non_radical_centrist
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User ID: 1327
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I believe men are innately vastly more competitive than women. A man who trains for 50 000 hours will probably beat a woman who's trained for 5 000, even if she has a biological advantage.
The fact that women show up in the top ranks of ultra-endurance competitions at all, where as for the vast majority of other competitive events the top ranked woman will often be ranked like #203 or somewhere thereabouts, I think is strong evidence they have a real biological advantage.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
People making closed-source software that requires connecting to their server (rather than yours or one you choose) hate you and hold you in contempt.
Tbf, a lot of apple users deserve to be held in contempt, technology wise. I think it's fine to have a phone that's designed around minimizing user-agency so they can't fuck themselves. All the smart people should just use a different phone.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
how do you suppose Republican voters would react come 2028?
They primarily blame Democrats for blocking progress. I'm still a big believer in median voter theorem, probably whichever candidate can succesfully market themselves as more moderate wins 2028.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Sapiens. I like the subject material a lot but it's a bit too pop pop sci for me, but I don't have other books I really want to read more at the moment.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I've heard Wilson's translation is supposed to emphasize readability over poetic language, and also emphasize the grimness over the glory of war in its translation. Its focus on readability over poetic language makes it an easy target for tweets to mock it as a step down from previous translations, and a lot of right-wing twitter is very pro-glory over grimness. Plus she has been promoted as a girlboss, progressive translator, and that makes her an obvious cultural enemy.
I haven't read any translations myself, just retellings in various mediums. I don't feel a particular urge to get closer to the source material.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
It's hard to trust Scientific American when they mix communicating real, good science with blatant contradictory nonsense. Their article on Man the Hunter being inaccurate makes great points about how women can be excellent endurance runners, outpacing men over long distances. But then it also has a this paragraph about gender vs sex.
Before getting into the evidence, we need to first talk about sex and gender. "Sex" typically refers to biological sex, which can be defined by myriad characteristics such as chromosomes, hormone levels, gonads, external genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. The terms "female" and "male" are often used in relation to biological sex. "Gender" refers to how an individual identifies—woman, man, nonbinary, and so forth. Much of the scientific literature confuses and conflates female/male and woman/man terminology without providing definitions to clarify what it is referring to and why those terms were chosen. For the purpose of describing anatomical and physiological evidence, most of the literature uses "female" and "male," so we use those words here when discussing the results of such studies. For ethnographic and archaeological evidence, we are attempting to reconstruct social roles, for which the terms "woman" and "man" are usually used. Unfortunately, both these word sets assume a binary, which does not exist biologically, psychologically or socially. Sex and gender both exist as a spectrum, but it is difficult to add that nuance when citing the work of others.
How many pre-historic humans would actually have any seperation between the concept of a "female" and a "woman"? Not to mention they way they actually bring up "women in social roles" doesn't acknowledge their own distinction- you're never going to get a pregnant trans women, but you could get a pregnant trans men. We don't know anything about "gender" as progressives view it in pre-historic societies- we only know about sex, what we observe through things like skeletal remains and inferences from behaviour of human-like animals. The article would've done better to solely use female and male the whole way through and not try to seperate sex and gender.
Later, there's a paragraph about how athletic studies don't do enough research on females that wasn't relevant to anything else in the article. A non-sequitor that wasn't relevant to the article since we do know enough about female biology to determine their relative advantages and weaknesses at physical activities compared to men.
The article does have some good informative material in it.
Important for the purposes of this discussion, estrogen also improves fat metabolism. During exercise, estrogen seems to encourage the body to use stored fat for energy before stored carbohydrates. Fat contains more calories per gram than carbohydrates do, so it burns more slowly, which can delay fatigue during endurance activity. Not only does estrogen encourage fat burning, but it also promotes greater fat storage within muscles—marbling if you will—which makes that fat's energy more readily available. Adiponectin, another hormone that is typically present in higher amounts in females than in males, further enhances fat metabolism while sparing carbohydrates for future use, and it protects muscle from breakdown. Anne Friedlander of Stanford University and her colleagues found that females use as much as 70 percent more fat for energy during exercise than males.
Correspondingly, the muscle fibers of females differ from those of males. Females have more type I, or "slow-twitch," muscle fibers than males do. These fibers generate energy slowly by using fat. They are not all that powerful, but they take a long time to become fatigued. They are the endurance muscle fibers. Males, in contrast, typically have more type II ("fast-twitch") fibers, which use carbohydrates to provide quick energy and a great deal of power but tire rapidly.
Females also tend to have a greater number of estrogen receptors on their skeletal muscles compared with males. This arrangement makes these muscles more sensitive to estrogen, including to its protective effect after physical activity. Estrogen's ability to increase fat metabolism and regulate the body's response to the hormone insulin can help prevent muscle breakdown during intense exercise. Furthermore, estrogen appears to have a stabilizing effect on cell membranes that might otherwise rupture from acute stress brought on by heat and exercise. Ruptured cells release enzymes called creatine kinases, which can damage tissues.
But then later it had this infamous paragraph:
Inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports. As an example, some endurance-running events allow the use of professional runners called pacesetters to help competitors perform their best. Men are not permitted to act as pacesetters in many women's events because of the belief that they will make the women "artificially faster," as though women were not actually doing the running themselves."
I had never seen that paragraph in context before. Knowing the context, that they just explained the inherent biological differences, then denied them right after, makes it worse! Right after they broke down in detail how females have hormones and muscles built for stamina over power! The reason why male pacesetters aren't allowed for women's endurance running is because the male pacesetter would be setting the pace too fast for the women, who are built for going a longer distance at a slower pace than men, as they had literally just explained earlier in the article.
They also downplay the evidence that "Man the Hunter" was accurate, but at least they include it.
Males living in the Upper Paleolithic—the cultural period between roughly 45,000 and 10,000 years ago, when early modern humans entered Europe—do show higher rates of a set of injuries to the right elbow region known as thrower's elbow, which could mean they were more likely than females to throw spears. But it does not mean women were not hunting, because this period is also when people invented the bow and arrow, hunting nets and fishing hooks. These more sophisticated tools enabled humans to catch a wider variety of animals; they were also easier on hunters' bodies. Women may have favored hunting tactics that took advantage of these new technologies.
In conclusion, their own conclusion perfectly demonstrates their own double think:
Female physiology is optimized for exactly the kinds of endurance activities involved in procuring game animals for food. And ancient women and men appear to have engaged in the same foraging activities rather than upholding a sex-based division of labor. It was the arrival some 10,000 years ago of agriculture, with its intensive investment in land, population growth and resultant clumped resources, that led to rigid gendered roles and economic inequality.
They claim at the same time that females are biologically optimized to perform certain activities better than males, but also that females and males performed the exact same activities in an egalitarian society.
A lot of old anthropology like the original "Man the Hunter" article this article is a response to, is flawed. But at the same time, modern anthropology is just as if not more biased than the anthropology of the 60s. Their intro has a line saying,
Bystanders might be left wondering whether portrayals of women hunters are trying to make the past more inclusive than it really was—or whether Man the Hunter-style assumptions about the past are attempts to project sexism backward in time.
The reason why bystanders are so confused is because that's exactly what organizations like Scientific American are trying to do. If they really were just trying to correct a mistaken historical record, bystanders who don't do deep dives into human pre-history could safely trust pop sci and wouldn't be so skeptical. But when Scientific American blatantly tries to push an agenda, bystanders rightly grow skeptical.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Give an inch, they take a mile. If you just let China take Taiwan with no fight because the war would be so costly, why would China stop there? Would you let them conquer every island in the Pacific until they have everything except Hawaii too?
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
He didn't, and I don't know much about Ireland, but my casual awareness is that they have extremely low corporate tax and have become an international tax haven. So I guess Milei wants to make Argentina a tax haven too.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8NLzc9kobDk
Milei on a podcast with Lex Fridman. Fridman is a bit of an empty head but Milei is great. Previously I read this summary of Milei by Scott Alexander, as well as several Economist articles on him, and all that information seems accurate from Milei describing himself. But the podcast also gives some new stuff I hadn't heard before.
a) He considers Ireland's market reforms a model and wants to go even farther, so that Argentina's the freeest country in the world. But he also spent a long time criticizing libertarians who criticized him, emphasizing that he had to live in reality and not put Argentinians through too much short term pain or Peronists would sweep him.
b) The economic statistics pre-Milei, as terrible as they were, were still cooked a bit because there were lots of price controls. But it doesn't matter if bread is cheap if there isn't actually any bread to buy. So removing price controls made inflation shoot up but also let people actually buy shit.
c) He's a big fan of the Austrian school and Mises, Hayek, Rothbard. Not a surprise, but I guess it confirms he prefers it over Chicago school. Personally I don't really understand the difference anyway.
d) He eliminated a system where there were middle managers handing out welfare payments, which was both a gross source of inefficiency, and allowed those middle managers to turn out the people they give payments to for large protests. This both freed up a bunch of money and got rid of a lot of stupid protests. According to Milei, shortly after he did that there was a protest organized against him that was expected to get 50 000 - 100 000 people, but only turned out 3 000.
e) He really, really hates socialism and loves freedom. He also doesn't like wokism and modern feminism, but his primary hate is socialism/communism. He also really does like Jews, he dropped in a few references to Egypt enslaving Jews and how he supports Israel today. He also really loves his dogs.
f) He recommends Trump/Musk move fast and get to cutting regulations as his #1 tip for DOGE.
g) He mentioned that Trump was "unfairly accused of protectionism" which is kinda funny to me. You can like or hate protectionism, but you can't really deny that Trump is a protectionist. Unless you're Milei I guess.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
There's not nearly that much fat to be trimmed
The fat to be trimmed all comes from stuff like unions and other special interests, and you'd have to break those before you can actually cut the fat. When unions have rules like "Only janitor union members can clean floors, and only food sector union members can peel fruit", at small locations you can easily end up with multiple employees where you only need one. But you can't actually fire either employee until you get rid of the union rules, because those jobs do actually need doing.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
My prediction is that early on Musk will run into the incredibly thick red tape that normally prevents massive cuts in government, try to cut through it anyway because that's what he's used to in the private sector, and it results in some sort of lawsuit or other scandal.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
not withdrawing from Afghanistan
He did begin the process, it just only finished under the Biden administration. I agree with everything else.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Does he want to write about probability and statistics? Does he want to build models to predict events? Does he want to play professional poker?
He wants to do all three. He's built a very succesful substack that earns plenty of money and I think he has a moderately succesful pro poker career too, I don't think he's missing out by not hyper specializing.
And if anyone thinks they have better estimates of who'll win elections than Nate's models, feel free to bet against him. Either through prediction markets, or if you're willing to bet a large sum he'll probably be down to do a direct bet against you through an escrow service.
I'm pretty sure the French gambler could've just bet directly against Nate Silver too and probably could've gotten better odds/smaller fees than going through Polymarkert, for at least a portion of his bet.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Issue is, your formulation I think describes Israeli Gaza operation pretty well, but they are a 'legitimate military force'.
Israel does not kill civilians for the sake of killing civilians. They take out military targets that unfortunately have civilians nearby, because civilians are nearby everything in Gaza.
There's a debate to be had about how many civilians it's justifiable to kill when taking out an enemy leader or military installation. What Hamas does is different, they kill civilians that are nowhere near any military personnel or installations.
I really wish this sort of labeling would be backed up by videos of something resembling a Roman triumph. But I'm guessing you are referring to the non-naked corpse of a woman on the back of the truck clip? I don't think female Israeli corpses are special, and the amount of attention that is being demanded for them and other Israeli victims (in broad Israeli astroturfing) is disproportional, at times downright deranged.
That's a disgusting video. Even more disgusting is that that sort of thing isn't clearly and unconditionally condemned by Palestinian leadership. All people have some members who are disgusting. But good groups will have their leaders disavow disgusting members.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
transparent pro-Israel astroturfing
Do you really think any sort of organized group is interested in astroturfing themotte? No organization is paying people to type up comments to be read by ~200 people max.
I would think 'terrorism' a discredited label, counterproductive in most cases, especially in the context of distant desert squabbles.
It's not. Terrorism is pretty consistently using violence targetted specifically at civilians in order to enact political change. Hamas sometimes acts like a legitimate military force, but they also do things like cafe bombings and parading kidnapped naked women through the streets. And notably the leadership doesn't disavow those actions and put any fighters who commit acts like that on trial.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I believe something like a green cloth armband fits the standard, for pseudo-militaries that can't do better
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
How many supporters would Trump really lose from a gaffe? Doesn't Trump do pretty much nothing but gaffes and his supporters love him for it?
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I think it was just really funny of him. It wasn't some brilliant move, it wasn't a mistake, it was just a small +EV event that's really entertaining to the internet
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
surely learning an extremely valuable skill must take a lot more time and effort – otherwise everyone would do it, right?)
Absolutely not. People procrastine and are lazy as hell. There are many skills that are relatively easy to learn but the learning is unpleasant enough most people just don't do it
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Nancy Pelosi's stock market gains are not anything crazy. She just gambled on the tech market going up, and it did. The average congressperson's portfolio doesn't particularly outperform the market.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I think a large amount of the viewership will be women, a lot will be solid liberals or leftists, and a lot of the viewership will never have actually heard Trump speak for more than five minutes, and I'll talk with that in mind. I think a large amount of Trump's supporters are very die hard too and he doesn't have to worry about people abandoning him because he says different stuff on the podcast than during rallies.
I think I'd take it as an opportunity to make it clear that a lot of things liberals attack me over are just false. Say you support abortion rights and make it clear you didn't implement any new abortion restrictions, you just gave the choice back to the states, and that states are free to be like New York and implement limits far looser than what European countries have if that's what they want. Double down on European countries having stricter abortion limits than a lot of US states, and that that could be what the whole US ended up with if congress ever overruled the Supreme Court about abortion instead of each state being left to its own devices.
I wouldn't dodge questions about tariffs and illegal immigrants, but I'd try to dwell on them minimally, and only bring up the strongest points about them. Talk about illegal immigrants committing rape or something.
Talk about pacifism and keeping America out of foreign conflicts, and not wasting American tax dollars.
Really play up my humour and make lots of jokes and small talk. Ideally most of the podcast would be talking about non-political stuff, like asking Alex questions and joking with her instead of her asking me questions. Trump's a very funny guy.
Personally I think there would be a lot of flaws in Trump's arguments, I'm more liberal/libertarian myself and think there are solid counter-arguments that a knowledgeable hostile interviewer could point out, but that Alex Cooper (I assume, I don't actually know her) won't be particularly knowledgeable about the details of the issues.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
I don't know any country I'd point to as an examplar to follow for defense procurement. I still think there are some very obvious improvements we can take as a country.
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Yeah, that scenario or any other sort of black swan scenario we can't place numbers on like societal collapse post-super volcano or the invention of like a Chinese super weapon that leads to a WW3 would also benefit from a better military
non_radical_centrist
1yr ago
Canada was in the Afghanistan war, we had soldiers peacekeeping during the breakup of Yugoslavia. We've had soldiers die because their equipment was inadequate. It's entirely plausible one day there'll be another 9/11-esque attack, but on Canadian soil, and we'll need to carry our fair share of the response. We need a navy that can patrol the arctic to assert our sovereignty on it over Russia.
Yes, Canada doesn't need to be as militarized as say Israel or South Korea. But at the very least I think it's totally reasonable for Canada to try to avoid some needless waste due to stuff like politicians pandering or avoiding responsibility.
It's not a very strongly held belief of mine. A combination of experts and highly upvoted/liked posts in ultramarathon communities agreeing women are just worse would probably be most convincing.
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