GuyOnInternet
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User ID: 1177
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
We have to draw the line somewhere and if that line is not at believing in astrology and practicing magic, I don't know where it is.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
It’s worth asking if that’s only because blue tribe split off, as I don’t think that would have been the case 20 years ago.
progressives have become more ideological, and ideology often takes the place of nationalism. In practice it seems that you can only have a commitment to one. As ideology does not tolerate what does not conform to its standards.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
So are you saying it’s more that they don’t know people in their personal lives and community’s to look up to as role models? I can see the merit in that, but at the same time by virtue of the fact that rappers and athletes are often who fill that gap it doesn’t seem like the issue is a lack of local role models, as most black people don’t know, or even know anyone who knows, Lebron or Future.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
I don't disagree, but what's interesting is even just last year or perhaps the year before the view was that the left is fundamentally a collection of different interest groups. They've always been perceived as being more fragmented, which is to some extent a necessary function of the fact that they commit so passionately to given causes, which themselves are typically focused on a given group. Especially because those causes usually compete to some extent for primacy within a hierarchy of suffering, the end goal being which group suffers and experiences prejudice the most.
But to some extent your comment is what I'm talking about. I don't think that description is inaccurate, but I'm skeptical that it tells the whole story. I think intellectually there is much more cohesiveness on the right, and it the most relevant split is between the alt right and the conventional right. That also strikes me as somewhat of a progressive's conception of the right, in that it frames the primary binding force of each segment of the right as the perception that they are being targeted by the right. That glosses over the true character of the right in the way I'm suggesting Reuters and Bloomberg do. It's accurate in that those groups do, generally, vehemently oppose progressives, but it's a pejorative articulation of that view, in that it frames it as necessarily conspiratorial, and implies that their view of progressives are of poor enough substance to not warrant further examination.
But, similarly, those groups you describe on the right have always been present and have coexisted in harmony to the point that they were able to operate as a unified front.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
what you're saying only makes sense if people do not believe that another person's race makes them like them. And people gravitating to those of the same race of them is a pretty strong corollary from people gravitating to those who are like them. To suggest that race would not make someone gravitate to someone else is to say that race is an insignificant part of people's identities, which I'm not sure how you can maintain in 2022.
Also, this was found based on a very quick google. I'm not sure why you don't think someone has looked into this before, especially given how prominent DEI is. I mean anti-racism is an entire academic field. I can, in the abstract, appreciate the approach of your convictions only going as far as the research, but you can only maintain a counterpoint on those grounds if you've done the research and found that the link has not been found to exist. Not if you just haven't looked into it, especially given that this is a fairly obvious point that is a very strong corollary from a pretty obvious point that has been proven.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
How is it sexism if they don't want it? Sexism means the reason they are not in these positions is that external forces prevent them from doing so. To allege that the inner wiring of their brain has been corrupted by malicious social forces is conspiratorial and ignores that to some extent it is going to be the natural consequence of women having less testosterone. More testosterone = more status seeking = more desire to rise up the organizational hierarchy. So if they lack testosterone, less representation in management is an obvious outcome.
Honestly I can't tell if your message is sarcastic or not.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
There is a lot of conspiratorial thinking going on on both sides of the ideological spectrum. I think this goes without saying on the right, but on the left, if you think about it, it's fairly conspiratorial to allege that the primary lens through which institutional structures and outcomes should be assessed is through deeply engrained prejudice. In other words, it's pretty conspiratorial to allege that all of society's existing structures and institutions are corrupted by the nebulous forces of systemic racism/sexism/etc. and it can easily be considered paranoia to claim that because I've experienced x adverse outcome it must necessarily be because of this nebulous force that's out to get me. With that said, I do think that such forms of prejudice exist to some extent in some cases, but because they are largely more conceptual and abstract it's very easy to tap them as the primary causal force, without having to provide any real evidence or reasoning.
And much of this thinking is cloaked by a supposed commitment to skepticism, which I think most people would agree is virtuous. But at a certain point skepticism just becomes conspiratorial thinking. It’s important to consider all ideas on their merit, but it’s also important to consider that not all ideas have equal merit, meaning we cannot always say that in the absence of incontrovertible truth we must adopt an agnostic position. I could very easily allege that the mods of this subreddit were paid by x nefarious organization to start this webpage, and because you can't come up with evidence to the contrary, maybe I'm right.
Conspiratorial thinking, at the outset, appears to have merit. But mechanically it is throwing every element of an event into question, which is hampered by a. Bounded rationality; we cannot possibly comprehend the interplay between all elements of a given phenomenon and b. The fact that we do not have all of the relevant information on all elements of a given thing.
I agree with your assessment. When I've written about it I've referred to it as this perception that we are in a post-homo sapien world; that we have fully outgrown our primitive nature and have gained the ability to perfectly engineer society and human nature. It ignores that the same basic laws of nature apply; that human systems are complex to the point that they cannot be fully comprehended, so we cannot simply decide to intervene to produce x desired outcome because a. there is no way we can truly understand and respond to the ultimate and specific causal forces and b. there is no way we can truly understand the effects a given intervention can have. I mean it sort of doesn't matter whether people have the ability to choose their behavior. Whether or not the decision to murder someone is the result of genetic predispositions and a traumatic childhood, that person is a murderer; and we should be focused on ensuring they cannot murder.
I think the meta ethical fallacy you point out and the post-homo sapien world i point out observe something that is intellectually muddled and has a selective view of whether free will exists/human nature is a blank slate. This narrative suggests that free will exists to the extent that human nature is something that can be re-engineered by humans, but not to the extent that the individual can be held accountable for their actions.
I find this all especially interesting given that if you look at people who did just heinous shit throughout history, e.g. serial killers or rapists etc., they typically had a rough upbringing and they probably would not have done their heinous acts if not for some traumatic and formative experience. But no one jumps in and says Jeffrey Dahmer shouldn't be held accountable because he had a fucked up childhood. But even if they did, you have to ask, who gives a fuck? He did what he did. You can't go back in time and change his childhood.
I view many progressive prerogatives like this as being this rebellion against the notion that the laws of nature apply to humans and reign supreme (in that they cannot be refuted or changed). It's this notion of the helicopter mom and the administrative state; that we can overcome our environment, pad its walls to eliminate everything bad, and that we are not subject to the imperceptible interdependencies that characterize complex systems. That there are inevitable and organic consequences to actions which serve to deincentivize bad behaviors. Complex human systems function in the same way as a free market; the free market functions the way it does because it is a complex web of organic nodes, just like any system of humans.
Alternatively, I think it may be the result of modern existence becoming very complex --> complexity is uncertainty --> humans fear uncertainty most of all --> humans gravitate to these notions that the environment and the uncertainty it creates can be conquered/that there is a bad guy (e.g. the system, elites, whatever) that can be blamed and defeated. I truly think that in 10 years people are going to be shocked and find absurd notions like these.
I think this rejection of the laws of nature and natural way of things also manifests in the popular view that someone's wage should be a reflection of the standard of living that wage affords them, and not a reflection of their market value/contribution to the company. It's a rejection of the idea that the life someone ends up with is largely a function of the decisions they've made.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in that article but it reminds me of the idea that the issue with historians is that they only look backward. They see the future inevitably being just a different iteration of the past.
I’m also skeptical of narratives of decline. I think it reveals a nation that’s a little unconfident right now. A nation that, in living memory, has been immune to the ups and downs that characterize the evolution of the state. But we have had times of domestic tumult before. Just go back to the 60s. People who lived through that would surely be forgiven for making the assumption that what lies in front of us is necessarily part of a longer term trend. I imagine that times of change are, more often than not, accompanied by feelings of existential dread.
Comparisons of the US to empires have never really made much sense to me either. Empires do fail because they are held together by force, so anything that threatens the power base necessary to exert that force is necessarily an existential threat. But that doesn’t describe our country. People speak of neo-imperialism as if having influential companies and culture is the same thing as having vassals, but it simply is not true.
I think the biggest issue we have today is that we are facing uncertainty, we are facing change, and we don’t know what to make of it so everyone sort makes that same mistake of assuming that what lies in front of us is necessarily a trend. But sometimes you’re just trying to judge the outcome of a race as it’s being run.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
We're heading into a period of elevated interest rates, an increased focus on cash flow for new companies (as opposed to quick growth), and likely recession. I'm not sure startups were going to be a major influence in the short to medium term anyway because of this, and I'm a believer that authors of mistakes should have to bear the consequences if we want to learn from those mistakes and gain the ability to hedge against them in the future.
In short, while things are still playing out, I'm not sure this is going to be catastrophic in any substantive way, and am inclined to believe that this will be good in the long term. It was stupid of a bank to cater solely to one industry segment in the first place, let alone one as volatile and vulnerable to insolvency as tech startups.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
(Copying and pasting the first part from another comment because I have the same question)
So are you saying it’s more that they don’t know people in their personal lives and community’s to look up to as role models? I can see the merit in that, but at the same time by virtue of the fact that rappers and athletes are often who fill that gap it doesn’t seem like the issue is a lack of local role models, as most black people don’t know, or even know anyone who knows, Lebron or Future.
I’m also wondering what you would say the analog for these role models is in white communities.
I would also counter that local role models that represent more accessible forms of success are more confined to upper middle class and above families. And while most people in that strata are white, most white people are not in that strata. So it would appear that most white people probably suffer from the same lack of accessible and realistic role models.
And I will be the first one to concede that that is a little-discussed privilege enjoyed by the upper middle class +, as I grew up lower middle class (and white) and am currently entering that upper strata. But relative to my peers who grew up in that strata I’ve really had to do a lot of guess work and just make professional decisions based on lessons learned from failure, as I didn’t really know anyone I could look to for advice or as a model to emulate. For instance, I didn’t know what an investment banker was until my mid 20s.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
The only way I think this is a well intended and sound point is if you didn't sense that it was sarcasm.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
It's 2022 and you don't see how people who are not white might identify with their skin color even though you don't? When you meet black people you genuinely don't think their race is part of their identity?
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
although less that 'women aspire to leadership roles less', as women, moreso although like men, aspire to whatever other people think they should aspire to -
A. the research found that women desired leadership roles more in high school and less after college, once they faced the actual prospect of being in leadership positions.
B. it seems like you could apply this 'you only think or desire that because you've been conditioned to' argument to whatever you want endlessly and, by virtue of its nebulous and speculative nature, never have to provide evidence to back it up. At some point evidence that someone genuinely does not desire something has to be enough; who is to decide what someone should and shouldn't desire.
"status" is not a useful way to approach this, way too general.
I think it was defined appropriately and to a sufficient specification in the article I linked to. "Testosterone is associated with status-seeking behaviors such as competition, which may depend on whether one wins or loses status, but also on the stability of one's status." I think you have a point, but not to the extent that status seeking is defined as desiring a higher position within a hierarchy.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
Other comments have already pointed out the gotcha whereby sexism is also said to be a societal cause that shapes a woman's desires. In this way, a society where everyone is happy can still be sexist!
Can you elaborate on that?
Feminism as you describe it purports to represent women's interests, but instead of shaping its actions around what women want, they shape what women want around the actions they would like to take.
I would agree that regardless of whether women actually want to be in leadership roles, there should not be structural bias against it. However, the point here is that feminists claim the gender disparity at management levels is evidence that structural bias exists, which is clearly not the case.
Fair point. It does need to be noted that the authors found a 'small but significant difference'. The article said the influence of preference was 'Hedge's g = 0.22' and I don't know what that means. I'm not saying that bias is irrelevant, but it should not be the null hypothesis. The influence of status seeking behavior is natural and obvious enough that it should have been explored before bias was considered. The research should have started with this assumption; it should not be a surprise that is only revealed right now, which to me suggests that the researchers in this area are to some extent not starting from a point of indifference.
I don't want to risk overstating the role preference has here, but I don't know how to regard the phrase 'small but significant difference' and I don't know what Hedge's G is. But reading the Bloomberg article and how the author of the study commented on this, it seems that the influence of preference is prominent enough to necessitate a shift in thought.
The ultimate point here is that equity lenses lack the explanatory power they are alleged to have.
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
Women not aspiring to higher positions is not a corollary of women not asking for promotions. Women not asking for promotions can easily be caused by the systemic forces that feminists allege.
The point is not that my observation isn't obvious, it's that the consensus which has been absorbed into our institutions and collective thought did not consider this as the default explanation.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
what i mean by emotional salience is something that stands out and resonates emotionally. like going from abortion is no longer federally protected to the rights of women are being attacked is transforming that into something more emotionally salient.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
i wouldn't consider that standard to apply to people like Plato, Newton etc. They were just around at a different time, which just didn't have the same level of understanding of the world, so a lot of ideas and thoughts about the world were given room to be elevated. I'm not going to fault someone for not knowing space is a vacuum when they lived thousands of years before we went to space, for instance. Just like I'm not going to fault someone for believing something wrong about the spread of disease prior to the invention of germ theory.
I would agree with what you're saying about things like social justice, antiracism etc. But those are really low quality modes of thought. Exceeding that standard, which I'm not sure astrology does but it's certainly not substantially below that standard, does not lend credibility. That's not good company to be in.
Also disagree that a writer should be regarded as being capable of producing great work in one area and nonsense in another. If those areas are substantially different, that's one thing. And there are always exceptions to the rule. But in analyzing the world, if they indulge in nonsense that's a good indicator that their critical thinking abilities and abilities to discern the true nature of things are probably fairly weak.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
Those are all good points. but what i get stuck on is someone will claim to be a vehement opponent of prejudice and will be woke as fuck, but then they will be just flagrantly prejudiced against the south and southerners to a degree that would make a klan member blush. and they genuinely just don't see the hypocrisy or problem when i bring it up. like someone will have lived in new york their entire lives, has never been to the south, but they are just so confident that not only do they understand it really well but are confident it's just absolute hell.
a thought i had is that this is an excellent and perhaps somewhat unique feature of how decentralized the American system is. if each state were not allowed to have the degree of latitude they have, there would be less variation between them, so different parts of the us would no longer be able to evolve and adapt to different problems and ways of thinking. the us as a whole would probably just decline, but instead a business or person can just relocate to a part of the us whose policies are more optimized for the task at hand.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
if you re read the second paragraph I think you’ll see we agree that it’s a combo of cultural and external change
If you broadly read the news you know what I mean and I don’t need to cite it. If you broadly read the news and don’t agree, you likely share the bias in referencing and that evidence citing would turn into a game of whack a mole where I’d find an article and you’d counter on semantic grounds or whether it is an outliner or the norm. Short of providing some sort of statistical evidence that somehow characterizes media reporting on this, you can find a reason to disagree.
If this is not evident to someone im inclined to believe it’s because of the same phenomenon im talking about: you share the bias im talking about so you don’t see it as bias. Or you don’t read the news much.
This sort of thing can easily turn into a endless debate of first principles, and those debates can easily turn into a black hole where every bit of evidence and every assumption is contested and you can just reject anything you don’t like on abstract grounds, and at some point just i have to be able to say if you reject this idea that’s fair but this post isn’t for you. Demonstrating the observation is important, but this comment isn't for those who need the observation illustrated for them: It’s for those who have observed what I’m talking about.
GuyOnInternet
10mo ago
I’m not sure, but a surprising amount of black people also oppose it, so I think to some degree people are evidently not just going based on whether something benefits them or not
GuyOnInternet
1yr ago
I think the facts haven’t come out to discern whether he should be charged.
But I’m less talking about whether Neely deserved to be killed, and more talking about the public response to his actions - irrespective of his death. This same outcry happens when there are other random acts of violence that catch the headlines. Michelle Go, for instance.
The weird thing about cryptocurrency is regular currency could have the same functionality (basically) if it and the banking system were unregulated. Those regulations are what slow down transactions. It's requirements like know your customer and others like that which require banks to actually verify and have a more involved role that introduces the friction points that crypto ostensibly solves. If you take out all of the safeguards that make the current system relatively safe, it starts looking a lot like crypto - for good and bad.
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