4doorsmorewhores
No bio...
User ID: 223
4doorsmorewhores
7mo ago
A major university (in Canada) published another one of those studies where they give homeless people money and see if they spend it on crack or job applications. Mostly this was met with admiration and joy by the journalist class. The more right-leaning publication I posted above is more skeptical, pointing out of some of the potential problems with the study:
Unfortunately, putting a thumb on the scale was almost the first thing the researchers did. 732 possible participants in the study were screened. The UBC folk didn’t want their sample to include the long-term homeless, so to be eligible, participants had to have been homeless for less than two years. Also, they rejected severe drug and alcohol abusers and the mentally ill.
...
Note that the researchers didn’t even consider including the tent-dwelling, park-occupying homeless: merely by working with shelters, and with the people who prefer to sleep indoors despite some filth and danger, they were giving themselves an enormous implicit advantage. The study, having kinda announced at the outset that it’s garbage, goes on to describe how 229 people were chosen from the screening sample to provide the experimental group for the study. Alas, of the 229 people who took $7,500 payments, half (114) of them disappeared from view and didn’t complete the series of questionnaires and tests they had supposedly undertaken.
This isn't that interesting, it's just a bad study done in Vancouver, what I found interesting was the writer starts with a brief summary of the replication crisis, to an audience that is presumably not intimately familiar with it:
You ever hear of a guy named Daryl Bem? Bem is a social psychologist from Cornell University, now retired at age 85. In the ‘90s, after a long conventional career as an experimenter, he took up the cause of establishing evidence for human extrasensory precognition, and did some studies that seemed to confirm it exists. This set off a war in psychology as critics descended on Bem to nitpick the flaws in his studies and citations of psychic phenomena. Article content
In the end, the consensus about Bem’s research was mostly not that he used mainstream tools of statistical analytics improperly. He had mostly coloured within long-established scientific lines and followed his training in hypothesis tests — everyone’s training. Article content
Bem is now widely regarded as a weird sort of antihero who inadvertently demonstrated flaws in classic hypothesis testing, and whose late work was ground zero for the current “replication crisis” in psychology. It is not that humans are psychic: it is that you can prove the absurd proposition “humans are psychic” by very lightly abusing the received 20th-century scientific method.
There has been and is lots of discussion here about relaying rationalist concepts or ideas to outsiders or average random people in Mottizen's day-to-day lives. With the rise of culture war divisions, and especially the political rhetoric surrounding the Coronavirus Lockdowns and other policies, I'm wondering what approach if any you use when talking to acquaintances or friends who skew liberal, who broadly are happy to have the inertia of universities or the intelligentsia on their side, that you often reject social science research or findings unless personally having vetted them, without sounding to them like a low-IQ backwater hick redneck science denying flat-earther. I suspect that this is impossible.
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
Is it really a culture war idea to suggest "If someone buys this company, they will try to monetize it over a shorter timeframe?"
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
You can say Retard here, king.
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
I liked that one about the Barbarian and the 7/11 clerk. mediumly-motte, but very funny
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
I'm not sure I agree or really understand the point you're making. You start off by saying that Britain declined a lot since the 1940s, and also they lost a bunch of their overseas territory, before finishing up concluding how this proves you can't rely on large territory/military, but need to win at capitalism or technology - but what happened suggests the opposite of your theory, their relative decline coincides with the loss of overseas territory and manpower.
I also don't think it's true that Britain should expect to be a world superpower compared to larger countries like the US, China, Japan, Germany, Russia, etc. Britain's economy didn't shrink in real terms, other countries just caught up. "Inflation" and "Gas Shortages" aren't uniquely British problems lol
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
It's so weird how ex porn/cam girls go on to try and be intellectual, I don’t care how many philosophical books Sasha Gray read, I’m not taking life advice from a woman who licked cum off a toilet seat.
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
I'm not sure the responses at a single comedy venue are a good stand-in for culture war attitudes, people might just think he's an asshole and not like him.
Regardless of that his response is deeply pathetic: https://i.imgur.com/jRyHIK2.jpg
He's doing the Boo-urns thing, talking like a dweeb "It's almost as if" and is way more insecure than the richest man in the world should present himself as.
I don't think No Country For Old Men subverts expectations. Maybe if your prior is "A movie has a hero's journey and then rising action and a conclusion etc etc" But the movie from the title to the ending narration "No country for old men" is about the fundamental chaos of the world and how people try to impose order on that chaos (Bell, Moss, Chigurh [moral codes, laws, randomness]) while ultimately futile. Moss dying unheroically and Chigurh being seriously wounded in a car accident fit that very closely.
Broadly speaking people evaluate things whether they enjoy them, not whether they are strictly good (I do think most people would agree with this distinction). Humans are very good at recognizing patterns and also novelty gives us enjoyment (Drugs, the McRib, twist endings). Historically a majority of the development of art/media practices are in response (anything there's a post- or 'critique' in the title is a good hint) to popular ways of doing things.
The medium is the message - the same goes for trope subversion. A bad (acting/writing/pacing) movie can be more enjoyable than a good (same 3 criteria) one for those reasons, but they are being evaluated for different things.
I'm unconvinced by your hypotheticals because they are non-falsifiable. Maybe Breaking Bad would in fact be better if Walter died in season 2. The reason you don't expect changes to these shows to be net-positive is because they're already evaluated very highly, so a change is more likely to revert it to the mean. Ask yourself the same question about the 50 bad tv shows or movies that come out every year. Would the Aladdin remake be better if the Genie's magic failed and Aladdin and Jasmine had to live in obscurity under Jafar's rule? Maybe, who knows.
4doorsmorewhores
7mo ago
I don't think the design was fraudulent or the researchers stooges, but the reporting of anything will become trivial if you add enough conditions and disclaimers. Obviously if you give some people thousands of dollars, /some/ of them will be /some/ degree of better off. But the bridge between the magnitude of that benefit from the study to "And that's why this would be a good policy for governments to implement" is weakened by every one of those conditions and disclaimers which reduce the level of generality the study is good for.
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
Longshot: Does anyone have that 'chart' from /pol/(I presume) about conservatives in the USA slowly giving up on every social issue since the 60s, until they get to the 2020s and its something like "Sure we're ok with gay trans interracial marriage, but obviously pedophilia is unacceptable" with each iteration coming the decade prior?
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
I don't think it's lost in the story that rich mostly-dems live in Martha's Vineyard lol, the central messaging has been something along the lines of "You rich democrats vote for open door policies so much, why don't you have some illegal immigrants of your own?"
4doorsmorewhores
7mo ago
And do what, specifically?
Repeal Bill C-21. For other specifics the party convention is this weekend. Feel free to follow along: https://cpc23.ca
4doorsmorewhores
7mo ago
I think this is sort of close to my central skepticism or complaint. Re the culture clash
- Is that established?
- Is it even true? It's bad history to think that all of it was "women are property, they can get raped freely, and can never say no to sex" many medieval societies were not like this, many accounts contradict it directly. It's a pedestrian trope and stereotype-laden contemporary impression.
- Insofar as it is established, what is the interesting idea that is demonstrated or invoked or compared between these societies? It doesn't read like someone from Pathfinder-world being dropped in a Costco, it sounds like someone who is as present-centric as any of us trying to critique the world we all know.
- The writing style is independent from the content. You could have something non-scientific or non-historical or frankly vapid, but which is still written well. This is written (as many others have pointed out) wooden, it's bad writing.
I - understand - you both have bad time with church. I am sorry that you did. I do not know enough to say more about it. And I have no guess if Jesus alive or no. But I think Christians good and cool. I believe you that my life easier if I pretend this. I no going pretend it
This doesn't strike me as someone from a different religious tradition understanding modern churches. It sounds like an inoffensive faux-empathic rambling. There are 6 separate ideas but each one is an orphan, they're not explained or developed. She just jumps from 3 different ideas about the church, and couched within that are TWO separate disclaimers, but they don't sound like a woman out of time learning about a new culture, it sounds like someone from today giving a "I don't want to contradict your lived experience" speech. That's what I mean by a bad author stand-in.
UBC Toronto and McGill aren't comparable to Ivies in prestige or outcomes (Admittedly some of this is driven by the intake, if you took the top X% most affluent Yale undergrads and made them go to McGill they would probably end up as economic and political elites at a rate more reflective of their social and economic upbringing than their new Canadian-college cohort but alas). They're more like good big state schools (Which they are). Think of UBC as similar to UW in Seattle, or any other good state school, Michigan, UCLA, UT Austin, NYU, I'm sure that if you lined up the best state schools in the 15 largest states (Analogous to British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec), the proportion of student size would be similar to the 3 you summed up.
4doorsmorewhores
9mo ago
What do you mean graphic sex scenes? We don't see any full frontal nudity or really any butt. We see some tits a few times and that's it.
4doorsmorewhores
6mo ago
🏆🏆🏆
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
This is a greentext from 4chan but it's pretty funny and demonstrates the point if true - it's more about conditional hypotheticals than any hypotheticals: https://i.redd.it/i1ywg8dajac71.png
4doorsmorewhores
5mo ago
I don't mean to be antagonistic but I cannot understand the points you're trying to make.
4doorsmorewhores
7mo ago
Other users feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found that the most economical choice is actually to buy new iPhones whenever my old contract ends. Simply because I can sell the old one for 500-900$ and use that to pay off most or all of the cost of the new phone (which is usually discounted when you sign a 2 year data contract). I have found that the resale market for 2 year old Android phones is not as active (1 exception being the Galaxy series which are typically more expensive and feature-laden than iPhones)
4doorsmorewhores
7mo ago
I haven't nor do I intend to read this fanfiction, nor have I played Pathfinder, and I don't know some of the terminology used here beyond a google search ("Isekai"). That said, I have problems. Someone from the Pathfinder universe (especially with spell training like a Paladin) would probably be familiar with food preservation magic since it exists, I also find it very personally offputting to shoehorn into a story about a child (admittedly one who considers herself an adult) about how actually most of the time when people get raped, they didn't actually get raped since nobody had a knife to threaten them. There are probably a dozen examples like this where her being from Pathfinder doesn't actually mesh with the story very well. Again, haven't read it, other than the excerpts here, but if there is nothing interesting between the comparison of her Medieval-ish world or her oath as a Paladin and our modern world, and it's just a generic medieval fish out of water tale, why is she a Paladin at all? Is it an in-joke between the Pathfinder player author? Does it mean anything?
I don't really think The Motte is the place for literary criticism, since it's a largely non-rational practice. But god, the writing here is just bad. Maybe if you're a direct person who likes it when characters spew forth punctuated idea after punctuated idea it's the right pace for you, but these paragraphs are a hard read. If you want worlds-colliding or a reflection of modernity fantasy fiction, there is lots of stuff you can find with enjoyable prose. Try /r/fantasy. I don't get the giddy appeal of having the author stand-in character give a "glorious" "refreshing" look at our modern age. I've seen dozens of posts here with better rundowns of how things operate and the problems and virtues with society. This strikes me as midwit-tier.
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
Do you genuinely believe Joe Biden is in a near vegetative state powered only by drugs, and lacking normal cognitive abilities?
4doorsmorewhores
1yr ago
4doorsmorewhores
4mo ago
Are you seriously trying to argue that nature and nurture are the same thing? Getting your legs cut off by a bear when you're 4 will also impart lifelong struggles, but you probably should not describe a mauled person's wheelchair as an intrinsic trait.
4doorsmorewhores
5mo ago
How many of us are there?
I just read about a real life version of the "isn't there someone you forgot to ask?" meme. Woman finds out a guy in his 30s dated a girl 13 years younger. She writes a story with their details, except in her story the guy is a creep. And now they're making a movie based on the story.
This is the short story: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person
This is the movie trailer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J2VukOLSxoY
And this is an essay where the girl in the relationship says the guy was great: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/cat-person-kristen-roupenian-viral-story-about-me.html
Alexis, a senior in high school, briefly worked with Charles at a restaurant. She was a hostess and he was a waiter. They liked each other and texted a lot. They slowly started dating. He was the liberal type who wouldn't own a car because it was bad for the environment. He even asked for consent before he kissed her for the first time. She said he was very gentle and caring and they had lots of things in common.
The only downside of the relationship was the fact that she felt people judged her for it, and that she felt she was growing up too fast by being in love with someone so old. They eventually grew apart and broke up when she was a sophomore in college, after dating for 2 years.
A few years later, Kristen Roupenian has an "encounter" with this Charles, after which she finds out that he dated someone much younger than him. She decides to write a story that includes personal details about him and the girl, including their small hometowns, places they worked at, the place they had their first date at, the way the guy dressed and a description of his house. Except in her story the guy is a creep, bad at sex, a liar and manipulator, who becomes abusive when the girl breaks up with him.
The story goes viral during the metoo movement. Alexis and Charles find out and are weirded out. Alexis thinks the author couldn't have known so many details about her life without stalking her online. Charles said he started questioning whether he was really an asshole and would go through old texts to make sure that was not the case.
A few years later, Alexis finds out Charles died. No cause of death is mentioned, other than the fact that it was unexpected. Earlier in the essay she says he was on antidepressants, so suicide is a possibility in my opinion.
Alexis tries to contact Kristen and she responds via email with a half-assed apology in which she says she shouldn't have included some of the details. Alexis writes this essay to tell her side of the story, but it doesn't change much.
And now they are making a movie based on this story.
Also, these are the pictures of the women mentioned in this post. I will let you figure out who's who.
https://imgur.com/2gApE3K
https://imgur.com/l2cfZtd
More options
Context Copy link