100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
No bio...
User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
22hr ago
Here's a prompt (heh):
To what extent is the field if AI Research a new means to do "real world" or applied philosophy? Academic philosophy is notoriously obtuse and inscrutable and, therefore, often of very limited real world / non-academic benefit. You will occasionally see academic philosophers who publish successful mainstream books, but this is the exception rather than the rule. In a different direction, hard analytic philosophy that uses propositional logic gets towards something that looks like a "system" of thought but, to me, seems to get blown out of the water in terms of practical application by the hard math and science people doing applied research (CERN comes to mind as an off hand example).
Does this deck of cards get reshuffled with AI?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
22hr ago
Material assertions can be settled empirically¹
To what extent?
The whole of philosophy of science and epistemology grapples with exactly this. Karl Popper's problem of induction, Bayesian inference, and the entire rationality sphere online (as insufferable as it may often be) are all oriented towards trying to determine the limits of empiricism.
This line of thinking, taken too far, gets towards scientism and "trusting The Science (TM)." It wraps back around the horseshoe and becomes a faith all it's own. "The men in the long white robes (scientists) said it must be so!" Even though the entire idea of the scientific method is that everything is held as, at best, the current state of research and theory and, almost never, and iron law of the universe.
In terms of policy and legislation (to speak to your Bob and Alice example. Thank you for using the canonical names, BTW) policy is even more fraught because of capital-C Complexity and second, third, fourth, nth order effects. Our ability to predict these things is approximately zero. The Yellowstone Wolves example is legendary in this regard.
I am hyper suspicious of anyone who makes some version of the statement "this legislation is good because X will happen after it passes." Perhaps X will absolutely happen, but the entire system of laws will necessarily adapt because of it as well.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
22hr ago
If this is how one thinks of the Christian ban on euthanasia, then it makes sense to say "sure, as a Christian, your faith forbids you from performing euthanasia; but surely your conscience still allows you to see that had God not forbidden it euthanasia would be a good thing?".
"canst neither deceive nor be deceived"
In the one, true, Catholic faith, God's laws are not arbitrary. They may be impossible to fully comprehend in our limited mortal brains and may, very frequently, be exceedingly frustrating. They are not, however, arbitrary.
Turning your argument around just a little bit, it would be very refreshing if people of faith could look at atheists and secularists doing atheist and secular things and simply go, "lulz, enjoy hell." But we are called to love all men and to strive to look out for their benefit. Now, don't take this to an extreme and propose that all good Catholics start trying to hand out rosaries at San Francisco BDSM dungeons. But, in terms of voting for legislation, it isn't enough to be a Catholic in San Francisco and go "yeah, okay, they can make fentanyl legal. I just won't do it personally." No, you have to vote your conscience (i.e. against sin) and, to the extent you are compelled, try to organize the best you can even if it is an obvious losing effort. Remember, starting with Roe V. Wade, Catholic America waged about a 50 year campaign to over turn it. It is not as if, during that time, millions of Catholics were aborting babies left and right.
All of this is to say that faith and conscience aren't really separable if you take them both seriously. "Cultural Catholics" (Biden, Pelosi) aren't actually Catholic. Secular pro-lifers might have really ornate and air tight arguments against abortion, but they aren't operating in the realm of metaphysical faith. This does not make their arguments somehow more "valid" in a political context than people of faith. If that were the case, we'd have a weird situation where everyone would be in a rush to prove how atheist they are while also borrowing heavily from moral theology. It's actually kind of comical to think about - "Look at how excellent my purely rational reasoning is. DON'T LOOK AT THE GOD SHAPED HOLE"
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
22hr ago
This makes sense to me. Can't say I've been to many protestant services.
I see this, however, as potentially a theological failure mode. Is the service really about God, or is it a highly ritualized potluck? Again, this is a theological argument. Having a good, regular social interaction within the context of a moral values system is something I am highly in favor of.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
They always seem to want to tell me about their awful exes, in detail.
This is a massive red flag in one or both directions.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
Great post.
so much of what they do would have been explicitly Christian.
I don't follow. Perhaps this was a typo?
It’s really in its social form that religion successfully improves people; today it is essentially antisocial.
One of the non-theological differences I've noticed in Traditional circles vs "beige Catholicism" circles is how much the former genuinely enjoy hanging out with one another. When we have a social after Mass on Sundays, people will hang out for hours. At the Novus Ordo parish I grew up at, the "social" felt like a non-required extension to the Mass. You go and get a coffee and a donut, shake hands with Father Friendly, awkwardly make small talk with some randos for a few minutes, then give up and flee back home before NFL kickoff.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
On Catholic Integralism
Integralism won't happen in a meaningful way in the USA. Even if it could, that's a tricky path because, as @georgioz and @Treitak pointed out, it would open up a pretty epic failure mode; those with purely temporal and political goals would infiltrate whatever clerical or secular organizations (in the Catholic sense, like secular priests) they need to in order to grasp political power. We saw this with multiple Popes during the Borgias in Italy. More recently, we see this all over the South with various state and even federal level politicians holding some sort of "deacon" or "reverend" title. I mean, let's not even get started on the MLK line of succession (Sharpton, Jackson). So that you can see I am Fair and Blanced, Here's Josh Hawley doing a great Youth Pastor / Creed frontman impression.
The sneakier failure mode is something like the Orthodox Church in Russia. Orthodox priests and bishops aren't getting elected to the Duma, but they're part of the palace Kremlin intrigue to an extent. In order to preserve themselves, however, they mostly function as an elevated nationalistic cultural force. If you want to be really Russian, you hang a picture of the Patriarch next to your picture of Putin. Is there a supranational theology? Sort of, maybe. For Roman Catholics, this is a non-starter. If you really want to be Catholic but also totally embedded in a national or ethnic culture, you can try one of the Eastern Churches (Maronites etc.). Fully in communion with the Holy See, but autocephalus. Could there be an "American Catholic Church" probably not because that's goofy and because most of the Traditional Catholic groups explicitly trace their history to non-American origins and "liberal" Catholics don't care.
On Separation of Church and State
James Buckley (Wiliam's brother) has the best take on this. The "Separation of Church and State" was intended to prevent church authorities from dual-wielding power as elected officials. Furthermore, national laws couldn't be contravened by a religious leader. If you look back at the anti-catholic propaganda against Kennedy, this is what it focused on; not that Kennedy's catholic faith would lead him to make bad decisions, but that he would have to "change the laws" based on a decree from the Pope. Serving two masters and all of that.
You can vote your faith. Most actual theologies are also complete moral prescriptions. Would it be unfair to say that a secular humanist can't vote their morality?
The tricky part here is the 14th amendment. If a locality, say in Dearborn, MI or St. Marys, KS, wants to have public worship, ban LGBTQ books, and close all businesses one day a week, and that resolution passes overwhelmingly in the local municipality, is it illegal? There are a lot of legal groups not based in these areas that think it is and will create the necessary Rube Goldberg machine to get it in front of a Federal Judge. In fact, this was perhaps the central point of Willmoore Kendall's arguments against de-segregation. If the people of Alabama vote for it, why do the people of D.C. get to say no?
But then, the constitutional conservative in me does remember the Tyranny of the Majority. FLDS communities, Kiyras Joel in NYC are notorious for creating extremely hostile environments to their own people who then have no real recourse to secular authorities. As much as I LARP hard as a TradCath, I get worried that St. Marys, KS could turn into Waco 2.
On Which Option to Take
I've stated my position before; my idea is that anyone who wants to Trad/Orthodox/Snake Handel should just ... do it. Don't worry about the loss of cultural salience. There are dozens of biblical verses that all say versions of, "Don't seek the approval of those you hate." The revitalization of TLM Catholics over the past dozen years has been pretty specifically in response to the failures of modern liberalism, not rabid evangelization efforts. Ideas, like Dreher's, that Christianity is going to be outlawed are hyperbolic and logically unsatisfactory. If you watch his interview on the Pints With Aquinas podcast, it becomes obvious that this guy had a lot of personal trauma that he then transformed into a big part of his world view. At various times he was all of a zealous evangelical from Louisiana, a devout TLM Catholic, and, now, Orthodox. When I see someone dip into all three - but assure me that this time, I mean it! - I'm not going to put a lot of stock into their "well researched ideas."
On Where I Could Be Wrong
Again, a hat top to @WhiningCoil. I'm not worried about the Gub'ment coming after me for my beliefs alone, but I am worried about them going after the kids. When they no longer let you help children because you didn't sign the WrongThink waiver it gets spooky in a hurry. I've heard some shady rumours about TradCath households receiving visits from CPS because their neighbors were worried about six or seven kids running around. Because, like, who would have six or seven kids besides crazy cultists? Again, disclaimer, this is internet rumors, but I can see the path that leads there.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1d ago
This is all painfully and utterly correct.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2d ago
Do it!
My offer for an effort post of your choosing stands.
@PokerPirate. You're an AI researcher and you're just going to pretend like that's no big deal. I'll offer the same effortpost deal to you or, if I can middle man a little bit, what if you and @anti_dan swap effortposts and I take credit for both? hashtag finance, bro.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2d ago
I believe I agree with you. Can you say more about why 1952 was the pivotal year?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
I'm willing to make a deal - You do an effortpost on your general observations in patents and patent law. I'll do an effortpost on any topic of your choosing. If it isn't something I'm familiar with, I'll pledge 5 hours of research time.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
I’d be curious to know how much innovation is spontaneous in comparison with how much was planned.
It's quite close to 0% planned and 100% spontaneous.
Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is probably still the best framework for how human knowledge (science and so, downstream, technology) develops. The long and short of it is that lots of happy accidents often build upon each other. Planning innovation is almost an oxymoron.
The problem then becomes, how do we 'cultivate the garden', so to speak, to make happy accidents more commonplace? Or to shorten the distance between related but unknown nodes that are working on the same problems? The University System and the various Bell Labs / PARC / DARPA orgs of the mid 20th century seem to have done this well. Both had different failure modes which roughly follow red and blue tribe cleavages.
The University System lost to ideological capture but also, more generally, a total remove from practical problems. Instead of a bunch of really smart professors working with Corporations, the Navy, or whomever or an actual problem, "pure" research began to win out. You'd get esoteric improvements in something like photonics that was utterly untenable in a production setting because the supply chain for the super rare materials didn't exist or the apparatus involved couldn't function outside of a clean lab.
The Bell Labs etc. failed because corporations stopped funding them. There's a debate as to why. Some simply gesture at "grrr greedy capitalists" which has never been a satisfying answer for me. The better answer, though still not "a-ha!" level in my mind is that actually novel and meaningful research is getting harder and taking longer. So, while a corporation may not need its R&D department to come up with something new every quarter, it's harder to not want to cut their budget after 10 or 20 years of nothing new. Furthermore, there's a pretty good argument to be made that corporations shouldn't be trying to shoot-the-moon with totally novel ideas but, rather, really be solving the "last mile" problem of new technology - how to sustain it, scale it, and then make it by degrees cheaper and cheaper. The middle ground that's evolving is something like Focus Research Organizations.
The final players - DARPA and other FFRDCs (Federally Funded Research and Development) kind of kept the spirit alive longer. DARPA has a very specific operating model that nowhere else in government replicates. But they fell victim to GWOT funding strategy - let's make everything about terrorists instead of focusing on, I don't know, time travel and teleportation. The FFRDCs became some of the most egregious leeches of Federal R&D welfare dollars. MITRE is quite literally make work jobs for PhDs. If you can endure living in a Kafka novel every day, you can make $200k per year and enjoy Tysons Corner traffic for your commute.
The real "oh, we fucking suck" moment was GPT-2 in late 2022. Almost every other major American technology development since WW2 could be traced back to some sort of federal, academic, or corporate R&D lab. That the Attention Is All You Need paper came out from a some ML engineers at google fucking around was, in my mind, kind of the tombstone on the "trad" R&D ecosystem.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
Diversity is our Strength. Us being whites
At the top of Marginal Revolution today: "How Cultural Diversity Drives Innovation"
I'm a tech development and "innovation" nerd. There's a small, but growing, especially in recent years, online commmunity of people who read organizational histories of places like Bell Labs and the original Lockheed Skunkwords to try and figure out the best ways to do real tech development. Not academic science projects and not VC backed bullshit which is mostly business model innovation (that even more often fails).
You don't have to read the whole study. The abstract itself is either a hilarious self-own or and even more hilarious playing-dumb post.
We show that innovation in U.S. counties from 1850 to 1940 was propelled by shifts in the local social structure, as captured using the diversity of surnames. Leveraging quasi-random variation in counties’ surnames—stemming from the interplay between historical fluctuations in immigration and local factors that attract immigrants—we find that more diverse social structures increased both the quantity and quality of patents, likely because they spurred interactions among individuals with different skills and perspectives. The results suggest that the free flow of information between diverse minds drives innovation and contributed to the emergence of the U.S. as a global innovation hub.
1850 to 1940. Bruh.
This paper shows that having big time diversity - you know, mixing all those crazy Poles, Irish, French, Germans, English, Welsh, Czech, Slovak, Greek, hell even a few Italians and Spanish in there - was a massive reason the USA was such a technologically innovative place!
The HBDers are going to love this one.
Side note on the hard tech angle: patent issuance used to be a decent enough and standardized enough measure for "innovation." Since the rise of legalism post WW2, however, it's so much more noisy now that it's questionable if it remains a valid "fungible currency" for studying innovation and tech development.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
Are there any pre-modern wars where a soldier could be sent out to the front line, and then 2-3 years later in the war, find himself in almost the exact same spot, despite regular bursts of fighting?
No, but this has more to do with feeding and supplying an army than anything else. The modal soldier in pre-modern warfare might spent 2 - 3 years more or less walking in a giant, slow circle, almost starving to death every day. And then actually starving to death.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
Forgive me for the "akshually" style comment, but this isn't entirely true.
No one has come up with a VERY CHEAP effective countermeasure yet. The ones that do work are 1) expensive and 2) Horded by the US/ISR/China and (maybe) a few other countries because nobody wants to show off their cool-new-shit in Ukraine. We want to save it for when it - yikes - actually matters.
Much like the human element of the Ukraine war, the drone element is mostly one of attrition and competing supply lines. At one point, 10,000 drones were falling out of the skies over Ukraine per month because of effective and cheap countermeasures. The tactical wheel turns, however, and both sides elevated their drone-counterdrone game.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
In a word, The Holodomor.
Now, don't worry, I'm not some Ukraine agent apologist here. I'm just trying to directly answer the question of "What are the Ukrainian people afraid of, being conquered by Russia?" You can absolutely boil Ukraine v Russia down to Red Tribe vs Blue Tribe. The Ukrainians aren't thinking about the future, they're constantly enraged by the past. The "Politics of Resentment" isn't an invention of 21st American politics - it's the de facto arrangement of most human conflict. To many in Ukraine, allowing a Russian takeover is the equivalent of letting all of the people who killed all of your family members move in to your house. It's pretty easy to get fatalist and irrational to prevent that. "I would rather die than ...." Yeah, well.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
7d ago
Did you know that Karine Jean-Pierre was a Black LGBTQ Woman? Of course you didn't.
The above link is to KJP's "interview" with the New Yorker. It's exceptionally horrible. I don't usually get too wrapped up in "bad interviews" because journalists routinely use them to get the other party tied up in knots with impossible to answer questions.
The thing about this interview is that Isaac Chotiner isn't even really asking questions. He's mostly politely asking KJP "what do you mean?" and she keeps answering it worse and worse. I'm having a hard time thinking of a worse written interview.
The culture war angles are too obvious. DEI, rejection of reality, identity politics. They're all here. What stuck me those most was the word salad. Trump is always ridiculed for his own word salad but the left, yet, this is the White House press secretary struggling to build cohesive thoughts.
I've held an unprovable theory for many years now that people who routinely hold demonstrably untrue ideas in their head do some sort of literal brain damage to themselves. A sort cognitive self-harm wherein an emotional appeal is so strong that it dulls the synapses. Again, unprovable, but this interview makes me hold that faith just a little more.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8d ago
Thanks for the effortful reply.
Look at how calmly that guy walks up to the scene. Just textbook.
Not only the walking up, but he also has a Hollywood level of "badass walking away badass-edly" after the shooting.
THIS was one of the most hard-to-call cases that happened here.
Disagree, but in the direction, I think, you would agree with. Big dude comes over and the first thing he does is hard two hand shove. That's straight up an initiation of a fight with no pretense. If I'm on my ass after that and I have a pistol on me, I'm reaching, pulling, and firing.
If the big guy comes over, starts talking shit, and there's a kind of mutual combat tussle that ends up with the shooter on the ground then, I would agree, it's more of a grey area.
You don't fix this by forcibly disarming everyone. Britain seemingly proving that, you fix it by helping move the equilibrium back towards high trust.
Completely agree. I'm as pro-gun as they come and believe in the adage of an armed populace is a polite populace.
Its to the point where I'm reluctant to visit any places that don't have such protections enshrined in law.
Thank you for validating my travel paranoia. I had to visit San Francisco, of all places, for work earlier in the year. I spent the entire plane ride obsessing over this idea that I was going to have to punch out a fentanyl zombie trying to rob me, only to have a blue hair they-them'er sentence me to thirty years of critical re-education for not displaying enough learned-experience-empathy.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8d ago
I'm getting a strong sense that poison is my best option here. I'll give the trap a day or two. I believe it is one single mouse, not multiple.
But then again .... poison.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8d ago
A-ha! My mistake for missing this angle. I was posting very early this morning due to some insomnia so my mind wasn't very sharp.
In the case you outlined, about these two monopolizing discourse within a group, my perspective would be to 100% not try to change the dynamic no matter what kind of social cache you have. Then, avoid hanging out with these people to the extent possible. If it's a work situation, I can understand that's difficult, but I feel it's the only option.
Let me re-use my "Lauren" example. Fudging her exact age a little to protect privacy, let's say Lauren is about 42 years old. She is divorced. She is on every dating app and none of her dates - ever - goes well. Or maybe the first one goes alright but by date three there are "red flags" everywhere. Would you be shocked - shocked - to learn that my opinion is that Lauren is the problem in these romantic trails to nowhere? Lauren has poor social skills and does not pick up on the clues people have been sending her for, probably, about 30 years. While this may make my tiny heart hurt a little, I am also experienced enough to know that trying to coach a full grown adult through basic social skills is the losingest of all propositions. If they haven't adjusted by now it can be a sign of actual autism or other such disorders but, far, far more likely it is a deep character flaw. Often times it is inherited. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Lauren's mother was very similar and that, perhaps, her father (who I don't hear about) was out of the picture early.
Don't delude yourself into ubermensching. The other eight people in the group aren't going to thank you for your deft navigation of the conversation. They'll feel relieved in the moment and then forget all about it the second the conservation breaks up and the group members go about their day. If you're in a work situation and have to maintain some rapport and not be the weird guy who eats alone in the corner, I'd recommend turning into the "drive-by joke" guy. You see the conversation monopolizers doing their thing and the seal-clappers enduring it. Don't fully join the conversation. Instead, choose a moment to drop in - interrupting is fine - with a little humor. I don't know, something like, "I see Congress is in session. Very good." You'll figure it out. Then, you're still demonstrating that fellow-feeling my original comment touched on but without committing to this zero-win-probability endeavor.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8d ago
Parent comment. Didn't disagree with what you wrote.
Good contribution to the discussion, but the neighbor with a chainsaw story from the article is difficult.
1. He wasn't just wandering around with a chainsaw. The intent to cut branches was clear based on the shooter's wife's own testimony.
2. He had his eight year old son with him.
3. There seems to have been some level of pre-existing dispute over the property line.
The death is avoided easily by telling the guy "get off my lawn or I'm calling the cops." The article states that chainsaw man then walked toward the elderly shooter (who, by the way, retrieved his firearm before going outside to confront chainsaw man).
I don't know, we can quibble over facts and I'm not even saying that the elderly shooter should have lost his self-defense case. This just seems like an infinitely avoidable lethal interaction.
Edit: comment down thread did some digging. I now find this case to be cut and dry.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9d ago
Turning to some good news:
It’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it.
This is a WSJ article about the rise in justified homicides in the US in recent years. Much of it is about "Stand Your Ground Laws." I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the more lawyer-brained Mottizens on those kind of laws and their proliferation over the past decade or so.
On the culture war angle, this article is maybe the starkest example of "erosion of trust in society" that I've come across. A few of the anecdotes are pretty hair raising. They're cherry picked, I know, but the idea that a kid loses his father over an argument about a a fence and a property line made me sad. The "road range" incident they cover in detail seems like it was unfortunate but when one guy levels a gun at another, there's only one reasonable reaction.
Violence must be tightly controlled for a society to function. This is something that's bone deep in humans. We've developed methods of conflict resolution that fall short of violence for our entire existence as a species. Even within the context of violence, there are various ways of controlling it. Duels and so forth. Even informal ones; basic Bro code dictates that when one guy falls down in a fight, the other one backs off.
But this article hints at the idea that people are zooming past any of that to full lethality. It's impossible to compile the stats to determine if that's actually the case or not, but the larger point remains; in a society with plunging basic trust, you're going to see levels of interpersonal violence spike. How should state laws governing violence respond to this? Stand Your Ground is something I generally still support, but my mind could be changed if simple Bad Neigbor fights end up with more orphans.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9d ago
There is a mouse in the house!
I've got a mouse prowling about my kitchen. I've purchased the no kill box trap thing. I plan on releasing the little guy about a block way in a small park. Knowing the cruel reality of the universe, he's probably dead by sundown at the hands jaws of an opportunistic black snake. I suppose I could look the other way and let him live in a climate controlled home and live off the fat scraps of my garbage. A little kindness towards a tiny creature in this cruel world.
Nah, but fuck that, rodents are pests and gross.
Question: Besides doing the usual check ups to try to determine how he got in, is there any strategy for preventing mouse infiltration permanently? I've seen some pellets and other scent oriented products that claim to repel mice. Do they work?
Thank you for this. I'll be reading everything you listed. And I'll try to come up with an intentional effort post response.
Side note: You do realize that linking to your paper does self-dox? I assume you do, but just want to double check.
More options
Context Copy link