This is the bi-weekly open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. Also:
1. There’s a new ad on the sidebar for Signal Data Science. This is a rare ad I can (sort of) testify for – I’ve known co-founder Jonah (user JonahSinick on LW) for a couple of years and he definitely knows his stuff, both in terms of mathematics and how to teach effectively. If you’re interested in data science, check it out.
2. I’ve been reading Current Affairs magazine and really enjoying it. It’s edited by Nathan Robinson of Navel Observatory and discusses issues from what for ignorance of a better name I think of as “the Freddie deBoer perspective” – ie pretty far leftist/socialist, but especially interested in criticizing other leftists – especially those who prefer wet dreams about gulags and guillotines, or analyzing how Rihanna lyrics can teach us about mansplaining, to actually fighting for justice. Although the articles are pretty good, what I really love is the sense of humor: for example, instead of real ads, they have beautifully designed fake ads for “companies” and “products” like Tony Blair’s Dictatorship Counseling (“no human rights violation too egregious to euphemize”) and Big Pharma-style socialism pills (“occasional side effects include…accidentally becoming the very embodiment of the thing you are attempting to eliminate”). There are also interviews “conducted nonconsensually and transcribed entirely from the results of public Twitter harassment” and fun childrens’ activities like Color The Flint Water Supply. They say that they’re going to need a lot of subscriptions to stay afloat effectively, so if this sounds interesting, consider sampling some of their work on their website, read their pitch, purchasing a single sample issue pretty cheaply, or subscribing here. Warning: they are not very nice or charitable and you might find them a bit abrasive if you do not 100% agree with them about everything.
3. Thanks to the very many people who made exceptionally generous donations the last time I linked a GoFundMe campaign on here. To the people who were critical of it, I ask that you remember that the people involved may read this blog, that they are down on their luck and in an emotionally fragile state, and that having strangers publicly debating your life choices can be pretty traumatic. If you don’t think a campaign involving such a person is a worthy use of your money, I would prefer you just quietly not donate to it (exceptions if you have constructive criticism about why it is not effective, or want to share novel information about why it might be a scam, or something like that). Thank you for your cooperation.
4. Speaking of which – a few months ago, I linked to a GoFundMe for Esther (Multiheaded in the comments here), who is a trans woman trying to emigrate from Russia. You were very helpful and donated quite a bit of money; unfortunately, the plan failed as Canada rejected the immigration visa. Now Multi is trying again with the help of Promethea (socialjusticemunchkin on Tumblr) who has a plan to get Multi into Europe, details currently secret. I don’t know Promethea well and can’t vouch directly, but other people I can vouch for do vouch for them; you will have to decide whether three degrees of social proof is sufficient. There’s a new GoFundMe up if you’re interested in helping (some clarifications here)
5. And a very different kind of campaign – computer science conference LambdaConf uses a blind review process to select topics for presentation. This year one of their selections was a talk on weird-namespace-software Urbit by Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug). A group of Twitter activists demanded that he be excluded from the conference for his political views. When the conference refused to capitulate, the activists started pressuring sponsors to pull out of the conference in the hopes of making the conference financially unviable. After some preliminary success, anti-censorship blog Status 451 launched a counter-campaign to get people concerned about freedom of opinion in tech to donate to LambdaConf and help make up the difference. This is usually where I’d ask you to donate, except that they reached their $15,000 goal within the first day of their campaign, they’re now 146% funded, and the only reason to give any more at this point is to give an even louder FUCK YOU to the people involved. Since that actually sounds pretty good, you can take a look at the campaign here. See also ESR’s take.
6. Some free CFAR summer programs in Oxford and the SF Bay Area, mostly for math people interested in AI risk. Some travel assistance available if you qualify.
7. I’m in California right now – I’ll be taking the next few days to visit my family down south, but I’ll be back in the Bay Area on Thursday and I’d like to get some SSC meetups in. The current plans are:
— 2 PM on Sunday April 17 at the CFAR office, 2030 Addison, 7th floor, Berkeley
— 7 PM on Monday April 18 at 3806 Williams Rd, San Jose
— Afternoon of Tuesday April 19 at the Googleplex, time and exact location tbd
— 5:30 PM April 19 with Stanford EA at Tressider Food Court, Stanford
I’ll make a separate post confirming this information and giving more specifics sometime later this week. Remember the usual advice: if you’re debating whether or not you should come, especially if you’re worried because you don’t fit the usual SSC demographic or you don’t think you have anything to contribute or you’re not sure you’ll fit in or whatever – just come and it will probably be fine.
![Tony Blair’s Dictatorship Counseling](https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/004/859/207/64912acf8aafcae3c660d16c4282f265_original.png"){kind=link}
I don’t appreciate wordfiltering, it is a band-aid, and there’s nothing more permanent than temporary solutions.
When 4chan wordfiltered “wapanese”, the word “weeaboo” entered the public dictionary immediately and seemingly permanently. When it wordfiltered “reddit”, people just started saying “leddit”.
Now we have this anthill nonsense and harry potter references and pastebins and rot-13 and why bother.
Because anthill references are funny?
It feels wrong to agree with The Frannest, but… yeah, it’s ineffective.
It makes it significantly harder for people looking for something to quotemine. Could help with google search results as well?
Since it’s an open thread and posters here cover a wide range of expertise, a request for information …
I am currently working on the sequel to Salamander, my second novel, and would like some relevant historical information. The novel is a fantasy. The world it is set in has technology somewhere between our fourteenth and 18th century (no firearms) plus weak magic. Political institutions a bit like seventeenth or eighteenth century England–a monarchy with real power but not absolute, feudalism on the way out but not entirely vanished.
The capital of the kingdom of Esland has been taken in a surprise attack by an army from a neighboring state. A good deal of looting, burning and killing, as usual under such circumstances. A defending force is still holding out in the citadel.
Two weeks after the attack, what does the situation look like? Are the attackers sending looting parties into the countryside for food or simply offering to buy it, thus giving farmers an incentive to come to them? Is there a curfew in the city? Has city life for the survivors more or less returned to normal? Have invaders recruited locals to patrol the streets, as a step towards longer run control over the city? Are the city gates open and guarded, open and not guarded, open during the day and closed at night (relevant because I have a character planning to enter the city)?
The invaders anticipate an army or armies eventually being assembled to try to retake the capital, but there is not yet one close enough to be an immediate threat.
Anyone know of good historical sources, preferably primary, that describe this sort of situation? I would rather steal from history than make it up out of whole cloth.
What is the goal of the attackers? Are they in for the looting only and planning to retreat back to their land before the Eslandian and allied forces attack or do they intend to keep the capital either as a base for further conquest or as a bargaining tool? I imagine that this would make quite a difference.
During the the 4th crusade the Venetians/Crusaders picked up a man pretending to have a claim to the throne who promised to reward them when they arrived at Constantinople, but when they arrived nobody particularly wanted to install him or reward the Venetians / Crusaders so they conquered the city and divided up the Eastern Roman Empire (at least one chunk belonging to the former Greek nobility), at least on of which was given to a noble who was traveling with them.
Mongol Conquests are examples of a foreign power invading and keeping a loose long term grip, but are probably not what you are looking for.
(Not an expert, but an enthusiast)
This sounds somewhat like the Siege of Antioch during the First Crusade – a bit earlier than your 14th-century start date, but the Crusaders were a bit better organized than the usual feudal hosts of the day. Two other differences, not sure how critical they are for your scenario. First, there was an eight-month siege before the surprising bit of treachery opened the city for sacking, etc, though the Crusaders were not strong enough to completely envelop the city so “siege” may be an overstatement – more of a large army parked near the city and causing a nuisance. Second, the the army assembled to retake Antioch arrived a month after the city’s fall, and this was not unknown to the Crusaders(*). Your two-week mark would be about halfway through the interlude between the fall of the city and the arrival of the relieving army. The keep held out until the relieving army had been defeated, then surrendered.
I don’t have any primary sources on the First Crusade handy, but I can’t imagine they would be hard to find. A few observations on logistics, though. Your 14th-to-18th-century period covers a revolutionary transformation in that field, driven in part by the great national armies of the 30 years war. By the mid-17th century, armies had organized supply trains and depots, and did not generally need to forage. So you’ll have to decide whether that transformation has happened in your scenario.
If foraging is taking place, paying the locals probably won’t work because at that scale you’re probably asking for their children to go hungry, and paying the locals probably isn’t necessary because you just defeated their army and can take what you want. This is what generally limited the size of pre-17th century armies; if the defending force is as large as it can be without starving out the locals and yours has to be bigger to defeat them…
Similarly, and especially if there are holdouts flying the flag from the keep and an anticipated relief army in the future, the invaders will have to expect raids, banditry, and sabotage at any time. I do recall that being an issue for the Crusaders at Antioch. Generally speaking, the nightmare scenario in siegecraft is being attacked simultaneously from within and without, so as long as the keep is holding I can’t imagine the besiegers wouldn’t make use of the city walls and gates for security.
An army would have a field treasury of sorts, not for buying food piecemeal from local farmers but to encourage merchants to bring in ships and caravans from a distance. Possibly also for buying favor with influential locals. And keeping the loyalty of one’s own soldiers generally requires allowing them to spend their share of the loot and enjoy the benefits of a great city, preferably right now rather than next year when the war is over. So until the relieving army arrives there will be some level of commerce going on and sneaking in to the city should be possible, but not a matter of walking through an unguarded gate.
*Nor coincidental. Bohemond of Taranto could probably have taken the city at any time, but wanted the rest of the Crusaders sufficiently desperate that they’d agree in advance to let him keep the city as his personal and sovereign domain.
I’ve read primary source accounts of the siege of Antioch–and Jerusalem, where they basically killed everyone.
The question of the objectives of the attackers is complicated and raises some plot possibilities. I need to think more about it.
The attackers are from Dalmia, the kingdom immediately west of Esland. But the ultimate cause of the attack is the Dorayan League, a sort of old and decadent magical Byzantine Empire which both Esland and Dalmia used to be part of.
The Doray plan was to get the Dalms to seize the capital with Dorayan assistance, kill the King and his heir, loot the city then withdraw, setting off a civil war in Esland. That would give the Dorayans the opportunity to reestablish the system of indirect control via magic and money that they had been using in Esland (and Dalmia) but that the Eslanders had discovered and mostly eliminated.
It isn’t clear if that is what the Dalmians thought they were doing, in part because they were interacting not with the ruler of the League but with a subordinate who was planning a coup against the ruler and so might not have transmitted the plan as per orders. Also, of course, the Dalmians might have objectives of their own.
What makes it interesting is a point I hadn’t thought of until recently. If the Dalmians want to actually conquer Esland, one way is by putting a puppet on the throne. The obvious candidate is Eirick, one of the central figures in the novel, the grandson of the prince who lost out in the succession struggle, son of the lord who tried to seize the throne a few years back and ended up dead. If the Dalmians start announcing that they have come to put Eirick on the throne, that leads to all sorts of complications.
Possibilities:
1. The Dalmians carry out the original plan of the Dorayan ruler.
2. The Dalmians offer to give the capital back if paid a sufficient sum of Danegeld.
3. The Dalmians try to trade the capital for substantial territorial concessions.
4. The Dalmians try to annex the capital.
5. The Dalmians try to locate Eirick and put him on the throne as a puppet (he’s about thirteen at this point), possibly marrying him to a Dalmian princess.
Lots of interesting possibilities but this is probably the wrong place to discuss them at length, so people with ideas beyond my original historical query may want to switch to the discussion on my blog.
@The Nybbler: you wrote:
The judge didn’t exactly tear their testimony to shreds. Where they really undermined their case was in lying to police and lying to the court – eg, two of them said they had no contact with him after a certain point when they had. They tried to conceal stuff that was potentially embarrassing.
Other than that, trauma makes people behave weirdly, and memories can be really bad. These are 3 different things, though. The Crown did a poor job of preparing them. They fucked up, and the Crown fucked up, and Ghomeshi’s lawyer is really, really good.
I suppose my rationale is that if the stories had been made up, they would have been more lurid. Which, I understand, is far from a perfect heuristic. But one thing that false accusations of abuse and rape tend to have in common is that they describe really extreme scenarios: Satanic child abuse rings in daycares, for instance, or the UVA case (frat initiation gang-rape on broken glass). Again, this is the reason I believe he probably hit them without consent. It’s not a legal standard.
Certainly nearly all extremely lurid stories are false; there was a point in reading the Rolling Stone article that I started wondering what horror movie she got all that out of. That doesn’t mean all false stories are extremely lurid.
L.R. testified all about the bright yellow Volkswagen that Ghomeshi didn’t have at the time, in addition to the contact (which she lied about) with Ghomeshi after the alleged assault.
DeCoutere, in addition to lying about contacting Ghomeshi after the alleged assault (which was apparently rather extensive: ‘Ms. DeCoutere emailed back to Mr. Ghomeshi saying she was going to “beat the crap” out of him if they didn’t hang out together in Banff and that she would like to “tap [him] on the shoulder for breakfast.” ‘), also colluded with “S.D.”.
S.D. also contacted Ghomeshi — and gave him a “hand job” — after the alleged assault, despite saying that she felt unsafe around Ghomeshi.
Sure, trauma makes people behave weirdly and memories can be really bad. But people can also make stuff up that isn’t true or deny or leave out things which are. And IMO that’s the most likely explanation in this case.
The post-assault contact could be explained as the women, esp. DeCoutere, trying to feel like they were in control over what happened: if they act like what happened was OK, then it was, and they weren’t victims.
I suppose my reasoning is that if these really were three people out to harm another via false legal charges, and they were smart enough to put together stories that weren’t unbelievably lurid … it stands to reason they would have been smart enough not to say things that could be easily checked against evidence, and prepared for the courtroom. He also has a reputation otherwise: there’s accusations of harassment at the CBC, and a UWO prof has said that they kept students from interning at his show.
So, it’s highly plausible that he’s done at least some of the things he’s accused of. I think he did. But, again, “someone on the internet thinks he done it” is not a legal standard. And nobody who’s proposed changing the (criminal) legal standard has really explained how it won’t result in more innocent people getting convicted.
The harassment is a separate claim and I think he’s probably guilty of that.
> And nobody who’s proposed changing the (criminal) legal standard has really explained how it won’t result in more innocent people getting convicted.
Oh, they’ve explained all right. Many don’t believe there are accused people who are innocent. Others simply don’t care, because the innocent people are men, after all, and women have been getting the short end of the stick for millennia so why not stick it to men now?
I know there are people who think either thing, but I’ve encountered a lot of people who correctly identify that there is a serious problem – that a lot of people who commit sexual assault get away with it, for various reasons – and conclude that the solution must be found in the court system – usually by making conviction easy, in one way or another. They haven’t considered the implications. But I can see why they feel the way they feel: it’s a fucked up situation, and it’s not as though the current state of affairs hasn’t prevented people from getting wrongfully convicted (whether falsely accused out of malice, or a case of mistaken identity, as has happened more than once).
The “all accused are guilty” and “break a few eggs to make an omelet” types have considered the implications. They’ve just dealt with them in fairly ugly ways.
Only believing one side saves a lot of mental effort.
When Ezra Klein wrote about this a couple of years back, he made it clear that he had considered the implications and supported affirmative consent regardless as it’s better than the alternatives. The right immediately attacked him for supporting such an admittedly flawed and draconian standard; the left attacked him too for claiming the obviously correct standard was flawed and draconian.
Hard cases make bad law.
If some nonnegative false positive rate is targeted so as to keep the false negative rate from going to 1, and a particular crime has special circumstances that increase the false negative rate as compared to other crimes, then it might well make sense to tweak the rules of evidence surrounding that crime so as to bring it in line with the others.
I don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other of the second premise (special circumstances … compared to other crimes) but if you grant that the rest looks sound to me.
@Nancy Lebovitz – “Only believing one side saves a lot of mental effort.”
perhaps more charitably, it also allows action when one has lost patience with apparent deadlock. “We must do something, this is something, we must do this.”
“The post-assault contact could be explained as the women, esp. DeCoutere, trying to feel like they were in control over what happened: if they act like what happened was OK, then it was, and they weren’t victims.”
The problem with that theory is that there’s no possible action by the alleged victim that can’t be explained away with it.
But in this case it means that “well she didn’t act like a victim afterwards” doesn’t necessarily discredit them. What discredited them was the lies to police and court 10 years later.
At only a slight tangent …
Kasich, asked about preventing rape, suggested among other things that women should avoid parties at which there was a lot of alcohol.
And promptly got attacked for it.
@dndnrsn – “1. If some people say “this would be good” and then various different groups start advancing whatever “this” is, is that coordination? I wouldn’t say it is.”
I would. Or rather, some people saying arguing that an action would be good and then other people working to implement it is pretty much the sum of what I was talking about. Maybe “coordination” and “strategy” are the wrong words, though. “Tactics” does seem more accurate than “strategy”. How do you see it?
“Are any of the sub-movements actually new? All I can see that is really new is the increasing impact of social media. There have been practically identical movements on many different fronts before.”
I think you’re right. It seems more like existing groups adopting new tactics, philosophy, etc. The norms of discourse, epistemology and methods of judgement are what has changed, not the overall goals and probably not the membership.
“I personally agree with a lot of the object-level goals of the left-wing activist types, and I can be sympathetic to some of the others.”
I agree with this, most of the way. I have come to wonder whether some of the problems they claim to be fighting even exist, though. I think the role they’re trying to fill is an important one, but the problems with epistemology and community norms you point out can undermine a lot of their efforts if left unchecked. Excellent description, by the way.
“Again, this is the reason I believe he probably hit them without consent. It’s not a legal standard.”
I’ll confess to not being current on how the case has gone, other than I saw the acquittal headline in a google search recently. Still, I thought he was accused of sexual assault and/or rape. I can’t really see a way around siding with the official legal outcome; I don’t think there’s any other way to adjudicate low-evidence accusations fairly.
Coordination: In regards to tactics/goals/strategy, I don’t really think any of those constitutes coordination. If some academic in the 1980s says xyz, and it becomes a cause among various campus groups (who don’t communicate much, much less have a central leadership) and stays that way until the explosion of social media in the late 00s/early 10s means that it becomes popularized off-campus – but, again, there’s no communication or central leadership – I wouldn’t call that coordination.
Epistemology: I don’t know that the epistemology, norms of discourse, or methods of judgment have changed recently either. Knowing things based on statistics instead of feelings and individual experience, having norms of discourse that are based around avoiding logical fallacies, and making judgments based on what has been done rather than who did it to what is the norm among most humans at homst times – and even groups that supposedly aspire to a more “rational” way of doing these things (like, uh, us) fail to reach it (like, uh, us).
With regards to certain branches of left-wing academia, you can find a focus on lived experience, a rejection of traditional logical forms of argument, and a method of making judgments that focuses on power relations and group membership going back at least several decades.
This isn’t notable as a strange way of understanding the world and making judgments, but it is a bit unusual in the context of academia, which usually has at least pretenses to rationality.
I do admit to having some sympathy for the whole “pretenses to rationality just suit the status quo” position because this has happened in the past and still happens. The goal is to do rationality right this time (and of course it’s possible that our irrational brains have convinced us we’re being rational so as to better continue in beautiful irrationality; such is the joy of being human).
Object-level issues/problems not existing: When a movement – any movement, of any stripe – dedicates itself to fighting problems, but some/all of those problems don’t exist, or are different from what they think they are – the problem is usually related to epistemology. People either don’t know about, don’t care about, or find some way to dismiss facts that stand in the way of their narrative.
To take examples that have nothing to do with modern left-wing activists: anti-drug campaigns that focus on street drugs because everybody knows that heroin/cocaine/crack/pot is a scourge threatening society (when, by the numbers, alcohol is a top-shelf ruiner of lives, and prescription pills aren’t so great either). Anti-child-kidnapping campaigns that ignore that most children who are kidnapped are taken by a parent. Anti-child-molestation messaging that focuses on daycare employees and creepy strangers, when family members are the most common abusers.
Ghomeshi: My understanding (not a lawyer) is that he was accused of assault (hitting and choking) that was sexual because of the context (eg, while making out with someone).
“With regards to certain branches of left-wing academia, you can find a focus on lived experience,”
Are they reliable about all sorts of lived experience, or do they think that some sorts of experience (say, a white student bullied by black students) are to be ignored?
This is an honest question– I’m suspicious bur wouldn’t mind finding out that I’m wrong.
Speaking from “lived experience”, I would say that they think some sorts of experience are to be ignored. I am careful not to bring up my own personal experience now, because it will only result in ridicule.
For an ugly public example of one person’s experience not just being ignored but thrown back in his face, there’s the events which resulted in “Untitled”.
@Nancy Lebovitz/The Nybbler:
As far as I can tell, the lived-experience part of the epistemology usually is informed by the power-structure-based and group-based moral judgment. Some people’s lived experience is definitely worth more than others.
In the case of Aaronson, his experiences of what were pretty obviously serious mental issues were taken not to count, and it’s hard to avoid concluding that they didn’t count because he wasn’t a member of an oppressed group. Worse, he was a member of an oppressed group, claiming the sort of sympathy that should by rights belong to the oppressed.
It’s what comes of treating individuals as examples of groups: someone who is a member of a group that is, on average, powerful, in charge, etc is deluded or acting in bad faith if they say they are/feel weak, helpless, etc.
It’s very unfortunate when it is based on a narrative that doesn’t line up with the facts (eg, male victims of domestic abuse are fairly common, but in pretty much all narratives men don’t get abused, and if they do it’s a black mark on them – so male victims of abuse have a very hard time getting sympathy or even belief from pretty much everybody). It’s still unfortunate when it does line up with the facts (as a group, affluent cis straight white men don’t have it very hard – but the life of an individual affluent cis straight white man can still suck, and saying “well it isn’t systemic, it would be worse if you were less privileged, don’t whine” is pretty inhumane).
A good thing about opening the door to talk about some lived experience is that it makes it more possible to talk about more lived experience.
The current situation is better than all lived experience being written of as boring and/or whining and/or anecdotal.
I hope that the current situation leads to all lived experience being considered potentially relevant, but leavened with facts. Some people’s problems are worse than other people’s problems, and different kinds of problems have different solutions: helping a person who is advantaged by society in many ways but who has crippling depression is going to be different from helping a person who is discriminated against because of their ethnicity.
Currently, however, some lived experiences are given more weight than others, and bringing up facts and statistics is often unwelcome. Fairly minor and unsubstantiated complaints by some people seem to get more play in “respectable” sources than serious and substantiated claims by others.
Do nuclear power plants near densely populated areas render nuclear weapons obsolete? On a cost-damage basis, would it be sensible to rely on making conventional (or terrorist) strikes on nuclear power plants rather than building a nuclear weapon capability?
If an attack on a nuclear power plant is enormously successful, it might produce a Chernobyl-level outcome, though nuclear power plants are not trivial to damage and exact effects would vary depending on reactor design. If you compare the damage and death toll from Chernobyl to what a nuclear weapon can accomplish, it seems pretty clear that the answer to your question is “no.”
Having lived near one for a while, probably not.
They’re usually placed a fair distance away from major population centers, at least in the US where we have the space to do that. And even if you could guarantee a meltdown, being at ground level means there would be a lot less destruction than a comparable explosion from a bomb or warhead at a higher altitude. So you’re probably not looking at anywhere near the same level of death tolls.
Plus they’re pretty well hardened and guarded. Supposedly you could crash a plane into the side of the one near my old house and not damage the reactor itself, although I don’t know how accurate that is.
Nuclear power plants(*) tend to be hardened to the point where it would require nuclear weapons, or pretty serious conventional ones, to actually breach containment. The Israeli airstrike on Iraq’s breeder reactor at Osirak in 1981, for example, involve eight strike aircraft each targeting two, 2000-pound bombs at the same aimpoint. This is beyond any plausible terrorist attack. And yes, kamikaze airliners (well, accidental crashes at the time) were explicitly part of the design criteria.
Also, 31 people died in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl incident. Credible estimate of the total death toll, including people who might develop cancer in the future, range from 4,000-27,000. For the Hiroshima attack, the corresponding range is 90,000-166,000.
Also also, with a bomb you get to decide which people you want to kill, and where. The vast majority of the world’s killers, particularly the uniformed ones, are somewhat particular about who they want to kill.
*Though not all nuclear reactors, unfortunately
I would be interested in (especially) Norwegians’ opinion on this (if there are any here):
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36026458
It looks basically like what libertarians would accuse socialism of when they’re really paranoid (or stuff that actually was common practice in Soviet Union, but I meant the kind of Scandinavian version of “socialism”). It is hard to judge the specific cases given that all information is kept secret but that alone makes the system extremely non-transparent and prone to abuse by the authorities.
My first impression reading that story was “this confirms way too many latent suspicions, there’s no way it can be reliable”.
Then again, the BBC is usually quite reliable and it does not seem to have any obvious axe to grind here (if anything the BBC tilts slightly to the left).
I’ve heard about this before (although this is the first time I read about Norwegians citizens being affected) and like I said, it is hard to make any unbiased judgement of particular cases, given that the information is kept secret. But two things strike me as very strange and dangerous/suspicious about that system:
a) The fact that the child protection service acts pretty much unchecked by anyone
b) That it seems to be a common practice to separate the kids to different foster families. I was told by a Czech/German social worker I know and talked about this with that this is actually a good practice and “good for the kids” because they do not cling to the old family and adapt to the new environment, but I have my doubts. Her argument was more or less “we learned that in the social science class”, which does not inspire much confidence.
This is how child protection services operate in the U.S. I’m not surprised to hear it’s how things work in Norway also. I’d guess it is common in western countries. (By “it” I mean actions from child protection services having no due process, secret proceedings, and general lack of accountability.)
Is this news? Probably is for some people, but it’s not new.
From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:
Why would Harry be so worried about his ability to remember whether he’d taken care of his pet? His memory is generally very good.
@Nancy: His pet rock died, and he is still traumatized.
What I find puzzling is that if this is how things actually work in Norway or elsewhere, why are not people really concerned about that there? I would be afraid to raise children in such a country and this would probably be one of the most important things I would want the politicians to deal with.
So either it is not really that bad (although still an organization which has the right to take away people’s children and work in a way similar to secret services still seems to me like a really bad system) or the child protection service is careful about who they take the kids form. If it is a poor black family in the US, a lot of people will just assume that there were some problems, similar with foreigners in Norway.
This is why I’d like to find out what actual Norwegians think about it and how objective they think the BBC article is.
@Tibor
The Norwegian parents aren’t so hugely affected as the immigrants, because they know what sort of parenting is appropriate in Norway, and what is not. They live and breathe the culture, they have connections in the legal-bureaucratic system, etc. They know that finding an empty beer can anywhere near the children is red light for alcoholism, that any kind of bruise or wound that kids pick up is likely to be investigated for abuse, that the kids should be kept in the dark about incriminating things because the schools teach them to rat on their parents, that they should take valium before a meeting with the child services agents, etc. And if they do run afoul of the services, they really do appear to mostly submit and admit that they’ve done *something* wrong, no matter how slight, that it is *their* fault, not the tyranny of the unsupervised satrapy of child services.
@anonymous: Are you Norwegian/living in Norway or are these your assumptions? I guess that to most foreigners, the fact that Norway is so extremely strict about alcohol (contrast that to Germany, where 16year olds can legally drink beer and wine) because in their culture people apparently either are alcoholics or don’t drink at all, is quite surprising and might lead to problems (and probably not everybody checks the local customs in detail). I am not sure if every bruise the children get on a playground gets investigated by the service or about the other things. It looks like that from the various cases I hear about from Norway (but you always only hear the parent’s side) but it is hard to believe to me that Norway really is such a police state. If this were true as you describe it, I would be afraid to have kids in such a country (and would not want to live there anyway), the nazi/soviet comparison would not be so far off. I would think it is probably a broken system and I would expect it to do more harm than good, but it is hard for me to believe that something on the scale you describe can happen in a developed country in Europe today, especially if it is largely ignored.
@Tibor
Live there. Obviously, I am making inferences based on an outsider’s view.
Something like that, yes.
From what I’ve heard, it depends on if the schoolteachers rat on you or not. If they’re your best friends, stuff will be swept under the carpet, but if they don’t have a high opinion of you to begin with, oh, look, that bruise looks mighty suspicious. What I’ve also heard is that the services treat testimony of little kids at face value with alarming frequency. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the kid heard some rat-on-your-parents-if-they-abuse propaganda, did not like that it was refused candy last time at the store, and chose to punish their parents by telling the teacher about some fictional abuse. And then everyone goes thermonuclear on the parents, without even verifying the kid’s story with a doctor.
Norway *is* a police state. What is different from, say, the Soviet Union, is that the police and services are trusted to an unbelievable degree by the citizenry. The policeman is your nice uncle, not the outgroup thug. For what it’s worth, the services *do* act according to law, as far as is visible – it’s just that the legal framework is insane and creates spurious incentives everywhere. But it works as designed, so you can’t just accuse it of corruption.
It’s mostly low-risk if you’re a regular, centrist Norwegian. It is a rather higher risk if you are of a substantially different religion or culture. Not even protected class status will save you – according to what I’ve heard, Afghani immigrants have the highest rates of having their kids taken away.
Given that I happen to be of a different religion and culture, I *am* afraid of raising children here.
(EDIT: The Norwegian parenting culture is really weird. From parents, I’ve heard that it’s normal and socially accepted that parents are divorced, custody is divided, that kids are sent to government-run care centers as young as one year old, etc.)
It is ignored, IMO, because of two factors:
1) No provable corruption is taking place. “Reasonable” mistakes of assessment by agents acting in full accordance with legal procedure are difficult to attack from a typical person’s perspective (normal people often equate legal with moral).
2) The Norwegian state controls the Norwegian mainstream media. They have had rather exceptional success in preventing unorthodox views getting airtime on any of the national outlets – from either direction. Criticizing their own institutions for working according to design is not productive.
@anonymous: I wonder why you still live in Norway if what you say is true (or even if you just feel that way). From your description it looks like a pretty awful place to live (a really nice to visit as a tourist though, the nature there is stunning). If I felt like this about a country I lived in, I would be leaving at the first opportunity. Norway is rich, but so is Switzerland for example and it is also way less socialist (not just than Norway). Also, it has way more sunlight 🙂
Yeah, I was going to say something like “but the prevalence of corruption is not the only, or perhaps not even the most important measure of a good system”, but it is true that this is the mindset of many people even outside Norway.
By revealed preference, actual Norwegians agree – they don’t have children.
@anonymous: Hmm, according to Wikipedia, Norway has a higher birth rate than most countries in Europe.
Anonymous:
I can see how this might end badly. My three year old will just make shit up. Just the other day I watched her walk into a wall:
“Daddy, I did hurt my head.”
“Oh no, what happened?”
“[boy at nursery] did hit me.”
“(dies laughing)”
I live here because it makes me money. I will be returning home permanently in 2-4 years. Also, I don’t have kids yet, so the services can’t do me anything. If I do have kids here, I figure I am careful enough to avoid notice by the services long enough. Worst case, [redacted].
That’s true, although it is still below replacement, and a little propped up by immigrants. I don’t think the services have a substantial influence here – German child services work very similarly, from what I’ve heard, and Germany has a lower TFR than Norway does – again, being a proper Norwegian will save you in most of the cases.
But for some reason, I’ve seen articles about these problems in Norway several times already (although for the first time on BBC), whereas I have not heard of similar cases in the US (or any other country for that matter). It looks as thought the Norwegian child protection agency is much more inclined to take the children away from the parents. It is hard to say what “lack of parental skills” means if they do not give any details, but it sounds like they could not come up with something “solid” like sexual abuse, violence or drug addiction but someone did not like the parents or their parenting style.
I’ve read reports that US child protective agencies aggressively look for reasons to remove children of poor/minority families and more-or-less ignore richer/white families. Naturally the race angle is the focus of these stories.
There was also one case of a “free range kids” parent getting fined by the local agency for letting the kids play in a city park alone. But it didn’t go any further than a fine.
“whereas I have not heard of similar cases in the US (or any other country for that matter). ”
I haven’t followed the Norwegian case, but would you consider taking several hundred children, from infants on up, away from their parents on the basis of a bogus phone call and unhappiness with the parents’ religion a similar case?
It happened in Texas not that long ago. For details, from my blog at the time:
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/search?q=FLDS
@David: That looks pretty bad too. It seems like in both in Norway and in this case in the US, the child protection service assumes that someone with an unusual style of parenting (and in Norway, it seems pretty easy to be “unusual” if the Law of Jante is a real thing) is “obviously” abusing the children and tries to take them away. It seems that the problem is mitigated in the US since the range of “usual” is much wider there and so these things do not happen as often. But once they decide to take action, the the child protection services seem to operate similarly (at least based on your description of the events), that is in rather shady ways, in both countries.
Man, it’s a good thing Psychology is such a reliable and firmly grounded branch of the sciences. It’d be horrible to find out the research justifying this sort of thing was just confounders and researcher bias.
Part of the reason it’s hard to judge the main case the story mentions is that the couple isn’t answering questions from the press on the advice of lawyers. That doesn’t prove that there’s more to the story than the BBC says (there are lots of good reasons for lawyers to give such advice), but it also makes it harder to be confident that there isn’t.
Not to mention that the “crime” seems to be simple spanking.
Now my parents didn’t believe in corporal punishment, though honestly I wished they did over the alternative. But even the old-school “bring me a switch” sort of punishment doesn’t seem like it could possibly justify abducting someone’s kids.
Not Norwegian, but resident.
I have heard of this topic before; recently, even. My impression is that the cases are fairly sporadic, but one cannot say for certain, given in how much secrecy the services operate under. AFAIK, the procedure is something like this:
1. Someone – even by anonymous tip – indicates to the police or the services that the parents are in some way deficient.
2. The services review the claim and immediately confiscate the children, putting them in foster families.
3. Parents are subjected to a very likely lengthy bureaucratic-legal process over whether they are guilty of abuse or other failure, and whether the children would be returned to them.
4. Even if it would turn out that the children were taken away unnecessarily, if enough time has passed since they were taken, the services likely decide that for the good of the children, they should stay where they are, to avoid stressing them further.
The Norwegian mindset appears to be that children do not belong to the parents, and the parents are only temporary tutors that are obligated to look after them – and that they have no claim other than status quo for that. If they fail in some way, as determined by the prevailing mores and rules, the right to raise their own children is rescinded.
Immigrant parents seem the hardest hit, largely for cultural reasons. What is perfectly acceptable in one place concerning child raising constitutes heinous child abuse in Norway – and almost everywhere is less strict about parenting than this place. And don’t get me started over the issue of religious upbringing. Further, the immigrant parents don’t know how to deal with the cultural-legal-bureaucratic proceedings to rectify unjust seizure of their children. For example, where it would be quite natural to expect a mother whose children were taken by government agents to be in tears – except in Norway, where being seen as emotionally distraught this way serves as evidence that she is unstable and therefore unfit to be a parent.
I don’t think it is exaggerating to say that sounds nightmarishly dystopian, especially the last part – presumably if the mother isn’t distraught, she lacks emotional connection to her children and therefore is unfit to be a parent for that reason.
I’ve heard similar stories from the American child services agencies. It’s a thing.
There was a major child abuse case in Norway, which started in 2005, but was in the headlines till 2014 (also, a book was published in 2013). A little boy was physically abused by his stepfather until he died at the age of eight. Apparently, people saw bruises and such, but the kid never said, “stepdaddy beats me, please help,” so they did not intervene. [The only sources I could find in English are this page and this video.]
According to a Norwegian journalist, the boy “has become a national symbol of system failure and violence against children”. So, presumably they got really serious about preventing outcomes like that, and increased the number of false positives in the process.
And of course, if there’s a lack of transparency and oversight, some people will be tempted to cover up their mistakes. Incidentally, I’ve heard that mistakes in medicine are easier to detect and prevent when everyone is focused on improving the process instead of punishing the guilty — but this idea is counterintuitive to most people, so implementing it is a challenge.
So, in a previous link thread, back in June 2015, I read that ‘social justice activists’ pressured Alex Miller into disinviting You-Know-Who from the conference Miller was organizing — by saying, in essence, “Nice institution youse gots here, shame if somebody were to politicize it.” (Witty paraphrase by Scott.) The language used included: ‘decided to cave to the ban request’, ‘desire to give into that to avoid trouble’, ‘heckler’s veto’. Final sentence:
At the time, I took Scott’s summary at face value, and it informed my position on the matter. I’m definitely against conference organizers being pressured into making decisions that go against their own principles. They’re doing the work, so they get to decide. If someone disagrees with their decision, they can host their own conference.
But now I’ve actually looked into it, and it seems to me that Miller did follow his principles. He seems to believe that politicization would not be inflicted on the conference as punishment by outsider activists, but would inevitably happen in the minds of the attendees because You-Know-Who is already infamous for his views (published on his blog and popularized by his many fans).
I don’t really know what to think now. Was Scott’s post part of a wave of outrage trying to pressure conference organizers into acting against their own principles?
Quickly surrendering to a heckler’s veto is hardly a “principle.”
‘Surrendering’ implies some sort of conflict. As far as I can tell, there wasn’t any conflict between Miller and the people who had an objection to Yarvin.
According to Miller’s own account, he’d never intended to invite anyone hugely controversial in the attending community in the first place, because he believed it would reduce the quality of the conference (very important to him personally, as he was already committed to doing the work). Members of the attending community informed him about the controversy, he noticed he’d accidentally deviated from his own plan, and he retracted the invitation.
So, instead of “Let’s liberate conference organizers from mob pressure by forming a counter-mob,” this seems to be more like, “Let’s apply mob pressure to conference organizers whose decisions don’t match our preferences!”
The thing is that the “controversy” is largely manufactured. What does Urbit have to do with what Yarvin does in his free time? This seems like an obvious “race to the bottom” sort of scenario.
The real question is whether a project’s worthiness should be judged by it’s designer’s politics or on it’s own technical merits.
Do I really need to remind everyone that politicizing technical fields has a rather ugly history?
Well, here’s how Clark from Popehat (a.k.a. ClarkHat) describes Urbit in a cute pseudo-quote:
And later, in the comments:
So… yeah. And this is a sympathetic observer, perhaps not an expert on programming, but more familiar with Yarvin’s work than most SSC readers.
Non-political (or at least minimally political) software development projects certainly exist. But so far, I have seen no reason to believe that Urbit is one of them.
@ Nita
To reuse my example from before.
Rockets were originally conceived as weapons, and NASA was once run by Nazis. Does this make space exploration inherently fascist? Should we be no-platforming guys like Scott Kelly and Chris Hadfield for their failure to denounce Von Braun or the moon landings?
If your answer is “yes” I applaud your consistency.
If your answer is “no” then whether Yarvin conceived of Urbit as part of some grand moldbugian scheme is irrelevant. Judge the project on it’s technical merits and leave politics at the door.
To continue with your analogy, the debate is not over no-platforming Scott Kelly or Chris Hadfield. The position some commenters here are defending seems to be:
1. Anyone who refuses to invite Von Braun to a conference they’re organizing must be denounced for being an evil SJW (or a craven SJW-helper) and politicizing a technical field.
2. Anyone who decides not to attend a conference Von Braun will be speaking at must be shamed for being unreasonable.
3. Anyone who tells a conference organizer about their unreasonable decision not to attend must be denounced for being an evil heckler.
Personally, I don’t think anyone has a moral duty to invite or disinvite Yarvin to/from one of these conferences. Both Miller and De Goes seem to be 1) decent people, 2) passionate about technology and community-building, and 3) valuable contributors in both fields, so I’m not inclined to side with either of the two internet mobs.
It seems that you have your chain of events backwards. Yarvin had been invited, and was then disinvited after certain people raised a stink about it.
So you’re wrong, the debate absolutely IS over no-platforming Scott Kelly or Chris Hadfield. (or Von Braun)
The “internet mobs” in question are two mutually exclusive worldviews. One that believes that “everything is political” and one that believes that “science and technology must remain a-political if it is to be effective”. The associated argument being that someone who thinks that political considerations should trump scientific inquiry and/or technical merit has no business calling themselves a “scientist” or “engineer”.
We’re going in circles now. Miller didn’t want to invite anyone like Yarvin, so when he learned that Yarvin was someone like Yarvin, he disinvited Yarvin.
Yes, the opinions of the two mobs are mutually exclusive, but they are not jointly exhaustive of the possible opinion space. And both of these opinions are based on a political premise I reject — that all individuals hosting community get-togethers must select their attendees in accordance with the mob’s principles instead of their own.
Not everything is political (in the relevant sense), but Urbit does seem to be. So, it’s up to the organizers to decide whether they want to take the chance of bringing Urbit-related politics into their conference. Additionally, Yarvin seems to be kind of a smarmy asshole. Again, it’s up to the organizers to decide whether to risk inviting someone whose net contribution to the conference might be negative.
My point is that one of those three is not like the others.
“Not everything is political (in the relevant sense), but Urbit does seem to be.”
One person was quoted here as implying that Urbit had some connection to the author’s political views, but it wasn’t clear what. If someone designs an operating system in which system resources are allocated by competitive bidding by processes, that reflects an approach to decentralized coordination which has political implications, but the operating system itself isn’t political.
Are you actually familiar with Urbit (I’m not)? If not, what is your basis for thinking it’s political?
As best I can tell from the discussion here, the objection to Yarvin wasn’t that his project was political but that he had argued as Moldbug for political views people disapproved of.
“‘Surrendering’ implies some sort of conflict. As far as I can tell, there wasn’t any conflict between Miller and the people who had an objection to Yarvin.”
I hope you don’t think this is somehow a defense of Miller’s actions, that he was eagerly waiting by the phone for any hecklers to contact him so that he could uphold their veto.
I’m also curious: what would your opinion be if Yarvin was controversial because it was 1950 and he supported interracial marriage?
The ‘defense’ for Miller’s actions is that he’s free to make any judgment calls he wants, and other people are free to attend or not. What’s your justification for attempting to curtail Miller’s liberty?
If a group really wanted to reject a speaker for supporting interracial marriage, I would disapprove of the whole group in general, not just in relation to the conference.
If a group really wanted to include an active mass-murderer, I would disapprove of them as well.
In both cases, my disapproval would be caused by the moral views implied by their preferences, because I consider such views harmful to society. However, forcing the conference organizer to act against their own judgment would not change the group’s views, so that would be infringing on someone’s liberty for no good reason.
Luckily, Yarvin is neither a murderer nor a 1950s interracial marriage supporter, so neither including him nor excluding him implies anything terrible. Therefore, shaming is not morally justified for either Miller or De Goes.
In case you’re starting to wonder about pizzas and wedding cakes, a conference is more like a dinner party than a food item. A pizza won’t fall apart if you do something controversial, but a conference might, making all your hard work go to waste. And if you make both options controversial, there will simply be fewer conferences, because potential organizers will stick to their regular work and avoid the risk.
@Nita: “The ‘defense’ for Miller’s actions is that he’s free to make any judgment calls he wants, and other people are free to attend or not.”
It’s dispiriting how the defenses of no-platforming always seem to fall back to “well, what they did was legal.” Yes, Miller’s actions were legal. It’s also legal to drive fifty miles an hour in the left lane of the freeway, and it’s also legal to not hold the door open for someone carrying a bunch of packages, and it’s also legal to cast George Clooney as Batman. Whether these things are right is a different question entirely.
“And if you make both options controversial, there will simply be fewer conferences, because potential organizers will stick to their regular work and avoid the risk.”
True! But if the option of no-platforming is not made controversial, conference organizers will simply always give in to the no-platformers (except for the occasional man of principle, who will then be destroyed as an example to others) and we’ve effectively given veto power over intellectual discourse to some deeply unpleasant and authoritarian people who — even if you think someone like Yarvin is acceptable losses — have already made it clear that they won’t draw the line at ostracizing nebbishy monarchists. So it’s not quite as easy as that.
Or to put it another way: you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
ITT: Motivated Reasoning 101
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-two-humps-programming-aptitude-test-canned-for-overzealous-conclusion/
This relates to a doubt I have about IQ tests. They’re supposed to be about abilities that can’t be affected by training, but how sure can you be about that negative claim?
http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/instantiation-and-abstraction.html?_sm_au_=isVnJvKK5TWjtRRM&m=1
More about the Flynn Effect mostly being increasing skill at (some sorts of?) abstraction rather than an increase of usable intelligence.
Here we come up against the idea of “ability” = talent + will + skill. When I started programming (in the Air Force in the early 60s) there was an aptitude test made up by IBM that all prospective candidates had to take. It was not an easy test, but those who passed it were then able to undergo an intensive week of training (taught by IBM) and come successfully out the other side as a “machine code coder”, and be put into on the job program writing the very next week. Some months later there was another intensive week covering the rudiments of program design, etc.
Truly, when they write the history of IBM, they will put this crime down next to building machines to sort people into the camps.
People say I’m always whinging and moaning and full of hate when I comment on here.
Not today!
Last night was nerve-shredding but magnificent 🙂
No, you’re not.
Nah, only occasionally. Mostly you’re pointing out interesting literature.
I’ve come across a little essay on what the portrayal of minorities in fiction can mean to someone, on a personal level. It’s quite gentle, and although it discusses Ulysses, it might be palatable even to staunch anti-Ulyssists.
Some quotes:
http://www.spectacle.org/398/joyce.html
(Found via nostalgebraist.)
A good essay. Of course, the Jewish example suggests a solution to all other cases of problematic portrayals of minorities in fiction, namely: if you want it done right — do it yourself. For instance, once the victory of the Communist-Zionist Conspiracy was complete… I mean… once a sufficiently large number of prominent Jews established themselves in Hollywood, the result was assured: today, where is the anti-semitic portrayal of Jews in American media? There are scattered examples, to be sure, but you have to search high and low to find even a handful.
In short: “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em… and then beat ’em” — it worked for us, and it can work for you!
I decided to write up a quick list of what I think would be a sci-fi utopia I’d like to live in, but it got me wondering whether my idea of a utopia is actually a normal person’s dystopia. I’m a weirdo so.
MY UTOPIA
-The year is 2350. The world is very different.
-The populace is 25 million human/transhuman agents, with a few thousand machine agents, along with countless non-agents in their teeming billions, and some who fall between the gaps. The human populace substantially lowered at the end of the 21st Century. Later reductions in population were achieved in the 22nd Century, with Earth’s population then remaining relatively stable up to 2350, in spite of life extension technologies, due to the very small number of births, and low creation rate of legal agents by any means.
-There are now only 10 countries, occupying areas similar to but not entirely concurrent with the regions that are now known as; Europe, North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East, China and South-East Asia, Russia and Mongolia, India, Japan+Australia+Indonesia and those other weird islands combined as one, and finally, Antarctica (where the council of 10 meet). There are also a collection of experimental sea nations that are overseen more informally by the world council.
-These 10 countries comprise a loose form of world government, which hardly ever meets to do anything, except unite to attack egregious lawbreakers. The law as written in the world union constitution of 2276 is rarely updated, and consists of very few laws, mostly comprising of collective response to AGI risk, the global land area tax, and the global laws on slavery and mistreatment. The council of 10 are essentially guardians upholding a tradition that restores order in extreme cases, rather than a source of ceaseless legislation to achieve social improvement. One thing the constitution defines is the difference between sentient beings with humanized desires “agents” which deserve rights and those beings designed to be “hypoagents”, which can only follow orders and therefore need no rights, as they have no desires to be fulfilled, and no suffering to be protected from. Informally this distinction may be expressed as “Are you an agent?”
-Each country is generally libertarian, but local directly elected delegates electing further delegates enforce the law of the land. Machines by command of the delegates enforce various local rules governing the commons, and instead of border control, if you enter a new country, you will be sent an update of the laws into an internet connected device which you will be subject to in the new jurisdiction, but these laws are bound to be very few in most cases. Some countries have set aside more experimental zones in any case. There is more space to do so after the population problem was solved. Beautiful wide open vistas stretch for miles upon miles completely void of humanity, and yet occasionally a spark of wondrous eccentricity will appear, no longer washed out by the banality of the mass collective and its lowest common denominator. Cresting a hill, you may come across a vast modernist skyscraper rising out of a redwood forest, far above the trees and the mist, with nothing like it for miles, and you will know that you inhabit a world of human beings and not committees. What makes this possible is not only the low population of this new Earth, but its governance by taxation of space, and not what goes into that space.
-A global land area tax has been put into place on the basis of combining equality and property. Taking asides commons, which may comprise no greater than 25% of each nation, and easing, what is left can be divided up equally and considered the basic allowance of property (as you can imagine, with a populace of just 25 million, and technology making anywhere liveable, the square km per agent is large). In the market you are free to purchase in excess of this basic equal standard as much as you would like, but when you do so, you will be met not with specific legal strictures on what property you may have or how you may utilize it, but instead a tax on land area that progressively graduates above that divided among the world citizenry. This is in fact, the only tax in existence, but allows for the zero sum nature of land to be compensated for. This feeds back into a basic income system administered by the world union, in which rations from state owned assets on Earth and in space are doled out equally to each citizen as a basic income. This number is fixed, and will NOT be subdivided for a larger population of agents, so as to discourage “childbirth”/the creation of new agents that require rights, and eat up the beautiful art canvas that the world has become. Certain local exemptions for the land area tax have been made through local democratic agreement that a project someone rich is funding would be of great benefit to the area, but this has been overruled by the high council more often than not to prevent contagion.
-Due to tiered direct democracy, there are no political parties, and “ideologies” are highly privatized. The three things that seem to be debated publically are the land area tax, the national commons, and AGI limits, but coalitions that lump any of the issues together seem very fluid. Single issue politics is very important.
-There are many private cities that are quite extravagant and pay for themselves nicely considering the land area tax. Although there are few people on the planet, where Detroit used to be there is one particularly beautiful private city of 50,000 or so residents that comprises of 10 tiers lifted above the other 10km up, forming a 10km cube and avoiding the use of much horizontal space. We have become a people that like our social circles small, and our environments larger than we have use for, even if we have to pay for it. There are many cities left from the old world that have been bought up, and owned by preservation groups in common to spread the tax, or owned by exceedingly rich individuals, and shareholders, leading to many many kms of late 21st Century suburbs being preserved and gated as private historical art exhibits, or even fun parks. For a small fee, you can drive through completely empty old style cities with friends and marvel at how life used to be. For a larger fee, you can even have fun wreaking havoc. Go to the mall and smash all the products with a shopping trolley; it’ll all be fixed later by bots utilizing resources for paid for by your fee.
-You can pretty much do what you want on your property, as long as you A: keep it internalized and B: respect the rights of other agents.
-Very advanced AGI is regulated informally. Domain specific AI operating at superhuman levels is generally good enough for high level administrative tasks. For machines that need to actually navigate the real world, a level of general intelligence similar to a human is preferred. The world council keeps a hibernating hyperintelligent AGI on standby in Antarctica to see off any military threats and counter other advanced AGI through MAD doctrine. Local officials are employed to ensure that municipal AI facilities only produce hypoagent AGI, by checking the neural activity map for similarity to agents in the relevant legal characteristics as determined by the world constitution.
-Almost no one has to work to live; AGI and “robot slaves” do most everything you could pay someone for, with some well paid administrative exceptions.
-Various models of robot slaves are produced to take the place of human workers, though non-humanoid robots are produced for specialized work. Machines provide work, comfort, and best of all; know when to piss off when you don’t need them. It’s not uncommon for the average person to have 100 mobile machines, as well as uncountable computer simulations, and pieces of disembodied AI software. Waifus abound.
-Municipal facilities scattered about across the land produce standard models of service robots, gadgets, and so on if you want it now, but also provide 3D printers and feed powder, as most people own them. The same is true of private businesses. Much can be made at home, but larger devices and projects may require fabrication from larger machines than the individual owns, so he will pay to use larger additive manufacturing machines.
-Aneutronic Deuterium-Deuterium fusion in a compact form has been solved through some handwavium, meaning that underground generators at the municipal level provide much power from the use of Deuterium in rainwater. Solar power is also abundant. Graphene turns out to be the wonder material we all hoped it could be.
-There are a few public space elevators per country, as well as some private ones, though mostly out in the seastead nations.
-Some citizens own asteroids and make more wealth that way, though many have shares in these businesses.
-Due to life extension, people should live a lot longer, but we really haven’t had the time to say how much longer. 5% of the existing populace first received life extension treatment in the 21st Century.
-Most people can fairly be considered transhuman in some way. Very rich people have been known to resemble great graphmetal centipedes and increase their brainspeed by many thousands of times, though no one has come close to exceeding the technical limit enforced by the council of 10, due to fear of retaliation.
-Direct connection to the internet through the brain is rare. There is a widespread social sanction against doing this, because for various historical reasons, it came to be considered a terrible idea.
-The creation of new agents is considered a horrible thing to do. There is a small cult of humanists who even give birth naturally. They are considered disgusting and are marginalized in society.
-Some people leave for Mars, Titan, or even go interstellar off in hibernate mode to Gliese 158. No matter. The more people leave Earth, the better it gets.
Is this a utopia or a dystopia?
Definitely a utopia. I may have minor quibbles with some aspects, but it sounds like a great place to live.
How was this massive population reduction achieved? Sure, we know that just having female education and widespread prosperity will substantially reduce birth rates, but 25 million is incredibly low. How did they convince groups like the Amish, the Mormons, and the Hasidic Jews to go along with this?
It seems to me that your society either has an unrealistically high level of ideological conformity, or else competing ideologies are still out there and are simply being suppressed by force. Honestly, the most likely backstory for your proposed “utopia” is that at some point in the late 21st or early 22nd century, the wealthy (and ideologically homogenous) 1% exterminated the other 99% of the population.
“How was this massive population reduction achieved?”
Virtual reality is really addicting?
But over the course of a few centuries, wouldn’t that just lead to a country/world dominated by the Amish (and other religious groups that prize fertility and reject modern technology)?
>How was this massive population reduction achieved?
The rich and powerful fly off on a few spaceships and spray a sterilization virus on the planet, coming back after 100 years have passed?
Oh, you’ve watched Ergo Proxy?
I haven’t. What’s that?
Ah, it was sort of a joke.
Ergo Proxy is a dystopian anime with a rather neat aesthetic. Humans can’t breed and rely on cloning, FAI androids are common but are going berserk for no reason anyone can understand, society looks… odd, and there’s the question of the ‘Proxies’ – apparently super-powered beings with something of a grudge.
The story gets pretty interesting, but if you haven’t already seen it then I’ve given away a fairly major puzzle piece.
How was this massive population reduction achieved?
countless non-agents in their teeming billions – there’s your answer. The population of “real” humans with “real” rights was reduced by legal re-definition, not by mass murder and genocide (though you never know, maybe a bit of that as well for brave new world building? can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs?) There are legal agents with full rights, and non-agents who don’t matter:
You probably are not going to ask an obvious robot “are you an agent?” but a human-seeming person? Sure, it’s easy to confuse one of the humans-but-not-persons (or “not agents”) with the humans-who-are-persons because they still look like the basic human model (or even one of the modified transhumans, because the non-agent humans get implants and what have you without their consent in order to do the dirty messy manual and menial work).
So you have estates where one person with their army of robot and non-agent human slaves lives. The official population is “25 million human/transhuman agents” but this does not count the serfs/slaves human population, they’re part of the “teeming billions”.
Because otherwise, there would have had to be mass extinction of the population, and this would have to be done either by some huge natural disaster, or else the rich/super intelligent/powerful decided to introduce a plague or famine to kill off 99% of the population of Earth.
I’m willing to bet the 25 million rich and super-rich agents with all the legal rights not alone don’t mind having an army of disposable human servants, they don’t even think of them as human anymore: “are you an agent?” No? Then you’re a mobile tool or walking piece of property, that’s all.
>countless non-agents in their teeming billions
I took that to mean animals and robots.
Otherwise, how do you reconcile the planet being largely a nature reserve?
Aside from the whole “nobody mentions the umpteen-billion people who were ‘disappeared’ in the last 300 years” it sounds pretty good.
Definitely dystopic.
On the assumption of the inhabitants of this world actually like this state of affairs, and don’t substantially defect on the various dillemmas inherent within it, they are not human. Not even in the “transhuman” sense. They are so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.
Eh? But what’s inhuman about them?
It seems like a utopia to me. An unsustainable utopia, that couldn’t have come into existence and would, realistically, collapse quickly; but still, taken at face value, I agree with blacktrance: sounds like a great place to live.
“This number is fixed, and will NOT be subdivided for a larger population of agents, so as to discourage “childbirth”/the creation of new agents that require rights, and eat up the beautiful art canvas that the world has become.”
This bit sounds a tad troubling depending on how it’s implemented.
If a new agent comes into existence through accident or design is it a non-entity unless someone has reserved one of the “agent” slots for it?
What happens to the children of this “cult of humanists”?
Do they join some kind of underclass lacking the status of agents or lacking an income? Do the new agents lacking an income have any recourse?
You say the council of 10 don’t try to shape social change but it sounds like they’ve shaped it pretty rigidly already and I’m kind of wondering where the mass graves of all the missing billions are.
That being said if it is a dystopia it’s one of the less horrible ones.
You say people don’t enhance their intelligence beyond certain legal limits but how is this detected/enforced? Is this some kind of perfect surveillance state where there is no privacy from the council of 10? If you lock yourself in the basement of your estate with piles of compute hardware how do they know?
Since there are asteroid mining colonies and colonies on mars this perfect surveillance must extend there as well to prevent any billionaire from upgrading himself beyond their limits.
It sounds a little like second life otherwise up to and including the basic income for any Full account holders.
It’d be mostly a utopia. I wouldn’t want a population much lower, though. I don’t think a planet of one person who gets all the resources is good. But 25 million is okay.
The problem is basically that it builds the utopia by assuming that humans will have different preferences and behaviours that are easier to build a utopia with, and that Moloch will do what we want always.
In particular, it assumes perfect cooperation against market effects, exactly where convenient but never where undesirable. It assumes perfect cooperation on not building hyperintelligent AGI to get an advantage in the market, but no cooperation against lowering prices to get an advantage in the market. This is the main way it assumes Moloch does exactly what we want them to do always.
(Additionally, it assumes perfect cooperation on not building one as a means to murdering someone without being caught. This isn’t really any more plausible than just assuming humans no longer commit crimes and so law enforcement is unnecessary.)
It also assumes a state of zero competition of interests between countries has somehow arisen, to fit with lacking a system for managing them, rather than designing a system to solve international competition/races to the bottom as we predict it to exist.
And it assumes humans stop being political, “just because”, to fit with a system that doesn’t solve tribalism, rather than designing a system to fit with humans being kind of tribal.
It also posits a disincentive scheme for creating new agents (denying them basic income and capital at a time where human labour is near worthless and land use is expensive) which takes really weird assumptions to make useful without it being a cause of great suffering. You need to assume humans want to make new agents enough that it does something, but care about not creating new agents which are totally economically dependent on them more, consistently enough that very few or no of those agents come into being. This is a very specific assumption; with actual humans, far more likely a lot of those agents come into being and suffer.
With actual humans, it would sometimes probably even have the opposite effect to that intended; the created agent not getting a share of capital/land/BI in a world where capital/land/BI has all the value means you can create agents and exploit them in exchange for minimal sustenance. A libertarian world like this one surely has legal prostitution; why have waifus when you can have real agents? And not all 25 million regular humans would want those agents to be happy. Sure, they can leave rather than continue to sell to you, but who would take them, and how would they survive with no food or resources long enough to get there? Are you obligated to tell them their rights? Ignorance of one’s rights is a problem in the real world in these kind of cases.
Some stuff a lot nastier than just regulating the creation of new agents, or disincentivising the creator rather than the created would go on.
Where this connects to dystopia, is that if you took this utopia designed and described around these maximally convenient agents and put actual humans in- with their inconvenient preferences, imperfect coordination in all the *wrong* places, tendency towards tribalism, international conflicts, and in a minority an enjoyment of cruelty for the rush of power- you would get a failed utopia very quickly, and a failed utopia, especially a failed utopia built on unrealistic ideas of humans, or one that works for the successful but creates a tortured underclass, is a very popular form of dystopia.
Ironically, evocative of the Soviet Union in that respect.
How do they keep the population from falling? Unless they’ve got something like immortality worked out, eventually some of the 25 million humans will die and will need to be replaced by new agents. If there is a strong bias against and societal pressure not to have children (because you’re creating agents that are rivals with you and others for the land and capital) then people will not be reproducing but will still be dying and so the human population will keep falling.
Unless the Council of 10 has a system in place that when a human agent does die, a new agent is then created (cloned, people who want to have children get a licence to have a baby) that inherits the assets of the deceased? (I think this was how the Solarians worked things in Asimov’s novel; children don’t inherit their parents’ property because most people in Spacer societies have no idea who their parents are, so vacant estates are allocated by lot to the new generations).
Or else the human agents are all gradually moving to become transhuman, and so there are “human agent consciousness” in robot bodies but fewer and fewer “human agent consciousness” in flesh bodies, which is another problem that needs to be addressed.
Dystopia. Asimov covered something like it in his “Robots” novel series with Spacer society, the most extreme being that of Solaria.
Like your future Earth, Solaria has plenty of room for each citizen, actual physical presence (except for sex) is strongly socially discouraged (to the point where an Solarian gets faint at the very notion of being in the same room, breathing the same air, as the Earthman when the Earthman uses the phrase “face to face” and makes the Solarian unavoidably aware that the two of them are physically sharing the same space).
Childbirth and childrearing is kept as far apart from the “normal” citizenry as possible; the children are raised in group nurseries and tended mostly by robot servants, but occasionally have to be picked up or obtain physical contact from a real human – the human nurses have to get rigorous training to overcome their revulsion at the very notion, and the children are trained to ‘get over’ this as quickly as possible.
Population is very strictly controlled. Solarians have, practically, private mansions and estates and armies of robot servitors. Yet Solaria, despite being rich and successful and dominant, is a dying society. Spacer society in general is becoming stagnant, precisely because people in the post-scarcity societies did what your Earth encourages: “Some people leave for Mars, Titan, or even go interstellar off in hibernate mode to Gliese 158. No matter. The more people leave Earth, the better it gets.”
They’re all locked into their selfish little bubbles of comfort and while they are momentarily the cream of the crop, they need to control Earth very rigorously because once the teeming billions of Earth get out into the galaxy that the Spacers have corralled for themselves, by sheer force of numbers and by the fresh injection of creativity and life, Spacer society will lose its dominance and power.
Remember one of the darkest elements of that story:
More children than were needed to replace adults were often created. Until their mental powers manifested they were not considered real humans, the robots there weren’t obligated to protect them or follow their orders under their version of the 3 laws and had no problem with euthanizing them like stray pets.
Deiseach is discussing “The Naked Sun”, you’re referencing “Foundation and Earth”. Same universe, but set 20k years apart.
Oh, thank you. I was wondering how the teenage version of me managed to miss those parts.
I don’t believe the population would drop so low, at least not without a genocide of some kind, under such circumstances. On the one hand, it’s true technological development seems to correlate with lower birth rates, but so does women having full time jobs. In this society where most people don’t have to work hardly at all and you have robot nannies and housekeepers, I’d expect more people to have bigger families.
I am also generally perplexed by the (many) people who seem to think a utopia would need fewer people than we have now (not saying that is necessarily your opinion). The Earth with 7 billion people is still mostly empty.
Thank goodness you mentioned at the end that one can leave for Mars. How’s that for an answer?
I mean… giant billionaire centipedes… “hypoagents”, goodness gracious… the end of motherhood and the rise of waifus… pay pay pay, pay for this, pay for that, crazy things being permitted to people who can pay… fuck Detroit, let’s replace it with a big damn private cube… random ugly modernist skyscrapers in the middle of fucking nowhere… the lowering of the Dunbar number… privatised ideologies, probably the natural extension of having a bazillion libertarian think tanks… “all those weird islands combined as one”, wow, congrats, top tier understanding of history and nations… oh wait, no more nations either, just one big inescapable world government, wait, that’s not right either, now you can fuck right off into outer space if you don’t like it…
I’m sorry if you were bothered by the snark, but highlighting the negatives of your vision in a connotationally non-neutral tone is the main way I can get the point across, that other people’s intuitions for what a good society is can be widely different from yours.
Dystopic simply due to the population numbers. Cultural production would be enormously impoverished compared to billions of people with diverse interests and experiences.
In times past, loyalty to the cause of the populace was to be found everywhere. The will of the Council of Ten was the will of everyone.
The citizen renders to the populace what is due to the populace. What is due to the populace? Everything.
I seem to have come late, but:
A Mars terraformed and settled by twenty-five million people who decided the like things this way would be a Utopia.
It would also be unstable. “There are no political parties”? There will be, though maybe not in name, and they’ll dominate the political process even more than they do here. Childbirth is rare? On a world this rich, with this much leisure and robotic labor, you’ll find out just how many people truly like raising children. Excess children don’t count as “agents” and so don’t have the full set of e.g property rights? That hardly sounds utopian once the children in question stop being theoretical. It does sound like a fine setup for a classical Patriarch or Dynast.
Also, it’s going to be invaded and conquered by the planet where all the people who didn’t want this sort of cozy utopia went.
If you insist on setting it on Earth, as others have noted, you’re hiding a massive genocide of some sort in the backstory. I’m going to suspect that the continued existence of an unstable Utopia is being maintained with equally covert ruthlessness and I’m going to want to know who’s behind it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/03/01/scientists-discover-how-to-download-knowledge-to-your-brain/
How plausible/practical is this? (I guess the idea is to scan the brains of people doing a thing expertly and then use that info to stimulate the brains of people attempting to learn that skill. Which raises the question: how similar do the brains of different people doing the same thing look? I’m sure there will be some differences, but maybe similar enough to be useful in this respect?)
On the GoFundMe request…
Obviously, this is Scott’s blog, and I’ll request his wishes, and I’m not inclined to post commentary on people’s lifestyle anyway.
But I wonder if what Scott proposes is a workable general norm.
It seems to me that part of the deal of publicly requesting specific support is opening oneself to some judgment for the choices that led to the assistance being necessary.
On the other hand, we would disapprove of, say, a religious soup kitchen that served up moral instruction with the food. But those are set up to help people. It seems the rules may be different when one’s case is being presented in a venue whose mission is not altruistic.
You could even consider it the cost.
I’ll help you, but the payment is that I get to enjoy dissecting you and your problem without mercy. Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch etc.
That’s basically the “social contract” between the working class and the underclass vis-a-vis welfare payments, is it not?
Now all I can think of are dystopias in which we formalize this. So, if you receive welfare, you are assigned a taxpayer to survey you and critique your use of “their” money.
Which, one could say we are getting closer to with restrictions on food stamps and required drug testing of recipients.
I’m not a fan.
Add another one to the list of dystopias that just describe how the average child lives their lives…
There’s a reason why “young adult literature” is more or less synonymous with “ham-handed dystopia”.
@JohnMcG
What about basic income? Are you a fan of that?
Technological unemployment means we’ll need it at some unspecified point in the future, but it doesn’t look like its viable right now as a complete replacement to existing welfare. We may need means testing for just a little while longer now.
In my country, the government contribution to pensions is actually the biggest money sink in welfare by a long long way. I’d love to destroy it, so we can shuttle that money into a basic income. Realistically, it would need to be phased out and the current oldies would need to get their dues.
I doubt unemployment will ever reach the level that basic income becomes necessary. If nothing else, universities have taught us that there can always be more administrative bloat.
One of the advantages of UBI is that it gets away from the thorny questions of who “deserves” what. Instead, we say that all members of the in-group (i.e. “citizens of country X”) are automatically entitled to a specific monthly payment. The lack of moral judgment is the whole point.
Yes, in some ways, make-work jobs can substitute for a UBI, but they have downsides as well. “Administrative bloat” often gets in the way of actual work getting done. In other words, make-work jobs can be not only valueless, but actively counterproductive. And in the long run, we really need to break the deep-seated cultural link between work and survival.
Yes, path dependence and unoriginality. In this case, someone writes one popular young adult dystopia and everyone else follows.
When “young adult literature” meant “Harry Potter” instead of “dystopia”, the way children lived wasn’t radically different.
I’m not opposed to guaranteed income; I’m not sure what welfare solutions scale up to a population as vast and diverse as ours.
Path dependence is important, sure. But I think there’s both a case for dystopia matching the frustrations of children and especially teenagers of all eras, and a separate case for dystopia being extra appealing to children born after, say, 1988. This would match the genre’s publishing history fairly well.
Harry Potter was an outlier in terms of its success — Rowling is vastly wealthier than her competition and the novels are longer and more densely written than comparable young adult novels, explaining why so many people were so hesitant to publish it.
Was the first Harry Potter book – the one that people were hesitant to publish – longer or denser than its competition?
Compare the writing in Harry Potter to the writing in something like Animorphs / Goosebumps / Hunger Games. Even the original Harry Potter was longer and had more characters than those, it also opened with a prologue that wouldn’t pay off until later.
I reread Harry Potter, along with some books I read as a kid and it seemed like Potter is more demanding.
(On a related note I seem to remember Harry Potter becoming a thing around the release of the third book, which was when I picked it up)
Was the first Harry Potter book – the one that people were hesitant to publish – longer or denser than its competition?
Oh, yes, especially for the age group it was aimed at. And it ws praised for bigger words and more complex grammar.
“we would disapprove of, say, a religious soup kitchen that served up moral instruction with the food.”
We would? Why?
Because the moral instruction is more likely to help than the soup, and charity isn’t about helping.
Why do you think moral instruction is more likely to help than soup? My impression is that moral instruction mostly gets ignored. Soup supplies some nutrition.
I was putting off posting new material until I got caught up, but it was becoming increasingly clear that I wasn’t going to get caught up until the thread was pretty much dead. It may be too late already. I’m posting new material as separate comments instead of doing a one-comment core dump because I think it will be better to keep replies separated by topic.
The anomalous light curve of KIC 8462852— that star which *might* have alien structures around it, or a big swarm of comets, or who knows what.
I’d been vaguely aware of the story, but the background is cooler than I thought. As part of a search for exoplanets, there was a program for crowdsourcing checking up on the light curves because people might notice anomalies that the computer program wasn’t set up for. This turned out to be really important.
You can only find planets or other obstructions which are between the star and the earth/space telescope. This is presumably a small fraction of all the stuff that’s going around stars, but how small is the fraction? A very casual search doesn’t turn up an answer.
I’m assuming we’ve only got a chance to see much less than a percent of exoplanets, but I might be missing something, like orbital planes tending to be at the same angle– that seems intuitively plausible, but I may be expecting a tidying tendency that doesn’t exist.
Also, “Anomalous Light Curve of KIC” would be an excellent name for a certain type of rock band.
Ortega y Gasset predicts a great deal about the modern world in _The Revolt of the Masses_, in particular the average person’s mistrust of experts.
the article fails to mention that people might not trust experts because experts have some conspicuous failures, in particular bad dietary advice and not noticing the economy was at risk until after a collapse.
While we’re near the subject, any thoughts about (granting that free trade is generally a good thing) what could have been done so that free trade wouldn’t have been a disaster for a lot of people who lost out in the competition for jobs?
Encouraging mobility would be a start – the US fetish for homeownership locks a lot of people into regions of the country where their labor is less valuable.
Another good move would have been more comprehensive and forward-looking job retraining; there are a whole lot of occupations out there where labor is hard to find, and valuable to boot. This was true even in the worst of the last recession.
The issue isn’t free trade, per se, but rather the economic changes that free trade provokes. The issue is that the labor market is always four years behind current trends and market needs, because the jobs people begin training for today are the jobs that are available today. And when the economy accelerates, this can only get worse.
There are some people who, mobile or not, are just not that valuable in the labor market anywhere.
For example in developing countries we see mass rural exodus of peasants, whose labor is less valuable because of mechanized agriculture, moving to the cities looking for opportunities and finding nothing.
I’m not sure what the first-world equivalent of this would be. Maybe automation?
That’s a somewhat different issue from that of free trade, and I’m glad I’m not in charge of solving it.
The issues are related. Peasants were perfectly happy* living lives of poverty doing subsistence agriculture, but that is not competitive anymore and other people need to use that land for more productive activities.
*(not sure if literally true, but that’s what they say)
So while other people buy that land at a fair price and put it to use, the peasants find that the money they received for the land does not last that long in the city and they have no relevant skills to earn more money.
They’re related, but not the same issue. “What do we do with people who technology have rendered no longer usefully employable” is a fully general problem; free trade is a technology that may render a subset of people no-longer-employable in theory, but in practice I don’t think that it’s a major contributor to that particular problem. (And also it merely shuffles the problem around; insomuch as we export labor-intensive work, other people are being usefully employed.)
Right now, it’s offshoring – unskilled labor in Elbonia is just as good as the local version at a fraction of the cost.
Automation hurts too obviously, although I think it actually helped at first – an unskilled laborer operating an automated machine is much more productive than an unskilled laborer with no infrastructure. But now Elbonian factories can get robots too so you’re left with it only making sense to manufacture things locally if it is cost prohibitive to do it elsewhere and ship it back (so e.g. the U.S. is assembling a lot of “foreign made” cars because shipping completed vehicles is costly).
But most people don’t want to be rootless nomads. A society that has higher GDP but less stability may well be a more unhappy society that one which has lower GDP and more stability. Is the average American really happier now than they were in 1955?
There’s a big range between rootless nomad and can’t afford to move because the costs of selling one’s house are so high. I believe Germany has a lot of long term home rental, though I don’t know how difficult moving is there.
I have no idea how to judge happiness levels between now and 1955, but certainly a lot of things have happened beside how much people move.
It’s certainly the case that people living in Flint would rather be able to move, but they can’t sell their houses because (aside from the reputation of the livability of their town) homeowners can’t sell their houses because they’d have to disclose the lead problem. (Warning: this is something I’ve heard on the news, I haven’t checked it myself. It seems plausible.)
One might also note that to Europeans, current levels of mobility in the US are already insane. People have family and friends, couples need to find work in the same place, etc. For Americans, living four hours away from your family is close – for us, it’s far away. Interestingly, long-term renting is much more of a thing here than in the US.
Academia is an area with a known mobility fetish and look what it’s doing to people’s lives.
SSC shower thoughts: Queen’s Under Pressure is basically Moloch: The Music Video.
(Yes, I’m a pleb, I know)
I wonder which SSC post could be “Ice Ice Baby”?
Yeah, this is a joke, but… Ice Ice Baby is a fairly standard “I’m awesome” song. And sadly, I don’t see our ‘umble ‘ost doing many of those sort of posts.
Though “stop, collaborate, and listen” might be a good way to defeat Moloch?
(Though I mostly made the joke because of the way it steals the beat from “Pressure”)
“If ya gotta problem,
I’ll… write a 10,000-word post exploring how it really is problematical
But really it all comes down to Moloch so what are you going to do
(Though the SJWs really aren’t helping with their shaming tactics)
I know that doesn’t scan, but I’m a psychiatrist, not a rapper.”[citation needed]
Or he could just re-mix the one where he lists all the quotes critical of him; that was fun.
Right is the New Left
Meanwhile, amidst the controversy over whether the Rightful Caliph is a filthy unbeliever, Yudkowsky receives a missive from the filthy unbelievers themselves…
http://samueldays.tumblr.com/post/142686890185/an-open-letter-to-eliezer-yudkowsky-on-the-subject
We claimed that you’re a major figure in our movement, and these terrible people actually believed us! Clearly, they are the worst, and you should start listening to us now.
Edit: here’s an alternative version, just in case my bold inference was incorrect.
Group X claimed that you’re a major figure in their movement, and some of group Y actually believed them! Clearly, group Y is the worst, and you should start listening to group X now.
>Group X claimed that you’re a major figure in their movement, and some of group Y actually believed them! Clearly, group Y is the worst, and you should start listening to group X now.
Uh… that was none of the four choices proposed by the author to Yudkowsky?
Ah, right. The choices. According to the author, Eliezer should:
a) hide
b) (not recommended)
c) realize that he actually has a lot in common with group X
d) become a craven Y-ist
The whole argument was vertigo-inducing, because it implicitly equates refusing to read X-ist material with violence, among other things. But the sheer gall of using the impact of their own promotional activity as evidence against group Y is what got to me.
That’s a somewhat uncharitable reading. Whether any of those are any good depends on your perspective and values. I mean, the author obviously favours C, but would any progressive wish to think of himself as having a lot in common with the Death Eaters?
What? Where?
Can you rephrase that one, one sigma dumbed down?
Yes, it was certainly not a charitable reading. You can offer a more charitable alternative interpretation, if you wish.
(The rest is going to be short — I’m in a bit of a rush.)
RE: What? Where?
RE: rephrase
See the quote in my original reply.
I would be very hesitant to make *any* inferences at all from that rambling argument. It’s probably bait, meant to get EY into a flamewar with neuroactionators. (And for once I think the original banned word is appropriate, loose in meaning as it is, because it’s bait for a loose group.)
Charitably supposing it is meant to be a serious argument, I request that someone please implement a better unified internet commenting system so we can transfer the complaints of unclear meaning from here to tumblr author. Or implement any way at all of getting well-functioning comments on Tumblr, because the “reblogs” for comment seem to quickly turn into impenetrable walls of one-word-per-line text where the entirety of every ancestor comment must be reproduced in full.
And under that same charitable supposition, I think it’s easier to infer what the point is by working backwards. Of the four courses presented at the end, choice 3 is obviously the author’s favorite, and the “symmetry argument” seems to mean something like this: Group X said stupid things about you and called you regressive based on little information, you said stupid things about Group Y and called them regressive based on little information, you should sympathize more with Group Y.
I read it as “Hah! Group Y is about to treat _you_ like you treated us (group X). Let’s see how you like that.”
This is bizarre. Death Eaters are not defined as “the outgroup of SJW”.
You are technically correct. (The best kind of correct.)
That said, the SJWs do attempt to paint their outgroups as being Death Eaters. The Death Eaters are a sort of reified bogeyman – as though the sheer power of belief that such people exist has willed them into being. It is not entirely clear how much of that reification was done by the SJWs defining a niche that people begun to inhabit, and how much by the Death Eaters own efforts to swell their membership.
I’d like to think I’m rather more than just technically correct in this case. As I see it, there are lots of people in the SJW-outgroup that are not Death Eathers by any reasonable definition. You’d have to define them as “SJW-outgroup”, and that does not qualify as a reasonable definition.
This is not to disagree with your second paragraph.
The author explicitly makes that redefinition so your disagreement is purely semantic?!
What I’m saying is that it’s bizarre to make this redefinition. Calling an objection to a redefinition of an already-used term in public discourse a “merely semantic disagreement” is, to my mind, misleading. Names matter And when he said that he’s not a Death Eater, Eliezer probably had the normal definition in mind.
About this exchange from last OT about Antarctica: I think a big difference between living in Antarctica and in places like Baffin Island or Oymyakon may be the food supply. In Antarctica, outside of the peninsula there are no woody plants at all. There is no driftwood either. This makes starting fires harder. There are seals, and you can use seal oil for fires, but I’m not sure if the seals are as easy to find as on Baffin, especially in the winter. Also, the distance from New Zealand to McMurdo is four times the distance from Tromso to Svalbard, meaning this is a much more isolated location. I wonder what kind of technologies we would need to start colonizing Antarctica-might be cool to read about.
I wonder what kind of technologies we would need to start colonizing Antarctica
That would be the Ernest Shackleton, which may indeed be a lost technology in this era. Seals seem to be in adequate supply along the Antarctic coast, along with penguins and fish. We won’t mention the whales. But we could throw in greenhouses and hydroponics gardens as well.
I typically visit the suppliers directly to deal with specific technical issues, only occasionally going to the conferences. In the Seattle area, that usually means Aerojet/Redmond.
I briefly talked with someone who has lived in Antarctica last night and he said hunting seals in the winter would not be possible due to the places where they hang out being more difficult to reach than in the Arctic.
I have a question for the Christians on this site, especially Catholics (I know there’s a couple). Is carrying a Mikoshi idolatrous, if neither you nor anyone else around you actually believes there’s a god in there? Is it something that should be avoided?
My first impulse is to say no, but I’m not a particularly good catholic.
What exactly is the context/what are you hoping to accomplish?
I think the relevant equivalent would be meat sacrificed to idols.
THere was a huge controversy around ancestor reverence and ritual related to Confucianism amongst Catholic missionaries (Chinese Rite Controversy).
After a number of years, they said to go for it.
My first thought was: throw an image of the Virgin in there and call it a day. After all, it’s not as if elaborate public processions around heavily-decorated divine images are alien to Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
Then I realized that you might be referring to public processions sponsored by a local temple or whatever, which is on slightly shakier ground. There’s precedent both for accepting it and for refusing it, as Jaskologist mentioned above. The correct decision will depend on local conditions. If no one seriously claims that it’s a divine object, as you said above, you’re probably relatively safe.
>A mikoshi (神輿?) is a divine palanquin (also translated as portable Shinto shrine). Shinto followers believe that it serves as the vehicle to transport a deity in Japan while moving between main shrine and temporary shrine during a festival or when moving to a new shrine. Often, the mikoshi resembles a miniature building, with pillars, walls, a roof, a veranda and a railing.
1 Corinthians 10:19-21
>19 What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
>20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
>21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.
Well, now.
Vox Day’s Blacklist Of Doom was one thing, but this is quite another.
A site where “friends” enter the personal details of people who are guilty of “harassment”? Complete with mugshots? For public perusal?
Vox Day, a man that many on his own side consider a cockroach, has managed to be outdone in tribal blacklisting within a day.
…with $3000 raised of a $75000 goal. It’s a nasty concept, but I’m not worried.
Personally, I doubt you could get it done even with $75000. Even fairly modest projects cost more than that, unless you can find devs, artists, admins, etc. who are all willing to work for ramen wages and The Cause.
They’re already Twitter baiting the usual suspects in the hope of getting all those lovely hate-Tweets.
I know what you mean about the price, but I strongly suspect that the website is mostly show and they plan on making a whole bunch of “Support Women!!!” money and then bolting for the hills.
Also, I’ve reported them for breaking Terms of Use. Because duh.
“waving an English flag”
…
It’s especially funny because the English flag in Britain is basically equivalent to the Confederate flag in the US.
Not quite; it depends on context, and much less so that before. At international sporting events for example, the UK countries often compete separately and so England gets the English flag, Scotland gets the Scottish flag, etc., and it’s all fine.
There was a time when the English flag had effectively been claimed by racist nutjobs but in the last 20 years or so it seems to have become respectable again, mainly it seems because of the sporting connection. The unfortunate connations were mere connotations, not inherent to the thing. Not like the Confederate battle standard.
So, these days, the likes of the EDL will fly the red and white flag, but the rest of us aren’t minded to allow it to be their exclusive property.
That said, seeing it flying or displayed heavily outside of football (or other sports) fandom or similar is decent Bayesian evidence (in the sense of literally-increasing-the-probability, and not any kind of sufficiency for guilt of anything) for the person flying to be someone who really wants ‘the English’, distinct from the United Kingdom, to be a cohesive tribe and is invested in that concept. Because flying it is so unusual.
And people react a little to that evidence, mostly being mildly disconcerted.
It’s especially funny because the English flag in Britain is basically equivalent to the Confederate flag in the US.
In the sense of “commonly recognized as a symbol of division and hatred”? Or in the sense of “commonly not recognized at all because people hear the words and think of a completely different flag”?
Everyone knows the difference between the English flag and the Union Jack. No-one is confused.
The George Cross is not the equivalent of the Confederate Flag… except. The thing is that no-one has a flag in their garden in the UK, so if someone’s flying a George Cross (not around the time of a major sporting event) then that would be “commonly recognized as a symbol of division and hatred.” Mind you, flying the Union Jack might be treated much the same, although probably not as bad (EDL vs UKIP).
But outside of the actual physical flag, it’s not an expression of hatred. A Confederate bumper sticker is a political statement. A George Cross sticker on your car means you like football.
In the sense that it is generally (outside of sporting events) sported by this guy at best (i.e. low status bald men who are white and working class) or these guys (i.e. racist idiots).
Ah, that first link, so many stereotypes (The Sun, white van) in one photo…
@Salem
Note also that the Union Flag is flown from government buildings in the UK and does not provoke nearly the levels of outrage that flying the Confederate flag does in the US (with the possible exception of in Northern Ireland where a significant fraction of the population see it as the flag of a foreign occupying power).
This also goes for the few official uses of the Cross of St. George, which is flown from many churches in England to mark St. George’s Day and is the rank flag of an Admiral in the Royal Navy.
And of course there’s the fact that flying any non-English flag of a part of the UK in the relevant areas (Scottish, Welsh or Cornish) seems to be much more common and accepted.
Not knowing the difference between an English flag and the British flag makes me think that perhaps they are as dumb as their “tee-hee, we’re such girly-girls (except we’re not, we’re techies!)” as their attempts at humour make them out.
I think this is either going to be a huge self-promotion gig which will do exactly nothing for the cause of “stop cyber-harassment” but which will get these ladies PR and enable them to show prospective employers something (their foundress already has a TED talk lined up) or it’s going to be a blackmail site: “we’ve got your name on our database of 150,000 online harassers and cyberbullies, now if that’s in error, please contribute $/£/€XX to our cause and we’ll remove your details”. Mentioning “doctors and teachers” makes me think they want “professionals with reputations to lose and enough money to make it worth our while to
blackmailask for donations in return for scrubbing their names, don’t bother telling us about Joe who lives at home with his parents and works minimum-wage”.Just a very general comment on the Kickstarter page itself: I find that self-deprecating jokes like “we are totally going to use all your money to go on a shopping spree” accomplish the opposite of their intent. Scott Adams would probably have something to say about this, but in a sense I think it boils down to: when you say “I suck! LOL ;)” other people’s brains hear “I suck! *something something*”
Not that self-deprecating humor is never effective, but maybe you have to earn it more than most people realize?
Normally I’d agree with you — but this isn’t a normal business. Its pretty much a doxxing site. The unprofessional image goes well with its purpose.
I don’t read that as self-deprecation, but as sarcastic mockery of misogynists who legitimately believe that’s what women would do with Kickstarter money.
I also find this grating but I’m not sure why. It leaves me feeling like they’re implicitly accusing me of misogyny even though I doubt that’s how it’s intended to come across.
Yeah, it is that, too. Though the attempts at self-deprecating humor continue throughout.
“It leaves me feeling like they’re implicitly accusing me of misogyny even though I doubt that’s how it’s intended to come across.”
They’re not accusing you of misogyny. They’re accusing those others of misogyny. You know, the outgroup. You don’t want to be mistaken for a member of the outgroup, do you? Well, by donating to this Kickstarter, you…
I’ve seen this pattern in a lot of left-wing posts, most of which weren’t asking for money or other tangible support, just sprinkling a post with some “let’s laugh at everyone who doesn’t agree with everything I say and is therefore evil!” for kicks.
Freddie deBoer has written a lot on this attitude but he’s already been dismissed by everyone he criticizes. I’m sure that I, a Cis Het White Dude™, would fare no better. (Of course, being Jewish and a New Yorker I have no credibility to criticize righty types either. Ain’t identitarianism grand?)
I’m not convinced it’s a complete scam, but I’d say it’s pretty likely it’s at least partially a scam.
That’s going to crash and burn faster than “Peeple”.
It looks like they’re trying to auto-generate profiles rather than accepting user submitted comments which means that any claims they make about an individual are all on them.
So lets say they wrongly link me to some member of the KKK who’s also a child molester and who also used to spend his days sending hatemail to feminists and posting about it online , lets say such a person had an email address which they closed which I later claimed by chance.
They do their automatic scan, link on the email address and create a profile for me with my real details, my employer etc which shows up when someone searches for my details calling me a child molester, a member of the KKK and the author of abusive messages.
At this point I take their company and all the directors of their company to court and take everything they own.
It’s not user submitted content, they have no protection.
They’re going to crash and burn.
http://www.wired.com/2016/04/susie-mckinnon-autobiographical-memory-sdam/
This article on a woman who can’t remember her past nor vividly imagine her future, yet who has a functional personality and can understand memories about herself as abstract facts may be of interest to those who want to upload their consciousness into a computer, etc.
Thanks, that was an interesting read. The illustrations were a little creepy, though.
Sleeping – I am currently trying to improve the quality of my sleep. My biggest concern is that I often end up with a full nose and unable to breath through the nose, then I wake up in the middle of the night breathing through the mouth and a sour throat. I know I have a mite allergy, so I bought these special mattress ,blanket and pillow covers which should keep the mites inside (they’re made of cotton but they should be sewn so thick that not even the mites come through). I think they kind of work, but the mites either still manage to survive in the bed linen which I put over these covers (it’s cotton, but not too pleasant to touch) or there is something else that is causing this allergy-like reaction. I visited the doctor, he told me to buy those covers (I also bought an air cleaner, which probably does not help against mites but does against pollen, which is an issue for me about 2 weeks in a year). Strangely, taking Cetirizin (an anti-allergic medicine) or something does not seem to work so well against this (but it helps me with my pollen allergy considerably).
Has anyone had similar problems? What do you think could be the source of this other than the mites?
I also had some mold in my German apartment, I think I killed it but maybe there is still some somewhere. However, I had this problem in my Czech apartment as well, although it seems to me that vacuum cleaning and changing the bedlinen works there much better than in the German apartment (which also suffers from being a one-room apartment without am exhaust hood and I tend to cook quite a bit – hence the mold, I guess).
I am also extremely sensitive to even the slightest noise (unless it is continuous like an air conditioner or a car motor – I can actually fall asleep in a car quite easily, the motor humming and the slight vibrations help me) when falling asleep (not so much when already sleeping), I routinely wear earplugs, it’s ok, but I’d rather learn how to fall asleep without it like everyone else. My dream is converting a recording studio into a bedroom :))
I think this is currently the thing that has the most negative impact on my productivity – I don’t sleep well, then I am tired and don’t have much will or I sleep extremely long…
I have always had a fair amount of problems with nasal congestion. When I was in my 20s I went through a period where about one or two times a year this would turn into rhinitus and I would have to go on anti-biotics. Here are some things that worked/work for me:
1) Surgery to correct a deviated septum
2) Steroidal nasal sprays (now OTC) like Flonase.
3) An antihistamine nasal spray (Azelastine, by prescription)
4) A neti pot.
5) A CPAP machine after a sleep study showed I was suffering from sleep-apnea.
Thanks, maybe I should seek out a doctor who specializes in sleep rather than visiting the general practitioner as I have. I don’t think I have sleep apnea but of course you cannot probably tell that yourself. My biggest concern is that it is hard for me to breathe with the nose while sleeping. However, since this is not the case all the time and also I can feel that it is getting worse while I am lying in bed and still awake, I think it is an allergic reaction of some kind. But since it is still there even after I wash my bed linen at 60°C (which should kill all the mites), there might be something else behind it. It also varies so that some nights I can sleep quite well and with only a slightly runny nose in the morning (which goes away after a few minutes) and sometimes I wake up at 3 or 4 am, unable to breathe with the nose at all.
What happens to your nose if you lie down for a long time without sleeping?
Have you tried sleeping somewhere that couldn’t particularly have allergens (a leather couch? a rubber mat on hardwood floor?), or outside or in an extremely well-ventilated room?
@Tibor:
If you truly feel that your nasal congestion is the issue, you might want to see an Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) provider. The sleep clinics make sense if you find that your nasal congestion isn’t actually the issue…
As to whether you can tell if you have sleep apnea, it took my wife cajoling me to have the test before I took it as a possibility.
Thanks for the tips. I will try to find out whether this is caused by simply laying down and lying for a while, which would indicate that it is not caused by an allergy and if it’s the case, I will see an ENT doctor.
I thought I remember a link on one of the links pages or a mention in one of the posts about a group working on developing a pill with all the necessary gut flora for a human being. I’ve searched for it but have been unable to find it. Does anyone know what I’m talking about?
I’ve seen a number of different probiotic pills for sale on the internet and in stores – what differentiates the one you’re asking about? Are they trying to figure out all the exact species considered “necessary” and include every last one?
Generally, “probiotic” just means it contains a live culture of something — no guarantee of it being necessary, helpful, or even normal. (Though it’s usually something that’s at least reputed to be helpful.) I haven’t heard of the project TheAltar is talking about, but a pill with all the gut flora we need would be a much taller order — we didn’t even know about a lot of the flora in there until recently, because a lot of the species turned out to be hard to culture for whatever reason.
Perhaps The Altar is thinking of the American Gut project – they’re researching human microbiomes and you can send them a sample for dna/rna sequencing to find out what inhabits you personally, but it doesn’t look like they’re trying to actually create any pill. As you mention, it’d be tough with today’s techniques since a lot of common gut flora are disinterested in growing outside a living intestinal tract.
Interesting article about attitudes towards homosexuality during the Islamic golden age. The author is an interesting ex-Islamist. If you want a laugh, read this Guardian
hit pieceprofile of him (edited to be more reasonable than when originally published), and this parody.The parody is hilarious. Nawaz has an interesting take, and I wish him the best in his endeavors, but I am not sanguine about his chances.
As best I can tell, homosexual acts, at least male ones, were always illegal under Islamic law. But there were times when they were also pretty much taken for granted.
There are two famous medieval essays on homosexual vs heterosexual sex, put in terms of a debate (Back vs Belly and Dancers vs Pageboys, or titles close to that). And there is an anecdote about a caliph who preferred boys. His mother, who presumably wanted grandchildren, dressed up a bunch of women as page boys and so successfully got him interested in them.
And there is a medieval Islamic story that blames the Devil for introducing women to lesbian sex.
Exclusively homosexual adult muslims are pretty well suppressed. Those qualifiers are very important.
I don’t know what the Koran has to say on the subject other than “hurl them to their death”, but the cultural implication seems to be as long as you get your wife pregnant and you avoid other adult males, you’re not gay. At least not in the way that draws sanction. The line for “Adult” incidentally, is the capability of growing a beard.
They just don’t consider pederasty to be “gay”. See below.
And there is an anecdote about a caliph who preferred boys…
Boys, not men. There is long precedent in many societies for the idea that a young boy is an acceptable substitute for a woman if there aren’t any women around, and that it is only tolerably eccentric to prefer young boys when there are women around. Particularly if you can manage to impregnate a woman somewhere along the line. But almost always, when I find someone claiming that a particular historic culture tolerated open homosexuality, close examination indicates that this tolerance was specific to pederasty. See e.g. the Bentham article cited here a while back.
The good news, from the PoV of historic gays, is that if open homosexuality wasn’t tolerated it often wasn’t recognized when it happened. Particularly for women – being openly lesbian would in many contexts have required actual diagrams on a chalkboard and maybe not even that, because homosexuality means sex and sex can’t happen unless a penis is being inserted somewhere. For men, the concept was clearly understood because pederasty, but the idea that an adult man would want to do that with another adult man was often sufficiently foreign that two flaming camp gays walking arm in arm in drag are obviously just very good friends with very bad taste. Possibly actors.
This is I think a case where a little learning truly was a dangerous thing, for gays who lived in an era when their society had figured out what they were really doing but didn’t much understand the why yet. And, in some corners of the world, still don’t.
Lawrence, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, pretty clearly implies homosexual activity among the adult Arab soldiers he was working with. I’m pretty sure that Burton, in the 19th c., implies that it was common in Afghanistan–although I don’t think he distinguishes pederasty from adult relationships.
A quick search only finds two examples of male homosexuality between Arabs in Seven Pillars; one generic reference to the practice among “Our youths…in their own clean bodies”, and one specific to Lawrence’s servants Daud and Farraj who are explicitly “boys”, one of them “a beautiful, soft-framed, girlish creature” and of the other Lawrence writes “all the woman of him evident in his longing”.
Adult in the sense of being old enough to serve in an irregular military force, but I’m thinking these are the sort of people the phrase “beardless youth” was meant to indicate.
It’s important to remember that even in societies that are, by the standards of the modern West at least, very religious, there’s often a certain pick-and-choose attitude towards following the rules. The “salad-bar Catholic” isn’t a modern invention.
The number of people who consider themselves observant Muslims who nevertheless drink is surprising, for instance.
I know at least one medieval Islamic anecdote about containers of wine going to the Caliph’s palace. Doesn’t seem to have been considered unusual.
I got a new book about the history of maths and had some thoughts. (My maths background is I gave up after the first year of a bachelors degree some decades ago.) Is the following a reasonable thing to say?
Numbers are a matter of relation – anything can be 1 – abstract relations are at base verbal.
Geometry, idealised physical constructions (circles, exponential curves) rely upon assumptions relating to physical intuition.
It is the fact that numbers and geometry are based in different forms of mental intuition that gives rise to transcendental numbers (or at least to their significance – an infinite sequence can produce something with no direct numerical relation to anything, because it is infinite – this only has significance because we find it useful to think geometrically). You can’t necessarily relate a verbal (mental) relationship to a physical (mental) relationship.
I feel like this might be related to “map and territory” somehow – one mental process isn’t necessarily related to another…
BTW the book (“Journey through Genius”), contains a classic bit of ‘things you can’t say these days’:
“it is clear that any real number is either algebraic or transcendental but not both. This is a stark dichotomy, rather like any person’s being either a man or a woman, with no middle ground.”
I’m afraid this is a bit too vague for me to process. Could you describe the idea in more detail?
In arithmetic, you very rapidly lose any intuition of numbers being a quantity of some kind, and just deal in the relationships between the various words/symbols – so I guess that numbers are closely related to pure logic. ” 1″ doesn’t mean anything in particular, beyond the fact that it has a certain relation to other numbers.
Verbal relations – there is a “blurry” and it is related to a “blurg” by “blobbing”.
We can follow the same procedure with geometry – just call something “pi” there is a circumference, there is a diameter, they are related by pi – if these were entirely abstract concepts there would be no problem — I feel somehow that the difficulty of expressing this relationship with numbers is something to do with the fact that we have a *physical intuition* of a diameter that we want to express abstractly, with logic.
I’m not sure what “difficulty” you are referring to, earlier you said there is no problem. However, I think you are correct in the abstract. The key to enlightenment is to get rid of what you call “physical intuition” ASAP.
(cf. my answer below)
Nita:
I guess this confuses “1” (the neutral element of multiplication) with “1” (base in a given unit system). The former is unique by definition, the latter can be anything for some values of “anything”.
E. g. the magnitude of the unit vector is “1” by definition, but if you leave the vectorspace and go for some “intuition” like an “arrow” in Euclidean space you could be tempted to ask whether that’d be “1 meter” or “1 lightyear”.
I think this is a non issue because, well, a vectorspace is a vectorspace, and that’s all there is to it, but didactics of mathematics tend to fall for such “intuitions”.
Ruprect:
At least in first abstraction, math begins to make a lot more sense, once you wrap your head around the fact that in math there is no territory like never ever. Math is the map and only the map.
Usually people use maps to make sense of the territory, but with math they suddenly try to use territory to make sense of the map. This is bound to fail.
Both the map, and the territory, are at the base level, mental. But, if you believe that the best way to understand the mental is an examination of the imposed reality – the scientific method – observation – then wouldn’t you have to use the territory to understand the map?
This is a stark dichotomy, rather like any person’s being either a man or a woman, with no middle ground.”
ROFL here because oh boy, that is definitely “ignite blue touchpaper and retire” material”! 🙂
Frege would disagree. Julius Caesar is not a number!
– Mathematics Made Difficult
Oh, the map-territory confusion, it hurts!
It is entirely possible for Mao Tse-Tung (as in, the person, to be referred to by the pronoun “he”) not to be a number, and for “Mao Tse-Tung” (as in, the name, to be referred to by the pronoun “it”) to be a number. If I wanted to write “Mao Tse-Tung” into a sum, well, that’s easy enough. Actually including Mao Tse-Tung in a sum would involve a daring mission into China to raid his mausoleum, and, depeding on what you consider to count, may involve the services of a necromancer. Not recommended.
Mathematician here. I’m afraid that was nonsense – no offense intended. What follows is an attempt to give some comments.
The things we call numbers do not really have a nice, abstract characterization. They are more or less defined as elements of a few specific fields, rings and one monoid.
These are the natural, rational, real and complex numbers, and also the integers. Other fields are generally not called numbers.
When you say that anything can be 1, I think you are perhaps thinking of one of these fields as a 1-dimensional vector space over itself. Equality of vector spaces is different from equality of fields, but relabeling another (non-zero) number to 1 will result in an equivalent 1D vector space, and the corresponding rescaling is an isomorphism between them. You will need to keep an additional, abstract copy of the numbers in question for scalar multiplication to work, however. This means that when you compute the result of either an addition of two numbers, or scaling by an “abstract” number and a number in either system, then convert to the other system where you did the equivalent computation, the results will agree. On the other hand, multiplying two numbers will not make sense in the new system.
I don’t know what you mean by “verbal”, but there is a dichotomy between algebraic and geometric thinking, which is sometimes remarked upon. That is about psychology though, not mathematics.
I think the intended meaning was not thinking of the ring as a 1d vector space over itself, but thinking of the ring as a set. Of course, almost everything about the forgetful functor from rings to sets is also true about the forgetful functor from rings to vector spaces. But it’s pretty hard to talk about vector spaces without first talking about rings, while people do try to build rings out of sets.
The modern view is that a ring is a set together with a couple of binary operations, etc. (I date this view to the 19th century and I think such use of sets was the most important development of 19th century mathematics.) In some sense binary operations are the important part and the set is an unimportant amorphous blob. Whereas an earlier view is that there is an ideal realm of Number and a ring is a subset of numbers closed under the operations. Then all rings must share the same unit. Whereas an abstract ring is a set and could have anything as a unit. Even if you define a number field by its ability to be embedded in the complex numbers, the existence of isomorphisms between different subrings is a a big deal, and, indeed, the existence of automorphisms. So it makes a lot of sense to distinguish between abstract and realized number fields.
But I don’t know what it means to say that binary operations are verbal.
Thanks for the reply, but I’m afraid that was a bit over my head.
Anyway, me not having any idea what any of that means suggests to me that the particular definition of number that you are talking about isn’t, at the most meta-level, what numbers actually are. My understanding is that for everyone, numbers are a form of abstract relation, though the extent to which the relations are formalized, and assumptions identified, varies. It is also my understanding that abstraction (at least of this kind) requires the capacity to use language in some form or another (=verbal). I would guess that a ring is some kind of formalized expression of a relation between certain terms?
By the way, I’m sure you are absolutely right, and the original is complete nonsense, but my feeling is that it is probably complete nonsense because geometry is also completely abstract?
Apologies if I have completely missed your point!
There exists a discipline called Abstract Algebra. It classifies various types of mathematical objects. Dedekind-Complete Ordered Fields (AKA the set of Real Numbers) are but a twig of Abstract Algebra’s taxonomy.
Some types of objects are better suited to describe particular situations than others. E.g. Quantities are described in terms of Real Numbers. A Rubix Cube is often described in terms of Groups. A Regex can be described in terms of Monoids. Physics is often described in terms of Vectors.
And do you remember all that pointless shit in elementary school about the Associative Property, the Distributive Property, the Commutative Property, the Reciprocal, etc? That’s basically what Abstract Algebra is. E.g. yes, Vectors contain numbers. But Vectors per se are NOT Commutative across the Dot Product (i.e. “vector-multiplication”), even though plain numbers (AKA scalars) are indeed Commutative across scalar-multiplication.
The point is, there’s more to Math (the study of abstract relations) than just the subset of Real Analysis we learned from the standard curriculum (I.e. Arithmetic, Elementary Algebra, and the Calculus of Infinitesimals).
1 is special because it’s the Multiplicative Identity. The existence of a Multiplicative Identity is in fact an important criterion of Fields. Lots of types of mathematical objects have a Multiplicative Identity, but not all.
Perhaps you mean “anything can serve as a unit of measure”. E.g. “the king’s foot measures 12 inches. So let’s call 12 inches a foot”.
Transcendentals (for historical reasons) were defined as “any Real Number that isn’t algebraic”. It’s kinda like if only men existed in Eden, but then we discovered Eve so we defined the word “woman” as “any person who doesn’t have a penis”. It simply reflects a discontinuity in Mathematicians’ understanding of Reals, rather than any deep insight. As they say — categories were made for man, not man made for categories.
Mmmm… You can express these things in terms of numbers, though, right? I mean… it has to be possible to express a regex in binary, doesn’t it?
My (probably entirely foolish, but I can’t help but say this) feeling is that the important question regarding an abstract entity is not what it equals when some operation is applied to it, but what operations can be applied to it. It makes sense in a way – if everything is a purely abstract entity, and the result of any operation is another purely abstract entity, the only thing that really matters about it, is what operations can be performed on it. So there is a clear distinction between zero and other numbers, but between the non-zero numbers, not so much.
Probably cheap (and I’m praying for an intellectual spanking) but doesn’t insight have to be related to understanding? The fact that something can’t be clearly expressed when using one set of assumptions, but can, when using another, is surely significant?
[I often revise and edit my comments, since I never expect anyone to read it within the first hour. You may wish to reread my earlier comment.]
Mathematicians classify an object by how it behaves, not by how it’s represented. ‘ASCII A’ and ‘int 65’ are both encoded (by the hardware) as 0100 0001. But ints behave differently than chars which behave differently than floats (which would be Reals if computers had infinite memory) because they’re encoded (by the programming language) to behave in different ways.
This is 99% correct. The snag is that the existence of an Idempotent Operation is also considered important. Idempotent means “Y will remain constant, no matter how many times I perform X”. E.g. “5 will remain 5, no matter how many times I multiply it by 1”. An acyclic flowchart can be considered an object without an identity operator, since no arrow (directly) maps to the node it came from.
imho, Transcendentals are what’s left of the number line after all the interesting things have been strip-mined.
The discovery of 0 was a big deal, because we can’t express the empty set with only natural numbers. The discovery of negative numbers was a big deal, because we can’t read a modern thermometer with only whole numbers. The discovery of fractions was a big deal, because we can’t make a recipe using only integers.
But transcendentals? What did we conceptually gain from transcendentals that we couldn’t express using {fractions, et al} (aka algebraics). We got PI and Euler’s Number. Okay… so how does that affect me in every day life? Minimally.
Like, I can’t imagine a 10th century carpenter complaining “I need to build the spoke to a wheel with a 10 foot circumference. But I don’t know how to exactly calculate the required diameter for the spoke. Alas! If only Transcendentals had been discovered.” The correct response is “quit whining, 22/7 is close enough to PI”.
The real achievement of Transcendentals was that it closed all the remaining gaps in the Real Number Line (Dedekind-Completeness). I.e. there’s nothing left to be discovered until we jump into the Complex Plane. But this is taxonomically significant, rather than conceptually significant.
Is there any good fiction involving AI risk scenarios similar to those proposed by Yuskowaky et. al?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/Friendship-is-Optimal
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10327510/1/A-Bluer-Shade-of-White
Mileage may vary, but the closest I can think of.
Would Friendship is Optimal be enjoyable for someone with zero knowledge of or interest in My Little Pony?
It might be, but perhaps watching the intro, for the “flavour” of the show, will enhance your experience.
What else? Princess Celestia is the wise and benevolent ruler of Equestria (pony-land). She’s taller and more magically powerful than normal ponies, and responsible for making the sun rise, among other things. Princess Luna is her little sister, responsible for dreams and the moon. A ‘cutie mark’ is a pictogram on a pony’s flank that represents the pony’s ‘special talent’.
I think that’s all you need.
The sum total of my knowledge going in was that MLP featured magical talking ponies, and I really enjoyed Friendship is Optimal. The MLP aspect is more of a backdrop for the story rather than the subject of it, so to speak, in contrast to most fanfiction.
n=1 says yes.
Wow, I can’t say I was expecting Frozen fanfiction about AI risk. Thanks for the suggestions!
If you like that, you’ll love a lot of his other stories (not about AI risk, although with similar themes; ironically the Terminator fanfic has the least overlap).
Yet another comment on the late great unpleasantness re: crowd funding –
I myself was unmoved to donate either to the Bay Area mother&child nor to multihead, abet for different reasons. What most got my attention was the promotion of the Bay Area mother&child on the grounds that this is a darling beautiful clever neonate human and it will do the world good to support her
To which my reaction was deep cranky anger.
To me, it should not matter if the child was stupid, ugly, and/or a trial to its parent(s). Its human worth is not affected by beauty or intelligence and I found the promotion of support on those grounds profoundly off putting. It was really shocking to see that thread here.
Seriously, if the child had been born with Downs Syndrome, would there have been this support for keeping the child and its mother in the Bay Area? (No, seriously, asking. Not accusing.)
This sort of…distasteful branding was (not to my merit) enough to put me off donating. Perhaps my reaction most specificaly identifies me as “not a humanist, not a rationalist.” Which is true enough.
Having said that – I think that trying to bind the mother to having an abortion in the case of pregnancy was reprehensible, and I support the mother’s decision to not kill her child after all…but I feel that having agreed beforehand without corrosion to sex with people who stated firmly that they would not support a child born of that sexual activity the mother is without recourse to either her husband or her mistress. The mother as a self-responsible adult knew what she was getting into, and trying to bill either the husband or the mistress now denies the mother’s agency in her pre-pregnancy actions. I feel that a whip-around among like-minded supportive people is the best option, and that the mother should reconsider taking her own family up on any support they might offer.
How about no?
If no one feels moved to engage and/or agree, I shan’t bring it up again. And I haven’t joined in with the other comments discussing this in this thread or elsewhere.
If anyone else had noted the beauty/humanity linkage, I would have commented there, and not here.
“To me, it should not matter if the child was stupid, ugly, and/or a trial to its parent(s). Its human worth is not affected by beauty or intelligence and I found the promotion of support on those grounds profoundly off putting.”
So, this is actually an interesting broader point (the specific case aside — I don’t have any strong feelings on that matter one way or the other).
keranih, do you think that any individual qualities of a human affects their human worth? Or are all humans equally valuable?
The above is a standalone question, but here’s an optional corollary: what, exactly, do you mean by “human worth”? Are you referring to moral worth/value, or something else? In either case, what is the nature of this property?
what, exactly, do you mean by “human worth”? Are you referring to moral worth/value, or something else? In either case, what is the nature of this property?
I think that the basic rights and liberties of a human – those inate qualities which give weight to a person’s existence and confirm responsibilities and demands on fellow humans as a matter of fact – have to apply to every human, regardless of age, social position, criminal tendencies, mental ability, what have you. This human worth can not be “earned” – it is an inate inborn quality that demands a response from other humans.
And “human worth” is how we treat each other. It’s a property of inter-human interaction. A piece of ground isn’t going to treat each person the same – the ground is going to react to different weight & density. A pathogen isn’t going to see every human as the same – some will have a more vigerous immune system.
And it has nothing to do with physical strength, material wealth, patience, or ability to make people laugh.
keranih, do you think that any individual qualities of a human affects their human worth? Or are all humans equally valuable?
Human worth, no. Do individual qualities affect how much I like someone, or how effect they can be at their job? Absolutely. And I think that we should be free to like one person more than another, or to prefer to hire one person over another. But these preferences of association have their limits. The miserable murderer on death row still has human worth. (And our execution process acknowledges this, in how long we have to take to come to the point of executing the murder, compared to how long it takes to destroy a vicious dog.)
I think that “waste of oxygen” and other derogatory insults are problematic because they attempt to deny this universality to specific people.
(OMG there were a lot of responses. I will try to answer later in the day, esp to provide Scott links to the sorts of statements I am talking about.)
The length of the execution process happens because there are groups who would like to ban executions entirely but have found they cannot, so instead they nickel-and-dime the execution process, which causes it to become stretched out and full of arbitrary restrictions. Even the Supreme Court got tired of this.
“We” isn’t a single group.
Thanks for the response, keranih.
Um, I’m afraid your described views here strike me as rather comprehensively nonsensical. (It’s also possible that I’m very badly failing to understand anything you’re saying.) In any case, this comment thread probably isn’t the best venue to hash this out.
Next open thread, then, perhaps.
Might https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/ be a good place to continue/revive discussions that some people would like to continue, but others dislike?
That’s why the multiheaded fundraiser is here too.
Agreed. I also found the “multiheaded fund” to be contaminated by outright lying and fraud, which impacted my choice to not donate, but you’re right, that’s the pov that those people supporting multiheaded’s immigration efforts took of the matter.
Would you kindly elaborate?
A man chooses; a slave obeys!
(If the reference is unintentional, I apologize for the flippery)
Eltargrim: nah, most likely not. She just has a habit – after being banned a couple of times – of trying to point out that others’ behaviour could be seen as a contravention of the true/necessary/kind rule.
That it’d only be seen as such by the most thin-skinned of theoretical observers seems to be irrelevant.
That said, it was also the first thing I thought of.
@multi: given that multiple people expressed that they believed your plan was essentially fraud, and outlined exactly why in that thread, this seems like you’re just stirring trouble. Better to let it lie.
@Leit I have heard absolutely nothing of said people and their allegations. Would you please link or quote some?
You can’t possibly not have heard of it, you were involved in it! Insults flew, people got banned, pretty exciting stuff.
I’m not Leit, but I think they’re referring to this sort of thing.
Actually, the OT where your first fundraiser was posted was remarkably civil; a big contrast to other recent events.
Oh? But that’s not an allegation of fraud! It doesn’t say I’m going to spend the money on crack or that I’m actually a scammer in Brazil or something. It simply states how certain people hate me and don’t want me to leave, which sucks (and I can’t even feel very outraged about it, that’s so laughably petty and evil).
Even if the fundraising itself was not fraudulent, the purpose of the fundraising was to aid in perpetrating a fraud, which I believe is what he was referring to.
What suntzu said. And I seem to remember a bunch of folks getting banned, which – being uncharitable – looks like what you’re trying to replicate here.
Let’s not, folks.
Why be uncharitable, though? I think the situation is perfectly explained by multi taking keranih (and perhaps you) to suggest that she was trying to defraud the donors, which would be a very serious and also untrue accusation. For what it’s worth, that’s the way I first read keranih’s comment, too.
The whole “that’s not an allegation of fraud, people just hate me despite how obviously lovable I am because they’re deranged freaks” thing when an allegation of fraud was explicitly laid out in the link makes me less inclined to take a charitable reading.
@ Creutzer
to suggest that she was trying to defraud the donors, which would be a very serious and also untrue accusation. For what it’s worth, that’s the way I first read keranih’s comment, too.
That’s the way I read it too.
I assumed that Multiheaded was taking it as an accusation of fraud against the donors, but thought the most likely explanation was that it was an accusation of fraud against the immigration authorities of the country Multiheaded wanted to immigrate to. I then followed the link to confirm that.
Assuming I am correct, Multiheaded’s response is interesting. Deceiving people in the in group, in this case potential donors, counts as wicked, hence is described as fraud. Deceiving people in the out group doesn’t, so it does not occur to Multiheaded that that is the kind of fraud being referred to.
As it happens, I have no particular objection to deceiving government officials trying to enforce laws I disapprove of, but I would still recognize “fraud” as an accurate description. And would not be surprised that some other people disapproved of it.
Traditionally* the protection from fraud has been along the lines of “don’t deal with people who commit fraud unless you have leverage” because people who are willing to defraud someone else for personal gain are also willing to defraud you for personal gain.
However, that does not apply in this case. Multiheaded needs to commit immigration fraud because it would greatly benefit multiheaded. There’s no motive of personal gain, so there’s no reason to be suspicious.
Be more charitable.
* It seems that the “rationality” program consists of discarding all hard won cultural wisdom then being stunned at the consequences.
@ David Friedman
Deceiving people in the in group, in this case potential donors, counts as wicked, hence is described as fraud. Deceiving people in the out group doesn’t, so it does not occur to Multiheaded that that is the kind of fraud being referred to.
It didn’t occur to me either, till I looked into the thread.
I Googled for ‘immigration fraud’. Iirc the whole first screen was urls at an immigration office. The first two or three were warning would-be immigrants about lawyers and others who would take their money with false promises of getting them in — ie fraud against the individual customers.
Then there were a few using ‘immigration fraud’ in the sense under discussion here: a would-be immigrant making an untrue application.
I wouldn’t draw the line at ingroup vs outgroup, unless real people are the ingroup and government computers/clerks/lawmakers are the outgroup. And if fraud doesn’t mean just deception, but actually getting money from the victim. And a consequence of actual noticeable harm being done to some actual individual.
Thus imo ‘welfare fraud’ would be an appropriate term, if a dishonest welfare or scholarship applicant takes money that would have gone to some more deserving applicant.
But in the sense of a dishonest immigration applicant getting into a country, there is no sure consequence of noticeable harm to any real individual. No bureaucrat or lawmaker is going to be hurt. The consequence of a competent, English-speaking person getting into Canada or the US may arguably be good for the current citizens.
No harm no fraud.
“It’s not fraud, because I know better than those stuffy bureaucrats and the Democratically Expressed Will Of The People”.
Even Valjean could at least admit to stealing some bread.
I wouldn’t draw the line at ingroup vs outgroup, unless real people are the ingroup and government computers/clerks/lawmakers are the outgroup
I would prefer not to see that sort of argument framed in such a way that bureaucrats and legislators don’t count as “real people”.
I mean, someone has to keep the state oppression machine running, and they’ve got to make a living somehow.
If you look up ‘fraud’ in an English-Russian dictionary, it will tell you that the Russian word for that is ‘мошенничество’. But that word is used only for scams, not for illegal immigration. So, a typical native speaker of Russian* has no mental box that would contain everything Americans call ‘fraud’.
* (which may or may not be a good reference class for multiheaded)
Provided that you accept that unlimited immigration can cause harm at all, there’s a threshhold where an additional immigrant causes harm. It’s just that the harmful effect is distributed over the country so while there isn’t noticeable harm to an individual, there is cumulative harm which, added together, is as much harm as noticeable harm to an individual would be.
Actually there is a more generic Russian category word that covers the English meaning of fraud, “обман” – which is an article in the penal code, too – “causing material damage by means of fraud” – punishing deliberate harmful deception for monetary gain afaik – but in common speech and not legalese it simply means “deception” in general, which makes it too broad.
@ keranih
I just read all the way down from https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/03/ot39-appian-thread/#comment-297099 (by Timothy Coish)
thru
Technically Not Anonymous says:
January 5, 2016 at 2:01 pm
Coish said Multi “was attempting immigration fraud”. Keranih echoed that further down, but I did not see anyone else using that word regarding M’s application. — And certainly no one was accusing her of planning to rip off the donations for a shopping spree! 😉
Okay, Keranih, I want to reply to what you just said above: “that’s the pov that those people supporting multiheaded’s immigration efforts took of the matter.”
Perhaps you have a Typical Mind fallacy here. It is certainly not my pov of the matter! I’ll help Multi’s project because she is a great person and online friend. Fuck immigration fraud.
The point being that that discussion was something of a low point, and I’d rather people ignore the coy “come on, say it, I know you want to” leading.
For the record: I’ve literally stolen food (and other goods) because the other option was not to eat. I’ve squatted illegally because there was nowhere else to go. The twats talking about how that fundraiser was “tainted” don’t know shit about dealing with a system that actively despises them and does its best to cut off all of their choices. If multi needs to commit immigration fraud to get away from that? Perfectly justified. Not that she needs my justification.
That doesn’t excuse what I see as basically waving a bag of sweeties from across the street and waiting for the contrarian kiddies to wander into traffic.
Ugh, now I wish I’d just followed my own advice and shut up.
I don’t think that’s what Multi was trying to do, and I don’t think Scott would ban anyone for linking to comments in a previous thread. (Not looking for a debate here, just giving input.)
Fuck it, in for a penny.
Nita, if you go and read the thread that styx linked you’ll see that multiheaded was actually replying to it. With considerable – albeit understandable – vitriol. That doesn’t point to good faith when people point out that the accusation of fraud was made and she acts as though it’s not something she understands. Okay, I could have been more clear, but this was a reference to something that actually happened, and should have stood out in memory.
You’ll also see that a couple of folks were banned. The situation wasn’t identical, but it’d be a fair guess that this is now one of those topics that’ll encourage Scott to put on his Reign of Terror robe and wizard hat.
As for the bag of sweeties… yeah, it’s basically a form of nerd sniping.
Fine, fine. Let’s go 🙂
I actually read that thread at the time it happened, so I ‘was there’ in the same way multiheaded ‘was there’. (And although I was not personally invested, I do remember it.)
But, just like Creutzer and houseboatonstyx, I misunderstood keranih’s comment, taking it to be about donation fraud (uncontroversially terrible), rather than allegations of immigration fraud (controversial, less terrible). It doesn’t seem unlikely that multiheaded also misread keranih in the exact same way as the three of us.
To be clear, I’m not saying I’m definitely right and you’re definitely wrong. Your reading seems obvious to you, my reading seems obvious to me. But I don’t think my reading is unreasonable.
Basically, you’re accusing someone of trying to get people banned just for the hell of it, when it could have been an honest request for clarification. After all, if many readers interpreted keranih’s comment as “there has been actual donation fraud”, rather than “some people have mentioned immigration fraud”, it could have a serious impact on Multi’s situation.
Eh, that reading is plausible, but combined with a pattern of comments by multi that suggest she has some… issues with how Scott approaches his moderation, it just looks too much like fishing. Note that I do acknowledge that this isn’t charitable at all, but in my estimation the warning was likely to be both true and necessary.
Besides which, styx has now provided the required clarification, and we can hopefully all carry on without anyone being pettily misgendered, condemned to live in suffering for their sins, or banned.
To clarify –
To me, Multiheaded’s fundraiser was tainted, IMO, by the act of and intent to lie on official immigration forms and the fraudulent attempts to gain visas for entry (and then deliberately overstay without permission.) To the extent that people understood that this is what multiheaded was going to do with the money, multiheaded wasn’t defrauding or lying to the people who donated.
That is what I meant by fraud.
When I said: “that’s the pov that those people supporting multiheaded’s immigration efforts took of the matter.”
it was in response to the earlier comment, drawing a parallel between multiheaded – an adult who I find acerbic and difficult and often unpleasant – and the child for whom funds were being raised.
The parallel, as I saw it, was that people felt that multiheaded – despite being difficult – was a human who deserved a better living condition than what was going on in Russia. My thought was that we’d already done a whip around on the basis that multiheaded – despite not being an adorable cute neonate – deserved a basic human level of treatment which wasn’t available in Russia.
So. If people want to get po’ed at me because I think multiheaded’s method of attempting immigration was fraudulent lying, go ahead, because I do.
If people want to get po’ed at me because of…thinking that most people who donated weren’t aware of that, please don’t. I didn’t go into enough detail on that answer, and for that confusion, I apologize.
If people were donating because they knew and liked multiheaded that’s something else entirely. I was speaking from my own perspective of not knowing the person at all.
Leit: fwiw, I was genuinely confused and wondering whether I have done something genuinely inadvisable/suspicious that people suspect me of defrauding *them*. I wasn’t baiting here. I do have… occasional issues with the commenting culture here, but here I was asking in good faith. HONEST.
@multi: fair enough, and others have pointed out that the alternate explanation was indeed reasonable. My sincere apologies.
Wait, is this supposed to be a subtle jab at Multiheaded’s beauty and intelligence? I appreciate a good zinger as much as the next guy, but that isn’t very nice. :op
“Seriously, if the child had been born with Downs Syndrome, would there have been this support for keeping the child and its mother in the Bay Area?”
I expect there would have been support, but from a different subset of the people here, probably with some overlap.
“Its human worth is not affected by beauty or intelligence ”
Is it affected by anything? Are all humans of equal worth? If so, why?
My first guess is that a person has intrinsic value as well as extrinsic one. I don’t know what does the intrinsic value depends on. Probably something like “how much does the person enjoys living” and “how much do they want to continue”. And the extrinsic depends on how much good for the others do they produce during their life. Which may depend on how cute or smart or kind or amiable or hardworking they are.
Perhaps “all humans have equal worth” is (in addition to a preference for kindness) an effort to beat Goodhart’s Law by not measuring, and also a belief that the standards for valuing humans are likely to be corrupt standards.
Who was saying this? I said “cute ingroup baby” kind of as a joke, not because I thought cuteness is the Sole Arbiter Of Human Worth (I can’t actually tell babies’ cuteness levels).
I said “cute ingroup baby” kind of as a joke
May I proffer my sympathy, as I’ve made online jokes that I thought were plainly and obviously jokes, only to be jumped on by offended persons at how I’ve personally attacked them.
Plainly, I’m neither as funny nor as clear at communicating as I think. Sometimes it may help to do the “Attention: joke coming!”, “Attention: joke now here!”, “Attention: joke over!” bit 🙂
Perhaps even “Trigger warning: joke”. 😀
Or maybe not.
Scott – “Cute ingroup baby” I also took as a joke – ingroup neonates are by definition cute. (Pro tip: If approached by someone holding a photo of a child/pet/gift for a child/pet and asked “Isn’t [child/pet/gift for a child/pet] just the cutest eva?” the correct answer is always “aaaawww! Adorable!” You are not being asked to judge cuteness, relative or otherwise, you’re being asked to make a social signal.)
I wasn’t expecting this kind of social signaling charity request from the EA community.
Specific quotes from the comments to the first post discussing the situation:
“Andromeda seems to be a bright young child”
“The world is a better place for having an adorable little Andromeda in it.”
Subsequent posts/comments went further.
I do note that most of the comments seemed to be about the situation/ethics, and not about the specific people involved, which I think was likely best. However, there were a number of comments which suggested (to my reading) that it was the cuteness/intelligence of the child which warrented outside support, and not just the existence of the child. (Although several people stuck to the last point.)
“If approached by someone holding a photo of a child/pet/gift for a child/pet and asked “Isn’t [child/pet/gift for a child/pet] just the cutest eva?” the correct answer is always “aaaawww! Adorable!” You are not being asked to judge cuteness, relative or otherwise, you’re being asked to make a social signal.)”
What I like about that answer is that it evades the question–to which a truthful answer would almost certainly be “no.”
The chance, for example, that the pictured child is cuter than my granddaughter would be negligible.
It’s important to understand that words don’t really mean anything so that you can answer the questions you’re being asked without feeling like you’re lying.
The meaning of words must be the only important part of human communication because they’re the only parts the socially awkward can understand, lol.
Ob: https://xkcd.com/1650/
Been there, and you have my sympathy.
Said Achmiz:
David Friedman:
The problem with this crowd, right here in this. Why, oh why do we have to keep having these discussions every single time the opportunity arises? And secondly, why doesn’t it occur to people that it’s kind of a gaffe to start these discussions in the context of (the worth of) a specific, identifiable-by-name human being (who hasn’t even lived long enough to distinguish herself through anything)?
Perhaps the gaffe, if it was a gaffe, was inserting a specific, identifiable-by-name human being into a forum where discussing such topics in the abstract is a common event. (Or perhaps this cost was acceptable given that donations could also be expected to result)
Okay, fair enough, but can I put in a vote for not using needlessly inflammatory rhetoric like ‘the mother’s decision to not kill her child’ (no, you weren’t the only one to do that). Generally those who are willing to consider abortion do not think of it as killing an existing child, but as preventing a potential future child from coming into existence, and consider that there is a large gulf in moral significance between those.
Unless and until we can come up with a generally agreed-on set of criteria for determining at what point between conception and full sentience one becomes an entity deserving of full legal protection, and then apply those criteria to actually arrive at a cut-off point, can we just stick to neutral medical terms like ‘have an abortion’ / ‘terminate a pregnancy’ etc?
I would quibble with the idea that the medical terms are neutral.
Having said that – I think that this is a reasonable request aimed at better/higher quality discourse, and will attempt to use “deliberately terminate the current viable pregnancy” or the like in the future.
(I can also see where my concluding paragraph was more indepth than needful for a discussion I intended to go in a separate direction. I wish I had sat on this a bit longer – I’d been thinking and drafting this for a few days, and hoping someone else would bring it up.)
neutral medical terms
You mean like “foetus”, right? I’ve seen an online post chiding those ignorant pro-lifers for using the term “baby” when they should use the medically correct “foetus”. Because those dumb hicks, confusing a fully-developed real human baby with an undeveloped foetus that is not yet a child but only one in potential or in future!
When “foetus” actually is the Latin for the state of being pregnant: “the bearing or hatching of young, a bringing forth” and has been medicalised into a term for “unborn at particular stage of gestation”, and being “medically correct” means that when your cousin Jane informs you she’s just had a baby, what you should do is send her congratulations on her successful delivery of a neo-nate rather than on her new baby, right?
Of course, nobody would dream of using a medical term when talking about a born baby, so it’s not at all a neutral term and under the aegis of “strict impartial scientifically accurate value-judgement-free terminolgy” is used to inculcate the notion that the unborn entity is not really/fully/yet a human offspring, a “baby” (people have such irrational prejudices about “killing babies”!) According to this Ngram usage of “fetus” became most popular at the same period as the abortion rights movement got into full swing, during the 80s.
At the same time, people who would never dream of talking about an unborn baby in the womb have no problems sharing and cooing over those photos of foetal animals as baby elephants, baby dolphins, etc.
And to quote a post from a site that comments on religion-news journalism and how religion is covered in the media from the angle of journalism, not religion, how your “neutral medical terminology in non-partisan journalism” gets covered is not quite as simple as it may appear:
For those that are interested, that David Shaw article from the 90s about abortion coverage in the media.
Editors say “acorn” is botanically correct, value-free and non-emotional. An “acorn” does not become a “seedling” until it’s germinated. All true. But “acorn” sounds like a “non-quercine glob”.
I would like to immediately apologize for the above, with this beautiful video [youtube, 3 min] of the birth of a baby oak.
@Nita: That is a beautiful video. Thanks for sharing!
“Acorn” is not actually botanically correct; depending on the stage of germination and the species it can take 6 to 24 months to mature, and plainly it is not an “acorn” at all stages of development.
So referring to the monocotyledonous fruit contained within the hard, woody cupule as an “acorn” is the common but misleading and indeed sentimental notion of “tree babies” that retards the rights of others to use these fruits as mast for their swine instead of “let them become seedlings and grow into trees themselves!”
My preferred terms are “pro-murder” and “anti-choice”.
I could live with that 🙂
But really, when for thirty years the media has been using preferred terms that favour one side, that you’ve been born and grown up seeing and hearing those terms used in what you’ve also been led to believe is a neutral media,* and imagining that such usage will not have any affect on how you regard the matter is rather a naive notion.
*OUR side is neutral, fact-based, and trustworthy; THEIR side is biased, prejudiced and churns out propaganda, of course!
I, being tremendously in favor of abortion rights and indeed abortions themselves, sometimes half-jokingly say that I’m “anti-life”. I mean, I have the opposite view from the pro-life crowd, but I certainly don’t want to associate myself with the “pro-choice” crowd (on account of their terrible, terrible arguments)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism
As a pro-natalist myself, I’m somewhat baffled by this philosophy, but now you have something impressive sounding you can call yourself!
@Urstoff:
No, sorry. I’m quite familiar with antinatalism, and it’s a rather different thing.
Back when I was in college, in discussions with a friend of mine we agreed that we should call our positions “pro-infanticide” and “anti-human-dignity”. This greatly improved the quality of the discussion. I am not joking.
Extermination-Loving Daleks vs Body-Invading Xenomorphs
I phrased it such as to avoid applying a noun to the (putative future) baby at all – if ‘foetus’ is too blob-like, okay, but I still think that if we are going to name X at all, , given that the whole dispute is about whether an X at developmental stage A should be afforded the same legal protections as an X at developmental stage B, C, D etc, then I don’t really care what words we use as long as we use different words for the X at those different developmental stages – and in all cases, we should probably be especially careful to not use words that can ambiguously either refer to a specific developmental stage or ones offspring generally.
Otherwise it just sounds like someone is trying to pull a non-central fallacy (and it’s no surprise that this particular issue is one of the examples actually used in Scott’s article.) The ‘meat is murder’ vegans don’t need to claim that chickens are people in order to make their argument that it is still unethical to kill and eat them, after all.
I remember the comment in a book on modern reproductive technology that the term “pre-embryo” had been introduced to make practices such as creating multiple fertilized eggs only one of which was going to be implanted sound less objectionable.
For any fundraiser, most people don’t contribute. So it is not necessary to be explicit about it.
I cannot imagine how this would work in practice If it is at all possible to discuss this in the abstract without judging anybody’s life choices, or, maybe even worse, turning it into a “how-to”, please explain.
I’m fairly convinced that I’d be impossible to create anything like that of legal consequence were I live.
I had to google that term, so maybe I’m using it wrong, but “unconscionability” seems to cover the idea.
It’s surely unenforceable everywhere. It was a promise, not a binding contract.
(Oh no, we’re not going to get into this again, are we…?)
So it is of no consequence other than emotionally. Not to say that emotional consequences were neglectible.
The problem with newcomers to any community (here: me and rationalist) is that they lack context in basically every discussion. For me there is no “this” and no “again”.
This is made worse by the fact that some banned topics seem rather innocent to me. So I feel that I have to watch my every word. But a censor has no way to distiguish malice and naivite.
This isn’t some long standing community thing. In the last open thread there was a loooong subthread about whether or not unconditional promise keeping was the linchpin of civilization.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/28/ot46-open-rebellion/#comment-340614
Also saying one of the banned words will prevent your post from posting but it won’t make you subject to being personally banned. If you read the comments link at the top you can find the rules that subject you to banning, as well as a list of people that have been banned and the comments they were banned for.
brad, I missed that one, thanks.
I’m really sorry, but I have to ask this:
Breaking a promise in generall leads to the other party being off worse, not the promise breaker.
What is the supposed relation between someone breaking a promise and that someone having “fallen on some tough times “? The former basically should have no causal effect on the latter (I’m talking spherical cow level of abstraction. I realize that it is not actually so absolute.)
Is this about some karma-like concept or what?
The basic premise of reign of terror is don’t make malicious shitposts. And especially not when it is at the expense of somebody Scott cares about.
The issue with a lot of the banned topics is that a lot of these topics turn into massive tirefires- one person makes an innocuous post and then everyone rushes to get their two cents in, the current g_g_ brouhaha has engulfed 3 different posts. This is made worse by the fact that Scott is a licensed professional, whose job requires people to place a massive amount of trust in him.
The basic premise of the Reign of Terror is “don’t make Scott look bad in front of his Tumblr commie friends”.
There are no “Tumblr commie friends”. It was established in the last open thread that there are at best one or two communists vaguely associated with the greater rationalist-sphere and they aren’t particularly close on the reblog graph to Scott.
This meme is just a tactic from alt right assholes such as yourself to bully Scott. I hope you and sunzuanime get hit with the guillotine.
The Reign of Terror started immediately after multiheaded made a post on tumblr calling out SSC comments. Multiheaded is indisputably a commie and indisputably a friend of Scott and indisputably on tumblr. But of course we can’t expect anything a black-and-white anonymous says to have any relation to the truth.
jaimeastorga2000:
(1) I am on Tumblr
(2) I am not a Commie (though by American standards I seem to skew considerably more leftward in my political opinions than I would identify myself as doing)
(3) I would not consider I could claim to be a friend of Scott’s but I certainly am not opposed to him
(4) In view of the fact that many people like to present SSC commenters in general and Scott in particular as some kind of nest of right-wingers, your “he’s way too leftist” is ironic
(5) Someone’s personal blog is their own fiefdom and they get to make up the rules as to how they run it. If that means Scott decides “On the third Tuesday of the month, I will ban everyone with a user-name containing the letter W”, he gets to do so
Deiseach, how is your reading comprehension so bad that when someone talks about Irish fishermen you think it’s relevant to point out that you’re Irish, but not a fisherman?
Whether abortion contracts can ever be enforced is an interesting area of law. There have been at least a few cases concerning promises to have an abortion that have reached courts. (I don’t have any knowledge of or opinion on the particular situation being discussed here, I’m talking in the abstract.)
Some promises to have an abortion are not valid contracts at all. A bare promise is not enforceable. However, making a promise in exchange for something else (including money or another promise) can be enough to constitute a valid contract.
Are abortion contracts generally enforceable? First, the type of enforcement matters. Courts in every state are very hesitant to require actual performance of a contract for personal services (though they will require a non-performing party to pay damages). For analogous reasons, it would be very unlikely for any court to require someone to actually have an abortion. It would be slightly less implausible for a court to require someone who had an abortion in breach of contract to pay damages.
Courts are, in many states, pretty hesitant to enforce any contracts to enter (or not enter) into a particular family relationship, including parenthood. Apart from that, courts in many states could hold (and have held) that enforcing a contract to have an abortion runs against public policy, for one reason or another, and would decline to enforce it on those grounds.
This law review article gives a brief overview, and mentions one case (perhaps the only case) where a contract to have an abortion was enforced (though not against the party who agreed to have the abortion; against the other party for not making good on their end):
https://www.whdlaw.com/publications/Dodd_WisconsinJournalOfFamilyLaw_5-12.pdf
@ Frank McPike:
Fascinating article!
Also, the case in question where an abortion contract was upheld:
Oh wow. My mythos certainly grows.
(Most “tumblr communists” who hate the LW community, like @stormingtheivory or @reddragdiva or @wordcubed, explicity hate me as well fyi, because they consider me a psychotic reactionary MRA or something.)
@Shitposter in chief
You mean the person that’s been temp banned from this website three times? Oh yes Scott is terribly afraid of causing offense there.
I don’t know the backstory behind this, and I don’t care, but it was boring five threads ago and it’s boring now. Can’t you guys just go out behind the ball shed and have a fistfight, like civilized grown-ups do?
I’ve never actually done this, so I’m pretty curious about how it works. What does happen after two men step outside to settle their differences? Is the guy who wins the fight considered to have won the argument, or something like that?
You do some macho posturing and then “reluctantly allow” your friends to drag you away?
The idea is that the bickering is not really about what is being bickered about, but is rather a symptom of status uncertainty between the two bickerers. A round of fisticuffs resolves the status uncertainty and thereby dissolves the argument.
@jamie
The argument is usually considered ended, without a winner. Assuming the fight was reasonably fair, and had a clear winner, both sides acquitting themselves well. The fight is more about signalling determination that “settling” the argument. All debates being bravery debates and all. The only way to prove your determination is to risk (or take) a beating. The loser is thought to at least have demonstrated his commitment to his side of the argument, and thus to have a legitimate point. The winner as well, and he gets hurt less.
Well, I was trying to imply that it’s neither civilized nor grown-up, though preferable to playground-level name-calling (hence “ball shed”). Could probably have been clearer about that. And I haven’t gotten in a fistfight since college (when I was drinking in a townie bar, and some townie felt the need to physically make it clear I wasn’t welcome), so I can’t claim to be an expert.
But it’s not about winning the argument, it’s about proving that you’re not willing to take an unlimited amount of verbal abuse. You’ve proven that whether or not you win the fight; stepping up is enough.
I still routinely misread Ilya Shpitser as “Ilya Shitposter”.
Damn misspent
youthmid-twenties on 4chan.@Nornagest
I find it annoying to have two posters constantly slandering our host. It doesn’t help that one never posts substantively.
Your millage obviously varies.
@multi
Does reddragdiva hate the LW community? I mean, he shitposts about them (who doesn’t) and seems to think they are wrong about things but interacts with them regularly and sometimes positively, which is the norm for a lot of people in the rationalist-adjacent-sphere. I mean, the existance of RationalWiki does serve as a giant warning sign, maybe that’s the hate outlet. But I couldn’t tell.
@Nornagest
C’mon, one of the easiest ways to perform femininity is to toss around threats like you won’t be taken seriously, because of course girls aren’t taken seriously with stuff like that.
jaimeastorga2000 says:
I have, it basically comes down to what Sastan says about demonstrating commitment and a willingness to “put your money where your mouth is” so to speak. (Also see what Nornagest said about “stepping up”)
As far as “aftermath” the argument itself is considered a draw. There tends to be a strong taboo against causing permanent injury so usually that’s the end of it. Bringing the topic up again (after both sides have illustrated their commitment) is generally seen as “looking for trouble”.
@Frog Do
The dude is constantly accusing LW-ers of being Evil Bad Reactionary Conservatives, sneering at them, and encouraging other people to sneer at and hate them.
He also is incapable of accurately assessing anyone’s political opinions, and when it comes to people he associates with LW, his error is to always accuse them of having beliefs that justify him attacking them, sneering at them, and hating them.
It is pretty fair to say he is a hater.
@ Frog Do
Wait, I’m confused. Who’s performing femininity by throwing around threats here? Suntzu-chan? Suntzu’s stalker anon? Nornagest?
@ Nita:
multiheaded (I’m not endorsing the remark.)
@ Vox Imperatoris
What was the threat? And what does it have to do with anything Nornagest has said?
@Alex: so lurk moar.
There are quite a lot of conflicts in the rationalist-adjacent community that cry out for this approach.
@DrBeat
Yeah, but he can also have somewhat reasonable conversations with them, too. He’s clearly talking with them, rather than at them, if you get my meaning.
@Nita
I was going on past behavior, thinking of multi, but it is a wide claim. Not saying that it’s a good thing or a bad thing, either, I’m saying it descriptively; I’m saying Nornagest is probably being too serious. But maybe I’m being too unserious!
Edit: I was interpreting a lot of this thread as back-and-forth banter, not seriously meant to actually insult people. So if people think I’m talking shit, it’s in the spirit of camraderie, not like I’m seriously attacking multi or anything. I guess that may not have been what other people are seeing.
suntzuanime, the tone of jaimestorga2000’s sneer was that everyone Scott knows or who follows him on Tumblr is a commie (or even Commie) and so he was banning people on here in order to curry favour with the terrible Communists whose boots he slavishly licks.
I was trying to show that while some of the fish in the tank may be black, not all fish in the tank are black, therefore saying all the fish in the tank are black is incorrect.
But perhaps I was being too subtle and understated for those that like screaming insults instead?
anonymous, at least I have a name to be called by (even if it’s one you want to use to call me names). Want to give that a go, or are you too afraid of losing your anonymity because – what? The Tumblr communists will come for you in the night?
Yes, I do find myself a topic of fascination to myself, if it’s a toss-up between talking to myself or engaging with anons who infest this site like – Tumblr Communists, shall we say?
While I don’t think “Scott’s Commie Friends” is literally true (though I still perpetuate it, because it’s funny), it’s known that he gets pretty distressed when he’s called right wing, or likened to Hipster Conservatives. As far as bannings go, I think there’s a slight bias towards banning people to the right of him, but at the very least most bans towards non-anons come with a warning now.
You’ll adress Suntzu-sama with the respect they deserve.
I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Just a technical note: commies don’t have friends, they have comrades.
It’s a similar concept, but the difference is that comrades can be sacrificed in a purge. So, a friend wouldn’t attack you for perceived wrongthink, but a comrade would.
Are you saying that the only relevant consequences of an act are legal consequences and emotional consequences? There can be nothing wrong with an act if it is not illegal and doing it does not upset the person who does it?
Torturing an animal to death in a polity where doing so isn’t illegal is just fine as long as it doesn’t upset the torturer?
That seems to be the implication if what you wrote.
Dammit, Nornagest, can’t you even obey the first rule of Rationalist Fight Club? I mean, it’s the first one for a reason!
Giving away the secret location is just the icing on the fucking cake….
I think the emphasis on “clever beautiful darling child, will be net benefit to the world to support it” was a fruit of the fact that some/many/a lot of people on here are some variety of Utilitarian and/or into Effective Altruism, so there has to be a reason for giving charity other than “this person close to me geographically/that I can see for myself/know personally or at a small remove is in need”.
We want facts and figures and a net return on handing over our hard-earned money, goshdarnit, we’re not like those fuzzy-minded types who do it for the warm fuzzies!
So emphasising “child is intelligent, helping it to have better standard of living will result in payback once it’s been educated and goes into worthwhile career” is on the same grounds as “instead of giving that bum panhandling on the streets ten bucks, you could do much more good by donating to malaria bednets and here’s the quantifiable measure of that”.
Particularly as a “hey, let’s give one of our own a dig out” is one of the terrible bad no-good things non-rationalists do because they can only conceptualise on local levels of appeal to personal interest, and that won’t fly round here 🙂
I’m always quite clear to separate my in-group donating from my EA donating, I won’t even let meta-charities come out of my 10%, just because I don’t like the dynamic where “helping our own institutions” becomes “obviously” the most efficient way to help everyone. I like doing it, but it comes out of the rest of the budget.
But, I do get some sort of fuzzies from knowing that I’m helping someone who is saying they want to do good and help others (and fulfil my values) in turn once they can, even though I don’t count on it.
I’m actually a little uncomfortable with the pattern where people promise to contribute to EA stuff as part of their campaign. The basic idea of them saying they’ll give back to my/the group’s concerns is nice, and community support systems are great, and feeling a bit like they owe something to the group’s concerns is good, but I wouldn’t want them to feel like they have an obligation to their donors to donate lots forever. That’d be kind of exploitative. Doing that much should stay their choice.
This seems to ignore the fact (is it a fact?) that fuzzies feel fuzzy for a reason, and that reason is cases like this one.
“Don’t call fuzziness altruism” is a very sensible claim and I hope it will become consensus one day.
“Don’t be fuzzy, be altruistic” is nonsense.
@ keranih
the mother should reconsider taking her own family up on any support they might offer
Briefly, not to engage here, but before you go on with this, I suggest you read the earlier discussions closely, as to her own parents’ attitude.
I did see the earlier discussions. I saw that people were suggesting that she sue the child’s father – who wanted the pregnancy terminated – or her husband – whos opinion on abortion of this child I don’t recall – for child support.
That her parents strongly urged the mother abort doesn’t seem to have put them in a very unique position in the mother’s family circle. If the mother was considering accepting support from either of the involved men (which she didn’t seem overly keen on) who wanted her to abort the child, then considering help from her own parents would not be that out of bounds.
And I have seen previously firmly opposed grandparents turned around by time and a grandchild. *shrugs* It happens.
That her parents strongly urged the mother abort doesn’t seem to have put them in a very unique position in the mother’s family circle.
If the help the mother’s parents might offer, would consist of mother and child moving to an isolated area in Texas(?) to live in the same house with the parents who strongly wanted her to abort — that would not be a healthy place for the child to grow. Paging Tennessee Williams.
In the Bay Area commune there’s no such burden/pressure on the friends/donors. If some don’t want to donate, others can take up the slack (apparently are already). She’s in a city where (when she’s up to it) she can find $employment among sympathetic people.
“The most accurate view of polyamory is that it is the most rational possible way to arrange your reproductive life.”
I’ve been wondering if it would be worth organizing a debate on this topic, either online in text or in realspace. The question would be something like:
For most people most of the time, is polyamory or monogamy a better choice?
I think my son Patri is willing to take the monogamy side. He has the advantage over me of having tried both.
If it is, I’d love to see a transcript.
You should define your terms first.
Does monogamy include serial monogamy or ‘monogamy’ with mistresses?
Does polyamory include polygyny or swinging?
Who exactly are we talking about when we say most people? Fertile opposite sex couples are the overwhelming majority but generally these discussions tend to focus heavily on bisexuality / homosexuality.
I was assuming that monogamy includes the possibility of divorce, hence serial polygamy. It does not include monogamy with mistresses. Both divorce and adultery involve it working poorly, but a non-zero probability of a poor outcome isn’t a sufficient reason to reject the institution.
I do not include swinging or a commitment to polygyny as polyamory. I would count as polyamory a group that happened at the moment to consist of one man and more than one woman, but not if it was taken for granted by all participants that it had to take that structure–as would be the case in a traditional polygynous marriage.
By “most people” I mean people of the age range at which marriage and similar arrangements are common. If polyamory is better for bisexual people but worse for everyone else, then it is worse for most people, since most people are not bisexual.
Monogamy, clearly. In my local poly community, that’s pretty universally accepted.
Fortunately we don’t need to pick one thing for everyone to do. This is like asking “for most people most of the time, are heterosexual or homosexual relationships a better choice?” Well, heterosexual, but it’s kind of a silly question.
Furthermore, many people think, it isn’t exactly a binary: a lot of monogamous people could benefit from a little more polyamory when it comes to discussing boundaries and so on. Many couples might find that, for example, neither partner actually has a problem with their partner flirting with strangers, as long as it doesn’t go past there.
My impression is that a large proportion of monogamous couples, perhaps a majority, do in fact allow that.
The obvious argument in favor of monogamy, in my view, is as follows: assuming you want a stable, long-lasting relationship, monogamy makes this more likely by increasing the costs of ending your relationship. It does this in two ways. First, by having only one person to fill all of your relationship needs, they become a very large part of your life, and you stand to lose more by leaving them than you would if they were only one of several partners. Second, since you are forbidden from beginning a new relationship before ending your current one, leaving your partner becomes a much riskier prospect than it would if you could remain with them while openly searching for, and getting to know, a suitable replacement.
How about not, since I have never once seen or heard anyone say that. I have seen several say (both in and out of the community) that it works for some and should be considered.
“How about not, since I have never once seen or heard anyone say that.”
You didn’t read the post I quoted at the beginning of mine?
I think I’ve found a more rational way to arrange your reproductive life:
https://twitter.com/BookOfTamara/status/719244212839907328
“Mentally ill felon lied on sperm bank website, fathered 36 children”
I think the question should be asked separately for the time when people don’t want to have children, and when they do. Even in the usual “serial monogamy” model, there is a difference between the “dating and breaking up” phase and the “marriage and divorce” phase.
I know a couple of people who have also tried both and would probably be interested in that discussion (if it were to take place online and not somewhere in the US part of realspace 🙂 ).
I have no personal experience in polyamory but I find the topic interesting.
Saw a cute meme a while back pointing out how Star Trek’s Data was quoted as having what, at the time, was a ludicrous processing speed, but a processing speed which now been well outstripped by our fastest computers. Which got me thinking: is Data a pure fantasy, not in the sense that computers will never be that smart, but in the sense that they will continue to be, for the time being, much less generally intelligent than Data is depicted on the show until they suddenly “take off,” at which point they will greatly exceed the level of intelligence Data is depicted having on the show?
In other words, most scifi with robots has robots which are on roughly the same level of intelligence and functioning as humans. Usually there are some differences–typically they are much stronger than humans and much better at mathematical tasks, yet often they are unable to experience emotions, etc.
Yet I wonder if the nature of AI is such as to preclude such a state of affairs from ever likely coming about. Namely, a creature of roughly human functioning is too complicated for a human to create unaided. This will mean that reaching human-level will necessarily be a result of self-improving computers. But there’s no reason self-improving computers would stop at the (seemingly?) arbitrary level around where humans exist (unless that level is not arbitrary but rather exists due to some plateau in possible intelligence). Therefore, AIs would never stop around Data or Blade Runner level for any appreciable period of time?
I mean, maybe? All of this is speculation.
A robot with an IQ of a smart person, that didn’t have to eat, sleep, play marathon games of Crusader Kings or chase tail could likely surpass humans easily at just about anything.
There is also the issue that a large number of successful people have extreme personality flaws that limit their successes. Michael Eisner notably collapsed of a heart attack and refused to change his high stress lifestyle, claiming he liked being stressed out. If you look at how many drugs and how much emotional labor a CEO or Director uses it would be horrifying to any normal person.
It’s going to be a real bummer when it turns out to be an intractable mathematical problem to make human-level AI’s non-neurotic.
I guess that 4 smart people working in shifts so one is always active would surpass an individual smart person, but not in a super-self-improvement-we’re-all-doomed kind of way. You could argue that the equivalent robot would be a single entity without any possible communication problems, but I don’t think the effort lost in communication between a handful of people is equivalent to the extra effort put in by each additional person, so I don’t think that matters too much.
That actually seems to sort of happen on Star Trek. Though Data can’t emote or use contractions, he has time to become an excellent violinist, painter, etc. in addition to his full time job.
But it’s worth noting that he doesn’t attempt to master EVERY skill, even though he almost certainly could.
His desire to be human seems to also manifest itself into a desire to limit himself in ways that humans are similarly limited. He chooses an to master one instrument, rather than all of them, because someone who mastered all instruments would be pretty weird by human standards, which would call attention to his non-humanity.
Tying this back in to the original comment, I think we will probably never see TRUE Data-like AIs, but we might see advanced AIs constructing Data-like AIs for the purpose of infiltrating humanity. If the God-AI was suspicious that we were hiding something or plotting against it in some way, it might design a human-like sub-class in order to gain our trust/gather intelligence on us or something.
It is interesting to consider the extent to which Data avoids flaunting his superiority in many areas in order that he should fit in better and have a more “human” experience. This makes it more conceivable that maybe we should have a “Data” in the future, if only because seeming approachable and non-threatening to humans may itself be one kind of advantage for even an AI much smarter than us.
This makes Ex Machina one of the more genuinely disquieting movies I’ve ever seen.
One possibility is that although they might surpass human level very rapidly, they might need sci-fi robot style agents to communicate with humans (depending on how much influence we have on what they are like).
What do people think of John DeGoes’ (LambdaConf organizer) Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy?
http://degoes.net/articles/lambdaconf-conclusion
I’m disappointed in his planned non-speaker-blind rejection process. That’s the kind of thing SJWs will exploit.
I’m a bit worried that this pretty much means that while they will keep Yarvin they will be much more hesitant to allow similarly controversial speakers in the future. I’m pretty much of the opinion that one’s political opinions should not be a legitimate reason to judge unrelated scientific work.
I like it. But then, I liked his original statement, too. The organizing team seem to be honestly trying to do the right thing, given the terrible situation they’ve been dragged into.
Not inviting potential future speakers whose infamy would result in an empty room is an interesting compromise proposal.
I am very skeptical that there is such a thing as an otherwise technically relevant future speaker whose infamy would result in an empty room. If the room is empty, it is because people who don’t care about the politics, who wouldn’t otherwise even have known about the politics, have been discouraged from attending by someone else’s political efforts.
And if that does happen, I’m not sure that providing an empty room to the speaker is really a waste.
At some point the controversy could increase the attendance. Previous to this controversy I never heard of Urbit (Yarvin’s distributed computing project) and wouldn’t have cared.
It seems that DeGoes is more interested in efficiently allocating conference rooms (large audiences get rooms, small audiences can meet at a coffee table) than in making grand political gestures. People who really don’t care about the politics might find such a policy acceptable.
One of the critical resources, I think, is an entry in the program guide. If there’s a program guide entry that says “the coffee table in the A4 lobby”, and in fact the coffee table is adequate to the demand, mission accomplished with an efficient use of resources. But if the only people who know that the coffee table is the place to be to talk about functional programming are the ones on the secret mailing list, then no. And for some people, Yarvin’s name on the program is a call to arms even if he is kept in a literal closet for the duration of the conference.
“Efficient use of resources” is mostly a red herring. The main issue is whether people who espouse certain political views should be denied the ability to promote their unrelated, apolitical work in what would otherwise be the appropriate forum for such.
I’ve seen conferences with three-tier programs: invited keynote speeches, selected talks separated into several rooms/tracks, and ad-hoc meetings of smaller groups, coordinated via the wiki.
Urbit seems to be about as “apolitical” as Bitcoin or GNU (that is, not really). On the bright side, it also seems to be too far into postmodern art territory to actually do anything objectionable.
And if people are expected to perceive Curtis Yarvin and Mencius Moldbug as completely separate entities with completely separate spheres of existence, perhaps Moldbug shouldn’t blog about Urbit, and Yarvin shouldn’t explain Moldbug’s views in a post about LambdaConf (or defend them in multiple discussions in the comments).
(All quotes here are from comments by the HN user ‘urbit’, talking about Urbit.)
>perhaps Moldbug shouldn’t blog about Urbit
Absolutely agree, while I strongly repudiate the attempts of banning Moldbug from speaking, much could’ve been avoided if he hadn’t attempted to pimp Urbit through his popularity as a Nuevo Reaccionario.
>and Yarvin shouldn’t explain Moldbug’s views in a post about LambdaConf (or defend them in multiple discussions in the comments).
Yeah, nope. This is reversing causality (I assume deliberately, since you’re a smart person).
Well, it’s the dissonance between “Yarvin is not interested in anything except system software and will ignore you, like a total aspie, if you bring up any other subject,” and the 2000-word summary of Moldbug on race that immediately followed.
I do appreciate the difficult situation he’s in, of course. He can’t simply say, “I believe in treating people as individuals, and I think slavery was an unjust institution that caused a lot of suffering” — he’s a person of integrity. And he can’t simply say, “I think slavery has been unfairly maligned, and I wish more people had the talent to be a good slave” — the hidebound communist masses would not understand.
> it’s the dissonance between “Yarvin is not interested in anything except system software and will ignore you, like a total aspie, if you bring up any other subject,”
Which no one said
>and the 2000-word summary of Moldbug on race that immediately followed.
Which is a reasonable response when you’re under a lot of flak for being called racist.
I don’t understand, is this some sort of combo deal? “I’ll steelman positions that are not strongly represented in this comment section, but I’ll also strawman/weakman the more popular ones”.
Yarvin, in fact, said it. So cool that you don’t have a reputation to maintain so you can just spout bullshit all of the time without caring.
Can I get a link to where he said that? It sounds like an uncharacteristically dumb thing to say for someone who’s, by all accounts, very smart.
Whoa. Actually, that does sound like a thing. Anyone got an idea for a nice concept handle? ‘Contrarian framing’?
@Nita:
Wasn’t there a long sub-thread last OT wherein someone explored this idea? They flat out said that they were less likely to believe something if it had a great deal of support.
@Nita “and Yarvin shouldn’t explain Moldbug’s views in a post about LambdaConf (or defend them in multiple discussions in the comments).”
That’s deeply unfair. Imagine if I accused you of stealing my car, and you said “no, I didn’t steal your car, here’s all the reasons why I couldn’t have stolen your car,” and I responded that the way you can’t seem to stop talking about stealing my car is very suspicious.
It’s an excellent final response that pretty much puts the idiots in their place.
On the other hand, assuming no pendulum swing in the next 12 months, I am forced to reduce my estimate as to the likelihood of John DeGoes still being the lead organiser of LambdaConf next year.
I don’t understand his actions. Yarvin is extremely racist so maybe he should not be allowed to speak, idk. On the other hand if you let Yarvin speak, even once, you are going to be on the enemies list for a long time. People are already organizing a counter-conference lol. If you let Yarvin speak might as well really stand up for what you believe in.
I find this “compromise” position a bit odd and off-putting.
Not totally. He’s going to be talking to people actually attending the conference, rather than the Internet.
He’s giving in somewhat, but I think he’s holding on to some important principle.
Yeah. When it comes to culture war issues, the final result of “compromise” is usually “both sides hate your guts”
That’s how you know it was an actual compromise.
This can be gamed, though. A side can ask for twice what they want and end up getting what they want. Moreover, they can just keep asking, so you make a compromise between nothing and X and get 1/2 X, then make a “compromise” between that and X and get 3/4 X, etc. (Gun rights proponents have often found they are the victims of this, for instance.)
This is asymmetrical becaouse one side wants nothing to happen and you can’t go less than nothing.
Shitpost:
If I were going to write an article about this, which I’m not, I would create a fictional marijuana advocate named Darius Dankroach to use as an example.
Here’s an overview of the events by someone who disagrees with LambdaConf’s decision:
https://medium.com/@codepaintsleep/lambdaconf-2016-controversy-2d4b13c338cf
That’s not an overview; it’s an essay intended to persuade. It happens to review some of the events, but only as a means towards persuading the reader to the author’s position.
Reading it, I noticed this, which fits with what I think about Yarvin/Moldbug’s (mis)use of historical sources:
But, specifically in regard to his use of historical sources (I believe the quote is talking about “humanities territory” in a broader sense) it’s not just that a lack of humanities chops makes it easy for his audience of computer programmers to be led astray. He led himself astray, and probably doesn’t even know it. The way he handles historical sources, especially primary, is a way that nobody who had received a decent education in the methods of the study of history would use. The mistakes he makes are the typical mistake of the intelligent amateur: he isn’t skeptical enough of historical sources that support his argument, and he doesn’t use historical scholarship to analyze primary sources. I say that he probably doesn’t even know it because someone with a historical background trying to gin up support for a bad argument would do it in a different way.
There seems to be a perception among STEM types that the humanities and social sciences are easy. They are, in a way: a computer programmer can write an essay that’s going to turn out better than a historian trying to code, but they’re probably going to step into a bunch of pitfalls that someone with historical scholarship experience wouldn’t.
I enjoy how someone who had the major point
“historical narratives are politically motivated, you should read more primary sources and assume they aren’t written by morons to get a good idea of how different groups of people understand history”
has been turned into
“read these historical sources uncritically, like me, who believes everything he has read so long as its old enough”.
Has been turned into? Or turned into?Because Moldbug is awfully uncritical of stuff he found on Google Books.
(I can’t tell if you’re agreeing with me or not).
Has been turned into, I’m disagreeing with this point as a general point. Mentioning that other narratives exist is not endorsing them. It’s not that Moldbug is immune from criticism or anything, but the whole “Moldbug reads white nationalists therefore he is a white nationalist” style arguments chafe me. Especially because no one ever mentions where he reads history incorrectly, it’s just given as “he reads history incorrectly”, implying that he’s always doing it.
Edit: I should say this isn’t just a criticism I see here, I see it all over the place, hence my irritation. Everyone says he’s generally wrong in ways that apply probably equally as well to anyone else, no one says he’s specificially wrong, or try and demonstrate a pattern in his wrongness. It seems like an unserious critique to me, when I’d like serious ones.
Bah, I had a reply, but something went wrong and it got eaten.
I’m not generally a believer in guilt by association, and I’m not saying that he’s a white nationalist because he reads stuff by white nationalists.
The example that jumps out to me of him doing a bad job of history is in the second part of the Gentle Introduction. He criticizes academic historians, and goes on to “prove” that the American revolutionaries were bad by citing three primary sources, written by Loyalists involved in the events in question, that he agrees with. He then further supports this by reference to three secondary sources, one of which he claims is a “tertiary source” because it is the only one written in the last hundred years.
This is a really bad job of engaging with historical sources.
I usually try and save long comments in text files for that reason! It happened to me elsewhere yesterday.
I should have been more specific, I’m not accusing you of making that argument, I was using an extreme case of “presenting alternative viewpoints implies endorsing those viewpoints”, which is something that’s had people here jump on my throat on this blog and elsewhere. I am salty about it, I acknowledge it.
I read the American history recap as presenting an alternative narrative where the Patriots were that bad guys as an example of alternative readings that most people who don’t go into history don’t read about, not a full endorsement of the narrative. It’s given as an example of how education works in contemporary US society; the classic “the religion of the priests is far different from the religion of the commoners”, except with historical sophistication. He explicitly mentions the idea of this as an alternate reading, not a definitive reading, although wink wink nudge nudge signal evil for all the obvious reasons. That’s how I thought of it, at any rate.
As for the more general accussaton of bad history on account of how shallow it is, we could just as easily accuse Scott of being a bad sociologist, or The Last Psychiatrist of being a bad cultural critic. It would even be a true statement! However, if we’re going to hold everything to the standards of academia, well, that’s the same argument as to why they didn’t translate the Bible out of Latin and Greek for so long, either, and elitism has its’ own problems.
“I read the American history recap as presenting an alternative narrative where the Patriots were that bad guys as an example of alternative readings that most people who don’t go into history don’t read about, not a full endorsement of the narrative.”
That doesn’t require anything that Moldburg wrote. It just requires pointing out the patriots were terrorists.
“It’s given as an example of how education works in contemporary US society; the classic “the religion of the priests is far different from the religion of the commoners”, except with historical sophistication.”
In contemporary US society? Almost all educational systems in human history have worked the exact same way. It is also hardly “priests versus commoners”; school textbooks aren’t set by history professors.
“As for the more general accussaton of bad history on account of how shallow it is,”
I don’t think claiming the Whig generals were working to make sure Washington won is ‘shallow’ as much as crazy.
Obvious to you, perhaps. Completely obscure to some of us.
@Frog Do:
He presents it as an alternate reading of history, but it fits a bit too well into his overall view. It reminds me of this for some reason.
As for the “priests/commoners” thing, Samuel Skinner is right. Most university-level historians are pretty unhappy with how history is taught in high schools. I’m not an American, but I took American history in high school (not in university) and I remember the textbook being pretty simplistically triumphalist. The narrative was basically “here is the onwards and upwards movement of American history towards being the Shining City on the Hill”.
So, on the one hand, yes, a “progressive” narrative in the most generic sense of the term. Maybe even Whiggish. On the other hand, one might as well decry the state of math education in general because the last math course I ever took, explicitly aimed at people who would not be doing any math in university, was pretty dumbed-down.
But it’s not history professors’ fault. Their version of history would probably offend a lot of textbook buyers in more conservative school board districts. They’re not hiding anything – it’s all in the 100-level undergrad courses.
Moldbug is worse compared to the waterline for academic history than Scott to sociology or TLP to cultural criticism, I would say. I will admit to having a bias against him because I find some of his views rather repellent, and because his writing style really annoys me (the worst part is the constant filler composed of this weird fake-seeming jocularity – about half of the Gentle Introduction is “oh ho ho, but once I use this diamond drill to extract the earWHIG of WHIGGERY – get it, get it? – from your brainpan, you will be a Good Tory” and on and on.
@Samuel Skinner
“Terrorist” is a really contested word to be throwing around, this argument will only work with a small set of people. He’s explicitly pitching to people who disagree with him (regardless of how successful it was), so a longer argument makes sense. Same thing with the claim about Whig generals.
@Nita
Mostly I think he was trying to be funny though exaggeration. When you think you’re going to be accussed of being evil, you can either fight back (which in my experience usually doesn’t work) or exaggerate to the point of ridiculousness (which is what he was going for).
@dndnrsn
I shouldn’t have implied I think there the priest = history professor metaphor implies that history education is determined by the professors. I’m in academia, I know for a fact that there’s usually a great deal of tension between academic education and public education. I was riffing more off of the difference of the sophistication of the arguments.
As for “who is worse”, well, they’re all about equally bad as I see it. Not to pick on Scott, but that most recent post of religion, yikes. At least Moldbug misuses older sources, sometimes it feels like the rationalists are slowly reinventing the sociology 101 wheel. Anyways, I think we can both agree that more solid humanities traning is needed in general.
@Frog Do:
I guess I just don’t think his arguments in Gentle Intro 2 are that sophisticated. They’re definitely complex, but they mostly boil down to “here are some sources a high school student probably didn’t get shown”.
I’ve been out of school for a while, but I had some background in comparative religions, and the religion post wasn’t bad so much as it was kind of obvious – I probably spun a similar yarn in second or third year while taking Intro to Religious studies, and eight beers deep. You are right that there’s a tendency to reinvent the 101 wheel.
I it’s what you point out – there’s not enough humanities. Something that the rationalists and the Death Eaters have in common is an overrepresentation of STEM types (although in this case I think our host was actually a phil undergrad?), and it’s far easier for STEM types to figure out simple humanities/social sciences stuff than the other way around: an engineer in English 101 is going to have an easier time than an English major in Intro to Engineering or whatever they take in first year.
This leads to a situation where STEM types are more able to think they’re competent in a field but make basic mistakes – basic mistakes, though, that you’d need a background in that field to recognize.
@dndnrsn
I don’t think Moldbug’s arguments are sophisticated, either, I think academic historian arguments are sophisticated. Moldbug was deliberately crafting a narrative, you can get too clever forcing all types of pegs into one hole. That’s a general critique, and I like to see which types of corners have been shaved off in particular, which you’be done, thank you.
And of course, viva la humanities!
““Terrorist” is a really contested word to be throwing around, this argument will only work with a small set of people. He’s explicitly pitching to people who disagree with him (regardless of how successful it was), so a longer argument makes sense. Same thing with the claim about Whig generals.”
I’m not seeing why pointing out they were terrorists won’t work. That is what they did- attacked civilian targets in order to effect political change. They are good terrorists and traitors is an argument that you can immediately highlight the hypocrisy of.
As for the claim about the Whig generals, that is straight up insane. If he wanted to make an argument, he should have taken a look at military history first.
I can’t really remember and it’s too late to check: doesn’t Moldbug basically take the position that whenever a Western government has lost a colonial or similar war, it was basically because elements in that government didn’t want to win?
The “British lost America because Whigs wanted the rebels to win” thing, for instance. Doesn’t he extend that to a lot of other conflicts? Just the sort of “the left kept us from winning in ‘Nam” stepped up several degrees?
He doesn’t blame the left; he blames the State Department.
I’m not sure how much he generalizes to all conflicts; he doesn’t seem to talk about other countries history.
I’m getting curious now, how common is it for high schoolers to learn about the methodology of history (how to evaluate sources, proximate cause vs ultimate cause, and so on)? Because I did learn that in high school, and it makes it really hard for me to take seriously claims like “All high schoolers learn to do is repeat their teacher’s narratives unquestioningly.”
Now granted, I went to a good high school and took AP courses and all that jazz, but it can’t be that rare. Any other APUSH or AP Euro types on here?
@Aegeus
Analysing sources is very commonly taught in the UK, how frequently it’s learnt is another matter.
I took AP US History when I was in high school. Now, that was many moons ago, so some of the details might be foggy, but I do remember analytical methods being covered.
How well is another question. I certainly did well on the exam without ever having to analyze anything particularly deeply, let alone creatively.
Took both. Euro opened with a brief overview of the difference between the great man theory of history and people’s history, and said we would cover history from the latter perspective. Both classes also included some primary sources, but only in the context of studying for the AP test, which includes a written response based on a selection of historical documents. People who have not taken these courses and are curious about the Document-Based Questions can look at the practice questions (Ctrl+F “Document 1”) and asses their worth as a method of teaching historical methodology.
Other than that, both courses were simply lectures covering the material; no information on how the material was made.
Re: the methodolgy of history in secondary school
There’s some, but more focused on something like a well attested speech transcript from the 1930s, than a speech that was supposed to have been given by a certain ancient Greek politician, the oldest copy of which we have is in a somewhat damaged medieval manuscript which purports to be a copy of an older medieval manuscript which purports to be a copy of a book written by a roman antiquarian in the middle empire period.
Granted you have to start somewhere, but when you get to college and encounter the historical principle that basically treats everything as a forgery until proven otherwise it a real shift in thinking.
Right, pitfalls like drawing conclusions that contradict the word of the Party.
Another of Moldbug’s points is that historians are basically intensely tribal – and their tribe isn’t dedicated to the truth – their tribe is dedicated to spreading the ideology of their tribe. Why would you even believe that historians are particularly good at writing about and understanding history? On a basic level, the pool of historians isn’t selected on the basis of writing good accurate history – it’s based on writing “history” that flatters progressive tribal sentiments. Once they become historians, there’s no selective pressure towards truth either – just on publishing. We all see what the results of this in social psychology are – there’s no reason to expect non-experimental disciplines to be any better.
The main item that you should get out of Moldbug’s use of primary sources is that they are written demonstrations that not everyone thinks like a 20th / 21st century progressive – there are other coherent ways to view the world. More than an explicit ideology progressivism is a set of unquestioned beliefs that the adherents don’t even think of as beliefs – once you realized that other don’t share them you can see them for the first time. Seeing those unquestioned beliefs is distinctly weird because they’re not particularly well reasoned beliefs nor do they correspond to reality.
Oh, come on. Historians don’t all agree in lockstep, far from it. I’ve heard and read plenty of heterodox opinions.
And it’s not like “not everyone thinks like a 20th/21st century progressive” is some kind of secret. It’s not like they hide the primary sources in a secret cupboard somewhere. You don’t get to PhD level in the area of the history of the revolutionary war without reading sources like the ones he uses in the Gentle Intro. Ditto the Civil War, etc.
The idea that historians are all part of The General Synod or whatever and are keeping the truth hidden and some computer programmer has found it through nothing more than Google Books is very silly.
There are plenty of revisionist historians who are at home in academia. There are plenty of historians who the sort of people who want to no-platform Yarvin wouldn’t like: there are plenty of crusty old white guys who don’t Check Their Privilege, and so on.
Also, specifically talking about Moldbug’s approach to the American Revolution:
Showing up in a university history department with his approach (3 primary sources, 3 secondary sources of which only one is remotely recent, all supporting one side of the argument) wouldn’t get you disappeared in the night for thoughtcrime or whatever. It would get you a C+.
If, on the other hand, you showed up with a heavily revisionist argument on the American revolution focusing on Loyalist primary sources that nevertheless engaged with the various different positions in the secondary literature, etc etc … you could ride that to a PhD dissertation, get some controversy going, maybe write a bestseller if you were lucky.
Moldbug’s idea that historians are all part of a tribe that has decided upon one set of unquestioned beliefs and rigidly enforces them is the kind of idea someone who didn’t really have much contact with serious historical scholarship would have. Trying to get historians to agree on one thing and do more than snipe at each other in bitchy book reviews in obscure publications is like herding cats.
Is there a bias towards certain varieties of left-wing thought in academia? Yes, there is. There are some positions that could be taken more strongly. There are some orthodoxies that could be questioned more forcefully. But this doesn’t change the fact that the methods of historical inquiry Moldbug employs are – for instance, in the second part of the Gentle Intro – really, really bad.
I thought the new orthodoxy among Serious Scholars was that the American colonists were unjustified in their revolt against Britain.
It depends on how you define it. By what was reasonable for the colonists? By the actual motivations of the participants?
@The Nybbler:
Exactly. Historians tend to change what’s cool every so often. This isn’t the behaviour of a cabal of hacks making sure they’re in good with The Party.
To be mean, it’s more the behaviour of a cabal of hacks who need to come up with something marginally novel so they can get their dissertation published and get a nice job somewhere.
From the above:
“Almost as if to prove their point, a list was created of all of the signers of this letter (and other notable “SJWs”) with the overt intention of “outing” (a lists of aliases is included), naming & shaming, and denying these individuals professional opportunities (while also including a nice bit of plausible deniability by saying that this list is also a resource for those who might wish to hire them. Sure.). This list also has the less explicitly stated purpose of intimidation by providing “enough information on the SJW that he/she/it should be identifiable enough for a prospective employer/friend/spouse to identify them” (while specifically prohibiting doxxing because, of course, that’s illegal).”
followed by:
“Furthermore , for those supporting “free speech” itself as part of this argument —
SCOTUS has recognized limitations on the first amendment.
The right to say something doesn’t obligate others to listen.
Asserting that a technologist’s politics are able to be wholly divorced from their work is a privilege fairly unique to our industry (and we should question the truth of that assertion).
An individual requesting entry to a space does not require giving them a space at the cost of other professionals feeling welcomed and comfortable.”
That list looks better by the day.
This reads like somebody who went looking for stuff to disagree with so he could take the “correct” side.
“Some of the things Yarvin frames as true are so inflammatory that it is irresponsible to present them to a general audience without the training and tools to evaluate them.”
And if he was giving a talk at HistoryConf instead of LambdaConf, that would mean something.
Many of the “he’s not that bad” defenses of Yarvin’s writing miss the point a bit, even if they are accurate. He could believe that the moon is made of green cheese for all it should make any difference to whether or not a talk by him on a completely different area of interest would be useful.
I figure the best place to post this is a psychiatrist’s blog:
I’m going through a rough patch in life and someone suggested I should talk to a therapist. The thing is, I know what’s bothering me and I know what needs to change in my life in order for me to (more than likely) feel better. And I’m trying to change these things. It’s just that each day that goes by it seems that goal becomes less and less achievable. And there will definitely come a point where I feel that I’ve failed; whether that’s tomorrow or 10 years from now I don’t know. I think my life would be unbearable at that point.
I’m not sure talking to someone will make me feel better. Should I inquire about anti-depressive drugs? It seems kind of unscrupulous to do something like that. I have a hang up about taking mind altering substances; it feels like cheating.
What should I do?
You can take a depression screening test to see if you have typical symptoms. If you have at least a “moderate depression” score, you should probably talk to a psychiatrist about your symptoms.
Also have a look at Things That Sometimes Help If You Have Depression
It’s frustrating that I can’t go to this depression screening test without getting big red text telling me to call the suicide hotline. It’s frustrating that I can’t openly complain about this because if I do people will just tell me to call the suicide hotline. They’re covering their own asses but it’s just driving me further into a corner.
Yeah, that’s the trouble when discussing depression; any mention of “I’d like to be dead” does have them hitting the panic button, and you can quite understand why they do it (because if somebody does top themselves after talking to a therapist/counsellor/doctor, that therapist is going to get it in the neck about “why didn’t you do something?”), but it’s a real pain in the eye when you have to reassure them “No, I don’t mean I’m going to kill myself right now or indeed any time soon” and they still ring up your doctor to warn them you’re likely to do something stupid 🙂
It makes it harder to discuss your problems when you have to be constantly self-censoring in case you trigger the alarms.
I was in a similar situation a few years ago and my advice is to absolutely seek out therapy and antidepressants.
Ultimately you do have to work on the underlying issues the way that you want to, but that is far easier when you have a clearer head. Learning tricks to shut down depressed / anxious thoughts in therapy and using drugs to cover the rest leaves you free to devote your energy to your goals.
As for whether or not it’s cheating, that’s a definite no. This isn’t any different from taking cold medicine if you come down with something, or painkillers after an injury. A mental illness is no less physical than any other illness is by virtue of it affecting the brain. Treating a damaged tissue is never unethical.
If you think you need help, you’re probably right, and should go get help. A professional opinion is probably a good thing to have when you’re thinking about making a decision.
Being happy is not a competition, so what does cheating even mean? I think this is an attitude that is not useful and has the potential of harming you, so you should try to get rid of it.
Steelman “cheating” as “solving the symptoms not the underlying problem”.
If the symptoms are preventing you from treating the underlying problem, then treating them first is a rational first step towards solving the underlying problem.
Well if the underlying problem is neurochemical…
Symptomatic relief is great. Symptomatic relief is fine. I’ve dosed myself with two different forms of symptomatic relief (one for an anxiety disorder, one for the common cold) this morning and have[1] no qualms about it.
Yeah, sure, if there’s an instant, sure-fire way of completely fixing the underlying problems right away, then sure, go exclusively for that. Otherwise, consider adding some symptomatic relief to the mix.
When some actually gets cut, we don’t say, “oh, no, don’t put a sticking plaster on it, that’s just a sticking plaster”, you stick a sticking plaster on. Maybe also you learn to be more careful with knives or whatever, but you can learn to be more careful with knives and get a sticking plaster as well!
[1] Currently. My teenage self would disagree.
You are not cheating. You are not betraying the “real you”. There is no real you to betray, and there is no set of rules under which you are cheating (well, there are laws, but you’re probably good there).
Man, I suddenly feel the need to get that on a T-shirt (possibly along with “Nothing is ‘mere'”).
It’s kind of a truism that as acute diseases and hazards come under control, more subtle threats to health become matters of concern. As mortality from other causes has receded, and people live longer, things like carcinogens have gotten a lot more attention.
Gradually, people make choices to reduce their perceived health risks, those new choices eventually become prevalent, and the old choices become unthinkable.
Currently, we are seeing shifts away from smoking, trans fats, drunk driving, unprotected anal sex with strangers, and walking through tick-infested meadows with bare ankles, among other things.
Over time, as the limits of acceptable risk are dialed down, some past practices come to be seen as ridiculously dangerous.
Consider watches with radium dials. Or driving without seat belts or air bags, in a car that belches lead into the air. Or routine use of unshielded x-rays in shoe stores. Or swimming downstream of raw sewage outfalls. Or building an auditorium without ample fire exits, or an ocean liner without many lifeboats. Or lighting rooms by burning deadly coal gas.
My point is that this process is not over.
It’s not just that scientific understanding of health hazards is bound to increase, though it will. And it’s not just that people will continue to grow more risk-averse, though they will.
It’s that people are living steadily longer, giving long-acting hazards more time to develop. And the more we control the mechanisms that age the body, the more subject we will be to morbidity and mortality from as-yet-unknown hazards and pathogens.
The healthier we get, the more health threats we will discover!
Most assuredly, a lot of seemingly innocuous things we commonly do today will be seen as foolishly dangerous in 50 years’ time.
Any speculation on what those things might be?
Supposedly wearing a helmet while driving reduces your risk of injury in a car accident. If advocates manage to push through legislation we could see the same shift as with mandatory seatbelts and motorcycle helmets.
Another source might be crime avoidance. Just like it used to be a sign of distrust or paranoia to lock your doors but now not locking them is considered foolhardy and naive, we might see not living in a gated community or otherwise having what we would now consider elaborate security measures as being unacceptably risky. Depending on how the gun control debate shakes out that might include more widespread acceptance of concealed or even open carry.
(Let’s put aside for now whether crime is or isn’t actually a risk for ordinary people. The important thing here is perceived risk and everyone agrees that people are increasingly worried about becoming the victims of crime.)
Another source might be crime avoidance
There are already walking / biking / driving direction apps that include a crowd-sourced “sketch factor” of each point into the route selection algorithm, so that if you are moving around in a new city, you don’t go through a bad neighborhood or bad intersection that the locals know to avoid. Of course, the usual suspects have hyperbolically shrieked that this is another kind of “red lining”. Eventually the mobile OS vendors are just going to add this as an invisible feature to the mainstream directional apps.
Can you name a specific app?
I could have used that the last time I was in Baltimore, I ended up walking this poor girl through a half mile of one of the worse neighborhoods there at midnight. In the city I know which areas to avoid but it’s not so easy traveling.
There was such an app on iOS, briefly, a few years ago. It was accused of racism and instantly removed.
Most of us have lived our lives in the shadow of the crime wave of the 1960s through 1990s, and the paranoia about crime it engendered. At long last, I see growing awareness that the streets are safer now. I remember when many middle-class suburbanites regarded the NYC subways as acutely dangerous; it’s been a long time since I heard anyone say that.
And yeah, I always lock my car (and I remember the insurance company commercials of the 1960s with the vehement message “LOCK your car. TAKE your keys.”), but lately I notice a lot of cars parked, even in urban settings, with windows open. That used to be unthinkable.
As for auto safety, I’m not worried about helmets being required inside cars. I expect the rise of self-driving cars, their widespread adoption, a sharp decline in auto accidents, and eventually strict rules on (or against) human driving. I predict that people in the future will look back on our era with horror that all of our cars were perilously human-operated.
While I don’t do it, there was a period when I was tempted to park my car with the windows open because the window had been smashed three times. Two of the incidents within weeks of each other, I suspect by the same person. (He’d gotten lucky finding some money the first time around and presumably thought that if I had been naive enough to do that once, I might be dumb enough to restock for him.)
Granted, this was in Chicago, which hasn’t experienced as thorough a crime drop as e.g., New York has, and some years back.
Niven also had “Safe at any Speed”, where a driver in a world of near-perfect safety recounts his shocked tale that it was even possible for his vehicle to fail, despite his being in a an impossible to anticipate freak accident on a frontier world. (The car is swallowed by a giant native bird.)
He’s fine– the safety features protect him until he can be rescued. And at the end, he reassures the skittish reader that the manufacturer has made sure that particular accident can never happen again.
I’m a fan of Larry Niven’s.
He’s gone now, butI did get to meet and chat with him at a con once.I had a bad moment fearing I’d missed something (which happens), but it looks like Niven’s still alive at age 77 as of this writing.
I’m glad to learn you’re correct. I was sure I had heard he passed away some time ago. I have edited my comment above.
Mandela Effect!
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Barchetta
American football may be entering this process right now (the surge in awareness and press coverage about head trauma).
Strenuous exercise that may screw up your muscles/joints, e.g. maybe people running marathons will be perceived in 50 years as people running ultramarathons now.
Driving a car, once self-driving cars become the default.
Having your child outside home unsupervised is going there fast (with some recent pushback e.g. FreeRangeKids, though so far the pushback is slight)
Drinking very sugary things.
Maybe a little daffy but praiseworthy and impressive overall?
Anyway, boxing is certainly on its way out as a mass sport, to continue the head trauma theme. For a more off-the-wall suggestion, sleep medications and benzos.
(This is a grim topic. I reckon a good deal too much has been given up to begin with, and it is all too easy to imagine that the future will be no fun: http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=6993, http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=3113. Substantive proposals for escaping this trend, besides total collapse, are welcome.).
“In the future, everything will be safe and healthy” is not much of a dystopia to me.
Oh no! Nothing but comfortable, bourgeois existence!
I am opposed to giving the government the power to nanny people because it doesn’t work well, wastes money, and with that power it can do more dangerous things. But if that were all they did with it, and it worked, then I wouldn’t see the problem.
I prefer the capitalist “dystopia” where the health insurance company monitors your weight.
Nor me. But you could also say that, “In the future, all kinds of common everyday things will be seen as acutely dangerous.”
A society where people aren’t allowed to hurt and destroy themselves if it is their wish, isn’t a society I want to be part of. I think the ability to do so is what separates being a citizen from being a ward of the collective (whether that’s a socialist collective, or a collective of shareholders and interlocking corporations).
I like the fact that people are allowed to take part in sports that cause brain damage, imbibe substances that kill braincells, and balloon up to hundreds of kilos in weight without anyone being able to stop them. I wonder if this makes my value system “evil”.
Well, I think you’re wrapping a bunch of issues here up into one big bundle:
a) Is rational suicide ever justified / should it be allowed? I think yes.
b) Should people be allowed to act in ways that don’t produce the maximum possible “profit” for the state / business interests, or should they be made to toil 16 hours a day? Yes, people should be allowed to pursue their own interests. It would be terrible if everyone were forced to be a maximally productive citizen.
These two points seem to be what it means to be “enslaved to the collective”.
c) Does the pursuit of happiness trade off against the pursuit of absolute safety/health? I also think yes.
d) Do people often make choices that are contrary to their own best interests? Also yes.
If everyone really would be miserable because they can’t smoke or ride their motorcycles without helmets, then I agree that would be bad. What I am disputing is whether they really would be. It rather seems to be that they overvalue the benefits and undervalue the costs of these things.
Now, am I actually in favor of government banning these things? No. As I said, I think they will abuse it.
Government usually actually makes it worse by creating moral hazard. If you give everyone universal healthcare, then you remove part of the incentive to control health risks. And then you try to add it back in by banning large sodas or something.
A more rational policy is not to create moral hazard in the first place by havingprivate insurance that charges premiums based on actuarial calculations. If you’re obese and willing to pay the cost of being obese, fine. That doesn’t necessarily make it in your own best interest. But in practice, individuals can be trusted to determine their own best interests a lot better than some external agency can.
My point is orthogonal to this. I’m not talking about any kind of prohibition, rather, the cultural change that makes a formerly common practice just unthinkable, due to a combination of greater awareness and greater risk aversion.
For example, I wasn’t kidding about swimming near raw sewage outfalls. A close friend of mine, now 90 years old, was an avid summertime swimmer in Eastchester Creek, Bronx, in the 1930s. So were all of his friends. He tells of all kinds of amusing sewage debris they would encounter in the water. When he got home, his mother made him take a bath because he stank.
We’re completely free to do that today, but we don’t. Swimming in polluted water is not something anybody would do for fun.
Another risk is that the powers that be are simply wrong about what is dangerous and what isn’t. Look at the recent shift about whether it’s safe to eat much fat, and what kinds of fat are good for people.
Kestenbaum gets it.
The other thing to remember here is that increasing risk aversion has potential consequences more momentous than duller Saturdays. In this context, I’m thinking of things like reluctance to innovate, or strike out on one’s own, or deviate from organizational scripts. (Harold Lee brings this up every so often at The Future Primeval. See for instance http://thefutureprimaeval.net/the-pensioner-and-the-aristocrat/ or http://thefutureprimaeval.net/the-obedient-rebel/.).
In a world with really good VR, doing anything in realspace that doesn’t have to be done there might be seen as unreasonably dangerous.
And wasteful. Depending on how good this becomes, it may be a key substitute for lots of material input that the malthusians think necessary for economic growth.
Yeah, I think people would have remote-control robot bodies as soon as it became reasonably practicable.
It’s unnerving to realize that the future of humanity will be contained entirely in virtual reality.
Not entirely. Just a very large proportion. That’s a good thing imo.
The anime Fractale describes such a society, but I don’t recommend it. A decent concept poorly executed, like so many of its director’s other works.
Anime was not saved that day.
IIRC, Fractale wasn’t so much about virtual reality as augmented reality. And agreed in that no one should ever be subjected to that filth. A much better anime that explores a future full of augmented reality is Dennou Coil. Which I think got licensed for US release recently.
Just wanted to say that I would not be particularly averse to a no-ants-on-the-Open-Thread rule. My bonobo matter won’t let the thing go and even my feet are getting splinters from this soapbox.
I would definitely appreciate such a rule.
I thought the whole thing was pointless and stupid the first time I heard about it, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would spend more than five minutes talking about any element of it.
I still feel exactly the same way.
I’m strongly pro-ant but I’m still not entirely opposed to such a rule; I get sucked into arguments longer than are good for me.
OTOH, ant-adjacent topics get brought up enough anyway, and there are few places on the internet actually allowing a frank discussion of the subject instead of going full purge, so mixed feelings.
I’m anti-anti, but I feel we might well be nearing Interminable Argument status at this point.
All right, it is done. I have banned the terms “Gamergate”, “Sarkeesian”, “Quinn”, and a few others. Anybody who can manage to discuss it without those terms will be decided on a case-by-case basis.
While I support this, I think the q-word is going to get you a lot of false positives.
And also rather unnecessary. Though her actions were what sparked the event, she pretty quickly faded into the background. She’s the Gavrilo Princip of the whole thing.
I guess talk about her did make a comeback when Eron started fighting his gag order, but that was centered on him much more than her.
Indeed, this is actually borne out by the Google Search Trends, which show searches for the full name of the Q-word (aka LW1) spiking 1 month before the name of the ant movement did. LW2 (the critic) spikes at the same time as the name of the movement.
I find it kind of hilarious that we’re now forced to adopt exactly the same euphemisms that http://pastebin.com/SU3HZi6u itself uses.
Well I COULD have adopted different euphemisms, but why not use the existing ones?
Heh. It would be really amusing if the term “LW” was banned around here. :op
(Seriously, though, I wouldn’t complain ONE BIT about banning “LW[number]”, and I’m generally against all of the random word-banning. Seriously, the whole “Literally Who” thing is one of the dumbest things to come out of the ant side in that entire controversy, and that controversy produced a lot of dumb things. You don’t convince people you don’t care about someone by coming up with funky nicknames so you can talk about them more! It doesn’t matter how dismissive those nicknames might be!)
I may regret asking this, but what does “LW[number]” mean in this context? Presumably “Literally Who”, but what does that mean, and what’s the deal with the numbers?
Literally Who 1 = So E! Queen
Literally Who 2 = Anteater Shark Easy Ann
Weird.
@Norn: https://twitter.com/lordslugius/status/523979653531201537
@Vorkon Actually the LW thing was really for a similar reason as Scott filtering those new reactive guys. The LWs (2 and especially 3 moreso than 1) basically fished for people to talk about them so they could quote mine, so terms were created to make mentions of them without turning up in simple searches.
Looking forward to the future where we all communicate using the five words nobody has ever started an argument with.
I’m experimenting with whether adding extra trivial inconvenience to talking about things, and defusing the specific words that tend to get people excited, is a softer and less oppressive way of preventing these kinds of things than banning them outright. So far seems to have worked pretty well with n r x.
It’s also an easy way to have people not knowing what other people are talking about.
We already had one of them here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/11/ot47-openai/#comment-345341
Adding a cost to outsiders is a good way to get them to join the group, isn’t it? Lurk moar as pro-community norm.
I think not knowing what people are talking about is a feature, not a bug
It’s a bug. Look at the comment above at https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/11/ot47-openai/#comment-346202 which mentions the “alti-right” not liking Jews and Asians.
Applied to the particular alt-right group who we are not permitted to name (but who is listed in the Wikipedia article as a group that is considered by some to be in the alt-right), this is a false implication. But because we’re not allowed to name the group, it’s not easy to tell if he actually is blaming the group for not liking Jews and Asians and just using a substitute for the name, if he is improperly generalizing, or if he didn’t mean to refer to the group at all and really means other groups of the alt-right.
Imagine that we weren’t permitted to say the word “Jews” here and everyone talked about “minority religions”. You’d never know when people really did just mean minority religions, or at least, clarity would go way down because clarity had become a trivial inconvenience.
@Frog Do
It might be a good way to get newcomers more deeply invested in a community once they find it, but it’s a terrible way to get outsiders into a community in the first place.
That’s probably a bug, but the particular feature I was thinking of was “if people don’t know what you’re talking about, they can’t get excited about it”
I think such rules definitely do contribute to making this site less accessible to outsiders, by increasing the prevalence of obscure jargon and all the in-jokes that have built around it, as well as creating tripwires and third-rails for the unwary to run into when they unknowingly write something that is taboo.
Yeah the fact that your post just disappears without any warning or explanation when you trip over a landmine is a really big problem with the system. Especially if you’re going to make landmines out of reasonably common personal names and the like. And there’s no official explanation to a new commentor that these landmines even exist.
There is a major polling outfit that begins with Quin which can now not be mentioned or even linked to.
Indeed.
Though I assume it doesn’t mean “feel free to go on talking about worker ants”.
For what it’s worth, I don’t mind it (mixed feelings for the same reasons as birdboy above), as long as it doesn’t create the common situation where random sniping is allowed but responses aren’t. But I don’t think that’s a serious risk here.
(Edit: ninja’d by Scott. Sounds good to me)
It’s already happened. Someone below did a random snipe of “The most accurate view of polyamory is that it is the most rational possible way to arrange your reproductive life.” Nobody can seriously respond to it.
As an alternative, couldn’t you just hide the threads about it and move on with your life? If others want to discuss it, why is it any skin off your back?
If I’m checking the new comments, I have to click through them. And sometimes it’s hundreds of comments.
It’s also opportunity cost. It motivates at least some people who would otherwise talk about more interesting things to rehash all that stuff again.
As a note, when there’s more than 20-ish comments I prefer to start at the top of the thread and press spacebar quickly while looking for green instead of clicking.
Doesn’t invalidate your point and maybe you’re doing it already, but thought I’d brag about my superior methods anyway.
If you want to do it that way, the superior method is going “ctrl-F” and searching “~new~”.
sheeit, you might be right
Vox:
Note that by giving the information in the form you did, you guaranteed that every time I went through the comment thread looking for new comments I would also find your old one.
@ David Friedman:
Oops, I didn’t think about that.
This happens every time this thread comes up.
A: How do I search for new?
B: Control-F “∾new∾”
C: Now everyone will get caught in it!
B: Oops!
There is a way around it, though: I stuffed a unicode looks-like-tilde-but-not-tilde thing in there. Here are some more for your cut-and-paste pleasure: ⁓ ∾ ∼ ˷
Because the bonobo part of his brain won’t let him hide it and move on..
I would be interested in a functionality sort of like the one on https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/ that lets you press a button to hide Israel/Palestine threads, if someone wants to make that for me. Contact me at scott [at] shireroth [dot] org if you’re interested.
Does this work through a system of tagging threads with their subject matter, then allowing users to hide certain tags? If so, I think this would be generally useful. There’s probably a lot of topics that come up periodically that aren’t of interest to everyone. AI risk comes to mind for me.
I’d actually successfully avoided it online up until this thread. The discussion just seems like a window into a weird conflict where both sides seem utterly unlikable.
This is the third thread in a row people have been talking about video games, without anyone mentioning the ones they’ve enjoyed recently. This is problematic.
Anyone playing Factorio?
I hate to admit it but I’m kind of… disliking Factorio. It should totally be my jam but something is putting me off and I don’t really know what, which in itself bothers me. I’ll figure it out eventually.
I’ve instead been finding myself swaying back to my various survival crafting games. 7 Days To Die and ARK remain the flavours of the month, although the new fleet mechanics in StarMade made me glance in that direction again (but my machine remains unable to actually run the thing at any speed).
Oh, and I replayed Empire: Total War recently after a discussion about tall-ship combat with a friend. It’s actually really come on since release, much more solid and less buggy, as is usual for a TW game. Managed to turn Prussia into a democratic republic and take over most of Europe and still lost because I forgot to steamroll over Denmark.
Hmm. what were your spawn settings?
I played a couple hours with some of my coworkers, and then started a solo game with water turned up a bit, resources turned down a bit, and enemies turned all the way up. It created a nightmare scenario of unrelentingly hostile bitey folk and precious few resources, and making it to launch was an awesome challenge. Now I just want to mod it. The game needs more and better monsters.
I missed ARK when it first came out; heard a lot of good things about it, but was busy with tanks and warships at the time. Don’t think I’d heard of Starmade at all; I’ll check it out.
Don’t we all? 😉
Still, I’ll try playing it that way. Thanks.
@Zorgon – “Don’t we all? ?”
That’s how I make my money!
I want to get into the Total War games, but I have never gotten past the early stages of a campaign in any of them. It just turns into insufferable tedium. How do you keep from bogging down waiting for armies to reinforce, etc? Especially because half the battles are these horrible sieges that grind down endlessly because defenders can’t run.
I love the period of Fall of the Samurai, or Empire/Napoleon, but I start to feel like I’m doing the same damn things over and over.
I’m a massive fan of Paradox-style Grand Strategy, so the build-up on the strategic map is my kind of thing anyway; the battle map encounters are just icing on the cake.
If you like getting up-close-and-personal with this sort of thing, have you tried Mount & Blade: Warband? The Viking Conquest expansion more or less ate my life last December.
I have played an enormous amount of Mount & Blade, but it has the same problem that I only enjoy the early game when my army is small. The fun part is soloing groups of bandits. Battles where you just charge your mamelukes and watch, being too insignificant to affect the battle yourself, are not fun.
And trying to conquer and hold territory is not fun at all. I’ve never gone past holding one city.
Different ideas of fun, I guess? I liked Total War games, especially Medieval II, to try and push the tactics and strategy as hard as possible (i.e. pushing your conquest without waiting for reinforcements). A good example of this is LegendofTotalWar on youtube and his 14?12? turn world conquest of Medieval II.
For EU4/Paradox style grand strategy, I find it more fun to make weird goals. I just finished my first world conquest, but before I had been building up a huge single province or doing a “deny European colonizers any colonies” run.
I just don’t see how anyone can stand the repetitive sieges.
Shogun 2 is even worse because the autoresolve is screwed up for them: it vastly underestimates the defensive quality of the castles, so if you manually fight assaults you lose tons of soldiers but if you autoresolve you lose like 3. And the reverse on defense, so you have to play out every crappy siege.
I love EUIV and other Paradox games, but I also can’t stand playing a big empire in those. I like playing the Hansa. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever played any power but one of the little states in Germany or Ireland, except one time as Novgorod. Also, I’ve certainly never finished a campaign. 1600s is as far as I’ve gotten.
I guess for the sieges, I always enjoyed trying novel defense strategies, and got annoyed when the AI would basically stop attacking me once I got to a sufficient empire size. As for the repetitive attacks, I do get sort of bored with them, but enjoyed the challenge of trying to win with the leftover bits + mercenaries as I get progressively farther from my starting cities. It does get boring though, so I’ve only done the world conquest thing in Medieval II once.
For EUIV, the 1600’s is honestly the slowest, most boring part of the game. Everyone is teching up to better castles but no one really has money or manpower or ideas (especially with all the reformation stuff) to get sufficiently strong generals and stacks to siege them down quickly. The 1700’s is where things really start to get rolling, with core cost and OE reductions plus more idea groups. If you can push through the slog of the 1600’s, it feels like a quick hop and skip to the end of the game. (I also watch DDRJake, so I’m slowly improving my game stretching abilities).
I had some fun coop games with friends. Very much changed how the game felt.
I was always mediocre on the battle maps but did very well with the economy management.
My friend was the opposite. Struggled with the wider economy while being very good at battles.
So we played as Administrator and general, swapping seats at the appropriate times. Me trying to provide the troops he needed to win, him trying to win the battles most important to the empire. We played on the highest difficultly and did surprisingly well.
Completely changed the feel of the game and made it a lot more fun.
Played the demo, enjoyed it but not enough to prompt a purchase.
I dunno, it just feels sterile.
I was hoping for an interesting world fighting against me, what I got was a few dozen dog-things which were turned to paste by my turrets before I realized they were there.
I played it for a while, but it felt like a strictly inferior version of Feed the Beast.
This comment has massively updated me in favor of playing FTB.
…Still though, I think a lot of the fun in factorio comes from making basic automation easy, which makes complex automation a lot more engaging; the limiting factor is your ability to sort complex logistics, not your tolerance of fiddly build components. I never used redstone in minecraft because it seemed like more trouble than it was worth, and quit playing pretty quickly after I hit the Nether and realized there was nothing new to see (this was a while ago). It sounds like FTB is a lot better about providing motivation, but I’d miss my delicious belts and inserters.
This is precisely the case in FTB, at least in most modpacks. Early on you’re automating with hoppers and chests; shortly thereafter you’re using some sort of itemducts or golems; by endgame you’ve got an Applied Energistics crafting machine which can produce most items you ever use on demand.
FTB is fantastic if you get the right mudpack, and especially fantastic if you can get a on a private server with friends. To illustrate how great this game is, a few examples of things which have happened with my friends and I:
Starting with nothing but dirt, we’ve:*
– Built a satellite plane in which solar-powered robotic factories endlessly assembled additional solar panels to convert sunlight into raw matter for a gigantic production facility.
– Pacified Hell in order to drain it of magma for a gigantic geothermal generator.
– Created a facility in the far future after entropy has consumed the universe in which specialized containment spheres use world-destroying magical fires to generate an endless quantity of cake so that cake-eating flowers can funnel life-force into a device which produces endless amounts of rare items from dreams.**
– Built an immense computer bank to emulate other worlds in order to create stable portals to those digital realms via magic and harvest their endless resources.
– Created a magitechnological facility and miles-long relays of mystic trees to generate an artificial nexus of ley lines and boost the ambient energy so that we could build especially cool things.
– Built a series of artificial computer-controlled towns full of villagers in order to study the effects of releasing various genetically-enhanced monsters into the general population, and also as a practical food source for studying vampirism and lycanthropy.
– Crafted an absurdly complex device which could craft virtually any item in the game, store it automatically in an interdimensional digital cloud and re-constitute them in your inventory by use of a special tablet.
– Built a series of antimatter ICBMs with a dead-man’s switch to deter another player*** from deploying the mystic device they’d constructed which created one-way portals to any place in the universe and pumped out an arbitrary amount of lava.
– Developed a mystical incantation which, if used by a mage of sufficient power and skill, annihilated all life in the world (although due to engine limitations this only applies to loaded chunks).
– Built a vast automatic quarry system which would be deployed only in other worlds due to its tendency to consume continents.
– Built a complex alchemical facility to convert the unwanted product of the quarry into desirable material.
– Battled the hordes of encroaching darkness and rapid corruption of the world caused by a miscalculation in designing aforesaid facility.
– Created a perfectly safe self-perpetuating nuclear engine!
– Dealt with the literal fallout of discovering the above wasn’t entirely true.
– Built a vast shadowy prison for our clever device which summoned eldritch horrors and automatically siphoned away their dark powers which were sent to us for safe and easy accumulation of evil energies.
– Would you believe that somehow went wrong???
– Pirate battles on airships!
– You know what’d be really clever? An airship which dropped endless amounts of bombs!
– Time to restart the world again.
– Computerized mystic nexus of unfathomable power which controlled time in order to assure peak growing conditions for our prized flower garden.
FTB minecraft might well be my favorite game in all the world.
*Mostly my friends, to be honest, but I helped sometimes.
**This one was all me and it was horrifying
***Also me
@Jordan D. – “Built a satellite plane in which solar-powered robotic factories endlessly assembled additional solar panels to convert sunlight into raw matter for a gigantic production facility.”
…And that was enough to sell me completely. Everything after that point jost made me boggle and laugh uproariously.
Sold. Sold, damn you, sold a hundred times!
A thread on reddit pointed me towards Out There: Omega Edition as a fun way to kill time on my smartphone. I’m quite liking it so far, even more so as I bought it using credit from Google Play surveys.
I’ve resolved to not spend any more money on games until I have completed (to credits, not 100%) at least 50% of the games I own. Currently I’m at 22.5%. Now if only I would stop playing Civ V and keep up with Bioshock D:
I never really got into the first two Bioshock games, they felt like a clever plot bolted onto a really subpar shooter with a horrific difficulty curve.
Infinite is different, because the shooting felt a little better and because having a character alongside you felt different– but I had a hard time seeing what the niche was for half of the weapons.
I find that I’m enjoying the gunplay fairly well in Bioshock, though I’m missing the carbine from Infinite. I really enjoy the Research Camera mechanic, and I think I prefer the Tonics to the Gear, though they do fill similar roles.
Part of why I’m playing Bioshock is due to its landmark status. I’m really impressed by the design of the early levels, and how they teach a lot of the mechanics quite intuitively. Yes, it’s a fairly obvious tutorial, but it feels organic, and lots of stuff that other games would spell out seem to flow naturally.
But Civ V could just go on forever. One more turn all the way to sunrise!
I spent a couple of weekends playing Factorio just after it came out on Steam.
It’s pretty fun; I really enjoyed it. But it’s hard for me to get into playing one game exclusively. I’ll probably come back to it once they add in some of the planned updates. I never got around to building a rocket.
My only frustration was having to spend a lot of time acquiring new fields of resources in a repetitive and grindy way…and the combat is not that great. I hear they’re addressing both of those issues, though.
It’s amazingly well-polished for early access, though. I appreciate that aspect of it.
And I like the Robinson-Crusoe-in-space / colonizing new lands part of it. The whole “industrialization is awesome!” aesthetic, too. It would be interesting if they played that aspect of it up more. That’s what got me into it. Overall, I think it has a pretty good level of “atmosphere”, though.
***
One game that doesn’t have any atmosphere is Endless Legend. I tried to get into playing it for the second time last weekend, and while I did manage to finish a game, it was boring as hell. Just completely lifeless. Like Civilization V but even more gamified so that there’s no immersion whatsoever. I can’t understand why people like it. I felt the same about Endless Space.
I guess I should just…not buy those games, but I feel like I’m missing something.
I don’t know why they can’t make another strategy game like Alpha Centauri.
Galactic Civilizations might have little more life in it. The setting is a sort of sci-fi Star Trek pastiche, and the different races all have different personalities, it’s got a colorful good-vs-evil morality system. And you can design your own spaceships, which is always nice.
I played a ton of GalCiv II back when it came out.
I haven’t bought the third one. It seems just like a rehash. But maybe I will at some point.
I’d suggest waiting. From what I understand III is less full featured than II but has better underlying tech that gives it way more potential to exceed II once the expansions start coming out.
I felt that Endless Legend had plenty of atmosphere, the lore was – I felt – stretched a little thin and the quests were rather unsatisfying. But the visuals and race design had great atmosphere.
It was the gameplay that was the real issue, quickly turning into a big wait-a-thon. I’m hoping for Stelleris to finally fix the mid and endgame bordeom of 4x.
Oh, the visuals were great. But what I’m talking about is that felt no sense of immersion of really being the leader of my empire. It just felt like “click and watch numbers go up”; it’s the Civ V phenomenon. The gameplay was pretty dull, too, especially as I went for a science victory.
I’m definitely looking forward to Stellaris.
Well, I’m working on a 4X right now, so this comment thread is interesting reading.
I’m jealous. I’d like to make a 4X; I have some ideas I’ve never seen done that I’d quite like to try.
That’s the whole reason I’m making one 😀
It’s hard to make a science victory that isn’t dull in 4x-ers. Playing against multiple ai’s, you have to specialize to win, which means neglecting your military. So after the initial land-grab, it comes down to clicking next and hoping you aren’t attacked.
I like Endless Legend, in fact was going to recommend it here just now. The races are distinct, setting fairly unique. Something about the graphics seems strange to me, it’s a bit bright and jarring at the level of zoom that obscures the details, I think. It’s also the first game with espionage I though was enjoyable, at least with the civ built around it.
I can see how the game would get tedious after awhile, but playing each civ through to a victory was fun, and I’ll probably come back to it after awhile.
Well. This might come as a surprise to people, but I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV a lot recently…
What are your opinions on the last few months of content?
I was very disappointed in the initial raid content after Heavensward. The expansion had some really cool fights in the main story quests, but I found the Alexander bosses to be unimaginative and obnoxious drag-fests. I stopped playing after the first patch (even though I loved Void Ark), but I’ve heard good things about the second round of Alexander.
I played it a while back and really liked it. It’s basically an ever-expanding puzzle. Figure out how to mine iron and copper. Figure out how to smelt them automatically. Figure out how to power it all by electricity. Figure out how to turn that iron and copper into finished goods. Now double the size of your factory because the next tier of research is taking too long. Now protect it all with a turret network.
My main complaint is the slow start – you’ll need to spend a lot of time running around between fields of ore before you can build enough conveyor belts to put it all together into a production line.
—
In other news, I just finished XCOM 2, and I really enjoyed it. It’s extremely tense – I kept feeling like I was going to lose, even though I was steadily making progress. I kept losing soldiers, the Avatar counter kept ticking down, there was never enough supplies for everything, and every new enemy had some special ability that was really awful to deal with. Sectoids can mind control from the get-go, Stun Lancers can sprint across the map and zap your guys unconscious, Codexes make a mockery of cover, and later aliens are just incredibly tough. It’s a very satisfying challenge.
XCOM 2 was a nice challenge at the start, but once I understood how the systems fit together I was winning on commander ironman with 3 soldier deaths total.
I’m waiting for some serious changes via modding then I’ll go back.
The only thing I dislike about it is, as many people have pointed out, it relies almost completely on the “alpha strike” idea. If you’re allowing the enemy pods to take any actions (rather than killing them on the first turn of engagement), you’re messing up.
(Xenonauts is better in that respect, but it gets way too repetitive.)
I did find it very fun, though. I finished Commander Ironman and then started a game of Legendary Ironman, but I got bored with the latter one and quit. Maybe I’ll pick it up again at some point, but I’ve never been one for playing these kinds of games over and over.
I haven’t been feeling that well recently so I’ve been playing light simple games. Mostly English Country Tune.
I’ve been spending my gaming time on Magic: the Gathering Online recently, which maybe sort of qualifies as a videogame? They’re doing a thing where they rotate in a different classic draft format every week, which means there’s never time to get bored. (Ok, maybe with Coldsnap.)
I dipped pretty heavily into cockatrice as a way of playing with a friend across the country. Combined with a skype call, it feels a lot more like actually playing magic than any of the automated versions I’ve seen.
I was a backer of Grim Dawn back when it kickstarted, played it through a few times and set it aside, until I picked it back up again upon release. I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s sort of a steampunky take on ARPGs made by most of the dev team that did Torchlight.
Oh my, yes. Wasn’t expecting much of it, to be honest, but it did surprise me.
Loved the “collect the secrets/beat x challenges” aspect, but the fact that they meant the dev team went with preset rather than procedural levels really hurts the replayability.
1500+ hours later, I still can’t pull away from Europa Universalis 4. Unless it’s to be sucked into the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, but since that’s a TCG and not really a video game I’m not sure if it counts.
I wonder how overrepresented EU4 fans are in the rationalist community?
Currently taking a break from EU4 after finishing my first (albeit non-iron man) WC as the orthodox, HRE turks. Keeping all the truce timers, AE, and OE balanced is draining. I’m sure I’ll come up with something interesting and dive into Mare Nostrum. Maybe an Asian country…
Speaking of ARPG’s, I’m enjoying Path of Exile right now. Pretty neat, and free. I don’t have too much experience with the genre to compare; I hear it’s a lot like Diablo but the skill system is unique.
I’ve burned a fair amount of time on that; I cycle long orbits between it, World of Tanks/Warships and my general steam library. It did a much better job of recapturing the feel of Diablo than Diablo 3 did. I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit.
After spending a year with absolutely no video and/or computer games (unless you count the XCOR Lynx flight simulator, which I can’t really count as training and it was just the one evening…), I’ve been sucked back in to Crusader Kings II by promising reports of the latest updates. There are still some things missing, and probably always will be, but it is addictively good.
I am not certain, based on a single incomplete campaign, whether it is too easy, or I am too good, or I just got lucky. Attempting to set myself up as a literal Crusader King, starting with two counties in Sicily in 1066 and playing quasi-ironman on “hard”, I find myself in 1106 about to officially found the Empire of the Middle Sea (Sicily, Africa, and Jerusalem), possibly vassalize France, and make the Byzantine Empire a junior member of my dynasty. It is unlikely that managing the resulting Empire will hold my interest through 1453, and if every new campaign plays out in a similar manner I expect I would get bored after three or four tries.
Which might be a good thing, all told. It is as I say addictively good…
I think it’s suffering from bloat – every new DLC is adding more options, every option can be exploited by a canny player, and the overall difficulty hasn’t been rebalanced to account for this. It’s still a great underlying game though.
It was always a very easy game.
It’s like Dwarf Fortress: hard to learn, but easy to survive if you have a clue of what you’re doing.
It’s very difficult to really lose a game of CKII.
I haven’t played in a while, but they have added in some EUIV-style expansion-limiting features, like aggressive expansion penalties. Which have been rather unpopular, as I understand.
they have added in some EUIV-style expansion-limiting features, like aggressive expansion penalties. Which have been rather unpopular, as I understand.
That’s one of the non-fake difficulties I appreciate. As an almost-Emperor, it would be too easy if I could pick off every independent county, duchy, or weak kingdom I could find casus belli for one at a time. Now I’m faced with explicit defensive alliances on every front I have to deal with one way or another.
I like that sort of thing, too. I don’t enjoy painting the damn map with no resistance.
What I dislike ultimately is the tediousness of controlling too much stuff. Once my empire gets too big, I have to start a new one. Never even got close to finishing one of those games.
I’ve just finished a first long playthrough, so not super-experienced, but if it seems too easy after another game or two I figure I’ll just make it harder for myself by, say, trying to go heretic and overthrow the pope or something like that. Seems like there are a decent number of challenges you could create for yourself to push the difficulty up from just “create an empire and avoid terrible succession crises.”
I had figured that ruling a newborn Kingdom of Jerusalem surrounded by pissed-off Muslims and with indifferent support from the rest of Christendom would be adequately challenging. Certainly was for several historic Baldwins. As noted, some of my Christian allies have been more supportive than I would have expected and I’m not sure if that was a fluke. Or, hopefully, there are challenging surprises to come.
Perhaps, but my victories mostly haven’t come through exploiting new capabilities – except for the ability to found custom empires, which is useful. Mostly, the new content means new (non-fake, thus appreciated) challenges. But some of the old challenges seem to be less challenging; in particular, it seems to be much easier to get my allies to support my war efforts.
Speaking of which, populating the initial setup with bachelor kings who “must be in want of a wife” and willing to accept a well-placed Count’s daughter if nobody else offers first, offers possibly an unfair advantage to anyone who starts with three daughters and the foresight to freeze the game on day one until the relevant political landscape has been explored. Enough to make up for the lack of sons, I think.
I’ve played Factorio, but gave it up as too addictive if I want to do other things. My primary game of choice is Aurora, best described as ‘mix Dwarf Fortress, 4X, and Excel, then set in space’. I find it to be like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Others usually look at me weirdly when I talk about it.
I’ve tried to get into that a little bit, but it just seems boring.
What do you do in it? It just generates other empires on the fly when you discover new systems, doesn’t it? So what’s the fun in beating them?
At least with Dwarf Fortress (or Factorio!), it’s like a city builder and you have the ant farm effect: you set your creation up and watch it go. You end up with this impressive, self-running creation. Aurora seems not to have that so much.
Anyway, I say all this just to ask in curiosity what you find compelling about it.
I enjoy the complexity, and the level of detail you get. Doing Aurora fleets is the closest I’ve been able to get to planning real-world military forces, and reading up on naval procurement, it’s surprisingly close. The big draw over Dwarf Fortress is that it’s somewhat less susceptible to random frustrations. Your orders get followed promptly, instead of being done when your dwarfs feel like it.
And there is more to do than just beat up on the random NPRs. The spoiler races usually keep things interesting (no, I won’t say more in case anyone is inspired to take it up), and it’s not uncommon for experienced players to run several sides at the same time.
Actually, my current game is rather interesting. I invited a couple of friends who haven’t played before to build empires, and I’m running a total of four empires, one for me (with (insufficient) handicapping) and three based on their orders.
Maybe I’ll check it out again.
The thing I like about e.g. Factorio is that it has a high ratio of puzzles to tedium. Where puzzles is figuring out what you need to do to solve your problem. And tedium is doing the busywork of actually putting it together.
The only tedium is expanding your mines. You do the same thing over and over. Which is why I quit playing. (But they’re working on fixes.)
I guess it’s another way of talking about the density of interesting choices. Some games seem to have, like, no interesting choices. And so you’re slogging through them waiting for the numbers to go up.
I’m not sure it would be your cup of tea. It does seem to require a certain tolerance for doing the drudge work. I think I usually tolerate it because most of my brain is working on what I’m going to do next, but I have friends who’ve given up because they got bored.
I’ve recently been playing Kingdoms of Amalur (yes, that game where the studio went bankrupt and the IP is now owned by the state of Rhode Island) and enjoying it quite a bit. Mainly that’s due to the quality of the writing, particularly the questlines involving the quasi-immortal Fae, but I have to admit that after years of mostly playing MMORPGS it’s just viscerally satisfying to be a one-of-a-kind godlike being that doesn’t need a whole damn raid to kill a dragon.
There was definitely some interesting writing in Kingdoms of Amalur, yeah. It’s really a pity it was all hidden behind the endless padding of MMO-style world and quest design. If they had just been building a single-player game from the ground up, instead of trying to build an MMO, running out of money, and making it single player halfway through, it might have been something special.
Came back to Warframe. Every time I quit and come back it just gets better. The Second Dream was well worth it, though it still stings a little that it took so long to answer the questions we’ve been asking since day 1.
Also, the moon tileset is incredible, but there are hardly ever any pug groups on it. QQ.
The Witness!! I really loved that game.
I’ve been playing Endless {Space,Legend}, and Skyrim.
Since a lot of people here seem to like Grand Strategy games: I’ve played a lot of 4X games, but never played a Grand Strategy game before. What game would you recommend me? Also, are there any such games (or mods) with a Science Fiction setting?
I’d say Europa Universalis 4 is probably the easiest to get into for someone not familiar with the genre. Stellaris is coming out in a month, which is supposed to be like an SF grand strategy game, but from seeing preview footage I’m a little dubious as to how good it’s going to turn out to be.
Re: the fundraiser, and some other recent cash appeals. I have no information or opinion on it’s worthiness but it makes me wonder if it’s a stage in tribe formation since it’s also pretty common for small religious groups and communities to form internal structures to financially support tribe members. Freemasons are somewhat known for supporting members who have business problems and the Amish tend to have systems where the community will work together to avoid members going bankrupt.
Some kind of stage of tribal development?
It’s a reassuringly human reaction: ‘hey, one of our own needs a hand out’.
Much better in practice than the theoretical responses about “Yeah, sure, so a Syrian refugee in Turkey is living on a rubbish tip, but objectively, the money you donate to housing them would do more life saving by QALYs if you gave the same amount to mosquito nets!”
If it was purely the EA groups then it would be debatable that it would be going against their groups rallying flag or core beliefs: that the life of a Syrian refugee isn’t inherently less valuable than the life of a someone in your home town.
Fortunately it’s the wider rationalist community.
I wouldn’t call that “inhuman” any more than someone sacrificing themselves for children with no relationship to themselves. It feels too much like a slur for something laudable.
Just because it’s not your first gut-reaction to something doesn’t make it inhuman. Humans can be utter cunts when they go with their gut too much and we don’t normally call every departure from base instincts inhuman.
It’s much easier to make yourself sacrifice for someone in your community than for someone you will never see and much easier again to do the most human thing and only help yourself and your direct family.
> down on their luck
Come on. The primary criticism was that luck was less a factor than conscious life choices.
How unlucky, to be the sort of person who makes these choices
The question isn’t whether such life-choices are “lucky” or not, but whether they respond to (dis)incentives.
Can we all refrain from passing moral judgements? Donate or don’t; my last comment on this is that there’s a child involved and contributing to the welfare of the child is the important thing, not casting stones at the mother or father.
I have opinions on the topic, but in the end it’s none of my business. All that is of concern to me is that I can choose to make a donation or not, and it’s perfectly congruent to think the parents were damn fools and still think that giving money will help the child, who is the innocent party in all this.
> Can we all refrain from passing moral judgements?
I have no interest in moralizing, I’m just making a point about free will/luck/incentives.
I agree. Moral judgment is God’s purview, not ours.
I do, however, see value in discussing the merits of this or that plea for help, at least on a practical level. For one thing, discussion bubbles up new information that helps inform potential donors. For another thing, these cases (the that I’ve seen anyway) are ones where the request is that the natural default responsibility (e.g., mother to feed/house/clothe her child) be swapped out for, or significantly augmented by, an artificial one (e.g., random people on the internet to feed/house/clothe the child), and that’s kind of a big deal. I understand why people might want to hash that out.
There’s a line somewhere between
a) Will giving money to this person really solve her problem? Will giving this guy money subconsciously encourage a pattern of bad decision-making? Etc.
and
b) This person is a parasite/unfit mother/useless waste of space. The circumstances this guy finds himself in are perfectly fair/unfair. Etc.
I think Scott does a pretty good job balancing that line.
@suntzuanime:
I pretty much always appreciate reading your comments. They tend to be well thought-out without being too long. My favorite, though, is when I can’t tell if you’re trolling or being profound (or both–something I like to do IRL, but seldom manage), like here. Just thought I’d let you know, since people usually like being appreciated.
Also, I enjoy the anime threshing posts you make on your blog, and would probably read more if you ever plan to do that sort of thing again.
I appreciate your kind words, but I have learned long ago not to make any promises vis-a-vis blog output.
Well, for what it’s worth, I greatly enjoyed them as well.
I get your point. The logical conclusion is that everything is the way it is because of chance. Everyone makes the choices they make because of a confluence of genetics and environment that come together in a deterministic universe to make the person.
Her life choices had foreseeable consequences, and were in fact foreseen by plenty of people who chose not to make them. I’d like to encourage more people to have that kind of foresight.
Scott says I should just quietly not donate. Well, I disagree. I’d like to actively discourage others from donating.
Well, perhaps the consequences I foresee for you will encourage other commentors not to make the same posting choices.
Yeah, you walked into that one. User Jonathan has been banned
Well, I don’t think anyone but the NSA has figured out how to ban you without using either IP or nick, so if you used a pseudonym and throwaway IP and didn’t leak by webRTC then you’re impossible to ban.
For sufficiently technical people with no persistent account rep or whatever to keep, any banning is on the honor system.
I think Scott’s point here–and it’s one I agree with even though I’m skeptical of polyamory and arguably participated in the criticism last go round, albeit in a very non-case specific sort of way–is not that anyone in our rationalist ingroup who might ask for help is beyond reproach, but rather that the consequences of criticizing one who does so probably do not outweigh the negatives, regardless of the specific circumstances (within reason).
Namely, any time someone asks for help and gets criticized, it increases the probability of someone genuinely needing and deserving of help keeping his or her mouth shut out of fear of that judgment. If the options are a. SSC errs a bit too much on the side of generosity, to the point that some undeserving or blameworthy people get charity, or b. SSC errs a bit too much on the side of being judgmental, with the result that deserving people in genuine need are afraid to ask for help, I’m pretty sure Scott would prefer a.
Are there any good essays/blog posts/whatever examining the possibility of reverse AI risk — that is, of humans maltreating AIs rather than vice versa?
Since you can set the AI’s utility/goal/plan, it is sort of hard to do that unless you deliberately set out to make one to suffer. I think Robin Hansen covered that under his writings on EMs (emulated people); probably somewhere on Overcoming Bias.
I don’t know that it’s what you want, but this touches on the problem and so does the next post in the sequence.
Some of my friends set up http://petrl.org/
Would it be possible to set up a charity run by trusted members of the rationalist community so that people who need help (like the fundraiser you posted in this and a previous post) will be able to turn to them privately so as not to suffer the embarrassment of the public fundraising and (unfortunately) personal attacks, and only the people running the charity would know the identity of the person and decide whether to give them money and how much. Many religious communities have such institutions so my question is whether it is transferable to this community or not (For example it might not be viable since it is in competition with EA for funds the emotional appeal of knowing the specific person your helping is a major part of this kind of fundraiser or because the personalities attracted to this community might not like trusting some one else (even trusted people like scott) to decide whether a specific person is worthy of support and how much).
I am not really involved with the community so I don’t know if this would be viable.
A mutual aid society has been discussed before. I don’t think there was enough interest to make it happen, but it may be worth discussing again.
There’s a particular problem in that cases where support are most desired tend to be cases which are especially drama-heavy. It seems likely that a mutual aid society would crumble under the drama, especially if run by committee or a donor advised fund or so on.
Some freak wants to use rationalist aid money to buy meat/$99 per lb organic vegan protein-thing?!! This is a disgusting abuse, and I demand we ban spending aid money on this sort of thing!
I think it’s a good idea precisely because of your elegant hypothetical: it puts the onus on the Trust to disperse money in a way donors approve of. The Trust could start by enumerating its guidelines (who is eligible to receive money and for what reasons), and donors can vote on changes to those guidelines. Seems totally doable.
(Full disclosure: I’m not an EA and I probably would never donate to something like this. I’ve witnessed only 2 of Scott’s “hey go help this person out” posts and in both cases I didn’t consider the cause something I would support.)
I have to admit, I’m tickled by the notion of a rationalist version of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, though they, or at least some branches, seem to be trying to dump the religious connection and go secular as hard as they can; if you’ve ever seen something calling itself ‘Depaul’ (sic), that’s what used to be the SVP but they’re “rebranding” 🙂
This isn’t really a typical thing people talk about here, but for some reason my stereotype of SSC commenters includes “prefers fuel efficient cars made in Japan or Korea”. So hopefully someone here has some knowledge about this:
Does anyone know why the Honda Civic hatchback went from getting 40+mpg on the highway in the late ’80s through 2001, but the 2002-2003 Civic Si hatchback (7th generation) topped out around 31mpg? I understand that Si stands for “sport injected,” but the Si sedan still got good gas mileage.
Wikipedia says the 7th generation was 150 pounds heavier, but that shouldn’t account for a 10mpg reduction in fuel economy.
So what gives?
And importantly, are there any simple mods people do to their 7th generation Civic hatchbacks to make them as fuel efficient as previous generations?
Part of it, at least, is that the EPA changed the way it calculated MPG in 2008 (to incorporate “the effects of [f]aster speeds and acceleration[, a]ir conditioner use[, and c]older outside temperatures”, and part of it looks like it may be bigger and more powerful engines.
The EPA’s site, fueleconomy.gov, gives old and new mileage for models from 1986 to 2007. The 86 Civic 1.3L manual got 40mpg by the old method, 34 by the new. The 07 Civic with the smallest engine manual is 1.8L, and gets 33 by the old method, 29 by the new.
So still lower fuel economy, but not as dramatic as it would look if you compared the then-advertised 40 with the more recent 29.
The Si hatchback used a larger engine in 2002-2003. Nothing simple you can do about that I’m afraid.
Dang.
I had an old civic hatchback (a ’92 perhaps?), great fuel economy.
If the new SI gets ten miles less a gallon, there could be any number of reasons. In order, I’d guess weight, engine size and gearing ratios. I see other commenters have mentioned these. Lower gear ratios will make a car accelerate quicker, but then it runs at higher revs, which burns more fuel.
I recently traded in a ’98 civic sedan for a ’08 Accord Coupe V6, and lost about ten miles to the gallon in the process. But I figured that going from a 4 to a 6. And 35 mpg isn’t bad.
You are frustrated at not being able to read SSC on your mobile device. Focus on your frustration. Visualize it as a ball of energy. Now imagine it coming toward you. It’s a gift. Reach out. Bring it in. Your gift arrives. Your gift is freedom. You are free. You don’t have to read blogs on your phone or small tablet anymore. Put your phone in your pocket. Put your tablet down on the table and turn it off. Rub your eyes. Look around. There’s a real world around you. Have a glass of water. Stretch. Go outside.*
SSC can wait until you’re at home in front of your computer. If you don’t own a computer, SSC can wait until you buy one. SSC is not important. If you never get a computer, it will be okay.
*Do those things and see if you even remember your stupid frustration afterwards.
I really don’t feel like going in the hole of this whole affair, but I read on a forum that the political view was “black people on average have lower IQ” . People on the forum believe the guy is racist, and the statement is just a proxy to say black people are dumb. So to them it wasn’t really a political view that wanted him to be suspended from the conference but instead of a “racist view”. Now I don’t know much about the guy. And I think a bunch of people on here would agree “on average black people have lower IQ”, so I don’t accept anyone to think that is racist. However people in the forum made a good point; there isn’t a lot of black people in tech. So if you are black person in tech, invited to this conference, and some guy is invited to speak who holds the opinion your race is genetically dumber than everyone else there, well that’s not a good feeling.
This whole free speech thing gets complicated. Do people here get mad/reactionary when legitimately homophobic, racist people are block from participating in things, even unrelated things based purely on their views ? What happened to the ” you are free to express your opinion but it doesn’t shield you from the consequences ?” In this case the consequence was that he could have been removed from speaking at a conference. However that action in itself prevents his from exercising free speech at said conference.
The whole IQ thing is tricky for me personally. I’ve been trying to increase my rationality and it sucks to always come across “black people on average have lower IQ’s”. Typically its made by a white guy who assures it’s not racist because white people on average have lower IQ’s than Asians. I just really wonder how many would say it, if it went Asian > Black > White. And to be honest my IQ is fine for my life. It hasn’t significantly held me back, but if it was higher I probably would have did better in my discrete math classes.
Anyway no real point, just commenting.
>there isn’t a lot of black people in tech. So if you are black person in tech, invited to this conference, and some guy is invited to speak who holds the opinion your race is genetically dumber than everyone else there, well that’s not a good feeling.
Well, if it weren’t for the constant campaigning by the no-platformers, you wouldn’t even know.
>I just really wonder how many would say it, if it went Asian > Black > White.
You’d never hear the end of it, only it’d be pushed by different people.
>And to be honest my IQ is fine for my life. It hasn’t significantly held me back, but if it was higher I probably would have did better in my discrete math classes.
I think this sentence captures an issue I have with your comment: You seem to be conflating, implicitly, “Blacks have a lower mean IQ than whites” with “any given black is dumber than any given white”. On the individual level, your IQ is the number you get, regardless of whether you’re black, white or purple with golden trimming.
@Just Some Comments – “Do people here get mad/reactionary when legitimately homophobic, racist people are block from participating in things, even unrelated things based purely on their views ?”
Can’t speak for anyone else, but yeah, I do.
“What happened to the ” you are free to express your opinion but it doesn’t shield you from the consequences ?””
If we are going to have serious consequences for opinions, then securing enough power to enforce your tribe’s particular dogma becomes a pressing priority. That escalates the culture war for the foreseeable future, and opens the door to madness and stupidity on a vast scale. A lot of people don’t want to do that, and the only other option is “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.”
Racial patterns exist and everyone notices them. Just like white people who excel at basketball or rap music are used to some surprise that they are excelling in a field that everyone knows is dominated by blacks. They expect some the occasional surprised look and don’t get offended.
Black programmers or women programmers know they are in a field known for being white/asian male, and expect the occasional surprise and don’t get offended. Also, if someone like Moldbug commented in one of his long-winded articles that there is probably a biological basis to these aptitudes, it’s not going to offend people.
If it was said with animosity, or someone walked up to a black or female and said something obnoxious, sure that will offend. Also, SJW types have trained themselves to find things to get offended about and that is different.
> I just really wonder how many would say it, if it went Asian > Black > White.
Well it’s pretty common to see the fact that women on average outscore men on IQ tests (by between .5 and 1 IQ point, don’t mention the actual numbers, just say “outscore” or “higher IQ”) used on feminist sites as backing for women being more intelligent than men in general.
If you can’t distinguish between “mean” and “individual”, you are a bigot, no matter which side you come from. It’s pretty much the definition.
Native blacks in the US have a lower average IQ than native whites. What does this tell you about a given white person or black person? Next to nothing. 90+% of the distributions will overlap. It will tell you a lot about the group, on average, but nothing about an individual.
IQ is not “tricky”. It is a measure of academic potential, and as such it is one of the best measures we have. It is not a measure of creativity, of morality, or of academic interest for that matter. In the US we have this strange conflation of intelligence with worth, and that needs to stop. Smart is just a talent, like anything else. It’s like being tall. There are benefits, there are downsides. You can’t do much to change it.
But, with that understood, IQ is correlated (correlation is not causation, they all screamed!) with a host of life outcomes, and it is an indisputable fact that some races score better on average than others. This is fact, and fact is not racist. Interpretation can be racist, and if your interpretation is “every group dumber on average than whites aren’t people”, then that is certainly racist. But that doesn’t work so well for white supremacists, because generic “whites” are kind of middle of the pack in terms of average IQ. Above blacks and hispanics, behind asians and jews. But once again, what does this tell us about the individual? Say it with me!………..
AFAIK, Moldbug made this exact distinction. His opinion is that some races are more intellectually gifted than others, but that this doesn’t legitimize treating individuals differently.
I don’t know how he thinks people should be treated. I’ve only seen him talk about how ‘talents’ like being smarter or more suitable for slavery than others don’t make anyone a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ person:
Yeah, so he says that black people make better slaves, which is a very different argument from saying that it’s morally justified. For example, I think that we can agree that rich people make better targets for a robber than poor people, but that observation in no way condones robbery itself. We just say that someone who already decided to rob makes a rational decision when (s)he seeks out rich targets.
Anyway, he seems to defend some specific forms of slavery, but his definition of slavery is extremely/absurdly broad, including not just serfdom, but also lifelong employment at 1 company. I think that there is a huge disconnect with his critics here. He defends a situation where people give up certain rights in return for certain benefits, not abusive forms of slavery where people get abused and taken advantage of. However, his choice of words inevitable leads some people to think that he defends the latter, especially when his quotes get taken out of context.
His point would be much more palatable and come across better if he framed it better, but I think that he likes it when people get confused by his writing.
Right. And his choice of words seems very deliberate.
It’s as if someone on Tumblr said, “Some people claim that I’m evil because I supposedly support killing SSC readers en masse. But what is ‘killing’, anyway? The verb ‘to kill’ dates back to early 13th century, when it meant ‘to strike, to hit, to beat or to knock’. While striking or beating someone is an act that no one would call ‘nice’ (and we all know that not being ‘nice’ enough is a mortal sin these days), there are many personal reports of formerly wayward teenagers having been saved from a life of criminality by a well-timed application of physical discipline. Is there any particular point at which a mere series of strikes suddenly turns into that dreaded taboo act? Furthermore, careful consideration will show that killing need not be cruel or ugly — think of a heart-broken owner bringing a beloved pet to the vet for the last time, or a kaishakunin preserving a samurai’s honor and dignity with a precise, swift strike of his katana. And think of many people in our wretched society, stuck in soul-sucking jobs for life — is that not a death of spirit, an even more tragic death, in some ways? No doubt, if you have watched too many gory propaganda movies that deliberately portray killers as monsters who torture their victims for fun and bathe in their blood, you might have become convinced that killing is evil by definition. But of course, if anyone actually performed that kind of ‘killing’ in real life, I would condemn them in the strongest terms. And certainly some actual acts of killing have had more in common with this grotesque caricature than others. But I would like to encourage you to think beyond the narrow confines of the dominant paradigm. Imagine a more pure, less chaotic society than ours, where every citizen has a clear view of their role and purpose, where one can call a spade a spade, where children can play in the streets without fear. Think back on history — might some past societies have been wiser than us, even if their ways would seem alien to a naive observer from our culture? Friend, by reading this text, you have already come very far. You are no longer ignorant or naive, no, you are a brave explorer of forbidden, extraordinary ideas. I wish you the best of luck in your journey, and urge you to seek out and read materials that have been black-holed by the ideological powers that be.”
When someone puts that much effort into being mistaken for a racist, it gets hard to believe there isn’t something very much like the genuine article motivating it.
@ Nita:
That is a really funny parody of his style.
@Chet
There are other motivations, like wanting to feel morally superior over people that cannot follow his (meandering) writing. Or challenging simplistic ideas about certain concepts by deconstructing them and shining a different light on them.
@Nita:
Beautiful. All that’s needed is some reference to a few books from the mid-19th century that show the evil nature of the Whigs.
I also think there is an extent to which he is trying to imitate the writing style of left-wing academics. I’ve read a number of academics that Nita’s spoof would also work for.
The style is circuitous but uses plain language, and is kind of “chatty”, whereas the worst academic writing is jargon-laden, not necessarily circuitous, and tends towards scholarly remove rather than chattiness.
Moldbug’s writing style is basically “autodidact amateur who is trying to be jocular and also desperately needs an editor”.
If he claims he supports killing SSC readers en masse, he cannot also be referring to the good types of killing referred to in his essay–none of them would apply to a mass of SSC readers. He would be outright contradicting himself if he wrote that–he’s claiming that when he says “killing” he means something which, in context, he couldn’t possibly mean for real.
Is he, in fact, claiming that he means something by “slavery”, that he couldn’t possibly mean for real?
Oh no! How could you misread him in such a glaringly uncharitable fashion? He tried so hard to explain everything with the proper amount of depth, nuance and historical context. But on the other hand, I can’t really blame you — the USA is a communist country, after all 🙁
@Nita damn, nice.
The point is that if he really he said that, his explanation doesn’t work. The explanation is incompatible with the statement. If he were to respond as you did and accuse people of misreading him, he’d be incorrect.
Is this what actually happened with his statements about slavery?
Sorry, Jiro. I like you (thanks for the username anime rec!), but you’re not getting me to read more Moldbug-related stuff. The show’s over for now.
If you’re really interested, you can investigate further of your own:
some historical background
Why Carlyle Matters, by Mencius Moldbug
How to Explain Your Views on Slavery to Journalists, by Curtis Yarvin (re-titled by me for relevance)
Cheers Nita. Apologia demolished!
It does however have some implications when people wave statistics around about the portion of people in X job while complaining that they don’t perfectly mirror the general population demographics.
Small shifts in the average can have a magnified effect when you’re looking at people at the far ends of the distribution.
Absolutely. But by definition, the ends of the curve are small numbers. The bulk of human experience is not explained by genetic differences. It is explained by how we harness status and tribalism to exploit those genetic gifts to improve (or decline) outcomes for large numbers of people.
Then, of course, you get epigenetics and culturally selective breeding, and the whole picture gets very complicated. But interesting!
Personally, I’m not terribly interested in genetic differences between races. They exist, and they have an effect on the margins of populations (NBA players, Nobel winners, etc), but that’s not where we get the real variation in human experience.
Culture is where we get that. All you have to do is look at all the cultures encompassed by a race to see the variation. Albania and Switzerland are the same race. But they do not have the same outcome. South Korea and North Korea are twins, genetically, but look at those outcomes! Culture, politics and institutions are where the difference is made. The relatively small genetic variations may make for some flashy examples at the very edge of the bell curve, but that is how you get to whole populations.
Wow, that Current Affairs web site is pretty radical… One quote on university admissions: “Competitive admissions processes among students who are all plenty qualified to do well (but must do dozens of extracurricular activities in order to make themselves stand out) are a dysfunctional absurdity that should have no place in education.”
That is definitely completely outside the Overton window of what almost anyone would seriously consider. He is targeting mainstream left like the basic premise of university competitive admission… I don’t see why Alexander get value from that.
I don’t think that’s too bizarre an idea. At the top tier of colleges (ie. Ivy League) the top applicants are probably so good that there is little actual differentiation between them in terms of academic ability. Currently colleges select them based on criteria that are largely fluff. This creates largely worthless positional competition (ie. spending large sums of money of extra curriculars or international travel). Probably a random lottery would be more effective.
Ron Unz suggested something similar to this in an article a few years back. After outlining the serious flaws in the current admissions system for Ivy League universities (which he contends is “not meritocratic nor diverse, neither being drawn from our most able students nor reasonably reflecting the general American population”), he suggests that about 20% of admission slots should be reserved for the very highest achievers, and the other 80% should be filled by random selection among all those who meet basic minimum qualifications. Unz contends that this would make the Ivy League more representative of America (and not just in the manner which is currently fashionable) and would also deflate the egos of many Ivy League students, who would know their admission to be due at least in part to good fortune and not pure merit.
Found the article
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/04/abigail-fisher-deserved-to-go-to-the-university-of-texas
In content it seems to be saying that schools should focus on opening up more slots instead of excluding students, while calling out some of the assholes on the left that hurled “whiney and privileged” insults at a plaintiff in the affirmative action case before SCOTUS.
Extracurriculars may be fluff from the perspective of academic ability, but an Ivy League is not selecting for ability to get good grades. It’s selecting for the likelihood that the student will become rich, famous, and/or powerful. This is correlated with academic ability, but it’s also correlated with the other traits that extracurriculars demonstrate. For example, being the captain of a sports team says little about academic ability but it shows leadership ability, charisma, and work ethic.
(And even if the extracurriculars demonstrated absolutely no traits directly, they would be valuable signals because of the handicap principle. Who is more impressive academically, the student with a 4.0 GPA who studies all the time, or the student who manages to get a 3.8 GPA while devoting 20 hours a week to the student newspaper and their sports team?)
I know nothing about the topic, but does anyone know if the students who submit an application stuffed with consistent high grades plus leadership positions and community involvement and all kinds of extracurriculars keep them up once they’ve got a place in the university of their choice?
How many people, for instance, continue to study how to play the oboe when they are accepted to university as opposed to dropping it thankfully because now they can concentrate on their main subject of study and have some free time for the fun stuff at university like drinking, making the acquaintance of attractive persons of one’s preferred genders of intimate partners, and going on anti-chalk protest marches? 🙂
If they want to get into law school or med school, they have to go right along through their undergraduate years, achieving all the extracurricular brownie points.
Once they get into law school or med school, there is generally no time for anything else, and little expectation for anything not directly related to the curriculum.
I think people most people specialize a lot more when they get into college, because it becomes impossible to be good at everything. Classes become much harder, and the standards for belonging to a sports team/orchestra/debate club/whatever become much higher.
Back before our daughter went to college, she was considering being a librarian and so wanted to volunteer at a local library. She did so, at the main library. After, I think, two weeks, they told her that she had now done her volunteering and let her go.
Our conjecture was that students were volunteering not because they wanted to work in a library but either because their school had some requirement along those lines or in order to add an extra qualification for college admissions, that the library assumed that was our daughter’s motive and two weeks did it.
So she volunteered at the local small library and did so, as best I recall, for a year or two.
If our interpretation was correct, it suggests that a lot of the qualifications really are fluff—doing just enough of something to look good to a poorly informed admissions officer.
I got the same impression from a conversation on an airplane with a woman who had been involved, I think as an alumna volunteer, with admissions for a prominent university. Her view was that students hired experts to tell them how to tweak their qualifications to fit the checkmarks on the admissions officer’s list.
What puzzles me about the admissions process is why the universities make no serious effort to find out whether applicants can write, a skill that is important in college and life thereafter. They ask for an essay but have no way of knowing if the student wrote it himself, hired someone else to write it, or wrote it with lots of assistance from parents and others. There is an essay part of the SAT exam, but it has to be graded in a mechanical way (by humans) for consistency, which limits how much information the grade gives.
Many students visit at a university they are considering. It would be easy enough for the admissions office to have an empty room with a word processor and a list of essay topics. When a student comes for an interview, put him in the room for an hour to write an essay on a topic of his choice.
The process could be expanded beyond visitors with the help of alumni in various big cities. But no school I know of does anything along those lines.
@David Friedman Don’t high school grades in English classes and other humanities classes convey that information for the vast majority of students?
@David Friedman
I feel the same way, but about public presentations. My students really can’t explain themselves to a full room of people (or even to just me), but we didn’t even have a public speaking course in my pre-university public education.
I think a lot of Ivy League admissions criteria are examples of Goodhart’s law, or something pretty analogous. (“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”) In a vacuum, giving preference to applicants with substantial extracurricular involvement would probably lead to a better crop of students. But once that’s known to be an advantageous item to have on a resume, it ceases to convey genuine information about interests and enthusiasm.
David Friedman’s spontaneous essay-writing suggestion may be a good idea, but I suspect that if it became routine you’d see a lot of applicants figuring out potential topics they could be asked to write about, and having outlines (if not whole essays) prepared for each. Of course, it would still convey valid information about writing ability, but a lot of the variation in writing sample quality would be explained by other factors, like level of preparation and knowledge of the application system.
@ Frank McPike:
I think there may something of the inverse Goodhart’s Law going on here: when a measure becomes a target, it suddenly starts being a better measure.
That’s what I was saying elsewhere. Imagine that top colleges started using one’s competitive rank in video games like Hearthstone or Counterstrike: Global Offensive as the sole criterion for admission. Right now, those are bad predictors of future academic and worldly success. But if they were made the target, they would probably become relatively good measures of future success.
Because all the talented, rich, and hard-working kids would start attending Hearthstone cram schools and getting one-on-one coaching from top players
Or, to use a real historical example, if you start awarding the most prestigious and powerful titles to people who have memorized Confucian texts and mastered the art of writing essays about them, then such mastery becomes a better measure of intelligence and dedication than it would otherwise be.
Now, taking that effect into account, I think there still remain many measures that are better than others.
That’s a very good point, but it does depend on what you’re trying to measure. If you’re trying to create a measurement of some mixture of intellectual ability, adaptability, work ethic, and dedication, then measuring success at an arbitrary task specified in advance isn’t a terrible method (although, as you note, probably not an optimal one either).
To give a contemporary example, at many American law schools selection for the more selective law reviews is determined (partly, at least) based on an exam on the Bluebook, a convoluted citation system. Knowing how to cite properly is important for editors, but the exams also measure things like commitment to the journal, good study habits, and skill at grasping an arbitrary and unfamiliar system of rules, which are also virtues worth having in an editor. (And the exam would be much worse at selecting for those things if law students didn’t know about it beforehand.)
But by looking at volunteer work and other extracurriculars universities are trying to measure things like “Is this person socially responsible?”, “Do they have genuine passions of their own?”, and “Are they a self-starting entrepreneurial type?” Those qualities may or may not actually be worth selecting for. But if they are, it’s worth having a measure, and making the measure known will reduce its effectiveness by turning it (at least partly) into a measure of something completely different (namely, qualities like work ethic, dedication, and intelligence).
The types of people who started their own charities before that became known as a good way to get into Ivy League schools probably were pretty uniformly socially conscious and possessed some kind of entrepreneurial spirit. The type of person who does that now probably looks very different. That’s not so say that they’re worse candidates for admission, only that the measure isn’t selecting for the virtues it’s intended to. To the extent you’re trying to measure something other than dedication, intellect, and work ethic, Goodhart’s Law can still be a problem.
I think it may be a King Midas sort of problem. The first time an Ivy League college has the effect you describe on a measure, that’s great. But when they have that effect on every measure they touch, it becomes an impediment.
@ Frank McPike:
Yeah, I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying there.
Whenever you design a system that selects for people other than those most ambitious to reach the top, you’re just going to make the ambitious people reorient to pursue that thing.
Which, while I think it’s a bit silly, seems to be part of the logic behind community service requirements: since the ambitious students are going to do whatever we tell them, we might as well tell them to do something that benefits the wider community. Harness bad or at least neutral motives in order to achieve good.
And while “checkbox volunteering” may be frustrating to those interested in it for its own sake—for the same kinds of reasons people don’t like poseurs—it’s hard for me to think that it actually has a net negative effect, as some people suggest.
It has a negative effect because of opportunity cost, and because it excludes people for things they have no control over (people in certain socioeconomic situations just can’t volunteer. Even not having a car can make it hard.)
…people in certain socioeconomic situations just can’t volunteer. Even not having a car can make it hard
And if you don’t want That Sort Of People going to your university (except for a carefully chosen few), but it’s politically unacceptable to openly discriminate against them in the brave new world of inclusivity…
Agree with Vox on the reverse-Goodhart law going on in high prestige Admissions and Corporate Recruiters:
Want to know who can juggle TA’ing, a course load, working on a PI’s research, and still find time to do her own highly original research? Which highschool kids could juggle debate club, judo, soccer, and traditional Gregorian salsa dancing while earning a 4.7 GPA (they have those now).
High prestige jobs for the MBA/consultant crowd want people who have literally climbed Mt. Everest. Not some pussy that takes scenic 10K ft summits on the weekends, and stops to smell the flowers. Of course neither actually helps you building excel models for M&A’s but… it does select for who will literally put their life on the line to gain status and approval (to strawman it a bit).
I interpreted the Current Affairs comment to basically reject the entire idea of competitive admissions to universities.
You are criticizing how schools select between similar candidates. That’s a lame argument. If the candidates are similar, bickering among the selection criteria at the very margins really shouldn’t matter.
The difference between random selection and picking the slightly better candidate according to some method of measurement, is small in terms of the difference in selected candidate quality you get right now, but potentially very large in terms of incentives and so in terms of what candidate choices you get in the future.
The latter sets up something which behaves effectively like a market, where candidates are incentivised to compete to look the best, and causes as a result a race to the bottom to maximise competitiveness. The former does not.
What you think of this probably depends on whether you think the race to the bottom is optimising for good things or not.
Edit: For an example, consider, e.g. if everyone switched to choosing supermarkets randomly to buy from, they’d get a pretty competent service today, because they’re all alright- there’s stuff to choose between them but it’s not massive.
But going forward the competitive pressure would have been removed, so in the longer term you’d expect the options you’re choosing randomly between to stop showing the effects of competition, which in this case means becoming more expensive and less competent.
This would be a case where competition is doing good things, and switching to random selection would be bad. In cases where you think competition is doing bad things, you might think switching to random selection would be good.
There is evidence that a ‘merit’-based competitive policy doesn’t result in students that perform better in college, but does select for upperclass students.
The issue is that it’s not discriminatory in ways that we should care about (who is a better student), but is discriminatory in ways that are bad (class).
I would bet that it doesn’t do a good job of selecting better students but does do a good job of selecting people who will have successful lives.
Harvard doesn’t particularly care if you get good grades or not. It cares whether you’re likely to become president or to donate tens of millions of dollars for a new building.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the average commentor here agreed with that statement. I certainly do. It’s worth remembering that “Outside the Overton Window” does not imply “false’.
You oppose the basic idea of a competitive admissions process to selective universities? Explain.
Of course, just because something is outside the Overton Window doesn’t mean it’s false, I believe many such things, but it does generally mean it’s fringe, will find a limited audience, and generally not going to be widely taken seriously at face value.
The extracurriculars game is a hugely destructive red queen’s race. I’d like to believe the conspiracy theory that the extracurriculars are designed to discriminate against Asians because then at least there’d be some point to all the waste.
Schools are free to make their own admission criteria and they face the consequences of those.
Some schools don’t consider extracurricular activities in admissions, which I suspect doesn’t cure your personal grievance.
First, being free to do it doesn’t mean other people can’t agree or disagree, and second, many schools are very much intertwined with governmental funding, regulation, and control already.
I don’t think they mean that you have to take everyone equally. I think they mean that the difference between the people who get 99.5 points on the Admission Rubric and the people who get 99.6 points on the Admission Rubric is so meaningless that instead of forcing people into cutthroat competition for that last tenth of a point they should just forget about it.
You accept the idea of students competing for rank and admission, but oppose “cutthroat” competition? What is “cutthroat” competition beyond one that you don’t like?
You broadly accept ranking students for college admission, you just don’t like that similar scored candidates can get non-identical results? If admissions categorizes students into accept/reject results, there must be a cutoff line, and there will be similarly scored students that fall on opposite sides of that cutoff. I don’t understand the logical objection.
To expand the quote I previously quoted to the entire paragraph:
“But people do deserve it; everyone should get to receive the best-quality possible college education, even Abigail Fisher. “Smartness” should not determine our material rewards, because smartness is distributed arbitrarily. As far as college goes, the only question should be whether individuals meet the basic standard to be able to do the work. Competitive admissions processes among students who are all plenty qualified to do well (but must do dozens of extracurricular activities in order to make themselves stand out) are a dysfunctional absurdity that should have no place in education.”
To break that down:
“Smartness should not determine our material rewards”? <– This is a personal moral judgement that simply conflicts with basic reality. So, it's one thing to just disagree on morals. But smartness, by definition, can be used to get rewards including material ones, how can someone just proclaim this facet of reality to be immoral?
"everyone should get to receive the best-quality possible college education" <– This seems like a simple wish, but childish and naive. It's not remotely practical or realistic. Should all schools be the same quality? Should all majors within schools be the same quality? What about people who don't go to school as full time students? What about people who don't like college education? What about the majority of humans expected to perform menial labor? Why don't they get a privileged and pampered student lifestyle? Some people pursue education more than others, how do you make them get equal results?
Also several other posts are equally outrageous. Like the one criticizing moderate Democrats like Bill Clinton for not being a more extreme black power type. Those harsh drug laws were often requested by blacks and pushed by the black congress.
The adjective “cut-throat” doesn’t mean anything specific, but the general concept would be consumption of resources and violation of ethics. These are two distinct concepts.
Two children competing for the same Harvard spot can compete through investing 10 hours a week on violin lessons. Child B ups his practice to 11 hours. Child A leaps up to 12 hours. Etc.
Beyond “X” hours the competition can be described as unacceptable negative. “X” is a subjective value, but who care? The minimum wage is also a subjective value. The poverty level is somewhat subjective. These concepts have meaning.
The more obvious “cut-throat” competition is unethical competition. Say Child B shoots Child A. No more competition for that Harvard spot after all!
The unethical competition is banned everywhere, the wasteful competition expected of certain athletes and no one else.
Ultimately, any competition puts pressure on people, and can make people do things that they hate.
You use the example of students making themselves miserable with violin lessons… People can make themselves miserable doing anything: studying for tests is frequently miserable, working a crappy job to pay off debt is insufferable, trying to capture the interest of others for dating and mating can be cruel and terrible…
On the flip side, some people love playing violin. I wish I was even offered the option of playing a violin when I was young, and I wish I had time to play violin now as an adult. Anything can be miserable if you let it.
So I read that Clinton and, while I’m not hugely clued up on his policies, I don’t think it is unreasonable to blame him for escalating drug war-fuelled mass incarceration. I understand that, superficially, prohibition sounds like it ought to help if your community has drug problems, or drug gang violence problems, so you can understand some black community leaders being in favour of them at the time, but someone with access to the best economics and public health advisors really ought to know better.
What several people here are complaining about is rent seeking, spending resources in order to get something whose existence does not depend on that expenditure–because whether you get it does. The original and classic article was by Gordon Tullock, and still worth reading:
http://cameroneconomics.com/tullock%201967.pdf
Ideally, you want the reward to an activity to be equal to the net benefit that activity creates, in order that people will do it if and only if it is worth doing. Wages in an ordinary competitive market more or less do that. If Harvard has a given number of places to give out, a way of competing for those places that doesn’t do anything whose value is comparable to the value of getting the place doesn’t.
What is the value of competing for the place? That depends on whether the competition either produces some other benefit or a better allocation of places.
Examples of the first include competing by being willing to pay a high price, which benefits the income of the college, or competing by studying in AP classes, letting the university produce better educated students.
For the second, time spent taking SAT exams produces information useful for deciding which students are able enough to fit in the college. But it isn’t clear that other forms of competition, such as extra-curricular activities or training in how to do well on standardized tests, produce that sort of benefit. If not, it’s rent seeking.
Yes, I agree, but I don’t understand your point.
We can control the terms of the competition to minimize or maximize suffering. College Admissions is not a trial set by God through which we must endure, despite all costs. If we don’t want kids to drive themselves to ruin, we can change the rules of the game.
If college admissions officers awarded slots based on total weight, we would be discussing whether we wish to mount the head of EVERY officer on a pike, or merely decimate them and spare the rentiers driving children to anorexia/obesity.
@ A Definite Beta Guy:
Well, conveniently, most students are too lazy to really work as hard as they could on this, so the top can distinguish themselves by being willing to work hardest. You give them all an incentive to work as hard as they can, then you select the ones who work hardest and best.
@ David Friedman:
I would think the extracurriculars are at least somewhat useful insofar as they provide places like libraries or soup kitchens with free labor. If that’s trading off against students getting real jobs, maybe that’s bad. If it’s trading off against video games, maybe it’s not.
I certainly played more than my share of video games in high school and got into a good school.
As for studying: if no one is under pressure to study for the test, it just can’t be a good predictor of how people are going to behave under a high-pressure, competitive environment. Compared to some kind of perfectly accurate and honest self-assessment of intelligence, it’s inefficient. But in the realm of the possible, it doesn’t seem that inefficient.
Let’s not forget that the extracurriculars may have lasting benefit for the student as well. High school athletics provides physical fitness, music classes teach culture, etc. I think the benefits of many activities are at least as big as the benefits of many traditional classes.
The extracurricular activities have opportunity cost, which needs to be balanced against those “benefits”.
The violin analogy is a pretty good example, because there is a good solution.
If you were giving away spots to people who practiced the violin the most, you could just declare a minimum value, say 10 /hours week, and then use a lottery to randomly give away spots.
A lottery for everyone above a threshold would make things so much more pleasant for everyone involved.
I did the zero-sum-race myself in high school and got into a top college, but it was a long time ago, and the stakes weren’t as high. My own kids don’t have the grades to bother with it, but I know there is a lot of suffering than can be lifted by improving the process.
The extracurricular activities have opportunity cost, which needs to be balanced against those “benefits”.
So does academic coursework.
I’d assign more intrinsic value to my extracurriculars than to maybe half my high school classes.
Any thoughts about why we aren’t seeing at least a few attempts to start high-quality universities?
Admittedly, it would be expensive and risky, but it would also be really cool for anyone who succeeded. The extremely high level of demand suggests that there might be a market.
@ Nancy Lebovitz:
Really high startup costs, plus you never going to attract the best students because you will have no reputation.
Marsha Enright with the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute was trying to start one for a long time. She had something worked out with a college in or near Chicago where her thing would be sort of a separate program within that college. But then they had a change of administration and it sunk the idea.
Now she’s pretty much settled on holding week-long seminars in the summer. Which are pretty good; I went to one.
I gather that the University of Arizona is trying to do it by having an elite institution inside a mass institution. I don’t have a very clear idea of how successful they are.
Another possible tactic is to find some niche, some group of very good students that everyone else is missing. That was my interpretation of the fact that St. Olaf, alone among schools my kids applied to, treated being home schooled as a plus rather than a minus.
I can also imagine someone doing it by targeting a religious/ethnic minority, either one other schools were discriminating against or one whose members find other schools uncomfortable. An orthodox Jew or, for a more extreme case, a traditional Vlax Rom Romani, might strongly prefer an academic environment run by and designed for members of his group.
The other commenters are reading your comment as sincere, but I read it as sarcastic. Am I wrong?
Reason: the quoted view seems obviously sensible and almost obvious, so your “that Current Affairs web site is pretty radical” and “That is definitely completely outside the Overton window of what almost anyone would seriously consider.” read to me as intentionally over-the-top sarcasm.
Please confirm/deny!
No, my comment was sincere, not sarcastic.
Are you seriously saying we should do away with competitive admission to colleges? Is it completely obvious that society should do away with GPA ranking and SAT scores? Should we do away with keeping score at sporting events because why should team with 96 points win over the team with 95 points? I sincerely think you have lost your mind.
It’s about competitive admission between people who are already qualified. If you decide who gets in based on the most useless extracurriculars, you just end up forcing everyone to take useless extracurriculars to stay in the same place.
And who are best positioned to afford and/or have access to the best extracurriculars? The upper class, of course.
It seems like this crowd has some bitter grudge about college admissions.
First, they keep their admissions process secret, so generally, this crowd doesn’t even know what it really is.
Schools compete for good students. If one school picked some ridiculous criteria for admissions, like fingernail length or Candy Crush score, well that’s their mistake to make, and other schools will scoop up the great students.
Lastly, maybe there is some value to extracurricular activity at the margins. I’ve never been an admissions officer, but I suspect they know what they are doing more than the complainers on this site. I also expect that the main criteria is boring academic rank metrics like GPA, school quality, and test scores.
If schools picked “Candy Crush score”, you’d have millions of applicants all trying to beat each other’s Candy Crush score in order to get in. This will not lead to the students going to other schools because there are more applicants than there are slots at good schools.
@ Jiro:
I think Massimo‘s being unnecessarily hostile here, but the idea is simply that if schools selected on the basis of Candy Crush scores, they would get poorer-quality students, which is its own punishment, so they don’t do it.
If schools pick the best students with the best grades and the best extracurriculars, they encourage competition, which brings out the best in the students and differentiates them, allowing them to skim the cream off the top.
There’s not more good students than there are good schools. The good schools are good because they have good students, or did in the past. That’s why they have good reputations.
You simply have a system where the Ivy League takes the best of the best, then you go a little lower and a little lower in a gradual way. There’s no sharp cutoff.
You can, of course, debate whether the kinds of extracurriculars they select for (or, for that matter, the racial preferences) really select for the best students (i.e. those most likely to enhance the learning environment and reputation of the university). But that’s not a point against competition. It’s just a point against the specific criteria chosen.
If they want to select solely on academic ability, then they could have an standardized test that makes extremely fine-grained distinctions on the right tail of the distribution. (The SAT/ACT already does this, for the most part: even at Harvard and Yale, most students don’t have perfect scores.) Students would compete, of course, but it’s not “pointless”. By encouraging all of them to try as hard as they can, the schools can make the most informed decisions about who’s really best.
Besides, people exaggerate how much they focus on extracurriculars, anyway. If you get perfect scores on standardized tests and perfect grades, you will get into a top-tier university unless there is something seriously flawed with your application. I got into several good schools with pretty minimal extracurriculars (certainly nothing during the school year). I did some “Junior Statemen of America” programs over the summer, but that was because I enjoyed them, not for resume-padding purposes.
I didn’t get into Harvard, but I didn’t have perfect scores, either. Nor did I go to a prestigious high school. I did have a classmate with poorer grades who got into Yale (I did not), but she was a nationally-ranked equestrian and spent a lot of time doing it. Ironically, I applied early action to Yale and didn’t get in, while she applied early action to my school and didn’t get in. There is a great deal of random chance.
Are you Asian-American?
Scott Aaronson was rejected for his undergraduate application to Harvard I believe.
And I doubt his test scores were much less than perfect.
I did some alumni interviewing at a top ~10 school, which included an orientation meeting with the school’s admission staff. I never got the impression that the sort of piled on extracurricular were terribly important — school president, head of the newspaper or so on.
On the other hand if you were passionate and really good at almost anything that would garner special attention. It could be poetry, ballroom dancing, chess, or political activism. Sports that the school competed in were in a separate category we had nothing to do with, but other sports were in that bucket too.
With respect to disadvantaging the rich, one thing that admissions officers really seemed to eat up was a kid that had a job helping to support his family (i.e. not some internship with daddy’s buddy). I myself flagged that specifically on one or two applications. Having that was better than being class president but not as good as being in the top 250 chess players in the country.
Anyway, I’m of two minds about the extracurricular superstar criteria. On the one hand, I can see why schools get excited about this sort of applicant. That excitement is entirely legitimate. On the other hand, in e.g. the NYC private school world, there is an entire ecosystem dedicated to faking this signal (just as there are for faking other signals). And they do a pretty damn good job. So you think you are admitting someone that’s really passionate about journalism and you end up with yet another rich frat bro that pays grad students to write his term papers and spends his time figuring out how to not quite date rape.
Rentier classes ARE easy targets. 😉
@ Jiro:
I’m not Asian (I’m white), but the point stands even for Asians.
If you have perfect scores and grades with nothing else to speak of, unless you write an essay about how your childhood hero is Adolf Hitler, you will get into a top-tier university. And when I say “top tier”, I mean approximately the top 15. (Of course if you’re black or Hispanic or Native American, you can get into one with substantially less than perfect scores.)
You may or may not get into Harvard or Yale. Frankly, their idea is that they could select criteria that result in a campus full of Jewish and Asian nerds who focus solely on academics. But they don’t want that; they’d rather take people with more diversity of backgrounds and interests. Such as, as I previously mentioned, my classmate who did competitive horseback riding.
You can agree with those priorities or not; they’re not insane priorities.
Their ideal candidate would be a rich legacy black genius who aced all the tests, started a business, and was also star of the football team. To the extent that there’s not very many of those, they have to accept tradeoffs. There’s various reasons why factors other than performance on the tests might be of interest to them.
@ God Damn John Jay:
He got into Cornell. That’s what I call “top-tier”.
And he got his PhD from Berkeley.
Much of the process is luck. With the complexity of the multiple factors they consider, they have many applicants who come down in roughly the same place. That’s why you apply to a large number of schools.
Also, from his Wikipedia article:
Schools don’t have perfect information. The academic record that may reflect “bored genius” can also be interpreted as bright but lazy slacker. Harvard doesn’t want slackers. I don’t know Aaronson’s personal academic transcript, but if his high school record was consistent with that description, that’s a reason in itself I can see to deny him.
If schools selected on the basis of Candy Crush scores, then poor quality students would try to get high Candy Crush scores to have a leg up on getting in. Higher quality students would then also try to get high Candy Crush scores because if they don’t the poor quality students would get in instead. The result would be that the same students would get in as before, except that they’d be wasting a lot of time playing Candy Crush in a signalling arms race.
Of course if *one* school selected on the basis of Candy Crush scores, this wouldn’t happen.
Also, this analysis ignores the fact that Candy Crush is low status so a college cannot demand it without signalling that it is a bad college.
This reminds me of one of my favorite toy problems, writing questions that are harder to solve for smarter people.
@ Jiro:
Obviously. The idea (perhaps wrong), is that ability to score highly on Candy Crush is not a good measurement of the qualities that make bright students who go on to succeed in the real world.
None of it is “pointless”. Yes, it would be nice if you could just tell people to honestly rank their innate intelligence, willingness to learn, and dedication to hard work on a scale from 0-100 and expect useful results.
But you can’t. So you give people a task, such as “maximize your performance on this test” or “distinguish yourself with athletic and/or public-spirited achievements”, let them all work as hard as they can (or rather: choose to) competing against one another, and then select the ones who perform the best. These are good measurements because it’s hard to ace the SAT without being intelligent. It’s hard to rack up an impressive list of extracurriculars without being hard-working.
To some extent, this works with any random task because intelligence and dedication are transferable. If the Ivy League decided to accept people who make Legend in Hearthstone or Global Elite in CS:GO, then those would become pretty good predictors of academic success. They could even ask people to memorize Confucian texts and write poetry, with extra points for good handwriting! It just seems like some tests are better predictors than others.
Now if you think sports is useless and not relevant to anything a school ought to be looking for in a student, then you’d think that’s a bad proxy. But it’s not obvious that it is.
Besides, they can tell resume-padding fluff from genuine interest and engagement. They put much more weight on doing something unique than volunteering at the church’s soup kitchen. And it’s not like they even ask how many hours a week you put into it! In this as in other things, working smart comes above working hard.
@ Vox Imperatoris:
This was not my experience. I had a perfect ACT score, near-perfect SAT I score, several perfect SAT II and AP scores, and a 4.0 GPA, and did not get into a top-15 university, though I applied to almost all of them. My essay did not reveal me to be a deviant. But I lacked extracurriculars or publications, and was a well-off white male interested in STEM with a happy upbringing.
I ended up going to a mid-tier state school, which was ultimately good for me (it was cheap, and I went on to a top-five graduate school), but the point stands.
@ Anonymous:
Then your experience seems unusual to me, if your application didn’t have any other flaws.
I had a similar resume, no outstanding extracurriculars (as I said, just a few summer school programs), certainly no publications, and I got into several in that range. Not the top ones. But then I had a relatively poor math scores (32 on ACT, 600-something on SAT). I did have one perfect SAT II score, US History (and a perfect score on every other area on the ACT), as well as seven perfect AP scores (and one 4). I wasn’t interested in STEM; I don’t know how that affects things.
I mean, it’s possible just to be unlucky: if you have a 10% shot at each of them, you can miss every time.
This is not correct. The Common App asks students to itemize all volunteering and extracurriculars, as do many schools with their own systems.
[citation needed]
(David Friedman had the right impression. My high school required a certain number of hours of community service, followed of course by a ‘personal reflection’ thereon; the options boiled down to unskilled labor in food banks and ‘tutoring’ children (in practice, I’m told, some combination of minding them and doing their homework—even the ones who tried hard were often so unprepared that there wasn’t a lot a motivated teenage volunteer could do in the time available). Administrative and/or skilled work for charitable causes was quietly not approved. International aid projects were not approved. Working with animals was not approved. Nothing that did not involve personal contact was approved.
The economics of this disgusted me. The actual service rendered to the community was irrelevant; the intent was to develop Consciousness, and the right sort of consciousness at that. I do believe that the moralizing was mostly sincere, even if it did not match the stated objective. But the people running the program certainly valued its college-application advantages—and signalling does not cease to be signalling just because it is mostly unconscious.)
@ switchnode:
You’re right. I forgot the Common Application did that.
In any case, you don’t need to put in a lot of hours doing stuff to get into the best school. I don’t have the problem with the best schools choosing the people who put in the most hours. It’s probably a good predictor of willingness to work hard studying for classes rather than winging everything.
You don’t think that if you create some kind of startup business or something similarly creative, it matters? I disagree.
They read thousands of these things. They can tell a standard resume apart from an exceptional one.
I think those are not very good priorities, and it’s very stupid of them of them to require very specific sorts of volunteering when it restricts students from standing out more.
But in principle, what’s wrong with schools trying to Build Character? Why, it sounds Conservative.
My high school did require some level of community service—I think it was 20 hours a semester or something like that. It was a joke, very easy to check off doing anything. Teachers often used them to get students to help out with stuff after class. Help set up for the dance, we’ll give you 5 hours, that sort of thing.
[citation needed]
Seriously, there’s an entire industry dedicated to faking these costly signals—or rather, transferring the cost to the parents. You’re willing to wave your hands and say that this never works? Every one of the hundreds of slots left after the legacies and the donors and the athletes is absolutely, definitely, unfalsifiably outstanding?
I don’t care that it restricts students from ‘standing out’. It is foul.
I would happily have employed any of the people I served to do my job; I’m sure one of them could have used it, and they would certainly have had the comparative advantage. Voluntourism, with all its invasiveness and waste, is no better in the inner city than in the developing world; it is the commodification of others’ suffering.
(Hence the reflection. What did helping others mean to you?)
No character is being built here; only the appearance of character. The message it instills is that to do good is to have the right attitude, and vice versa—the quality being tested is not engagement, or hard work, but soundness (with the implicit assent of colleges, whose feedback is readily available). Character is fine and dandy, but ‘character’ kept out the Jews.
(Many of the people I know who went to top [liberal-arts] schools are quite bright and genuinely industrious; possibly they are the majority. But many more simply are not.)
They’re not priorities; they’re pretenses.
@ Jiro:
Pretenses at what? What is their secret evil plan?
They’re pretenses to limit their enrollment of racial groups without having to put down “went over the Asian-American quota” on the rejection letter (or in the past, Jewish quota).
@ Jiro:
But they make no pretense about that. They openly tell everybody they favor black or Hispanic or Native American applicants.
Now, I think our jurisprudence on the subject in regard to public universities has been really stupid. The University of Michigan undergraduate admissions process was told they couldn’t use a system that automatically gave 20 points to “underrepresented minorities”; but the law school, which used a “holistic system” explicitly taking race into account but on an “individualized” basis was allowed. This is despite the fact that underrepresented minorities got a greater advantage at the law school than at the undergraduate college.
In any case, I don’t think the weighting on sports and extracurriculars is a scheme to keep whites and Asians out. They’re already allowed to “holistically” keep whites and Asians out by “race-conscious” discrimination. They don’t have to tell anybody—indeed seem not to be allowed to tell anybody—exactly how much these factors count. Thus, being able to racially discriminate openly to any extent they like, why do need further measures to do it covertly?
I think the reason for the preferences is pretty much what they say it is: they want a “well-rounded” student body, with “socially engaged” students—especially students engaged in left-wing causes. They don’t want a whole campus full of nerds.
There’s enough black nerds in America to fill Harvard with them. If Harvard applied racial discrimination and then selected solely on the basis of test performance, that’s what they’d get. And they seem not to want that.
I don’t think that there is a clear agenda at work. Most people who believe in this kind of system are merely ignorant believers in meritocracy, who don’t understand how classist the system is and honestly think it works.
However, there is also a group of people who wants to foster an ‘inclusive’ college environment, with a very skewed/politicized idea of what diversity means. It’s the kind of people that think that diversity means that everyone has the same ‘tolerant’ beliefs as them, there are as few white men as possible and who hate most poor people (as they usually don’t have the ‘tolerant’ ideas of the elite).
The latter group loves to hijack systems like this and then you get situations like the one that switchnode described.
@Vox
“I think the reason for the preferences is pretty much what they say it is: they want a “well-rounded” student body, with “socially engaged” students—especially students engaged in left-wing causes. They don’t want a whole campus full of nerds.”
Exactly, they want ‘diversity.’ Which means that they want a uniformly social justice student body, but with a good spread of ethnicities, so their campus looks nice on pictures. They want these people to have a good spread of hobbies, so they can present a new prospect with a long list of activities that happen on campus. All this provides status to the administrators as the outward appearance of the college (to people with similar beliefs) is one of diversity and tolerance. That this system leads to balkanization of society and gives less chances to the poor is invisible to them.
“they want a uniformly social justice student body”
That doesn’t even make sense, grammatically. Some of you need to seriously recalibrate because you are weaving elaborate paranoid fantasies. It’s frankly a little concerning.
@ Aapje:
So they want a campus full of students that are pleasant to be around, create a good impression for the school, and fit in with their ideals about how to improve the world?
I don’t see that it’s their job to provide “equal opportunity” to people of all social classes. Rather, what they’re trying to do is precisely to attract the kind of people who will make up the future social elite.
I mean, if I were starting a university, I would prefer professors and students whom I thought professed ideals that were correct and helpful to the world, to those who were equally qualified in other respects but professed ideals that seemed incorrect and destructive. It would be bizarre if I didn’t.
@vox
‘pleasant to be around’ is very subjective. I don’t think that SJWs are particularly pleasant to be around, even for other leftists. Just like most groups that reject dissenters, they operate in a bubble where they see themselves as tolerant, but really aren’t.
Whether it’s the responsibility of universities to fight an increasingly class-based society, where people are greatly locked into their caste, depends on ones moral beliefs. We seem to disagree there.
But the consequence of this kind of purification is that science becomes ideological and gets to work within an ever decreasing Overton window, while the ‘others’ create their own ideological bubbles with their own Overton windows. The truth-level and thus value of science inevitable suffers in the face of this, as well as the acceptance of science and thus the ability of societies to solve problems.
You get separate sub-societies that are isolated as much as possible and clash very hard when they cannot avoid each other. See the stalemate situation in US politics. This is a very dangerous situation that invites ‘solutions’ where one group starts oppressing the other.
I prefer a situation with real tolerance, where people try to find common ground, rather than constantly fight culture wars against ‘fascists,’ ‘communists,’ etc. In reality, each of the groups has valid concerns that are dismissed wholesale by many in the other groups and may not even be discussed seriously. This is anti-intellectual and mind-killing.
Admissions based on factors other than academics (or, I suppose, athletics) allow schools to discriminate with plausible deniability. For instance, they served in the early 20th century to keep the number of Jews at Ivy League schools down without openly having a quota or anything like that. It is currently accused that they discriminate against Asian students in the US in much the same way.
Or, consider gender ratios. A lot of undergraduate institutions have a female-male imbalance, in some cases north of 2:1. Various theories as to why. It seems like this is not the result of discrimination in university admissions in favour of women. The Ivies, however, tend to have an almost 50-50 ratio: my suspicion is that they want alumnus marrying alumna, and producing legacy babies. A kid going to university and a donation to that university often go hand-in-hand.
And, of course, they allow schools to easily discriminate against poor people.
The other reason for this is that people at elite schools are aware that
A) women mature earlier than men, leading to a real gap in ability to concentrate and learn at early ages
B) There is a massive rate of attrition among women who graduate from elite schools (read: Mommy Track)
The first is a good point, but surely less elite schools are aware of this too? I mean, the second rank of schools that are not quite as good as the Ivies are still really good. Their administrators presumably aren’t idiots.
As for the second, I think that the stats are for the undergraduate student population, not the graduates. Graduate schools tend to have a different ratio, for a variety of reasons. But the undergraduate population shouldn’t be affected by women getting their bachelor’s then becoming stay-at-home mothers.
Sorry I meant that girls maturing faster was why they dominated admissions for ordinary schools, because they do better in high school.
Harvard, Yale and the various Medical Schools however don’t want smart students they want graduates who will go on to be covered in the New York Times, while even the most accomplished women will take time off to raise their children– (ex. Natalie Portman) — a project that rapidly expands to fill the hours in the day.
@God Damn John Jay:
There are plenty of female Harvard, Yale, etc graduates who get profiled in the NYT without doing anything of note professionally, and some of them are even housewives.
They can be found in the section profiling the weddings of various Important People. It’s not rare to see some guy who’s a partner at some big law firm, or some kind of investment banker, marrying a woman who is doing some kind of dilettante nonprofit work.
They might not make it into the top medical or law schools, but it’s not a stretch to see them getting an undergrad at top schools.
Yep. I don’t know about doing away with competitive admissions entirely, but I think admitting solely based on test scores would be a step in the right direction. I believe Canada does pretty much this, and Steven Pinker supports it: https://newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests
Most schools (Canada and US) have pretty lax standards to get in, since you are paying for the privilege. Letting in one more undergraduate into an auditorium doesn’t cost any extra (Technically the TA has to grade one more paper, but the University is already fucking them).
There are status costs to lowering standards which translate shortly (once the US News rankings update) into a feedback loop. If the ranking drops, your top students go elsewhere, and now you’re trying to fill the numbers with even worse students. That in turn eventually affects your graduates’ success, directly impacting the rankings further and making it that much less likely to have graduates who donate later.
Reducing class size substantially to (hopefully) retain or improve ranking, rather than lowering test score/GPA cutoffs sufficiently to fill or enlarge the class, is something I’ve seen happen for that reason.
“Competitive admissions processes … are a dysfunctional absurdity that should have no place in education.”
There are two ways to interpret the statement: CAP have no place in education because they are dysfunctional, or because they are an absurbity. I supsect it was written this way so they could have it both ways. Or maybe they were dumb, who knows.
Dysfunctional is obvious, I would suspect nearly everyone is in favor of CAP reform.
Absurdity implies the tests fundamentally cannot discriminate between qualified and unqualified candidates, and using them is not useful. This is related to the idea that IQ tests do not measure anything useful, extended to the idea that anything similar to an IQ test does not measure anything useful.
There’s also a third consideration, I think, and that’s “competitive”. One of the big leftist memes is that competition is basically always evil. So the admissions process shouldn’t be competitive, which means the admissions process can’t be scarce, so it needs to be universal.
It’s also important to point out we don’t have an actually free market in education in any of the major civilized nations (to my knowledge), so admissions processes are to some extent always going to be government-controlled, one way or another. So you can’t just let God sort the righteous from the dead, unless your reform proposal is “free markets in education”.
If someone describes a group of people who have taken over everything, comprise all of the elites, and have a collective agenda they impose on everyone with only a few being awake to it, my brain might say “Oh dear”, but my gut tells me “these guys are total badasses, and I want in”.
Same?
The problem is when it’s not a group of people that has taken over anything, but a demon, and the people who look like they have taken over are actually the ones most in thrall to that demon.
Apparently the Japanese heard Nazi propaganda about how rich, powerful and devious the Jews were and took it at face value and wanted to recruit Jews to teach them their tricks.
There’s always been a cognitive dissonance about this. Blacks are supposedly inferior because they have lower IQs, but when we trust in that same metric we find Ashkenazi Jews coming out as top tier. Then the excuses are shuttled in and we are supposed to hate them for more esoteric reasons. Nazis will with a straight face complain about the SJW idea of “white privilege” but then invoke “Jewish privilege” as a response.
There’s something similar to that in the way the New Regressionaries speak about the progressive elite. The exact people who want an aristocracy and oppose democracy form arguments that promulgate the idea that the current regime is an informal aristocracy. In that case, your only problem would be that they haven’t formalized it. But wait, that was SporeBeetle’s goal all along, right? I don’t get the sense that his hangers on realize this though, and see the whole thing tribalistically, being that they probably approached his ideas through conservatism or prior right wing ideologies.
To the credit of FungusHemiptera, I have a feeling that if Barack Obama came out tomorrow and said “I am now the King of America”, he would give his full support. 99% of Nouveaux Reflectionary blogs would probably have a shitflit and default to Tea Party mode.
I think you can reduce extreme right ideologies down to: “Some elites are in charge, but they are the wrong elites. We want true elitism!”
Whereas for extreme left ideologies, it’s: “Everyone is equal, except those guys.”
“You say you don’t like coffee because it’s too bitter, but you refuse to drink antifreeze? Hypocrite.”
Uh, not that I’m endorsing the object level statement here, but it’s perfectly reasonable to dislike two different things for two different reasons.
Sure, it’s totally reasonable to dislike two different things for two different reasons, but I don’t think they are really doing that.
Their entire pitch for whites deserving special treatment is predicated around things like IQ stats, data that they can actually point to (true or false). When you point out that asians and ashkenazi jews have been recorded with higher average IQs, they suddenly decide that abstract things like “creativity” matter most. When it comes to who needs to be deported it’s all about them having lower IQ, but the cut-off point for IQ mattering for moral evaluation is curiously set at the European average IQ of 100. Whites are more important than blacks because blacks have lower IQ, but ashkenazim aren’t more important than whites even though they have yet higher IQ? Why even bring IQ into it in that place?
Actually I don’t even think we’re allowed to discuss this here.
Who’s “they” in this context? Is there someone who speaks for all Death Eaters and who can be quoted to the effect that Jews and Asians should be deported? Are there at least several people who said that and are clearly Death Eaters and not just white supremacists who latched onto the Death Eater movement?
Also, I suspect if Obama declared himself king, they’d point out that they think that monarchy is in general better than democracy, but that doesn’t imply that every monarch is better than every democratic leader. Obama as king would have traits, such as still having gotten into power through the democracy-based political machine, that might imply being a worse king than a typical one.
“They” would be Nazis. Death Eaters AKA Yarvinites AKA Real Action Fairies don’t make these sort of claims at all, so it doesn’t apply to them. I separated the two with a paragraph for a reason.
The commonality is only in how they approach elitism. Nazis and Death Eaters fundamentally hate each other.
“Also, I suspect if Obama declared himself king, they’d point out that they think that monarchy is in general better than democracy, but that doesn’t imply that every monarch is better than every democratic leader. Obama as king would have traits, such as still having gotten into power through the democracy-based political machine, that might imply being a worse king than a typical one.”
Wouldn’t Obama be incentivized to act very differently once he took that step? The very act of doing so would befit the formalist idea of power and repudiate democracy.
I think most Death Eaters probably would default to opposing reeaktionry Obama because he’s Obama though. They’d Voice their discontent loudly.
I suspect the http://pastebin.com/jpxMd0kd would find King Obama acceptable, if he were to set himself up as a dynastic ruler. He’s shown that he’s not above setting flying murder robots on people if he thinks he has to. Moldbug himself has called Obama “basically decent” and said he doesn’t think America deserves him.
@NWO or bust
@suntzuanime
Moldbug, 2008:
>I’d love to see Europe split back up into about five hundred county palatines, and one would certainly be lucky to get a royal family with the Obama touch, which is nothing if not regal, for each of them. Or, for example, I think you could do a great temporary job switch with Obama and al-Maktoum of Dubai. I suspect both of them would learn a lot – especially Obama, who strikes me as very adaptable.
It’s an object level argument, but antifreeze is sweet-tasting. Not bitter.
… yes. That’s the whole point of the analogy.
Without defending any of the specific claims about ethnic groups, it ought to be pointed out that IQ is essentially a measurement of (cognitive) capability, not morality. People with high IQs are less likely to commit street-level crime, because street-level crime is stupid and maladaptive in modern society; it doesn’t even come close to passing a cost-benefit test. But a dishonest person with a high IQ can do a lot more damage than a dishonest person with a low IQ, because they can get away with more for longer. White-collar crimes often do more harm in the long run, and receive lighter punishments; high-IQ sociopaths are also adept at finding ways to profit that are parasitical and immoral, but not illegal.
But they (antisemitic nationalists) focus on IQ, linking morality and capability, and are then unable to demonstrate that a group they want to demonize fails the test they’ve set up.
That a high IQ psychopath could do damage makes sense, but then you need a whole other set of proofs showing that said group is genetically sociopathic if you want to tie this into a race theory. They always putter out at that point.
@NWO
White nationalists don’t like white people because of their IQ. They like them simply because they are white. The high average IQ is just a bonus. People who lean towards techno-commercialism don’t really seem to have a problem with Asians and Jews.
@Wrong Species
“White nationalists don’t like white people because of their IQ. They like them simply because they are white.”
Yes, that is their revealed preference, but it’s not their pitch.
Their pitch is you should care about “white genocide” because whites are the greatest race ever and other races (except maybe east asians/honorary aryans) could never carry civilization.
They try to persuade you of this by showing you IQ charts. If it was just you should care about whites because whites, then they wouldn’t even bother. We’re talking about the Nazis here, mind, the people who believe in Aryan master race theory. My problem is that master race theory is ultimately a motte for the bailey of “whites are the best because I like whites”. If you take master race theory seriously, and you take it along with the idea of “might makes right” and other illiberal preconditions, it heavily implies that the Jews are the master race. In order to avoid that conclusion, the master race theory and Ragnar Redbeard notion of rights has to be jettisoned at the last minute.
“Yeah, but you see, Jews are sneaky and dishonest!”
“But you just spent all this time impressing on me that playing honest with your enemies was liberal crap. Also, prove Jews are ‘sneaky’ with charts the same way you can do for IQ, otherwise your claim is too esoteric to be credible.”
Of course, there are white nationalists who don’t do this, various separatists and liberal nationalists and so on, but then we are not talking about the 1488 Aryan national socialists anymore. If I actually took that ideology seriously and embraced it, I’d come out the other side as a Jewish supremacist, which isn’t the thing I think I’m supposed to take from it.
“People who lean towards techno-commercialism don’t really seem to have a problem with Asians and Jews.”
My comments on Curtis Yarvin thought didn’t imply that. That ideology sets progressive elites as the enemy instead of Jews, and if there is a religion to blame its protestantism and not Judaism.
Whenever I read their blogs, they make the progressive elites sound like natural aristocrats. The sneering Machiavellian ruling class that has yoked all under “progress”.
That’s not the impression I get from White Nationalists. It’s common to compare races to families. “Jews get to have their family celebrated. So do Asians, Hispanic and Black people. Why not white people?” seems to be a recurring thread. From what I have read, they don’t even try to justify their racial preferences. They just see it as the norm and think anyone is a “cuck” for thinking otherwise.
Sure, any ideology implies that almost by definition. “The current reigning ideology is bad, this other ideology is better and should have power.”
When right wing types criticize Jewish privilege or Israel, it is often to highlight a hypocrisy. Israel fiercely fights non-Jewish immigration, and fiercely defends their ethnic identity, but Jews are known for leading the fight against non-Jewish whites who want the same thing.
I love Jewish people, Jewish culture, and Israel. But their is a core hypocrisy that Jewish individuals have played such a large role in fighting white identity, ethnic solidarity, and white ethnic nation states like Apartheid South Africa or US segregation, but fiercely defend their own right to a Jewish identity that excludes non-Jews, and the Jewish nation state of Israel which is based on segregation aka apartheid.
Some Jews are consistent in a far left fashion where they oppose the idea of a Jewish state of Israel, they oppose Jewish solidarity, and identity. Other Jews are consistent in a right wing fashion where they support non-Jewish whites to have exclusive tribal groups (Ilana Mercer, David Frum, Barry Goldwater).
Why is that hypocrisy? Those are very different groups of Jews. If Jewish group 1 asserts that X and Jewish group 2 asserts that not-X, that’s not hypocrisy, just disagreement.
And IIRC Israel supported apartheid South Africa longer than anyone else and is frequently criticized for having done so.
I quite explicitly said this in the text immediately after the text you quoted. Sure, there are some groups of Jews that are completely consistent on each side of the issue, not hypocritical at all, and simply disagree. There are others that are hypocritical and support nationalism for me not for thee.
That style of hypocrisy goes far beyond Jews. For example, the crowd that is demanding that all nations of Europe forfeit their national identities and downplay their distinct identities and languages and accept massive immigration from African and the Middle East generally wouldn’t dare suggest the same thing for Japan, China, Tibet, India, Africa, or the most egregious, the Middle East.
For a nation like Saudi Arabia to claim such a large land mass, such large amounts of natural oil wealth, for such a small number of people, and claim this as a fiercely Sunni Muslim Arab nation state and ruthlessly oppress millions of Christian laborers imported from say the Philippines and other poor nations, and build massive border fences to block Sunni Muslim Arab migrants from Syria from entering, and demand that US and the nations of Europe bend over backward to accommodate… That is just beyond absurd.
Yes, you mentioned that there are exceptions, but I’m not convinced they aren’t the rule. For instance, do you have evidence that the South African Jews who fought against apartheid and white ethnic solidarity approved of Israel’s policy toward Palestine?
@Massimo Heitor
‘Sure, any ideology implies that almost by definition. “The current reigning ideology is bad, this other ideology is better and should have power.”’
But that’s not what I said. I was careful to use the word “elites”, because left wing and right wing ideologies are very different on this front. The project of the far-left is ultimately to achieve a society without elites at all, even if elites are needed to achieve it in the interim. Even Marxist-Leninism is ultimately supposed to end up the same as anarcho-communism, with a stateless, international society based on common ownership of the means of production. Leftists ultimately want a society so democratic that even the labor product of individual people belongs to the people as a whole and must go in the collective store.
Contrast with far-right ideologies which see elitism as being a good thing in of itself. They craft mythologies based on the superiority of their group and how “might makes right”, there’s no such thing as rights and so on, but then suddenly might doesn’t make right, and they do have human rights when they need them.
And I’m with Mark on the Jewish thing.
So, Arthur Goldreich was one of the more honest ones. He moved to Israel and eventually fully criticized Israel as a deeply racist institution similar to the White African Apartheid he fought against. Yet, he sure didn’t assist in bombings and direct unofficial military action or “terrorism” if you are willling to call it that against Jewish citizens the way he did against White South African citizens.
Joe Slovo was probably the most famous anti-Apartheid militant Jew. AFAIK, he never explicitly spoke of Israel’s existence as an exclusively ethnic state, nor Japan, nor the other ethnic states of the globe, but he knew they existed and choose to spare them his wrath of murder and terror that he inflicted upon the white South African civilians.
Small, limited, decentralized government are generally recognized as being right wing. Think libertarians and the Austrian school of economics. Ronald Reagan famously championed returning power from the federal government to the local government. Some say the ultimate form of libertarianism is anarchy.
More powerful, centralized government and elites is generally considered left wing. Obama, fought for centralized power and more top town elite government control, and that’s considered left wing. Also, consider the higher education system, with very powerful status hierarchies and systems of elites. That is considered left wing and has extremely strict rules and hierarchy.
This is the exact opposite of what you said. It’s also not completely consistent. Donald Trump breaks this. He’s not championing minimal decentralized governments, he’s running as a larger than life elite.
I’ll defer to your knowledge of South African Jewish history (mine is basically non-existent). However, I’d like to point out that the obvious alternative explanation to Slovo’s decision to target South Africa rather than Japan or Israel is simply that he himself was South African. That’s again not hypocrisy, any more than it was hypocritical for Ted Kaczynski to have bombed the US instead of his ancestral homeland of Poland.
“Small, limited, decentralized government are generally recognized as being right wing.”
This is a semantics problem, because “far-right” means something totally different from just “right” in the US traditionally speaking. America was founded in a classical liberal revolution, so all of the mainstream forces and even a lot of the extremists are still grounded by liberal principles (they may use them selectively; rightists like market liberalism, and leftists like social liberalism, or they did).
Really, the answer is that there’s a great gulf between the liberal right and the antiliberal right, just as that’s true for the liberal left, and the Marxist or “far” left. If the liberal element is dominant, then for the right you get social darwinism through the market, and not death camps, and for the left you get “equality” through social programs and not death camps. Some bridges are forming across the gulf to anti-liberal land lately.
Far-right as recognized in a European context isn’t really about low taxes and gun rights. Donald Trump speaks to those issues, but he’s got a touch of the European far-right about him. Just a touch. The rightism is overtaking the classical liberalism, so now the conservative consensus that free trade is good is being challenged.
This is concurrent with the illiberalization of the American left, and the rise of intersectionalism from academia to something that has a space in the mainstream media. Classical liberal justifications for equal rights that supported left wing achievements on gay and women’s rights may be turning over to illiberal victim politics in which “equality before the law” is not enough. We fast approach “everyone is equal, except those guys.”
Consider this: back in the 90s or even early 2000s, a good way for libertarians to describe themselves to the uninitiated was “socially liberal, fiscally conservative”. Now think, does that phrase make sense anymore? Does “socially liberal” mean what libertarians intended to mean given how “liberals” are seen now in an American context? We had two sets of issues we called economic issues and social issues, and liberals were said to be libertarian in the social realm… but that doesn’t seem to be true in 2016 even if it was true in 2006.
As both sides become less liberal in the classical sense, they’ll start to resemble more and more the model I’ve described. Republicans will no longer be the party of small government, with an establishment that says things like “hispanics are natural conservatives” in response to immigration, but will start to become more ethno-nationalist and closer to the core emotions of the movement stripped of philosophy. The same is true for the left, which is building up a groundswell of minority group grievance politics, and the one provides the impetus for the other.
@NWO or bust,
These political labels don’t really have clear, consistent meanings. What is “right” or “left” to one person is totally different to another. Right wing frequently means minimal federal government and this concept of devolution of power. To others, it means the exact opposite. To some, “right” is the religious right even though large fractions of the right are secular or atheist.
“Far Right” just means more extreme right than “moderate right”. So Trump is extreme on immigration and his obnoxious persona, but policy wise he’s very central on lots of things like health care.
The Republican/Democrat super political parties are simply vehicles to compete for elections and power. Everything else is fluff. Both parties regularly adapt their ideology to find a voting electorate that will outvote their opponents.
There is one guarantee about the future of the Republican (and Democrat) party: It will constantly adapt to whatever the electorate is willing to vote for or it will be replaced by another party that does. And those two outcomes are mostly the same thing. If there is a complete shift in party ideology and leadership, it basically is a different party whether they use the old name or not.
@Mark,
So, on one hand that’s a fair point.
I really can’t prove that Jews like themselves more than Afrikaners or that Jews support a Jewish nation state more than an Afrikaner nation state. However, it’s so wildly obvious it’s absurd to deny that. This is not at all a phenomena limited to Jews, most ethnic groups have more fondness and sympathy for their own group than foreign groups.
You asked for evidence, and I believe I suggested some. Like most politics and social science, there’s evidence on many sides, none of it is air tight, and nothing can ever be really _proven_.
I don’t see tons of Joe Slovo types bombing Israeli citizens like I read about in Apartheid South Africa. I do read about tons of Jews supporting Israel and voting for people like Netanyahu. I’d argue that’s an ethnically biased choice.
I’d also argue that Jews care about their group more than other groups and should want their own exclusive government and protection, but I’m critical when people want to deny those same things to Afrikaners or Europeans.
There’s nothing esoteric about it. For starters, high IQ has the problem of “clever sillies;” it isn’t “the higher IQ, the better.”
Even were that not the case, alt-righters who dislike Jews/Asians are pretty upfront that their concerns are based on the perceived clannishness of those groups; if you’re dealing with someone who argues for “preferences for whites,” why in the world would you expect them to be welcoming of groups that they believe are actively trying to undermine whites?
No. The correct paraphrasing is “It’s ok for their to be an elite class, but could they actually, y’know, be elite?”
The pubmed link refers to:
Med Hypotheses. 2009 Dec;73(6):867-70.
doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2009.08.016.
Clever sillies: why high IQ people tend to be deficient in common sense.
by Charlton BG.
Wikipedia describes the journal’s policy in 2009:
Wikipedia describes the author of the ‘clever sillies’ article:
That’s nice. I assure you, though, I’m well aware of the provenance of the article, which is why I linked directly to the paper.
The argument at hand is “is NWO or bust accurately representing the views of those he disagrees with, or is he strawmanning them?” not “are the supporting arguments of white nationalists valid?”
That said, I’m curious; is it now controversial to believe that autism tends to show up in high-IQ types disproportionately more often than the normal population? Is it now no longer believed that having a high IQ tends to correlate to novelty-seeking? I was not aware of this; I was under the impression that “odd” social arrangements were far more common upon the very bright.
NWO or bust:
Ok, sure, there is clearly some cognitive dissonance in the tiny group of far-off political extremists who believe that.
But can we talk about the huge cognitive dissonance in the mainstream position that non-proportional representation in various outcomes to the advantage of whites or men (or disadvantage of blacks or women) is per se evidence of discrimination, while the exact same thing involving Jews is not – in fact, it is dangerous to even suggest it?
“Whites are overrepresented in tech”: mainstream publications write about how tech is racist.
“Men are overrepresented in tech”: mainstream publications write about how tech is sexist.
“Jews are overrepresented in tech”: 50% “Well duh, they are smarter”, 50% “What exactly are you suggesting there, HITLER?”
Well, it’s like macroeconomics.
You have a real-life problem, and you try to find a mathematical solution. Unfortunately, you don’t know everything you would like to know, so you make some simplifying assumptions. Hurray, now the model problem is tractable, and we can finally get to work on the real-life issue!
The generally accepted view is that social barriers and prejudice against minorities still exist, so people want to measure their impact. Hence the real-life problem. Prejudice and social barriers in favour of Jews are considered unlikely to exist, hence no problem.
Everybody is already talking about mainstream cognitive dissonance, because the mainstream is about to be thrown into disarray, due to the massive default of the left on immigration, cultural, and racial issues. The very fact that people on a rationalist blog are engaging with right of center ideas (that aren’t just libertarianism) is due to these enormous historical factors.
The danger is that this environment allows that “tiny group of far-off political extremists” to become larger and more powerful, and then you are just trading one kind of cognitive dissonance for another, only this time it leads to death camps (as once, long ago now), so it’s kinda worse, you know. After the Brussels attacks, a major Belgian neo-nazi group – Voorpost – doubled in membership.
Apparently, we can’t do something so simple as keeping liberal rights intact, and just controlling the borders and enforcing the law in minority communities without fear of being racist (it’s the opposite, but whatever). Instead what happens is that this model of absolute failure is pushed to its limits, keeping out more moderate civic nationalist alternatives with coalition tactics, never wavering from its self-belief as everything collapses around them, until one day, the real bad boys in black arrive. But it didn’t have to be this way.
Since it is that way, it’s rather incumbent on us to make sure no classical liberal babies get tossed out with the cultural relativist bathwater. If you want to strike down the left with your sword, just make sure you catch the Nazis with the backstroke, okay?
Nita:
Which just means embracing confirmation bias. The situation with Jews is, within your own philosophy, proof by existence that you can have demographic imbalances without any prejudice and social barriers, and that there is nothing wrong with those imbalances. Which means that the existence of demographic imbalances in favor of whites or of men is not proof of prejudice. People want to interpret them as fact supporting their ideas, but the direction of the arrow is the exact opposite. The idea is not supported by the facts; instead, the facts are interpreted according to the idea.
NWO:
Sounds good.
And apparently the Elephant’s Child got a long nose in a tussle with a crocodile.
It might be true, but some evidence would be nice.
I was at work and didn’t want anything awkward to explain going into my web filters but the first few paragraphs here attest to it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_settlement_in_the_Japanese_Empire#Before_World_War_II
Thanks! Pretty fascinating reading. Sorry I gave it urban-legend status right off the bat.
Didn’t serve these Japanese believers well, I will note. 😉
I wasn’t actually 100% on it, but I had heard it and it jibed with stories I heard from modern Chinese buying books telling them how to live like Jews.
I think that a general norm of being allowed to ask for cites is probably for the best, there is a lot of bullshit out there.
In such a case, my experience tells me “you’re a dummy for thinking you’ve figured things out this time. Dummy.”
Why are communists so much more acceptable in intellectual circles than racists and fascists? Why have things been this way for seemingly almost a century?
This came up in the Lambdaconf story again, in a tangential way, because one of the prominent boycotters is a communist who was quoted fantasizing on Twitter about hard labor camps for class enemies. But I think we can all agree that there isn’t the slightest chance that a campaign to pressure Lambdaconf to rescind his invitation, or to boycott Lambdaconf over his participation, would get off the ground. It’d be a complete non-starter. Not just less of a scandal than with Yarvin, but just no story at all. People would shrug and think you’re weird if you suggested it.
But why?
Nevermind that Yarvin is or isn’t what they say he is. Let’s assume you have an actual self-avowed “Hitler was right” fascist and an actual self-avowed “Glorious armed uprising of the proletariat” communist. Why is a hammer and sickle on an avatar so much less of an issue than a swastika?
Because Hitler? But this started even before WWII, I think arguably the Spanish Civil War is already an example of this.
Because the hammer and sickle guy is a harmless crank with zero chance of getting power? But the swastika guy is a harmless crank with zero chance of getting power, too.
“Why are communists so much more acceptable in intellectual circles than racists and fascists?”
Communism is associated with killing people for what they do (own property and employ others), Nazism is associated with killing people for what they are (Jews, blacks, etc).
If I know a communist revolution is on the near horizon, I could sell my shop and proletarianize* myself. If a Nazi revolution is on the near horizon, I can’t deracinate* myself to escape. One is more likely to make people quake with fear than the other, I think, regardless of how much you oppose either idea.
*(If a National Bolshevik revolution was on the horizon, I’d have to proletARYANize yuck yuck).
Tell that to the Ukrainians, Chechens, Cambodian Chinese, Chams, Thais…
Historical communism doesn’t count for much in discussions about public perceptions of communism. When your average person thinks of communism, racial genocide isn’t what springs to mind. Although, the Khmer Rouge lived up to the label of National Socialist far more literally than the Nazis did, what seems to matter when people consider communism in a Western context is what activists for revolutionary leftism argue for, and what they argue for is “antiracism”.
The very theory of Marxism is based around international brotherhood as capitalism dissolves the differences between proletarians across nations. The goal of communism is worldwide, “inclusive”, and all of the propaganda revolves around that idea. The slogan is “workers of the world unite”, and a favorite song is the “The Internationale”.
Modern communists also repudiate those ethnic genocides, and consider them taints of traditional nationalism on socialist revolutions. Stalin is usually evaluated in this light, and even the tankies from revleft, and r/communism have the courtesy to practice revisionism with regard to Stalin, that is; they are Stalinists but they don’t hate homosexuals or Jews. Historical conditions – what can you do?
Contrast with members of the extreme right, and neo-nazis. What do they do? They go around screaming about “gassing the kikes” and “race war now”, and indeed this has easy historical continuity with what the actual National Socialists did. If communists are racist, they are at least trying to pretend not to be racist. Nazis just say “Yup, I’m a racist!”, and laugh at “weak cuckservatives” for saying “Democrats are the real racists”, because these people own the fact that they are racist.
In the light of this difference, the whole breadth of right of center views with regards to nationalism or race, are tainted both by the historical crimes of Nazism, and reinforced by the creed of modern followers of Hitler. The same is not true for communism. The crimes of ethnic genocide committed by historical communist movements are hard to link to anything Marx advocated, and modern Marxists completely repudiate them to the extent that your average tankie modern worshiper of Stalin would mistake a more historically accurate devotee of Stalin for a fascist.
I tried to confirm or refute this claim, and ran into:
“Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.
What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.
Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.
An organization of society which would abolish the preconditions for huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would make the Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would be dissipated like a thin haze in the real, vital air of society. On the other hand, if the Jew recognizes that this practical nature of his is futile and works to abolish it, he extricates himself from his previous development and works for human emancipation as such and turns against the supreme practical expression of human self-estrangement.
We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time, an element which through historical development – to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed – has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily begin to disintegrate.
In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.” – Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question”
I admit I was expecting to find clear links from Marxism to Lenin and Stalin; I’m honestly surprised to find links to Hitler. It was already ironic that an ethnically Jewish German spent his life trying to lump the world into oversimplified classes and blame the wealthier demographics for the suffering of the poorer ones, but I figured that without hindsight it might not be obvious what would eventually be burned by fanning those flames. But after reading the above? There’s no excuse.
@ roystgnr:
He’s not calling for the Jews to be killed. He’s calling for the Jews to be emancipated and treated as equals, thus assimilating them and causing Judaism to be eradicated.
This sort of stuff about how the Jews are bad because they’re rootless greedy merchants with no ties to the land, etc. is pretty closely tied to Labor Zionism—the founding ideology of Israel. The idea is that by returning the Jewish people to their homeland and reconnecting them with the soil, they can earn an honest living and redeem themselves, turning their backs on being a parasitical class of middlemen.
Quoting from Wikipedia:
Now, I think this position is tremendously stupid, but it’s a bit extravagant to claim that the founding ideology of Israel is anti-Semitic.
What little I know of the Spanish Civil War contradicts its use as an example in this context.
I don’t have a ready answer to your larger point. But it reminds me of the “Was Stalin worse than Hitler?” debates. One side says, Stalin killed more people, so he was worse. The other side says, but Hitler killed people as an end in itself, so he was worse.
As a Jew, I know Hitler would single me out to specifically kill me, whereas Stalin might have killed me, almost accidentally, as part of his vicious and brutal pursuit of some arguably positive goal.
Fortunately, the question is only hypothetical.
So what’s the difference between Hitler’s fans and Stalin’s fans today? I think the swastika as an emblem is presumed to signal motivation or intention to murder people, whereas the hammer and sickle signals motivation or intention to reorganize society using brutal means.
I suppose the latter is seen as more indirect.
I wouldn’t be so sure…
Hitler was in power for 11 years and killed millions of Jews. Stalin was in power for 30 years, and the most you can find is that some Jewish doctors lost their jobs?
I’m not defending Stalin, mind you, but I don’t think that one incident would convince a Jew that he would have been better off spending the World War II era in Berlin than in Moscow.
While the evidence is ambiguous it’s been widely reported (going back at least as far as a 1957 article quoting the Soviet ambassador to Poland) that the fallout from the Doctor’s Plot included a plan by Stalin to deport all Jews in the USSR to camps in the Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia, and that the plan was only interrupted by Stalin’s death.
From your very interesting source:
Note that, by advocating against persecution, these guys were defying, to his face, statistically the most powerful and murderous dictator the world has ever known, a guy who was well known to order the deaths of even close associates.
If anything, this anecdote strongly reinforces the notion that Stalin’s Russia (even if more repressive overall) was a much, much safer place to be a Jew than Hitler’s Germany.
I am somewhat baffled that you (NN and LHN) would even dispute this.
I don’t think there’s any question that German-held territory was by far the worse place to be Jewish. Just that the possibility of Stalin singling out Jews, specifically, for persecution looks to have been on the table if he hadn’t conveniently died while planning it. The “almost accidental” deaths in the course of other mass murders weren’t necessarily the full extent of the threat.
Did Hitler actually want to kill for murder’s sake? It seems that, at least in the beginning, he wanted a strong Germany of “ethnically pure” Germans. Killing was a means to that end, and it was not the first means he went for.
It’s a very short step, indeed, hardly a step at all, from “purify the population” to “kill the impurities”.
It seems that, at least in the beginning, he wanted a strong Germany of “ethnically pure” Germans.
And seeing how that turned out, ought to suggest that wanting a strong “ethnically pure” nation is if not intrinsically evil at least very highly correlated with evil. Even when not explicitly expressed in murderous terms from the outset.
We could look at other historical examples to see if the correlation holds up, I suppose. Where are the success stories for ethnic purification? Or just the boring non-murdery failures?
The term “ethnic cleansing” sounds like a euphemism for mass murder, but it isn’t; it includes mere mass expulsion of the unwanted groups, and I believe the things that have been termed that have been mostly expulsions (though not without plenty of murder)
I think that purifying a population is inherently evil, and will always require evil means, but I don’t think it inherently requires mass murder. Of course if your ambitions are world domination, there’s nowhere to expel the unwanted population _to_.
My understanding is that despite their plans for world domination, in principle they would have been okay with them existing in some far off distant place away from their countries. Up until about 1939 the focus was on ‘encouraging’ emigration.
It’s just that the practical logistics of this were deemed infeasible after the start of WW2, the populations in e.g. Poland were fairly large, and so they decided to switch to industrial-scale mass murder instead.
(The implication is that “would be okay with them existing far away and isolated from our society” is not sufficient to decide someone is not a literal-Nazi. If someone holds that view and doesn’t assign moral value to the target group, they are liable to perform mass murder simply out of convenience.)
@JBeshir:
Broadly correct, but some historical notes:
In 1939, the Einsatzgruppen death squads operated with their first target the Polish intelligentsia (the plan was basically to eliminate all educated Poles and reduce the rest to helot status). During the invasion of the Soviet Union, their primary target was Jews – the killing was mostly done by shooting, on site.
The plan for Polish and other European Jews had been to resettle them in the East (but, see below) but when it became obvious the war wasn’t going to be won in 1941, the process of building camps intended primarily for extermination began. Polish Jews as well as Jews from elsewhere occupied Europe were sent to concentration and death camps. Jews from most of occupied Europe were gassed in death camps or worked and starved to death in concentration camps, while in the Soviet Union and the occupied Baltics shooting by the death squads and regular troops, plus pogroms incited among locals, was probably more common.
However, even if Germany had won the war against the USSR quickly, vast numbers of European Jews would still have died, because they would have been resettled to land where the agriculture would not have been sufficient to feed them, and without the resources needed to stay warm in the winter and prevent disease.
Meanwhile, the German plan for the occupation and colonization of the East, beyond the aforementioned reduction of the Polish to helots, was for the population to be dispossessed to make room for German settlers, and it was predicted that 30 million of them would die, mostly of disease and starvation.
The German plans for expansion into the East intended massive numbers of dead. They ended up murdering vast numbers of people, but under different circumstances and in different ways than they had intended.
One amusing story I once heard is that one of the Nazis original proposals for what to do with the Jews was to resettle them in their ancestral homeland around Jerusalem, but the plan was rejected due to how it would destabilize the region.
Not sure how accurate that is, but still, lol.
Wasn’t there some early Nazi notion of shipping all the Jews to Madagascar?
Briefly, yes. Once it became clear that the Jews weren’t just going to pack up and move out on their own and the rest of the world wasn’t too keen on taking them in anyway, the Nazis had to come up with a place that they could force the Jews to go to that was big enough to hold them and distant enough to keep them from further troubling the Reich. Or, you know, just give up on pretending they weren’t mass murderers.
Madagascar being a large, distant territory ruled by Vichy France, and the Vichy being, well, you know, it sort of fit. For a little while, as long as you didn’t have to work out the messy details.
I’ve asked myself the same question and I don’t have a satisfactory answer answer.
My working theory is that your typical bourgeoisie political theorist is generally insulated from the practical realities of what fighting a revolution or maintaining a functional society entails and thus they tend to either romanticize or gloss over them in favor of a grand revolutionary narrative. Che may have been a sick psychotic fuck, but he was handsome and daring and he fought for “the people” so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
…also Stalin had better press.
Edit:
I also like Larry Kestenbaum’s theory but it starts to break down if you start to look outside Russia itself. More often than not “Collectivization” is “Ethnic Cleansing” in all but name.
1). The Holocaust became widely known to the world while it was still ongoing. Irrefutable evidence of Stalin’s worst crimes wasn’t widely publicized until the fall of the Soviet Union, decades after they happened. There’s a similar situation with Mao. IIRC the Great Leap Forward didn’t become widely known in the West until the 1980s. The Cambodian Genocide was widely publicized while it was happening, but it was pretty easy to write the Khmer Rouge off as “not representative of Communism,” what with Communist Vietnam invading Cambodia to overthrow them.
2). While there was only one Nazi state, there have been dozens of Communist regimes. None of them have been places in which I would wish to live, but many of them were far less murderous than Nazi Germany.
3). The only people around who still call themselves Nazis are a couple of street gangs, but the largest country in the world is still nominally Communist. The Chinese government has enough power to limit criticism of it even in other countries (see, for example the 2012 version of Red Dawn being re-edited to replace Chinese bad guys with North Korean bad guys or the video games Crysis and Homefront that did pretty much the same thing). This can’t help but spill over to limiting criticism of Communism in general.
4). General Left-Wing academic bias. See Scott’s review of Malcolm Muggeridge’s autobiography for an idea of how pervasive this was in the early 20th century.
Communist atrocities are less well-known than the Holocaust, so the brand isn’t as tainted.
Communists are seen as at least having some good motivations (equality, alleviation of poverty, etc), while fascists’ goals seem evil in themselves.
Rank-and-file fascists are seen as more likely to be violent and otherwise significantly unpleasant in everyday life – domestic communism is associated with idealistic college students, and fascism with thugs.
One obvious explanation is that “intellectual circles” are, and long have been, heavily Jewish – not surprising considering that Jewish culture prizes learning and scholarship, and the median Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is one standard deviation higher than the median white American IQ. Therefore, an explicitly anti-Jewish movement is going to have a very hard time gaining a foothold. There’s also the fact that fascism is often (if not always) explicitly anti-intellectual. As Mussolini put it: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.” Denying the power of reason in favor of Blood and Soil isn’t the kind of thing that usually appeals to intellectuals.
Therefore, intellectuals – especially, but not limited to, Jewish intellectuals – see fascism as a personal threat in a way that they do not with Communism.
>Therefore, intellectuals – especially, but not limited to, Jewish intellectuals – see fascism as a personal threat in a way that they do not with Communism.
In which case the intellectuals are not very observant, considering Mao purged the intellectuals in his Cultural Revolution. I imagine not many Jews were involved. But while the Soviet Union may not have purged them, Jews were not exactly popular in that state. I guess the attitude there might be “eh, normal oppression, we’re used to it”.
It’s really not complicated or mystifying. We fought a giant war against Nazis! We sent thousands of men to die on Omaha Beach, not Kaliningrad. We spent over fifty percent of our entire gross domestic product for years doing nothing but fighting Nazi Germany. And we were utterly, unconditionally victorious.
For all of the USSR’s crimes, Soviet armor never drove down the Champs-Élysées and Soviet bombers never triggered the air-raid sirens in London.
The idea that World War 2 looms larger in the American consciousness than the Holodomor should not be difficult to understand.
The USSR only did that to the half of Europe we didn’t care about?
(Given how large the questions surrounding Czechoslovakia and Poland’s independence loomed in starting the European war, it’s striking, if predictable in the history of diplomacy, how little they were deemed to matter in the end.)
Our conflict with the Soviets ran about ten times as long, and was a formative experience for three different generations. And its successful conclusion was much more of a surprise when it came than V-E day was.
It also seems to have cost more overall, though obviously spread over a much longer period and with many fewer US casualties. (Estimates I’m seeing are $6-8 trillion for the US in the Cold War, vs about half that adjusted for inflation for WWII.)
It is sort of strange that an ideology that actually underwrote violent revolution around the world, turned a sizable fraction of the world into prison-states with guards on the exits for decades, killed tens of thousands of Americans, and faced the US with an existential nuclear threat that our WWII enemies never could, doesn’t have a more threatening mien here.
It seems so. Speaking as someone from that part of Europe, Yalta Conference feels like Munich Betrayal 2.0.
On the other hand, USA had the Cold War, and created NATO, which is currently probably the only thing stopping Russia from attacking more neighbors. So, thanks for updating afterwards at least.
Yes! Which supports my point!
None of this is “omg the Nazis were so much worse guys”. It’s just “it makes sense that humans, who are not robots mechanically aggregating welfare losses across decades and comparing them, might have been affected more by one thing than a different thing”.
I get that. It just seems as if the half-century struggle that’s actually in living memory for other than octogenarians and above, contested on most continents and in the heavens themselves, would have left a similar cultural mark.
(Even those too young to actually remember the eucatastrophe of 1989 and 1991 are no further from it than the Boom generation was from V-E and V-J Day.)
There’s a big difference between a cold war and a hot one. And when we did get into the hot wars they were sometimes (arguably) more ambiguous morally and we tied (Korea) or lost (Vietnam). People have a very natural tendency to associate victory with right. All of this serves to mute the association of Communism with Evil.
And of course by contrast World War 2 is just so easy to relate as a straightforward, LOTR-style battle of Good vs. Evil. It captures the imagination and fits in nicely as part of the national mythos. People are utterly fascinated with WW2 even today as a matter of history and as a subject for entertainment.
For all of the USSR’s crimes, Soviet armor never drove down the Champs-Élysées and Soviet bombers never triggered the air-raid sirens in London.
My coworkers in Budapest would react poorly to that statement.
1956 is still rather a sore point there. If any of you go visit, go look at the parliament building. They left the bullet holes in the walls and the facade, and then filled them in with brass plugs, which are kept polished. It is rather striking when the sun shines on the building.
Your coworkers in Budapest are not Americans. They are welcome to have their own feelings about the relative awfulness of Hitler and Stalin.
In principle, one can conceive of a kind of communism that’s just about the economics, and that leaves aside all that nonsense about class war. The intellectual school to which communism belongs is just about the only proposal of radical departure from our current economic system that anybody, anywhere takes seriously. And to rail against an economic system theoretically based on FEATHATEATHN, in the abstract and notwithstanding actual historical results, as if it were comparable to the Holocaust itself, is perhaps a tad unreasonable. Whatever you think about property rights and individualism and the moral value of properly harnessed selfishness and greed, advocating the pie-in-the-sky version of communist societies is not indicative of literally Hitler levels of evil. It’s not as if any cooperatively-produced good is tainted with the blood of the newborn or something. On the other hand, it’s questionable whether you can remove all the nonsense about racial inferiority, extermination, and supremacy from Nazi-associated ideologies and still be left with recognisably the same broad ideology. It seems to be baked in. The common perception is that evil is intrinsic to fascism & co., but incidental to communism.
Of course, in practice, there’s a heckuva lot more inter-group hatred within the extreme left than most people would like to admit, and I might be tempted to put forward this explanation because I’m an unusually economically-focused “communist lookalike” and I like to complain about how this is not common enough among leftists. As per the good principle that all circumstantial ad hominem arguments are valid, this points towards the possibility that probably my proposed explanation is not the most likely cause, and the other fellow commenters have come up with very good alternative explanations of their own.
So yeah, people should be more circumspect of the crap coming from their left, the Che T-shirts and the “half-“serious fanning of class hatred flames. It’s all too often coming from a place of vitriolic resentment and other ugly feelings, rather than nice fluffy sympathy for the downtrodden.
First, pretty awesome comment all ’round.
Second, I’d like to swap “baked in” for a more nuanced recipe-based metaphor.
You CAN lower the flour content in your grandma’s recipe for cookies bit by bit, and you’ll still have cookies for a while. But at some point, you’ve got something other than cookies if you ask people “what’ve I got on this baking sheet?”
At what point does removing the COMMUNISM from your communism result in something recognizably communist?
What about taking the RACISM out of your fascism?
If you remove the racism from your fascism, I guess it just becomes Peronism. Even the early Italian Fascism is quite removed from the German variant, and was more civic nationalist than ethnic nationalist. Civic nationalism is probably just as problematic, and passes for racism anyway. For example, opposing Islam is pretty obviously a cultural cause and not a racial one, but it gets stamped with the nazi brand anyway.
Communism is pretty specific in theory. If you don’t have as the goal the abolition of private property to be replaced with an international commons, then you’re not really a communist. Even if you say, wanted to redistribute private property in a violent revolution that wouldn’t make you a communist (maybe a weird distributist). The key thing about communism is that it seeks to abolish the institution of private property, so arguably you could have all sorts of revolutionary ideologies that just fiddle with the distribution and they wouldn’t be communistic in the slightest.
I wonder if, at a certain point, any of the doctrines matter though. Is communism communism because you are waving a red flag with hammers and sickles on it? The thing that makes communism tricky is the Marxist dialectical theory of forces. It allows you to do all sorts of things that contradict the goal of a worldwide commons by claiming that doing the opposite of a thing summons the thing into being, and so nationalistic states of “socialism in one country” get a pass.
I like what you said about fascism-racism=Peronism. Obviously simplistic, but not inaccurate.
What if we look at Vietnam? Here we have nationalism+anti-colonialism+Western democratic idealism+ Actual Western indifference+Soviet support= a totalitarian society based on Leninism (plus a pinch of Maoism) + a personality cult + winning a war of “liberation.”
Well, the interesting thing about third world liberation movements is that they often involved what were almost the local equivalent of third position or fascism, only backed by Soviet or Chinese Marxists (and Western friends) who in a Western context would find those ideologies even more objectionable than liberal capitalism. This was true for much of Arab Socialism/Baathism, and true perhaps even more so for African decolonization movements, which were often ethno-nationalist. I didn’t know about Vietnam. With my little knowledge, I always thought that it was more authentically Marxist (if that’s meaningful at all).
@TD
I agree — Ba’athism is the modern ideology closest to national socialism (and yet only manages to be the second worst ideology in Syria).
It’s kind of confusing when you say “Fascism” but really mean “Nazism”. Fascism was the Italian one. Nazism was the German one, and it was quite different. The racial stuff was all Nazism, and Fascism was actually at odds with it at first (until they became joined at the hip in a war where Nazism had the real power).
Whatever you think about property rights and individualism and the moral value of properly harnessed selfishness and greed, advocating the pie-in-the-sky version of communist societies is not indicative of literally Hitler levels of evil.
On the one hand – at some point in future human history, we’re going to have someone that everyone who counts agrees is actually more evil than Hitler and that one is going to be the new boogyman and I for one can not wait.
On the other hand – we’ve already had Stalin, Pol Pot, and Rwanda, and the WEIRD populations go on not giving a fig.
I do weep for my people, when I recall that God is just.
Colonel Phillip Green?
I long thought that people hated Hitler more than Stalin and Pol Pot because it’s paradoxically more okay to kill your own people through ill-conceived schemes than to intentionally slaughter an “other” on the basis of race/ethnicity.
But given “I can tolerate everything except the outgroup,” maybe the real reason Hitler is the most evil for Americans and Europeans is precisely because he’s the only one they can sort of identify with. He belongs to Western European civilization and, in some sense, claimed to champion it. Russians have always been on the margins of that, and never fully thought of as “Western,” and the PRC, DPRK, and Khmer Rouge don’t even come close to being “us.” We have to reject Hitler most strongly because we fear “there but for the grace of God go we.”
And as also noted on this blog, most people outside of America-Canada-Western Europe don’t have this “Hitler as incarnation of evil” thing. His relative popularity in South and Southeast Asia and the okayness in Asia of using Nazi uniforms, designs, etc. as fashion statements. Not that they think he was a good guy, but rather that wearing an SS armband in Taiwan is no more transgressive than wearing a Che Guevara t shirt is in the US.
Ironically, it may be precisely because of subtle racism or bias that we have to hate Hitler more than some Rwandan dictator. If the Hutus slaughter the Tutsis en mass then, well, what do you expect? Plus, most Americans and Europeans don’t feel a connection to those cultures. But if a white German army slaughters European Jews en masse, well, they should know better and, are, correspondingly, more evil+again, “there but for the grace…”
I’ve never gotten this sense at all. I’m of the opinion that the reason that Hitler went down as history’s greatest monster – while Stalin did not – was because he represented the past – Westphalian nations tightly-bound to an individual people; whereas, to the elites that set opinion for the masses, Stalin represented the bold, progressive future of universalism.
It’s important to remember that Americans in general didn’t know about Stalin, Pol Pot, et al., and just not care; Americans in general didn’t know. A small minority, decisively left-wing, covered up these crimes (particularly Stalin’s), actively ran propaganda praising them, and even when covering atrocities, did their level best to minimize or rationalize them away. Our “best and brightest,” our “cultural icons” actively sympathized with Communism, worked, as best as they could get away with, to push a favorable opinion of Communism on the masses.
“The battle was lost for civilization, and civilization will inevitably take its revenge. There are two systems, the past and the future. The present is only a painful transition. Which must triumph? The future, will it not? Yes indeed, the future! That is, intelligence, industry, and peace. The past was brute force, privilege, and ignorance. Each of our victories was a triumph for the ideas of the Revolution. Victories will be won, one of these days, without cannon, and without bayonets.”
-Napoleon Bonaparte
I think that you have a good point here. I’ve read that even during WWII, in American propaganda the Nazis were considered the epitome of human evil, while the Japanese were merely considered subhuman savages. Of course, nowadays we pride ourselves on being less racist than than, but even in modern Western media discussions of Imperial Japan’s atrocities, they often give off a sense of alien-ness that simply isn’t present in discussions of the Nazis.
Your reports of people not having the same level of animus towards the Nazis in much of modern Asia makes me suspect that this situation is reversed in Asia, and makes me wonder if displaying an Imperial Japanese flag in Taiwan or South Korea would garner a similar reaction to displaying a Nazi Germany flag in America.
I’m not an expert, but I’ve spent some time in Asia, and the answer seems to be “it depends”. Taiwanese attitudes toward Japan seem to be on the warm side of the spectrum — Taiwan (then called Formosa) was a Japanese colony from the late 1800s onward, and they actually seemed to have done a pretty good job managing it. Armed resistance to Japanese rule did exist for its duration, but I’m not aware of any atrocities on the scale of WWII’s.
The Koreans, on the other hand, have a long history of tension (and mutual racism) with the Japanese that recent events have done little to modify. And while Japanese money is behind a lot of recent development in Southeast Asia, the region hasn’t forgotten the experience of WWII.
I get what you’re saying, and I agree it’s really unlikely that we maxed out the meter for all of human history by 1945. (And even calibrating the high end of the meter between e.g., a Hitler and a Pol Pot is tricky.)
But I really think I can wait for that as long as is humanly possible.
I was going to suggest Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, but then I remembered Scott’s “I Can Tolerate Everything But the Outgroup” post demonstrating that for a large portion of the American population, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are just some random people off in the desert. In 10 years, ISIS will likely be remembered in the West as just another chapter of “the endless wars in the Middle East.” Look at how rarely people bring up Osama Bin Laden, who killed thousands of American citizens on American soil, nowadays, a mere 15 years after 9/11 and 4 years after his death.
Though here’s an interesting point about Hitler: according to a book that I read a while back, the Holocaust didn’t actually become the symbol of Ultimate Evil in the US until the 1970s. During WWII, reports of Nazi concentration camps came after years of reports of Axis atrocities, so they weren’t nearly as shocking to people back then as they are to people who are introduced to them without context today. Initial reports were also a bit confused as to the nature of the Holocaust: most wartime news articles and broadcasts about Nazi concentration camps described them as “camps where the Nazis have placed political prisoners, a disproportionate number of whom are Jews and other ethnic minorities,” in large part because most of the camps that the American and British forces liberated did contain large numbers of political prisoners. The camps where most of the Jewish victims were killed were liberated by the Soviets, far away from the eyes of Western reporters.
After WWII, the Holocaust was downplayed in the US in significant part due to Cold War politics. It was critical that West-Germany be rebuilt and re-armed in order to prevent the Soviets from expanding further West, so focusing on German atrocities too much would have been very politically inconvenient. This still has significant effects today: notice how even modern American WWII movies rarely mention the Eastern Front.
All of this changed in the 1960s and 1970s for complicated reasons, including the 1961 Eichmann trial and the rise of identity politics in the 1960s. Note that as late as 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. brought up Hitler in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he immediately followed references to the Nazis with references to the Soviets: “We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.” It’s hard to imagine someone saying something like that today. A side note: I thought for more than a decade that this letter’s reference to “the Hungarian freedom fighters” referred to Hungarian partisans during WWII, until I read about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
So we may not actually know who the next Hitler is until some 20-30 years after his/her crimes.
What? It’s “hard to imagine”?
Give me a break. Left-wing control of academia is not so complete that no one can safely denounce communism.
That sounds right, and clarifies something I’d noticed but never quite nailed down. Hitler in pre-1970 pop culture is definitely a bad guy, but the emphasis is on power and authoritarianism and demogoguery, rather than on mass murder.
He also gets used more casually and with less awe than would be acceptable today. I can think of multiple superhero comics stories of the era in which he or his legacy is treated as clearly evil, but not ultimately evil. (E.g., I recall one in which he’s teamed up with Nero and John Dillinger, to engage in remarkably slight villainy. That’s not something that would happen now, except to intentionally cross a line for effect.)
More generally, the suggestion that someone was Nazi-like implied tyrannical, possibly even in a petty way (e.g., responding to an officious order from a cop or boss with “Achtung!” or “Sieg Heil!”) rather than genocidal.
“It’s hard to imagine a leftist speaking against Communism” isn’t the same thing as “it’s hard to imagine it not being safe, because of leftists, to speak against Communism”
It’s not the denunciations of Communism. It’s the casual mention of Communist oppression of Christians and Hungarians alongside mentions of Nazi persecution of Jews. Today when people compare Communist atrocities to Nazi atrocities, they always make some effort to establish that they really are comparable, saying things like, “Mao killed more people than even Hitler did,” or “the Khmer Rouge killed a greater portion of the population that they ruled over than the Nazis did.” King seemed to expect that his audience wouldn’t even blink at comparisons of the Soviets and the Nazis.
@ Jiro:
NN didn’t say it’s hard to imagine a “leftist” speaking against communism. NN said it’s hard to imagine “someone” speaking against communism. [This was clarified in a subsequent post.]
Besides, it doesn’t even work the way you’re trying to set it up. If you’re trying to suggest that communism is somehow more popular among the left today than it was in the 50s and 60s, that’s ludicrous. Back then, there were many open Maoists and Stalinists and deniers of communist atrocities—people who brazenly stood up in defense of the existing totalitarian regimes. That’s why there were hunts to root them out of the government.
Indeed, one of the purposes of MLK’s statement there is to make it very clear that he does not endorse communism. Which suggests the reasonable possibility that he might be taken for a communist. Like the more radical groups who followed in his wake, who were often doctrinaire communists.
These days, there are much fewer Marxist academics, and the communists who are around pretty much universally condemn the Soviet state. They tend to think it was a perversion of communism, and that the real communism will be full of sweetness and light, not gulags and executions. That may be a stupid opinion, but it’s not the same as denying that the actually existing evils are evil.
And there’s much fewer even of these people; the vast majority of left-wing academics and activists support a market economy of some form or other. If anything, they’re closer economically to fascists or old-conservative dirigists: they want private ownership but de facto public control.
That’s very different from the kind of stuff you can see in books like Red Plenty, where it was a mainstream idea even outside the Soviet bloc that you could really have an effective command economy.
If leftists denounce communism less these days, it’s because they see it as irrelevant. Not because they’re even more communist-influenced than they used to be. It’s the same reason conservatives don’t spend a lot time denouncing the Spanish Inquisition: no one is likely to confuse them for advocates of it.
@ NN:
Maybe. I agree that the Holocaust is emphasized much more heavily. And therefore, it provides a useful reference point for comparisons.
But when I see them made, it’s usually in the form of: you know how bad Hitler was, right? Well, communism was even worse.
@Vox
I really appreciate how often you take the time to defend people you deeply disagree with.
@ Chalid:
Thank you, I appreciate that.
I just agree with Mill that “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” Actually, I probably don’t spend enough time reading people I disagree with. But I still feel that a bad argument for your own side amounts to self-sabotage.
As far as Hitler and the Nazis and ultimate evil are concerned (regardless of how they compare to communism in the popular imagination), it’s probably worth thinking about the fact that it is typical to mock your (current) enemies.
The closer you get in time to WWII, the less Hitler and the Nazis can possibly be merely an exemplar of actual evil and the more they have to be grappled with as going threats.
Compare popular treatment of the Nazis in the 50s and the 60s with treatment of the Soviets in the 80s. Now imagine trying to make those 80s movies today and you will realize why the Nazis were set up as the patsies in those old movies, but ceased to be so as we moved on.
80s movies would be the equivalent of during WWII, or maybe just after for 1989. 50s/60s movies would be comparable to 90s to the present, more or less.
Post Cold War pop culture doesn’t hasn’t really treated the Soviets in the last few decades at all the way they did the Nazis in the comparable timeframe. Where the Nazis of pop culture became stock villains and then monsters, the Soviets just about dropped out of the villain market. At most, you have Russian mafia villains or whatever who originated as KGB or Spetznaz.
American films focused on the period since then tend, I think, to either treat them unseriously or focus primarily on the American reaction to them (McCarthy/HUAC/blacklist, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, etc.)
(Unless I’m forgetting something.)
@LHN:
That’s a fair point, but I think it ignores how many people fought in WWII or were somehow involved in that effort and how broadly affecting it was. Much like the Vietnam story gets told over and over for a about a generation, WWII was re-told as well.
“Popular American culture in the 80’s pushed a US vs Communists narrative” was the left-wing equivalent of the “ritual Satanic abuse” hysteria; it didn’t actually happen.
There were three, count ’em, three movies of significant cultural impact that unambiguously portrayed Soviets in a negative light; Red Dawn, Rocky IV, and Rambo III. All of which were roundly denounced by critics as jingoistic garbage.
The actual bad guys in 80’s pop culture were a) Big business, b) the US government, or c) the both. Robocop? A government outright owned by an evil corporation. GI Joe? An “international” terrorist organization that consisted almost entirely of Americans looking to get rich by hook or by crook; Soviets appeared in the middle of the run as allies against Cobra, with no animosity, in spite of the existing political situation. The premise of Airwolf (a more-successful knock-off of Blue Thunder, which itself was about a planned government coup by evil right-wingers) was that it was a weapon that the US government couldn’t be trusted with.
The general portrayal of Soviets was at worst victims of a prisoner’s dilemma, not an evil empire like the Nazis (who still carried significant cachet as villains; see Raiders of the Lost Ark). It was common to paint Reagan as the villain, and Soviets as innocents; Sting, having left The Police to pursue his boyhood dream of being a milquetoast pop star, wrote “Russians” to assure us it was absurd to believe Reagan, that the Soviets wouldn’t dream of starting a war, since they loved their children, just like us. Christopher Reeve completely derailed the Superman franchise to show a “nuanced” Supes that wouldn’t take sides in an American/Soviet conflict. And so on.
As much as I dislike clickbait media, I gotta admit that it’s hard to imagine Captain Planet being aired today.
@nyccine
It’s funny because I associate the 80s with hardcore right wing anti-communist, anti-islamist anti-druglord movies that couldn’t really be made today, but that may be because I’m a b-movie connoisseur. Even so, you have to wonder why groups like Cannon Films could make those movies at all back in the 80s. In theory, we could have an equivalent company churning out b-movies about Islamic terrorists today, but the fact that we don’t (to my knowledge) may say something in favor of the 80s being a more right wing decade in general. I understand that there are counter-examples, and Rambo III and Rocky IV and so on were panned, but how many jingoistic movies get made at all, full stop these days in order to get panned for being jingoistic in the first place? Most war movies now are of a kind where there has to be a moral grayness permeating everything.
I remember American Sniper being made and being panned as jingoistic. I don’t watch many movies so I don’t know how representative it is of broader trends, but it clearly happens at least somewhat.
@Nyccine
Huh? There are plenty of other 80s movies that either portrayed the Soviet regime negatively or used them as villains. Top Gun, The Hunt for Red October, Moscow on the Hudson, Gorky Park, and (briefly) The Naked Gun. And, as TD points out, that’s leaving out a good number of B-level action films: offhand, think Invasion U.S.A. and some of the Iron Eagle sequels. And if we’re bringing in television, why not the miniseries Amerika? (Not to mention, of course, a good number of films that use Soviet satellites as villains, particularly Vietnam.)
The 1980s had a lot of movies, with a lot of different sorts of villains. I don’t think “big business and the government” works well as a broad generalization. Serial killers, aliens, organized crime, and terrorists all had substantial time in the sun too.
(I think the point you’re responding to is inaccurate, but more for the reasons LHN outlines.)
@suntzuanime
Personally, I was puzzled by that characterization of American Sniper, as I don’t think it’s fairly described as jingoistic. It doesn’t express an opinion on whether the wars it depicts were advisable, draws clear parallels between the hero and his main antagonist, and places its focus primarily on the negative psychological effects that war has on soldiers. It’s not an especially subtle movie, so I’m not sure how it ended up being so widely misconstrued.
Red Dawn, Rocky IV, and Rambo III. All of which were roundly denounced by critics as jingoistic garbage
I apologize for the derail but as a movie buff this is a pet peeve of mine.
Yes, Rambo III is Jingoistic as all fuck and as a fan of First Blood I’m annoyed that it exists.
I’ll agree that Rocky IV is bad, but it has some redeeming qualities as well.
However Red Dawn (the original not that 2010 trash) is a top-notch war movie that people dismiss because it’s war is fictional. It should be noted that Red Dawn treats it’s communist villains far more sympathetically, and it’s American “heroes” far more harshly than your typical WWII movie treats it’s Axis and Allies. Ditto for American Sniper
When I hear people dismissing those last two movies as “jingoistic” my first impulse is to ask “were you watching the same movie?”
@ Frank McPike
we may disagree vehemently on politics but on this much we agree.
Sidetrack: Rocky IV was my introduction to the idea that Soviets had knowledge about athletic training. Later, I found out from Scott Sonnon’s material (sorry, I can’t find a good online source) that the Soviets knew a lot about training. The usual media account only mentions the rule-breaking use of drugs.
As far as I know, doping is banned because it gives you an edge over people with similar levels of biological predisposition and training, not because it’s magic and gives you superpowers.
And speaking of stereotypical Soviet antagonists… I watched Warrior recently (also a fighting movie, except with MMA instead of boxing). The film aims for drama rather than comedy, and mostly achieves it, but I had to giggle when Drago’s cultural successor, Koba, appeared on the screen. The film was made in 2011 — but check out those pants! 😀
***
Still not as funny as John Wick, of course.
This mafia assassin guy is really scary. He’s so scary, we’ve nicknamed him… The Old Hag!
The nasty gangster kids get drunk in a jacuzzi, and decide to sing… a children’s lullaby!
I had fun, though. Two movies in one — a cool noir action flick and a hilarious comedy.
Nita:
As far as I know, doping is banned because it gives you an edge over people with similar levels of biological predisposition and training, not because it’s magic and gives you superpowers.
This doesn’t seem like a reply to what I said, but perhaps it’s a habitual thought. My point was that the high quality Soviet training never gets mentioned in American news reports about Soviet athletes. I haven’t heard about it from the BBC, either.
In any case, have one of my habitual thoughts, with two habitual subtopics.
I don’t understand what sports are trying to measure and therefore I don’t understand the rules against doping. Doping isn’t safe for athletes, but sports aren’t safe for athletes.
Doping isn’t fair, but how much money athletes have access to isn’t fair either.
I was kind of shocked that at Hogwarts, quidditch is a great big deal, but how well a student can play is partially dependent on how good a broomstick they (their parents) can afford, I probably shouldn’t have been shocked.
If I had my druthers, the Olympic teams wouldn’t be from countries, they would either be from equal population or equal total income regions. It might make sense to fiddle the boundaries so that none of the districts include parts of more than one country, so that all the Olympic districts are either parts of countries or conglomerations of countries.
This sounds like a line of thought that is common here and rare in the outside world. Most people prefer themselves, their family, friends, and countrymen to random people. Why would it make sense for sports to deliberately not limit the team to countrymen?
One of those is not like the others. There’s six orders of magnitude riding on that ‘and’ between friends and countrymen.
Professional League Sports are divided between cities and often have salary caps and drafts for players– This hasn’t made people stop caring about them. If you divide the competitors into regions along existing axes (Divide the US along Seed of Albion lines for instance), lump small countries with the same language together.
@Nita — I get the feeling that steroids have a more significant effect than you are giving them credit, the idea that steroids just let you train harder would have more credence with me if sports journalists (sigh, someone is going to make that joke) didn’t make every effort to pretend steroids didn’t exist. There are a lot of people who work like dogs and remain skinny (I knew a pretty exceptional athlete who underwent late puberty, he was fast but his competitors were hulked out monstrosities compared to him. I think that for a lot of people there is a limit as to how much muscle mass you can put on.
@ Nancy
I was being snarkier than necessary again. I’m sorry.
@ GDJJ
Absolutely agreed that genetics matter, and that steroids help grow larger muscles. I was just perplexed by the idea that a national team might use doping instead of intensive training — it’s more effective to use both, so that’s what those who want to win at any cost will do.
Huh? There are plenty of other 80s movies that either portrayed the Soviet regime negatively or used them as villains. Top Gun, The Hunt for Red October, Moscow on the Hudson, Gorky Park, and (briefly) The Naked Gun.
Top Gun was deliberately ambiguous about who the villains were; the conflict was set in the Indian Ocean, and the bad guys flew MiG fighters (made in Russia) armed with Exocet missiles (made in France). It was geopolitically implausible to make a movie about someone challenging the United States to serious aerial combat in the 1980s without at least some Russian connection, but Simpson and Bruckheimer steered it, I have to think deliberately, as far away from Soviet Villainy as they could get away with.
Similarly, 1980s Hot Sub-on-Sub Action pretty much has to involve Russians at some level, but Hollywood adapted Tom Clancy’s book with the Good Russians vs the Bad Russians over many comparable just-bad-Russians technothrillers of the era.
Moscow on the Hudson was a fish-out-of-water comedy about an immigrant in New York, Gorky Park I missed, and The Naked Gun had one slapstick bit based on the absurdity of Mikhail Gorbachev being an actual Evil Supervillain. None of these are in the same league as e.g. Red Dawn; you’re reaching pretty far here.
And yes, if you open things up to B and C movies you have more to work with, but “think Invasion U.S.A. and some of the Iron Eagle sequels”? OK, “Invasion” at least had Communists, and we can maybe read the Russians as having been behind the whole thing. But the Iron Eagle series had:
I: Americans vs. Evil Middle Eastern Dictator
II: Americans + Good Russians vs. Evil Middle Eastern Dictator
III: Two Yanks, a Jap, and a Kraut vs. a Drug Kingpin and a Nazi
IV: Americans defending Commies against the US Government
Also, damn you for making me research the plots of the last two Iron Eagles movies. Hell, I hadn’t even been aware that there was a fourth. But I shouldn’t have had to be the one to look this up.
nyccine is right: It was rare for Hollywood of the 1980s to cast the Soviet regime as unambiguously villainous, and when it was done it was mostly just to flesh out Central Casting’s list of people we could put on the other side of an action sequence in a movie nobody is going to watch for anything but the explosions anyway. Even then, as note the “Iron Eagle” series (and several Bond flicks), Soviet Communists were more likely to be uneasy allies than actual villains.
Now, do we really need to try and enumerate all of the movies of the era where the unambiguous villains were either Corrupt Corporate Executives or their (US) Government Counterparts? I’d prefer to limit that one to A-list films rather than risk out-wording “Atlas Shrugged”, but if we have to go downlist you’ve already inadvertently provided material…
It’s not that anyone thinks steroids substitute for heavy training, it’s that there’s erasure of the Soviet knowledge and use of exercise physiology.
The assumption seems to be that Soviet training is comparable to Western training, when there’s at least some reason to think it’s better.
God Damn John Jay, thank you. That’s what I meant.
I really try to write clearly. Why do I have to read past several misunderstandings before I get to someone who actually explains what I meant?
Nancy, the biggest cause of Soviet (and current Chinese) athletic prowess is probably the state-run feeder systems. The Soviets used to put a lot of money and effort into finding kids under 10 who showed athletic promise and having them train full-time for Olympic sports, as the Chinese do today; there’s no comparable infrastructure in most of the rest of the world. Note, however, that this doesn’t really apply to professional sports, and that the Soviets and Chinese were and are a good deal less dominant there, respectively.
@John Schilling
If we’re talking about movies where literally all Russians are bad, not even Rocky IV and Red Dawn qualify. But if we’re talking about movies where the Soviet regime is the villain, which I took to be Nyccine’s point, films focusing on Russian defectors that use loyal Soviets as villains seem to meet the criteria pretty well (and Gorky Park, The Hunt for Red October, and Moscow on the Hudson are all examples from different genres).
I don’t believe that Soviet villainy was common, or emblematic of any particular cultural trend. But neither was it as rare as Nyccine makes it out to be. You’re right about Iron Eagle, though (you’ve put me in the situation of wishing I had looked up the plots of the Iron Eagle sequels).
I’m not disputing that there are many films with the government or corporations as villains. But the 80s saw many different types of villains, none of which, I think, were common enough to qualify as “The actual bad guys in 80’s pop culture.” Of the ten highest-grossing films of the 1980s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_in_film), I count among the villains Nazis (twice), the Galactic Empire (twice), a Thuggee cult, a highschool bully/Libyans, and ghosts. The government is the villain in E.T. and a secondary villain in Ghostbusters. The villain in Beverly Hills Cop is a businessman, so maybe you could count that as a corporation, although “drug dealer” seems more relevant to his actual villainy. (Like you, I have no particular interest in quantifying the trend beyond this.)
@Frank McPike: I think there is still a substantial difference between a movie with Good Russians vs Bad Russians, and one with only Americans vs. Bad Russians. To make a movie where “literally all Russians are bad” would require about two hundred million extras. To make a movie where all Russians appearing in the movie are bad, that shouldn’t be too difficult. No more so than e.g. making a movie where all the Nazis appearing in the movie are bad guys – something Hollywood has never had much trouble with.
And if I’m trying to win a culture war, I very much want to arrange things so that whenever a member of my culture is seen engaging in villainy, another member of my culture is seen as triumphing over and ideally undoing that villainy – but whenever a member of your culture is seen engaging in villainy, that’s just the way it is. The relative treatment of the cited groups is one of the things that woke me up to the fact that there was a culture war in the 1980s, and that in that war Hollywood considered itself to be allied with Soviet Communism against Corporate America and the United States Government.
In 1980s Hollywood, unless you were either operating below critical notice (Chuck Norris) or openly defying it (John Milius), you basically did not make a movie in which Russians were the bad guys unless you arranged for them to be defeated by other Russians. But movies in which every corporate executive is a villain, or every US government official, those were common then and remain so now.
When talking about 1980s pop culture and the Cold War, one should keep in mind that the 1980s contained both a period of the highest Cold War tensions since the Cuban Missile Crisis (from the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979 until Gorbachev announced his reforms in 1985) and a period where US/USSR relationships rapidly thawed until the Cold War basically ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Malta Summit. The former period gave us Red Dawn and Rocky IV, while the latter period gave us a buddy cop movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Soviet cop and James Belushi as an American cop teaming up to fight a Georgian drug lord.
Rambo III, by the way, was criticized not just for being jingoistic, but also for being hilariously out of date upon its release. Especially with the Soviets starting their withdrawal from Afghanistan ten days before Rambo III’s release date.
@Nancy Lebovitz:
In regards to Eastern Bloc sport science, in some circles (powerlifting, weightlifting) there’s if anything kind of an overestimation of how good it was. More than one author has made a career selling “Soviet strength secrets”. There’s huge hype about Bulgarian weightlifting training. Some people act as though periodization was something only the Soviets figured out.
@LHN:
That reminds me of a series I read about a former KGB colonel who outmaneuvers all the oligarchs to take over the Russian government; he’s term-limited, but manages to install a puppet for a few years until he can visibly hold the reins again. He does all kinds of Hitleresque villain stuff like annexing parts of neighboring countries, and nobody ever seems to stop him. Plus he also persecutes all the LGBTQs in Russia, and locks up female rock bands, and engages in seriously over-the-top self-aggrandizing propaganda.
Anybody remember the name of it?
@Agronomous
That’s a subplot in the US version of _House of Cards_. But it’s possible they took the idea from somewhere else.
@Agronomous: I’m still waiting for the ragtag crew of lovable misfits to take him down in part III. Anyone know when that’s supposed to be coming out?
We’re also overdue for the foretold hero to appear and overthrow the legions of terror overrunning the ancient heart of civilization, while we’re at it– that one must be running into budget problems.
(Honestly, someone should tell the director to make that one more nuanced– they’re a little over the top with the black flags and the public maimings and executions. Plus the gratuitous destruction of architecture? Tell me that’s not just an excuse to pad out the special effects.)
There’s a distinction between “All Nazis are bad” and “All Germans are bad.” Even during WWII, films tended not to take the latter stance. In fact, they intentionally didn’t take the latter stance. Depicting Hitler’s regime as so bad that even honorable, patriotic Germans disapproved of it was powerful propaganda. There are a surprising number of WWII-era films focusing on ordinary Germans who resisted the Nazi regime or who fled Germany when it took over, and an even greater number of films that give a scene or subplot over to highlighting such characters. (My favorite example, though it’s British, is Anton Walbrook’s genuinely moving speech in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.) I don’t think it’s fair to conclude on that basis that Hollywood secretly supported the Nazis.
(I’ll note that I’m not aware of any films that made this sort of distinction about the Japanese.)
Drawing a distinction between the Soviet regime and the people living under it seems to serve a similar purpose. That’s what’s going on in Rocky IV, at any rate: The Soviet government is willing cheat to win, but the crowd is fundamentally decent and is won over by Rocky’s determination.
Consider, too, that in the 1980s even the staunchest anti-Communists took the position (and not inaccurately) that ordinary people in the U.S.S.R. disapproved of their regime and would happily abandon it were they given the opportunity. If Hollywood favored the victory of ordinary Russians over the Soviet Union, they found themselves well in line with Ronald Reagan (. . . who was himself from Hollywood, perhaps there is a conspiracy after all).
– Given the stuff that would have to happen for someone to succeed Hitler as the new universal stand-in for evil, it’s at the very least misguided if you cannot wait for that.
– “Literally Hitler” was a metaphor, one relevant to the discussion at hand. I could have said “literally Stalin” and it would still apply, and moreover it would put a new spin on the sentence.
– I actually don’t think Hitler was the most evil person to walk the earth, just one of the most successfully evil leaders. One of the things that can be scary to think about is that who gets the guns so as to be capable to act on his hatred is mostly a historical accident. Remember that Nazism might have been unsuccessful. It might not have gotten to implement the Holocaust. And then we would not have had a real-life gigantic pile of corpses, which anyone can be persuaded that it’s an evil outcome, to point to as a likely historical result of ideologies that pattern-match to Nazism. Which is good from a consequentialist point of view, but we’d have had one less lesson to learn from history.
There are people out there who but for lack of power would commit atrocities that could make Hitler look like a role model of good leadership. People whose psychopathy permeates every aspect of their existence, who can’t even find it within themselves to take a cute picture with a dog or to have a love life somewhat approaching normalcy. This is not to downplay Nazi horrors, but to remind people that, if Hitler was that bad, then one like Ted Bundy, given the same resources as Hitler, might have been even worse, and imagine what that would mean. The bar for genocide & co., from the point of view of personal characteristics, is lower than what one might think. Remember that. Especially in the context of evaluating ideologies whose content might do what personal psychopathy by itself cannot in keeping the hatred burning.
@ Dahlen –
My phrasing was suboptimal.
I do hold that there have been men both more evil and more successfully evil than Hitler, yet we keep going back to that boogyman.
And it is that lack of critical engagement with both history and the human heart that I find deeply annoying.
However, you are right – I can wait for the more obvious shadowdoom, and I should offer many goats against that one’s eventual arrival.
Seriously, go read Muggeridge, he’s annoying but he explains all of this effortlessly.
I think the short answer is:
1. Because the left has played a dominant role in the intellectual/ideological world for most of the past century.
2. Because a common attitude on the left was and is “there are no enemies to the left.”
“Common” does not mean universal. Orwell was, after all, a leftist.
Because the Communists won, and the Fascists lost.
Coincidentally, Yarvin wrote at length about this exact topic.
http://archive.is/tdB8o
My summary of his somewhat rambling argument would be:
Modern American progressivism and small “c” communism are part of a shared cultural tradition, while fascism is a rival ideology. Therefore it makes sense that American progressives would be more accepting of communists than fascists.
Because left-wing politics is about being nice. Its failure mode is being too nice: ideas that sound lovely and wonderful, but have awful consequences. Whereas right-wing politics is about being cruel to be kind. Its failure mode is being cruel without being kind: mean-sounding ideas that purportedly have some larger indirect or long-term positive effect, but don’t.
As such, right-wing ideas are subjected to much more scrutiny than left-wing ideas, particularly among people who find snuggly niceness appealing and tough love repellent. The mistake is in judging policies by their intentions rather than by their consequences.
I believe Nick Lowe talked about being “cruel to be kind/ IN THE RIGHT FASHION.”
I also believe:
1) Nick Lowe is a pop songwriter, perhaps best known for his song “Cruel To Be Kind”
2) Nick Lowe is a pessimist (pretty sure)
3) Nick Lowe is an ironist (very sure)
4) I can’t speak for Nick Lowe, but lots of people who’ve been on the receiving end of cruelty-in-pursuit-of-“kindness” are a bit gun-shy about letting the cruel people decide what’s so fricking kind about their cruelty.
PS: If it isn’t clear, I think your theory that “cruel to be kind” is a central, relatively exclusive, and correct right-political value is 1) simplistic 2) wrong 3) extra-wrong, given that “cruel to be kind” is totally how Stalin justified ____.
Counter argument:
You’re a doctor and you find out that your patient (or someone they love) has a terminal illness. Considering that this knowledge is likely to have a negative on their emotional well being, do you tell them or not?
I actually don’t see how this example is related to big old meta-political issues!
PS: I talk with other interested parties and try my best to figure out whether to tell the patient is best served by being told. Best I can do without anything more specific.
It’s a classic real-world example of green anon’s theory.
From the “right wing” perspective the truth may be bad, but lying about it and trying to prevent others from confronting it will just make things worse.
Have you ever heard the phrase “it’s not the crime it’s the cover up”
Note that I mentioned how this can go wrong, symmetrically to how what I described as the left-wing equivalent can go wrong. I certainly wasn’t trying to imply that this (i.e. the right-wing stance) is a correct value.
I do think that the mistake that leads people to be less critical of left-wing ideas is what I described in my last sentence: judging by intentions not consequences. I emphasized this because I think the kind of people who read SSC – myself included – are more likely to make this kind of mistake than the opposite one. My post, the second paragraph especially, was intended mainly to respond to the mentality of some posts above, that are along the lines, “Nazism is worse, because it’s about intentionally doing mean things, whereas communism is about trying to do nice things but only accidentally ended up causing tens of millions of deaths”. My response, rephrased: I think that people of all political stances genuinely believe that their ideas will bring about good consequences, and therefore that policies should be judged on their consequences only. An ideology that consistently leads to awful consequences when implemented shouldn’t get less criticism just because its rhetoric appeals to your sensibilites.
Sorry if I misinterpreted your argument. Your reply makes sense, and I don’t have any quarrel with it.
I will be a bit of a dick and point out that your original comment seems to be saying something different, when I read it:
The original question, and your post, didn’t specify that we were talking about why “SSC-reader-types” would communism was so acceptable. As a SSC-reader, I’d be the first to admit that we’re all suckers for bad, well-argued, contrarian ideas.
I disagree with this. I think several things are being conflated here.
The fallacy of judging by intentions is: judging that an idea will have good consequences, simply because its proponents intend those consequences. E.g. the minimum wage will help the poor because its proponents care about the poor, while the opponents are greedy bastards in the pay of big business who don’t care about the poor.
But there is a quite legitimate difference between judging the consequences of an idea versus judging the morality of promoting it.
The evaluation of the consequences as positive or negative is strictly objective. But the evaluation of it as moral or immoral depends on the subjectively expected consequences and whether that expectation was attained honestly or dishonestly.
Suppose the people at CERN did everything exactly as now, having every reason to think nothing bad would happen, but the Large Hadron Collider produced a black hole that destroyed the Earth. Would they be the most evil people in the history of the world? Would particle physics be worse than fascism?
No, because they wouldn’t have expected it. They had every reason to expect good consequences, but bad consequences happened to result instead that they honestly couldn’t predict.
And certainly, there can be honest communists, who really think that it will bring about good consequences. But when the evidence of communism’s failures mounts up, it becomes less and less likely that any person can honestly be convinced by the evidence that it will bring good consequences. Instead, they willfully ignore the evidence, with the theory merely serving as a rationalization. Once someone’s gotten to the point of sending his old comrades to be executed in the basement of the Lubyanka, we can dismiss the idea that he’s acting out of a desire to promote the good of mankind.
Also, the morality of promoting an idea depends on the cultural context. In situations where slavery had always been practiced and accepted as normal, it took a very exceptional person to come to the conclusion that the accepted wisdom was wrong and that slavery was evil. But people today don’t have the same excuse, since the evil consequences of slavery are generally known.
I think there is somewhat less excuse for promoting fascism (in the sense understood to include racism, etc.) than communism in today’s society, for a few of reasons. First, fascism is more transparently open about its bad intentions: it’s simply harder to think of a benevolent purpose behind going after the Jews and murdering them than it is to think that the existing arrangement of property rights is unjust and inefficient.
Second, and relatedly, the very reason the US allied with communist regimes to fight fascist regimes is that the fascists planned to and would have killed more people had they gotten their way; most of the deaths attributed to communism are the result of incompetence causing famine. The Nazis would have had those plus deliberate campaigns of extermination on a much wider scale. It’s a bit dumb to consider Hitler worse than Stalin when part of the reason Hitler didn’t kill more people is that we allied with Stalin to stop him.
Third, people have generally been more exposed to the evils of fascism in their full, awful detail than to the evils of communist regimes. No one can be ignorant of what Hitler did. But it’s quite easy to be ignorant of Lenin or Che Guevara’s abuses. Not perhaps of Stalin’s, but even most communists think of him as a kind of usurper. So when someone wears a Che t-shirt, he has much more leeway for being honestly mistaken about what he stood for than a person wearing a Hitler t-shirt.
“I do think that the mistake that leads people to be less critical of left-wing ideas is what I described in my last sentence: judging by intentions not consequences.”
This takes it for granted that we can believe what people say about their intentions.
Thomas Sowell has a book, The Vision of the Anointed, that I started but didn’t finish because it made a depressingly persuasive case for something I preferred not to believe—that liberals don’t really care about the effects of their policies, only about making themselves feel good. In the early part he runs through several cases where a policy was pushed by liberals, opponents said it would have certain bad effects, proponents that it wouldn’t, the policy was implemented, the bad effects appeared, and the liberals did not appear to notice.
The strongest recent evidence I have seen that most liberals don’t really believe in their own principles is their taking Elizabeth Warren as their hero.
This would make SJWs obviously right-wing.
Communism captured two key demographics early on, journalists and academics. Due to this, they get basically free propaganda and intellectual legitimacy.
Notice that neither of these groups really deals with anything in the way of the real world. They just wander in afterward and cram whatever they see into their pre-existing narrative. These are professions insulated from consequence, and hence this has lasted past the complete destruction of every single communist system. What happens in the real world doesn’t matter, what matters is the theory!
There was a comment in the post On Staying Classy that I quite liked, about how in practice the “capitalist class” and the “working class” are often natural allies because their reputations and livelihoods hinge on the same factors. If you don’t work you die
Meanwhile members of the middle and intellectual classes tend to be insulated from market shocks, and the actual sweat and blood required to keep a system running which is what enables them to expend so much effort on theory and so little on implementation.
Ironically, actual Communist revolutions tend to be fought by an alliance of the intellectual and criminal classes against the working class.
Opposition to racism/imperialism/colonialism is the Great Cause of Our Times. Fascism is explicitly racist/imperialist/colonialist while communism is at least nominally opposed to those things.
Regarding the GoFundMe campaign, I really wish it were made anonymous, but I suppose this might garner more support.
Do you mean effective in the sense of effective altruism or effective in the sense of doing what it purports to do? If its the former then ignore the rest. If its the latter then I agree vehemently with:
And wish that effective altruists would exercise the same courtesy to non-effective altruism (TM) causes.
Effective in the sense that it doesn’t work. For example, if the LambdaConf people said they weren’t going to accept the Status 451 money, that would be something I would want to know.
My thought process when I saw this:
1. I am looking for a data science job, totally spending all my time procrastinating and running out of money whilst not making progress. I should totally do this!
2. Hey, they want 10% of my first year gross salary out of my net salary. That’s a rip off! They’re just going to tell me in an authoritative way to do a bunch of stuff I know I should already be doing, like sorting out my personal website, finishing that Coursera course and putting some projects up.
3. I am an idiot for even considering paying $20k for some punk to tell me to do what I already know I need to do.
4. I’ll go to Coursera and actually finish that course.
5. (On coursera) Andrew Ng’s voice is pretty soporific, even at 2x speed. Maybe I could just spend 5 minutes on reddit, as a reward to myself for getting started….
6. Goto 1
Startup idea: StudyBox. If you want to take an online course, enroll with StudyBox and we’ll pick a time where you can work with other people who are taking the same course. Social pressure! Commitment! Low cost! (No joke, this would be incredibly useful for a lot of people)
On a more serious note if you want to learn data science yourself I strongly recommend NOT taking Andrew Ng’s ML course until the end. It’s super polished and approachable but you’re learning to solve a particular sort of prediction problem which is maybe 10% of data science. The other 90% is choosing the right question to ask, gathering data, cleaning the data, choosing the right method, and presenting your results.
A good self-test is “can I take a publicly available data set (or scrape data from the internet) and say anything interesting about it?” Jai Dhyani’s project https://github.com/jaibot/IntradeAnalysis/blob/master/intrade-highlights.ipynb is a good example because he explains not just what he did but also the reasoning that went into it. You don’t need to make a polished writeup, just see if you can go through the full loop of gathering data and doing something with it.
> On a more serious note if you want to learn data science yourself I strongly recommend NOT taking Andrew Ng’s ML course until the end. It’s super polished and approachable but you’re learning to solve a particular sort of prediction problem which is maybe 10% of data science. The other 90% is choosing the right question to ask, gathering data, cleaning the data, choosing the right method, and presenting your results.
Sure, but I have already spent a few months scraping and cleaning real-world data for a client and my next goal is to put together some kind of writeup about that, like the one you linked on github. The ML course is realistically there to make my LinkedIn and resume look stronger. Also, if I do the course, I can also add Octave and Matlab to my resume.
I didn’t think the course did a particularly good job of getting you up to speed on Matlab. Between trying to learn Matlab and trying to remember linear algebra I struggled a lot to keep up.
My linear algebra is already good, and I just found it nice to have a challenge to complete.
@Robert Cordwell:
I just noticed you are from Signal!
I am seriously considering doing business with signal, I should get in touch.
@Alphaceph – This is Jonah, also with Signal. Thanks for your interest!
Regarding your top level comment, some respects in which you might benefit from the program beyond it serving as a motivational device are:
• Very high quality peer group.
• A sequence of fun and intellectually stimulating projects.
• Exposure to lots of tricks of the trade that are hard to pick up from online curricular materials.
• Experience applying fundamental methods to a wide range of datasets.
• Job interview practice
We’d love to hear from you – you can fill out our short application if you’d like :-).
Sure I’d definitely be interested. One concern I had was that I tried the sliderule course and paid £200 for 1 month. I found that it was a pretty poor value proposition at that price because my mentor only met with me for 1/2 hour per week, and his typical response to my questions was “maybe you should Google that”. The course materials were all publically available, and we’re of a much lower quality than coursera stuff. The “peer group” and “network” was vaporware – just a bunch of other people who had paid money to be on the course, with very little interaction. My posts on the slack channels attracted tumbleweeds.
So I’m reluctant to pay £10,000 – £20,000 of future earnings.
However, the fact that Signal is so expensive might be a plus in a way. You’ll hit a big payday if you get me a job, so the incentive to make it happen is large.
He’ll hit a big payday if you get a job. It doesn’t sound like there’s any requirement that anyone prove you wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway.
@Jiro:
Yeah, that’s what worried me. I’d be happier if there were some limitations, such as a time-decay on the payoff, e.g. pay-off is 10% of your first year salary which decays with a half-life of 3 months from the date you sign the contract, and it has to be a data science job, not a job in a related field such as being a dev.
Scott (or EY or someone around here) once said something like “infinite recursion is at most three levels deep”. I don’t know what this is supposed to mean.
Infinite recursions are not usually actually infinite; people just stop looking after so many and slap a label on it.
It means that things which are in principle infinitely recursible in practice turn out never to go more than three levels deep.
For example, while the ladder of contrarian, meta-contrarian, meta-meta-contrarian, etc… can in theory go on forever, this principle predicts that all real-world examples will top out at the third level.
That’s a very clear explanation, but in your example, wouldn’t the first/base case be non-contrarian? Or does the 0th level base case not count toward recursive depth? I ask mostly because I can’t recall having seen anything deeper than meta-contrarian.
Eliezer has ranted about meta-meta contrarians, and does not list them as an exception to Yudkowsky’s Law of Ultrafinite Recursion. But I’m not actually sure, to be honest.
Hmm. In the rant, I would describe everybody as having one less layer of recursive depth than he describes them as having. I.e., wearing a T-shirt with a big letter yud on it because you like Yudkowsky just seems non-contrarian: You’re doing something because you like it, not doing it to be different. It seems to me that whether Yudkowsky is contrarian in general ought not to matter to this case. Then the EY-haters would contrarian, and the EY-hater-haters would be meta-contrarian.
If we call the object-level “0th level recursion,” then the examples he gives as being hard-to-parse or useless to continue as far as are mostly 3rd level, with some being 2nd level. So I guess the rule might be usefully restated as “There is generally little-to-no value in recursing past the 2nd level, where 0 is the object level,” This seems to be supported by this quote, from your second link:
In any case, thank you. Your examples, and FullMeta_Rationalist’s comment have helped me visualize meta-meta-contrarianism: Meta-meta-contrarians are people who make fun of hipsters.
It’s also helped me resolve a tension in my life: It’s important to me that I do things because I want to, and not because of cultural pressure for or against (which ends up as a sort of contrarianism with respect to culture). But I also enjoy making fun of hipsters, since many things they do seem silly to me. So some of my behavior is contrarian, and some is meta-meta-contrarian. Since both of these attitudes result in similar behavior, I’ve had trouble telling them apart before now, which resulted in some confusion in my self-image. I’m very glad that’s been worked out.
By the way, “big letter yud” is kind of a hilarious concept in itself. Props to Eliezer for that one.
I don’t have any idea what a meta-contrarian would be like. What would be a typical position?
Hipsters. (Yvain was Scott’s pseudonym.)
I vaguely remember some discussion of a party game in which you are supposed to choose an integer between 0 and 100 inclusive, and the person who gets closest to 2/3rds of the average of everybody’s numbers wins. Clearly, you should choose a smaller number than everybody else, and the Nash equilibrium is zero.
But people tend to iterate only a few times and so end up guessing something like 20.
A group of Twitter activists demanded that he be excluded from the conference for his political views.
I was under the impression that they thought his followers would insult and possibly attack them. To which you respond that nerds who like manifestos couldn’t possibly be dangerous.
You don’t seem to have updated this view after the one guy who almost made Moldbug respectable (in terms of tribal affiliations) apparently made vague threats against another Yarvinian for calling him gay.
If you think the activists are factually wrong about Yarvin creating a threat, how about giving any reason at all for them to think so.
As an experiment in cognition, can you kindly detail how you came to have this impression (“that they thought his followers would insult and possibly attack them”)? I’m quite serious, in that I would truly like to understand how you came to have that idea. It’s utterly at variance with reality at multiple levels. This seems to be an example of “Things repeated in the media are taken as true, even if they’re absurd”. This is part of my general thinking about the failure of rationalism. I would like to get the point where you say “Ah, I thought this because of X, Y, Z but the evidence you have shown me about A, B, C has completely disabused me of that mistaken idea”. But it’s unlikely to happen, and I’m also self-aware that I’m not doing this well (which comes back to the failure of rationalism).
Aside from Scott’s own writing on the subject, a cursory Google search will show you evidence including this from one of the main people opposing the invitation:
(emphasis added)
I’m guessing you will ignore this and continue to believe you know their motives better than they do, because Scott has (deliberately?) set them up as the outgroup.
http://www.gocomics.com/dilbert-classics/2013/02/15
I think the burden of proof is on your side to show that he poses an imminent safety threat — and showing that one of his supporters is an asshole isn’t sufficient. Particularly since a lot of the activist types seem to think that opposing viewpoint == violent threat.
I’m actually somewhat sympathetic to this position, but: would we have the burden of proof showing that the Greek Golden Dawn (“We are the faithful soldiers of the National Socialist idea and nothing else”) posed a threat? If not, where does the line exist?
There are a lot of people just rejecting out of hand the idea the expressed motives of “the activist types,” so let’s run some numbers for background. I’ve seen much higher percentages for the incidence of psychopathy, never mind committing rape – but let’s go with a base rate of 0.5%, to humor Scott’s impression that people like himself are especially harmless. 300 is a low estimate for the number of Republicans for Voldemort, and maybe a high estimate for everyone attending this conference. Were we to assume independence (that is, to say the non-psychopaths do nothing to discourage dangerous assholes) that gives us a probability of 78% that a group that size contains dangerous assholes.
Of course this tells us little except that large groups should watch for assaults. I mention it mainly because people like the much-maligned woman at Aaronson’s blog say the geek community is particularly bad at dealing with assault. (Before I go on, though, I do think Yarvin is selecting for dangerous assholes and the probability there is much higher.)
The main point, given that background, is that Yarvin promotes a ‘philosophy’ which seem solely intended to justify hate towards liberals and anyone he doesn’t like. So I absolutely think he’s encouraging people who like his shtick to commit violence against his outgroups. We’ve seen right here in this thread someone demonizing a vaguely-defined but definitely leftist outgroup and saying “violence is often the correct response. The time for extending good faith to SJWs is long over.”
You’ve shifted from “I was under the impression that they thought his followers would insult and possibly attack them.” to bringing up the *content* of his philosophy; that is, his political views. Which would seem to indicate that you know that it is true that “A group of Twitter activists demanded that he be excluded from the conference for his political views” and the rest is sophistry.
What are the distinctive elements of Golden Dawn that mean one should treat it as a threat? Lets see.
1. Its a group of soccer hooligans turned political party
2. It regularly advocates violence
3. Its members regularly engage in violence.
In short it has a history of both advocating and engaging in illegal activity and violence. Yarvin has neither.
>would we have the burden of proof showing that the Greek Golden Dawn
Sure. Of course they are actually dangerous, so it would take you about 10 seconds on google to find tons of examples of them being involved in various criminal activities, including murder.
If Yarvin and his followers are as assault-prone as your diligent calculations show, it will be equally trivial to find evidence of these “assaults” and “violence”.
@Daniel Keys: You’re going for a statistical argument, then, that some particular demographic group has a higher rate of psychopathy or criminal behavior than average, and therefore need to be kept out on general principles?
Tweak that statement just a little and it’s are enormously more racist than anything Moldbug ever wrote.
>I’m actually somewhat sympathetic to this position, but: would we have the burden of proof showing that the Greek Golden Dawn (“We are the faithful soldiers of the National Socialist idea and nothing else”) posed a threat? If not, where does the line exist?
Yes. Luckily for you, there’s plenty of evidence available that they do.
>There are a lot of people just rejecting out of hand the idea the expressed motives of “the activist types,” so let’s run some numbers for background. I’ve seen much higher percentages for the incidence of psychopathy, never mind committing rape – but let’s go with a base rate of 0.5%, to humor Scott’s impression that people like himself are especially harmless. 300 is a low estimate for the number of Republicans for Voldemort, and maybe a high estimate for everyone attending this conference. Were we to assume independence (that is, to say the non-psychopaths do nothing to discourage dangerous assholes) that gives us a probability of 78% that a group that size contains dangerous assholes.
As you yourself noted in the first sentence of the following one, there is absolutely 0 value to this paragraph.
>The main point, given that background, is that Yarvin promotes a ‘philosophy’ which seem solely intended to justify hate towards liberals and anyone he doesn’t like.
What a coincidence, that much is true of Communists and SJ people (to the extent that it is true of Yarvin).
>So I absolutely think he’s encouraging people who like his shtick to commit violence against his outgroups.
Well, unlike the two other groups, he seems to be doing a pretty poor job at it.
>We’ve seen right here in this thread someone demonizing a vaguely-defined but definitely leftist outgroup and saying “violence is often the correct response. The time for extending good faith to SJWs is long over.”
Ebin contextualization. That comment (which I do not condone) was made in the framework of the “culture wars”, and is suggesting to use the same tactics SJ people use on them, only an extremely literal interpretation would take it to be advocating violence.
Serious question,
Do you actually think that Yarvin (or his followers) pose an concrete threat? and if so, what’s the realistic response to such a threat?
OK, I believe I’m starting to at least get a glimpse of where you’re coming from. Pre-emptively, I have to disclaim that this where people often make accusations of trolling, “sealioning”, etc. I’m upfront that I think you’ve come to believe something very incorrect. But I want to fully understand why you think what you do, so that I can *try* (probably futility) to do an evidence-based refutation of it.
The assertion is “he be excluded from the conference” (for his political views) “they thought his followers would insult and possibly attack them”. Here’s the
full context of what you cite:
I read that not as claiming his followers will, at the conference, potentially insult and possibly *physically* attack other conference attendees. Rather, the reasoning above is that in general he is, intellectually, an “outspoken advocate for slavery”, then slavery and racist and fascist views are in general a threat to ” the physical and emotional safety of its attendees and speakers”, therefore, to oppose slavery and racist and fascist results, he should not be allowed to speak at the conference.
That is, his ideas lead generally to physical attacks if implemented. Not that anyone was going to physically attack the conference attendees.
Do you disagree? Are you saying the above is a claim someone was going to attack a conference attendee, as if the conference was a (UK) football riot?
[Edit corrected “attend” to “speak at” in sentence]
Yes, and I’m asking you (see numbers and point above) why you think they shouldn’t have this concern.
Well, besides the general burden of proof issue, there’s the fact that nominally, none of his followers are going to be at this conference in the first place. He doesn’t travel with an entourage. It’s not like he’s a rock star or a prominent rebel, with a posse of hangers-on around him in public. It’s really hard to see how his followers could do anything at all when none of them will be there.
@Daniel
The problem here is this type of issue pops up with practically every ideology — when you take the worst of every sufficiently large group you get major assholes. Even the social justice types frequently engage in “disruption” of events they don’t like and threats from that crowd happen. Your upthread calculation comes quite close to special pleading only brought out in regards to people you dislike.
They shouldn’t have this concern because every rational prior indicates that the probability of their being attacked in any way by those who hold Yarvin’s views is vanishingly small, since there are zero cases of that ever happening.
On the other hand, the priors for leftists using claims of fear as a cover for attacks on their political opponents are very high, because there are numerous cases of that happening.
Therefore as an unbiased external observer, it should be clear that the situation is far more likely to be the latter than the former.
Is Yarvin/Moldbug actually pro-slavery?
I think it would be more accurate to say that he isn’t against it.
I got the sense he’s more anti-abolition than pro-slavery.
Of course that’s probably mostly due to being an American. The British managed to free their slaves without burning half the Empire to the ground and leaving behind a permanent racial underclass (distinct from other colonized peoples, at least). Abolition is infinitely more appealing when you don’t end up starving a quarter of the beneficiaries to death in the process.
Really it’s just more of the mystery-cult style pulling back the curtain on American history as popularly understood.
So, then everyone escalates to saying they think they are going to be physically attacked as a trump. What do you do then? You have to have some credible way of determining if violence is going to happen. Which to my knowledge hasn’t been demonstrated. Even then, you can put up security for conferences, this is done all the time.
“If you think the activists are factually wrong about Yarvin creating a threat, how about giving any reason at all for them to think so.”
…Because he’s one nebbishy guy and he’s not talking about politics and in fact he stopped blogging about it years ago and he’s never advocated violence even when he did and a functional programming conference in Denver is about the last place in the world any well-balanced person would expect a violent neo-Nazi riot to spontaneously break out?
And that’s just for starters?
If that’s not good enough for you, perhaps we could turn it around and ask what would convince you that the activists are wrong to fear a physical threat.
What? Moldbug advocates total, crushing violence of the state against dissenters. I don’t think he’s going to implement his ideas in person at a tech conference, but advocating for violence is his entire schtick.
It’s ironic to hear all these free-speech arguments being made to support Moldbug, who is absolutely opposed to it. To his credit, I haven’t heard him making those arguments himself.
It’s not ironic, the whole point of free speech is that you support it even for ideas you don’t agree with.
I know right?
Free speech is about what the government can’t do to censor people. Protesting or boycotting a conference because you disagree with the view of a presenter is wholly within free speech itself.
Nah.
Because the First Amendment to the US Constitution is all anyone ever means when they talk about free speech, right?
Where does blocking entrances and pulling fire alarms fit in to this?
Where does blocking entrances and pulling fire alarms fit in to this?
You address those with the usual legal methods.
Because the First Amendment to the US Constitution is all anyone ever means when they talk about free speech, right?
If you think free speech means that I can’t protest your speech, you have missed the whole point of free speech.
This isn’t like showing up to protest a neo-Nazi rally. It’s like noticing that you didn’t like what Noam Chomsky wrote about international relations, and then deciding to protest his appearance at a linguistics conference where he’d be talking about formal grammars.
And sure, you have the legal right to do that. But that legal right’s there to safeguard the free exchange of ideas, not to ensure that you can inconvenience your political opponents.
But that legal right’s there to safeguard the free exchange of ideas, not to ensure that you can inconvenience your political opponents.
I disagree. Within the scope of the law, you can inconvenience your political opponents all you want.
The obvious irony being that Moldbug not only wants to inconvenience his political opposition, but squash it by brute force. The only reason he’s not doing that is because he has no power. And I am applauding everyone who helps make sure it stays that way.
Why stop there?
Guys, has anyone seen the goalposts?
@Landshill – “I disagree. Within the scope of the law, you can inconvenience your political opponents all you want.”
Legally, certainly. That’s what “within the scope of the law” means.
On the other hand, law presupposes a reasonably peaceful, unified population. The free speech argument is that we get that happy state by letting people think and speak as they wish. Stopping people from thinking and speaking as they wish requires power, and the obvious, most-easily-effected power source is government, since it is actually built entirely out of law, so we establish laws banning it from restricting speech.
Government isn’t the only source of power, though, and other power sources lack its vulnerability to law. They also can destroy the ability to think and speak as one wishes, which undermines the peace and unity of society, which in turn undermines the laws themselves. Such actions may not be illegal, but they are unethical and a very bad idea tactically.
The modern Social Justice movement is trying to trade unity and peace for justice, apparently because they think we have too much of the former and not enough of the latter. I think they are wrong, and possibly dangerously wrong.
Wait, really? I thought he was more in favor of a “My people are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please” kind of monarchy. Am I just totally wrong? Can anyone clarify this?
Yes, you are totally wrong.
His entire philosophy is based on overwhelming and total state violence. For the fantasy version, see “the ring of Fnargl”, for an example from real life, see his approval of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Yes of course he advocates total, crushing violence of the state. But against whom, is the question. Certainly against revolutionaries and criminals, as in your examples. But against mere dissenters? I don’t remember my scripture well enough.
Ok I found it:
He even cites the same quote as Sniffnoy, well remembered there. Go not to a man’s enemies to find out what he believes!
mtraven: I’m not familiar with his comments about Tiananmen square, but you’ve misread his Fnargl example pretty badly if you think it’s anti-free-speech. suntzuanime has already quoted a different post of his above, but here’s a bit from the Fnargl post that explicitly discusses it:
(Not linking as I’m pretty sure links to UR are banned, but this is easy to find and verify)
Links to UR are banned, but blogspot.com is pretty consistently banned, so I don’t think this is policy, so I don’t feel guilty linking to blogspot.ca.
In terms of ease of finding, when I search Fnargl, I don’t get any UR blogspot hits on the first page. I think something very odd is going on. A site search brings up archive pages before posts. So I think google is suppressing UR results, but I think that it is pretty easy to accidentally flip a switch in blogspot to suppress it.
a) Apparently that is inaccurate; see comments above.
b) Would you ban Communists and people who advocate a “tech antifa” from going to conferences, under the same guidelines? If not, why not?
c) I can’t help but notice that you didn’t address the other four points.
(a) It’s 100% accurate. That he posits some fantasy world without dissent doesn’t contravene the fact that any real-world implementation of his ideas must rely on overwhelming violence.
(b+c) I haven’t been arguing for banning him, just pointing out the idea that he hasn’t advocated violence is ludicrously incorrect.
I must say I am surprised by the uniformity of opinion on this matter expressed here. I thought you folks were all about steelmanning your opponent’s arguments, but I haven’t seen anybody make even a cursory attempt to understand the anti-Moldbug side.
So let me do it for you. Nobody thinks Moldbug is going to physically attack anyone. But he has made himself a spokesman for a tradition of very real repressive violence. The people who feel themselves victims or in sympathy with the victims of this violence quite reasonably do not want to associate with anybody who advocates it, and are exercising their free right of association accordingly.
The notion that Moldbug’s views are being denied a platform is laughable. They are readily available on the internet. and as far as I know nobody has tried to get Google to take them down. All this fracas is a ton of free publicity for them. The anti-Moldbug people are not trying to censor him, they are trying to establish that you cannot hold these views and remain a respectable member of society. We’ll see how that goes. But let’s be clear, they are the ones who take speech and morality seriously. The pro- forces seem to think that speech should just be a meaningless, consequence-free game.
So what you’re saying is that you agree that the activists are in fact factually wrong about Yarvin creating a threat? I’m glad we could clear up your concern.
Yes, they do think Moldbug is going to physically attack someone, or at least they pretend to think this. That’s the whole point of claiming that he makes them feel unsafe at conferences–they claim he would be a threat to their personal safety, so he has to be excluded.
Just because his ideas involve a government and government uses force doesn’t make him a threat to their personal safety at conferences, and if that’s actually what they’re claiming, it’s a motte/bailey that equivocates between “advocates violence (as used by government)” and “would personally be violent to conference attendees”.
Furthermore, his detractors include at least one outright Communist who would more directly use government violence against resisters.
mtraven – “The anti-Moldbug people are not trying to censor him, they are trying to establish that you cannot hold these views and remain a respectable member of society.”
There is no consensus on which views are or are not acceptable for within society; even explicit threats of violence have been seriously waved off and justified, and not just by Moldbug’s side. We have been pretending that such a consensus exists for some time, but that is no longer possible to do. Now we either stop attempting to enforce the fiction and let people believe what they like, or we stop having society.
“But let’s be clear, they are the ones who take speech and morality seriously. The pro- forces seem to think that speech should just be a meaningless, consequence-free game.”
Above in this comment section, people are approving of blacklists for no-platformers. One could argue that this is also “taking speech and morality seriously”. Personally, I think the culture war is probably considerably more harmful to society than the views of either side, and would like to see it de-escalated.
I agree in principle with the idea that it is sometimes justified to ostracize people for their political views.
But it’s not something one should do lightly, or for views that don’t present any kind of genuine threat. Moldbug is not hurting anybody; he’s not about to bring about the cyber-monarchist counter-revolution. He’s interesting, and he has a novel viewpoint that I think is actually useful for encouraging people to question the foundations of classical liberalism—and to shore them up if they’re supported by weak arguments.
The case for ostracism is in situations like post-WWII Germany, or in America after the Civil War. People who unrepentantly support the previous regime should fall into disgrace; that’s part of how you come to a new consensus.
Ostracism only makes sense when the ideas are at least somewhat powerful; if they’re not powerful, what’s the point? I think you can make the case that public censure for the open expression of white supremacist views was important in the mid-20th century for moving from a mainstream to a fringe idea. Maybe even the blacklisting of communists, insofar as they really did have a lot of influence in the entertainment industry and thereby influenced the broader culture—though there’s much less of a case for that one.
My view is not that ostracism is Always Right or Always Wrong. It’s like war: sometimes it’s justified, but you need a good reason.
FacelessCraven says: “There is no consensus on which views are or are not acceptable for within society”
Right. The anti-Moldbug people are trying to establish one, by personally withdrawing their participation from events in which Moldbug appears. That՚s how things like boycotts work.
Vox Imperatoris says:
“I agree in principle with the idea that it is sometimes justified to ostracize people for their political views….But it’s not something one should do lightly, or for views that don’t present any kind of genuine threat. Moldbug is not hurting anybody; he’s not about to bring about the cyber-monarchist counter-revolution. He’s interesting, and he has a novel viewpoint that I think is actually useful for encouraging people to question the foundations of classical liberalism—and to shore them up if they’re supported by weak arguments….Ostracism only makes sense when the ideas are at least somewhat powerful; if they’re not powerful, what’s the point?””
I actually mostly agree with you. I՚ve engaged Moldbug on his blog and even had a beer with him one time.
However:
– Moldbug՚s ideas have spawned a movement, this means they do have some power and thus are more deserving of opposition than if he was just a lone crank.
– Some number of the anti-Moldbug people are black, that is, they are more closely connected to the victims of Moldbug՚s brand of proposed violence than most (David Nolen, one of the LambdaConf speakers who pulled out, is the one I track most closely). It may be unfair but they get more of a vote when it comes to deciding how much of a threat Moldbug՚s views are.
@ mtraven:
I understand that people don’t want to be lectured at about why they’re bad and need to be cast out or something—but as far as I can tell, Moldbug doesn’t advocate any sort of discriminatory policy toward black people.
Perhaps you can say that he advocates for a system that, if implemented, would engage in discriminatory violence toward black people. But he doesn’t think the system will do that. As David Kelley wrote, making the same distinction:
He adds in a footnote:
If someone harbors an attitude of intense racial hatred or something, then I understand not inviting them to speak. Even if they have good ideas in other fields, they’re probably very unpleasant to deal with. But if someone merely advocates a policy which you happen to think will have negative effects for black people but which he thinks will have positive effects for them, what you’re disagreeing upon is means, not ends.
That’s a useful addendum to what I said before about ostracism: if someone honestly wants the same things as you, such as health, wealth, and happiness for everyone yet disagrees on how to achieve it, you can have a rational discussion. But if someone says “No, my terminal value is just killing all black people,” there’s nothing you can say if you can’t get him to abandon that view. There’s just far more room for honest error and disagreement about means.
So if we’re having a conference on how to extend human life, you’d want to invite people who have different theories about how to do it. But why invite people who say it’s immoral (unless perhaps they’re going to try to appeal to deeper shared values)?
Or if you’re having a conference about how to preserve a healthy environment for future generations of human beings in the face of technological progress, you’d invite people with different ideas. But not people who want to protect the environment for its own sake and are opposed to an “anthropocentric” worldview.
(Though I hasten to add that, due to the ideas people are exposed to in our cultural context, there is far more room for honest disagreement about ends in these areas than honest disagreement about ends in the area of race.)
However, none of those things apply in the case of Moldbug or this conference.
***
I’d apply the same thing to communists. There’s a big difference between a communist who says “These other communist regimes went wrong; here’s how I’d like to do it right and create a happy world for everyone,” versus an unrepentant Stalinist who says, “Yes, I’m in favor of exterminating all counter-revolutionary elements—and I consider you one of them.” The first one I can debate with, but I don’t really care to have an argument with someone who wants to kill me.
“I haven’t been arguing for banning him, just pointing out the idea that he hasn’t advocated violence is ludicrously incorrect.”
By that standard, everyone with any political views advocates violence, with the exceptions of pacifists. In order to maintain a system whose economy is based on private property you have to be willing to use force against robbers. To maintain a system where people are not murdered you require force against murderers. To maintain a socialist system, you require force against people who are unwilling to pay taxes, or obey the orders of the commissars, or whatever the system wants them to do that they don’t want to do.
@ David Friedman:
Exactly.
@David Friedman
He doesn’t just advocate violence by the state. He advocates violence against peaceful dissent. That’s what makes him distinct.
A) It’s not clear that in fact he does
B) It’s not clear that in fact that would make him distinct, do you actually know what an “antifa” is?
Friedman: “everyone with any political views advocates violence”
Well duh. It is not that he advocates violence, it is the nature and target of the violence he advocates, which is entirely untempered by any notion of justice.
He doesn’t just advocate violence by the state. He advocates violence against peaceful dissent. That’s what makes him distinct.
Tax evasion is peaceful dissent. Persistent civil disobedience against attempts at collecting unpaid taxes is peaceful dissent. Every real state and almost every non-fringe political philosophy will at some point lose patience with even non-violent tax protestors and have them forcibly removed from e.g. the property the state is trying to repossess and sell to cover unpaid taxes.
So where’s the distinction? If you do politics and you aren’t a hard pacifist or anarchist or the like, you propose to do violence against people who persistently refuse to follow your proposed rules.
@John Schilling
True. What I should have said is that he advocates violence against people who congregate together to protest against the government. Basically, he doesn’t hold “freedom of assembly” as a sacred value and doesn’t even pretend to. I think that makes him distinct.
@mtraven: Again, all of your objections based on nebulous long-term consequences of an attendee’s political philosophy would apply just as easily to Communists, such as the ones attempting to no-platform Yarvin. If you find the desire to no-platform Communists less sensible than the desire to no-platform Yarvin, I would love to know why.
As well, given that Yarvin will not be talking about political philosophy at the conference, the only reason to still blacklist him is to publicly punish anyone who refuses to denounce said philosophy. This can be used to excuse almost any behavior. Why stop at just not letting him give a talk about functional programming? Why should he be allowed to have a job at all? After all, speech has consequences.
@ThirteenthLetter — if you want to organize a boycott of a conference based on the participation of communists, knock yourself out.
IOW: there is no central authority in charge of deciding that racism is bad but communism is OK, or vice versa. There’s only people deciding for themselves and trying to convince others.
@Vox Imperatoris
This is important:
“he’s not about to bring about the cyber-monarchist counter-revolution.”
Yarvin’s entire gig is anti-populism, to the extent that he has to create a new word “demotism” to package antidemocratic movements that used mass mobilization together with democracy. Revolutions in the conventional sense are straight out.
There’s a lot of comparisons to fascists being flung around, but it makes it sound like the people calling to remove him haven’t read his work or know of its relationship to white nationalism.
1: Yarvin is of Jewish heritage. Internet white nationalism and alt-right views are going increasingly down the antisemitism route. Death Eaterism is perceived by the right wing twitter trolls (who you maybe should be scared of) as being a Jewish plot to create controlled opposition. That’s why they cynically twist “the Catherdral” into “the Synagogue”.
2: The new brownshirts are populists and believe in mass mobilization, which Death Eaterism is against as this falls under the category “demotism”. They have an interest in clubbing people to begin with
3: The ideology of National Socialism as espoused by Golden Dawn glorifies violence and war. Fighting is good. Yarvinism lacks this element required to get people invested in cracking heads at programming conferences.
Death Eaters are more likely to beg Google to take over on twitter than they are to organize a beer hall putsch (or in this case, a programming hall putsch). You have little to fear from people who want a monarch to come in and sweep them off their feet.
@mtraven — the whole point is that I don’t want anyone to organize a boycott of a conference based on the participation of anyone with particular political beliefs. If the Communists can keep it in their pants while they’re on the stage, they’re perfectly welcome to come give a talk about functional programming too.
I recognize now that your point is “meh, anyone can boycott anyone” rather than “boycott this guy specifically” and I should have been more cognizant of that. Still, I ultimately find that destructive compared to a point of view which says we keep our professional and political views separate and learn to tolerate those who differ from us.
@ThirteenthLetter ” I ultimately find that destructive compared to a point of view which says we keep our professional and political views separate and learn to tolerate those who differ from us.”
That’s certainly a reasonable-sounding position.
I think it’s wrong, for reasons I don’t think I’ll get into in depth here (see my blog). Basically politics permeates everything, the idea that we can separate it out of certain activities is (a) naive and (b) generally a strategy deployed by the privileged, for reasons that should be obvious.
mtraven,
When I look at the history of the past two hundred years, I don’t get the impression that a concern with “justice”, which you take to mean something besides the accurate application of the law, serves to temper the application of violence. Robespierre, Stalin, and Hitler were all, quite sincerely, lovers of “justice”. Especially “social justice”.
Have you read Burnham’s The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom? The point is that violence is tempered when it is divorced from idealistic, utopian, and mystical justifications. Like “justice”.
@ Yakimi:
Good thing Hitler, Stalin, and Robespierre weren’t unjust, then—as there’s no such thing!
@mtraven – “Basically politics permeates everything, the idea that we can separate it out of certain activities is (a) naive and (b) generally a strategy deployed by the privileged, for reasons that should be obvious.”
Okay. What happens if I say, “you know, maybe it’s not possible to have a politics-free space, but I’m going to try anyway?” Will you let me try, shaking your head and smiling at my naivete? Or will you organize a coordinated harassment campaign against me just to make sure it’s impossible?
@ThirteenthLetter Why would I care?
I don’t think you have taken my point. Having humans make a politics-free space makes about as much sense as fish proposing a water-free space. Less actually, since politics is inside us, we bring it with us wherever we go.
I can certainly understand why people don’t like this truth, especially the nerdish types around here who don’t play the political game very well (I include myself). Unfortunately that doesn’t make it any less true.
@mtraven – I’m not speaking hypothetically. To recap, a conference wanted to have a politics-free space, and a bunch of people decided that was bad and started a harassment campaign to force the organizers to change their minds. If you oppose the harassment, even if you think that attempting to have a politics-free space is foolish or even impossible, then we’re fundamentally on the same page here.
mtraven says:
I disagree.
However, if for the sake of argument we accept your premise isn’t it logical to conclude that peaceful coexistence between tribes is impossible, and that Yarvin is essentially correct? You realize that you are essentially paraphrasing Mussolini’s defenses of fascism don’t you?
My personal take is that Alinsky’s rules are a multipolar trap that that grants short term political success at the expense of long-term stability.
Sun Tzu tells would tell us that we should “Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.” and Machiavelli would agree. However if everything is political (as you assert) there can be no place for a vanquished enemy to retreat to and as such their only option is to fight to the death.
If you give your opponent no choice but to fight to the death chances are that they will fight to the death. In so doing, cause much pain and anguish even if you are eventually victorious.
Why would you pursue such an end?
Apparently my point isn’t getting across. Not sure why, I’m speaking plain English and you folks aren’t stupid (but look up the etymology of idiot some time).
You can’t avoid politics, because it is what society is built from and even the most isolated person is a social being at their root. To be apolitical is to take a political stance — one that is both conservative, since it is accepting of whatever the current power arrangements are, and passive, since it doesn’t want to actually fight for them, just enjoy them without having to think about them.
This is the exact opposite of Moldbug’s ridiculous dream of replacing politics with total power. And so I guess it is a political position itself. But at least it has the merit of not being self-undermining. Which side are you on?
I think I’m done with this thread, but you can read more on this topic at my blog, eg here.
@mtraven FWIW I really like your blog and sympathize with your frustrations. You’re cool.
mtraven:
In postmodern/cultural marxist/new leftist thought there is this idea of subverting everything that exists, on the grounds that it intrinsically favors conservatism and is therefore unfair. This means that, for instance, you should redefine words to suit your goals, because the existing meanings have been shaped by the present culture. Or that you should discard all the hard-fought freedoms of classical liberalism, because they do not eliminate the advantages of the “privileged”. Or that you should disregard logic, because it tries to force everyone to think like dead white men, etc.
Somehow, this is considered a Very Advanced and Clever Idea. But in reality, and quite obviously, it is nothing else but the idea that you want to get your way, and anything that looks like an impediment should be destroyed. It is literally childish thinking, barely disguised by transparently self-serving academic justifications. You should not be surprised that it does not get much traction here.
I think the difference between mtraven’s position and that of those who disagree hinges on two different meanings of a politics free space.
Suppose we are organizing a conference to talk about functional programming. Doing so involves political issues, broadly defined to include all conflicts over who gets the results he wants in a joint project.
Some people want the conference held in San Diego, some want it in Boston. Some think it should be mostly prearranged presentations, some think it should be largely ad hoc discussions. One can describe the process by which these questions get decided as political.
But none of that requires that the activity be political in the narrower sense–involves people’s conflicts over who should be president or what the laws should be or whether government expenditure should be larger or smaller than it is. I think what people who want politics free spaces are asking is that such activity, which has no direct relation to what has to be done to organize the conference, should not get involved with organizing the conference–as it would if someone argues for San Diego on the grounds that Massachusetts has passed a law he disapproves of and he wants to punish them, or against inviting a speaker because he is an opponent of legalizing gay marriage.
@David Friedman:
I think that’s a good explanation of the equivocation on “politics”. I’d say insisting decisions in the small sphere of the conference align with positions in the larger political world is polarizing the conference’s politics. The LambdaConf opponents apparently want to Polarize All the Things.
@lots of people:
“Fearing” Moldbug and not going to the conference yourself wouldn’t merit much beyond a vigorous eye-roll. Demanding he be disinvited is worse. Trying to shut down the conference by pressuring sponsors to back out? That’s why 295 people have ponied up $23,000 total to support the conference organizers.
I said I was done, but I can՚t resist this one. David Friedman said:
“But none of that requires that the activity be political in the narrower sense–involves people’s conflicts over who should be president or what the laws should be or whether government expenditure should be larger or smaller than it is.”
Which is entirely irrelevant, government has nothing to do with this issue on either side. Moldbug՚s views are barely political in your sense – he wants to eliminate all the machinery of government in favor of a system of private property and absolute control. And the racism that got him in trouble is also not political in your narrow sense.
And the people who don՚t want him to speak at a conference are also not invoking government. They are exerting their right of free and private association in the form of boycotts and withdrawal of support from organizations that they feel do not adequately embody their values. I really do not understand why a libertarian would object to this.
So you are right, I am speaking about politics in the broad sense, because that is the only one relevant here.
As for a technical conference being a politics-free zone: nobody here seems to understand that Moldbug՚s technical contribution is very closely related to his political views, Urbit was basically conceived as a vehicle for implementing his nutso schemes. That doesn՚t mean that it should be banned, but it makes all this whining about how politics is infecting the purity of a technical conference seem like the puerile nonsense that it is.
mtraven says: Urbit was basically conceived as a vehicle for implementing his nutso schemes.
…and rockets were conceived as a means to kill people who didn’t speak german. Why should we care?
If you define “politics” as a anything that involves human interaction you will naturally conclude that everything is political. But you also need to understand that this is not what most people mean when they say talk about maintaining a politics free space.
I stand by my earlier statement about polarization.
As far as I’m concerned you are no better than Yarvin.
@mtraven:
The question of what political institutions Yarvin argues for is political in the narrow sense. The idea of punishing people for advocating political institutions one disapproves of is political in the narrow sense.
Which I think is obvious.
I don’t know anything much Urbit. Is it designed to control an orbiting deathray used to maintain the power of the sovereign?
“I’ve always found that people who make the argument that everything is at base political are people for whom that’s true.” — Ray Sawhill
@mtraven
To be fair, it’s a bit unreasonable to expect a commentariat which arguably leans right (right-libertarian), and many others less invested in activism of any sort, to be enthusiastic about coming up with possible justifications for hatestorming and denying technical opportunities to writers who advocate tech-sounding right-wing concepts, said hatestorming and denials to be determined and implemented by the most authoritarian social left political faction (just being descriptive). Maybe the most abstracted thinkers would do it. But this is really pushing against a human instinct for self-preservation. There’s quite a few commenters who could see themselves as personally next up on the hate-parade. You’re not too far from lamenting that intellectuals aren’t coming up with arguments as to why it would be good to put them up against the wall and shoot them for the advancement of the revolution (tongue in cheek: but then again, it might be argued that true intellectuals should be open to all possibilities and willing to debate everything with an open mind).
Besides, most of the arguments for and against things like no-platforming, blacklists, and polarization as general tactics were already hammered out in In Favor Of Niceness, Community, and Civilization
@seth – wait a minute. You are saying that the actions of the anti-Moldbug crowd, which, let us remember, were nothing more than refusing to participate in an event that included him and encouraging others to do the same, is based on so egregious a mindset that you can՚t even imagine empathizing with it long enough to practice steelmanning? Really? You can՚t stretch far enough to even imagine that someone could consider racism offensive enough to invoke social shunning and boycott? This would threaten your sense of self-preservation?
Maybe you should consider that a black person might very well have a legitimate feeling of threat in the presence of virulent racism, which seems at least as dangerous as whatever has you so worried.
I՚m pretty underwhelmed by the moral reasoning of people who seem to have tons of empathy for Moldbug but can՚t muster up the minimal mental energy required to imagine why some might not want to associate with him.
What, no? Moldbug could be a commie for all I know. For example, when the UK’s absolutely retarded speech laws got Bahar Mustafa in trouble “we” (as in, the people who are complaining about the reaction to Moldbug’s invitation) also complained.
@mtraven – “You can՚t stretch far enough to even imagine that someone could consider racism offensive enough to invoke social shunning and boycott? This would threaten your sense of self-preservation?”
Where does it stop? What’s the list of “platforms” that Bad People are still allowed to occupy? Employment? Shelter? Air?
[EDIT] – To be explicit, this is not a rhetorical question. People resist this sort of thing because it seems to amount to granting certain groups a more-or-less general veto to other peoples’ ability to have a life, if not to actually live.
As for racism, it’s been worn out to the point of self-parody. You are saying that a man deserves to be shut out of society because of a word that is used for people wearing the wrong hairstyle.
@mtraven
It’s not even about empathy for Moldbug, it’s the belief that Niceness, Community, and Civilization are better than the alternatives.
> Maybe you should consider that a black person might very well have a legitimate feeling of threat in the presence of virulent racism, which seems at least as dangerous as whatever has you so worried.
Indeed. Considered, and rejected. This is a common claim, that the very presence of a person who has said some bad thing is in itself so threatening to people in marginalized groups that the bad-speaking person must be excluded. It is, of course, ludicrous on its face. It is quite possible that some people have managed to work themselves up into such a state of fear that the mere presence of someone they know holds a view they find anathema is threatening to them.
This, however, is not a legitimate feeling of threat. As the term is often used in law, a reasonable person — a reasonable black person — would not feel threatened by Yarvin’s presence at Lambdaconf. There’s no reason to believe Yarvin will harm anyone at Lambdaconf.
Any subjective, unreasonable feeling of threat is both impossible to demonstrate and insufficient reason to exclude Yarvin.
@Anonymous – My point is not only rightists would be defended. Rather, that sense of identification makes commenters much less likely to play Devil’s Advocate and come up with arguments that attacking him is a positive social good.
@mtraven – If you take a look at some of my other comments (search “Cornerstone Speech”), I’m tired enough simply doing “Historical Anti-Racism For Techies”, which I believe, to have any interest in playing with “Why Ideological Purity Committees Are Wonderful”, which I don’t believe. Also, let’s not be coy (“refusing to participate”, etc.) – many are quite clear they want to damage Moldbug professionally, and further, if people don’t give in to their demands, damage them professionally. I am not impressed with any defense of this effort which boils down to because-they-can (i.e. it’s legal). One of the most annoying things of that faction is their requirement that critics must grant their moral righteousness (because it’s anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, etc.), no matter what dishonesty, bullying, or unethical tactics, since it’s all For The Cause. Like the joke mentioned elsewhere about how PETA throws paint on old ladies wearing fur and not bikers wearing leather, they’re going after Moldbug because he’s an eccentric without much social capital. He’s not a “threat” in any standard sense of the word . Needing to have all speakers at technical conferences vetted for social-justice political acceptability is nothing more than a power-play by ideologues, not any exercise in empathy with the oppressed.
That is probably a fair assessment, but there’s also the fact that it’s something that’s happening in their front door. “Maybe it would be good if it were to happen” is less appealing when it’s actually happening in real time.
Rather, that sense of identification makes commenters much less likely to play Devil’s Advocate and come up with arguments that attacking him is a positive social good.
People have been coming up with arguments that attacking or suppressing people who speak in favor of the wrong “ism”, for literally centuries. And the rest of us have heard, understood, and rejected all of those arguments. I’m not sure what more you are expecting at this late a date. If someone come up with any new arguments as to why it’s a Good Thing to suppress the Bad Isms, maybe we’ll take a look at what they have to say, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here.
If someone were to suggest that Blondes were genetically inferior and ought to be enslaved for their own good and that of civilized society, would you require that we attempt to steelman their position, or would it be reasonable to note that just tacking a new target onto the tired old cliche of racism doesn’t make it any more worthy of consideration?
I remain deeply underwhelmed by the kind of thinking i see here. That is to say, maybe you all are right, and freedom of speech is the most important value and needs to be defended. But the refusal to entertain even for a moment that the people on the other side may have some valid arguments behind their position indicates to me a lack of moral seriousness, or worse.
@mtraven – You seem troubled, and I believe I understand that. Maybe this gets back to the idea that rational argument doesn’t work well without some emotional connection. I know it’s tough being against the grain. However, regarding “… refusal to entertain even for a moment that the people on the other side may have some valid arguments …”, I’d reply the other side seems to refuse to entertain that their arguments have been considered and rejected (and further, believes any dispute must be on their ground). It’s the sadly common sensibility that either someone is ignorant or is immoral (granted, *sometimes* this can be true). The process of picking some soft target, and subjecting them to a communal hate of “Raaaacist!!!”, strikes me as atrocious. But I see the justifications for this being essentially “But don’t you think racism is bad? And how can you be so concerned with the consequences to the hate-target, who is after all, a racist, [i.e. outgroup, bad person] and not the horrors of racism?”. I view this as an argument that the ends justify the means, with an additional meta twist that not being willing to consider that the ends may justify the means is a lack of empathy, moral seriousness, sympathy for oppressed, etc.
@John Schilling:
Exactly: this is not a 101 space.
Continued here if it has to be continued at all.
@mtraven – It’s very late in the thread, so I’ll be brief. Trying to be kind, I think you aren’t engaging with the replies which have been made to your assertions. In your post, I’d say you’re conflating too many senses of the word “politics”. It’s quite a long way from “We are political creatures …” , to all technical conferences speakers must be vetted for SJW political acceptability. Then you invert with “censor”. Trying to stop him from speaking about his technical ideas at a conference, and then trying to financially destroy the whole conference over it (!), are actions that may fairly be described as some sort of attempted suppression even if not total.
I think mtraven is mostly trying to drive traffic to his own blog. Not interested.
>If you think the activists are factually wrong about Yarvin creating a threat, how about giving any reason at all for them to think so.
Because Moldbug has appeared at several conferences (e.g. BIL) without violent or threatening incidents.
Actually, since some of Moldbug’s critics have been talking about forming a “tech antifa”, the actual perpetrators of violence are, if anything, more likely to be those same activists.
Not that I care. Everyone claiming to care about the physical or emotional frailty of the supposed victims is just seeking an apolitical rationalization to politically purge their enemies. Therapeutic censorship is the medicalization of dissent.
I was not under this impression, I’d never heard it anywhere, and it makes no sense given that Moldbug’s whole shtick is being against the possibility of extragovernmental violence and activism plus he’s outnumbered a zillion times. It sounds like a clueless smear to me.
Given the sorts of violent rhetoric the leftists have used here, there’s a much stronger case that Yarvin should feel threatened with violence – but I don’t think that’s an argument for excluding every leftist from the conference.
I think it’s certainly an argument for it. Likewise, if a former member of Combat18 wanted to attend my conference to talk about shader programming I’d have to seriously consider whether or not to allow them entry.
The question isn’t whether or not violent commie/antifa tendencies are a reason to exclude people, as they clearly should be; the question is whether they outweigh the reasons not to exclude them.
So, for example, my C18 shader programmer might be one of the top experts in DX12 implementation on the face of the planet and have no recent history of violence despite having retained his fascist political beliefs. Then we have a problem, and a really hard decision to make.
Of course Moldbug is just being punished because SJWs enjoy the open expression of power; it’s not even really about denying him a platform, and it doesn’t even approach safety on a good day. Opposing him signals virtue. That’s all anyone really needs. But the question of exclusion is a knotty one when taken to its conclusions.
I think what’s going on isn’t quite “clueless smear”, but more at “propaganda works!”, mixed with some cognitive dissonance. There have been many, many, posts by no-platformers about how racism as an ideology leads to physical and mental abuse, which is certainly true (Black Lives Matter!). Then about whether Moldbug is an advocate of racism, which is arguably true (this gets into the definition, but I think the people who say it’s false are using much too narrow a definition, one which is basically only the Klan and similar ilk). These two ideas seem to mix into that Moldbug is personally violent and abusive, which is utterly wrong. But the person doesn’t want to give this idea up, because it provides an acceptable rationalization for no-platforming him. Contending he might be personally violent and abusive is much more acceptable than imposing a political qualification for speakers at technical conferences. But if someone can associate that general political qualification with an implication of personal violence and abuse in a way that always works, it resolves the cognitive dissonance.
The failure of rationalism is that the above sequence, once formed, seems to be highly resistant to people pointing out Moldbug is not a personal threat and programming conferences are not the scenes of political riots.
If you define racism as “there are differences in innate differences between population groups” then our humble host is a racist.
If you dont mean that, then neither are racists. As that is all CY or Moldbug believes
Ooh! Let’s make a scale!
Non-Racist: Takes part in the anti-racist revolution!
Category 0 Racist: Is free from conscious and subconscious racism, but contributes to a racist system by failing to challenge it.
Category 1 Racist: Expresses racism subconsciously. This can be inferred from their behavior.
Category 2 Racist: Believes in innate differences between population groups, but bases no moral claims on this data.
Category 3 Racist: Without going as far as to support race based activism or political parties, expresses negativity towards other races based on these innate differences.
Category 4 Racist: Believes that the races should separate in some way into independent territories or nation-states. Takes this into politics, and espouses pan-nationalism.
Category 5 Racist: Believes that other races don’t deserve a space and should be exterminated. Supremacist.
Category X Racist: Even his own race is inferior to some hypothetical race beyond his own. Takes efforts to ensure the arrival of supremacist AGI.
@The_Dancing_Judge – There’s too much motte/bailey involved in a phrase such as “innate differences”. And it would be bad manners to say something negative about one’s host even if I believed it.
@TD – The part you leave out, very revealing, is around “Category 2”. This is more at “Believes widespread social inequalities, ranging from income to crime, are primarily explained by group genetic differences. Strenuously disclaims that such group statistics say nothing about any particular individual, and so genetic belief defined to be not “racism” . But often derides attempts to remedy such social inequalities by political means as “scientifically” proven ineffective.
This is sadly a pretty common view. The fact that you don’t have it on your list is quite telling. Its possible to be too expansive in a definition of racism. But it’s also possible to be too restrictive.
Your list is the framework of strictly individual prejudice, ignoring the aspect of group genetic determinism. Basically, advocates of group genetic determinism are constantly saying they can’t be “racist” since they define that as only strict individual prejudice.
@Seth unfortunately, group genetic difference is an empirical claim and may in fact exist. If acknowledging an empirical fact is automatically “racist” – well, being “not a racist” apparently may mean denying reality (or in the least-convenient world it does).
However, I do not think you think this. You state “…[“a racist”] often derides attempts to remedy such social inequalities by political means as “scientifically” proven ineffective” as being particularly bad. Perhaps when you say “racist” you mean “isn’t willing to do enough to fix inequality” and not “thinks there are genetic differences between groups.”
Now, the wrecker i am, i “often deride attempts to remedy such social inequalities by [far left, identity politics] means.” The wrecker moldbug is probably does also, though he would do little more than express his disagreement. Neither of us does anymore than utter our disagreement with political policy (neither of us probably vote).
But, holding an empirical belief is not racism, or racism is truly absurd.
@The_Dancing_Judge – There is a long, nasty, vicious, history of “empirical claim[s]” which are nothing more than dressed-up justification for group oppression. If you’re going to let that all off the hook as long as the oppressors incant some magic phrase, that’s what is truly absurd. Have you ever read some of the ridiculous “race science” of the past? All sorts of nonsense anthropological and evolutionary pseudo-science that just happened to be asking what if it’s true that the status quo of their society is scientifically proven correct. And here we are in our modern era, asking what if it’s true that the status quo of our society is scientifically proven correct. But this time, it’s supposedly not dressed-up justification for group oppression. Oh, who could be so retrograde as to term enlightened investigations into establishing (group) genetic determinism to be “racism”? That’s what people who justified slavery and colonialism did. Surely those motives have all vanished, because we are all nice people who judge individuals on their merits. Right.
I don’t want to be too inflammatory and give examples of “empirical claims” which could be conjectured about technical people but would not be regarded kindly on the basis that it’s just a fact which could be true. I trust simply outlining the concept conveys the point.
People who justified slavery and colonialism did a lot of things, and I’m afraid I’m going to be doing some of those things too.
““Believes widespread social inequalities, ranging from income to crime, are primarily explained by group genetic differences. ”
What I observe is the opposite–the claim that such outcome differences must be due to discrimination, which implies that group genetic differences, including (most absurdly) m/f differences, cannot be important.
I suppose there must be some people who fit your description, but by my observation they are quite rare. People with the opposite version, on the other hand, are sufficiently common so that news stories on measured inequalities routinely take it for granted that they have to be due to discrimination, without even mentioning the alternative possibility.
What would it even mean for a status quo to be scientifically proven correct?
This phrasing betrays normative assumptions that are simply not part of the science.
@Caue – Take a look at, e.g. stuff like the “Cornerstone Speech”, by a Confederate justifying secession and the Civil War.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/
It’s got an amazing portion justifying slavery by essentially claiming “It’s Science!”. It’s even astonishingly meta, as he says past slavery governments had the wrong kind of slavery, but the Confederate type of slavery finally has it right. They know it scientifically.
And one can draw a direct line from that to the current-day versions of his rationalization, “explaining” how the past oppressive societies got it wrong, but now we supposedly know that the current inequalities are a (group statistical) law of nature, that it’s allegedly science (genetics).
And the word “racism” is precisely that sort thinking. Otherwise you’re going to be arguing the Confederate going to war for slavery isn’t a racist, if he just rephrases his speech slightly to use statistical rather than absolute terms.
The fact that so many tech intellectuals are not even bothered by this, but rush to jeer at the oppressed and proclaim it’s-science, is a very sad commentary on the failure of rationality.
@David Friedman – you’re correct that (group) genetic determinism is not considered respectable for news stories these days. Neither is phrenology or palmistry, or perhaps more relevantly, much of eugenics.
@ Seth:
The point is: if you define racism that way (and it is the first definition in the dictionary under “racism”), then it’s possible for racism to be proven right. You can’t sit in your armchair and rule it out.
I’ve never looked at the genetic data in detail, so I can’t say what it shows. I would prefer it to show that everyone is innately equal. But what makes you think it’s a priori impossible that there could be large genetic differences among groups, which are responsible to a large degree for varying outcomes?
If the argument is just: “we should be suspicious of self-flattering arguments, such as arguments by whites that whites are superior”, I agree. Such claims should have a higher burden of proof. But unless you think it’s wrong a priori, the burden of proof can’t be set at an insurmountable level.
You can’t prove a position wrong by showing that it was believed in the past for bad reasons, such as those based on phrenology, etc. The Pythagoreans were a weird mystic cult who believed all kinds of crazy things; that doesn’t make the Pythagorean Theorem false.
In any case, there’s that definition of racism:
1. An empirical hypothesis about the determinants of human behavior, holding that differences in group outcomes are determined to a large degree by genetics.
There’s also a couple more:
2. Hatred of other people because of their race.
3. A kind of cognitive bias whereby one thinks more highly of ones own race, simply because it is one’s own.
It’s possible that people believe in Racism 1 because they’re motivated by Racism 2 or 3. Maybe it’s even the most likely explanation. After all, surely people who are affected by Racism 2 or 3 are going to be drawn toward Racism 1. But so long as you grant that it’s not false a priori, they could believe it because it’s actually true.
@Vox Imperatoris – Slave-holders, colonialists, (ok, *some*) conservatives have been arguing “for racism to be proven right” for *hundreds of years*, over many bloody wars and countless misery. It’s not a new concept! These discussions are some of what leads me to despair over rationality. I’m a technical person. I say to a bunch of technical people, in technical language, you cannot simply define racism as a mathematical fallacy of attributing statistical group properties to individual group members, or personal ill-will. That is simply too narrow a meaning to encompass the ideology of group oppression which has been so destructive over history. Moreover said narrowness leads to pathological results of excluding some of the most brutal race-based oppressors if they merely follow some careful phrasing and theoretical declarations. What happens? Do they say “Ah, I will update my priors taking into account this long history and giving appropriate counter-weighting to any current (group) genetic determinist argument based on the enormous number of failures of previously asserted evidence, and the extensive connection of such past wrong evidence having being used as justification for oppression.”? No, they say “Well, can you *prove* it *isn’t* really true?”. It’s not that I expect instant conversion based on my supposed brilliant argument, that would be ridiculous arrogance. It’s that it doesn’t seem to matter *at all*, in terms of causing any shift in weighting.
Hear, hear.
It’s not going to cause an updating in priors if it’s something your interlocutor already knows about. Hard to get out of a Western mandatory education without learning at length about historical racism.
Seth:
But that is precisely the only thing at issue. Slavery, apartheid, genocide are not happening or at risk of happening in our societies. The only real question is how many resources should be transferred from the (real or perceived) haves to the have-nots, and at which point it will be enough.
The most persuasive argument for increasing this transfer of resources is that present inequality is caused by ongoing oppression. The argument generally takes the simple form that, were there no oppression, all groups would have the same resources, and therefore unequal resource distribution is in itself proof of oppression.
For me personally, that means that some people want to take (even more of) my resources (99% of which were earned by my own work), for something that not only I had no part in, but neither had my ancestors (though, admittedly, the ancestors of some people whose skin tone is similar to mine did have a part in it). Depending on their exact politics, they also want to place me in a permanent condition of social inferiority, reduce my freedom of speech, etc.
As you might imagine, my prior is that I am not actually an oppressor (otherwise I would stop oppressing). When people who hate me call me an oppressor and want to take from me for their gain, I would naturally like to see some good arguments in favor of their position.
However, those people are already in a position where the common, unquestioned stance strongly supports some of their tenets. Rather than risking that by presenting arguments, they would rather shut the discussion entirely out of the Overton window, so that I’ll just shut up and let them take my resources. The simplest way for them to do that is to call me the same word that we use for the people who did the slavery, apartheid and genocide that are not happening or at risk of happening now, but that everyone knows happened before. That way they can just transfer the well-deserved public scorn for those people onto me. This form of emotional argument seems to work much better than any rational argument they could field, so that’s what they do.
But for obvious reasons, it does not actually work on me. Instead, I see their dogmatism as an admission that they do not, in fact, have good rational arguments. So I don my pseudonym and post comments on a blog, to defend myself from the people who hate me and want to take from me.
@Seth
If you define racism as inclusive of “those that hold the hypothesis that there are statistically significant differences in certain characteristics between groups of people categorized by race”, then you have defined racism by a criterion which can actually be measured. If the measurement supports that hypothesis, then to be “non-racist” you must deny reality. That’s not a problem with rationality.
The easiest (and IMO best) way out of this is to not define racism that way. For example, believing that there’s a statistically significant difference in IQ between Asians and Caucasians does not make you racist.
The fact that others have used scientific and rational-sounding arguments to justify their bigotry doesn’t make scientific and rational arguments invalid. That’s just blind pattern matching. It’s almost certain if you delved into their arguments you’d find they were a facade; that they made leaps not justified by rational or scientific methods, or were derived from data which were nonsense, or most likely both.
“@David Friedman – you’re correct that (group) genetic determinism is not considered respectable for news stories these days. Neither is phrenology or palmistry, or perhaps more relevantly, much of eugenics.”
I think that your “genetic determinism” badly, perhaps deliberately, misrepresents my point.
Do you think the claim that there are heritable characteristics that affect how different people respond to the same environment is obviously false? The claim that the distribution of such characteristics is different in different population groups, including the ones we commonly categorize as races?
If you reject such claims, then you are the one supporting faith over science.
If rejecting genetic determinism means rejecting the idea that such innate characteristics are the only thing affecting outcomes, then of course I agree.
Daniel Keyes writes:
“I was under the impression that they thought his followers would insult and possibly attack them.”
Later in the thread MTraven, apparently supporting the same general position, writes:
“Nobody thinks Moldbug is going to physically attack anyone.”
I see two possible readings of Keyes’ comment. The obvious one is that people expected that Yarvin’s presence at the conference would result in followers of his insulting and perhaps attacking people at the conference. That would be an argument for disinviting him that doesn’t have to do with freedom of speech issues. But it’s also wildly implausible, for reasons already pointed out, as MTraven appears to recognize.
The other is that they believe that his political views, if sufficiently widespread, would result in future insults and perhaps attacks against them, and see inviting him to the conference as somehow supporting those views. That would be an argument for disinviting anyone whose political views were substantially different from one’s own. Moldbug doesn’t have a political movement or any realistic expectation that his views will be implemented. People on both sides of the political spectrum do. People on the right have good reason to believe that left wing views might be supported by state force, people on the left that right wing views might.
Which interpretation is Keyes arguing for? Does he think people actually expected Yarvin’s presence at the conference to result in violence by him or his supporters at the conference? Alternatively, does he think that an appropriate response to someone arguing for political institutions you disapprove of is to make it harder for him to give talks on an unrelated subject?
I believe Daniel Keys confirmed in his comment of “April 11, 2016 at 8:48 pm” that he was arguing for the interpretation that “Yarvin’s presence at the conference would result in followers of his insulting and perhaps attacking people at the conference.”. Perhaps the rebuttals presented in response will have him reconsider this position, as an example of rational argument leading to re-evaluation of mistaken reasoning (again, I know this is unlikely, but I have an unreasonable hope in reason).
Honestly, there’s a better argument that someone at the conference will physically attack Yarvin. He’s been so demonized by the hate-mob, with such emotionally-charged rhetoric, that I could very well imagine someone getting the crazy idea that they’re fighting racism/Naziism/white-supremacy, etc etc, by punching him out. Programmers are in general a peaceful bunch. But over the whole conference, you’d only need one single person to think that if he’s such an evil guy, violence is justified. I’m not saying it’s probable. But it does strike me as much more likely than any follower of Yarvin attending the conference for the purpose of attacking other people.
Apropos of the US presidential election cycle, I’ve been wondering: why is US politics primarily a Two Party System? This can’t be inevitable since other nations sometimes have as many as fifteen parties viably competing during an election cycle. At the same time, the US has been (with a few notable exceptions) a Two Party System ever since Washington stepped down. Is there some game-theoretic reason which applies to the US and not others? Is it because of momentum? Is it an ingroup vs outgroup thing?
Other nations have proportional representation and can form coalition governments; the US has the person who wins the most states win the presidency (partially weighted by population). In the first case, you can have your shitty little party that has 5% of the vote and wins a couple seats in the legislature and has a minor but real impact; in the latter case 5% of the vote buys you nothing, so there’s more incentive to work within one of the major parties than to form your own shitty little party.
Have you seen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
I’m pretty sure it’s some combination of the first-past-the-post voting system plus the size of the U.S.
A few ideas:
The US is very big in population.
The US is very big geographically.
The US has had a long run as a democracy without being invaded or experiencing revolution, giving more time for Duverger’s law to act.
The US has a heavy emphasis on the presidential election, which possibly encourages a two party system.
Thanks guys! Duverger’s Law is what I was looking for.
Nations with multiple parties have parliamentary systems.
The U.S. gives control of the entire federal executive branch to the one winner of the presidential election, so there is a tremendous incentive for every political faction to form into a 51% coalition to win that prize.
Moreover, the two-party struggle over the Presidency leads to a similar two-party struggle over Congress.
It’s not a ballot access issue. Over the last 30 years or so, legal barriers to independent and third-party ballot access have been systematically broken down in court rulings and legislative changes. As access to the ballot has become easier, the activity and support and success of parties beyond the D’s and R’s has, if anything, declined.
It’s not the Electoral College as such. The presidential election is functionally almost exactly like a national popular vote election, and changing to an actual national popular vote election would not change the incentive structure at all.
For the last 150 years, we have had the same two major parties, organizationally continuous, which have proved highly adaptable as coalitions. It is effectively impossible for either party to become too strong or too weak compared to the other.
In theory, we could have a new party come along and displace one of the Big Two, as the Republicans did to the Whigs in the 1850s. But politics was very different in those days; party organization was completely fluid.
Also, any such new party, if one achieved major-status today, would simply replace and destroy one of the old parties, perhaps shifting the coalitions a bit, without making any fundamental change in the system.
It’s not presidential vs. parliamentary.
It’s single-member districts with first-past-the-post voting. Britain has the same system; they have a mostly two-party system. The major difference is regional parties, which the U.S. doesn’t have but theoretically could have. We could have a Texan Nationalist Party that caucuses with the Republicans.
If Representatives were elected statewide on the basis of proportional representation, the U.S. would have a multi-party system overnight. The parties would form coalitions to choose candidates for the presidency. Source: that’s how it happens in European countries with such a system.
I think presidential vs. parliamentary is a big reason you see more third-party action in Britain than in the US. Are the European countries you’re talking about ones where the President has a major role in government? I was under the impression that America was fairly unique among functional democracies in how much the President mattered, with other functional states vesting most power in the legislature and the President, if such a role exists, being mainly ceremonial.
France (and Russia: they got it from France) have a system with a very strong president (France got it from De Gaulle, who changed it to give himself more power) who is the head of all three branches of government, with a prime minister who is the head of the executive and has a lower rank.
France has a two-party system, though, because it doesn’t have proportional representation. And Russia did have proportional representation through the last election. As a result, it has a multi-party system. Though in more important ways it’s of course a one-party state and therefore a bad example.
I don’t know off the top of my head if there’s any country that combines proportional representation with a strong presidential system…and democracy. So maybe I spoke too hastily.
But if the US had proportional representation, it would have to be a multi-party system just based on the way that works. And the parties would have to form electoral coalitions. It’s just the way it would obviously have to work.
@ Douglas Knight:
They [France] do have run-off elections and significantly more larger third parties than the US (larger than none), but they are still what I’d call a two-party system.
Now, Israel has the ideal, pure form of proportional representation, and they have the quintessential multi-party system. People critique this type of system for the “kingmaker effect” of giving voice to fringe parties, but it seems to me that the real critique is that these parties have any influence. And the fact that it really is genuinely absurd in any system that a mere 50% of groups cobbled together can tell the other half what to do.
Edit: hmm, his comment disappeared.
You can’t have proportional representation in an election with only one winner, and if there’s a strong president, the most important election is going to be winner-take-all. So, only two parties or coalitions can be relevant in presidential politics.
And people really like to vote straight-ticket. If they have to vote for A or B to have any chance to see “their” guy elected president, then the only non-fringe parties will be A, B, and maybe a few others that are part of coalitions tight enough they might as well be A or B with a bit of regional or ethnic flavor.
The disappearing comment was probably an edit that added an illegal word. Happened to me earlier. I guess they don’t want you to be able to enumerate the ban list easily, but it would sure be nice if there was some indication your comment wouldn’t go through before reloading.
@ John Schilling:
You can only have one prime minister. When you say two parties “or coalitions” that concedes the whole point, because every country with a multi-party system ends up forming a governing coalition and the group opposed to the governing coalition. Small parties swap coalitions occasionally, but they’re generally pretty stable.
The easy way for this to work is that, say, the Democrats and the Green party agree to nominate the same candidate for president. Thus, you can vote a straight Green ticket which shares a presidential candidate with the Democratic ticket.
Small parties would have an incentive to do this precisely for the reason of allowing people to vote straight-ticket for them.
For a superior alternative, you can combine proportional representation with preferential voting for president. I think some countries even have it set up so that the party can determine the “default” preference rankings for a straight ticket. So, to use the same example, if you vote Greens it ranks their candidate first then the Democratic one, etc.
If it’s set up right, there’s no vote-wasting.
Switzerland has a plural executive, but I’m not sure the idea of a strong plural executive makes much sense. Maybe a pair of Roman style consuls.
@ brad:
I’ve hypothesized and discussed before the idea that we could have a domestic-policy president and a foreign-policy president.
I got the idea from reading Locke, where he talks about the four basic powers of government: legislative, executive, judicial, and federative. Now, he pretty much says “isn’t it convenient that the king is both executive and federative?” and quickly moves on, but it’s an interesting idea.
The idea being that the “executive president” has the veto power, runs the domestic cabinet agencies, appoints judges, etc. While the “federative president” is the commander-in-chief, makes treaties, appoints ambassadors, etc.
You could even stagger the elections between them.
Now, that’s not something I would waste an enormous amount of political capital trying to implement, but I don’t think it’s a terrible idea, either. It would mitigate the one-man rule aspect and allow better specialization. It would increase gridlock, which some may see as good and others as bad.
You can only have one prime minister. When you say two parties “or coalitions” that concedes the whole point, because every country with a multi-party system ends up forming a governing coalition and the group opposed to the governing coalition. Small parties swap coalitions occasionally, but they’re generally pretty stable.
Prime ministers are usually selected by the legislators, not by the voters directly, and minor-party legislative blocs can frequently act as kingmakers. Or, just as important, as king-unmakers. If the two major parties are at all evenly balanced – and they usually are for game-theoretic reasons – then the PM will inevitably come from one of the major parties but will have to explicitly ally with one or more minor parties as well. And if they break that alliance, if they fail to use the power of the office to support the core interests of the minor party, they get a Vote of No Confidence or whatever.
If the US voters split 45% Democrat, 40% Republican, and 5% each Socialist, Green, and Libertarian, we get a President Hillary Clinton who owes nothing to anyone but the Democratic party establishment and maybe electorate. Even if Congress goes full PR and there are a couple dozen each of Socialist, Green, and Libertarian congressmen, the Presidency is won by a Democrat, full stop.
In a parliamentary system, that would be Minister Clinton, but only for as long as she keeps the Socialists and Greens reasonably content. That makes it much less despairingly wasteful to vote Socialist or Green (or Libertarian), and so makes it much more plausible that those parties would actually win 5+% of the vote.
@ John Schilling:
If you’re expecting Democrats and Republicans to collectively control 85% of the vote under proportional representation, then I think that’s a unrealistically high estimate. Right now they would because they’re big-tent parties. But the nature of the system encourages parties to adopt smaller tents.
Sure, if the Democrats alone can win 45% of the presidential vote, other parties have little say. But if they win, say, 30% of the vote, then things get more interesting.
If you still had the same system as now for electing the president, I think what you’d have is that Democrat-Green-Socialist Alliance would nominate one candidate collectively at the higher level, by holding a joint process to choose their candidate. Or alternatively, even more simply, the people from the other parties would just vote in the Democratic primary then separately nominate whoever the Democrats nominate.
You don’t have as strong of a kingmaker effect as you do with a parliamentary system, but the president still has an interest in actually getting legislation passed. So he’d have to get things done for the other parties in the legislature.
Hmmmm. Maybe, but how is that fundamentally different from the Dixiecrats?
We also have tight integration between the national/state/local party organizations. In Canada it’s much looser, with the result that e.g. the British Columbia Liberal Party is closer to the national Conservative Party than to the national Liberals.
Why do you think the federal level has consistently held stable with 2 parties, but down at the state level one party can become completely dominant, often wiping out the other when you get down to the city level?
Because a coalition that is balanced at the national level is not necessarily going to be balanced at a local level? Fractal coalition building is probably too hard.
To build on what suntzuanime said, states and especially cities would probably be better off if they could have different parties than the country has. Then you could have two parties built around the local median rather than the national median.
But the advantages of association are always going to be strong for at least one party and so that kind of thing isn’t going to happen naturally.
And to add:
First-past-the-post elections plus federalism make state shutouts much likelier to happen naturally/easier if you have that as a goal: you don’t need a huge majority statewide (see also gerrymandering, urban party clustering, etc.)
Given the general support for norms of free speech around here, I wonder what the SSC community think of this: The New Society – Abridging the Freedom of Speech.
Some excerpts:
Or following a mention of Mill’s Harm Principle:
On the answer to “bad speech” being “more speech”:
Add in some discourse on “privilege”:
And the final two sentences are, IMO, nicely Orwellian:
…is so far out that I almost wonder if this is a troll.
Do we have reason to believe this is not a troll?
Not particularly. Let me be less cagey: I think there’s a strong chance that this is a troll. I’ve seen the same ideas in non-troll literature, but they’re always substantially more oblique or euphemized.
@Cauê – “Do we have reason to believe this is not a troll?”
Perusing two pages’ worth of their tumbler appears to show a person dedicated to Social Justice ideology, with a circle of friends of similar opinions, drawing entirely from sites promoting similar opinions. If it’s fake it’s a deliberate and careful fake, not misinterpreted satire.
here’s the link, if you’d like to look yourself.
That does seem to indicate that this guy is real. Although the directness of his phrasing is weird… Maybe these types are starting to think that they have damaged the popular support for the free speech norm sufficiently that they can drop the niceties and just openly say their goals.
@Theo Jones – It’s all what a right-winger thinks a leftist would say. It’s not that it’s too extreme. You can find similar extreme stuff for real. It’s that the touchstones, the things emphasized, the background – all of it is from right-wing subculture. This is a Young Conservative type who is trolling people.
@Seth
I can’t quite get a reading on this guy. On one hand I’m tempted to say troll with too much time on his hands because his wording doesn’t sound right for roughly your reasons. On the other hand I’m tempted to say real SJer with extreme views and blunt phrasing, because of the number of posts and the number of different issues death with.
@Seth – “This is a Young Conservative type who is trolling people.”
I clicked one of the non-commenting likes links down below, and that too led to a pretty standard social justice tumblr, to the extent that I can determine such things. I could check some more; my prediction is that they will lead to more bog-standard social justice tumblrs. Any evidence that this person isn’t what they appear to be?
…On the other hand, this is a post on someone’s blog, not a declaration of the new Committee for Public Safety. So there’s that.
@Theo Jones – *shrug*. Just a guess, but maybe the writer wants to do some sort of “expose” of the SJW’s and views this as a way of going undercover. Get invited to some sort of supposed inner circle, expose all their presumably shocking internal emails. I could see a Campus Conservative wanting to do that. They aren’t very good at the undercover part, but maybe they don’t have to be.
@FacelessCraven – “Any evidence that this person isn’t what they appear to be?” – well, on the Internet (meow) nobody (meow) knows (hiss) you’re (hiss) a dog, but (sound of scratching post being used) sometimes it’s hard to fake your background (mm-ee-oo-ww, I mean, WOOF!).
That’s not how people think. I mean, people get all sorts of dumb ideas, so I can’t rule out some individual getting it into their head that free speech is the cause of all our woes, although I think it’s unlikely. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when a group would like to curtail some freedom you enjoy, it’s because they have — or have rationalized themselves into thinking they have — other values that are more important.
To recycle an older meme, they — for any value of “they” — hardly ever hate your freedoms, but they’re pretty likely to hold them in contempt.
@Nornagest Contempt sounds about right for the depressing tendency I’ve started to see on Twitter of scare quotes around “free speech” from its opponents.
I ran into that particular essay a month or two back and assumed that it was satire. IMO the position, framing, and word choice are just too Orwellian for it not be intentional.
Then again there is the old saw that “sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality”.
Usually stated as Poe’s law.
Are you saying you’re against the elimination of undesirable thinking? It’s undesirable! Obviously you shouldn’t support it!
It’s definitely trolling. That essay is written by a right-winger who has no conception of leftist anti-free-speech theory. It’s screamingly obvious if you know the difference, but the vast majority of the audience won’t be at that level. The last sentence gives the game away, with the phrase “undesirable thinking“. Real anti-free-speech leftists don’t use phrases like that. But right-wingers do use such phrasing about anti-free-speech leftists.
Thats my interpretation too.
The pro-censorship left-wingers are really adverse to openly saying they are against free speech. And thus you get the XKCD cartoon argument, the “freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences” stuff, and all of the other contortions.
You’re probably right about the trolling, but “undesirable thinking” isn’t really a good tell. Arthur Chu speaks of dangerous ‘unthinkable’ thoughts, for example.
Yes, at a certain point, at the far extremes of the spectrum, there comes a desire to embrace the stereotype. Eventually people get so tired of being called a thing, they snap and go “FINE THEN!”
This is how you get people referring to themselves as social justice stormtroopers or saying that the holocaust never happened but it should have and so on. It must be fun to have a dark aura too, because you get to experience the joy of watching your enemy’s face as they realize all their fears have come true, and that you won’t shy back like moderates do.
Why yes, you say with a sharkish grin, we are coming to take you away.
Nobody else talks like Arthur Chu. At all, about anything.
Has anybody read the new Broockman paper, Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-to-door canvassing? I don’t have the energy / knowledge to check it out, so currently I’m assuming it’s legit just because of Broockman’s legacy re: LaCour. Would appreciate if some science / stats savvy folks could weigh in re: the analysis.
Sorry for linking to the gated paper, my google-fu is weak on this one.
I’m sceptical about the results of door-to-door canvassing for anything. In elections, the people who are willing to engage with the canvasser on the doorstep are either really in agreement with Party or Candidate X and are happy to talk with the representatives of X about how they’ll definitely vote for them, or they’re furiously angry about something and are willing to have a stand-up row with X about the Party/Government and how it’s screwing things up.
I think anyone willing to have a ten-minute chat about “your attitude to transgender people” is probably likely to be favourably inclined in the first place; most people would politely say “sorry, not interested” and the ones who wanted a quarrel would probably not change their minds.
But yeah, if anyone can read the full study and say if it says what it says it says, that would be great 🙂
I’m about ready to slap the face off anyone talking about transphobia right now, due to a crappy post on Tumblr where someone argued aromantics/asexuals were not queer – which is fine by me – but did so by invoking transphobia in one sentence and then quite literally going “lol at your whole identiy (sic) conception there” about aromantics: a trans rights supporter is mocking the idea of identity formation by reference to one’s own lived experience and not social mores?
They also used a stupid example of a hypothetical fratbro which managed to be offensive to both frat boys and aro/aces, which is some going. So yeah, feeling a bit sensitive right now on the topic 🙂
The specific type of canvassing being tested in this study is a very intensive, lengthy conversation, that specifically relies on prompting the person being canvassed to talk through their own opinions, describe their reasoning, and consider the alternative perspective. It’s very different from the more cursory treatment that you get with many candidate and independent expenditure campaigns in this country. (A cursory treatment can work when the goal is to boost turnout – although just how much it can is a subject of some dispute and study right now – but almost certainly not when the goal is to persuade.)
This and any decently done field methods study use an intent-to-treat standard for measuring the impact, so while you’re right that you can’t reach everyone at their door, and that some people might choose not to have the conversation because they’re hostile to the canvasser/issue, that’s included in the measurements that nonetheless found an impact. Particularly notable in this study is that the impact was persistent over time and appeared to innoculate against a later-delivered persuasion mail piece taking the opposite position of the canvasser.
This study, unlike the earlier faked study, did not find that it was more effective to have the canvasser be from the group towards which the canvassing aims to improve attitudes. Which is to say, LaCour “found” that gay canvassers were more effective at improving attitudes towards gay people (one of the splashier claims of his study), B&K do not find that transgender canvassers are more effective at improving attitudes towards transgender people.
What somebody really needs to do now is reverse the sequence: start off with the anti-transgender persuasion piece, then do the pro-transgender intervention, and see if that sticks, or is it more a matter of “whichever viewpoint gets your agreement first, you’ll keep supporting it”?
If people start off “yeah, I agree with the anti-trans law” after the anti-trans persuasion piece and maintain that for the first follow-up survey, then there is the pro-trans door-to-door canvassing as described, and people then change their minds to be pro-trans, then the method really works.
If, on the other hand, they still stick with anti-trans views in all the follow-up surveys despite the intervention, then it’s more indicative that whoever gets in and persuades you first is the most influential.
I thought I heard that door-to-door study was faked and discredited, but the actual story is more complicated: Changing Minds: debunkers of bogus study do the research and find the faked answer is true.
My own skepticism about the impact of door-to-door canvassing is based on decades of political experience.
Sure, for a candidate, directly meeting and conversing with voters one-on-one is, by far, the most effective thing you can do, and there are scores of examples of local candidates who defied long odds and won this way.
But most constituencies are too large for the candidate to hit every door in person. Sending a volunteer representing the candidate is also effective, but much less so than the actual candidate.
Moreover, in real life in the 21st century, most people are not home and/or not opening their doors for political solicitors. On an exceptionally good day, only about 40% of the doors will open for you.
So what do you do about the other 60% — or more often, 85% to 95%?
Most campaigns just leave a flyer in the door (generally treated as trash, getting almost zero attention), and count that unit as “done”. The more determined campaigns, with a high ratio of volunteers to territory, will keep track of which doors didn’t open, and send someone back a few days later to knock on all those doors again. Of course, if someone didn’t open the door the first time, the chance of getting a response the second or third time is lower. If time or volunteers run short, it’s a better use of time to cover virgin territory, so the planned second sweep never really happens.
Also, a growing portion of the population lives in locked apartment buildings, or housing developments that prohibit canvassing, or rural areas where walking from one door to the next is prohibitively time-consuming. And in the dense single-family-house neighborhoods where door-to-door canvassing is easy, everyone else is doing it, so people are tired of it. NO SOLICITING signs proliferate.
Canvassing door-to-door is analogous to polling via land lines. It involves a lot of time and trouble to reach a small percentage of a steadily declining portion of the electorate.
Realistically, you don’t reach them. But these campaigns are trying to produce a shift in the aggregate, not reach every single person. It does make it a tougher cost-benefit tradeoff if the canvassers are spending lots of fruitless time between conversations; one reason the type of canvassing studied here isn’t being practiced more broadly is that the magnitude of the investment probably isn’t worth the short term benefit for, say, a candidate trying to win election this year. There’s a reason the canvassing here was carried out by an organization with strong volunteer resources and explicitly long-term aims.
one reason the type of canvassing studied here isn’t being practiced more broadly is that the magnitude of the investment probably isn’t worth the short term benefit
Yeah, I was looking at the figures in that study and they started with a selection of 66,000 (more or less) voters that they contacted to find out if they’d be interested in participating in a survey and ended up with 501 people who said “sure”, were there when they knocked at the door, and completed the three different follow-up surveys over the selected time period (this was the total of both the placebo and the treatment groups).
Unless 500 votes are really make-or-break for an ordinary political candidate, that type of effort is very, very costly.
But think of it as publicity + signalling + status! Now they’ve got their very own door-to-door evangelists, just like all the other creepy cults! Sanctified by the Pope of Academia, post-doctoral fellows must complete two years of “research” before being inducted into the hallowed and tenured ranks of the priesthood!
I have learned a Weird Trick for getting data that I want out of SSC comment sections! I will share it without further ado. CTRL-F “name” and check the results. The word “name” tends to be used interestingly on SSC.
Disclaimer: in my honest estimation, this is a topic adjacent to a banned topic. If that estimation is off, and I shouldn’t even post about this, then I apologize.
There is a political philosophy which comes to the conclusion that democracy systematically leads to progressivism, and that since progressivism is (in their view) undesirable, then a society that is both desirable and stable must therefore reject democracy as its form of government. Implementing another form of government, perhaps monarchy, can stably lead to other, more desirable outcomes, so they believe. There are interesting arguments discussing this democracy —> progressivism dynamic in terms of finite state machines.
What I am wondering is, what has gone into determining that “democracy” is the correct starting point for this systematic drift? As opposed to having the development of democracy be just another stage as a part of some larger machine? I could envision something like
widespread literacy —> democracy —> progressivism
or
sufficiently wealthy society —> democracy —> progressivism
etc
being alternative state machine models.
In these cases, eliminating democracy wouldn’t be a long term solution for the same reason that merely making our current government smaller/less progressive wouldn’t be a long term solution. The process would simply resume its inexorable logic, eventually returning back to its current state and progressing from there.
Apologies again if I miscalculated and this should not be discussed here. It’s something I’ve been wondering for a little while but, because laziness, I don’t want to read the entire corpus of [philosophy]’s literature if I could simply find somebody here who knows why that particular development was deemed the correct intervention point to halt the machine’s progress.
I don’t know what ‘progressivism’ is supposed to mean in this context. There was a US political movement in the late 19th/early 20th century called the progressives and in the 1990s when ‘liberal’ starting being uses as epithet on the US right wing some on the left-er part of the US left wing started referring to themselves as progressives, and that continues more or less to this day. But this usage seems too minor and idiosyncratic to be what is meant in a grand abstract political theory about the inevitable end state of democracy.
In context, it means the leftmost ninety percentof the spectrum, or everyone rxcepth the far right.
If that’s what they mean, that’s what they mean. But it doesn’t make any sense. If the claim is that democracy inevitably leads to a spectrum and that spectrum by definition can’t all be far right, than it’s not much of a claim.
This reminds me of the theory that governments are more cyclical than progressive; tyranny leads to aristocracy leads to democracy leads to tyranny.
I think it is attributed to Aristotle or something; I’m not knowledgeable enough to critique it.
Wiki :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis
Well, for one thing, the only one of the classical terms that would be recognizable in the modern era is aristocracy. Classical democracy was super weird, and classical tyranny is kinda similar to modern dictatorship but not enough that we can draw useful inferences from it.
In his meta-history Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler found ancient democracies where the demos actually crated so alien that he called it a type of absolutism, and related democracy where every voter voted together in person to Euclidean geometry and sculpture in the round. Whereas post-Roman European culture has a totally different worldview that manifests in things like huge anonymous governments and the music of space-filling organs.
C. Northcote Parkinson, famous mostly for Parkinson’s Law, had a theory along those lines, although with more stages.
I think you have that backwards. Their theory is that progressives produce democracy, which is bad because of the tragedy of the commons.
I don’t think that this is a banned topic. What is banned are certain words, supposedly on the grounds that people use them inconsistently. I’m not sure that is generally true, but I think your question might demonstrate something along those lines by assuming a false premise that they agree on what is the correct intervention point.
Ah, I think this clarifies my confusion. Thanks.
Infinitely recursing Peter Pinguid societies finding the roots of the Roundheads in the overreach of Charles I, and the seeds of Charles I in the uneasy feudal balance of power, and the roots of the feudal system in ape tribe status hierarchies, and the roots of…
Your 2016 internet!
This version does not seem meaningful. But I was thinking of an objection similar to the one you raise, namely, that civilization was a terrible idea.
Agriculture lowered the standard of living for almost everyone in societies that adopted it. Nobody who saw the consequences would want to live like that. Now, it does increase population, so one might say that if you expect your neighbors to adopt agriculture and use it to conquer you, then you don’t actually have a choice. And yet we observe that somehow humanity avoided this trap for most of our existence on this planet. One could therefore make a strong argument for the beneficial nature of the actually-ancient cultures that our ancestors spent most of their time in.
After that, however, culture was likely selected for propagation and self-preservation rather than benefits to the individual or even the nation (see: Israel). When it actually had some other effect, the effect was likely to help prop up a system that was only defensible if no alternative existed.
So I certainly hope it was inevitable that such upstart cultures produced science and science-backed technology, since only at that point did the standard of living start to improve. But given the existence of people opposing anesthesia on religious grounds, science likely made it inevitable that others would start judging society for arbitrary or outright false claims, and for what looks like totally unnecessary harm.
Agriculture lowered the standard of living for almost everyone in societies that adopted it. Nobody who saw the consequences would want to live like that.
I have read statements by recent hunter-gatherers turned farmers who explicitly did want to live like that. I am guessing that you do not have children, because their explanations usually focused on the “Now I don’t have to worry about where my children’s next meal will come from – it’s right there, where I can watch over it every day!”
For most of humanity, time available to spend partying is not the key metric of a standard of living.
It seems likely that it was better for the first farmers, but not for the typical farmer several generations later when population reached the new higher equilibrium.
Not implausible, though I imagine population density was more a limiting factor than total population — there was lots of uncultivated land well into the Middle Ages, but disease would kick in as soon as densities (human and animal) were high enough for it to be efficiently transmitted. I imagine nutrient deficiency issues would take a while to come up, too, either because foraging skills had been lost or because areas around settlements had been stripped of resources. Either way it wouldn’t show up in the archaeological record.
Well, that would be another hold in an argument that’s full holes.
Progressivism isn’t a disease of democracy, it’s a disease of peace and prosperity.
The cycle is Oppression>Diffusion of power>empowerment of institutions>Peace/prosperity>Internal divisions become most important when no external threats loom>Progressivism>Oppression
Peasant armies being able to shoot down elite knights with hand gonnes —> gradual destruction of the obligations on which the feudal order rested —> classical liberal ideas leading to limited franchise based on private property —> same ideas undermining mercantilism and leading to liberal capitalism —> prosperity produced by capitalism leads to urbanization, but… —> this leads to crappy working conditions —> socialism and democracy advocates —> WW1 destroys all the old kingdoms —> need to pacify returning working class men, so an expanded franchise is chosen to avoid revolutionary socialism as in Russia —> democracy means soft socialism (progressivism) by voting in programs for the poor administered by bureaucracies which have an interest in keeping them going —> an aging populace leading to a collapsing dependency ratio risking the solvency of these programs results in elite advocacy for mass immigration resulting in an unknown and chaotic future —> a small group of programmers self-trained in classical literature missing the point and telling us: IT’S HAPPENING! KING JAMES I COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS! WHY DIDN’T YOU LISTEN?
You lost me at the end.
Unknown and chaotic future lead to increased stature for those who are able to maintain (or impose) order which leads us right back to feudalism until another disruptive technology starts the whole cycle over again.
Because its come up in a few recent threads. I’ve ducked out of the other conversations about the GG stuff, because its the type of think I can be a jerk about. But here goes. I think the gaters and similar are pretty much the equally anti-pluralist mirror image of the worse social justice types, and I strongly oppose them. They seem to think that anyone else using their medium is a threat to their existence (I reject the gentrification analogy here) — and therefore take action to stomp out the other groups. Things got really nasty when that element of the gamer culture interacted with their mirror image (with the local 4/8chan trolls adding fuel).
The whole “no one knows you’re a dog” thing means that it’s really easy for people on both sides to say “well the harassing messages I get are from the other team’s core constituency, but the harassing messages they get are all fictions/from neutral trolls trying to stir the pot/false flags they set up to get sympathy”, and really easy for all four of these things to be done.
Yeah, except then you get people like our GG defender pretty explicitly taking sides with the harassers on the grounds that [hated outgroup bashing].
Are we talking about anyone in particular, or is this the generic “our”?
Anti-pluralism is a non-optimal conception for a movement against people smearing their out-groups for status. GG is more like anti-bullying. It fits in well with not only archipelago liberalism, but even mainline liberalism.
Why do you say that? I’ve watched it constantly since late August 2014 (I don’t consider myself a part of it, but I’m certainly “anti-anti-gg”, as someone put it above), and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone whose motives could be fairly described this way.
Even considering the different groups with different motivations, and the vastly different criteria people inside and outside use to classify someone as part of gg. Even considering the entirely unafilliated trolls. This particular part of the story has just never been true.
(ETA, agree with the anon above)
This is not actually a core GG belief. Reconsider your sources.
As an evidence, I think no one in GG objected against anyone else creating a game.
They objected against how certain games got positive coverage in the gaming media. They objected against how certain developers reacted to people who criticized their games. They criticized the incredibly low technical aspect of some games, doubting whether they even deserve to be labeled “games”. They predicted that some games will be difficult to sell.
But objecting against someone creating a game? In a world full of free game creation tools, free game creation tutorials, free game frameworks, and entire websites dedicated to teaching people how to make a game? That wouldn’t make any sense.
If e.g. Anita Sarkeesian would just make a game according to her ideas of what is good and bad, there wouldn’t be any controversy about that. There are many game developers who identify as SJWs, and mostly no one cares.
I have my doubts. Substitute the kind of gamers who have issues with Siege of Dragonspear for the journos, of course.
“Her game sucks” is not ‘controversy’ in this context. Anyway, while LW2 never made a game, LW3 did (Revolution 60). Lots of people say it sucks. Nobody, to my knowledge, said she shouldn’t have made it because she’s a woman, or trans-, or whatever, or that it should be banned for bad politics. Probably some people have said that (some people will say anything), but not very many, and it’s not a common attitude among the ants.
The controversy would follow this pattern:
* Gamers: “this sucks”
* LW2: “you’re attacking my game because I’m a woman”
* Gamers: “that’s stupid, we’re downrating your game because it’s an unrelenting stream of smothering feces”
* Journalists: “gamers threaten to drown innocent woman in excrement”
* Bystanders: “gee, those gamers sure are terrible people”
So you’re not that up on GG, but you feel it is important to signal your opposition, just in case people are watching.
Noted.
Sastan, I’m going to use your comment to hang an observation on– that Social Justice attitudes and methods are so tempting that people who are opposed to Social Justice use those methods, probably without noticing it.
The general pattern is to pick up small features of what someone else says, and to use that as a basis for attacking the other person’s character. Sometimes, though not in this case, the issue isn’t just the other person’s character, but an implication that this person is a danger.
This is probably what annoys me most about the anti-SJ side of the current wars.
I think, and I might have been projecting, but I think in the beginning people did it in a tone of “see, by your own standards, you are doing horrible thing X”, or “if I used your criteria I should consider you Y”, with the intention of pointing out hypocrisy, or of showing how flawed those standards were.
But it was a fast and smooth transition from that to using the methods in the way SJ uses them, to gain power over people and “win” arguments via status moves. I also agree with “probably without noticing it”.
(if you mean the going after advertisers, boycotting, and trying to get people fired, however, they do notice it, or at least some of them always point it out, which has been a frequent source of infighting)
For what it’s worth that matches my own experience very closely.
According to a past survey there are at least some teenagers who read this blog, anyone else here now?
Yes, me.
*nods*
Yes. I didn’t answer the past survey, but I’ve been lurking for about a year, I think.
I’m not a apart of the commentariat, but I’m here.
This is not so much a comment on global warming, as on confirmation bias.
How social media, so far as I can tell, reacts to the weather:
Weather is hotter than usual: “Can you believe how warm this winter is? Can you believe those idiots who deny global warming?”
Weather is colder than usual: “Can you believe how cold this spring is? Can you believe those idiots who deny climate change?”
Weather is about the same as usual: “Can you believe those idiots who think their local weather during the past week is a good index for what is happening at a global, long-term scale?”
This is obviously just a reaction to the legions of people who really would say all the time:
“See how cold it is this year? So much for this global warming bullshit.”
So this kind of argument became popular to shut them up. Of course, predictably, people just reverse the error instead of drawing the appropriate lesson that the anecdotal evidence has little to no weight. Which is the third argument you give.
Why do people do this? Well, it just feels really good to take drive-by shots at the enemy. There’s nothing else to it.
This actually sort of makes sense. If climate change is believed to act by spreading out the distribution of temperatures rather than by shifting it, seeing an extreme temperature is more evidence in favor of climate change than seeing a moderate temperature is evidence against it.
The only defense against the “it’s making everything more extreme” is showing everything is just as typical, or even more typical than before.
You won’t find the mass media headlining “Unusually long period of typical weather occurring in Texas!!!!”.
Texas has actually had a long period if weird weather.
I don’t think climate change as modeled by the IPCC does spread out the distribution. The IPCC expects winters to get milder.
As best I can tell, the “AGW results in more extreme temperature” assertion is bogus. It results in more of some extremes, most obviously hot summers, less of others, most obviously cold winters. There isn’t a natural metric by which you can add up the two and say that on net there are more extremes. But you can point at those extremes that get more common, ignore those that get less common, and claim that AGW increases extreme weather.
The winter being mild is extreme if mild is very different than the average of the past 30 years.
By that definition, doesn’t any change at all result in more extreme weather? If we had fewer heat waves and milder winters, that would qualify–very different from the average distribution of the past thirty years.
But it isn’t what “AGW makes weather more extreme” means in ordinary English, or what it is intended to imply.
The reality is that they are predicting things will get more extreme. The argument that things have already gotten more extreme is on a very weak statistical basis, especially with “extreme events” that are by definition erratic and rare so it takes long timelines to get a viable trend.
If you have 100 independent areas, you will get a “100 year event” every year on average in one of the areas.
If you look at some of the arguments that 3 sigma heat waves are 10x more likely and such you will find that the PDF of temperatures has shifted to the right a bit with the long term temperature trend, and those scary statistics are really just playing mathematical games with long tail statistics. Saying the temperature PDF has shifted right 0.8C and 3 sigma events are 10x more likely (or whatever it was) are actually saying the same thing. The evidence that the PDF has widened is weak.
In 2005 they were hyperventilating that hurricanes were already more frequent and more intense after Katrina and 3 Cat3+ hurricanes hit Florida in one year. Update: The US is now in the longest period “ever” (i.e. the last 100 years) without a Cat3+ landfall. It’s been 10 years, the previous record was 6 years. I’m still waiting on someone to make the claim that climate change is making US Cat3+ landfalls less likely, even though that claim would be much more sound (and still with an inadequate time period).
The claim that California’s drought was made worse by climate change was made in spite of the IPCC stating they can’t even determine the sign of the long term statistics of drought. They used a model (known to already predict an increase in droughts) to “prove” this through some mathematically sophisticated circular reasoning.
The NYT’s ran an above the fold story that Antarctica by itself might (= will to activists) contribute 3 feet of sea level rise by 2100 for a total of 2m+ by 2100. The current rate of sea level rise would need to increase ~10x tomorrow to get to that number by 2100.
I don’t fault any scientist for running models that regurgitate a range of numbers and reporting them. I do fault academia press releases and the science media for hyping worst case results of single studies as “expected” and not placing them in context of the current trends and IPCC mainstream consensus. A gigantic game of worst case scenario topper is being played between modelers, and environmental journalism eats it up.
Global warming increases temperatures at the poles faster than at the equator.
Hurricanes are a heat transfer mechanism from equatorial regions toward the poles, roughly driven by the temperature gradient between latitudes.
Therefore, global warming can be expected to reduce the number and intensity of hurricanes.
That contradicts what I remember reading and hearing since the turn of the century about it, at least whenever a hurricane occurred. Is this the consensus going forward?
It’ll be the consensus right up until another large hurricane hits a Gulf Coast city, at which point the consensus will instantly switch to the opposite and no one will acknowledge it was ever any different.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming-intermediate.htm
No, as far as I can tell. But still an open question, I take it.
I suggest you open up your horizons past Skeptical Science.
They only show a trend for the * North * Atlantic, not updated for almost 10 years, except for a link added last year “Denial101x – Making Sense of Climate Science Denial”, probably no agenda here.
IPCC AR5:
“Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin”
“In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane
Global cyclone power trends and by basin
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/accumulated_cyclone_energy.asp?basin=gl
“There is no evidence of a systematic increasing or decreasing trend in ACE for the years 1970-2012”
Historical data shows a mixed bag across the board. Perhaps they will increase in the future, we shall see.
@ThirteenthLetter:
Hurricanes are Global Warming’s friend.
Hurricanes have always been Global Warming’s friend.
Global Warming is now at war with Eurasia.
The alternate hypothesis is that more energy in the system makes hurricanes more likely/stronger. Hurricanes strengthen over warmer water, etc.
If it was as easy as either of these they could predict hurricanes / hurricane season with some predictive power. A big factor in hurricane formation (in the Atlantic anyway) is high level shearing wind that prevents these things getting organized. Climate change increases shearing winds / decreases hurricanes, etc.
There are some theories that there is a multidecadal cycle in hurricanes. El Nino apparently affects the season.
Overall the global pattern isn’t showing much over the past 40 years and the US has 100 year records for strong hurricane landfalls which shows no trend (you can’t miss these). Records are confounded because we can count the “fish storms” accurately now with satellites.
There is a slight bump up in the strongest hurricanes matched by decreases in weaker hurricanes. Could just be noise.
“more energy in the system makes hurricanes more likely/stronger.”
A mistake that I discussed in an old blog post. A hurricane is not a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, nor is anything else. The work it can extract depends on the temperature difference between source and sink, as with any other heat engine, so if both get warmer there is no reason to expect hurricanes to get stronger.
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2012/09/physics-economics-and-hurricane.html
My main point is just:
People very happily and seemingly unknowingly cite low-hanging bad evidence for their side even when their response to the same sort of evidence when it doesn’t support their side reveals them competent to realize that this type of evidence is no good in general.
Right, I can’t hold myself back when someone brings up AGW, ha ha.
Motivated reasoning. I call extreme events “science by the power of suggestion”.
Some of it is people truly fooling themselves because our brains aren’t wired right, or the inability to change a position once a public stance is taken due to pride. Some of it is just partisans / activists feeling they must “balance” the other side’s propaganda with their own. In this case it has become a tribal purity test that has devolved into cultural trench warfare.
Your grievance is noted and cataloged for future generations.
Ah, I see Scott is way ahead of me in being annoyed at internet inconsistency. Sadly, I don’t think we’ve seen less of that one in the intervening two years (or less of any of these things, really).
I would like to see more of lists by Scott of things he’d like to see less of, however.
So Jonathan Haidt and the folks at Heterodox Academy are trying to popularize the concept of “Concept Creep“, which would probably be of interest to SSC readers. I know I’m happy to have a name for it, and the discussion is interesting.
I’m too lazy to look up a link — but Freddie DeBoer has a good essay on the concept. It was the first time I’ve heard the phrase.
But what happens when the notion of concept creep becomes too diluted to be useful any more?
It lives, it dies, it lives again!
Laughter is good for a person. Thank you.
I can’t wait to call someone a “concept creeper.”
I was in the first Signal cohort so:
1. If you’re interested and want to talk about the program, please contact me! jai@jaibot.com
2. If you or someone you know is looking for a fledgling data scientist/data engineer/software engineer, definitely contact me!
Project: Uncovering Miscalibrations in the Intrade Prediction Market: https://github.com/jaibot/IntradeAnalysis/blob/master/intrade-highlights.ipynb
Resume :https://github.com/jaibot/resume/blob/master/resume.pdf?raw=true
As someone who has a subscription to Current Affairs, my biggest gripe concerning the magazine is the print is tiny – my eyesight isn’t bad but I had to pull ouy a magnifying glass to read it!
I suspect it’s because large print is associated with stupidity, and leftists seem to put higher value on looking smart than other groups.
In my experience, this has more to do with information density and seriousness-signalling than left-wingyness. The more small-print text your periodical has and the fewer pictures, the more serious your reputation, in general. For periodicals, this is mostly a matter of pragmatism–your costs are very sensitive to the number of pages, but you have to include a lot of information, therefore the type is small.
The examples you give (handbills, books) are not periodicals, so they probably have different reasons. I suspect with books, it’s partly a genre thing. Wordy and small-type is a time-honored fashion in philosophy, and continental philosophy, with ideas like post-structuralism, has a stronger influence on the Left than it’s had on the Right. So it could just be fashion set by philosophy–either more philosophical books, or more books trying to copy the philosophical aesthetic.
The handbills might be fashion set by hipsters, instead, aiming for that turn-of-the-twentieth-century newspaper look.
As someone who bought print+digital and realized I don’t particularly want my housemates seeing magazines that mention “the regressive left” on the cover, I seriously hope they take my address change to “WILL CHARGEBACK IF MAILED ANYTHING”, Wisconsin, seriously.
Is anyone aware of a feedback link, support email, or anything like that? I’d like to be sure.
My guess is that small print in left-wing materials results from lack of money, verbose style, and young(ish) readers. After a while, there’s a selection effect– people who can’t handle the small print are driven out.
Don’t trust anyone over thirty, and don’t be legible to anyone over forty?
And it’s not just left-wing tracts; pretty much every Web designer under thirty uses sub-9-point fonts.
When a thread gets too many comments deep the “reply” button disappears for me, although “hide” is still there. Running Waterfox for what that matters. Not sure what the issue is, but there have been some things I wanted to discuss and refrained.
I think that’s an intentional formatting choice. If a thread gets too nested, given the fixed width of the page, a post could be something like three words per line.
As Urstoff says, that’s intentional. Convention is to just reply to the parent (which you can get to with the ↑ link) and name the person you are intending to reply to.
Oh, ok. Will keep in mind.
Excuse the laziness of this question (I mean, I could have bothered to read the thing), but — what’s Unsong about? All I’ve gotten so far is that a) the chapter titles are wonderfully picked and b) it’s very Jewish. Also, does it even make sense to someone who knows exactly zero about anything Jewish?
The Jewish stuff is largely a flavour so that Scott can include a bunch of Kabbalah stuff and obscure puns and what-have you, not exactly vital knowledge. Minus the religion stuff that makes the setting unique, the premise is that magic exists and corporations use brute-force discovery – by humans because soulless machines can’t do magic – to find and patent new magic spells, and the protagonist is a worker at one such company who discovers a spell of tremendous significance and hides it from the company that’s supposed to own whatever he finds.
Imagine Shadowrun or Ra, but with Judaism instead of Tolkien or Engineering.
If you’ve any kind of nodding familiarity with the stuff that Dan Brown uses for plot materials – what generally gets called the Western Esoteric Tradition – you’ll find your feet without needing to be very familiar with Judaism, and you probably know a lot more than you think you know, because kabbalah/cabala/qabalah was flavour of the month with celebrities a while back.
But even if you don’t, all you really need to know is that this is a parallel world to our Earth, that magic works, and that the hero (?) is on the run from the Big Bad Black
HelicopterVan-driving Global Government Enforcement Organisation 🙂Scott wrote the intro on the TvTropes page, I believe.
A question for the Consequentialists here: how far in the future do you evaluate the consequences of your actions?
I agree with the sentiment in Scott’s FAQ that CEV would be an ideal moral system if we could implement it. However, in practice, we can’t implement it, and choosing the wrong timescale to evaluate risks permitting too much. If I say consequences should be evaluated a nanosecond after I act, well, a nanosecond is not likely to be enough time for there to be much differentiation based on my actions, and I will conclude that I can do just about anything I want. On the other hand, if I say I should evaluate the consequences ten thousand years after the fact, it is likely almost nothing I do will have meaningful consequences in ten thousand years. Once again I will conclude that I can do just about anything I want. My moral intuitions suggest that sufficiently distant consequences aren’t worth worrying about, but how far is too far?
CEV avoids this problem by summing all consequences that exist in resulting timelines instead of evaluating things at a specific moment, but again, this is unfeasible. What’s the best way to handle this?
// TODO: Works for now, probably not optimalint secondsAheadToLook = 24*60*60;
Or more seriously, when you approximate don’t do it by constraining examined consequences to a single moment. Humans factor in consequences over multiple times when approximating evaluation of consequences, so no particular reason your software can’t.
This whole framing doesn’t make any sense.
It’s not like you have what you want as some independent thing and the consequences tell you whether you’re allowed or not. Looking to the consequences is a means of guiding yourself toward deciding what you want.
And determining the expected consequences is not that hard, with the application of even basic heuristics that we use all the time. Say your goal is get a reasonable amount of money to live on. Should you a) get a job, or b) rob banks? Well, a cursory glance at the evidence seems to show that robbing banks is not likely to achieve that goal for you in the long or even medium term. Bank robbers who get away with it are quite rare.
You don’t get a few jobs, rob a few banks, and then compare how things went. You look to the evidence provided by other people.
And the main purpose is not to retroactively label what you did the past as good or bad; it’s to proactively guide future choices. You can say in a trivial sense that playing the lottery was a good choice if you win and bad choice if you lose. But in a more important sense, it’s a bad choice no matter what because it has a negative expected payoff.
Your concerns about timescale are just rather odd to me. You don’t take a snapshot of the results of your actions and look at that. You estimate heuristically the total consequences of your actions. If you cure AIDS and save the lives of millions of people, that’s neither bigger nor smaller ten thousand years from now. And while, yes, it’s possible that curing AIDS will save the life of the next Hitler and plunge the world into a grim, dark future where mankind knows only war, it seems more probable that curing AIDS will have good effects. And therefore, even if you do happen to save the next Hitler, we don’t retroactively judge that as “bad”—because it had a positive expected return.
Estimation of the consequences of your actions is not something that can be done perfectly. But that’s a far cry from saying it can’t be done at all. You do it in literally every action you take. You order food you like a restaurant because you expect that has a greater likelihood of resulting in the waiter bringing food you like, as opposed to ordering food you don’t like and hoping for a accidental mix-up of orders.
In theory infinitely in the future but I’m in practice a rule consequentialist. Its in practice impossible to get the full impacts of any action you do — but its easier to come up with rules that will work out 95% of the time — and only fall back to direct tabulation of consequences in extreme cases or when rules conflict.
How do you know it works out 95% of the time? Most consequences have a timescale against which they can be evaluated (and are almost always shorter than the lifespan of the individual), but aggregate utility consequences do not. Now you can set a timescale, but that seems rather arbitrary.
Possibly you have some kind of technical point, but on the face of it you seem to be babbling like a creationist. We “set a timescale” by only looking at consequences we can predict with sufficient certainty, which is almost none.
> how far in the future do you evaluate the consequences of your actions?
Since it costs time, effort, and resources to think through the consequences, the *ideal* is to keep spending them to think through more consequences until the expected benefit is less than the expected cost.
In practice, if you’re dealing with people, sometimes you can predict their reactions to your actions, and if you’re lucky maybe you’ll predict some features of their re-re-reactions to your re-reactions. The possible futures diverge chaotically for most real-life examples, so if you’re not playing a game with constrained rules, there’s usually nothing to be gained from thinking farther ahead than that.
When you’re dealing with objects that are less complex than people, it sometimes does pay to plan out the steps in detail, as when designing a new building one ought to consider every step in construction, as well as the likely patterns of use by the occupants-to-be, and the requirements of demolition even later.
There’s two reasonable options. One, I have no idea of the consequences of my actions ten thousand years hence, so I’ll evaluate them based on their more immediate effects. Of course, if something *is* likely to have a long-term effect, that has to be considered. Another is to apply a discount rate, where the moral importance of my actions decays exponentially, at say 5% per year.
Could we ban AGI?
I hear lots of people assume it can’t be done, but I’m not sure why not. Some arguments don’t seem to work:
1 – AI is too useful, so no one will accept a ban, or it’s undesirable. This is true for narrow AI in various fields, but not for AGI. AGI is far more risky than useful and almost no one has a use case for it that can’t be served almost as well by specialized narrow AI or networked human expertise.
2 – Computers are everywhere, so anyone can do AI in a basement. This may be true, but there seems to be a good chance it’s not. Narrow AI can already be done in small firms, but AGI may require a much more coordinated, large-scale investment. We already have total surveillance by institutions like the NSA, why can’t we have a regime that identifies AGI research?
3 – International coordination is too hard. It worked for human cloning, so why not AGI? The risk is big enough to at least try, we would never accept this defeatist argument for nuclear proliferation or synthetic pandemics.
I feel like most arguments for banning AGI work equally well as arguments against having children. True, the average child is probably less dangerous than the average AGI, but your kid could easily end up engineering a global pandemic, firing nuclear missiles, leading a dictatorial regime, or becoming a serial killer.
That said, (3) seems like the biggest obstacle to me. I don’t think the global agreement not to clone humans is going to last forever.
Human children are limited in their ability to pose a threat, relative to other humans. For example, they have to learn the hard way, grow slowly with generation cycles of over a decade, and their minds can’t be copied. Also, they are roughly in the same cognitive range, relative to what may be possible in AGI.
As for human cloning, it’s less of a threat, so there should be even more of an incentive to coordinate against AGI.
Well, you know what they say, “one’s modus ponens…” #antinatalism
Speaking of which, why is human cloning banned, again?
I think mostly for deontological/symbolic reasons. And some health issues.
What would we do with all those disabled newborn kids?
See also: http://www.aaas.org/page/american-association-advancement-science-statement-human-cloning
I believe the biggest reason is that current cloning methods tend to create a lot of dead fetuses/babies for every healthy clone. Dolly, for example, was attempt #243.
Aw, shucks. I’d love to have a clone. It’s the narcissist’s only hope for enjoyable social interactions, you see…
Would the clones have souls? Better not to risk it.
What’s the point of cloning humans? In animals it’s because we want reproducible traits that we consider valuable, whether that be race-winning horses or milk production in heifers.
What do we want in humans? Well, suppose we find A Genius and decide to clone them. Great, now we have an unlimited supply of Geniuses.
Or do we?
What is the influence of the maternal uterine environment?
Okay, so we work out how to reliably and reproducibly clone guaranteed Geniuses on a factory scale.
And then we scare ourselves with memories of the last time someone tried to create A Master Race.
And what if some of our Geniuses don’t want to slog away on cures for aging, working on AI or the like, but would prefer to go to Tahiti to paint? Are they free to do so, or do we own them? Are they considered equal humans under the law, or do Monsanto (say) own their genetic code so they own them?
If our Geniuses are going to have minds of their own, that’s very inconvenient for us when we’ve pinned all our hopes on a stream of Guaranteed Geniuses working to develop anti-aging technologies.
And then if AI ever does get off the ground, the AI might be even smarter and better than the Geniuses, so they’re unnecessary after all.
Plus it’s easier and cheaper to make humans the old-fashioned way, and indeed we have such a surplus of them, we have to use technology to make sure we don’t create unwanted humans when all we wanted was one night’s pleasure!
Probably not 100%. You don’t invalidate genetics by pointing out that it’s not the whole story.
Sometimes you win on a bad bet and lose on a good bet. That doesn’t mean there’s no difference between a bad bet and good bet.
It seems to me that the problem with that was when they exterminated and forcibly sterilized people.
Why would slavery be any more practical with cloned people than with people abducted from Africa?
What does it even have to do with slavery?
Creating a bunch of cloned geniuses and expecting that they would work like willing slaves instead of being like normal people would be foolish, I agree.
Would you rather your child be mentally disabled and physically handicapped, or a hardworking, athletic genius? I know which one I would prefer. And not for the purpose of living vicariously through that child, but to give the child the best chance at success and happiness.
Sure, you could genetically engineer every child separately, but cloning is conceivably a way to get an array of well-engineered genomic prototypes and then make them available to the masses so that they can smarter and healthier children without having to pay as much.
It’s the same sort of reason you have standard models of cars instead of making each one from scratch, bespoke-style.
It seems like you’re assuming cloning goes hand in hand with raising people in some kind of factory-style orphanages. Well, I think that won’t be done precisely because it would be very impractical and immoral. There’s no more reason it would be a good idea than doing the same with normal children.
What I see it as, is a way to expand the reproductive freedom of parents and allow them to better pursue what parents naturally want: a better life for their children. Is it possible that some parents would have unreasonable expectations of their children and be disappointed in them for being anything less than supermen? Sure, but many “tiger moms” already do this; I don’t see why this fear is enough to cause us to mandate that children be dumber and sicker.
If you’re mass-producing babies for sale, then they are not the purchasers’ children and likely have no genetic linkage to the “parents”.
Which seems to work all right for current reproductive technology where donor ova, donor sperm, and surrogate pregnancy are involved.
But fifty kids in the same area all of the same genetic stock, which is not yours, and looking and behaving identically? That next door’s son is the same as your son and they, being clones, have more in common with each other than they do with either set of parents?
I think it would take a lot of adjustment before society was comfortable with that kind of arrangement.
And we’ve seen attempts to breed better children before, from the sperm bank offering “Nobel Winners sperm” to at least one mother who was determined to have a baby genius – the Doron Blake story.
And it is not the simple choice between “physically and intellectually disabled baby” versus “smart, fit baby” that you paint. Most people are average. If we’re going to clone humans, we’ll want better than average. But environment does matter, so it will probably be the wealthy, who can provide the good environment and educational opportunities, who will best make use of cloning their offspring.
In other words, I expect very few lower middle class and working class baby geniuses (though there may be something in a line of entertainers as in sports and music there) and the well-off will continue to be the ones leading the field.
Sure, I agree it would. And I imagine many parents wouldn’t want it, for the same sorts of reasons people don’t like adopting.
Except that one of the main barriers to adopting is the cost of navigating the bureaucratic maze.
Sure, I expect the wealthy to have better outcomes. That’s the point of being wealthy.
But it’s not a zero-sum game. It’s better to be poor and not-paralyzed than poor and paralyzed. I’m not saying we do one thing and suddenly this will bring about utopia.
“But fifty kids in the same area all of the same genetic stock”
Why would you expect that? If your cloning is from the top one thousandth of the population by whatever criteria potential parents want, that gives you ten thousand potential genotypes in a population of ten million–more if different parents have different preferences, as they will, or if you are selecting from a much larger population, as you probably will be. With a few hundred different ones actually being clones, and clone children being mostly born by couples who for one reason or another cannot produce their own, the odds that an identical pair will exist in one town are low.
And, of course, the situation already exists with natural clones, who are not all that rare.
@ David Friedman:
It’s possible that one could just select the top 0.1% of the population and clone them without modification.
But another possibility, which seems conceivable even if not the most likely, is that you could use costly techniques of genetic modification to create some “superhuman” genomes, instead of just selecting from the top of the normal distribution. So instead of cloning Einstein or Usain Bolt, you create someone who’s as smart as Einstein and as fast as Usain Bolt. Or at simply edit to remove harmful recessive alleles.
If this is too costly to be performed on an individual basis, you could end up with a much smaller selection of “off-the-shelf” prototype genomes.
That’s how it works with genetically modified plants and even artificially-selected cultivars. You don’t have each farmer trying to enhance his own backyard variety of apple; they create a few superior types of apple and they all grow clones of that.
But of course there would be demand for a certain amount of variety. If you want your child to stand out, you probably don’t choose to have one who’s identical to 10% of the other kids in the class.
And yes: you make a good point that people already deal with the concept of identical twins without freaking out too much.
Also, I don’t think it would be strictly limited to couples who can’t reproduce. At first, probably. But if the cloned children had a definite advantage, I think a lot of parents would desire that for their children. They would prefer to enhance their own genetic children—but then people prefer bespoke clothing to off-the-rack—it just costs too much for the same level of quality.
But then we are not talking about cloning, we’re talking about therapeutic intervention, either fixing embryos pre-implanation (via the Magic of Magic Technology which we will invent sometime) or screening for healthy embryos or what have you.
The only way “average kid but at least not paralysed” happens with cloning is if we say “To hell with this, we can’t figure out what genes or combinations thereof make you paralysed, but we do know that Bert’s sperm and Linda’s ova produce non-paralysed kids, so we take one of their embryos and clone it wholesale so people who are likely to have paralysed kids if we let them reproduce naturally can have healthy babies”.
Except who pays for that, because it’s going to be a business and not a charity, and if you’re really poor then sorry, it’s natural or nothing.
This does, of course, depend on what we define “poor” as: is it a one-wage earner household on the average industrial wage? Lower? Higher? I see this site about “IVF for everyone!” and making it affordable, but that does leave me asking: how poor is poor? If it costs around ten grand to have an IVF baby, would a clone be comparable in cost? Can anyone then have a “poor but not paralysed” baby or are there still going to be the financial winners and losers?
I think if we’re getting to the stage of producing clones for reproductive, as distinct from research and therapeutic purposes, we will also be saying “You’re too poor to have kids, we’re not going to pay for you to have a procedure to have a baby you can’t afford to raise” – which will probably result in some interesting law cases about the right to parenthood.
And I also think if you’re paying for a cloned baby, you are going to want something more than “average but healthy”. If you can afford cloning, you want that edge: smarter, more athletic, better-looking, talented in some field, taller, healthier, etc. Otherwise you might as well have kids the old-fashioned way 🙂
>Except who pays for that, because it’s going to be a business and not a charity, and if you’re really poor then sorry, it’s natural or nothing.
No, it’s gonna be a government service. Society pays for it because society prefers that to paying disability for the entire life of the disabled person. Even if cost-benefit is bad it’s still likely that society will pay as long as it’s not too bad.
The actual problem of that policy that me and you as people without reproductive desires is that messing with people’s reproduction is a huge taboo. I imagine that any politician who tries to get people to have kids that aren’t biologically theirs would be disowned immediately. So that policy is only possible to implement if we do let people with poor genes reproduce naturally with an option for modification, and even then it may be a hard sell.
Well, it would help solve the reproducibility problem in the social sciences.
That’s what I’m talking about!
(Well, partly.)
And, also, the reproducibility problem of social scientists.
You seem to assume that cloning is going to be done outside of the normal social structure for reproduction, by a government or large corporation. Assuming the technology is improved enough for practical purposes, why not have a couple that cannot reproduce clone someone they think very highly of to be their child? If it’s a very talented someone, he gets the same opportunities to do or not do great things as other talented people do.
If you end up with, say, five percent of the people coming from the top one thousandth of the distribution of desired traits, that could have a substantial effect.
Not gonna lie, I think that if the government made several thousand functional clones of (say) John Von Neumann and suggested non-coercively to them that they work on a curse for senescence it would likely be the best thing ever.
(Several thousand would be needed in order to account for shrinkage, e.g. Tahiti, you understand.)
Zippy, your post contains my favorite typo of the month.
It sounds like the start of an awesome post-apocalyptic RPG setting.
I lol’d hard.
International coordination is too hard. It worked for human cloning…
And for human slavery.
I agree that, unless AGI turns out to be something that couple of hackers in a basement with a PC and an internet connection can create, it can be effectively suppressed without crippling economic consequences. But the key assumption of the AI risk crowd is that AGI is “obviously” a matter of One Clever Trick that transforms a piece of cheap consumer hardware into a transcendent AI demigod, so that argument isn’t going to convince them.
If we do have to get rid of hackers and PCs to block AI, the Butlerian Jihad isn’t an unthinkable or inherently unworkable prospect, would not be as economically disastrous as most here would be inclined to think, and might emerge from a near-miss AI apocalypse in roughly the way that World War I resulted in the Geneva Protocol and its successors. There would in that case be a substantial benefit from a successful defection, but chip fabs are fairly conspicuous bits of infrastructure.
Really? My old college had one in a basement. If you tracked all lab-related purchases, you might be able to track them down… but that’s getting into the “potential of economic disaster” or at least “potential of crippling inspectorate” range.
I’m pretty sure your college didn’t have a chip fab in the basement. I imagine it had a clean room in which you could fabricate small numbers of semiconductor devices for research purposes. Even if it were able to produce modern microprocessors (doubtful), the throughput would be very low.
Furthermore, those sorts facilities are not full of generic “lab-related purchases”. They contain very specific (and very expensive) pieces of equipment which can only be manufactured by a handful of companies worldwide. I’m pretty sure it would be possible to keep track of everybody who orders, say, ion implantation systems without risking economic disaster.
It was definitely a clean room, and I avoided taking any classes there, so I don’t know much more about it. So, you’re probably right.
But this does raise another question that would have to be addressed; what level of microelectronics fabrication could reasonably be achieved covertly in a world where e.g. ion implantation systems are not articles of commerce and the supporting tech for foundries is regarded with the same level of suspicion and oversight as that for uranium enrichment today? Could a rogue professor and a couple of grad students cobble together something like an 8008 processor in an otherwise-honest university lab?
I doubt anything remotely capable of hosting an AGI could be created in that environment, but the question of what sort of lower-level cheating is likely to take place is important to drawing the possible boundaries.
Not if I were one of the grad students!
(I was always a bit of a disaster in the cleanroom)
I think the big barrier to producing even 1970’s tech would be lithography. You can probably synthesize the chemicals yourself and you could modify an SEM to act as an e-beam writer (either to create the devices directly or to create photomasks so you can do photolithography), but I’m not sure how you would control it if the Butlerian Jihadists have destroyed all your microcontrollers.
Human slave trade was eliminated. There are still slaves; Mauritania apparently has quite a few.
But not enough to threaten anyone else’s economic model, in spite of slave manufacture being trivially accomplished without any specialized infrastructure.
It likewise probably won’t matter if there are always a few idiot schemers building Altair 8800s and the like out of repurposed analog electronics, if they never get within six orders of magnitude of having enough computronium to instantiate an AI before the police smash their hardware and lock them away.
Slavery is illegal in Mauritania. They abolished it in 1981 and criminalized slave-owning in 2007. Now of course, those laws aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, but they had to pretend to ban slavery because of said international coordination.
Reminds me of this sci-fi setting:
I don’t think it is.
It kind of is. Scenarios that are slow takeoffs, or that require massive amounts of hardware, are much less scary because they leave more room for human intervention when things go wrong.
If an AI requires an entire Google datacenter to run, it means that you don’t need to spy on hackers in their basement. You don’t need to fear that the OpenAI project will unleash the apocalypse, because only a few organizations will have the power to create an AI, and such organizations can afford the Very Serious Measures you need to keep the AI boxed up.
Similarly, if you can create an AI on your desktop, but it doesn’t instantly go foom and become superintelligent in a matter of weeks, you have time to get practical experience with AIs. You can learn what makes an AI friendly or unfriendly without risking that a small mistake could doom the planet. And when a hacker creates an unfriendly AI in his basement and it starts working on the nuclear launch codes, you have time to notice that it’s doing that and send someone to unplug it.
Yes, there are still serious risks even in the slow-takeoff, large-hardware corner, but there’s a difference between “AI research is dangerous and will have unintended consequences” and “We have to make an AI provably friendly on the first try, or we doom the planet.”
Bostrom, in particular, discusses the difference between hard and slow takeoff, never makes a real case for why hard takeoff is inevitable, but then goes on to offer up a whole lot of scenarios and analyses that at least implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) assume hard takeoff. Similarly, he pretty much neglects the possibility of hardware limits on AI capabilities.
Actually, international coordination hasn’t worked to end slavery. It’s worked to end large scale slavery, and there are (I think) few slave markets, but there’s still quite a bit of slavery.
To begin with, state slavery is still common, with the military draft the obvious example.
And I think that the slave trade was ended at a point at which one state, the U.K., had a sufficient naval dominance to be able to do it pretty much by itself, although I could be mistaken.
In addition to slavery by governments, there’s quite a bit of enslavement by businesses and households.
Did it work for human cloning? As far as I can tell there are a lot of laws on the books stopping people from doing something almost no one would want to do, considering the health of Dolly the Sheep. Even in America there are a lot of states where cloning is legal.
The issue isn’t just laws, but widely-accepted ethical codes, often formalized outside of statutory law, among the community of professionals without whose assistance no such project is likely to succeed. Again assuming AGI doesn’t turn out to be a matter of One Clever Trick for a basement hacker.
Unless you think humanity is going to remain at a stagnant technological level and also bound to the Earth, then I think AI will be created eventually if it can be done at all.
Even if we eliminate computers and do everything with slide rules, eventually the level of resources commanded by the individual in his “basement” is going to become so great that he will be able to create it even if it involves a sizable quantity. Especially if we extend “individual in his basement” to the level of a cult like Aum Shinrikyo.
Also, I disagree with your idea that having access to computers would not be a major competitive advantage that everyone would be working to secretly obtain. There’s a reason they’re always finding people in the bathrooms at chess tournaments using phones to cheat.
There’s a reason they’re always finding people in the bathrooms at chess tournaments using phones to cheat.
Part of which is that it is easy to do so, in precisely the way that building a covert supercomputer under the Butlerian Jihad is not.
I do not think this future is likely, desirable, or necessary. I do think it is not trivially dismissible, and would like to see more thought put into any counterarguments that may be presented.
It vastly handicaps the military capabilities of the nations who sign on so defecting is incredibly lucrative?
It vastly handicaps the military capabilities of the nations who sign on so defecting is incredibly lucrative?
With the exception of the 1991 Gulf War, hasn’t every serious military conflict since the invention of the transistor been won by the side with fewer computers?
It’s worth thinking about, but the limiting factor is the scope of a plausible defection. You aren’t going to get, e.g., an enemy showing up with an entire Air Force of F-18s carrying AMRAAMs and JDAMs, going against an adversary stuck with Korean-war era equipment. Mass production of working JDAMs requires more infrastructure development than is likely to be kept secret. And at the other end, you can make perfectly good laser-guided bombs and radar-guided missiles with non-Turing analog electronics.
So if the price for giving a few squadrons of your nation’s strike aircraft some inadequately-tested handmade JDAMs and all the other fancy electronics, is having every other nation on Earth come after you with their full arsenal of Paveways and Sparrows, defecting may not be the winning move.
Actually, it’s worse than that. JDAMs require GPS for good accuracy. Satellite communications might be important enough to do via the Clarke method, but I suspect you’d run into a wall somewhere before you got GPS working.
Depends on what you consider a “computer”. It’s the wide-spread use of things like cell-phones and the internet that makes modern asymmetrical warfare possible in the first place. Otherwise you’re back to playing the old “concentration of fire” game.
Pretty certain Charlie wasn’t using cellphones…
“Charlie” was regular army and getting his ass kicked before
he was saved by the bellhis opponent was distracted by issues at home.As an American who can remember the tail end of that era, I am now quite sick and tired of all the excuses for why we didn’t really lose the Vietnam War. I assume there’s a similar sentiment in Russia w/re Afghanistan, and probably there are people in China who believe that they really won their war with Vietnam right after we did.
Vietnam is trying to go capitalist, which in a way is our side winning. The Russians can’t claim the same thing about Afghanistan.
(Also, being ruled by the North Vietnamese is itself a type of loss.)
And as some one who’s had skin in the game I’m equally sick of the armchair quarterbacks who try to plant the blame for their own political and moral failures on those actually playing.
Obviously, it’s the shitposters who should have the moral high ground. Get it right, people!
Anonymous says: …What a demented worldview.
Quite.
– Citizenship In a Republic, Theodore Roosevelt
I see, it’s the baby killers that have the moral high ground. Not the people that finally made them stop.
So far as I’m aware, nobody made it policy in Vietnam to kill babies. The closest was probably the North Vietnamese and their indiscriminate use of AAA and SAMs over Hanoi, which resulted in lots of weapons coming down on their own people. They then blamed the US. I suppose you could argue that we made them stop by keeping hitting them until they ran out of SAMs.
Yes, I’m sure good old Teddy would agree that other people’s dead babies are a small price to pay for an opportunity to act in a manly fashion. An unreconstructed imperialist is a wonderful role model for a neocon.
Is Col. Jessup up next? Because I’d love to hear again about how there are walls. Gives me goosebumps every time.
I’m sure that it’s a bargain compared to whatever dystopian flavor of the month is popular at anon@gmail these days.
Eggs, omelets, and all that.
We could ban AGI in the same way that we can ban teleportation. It may or may not be a good idea, and there are lots of interesting philosophical implications — but since the technology does not exist and will not exist for a very long time, worrying about it now is moot. It would be like banning manned flight back in the Ancient Babylonian times.
Overconfidence much?
I would also assume that any sufficiently successful coordination would require time and legal+political buildup.
Assuming AGI is not banned, when do you think it will come online ? Tomorrow ? 5 years from now ? 20 years ? Our lifetimes ? Our children’s lifetimes (just to account for old people like myself) ? Grandchildren’s ?
If your answer is anything later than that, then banning AGI doesn’t make a lot of sense — because, even without AGI, the world our grandchildren live in will be a radically different place. That’s what I meant to say with my “manned flight” analogy. Yes, there are pros and cons to manned flight, but the kind of world where manned flight is technologically possible is so different from a less advanced world, that making coherent judgements about it centuries (or even millennia) ahead of time is virtually impossible.
I don’t know if and when it will come, just like I don’t know if and when it will be possible to create a synthetic pathogen that can kill all humans.
That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to pretend it won’t happen, or even that it won’t happen in our lifetime.
Ok, but by this logic, you should ban everything more dangerous than a spoon. Genetic engineering can be used to create that pathogen — let’s ban it. Nuclear physics has in fact been used to create world-ending weaponry; let’s ban it too. Today, it’s easy to say “chemistry is probably not that bad”, but if you lived in the past, maybe you would’ve liked to ban it in order to prevent things like TNT and fuel-air explosives.
One obvious objection I can think of is that you are not trying to ban the entire field of computer science, or even machine learning in general, but only one specific application: AGI. But the problem here is that, at present, no one knows how to even begin building anything remotely similar to AGI, so if you want to ban it, you’ll need to ban whole swathes of computer science in general.
On the flip side, once you have enough scientific understanding, certain technologies become obvious. Once you know enough chemistry, you can make crystal meth in your RV. Once you know enough physics, you can make a nuke in your podunk dictatorship of a country. And yet, once these technologies are discovered and developed, they become much easier to regulate — because you know exactly what to look for.
All I want to say is, how brilliant was Frank Herbert for predicting, in the 60s, that such a ban might be necessary/desirable?
I think it was less that and more “what do I need to make space feudalism make sense”.
The Game Beyond is the answer to that question.
What’s the state of the art for genetic screening and selection of embryos given that we don’t have outright genetic engineering yet? I’m specifically interested in: screening for any potential problems from an older mother (36) or father (38), a family history of heart disease on one side, of breast cancer and lymphoma on the other side, depression on both sides, what is sometimes colloquially called aspie traits with no history of full blown autism, and also as a nice to have whatever is possible in terms of enhancing height or intelligence. Paying out of pocket isn’t a concern.
Not really looking for political, social, or philosophical critiques, thanks.
It sounds like you want genetic counseling.
I think more like Reprogenetics which was linked off that page. Unfortunately it still seems to be mostly speculative. Thanks for the link.
They really can’t do much for the selection of embryos except for checking for chromosomal abnormalities, anything more specific than that, which is all of what you listed, can’t be tested in embryos. What a genetic counselor will do is give you a better idea of the actual chances for passing on a hereditary disease or trait to your child. Also, according to the wikipedia article the other commenter linked, only 5-10% of cancer is heritable, so unless the breast cancer is from BRCA, you shouldn’t worry about that as much.
I was under the impression that a cell could be taken at the 8 cell stage and subjected to genetic analysis. Is that not the case?
Having perused many pre-implantation genetic testing websites and services, the only thing most advertise is detection of chromosomal abnormalities. There appears to be attempted research and development of screening for other heritably linked diseases, but the only thing readily available to consumers appears to be detection of chromosomal abnormalities. This company appears to have a much wider range of genetic tests, they are the most advanced screening you will find, yet it appears they can only test for specific mutations, not diseases that are likely hereditary, but don’t have a specific allele as the cause.
People do embryo selection for eye color. But they can only do that because they know the genetics. People know virtually nothing about the genetics of common diseases like heart disease and cancer. The exception is BRCA, but even if someone tells you that you have a bad BRCA gene, they are probably lying. If you have a nonsense mutation in BRCA, that’s valuable to know, but if you merely have a missense mutation, not so much.
Really? That seems like a lot of effort for little gain.
I read (skimmed really) a whole bunch of discussion here about SNPs associated with various things and figuring out which you had via mail order genetic testing. I assumed that there was an intersection between that sort of thing and embryo selection techniques. But I guess not?
Frog, people do embryo selection to avoid a small chance of chromosomal disorders, maybe because they have a rare disorder, maybe to do sex selection, maybe just because it’s “for the children,” and then they have a few bits of selection left over and there is nothing to spend it on except eye color. Note that in the early days of sperm donation, eye color was the only thing selection was spent on.
NUA, of course you can select on anything you know about, like all the SNPs 23andMe will tell you about. And maybe you should, if you have nothing better to do. But those health claims are (1) probably false and (2) pretty small, even if they are true. The same is true for FDA-approved Myriad’s claims about BRCA.
Thanks for the reply Douglas Knight, pending some research to confirm, I guess I’ll just have to give up as being too early. We’ll just have to cross our fingers like everyone else.
Source, please? Very relevant.
Anonymous, how about this source? What do you want to know?
Use someone else’s semen and/or eggs? Just buy the stuff that has the best genes available and let technology handle it. Not really that different from changing the embryo’s genes to be like the genes from the taller/smarter etc donors.
FYI, The technical term for this is preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) or preimplantation genetic screening (PGS). There’s a difference between these things but I forget what it is.
Generally these are used for major chromosomal defects (which is the biggest risk for older parents), so those can be screened against.
The other issues you’ve described are highly polygenic and/or have big environmental components and/or the genetics are not well understood. PGS can screen for 1 mutation at a time, so in some cases it couldn’t help because there are too many small-effect mutations for it to make a difference, in other cases it wouldn’t help because we don’t even know the genes to screen for.
I’ve added buttons to ease adding markup to your comments. You’ve always been able to; they just make it easier. Feedback is welcomed in this subthread.
Also, revisiting some features which are often overlooked:
• You can hide a comment and its children using the ‘hide’ link at the bottom of every comment.
• The box in the upper right expands to a list of new comments. Clicking on an item will bring you to it.
• Speaking of the box in the upper right, you can change the date in it to change which comments are marked as new. This is especially useful if you accidentally reload or something.
• Posting a comment should no longer reset the threshold for a comment to be considered “new”.
• New comments have the text “~ new ~” (without the spaces) added, so you can C-f that text to easily move between them.
• Child comments have a link to their parent comment next to the “Hide” link mentioned above. This is particularly useful if you’re deep within a subthread and wish to exit it: just keep clicking that link until you get to the top comment in the thread, then hide it.
Just noticed these additions. Thank you very much! (I’ve never been fond of typing markup.)
Oh no, you’ve made it too easy! Now we’re going to get flooded by filthy casuals.
Thanks for all the other features, though 🙂
Usually I use “Hide” for convenience, to mark the subthread as read, so to speak. But occasionally I want to hide a subthread permanently (in a way that persists between reloads). Do you think implementing perma-hide might be viable / a good idea?
I did actually worry about this a bit – well, not “casuals”, but overuse of bolding etc. I’m hoping that it will also increase incidence of adding relevant links, and that this will be worthwhile.
I could in principle do this, but I’m not sure how I’d go about making the UI for it, especially given that we already have a “hide” button.
If you think that links are good and bold is bad, you could add a button for one and not the other.
A different use-case for perma-hide
I would also like a perma-hide feature, but I have a different use-case from Nita’s. Nita wants to perma-hide comments she dislikes reading, and temp-hide comments she has recently read. I want to perma-hide both types of comments.
I want perma-hiding because sometimes I reload the page after I’ve read only some of its comment threads – because I post a reply, or because my browser crashes. If the threads I’ve already read stay hidden after this reload, I won’t have to scroll past them.
However, I also want a way to easily re-show all perma-hidden comments, in case I revisit the comment thread in the future and want to read new replies to read comments, or I want to use the C-f to search through all comments on the page. For the case of searching all comments, it might be nice to be able to re-hide only the comments that had been hidden, but that case comes up only rarely so it’s not very important to implement.
User interface ideas
Solution for my use-case
First, here’s a UI idea that solves my use-case but not Nita’s. It keeps the simplicity of having only one “hide” link per comment, at the cost of disallowing the mixing of permanently hidden and temporarily hidden comments on a page.
The idea is to turn perma-hide on all the time. Clicking “Hide” on any comment would save that state permanently. However, there would also be a toggle link added at the top of every comment thread, below the header “1,370 RESPONSES TO OT47: OPENAI”. The link would toggle between “Show All Comments” and “Hide All Comments”. If only some comments are hidden, the link would be in its “Show” state, because that is the more likely action.
Currently, readers who want all hiding to be temporary undo the hiding by refreshing the page. With this system, they would undo hiding by clicking “Show All Comments” instead.
An alternative to this design is replacing the “Show/Hide All Comments” link with a checkbox or two radio buttons that control whether comment hiding is permanent or temporary. But I think that even those who prefer perma-hiding would still sometimes want to expand all comments. They would be more likely to figure out that it’s possible if it were doable with one button, rather than requiring changing the setting, reloading the page, and changing the setting back.
Solution for Nita’s use-case
Second, here’s a design idea for Nita’s use-case. The idea is that after you click “Hide” to temp-hide, as well as replacing it with a “Show” link, also show a checkbox called “Keep Hidden After Reload” or something. The name is a bit long, but just calling it “Keep Hidden” could be confusing. This design avoids showing two hide links most of the time – it only adds complexity to the UI after the user has already indicated their interest in hiding by clicking the “Hide” link. The checkbox would be faded out, just like the other three links for the comment, so it wouldn’t be too visually distracting.
There may be a way to combine features of both ideas to make a design that covers both use-cases.
This kind of formatting is reminiscent of old John Sidles, please don’t make me regret Bakkot’s hard work on the formatting buttons. (I think you are aware of this and think it’s funny, but I politely disagree)
My armchair reasoning on the perma-hide issue is that a temp hide is more clearly labeled “collapse,” and possibly relocated away from hide. Of course, there’d be some pain in transition.
Counter-proposal:
Normal ‘Hide’ stays unchanged, perma-hide is called ‘Mute’ and placed next to ‘Report’, and pops up a similar confirmation dialog when clicked:
[Reply][Hide][Parent]____________[Mute][Report comment]
Dialog text: ‘Hide this comment and its replies permanently?’
I agree that there should be a reset button somewhere on the page.
The reason why I don’t want normal ‘Hide’ to be permanent is because I’m still interested in seeing new replies in most subthreads. Perma-hide would make those invisible, and clicking ‘Show all’ to find them would also unhide a torrent of comments on AGW or the minutiae of US law.
>New comments have the text “~ new ~” (without the spaces) added, so you can C-f that text to easily move between them.
Would it be possible to add dedicated keyboard shortcuts for this functionality? Maybe Alt+↓ to go to the next “new” post?
Also, the new buttons below the text editor make posting harder without the use of the mouse. Before you could hit Tab x 4 and get to the “post comment” button, now you have to hit it 10 times. Perhaps a shortcut to submit directly when the focus is on the textbox? Ctrl+Enter?
Yes, but I’m not currently planning to. C-f char-char enter-enter-enter-enter-enter seems sufficient, and in principle can be figured out without having to already know about it.
Ah, this did not even occur to me. That should now be fixed (though it may take a minute or two to propogate).
One advantage that a dedicated Alt + ↓ would have over C-f twiddle-new-twiddle RET (tribal markers FTW) is that it could scroll the comment to the top of the page. At the moment, Chrome just scrolls until the comment header shows at the bottom of the page and then I manually have to scroll up to start reading the comment.
I never did figure out how to make a proper quote. And I’m supposed to be a webdev!
You notified me about this earlier, but thanks again for this! It’s very helpful.
Thank you. For some reason, “blockquote” is just about the hardest word to type for me…
I very much appreciate this, but will continue to not quote properly.
This is probably a bit too hard, but what I would like to do is to be able to hide comments threads without moving my mouse. When hiding a thread, the window would scroll right to the next hide button on the next thread.
You could then scan down the comments looking for something interesting, click, click, click, etc. Now it is Click, move the mouse to next hide button, click, find hide button, click, find, click find…..
You would probably need to put the hide in the top right corner.
Since I just finally found the hide button, I’m now asking for the world!
Wow! Thank you! This makes it much easier to use markup; now I will use it all the time!
Jokes aside, have you considered replacing the up arrow with “Parent”? It’s the odd one out, and I hear it is difficult to click on mobile.
This.
I sacrifice a chicken in your honor!
Don’t let the effective altruists catch you doing that.
I appreciate this for several reasons. The primary one being that I now know that any of these features exist. NoScript sometimes makes that happen.
Thanks for the buttons!
Have you considered implementing posting with AJAX? So that the page doesn’t refresh every time you post a comment, redownloading the thousands of comments. Even a fairly powerful computer can choke on the contents of Scott’s threads.
Hi, Bakkot, appreciate it all.
As long as you’re tinkering, here’s an occasional problem. Say, I open the site and it says: “100 new comments since /time/”
CTL-F shows I’m at “1 of 100”
I click the CTL-F box down through “2 of 100”, “3 of 100”, etc.
At “50 of 100” I post a reply to #50.
The box now says I’m at “1 of 101”. I have to again click the CTL-F box down through “2 of 100”, “3 of 100”, etc to get back to “~50 or 51 of 101”.
You can avoid this problem using only built-in browser features. After the page reloads and you are sent back to result “1 of 101”, scroll down to your comment. If you aren’t already there after the page loads, you can get there by searching for a phrase in your comment or for your username. Once you’re there, click anywhere in the text of your comment.
Clicking on or selecting any text sets an invisible cursor that the browser keeps track of for searching purposes. If you then search for your original search term again, you will be brought to the first result after that cursor – result “51 of 101”.
Thanks for all the work!
By the way, I was surprised when my image was looked up and displayed from my email address, because the site claims that “Your email address will not be published”.
It didn’t bother me personally, since wasn’t trying to be anonymous, but my email address was effectively published because someone could do a reverse image search and find me from the image.
I suggest adding a disclosure to the “Your email address will not be published” statement so that people aren’t surprised.
^_^
Andrew
What do you mean, how does that work? Can someone’s email address be backtracked from one’s gravatar, and does this work for people without a gravatar account/a randomly generated avatar?
If someone has a guess at what your email might be, they can confirm or disconfirm their guess using the string Gravatar uses to generate your avatar.
Example:
Could the address David Friedman uses on SSC be DDFr@DavidDFriedman.com?
Let’s check.
Lowercase: ddfr@daviddfriedman.com
Hash: c7de44f873f6138636821fea09979886
String from SSC HTML: c7de44f873f6138636821fea09979886
Got it!
If they’re clever, they might find a way to automate the guessing and increase their chances.
So, SSC doesn’t publish your email, but it does both publish a (cryptographically weak) hash of your email, and send it to a third party (Gravatar), who will send back a picture associated with your email, which is the same on all sites that use Gravatar. (That is basically the whole idea of Gravatar – “globally recognized avatars”.)
Thank you very much. Without these trivial inconveniences, I will probably comment a lot more.
I just noticed that clicking on a commenter in the grey box doesn’t work if I have hidden that subthread. Feature or bug?
I have a strong suspicion that I am on the high functioning side of the autism spectrum. Any real reason for an adult to get a formal diagnosis? Or tomorrow phrase it differently, is there actually any sensible treatment?
My mom has thought, and still kind of thinks, I’m on the high end of the spectrum, but I have had neuropsychological testing done 3 times, and I definitely don’t fit enough criteria to be diagnosed. I probably am closer to being on the spectrum than the average person though. Have you taken any basic online Autism Spectrum Quotient tests? They obviously aren’t an official diagnoses, but they can give you a jumping off point to see if you are actually just towards the introverted and socially awkward side of average (like me), or if you actually might fit enough criteria to be diagnosed. As far as treatment, it depends on how much of an effect autism has on your day to day life. If you function fairly well as an adult, it’s possible you don’t need a prolonged ‘treatment’, but it might be nice to have a community of like-minded people and a new understanding of your behaviors.
Is there actually any sensible treatment?
Certainly it’s not like ADHD where you can get pills. I suppose the only formal “benefit” has been a letter to employers with some handy hints on reasonable adjustments that they can make… OTOH I have a feeling that good employers will be nice and responsive anyway (my letter was mostly filled with things we’d worked out pre-diagnosis) and bad ones will find ways to be obstructive.
Soft benefits – if the uncertainty is making you miserable, then getting some clarity there can help. If you’re seeing therapists for something like depression or anxiety, then that knowledge can help with that.
The big three reasons for going to get a diagnosis in adulthood are a) being treated for a mental illness and finding that some ASD might be an underlying issue that needs to be taken into account, b) martial/relationship counselling where ASD might be an underlying issue, or c) having a kid get diagnosed with ASD, and then people start wondering about one (or both) of the parents.
(of course b) and c) are for those lucky ones whose impairments don’t affect their pairing-up skills too much, but there you go.)
No SoCal meetup(s) planned? Apologize if that info was buried somewhere in the comments.
Likewise, if Scott’s “down South” includes OC I’ll take him to lunch.
When we have human-level AI, why should we keep human interaction?
We won’t, because we’ll all be either dead or locked up in a lab somewhere. Oh, I guess there’ll be some experiments involving human interaction.
Short answer: Because most humans enjoy human interaction and being deprived of it generally leads to poor mental health.
Long answer: I assume for the purposes of this question you’re proposing AI that is either indistinguishable from a human in its responses, or sufficiently superior that it can analyze a human, figure out what kind of interaction that human would enjoy most, and provide it. Either way, giving up human interaction because AIs “do it better” sounds very likely to produce a race of individual humans all living alone in VR cocoons – comparative breeding advantage then goes to any human culture that rewards staying out of the cocoon and making babies.
(And before you say people in the VR cocoons would still want to enjoy parenthood – real human children are frequently contrary and inconvenient. A virtual child can have all the cuteness of the real deal, without all the projectile diarrhea, midnight screaming, and need for supervision when Mommy or Daddy wants to have some alone time.)
Some people apparently really like human interaction? I assume that you mean a scenario in which AI can provide interaction indistinguishable from the real thing. A lot people would probably give something like authenticity as the reason to keep interacting with real people. I’m not sure how well would that value fare once perfectly fine-tuned artificial interaction became available. I suspect that the (hypothetical non-disastrous) future will be full of solipsists.
There’s also the option of the perfect artificial friends being actual conscious people. Which would mitigate the authenticity problem, at the cost of raising ethical issues (which might also get all ignored as soon as such an option ever becomes available).
Consider Mike in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Manny interacts with him. The interaction is the real thing, just not identical to interaction with a human. But it satisfies the same sorts of emotional requirements.
Shoutout to David Friedman and the other users who recommended the Ancillary series. I just finished the second of the two books and I’ve been really enjoying them. Collected here are miscellaneous things I found worth writing down about them, a lot of which was probably obvious to people as they were reading it.
The protagonist’s ability to read the emotions and physical reactions of other people serves as a handy shortcut to give every primary, secondary and even background character a rich inner life, of which the reader occasionally catches glimpses. It sounds like a cheap trick but I found it worked very well. Similarly, all the dialogue is immediately followed by a line indicating what was left unsaid, or what the character is really thinking.
/tg/ had a take on the 9 point alignment system, measuring a setting’s ‘grimness’ vs ‘nobility’ and ‘brightness’ vs ‘darkness.’ On one end is ‘grimdark,’ exemplified by the eponymous Warhammer 40K. On the other side you have ‘noblebright,’ which encompasses most generic fantasy settings. The Ancillary trilogy is an example of ‘grimbright,’ where the characters are slaves or soldiers in the service of an ‘evil empire.’
One element I could have done without is the presence of alien races at all. It might just be my preference for Dune or Red Dwarf-like settings where everything is somehow an offshoot of humanity, but I think the plot functions performed by the Presger and the Rrrrrr could just as easily been filled by other human (or human descended) factions.
If you’re a fan of the Culture series, and especially if you think the Culture would be a nice place to live, it’s easy to think of the Radch as its ‘evil universe’ counterpart, where the AI ships are ruled by humans instead of the reverse, and life is organized around service and duty rather than hedonism and freedom. This is certainly a fun way to look at it but there’s a lot more nuance here.
On one hand, you have material scarcity (most of the Radch in the books live in miniscule quarters and subsist primarily on a nutritive kelp-like substance), the suffocating obsession with propriety, status and lineage, the fact that the well off and well connected will always, always win at your expense, the various invasions and genocides, the omnipresent AI surveillance, the ever present possibility of being brainwashed or having your brain scooped out and replaced with machinery allowing an AI to puppet your body, the possibility that someone with authority will molest or rape you and get away with it because it isn’t seen as objectionable, and ng nyy gvzrf orvat fhowrpg gb gur juvzf bs n cflpubgvp qvpgngbe ng jne jvgu urefrys.
On the other hand, you have an aptitude test that you can take which will tell you what you’re good at and set out a career path ahead of you, one you don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on to acquire a piece of sheepskin for. Simple delights like a bowl of tea or the touch of an ungloved hand, made sweeter by the extreme austerity and deprivation that characterize most of life. A whole host of trinkets and baubles carrying layers of complicated meanings. Pride taken in meaningful work well done. A sense of purpose and belonging, of being wanted and valued by both your extended family and a larger network of friends, colleagues and romantic partners.
In brief these seem like the benefits and drawbacks you’d expect from an insular, clannish society. The distinction between characters who had everything handed to them from birth and characters who didn’t is definitely one of the more salient ones (the other axis being ability). The question to ask when wondering about life in this fictional setting is if you’d end up as one of the Lieutenants with a loving family and house and subordinates and etc, or whether you’d be one of the zeks defrosted to work the tea plantations.
If I could live in Imperial Radch, I very well might take that choice.
So basically a shittier version of the Soviet Union but with a higher technology base? That doesn’t sound real attractive compared to say the actual Soviet Union.
If I’m only going to get two replies, I’m happy they’re polar opposites.
Is there any chance of you doing a meetup in the greater LA area? I can’t be the only person from down here who would be interested in going.
+1
I’m out in the High Desert, but Greater LA is definitely more convenient to me than Bay Area. I’ll make a San Jose meetup sooner or later if they keep happening, but next Monday probably won’t work. If it were a SoCal location, I’d probably be there.
On the general ongoing subject of exclusion.
The hated figurehead of our opposing faction within Glorious RationalismGrand MoffEliezer Yudkowsky has been showing considerable signs of bad faith over on Facebook.First we had some rather dubious point-missing regarding religious metaphors, then a post decrying They Who Shall Not Be Named and denying that he is now or has ever been a Death Eater, which apparently is required to get through Customs these days.
Then Alyssa Vance took against a thread on the LW Facebook group about our old friend (but not that way, we don’t think of them like that) the Friendzone, even though it was by a new female poster, wholly respectful, and didn’t turn into a frothing 18-way SJ vs Bad People culture war clusterbang, and deleted it.
Some people didn’t like this and expressed their displeasure via what were for the most part quite reasoned responses. Alyssa then characterised these as shrieking underworld howls and quit in disgust.
Then EY decided the obvious thing to do was to ban a whole bunch of people for daring to have opinions he doesn’t like, call it “garden pruning”, make dark insinuations as to the motivation of anyone who disagrees with him, and delete a whole bunch of comments for insufficient mutuality.
Obviously, this had the usual Streisand Effect and pretty much all discussion since then has been on ways to get around having EY set fire to anything he dislikes as a basis for moderation actions.
I’m not about to start making suggestions as to the motivation behind these actions, even though I have numerous ideas as to what they might be, because honestly this all just serves to inform us as to whom the rightful Caliph truly is.
(I should probably note that the LW FB group is for the most part not a great loss for all concerned and would probably be better off deleted entirely. I’m mostly interested in the tribal aspects here, along with the shift in public persona.)
Data point: EY blocked me on facebook for calling his trolling for sex in exchange for t-shirts poshlost (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poshlost). I think that post of his has been deleted now.
Were you previously acquaintances or something? I know that I’d bar anyone whose first interaction on Facebook with me was to insult me in comments on one of my posts.
Facebook personal posts have different norms to communal group areas, or social networks where there’s no comment-post distinction; they’re normally posts by the person primarily for consumption of acquaintances, friends, or (for the likes of EY) fans, nominally to keep them up to date on thoughts and life, and anyone not even pretending to be one of those is a bit of an outsider, so if they’re just being insulting in comments they don’t really have any business being there, as I see it.
There’s very much a “you come into my house, and you…” aspect to them which isn’t present in less “owned” locations, as well as the “I have a purpose in mind here (lighthearted fun, probably) and your posts are damaging it, things which damage the purpose begone” attitude that’s just a healthy attitude to moderation in general. If one is commenting on someone else’s feed one has to be respectful towards whatever they’re wanting to be in their feed.
I gave him some chocolate cake once. Also answered a math question of his ages ago when I was still with my advisor. I went to some MIRI workshops, where EY and Benja explained how UDT handles something I was worried about it not handling correctly. We had vague plans to write a paper, once.
—
I am mostly presenting a data point without comment. As in, what I said happened, exactly as I said. You are free to draw your conclusions from this as you see fit.
Bit quick, then. Normally one cuts people one is acquainted with some slack, as they’ve had positive contributions to stuff too.
He probably blocked you because you’ve spent the last few years making sure everyone knows how little you think of him and how much higher you think your status should be compared to his. This is pretty much the only thing you talk about in the posts I’ve read from you, both here and on Less wrong. Why he doesn’t want that toxicity in his life should be obvious.
Is that what you think I was doing? I am not in a status competition with EY, I don’t want the kind of status he wants. And he, apparently does not want the kind of status I want (mainstream academic status). If he did, he would publish more, and troll for sex on facebook less.
Is the phrase “trolling for sex on facebook” negativity? Because that is literally what was happening.
Your framing of this is fascinating to me. It’s not that I should be less negative, it’s people should stop doing shitty things. It’s not like I go around trashing everything EY does. Just, you know, the shitty, poshliye things. I did a bit of thinking @ MIRI, actually (although mostly w/ Benja, not EY. I never quite got a clear idea of EY’s technical chops, despite spending the better part of a day talking about UDT with him in the room).
—
I am not a huge believer in karma as a useful signal of anything, except some measure of community consensus minus sockpuppet downvoting. But if that’s right, and all I did on LW was trash EY, apparently LW loves people trashing EY.
“I don’t compete for status with EY because I’m such a high status academic and he isn’t. Also, I’m going to imply that he’s some sort of creepy pervert, everything he does is shitty and that he has no technical chops.”
Thanks for proving my point.
“I have lots of karma on Less Wrong.”
Good for you.
Academics really does use a different status ladder than what Eliezer does (popular science with a side of philosophy) or what I do (industry). That doesn’t mean a position in one is necessarily higher-status than a position in another; sometimes it will be, sometimes it won’t, but it’s going to be highly contextual. No one would call Neil DeGrasse Tyson low-status, for example, but he is not unusually accomplished on the pure science side of things.
@Nornagest
True, which just makes it even more weird that Ilya Shpitser is so determined to “win” his private status competition against EY. Especially when EY doesn’t seem to even be playing.
So, what kind of response from Mr Shitpo…. Ehm… Shipster would have disproved your point?
What do you think my “win condition” even is? Did it occur to you that not everything is about status once you are >30 yo?
“It’s so weird that my hypothesis that there is a status competition happening doesn’t seem to be making any sense. Well, time to ignore alternative explanations!”
—
Anyways the TLDR is:
do: great stuff! Publish science, do art, change the world.
don’t: be a poshliy shit.
—
I am not talking to EY. It would be kind of dumb to go through a third party website, wouldn’t it.
@Whatever Happened To Anonymous
Pretty much any other response than the one I got.
@Ilya Shpitser
I understand your need to misread my previous posts, so I’ll state my point again: As evidenced by your above post (and literally every single thing you’ve written about EY and MIRI for the last few years) you’re clearly in a one-sided status competition against him. What’s weird is why.
As to your other comments:
“What do you think my “win condition” even is?”
I don’t care to speculate.
“Did it occur to you that not everything is about status once you are >30 yo?”
Yeah, caring this much about status would be pretty dumb. Unfortunately, some people are obsessed with it.
“I am not talking to EY.”
Of course you aren’t. That would give him a chance to respond to your accusations.
It was indeed deleted, but a screenshot survives.
That’s a kind of bad taste so ballsy that I almost admire it.
Not quite, though.
Plainly a joke, and a funny one. I don’t know what Zorgon is raving about, but this confirms that I don’t care.
Ha-ha-only-serious, I’d say, but this isn’t especially relevant to Zorgon’s post. I think it’s tacky as hell, but it doesn’t directly bear on Eliezer’s ability as a moderator, except insofar as it’s evidence of a taste for self-aggrandizement.
Dude, Eliezer nuked the LW facebook group for about a full day. Censorship of anything and everything that called into question the propriety of doing that same thing to anything he felt like.
If you were there, it wouldn’t sound like raving.
Eliezer seriously went off the deep end in the “I’m offended so you’re wrong” direction. I can give you 10+ sources on that if you’d like.
He referred to banning the OP of the first post as “executing”. He was in full ham mode, and completely ignoring any consequences.
It’s such a good parallel to Voldemort that I really wish he would just Quirrell-up already.
I’m sure I’ll survive somehow, but I appreciate you nevertheless taking the time to let me know.
I think we should avoid spreading things people have deleted unless there’s some kind of compelling public interest for doing so.
Good point.
Yes comrade, why are you so interested in heretical history?
——
I wonder what deleted content you have specifically in mind that you don’t want people seeing?
I actually agree, although tbh I hadn’t seen it. I was aware some people were mildly upset about it but it didn’t qualify for much more than a single-sentence mention.
How can anyone else determine whether there is a compelling public interest, without being able to see it?
The people who have seen it are the ones who determine that.
“But who will watch the watchers?” We’re talking about embarrassing comments here, not CIA secret prisons.
Same difference.
Poshlost sounds kinda like vanity. But wikipedia says it has no equivalent. Am I missing something?
Yes. Poshlost’ is a very complicated word. The closest English phrase is “banality of evil in humans.” A lot of Russian intelligentsia stuff in the 19th-20th century (and perhaps a lot of Russian history) makes a lot more sense given an understanding of this word.
hm, what about nihilism? Like not in the deep philosophical sense, but the “meh, shit happens” aesthetic you see in movies with antiheroes.
“nihilism” – no, that’s definitely not it.
Let’s not do the “mysterious Russian soul” thing here.
In everyday language, “пошлость” simply means “tasteless vulgarity”. It’s usually aimed at ‘dirty’ jokes, but occasionally generalized to other behavior that demonstrates or promotes non-virtuous attitudes. It might be a good fit in this situation, if you’re inclined to strongly express your disapproval. (Although I’m not sure how effective you can expect it to be when talking to non-Russian speakers, or even to Russian speakers to don’t subscribe to the underlying values.)
But “banality of evil” is a very specific phrase with a very specific history. I wouldn’t throw it around when talking about silly facebook posts.
Ehhhh – from what I’m reading, it sounds something like a cross between what Irish people mean when using expressions like “so-and-so has no rearing” and “so-and-so is pig ignorant”.
I actually thought the “join my harem and get a T-shirt” post was funny, which is a first for me and Yudkowsky’s writing. But if you’re trying to tell me he was serious, then yeah, it’s skeevy.
But I genuinely did not think it was serious, I thought he was trying to keep the joke going (albeit in a heavy-handed way), riffing on his reputation as being Polyamorous King of the Cult and the pop culture notion of sultans, caliphs and harems.
All this strikes me as more “storm in a teacup”, to be frank. For rationalists, there seems to be one hell of a lot of drama queens all over the place!
@ Deiseach
That sounds close. But it doesn’t usually mean the innocent sort of crudeness of someone who hasn’t been taught proper manners. It’s more about a conscious rejection of “higher” norms and values in favour of “base” motivations like self-interest, comfort or prurient amusement.
Other synonyms: base, low, obscene, shallow.
To sum up, it’s a handy word that you can throw at both edgelords and philistines.
“Let’s not do the “mysterious Russian soul” thing here.”
Not Russian, here, just Russian-speaking. Still a complicated word, sorry. And an important word for Russian intellectuals. German has a ton of these, also. Complicated important words are not exactly a Russian only thing.
I think your reading of Poshlost isn’t quite right, either, there is a huge moral dimension to that word that “vulgarity” misses. Notice also that two other readings above (vanity, nihilism) were also not quite it, despite me linking a fairly long article on this word.
“if you’re inclined to strongly express your disapproval.”
Well, that much is true, at least.
My experience as a non-native speaker of Russian is that what Nita said is exactly correct.
@Ilya: Quite possibly I oppose your “moral dimension” to the death, and I’d appreciate if you don’t try to sneak it in without explaining why anyone should care. That may be my greatest objection to the alt-right people you suggested we purge.
Seems like the closest English equivalent to Poshlost would be “degenerate”.
“Quite possibly I oppose your “moral dimension” to the death, and I’d appreciate if you don’t try to sneak it in without explaining why anyone should care.”
“Moral dimension” to the word? Or to the post? The word means what it means, it doesn’t care whether you oppose its meaning or not. We can disagree about the moral dimension of the post, if you like. You don’t have to care whether EY acts in a shitty way if you don’t want. I am certainly not going to force you. I am pretty sure that type of thing he did is shitty behavior, though.
> “garden pruning”
> dark insinuations as to the motivation of anyone who disagrees with him
Ah, classic Eliezer 🙂
Scott Alexander is the rightful Caliph!
Truth Be Upon Him!
>Make post blatantly fishing for people to say “No no, YOU’RE our holy leader!”
>They actually do it (“ironically”)
>The absolute madmen
Mission accomplished.
Getting the stooge-caliph to self-immolate in response: icing.
If we had brains, we’d be dangerous.
ETA: No, I don’t actually think this was a Machiavellian power play on Scott’s part. He’s too nice. But if he weren’t, wow, talk about a great opportunity. The Great Leader has one of his, ah, “moments” while the crowd chants that they want you to be their god-king instead? That’s comically good.
You say that, but we’re getting an ever increasing list of Haram words. The Caliphate gets realer by the minute.
Your third paragraph is too rife with metaphor and jargon to be intelligible.
Agreed! I missed the memo about how we’re calling someone or other Death Eaters now, and because of HPMOR I can’t even Google it.
Scott tried to ban discussion of the line of political thought in which the person implicated in the LambdaConf issue was of major importance. When people really want to refer to adherents of that line of thought, they now use various euphemisms. It’s a trivial inconvenience that, I assume along with some bans, has really reduced discussion of… well, that thing.
Then: I’m pretty sure Eliezer has publicly scorned the “Republicans for Voldemort,” in his words, since he became aware of their existence.
I see. Thanks!
…at the cost of greatly increasing discussion of discussion of that thing.
Which I guess is meta, and so totally in the right comments section.
PS: I was totally going to suggest formatting buttons (it takes a long time to type “blockquote”) and here they magically appear! Thank you, WordPress Bunny!
http://pastebin.com/n4LkzLJv
Appreciated. ^_^
Replace Death Eaters and They Who Shall Not Be Named with a word that begins with “Neo” and doesn’t end in the Matrix.
(I have no particular desire to discuss said Death Eaters, they’re just the specific Evil Outgroup that EY decided to fling under the bus as part of whatever cultural ethnic cleansing spree he’s on.)
I guess I should have said fourth, but it’s not important.
Meh, I’m stuck home tonight anyway.
A new group member arrived and asked for advice on how to approach a discussion of The Friendzone(TM) on another discussion forum. They wanted a rational overview of the issues with as little directly emotive content and dirty rhetorical tricks as possible.
The resulting discussion was actually quite refreshingly good. There were a couple of comment chains that degenerated into people pointedly misinterpreting one another, but those aside, most of the discussion was friendly, reasoned, and lacking in confrontation. I personally took part solely in a mock-fight (in ALL CAPS) when one woman noted approvingly how constructive the discussion had been. as I’m long burned out on that particular subject, but it was probably the best attempt I’ve seen at it outside FeministCritics.
Then Alyssa Vance deleted the entire comment thread, citing the need to avoid dragging the group into interminable arguments and mentioning that complaints had been made regarding fears for the safety of female posters on the group.
(I should note that there is some background to that; the complaints were separate and had been dealt with several days earlier and were pretty blatantly spurious anyway. Alyssa did not conflate them intentionally but was rather clear about the separation. People confused them anyway, because Internet.)
Numerous people felt that the discussion was constructive, was not falling into interminable argument, that the deletion was completely unnecessary and that absolutely nothing about the thread broke any rule so far laid out for the group. They said so, some in quite aggressive tones, although I didn’t see any that would constitute abuse of any kind; it’s possible there were some that were deleted, of course.
Alyssa responded to this by citing her lack of time for dealing with moderation kerfuffles, which is pretty reasonable, and characterised the response to her actions as “an angry mob”, which was not. (Given the context of her apparently being hassled at 5AM by someone who thought that the group was a clear and present danger of rape for every woman on the group, this is probably understandable.) On the basis of this, she quit as a moderator.
Then Eliezer waded in and started banning and deleting left and right. I’m guessing you can follow the rest.
“They Who Shall Not Be Named”
One of the problem with not naming things is that people stop knowing what you’re talking about. If the name isn’t filtered, just use it. If the name is filtered, use an obvious and distinctive euphemism.
So, which group are you talking about here?
I think Scott’s spamfiltered the term, but it’s the rot-13-of-arbernpgvbanel movement.
The one who makes posts on his Tumblr and then immediately deletes them, because he has a modicum of common sense? The one who banned comment words first because of that same common sense?
Sarcasm aside, it is hard to be internet famous on social media because of stuff like this. I’d take a quiet approach, personally, live and let God sort the righteous from the dead.
I got blocked by him sometime between yesterday and now, even though I haven’t made any new posts, so it looks like it’s full steam ahead on the affective death spiral train.
I had some small modicum of hope that this was all a deliberate ruse to punish us for calling him Caliph, but I’m pretty much over that now.
I just want to point out the intense irony that all this started because Alyssa Vance wanted to head a flame war off at the pass. >_>
Every single post relating to the subject and meta-subjects around it has since been deleted by EY. Thankfully, however, it seems as best I can tell that he will be cutting ties with the group, which will be changing its name to something less branded.
I know some people are interested in collecting up screenshots so that evidence and history doesn’t devolve into hearsay. Let me know if you have any you want to contribute.
Have to say, very disappointed. One thing I took for granted about the LW Facebook group was that as long as you didn’t intend to be hurtful, people were pretty understanding about disagreements and arguments. It’s quite a shock to realize that Eliezer is most certainly not a paragon of the community in that regard.
Meh. I don’t think there’s a lot of point in collecting screenshots at this point – the reputational damage as been done and as we can see above, some people are just going to find ways to excuse this kind of behaviour from someone who should be the veritable master of knowing better.
I have a theory that Eliezer got so excited by the idea of improving in rationality because it’s a huge weak spot for him personally.
Haha, no. That was a while ago. That was fine. I supported him quite heavily in that. What happened here was unrelated except in that it demonstrated his new hardline stance against anyone he dislikes.
Fundamental Attribution Error all over the place, or at least, he doesn’t care enough to distinguish, anymore.
This is a hilarious revision of what actually happened, and even if it was true, it wouldn’t even come close to being an actual reason to ban people from a public group and you know it.
I couldn’t really give a monkeys about EY’s flist, I’ve never been on it and don’t intend to be. I just feel it says a lot about the man and felt like talking about it.
For the record I support removing any comment from the group, and banning any user who immediately goes meta and starts questioning whether moderation is even necessary, etc.
Here is why:
(1) For almost any comment, there will be someone in the group who will object against removing the comment. Therefore “never removing a comment if people think it’s okay to stay there” in practice means “never removing a comment, except for obvious spam”. You can’t have moderation that way.
(2) Going meta after a comment is deleted, simply means punishing the moderator who deleted the comment, by imposing a penalty of time and energy he or she spends participating in the meta debate. Since the users can continue (and many of them will enjoy continuing) this debate indefinitely, in practice it means that a moderator can face indefinite penalties for merely doing their job. Since it is an unpaid volunteer work, one shouldn’t then be surprised about lack of moderators.
It’s either “Roma locuta, causa finita“, or a group de facto moderated by those who have most time and energy to whine until they make everyone else sick and tired. You can have a separate thread for criticizing the moderators, but the point is that despite the criticism, the previously made decisions remain valid. (Even if the moderators agree that in the future they would now judge differently. Otherwise we create an incentive to question every moderator decision.)
I agree with Zorgon that the LW FB group is mostly useless. Someone proposed renaming the group, so it’s no longer officially connected to LW (and then Eliezer doesn’t have to worry about how its content might reflect on anything related to him/LW/MIRI/CFAR), and I support that idea.
I think this is a good approach to moderation for individual blogs, FB groups, subreddits, small community forums, etc. Give them a purpose, have the moderators prune posts which aren’t conductive to the purpose including meta (or at least not contained meta). If they’re good at the purpose people enjoy them, if not then people go elsewhere.
Once “Roma locuta, causa finita” is understood you shouldn’t need to actually ban people for going meta; they’ll just comfortably drop into the same behaviour they do in most places in life of not doing that and mostly not even notice the restriction. Expectation management is everything.
I’ve always avoided the LW FB group because I’ve heard only bad things about it; I’ve stuck to mostly reading in the EA group (which is about as bad as I’m willing to tolerate) and the GWWC group (which is very quiet). Never had a strong opinion about it, but never bothered to check it out either.
Group 101 spaces rarely get good things said about them by people wanting to appear in-group.
I like this approach. Of course, in the context of the thread the idea of suppressing the commenters’ voice for everyone’s good looks almost like a cryptoreference to ℞.
Scott is the sovereign of this board. He can do what he likes. End of story.
Indeed. Digital ownership does simplify the problem of legitimacy by a lot (hence Urbit, I think), though not completely (because of the limitations imposed by your hardware having to be physically located somewhere).
Edit: To avoid possible confusion I want to note, however, that the comment I replied to talks about moderation in the context of the events on the Less Wrong Facebook group. It does not refer to Scott’s realm, and neither was I referring to it.
#5, The lesson here is that excluding people based on potential ideological differences almost always backfires. For an academic structured conference, inclusion should be on merit .
What are the costs and benefits of getting potentially diagnosable mental illness officially diagnosed? Let’s say one is a “functioning member of society”, holding down a perfectly decent job, etc., but has some problems that are almost certainly the sort of thing a psychiatrist would usually try to help with?
I often see talk from various charities about getting rid of the “stigma” of mental illness, which suggests that this stigma is currently very real, and so there are genuine costs with getting a diagnosis. Apart from the the discrimination/social stigma, more concrete costs include (I think) increased health insurance costs, requirement to disclose the issues on visa applications and potentially to employers (although mental illness is a protected category within the EU). Are there others?
On the other hand, a lot of the better non-drug treatments for psychiatric disorders seem to be pretty easily replicable at home (e.g., David Burns’ claim that reading “Feeling Good” is as effective as a course of CBT for treating depression, however obviously biased that particular claim may be).
On the third hand, there are definitely mental illnesses where these non-drug treatments are not sufficient, and people with diagnosable conditions are presumably more inclined towards these, so regular contact with a mental health professional might well be a good idea. Not to mention that the second hand might just be completely wrong, and professionals might actually be better than random people on the internet at helping with relatively minor problems.
So how should one weigh these considerations when deciding whether to seek help from a professional for a potential mental illness?
No responses to this will be taken as actionable medical advice, disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.
I’ve been hunting for a Lesswrong post I read a while ago, where a guy wanted to know what effect being open about his autism diagnosis would be on his job prospects. One of the top comments was that it was equivalent to ‘sued previous employer’ in hiring considerations.
I have no idea whether it was actually true, but it’s definitely kept me away from professional psychiatric services (among several other reasons)
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/lc2/need_advice_likely_consequences_of_disclosing_you/
That’s the one! Thank you
Ya, simply having behavioral traits related to autism is likely far less of a liability, publishing details of being part of a protected group on the other hand makes you a larger risk. Be an ass who’s impossible to work with without a diagnosis and they’re just firing you for being an ass. Be an ass after a diagnosis and it could be attributed to your disability making it impossible to fire you without massive risk.
Disclose it after you’re hired (or after whatever bullshit probationary period they start you on).
On the other hand, if you’re autistic enough for coworkers to figure it out on the job, you’re autistic enough for interviewers to figure it out in an interview. HR people seem especially prone to anti-(people who act autistic) bias; I don’t think they’d be able to counteract it if you informed them you’re autistic.
I think that ‘stigma towards mental illness’ is usually referring to the fact that even though all kinds of mental illnesses are quite prevalent in the general population there is a huge amount of misinformation and problematic assumptions that are held by many people about mental illness–so more the social stigma of mental illness, not the practical ones.
Also I think we can differentiate between mental illnesses that prevent you from being a functioning member of society–such as anything that causes you to attempt suicide, become addicted to drugs, not be able to hold a job, etc–and mental illness that certainly impedes your daily life, but isn’t visible to people other than you. For the first group, medication is usually much more helpful, whether it be for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia; correct me if I’m mistaken, but for mild depression antidepressants are less effective.
The current top of the line non-pharmacological therapies are CBT and DBT, I’ve learned about both of them superficially. None of the skills contained in them are useful to only the most mentally ill, they are skills that pretty much anyone could benefit from. Therapy is typically thought of as ‘getting to the root’ of a problem, or connecting your current behaviors with past events, but that isn’t really the reality of therapy anymore. CBT and DBT are mostly about how to gain a better sense of control over your problem behaviors and thoughts, through multiple methods. Mindfulness is a big part of DBT, but it is pretty much meditation techniques adapted specifically for therapy. If you are interested in learning some of these methods it is definitely possible to get material on them, there are lots of handouts, workbooks, and activities available online and as published books.
I have a diagnosed mental illness and take medication for it. I haven’t encountered any of the problems that you’re describing.
Healthcare companies can’t increase your insurance costs for having a pre-existing conditions. That was banned in 2014.
There’s basically no obligation to disclose your medical conditions to anyone. It’s generally illegal for an employer to give you a pre-employement medical questionnaire.
The only time I’ve ever been asked by someone in the government was when entering Australia. The entire exchange was, “Your paperwork said that you had prescription medication. What’s that for?” / “It’s for X.” / “Oh, ok. Welcome to Australia.”
So, the only way you’ll face stigma is if you volunteer information. And I don’t think that getting a formal diagnosis will change that. Just continue not-volunteering information to people and life will continue as now, except that you’ll have considerably better options for treatment.
This applies to the United States.
You don’t actually have to disclose it to your employer. Even if you get health insurance through them, I have reasonably high degree of certainty that HIPPA would reign down bureaucratic fury if your health insurer told your employer.
You have the option to disclose it at many companies, since they can get an advantage if they show the government that they have so many people with this or that illness or disability. Even that doesn’t get fed back into your boss in a normal company.
There is the risk that with increasing numbers of data breaches your diagnosis might get leaked all over the Internet by some cracker. Along with nine million other things. (In that case it might be that nobody who knows you would care enough to go hunting for it.)
I believe the Affordable Care Act rules out charging people more just for having a mental illness.
The Stigma of Mental Illness is a funny thing. If you’re more or less doing well and you’re white and have some amount of money, there isn’t much stigma. Lynn Rivers waved her lithium around on the floor of Congress and it didn’t harm her. She only lost her seat because she got redistricted out. If you can get away with it, I personally think that having people living their lives doing whatever being open about mental illness and describing their struggles when they come along is helpful in breaking down the stigma and in helping others gain treatment.
If you are non-white, poor, or having difficult finding or holding work, being open about a diagnosis will likely hurt you more. Largely, I suspect, because it flips a ‘hopeless cause’ switch in people’s brains and if they’re predisposed to be fearful of or uncomfortable around you, knowing about a mental illness will just encourage that.
While mental illness is protected in the EU, I don’t think that matters for immigration. Immigration is tricky, they discriminate in a lot more ways than they would in other domains about wo they do and don’t want in their country. If you’re already a citizen of the EU you have free movement, but if you’re not they might hold it against you. Again, if you have a job making money I don’t think it counts against you as much.
The main criterion, I think, for whether it’s worth your time to get diagnosed and treated is how much it screws with your life. (Well, also whether treatment is available. For autism specturm say there just isn’t much treatment I know of.) If you have variation in mood that might be classified as cyclothymic but it doesn’t cause you great difficulty or you think you have some symptoms of an attention deficit but they don’t keep you from doing things that you really want to do, you may as well stay home. If you have great distress or problems fulfilling your ambitions, it’s probably worth going to a doctor.
If you are e.g. an airline pilot, you have to disclose it to the medical examiner who will probably refuse to issue the certificate that says you are healthy enough to fly an airliner. In theory, there are a few antidepressants and even fewer other tools in the psychopharmacological arsenal that pilots can ask for permission to take, but it’s rare and usually involves six months or so of grounded observation and your employer wants someone who can fly now.
Not sure how many other professions have to deal with similar issues.
We just had a sad case in Germany where the airline pilot, who had been treated for suicidal tendencies and classified as unfit to work by his doctor, did not disclose this to his employer, and ended up locking himself in the cockpit and setting his plane with 150 people in it to auto-pilot into the side of an Alpine mountain.
And a similar sad case in Scotland where a garbage-truck-driver did not disclose that he occasionally passed out without warning, and passed out without warning driving his truck into a crowd and killing ten people.
Both of these would be fixed by simple rules that employers must continue paying and promoting employees medically incapable of the job, but must not allow the employees to do the job, but those rules are not terribly compatible with current beliefs about how employers and societies interact.
How about the much simpler solution of “give them a desk job”.
It may not be as glamorous as being a than Airline Pilot and Garbage Truck Driver, but it doesn’t require radical systemic change either.
It’s probably better than nothing, but pilots at least have a long history of hiding problems from the flight surgeon to avoid being grounded, even if that doesn’t equate to being cashiered. E.g., Chuck Yeager flying the X-1 on the first supersonic flight with two broken ribs and an immobilized right arm, using a wooden dowel to close the hatch.
Airline pilots aren’t test pilots, but losing the ability to fly, along with prestige and career progression is still likely to be hard to compensate for, giving an incentive to hide problems rather than address them in a way that might be noticed.
Both of these would be fixed by simple rules that employers must continue paying and promoting employees medically incapable of the job, but must not allow the employees to do the job,
There are some unions in the United States that have been able to force this sort of thing on management, particularly civil-service unions like policemen. It offers a perverse incentive for people to take the job, do it for a few years while it is still new and fun and while you are establishing tenure (so to speak), then oops, burnout and PTSD and now it turns out they can’t be a Real Policeman any more so just give them a check every month forever.
You can counter this by requiring people to do deliberately unpleasant scut work to collect the check, but that punishes the legitimately sick and can be made to look terribly unsympathetic.
No easy answers on this one, I’m afraid.
New York has the rubber room for incompetent teachers. They sit there during the work day and get paid, but they don’t actually teach anything.
This method could actually be useful when the person doing the job has the capacity to cause a lot of harm (One incompetent cop can cost a fortune in lawsuits).
You can go to a psychiatrist, and your employer won’t know, even if you get your insurance through work. Don’t tell your coworkers or your friends, though. A friend of mine, who happens to be a psychiatrist himself, actually told me he would not want to be friends with someone who has a mental illness (and we weren’t talking about being psychotic, but things like depression).
The latest in social science replication/methodology issues:
https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/718881870189084672
[tribal snickering intensifies]
Dear tribal snickerers, if we add up all the papers you wrote, (MIRI included, say) how many would that make?
I meant conservative vs liberal, not STEM vs social sciences. (I suppose there’s also a case to be made that quality != quantity, but eh, I take your point.).
At some point, neglecting to do research is superior to publishing rife with mistakes.
Reaching that point probably requires zealously over-eager and largely ignorant reporting and endless layers of click-bait error amplification of consequential if honest errors, so we should be safe.
I definitely agree that people who do research are under enormous pressure to produce more sketchy stuff rather than less solid stuff. This is bad and needs fixing.
I personally try to write less, but better (this is partly just my taste, too). I feel as though I paid costs for writing like this.
Six at last count. Why?
I never misattributed my main effect. Or reversed it for partisan advantage because I was doing “research” purely as a way to slander people I don’t like.
Incoming spin that social conformity is bad and non-conformity is good and progressive, etc.
This points to what I call the Second Problem of Scientific Induction:
No matter how many bad social science studies we observe, we remain unable to conclude social science is unreliable.
(This isn’t a philosophical problem, but a cognitive one: humans are apparently amazingly gullible.)
Questions on cigarettes and MAOIs: I know cigarettes contain small amounts of MAOIs in addition to nicotine and other psycho active chemicals. Does anyone know how much MAOIs they typically contain? I assume the number must be pretty low since therapeutic doses will kill you when you eat cheese, and the French smoke lots of cigarettes and eat lots of cheese without dying of the interaction.
From a number of depressed people I’ve spoken too, they often note that smoking really helps their mental state. Is there any chance that this is accounted for by the trace MAOIs? Is there any research on MAOIs in trace amounts (much as there is for lithium in the water for example).
I switched from nicotine e-fluid to “WTA” e-fluid after that discussion, and there is a difference. That’s about all I can offer, though.
We need more information about which kinds of MAOIs are in nicotine. There is such a thing as a “RIMA” – a reversible inhibitor of monoamine oxidase A, such as one would find in syrian rue and ayahuasca. These MAOIs are known to not cause nearly as much bad interactions with foods because they only target one subtype of MAOs and they quickly get broken down (“reversible”). That MIGHT be what’s going on with tobacco to explain why people don’t have bad food interactions with it, I’m not sure.
There’s a phenomenon I frequently notice which I want to call “failure to scale” or “technical knowledge doesn’t translate well into practical knowledge,” though perhaps it should just be called “stuff’s more complicated than you think.”
Namely, we know all this minute information about how muscle fibers fire, down to the cellular level, yet we can’t agree on the best way to exercise. We have all this minute information about the function of various micronutrients down to the cellular level, yet we can’t agree how one should eat.
It seems like all the actually useful knowledge about exercise, nutrition, even psychiatry comes from trial and error and experience: “this just seems to work well for people in your situation.” And then we have all this information about neurotransmitters and mitochondria, yet that seems to do us almost no good for fixing depression or back pain.
Well you’re talking about insanely complex systems here, where even the amount of information we have isn’t nearly enough to get the whole picture. It’s easier and more helpful to test those kinds of questions directly rather than trying to cobble together an answer out of lots of little incomplete models.
Like with depression for instance: the article I linked to above looks at a well-studied phenomenon, reduced glutamate uptake in the prefrontal cortex, but finds that a cell type previously not known for being involved in the glutamatergic system is actually necessary for proper function. If you relied on our knowledge of neurotransmitters from even just one year ago you would have a huge OPC-shaped hole in your map. And if you use our knowledge this year, by next year you’d undoubtedly find a few different holes. We know far more today than we ever have previously but only very little in an absolute sense.
Key phrase: “Computationally intractable”.
Seems about right. I guess what is frustrating is there seems to be an (intractable?) gulf between the level of information science gives us (stuff you can see under a microscope) and the level that is often most useful. Of course, for problems where the problem is at the level of the microscope, i. e. bacterial infection, we’re paradoxically pretty good. The irony is that the gross level of movement of muscles and what you put in your mouth, which seems much simpler than understanding bacteria, is actually really hard.
I guess what I’m really grasping at is this: the stuff that’s amenable to practical experience tends to be at a macro level, which to our minds seems simple, but which to science looks infinitely complex because it is the sum of a zillion tiny things. Conversely, what looks more complicated to our man on the street, i. e. the inner workings of the cell, is, to science, actually way simpler.
So science is really good at telling us “here’s how the cell works, but we don’t know enough to scale this up to the infinitely more complex level where we could tell you what to eat” and nutritionists and personal coaches are reasonably okay at saying “here’s what you should eat” and with coming up with plausible-sounding but probably wildly inaccurate reasons for why it works, as I can tell you “I seem to feel better when I do this exercise and worse when I do that one,” yet there’s this vast gulf between them which, for me, at least, is a source of frustration.
What first got me thinking about this was reading about the history of the Chinese Jingwu Association–an organization devoted to making Chinese martial arts “modern” and “scientific.” It was seen as necessary to study anatomy because the average Chinese martial artist literally had basically no idea how the human body generates movement. And yet who probably could give you better advice about how to get into shape? A scientist who has spent his life studying the Krebs cycle, or one of these older generation martial artists?
You can apply scientific principles at the macro level instead of diving into the weeds – test different exercises scientifically, see which one gets people more into shape. And this will sometimes produce results that the people doing practical trial-and-error work didn’t notice. For instance, sit-ups have been around for generations, but new research means that they might be on their way out.
Likewise, the martial artists studying anatomy don’t need to dig down to the cellular level to learn how to improve their technique, they might be able to find improvements just by looking at what muscle groups are involved in a strike, how do you engage more muscles, and what exercises will improve those muscles. For instance, bicep curls won’t help your punching power, because the triceps are the muscles that extend your arm.
Fun digression regarding antibiotics.
I read an ADORABLE book once, called Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher. The author Lewis Thomas ranked medicine’s general achievements (from greatest to least) as: vaccines; antibiotics; and everything else. He said while antibiotics were effective at killing the bad germs, they were also effective at killing the good germs. In a sense, antibiotics carpet-bomb our gut flora.
Thomas considered vaccines are more advanced than antibiotics, because vaccines only target the bad things and they’re applied proactively rather than reactively. In an ideal world, all medical procedures would be as non-intrusive, preemptive, targeted, and cheap as vaccines. My point is that antibiotics are fantastic compared to what we had before, but they’re not the pinnacle of modern medicine.
(I think you especially would find this book interesting, onyomi.)
Also, [mumble mumble balloons, Brownian-motion].
I would agree with the assessment. I think the negative effects of excessive antibiotic use are widely underreported and/or not understood.
Really, if I could undo most of the medical interventions I’d ever had in my life, whether drugs or procedures or what have you, I would, the exception being vaccines, which probably saved my life as a child, and maybe some antibiotics–but I’m pretty sure I’ve taken way more in my life than was good or necessary.
My sensei has a theory that where a lot of old-school martial arts talk about projecting chi, that’s functionally a cue to engage extensor muscles without the antagonistic engagement you get when you try to move powerfully. I think a similar idea might be behind the “animal styles” you see especially in kung fu.
It could be phrased “You can do deep, you can go wide, but going deep and wide is beyond us.”
Knowing how one cell works is one thing. Knowing in general what cells are where is another. Being able to model how the molecules of cell 1 interact with those of cells 1-10,000 in tissues A-ZZ with all resultant feedback loops is a huge step up in complexity, and will probably only get very marginal improvement over “do what works.”
With regards to exercise and diet, two problems jump to mind:
If the best diet and exercise combination, scientifically determined, was a diet where 25% of calories came from kiwi fruit and the exercise was an hour of hula-hooping a day, this is no good to people who hate kiwi fruit and hula-hooping. This is fairly obvious, but important, because a lot of people would be improving their health massively by just getting a half-hour walk a day and switching to diet soda: worry about optimizing later.
The other is that studying different populations is hard. There’s a ton of exercise studies measuring untrained undergraduates looking for beer money, and a ton of exercise studies measuring elderly people at risk of falling and dying. But you’re going to have a hard time getting dedicated amateurs, let alone professional athletes, to change up their exercise routine as part of a study. So you see stuff like studies saying that sprint training (in the untrained) is just as good as lots of hours at low intensity for aerobic endurance, or that lifting a lighter weight a lot (in the untrained) produces strength effects as good as heavier weights lifted less. And yet marathon runners continue to put in lots of roadwork, and powerlifters are not focusing on their 20RM in training.
Plus, sometimes the experts studying things scientifically get it terribly wrong.
End result: reign of Bro Science.
You might not find high-level athletes willing to participate in studies, but there are plenty of recreational lifters like me who would be willing to participate for some money, or maybe even some free personal training. I can’t claim any great prowess as a lifter, but I’ve been training on and off for the better part of a decade, and I’m a lot stronger than the average college student (mid-500s deadlift, mid-400s squat, 200 press). A study done on people like me may not have application for professional athletes, but it would be useful information for the average gym-goer.
I wonder, then, why there haven’t been more studies of recreational lifters.
I suppose it’s just easier to grab the first hundred undergraduates who see the poster.
Yeah, it’s definitely easier. Furthermore, my (somewhat uncharitable) view is that most exercise science researchers are either unwilling or unable to do research that is both effective and applicable to the real world.
Maybe they just enjoy watching people on the internet argue about issues that would be easily settled with fairly simple studies.
Mike Zourdos has done a fair bit of work with the FSU powerlifting team. I also recall seeing a few Swedish or Norwegian studies on competitive lifters.
Here is a compilation of some exercise research that I think is well done. Author works with midshipmen at the Naval Academy.
http://built-to-endure.blogspot.com/p/built-to-endure-training-tactical.html
I feel like this pretty much relates to all statistics thrown around on the internet and in politics, especially when it comes to how people behave and how society functions. Certain statistics seem to reasonable point to one thing on the surface, but when you think a bit more there could be so many more explanations and minutiae about human behavior than can be accounted for by a statistic. Basically correlation doesn’t equal causation, but even things that most seem to be causation could probably also be correlation. And I feel like so many people just stop at the most superficial statistic and assume it to mean one thing instead of actually considering different mechanisms.
I was going to relate this to politics and social engineering, but I don’t think we have the illusion that individual people and small groups of people behave in simple and highly predictable ways. Therefore, the fact that the behavior of large groups of people is hard to predict is not surprising.
What’s weird to me is we know how all the muscles and bones and joints work–in fact, it seems rather simple–yet we don’t know how to stop everybody from having horrible back pain. (Of course, we do have SOME idea, but that doesn’t seem to be reflected in how we exercise, how exercise machines and chairs are designed, etc. In fact, the question of what constitutes an ergonomic chair seems still quite open).
That said, I think you’re right about the gulf between statistics and actual policy: statistics make it seem like the problem, and therefore the solution, is clear and simple, yet it’s actually hugely complex.
Chronic pain seems like an especially frustrating medical problem that usually doesn’t have a a clear fixable underlying cause, but it is also the most common medical problem. This of course ties in with the opiate epidemic and all issues related to it. For most people with chronic pain there is no way to fix their suffering except to give them opiate pain medications, which are now being much more restricted to try to stem the tide of opiate overdoses.
I read an article recently–which I finally managed to find again thankfully–about a doctor in Nebraska and his experience trying to manage patients’–usually poor and elderly–pain while also adhering to the restrictions being placed on prescriptions of opioids.
Clearly the laws have a good purpose, to stop doctors from giving out unnecessary pain medication to people who don’t need it and have a high chance of abusing it–which is definitely a thing that has happened and is still happening, but it clearly has limitations in considering the effects the restrictions would have on people really do need the drug. I don’t think the immobile elderly women has a high risk factor of turning to street heroin and accidentally overdosing. So there seem to be some problems with targeting the correct at risk group. Although laws like these have good intentions and may help some, they are designed too bluntly to be a really optimal tool. It’s not like this is a new thing as far as legislature goes, but it’s still frustrating.
So I feel this whole thing is a problem of not understanding how to fix problems in complex systems–of which we have a good theoretical understanding–on two intertwined levels, how to help people with chronic pain on an individual medical level and how to best help the large amount of people with chronic pain on the level of the entire healthcare system.
1) You also don’t want helpless elderly women to be the only ones with large amounts of opiates in their house. I agree that this problem sucks, and it makes me think the libertarians might be onto something regarding drug regulation.
2) On complex systems: I recommend looking into the Cynefin framework (pronounced “KUNNivin,” because Welsh).
ESR’s victory lap on LambdaConf seems a bit premature. Some of the activists escalated with a pressure campaign:
https://statement-on-lambdaconf.github.io/
Which resulted in a backlash of a pressure campaign against the pressure campaigners. Laudably decried by Status451:
https://status451.com/2016/04/11/against-blacklists/
Pretty amazing how far this has gone. It’s tempting to say it’s over a tech talk that almost nobody would have attended, at an obscure conference (sorry). But it’s clear at this point it’s proxy (culture) war.
Meanwhile, as De Goes takes the high road, Vox Day predictably takes the low, declaring that yes, this IS a tribalist fight and he’s declaring war against the SJW tribe using their own means. His sjwlist site says “The purpose of the catalog is to help SJW-converged organizations locate and identify Social Justice Warriors they wish to hire or otherwise support.” and it’s intended to include anyone who is “Publicly advocating the disemployment or no-platforming of an individual for failing to submit to the SJW Narrative”. Which includes all signatories of the anti-LambdaConf petition.
He’s also got a source at the company that hosts him which passes on complaints to him; he outed one SJW (including his company email address), who tried to get the site shut down.
I can’t say I agree with this, since a large part of my problem with the SJW tribe is their tactics. But I also can’t help enjoying the rage when those tactics are turned on them. A Malcom X vs. Martin Luther King analogy springs immediately to mind; I’m sure Vox would hate being compared to Malcom X, and the SJWs would go mad at anyone even using such an analogy, but that makes it that much better.
I’m coming to the conclusion that Vox Day is a bit like the KKK.
In that, even if by dint of sheer extremity (Society at 2, me at 4, KKK at over 9,000) and/or broken clockness, I agree with the guy’s general gist, having him supporting me and mine tends to at best be counterproductive.
It’s a common phenomenon. Bad arguments for your own position are often more harmful than actual opponents.
For instance, the presence of real-life social Darwinists (of the laissez-faire variety) in the 19th century did a great deal to harm the public case for capitalism.
Do today’s real-life social darwinists do the same?
To what extent is Social Darwinism, past or present, a real position and to what extent a useful straw man? My impression is that Herbert Spencer, at least, did not hold the views commonly attributed to him.
@ anonymous:
Yes, but it’s far less popular.
@ David Friedman:
I am really not an expert on this, and I don’t know for sure about Spencer.
It’s my impression that the views of the “Social Darwinists” (which was a term of abuse applied to them later, I agree) are not anything like what many people believe them to be. But there are still certain things that people would find objectionable.
For instance, with Spencer, he talked about the survival of the fittest, but he of course meant those most fit to live in civilized society: not selection for brutes but selection against them.
And just to confirm things, I found a couple of quotes from William Graham Sumner, which seem unquestionably “Socially Darwinistic”. From “Sociology”:
And from “The Forgotten Man”:
But if you read on, his larger point is not something that most people today would object to:
So it seems to me to be a mixed case. The badness of their positions is exaggerated, for sure. But there does seem to be an element of the idea: “under laissez-faire, people can, should, and will be left to suffer the consequences of their own bad genes and bad decisions, so that they die and remove themselves from the gene pool, which will improve the quality of the race; interference with this natural process would constitute irresponsible dysgenics.”
“interference with this natural process would constitute irresponsible dysgenics.”
I don’t see where you get that final step. He seems to be saying that interference with that process results in someone bearing costs that are due to someone else’s bad behavior, and the someone else going on to impose larger costs as a result of not having to bear the ones he created.
@ David Friedman:
Yes, and the idea that people who behave badly shouldn’t be helped and reformed but should be allowed to go onward to their natural end seems to be precisely the thing that is criticized as “Social Darwinism”.
It’s true that Sumner doesn’t say anything about its being genetic. But again, while I’m certainly not an expert, I have been given the impression—not only from reading left-wing accounts—that other thinkers did make the connection that bad behavior has a genetic component. And that therefore, a second major advantage of such a policy of not helping the “unfit” is that it will decrease the number of them in the subsequent future of the human race.
Vox Imperatoris-
Again, I think you’re making a big jump here. Leaving someone who makes bad decisions to face the consequences of those bad decisions is a long way from shrugging our shoulders in the expectation that they will die and trouble us no longer. For example, they might, um, learn from the experience and make better decisions next time, in a way that they will not if they are totally insulated from the consequences.
But what if they do not? you might ask. Well, compounding bad decisions might make the consequences worse, so maybe they’ll learn something then.
But what if they do not? you might persist. Well, sure, in the long, long run, if they steadfastly refuse to get a clue, then eventually they will make such a bad series of decisions that it kills them. Am I a Social Darwinist if I say, “Good riddance?”
Your position reminds me of the commonly-ridiculed libertarian position that all laws are enforced at the point of a gun. (What, even speed limits? Sure, at first you just get a ticket, but if you refuse to pay it they’ll issue a summons, and if you refuse to appear they’ll send a cop to get you, and if you resist the cop he’ll point a gun at you.) Technically I suppose both positions are correct, but they are also unconvincing except to the already convinced.
[Full disclosure: I have on occasion espoused that libertarian position. And was usually ridiculed for it.]
Vox Day has stirred up shit for no good reason, and has done nothing but disrupt the constructive things we’ve done and give the outrage mongers a rallying cry.
Of course it’s satisfying to watch your opponents hoist by their own petard. But we’re better than that. Not only that, but it erodes any moral credibility we do have.
Politicizing tech is unacceptable. Targetting peoples’ employment is unacceptable.
“Of course it’s satisfying to watch your opponents hoist by their own petard. But we’re better than that.”
That’s why you’re losing.
You’re not better and losing doesn’t make you better. Your opponents won’t approve of you and appeasing them is senseless and counterproductive.
> That’s why you’re losing.
I don’t think we are. The biggest brouhaha dying and the result seems to be a complete victory for the GG side. There are a lot of people still remaining on the opposite side, but the primary content creators and the paying audience is on the GG side, so capitalism will end this one soon.
You can see similar developments in a lot of the rest of the issues at hand. For example, Lambdaconf is really just the tip of iceberg in tech.
And a lot of the victories really do depend on a lot of people taking a good, hard look at both of the sides, and ignoring the actual positions of the sides, coming to the conclusion that one of them is really distasteful.
Politicizing tech is unacceptable.
Too late.
Targetting peoples’ employment is unacceptable.
Again, too late.
I’ve already had mine threatened. I have a very good relationship with my management chain, and the threatening emails were sent to someone who wasn’t even my boss at the time. But for someone less solidly placed, it could have ruined them. I have a responsibilities, a family, and bills to pay, and I took the attempt very personally.
I review resumes, job applications, letters of reference, and grant applications. Everybody gets Googled. SJW activity is something I look for. I am not the only one.
SJW beliefs are high status and publicly flaunted. What’s the point of a public blacklist when anyone who looked at their twitter feeds could see the hammer and sickle icons and MALE TEARS LOL mugs?
The important thing is to get employers to check the wayback machine once this wave of virtue signalling passes and they start trying to look normal again, so that they can still be ferreted out.
First, Social Justice Warrior primarily specifies a set of behaviors, not a set of beliefs. Second, that set of behaviors isn’t high status at all among the general population. On the contrary, the overwhelming number of people in the country would say they have too much time on their hands to spend so much of it involved in flamewars on twitter or tumblr.
Exactly. So if you google someone, and get their twitter feed full of Che worship and calls for a “tech antifa” to start murdering republicans… you can be pretty sure you’ve got an SJW on your hands.
Whereas if their social media feed looks normal, you’re probably fine.
I don’t see what functionality a blacklist adds to, you know, googling.
“Joe McCarthy is purging communists from the film industry, so I’ll fight back by making a list of capitalists in the film industry! That’ll show him!”
So far, the list claims to be less capitalists and more McCarthy and other witchhunters specifically.
I’m not saying that it is now, will ever be, or will ever stay that way, but I do think it’s worthwhile to wait until the other side actually does something before shouting “Both sides!”
Gah. Defending Vox feels like week-long unbrushed teeth.
Actually the communists did it before McCarthy. Dalton Trumbo blocked various films from being made because they were anti-Soviet, including one based on Trotsky’s biography.
A pressure campaign against the pressure campaigners wouldn’t bother me much. We fine embezzlers, we imprison kidnappers, and we don’t worry in either case about whether we’re undermining the social support for “don’t take other people’s money” or “don’t keep people locked up against their will”.
But you can’t trust VD to make a list of pure pressure campaigners. The line between “person who tries to get you fired if you oppose gay rights” and “person who supports gay rights” isn’t a fine line, but it’s too fine a distinction for that source.
Sometimes it can be good to have a second gang to defend yourself from the first gang.
But all too often, despite how the schism started, you will end up needing to pay protection money to both gangs.
Let’s be real: no one is going to get fired over VD’s list. His “gang” has zero power to “defend us”. It’s just rabble-rousing.
If VD fell down a hole we would actually be “safer” because he’d give them less ammo.
If Vox Day didn’t exist, the SJWs would invent him. They have invented other such bogeymen from time to time (and ascribed their qualities to actual people), after all. A real Vox Day, at worst, distracts them from attacking more-sympathetic targets. At best, he might actually hurt them. I suppose there’s a possible outcome where Vox has total victory and starts a reign of terror of his own, but we’re a long way from that.
Getting people fired doesn’t actually require much power.
Please tell me this is self aware irony.
It is frightening how easy it is to get someone fired. We need to end call-out culture.
Vox Day is not part of the “against the social justice left because against censorship” crowd. He’s part of the “against censorship because against the social justice left”. And his definition of “social justice left” would probably include a lot of people here. Here he intentionally misgenders Brianna Wu, and in general does a bunch of things that are almost always indicative of hostility towards trans people. He thinks women shouldn’t have the vote.
He isn’t part of the “what’s really important is the truth” crowd. For instance, here he condemns a “GamerGate moderate”, saying “It is the objectives that are relevant, not the tactics.”
@anon
Its stuff like that that leads me to think quite lowly of GG.
If I remember right Wu isn’t even trans (ie. she was born female). The trans stuff is pure urban legend.
You’d be a fool to take a black-and-white anonymous as a representation of any group.
Wu is not openly trans; beyond that it’s impolite to speculate.
“Wu is not openly trans; beyond that it’s impolite to speculate.”
The level of transmisogyny in this comment is sickening.
Being trans is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about – in fact, transpeople are better than cispeople because they’ve considered and chosen their gender rationally – as Eliezer Yudkowsky said most poor fools are only cis by default.
Speculating that Brianna Wu has chosen to be an empowered woman isn’t an insult and certainly isn’t impolite.
Unkind, untrue and unnecessary.
I reported the anon, and I get suntzu’s point, but please let’s not accuse people of lying while standing behind this social rule that doesn’t allow them to show otherwise.
Looks like something got deleted.
In any case, regardless of whether she is cis or trans, aggressively misgendering anyone, and in general talking the way Day does in that link, is a strong sign of hostility to trans people, in the same way that harassing some kid in high school for supposedly being gay shows hostility to gays, even if that kid is straight as an arrow.
The logic of anti-SJ permits no meaningful distinction between “person who tries to get you fired if you oppose gay rights” and “person who supports gay rights.” Under anti-SJ logic, any support of an “SJ” position carries an implicit threat to fire those who oppose it.
[citation (or argument) sorely needed]
If you actively agitate for someone to be disallowed from speaking at a conference due to their unconnected political beliefs, then you are unambiguously part of Group 1.
(I have no doubt that some of Vox Day’s more loopy supporters probably do believe as you suggest, btw.)
This is true.
If you openly advocate blacklists you deserve everything bad that happens to you, and I’m not at all opposed to hardline tactics against people who try to get others fired for their views. I’ve participated in a couple such campaigns myself – it’s the same logic behind no platforming actual fascists (as opposed to “fascists”).
But if you trust Vox Day to restrict his list to people doing that (even if he is at the moment) you’re either an idiot or don’t know Vox Day.
I don’t trust anyone. But I checked Day’s list, and it is literally a cache of the signatories of the letter demanding Yarvin be no-platformed.
So maybe he is an evil troll, but he’s not the one making assumptions here. You are.
The thing on his blog is not the current list, it’s just the “seed”.
Comparing the “SJW list” at 18:19:53 GMT (according to Google’s cache) to the current list of LambdaConf statement signatories, I’m getting 84 extra names.
Fun fact: One of those names is “Alison Bechdel”. According to the linked wiki page, her crime is “popularizing the Bechdel test” — presumably by drawing that one comic strip in 1985? You know, the one where one lesbian character tells the other lesbian character about her movie selection strategy (punchline: it’s great because it selects cool films like Alien).
Which version of his list did you check? The Status451 page linked to https://archive.is/KQbps, where he does list those signatories as a “start”, but then lists off a bunch of additional “obvious SJWs” to add to it and asks the comments to suggest more. The comments then go to suggest other sources.
If you agree with those additionals, don’t think they’ll add anything dubious from the comments, and trust Vox Day is sufficiently decent that they’ll not add other ones you don’t agree with later, that’s one thing, but I don’t think other people who think different are “making assumptions” when saying that they don’t think Vox Day should be trusted like that.
It isn’t like Vox Day is some unknown newcomer whose manner of conduct is unknown.
> it’s the same logic behind no platforming actual fascists (as opposed to “fascists”).
Note that this is stupid beyond measure. Attempts to no-platform the NSDAP is a large part of what made it popular in the first place. The more their speech was limited, the less they had to talk about the radical things that separated them from the rest of the parties, and instead diverting the conversation into how you were oppressing them.
What made it really bad was that at the point when everyone was trying to shut them down, they started talking about things that most people found quite reasonable and acceptable. And anyone entering the conversation at that point would find their claims that they were being oppressed without reason to be legitimate.
Attempting to no-platform the fascists is the worst case of failing to understand history and thus repeating something really, really stupid that I have ever seen.
Free speech and pluralism are good values in themselves. And they apply both for people you like and people you dislike. Not tolerating the intolerant implies that there is a right not to tolerate, and a right to engage in censorship. But censorship is a illegitimate goal — no mater who it is applied to.
We’ll see how well the editing works. So far it isn’t.
The first name that caught my eye was our “how dare Scott correct pro-social-justice lies!” friend, but the only supporting evidence there was the “I mindkill myself” quote and the bomb threat allegation. The former is evidence of insanity but not of pressure campaigning. The latter would be pretty awful if true, however I don’t accept “people he doesn’t like were harassed, therefore he harassed them!” as evidence.
Ironically, the bomb threat was preceded by definite public pressure campaigning, but that’s nowhere on the Wiki yet. Even if it were, there’s an order of magnitude difference between “You shouldn’t get to hold down a job” and “Your group shouldn’t get to go to a restaurant”, and I’m not sure the latter tactic merits escalation to the former.
For the next name I clicked on, the sins were basically “he said SJW shouldn’t be a perjorative” and “he said angsty gamers should get genital warts”.
Yeah. The list has been up for a week and they already want to blacklist people for saying mean things while having the wrong politics. I think I was right to pass.
I agree with this comment on the 451 page:
“The time for peace has passed. You can’t stop the war that has been going on for like a decade or more now – with wishful thinking. So long as the political landscape is so polarized, there will be war – simply because the two tribes share a space and compete to make the rules for that space.”
Folks like you make our job harder. And, be real, y’all are never going to actually accomplish your stupid revenge fantasies.
All VD is doing is stirring up shit and keeping the controversy live which is the opposite of helpful. But, hey, it engages his readership so everything works out fine for him.
I sympathise but I can’t help but suspect people were probably saying the same thing to the proto-SJWs about 6 years or so ago.
Ah yes if only we’d had the foresight to stomp down our jackboots sooner we could have prevented people from believing it’s OK to fire people over politics.
False duality.
When people learn a sword is double edged, they may be less eager to draw it.
Randy, that’s a fascinating theory, held up by the little niggling detail that the sword isn’t actually double-edged and stuff like the blacklist is basically just oh-so-edgy “shitlord” LARPing.
IOW, your complaint is “it won’t work, because you have no power”?
My complaint is all three of:
1. It is intrinsically wrong.
2. It is tactically unwise.
3. It won’t even work.
You seem to have an objection to game theory, then, because it is basically the announcement of switching from always cooperate to tit-for-tat.
@ Randy M:
I agree with Alex Godofsky here.
Tit-for-tat doesn’t work with multiple people. Retribution works well when it’s targeted against individuals. (Or sometimes very cohesive groups like standing armies.) But when you bring in collective guilt, you get race war.
Not to mention strict tit-for-tat doesn’t even work one-on-one in “noisy” environments that introduce random errors. If just one time, a party accidentally “tits” when he should have “tat”, then it devolves into a spiral of continual defection.
Former employer here. I don’t care what politics my employees hold and wouldn’t try to hire for political reasons. But if somebody I was interested in hiring showed up on that list, and I could confirm the claims against them, there is no way I would hire that person. They’re likely to be very difficult to work with, and worst of all, there’s a high risk they might try to sue me.
I’ve heard stories that suggest I’m not alone here.
You mean with multiple people as the agent? Because it is the winning stragety with one agent iterated against semi-anonymous groups, right? That’s the whole point of saying “TfT is the optimum for society.”
Even if so, announcing that you will refrain from uncivilized or immoral tactics unilaterally is pretty bad strategy, at either winning or keeping that tactic from proliferating.
[edit]
In game theory parlance, tit-for-tat strategy does allow forgiveness and return to cooperation and is not necessarily immediately punishing, afaik.
I have the same opinion as VI here. You are assuming that the game theory actually applies here. It doesn’t.
1. You have many different actors on both sides, each with differing interests and values. Tit for Tat breaks down under many actors.
2. The other side doesn’t view what they are doing as an defection against social norms. Instead of an encouragement to tone things down, retaliation will provoke increased retaliation.
3. You are assuming that it is actually a prisoner’s dilemma. Namely that C-C is pareto optimal, and that C-D is the worst outcome for each party. It seems to me that the people on the other side find cooperation on this matter as inherently bad, and on our side cooperation allows us to gain the high ground to the extent that C-D isn’t that bad of an outcome.
The only way to resolve this is to create a strong social norm against censorship and intimidation tactics, such that any movement which engages in them quickly loses legitimacy in the public eye. Engaging in those tactics won’t help.
Great! So there won’t be any trouble solving this… assuming you have better access to controlling social norms, and that social norms without any teeth can be made at all.
Throwaway, you’re looking into the abyss. That’s the SJW line. I know this, because they’ve used it, in almost exactly that form, against me. They rarely say “no-platform that person because he disagrees with us politically”. They say “no-platform that person because their very presence makes women and minorities feel unsafe”, or something along those lines.
@Nybbler
Exactly. This is what I meant when I said they don’t view what they are doing as a defection. They view their actions in the light of legitimate self-preservation.
@ Randy M:
There are two kinds of things that you could mean by “tit-for-tat” here.
One of them is “If you don’t invite me to your conferences, I won’t invite you (an individual) to my conferences.” That may make some sense, especially if the person has a proven track record of not being worth dealing with. I’m not saying you should have unconditional forgiveness.
The other one is “SJWs have been dicks to me, so I’m gonna be a dick to them.” Now you’re conflating the whole group together; you’re always going to have some defectors, and so you’re always going to have a reason to engage in maximal nastiness.
If it only takes a few rogue actors to establish the collective guilt of the enemy, then the conflict never ends. Barring total victory and complete annihilation, which is not a regular occurrence.
VI: Yes, I understood the goal of the counter-offensive (to be over-wrought) to be economic shunning of, and only of, those directly involved of using the tactic and those advocating for it.
If not appropriately targeted, it would be ineffective and immoral.
Nybbler, suppose someone applies to work for me. I Google them and find out that they had sued multiple people for dubious reasons. I would have to be nuts to hire that person, because they could sue me, too, and that could destroy my business.
The law in the United States makes it very easy to sue employers for discrimination on dubious grounds. SJW’s are people who see discrimination everywhere they look.
(I should clarify that just being sympathetic to social justice is not reason enough for me to throw out the person’s resume. I’m talking about people who are both SJW’s and have displayed a lack of civility. The SJW list is supposed to be confined to people who have used uncivil tactics. I would also independently confirm any allegations made there.)
Do you really think an employer with a small business ought to risk losing their business in a lawsuit – a choice that will impact many people besides the owner themselves – to prove a point about civil society?
I’m acting purely out of self-interest here, and you’ll note I’m using an obviously fake name. I’m not going to make a big political point about this in public, I’m just going to make a self-interested choice in private.
I am mentioning this not in order to get into a debate about the ethics, but to argue against what many are saying here: the belief that the blacklist doesn’t matter and has no power. Any self-interested employer will be making the same calculations I am, and people on the list will find their opportunities narrowing.
I agree with you that the incentives here create an ugly world. For the same reasons, I can’t hire Pax Dickinson. I don’t think he did anything wrong, and he certainly doesn’t deserve to be barred from employment for life. But if he worked for me, a female employee could sue me for discrimination, and use the statements he’s made about feminism in the lawsuit.
I would much prefer to hire independent of politics, and I have considered moving to a country where it’s harder to sue people exactly so I don’t have to make these ugly choices. The discrimination laws have a nasty chilling effect on speech that I don’t think is adequately recognized.
Shocking that the commenters who favor the SJWs think the tactics being used against them for the first time are unsound on a tactical level.
This is an object level question. SJWs might try and deny people attendance to their conference because they “feel unsafe”.
But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to deny attendance to a guy with three convictions for assault and who’s been making threats against other attendees because he made you “feel unsafe”.
Same line, big object level difference. So the question is, where does Throwaway account’s view fall on an object level?
@Forlorn Hopes
That’s a good point, and clearly the list falls somewhere in between. It’s advocating not employing those with a history of no-platforming. There’s not the direct relationship that there is between someone who has made threats and safety, but there’s a much stronger relationship than between someone whose political views are anathema and safety.
Intellectually, I think a list like this makes sense (though this one seems badly-curated, possibly due to vandalism; for instance, someone who spoke out against an SJW is listed as an alias of that SJW). But in my gut, I can’t help finding Nietzsche’s admonition applicable. Vox Day has gazed into the abyss and liked what he saw; I do not want to become the monster I fight. Perhaps I could walk the line, sticking only to reasonable reprisals and not becoming their mirror image. But I don’t know for sure.
The SJWs are dishonest and aggressive tot he core. Yet they have done alot of winning. “Let just be nice and our problems will go away” is magical thinking. The world isn’t just and politics does not exactly reward the honest and intellectually honest.
The moderates have been losing to the SJWs for a decade now. Abstract appeals to “liberty” and “freedom of association” aren’t going to work. Look at the state of civil liberties in the USA. When “liberty” fights vs “tribal loyalty” liberty losses.
There are a surprising number of people on the general “right.” Some of them have quite alot of power (Peter Thiel, Paul Graham for example). Anyone in charge of hiring has power. We need to defend ourselves vs SJWs.
Violence is usually a bad response. But if someone is attacking you then violence is often the correct response. The time for extending good faith to SJWs is long over.
Good luck actually implementing your violent revenge fantasies!
Christ, this is pathetic. You folks seem to sincerely thing that you have the power to inflict violence on these folks. You don’t. But I guess it sure gives a heady rush to imagine it.
PTSD from the culture war
Except it’s an even faker war than Grenada. It mostly consists of mean tweets. My god!
@Alex
Thanks for the good luck. We’ll need it!
Though of course the goal is neither “revenge” nor is this a fantasy. Every time you hire someone you can choose whether to help make those who want you fired stronger. Or you can choose not to help them.
Make me a list than contains only the people publicly calling for no-platforming their nonviolent opponents, and… while I wouldn’t probably use that list myself, I would have no problems seeing other people use it. What goes around, comes around; karma is a bitch; etc.
(Well, in a more rational setting I would probably argue for each name on the list having an expiration date. Something like ten or fifteen years after the last infraction.)
Problem is, who will maintain this list? What will prevent them from extending the original scope of the list, focusing on smaller and smaller infractions (microaggressions), including more and more indirect infractions (not doing stuff themselves, but having something in common with people who did, and therefore…). Feature creep happens, and the incentives are obviously: longer lists seem more impressive. Also, who will prevent the maintainer from adding their own enemies, such as anyone who publicly criticizes them, or the existence of the list, or the way the list is maintained (just like happened with the ggautoblocker)?
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” as the cis het white male once said. I am not interested in helping create some mirror-SJWs. Then instead of one problem, I would have two instances of the same problem. They would spend some energy fighting each other, but they would probably have enough energy left to attack everyone else, too, and they would trample many precious things during their fight.
The proper response to uncivilized behavior is civilized behavior. The thing I respect about GamerGate is that they display solidarity to each other, actually promote the diversity that SJWs merely talk about, create new games, create new gaming media, collect money to support good causes. (As opposed to their enemies who often tear even their own apart, have a cultist mindset, try to take over and ruin existing stuff, and extract money for themselves.) That is the proper way to go.
It is difficult and slow, but not hopeless. Just look, a group of nerds (generally know for being weak and socially clueless) succeeded to resist an onslaught of million-dollar media for two years, even got close to a few legal victories. Where the atheist community, led by famous professors, barely survived, the nerds are perhaps more alive than ever before.
We don’t have to turn into mirror-SJWs to survive. The fact that we are unlike them is a part of our strength. (And trying to become more like them could easily mean choosing the worst of both worlds. Not gaining the institutional power SJWs have, and also losing the power of civilized behavior we have now.)
Very very well said Viliam.
Businessmen work together as a team!
Nybbler, you say:
They rarely say “no-platform that person because he disagrees with us politically”. They say “no-platform that person because their very presence makes women and minorities feel unsafe”, or something along those lines.
The difference between me and them is that I’m acting out of actual self-interest, while they’re just rationalizing their ideology. The consequences a small business owner faces when their business collapses can be disastrous. A typical small business owner may face the following: having to fire loyal employees, disappointing many customers, being unable to provide for their family, facing retirement penniless. This is a totally different order of consequences than “feeling unsafe” because someone they disagree with is near them.
And, be real, y’all are never going to actually accomplish your stupid revenge fantasies.
You’re probably right. But if your plan for preventing SJ from no-platforming prominent dissenters depends on all of their victims, interested bystanders, gadflies, etc, remaining civil and polite and refraining from petty retaliation, you are less likely to accomplish anything useful than they are.
If you can find a way to make use of the likes of VD in your campaign, that’s clever and commendable. If you can find a way to make him go away, that may be even better. Otherwise, go do what you’re going to do, having wisely planned your campaign to account for the existence of VD and his sympathizers, and hopefully report back on your ultimate victory.
Of course we’ve accounted for the fact that he does, sadly, exist.
Our response is to call him out for the asshat that he is and do the best we can to represent that we are not him.
This doesn’t solve the problem but it mitigates it.
In the meantime, it’s depressing to see just how many folks at SSC are so excited about the idea of vengeance that they endorse blacklisting.
It’s the game-theorists in us. Defect-Defect beats Cooperate-Defect.
And more to the point, I think it’s important to look at what he’s actually doing. Right now, the counter-list is claiming to be behavior-based, not ideology-based, and aggressive blacklisting for unrelated issues of politics is odious enough that I’m not really upset about it.
I strongly suspect that in the unlikely event Vox Day does manage to gain a soupçon of credibility for his list, he will immediately spend it on a tactical, political target of his own, but I’m also capable of recognizing that this hasn’t happened yet, and that just accumulating a list to enable the blacklisting of first-strike blacklisters isn’t, to my mind, asshat behavior.
The problem here is that the common attitude around here isn’t counting advocating harm towards, doing harm towards, harming the employment/housing prospects of uncoordinated minority groups as bad, as a “tat” justifying a “tit”.
If you do, it becomes very hard to justify the idea that left-aligned calls for the right to be hurt were the first strike, and the right are “cooperating” people being defected against.
Several of my friends were effectively disowned by their families for being trans, and there’s a great many people advocating such treatment amongst the red tribe. Religious right figures were calling for homosexuals to be sent to camps or imprisoned long before Internet social justice existed- as late as 2003 imprisonment was literally the law in parts of the US, recall. For the greys, /pol/ predates SJWs by far. And those targets are groups which can’t possibly be guilty of anything, so it’s hard to see how they could *not* be a ‘first strike’.
The nastiness on the left arose as a group-level tit for tat for those things. You can’t separate the way the right treats those groups and calls for those groups to be treated from its conflict with the left. Everything there counts.
And once you grasp that, it becomes pretty clear that you’re not going to get a truce by endorsing group-level tit for tat. If you accept group-level tit for tat, and have the view that the way the right treats those groups counts as a tat, then you probably are going to support the SJWs. Some lesser thing than ‘accepting’ group-level tit for tat, more like ‘understanding’, is probably the reason for why mainstream media is so inclined towards them.
I don’t know exactly what *will* create one, but a rejection of collective responsibility would probably protect places like LambdaConf and people like Moldbug who have in themselves not done anything or (edit: at the least) not done anything nearly as bad as the response respectively.
A true truce between the active campaigners of each side where they stop advocating harm to each other would have to have the right stop advocating harm of gender and sexual minorities, though. As much as the right might insist otherwise, that advocacy is an attack on the opposing side and will get at least an individual tit-for-tat response.
Edit: That’s not a sufficient condition, but it is a necessary one. Sufficient conditions, I don’t even know at this point. A generation or two and the memetic near-elimination of the traditionalist right is what I honestly expect it to take.
It might at best mean there’s justification of striking back against some group. But striking against “the right” is like attacking Sikhs because their head coverings resemble Muslim ones and so they’re probably all terrorists. Yarvin didn’t disown your trans friends or call for sending homosexuals to camps. At a minimum you owe it to everyone to become educated about the outgroup not being one homogeneous mass just because they’re all “the right”.
It also means you need to be honest about what you’re doing. Don’t claim someone’s a threat to your personal safety by being present in the same room if you mean “they’re calling for laws that hurt people”. Even someone who does want to put homosexuals in camps isn’t going to be opening any camps at a conference, and should not be treated like he is.
Also, many of your group are really bad at actually figuring out when someone is attacking. Putting homosexuals in camps seems straightforward, but the major social justice ostracisms and attacks haven’t been about things that are as straightforward.
I agree. I think that the sensible conclusion is that striking back against broadly defined groups is a bad idea, and doesn’t seem particularly like it arrives at a peaceful truce where the original bad parties stop doing the bad thing especially quickly.
And the solution is to avoid collective guilt entirely and react to people individually.
And the solution is to avoid collective guilt entirely and react to people individually.
If only there was some sort of list of the people I should know to watch out for, with a link to the evidence of what they have done or demanded.
@JBeshir
Your comment reminds me of a conversation I had with someone who posited a pet theory that the rise of SJWs in recent years is a reaction to the Bush2 years in USA when the right wing had great political power and was wielding it with abandon to attack the left (whether or not this perception was accurate, my sense at the time was that this was a common and popular perception among leftists like myself). Thus those who would become SJWs decided that it would behoove them to respond in kind when they had power and steadily gained power.
This hadn’t really occurred to me before, but after hearing it, intuitively it makes sense. I mean, this doesn’t absolve SJWs of even an iota of the blame of the extreme harm they have done and continue to do with the power they have today, but I agree that they are reacting to similarly awful behavior from the other side rather than instigating it.
Which, to me, drives the point home that responding in kind to SJWs is a great way of creating more people who behave like SJWs, but for a different ideology and perhaps with even worse behavior. Alas I don’t see any way to prevent that from happening.
Your comment reminds me of a conversation I had with someone who posited a pet theory that the rise of SJWs in recent years is a reaction to the Bush2 years in USA when the right wing had great political power and was wielding it with abandon to attack the left (whether or not this perception was accurate, my sense at the time was that this was a common and popular perception among leftists like myself).
I agree that this was a common perception among leftists during the Shrub era. I question its accuracy. Are their prominent examples of leftists losing their job(*), as with Eich, because George W. Bush and his allies attacked them? Academics being no-platformed for leftist views? Most of what I saw was people shouting about how they were being repressed because Bush et al said mean things about them without any consequence beyond that. The President of the United States is not a dictator, and most leftists live and work in places where his power has little reach.
* Not counting politicians losing elections or media figures losing their audience.
I think I consider dissolving someone’s marriage in the name of glorious social correctness to be worse than causing them to lose their job.
Edit: To elaborate some: If you think otherwise, then I’m going to point again at the “up to 2003 the right successfully kept homosexuality illegal, we’re not exactly talking about ancient history here” thing as an alternative example.
Or the whole thing where growing up LGBT (especially T) in a right-aligned family is ridiculously traumatic. Getting disowned for being LGBT is a non-story, even today, as is a lot of quite unpleasant coercive behaviour until such time as you can get financial independence.
You can’t just count the treatment of “leftists”. You have to count treatment targeted at non-ideologically defined groups, too. You don’t get to be abusive to people and advocate being abusive to people, then when they group up to retaliate claim that they started it just because the groups you were and are targeting aren’t *political* ones.
Are their prominent examples of leftists losing their job
Offhand, Phil Donahue for opposing the Iraq war?
Ward Churchill. I mean, I think he had it coming, but his political views had something to do with it.
SJWism as a phenomenon of leftists watching the Bushites and their Religious Right running dogs attack literally anything even remotely liberal for 8 years and deciding it was clearly a great idea has been my pet theory for a while too.
I’m not American, but I remember numerous stories about pressure from religious groups, people being hounded out of government jobs and so on. Nothing as high-profile as Eich, though that might simply be because the media is compliant to whomever the current dominant power might be.
>For the greys, /pol/ predates SJWs by far.
Nope. /pol/ was created in 2011, and didn’t start campaigning until much later, SJWs exist since at least 2009 (probably earlier). As far as the internet is concerned, blues/the left/whatever started it.
There’s also, diminished heavily recently but only just dead if dead at all, the whole thing the religious right does where any kind of public spokesperson coming out as gay, or the employment of anyone gay as an actor or spokesperson or whatever, results in allegations of promoting immorality and perversion to children and so on and so on.
It’s only very recently that people have felt comfortable that coming out as gay won’t end their careers. And in many cases this is less because the religious right has given up and more because there’s now a larger number of people who actively applaud it as an effort to counter them (an effort which draws much contempt, of course).
As recently as December 2012, the Daily Mail in the UK (a national tabloid) decided to report critically on a random teacher who transitioned to living as a woman, saying that they shouldn’t be allowed to go on teaching there in order to protect the children, that anything less than them being expected to leave and find a job elsewhere is elevating ‘equality and diversity’ over the welfare of the children, misgendering throughout.
Name and school included, of course, for the convenience of anyone in their readership who wanted to express opinions. This didn’t exactly get them fired; rather, they committed suicide three months later after the resulting attention.
The trans people I know still prefer keeping their status quiet.
I’m all for a world with more empathy and kindness and tolerance. But tolerance isn’t just not being nasty to people distinguished by different political opinions, it’s not being nasty to people distinguished by a lot of characteristics, and I think people need to expect the rest of it just as much as they expect the political opinions part of it.
Certainly, it counts as a “tat” when someone is intolerant on some other group criteria just as much as on the criteria of political opinion.
a pet theory that the rise of SJWs in recent years is a reaction to the Bush2 years in USA when the right wing had great political power and was wielding it with abandon to attack the left
You know, this is a great theory. I bet it especially has play with people who came of age post 2008.
Thing is, I was on the internets prior to 9/11, and I moved in the academic/literary circles prior to 2003.
This cause/effect relationship is bullshit. I was there. I saw the WTO blackmask anarchists, anti-vivisection vegan feminists and pro-Palestinian activist change their targets in mid stride.
The idea that Bush, et al was out to get them gave emotional support to the leftists of a certain age,(*) but it was absolutely not their wellspring, and it was not necessary for their existing.
(*) And Bush didn’t even have a rep for associating with
anarchist bombersthe KKK nor have his IRS agency go afterTEA Party activistsproto communists.Any time you hear someone spout this idea, the proper and correct response is to bust out laughing and ask them “What you got?”
I agree that specifically wedding it to Bush is unreasonable; this whole thing goes way back through the decades. And I’m not especially sure he was even responsible for all that much of it during the 2000s; he probably wasn’t one of the ones making loud invective telling people to beat the gay out of their children or whatever.
But then, I’m not American and don’t really grasp the causes for Bush being viewed as personally responsible for so much, so maybe there’s more of a reason for that than I know.
Edit: And yeah, the blackmask anarchist fringe and pro-Palestinian activists would probably have existed regardless; social justice-affiliated nastiness and the mainstream inclination to overlook it and its own virtue signalling dynamics, that I think is in its present form largely somewhere between a “make them stop” and a “make them pay” response to some pretty bad stuff.
And the thing to do is to make it clear that collective responsibility is off the table, and people only should be judged for what they’ve done themselves, and being neutral is not doing a bad thing.
People endorsing group-based retaliation strategies need to remember that the endorsements are going to carry through to people of a different political persuasion, and with different beliefs about the basic facts of the matter, and just reinforce the original approach.
@ JBeshir:
I agree with your take on things. It makes a lot of sense.
One of my housemates is literally right now in a situation where her father won’t speak to her in person because she’s a lesbian. Now, she’s a libertarian who just finished a job working for the Charles Koch Institute, but I can obviously see how in other circumstances that could lead you to support radical leftism.
As a side note, I noticed that several of the members of the “old guard” at various libertarian organizations were gay or otherwise part of Groups Conservatives Don’t Like, and ended up getting kicked out of the conservative movement or leaving it on their own for related reasons.
I remember a lot of what we now call “SJW” discourse floating around my college campus in the early ’00s. I think what made it explode was social media: 15 years ago campus activists discussed and recruited through newspapers, in-person meetings, and maybe some disconnected web forums and mailing lists. The audience they can reach through Facebook and Tumblr is orders of magnitude greater, and spread the concepts beyond the campus into the mainstream.
Alternatively and more cynically: previous generations of campus activists dropped their radical politics out of necessity once they got jobs and learned the world wouldn’t tolerate their bullshit. Post-2008 there are no jobs and the activists are free to be as nasty as they want.
And as late as, well, now, it’s literally the law in parts of US that you can be sued for seducing away another person’s spouse.
Except, it isn’t, because just like laws against consensual sodomy, they were already dead-letter, and impossible to enforce. Nobody in 2003 was going to jail for having gay sex in the confines of their own home.
And how many homosexuals did Pat Robertson manage to get sent to camps?
There’s simply no comparison to what “the Right” was able to do even 30 years prior to the rise of SJW’s, and what is being done now. There is no comparison to an individual family deciding they are going to disown a family member, and thousands of people demanding that anyone who dares stick up for traditional definitions of marriage be fired, blacklisted, and actually succeeding; major corporations lining up to boycott states that enact Religious Freedom Acts. What among the Right looks anything like Coca-Cola demanding King & Spalding stop representing Congress in defending DOMA before the Supreme Court? Yes, a corporation used its influence to demand a law firm drop a client or lose their business. If only the state of California knew that was ethical, they could have conspired to have the Dream Team, and any other lawyer for that matter, stop representing OJ Simpson, and ensured a conviction.
An alternative theory is that it didn’t explode and the SSC crowd consistently overstates its size and influence for reasons unknown.
@blue-green Anonymous
That is indeed an alternative hypothesis. However, it has the unfortunate failing of not matching up with reality. “The moon is made of green cheese” is also an alternative hypothesis, though it is somewhat spoiled by the fact that the moon is not green and that all our methods of determining its composition have come up with something other than cheese.
@keranih has it right. The idea that the SJWs are a reaction to something analogous on the right during the W. years is ludicrous. Is this whole thing revenge for Dan Rather being fired?
“Except, it isn’t, because just like laws against consensual sodomy, they were already dead-letter, and impossible to enforce. ”
The Supreme Court only rules on cases that come before it. So for Lawrence v Texas to happen they needed to charge Lawrence.
“And how many homosexuals did Pat Robertson manage to get sent to camps? ”
Do you mean the attempts to fix homosexuals in the United States or the more recent to get Uganda to adopt the death penalty for gays (which was stopped by concerted international pressure that encouraged them to drop it).
” thousands of people demanding that anyone who dares stick up for traditional definitions of marriage ”
Would you say the same thing if it was opposition to interracial marriage? Because that is exactly what moral slot fighting for homosexual marriage occupies. If you don’t want this to happen, don’t teach people about the US Civil Rights Movement.
I’m wary of any theory of SJWs that tries to explain them with reference to the right and tit-for-tat, because many (perhaps most) of their targets are on the left, and quite a few are well to their left.
An awful lot of Fox News and its adherents’ targets during the Bush years were to the moderate right, too. The term RINO dates back as far as the late 90s at least.
I’m not disputing that the hard left existed, they always have and always will. But the SJW fringe are not drawn from the same sources as the hard left; they’re primarily hipsters, mid-20s middle class and very comfortable indeed.
Now, my impression was that in the early 00s the people that were part of that demographic group were generally around 10 years old and thus got their ideas about politics from their older brothers and sisters, most of whom will have been teenagers and college students, and who spent a great deal of energy screaming onto the Internet about every last thing the Bush administration was doing to them.
Problem is, I’m not American, so really all I’m getting on this is what was drifting over the Pond. But I remember a LOT of noise about the efforts of the Religious Right to stamp out basically anything they didn’t like.
@The Nybbler
You have some, like, data or is this one of those ‘It is known’ things like the fact that there was an explosion of satanic ritual child abuse in the 80s?
@nyccine:
You’re right; being disowned is far worse. The badness of a thing is not measured by the number of people who contributed.
And having to hide their dating preferences and/or gender dysphoria until they’re 25 or so and financially independent- losing a lot of the key years where people learn and practice romantic relationships in an environment where they get to meet a lot of other people their age also learning and practicing- lest they be disowned, has huge costs on a person’s life. And this is pretty routinely necessary even today.
This is a lot worse than having to not tell people that you want to deny their version of marriage social recognition in order to impose your idea of social correctness on them, lest they decide to impose their idea of social correctness on you, a limitation which has very little direct impact on your life. It’s also massively, massively more common.
(Edit: Also worse: Any LGB public media figures not being allowed to date, and T figures not allowed to transition, because if it were found out they’d have their sponsors, publishing contract, etc, pulled and lose their career. Some people on the right were big on the evils of “promoting immorality and perversion” long before people on the left got into the evils of “promoting bigotry” and the dynamics were largely similar and if anything more effective.)
I’m not going to say that the problems the right faces are trivial. People affected by this feel happier and more comfortable around people who show contempt for the right, and the resulting virtue signalling dynamics make people pointlessly cruel to show loyalty to their friends or just to hurting in-group peoples (edit: and yes, this includes showing how much they hate ‘traitors’). They should be worked on; these dynamics should be criticised, the people who sit by and let them happen convinced to speak up and say “thanks for your support, but please don’t be an ass”.
But they’re a long way from “incomparably” worse. The recent group-level nastiness by some people on the left against the right isn’t bigger than earlier group-level nastiness. It isn’t like the right is totally justified and the left totally unjustified in their view of what some people in the other have done and do.
@ JBeshir:
Well said.
I think Zorgon has it right. The point isn’t that the right wing during Bush2 was ever as bad to their opponents as SJWs are now to their opponents. I think it’s pretty close to objective fact that they were not. The point is that the perception by those-who-would-become-SJWs during Bush2 was that the right wing was unapologetically awful to their opponents, and thus they figured that the best reaction is to be even more unapologetically awful right back.
This perception is largely influenced by the fact that those-who-would-become-SJWs were mostly children during Bush2 years and thus not particularly knowledgeable about politics other than knowing to repeat tribal shibboleths.
Of course, this “theory” doesn’t implicate Bush2 or his ilk or the right wing during Bush2 years as the instigator either – they were likely a reaction to something else too. But most SJWs wouldn’t know that, because they were toddlers before that and had no concept of politics before Bush2. For them, the right wing has always been the worst, all the way back to the dawn of time, and they are righteously rising up and finally sticking it to them now.
@JBeshir
The trouble is that your argument is one of anecdotes. I could as easily point out that the liberal upbringing Scott Aaronson received made him hate being a heterosexual male, to the point that he literally begged to be chemically castrated.
Which is more common? Neither of us know.
(But since banging on wellness statistics has apparently become my thing, I will point out that mental health has a well-known right-wing bias, which is at least waggling its eyebrows towards an answer.)
@ Jaskologist:
Conservatives are horrible to members of marginalized groups.
Members of those groups have lower mental health.
What’s the mystery?
The trouble is that your argument is one of anecdotes.
Unlike the rest of this discussion which is full of high-quality data and airtight logic?
Just so!
@ Anonymous:
Getting tired of this “Just so!” one-liner.
I’m not saying that I know for sure that’s the reason. I’m just pointing out that there are other—even more superficially compelling—reasons for Jaskologist‘s supposed finding than “right-wing ideas cause you to be psychologically healthy”.
It could be: right-wing ideas select for psychologically healthy people.
It could be: right-wing ideas cause other people to be less psychologically healthy.
This was in response to his talking about the data “waggling its eyebrows”. I’m saying that the direction of the waggling might be something else than he thinks.
For one person to be disowned is a lot worse than for one person to be hated as a member of the right, but this could be a case of torture versus dust specks. There are a lot more hated right-wingers than there are ostracized homosexuals. Each individual right-winger suffers less, but they make up for it on volume.
[Citation Needed]
I don’t believe that is so. Consider how large a percentage of people viewed them as intrinsically immoral/disordered 10 years ago, when people now in their mid-20s were teenagers. Regular people are slow to act to pressure strangers, but when it’s their own children, they expect obedience.
I think all but one of the LGBT people (mostly trans) I knew who grew up in urban parts of red states had to keep it secret entirely until they got to university, and then make sure their parents didn’t find out lest they face being pulled home from university or similar. It was a thoroughly un-newsworthy thing, like public figures keeping homosexuality quiet used to be; simply expected.
Edit: Well, I was reading “hated right-wingers” as referring to those in situations where they had to keep quiet or were otherwise negatively impacted, rather than merely being hated by distant people.
If you literally mean any right-winger, then you’re right about there being more, but I think the effect size there would be tiny enough that it wouldn’t make up for it in volume- certainly not to make the actions by some on the right trivial by comparison as suggested.
You’re right; being disowned is far worse. The badness of a thing is not measured by the number of people who contributed.
The badness of a thing is in large part measured by how hard it is to mitigate, and ideally to make whole the victim. A person who is fired can almost certainly get another job, and probably one about as good as the one they lost. A person who is disowned, will find it very difficult to get another family – not impossible, but it can’t be counted on. And being without a family can be, depending on age and circumstances, worse than being without a job. So, yeah, being disowned is worse than being fired(*).
However, disowning the openly homosexual is not something that can be laid at the Bush II administration or the Right of the ’00s generally; that has been the default behavior of Western civilization across the ideological spectrum for most of the past two thousand years. It seems uncharitable to cast conservatives being a bit slower than progressives to accept change as being somehow a partisan attack. For that you’d want something like the McCarthyist red scare.
* Being expelled from college would probably be somewhere in between the two, giving the general presumption that college is to be completed at one go right after high school.
Oh, I totally agree that the crowd isn’t nearly as big or as powerful as SSC says it is, but, and this is the point, it is larger than it was.
@John Schilling:
I agree that saying that all of the group discrimination nastiness aimed at LGBT people through history gets attributed to their side is unreasonable.
But the marginal impact of religious campaigners, pastors, other traditional morality policing sorts, and of course the people who made the actual decision to disown, shun, boycott for ‘immorality’ or ‘perversion’, etc, gets attributed to those people, individually in correspondence to whatever they actually did.
And during this last generation, that marginal impact has included the continuation of that history; a lot of people’s lives would have been a lot better if they had not campaigned for the continuation of the old attitudes. The marginal impact is small compared to everything in history- unfortunately it also includes most of the impact on people currently alive.
And also during this last generation, those people have been largely affiliated with the right. So if you’re going to let individual actions targeted at a group create a group-level guilt justifying tit for tat against the original individual’s group, then a lot of people are going to read that as justifying a lot of unpleasantness targeted at the right, probably more than are going to consider it as justifying retaliating against the nastier people in social justice.
My point is that you shouldn’t do that, both because it’s wrong and because it just reinforces the attitude that justifies the nastiness in the first place.
You’re also right that the original action wasn’t partisan, but that doesn’t matter; it’s unreasonable to say that when people react to bad things targeted at them as a group by aligning together, they’re initiating the conflict just because their reaction is the first one describable as partisan.
“An alternative theory is that it didn’t explode and the SSC crowd consistently overstates its size and influence for reasons unknown.”
How much longer can we go before exploring these reasons?
I agree with this comment on my twitter account:
“‘Everything is political so it’s ok for me to politicize this’ = ‘Everything is dying so it’s ok for me to kill you'”
There’s an article to be written here about what actually happens in terms of advocacy for mutual tolerance in real-world conflict.
The mutual tolerance intellectual says “Advocate for a norm of toleration and follow this yourself. Because that protects you since if everyone follows that norm, everyone is protected.”
The no-platformer says “But everyone doesn’t follow that norm. There’s intolerant people. We should ostracize them and cause them negative consequences. It’s legal to do this! It’s OUR free speech. Not-the-government something something xkcd-cartoon!”
The red-tribalist then says “Look at those no-platformers trying to do us social harm. We should ostracize them and cause them negative consequences. It’s legal to do this! It’s OUR free speech. Not-the-government something something freedom-of-association!”
The no-platformer replies “Look at how evil the red-tribalist are. Everyone else must choose sides – if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
The red-tribalist replies “Look at how evil the no-platformers are. They must be driven out, otherwise they will seek total domination.”
Neither side is unaware of the mutual tolerance intellectual’s argument. But they don’t believe it’s workable in practice, instead viewing it as a kind of unilateral disarmament.
I’m not sure where to go from here. I think repeating the tolerance argument is dubious in terms of convincing anyone who doesn’t believe it already.
The really bizarre thing about this is that, in this particular issue, disarmament is winning! LambdaConf has stuck with their decision. Yet certain folks keep repeating that neutrality is impossible and we have to “get violent” and blah blah blah.
However, the no-platformers have not been convinced of the value of practicing an ethic of mutual toleration. They’ve lost a round, but they still seem to believe they’re right. And few expect every single battle of the revolution to be won easily and with no setback or backlash. The problem is that the use of blacklist tactics against them doesn’t lead them to think blacklist tactics are wrong. Instead, it’s just more proof to them that their opponents are wrong, because the no-platformers are now being subjected to the blacklist tactics (instead of the people the no-platformers want to subject to the blacklist tactics).
That is, telling a “no-platformer” you lost here, just seems to have them replying nobody can win them all (not that it’s a bad game entirely).
Aw crap. I was hoping that Vox Day and his ilk would stay this one out. We don’t need any loud, vocal assholes on our side. Vox Day is a fair-weather free speech advocate. Oh sure, pluralism is a good thing for him — until someone he doesn’t like is around. Then he as bad as the most crude SJW.
The number of signatories I personally know on that statement is scary to me.
I saw a commenter getting lightly mocked above for being scared of coming to an SSC meetup. But frankly I wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t have commented on SSC under my real name in the past. I doubt the signatories of that letter think highly of SSC, if they’re aware of it. I know they don’t think highly of rationalism. (They tend to be laughably misinformed about it, of course, but what can you do.)
I fear that the risk of being tarred by association with SSC, and of having social consequences with people like those who signed the letter, is higher than I might like.
If it’s any consolation, the last time one went after me it was for KotakuInAction (ANTS!), not SSC. This despite her retweeting ‘gonna go out on a limb and say that internet “rationalists” are by and large just the PR department of [new backwards-going]’
I don’t think they’ve started blacklisting for SSC. Yet.
Growth Mindset!
The only consolation I have on this topic is that every single one of the people I know that have gone Deep SJ has been incredibly predictable. I know retrospective predictive overconfidence is a problem, but I swear I could have made a list in 2010 and been at least 90% accurate.
In two years of following along, I’ve never seen a true SJW appear to make a comment here.
Additionally, I’ve never meet one in real life.
This place has become so fiercely committed to its definition of the enemy and the seriousness of the threat it has based its intellectual credibility on whether a hysterically unhinged dogpile on feminism was the best thing we could have spent our time on in 2014, 2015, and 2016.
This is the tragedy of Scott as a writer. By entering into a dialectic with an audience before he knew where he was as a thinker, he guinea-pigged his intellectual development to a new form, the blog, which, via too much (self-interested) feedback sets in motion a give and take proceedure vulnerable to flavors of the month, interesting times, etc.
Writer’s dont wind up at thirty years old getting into the tribal way of seeing things. That’s a sign of a narrowing mind.
Leaving aside what you are saying about the blind spots around here (which I have commented on, and which are regrettable) on the subject of feminism –
Have you attended a university recently? I know several people who I, or other people, have called/would call “social justice warriors”, or similar terms. I know people who are scared of them, scared enough to only speak negatively about them behind their backs.
You are right that they don’t show up around here.
They’re rare here, though I have seen them, but can be fairly common IRL depending on the circles you run in. I’ve met most of the ones I know in academia, activist circles (esp. those descended in some way from Occupy), or groups linked in some way to anarchism, the latter two of which I tend to rub shoulders with quite a bit for complicated reasons despite not being a fan of either.
On the other hand, it’d probably be fairly easy to go your whole life without meeting one, if you’re older, non-American, or live outside certain coastal cities.
@Anon – “In two years of following along, I’ve never seen a true SJW appear to make a comment here. Additionally, I’ve never meet one in real life.”
I suppose that depends heavily on how one defines “true SJW”. I take it to mean en embrace of Arthur Chu’s philosophy, believing that social norms like fairness, tolerance, charity, impartiality etc are obstacles preventing us from achieving a just society. I have definately seen people who I think fit that description here and on ToT; I’ve engaged in lengthy conversation with one or two of them. As for personal experience, a friend of ten years turned into one and cut off all contact when I disagreed with her views in a private discussion.
“This place has become so fiercely committed to its definition of the enemy and the seriousness of the threat it has based its intellectual credibility on whether a hysterically unhinged dogpile on feminism was the best thing we could have spent our time on in 2014, 2015, and 2016.”
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the later half of 2014 was profoundly distressing to me. I saw my community dissolve into bitter fighting, was disowned by friends for having the wrong beliefs, watched as community leaders I’d followed and respected for years were cheered for announcing that people like me should be fired from their jobs, harassed in any way possible, and treated as untouchables. Trying to make sense of this barbarity, I started looking around and realized that the same thing was happening in multiple other communities, and even in the broader culture. I was reading the same views in major news sources. The ideas that tore my community apart seemed to be inescapable, and this went on for months, and it had a pretty serious impact on my mental health. I find it difficult to reconcile your description of “an unhinged dogpile of feminism” with my own experience. As I often mention in these discussions, when the mess started in 2014, *I was a feminist*.
SSC was one of the first places I found that offered a sane explanation and response to the madness, and for that I am endlessly grateful. Several of the regulars here seem to have similar stories. I would agree that the original fears of Social Justice were overblown; it had a lot less staying power and control of the general culture than it seemed to in fall 2014. That is a long way from saying that it was not a threat then, or is not one now. I would agree that some people let their fear and disgust get the best of them, and that in general we shouldn’t be living in panic mode. On the other hand, I think Social Justice as it currently exists is intrinsically harmful to everyone, supporters and opponents alike, and it should be opposed whenever possible.
…I’m not entirely able to decipher your last paragraph. “guinea-pigged his intellectual development”? “Writer’s dont wind up at thirty years old getting into the tribal way of seeing things”? I’d be interested in hearing your point, if you could elaborate. For what it’s worth, I see Scott as being fairly effective at arguing against tribalism and for charity; I am very opposed to Social Justice, but a lot less fanatical about it than, say, Vox Day, and I think reading Scott and hanging out here has had a lot to do with that.
IMO we should promote the use of tactics that will dampen conflicts, and oppose the use of tactics that will inflame conflicts. So then the question becomes: does keeping lists of people who have spoken publicly on politically controversial issues dampen conflicts or inflame conflicts? It’s not clear to me. On the one hand, if people can’t speak about conflicts under their real names, then conflicts will impede less on public life. On the other hand, if all the discussion has to be anonymous, then maybe the discussion will be nastier? Also, maybe if the consequences for political speech look dire, the only speakers will be extremists who are willing to brave extreme consequences: https://twitter.com/sama/status/610494268151431168
One tactic that will dampen conflict is utter, complete, and immediate surrender. I would not promote that tactic (except of course to my opponents).
I posted a comment a while ago and it hasn’t shown up. Might have been an issue with me using a fake email?
Unsure, but have you tried minor variations and seeing what happens?
Probably something collided with a word used to identify a banned user. For example, if somebody used thisismyfakeemail@gmail.com and I banned them by banning the string “myfakeemail”, and yours was myfakeemail@yahoo.com, then you’d be banned too.
Thanks for your gracious support, everyone!!! I promise I’ll try to make the best of it.
Good luck.
This is a bit of a weird comment, but I would like to bring up a question specifically for John Schilling. John, you’ve mentioned several times here in the past that old estimates of nuclear winter are no longer tenable and that current estimates of nuclear war are kind of bad, but not catastrophic.
Well, very recently on reddit, I saw someone say pretty much the exact opposite – that current estimates are still catastrophic. To support their position, they cited the following three works: one two three
Full disclosure: I haven’t read these papers yet. I put them on my list of things I want to read (but that list is long, and this thread just happened recently). When I do dive into them, do you have something I should keep in mind? Do you have additional reading that you think supports an alternate perspective? I understand that you have some legitimate expertise in nuclear matters, so I’m hoping that you could offer some more information as I begin learning.
I’d like to hear more about this also.
In the third link, they say “researchers … simulated a small nuclear war between two countries in the sub-tropics in which each nation attacked the other’s most densely populated urban centers with 50 Hiroshima-size (15 kiloton per weapon) low-yield nuclear bombs. … Consequently, the massive smoke emissions from the fires of a small “regional” nuclear war would cause a global climate change unprecedented in human history.”
This seems a bit surprising–surely more than 50 cities were set on fire (by ordinary fire bombs) during the bombing of Japan, so shouldn’t we already have seen the ice age?
I believe that the claimed difference here is that nuclear explosions cause soot to reach the stratosphere, where it can stay for much longer periods of time and have significant effects on the climate.
Why do you believe that? Did you get that from the link? It seems to me to say nothing of the sort, but to talk entirely about the consequences of fires. I think that the key source is reference 17 whose abstract contains the sentence
Dresden and Tokyo aren’t subtropical and maybe they didn’t meet this standard of “modern.” Also, I think that very few of Youzicha’s 50 cities were “set on fire” to the standard of a nuclear explosion.
I’m not at all sure of those premises. I know for a fact that Japanese cities of WWII were essentially made of wood. The idea that fuel loadings are higher today is unlikely to say the least. Also, Kuwait is definitely subtropical, and while they appear to claim that the fires there were too small to cause the effects they posit, it makes me skeptical. “No, last time was a fluke, but we’re definitely right this time.”
I’m looking into information on the relative effects of fire during the firebombing of Japan and those expected from nuclear war. Some volumes of the Strategic Bombing Survey and Effects of Nuclear Weapons are probably the way to go here if anyone else wants to give it a try.
As a reference, the area of Tokyo consumed by fire was about 16 square miles, 4 times the area of the firestorm at Hiroshima.
Digging around in the bowels of DTIC, I have found some indication that the DOD is looking at the issue again. That said, the people behind those papers appear to be involved with the nuclear disarmament movement, and at least during the 80s, there was clear evidence that numbers were being cooked to exaggerate the threat for similar political purposes. And they don’t seem to understand nuclear policy that well, either, but that’s another issue.
Kuwait was certainly subtropical, and the soot – allegedly the very worst kind from a nuclear winter standpoint and on a massive scale – lasted months rather than a decade or more.
The only thing remotely resembling model validation in that paper was a note that the model was quite accurate in dealing with volcanic dust – and I think that was all retroactive, but I’d have to track down tertiary sources to check. But Robock et al then emphasize that volcanic dust is fundamentally different from soot. So how is the model validated or even calibrated for soot? Blind theory, and extrapolation by an order of magnitude from experimental bounds?
So, Nuclear War will be different, in a way that produces no detectable effect unless you have big nuclear explosions over subtropical cities, but not other big sooty fires or nuclear explosions in other places. And simple computer models don’t show this effect, but we have clever sophisticated ones that do even if they have never been validated.
That’s not a very strong story.
I’m no specialist, but that seems unlikely. The mushroom clouds from megaton-range weapons (though not Trinity-scale weapons) do reach the stratosphere, but most of the soot is generated over a longer period of time, from burning buildings, fuel, and various other things that the explosion knocked down (with the pressure wave) and set on fire (with the thermal pulse).
Not just that, either. Most of the megaton-range weapons have been eliminated due to improved delivery accuracy.
My nuclear bomb slide rule is at home, but I have some doubts about their soot metrics. They ignore plausible targeting plans, and instead assume that everyone is shooting at cities, even though most of the bombs are aimed at missile silos on the high plains and equivalent.
Edit:
I just found the big problem in the soot estimates. They took the area that burned at Hiroshima (13 km2) and then scale it directly to the weapon yield. Three problems here:
1. Japanese cities of the time were made of wood. Modern cities aren’t.
2. I don’t think scaling like that is linear across the range of yields they’re looking at. EoNW confirms, suggesting that direct-ignition burn radius increase by ~3 when going from 10 kt to 1 Mt. So the yield increases by a factor of 100, and the area affected by a factor of 9. Or, rounding shamelessly, the damage is proportional to the square root of yield, which is generally a good rule of thumb.
3. Nuclear targeting is a lot more complex than ‘drop bombs on urban areas in order of decreasing size until you run out of bombs’. This is public knowledge. At minimum, cut their estimates in half for this. Nuclear weapons aren’t that reliable. If the target really, positively has to be killed, it gets two or three. And a lot of bombs will go places where there aren’t that many flammables.
All three of these errors are quite obvious, and go in the same direction of maximizing soot numbers. If they overlooked them because they’re not that smart, then there is no reason to give their work any credibility. But I suspect they overlooked them as part of a political campaign against nuclear weapons instead. In either case, I’m not qualified to evaluate their work on what happens when soot gets into the atmosphere, but I see no reason why we should trust them to have produced good results on what happens when soot gets into the atmosphere.
@bean: Where did you see them scaling the burn area linearly to the yield? Is that in one of the linked papers I haven’t read yet?
If so, yes, that’s a blooper that throws almost two orders of magnitude of error into one of the source terms. I also note them saying that “5000 megatons is too low because it significantly underestimates the Russian reserve stockpile”, as if there is a remotely credible scenario in which the US alert force isn’t used to (among other things) destroy the Russian reserve stockpile and the infrastructure needed to use it.
If this turns into daisy-chained worst-case assumptions one of which is that US and Russian strategic planners tacitly coordinate in a master plan to Destroy The World as thoroughly and efficiently as possible without hindering each other’s efforts, then the “Conflict” part of the title is a lie.
John:
Where did you see them scaling the burn area linearly to the yield? Is that in one of the linked papers I haven’t read yet?
It’s in Box 1 of the second paper (Physics Today). I became suspicious when they referenced a DOD-sponsored study looking at 3000 500-kt weapons and used what seemed a quasi-reasonable targeting strategy (no silos, though, which should inflate soot somewhat) which showed 21 Tg of soot, while their methods gave a 1000 100-kt weapon strike 28 Tg of soot. Their conclusion after getting 30% more soot for 1/15th the yield?
“The burned areas are similar, and this is a good check of our methodology.”
I’ve heard that it depends a lot on climate and time of year. (Mumble mumble heating up dark mushroom clouds mumble thermals mumble stratosphere mumble mumble)
The first two come back as “HTTP 404 Not Found”. #3 is mostly qualitatively correct but makes quantitative assertions that I find questionable, including some that I recognize as technically correct but cherrypicked, misleading, and stripped of critical context (e.g. “global nuclear arsenal of more than 65,000 weapons”. Others, more critical to the argument, are referenced to other papers I’ll have to track down when I have more time.
Several people have already noted the critical influence of stratospheric soot lifetime, and the fact that we have real-world examples (Japan, Germany, Kuwait) that ought to be nearly identical to small nuclear wars but conspicuously didn’t result in ten-year soot lifetime, so a model that makes that assertion (or worse, assumption) is going to need a thorough and persuasive explanation as to why This Time It Will Be Different.
Other issues: A whole lot of “computer simulations predict”, and not one mention of the word “validation”. I’m not going to read every paper Starr links to, but I will skim or search them for how their models were validated. If the subject isn’t mentioned, the model is crap (or, maybe useful but the person reporting on it can’t be trusted). And I’m going to want to know who Steven Starr and INESAP are and who else has reviewed or cited their work – this is the sort of thing peer review is meant for, and while the system isn’t as robust as it ought to be, it is still kind of necessary.
Whoops. The linking didn’t work. I’ll post it explicitly. They’re both from the same group:
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockNW2006JD008235.pdf
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ToonRobockTurcoPhysicsToday.pdf
Thanks for the heads-up to look for validation, particularly with respect to stratospheric soot lifetime. My resident experimentalist (I’m a control theoretician; he runs a wind tunnel) is always going on about how a whole lot of folks in CFD seem to just not bother validating their simulations, so I understand the frustration.
You need to read the actual papers to find out about model validation, obviously. Robock has peer reviewed work on this topic and there’s lots more information here: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/nuclear/
It’s clear that Robock has done more work on this project than any of the commenters here and is a well-respected scientist. From my point of view as a tenured atmospheric science professor at an R1 institution, without having delved into all the details, Robock tells a compelling story about this topic. Having heard him talk about this, I can say that the worst part to me is that no government agencies will go near this kind of research with a 10-foot pole for political reasons. So what Robock has done on his own time is really all that’s been done recently. This is not a topic which is being more seriously looked at by the research community and I think his papers and the fact that they’re published in peer-reviewed literature make the case that this is at least worth looking into. All the suggestions here are the kinds of things people could look at if it was possible to get funding for this research topic.
Also, one peer reviewed paper and the peer reviews available here in case anyone is that interested: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/1973/2007/acp-7-1973-2007-discussion.html
Oops, this is the one I was trying to link: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/2003/2007/acp-7-2003-2007-discussion.html
The first two papers the OP linked to were his. One of them was the one where I found a set of assumptions about soot production which, applying several megtons of charity, bespeak a total and complete unfamiliarity with nuclear weapon effects and usage. Keeping in mind that he’s not new to this, and applying slightly less charity, he appears to have cooked at least part of the paper to overestimate soot production by at least an order of magnitude in his large-war cases, if not more. If he made the error in good faith, we shouldn’t trust his work because he’s not very good at it. If he made the mistakes intentionally, we shouldn’t trust anything he has to say because he’s pushing an agenda regardless of what the science actually says.
What are the citations that show that Robock overestimated soot production by an order of magnitude? Is there obvious peer-reviewed literature he’s missing? From the peer review of his paper it looks like particle diameter could be an issue, e.g. there could be sensitivity to that assumption. I’m still skeptical of completely discounting his work on the atmospheric end because of something he may not have known about. Personally, it just makes me want to talk to him and maybe try to convince him to rerun the experiments with different boundary conditions.
What are the citations that show that Robock overestimated soot production by an order of magnitude?
I don’t have citations, other than to Effects of Nuclear Weapons, and my knowledge of nuclear targeting practices, which have been gathered over several years. If nothing else, scaling area burned directly with yield is the sort of thing that would only be reasonable to do on a back-of-the-envelope calculation if you didn’t know any better. The fact that he got into some fairly sophisticated models for how much area was damaged takes this cleanly out of that category.
Is there obvious peer-reviewed literature he’s missing?
Oddly enough, the reference works on nuclear weapon effects aren’t peer-reviewed papers. They’re government publications. Effects of Nuclear Weapons is the bible here, and it’s readily available online. (And they actually cite it right next to the section where they make the mistakes on scaling, although they cite another document (Medical Implications of Nuclear Weapons) to justify that.)
I’m still skeptical of completely discounting his work on the atmospheric end because of something he may not have known about.
He definitely had the right books, and checking his assumption should have been the work of moments. Either he’s very careless or very ideologically motivated. Take your pick.
Edit:
I checked a couple of his papers. No mention of validation. And it’s worse than I remembered. In the soot estimation section, he explicitly cites EoNW, although for some reason it’s chapter 8 (nuclear radiation) instead of chapter 7, which is the one on fires and thermal radiation. I also checked his cite of Medical Implications of Nuclear War, and it’s a chapter on megaton and near-megaton airbursts causing fires. Hint: I don’t think 100 kt counts as near-megaton. Also, it doesn’t provide the justification for his claim about scaling on the page he references. This gets worse the more I look.
I’ve now had a chance to read all three of the cited papers; the Physics Today piece has the core of the argument and refers to the other two, and those point to still more technical works – I’ve looked at a few of those as well. Let’s be charitable and start with the part where they might know what they are talking about and might be saying something that isn’t completely absurd.
On the pure climate science side, the key technical issues are the lofting of small soot particles to high altitudes and the lifetime of those particles in that environment. For that, all we have is the authors’ assertion that the NASA Goddard “ModelE” simulation package says so. I’ll trust that the model actually does give these results. But the one thing that vaguely hints at code validation, and they point to this repeatedly enough that I suspect it’s the best they have got, is that the model retroactively predicts the results of volcanic eruptions with good accuracy.
But volcanic eruptions produce much larger particles that last shorter times at lower altitudes, by about an order of magnitude. This is rather like saying your computational fluid dynamics code can design a hypersonic spaceplane without any of that pesky wind tunnel testing, because it “predicts” the performance of an old F-4 fighter jet so well.
They also point out how their model predicts higher lofting and longer lifetime than the first-generation models of the 1980s, but one thing that ought to leap out at anyone working in this field is the 1991 Kuwaiti oilfield fires, which were specifically called out by the 1980s models as likely to produce substantial global cooling but in reality the soot washed out fairly quickly. So if the model says the soot will climb higher and last longer than the 1980s model predicts, it’s conspicuous that they wouldn’t address that.
And I caught an aside where they said that they did not consider coagulation of the soot particles in the upper atmosphere but that this doesn’t matter because that takes about a year to produce a ~70% reduction in concentration – but a major point of their broader work is that the soot will last for at least six years or more in the upper atmosphere.
Between the unmodeled effects and the unvalidated model, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an order of magnitude’s worth of error in the climate science alone.
But then there’s the actual nuclear-weapons side of the analysis.
As bean notes, they model the area of the fire as being a linear function of the warhead yield. That’s approximately correct for a nuclear explosion in vacuum over an infinite featureless plain scattered with a uniform density of flammable detritus. Even the briefest reading of the conveniently-titled “Thermal Radiation and its Effects” chapter of Glasstone’s equally convenient “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” (1962), shows that it’s much more complicated than that if you detonate a bomb in an actual atmosphere, over a city where the flammable stuff is mostly inside fairly sturdy containers. The proper scaling is most likely burn area proportional to yield to the 2/3 power, which for Robock et al’s model is a factor of two error. And a particularly inexcusable one for anyone claiming to be competent to discuss this subject.
Then there’s the bit where they go from scaling human casualties “from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks”, to scaling burn areas from Hiroshima alone. That’s extremely suspicious, because again from Glasstone, the burn area at Hiroshima was roughly four times that at Nagasaki, even though the Hiroshima bomb had only two-thirds the yield of Nagasaki. Nuclear arson is an uncertain business, and by tossing out one of the only two experimental data points we have Robock et al are probably throwing in another factor-of-two error.
Another one comes from using unadjusted 1945 data on urban flammability. It turns out that people really don’t like having their stuff burn up (and even less so their children), and so have spent much of the past seventy years making their stuff much less flammable. I can’t readily find global data for 1945-present, but structure fires in urban areas have declined by more than a factor of two in the United States since the mid-1970s alone. And those are fires to which fire departments are called in the first place, so it’s not an artifact of firefighters being better at their jobs.
Finally, the nuclear war that is supposed to cause this nuclear winter. In the Robock model for Global Thermonuclear War, this consists of launching every deployed nuclear weapon that exists, at the most densely populated urban areas, in a manner mathematically calculated to cause the most efficient distribution of burn areas with no other consideration. If there are two vital, hardened military targets a mile apart, one of them will suffer only minor damage because it would be wasteful to detonate a second warhead so close that the fires would overlap those of the first. A military base not located in a major city won’t be damaged at all, because there’s always someplace else with more flammable stuff around. And under no account will any military action be undertaken for the purpose or with the effect of in any way hindering the other side’s military forces in their attempt to maximize soot production for a proper Robockian Ragnarok.
I’m sorry, but even the WOPR had a better grasp of military operations than that. At this point, we’re basically arguing that Napoleon Bonaparte was an existential threat to humanity because all the magazines of the French Empire and its allies held enough black powder for a billion or so musket shot and there were only a billion people alive at the day.
A Physics Today article that carefully sidesteps the known controversial aspects of the subject matter, demonstrates profound ignorance of another subject and promotes the spherical-cow theorizing of an outside academic over the most cursory examination of the field’s key literature, and then asserts an extreme conclusion while pointing not-at-all-subtly at the usual policy “implications”. Multiple, easily avoidable factor-of-two or worse errors, all of which line up in the same direction – supporting the extreme conclusion. This is straight-up preaching to the converted, and I’m not going to bother diving any farther into it.
As a rebuttal to a 2008 article that, in hindsight, doesn’t seem to have gotten any traction, I don’t think it’s worth the bother – and I suspect the editors of PT wouldn’t think so either. But if I see something like this come up again, I’ve got a head start on a response and I’m happy to use it.
At this point, we’re basically arguing that Napoleon Bonaparte was an existential threat to humanity because all the magazines of the French Empire and its allies held enough black powder for a billion or so musket shot and there were only a billion people alive at the day.
That’s going in my file of really good summaries.
I’m sort of chargined at how much of the detail I missed in my read-through, particularly the bit about throwing out Nagasaki.
Thanks for that. I’ve learned something new about nuclear weapons, which doesn’t happen often from discussion.
Thanks for the analysis! I feel better about the world, though disappointed in Robock.
And I want somebody like you to peer-review my papers!
From what I’ve read, the nuclear winter theory is based off the assumption that nuclear strikes on cities will create enormous fires that will push massive amounts of smoke into the atmosphere, and that this will result in a years long cooling effect similar to volcanic and impact winters.
With that in mind, has anyone checked to see whether the massive bushfires that regularly occur in Australia behave the same way that nuclear winter computer models expect fires of that size to behave? Because that seems like it would be a pretty good empirical test of the nuclear winter hypothesis.
They don’t. Neither did burning cities during World War II. Neither did burning oil wells during the 1991 Iraq War, even though that was specifically called out by proponents of the “nuclear winter” theory as being something that would cause a substantial nuclear-winter-like effect.
Maybe there’s something unique or scale-dependent that can only come into play in a large nuclear war, but I’m skeptical. And the burden of proof on that hypothesis would seem to be insurmountable without actually fighting a large nuclear war.
And the burden of proof on that hypothesis would seem to be insurmountable without actually fighting a large nuclear war.
Well, in that case, I suppose we’ll just have to have one and find out. After all, testing a hypothesis is step 2, after making a hypothesis.
They don’t, or we’d all be dead. The best test we’ve had since this started was the fires in Kuwait during 1991, and they didn’t do what Sagan and co said they would.
That said, based on some google work, it looks like the soot emissions of those fires are not too far off of the Kuwait values, and significantly below the currently-claimed level for nuclear winter shutting down the world.
There are various factors that reduce the intensity of nuclear winter, but the biggest one is that a nuclear war, unlike a volcanic eruption, is no longer expected to inject its pollution into the stratosphere. That means that instead of slowly settling out, the dust, soot, etc. can be washed out of the air by weather. See the last paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_debate .
As seen in the other comments, the concept of “nuclear winter” is on dubious ground, but this gives me a bad feeling since I was just reading an article about Pakistan fielding tactical nukes to stop Indian retaliatory border incursions in response to terror attacks associated with Pakistan, which India would then retaliate to with city busting weapons since they don’t have tactical nukes, leading to a possible full scale nuclear war in South Asia if local commanders get twitchy enough.
Maybe we should keep the lie of nuclear winter going is what I’m saying.
Maybe we should keep the lie of nuclear winter going is what I’m saying.
I’m not sure why you expect public perception in the west to have much influence on what the Pakistanis do with their nukes. They may not be the most modern government around, but either they don’t care about nuclear winter at all or they have analysts smart enough to figure out that Robock is wrong. Either way, all the continuing myth does is hand the nuclear disarmament people a weapon. Personally, I think that reducing the US nuclear stockpile is probably a much greater threat than leaving it alone or expanding it, so destroying anti-nuke propaganda is a good thing.
Also, I think one of the basic principles of this blog is that we shouldn’t embrace falsehoods just because it might be convenient.
I’m inclined to agree.
Okay. I think this blog’s thesis is set:
We have more to fear from Tumblr than from Nuclear War itself.
I ran into this article at work and I’m curious what you guys, Scott particularly, think of it.
Genetic and Stress Induced Loss of NG2 Glia Triggers Emergence of Depressive-like Behaviors Through Loss of FGF2
As the name implies, knocking out NG2 + oligodendrocyte precursor cells in the prefrontal cortex led to mice exhibiting most of the symptoms of depression. When OPCs from other regions of the brain migrated in, the symptoms reversed. It seems as though the OPCs are required for astrocytes to uptake glutamate, which is surprising to me at least.
The article is solid, although horribly edited with numerous typos. I personally doubt that this mechanism is how depression normally works: OPCs repopulate quickly, and when they don’t you end up with demyelinating diseases like MS. Still, it’s a very interesting result.
I’m searching for an IP market with minimal entry barrier. Something of a street market of IP to stock up on cheap technology or to dump an abandoned project that might never make it otherwise. Does anyone encountered something like that?
In the “Ideology and Movement” we had some discussion about whether the “Gamer Tribe” was a consumerist. This discussion was a sideshow to a different discussion, but myself and Nancy Lebovitz agreed we should discuss it independently here.
So my thoughts are simple. A consumerist culture is one where membership is defined by acquiring (usually via money) cultural artifacts that someone produced.
If we were to define video games as the primary cultural artifact of Gamer Tribe this definition would fit. But my counter argument is that video games are not the primary artifact.
The primary artifact is, for lack of a better word, a play through. The player’s input is considered as vital to the finished artifact as the video game itself. For example witness how players who find a game like Dark Souls too hard are told to practice and improve. I don’t think the idea that the end user must improve could exist in a primarily consumerist society.
As supporting evidence: Status in gamer tribe is given out to people who demonstrate skill and people who create games/reviews/mods/lets plays etc. Not to the people who buy the most expensive hardware or the largest libraries of games. Even on somewhere like r/battlestations it’s obvious that people thing of their battlestation as their own artistic expression, and not a show of wealth.
Two things in gamer culture that I suppose are relevant to whether it’s consumerist, or might just be relevant to the fact that I’m not sure I understand the term:
– Piracy. Some gaming communities are more accepting of piracy than others, possibly due to forum norms (4chan’s /v/ is on 4chan, for instance), so how many games one “owns” can be entirely unrelated to how much money one has spent on games.
– Steam. Every summer and winter, like clockwork, people make jokes about the money being sucked straight out of their wallets, and all year round we joke about how many games are in our Steam libraries that we’re never going to actually play.
I don’t get this. I do have games in my Steam library that I haven’t played and probably won’t, but only because they came as package deals or as promotional giveaways (probably dating myself here a bit, I don’t remember seeing this lately). Everything I’ve set out to buy, I’ve played, if not necessarily finished.
Why would it be otherwise? Network speeds these days are fast enough that you can buy games in a just-in-time fashion, or close enough, without losing anything to speak of.
Sales; you buy games because you think you might want to play them and they’re on sale. Inevitably you are more behind and busier than you thought and don’t.
Steam knows what it is doing with its sales.
Ah. I suppose that might work. For me, the opportunity cost of committing myself to playing some game always seemed too high to buy anything on spec, though I’ve sometimes picked up individual games on sale when I just wanted to waste time and wasn’t particular as to how.
@Nornagest – most of us arrive at that point as well. It’s just that we arrive at it after we’ve got literally hundreds of games in our library.
You either have a much faster connection than me or play much more lightweight games; ime they often take up to three hours to download
I think your idea ties in nicely with a lot of well known concepts. Only a sketch: Some people have time but no money. The artifacts you name are proof of a significant investment of time. Other people have money but no time. If they pay for a game (as a means of entertainment) they expect its already paid for content to be accessible for them without an additional investment of time beyond the time it would take to experience the game’s content itself. Hence debates about “dumbed down” games “pay2win” etc. This is another (i. e. in addition to gamergate) tribal conflict, going on between two brands of gamers rather than gamers and outsiders.
To the cynic, of course this is “Gamers” unwarrantedly lamenting their supposed birthright to have games made in their fashion wheras the money is actually to be made elsewhere and/or game makers looking for ways to covertly monetize on investments of time.
Yes, thanks. This was the objection I wanted to voice about some absolutely shitty “death to le fascist imperialist gamers” articles I’ve seen around way back, during Peak Anti-GG – and even some “tabletop roleplaying is consumerist”(?!?!) nonsense I’ve seen thrown around by far-left gamer types (who ironically also sneered at stupid icky girl fanfiction).
Do you know if they were talking more about modern D&D, with tons of expensive minis and splats, or would something like a retroclone or indie narrative game also count as consumerist by their lights?
I could see a case for the big-name RPGs being consumerist but OSR and a lot of the newer games seem like precisely the opposite. Then again I know much less about Marxian theory than about tabletop.
You’re outta date, 5th Ed has gone back to theatre of the mind.
Ah ok. Disregard the above then.
I quit D&D for good when 4e came out, and haven’t even played Pathfinder in a while. I’ve been kicking around older games and/or clones for the most part so not much experience with 5e.
I actually like 4E, but not as a D&D game.
I consider it a rather excellent tabletop tactics game, similar to tactics RPGs in the videogame world; not the same thing as an “RPG” in the classical sense, but still very funky when taken as itself.
Yeah, I’m actually really annoyed that no good D&D 4e-based videogames ever came out. Don’t get me wrong, I hated 4e as much as the next guy; as a system for creating imaginary worlds and characters, and adjudicating what happens to them, it was terrible. But as a well-balanced tactical combat system? It was actually pretty great.
I mean, seriously, the biggest complaint people had about 4e was that it was trying to be too much like a video game. It stands to reason, then, that if you made a video game based on that system, it would actually be pretty good! Use the systems flaws to its advantage! But instead, the few D&D-based games we got at the time were all still 3e/3.5e-based. Maybe part of that was that there was simply a dearth of good CRPGs at the time, (hence why kickstarters for things like Pillars of Eternity did so well) and there were already 3.5e-based engines out there for developers to use, but I can’t shake the feeling that part of it was simply people saying, “well, people don’t like 4e, so they obviously wouldn’t like a 4e-based video game, either.” If that had anything at all to do with it, that’s silly. People may have hated 4e as a tabletop game, but I think they would have loved a video game that used that ruleset.
I’ve often, jokingly, said that X-Com: Enemy Within was the best D&D 4e video game we ever got. Even though it’s obviously not the same system, there’s a lot of similarities between how they work, and I think its popularity demonstrates just how well a 4e-based game might do, even among people who hate 4e.
I’m still sore that we’ve never gotten an Exalted videogame.
(Except Jade Empire, but that was an accident so it doesn’t count.)
I don’t know, I feel like Overwatch or Paladins use a similar style of combat, with a variety of characters with their own basic attacks, abilities with cool down, and an ultimate. To me (someone who only played WoW for the free intro period, and hasn’t LoL’d) they look the most like 4e of any video games outside of XCOM, and seem like they will be fairly popular.
Unless you mean more in the directly tactical simulation of movement squares, then those are FPS’s and wouldn’t really apply. Maybe they are more spiritual descendants of WoW or LoL? Although, I got the impression that lots of people thought 4e was descended from those too.
People complained, loudly, that they made 4e “too much like WoW,” but I wouldn’t say it was “descended” from WoW, per se. The main similarity is that, like you said, the classes in 4e are defined mostly by collection of distinct, gamey, activatable powers with cooldowns, rather than a more organic collection of skills and abilities like most pen and paper RPGs, and while that is certainly similar to WoW, it is also similar to any number other video games. It could even be compared to a card game, since you “play” your characters powers throughout a battle, much like you would cards in a hand. So I wouldn’t say WoW directly inspired 4e, or anything. I think “too much like WoW” simply became a shorthand for peoples’ problems with 4e’s mechanics because WoW was so popular at the time, and made for a convenient boogeyman.
Also, yeah, I was looking more for a game that was a direct adaptation of the mechanics. A Baldur’s Gate-style game using the 4e rules would have been friggin’ amazing.
Well, the original disagreement was over whether gamers are outcasts from “modern secular consumerism”.
If gamers are such outcasts because you can’t just straight-up buy gamer cred, then movie buffs, fine dining enthusiasts, sports fans, people who love ball-jointed dolls and hundreds of other groups are also “outcasts”. I think that kind of strains the usual meaning of the word.
(Also, expensive hardware may not be sufficient, but it does seem necessary for many modern games. And what about all those cool cases and peripherals every computer store seems to stock — surely something motivates hobbyist gamers to buy this stuff?)
I propose this rule of thumb: if there are multiple large businesses catering specifically to your subculture, then it’s not a subculture of outcasts from secular consumerism.
>Well, the original disagreement was over whether gamers are outcasts from “modern secular consumerism”.
>If gamers are such outcasts because you can’t just straight-up buy gamer cred, then movie buffs, fine dining enthusiasts, sports fans, people who love ball-jointed dolls and hundreds of other groups are also “outcasts”. I think that kind of strains the usual meaning of the word.
The idea has its merits though. Gaming is a subculture where you can aquire status without a large monetary investment (e. g. speed-run “Half-Life” or something). This is not true for e. g. fine dining. Also I’m afraid not for movie buffs. Watching “Pulp Fiction” repeatedly after the 10-th time has rapidly diminishing returns in terms of status gains. Compare this to the hours to be sunk into Half-Life in order to become a speed-runner.
>(Also, expensive hardware may not be sufficient, but it does seem necessary for many modern games
Yes and complaining about not being able to afford current hardware is a recurring meme on every game related outlet I know. No contradiction there. Also GPU-development cycles did get longer in recent years.
>And what about all those cool cases and peripherals every computer store seems to stock — surely something motivates hobbyist gamers to buy this stuff?)
Actually I own a case which did cost >100$-US. Think what you want but I bought it out of the frustration that every case I had before that “sucked” in the totally pragmatic way of not being able to house the hardware du jour after a few years. My motivation was to buy the one case that would end case buying once and for all. So far I’ve not regretted it. Cases do matter. I don’t know about “cool” though.
>I propose this rule of thumb: if there are multiple large businesses catering specifically to your subculture, then it’s not a subculture of outcasts from secular consumerism.
No, the complaint is that these industries cater to “not true gamers” you see. Most prominently: “filthy casuals”.
You’re comparing apples to oranges — watching a film like a “casual” vs playing a game like an enthusiast. I’m pretty sure movie lovers get something out of re-watching (noticing new details, constructing alternative interpretations, understanding different characters, seeing connections to other works), just like gamers get skill improvements out of their replays. And they also have to spend hours watching and re-watching before they can write a really clever essay to raise their status among peers, or dazzle someone with trivia at a cocktail party.
Yes, that sounds perfectly reasonable. You’re a normal person who upgrades their stuff when it seems necessary. But most people in our “consumerist” society are like that. Maybe some folks do think “ha, I will spend more money than Jones just to show how wealthy I am!” — but they can’t be the majority.
Actually I was trying to answer the question why anyone would buy a fancy case. I doubt that this is conclusive proof that I’m a “normal person” whatever that is.
Sorry, I didn’t intend to offend you 🙂
I’m just trying to say that most consumption involves people buying things because they want to use them and consider them better than the alternatives, not for some special “consumerist” reasons.
I’ll note that for serious games like StarCraft, most top players play with the graphics turned down to as low as they go. So you certainly don’t need top end hardware and in some ways it anti signals. That said, people do shell out for high end mice and keyboards.
They may play with graphics settings turned all the way down, but they play the game with those settings on a high end machine with dual Titans. The idea is to get as high framerate and responsiveness as they possibly can, and in order to do that, there’s still an incentive to get high end hardware, above and beyond bragging about your pretty graphics. (Bragging about your FPS, on the other hand… >_> )
It moved on slightly.
You can be a gamer and stick to old games. Retrogaming is quite popular these days. And there’s no shortage of games that will run on a fairly cheap rig; Undertale was one of last years biggest games and it will run on just about any half-modern PC.
If you have money the Mainstream Secular Consumerism tribe will sell to you.
But would gamers fit in if they went, e.g. golfing with the executives from Electronic Arts or Ubisoft? Or on a day out shopping with some of the women from Ubisoft’s marketing department?
Plenty would, but plenty would not. Gaming was never a tribe that’s exclusively populated by outcasts, but it always was a tribe where people who couldn’t fit in with normies could find a place.
Outcast doesn’t have to mean getting shoved into lockers (thankfully that’s on the way down), it can just mean not fitting in. And what capitalist would let such a small thing get in the way of selling to an unsatisfied market?
I would be hilariously out of place on a golf course or a “recreational” shopping trip, but I don’t think that makes me an outcast. Far from rejecting me, normal consumerist culture “wants” me to participate in it more than I already do (because then I would spend more money).
My husband, in addition to being kind of awkward like me, has always spent a lot of time playing games, but he doesn’t call himself a “gamer” because he finds the modern “gamer culture” completely alienating. So — sorry, but I’m a bit skeptical.
The point is that “is willing to sell to Tribe” and “includes members of Tribe in social activity” have no relationship. Thus challenging your rule of thumb.
I mean, the Caucasian run company stores who existed only to
sell toextort African American sharecroppers certainly treated said African Americans like outcasts.I have something better than anecdotes. Data!
3% of gamergater’s identify as transgender. Source: https://twitter.com/Brad_Glasgow/status/717421712506241024
If we start with the (I think very reasonable) assumption that if any group is an outcast from the mainstream it’s people who are transgender.
Now measuring the percentage of people who are transgender in the general population is hard: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/upshot/the-search-for-the-best-estimate-of-the-transgender-population.html?_r=0
But some estimates put it as low as 0.1% – by that figure transgender people are highly over represented in gamergate. (I think youtube video where IronLiz and a second transgender person explain why they’re supporting gamergate – if you want to know more)
IMO, that is evidence that gamer tribe is welcoming to people outcast from the mainstream. (It might also be evidence that being an outcast makes you extra motivated to defend gamer tribe).
Assuming of course that we can extrapolate from gamergate to gamer tribe. I think we can (though I would, wouldn’t I).
But buying products, reading and writing reviews, attending promotional events and waiting in lines to buy new products are the social activities of the consumer tribe. Its various subtribes buy different products: Apple fans buy Apple products, fashion fans buy clothes and accessories, game fans buy games.
That sure is data. But if that’s all you meant — that some people who “don’t fit in” can find a place in your tribe, then the SJ tribe is also a precious refuge.
@Nita – “That sure is data. But if that’s all you meant — that some people who “don’t fit in” can find a place in your tribe, then the SJ tribe is also a precious refuge.”
Isn’t it?
Thanks for saying this. Because those are not the social activities of the gamer tribe. (apart from reviews)
For example. I’ve never made a social activity of buying a video game, unless you count being asked what I want for a birthday. Maybe they exist in console-land, but as a PC guy I haven’t even walked into a brick and mortar game store in years.
Promotional events are less popular than fan conventions; and when they do exist they now resemble fan conventions with things like cosplay.
Um, yes, this is true. Did anyone say it wasn’t? What’s your point?
I point back to I Can Tolerate Everything But the Outgroup. The reason combat between social justice and various tribes of “nerddom” (atheism, comics, sci-fi/fantasy, games) is so vicious is because they’re similar enough to be each others outgroup.
Thus it stands to reason that they’d share traits like being a refuge.
It also means that SJ tribe should know better than to attack other people’s refuge.
That makes a lot of sense. Both cultures agree that race or gender shouldn’t be grounds for treating people differently. But they disagree on how to solve the problem.
The nerd solution is to focus on the things we like, and ignore everything else. Internet makes it much easier, because no one knows you are actually a dog. But it works even in meat space; not perfectly, but often way better than in the rest of the society.
The SJW solution is to classify people into privileged and oppressed groups, create complicated rules for their interaction to help the oppressed groups, and attack every individual who disobeys.
Obviously these two strategies are in complete contradiction. Freedom vs draconian rules; ignoring gender and race vs making everything about race and gender; spaces safe from bullying by outgroup vs “safe spaces” and bullying of outgroup; etc.
The nerd reply to this disagreement would be something like: “be the change your want to see in the world”. Maybe with a warning that if you fight against monsters too much, sometimes you become the monster you hated.
The SJW reply to this disagreement would be that the average of fairness (in your microcosm) and unfairness (in the rest of the society) is still unfairness, and that eradicating the unfairness in the society as a whole creates much more utility than protecting your microcosm.
I object to the definition. None of these have to do with being especially intelligent, especially interested in math or science, or having been especially socially inept growing up. At least three of them are now a significant part of the dominant mass culture.
From what I’ve been reading the traditional nerd went extinct in high schools across America sometime around the turn of the century. That’s fantastic. I’m glad kids these days have it easier. But you don’t need to erase the existence of those of us who grew up in more difficult times by redefining the word. Even if some of those very older folk would be happy to lend their names to whatever the latest crusade is.
Forlorn Hopes: “I point back to I Can Tolerate Everything But the Outgroup. The reason combat between social justice and various tribes of “nerddom” (atheism, comics, sci-fi/fantasy, games) is so vicious is because they’re similar enough to be each others outgroup.”
Oh, God, yes. There’s something in there about being able to trance out over words and symbols.
Isn’t trancing out over words and symbols every group ever? E.G. Religion.
@Anonymous
This sounds like a nerd vs geek definition question. I’ve long since given up on finding a consistent definition for them.
@ Forlorn Hopes
In religion, priests do get nerdy about the words and symbols, but for average believers it’s just a community to belong.
“Isn’t trancing out over words and symbols every group ever? E.G. Religion.”
Not exactly. Football fans watch football games. Gardeners garden. Dancers dance.
There are hobbies where doing something that isn’t exactly words and symbols is a major part of what’s going on. I will even argue that the gaming part of gaming is qualitatively different from talking about gaming.
Reading fiction immersively isn’t the same thing as doing criticism of fiction, and there’s a sense (at least for me) where noticing that woods are liminal space is just as distracting as thinking about how gender and status are presented in a novel.
To my mind, criticism is also an immersive state, it’s just a different immersive state than getting involved in a story.
Apparently nerdy girls are now the ultimate outgroup to nerdy boys among 20 somethings. How bizarre! Whatever happened to jocks and frat boys?
Nerdy girls aren’t the outgroup. Girls who call themselves nerdy, but differ from nerdy boys in ways other than their gender, are the outgroup.
I doubt frat boys would consent to take the opposite side in melodramatic online “wars”.
Well, there’s still Chris Kluwe if you’re looking for jocks.
I don’t know how it is now, but it used to be a typical encounter between a male nerd and a non-nerdy girl trying to act nerdy would be basically that the girl would come up to the (male) nerd and say something which made the nerd think she spoke his language, perhaps asking about his current activity. The nerd would be overjoyed at this and start saying nerdy things right back, perhaps explaining his current activity. The girl would then react as many people do when spoken to in nerd-speak — with a combination of confusion and revulsion. She’d go away, and the nerd would feel dejected and go back to playing computer games or coding or whatever he was doing.
Nowadays this activity is termed “nerd-checking” and is a horrible evil thing male nerds use to exclude women from the nerd in-group. Yeah. Whatever.
Just using this example. Wouldn’t a football fan who reacts strongly (physical violence has been known) to seeing another bloke on the street wearing his team’s shirt or team’s rival’s shirt qualify a “trancing out” over a symbol?
Lets be more specific about it.
I would say that authoritarian moralistic nerds are the outgroup to socially/culturally liberal nerds. (Feel free to rephrase that in a way that’s more flattering than “authoritarian moralist” if you can think of one).
Oh, anon@gmail, it’s so cute the way you didn’t bother to read my post.
There’s more straw here than in a Midwestern pillowfort (I’ve never been to the Midwest).
Yes? I mean, it’s super rude, but that’s besides the point.
I’m really starting to think that allowing pure anons wasn’t a good idea.
I obviously used unduly vague language when I wrote about trancing out over words and symbols.
Maybe I’m just talking about nerdishness– really liking abstractions which aren’t at all close to system one experience. (Tentative definition.) It does seem to me that there’s a difference between an argument which makes careful distinctions and doing tai chi.
Maybe the overarching connection between SJW and SFF fandom is that SFF fandom includes both immersive fiction reading and thinking about various implications of the SFF material (not all fans have a taste for the latter, but the ones who like it *really* like it), and that supplied an entry point for SJW. (Not the only entry point– lack of representation really is/was something real.)
Have a minor experience: I was at a book club discussion of City of Stairs. One of the things that I evaluate books on is what I call quality of invention. Has the author come up with things that I find emotionally satisfying. In CoS, there’s a wall which looks solid if you look at it but transparent (translucent?) if you look along it.
I mentioned that, and people started talking about what the wall implied about the current powers of the gods, which wasn’t what I meant at all. What I had in mind was that it was an intriguing dreamlike image.
I can see a case that one of the traits of SFF is supplying more or less rationalized dream images.
I’m going to draw a distinction here– a sports fan who picks a fight with a sports fan of a different team is trancing out about a symbol, not over a symbol. The fan isn’t actually interested in the details of a symbol, they’re just looking for an indicator that someone is on the other side.
Now that I think about it, why aren’t there fights between people because of liking different sports? Instead it’s all about teams playing the same sport. I suppose it’s one of those I can stand anyone but the outgroup things.
*****
I thought the prototype fake geek girl problem was a young woman shows up at a convention in a costume. Men interrogate her to see whether she knows enough of the sort of sf they like for them to want her around.
@Nita – “If gamers are such outcasts because you can’t just straight-up buy gamer cred, then movie buffs, fine dining enthusiasts, sports fans, people who love ball-jointed dolls and hundreds of other groups are also “outcasts”.”
That’s part of it. Another part of it is that unlike film buffs, foodies, etc, gamers a) have a high likelihood of being literal outcasts, ie few or no friends, serious social problems throughout their formative years, and b) have had their activity actively attacked as dangerous and antisocial for most of their lives. Some of the examples you listed could claim one of those; I don’t think any of them can claim both.
My original objection, though, was to the claim that gamers were part of “mainstream consumerist Culture” (I think that was the term).
“Mainstream” seems like an odd label for a group that was, until quite recently, synonymous in the public mind with school shooters, that required a recent supreme court decision to protect it from broadly-supported censorship, and that some people don’t want to identify as part of publicly due to worries that they’ll suffer repercussions socially or professionally. More importantly, though, I have no idea how you even define “mainstream” in the modern world.
I interpreted “consumerist” to be something defined by mere buying and consuming, like burgers or coke, where I see games as somewhere more around chess and lego; something that allows a great deal of legitimate self-expression and actualization. Paint and canvases seem less consumerist than lego and chess, which seem less consumerist than jigsaw puzzles, which seem less consumerist than posters. I would put video games around the lego/chess area on that scale, but maybe my understanding of consumerist is a bad one.
“if there are multiple large businesses catering specifically to your subculture, then it’s not a subculture of outcasts from secular consumerism.”
…Can you name some subcultures that passes this test? It seems to me that it rules out, say, any group of over a million members.
The problem with this entire line of discussion is that the “modern secular consumerist” tribe (assuming such a thing even exists, but that’s an entirely different argument) is not the same as “consumerism.” The “Gamer” tribe can be consumerist while still being outcasts from the mainstream tribe in exactly the same way that some smaller Christian denomination is still Christian despite being outcasts from whatever the largest church in their area is.
Consumerism is a way of doing things, not a tribe. It’s the ideology, not the movement.
Are jigsaw puzzles consumerist?
Are Lego consumerist?
Are art supplies consumerist?
There’s a gradient here that seems clear to me, that I hope the above examples can make clearer. Something about the degree of engagement and… let’s say “human fulfillment” gained from the activity per unit of purchase. All three are tickling the same “human fulfillment” module, but lego has several orders of magnitude more “resolution” than jigsaw puzzles, and arguably an order of magnitude or so less than paint and canvas.
Games seem to me to be in the same general space. Their value comes not from having, but from doing.
We tend to see “consumerism” when other people buy things that we don’t find interesting, but our own interests don’t register as such.
Or that’s my impression, at least. But I do see my books and games as ways to improve my life that happen to cost money, and my wife’s shoes and makeup as absurd money sinks with no practical purpose, and I’m sure her opinions on the topic are different.
First bit sounds like Vaclav Havel.
In the “Ideology and Movement” thread, discussion on gamergate and the work of Anita Sarkeesian reached a point where I could no loger contribute anything meaningful. This is my attempt to reboot the discussion by presenting a more general interpretation of the events I’d like to get comments on. I hope that is ok.
Let’s recap. We have identified two tribes. The “Gamers” and the “Feminists”. Note that one can be a person who likes video games without being a gamer. One can be a person who advocates equal rights for all genders without being a “Feminist”. Gamergate, among other things, was about discussing tribe membership of certain individuals and compiling lore about feats accomplished by the own tribe vs. atrocities committed by the enemy tribe.
All of this makes sense in the light of Scott Alexander’s various theories on tribalism. And maybe that is all the explaination there is and all we need. But I still feel something is missing. I get the impression, that “Gamers” perceive a “Feminist” menace, that is more tangible than tribal dynamics. In other words: the conflict cannot be all meta, can it?
First, credit where credit is due, I build upon ideas from
http://palmstroem.blogspot.de/2015/10/feminism-and-social-constructionism.html
and
http://palmstroem.blogspot.de/2015/10/on-knowledge-and-normativity.html
The “Feminist” tribe’s ideology, again, possibly among other things, is social constructionism and its tool of the trade is deconstruction. From a rationalist point of view, lets just say this might not be the ideal tool for assessing reality or “the truth”. However, deconstruction is great as a tool to assess art. Hilarious things have been done with it, e. g. http://playthroughline.com/about
To me, and maybe other onlookers, what was going on other than tribalism is art critique. Sarkeesian applies the tool best known to her to games and the results are just as interesting as expected. Attractive woman makes witty observations on a medium I care for. What’s not to like? Attempts to prove her wrong are misgiuded because there is no ground truth in art. Such attempts use irrelevants proxies (e. g. sales) or worse, the game designers’ intentions as imagined by the would-be critic, ignorant of the fact that this is a non-argument. In contrast, to the “Gamers”, and I suspect to some of the “Feminists” possibly including Sarkeesian herself, it is not art critque, it it a battle for truth, going to depths were the notion of truth itself is contested.
That, so goes my theory, is the reason, why Sarkeesian appears totally harmless to me and totally menacing to “Gamers”. Because if there is one thing that is a greater danger than your tribe being under attack it is your notion of truth being under attack.
I failed to fully appreciate this until now. I was convinced that nobody _seriously_ could think that this was about e. g. the true content of a Hitman game or something, because it obviously wasn’t. Ideology vs. Movement seemed to back me up on that one by stating that it is not really about the ideology. But then sometimes it is, but not quite as one might imagine at the first glance.
Makes sense?
>In contrast, to the “Gamers”, and I suspect to some of the “Feminists” possibly including Sarkeesian herself, it is not art critque, it it a battle for truth, going to depths were the notion of truth itself is contested.
I think the fundamental difference is not “truth”, but what each group considers the purpose of art (and by extension what is “legitimate” criticism). The feminists see art as agitprop and if it’s not pushing their values it means it’s pushing antifeminist values and is by definition harmful and immoral. All art is political, even being apolitical is a political choice.
The gamers see art as its own thing, something that can survive on aesthetics alone, and suffers from politicization. They are essentially followers of the Wilde school of criticism:
>An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
>Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject matter at the disposal of the artist?
Obviously there isn’t much of a middle ground here.
To take a practical example from outside gaming: consider films like God’s Not Dead and Heaven Is For Real. Both the “gamers” and the “feminists” think they are trash. But the reason is different: the gamers think they’re bad because they are crass propaganda, the feminists think they’re bad because they are propagandizing the wrong values.
>I think the fundamental difference is not “truth”, but what each group considers the purpose of art (and by extension what is “legitimate” criticism). The feminists see art as agitprop and if it’s not pushing their values it means it’s pushing antifeminist values and is by definition harmful and immoral. All art is political, even being apolitical is a political choice.
Suppose that this is an accurate description of “Feminist” motives. My point is, we have to differeniate between the question if these are sensible motives stemming from an accurate conception of reality and the question of how to judge statements on games made through the lens of that motives.
I perceive the “Gamers'” argument as being: “Feminists are misguided in their motives and therefore all they have to say about games is wrong”. This I meant, when I said it was about truth.
But, no offense intended, to me that is nonsensical. First, because there is no ground truth on e. g. “What Hitman is all about” (there is one on the game mechanics and I understand that Sarkeesian got that wrong, but you see what I mean) and second because I can learn something meaningful about my beloved medium by looking at how a potentially misguided person perceives it. I don’t have to agree with Sarkeesian or her supposed motives to acknowledge that she put some thought worth contemplating into the subject of games. Of course I would not say that if she had choosen physics as her subject, hence my emphasis on the art-aspect.
>The gamers see art as its own thing, something that can survive on aesthetics alone, and suffers from politicization.
To me the first part seems to be incredibly motte in its obviousness, but then again I might be ignorant of the more extreme opinions in that debate. Anyways. What I’m trying to get a handle on is the precise nature of that “suffering”.
>But the reason is different: the gamers think they’re bad because they are crass propaganda, the feminists think they’re bad because they are propagandizing the wrong values.
I don’t know the film in question, but “bad because propaganda” is a long way from “surviving on aesthetics”. Aesthetics and Propaganda are not mutually exclusive (e. g. Leni Riefenstahl). Basically you are saying that “Gamers”, with respect to art, hold values other than aesthetics in high regard, which is exactly what they, according to you, criticise in “Feminists”.
>Aesthetics and Propaganda are not mutually exclusive
Well, it seems to me that this is the point of contention…I don’t know how far we can take this line while remaining sane though. One could say that Pollock was a CIA lackey producing anti-Soviet propaganda, does that damage the aesthetic side of his paintings? OTOH I don’t think they are orthogonal either. Perhaps it’s not possible to come up with a good general theory of the interaction of these two concepts, which is what generates the fighting in the first place? Or perhaps we’re on the completely wrong track and gg/agg has nothing to do with art criticism attitudes at all!
>if these are sensible motives stemming from an accurate conception of reality
How do we find this out?
>How do we find this out?
We don’t. I’m criticising “Gamers” who think they did figure it out where they havn’t. But is my criticism just or am I misunderstanding “Gamers'” point?
It sure isn’t about cooking. It’s not about horse dressage. It’s not about accountancy.
And it’s not a vehicle for enjoying violence against women, made for that purpose by developpers who knew that their audience wanted a violence-against-women simulator as an outlet for their misogyny.
To make this last point you’d need to go out of your way to avoid mentioning almost all of the game’s content, which involves killing mostly men, and misrepresent the part you’re showing. For instance, by not mentioning that not only is it not an objective in the game, but you get penalized for violence against civilians. I do not believe it would be possible to do this without dishonesty.
And before that you’d have to go over dozens of games where you kill millions of men to find one where it’s even possible to kill women (because it’s a sandbox that lets you kill any npc, and the devs didn’t add a female invulnerability field), to then present it not only as the point of the game but as representative of gaming and gamers. That’s not a mistake a simply “misguided” commentator would make. You need to go out of your way for that, and this is not the only time they did it.
I think your point is kind of correct, but disagree with part of the explanation:. To a gamer, the reasons why God’s not dead is shit are irrelevant to their status as propaganda. “It’s shit because it’s shit” (the plot is dumb, the acting is bad, the music is bad, etc.)
I think this is an uncharitable way to characterize feminist criticism of art and media. One can think that there are moral constraints on art, or, even more weakly, morally undesirable social effects of art that can generate reasons bearing on its production or consumption, without thinking that the purpose of art is propagandistic. Even “all art is political” slogans can be given readings that commit only to the former things.
Elaborate, please.
To think that the purpose of art is propagandistic is to think that good art is art that effectively propagandizes the right values and bad art is art that fails to do so, or that propagandizes the wrong values. But I think very few feminist critics of media believe that. Rather, they believe, along with everyone else, that effective storytelling, visual beauty, good acting, and so on are among the main things that determine how good a film is (and similarly with other art forms). But they also think that there are negative effects of some of the ways women are characterized in the media, and that this gives us at least some reason to encourage art that challenges these patterns and to discourage art that reinforces them.
They may also (but need not) think that art that reinforces those poor patterns is aesthetically worse, either directly (because of some moral content in aesthetic norms) or indirectly (because, say, relying heavily on stereotypes or cliched tropes is lazy), without thinking that this is the only, or the primary thing that matters.
Everyone thinks that there are some moral reasons bearing on art. One shouldn’t murder innocent people in making a film. That doesn’t mean that not-murdering has anything to do with the purpose of film.
You know… the reaction to the Ghostbusters reboot might be actual evidence otherwise.
Maybe people genuinely like it, or maybe they’re knowingly lying or unknowingly engaging in double think.
But taking it on face value a reboot who’s only redeeming quality that I can see is having the right values is getting a lot of praise from feminist critics.
I thought that even feminist critics mostly panned the trailer as being terrible.
Admittedly, many of them quickly jumped on the bandwagon that a bad trailer doesn’t necessarily mean the movie was going to be bad, and that if you have a problem with the trailer it is obviously due to misogyny, but agreement that the trailer was bad seemed pretty universal. There may be small amount of some cognitive dissonance going on between the denouncement of the trailer’s critics and their agreement with them that, yes, it was a bad trailer, but it still shows that they’re able to tell when a work is bad, even when it has the right values.
(Speaking of which, this is getting into tinfoil hat territory here, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out that they purposefully released the shittiest trailer they could make, specifically to cash in on this toxoplasma effect. If so, that’s pretty brilliant marketing!)
Because of Halo/Horn effects, art that is morally good appears to us as aesthetically good as well. For example Christians believe that the Bible not only teaches good values, but that it’s good literature as well.
It’s possible that Ayn Rand is an amazing writer and I will never notice because I don’t find objectivism morally or aesthetically pleasing.
I’m not a Christian, but the Bible does have some legitimately good writing in it. (Some incredibly boring writing, too; it’s a long and uneven work.) I think older versions tend to be better; modern translations often focus on clarity and plain language at the expense of prose style.
Rand has her moments, but she’d really benefit from a more aggressive editor.
Atlas Shrugged is a dystopia which revolves around hope, rather than despair. It’s probably much more appealing to people who have lived through the kind of dystopia she describes (which is more about how people relate to themselves and each other than it is about government – if you read the book and come away thinking it’s about government, you’ve missed the heart of what it’s about).
I remember seeing on my Facebook wall a post entitled something like “the new Ghostbusters prove the haters wrong by being hilarious” linking to a trailer review.
I thought it was from HuffingtonPost, I didn’t find it there when I looked but I found this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ghostbusters-first-trailer_us_56d844eee4b0ffe6f8e83f6f
So, literally the first feminist comment on the trailer I found.
That would be evil and genius.
I doubt it, it seems unconventional for Sony. But time will tell.
I agree with Orphan Wilde for the most part but I’ve always felt that Atlas Shrugged was a fantastic “idea for a novel” who’s author wasn’t up to the task of executing it.
Which isn’t to say that Ayn Rand was stupid, or a bad writer, it’s just that long-form fiction is not where her strengths lay.
It’s hard for me to imagine how anyone could really have enjoyed the hundred page speech, even if he liked the rest of Atlas Shrugged.
Ditto for the “and the wall shall be two cubits by four cubits dressed with myrrh and frankincense” parts of the bible.
People usually get bored by The Catalouge of Ships in the Iliad, also, for a less controversially literary example.
I have the US Naval Institute’s translation of Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea”. It’s about twice the length of any other English translation, including footnotes, and quite a few of those footnotes might as well read “If you’re not into a differential catalogue of fish species in the Red Sea and the Eastern Med, skip this chapter”.
Also, Moby Dick. And just about anything Neal Stephenson ever wrote. That one thing S. Morgenstern never wrote 🙂 Great writing sometimes incorporates and frequently survives lengthy digressions. The very best is still great when you skip over the properly-labeled digressive bits.
Appropriate that you mention Moby-Dick in the same breath as Neal Stephenson; I’ve often thought that Moby-Dick is classic literature for Stephenson fans. (Or vice versa.) Same digressions, same experimentation with style, same willingness to get highly technical when it suits the story or just when the author feels like it. Even some of the same sense of humor: update a little of the language and the scene where Ishmael and Queequeg end up sharing a bed could have fit right into the WWII chapters of Cryptonomicon.
I like both.
@ Saint Fiasco
It’s possible that Ayn Rand is an amazing writer and I will never notice because I don’t find objectivism morally or aesthetically pleasing.
For me it works just the opposite! I’m free to appreciate Rand’s artistry because I’m not invested in her message. (Same with John C. Wright’s somewhat opposite message.)
It’s when I’m grooving with the message of, say, Narnia, that some little wart trips me into Pullman’s view.
For all John C. Wright’s notoriety, I never got tripped up by politics reading him.
Of course, the only stuff of his I’ve read is his Night Land fanfic, and William Hope Hodgson set a baseline there which even the preachiest modern writers would have a hard time exceeding.
@ brad:
The speeches were the best part!
I would say that Rand’s excessively hostile and uncharitable style had a very negative influence on the Objectivist movement, though.
There is ground truth in art at least as far as one can make observably true or false statements about what literally happens in the actual text – things like “character X says line Y in cutscene Z”, or game-specific things like “when the player takes action A, the game world imposes consequence B” – and although I don’t remember any specific accusations so you can take this with a grain of salt, I have at least the impression that the Gamer tribe has accused her of actual lies of this sort about (some?) of the games she’s analysed.
The go-to example would be when she talked about Hitman. Anita claimed that players were encouraged to kill against strippers; however the Hitman game subtracts points for killing anyone who isn’t your primary target.
The whole “violence against women in videogames” issue doesn’t pass the laugh test, and sticks out in a bunch of varyingly defensible issues.
My (conspiracy) theory is that the real problem is with violence in videogames in general, but since that’s been pushed out of the overton window, this is being used as a pivot.
I think that’s partially true. Even Anita got pushback from would-be allies when she complained about how violent the first trailer for the new DOOM game was (Violence? In my DOOM? No sir!).
I’m not going to pretend I can see into Anita’s mind, but I’d suspect she’s after personal status or genuinely believes her line about sexism in games before I suspected it was about violence.
In one of her videos she imagined an imaginary ideal game for rounding out some particular genre. It messed around with gender roles, but IIRC, it was not a non-violent game.
It’s kind of funny because Hitman actually mechanically incentivizes you to kill men over women, because you can steal men’s clothes to use as a disguise, but not women’s. 47 may be an uber-powerful clone assassin, but he can’t pass.
Damn, now I want a Hitman game where you play a sexy androgynous assassin.
The cloest you’ll find is probably Aerannis.
It’s a 2d pixel art retro platformer not a stealth game. And the charachter looks feminine but she’s MtF and (I think) a government assassin
@Forlorn Hopes – Huh. Just watched the trailer, and it looks interesting. Would you recommend it?
“sexy androgynous”
Definitely one of those inferential distance things.
@ Randy M:
Jaye Davidson.
Or whoever this girl is when I search Google for the term “androgynous“.
Even the 20s flapper (e.g. Louise Brooks) or Audrey Hepburn “gamine” look are considered androgynous styles.
I guess technically, the term “androgynous” could refer to a butch lesbian who looks like a man or something, but in practice it does not.
@FacelessCraven
Never played it I’m afraid.
I admitted that point in parenthesis in my reply to Anon. above.
But there is a debate going on about the other kind of truth, I think.
I think you’re making it out to be more complex than it is.
It’s not.
Consider this tweet (one of man on the subject) by Jonathan McIntosh https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/545136375377321984?lang=en-gb
(Edit: This tweet is a better example: http://archive.is/tOqeg he’s saying he’s upset that Valve re-allowed Hatred after initially saying no to it)
The context was Steam deciding that they would allow a game called Hatred to be sold. For those who don’t know, Hatred was a mediocre twin-stick shooter game about some guy who just decides to kill as many people as possible including civilians.
It’s debatable whether Hatred is actually good or not but it’s pretty undetectable that key figures (McIntosh is/was a writer and producer for Feminist Frequency) supported censoring games. McIntosh also said that a game called Hotline Miami is just as bad as Hatred, Hotline Miami is widely considered to be a masterpiece.
So there’s the object level issue. Or at least one of them.
I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around what you’re saying about truths. Though @Anon.’s point seems both clear and true to me.
OK, we come from very different mindsets.
Call me naive, but I simply cannot imagine Valve censoring Hotline Miami short of reasons like government interventions and even then not without an Apple vs. the FBI-like PR stunt. Because that would be burning money.
In contrast, Valve might choose not to publish some low-profile title (i. e. not Hotline Miami) on the basis of angry people’s opinion on twitter, because they recon that the negative PR impact of publishing it would set off the money to be made. This is no more “censorship” than a publisher rejecting your book pre-internet. The driving mechanism behind this strikes me as very similar to the example of conference sponsoring as discussed above and I think the same solution applies.
If I had to get agitated about something it would be Valves quasi-monopoly in the light of the incredibly incompetent competitor that is EA and a somewhat choicy GOG.
But back to topic: I see no risk whatsoever that FeministFrequency supporting the ban of a game would lead to actual censorship. No freaking way. If anything it might Streisand-effect a mediocre game into success.
Therefore I think FeministFrequency is not a threat to the propagation games. But this is were “Gamers” seem to disagree. Huh?
I also think, from a consequentialist point of view, advocating censorship on twitter is not immoral because it is free of meaningful consequence. But I fear that both “Gamers” and “Feminists” will disagree on that one.
Feminists managed to get Grand Theft Auto V removed from the shelves of Target Australia. They did get Hatred temporarily banned. The fear is that game makers and sellers will consider the negatives of having feminists campaign against them outweigh the positive of gamers buying the games. And it seems to have some justification.
And here was I, under the impression that GTA V was like the bestest selling game of all time or something. So censorship can’t have worked that well.
No, I get what you’re saying. Actually I wrote basically the same thing. I just think, if A is unwilling to sell a particular game then B certainly will. And that it is not “Feminists” fault, that “B” happens to be “EA” with all that implies.
You said that Valve wouldn’t censor Hotline Miami because it would be burning money. I brought up Target Australia censoring GTA V because it shows companies are willing to burn money to appease feminists.
One problem is that “A” and “B” are similarly situated. If “A” sees the negative publicity from a feminist attack campaign as being worth more than publishing the game, why wouldn’t “B”, “C”, and “D” all the way through “Z”? Another is that government censorship is another tactic used; not so much in the US any more, but certainly in other countries including Australia.
Furthermore, it might not be very likely that feminists will be able to completely force games into their mold. But that’s in large part due to active opposition from those who think they just might.
The answer is “comparative advantage”.
Valve is in the business of selling games. Target Australia apparently is in the business of appeasing “Feminsts”.
If this ever were to change, somewhere on “all the way through “Z”” there is someone who’s comparative advantage would allow them to sell the game in question.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, because I’m a libertarian and even I don’t have _that_ much faith in the market.
I find it tiresome when these debates always say “feminists did this”; feminists aren’t that powerful, nor are they of one opinion on these issues. When things happen like the banning of GTA V in Australia, it is because an alliance (perhaps informal) of right wing moral scolds (worried about corrupting the children, probably) and left wing moral scolds (worried about objectifying women, perhaps) are exerting pressure together. Blaming it on “feminists” ignores the feminists who want nothing to do with banning anything (raises hand) and also ignores the crucial contribution of the right wing moral scolds to anything actually getting done. If, like me, you have a problem with the moral scolds, blame the moral scolds, don’t fire scattershot in the direction of “feminists.”
Nybbler:
Maybe.
However, consider this: In a very practical sense the internet has made it so that every game ever made can be accessed by everyone in principle. Some people might not know (or want to know) where to look. Some means of distribution might be illegal due to intellectual property issues or outright censorship (I’m talking governments here, not companies). Yes, e. g. Google and Valve have a enormous impact on visibility (but, like I said, this I blame on their respective quasi-monopolies). But anyways the content is there to access with historically unprecedented ease, believe in the market or not.
What we call censorship nowadays is not censorship at all but the belief that the likes of Google and Valve have a moral obligation to being neutral platforms. Maybe this is even true. But it is not very libertarian, so how does it fit your self-identification?
Protagoras:
Just to be sure: thats why I put both “Gamers” and “Feminists” in quotation marks.
@Protagaros
Yes, it gets tiresome. I’d prefer to use “SJWs”, but that term is pejorative and thus _also_ gets in the way of discussion. It’s also tiresome to type out “feminists aligned with Anita Sarkeesian’s views of gaming” every time, though that’s what’s meant in context. In the GTA case, this was the group pushing the ban; any help from right-wing moralists was secondary.
@Alex:
Libertarianism says nothing either way about whether Google or Valve should be neutral; it merely says that it’s wrong for the government to require them to be neutral.
“there is someone who’s comparative advantage would allow them to sell the game in question.”
There’s a finite number of people in existence.
Perhaps a point of theoretical reasoning nowadays, but in smaller communities, you can run out of them. And one can easily imagine times when it would come back as a limit.
You’re contradicting yourself.
This
is not the same as
There fundamental difference is motivation for not publishing it.
The pre-internet publisher does not publish because they think that the book will not sell.
In your example, Valve would not publish because they have been threatened with harm by people (journalists and twitter activists) with the power to damage their reputation.
If you don’t see how not publishing art because of threats is censorship; then I don’t suppose we’ll ever find any common ground.
That is an issue, but what is there to get angry about?
Valve hasn’t done any anti-competitive and/or immoral stuff to lock down the market.
I would consider what happened to Brendan Eich to be definitive proof that this is wrong.
I’m not consequentialist about censorship anyway.
>The pre-internet publisher does not publish because they think that the book will not sell.
>In your example, Valve would not publish because they have been threatened with harm by people (journalists and twitter activists) with the power to damage their reputation.
The difference is artificial. “Reputation” is valuable only insofar as it translates to sales. They are the same thing.
>If you don’t see how not publishing art because of threats is censorship; then I don’t suppose we’ll ever find any common ground.
And what is the “threat” here exactly?
> I would consider what happened to Brendan Eich to be definitive proof that this is wrong.
Sadly it is only proof that Brendan Eich is a less valuable commodity than “Hotline Miami”. But still, I get your point.
That’s like saying the difference between an accidental injury and a violent attack is artificial.
The threat is “if you do not comply with our wishes, we will intentionally damage your reputation”.
> That’s like saying the difference between an accidental injury and a violent attack is artificial.
Companies are not human beings. A campaign in the style of what happened to Eich or Sarkeesian is a tragedy. A campaign against “Valve” is just business.
> The threat is “if you do not comply with our wishes, we will intentionally damage your reputation”.
If that were censorship, marketing/advertisement is negative censorship, yes?
That is not true. Libel and slander are illegal, even against a company. They’re certainly not “just business”.
Unless you seriously think Hatred is hate speech this campaign is certainly not “just business” .
What’s your point here?
>That is not true. Libel and slander are illegal, even against a company. They’re certainly not “just business”.
I was unaware that we are discussing a specific body of laws here. I thought this to be a forum for international audiences. For what it’s worth, I had to google, “libel and slander” and wikipedia gave me “Defamation”. From that page:
>Defamation—also calumny, vilification, and traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product …
I read this with emphasis on “false statements”.
So Sarkeesians false statements about Hitman game mechanics might give you a case. Sarkeesians statements about game X promoting controversial idea Y does not, because it is impossible to understand such statements as “true” or “false”. I consider it a waste of time to even discuss the latter question. “Gamers” disagree with me. That raises my curiosity. Nothing more.
>What’s your point here?
Finding out if you are right w.r.t us ever finding common ground.
I think every first world nation has some variant on those laws.
We’re discussing wheather this is “business as usual”. I would think that laws against something imply that it is not.
This argument would never fly in a court of law – which is all I need to say to argue that this is not “business as usual”
I mean, I have no idea what point you’re trying to make by bringing up anti-censorship?
Oh, come on.
Suppose I open a pack of M&Ms, pick the blue ones, and display them for someone else saying “M&Ms are blue, as you can see here. They’re blue because the makers know candy consumers like blue, and dislike other colors, like red”. Would you say it’s impossible to understand my message as “true” or “false”?
Caue:
What I’m trying to establish here is that art is unlike M&Ms. You may disagree. Occam would certainly disagree without further evidence. I tried to provide some reasoning. Care to address that reasoning rather than making assertions on M&Ms?
I think blue M&Ms are valid examples of blueness in candy-coated chocolates.
“Game X promotes controversial idea Y” is an assertion that depends on a factual understanding of game X and the context. To defend this assertion, they made false statements about game X, and about the context.
When you say that only the statements about mechanics can be false, I took it to mean that only a statement like “M&Ms are made of meat” could be considered false, because it’s demonstrably false in the example given. But there’s such a thing as lying by omission and misrepresentation.
I kinda get it if you’re saying that opinions about art can’t be true or false, but these opinions are still about things that have factual characteristics which you can lie about.
They don’t have to be capable of solely censoring a game. They’re providing an incentive to censor the game which influences the decision in a way undesirable to apolitical people who want more games. Thus, those people are rational in pushing back.
They also push the Overton window. Today we’re rallying against shitty Hatred, tomorrow we campaign on hotline.
You think feminists have no influence. By generating unopposed writings, they gather that influence. By ridiculing their writing, by calling RPS “journlolists” when they try to present themselves as representing mainstream gamer opinion while denouncing games for not being feminist enough, that process of gathering influence is stopped. If Anita generates reviews with a lot of views then obviously she represents mainstream opinion..unless she gets a comparably high amount of public disagreement.
Yeah, even if someone bends and bans a game, it will still be possible to purchase it from someone else. That doesn’t mean there’s no censorship going on.
“This game is sexist” carries the implicit threat that such games should be no-platformed, their creators ostracized, sellers of the games harassed, and possibly the games even banned. That’s why people are upset at feminist criticism of games.
This is of course asymmetrical, despite Scott’s narrative about tribes.
It’s certainly very convenient to believe that, if you happen to be an abusively defensive fanboy. Otherwise it might look like you’re simply trying to suppress criticism of your beloved fan object.
Nice imputing of motive you got there. Would be a shame if someone were to… rationalize it.
I might take this more seriously if the self-appointed champions of gamer culture had ever shown any reluctance to impute nefarious motives to their opponents.
Wow, so brave. Go you, standing up for those poor defenceless whoever the hell it is you think you’re defending!
Can’t stay, though, I have to go and be the self-appointed champion of cleaning my kitchen.
I’m not defending anyone. I’m expressing my disgust at the people claiming to be my protectors.
Sarkeesian herself has said that “if you don’t like it, just don’t play it” is not an acceptable response.
Oh? That one is news to me, got a link? It might come in handy.
https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/534518557791358979?s=09
This is a good point. I don’t know of any world leaders (maybe Poland?) coming out explicitly on the pro-game side, whereas… https://www.vg247.com/2015/10/22/stand-against-gamergate-says-canadian-prime-minister/
>Attempts to prove her wrong are misgiuded because there is no ground truth in art. Such attempts use irrelevants proxies (e. g. sales) or worse, the game designers’ intentions as imagined by the would-be critic, ignorant of the fact that this is a non-argument. In contrast, to the “Gamers”, and I suspect to some of the “Feminists” possibly including Sarkeesian herself, it is not art critque, it it a battle for truth, going to depths were the notion of truth itself is contested.
I don’t understand this idea that “there is no ground truth in art”.
Art is real. Authors are real. People are real. Why, then, is it impossible to make true statements about them? You haven’t defended this position.
Sure, death-of-the-author critiques can be interesting entertainment, but that’s clearly not what this kind of criticism is – Sarkeesian’s series is named “Tropes vs. Women”, and her thesis is clearly that these tropes are excessively widespread and harm women.
As it happens, I’m inclined to agree with this – although I’m not a fan of her show – but it’s clearly a question of fact. What on earth makes you think art criticism is itself immune to criticism?
They don’t think art criticism is immune to criticism.
They think Anita Sarkeesian should be immune to criticism. Because they believe that she is the True Messiah, who will usher in the Final Transformation Of Society and begin the Golden Age in which cismales will be used as a fuel source and comfortable middle-class white women will at long last be free to post on the Internet without anyone disagreeing with them.
Who is “they” here? Alex? I don’t think he’s very eager to be used as a fuel source.
You’d be astonished how many people will declare their demographic to be peat-in-waiting if they think it’ll gain them some status in the short term.
You cannot be serious.
Nah, not really. I’m mostly sick to the back teeth of hearing her bloody name all the time.
Who the hell do you think made her famous? No one ever heard of her until GG spread her name far and wide for no apparent reason.
There’s a certain weird combination of grandiosity and persecution complex going on in GG. It’s one thing to want to puff up the importance of your own side but it is quite odd to make an Evil Empire out of a handful of marginal, mostly irrelevant people.
And yes I know I’m practically inviting a recitation of the Roll of Martyrs but before furiously replying try to put the size of that list and the period of time it is over in some sort of perspective.
Ok my fellow reproductively viable worker ants, back to the hive. The queen is very upset that one of us has been misusing the gamergate time machine.
You all know that you’re not supposed to travel back before August 2014. Lets see some more ant-like mindless obedience to the hive queen!
You do realize that the Tropes vs. Women Kickstarter, and it’s own associated kerfuffle, predates Gamergate-as-Antity (Entity, antity…heh) by several years? Ms. Sarkeesian was well on her way to fame/infamy pre-Gamergate.
She invoked the ants, insulted them, etc. She went on Colbert to talk about the ants, and to the god damned United Nations to ask for international government censorship against ant-like creatures.
It might be impossible to disentagle the timeline enough to tell “who started it”, but you can’t say it’s one-sided.
Also, Zorgon, I don’t think this kind of outburst is helping anyone.
I have no way to prove that to you, but I was exposed to “Tropes vs. Women” without any context whatsoever (i. e. along the lines of “here is some interesting stuff you should watch”). I watched. Mind-shelved it as interesting, watched some other FeministFrequency stuff and moved on.
This also is the sole reason I’m focusing on Sarkeesian here. Her relative fame has nothing to do with it.
When later I learned how much hatered was going on, I simply could make no sense of it. I still couldn’t until Ideology vs. Movement.
Now, taking the opportunity, I’m belatedly trying to figure it out. E. g. I don’t get any of the ant-related slang, sorry.
No I didn’t realize that. As amazing as it must sound I didn’t know about the Great Tropes Versus Women Kickstarter Kerfuffle! I must have been in a coma for the last decade, right?
Like Alex, I definitely heard of her before GG. I’ve never exactly hung out in many places on the internet, especially not back then, but I did have many ardent feminists on my Facebook newsfeed.
How many women on your facebook feed would self-identify as gamers? She was relevant to people who cared about games/the perception of gaming/the effects of gaming on broader culture, she wasn’t speaking at the UN.
(For reference – Cyan Anon mentioned in a deleted post that the vast majority of women on their facebook feed would self-identify as feminists. It’s easy to confuse “no one has heard of X” with “I, personally, have not heard of X”.)
Not deliberately deleted, I don’t know what happened. Maybe I’m in the process of being banned?
Maybe you edited it to include a banned word? Links can sometimes unpredictably trip the spam filter as well.
To catch up with something further up the list – I actually entirely agree that Sarkeesian’s current fame (and concomitant wealth, which she primarily makes from speaking engagements) is primarily due to her successful attempts to bait low-quality denizens into responding to her provocation.
This was true before GG and it remains true after it. GG are idiots for continuing to obsessively follow everything she does.
(Standard reminder – I’m not pro-GG, I find their approach short-sighted. I’m anti-anti, primarily due to the treatment of Eron Gjoni.)
It’s a joke/euphemism based on the other meaning of the word, which has nothing to do with video games.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate
You forgot to put the definition of the word in your comment and add:
“Because nothing is ever a coincidence”
true, kind, necessary?
Mostly misplaced irritation. I’m willing to apologise unreservedly to Alex if need be.
Contrast the following statements:
– “Back to the Future” is about the problems of successfully operating a flux capacitor.
– “Back to the Future” is about the value of punching people in the face to get the girl ™
– “Back to the Future” is about the value of self-esteem.
I hope one gets the idea. Neither of these to me seems obviously true or obviously false. The latter two are mutually exclusive to some extent. How do you ground truth here?
I can do it with videogames, too:
– “Deus Ex: HR” is about some vague conspiracy related to “augmenting” humans.
– “Deus Ex: HR” (3rd Deus Ex) is an elaborate puzzle where you have to find the weakest link in an interacting chain of mutually dependent objects represented as “guards”.
– “Deus Ex: HR” is a game where you kill people for fun.
Same problem.
So I guess what I’m saying is that the perception of art is a complex interaction of the artifact with the audience in a way the perception of everyday objects is not. See Forlorn Hopes “the artifact is the playthrough” below, where for once we agree.
Is this controversial?
I can do it with criticism, if you like, just to prove that I do not think that criticism should be immune:
– “Tropes vs. Women” is about pointing out common patterns (“tropes”) in video games that might reveal a questionable attitude towards women.
– “Tropes vs. Women” is a deliberate attack on the “Gamer” tribe, aiming to bully it into submission to the values of the “Feminist” tribe.
Is one of these clearly true or false? If so that might really help.
And as for the truth of patterns in art:
– “Back to the future”, Deus Ex: HR” and “Tropes vs. Women” all are about the protagonists’ complicated relationship to their respective father figures.
True or false?
@Alex – “Back to the Future” is about the value of punching people in the face to get the girl ™
– “Back to the Future” is about the value of self-esteem.”
just those two seem to me to be making a moral claim; the first claims that BTtF is a negative influence, and the second claims it’s a positive one. Both moral claims seem to be reducing the movie in question to its’ moral effect; the first intuitively reads as “Back to the Future is about nothing more than the value of punching people in the face to get the girl ™”. The implied framework seems to divide works into good and bad, and the obvious corollary is that bad works shouldn’t be made, promoted or consumed.
This may be the wrong way to look at criticism, but it’s the way I react to it instinctively, and I think I’m not unusual in that respect. Further, it seems to me that a fair number of critics at least in the videogames space pretty intend their critique to be interpreted this way as well; their critiques are aimed specifically at changing what the public buys, the stores sell and the devs make. As I mentioned in the last thread, this seemed obvious to me even when I enthusiastically agreed with them.
[EDIT] – ““Back to the future”, Deus Ex: HR” and “Tropes vs. Women” all are about the protagonists’ complicated relationship to their respective father figures.
True or false?”
this seems like a good example to me, as I have no bias I can think of to make me want to agree with either side of that statement… and yet it still triggers the same warning instinct as the BTtF examples. It sounds reductive and aggressive, and I immediately begin bristling for a fight.
[EDIT EDIT] – what does it mean when a game is described as “problematic”?
That approach to criticism is inimical to free speech.
Back to the Future is about betting in sports. Deus Ex: HR is about wearing sunglasses at night. They are both representative of audience opinions and tastes about gambling and fashion.
“Back to the Future is about betting in sports.”
That’d be “Back to the Future Part II” if I’m not totally mistaken.
“Deus Ex: HR is about wearing sunglasses at night.
They are both representative of audience opinions and tastes about gambling and fashion.”
I get that you are mocking me, but I’m unimpressed. In a way it actually is. “The Matrix” to a large extent, is about the aesthetics of great coats and shades. It’s not unheard of, you know.
“The aesthetics of great coats and shades” is a lot more important for the aesthetic component of the Matrix than the other examples. The Hitman video would be more like “the Matrix is about white coats, and here’s why”, and then you only show the couple of characters wearing white.
@ChetC3 – “That approach to criticism is inimical to free speech.”
What they seem to be saying, or my instinctual reaction to it?
The issue is that the examples with Deus Ex or Back to the Future aren’t particularly analogous to the criticisms made by Anita and similar critics towards video games.
Yes, the truth values of any of the 3 descriptions of Back to the Future are somewhat ambiguous, in a large part thanks to the somewhat ambiguous nature of the statement that “[x] is about [y].” In that sense, any criticism by Sarkeesian that some video game “is about” something can’t meaningfully be challenged as being false.
But that’s not the entirety of Sarkeesian’s criticisms. She goes further, stating that the examples of tropes she points out “reinforces” things in real life. Now, there’s some ambiguity to that word too, but I think the reasonable and most common interpretation would be that certain content in video games causes those exposed to it to change their behaviors in some predictable ways. Not everyone who’s exposed to those video games are affected – and those that are aren’t affected uniformly or necessarily significantly – but on the margins, in net, more people will behave in certain type of way as compared to if those video games didn’t contain certain type of content or if they hadn’t been exposed to those video games.
And that’s clearly not a criticism of the sort “[x] is about [y].” It’s a non-trivial factual claim about reality. This is why you get people making fun of gamers with statements along the lines of “less fanservice in games is a small price to pay for less rape” – they believe that changing certain content in video games literally causes fewer real humans to be raped as compared to if that content hadn’t been changed.
It seems to me that the ants and other gamers who challenge Sarkeesian and similar critics are challenging this factual claim about the nature of reality. Not the ambiguous criticism that “[x] is about [y]” which is so ambiguous as to be nearly meaningless.
In my personal opinion, such a claim about the causal relationship between content in video games and behavior among those who’ve been exposed to those games isn’t obviously true or false, but based on my inspection of the evidence, it’s exceedingly obvious that no one should be very confident either way.
“Back to the Future is about the problems of successfully operating a flux capacitor” is objectively true. It might not be particularly useful criticism, and someone who has never watched the movie might have no idea what a “flux capacitor” is, but there’s no doubt that is a central conflict within all three movies’ plots.
Noncentral fallacy. It may be literally true that the movie is about that, for some definition of “about”. Trouble is, that isn’t what people usually mean.
Back to the Future is about time travel. I don’t think you’ll find anyone who would say otherwise. A Flux Capacitor is, within the context of the movie, a device which facilitates time travel. You can’t say “Back to the Future is about time travel” without also be saying “Back to the Future is about successfully operating a Flux Capacitor,” and you also can’t argue that problems do not arise due to said time travel. There is no definition of “about” for which “Back to the Future is about the problems of successfully operating a flux capacitor” is not true, unless the person defining “about” is trying to prove a point. (Well, either that, or they’re an unhinged lunatic.)
Everyone might not describe it in exactly those terms, but I’d argue that they would describe it in terms that mean the exact same thing.
This says nothing about any of the other statements, of course. Alex makes an interesting point here, and it’s definitely worth discussing. Pretty much every other example brought up is subject to interpretation in one way or another. That one, however, is not.
Thank you! Please read the following with the same level of friendlyness.
I disagree. Back to the Future is not “about” time travel in the way that say “12 monkeys” or that other Bruce Willis Film (“Looper”?) are. Back to the Future glosses over just about any problem of time travel that the Willis films try to address. Doc’s whiteboard-explaination of timelines is handwaving as hell and acutually explains nothing.
We get to know very very little about how time travel works in Back to the Future. In contrast the films are painstakingly detailed about various features of flux capacitors. Not that these details make any sense extra-universe, but in-universe a flux capacitor is a clearly defined thing and time travel is not.
In a nutshell, we are meant to laugh about how Doc explains time travel but to understand that a flux capacitor is serious shit.
EDIT:
Also re: “and you also can’t argue that problems do not arise due to said time travel. ”
A “time travel related problem” is “what if past Marty meets future Marty” to which Back to the Future most hilariously answers “The Universe will end” or something like that and then exploit the shit out of that idea for comedic value.
The gigawatt problem Marty is actually trying to solve has nothing to do with time travel per se. Flux Capacitors run out of fuel or break in the same way non-timetravelly things do this. You could argue that the problem is that the Flux Capacitor uses Plutonium before its discovery by I find that a weak point.
If X is about Y, and Y involves Z, it is not always correct to say that X involves Z. Otherwise you’d say that “Back to the Future is about that one piece of lint on the actor’s clothes in one scene”. For some definition of “about”, it is, but not for a common definition.
@Jiro
That goes without saying, but that’s not what I said. I said that X is about Y, and Y equals Z.
Y = “Successfully operating a Flux Capacitor.”
Z= “Time Travel.”
A flux capacitor is an imaginary device within the Back to the Future movies whose sole purpose is to facilitate time travel. The end result of “successfully operating a flux capacitor” is always time travel. There is no reason for a person to operate a flux capacitor if one does not wish to time travel. While it’s theoretically possible that there may be some means of time travel that does not involve a flux capacitor, there is no evidence that such a method exists within the Back to the Future universe. (Unless you count the usual “60 seconds per minute” method as “time travel,” of course. :op )
Within the context of the Back to the Future movies, saying “successfully operating a flux capacitor” is functionally identical to saying “time travel” in exactly the same way that saying “successfully operating a car” is the same as saying “driving.”
(Well, I guess you could argue that “successfully operating a car” could also be considered “time travel” within the context of the movies, but only if the car in question has a flux capacitor, so you’re still operating a flux capacitor. :op )
@Alex
Back to the Future might not be about time travel in the same way as 12 Monkeys or Looper, but it’s still about time travel. Hell, 12 Monkeys isn’t about time travel in exactly the same way as Looper either, and neither of them are about time travel in the same way as, say, The Butterfly Effect or Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Back to the Future may not be about the mechanics of time travel, but every major conflict in the plot is driven by, caused by, exacerbated by, happens in response to, or is solved by time travel. Even the gigawatt problem you’re talking about is only a problem because Marty wants to time travel, and he’s only in the position to need to do it because he time traveled. It’s right there in the title; he wants to go back to the future.
Trying to argue that “Back to the Future is not about time travel” is pushing it to say the least. Turning things back around to the original topic for a second, while you have a good point about most criticism being highly subjective, there are a few statements about theme and other artistic elements, like this one, which are still objectively true or false. Sure, a critic could try to argue that Back to the Future is not about time travel, but they would have no leg to stand on when people start saying they’re overthinking it, or that they’re being dishonest to prove a political point, or that they are otherwise being a bad critic. Criticism may generally be subjective, but every once in a while it can still be objectively right or wrong. Criticism like “back to the future is about time travel” may be surface level and not particularly useful, but it’s still true.
Now, to be fair, based on what you’ve said so far, I think I may have misunderstood what you meant in your original three example statements. When I hear “Back to the Future is about the problems of successfully operating a flux capacitor” I think “Back to the Future is about problems caused by operating a flux capacitor,” which like I said, is fundamentally synonymous with “problems caused by time travel.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that what you meant was something more along the lines of “Back to the Future is about the specific mechanics of how to operate a flux capacitor,” and if that’s what you meant, then yeah, while that’s certainly an element of the plot, saying that it’s what Back to the Future is about is definitely highly subjective. I would have worded it a little differently, though. I don’t think our disagreement is over the meaning of “about,” exactly, so much as it is about the meaning of “the problems of.”
“The movie is about time travel. In the movie, time travel always uses a flux capacitor. Therefore the movie is about a flux capacitor” is not a legitimate deduction.
The word “about” doesn’t work that way (at least not normally).
“He didn’t know that Obama is the President. The president has a first name of Barack. Therefore he didn’t know that Obama has a first name of Barack.”
Exactly.
I will go so far to say that “Back to the Future” is _more_ about flux capacitors than it is about time travel. This, you argue, is logically impossible.
So why is that?
You make ontological assumptions which are sensible from an extra-universe point of view. Mostly that a flux capacitor is a member of the set of time travel devices. So therefore every problem that is caused by a flux capacitor is also caused by a time travel device etc.
H. G. Wells’ time machine would be another example of the same set.
My reading of in-universe “Back to the Future” is different. There is no such thing as the set of time travel devices there is only one: the flux capacitor. H. G. Wells time machine does not exist in Back to the Future universe. Time travel related problems are _caused_ by the flux capacitor, not by the fact that the flux capacitor is part of a larger set of problematic devices. Back to the Future presents the flux capacitor as the driving mechanic behind basically the entire plot and time travel related issues as incidental effects of that to be used for comedic value.
So what I’m saying is
a) my logic is in-universe and therefore cannot be proven correct or wrong.
b) you are using extra-universe logic to establish “objectivity” but this is not permitted. However, extra-universe logic can be used to settle questions like “does Back to the Future include a scene with Bruce Willis” or “does Hitman include a mechanic that rewards the player for doing X”. These are extra-universe questions.
@Jiro
I never said Back to the Future was “about a flux capacitor.” I said Back to the Future was “about successfully operating a flux capacitor.” I even spelled out specifically what I intended the variables Y and Z to mean for you in my last post! I don’t see how I can get any more clear than that.
You haven’t refuted my statement that saying “successfully operating a flux capacitor” is the same as saying “time travel.” If you accept this statement to be true, there is no reasonable definition for “about” which makes the first statement not true, unless you are trying to argue that Back to the Future is not about time travel. I suppose you could make that argument, (though it is a silly one) but if you’re not, then the definition and/or usage of “about” has nothing to do with the problem.
Also, the example you gave has absolutely no relation to the situation at hand. A better analogy would be “The movie is about the current President. The current President is named Barrack Obama. Therefore, the movie is about Barrack Obama.” How do you expect to demonstrate that I am using “about” wrong with an analogy that doesn’t even use the word “about,” or the concept it represents, in the first place?
@Alex
Yeah, I think I see where our misunderstanding was, then. Thanks for putting up with my pedantry! :op
This is nitpicking. Pretend I added the words “successfully operating”. It doesn’t change anything.
The problem is that “X is about Y. Y is the same as Z. Therefore X is about Z” is not logical. If time travel is, in the movie, equivalent to using a flux capacitor, “this movie is about time travel” and “this movie is about using a flux capacitor” still don’t mean the same thing, because they connote that different things are being emphasized.
I’ve only ever been peripherally aware of the whole Gamergate/Anita thing because I already have enough stuff to get angry about, but I’ll put my two cents in.
Reading the comments in response to this one there seems to be a lot of focus on what these games are ‘about’, but I think the plot and purpose of many games is beside the point when talking about gendered tropes in video games. The purpose of games is not to dehumanize women, and that isn’t the central feature of them, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter how women are portrayed in games. The background matters, the details that fill up the peripheries of the games matter. Unnecessarily skimpy outfits and women being present in games as eye candy is not a value neutral thing when it is universal.
I’m someone who appreciates good criticism, but I also understand the feeling of seeing something you enjoy and identify with deeply be criticized in a way you consider incorrect or unfair. I expect most people have experienced that. What I think is messed up in the whole Gamergate thing is the level of vitriol it inspired in some gamers, which just made the whole tribe look worse.
You’re saying someone has a point about X, when they’re being criticized for lying about Y.
(granted, just how much of a point they have about X is also part of the dispute, only not relevant to Y)
Yes thank you for putting that so succinctly. I do feel that “how much of a point they have about X” is very much overwhelmed by “you are wrong because I don’t agree because of my tribal affiliations and preconceived notions” and the subjective nature of criticism.
In this example Y is being used as evidence for X
The thing really kicked off after a series of articles essentially calling people inferior and worthless for loving video games and protesting CoIs in the industry. Articles the sites and people in question still haven’t apologized for or backed down from, and articles which played no small part in fueling the conflict. There’s more than enough vitriol to go around – read through the hashtag and ask yourself which group of people seems nastier.
I don’t care for Sarkeesian’s criticisms, but her criticisms are not my problem with her.
She didn’t just comment on games artistic merits, which are subjective of course. She made a number of factually false claims, and used them for political/moral advocacy, then she went around complaining about how much harassment she gets, using this to reinforce her political/moral advocacy. This is what upset gamers.
And non-gamers as well. I play games only occasionally, I would have called myself a feminist a few years ago, but after things like Elevatorgate, Gamergate, Shirtgate, Aaronsongate, Code of conducts, and so on, I am convinced that Sarkeesian and her ilk are waging a war on white male nerds, which is the “tribe” where I belong, not by choice, but by essentially invariable characteristics.
I would say it is war on all nerds. It is just easier for the attackers to deal with non-white and/or non-male nerds if they describe them as white and male in the media. Because for some people “white male” simply means ‘not deserving empathy’.
Women who speak publicly against Sarkeesian generally get the same treatment. Or they get erased from media.
Sometimes I feel like words “white” and “male” lose their literal meaning and become simply ‘SJW outgroup’. For example in the Mercedes Carrera vs Chris Kluwe debate, Chris Kluwe represents the “women and minorities”, while Mercedes Carrera represents the “white males”. That’s why it’s okay for him to interrupt her and laught when she talks, and no one will call him out, because tribe membership trumps both sex and race.
Code of conducts? Not familiar with that one.
I’m not familiar with every argument for or against it, but the basic idea is that there is a large push from SJ-types in both the fandom/convention scene and the Open Source software scene to have organizations implement extremely broad and vague codes of conduct, ostensibly to protect against harassment, but which (according to the opponents of such codes, at least) are mostly used to punish the political opponents of the people implementing said codes.
Ah, ok. I have heard about that then, from the SJ side. I’ll have to look more at more specific arguments myself. I didn’t realize that there was much opposition to the efforts to standardize the codes of conduct at cons.
I’m trying to track down two bits I remember reading long ago. I thought they were by Orwell but I could be wrong.
First bit: an essay explaining why totalitarian regimes disseminate obviously false propaganda – it’s to demoralize the people. Once they have been forced to repeat what they know is a lie, they lack the strength of mind for principled opposition.
Second bit – I remember a scene in 1984 where O’Brian tells Winston that in order to indoctrinate the youth, they’ve been lowering the age to start school until they’re practically “robbing the cradle.” Only it’s not there.
Sound familiar?
The former sounds like a very Orwellian observation, but it doesn’t ring a bell to me. I can’t say anything about the latter except to agree that it’s not in 1984.
EDIT: Was the first bit from Vaclav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless”?
Your first bit is Theodore Dalrymple:
Your second bit sounds like Spengler; at least, that’s where I’m most familiar with the argument, others may have expressed it as well. The State* desires to use the press as a means of disseminating propaganda; in order to do so, the public must first be able to read and understand it, hence, the need for universal education. That the educational curricula actually be propaganda isn’t addressed by Spengler and isn’t necessary for the justification for universal education, but is useful.
*this need not be “the State” as some one-party tyranny; anyone wishing to wield power over the masses in a high-scale, “modern” society will need to pursue this course of action.
Thank you!
I don’t think the second bit is very recent. Possibly it was supplemental material my teacher gave out when we read 1984 in high school (20-odd years ago).
I remember Steve Sailer doing a bunch of blog posts about universal pre-K that kinda sound like the second thing you mentioned.
But I could be wrong…it was a while ago.
The first volume of Spengler’s The Decline of the West was published in 1918, so yeah, not very recent. I’d be (pleasantly) surprised if he was used in your English class though; Spengler’s popularity was very much a flash in the pan, with more narrowly focused (and usually, overtly partisan) views on history coming back into dominance.
Surely political correctness is not intended to have this effect.
Can anyone suggest any good part-time jobs? I’m a programmer, and quit my last job because I don’t want to work full-time (I have other projects of my own). But it seems that there are no part-time programming jobs available. (Why there are no jobs in the “serious, permanent, but part-time” niche continues to baffle me a bit.) I’m looking into finding programming work on more of freelance basis, which could work for me if/when I can get enough of it to live off, but that probably won’t happen for a while, so I’m also looking for a part-time job.
Can anyone suggest anything that’s not too tricky to get for someone with a bit of programming experience? (Not that it has to be at all programming related!) I don’t really mind how well it’s paid, but it would be nice if it weren’t too stressful.
try some freelancer sites. try craigslist
Freelancer sites are now mostly pointless for Westerners due to tech globalisation.
Eh, depends on your level of expertise. I manage to find reasonable rates for work, but I have to present myself as a plausible expert, with credentials and experience to match, in order to get expert rates.
Good point. I should note I’m coming from the perspective of a programmer, which means I’m implicitly competing with some very fine programmers from places where my country’s benefit payments would buy a nice house in the suburbs with armed guards.
Do you have any experience in MS Access programming (or are you the type who can quickly learn it on your own)? Are you a creative problem solver who can jump into a project without too much hand-holding, figure out what needs to be done, and do it?
My wife is looking for someone like that for her business.
I’d be very interested in this.
I have worked a bit with Access in the past and a lot with other database systems more recently (in my last job). I would be confident of my ability to quickly get up to speed with whatever I don’t know and need to know for the project, and I’m certainly able to work without handholding.
Note that I live in the UK, so if your wife would prefer to work with someone local (and you don’t happen to also live in the UK) then I am unlikely to be her best bet. But from my point of view, that needn’t be a problem.
If you or your wife wish to get in touch to discuss further, then you can contact me at xmckernon@gmail.com, replacing the x with the first initial of the name I’m commenting under here.
Why there are no jobs in the “serious, permanent, but part-time” niche continues to baffle me a bit
I think one of the commenters here covered that in a thread way back, from his experience as an employer. If I am not too badly misremembering, it’s that two (or more) part-timers doing the full work week are too inconvenient and expensive for the employer, because you are spending a lot more money but getting the same (or even decreased) level of productivity.
What you-the-employer want is to hire a good, competent employee, get them up to maximum productivity, then keep their nose at the grindstone just this side of burnout (he used the example of having a guy work sixty-hour weeks) for as long as they can handle it/they are valuable to you. This works even better if you are paying them a salary, not wages, as you don’t have to pay overtime rates. So you get more work for less money!
I agree that it’s in the employer’s interests. But it seems a shame that our norms (the schelling point of the forty-hour work week) serve to reinforce this status quo so strongly that working less is pretty much untenable. I would gladly trade off some of what I want from a job (working for less pro rata, for instance) to get the kind of hours I want, but it doesn’t even seem to be on the table.
I think the best way to do this in our field (based on advice I’ve seen from people who have successfully done it) is to become very valuable to your employer, and *then* negotiate with them for reduced hours.
It’s probably not just the employer’s interest. When you’ve got two people working on a project, you end up with coordination problems that one doesn’t have. In my own field (structural engineering), you also end up with the “9 women can’t have a baby in one month” issue, where there’s a limit to how much you can spread work out among people, since the output of one subproblem feeds another.
There is a lot of overhead costs with an employee. Training them, giving them benefits, unemployment, insurance, 401K overhead, etc. It’s more efficient to have full time employees. If I have a critical problem I need you around immediately, not on your schedule.
As Maia said, you might be able to work this after you have demonstrated you are a critical employee, but it’s going to be hard hiring in on this.
I’m not sure how relevant it is outside the academic world, but I’ve been a half time professor, one semester on, one semester off, for about twenty years.
Ugh I’ve been dealing with exactly this. I get paid way way more than I need, and would love to work much less. My solution so far has been to take long sabbaticals between jobs (I’m just finishing up nine months of travel), but this is not a perfect substitute for more distributed leisure time. Since I’ll have a fair bit of market power when I get back to work, and will be taking a hefty pay cut for sure, I’m really hoping I can negotiate for much fewer hours per week.
Now that’s a comment I’d like to read.
My impression? Employers rely heavily on signals and impressions. Objective work performance for many jobs does not exist.
Employee productivity varies massively. Especially after factoring in cooridination problems. I think the 100x employee doesn’t really exist, but even 2x is a HUGE productivity difference.
So employers would rely on signals of diligence and work ethic. Asking to work part-time signals laziness, big time.
Ideally, you want employees motivated by the mission, which strikes me as little different than cultish behavior. But I’m not an employer, so what do I know….
If anyone has suggestions for a very intelligent (MIT PhD) non-programmer that would be welcome too! I have a friend who is looking for ways to cut back to 20-30 hours in order to spend more time with her kids.
I used to work for this company, and we had lots of part-time contractors with graduate degrees (which are required): http://www.aje.com/en
Basically, it’s editing an academic manuscript in your specialization written by someone whose native language is not English. If you’re a good editor, you can make some decent money doing this part time.
Thanks! I will pass that along.
I did that job between finishing my master’s degree and starting my PhD! For a different firm, though. I hope AEJ pays better, because editing things written by Japanese speakers is MUCH harder and more time consuming than editing for English speakers, and I think the people I was working for didn’t take that into account when designing their pricing scheme.
They pay pretty well, as far as I remember (I was a full-time employee, so I don’t remember the compensation scheme that well). Especially if you become a good, reliable editor that gets offered the lengthy or short-turnaround papers where the compensation is hugely increased.
I put myself through school working as a night manager / security guard.
Mostly the job was just answering phones and chasing off the occasional bum who’d set up camp in our loading dock. But a lot of the time I could just sit at the receptionist’s desk with my laptop and work on school assignments or my own projects.
Did you just quit, or did you try negotiating with your last employer? I know people who have cut deals. I don’t know what the odds were, but the cost of trying seems very low. Probably too late now.
Yeah, I tried it, and it initially seemed like they were open to the idea, but it eventually came back to me as a no. I then wondered if they might back down and allow it if I “called their bluff”, so to speak, by handing in my notice, but that… turned out not to happen. Ho hum.
What about doing full time contract work for six months, then working on your projects for six months?
Yeah, this would work for me, if I found it, but again, I’ve found it to be surprisingly scarce. One avenue that does seem promising is doing cover for maternity leave, which seems to be on about that timeframe.
I’ve been doing embedded systems contracting for 15+ years. The typical customer is small businesses that don’t have in house engineering and aren’t too technical. Usually local. Posting and looking at job megasites is usually not productive. Your best customers are your past employers, then it grows through word of mouth in a chaotic fashion. Concentrate on telling them how you are going to solve their problems, not how great of a coder you are in language X, Y, Z.
They are hiring experience, not coding ability. They are generally not interested in teaching you anything. You are providing them the value, not vice versa. They expect and demand results, not effort.
Consulting = stress. You must learn to deal with it. Every customer wants their job done last week, and for the half the cost of what it is going to take.
The bad news is I wouldn’t hire anyone without 10 years of experience unless it came cheap as dirt for a non-critical project. You’ll understand this statement 10 years from now. If I’m going to train someone, I would make that investment in an employee.
OK, so I didn’t answer your question. Local. Small business. Solve their problems. And don’t tell them you quit your last job because it was too much work, ha ha.
You can be a part-time programmer as a freelancer. I do this now. Part of the reason I’m a freelancer is it is easier for me to set the terms of my work hours, location, etc. I have seen part time employee positions for programmers, but they’re rare.
Craigslist was what worked best for me when I was dry and looking for work. I had to send a lot, lot of emails to get a decent gig, though. A few hundred at least. Many stages to the process and you lose prospects all along the way.
Freelancing is often stressful. If you want less stress and don’t care about pay, I’d look for some local on-site part time work instead.
Our company employed a friend of mine part time for a long time as an electrical engineer doing maintenance, programming, and putting together machinery. I think there is probably a decent amount of niche jobs like this that exist, but the framework for finding and getting them doesn’t.
StackOverflow.com?
Tester for something like Chrome or Opera?
If you like teaching contact local private schools. I’ve heard they have a hard time finding programming teachers.
Ping me at erich.ocean@me.com. My company does software development on a regular basis and has need of part-time, remote developers. We work with brands like Nike, Google, BMW, Kellogg, etc. doing experiential marketing and also with startups. Usually pretty fun jobs, short, coding is straightforward and we’ve got a really nice internal framework for doing them developed by myself.
We’re in Southern California.
Is this an open invitation? I’m nearly always looking for new sources of decent contract work.
Re #5: “We can counter a tactic that costs our opponents nothing by spending thousands of dollars” doesn’t seem like a sustainable position. Does anyone have an idea for dealing with donor fatigue when campaigns of this type continue to be necessary?
Spending those thousands costs our opponents their credibility, bit by bit. It unmasks them as the bullies they are, and it displays the values the donors stand behind.
Curling into a ball and hoping the bullies get bored and find someone else to pick on is basically defecting in the prisoner’s dilemma. If you want to live in a civilized society, you need to be prepared to defend its core values, even at a personal cost to you.
Yes, but they also think they’re unmasking bullies and defending values, and since it isn’t costing them money to do so, by default they can do it longer. The next campaign won’t get funded in a day, and the Nth won’t get funded at all, but social media can always hold an N+1th purge du jour.
I’m not asking for solutions to imply that none exist and you should give up; I’m asking for solutions because I can’t think of any and maybe someone else can.
It doesn’t cost them money to keep campaigning, but their ability to keep doing so depends on the positive disposition (or fear) third parties have towards them. Every time such an attack happens and people unite behind the victims, pointing out the injustice of the matter and putting their money where their mouth is, the attackers look more and more like rampaging children.
IMO the solution is to think of the money as well spent rather than wasted. I expect that the amount of money that will need to be spent this way is finite, but perhaps I have too much faith in humanity.
@Vitor: “Spending those thousands costs our opponents their credibility, bit by bit. It unmasks them as the bullies they are, and it displays the values the donors stand behind.”
Only if the media reports it in such a fashion. Which, based on recent experience, is not guaranteed, or even likely.
The media aren’t the only source. It’s those directly following the controversy who see them unmasked. But as important, when their no-platforming fails, it demonstrates their lack of power. So the next conference organizer faced with this might say “This same group threatened LambdaConf, and that turned out all right”.
> It’s those directly following the controversy who see them unmasked
But how many people is that, exactly? I could imagine that even someone running their own conference in another programming field might not be following this situation in detail. All they’re going to hear is what the media and the Twitter screamers with the most reach say.
And heck, even for those who have been following this personally, in a way the no-platformers have already won by demonstrating they’ll cause a huge stink and make a giant mess. Who wants that in the middle of their tech conference, when instead you could quietly peek at the double-blind talk proposals and bin any of them whose authors may have perpetrated wrongthink in the past?
I think this isn’t for the activists as it is the sponsors.
This is saying “Hey, sponsors. Some unknown number of those people over there are willing to send you angry emails about this conference taking sides on this political issue. We, conversely, are willing to pay cash money to oppose them. And while we’ve been too classy so far to bring up a list of everyone who pulled out of LambdaConf, and suggest that donors might not want to spend more money with you lot, well…”
I’d say this hits the nail on the head. The relevant signal is to the sponsors/advertisers/whatever. They fear losing brand equity, but a vigorous counter-campaign shows a large portion of the population actively disagrees with this kind of Twitter Mobbing and won’t stop buying sponsor’s products.
Also, more generally, Toxoplasma is GREAT for certain brands. You don’t need to sell to 100% of the world. If your product has a cult, awesome! If Toxoplasma turns 5% of the population into a rabid customer base, you have a viable company.
For an example of this, just look at Protein World’s beach body ad campaign.
I’m not sure if they did it intentionally or stumbled onto a winning formula, buck mocking the outgroup can become a ad hit.
The hope is that if we do this once or twice they’ll give up on the no-platforming on conferences. (Especially once the world doesn’t end after Yarvin talks about Urbit.) The idea is not to spend $15k per conference in perpetuity.
If the group “techies who feel under attack by SJ” has trouble pulling together a few tens of thousands of dollars in a year, then you should revise in the direction of this issue not being very important. If donor fatigue is a problem at this level then you just don’t have many people who care – especially when you think about the income level of the typical person affected.)
(Not that it is right that they have to pay anything, of course, and I really doubt that this sort of thing will have trouble being funded in a world where a potato salad kickstarter can get $55k.)
It doesn’t cost them nothing, it costs them their attention. If the negative effects of a weeks-long SJW flareup can be mitigated for $15,000, that’s probably a pretty good deal. It’s cheaper than undoing a lot of the other forms of damage they can do.
Honestly we didn’t think through that far. We just tried to do some marginal good in the world.
Having watched this unfold, I get the feeling that there is a large group of people who don’t care and just want to go to conferences. I get the feeling that there is another large group of people who are uncomfortable with the excessive toxicity but go along to get along. I can’t speak for the rest of S451 but it’s my hope that this functions as a rallying point. By showing people that the world won’t end if they don’t go along with the harassers, we’ll give them more confidence to stand up and say “no. Don’t bring your politics here. This is a space about technology”.
Well, I thought about it a bit.
My answer to the question is “10 people are rushing me, I have only three bullets. I make a credible commitment to shoot the first three.”
End result: 0 people rush me.
Maybe we can only fund 5 conferences.
But if the first three attempts at no platforming fail bc we step up, who’s gonna go for #4, given that – as someone said above – each attempt hurts their reputation capital.
Also, I expect that each failed attempt helps our reputation capital, which increases the amount we can raise.
Retribution is the efficient strategy for this type of situation. Unfortunately it inevitably gets terribly ugly.
If you don’t have the power to fund conferences without appealing to rich sponsors, you’re always going to be at the mercy of rich sponsors. Pretty much a direct application of Money Is The Unit Of Caring.
Sure, I have a suggestion. If/when there is donor fatigue, just start doing the same thing to them. No platform anyone who has ever signed one of these petitions, or sent an e-mail. This has several good effects. First, it brings similar consequences home to those who think it’s fun and games to twitter-mob. Second, it shows to companies that they aren’t going to lessen the pressure by giving in to either group. And third, it increases the possibility of a truce in the future. When one side is all attack and the other all defense, there is no possible solution. Both sides must stalemate, or one must win. Stalemate is the preferable outcome for freedom of speech. But we’re going to have to get a few thousand SJWs fired and no-platformed for that to happen.
And the longer we wait, the more it’s going to take.
Vox Day and ESR are way ahead of you. I guess that means the truce must be right around the corner. Remember when Vox Day got involved in the Hugos controversy, and everyone decided to be friends? 🙂
Remember when Vox Day got involved in the Hugos controversy, and everyone decided to be friends?
The Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies have been the best thing to happen to the Hugo Awards since Campbell started editing Astounding. I have read more well written actually thoughtful and enjoyable SF in the last two ballots than I have since I exhausted the backlist of the old Masters. And I discovered about a dozen authors who I then went back and bought their entire backlist.
Any penny-a-word pay-the-rent tossoff by early Bradbury was better than anything on the ballot 4 years ago.
>Any penny-a-word pay-the-rent tossoff by early Bradbury was better than anything on the ballot 4 years ago.
I can understand thinking that, although I don’t agree with it. But surely you don’t think that whatever garbage Kevin J. Anderson shat out last year, and Torgersen put on the list without even reading, was better than the noms from four years ago. Better than Embassytown and Leviathan Wakes?
I guess I can’t prove you wrong, since I quit Anderson after the Jedi Academy Trilogy, but something makes me doubt it.
I say this as someone who can’t stand SJ and supports some of the goals of the Sad (but not Rabid) Puppies. But the works they nominated were bad enough that there was a noticeable dip in quality on the ballot this past year.
I do remember.
What I don’t remember is any of the SJWs losing their jobs and becoming permanently unemployable. As I said, the consequences have to come home for it to work. And that’s gonna take a whole hell of a lot more than a sci-fi fan campaign run by a nethernet megalomaniac. But hey, if he’s slagging off the SJWs, he can play Stalin to my Churchill.
I’m not sure if that’s a historical parallel you want … winning WWII was pretty rough on Britain, as it turned out. Churchill got to see Poland, which he had gone to war over, fall into the hands of a different dictator. And what if you’re not Churchill? What if you’re the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, etc?
The people who are most frightened by the social justice set (I really need a term that doesn’t have certain connotations like “SJW” has) are, actually, on the left. To continue the analogy: the farther west of the Soviet border in 1939, the safer from falling into Stalin’s hands in 1945.
Sometimes it’s people who would be identified by outsiders as being part of that set: a majority of people I know in real life who have used the term “SJW” in earnest are themselves people who have been involved in activism, but who have had bad experiences with others in activist circles.
Vox Day does not look kindly on these sorts of people, even though they are not the sort to Twitter-mob someone for having the wrong opinions, or having friends who have the wrong opinions.
Other times, it’s people like there are a lot of here, or the sort who have been writing a lot of articles for the Atlantic lately: broadly left-wing, socially quite left-wing, but not fond of the moral/epistemological/discourse norms popular among the social justice types. Perhaps a bit too willing to entertain unacceptable thoughts, or read unacceptable things, or pal around with unacceptable people.
Vox Day is not a fan of that other group, either. He doesn’t oppose stuff like Yarvin getting blacklisted because of some high principle about individual freedom of thought and right dealing.
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more, no less. And I think my example was on point. Your disagreement only raises more likely parallels.
I don’t have to like Putin to think that his bombing of various jihadi groups is fantastic. We take what we can get. I could cluck my tongue and make disapproving noises if I were the sort of prat who cared more for the opinion of people who would gladly see me hang than the actual game being played. But I’m not.
My interactions with Vox have been limited, and contentious. But I’m not going to play the “of course he’s awful” game. If he slags the SJWs, if he can damage them in any way at all, I am in favor of that. If people want to take that as my endorsement of Day and his brand, so be it, I can’t stop people being stupid.
If this is hard-headed realpolitik: which is more likely, Vox Day actually somehow takes down those he is going up against (considering that the weight of popular opinion is far more on their side than on his), or he becomes another source of guilt by association, having accomplished nothing other than maybe some Twitter harassment?
Vox Day as major player in the culture wars seems mostly to be in the mind of Vox Day.
@ Sastan:
You don’t have to say Putin is just as bad as the jihadists in order to (properly) condemn him. Indeed, if you’re going to praise his attacks on jihadists, you have a rational obligation to do condemn him so as not to be confused by reasonable people with a uncritical supporter of Putin.
It’s entirely reasonable for someone to assume, that, if all you ever have to say about Putin is good, you don’t find any major flaws in him worth speaking about.
When the US allied with Stalin to face the greater threat of Hitler, does that mean they were obligated to sweep his crimes under the rug and politely not mention them? No: I believe that’s a cowardly policy.
This is absurd. You don’t have to like it, but bad arguments for your own position are often more harmful to it than enemy action.
If the likes of Vox Day are perceived as a major force behind opposition to “SJWs”, then it behooves any pragmatic allies of convenience working alongside Vox Day to denounce him and point out exactly why opposition to SJWs doesn’t mean agreeing with him.
It’s not incumbent upon other people to find out the nuances of your position. It’s incumbent upon you to make your position clear.
To take another example, if you’re going to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act because you have principled reasons for supporting freedom of association, it’s incumbent upon you to emphasize that you’re not racist. Why? Because, as a historical fact, the vast majority of the opposition to that act was motivated by racism.
This is not surrendering to the opinions of idiots. This is not shooting yourself in the foot by making your position seem reprehensible. That is, if you intend to reach out to anyone and not just cheerlead for your coalition.
This man is your FRIEND
He fights for FREEDOM
@ Vox Imperatoris,
I disagree.
In an ideal spherical cow universe it might be true but here in monkey-space saying something to the effect of “I’m not racist but…” will get you branded as a racist quicker and more firmly in people’s minds than if you had said nothing at all.
The rational, self-interested thing to do is keep quiet, and let them fight.
@ Hlynkacg:
Well, yes, flatly saying “I’m not racist, but…” is not very convincing. If you want to be believed, you’ve got to have some more rhetorically convincing way of showing that you really mean it.
You’ve got to actually point to some issues where you can show that you have some common ground with left-wing anti-racists, on matters they care about. For instance, you could point to the abuse of civil asset forfeiture, or the War on Drugs at large, indicating that you agree with them that these result in disproportionate harm to minorities.
You should probably not phrase things in verbiage that is often code for racist sentiments, e.g. “We’ve got to do something about all these thugs in the inner city.”
The natural reflex when you hear something you deeply believe in challenged is that the person also disagrees with everything else you stand for. If you can show that this isn’t so, you can calm things down. If you do that, there will be some dishonest, closed-minded people who smear you no matter what, but you will seem reasonable to most.
Of course, it is possible not to take a position at all on controversial issues. What I am recommending is what you should do if you do choose to take a position.
“I’m not racist, but I’m opposed to affirmative action” is going to come off as bad, but not any worse than “Affirmative action is reverse racism motivated by white guilt.”
***
This is not a hypothetical spherical cow issue. This is the precise means by which e.g. libertarian groups forge links with progressive groups that disagree with them on economics but support them on civil liberties issues.
And it’s what separates libertarian groups like the Cato Institute from places like the Mises Institute. Even little things count, like whether you say: “Damn, look how much freer we were in 1790” versus “Wait a second, maybe not everyone has seen such a decline in their freedom.”
@ dndnrsn
Vox Day as major player in the culture wars seems mostly to be in the mind of Vox Day.
*snort* Not in the SFF subset of those culture wars he isn’t. Or else I myself have been braced by multiple SJWs to denounce and firmly resolve to avoid all near occasions of a figment of VD’s imagination – instead of the man himself.
The man has no need to “hide out” in Europe, as he lives rent free in the minds of many many people.
@ Vox Imperatoris says:
If the likes of Vox Day are perceived as a major force behind opposition to “SJWs”, then it behooves any pragmatic allies of convenience working alongside Vox Day to denounce him and point out exactly why opposition to SJWs doesn’t mean agreeing with him.
NO.
I can express things that are counter to what VD says – here, listen to me speak – without going through the formalist BS of “denouncing” the unclean one. All it requires for the listener is to open their damn ears and apply a bit of rationality, and LO! AND BEHOLD! it becomes apparent to all that – guess what I am not VD and I don’t agree with him.
The SJWs don’t want people to disagree with VD or find issues with his methods or otherwise be at odds with him – they want people to signal that they are in allegiance with the SJWs in finding VD abhorrent and worthy of being burned at the stake. And after they get enough people burning VD – in effigy or otherwise – they’ll find someone else – John Wright, most likely, and then Larry Corriea or Kate Paulev – and demand that this one be burned, too.
No. Not happening. If refusing to denounce VD means that idiots confuse me with VD, then a) they’re outright morons and b) I’ve been called far, far worse by much better, and still sleep well at night.
@ keranih:
If you don’t think he’s worthy of being denounced, I think it’s useful to point out exactly where your assessment of him differs from the “SJW” assessment.
For instance, I did so in this very thread with Mencius Moldbug. I indicated that Moldbug does not actually hold the views that he is regarded as most reprehensible for holding. I allowed that there are some views which I would see fit to ostracize him for holding (such as being a foaming-at-the-mouth neo-Nazi), but that his actual views aren’t that bad, and that people might actually learn something from him.
I understand the impulse to refuse to denounce people whom your enemies want you to denounce, even if you yourself also disagree with them. It’s what Scott describes here:
But that response is not a productive response. The productive response is to convincingly condemn ISIS right there on live TV. Maybe O’Reilly does just want to score points against all Muslims. But by refusing to condemn ISIS, the moderate Muslim just gives him more ammunition.
Would it be a good strategy for moderate Muslims to start defending ISIS on the grounds of “First they came for the radical Muslims, and I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a radical Muslim…”? No, it would be a very foolish strategy. There would be no faster way to get the average American to hate all Muslims mere respectable fronts for the radicals.
The productive response is to not go on The O’Reilly Show in the first place. Once you’ve got a forced move, you’ve got a forced move, but it’s smarter to think more than one move ahead so you don’t get forked in the first place. And that can include pushing for decent, civilized norms of discussion.
@ Vox Imperatoris
Firstly: I would like to echo keranih’s statement.
Secondly:
Granted, but this is a completely different question from the one being discussed. The question is “what do you do when your opponents are attacked by a 3rd party?”
Do you defend them? do you support to this new ally of opportunity? or do you sit back and grab some popcorn?
In the ideal spherical cow universe a morally consistent US would have declared war on both Hitler and Stalin. In the world we actually live in the US didn’t do this because fighting both of them plus Imperial Japan at the same time would have undermined the more immediate goal of defeating Hitler.
Do you really think that denouncing Vox Day is going to convince even a marginal SJW to go “maybe we should lay off on Larry Correia?” I don’t.
@ vox
You have a pretty bent view of what is “necessary”.
Those who are going to call anyone who disagrees in the slightest with SJW dogma racists aren’t going to be dissuaded by me denouncing anyone. They fucking call Sam Harris a “white supremacist” ffs.
So I’m not going to waste time or breath trying to butter up pathological liars. It won’t work, it has never worked. There is nothing anyone can ever say to prove they aren’t racist to these people. Might as well fly the flag, claim the title.
If standing on the principle that all people have equal moral worth be racist, I’m Hitler. If supporting classical liberal values and freedoms be fascism, call me Pinochet. If this be racism, make the most of it.
There is no defense, only offense. Best get your debating shoes on.
@ hlynkacg:
Yes. Absolutely. The marginal “SJW”.
That’s how it works. They’re not all the most extreme. That’s what marginal means. There are certainly many who are dishonest and never going to listen to reason; there are others who follow along and are not incarnations of Satan.
If all you do is lump them all together, hurl unhinged invective at them, and praise uncritically anyone who criticizes them, what’s going to happen when people less involved are linked to what you’re saying? “Wow, I guess the extreme SJWs are right; these people are just hateful bastards.”
The tenor of the conservative commentariat on this very website is itself used as ammunition “proving” that they’re right. Frankly, it’s off-putting even to me—and I’m not a “SJW”.
You can side with a lesser evil in a particular conflict without denying that they are evil.
@ Sastan:
The same goes for you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all equally evil. They are wretched creatures by nature who hate the light. They must be exterminated. Give me a break.
It isn’t at all possible that someone could have read the kind of rhetoric you’re espousing and gotten the wrong idea.
It’s not everyone else’s job to be familiar with you and your ideas. If you quack like a duck, they’re going to think you’re a duck.
@VI
I think so much of the nastiness around culture war issues is that people conclude the people holding moderate versions of the ideology are fundamentally the same as the extreme versions.
The Vox Day types assume your garden variety feminist is the same as the worst SJW to have ever walked the earth.
The people who want to no-platform Yarvin conclude that a engineer with weird eccentric views about how absolute monarchies are great is the same as a Golden Dawn member.
The people behind the Brendan Eich controversy assume that your typical religious conservative GOP member is fundamentally the same as the people who beat up the patrons of gay bars.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all equally evil. They are wretched creatures by nature who hate the light. They must be exterminated. Give me a break.
But doesn’t VI’s argument a bit earlier in this subthread imply that this is the correct attitude to take? The marginal SJWs aren’t denouncing the extreme SJWs any more than Sastan is denouncing Vox Day, and therefore would seem to have no more right to complain about being lumped in with the villains from which they’ve failed to distance themselves.
@Cerbral
There is a distinction between what people will do, and what they should do.
If you are in the same place as a bunch of jerks, and you don’t distance yourself from them — the negative affect of the jerks will tend to rub off on you. Even if you are not one of them. So, from a strategy standpoint you should disavow your jerks.
But, holding non-jerks accountable for their jerks is still a bad idea. Even if it is a common one.
@ Vox Imperatoris
Is anyone here actually praising Vox Day? Or claiming him as anything more than the lesser of two evils?
Weren’t you the one who was arguing in the last open thread that the only obligation you have is to your own self interest?
Picking a fight with Vox Day, Stalin, or any other ally of convenience, when they’re already fighting a shared enemy is stupid, and not in anyone’s self interest.
@Vox – “If you don’t think he’s worthy of being denounced, I think it’s useful to point out exactly where your assessment of him differs from the “SJW” assessment.”
I am pretty sure this “denouncing” thing in general is a stupid, harmful, useless idea in the first place, and is the source of the whole problem. The more solid the overton window becomes, the more people will try to exploit it for their advantage, which makes the window more solid in a feedback loop. We may be far enough into that loop that playing along is occasionally a necessary evil, but that is no reason to embrace it if not forced.
@ Vox I
It’s not everyone else’s job to be familiar with you and your ideas. If you quack like a duck, they’re going to think you’re a duck.
Unfortunate point, but the duck is well put.
No Vox, they are not all the same. They are not all equally evil. But they are all on the same side. The side of censorship. Let’s go back to the analog. I’m sure there were some very nice germans who disapproved of their leader and opposed the war. But if, by their assent, apathy or ineffectiveness, they are unable to change the course of their group, they get carpet bombed just like everyone else.
This is not about who is a better person, we’re all just people. This is not even about which side has a higher percentage of bad people. This is about the principles being fought over. The most dear at the moment is free speech. Remember that “I don’t agree with what you say….” bit? Well this is the part where we defend to the death the rights of people to say what they like, be they Harris or Vox Day.
Vox, are you arguing this course of action as moral, or effective?
Because I have to tell you, the one example you’ve given is awfully unconvincing. Libertarian groups have been extremely unsuccessful at forging alliances with progressives, even on issues where, on policy, they would appear to agree. And that’s because the methods you suggest come across as apologetic, and appear to argue from a position of moral weakness, whereas shouts of “glibertarian” and allegations that libertarianism is a cover for white supremacy come from a position of (presumed) moral strength.
Ayn Rand converted far more people to libertarianism than the BHLs ever will.
It would be nice to live in a world where your suggestions were effective, but it’s not this one. The incentives for political argument are such that giving an inch – even when correct on the merits! – is typically counterproductive. Sadly, the most effective tactic with political opponents is normally invective, mockery, shaming, and worse. You can’t persuade people who aren’t already vaguely sympathetic – so in this case, you don’t reach out to the “marginal SJW” (already far too far gone) but to the marginal anti-SJW.
@Sastan
That’s very dramatic, but surely you realize that Vox Imperatoris is in complete agreement with you as to whether free speech should be defended. The point in contest is whether the tactics you’re advocating will actually defend it effectively. If not, then the vitality of protecting free speech is a strong point against their adoption, not in favor.
The ACLU defended the Nazis in Skokie. No doubt some people thought that they were Nazis on that basis. But to the extent that they could, the ACLU made absolutely clear that they had no sympathy for the content of the Nazi viewpoint. It would have been extremely stupid for the ACLU, upon getting accused of being Nazi sympathizers, to respond with “Well, you’ll think that anyway, so I guess we are.” Or, at least, I think that’s obviously a useless tactic and I doubt the ACLU considered it even for a second. Are you arguing otherwise?
I mean, think about it: the ACLU is an organization that has literally defended Nazis. Actually invested organizational resources in doing so. Many people think that was wrong. But very few of them, on either the left or the right, think that ACLU members are Nazi sympathizers. It’s entirely possible to achieve this sort of success, why not learn from the tactics of those who did?
I know that when I encounter someone who disagrees with me, I’m a lot more interested in hearing their arguments if they’re willing to criticize obviously bad actors and flawed arguments on their side of the issue. I don’t think I’m the only one. In the last open thread (I think) David Friedman suggested that he looked at similar things in order to make an educated guess as to which side had a stronger case.
And I certainly know that pretty much the only successes I’ve had at convincing people I’m right on controversial political issues is by making clear that I have no interest in defending the worst excesses of my side. I think this is a pretty general point about persuasion: taking on extra burdens of proof doesn’t make it any easier.
@Salem
As I note above, I don’t think this is a strategy unique to libertarian advocacy groups. I’d say it’s the mainstream tactic of policy-oriented advocacy groups. Being needlessly divisive may be a good way to rally a base, but getting policy passed often requires building a coalition that includes moderates from the other side.
I’m also not sure libertarians have been as ineffective as you think. Support for drug legalization and opposition to the war on drugs have become increasingly mainstream positions in recent years (and 30 years ago, they seemed like fairly fringe views). I don’t think all of that is due to libertarian advocacy, but it’s certainly true that libertarians were the strongest advocates of those positions for a long time, and that a lot of the arguments libertarian organizations were making were framed so as to convince liberals. I think they deserve some credit.
Many people have jobs where they are paid to be persuasive, and evaluated based on their ability to win unsympathetic people to their side. In those professions, the conventional wisdom is the opposite of what you suggest: be likeable, appear honest, don’t attack the people you’re trying to persuade, and don’t commit yourself to defending unsympathetic positions if you don’t absolutely have to. If you’re defending Timothy McVeigh at trial, arguing that the Oklahoma City Bombing didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t such a bad thing, would be good ways to quickly lose the case, even though, if true, those facts would benefit your side. Same with arguing that McVeigh’s political views were correct. Instead, the smart move is to locate the ground you actually have to defend and make your stand there (say, McVeigh’s views are unusual but don’t usually lead to violence and the government arrested the wrong guy). (McVeigh was guilty. My point is that these are the most effective tactics even when you’re on the wrong side. They should be even more effective when you have the advantage of truth on your side.)
@ Vox
If you don’t think [Vox Day]’s worthy of being denounced, I think it’s useful to point out exactly where your assessment of him differs from the “SJW” assessment.
If I was interested in discussing VD, I might want to do that. But I’m not. It’s not me who keeps on bringing him up, and who insists that all discussions of inclusion (or exclusion) in SFF fandom/industry begin with saying “at least we all agree that we shouldn’t let VD be in our club.”
And I am absolutely against that sort of signalling.
There have been people who have done things which I find much more objectionable than what VD’s done, and yet I don’t think their works should be struck from the canon or that people should be shunned for reading them or finding them inspiring or affecting.
This “denouncing” as part of the SFF world is – imo – engaging in a really unfortunate pattern of confusing the work with the creator. It’s one of the clearest errors in rational research, I think – to assume that because Dr Rightthink wrote the equations, the equations are always right, even with the math doesn’t work.
Or, even worse, finding that all equations that have the answer 42 are correct, even if a third of the operators were reversed, or if the wrong values were inserted in the first place.
So, no. Not denouncing VD. Or anyone else.
@keranih:
Vox Day is a big deal in the fracas around sci-fi/fantasy awards, but that’s kind of inside baseball, even for people who follow SFF.
It’s true that those who consider him a foe think he’s a bigger deal than he is – on both sides in this culture war, there seems to be a belief that the enemy is both far greater in number and far greater in power than they actually are.
But in the wider culture, Vox Day is an unknown, with views that the public is generally hostile to. The average person might think that the university activists and so on are ridiculous, but I imagine most people would take the social justice crowd over a guy who believes women shouldn’t have the vote.
While I’m alive to the difference between the normative and positive arguments, it doesn’t seem to me that the one is being applied any more consistently than the other here. When moderate SJ types mistake moderate conservatives for Vox Day, it’s because the moderate conservatives haven’t done enough to distance themselves from VD. When moderate conservatives mistake moderate SJ types for SJWs, it’s because they’re too stooopid to grasp the obvious differences.
I’m of the strong opinion that people need to do more to separate themselves from the extreme/nasty elements of social justice, too.
Mostly because I think this will disincentivise those nasty elements and make them stop, as they will try to retain legitimacy in the eyes of the moderates, but making the moderate’s position clearer would be a decided benefit too and be a more immediate effect.
And I think their failure to do so is the main thing that more decent elements (e.g. a lot of media commenters who “never have a bad thing to say about Stalin”, to reference that metaphor) can be criticised for.
I do love this regression.
Point
Counterpoint
Counter-counterpoint
VOX DAY
Now we have to have a forty reply thread on someone who was never part of the conversation, with multiple demands that people denounce him.
I need to learn to do this derailing troll. I wonder who it works with?
Just a comparison here:
And here’s the statement about which this thread started:
That is “uncritical praise”, ladies and mentalgen.
dndnrsn, April 13, 2016 at 11:19 am: The people who are most frightened by the social justice set (I really need a term that doesn’t have certain connotations like “SJW” has) are, actually, on the left.
Sources? Details?
I’ve spent a lot of time fearing and hating Social Justice. (Has it only been 6 1/2 years since Racefail? It seems much longer.) Then I’ve read various material at Armed and Dangerous and came to the conclusion that, while I was still right to think some of SJ is correct about problems, I didn’t fear and hate it nearly as much as possible.
I consider myself to be a liberal flavored libertarian. The folks at Armed and Dangerous strike me as various degrees of right wing, though not all of them would agree with me about that.
The complaints I’ve seen from the left have mostly been from people who’ve been personally traumatized by SJ aggressiveness and some who don’t think SJ works.
I don’t have a feeling for whether SJ is likely to get significant political power. Thoughts?
I use Social Justice to distinguish it from the previous thing which called itself social justice and worked on changing laws and helping people rather than trying to force people’s emotions.
@Nancy Liebovitz – “I don’t have a feeling for whether SJ is likely to get significant political power. Thoughts?”
My assessment fluctuates from week to week. One of the things that makes it so hard to assess is that such a vast majority of the formal and informal media are pro-SJ. On the other hand, people who get hurt the worst seem to be those who submit quietly, while those who fight back seem to do pretty well. That doesn’t sound like the pattern you’d get with an actual overwhelmingly powerful movement. I think we’ll have to wait a year or so till we have a clearer picture.
As little as a year or two?
@Nancy Lebovitz – “As little as a year or two?”
That’s my guess. I think Social Justice’s strategy is essentially a blitz; they want to get the rules changed and locked down before opposition can really get organized. Most of their tactics are selected for securing immediate compliance rather than slow conversion. The longer the fight takes, the more nasty examples of Social Justice in action inevitably accumulate, the more people turn against them and their opponents dig in and develop counters. That’s certainly what I seem to have observed over the last few years; on the other hand, the majority of the public seems unaware that a coordinated movement even exists, so communities tend to get blindsided and then either stand or fall alone. Those that fall seem to have fratricide problems that limit their viability long-term. In all, I think it’s a nasty ideology, but perhaps a self-limiting one.
Didn’t we more or less have this same problem in the 90s?
@Nancy Lebovitz:
I don’t really have any sources or anything. I’m basing it off 2 things:
1. The only people I know in real life who have expressed much worry or fear about it – as opposed to disdain or worry about future effects – are themselves left-wing activist types. They make it sound like toxic people are really common in left-wing social justice activist circles, and internal conflict is really nasty. I have never had a straight cis white man tell me in person that they are afraid of someone they consider a “social justice warrior”. I’ve had more than one person who fits 2 of those tops express such sentiments.
2. Who is most endangered by their activities? As far as I can tell, university administrators – who tend to be left wing – at left-wing universities (I doubt the activists have much ability to do anything at, say, Bob Jones U).
As for whether it’s likely to get political power, I don’t think it’s liable to be able to do more than influence political power. Too much infighting – what Freddie deBoer has referred to as the “left-wing circular firing squad”. I don’t see it as able to do much more than what it can do now – get university administrators and the occasional programmer fired, Twittermob people, and extract danegeld.
Outside of Black Lives Matter, it doesn’t look like they’ve got enough warm bodies to do much in real politics, and while BLM’s leadership seems to fall into the SJ category (lot of university kids, lot of intersectional stuff, disproportionately female), I think it’s going to just take over from the church-centred African-American lobby groups that have been strong since the Civil Rights era. It’s got the immediate and serious problem of people getting killed with impunity and it’s getting more done than the Assistant to the Assistant Dean getting fired.
@FacelessCraven: I think we’re seeing more left-wing media sources take a more skeptical stance. Eg, the Atlantic, for a while now. Slate’s coverage of the “this is a safe space for university employees” thing might be a clue stuff will change there.
I think Social Justice’s strategy is essentially a blitz; they want to get the rules changed and locked down before opposition can really get organized.
You think they have a strategy? That would seem to imply strategists.
I see only tactics. Rather like Vikings who have just discovered that their longships can cross the North Sea and there’s lots of undefended loot in Britain; they are going to aggressively target whatever is closest to their current strongholds because it’s fun and its easier than either A: honest work or B: implementing an optimal strategy for long-term conquest.
Having made that analogy, I can’t help note that the Vikings were probably a net positive influence on Western civilization – but only after two or three centuries of cultural fusion.
@John Schilling – “You think they have a strategy? That would seem to imply strategists.”
They have a fair few, I think. The Listen and Believe/affirmative consent push in mid-late 2015 seemed to have some amount of coordination behind it. A lot of that might be explainable by general group dynamics, but it does seem like there are at least a moderate number of smart people talking to each other and trying to work together.
Unless I’m mistaken, “Listen and Believe” was never a slogan associated with the Affirmative Consent movement. It was a phrase used in a presentation by [redacted] about a different topic, and I’ve mostly seen it spread by her hatedom. People who actually support AC have different catchphrases.
@FacelessCraven:
But is that coordination, or different people and groups seeking to implement stuff that a smaller group of theorists had come up with?
@dndnrsn – “But is that coordination, or different people and groups seeking to implement stuff that a smaller group of theorists had come up with?”
I guess we’d have to define coordination better? My point is that it’s not just emergent toxicity in ideological communities; there appears to be broad agreement on medium- and long-term goals, and at least some degree of leadership, specialization and organization. A lot of the fights are just random skirmishing, but sometimes it does seem like they’re getting at least a little organized. Is that strategy? Tactics? Just social flocking behavior? No clue. John Schilling’s Viking metaphor doesn’t seem to match up to the ones that operate similarly to coordinated pushes.
@BBA – “Unless I’m mistaken, “Listen and Believe” was never a slogan associated with the Affirmative Consent movement.”
The idea featuring prominently in the #TeamHarpy, Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby and Jackie’s Story accusations*, along with Vox’s writeup on California’s affirmative consent laws. Here’s the concluding summary from one of the original #TeamHarpy writeups, for instance:
“We can and must take a stance of siding with victims. There needs to be a super clear message that whenever someone speaks up about abuse or harassment that they’ve experienced and encountered within a professional space (conference, work, whatever) that this person will be supported and believed.
What this looks like:
Don’t ask for ‘proof’.
Don’t treat ‘both sides of the story’ as if they hold equal weight.
Do not engage in any type of victim blaming behaviour.
Listen to the victim. Do it. And don’t judge.”
Writeups of the other incidents contained similar language, to the point that it seemed obvious that this was a settled piece of policy/ideology that had been established in the authors’ groups for some time. I’m pretty sure most or all of that was prior to the presentation in question, or even the gaming blowup in general. (blah, writing around a word filter sucks.)
*Jackie’s story turned out to be fabricated, Jian was acquitted, and #Teamharpy retracted their claims completely in the face of a defamation suit. On the other hand, Cosby appears to be pretty damn guilty, and Vox remains terrible.
I am familiar with the history, and I did not mean to imply the phrase is somehow unrepresentative of current feminist views. All I was saying is, the particular phrase “Listen and Believe” was only spoken once by [redacted] and is not in common use except within the [redacted] group. So mentioning it is a tell that you’ve associated with them.
(Also, Jian has been acquitted on some but not all counts. His case is still pending.)
@FacelessCraven:
I’m kind of spitballing here, but:
1. If some people say “this would be good” and then various different groups start advancing whatever “this” is, is that coordination? I wouldn’t say it is.
2. Are any of the sub-movements actually new? All I can see that is really new is the increasing impact of social media. There have been practically identical movements on many different fronts before.
3. You mention “toxicity”, and I think a huge problem here (as in, SSC) is that “we” often fail to differentiate between goals on the one hand and norms of discourse, epistemology, methods of moral judgment, etc on the other. I personally agree with a lot of the object-level goals of the left-wing activist types, and I can be sympathetic to some of the others. In most of the cases where I disagree with them, I think that the problem is incompetence, not malice (usually a failure to actually consider reliable statistics).
The norms of discourse (eg, enshrining of certain logical fallacies), epistemology (eg, focus on lived experience over verifiable fact, and the resultant ignoring of anything that doesn’t fit their preferred narrative) and ways of making moral judgment (especially, deciding whether something is right or wrong based on who is doing it to whom – on a larger level, treating individual as though they are instances of groups) are what I take exception to.
These problems aren’t just threatening to outsiders – they are part of the reason that these movements can mess people inside them up so much. When a group defines “people capable of doing harm” as “not us”, that is a gigantic welcome sign to unpleasant people of many different kinds (and lots of groups do this). You end up with the ironic situation of movements dedicated to fighting oppression, abuse, etc that become a hunting ground for people who behave in an oppressive, abusive, etc fashion.
In the case of what I’ve seen some people call “toxic SJ”, and even to some extent in the wider left, there seems to be a failure mode where the further away someone is from the archetypal cis straight white man, the harder it becomes for people who otherwise would spot power-hungry, malicious, or predatory behaviour quickly to spot it. I know someone who had been abused by someone who they described as a “social justice warrior”, and was of the opinion that nobody would believe a public accusation, because my friend checked off more “privilege” boxes, so to speak. For the broader left, notice how much more lightly Cologne’s NYE attacks were treated than cases involving stereotypical fratboys.
So, I mean, we should do a better job of differentiating between what the left-wing activists want – much of which is entirely reasonable and just – and the messed up aspects of their movements.
Also, Jian Ghomeshi is not a great example. He’s been acquitted of some charges, but the only people I have seen take a position beyond “he’s almost certainly guilty, but him getting away with it is the cost of innocent people not getting convicted” are certain manosphere types. I believe those women were telling the truth that he hit them without consent. It’s just too bad that they didn’t tell the whole truth to the cops and court, and that the Crown didn’t do a better job of making that happen.
@BBA: “Listen and Believe” was certainly (re)popularized by LW2, but she did not originate it; it was already a thing in sexual abuse support circles, which is likely where she got it from.
@dndnsrn: I think Ghomeshi’s guilt with respect to the three women he’s been acquitted of assaulting is far less likely than not. The judge tore their testimony to shreds; they didn’t not just tell the whole truth, but at least one of them fabricated a story entirely (with reference to the car that Ghomeshi didn’t have at the time). Ghomeshi seems to have a kink which is legally dangerous in today’s world, but that’s a different question.
@The Nybbler: I have started a new tree below because this one is too damn long.
@ Sastan:
No, the problem was that you followed that up with statements to the effect of: fuck it, in the future I’ll just carpet bomb the SJWs indiscriminately and not criticize people on my side because that’s undermining the war effort.
I don’t know how you expect stuff like “If this be racism, make the most of it”, etc. to be interpreted, other than as a call to action to do just that.
As for the point other people have raised a few times, about whether I also condemn “moderate SJWs” for not calling out the extreme ones, yes I do. They are not doing themselves any favors. If someone were here ranting about how we need to show no mercy to anyone who ever had a socially conservative thought, I would be criticizing that person.
Indeed, I have defended in this very subthread Mencius Moldbug from being lumped in with Nazis and white nationalists.
There are more writers in the world today than there were men in England in 1600.
This seems like it’s supposed to inspire some awe at the scale of things (or dismissal of the importance of individual modern-day writers?), but seems to me just trivially, boringly true. Yes, the world population today is vastly larger than that of England in 1600. Yes, a world where almost everyone can read and write and the internet lets basically anyone publish whatever they want (cf. Baboon Fart Story) and thus at least technically be a writer will have quite a lot of writers in it.
Now, what can we do about that?
Start at the beginning and keep going until we run out of ammo?
I read your username as Landfill and thought it was self-replying…
You’re also comparing the whole freaking world to a tiny ass country.
England comprised approximately 1/140 of the world population in 1600. If only 1/280 of the population was a writer, then it would have been true in 1600 as well. I don’t find it implausible as most of that population was packed into high density, literate societies; and our definition of “writer” has expanded considerably. If we include not only those published in books and periodicals, but “prolific correspondents” (read: bloggers) you’re pretty much there.
Soo… What Rowan said.
Are you making a point about the lack of Shakespeares?
Of course he has already written about it. Scott is the new Simpsons.
Some comments on that post:
“Low hanging fruit” is certainly an explanation for some fields, solving Fermat’s Last Theorem is way harder than figuring out the Pythagorean theorem. But for the artistic/humanities fields, not so much.
“Ancients weren’t really that great” is just stupid, Shakespeare is dazzling compared to Ben Johnson let alone the “5th best playwright” of the time. Even good old Ben knew it: “He was not of an age, but for all time!” This also downplays the challenge of innovation. Thucydides was an excellent historian. He was also the second person to ever be a historian. A fresh historian PhD today has spent ~8 years studying history, historiographical methods, etc. taught by highly experienced people. There should be absolutely no competition against autodidacts, and yet…
“Limited Demand”, or in other words winner-take-all markets is actually a plausible mechanism. The winner isn’t necessarily the best but the most popular, and the combination of popular appeal/linguistic skill/intellectual depth of Shakespeare is highly improbable. Pure popular appeal wins every time. But surely if there is a niche for Pynchon to sell millions of books there is a niche for another Shakespeare…
“Perceived arrogance” basically concedes the argument.
Obviously there are Plato-caliber intellects running around (Population + nutrition + Flynn effect means we have more than sufficient raw brain power), the issue is to what use are these intellects being put.
And I don’t think we overestimate Plato at all, his project had scope, ambition, impact of the kind that simply don’t exist today. Scott gets caught up nitpicking stuff (a “scholarly” pursuit, as Nietzsche would deridingly say) and misses the forest.
Ben Johnson’s famous “eulogy” of Shakespeare (“this side idolatry”) is short, sweet, and a masterpiece of backhanded compliments and faint-praise damning:
http://www.bartleby.com/27/2.html
Also, if you click “next” on that page, you get Johnson’s eulogy of Francis Bacon which is twice as long and much more deferential. Bonus mention of the Novum Organum.
Aaaaugh, not ANOTHER misinterpretation of Plato!
That is not what the Republic was about! Politaea, or “Governance”, was not about states but about the human soul. The bit of context that everyone leaves out is “Hey, it’s easier to examine larger things than smaller things, right? So let’s compare the human soul to a state, how would we want that state governed?” Here, I shall provide the relevant section (from Book II):
The Republic was never about some mythical ideal republic that Plato wanted to set up. The entire Republic is simply a metaphor for each individual human. The philosopher kings are who’s meant to be in charge of you. It’s not a practical manual on ancient political theory, it’s instead rather similar to what the original rationalists were trying to do: How can we make ourselves less wrong?
So, rather than giving over governorship of yourself to your base impulses, your passions, your greed, or your courage, you should instead be governed by your reason. I’ve always found The Republic to be quite a noble and uplifting work.
Instead, people just absorb the pop-culture view of it, which roughly simplifies to “philosopher says philosophers should be in charge of everything.” Urgh.
Wait, but doesn’t everything they end up concluding about the ideal State still need to be correct for the argument about the individual to work? The argument goes: this would be good/just in a state, therefore it’s good/just in an individual.
Yes.
The argument that Plato didn’t really intend to set up a philosopher-kingdom is very dubious, but beloved of Strauss and his followers. There’s every indication in the text that he meant it literally, and in the Laws, he goes into more explicit detail—which is less popular because it’s more obviously bad.
From what I remember, the historical record appears to show that he tried to create such a society, not by turning philosophers into kings but by turning a king (was it the king of Crete?) into a philosopher. It didn’t work.
Syracuse. However, I disagree completely about Republic; there are clear indications in the text that the “ideal” society was not intended literally (or intended to be ideal). Not that Strauss is right in the details of his interpretation (I disagree with him on many points), but he’s right that trying to read it completely straightforwardly will miss the point (and require ignoring some fairly huge and blatant chunks of text that clearly oppose a straightforward reading).
That’s not true for Laws, which seems to have been intended literally, but Laws also describes a very different society than Republic (admittedly a horrible one; I like to think he was getting senile when he wrote that, as it was his last work).
@ Protagoras:
Thank you, Syracuse.
I agree that there are many parts in the text where he says something on the order of, “I don’t know if it should be exactly like this, but it should be something like this,” but it seems to me that he did believe in the general idea that there should be a class of guardians, a class of warriors, and a class of laborers; that power should not lie in the hands of the military or those concerned with production and commerce but rather with a class of thinkers; and that the guardian class should live simply and communistically, without private wealth or families.
This fits with e.g. Aristotle’s criticisms of his proposals for communism and lack of individual families, where he basically says it wouldn’t work in practice.
And it fits with the whole general nature of his epistemological system, where true knowledge is only attained by a few through a sort of mystic vision—and thus they have to compel everyone else by means of force and “noble lies” to go along with it, being unable to provide them rational arguments.
On the individual details like whether he wanted to ban inappropriate art, I think you can make a case either way. Though given his influence on totalitarian movements throughout history and their policies toward art, I’m inclined to take him at face value.
But it seems wrong to me to argue that he didn’t mean for any of it to be carried into practice.
If I remember correctly, there are specific details in the Republic, like the exact number of citizens the perfect state should have, so they can be easily split into groups by 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11, or something like that.
Makes me less likely to believe that it was a metaphor for mind.
“I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, ”
That certainly sounds as though the first step is about the state, and only the second about the individual. Does he at any point say that he is using the state as a metaphor rather than as something easier to understand than the individual–big letters instead of small?
In Book VIII and the first part of Book IX they again return to the metaphor, concluding that the perfect State must perfectly correspond with the character of a perfect man. He then tackles the non-ideal characters of people:
Book IX moves directly from the examination of the tyrannical government to the tyrannical soul, and Plato concludes by calculating how much happier a just man is than an unjust one.
Now, I think Nita’s objection is mostly right – if Plato’s inferences about what makes a perfect government are invalid, then his proscription for proper self-government must likewise be invalid. However, a lot of the objections to the Republic he imagines are objections of practicality and human fallibility – whereas with your own soul you don’t need to worry about maintaining your rational self in power, or of its being corrupted and tyrannical, unless you want to really stretch the metaphor.
As for Vox’s objection, I can’t speak to Laws, but I don’t want to come across as arguing that Plato didn’t have some rather naive political views. However, those views I maintain are not the central thrust of Politeia, which generally is focused on ethics – is it desirable to be just? What does it mean to be a just man? For the description of the beautiful city to be meant as a literal political treatise, you’d have to assume a jarring break in theme and emphasis from the rest of the work. The Republic-as-metaphor school I think is on much firmer ground.
If all you examine is maximizing justice and minimizing justice, haven’t you left out the possibility that there’s a right amount of justice somewhere in the middle of the range?
Does anyone on here have any experience studying the Talmud? I’m a secular Jew, but I am looking to learn more about Talmud study.
Is it intellectually stimulating? Does it require you to believe anything? Are the debates real and vigorous? Will I learn something applicable to things other than Talmudic study?
I have studied talmud for a number of years. It is very intellectually stimulating (at least for people with a ‘yiddishe kop’ which likely includes you since you are attending law school).
Technically you can study it without believing anything, but the authors warn against studying without practice and ‘yirat shamayim’ (which has a more pragmatic sense than its current connotation, as can be seen, for example, in the book of Proverbs). I don’t know what you mean by ‘real’ but the debates are vigorous. It does teach conceptual and analytical skills applicable to other areas.
It is best done with a teacher since much is conveyed through oral tradition which does not lend itself to independent study from a book.
What is prompting your interest?
Here’s how I explained it recently to a friend:
Talmudic analysis is a brilliant thinking game where you have lots of moving parts and the goal is to try to get everything working together in such a way that there are as few loose ends as possible. Completely divorced from reality, but a fantastic thinking game.
Here’s how it works: The Bible is always correct and self-consistent, even when it (apparently) contradicts itself. Also, there are never any extra words or even extra letters. The sages gave the comprehensive authoritative interpretation of the Bible (+ all previous rabbinic tradition) in the Talmud. The sages are also never wrong (at least in most areas, and at least according to most traditional commentators), and they’re also completely self-consistent. According to some, the sages also never say any extra words.
The early medieval commentators tried to resolve all the apparent contradictions in the Talmud, as well as all sorts of logical problems that arise from thinking about the implications of things in the Talmud. The commentators brilliantly tied together all the vast areas of the Talmud (it’s one of the largest books from antiquity) and came up with ingenious explanations for everything, at least to their own satisfaction.
Next step: Because of Decline of the Generations, we assume that the medieval commentators were ALSO never wrong (at least not in ways that we lowly beings are likely to catch). Now, the commentators all came up with these ingenious theories and explanations, but each commentator did it in a different way and attacked the theories of their contemporaries. However, from our vantage point we must assume that every commentator had a satisfactory response to every attack that his contemporaries leveled against him.
So the job of the later commentators was to answer all the attacks of each earlier commentator, along with all sorts of logical questions that arose from thinking about the implications of what the earlier commentators said. Also, although the early commentators weren’t quite as precise in the language as the Sages, they too mostly didn’t use extra words.
In other words, the later commentators do to the early ones what the early ones did to the Talmud, which is more or less what the Talmud did to the Bible.
But we are even later than the later commentators, and from our vantage point they are ALSO probably also right, have answers to any questions we or any of their contemporaries thought up, etc.
End result: Your job as a student of Talmud is to weave together all the moving parts into as unified and elegant an approach as you can, while minimizing loose ends and unanswered questions.
I was never all that great at it (although I was probably in the upper percentiles), since I can’t hold more than a few moving parts in my head at once. But it’s really cool to watch how these incredibly brilliant people do it. I have never seen people as brilliant as the people I know from yeshiva. To be a top rabbi in a yeshiva you need to be absolutely freakin’ brilliant.
So basically a superintelligence explosion in slowmo? 🙂
Not in slowmo; in Shlomo.
Thanks for you for your great responses; makes it seem really fascinating.
So if I understand you correctly, we are not questioning the original source anymore, but the commentaries?
Is each Talmud tractates, or unit of study, self-contained, or do you have to take into account everything else in the rest of the talmud to engage with it?
How would you compare daf yomi to just studying selected sugyot?
Is Talmud study through Steinsaltz + podcasts sufficient, or would it pale in comparison to going to a synagogue class?
Thanks for your time and assistance.
Each tractate more or less discusses a discrete area of law; however, there is a lot of overlap, so it’s very hard to understand this tractate unless you have at least a basic idea of what’s going on in that tractate. I strongly suggest that you find someone that can teach you directly, rather than trying to work it out from canned materials; a live teacher can help you with your particular questions and difficulties in a way that canned materials never can.
My experience is that trying to study daf yomi is very unsatisfying, because it just moves too fast. It doesn’t give me time to delve into the topic and master it. That seems to be a commonplace amongst men with yeshiva experience.
> So if I understand you correctly, we are not questioning the original source anymore, but the commentaries?
We’re not even questioning the commentaries, we’re trying to understand them, since we assume they’re almost certainly correct, or at least that we won’t catch them at it if they’re wrong.
> Is each Talmud tractates, or unit of study, self-contained, or do you have to take into account everything else in the rest of the talmud to engage with it?
They’re only partially self-contained. You can engage with them at a lower level individually, but for the higher levels you need to know a LOT.
> How would you compare daf yomi to just studying selected sugyot?
Standard yeshiva practice in many yeshivas is to go quicker for part of the day (though usually slower than one daf per day) and much, much slower for the rest of the day. Many yeshivas will learn a single tractate over the course of half a year or a year – but that’s in the quick part of the day. In the slow part of the day they’ll maybe study 20 daf or so over the course of an entire year.
The reason for this is that breadth is important, but the real thinking game is in the depth.
> Is Talmud study through Steinsaltz + podcasts sufficient, or would it pale in comparison to going to a synagogue class?
Steinzaltz or Artscroll are very low-level as far as the thinking game part goes. Whether a synagogue class would be any better probably depends on the synagogue and the particular class. There are some higher-level podcasts available online, but you probably need a decent background to understand them.
If you can read Hebrew and Aramaic well then I’d recommend the Oz Vehadar Metivta edition, or to find a study partner from your local yeshiva.
I’ll also mention that there are several different approaches to Talmud study. What I’ve been describing is the traditional yeshiva approach. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the secular academic approach, which treats the Talmud as the fallible composite historical document that it is. This approach takes a lot of the thinking game out of it, I think, but it’s historically accurate and replaces the thinking game with a different type of analysis that tries to pry apart the different layers within the text. Steinsaltz has a drop of academic in it, but it’s still much more towards the traditional approach.
If you want to take a look at the academic approach, there are several decent books available. For a comprehensive analysis of several Talmudic chapters, you can look at Igud Hatalmud; under the “Sugyot” tab on their website they have several whole books for free (in modern Hebrew).
Questioning happens at the level of commentaries and the original sources (though many of the problems in the primary sources have been raised by later sources so the two are linked) (also by questioning we usually mean trying to rigorously understand based on internal consistency rather than based on external factors)
Most analysis happens at the level of the sugia (topic) since the tractates are long and deal with a wide variety of topics and aren’t amenable to initial analysis. Sugyot are somewhat independent and the most important/obvious parallel topics are referenced by the primary commentators so mastery of many topics isn’t necessary to start analyzing in depth.
I would strongly suggest against doing daf yomi, since that moves very fast and loses much understanding of the depth. It has many disadvantages of trying to study a math book a page a day which often leaves you in the middle of a topic and doesn’t account for the varying difficulty of different pages.
If you decide to do this I would recommend finding a chavruta (study partner) which allows for the full working through of the ideas. If there isn’t a possibility of doing it locally you can also study long distance (e.g. through skype)
Also bear in mind that most of these comments are referring to the legal parts of the talmud, which is the part mostly studied in yeshivot. There is also extensive aggadic literature which deals with ethics/philosophy etc and usually is studied with somewhat different methods.
It’s a lot like stare decisis.
Sounds kind of like fans of Star Trek or Star Wars (or any other big franchise) trying to come up with “fanwanks” to explain away apparent contradictions in continuity, how technologies have been portrayed, and so forth, and get a consistent picture of the universe that fits with all the onscreen information they’ve agreed to label “canonical”.
A standard (straw) atheist refrain used to go something like this (to put it eloquently and charitably): HURR RELIGION CONTRADICTS ITSELF FUCKING STUPID RELIGIOUS NOT REALIZING THIS!
The amazing thing is that Jews managed to turn this notion on its head and use religious contradiction to become smarter. Truly the circle is squared.
Regarding whether it’s worth doing yourself:
1) If you like thinking puzzles you might like it. But be aware that to really get into the game takes years and years of training. Like, you’d probably need to study for several years just to be able to follow the comments of the Vilna Gaon (one of the great masters of the game, and probably one of the highest-IQ people ever).
2) On the other hand, it’s entirely a game of rationalization, so beware the rationality dark arts.
3) I don’t know how well the skills transfer. I myself was brought up in the culture (I started learning Talmud in 4th grade, and I continued it until about a year or two ago), so I can’t really tell you how much of my thinking processes are from Talmudic thinking vs. what I would have gotten in a university context.
I have spent a number of years in yeshivos and kollelim–Talmudic academies for unmarried and married men, respectively–and have a fair acquaintance with it.
Is the Talmud intellectually stimulating? That is a question that each individual must answer for himself. Certainly it has depth and complexity, as evidenced by the literally thousands of Talmudic commentaries and derivative works that have been created over the centuries, and as evidenced by the fact that in every generation since the creation of the Talmud, it has absorbed the intellectual energies of thousands of men, including many outright geniuses.
Does it require you to believe anything? Yes and no. The Talmud is unambiguously a religious work; it takes the existence of God, the reality of prophecy, and specifically the authority of Scripture for granted. If you study Talmud without those beliefs, you will find yourself often having to wrestle with a mindset which is, to a greater or lesser extent, alien to you. However, it is possible to study and understand the Talmud without personally accepting its priors, particularly the volumes dealing with civil law, which tend to more heavily emphasize human reason than Scriptural derivation.
Will you learn something applicable to things other than Talmud study? In my opinion, the Talmud is an excellent source of moral insight, for someone capable of reading between the lines, as it were, in the study of legal principles.
I regret that my filter tends to block threads on Slate Star Codex eventually, so it is possible that I will not be able to see or respond to your comments here. However, if there is anything else that I can help you with, please feel free to email me at yeshoshua.kahan.training@gmail.com
Thank you for all of your kind and thoughtful responses.
OK — so if I am looking for something with a low barrier to entry, not a huge commitment, and is the most intellectually stimulating, what course of study/sections/etc do you recommend I look into?
I like learning more about Judaism – thinking about things from many different angles — understanding — rationality — debating ideas.
Ok, third try. (My first two tries don’t seem to have uploaded.)
If you live in a city with a significant Jewish community, I suggest you look for an outreach-type synagogue/yeshiva. Aish Hatorah and Ohr Sameach (google them if unfamiliar) are well known for this, but there are other.
Alternatively, you could contact Partners in Torah (again, google it), which will try to set you up with an over-the-phone study partner (at no cost to you). Along similar lines, if you like, you and I could try studying together on the phone.
In any event, the main thing is to find a teacher that will explain the basic concepts to you, help you get past the learning curve. Without that, you will get lost very quickly.
As far as what area of Talmud to start with, I suggest that you try perek Ailu Metzios, the second chapter of tractate Bava Metzia. It deals mainly with the laws of returning found property, and leans much more towards the human logic side, as versus Scriptural derivation–it’s more meaty, in that sense.
By the way, a few minutes ago I posted a very similar comment, and it seems to have gotten lost. If it does show up in the end, please forgive me for the repetition.
Note that all of those organizations will actively try to convert you to their belief system, possibly using questionable methods. Same for any outreach-oriented rabbis or even laypeople. I have nothing against ba’alei teshuva (people who “return” to a religious Jewish way of life), and in fact I keep to the lifestyle myself despite not believing in it. Just go in with your eyes open.
Yes, Ohr Sameach, Aish Hatorah, and Partners in Torah hope to encourage secular Jews to become religious Jews. I thought that I made that clear by referring to them as “outreach-type synagogues/yeshivos.”
I don’t know what arathir2 means by “questionable methods.” What methods do any of them use other than answering questions, disseminating information, and praying?
I think it’s near impossible to do in English. Even the names of the basic conceptual tools you need don’t translate well and your teacher will tend to just say them in Hebrew and expect you to pick it up. Then, even if you had an ear for languages and managed to pick up a decent level of Hebrew and Aramaic, there’s still a wealth of cultural background that you’d also need to pick up. Modern Hebrew uses a lot of allusions, but Rabbinical texts are far worse.
It’s hard for me to imagine an adult persevering in such an enormously difficult process without the motivation of being ba’al teshuva.
I agree with this.
I’m doing in off and on (in English, so not really doing it, I know, I know), and speaking for myself:
Yes. No. Yes, but that seems like kind of a loaded question, there are current ongoing debates if that’s what you mean. And it loosely, loosely translates to greater understanding of law and literature.
Skip the Talmud! Go straight to the source material.
Wait — there are followers of Karaite Judaism on SSC?
Where are you from? I thought all of the Karaite’s in the world today live either in Turkey or Israel…?
I thought my father made up Karaism until I was fourteen years old. (It’s the sort of thing he would do.)
Yup. I don’t know if there are others (doubt it) but I’m Karaite Jewish on my mom’s side, going back at least 5 or 6 generations that I know of. Possibly more.
I didn’t learn any of that until I was in my late 20s though.
Somewhat interested in the Signal data-science boot-camp, but I’m unsure what level of prior knowledge they expect out of students. Some of the example showcase people have PhDs in relevant fields, or managed the finances of a monastery, or are actuaries, and so on. How choosy is the process? If I’m a poor schlub with good standardized test scores and a fistful of programming knowledge that I’ve grabbed out of the air while it was blowing around near my work, am I even in the target market?
Second, from the page I have no idea whether this is an online course or one that happens in person. I assume it’s online, but there’s very little direct evidence to back me up on the site itself. More concrete knowledge on the site would probably be good for marketing purposes. The 10% first year salary thing is a nice way of doing things I hadn’t known about before, it seems like a very proper incentive structure for an educational institution.
Does the bootcamp include databases/SQL? How to use python?
How to use neural networks/machine learning?
Absolutely yes on databases/SQL. We mostly use R instead of python; they fill similar roles in the toolkit.
Machine learning yes, neural networks are optional.
I’m interested as well. I’m finishing a Master’s program in Machine Learning. I’m more interested in the interview prep, and portfolio building. After my undergrad, I struggled getting the type of work that I felt was worthwhile from a career stand point. I worry now that since I’ve worked as .NET developer for the past five years I’m pigeonholed into those type of jobs. I can’t take a internship in a data science type role since I go to school part time.
Tinduck: we take a very practical approach to data science, so I suspect even with your background you’ll get a great deal out of the course.
In terms of soft skills, we teach resume writing, interview prep, and negotiation training. Priors say that you’re almost certainly grossly under-optimized in at least one of these areas. There’s a big difference in the quality of jobs under the catchall “data science,” and we could easily increase your expected salary by 50% or so.
Easy application link https://goo.gl/forms/ld8UUw8az7
I found this post of theirs by googling: http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3i/announcing_the_signal_data_science_intensive/ It seems like it might answer your questions.
I went to a data science bootcamp (Galvanize/Zipfian). I really like the incentive structure of bootcamps and had a great experience. AMA if you want.
I can’t answer your other questions, but I contacted them, and they told me it’s an in-person boot camp in Berkeley, California.
There is an old Lesswrong post about it when it first started, I believe. From that, they stated that it was in the Bay Area for their first session. That session also was aimed at a bit of a higher level and would be shorter, to test out the program, and later sessions would be longer and have more introductory material. That is the likely explanation for the high prior quality of the alumni. I too would like to know if its branching out from Cali, but I dont think you need to worry about your level.
I’d encourage skepticism about all these new data science workshops popping up in every city. The market for actual data scientists seems to have been much smaller than the hype suggested and to be nearly saturated already. My main evidence for this assertion is that, while the initial cohorts of Insight Data Science fellows were hired quickly, the recent cohorts have a dramatically lower/slower placement rate.
So if you get accepted, be very pointed and specific in asking about the recent trends in placement, and not trust any figures that lump in successes from even >1 year ago.
Hi Dan,
I’m Robert, the founder @ Signal who isn’t Jonah. To answer your questions:
For the cohort that just finished, our PhD startup founders to college dropouts with near-zero technical expertise. That’s not a super-informative answer, so here’s a more complete one: as far as we can tell, success is roughly an OR function. A working developer who’s reading this probably has what it takes, knowing statistics is a big plus but being able to think in a mathematically correct way is more important, and inexperienced but smart and dedicated students can and have powered their way through. That’s not to say that we’re not selective–more that peoples’ self-assessments are bad and as soon as I say “you have to have X, Y, and Z” a lot of good students won’t apply.
Write an application and we’ll give you a test. It’s the only way to be sure
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DFGGaKhB5IumIHm73cnrurzrz3_40_CZj-XrsATuM1o/viewform
We also teach people how to write their resumes, so what you see has already been optimized for impressiveness-to-employers and doesn’t represent.
It’s a full-time, in-person program based in Berkeley CA. We have some low-cost housing available to students who are coming in from outside the Bay Area.
Having a % basis. We offer a cash option for candidates who either 1) are already making enough that 10% of their future salary is more than the competition or 2) want to do something other than looking for work. You’re not the only person who appreciates the value alignment–the last cohort was 25% present cash, 75% future salary.
What’s this bias called?
“If homosexuality is evil, then it should not be promoted.”
“If God does not exist, then prayer and going to church are largely pointless.”
“Assuming that abortion is murder, it should be banned.”
“If you are a unicorn, you should go live in the pixie forest.”
All these statements are obviously true (or will be true with a little tweaking) because they are almost tautological conclusions from those conditions. Yet when I see them and I disagree with the condition, a part of me feels reluctant to agree with the whole statement, or at least I have to quickly add “yes, but God DOES exist, so you should go to church”.
Is this a thing and is there a name for it?
Begging the question? False equivalence? Some combination of the two?
As far as I can tell, “false equivalence” is almost entirely bullshit. Jon Stewart called for decreased political polarization in his famous address at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Keith Olbermann and a bunch of other left-wing pundits said he was saying they were exactly as bad as Fox News, calling it a “false equivalency” (sic).
It’s a bizarre accusation; how often does an argument require that two things be *exactly* equal, and how could two different things even ever *be* exactly equal?
The epithet caught on, and you can see on Google Trends that it’s been on the rise ever since that fateful day in 2010. (The wikipedia article on the “fallacy” doesn’t even appear until more than a year later in 2011.)
Its fundamental oddity makes it a great way to derail an argument, and I see it all the time: if I say, “as we see in both cats and supernovas…”, you can say “False equivalency! How can you possibly say that cats are comparable to supernovas?” and it’s not at all obvious how I should respond to that. It’s also a great derailment because “comparable” can mean either “possible to be compared”, or “similar”, and the ambiguity fuels further confusion.
It took me a long time to work it out, and it rarely does much good, but you can point out that to compare two things, they *have* to be different, and why should there be any limit on how different the two things are? Lots of very different things have attributes in common, and pointing out the common attributes can be quite useful. And since arguments don’t typically require things to be equivalent (but rather, that they have some attribute in common), it’s irrelevant to point out that they are unequal. But of course that sounds quite pedantic, which usually just makes things worse.
It really is a fiendishly clever little propaganda tool.
As commonly employed, “false equivalency” is the complement of “double standard”:
When they condemn
uspeople who are clearly not us for heinous actions yet commit the same actions themselves, clearly that’s a double standard. But when they accuse us of having a double standard—i.e. condemning them for heinous actions and yet committing the same actions ourselves—clearly they are drawing a false equivalency between our actions and their actions.Does this sound a little hypocritical to you, perhaps like some sort of double standard regarding double standards? Well, you’re just drawing another false equivalency.
Apart from the fourth, those statements are to varying degrees political, and regardless of what’s logically true it’s strategically bad in a politicised debate to concede points like that without raising such an objection. Do you actually feel the same urge wrt that fourth statement involving unicorns?
Yes, this may not be what you’re getting at, but it reminds me of another bias: the “if it’s wrong/bad, it should be illegal” bias and its corollary, “the fact that it’s illegal is sufficient evidence that it’s wrong.”
Alternate corollaries:
If it’s legal, that means it’s not wrong.
If you say something is wrong, you want it to be illegal.
Yes, I think these corollaries can be a vicious cycle:
Business: it’s just business! I’ve got to employ any means at my disposal to get ahead or my competitors will! We’ll do whatever we can within the law. You can’t blame us for our frivolous patent lawsuit! We’re within our rights…
Public/Legislators: see, businesses will do anything to make money so long as it’s not technically illegal. Therefore we need more strict, explicit laws governing their behavior.
Business: these rules are so strict and I spend so much money on compliance! You can’t blame me if I do everything legally permissible to recoup/get around all this. Also, considering how strict the rules are, it would clearly be illegal if it were wrong…
If it’s legal, that means it’s not wrong.
The XKCD cartoon version of free speech is probably a good example of this. Censorship by private actors does not violate the First Amendment — therefore, censorship by private actors is morally acceptable.
Onyomi — Well observed. I’ve worked in an industry where I saw both sides of a dynamic very similar to this.
Though I’m inclined to think this is mostly an exercise in rationalization anyway. People who are ruthless and cutthroat (but not quite sociopathic) will find a way to rationalize their actions regardless of how constrained they are by law or other factors.
Whenever I hear the expression, “It’s just business,” I think of the Godfather, where there are decidedly fewer constraints on action than in a typical business, and not terribly happy results.
Other people will try to find ways to constrain them, perhaps sometimes for reasons of the public good , though I think some people just like to constrain those they perceive as undeservedly rich or powerful for its own sake.
The “it’s just business” in the Godfather is meant to be ironic.
It was used by characters rationalizing to other characters when it was personal. This is explicitly stated in the novel version but is clearly implied when Michael makes the case for killing the men who tried to assassinate his father.
I’d agree with you in some instances, but I think the scene that most comes to mind for me is where Tessio is hauled away. I don’t think it was personal with Tessio — he just thought backing Barzini against the Corleones was the smart move (which Vito even agreed with), despite the fact that it meant betraying a decades-long relationship with Vito and his family.
I’ll admit I haven’t read the book, though I think the films stand on their own.
“A basic sense of social tactics oriented around how others think, sufficient to avoid making really bad moves in the game of Ethnic Tension accidentally.”
It’s a thing, most people are intuitively capable of it, and I don’t know if there’s a name beyond the very general “common sense” or maybe “tact” (although “tact” isn’t quite right; it’s more a cousin of tact than tact itself).
It seems that logical implication is somewhat counterintuitive to human minds. I’ve even seen math undergrads confused by problems like: Does the set {-5, -7} have the property “each of its positive elements is a multiple of 3”? (“How can it be true? It doesn’t even have any positive elements!”)
There is only one way to cure that, which is to fully appreciate that A => B is shorthand for B or not A. (Of course you know that, my audience is said undergrads).
Would the same undergrads have a problem to understand that “x is a multiple of 3 or x is not a positive element of the given set” is true?
I think this is a more general problem with the notion of counterintuitiveness. Once you know how to think about so-called counterintuitive problems, it vanishes. E. g. Monty Hall, maybe the most famous conterintuitive problem of them all, is counterintuitive only if you don’t know how to think about such problems.
So I guess what I’m saying is, don’t honor lack of knowledge by calling things counterintuitive.
Can this extended to logically impossible hypotheticals?
* If the last digit of pi is divisible by 4, is it also divisible by 2?
* Is the circumference of a circle shaped triangle 2*pi*r?
The standard example is something like
“The moon is made of cheese => I am a girl with blonde hair”
is a true statement.
(Ex falso quodlibet)
The first sentence (more precisely, the noun phrase “the last digit of pi” within the first sentence) has a false presupposition, namely that pi has a last digit, so it’s neither true nor false; it lacks a truth value. The rephrased sentence “The last digit of pi is divisible by 2, or the last digit of pi is not divisible by 4” still has the same false presupposition, and therefore still lacks a truth value.
As for the second sentence, it depends on your definition of “circumference”. If no triangles have circumferences then the sentence has a false presupposition. If circle-shaped triangles have circumferences then the sentence has a truth value, but its truth value depends on the definition of the circumference of a circle-shaped triangle. You could also, I guess, say that the sentence lacks a truth value due to the inclusion of an undefined term, although in that case it lacks a truth value in a slightly different way than the first sentence does.
The House Carpenter’s explanation is only true for the Fregean analysis; there are other ways of constructing predicate logic. Research Descriptions, or google “the present king of France is bald”.
Hey, at least I didn’t call it a “paradox” 😛
My broader point is that most discussions run on “folk logic”, not formal logic, so most people using those implications probably do intend them to be more persuasive than pure logic would merit.
Of course, there are common responses — “that’s a big IF”, “yeah, IF God did not exist…” — that would be hard to express in formal logic, but help folks remind each other how implication works.
Sometimes these seemingly tautological folk implications manage to sneak in some unstated premises. E.g., “If God does not exist, then prayer and going to church are largely pointless” sneaks in “There are hardly any secular benefits to prayer and church attendance”.
But a much worse and more common thing I’ve seen is leaving even the implication itself implicit, like this: “How can you support the murder of unborn children?!” or “Theorems in mathematical economics prove that you should support libertarian policies.”
(My personal mind trick for formal implication is “A=>B is true, UNLESS A is true AND B is false”.)
“Folk logic” is causal, imo.
These aren’t logical implications, though. They are counterfactual conditionals. As Trump found out, the hard way you can meaningfully talk about them even if the if-clause is false.
Huh?
A => B (read “A implies B”) is a logial implication. A logical implication where A is neccesarily false has a counterfactual condition. (Does that make it a “counterfactual conditional”?) Logical implications with this property are true propositions regardless the truth-value of the consequence. Some people find that confusing.
If you treat A => B as a logical implication, and you know A is false, there’s nothing meaningful to be said about it; it’s vacuously true. However, there is a difference between
“Assuming that abortion is murder, it should be banned.”
and
“Assuming that abortion is murder, it should be promoted.”
even if you don’t believe abortion is murder.
A counterfactual conditional like this is asserting something about your belief system. Logically, it’s “Assume A. B”
The difference is that the truth-value of the condition is controversial?!
I was always one of those annoying argumentative people who didn’t like material implication.
Calling “If the moon is made of green cheese, then Columbus sailed to Mars” true is, at best, a preposterously misleading use of English words. Also, the principle of explosion, that any statement is deducible from a contradiction.
I understand the reasoning behind them, but they irritate me.
Is that true in formal logic? Because that doesn’t seem right to me; if-then statements imply a causal relationship, and even when the first is false, declaring the statement true seems to assert that there would be a causal link, and that there is some connection in the domains of the events being discussed, which is a bit of anti-truth in the example.
Yeah, it doesn’t seem right to me either, but it is how formal logic is taught.
The rule is called material implication, and it says that “if p, then q” is identical in meaning to “~p or q”.
Thus, a “truth table” is constructed, with four possible states:
p and q = true
~p and q = true
~p and ~q= true
p and ~q = false
Therefore, “If the moon is made of green cheese, then Columbus sailed to Mars” is true because it represents ~p and ~q. If we check the table, that form comes out as true.
In simpler terms, “if p, then q” is interpreted to mean “it is not the case that the antecedent is true and the consequent false” or “~(p and ~q)”, which simplifies to “the antecedent is false and/or the consequent is true”, thus “~p or q”. The point is to take out the suggestion of causality.
But isn’t the point of logic causality? Or at least dependence.
“The moon is not made of cheese” and “Columbus did not go to Mars” are empirical claims. Whether true or not they aren’t really the domain of logic. This is the sort of thing colloquial language developed the expression “not even wrong” for, it’s a shame formal logic obfuscates by changing the meaning of the word “if”.
@ Randy M:
The moon and Columbus thing is just an example.
The kind of logic here isn’t concerned with (meta)physical causality; it’s concerned with saying which statements are logically equivalent to other statements, purely in virtue of their form.
This is not necessarily easy. Here is a straightforward one I found online that is easy to get wrong:
Let alone complicated formal proofs that may be hundreds of lines in length.
Or even a Sudoku puzzle, which is a an exercise in pure formal logic.
Now, do I think twenty-step proofs have much relevance to everyday life? No, not really.
It probably has the most relevance to computer science. Especially rules like material implication, since computers can’t really do causal logic.
But for some reason, in order to get into a good law school, you have to be really good at quickly solving problems like this one:
For your first example, I’d say 2 is the only necessarily true one, while 3 is implied by the choice of some but not logically required; I think some can be “any part great than 0 and less than or equal to all” even if it is strange to use it as all. I might be wrong about that denotationally, though.
The longer example I’m not going to try but expect I could get it right given enough patience and care, but both I at least recognize as being the domain of logic, versus the earlier example I objected to, of “if counterfactual, then unrelated counterfactual” being valid.
Typically using the if…then construction is not trying to declare the clauses to be factual but dependent.
Number 1 contradicts the premises, numbers 2 and 3 assume facts not in evidence, so 4 is the only possible answer.
@Larry Kestenbaum
Wait, how does 1 contradict the premises? “Some trade disruptions cause financial anxiety” doesn’t logically imply “Some trade disruptions don’t cause financial anxiety,” so “All trade disruptions cause financial anxiety” would be consistent with the statement “Some trade disruptions cause financial anxiety.”
I agree that 4 is the correct answer, since the premises don’t imply 1 (or 2 or 3), but I don’t think 1 is contradicted by the premises.
Guess I read #2 too fast, right, the subset of disruptions that cause anxiety may not include those that are revolutions (implausible as that sounds in reality). Thanks for the correction.
I should have clarified:
4 is the correct answer.
1 is not contradicted by the premises because, in formal/Aristotelian logic, “some” means “at least one”; it does not carry the additional implication of “not all”.
@ Randy M
Logic doesn’t encode causality; it encodes correlation.
I think you’re mistaking the “Antecedent P” for the “Proposition P”. I.e. the antecedent “IF the moon is made of cheese…” is distinct from the proposition “(it is true that) the moon is made of cheese.” The former is merely a variable within a larger proposition (where the proposition conveys a relationship between two variables). The the latter is a proposition per se which asserts the truth-value of a single variable. From the diagram below, you can see that “if P” is distinct from “P”.
0) if P, then Q
1) P
—————–
2) Q
The domain of logic is syntax, rather than semantics. You are correct that the empirical truth-value of whether “the moon is made of cheese” is not the domain of logic. You are correct that the empirical truth-value of a conditional is not the domain of logic. Logic is concerned with syntactic transformations, i.e. deriving the truth-value of one proposition from other propositions.
We can think of material conditionals as mathematical functions. Consider the a graph of hours vs miles jogged “m(h) = sqrt(h)”. “m(h) = sqrt(h)” is analogous to “if P then Q”. The numerical value of “h” for today’s run might be for example, 4 hours. THEREFORE the numerical value of “m(4)” is “2”. If we were to encode this in logic, it might look like
0) m(h) = sqrt(h)
1) h := 4
——————–
2) m(4) == 2
(the equal sign is overloaded. I’m using = to assert an abstract relationship, := to signify substitution, and == to signify computation.)
Mathematicians aren’t concerned with “the numerical value of h” or “the numerical value of m” on a particular jog, they’re mostly concerned with the equation “m(h) = sqrt(h)”. Likewise, logicians aren’t concerned with “the actual truth-value of P” or “the actual truth-value of Q”, they’re concerned with the relationship “if P then Q”. The value is distinct from the relationship.
This is something that I instinctively reject, I think because I associate correlation with probability or merely likelihood and logic with binding axioms.
But I get what you are saying, and am convinced. What feels like a causal relationship is actually a shared dependence on an identity/definition.
Thinking about the example Vox raised, then, I think it arises via syntax as well? Since [True fact 1] is always correlated with [True fact 2], the inverse is logically true, as they are mutually exclusive? Assuming Columbus didn’t go both to the New World and to another world, at least.
I haven’t had formal logic training outside of Phil 101, [but have some math and very amateur programming] so I’m trying to square these examples with my intuitions and common usage.
Propositional Logic is what happens when Probability is only allowed values of 100% or 0%. We’ve essentially replaced digital with analog.
Yeah. Logic is basically just Accounting. E.g. logicians have invented weird systems that use truth-values beyond just True and False. But it’s mostly used for things like when Alice tells the database “P” but Bob tells the database “NOT P”, so the database has to invent composite-values to keep track of all the fudge and spaghetti. (n.b. this is related to why Aristotle decided not to include the Principle of Bivalence in his Laws of Logic.)
Vox raised several examples. idk which example you’re referring to. I skipped the lawyer ones because they looked long and tedious. :/
The conceptual-relationships between variables are notationally-expressed via syntax. AND, OR, IF, NOT are all syntax. PLUS, MINUS, TIMES, DIVIDED-BY are also all syntax. RELATIONAL-OPERATORS (equality, greater than, less than), FUNCTION-APPLICATION, SYNTATIC-CONSEQUENCE are also all syntax.
Not quite, partner. It’s the contrapositive which is logically true (by virtue of Modus Tollens). Asserting that the inverse is true is a fallacy known as Denying The Antecedent, while asserting that the converse is true is a fallacy known as Affirming The Consequent.
In the material conditional “P -> Q”, we’re certain that Q is true if P is true. But if all we know is P is false, Q might be true anyway. Or for all we know, Q might indeed be false. We simply don’t know. The best we can do is say is that deriving the truth-value of Q from “P -> Q, ~P” is fallacious. (n.b. never say “fallacious” aloud.)
Instead, what you’re describing isn’t the Material Conditional, but the Biconditional. The material conditional is “P -> Q” and is read as “if P, then Q”. The biconditional is “P <–> Q" and is read as "P if and only if Q" ("P iff Q" as a shorthand). In a biconditional, P and Q always have identical truth values. (for more information, here's wikipedia pages A and B (which should be merged) for binary operators.)
Probability says that P(A|B) is not necessarily the same as P(B|A). E.g. given I have cancer, it’s very likely I don’t have hair. But given I don’t have hair, it’s unlikely that I have cancer (I believe Scott shaves his head). It’s kinda like saying cancer is correlated with hair loss, but hair loss isn’t correlated with cancer. (n.b. this is an abuse of the word “correlation”.)
(p.s. in programming, substitution is also known as assignment.)
No, causality is not part of formal logic.
@Randy M: I suspect part of the strangeness is caused by the inability of our philosophical traditions to understand the nature of causality before Church/Turing came around. Having grown up with computers, it seems intuitive to us that causal systems can be described as computational, i.e. state spaces with conditional transitions between the states. An IF p THEN q should describe under which conditions p we will execute q.
Formal logic is part of a mathematical tradition, not of a computational one, i.e. it does not focus on properties of the implementation but on the specification. “IF the moon is made of green cheese THEN Columbus sailed to Mars” does not describe how the universe goes from the cheese moon state to the Mars sailing state. Instead, the cheese condition insulates the universe from the counterfactual Mars sailing condition, so it cannot cause inconsistencies, and hence the statement is true.
Our cognition (at least among English speakers) seems to be closer to the newfangled computational formalization than to the one of the old logicians.
To expand on JB.
Formal-Logic::IF (which takes two arguments) is very different from Programming::IF (which takes three arguments). Programming::IF has an antecedent, an consequent, but also an Else-clause. Formal-Logic::IF doesn’t have an Else-clause. The fact that Programming::IF accepts three arguments is why Programming::IF is sometimes called the “Ternary Operator” (p ? q : r).
IF is something logicians have never truly understood either. The Stoics (who invented Truth-Functional Logic, which is where the Material Conditional comes from) also constantly bickered about the nature of IF. Vox Imperatoris continues that tradition by complaining that “if moon is cheese, then Columbus went to mars” doesn’t make any sense.
Today, logicians recognize various types of IF. Few of which I feel qualified to explain in detail.
This is probably why modal logic was invented. I think it reflects the inability of propositional logic to appropriately describe “relationships between counterfactual parameters” rather than a failure of human intuition.
In one of Raymond Smullyan’s books there was a proof of the proposition “If 2+2=5, then I am the Pope” that actually made sense. After seeing it I was more receptive to the logician’s definition of truth.
That’s the principle of explosion (or in Latin, ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet).
The way it works (as you know) is like this:
1. 2 + 2 = 5 [Premise]
2. ~(2 + 2 = 5) [Can be proved]
3. (2 + 2 = 5) or (I am the Pope) [Disjunction introduction: you can always tack an “or” statement onto anything]
4. ~(2 + 2 = 5) [2]
5. I am the Pope [Disjunctive syllogism: if p or q, then ~p implies q]
It’s called explosion because a single contradiction causes you to be able to “prove” anything this way.
The controversy is in “disjunction introduction”: it doesn’t seem like you ought to be able to introduce any random “or” statement that’s not relevant. It does make sense in context, but there are “paraconsistent logics” developed to avoid this.
The way it actually worked was showing that 1=2, then the Pope and I are two, therefore the Pope and I are one. I believe it was atrributed to Bertrand Russell.
He probably used the inference rule called Material Implication:
(P -> Q) => (~P or Q)
Which reads:
(if 2 + 2 = 5, then I am the pope) implies (either 2 + 2 != 5 or I am the pope)
[oops i’m late]
@ Jiro:
That’s misleading because the “one” and “two” parallelism makes it sound like there’s more of a connection between the three statements. There isn’t. You can do it with anything.
It may be a good joke, though.
Out of curiosity, have you tried rendering them in the subjunctive and seeing if your reaction changes? – “If homosexuality were evil, then it would be bad to promote it” etc?
It changes in the opposite direction – it now makes me reluctant to agree with statements with whose antecedents I DO agree. For example:
“If homosexuality weren’t evil, then it would be harmless to promote.”
(inner voice) “What do you mean, ‘if it weren’t evil’? Do you dare suggesting that it is evil?”
I, of course, still agree with the statement, but only reluctantly.
(needless to say these examples are examples and may or may not reflect my actual views on God, homosexuality etc.)
Hmm, it sounds like you determine which “side” the author of the statement is on, and then agree or disagree with their entire (implicit) stance, instead of the statement alone. (I seem to be in agreement with Rowan, Fj and Jiro.)
“Arguments as soldiers“, perhaps?
Yeah, it’s definitely the soldiers thing.
Imagine the following statement:
“If torture were an effective means of acquiring information vital to national security, then it would sometimes be justified.”
Even if you don’t believe that it’s an effective means, you’ve left the door open a lot wider than if you say “Torture is inherently wrong no matter what.” Now it’s a factual question of whether torture is an effective means.
It’s the same with all these statements, so long as you don’t interpret the antecedent to be semantically identical to the consequent.
“If God does not exist, then prayer and going to church are largely pointless.”
That’s at least somewhat of a point in favor of prayer and going to church. Opposition is conditional upon God’s not existing. The truly unconditional opponent of prayer and going to church would argue that they don’t make sense even if God does exist.
Unconditional opposition is always stronger than conditional opposition. That doesn’t mean unconditional opposition makes sense, but it’s clear why people present themselves as more unconditionally opposed than they really are.
You expect such statements to exist in context of some argument (or logical proof), then they will be used later in the argument (unless the person presenting it is wasting everyone’s time, with nefarious purposes no doubt), and the only way they can be used* is by proving the consequent by combining with a proof of the antecedent, which you disagree with in advance.
[*] because interpreting them in a way that would be usable to prove the negation of the antecedent if you somehow managed to prove the negation of the consequent would make them actually wrong. Like, “… and so having proven that we should promote homosexuality (via some other argument) we conclude that therefore homosexuality is not evil”, or even more obviously, “… and so having proven that going to church is very socially beneficial we conclude that therefore God exists”.
> You expect such statements to exist in context of some argument (or logical proof), then they will be used later in the argument (unless the person presenting it is wasting everyone’s time, with nefarious purposes no doubt), and the only way they can be used* is by proving the consequent by combining with a proof of the antecedent, which you disagree with in advance.
I don’t think this is correct. Hypotheticals are useful because they’re sometimes illuminating in the context of other scenarios. This doesn’t require the antecedent to be true. Before the simple minded turned it into a parlor game of “you said Hitler, you ‘lose’ the discussion”, Godwin’s law was just observing the usefulness of using an uncontroversial bad (Hitler) to point out something about an unrelated topic.
For a concrete example, if I’m trying to show someone the limits of “always vote for your party, no matter who the candidate is”, a particularly facile[1] way to do so is “if the candidate was Hitler, you wouldn’t vote GOP/Dem, right?”. The fact that it’s impossible for him to be a political candidate seventy years after his death (an antecedent guaranteed to be false) doesn’t mean I’m trying to use this for any nefarious purposes, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should expect a proof of the antecedent. It just opens the possibility that there is in fact a line past which the low quality of the candidate overwhelms party loyalty. This is a pretty bog standard example, but I guess it’s become a bit topical as people I know who justified a bush 04 vote on the grounds of “I don’t like him but I always vote my party” are now vociferously anti trump (who himself has gotten a fair few Hitler comparisons).
[1] given how widespread Godwin’s law is, I avoid using this particular example
No. Not at all. Godwin invented the law because he was sick of Nazi analogies. He said “I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust” (Wikipedia)
It only “observes the usefulness” of Nazi analogies in that it observes that they’re usually unhelpful.
> It only “observes the usefulness” of Nazi analogies in that it observes that they’re usually unhelpful.
This is not what the link you posted says it all (nor the source that the quote comes from). Godwin’s objection to Hitler comparisons was their trivialization of the Holocaust and Nazis, not their “unhelpfulness”.
That being said, my original point was a poor paraphrase of my memory of Godwin’s initial intention in creating the law; thanks for pointing that out. When I said
> Before the simple minded turned it into a parlor game of “you said Hitler, you ‘lose’ the discussion”, Godwin’s law was just observing the usefulness of using an uncontroversial bad (Hitler) to point out something about an unrelated topic.
the point I was trying to make was that its morphing into a well-known “fallacy” has no relation to its origins. As the Wikipedia article states:
“Godwin’s law does not claim to articulate a fallacy”
Godwin’s objection to it does not contradict the fact that it’s useful (indeed, this is part of why it’s so universal). My understanding is that his point was that whatever usefulness it has doesn’t justify using it in every possible scenario (due to the aforementioned trivialization).
excluded middle / False dilemma?
After invading southern Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, Philip II of Macedon sent a message to Sparta: “If I invade Laconia you will be destroyed, never to rise again.” The Spartan ephors replied with a single word: “If” (αἴκα).[28] Subsequently neither Philip nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to capture the city.
Alice: If I really am a Queen-
Red Queen: What right have you to call yourself so? You can’t be a Queen, you know, till you’ve passed the proper examination.
Alice: I only said “if”!
(Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll)
Alice: If I really am a Queen, I shall be able to manage it quite well in time.
Red Queen: What right have you to call yourself so? You can’t be a Queen, you know, till you’ve passed the proper examination.
Alice: I only said “if”!
(Through the Looking-Glass)
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/137890/why-is-it-sensical-for-a-proposition-with-a-false-antecedent-to-validate-to-true
It reminds me of this joke from one of Hofstadter’s books: “If wishes were horses, the antecedent of this conditional would be true.”
These statements make people upset because of implicature. They are literally true, but (unless they’re deliberately being said to make a point), people would say them only in a context where they are relevant, and the context in which such statements are relevant implies some bad things about the person saying them. Someone who doesn’t believe in unicorns would normally have no reason to say “if you are a unicorn, you should…” so saying that implies that they believe in unicorns.
I’m not sure this goes under geek social fallacies or geek linguistic fallacies, but the Internet is full of lack of understanding of implicature, some deliberate and some not.
One of my pet peeves is people kind of deliberately trying to be ignorant of implicature, as well as connotation and evidence-derived-from-assumed-common-knowledge-and-behaviour more broadly, out of some attitude that this is virtuous rationality or something.
I mean, pretending those communication channels don’t exist might work in a group where all agreed to that rule, like Crocker’s Rules, to permit more explicit communication, but reading connotation and being cautious about what connotations you make is no more a fallacy than reading body language and being cautious about what your body language says. It’s just an alternative channel, and it’s neither virtuous nor reasonable to expect everyone else to ignore what they receive on it in broader life.
You could use Gricean implicature, and some maxim-flouting, to come up with a sarcastic response.
“Assuming that abortion is murder, it should be banned.” could be responded to with:
“Assuming, hypothetically, that we were in some weird parallel universe where abortion was murder, then therefore, in such a situation, it should be banned. But we’re not, and it shouldn’t.”
Jiro is on the right track, but not quite. Indicative conditionals presuppose that it’s considered possible that the antecedent is true. (I can explain why it’s not an implicature, ask if interested.) And they presuppose that not only of the speaker, but of the participants of the conversation as a whole. So if you accept such a conditional, you go on record as entertaining the possibility that the antecedent might be true. You don’t want to go on record as accepting that homosexuality might be evil because you are quite certain that it is not. You do not actually believe these conditionals are true – you believe that they have failed presuppositions and that their counterfactual versions are true.
The counterfactual does not presuppose the possibility of the antecedent (and implicates its falsity – in this case it’s not a presupposition), so that you will probably be less hesitant to agree that “if homosexuality were evil, it should be punished”, since by uttering that counterfactual, your interlocutor suggests that he also doesn’t think homosexuality is evil.
I don’t see how those are tautologically true. Church/praying brings so many benefits that rationalists are constantly trying to invent secular versions, people dispute whether banning abortion lowers the abortion rate (much as they dispute whether banning drugs lowers the rate of drug use), we deliberately tolerate a certain amount of Wrong Things being promoted as part of the free market of ideas, etc.
I agree, they aren’t. The one that comes closest to being a tautology is “Assuming that abortion is murder, it should be banned” because murder, by definition, is killing that is banned by law. I would have changed it to “Assuming that abortion is killing, it should be banned.”
They’re just conditionals. I happen to agree that “if X is evil, then it should not be promoted”. Good thing homosexuality isn’t evil!
What’s actually happening here is that your hypothetical-debate-partner (let’s call her Alice) is making an enthymic argument. An Enthymeme is when “Alice hasn’t explicitly stated the entirety of her argument, but the missing parts are implied”. E.g. regarding the homosexuality statement, Alice’s full argument is
0) IF homosexuality is evil, THEN homosexuality should not be promoted. (explicit)
1) Homosexuality is evil. (implicit since we agree this is obviously true)
===============================
2) THEREFORE homosexuality should not be promoted. (easily inferred if you’re not a dimwit)
In colloquial conversation, Alice often explicates only the conditional (Proposition 0 in this case) and expects the rest to be inferred. I can see how you might consider it a bias, but it’s more often classified as a rhetorical tactic. One might argue that it takes advantage of what Lesswrong calls Positive Bias. I.e. the bias towards consideration of an affirmative proposition but not its negation.
This isn’t necessarily a wrong response. If a person asserts A -> B, then by asserting ~A you are saying that A -> B is true, but irrelevant. So, for example
“If God does not exist, then going to church is pointless.”
“Sure, but God does exist, so your point is moot.”
Now that said, the response you gave was more along the lines of
“If God does not exist, then going to church is pointless.”
“But God does exist, so going to church is a good idea.”
Now you’re asserting ~A -> ~B, which doesn’t follow from A -> B. So I guess you’re falling into Denying the Antecedent?
These at least are closely related (to those statements, “If [something dubious] then [dubious conclusion]”):
Thinking past the sale. “You can easily do your painting in this room,” says the home seller, so in your mind you own that house. Now you just have to do the paperwork!
Recentering. I’ve seen several of those on FB recently. “If you oppose abortion and think it’s cool for children to starve, you are not pro-child” is not meant to convey the obvious truth that being cool with children starving is not pro-child !). It’s meant associate opposition to abortion with thinking it’s cool for children to starve, so your revulsion at child starvation will make you revolted at abortion opponents as well — without the bother of checking whether abortion opponents are really like that. It short-circuits reason. Credit to Scott for his post that made me start thinking this way.
What you’re disagreeing with isn’t the logic. It’s how you’re being manipulated. And you are right to be reluctant to go along with it.
It’s not exactly the same thing but it does remind me of if-by-whiskey.
Does anybody else confuse Peter Singer and Steven Pinker?
Now I know what regular people feel when they confuse Anne Frank and Helen Keller.
that has never happened to me
Yes, all the time. For years. And most of the time I’m trying to remember Stephen Pinker’s name, but only coming up with Peter Singer, and getting very confused when I google him…
Ironic, since you are the one who regularly cites XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1529/
And we all have our little trip-ups in the brain of two unrelated things we learned at the same time that end up forever confused.
I had not noticed Rip Torn / Natalie Imbruglia on that comic. That’s great.
I confuse Peter Singer and Steven Pinker. It’s probably because their initials are similar (PS vs SP), both have two syllables in their first and last name, and both have a last name that ends “er”. So they sound a bit similar and look a bit similar on the page.
I had never heard of people confusing Anne Frank and Helen Keller.
No, but there is a danger of confusing Anne Frank and the linguist Anette Frank. Unfortunately, the latter has not had the good taste to populate her writings with example sentences or scenarios from the writings of the first.
Up until a few months ago, yes. Throw Steve Sailor into that mix too. I had to consciously train myself to get them straight even after reading Steven Pinker’s book.
Never had that particular problem, though I remember an episode of Only Connect (a UK-based fairly highbrow quiz show) in which the answer involved knowing the difference between skateboarder Tony Hawk and comedian Tony Hawks, model Kate Moss and novelist Kate Mosse, and two other pairs of people (I forget who) where one had the same name as the other plus one extra letter on the end.
Yes
I also thought Hilary Putnam (RIP) was female for a very long time,
He only died this year? Wow.
I thought Putnam was female for a while, too; I even referred to him as “she” in the first draft of an essay I wrote in college. The TA responded with a grin, “I know you don’t see many female names in philosophy – but no, Putnam’s male.”
I’m much more familiar with Pinker than Singer, and I’ve never confused them. I have Pinker’s book Better Angels here on my desk because I was just referring to it.
But for some reason, I used to confuse Andy Warhol and David Bowie. Perhaps it was because they had a similar “look”.
I did not know until this very moment that David Bowie did a song about Andy Warhol.
I’ve never had this confusion; I’m very familiar with Peter Singer but don’t think I’ve ever heard of Steven Pinker outside this forum and am not sure what he does.
My main celebrity-name-confusions that I can think of (mostly when I was younger) are Bob Dole / Bob Dillan, Michael Jordan / Michael Jackson, and Steven Spielberg / Steve Spurrier.
I do this with all names that are even remotely similar. Examples mostly escape me at the moment, but I had trouble with Orson Welles and Oscar Wilde for years. And I can never remember which is raggedjackscarlet and which is reddragdiva…
If that’s not confusing enough, sometimes you run into pairs of people with the same name. Like the two unrelated drummers in British rock bands active during the 1980s, both named Roger Taylor.
I’m not sure how much the audience is interested in parenting but here it goes.
I’m a parent of a toddler for the first time and this is a very challenging time for me. My position of parent is being tested, and it raises questions about what being a parent is.
I’ve been reading posts about nature vs nurture, school, growth mindset etc, and I’m left with the impression that parenting doesn’t really matter overall. It’s mostly genes and luck, it seems.
On the other hand, I do wake up in the middle of the night to comfort my crying child, because I’ve read and been told that it’s Bad for them to let them cry alone for long periods. And, I read her books, and do a million other things Good Parents should do. And I have some anecdotal evidence of adults who’ve been fucked-up presumably by bad parenting. As far as I know, abused children have it harder later in life. So good parenting doesn’t do anything but bad parenting does?
Or is there so much changing at puberty that traumatized kids are able to flip their life upside down, to the point where early childhood experiences become irrelevant? A sort of butterfly effect of the mind, such as a 10 seconds anecdotal experience can end-up having more effect down the line than 5 years of evil parenting?
Also, I’m here reading this blog, and I’ve read Eliezer, and kept reading because I had the impression of improving as a person. If I can update my beliefs and become a better person by reading, why can’t parents do the same with their kids by teaching them how to win at life? Is it just that most parents and schools are doing it wrong, rather than it being impossible?
Every field has an optimal quotient of intuition to hack. In CS you can hack your way into making things work better. Music is intuitive. Childrearing is even more intuitive than music. We just don’t have very much data, and aside from basic things (take them seriously, teach them to play an instrument, try to follow approximately the usual advice of “don’t be too lenient or too strict”, etc.), most things you can do are case-by-case and can’t be easily generalized or revolutionized. Don’t let a blog of predominantly single people who optimize everything dictate your parenting techniques. Your kids will not be happy. While it’s good to process advice from here and everywhere and bits of it can be good, it is better to base your ultimate decisions on a subjective understanding of the parenting styles of friends and relatives who you consider successful parents rather than on any collection of principles and meta-principles you can learn from a somewhat speculation-heavy community.
Are you saying every child needs to play an instrument? It reads like you intend this to be established and/or obvious, I’m just curious why.
None of mine seem terribly musical, which isn’t surprising since I can’t clap three beats without watching someone.
John August (Screenwriter who worked on adapting one of his movies as a musical) mused that teaching children to play a concert instrument is largely a waste of time for people who don’t plan on continuing on. What he says is more useful would be to learn guitar or piano which allow you to play chords / write music.
(Caveat, I know nothing about music)
I’ve taken music courses for most of my early life, and I can personally attest that it is worth it. It might not be the thing for you kids, but in general I find that most people are less musical than they should be. It’s an entire form of communication that you’re not exposed to, it’s like learning how read but not learning how to write.
The ability to play relatively simple guitar stuff is actually pretty useful.
I’m sure it is appreciated by those who liked it well enough to stick with it, I just doubt it is life changing for everyone exposed. (One of my embarrassing childhood memories is spending about two weeks in music class unable to get the flute to make a single sound).
I’ll just assume the mean “expose them to opportunities like learning an instrument” unless otherwise specified.
Anecdata.
I learned clarinet in band class. This foundation helped me transition to guitar-as-hobby later in life. Since I had a more-formal background, I recognize chords and scales more readily than my peers who self-taught themselves guitar by ear or tablature. (practice your scales, kids.)
I generally agree with John Jay. Concert Instruments are generally less fun to play alone than {singing, guitar, piano}. Periodically I’ll hear something on the radio I like and start strumming to it. It’s not as natural to do likewise with a concert instrument. On the other hand, I don’t know if my peers could figure out the chord progression as easily without tablature. And sometimes they don’t know how to improvise without the pentatonic scale. Sometimes they don’t know what a scale is (oi!).
I know a friend whose parents made him take piano lessons in his youth. He hated it at the time. But after his parents decided he was old enough to quit, he enjoyed piano a lot more and was grateful for his skill. He also taught himself guitar, and is currently learning the banjo.
In highschool, I had gym teachers who held the philosophy that they should teach relevant life-skills. Yes, we played things like basketball. But they also offered beginner lessons in things like archery, badminton, pilates, etc. Personally, I was on the swim team. And when I shared this with other adults, they would often rationalize that I’d be grateful for this later in life, because swimming is a life-skill that will pay-off more than if I had been on the football team. Concert instruments are analogous to {basketball, football}, and {guitar, chorus, piano} are analogous to the swimming.
For what it’s worth, I took piano lessons for a while as a child and got nothing much out of it. I find some music beautiful but mostly boring, unless it is supporting words—I like poetry.
And I cannot carry a tune.
I think the right policy is to encourage your children in things they find interesting, whether that’s playing an instrument or programming a computer.
I’ve never been remotely convinced that music was a worthwhile thing for a child to do, unless they really like it. You have to think about opportunity cost here. What else might the child have done with the many, many hours required to learn an instrument properly?
When I was a kid, my mother told me that if I chose to learn an instrument, she would support me, and I could pick any instrument. I eventually picked harp, coincidentally a very good choice – I recommend it to anyone who loves music but has a bad ear for it, since like a piano it stays tuned, and it’s a bit easier to transport/IMO prettier (though obviously that depends on personal taste). That was a wonderful thing for her to do and I am very glad she did it, and was able to do it.
I very very very luckily did not pick violin, which was my mother’s instrument; it would have been a nightmare. I did try to learn to sing, which has been overall worth it but often incredibly frustrating, and I suspect the only reason the balance has been that positive is that I was doing it of my own free will. How rewarding people find music depends a lot on innate talent. If you are low in talent and don’t terribly enjoy music to start out with, it will potentially be extremely frustrating and not very rewarding. Yes, do it long enough and you learn to hear things you never did before – actually properly hearing harmonies is the Universal Human Experience I was missing most of my life. But that took most of a decade of work. And I enjoyed music.
I absolutely think giving kids the option is a wonderful thing. It will be life-transforming for some of them. But I don’t think “every kid needs to” almost anything (exceptions for stuff like, you know. Eat, drink, breathe…) and I am absolutely sure that music is not on the very select list of exceptions.
For whatever help that may be!
I don’t think learning a musical instrument is right for every child, but I do believe in the importance of children taking up pastimes that require daily discipline. I feel like I benefited a lot from at least this aspect of learning musical instruments. Whenever I hear criticism of my parents for not bringing me up with church (or of non-church-going parents in general) on the basis of “church is an important source of weekly structure for children!”, my response is always, “Have you ever had to practice two instruments a day?”
I’d say it’s definitely not a good idea to force a child to play a musical instrument, play a sport or anything that you’d want the child to do. It is also quite likely a good way to make your child hate that if you’re too pushy. But if you’d really like your kids to like the things you do, well, you can show those things to them and show them why you like them. The chances are they might like them too. Probably not all of them, but some. Generally, I’d say it is a good idea to expose kids to a lot of stuff and then let them pick what they actually like.
People sometimes say something like “I wish me parents made me practice the piano more when I was a kid, then I could play today”…but to me it sounds like “I wish I could magically play the piano today without any effort”. It is a bit different for people who “rediscover” their instrument later in life and actually practice, but even then the chances are that parental nudging and pushing would have made them hate the instrument and they would never have started playing it again in the first place.
It’s true that a lot of us (me included) have problems with willpower and I often find myself in a paradoxical situation when I really want to do something “practice the drums or the guitar for example” but a different part of me says “no, let’s do the thing that is mildly satisfying and requires as little effort as possible”. The solution is to set things up in such a way that you actually need a considerable effort to get over the obstacles to do the simple things (for me, it sometimes means something as simple as leaving the laptop in my bag when I come home instead of putting it on a desk and turning it on). As a kid, you are usually even worse at coping with this and so there might be cases when it actually makes sense to force the child to do something if you as a parent have a feeling that the child actually really likes say playing the piano but has problems with self-discipline. But one should be careful with that (and it also assumes that the kid decided to play it in the first place as opposed to you deciding for the kid).
I am glad that I was forced to take seven years of piano lessons when I was a child simply because as a non-piano playing adult, I can still read music and have a greater working knowledge of musical concepts than the average Joe. However, that assumes that the alternative was no musical instruction at all; a similar musical understanding could probably have been accomplished somewhat easier than seven years of piano lessons from age 5 – 11, but I’m not aware of too many “music appreciation for kids” classes out there. Perhaps some sort of multi-instrumental music class for kids where they get exposed to lots of instruments and the rudiments of music would be a general positive for most kids.
The very little I have heard on this subject is that actual abuse or neglect can have negative effects, as one might expect, but that otherwise parents have very little influence over the development of their child’s personality. Which is to say, basically none beyond what they impart through their genes.
From memory, comparing adopted children’s personality traits and those of their adoptive parents, along whatever axes people quantify these things by, however it is done exactly, apparently shows correlations that are reasonably large for, say, pre-teen children, and decay away to essentially nothing as the child approaches adulthood.
The non-genetic component of people’s personality profiles is thought to be received through their social interaction with their peers through adolescence. Interestingly, it is believed by (at least some, I guess) evolutionary psychology people working in this area that this is a very natural state of affairs to arrive at in evolutionary terms, as it is much more robust than inheriting the parents’ personality traits both genetically and through socialization.
So it may be that your children will be neurogenetically incapable of actually taking your how-to-win-at-life wisdom onboard no matter how hard you attempt to (directly) impart it. Not sure what one would do then. Perhaps try and immerse the child in a peer group that is genetically biased to have favourable traits?
Of course, I don’t know how accurate or well-supported any of this actually is, beyond the fact that I heard it in a talk given by a (clinical) psychiatry professor (Russell Barkley) and that I no doubt remembered it less than perfectly well.
(I also just recalled that in an interview on Sam Harris’ podcast, psychologist Paul Bloom also says something to the effect that as far as contemporary psychology can tell, what you do as a parent really just doesn’t matter much at all. Up to the absence of actual neglect, or abuse, presumably – and of course, what exactly constitutes neglect or abuse is then a question of some import…)
As someone approaching the end of my own teenage years, I can personally attest that my parents had very little influence on my personality – at least, anecdotally – and the few pieces that I seem to share in common seem to be temporary environmental attributes, like inside jokes or family traditions. My parents are not role models, they are my parents.
My question is this: what would happen if we took two groups of children and assigned one of them special tutors, but had the others tutored in the same curriculum by their parents? My hunch is that we’d see more influence from the teachers.
Huh. As someone in Rob’s situation, I have the opposite experience. My parents aren’t just my parents, they are role models.
I can’t think of a single teacher who I would say had an influence on my personality.
As far as parenting goes, I’d say the number of books in your house matters a lot.
I don’t know how valid or confounded it is, but I recall a chapter in Freakonomics about how it correlated better with test scores than how many books the kid actually read.
A piece of advice, for what it’s worth. Make sure that they know (ie, tell them explicitly) that your love for them is not conditional on anything they achieve or do not do. It’s something to clutch in the darkness.
I live in India, where parents generally don’t show affection much, and two of my friends have told me that they have extremely tangled relationships with parents who feel worth is tied to academic achievement.
Eh, if your peer group is so unconnected to your parents that adopted kids have no traces of their parents’ influence — I think it’s a consequence, not a cause, of the personality.
Perhaps try and immerse the child in a peer group that is genetically biased to have favourable traits?
I have been wondering about this. Most parenting advice tells us not to worry too much. But peer group effects seem to suggest that to get the best outcomes, you should spend a ton of money on a selective private school and/or on moving to the fanciest neighborhood you can afford. So the intervention that I find most plausible is the most expensive by multiple orders of magnitude – which I guess shouldn’t be surprising.
Yeah, that was me attempting to be humorous. The joke being that immersing the child in such a genetically biased peer group is, of course, precisely what wealthy parents are doing in sending their children to private schools, etc.
Alternatively, let your children interact white a lot with sensible grownups. There is no reason why the peers who influence someone have to be age peers.
Easiest online, where nobody knows your age. For all any of us can tell, Deiseach could be an extraordinarily well read sixteen year old.
Mentally more like six, sometimes, and even when I was really sixteen I wasn’t really sixteen 🙂
A nice private school isn’t a break the bank expense if your child is smart enough to get a scholarship.
I have also heard of parents converting to either Catholicism or Judaism (In Israel, no less) to get their children into nice religious schools.
I’ve heard that Catholic schools in neighborhoods with bad public schools have a lot of non-Catholic families sending their kids there.
Ideally, you do the Good Parenting things out of empathy: you comfort your child because it makes you upset when they’re upset (there are exceptions, obviously, like the fake tantrums toddlers throw all the time); you read to your child because your child likes to have stories read to them, and you like to make your child happy. For similar reasons, you avoid the bad parenting stuff: you don’t abuse them, you don’t emotionally belittle them, etc. Basically, if you think you’re a pretty decent person, then don’t worry about parenting too much.
I do many things out of empathy.
But I’ve been sleep deprived for 2 years, and when a friend of mine says he successfully implemented the cry-it-out method in just a few weeks, by leaving his daughter cry alone for hours, it makes me think.
The real reason I didn’t use this “technique” is because idea of my child crying alone in the dark for several hours really horrifies me, not because I necessarily believe it makes a difference.
I find cry-it-out to be kind of horrifying too. But there are intermediate methods between cry-it-out and indefinite sleep deprivation – do some research and you might find one that works for you.
If cry-it-out results in the kid being able to self-soothe, it’s a service both to the parents and to the kid, who winds up much better-rested at the end of the process. But we found that the important part was not doing intermittent reinforcement: I think there were several strategies that would have worked with our kid, but the important part was making clear a set of expectations and sticking to them. Another benefit of this has been that we are better able to figure out when something is legitimately wrong (ear infection, teething).
How do you feed your child, and where do they sleep?
The cry it out method doesn’t specifically promote just leaving your child to cry for hours, just letting them cry for longer and longer intervals, starting at only a few minutes. It shouldn’t have to get to leaving them to cry for hours. My mother is extremely sensitive to children suffering, but she said this method worked very well for her, and didn’t require leaving me to cry for hours by myself.
Cry-it-out is a bit tricky, it’s going back to the Really Old Days of “let the baby cry, it’s only looking for attention”.
Now, a newborn infant is not merely looking for attention, it’s cold or hungry or wet and has no other means of communicating other than crying. Leaving it alone to cry until it suits your schedule (or rather the schedule the parenting theory imposes) is not ideal.
However, once the child does get older (and from 3 onwards certainly), there is the ability to cry when “looking for attention”. Still, there is generally a reason. Is the child afraid of the dark? Is there something about the room? Does it have night terrors (my younger brother did as a small child) or nightmares which it can’t tell you very clearly about? Does it just want to sleep in the bed with the parent?
If you can work out why the child is crying, then solving that rather than “cry it out” may work. Or you may find that yes, you have to leave them alone to cry for a few nights until they work out that it’s not working anymore to get them the attention.
I’ll back up Deiseach. Babies and toddlers are definitely different in relevant ways.
The method we used for our kids was let them cry for 1 min on night 1, 2 on night 2, 3 on night 3. We never even got to 5 mins of crying. They still wake up sometimes (and the oldest gets out of bed and wakes us up when he needs the bathroom) so its not a miracle cure, but we still get 4-5 nights uninterrupted sleep most weeks.
Yeah, that’s not good for anybody. It’s like working perpetual overtime.
We taught our first couple of kids to get to sleep themselves; for various reasons, we didn’t with our youngest, and she’s paying for it along with us.
This may or may not count as Ferberization, but the basic scheme is:
* Do bedtimey stuff with the child (bath, story) and tell her she’s going to go to bed and fall asleep.
* Give her a big hug, tell her you love her, put her in the crib, say goodnight, leave the room. (Turn the light out before all this.)
* The first night, let her cry for five minutes without going back in the room, then go get her and put her to sleep however you’ve been doing it: co-sleeping, nursing, whatever. This shows her that, yeah, you went away for a bit, but then you came back.
* The second night, give it ten minutes. The third night, twenty minutes. The fourth night, more. I don’t think we’ve ever gone to six nights, but your baby may vary. Knowing you’ll eventually come back seems to make them secure enough to give up and sleep.
* If you just can’t take hearing the baby cry, leave the house and let your spouse do it. Also, quit watching Mad About You re-runs; those characters are neurotic.
* One point we missed with our first: when they wake up in the middle of the night during this process, just go grab them immediately. You’re teaching them to go to sleep in the evening; they’ll catch on how to fall back asleep in the middle of the night later on. Also, sometimes babies stand up in their crib and can’t figure out how to get back down, so they need rescuing.
Does this involve a lot of crying? Yes, but only for 5 + 10 + 20 + 30 + … call it three hours, over the space of a week. And it means a lot less crying forevermore after that. Think of your goal as minimizing Total Crying Time over the next few years. You’re teaching your child a skill that pays off quickly.
And (as someone else pointed out) when your child cries in the middle of the night, you’ll know there’s some reason for it, not just, “Waaah! I can’t get back to sleep!”
If your toddler can already climb out of her crib, this may not work. I would not recommend restraining her, though locking the bedroom door might be enough.
If this takes more than a couple of weeks, give up and try something else; kids are all different.
Leaving a child alone to cry for literally hours sounds pointless and counterproductive to me. Clearly your friend’s daughter’s not getting the whole get-yourself-to-sleep bit on such a night. Are you sure she was crying the whole time? Or did she cry, quiet down, cry again, sleep some, cry some more…?
Our problem was/is the getting back to sleep, not the going to sleep. (One almost 5 year old, one 6 month old.) In both cases, we saw the same pattern show up at around 4 months — the kids would fall asleep fine for 3-4 hours, but would then require 30-60 minutes of cuddles and nursing to go back to sleep, and would wake every 1.5 hours or so after that with similar requirements. They’d seem super happy and quiet in our arms, but as soon we tried to put them down the screaming would begin.
We did a similar system of phasing out returns, but for us it was go in after 5 minutes of crying, then again after 10, 15, and hypothetically 20, 20, 20 after that. The main point was that we went in to tell them we were there and that we loved them, and check if anything was clearly wrong, but not to begin the old cuddle routine. Quite often, before 5 minutes passed, they’d already gotten themselves back to bed. It is also good that this is a job either gender can do, so the burden doesn’t fall as hard on the nursing parent.
The first night was awful in each case, with many repeats of the 20 minute cycle, but after that they slept much better and we almost never needed more than the one 5 minute check in.
Of course now, if our older girl cries out in the night, we go right away, because we know that it means something is actually wrong. As others have said, this is a huge benefit.
Not trying to tell you what to do, but getting rid of chronic sleep deprivation is great for you and your kids, and improvement is surprisingly fast.
This. Also, remember that parenting makes a ton of difference to how much your children will like you, both as children and after they’ve grown up.
This is actually quite contradictory to my experiences. Kids tend to simultaneously dislike and like their parents pretty much regardless of the quality of their parenting, assuming it’s not actively abusive. Being the primary agent of constraint for a human is not conducive to being well-liked.
And most adults with non-abusive parents shed the “dislike” part once their teens are over.
I feel like I see tremendous variation in how much people different people get along with their parents, at all ages.
During my teenage years, I had three best friends. One was my mother. Through my teens and well into adulthood (at least, as far into adulthood as I presently am) she remained one of my favorite people to talk with, one of the first people I went to when I needed advice, etc etc.
I’m not typical. All else aside, my mother and I share multiple hobbies and have very similar personalities – I would probably like her if she weren’t my mother, too. But I am not sure I can remember resenting her at any point since… maybe the age of five? And if that’s not parenting I’m not sure what it is. Maybe I just have strange genes?
(I get mildly annoyed at Dad sometimes, and vice versa, but I don’t think I particularly resent him, nor did as a teen, and in general we get on extremely well. Same potential explanations as above, I suppose?)
Obligatory disclaimer: have no kids myself, only going by experiences of being eldest of four, aunt of two, and once having been a child myself, coupled with working in a school environment and observing the little darlings in the wild outside their parents’ influence. Take all advice with a sackful of salt.
If you’re an average parent, which means you feed and shelter your kids and don’t beat them into a coma by way of putting them to bed every night, all the bumpf about “enrichment” and “quality time” and home-growing your own little Renaissance Man or Woman by age six really means nothing.
Don’t be neglectful or abusive and the kid will turn out mostly fine, even if you’re not hand-rearing them like a bottle-fed lamb according to the latest trendy theory.
Toddlerdom is a great preparation for puberty, from what I’ve observed. The same meltdowns and sobbing themselves to sleep and “But Susie’s parents let her do it!” Though your 12-14 year old will do a lot more door-slamming and “I hate you! I didn’t ask to be born!”
If you can refrain from murder, things get better after that. I think the best child-raising advice I ever heard came from the TV show of “Alien Nation”: “All you can do is love them, teach them right from wrong, and hope they don’t grow up to be an axe-murderer” 🙂
I dunno, you do get some differences. Looking at my peers there was quite a difference between my parents who, fortunately for me, I could actually talk with and whom I could reason with and who’s first approach would be to try to reason with me and the parents of some of my peers….
One friend, her parents had decided she would be a doctor and while she did end up a doctor she also had a wee bit of a mental breakdown at age 24 and eventually decided to stop being a doctor and let her registration lapse because she didn’t actually want to be a doctor very much. It made me grateful that my parents hadn’t pushed me too hard into things without reference to what I actually wanted.
Little things don’t make much difference but over 20 years you can have some effects.
Keep your promises to them, don’t abuse them and try not to push them to the point where they have breakdowns and they’ll probably be fine.
The way I read it, its not “good parenting doesn’t mean anything” so much as it is “good parenting means ‘keeping your kid whole, healthy, and reasonably happy’ and not ‘raising them in keeping with the latest trends'”. As long as you actually are comitted to doing a good job, just do what feels natural without worrying so much about exactly how strict is too strict or exactly how much classical music they should be exposed to or whatever else. The space of ‘good parenting’ is big enough that that commitment will be enough to hit it.
Full disclosure: Don’t have any kids, so I can’t be said to have put my money where my mouth is on this topic or to know from experience. It’s just what I took away from the apparent nature/nurture results.
My main advice is to not sweat the small stuff. Be there for them when they need comfort (whether they are a toddler, a teen or an adult), encourage and give them a chance to play and learn, and have a good time. Your goal as a parent is for them to be Safe, Healthy and Happy, and you can only do that effectively if you are in a good shape yourself. So, Selfcare is as important as childcare. Self-sacrifice does not improve the outcome.
That point is worth emphasizing again: your goal is not to teach them how to “win at life”, it is to give them a chance to grow safe, happy and healthy. Leading by example. Any kind of optimizing is worse than satisficing, because it puts unnecessary external pressure on the kid. Don’t be a human paperclip maximizer 🙂
And trust your intuition if you have it, over any books or advice, including this one, and the one I just gave about trusting your intuition (recurse 3 levels deep if necessary 🙂 ).
And yes, abusive parenting can screw up a kid royally and forever, I see a lot of it, but you are not that kind of a parent. Be supportive, compassionate, empathetic and in good spirits yourself, and you will do better than 99% of the parents out there.
TL;DR: Support, encouragement and selfcare: good. Abuse and pressure: bad.
I would personally suggest testing your child for Lead. Even better would be to test the paint, water and soil in your house. If the tests come out problematic you should take measures and move quickly. Lead exposue is not uncommon even in the USA. Especially if you live in a city.
Here is a chart that I cannot vouch for the accuracy of: http://www.vox.com/a/lead-exposure-risk-map
Yeah, but if you find anything good luck doing a damn thing about it.
Our house has some lead paint on the trim. Like good parents, we got estimates to abate the house properly, by a professional.
$15k was the lowest we got. Just for abatement — it’ll still be there under the new paint. And that’s just the interior.
So we’re bad parents, and get the lead tested every year instead and mop and don’t open the windows instead… and the tests on the kids have all come back within safe levels. But man, it sucks how hard it is to do the right thing on that.
Parent of two toddlers with another baby on the way here. I’ve read a lot of the same literature about how little parenting matters and my takeaway is that I’ll have more of an impact on their lives when they get old enough to be reasoned with, which may not be until they are quite a lot older.
I think the way a lot of people parent is that they try to control every aspect of their children’s behavior to the point that the kids rebel and the parents lose credibility. Sometime after the kids become adults, the parents regain credibility (hopefully) but by that time the kids have already made several ill-advised and far-reaching decisions.
If I have to choose between controlling them when they’re 5 and having them actually listen to me when they’re 20, the literature would suggest that I’m better off going for influence 20. I know I can’t guarantee that, but the mistakes a 2 year old or even a 12 year old can make are generally trivial compared to the mistakes a 20 year old can make, so I figure if I allow my kids to make what I believe are mistakes when they’re younger and can actually convince them that I will honor their agency and that I want them to be happy, then perhaps they will trust that I’m not trying to sabotage them when they’re at that rebellious age.
It seems like there’s not really any cost to letting them have their freedom at a young age, as long as we meet their needs and provide them with material and emotional support, whereas having some influence on their lives when they’re capable of making far more permanent decisions seems important. So that’s our game plan… I’m also aware it may fail miserably and I’m trying to enjoy the ride.
We’ve tried to err on the side of letting our kids push their boundaries physically and mentally, and we speak with them like they are allowed to make their own decisions (and we try to offer them an acceptable subset of options so that it doesn’t matter what decision they make) and at least so far, we have some well behaved kids who seem to be able to sense when it is important to listen to us. Probably just genetics…
I’m a parent of a 4.5-year-old and a 9-month-old. Your kids are gonna be who they’re gonna be, and you’ll start seeing startlingly familiar personality traits soon if you haven’t already. Which is both cool and terrifying. Don’t abuse them and that’s all you can really do on the not-screwing-them-up front.
BUT.
What you CAN do that will make a difference is to teach them things. There are adult humans out there who don’t know how to make a budget, clean a carburetor, or open a bank account. You are uniquely positioned to convey skills – not in the sense of shaping their long-term personalities or proclivities, or increasing their IQ, but of providing actual data, algorithms and heuristics to help them function wherever you’re raising them.
This is really fun, because you get to vicariously experience the joy of learning something new and awesome. For example, until last night, my eldest thought pirates were totally fictional. His mind was BLOWN.
Also neat: Receiving the gift of flavor. Not just an album by The Urge.
tl;dr: Don’t let rationalist optimization interfere too much with sharing joie de vivre with your child(ren). You only get one life, after all.
ETA: ‘screwing up’ isn’t the same as ‘abusing’. The fact that you’re seeking advice on how to best raise your child is a strong indicator that you’re unlikely to do permanent damage.
What percentage of cars on the road even have a carburetor? Do lawn mowers even use them these days?
What percentage of cars on the road even have a carburetor? Do lawn mowers even use them these days?
Okay, I take your point, but small things like “how to wire a plug”, “what if the tap is dripping, do I really need to call a plumber”, “how to do some basic cooking”, “how to put on a load of laundry” and minor things like that – whether they’re boys or girls or whatever point of the non-binary gender spectrum they fall on 🙂
Basically no cars, actually most lawn mowers. At least, all the lawn mowers I have used to any extent. First time I tried to troubleshoot a mower was a really interesting experience, it demystified internal combustion systems for me. (It was a clogged fuel line, which taught me to always try the simplest thing first when troubleshooting.)
” For example, until last night, my eldest thought pirates were totally fictional. His mind was BLOWN.”
Get him The Invisible Hook by Peter Leeson. Or point him at the short version:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Legal_Systems_Draft/Systems/PirateLaw.htm
Don’t worry that much. You are doing fine. You’re actually trying and you care and that counts more than anything. Really. I guess just don’t care too much and become a helicopter parent, make sure you let your kids try and fail and learn. I enjoyed Lenore Skenazy’s blog as a kid myself–she’s one of the big “Free Range Parenting” promoters.
Your first child: He’s crying, oh my God, what am I doing wrong!
Your second child: He’s crying, check the diaper, yawn. If he keeps it up for 30 minutes then I’ll investigate.
Just like bigger humans, sometimes they just need to get it out. The first time you let your child just cry it out is absolute torture….for the parent. Turns out they never hold it against you. I would try to avoid the “who’s nurtures the best and longest” competitions in the play group.
Stay at home dad of a 3 year old and a 1 year, so I fancy myself an expert, and a few years from now I will fancy myself as an idiot.
My interpretation of the data (I’m a fan of Bryan Capalan’s approach) is that good parenting matters a lot, but hard parenting doesn’t do squat. I would bet/guess that exposure to music and instruments is a gross good for children. The ones that take to it might see a real effect over their lives, but if you have to fight that kid to get them to practice every day, to be nice to their teacher or get home on time for lessons then that benefit generally gets cancelled out by all those negative interactions. This works in the opposite direction as well, I would bet/guess that TV is a net harm to small kids, and that if you could isolate the effect of 1/2 an hour a day it would be a clear negative. BUT parents that give their kids a half hour a day basically get a half hour break to relax or catch up on chores or reply to comments online. The rest of the day they are probably a little more patient and a little more attentive than they would be without that time, and so TV (in moderate amounts) ends up a wash.
In general I think its best to make parenting easy. Sleep training (to follow some of your responses), good nutrition/eating habits and avoiding long periods of sitting down (long car rides, movies) are the most important focal points. Everything else falls into place when you have taken care of the basics.
Lastly anytime someone reasonably trustworthy offers to babysit- take that offer ASAP. If they didn’t mean it they will weasel out or never do it again, but taking help is good for you and your kid, and toughing it out on your own is detrimental.
Father of 9 yo and 6 yo here. I also take a lot from Bryan Caplan, particularly his rule that if they don’t like it and I don’t like it don’t do it. Also how dicipline is about making kids tolerable to live with, not molding them into someting 20 years from now. Since outside of being abusive, parenting style probably does not matter that much you may as well enjoy things an take it easy. Your intuition is proably right most of the time for your situation and personality.
We did not do the cry it out, but not because I think it would have damaged the child but because we did not like listening to them cry and we liked comforting them. We took it even farther and had them sleep in our room while they were nursing. Mainly because that made it easier for us.
It is funny, my family travels in a circle of pretty hovering parents. There are lots of stay at home moms with MD, PhD, Law degrees etc that have no other outlet for their considerable talents other than optimizing the lives of their children and the dads are generally pretty involved as well. My wife and I both work and are much more laid back. So far I have not seen any real difference between kids of active or more laid back parents.
One thing you might want to consider is whether there are situations where giving in to the kid’s demands is costless, hence he should have his way.
When our kids were little, one of the rules was that they didn’t have to eat what we were having for dinner if they didn’t want to–provided that there was something else they could have that was adequately nutritious and no extra trouble for us. That’s one example of a more general point–rules should have reasons that you are prepared to explain to the kid. If it turns out that you lose the argument, that there is not an adequate reason, concede.
they didn’t have to eat what we were having for dinner if they didn’t want to–provided that there was something else they could have that was adequately nutritious and no extra trouble for us
That reminds me of something that happened when I was four or five. I was never a picky eater and generally ate whatever was put before me, but this day for whatever reason I didn’t eat a portion of vegetables: I can’t remember if it was because I didn’t like them or I just wasn’t hungry enough to eat everything.
My mother, of course, wanted me to eat my healthy veggies so it was “Finish what’s on your plate” “No” “You’ll stay sitting at the table until you eat that” “Fine”.
I imagine she thought that I’d get bored, want to go play, and would give in, but no – table was cleared, plate was left before me, I was left sitting there, and there I sat for three or four hours, and when it was plain that I was not going to give in on this, she gave in and took the plate away and said “Okay, you can get up now”.
Small children can be surprisingly stubborn 🙂
I had an experience like this; my mother gave me some zucchini dish that I nibbled at and then refused to eat. She was run ragged at the time, got annoyed at my stubbornness, and told me I would eat it or not leave the table. Several hours later, she finally tasted the dish herself, and realized it was freezer burned.
I got an unprecedented amount of chocolate by way of apology, and life was good.
I’ve found meal times to be very interesting. For one it seems like my kids are ordinal rankers when it comes to food. Put a plate with chicken, peas and mashed potatoes in front of the 3 year old and he will often ask for something else. Put Chicken, peas and mash on the table and offer him each one and it usually goes like this
“chicken?”
“no”
“Peas?”
“no”
“potatoes?”
“no”
“Chicken/peas?”
“Yes”
This has worked for one fussy eater I know when I told her mom about it. She used to refuse all dinner food and then go through half the pantry saying “no”, no matter what was offered or what order it was offered.
Could you explain what you mean by ordinal rankers? I am confused by what the problem with the picky eaters was and how you solved it.
They would not want Peas and Chicken and Potatoes, but they would want Potatoes and Chicken and Peas.
TinyHumans are weird.I don’t provide alternate meal options, and usually don’t allow access to snacks if the prepared dinner isn’t eaten, but the most I’ll require being eaten is a bite of everything, encouraging them to obey their hunger feeling rather than the arbitrary portions I ladle onto the plates.
We let them eat whatever’s available outside mealtimes. That whatever is rather more strict than their peers, but conversely they now enjoy meat, vegetables, fruit, etc., and aren’t deprived from not knowing the pleasures of open access to soda, chips, cookies, etc. like some of their silver mouthed friends.
That was a tangent to David’s point, I know, and I agree with the larger point. Children should be taught consideration and self-discipline, but probably aren’t going to appreciate the lesson if they see the rules as arbitrary.
When I was a nanny I’d enforce the big rule and give the kids choices on the littler stuff. Like when it was bedtime, it was bedtime, but I’d let the younger boy pick out any of his pajamas or clean T-shirts to sleep in. Or if I was making dinner for them, I’d say “ok, we’re having chicken, rice, and a vegetable – would you rather have green beans or salad?” so they could pick the vegetable between two or three options given. That helped minimize conflict because while I was either making the rules or enforcing their parents’ rules, they also got to exercise a bit of control of their own and make choices. Occasionally it didn’t work, but it cut down on their arguing by quite a bit.
@Cadie – does giving meaningless choices really work? (I don’t have kids). It’s always struck me as condescending, and that a kid would pick up on that very fast. I know that when people try that technique on me as an adult, I’ve always found it extremely irritating (“When I tell you to jump, would you like to glance left, right, up, or down, as you immediately jump?”). It strikes me as some sort of crazy neurolinguistic programming idea, that if they embed a trivial choice in big command, the trivial choice means I won’t notice the big command, or will somehow react as if it were a choice and not a command. Maybe if it ever works, it’s for the social fiction involved that it’s not actually an order.
@Seth With my two-year-old boy, yes, definitely (But it’s not magic.)
My interpretations of most of the tantrums that he throws is that he is upset simply because he is not getting to decide what he does. The particular thing that he desired to do is rarely important, and can flip completely in an instant. All that seems to matter at this stage is whether or not he feels like he’s making choices. I expect this is part of his age, and it will not be true when he is older.
Also, when he is upset about something offering options without changing the big thing redirects his attention and gives him something to focus on besides the fact that he is upset.
I guess I see it less as manipulation, and more as helping him. His mind is not particularly well-trained or developed and has a tendency to get stuck in a self-reinforcing tantrum state that works against his own interests. For example, sometimes as we get ready to go to grandma’s house (which he loves) he will get distracted by some other fun thing and then tell us that he doesn’t want to go to grandma’s house (he really does – he’s always happy about it afterwards). He is learning agency but he hasn’t yet learned how to weigh his preferences and so we help him along.
Finally, we do give him meaningful choices. There are a few non-negotiable things that we season with options (bedtime, meal times, “please stop”, etc.) but most days he gets to choose whether to play outside or inside, what park to go to, what clothes he gets to wear, what to eat for breakfast, what books to get from the library, etc. I imagine this is what Cadie meant too.
@smocc – My eye was caught by “Like when it was bedtime, it was bedtime, but I’d let the younger boy pick out any of his pajamas or clean T-shirts to sleep in”. I’d wonder about how much that mattered if a kid didn’t want to go to bed. Along the lines of “Now it’s time to go to bed, but I’ll let you pick out any pajamas or clean T-shirt to sleep in”, getting a reply of “I don’t want to pick out anything because I don’t want to go to bed”. Maybe not at two years old. But it struck me as an obvious reply sometime. There’s a difference between offering real choices about an activity, and something along the lines of: you’re going to do what I tell you to do, even though you don’t want to do it, but let’s both pretend some insignificant aspect means you have meaningful control.
@smocc:
???
This is true at any age, especially for people chronically deprived of the ability to choose. The only difference is that, as people get older and wiser, their “bad choices” will tend to be less stupidly self-destructive and more akin to minor lapses in conscientiousness, so the trade-off between “making the good choice” and not surrendering their autonomy starts tipping in the other direction, and so of course we recognise that and allow more freedom with age. There are many things even adults do just out of the impulse of “fuck it, I am free”, and you’d feel stifled too if you were nannied into living responsibly every day, for every single choice to be made.
@ Seth
I agree that there’s a real difference, and that you or I would probably notice and care. My point is that a two-year-old really doesn’t seem to notice or care. At this point he seems pretty satisfied to be making choices, period. As he ages I expect to change strategies as he gains the ability to reason about choices and their consequences (though some rules will remain inviolable.)
Seth – in my experience (which is as a nanny, babysitter, and non-parent relative of children and adolescents) the constrained choices thing helps a lot with younger children, only occasionally failing if they really don’t want to go to bed or whatever and put up a fight, and as they get older they do get more resistant but it can still be modified and used as part of compromise techniques. A 12-year-old girl won’t be fooled by “do you want cherry or strawberry chapstick?” when she’s asking for makeup and you’re not keen on her using much yet. But chances are good she’ll be OK with getting a makeover at a makeup counter at the mall, wherein you tell the salesperson ahead to use light, subtle colors, and then she can choose whether she wants peach or pink lip color and brown or charcoal mascara and maybe something a little bolder and brighter for special occasions. You’re still making part of the choice – she doesn’t get free run of the Cover Girl section yet – but she’s allowed some choices of her own.
I’ve wondered whether offering a lot of fake choices results in adults who don’t know what they want, but this is only a guess.
Another thought on this:
I don’t think I am offering my son fake choices to trick him. Rather, I’m trying to help him learn an important mental discipline that he can use the rest of his life. (Well, most of the time anyway.)
Everyone’s actions are constrained all the time. I mean, on some level I could act to satisfy all my immediate desires, but many of those options come with heavy, unavoidable consequences. I can stay up to 4 am playing video games, and sometimes I do, but I also know the short- and long-term effects of that choice and so most of the time
As an adult I’ve (mostly) learned how to deal with the disappointment of being constrained by consequences. One technique is to always be looking for ways to turn unpleasant things into pleasant things: I hate doing dishes, but I can watch a youtube video while I do them. Another is to offer deals to myself: if I finish this report now, I can play videogames later.
Two-year-olds are bad at predicting consquences (if I keep playing at home I can’t go to grandma’s house) and they don’t have practice mitigating disappointment. Most of the time when I offer “fake choices” I’m trying to teach him this sort of thing, and I think it kind of works, though slowly.
[disclaimer: no experience]
I’ve read that parents can be divided into two groups: those who ask “how do I avoid ruining this kids’s life”; and those who ask “how do I avoid having this inconvenient poop-machine ruin my nightlife”. The former type generally raises their kids well. They also worry excessively, even though they have nothing to worry about. The latter type generally makes their child’s life miserable and doesn’t give a shit. Given you’re thinking about your child’s well-being at all, you’re probably in a good spot.
My personal model of parenting compares it to eating. If you’re child is emaciated, then they’re not going to grow up Big & Strong (and probably not do well in class). But if you overstuff them like a stereotypical Italian mother, that won’t have any effect beyond the point at which the child feels satisfied. (I could have alternatively drawn an analogy to health or wealth.)
#everything is a sigmoid
Regarding the sleep-deprivation problem. I believe Attachment Theory says making the kid feel safe is generally better than letting them rough it out themselves. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to solve the problem on your end.
If there’s insufficient variation in parenting style then when you look at the empirical effects of different styles it may artificially seem like parenting does not matter when really the issue is that your sample doesn’t represent all possible types of parenting. I think most people raise their children in essentially similar common sense ways. Also, parenting styles correlate with genes, which might hide some of parenting’s effect.
When you look at extreme outliers, like abusive parents, effects can clearly be seen even though these effects are small relative to the overall population and can not be detected by looking at summary statistics. If it is possible to be an outlier on the other end of the parenting quality spectrum, to be as good a good parent as abusive parents are bad parents, then you will be able to greatly improve your child’s life.
Hi treth,
I am also a parent (of two young children) and am also confused by this apparent conflict between the Judith Rich Harris (and I think Scott Alexander) point of view which says that parenting style, other than outright abuse, has limited demonstrable impact on long term outcomes and the other point of of view (held by most people) that how you parent has significant lifelong impacts. One way I try to integrate these points of view is to consider the possibility that parenting styles have significant short term effects, but limited long term ones. For example, cry-it-out, which my wife and I have employed to some degree, has some short term impact on the child (positives: they end up sleeping longer; negatives: higher temporary stress hormone levels), possibly some medium-term attachment impacts (but I haven’t found any good literature on this), and probably minimal long-term impacts. And you should also take into account the long and short term benefits to the parents which are pretty obvious. As well as the fact that every child is different and it’s always possible (although with a low prior probability) that your child is on the tail of the curve where typical techniques don’t work that well. And in your specific case, where you have a two year old, I don’t know how effective cry-it-out is (given the well known two-year old qualities of loudness and stubbornness).
Another reason I try to be a “good” parent, despite its apparent lack of long-term impact, is that these outcome studies typically measure things like income, criminality, etc. and not “how much you hate your dad”. It’s well within the realm of possibility to be a successful person and still have a terrible relationship with your parents. My wife and I are trying to avoid this outcome.
Finally, great question on the “so I should probably teach my kid rationality right?” I know I’m going to try. I guess I have a high prior for rationality being useful? Although I think that’s more of a rationalization than a rational decision.
Best of luck to you.
Re: Princess Stargirl’s Vox map. I think that map is based on factors which are typically correlated with lead risk like poverty, age of housing, etc. not really on actual measurement data. So usual grains of salt should be applied.
I think that good parenting gives your children a happier childhood. It probably has some longer run effects as well. But I gather the evidence is that, within the normal range, parenting does not have a large effect on the adult personality.
I suffered a lot from childhood wounds. I know many, many other people that speak of things in the childhood and wince. Even pretty functional people have pain from their childhoods that affect their lives as adult. It’s just too common and pervasive for me to ignore as I raise my own.
What are the bounds? I don’t think we can measure a difference in adult happiness from somebody who got yelled at very little and someone who never got yelled at all. At the other end, we can see results from horrific child abuse: they can be overcome, but sometimes they are not. How much abuse has how much affect won’t be predictable, because people differ. But I know that I don’t want my children to be test cases. 🙂 So I protect them. Some of the most important ways I intervene on their behalf is:
* I defend them. When one of them was serially and severely bullied in K, when I found out, I talked to the principal and we got a plan to keep the two children separated
* I listen to them. They know it’s OK to be angry and it’s OK to tell me if they’re upset
* I check, when I (say) want them to not do something: is this because I can’t bear to see or hear it, or because it’s a bad thing for them? If it’s about me, I try to go with their needs instead. Except that it’s OK for me to say, Sorry, I need a break from talking about Pokemon
I think most parents are less aware. Some do what comes naturally and it’s pretty good as it is (my spouse, for example). For the rest of us, awareness is essential.
It seems that you’ve gotten quite a few replies, both from those who have a lot of personal experience, and those who do not, but probably have a good head on their shoulders and have read some on the subject.
If my experience is of import, I have a ton of experience working with children ages 10-15 as a summer camp counselor and coordinator (outdoorsy, backpacking, campers stay for a month at a time), and the caliber was high enough that I am comfortable with using the phrase “youth development professional” to refer to many of those who work there.
I guess first things first. It may seem like I’m setting the bar low, but it sounds like you are already asking questions and reading a lot, and you care. That’s honestly really good, and takes a lot of time and work.
You of course cannot ignore genes and luck, but on a daily parenting basis, it can probably be left aside. Good parenting is the facilitation of the actualization of a capable, and hopefully good, human being. And hopefully one who can create, evaluate, and pursue goals that lead to their happiness and the happiness of those around them. This includes skills (emotional, social, life, intellectual), but also developing certain mindsets, such as the confidence that they are able to learn, or that they should “try new things”. Puberty is a significant turning point, as it coincides with independence and deviation from previous attitudes, but it is far from making childhood experiences irrelevant.
I don’t really think there was a specific, main question you asked, or if there was, that I am capable of answering it well. But if you’re wondering if that you trying hard, becoming informed, and taking a deliberate approach matters, it does.
One of my friends asked a bunch of his friends for advice about parenting when he was an incipient parent.
I wish I’d asked about what the other friends said, but I said “Try to like your kid”.
I never did have children, but one of my questions was “What if I got a kid I didn’t like?”.
I assume sometimes there’s a kid who’s just a bad personality match for one or both parents. Am I right? If so, is there anything to be done about this?
I mentioned before that a local family (Both parents were doctors, so not white trash) adopted a girl and then gave her back when she turned out poorly (Not that poorly AFAICT). So that is always a possibility.
I had to stifle a laugh reading your post, because often when I read comments on this blog I think “you clearly don’t have children!” In other words, this isn’t really the set of people I’d be asking for parenting tips. However, many of the comments people have been written are pretty good. My two cents (two elementary-school kids):
— conveying skills / habits / activities is both enjoyable and worthwhile. We’d read a lot to our kids, and they both developed a real love of reading. Art/drawing was similar. Perhaps relatedly: we strictly limit screen time. I am really struck by kids I encounter who seem lost without some sort of electronic device — it’s sad to see.
— I agree, especially after having the second kid, that you can’t really mold temperament. You can, however, model and teach manners and general “good behavior.”
“I am really struck by kids I encounter who seem lost without some sort of electronic device ”
There are different sorts of electronic devices. Our kids didn’t have access to television (nor did we–if there was one it was kept in a closet). They had access to computers and gameboys. As best I could tell, the effect of both was positive. They were doing interesting things because they wanted to, not because someone was making them, interacting with people who might be considerably older, even from a different country.
I really don’t sweat the screen time thing as long as the kids are getting exercise and other forms of mental stimulation. Maybe it is because I watched a ton of TV as a kid as did several highly competent coworkers. I would often watch something on TV on a Saturday, then get curious about something I did not understand and then go research that topic in the encyclopedia. Actually that is not to different than what I do online today.
Also some TV shows are pretty good for learning. PBS shows like Odd Squad, Cyberchase, Electric Company and others do alot of teaching and are amazingly not terrible to watch as an adult. And even non educational shows can be fun to watch as a family as a shared experience and the stories sometimes create a jumping off point for imaginative play.
The downside to screen time is that kids might not get exercise, but the same could be said for reading or playing with dolls/blocks etc. And at least with games like minecraft the kids seem to be exercising an important part of the brain. I guess TV time is passive time for the brain, but they get lots of active time with school and other things sometimes they just want to veg same as I do.
My wife (an engineer) once complained that our daughter did not like to read and I pointed out to her that she did not like to read either.
If you read carefully, you will see that parenting does not much affect IQ in full adulthood and it doesn’t much affect the big 5 personality dimensions. That leaves a lot up for grabs
* You can make a big difference to the start a child gets in life.
* You can provide them with opportunities. I had a friend whose parents couldn’t afford to send him to college. In the end he made it, studying part time while in a low income job, but it was a huge struggle.
* Being in a place where they can find good friends. We changed our daughter’s school and suddenly you weren’t considered a freak to be interested in learning. She made many long term friends there.
* Generally allowing them to enjoy their 20’s rather than spending those years getting over the trauma of a dysfunctional childhood.
Can I make two suggestions:
1. A great book on parenting is “Parent Effectiveness Training” (PET). I found it life-changing and several friends report the same. It answers the question “how to balance the need for the child to learn from their mistakes, with the alleged fact that you know better than they do”. I say ‘alleged’ because it is not always true eg would your mother do a better job of dressing you for a party at 16 than you would? Parents tend to veer between authoritarianism and permissiveness – there is a better way!
2. Robert Kegan’s framework of development phases can help you to understand what your child is thinking and what they are capable of. A summary and links here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_hpownP1A4PdERFVXJDVE5SRnc/view?usp=sharing
Not a parent, but speaking as someone that has spent a few years teaching children (so I got to see the after effects):
1: If it isn’t likely to seriously harm them, let them do it.
2: It is probably less likely to seriously harm them than you think.
3: Into every life a little rain must fall, including theirs. People learn by the consequences of their actions. Err on the side of doing less to mitigate the impact of bad decisions.
As for what you can directly do:
1: They need to learn a skill that requires significant practice to master. Preferably several. Which skill(s) aren’t terribly relevant, so let it be something they enjoy doing. It is not about what they learn, but about learning how to improve and overcome challenges.
2: Teaching people skills is a way underrated practice.
3: As others have mentioned, try to impart basic maintenance and life management skills.
4: The most important thing that you can impart that is likely to stick are good habits. Be careful though, they are likely to learn your bad ones as well.
5: A safety helmet while learning to walk works wonders, both in minimizing knocks to the head and for your peace of mind.
Not only is this audience interested in parenting, you’ve succeeded in bringing the lurkers out of the shadows. I would not have guessed that this blog’s readers include so many people with kids.
Your kids’ adult outcomes won’t depend terribly much on your parenting (or your spouse’s parenting), provided you don’t malnourish them or abuse them. The outcome that will be different will be the relationship you and your kid(s) have. If you ignore their emotional distress a lot, they’ll hate you later.
(It’s late, so I’m not going to write more now. But I could.)
Father of 13-months old here; some random opinions:
Sometimes modifying your home is easier in long term than worrying about something every day. For example, there is this cheap plastic stuff you can put in the electric sockets, so you don’t have to worry whether your child will get hurt experimenting with them. (By the way, if you are building or reconstructing a house, put your electric sockets at least 1m high, not directly above the floor. Easier to use, out of reach of a toddler, safer in case of flood.)
By similar logic, we decided to use a mattress directly on the floor as a bed for the baby. (I know, appropriating Japanese culture.) Zero risk of falling out of the bed. When the baby wakes up, she can just walk out from her bed, no need to call us in frustration. Now she uses the bed as a training ground for standing; it might be slightly more difficult, but it doesn’t hurt when she falls.
Listen to your instincts; they do exist for a reason. Of course, reflect on them; don’t always follow them blindly. But please consider “acting on your instinct” to be a reasonable default action, with the burden of proof laying on the side of things you read on internet; or even expert advice, which quite frequently is the opposite of the expert advice from ten years ago. (Remember all those studies that failed to replicate.)
Babies usually cry for a reason; typical reasons are hunger, thirst, exhaustion, frustration, wet diaper; occassionally growing teeth. (Maybe I forgot something important here.) Fix these problems and the baby is generally happy (albeit sometimes annoying and requiring your almost constant attention). The exhaustion is tricky, you need to remember how long was the baby’s recent sleep and how much time has passed since then.
When you leave the baby alone at night, of course it is going to cry. Think about the evolutionary reasons in the ancient environment. When the baby was abandoned by the parents, it usually meant death, literally, unless the baby succeeded to call them back. When the baby failed to call back parents soon enough, the most likely explanation was that the parents walked too far away, so they didn’t hear. In which case the backup plan is a “freeze mode”, which means becoming completely quiet to avoid attracting predators, and slowing down metabolism to conserve resources, in hope that maybe later at unspecified time the parents would return. This “freeze mode” is taxing to the child’s health, including mental health, when done repeatedly. People who interact with children from orphanages recognize the symptoms easily; in institutional care this sadly happens quite often. Children who have spent too much time in the “freeze mode” become generally apathetic; they reduce their interaction with people and exploration of environment when awake, and they also do cry less at night, because they generally do less of everything. (Not forever; but it may take a few months to revert the condition, after a child from orphanage was adopted.) — So, whenever you hear some kind of “just let them cry themselves to sleep; they will cry less later” advice, please also consider this. (On the other hand, when the child is already asleep, just turn on some listening device, and leave the room. Come back quickly when the child wakes up.)
Buy a baby carrier. (Actually buy two, one for each parent, so you don’t have to adjust them every time.) It will allow you to walk with free hands, on any terrain. With a newborn, you can use it at home, and get some things done. Outside, it becomes much easier to make sure the baby isn’t too cold or too hot. At evening, you can use it to cradle the baby to sleep. You can take a walk, and before returning home do some quick shopping. With some practice, you can move the sleeping baby from the carrier to the bed without waking it up. (Our strategy is to do this cca 30 minutes after the baby fell asleep, because then the sleep seems deepest. Probably depends on age. I slowly lay on my back on the mattress on the floor; wait a minute or two; remove the straps of the carrier; gently rotate and lay the baby on the mattress. Even if the baby wakes up for a moment, she usually falls back to sleep quickly. Cover the baby if necessary; then walk away.)
Here is a useful training for future parents: try to learn doing as many things as you can using only one hand. You will thank me later.
Maybe what you are doing now doesn’t make a big difference ten years later, but it still makes a difference today. If you optimize for something like “the integral of happiness over the lifetime”, then things matter even if they are later forgotten.
When I try to teach my child something, I often find that the child is not ready (biologically, mentally), so I give up, and don’t try again for a month or two. But sometimes the child happens to be ready, and then dramatic progress can happen. As an example, I was bored once and didn’t know what to do, so I put my daughter in the carrier and walked outside, trying to find the nearest dog or a bird, and showing her “this is a dog”, “this is a bird”; repeating this for an hour. After that day, her behavior changed visibly. She wakes up, looks out of the window and says “dog!” and “bird!” (well, within her abilities of pronounciation, which means that unfamiliar people would probably not recognize what she meant), and when we are outside, she keeps scanning the environment. — But that’s probably a lucky coincidence that I did it on the right day. Many other attempts at teaching things have failed; e.g. she has Lego Duplo for many months, but can’t do anything with it. But once I showed her how to put a ball in a cup, and then shake the cup, and she liked it. In general, I believe the more attempts you make, the more lucky outcomes you get. Just keep the lessons short and be ready to give up.
Sometimes non-toys are the best toys. As a few months old, she loved playing with an empty plastic bottle. (Tried to put it in her mouth, but holding the bottle perpendicular to her mouth. No idea why, but she enjoyed doing that.) Today the most favorite toy is a bunch of keys. I also let her play on my old portable keyboard (similar to this).
Among toys I recommend this baby gym: at first, you can put this above the baby, so the baby can play with the hanging stuff, later the toddler can use it as a help for standing up. For the smallest baby, this octopus is great thing to hang above the baby’s chest: different colors and shapes, interesting to touch, flexible to pull. (If you are not a parent, these two are great gifts to new parents.) — This chair is high but safe, and comes with a separable tray; great for eating (you can separate the tray and wash it afterwards).
I find it weird that in USA there seems to be a huge cultural opposition against breastfeeding. Human milk is literally optimized by evolution as a baby food; it is easiest for the baby to digest (which means less digestion problems for the baby, which means more sleep for you). It contains white blood cells, so your baby’s immune system gets regular updates from the mother. It has always the right temperature, it never spoils, and it is almost always ready. (The artificial baby formulas were supposed to be an inferior replacement in case of mother’s health problems.) If you can breastfeed long enough, you can skip the entire baby-food industry; when the baby grows teeth, start feeding them with what you eat (only without sugar, salt, and spices), blended at the beginning. (You have to avoid some foods up to some age, consult the literature for details.)
If you had a habit of doing many things together with your partner, you may want to break that habit. Otherwise there is a risk that both of you e.g. spend three hours taking care of the baby together, and then at the same moment both of you say “okay, now I’m exhausted, I need a break”. My advice is that when one takes care of the baby, the other should do something else (maybe staying in the same room and keeping conversation, but not playing with the baby directly); so that you can switch later. When you eat together, only one of you at a time tries to feed the baby, so the other can eat freely; you may switch roles when the other is finished.
This is sometimes difficult to explain to people, but insist: When strangers come to visit (and yes, even your own parents are strangers for the baby if this is their first visit after the baby was born), spend about 10 minutes with baby on the other side of them room, letting the baby observe them. Only then gradually attempt close contact. (The exact values may depend on the specific baby.)
That’s all I can think about now.
This is all good advice, although don’t think that you need to have a baby in it’s own crib or bed, you’ll all sleep better if the infant is close at hand, especially in conjunction with breastfeeding.
We didn’t know how to solve this: you want the infant (1) close at hand for the purposes of breastfeeding, but (2) prevented from falling down from the bed, but (3) with a convenient option for you to leave the bed.
I may be missing something obvious, but the place where you can leave the bed is the place where the infant can leave the bed, too. So, our solution is the mattress on the floor, so leaving the bed is not dangerous for anyone.
They’re expensive, but if you search for “sidecar bassinet” you’ll find what is basically a minicrib with three walls and an adjustable height, meant to be placed next to your own bed with the mattresses at the same height. This solves all criteria until the child is coordinates enough to crawl out, and was very useful to us.
“hunger, thirst, exhaustion, frustration, wet diaper; occassionally growing teeth”
Don’t forget “someone I don’t know is holding me”
though they’re surprisingly bad at recognizing exact people if the shape of the face and movements are about right. I could substitute for my brother when his kids were infants and hadn’t met me before and they’d happily sleep in my arms. Others holding them and they’d realise something was up and cry.
The one thing that I think I’ve seen Good Parents do that I haven’t heard elsewhere is develop emotional maturity yourself. Learn how to deal with stressful situations while you are tired, groggy, and annoyed without taking it out on your kid. The majority of the time when I see parents upset at children is because the parent is tired and stressed out. A parent who can notice they themselves are upset, can take a minute to take some deep breaths and cool down, and then can react to their children’s antics in a mature manner seem like they’d be much better parents.
Not sure how much you like reading, but my wife recently read Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids and shared some bits of it with me. Mostly, parenting doesn’t matter. However, there are a couple of areas where you do have long-lasting effects. Given how hard it is to do randomized controlled trials, I think you want to err on the side of good parenting just in case it has a bigger effect than we think.
In my limited experience (parent of 4 but the oldest is only 9) parenting does have an effect on short-term behavior, which in turn has an effect on opportunities later in life. Teaching your kids to not interrupt constantly, to occasionally sit still for an age-appropriate amount of time, and to be comfortable with being wrong, not knowing the answer, and asking questions are all skills that make school into something actually useful for them. One of my kids does a lot of that naturally, but the other required a bit of parenting to get to a point where she can learn effectively both at home and at school (the other two are still too young to say).
“Teaching your kids to not interrupt constantly, to occasionally sit still for an age-appropriate amount of time, and to be comfortable with being wrong, not knowing the answer, and asking questions are all skills that make school into something actually useful for them.”
Yes, this is great, and these are habits that *can* be reinforced.
I’m a parent of two elementary school age kids. Advice I would give you:
– The fact that you care at all puts you ahead of ~50% of all parents. So you’ll probably do fine.
– Your number one job is to keep them physically safe. Your number two job is to support them in whatever they’re interested in so that they grow up feeling good about themselves. That’s really all that matters.
– Don’t make anything mandatory unless you’re willing to do whatever it takes to enforce it. If it’s not worth making a big deal out of, don’t worry about it.
– IME putting kids in timeout works.
– Read thelastpsychiatrist.com in reverse order. Stop when all the posts are about medicine. Pay attention to when he talks about parenting.
– Enjoy them. They’re magic.
Father of 3 and 6 year old here. As some others have mentioned, parenting can probably not influence personality traits, temperament and innate ability, but it is going to determine what your child actually experiences, how it sees itself and others, what goals/situations it associates with its needs, and how much debugging it will need later in life to become basically functional.
I do not know if this metaphor helps you, but small children are mostly in a psychedelic state, and you are tripsitting them. Their experience is immediate and unbroken by reflection, they are ready to follow arbitrary narrative trajectories to explain the world, they are emotionally extremely engaged, and they retain an incredible amount of memories. Like adults, they are living in a dream world, but theirs is more vivid, mutable and impractical. Much of our disagreements with children stem from their inability to join our particular dream (like my dream of having family dinner instead of their dream of attacking space aliens with mashed potatoes). If I manage to let go of my dream and join theirs, I can usually direct it in a useful direction, avoid unpleasantness, and everybody has much more fun. (And even toddlers can help in cleaning up afterwards.)
Personally, I do not care that my children receive exceptional skillsets to put them ahead of other children, since I am not convinced that this will translate in more life satisfaction for them. But I care that they enjoy life; who knows how long it lasts. (Of course we offer all educational opportunity we can muster, but my wife and me extracted our skills from environments that left us basically alone, and we do not believe into shoving stuff down their throats.)
I often wish that I had been more content when my first child was anti-social or otherwise problematic. There was not just the difficulty of handling the situation at hand, but the fear of being a horrible parent by not effectively intervening. Later I learned that most of the difficult things were either normal developmental phases (at 2, the start being goal-oriented but are often still unable to let go of goals, even if these are logically impossible to achieve, which may lead to tantrums), or they were the result of immutable quirks (a few Aspie things). Most things resolved entirely on their own, and those that did not found workarounds when the kid got older and more of its cognitive layers came online.
I wish there was more data-based parenting research, since it is ridiculous that we are still resorting to tradition and intuition, when both vary so wildly. Most parenting styles seem to be based on philosophies developed by charismatic individuals. I like Jesper Juul’s ideas a lot, for instance, and he emphasizes respect, self-respect, and trust in the intentions of the child. I also have very strong memories of having been a child, and think about how I wish I would have been treated, and what that would have caused in me. I also think that a fair balance between the interests of parents and children has to be found: parents need their time and autonomy, too, and while the night time terror of a child waking from a bad dream is certainly more important than me reading a book or spending time with my spouse, boredom is not.
One of our children used to wake frequently and needed cuddling, it got better with age (not through gradual weaning from cuddling). Initially, we let the child sleep in our bed when it wanted to, but that turned out to feel wrong, because parents need their refuges, too. Instead, we got a larger bed for the child, so one of us could join it when it did not want to sleep alone. We never let any of our children cry. Perhaps we are making too many compromises against our own interests here, but we also remember having been alone as children, and suffering immensely back then.
I’m debating whether or not I should come, because I work in tech and I live in SF. If it became known that I am the sort of person who reads this blog (which is the sort of blog that supports LambdaConf, in addition to everything else), I would risk professional and social ruin.
How can I attend without being identified?
Try a trenchcoat and sunglasses?
Yeah, dress like my Gravatar!
If possible, also appear in a bit depth of only 1, with no dithering.
It’s all the rage these days.
If you show up at a comment depth of 5, no one can reply to you!
The clear and obvious solution is for every SSC meetup to be a masquerade.
I recommend in that case everyone wearing a badge with their avatar.
As someone not in tech and nowhere near SF, what part of the content here would your peers find objectionable?
As an aside, I really never understood the whole attitude of “I can’t be friends with/work with people I disagree with politically.”. Well, I think it’s ultimately a tribalism thing, but I don’t understand it from the inside at all.
I suspect the content they find objectionable is that one out-of-context quote about voldemort, which for some feminist-leaning people who’ve only heard of the blog is the only bit of the content they even know.
I don’t know anything about Moldbug or whatever it is he says or espouses that is so vile it requires public shunning, but given that this blog mentions the dreaded name, mentions the conference, and does not call for all to be burned at the stake for their sins, that is probably sufficient context to demand a purge as this site is obviously a fellow-traveller and makes people feel unsafe and the host plainly holds all kinds of bad, wrong, unsavoury and incorrect opinions on all kinds of things.
You read a blog by a person who is A Bad Person, then you must agree with and condone what they think and say. This makes you A Bad Person, too, and the Brave New World of Tolerance! Acceptance! Love! has no place in it for Bad People.
Look at this story: it jumped straight off from “Guys I think I saw a Klansman walking around” to accusing the administration of not protecting students from the KKK.
Turns out the “Klansman with a whip” was a Dominican in his habit. Alleged grown adults who demand the rights of adults to self-determination and make their own decisions about their sex, drinking, drug and other decisions lives, wetting themselves over third-hand rumour mongering.
Not the worst/best example. More alleged grown adults (if you’re old enough to go to college, you’re in the age range 18-22 and that’s not a kid anymore) terrified by the monstrous appearance of…
… a stick of chalk on the floor.
Accompanying message: “We just showed up at the meeting room and this was on the floor. Intentionally obv. Lots of pretty shaken up folk.”
I’m trying my best to give this the benefit of the doubt; that there are minority ethnicity students who do feel threatened by Trump’s politics and his statements about immigrants as rapists and criminals and the rest of it.
But then I think of a bunch of 20-somethings “shaken up” by the sight of a stick of chalk, and I wonder to myself how the hell are they going to function in the Real World? Yeah, it was intentional – by some prankster who is killing themselves laughing at you all running around like Chicken Little panicking and fearful!
In my day we had fake IRA bomb threats and we had to be evacuated by the police force, and none of us were in need of a fainting couch to swoon on for fear of our lives, we mostly stood around on the lawn outside and groused about the inconvenience. These kids are so scared of a stick of chalk they have to tweet it as a dreadful menacing deliberate threat to make them run away? Worse yet, it succeeded because they did run away feeling “shaken up”?
Because of how harassment policies and Title IX work, claiming that you feel unsafe has power. This will lead to people claiming they feel unsafe because if you reward something, you get more of it. It has nothing to do with college-age people being unusually easy to terrify.
This is most of it, I expect, but I wonder what being trained to claim to be easily traumatized does for one’s actual fortitude? Eventually the fainting couch might actually be necessary.
The students freaking out over the stick of chalk on the floor is from a parody Twitter account, it’s not real. If you read the most recent messages, that will be apparent.
https://twitter.com/NoTrumpAtEmory
Of course you could have used many real, non-parody examples to convey the same point; it’s hard to tell satire from reality anymore.
I had no idea it was a parody, and that either speaks to my gullibility or the avalanche of “we demand safe spaces!” stories I’m seeing.
I am trying to be charitable in my interpretations, as what is an innocuous matter to one person really can bring up all kinds of harmful memories to another, so I’m glad that (as yet) colleges are safe from the menace of chalk 🙂
But the one about the “Klansman” had me shaking my head; one person does a rather alarmist “i think there’s someone dodgy on campus” and immediately there are “blame the administration!” responses.
I will forgive not being able to distinguish a Dominican from a member of the KKK (white robes with hoods, easily done!) but the immediate belief that this was indeed so, with no “are you sure? could you be mistaken?” was exasperating.
OK, so obviously they’re scared of what the chalk supposedly represents. The problem is I can’t for the life of me figure out what that is. Does anyone here know?
@Eyeball
Trump supporters. At one campus a Trump supporter chalked “Trump 2016” on a sidewalk and it created a controversy.
It’s a reference to #TheChalkening.
So I’m not one of those people who assumes Breitbart is always lying. But in this case I have to ask. Is their description of the event accurate? All that outrage over a few words on the sidewalk that could simply be washed away without incident?
Would you feel the same way about a chalked swastika? The students would.
If the Nazis are winning local elections without killing people, whining about how you are frightened and confused and want to live in an enforced bubble where some nebulous authority excludes swastikas, makes you look at least one of weak, foolish, or evil. In any case, mockery is appropriate.
Particularly if you don’t want Nazis running your society.
Dominicans make campuses unsafe for Albigensians and other religious minorities.
Here is the Washington Post on the event (I haven’t read the Breitbart version and don’t know how it compares).
I don’t get it. What does chalk have to do with Trump anyway?
That’s a bit like asking what baldness has to do with nazism.
@Stefan:
Ok, a lot of skinheads are neonazis. I still don’t see the connection between Trump and a piece of chalk. I guess there was some kind of an “incident” involving Trump and chalk or something but I don’t watch Trump that closely so I wonder what the connection is.
@Tibor: I think you might have missed this incident.
@Creutzer: Uff…I am so glad this stuff does not happen in Europe. Some American university students seem to behave like small children.
Tibor, if “Europe” includes the UK, I think you might be in for some disappointment.
Yes, but there are certain factors that hinder such developments in continental Europe. First, the absence of tuition, which means that universities don’t have a reason to put up with too much bullshit; and second, students are not infantilised by the wider culture to the same degree as in the Anglosphere.
The UK is a lot better than the outrage porn distributors make it sound; pretty much all the complaints there relate to student unions saying stupid things. Student unions are very much not a part of the university administration and have no actual power over anything and are largely ignored (and often regarded with contempt) most of the time by most of the students.
They are basically where people who want to play politics go, and they always want to be proposing things so they can feel actively involved, which means proposing and saying a lot of stupid interventions.
Their main involvement in student life is maybe running one or more on campus stores, restaurants, or other venues, as well as maybe a campus paper or radio that no one listens to, which they can be safely permitted to do as incompetently as they like because no one has any actual need to use them.
They’re a lot like fictional micronations that happen to run a small set of things and get to play with how they run them; always been saying stupid things, prone to start censoring and filtering their own publications and venues and stuff in pursuit of stupid goals as part of the political debating game that they actually are. The people making a fuss about them no-platforming people honestly strike me as kind of sad; oh no, a bunch of students playing micronations with a shitty store and conference room might decide to not include you, how terrifying.
The only new thing is that people are suddenly concerned that the stuff they say might matter to the outside world, because of the events elsewhere drawing attention to the idea. But it doesn’t even matter to actually attending the university.
(Edit: And the NUS is even more trivial; it’s like a UN for student unions, and has little power over even them, who have little power over anything else.)
Student unions have much the same role in the US.
However, Title IX (of the United States Education Amendments of 1972, but everybody just says “Title IX”) give US college students, particularly including organized bodies of students, the ability to call down the wrath of the executive and judicial branches of government on University adminstration if they can frame an argument of the form “This makes some women(*) feel afraid so they might drop out of / not go to college and it’s illegal to hinder women in their pursuit of a college education in any way so Make It Stop By Any Means Necessary Or Else”.
* Never Ask That Question
@creutzer: I think it is even more important that campus-centered universities are much less common in (continental) Europe. You have a city or a town and the university there consists of a couple of buildings around it. There might be a “campus” where a big chunk of the university buildings are but even then the students only go there for the lectures and then spend their free time around the town. A lot of them also live in private flats and even the accommodation provided by the university (which is not supposed to be in sufficient quantity for all the students) tends to be spread around.
I don’t think the tuition is a deciding factor here. Sure, if education is largely paid from tuition and not taxes, the students theoretically have a bigger say. But there has to be something else which drives this behaviour since probably a majority of students at the US/UK universities are not drama queens and crybabies (and future politicians) and would prefer this not to happen.
I don’t think I could be friends with a person whose whole world was their political views, as they would be insufferable, and I think it’s that type of person who doesn’t befriend people who might hold opposing views.
“I really never understood the whole attitude of “I can’t be friends with/work with people I disagree with politically.””
The theory, if I correctly understand it, is that you punish people who express or act on the wrong views in order to discourage them and others from doing so. Not inviting someone to participate in a conference imposes a cost on him, getting him fired a much larger cost.
How many people actually act on that theory I have no idea.
When they spend their time working yourself into a frenzy around the idea that anyone who does not agree with their politics is an imminent danger to their personal safety, it’s not exactly surprising that some people feel that the place they spend numerous hours every day should be cleansed of said imminent dangers.
The theory is merely there to explain the practice, it’s not the origin of it.
🙁
I would use a rolling eyes smiley in return but I don’t think the world contains one large enough.
As someone not from USA, how frequent is really the attitude of “I can’t be friends with/work with people I disagree with politically” in USA? Is it mostly a SJW thing, or is everyone doing it?
On the programming team in my workplace, we have mostly atheists, but also a few religious Christians; mostly pro-Western-civilization, but also one fan of Putin; and other than sometimes discussing the topic at lunch, it doesn’t make any problem. Certainly no one is going to make the other guy fired.
Also, when I see “if someone believes X or uses the word Y, please unfriend me immediately” on my Facebook, it is mostly my American friends. Especially the unfriendings over someone’s use of the word “cuck” of “friendzone” seem really… exotic. I would use the same kind of reaction against someone sharing e.g. literally Nazi propaganda.
(It makes me think these people either don’t have more serious problems — the saying “first-world problems” exists for a reason — or they have really weird priorities, or they simply have already filtered their social circles so much that all remaining people are pretty much their clones, so now they have to indulge in the narcissism of small differences.)
@Villiam – “As someone not from USA, how frequent is really the attitude of “I can’t be friends with/work with people I disagree with politically” in USA? Is it mostly a SJW thing, or is everyone doing it?”
It’s mostly just an SJW thing, but it’s pretty hard to tell who the SJWs are until it’s too late, and they receive tacit support from a lot of people on the left. Most people won’t start the hate train rolling, but they won’t do anything to stop it, either.
My introduction to it was when a friend I’d had for more than a decade cut off all contact over GG and an argument over “listen and believe”. Up until that point, I thought *I* was part of Social Justice.
I don’t think it’s any more or any less an SJW thing. Any in-group which draws identity from it’s politics shows similar behaviour.
@ FacelessCraven, Butts Kapinsky
After reading both your comments, I suspect the lesson is something like this:
There is a bit of this behavior in any political group. And then randomly you get burned and you realize, too late, that the version of SJWs is much stronger that in the average political group.
I’m pretty sure that the SSC commentariat is *heavily* selected for having been exposed to this sort of thing, both because of rationalist demographics generally (young nerdy people who live near Seattle/San Francisco, and their online friends) and because some of Scott’s most well-known writings were probably very satisfying to read for people who have had bad experiences with SJ.
@Chalid – Good point.
Except for Bay Area, I pretty much fit this to a T. As do everyone I know who reads SSC.
In my world it is pretty rare. In social cirlcles folks rarely talk politics, but I have expressed my libertarian views to folks who say canvassed for Obama or even define themselves as socialist without any impact on friendship. Of course this is a group of early 40 somethings in a community that tends to be center leftish in politics and center rightish in personal morality with a lot of general tolerance mixed in.
At work the group leans right/libertarian, but extreme views abound and no one has any fear expressing/discussing/debating them.
I’d say for most Americans you are pretty safe, but it is a real danger in some subsets dominated by SJW types and it is always pretty wise not to leave a paper/electron trail when discussing controversial views. As Elliot Spitzer said, “Never speak when you can nod, never write when you can speak, and never ever ever put anything in an e-mail.”
This reminds me of a saying we had during the communist regime:
Don’t think.
If you think, then don’t talk.
If you talk, then don’t write.
If you write, then don’t sign it.
If you sign it, then don’t be surprised.
The similarities are eerie. In theory, living in the communist regime should have given me skills, which would now become useful when dealing with SJWs. But the fact is that I didn’t get those skills, so I was quite lucky that the communist regime ended before I become an adult; otherwise there would be a chance I would be in prison right now. Sigh.
“In my world it is pretty rare. In social cirlcles folks rarely talk politics, but I have expressed my libertarian views to folks who say canvassed for Obama or even define themselves as socialist without any impact on friendship. ”
Part of this may be due to the fact that many of the most contentious issues in our society are all social issues, which is a dimension on which libertarians and socialists are often relatively aligned.
I grew up in an incredibly blue-tribe dominated environment. Coming out as a libertarian (even as an anarcho-capitalist) was no big deal. But someone who came out as a Ted Cruz-style red-state social conservative would be shunned out of the community almost instantly. Even though that person’s overall beliefs on the proper structure of political power in society is more closely aligned with theirs than mine are.
Try not to get a skewed picture of the whole United States based on a tiny corner of the English language internet. I’ve never met a single one of these so-called social justice warriors. I’d be willing to be the same is true of the majority of Americans, maybe even the vast majority of Americans.
I also can’t think of any time anyone used the word or prefix “cuck” in my presence. I don’t know that I’d deliberately shun such a person, but I doubt we’d ever have become friends to begin with.
I’ve never met an alt-right person, but I’ve had several friends from college defriend me for being insufficiently dedicated to social justice. My head of department at this school is extremely SJ-inclined. I’ve never spoken about my own politics (middle school isn’t really the place for that, I feel, in any case), and it’s possible that I’m misjudging her, but someone else is welcome to take that gamble with their own job, not mine.
Now multiply that last sentence by about 2000 times, given the general ideological balance of academia, and the problem becomes pretty clear.
Zorgon you are kind-of making my point for me. There’s 3.1 million school teachers and another 1.1 million college instructors. That’s 4.2 million people, and I highly doubt they are all so-called SJW. Or even most. Meanwhile, there are 320 million Americans.
Its more an ideological extremist thing. I’ve seen that behavior from both left-wingers (“SJWs”) and right-wingers.
The personalized nature of politics, though, seems to be a new thing. Vox had an article a few months ago that talked about how bias on the level of political affiliation has soared recently.
I blame Hanisch and Alinsky for that. Declaring that The personal is political! and Go after people and not institutions because people hurt faster than institutions seem like multipolar traps that deliver short-term political success at the expense of long-term trust and cohesion.
I’ve only heard the “I can’t be friends with someone who disagrees with me politically” thing from those with staunchly left-wing views, though not necessarily of an SJ flavor. But to be fair, the vast majority of people that I’ve known for the past 7 or 8 years have been left-wing.
The “if somebody believes X or uses the word Y, please defriend me immediately” thing is something I see frequently and exclusively from SJ types. I can think of at least one instance where an not-very-SJ-oriented Democrat on my newsfeed made this request of all those who supported a particular Republican candidate.
Pew found that liberals are more likely (44% liberals vs 31% conservatives vs 26% overall) to unfriend somebody on Facebook because of their politics.
Curiously, conservatives are more likely to have Facebook friends who agree with them, which seems in tension with the previous statistic.
Conservatives could be more naturally clustered, such that they don’t have to unfriend people in order to have all their friends be conservatives, too.
Which goes against the rhetoric of “liberals are out of touch don’t know anybody who voted for Nixon”, but I don’t know if I believe that.
It’s a “have you ever” question, so maybe liberals just have more friends. c.f. the terrifying unspeakable elder god inviting you to join its cuddle pile.
Possibly relevant:
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2013/09/economics-ideas-vs-politics.html
Maybe conservatives are more, ahem, conservative about adding new Facebook friends, so they don’t have to remove them afterwards.
So an average conservative would add 10 or 20 friends (half of them family members), and keep most of them. And an average SJW would add 1000 friends, and then block 500 of them for wrongthinking.
There is a small but meaningful difference between “I can’t be friends with people who believe X” and “If you believe X then defriend me”. One is a positional statement, the other is a demand.
This pretty much fits the SJW pattern, doesn’t it?
Just keep driving that point home.
Never shut up about it.
Allow me to share a story.
My family has always been the kind of homophobic that is mostly imitating unflattering stereotypes as a mocking joke, and saying hurtful things. Other than the one time my father told me he would be a failure as a parent if I wasn’t straight (I’m bi) they were mostly jokes, mostly funny, and thus, I figured, mostly harmless.
Then one day, when I was about 22, I went drinking with my uncles at a bar they frequented. The conversation turned to the disgustingness of gays, and my uncle said that he knew for sure he didn’t know any homosexuals, because if he did he would murder them. This idea was widely celebrated, and a plan was hatched to travel to a nearby gay bar, find a patron outside, and murder him. Luckily, because they were very drunk, my aunt fired a pistol into a flat screen tv during an unrelated argument before plans could be finalized, and they all got distracted and forgot.
That night I learned two things:
1. That my family are sociopaths and I should avoid going out with them.
2. My model of how homophobes works was completely worthless, and when I saw someone acting as my family had (making hurtful jokes, engaging in mocking stereotypes) I should assign a 50% chance that they would also, in a fit of drunken boredom, kill me.
Every political community in the united states passes around horror stories about how they thought X was a cool guy “and five minutes after telling X what I thought about [thing] he got 18 guys from 4chan driving past my house every hour threatening to rape me/got me fired from Mozilla/got off a bus wearing a shirt that says down with Cis.” So now everyone is terrified that Ted, who seems like a reasonable member of [out-group] could suddenly go American Psycho in the middle of an otherwise unassuming discussion of Huey Lewis and the News, upon discovering you’re paisley tribe.
1 is probably accurate. 2 is probably not. We see a lot of hurtful jokes; we do not see a lot of murders. Even if that chance was 1% instead of 50, there would no longer be any gay bars (or other publicly known LGBT spaces), because they would all have been burned down and their patrons killed by drunken yahoos.
Now, rephrase as “claim to be willing to murder you, as a bad joke or out of misplaced bravado”… that I could believe. 50% still sounds high to me, but that might be optimistic.
Not to come in as someone who wasn’t there and doesn’t know the people involved but:
I feel like this is the key part to understanding this story. The fact that this also happened at the same time, apparently for independent reasons tells me that the way these people handle anything is dangerous, rather than just their soical/political views.
To give my anecdotal evidence, I’ve been present for quite a lot of hurtful jokes against various groups, but something like the pistol thing was a lot rarer.
I guess ultimately to answer my own question in part, I do refuse to interact with certain people, but that’s if I see direct evidence that they are likely to do physical harm to people or commit theft and stuff like that. And your uncle would definitely fit those criteria.
It may be my background talking too, but since I’ve had to deal with and interact with truly violent and dangerous people, someone who doesn’t believe in evolution, or has different preferences about immigration laws than me or whatever, is going to be infinitely better than people who you’re hanging out with and they decide it’s a good idea to try to jump someone or drive their car all over people’s lawns and knock off their mailboxes with a golf club out the window.
Shion Arita says:
Yes that jumped out at me too.
If true, it demonstrates that the individuals being discussed are extreme outliers. You could tell that story to the bitterest of “Bitter Clingers” and the most likely response would be something along the lines of “WTF?” or “what a bunch of dangerous idiots”.
Since this is apparently the place to talk about anecdotes..
I live in a country that’s generally very good for gay people to live in. It was the first place to nationally legalise gay marriage, and this decision is very uncontroversial today; it’s come to the point where our far-right parties are more prominently pro-gay than the leftists are, because immigrants aren’t known for their tolerant values. All in all, a good place to be into people your own sex.
Now, two summers ago, I took on a job to earn some extra money and worked at a warehouse for flower auctions. It was the kind of job you can let a student with no prior experience do fairly easily, and in doing so I met a bunch of people who are very far removed from university life. A conversation on a friday lunch break went something like this:
Me: “Yeah, I’m just going to head to bed early and sleep in, I’ve been getting up way too early for July.”
Coworker: “Yeah, fair. Me and Adam here are gonna go punch fags for a bit.”
Me: “Er, what?”
Coworker: “It’s fun! You just head over to (gay club)’s parking lot, drink some beers and wait. Then when some guy walks out on his own you just beat the shit out of him, it’s easy, just gotta make sure they’re not too close to the doors so security won’t notice.”
All of this said with the complete casual attitude of someone who might have told me they were going out to a concert or play some pool that evening, mind you.
Now, I’m not saying this is representative, or that such people are even common, but they exist. SJ-style the-world-must-burn-if-it-means-gays-feel-safe solutions aren’t something I believe in, and there may not be a good way of reaching a society where this kind of thing doesn’t happen, but ever since I’ve updated in favor of believing gay folks when they claim to feel unsafe in some environments.
The problem with pointing out the problem with safe spaces, it occurs to me, is basically Pascal’s Mugging. You fuck up and trust the wrong people, you die. There can be odds of 999:1, 9,999:1, and the fact that if you fuck up you die means that people are going to overlook how low the odds are because the payout is so bad. For example, the reason I assign a 50% value to the murder flag on people who act homophobic is because I assign no predictive strength to my model, and when you have a worthless model you assign properties in its domain 50% until the model improves.
In person I’ve seen a couple of instances of it and heard a bunch of anecdotes about it. For the most part people are thankfully pretty OK about things though.
Consider the lesson of Brendan Eich. Perhaps in a few years the wheels will turn as completely on this as they have on gay marriage. Perhaps it will be that failure to this set will be viewed as enabling, and having no public record of protest of these kinds of tactics means you risk professional and social ruin.
You can’t live your life in fear of what a mob of well-connected Twitterati will do, because the Internet is forever, and what is acceptable changes wildly from decade to decade.
I say just do what you think is right. (And start saving and reinvesting aggressively, so if you do lose your job, you can shrug, move out of the city, and have a nice long runway to let the media storm around you die down.)
One certainly can live life in fear of a hate-mob. People have done it throughout history. It’s standard operating procedure in many countries at times. The basis for survival is: “Watch what you say”. Never express political opinions. Never tweet, blog, write comments, take controversial stands, etc.
The fact that shifting social norms mean there will always be some risk, is not a good argument to assume any more risk than absolute minimum (car accidents can always happen, but it would be nonsense to say one should therefore drive drunk).
It’s a heavy cost to lose your job, move out of town, be targeted by a hate-storm – even if you manage to survive it all.
It is extremely unlikely that there will be a blacklist of bystanders, simply because there are too many bystanders to blacklist. 90% of people who deal with software for a living have no idea what’s going on with LambdaConf.
So while I wish we would all stand up against the no-platformers, I have to say that it’s the quacking duck that is most likely to get shot.
Functional programming is weird, but supporting it is hardly going to cause professional and social ruin.
I chuckled.
ditto
Is this for real?
When entirely surrounded and employed by Tribe A, even attending events vaguely connected to Tribe B is risking unpersoning.
I’m confused…I thought tech+sf is very much the kind of people interested in lambdas/read this blog? or am I missing the sarcasm
In the sense that Catholics are very much the sort of people who become Hussites.
@suntzuanime: Great analogy.
That seems hyperbolic. I’d prefer to see evidence of people being shunned from non-activist, just majority “Blue Tribe” communities for associating with people as innocent as Scott before drawing that conclusion.
You probably aren’t in that part of the tech world. It’s gotten really, really bad. Follow the LambdaConf mess in this thread and elsewhere if you want a taste; there are threats of shunning of anyone who merely attends a conference where a person the SJW tribe doesn’t like is speaking. I still don’t think association with SSC would qualify you for shunning yet, but it’s well within the realm of possibility, if not now, then in the near future.
Data point in support of SSC as Unpersoning Crimethink – I’ve seen no less than three people in my circle of acquaintances respond to me linking this blog with “isn’t that the guy who said feminism is ‘literally Voldemort’?”
Glory fades, scars heal, entropy will eventually overtake the universe… only grudges last forever.
Yup, your acquaintances saying “hey, didn’t that guy write a mean thing once?” sounds like exactly the same thing. Corollary: literally everyone quoted unfavorably by at least three different people is a vaporised unperson.
On the other hand, comparing your opponents to Voldemort — an irredeemably evil being who has only 1/8 of a soul left in his magically synthesized body — is a perfectly benign rhetorical move that only an irrational grudge-holder might hold against you.
Yes, Nita. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Well done you.
@The Nybbler: “there are threats of shunning of anyone who merely attends a conference where a person the SJW tribe doesn’t like is speaking.”
Can you link to some examples of such threats, so we can check that your summary is a fair one?
Yes.
What, is there someone tailing you and tallying what in-person events you go to?
The advantage of doing things in person is that Twitter mobs don’t exist there. “Word getting around” is a lot harder when it comes to who went to what events – SF is a big city, and even the small bubble we move in isn’t *that* connected. I wouldn’t worry about it.
I think so people like being worried about this sort of thing, odd as that seems.
Yep. Persecution fantasies.
One of the worst ways to break someone of a persecution fantasy is to tell them they are fantasizing it.
One of the goals of a shaming campaign is to send a message to bystanders that they’ll be punished if they do the same, hopefully deterring many more people than you actually have the resources to pursue. It’s not surprising people believe it, and not always wrong either. If XCOM has taught me anything its that a small-chance risk should still be accounted for if the penalty for failing the check is big enough.
Though in this case I think the chance is too small.
Well, the meeting location that is most convenient to me would have lots of people around that could recognize me. I guess it may be worth going to an inconvenient one.
I don’t know whether this will help, but in general, it seems like high status people are more likely to be attacked than low and medium status people.
Your job seems to be at odds with your convictions. I know which one I’d pick.
(Software engineer in Seattle here.)
I would be careful to avoid thinking in terms of a Fool’s Choice in these situation. Sometimes it seems like you have to choose A or choose B, even though there are ways to get both A and B. You can only notice these after asking your self, “How can I both do well at my job AND continue acting according to my convictions?” and brainstorming for a bit.
I work in tech in SF (and live not far from here). Commenting here for a few years and going to meet-ups has not ruined my professional life.
But in any case — if you do not give a name, or give only an alias, people are usually happy to go along. People don’t take pictures of the meet-up that much, and you can ask not to be in the frame.
But if they know SSC well enough to realize it supports LambdaConf, they must read it. And if they read SSC, they’re in on the conspiracy.
As someone that works in tech and lives near SF, I think you’re seriously overstating the danger here. You are probably not a Brendan Eich.
Brendan Eich wasn’t a Brendan Eich either, until a year later.
You’re not paranoid if they’re going to be out to get you.
I don’t have a crystal ball, and neither do you. But base rates say this isn’t worth worrying about — and I say that as someone that’s no fan of social justice. There’s one Brendan Eich and how many C-level executives in the Valley?
You could consider dressing up as a ghost. Oh wait, maybe this isn’t a good idea… 🙂
Safer to go as a Dominican.
Fortunately, the kind of people who will notice you coming to an SSC meetup are…. SSC readers. I don’t think you need to worry.
More generally, I think that the second that we start losing our jobs because of something like this, we have a bigger problems. I don’t think the hysteria gets that bad.
Would the risk be less if you attended the San Jose meetup, where there are likely to be at least somewhat fewer people from SF?
Vox founder Ezra Klein reads this blog and nobody’s calling for his head or demanding Vox be boycotted for giving a platform to those who’d give a platform to those who’d etc. You’ll be fine.
Ezra Klein has power.
Ezra also has considerable progressive cred.
That’s what I said.
So did Brendan Eich. His views were known but didn’t lead to anything more than snide comments on techie blogs until he was appointed CEO, so if anything power made him more vulnerable.
You know who didn’t have power? Another Mozilla employee by the name of Gerv Markham. He has loudly and actively expressed his sincere belief that Christianity forbids same-sex marriage and so should the law – unlike Eich, who tiptoed around the subject whenever it arose. And Markham still works at Mozilla.
It feels to me that the kind of SJW internet bullying only works in public institutions (which are obviously susceptible to any kind of politicking) and on those people who let themselves be bullied. I remember the guy with the “problematic shirt” from the ESA who was bullied because of that. If, instead of crying and apologizing, he responded by saying something like “I have about 50-60 more years on this planet and I will not waste my time arguing with people who obviously have a lot of personal problems. If you don’t like my shirt, too bad!”, what could the bullies do? They would go even more berserk about it on twitter…but since he declared that he does not really care and since the ESA is not going to fire a top engineer because of a mob of confused college students, that would be all that they could do about it.
Generally, I think that actual useful skills are a good way to make yourself bully-proof. The more useful you are for your employers for your skills (and not for your public image), the weaker the effect of outrage mobs on you. And if they still do fire you, there will be many of those who are interested in your skills, so it is more a loss to your employer than to you.
And if they threaten you with actual violence or stalk you or something, you call the police.
What makes you think the ESA wouldn’t fire him, or at least do something bad to him like put a black mark on his record that is one step towards being fired? Bureaucrats are insulated from the consequences of such things as actually losing skilled personnel and may think of appeasing the mob as cost-free.
Yarvin has actual skills. It doesn’t help much.
@Jiro:
I guess it is my pro-space bias speaking 🙂 ESA is basically a government organization so what I said about government organizations should apply to it as well. But a part of me likes to think that NASA or ESA are going to be much more meritocratic than most GOs, since they are full of these cool people who actually know something useful and who come from a culture (natural sciences) which values merit over everything else. But perhaps I am idealizing it.
With Yarvin, I dunno, does he have a problem to find a good job in his field?
Yes, but that would mean disagreeing with someone on the left. That’s the worst possible thing you can do.
There are only two positions you can take if you want to be a good person:
1) Be an SJW
2) Be understanding of SJWs motives but disagree mildly with their methods
Corollary to (2)
2a) Even if you disagree with SJW motives never, under any circumstances use those same methods against them (or any tactic other than polite disagreement, actually – the important part though is to always agree that the SJWs are more holy for being more dedicated to leftism even if you cringe at the necessity of doing what they do) . See discussion earlier in this thread around the SJW blacklist.
Also never – under any circumstances – question the premises of progressivism.
Is it really that bad? What’s the attitude on the ground there?
Also the last time I hung out with nerds in San Francisco, like half of them used their screen names as IRL nicknames. You’d probably be fine calling yourself Mr. Scared Incognito.
A cynical explanation could be that using your real name online is costly signalling that your political opinions are progressive. (Or that you are independently wealthy.)
Interesting hypothesis. I’d very much like it to be true, for obvious reasons, but evidence so far suggests otherwise.
Yeah, besides political correctness and independent wealth, another option — actually most likely of these three — is: unaware of the risk, and so far lucky to avoid anyone’s attention.
Is it really that professionally dangerous for you?
SSC SF Story of the Week #13
This week we are discussing “I” by Philip Goetz.
Next time we will discuss “Second Variety” by Philip K. Dick.
Clever ideas like calling your protagonist “I” to make a later point should be weighed against the constant sense of being thrown out of immersion with the work in order to regain track of what the narration is doing.
The piece itself I think needs more clever formatting than LessWrong allows, especially for the divided-stream-of-consciousness bits. The programmatic Moby Dick part just didn’t seem like a good thing in any way. The overall message, well, standard technolibertarian stuff as far as I could tell. You either agree with it already or disagree with it already; seriously doubt I will change any minds on the matter. Heh.
Calling him “I” and then writing in the third person was a terrible choice. I had to mentally pronounce it “E” just to get through the damn thing.
Not hugely impressed by “I”, as the ending was a little too sentimental for my tastes. I’m probably simply in a very cynical, depressive mood, but I’d have preferred “And I’s fears were realised and the last shreds of individuality were gobbled up and turned into computronium” than the “Oh we are learning so much from the inspiring memories and insights!”
Seeing as how I was not able to sell his memories and insights on the market in order to keep paying for what permitted him to keep his individual existence afloat, either they really were of no interest to the group-entity’s sub-entities and the ending is A LIE, or more nastily – they did see value in them but didn’t want to pay for them and so forced I into poverty so that they could get access to the memories and insights for free.
And sorry to offend any who are sighing for requited love in their lives, but the “It was all about love” reveal is much too overdone as a motivating factor in stories. Yeah, blame women again for making men do crazy stuff. She hurt him so bad he couldn’t bear to remember! And that pain made him hold out from joining the group entity where he would have flourished!
I agree that the trope of Romantic Love as the Ultimate Motivating Force kind of veered into cliche. How about a beloved friend or sister, for a change? Or how about some hints at individual personality traits beyond Generic Girlfriend with Correct Taste in Music?
Bonus nitpick: I thought calling Smetana “Czechoslovakian” was a bit odd.
But on the whole, the story does manage to get its point across and be generally thought-provoking, which is nice.
This feels like complaining that revenge as a motivation is an overdone cliche? The reason certain motivations tend to get use over and over and over again in fiction is because they are powerful, fundamental, universal human emotions.
Right, popular tropes are popular for a reason. But an unfortunate side-effect of their popularity is that readers become accustomed to them, and writers have to put in more effort to make their iteration effective.
I’m not against romantic love as such. But romantic love with dried rose petals, the sweet smell of her perfume, and the art-inspiring curve of her neck? That’s so generic that it made me think about tropes instead of the story.
My second objection is about the lost potential in a sci-fi story. Fans often proudly declare that it’s a “literature of ideas”, but sometimes writers don’t treat the ideas with any amount of respect. Do the protagonist’s ostensible principles matter, could they matter, or is all the talk about the radically new, terrifying and awesome transhuman experience just a colorful backdrop, and ‘I’ could just as well be deliberating whether or not to join a megachurch or megacorp like everyone else in his town?
Or they were only valuable before transportation costs—I was not articulate enough to communicate, or it is not always possible to communicate, the significance of personal memories or insights without full access to the mind that stored them. (I suspect this was intended but do not necessarily endorse it; the second reading interests me more.)
Well, the story has the group entity saying to I more or less “Your insights aren’t interesting to us, we find no value in them” and then after I caves in and joins up, suddenly there’s all this thrilling wonder available?
Now granted, I may be really crappy at communication, but the group entity is pressuring I all along to give up and join in, both by indirect blackmail (exerting financial pressure by refusing to buy I’s data) and by direct threat:
Why do some of the subagents want to take I by force (and that phrase “take you by any method possible”, combined with “So I at last opened his virginal mind to us” really do evoke unpleasant connotations of rape)? What is the value there?
My opinion is that I was correct to fear the group entity. It’s hungry for new data but it’s also impatient and greedy – it doesn’t want to pay and it doesn’t want to wait for I to sell it things in dribs and drabs. It wants to consume I now and gobble up all that sweet new sensation that I represents.
It was a difficult marriage.
Yes, I bet it was – I kicking and screaming as resisting as he was absorbed and digested by the sub-agents of the group entity tearing off rich gobbets of I’s mind-scape and chewing them for the last drop of experience!
I think the most fitting ending is to give I (and not the group entity) the last word here, and it is to simply quote the ending (slightly altered) of Harlan Ellison’s short story:
🙂
I’m going to agree with switchnode that the intended reading is “I is a shitty communicator” – his memories and insights are great if you can dig right into them directly, but he sucks at putting them into words.
The whole society does seem designed to grind down anyone who isn’t part of or sponsored by a collective, though – not only do you have to pay to move around outside your house, you have to pay extra to see traffic signals!
I surprised myself by enjoying this, very much actually—until “Who was Julia?”, at which point it was abruptly awful.
Rather liked the divided dialogue, although Haldeman did it first (and with better formatting) in “Anniversary Project”. OOP Melville was not well done but I appreciated the effort; fully prose description of a conversation between AIs would be chauvinistically prosaic. (Convincing machine thought processes are so rare that I could count them on one hand with enough fingers left over for rude gestures.) In this case self-imposed human-emulating “rules” serve a Doylist as well as Watsonian perspective: restricting protagonist’s sensory input to that easily imagined by human author. I’d be contemptuous, but the correspondence is too pleasing.