Monthly Archives: July 2017

Book Review: Raise A Genius!

I. A few months ago, I learned about Laszlo Polgar, the man who trained all three of his daughters to be chess grandmasters. He claimed he could make any child a genius just by teaching them using his special methods. … Continue reading

OT81: Open Djed

This is the bi-weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit, the SSC Discord server, or the Cafe Chesscourt forum. Also: 1. There’s now a Meetup tab … Continue reading

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Against Signal-Boosting As Doxxing

A recent spat on Twitter, which I won’t link: some guy using his real name tweeted an offensive joke about how women should make sandwiches at a group of women. A feminist columnist with tens of thousands of followers retweeted … Continue reading

Djoser Joseph Osiris

My recent move has already paid off in terms of increased access to the Bay Area intellectual milieu, by which I mean wacky outlandish hypotheses about completely random stuff. The other day a few people (including Ben Hoffman of Compass … Continue reading

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Why Is Clozapine So Great?

[Epistemic status: Very speculative; I don’t fully understand a lot of the studies involved] Clozapine is an antipsychotic drug sometimes used to treat schizophrenia. Like most antipsychotics, it works by blocking dopamine receptors in the brain. Conventional wisdom among psychiatrists … Continue reading

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Open Thread 80.75

This is the twice-weekly hidden open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit, the SSC Discord server, or the Cafe Chesscourt forum.

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Don’t Blame Griggs

Griggs vs. Duke Power Co seems to come up a lot here as a scapegoat. This is the Supreme Court case that said companies can’t use anything like an IQ test to help in job interviews unless they can prove … Continue reading

Highlights From The Comment Thread On Meritocracy

[followup to Targeting Meritocracy] Some commenters rightly question exactly what we mean by meritocracy. For example, Mark writes: Isn’t the real problem that we have no good system to identify who deserves power over others, in the most general sense? … Continue reading

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Targeting Meritocracy

I. Prospect Magazine writes about the problem with meritocracy. First Things thinks meritocracy is killing America. Feminist Philosophers comes out against meritocracy. The Guardian says “down with meritocracy”. Vox calls for an attack on the false god of meritocracy. There’s … Continue reading

Open Thread 80.5

This is the twice-weekly hidden open thread. As the off-weekend thread, this is culture-war-free, so please try try to avoid overly controversial topics. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit, the SSC Discord server, or the Cafe Chesscourt forum.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 413 Comments