ControlsFreak
No bio...
User ID: 1422
ControlsFreak
5d ago
There's a pretty huge difference between a tape of someone running their mouth and a tape of someone raping a minor. Again, if your model of the world doesn't account for this sort of massive difference, then you might want to reconsider your model. Different models may have different predictions for a tape of someone running their mouth, and one might evaluate said models on what actually happened, but there is obviously no constraint on the set of models forcing them to produce the same output on such extremely different cases.
people would say it's AI
This is plausible today, which is why I mentioned it.
they'd think it was out of context roleplay ... they'd say she lied about her age ... they'd think it was invasion of privacy or propaganda and refuse to watch ... they'd think Trump has let himself down again, but on a national level he's still a force for good etc
None of these are plausible for the example given of a tape of him "violently raping a 14-year-old girl".
Testing one's model as parameters go to infinity is, indeed, a good sanity check. I do this in my daily work. If your model has truly absurd results as the parameters go to infinity, it's more likely that there's a problem with your model than that the world will actually match the model outputs.
ControlsFreak
5d ago
This is one of those moments where you should probably take honest stock in your model of the world, because it's really far out there. I could imagine some defenses these days along the lines of the video not being real; AI gen has gotten good or whatever. But there is not even a single cultural/theoretical/whathaveyou hook that is remotely likely to take hold as a defense in society if it is widely believed that such a video is real. It's not like Clinton, where the left was already trying to lean hard on "consent of adults is the only thing that matters" in order to help the gays.
ControlsFreak
6d ago
I did say that I was sure I would link to SMBC doing the philosophy of mathematics joke many times in the future here.
ControlsFreak
6d ago
If you are definitionally not allowed to observe an empirical difference then the answer to the question is mu, as both answers yield exactly identical predictions about the future and so are the same answer.
This is a fairly common failure in reasoning from STEM people who haven't STEMed enough. You may just be unfamiliar with the concept of observability. That's not even getting into the actual philosophy problem.
The maths fail part of the STEM fail has already been covered decently enough below.
It's all just fancy window dressing over consequentialist reasoning.
This, on the other hand, isn't a STEM fail; it is definitely outside of that. But it does give me yet another chance to share one of my favorite papers on the topic.
ControlsFreak
14d ago
Do you have a source for that? I tried a few search terms, and I couldn't find anything.
ControlsFreak
14d ago
Marco Rubio, who is not only the Secretary of State but also Trump's National Security Strategy
Somehow still yes.
ControlsFreak
15d ago
Okay, show me. Show me where someone else posted something equivalent and wasn't modded.
*Laughs in self-contradiction*
every time I have made this request, what I get is a post that isn't equivalent and a 20-post-deep argument about why it's not.
You have a post that was designed to be as equivalent as possible, specifically for the purposes of this type of request. Yes, we also have a 20-post-deep argument where you persist in claiming that the modding was for other non-specified comments, but the latest is that you've said no, that was all bollocks; the modding was for the completely and totally equivalent post.
ControlsFreak
19d ago
Yep, sometimes you really can tell exactly what's going on by reversing the valence. We don't have access to the TA here to ask some clarifying questions, but I have little doubt that they would end up a stammering mess and contradicting themself when trying to explain why they gave the grade they gave.
ControlsFreak
20d ago
Eh, most diffEQ classes are taught at a super introductory level, and if there is much difficulty, it's actually because they're taught at a super introductory level, in the style of, "You just need to memorize these various magic tricks," which is supremely unhelpful to building intuition. There's a more significant jump when going to something like differentiable manifolds, because that's generally only targeted at math grad students, so they often go into the other ditch in terms of rigor.
Understanding diffEQ is nearly essential for the sciences. Honestly, I don't know how one would survive physics for physics majors without it; generally it's the super introductory versions of physics that skip the differential equations and again require you to just memorize a bunch of magical formulas that seem to come from magic. It's the physics for physics majors that show how all the typical super simplified problems are just pretty easy differential equations. It even came up in some neuroscience classes I took (scared the pants off the bio majors, but was unsurprisingly the easiest part of the material for me). One can't hide even in CS, at least not today. I mean, even just the extremely rudimentary concept of gradient descent. Even manifold stuff; I still see manifold learning stuff popping up here and there. I guess if you want CS for web design, sure, but if you're thinking CS for cutting edge tech, you need a pretty large chunk of math these days.
ControlsFreak
22d ago
What "counts" is a difficult problem, and I don't think almost anyone has meaningfully consistent lines. I recall looking at some work long ago that found a neat correlation between particular physical signals and infidelity behavior (with a nice theoretical mechanism explanation and an animal model to boot). I remembered it mostly because it was a surprising contrast to the complete lack of results that were anywhere near that quality in the raging public discussion concerning sexual orientation. I doubted that any of the people who wanted to take a strong stance on sexual orientation would take a similar stance on infidelity, and well, yeah, I kind of doubt that most people would be willing to compare the types of evidence available for gender dysphoria stuff and have a consistent view on what "counts".
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
You could easily just stop the problem and provide satisfaction. Just resolve the contradiction you created. This is not "my version" of anything. You literally just contradicted yourself! You said that you were wrong! We can just go look at your words and compare them to each other! You tried going silent as soon as this was pointed out, because you know it's true. And I'm guilty of always wanting to futilely talk down the crazy people to see if I can help them resolve obvious contradictions in their thinking.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
Gotta be at least slightly less crazy than the person who has simply contradicted himself. Sure, you didn't take the strawberries. You probably also took the strawberries. Principle of explosion is a hell of a drug.
But deflect away. It's probably the best you can do if you can't manage to just curl your upper lip and go silent.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
That may be true, in the technical sense that you have affirmed a contradiction. From the principle of explosion, sure, you can probably show that to be true. Of course, you can also show the opposite to be true. And back in reality, you're not really accusing me of being a one-issue poster. That would be bonkers. You're just deflecting, again.
I'm just observing the phenomenon you've just described in this thread. The context is on point. It was your point!
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
This phenomenon isn't unique to Joo-haters. We just got to the point of you disagreeing with yourself. I don't know if we've gotten an elliptical theory, but we've definitely had cobbled together bits of apocrypha. I think we're at the "upper lip curl, go silent" stage, but I have to imagine that when it comes up again (and it will), you'll probably be repeating the same thing.
Oh man, approximately still gets me every time. I just write it, then when I got to paste it in, I see that it breaks, then I consider whether I want to spend a few minutes re-figuring-out what I want to do. I've given up in some comments not too long ago; pretty sure I just wrote "\approx", not caring. I'll be saving @ToaKraka's comment, and hopefully I remember I have it the next time it happens.
And indeed, at the time I came up with this way of thinking about it (I'd say about a decade ago), I was thinking about the debate on mpg/gpXm. I almost mentioned that here, because, yeah, a lot of people think in terms of having a fixed number of miles they're traveling, but don't intuitively grok 1/x relations. This speeding analysis is at least linear in distance, but it still has a 1/x relation, in a way. Yes, it's actually 1/x^2, but I guess what I'm kinda thinking is that one can lean on the 60min/1hr conversion, you have (d/r)*(60/r), and almost do it in two stages in your mind. If your nominal speed is 70, then you still have a d/r relation, but it's slightly modified by a 60/70, and I at least have a bit of an intuition as to how far off that's going to make my approximation, rather than having to just brute calculate the whole thing, actually thinking about the squared term.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
You were banned for an uncharitable bad faith post.
I notice a distinct lack of links this time in your false history. Let's go to the tape, where you said:
But fine, you can bring a reverse argument to the table if presented civilly, albeit somewhat disingenuously.
Are you saying that you lied then, when you said it was "fine"... or are you lying now, when you're saying that it was not fine and was the reason why I was banned.
For completeness, the reason you gave for why I was banned was:
However, you've then gone on to argue with people throughout this thread is a condescending and belligerent manner. The queue is filled with reports on your posts. No one post is terrible, but most of them are obnoxious and unnecessarily antagonistic.
I could repeat the rest of the history after that, but we've already done that. The entire premise of your current position is just factually false.
You demanded that I point specifically to the other posts that were bad.
I asked for one specific thing to support your claim.
I declined, because I wasn't going to argue with you about each post in the thread.
I asked for one specific thing to support your claim.
You claimed this was unfair.
I did not claim this.
You still think this is unfair.
I don't even necessarily think this. I'm not sure "fair" has anything to do with it.
Your claim that the mods "Use secret reasons they won't tell you about to ban people they don't like" is false.
I didn't actually claim this.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
That's a different problem, though. That's part of the awful adversarial game they play. But that doesn't change the fact that they have negotiated prices, and they both had a say in what those prices are. They (either one) can still just tell you the negotiated price, even if there may still be a fight over whether the insurance is actually going to pay. One problem at a time. Don't let the existence of the harder problem stop you from making the trivial solution to the easier problem. Nothing about this trivial solution to the easier problem makes the harder problem any harder.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
Oof, yes. Fixed.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
You're misunderstanding. No one is asking for their internal treatment costs/margins/etc. They keep that hidden. Then they sign an agreement. That agreement has numbers in it. Different numbers from their internal treatment costs/margins/etc. Those numbers are known to both parties. They both signed a document with those numbers in it! They are not keeping those numbers hidden. Those numbers are the ones that they can give to patients.
I'm definitely wanting LaTeX support, because even though it's just a derivative, it would look soooo much prettier.
I've found it interesting to think about it marginally. What's the time savings of each marginal additional mph? A derivative gives a very good approximation of this, and particularly for highway speeds, it's a good enough approximation to be reasonable over at least a handful of individual mph changes without recalculating.
Governing equation, which everyone should know from high school: d = rt, distance = rate*time.
We care about time. t = d/r.
dt/dr = -d/r^2
(Yes, this would be a nice place for LaTeX, because the d's for the derivative should be visually different from the d for distance.)
One has to be careful with units, because we're often talking about changes in time in terms of minutes, but we have rates in terms of hours. What we ultimately want is something mixed, like minutes/mph.
We're starting with [miles]/[mph]^2, so we need to correct by [60min]/[1hr], meaning if we just plug miles and mph into our formula, we need to multiply the result by 60 to get the units we want.
The obvious mental math version to just get your bearings on the magnitudes of things is to consider r=60mph, because then one of our denominator terms will cancel with our unit correction. It's also not too far off from the nominal speed of many state highways. This case gives us that a quick approximation, with inputs in terms of miles and mph and output in terms of minutes/mph is -d/r. That is, again, kind of assuming r=60, then if your trip is, say, 150 miles, you're saving (note that it's negative, because this is a reduction in time spent) about 2.5 minutes per mph you increase.
Some things to note. Time savings is linear in distance. I personally don't think it matters much until we're getting to pretty significant distance trips (I think trying to speed a bunch to save time on your 20mile commute is kinda dumb). It's also a 1/r^2 in rate. That is nasty in terms of diminishing returns. It's also why I'm kinda fine with the nominal 60mph mental math to make the unit change "free"; yes, I'm slightly overestimating the value of speeding if the nominal speed limit is 70, but it's probably not huge error. I haven't bothered actually quantifying the error; this is all just to quickly get into a ballpark.
I think the economist would probably want to slap a utility on this derivative and set it equal to something representing your estimation of the likelihood of getting pulled over. I think it's easy enough to handwave that a little bit and just think a little about the trip you're planning and this marginal rate of improvement and come to some approximation that you're comfortable with.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
but they have to hide what they know to negotiate with insurers and the government.
They don't have to hide the terms of the agreement that they signed with said insurers. The insurers already have this! They both signed the agreement!
Sure, they can continue hiding their internal costs, but those were never something that the patient cared about anyway. The patient cares about what they're going to get billed, which is a number in an agreement that both the provider and the insurance company have.
In the auto mechanic example, this is like saying that the shop owner hides how he compensates his employees, pays for consumables/times/equipment/etc. That's all perfectly fine. I don't care to know that. Just tell me what number you're planning on putting on my bill.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
Thank you for the correction. I do appreciate that.
I stand by everything else I said, though. I don't appreciate you lying about what I had asked for, claiming that I had asked to litigate each and every post, when it is unmistakable that, from the very beginning, I had consistently asked for one specific thing.
I will make one final note that your excuse at the time was that you didn't want to "relitigate" the ban, but the factual reality is that there was no prior litigation to relitigate. It was just a ban, and well, when you're banned, you're banned, and no litigation can occur. That beginning comment, where I asked for one specific thing was the first.
This is just the factual history, and for this one (unlike my reporting behavior), everyone can just go read the public links.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
In this case you unfortunately need to go to your insurance to find out the prices, as the clinics and doctors kind of have no say in the matter.
This is not true. It's a lie perpetuated by providers who want to remain price opaque.
Providers and insurance companies sign agreements, where they agree to a list of negotiated prices. They both sign this agreement. They both have a copy of this agreement that they signed. They both have a copy of the negotiated prices. Either party is perfectly capable of looking at their copy of the prices and telling you the number they've agreed to.
Imagine that this lie were actually true, and clinics/doctors truly had "no say in the matter". Well, then the insurance company could just magically decide that the price is $1, right? There's nothing the clinics/doctors could do about it, if they "have no say in the matter". But in reality, they do have a say in the matter, and it happens when they negotiate an agreement on a list of prices. If, prior to signing an agreement on a list of prices, the insurance company were to say, "If you sign this agreement, we'll pay you $1 for services," the provider simply won't sign the agreement; it's not worth it to them to be "in-network" if it only pays $1. If, on the other hand, after signing an agreement on a list of prices, the insurance company were to say, "Lol, whatevs about that whole 'price list' BS, we're gonna only pay you $1, because you have no say in the matter," then the provider will simply point to the agreement that they signed, in writing, with the threat of obviously winning lawsuits.
I would be over the moon thrilled if doctors were as transparent as auto mechanics. They tell you what they're planning on doing, they give you a (usually pretty good) estimated price, and then if they get in there and find something that's going to change their plan/cost, they tell you, give a revised estimate, and get your approval before proceeding.
No one is asking for doctors to be clairvoyant. Just that they do basic communication of what they know, when they know, to whatever extent possible.
Obviously, there could be cases where a patient is under anesthesia, they find something genuinely unexpected, whatever. I think a simple rule for this is to just follow normal informed consent principles. If you'd be comfortable proceeding without getting specific informed consent for the medical costs/benefits, then you probably don't need to give them a price, either. But to use an example based on what one of the doctors here said before, he said that they might know that a surgery typically costs $X, but 1% of the time there's a thing that makes it cost $[Stupid]x[X]. Simple: you know this, so just communicate it to the patient. Sure, it's probably not going to change much in that particular case, but at least they've gotten a heads up that there's about a 1% chance that they'll wake up on the hook for their entire OOPM. [EDIT: I'm pretty sure this is concordant with medical informed consent procedures. If you know there's a 1% chance that there will be a major shift in what you're going to do in a surgery, I'm pretty sure you're kinda supposed to tell the patient, "Hey, so this is a small chance, but it is known to be about a 1% chance."]
It's honestly just basic human decency in business practice.
Sure, some people will want to think that it's fake in some way. I mean, I guess something like that could be fake? If you asked me a prior probability for a video coming out of any prominent politician committing a violent rape of a 14-year-old, especially in the AI age, I'd have a pretty non-zero chance of it being fake. And these days, normies have had their probability estimates for foreign government disinformation along lines like these jacked up, too.
...but that's basically the only thing that could plausibly have any play for the example given. People might think it's fake, but if there is enough other evidence to support that it's not a total fabrication, nothing else would save him.
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