ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
I remember reading years ago about a survey someone gave to Christians and atheists, asking them what they find to be the most compelling argument for either side. It turned out that the most compelling argument for atheism, as rated by atheists didn't rank all that high for Christians, and the one rated by Christians wasn't all that compelling to atheists, and you saw the same patterns for arguments for Christianity. So what is the steelman argument for atheism? The one rated highest by atheists, since that is presumably what made them lose their faith (as that was in the times when people were Christian-by-default, rather than atheist-by-default), or the one rated highest by Christians, as that is what they consider the most challenging for their faith?
You asked for me to defend these arguments to the best of my ability, and that would indicate that answering in the mode of a Christian giving the best argument for atheism would be ok, but my best argument for the ideas you outlined might contain assumptions that you disagree with so deeply, that you want recognize my defense as defending your ideas anymore. On the other hand, without these assumptions, I won't find these defenses particularly compelling, so how much of a steelman are they then? Still, the best of my ability sounds like I would have to be the one to find them compelling, so this is the perspective I'll be taking, while trying to preserve your core premises as best as I can.
The kinds of arguments that I find the most compelling on these issues are ones that acknowledge that certain things happened that got us to where we are now. Regarding your first point, this would mean reformulating the part about unapologetic racism being suddenly more visible. There was plenty of unapologetic racism before Elon bought Twitter and changed the rules there, what changed is that the list of acceptable targets was expanded. The other part of the argument, about corroding social trust and making it harder to have a unified country is pretty straight forward. It's not sustainable for pretty much the same reasons why unapologetic anti-white racism turned out to be unsustainable. "We don't have to live like this, we can respect each other and work together for the common good" sounds like pretty good deal to me. It's most compelling version is liberals like TracingWoodgrains LARPing as Lee Kuan Yew, even if I don't find them credible. If concessions are made about the things that went wrong in the past, and I get assurances that skulls will be cracked and kneecaps will be broken to set it right, or better yet I get to see some gesture-of-good-faith kneecappings firsthand, I might indeed be compelled to drop the hammer on internet racists from - roughly speaking - my side.
Regarding your second point:
How would you build the case that this isn't just a fringe phenomenon anymore, but a significant and growing force in American life?
That sounds like it's mostly an empirical argument, correct? If so, that's probably the easiest case to argue. If you look at Vivek / Elon / H1B-Gate, such strong pushback would have been hard to imagine even as recently as Trump's first term. The ideas might not be completely dominant on the right, but they're definitely not fringe anymore either.
Your third point is the most difficult to argue, because it requires the acceptance of several premises. First, did the strategic advantage of the US stem from the smartest and most ambitious people coming there, or did they come there because of American strategic advantages? As an americanized by media Europoor, that saw a bit of your country, I can tell you this isn't just a chicken vs. egg thing. My experience of America is that it has (or used to have) an entire culture conducive to making things happen, that you won't find anywhere in Europe (with the possible exception of the UK, where you might get but a glimpse, but not more). I better not get into that too much, because the more I talk about it, the more it will undermine the core premise of your argument, and you asked me to argue for it.
The second part you have to argue is that the US is indeed losing it's economic advantage. That's the part I'm quite open to. A fellow motte-poster made the argument a few times that China's culture is adapting to enable the kind of cutting-edge innovation that was typically associated with America. Again, quite compelling, and all the denials feel pretty cope-y to me.
With the third part we start running into problems again, as you have to show that it's the lack of openness to immigration that would be responsible for the loss of the strategic advantage. I haven't really heard an argument for that, not even an unconvincing one, and I drawing a blank trying to argue for this. I can say what would convince me if you could demonstrate it: if you could see countries like Canada, that imported millions of immigrants, suddenly zoom past it's previous economic performance, that would make a very strong case for your argument.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
But yes I realize that's long ago, so I gave you a current example of something happening right now as we speak by a high level Trump executive.
I've lost count of how many times I asked you how what Trump did violates any of the principles you supposedly hold, and how many times you ignored the question.
But also if we're going about who started it, wouldn't the older examples be better?
Sure. So back then I was pro-Rowling, and helped the left as much as I could. Then the left went full-censor, and now Trump is in power and cutting their funding for practices that are illegal in the left's own framework. How am I the one that started it, and not them?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Right, so if funding withdrawals exist, they should at least be done in a fair and freedom maximizing manner. How is this not what happened in the discussed case?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Heck some examples are ironic, like a school that tried to ban Harry Potter due to depictions of witchcraft back in the 90s. That's of course a funny example, but there's plenty that aren't so funny.
And the fact that they had to go back 30 years for an example doesn't give you pause? Was the person sending you this even alive when it happened?
Ok, now imagine a leftist just said the exact same thing to me. (...) That obviously reality is the right struck first and how absurd it is I suggest they could possibly exhibit an underdog bias.
Ok, I'm imagining it. It looks no different than the husband in his scenario striking first.
Tell you what why don't you show us how we should wrestle with our biases, by leading by example. How do you that everything you're saying isn't the result of bias? What steps have you taken to counteract it?
Good news, the answer doesn't even matter anyway if you choose the option to have principles!
Why do you keep saying some principle was broken, and then ignoring any response indicating that this did nit take place, or questioning you about it?
Surely people are Goodhart'ing it, but either they're not very good at it yet or they're not trying very hard.
They are, though. The insanely skewed citation distribution is exactly what you'd expect from people figuring the optimal way to game the system. You're not getting anywhere by autistically focusing on your own reaserch, and hoping others will find it interesting enough to cite. You band together, and boost each other up. There's little individual glory in it for most people, which is why it looks like "they're not very good at it yet, or they're not trying very hard", but that's the best way for them to keep a stable job until they get their big break.
You see this on literally every social network, academia is no different, and the original statement about how much citations which kind of scientist will get, implicitly assumes people won't figure out how these systems work.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
You could, if you were able to point out where it happened.
I'm not sure you can. The whole point of goverent grants is fund what the market will not, and thus be distortionary, from a libertarian point of view.
And any libertarian-lite attemot at salvaging this by saying "well, as long as we have government grants, they should be assigned neutrally" runs into the problem of them not having been neutral for decades, and said libertarian not uttering a peep about it, as well as "neutrality" being hard to define in the he context.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Hirsch's original suggestion was that a "successful scientist" after 20 years would be around 1 annualized, an "outstanding scientist" around 2, and a "truly unique" one around 3.
I'm going to venture a wild guess and say this was before Goodhart's Law had it's way with that measure.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Yeah, I think most people complaining about this now were either directly participating in the censorship, approving of it, or at most not all that bothered by it.
Sure, there were some pro-free speech groups, I think FIRE is the most prominent. Libertarians are non-entities though, and it would be an odd one if they complained about government grants being cut.
If the main observable action when in power is to further the downward trend against academic freedom, why should anyone trust the claims being made? Actions speak louder than words after all.
Yes, exactly. This is why current complaints about the lack of academic freedom cannot be taken seriously.
If we want academic freedom we should make moves towards academic freedom, not be indistinguishable from the censors.
If Ukraine wants peace, they should make moves towards peace, not shoot missiles into Russian territory.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
But there is a point when:
- This is not what happened here
- This is what happened in the past at the hands of the woke
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Partially I think I must have communicated very poorly, as most of this is way off track to what I was saying, and partially I disagree with some of the inferences you're making.
- I wasn't making a grand, universal, iron-law of anything-and-everything that can be vaguely described as Blue Tribe. While I am under the impression that western people with ideas belonging in the Blue Tribe cluster seem to be uniquely susceptible to the idea of "we cannot allow other people to suffer under the way of life we don't approve of" I explicitly said #NotAll.
- I don't understand how you're making the leap from "Commies" to "literally every communist that has ever existed, including (especially) the Soviets". I was thinking of a particular type of western marxist, please don't tell me you don't know the exact type I'm talking about.
- I disagree with the statement "If the actual (historical) Commies count as Blue, then surely their Yankee rivals should count as Red". If we consider American commies / marxists, as well as American liberals, "Blue", there's no contradiction in saying the USA was "Blue" during the Cold War as well.
- In any case I would generally be cautious about slapping a Blue/Red label on an entire country, especially ones as big as the USA or the USSR. Both had factions in power with quite different cultures. I'm not sure if the Blue/Red labels, the way we talk about them today, would fit into the USSR, but whatever I can bite that bullet for the sake of argument - yes, there were Soviet Blues, and Soviet Reds.
- Therefore by the time you're asking me "but then how do you disprove the same statement about the Commies?" all I can say is "but why should I?!".
- I don't know much about the American occupation of Japan, so can't comment, sorry.
- The way I remember it, for the Red Tribe, the invasion of Iraq was a war of revenge. "Muh democracy and freedom" was a neocon justification, and I don't particularly care about whether they were being utopian or cynical, as I don't recognize them as Red.
- If you wanted to throw a curve-ball at me, I'd pick radical Muslims. Hard to describe them as "Blue" and they have the same burning desire to bring the entire world under their way of life.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
It would be nice if you answered his question before asking a follow-up. Particularly when it has nothing to do with the case we're discussing.
To some extent you're right, and it's just human nature, but I also think that the Blues have some universalist drive that the Reds don't.
The most obvious case is Commies insisting that you can't just implement their system in one country, and show the world how obviously superior it is, because something something capitalism ia a global system. But even basic libs have the same instinct, everytime I saw someone propose "why don't you do your thing in your jurisdiction, we do ours in our, and we leave each other alone" someone would show up saying "this would be too cruel for people under your jurisdiction". I don't think all Blues believe this, but 100% of the time the person saying it would be Blue, and other Blues would never give them any pushback.
Most who choose to leave will move to Europe
Are you saying we might actually get doctors and engineers this time?
European academics doing a stint in the US could come back, sure. Could American academics come here? I'm a bit dubious on that. I'm not that plugged into the university system, but don't exactly have the impression that they're awash in cash, and kicking off a rat race between foreign and domestic academics might be just what we need to get the local libs to start seeing the issues with immigration.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
If you want to be a social climber act like a normal sociopath and become a politician or a corporate executive.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Only temporarily.
That's already a few years of personell changes and shifting the balance of power within the university system. It can be rolled back, but can't be undone at the snap of the fingers, and is therefore superior the solution you are proposing, that doesn't change anything except for the packaging.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
while the net effects on DEI would be the same as in my proposal.
Again, how?
If UCLA gets their funding cut for woke recruitment practices, but other universities bend the knee, you don't think that creates an incentive for UCLA to clean up house, or doesn't boost the relative position of universities that aren't insane?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
How?
The diversity statements didn't appear there out of the ether, they are heing pushed forward by people with inatitutional power. Demanding that they merely stop requiring these statements, and change the names of "women's scholarships" to "totally not women's scholarships" will result in no substantial change other than the people who set up this system being marginally more quiet until the next Dem administration.
Even if your portrayal of what he said was accurate, that is not "a whole nother level", it's "more of the same", and perhaps even "way more mild". But it's not accurate. He wasn't punished for his political views, his university was for their discriminatory practices. Tao was portraying himselfnas politically neutral, and the above comment was pointing out he's lying.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
If the dude was able to write diversity statements, or whatever was the requirement for his old grants, without becoming a different person, why would they speaking up to say "this is retarded and needs to stop" suddenly change their core personality traits?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
I feel like it is worth noting here that the results of any valid scientific investigation don't depend on patriotism?
Do they depend on Diversity Equity and Inclusion? If not, how is it that none of the people complaining about Trump's cuts seemed tobhave an issue with their funding being dependant on that supposed "box checking"?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1mo ago
Mostly monitoring the situation and fixing the odd bug that pops up. Things are pretty stable, so I've been plotting my next move.
Not gonna lie, the main reason this project got as far as it did is using the old nitter+miniflux setup daily, the thought of returning to Twitter, or even just plain old Nitter is unfathomable to me at this point, and it's been driving me to power through until I got something usable. While there's a whole bunch of basic features I should add to make it reasonably usable to anyone who isn't me, the thought of working on them instantly sends me into a comma. OTOH, I've found myself more and more frustrated with Substack, and thinking that it sure would be nice to be able to follow all the people from there on the same app I use to keep track of Twitter. Importing articles would be easy enough, but I think I'm more interested in the "Notes", but the prospect of integrating them was daunting. Cursory searches revealed no alternative Substack readers that I could raid for code, so I thought it would take forever to figure out how to deal with their API... until I actually looked at it. Turns out you can literally just fetch Notes with curl, so I won't have to worry about reverse-engineering their authentication process, unless I'll want to implement fetching paid content.
How have you been doing @Southkraut?
I'm happy to discuss this, but you can't expect me to answer another your questions, if you've been dodging mine for half a dozen posts.
Who told you that? I'm perfectly willing to do so, if I can see that they actively thought for free speech during progressive dominance the same way I thought for it during the last gasps of conservatism. You'll notice I never criticized FIRE, but if you're going to tell me they're in any way representative of academia writ large... well, that would just be a lie, simple as.
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