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https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives/Virtue-is-its-Own-Reward-Or-One-Mans-Ceiling-is-Another-Mans-Floor
About how virtue investing should/must generate lower returns.
> What happens when one group of investors, call them the virtuous, simply won’t own a segment of the market (the sin stocks)? Well, in economist terms the market still has to “clear.” In English, everything still gets owned by someone. So, clearly the group without such qualms, call them the sinners, have to own more than they otherwise would of the sin stocks. How does a market get anyone, perhaps particularly a sinner, to own more of something? Well it pays them! In this case through a higher expected return on the segment in question. This may be unpleasant but it is just math (like math could ever be unpleasant). In the absence of extra expected return the sinners would own X of the market segment in question. The only way to get them to own X+Y is to pay them something more. Now, assuming nothing else changed, how does the market assign this sinful segment a higher expected return? Well by according it a lower price. That is, if the virtuous decide they won’t own something, the sinners then have to, and they have to be induced to through getting a higher expected return than otherwise. This in turn is achieved through a lower than otherwise price.
Quibble: the sin stocks could stay at the same price while the virtue stocks have an inflated price.
> Put simply, if the virtuous are not raising the cost of capital to sinful projects, what are they doing? How are they actually affecting the world as they wish to? If the cost of capital isn’t also an expected return, what is it? This might be a painful reality to swallow for the virtuous. To get precisely what they want, which is less of the bad stuff occurring, they have to pay the sinful investors in the form of a higher expected return. 16 Importantly, this isn’t an accidental byproduct of ESG investing. It’s the only way all this really matters one drop to the central issue – how much bad stuff happens. If the discount rate used by sinful companies isn’t higher as a result of constraints on holding sinful stocks then there was no impact. And, if the discount rate on sin is now higher, the sinful investors make more going forward than otherwise.
There's also a good section, earlier on, about how you can't get an advantage by constraining your investing (b/c, if it's an advantage, the unconstrained investor will do the same thing). So it's ridiculous to claim virtue investing gives you equal or better returns. (That's true mathematically, but one could claim there is a market failure where most people aren't recognizing the long run advantages of virtuous companies, so investing in them gets you better returns compared to unconstrained investing combined with foresight errors. In other words, virtue investing is what *you* would do if you did unconstrained investing, but not what the *typical* person would do, because you're smarter than them.)
All these points are pretty much independent of whether you conflate virtue with leftism/environmentalism/SJWism (as "ESG" investing commonly does) or not.
https://youtu.be/20HDmRbYefw?t=5m14s
Obama, like many "leaders", has no real control over what he says publicly or what the leftist agenda is. In 2003, he tried saying we should do more to promote marriage in order to reduce gun violence. He got attacked from the left and shut up about it. He's a panderer and trend-follower.
Tucker: Washington not worried about male wage crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJVN_ReJD00
Yes there are flaws here (some of the concerns about automation in factories and self-driving cars, as a threat to male jobs). But there are important points here too.
---
Tucker: Obama pushed idea that girls thrive when men fail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wCBFNTVhk
Using facts, Tucker challenges anti-male sexism.
---
Tucker: Why men need marriage, fathers at home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgHzvUyb-Bw
---
Tucker: Illegal immigrants, robots ganging up on men?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQaByq5Mw4
---
Tucker is trying to help America. Thanks, Tucker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EiyuZwPKFQ
Documentaries about Greece are generally nice. Most of this one is pretty good.
It has a huge inaccuracy, though. It presents all the Greeks including the Athenians as being equally bellicose, and presents Athens as starting the Peloponnesian War, abruptly, because Pericles wanted more power and glory for Athens. wtf?
People are so concerned with correlations and think that correlations speak for themselves. This is connected with induction, which basically says the data can speak for itself.
Inductivists and correlationists both make the same mistake of paying selective attention to some particular patterns/data/whatever, and some particular possible cause, without much thought to the infinitely many alternatives.
Another related issue is "the future (likely) will resemble the past". This inductivist motto is also a standard part of believing a correlation in the past will hold in the future. Actually, the future always resembles the past in some ways and differs from the past in other ways, and it takes thought (including explanations and criticisms) to figure out which are which.
iPhone X vs. Macbook (12", not pro or air)
19% of the weight and 49% of the battery power (in terms of actual amount of energy is in the battery, unrelated to how much energy the device uses).
The iPhone X has a much higher battery-to-other-stuff ratio, despite being smaller (the smaller the device, the harder it is to make the CPU and other computer stuff be a small portion of the device).
https://vdare.com/articles/conservatism-inc-s-fawning-response-to-james-gunn-scandal-reveals-where-its-true-loyalties-lie
Some conservatives have double standards on what jokes they think should destroy people's career. The double standards are compatible with appeasing lefties
https://slickdeals.net/share/iphone_app/t/11856451
Good deal on widescreen monitor tho some ppl complain of flickering at higher hz
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/24/throttling-i9-macbook-pro-power-delivery-chip/
> A user posting on reddit and in the MacRumors forums has given a detailed account of their findings and attempts to circumvent the throttling previously discovered on the new MacBook Pro 15" models featuring the six-core i9 Intel CPUs.
> The user goes on to explain that one of the internal power limits set for the device may not be appropriate for the power draw of the CPU and identical to previous MacBook Pro models, causing the power delivery chip (known as a voltage regulation module, or VRM) to report an over power condition that forces the clock of the CPU down to scale back power. This sets up the same conditions to allow throttling to occur once again.
> These conditions may be presenting themselves due to the new six-core design of the i9 CPU featured here. While Intel increased the core count of the CPU, they did not increase the thermal design power (TDP), or the amount of dissipated power manufacturers should plan to have to cool for a proper CPU design. This is an issue because this number usually reflects normal usage, and does not account for turbo modes. It's also likely it can exceed the draw of previous four core CPUs given the similarity of clock speeds and process nodes they are featured on.
> A method for tuning this limit is provided in the post, but it requires executing a command manually or via script each time the computer boots, and would likely void the warranty if Apple technicians discovered it. Still, the user posts results of benchmarks showing successive runs with no throttling. Manufacturers will always quote likely reduced component lifetimes if used outside of their specifications, but the results appear stable, and there is no thermal throttling of the CPU, the original suspected cause of this issue.
> This fix will not address total system power draw becoming excessive, such as long sustained loads from the CPU and GPU, but it is possible Apple could issue a fix similar to the one outlined in the reddit post that is stable.
> As for whether this issue is related to the hardware design of the MacBook Pro, that is possible as well. While iFixit's complete teardown of the current 15-inch MacBook Pro is not yet available, the previous teardown reveals significant differences in the VRM chips that power the GPU and CPU of the device.
> GPU power components
> The GPU power components seen above are on the top side of the logic board near the GPU die, and thermal grease can be seen on the components, indicating that they interface with the heatsink in the device. This is in contrast to the same components for the CPU, which are featured on the rear side of the logic board with no thermal interface to the top of the package, as seen below.
> CPU power components
> Additionally, the publicly available data sheets for these parts indicate more differences that suggest their thermal profiles will be different. The International Rectifier part for the GPU features a lower thermal resistance, meaning it can better dissipate its heat to the surrounding areas (board, air, heatsink) than the Intersil part for the CPU. Additionally, it boasts a higher power efficiency, meaning it dissipates less power itself to deliver the same amount of power as the Intersil part.
> Along with the heatsink path provided for the IR parts, it's clear they will not be capable of driving the same amount of load in any sustained mode. This makes sense given GPUs can see high loads for longer periods, but this could be an area of improvement for future MacBook Pro models from Apple, especially since it has typically chosen GPUs with very similar thermal design power limits (TDPs) to the CPUs in its MacBook Pro line.
>https://slickdeals.net/share/iphone_app/t/11856451
> Good deal on widescreen monitor tho some ppl complain of flickering at higher hz
Good price but brightness on monitor is kinda low. Much lower than iMac 5k display
> https://vdare.com/articles/conservatism-inc-s-fawning-response-to-james-gunn-scandal-reveals-where-its-true-loyalties-lie
> Some conservatives have double standards on what jokes they think should destroy people's career. The double standards are compatible with appeasing lefties
Oh shit. So I'm reading along and it's like the Never Trumper attacked Roseanne but defends the leftist who wrote *much* nastier tweets. And SE Cupp too. OK, whatever. Awful people being awful.
Then next it's Ben Shapiro!
> Minicon Ben Shapiro, another opponent of Trump during the primaries, is also among Gunn defenders. Shapiro acknowledged Gunn’s tweets were “loathsome” but said “that doesn’t mean he should have lost his job at Disney”. [Should James Gunn have lost his job at Disney? Daily Wire, July 20, 2018]
> Roseanne, however, was different: “Roseanne played herself in the series, so when she made a new racist reference about Valerie Jarrett, her persona was inseparable from her character,” Shapiro wrote. “Roseanne was Roseanne.”
Crap, I thought Shapiro was better than *that*. No wonder he no longer works with David Horowitz and Truth Revolt.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/07/24/iphone-x-resale-value
iPhone X resale value is 75-85% of the original price. It's 9 months old. Amazing!
Bounded and Unbounded Emotions
New article about changing bad emotions: https://elliottemple.com/essays/bounded-emotions
Rational Essays Site Updates
https://elliottemple.com/essays
The sidebar got too full so I put the essay list on the home page (along with a newsletter signup underneath). I'm open to suggestions about a better site layout.
https://twitter.com/basileus420/with_replies
I had a lengthy arguments with feminists on twitter.
https://twitter.com/Ms_Liz2/status/1021823199644975105
https://twitter.com/SoiledSnowflake/status/1021813452984086530
https://twitter.com/SoiledSnowflake/status/1021812457205981186
https://twitter.com/annamarieyl/status/1021820138595786759
https://twitter.com/mariato3108/status/1021814531033587713
https://twitter.com/danielmhenry/status/1021810862586118144
I couldn't convince them of anything. But I was totally calm throughout as they attacked me. It felt awesome.
https://twitter.com/mariato3108/status/1021811031276961794
https://twitter.com/danielmhenry/status/1021809562960064512
https://twitter.com/eunarthabossamy/status/1021808989896564737
Its funny how aggressive they get even if you agree with them on many issues. They want you to fully submit to them.
#10399 When I hover my mouse of one of their names, info about them pops up. This is normal on twitter (not mobile). Example:
But it won't show up when I hover on Basileus. FF, is twitter screwing with your account? Also why aren't you following @curi42 ?
#10404 I follow some people using lists and bookmarks.
#10404 The hover thing started working. I'd already tried on multiple pages and refreshing multiple times. But now it works. I don't get it.
https://twitter.com/SoiledSnowflake/status/1021813452984086530
> I am 100% sure that Basileus has been accused of rape... by the women he raped. It's the only explanation for his fevered worry.
What a nasty comment.
FF, your posts would be better with some quotes of good parts. Clicking that many links (and not really being sure what order stuff goes in or how it started) is confusing and unappealing. Plus the feminists are awful so I don't want to read through what they said, but a few quotes or a summary of what to learn from it could interest me.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/22-of-us-population-does-not-speak-english-at-home
> Some 13.5 percent of the U.S. population -- 44 million -- is foreign born, the highest level ever, and many are not proficient in English, choosing to speak Spanish at home instead.
> A report from the Migration Policy Institute found that 22 percent of the U.S. population does not speak English at home.
The left is so nasty and hateful.
Image:
Image:
someone linked me this - https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/
Image:
You don't need to write "Image:" in front of your images.
https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/
> In every academic study, one of the most common kinds of false accuser is a teenage girl who tells her parents she was raped to avoid getting in trouble. Unwanted pregnancy is sometimes cited by such girls, but the reason can also be trivial; the phrase “missed curfew” shows up with disturbing frequency in these cases. As a rule, it’s the parents who insist on getting police involved. Two different studies have found that almost half of all false rape complaints are lodged by someone other than the alleged victim, usually a parent.
> Another kind of case which evaporates rapidly is that of a person who falsely reports a rape in the hope of getting needed medical care or psychiatric medication; in one study, six of the 55 reports classified as false by a police department in one year fit this description. Like the teens who missed their curfew, these false accusers have no interest in pursuing charges after the lie has served its purpose.
That's plausible. The article seems like feminist propaganda though. It downplays the frequency and consequences of false rape accusations.
How would FI members deal with these people?
#10408 Great followups by @patio11
> How would FI members deal with these people?
Why deal with them?
#10415 Shouldn't people try to burst their bubble? They are thinking they are on the right side and destroying society.
> #10415 Shouldn't people try to burst their bubble? They are thinking they are on the right side and destroying society.
there are better people to help first, who are more interested in learning/thinking/reasoning/truth. don't try to start with some of the most unreasonable people.
Why didn't Roark read philosophy? Why didn't he ask for criticism?
Why doesn't he do some of the things FI members do? Why is he too sure of everything?
> there are better people to help first, who are more interested in learning/thinking/reasoning/truth. don't try to start with some of the most unreasonable people.
There must be something a person would say that you drive them towards the center. Make them reasonable.
> there are better people to help first, who are more interested in learning/thinking/reasoning/truth. don't try to start with some of the most unreasonable people.
There must be something a person could say that would drive them towards the center. Make them reasonable.
#10398 What about having broad headings on the side bar that unfold more specific headings beneath them when you click?
#10421 I could do that. There are some downsides, like it involves hidden stuff and people suck at computers, and expanding stuff is an extra step, and once there are more articles it'd require article categories for them all to fit on one page.
I think I'll change "Home" to say "Essay list" or "Essays" so that's clearer.
#10420 You're paying selective attention to people who are putting effort into not learning from you. 99% of people need to learn a ton. Try to help someone who wants to learn (yourself or others). If we could help the top 10% of people a lot, then there'd be way more people to help the other 90% later.
> Why didn't Roark read philosophy? Why didn't he ask for criticism?
> Why doesn't he do some of the things FI members do? Why is he too sure of everything?
Rand didn't know everything. The internet didn't exist. Who would Roark have asked for criticism and gotten good ideas from?
Maybe he read some philosophy but he was an architect not a philosopher.
Apple has released a patch for thermal issues on 2018 MBP https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/07/24/tested-apples-patch-fixes-the-thermal-situation-in-the-2018-i9-macbook-pro
that’s impossible, she went to rehab years ago. doesn’t rehab work??
SNL writer criticizes culture of intentionally unfunny comedy
http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/23/snl-writer-michael-che-criticizes-unfunny-comedy-culture/
Apparently people are making programs where they just eg talk about their being queer and getting raped and say it's stand up comedy
https://twitter.com/CaolanRob/status/1021767477552795648
Good video. Lauren Southern tries to talk to some protestors but they won't discuss, they just want to flame her. LS asks for evidence and what they come up with is that she disagrees with them (not joking).
Replying to the video, Count Dankula says:
> Imagine raising a child and showering it with affection, pouring your heart, soul and love into it's upbringing and wishing it all the best of luck in accomplishing great things.
> And then it grows up to be one of these window lickers.
Being an SJW is not a random event. It doesn't just happen to your kid due to bad luck. If you parented better, it won't happen.
Stop sending your kid to be indoctrinated at leftist schools – and forcing him to keep going when he doesn't like it – and making other massive parenting mistakes. Parents are usually responsible for their kids growing up to be awful people.
The occasional murderer, you can blame bad luck. Maybe 100,000 parents all raise their kids to have a 0.0001% chance to be a murderer and you parent just as well as them and get unlucky.
But if and a bunch of other parents raise your kid to have a 50+% chance to be an SJW in high school or college, you're a bad parent. That isn't bad luck, it's you raising a kid who is bad at thinking.
BTW if you live in a gang area, and you have a kid, and you don't have a plan for how to parent different so he doesn't become a gang banger, and he becomes a gang banger ... that's your fault.
Trump proposes totally free trade with EU but is doubtful they'll take him up on it https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1021909900941815809?s=21
Professor marks student down for using "mankind", says word is sexist and only refers to men
https://youtu.be/kAxUDMy1oUw
Steve Jobs stories:
https://www.cake.co/conversations/g4CP6zJ/the-secret-call-to-andy-grove-that-may-have-helped-apple-buy-next
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/exclusive-obama-administration-knowingly-funded-a
> the Obama administration approved a grant of $200,000 of taxpayer money to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Sudan — a decade after the U.S. Treasury designated it as a terrorist-financing organization. More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release of at least $115,000 of this grant even *after* learning that it was a designated terror organization.
Just noticed Roseanne is Rose + Anne.
Trump gets EU to agree to lower tariffs https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/25/trump-we-hope-to-work-something-out-on-a-fair-trade-deal-with-europe.html
Psychiatry is an absolute sham, an excuse to horrifically abuse children:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5992551/Barbara-OHare-opens-abuse-hands-Dr-Kenneth-Milner.html
Another great patio11 tweetstorm. This one is talking to his bank about buying US currency. https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1022321992312078336
Libs sometimes act as if the following were true: if there was ever any racist argument for a policy then the policy is bad.
But they are inconsistent.
Like there used to be racist arguments for favoring certain countries in immigration quotas so that's supposed to be bad.
But gun control had a racist element to it in US history but somehow isn't tainted as a policy..
Hoplite
http://www.magmafortress.com/p/hoplite.html
Hoplite (iOS, Android) is a great strategy game. It's designed well to make combat interesting. You choose some special powers and fight 4 types of enemy. You have limited ability to kill things at long range so you have to dodge around a lot and approach intelligently.
I played a bunch a few years ago. He improved the game balance and added new challenge levels. I think he generated thousands of them with software to make a random 3 levels + different set of special powers.
I got to very high level before using protection (can only take one damage per turn, IIRC) and longer range jump (4 instead of 2). he nerfed those hard (protection removed entirely, and the jump distance reduced to 3). he also nerfed the other protection ability i used, shielding bash.
the game balance is better and fairer now. here's my current idea about the best build for the regular game:
slash jump (1), agility (2), 5range beam (2+1+2), swift jump (3), mighty bash (1), reaction (1), bloodlust (2), energy (1) = 16 cost (2 hearts left).
you start with 3 hearts and get 15 shrines to pray at (= 18 points max). each one gives you either a heart or a power (and some powers subtract hearts, e.g. agility takes away 1 heart and also you're giving up a heart by choosing it instead of a heart, so the overall cost is 2).
it'd be nice to have 3 hearts and reduced shield bash cooldown. but i don't know what else to drop. i was using shielding bash before but i found mighty bash + reaction is better than shielding bash level 2, then i found 5range beam is better than level 1 of shielding bash.
the most optional stuff in my build is mighty bash and the mana talents. i think reaction is really necessary if you don't have shielding bash. in my current game right now i'm missing bloodlust so i have 4 hearts. it's hard to get the exact build you want cuz sometimes the shrine you need doesn't spawn. i've been doing alright but i think the extra 6 mana per kill would be good. i think it's significantly better than the +20 max energy.
i choose the slash jump talent thing over deep lunge b/c it makes a lot more leaps kill something. the way it works is you get one kill (often with beam) and then you do a leap that kills something, and then you use the free action from leaping to get a third kill to trigger agility to get another free action.
so it's like: beam, leap, free action, free action (the leap and first free action have to kill stuff). this is really powerful and lets you get some kills safely without getting hit, even when there are lots of ranged enemies. range 5 beam means you have as much range as the enemies, so if you shoot in a direction you're always safe from that direction instead of leaving one ranged guy who was out of range and can shoot back.
mighty bash makes you go back 2 squares from reaction with you do a bash. this is bad sometimes but often it helps you get to safety. i think it's good overall. and knocking bombs (or enemies) forward 2 squares is usually better than 1.
another big thing is you can leap to where ranged enemies can hit you and then beam them with the free action. without swift leap, you can't take the initiative to approach them. being able to take the initiative is really important. if you start a level by playing passive, it's risky. sometimes the ranged people will just point everywhere and you'll get in trouble. if you start clearing some guys out immediately before they all converge on you, then it's safer.
Bose QC35 II on sale $278 https://slickdeals.net/share/iphone_app/fp/407839
Company already working on senescent cell clearance starts a spin-off targeting cancer https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2018/07/oncosenx-is-the-oisin-biotechnologies-spinoff-targeting-cancer/
#10441 Odds they save me? Assume I would die of old age at 90 and i'm currently 42.
Hopelite
> slash jump (1), agility (2), 5range beam (2+1+2), swift jump (3), mighty bash (1), reaction (1), bloodlust (2), energy (1) = 16 cost (2 hearts left).
I got this exact build this time (sometimes you get the wrong prayers – especially sometimes wizard beam isn't available on level 8 and then you just have to reset i guess. or try a build with the ability to teleport to your spear? i think recalling your spear to your hand and plant spear are awful, but teleporting has some potential. it's hard to kill of it without being able to lunge with no spear though).
I'm around level 40. I've been hit twice. One of them could have been avoided if i had shielding bash level 1. i forget what the other one was. i might have just done it for convenience. you can play more aggressively if you just take a hit, and you heal it when the level ends anyway. i've been avoiding getting hit just as a goal, but sometimes it's just easier to get hit once.
i think i only used greater energy once. i ran through the level aggressively. i probably could have done something else without it.
maybe instead of 20mana and mighty bash, it'd be better to have shielding base level one *and* reaction. reaction is good because the ranged guys generally try to aim at you, so standing still while bashing is bad, whereas moving often dodges stuff.
i'm not sure how bad it would be not to have mighty bash. mighty bash is sometimes bad.
another option is to play with one heart and give up the ability to let something hit you and heal it with the fleece. i think that'd be bad because i could never jump somewhere a bomb would hit me, and i seem to need to do that occasionally. (bombs are one of the bigger threats because they hit you after you jump before your free action, and they can cover a large area that's hard to jump away from).
maybe instead of shielding bash, you just drop +20 energy for a third heart (because the heart is cheaper, so you can keep mighty bash). then you can take an extra hit sometimes and earn it back later. it's sort of like shielding bash but you can only use it once (let something hit you on a level where you already took a hit) until you get a level with no damage to heal back up. running low on energy is rarely a problem with bloodlust. sometimes it is though. i just remembered there was one level where i almost got screwed, in addition to taking a damage (shielding bash would have prevented it), i also got really low on mana that level and had trouble getting kills. i believe a bomb killed an enemy and gave me 6 mana back to just barely let me get a jump back, but i might not have really needed it anymore at that point (i might have been safe already).
i use mana aggressively and i usually regen a ton and it's fine. also being able to use bash instead of retreat (due to shielding bash), or just take an extra hit, would sometimes let me regen extra mana. so i now think the +20 mana talent might be a mistake, and a third heart might actually be better (a third heart isn't amazing either, so this is a close call).
i need to keep going and see how much harder it gets and get more used to later levels. being able to fit shielding bash in would be good but i don't know what else i could drop besides maybe mighty bash. reaction could only be dropped if i got level 2 shielding bash. i guess 5th range isn't absolutely required, it's really nice though.
skool sux
new vid. skool sux. clips and comments. https://youtu.be/JhIpW4H-3SQ
Another example of how psychiatry thwarts the rule of law:
https://twitter.com/PamelaGeller/status/1022674700361654272
> Canada: “Mentally ill” Muslim found “not criminally responsible” for STABBING three soldiers in army recruiting centre, “ALLAH told me to do it”: He is allowed to return to his community. Sickening. http://dlvr.it/QcvsGV
Horowitz Freedom Center Newsletter writes:
> Congressman Keith Ellison — a good friend of Jew hating, anti-white Louis Farrakhan — is demanding Amazon ban the Freedom Center from selling our books and pamphlets.
jeez.
prominent dem politicians with no respect for the first amendment.
Breitbart News liked your Tweet
I particularly liked my tweet, too :)
RIP free speech and Western values in Sydney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqY4Z1fTrMc
HorowitzCenter and more are shadowbanned on twitter.
https://twitter.com/j_mallone/status/1022820066323251200
Constant Contact shuts down VDare account due to "white supremacy" https://twitter.com/vdare/status/1022910090121277440?s=21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTAWaWMeB8c
Stefan Molyneux says "SCHOOL SUCKS". Decent video, especially the first few minutes. He goes off on some tangents and repeats some stuff later on.
"I swear by my life and my love it, that I am my brother's keeper, and he is mine"
> "I swear by my life and my love it, that I am my brother's keeper, and he is mine"
And I'll make him be mine, whether he likes it or not, and no matter what country he's from because I don't want the left to think I'm a racist.
> because I don't want the left to think I'm a racist.
Or even say it, dishonestly. Do they even think? Do they actually *think* their targets are racists? Can they meaningfully think such a thing given their unwillingness to think about what "racism" is?
These people call you a racist if you say you don't think racial groups (and other groups, e.g. refugees) should get special treatment.
brooooooooooooo I realised what your problem is.
It's that you lack the austrian spirit. Die Österreichische Geist.
This is the thing that prevents you from understanding Popper, Mises, Hayek and all those other people.
You just don't get it. You don't understand the culture it all came from.
#10457 What do I (who?) misunderstand about Popper or Mises?
With Hayek I presume you consider *disliking* him to be misunderstanding. But I like Mises and Popper, so I don't even know what you're talking about.
Maybe you're bad at communicating because you have the austrian spirit instead of the anglo English-speaking spirit.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/culture-war-turns-expression-and-free-speech-into-weapon/
> In a culture-war world, it is inescapable that everything becomes a weapon.
Stupid opener. It's kinda like a tautology. In an X-world, X is inescapable.
kinda interesting article about a semi-right-winger and how he differs from the left he used to be more a part of.
https://areomagazine.com/2018/03/11/a-liberal-who-remembers/
I want to live in a world where 4.1% is shit. Why can't we have 10%?
Also a world where people don't make such a big deal out of GPD since, as is well know, it's a crappy, misleading, flawed stat. Use some better stats. Or if your only stats are terrible, don't use them and just admit you don't know.
> Why can't we have 10%?
Cuz of anti-capitalism.
Progress would certainly more than double if we had pretty pure capitalism and minimal government. 10% wouldn't even be that would. There's way more than a factor of 3 loss from the destructive policies we have now.
> WORCESTER, Mass. — A freshman tentatively raises her hand and takes the microphone. "I'm really scared to ask this," she begins. "When I, as a white female, listen to music that uses the N-word, and I'm in the car, or, especially when I'm with all white friends, is it OK to sing along?"
> The answer, from Sheree Marlowe, the new chief diversity officer at Clark University, is an unequivocal "no."
> The exchange was included in Marlowe's presentation to recently arriving first-year students focusing on subtle "microaggressions," part of a new campus vocabulary that also includes "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings."
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2016/09/06/college-campuses-cautiously-train-freshmen-against-subtle-insults/
#10464 shut your mouth, shut your mind, and learn to obey
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/399278-trump-had-repeatedly-asked-aides-to-ban-reporters-before-cnn-incident
Trump sucks at tyranny; has to fight with staff to get even a single reporter banned from WH
To compare, here is some stuff about press relations under Obama:
https://twitter.com/almostjingo/status/1022297569337077765?s=21
read the thread there's a ton of examples
#10466 jeez i read a bunch. this is the worst one:
https://twitter.com/almostjingo/status/1022314561930579968
> Perhaps the buzziest money-loser of the year is MoviePass, which has upended the film industry by essentially giving away millions of free movie tickets. Until recently, MoviePass members could pay $9.95 for a monthly subscription that allowed them to watch up to one movie per day in theaters, with MoviePass paying the face value of the ticket on a preloaded debit card. Since the average cost of a movie ticket in the United States is around $9, going to just two movies per month resulted in a good deal for the customer, and a loss for the company. (MoviePass has started placing more restrictions on which films its customers can see, perhaps in an effort to trim costs.)
> MoviePass’s business model — which Slate described as “creatively lighting money aflame in order to subsidize the movie-going habits of some 3 million customers” — has turbocharged its growth. And the company maintains that it can make money by striking revenue-sharing deals with theater chains, or charging movie studios to advertise inside its app
Wtf kinda biz model is this
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3978555&mc=99&forum_id=2#36064261
#10468 lol @ this xoxo comment. i don't think other ppl will appreciate it but i think you will:
> A cinema is attended
> #10468 lol @ this xoxo comment. i don't think other ppl will appreciate it but i think you will:
>> A cinema is attended
I forgot what this reference is about
Btw https://twitter.com/slickdeals/status/1023007651934945280?s=21
#10470 dumb, indirect, passive voice. like the username "A Jurisprudence is Performed"
Updated Twitter profile. One emoji per thing instead of two. Added MAGA.
#10473 von Mises hated money.
#10474 no, he loved money. since you're being pedantic, you ought to remember the difference between money and paper money.
did you have a positive suggestion for a better emoji? there's no gold bar.
Standard, good red pill tips:
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-male-sexuality-shaming-shit-test/
It's interesting how the guy with the newbie question says:
> I know the correct answer is
and then says the socially-normie totally-wrong blue pill answer.
#10463 Another indication twitter deleted a lot of bots, not MAGAs. They apparently deleted way more Obama followers than Trump followers:
https://twitter.com/JohnRLottJr/status/1023272920049758215
> Interesting that Obama had about 10xs more fake followers on Twitter than President Trump. Obama lost >3m followers while Trump lost 340K.
great behind the scenes content from the Overwatch League Finals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzdB3zGgXh8
(has day 1 spoilers)
Lots of negative words are also used as positive words. They're still used as negative words, too. Examples:
Sick, nasty, bad, ridiculous, disgusting, crazy, insane.
Why?
Ugh. Well, as I've said before, he's on a 4 year clock (NOT 8 years). He really, really, really should have built a wall already. But the end of his term is the hard limit on reasonable patience.
#10476 Besides making up McDonalds food symptoms, people also do this:
See also, the history of "hysteria" (read Szasz books covering history, like Manufacture of Madness).
#10491 the Lyme article link: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/25/the-challenge-of-chronic-lyme/
#10492
> The problem is, of course, that parents are not the ones who would actually be subjected to my interventions. The children, my patients, don’t get to choose. And it isn’t fair to treat parents’ worry through the vulnerable bodies of their children.
:)
#10493
> Both groups got better. The antibiotics didn’t work any better than the placebos, though. Placebos are highly effective for many conditions, and have been shown to enact neurophysiological change in patients exposed to them. That is, placebos can change your brain. The reason that new drugs are tested against a placebo is precisely because placebos work so well—if a drug is more effective than a placebo, it’s pretty good.
this paragraph sucks
Risking getting blocked:
Twitter cut too much off the quote so it's confusing.
#10495 This relates to an ongoing policy I was thinking about today:
In general, I'm highly responsive to requests, but not very responsive to unstated preferences that people seem to want me to guess and then act on (while they, often, would deny it being their preference, even as they would be upset if I didn't act on it).
I think this is a good policy. I am open to criticism about this policy. But the people who dislike this policy aren't exactly the types to state criticism...
https://t.co/I6WZ3LAvk0
Steve Bannon says:
> “Absolutely. The main two differences between right-wing populism here and in Europe is that in Europe, even my right-wing brothers in Italy, they still look to the state for solutions. The question there is just who controls the state. Here, right-wing populism under Trump, Trumpism, is fundamentally different. It strives to take the state’s long tentacles out of the lives of working citizens.”
https://twitter.com/usatodaymoney/status/1023678822305038336?s=21
Presuming they give u MacCoins when u get a Big Mac for a dollar using daily app coupon, Big Macs are gonna be the best deal at McDonald's deal at mcdonalds
Meanwhile, the media are lying about Lakemba:
https://youtu.be/x9MgCE933w8
(Interesting tidbit at the end: Stefan didn't think Lauren going to Lakemba would be productive. He admits he was wrong. But what bad judgment he had in the first place! Good thing Lauren is there to be the brains of the operation.)
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=26155
> Quiz Israel out of existence - and win $50-$100!
> PA TV quiz rewards Palestinians who deny Israel's existence
PA = Palestinian Authority (maybe the West shouldn't fund them!?)
Maybe I should make pagination for comments. I don't like being forced into a paged view, but it could be a good *option* instead of making a new open discussion post periodically. It could be enabled only if there are 200+ comments, or something like that, and have a "show all" button right next to the page links (which would be at both the top and bottom of the comments section).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs
leftist ranting about Trump's victory. interesting. lots of blame on Hillary. says that the polls were wrong because "we" (the left) suppress people saying what they really think. says that lots of Trump voters weren't racists and flaming people doesn't win elections.
#10510 note the video presents itself as unscripted and off-the-cuff, but it's actually scripted. the speaker is an actor, but also genuinely is a lefty. (in my understanding from doing too little research to know much about him)
This is an interesting video. It's the same guy from the above video, but in a real interview, unscripted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA6OwzQ-P1Q
He's arguing with a lefty, and he concedes all kinds of false stuff, but he still argues some points about free speech and the use of ad hominem identity politics in debates, and he's *so reasonable* when he challenges the left (they are carefully limited challenges) and the lefty interviewer won't give any ground.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/07/29/review-the-2018-macbook-pro-with-i9-processor-is-the-fastest-laptop-apple-has-ever-made-but-it-could-be-better
> We've said it before —we think Apple got hosed by Intel, when they were gearing up for the 2016 MacBook Pro enclosure in 2015. We know that in 2015, Intel was promising delivery of 10nm process Core chips well before now, and even smaller by 2018.
> Coffee Lake is unapologetically still 14nm. Intel hasn't set a delivery target in seven years that it hasn't broken by months or years.
...
> Regarding MagSafe, we've been testing USB-C for a very long time at this point. On a melamine, Corian, or finished wood desk surface, the force required to pull out Apple's USB-C charging cable is about three-quarters of what it takes to break a MagSafe 2 connection, when the cable is pulled from less than a 40-degree angle from center on the horizontal plane, and less than 30 degrees from center on the vertical.
...
> Apple's service numbers that we've collated bear this out. MagSafe's introduction in January 2006 halved accidental damage service calls by 2009. There was no change in those numbers for MagSafe 2. But, in the two years since the MacBook Pro was released, there has been no increase in the accidental damage rate at all —and possibly a decrease, but we'll wait another year to fully declare that.
> Is COBOL holding you hostage with Math?
https://medium.com/@bellmar/is-cobol-holding-you-hostage-with-math-5498c0eb428b
interesting article on why COBOL is still used, the tradeoffs, and fixed point math.
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/islamic-relief-fails-to-disprove-terror-links
> The Middle East Forum (MEF) has decisively responded to a letter sent by Islamic Relief USA to members of Congress denying allegations made in a recent MEF report – and subsequently cited in testimony before the House Oversight Committee’s National Security Subcommittee – that outline the charitable franchise’s links to extremism and terror.
why does this matter?
> Founded in 1984 in Birmingham, England, Islamic Relief, with branches in over 20 countries, is the largest Islamic charity in the West. It has received at least $80 million over the past ten years from Western governments and international bodies, including the United Nations. It received more than $700,000 from U.S. taxpayers during the past two years. Its officials are members of government advisory panels, while Western cabinet ministers, European royalty, and Trump administration officials speak at its events.
an example of one the issues and what the debate is like, cuz jfc:
> MEF has now published its own response, showing that every single one of IR-USA’s denials is merely a sidestep or deception.
> IR-USA, for example, states that the Islamic Zakat Society (IZS) in Gaza, a key partner of the Islamic Relief franchise, “is widely known for its apolitical stance, and its board members and senior staff have no known affiliation with Hamas.”
> This is simply untrue. MEF’s response notes that IZS’s own website describes itself as “soldiers for Jerusalem,” and calls on Palestinians to “support the family of the martyr” and support the struggle for the “captive Jerusalem.” In 2009, IZS organized a student event at which the keynote speaker was Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, who declared that students would “return our lands to us” … through “jihadist force.” Top IZS official Hazem Al-Sirraj, meanwhile, is a prominent cleric in Gaza who studied under the Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. In 2010, Al-Sirraj was the keynote speaker at a Hamas conference in Gaza for the “sons of Hamas,” including Hamas “founders, scientists, politicians and academics.”
full details are available at the linked article + the links at the bottom of it
https://mailchi.mp/ben-evans/benedicts-newsletter-no-450589?e=6d10385a84
> The ACLU did a publicity stunt in which it got Amazon's cloud facial recognition service to falsely identify US congressmen as criminals, by matching their pictures against a mugshot database. Amazon points out that machine learning is a probabilistic technology, that the ACLU set the tool to 80% confidence (not, say, 99%), and that the sample image set was biased, all of which is true but also, of course, the point: if you are not rigorous in thinking about what parameters you use and what bias might be in the data set, then you will get lots of inaccuracies. Machine learning is not magic, the computer can be wrong, and one should not take the results of any such system on trust. Equally, of course, claiming as the ACLU does that this is 'flawed and dangerous' is also to miss the point: it's a tool with probabilistic outcomes that you can use or mis-use, and more importantly understand or misunderstand. Link
unicode has some junk/mistake characters in it.
https://www.dampfkraft.com/ghost-characters.html
> You'd think that listing the source would make tracking down the origins of the characters easy, but it's important to clarify what counts as a "source" - one of the more common sources for the ghost characters was the "Overview of National Administrative Districts" (国土行政区画総覧), a comprehensive list of place names in Japan. You might, as I initially did, imagine this to be a kind of atlas, an oversize book with at most a few hundred pages. It turns out the latest edition is a seven volume set with each volume having roughly nine hundred pages. Imagine tracking down a single character without a page reference.
...
> 妛 was an error introduced while trying to record "山 over 女". "山 over 女" occurs in the name of a particular place and was thus suitable for inclusion in the JIS standard, but because they couldn't print it as one character yet, 山 and 女 were printed separately, cut out, and pasted onto a sheet of paper, and then copied. When reading the copy, the line where the two little pieces of paper met looked like a stroke and was added to the character by mistake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CgjGH2ddmI
I'm finding it very amusing to hear an *analytical* person doing *analysis* of people's looks.
#10519 oh shit i got to the end and the #3 and #2 were serious, and then the #1 was hilarious trolling.
the style of *Human Action* (by Mises) is very slow and careful. very anti-*overreaching*. it’s an example of how far you can get while mostly just keeping it simple and not fucking up. he's constantly putting together simple, almost "obvious" stuff, using basic logic, and not straying further into harder stuff. yet he says a lot and corrects so many people.
#10521 it's a *great* book. a huge achievement. it's long and has a low error rate. most thinkers would have a hard time writing one page with that low an error rate without being boring/pointless, and Mises manages to do it consistently for hundreds of pages that have connections between the ideas (the pages work together, instead of being independent, which makes it harder).
Mises breaks things down and goes step by step. He also does a good job of organizing the book into sections and sub-sections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT0WlbXLpXM
Yaron Brook attacked Charles Tew. Charles Tew comments.
omnipotent government
"Omnipotent government" is a book by von mises about why ww2 started. I've read about 3/4 of it. It's a very good book. Its explains how socialism and interveventionism helped lead to the war. It's a lot better than the work of people who currently claim to represent him at the Mises Institute.
thx for the tip, i'll check if i've read that one or not. i've been rereading Human Action currently.
> It's a lot better than the work of people who currently claim to represent him at the Mises Institute.
aren't basically ALL his books better than what the current "Mises" (Rothbard) Institute ppl can write?
i don't think i read Omnipotent Government.
preface:
> IN dealing with the problems of social and economic policies, the social sciences consider only one question: whether the measures suggested are really suited to bringing about the effects sought by their authors, or whether they result in a state of affairs which—from the viewpoint of their supporters—is even more undesirable than the previous state which it was intended to alter. The economist does not substitute his own judgment about the desirability of ultimate ends for that of his fellow citizens. He merely asks whether the ends sought by nations, governments, political parties, and pressure groups can indeed be attained by the methods actually chosen for their realization.
I don't agree with Mises about this. I think economics **can** do this, and *commonly* does, and it's a great, valuable thing to be able to do. But I don't think it's the **only** thing economics and the social sciences can productively deal with and do.
> It is, to be sure, a thankless task. Most people are intolerant of any criticism of their social and economic tenets.
:) @ mises saying it. :( @ it being true
> They do not understand that the objections raised refer only to unsuitable methods and do not dispute the ultimate ends of their efforts.
The economic ideas and objections raised by Mises are helpful for people, like Rand and myself, who *do* dispute their ultimate ends.
I think Mises is mistaken to expect to be judged with such neutrality. His ideas have consequences. Those consequences are good for everyone in the same way Objectivism and TCS are, but I don't agree Mises is fully in a separate category (I can agree his work *partly* is). It's unsurprising for these things to be viciously opposed by people who don't understand them and see a threat.
> They are not prepared to admit the possibility that they might attain their ends more easily by following the economists’ advice than by disregarding it.
Mises is ignoring or underestimating or something the extent to which people have bad ends. Ultimately, in the long run, if they sorted out enough of the contradictions between their ends, and learned enough, and fixed enough of their static memes, and so on, we expect they would settle on Objectivism, capitalism, etc. but they don't know that and they aren't there yet and in the mean time they have all kinds of ends that are bad and which are incompatible with Mises' worldview. Right now they want X and Y. If they understood Mises, they'd stop wanting X, start wanting Z, and learn a better way to get Y. They see this as a threat to X, not a way to help them get X. It sorta is ... but they'd be better off in their own judgment in the new situation. But that's hard to understand.
I updated the FI book recommendations page by adding this paragraph:
Note: *If you don't like a book, stop reading it*. Ask a question about it, share a criticism, or try something else. If it's too difficult, *stop reading* and seek help or try something else. Reading books you don't like, or don't understand, won't help you. Book recommendations are a *starting point*, but it's up to you to evaluate the book for yourself after you've read some (specifically evaluate its value to you right now, not its value in general).
Thomas Sowell on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/1023977297228046336
> “One of the most pathetic—and dangerous—signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason.”
#10530 oh wtf. it's NOT Sowell. it uses his name, photo and handle, but then admits being a fake in the profile. but that may actually be a quote from the real Sowell.
impersonator accounts should have an indicator that's visible without reading the profile text. really bad of him to do this, IMO.
Satire can't keep up with reality anymore:
https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1024093165916233728
#10532 there's a serious article saying that lesbians should learn to give blow jobs because some women have penises.
Have any of you read DIM Hypothesis? Did you like it? I read some and got bored. Same with Ominous Parallels. Does anyone know something I'm missing?
Free iOS camera app (pay attention to instructions)
https://slickdeals.net/share/iphone_app/t/11882827
> Psychiatry is an absolute sham, an excuse to horrifically abuse children:
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5992551/Barbara-OHare-opens-abuse-hands-Dr-Kenneth-Milner.html
That report says nothing about psychiatry. What it does say is how easy it was - and to a large extent still is - for child abusers to use the system for their own ends.
Ryan Waggoner email newsletter today begins:
> Hi there,
> When I was a teenager, my dad used to say that nothing good happens after midnight.
> I know, he sounds fun, right?
> But in this case, he was correct, because enrollment for Freelance250k closes tonight at midnight :)
How can such transparent and stupid social crap work on people?
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=26161
> Belgian funded PA school still named after terrorist mass murderer
> PA ignores Belgian demands to change name, yet Belgian funding of the PA continues unabated
The Mises quotes are at:
http://curi.us/2133-mises-against-open-borders
> #10532 there's a serious article saying that lesbians should learn to give blow jobs because some women have penises.
related:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-u-s-universities-back-harvard-in-affirmative-action-case-1532977076
> “Educational institutions have the requisite expertise and the right to make the inherently academic judgments on how to set criteria for their student admissions and in particular, what kind, quality, or extent of diversity will best enhance the educational experience of students and allow those students to flourish,” they wrote. “It would be an extraordinary infringement on universities’ academic freedom to decree that institutions of higher education cannot consider race at all in seeking to obtain that diversity,” they said.
Racist universities explicitly rejecting a race-blind, skin-color-blind approach to dealing with people.
https://hbr.org/2018/07/want-less-biased-decisions-use-algorithms
> Thanks to the pioneering work of Paul Meehl (and follow-up work by Robyn Dawes), we have known since at least the 1950s that very simple mathematical models outperform supposed experts at predicting important outcomes in clinical settings.
> A few months ago, VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow asked me if I might review neoconservative #NeverTrumper Jonah Goldberg’s new book, Suicide of the West. I value my free time highly, so I was pretty dubious—Jonah Goldberg, who has been a media-touted professional token Conservative for all of my life (he’s Gen X, I’m Gen Y), has never to my knowledge said anything interesting, and there are plenty of books I would like to read that are certain to be good. I promptly wrote back to Mr. Brimelow: “I just checked on Amazon and Jonah Goldberg's new book is 464 pages long. I wouldn't be willing to read that for less than a ridiculous sum that I wouldn't accept from anyone to just read a useless book and review it.” Mr. Brimelow dropped the matter after that, and the brilliant Paul Gottfried reviewed it for VDARE.com instead.
> Then, more recently, Mr. Brimelow emailed me a mixed review of the book [Jonah Goldberg’s Burkean Turn, June 26, 2018] by Matt Purple at The American Conservative and asked me again if I might review it. While I am aware of the longstanding tradition of writers shamelessly reviewing books without reading them (two brilliant writers, George Orwell and Joe Sobran, both did this, the former even writing an amusing essay about the practice.), I think this practice is detestable, and hope to never do it. So I replied to Mr. Brimelow: “Ugh. I'd be willing to write you an amusing polemical article-length explanation as to why I am not willing to read/review it. That's the best offer I can give.”
> And incredibly, Mr. Brimelow said “Sure.” So, dear reader, here we are.
lol @ the topic counter offer and it being accepted
https://vdare.com/articles/no-peter-brimelow-i-am-not-reviewing-jonah-expletive-deleted-goldberg-s-new-book
#10543
> Mr. Goldberg’s thesis, gleaned from reviews and his endless electronic media appearances, is that the biggest thing (if not the only thing) that makes “the West” great are our Enlightenment/Lockean/Classical Liberal values.
and these values are under attack by the tribalist left and the tribalist right, but good old Mr. Goldberg has figured out the golden mean of non-extremist values. (this is a joke b/c the golden mean is a pre-enlightenment greek idea)
> This argument is retarded because of mankind’s historical record between the late seventeenth century (when Mr. Goldberg marks the emergence of his preferred values), and the 1960s. During these 300 or so years, each and every Lockean, free marketer, Classical Liberal, and Enlightenment proponent was a “tribalist” by Mr. Goldberg’s standards—and “racist” by the standards of basically everyone alive today.
Nah, it's dumber than that.
what about greece, rome, and the renaissance? what about the magna carta?
there were good things before the enlightenment, so ummm yeah...
I'd like to see the evidence that Burke and Godwin – hell and Mises and Rand who wrote things before 1960 – were racists by *my* standards (me being a person alive today).
#10543 the stuff you quote is amusing but it's kinda dumb too. he could read that book like 5 hours if he was good at reading (500 wpm). or he could have just read like a chapter, or started reading the chapter until he had enough quotes to yell at, or just skimmed around for interesting parts. with skill, he should be able to get plenty of quotes for an article in an hour (not a proper review article, maybe more of a fisking instead of just excuses for not reading it).
http://thehill.com/regulation/labor/399690-doj-labor-dept-to-target-employers-that-discriminate-against-americans-by
> The Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Labor announced an agreement Tuesday to work together in cracking down on companies that "discriminate" against U.S. workers by hiring foreign workers.
> The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and the Labor Department will start sharing information on employers, refer issues to the appropriate officials at each department and offer training to each other’s staff under the agreement.
> Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore said in a statement that the agreement will help the civil rights division’s “ability to identify employers the favor temporary visa holders over U.S. workers who can do the job.”
> ADVERTISEMENT
> “Employers should hire workers based on their skills, experience, and authorization to work; not based on discriminatory preferences that violate the law,” he said.
> Rosemary Lahasky, the deputy assistant secretary for Labor's employment and training administration, said in a statement that sharing the information “will help protect U.S. workers from unlawful discrimination.”
#10546 I agree that he could get plenty of quotes for an article with some skill.
Why do people use Medium?
PS
https://medium.com/topic/politics
Judging by a few dozen headlines, ~all articles on major political issues are anti-Trump.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/origins-of-second-civil-war-globalism-tech-boom-immigration-campus-radicalism/
> In the 1980s, the universities embraced two antithetical agendas, both costly and reliant on borrowed money. On the one hand, campuses competed for scarcer students by styling themselves as Club Med–type resorts with costly upscale dorms, tony student-union centers, lavish gyms, and an array of in loco parentis social services. The net effect was to make colleges responsible not so much for education, but more for shielding now-fragile youth from the supposed reactionary forces that would buffet them after graduation.
is that true? is that new? is that a change that started in the 80's?
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/tommy-robinson-free-mef-heavily-involved
> Tommy Robinson Free – MEF [Middle East Forum, with Daniel Pipes as president] Heavily Involved
Apple reported earnings and the stock went up 5%. Mac sales were down, probably due to lack of updates to Mac models (MacBook Pros just got updated, but that was after the period reported; more updates will come this fall presumably).
Apple bought back lots of stock contrary to media fears. It has a low price/earnings ratio:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/01/while-wall-street-quacked-about-killing-iphone-x-apple-quietly-bought-back-435b-in-its-own-stock
Netflix made a great Rome show:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire_(TV_series)
I just finished season 2.
It has a narrator and sometimes it cuts to modern scholars saying things about Rome. It's kinda a live action show, but with documentary stuff too. It's a good mix. I like the style.
I also especially liked HBO's Rome show from 5-10 years ago. It was way better than Game of Thrones.
new reddit SUCKS. it is laggy to scroll up and down on a good computer, probably because of all the autoplaying videos. and compare how much content you can see on one page:
old:
new:
new with mostly non-video non-image posts:
> Conservatism's Hidden History
http://www.danielpipes.org/18452/conservativism-hidden-history
this perspective is worth being aware of. but Burke was a liberal. you could call it the reformer liberals vs. the utopian radical liberals.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/1/17639656/uber-lyft-bailout-nyc-taxi-drivers-cap
> Lyft, Uber, and Via proposed a $100 million fund for underwater medallion owners, but the [NYC] mayor and the City Council said no thanks
someone humorously imagined what Trump reading the Sarah Jeong tweets at an upcoming Trump rally might be like
(background here http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/02/new-york-times-sarah-jeong-racist/)
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4040724&forum_id=2#36542735
> "folks, remember the Mexican rapists? the famous rapists. i say some mexicans that are coming in are rapists, are bad hombres, and that's true, undeniable, and the media, the mainstream media, these lovely people back there *points*
> *crowd chants 'CNN sucks' for 3 minutes*
> ...oh boy, you guys are rough, rough stuff, how do you really feel huh? *chuckles and shakes head*
> Anyways so the famous rapists,
> *EXAGGERATED STIFF FORMAL VOICE*
> "Donald Trump said all Mexicans are rapists. Donald Trump said the Russians should hack the emails. Donald Trump Donald Trump*
> *BACK TO NORMAL TRUMP VOICE*
> ...right? Our fake news, our lovely fake news people, so they go bananas, they go bananas over my statement. But then this lady here, oh boy, I've got it right here
> *pulls several printed pages out of suit pocket*
> I've got it right here folks, oh boy, she's the newest hire for the New York Times. Listen, can you believe this? You're not gonna believe it. Sarah Jong, okay? Ms Jong, what does she say?
> Here's what she says on her tweets:
> 'Oh man, it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men'
> *crowd boos loudly*
> Can you imagine? I know, I know, terrible.
> Here's another one from Miss Jong:
> 'Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.'
> *BOOING INTENSIFIES*
> Amazing. New York Times Editorial board! *Trump waves papers* Was this her resume? Maybe it was her resume!
> I gotta read one more, okay, one more?
> Oh boy I can't even read this one, I see kids in the crowd folks, oh boy, well, I'll kinda reading it, okay? I'll kinda read it and you will get the idea. Not very presidential, but that's okay right?
> 'Dumbass....couldn't avoid that one, sorry, first word, don't know how else to say it....Dumbass f'n white people marking up the internet with their opinions...like dogs peeing and she didn't say peeing okay? but like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.'
> *BOOING INTENSIFIES FURTHER*
> It's a shame folks. And they complain when I call them the enemy of the people!"
> Netflix made a great Rome show:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire_(TV_series)
> I just finished season 2.
> It has a narrator and sometimes it cuts to modern scholars saying things about Rome. It's kinda a live action show, but with documentary stuff too. It's a good mix. I like the style.
Great recommendation, thanks 🙏
Best part so far for me was when Caesar had a problem he solved by BUILDING A WALL. Then he had another problem and solved it by BUILDING ANOTHER WALL. Very inspirational 🙂
Context: Jeong wrote very racist, nasty tweets and got hired by NYT.
Ultimate Sarah Jeong racist tweet collection link:
https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368
Elliot, you should read this:
http://geniusfamine.blogspot.com/
http://geniusfamine.blogspot.com/ says geniuses are like this:
> The Endogenous personality is the ‘inner’ Man; a person whose outlook on life is ‘inward.’ He is inner-directed, inner-driven, inner-motivated; one who uses inner modes of thinking, inner evaluations, in-tuition; one who is to a high degree autonomous, self-sufficient; one who is relatively indifferent to social pressures, influences and inducements.
And also says:
> Geniuses are altruistic, in the sense that their work is primarily for the good of the group; and not for the usual social rewards such as status, money, sex, and popularity.
This is silly. It says geniuses are self-oriented ... and that they work primarily for the good of the group.
These statements occur in close proximity near the beginning.
There are other silly things but I'll skim some more later.
The quality of most political attacks is so low that Robert Spencer *routinely* gets mixed up for Richard Spencer.
From: https://yesornophilosophy.com/
> You could propose that knowledge always existed and was never originally created. God is eternal. That's not satisfactory either.
Why is that not satisfactory?
GREAT Tucker vid on Sarah Jeong and the racism of the left
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reE0Y7psEE0&feature=youtu.be
> From: https://yesornophilosophy.com/
>> You could propose that knowledge always existed and was never originally created. God is eternal. That's not satisfactory either.
> Why is that not satisfactory?
The context was the questions:
> *How can knowledge be created from non-knowledge? Where could knowledge come from originally?*
Saying it's eternal doesn't answer those questions. It's like half an answer to "originally" (answer: it didn't – but no explanation of how that's possible or what's going on there), and no answer at all to how new knowledge is created (by human intelligence, by biological evolution, etc).
If your goal is to explain how humans can think of new things like inventing spaceships, or explain where animal eyes came from (with their appearance of design), then saying "God is eternal" does not address the issue.
#10567 Thanks. I saw this as a variant of the question Christians typically ask about the universe, "Where did the universe come from originally if not God?"
To which my answer has been that we don't know. But God doesn't provide an answer either, since saying the universe came from God just pushes the question back one level: where did God come from?
They (Christians) find "God is eternal" to be a satisfactory answer to where God came from. I get stuck when they say it's satisfactory to them, and I say it's not to me.
I can anticipate a similar result with your answer about knowledge. They'd say something like "God is the explanation of how that's possible or what's going on there". And they'd say God is explained in the Bible, and I'd say it's an unsatisfactory explanation to me and they'd say it's satisfactory to them...stuck.
> GREAT Tucker vid on Sarah Jeong and the racism of the left
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reE0Y7psEE0&feature=youtu.be
Tucker the best TV news host? By far?
#10536
I had thee same view about it in the beginning, but the author does not use "altruism" properly. He is only referring to the outcome and not an intention.
>> GREAT Tucker vid on Sarah Jeong and the racism of the left
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reE0Y7psEE0&feature=youtu.be
> Tucker the best TV news host? By far?
Who else is even in contention?
Like Hannity is okay but nowhere near same tier.
Maybe Ingraham is good? I haven't watched her show
From the xoxo archives: The Fall of Github
> not all companies are. github is kind of a tragic tale that's all-too-common in the valley of a well-meaning but naive white dork founder who gets browbeaten by the social justice crowd and continually caves to their demands until they finally decide to devour him.
> It started when some SJWs got upset that he had a rug in his office saying "In Meritocracy We Trust" which they claimed was their justification of 'white privilege' and an excuse for why there were so many white male engineers at Github. So they scrapped the rug and 'pledged to make changes' which really meant making diversity hires in a show of kissing the ring. Then there was this bizarre sexual harassment suit that got brought by one of the diversity hires that was ultimately revealed to be baseless, but by then the damage was done. because being accused of sexual harassment is almost as bad as actually committing it, he stepped down, and now people are claiming this whole thing is actually good for github because they're bringing in 'professionals' to 'clean up' the culture.
> What this will mean is: their best engineers will leave (the cream of the crop left long ago--these guys are very good at sussing out the social justice bullshit,) and the company will cling to life as it's overtaken by competitors. Github will be fine for a while before it begins its downward slide, however, and social justice types will parade around this as demonstrating how diversity/progressivism 'helps' companies.
> This also happened to the CEO of Mozilla (firefox.)
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3128202&forum_id=2#29814998
#10571
> Who else is even in contention?
i don't know, not a big TV watcher... i've seen some hannity, he's ok but not as good as tucker. and saw some bill o'reilly in the past, who was ok but not as good as tucker. others are generally awful, though i did largely enjoy stephen colbert's right wing persona (i think it's actually smarter than his real left wing persona).
what about online shows like crowder or levin? any great ones?
> I can anticipate a similar result with your answer about knowledge. They'd say something like "God is the explanation of how that's possible or what's going on there". And they'd say God is explained in the Bible, and I'd say it's an unsatisfactory explanation to me and they'd say it's satisfactory to them...stuck.
it helps if you get more specific. by what *mechanism* does God explain human intelligence? God created the universe and the laws of physics, and then biological evolution created humans that are intelligent *somehow* (God's role is kinda indirect/limited and doesn't help explain how intelligence works)? God personally/directly created intelligence originally (explains the origins, instead of evolution) ... and then it works according to and within the laws of physics? by being a computer running software? or is God involved in our thinking at all times, and if he disappeared we'd lose our intelligence? like our brains are computers but God is constantly changing some of the data, while it's running, in order to help us get intelligent instead of non-intelligent thoughts, and without that interference our brain software wouldn't work? does God do that for animals too – e.g. for a wolf's purposeful hunting behavior – or only for humans? or is there some other mechanism? or maybe there aren't consistent laws of physics, we live in a magical world where the rules keep changing depending on God's moods or decisions or something, and yet our intelligence seems to consistently work anyway, which is because ... what?
> Anarchy Breaks Out in Portland, With the Mayor’s Blessing
> A vicious mob targeted the ICE office and even a food cart. The police followed orders to do nothing.
> Andy NgoAug. 3, 2018 5:24 p.m. ET
> Along the trolley tracks behind the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, a biohazard cleanup crew works under police protection. It finds used needles and buckets of human waste simmering in nearly 100-degree heat. The smell of urine and feces fills the block. For more than five weeks, as many as 200 people had occupied the site to demand ICE’s immediate abolition. They’re gone now, but a community is left reeling. Thirty-eight days of government-sanctioned anarchy will do that.
> A mob surrounded ICE’s office in Southwest Portland June 19. They barricaded the exits and blocked the driveway. They sent “guards” to patrol the doors, trapping workers inside. At night they laid on the street, stopping traffic at a critical junction near a hospital. Police stayed away. “At this time I am denying your request for additional resources,” the Portland Police Bureau’s deputy chief, Robert Day, wrote to federal officers pleading for help. Hours later, the remaining ICE workers were finally evacuated by a small federal police team. The facility shut down for more than a week.
> Signs called ICE employees “Nazis” and “white supremacists.” Others accused them of running a “concentration camp,” and demanded open borders and prosecution of ICE agents. Along a wall, vandals wrote the names of ICE staff, encouraging others to publish their private information online.
> Federal workers were defenseless. An ICE officer, who asked that his name not be published, told me one of his colleagues was trailed in a car and confronted when he went to pick up his daughter from summer camp. Later people showed up at his house. Another had his name and photo plastered on flyers outside his home accusing him of being part of the “Gestapo.”
> Where were the police? Ordered away by Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler, who doubles as police commissioner. “I do not want the @PortlandPolice to be engaged or sucked into a conflict, particularly from a federal agency that I believe is on the wrong track,” he tweeted. “If [ICE is] looking for a bailout from this mayor, they are looking in the wrong place.”
> The mob set up camp behind the building, where they harassed journalists and banned photography. The open-borders advocates also erected an 8-foot wall around their site. I walked through and saw young children, including infants, in squalid conditions and 90-degree heat. Every American flag was defaced. Anarchist and communist flags were unsoiled.
> Stuart Lindquist, the ICE facility’s 79-year-old landlord, visited his property on June 21. “The political powers in the city of Portland have stopped the police from doing what they normally would do,” he told me. When he attempted to drive into the parking lot, occupiers swarmed and pounded his windows. In the commotion, Mr. Lindquist’s car struck someone in the mob, who wasn’t injured. His home address later appeared online, and he says the harassment hasn’t stopped.
> On June 28 federal police mobilized from out of state finally moved to reopen the office. They arrested a handful of people for refusing to leave the ICE office’s front, but the rest retreated to the camp and focused their vitriol on the officers. They repeatedly called a black officer “traitor” and “house n—.” They shouted that they knew where the officers lived, and published more addresses online.
> The same day Mayor Wheeler again pledged not to intervene. In a statement, he whitewashed the lawless behavior: “I join those outraged by ICE actions separating parents from their children, and support peaceful protest to give voice to our collective moral conscience.”
> The Hakes family, which owns the Happy Camper food cart across the street from ICE’s office, responded to the statement with incredulity. The mob “terrorized our family” and forced the business to close, Julie Hakes told me. Ms. Hakes showed me text messages from her 21-year-old daughter, Brianna, who ran the cart. “Just saw a drug deal,” Brianna reported early on. After members of the anti-ICE mob spotted her selling breakfast burritos to federal officers, the situation deteriorated. “Call me immediately!” Brianna wrote after being accused of “supporting the pigs” and “child deportation.” She said people wearing masks threatened to hurt her and burn down the cart, and the police never responded to their frantic calls.
> Randy Glary, a 52-year-old artist and longtime resident, was photographing the camp when he said a group of occupiers knocked his camera into his face. Charles Williams, a 62-year-old man who lives across the street, said someone threatened to stab him with an “AIDS-infected needle.” From his balcony, he saw the “thugs” begin masked street patrols. Others brandished sticks. Lisa Leonard, a 53-year-old disabled resident, said occupiers hit her on her head, disabled her electric wheelchair, and lifted her in the air when she complained about loud drumming. She called police, who took a statement but made no arrests.
> The locals who spoke to me all wondered why the city allowed this and ignored their calls for intervention. Peter Simpson, a public-information officer with the Portland Police Bureau, explained that “at the mayor’s direction, PPB involvement was very limited” until July 25.
> Back at the trolley tracks, the occupiers have been evicted but taxpayers will have to foot the costly cleanup bill. The Hakes family is still trying to recover. Brianna has decided to move out of the neighborhood. “They know my face and car,” she said. Like other residents I spoke to, she expects the mob to return.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/anarchy-breaks-out-in-portland-with-the-mayors-blessing-1533331454
#10573
>> Who else is even in contention?
> i don't know, not a big TV watcher... i've seen some hannity, he's ok but not as good as tucker. and saw some bill o'reilly in the past, who was ok but not as good as tucker. others are generally awful, though i did largely enjoy stephen colbert's right wing persona (i think it's actually smarter than his real left wing persona).
> what about online shows like crowder or levin? any great ones?
not that i know of.
if we're including podcasts I'd say Daniel Horowitz is great. His podcasts sometimes run pretty long so he can do like an hour plus on one topic. He goes into lots of detail on issues, history, policy, law, legislation etc. he has guests. he even had JEFF SESSIONS as a guest.
i don't know of any other really solid shows offhand. I haven't watched Levin (was paywalled last time i checked) and Crowder is funny but not super amazing imho
hey we are getting a new Coulter book soon. that should be good :)
https://www.amazon.com/Ann-Coulter/e/B00JLG65ZS
#10578 There are lots of good people in South Korea. South Korea has been economically productive. Jeong doesn't represent it. Culturally, isn't she more of an *American* leftist than anything distinctively related to Korea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9KDcICn8M&lc=UgxJ59Uhrkab8ndNL6l4AaABAg.8iSn5-9auUO8jaKmIdz1Ix
Ray Cathode writes:
>> Popper had a mistaken view of the nature of induction. In essence, he tried to argue that inductions are formed by the observation of regularity in nature., i.e. the sun has risen each and every morning of my life so it should rise again tomorrow. That is not how induction works, induction works by identifying the causal reasons that the sun appears to rise each morning, i.e. the rotation of the earth on its axis relative to the sun - it is the discovery of that cause, that enables us, ceteris paribus, to be certain that the sun will rise . Also, rejecting induction is the rejection of any kind of knowledge. It is induction, after all, that provides the premises for deductive arguments. Induction is the means by which our perceptions are formed into concepts and then into propositions.
>> I would like to know what you believe is missing in Objectivism, if that is your claim.
curi replies:
> Popper said there are many variations on induction. He directly addressed more than one, and he also gave multiple arguments covering the general themes of inductive errors. You propose induction works by identifying causality. This is a major break with what "induction" has meant in the history of philosophy. You do not say by what method you propose identifying causality, nor why you regard that method as inductive specifically. Saying that you identify causality by induction wouldn't cover what you do – what the steps are, how it's done, or how it avoids the logical problems that make other attempts at induction impossible that Popper explained.
> Ayn Rand wrote almost nothing about induction, and said she didn't have a solution to some of the problems with it. I don't know what work by some other Objectivist thinker you believe both addresses Popper (with quotes and details, showing understanding of what the problems Popper brought up are, and how to address them, as well as commenting on Popper's positive epistemology) and also provides a clear explanation of specifically how induction works and how to do it.
Apple Censorship
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goldman-sachs-names-trading-chief-problems-cbs-itunes-drops-alex-jones-podcasts-150340277.html?.tsrc=applewf
> Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes has become the latest to say no to Alex Jones. The service has pulled down all of his podcasts and most offered by his network, Infowars. Apple hasn’t publicly explained the move, but Facebook recently suspended his profile for bullying and hate speech.
Leffen won evo. Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FvuePsWS-c
#10529
> I updated the FI book recommendations page by adding this paragraph:
>
> Note: *If you don't like a book, stop reading it*. Ask a question about it, share a criticism, or try something else. If it's too difficult, *stop reading* and seek help or try something else. Reading books you don't like, or don't understand, won't help you. Book recommendations are a *starting point*, but it's up to you to evaluate the book for yourself after you've read some (specifically evaluate its value to you right now, not its value in general).
Thank you for adding this. I think it'll make a big difference.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/08/06/infowars
> Also curious: Apple only removed Infowars from their podcast directory — the Infowars app remains in the App Store. Different standards? Seems hard to justify de-listing the podcasts for “hate speech” but leaving the app in place when it contains the same content.
DF said something true and notable instead of something evil and leftist :)
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/06/google-releases-android-9-pie/
> Google Releases Android 9 Pie as Previous Oreo Release is Installed on Just 12% of Devices
Leaving the Infowars app was apparently intentional, see:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/07/tim-cook-eddy-cue-made-conscious-decision-to-drop-alex-jones-podcasts-but-not-app
looks like apple claims ToS violation on the podcasts but didn't see a ToS violation for the app.
also:
> Apple has been clear that it takes its guidelines seriously, with Eddy Cue stating at South by Southwest last spring that "we do think free speech is important, but we don't think white supremacist speech or hate speech is free speech that ought to be out there."
ugh
https://www.drudgereport.com
currently the top group of stories:
https://soundcloud.com/humanflourishingproject/episode-1-the-problem-i-most-want-to-solve/s-6xyZM
Alex Epstein is starting a new podcast series. This one is about the need for knowledge in life, and the difficulty of differentiating correct and incorrect ideas (there are tons of things where good ideas already exist, you don't have to invent a solution yourself, but there are many contradicting claims and it's hard to know which ideas to listen to).
Episode 1 focuses on *stating the problem* and comments on some examples like nutrition and psychology. It's good. I have lower expectations for future episodes where he gets into solutions.
He's using a Facebook group as a discussion forum for people to talk about this stuff. Meh. I think it means he doesn't want real discussions. He mentions in the future there may be other options like YouTube comments (also not a discussion forum).
I signed up for email notifications of new episodes: http://info.industrialprogress.com/human-flourishing
It's named *The Human Flourishing Project* even though it's about getting correct knowledge. Alex focuses specifically on knowledge that helps people have better lives, which he calls flourishing.
I posted this comment on the FB group:
https://www.facebook.com/HumanFlourishingProject/posts/1928308857232470?comment_id=1936527649743924&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D
> The field of philosophy which deals with knowledge – its nature, reliability, methods of attainment, etc – is epistemology. Objectivism offers an epistemology with many good characteristics, but also including induction – which Ayn Rand openly said was problematic and that she didn't personally know the solution. No Objectivist has written a serious refutation of Karl Popper's criticisms of induction, nor of his solution to what to do instead in order to get and evaluate knowledge. This is a major problem and there are no Objectivist discussion forums to resolve it at. (There are similar issues with e.g. Kantian forums, but they also have so many other problems it's overwhelming and it's hard to figure out what to productively do about those clashes.)
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2018-08-08.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6040727/Extremist-Muslim-father-New-Mexico-compound-training-kids-carry-school-shootings.html
> Extremist Muslim father arrested at New Mexico compound housing 11 starving children was 'training them to commit school shootings' and had set up target practice area on the site
> Elliot, you should read this:
> http://geniusfamine.blogspot.com/
Looking more:
> Although we will be suggesting revisions and improvements to the scheme, many psychologists currently suggest that personality can best be understood in terms of five essential personality characteristics: these are the ‘Big 5’, which each make a scale between extremes
> our placing on them predicts how we behave.
the big 5 sux
> For example, high Conscientiousness as a child predicts greater success in education and employment; high Neuroticism predicts problems with mood swings, anxiety and depression.
correlation isn't prediction.
these correlations are actually weak.
the correlations are between *scores on certain tests*, given labels like "Conscientiousness", and certain metrics of education and employment success. the metrics are incomplete, and some of them are basically what people self-report on a questionaire (as against better, more objective but still flawed metrics like salary).
> But in summary, the Endogenous personality, necessary for genius, is self-sufficient, indifferent to the opinions of others or normal social aims, being instead wrapped-up in his own personal goals, and making judgements using his own internal, subjective evaluation systems – he will work very hard and for long periods on his own projects, but will not willingly go-along with other people’s plans and schemes. But more on this later…
this is OK but it's not telling me anything i didn't already know. how about you reply now with quotes from some parts you think are good and that i'd want to read.
PS I like this comment by Mises about genius in *Human Action*:
> Education, whatever benefits it may confer, is transmission of traditional doctrines and valuations; it is by necessity conservative. It produces imitation and routine, not improvement and progress. Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.
How plausible is this?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-08/trump-buys-krugman-con
Why no "HTTPS" for curi blog?
So I had multitwitch open on 4 Overwatch streams, chat closed, went AFK ... and see this the next morning. huh. I wonder if he gave every viewer a free sub or something.
#10596 https works, you can use it, i just haven't gotten around to forcing redirects to it.
The tweet is:
Alex Epstein replied to me in a friendly, positive way:
https://www.facebook.com/HumanFlourishingProject/posts/1928308857232470?comment_id=1936527649743924&reply_comment_id=1937932722936750¬if_id=1533833126646996¬if_t=feed_comment_reply
Peikoff at the Ford Hall Forum, ARI just put up 14 lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqsoWxJ-qmMv6F-GQsbZmm72JMjHQVrtV
On Twitter, Molyneux claimed interest in TCS crit of his parenting philosophy. So Justin tried posting ot Molyneux's forum.
https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1027995040830746624
I think the wod "moderation" violates the "profanity" filter. i made the title vague and then it posted fine. jfc.
https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/51450-how-does-this-forum-work/
title:
> how does this forum work?
body:
> how does moderation work here? is there transparency for moderator actions? if you do anything wrong, do you get it explained to you, or just have to try to guess what's going on? is this mostly a free speech zone, or not? is criticism welcome? are unpopular views desired here or suppressed (the reputation system concerns me)?
> and why is there a filter on what words i can say? it claims to be a profanity filter but my original title did not contain profanity and my post was blocked anyway.
I guess the post will never go up:
At least one of Justin's two posts *did* go up on the forum, then was removed later, without explanation.
advocating spanking children is a bannable offense. what a way to shut down debate!
https://board.freedomainradio.com/guidelines/
Maybe now FF will stop praising Molyneux and suggesting Molyneux is any good.
Succession season 1 has finished. I liked it. It's renewed for season 2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_(TV_series)
Burglar talking about how he decides where to burgle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtwD-c9hn58
I've moved FI to the google group. The google group is now the primary group. I updated the FI website and both group websites. (I prefer people continue sending to both since the yahoo group has way more people, and for redundancy in case google loses/delays emails.)
http://fallibleideas.com/discussion
Molyneux sucks:
http://www.fdrliberated.com/stefan-molyneux-tries-to-silence-another-voice/
he DMCAs critical youtube videos and tries to get critical forums shut down.
http://www.fdrliberated.com/suit-claims-stefan-molyneux-listened-in-on-therapist-wife-and-clients/
his wife is a therapist. he went in the vents and listened in on some of her sessions. there was a lawsuit. he admitted this in a podcast, then edited it out of the podcast later.
http://www.fdrliberated.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d73e937526751b69a7be3bf2da41bafc&topic=1775.msg21555;topicseen#new
> Anyone who knows Molyneux's past knows he has no problems nuking critics' YT channels or online forums he doesn't like and then use the excuse of harassment, racism, etc with no proof beyond his accusation.
http://www.fdrliberated.com/brief-introduction-freedomain-radio/
> Unfortunately, Molyneux often ignores the need to cite his influences or give references. As a result, many of his followers today—who came into FDR as a result of his podcasts—mistakenly believe that most of the ideas discussed originated with Molyneux. Is it plagiarism? Well, Molyneux doesn’t specifically *claim* to be the author of those ideas. He simply discusses them—unattributed—with great passion and lets his acolytes draw their own conclusions.
http://www.fdrliberated.com
> Today, he employs people to patrol his Facebook page, YouTube account, and forum, deleting information and user accounts that challenge his self-proclaimed role as the "salvation of philosophy" and the first man in history to give parents a moral framework for "peaceful parenting."
Example of me changing my mind in an argument (with Alan, about the implications of the second law of thermodynamics):
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/topics/3694
i commented on Alex Epstein's 2nd epistemology podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/HumanFlourishingProject/posts/1940289852701037?comment_id=1941565192573503&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D
My process for separating non-knowledge from knowledge includes Paths Forward – always keeping options open so that my mistakes can be corrected by anyone who knows something I don't. Most intellectuals don't do this – there's no organized process for sharing important knowledge with them that they don't know. https://elliottemple.com/essays/using-intellectual-processes-to-combat-bias
I think the approach (from the podcast) of *seeking, validating and integrating* knowledge is mistaken/incomplete because it doesn't cover *correcting errors*. Validating means you find out something is valid, which isn't an *ongoing process of looking for and fixing errors* (nor is it *a process of ongoing improvement*, as Eli Goldratt put it in _The Goal_).
Also, instead of "fake knowledge" I would say "mistakes" (or errors), which is different than non-knoweldge (things where you're neutral, you haven't made a judgment).
About experts, a major criterion I use is: Is this expert asking the questions I would ask (and considering the criticisms that I would) if I studied the issue myself? Is he using the methods I would use? Is he aware of the key knowledge I'd use to check for errors in this area? Is he doing the work for me that I would have done (so he can be a good proxy for me) or not? For example, I won't accept expert ideas from non-Objectivists regarding capitalism because they aren't thinking about it in the way I would have. Also I criticized steelmanning recently at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/27744
My post asking how the FDR forum works was deleted too:
See #10606 for the post.
#10618 #10606
Solid price on Bose QC 35 ii at multiple sellers https://slickdeals.net/share/iphone_app/t/11929663
Thread on the sort of things that offend libs nowadays with a twitter thread about Trump used as an example http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4050057&mc=52&forum_id=2
My gif is not loading #10619
#10622 i can see it.
https://mailchi.mp/ben-evans/benedicts-newsletter-no-450593?e=6d10385a84
> Fortnite is launching on Android, some time after iOS. Three interesting things. First, Epic has decided to bypass the Google Play store and get people to side-load the installation direct from its website: this lets it avoid paying Google commission on in-app purchases, but raises a hurdle to installation - it's betting demand is strong enough, which is probably correct (Apple doesn't allow this on iOS). Second, this also encourages pretty unsafe behavior - there will be a lot of people trying to trick users (and a lot of Fortnite players are children) into downloading malware from look-alike sites (which is a major reason why Apple doesn't allow this, quite apart from the 30% tax). Third, Epic estimates that of the >2.5bn Android phones out there, only 250m are capable of running the game. Link
ugh @ these security problems that are going to hurt kids, and how shitty the android ecosystem and community is.
also i'm curious how are you going to play a fast paced shooter on a phone? this is a game where you aim a gun with your mouse and you fight other human beings, not just handicapped enemies controlled by the computer and designed to be easy enough to beat with bad controls.
Oh hey, Omri got hired by Ted Cruz :)
And took his blog down :(
http://mererhetoric.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20120217215220/http://mererhetoric.com
you can now add comments=n to the url to limit it to displaying the most recent n comments. example:
http://curi.us/2126-open-discussion?comments=50
it won't stay that way when you go to a new page (click reply, click post comment, etc), but you can bookmark it and load the page faster initially with fewer comments.
nice feature. Thanks.
#10626
+1 👍
eBooks page updated with formatting and FI archives:
http://curi.us/ebooks
South Africa is gonna take white farmer land without compensation
>Another person who gave testimony said: "We are going to take the land, even if it means we're going back to the dark ages. This country must be African. We are African."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-45099915
Ancient Roman criminal punishments could be brutal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poena_cullei
Link to Alan's post: https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2013/07/27/a-refutation-of-nicholas-dykes-on-karl-popper/
Democrats have more positive view of socialism than capitalism https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/13/gallup-democrats-prefer-socialism-to-capitalism/
> Democrats have more positive view of socialism than capitalism https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/13/gallup-democrats-prefer-socialism-to-capitalism/
The ignoramuses should read Mises.
Cicero talking in historical fiction novel Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Cicero, #1)
>Sometimes," he said, summing up the discussion with an aphorism I have never forgotten, "if you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight--start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through.
> Cicero talking in historical fiction novel Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Cicero, #1)
>> Sometimes," he said, summing up the discussion with an aphorism I have never forgotten, "if you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight--start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through.
Reminds me of this article especially rules 1+ 3 https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270456/trumps-5-rules-ruling-world-daniel-greenfield
Man explores dead and dying malls http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3494558&mc=36&forum_id=2#32396889
xoxo has some of the best one liners on the internet
thread title (no real content in thread as of now):
*"What My 'Knockout Game' Experience Taught Me About My Unconscious Bias" (Vox)"*
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4051037&forum_id=2
#10638
Another good one, mocking lack of wall progress:
**Trump: Don't you see? The wall was inside you all along!**
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4051280&mc=5&forum_id=2
Etymology is interesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_censor
> The censor was a magistrate in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances.[1]
> The power of the censors was absolute: no magistrate could oppose their decisions, only another censor who succeeded them could cancel it.
> The censors' regulation of public morality is the origin of the modern meaning of the words "censor" and "censorship".[2]
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2018/08/mark-pellegrino-on-the-american-capitalist-party/
> Pellegrino: Right now, it is only a platform of governing principles and rough political goals. Our purpose is twofold: First—and if we achieve only this, we’ve achieved a lot—we want to help people to think about politics in a way they haven’t before. In the main, people think of politics as two or more opposing sides clashing in debates over social problems, with the purpose of the debates being to achieve a compromise solution. This compromise is supposed to represent the “moderate” and thus “rational” approach to solving the problem. People familiar with Objectivism know that a compromise can take place only between parties who agree on essentials or ultimate goals. When the parties agree on essential aims, the haggling is merely over details or means of accomplishing those goals.
> This, of course, is the lay of the political landscape right now: Two parties, in essential agreement about the proper functions of government, are haggling over how the government should achieve its ends. They agree that government should control the economy, control people’s lives, and make people and businesses give their “fair share” to society. They disagree only on matters of degree and on the particular means to these ends. They argue over whether individuals should be controlled by the federal or state governments—in the bedroom or the boardroom—in health care or investments. They disagree over how government should redistribute wealth—in the traditional ways, or in newfangled ways. And, agreeing on essentials, they come up with all sorts of ideas and programs for controlling people and redistributing wealth. They never question the premise that this is what government should do. That’s an unchallenged absolute. The only questions are how and to what extent should government interfere and redistribute.
This ignores Trump's promise to drain the swamp, and Cruz's more extreme and specific promises along similar lines like abolishing the IRS and various other government agencies that Cruz specifically named. And I think Trump has actually followed through on repealing 2 laws/regulations for each new 1, or something like that, right?
So it's just not true about everyone agreeing on essentials – unless you're calling Trump and Cruz liars, which would require further elaboration (especially about their actions that *are* in line with their rhetoric). There are prominent Republicans who advocate smaller government and more freedom.
20 years of iMac 🖥 🎂 🍰 🎁 🎊 🎉 🎈
https://t.co/K1mUhc1vfG?amp=1
Trying another subreddit (maybe):
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/971hj9/the_problem_with_the_whole_democrats_are_the_real/
> For sound-bite level of discussion:
> the dems are the party of the KKK
> the nazis were statist, anti-capitalist, anti-liberals and the German socialist workers were voluntary, loyal nazi soldiers.
> the U.S. "conservatives" are the real liberals – in favor of freedom, capitalism, limited government, non-revolutionary reform.
> If you want to get into more detail, then the left/right political spectrum isn't good enough because people's political views are way more complex than just choosing a spot on one (or a few) spectrums.
> the best book on the Nazis, history of WWII, and the relevant economics and ideologies is *Omnipotent Government* by Ludwig von Mises https://mises.org/library/omnipotent-government-rise-total-state-and-total-war (who is also, in general, the best author to teach people what "liberal" actually means)
#10647 I fear I will get ignored because the thread is a day old and already has 50 comments. I found it because it's currently in the top 10 on the IDW subreddit main page.
Even if I get responses from a few more interested/active users, I think most people will never see our discussion.
This is stupid and is maybe reddit's big problem. Discussions die so fast. (Also reddit locks all threads after 6 months, so it can't be used as a long term forum.)
Wow, Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch blog) got kicked from Patreon because of political bias by *Mastercard*, not by Patreon themselves (at least Patreon was willing to publicly claim this):
https://twitter.com/Patreon/status/1029551216886341634
https://twitter.com/Patreon/status/1029554474547728391
#10647 Followups:
kodheaven:
>>> the U.S. "conservatives" are the real liberals – in favor of freedom, capitalism, limited government, non-revolutionary reform.
>> I can see how that might be the case but you'd have to seperate "conservatives" from "republicans" in order to separate some of the religious right that have very illiberal views. The terms tend to get confusing, I've always considered myself a progressive, and in many ways I probably am, but I think "Classical Liberal" might be closer to my views. But THAT gets confused with libertarian, which I am not.
>> edit: Pinging /u/hossmcdank one of my favorite people when it comes to looking at different ideas without the freak outs.
me:
>> in order to separate some of the religious right that have very illiberal views.
I don't think that's a significant force in US politics today.
> For example, I would consider Ted Cruz to be a prominent, religious, right-wing politician. I don't think he has very illiberal views. And in the 2016 republican primary debates, the other important candidates were less religious and less right wing than Cruz. Do you have in mind some other people (who?) who are more religious than Cruz and significantly different? Or do you have some major objections to Cruz that you think make him illiberal?
> Also, what do you dislike about libertarianism if (as I think you may be implying?) you're in favor of freedom, capitalism, and limited government?
I posted criticism of a paper by Sam Harris and some coauthors related to brain scanning religious and non-religious people. I got a Change My View delta (gold star for changing someone's mind about something) and it gave me a wiki to list them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/user/curi
That's cool that it can keep a list.
Here's what I wrote:
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/955vuz/cmv_i_subscribe_to_sam_harriss_the_moral_landscape/e495mtm/
> “A random guy on Twitter with a few thousand followers, Landon Simms, tweeted on Sunday night:
> "My grandfather is a 96-yr-old German. When seeing Antifa videos, he shakes his head and says; 'We didn't think it could happen in Germany either. These people (Antifa) act and sound like the NAZI party's Sturmabteilung. Stop them now or you'll regret it.'"
> In short order, Simms' tweet had gotten a Kardashian-level number of retweets, well surpassing CNN's average viewership. (And you wonder why the left is fixated on ending free speech on the Internet.)
> Simms’ grandfather didn’t see any of the antifa videos on TV – the media showed only antiseptic clips carefully washed of any untoward behavior. But videos were all over the Internet. (Again, you see why the left wants to shut down free speech on the internet.)”
August 15, 2018 - EYES ON THE PRIZE-FIGHTERS
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2018-08-15.html
via Instapaper
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War, by Ludwig von Mises, 1944:
> Actually there have been in these last years all over the world two main political parties: the anti-Fascists, i.e., the friends of Russia (communists, fellow travelers, self-styled liberals and progressives), and the anticommunists, i.e., the friends of Germany (parties of shirts of different colors, not very accurately called “Fascists” by their adversaries). There have been few genuine liberals and democrats in these years.
Lots of relevance to antifa today.
Psychology textbook covering Popper looks potentially good:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/971hj9/the_problem_with_the_whole_democrats_are_the_real/e49nfcq/
Good info on media bias where they won't use terms like "right wing" when talking about politics in Muslim countries.
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/whitewashing-far-right-parties-in-the-middle-east
The shame of the left
#10652 Yeah I'd say I am on the left but I am baffled at the hypocrisy when it comes to Antifa. I mean these raving lunatics get a free pass because ??? I have yet to see a reasonable answer on why ANTIFA is treated as anything other than actual violent fascists.
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/16/2018-iphone-x-apple-pencil-support/
> Another Report Says Second-Generation iPhone X and iPhone X Plus Will Support Apple Pencil
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2018/08/mark-pellegrino-on-the-american-capitalist-party/
> from the time of the U.S. founding until the dawn of the Progressive Era—which was the advent of statism in America—the government spent 3 percent or less of the GDP. It now spends close to 40 percent and is increasing rapidly with no end in sight.
http://www.theamericancapitalistparty.com/policies.html
> IMMIGRATION
> We uphold this conviction: Open borders for honest immigrants is an application of the principle of individual rights to those foreign born.
> Consequently, we support open borders for all honest men and women. We maintain that honest individuals have the moral right to choose their country of residence, that the government of a free society must uphold and protect that right, and that, in practical terms, the United States throughout its history has greatly benefited from immigration. Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, Jerry Yang (co-founder of Yahoo), Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), and numerous other geniuses and/or productive giants were and are immigrants to America; Silicon Valley, for example, is heavily populated with expert, foreign-born engineers. Related, labor force participation rates show that low-skilled immigrant laborers are and have long been among American society's hardest workers. To those who argue that immigrants freeload off of the welfare system, our response is dual: Factually, the welfare state is—overwhelmingly—a problem of native-born Americans, not of immigrants, who generally manifest a superlative work ethic; second, the welfare state must be utterly abolished on purely moral and humanitarian grounds regardless of America's immigration policy.
> Eliminating the welfare state will ensure even further that only those willing to work productively will immigrate to America.
> Expensive background checks to ensure the debarring of jihadists, criminals, and persons bearing communicable diseases are, economically, more than offset by immense productivity gained by welcoming such hard-working immigrants.
gross
I emailed the following to the American Capitalist Party:
you should have a serious discussion forum for people to discuss your platform and policies, where you or your representatives/proxies answer questions and criticisms. that way if people have doubts or disagreements, answers are available. and if you're mistaken about any of your ideas, those mistakes can be corrected instead of left unaddressed.
there should be some kind of written, predictable, reliable mechanism for getting questions/doubts/criticisms/suggestions-for-improvements addressed and resolved, and realistically this will involve a discussion forum (so e.g. people can post a question and then you can write a canonical answer – on the forum or elsewhere and link to it) and then other people can come along and read both the question and answer, and can also reply with followup questions.
for a fuller explanation of why this matters, see: http://fallibleideas.com/paths-forward
facebook is not suitable for this.
Solid tucker vid on how radical and evil Dems are now https://youtu.be/cA6bu-1Qbi8
Meal Services I've Tried
Hello Fresh - Requires the most preparation on your part (too much in my opinion). Worst packing - bigger box than necessary, stuff moves around and cold packs do not stay in position to keep everything cold. Worst shipping to my location - ships via ground, in transit for days in summer heat?!?!
Gobble - Requires less preparation than Hello Fresh but still significant. 15 minute estimate is way too low. Packing & shipping is fine. Recipes can leave out important steps assuming you know to do them (like cut ends off peppers), and/or ingredients can be unclear (2 unlabeled pouches of sauce-type stuff...what is what?).
Both of the above call for the use of more oil than I'm used to or like, resulting in food being too greasy for my taste if you follow the recipes exactly.
Also both of the above suffer from veggie overload: The tendency to have too high a vegetable to meat ratio, and to use uncooked vegetables (ex: salads, or sides that are uncooked). This is also often combined with icky sauces like vinegar based stuff (hate vinegar). Some people like that kinda stuff but I do not and it disqualifies at least half the meals in each service. Some weeks I can't even find one or two meals where I'd eat most or all of it.
Freshly - Have only had one week from them so far but I really like it! The only prep you do is microwave. They're all pre-cooked. It's kinda like a frozen dinner without the freezing, which permits a little more variety in ingredients than you find in frozen dinners. Each meal is in a standard sized tray so packaging is standard (and tight). Everything stays in position and stays cold. Ships ground to my location BUT it's close, so not a problem. Benefits are that everyone in a family can pick something different with no extra prep, prep overall is extremely short and predictable. And NO VEGGIE OVERLOAD.
I like the content (ingredient usage and ratio) of Freshly's meals the best by far. I like the taste of Hello Fresh the best, but all three are pretty close in terms of taste (comparing stuff I actually like). Which is: significantly better than fast food or frozen dinners, on par with mid-tier restaurants and simple home recipes (but more convenient), and below top end restaurants or specialty home recipes.
#10663 Blue Apron is similar to Hello Fresh.
Judging by the pictures, Freshly meals look less tasty than Gobble to me. But the convenience factor sounds great. I'll try them sometime. Thanks.
> The only prep you do is microwave. They're all pre-cooked. It's kinda like a frozen dinner without the freezing
FYI you can now buy lots of things like this at grocery stores like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. I've tried and enjoyed a bunch from TJs.
One of my favorites that maybe you'd like, PAS:
#10670 thanks for the reminder that that exists :D
#10671 haev you tried TJs meatloaf? it's refrigerated and it's just meatloaf with a little bit of tomato sauce, no sides. very good. you can add your own potatoes, bread, veggies or whatever to go with it.
#10668 - I guess our tastes are different. Mostly they include less of the stuff I don't like. Seeing a bunch of leaves, or avocados, or other random veggies I don't like instantly makes a meal look non-tasty to me.
#10669 & #10670 - OK on the concept, no on the specific TJ's dinner (mushrooms = deal killer). I like lots of TJ's frozen stuff but haven't found any of their refrigerated stuff I like yet. Haven't tried Whole Foods (they're currently inconvenient to my location).
#10673 i have also enjoyed TJs refrigerated lasagna quite a bit
Regarding my Jordan Peterson videos:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/985sls/four_videos_discussing_jordan_petersons_12_rules/
> It's 11 hours long :O
> How about a 15-30 min for the start, most important points?
If anyone wants to give this guy a TL;DR (or TL;DW, I guess), that'd be great.
Ever heard of this guy, elliot?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche#Ideology_and_beliefs
Quote:
*"According to George Johnson, LaRouche sees history as a battle between Platonists, who believe in absolute truth, and Aristotelians, who rely on empirical data. Johnson characterizes LaRouche's views as follows: the Platonists include figures such as Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, and Leibniz. He believes that many of the world's ills result from the dominance of Aristotelianism as embraced by the empirical philosophers (such as Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume), leading to a culture that favors the empirical over the metaphysical, embraces moral relativism, and seeks to keep the general population uninformed. Industry, technology, and classical music should be used to enlighten the world, LaRouche argues, whereas the Aristotelians use psychotherapy, drugs, rock music, jazz, environmentalism, and quantum theory to bring about a new dark age in which the world will be ruled by the oligarchs. Left and right are false distinctions for LaRouche; what matters is the Platonic versus Aristotelian outlook, a position that has led him to form relationships with groups as disparate as farmers, nuclear engineers, Black Muslims, Teamsters, and pro-life advocates."*
Equating Aristotle with evil? How can someone come to this errenous conclusion?
Related:
http://lymcanada.org/riemman-for-anti-dummies/
Heard of before, but don't know anything about him. From the quote, he seems rather confused. Lots of people are confused. Shrug.
https://soundcloud.com/humanflourishingproject/episode-3-how-to-enjoy-growth-and-progress
My comments on the ep, also posted to FB at https://www.facebook.com/HumanFlourishingProject/posts/1952583394805016
- Talking about *access* to real knowledge doesn’t address or acknowledge the issue of *how to resolve disagreements* between ideas.
- In the big picture, the “gap” is always *infinite*. No matter how far you get – 500, 5000, 5 million – there’s always infinity more to go. Potential improvement is unbounded, and finite progress can never get close to or approach the end of an infinite road (on a scale from 0 to infinity, any finite number is always near the beginning). So we must learn to live in a state of ongoing progress (the only alternative is a static life, which is unsustainable – only ongoing progress is sustainable in the long run because new problems are inevitable). See David Deutsch’s book *The Beginning of Infinity*, which is named for this issue (and makes the point about sustainability). http://beginningofinfinity.com
- Keeping in mind positives in an appropriate, objective way – and feeling appropriately positive – is something that one should *automate*. Like most skills, one should put conscious attention into it at first while learning it, and should go through organized the steps and practice it. But after a while it should become second nature and rarely need much conscious attention or reminders, which allows moving on to focus more attention on other things.
#10677
He seems to have mixed Plato and Aristotle to a point of disbelief. He seems smart enough to not do this out of a lack of access to text or knowledge about either philospher. I've only read *The Nicomachean Ethics*, but I've often heard that it is possible to misinterpret Plato as pro-science and Aristotle as a hippie. This raises the question, how far is it possible to misinterpret them while (assumingly) still being honest?
#10679 I interpret LaRouche as thinking he has Aristotle as the pro-science one (pro-empiricism).
I added a feature to limit how many comments display so the page will load faster. See the original blog post at the top for details and a link.
From a comment on slickdeals regarding a monitor
>damn i want this for office work! my wife would beat me if i bought another..
> The parties of the Right did not differ in principle from those of the Left. They were only more moderate
Excerpt From: Ludwig von Mises. “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War.” iBooks.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/17/screenshots-show-google-shadowbans-conservative-pro-trump-content/
> These Screenshots Show How Google Shadowbans Conservative And Pro-Trump Content
Article talks about trying to promote his video, then trying to find out why Google was blocking it. Turns out a Trump quote – that the NYT had published – scrolled along the bottom of the TV interview. jfc. Later he got shadowbanned on YouTube by SPLC censors. Also if you search for Cavuto you only find anti-Trump stuff, even though he makes stuff for both sides:
> Keep in mind, Cavuto is an endangered species. He is one of the last fair and balanced journalists on television. He giveth and he taketh away. But you will have to scroll deep into YouTube to find anything positive about Trump from Cavuto. Google hides those videos.
> You can go 300 videos deep and still not find the interview with me that has the second-most views of any Cavuto video (see above). You will pass videos with 22 views and many that are nine years old. I have been censored out of the Cavuto stream.
Google apparently auto-generates hidden channels based on ppl like Hannity or Tucker, puts whatever videos they want on them by biased algorithm or biased human selection, and then highly prioritizes those videos in search results.
> Even if I type in the exact, complicated title of this particular YouTube video, they offer me something else.
Scary. Read the whole article.
> A recent report claims that a Chicago pastor saw his podcast drop from the top 25 in iTunes to less than 200 only 24 hours after posting a Facebook message “to pray for Donald Trump.”
:(
> One of the sources I interviewed for this article found his business shadow-banned on Facebook after he expressed pro-Trump sentiments. He went through three businesses and thousands of dollars before finally realizing what was happening. He has since changed his online identity, IP address, and bank accounts, and after months of scrubbing he is up and running again. But of course, this time he will keep his mouth shut.
:(
> To prepare for the segment, I quickly googled “media bias.” What came up was a long list of articles telling me that there was no such thing as media bias. A Google-promoted chart ranked CNN somewhere in the middle, between liberal and conservative.
lying scumbags.
> the chart that Google promotes says CBS tacks slightly to the right
jfc
> Even as I research and write this article I’ve been told that Google has now agreed to work with communist censors in China. As long as the Chinese stay on the far left, they should get along fine.
!
---
BTW, me and my FI colleagues have had our own bad experience trying to run twitter ads promoting content that SJWs and Marxists don't like.
I wrote about morality being contextual.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/9863d5/criticism_of_sam_harris_the_moral_landscape_for/e4g0pe8/
> Is well being really dependent on the subjects values?
Yes. E.g. some people like steak and some dislike it, so having steak in the fridge provides different amounts of well being to them.
Moral truths deal with context. They don't say "Always eat steak regardless of your preferences, allergies or situation." E.g. my understanding of moral truth says, broadly, approximately, to eat foods that you like and which don't harm you (which foods those are depends on the person and their current situation, and there are many other issues like affordability). And the amount to eat depends on your weight, metabolism, how much you ate recently, and other more; morality does not say that everyone should eat 2000 calories a day, it says that "What should a person eat in X situation?" and "What should a person eat in Y situation?" often have different answers.
The answers for what to eat in different situations aren't independent either. Moral knowledge often applies to multiple contexts, but rarely all contexts. There are tips for how to eat that are helpful for many situations. How widely an idea applies is what David Deutsch calls its "reach". Ideas with more reach are less parochial, and are generally more interesting and valuable – but having some knowledge that's very specific to your own situation is good too.
> Yea, and "almost anything" is wildly wrong, as I said. Repeating your claim to try and rationalize what you said doesn't change that what you said is soundly wrong. No, you cannot teach yourself almost anything, not remotely. A person with an average IQ can't do MOST intellectual work, they're not equipped for it, so no, not "almost", in fact it's more like not much.
What do I say to this guy?
https://samharris.org/how-rich-is-too-rich/
Sam Harris is very bad.
I wrote:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/98mgy8/eric_weinstein_wonders_what_is_to_have_this_time/e4hc828/
The stuff LT is talking about has little to do with TCS. It's just her views on how to deal with stuff.
> I am curious on what the perspective of someone who follows the "Take Children Seriously" perspective like @DavidDeutschOxf would think about the YouTube Channel idea. He would certainly be exposed to some mean spirited criticism at best, hateful trolling at worst.
The TCS perspective on this is: it's the kid's choice. Give the best advice you can, to the extent he wants the advice, and let him make his own decision. And then help your kid with whatever his decision is, whether you agree or not. TCS doesn't specifically take a stance on whether it's good or bad to have a YT channel, but is broadly positive about people doing activities in life, and broadly optimistic about the ability of young people to do worthwhile things or acquire skills.
I personally think YT channels are good but that writing is more important than video as a format for serious thinking/learning/discussion. But that isn't a TCS position. TCS is a specific thing that focuses on issues like how to treat your kid and how learning works, not on what to do with one's life.
Also, the concern:
> He would certainly be exposed to some mean spirited criticism at best, hateful trolling at worst.
Is simply not a concern of TCS. TCS does not say to avoid mean spirited criticism or hateful trolling. And if it's implicitly suggesting sheltering his kid from such things due to his young age, then TCS's response to that would be: no. (Though parents are welcome to give wanted, non-pressuring advice about what sort of things to avoid and why. Personally I'd basically disagree and say it's good to learn to take in information, including about how flawed many people are, without being upset, evaluating ideas as if truth were a popularity contest, or thinking that *unargued* insults have any bearing on who you are. I think waiting would only make sense if there was a clear, specific plan in progress, or starting now, to learn some skills that will help the YT channel project succeed better. But I don't think one should just vaguely assume that waiting until one is older will somehow mean one knows how to do things he hasn't been doing.)
PS if you want to know about TCS you should ask at the FI list or the curiosity forum. They are the only active TCS discussion places and they are where everyone who cares about TCS is available to answer questions. http://fallibleideas.com/discussion https://curi.us/2126-open-discussion
https://wpgc.radio.com/blogs/white-woman-calls-someone-n-word-x2-bus-ne-gets-beat
> A white woman was hospitalized following an altercation where she called a group of people the N-word on the X2 Metrobus.
> Video emerged on Twitter showing the woman getting into an argument with another passenger. As the white woman begins walking off the bus near 2nd and H streets in Northeast D.C., she calls the other passenger the N-word.
> The video shows the woman exiting the bus before cutting to a clip where she is on the ground, bloodied up.
one of the reaction tweets:
>She tried to call a bus full of niggas, niggers and had the nerve to do it on the X2 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 lord stupidity is a illness
Great new David Horowitz article about Trump and NeverTrumpers.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/19/trumps-character-and-trumps-presidency/
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4055803&mc=15&forum_id=2
Guy working in White House got fired cuz he spoke at an event (Mencken club) that Richard Spencer has spoken at.
I googled a past speaker list and it seemed like quite a mix of people, including Austrian economists and VDare type people, and people with fancy degrees http://hlmenckenclub.org/2017-conference/
So calling it white nationalist seems like a lie. They let white nationalists but that doesn't seem like the theme.
SPLC has framed it as a white nationalist event for quite some time of course
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2013/11/01/white-nationalist-academics-gather-weekend-hl-mencken-club-annual-meeting
>When it formed six years ago, the founders of the H.L. Mencken Club envisioned a simple forum for the “intellectual right” to be filled with “young thinkers and activists” ready to tackle the tough issues confronting the country. In reality, though, the club was a gathering place for the country’s most prominent white nationalists.
Even SPLC kinda admits that white nationalism isn't the theme and that their issue is that white nationalist speakers are among those who can speak
>Speakers at this year’s conference, which is being held at “a hotel near Baltimore-Washington International Airport,” according to the website, include John Derbyshire, the white nationalist fired from the National Review for writing a piece for a separate publication suggesting that white and Asian parents should warn their children that black people pose a threat to their safety. He plans to give a speech with the puzzlingly bland title, “Politics and Intelligence.”
I laughed at "puzzlingly bland". SPLC wants a better HATE title to put in its fundraising pitches
Paul Joseph Watson is apparently a follower of Stoicism, brought it up at the end of a recent vid https://youtu.be/Lct8ql2zoLo
http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/04/why-i-am-not-unicornian.html
David Deutsch fan:
> A disclaimer: this piece is a poor paraphrase of Deutsch's argument. If it weren't protected by copyright, I would just cut-and-paste the entirety of chapter 7 of TFOR here and leave it at that. I asked Deutsch once to put Chapter 7 on the web as a service to humanity but he declined. I cannot hope to reproduce the clarity and completeness of Deutch's argument (which is really Popper's argument), though I'll certainly give it my best shot.
But he doesn't get epistemology:
> R: That's right, it can't. Science can't *disprove* the existence of *anything*. What science can do is to show, in a philosophically justifiable way, that certain things are *extremely unlikely*.
But just a few lines earlier he'd quoted just one paragraph from DD as fair use, and included a bolded line in it:
> **No valid form of reasoning can logically rule out such possibilities, or even prove them unlikely** [emphasis added]
Then he turns around and says what science can do is show that things are unlikely. :(
My friend and I make sandwiches differently.
New George Reisman ebook (115 pages):
Marxism/Socialism, A Sociopathic Philosophy Conceived In Gross Error And Ignorance, Culminating In Economic Chaos, Enslavement, Terror, And Mass Murder: A Contribution To Its Death
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GN8WJB1/?tag=curi04-20
Amazon description looks amazing. Great mix of marketing and actually explaining ideas, not just fluff.
I posted about an issue with screenflow 8 mouse cursors.
https://telestreamforum.forumbee.com/t/q5rng3
The leftist media says that Trump is going to destroy the world economy and also cause a recession from his trade wars. Is there some truth to it. Should I be scared?
#10717 No. If you have specific concerns you should explain or quote them.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/08/gofundme-cancels-robert-spencers-withdrawal-of-funds-refunds-donations-without-explanation
> GoFundMe cancels Robert Spencer’s withdrawal of funds, refunds donations, without explanation
He tried to use GoFundMe to fund some videos after Patreon dumped him and blamed Mastercard.
#10719 This stuff is scary. Spencer says:
> In reading histories of the Third Reich I was always struck by how quickly — in just a matter of months — Germany went from being a free, democratic state to an authoritarian dictatorship, right under everyone’s noses in 1933. I always marveled at how fast and easy it was to destroy freedom. I don’t marvel any more. It is happening to us right now, and most people neither notice nor care. The authoritarian Left is stamping out all dissenting voices. It will soon be even worse: people who don’t hold the accepted opinions will not be able to hold jobs, have bank accounts, buy from various outlets, etc. Think this is hysterical and will never happen here? Watch.
I think Omnipotent Government by Mises explains what happened in Germany better and it wasn't an overnight thing, but still there is tons of cause for concern (and the current US problems have been buildings for decades)
Research being done on using technology for finding buried mines to help self driving cars deal with snow https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/how-self-driving-cars-could-use-mine-detecting-tech-to-see-the-road/
crypto is a bunch of scams that harm regular folks.
https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1032020250013753344
Bye IDW
After reading Sam Harris' anti-capitalism, I posted Reisman's new pro-capitalism arguments to the IDW subreddit. It was blocked by the moderator's as off-topic, so I think I'm done with the subreddit. (IDW refers to a list of thinkers, including Harris, Jordan Peterson, and some other people who desperately need the information Reisman offers.)
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/after-isis-how-the-won-even-though-they-were-defe
> We were told that people joined ISIS out of “alienation” or just because they are poor, but when we actually got to interview ISIS members when they were arrested or detained in Iraq and Syria, what media discovered was that these are not poor people suffering discrimination. These are often middle-class and college-educated, sometimes converts to Islamist extremism, who relished the idea of selling slaves and murdering people. They saw traveling to Iraq and Syria to be a kind of vacation where they would get a nice house, emptied of its inhabitants and confiscated from minorities, and they would get slaves and relax.
I preordered but others should read this to see if they want the book:
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/21/exclusive-excerpt-ann-coulters-resistance-futile/
> Exclusive Excerpt from Ann Coulter’s ‘Resistance is Futile!’ — Trump Is Hitler Times Infinity
Disenchantment is a new netflix cartoon from the creator of the Simpsons and Futurama. It's very bad. I watched 3 episodes. The main characters change personalities for the joke of the moment, rather than being consistent. It has lots of jokes about getting drunk and friend zoning guys. It's mean. It's routinely violent. One scene ridicules peace. The main character is a bad person – in her introductory scene they are trying to show her as a *tough* female, but show her *cheating at cards and starting a fight*, and not like a sly criminal, but like someone who thinks she's being cute and doesn't really realize the difference between criminal and non-criminal ways to have fun.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271101/twitter-censors-david-horowitz-calling-out-islamic-daniel-greenfield
> TWITTER CENSORS DAVID HOROWITZ FOR CALLING OUT ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM
> David Horowitz was censored for tweeting, “But if you're a Muslim, you might not want to be sworn in on a Judeo-Christian bible, since Islam has conducted a 1500 year war against Christians and Jews, is calling for death to Israel and has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Christians recently.”
https://new.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/98yn8p/sam_harris_vs_capitalism/
#10730 https://new.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/98yn8p/sam_harris_vs_capitalism/
>My issue is that right wing libertarian philosophy, just like much of existentialism, is based on the presupposition that humans are much more powerful than they are. Modern behavior economics, neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary biology and genetics completely destroys the foundation of these philosophies, which is that humans can be the authors of their own life in and of themselves
These fields that share the negation of free will, are they the mainstream ideas on human behaviour?
FI discord chatroom:
https://discord.gg/PsF8W78
#10736 Yes I think those errors are mainstream. At least mainstream among "intellectuals" and "elites". It's different among deplorable, Christian, Trump voters, who don't have much voice in the media...
SPLC fucking over FPM
jesus, this is really bad. they're reduced to asking ppl to mail in checks.
#10730
https://new.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/98oeo0/why_ayn_rand_was_wrong_about_altruism_selfishness/e4ncatf/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ZBm7VXKYY
Gamestop is nasty.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/08/soros-funded-social-media-censorship-plan-aims-to-silence-all-dissenters-from-the-hard-left-agenda
> Soros-funded social media censorship plan aims to silence all dissenters from the hard-Left agenda
> The recent wave of censorship of conservative voices on the internet by tech giants Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Apple mirrors a plan concocted by a coalition of George Soros-funded, progressive groups to take back power in Washington from President Trump’s administration.
> President Donald Trump himself was affected, with his engagement on Facebook dropping by 45 percent.
> A study in June by Gateway Pundit found Facebook had eliminated 93 percent of the traffic of top conservative news outlets.
RIP 93% of conservative news outlet traffic on Facebook. **jesus fucking christ**. this isn't standard, ignorable political bickering. they're out for blood and their schemes are quite far along.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ZBm7VXKYY
> Gamestop is nasty.
meh.
i worked for RadioShack years ago and they had a policy of trying to upsell every single person who came in the door to cell phones. even if the person just wanted batteries! i wasn't there long...
from http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4058876&mc=19&forum_id=2#36668720
long, amusing thread about a (presumably fictional) unusual co-worker
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1348346&forum_id=2#15334029
found from this thread http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=2694311&mc=48&forum_id=2#26475022
(simulators is a reference to programmers of a simulation under the simulation hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis , which is a popular board meme)
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4058639&mc=56&forum_id=2#36666820
Alan said:
https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2018/07/23/overreaching-example-psychopaths/
> For example, beliefs don’t cause behaviour. A person chooses behaviour and he may take his beliefs into account when making that choice. Saying the behaviour is caused by belief imports a lower level concept, causation, into a situation where higher level concepts like choices are relevant. In addition, animals don’t have beliefs since they can’t understand explanations but they exhibit behaviours. So some behaviours arise despite the absence of beliefs.
can he or someone else elaborate on this?
I like the anti-reductionist theme and the emphasis on choice, but at some level a person's behaviors must be made in light of their beliefs, no? (I'm nitpicking here in particular with "may take his beliefs into account." Seems more like a MUST to me, like you can't really act without taking beliefs into account).
in choosing to do something, people act according to a belief that their choice will have some chance of bringing about some consequence. like if i choose to make a grilled cheese, i'm acting on the belief that if i place cheese and butter on a sandwich and grill it then i will wind up with a grilled cheese.
even if people have contradictory beliefs on what to do regarding the same issue, their actual behavior reflects some set of their beliefs, doesn't it?
i don't think you can make some strictly reductionistic model and say "Oh with X beliefs you get Y behavior output" or anything like that. but it seems to me like stuff like beliefs, choice, awareness of the world, etc, are all tightly bound up in an ongoing feedback loop.
so for some given situation, you observe it, you have some beliefs about how to behave in it, you act and then maybe modify your beliefs based on feedback.
thoughts?
Economics Thought Experiments
for thought experiments relevant to actual economics, there is an explanation for both the phenomenon depicted in the thought experiment and why it might get disrupted in real life.
for example, one can talk meaningfully about the tendency of levels of profit in different lines of industry to become similar. because there exist capital markets of people seeking the most return on their dollar, any big profit in one industry relative to another will cause capital to leave the less profitable industries and go towards the more profitable industries. this will enable expanded production in the more profitable industry due to the new capital, which will enable more goods to be made at a lower cost, which will enable prices to be reduced. simultaneously, the withdrawal of capital from the previously less profitable lines of business will lead to a reduction in what can be produced in that line of business.
and while the tendency towards equalization of profit in different lines of industry exists, it's never actually achieved IRL, cuz everything is shifting and changing IRL -- consumer preferences, availability of various forms of capital, technology, availability of talent in a particular field, political interference in the economy, etc, etc. so different lines of industry have different profits in fact.
economics thought experiments purporting to be a guide to what we should do in real life in terms of policy should provide a detailed account of exactly how their hypothetical scenarios relate to the real world and how they deviate.
very chill playlist
https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX3Ogo9pFvBkY
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/98oeo0/why_ayn_rand_was_wrong_about_altruism_selfishness/e4hl32t/
Lauren Southern's next documentary is going to be about immigration in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxfUW6tqrhc
#10794 I agree.
#10792 I think human action is based on human ideas. I think when Alan said "beliefs don’t cause behaviour" he meant that you still have free will. That means you can e.g. choose not to rob and murder all the business owners even though you have Marxist beliefs and have the power to do it. That is a choice many have made, to their credit – and, as George Reisman says, they should therefore stop calling themselves socialists since they are unwilling to do what is required to take the means of production away from private ownership on a society-wide scale.
#10792
>> For example, beliefs don’t cause behaviour. A person chooses behaviour and he may take his beliefs into account when making that choice. Saying the behaviour is caused by belief imports a lower level concept, causation, into a situation where higher level concepts like choices are relevant. In addition, animals don’t have beliefs since they can’t understand explanations but they exhibit behaviours. So some behaviours arise despite the absence of beliefs.
>
> can he or someone else elaborate on this?
>
> I like the anti-reductionist theme and the emphasis on choice, but at some level a person's behaviors must be made in light of their beliefs, no? (I'm nitpicking here in particular with "may take his beliefs into account." Seems more like a MUST to me, like you can't really act without taking beliefs into account).
You can adopt a belief and then choose not to act on it. And if you adopt rational ways of assessing ideas then you can make better choices. So thinking about your actions in terms of choices is better than saying you have to act on some belief, which is true but doesn't help you choose.
https://daringfireball.net/2018/08/new_low-cost_laptop_to_succeed_macbook_air
> Let’s Really Think About This ‘New Low-Cost Laptop to Succeed MacBook Air’ Thing
Big article.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/08/21/google-data-collection
> A dormant, stationary Android phone (with the Chrome browser active in the background) communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period, or at an average of 14 data communications per hour. In fact, location information constituted 35 percent of all the data samples sent to Google.
> For comparison’s sake, a similar experiment found that on an iOS device with Safari but not Chrome, Google could not collect any appreciable data unless a user was interacting with the device. Moreover, an idle Android phone running the Chrome browser sends back to Google nearly fifty times as many data requests per hour as an idle iOS phone running Safari.
YOU NEED TO ANSWER MEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! HOWWWWWWW MUUUUUCH ISSSS THATTTTTTTTT MAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!!?!?!!?!??83&382&!;7; I niwrh k
> YOU NEED TO ANSWER MEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
no
Nelson Mandela's Economic Policy (1990)
https://youtu.be/ryO3En-zG68?t=728
Woman asks a question:
>[...] What can assure me as a human being, and a concerned African american that the ANC will indeed have a fiscal [?] policy that will continue the use of the resources of South Africa in a meaningful way. Or should I put it more succinctly? Will your economy be based on the Marxist system, socialism, or capitalism? Or both?
Nelson Mandela:
>I knew that that was the question that you wanted to ask. I'm happy that you had the courage to put it directly.
>We are not concerned with models, we are not concerned with labels, we are practical men and women whose solutions are dictated by the actual condition existing in our countries. As somebody has said: "we do not care whether the cat is black or white as long as it can catch mice".
>What we want to achieve is a healthy and vibrant economy which can ensure full economy for our people, maximal production and the development of social justice We want it to rectify the imbalances that exists in our economy.
>One of the companies owns more than 75% of the shares quoted at the Johannesburg stock exchange. This is illustrative of how our economy is organized. [...] the resources of the country are monopolized by a white minority. Even in that minority, by a few individuals. Wheres the masses of the people, especially the blacks, are left poor, redeem with diseases, illiteracy, without educational facilities. We want to develop an economy which will put an end to that . And will leave to other people to put a label, if they so wish.
#10819
>We are not concerned with models, we are not concerned with labels, we are practical men and women whose solutions are dictated by the actual condition existing in our countries. As somebody has said: "we do not care whether the cat is black or white as long as it can catch mice".
We are only concerned with our ends, never mind the means to achieve it. we are practical, we don't concern ourselves with theoretical concerns like how reality works and what are the proper means to achieve our ends.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/24/woot-has-refurbished-apple-macbooks-on-sale-from-499-today-only
no excuses to not have a mac!
should i get a robot vacuum?
if you set up this as a bookmark you can easily do a site-restricted google search on the current site you're on in your browser https://pastebin.com/mVrmkgB2
added textarea auto resizing based on http://usefulangle.com/post/41/javascript-textarea-autogrow-adjust-height-based-on-content
set max height to 1000px and made scroll bars appear again past that.
<% javascript_tag do %>
function autogrow() {
var scroll_height = document.querySelector("#comment_argle").scrollHeight;
document.querySelector("#comment_argle").style.height = scroll_height + 'px';
if (scroll_height >= 1000){
document.querySelector("#comment_argle").style.overflow = 'auto';
} else {
document.querySelector("#comment_argle").style.height = 'hidden';
}
};
<% end %>
> The SPLC can no longer be fairly termed a nonpartisan watchdog group. It has become a hate group itself. Actual political violence is of no interest to it unless it can be deployed in service of the SPLC’s thinly veiled campaign to damage the Right. Bafflement ensued when, in 2012, National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke called up the SPLC to ask whether the outfit was adding Occupy Wall Street to the list of hate groups it tracks after three anarchists linked to the movement were caught plotting to blow up a bridge in Cleveland (all three later pleaded guilty). An SPLC flack explained that his group “only tracks those who commit violence or who seek to destroy whole systems in the name of an ideology.” Since this was exactly what the Occupy fanatics were up to, Cooke was puzzled. “They were anarchists,” the spokesman told Cooke. Yeah. So?
> Well, the spokesman added sheepishly, “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/09/10/southern-poverty-law-center-essentially-a-fraud/
#10838
> The SPLC can no longer be fairly termed a nonpartisan watchdog group.
Was it ever? It certainly wasn't a few years ago.
Anyone know a good place to get writing feedback?
I tried Scribophile and my account got removed because Heuristic World is not an approved pen name.
#10840 Here. Also I think there's lots of decent forums for fiction writers, but I guess that's not what you mean.
What are the rules about asking for writing feedback here?
> What are the rules about asking for writing feedback here?
there are no rules about that, this is a free speech and open discussion zone.
#10840 Anyone know a good place to get writing feedback?
Theres the discussion group
http://fallibleideas.com/discussion
I like free speech. I don’t know what the limits should be for like slander or lying.
I dislike how hostile people are towards people who don’t fully agree with the topics that our culture think of as taboo. I think people should be better at explaining those topics and more willing to then they should for non taboo topics, cuz if it’s so clear what is right, then shouldn’t it be easy to explain to people who disagree?
I post like 1 word on the public internet for every 10000 I read probably.
I wonder if the “how many words you wright vs how many you read” ratio is a good thing to keep track of. Anyone have thoughts on how useful that ratio is?
I wonder what Elliot’s thoughts on anime is and if he still watches it, he seems to reference to anime a lot in his older writings, and a bit today still.
I read the “what do you think” and “this is a free speech zone” then wrote what I thought. Was very close to not writing anything at all tho, I’m usually very passive about writing. I think I’m constantly worried about being embarrassed or not knowing enough.
Should I have given this post a title? I don’t think so. I’m not sure when you should give your post a title on the open discussion tho.
I have watched very little anime for over 5 years. I found lots of shows were too similar to things I'd already seen (sometimes in obvious ways, but also sometimes in ways that are hard to explain).
I usually don't title posts. I don't think it's an important feature. I considered removing it. I wouldn't worry about it.
> I think I’m constantly worried about being embarrassed or not knowing enough.
Understandable. People can be very mean about such things. The FI community has some different attitudes, but not entirely, and those can be scary in other ways since people aren't familiar with how to handle them.
> I like free speech. I don’t know what the limits should be for like slander or lying.
A starting point: can you show harm/damages in court?
> I dislike how hostile people are towards people who don’t fully agree with the topics that our culture think of as taboo. I think people should be better at explaining those topics and more willing to then they should for non taboo topics, cuz if it’s so clear what is right, then shouldn’t it be easy to explain to people who disagree?
yes
> I wonder if the “how many words you wright vs how many you read” ratio is a good thing to keep track of. Anyone have thoughts on how useful that ratio is?
I'd suggest between 10:1 in favor of reading and 10:1 in favor of writing. I think tons of people skew too much towards reading, though there are also those who read very little.
Angry guy from discord chat reviews FI discord chatroom. I respond in comments with log of me talking about liberalism.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/9a8v19/a_review_of_a_chat_room/
> Socialism cant be found in books.
said the socialist. lol wtf.
https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2018/08/25/people-before-profit/
Can Socialist make non-adhominem arguments?
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/comments/97fpge/philosophy_tube_is_a_proviolence_proantifa_fraud/e498dyd
#10856 lots of people flame instead of arguing :/
the other guy in comments was better
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/comments/97fpge/philosophy_tube_is_a_proviolence_proantifa_fraud/e4drs14/
but he didn't quote any specific mistakes from my video to reply to (as i *did* video quote things from the video i was criticizing, and respond to them). he wrote 6 paragraphs, some long, but it's all his own summary with no timestamps or quotes, no engaging with any exact thing i said (the most specific thing he mentions, he actually concedes i'm right about). it also tries to deny that BAMN is part of antifa, based on basically "maybe it's not, you didn't prove it was" speculation and no research into BAMN. he also admits that philosophy tube was defending some violence and spends tons of time attacking credentials (i'm a *writer*. i have plenty of writing he could review if he wanted to see and judge my knowledge. i have no idea if the philosophy tube guy writes philosophy or not. surely writing counts more than videos for serious philosophy.)
https://vdare.com/posts/politico-s-eliana-johnson-can-t-get-details-of-claremont-email-brouhaha-or-white-nationalism-right
>The Claremont Institute shuttered an email list after an exchange over white nationalism blew up
heartise shares a perspective about the effects of mass immigration
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/the-shape-of-apocalypto-conquest/
EXCERPT:
> And then you hear your wife pull up and the car door slam. She walks in all business, herding your three children in to go upstairs and change out of swimming clothes. You notice: no one is wet, or has been wet.
> “What happened? Is everything all right?”
> “No, it’s not all f**king right. You won’t believe what happened. I’m standing there juggling towels and floaties and the Parks and Rec guys are telling me it’s now $10 a kid for a day swim pass, so I roll my eyes and I’m digging in my purse to get my card out, and then all these little mexican kids go flying through the front door and I’m like ‘Hey, why aren’t you telling them they have to pay’ and the guy is like ‘They have red wristbands” and I say “So?” and he says “it’s a program we have here at the Aquatic Center for disadvantaged youths so they get the benefit of swimming and lessons in a safe environment” and they just kept piling in and I’m thinking we’re already paying through the nose in taxes, and now I have to cough up money for OUR KIDS WHO WERE BORN AND RAISED IN THIS TOWN so these people can swarm the pool for free.”
> You’re hoping she’s done there, but she’s not. You can feel Sunday slipping away. The “boys” can hear everything going on, but you can bet your ass they’re staying out of this one. She continues:
> “And there were so many of them, and they were SCREAMING AND YELLING and it was chaos, and I just, I just, couldn’t do it, so I told the kids we were leaving and I turned around and walked out of there. Then, before we get to the car, James starts crying, says it’s ‘no fair’ and that I promised we’d go swimming today all week, which is true”
> And she’s looking at you, because, you know the deal, you are responsible for fixing this. You think. Or maybe she’s just venting. But you do what you can.
> That night, you get the Sunday Night Blues and Monday morning comes around, and you’re driving into work and you’re looking around your town and you’re thinking:
> This isn’t my town any more. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
> Am I racist? Jesus, am I becoming one of those guys. I sure sound like one of those guys.
Good talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzQZ5mpTodc
i was trying to play a game using Steam in home streaming, with a windows PC as the host and a Mac as the client (cuz my mac's monitor is much much better quality than the windows monitor i currently own)
i was having some trouble with using an xbox one controller. i actually had the controller connected by bluetooth directly to the Windows host. i realized the issue was that even though the PC and mac are pretty close, the bluetooth signal from the controller was not quite making it to the PC with 100% consistency.
it turns out that since the current generation of xbox one controllers support bluetooth and don't need a proprietary receiver with its own driver support, you can just connect an xbox one controller to a Mac directly like any old bluetooth device e.g. https://newatlas.com/how-to-use-xbox-one-controller-mac/47159/
(and then steam does the input mapping for you if you are doing in home streaming like iam)
so that's cool.
lefties sometimes point to the fact that a lot of the housing construction that happens in urban areas is luxury housing to say the free market can't solve the "housing crisis."
if some city needs 100,000 units of more housing to satisfy demand but the govt only lets people build 1,000 units, then the developers will of course go for luxury since that's the most profitable give the constraint on the number of units that the government has imposed.
the mass middle of market is where the big profits are but you need BIG NUMBERS to get those big profits. if the govt interferes with the construction of MASS amounts of housing, then of course developers will focus on luxury.
if, to take another example, there was some dumb law that said only 1,000 smartphones a year could be built, apple wouldn't even bother with them -- they'd be novelty toys for rich people made by luxury specialists and cost $10k+ or something like that.
> if, to take another example, there was some dumb law that said only 1,000 smartphones a year could be built, apple wouldn't even bother with them -- they'd be novelty toys for rich people made by luxury specialists and cost $10k+ or something like that.
And, in those circumstances, if Apple did produce 1000 smartphones, all of them would be iPhone X with max storage. Apple would prefer the top end model over the other models.
#10891 yeah. and hey at least their ASP would be killer ;-)
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/9ahy71/megathread_mass_shooting_at_madden_tournament_in/
> [Megathread] Mass shooting at Madden tournament in Jacksonville, FL.
Leffen's comments:
Has he actually looked up per-capita mass shooting deaths in European countries? no.
#10893
Also, if you're going to compare the risk, then you should be looking at overall risk of violent crime, not just gun crime risk.
the recent comments page now includes a list of the most recently active 10 topics. http://curi.us/comments/recent
https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-tyranny-of-bad-ideas-1535311573
paywalled but quoting the newsletter which had the start:
>Socialism was a proven failure, but Hugo Chávez got his countrymen to try it
>by Daniel Pipes
>Ideas run the world: good ones create freedom and wealth; bad ones, oppression and poverty. Sure, money is important, but money is but a means to an end. Ideas are the end. You are not what you eat; you are what you think.
>Politicians in particular fall under the sway of ideas. As John Maynard Keynes put it, "Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. ... it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."
>The story of Venezuela, brought from affluence to misery by its own madman in authority, makes this point with singular clarity. In 1914, the discovery of oil on Venezuelan land brought the country vast revenues and produced a relatively free economy. By 1950, Venezuela enjoyed the fourth-highest per capita income in the world, behind only the U.S., Switzerland, and New Zealand. As late as 1980, it boasted the world's fastest growing economy in the 20thcentury. In 2001, Venezuela still ranked as Latin America's wealthiest country.
#10907
Here's the whole thing
> Ideas run the world. Good ones create freedom and wealth; bad ones, oppression and poverty. You are not what you eat, but what you think.
> Politicians in particular fall under the sway of ideas. As John Maynard Keynes put it, “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. . . . It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”
> The story of Venezuela makes this point with singular clarity. In 1914 the discovery of oil brought the country vast revenues and produced a relatively free economy. By 1950 Venezuela enjoyed the fourth-highest per capita income in the world, behind only the U.S., Switzerland and New Zealand. As late as 1980, it boasted the world’s fastest-growing economy in the 20th century. In 2001 Venezuela still ranked as Latin America’s wealthiest country.
> Venezuela’s troubles, however, had begun long before. Starting around 1958, government interference in the economy, including price and exchange controls, higher taxes, and restrictions on property rights, led to decades of stagnation, with per capita real income declining 0.13% from 1960-97. Still, it remained a normal, functioning country.
> Today the country with the world’s largest oil reserves suffers from a severely contracting economy, runaway inflation, despotism, mass emigration, criminality, disease, hunger and starvation, with circumstances deteriorating daily. Venezuela’s economy contracted by 16% in 2016, 14% last year and a predicted 15% in 2018. Inflation was at 112% in 2015 and 2,800% at the end of last year. Economist Steve Hanke finds an annualized rate of around 65,000% for 2018, making Venezuela’s one of the most severe hyperinflations ever. Food shortages led to an average weight loss among Venezuelans of 18 pounds in 2016 and 24 pounds in 2017.
> –– ADVERTISEMENT ––
> What caused this crisis? Foreign invasion, civil war, natural disaster, substitutes for oil, or agricultural plagues? No, bad ideas, pure and simple.
> Socialism might have been a proven failure globally, but Hugo Chávez convinced Venezuelans to try it. On becoming president in 1999, he stole, dominated, polarized and jailed. Benefiting from about $1 trillion in oil sales during his 14 years as president, he had the means to launch massive social spending programs to secure votes. He could even afford to kill the goose laying golden eggs, replacing competent professionals at the government-owned oil company with agents, stooges and sycophants. In the grandest socialist tradition, his daughter María accumulated a fortune estimated at $4.2 billion in 2015, according to Venezuelan press reports.
> “The trouble with socialism,” Margaret Thatcher once observed, “is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Chávez pre-empted that problem by seeking treatment for his cancer in Havana, where, Fox News reports, he “was assassinated by Cuban malpractice.” He died in March 2013, about a year before oil prices tumbled, and conveniently bequeathed the disaster that followed to Nicolás Maduro, his still more brutal and incompetent handpicked successor. Once oil revenues shrank, the true costs of Chávez’ bankrupt ideas became clear. Venezuela is now sinking into totalitarianism, using military force to keep socialism afloat.
> Bad ideas have always existed, but they acquired new importance with the advent of liberalism in the late 17th century. Before then, conservatism—respecting tradition while adapting it to new circumstances—had prevailed. An individual king’s or religious leader’s besotted vision could progress only so far before convention rolled it back. Liberalism rendered tradition optional by optimistically deeming each person capable to think through the great issues from first principles on his own.
> Radical theories proliferated, especially during the French Revolution. The floodgates were opened for ideas unmoored from experience and common sense, such as conspiracy theories. These ideas incubated through the 19th century and came to terrible fruition after World War I with fascism, Nazism, socialism and communism. As historian Paul Johnson notes, “The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.”
> The roll call of tyrants who have imposed their own philosophies over the past century is depressingly long, including Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Tojo, Hitler, Ho, Mao, Kim, Nasser, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Assad, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini, and Chávez. They fully understood their own game; as Stalin reportedly observed, “Ideas are more powerful than guns.” Each one devastated his fiefdom.
> If bad ideas bring horror, their antidote lies in conservative, modest, tried-and-tested ideas that respect tradition and human nature; not in revolutionary lurches and grandiose experiments, but in incremental improvements on customary practices.
> At a moment when many Democrats are ignoring the lessons of Venezuela and swooning over socialism, it’s back to the barricades in the war of ideas.
> Mr. Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum
Number 8 on this list of immigrant mass shootings seems very iffy http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2018-02-21.html
I'm trying to learn SSBM. Is it better to use X, Y, or up on the control stick to jump? I haven't played long enough to have a preference. Which approach do most players use?
#10913 Very few players use control stick to jump. Don't use it. X and Y are both fine, that's mostly a matter of preference. Once you pick a character you could look at some of their tech and see if it's easier with X or Y (like i find it easier to do peach float stuff with Y, where you need to hold jump to float and still hit A during that, but i prefer X in general).
> “Trump reportedly believed that he had and Erdogan struck a deal for Brunson’s release. Erdogan told Trump he would free Brunson if Israel released a Turkish national, Ebru Ozkan, who was detained in Israel pending trial after being arrested for operating a money laundering scheme for Hamas.
> After meeting with Erdogan, on July 14 Trump phoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him to free Ozkan. Israel freed Ozkan and sent her back to Turkey the next day.
> So Erdogan ransomed Brunson for a Hamas terrorist. This is not the sort of behavior you would expect to see in a NATO member and a long-term strategic ally.
> But that, of course, wasn’t the worst of it. After securing Ozkan’s release, Erdogan double-crossed Trump. Rather than free Brunson and repatriate him as he promised to do, Erdogan moved Brunson from prison to house arrest and barred him from leaving Turkey. That is, he kept him hostage.
> And now he expects to ransom him a second time, for a bigger fish: Fethullah Gulen.”
Caroline Glick: Andrew Brunson Case Proves U.S.-Turkey Alliance Has Been Over for Years | Breitbart
https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/08/19/caroline-glick-andrew-brunson-case-proves-u-s-turkey-alliance-has-been-over-for-years/
Solid VDare article https://vdare.com/posts/a-perfect-storm-in-iowa-ten-points-about-mollie-tibbetts-murder
> On Wednesday, China-based bikeshare company Mobike confirmed that after several months of operations it is leaving D.C. before a city-run pilot program for dockless bikes and scooters ends at the end of August. The company says it is collecting its orange and silver bikes and will refund customers who prepaid for rides.
> Mobike Vice President of North America Operations Chris Martin told WAMU that the District Department of Transportation’s (DDOT) 400-vehicle-per-operator limit hindered the company’s growth.
> “We probably should’ve [ended it] even sooner,” Martin told the radio station, without foreclosing the possibility that Mobike could one day return to D.C. if regulations change. He said the pilot program rules were more restrictive than those in other American cities.
> Mobike is the second dockless operator to announce this week that it is quitting the District. On Tuesday, Ofo—which, like Mobike, is based in China—said it could not sustain its operations in D.C. and would instead focus its efforts on a few “viable” markets in the U.S.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dc.curbed.com/platform/amp/2018/7/26/17616606/dockless-bike-share-mobike-washington-availability
Horowitz got online donations back. leftists backed down, for now, in this case. https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271154/david-horowitz-freedom-center-declares-victory-frontpagemagcom
#10919 👍
The left will be back though. Maybe the next pressure campaign will be to disable automatic recurring donations to certain groups, so people can't #AutoDonateToHate
https://www.justfactsdaily.com/illegal-immigrants-far-more-likely-to-commit-serious-crimes-than-us-public/
>First, U.S. Census data from 2011 to 2015 shows that noncitizens are 7% more likely than the U.S. population to be incarcerated in adult correctional facilities. This alone debunks the common media narrative, but it only scratches the surface of serious criminality by illegal immigrants.
>Second, Department of Justice data reveals that in the decade ending in 2015, the U.S. deported at least 1.5 million noncitizens who were convicted of committing crimes in the U.S. (Table 41). This amounts to 10 times the number of noncitizens in U.S. adult correctional facilities during 2015.
>Third, Department of Justice data shows that convicts released from prison have an average of 3.9 prior convictions, not including convictions that led to their imprisonment (Table 5). This means that people in prison are often repeat offenders—but as shown by the previous fact, masses of convicted criminals have been deported, making it hard for them to reoffend and end up in a U.S. prison.
>In other words, even after deporting 10 times more noncitizens convicted of crimes than are in U.S. prisons and jails, they are still 7% more likely to be incarcerated than the general public. This indicates a level of criminality that is multiplicatively higher than the U.S. population.
http://www.danielpipes.org/18452/conservativism-hidden-history
>Liberals, in contrast, are *rationalists* because they believe in each person's unlimited capacity to figure things out on his own. Tradition hardly counts: "Rather than arguing from the historical experience of nations, they set out by asserting general axioms that they believe to be true of all human beings, and that they suppose will be accepted by all human beings examining them with their native rational abilities."
That's not all liberals. That's the *radicals*.
https://www.wnd.com/2018/08/this-is-what-land-reform-looks-like-in-south-africa/
>The process currently in place typically begins with a “tribe” or group of individuals who band together to claim vast tracts of private property.
>If these loosely and conveniently conjoined groups know anything, it’s this: South Africa’s adapted, indigenized law allows coveted land, owned and occupied by another, to be obtained with relative ease.
...
> “Since the end of apartheid in 1994, when multi-racial elections were held,” wrote Dan McDougal of the London Times, millions of “acres of productive farmland have been transferred to black ownership. Much of it is now lying fallow, creating no economic benefit for the nation or its new owners.”
...
> Without exception, splendid enterprises that fed the country many times over have been reduced to “subsistence operations with a few mangy cattle and the odd mealie patch.”
https://mobile.wnd.com/2018/08/the-shocking-soros-speech-code-cartel-memo/
> Never, even in my fertile imagination, would I have guessed that we would find a smoking-gun 49-page memo revealing how George Soros operatives, including David Brock, were there at the genesis, the planning stages, with their hands on the ignition key, of the most concerted, well-funded, diabolical attack on free speech in the history of America.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/21/read-the-paper-cnn-says-is-white-supremacist/
> Fusionism was so called because it was able to construct a narrative that fused together traditionalist Burkean social conservatives and religious Christians, firstly, Cold-War hawks (Cold Warriors), secondly, and free market economic types (including libertarians like Friedman), finally, together.
Think he's ever read anything by Burke? This seems like the equivalent of citing scientific research after only reading the abstracts.
Burke pushed for reform after reform, and advocated freedom. He did value tradition appropriately, which is different than being a traditionalist conservative. He was a member of the liberal whig party, not of the conservative tories. Calling him a *social* conservative is nonsense. He was religious (like basically everyone else at the time) and presumably wasn't a fan of homosexuals like everyone else at the time) but what about his actual speeches, accomplishments and important ideas has to do with today's social conservative ideas like opposing abortion?
http://curi.us/2142-media-matters-memo-their-plans-to-control-all-political-speech
I started writing this as a blog comment – following up on #10924 – but converted it to a post.
Child tries to folllow politeness rules, is punished by evil teacher anyways https://abc11.com/education/tarboro-child-punished-for-calling-teacher-maam-/4041588/
Well so my daughter is dead BUT THE FOOD
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4062735&mc=57&forum_id=2
https://mailchi.mp/ben-evans/benedicts-newsletter-no-450597
> Epic, publisher of Fortnite, decided to launch on Android with a direct download rather than going though Google's app store. Entirely predictably, this came with a security hole. It's worth looking at how this works for how it bears on the broader issues. To get Fortnite, instead of going to the Google Play store, you download an installer app, and that app then downloads the rest of the game, storing it on an external storage card as it does so. But, Android allows any app on your phone complete access to anything on that card, which means that any app on your phone could insert a malicious payload into the Fortnite download as it comes in, and the Epic installer app doesn't check what's happening to the data to stop this. Why would you already have a malicious app? Well, for example, suppose you downloaded a dodgy flashlight app, and didn't give it any permissions. That flashlight app can still intercept the Fortnight download and add its own code, because the Epic installer app uses the storage card, Android lets any app access anything on the card, and the installer app doesn't check. And when your copy of 'Fortnite' asks for permissions - access to your address book, SMS, phone calls etc - you grant them, because this is Fortnite, not some random flashlight app. So. On one hand, this is why you use the app store - you rely on Google to validate this kind of stuff instead of betting on your own ability to harden your installation code. On the other, some of Google's own apps made the same underlying mistake as Epic (not checking what they're reading from the external card), and more importantly, the fact that any app on the phone can arbitrarily change other app's data on the card is a basic hole/feature that Google has included by design. (Finally, for bonus drama, Epic's miss was spotted by Google). Description of the Fortnite hack (link) and description of the the underlying issue (Link).
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38347400/ns/us_news-life/t/us-judge-conn-cheerleading-not-sport/#.W4TG8C3MwWo
>Competitive cheerleading is not an official sport that colleges can use to meet gender-equity requirements, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in ordering a Connecticut school to keep its women's volleyball team.
They won't count cheerleading as a sport, even though it is, so that women get more sports than men (one extra one). One consequence is it has worse safety standards and women get hurt.
#10933
http://www.omnicheer.com/blog/post/cheerleading-isnt-a-sport-and-what-it-means-for-cheerleaders
>Did you know that amongst high school female athletes, cheerleading accounts for 2/3 of catastrophic injuries? Among all sports, cheerleading has the most injuries second only to football. In 2011 alone, 37,000 cheerleaders visited the emergency room.
#10921
>In other words, even after deporting 10 times more noncitizens convicted of crimes than are in U.S. prisons and jails, they are still 7% more likely to be incarcerated than the general public. This indicates a level of criminality that is multiplicatively higher than the U.S. population.
so people who are willing to break the law to get into the country in the first place, and break the law to stay here, are willing to break the law in other ways too? and this surprises people?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136454/
> Problems with Using the Normal Distribution – and Ways to Improve Quality and Efficiency of Data Analysis
good paper. lots of data doesn't fit the normal distribution. this is often blatant b/c there are negative numbers within 2 standard deviations of the mean, but negative values are impossible.
the paper says the underlying issue is that lots of things in the world have more to do with multiplication than addition, and they suggest using the geometric mean along with basically a standard deviation that you multiply and divide with, instead of adding and subtracting. like if the mean is 10 and the deviation is 2, then 95% of the data is in the range 2.5 to 40.
> in general, laws and processes in science and life are rather of multiplicative than additive nature.
they give some examples like chemistry stuff.
http://curi.us/2143-discussion-structure
Please let me know if you see any errors in this new post. I got the text from emails and didn't reread it all. There could be a reference to FI or something that doesn't work as a blog post. (I did fix one issue like that).
Middle East Forum is hiring interns:
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2017/fall-2018-internship-opportunities
ppl r dumb
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/9a1waj/what_do_you_feel_is_the_idws_greatest_weakness/e5268go/?context=3
#10950 The guy wrote back:
> No, I just assumed it was something related to your Ayn Rand sites. It seems to be a critique of Jordan Peterson?
I can't even. I'm done. Someone else can reply.
added Kant stuff to ebooks page http://curi.us/ebooks
Aero (Overwatch coach) on learning:
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Ioz2Bodcg
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/08/30/guilherme-rambo-iphone-xs
>> we [9to5Mac] can report with certainty that iPhone XS will be the name, the OLED model will come in two sizes including a larger version, and each will be offered in gold for the first time.
> They also have a photo of a Series 4 Apple Watch, showing off an altogether new watch face that takes advantage of the bigger display and shows at least 8 complications in addition to the time of day.
more complications sounds nice
How to do tech hiring:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17877763
(work sample tests good, interviews bad)
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271179/why-we-need-convention-states-david-horowitz
New David Horowitz speech.
Twitter is so bad at programming. Note the duplicate message.
I started bicycling recently for the first time as an adult.
I've mostly been getting a feel for it riding in parking lots and along sidewalks but plan to start daring to go out on the road more soon.
Is there any bicycling stuff I should know? Common newb mistakes or misconceptions it would be good to look out for?
If it helps I am using the local bikeshare bikes. They are a 3 speed model.
I always ride with a helmet. I googled for info on appropriate seat height and used this calculator as a baseline in adjusting my seat https://www.ebicycles.com/bicycle-tools/saddle-height
#11022
Don't bike on the sidewalk.
Stop at stop signs. In general, follow the same traffic rules as cars.
When in doubt, be in the MIDDLE of the lane, and act like you're a car, so that no car tries to share the lane with you (and you don't try to go next to a car, either). This can be good on downhills (going fast) or when there's a bunch of traffic.
Be very careful about passing cars on the right at stoplights. They might want to turn right. This applies even if there's an actual bike lane.
If a street crossing is hard (no stop sign or light for cross traffic) or left turn is hard (there are cars around, especially with multiple lanes so you'd have to merge left into another lane), you can just get off your bike and be a pedestrian.
At 4 way stop signs with lots of traffic, the cars basically take turns (both cross traffic people go, then both people in your direction (towards you and away from you), then both cross traffic). I usually go when a car goes and I'm close enough (don't rush to catch up, just go with the car if you're already up at the front), instead of taking my own turn separately.
If something concerns you (e.g. tricky situation, steep hill up or down, or bad driver) just pull over and stop.
#11024
> At 4 way stop signs with lots of traffic, the cars basically take turns (both cross traffic people go, then both people in your direction (towards you and away from you), then both cross traffic). I usually go when a car goes and I'm close enough (don't rush to catch up, just go with the car if you're already up at the front), instead of taking my own turn separately.
Thanks for all your comments. The part above that I quoted was something I found especially interesting / hadn't read elsewhere.
https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1036717079439654912
https://twitter.com/adaminberlin/status/1036718919418040321
#11027 people are ridiculous. note the bad epistemology. he thinks things need to be positively proven/justified, rather than exposed to criticism. he doesn't care about criticism, just proof/evidence. so he doesn't know a single thing wrong with the essay, just doesn't seem a big pile of cites, and decides to reject it.
also his point about the false dichotomy is wrong. i think the problem is he literally doesn't know what "socialism" is. socialism is government ownership of the means of production. the nazi government were effectively the owners of the means of production because they controlled their use just as an owner would. so that's essentially socialism. the argument here has nothing to do with "it's not capitalism, therefore it must be socialism". Reisman never says that.
Is it lying to dye your hair so it doesn't look like you are starting to get some grey hairs?
#11045 I answered as a podcast
https://curi.us/podcast/dying-hair
if you limit the comments displayed, it now says how many are displayed out of the total (at the top, right under the blog post) and has a link to show all comments.
example:
http://curi.us/2126-open-discussion?comments=30
note: you cannot use comment limits in permalinks to specific comments that you post anywhere because they will stop working when more comments are added, so the linked comment is no longer within the latest N comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHpp9XsXkE&lc=UgyvZEB8_s2cBjHdFuB4AaABAg.8ku5OfVt77y8kuAdZwnaWO
Like Facebook, YouTube permalinks don't actually work. But there's only a few comments so you can probably find it. I responded to a hostile comment with:
> So antifa is defensible, but Lauren Southern and Rebel Media are beyond the pale?
Guy is literally defending antifa then tells me that a "balanced discussion" requires not using "far-right" or "anti-left" sources.
He also doesn't understand my honesty in choosing a clear and accurate video title, and thinks I should have lied in the title to hide my actual views – that's the kind of thing he and his lefty social circle do.
> So antifa is defensible, but Lauren Southern and Rebel Media are beyond the pale?
To this question, the person actually replied beginning with a clear answer: "Yes."
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/07/trump-pussy-hat-design-withdrawn-after-gender-furor/
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/09/08/app-store-alex-jones
> APPLE HAS PERMANENTLY BANNED ALEX JONES’ INFOWARS APP FROM THE APP STORE
:(
And DF tries to use the authority of Popper to justify it :(
Amazon Censoring PUA Books
link for #11132 https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/1039144452722327552
Someone posted mykl's latest Overwatch YouTube video on reddit. mykl wrote the following comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/9emp1m/leaking_florida_mayhem_big_acquisition_3_new/e5pxnzz/
> Sources: Florida mayhem have acquired Xepher via trade from Seoul dynasty. Florida mayhem have signed Apply and HaGoPeun from academy to main OWL roster.
> For those who don’t wanna hear my opinion on this for 10 mins with 6 ads.
I liked it. So did a bunch of people who replied on reddit. (I'm actually going to watch the video later, though of course I use adblock.)
Epstein is so second-handed and/or panders to those who are. He asks about how Objectivism helped people accomplish things *that are recognized by other people with high social status*. That's ironic given his association with Objectivism and this question being about the value of Objectivism. He should try following Objectivism more!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965
> Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
> The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (H.R. 2580; Pub.L. 89–236, 79 Stat. 911, enacted June 30, 1968), also known as the Hart–Celler Act, changed the way quotas were allocated by ending the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the United States since t...
> changed the way quotas were allocated by ending the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the United States since the Emergency Quota Act of 1921.
>The proponents of the Hart–Celler Act argued that it would not significantly influence United States culture. President Johnson called the bill "not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions."[17] Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other politicians, including Senator Ted Kennedy, asserted that the bill would not affect US demographic mix.[2] However, the ethnic composition of immigrants changed following the passage of the law.[18][19] Specifically, the Hart–Celler Act allowed increased numbers of people to migrate to the United States from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
> Prior to 1965, the demographics of immigration stood as mostly Europeans; 68 percent of legal immigrants in the 1950s came from Europe and Canada. However, in the years 1971–1991, immigrants from Hispanic and Latin American countries made 47.9 percent of immigrants (with Mexico accounting for 23.7 percent) and immigrants from Asia 35.2 percent. Not only did it change the ethnic makeup of immigration, but it also greatly increased the number of immigrants—immigration constituted 11 percent of the total U.S. population growth between 1960 and 1970, growing to 33 percent from 1970–80, and to 39 percent from 1980–90.[21]
wikipedia is seriously biased but still admits all this. the same article says:
> The 1965 Act marked a change from past U.S. policy which had discriminated against non-northern Europeans.[2]
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/09/11/amazon-peterson
There's no way that's what Jeff Bezos wants his managers to do about injuries. He probably considers it just as immoral as most other people reading this news story. And it's bad business. You'll get sued. It'll alienate your better employees. If a culture like that gets established (which this anecdote does *not* demonstrate), it'll be hard to fix it and hire good managers. The guy who doesn't care about injuries is also a bad employee who does other things wrong. Being this degree of hard ass is not how to efficiently deliver stuff.
It makes a big difference whether this is actually Amazon policy, or a bad manager. Hiring good people is hard – it's hard to tell, from an interview, how they'll behave.
EU gonna tax online links!?
https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2018/09/12/eu-copyright-directive/#comment-4965
Just got emailed this:
> We noticed that you haven't logged into your ESL account within least 4 years and we are writing to inform you that we will unfortunately have to close your account soon. We are forced to do this due to the GDPR policy that prevents us from keeping the user data for more than 4 more years.
GDPR sux.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/
leaked video of Google leaders hating Trump and expressing their desire to use their control over information for political activism.
> (00:01:12) Returning to seriousness, Brin says he is “deeply offen[ded]” by the election of Trump, and that the election “conflicts with many of [Google’s] values.”
> (00:09:10) Trying to explain the motivations of Trump supporters, Senior VP for Global Affairs, Kent Walker concludes: “fear, not just in the United States, but around the world is fueling concerns, xenophobia, hatred, and a desire for answers that may or may not be there.”
> (00:09:35) Walker goes on to describe the Trump phenomenon as a sign of “tribalism that’s self-destructive [in] the long-term.”
> (00:09:55) Striking an optimistic tone, Walker assures Google employees that despite the election, “history is on our side” and that the “moral arc of history bends towards progress.”
Then he attacks walls.
> (00:13:10) CFO Ruth Porat appears to break down in tears when discussing the election result.
> (00:15:20) Porat promises that Google will “use the great strength and resources and reach we have to continue to advance really important values.”
> (00:20:24) Eileen Noughton, VP of People Operations, promises that Google’s policy team in DC is “all over” the immigration issue and that the company will “keep a close watch on it.”
> (00:23:12) Noughton does acknowledge “diversity of opinion and political persuasion” and notes that she has heard from conservative Google employees who say they “haven’t felt entirely comfortable revealing who [they] are.” and urged “tolerance.” (Several months later, the company would fire James Damore allegedly for disagreeing with progressive narratives.)
> (00:27:30) Sergey Brin praises an audience member’s suggestion of increasing matched Google employee donations to progressive groups.
> (00:34:40) Brin compares Trump voters to “extremists,” arguing for a correlation between the economic background of Trump supporters and the kinds of voters who back extremist movements. Brin says that “voting is not a rational act” and that not all of Trump’s support can be attributed to “income disparity.” He suggests that Trump voters might have been motivated by boredom rather than legitimate concerns.
> (00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation” and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jl2pRJRZNg
#11148 He didn't seem aware that paddling is already a thing in lots of US schools. And he was kinda hateful of strict parenting without a word about how the standard other side of that debate is also awful ("permissive parenting" is bad). Basically all normal ways of parenting are awful and then everyone complains about how some other school of parenting is awful while being oblivious to what's wrong with their own favored approach. And he thinks he knows more about the psychology of people he hates than he actually does.
http://www.settingtheworldtorights.com
:(
Why do people have music running through their heads? Is there anything we can do to get it to stop?
I don't know why a song gets stuck. But what works for me is to finish out the song in my head. Play it out until the end, then it no longer plays.
Best educational Overwatch streamer I've found: https://www.twitch.tv/fahzix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIL3JD7rxdE
#11161 was me
#11161 In the first 30 seconds, he says right wingers as a group "invariably" make certain arguments (which are not even close to my main points on the subject), accuses them of calling people "cucks" (which I don't do), and says he'll look at data (rather than think about economic logic).
https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-xs-versus-iphone-xs-max-versus-iphone-xr-whats-the-difference/
I think I'm going to get the XR. The processor is the same as the XS. I don't care about the screen or camera not being quite as good.
#11166 Size is another factor. I don't think I'd want a larger phone than my X. I've tried a plus phone before and didn't like it. I can comfortably hold this in one hand.
(Image from https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Hierarchy-of-evidence-pyramid-The-pyramidal-shape-qualitatively-integrates-the-amount-of_fig1_311504831 )
this is all about *who should rule* – which authority is best?
it's authoritarian and is a major force destroying the world (cuz it's so popular)
the method of judging things by their authority should be entirely rejected, and all that should matter is criticisms of them.
there is no purpose to a hierarchy of evidence. it's only used to reject ideas which are not refuted, or to defend ones which are, both of which are the epitome of irrationality.
all research done by ppl with such ideas is tainted. not all worthless, but tainted and the useful bits and pieces must be gathered and rescued by better men who can tell the difference.
which is most research.
it's also a blatant attack on thinking, which it lists at the bottom
I don't think that's the most charitable interpretation of this. It could well come close to straw-manning what is intended with this.
It is not about popularity or even authority.
The whole goal is to keep us from fooling ourselves, as we are the easiest people to fool.
These methods have been developed through the years as a way to defend against bias, and keep us form error correcting.
It is certainly not a blatant attack on thinking. I also think that the power of expert opinion goes only as far as their ability to explain their theories or positions. How do we differentiate the distrust of someone because they are fallible and a system that makes it less likely to fall prey to cognitive biases?
I may not have a full grasp of that side or yours but I do not think you presented it in a way that is in accord with the principle of charity.
Expressing the position of Critical Rationalism is not straw manning. It is an actual, important disagreement. We have serious, published reasoning for this (which our opponents will not answer).
> I may not have a full grasp of that side or yours but I do not think you presented it in a way that is in accord with the principle of charity.
The principle of charity is commonly used to attack and pressure people – like you've just done – in ways that do not related to the actual issues at stake. It's a way to attack without refuting a word of the argument.
From your position of total ignorance of the issues, how can you say whether curi's evaluation is fair? I think he's exactly right and it's very important and he's doing the world a favor by understanding this and sharing information about it with anyone who will listen – he's contributing to problem solving. You are trying to suppress his outlier ideas with social pressure by accusing him of being uncharitable while not trying to pursue the actual issues.
You seem to be under the impression that authoritarians don't exist – or at least not among groups that say they aren't authoritarian. Or something. Maybe it's because you're confusing epistemological authoritarians with political authoritarians. But most academics are political authoritarians too, so that wouldn't even be a bad bet.
#11172
> I don't think that's the most charitable interpretation of this. It could well come close to straw-manning what is intended with this.
>
> It is not about popularity or even authority.
RCTs are put above cohort studies. But if a cohort study contradicts an RCT then it's possible that the RCT is wrong because it was conducted badly. So what's relevant is whether there is a criticism of the study, not what kind of study it is. So this diagram is about assigning authority not about how to make judgements rationally.
> These methods have been developed through the years as a way to defend against bias, and keep us form error correcting.
These methods are tools. People have to judge when and how to use a given tool and they can make bad decisions. So ranking the tools doesn't make sense.
> It is certainly not a blatant attack on thinking.
The diagram is an attack on thinking since it ranks studies by their methods rather than considering whether a person has an unanswered criticism of the study.
> I also think that the power of expert opinion goes only as far as their ability to explain their theories or positions.
This is also true or non-expert opinion, and all the kinds of studies in that diagram.
>So what's relevant is whether there is a criticism of the study, not what kind of study it is. So this diagram is about assigning authority not about how to make judgements rationally.
Suppose treatment A has been investigated in a case study (someone took treatment A, they were watched over a period of time, and then their disease improved). Suppose treatment B has been investigated in a RCT involving 4000 people. It also showed improvement of the disease.
I don't have any criticisms of how the studies themselves were performed. For being a case study, it was performed properly. For being a RCT, it was performed properly.
I have the disease in question. I'm considering treatment A vs B. Should I criticize *the idea of me going with treatment A* on the grounds that the only evidence that it actually works in reality is a single case study? Is that an invalid criticism?
To clarify, I'm not criticizing treatment A itself. It could still be good. But I'm criticizing me going with it right now because it has given much of a demonstration on how it'll actually work in reality (yet).
Clarification:
>To clarify, I'm not criticizing treatment A itself. It could still be good. But I'm criticizing me going with it right now because it has given much of a demonstration on how it'll actually work in reality (yet).
[...] because it *hasn't* given much of a demonstration on how it'll actually work in reality (yet).
Kate, you seem to be asking about whether there's any difference btwn the things in the pyramid, or if CR views them as identical. Yes there are differences. They are, literally, different. These differences may be mentioned in arguments when people find ways they are relevant.
Do they differ in their quality of evidence that a particular tested treatment will actually work in reality as guessed?
If so, is it useful to rank them according to this difference?
"quality of evidence" is not a well-defined, singular thing with any universal purpose.
Different metrics of evidence quality are used for different purposes. (Though such things are overrated and often no such metric is needed.)
Kate, you don't know what you're talking about and are overreaching. You are not taking appropriate steps to learn this subject, nor are you even making clear what your conversational goal is.
>> I may not have a full grasp of that side or yours but I do not think you presented it in a way that is in accord with the principle of charity.
> The principle of charity is commonly used to attack and pressure people – like you've just done – in ways that do not related to the actual issues at stake. It's a way to attack without refuting a word of the argument.
Perhaps that pressure is necessary. I have not much refuted an argument if I am refuting a strawman. When people criticize Popper but aren't actually attacking the positions he *actually* held you're right to dismiss that criticism would you not agree?
> From your position of total ignorance of the issues, how can you say whether curi's evaluation is fair? I think he's exactly right and it's very important and he's doing the world a favor by understanding this and sharing information about it with anyone who will listen – he's contributing to problem solving. You are trying to suppress his outlier ideas with social pressure by accusing him of being uncharitable while not trying to pursue the actual issues.
Total ignorance is a bit of a stretch. I've done enough research to distinguish what I would consider weak and strong studies. However, I don't have to be an expert in research design to know that the goal is not authoritarian control but an attempt to improve error correction.
#11181 You're advocating psychological pressure (as against rational arguments), calling curi mistaken without argument (a bit of a stretch is a claim about an error without giving reasoning), mistaken about strength and weakness (see https://yesornophilosophy.com ) and you aren't trying to learn what curi's (and DD's and Popper's and my) thinking about epistemological authority is. curi knows what these ppl's philosophy is and thinks it's false and he knows why, in full detail (as do i). and once you know what it is, well, all forms of justificationism involve the use of authority b/c authority is fundamentally the thing which provides justification. there's nothing else to provide justification but authority. it always turns out to be authority when you investigate from a Popperian perspective.
> calling curi mistaken without argument (a bit of a stretch is a claim about an error without giving reasoning)
oops i didn't check the quote authors at first. but then i realized he was insulting me, not curi, this time. well, i await a of refutation of the so-called stretch.
> Total ignorance is a bit of a stretch. I've done enough research to distinguish what I would consider weak and strong studies. However, I don't have to be an expert in research design to know that the goal is not authoritarian control but an attempt to improve error correction.
wait are sentences 2 and 3 there actually supposed to be relevant to sentence 1? are they supposed to be arguments for non-ignorance? but the main relevant thing is ignorance *of Critical Rationalism* and those don't even claim to know the first thing about CR, and actually both sentences contradict CR (with no sign the author knows that he's contradicting CR).
i initially read it as disconnected hostility, but it could actually be intended to be connected. regardless, sentence 3 is certainly disconnected from the issues – the discussion was about the pyramid and the philosophy behind it, not about the goals of research design. (also he doesn't say authoritarian control *of what*, so that's vague). also the claims about attempting to improve error correction are, well let's just say citation needed. that is not a standard thing for most ppl to say is their goal. he seems to be transplanting a bit of CR and attributed it to non-CR ppl b/c, while they didn't actually say it, they seem reasonable so they must mean it!?
#11180
>Different metrics of evidence quality are used for different purposes. (Though such things are overrated and often no such metric is needed.)
Is there a useful metric (and ranking) of evidence quality associated with the hierarchy of evidence? Is there some salvageable value there? Or is it useless?
> Kate, you don't know what you're talking about and are overreaching. You are not taking appropriate steps to learn this subject, nor are you even making clear what your conversational goal is.
I use the hierarchy of evidence (which vaguely in my mind ranks study designs based on their quality of experimental evidence) as a factor when comparing different medical treatment options to go with. e.g. see #11176.
One of my conversational goals is to understand whether I'm making a mistake.
Sad to see Wikipedia list "Atlas Shrugged" in the worst books near "Mein Kamph"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_considered_the_worst#Atlas_Shrugged_(Ayn_Rand,_1957)
#11186 No Das Kapital or Mao's Red book
> One of my conversational goals is to understand whether I'm making a mistake.
Yes you're making lots of mistakes due to epistemological ignorance. You yourself say "vaguely". You shouldn't rank drugs by the types of studies that failed to refute them.
If you want to rank drugs better, consider which ones have better *causal explanations* regarding how they work, and which just have selective attention on correlations. The role of empirical research should be primarily for inspiration and criticism; it can't directly tell you answers about what works or why. Drugs which haven't yet been exposed to much analysis or criticism can be seen as untested/unproven, which is a different kind of thing than trying to estimate if they work or not and which is only a secondary issue, not the main issue (the main issue being whether there's knowledge about it working).
---
@FF that sux :(
#11191
> You shouldn't rank drugs by the types of studies that failed to refute them.
Is there some usefulness in ranking study designs, though? I’m trying to figure out exactly what should be ranked, if anything at all. More on this below.
> If you want to rank drugs better, consider which ones have better *causal explanations* regarding how they work, and which just have selective attention on correlations.
ok
> The role of empirical research should be primarily for inspiration and criticism; it can't directly tell you answers about what works or why. Drugs which haven't yet been exposed to much analysis or criticism can be seen as untested/unproven,
Oh, maybe this is what can be usefully ranked? Can study designs be usefully ranked according to the extent to which they expose drugs to criticism involving empirical testing and/or further analysis (e.g. a meta-analysis of RCTs)? I like this better than my vague idea that study designs are ranked based on the quality of evidence they provide.
For example, some guy’s idea that hasn’t been tried out on anyone yet regarding the efficacy of a drug (this would actually be considered “no study”) < a case study examining the efficacy of the drug in a single person who took it < a RCT examining the efficacy of the drug in 4000 people who took it.
Each level of study design rank *only* conveys that there’s been further exposure to criticism involving empirical testing and/or further analysis.
Each level of study design rank does not directly tell us answers about which drugs are better. We find out that some drugs are better when other drugs get criticized for not being as efficacious (or for causing intolerable side effects, for having explanations that focus on correlations and not causality, or for something else). Is what I’m saying compatible with CR?
> which is a different kind of thing than trying to estimate if they work or not and which is only a secondary issue, not the main issue (the main issue being whether there's knowledge about it working).
Continuing with my current guess:
So, it’s important not to look at drugs that so far have only been studied in e.g. “low-rank” (my terminology from above) case studies and try to estimate whether or not the drugs will work. A low level of exposure to criticism involving empirical testing doesn’t necessarily mean a drug is ineffective. Just like a low level of exposure to criticism doesn’t necessarily mean an idea is mistaken.
But the thing to do is to provide that needed criticism for drugs in the form of argument (e.g. a lack of causal explanation) and/or substantial empirical testing (e.g. a RCT that better uncovers a lack of efficacy or intolerable side effects). Is this close?
> Is there some usefulness in ranking study designs, though? I’m trying to figure out exactly what should be ranked, if anything at all. More on this below.
This is backwards. You should start with a problem and seek solutions, not take a potential solution and go look for problems to use it on.
@testing, there are many different types so a single ranking of amount of testing is rly hard and again u should start with the problem first and then try to devise some kinda ranking (or non-ranking) that will help with that problem, don't start with the ranking. but a reasonably generically useful thing to consider is: did a bunch of ppl take this drug and nothing awful appeared to happen? that's different than few/no ppl tried it yet. and it can matter if ppl have tried taking it long term already, or just short term.
Ok. I see your point about coming at it backwards. And right now, I can't think of a problem that the ranking solves. You can just use general criticisms when comparing treatment options.
Criticisms such as:
- so far this drug has only been tried out in a few/no other people (compared to this other drug that thousands of ppl took)
- this drug lacks a causal explanation that makes sense
- the study examining this drug has major problems with bias
- etc.
I'm thinking that any good, pro-criticism, error-correcting ideas that are somewhat reflected by the hierarchy of evidence (e.g. ideas about needing to expose drugs to rigorous, empirical testing and ideas about wanting to reduce bias) can just be incorporated into the process as general criticisms.
sounds like a bullshit excuse to let bad science that agrees with you pass through and ignore the good science that disagrees with you. That's how you get climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers and flat earthers.
Postmodernism on the right.
#11200 Your hostile comments don't include specific arguments about specific claims anyone made. You don't appear to be attempting to have a rational discussion.
truth hurts bro. facts don't care about your feelings.
#11202 Did you have any particular facts in mind?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B229-KLudTo
> 17-YEAR-OLD STUDENT PILOT LANDS HER PLANE WITHOUT A WHEEL!
They do a good job of staying calm and handling the situation in a reasonable manner.
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-infinite-loop-oral-history/
> Schiller: We’re like, “Steve! Newton customers are picketing! What do you want to do? They’re angry.” And Steve said, “They have every right to be angry. They love Newton. It’s a great product, and we have to kill it, and that’s not fun, so we have to get them coffee and doughnuts and send it down to them and tell them we love them and we’re sorry and we support them.”
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-infinite-loop-oral-history/
> Cook: It was an awful time. The stock crashed, it goes down by 60 to 70 percent. We get a call from Ted Waitt, founder of Gateway. He wants to talk about acquiring Apple. Steve and I went to a meeting with Waitt and their CEO, and it’s a different Steve. Very calm, listening to the comments they made, how they’d probably keep the Apple brand. I was sitting there feeling like my organs were being cut out. Then they said maybe they could come up with a role for Steve, and I’m thinking—he’s going to blow! He’s going to blow any minute! Then they start talking about price. And Steve looks at them—he could look at you with eyes that just penetrated your soul—and says, “Who do you think is worth more, Apple or Gateway?” The meeting lasted only two or three minutes more. And in a few weeks they had some accounting scandal, and their stock crashed.
omg, that question from Steve :D
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-infinite-loop-oral-history/
> Scott Forstall (SVP of software, 1997–2012): Those buildings were mazes. Every time I would bring someone on campus, they would get lost. There’s only one time I remember someone not getting lost, and it was when we were working on a screen reader for sight-challenged people. I brought someone in who needed a seeing-eye dog. He asked to use the restroom. Every other time this happened, I would wait because they would get lost trying to find their way back. Left, right, left, right, right. Five minutes later his dog brings him right back into the room. That seeing-eye dog was the only one who knew his way around the very first time.
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-infinite-loop-oral-history/
> Forstall: Whenever I ate with Steve, he insisted on paying for me, which I thought was a little odd. Even if we went in together and he selected something quick like premade sushi, and I ordered a pizza in the wood-burning pizza oven, he would wait for me at the cash register for 10, 15 minutes. I felt so awkward. Finally, I told him. “Seriously, I can pay for myself, so please don't stand there and wait for me.” He said, “Scott, you don't understand. You know how we pay by swiping your badge and then it’s deducted from your salary? I only get paid a dollar year! Every time I swipe we get a free meal!” Here was this multibillionaire putting one over on the company he founded, a few dollars at a time.
#11152
> Why do people have music running through their heads? Is there anything we can do to get it to stop?
Are there people who don't have music running through their heads most of the time? If so, what's the difference between them and the people who do?
Maybe it could be good to have music running through your head if it's good music. Anyone have suggestions for good music that might inspire someone to be a better person?
I thought about trying to add words to the music running through my head, which doesn't usually have words. The words could be things I want to tell myself over and over. I had trouble coming up with words.
#11213
i don't have music running thru my head most of the time. almost never.
sometimes i have music running thru my head, like right after hearing a song.
i only listen to music while driving or working out. often i like it silent while driving or working out (like because i'm deep in thought and I don't want music to get in the way, though often i'm deep in thought and the music is on but I don't really notice the music - same for watching tv/movies).
mykl's apology/reflections
Overwatch content creator (YouTuber) mykl got a bunch of complaints after sharing a *rumor* on Twitter which was partially incorrect. He's recently leaked some inside info correctly, which he labelled differently (as coming from his "sources").
the complaints included that he needed to ask ppl for comment b4 saying things about them. mykl decided he'd made a mistake and wrote thoughts:
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqlmii
i thought his reflections were very good. reddit, however, mostly flamed him for it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/9hbuyz/mykl_reflecting/
what do you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=Giahp-hkK9Y
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/09/france-marine-le-pen-ordered-to-undergo-psychiatric-tests-for-posting-photos-critical-of-the-islamic-state
Quotes:
> France: Marine Le Pen ordered to undergo psychiatric tests for posting photos critical of the Islamic State
>> Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far right has been left shocked and furious after a court ordered her to be examined by a psychiatrist to determine if she “is capable of understanding remarks and answering questions”.
>> The unusual summoning is in relation to Le Pen having tweeted out gruesome propaganda images from terror group Isis that showed the bodies of people having been executed by the so-called Islamic State.
>> “I thought I had been through it all: well, no! For denouncing the horrors of Daesh (Isis) by tweets the “justice system” has referred me for a psychiatric assessment. How far will they go?!” she said on Thursday.
>> “I am being charged for having condemned the horrors of Daesh,” Le Pen told AFP.
>> “In other countries this would have earned me a medal.”
>> The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros ($91,000).
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/comments/9hjldl/progressives_are_completely_failing_at_properly/
#11222 Why are you linking that? Do you have a question?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReTqMM7HNM8
[6:28 PM] HeuristicWorld (Andy): I am really kind of confused at your bullying attitude towards me
[6:30 PM] HeuristicWorld (Andy): Sabotaging, I guess you expect me to be like everyone else here that takes your word for gospel
[6:30 PM] HeuristicWorld (Andy): The thing is I don't consider you superior to me and It bothers you.
[6:31 PM] HeuristicWorld (Andy): which is fine
[6:31 PM] HeuristicWorld (Andy): I've dealt with big egos before
He said it's "fine", after the passive-aggressive comment about his own confusion, and before leaving Discord without further explanation.
#11225 He was talking to curi. He was triggered because curi criticized his approach to subreddit moderation – which he both defended and also simultaneously disowned since he isn't solely in charge.
#11225 Yeah, that was a couple days after he got triggered because I and others don't hate the idea of Trump building a wall. I told him he was triggered, and some other warnings, and asked some questions, and he just ignored me and kept ranting for like an hour. Amazingly, he also made an excuse that he was too busy to talk properly (which doesn't seem to explain writing so many nasty comments). He apologized, by email, for raging that time:
> Hello Elliot,
> I apologize for my behavior yesterday. I shouldn't have implied you were a bigot. I've been thinking of what caused me to react so strongly and I think it was fear. I was afraid that you could convince me to think that a wall is a good idea. It felt like I was betraying my friends and people I care about if I were to start agreeing with something like that. But I ended up betraying my own values of seeking truth and honest conversations. Either way, I behaved poorly and I apologize.
> -Andy
But then he raged again, similarly, a few days later... (The quotes in #11225 regarding subreddit moderation, then leaving further discussion, apparently permanently.)
Notice the irrationality of being scared of being convinced that an idea is true. And notice the personal bias, which he brought up in the conversation too – he knows some immigrants and that, not principles, is how he decides on political policies. (I don't think he ever answered if they were *illegal* immigrants, which is the only type of immigrant that a wall would be targeted at. Many legal immigrants support Trump!)
Anyway, as is common with apologies, he didn't learn his lesson or change anything.
Andy is a moderator of https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/ where his name is kodheaven (blog: https://heuristicworld.blogspot.com ). I pointed out some ways their rules were unclear but Andy said he thought they were fine and didn't respond to the specific problems I had pointed out – and then raged, called me a bully, left, etc. It's really sad how much people's parents and teachers destroy their minds, and they usually never get over it.
He was friendly at first and I helped him learn the basics of minimum wage, but then he became hostile quite fast. Or at least it seemed like an abrupt change to me. Based on the quotes in #11225 , I guess he was building up resentments and problems for a while and dishonestly hiding them. I had noticed that *he brought up a lot more topics than he made progress on*. I'd tried to get him to stop and focus more, and had a lot of success with minimum wage, and some success with a few other things (e.g. altruism), but it was hard because he was resistant to productive discussion methods. He also never took any interest in the He also did sabotaging things like reading most of Atlas Shrugged *while largely disliking it or not getting the point* – without telling us he was reading it (I wouldn't have even recommended it to him, since I wouldn't have expected him to understand it) and, although he formed a negative judgment, he never discussed a single issue he had with the book.
> He also never took any interest in the
That sentence should say *in the topic of overreaching* on the end. He did say he liked Paths Forward, but then never acted accordingly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReTqMM7HNM8
Andy, fuck off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VPXzoDObNw
Juice
I recently discovered this article, and it has successfully converted me into an antisemite. I do not doubt the author's claims, but I have decided to read the books mentioned there.
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-oddities-of-the-jewish-religion/
Obviously, there's another issue of genetic jewishness, but I don't subscribe to that. I think that's just a way to bootstrap bottled rage by people who are antisemites for no good reason. Epigenetics and environmental factors play a much more important role than supposed trait descent.
@#11232 http://fallibleliving.com/essays/rational-politics/89-a-short-history-of-israel
and you didn't specify any particular claims you think are good and important from the article. this is a problem because the article doesn't read as an organized argument and it's hard to find the main points (and there's a major concern that if I found what I think are the main points, they wouldn't be the ones you had in mind).
fucking racists
what are some good productivity extensions for Chrome?
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/24/apple-shazam-acquisition-finalized/
> Apple Finalizes Shazam Acquisition, App Will Soon Become Ad-Free
Also MacOS Mojave came out today. Back up your computer before updating!
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/24/iphone-storage-profitable/
> In research compiled by Bloomberg, the 64GB iPhone XS cost Apple $23.68 for the NAND storage specifically, the 256GB cost $66.24, and the 512GB cost $132.48. In terms of revenue, the 512GB storage option is estimated to make Apple $241 more per iPhone than the 64GB tier, an increase from $107 between the highest and lowest storage tiers in last year's iPhone X.
Neat to know things about business margins. (Be aware that these estimates are usually not super accurate.)
http://www.displaymate.com/Diamond_41a.html
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/26/apple-watch-series-4-second-supplier-compal/
> Apple Watch Series 4 Expected to Gain Second Manufacturer Following 'Much Better Than Expected' Demand
Just got mine yesterday. I like it.
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/26/apple-news-publishers-high-traffic-poor-revenue/
> Report Reveals Apple News Brings Publishers Much Higher Traffic But a Lot Less Ad Revenue
> In a stark example, Slate revealed that it earns more money from an article that gets 50,000 page views on its own site than it does from 54 million views on Apple News.
https://brooksreview.net/2018/09/safari-content-blocker-evaluations-92618-edition/
> Safari Content Blocker Evaluations – 9/26/18 Edition
> 1Blocker X is leagues better than the rest.
That's what I was already using :)
New Coulter column:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2018-09-26.html
> NO MORE MR. WHITE GUY
Is this blog antisemitic?
#11249
No.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/09/27/hill-facebook
> The researchers also found that if User A, whom we’ll call Anna, shares her contacts with Facebook, including a previously unknown phone number for User B, whom we’ll call Ben, advertisers will be able to target Ben with an ad using that phone number, which I call “shadow contact information,” about a month later. Ben can’t access his shadow contact information, because that would violate Anna’s privacy, according to Facebook, so he can’t see it or delete it, and he can’t keep advertisers from using it either.
Facebook also lied that they didn't do this before being caught.
Found a Mojave bug: open 2 finder windows, A and B. open a 2nd tab in A. drag the 2nd tab to B. click the close button on window A. it leaves A open and closes B (both tabs). Repeatable.
Comparison and criticism of speedrunning marathons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjyy-UkZBY
The story of XQC (overwatch player/streamer):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1bgzFGyNuU
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1045755377520766976.html
curi.us - Apple tech news (also objectivism)
Apple is wonderful and interesting. Though Cook is far worse than Jobs :(
And Apple products are a major part of *the good life* today. Philosophers should care about the tools they use to read/write/watch/listen/record.
https://research.mozilla.org/files/2018/04/The-Effect-of-Ad-Blocking-on-User-Engagement-with-the-Web.pdf
Mozilla looked at some web browsing data and found:
> In the group that installed an ad blocker, we find significant increases in both active time spent in the browser (+28% over control) and the num- ber of pages viewed (+15% over control), while seeing no change in the number of searches.
>“Ten years ago, the $999 price of iPhone X would not have bought a state of the art camera, a pocketable computer, a personal audio player, portable TV and a cellular phone, let alone paid for any of the new key features of iPhone X. Add in inflation and last year's iPhone X price tag would barely have bought the original iPhone and used iPod in 2007, or not quite an entry-level Mac in 2000.”
Apple and the aggressive rollout of its iPhone XS vision for the future
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/09/13/apple-and-the-aggressive-rollout-of-its-iphone-xs-vision-for-the-future
via Instapaper
AirPower charging pads may be stalled due to intellectual property legal issues. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/09/17/is-apples-airpower-wireless-charging-pad-late-because-of-something-besides-technical-challenges
>ON FRIDAY, FACEBOOK revealed that it had suffered a security breach that impacted at least 50 million of its users, and possibly as many as 90 million. What it failed to mention initially, but revealed in a followup call Friday afternoon, is that the flaw affects more than just Facebook. If your account was impacted it means that a hacker could have accessed any account that you log into using Facebook.
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-security-breach-third-party-sites/
I never used the Facebook sign in crap cuz I didn't trust them. I feel vindicated
https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1047239328013930497
Mill advocating communism as a way of reducing the number of living human beings:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlP14.html#II.1.13
> The Communistic scheme, instead of being peculiarly open to the objection drawn from danger of over-population, has the recommendation of tending in an especial degree to the prevention of that evil.
> “Our paper-writing methodology always followed a specific pattern: it started with an idea that spoke to our epistemological or ethical concerns with the field and then sought to bend the existing scholarship to support it. The goal was always to use what the existing literature offered to get some little bit of lunacy or depravity to be acceptable at the highest levels of intellectual respectability within the field. Therefore, each paper began with something absurd or deeply unethical (or both) that we wanted to forward or conclude. We then made the existing peer-reviewed literature do our bidding in the attempt to get published in the academic canon.
> This is the primary point of the project: What we just described is not knowledge production; it’s sophistry. That is, it’s a forgery of knowledge that should not be mistaken for the real thing. The biggest difference between us and the scholarship we are studying by emulation is that we know we made things up.
> This process is the one, single thread that ties all twenty of our papers together, even though we used a variety of methods to come up with the various ideas fed into their system to see how the editors and peer reviewers would respond. Sometimes we just thought a nutty or inhumane idea up and ran with it. What if we write a paper saying we should train men like we do dogs—to prevent rape culture? Hence came the “Dog Park” paper. What if we write a paper claiming that when a guy privately masturbates while thinking about a woman (without her consent—in fact, without her ever finding out about it) that he’s committing sexual violence against her? That gave us the “Masturbation” paper. What if we argue that the reason superintelligent AI is potentially dangerous is because it is being programmed to be masculinist and imperialist using Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Lacanian psychoanalysis? That’s our “Feminist AI” paper. What if we argued that “a fat body is a legitimately built body” as a foundation for introducing a category for fat bodybuilding into the sport of professional bodybuilding? You can read how that went in Fat Studies.”
Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship - Areo
https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/
via Instapaper
> “At other times, we scoured the existing grievance studies literature to see where it was already going awry and then tried to magnify those problems. Feminist glaciology? Okay, we’ll copy it and write a feminist astronomy paper that argues feminist and queer astrology should be considered part of the science of astronomy, which we’ll brand as intrinsically sexist. Reviewers were very enthusiastic about that idea. Using a method like thematic analysis to spin favored interpretations of data? Fine, we wrote a paper about trans people in the workplace that does just that. Men use “male preserves” to enact dying “macho” masculinities discourses in a way society at large won’t accept? No problem. We published a paper best summarized as, “A gender scholar goes to Hooters to try to figure out why it exists.” “Defamiliarizing,” common experiences, pretending to be mystified by them and then looking for social constructions to explain them? Sure, our “Dildos” paper did that to answer the questions, “Why don’t straight men tend to masturbate via anal penetration, and what might happen if they did?” Hint: according to our paper in Sexuality and Culture, a leading sexualities journal, they will be less transphobic and more feminist as a result.
> We used other methods too, like, “I wonder if that ‘progressive stack’ in the news could be written into a paper that says white males in college shouldn’t be allowed to speak in class (or have their emails answered by the instructor), and, for good measure, be asked to sit in the floor in chains so they can ‘experience reparations.’” That was our “Progressive Stack” paper. The answer seems to be yes, and feminist philosophy titan Hypatia has been surprisingly warm to it. Another tough one for us was, “I wonder if they’d publish a feminist rewrite of a chapter from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.” The answer to that question also turns out to be “yes,” given that the feminist social work journal Affilia has just accepted it. As we progressed, we started to realize that just about anything can be made to work, so long as it falls within the moral orthodoxy and demonstrates understanding of the existing literature.
> Put another way, we now have good reasons to believe that if we just appropriate the existing literature in the right ways—and there always seems to be a citation or vein of literature that makes it possible—we can say almost any politically fashionable thing we want. The underlying questions in every single case were the same: What do we need to write, and what do we need to cite (all of our citations are real, by the way) to get this academic madness published as high “scholarship”?”
Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship - Areo
https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/
via Instapaper
https://voat.co/v/gaming/2762495
https://voat.co/v/gaming/2762495
It's a link to this video by The Quartering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq-HTglRTF8
Meant to set the voat.co title to the title here. It's: "UBISOFT leaks: company mandates diversity training for white employees, HR drones brag about hiring based on skin color! Anti-white propaganda to be implemented in all games"
> On campus, all can present equally valid narratives. What privileges one story over another is not necessarily any semblance to reality, at least as established by evidence and facts. Instead, powerful victimizers supposedly “construct” truths based on their own self-interests. As a result, self-described victims of historical biases are under no obligation to play by what they consider to be rigged rules of facts, evidence, or testimony.
> This dynamic explains why Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J) insisted that Dr. Ford told “her truth.” In other words, evidence was not so relevant. Ford’s story of events from 36 years ago inherently would have as much claim on reality as Kavanaugh’s rebuttal — and perhaps more so, given their different genders and asymmetrical access to power.
> There was little interest in discovering the ancient idea of “the Truth.” To do that would have required the messy work of taxing the memories of teenage behavior nearly four decades prior.
> Truth-finding would have required difficult, time-honored examinations of physical evidence, the testimony of witnesses, and even unpleasant cross-examinations about the time and place of the allegations. Feelings might have been hurt. Motives might have been questioned, as they are under constitutional norms of due process.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/brett-kavanaugh-hearings-campus-chaos-comes-to-congress/
> “There are two ways for spies to alter the guts of computer equipment. One, known as interdiction, consists of manipulating devices as they’re in transit from manufacturer to customer. This approach is favored by U.S. spy agencies, according to documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The other method involves seeding changes from the very beginning.
> One country in particular has an advantage executing this kind of attack: China, which by some estimates makes 75 percent of the world’s mobile phones and 90 percent of its PCs. Still, to actually accomplish a seeding attack would mean developing a deep understanding of a product’s design, manipulating components at the factory, and ensuring that the doctored devices made it through the global logistics chain to the desired location—a feat akin to throwing a stick in the Yangtze River upstream from Shanghai and ensuring that it washes ashore in Seattle. “Having a well-done, nation-state-level hardware implant surface would be like witnessing a unicorn jumping over a rainbow,” says Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and the founder of Grand Idea Studio Inc. “Hardware is just so far off the radar, it’s almost treated like black magic.”
> But that’s just what U.S. investigators found: The chips had been inserted during the manufacturing process, two officials say, by operatives from a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what U.S. officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies.
> One official says investigators found that it eventually affected almost 30 companies, including a major bank, government contractors, and the world’s most valuable company, Apple Inc. Apple was an important Supermicro customer and had planned to order more than 30,000 of its servers in two years for a new global network of data centers. Three senior insiders at Apple say that in the summer of 2015, it, too, found malicious chips on Supermicro motherboards. Apple severed ties with Supermicro the following year, for what it described as unrelated reasons.”
China Used a Tiny Chip in a Hack That Infiltrated Amazon and Apple
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies
A guy runs down the origin of a fake title for Federalist 78 in this twitter thread https://twitter.com/derektmuller/status/1047902874762502144?s=21
#11272 apple and amazon have denied it.
https://daringfireball.net/2018/10/bloomberg_the_big_hack
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/10/04/what-businessweek-got-wrong-about-apple
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/05/anandtech-iphone-xs-review/
> AnandTech Calls A12 Bionic in iPhone XS 'Just Margins Off' Best Desktop CPUs in New Review
also
> As part of the review, AnandTech also offered a look at how Apple has improved performance in older devices by tweaking scaling performance. The A9 in the iPhone 6s, for example, took 435ms for the CPU to reach maximum frequency, but that time was cut to 80ms in iOS 12 for a "great boost to performance in shorter interactive workloads."
guides to going pro in overwatch – general stuff and role specific.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/9lnfl7/beginningyourpathtopro_main_support/
> “Kavanaugh, for the first time, used language in his testimony to make it implicitly clear to the people whose support he needed—people who would pressure wavering senators—that he was being assaulted by the very forces Republicans and conservatives had been fighting against for the better part of 40 years. He called them out by name and thanked President Trump for his support. This was a breach of judicial etiquette, but you cannot ask a man to allow himself to be ruined to preserve a set of behaviors that have already been rendered passe by the deployment of charges of sexual assault and gang rape. I mean, you can ask, but only a fool would take you up on it.”
Democrats Play Against Brett Kavanaugh Backfired Big Time
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/brett-kavanaugh-the-surprise-ending/
via Instapaper
RIP Google+ (the consumer version) + data breach
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-shutting-down-data-breach/
Thoughts on Moldbuggery, Curi?
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/
#11281 Disorganized. Condescending ranting that doesn't really attempt rigor or seriousness. More interested in social dynamics and DHVs than changing the world or educating anyone or clarity. Knows less than he pretends to. Not a philosopher. Lacks principles to organize the ideas. Lots of parochial details. Does a bad job of engaging with existing good ideas. Kinda mean. Putting on a show that complains about other people putting on shows. No paths forward.
If it weren't for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
> “Another Republican president might have lost his nerve amid all this. More than one elite conservative pundit called on Trump to ditch Kavanaugh and appoint Amy Coney Barrett instead. She was a woman, you see, so she’d be immune to criticism. Except, of course, she wouldn’t have been: the very appearance of anti-abortion commitment that made her appealing to many elite Christian conservatives would have made her unacceptable to Susan Collins, the pivotal Republican vote in the Senate. And if Barrett wasn’t vulnerable to sexual allegations, something else would have had to serve. Plagiarism, maybe? Finances? Did she ever meet a Russian?
> More to the point, abandoning Kavanaugh would have been a sign of weakness, demoralising to the Republican base — which firmly stood by Kavanaugh — and an intoxicating taste of blood to liberals, who would know that if they could win this first fight, the next round would be worth fighting too. Instead, by seeing Kavanaugh through to confirmation, Trump has showed Republicans that they can win so long as they don’t pre-emptively surrender. His own campaign in 2016 had been fought on the same premise. Republicans had been in a habit of apologising for themselves since at least the time George W. Bush ran on ‘compassionate conservatism’ — what exactly was he implying about everyone else’s conservatism? — in 2000, when he became president only by grace of the Republican majority on the Supreme Court. (Which is fair enough: the 2000 election genuinely was a virtual tie in the decisive state of Florida.) Mitt Romney cringed when he was called out for ‘self-deportation’ and ‘binders full of women,’ even though the former was a humane and effective immigration policy (one much in evidence during the Obama administration, in fact) and the latter was a ill-phrased but sincere promise to include many women in his administration.
> But that was another problem with the ‘draft Barrett’ idea: although the conservative writers pushing it liked her for her presumed views on abortion and thought of themselves as being clever political strategists for suggesting a woman, in fact they were playing to the very style of politics that the centre-left dominates — that is, they were conceding the narrative that Republicans are bad for women and only a woman could negate the GOP’s justly-acquired bad reputation among women. This didn’t work when John McCain put Sarah Palin on his presidential ticket. It wouldn’t have worked for Amy Coney Barrett, either — though she may indeed make a fine justice one day. Just as the politics of ‘compassion’ doesn’t work for conservatives (as opposed to the politics of jobs and American industry), the politics of ‘see, we can too find women who like us!’ concedes everything to conservatism’s enemies. It doth protest too much.”
White liberalism is dying | Spectator USA
https://spectator.us/2018/10/white-liberalism/
via Instapaper
The Stakes (America vs. The Mob Part 2) by Justin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVRDZVq3-0
> The Stakes (America vs. The Mob Part 2) by Justin
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVRDZVq3-0
actual GOP ads are just edits of my vids now ;-DDD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlMIyae9-ZU&frags=pl%2Cwn
BTW I put links to the source videos in the description, in case people either wanted more context or wanted to use them for their own vids or whatever. I plan on doing that from now on since it's very little work to do so and adds some real value to the end result.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/10/11/arm-v83-javascript
> LATEST REVISION TO ARM INSTRUCTION SET INCLUDES OPTIMIZATIONS JUST FOR JAVASCRIPT
Apple did some CPU design specifically aimed at javascript performance, cuz javascript matters that much cuz of its use by web browsers.
> The sources noted that the morning Barr’s tweet exploded on the internet, Barr had even offered to issue public apologies and make the rounds on every talk and news show in order to make amends.
> “Ben and Channing weren’t having any of that and wanted her gone,” the sources remarked.
Report: ABC execs regret firing Roseanne, worry about spinoff: ‘We didn’t think it through properly’
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/10/12/report-abc-execs-regret-firing-roseanne-worry-about-spinoff-we-didnt-think-it-through-properly?utm_content=bufferd2896&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=theblaze
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhS4a11jZOg
> The Legend of Korra is Garbage and Here's Why
1.6 million views. I thought Avatar The Last Airbender was amazing, but Korra was only OK (not garbage, though!). The video description begins:
> Reuploaded due to salty Legend of Korra fans mass-flagging the previous video and having it locked to private.
What the fuck, it's not just political stuff being censored, it's just the mob causing problems with sharing any ideas that offend a large group.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhS4a11jZOg
>> The Legend of Korra is Garbage and Here's Why
> 1.6 million views. I thought Avatar The Last Airbender was amazing, but Korra was only OK (not garbage, though!). The video description begins:
>> Reuploaded due to salty Legend of Korra fans mass-flagging the previous video and having it locked to private.
> What the fuck, it's not just political stuff being censored, it's just the mob causing problems with sharing any ideas that offend a large group.
Korra is an LGBT heroine now so she's political. Everything is political. Even Taylor Swift (formerly the Switzerland of celebrities when it came to being neutral on politics) is now doing left-wing advocacy
The Left Doesn't Focus on Persuasion
Leftists say their policies will make everyone better off overall. But then why can’t they persuade people to participate voluntarily? They don’t really do persuasion. The leftists will say stuff like that’s impractical, there’s a collective action problem, etc etc. But I think the basic issue is leftists think that non-leftists are too dumb to see the brilliant genius of left-wing policies and need to be forced for their own good by the state.
That’s how they act, anyways. They’re mostly not focused on creating like great viral content to persuade everyone about how harmful plastic bags are or something like that. There is some of that type of thing, but I think that’s mostly geared towards activating their “base” for political action (and some I guess might be geared towards indoctrinating captive audiences in the schools). Overall, they focus on political power a lot more than anything like persuasion.
> But I think the basic issue is leftists think that non-leftists are too dumb to see the brilliant genius of left-wing policies and need to be forced for their own good by the state.
I don't think many of them think that. And if they do, it's a consequence, not a cause.
The underlying causes are static memes, including social status games. They are tortured as children, for years, and then try to cope.
http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2018/019182/crowd-counting-through-walls-wifi
You can count people moving around a room (or other space) with only one wifi transmitter and one wifi receiver (which can be behind walls). All it takes is math and monitoring signal strength.
https://twitter.com/morganknutson/status/1049523067506966529
Long, interesting story about how awful working at Google+ was. Office politics and crap.
Notably, they had to bribe other parts of the company to do G+ integration by paying them lots of extra money, as bonuses. Cuz people didn't want to do G+ integration in other products. I think it's interesting that Google employees aren't just like slaves to be ordered around – Google found it easier to just pay them a ton of extra money to get them to do something dumb rather than just saying "yo I'm the boss, do this".
Ritualized lying:
https://spitfire.overwatchleague.com/en-us/news/thank-you-closer
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/411377-warren-dna-test-shows-strong-evidence-of-native-american-ancestor
> Bustamante said that Warren’s test results show the “vast majority” of her ancestry is European, but that “the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor,” likely 6–10 generations ago.
how did she know she's *cherokee* in particular if she had one indian relative 200 years ago, and has no idea what their name was, their gender, who they were, where they lived, what tribe they were in, etc?
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/411521-cherokee-nation-warrens-use-of-dna-test-inappropriate-wrong
> The Cherokee Nation in a statement said using a DNA test to claim connection with a tribal nation is “inappropriate” and “wrong.”
> “Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong,” said Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.”
> Hoskin accused Warren of “undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”
> He argued that DNA tests fail to distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America and noted that tribes set their own legal requirements for citizenship.
> Warren claims to have Cherokee blood. The Cherokee Nation requires a person to have at least one ancestor listed on a federal census used to allot Cherokee land in the early 1900s known as the Dawes Final Rolls.
> Unlike other tribes, the Cherokee Nation does not require a minimum blood quantum for citizenship.
https://twitter.com/GGReisman/status/1052024953803919360
> If Elizabeth Warren had been Jewish in Nazi Germany, her 1/64th, ancestry, let alone 1/1024th, would have been considered too small to keep her out of the Nazi Party or the SS. That’s how insignificant the worst racists consider it. She’s gotten a lot of mileage out of nothing.
Good comparison by George Reisman.
ad blocking
adblock has been working badly lately on my mac. too many ads showing up. i just switched to uBlock Origin because it's supposed to work on youtube ads: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBlock-3NU33NW2M3
i reloaded a page where 3 separate big ads had appeared just at the top, and they were all gone. adblock sucks. i think i also semi-recently tried adblock plus (which is different but similar) with similar results.
if i have trouble with ublock, i will get 1blocker which is supposed to be great except that it doesn't block ads within youtube videos. i have 1blocker on ios and have had good experiences with it, and i read some reviews recommending it on both mac and ios. 1blocker costs a small amount of money which is perhaps why it's superior.
breaks
i started using an app to remind me to take breaks:
https://www.dejal.com/timeout/
i set it to 20s break every 20min and 3min break every 90min.
i think it's good. you can delay or skip breaks, but i often do them.
> “Before the summer coup of 2016, Turkey was said to have 50,000 political prisoners. Many of them were members of the country’s oppressed Kurdish minority which is deprived of its most basic civil rights. These include even the use of their own language. Doing so can carry a prison sentence.
> In that terrible summer, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamic tyrant, finished securing his absolute hold on power with the coup as his Reichstag fire. The alleged coup became a blank check for the mass arrest and torture of countless thousands of political prisoners. Amnesty International estimated that 50,000 had been detained. The UN listed a figure as high as 180,000. They included 300 journalists.
> Lawyers described clients being brought to them covered in blood.
> Erdogan went after professors, judges, law enforcement, the military and the last remnants of a free press. A Human Rights Watch report documented electric shocks, beatings with truncheons and rubber hoses, and rape by Erdogan’s Islamic thugs. Heads were banged against walls. Men were forced to kneel on burning hot asphalt. Medical reports showed skull fractures, damage to testicles and dehydration.
> The media didn’t show any of the hysterical outrage at these crimes that it has over the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi. The media cares more about Khashoggi, a former media mouthpiece of the Saudi regime before it turned on his Muslim Brotherhood brothers, than about 300 Turkish reporters.”
>Jamal Khashoggi: The Media Fights for a Muslim Brotherhood Pal of Osama Bin Laden
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271623/jamal-khashoggi-media-fights-muslim-brotherhood-daniel-greenfield
via Instapaper
> “Almost every old farmstead in my vicinity is no longer just a home for a single farm family. They are often now surrounded by trailers and lean-tos, in turn sub-rented out to dozens of others—violations of zoning laws and building codes of the sort that would earn me a stiff fine, but which are of little interest to local authorities. Of three neighboring farmsteads down the road, one is now a storage area for dozens of used porta potties and wrecked cars. Another is an illegal dumping ground. The third has been raided on various occasions by authorities in order to stop drug dealing, gang activity, and prostitution.
> Our rural environs are often home to hard-working immigrants, but also to various Mexican gangs, drug dealers, and parolees. I hesitate to offer too many details because in the past I have incurred the anger of dangerous neighbors who got wind of filtered down stories of their criminality. It is enough said that sirens, SWAT teams, and ICE raids are not uncommon.
> A month ago a gang member shot up a neighbor’s house. He was arrested, released, and rearrested in a single night after trying twice to break into the home. The armed homeowner stopped his entry. I know of no nearby resident who is not armed. I cannot remember anything remotely similar occurring before 1980. In the 1970s we had no keys to our doors, and houses were permanently unlocked.
> Some of those with criminal records and gang affiliations were born in the United States. Perhaps America often does not seem as much a promised land to the second generation as it did to their parents, who arrived destitute from impoverished Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Central America. Arriving from one of the poorest regions in the world to one of the wealthiest and most culturally different— without the competitive requisites of English, legality, and a high-school diploma—in an era when the salad bowl is preferable to the melting pot, can easily result in the frequent chaos described below.
> I object most to the environmental damage in our rural areas. By that I mean the tossing of household waste or even toxic chemicals onto farmland. Staged cock- and dog-fighting is also not uncommon. I have found a few carcasses ripped to shreds, some with ropes around the dead dogs’ neck.
> Picking up tossed junk in my orchard is a routine experience. The perpetrators often leave plastic bags of their bulk mail (with incriminating addresses!) among soiled diapers and wet garbage. Local authorities have enough to do without hunting down dumpers to cite them for their antigreen habits.
> Every once in a while amateur and illegal collectors, who freelance for immigrant households that do not pay for “supposedly” mandated county garbage pick-ups, will come in at night with panel trucks and trailers. They dump literally tons of garbage such as mattresses, sofas, TVs, appliances, tires, junk mail, and car seats on alleyways and in vineyards.
> Not long ago someone jettisoned in our vineyard hundreds of used florescent light bulbs, about 100 paint cans, and fifty-gallon drums of used oil and chemicals. Needles and drug paraphernalia are not uncommon. I’ve seen about five stripped-down cars abandoned on our property after being stolen. Last summer a huge semi-truck was left on our alleyway, picked cleaned down to the chassis.
> I used to ride a bicycle in our environs. I quit for a variety of reasons.
> If one is bit by unlicensed and unvaccinated roaming dogs— and there are many out here— and if their masters do not speak English or do not have legal status, then a nightmare follows of trying to get authorities to find the dogs and impound them before the owners or the dogs disappear. It is up to the bitten whether the decision to play the odds and not get painful, and sometimes dangerous, rabies shots is prudent or suicidal. As a doctor put it to me when I was bitten: “Rabid dogs are almost unheard of in the United States, but I have no idea of what is true of Mexico. Your call.”
> Less dramatically, I got tired of watching local canteen trucks drive out on our rural roads, pull their drainage plugs, and dump cooking waste or toss leftovers on the road.”
The Diversity Of Illegal Immigration
https://www.hoover.org/research/diversity-illegal-immigration
via Instapaper
Daniel Pipes is skeptical of Trump's policy on Israel:
http://www.danielpipes.org/18546/still-skeptical-of-trump-israel-policy
> Question: The Trump administration seems to be following the logic of MEF's Israel Victory Project launched in January 2017: it recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, closed the PLO office in Washington, and cut funds to UNRWA and other Palestinians entities. With this, has your initial skepticism about President Trump's attitude towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict changed?
> Answer: I remain skeptical. I see Trump's grand Middle East goal to weaken the Iranian regime. Toward this end, he has rewarded the Saudis with arms sales and the Israelis with Jerusalem. The steps against the Palestinian Authority serve as pressure on it to come to the table and receive what I expect to be its reward, namely recognition of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. If I am right, things will not turn out well.
from the dumb law archives:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliced_bread#1943_U.S._ban_on_sliced_bread
> During 1943, U.S. officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure.[6][7] The ban was ordered by Claude R. Wickard who held the position of Food Administrator, and took effect on January 18, 1943. According to The New York Times, officials explained that "the ready-sliced loaf must have a heavier wrapping than an unsliced one if it is not to dry out." It was also intended to counteract a rise in the price of bread, caused by the Office of Price Administration's authorization of a ten percent increase in flour prices.[8]
> In a Sunday radio address on January 24, New York City Mayor LaGuardia suggested that bakeries that had their own bread-slicing machines should be allowed to continue to use them, and on January 26, 1943, a letter appeared in The New York Times from a distraught housewife:
>> I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each one—that's ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry![9]
> On January 26, however, John F. Conaboy, the New York Area Supervisor of the Food Distribution Administration, warned bakeries, delicatessens, and other stores that were continuing to slice bread to stop, saying that "to protect the cooperating bakeries against the unfair competition of those who continue to slice their own bread... we are prepared to take stern measures if necessary."[10]
> On March 8, 1943, the ban was rescinded. Wickard stated that "Our experience with the order, however, leads us to believe that the savings are not as much as we expected, and the War Production Board tells us that sufficient wax paper to wrap sliced bread for four months is in the hands of paper processor and the baking industry."[8]
btw you might recognize the name Wickard from this infamous case, which destroyed the Constitution forever:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/29/apple-pencil-2-gestures-new-design/
> Apple Pencil 2 Rumored to Feature Gesture Support, New Charging Method and Minimalistic Design
supposedly it can magnetically attach to the side of the ipad. that's nice. the "where to put it" problem was real.
Curi, you can add external lists woth ublock origin. Go to settings and turn on the ones you like, imo many of the defaults are great. Other options at:
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
3min tour of new esports facility for gen.g (south korean esports team).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIVRR4Ss0U
Overwatch League players are not allowed to have pepe emotes. Dafran just quit OWL and put his emotes back up. Here's a mention of it (there's many, and this came up months ago when they made sinatraa take a tweet down):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/9v094w/dafran_the_end_i_hate_the_game_thought_i_could/e98cepi/
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/09/apple-amazon-new-product-deal/
> Amazon Inks Deal to Sell New Apple Products Like iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and 2018 iPad Pro
#11361
> Independent sellers who offer new and used Apple products on Amazon will have their listings removed after January 4, 2019, under the new deal. Those sellers will need to apply to become Apple authorized resellers on Amazon to continue to offer their wares.
> As CNET points out, while this deal will provide customers with access to a greater selection of Apple products at standard prices, it could potentially impact the used Apple device market on the platform.
doh, a downside
Overwatch teams hire new players primarily using *work sample tests* – they do *tryouts* where they see you *play the game*. Work sample tests are what patio11 and other wise people advise tech companies to use.
Democrats often make claims 'without evidence,' but you'll rarely see it mentioned in the headline
Washington Examiner: Democrats often make claims 'without evidence,' but you'll rarely see it mentioned in the headline
Is there an accurate term for this tactic of applying a principle or rule only when one thinks it helps one's own side? "Double standard" and "inconsistent" don't adequately convey the evil and dishonesty involved.
There's also "one-sided" and "biased"
#11366 they don’t have *integrity*.
That's good.
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2018/1115.html
> How DNA Databases Violate Everyone's Privacy
> [2018.10.15] If you're an American of European descent, there's a 60% chance you can be uniquely identified by public information in DNA databases. This is not information that you have made public; this is information your relatives have made public.
> Research paper:
> "Identity inference of genomic data using long-range familial searches."
>> Abstract: Consumer genomics databases have reached the scale of millions of individuals. Recently, law enforcement authorities have exploited some of these databases to identify suspects via distant familial relatives. Using genomic data of 1.28 million individuals tested with consumer genomics, we investigated the power of this technique. We project that about 60% of the searches for individuals of European-descent will result in a third cousin or closer match, which can allow their identification using demographic identifiers. Moreover, the technique could implicate nearly any US-individual of European-descent in the near future. We demonstrate that the technique can also identify research participants of a public sequencing project. Based on these results, we propose a potential mitigation strategy and policy implications to human subject research.
To do a DNA match with these databases they still have to have some of your DNA to match with, right? They need something like one of your hairs left at a crime scene.
The database just tells them "that hair came from Joe" where without it they'd just have a hair to try to match when they found a suspect by some other means.
Assuming I'm right about that, I'm unsure whether the database is a privacy violation in that particular application.
For thousands of years people have been able to see your face, and recognize it, and know (and tell authorities) you were in a particular place. That's just a less reliable method than DNA matching. People might not see your face, or they might not recognize you, or they might lie.
In particular this matters more in modern, large cities where you are mostly around people who do not know you (so can't recognize your face). Today you can conduct most of your activities and be seen but generally not recognized. That's something relatively new in human times. And also perhaps fleeting with the proliferation of cameras and face recognition.
But the fundamental problem of people knowing you were in a particular place whether you want them to know that or not has always existed. If you did, in fact, leave a hair at a crime scene I don't know that it violates your privacy to be able to identify that hair as yours prior to the existence of any other suspicious evidence about you.
Other than reliability, it doesn't seem different from the ability of someone to say "I saw Joe at the crime scene" prior to there being any other evidence you committed the crime. Neither prove in a legal sense or any other that you committed the crime, but both are reasons for the police to investigate you further.
Where I'd be concerned is if you leave a hair at a political protest or in a store, and someone uses that hair to identify you for political or marketing purposes. But I'd be equally concerned if they took your picture and used face recognition or pulled your fingerprint off a door handle or identified you by the MAC address of your phone's wifi adapter.
Basically I'm thinking the privacy violation is in who is collecting the sample to identify, and why they're collecting it. Not in the existence of a database to which samples can be matched.
DNA can be found years later, after you left. It can leave traces in many places around the world, info you didn't want saved. And it can do this in private places where no one would have seen you (or at least no one that you don't trust) – e.g. in a one-person bathroom, in a private residence, or in a business where you interact with one trusted person (e.g. massage or therapy). When you're seen, you often see that you were seen. And when you're seen by people you don't know and trust, that's generally *in public* and you know that you're in public and what it means.
(Trusted people will often give info about you *if an important crime was committed*. But maybe won't talk about you in most other situations, e.g. to a marketer.)
Also questioning witnesses is pretty limited and hard. You have to find them, then a person has a conversation they interpret, miscommunication happens, etc. Human interaction isn't cheap and doesn't scale well. But marketers or whoever could automate DNA collection – send a roomba-like robot around in public areas to scan for DNA and keep records of all DNA found at all locations at what times. Could make a huge database. That would be different than what being seen in public is like now.
There are already robots wandering the streets in some areas for food delivery purposes (and for testing purposes). A DNA pickup thing could go on the same robot.
*see* the magnets in the new ipad pro. cool short vid using "magnet paper" – looks like transparent plastic with tiny bits of metal which can move around and show magnet locations:
https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1062368253316603905
#11372 and #11373 I think we're talking past each other so I'll try a different approach. In #11370 anonymous quoted:
> How DNA Databases Violate Everyone's Privacy
...and your (Dagny) statements seem to imply you agree that DNA Databases violate privacy.
What do you propose?
Should it be illegal for people to consent to having their DNA sequenced and results stored in a database where those results can be used to identify others who did not consent?
Should it be illegal for DNA sequencers to offer sequencing for one price if you don't consent to being in their database, and another (lower) price if you do? My understanding is that's effectively what's going on now - sequencing is artificially cheap because the sequencers expect to profit from the data, not just what they charge you for sequencing.
Should it be illegal to pick up genetic material from your own property and sequence that? Should it be OK to sequence it but not to match it using a database of public records of stuff like relationships + the DNA of people who consented?
Or should the databases and sequencing and matching be legal but only certain uses of them regulated (like marketing or politics stuff)? What uses should be OK and what illegal?
Or instead of laws do you want some or all of the above enforced by social conventions and shaming/boycotts of violators or other non-government/non-force methods?
Or...?
As I said before I'm personally uncomfortable with people using identification tech for certain political and marketing functions. But I can't see a way out of it without violating other rights.
I don't really care if the technology is automated face recognition, walk recognition, speech recognition, MAC or IMEI identification, fingerprints, passport or other RFID sources, or DNA sequencing. I don't think it makes sense to single out one technology from the others. I'd look for some general principles that would include an explanation about what's private and what's not, and who can do what with private information. And I'd look for that to be compatible with our traditions about other rights like property.
European regulations such as GDPR attempt to do this...with (IMO) disastrous and highly rights-infringing results. I think such regulations are worse than nothing.
What do you think? Do you have a better idea?
I was talking about a problem, not proposing a solution, let alone choosing between different government bans as the solution candidates.
You also compared the DNA thing to some past stuff, and I pointed out some ways they were different.
I wasn't talking past you. My comments were responsive. You're now talking past me by changing the topic to basically implying I'm a statist, though.
You're right that DNA is different in some of the ways you mention from past stuff. I think that's part of how we're talking past each other, since I thought I was clear in my original comment that DNA is different in some ways. I don't think the ways you pointed out DNA is different contradicted my original comment, though they did extend / expand on the differences significantly.
I agree you only stated the problem and had not proposed any solution, statist or otherwise.
But I also think that claiming there's a problem with something being a violation of privacy is not like claiming there's a problem with the weather being awful or life being too short. There's an important cultural context to claiming that something is a violation of privacy. Politically powerful movements exist to forcibly restrict what data is allowed to be collected, stored, shared, processed, etc. It's a matter of active controversy.
Privacy is a right and the state is currently a big part of how rights violations are addressed in our society. If you complain about DNA databases being a privacy violation and you don't propose a solution, people will reasonably assume you are likely in favor of some kind of government regulation of such databases. Maybe you're not! Which is why I suggested perhaps you had some non-statist solutions in mind.
Do you disagree about the cultural context of claiming that something is a privacy violation?
Song lyrics are getting more repetitive and more repetitive songs are more popular. With data:
https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/index.html
Realism and the Aim of Science question
I'm confused about an argument in Realism and the Aim of Science p313 (about the subjective interpretation of "p(a|b)=r"):
"It may be said in passing that the subjectivist would be mistaken if he believed he could interpret [betting] by saying that we do not bet that a will happen but rather upon a conditional statement. For the probability of a conditional is very different from a conditional (or relative) probability, as may be seen as follows. Let b again be our total knowledge, c the conditions of the game; then, he may suggest, we do not bet upon a (given b) but upon 'if c then a' (given b); and after applying the rule of absolution, upon 'if c then a', absolutely. This interpretation is not compatible with the laws of the probability calculus, since 'if c then a' will have higher probability than a; unless, indeed, c is part of b, in which case the condition c loses its force; that is to say, we have in this case b=bc, and as a consequence, p(if c then a|b) = p(a|b) and there is no reason why, after applying the rule of absolution, we should obtain the present probability of 'if c then a', rather than the present probability of a."
Why will 'if c then a' have a higher probability than a, and how does that violate the laws of the probability calculus?
> Why will 'if c then a' have a higher probability than a
*a* is *a* universally, unconditionally. *if c then a* is a conditional, limited version of *a* saying that *a* must be true in some scenarios (*c*) but not making that claim for some other scenarios (non-c). so it's a weaker claim.
Example:
a = my dog will die this year
c = my dog is over 50 years old
*if my dog is over 50 years old, then my dog will die this year* is more probable than *my dog will die this year*.
This is a very basic thing. This is supposed to be trivial for a person who is going to follow Popper, so this and many other basic things can be built on and the reader's focus can ~all be directed to more advanced issues. It seems you're trying to read things while missing the important prerequisites. I think you're fooling yourself about your capabilities and it is sabotaging your progress. I don't think you want to hear that criticism. But it's not reasonable to ask for help while not wanting the perspective of someone who knows the answer and thinks in line with this forum's ideas. I think you could learn a lot more, and a lot faster, by a different approach, and this is important, and that you are not open to this possibility and that, given your refusal to even consider doing things a better way, you should stop asking for help from the people you disagree with and are dismissive of.
>If you’re wondering how this insane state of affairs came to be, remember that conservatives aren’t demonized and censored based on how Right-wing they are. They are targeted according to how effective they become. That’s why Richard Spencer and David Duke are still on Twitter, while Gavin, Laura Loomer, Roger Stone and I–some of the most popular and persuasive people in the Trump movement, none of us remotely racist–are all banned.
https://www.dangerous.com/50463/i-too-must-bid-adieu-to-the-proud-boys-a-spunky-pro-western-mens-club-defamed-to-death/
Consider the part:
> Did you really just compared Zac with Jjonak
> Jjonak is 1000 time better than Zac will ever be
That's a really common type of logical fail. It is complaining about an unlimited/universal comparison (comparing two things *in general*) in response to a limited/specific comparison (comparing two things in *one particular way*). And he's correct that the two things are quite different *in general* (MVP player of season 1 overwatch league vs. a player who was on a tier 2 team, like the minor league basically, and is now gonna be promoted for season 2 and is fairly likely to be a bottom-50% level player, not an MVP.)
I see this a lot. I make a comparison between X and Y regarding issue Z. People say "X and Y are not comparable" because they think of some other point of comparison. It's like "Apples and oranges are a similar size" and they are like "Apples and oranges are not similar, they taste totally different". They wouldn't make this error with that exact example but they will make it when things get slightly more complicated or less clearly communicated, especially when there is some sort of major difference (like literal MVP vs. more middling player, or if you're doing a comparison involving Hitler).
Example where people would fuck it up: you're arguing about some random artist, call him Joe, who you think is a hack. So you discuss a bit and the guy says "artists are all inspired wonderful people" and you say "no, some artists are bad, see hitler" and he says back "Hitler and Joe are totally different, wtf is wrong with you for comparing them?". Logically that's a clueless response, and it's understandable for Hitler to come to mind as an example of a bad person who was also an artist (tho as a practical matter it may be wiser to pick another example if you aren't talking to a highly logical person). Point is it's the same issue where you made a comparison *for a specific purpose* and his response is that the two things are different *in general* (which is true but irrelevant).
The reason this happens a lot is people are what I call *gist thinkers* – they think/read/listen in terms of vague, approximate gists instead of the actual precise meanings of things. They read something in order to figure out the rough idea or ballpark of what it says, but they don't know what it actually says. For a person who does that, they will see two things are being compared (which really is the rough idea of what was said) and respond that way. (Within the methodology of what they are doing, they get everything right! They are correct that the vague gist was a comparison of X and Y, and they are also correct that X and Y are quite different in major ways.) Many people approximate stuff to the rough idea of it all the time (the main exceptions are people who are good at one thing, which is usually their profession, and do some good precise thinking about that – there are quite a few people who are good at something but then dumb in general, and that is more common than being good at two things let alone good at lots of things).
The gist thinker thing was one of the main issues in this discussion with Scuro about perception:
http://curi.us/2153-induction--perception-discord-discussion
Specifically when he was claiming that Ayn Rand wrote that *perception develops* in ITOE, the issue was Scuro can't read precisely. He could only read some rough approximation of what Rand said – which he interpreted as himself having read what she actually said (he doesn't know the difference, doesn't know that he's thinking in rough approximations and that other people think more precisely – and if you try to tell him that he'll just hate you and it won't lead to progress). So what would happen is he'd try to show the text said it by quoting a sentence where he saw it being said, and then I would read that sentence and it just plain did not say that. And because he can't think precisely, he could never say *where* in the quote it said what he claimed it said, he couldn't do word-by-word analysis because all he can do when reading is take a whole section of text and then get the gist of it. But there's no clear, precise logical process by which he does that, so he can't break it down into steps and show me, logically, the steps by which he gets from the words as written by Rand to his claim about them. I asked him for that but he just couldn't do it and dropped the subject and moved on to something else (and then a bit later, he went to sleep instead of answering some point and then didn't follow up the next day, nor the next, nor the next) – but then, weeks later, he remembered it as him having won the debate on that point!
Ayn Rand Institute email newsletter today (they are bad at their jobs so they did not include a link to view it on a webpage, so sorry no link):
> Since 2012, the Tuesday following “Black Friday” has been publicized as “Giving Tuesday.” Touted as a “remedy” for the “selfish commercialism” of the holiday shopping season, the idea is that charitable contributions (“giving back”) will relieve the guilt you’re expected to be feeling.
> Ayn Rand observed that, while there’s nothing wrong with helping others who are worthy of help when you can afford it, charity is not a moral duty. More importantly, she thought people should act on the “trader principle,” freely exchanging value for value to mutual benefit.
> **So, at ARI we decided to turn #GivingTuesday into #TradingTuesday.**
> We are proposing that you make an investment in an ARI program of historical significance—the recording of twelve oral history interviews with people actively involved in the Objectivist movement at the early stages of its development. Your support will allow us to preserve these powerful stories and share them with generations to come.
> Here’s an example of an oral history audio clip with Dina Federman, a philosopher who participated in ARI’s advanced training programs in the 1990s. She lectured and wrote for ARI before her untimely death from cancer in 2016.
> **A group of anonymous donors has pledged to match #TradingTuesday contributions to ARI, up to $50,000.**
> If we achieve our goal of $50,000, we’ll have raised a total of $100,000 (including matching funds). This could produce **twelve oral histories in the next year**, ideally recorded in people’s homes with our video crew. The twelve individuals we hope to interview are in their 80s. Some were close to Ayn Rand and all were present at the founding of the Objectivist movement.
ARI is complaining about "Giving Tuesday" and saying that *Trading* Tuesday would be better.
Then they say they got some *donors* to pledge 50k, they are doing scammy donation matching on it, and they want you to donate too. How the fuck is that trading? They are such dishonest liars. This is total bullshit. This is no different than any other charity asking for a donation and in return what you get is the charity uses the money to fund their mission (and you donate cuz you like that mission, whether it's breast cancer cure research or recording oral history of Objectivists before they die.)
No doubt George Reisman (who is in his 80s) is *not* one of the twelve individuals they would like to interview.
I sign my posts here Dagny. I'm far more worthy of the name than ARI is.
I posted a comment about D.Va balance in Overwatch.
Thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/9zu9af/people_who_clamour_for_dva_nerf_is_missing_the/
Single comment (doesn't show the original post I'm replying to, cuz reddit sux):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/9zu9af/people_who_clamour_for_dva_nerf_is_missing_the/eacg5wb/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vindictus/comments/5p8ck5/sad_news_for_vindictus_na_community/
This is an important point. On official forums for a game, the game company can delete criticism, and they often do. On the Facebook page, they can and often do delete criticism. But they can't delete critical tweets. If you want to see if people are unhappy with a decision by a big company, or what the majority of people's reaction is, looking on twitter will work better than looking on facebook (which they can censor just as much as their own forum).
Some reasons I often don't join team voice chat in Overwatch:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OverwatchUniversity/comments/9zwukn/stacks_that_do_not_join_team_chat/eady3h8/
There's something weird about South Park advertising their phone game with Kyle saying phone games are bad. Or more like, it reveals something weird about our culture.
https://twitter.com/SouthPark/status/1066521107367428096
> *a* is *a* universally, unconditionally. *if c then a* is a conditional, limited version of *a* saying that *a* must be true in some scenarios (*c*) but not making that claim for some other scenarios (non-c). so it's a weaker claim.
>Example:
>a = my dog will die this year
>c = my dog is over 50 years old
>*if my dog is over 50 years old, then my dog will die this year* is more probable than *my dog will die this year*.
if c = *my dog is under 1 year old*, then why couldn't the probability of if c then a be 1% and therefore less than the probability of a which is 10%?
And what laws of probability inform your argument? I still don't see how Popper shows that this violates the laws of probability.
>This is a very basic thing. This is supposed to be trivial for a person who is going to follow Popper, so this and many other basic things can be built on and the reader's focus can ~all be directed to more advanced issues. It seems you're trying to read things while missing the important prerequisites. I think you're fooling yourself about your capabilities and it is sabotaging your progress. I don't think you want to hear that criticism. But it's not reasonable to ask for help while not wanting the perspective of someone who knows the answer and thinks in line with this forum's ideas. I think you could learn a lot more, and a lot faster, by a different approach, and this is important, and that you are not open to this possibility and that, given your refusal to even consider doing things a better way, you should stop asking for help from the people you disagree with and are dismissive of.
I don't know why you create paranoid theories about me such as that I don't want to hear criticism the content of which I am unaware of. By commenting on this platform, I am openly subjecting myself to your horrible personality already (and because you replied to me I guess you could predict I *would* read your reply and subject myself to it), and still you don't want to suggest an actually *substantial* criticism because you fear I wouldn't be open to *that*, and you prefer to bear the cost of sinking your time and reputation into insulting me with empty paranoia, rather than state what you think is useful information?
The probability that your dog will die in the next year IF it's under 1 year old, is the probability that your dog is under 1 year old multiplied by the probability that a 0-1 year old dog will die in the next year. All the times your dog is the wrong age are success cases for the conditional statement. The conditional statement makes a weaker claim, it makes claims about fewer cases, so out of all cases (not just the cases it makes claims about) it's less likely to be mistaken because it says less.
> still you don't want to suggest an actually *substantial* criticism
I don't know what you're talking about. Telling you how logic works – and that you didn't know it – is a substantial criticism. It has substance (about the nature of logic). It addresses the issue. And there is a criticism there, not only positive education.
The format of what I said was to deal with the substance *and* then to also say a second thing.
Your comments about paranoia are unwelcome (unproductive, hostile, Szasz-contradicting, and not backed up with paths forward) and discourage me from responding to you. "horrible personality" was also unproductive nastiness. All of my meta comments were intended to address an actual problem I see, but you don't seem to follow the same policy.
Are you willing to change anything you're doing, or are you just going to keep asking for help with specific chunks of stuff, while offering no value in return (and being quite hostile which makes it way harder), and also not using learning methodology I think is effective? If you plan to continue in the same vein, give me some reasons to respond to you further, or I expect that I won't. (I don't think this problem, involving me considering just ignoring you going forward, is ignorable to focus *only* on the substance, but I did give you the substantive answer too, I did both, which I think is reasonable.)
Evan, one of the reasons I haven't replied to you is that you had a conversation in YouTube comments with Alan where you said at the outset you wanted to go through the issues one by one, but then you stopped responding, without explanation, before even finishing one. It's one of many times you have not finished what you started nor explained what was going on. That makes you a bad person to begin joint projects with. You start things you apparently aren't interested in finishing or reaching success at, and that isn't good for the people offering you free help. You also behaved very badly on FI and were hostile and nasty to me personally, and you have not apologized nor, more importantly, done something to address what went wrong to fix the problem going forward.
I also think your distaste for thinking and talking about goals/plans, background knowledge and learning methodology makes it much harder to help you successfully and also harder to know what success looks like and whether that is even something I would want. (You could use the help to spread misconceptions about Popper while doing a better job of sounding like you know what you're talking about, or just it to impress friends with. You might or might not aspire to do things that are important to me, I don't know. And if you do aspire to things that are important to me, you might or might not have reasonable ways to pursue those achievements, but based on the limited info available to me currently, I'd guess not. This stuff is important. I have helped educate people before who have then used the knowledge for purposes that I think make the world worse.)
If you just want individual answers to individual questions, without any bigger picture being involved, that is tutoring and you should pay money for it. If you aren't trying to engage in a joint project or join the community, you just want help on demand with the problems of your choice for your own unstated purposes, and you don't want to offer stuff in return, then buy it.
> Why will 'if c then a' have a higher probability than a
I want to try to explain this.
Here are the possibilities for 'if c then a':
c true, a true: 'if c then a' true
c true, a false: 'if c then a' false
c false, a true: 'if c then a' true
c false, a false: 'if c then a' true
'if c then a' is true in the cases when a is true. And 'if c then a' is *also* true when c and a are both false. So it's true in more cases than just those when a is true.
If in a particular example the probability of both c and a being false is zero, then the probability of a is equal to the probability of 'if c then a'.
> If in a particular example the probability of both c and a being false is zero, then the probability of a is equal to the probability of 'if c then a'.
I initially read this as meaning c and a both can't be false, individually. But I think you meant they can't both be false at the same time, together (but one or the other could be false). The writing is a bit unclear FYI.
> I initially read this as meaning c and a both can't be false, individually. But I think you meant they can't both be false at the same time, together (but one or the other could be false). The writing is a bit unclear FYI.
Thank you. You are correct about what I meant.
Now I see that I was unclear.
A possible rewrite of my last sentence: If c and a are never both false at the same time (that is, the probability of c and a both being false at the same time is zero), then the probability of a is equal to the probability of 'if c then a'.
Lots of people *really* did not like their teachers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/a0b70b/what_killed_your_passion_for_something_you_once/eagdxop/
Commercial food photography tricks. Short video:
https://twitter.com/MachinePix/status/1067266284914585600
So p(if c then a) = p(c)*p(a|c).
Left side is probability of a conditional, second term of the right side is conditional probability.
---
If we *don't* know about the rules (c) of the betting game, p(if c then a) > p(a) because as Anne said
>'if c then a' is *also* true when c and a are both false. So it's true in more cases than just those when a is true.
so that conditional statement can't be what we're betting on.
And if we *do* know about the rules, we *are* betting upon the conditional probability of a: it's p(a|b) because b includes c.
Dagny by insubstantial I was referring to your claim that I'm not open to your better way of learning that you won't state. To make that claim out of nowhere is so socially repulsive I would guess you have no friends. You could learn that it's incorrect to do this by going outside ever and talking to someone. Paranoia means theories about people that are irrational and cause you fear.
Elliot you are a person who wastes his time slandering people. I'm sorry I didn't respond to Alan's last comment for awhile but I was homeless and hungry, looking for jobs and places to stay for a few months starting roughly around that time. I fully expect that you will eventually hate me so much that you block me on all your websites or whatever. I don't know what goes on in your head and I find your particular emotional problem uninteresting because you even explicitly oppose altruism. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I've had moral integrity from a very young age and can't relate. You need socialization badly. I tried to help you in twitter dms. Maybe you have a delusion that you shouldn't do things people recommend until they respond to the games you play with discussions and launching highly irrational criticisms at every detail of people's claims, making your discussions intractable. I come on here to discuss important things like philosophy, and the only use you can find for it is to try to create interpersonal drama. It is no wonder no one likes you, and you will only get dumber and dumber if you keep wasting your time like this.
Mentoring and Tutoring
#11403 I think Evan half wants *mentoring* and half doesn't (he partly tries to act like a peer or expert), and won't clearly figure it out in his own mind, let alone present the situation clearly to the other people he is asking for help.
Mentoring is different than tutoring. It's commonly an unpaid, longterm thing done for people who are especially promising/deserving (as against tutoring which is commonly done with whoever wants to hire a tutor, not necessarily a good student). Mentoring is earned by being a great learner who is a joy to work with, so the mentor is happy to pass on his knowledge. In return the mentor gets interesting questions, an energetic person studying and discussing things he cares about, and a new person to share the knowledge with others in the future. There are various ways that Evan is not behaving like a good mentoring candidate. And he hasn't asked for mentoring, nor for tutoring. He just doesn't want to say or think about what he *is* asking for.
In general, a tutor works for a client and helps the client with the client's goals. A mentor has his own goals and the mentee values and helps with the mentor's goals, and is receptive to advice about what to learn, what to do, what goals to have, the mentor's advice about what approaches to use to make progress, etc.
Asking for mentoring basically requires openly admitting being below someone. curi had no trouble doing that (with DD) because he doesn't have a big ego (in the usual sense of the term), but it's a big problem for most people who are age 20+ and think they are smart (and often really are smarter, in lots of ways, than most people they've met). Some people may believe that it's easier to ask DD for mentoring than to ask curi because DD is more prestigious (he has higher social status: a published book and some physics awards and papers back then, and a PhD and being an honorary professor, now a second book and he joined the royal society and gave some TED talks). Those people who focus on social status, and are not adequately impressed by curi's accomplishments, are poor candidates for curi to mentor anyway. They often try to treat curi as a peer, lose several arguments (often they stop replying before a clear conclusion), and then curi thinks that was enough of a demonstration that they should change their attitude but they don't get it.
People who don't acknowledge curi as the best living philosopher are not going to respect his time and value his help as much as people who do. So they generally offer a worse deal to curi who, in any case, spends a lot of time on his own stuff which often outcompetes people's requests for help (but he does remain available a fair amount and it could be more if a person or project interested him enough).
Evan is not alone in this ambiguity about what kind of help he wants: mentoring/tutoring/something-else. He also keeps it ambiguous about whether he wants a lot of help (as part of some longer term goals or plans) or just the occasional individual little thing. People on FI are, in general, pretty vague about whether they want mentoring, tutoring, or something else.
And Evan, like a fair amount of people, is very hostile to meta discussion, so it makes it harder to figure out things like this.
> I'm sorry I didn't respond to Alan's last comment for awhile but I was homeless and hungry, looking for jobs and places to stay for a few months starting roughly around that time.
Doesn't matter. You could have continued on your schedule, whenever you were available, e.g. now, instead of switching projects to these Popper questions and to flaming FI people. You have a history of dropping projects, not just by delays but by then focusing on some new project *instead* of continuing, which is different than being busy with non-philosophy for a few months.
Evan thinks if he isn't actually BANNED then he must be welcome here in some sense, not have crossed the line too much.
There are a lot of ppl who basically only listen to punishments and think if you don’t punish then you aren’t serious and don't mind.
It’s awkward here cuz TCS people don’t like punishing or forcing. So they often *ask* for things instead, but then people react like "oh he's only asking, so that doesn't really matter and I can just do whatever".
So Evan got told he was unwelcome to do certain things, then did that. And he expects to get banned for it, but he does it anyway. He thinks bans are just part of how normal interactions between people go. It doesn't occur to him to stop when he's unwelcome and has been asked to stop, rather than to keep pushing and troublemaking until he has to be banned.
Evan's warning yesterday was posted by curi:
http://curi.us/2124-critical-rationalism-epistemology-explanations#c11408
> Evan, please don't post here unless you dramatically change your attitude. What you're doing is unwelcome.
Evan's response to that is to keep flaming people and doing the unwelcome things, and then also saying:
> I fully expect that you will eventually hate me so much that you block me on all your websites or whatever.
What a jerk to do things he expects to be hated and knows are unwelcome. And why "eventually" instead of literally today? But anyway, he thinks that all verbal requests are minor things and actions (banhammers) speak louder than words. It's a very common and bad attitude to life. Things shouldn't have to escalate so much for problems to get solved.
> Evan thinks if he isn't actually BANNED then he must be welcome here in some sense, not have crossed the line too much.
> There are a lot of ppl who basically only listen to punishments and think if you don’t punish then you aren’t serious and don't mind.
This is kinda like someone thinking that if you don't call the police right away, then they are welcome in your house
>I don't know what goes on in your head and I find your particular emotional problem uninteresting because you even explicitly oppose altruism. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I've had moral integrity from a very young age and can't relate. You need socialization badly.
This is a combination of
1) ignorance of Ayn Rand's moral philosophy and
2) vicious, nasty, cruel personal attacks
What's interesting to me is that Evan engages in this combination of ignorance and malevolence while pleading his moral integrity.
> What's interesting to me is that Evan engages in this combination of ignorance and malevolence while pleading his moral integrity.
That struck me more as *sadly typical* :/
>> What's interesting to me is that Evan engages in this combination of ignorance and malevolence while pleading his moral integrity.
> That struck me more as *sadly typical* :/
:-(
You can now manually use a start parameter in urls. Example:
http://curi.us/2126-open-discussion?comments=40&start=11400
Unlike the comment limit, it's not maintained if you click links.
This lets you permalink a specific comment and also have a fast page load.
Let's say I like #11419
Then I will use that id as the start, and choose how many extra comments, i want, say up to 9 more after it:
http://curi.us/2126-open-discussion?comments=10&start=11419
This will let me make newsletter links that load faster. The comment limited feature couldn't be used with permalinks before because if you limit to the 20 latest comments and ppl post 20 new comments then the thing you were linking wouldn't be included anymore.
#11414
> Dagny by insubstantial I was referring to your claim that I'm not open to your better way of learning that you won't state. To make that claim out of nowhere is so socially repulsive I would guess you have no friends. You could learn that it's incorrect to do this by going outside ever and talking to someone. Paranoia means theories about people that are irrational and cause you fear.
i find it interesting that evan has interpreted the situation as though Dagny is experiencing fear.
> Elliot you are a person who wastes his time slandering people. I'm sorry I didn't respond to Alan's last comment for awhile but I was homeless and hungry, looking for jobs and places to stay for a few months starting roughly around that time. I fully expect that you will eventually hate me so much that you block me on all your websites or whatever. I don't know what goes on in your head and I find your particular emotional problem uninteresting because you even explicitly oppose altruism. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
How would evan know that elliot’s position on altruism is dumb? he doesn’t say whether or not he’s even investigated it, let alone understood it to the point that he could make an honest judgement of it.
> I've had moral integrity from a very young age and can't relate.
I don’t think Evan knows what the word integrity means. he's sorta implying that elliot has doesn't something that goes against his principles but as far as i can see, elliot has not done that, and evan has not explained (nor even stated without explanation) that elliot has acted contrary to his principles.
> You need socialization badly. I tried to help you in twitter dms. Maybe you have a delusion that you shouldn't do things people recommend until they respond to the games you play with discussions and launching highly irrational criticisms at every detail of people's claims, making your discussions intractable.
evan doesn’t seem to be giving elliot the benefit of the doubt. whether or not somebody should take somebody else’s suggestion depends on whether or not he’s convinced that doing the suggestion would benefit him. so if somebody suggests that i read something, i’m not doing it unless i’m convinced i’ll benefit. that may involve asking the suggestor to tell me what’s good about it, how it will benefit me, etc. if that discussion ends without me being convinced, i’m not reading what was suggested.
> I come on here to discuss important things like philosophy, and the only use you can find for it is to try to create interpersonal drama. It is no wonder no one likes you, and you will only get dumber and dumber if you keep wasting your time like this.
but it’s not true that no one likes elliot. i think he’s the best. i’m glad to know him and glad for our interactions.
one thing i especially like about elliot is his honesty. especially his honesty about how i’m behaving. *especially* his honesty about cases where i’m being dishonest. he’s shining a light on something that i’m refusing to shine a light on myself (and no else i know has shined a light on). i appreciate that very much. No one else is good/smart enough to treat me that way. (Well maybe there are others who are good/smart enough but they haven’t done it, so I wouldn’t know.)
#11424
thx
FYI the Twitter DMs Evan is referring to began with
> Try meditating to porn. rsd fucked me up.
Then there are 5 more messages (that's it) on the same topic. RSD is Real Social Dynamics (a PUA group that i think is pretty good) e.g. https://www.youtube.com/user/RSDTyler
Saying he tried to help me in Twitter DMs is not honest. It wasn't even about philosophy. He just tried to get me to hate/reject PUA or something ... while knowing absolutely nothing about my personal/dating life and what problems it does and doesn't have.
> but it’s not true that no one likes elliot. i think he’s the best. i’m glad to know him and glad for our interactions.
god i have *so many* fans i'm not even confident about guessing who wrote this. can't keep track of them all! i feel a bit confused. commonly when ppl write that much i can tell who it is.
> i find it interesting that evan has interpreted the situation as though Dagny is experiencing fear.
This comment is either passive-aggressive (against Evan) or it's really socially oblivious. "Interesting" can be literal, but it's a very commonly used word for equivocations and not directly saying what one actually means. In this case, it appears to be a standard interesting=bad kinda use where the person meant that Evan was wrong and dumb, and wanted to draw attention to the issue, but didn't want to say it openly.
>> i find it interesting that evan has interpreted the situation as though Dagny is experiencing fear.
> This comment is either passive-aggressive (against Evan) or it's really socially oblivious. "Interesting" can be literal, but it's a very commonly used word for equivocations and not directly saying what one actually means. In this case, it appears to be a standard interesting=bad kinda use where the person meant that Evan was wrong and dumb, and wanted to draw attention to the issue, but didn't want to say it openly.
That’s interesting too.
How can I or you figure out which one it is?
If I was passive aggressive I wanna fix that and never do it again.
#11429
Oh and if it’s socially oblivious, I wanna know more details. Oblivious of what social thing ?
#11430
Maybe the social thing I was oblivious of is that Evan didn’t really think that dagny was paranoid and rather it was just an attack for the audience to see.
The social thing you may be oblivious of is the issue I already brought up, e.g.:
- "interesting" is vague and unclear
- "interesting" often means "bad"
- "interesting" is a way to draw attention to things while avoiding saying what you think about them
- "interesting" is a way to attack people while having plausible deniability that you attacked them (you can say they are overreacting to nothing if they respond negatively)
https://www.americancommitment.org/content/senate-republicans-are-blocking-trump-appointments
> President Trump has hundreds of unfilled presidentially appointed positions because Democrats have stalled the nominations process out as much as their diminished power in the post-nuclear Senate has allowed. But it is the Republican majority that has placed a total blockade on the usual safety valve for temporary appointments – the recess appointment power – by refusing to go on recess for the last two years. And with Democrats set to take the House and be in position to deny the Senate consent to recess starting January 3, there is a real possibility that President Trump will go an entire presidential term without being able to make recess appointments.
> It has been nearly eight years since the United States Senate officially recessed – a streak aided by the practice of holding so-called pro forma sessions every three days throughout every adjournment.
> President Bill Clinton used the recess appointment power 139 times, including 96 full-time positions. President George W. Bush used it 171 times, including 99 full-time positions.
> You might reasonably expect no president will ever get recess appointments again except when the same party controls the House, Senate, and president. But for the last two years, the same party – the Republican Party – has in fact controlled the House, Senate, and president. And yet, the Senate has never recessed.
#11417
> What a jerk to do things he expects to be hated and knows are unwelcome. And why "eventually" instead of literally today? But anyway, he thinks that all verbal requests are minor things and actions (banhammers) speak louder than words. It's a very common and bad attitude to life.
I’m unsure about this last part. How do you integrate it with this:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fallible-ideas/rbw7OXCH6Jw/PuGYDOqSBwAJ
>These people – almost everyone – only state requests as a last resort, as a major escalation. So if you make a request to them, they think it's an ultimatum, a very strong demand with no flexibility, no remaining opportunity to negotiate or discuss.
My guess is that in most social situations Evan would probably act like most ppl and consider a verbal request a big deal. He’d want to get along with ppl and have smooth social interactions. In order to achieve this, he’d take requests seriously. Furthermore, like most ppl, he’d often try to guess what the other person wants and then preemptively do that so they don’t even have to verbally ask (this fits with him being altruistic).
But this social situation is *different* to him.
I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but he clearly doesn’t give a fuck about the interaction going well. He’s fully expecting (maybe welcoming??) being banned or hated or whatever and doesn’t seem to care. So, with these ideas by his side, maybe he’s given himself license to be a jerk and try to attack and hurt ET. He sort of comes off as though he’s fed up (with something?) and not going to take it anymore. Also, he sort of comes off as though he’s testing the situation. And when there’s no downside to him (e.g. he’s not afraid of being banned or hated in this case), then he’s willing to see just how far he can push it.
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fallible-ideas/rbw7OXCH6Jw/PuGYDOqSBwAJ
>> These people – almost everyone – only state requests as a last resort, as a major escalation. So if you make a request to them, they think it's an ultimatum, a very strong demand with no flexibility, no remaining opportunity to negotiate or discuss.
> My guess is that in most social situations Evan would probably act like most ppl and consider a verbal request a big deal. He’d want to get along with ppl and have smooth social interactions. In order to achieve this, he’d take requests seriously. Furthermore, like most ppl, he’d often try to guess what the other person wants and then preemptively do that so they don’t even have to verbally ask (this fits with him being altruistic).
Evan being relatively conventional when it comes to requests is also consistent with him not wanting to come out and directly ask for what he wants. Dagny talked about this in #11415.
>He just doesn't want to say or think about what he *is* asking for.
xkcd ignorantly flaming Popper with "it's a joke" to hide behind if called on his bullshit:
https://xkcd.com/2078/
how to block ads in youtube videos:
get ublock origin.
for chrome just google it. for safari use this link:
https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBlock-3NU33NW2M3
alternative: download the videos, e.g. with youtube-dl
One SPICY Coulter column today, even for her:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2018-11-28.html
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/12/04/samsung-portrait-mode-fraud
Fraud by Samsung. Advertising the pictures their phone can take using pictures taken by other cameras. Again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/06/hes-not-capable-trump-has-achieved-nothing-tucker-carlson-says/
> “His chief promises were that he would build the wall, defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn’t done any of those things,” Carlson said, adding that those goals were probably lost causes. Trump, he said, doesn’t understand the system, and his own agencies don’t support him.
> “He knows very little about the legislative process, hasn’t learned anything, hasn’t surrounded himself with people that can get it done, hasn’t done all the things you need to do, so it’s mostly his fault that he hasn’t achieved those things,” he added.
#11449 Tucker is partly saying that to imply that *he* knows how to do those things if he were Prez. He would surround himself with the right ppl (and way more ppl think that means them than there are slots for), he knows how legislation works and can get things done, etc.
This kind of self-serving self-promotion is not reliable as information about other ppl like Trump.
Also, when Carlson says those things – wall, fixing healthcare, stop tax-funding PP – are lost causes, doesn't that mean he in fact *does not* know how to get things done? Cause it doesn't sound like he's saying they are lost cause *for Trump* but he could do them. We need a prez who thinks those are NOT lost causes! (esp wall and healthcare, the PP thing is a way smaller issue)
> #11449 Tucker is partly saying that to imply that *he* knows how to do those things if he were Prez. He would surround himself with the right ppl (and way more ppl think that means them than there are slots for), he knows how legislation works and can get things done, etc.
> This kind of self-serving self-promotion is not reliable as information about other ppl like Trump.
I agree Tucker is self promoting but his criticisms also seemed kinda fair overall.
> Also, when Carlson says those things – wall, fixing healthcare, stop tax-funding PP – are lost causes, doesn't that mean he in fact *does not* know how to get things done? Cause it doesn't sound like he's saying they are lost cause *for Trump* but he could do them. We need a prez who thinks those are NOT lost causes! (esp wall and healthcare, the PP thing is a way smaller issue)
It was ambiguous to me what he meant by lost causes. He could mean doomed to fail from start, or lost cause at this point in Trump's term with Dems taking House (but maybe hope in future), or now a lost cause forever cuz Trump failed.
i watched a video called "This Is Why You're Fat" by the infographic show, it was really bad.
it literally never mentioned calories in vs calories out, and at 6:25 it says "stick to low fat and low calorie food", how does that help for weight loss? so what if its 50% fat? how many calories is it? calories is the only thing that matters for long term weight loss
it dissed fast food as well for no reason. i guess its a common enough cultural believe that fast food is bad, that you can mention fast food in passing in a video on how to lose weight, and it implies fast food is bad.
it also is spreading myths to make you eat more, at 2:46 "everyone knows you cant have dessert until after you eat your dinner, but maybe its time to skip dessert all together", but what if dessert is my favorite part? does that mean i HAVE to eat dinner if i am only interested in the dessert? why cant i just skip dinner? or maybe have a dinner i actually like so i dont feel like i need dessert. it never answers those questions, or gives alternatives.
good advice in the video: dont shop while hungry, that makes sense. when your shopping for food, youll look at a food and think "yeah id eat that" and then buy it, even if you dislike it compared to other foods that you usually buy, or you buy to much food cuz you constantly think "id eat that" cuz your hungry right now.
George Reisman followed me on Twitter:
He wrote a *very very very* good book on capitalism. Left sidebar: http://capitalism.net
The Ayn Rand Institute: seeking donors on the basis of their special government privileges. I think getting the privilege may be OK, and mentioning it too, but not *focusing lots of attention on it, as if government privileges are a major selling point*. Ayn Rand would be appalled.
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-merits-of-nepotism-and-boasting/
> Take that ghastly soul-destroying document, the curriculum vitae. It is as inherently inflationary as clipping the coinage or fiat money. A friend of mine, whom I knew to be competent and conscientious, consistently failed to be appointed to positions for which he was eminently qualified. My wife, who knew the ways of modern appointment committees, asked to see the curriculum vitae he was supplying with his applications for the jobs.
> She was horrified: He would never get a job with such a curriculum, it was far too old-fashioned. It gave merely his formal qualifications and the positions he had previously held, with references. No, no, said my wife to him, what you need is to boast. You have to make out that your piddling research might be chosen very soon for a Nobel Prize, that your occasional good deeds were as at great a personal sacrifice as those of Mother Teresa, and that you are a person whose outside interests are carried out at levels equal to the professional; in other words that you are multitalented, multivalent, and quite out of the ordinary. Moreover, your ambition must be to save the world, to be a pioneer and a path-breaker, not merely to do your best in the circumstances. You must be grandiose, not modest.
> Of course, every other applicant would be similarly boastful, and so, like star architects trying to outdo each other in the outlandish nature of their buildings, my friend’s boasts had to be preposterous, quite out of keeping with his admirable character. But once he had swallowed the bitter pill of realism, he was appointed at once. We all have to be Barons Munchausen now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/school-lunch-rules-ok-refined-grains-low-fat-chocolate-milk-n945026
> The U.S. school lunch program is making room on menus again for noodles, biscuits, tortillas and other foods made mostly of refined grains.
> The Trump administration is scaling back contested school lunch standards implemented under the Obama administration including one that required only whole grains be served. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday *only half the grains served will need to be whole grains*, a change it said will do away with the current bureaucracy of requiring schools to obtain special waivers to serve select refined grains foods.
Emphasis added. One step towards evil, half a step back to reasonableness? This still sucks. Same with allowing only low fat chocolate milk instead of none, it's only making it partially better and it's still worse than the past.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/09/the-good-censor-leaked-google-briefing-admits-abandonment-of-free-speech-for-safety-and-civility/
> An internal company briefing produced by Google and leaked exclusively to Breitbart News argues that due to a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the “American tradition” of free speech on the internet is no longer viable.
> But the 85-page briefing, titled “The Good Censor,” admits that Google and other tech platforms now “control the majority of online conversations” and have undertaken a “shift towards censorship” in response to unwelcome political events around the world.
They actually called *themselves* censors.
> The briefing labels the ideal of unfettered free speech on the internet a “utopian narrative” that has been “undermined” by recent global events as well as “bad behavior” on the part of users. It can be read in full below.
> The briefing argues that Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are caught between two incompatible positions, the “unmediated marketplace of ideas” vs. “well-ordered spaces for safety and civility.”
> The first approach is described as a product of the “American tradition” which “prioritizes free speech for democracy, not civility.” The second is described as a product of the “European tradition,” which “favors dignity over liberty and civility over freedom.” The briefing claims that all tech platforms are now moving toward the European tradition.
jfc. good article. it's well worth reading more highlights from the document.
Beginning of the end for Blizzard? Continuation of existing awful trends?
https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/
RIP HOTS.
#11459
was it actually a bad decision? what are some of their awful trends?
this paragraph from their article "Heroes of the Storm News" talks about it,
>Over the past several years, the work of evaluating our development processes and making hard decisions has led to new games and other products that we’re proud of. **We now have more live games and unannounced projects than at any point in the company’s history.** We’re also at a point where we need to take some of our talented developers and bring their skills to other projects. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to shift some developers from Heroes of the Storm to other teams, and we’re excited to see the passion, knowledge, and experience that they’ll bring to those projects. **This isn’t the first time we’ve had to make tough choices like this. Games like Diablo II, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Overwatch, and more would not exist had we not made similar decisions in the past**.
bold added to parts i thought were important.
i think it justifies their decisions cuz they have unannounced games (i took "projects" to mean games). and they need good people to work on them, and they have good people in their other games, so their gonna take them and put them on other projects
#11460 Why choose this to debate, out of all the topics? What value would you get out of being corrected or correcting me on this topic? Less compared to tons of other topics, right? And you don't seem to know much about Blizzard or to have read the reddit response very thoroughly.
Sometime wrote a longish (by amazon standards) critical review of Reisman's Marxism book
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/B07GN8WJB1/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_hist_2?filterByStar=two_star&pageNumber=1
Linking because I thought it might be of interest
#11462 thx for the link, it's nice to see people's responses. But unfortunately I think the review is much lower quality than its writing style tries to convey. Some issues:
> The distinction between the economic definitions of socialism and communism are simple. Communism refers to complete state control of the means of production. Socialism means some state control of the means of production.
This is sloppy at best. By that definition, the US is a socialist country. The US clearly has *some* state control of the means of production. By calling a mixed economy "socialism", the reviewer is debating terminology (contra Popper) instead of the issues, and he's making discussion harder by making socialism refer to a huge array of different things, some of them commonly (and reasonably) associated with quite a bit of capitalism. Bernie Sanders wants to change the US into a socialist country because he doesn't think it is one currently. On that, I agree with him. And by weakening the meaning of socialism, so it has less to do with any particular principles, ideologies, or system of beliefs, and just refers to pretty much every compromise system, then you get something that's bad for discussion, that fails to try to offer a positive vision for a good world. Reisman is completely correct to discuss socialism as meaningful a vision for how to organize society, not as a set of cowardly equivocations that some socialists retreated to to dodge criticism.
> If you are already determined to hate Marxism in all it's form this essay should fit nicely into your collection. If you are looking for a critical in-depth analysis of the subject I would look elsewhere. This is not a particularly enlightening work and many of the points made have been made more articulately before.
Which points were made where before?
This kind of claim, without details, isn't convincing. The vast majority of people cannot reliably judge if two arguments are approximately the same or dramatically different, if the arguments have some noticeable similarities.
And it matters who said it before, and when. Was it someone no one reads from the 1800s? Was it Mises, Reisman's teacher? Was it someone popular, modern and separate from the Austrian tradition? Repeating something well known is an issue. Repeating something obscure that no one knows would offer value. And it often makes sense to repeat some ideas while introducing new ones (so you can build on them prior ideas).
It's hard to comment more specifically due to the lack of specifics in the accusation.
> Regardless I would recommend a reading of Das kapital volume 1 paired with either David Harvey's college course on volume 1 which can be found on youtube or his book "A Companion to Marx's Capital v1," before reading any in depth criticism. Naturally I would also recommend v2 and v3 of Das Kapital for those with a further interest in how Marx's vision of capitalism changes when he relaxes the equilibrium and value assumptions. These volumes address all of the criticisms leveled by Mr. Reisman in the second half of this work.
This would be far more convincing with an example or at least a citation. Which argument of Reisman is refuted by which argument from which author in what passage of what book? Give a summary or at least enough of a reference for me to look it up and see you're right – and then maybe i'll consider reading hundreds of pages. But don't refer me to hundreds of pages and say that somewhere in there I will find rebuttals to multiple non-specific Reisman arguments. That's unreasonable. There is no way for me to ever know which things the reviewer even believed to be the rebuttals to what. It's not as if the books being recommended, which predate Reisman's book, would quote Reisman's points and give responses to each.
#11463 nice criticisms of the review
"crimes of passion" are punished less than they would be otherwise cuz you felt certain emotions while committing the crime.
"hate crimes" are punished more than they would be otherwise cuz you felt certain emotions while committing the crime.
i think that is interesting.
> “Torres, who represents the Fordham Road and Tremont sections of the Bronx, says that “a cashless business model . . . will have the effect of excluding lower-income communities of color from what should be an open and free market.” The very poor are “unbanked,” he says, and disproportionately black and Latino; thus, cashless businesses are demonstrably discriminatory against them. “No matter what the intention was,” explains Torres, “its effect is discriminatory.”
> Torres’s notion of effective discrimination could be extended well beyond cashless restaurants. Take, say, expensive restaurants. The omakase menu at Masa—the costliest eatery in the country—costs $595 for 18 pieces of sushi. Though the restaurant accepts cash and credit cards, it’s specifically designed to exclude people who can’t afford to eat there. It doesn’t matter what Masayoshi Takayama intended when he set up a restaurant that charges more for a party of two to eat dinner than most New York households earn in a week; he’s effectively discriminating, Torres would argue. And if we start requiring restaurants to accept folding money or a handful of change as payment, why not also demand that they include fare at every price point on their menus, so even the poorest customers can feel welcome? Perhaps Torres’s reform effort should also be extended to online purchases, which are virtually impossible to make without a bank card. Let’s require that Amazon accept cash, as should Uber and Lyft and other firms whose business model discriminates—intentionally or not—against people who don’t have bank cards connected to their accounts.”
Charged With Discrimination
https://www.city-journal.org/banning-cashless-establishments
via Instapaper
#11460 >Why choose this to debate, out of all the topics?
cuz i had thoughts about it so i wrote them, i want to do that more cuz usually i dont, and i think it would be good for me to say stuff more.
>What value would you get out of being corrected or correcting me on this topic? Less compared to tons of other topics, right?
i dont see how i would get any value out of it, or how anyone else could. would it be a waste of time for both of us if we discuss it? should i think about how much value i would gain from discussing something, before i try to discuss it? e.g: discussing with socialists would probably be useful for me cuz idk much about it, but for FI people it probably wouldnt be helpful, cuz they already discussed with socialists alot, and know what their arguments and responses are.
>And you don't seem to know much about Blizzard or to have read the reddit response very thoroughly.
i have not read the reddit responses at all, i just looked at the titles of like 3 threads, and they seemed to be mostly just complaining so i didnt look into it more. i assume i should have, so that i would know what other peoples thoughts were that i could try to criticize?
i think that if something similar to this happens in the future i should still write about it instead of not write about it, until i can be sure that it would be a waste of time/not useful to write about it.
so if there is something that would be good to write about, i still write about it, even if i think it might be a waste of time, cuz i cant tell for sure if its a waste of time yet.
i dont take criticism well. i think criticism is important, and that its a good thing when someone else criticizes you, cuz its helpful for you if your wrong ideas are corrected, but i still get embarrassed about it in general. i read curis 2 articles on emotions ("Emotions" in Fallible Articles, on fallibleideas.com, and "Bounded and Unbounded Emotions" on rationalessays.com) like 6 months ago, but i havnt re-read them yet, i probably will after i send this message.
the articles have helped me some, cuz i can think "what is this emotion trying to do for me?" and i find that helpful, but thats basically been my entire takeaway from those 2 articles that i remember, cuz i havnt reread them, and when i did read them, i didnt really think about them, and how they apply to stuff.
is there more stuff other than those 2 emotions articles to help me with criticism? or do i have to get better in general to be able to take criticism in a good way?
i feel like this comment might be to long. im worried people wont read it cuz of that
#11466 Having cheap stuff on the menu wouldn't bring equality. The rich guy would have a bigger menu to choose from. The restaurant would be better serving him by giving him more variety and options. Similarly the rich guy could come back more times without it getting repetitive.
Even a menu of only cheap stuff discriminates because the rich guy can get larger quantities – e.g. 500 orders of something, to go, to feed his party guests. There are things he can get with his money that the restaurant won't do for a poor guy who won't pay that much.
#11467
> i feel like this comment might be to long. im worried people wont read it cuz of that
People here are good at reading.
> i have not read the reddit responses at all, i just looked at the titles of like 3 threads, and they seemed to be mostly just complaining so i didnt look into it more.
Complaints are criticisms. The threads pointed out many criticisms of Blizzard.
> is there more stuff other than those 2 emotions articles to help me with criticism? or do i have to get better in general to be able to take criticism in a good way?
People make *mistakes*. We're fallible. Mistakes are common. Making things better involves *finding* and *fixing* mistakes. Criticisms are attempts to point out mistakes – to help find them. (They also sometimes contain ideas about how to fix it.) Disliking criticism is like shooting the messenger for telling you about a problem that he didn't cause.
This is complicated by people being jerks. So lots of people's experience with criticism involves someone who was trying to be mean, to lower your social status, to hurt your feelings, that kinda thing. Often those mean comments don't try to explain or argue, they aren't intellectually substantive. Disliking people being mean is fine, and should be separated from disliking pointing out possible mistakes.
I liked the beginning of this:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.10154.pdf
> Please Stop Explaining Black Box Models for High-Stakes Decisions
Less good towards the end.
The criticism of black box software + tacked on explanations (that may not accurately match what the software actually does) is good.
I thought the worst part was the section titled:
> A Technical Reason Why Accurate Interpretable Models Might Exist in Many Domains
There are 4 paragraphs in that section. I thought the Rashomon set argument sucked (and the author seemed to think it was especially good). People may like to try analyzing it.
housing construction quality in china is garbage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopSDJq6w8E
the first star wars film was massively changed from the first cut. this video explains how, with some behinds-the-scenes details that are interesting (just generally interesting but especially if you are a star wars fan. i thought the bit about how a core premise of the entire finale was essentially added on in editing especially interesting):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMyMxMYDNk
Ayn Rand Institute newsletter today:
> Santa Approves... Give Yourself or Someone Else the Gift of OCON this Christmas!
Santa is a myth. He doesn't approve of things. Treating myths as reality is contrary to Ayn Rand's pro-reality, anti-mysticism philosophy.
And caring whether Santa (or anyone) approves of your actions is second-handed, something Ayn Rand wrote a book against.
Fuck Facebook
Facebook Sued by District of Columbia Over Cambridge Analytica https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/technology/dc-sues-facebook-cambridge-analytica.html
Amazon and Facebook Reportedly Had a Secret Data-Sharing Agreement, and It Explains So Much https://gizmodo.com/amazon-and-facebook-reportedly-had-a-secret-data-sharin-1831192148?rev=1545199005000
As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html
Facebook shared user data with Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Spotify, Netflix and others.
I would advise people not to put any info on Facebook – including in "private" messages – that you don't want to be public.
Brittany Venti did another takedown of a YouTuber (a follow up on her great vids criticizing ShoeOnHead)
https://youtu.be/VjVn6RtLoeA
Have only just started the video but it looks solid
#11467
I didn’t think your post was long at all.
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_05_4_szasz.pdf
> Hitler and his entourage were health fanatics obsessed with cleanliness and with killing “bugs,” the latter category including unwanted people, especially Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and mental patients. Hitler neither drank nor smoked and was a vegetarian. Preoccupied with the fear of illness and the welfare of animals, he could not “tolerate the idea of animals’ being killed for human consumption” (Proctor 1999, 136). After Hitler became chancellor, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring announced an end to the “unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments.” The medical mass murder of mental patients went hand in hand with the prohibition of vivisection, which was declared a capital offense (129; see also Borkin [1978] 1997, 58). The fact that the Nazi public-health ethic demanded not only respect for the health of the greatest numbers (of Aryans) but also for the health of animals (except “bugs”) illustrates the connections between the love of pharmacracy and animal rights, on one hand, and the loathing of human rights and the lives of imperfect persons, on the other hand. (The work of bioethicist Peter Singer (1994) also illustrates these connections; see also “Dangerous Words” 2000 and Szasz 1999, 89, 96–97.)
Sometimes people, including cashiers, are mean to teens buying condoms:
https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/a8vn3u/everyone_said_buying_condoms_was_no_big_deal_and/
Russian psychopolitical propaganda from their educational materials for their agents:
> Man is already a colonial aggregation of cells, and to consider him an individual would be an error.
https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1077374876053393408
JP worded that wrong. It's organized (sorted) "by" fatality rate, not gender. Note that the chart itself is labelled correctly.
I don't think this is a typo by JP. I think it shows a conceptual error regarding understanding statistics, charts, etc. Which means he's not as smart as he claims to be.
In the U.S. today, there are two main political viewpoints. The right wing consists of people who disagree with liberalism. The left wing consists of people who hate liberalism.
Political Warfare by Rich Higgins
Political Warfare, May 2017:
> Globalists and lslamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed. Atomization of society must also occur at the individual level; with attacks directed against all levels of group and personal identity. Hence the sexism, racism and xenophobia memes. As a Judea-Christian culture, forced inclusion of post-modern notions of tolerance is designed to induce nihilistic contradictions that reduce all thought, all faith, all loyalties to meaninglessness. Group rights based on sex or ethnicity are a direct assault on the very idea of individual human rights and natural law around which the Constitution was framed. "Transgender acceptance" memes attack at the most basic level by denying a person the right to declare the biological fact of one's sex. When a population has 2 + 2 = 5 imposed on it, there are many that benefit…
According to Foreign Policy:
> The seven-page document, which eventually landed on the president’s desk, precipitated a crisis that led to the departure of several high-level NSC officials tied to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The author of the memo, Rich Higgins, who was in the strategic planning office at the NSC, was among those recently pushed out.
Oh look, Stefan Molyneux is also incompetent at economics. What is he competent at, again?
https://twitter.com/GGReisman/status/1077795466941616129
DD betrays his prior values, again. As usual, no arguments against his prior beliefs are provided. This time it's about psychiatry. He went from a fan of Szasz to just acting like Szasz doesn't exist.
https://twitter.com/DavidDeutschOxf/status/1077710492641255425
He also betrays his prior respect for scholarship. His source link for calorie counting being a mental illness doesn't mention calories or counting, just dieting.
Leffen recently got up to like 6000 twitch subscribers from playing Smash Ultimate. That's like $20,000/month after Twitch's cut. What do you think about his attitude to it?
https://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2018/
> The Stormlight series has a very odd structure. Each novel is outlined as a trilogy plus a short story collection (the interludes) and is the length of four regular books. This lets me play with narrative in some interesting ways—but it also makes each volume a beast to write.
Hello. I am curious about the so-called Golden Rule.
Is it a reasonable thing to try to follow, or is it mistaken?
#11495
In tons of cases, the Golden Rule works badly because people have different preferences than you do. If you treat them according to your own preferences, you'll often violates theirs. E.g. I like being served sushi dinners, but many other people don't because they are vegetarians or dislike fish or whatever, so I shouldn't serve them sushi dinners even though I like being treated that way.
It seems mostly meant as an argument against theft, murder, and other really bad stuff that basically no one prefers. Thinking about what it'd be like to be stolen from, before stealing, is a good idea. But it's not the primary issue. It doesn't explain what property or peace are, or why they matter, or how they connect to reason, or why reason matters, etc. For some info on those things see https://elliottemple.com/essays/liberalism
FYI this question would have been better if it included some information about why you were asking this. Why did you bring up the Golden Rule instead of something else? What stood out to you about it as good or bad?
I recommend System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display -> Reduce Transparency for all Mac users. I also have Increase Contrast and a larger cursor size.
Read about some problems people have in 3rd world countries:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/a9y4r7/fellow_3rd_world_country_redditors_what_are_some/
> “This president has instituted punishing sanctions against Moscow for its military aggression and has taken direct action against Russia on several fronts. He withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and imposed harsh and effective sanctions against Tehran, and he has endorsed the aspirations of self-government for the Iranian people. He has supported the Saudi monarchy’s battle against Wahhabi forces both domestically and abroad. He has stood with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi against the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo. The only legitimate grievance Stephens has in the aforementioned paragraph is President Trump’s friendliness with the regime in Ankara, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood. But on every other issue, Stephens is misleading his audience and/or incorrectly identifying President Trump’s foreign policy.”
Bret Stephens is wrong. Donald Trump is great for Israel
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/bret-stephens-is-wrong-donald-trump-is-great-for-israel/
It's easier to get replies cold emailing CEOs, authors, scientists, or professors than trying to get self-proclaimed Popperians to discuss philosophy.
I'm being literal and have many examples in mind including, just a few days ago, emailing the CEO of Stripe.
The long thread I'm replying to is about Mastercard and deplatforming. I recommend it:
https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1078335204828286976
Terrible tweet by Robin Hanson.
Posting it because he came here and posted a comment the other day, but didn't follow up and didn't want to discuss.
http://curi.us/2161-paths-forward-or-prediction-markets
There are no Paths Forward with him.
I recommend the documentary *An Honest Liar* about James Randi (from 2014).
Overreaching & Powering up Podcast
> People want to do great impressive big things, things that matter. They don't want to be a child doing little things. They want to think that they are already educated to do things in the world. This is what adults think. But if they would invest in getting the basics right they would have a ??? of being highly effective later on in the future."
Sounds like "a prayer" but it's obviously not that.
Starts at 8:50
I do say "a prayer". It means having a (small) chance. Dictionary:
> **not have a prayer**
> *informal* have no chance at all of succeeding at something: *he doesn't have a prayer of toppling Tyson.*
Having a prayer contrasts with that, it means a (small) chance instead of none.
#11512 Thanks
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/second-handers.html
I don't like how this gives an FH quote and attributes it to FNI. You can't tell what book it's actually from, based on the page, if you don't already know. Should quote the original source or mention both sources.
The FDIC is playing a role in deplatforming:
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/01/death-metal-label-shuts-down-after-paypal-credit-cards-pull-out-due-to-doj-fdic-initiative/74398/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWMfzkJh1ds
Some history of loot boxes, pay2win, EA destroying video games.
The speakers on the iPhone X are quite remarkable. Clear, LOUD, very enjoyable to listen to. Stereo makes a big difference.
I remember when Apple switched away from 30 pin and people were complaining about forced obsolescence (despite Apple using that connector for like a decade). Freeing up that space on the bottom of the device has let Apple do great things :D
Amazon possibly doing shady stuff with subscribe and save orders resulting in lost discount
https://slickdeals.net/f/12567832-psa-amazon-subscribe-save-check-your-order-history-closely-amazon-may-be-overcharging-you-for-certain-sd-purchases-edited-to-add-first-s-s-purchase-can-get-changed-first
Amazon committing *fraud* by changing prices on the first shipment of subscribe and save items, without notification. It apparently also removes referral credit.
https://slickdeals.net/f/12567832-psa-amazon-subscribe-save-check-your-order-history-closely-amazon-may-be-overcharging-you-for-certain-sd-purchases-edited-to-add-first-s-s-purchase-can-get-changed-first
lol i forgot where i got the link from and posted it back to the same place it was from. i like my summary better though. (i wrote #11522 )
reddit censoring communities with "quarantine" feature:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/
Daring Fireball is smart sometimes!
https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/steve_jobs_and_apples_last_previous_earnings_warning
context:
https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/apples_terrible_no_good_very_bad_earnings_warning
IIRC, ET wrote a blog post once that was about this phenomenon where once someone named an issue, it was as if the flood gates opened up. Now, the pressure had diminished and the other ppl there were interested in talking about the issue now. Does anyone remember? Can you find it? Thanks
#11530 I forget. I think lots of it is due to passivity and herd-following. Also with any kind of leadership, including bringing up an issue, you could be wrong and get criticized, so there's that kind of risk (which some might see as an upside, not a downside, but most people aren't like that). Also lots of people didn't think of the issue until someone else said it, and they hide that.
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4169559&forum_id=2#37520681
>Date: January 3rd, 2019 3:56 PM
>Author: ma anand sheela
>they announced they were taking Friends off last month and there was a fucking riot and Netflix paid whatever billion dollars they had to pay to keep it
>i cannot fucking believe SEVEN PERCENT of all Netflix views is The Office.
>recall that Netflix is fifteen percent of all internet traffic. so more than 1% of all internet traffic is people watching The Office
Just saw Bryan "Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist" Caplan on a list of *libertarians* willing to criticize college:
>>> Too many people are going to college. Are there any mainstream “conservative” pols willing to say this?
>> Unfortunately libertarians—@charlesmurray, @bryan_caplan, @ThomasEWoods, @StefanMolyneux—are the only ones who seem willing to state the obvious
> I hate libertarians and I've written about this repeatedly.
That last quote is Ann Coulter. By "this" I think she means she's written about too many people going to college (the relevant thing), not about hating libertarians (which she has also written about).
Source: https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1080984199161671680
Caplan's anti-austrian article:
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm
Anyway I'm posting because the term "libertarian" is so fucked up that people hostile to good, capitalist economists are exemplars of the term!? What meaning does libertarian have left if being clueful about capitalist economists isn't part of it? He's openly saying not to associate him with the best capitalist economists, particular Mises. BTW he's also flamed Ayn Rand. If you don't like Mises *or* Rand, what sort of capitalism do you like!?
It's very common for libertarians to say other libertarians aren't libertarians (or aren't real libertarians, or something similar).
Two sizable camps are:
Big Tent define libertarian as stuff like:
- Fiscally conservative & Socially tolerant
- Political views in the top quadrant of the Nolan Chart (https://www.nolanchart.com/survey-php)
- Member of the national Libertarian Party or registered to vote as Libertarian
- Republicans who think you should be able to smoke dope
- Democrats who think you should be able to have guns
Purists define libertarian as stuff like:
- Agree with and live by the Non-Initiation of Force Principle
- Political views at the top point of the Nolan Chart
No significant camp defines Libertarian by which economists or philosophers someone likes/agrees with.
I think libertarians are dishonestly pretending the term is more meaningful and defined than it is.
People (including "libertarians") routinely use the term "libertarian" in different ways than the ones PAS lists, and he knows it.
And the Nolan Chart is dishonest propaganda.
#11538 That link to Coulter's tweet didn't work for me.
This one does:
https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1080984209865363456
pretty solid reddit comment on how life is different for really rich people:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/
jeez. being a jew is now illegal in part of belgium:
https://mises.org/power-market/when-democratic-compromise-fails-kosher-slaughter-outlawed-belgium
China treating Islam as a mental illness https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/china-pathologizing-uighur-muslims-mental-illness/568525/
Charles Tew said in his most recent video (FP Podcast #88) that people who are attracted to a certain sex can’t be friends with that sex cuz “if you like a member of the sex you are romantically attracted to enough to be friends then you will develop feelings for that person. And then you will be in a situation in which you can manifest those feelings more fully, and they are requited, in which case you will become more than friends, or you will be in a situation in which it is not possible to manifest those feelings, or they are un-requited, in which case being friends is a bad idea and will be a painful, unpleasant experience.
Now this principle doesn't apply in the context of people that you wouldn't be in a romantic relationship with, for what ever reason, the most obvious reason here would be an age difference. But within the context of people with whom you could conceivably be in a romantic relation ship, i don't believe in friend ships. I'm not saying you cant be acquaintances, or have a professional relationship, or be polite to this person or never cross paths with her, but, when i talk about friendship I'm talking about 'hanging out', 'hanging out' with a member of the opposite sex with whom you could be in a relationship but for the fact that one of you isn't into it, or is already taken by someone else, is a bad idea, and i disapprove of it. so dont be friends with girls."
he talks about it as a part of a response to a question, question starts at 3:20, his answer ends at 7:08
That seemed dumb cuz you can be friends with someone on text even if you can’t see or hear them, so why not in person? maybe that doesnt count as "hanging out" but hanging out seems really vague, does that mean you cant play online video games with girls? would that count as hanging out?
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/china-pathologizing-uighur-muslims-mental-illness/568525/
This is what psychiatry is, it's just disguised less in China.
lol that's twice recently that I got a link from here, forgot where i got it from, and then posted it here.
He's lying about the bot. He wrote the script himself. He'd say it's a joke, but it will confuse many people who don't have a good grasp on the capabilities of bots/"AI"/"computer learning"/etc. It could also confuse lots of programmers who aren't familiar with GDQ culture. Also lots of people aren't good at recognizing how much people lie and being able to make a confident judgment that something is a lie.
I think it's bad to post confusing falsehoods. That there are 3 major skills involved in recognizing its false, all of which are uncommon, makes it considerably worse.
Imagine you are a liberal Dem in '04 and I appear to you as a ghostly apparition
> I tell you:
> "In 2017, the President of the United States will be someone who has very clearly and forcefully stated to the world that the Iraq War was a mistake.
> He will also make it a major priority to renegotiate NAFTA and other trade deals to get a better deal for American workers. He will repeatedly exclaim that, when it comes to trade, corporate profits should come second to securing good jobs for American workers. Not free trade, fair trade!, he'll say.
> On the first day of his presidency, he will make it a priority to meet with several organized labor leaders in the White House; they will leave the meeting thrilled and state that they truly believe he is on their side and that he wants to do whatever he can to help create jobs and improve wages for American workers. He will make it a favorite pastime to call up fat-cat CEOs and yell at them about how they need to stop outsourcing jobs and need to invest in American labor OR ELSE."
> "That's amazing," you'd say. I might reply: "well, you know, some people think that is a little tyrannical and autocratic trying to bully people like --" "Oh please," you'd cut me off, "I think those CEOs can take it. It's amazing to hear we'll finally have someone showing a little bit of back bone for labor against capital in this country! Anyway, this guy sounds amazing. Tell me more. What does he think about health care?"
> I'd continue: "Well, when it comes to health care, he will come out in favor of negotiating against drug companies for lower prices on prescription drugs. And he will say that, whatever we do on health care reform, we need to make sure that we guarantee coverage for people with preexisting conditions.
> He will be forcefully in favor of preserving social security and medicare. He will call for six weeks of guaranteed maternity leave.
> Also, I should note, he is in favor of large-scale government spending on massive projects to put Americans to work rebuilding our national infrastructure.
> He will also come out in favor of reform to close the carried interest tax loophole.
> Also, he won't seem very religious all. Not only will he be for civil unions, he will in fact openly admit that he has no problem with gay marriage. He will even wave around a rainbow LGBT flag at one of his rallies."
> At this point, you would probably stop me. "Stop, stop. I don't believe you," you'd say, "It's too good to be true."
> In your head you are picturing some heroic left-wing dream candidate.
> "Well, there is more," I'd say. "You really should know that he wants to build a wall on our border with Mexico to prevent further illegal immigration and, although he has suggested that after the wall is built he may be open to some limited amnesty for illegal immigrants already here, he does not support blanket amnesty for all 11 million+ illegal immigrants in the country. He dismisses all arguments about illegal immigration ultimately benefiting GDP, because he believes the most important thing to focus on is the well-being of low-wage American workers."
> In response to this, you might say that you need to see the specifics. But you'd probably agree wholeheartedly with that last point about low-wage workers and generally think the 2017 President's view was within the range of reasonable views. After all, at this point, even the NYT editorial board is still against amnesty for illegal immigrants ( http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/22/opinion/hasty-call-for-amnesty.html ) and the idea of a physical wall on some or all of the Mexican border doesn't seem like a crazy idea ( http://freebeacon.com/issues/flashback-democrats-supported-mexico-border-fence/ ). See also: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2016/05/18/flashback-bill-clinton-in-96-sounds-like-trump-on-immigration-we-are-a-nation-of-laws-n2164898 ; http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/time-harry-reid-sounded-exactly-donald-trump-illegal-immigration . You might even say "wait, did you say 11+ million? We haven't done anything about that yet?"
> "Uh ok," I'd say, "well you should also know that he is going to make some very strong statements about the need for law and order and say that he wants to crack down hard on crime."
> Again, you might ask for specifics. But, at the end of the day, you'd probably say something like: "don't all politicians talk that way these days? I mean Bill Clinton sure did. I think we can stomach another Clinton/Biden crime bill. This doesn't seem so bad, especially when weighed against all of that great stuff you were talking about earlier. Tell me more about how he wants to renegotiate NAFTA...."
> "Well, I'm not sure you understand," I'd say. "He is going to say some pretty controversial stuff on race and the inner cities that people are really not going to like."
> "Like what?" you'd ask.
> "Well," I'd say, "one particularly controversial statement that will rile a lot of people up is: '[The] inner cities of our country . . . are a disaster education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise, in every way possible [and] I�m going to help the African-Americans. I�m going to help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities.'"
> "Bravo!" you'd say. "I'm glad we will finally have someone willing to speak honestly about the inner cities and the terrible conditions so many people, racial minorities especially, are living in. If conservatives find that controversial, then that's their problem. I'm tired of Bush ignoring our inner cities. This guy sounds great!"
> At this point, I'd realize you weren't quite getting it. I could try reading out some particular awkward Trump quotes, but I'd probably realize I'm not going to convince you that your left-wing hero of 2017 is a racist on the basis of quotes like that. If "you cannot go to a 7 -Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent" or "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean" doesn't do it for Joe Biden, the taco bowl tweet probably won't do it here. So I switch gears.
> "Well," I'd reply, "there's more you need to know." "He is going to come into office on the heels of some terror attacks in Europe and the U.S. by islamic extremists. Don't worry, nothing as bad as 9/11, but still pretty bad. Because many of the people involved in these attacks came from overseas, he is going to institute a temporary ban on immigration from 7 middle eastern countries until the government can establish better vetting procedures for new visitors and immigrants."
> You'd probably reply with something like: "Well, I'll have to see what those new vetting procedures actually are. But after Bush, I'll just be glad if he doesn't invade all seven! Anyway, tell me more about this guy...."
> At this point I'd have to start reeling off things like lowering the corporate tax rate, an ed secretary who believes in charter schools, cutting back on administrative regulations in certain areas, seeking to balance the budget in view of our $19 trillion national debt.
> You'd probably say something like: "Well then, I guess we won't have cured the democratic party of Clintonism altogether by 2017, but....... wait? Did you say $19 trillion? Our national debt is really going to more than double between now and 2017?"
> "Yes, it's going to get pretty deep," I'd reply.
> "Hmm. Well that's what we get for all these dumb wars in the middle east," you'd say. "I guess our president in 2017 will be left to try and clean that up."
> "There's more," I'd say. "He is going to have a pretty sordid history when it comes to women. There will be a couple accusers who say he sexually harassed them. Nothing definitive, but a lot of allegations. There will be a tape where he's caught, about 10 years before running for president, saying he has 'grabbed women by the pussy.'"
> (Long sigh) "Well then I guess we realllly won't have rid the Democratic party of clintonism entirely" (chuckle). "But it does sound like he will be pretty good for women on policy. Tell me more about that six weeks of maternity leave. Sounds very progressive...."
> "Oh shit, there's one big thing I forgot to tell you. He's pro-life. Or at least he says he's pro-life now. He had said he was pro-choice in the past, though. Some people think he just plays the pro-life role now because he needed it to get elected."
> This you would probably be very taken aback by. "I don't believe it," you'd say. "Are you sure? He's so progressive on all of those other issues.... we've progressed so much that we can elect a guy like this, but he still needed to play the pro-life card to get elected? Even as a democrat? How did we go backward on that one?"
> "Well," I'd say "he'd been a democrat previously, but actually ran for president as a Republican.
> That would probably blow your mind. "You're telling me this guy is a Republican? I mean, jesus, I'm going to disagree with him on abortion and the corporate tax stuff but, oh wow.... it seems too good to be true that we're really going to progress so much between now and 2017 that this is what our REPUBLICANS will look like? I mean, wow, from George W. Bush to this guy? I mean, it sounds like we are really going to have a lot of common ground to work from. I could certainly work with a Republican like that. You are sure he's a Republican right? Really? OK, wow."
> At that point, I would have to ask: "would it surprise you to learn that you are literally going to cry openly in the street while waving around a sign comparing this guy to Hitler?"
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3503671&mc=167&forum_id=2#32458197
In the recent induction podcast Elliot mentions a book where the first half comprises criticism of Popper, and the last half is comprised of Poppers responses. What's the title of the book?
I haven't searched for it. I think Elliott should have mentioned the title in the podcast.
popper book
#11595 The book is called "The Philosophy of Karl Popper" volumes 1 and 2, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp.
Added links to show notes:
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Popper-Library-Living-Philosophers/dp/0875481418/?tag=curi04-20
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Karl-Popper-Part/dp/0875481426/?tag=curi04-20
I didn't think about giving the cite b/c the anti-Popper scholars ought to already know it or else they are frauds. But yes I should tell my podcast audience.
Interesting info about what happened with the Mont Pelerin Society:
https://mises.org/library/against-neoliberals
The link for the recommended "Liberty and Property" Mises speech to the Mont Pelerin Society is broken. Here's one that works:
https://mises.org/library/liberty-and-property
The Mises Institute twitter account is better than the Ayn Rand Institute twitter account. By far. I think it's actually worth following.
The "intellectual and cultural elites" of our culture are all a big fraud. They are part of a propaganda campaign to use authority and social status to tell people what to think. And what do they preach? Statism. As their government masters intended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc67AhFQpDA&feature=em-uploademail
ninja, the most popular twitch streamer, was at risk of not getting 1st place at a not very importnat competition
his fans falsely reported his competitor’s instagram and got him a strike and his posts are muted/censored and shit
that kinda harrassment shit isn’t just politics. any kinda popular group can harass other groups now
with zero evidnece/reason
like he posted he might get to 100,000 kills b4 ninja and screenshot of his in game kill count
and somehow the trolls reporting him succeed and instagram actions him
ninja did not encourage or suggest this type of thing. he didn't hint at liking it or anything. all he did is pay attention to the competition, talk about it, try to win. he probably needs to specifically tell his fans to stop, but i doubt that'll make a ton of difference.
Am I allowed to join FI discord server now?
#11608 ok but please don't cause trouble
#11598
#11599
Thank you!
http://www.solopassion.com/node/10821#comment-130873
Note that's an anti-ARI site that I posted on. It's not like I offended them with my message.
#11611 Update: I edited in a second paragraph: "Do you remember who else gave a faceless speech?"
> A *rambling, faceless, voice-distorted, mindlessly upward-inflecting* video like this makes you sound *like, like*, an *airhead moronnial* who, *like*, says *"like" without reason*. It makes you sound *like, like*, the very *aliens* who have, *like*, taken over the ARI.
>
> This does *not, like, help* the case against Obleftivism.
Insults highlighted. High density! And I just highlighted the insult words, not setup like “makes you sound”. Including setup and supporting words, it would have just been all in italics because Lindsay Perigo had nothing to say other than insults.
Lindsay's reply:
> I can't comment about the content because I was so distracted by the presentation and spent no more than 5 minutes on it. This is not being "mean and unintellectual"; it's a judicious and honest use of my time.
> John Galt would never have, like, spoken in the manner of a contemporary, like, moronnial.
> Why not favour us with a written summation of your critique?
Rand, who spoke with a Russian accent, had some things to say about charismatic speakers (emphasis added):
> He sang “Sweet Adeline” at the top of his *town crier’s voice*.
> In high school Ellsworth became a local celebrity—the star orator. For years the school did not refer to a promising boy as a good speaker, but as “a Toohey.” He won every contest. Afterward, members of the audience spoke about “that beautiful boy”; they did not remember the sorry little figure with the sunken chest, inadequate legs and glasses; *they remembered the voice*. He won every debate.
> He brought his audience to tears in one of his greatest *oratorical triumphs* with the theme of “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
> It was not a voice, it was a miracle. It unrolled as a velvet banner. It spoke English words, but the resonant clarity of each syllable made it sound like a new language spoken for the first time. It was the *voice of a giant*.
>
> Keating stood, his mouth open. *He did not hear what the voice was saying. He heard the beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the meaning; he could accept anything, he would be led blindly anywhere.*
#11615 Perigo is a speech coach. He doesn't know he is in blatant disagreement with Rand:
http://www.lindsayperigo.com/premium-spoken-english
> Premium Spoken English—Confidence, Clarity, Coherence, Credibility
> "Speech maketh the man!" - Perigo
> Former radio and television announcer Lindsay Perigo's Premium Spoken English course is designed to restore well-spokenness to our social interaction.
> How we look and how we sound are two essential components of how we humans communicate. While millennials in particular are scrupulous as to the first—conscientiously attending gym, pounding pavements and counting calories—they have often neglected the second. Premium Spoken English (PSE) corrects the imbalance, recognising that the ability to speak in a clear and coherent manner is an invaluable asset for personal development, an indispensable tool in the cultivation of leadership and social skills, and an integral part of the pursuit of excellence.
> Perigo's course is not "elocution" intended to make people sound "plummy." Students are taught to speak with a well-modulated tone and clear articulation. Graduates derive an edge from the fact that educated-sounding speech conveys more authority, even if only subliminally, than uneducated. Well-spoken people have a head-start when it comes to being persuasive, credible and influential.
> Specifically, PSE teaches students to:
> * Limber up their tongues, jaws and lips to facilitate easy, clear articulation
> * Round their vowels
> * Sharpen their consonants
> * Add resonance to their voices
> * Avoid ugly glottal stops
> * Overcome "Kiwi-isms" such as the failure to observe el/al and ear/air distinctions
> * Inflect intelligently
> * Emphasise selectively
> * Ad lib fluently
> * Deliver prepared texts authoritatively
@#11616 Well that's all second-handed af.
>It’s also worth reading for its comparisons, with precise statistics, on life in Russia under the czars versus life after the Revolution. From 1876 to 1904 in Russia, 486 people were executed, including political actors – about 17 a year. From June 1918 to October 1919, more than 16,000 people were executed – about a thousand a month. In the years 1937 and 1938, half a million political prisoners were shot – about 20,000 a month. By contrast, the Spanish Inquisition, in the 80 years of its existence, saw an average of 10 heretics a month condemned to death.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272436/destructive-legacy-left-barbara-kay
https://mises.org/library/socialism-and-decivilization
https://mises.org/library/intellectuals-and-marketplace
China's censorship is fucking evil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-internet-censor.html
I agree with DF. Awful branding change. Slack sucks anyway tho. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/01/16/slack-bland-new-logo
Psychiatry and the medicalization of everyday life, example #892348: https://outline.com/wv22RX
alot of the times when i say "good luck" to someone, i pause and try to think of a phrase that means "i think you are able to put effort into doing what you are doing, and with skill and your own hard work, succeed" but theres nothing like that in a short phrase thats like "good luck", i wonder why. and if there is a phrase like that, plz tell me.
Daniel Eran Dilger explains Apple's Harmony of Interests With Its Customers
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/05/editorial-apple-note-sends-media-pundits-into-a-fit-of-histrionic-gibberish
>Apple and the planned anti-obsolescence of iPhones
>So, everything The Verge opened with was straight up false. But it kept going, claiming falsely that Tim Cook's letter to investors "can be summed up as 'too many good phones already out there.'"
>False again, that's strike three. That's the opposite of the statements Apple has been broadcasting for some time now. And it's just not true at all, if you define truth as being supported by significant, observable facts.
>Apple has devoted significant time at its last few media events from WWDC to Brooklyn outlining that its installed base of satisfied users is not the fearsome negative that analysts keep depicting it as. Instead, Apple views this as entirely desirable and actually works to make sure that existing iPhones remain usable and in operation for as long as possible. It's been doing this via iOS upgrades that have long supported iPhones for four years or more in an industry that can't manage to deliver Android updates for even 18 months.
>Five years ago, the Verge balked at the high price of iPhone 5s and offered recommendations for rival phones that aren't even supported today
>Apple's articulation of its "planned anti-obsolescence" blew peoples' minds because it's completely opposed to the cynically-cliche idea that Apple is working to sabotage existing devices with fatty iOS releases and battery shenanigans that make older phones feel like they need to be replaced, just to sell more iPhones.
>If that's the case, why has Apple been supporting five-year-old iPhones with every iOS release? In fact, a major driver of iOS 12 involved work to make it more efficient on older iPhones.
>Apple isn't having problems selling new iPhones the way that GoPro ran into with its cameras--facing a relatively small addressable market that grew content with the one action camera they bought for quite a long time.
>If Apple had the GoPro problem, it wouldn't be able to be introducing ever more expensive new models! Apple has been selling over 200 million iPhones every year since 2015, even as its product portfolio has trended higher into more expensive models. That means Apple is regularly upgrading a large percentage of its installed base.
…
>For Apple, the more existing iPhones it can keep in active use, the larger the addressable market it can count on to buy upgrades each year. Counterintuitively, rather than making its older phones break early, Apple wants to keep them working, so that even refurbished trade-ins and hand-me-downs keep serving someone with a potential to upgrade to a new iPhone someday in the future.
>Existing iPhone users are far less likely to leave iOS because Apple keeps working to make its platform an attractive place to stay. Unlike Android, Apple is cultivating a rich ecosystem, not just the barest compatibility API for running shared software across the device outputs of various Chinese factories.
https://mises.org/library/intellectuals-and-marketplace
> The Ever Changing Indictment
> Now, twenty-two years later, we address, once again, the question of the intellectual and the marketplace.
> This does not argue the futility of the question, however, but rather its central importance. In a sense, the Mont Pèlerin Society was founded to deal with the problem of the modern intellectual’s antipathy to capitalism and the harmful consequences of that antipathy. Most of us here have now lived long enough to understand the truth of Schumpeter’s assertion that “capitalism stands its trial before judges who have the sentence of death in their pockets.” The only thing that changes, Schumpeter wrote, are the particulars (1950: 144). That ever-changing indictment is presented, over and over again, by the intellectuals.
> In earlier times, they indicted capitalism for the immiseration of the proletariat, inevitable depressions, and the disappearance of the middle classes. Then, a little later, it was for imperialism and inevitable wars among the imperialist (capitalist) powers.
> In more recent decades, the indictment again changed, as earlier accusations became too obviously untenable.
> Capitalism was charged with being unable to compete with socialist societies in technological progress (Sputnik); with promoting automation, leading to catastrophic permanent unemployment; both with creating the consumer society and its piggish affluence and with proving incapable of extending such piggishness to the underclass; with “neo-colonialism”; with oppressing women and racial minorities; with spawning a meretricious popular culture; and with destroying the earth itself.5 As George Stigler remarked: “A constant stream of new criticism — such as the problem of homeless families — is being invented, discovered, or heavily advertised.”6 The question remains: what is at the root of this ever-changing, never-ending indictment? What accounts for the intellectuals’ unremitting hostility to the market economy?
> To throw light on these questions, we must go beyond the specific accusations themselves. Israel Kirzner writes (1992: 96):
>> Whatever the stated specific denunciations of capitalism, whatever the errors in economic analysis which are implicit in these denunciations, a thorough understanding of the anti-capitalist mentality cannot avoid ultimately coming to grips with the deep-seated prejudices and ingrained habits of thought which are, both consciously and unconsciously, responsible for the antipathy shown to the market system.
I use "good luck". Rand used "good premises". I don't think it's worth replacing. I got plenty of other changes/reforms that are higher priority.
I would avoid using "good luck" with a person I considered superstitious (I don't want someone to take it the wrong way).
Good or bad?
Capitalism needs it's checks and balances. If lobbying was weeded out of government then it would be a system that would work much better for everyone - not just the ultra rich.
That being said, some people (me and half the world) wouldn't have been able to start a business, in my case a fitness business, without being somewhat capitalistic. Entrepreneurial spirit drives innovation and purpose.
[URL removed by curi, I think this is a spam comment but it did say something about capitalism so I left the rest.]
Evil tweet.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fallible-ideas/0b_LiYy96aQ/DxJimli0GwAJ
I write about Bounded Discussions. plz comment.
Discussion and learning *methodology* is the primary determinant of success. But people hate and avoid talking about methodology.
It's so sad how DD has fallen so far. His thinking quality has gotten super unreliable. This tweet is dumb. People see that something is sabotaging error correction in a systematic way. There is, as DD says, some underlying thing, the "whatever is sabotaging error correction". So then what do people do? They *name it*. They call it something. What do they call it? A bias. And they try to figure out what type of bias it is, what its properties are, etc.
I disagree with a lots of ideas people have about what biases exist, how they function, what causes them, etc. No doubt DD does too. But that's just the specifics. The concept of bias – something causing systematic error – is fine and it's usually way better to use the standard term than call it a "whatever".
#11641
Early pieces of Yes or No Philosophy in KP. Opposed by LT, who is promoting this anti-Popper sentiment to an audience primarily of ppl who think of her and they as Popperian. Very gross.
what the fuck?
Steven Pinker got his status via competition with other intellectuals. What was the nature of the competition? Did they compete to have the best ideas, or to impress ppl better? In other words, is the public open to manipulation and if so is manipulation more effective than having a good idea? ez question…
Steven Pinker outcompeted other intellectuals at sounding smart to second-handed ppl and pulling their puppet strings. His high status position is an indication he's one of the worst and most corrupt intellectuals, not one of the better ones.
The same logic applies to many other people.
Ayn Rand "...if we wanted to save the world from communism its not necessary to go to war, all would one have to do is stop helping them economically, stop building bridges to them which have supported them for 50 years now. that country will collapse of its own evil if the semi free world did not constantly help them" from "Ayn Rand's First Appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, 1967" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBmViYDlrjU at 20:03. are there examples of free countries helping communist countries? i have not heard of communist countries being helped before, execpt for the USSR being helped during ww2 to fight the axis
#11649 yes. did you try looking it up?
#11650 nope. would be pretty easy to do tho, will try that now.
szasz on suicide
Thomas Szasz video on suicide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrWvA5N7MDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pezf7BWGP10
Sweden: Half of women in early 20’s feel unsafe, government ramps up “anti-hate” policing
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/01/sweden-half-of-women-in-early-20s-feel-unsafe-government-ramps-up-anti-hate-policing
it’s kinda amazing the media keeps cherrypicking examples they think they can win for rape and racism cases, then losing anyway. the white men keep turning out to be reasonable... #convingtoncatholic
#11678 the media just lies about stuff after the fact so getting stuff wrong isn't a big problem for them. six months from now the "Smirking White MAGA Teens incident" will be part of the Narrative forever
Scumbag Ben Shapiro:
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=59701
> Ben Shapiro, Who Rushed to Share Condemnation Of Covington Students, Slams CNN For Doing The Same
He was also awful in the past:
http://curi.us/2126-open-discussion#c10395
I've been streaming Vindictus at https://www.twitch.tv/curi42
“You must be a slave to philosophy in order to achieve true liberty.” – Epicurus
How many "depressed" people would stop being "depressed" if you gave them a billion dollars? But surely money isn't a treatment (nor are the mansions, caviar, parties and fancy cars they buy with it treatments) – and therefore they never had a real illness since it went away any cure. They just didn't like their life and when their life situation changed they were happier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzx2UWKvrM4
Article from 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/07/AR2007100701412.html
> At Metro's headquarters in downtown Washington, the lights pop on at 5:30 every weekday morning. Hours before the masses arrive for work, the building glows like a silent, hulking eight-story spaceship.
> Every evening, most employees go home at 5, but the lights stay on for three more hours, bright enough that passersby can see the artwork in individual offices. No "Starry Night," apparently.
> The electric bill was $1,775,194.96 last year: nearly $1,400 per employee.
> Workers worried about global warming -- or Metro's budget deficit -- might be inclined to turn the lights off when they're not needed, but they can't. Metro offices have no individual switches.
> Used to be, the lights were on all the time. About two decades ago, Metro installed a computer system to control them, which was considered energy-efficient at that time, officials said.
> Needless to say, no one thinks that anymore.
> "That wouldn't be efficient. That's obvious," said Jeff Niesz, business development director for Pepco Energy Services, which Metro has hired to reduce energy costs.
Lengthy description of video of Covington Catholic incident
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/581035/
> It turned out that the “four African American young men preaching about the Bible and oppression” had made a video, almost two hours in length, and while it does not fully exonerate the boys, it releases them from most of the serious charges.
> The full video reveals that there was indeed a Native American gathering at the Lincoln Memorial, that it took place shortly before the events of the viral video, and that during it the indigenous people had been the subject of a hideous tirade of racist insults and fantasies. But the white students weren’t the people hurling this garbage at them—the young “African American men preaching about the Bible and oppression” were doing it. For they were Black Hebrew Israelites, a tiny sect of people who believe they are the direct descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel, and whose beliefs on a variety of social issues make Mike Pence look like Ram Dass.
> The full video reveals that these kids had wandered into a Tom Wolfe novel and had no idea how to get out of it.
> It seems that the Black Hebrew Israelites had come to the Lincoln Memorial with the express intention of verbally confronting the Native Americans, some of whom had already begun to gather as the video begins, many of them in Native dress. The Black Hebrew Israelites’ leader begins shouting at them: “Before you started worshipping totem poles, you was worshipping the true and living God. Before you became an idol worshipper, you was worshipping the true and living God. This is the reason why this land was taken away from you! Because you worship everything except the most high. You worship every creation except the Creator—and that’s what we are here to tell you to do.”
> A young man in Native dress approaches them and gestures toward the group gathering for its event. But the Black Hebrew Israelites mix things up by throwing some dead-white-male jargon at him—they are there because of “freedom of the speech ” and “freedom of religion” and all that. The young man backs away. “You have to come away from your religious philosophy,” one Black Hebrew Israelite yells after him.
> A few more people in Native costume gather, clearly stunned by his tirade. “You’re not supposed to worship eagles, buffalos, rams, all types of animals,” he calls out to them.
> A Native woman approaches the group and begins to challenge its ideology, which prompts the pastor’s coreligionists to thumb their Bibles for relevant passages from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. He asks the woman why she’s angry, and when she tells him that she’s isn’t angry, he responds, “You’re not angry? You’re not angry? I’m making you angry.” The two start yelling at each other, and the speaker calls out to his associates for Isaiah 58:1.
> Another woman comes up to him yelling, “The Bible says a lot of shit. The Bible says a lot of shit. The Bible says a lot of shit.”
> Black Hebrew Israelites believe, among other things, that they are indigenous people. The preacher tells a woman that “you’re not an Indian. Indian means ‘savage.’ ”
> Men begin to gather with concerned looks on their face. “Indian does not mean ‘savage,’ ” one of them says reasonably. “I don’t know where you got that from.” At this point, most of the Native Americans who have surrounded—“mobbed”?—the preacher have realized what the boys will prove too young and too unsophisticated to understand: that the “four young African American men preaching about the Bible and oppression” are the kind of people you sometimes encounter in big cities, and the best thing to do is steer a wide berth. Most of them leave, exchanging amused glances at one another. But one of the women stays put, and she begins making excellent points, some of which stump the Black Hebrew Israelites.
> It was heating up to be an intersectional showdown for the ages, with the Black Hebrew Israelites going head to head with the Native Americans. But when the Native woman talks about the importance of peace, the preacher finally locates a unifying theme, one more powerful than anything to be found in Proverbs, Isaiah, or Ecclesiastes.
> He tells her there won’t be any food stamps coming to reservations or the projects because of the shutdown, and then gesturing to his left, he says, “It’s because of these … bastards over there, wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ hats.”
> The camera turns to capture five white teenage boys, one of whom is wearing a maga hat. They are standing at a respectful distance, with their hands in their pockets, listening to this exchange with expressions of curiosity. They are there to meet their bus home.
> “Why you not angry at them?” the Black Hebrew Israelite asks the Native American woman angrily.
> “That’s right,” says one of his coreligionists, “little corny-ass Billy Bob.”
> The boys don’t respond to this provocation, although one of them smiles at being called a corny-ass Billy Bob. They seem interested in what is going on, in the way that it’s interesting to listen to Hyde Park speakers.
> The Native woman isn’t interested in attacking the white boys. She keeps up her argument with the Black Hebrew Israelites, and her line of reasoning is so powerful that it throws the preacher off track.
> “She trying to be distracting,” one of the men says. “She trying to stop the flow.”
> “You’re out of order,” the preacher tells the woman. “Where’s your husband? Let me speak to him.”
> By now the gathering of Covington Catholic boys watching the scene has grown to 10 or 12, some of them in maga hats. They are about 15 feet away, and while the conflict is surely beyond their range of experience, it also includes biblical explication, something with which they are familiar.
> “Don’t stand to the side and mock,” the speaker orders the boys, who do not appear to be mocking him. “Bring y’all cracker ass up here and make a statement.” The boys turn away and begin walking back to the larger group.
> “You little dirty-ass crackers. Your day coming. Your day coming … ’cause your little dusty asses wouldn’t walk down a street in a black neighborhood, and go walk up on nobody playing no games like that,” he calls after them, but they take no notice. “Yeah, ’cause I will stick my foot in your little ass.”
> By now the Native American ceremony has begun, and the attendees have linked arms and begun dancing. “They just don’t know who they are,” one of the Black Hebrew Israelites says remorsefully to another. Earlier he had called them “Uncle Tomahawks.”
> The boys have given up on him. They have joined the larger group, and together they all begin doing some school-spirit cheers; they hum the stadium-staple opening bars of “Seven Nation Army” and jump up and down, dancing to it. Later they would say that their chaperones had allowed them to sing school-spirit songs instead of engaging with the slurs hurled by the Black Hebrew Israelites.
> And then you hear the sound of drumming, and Phillips appears with several other drummers, all of them headed to the large group of boys. “Here come Gad!” says the Black Hebrew Israelite excitedly. His religion teaches that Native Americans are one of the 12 tribes of Israel, Gad. Apparently he thinks that his relentless attack on the Native Americans has led some of them to confront the white people. “Here come Gad!” he says again, but he is soon disappointed. “Gad not playing! He came to the rescue!” he says in disgust.
> The drummers head to the boys, and keep playing. The boys, who had been jumping to “Seven Nation Army,” start jumping in time to the drumming. Phillips takes a step toward the group, and then—as it parts to admit him—he walks into it. Here the Black Hebrew Israelites’ footage is of no help, as Phillips has moved into the crowd.
> Now we may look at the viral video—or, as a CNN chyron called it, the “heartbreaking viral video”—as well as the many others that have since emerged, none of which has so far revealed the boys to be chanting anything about a wall or about making America great again. Phillips keeps walking into the group, they make room for him, and then—the smiling boy. One of the videos shows him doing something unusual. At one point he turns away from Phillips, stops smiling, and locks eyes with another kid, shaking his head, seeming to say the word no. This is consistent with the long, harrowing statement that the smiling boy would release at the end of the weekend, in which he offered an explanation for his actions that is consistent with the video footage that has so far emerged, and revealed what happened to him in the 48 hours after Americans set to work doxing him and threatening his family with violence. As of this writing, it seems that the smiling boy, Nick Sandmann, is the one person who tried to be respectful of Phillips and who encouraged the other boys to do the same. And for this, he has been by far the most harshly treated of any of the people involved in the afternoon’s mess at the Lincoln Memorial.
> But rationalization is an automatic process. That is, one’s subconscious feeds one the rationalization, and that’s not culpable because not volitional.
That's Harry Binswanger rejecting moral responsibility for most of what people think and do (because the subconscious has such a large role in life).
Why Latinos Are Converting to Islam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOdu-lXCPFI
#11714 Where did you get that quote? Where can I read more of the context?
>“Russell Means was attracting a lot of support at the state LP conventions. I was horrified and assumed that this was a result of a lack of knowledge regarding his history. I researched the subject and released a booklet entitled Do the Ends Justify Means? The booklet caused an immediate reaction. Some of Ron Paul's top supporters contacted me and asked for more booklets. In the meantime I had expanded it greatly with more and more evidence. Everything was footnoted and documented. Hundreds of copies were purchased by Ron's supporters and distributed at state conventions. Up until the release of the booklet, Ron and Russell were running neck to neck. After the release of the booklet Ron started gaining most of the delegate support.
>Means countercharged that I had misquoted an article of his which appeared in the quasi-Marxist Mother Jones magazine entitled "For the World to Live the West Must Die." Mother Jones magazine, by coincidence, was just a few blocks from my bookstore in San Francisco. I went to them and got permission to reprint the article exactly as written. This was then distributed to all the Seattle delegates along with a short note saying: "Russell Means contends I have misquoted him. Here is the entire article as it appeared. Judge for yourself." Every delegate got a copy and Russell lost the nomination in a landslide.”
Is Objectivism a Cult? (Part Two)
https://www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/obj_cult2.html
via Instapaper
>“Rothbard's paper discussed how religious beliefs effect political beliefs. And while I would agree with him in general, his specific examples were filled with errors. It was quite clear that he had no concept how the various religious groups differed with each other. While over the years I had become disillusioned with Rothbard, having seen him in action making accusations and constantly splitting the party, this paper was almost a Damascus Road experience for me. I had, up until, this time respected his scholarship while becoming highly critical of his political strategies. Now as I read about a subject on which I was very informed it dawned on me that his scholarship wasn't that hot either. This fact has been confirmed to be by specialists in many different fields. The Rothbard fraud was built on the fact that people who knew he was wrong in one field simply assumed he was right in all the other fields which they didn't know. Thus legal experts accepted his views of history while historians didn't but were willing to trust him when it came to legal theory.”
Is Objectivism a Cult? (Part Two)
https://www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/obj_cult2.html
via Instapaper
> “Whites are to own up to the fact that regardless of their intentions, beliefs, behaviors or status in life, they are elite participants in a racist system that oppresses “people of color,” and are so merely because they are white.
> But discrimination on the basis of skin color has been outlawed in this country for more than 60 years. One might reasonably ask, “WTF is white privilege”?
> Here’s my politically incorrect answer: White privilege is the gift of being the only racial/ethnic group on the planet which it is okay to single out for abuse.
> Indeed, such abuse is obligatory for all who regard themselves as “woke,” and who aspire to promote “social justice.”
> This is a category that includes the media, the popular culture, the educational system, and such shapers of public opinion as Don Lemon; Joy Ann Reid; Joy Behar; Brian Stelter; Rachel Maddow; the editorial boards and reporters of the New York Times and the Washington Post; and the Democratic Party.”
David Horowitz: 'White Privilege' Is a Racist Idea | Breitbart
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/24/david-horowitz-white-privilege-is-a-racist-idea/
via Instapaper
> “Major media sources including Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal previously spent much of last year promoting the idea that iPhone X was too expensive, an idea that was empirically proven to be false by real-world data. And yet today they are again boldly repeating the same false information about the latest batch of iPhones.
> This time, they are taking care to contradict their own narratives with meek observations of reality, so that their attention-getting sensationalist headlines are hedged by later paragraphs of sheepish acknowledgments that effectively admit that the entire premise of their articles is just tabloid-esque filler. We know why: these articles aren't trying to establish a pattern of accurate, reliable reporting; they're merely fluff content blown out to induce outrage in order to drive the social media engagement that supports their surveillance advertising clickbait revenue model.”
Apple in 2019 and the case of the expensive iPhone
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/24/apple-in-2019-and-the-case-of-the-expensive-iphone
via Instapaper
Melee tournaments are a hassle:
https://www.gofundme.com/buying-ed039s-tv-collection-for-a-new-uk-major
> #11714 Where did you get that quote? Where can I read more of the context?
HB sends stuff out to former members. This email had the subject line: "Monthly Enticement: Dealing with objections with limited time" and is from jan 24 or 25 depending on time zone. Here's a copy/paste of the html email, with some formatting lost but the blockquoting added back in:
---
Re: Ian McClure’s post 25137 of 1/10/19
Mr. McClure sent me this question in a private email, and I asked him to post it, so I could post my answer. While I agree with Jim Allard’s and Adam Reed’s replies on this topic, I want to clarify what evasion is.
> The topic was whether it’s a form of evasion to ignore objections to an Objectivist position or argument when you can reasonably surmise that they will not work out, even though you don’t have an actual refutation at that time. One example that came up was if someone claimed that lower taxes don’t work and backed that up with a citation.
>Our conclusion was that the criterion to use is coherence with the rest of our knowledge. . . . Do you think this is right?
No, the answer to the objection goes much deeper. Evasion is the unjustified ejection of material from conscious awareness. One tells oneself that the nascent thought is either false or unreal or unimportant, when one knows or senses that this isn’t true,. Evasion is a form of lying to oneself.
On the other hand, deciding consciously and honestly not to pursue a line of thought is not evasion, even if that decision is mistaken. The issue is: is the judgment conscious? If one consciously thinks, “I’m not going to think about this for the following reason . . .” that’s not evasion–even if that decision is mistaken. Evasion is slamming your mind shut. Consciously prioritizing one’s mental efforts is not that; it is in fact a virtue.
If one decides consciously and honestly not to spend time on the objection, one remains open to thinking about it on a future occasion, should it arise. But to evade it is to close the book on it (without a good reason).
Now in naming a reason to not spend time on an objection, it is possible to rationalize. One might think, “I can’t waste time fighting off everything that anyone throws at me.” That’s a rationalization–a straw man. But rationalization is an automatic process. That is, one’s subconscious feeds one the rationalization, and that’s not culpable because not volitional.
But how you deal with the rationalization is volitional. You can be aware that a rationalization “doesn’t sit right” with you. But the main thing is that a rational, non-evading person is willing to look at anything—he’s not permanently refusing to face anything—even whether a thought he accepted was in fact a rationalization. He is fine with: “Yeah, last week I said to myself ‘X’ and I went with that, but looking back, ‘X’ doesn’t make sense.”
Evasion, in summary, is the denial of the reality of something you know or sense is real. The rational policy does not concern the particular path you take, mentally, but that you are aware of the path you take, of your reason for taking it, and of the possibility of other paths being taken.
NOW, on the concrete about taxes. The objection is right and you guys are wrong. Had you pursued it, looking at both “sides,” you probably could have found the reason. (The reason is that spending—not any particular means of extracting the funds for it—is what matters.)
And that exemplifies why the best attitude is: if it isn’t a sophistical objection, there’s something positive to be learned in pursuing it, trying to put yourself in the objector’s shoes, and looking at the whole context.
There is a value to be gained, but that may or may not outweigh the costs in time and forgone other pursuits.
Funny but also actually important. Corporate censorship like this to have a "clean image" matters. It gives people a misleading impression about what the world is like.
wrote a reddit comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/aynrand/comments/ajvdzp/moral_grayness/eezabdz/
> I feel damn good being morally pure as possible and know how much of an amazing person I am for having literally no price that I would sell-out for.
Morality is practical, which this description neglects.
> Real life example: I could have legally stole 100k from a bank with no repercussions other than a burnt bridge and slightly hurt credit score, yet I did not.
Gifting 100k to a bank instead of using it to improve your life or your children's life is, in general, immoral. Morality is about making your own life better in a practical way, not about sacrificing yourself to help others. Banks are sophisticated counterparties which are responsible for the contracts they sign. Legally getting money from a bank is, in general, not stealing and not bad.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Objectivism/comments/afkv1k/where_do_i_start/edzk2ee/
I debated a bit about doing 100k favors for banks being moral and Objectivist(!?)
https://www.reddit.com/r/aynrand/comments/ajvdzp/moral_grayness/
#11728
The guy explained the situation:
> It's legal in that I wouldn't have gone to jail. It's theft because the money isn't mine. I would have stolen it. Long story short, I know the vice president of a bank and he put my house on an unsecured note temporarily because we didn't have enough time to do it officially. I could have gotten the house for free but burned the bridge and hurt my credit score. It would have been technically legal, but immoral in my opinion. Do you still hold that it would have been moral and ethical to steal? Just because something is legal doesn't necessarily make it ethical and vice versa.
So...he is contractually obligated to pay the $100k. He wouldn't go to jail for not paying, but that would also be true if the note was secured by the house. The only difference is, instead of taking the house they would have to get a judgment and then collect against other assets or garnish his pay. The only way he'd get out of paying is by declaring bankruptcy and then *actually being bankrupt*.
Thinking he could "just take" an unsecured loan and not pay it back with the only consequence being a reduction in credit score is incredibly stupid on his part.
#11728 i repledt
> It's legal in that I wouldn't have gone to jail
You are confused about the definition of "legal."
Legal means "permitted by law" (source: Google, and also i am a lawyer).
Imprisonment is a *punishment* for *certain* violations of the law. But there are all sorts of ways violations of the law get handled, from imprisonment to fines to money damages.
What you are describing with the note is a contractual situation. You are absolutely supposed to fulfill your contractual obligations under the law. Violating your contractual obligations is not accepted by the state's laws -- including the contract enforcement mechanism -- that you implicitly accept when you sign a contract.
When you agree to a contract, you are agreeing to accept the context in which that contract exists. This includes the enforcement mechanisms. Typically, the remedy for breach of contract is money damages. This can include stuff like wage garnishment or collection against other assets. These mechanisms involve the use of state force to seize your wealth due to your violation of the contract. This force is invoked against people -- and rightly so -- when they have violated the law.
Re: #11730 the top of this post should say "I replied:", weird typo there
Date: January 26th, 2019 2:25 PM
Author: Hula Hula Boys (Dr. Thunder)
it's a sign of the times.
more than almost anything, people innately crave an IDENTITY. this is why young people with no direction and few friends often turn to gangs, cults, and terrorist groups -- because they desperately want to BELONG to something.
people also deeply crave reassurance of their own SUPERIORITY and that they are DOING THE RIGHT THING with their lives.
in 2019 America, liberalism is a cult that reassures its members of their MORAL, INTELLECTUAL, and SOCIAL superiority.
and you can easily signal your membership to this ENLIGHTENED GROUP via SOCIAL MEDIA, where numerous others can virtue signal their own memberships to this ELITE CLUB and reassure each other of their SUPERIORITY.
members of this club do not deign to besmirch themselves by mingling with those of lesser status and opposing beliefs, lest they be judged for their company. additionally, they do not want to hear anything that may question the legitimacy of the thought processes they have fully adopted.
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4187248&forum_id=2#37667694
#11734 forgot to quote this, my bad
The Age of Rage - Law & Liberty
https://www.lawliberty.org/2017/03/15/the-age-of-rage/
via Instapaper
> “The judge did not in the slightest exonerate the rapist in this case. We “must not put responsibility on them [women] rather than the perpetrator,” she explicitly said. She merely made the sociological generalization that drunkenness made women more vulnerable to rapists (and no doubt other predators), and that they should therefore be cautious about being drunk in public.
> If the judge had said that women who were drunk were more vulnerable to robbery, it’s hard to imagine her being accused of implying lesser culpability on the part of the robber. She would probably have been taken to mean that a drunk woman was less able than a sober one to defend herself, or run away from a threat to her safety—that being drunk rendered her more likely to be picked upon by a potential robber. That would have struck people as so obvious as to not need saying.
> Everyone accepts that it is no excuse for a burglar that a house’s front door has been left open; moreover, a householder has a perfect right to leave his front door open if he so wishes. But equally no one would say that a householder who does not want to be burgled acts prudently if he insists upon exercising his perfect right (a much more perfect right than that to get drunk in public) to leave his front door open.
> Why, then, did the judge’s remarks cause such outrage? I think it was largely because outrage is so enjoyable, and therefore people are particularly prepared to be outraged. They are actually looking for pretexts to indulge in their favorite emotion.
> But why should outrage be such a pleasant emotion?
> Not only does it assure him who feels it that he is a good person, but—so long as it lasts, which can be for a long time—it answers, or at least buries, the deep existential questions of what life is for, and how it should be lived.”
Someone took notes on BoI:
https://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2015/02/beginning-of-infinity-table-of-contents.html
Note there are links to additional notes for some sections.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/42751/high-school-students-disqualified-debate-after-ashe-schow
> High School Students Disqualified From Debate After Quoting Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson
> A pair of Utah high school seniors lost a debate round because they read quotes from Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, who were deemed “white supremacists” by the judge.
> Layton High School senior Michael Moreno and his debate partner, whom The Daily Wire will not name, were participating in a round with a topic relating to immigration. The specific topic of the round was “Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce restrictions on legal immigration.” Moreno and his partner were arguing in the negative, meaning they were arguing against the other team’s plan to reduce restrictions on legal immigration.
> Instead of arguing in the affirmative, Moreno told The Daily Wire, the other team read a “slam poem” about how terms like “legal” and “illegal” are dehumanizing. In documents provided to The Daily Wire, these students quoted from numerous professors critical of assimilation and the notion that immigrants must act American to live “the good life.”
> “Promises of citizenship and the ‘good life’ force non-normative subjects into a slow death, working towards the unbelievable goal of the American dream," the students said.
> Moreno and his partner responded by arguing the other team did not actually articulate a position. The structure of this debate allowed for the affirmative to propose a plan and then have the negative argue against that plan. Since the other team did not propose solutions to reduce restrictions on legal immigration, Moreno said, his team had nothing to argue against and claimed this was unfair.
> “We argue that this is bad for debate as it's unfair to us, that we came here as the negative to argue against substantially reducing restrictions on legal immigration, not their slam poem,” Moreno said.
> The other team, during the cross-examination section of the debate, said Moreno and his partner could not talk about fairness because they were “white males.” Moreno said he then speed-read through quotes from Shapiro and Peterson pertaining to identity politics. He specifically cited comments Shapiro made at the University of Connecticut on January 24, 2018, where he said: ‘Evil things are still evil even if I’m a white well-off religious man and good things are still good even if I’m a white well-off religious man …. My identity has nothing to do with what is right or wrong.”
> Moreno also quoted Peterson saying, “It goes along with this idea of class guilt; Because your group membership is the most important thing, if your group at some point in the past did something reprehensible – which of course every group has done – then you’re de facto responsible for that.”
> At this point, Moreno began recording the debate, and posted the video to YouTube with the faces of the other debaters blurred. The judge ended the round after Moreno’s quotes from Shapiro and Peterson, as the other team continued to affirm that they had no standing as “white males.”
> The judge, who before the round told each team not to be racist, claimed Moreno and his partner’s “evidence” and “saying things like ‘your identity doesn’t matter'” were actually racist. The judge then joined the opposing team in claiming it was Moreno and his partner who turned the debate into a discussion of “identity politics” and claimed Shapiro and Peterson are “racists.”
> After another 10 minutes of this kind of back and forth, the judge said Moreno and his partner lost the round.
> Moreno then spoke to the tournament directors, who both work for Arizona State University (The Daily Wire will not name them as they did not respond to a request for comment). These two affirmed that the team has a “legitimate gripe” over their treatment, but that Moreno and his partner were there to debate for that particular judge, and their arguments failed to persuade him, whether he was impartial or not.
> “I think you are totally right that [the judge] overstepped a little bit by stopping the debate and deciding, but I also think it’s incredibly obvious that – regardless of how many ways you try to couch this argument in front of that judge – the bar for the other team to respond to it was going to be so low that the argumentative content that you chose, the strategy that you chose, for that judge and for his stated philosophy, was a poor choice on your part,” one of the directors tells Moreno in the video.
> Neither of the directors responded to a Daily Wire inquiry about what is going on in the debate community that allows one side to just yell “racism” and end the debate.
mind = factory. mostly automated (at least from CEO’s perspective. nvm if the work stations have workers or robots)
consciousness = a manager who can go around to one work station at a time and tell them to change stuff or watch what they’re doing
Ben Shapiro is a socialism-sympathizing idiot.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/satans-party-dem-virginia-del-kathy-tran-submitted-bill-to-save-cankerworms-on-same-day-as-late-term-abortion-bill/
> Virginia Democrat Kathy Tran Submitted Bill to Save Cankerworms on Same Day She Submitted Late-Term Abortion Bill
a 40 week old fetus can be killed, but cankerworms should be protected!?
Why Democratic Socialists Support Totalitarian Regimes
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/why-democratic-socialists-support-totalitarian-regimes/
via Instapaper
> “The last straw for me was personal. I had written four reports on Nicaragua from 1983 to 1987 for the New Republic and other papers and reported on how within a few years of my first visit the country had taken a darker turn. After a trip to interview some of the thousands of refugees who had fled the country in Costa Rica and Honduras, I reported on the types of abuses of power taken against those citizens who differed with the revolutionary agenda. Later in 1987, I traveled through Central America, including Nicaragua, with the late New York City mayor Ed Koch , who had put together a small delegation of representative New Yorkers to assess the situation in the different countries.
> All of this activity made me a target of the democratic socialists. Howe was so upset about my trips and my writing about events in Nicaragua that he convened a small meeting of top editors from Dissent as well as some DSA leaders, who one by one condemned me for what I had written. The educator Deborah Meier was the angriest. "You may be right about what you say about the Sandinistas," she told me, "but while they are under attack by the American empire, we have a responsibility to extend our solidarity to them." The whole meeting appeared to me as a copy of the "criticism and self-criticism" sessions of the Chinese Communists during the Cultural Revolution. As Howe concluded the meeting, he told me, "We have agreed that you cannot write on Nicaragua in the pages of Dissent." My dissent, obviously, was too much for Dissent to bear!”
Unusually stupid comment from patio11 (the fact people aren't dying does not indicate that regulation is the cause. there are other plausible causes like the companies wanting to stay in business and also not wanting to be murderers. lots of dead passengers would put them out of business and would be morally unacceptable to most business leaders just like it is to most people in all positions in our society. there are incentives there other than regulation. surely most people and most companies care more other aspects of dead bodies besides regulatory headaches.)
Most crit rat's on twitter don't reply to or retweet ET. They're silently judging the source but not exposing their judgments to criticism. That's dishonest. And so lacking in guts. Esp. for a crit rat.
> Most crit rat's on twitter don't reply to or retweet ET. They're silently judging the source but not exposing their judgments to criticism. That's dishonest. And so lacking in guts. Esp. for a crit rat.
Ask them about it directly.
Jordan Peterson is now selling a *private* discussion forum bundled with some other things.
https://www.jbpdaily.com
There is no info about the forum. What software does it use? What does it look like? How does moderation work? Absolutely zero info is available for prospective customers. There's no FAQ. It's very bad marketing material.
The only info about the forum is that unspecified guests will come do AMAs at unspecified times. AMAs are not discussion – you don't actually get to have a discussion with the guest.
The marketing page tells you the price of some of the things which are thrown in for free, but does *not* tell you the price of signing up for the forum. That is hidden and only visible within the actual signup process. The price is $10/month or $100/yr.
I presume JP will participate little or none on the discussion forum.
Is there a plan to make it a good forum? Any way to shape the culture or any smart design choices or whatever? No info is given. Presumably not.
So: looks really quite shitty and like a half-assed money grab. I do not plan to try it.
Marital fighting is funny?
>At the same time they were meddling with the clocks, the French instituted a decimal calendar. This lasted a little longer, since it was forced by nature to make some concessions to real life. A year has 365 and a quarter days, give or take an hour, and that cannot be changed. What they did change was to make each month 30 days with the remaining five (or six) being extra days, not a part of any month.
>Even this would have likely survived, except that the revolutionaries also insisted that each month have three weeks of ten days each. There were two problems with that. Firstly, it destroyed the seven-day week that included a religious Sabbath day. Secondly, workers still only got one day off per week. These were both intentional, and the calendar was part of a plan to destroy religion and make workers more productive. The ten-day week fell out of favor immediately, and the whole calendar was abolished in 1805.
The Metric System Is Anti-Human Central Planning
http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/06/metric-system-anti-human-central-planning/
via Instapaper
People overrate licking cooking spoons, pots, etc, b/c that's their first taste of the food which is generally better than later tastes.
> People overrate licking cooking spoons, pots, etc, b/c that's their first taste of the food which is generally better than later tastes.
Why do you call that overrating if that first taste really does taste better?
> Marital fighting is funny?
its interesting to see how the culture has changed and how it hasn't. Wikipedia entry on the old TV show The Honeymooners:
>Alice (née Alice Gibson), played in the first nine skits, starting in 1951, and ending in January 1952[9] by Pert Kelton, and by Audrey Meadows for all remaining episodes, is Ralph's patient but sharp-tongued wife of roughly 12 years. She often finds herself bearing the brunt of Ralph's insults, which she returns with biting sarcasm. She is levelheaded, in contrast to Ralph's pattern of inventing various schemes to enhance his wealth or his pride. In each case, she sees the current one's un-workability, but he becomes angry and ignores her advice (and by the end of the episode, her misgivings almost always are proven to have been well-founded). She has grown accustomed to his empty threats—such as "One of these days, POW!!! Right in the kisser!", "BANG, ZOOM!" or "You're going to the moon!"—to which she usually replies, "Ahhh, shaddap!" Alice studied to be a secretary before her marriage and works briefly in that capacity when Ralph is laid off. Wilma Flintstone is based on Alice Kramden.[8]
violent threats by a man to a woman -- regardless of being in the context of a loudmouth who never actually does anything violent -- would never fly now (as comedy, at least!). But marital fighting itself still totally okay.
>> People overrate licking cooking spoons, pots, etc, b/c that's their first taste of the food which is generally better than later tastes.
> Why do you call that overrating if that first taste really does taste better?
Did you try to figure out why? Did you get stuck on some part of that project?
Are you looking to be handed the answer without much thought? What for? You won't learn much that way.
http://stonetoss.com/comic/balanced-breakfast/
https://twitter.com/thecalebbond/status/1091326743292534785?s=21
Great cross examination of a leftie lying about Venezuela sanctions
Why Amazon banning powerpoint in favor of memos
https://slab.com/blog/jeff-bezos-writing-management-strategy
> “The reason writing a good 4 page memo is harder than 'writing' a 20 page powerpoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related,” he writes, “Powerpoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas.”
> Each memo is designed to be a full logical argument, complete with a reflexive defense of potential objections:
>
> - The point or the objective being discussed
>
> - How teams have attempted to handle this issue in the past
>
> - How the presenter's attempt differs
>
> - Why Amazon should care (i.e., what's in it for the company?)
https://abc7chicago.com/5127392/
> Supporters say people could use the extra cash to cover unexpected emergencies, increase their savings and improve their *health*.
Emphasis added. Chicago wants to give people $1000/month for free at taxpayer expense. I think it's notable that *health* was used as a justification for this. Another example of the medicalization of everyday life and of moral issues.
https://abc7chicago.com/5127392/
>> Supporters say people could use the extra cash to cover unexpected emergencies, increase their savings and improve their *health*.
> Emphasis added. Chicago wants to give people $1000/month for free at taxpayer expense. I think it's notable that *health* was used as a justification for this. Another example of the medicalization of everyday life and of moral issues.
good call.
i think it's interesting that they want to give money to increase people's savings. they're really rejecting the old frame of means-testing to try to help only the "truly needy" or whatever. it's just a pure cash grab from the victim-taxpayers now. maybe some of the taxpayers would like to have more savings too? fuck them, i guess! :\
an overwatch caster just said “the ray of hope is gone” which is cliche. the co-caster said “it’s gone”. he played the role of an echo. taking what the other guy said and agreeing/amplifying is really really common and doesn’t add anything rationally, it’s just social stuff. and everyone does it with everyone. they all play the echo role a lot.
it reminds me of improv. i don't know much about improv but i know you're generally not supposed to contradict the other ppl doing the scene. whatever they make up, you go along with it and find a way to work with it, continue it, help it along. that's how people do conversations. that's standard social dynamics. it's fucking everywhere.
Seagull was an early, popular Overwatch streamer. he played pro, and was good, but chose to quit to stream more. he is streaming Apex Legends today, the new pubg/fortnite copy from EA that spent a lot of marketing dollars getting streamers/youtubers/internet-people to promote the game.
seagull is a smart person. at least he was. he talks like an idiot now. i watched him a little in the past and it was different. he changed to be more social as a streamer. (I remember Trump, the hearthstone streamer, actually trying to learn to be more socially normal while streaming, and getting tips from his viewers, and trying to please them and stuff. He was really nerdy in terms of his manner, and he's asian, so ppl thought he was smart and good at the game and overestimated his skill.)
seagull was playing smarter than his teammates but still pretty dumb. the game is slow paced, lots of waiting and not doing much, just like prior games in the genre. and it's a big FFA, aimed at being casual. it encourages ppl to play dumb.
seagull and his teammates kept complaining about luck, like whenever they died early game they blamed other ppl getting better weapons/armor drops. late game deaths were generally blamed on it being an FFA and there being multiple enemies from different directions. but they didn't try to recognize when they were outgunned and retreat to find more guns, they would just fight, die, and whine.
the stream provided tons of social interaction examples. they were chatting more than playing (i mean they were playing the whole time, but not actual combat, most of it was ez/slow/boring, just walking around and picking up gear and waiting for the play area to shrink.)
one interaction in particular went something like this. these are not exact words, just the ballpark:
guy: where do you live, seagull?
seagull: with my girlfriend.
some brief back and forth chat where the guy got more details. i think he asked if seagull had a house. seagull is moving soon but it's still just an apartment.
then referring to the first part of the conversation:
guy: it felt like you said "i live with my girlfriend, idiot"
["it felt like you said" wasn't said directly but i forget how he put it. "idiot" at the end of the sentence, after a comma, is an exact quote]
seagull: i'm sorry, i was just unsure what was going on, the question caught me off guard, so i just tried to answer it. i wasn't trying to be a jerk, you're awesome.
guy: i was trying to be a good friend and learn more about my buddy and get to know him more.
---
all this over a question and then a direct answer. why? what's the subtext?
it's like "i was super brave to ask you a question. i put myself on the line. what if it was a bad question? what if i looked dumb? i took a risk so we could get to know each other and you didn't support me. you just answered the question like it was a short, simple, easy question and you didn't reassure and encourage me. so now i don't really want to ask you a question ever again. i felt like an idiot that my question had a simple answer that i didn't know, and that you didn't give me a good excuse for not having already known the answer and needing to ask. asking questions shows weakness – that i didn't know the answer already – and you didn't do your part in making it ok, in softening that and praising me for the question and making things really friendly."
and seagull was apologetic about this, didn't disagree. and then the guy kept at it even after seagull already acknowledged the justice of the cause *and* did some reassuring and friendly fluff. the guy kept pushing and aggressively explained how he had been doing something friendly which is praiseworthy.
they're so immoral, anti-intellectual, and focussed on conformity to social norms.
btw a social rule i've observed is "never defend yourself". these ppl flame each other all the time and aggression is fine but contradicting ppl is not ok, and being hurt is not ok, so you can almost never defend yourself. all of the flames are half-serious and ambiguous – maybe it's a joke, maybe it's sarcastic, etc. that also prevents defending – if you get all serious mode about a joke ppl will just say you can't take a joke, will abandon that particular flame as something they didn't actually mean, and will think you're revealing that you can be hurt, and how, and that you wouldn't defend yourself unless you were actually hurt (and even then probably not, better to make a show of fake strength, so defending implies either being really bad at social interaction or being really hurt).
When you defend against a flame, you are acting like the person meant the flame. Better to just pretend they didn't mean. View reality a particular way (a framing) that's good for you and stick to it no matter what and lots of weaker ppl will see things your way. Hell, most of the time ppl flame you in social semi-jokey ways they don't even know if they mean it, they don't think about that, and they're partly testing you, so if you assume they don't mean it then they will often decide they didn't find a weak point and the flame was wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur#Escape_to_Australia_and_Medal_of_Honor
>In February 1942, as Japanese forces tightened their grip on the Philippines, MacArthur was ordered by President Roosevelt to relocate to Australia.[148] On the night of 12 March 1942, MacArthur and a select group that included his wife Jean, son Arthur, and Arthur's Cantonese amah, Ah Cheu, fled Corregidor. MacArthur and his party reached Del Monte Airfield on Mindanao, where B-17s picked them up, and flew them to Australia.[149][150] His famous speech, in which he said, "I came through and I shall return", was first made on Terowie railway station in South Australia, on 20 March.[151] Washington asked MacArthur to amend his promise to "We shall return". He ignored the request.[152]
Lefties talk about "emotional labor" a lot. Seems like a bad concept to me
Labor involves performing work -- doing something in the world. Having an emotional experience isn't performing work
Why is Ted Cruz praising lies and lip service? He's made himself a dupe of such obvious, superficial faking.
Libertarian Survey Results
https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/what-do-libertarians-believe-about-non-aggression-principle
>But one always-fascinating source is Liberty’s decennial readers’ survey (No, not that Liberty, and not that one either. This one). First in 1988, then again in 1999, and finally in 2008 (before the magazine’s demise as a print periodical in 2010), Liberty published the results of an extensive survey of their readers and other libertarians. In each of these surveys, respondents were asked to provide demographic information, name their intellectual influences, say whether they agreed or disagreed with various moral, political, and religious beliefs, and analyze a handful of applied moral problems.
> For instance, in 1988, the survey asked a pair of questions about a scenario labeled, “How much is that baby in the window?”
>> Suppose that a parent of a new-born baby places it in front of a picture window and sells tickets to anyone wishing to observe the child starve to death. He makes it clear that the child is free to leave at any time, but that anyone crossing his lawn will be viewed as trespassing.
> The questions asked were, 1) Would you cross the lawn and help the child? And 2) Would helping the child violate the parents’ rights?
> In 1988, 89% of respondents said they would cross the lawn. 26% said that doing so would violate the parents’ rights. In 1999 those numbers were 87% and 31%, respectively. And in 2008 they were 90.9% and 24.1%.
>> Suppose that you are on a friend’s balcony on the 50th floor of a condominium complex. You trip, stumble and fall over the edge. You catch a flagpole on the next floor down. The owner opens his window and demands you stop trespassing.
> In 1988, 84% of respondents said they believed that in such circumstances they should enter the owner’s residence against the owner’s wishes. 2% (one respondent) said that they should let go and fall to their death, and 15% said they should hang on and wait for somebody to throw them a rope. In 1999, the numbers were 86%, 1%, and 13%. In 2008, they were 89.2%, 0.9%, and 9.9%.
last post should have had some [...] to indicate omitted text, my bad
> The questions asked were, 1) Would you cross the lawn and help the child? And 2) Would helping the child violate the parents’ rights?
Terrible survey design. I would not cross the lawn and help the child. Because, duh, *I'm not a cop*. I'd call the fucking cops to do that. I absolutely shouldn't take law enforcement into my own hands. The people writing this have no fucking concept of law and order, and putting the use of force under objective controls. The moment they see a child in a window who will die in a e.g. 2 weeks, they think its time for vigilante action?
(Normally I might call child protective services or something like that instead of the cops, but, given the threat to treat people as trespassers, I think some cops better come.)
Also what kind of idiot thinks it violates the parents' rights and would do it anyway?
Also you omitted any statement of what you think, presumably to evade the possibility of criticism (ineffectively since I just criticized the method itself).
> extensive survey
> 2% (one respondent)
Wait, around 50 people is extensive? Ugh.
>> The questions asked were, 1) Would you cross the lawn and help the child? And 2) Would helping the child violate the parents’ rights?
> Terrible survey design. I would not cross the lawn and help the child. Because, duh, *I'm not a cop*. I'd call the fucking cops to do that. I absolutely shouldn't take law enforcement into my own hands. The people writing this have no fucking concept of law and order, and putting the use of force under objective controls. The moment they see a child in a window who will die in a e.g. 2 weeks, they think its time for vigilante action?
Gp.
> (Normally I might call child protective services or something like that instead of the cops, but, given the threat to treat people as trespassers, I think some cops better come.)
> Also what kind of idiot thinks it violates the parents' rights and would do it anyway?
Lots of people think rights contradict. I can see someone thinking they're violating the parents' property rights but that the parents don't have a right to kill their kid, and so helping the kid is overall doing the right thing cuz life > property, something like that.
> Also you omitted any statement of what you think, presumably to evade the possibility of criticism (ineffectively since I just criticized the method itself).
i was looking for examples of libertarians engaging in rationalism and specifically applying the NAP in silly ways. i thought the survey results indicated some people doing that.
your comment regarding survey design is helpful cuz it points out a meta level disengagement from reality. the very framing of the choices of the survey was unrealistic.
> Also you omitted any statement of what you think, presumably to evade the possibility of criticism (ineffectively since I just criticized the method itself).
this is what i had written as commentary before posting the quotes from survey:
There’s some ambiguity in the question (do the respondents think they’re violating the parent’s property rights or parental rights or some other rights?) but the focus seems to be on property rights. Property rights are about ensuring that I get to dispose of the fruits of my labor according to my own judgment. This is necessary for me to have any liberty or indeed to have a life at all. If the fruits of my labor are disposed of according to someone else’s judgment, I have no control over my life, and might even starve at their whim.
Property rights don’t extend to using your property to murder people. For example, I can’t assert my property right in a gun and bullets as a defense if I shoot an innocent person. The gun and bullets were purchased with the fruit of my labor and can be used in certain situations (self defense, shooting targets at a range) and not others.
But a significant number of libertarians took a conception of rights unmoored from the purposes of those rights and unmoored from reality, and used that conception of rights to say that they’d be violating the parents’ rights if they stopped parents from cruelly starving a baby to death. By the way, I think it’s interesting that there were a decent number of people who thought helping the child would violate the parents’ rights but did it anyways. It’s good that they didn’t let their rationalism permit them to condone murder, but OTOH, lacking resolution to those sorts of moral quandaries is part of what causes people to give up on serious intellectual thinking. So it’s a very serious issue.
> i was looking for examples of libertarians engaging in rationalism and specifically applying the NAP in silly ways. i thought the survey results indicated some people doing that.
that is what you should say along with the link. that's a huge amount of context compared to none. it could say your opinion more clearly (i can figure out you'd save the child but better to say that directly).
a xoxo post about how news that the Senate found no collusion between Trump and Russia will play out
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4200269&forum_id=2#37770711
Date: February 12th, 2019 2:44 PM
Author: Muscadine wine
Here's the way this works. It will come out "no collusion," MSM will begrudgingly talk about it for a day or so, then nobody says shit about it.
College students still carry signs saying Trump sucks Putin's dick. Every now and then NYT points out that Trump was proved to be compromised by a foreign power, no one says anything about it.
Nobody cares. In a week or so, there will be some other outage that they're talking about.
It continues to look grim.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/immigration-landmines-in-the-funding-bill/
Immigration Landmines in the Funding Bill
Mark Krikorian
The text of the funding bill was released last night/this morning, and lawmakers are expected to vote on the 1,169-page measure as early as this evening. The bill is disappointing in many respects, but if it had been as advertised earlier, it might have been tolerable.
But my fears that senators Durbin and Leahy would trick the Republican conferees (none of whom knows the first thing about immigration policy) were realized. Standing out among the many distasteful provisions are two poison pills that I hope the Republican committee members either didn’t know about or didn’t understand.
The first regards the fence. I’m not fence-first guy, but physical barriers really are needed on some parts of the border, and the president has been flexible on this in the face of implacable Democratic opposition. Thus the news that the Dems agreed to $1.375 billion for the construction of “primary pedestrian fencing” (i.e., high barriers, not the low ones intended simply to stop vehicles, in places where there’s none now) seemed like a win.
It’s not. That’s because the bill allows the fencing to be built only in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in South Texas. It’s surely needed there, but real barriers are also needed elsewhere, such as the parts of the Arizona or New Mexico borders where there’s only vehicle fencing.
But the Democrats had a reason for this limitation. The bill states:
Prior to use of any funds made available by this Act for the construction of physical barriers within the city limits of any city or census designated place…Department of Homeland Security and the local elected officials of such a city or census designated place shall confer and seek to reach mutual agreement regarding the design and alignment of physical barriers within that city or the census designated place.
In other words, local governments would have an effective veto over whether barriers would be constructed. And which party controls all local government in South Texas? Go ahead, look it up, I’ll wait. Rio Grande City is the least Democratic community in the area, and even there voters supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 by more than three to one.
Add to that the bill’s prohibition on border barriers in a range of public parks and spaces — such as the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, La Lomita Historical Park, or the National Butterfly Center — and the 55 miles of new fencing supposedly provided for in the bill might never get built at all.
The second poison pill is even worse. Section 224 states:
None of the funds provided by this act…may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to place in detention, remove, refer for a decision whether to initiate removal proceedings, or initiate removal proceedings against a sponsor, potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien child.
In other words, this would mean that ICE cannot detain or remove anyone who has effectively any relationship with an “unaccompanied” minor — either because they’re sponsors, in the same household as sponsors, or even just “potential sponsors” (or in the household of potential sponsors!) of such a child.
There’s already a huge incentive to bring a child with you if you’re planning to infiltrate the border, because kids can’t be held more than 20 days, according to the Flores agreement, and we don’t separate parents from kids, so if you sneak across with a kid in tow, you’re released into the U.S.
The new provision would create an incentive for illegal aliens already here to order up kids from Central America as human shields against deportation. After all, 80 percent of the sponsors of unaccompanied children are in the country illegally in the first place — usually parents or other relatives paying criminal gangs to bring the kids to the U.S., knowing that the likelihood that they’ll be repatriated is virtually nil.
One of the members of the conference committee supposedly writing the funding bill, Tom Graves (R-Ga.), refused to sign the report because he wasn’t permitted even to see the text until shortly after midnight this morning, and was given an hour to read the whole thing and decide.
This is no way to run a government. The president should make clear his earlier willingness to sign the package was based on the summaries that had circulated, not this specific language. The responsible thing to do now would be to pass a continuing resolution (extend spending at current levels) for a week or so, to avoid another partial government shutdown but give lawmakers time to actually go over the thing carefully and pull out the poison pills.
Leonard Peikoff in his course on logic, lecture 2:
> No one could classify all possible kinds of errors and fallacies that human beings engage in and there would be no point in any such exhaustive classification. So, some errors have no particular name, either in English or in latin. If someone says to you, all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore, Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo, there is no particular fallacy that you can accuse him of the best thing in such a case is just to say, he's crazy.
He's so incompetent! It's a non sequitur. (BTW non sequitur is on Peikoff's list of fallacies presented in the course, along with plenty of less well known ones.)
Lefties up until not that long ago considered NYC's transit system a model that other cities in the country should follow. how is it nowadays?
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4203101&forum_id=2#37793755
> Date: February 16th, 2019 7:09 PM
> Author: Upset Jew
> Was visiting friend in Brooklyn and traffic was bad so I opted to take the "subway".
> Firstly, there are homeless encamped all through my local station. Secondly, I get down to the train platform. It is mobbed because the trains are delayed.
> Finally, a train pulls into the 8th Avenue L station, and I mean creaks in at like 0.3 mph. The outside of the train looks dirty and some of it appears to be splashed with some brown, slime like substance.
> I enter the train and it quickly gets packed to beyond standing room only. The train remains this way until I reach my stop, Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. I exit the train and the station literally smells like diesel fuel. It clicks in my head I read an article about this the other day. The city states that the smell "poses no threat to human life." I laugh to myself, because it smells like a fucking coal mine.
> I walk with a throng of humans to exit the station. The exit is being repaired because the passageway is crumbling and everyone is forced into two narrow exit lines because the passageway is split in half due to construction. I choose one, and it ends up leading me round a corridor to a huge puddle right before the stairs to exit the station, because the ceiling is leaking water from...somewhere.
> What a magical experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefsteak_Nazi
>As a former Marxist in his early years, Goebbels once stated "how thin the dividing line" was between communism and National Socialism, which had caused many Red Front Fighters to "switch to the SA".[15] Goebbels expressed that sentiment in a 1925 public speech, declaring that "the difference between Communism and the Hitler faith is very slight".[16]
I'm more inclined to agree with Cernovich. Anyone agree with Horowitz?
I replied to Horowitz:
If I were president, I would have hired you. Trump didn't. He surrounded himself with people who dislike the MAGA movement, and he naively thought the swamp (both dem and GOP) would be reasonable. And he didn't prioritize the wall on day 1.
#11853 Trump has control over who he hires. he's allowed MAGA type people to be pushed out or fired them himself (Bannon, Gorka, Sessions) and let the establishment people take over. he's also failed to achieve major campaign promises (WALL, repealing obamacare). Trump sucks, though the Dems are much worse...sigh
Nice example of how people put superficial symbols / rituals of affection over actual achievements like being a real parent
https://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=66727
> I was recently consulted in the prison in which I work by an inmate who was the proud father of two children. I asked him whether he still saw them: continued contact with their biological offspring being something of a rarity among the imprisoned paternal community. Instead of answering me directly, he rolled up his sleeves and pointed to two tattoos on his forearm, red hearts with scrolls across them bearing the names of his children—two tattoos among many others, needless to say. He hadn’t seen either of his children for years, and had never contributed anything to their upkeep. Indeed, the idea that he should have done so was so completely alien to him and to the mores of the world in which he moved that the thought had never crossed his mind, even fleetingly. By contrast, he obviously believed that his tattoos were a sign of genuine devotion to his children. Their names were engraved, if not on his heart exactly, at least on hearts painfully engraved on his skin, and one could easily imagine a touching deathbed scene in which he would be reunited at last with his children and would there show them the tattoos as proof that he had never really forgotten or abandoned them. They would probably accept this as having been true, and therefore forgive him his dereliction of duty
Exposing Shallowness
https://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=66727
via Instapaper
> “What makes individuals choose to undergo the painful, expensive, and virtually irrevocable process of tattooing? Having listened to an unspecified number of tattooed members of the middle classes, the author identifies several motives, all of which struck me as unflatteringly revealing of the soul of modern man.
> First there is the assertion of individuality. One of the author’s informants says,
>> [Being tattooed] separates me from anybody else. No one else has anything like what I have. I feel a little bit different from Joe Shmoe in the street, and I guess it makes me feel special.
> This is infinitely sad. That a person’s individuality should be made to depend upon so crude an outward sign as a tattoo is in fact an indication of the fragility of that person’s identity”
Apple's management doesn't want Nvidia support in macOS, and that's a bad sign for the Mac Pro
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro
via Instapaper
> “What we found was support inside the Spaceship for the idea, but a lack of will to allow Nvidia GPUs. We've spoken with several dozen developers inside Apple, obviously not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, who feel that support for Nvidia's higher-end cards would be welcome, but disallowed quietly at higher levels of the company.
> "It's not like we have any real work to do on it, Nvidia has great engineers," said one developer in a sentiment echoed by nearly all of the Apple staff we spoke with. "It's not like Metal 2 can't be moved to Nvidia with great performance. Somebody just doesn't want it there."
> One developer went so far as to call it "quiet hostility" between long-time Apple managers and Nvidia.
> For sure, somebody at Apple in the upper echelons doesn't want Nvidia support going forward right now. But, even off the record, nobody seemed to have any idea who it is. The impression we got is that it was some kind of passed-down knowledge with the origin of the policy lost to the mists of time, or an unwritten rule like so many in baseball.
> Two years ago, pre-eGPU support, this block may have made at least a modicum of sense. Any Macs with PCI-E slots were aging, and the user base was dwindling through attrition alone. But, the drivers are available for High Sierra and are getting updated to this day —and we can testify that they still work great in a 5,1 Mac Pro, including the 1000-series cards.
> The Nvidia driver can be shoe-horned onto High Sierra machines who want a Nvidia card in an eGPU. We're not going to delve into it here, but there is a wealth of information over at eGPU.io, if you're so inclined. And, don't upgrade to Mojave if you do so.
> This decision makes absolutely no sense with eGPUs now being explicitly supported in macOS. They work fine in Windows, so it's not a technical limitation. Some tasks perform better on AMD, and some on Nvidia, it is a fact of silicon. There is no reason beyond marketing and user-funneling to prohibit use of the cards on a software level.
> No, there aren't a ton of eGPU installs. Yes, a good portion of those users are fine with AMD cards. But, it is absolutely overly user-hostile to not allow Nvidia to release the drivers not just for future eGPU use, but for the non-zero percent of those users who are keeping the old Mac Pro alive. And if this is some kind of ancient Apple secret or preserved grudges that are preventing it, that's even worse.
> And, it makes us worry what "modular" means for the forthcoming Mac Pro.”
Wobbling banned in Melee at GOML 2019
https://twitter.com/GOML2019/status/1096163565424103425
Armada is against banning wobbling
Armada is against banning wobbling. He says:
> “If we’re going to ban everything that might hurt the game… that might hurt the game even more in the long run.”
Wobbles' smashboards post against banning wobbling (2013)
https://smashboards.com/threads/so-there-seems-to-be-a-recent-freakout-about-the-ics-because-of-wobbles-performance-at-evo.338636/post-15713055 (emphasis in original)
> 2) I didn't get second because of Wobbling. I got second because of wobbling *combined with everything else I did right*. If you want to point out the big powerful thing that gave me awesome punishes, you should also point out the times where I had to win on the strength of a single ice-climber. My 3rd game against Mango consisted of 3 stocks that I took *without landing a grab*. There's no dispute I wouldn't have gotten second without the infinite! Does that mean we should look for *every strategy that has ever made a difference in somebody's placing* and force people to replay the matches without them, to see who is TRULY BETTER?
>
> No. Because that's dumb.
>
> 3) You are trying to pigeon-hole Melee into your own definition of "what Melee is truly all about, deep down." You're using fuzzy, emotional arguments that don't bear on actual competitiveness. When you start saying "that's not what the game is really about" your argument becomes about as valid and intellectually fulfilling as "edge-guarding is too cheap," and "stop using glitches and exploits" and "projectiles are for pansies, fight up close like a man."
>
> Do you know what Melee *really is*? Melee is the closed set containing all things programmed into the game. Anything else is your construction. We did not make the gamespace, we just explored it. [...]
> You don't see Fox players stop using u-throw u-air because it's so good, even though we've known about it *SINCE THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT OF THE GAME*. Don't you find it abhorrently ridiculous that Fox players would stoop to using such a brutally efficient combo when they have so many more tools, and it would truly demonstrate their skill as a Fox main if they didn't rely on such an old and already explored combo?
ph00tbag smashboards post against banning wobbling
Another good post on the subject.
https://smashboards.com/threads/so-there-seems-to-be-a-recent-freakout-about-the-ics-because-of-wobbles-performance-at-evo.338636/post-15735871
> Stage bans are much easier to countenance. The primary reason they're so defensible is because they are, first and foremost, discreet. Furthermore, there's an in-game mechanic for making stages unplayable in random select, indicating that preventing play on certain stages because their impact on gameplay is undesirable is an intended part of the game. Turning off items is a similar situation.
> Wobbling ... suffer[s] from the fact that [it isn't] discreet. There is no clear line where you begin to do [it]. Furthermore, there's no in-game mechanic for removing [it]... Banning Wobbling would be simply because you find it to be aesthetically undesirable, and it would affect a character that isn't even a problem to the metagame in and of themselves.
> And yeah, aesthetics is really the only reason to ban Wobbling. That's what you're saying when you spout platitudes on "what Melee is all about." I don't even know what you mean when you say that. I doubt you do, either.
> aesthetically undesirable
straw man. it's strategically undesirable too. bad game design (though of course it wasn't game design, it's a bug).
> There is no clear line where you begin to do [it].
that would be solvable by adding an option to remove wobbling to the game patches (UCF) that are already used by most tournaments. it could define a clear line, e.g. all characters automatically break out of any grab after 10 seconds.
> and it would affect a character that isn't even a problem to the metagame in and of themselves.
that's false. ICs are the best character in the game up until around top 100 skill level. (starting at a somewhat decent skill level player that can e.g. wobble and recover when hit off stage. below that who knows or cares). this affects the vast majority of smash players. it affects tons of people's tournament experiences. ICs punish you extremely hard for not having perfect tech skill (the kind of stuff even top 10 players screw up sometimes, though on average they are good enough to beat ICs). if you aren't a professional player, playing vs ICs is unfun and unfair. the reason it's unfair is wobbling doesn't take much skill and it's punishing you in a huge way for not having 10 times the skill the ICs player has. you can outplay them over and over and grab them 10 times for each time they grab you and still lose. you can hit them way more than they hit you and still lose. you might say "well then everyone who isn't top 100 should pick ICs" but most ppl don't want to be ICs players and do wobbling themselves, and would have less fun that way and not play the game.
(btw at the top skill levels, call it top 100, the character that passes ICs and takes first place is puff, which is also a character that gives a ton of value relative to difficulty of using them and which can 1shot kill you to punish your mistakes. and puff is hard to punish in general since you mostly can't edge guard her and she can get out of a ton of combos b/c she gets hit too far away and doesn't fall very fast.)
(btw ppl talk about "there's only one puff that does really well" as if that means puff isn't OP. but most of them don't see to notice there's only one fox main who does really well, leffen. the other top players you see playing fox are mostly doing it as a second or third character, and most often for the purpose of fighting puff because puff counters their main character – falco, marth, sheik or peach – so hard that they think the matchup isn't playable.)
Good points that I agree with:
- aesthetics aren't the only issue with wobbling
- wobbling could be banned in an objective way with a patch
- wobbling affects game balance for players at low and medium skill levels (who comprise the majority of players)
One point I have a comment on:
> [wobbling is] a bug
I thought that Melee physics explained why wobbling works: roughly, the target is repeatedly re-stunned by an attack while he is unable to act due to already being stunned. In doubles, two players can execute a team wobble which works by the same principles as the Ice Climbers' wobble.
Wobbling is a bug because it is *not intended by the game designers*. The code doesn't do what they want. If they knew that would or could happen, they would have forced a grab release after 10 seconds or something else to prevent the infinite. Whether team wobbles in doubles are a bug is more debatable but there's no way the designers would have left 1v1 ICs wobbling in on purpose.
Teachers also frequently do try to be fair. But it's weird. They are like "I don't want to give away too much, I don't want to be too helpful, that'd make the test too easy." They sort of try to strike an arbitrary compromise between making their teaching too helpful regarding passing the test, or not helpful enough.
The teacher knows what's on the test. He could just tell the students and let them take notes on it, or even hand out notes containing all the answers to all the test questions. And he can tailor his teaching of concepts to the test to a greater or lesser degree.
By contrast, if someone else does the testing, the teacher can just be 100% on the student's side and help him in any way the teacher can, no compromises. It makes way more sense. The teacher shouldn't know what's on the test, he should just prepare the students to take an unknown test on that material.
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3336227/security/nest-secure-had-a-secret-microphone-can-now-be-a-google-assistant.html
> Nest Secure had a secret microphone, can now be a Google Assistant
> The Nest Secure system had secret microphone that can now make the Nest Guard security hub double as Google Assistant device. Happy Safer Internet Day!?!
> If your IoT device secretly contained a microphone, which was previously undocumented, would you be happy when the device maker announced an over-the-air update that can enable the microphone for virtual assistant voice functionality? That’s what happened with the security alarm system Nest Secure.
jfc
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2019-02-20.html
> The bill President Trump signed last Friday is worse than anything Hillary could ever have gotten through Congress.
a corrupt socialist?!
read whole article if you need more context, i'm just pasting the super interesting part at the end https://medium.com/@ltthompso/the-congresswoman-loves-the-swamp-d33296ec251e
>A quick tour through AOC’s campaign expenditures reveals the extent to which Brand New Congress midwifed her campaign into existence, precisely as the FAQ described above would have it. But AOC’s campaign was different from the others backed by Brand New Congress PAC, and not simply because she won. Like other candidates, AOC paid Brand New Congress LLC for strategic consulting, in her case totaling $18,880.14. Unlike in the other cases, Brand New Congress PAC turned around and paid her boyfriend as a “marketing consultant”.
>Indeed, while Brand New Congress PAC’s ten largest expenditures were paid to Brand New Congress LLC for “strategic consulting,” a sum that totaled $261,165.20 over the course of the campaign, its eleventh and twelfth largest expenditures were paid to Riley Roberts.
>Brand New Congress PAC paid Roberts $3,000 on August 9th:
>Eighteen days later, AOC’s campaign paid Brand New Congress LLC $6,191.32:
>A month later Brand New Congress PAC then turned around and paid Riley Roberts another $3,000.
> Why would Chakrabarti, a founding engineer at Stripe and a wealthy veteran of Silicon Valley, be hiring a no-name “UX Experience” guy with little discernible marketing experience to serve as Brand New Congress PAC’s sole marketing consultant?
> The answer seems to be that Chakrabarti was funneling money paid to him by AOC’s campaign back to Roberts and by extension to AOC.
> At the beginning of October, more than four months into her campaign, AOC’s fundraising had been anemic. Excluding an in-kind contribution from Chakrabarti, she’d raised only $3,032.75 but had already spent $27,591.27 — more than half of which she’d paid to Chakrabarti’s Brand New Congress LLC. By the end of 2017 she’d spent $37,249.94 but raised only $8,361.03. That’s a lot of money to stick on a credit card. Since no loans are recorded on her campaign books, presumably either AOC or Roberts was fronting the necessary cash.
> It looks to me like Chakrabarti was effectively reimbursing AOC for a third of her expenses with Brand New Congress LLC, perhaps so that she would stay in the race despite her mounting debt.
> The shadiness of the whole business may also explain why Roberts lists his residence as Arizona for the expenditure, rather than New York. Roberts is from Arizona, but was living in New York with AOC. His other contributions to her campaign, both cash and in-kind, list New York as his residence.
> Regardless of whether or not Roberts was officially AOC’s spouse at that time, it seems probable Chakrabarti was reimbursing her for her campaign expenses off-books. Brand New Congress PAC simply served as a pass-through to do so.
> When AOC won, she then hired Chakrabarti, her strategist/patron, as her Chief of Staff. Taking money from a rich guy, trying to hide it by passing it through a PAC, and then giving her benefactor a government job.
> That’s definitely unethical and potentially illegal. Chakrabarti may have made an illegal campaign contribution in excess of federal limits. Regardless, it raises questions about Chakrabarti’s hiring as AOC’s Chief of Staff after her election. Maybe add that to your next lightning round, Congresswoman.
> Finally, all of the above is based on public information. It took me a couple of hours to pull it all together and write it up. I suppose this could be called muckraking, but it’s really just minimal reporting that nobody in the press decided to do. I can’t emphasize enough how easy it was to find all of this information. It’s literally just sitting there. But no reporter bothered to read it. Democracy dies in darkness? Nah. Reporters are just lazy.
> Reporters are just lazy.
Some laziness, but also a lot of partisan bias.
They like universities so much they want to pretend to be one. jfc
People put all their forgetting in all the wrong places. They should forget what other people think instead of what they think.
twitter is so fucking bad. i was trying to find the pacifist run link but only saw one link, and the preview indicated that link was the 0 pause one.
turns out the visible text link is the pacifist one and twitter hid the text of the previewed link, so you see one url then a preview and they are separate.
twitter UI team is incompetent. this exact problem has made several of my tweets misleading before and it's so counter-intuitive i keep forgetting.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/#comment-723448
If the thing that ended what he feared is capitalism, why is he on a lefty-blog that censors right wing ideas? (He doesn't know it was capitalism because he's totally ignorant because he gets ideas from places like that.)
The reply lists, together, like they are similar, as a list of great things to hope for:
- anti-capitalist violence
- scientific progress
- magic, in guise of scientific progress
These supposedly reason-oriented people are dreaming of faster than light travel. And violently taking money from productive people to subsidize and encourage non-producing.
Also thousand year life expectancies are actually implausible. What exactly would be the barrier that stops us at 1000 years? If we get past 500 years, why would we get stuck at 1000? Doesn't make sense and shows unfamiliarity with SENS. He doesn't know anything about the medicine he hopes for, just like the travel and economic policies. And cyborg stuff is a bit parochial too and, unlike the other three, it's hard to tell how anyone even imagines that would solve any of the problems being discussed.
The trash study link:
https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/heritable/2019-lakhani.pdf
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/
> I was thinking of something along these lines a while ago. I’m noticing that MRA-type ideas are becoming more mainstream lately – hell, a few months ago I saw a feminist say something along the lines of “look, no-one is saying women who make false accusations shouldn’t be jailed, all I’m saying is…” And yet, I don’t see MRAs themselves getting any more popular.
Amazingly, this person believes the idea of false accusation being a crime is an MRA (men's rights advocate) idea.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/
I sympathize with this. Topic restrictions on discussion cause all sorts of problems in general.
The use of a drug problem as an excuse for other bigger problems is interesting.
Paul Graham is totally ignorant that any intelligent or respectable people disagree with him about intelligence, genes and heritability. He thinks a view is stupid without knowing the reasoning for it, and he isn't interested in finding out. Such irrational, stupid bias.
> The use of a drug problem as an excuse for other bigger problems is interesting.
This is common.
People think the solution is to solve the drug problem first and then everything else will fall into place. Then it turns out to be really hard to solve the drug problem.
Caroline Glick: Ilhan Omar & Co. Were Elected Because of Their Racism, Not In Spite of It | Breitbart
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/17/caroline-glick-ilhan-omar-co-were-elected-because-of-their-racism-not-in-spite-of-it/
via Instapaper
> “Many commentators have argued in recent weeks that the bigotry and socialism of the likes of Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib are President Donald Trump’s best argument for reelection. All he has to do in 2020 is point to them to make the case that the Democrats must not be allowed to return to the White House.
> While there is truth to this argument, it is equally true that the new crop of Democrats are powerful not despite their radicalism and bigotry, but because of their radicalism and bigotry. Their ideological alignment with Obama’s consigliere and key donor groups and the party’s activist grassroots means that moderate Democrats lack the power to stand up to them.
> Indeed, whereas Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer and their colleagues responded to Omar’s Jew-hatred by making angry noises, the Democratic presidential candidates were mum. More significantly, the Democrats seeking the presidential nomination are responding to the rising tide of hostility towards the Jewish state and American Jews who support Israel by aligning themselves with the anti-Israel voices in their party.
> Similarly, aside from Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, all Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls have endorsed Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, despite the fact that its adoption would destroy much of the industrial base of the U.S. economy.
> The implications of this state of affairs are fairly straightforward. Radical, socialist, antisemitic ideologues hold sway in today’s Democratic Party. That is why Pelosi gave Omar, an out-and-out Jew-hater, a spot on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and why she will not remove Omar from the committee even if Omar tweets and apologizes for anti-Jewish conspiracy theories all day and all night.”
https://twitter.com/Andymosity_/status/1089989169550520320
https://twitter.com/Andymosity_/status/1089989169550520320
> We plateau in our gaming skill because we continue "grinding" pretty mindlessly...
> There's an entire skill in understanding HOW to improve effectively. We neglect this concept and never improve this specific skill.
>@'ing myself because I need to hear this more than anyone. ✊
Making Rolling Rocks SM64 video was a “torturous ordeal”
In a series of screencapped YouTube comments, pannenkoek2012, creator of [SM64 – Watch for Rolling Rocks – 0.5x A Presses (Commentated)[https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A], talks about the emotionally difficult process of making the video and his difficulties in dealing with the responses he’s received: https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A
Correct link to screencapped comments: http://imgur.com/a/Hb2Ic
srconstantin: Humans Who Are Not Concentrating Are Not General Intelligences
https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/humans-who-are-not-concentrating-are-not-general-intelligences/
> OpenAI [has] achieved the ability to pass the Turing test against humans on autopilot...
> If I just skim, without focusing, [these machine-generated texts] all look totally normal. I would not have noticed they were machine-generated. I would not have noticed anything amiss about them at all.
> But if I read with focus, I notice that they don’t make a lot of logical sense.
> If “human intelligence” is about reasoning ability, the capacity to detect whether arguments make sense, then you simply do not need human intelligence to create a linguistic style or aesthetic that can fool our pattern-recognition apparatus if we don’t concentrate on parsing content.
> GPT2 [the text-generation system] is actually really useful as a *test* of one’s level of attention.
> ... effortless pattern-recognition is what machine learning can do today, while effortful attention, and explicit reasoning (which seems to be a subset of effortful attention) is generally beyond ML’s current capabilities.
> If only conscious, focused logical thought can detect a bot, maybe some people will become more aware of when they’re thinking actively vs not, and will be able to flag when they’re not really focusing, and distinguish the impressions they absorb in a state of autopilot from “real learning”.
Leffen BM to hbox at Smash Summit 7 (2018)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ErBoEj1fbM&lc=Ugwas0ziqeIuGaVjBld4AaABAg :
> 9:15 This is kind of thing that makes me like Hbox. Leffen picks dreamland before Hbox is even ready, trying to not even give him time to breath and refocus.
> Hbox takes it in stride, questioning it for a second, rolling with it, and with a smile of understanding, beating Leffen anyway.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Destroy-Man-Now-DAMN/dp/099982032X
> A wave of sexual misconduct allegations about powerful men have exploded recently in the media (e.g., the news, Twitter #MeToo, etc.). A bold social movement has begun with brave women coming forward and being applauded for speaking out and sharing their stories of abuse, discrimination, and harassment. As a result, accused men like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, and dozens more have been removed from power and are suffering the consequences.
> In How to Destroy A Man Now (DAMN), Dr. Angela Confidential (a business psychologist, consultant, and human resource professional) empowers women with a step-by-step guide for destroying a man’s reputation and removing him from power.
> In easy to understand terms, the handbook reveals and explains the fundamental dynamics between allegations, the media, and authority as they relate to male misconduct in today’s society. It also unveils and details practical real-world methods for leveraging allegations, media, and authorities to dethrone a man from power.
Twitter censoring Canary Mission again:
https://us10.campaign-archive.com/?u=97f5dcf7e199dea4dc3139b76&id=08c34452da&e=6860d70a78
Early on when I used Twitter I had several interactions with Heartiste and he followed me and retweeted some of my stuff. He had far more followers than me (I forget how many, at least 10k, maybe 50k).
That's the kind of way you can build up a bigger audience. It's the kind of way people think you're supposed to grow and that you will grow if you merit it. And the other way around: people assume my small audience is deserved and blame me.
So what happened? Simple. Twitter banned Heartiste. That is one of the events that has kept my follower count low.
I thought of it because of the Amazon book bans I saw today. They keep banning not random people, but people I know of and somewhat like. It's targeted at people with certain kinds of things in common with me.
Twitter is not a fair platform and hasn't been since I used it (dunno about its earliest days). It doesn't give people a fair chance at popularity. It's not neutral on certain political issues and certain uhhh semi-political issues like PUA.
Ralph Cudworth on concentration
In *The true intellectual system of the universe* (1678), Ralph Cudworth wrote:
> For, had we no Mastery at all over our Thoughts, but they were all like Tennis Balls, Bandied, and Struck upon us, as it were by Rackets from without; then could we not steadily and constantly carry on any Designs and Purposes of Life.
Having some mastery over your thoughts sounds like taking initiative for what you think about instead of allowing your thoughts to be directed by forces other than yourself.
https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1101318115541938176
https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1101574084138196993
David Horowitz is another example of how the best people will talk some, because they like to, instead of just making excuses about being busy. And they don't choose all their discussion partners by prestige.
How the left views the world: assimilated immigrant = not diverse.
https://twitter.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1101147929736343554
someone in comments suggests the study is unethical because it wastes thousands of people's time. i agree. a defender estimates 3min spent per cold pitch email received. sounds low to me, but if so that is 4000 hours, or 2 man-years. they are contacting people with 6 figure salaries, so the study used up hundreds of thousands of dollars of other people's time.
Rejecting meta discussion is an example of people wanting *bounded discussions*. It's a demand that discussions have limits placed on them. (As always, they aren't too clear about exactly what the limits are.)
Fundamental Life Skills you'll gain by applying yourself at improving in fighting games.
A competitive Street Fighter player wrote on Twitter :
> Fundamental Life Skills you'll gain by applying yourself at improving in fighting games.
>
> 1. Consistency in hard work
> 2. Open mindedness as a means for self growth
> 3. Admitting mistakes and working on yourself to improve
> 4. Your best personal way to learn
Trans is a horror story (and btw it started decades ago, it's getting more attention now b/c it's had so long to develop into a larger evil):
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2019/02/49686/?fbclid=IwAR0hhqCiI1oLa_DOSIZizUd1_ZnVI-3I9k3GyL7t2sG5MC8M27-MLKzMjds
Ocarina of Time Any% Tutorial by MichaelRadar (2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50iezeCIOyw&index=2&list=PLHfL2_4YCJOA6RY4Ibx0bDSabEX8gsas0&t=0s
Monopoly Through Austrian Lenses | Jonathan Newman
https://mises.org/library/monopoly-through-austrian-lenses
via Instapaper
> “Then what about Luxottica’s alleged decision to restrict output? Let us trace through the implications of their production decisions through an example adapted from Rothbard:
> Suppose that, before Luxottica’s tyrannical reign over the market for sunglasses and other eyewear, it took 1,000 laborers, six factories, and five tons each of plastic, metal, and glass to produce five million sunglasses in a year. An entrepreneur, under the name of a new firm, “Luxottica,” steps onto the scene, buys out the existing firms, and sees an opportunity for profit by producing three million sunglasses in a year and only employing 700 laborers and two factories. The entrepreneur also uses fewer raw materials to make the three million sunglasses. What can we say thus far? Now 300 laborers, four factories, and tons of raw materials are relinquished to other productive efforts by other entrepreneurs! Supposing Luxottica and the other entrepreneurs successfully gauged consumer demand for their products, this second allocation of factors of production provides more value to the consumers as a whole. How then could we say that the production decision by the new entrepreneur is “unjust”?2
> Restricting output, therefore, only frees up factors of production to be used elsewhere. We cannot claim with certainty that restricting output of one product results in less production of goods overall. And, even in the case of entrepreneurial error, either by the new “monopolist” or by the users of the newly relinquished factors of production, other entrepreneurs will see the mishap; new iterations of production structures will be employed to make better, more efficient, and more successful tries at meeting consumers’ demands. This is the type of “unseen” counterfactual we have been warned not to ignore by Frédéric Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt.
> Further, there is an inherent fallacy in “grumbling,” as Mises would say, about so-called restricted output. Luxottica, in their production decisions, have decided to produce billions of glasses and sunglasses, but have also decided to produce zero tablet computers. This is certainly restricted output, but can we blame Luxottica for withholding this potential benefit to consumers of tablet computers? Assuming that you also do not produce tablet computers, we are guilty of this crime too. Complaints about restricted output, therefore, reduce to complaints about the ubiquitous scarcity of means to satisfy ends.”
Editorial: Apple's waiting game on foldable iPhones is no surprise
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/27/editorial-apples-waiting-game-on-foldable-iphones-is-no-surprise
via Instapaper
> “Similarly, the PowerBook introduced the idea of moving the keyboard to the back and leaving the front for palm rests and a pointing device. That's like the way that straps are attached to the Apple Watch. It's a very simple idea that absolutely no one had thought of before and in the case of the laptops, absolutely everyone has done since. There are no laptops that don't use Apple's idea and there haven't been since the PowerBooks came out.”
> > There are no laptops that don't use Apple's idea and there haven't been since the PowerBooks came out.
Apple Insider is technically incorrect:
https://www.amazon.com/Update-CPU-m3-8100Y-Windows-Graphics-Bluetooth/dp/B07H2XGD6M/
I know someone who has one of these and loves it.
NES Tetris level 33 reached for the first time
NES Tetris was first published in North America in 1985). Some 34 years later, on February 15, 2019, while streaming on Twitch, Classic Tetris World Champion Joseph Sallee became the first player in the world ever to reach level 33.
Markdown links for URLs with trailing parenthesis?
Is there a way for comments here to use markdown-style links to URLs that contain a trailing close parenthesis character? Example URL: https://tetris.fandom.com/wiki/Tetris_(NES,_Nintendo)
I included a link to that URL in my Tetris post above, but the trailing parenthesis was not included in the displayed version of the link. FWIW, I tested it in https://markdownlivepreview.com/ before posting, and it "works" there (closing parenthesis is included in the clickable link).
Re: NES Tetris level 33 reached for the first time
The player's name is "Joseph Saelee" (not "Sallee")
markdown in comments here is done with regex.
you can url encode special characters.
https://tetris.fandom.com/wiki/Tetris_%28NES%2C_Nintendo%29
as a markdown link
One other error in my Tetris post: NES Tetris was published in *1989*, not 1985 as I stated above. 1985 is when the NES itself came out in North America. Source (same as above): https://tetris.fandom.com/wiki/Tetris_(NES,_Nintendo)
Facebook is so fucking bad.
Neat tech salary info site:
https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Apple/Google/Facebook
https://twitter.com/AP4Liberty/status/1102966081990414337
It's disgusting and anti-intellectual to conflate arguments with sword fights and bloody killings.
"Memes" like this can be, and are, made favoring other viewpoints. "Memeing" is substantially a popularity contest. Any side can do it, and the side with the most energetic supporters has a large advantage. Participating in popularity contests gives them credibility and legitimacy. That harms the cause of the best ideas which would benefit from other types of interactions like serious debates.
It's like writing a pro-Austrian version of the Wynand Papers.
[Tetris] Hypertapping can hurt your hand
NES Tetris World Champion Joseph Saelee (JdMfX\_) taps the D-pad rapidly (a technique known as "hypertapping") to move the Tetris pieces left and right faster than is possible by simply holding down on the D-pad.
JdMfX_'s hypertapping hurts his hand. In an interview with a representative from CTWC (classic Tetris world championship), he said, "I've had a few instances where my right hand was in pain". In the interview, he also joked about getting arthritis. On a Twitch stream 2 months ago ("no more hypertapping?"), he said that he would stop hypertapping for a while due to his hand/fingers being "frozen" after the previous day's stream.
replying to labor theory of value post on austrian econ subreddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/axhuom/in_defense_of_the_labor_theory/ehxwoml/
LTV approximates prices in long run because people stop producing everything that costs more labor than it's worth. On the flip side, over time, competition tends to drive prices down towards cost of production (it takes innovation to make outsized profits, so older products that haven't changed tend to be priced closer to costs of production plus a small markup, especially if popular). Also see Reisman on this, e.g.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077XQV3M1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i6
https://mises.org/library/classical-economics-vs-exploitation-theory
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/axxfod/mindblown_my_girlfriend_just_confirmed_trp_to_me/
cocky asshole type guy (that's an exaggeration ofc) does well with women.
likes a particular girl a lot. and she complains about it. so he gets more "sweet" and weak. then things get worse and during a fight she actually says she liked him better before.
Dawkins, who hates religion, uses religious imagery to suggest similarity between himself and Moses (who got the 10 commandments from God up on Mount Sinai, then went down and shared the message from the mountain talk with God).
https://mises.org/library/enterprising-education-doing-away-public-school-system
> Besides national defense, no government-provided service enjoys as much exemption from scrutiny as the provision and subsidization of primary public education. Even presumed champions of the free market, such as Milton Friedman, support the government subsidization of education through high school:
>> We have always been proud, and with good reason, of the widespread availability of schooling to all and the role that public schooling has played in fostering the assimilation of newcomers into our society, preventing fragmentation and divisiveness, and enabling people from different cultural and religious backgrounds to live together in harmony. (Friedman and Friedman, 1979, pp. 140–141)
Fuck Milton Friedman. Again.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273091/battle-against-leftist-indoctrination-public-matthew-vadum
> One parent told her that at a school in Portland “students who chose not to participate in the [March 2018 pro-gun control] walk out were required to remain in the library with no books and no computers, a virtual detention.”
> One girl was told to remove her pro-Trump MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) hat while her classmates wore the pink pussy-hats popularized by the Women’s March. Another said her political science class was completely one-sided, teaching about Democrats without discussing Republicans.
> A 7th grade female attended a “Girls Rock” event supported by a school. The girls were given tee shirts bearing the word “feminism” and were asked to draw the shape of a vagina on paper and pin it to the shirt. Later the girls were taught that anal sex, same-sex sex, and not shaving body parts was acceptable. Many parents were horrified when their daughters recounted the experience, Nichols said.
> The father of another 7th grader complained about the radical bent of social studies homework. The student was asked to research a website called We The Future which describes only leftist causes including Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, gun control, and open borders. Students were encouraged by their teacher to become politically active on behalf of these radical causes.
> A boy was asked to write an essay about the border wall promised by President Trump. He complied and received a failing grade when he supported Trump’s position.
> “There is an inherent bias in our school system towards a liberal interpretation at the exclusion of any kind of conservative opinion,” Nichols said in her testimony.
> “This bias fosters intolerance of different beliefs and this is not the kind of education we deserve. Please teach our children how to think, not what to think.”
https://www.stopk12indoctrination.org/leftist-indoctrination-in-maine-classrooms-gets-green-light-from-gop
> Last year, teachers at Cape Elizabeth High School facilitated a student walkout specifically aimed at passage of more restrictive firearms legislation. School officials helped plan the rally and even modified the school schedule to accommodate the gun-control lobbyist who spoke at the event.
> Here’s how a student described what happened in her class on the day of the national walkout: “At the appointed time, no students walked out so the teacher stopped talking, looked at the clock, and said, “Aren’t you supposed to be walking out?” That induced about half the class to depart. Then the teacher said, “I’m surprised more of you aren’t going.” That induced another quarter [of the class] to depart. To the remaining students she said, “There’s no point continuing with the lesson because so many aren’t here."
> Testimony submitted to the Education committee established that students across the state were used as pawns: "Most didn't know why they were walking out or that they were part of the Woman's March agenda."
> "This was a taxpayer-funded protest rally, pure and simple," said one parent.
Horowitz Freedom Center one of the ONLY orgs doing anything on K-12 indoctrination. Why does the rest of conservative movement not care about children been indoctrinated, pressured, and propagandized at schools? Too busy cheering on non-existent wall progress and hate-memeing about Ocasio-Cortez?
NY Times columnist wrote something about the "conservative case" for reparations
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/opinion/case-for-reparations.html
i don't plan on reading it but if anyone wants something to fisk, might be fun
#11979 re this comment, it doesn't look like he framed it as "conservative case" but he's their token conservative, so that's how it's being interpreted by some
> Horowitz Freedom Center one of the ONLY orgs doing anything on K-12 indoctrination. Why does the rest of conservative movement not care about children been indoctrinated, pressured, and propagandized at schools? Too busy cheering on non-existent wall progress and hate-memeing about Ocasio-Cortez?
Horowitz, like ET, is a convert from the left. He was raised differently. More sensitive to certain kinds of humanitarian issues. I think that's relevant.
> > “This bias fosters intolerance of different beliefs and this is not the kind of education we deserve. Please teach our children how to think, not what to think.”
The teachers doing this *don't know how to think* and therefore *can't* teach children how to think. Expecting them to do a good job is ridiculous. Should recognize from this that they are incapable of doing a good job. They could hide their politics way more and keep it mostly out of their teaching, but they would still be bad teachers that I sure as hell wouldn't entrust my kid's education to.
Does this contribute anything to economics?
Partly reposting because I want a mirror because stuff on reddit is sometimes deleted. I don't trust it. Also I think it's a good question.
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/azdjh6/does_this_contribute_anything_to_economics/?
This relates to the 'The "Austro-Punkism" Debate' post. Salerno quotes Mises, Human Action p 873:
> There never lived at the same time more than a score of men whose work contributed anything to economics.
I'm curious if anyone can tell me, with details/reasoning, whether my ideas regarding public goods contribute anything to economics or not:
https://elliottemple.com/essays/public-goods
I have made some effort to review the existing literature (some of which I discuss at the beginning of the article) and I believe I say some new things. But I'm a philosopher, not an economist. I haven't thoroughly read the economics literature. BTW I was kicked off the Mises Scholars email list, over 10 years ago, for lack of credentials, for asking a question about public goods and sources to read, to try to get info related to this.
The Austro-Punkism debate post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/ays1n3/the_austropunkism_debate/
I'm not finished with the first article, by Salerno. I think it's interesting and he's wrong in some important ways but I predict the other side will also be wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/ays1n3/the_austropunkism_debate/ei747xn/
Salerno's paper is 80% philosophy, which is not his field. That undermines what he says. He wants people to be trained in Austrian Economics before participating in the field (at like a PhD level, not reading a few books), but he hasn't earned a philosophy PhD prior to making philosophical comments. Issues like how knowledge is created and advanced, and the proper and improper roles of tradition and authority in that process, are part of the sub-field of philosophy called “epistemology” and have been worked on by philosophers like Karl Popper.
People from other fields often stray into philosophy. That's understandable because it's the field which deals with *methods of thinking and learning*, including how to debate or evaluate ideas, which are needed by all other fields. I think people would do better if they *knew* they were dabbling in philosophy and tried to learn the field (not to a PhD level, but some).
This matter is confusing because currently most philosophy PhDs go to people with philosophical ideas with negative value – the credentialing authorities and famous names in philosophy are bad. So philosophy has a bad reputation among good people. So people like Salerno don’t respect it (at the same time that he asks for respect for the great masters of his own field). But it's nevertheless important to seek out good philosophers to learn from instead of just using one's intuitions about philosophy. Many intuitions were picked up from the culture and inadequately critically examined, and could be improved on with some study of useful philosophers (such as Ayn Rand, who Mises respected highly, and whose book “Philosophy: Who Needs It” explains why philosophy matters, see particularly chapters 1 and 2).
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/azdjh6/does_this_contribute_anything_to_economics/ei8jn91/
Having options available has value whether they are contractually guaranteed (meaning: if the option goes away, you get paid) or not. This isn't an analogy. As I mention, non-contractually-guaranteed options are tangible enough to affect the prices people are willing to pay for homes. That's because in many cases they are highly predictable and reliable despite the lack of contract.
Tidal wave detection can be sold in lots of ways. It is, like everything, a good with many parts, some of which are easier to sell than others. You can sell the advertising that goes with the announcement, the name of the system, and control over choices about the threshold for sending out a notification and how many categories of notification there are and the alignment of the detector so it's better at detecting waves that will first hit in one place or another. You can sell access to data sets to ocean scientists. You can sell exclusivity: you only warn one particular news channel, so they get the info first and can brag about that (news stories of all sorts can be belatedly copied but having it first still has value, plus you can probably sue rival news channels if they use your info in any kind of official way.). Or a life insurance company could pay for detection so that fewer people die in tidal waves. I could go on and on.
Providing *all* goods is a creative process involving considering what to sell, how to sell it, and what not to sell. Tidal wave detection is *no different*. And it's routine that a good would be worth selling if you look at the good narrowly, but it's not worth it when you factor in some aspect of a particular method of selling it, e.g. it takes up too much shelf space to be worth selling at retail stores.
The broader point here is that there is no black and white distinction between public and private goods. The categories are wrong. They aren't sharp or exact categories. So the argument "X is a public good, therefore..." is just plain wrong. There is no category of "public goods", as distinct from private goods. There are mixed goods and their "degree of publicness" (a concept which has not been elaborated on due to the misconception that public goods are a sharp category rather than a blurry matter of degree) is actually usually not even a notable characteristic. Understanding the complex bundles of goods dealt with by businesses, some sold and more unsold, ruins the illusion of "public goods" as a well-defined, important category (and ruins the related illusion that businesses sell most goods they produce, and usually need to sell things in order to produce them). Understanding this perspective, this way of seeing business activity, makes it easy to see the public goods doctrine is nonsense which is trying to gloss over a lot of the world's nuance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h5iv6sECGU
AOC is a puppet.
https://mises.org/wire/atlas-shrugs
> Three months ago, the CEO of Gravity Payments, a Seattle credit card processing firm, announced that all of the firm’s employees would be paid a minimum of $70,000 a year, according to this story. Now, the firm has fallen on hard times, and some of the firm’s “higher valued” employees have quit. One employee who quit said, “He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump.” Another who quit said, “Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me. It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”
right when he starts firing to try to backboost me... the double
Jesus these people are idiots.
Is a private right wing anarchist subreddit that invited me a couple days ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NatAnCap/comments/azzzk8/by_any_means_necessary_a_violent_marxist_cult/
First sentence of today's SENS newsletter:
> SENS Research Foundation (SRF) and Forever Healthy Foundation (FHF) want to see you at the second annual Undoing Aging conference, so with less than 3 weeks to go, you should definitely register as soon as possible to secure your spot!
Long. Boring. Buries lead (2 big org names, who cares). Generic (we want to see you). More boring ("second annual", who cares). Finally the point, "Undoing Aging conference". They could have just said "Announcing the Undoing Aging conference! Sign up now!" and it'd be way better. Their writing is incompetent.
It goes on though. They try to get ppl to join. They try to time pressure ppl and imply that ur spot is insecure. It's really clumsy tho. And:
> you should definitely register as soon as possible
"definitely" is clumsy, it's not pressuring, it's not snappy. it's telling ppl what to do ineffectively. it's really bad to try to lead and fail to. lead successfully or don't lead. the whole "you should" is bad. don't tell ppl what they should do. you can say "Register now!" and it's actually less offensively ordering ppl around.
"as soon as possible" is super weak. it's handing ppl excuses (it's not possible right now, i'll do it later). its setting an expectation that as soon as possible is NOT now. and it's wordy. and why are they going so out of their way to avoid the word "now"?
> Undoing Aging conference
I think if it's a proper noun (so "Undoing" and "Aging" are capitalized) then "conference" is part of the noun and should be capitalized too.
"Undoing" and "Aging" are both modifiers, not nouns. The thing is an undoing-aging-conference. And it is a proper noun, that's correct. So "conference" should be capitalized.
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/b0v2il/why_some_people_says_that_the_austrian_school_of/
> Why some people says that the Austrian School of Economics isn't taken seriously in the academia?
Lots of reasons. A big one is because academia is a tool of the government which wants yesmen who support government control over everything (including the economy). It's complicated though, it's partly the other way around (government is a tool of the "intellectual and cultural elites").'
I recommend Mises's book on the anti-capitalistic mentality. https://mises.org/library/anti-capitalistic-mentality
---
I also replied to a comment:
> A lot of it is due to the unwarranted adherence to Karl Popper in the sciences, which is separate from contemporary philosophy of science where he is dismissed.
What are you talking about? He dedicated a book to Hayek, so he's certainly not spreading the message that Austrians should be ignored... He said little about econ (he did write a bunch of criticism of Marx though). And his philosophy of reason doesn't provide a reason to reject Austrian econ.
BrekfastLibertarian replied condescendingly. I'll paste my reply to him in the next comment after this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/b0v2il/why_some_people_says_that_the_austrian_school_of/eihvgy2/
Popper had a negative influence on Hayek in terms of methodology.
Of course Popper's philosophy of science provides a reason to reject Austrian economics, we can't verify the human action principle without introspection (aka can't verify it), and it's not something that we believe is falsifiable (going off of Quine's definition of a priori justification.) You really must be kidding? Popper's methodology labels AE as pseudoscience!
Both Hoppe and David Gordon have spent time discussing this in the past, I would recommend listening / reading to both.
Hoppe: https://youtu.be/MWaGF4GZvTg
Gordon: https://mises.org/library/philosophical-origins-austrian-economics#4
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/b0v2il/why_some_people_says_that_the_austrian_school_of/eihx9bk/
Popper's demarcation criterion was used to reject Marx, Freud and Adler as non-science. They claimed the authority and prestige of science but used different methods. And they claimed to have a lot of explanatory power but that was because they were compatible with everything (can't be refuted, actually not really saying anything).
None of this is an attack on non-science in general. Popper himself was a philosopher. He didn't think non-science, such as philosophy of science, was all, as a field, bad or dumb or whatever.
If something isn't empirically falsifiable, *you can still criticize it*. Popper advocated critical thinking, critical discussion, and all sorts of types of criticism besides the type "contradicted by an observation". That type of criticism is what stands out about science (meaning empirical science, not meaning all rational or organized thinking), but it's not necessary to learning.
Learning in general, according to Popper, follows a schema presented in OK: P1 -> TT -> EE -> P2.
I'll just assume you know what that means, unless you ask. As you can see, it's not specific to the (empirical) sciences. It's a general purpose evolutionary epistemology which explains how we, despite our fallibility, can learn incrementally via creating ideas plus error correction.
Popper's acceptance of non-science included moral philosophy. WoP:
> I suggest, therefore, that a *new* professional ethics, fit not only for scientists, be based upon the following twelve principles.
Notice how he doesn't reject non-science or non-scientists. But the main point:
> I ask the reader to consider what I am proposing here as suggestions. They are meant to point out that, in the field of ethics too, one can put forward suggestions which may be discussed and improved by critical discussion, as Xenophanes and his successors, it seems, were among the first to discover.
Popper thinks his epistemology works *for ethics* because its focus is on critical discussion which can be done without empirical refutation. Economics is fine too. It's just not a "science" in a particular terminology designed to combat e.g. "scientific socialism", but not to attack all non-science (such as ethics, economics, or Popper's own work).
You bring up Hoppe, whose work on Popper is poor scholarship:
https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/Economic%20Science%20and%20the%20Austrian%20Method_3.pdf
> Mises's own, entirely negative verdict on Popper can be found in his The Ultimate Foundation ofEconomic Science, p. 70.
This statement is factually false. Mises' verdict on Popper in that book is not on page 70, which contains a more minor point, nor is it "entirely" negative. Page 70 is the part where Mises complains about Popper's demarcation criterion. In his defense, Mises wrote that before C&R came out with its explanation of the demarcation criterion (which I explained above). Mises' primary verdict on Popper in the book is that Popper's epistemology is *correct* regarding the natural sciences, but doesn't apply to other fields (that's not an "entirely" negative verdict, it's actually quite positive in a huge way). This was written in 1962 before Popper had published developments of his epistemology beyond LScD.
For more on Hoppe and Popper see https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2017/12/02/hoppe-on-epistemology/
If you want to learn about Popper's ideas, please consult my guide for which selections to read (note that all recommend selections were published after Mises' comments on Popper discussed above): http://fallibleideas.com/books#popper
PS, re Gordon, that page appears to have a formatting error or typo rendering a key part unreadable:
> Now, consider this argument:
> p or q not-p
> q
Then it says:
> Once more, not-p should be falsifiable if p is, though Karl Popper has implausibly denied this.
Why is that implausible? Popper explained this. Gordon doesn't address Popper's reasoning, which I will now summarize: Consider "Zero swans are black" for p. You can empirically falsify that with one black swan. not-p is equivalent to: "At least one swan is black". You can't empirically falsify that. Observe 5000 white swans, or 5 trillion, and it could still correct.
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/b0v2il/why_some_people_says_that_the_austrian_school_of/eihw0d0/
> However, their failure to adopt empiricism, made continued contribution difficult.
The comma after "empiricism" splits the subject (failure) and verb (made). It has no upside and due to the first comma it gives the appearance of creating a comma-delimited phrase. It's really bad.
https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/b0v2il/why_some_people_says_that_the_austrian_school_of/eij2wcq/
I tried quoting Mises to show that Mises agrees with Popper on demarcation (except terminology) and the guy got dumb/mad/dishonest/irrational or something.
Big scandal with bribery and cheating to get into colleges. Worth reading an article about what's going on. This one has a funny part:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-admissions-bribery-scandal-scheme-usc-lori-loughlin-daughter-olivia-jade-giannulli/
> The couple's 19-year-old daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, is a freshman at USC.
> CBS L.A. reports she posted a video on social media last year in which she said she doesn't "really care about school."
> "I don't know how much of school I'm going to attend," she said in a video posted to her YouTube channel, which has over 1.9 million subscribers. "I do want the experience of game days, partying, I don't really care about school, as you guys know."
Alan Forrester writes:
https://twitter.com/alan_forrester/status/1106867481531035648
> Judgment: Tanett won’t debate or consider criticism. She hides her ignorance of CR by having no mechanisms for her errors to be corrected. Then she tries to teach misconceptions while lying that she’s an authority on CR. This contradicts CR and is immoral. https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2019/03/16/lulie-tanett-vs-critical-rationalism/
https://twitter.com/reasonisfun/status/1106617278437703680
> It's neat how different epistemologies have radically different answers to:
> - What people, animals and computers are
> - Animal sentience
> - The capabilities of children
> - What AGI will be + how to make it
> - Whether narrow superintelligence is possible.
This contradicts TCS. The TCS view is that there are no other parenting philosophies. Parents do stuff and then their philosophy is tacked on second as a rationalization, rather than them deciding what to do based on philosophy.
This is false, mean, and self-contradictory.
Regarding cost plus payments to government contractors:
Excerpt From: Ludwig von Mises. “Bureaucracy.” Apple Books.
> [Suppose] The contractor spends some money with the intention of reducing costs of production. If he succeeds, the result is—under the cost plus a percentage of cost method—that his profit is curtailed. If he does not succeed, the government does not reimburse the outlays in question and he loses too.
Cost-saving innovation is lose/lose under cost plus!
I think government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. (It's not permanent. They can vote again if they quit, retire, or get fired.) What do you think?
> I think government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. (It's not permanent. They can vote again if they quit, retire, or get fired.) What do you think?
Disenfranchising public school teachers, cops, and soldiers (among others) doesn't seem like a realistic reform.
I'd like to temporarily disenfranchise welfare recipients, but even that won't happen.
We can't even get people to support idea that *new immigrants* shouldn't be welfare cases even though that's the law.
Yeah, welfare recipients should be included too. Not every program handing out even a dollar, and not social security or medicare (too universal), but some clear cases like food stamps or subsidized housing.
If the government is giving you money, you shouldn't be deciding on government policy. It's a conflict of interest: it's in your interest to vote to give yourself more money.
I'd be happy to start with just people who work for the government more directly: politicians, clerks for government agencies, stuff like that.
As long as the government is small, it doesn't make that much difference if government workers don't vote, and the system makes sense: the 95% entrusting the 5% with power but the 95% making the decisions.
As the government gets bigger, this policy takes away the vote from a lot more people, but it's also a lot more needed. If you entrust 30% of the population with power over the other 70%, that's a lot more dangerous. Corruption, abuse and tyranny are larger concerns. And the government employees can form a political alliance with only 30% of the regular citizens and win votes against the wishes of 70% of the regular citizens.
Choice of words in "Best Optimum Batch Size"
Page 45 of Goldratt's *Theory of Constraints* has a graph titled "Best Optimum Batch Size". A few thoughts on the choice of words in that title:
1. "Optimum" is a noun, but it's being used here as an adjective. If it's meant as an adjective, I think it should be "Optimal".
2. I think "Best Optimal" has a redundant word. According to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/optimal :
> Definition of optimal
> most desirable or satisfactory
I think "Best Batch Size" or "Optimal Batch Size" would have been better.
> 1. "Optimum" is a noun, but it's being used here as an adjective. If it's meant as an adjective, I think it should be "Optimal".
"Optimum" can be an adjective
https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1107452886374453248
Choice of words in "Best Optimum Batch Size"
> "Optimum" can be an adjective
Ah, I missed that. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/optimum-vs-optimal :
>> ... optimum and optimal are both options when you want an adjective.
>In an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, Harris said it was "outrageous" that Vice President Mike Pence will not have one-on-one meetings with women - a critique that exaggerated a long-ago Pence comment that he does not dine one-on-one with a woman other than his wife.
>"I think that's ridiculous," Harris said. "The idea that you would deny a professional woman the opportunity to have a meeting with the vice president of the United States is outrageous."
Dems are never not lying.
Pence's rule is that he won't have DINNER ALONE with a woman not his wife, not that he won't have "a meeting." If Harris had said "The idea that you would deny a professional woman the opportunity to have dinner alone with the vice president of the United States is outrageous", her position would sound way dumber to lots of people. But that's what Pence's policy is, and here Harris is using vague wording about "the opportunity to have a meeting" to fool ppl about the content of Pence's policy. very vicious and nasty!
I answered a comment about DD and LT:
https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2019/03/16/lulie-tanett-vs-critical-rationalism/
Yes the problem with bad "CR" people, or bad intellectuals, is larger than Tanett. It includes David Miller:
http://curi.us/2015-david-miller-doesnt-want-to-discuss
The CR FB group:
http://curi.us/2055-banned-from-critical-rationalist-facebook-group
And, sure, DD:
http://curi.us/2017-david-deutsch-interview-undermines-his-philosophy
And Jordan Peterson, and, more generally, *lack of paths forward*:
https://elliottemple.com/essays/using-intellectual-processes-to-combat-bias
Yes, DD and LT choosing not to explain why they left the TCS/FI community is bad. Even if they'd never been involved it'd be bad to dismiss it without sharing any reasoning (no paths forward, inactive/passive/closed mind, no way for error correction to happen). But as major participants it's much worse.
---
DD and LT are very different cases, though. You say "He is behaving like Tanett." but I disagree.
DD studied CR a lot, effectively. DD has accomplishments like books that contribute to CR. LT has never studied CR much, never learned that much about it, and has no accomplishments. DD tweets a mix of good and bad tweets, and the bad ones usually aren't super bad. LT tweets pretty much purely awful tweets. DD is not attempting to attack or undermine FI on purpose or directly, he just ignores it, whereas LT actually is trying to have a negative effect on FI. DD's tweets are not especially socially manipulative – less than average for an intellectual – but LT's are extremely socially manipulative. DD's tweets are also less dishonest than average while LT's are much more dishonest than average.
DD, as a philosopher, could be viewed sorta as retired after a productive career (and, yes, retired people are allowed to continue to tweet about their field and do some minor things), whereas LT gave up early on and now is lying about it and trying to build a fake career.
https://nypost.com/2019/03/15/brexits-in-trouble-because-britains-political-class-never-wanted-it/
> Nigel Lawson, long-time No. 2 to Margaret Thatcher, wrote a short but pointed letter to The Spectator last week. He said that Lord Kerr, the British diplomat who drafted Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that Britain invoked to leave the Union, told him that he had drafted it specifically so that it would be very difficult for any country to leave.
> He was certainly successful in this aim: for the philosopher-kings of the EU do not want any damned-fool population getting in the way of the implementation of their wisdom.
> This view accords perfectly with the founders of the “European project” over 60 years ago; they wanted to eliminate messy politics through neat, clean administration.
> Britain has been thoroughly humiliated by the whole episode, but history has no end, and Yugoslavian-style wars of secession may yet, in the distant future, occur.
https://vdare.com/articles/big-other-in-new-foreword-to-camp-of-the-saints-jean-raspail-names-those-wringing-france-s-neck?scroll_to_paragraph=7
> A novel such as Camp of the Saints could not be published today. Even before it appeared, in July 1972, France’s National Assembly unanimously passed the Pleven Law against “incitation to racial hatred.” But in those early days, this novel law was not rigorously enforced, and Raspail’s book got in under the wire. Every few years, the scope of the Pleven Law is expanded or its penalties increased—usually by unanimous vote of the Assembly.
> Out of curiosity, Raspail separately consulted two lawyers who specialize in such matters, and they each found more than 300 lines spread over several chapters that would likely be found in violation of the law if newly published today.
GWBush's PressSec talks about Iraqi WMDs
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1108182597983703041.html
> GWBush's PressSec talks about Iraqi WMDs
> https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1108182597983703041.html
i see a bunch of ppl flaming him on twitter but haven't seen any factual disputes so far sigh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53uiRFq4Ds
1 hour news report on how leftist policies are destroying seattle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Early_life_and_education
>In 1977, Greenspan obtained a Ph.D. in economics from New York University. His dissertation is not available from the university[18] since it was removed at Greenspan's request in 1987, when he became Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. In April 2008, however, Barron's obtained a copy and notes that it includes "a discussion of soaring housing prices and their effect on consumer spending; it even anticipates a bursting housing bubble".[19]
I was distracted by the background noise in these two podcasts. Was it meant to be an experiment or something?
https://curi.us/files/podcasts/reputation.mp3
https://curi.us/files/podcasts/philosophy-experts.mp3
#12043 I recorded those outside cuz that's when I had the inspiration.
I reply to a guy who thinks he refuted Objectivism on reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/Trueobjectivism/comments/awygju/objectivism_refuted/
You're attempting to refute a substantial philosophy with many man-years of effort put into it. Your refutation, by contrast, contains a blatant error in the second word:
> Objectivism implies that life is the primary value because
You clearly don't know what the word "implies" means (and had the poor judgment to use it anyway without looking it up).
Given your status of a beginner at reason/thinking/writing/English, you should try to get better at that stuff before judging or refuting philosophies. You're being too arrogant. It would help you to learn about overreaching, which is a mistake you're making http://fallibleideas.com/overreach
Gall's Law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gall_(author)#Gall.27s_law :
> A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gall_(author)#Gall.27s_law :
>> A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
That is related to not overreaching. People need to start with stuff they can succeed at and build up from there.
http://gothamist.com/2019/03/20/fairway_cashierless_app.php
long excerpt:
> In November, Fairway introduced a mobile app run by a New York-based company named FutureProof Retail, that allows customers to create an account and scan their own grocery items with their phones. The app is part of a slew of new cashierless check-out systems being rolled out by retailers to trim labor costs and speed up transactions for customers who want to avoid long lines.
> The Fairway app informs users that it employs a “spot check” system, in which shoppers are randomly selected to have their purchases reviewed against their online receipts.
> Last week, one Fairway shopper filled out a customer feedback survey in which he complained how the spot-check slowed his checkout, and received a disturbing response from a FutureProof customer service representative.
> The March 11 email attributes the random spot-check policy in part to New York City's diversity, which creates a society where people do not have the same “values and respect for laws.”
> Below is the full excerpt:
> > It occurs randomly so there isn't any discrimination or implicit bias expressed toward shoppers, it is an unfortunate consequence of the amazing diversity here in NYC. With all the different backgrounds, and socioeconomic classes shopping at Fairway we can't operate it on the honor system like kiosks in homogeneous population centers in Norway and Finland, since people can't be expected to all have the same class structure, values and respect for laws. This aspect of building the app has been very educational. Lot's of applied psychology and learning about other cultures.
> “I thought it was pretty shocking,” said the shopper, who shared the correspondence with Gothamist but asked that his name be withheld.
> He declined to provide the name of the employee who sent the email.
> Last Friday, he posted the response on Reddit with the name of the FutureProof employee blacked out. Reactions on the forum were mixed, with several describing the employee’s justification as “odd” and others denouncing it as “straight-up racism.”
> The next day, William Hogben, FutureProof’s CEO responded on Reddit with the following post:
> > My name is William Hogben, I am the CEO. Thank you for bringing this to our attention so we could take action. Thank you especially for preserving the privacy of the customer service respondent. We have discussed the situation, communicated with the employee, and we made the decision to terminate their employment. Again I really appreciate you taking the time to let us know. Please contact me directly if you have any questions. Will Hogben
> The Fairway shopper said he found the CEO’s response less than satisfying because it did not include a strong rebuke of racial discrimination.
> “In short, I wanted the company to take responsibility,” he told Gothamist. “Instead the employee was made responsible.”
Non-overreaching and the Apollo space program
Re: #12047
Non-overreaching looks to have been a contributing factor to the success of the Apollo space program.
NASA, *What Made Apollo a Success?* (March, 1970), p. 10 (OCR by Google docs, emphasis mine):
> After Apollo 9 another decision had to be made: *Were we then ready for a lunar landing, or was the step too big?* We decided that we faced too many remaining unknowns: performance of the lunar module in the deep-space environment, communications with the lunar module at lunar distances, combined operations with two spacecraft around the moon, rendezvous around the moon, and, of course, the lunar descent, landing, surface operations, and ascent. In lieu of a landing, we planned to do as many of these tasks as possible on Apollo 10 without actually touching down on the surface of the moon.
> *The entire series of flights represented a step-by-step buildup*, with each step leading closer to a lunar-landing ability. Our intent was to use the procedures developed on one flight on each subsequent mission. Changes were allowed only if they were essential for flight safety or mission success. By means of this buildup, we minimized the remaining tasks (descent, landing, surface operations, and ascent) that could be worked out only on the actual landing mission. The Apollo 11 crew was able to concentrate on these remaining tasks, to work them out in detail, and to carry them out with perfection.
#12048 #Fired4Truth
JSON list of stores that sell Sprite Zero Cherry
JSON list of places in the US near a given ZIP code that purport to sell Sprite Zero Cherry: https://api.brands.ccnag.com/api/v5/getBusinessLocations/16/10001/150/A4I6/NA/1/5
Replace 10001 with the ZIP code of origin and 150 with the maximum distance from that ZIP code.
Found this URL by searching Google for [buy sprite zero cherry], going to https://www.sprite.com/product-locator/, selecting "Sprite Zero Cherry", doing a search, and inspecting the request that appeared in the Network tab of the browser's inspector.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/03/21/facebook-plaintext-passwords-exposed/
> Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions Passwords in Plain Text, Thousands of Employees Had Access
jfc
An interesting amateur tour of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library
from http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4225459&forum_id=2#37964515
Date: March 21st, 2019 1:37 AM
Author: CharlesXII (CharlesXII)
'Sup bros. I know a bunch of people want to learn about Budapest and Prague, but that's gonna have to wait for a few days. In the meantime, we need to drive a 2008 Honda Accord from Waterloo, Iowa all the way back to Washington D.C. Sure, we could do that in one day as a straight shot, but why do that when we can make a kooky weekend-long Bobby Digital roadtrip out of it?
Our first stop along the trip is the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. Hoover is the earliest president to have an official presidential library, and while most of these libraries are in at least medium-sized cities, Hoover's is right next to his birthplace in the tiny town of West Branch, Iowa.
https://imgur.com/a/tXww5Bl
Hoover is one of America's lowest-rated president, but his library will do its best to make him seem like the most 180 American to ever live.
The first part of the museum quickly summarizes Hoover's early life. It's low on artifacts, but it does have a recreation of the shitty shack Hoover had to live in while leading mining operations in Australia.
https://imgur.com/a/NxHe93K
Hoover graduated from Stanford at 20 with no job prospects. Rather than applying to law school, he took a more enterprising approach: A London firm wanted an experienced mining engineer, at least 35 years old. So Hoover just grew a beard, bought a tweed suit, and faked being an oldmo. This completely worked.
https://imgur.com/a/oYCNfqH
After maeking it in Australia, Hoover and his wife moved to China, where they learned Chinese, lived like mandarins, and survived the Boxer Rebellion at an age where you were using Purell at a cubicle desk. The museum has some of their China swag.
https://imgur.com/a/uWGMcUp
https://imgur.com/a/6Bzl3QY
At the age of 28, Hoover was one of the most elite mining engineers in the world, and was salaried at $33,000 a year, close a million in today's dollars. That's just a standard biglaw PPP these days, but back then it made Hoover supposed the richest salaryman of his age in the world.
https://imgur.com/a/rmIvYrx
After a decade, Hoover was tremendously wealthy. But then, he did something incredible: He walked away from striving after wealth to become the world's most famous humanitarian. When World War I broke out, he quit his mining job to focus first on helping Americans flee Europe, and then masterminding food relief for the continent. Hoover made huge loans to help people flee Europe, and pledged his entire personal fortune multiple times in order to get his relief operation off the ground. The museum has a bunch of items sent to Hoover by grateful Europeans from across the continent.
https://imgur.com/a/38A5vgw
https://imgur.com/a/FSdXa1q
https://imgur.com/a/O1l4Vl3
https://imgur.com/a/IrmSmSV
One weird album from Germany has shitty kid art of brown natives in a far-off country harvesting food for Hoover's relief effort:
https://imgur.com/a/i5NmMHg
For some reason, the museum also has a jigsaw puzzle of Latvia:
https://imgur.com/a/ARlQgbM
After WW1 ended, Hoover was one of the most popular people in the entire world. The museum can't resist noting that FDR wanted Hoover to be president at this time:
https://imgur.com/a/9lo0ThQ
In the 1920s, Hoover served as Warren Harding's and Calvin Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce. Under every other president Commerce has been a borderline irrelevant department, but Hoover made it one of the most visible and active departments in the country. He spearheaded the standardization of radio and the implementation of safety standards for car and airline travel. He turned the Census Bureau into a huge data operation for American businesses. He promoted home ownership and created the Colorado River Compact. Hoover's enthusiasm for work was so intense he routinely invaded other departments and took control of projects he thought other secretaries were mismanaging.
https://imgur.com/a/NBrCdAe
Now, of course, things start to go badly for Hoover. He wins the presidency in a landslide, but the economy tanks and Hoover takes all the blame. The museum tries very hard to make Hoover sound like a prophet who anticipated the stock market crash, but had his warnings ignore by greedy business interests.
https://imgur.com/a/PaP1xG8
The museum also highlights a surprisingly R-rated joke by Hoover.
https://imgur.com/a/6VAEk08
A small exhibit highlights the extremely brave effort of Republican operatives who had to push for Hoover's reelection in 1932. It did not end well:
https://imgur.com/a/ZhPqlZz
https://imgur.com/a/d9NpdM5
Media was really retarded a century ago, too. Some woman thought her knee creases looked like Hoover and it was a big story:
https://imgur.com/a/A1Rn1gm
Hoover's wife (who had the badass hobby of collecting weapons) pissed off a lot of people by inviting a black woman to dine at the White House. The Museum preserves a deranged letter the First Family was sent by an irate Southern woman.
https://imgur.com/a/IYFh2Xw
Teleprompters are apparently a lot older than I thought:
https://imgur.com/a/Ws4AK48
Lots of presidential libraries have a replica of that president's Oval Office. Fittingly for a man whose life was 180 except for his time as president, Hoover's library instead has a replica of his post-presidency office in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. From here, Hoover wrote a mountain of books and articles that set the standard for an American post-presidency. Some of his ideas were good (he suggested banning ghost-writers in politics), and some were terrible (he wanted four strikes in baseball).
https://imgur.com/a/GxiWDgv
Outside the museum is Hoover's tomb, which lies within sight of his preserved childhood home.
https://imgur.com/a/xAJHNDK
That was a sedate but pleasant start to a very long drive. Our next stop will be a lot more energetic: We're going to Doobs' #1 truck stop.
jewish critic of islamic immigration has interview edited to make him look bad
deep linking to example of editing (there's some stuff before if you want full context) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCQhAezB_Q&feature=youtu.be#t=160s
> #12043 I recorded those outside cuz that's when I had the inspiration.
The background noises weren’t a distraction for me.
patio11 has to retain a superstitious model of the world in his head, and think about what superstition says about lots of events in his life, in order to better pander to superstitious people. (or he genuinely likes superstitious thinking, or a mix of that and pandering)
Good lyrics analysis by Roosh. Two pop songs that are trying to destroy heterosexual monogamy. (BTW the first one reminds me a lot of Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne, but it's even worse.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xWM9qy9Fik&feature=youtu.be&t=572
A couple nasty comments about Jews but those are isolated rather than integrated into the rest of the content.
very well done for a meme video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRSmlABDVi0
but the left can make those too. not truth-seeking enough.
http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/31/consider-possibility-we-are-led-idiots/
> One of the things I endeavor to remind people of consistently when I am asked to speak to groups around the country is to consider the possibility that we are led by a pack of idiots. This is not out of any animus toward our leadership class, but borne out of experience. I have seen cabinet secretaries who type with two fingers. I have listened as senior staffers with authority over constructing legislation in a particular scientific field engage in debate on whether or not the moon landing was a hoax. I have seen a man charged with revolutionizing incredibly complex government information technology systems who did not know how to use a thumb drive. I have seen the bill from a highly paid consultant, an incredibly expensive bill, for a PowerPoint deck that I had seen him present for another client with different logos. And, more personally, I have been told at many varied points in my career by accomplished people why the thing I wished to build was impossible, why it would be a failure, and why I should instead join company X, Y, or Z, none of which are relevant or in some cases even exist today. This is why we should never forget the possibility that underneath the façade of government and business, which projects authority and success, there are a host of fools who are just along for the ride and got to where they are by dint of internal politics, a nice resume, and good timing.
> http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/31/consider-possibility-we-are-led-idiots/
>> One of the things I endeavor to remind people of consistently when I am asked to speak to groups around the country is to consider the possibility that we are led by a pack of idiots. This is not out of any animus toward our leadership class, but borne out of experience. I have seen cabinet secretaries who type with two fingers. I have listened as senior staffers with authority over constructing legislation in a particular scientific field engage in debate on whether or not the moon landing was a hoax. I have seen a man charged with revolutionizing incredibly complex government information technology systems who did not know how to use a thumb drive. I have seen the bill from a highly paid consultant, an incredibly expensive bill, for a PowerPoint deck that I had seen him present for another client with different logos. And, more personally, I have been told at many varied points in my career by accomplished people why the thing I wished to build was impossible, why it would be a failure, and why I should instead join company X, Y, or Z, none of which are relevant or in some cases even exist today. This is why we should never forget the possibility that underneath the façade of government and business, which projects authority and success, there are a host of fools who are just along for the ride and got to where they are by dint of internal politics, a nice resume, and good timing.
This quote mixes some stuff together. The PowerPoint guy might be a fraudster or maybe even actually providing value depending on lots of omitted details and how he represented his work to the client. Both those possibilities (fraud or providing value) are different than two finger typing which is just incompetence
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4228339&forum_id=2#37984697
Date: March 24th, 2019 11:35 PM
Author: calishitlawguru
While I am a great business person and make a lot of money practicing law, I am far from a world class trial lawyer (and thats not really my business model).
However, as nerdy as it is, I am one of the top laser tag players in the world. I have done hundreds of events, competed in several countries, and have won national and international team, solo, and doubles events.
I was ranked Cal-I in counterstrike when I was in high school and I was definitely world class.
Edit: I also have won numerous state open bench press competitions in my weight class and the weight class above me through the US Powerlifting Association.
Its a goal of mine to become world class in more stuff. Wondering who here has reached that level in hobbies, sports, video games, etc.
https://twitter.com/ImHardcory/status/1109117055335366657
I have not read the study.
How Amazon dealt with its constraints
https://zackkanter.com/2019/03/13/what-is-amazon
> With an established pattern for solving the practical and bureaucratic issues that arose from infinite shelf space, Amazon began systematically removing bottlenecks to growth.
...
> ... in the world of infinite shelf space – and platforms to fill them – the limiting reagent for Amazon’s growth would not be its website traffic, or its ability to fulfill orders, or the number of SKUs available to sell; it would be its own bureaucracy.
#12069 Nice article but questionable attacks on advertising. Advertising isn't random. The company with the best product + most profit can hire the best advertising firm. There are incentives only to advertise good products, especially in the longer term. There are incentives within a company to advertise whichever products are most wanted by customers (will get better responses both to the ads and to the products) and the same stuff applies between companies.
It's possible to knowingly make a bad product and try to sell a bunch via advertising expertise and then move on to a new product under a new brand, but that is not typical behavior and is, in general, a worse way to make money over time compared to running a better business.
Advertising does favor products with a bit higher margins (so they can fit some advertising into the margins). But there's nothing wrong with that. If a product is too low margin to spare budget to communicate about it with customers, the product doesn't really work (unless e.g. you can get enough word of mouth going, or advertise it via a very cheap method like having a single twitter account for it and somehow getting it a million followers with a budget of the salary for one person working on it 20% of the time and $200/month expenses).
The idea that incentives can be responded too, and the overall system or process can know what it's doing even if an individual author doesn't *is very similar to how social condition and static memes often work*. Often the actor doesn't consciously know what he's doing, but due to the system of his thinking, the incentives of his emotional conditioning, and other stuff, the overall result is to act in a particular, purposeful, designed way that fits the meme despite not consciously trying to follow the meme.
#12058 The mocked group responded by trying to verbally fight back and mock Canary Mission's video. They immediately got rekt for it:
Military being degraded to fit PC/SJW agenda
https://people.com/celebrity/female-rangers-were-given-special-treatment-sources-say/
> But whereas men consistently were held to the strict standards outlined in the Ranger School’s Standing Operating Procedures handbook sources say, the women were allowed lighter duties and exceptions to policy.
> Multiple sources told PEOPLE:
> • Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.
> • Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.
> • While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.
> • Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.
> • A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.
FB to ban "praise, support & representation of white nationalism & separatism"
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/standing-against-hate/
https://twitter.com/amrenreposts/status/1111755560137846784
https://www.amren.com/commentary/2019/03/letter-from-zurich-airport/
https://twitter.com/mises/status/1112038276288917504
This copy is gross. They could say they explain the issue and answer the questions they pose. Instead they say the podcast is about why their side is right. They are viewing their audience like sports fans who want to cheer for their team, or they view the matter that way themselves.
How astronavigation is similar to GPS navigation
SR-71 Pilot Richard Graham on the SR-71's astronavigation system:
> The navigation system for the airplane is through what's called an "astro-tracker". It looks up to the stars. On top of the guidance group which we nicknamed as crew members "R2-D2", because it's smart, it does everything on the airplane, it orchestrates the cameras, everything. But on top of the guidance group is a gimballed platform, and on that gimballed platform is a telescope. And that telescope looks through that quartz glass window, and it goes into a search pattern called an ever-expanding rectangular search pattern. So it starts out, and it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, in this real rapid search pattern.
> Inside the R2-D2, we have the Julian day of the year, which is the sequential number of the day, like January 1 is 1, January 2 is 2. That's called the Julian day of the year... It has a chronometer in the computer, accurate to 1/100th of a second. And it's got a 64-star catalog of the 64 brightest stars in the Northern hemisphere.
> So the theory is, we know where all the stars are all the time. So if this computer knows the exact year, the exact day of the year, the exact time of the day, and it goes looking for this 64-star catalog, it'll search and look on, and eventually lock on to the 3 brightest stars in the Northern hemisphere that it can find. And it does that while we're on the ground taxiing out from the hangar.
> On a day like today, as clear as it is, it would lock on on the ground within about probably a minute, maybe. If it's hazy, it may take 2 minutes. If it's overcast, obviously you can't get anything until you get above the overcast, and the R2-D2 does its thing.
> But I've always been impressed how you pull out of the hangar, as soon as you taxi for about 30 seconds, on about a day like this, or a minute, it locks on to 3 stars. It gets them right away.
> And that's how you navigate. And when you think about it, and realistically, it's no different than a GPS today. A GPS that we use for our cars and airplanes and all kinds of navigation locks on to what? They lock on to *artificial stars* we call satellites, with an exact known position, a highly-accurate chronometer inside each satellite. So, what we're doing is using the real stars, and anyone with GPS is using the artificial stars for accuracy. So, same thing, just different means.
> It's very, very accurate. Once you're on course, what we call the "black line" of the map, the navigation system will keep you within probably less than about 1000 feet each side to the left or right of the course at Mach 3 all the time. It does a very good job keeping it on the course.
Source: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17207/sr-71s-r2-d2-could-be-the-key-to-winning-future-fights-in-gps-denied-environments
new vid, curi writes an FI email:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTErWs2Hd2I
Justin commented on part of an interview Dave Rubin did with some Objectivists
https://youtu.be/DhAP6j6vVEU
https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1112488648576913408
Good description of a way to make fake PUA vids:
https://krauserpua.com/2018/04/10/lol-justin-wayne-caught-hiring-actresses-again/
1. Open girl with mild physical compliment while expressing ZERO sexual intent through non-verbals. This simulates a direct opener for the viewer but puts no pressure on the girl to think she’s being hit on.
2. Immediately tell her you’re NOT hitting on her, but are actually a talent scout for a business (e.g. modelling, PR work, waitressing). Crucially, MUTE this audio and disguise it by offering a voice-over pretending you are still hitting on her.
3. Continue to play the grey area where you say mildly sexual things verbally, with zero sexual non-verbals, and mute any time you disclaim hitting on her, or continue explaining the job interview you’re trying to set up.
4. When she agrees to the job interview determines if it’s an “idate” or a “day 2”. Mute some of the number close because that’s obviously interview logistics.
5. Record the “date” and do very light kino, which she’ll accept as simply you being a creepy boss and not take seriously as an attempt to fuck her.
6. Pass it off as a successful seduction to low-IQ Indians who desperately want to believe an ugly charmless Indian immigrant can get lots of white women. Accuse any critics of racism while you yourself play the race card to scam your very own countrymen.
An example of popular entertainment from the pro wrestling world:
https://twitter.com/wwe/status/1112900324820283393?s=21
Just a ton of fake angry fighting and violence.
Also it was dumb, cops would keep people who might fight each other more separate and not leave them in a position to try to drive away with the cop car
#12086
*Our Culture, What's Left Of It* by Theodore Dalrymple
> Having spent a considerable proportion of my professional career in Third World countries in which the implementation of abstract ideas and ideals has made bad situations incomparably worse, and the rest of my career among the very extensive British underclass, whose disastrous notions about how to live derive ultimately from the unrealistic, self-indulgent, and often fatuous ideas of social critics, I have come to regard intellectual and artistic life as being of incalculable practical importance and effect. John Maynard Keynes wrote, in a famous passage in *The Economic Consequences of the Peace*, that practical men might not have much time for theoretical considerations, but in fact the world is governed by little else than the outdated or defunct ideas of economists and social philosophers. I agree: except that I would now add novelists, playwrights, film directors, journalists, artists, and even pop singers. They are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, and we ought to pay close attention to what they say and how they say it.
Did he forget to include "pro wrestlers" after "pop stars"? Or perhaps it's their writers and producers who matter, who are close enough to film directors or playwrights already. (He must have thought TV matters too, not just plays or films, so I don't think we should read the categories narrowly).
Speaking of bad ideas and how they affect people's lives and the more "lowbrow" ones don't get thorough enough criticism, I was thinking of making a video complaining about this:
https://genius.com/Galantis-bones-lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATaN1meCOlo
Only 2.4m views though it's only 2 months old. I heard it on the radio in an Uber the other day.
A different (PUA) take on the Hero's Journey (discussed by Jordan Peterson, based on Jung and Campbell material):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQLh0bA7Vg
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/04/03/facebook-email-passwords
I found an article about Gumroad, the site I sell stuff on. Was interesting to find out what had been going on with them for the last few years. Also the founder/ceo is @shl on twitter, I will try following him.
https://medium.com/s/story/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-a-billion-dollar-company-b0c31d7db0e7
Brief summary is they got 8 million in funding, hired 20 ppl, didn't grow enough, fired 15, the rest eventually quit, but he didn't want to shut it down because it was paying like 2 million a month to creators. It has kept growing up to over 4 million a month sent out to creators and the business is stable now and makes some profit.
Gun registration doesn't solve murders – and TV shows lie.
https://crimeresearch.org/2019/04/tv-show-bias-against-guns-the-constant-false-claims-that-gun-registration-being-used-to-solve-crime/
The left wants to take away the guns of Koreatown so that Hispanics and blacks can loot and pillage.
Not really joking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pwl4pvr300
>Ariel Feinerman: Is any progress in the OncoSENS programme? Have you found any ALT genes? Is any ongoing research in WILT?
>Aubrey de Grey: No – in the end that program was not successful enough to continue with, so we stopped it. There is now more interest in ALT in other labs than there was, though, so I’m hopeful that progress will be made. But also, one reason why I felt that it was OK to stop was that cancer immunotherapy is doing so well now. I think there is a significant chance that we won’t need WILT after all, because we will really truly defeat cancer using the immune system.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/04/155678.html
https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/04/german-headmaster-suggested-christian-girl-wear-a-hijab-to-stop-bullies/
In his book *Game*, about picking up women, Roosh gives a short intro to some philosophy stuff. Ideas matter. Reading a book and agreeing is inadequate to change your ideas.
https://www.rooshvstore.com/books/game
The beginning talks about cultural decline including rape accusations and "toxic" masculinity. Roosh tries to keep the book fairly non-political and avoiding placing blame, but says this stuff isn't ignorable, your way of dealing with women needs to take it into account.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WD38BRP
> Within a few years, Chase had become one of the most prominent posters on the pickup artist community's mASF forum... Rated the #7 most valuable poster out of some 100,000 forum members, including nearly all of pickup's greatest names.
Chase, the best PUA writer, is from usenet and posted lots there, and mentioned it in in his Amazon marketing :D
Is cheerleading a dangerous sport? Most seem to think so. What are your thoughts?
https://www.cheershirts.net