up buildings and airplanes probably isn't who we should turn to when it comes to keeping AI from doing likewise.
I also question the wisdom of linking to one of the premiere resources for literary piracy, personally.
Piracy is based. But yeah, I get your point.
Orange county meetup announcement for this Saturday.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iAPDEeUMkIs38OXiOASp9EvExwn5-Kyv1_rKjAzKAkc/edit?usp=sharing
I thought this might have been a clip from an SNL skit — sort of a reprise of their classic Bass-O-Matic skit — but, no, it's a real company with a real product! And how much development time was required to make its lips sync with its voice?
https://x.com/i/status/1826636139970621747
https://www.trumpytrout.com/?mid=12243062
Has anyone played the new "Black Myth: Wukong" game yet? Yes, I know it's only just been released, but who else can I ask but you guys?
Pros: It's about Sun Wukong so that's immediately appealing to me, the visuals look *amazing*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr5rQ1NZ0Tw
Cons: I see it described as "soulslike" and I'm not too hot at the aul' combat, so would the difficulty level be too high?
I have not played it, but of course somebody has. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnywm2XgJg You can see what the game is going to expect of you.
Thanks for the link! Very helpful. So basically "stand there and hit with your staff and/or run like hell when over-matched" - I can do that 😁
Mention of some issues with PC version so I may wait to see if there are any patches. Much more inclined to try this now, though.
This is just shameless self promotion. I wrote about geoengineering recently, including the use of aerosols to reflect the sun and carbon mineralization to sequester CO2: https://www.aei.org/articles/the-promise-of-geoengineering/
What would be the optimal immigration policy for the USA? I don't believe it is either Open Borders or Zero Immigrants. My best guess is we need to allow way, way more immigrants with college degrees and maybe the same or fewer without degrees? In either category, what would be a method for determining what the optimum number per year would be?
The critical question is whether we maintain a welfare state for the immigrants. If we do, then we don't want poor immigrants, since they cost us more than they pay us. That leads to the popular policy of letting in only high end immigrants.
But the immigrants who we, and they, can gain most from are at the other end of the scale, poor people happy to do unskilled work at a wage high for them, low for us, and work their way up from there, the equivalent of my ancestors who came in from eastern Europe to work in sweatshops in New York a century and more ago. They are better off coming in without the protections of a welfare state than being kept out — but that option is barred by current ideology.
Don't you need to consider the labour capital ration as well? Expanding the labour supply will probably push down per capita gdp and wages for a fixed amount of capital.
Also, if the source of higher incomes in developed countries is non-rivalous, like institutions or governance, surely it makes more sense to extend them to low-income countries rather than concentrating everyone in places that are already high income.
Does it depend at all on the particular state? My guess is that unskilled immigrants to Texas, which has a relatively small welfare state, are a net positive to the economy whereas low skilled immigrants to California are a net negative, but I don't know what the data says.
I'll perversely say, more unskilled laborers and fewer skilled or degreed immigrants. Also, dismantle the H1-B visa system which is really a soft form of indentured servitude.
Something like Australian / NZ point system would be a good start. Less “family re-unification”, more “we have shortage of this labor type, come in”. Our immigration system is such a hopeless mess, any streamlining and simplification would be welcome at this point.
The optimal immigration policy is a Schengen Area within the core American Empire (US, Anglosphere, EU, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel) and a MrBeast style gameshow at the southern border open to any IQ > 115, where contestants have to pass through several rounds of challenges testing intelligence, fitness, creativity, patience, sociability, and adherence to American Empire cultural norms.
Optimal for what? What's the aim?
It sounds like you are looking for workers who will add value: I don't know if your strategy for achieving that is right or not, but more importantly I don't know if it's the right aim - or more to the point the aim most people would agree on.
I recognize my comment isn't adding to the conversation, but just wanted to echo this sentiment.
I am confused why none of the other responders have either posed this same question or engaged with it, even in passing, in their own responses.
There's a review of the book "Then I Am Myself the World" by Christof Koch in the latest Science News. Koch is into ITT (integrated information theory), which postulates you can measure a system's consciousness by measuring the amount of integrated information within it. Koch did this with the generative AI ChatGPT, and the money quote is -
"(it) has an itsy bitsy bit of consciousness" but experiences the world something much less than a worm with only 300 neurons.
So maybe we're safe from AI doom for a little while.
IIRC, Scott Aaronson was very critical of ITT on his blog.
How conscious is Amazon, Microsoft, or the DoD under IIT?
Can you say a bit about what Koch means by integrated information? What's an example? Is what is integrated things about self and things about world? (So, for instance, GPT4 will tell you it's an LLM, and whether LLM's like itself can or can't do a certain task. That seems to me like some knowledge about self integrated with knowledge about the world. )
I didn't read Koch's book. Integrated information theory (IIT, got the acronym wrong the first time) is something I tried to learn about by reading Erik Hoel's book "The World Behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science", but it was over my head and, altho he helped develop the theory, he winds up trashing it. If only someone more expert than me could write up a review of either of these books for next years contest.
I wasn't asked and have no idea what he means with the fluffy phrase "integrated information" but I think his overall idea is panpsychism plus the assumption that an atom has a different - and vastly poorer experience - than a fox because an atom can do viewer and less complex actions than a fox. That's my interpretation of him saying that what matters is how much "irreducible causal power" a thing has.
My example is, a fox can do actions that its individual atoms can't. Not its atoms hunt rats, the fox does.
And I think, for sure: hunting a rat feels much different than to only swing arround a few nanometer. I know, I've done both.
I don't get it. Clearly, my group is right, and the other group is wrong. So why don't all utilitarians join my group and declare a war on the other group? Is it because they are stupid, or because they are hypocrites? What cause could possibly bring more utility than making my group win?
> What cause could possibly bring more utility than making my group win?
Have you considered making *my* group win? Obviously more utilitarian.
If you let me win the argument, the endorphin rush will trickle down to everyone's benefit.
So many people disagree with me, *too*! Must be that same group of stupid and /or hypocritical nincompoops.
I am also baffled. Me and my in-group are clearly utility monsters, so why aren't utilitarians fulfilling our every whim at the expense of the out-group?
Thank you for point #3 here.
Metallica just donated $40,000 to a Mpls homeless shelter.
https://www.fox9.com/news/minneapolis-homeless-shelter-thanks-metallica-donation
Maybe they aren’t a bunch of assholes.
For the benefit of folks who haven’t watched The Big Lebowski a half a dozen time that’s a reference to The Dude describing his time in the music business. As a roadie for Metallica, along with his opinion of the group. Mettalica loved the joke BTW.
Maybe they're not assholes, but the ad I saw on that website is. It popped up over the video, and the x in the corner was actually a download link.
I didn’t get that when I played it. I’ll delete the link.
Edit; I’m finding YouTube clips for a lot of Big Lebowski scenes. Not that one though.
Further Edit: I did find it dubbed into French, Japanese and a language I can only guess at with non ASII character set letters with diacritics and other ornamentations I don’t know the names of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXXOGYqbK5o (14.10)
I've heard time and again that in Chasidic culture, men don't work. And I've said it.
At least for Williamsberg Chasidim, it just isn't true, and I'm wondering to what extent it's true elsewhere.
The video is an overview of the lively business culture of Williamsberg, with a lot of work being done by men. What they generally don't have is college degrees, but you can do a lot without a degree. There are many business supplying specialized cultural products (kosher food, wigs for women, etc.), non-religious products and services (plumbing, extermination), and selling outside the community. Computers are more of factor than they used to be, and so is entertainment.
I've heard that Jews are some of the most value-add people on the planet. But this subset is the extreme opposite? What's up with that?
Note that my link is about Chasidic culture where men work, but there's a possibility (if I can trust what I keep hearing about Israel) where Chasidic men (at least in some groups) don't work.
What's up with that is that the universe is out to get you. You think you have a nice handy generalization, and wham! the universe hits you with an exception. This is especially true for biology and for humans.
An interesting idea of "the bezzle", the window of time after a fraud has been committed when the action appears positive-sum, since the fraudster benefited, and the mark hasn't realized anything is amiss.
It helps explain why people get mad at whistleblowers, because everyone is happier *before* the whistle is blown, even if in reality some of the parties were worse off.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/06/29/the-science-bezzle/
Whistleblowers probably aren't very popular even before they blow the whistle. In order to be willing to do it, you probably need to have a bond with the company and your coworkers that's defective, i.e. falls short of what's needed by the other parties. The thing that makes someone capable of blowing the whistle also generally makes them a bad team player. Still, we need them. If every crew rebelled against their Capt. Bligh there would be no Navy. But if there were many Capt. Blighs there also would be no Navy.
Every place I've worked there has been a huge glob of stuff that everybody knows is bad, but everybody thinks of it as stuff you can't acknowledge, much less challenge. The first place I ever worked was a small diner in the south. I was a waitress. The owner came in most days to check on things and punch and smack the busboys (all black, by the way) for not moving as fast as the thought they should. I remember him tasting the day's special and saying "Jesus, they must be hungry today!"
> The thing that makes someone capable of blowing the whistle also generally makes them a bad team player
???????????????????????????????????????????????
That sounds like the largest "its ok to be immoral" cope ive heard in a while
Honesty is the first virtue, its incredibly prosocail to tell the truth at the cost of a job
Whistleblowers are people who see something wrong in an organization and want to fix it. If they're not getting along with the rest of the organization, whistleblowing is one of the primary ways we hear about them. If they *are* getting along with the rest of the organization, then they're probably just working with their management (upwards or down; some of these people are themselves managers), getting the change that way, and we people outside the organization never hear of them.
Therefore, by the time we hear of someone in the news as a whistleblower, it's virtually certain they didn't get along with their team.
There's a catch here, though. Some people don't get along with their team because their team is corrupt and doing illegal things and then they go to the press. Others don't get along with their team because their team is trying to do its job and it's the individual who's corrupted by delusions of speaking truth to power and goes to the press. The press doesn't have a very large incentive to tell one from the other, but it often has a large incentive to report pot stirring and underdog stories, so both types of people are reported as whistleblowers, and it falls to us readers to figure out whether the person reported as a whistleblower actually *is* one, assuming we ourselves have any incentive to do so.
What makes you think I'm saying people who blow the whistle are immoral? I'm saying they're bad team players. They do not bond deeply with coworkers or the organization itself, are less loyal to it and its workers, less willing to forgive the organization its various lies and injustices, more skeptical of its view of how it should be seen. That's not equivalent to their being immoral. As a matter of fact, I think I am a bad team player. I have never been able to feel affection and loyalty for the places where I worked and went to school. I have tried to do a good job, and treat my coworkers fairly, but I have always been angry and creeped out by the lies and injustices that went on at the place, that everybody else seemed to shrug off as part of the package.
If you're going to pull Reddit-style rude gotchas on here, how about you at least try first to get clear what people are saying, and ask for clarification if it sounds ridiculous, instead of pulling out your dick and whizzing a steam of exclamatory question marks?
> I have tried to do a good job, and treat my coworkers fairly, but I have always been angry and creeped out by the lies and injustices that went on at the place, that everybody else seemed to shrug off as part of the package.
Then it isnt *your* cope, but all the same.
The chance your the person who take credit for others work, or makes delusional shots in basketball rather then passing, sound low. i.e. a bad team player.
> As a matter of fact, I think I am a bad team player. I have never been able to feel affection and loyalty for the places where I worked and went to school.
Actions are what matter
> If you're going to pull Reddit-style rude gotchas on here, how about you at least try first to get clear what people are saying, and ask for clarification if it sounds ridiculous, instead of pulling out your dick and whizzing a steam of exclamatory question marks?
Why? Im no less angry at the statement, but presumably mean girls turned hr ladies have convinced you of something
<Why? I'm no less angry at the statement, but presumably mean girls turned hr ladies have convinced you of something
ACX reasons: Because this is not Reddit, and if you engage in Reddit style rudeness, especially in response to someone who has not been rude to you, a lot of people are going to think you're a jackass and not take your posts seriously.
My reasons: I am not exactly distressed by your various negative takes on me, but I am irritated, and am likely in the future to skip over comments by you because, ugh, it's that monky guy who adds extra y's or something to monky. I have the impression that you read my posts on this thread not trying to get what I was saying, but scanning for bits that will give you a chance to exclaim about ways I am lame and dumb and wrong. Specifically: (1) A quick reading of my first post gave you the impression that I thought whistleblowers were bad people because honesty is less important than team players. Unless you have lousy reading comprehension skills you will have noticed, though, that I was not expressing any anger at or personal disapproval of whistleblowers, so it would be natural to wonder whether your first interpretation is correct. But you just went with your first impression, rather than re-reading, or asking me whether I was saying that being a team player is more important than being honest. So then you posted exclamations about how INCREDIBLY WRONG AND DUMB I WAS -- WAHHHHHHH!
(2) So then I clarify what I meant, and you let me off the hook for being a bad player who hogs the ball, but you still ended with an insult: I am calling myself a bad player because I am pussy-whipped by the HT lady. Again, rather than assuming I have been intimidated by a mean cunt into thinking I am Bad when actually I am a Good Guy, you could have asked me why I was calling myself a bad team player even though I believe I treat my coworkers fairly and pull my weight. But nope, you went for pussy whip.
If you want to get meta about this.... fine
> A quick reading of my first post gave you the impression that I thought whistleblowers were bad people because honesty is less important than team players. Unless you have lousy reading comprehension skills you will have noticed, though, that I was not expressing any anger at or personal disapproval of whistleblowers, so it would be natural to wonder whether your first interpretation is correct.
I quoted a statement because I was responding to a statement
> So then you posted exclamations about how INCREDIBLY WRONG AND DUMB I WAS -- WAHHHHHHH!
>> Then it isnt *your* cope, but all the same.
>> The chance your the person who take credit for others work, or makes delusional shots in basketball rather then passing, sound low. i.e. a bad team player.
I granted/clarified it wasn't a cope about your actions.
> I pulled my weight....
I believe you confused by my lazy sentence structure on this comment, to rephrase it verbosely
1. the definition of a bad team player is related to taking undue credit
2. given your claims you dont sound like you do that
3. qed you are there not a bad team player
I was also hoping to imply that that a "bad team player" commits local anti social behavior, a whistle blower commits high-cost, pro-socail behavior at a higher level of abstraction and its extremely unlikely for an ethical person to actually be less ethical at less abstract, lower cost, situations
> a mean cunt
From my point of view this is the first direct(i.e. about people here) insult in this thread
I pulled my weight, and did the hospital equivalent of passing the ball. But here are they ways I was not a team player: If I had a patient to refer, I sent them to whoever I thought was best, not to the person who had recently done me a favor, or the person I knew needed to pick up some more patients. I did not make an effort to pretend to like and respect various people on staff that I thought were dishonest, greedy and self-serving. I made a few friends on staff, but did not feel a bond with the rest of staff — skipped their baby showers, holiday parties, retirement parties, etc. Did not schmooze with them. Did not respect the head of the unit where I worked, and sometimes warned people to beware of his tendency to do various unscrupulous and unfair things. Had some major objections to certain hospital policies, and spoke about them bluntly whenever it was relevant. Overall, I just did not exude the “I’m OK you’re OK” feeling that organizations want and need from staff. I was respected, and was not disliked, but I definitely did not pull my weight when it came to working to create an atmosphere of “we’re all fine folks here.”
> but presumably mean girls turned hr ladies have convinced you of something
Is hr Human Relations? I don't think I ever spoke with one, or even knew who the hospital HR staff were. What on earth do you think one convinced me of? And what makes you expect that it's easy to convince me of things? You sure didn't get very far with convincing me I'm immoral.
At the risk of receiving a whizzing stream of exclamatory question marks, I wonder if Monkyyy could explain his Simiiforme reasoning for his belief that honesty is necessarily a prosocial behavior? Honesty is usually perceived by those on the receiving-end of it as an antisocial behavior.
Its more simiiforeme intuition /s
Id draw the line closer to kant's axe murder then most. Everything depends on truth surviving lies, charitys that work rather then are money laundering schemes. If theres to much causal lying in society, something like giving to charity could easily break down and your giving money to a gold plated throne of the middle ages church. The proper use of violence depends on finding the right guy, etc etc etc etc
One of my friends lost a job because he wouldn't pad his expense account. He didn't report that everyone else was padding their expense accounts, but they were afraid he would.
serpico
I predict a few more people in the typical ACX age cohort will pick up on my joking Big Lebowski reference above.
Serpico is definitely a film worth seeking out though.
Wow that's disgusting. Which industry, finance?
I don't remember and we're out of touch. I don't think it was finance.
Lorien made a question earlier asking why utilitarians more in favor of gender roles. A good discussion came from that. I have a similar comment, but different enough that I want to post about it separate from the discussion thread that Lorien started.
My question is... why aren't utilitarians more active in opposing what's called wokeness? At this point, in 2024, it's pretty clear that what's called "wokeness" has made people less happy, particularly the woke themselves. This philosophy/ideology is known for deriding toxicity, but is itself highly toxic. It focuses the mind almost exclusively on negative externalities, and it actively encourages very uncharitable interpretations of the words/actions of others through the promotion of ideas like micro-aggressions.
The art/entertainment that arises from it is widely considered inferior to what came before, as we can see with various viewer satisfaction metrics and falling ratings for several major franchises (Dr. Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, MCU TV shows).
I think it's pretty clear that most people in the west would like less "wokeness" in their world. That most people dislike it. And it could even be argued that many of the woke themselves would enjoy greater emotional well-being from not being woke.
So opposing wokeness seems to me as both a way to genuinely serve utilitarian goals while also making utilitariansm more popular with the general population. With such a win/win proposition just sitting there, completely consistent with utilitarian goals/beliefs, it's odd to me that the movement doesn't go for it more than it does.
Is it that "wokeness" isn't defined as well as most utilitarians would like? Is it that utilitarians believe it'll implode on its own? Is it just that... actively opposing wokeness would feel like being pro-Republican, and most utilitarians really don't want that? I'm genuinely curious here.
I think a utilitarian would say that specialization is good, and if we have a gender that is born a bit more empathic and another that is born with a bit more innate understanding of how objects work then it is good that they specialize on that. The issue is that it is only true on the average with many outliers.
I think I see what you're saying, as it pertains to gender roles.
And yes, I think you're basically right here.
Don't woke people think that wokeness will be beneficial in the long run? And perhaps in the short run, at least for some people (eg, supposed victims of racism, speech wokesters deem harmful, etc). Unless a utilitarian knows those things are untrue, wouldn't a utilitarian be agnostic?
Note also that the Civil Rights Movement likely made 80% of the people in much of the Deep South unhappy in the short term. What should utilitarian at the time have believed about it?
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Since you raised the Civil Rights Movement, I thought it only fitting to raise this famous quote from arguably the greatest leader involved in that movement.
Do you think that modern wokism is consistent with Dr. King's statement here? To me, the answer is very clear. Even if it's not clear to your, I hope you'll think about it, and maybe keep it in mind when you read woke commentary in the future.
I really don't understand what you are talking about. Did you somehow misinterpret my comment as an endorsement of "wokism"? It was neither an endorsement nor a criticism.
The Civil Rights movement has very strong moral valiance. That might not be why you raised it, but even if not, it gives strength to your question.
So I'm replying by saying "Ok... but does modern wokism share the same moral valiance and moral values of the civil rights movement?" And I'm saying no, it doesn't... so it shouldn't get to benefit from the comparison.
It's entirely possible you're just being fair and neutral and raising open questions here. I fully respect that. Still, I feel that wokism gets far too easy of a pass by simply equating itself with things like the Union side of the Civil War, the armies that fought against the Nazis on D-Day, and the American Civil Rights movement. Wokeness is very different from these 3, it has very different values propelling it forward than these 3, so it shouldn't get to benefit from the widespread agreement that modern people have with these three.
Honestly, you need to read more carefully. It is very clear why I mentioned the Civil Rights Movement: Because it made people happier in the long term, and hence a utilitarian might support it, even if it made most people unhappy in the short-term. That is the same for wokeness: unless we are sure that wokesters are incorrect that wokeness will increase happiness in the long term, then it makes sense for utilitarians to be agnostic. That is true even though wokeness is not the moral equivalent of the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, it is true of permitting reform and NIMBYism and YIMBYism and 1000 other things that are not the moral equivalent of the Civil Rights Movement.
> At this point, in 2024, it's pretty clear that what's called "wokeness" has made people less happy
I don't think this is clear at all, at least for a definition of 'happy' that you could get a utilitarian to agree to
First of all, you don't present any evidence that wokeness has made people less happy _in toto_. That seems like a prerequisite for a utilitarian caring / taking action. Quality of media is just one part of the rich tapestry of human experience, and not even really something utilitarians typically care much about. On the assumption that you reckon you have such evidence but just haven't presented it (for brevity), I still don't think it is obvious all utilitarians should oppose wokeness.
Even the worst critics of wokeness view the process as being one of redistributing power and prestige. Therefore for every loser (typically characterised as being straight white men) there are winners (typically characterised as racial or sexual minorities). Maybe the utility gain isn't zero sum, but it isn't like woke utilitarians are totally ignorant of the fact that the utility gain *might not* be zero sum; they just believe that in fact the gains of making the worst off better are worth the costs of harming the better off. So the evidence you would need to convince a utilitarian is not just that things have got worse in the last decade, and that this is a direct result of wokeness, but also that the specific utility function of the utilitarian you are talking to is not satisfied by this state of affairs. This is nontrivial.
Arguing that media has got worse over the last decade is totally irrelevant to a woke utilitarian. Even if they agreed with you - and they probably wouldn't - they would say that worse media is a totally reasonable tradeoff to ensure that historic power imbalances were corrected
Even if it were true, it seems like *opposing* wokeness has made a lot of people unhappy. If you look at anti-woke media review channels, the personalities on those channels seem to be in a constant state of heightened anger at finding slights (real and imagined) in that media. For example a bunch of people got really, genuinely, non-performatively angry that Princess Peach was wearing trousers in the Mario movie trailer (her karting outfit, which she has worn since we'll before wokeness was a thing). Those people would be much happier if they stopped opposing wokeness, because opposing wokeness clearly causes them to tilt at ridiculous windmills. A utilitarian must at least consider that efforts to oppose wokeness would cause misery, such that even if it would have been better to oppose it ten years ago, it is too late to do it now and it is better to settle into a slightly suboptimal equilibrium than to perpetuate the culture war
Overall I think your argument requires that nobody genuinely believes wokeness is good. But since some people clearly do believe this, it is unlikely that you'll convince them by appealing to the 'obviousness' of your position
This study is from 2018, so slightly dated, but probably recent enough.
https://reason.com/2018/10/11/political-correctness-americans-vote-maj/
Going by this study, 80% of Americans believe that political correctness is a problem. Political Correctness/SJWism/Wokism... these terms have been used pretty interchangably in my experience. They don't always mean exactly the same thing, but there's substantial overlap here.
If 80% of Americans (strongly) dislike political correctness, then that means 80% of American (strongly) dislike at least a core part of what's considered "wokeness".
If this 80% is even close to accurate, then your suggestion of an even trade-off between "winners" and "losers" is very incorrect. It's not 1-for-1, it's 4 losers-for-1 winner (at best), and at that point it's anti-utilitarian and should be opposed.
I'm going to guess, from your reply, that you yourself are at least somewhat woke or progressive. Fair enough. Wanting greater equality, in at least practical terms, is understandable and admirable. Wokism is just one of many ways to try to achieve that, and a good argument can be made that there are much better and less counter-productive ways to achieve it. Utilitarians in general, and the effective altruism movement specifically, have a good philosophical framework to suggest different ways of achieving that. And to be fair, EA does address this some with the way it promotes altruistic and charitable living, much healthier than actively encouraging people to interpret the words of others in the most uncharitable way possible.
That being said, wokism is a competitor to EA, arguably the main competitor given its prominence in the modern American media landscape. The woke themselves recognize this, which is why the owner of this substack had a NY Times hitpiece wrote against him. Simply ignoring a major competitor, especially one that is not ignoring you, doesn't seem wise or prudent to me.
Given what you wrote about "quality of media", I get the impression you don't care much about it, so probably not worth getting into the various Rotten Tomatoes scores and IMDB scores and TV show ratings at a specific level. Plus, most of this information is not hard to find.
To be clear, I'm not a conservative. On a political compass, I'd consider myself Center-Left. My impression is that wokism has horribly distracted us from much more practical economy inequality concerns, while simultaneously creating a media and narrative landscape that actively repulses most people, thus making for a much less pleasure cultural atmosphere to live within.
Asian-made entertainment, largely free of woke elements, has been dramatically on the rise in recent years and decades. I don't think this is purely a coincidence. I considered getting into detail on this, but again, given what you wrote on "quality of media" probably pointless.
Have a good day. Thanks for the thorough and thought-provoking reply.
Interestingly enough I think we actually totally agree on the fundamental-level issues (I too would consider myself on the economic left and I too consider the culture war a distraction from actually pressing issues of economic inequality). I'd hazard a guess we agree in every particular on the harm that identity politics has wrought on the classic economic left as a political block.
However I'd also consider myself a strong utilitarian, and therefore I bristle at suggestions that the good is something that is trivially easy to determine, particularly when a large number of people think otherwise. I'd be incredibly surprised if at one point 80% of people didn't oppose interracial marriage, or gay marriage, or assisted dying, or anything like that, and it would have been terrible if utilitarians had let them get away with saying 'Since it is obviously wrong that X, we should make it a cornerstone of utilitarian philosophy to oppose X'. It is the 'obvious' bit I disagreed with, rather than the suggestion that in the final accounting we might find wokeness has caused more harm than good.
If I might - I appreciate the polite and good faith indication that you've got better things to do than go back and forth with me (in which case no problem at all) - but it I'd possible your reply indicates a bit of an error in your thinking. Imagine a world where 80% of people had more than enough to eat and 20% of people were starving. You could make the 20% vastly vastly better off by redistributing food from the 80% so that everyone had exactly enough to eat. If you asked 'Are you better off before or after redistribution?' you'd get 80/20 against it. But if you asked 'Solve for U(x) where U(x) is the utility you gain from your next marginal calorie' you'd get an average score much higher in the post-redistribution world. Almost all (possibly all?) utilitarians believe utility is better thought about in the second kind of terms, and woke utilitarians believe that this is true PLUS we actually live in a world like this except it is power / prestige which is inadequately distributed. So your evidence wouldn't convince them. I thought you might be interested in this feedback just in case you had a different expectation of what your evidence would prove to a utilitarian
Utilitarianism isn't a movement, it's just a philosophical position, compatible with all sorts of object-level political beliefs. You'll find utilitarians supporting all sorts of different things.
According to Aristotle we have two appetites - the concupiscible appetite directs us towards good things which are pleasant - food etc. while the irascible appetite directs us towards good things which are difficult to achieve e.g hiking up a mountain. The irascible appetite needs to be put in its place but we all need some difficult goals in life. I assume the woke are relatively unhappy while focused on the difficult goal of achieving equality as they see it, but many will have concupiscible goals that balance this.
Utilitarians are well aware that wokeness is a strawman that pretends that every form of egalitarianism is part of the over-corrective push of an outspoken minority, so they focus their utils on things that actually matter.
Some random thoughts on the Qur'an, in no particular order, since I've been reading it*:
- The Qur'an is extremely rambly and meandering, which makes it a bit hard to read. Most of the chapters cover a very, very wide range of topics, except for those at the end, which only cover one topic because they're only one paragraph or so long. There are a few anecdotes that are interesting enough to read (mostly various abbreviated versions of corresponding incidents from the Bible), but it's kinda hard to fish them out of the sheer mass of purple prose about how Allah is great and nonbelievers are evil. A lot of modern translations (eg Clear Quran) tend to only intensify the purple prose, making it even more unreadable.
- For example, surah 2 relates the tale of how Moses told the Israelites to slaughter a cow. In the Qur'an's version, this is apparently a one-off incident to resolve a disputed murder. In Deuteronomy 21's version, however, God commands the Israelites to slaughter a cow *every time* there is a disputed murder.
- There are a few points it really, *really*, likes to drive home. Some version of this is repeated in nearly every chapter.
- In Islam, all Muslims will go to Paradise, but all non-Muslims will go to "the fire", which is how the Qur'an *always* refers to the Islamic version of hell.
- Allah is almighty, wise, all-seeing, all-knowing, and so on.
- There are two or three cryptic-looking letters at the beginning of each chapter. (By the way, these are called the "muqatta'at", and have fueled a truly insane amount of speculation.)
Any further thoughts on this? Am I misunderstanding anything?
*proofreading it on Wikisource, as a matter of fact!
- Are you reading it in the traditional order, or the chronological order in which it was written and received by Mohammed (the latter makes much more sense)?
- The biography of Mohammed by Karen Armstrong is a highly readable book which I would strongly recommend as a companion piece to the Quran, especially when reading the surahs in chronological order.
- These taken together highlight how much many parts of the Quran are highly relevant to Mohammed's day to day live and evolving circumstances, including a few bits highly convenient to the prophet himself at that particular point.
Traditional order. Might switch to chronological order, but apparently people differ a lot on which surahs should be considered the earliest or latest (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surah#Chronological_order_of_surahs for more info).
I only just started a few days ago and haven't mustered the patience to get past the second surah, but what you describe fits with my impressions - it's like a fire-and-brimstone preacher riffing on vaguely-alluded-to Old Testament stories, with the stringency of a Trump campaign rally speech. You really have to wonder if Allah the All-Knowing couldn't afford a better editor.
I was gifted a Quran by a Muslim coworker a few years ago. I found it difficult to read too. I’ve read that in the original Arabic the repetition that I found frustrating reads as poetic and is actually a pleasure to read.
This is similar to e.g. the Iliad which reads as trudgingly repetitive but has a much better spoken quality.
I'm impressed! I got bogged down in the purple prose. And the different translations of key points make me more confused about what it's saying.
All that babbling by the concern trolls on the right and in the MSM about Kamala's issues and positions is just noise. Anna Navarro (a Republican BTW) reminds us that's there only one big issue we need to be concerned about this election. And it's the GOP elephant in the room...
"Let's be serious. Donald Trump and his minions have called Kamala a communist. I know communism. I fled communism from Nicaragua when I was eight years old. I don't take it lightly. And let me tell you what communist dictators do, and it's never just for one day. They attack the free press. They call them the enemy of the people like Ortega does in Nicaragua. They put their unqualified relatives in cushy government jobs so they can get rich off their positions like the Castros do in Cuba. And they refuse to accept legitimate elections when they lose and call for violence to stay in power like Maduro is doing right now in Venezuela. Now you tell me something. Do any of those things sound familiar? Is there anyone running for president who reminds you of that? And I know one thing. It's not Kamala Harris..."
https://youtu.be/PgNQrCdsG1I?t=91
I will at least give her points for saying something negative about Maduro and Ortega and the Castros, which must have annoyed the base and given the Democratic establishment in the State Department and the White House heartburn. It's kind of lame that the best she can come up with is "they're almost as bad as Trump!" but beggars can't be choosers.
Politics is the mind-killer. It is the little death that precedes total obliteration. I will face the hot takes and I will permit them to pass over me and through me. And when the thinkpieces and quips have gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the dunks have gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Kamala is a Communist the same way Trump is a Fascist, which is to say it's all very damn stupid, I'm not even going to touch "but *they* started it!" by both sides, and it's just the way modern politics is going.
Party A says Party B is not alone stupid but evil, and trying to bring back Bad Thing X.
Party B says Party A is not alone evil but stupid, and trying to bring back Bad Thing Y.
Stop calling Trump a Fascist, stop calling Harris a Communist. I would like that, but it's not gonna happen.
Trump literally tried to rig the election by calling that guy and ask him to find votes. That's fascist or close enough.
It's authoritarian, but not fascist. Fascisim is a specific ideology that is a subset of authoritarianism.
Help me out here. I find it hard to distinguish authoritarian communists from authoritarian fascists. What criteria make them different?
1. Authoritarian fascists and authoritarian communists both try to control the media, and penalize vocal and active dissent.
2. Authoritarian fascists and communists both try to control the courts to get the desired results politically and legally, and to veil their illegal actions in a cloak of legality.
3. Authoritarian fascists and communists both promote corruption to divert money and power into their hands — and authoritarian fascist and communist leaders give cushy positions to family and friends so they can profit from their control of the state.
4. Authoritarian fascists and communists both promote nationalist agendas, identifying themselves as true patriots and their enemies as enemies of the nation.
5. Authoritarian fascists and communists both target out-groups such as ethnic minorities or religious minorities for persecution to direct their citizens' anger at the out-groups rather than the leadership.
6. Authoritarian fascists and communists both try to distort the economy for their own and the benefit of the leadership clique.
The only difference that I can see between the two is that communists try to micro-manage businesses with a command-and-control economy, while fascists allow favored businesses to create monopolies (in return for kickbacks) that put pressure on businesses that don't play along. Either way, independent entrepreneurial activities are stifled.
What am I missing here?
The simplest way to tell fascists from communists is that fascists identify as fascists while communists identify as communists. Trying to make up some list of criteria for who belongs to a particular political movement just seems like a bad idea.
I'm pretty sure that nobody outside the lunatic fringe self-identifies as fascist or communist anymore, except in the latter case for a few historical ruling parties that are stuck with "communist" in their name and everybody then says that the Chinese aren't *really* communist.
And, yeah, the Chinese probably don't count as communist any more, but the people who do mostly call themselves "socialist". Close enough, I suppose. The fascists call themselves a bunch of other things, depending on the local political clime, and their critics then say "but with policies like those, they're basically admitting they're fascists".
Started out with Lexapro to try and improve my mood and sociability... and WOW! Absolutely amazing effects on day 4, though on days 5 and 6 things have gone back to baseline so far. Is there a reason why the effects haven't been consistent? Perhaps there's a way to speed up the onset of Lexapro to get me to feel great again sooner?
I'm 100% sure its not placebo: I track my mood every day consistently and three days ago was THE best mood of my entire year, by far. I was also skeptical the SSRI would actually do anything so I don't think it was placebo.
Wrote an answer but somehow it didn't get through. Here tis again: Most drugs in this class take 4 weeks plus to work, but lexapro is unusually fast, with some feeling a difference in 1 week. So maybe you are just an unusually fast responder. If what you felt was a drug effect then you can expect the mood lift to be stable once the drug fully kicks in. Don't discount placebo completely, though. Scott was sure he was microdosing on the real deal, but found out at end of study he's been taking placebo.
I hadn't really been following the story of the luxury superyacht which was sunk by a waterspout off the coast of Sicily, until I learned the name of it.
It was renamed "Bayesian" or "the Bayesian", thanks to the owner (?) who is the wife (now widow) of a guy involved in tech and finance:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/20/europe/bayesian-yacht-what-we-know-intl/index.html
"Built in 2008, the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht was manufactured by Italian company Perini Navi, Reuters reported. According to the Associated Press, the boat has been available for charter for $215,000 (€195,000) per week.
Lynch’s wife is linked to the yacht. The Bayesian is held by the company Revtom Limited, according to records from the maritime information service Equasis. The company’s latest annual return from April lists Bacares as the proprietor.
“Bayesian,” the name given to the vessel, is linked to the statistical theory on which Lynch built his fortune, according to Reuters."
That is not all, however, The man, Michael Lynch, was involved in a long legal battle with Hewlett-Packard over the sale of his company, Autonomy, to them, along with his VP of finance and another company member. Allegations of financial jiggery-pokery, which is all being covered in detail over at The Motte: https://www.themotte.org/post/1131/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week
So Lynch is acquitted, goes on a celebratory yacht trip, and ends up dead. But wait, there's more! That same weekend, his co-defendant *also* ends up dead after being struck by a car:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/19/uk/stephen-chamberlain-mike-lynch-co-defendant-dies-car-intl-latam/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc
What's that quote from "The Importance of Being Earnest"? "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."?
To have one Rationalist or Rationalist-adjacent billionaire involved in financial shenanigans (SBF) may be a misfortune, to have two (Lynch and Bayesianism) looks like carelessness 😁
t's kind of like hoe we were speculating on just how long it was going to be until Putin killed Yevgeny Prigozhin...
Seriously, I think Lynch was a tragic accident and weird co-incidence. Yevgeny Prigozhin on the other hand...
I was told that the bayesian.org website went down for a while around the same time the yacht did. <queue eerie theremin music>
NB: I don't know if this was a Bayesian joke or not.
Possibly a joke, but if it's real, Not A Coincidence Because Nothing Is Ever A Coincidence 😁
I dunno. Looking for fraud amongst billionaires is like looking for criminals at a prison.
I know, it's "throw a stone and hit one" territory. But for a movement all about winning bigly, maybe try and avoid the appearance of criminality because you assume you are just that much smarter than the normies?
It's all sorts of ironic. The boat's problem was probably that it had one very tall mast not two shorter ones. Tallest aluminium mast in the world. You would expect a statistician to ask: what are the odds of someone making a bigger one? If they do is it likely to be twice as high, or one metre higher? What do the constraints governing that question tell me about my own mast?
There is also some question about whether the keel of the yacht was in its lowered position or not, and whether some hatchways had been left open in spite of a storm warning.
Also Bazos’ yacht has a taller mast.
I'm moving to Buenos Aires in 2 weeks and thus I want to learn Spanish. What are the best resources for learning Spanish? Both English and Russian work for me as "source" language.
>I'm moving to Buenos Aires in 2 weeks
Why?
/r/languagelearning
1. Download anki and spend a bit of time each day learning the most common words so you fast-forward to the point where you can read and watch tv. Recommend downloading a deck that includes audio with the most common 500-1000 words. Even better if there are example sentences. I like using the "low-key" anki setup: https://refold.la/roadmap/stage-1/a/anki-setup. 15-30 minutes per day.
2. https://www.dreamingspanish.com/. Any form of comprehensible input, but this is the most popular one for spanish. 15-30 minutes per day.
3. https://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-spanish. Some sort of site that teaches the fundamentals of the language, this one is popular for spanish. 15-30 minutes per day. Also if studying through reading or listening and you encounter something weird don't hesitate to google grammar questions.
4. Read books aimed at beginners. Use a kindle because it lets you long-press a word to see the translation (if the spanish-english dictionary is not automatically enabled there's a way to do that on your kindle). If you don't have a kindle you can get one for cheap on https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/.
I like this book: https://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Spanish-Beginners-Yourself/dp/1473683254. Get the audio book too and play along as you read so that you learn to connect the sounds of the words to their spelling, instead of making up your own pronunciation in your head. 15-30 minutes per day.
5. Once you have been doing that for a few weeks try talking to people to practice your conversation. You can get paid tutors on italki or go to free online events such as here: https://www.peptalkradio.com/online-spanish-language-events/.
Overall the more time you spend on the language the more you will learn, but don't burn yourself out. Aiming for an hour a day is reasonable for most people (15 minutes of each type of practice) but you can feel free to play around with how much you spend on each type.
I just heard someone say 83-86% of Democrats are in favor of a cease-fire in Israel. So apparently people think polls should influence policy. Or is this just an American thing?
This is not about Israel, Gaza, or even specifically Democrats. But people seem to think their non-expert opinion matters. Don't we appoint people to government positions so they can make the best decisions for us? They should be giving us what we NEED, which isn't necessarily what we WANT.
It's ridiculous to think something as complex as foreign policy should be determined by how people feel about a situation.
In general issue polling is terrible and cursed, since people will say they support more services, less taxes, lower deficits, and whatever else you want them to answer in your poll. Unless it's very careful to explicitly list the tradeoff involved in a neutral way, issue polling should be completely ignored.
As of 2024, approximately 92% of Republicans believe that violent crime in the United States is increasing, while all the data seems to suggest that violent crime is lower than at the beginning of the 1960s. Why should something as complex as the criminal justice system be left up to people who have no clue on how to look at the data?
Both could be true!
I assume that when people say "violent crime is increasing", they aren't necessarily taking 1961 as a baseline?
What if we take 2015 as a baseline? Or 2010? Or 2000? Or any other time in the adult life of someone under the age of 50? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate#/media/File:Timeline_of_U.S._homicide_rate._FBI_and_CDC.png
Because you see the bigger pattern if you zoom out. Unfortunately, I can't post graphs as a response. But there's this — the age-adjusted homicide rates since 1900. For some reason, they're tracking it against the inflation rate (post 1962 there *does* seem to visually be a rough correlation). The three most recent peaks were 1974, 1981, and 1991. In this chart the 2022 COVID peak is about half the height of those three peaks and has fallen since then. The un-age-adjusted homicide rate has dropped from 6.8/100K in 2022 to 4.8/100K (2Q of this year). This in line with late 1950s and the early 1960s.
What's interesting to me is that the age-adjusted homicide rate back in the 1920s and early 1930s was nearly as high as the later 20th Century peaks. I wonder if other categories of violent crimes were also as high back then as they were in early 1990s? See, you learn new things when you zoom out. ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Age-Adjusted_Homicide_Rates_in_the_USA,_1900-2022,_with_Major_Theorized_Contributors.jpg/2
> Because you see the bigger pattern if you zoom out.
Why not zoom out even more, there has been a major increase of gun violence since the dinosaurs went extinct
What if it was gun violence and not a giant asteroid that caused their extinction? Interesting thought. Hmmm.
Because you see the bigger pattern if you zoom out. Unfortunately, I can't post graphs as a response. But there's this — the age-adjusted homicide rates since 1900. For some reason, they're tracking it against the inflation rate (post 1962 there *does* seem to visually be a rough correlation). The three most recent peaks were 1974, 1981, and 1991. In this chart the 2022 COVID peak is about half the height of those three peaks and has fallen since then. The un-age-adjusted homicide rate has dropped from 6.8/100K in 2022 to 4.8/100K (2Q of this year). This in line with late 1950s and 1960s.
What's interesting to me is that the age-adjusted homicide rate back in the 1920s and early 1930s was nearly as high the later 20th Century peaks. I wonder if other categories of violent crimes were also as high back then as they were in early 1990s? See, you learn new things when you zoom out. ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Age-Adjusted_Homicide_Rates_in_the_USA,_1900-2022,_with_Major_Theorized_Contributors.jpg/2
For some reason, Substack duplicated my reply. It must have eaten Eremelalos's reply (above) as compensation. Sorry, Eremolalos!
I don't think many Democrats look at the data either. I don't think most people look at the data. Seems to me most people vote based on vibes, group identification, and what's currently being said in their echo chamber.
Sometimes I wonder whether the modern world is too complex for democracy toe even sort of work. I have no idea what a better alternative would be, though.
The alternative is to have a permanent stable of experts and lobby groups that are indirectly influenced by public opinion. Which is roughly what we ended up with.
And we sort of muddle along with this system. But we muddle along better than authoritarian societies!
Because if you instituted a nomenklatura they would send everybody *else* to jail.
I must be misunderstanding. The only place I can find for public opinion in your point of view is in choosing who we elect to office. After that, people should pipe down and do what they’re told?
Shouldn’t policy makers continue to consider the will of the people after they’re elected? And isn’t polling a tool to help them understand the people’s will?
People were arrested for protesting at the Democratic National Convention over this (https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/protesters-breach-security-fence-democratic-national-convention/).
Yes, policy makers should CONSIDER the will of the people, but people seem to think their collective will should be the policy. As Professor Feynman said, one cannot claim to be smarter than 1000 other people, but can certainly claim to be smarter than the average of 1000 other people.
So long as people only express their opinion, that is reasonable. If others, even policy-makers, find it reasonable, it can influence policy. I just find it unreasonable for the mob to think it can dictate policy.
I mean, the threat here is pretty clear: govern in a way I find acceptable or you will lose my vote.
I think you are directionally correct that people want to exert too much influence over the fine details of policy, and that people should leave more questions up to the experts, and judge them by long-term results.
However, I think you picked a really bad example to start with. "Should that war stop?" is exactly the kind of question the average voter is pretty well capable of judging for themselves.
Maybe they THINK they are, but I opine they are not. It's much more complicated than should they stop trying to kill people. Here are some points to consider:
* What can they do to prevent a 10/7 again? If they let them rearm, maybe they will plot another one.
* They don't want to kill more people, but having their own citizens killed is worse than killing more people.
* Some people in the US support the Palestinians, and some support the Israelis. This is not trivial to resolve.
* Consider other countries participating: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. One must also consider potential impacts of China's influence, and others.
* If we support Israel less, could those resources be better used at home? Abroad? What pushback will happen for any of these choices?
I'm not an expert, as I have said, and there are probably dozens of other implications to consider. I have no reason to think this is a bad example.
You might be overestimating how far the effects of a second ceasefire would reach.
My estimates, whether over or under, are almost certainly wrong, not being an expert.
If the public couldn't dictate policy, the policy would be to give all the money to policymakers. It happens in every country without a working democratic system.
The public informs policy by voting out people who make decisions they don't like. They don't dictate it.
For this particular instance, I doubt anyone would vote for Trump because of a disagreement on the Israel thing, but they might stay "uncommitted" and not vote at all, which is close to the same thing for this election.
Politicians care a lot about opinion polls and the effects on the marginal voter. That is how public opinion "dictates policy."
Do you actually believe experts should run the country or are you making a reductio?
To be precise, I believe those who run the country should take expert advice into consideration to make decisions for running the country. I don't expect the leaders to be experts in all things, not even all the things for which they have charge.
Yeah, direct democracy for every choice would be a disaster--a majority vote for which drugs should be approved by the FDA or something would make no sense. I think the main value of democracy is that when lots of people are unhappy about how things are going or about big visible decisions made by public officials, they can provide feedback that the elected officials have to care about. So the public isn't voting on specific FDA approvals, but if they are sufficiently unhappy about FDA actions, they can make the president and many congressmen care about that, and apply pressure to the FDA's leadership.
That's my position too but I think it implies there is a balance to be struck between expert opinion and what the man in the street can stomach.
>I just heard someone say 83-86% of Democrats are in favor of a cease-fire in Israel. So apparently people think polls should influence policy.<
...this doesn't follow. They make polls for ice cream flavors too. https://www.idfa.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2404080_topline_IDFA_US_Adults.pdf It doesn't mean they're trying to pressure ice cream shops into anything, it means they like to talk about themselves.
I have a sense that the war provokes a little more emotional engagement among both parties than ice cream preferences...
Well, if you have a sense, then by all means apply a double standard.
It all depends on the terms of the cease-fire, right?
The poll answer might as well be saying "war is bad", perhaps extending to "Palestinian civilians dying is bad" (given that Israel is inflicting most of the casualties).
Technically, there's also a difference between "being in favor of a cease-fire" and thinking that the US government should use carrots and sticks to get both sides to agree to something they'd otherwise not agree to. (Which, I think, they're already trying.)
Ultimately, though, this is a tension in any representative democracy: whether the representative should merely reflect the will of their constituents, or whether they were chosen to exercise their independent judgement? (And in practice, where in between should an individual politician fall at a given moment?)
And there's also the civil service, which in theory exists to provide expertise and consistency to governmental affairs. The State Department probably has it's own views on this situation.
I think no one, especially in this forum, would think war is not bad. My point isn't whether Israel should cease fire, but that people think they know what's best for the country based on their limited knowledge and experience. Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion, but only informed opinions should make policy, whether foreign or some other kind.
A lot of people think the current war in Gaza is good, and some of them argue such at length in these comment sections whenever the subject comes up.
I know this may shock you, but some people actually believe in democracy, and I don't just mean picking between one of two multimillionaire oligarchs every couple years
Democracy works if people do what they think is best for the country, not for themselves. It is not two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And uninformed, ignorant people have no credibility for their opinions on policy, just because of how they feel.
In terms of being uninformed I’d say the pro Israel lobby tops that list. So much so that future historians and their students will find it hard to explain the support.
Democracy IS two wolves voting to eat the one sheep. The usual objection to that is to advocate some kind of "individual rights"-based "liberalism" instead. You can just admit you don't care much for either, and prefer some kind of oligarchy/aristocracy, instead of misrepresenting them.
This could be the basis of an ad to encourage voting. Show the wolves voting over how to allocate the sheep (we don't want to be gory, something like Claymation would be good). Then the punchline: "If you don't vote, you are the sheep!"
It COULD, though that sounds to me like it'd imply "Be a wolf instead!", which in context would mean "gang up on minorities."
It is the strict definition of democracy, just as Bob is outvoted as one vote in 10 in lifeboat survivors (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/lifeboat-games-and-backscratchers). But as a system of governing, no, that is a bad idea. It's simply self-interest, first and foremost, and do you really need government for that?
So democracy works when people vote not necessarily for what is best for them, but for the right thing to do, about which there can be legitimate disagreements.
There is not yet any perfect form of government discovered or invented.
A Kissinger-like policy of acting in "US interests," would not (and did not!) result in a lot of support for Israel, which is hated by oil-rich neighbors. Our support is floating on a raft of humanitarian interest. Without getting into a long recounting of the emergence of US support, Israel has always been upsetting to advisors and forced through over their objections by elected officials.
Fortunately, I guess, opinions on foreign policy don't matter as much since people in the US usually rate FP at the bottom of what they care about. This is why the Biden regime has largely been able to (correctly) support Israel to allow them to pursue their terror eradication goal, while the potential for more direct US involvement has constituted a credible threat to Hezbollah/Iran, keeping them to the periphery of the conflict. Much of the pro-Palestine movement is just an opportunity for "socially conscious" people to get pictures of themselves supporting The Current Thing on social media, thereby boosting their own social status, and is not representative of anything like an informed opinion.
"terror eradication" is an interesting euphemism for ethnic cleansing. Reminiscent of Nazi "anti-partisan operations"
I'm not here to challenge you in believing whatever you want
Russia news. Russia welcomes Westerners who are willing to abandon liberal values, except if they are Evangelicals, because then they will be killed (in Ukraine) or imprisoned (in Russia). I don't link because it is all over Google. Are these people really stupid? Alienating the largest anti-liberal group in the West? This does not look like a coherent state. One cannot at the same time drain away Western conservatives and be murderously paranoid about everyone who might be an American agent...
Isn't the largest anti-liberal group in the West Roman Catholics? At least they seem to be the only ones who sometimes manage to get their countries to not be too liberal on abortion and divorce.
It's very traditional and illiberal to persecute heretics :)
Russia lies about this. I was surprised how few people knew that the free world has far more religious freedom. It's also the more religious of the two sides including theocratic Iran. I thought it was one of those things we all learned in school. Ukraine sometimes flies over Russian Evangelicals to talk with American Evangelicals to impress this fact on them.
Anyway, if you want to leave the decadent US for a place where your dollar goes farther and people are more religious and traditional then there's much better options. Russia is a world leader in divorce and alcoholism. It has the same church attendance as Sweden. It also has a lot of crime and a life expectancy comparable to North Korea. You can argue that China's doing well but not Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, etc.
This is partly false (alcoholism) and partly misleading. Russian (and Ukrainian) life expectancy are very similar and very close to the world average. The murder rate (a proxy for the crime level as murders are harder to ignore) is similar to that of the US.
It's true that it's mostly secular but why invent things?
The WHO shows Russia as either the highest or second highest in alcohol addiction rate. It trades with Belarus though Hungary is creeping up close. It is not number one in alcohol consumption but that's not the claim.
The Russian murder rate is about 15% higher than the US which is still fairly significant. And its life expectancy at birth is about the same as North Korea, 73 years, vs 79 in the US.
Well, why did you choose North Korea rather than any other country having approximately the same (world average) life expectancy like Paraguay, Dominican Republic or Ukraine?
As to the WHO alcohol addiction data, you're right but I find it strange that it differs so much from alcohol consumption per capita rankings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita) and that similar countries have very different alcohol addiction rates.
Is Portugal 4x worse than Spain? Is Ukraine so much better than nearly all of its neighbours (3x less than Russia, Hungary and Belarus, 2x less than Poland and Slovakia)? (https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/alcohol-use-disorders-(15-)-12-month-prevalence-(-)-with-95-) It seems like the definition of "alcohol use disorder" plays a role here. Of course consumption per capita data is not perfect as well, it may not capture illegal production of alcohol.
Russia is definitely one of heavy-drinking countries (breaking news!), I just think this data doesn't tell us whether it's "normal East European drinking" or "a world leader in alcoholism" on par with Hungary, of all places.
Because they're allies that border each other and both undemocratic. But if you want to compare them to Paraguay then go ahead.
The WHO statistics are based on people who have long term addictive behaviors, not on raw consumption, because the WHO is interested in alcoholism as a disease. By most measures Russia is unusually socially dysfunctional even compared to Eastern Europe. I don't really care whether a country drinks. Finland drinks a lot. Saudi Arabia drinks very little. But people who need treatment for alcoholism is unambiguously a social issue in a way that Italians drinking wine is not.
FWIW, per capita alcohol consumption in Russia is lower than in Poland, UK, Germany or Ireland (and bunch of other countries), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita
It _used_ to be higher - but never as high as movies would lead you to believe...
Alcoholism and per capita alcohol consumption are (naturally) correlated but not exactly the same. Russia has a high concentration of substance abusers of various types and alcohol is among them.
Any data to back that claim?
Again - a lot of people in Russia (and other ex-USSR states) were hit hard by USSR collapse, and turned to alcohol (and other substances)... but they largely dies out by mid-00
It's WHO data. And while you're right alcoholism rates declined after the late 1990s/2000s they still remain higher than pretty much everyone else. The main competitors are Belarus or Hungary. And looking at the latest data it does look like Russia's slipped into second behind Belarus and, if trends continue, might slip into third behind Hungary. But this is due to Hungary/Belarus going up rather than Russia going down. And they're all neck in neck anyway.
At a purely pragmatic level, persecuting Evangelicals is likely to increase US support for Ukraine.
But also: do you *really* want to incur the wrath of the kind of Evangelical that donates a Red Heifer to Israel for .. um ... Biblical prophetic reasons. Those guys mioht not have any qualms about nuking Russia into annihilation.,
My wife and I do IVF to do genetic testing (we need to) and we want a large family. Based on our experiences I suspect that the Dr isn’t trying hard enough to optimize for a large family. Anyone have any thoughts on how to go about optimizing the process to get more out of each retrieval, increase the chances of successful transfers etc..?
Feel free to reply or email me at iz8162k23 at gmail
Try and convince the doctor that yes, you really *do* want a large family and won't end up with frozen embryos that you then leave in storage forever because "eh, we changed our minds, one kid is enough" or that, if you end up with twins/triplets in the successful round of implantation, you won't go to court over "we wanted ONE baby not THREE".
Multiple births seem to be considered a risk, and the recommendation is "selective reduction":
https://www.reproductivefacts.org/news-and-publications/fact-sheets-and-infographics/fertility-drugs-and-the-risk-of-multiple-births/
"What can I do to reduce the risk of multiple births?
During a fertility treatment cycle when fertility drugs are used with timed intercourse or insemination, your doctor will monitor your cycle very carefully. The use of fertility medications makes it more likely that one or more eggs will be fertilized. However, if it appears that too many eggs are developing, your doctor may cancel your cycle and tell you not to have an insemination or intercourse to reduce or eliminate your risk of multiple births. During in vitro fertilization (IVF), the egg and sperm are joined (fertilized) in the laboratory. The resulting embryo (fertilized egg) is then placed into the womb (uterus). Multiple gestations are least likely when one embryo is placed in the womb. ASRM has published guidelines on the number of embryos to transfer when undergoing an IVF cycle. These guidelines can be found at www.asrm.org.
Some pregnancies may start as a multiple gestation but undergo what’s called a “spontaneous reduction”. This is when one of the pregnancies stops growing (miscarriage) and the other pregnancy continues normally. No treatment is needed when this occurs, and ultrasounds can determine if the remaining pregnancy is growing normally. In some cases, the risk of a multiple gestation is too great. A doctor may suggest that you consider a procedure called selective reduction. Selective reduction is a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses to one or two. Usually, the procedure is done after the risk of a miscarriage, but still early in the pregnancy to increase the chance of a healthy and successful pregnancy. Choosing to do this procedure is difficult. Individuals and couples who are thinking about this option should talk to their doctor and a counselor."
use more ovary-stimulating drug
to get more eggs
per
cycle
I suspect my dr is too conservative with this but Idk. We’re hopefully going to be working with an advocate\concierge of sorts going forward but all the info I can get is good as I’m sure they aren’t perfectly informed either
There may be some disadvantages of getting lots of eggs per cycle. You would need to check on that. It def uses up the woman's remaining eggs faster. But whether it reduces quality of eggs or is hard on the woman's system I don't know. I had IVF and only made about 4 eggs per cycle. Talked with other women who were making a dozen or so per cycle, and nobody seemed worried about that. You will probably also have speak up to the doctor and tell him your preferences. If there are some disadvantages to doing it the way you want to, let him explain that. Then, if you decide that the disadvantages are outweighed by the advantages, just state clearly that you understand the pros and cons, but have some unusual priorities and would like treatment to be carried out in the way you prefer, rather than the usual way. Many docs would be OK with that, so long as what you're proposing isn't actually dangerous for the woman. Others, however, are not able to see you as in informed consumer of their services. But to be heard even by the responsive ones you have to speak up really loudly and clearly (but in a polite friendly way).
They seem pretty unwilling to engage with us in any way other than treating us as children.
It is probably easier for all docs to do their jobs if their patients accept the role of compliant children, so docs give subtle cues that that is what they prefer. However, into every life a little rain must fall, and there are situations where active patient involvement complicates the docs life and slows them down, but leads to a better outcome. I would recommend speaking up despite the cues that smiling compliance is preferred. You can start with something not a bit argumentative, something like "we've been thinking things over and would like to ask what is done in situations where people would like to have a large family. Are there adjustments that favor that outcome?" And then ask about pros and cons of the adjustments. You have to be willing to say things that defy the cues and make things awkward. Obviously if the doctor says, "I never do that, if you want someone who will then go elsewhere," then there's no point in continuing. But most are not that rigid.
I've sent you a direct message on substack.
Thanks! Replied
Here's something very important and frequently ignored. For older women, frozen embryo transfers work better than fresh embryo transfers.
Interesting. Thanks !
Just wanted to applaud Manifold for being so transparent with their finances!
*where* did they disclose their finances?
Could be 'Ozempic undoes the specific toxic effects of the modern environment', those being large amounts of calories in the form of ultraprocessed food and lack of exercise, and those toxic effects including, but not limited to, obesity.
I'm skeptical that brainwashing is a useful concept on average - I mean the chance that you or anyone you know has been brainwashed or will be brainwashed is low enough to consider other options first: horses not zebras.
External evidence for brainwashing [alternative explanation]:
- Membership of a niche political or religious organisation [the English speaking world prizes such groups highly in its history and culture, even if this or that group is cringe]
- Devotion to a charismatic leader [also cringe, but also the human condition - ancestor worship; monarchism; great man theory of history; fan culture]
- Refusal to engage in reasoned argument [an idea can be useful X% of the time and still break down the rest of the time. Many people find this embarrassing and don't like talking about it]
- breaks off contact with people outside the organisation [half-empty: teenage angst or mid-life crisis. Half-full: having constantly to defend your treasured imperfect idea to friends and family is exhausting, even if they are right that doesn't stop them being assholes about it, cutting off may be rational]
- sudden change in personality [half-empty: teenage angst or midlife crisis; half-full: “find yourself” is a trope but personality is a compromise, encountering a transformative idea can make a person e.g less agreeable and that is a good thing if they were too agreeable previously]
People delude themselves into believing ridiculous nonsense all the time, based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence. Human belief systems are far more of a social construct than anything else. So the odds of any one person you meet with outlandish views having been brainwashed is extremely low. But there are clearly psychological mechanisms to get people to believe in obvious nonsense, and someone with access to those mechanisms would be a very effective brainwasher.
> the odds of any one person you meet with outlandish views having been brainwashed is extremely low
Well said.
>someone with access to those mechanisms would be a very effective brainwasher.
Indeed. The question is what the odds are that the next type-A political/religious communicator you encounter is trying to brainwash you.
Alternatively, culture brainwashes everybody, making the familiar experiences you put in brackets universal.
Having an idea that works less than 100% of the time seems pretty universal! And if culture is brainwashing then we don't have a word for what real cults do and that seems a shame.
I think you left off most of the traits that distinguish cults from people being raised in a culture that carries with it a few assumptions about the world. Such as,
- Sleep deprivation.
- Replacement of normal activities with ideological reinforcement.
- Threat of isolation from group for deviation made the subject of continual, active concern.
- Near-term promises of an apocalypse or great change, intended to promote near-term thinking.
There is also the matter of degree or quantity. Threats of isolation for deviance are universal, but not a continual, active threat for very small deviations or lack of devotion.
I don't deny there really are cults that really do brainwash - I deny that the next crazy person you meet on the Internet has been brainwashed (on average).
Oh, it never occurred to me that you'd be denying that because I never thought anyone believed it. Yes I agree.
I'm pretty sure people use the word for fringe political groups on the other side of the divide e.g QAnon, BLM or whatever.
This community really loves truth. Is it widely known that learning one true statement in isolation can lead to a less accurate view or worse decision?
https://substack.com/@peteri394q/note/c-65138247
Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
Basically investigate an issue thoroughly or shut up about it. But "truthbombing" is not helpful.
Thinking about this, I am much less sympathetic to free speech concerns. People just throwing 14/50 out (purported US racial crime stats) are really not helping anyone to understand this well. It is better if they shut up.
Understand that we are in a new historic situation. The legacy media obsessing about listening to both sides can be sometimes ridiculous but handles this kind of situation really well. Instagram memes do not. In the past free speech was more defensible, because the standards of argumentation and attention spans were higher.
I know there are dangers of people having too much power, I really wish this was somehow democratized.
> Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
No it doesnt, its probabilistic for a reason
>Thinking about this, I am much less sympathetic to free speech concerns.
>I know there are dangers of people having too much power, I really wish this was somehow democratized.
what if PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY, we lived in a system when you were accused of a crime you got to say your side of the story before a judgement was ruled; and maybe imagine "rights" such as something about everyone saying what they wanted
Your link goes to an assertion that being aware of a stereotype, even when the stereotype is true, can cause people to make worse decisions. And of course, that is possible, if the person has a poor understanding of probability. But that certainly doesn't go against Bayesianism. In fact it is the opposite! The point of Bayesianism is to help make an accurate assessment in the context of numerous sources of information, even if many are somewhat inconclusive.
What you are saying is pretty old and trite: that we should promote the well-intentioned lie in the hope of attaining a happier future. What you neglect is that people have memory and you can only go to that well so many times before it dries up. Maybe if people were more aware of the 14/50 statistic (it's for homicides collated by the FBI and I believe it's gotten worse over the last few years; "purported" is an adjective with little justification) they might be less eager to leap to simplistic explanations of the statistics of fatal interactions with police - but I don't see you complaining about *those* errors.
Or is your quibble just with statements made in isolation? But they never are; even if someone just posts "14/50", they are posting it in a context of implied assertions, some of which may well be false, and it is right to challenge those. But by that token, your argument also provides only a small part of the picture...
There's a classic Scott post on "Learned Epistemic Helplessness" in this vein.
What makes you think this community loves truth? I'd say that's a false statement right off the bat. Most of the interactions on these threads seem to be people arguing their opinions without any supporting data.
I'd say it's better than most places for discussing things, but not great. Things weighing in favor of people being responsive when they hear the case for an unfamiliar truth is that people are are less identified with groups united by common views; and are smart and have trained minds, so can understand complex arguments and data. Things weighing against are that many people are very identified with their smarts and erudition, and so experience attacks on things they believe as attacks on them; many people are not good listeners; and many people are not good introspectionists, so are much less likely to be consciously aware that they are rejecting an idea because of wounded vanity.
The best set-up I ever heard about for fruitful idea exchange was the Yale Political Union, who had (and may still have -- I don't know) the idea that all debaters could expect to be "broken" in some debate, i.e. to say at some point, "I have no rebuttals for your main argument. You have convinced me you are right." Most debaters broke others and were broken from time to time, and having some of each on their record earned people respect.
Even worse, I was recently chastised by someone on here for providing too much data to support an empirical claim.
Nothing drives soi-disant rationalists crazier than someone who swamps their preconceived notions with contrary data. I hang out here for those moments, and I cherish them. Can you provide a link to the exchange? ;-)
https://fromthechair.substack.com/p/magic-runes-and-sand-dunes-the-binary
So in the abstract, I think it's worth refining the concept of "true" into three variants.
* illustrative = correspondence between signifier and signified
* faithful = correspondence between signified and referent
* factual = correspondence between signifier and referent
In the ivory tower, "factual" (i.e. "truth" being a property of whether propositions are descriptive of reality) tends to be privileged over the others. But what's often more important is "faithfullness" (i.e. whether your mental model is faithful to reality). Because mental-models (not blobs of ink) are what pay the rent.
So when I hear
> Is it widely known that learning one true statement in isolation can lead to a less accurate view or worse decision?
my initial reaction is: "focusing on statements over models is a red-herring to begin with". E.g. this is the issue with statements like "dihydrogen monoxide is a key component of acid rain". Technically correct, but pragmatically misleading for those who slept through chemistry class.
----
> Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
To reiterate, I think it's a mistake to privilege statements over models. E.g. copper is a micronutrient. Copper is needed for a healthy diet, but you can't just eat copper ingots in isolation and expect to live very long. Likewise, a proposition is often just a single node in a bayesian network. That node might be *needed* to achieve 100% accuracy. But of course it's not *sufficient* to achieve 100% accuracy. And there's no guarantee that adding that particular node to the model will result in a monotonic increase in accuracy, on the margin. This is what Peter is really getting at, when he talks about conditionalization.
----
Yes, epistemology is hard work. No royal road. Dunning Kruger. Facts are cheaper than models. Etc. So on the individual level, I'd agree that "deep dive or stfu" is probably a good heuristic. That being said,
> Understand that we are in a new historic situation.
> In the past free speech was more defensible, because the standards of argumentation and attention spans were higher.
As I understand, no actually, we're in an old historical situation. The Pull Request [0] tells me (don't remember where exactly, but I'll look if asked) that Ben Franklin, et al would have felt right at home with modern shitposters on twitter. It's the post-WWII era that's unique in the quality of its information environent. The theories I've heard on why include: A) market segmentation was not as advanced; B) government regulation. I wish I could comment more on this, but I don't really understand it that well myself at the moment.
The idea "freedom of speech" was predicated on the idea that the media environment is a market, and bad ideas would lose to their competition. So an advocate for freedom of speech would probably counter that the best counter to "truthbombing about the 13%" is for others to advocate for the contrary position. Personally, I have some reservations about why this might not always be the case, which I find hard to articulate [1] at the moment. But I think it's worth acknowledging that the original solution was to have the racists, the antiracists, and any other willing contenders, to duke it out in an epistemic battle royale. Rather than to expect one's ideological rivals to cultivate a sense of discipline and rigor.
----
[0] https://www.thepullrequest.com/
[1] If I had to put it into words, I'd say that
A) the idea that "truth always wins" seems sort of optimistic to me. I do think truth tends to win the long-run. But, as the saying goes: "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent". I think falsehoods can be very effective in the short-term/medium-term.
B) I think the market incentives for falsehood can be stronger than the market incentives for verisimilitude, even in the long-term, if the falsehoods are loadbearing components of the simulacrum.
For an intra-rationalist debate about how certain kinds of evidence can skew reasoning, I recommend this: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-kavanaugh-on-fideism
> Note that learning one true statement and then having a less accurate view goes 100% against Bayesianism!
I don't see this - we're picking marbles from a bag, of course picking one extra marble can skew your picture of what's in the bag.
See https://nickbostrom.com/information-hazards.pdf for an academic dive into this.
The problem with info hazards in the real world is that they are usually highly contextual: a fact that might challenge one person's deeply held incorrect belief can push another further down the road of confirmation bias. Free speech is a concern because people who are challenged by a true fact can claim to just be preventing confirmation bias and protecting everyone from true but misleading info and thus suppress it. Allowing only true information is the worst solution, except for all the others.
The secret to being a bore is to say everything.
Following on from the interesting "slave/master morality" discussion I had with Concerned Citizen in the previous thread, I've now written a more sustained criticism of Nietzsche's work:
https://gayasarainbow.substack.com/p/ni-dieu-ni-maitre
As well as criticising his idea, I try to work through the political implications for us. Basically, the master/slave thing is lurking in the background of the Culture War, even when not explicitly invoked -- so dissolving it makes the whole debate look a lot less intractable (at least to me).
Even if you have no interest in Nietzsche, please take a look at Section 4, which is the politically juicy part (but fairly short and simple).
Does anyone know anything about mold-related respiratory issues? I’ve been having intermittent breathing issues for the past year, which I have finally, (nearly) conclusively linked to mold exposure. I’ve seen doctors for this a few times, but they have tended to focus on the wrong things, and I have yet to actually be diagnosed with anything.
The problem started with my car: within a week or so of getting it back from a body shop (where it had sat idle for two months last summer) I started having symptoms while driving it and for some time afterwards. Once I figured this out I mostly stopped driving it, but the symptoms persisted intermittently for weeks afterwards, slowly fading in frequency and intensity. For the next several months I made repeated attempts to clean the car (not knowing what exactly was responsible), only to have the symptoms return at full intensity if I tried driving it again. In December I discovered mold growing under the seats, which I assumed was responsible, but my best efforts to clean it still didn’t render it safe to drive. We ultimately just got rid of the car, but that didn’t solve the problem: I had several recurrences of high-intensity symptoms in the months following (which led me to doubt the mold had been responsible), before gradually returning to something like normalcy during the middle of the summer. Then, towards the end of July, I started gradually having symptoms return in my apartment. I’ve managed to play whack-a-mold with several clusters–one of which I identified conclusively, dispelling my remaining doubts as to the cause–and intend to scour the apartment thoroughly, but that won’t happen instantly.
The major symptoms have been aching lungs, shortness of breath (sometimes extreme but generally short-lived) and a strange, altered-state-of-consciousness feeling that’s a little like (but not exactly like) dizziness, lightheadedness or being high. Each of these differs in its pattern of presentation, and they don’t necessarily occur all at the same time. There’s a long list of other possible minor symptoms, but none of them have the same combination of consistency, frequency and