Good People

Where are all the smart, rational people interested in intellectual discussion?

Can anyone find some somewhere besides FI?

Or is the world just kinda full of fools?

Reply in the comments below.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (99)

Simple Communication

i was watching McIntyre playing heroes of the storm with Wiz. (i've linked to the relevant timestamp.) Wiz is Korean and has limited English fluency. McIntyre answered a question from chat about how he talks with Wiz. McIntyre explained roughly:

wiz can understand certain important words well. but if i use full sentences, then wiz has a hard time with the words in between the key words. so it's easier for him if i just say more like bullet points or key words, not proper sentences.

this is wise :)

mcintyre gave an example. he says the sentence "hey wiz, can you come help me do top?" is hard for Wiz to understand. but if he just says "help top" then wiz understands.

after that i listened to him playing and talking a bit. so not intentional examples to answer the question, just talking.
one of McIntyre's sentences was "clone clone clone clone clone". this was much clearer than if he'd said, "hey wiz please clone me now so we can fight them".

another thing McIntyre said was, "care for boss". not, "hey please scout out the boss to make sure they don't do it cuz that would be bad for us"

this one may seem strange b/c "care for boss" is not normal english and would confuse a non-gamer b/c of the way the word "care" is used. it's gamer lingo that wiz would know but some native speakers might not. ppl say "care" to mean "be careful" and similar. Wiz understands it's a warning about a danger. and the danger is boss. and he knows what "boss" means – the threat of the enemy team doing the boss (an in-game concept).

i like this. it's good, simple communication. people should do this more when talking with native speakers, too. especially if they want to discuss philosophy (which is hard to communicate about)!

if people would pretend their discussion partners are non-native speakers with limited English vocabulary, i think a lot of intellectual discussions would go better. try it out!

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (9)

Mac Mail Bug

Today I found a bug in Apple's Mail program for Mac.

Select an email. Flag it with the yellow flag. Then give it an orange flag to change the flag color. Then click another email to unselect it.

The flag will display with a green color for about half a second. It fixes itself quickly.

I wonder if it's somehow using two colors at once and they mix to get green, or what. And I wonder why it fixes itself after that amount of time. Seems pretty strange. Software is hard!

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (10)

Alex Epstein's Pinnacle

Alex Epstein sent out a Center for Industrial Progress newsletter today. Unfortunately there's no web version of the newsletter to link to. When trying to spread ideas online and market them, it's important to have links people can share. I consider this careless and/or incompetent.

One reason this sucks is I can't quote part of the newsletter and give a link for anyone who wants to read the rest. If I just quote the important parts, most of my audience won't have access to the rest.

Epstein says, in full:

I’m testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday at 9:30 am ET. You can view it live here.

Here’s more info about the hearing, which is called Examining the Role of Environmental Policies on Access to Energy and Economic Opportunity.

I will have five minutes to speak, followed by questions from Senators. Note that several of the Senators expected to be present, including Senators Whitehouse and Markey, are not only anti-fossil fuel but anti-free speech, calling for the criminal prosecution of those who challenge climate catastrophism.

I can promise you I will bring a case for energy freedom, including fossil fuel freedom, that has never been heard in a Congressional hearing. I very much hope that the Senators do their best--or their worst--to see how it holds up to scrutiny.

Please spread the word. And if you watch it, let me know what you think.

The anti-free speech link goes to an article which does not mention Whitehouse or Markey by name (it does name and discuss lots of other people). That's really bad and unreasonable of Epstein. He's making a major accusation, and giving a source, except the source doesn't say anything about the accused.

Big picture, Epstein is happy and sharing his success with his newsletter audience. He's reached a pinnacle. This is a high point for him. He wants to be influential. He wants to do activities like testify to the senate. No doubt he hopes in retrospect this will look small, and that he'll surpass it, but today it's big for him. He's achieving his goals!

And Epstein is, for those who don't know, an Objectivist. He used to work for the Ayn Rand Institute. Objectivist organizations write puff pieces for Epstein.

So: Epstein's big achievement consists of the privilege of speaking for five minutes to people who think he should be in jail for speaking his message.

(Or at least Epstein believes the jail thing. I didn't research it beyond seeing that his source was bogus.)

I think Ayn Rand would have mocked Epstein for this. Epstein is proud to participate in (what he himself believes is) a farce where anti-free speech people pretend to discuss and think. He's helping them pretend to be rational while knowing they aren't really listening (and, worse, they'll sit there wanting to use force against him, rather than merely tuning him out).

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (6)

Cold Hands

A question was posted to FI about having unpleasantly cold hands when walking to the car in the morning to go to work. Here are some thoughts about how to think about problem solving in a TCS way. With approaches like these, all problems are soluble and no one need ever suffer.

people bothered by cold hands imagine alternatives like warm hands. they have had warm hands. they know of summer and gloves and heaters.

if the laws of physics didn't allow for other temperatures, most people wouldn't be sad about their cold hands. they couldn't imagine any different, so they wouldn't see a problem.

suppose they were somehow bothered by cold hands that were IMPOSSIBLE to change. a rational person would then go "well i can't change my hand temperature, but i can change my attitude to it." they'd focus their problem solving on their interpretation so the cold feels neutral or good to them.

suppose i had an issue with cold hands in the real world. i don't wanna go to my car to go to work b/c my hands will be too cold. i don't own any gloves or hand warmers. ( http://www.amazon.com/HotHands-Hand-Warmers/dp/B00PX20LO0 )

i also don't want to miss work.

i had bad foresight.

what do i do?

i come up with a plan for how to proceed from here that sounds good to me. it will involve getting gloves (maybe 2 pairs to layer) and HotHands, and perhaps some other things (like a warmer jacket, or a car with a stronger heater, or a portable heater that can be used in a car).

if i really don't wanna have cold hands, i'll call in sick, get the solutions, and go to work tomorrow.

or maybe i'll decide i don't wanna miss work and i can deal with cold hands one more time, given that i'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

i won't want the impossible like that i had better foresight in the past. i'll focus on productive ways forward and come up with a plan that i have no criticisms of. my poor foresight in the past isn't a criticism of my plan since no plan can change it. the poor past foresight could be used to criticize plans that don't correct it. repeating that mistake would be bad. but plans which deal with stuff well going forward won't necessarily have any criticism of them.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (16)

Heroes of the Storm Beginner Hero Recommendations

heroes of the storm is a free to play 5v5 team hero brawler game. fairly similar to league of legends and dota.

http://heroesofthestorm.com

i like it and would play some games with blog readers if they are interested and will play on the North America server. (you're allowed to play on NA from elsewhere, but you could lag). if you play with me you could get some insight into how i think about things, and get some criticism on a topic where you might find it easier to listen to than philosophy criticism.

i have some hero recommendations for new players and some reasoning.

i think it's important to pick a small number of heroes to get good with, rather than just playing everyone.

in order to play in hero league you need to be able to play every role: damage dealer, tank, and healer. there's a hero pick system where you won't always get what you want and may have to play the role your team needs.

and a hero can only be picked once, so someone else could take your hero first. they are also adding bans to remove some heroes during the hero choosing process.

so you need more than one hero for each role, in case you can't get your first choice.

the more popular the heroes you pick are, the less chance of getting them. my favorite hero right now is Li-Ming. but she's the most popular hero in the game. she's one of the 10 heroes played in around 85% of games. there's around 50 heroes and the next most popular hero sees 50% usage, and it drops a lot from there since the average popularity of heroes has to be around 20%. see http://www.hotslogs.com/

so if you play Li-Ming, it pretty much increases the number of heroes you need to be comfortable with, since getting to use her is really unreliable. in order to have a damage dealer you play available, you need just about as many with or without Li-Ming.

heroes of the storm is also a hard game, so i recommend starting with easier heroes. many people overreach and say "i'll learn it" but they'd have a better time, and learn more, if they started with something more approachable. (similar to people trying to start with Fox in SSBM, then quitting before getting any good. that's dumb. they should have started with a hero they could get halfway decent with faster.)

the hardest heroes to play are the melee damage dealers, abathur, and the lost vikings.

my recommendations:

healing:

1) lili (22.3% popularity). she's one of the easier heroes to use effectively.

2) malfurion (25.3% popularity) can be your backup if lili is taken. his healing is somewhat similar to lili (big aoe team heal as his ultimate, and you can stay in back).

tanking:

1) leoric (9.8% popularity). if you die, he comes back to life faster than regular heroes. that makes mistakes less punishing. he clears lanes well.

2) chen (8.4% popularity) can be your backup. he's hard to kill and doesn't have to worry about running out of mana. he's a good laner.

damage:

1) raynor (34.7% popularity). he has extra range and a low amount of button pressing. one of the easier heroes to control. he's fragile and doesn't have great area of effect damage.

2) kaelthas (23.9% popularity). chainbomb can do a ton of damage to the other team, especially at lower player skill levels, without much effort. lots of area of effect damage. fragile but you can stay in back.

3) nazeebo (11.4% popularity). another fragile ranged damage dealer. a typical team has 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 damage dealers, so that's why we're doing another backup damage dealer. nazeebo's attacks are reasonably easy to use while staying to the back, and he's unpopular.

with these 7 heroes, you'd have a pretty good chance of being able to play whatever role is needed. this would let you learn some of the easier heroes to be effective with, not learn too many at once, and get off to a good start.

(you need 10 heroes minimum unlocked to play hero league currently. this will be raised to 14 soon when they add 2 bans per side. however, being ready to play only these 7 will usually be fine.)

heroes of the storm receives frequent patches which improve some heroes and weaken others. at the time of writing, all of the heroes i suggested are pretty good. not necessarily the best, but plenty good enough. some heroes are actually bad enough to be a problem, so i avoided them.

i'd also recommend you pick two roles to focus on more, and one less, in order to better concentrate your learning on fewer heroes. if you prioritize two of the roles over the other one, you'll usually be able to play one of those two.

extra ideas:

- Gall. Gall is one head of a two-headed ogre, Cho'Gall. you have to play him with a friend. what's good about Gall is you don't have to do movement. you just shoot stuff while your friend controls moving around. so he's probably the easiest hero in the game. but you can't play him by yourself.

- Murky. places an egg where he can respawn in a few seconds if you die. not being punished much for deaths is really nice when you're new. he has an unusual playstyle.

- if you like a particular hero, you could ask about him/her. some of the heroes are a bad idea to start with, but a lot would be fine.

this list is very different from McIntyre's:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dHrNgcsNqg3Doe0ZciPvCY4SnWdboC-QXrpgxS7gFMs/edit?pli=1

he's a pro player. his list revolves around heroes that can win games even if your team is bad, assuming you play really well.

when you play a hero, don't just pick random talents. google a guide or use hotslogs by clicking on the hero, e.g.:

http://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroDetails?Hero=Li%20Li

at the bottom you can see which talent builds people actually use and get the best win percentage with. those are a great place to get started. you can adjust your talent choices more after you know what you're doing.

Edit: Kaelthas was nerfed in a patch. You could get Valla instead. See the comments.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (7)

AIPAC Helps Evil

This is a reply to a tweet. I needed more than 140 characters. DD finds it worrying that Bernie Sanders skipped AIPAC. Lulie defended his vague, bad comments with the bizarre suggestion that self-destructive Jews are a new, notable thing that's particularly worthy of being worried about:

@curi42 @DavidDeutschOxf @RutiRegan B/c it's self-destructive for a Jew not to be in favour of Israel, and sad for US that B sucks so much?

You know what's way sadder for the US? That Hillary and Obama want to destroy Israel. They're way more important.

AIPAC betrayed Israel on the Iran deal. AIPAC continues to work to help the left, not Israel. And they still get snubbed by Bernie anyway.

You know what's really worrying? That a supposedly pro-Israel group won't call out and condemn Bernie, Hillary or Obama. What's worrying is AIPAC being thought by most people to actually be pro-Israel. With "friends" like AIPAC and ADL, we're in big trouble.

What's worrying is the Democrat who is actually going to win the nomination is extremely anti-semitic – and merely going and giving a speech at AIPAC has DD off her back and focusing on the wrong issue.

Reality: Obama, Hillary and Bernie all want to destroy Israel. Everyone willing to know this kind of thing has known it since, say, 2009. Bernie skipping AIPAC is a minor non-event that makes no difference to the overall dynamics.

You know what's more worrying that Bernie skipping? Type AIPAC in google and the top hit right now for me is: "AIPAC condemns Trump attack on Obama".

That's a much bigger problem than Bernie. But everyone should have already known AIPAC is part of the problem.

You know what actually kinda worries me? That not even Cruz, who is by FAR the best on Israel of the candidates (including all the ones who dropped out already), would boycott AIPAC for its treachery. When the best politicians we have won't stand up to AIPAC, that's kinda scary. (When the worst won't stand up to AIPAC for the OPPOSITE REASONS... who cares?)

DD and Woty think it's worrying that an anti-semite skipped a lefty event for not being far enough to the left. They are painting a false picture of reality in which AIPAC isn't lefty. They are part of the problem. What AIPAC does is give cover to bad people. Yet DD and Woty are pressuring AIPAC to appease the left even more – to somehow be more inclusive – when AIPAC ought to go the other direction and start having some standards. DD and Woty are missing or denying the reality that AIPAC has already gone waaaaaaay too far left – well into the territory of routinely aiding evil.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (10)

Don't Trust Trump, He's Not a Conservative

How Not To Fight Our Enemies by David Horowitz:

The mob that came to disrupt the Trump rally in Chicago was neither spontaneous nor innocent, nor new. It was a mob that has been forming ever since the Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization in 1999, whose target was global capitalism. The Seattle rioters repeated their outrages for the next two years and then transformed itself into the so-called “anti-war” movement to save the Saddam dictatorship in Iraq. Same leaders, funders and troops. The enemy was always America and its Republican defenders. When Obama invaded countries and blew up families in Muslim countries, there was no anti-war movement because Obama was one of them, and they didn’t want to divide their support. In 2012 the so-called “anti-war” movement reformed as “Occupy Wall Street.” They went on a rampage creating cross-country riots to protesting the One Percent and provided a whipping boy for Obama’s re-election campaign. Same leaders, same funders and troops. In 2015 the same leftwing forces created and funded Black Lives Matter and lynch mobs in Ferguson and Baltimore who targeted “white supremacists” and police.

Behind all the mobs was the organized left – MoveOn.org, the public sector unions run by Sixties leftovers, and the cabal of anti-American billionaires led by George Soros. The mobs themselves were composed of the hate-filled foot soldiers of the political left. [...] The plan is defeat Republicans in November so that the destructive forces they have set in motion in the Democratic Party can finish the wrecking job that Obama started.

[...]

And what has been the reaction of the presidential candidates, particularly those who propose to save the country? It is to blame Trump as though he and not the left had instigated the riot. If you play with matches like Trump did, opined Hillary Clinton, you’re likely to start a fire. [...]

According to the proudly positive John Kasich, it was Trump who created the “toxic environment” that led to the riot – not the fascist movement that has been metastasizing in our universities and streets for more than a decade.

Great stuff. I agree.

Cruz and Rubio also said bad stuff about this like Kasich.

He is often guilty of over-reach – “punch him in the nose” directed at one disrupter, but this is hardly the sin his detractors suggest in comparing him to Mussolini. That is a much great violence to the man who is its target. Aside from Trump’s compulsive over-reach what is wrong with anger in the current political context?

An aside: it's not a compulsion. It's bad ideas. Those bad ideas have consequences. It's not an isolated mental illness to treat as a singular quirk and ignore. It matters. It doesn't matter that much relative to a lot of the other election issues. But one should argue that Trump is mistaken rather than dehumanize him as sick (a human being that is, in this aspect, broken) because he thinks differently than you do.

as someone who until very recently held high opinions of Rubio and Cruz

But why have a high opinion of Rubio? Rubio has been such a lying amnesty-pusher for years. Cruz went to the senate and actually stood up for good ideas. Rubio, like most politicians, isn't willing to fight for good ideas and actually get things done. Instead, he betrayed his campaign promises and worked with the Democrats to advance their agenda.

And as to Cruz, yes he's getting the mob "protestors" issue wrong. But he's still the best candidate by far. Trump has said much worse, as Horowitz must know. See:

‘SHE’S DOING A TERRIBLE THING FOR OUR COUNTRY!’ – TRUMP BLAMED PAM GELLER FOR GARLAND TERRORIST ATTACK

Trump: I'm All For Free Speech, But Anti-Islam Cartoon Contest Was 'DUMB!'

Geller works with Horowitz, so he's definitely familiar with this.

Geller wrote a new piece about this yesterday, making the connection between Trump's attack on her free speech and then complaining about having his own speech at a rally shut down:

Trump Decries Attack on His Free Speech – What About Garland, Donald?

Flashback: Donald Trump said, “I watched Pam earlier, and it really looks like she’s just taunting everybody. What is she doing drawing Muhammad? I mean it’s disgusting. Isn’t there something else they could be doing? Drawing Muhammad?…They can’t do something else? They have to be in the middle of Texas doing something on Muhammad and insulting everybody? What is she doing? Why is she doing it? It’s probably very risky for her — I don’t know, maybe she likes risk? But what the hell is she doing?”

Cruz got Garland right. Trump got it horribly wrong. Trump's mistake on Garland is worse than Cruz's current mistake. Yet Horowitz is writing like Cruz is somehow now not as good as Trump. None of the candidates are perfect – not even close – but Cruz is much better overall.

Trump isn’t the enemy. Like you he is opposed to the Iran deal, supports a secure border, recognizes the Islamist threat, wants to reduce taxes and make the country solvent, and is greatly expanding the Republican base.

This is the most interesting part of Horowitz's article to me, because it gets to the heart of Trump. If only Trump was actually like this I'd be pretty happy with him as a second choice. If Trump actually was like the people voting for him believe, he'd be a pretty good candidate.

The problem is he's not.

Trump is squishy on the Iran deal, as Cruz revealed at the last debate. Trump won't rip it to shreds immediately, like Cruz. Instead, Trump plans to try to renegotiate a better deal. As if Iran could be a negotiation partner. Iran doesn't want a deal and doesn't want peace, they want to kill us – the "Great Satan" – as they frequently say in public.

Trump doesn't recognize the Islamist threat correctly, as revealed with his Garland comments and his "neutral" position on Israel and the Palestinians. Cruz is a great friend of Israel. Trump absolutely isn't. Trump thinks that the Palestinians, like the Iranians, can be partners in peace to negotiate with.

Is a guy who dislikes Israel, and dislikes Pamela Geller, going to be all that good on Muslim issues generally? That doesn't make sense.

Trump has made it clear he can change his mind to whatever he wants. He's malleable. Will he really go through with the moratorium on Muslim immigration? I doubt it. Trump reportedly told the New York Times, off the record, that he doesn't mean all of what he's been saying about immigration. And then he told Ben Carson that he doesn't believe all the outlandish stuff he's been saying.

The problem with Trump is he's a leftist at heart and if he's President we're going to get little if any of the hard-right policy-making we want. Trump will make deals, make compromises, and actively pursue a variety of leftwing agendas from funding Planned Parenthood with taxpayer dollars to having the taxpayer take care of everyone's healthcare to preventing any cuts to entitlements to generally refusing to cut down the government at all. Trump only wants to remove waste, fraud and abuse, not actually have a smaller government. Trump wants the government to be better run and make better deals, but he doesn't want to fundamentally change it much. That won't make our country solvent.

And Trump easily caves in to pressure and whims – and lifelong New York values – because he lacks strong classical liberal principles. Hence he called Scalia a racist. And Trump was in favor of letting in Syrian refugees before he was against it.

Will Trump be good on capitalism? No, he's a protectionist. Will Trump even be good on immigration? He gave two pro-amnesty CPAC speeches. One of the few areas Trump might actually be good – which no one is talking about – is energy.

Trump funded and praised the likes of Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid. And he praised Obama in 2009. Is this a guy who is really going to reverse Obama's policies and fight for Republican ideas?

Trump has spent a lifetime being a leftist participating in crony capitalism. He doesn't know how to confront and flush out the administrative state. He's going to get to DC and be surrounded by the fourth branch of government – unelected leftists who run everything – and he's going to start making deals and getting along with everyone instead of fighting them and burning it down. He won't take no prisoners.

Ted Cruz has a track record of standing up to the establishment Washington Cartel. Trump has no credibility that he will do that, and actually has repeatedly said he won't. Trump says he'll get along with people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and even the Democrats who Trump mistakenly believes are reasonable people that you can work with.

Trump fundamentally doesn't understand our adversaries. You can't make a deal without common ground and some shared values. You can only work together when you share some goals. Either Trump shares a lot of values with the left, or he's naive and misunderstand how thoroughly evil the left is. Or, I think, both. As Daniel Horowitz put it:

Trump keeps saying we need to make deals just like Reagan did with Tip O’Neill. What he needs to understand is that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the entire modern Democrat Party are nothing like O’Neill. You can’t work with them and he needs to learn that.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (19)

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