Isomorphic_reasoning
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User ID: 961
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
You said both sides were wrong. I don't see how the pregnant lady is anything other than entirely blameless
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
I think one major problem with this style of argumentation is that while it is very good at exposing contradictions and flaws in a specific person's understanding of an issue that does not always translate into exposing contradictions or flaws in the philosophical or political positions themselves. It's perfectly possible to give a false proof of a true statement and when your debate partner rips apart that proof it might make the audience think that this means your conclusion was false, but it doesn't actually imply this. I sometimes watch debate videos and I often find myself frustrated that the person who I agree with is giving such bad arguments, I want to yell at them through the screen.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
Where the hell are you getting p=0.5 from? Do you even know what a p value is? A p value is the probability of observing a result at least as far from the mean by random chance if the null hypothesis (in this case the hypothesis that all demographics commit shoplifting equally) was true. We have a ton of data on shoplifting. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of incidents spanning decades all across the country. The data shows a very clear trend that certain age groups (teens and 20's) and certain races (blacks) commit shoplifting at much higher rates than other ages or groups. This isn't some tiny marginal difference that only shows up on large datasets. We're talking double, triple, quadruple the rates. If you were to calculate a p value for this effect it would be astronomically tiny due to the huge sample size and large effect size.
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
Your desires, to have good, respectable, neighbors, to not live near disruptions etc. Are not only acceptable, they're completely expected. My objection to NIMBYism lies not in it's goals but in it's tactics which I believe frequently amount to using government action to appropriate the land value of other private actors for their own benefit. As a libertarian I see this as tantamount to communism.
Let me illustrate this with an example. There is a quiet neighborhood on the edge of town. Next to the neighborhood there is a field owned by a single farmer who grows corn. The neighborhood residents enjoy the quiet seclusion brought by being surrounded by corn and their homes values appreciate due to the relative scarcity of housing in their immediate vicinity. However as the area grows more populous the farmer realizes that his land would be more efficiently used for housing than for growing corn and he begins talking with a local developer to sell the land.
Now let's consider a few ways that the neighborhood residents might respond.
Scenario #1: the residents allow the field to be sold and new houses to be built and welcome their new neighbors
Scenario #2: the residents negotiate with the farmer and pay him a fixed sum of money in order for him to agree to put a restriction on his land that it will not be used except for agricultural purposes for the next 50 years
Scenario #3: the residents collectively buy the land from the farmer and turn it into a private park
Scenario #4: the residents use the fact that they outnumber the farmer to enact coercive government action to block any potential development of the land
In a sense all of 2,3 and 4 could be called NIMBY but my only objection is to #4. However #4 and analogous situations seem to make up the vast majority of NIMBY behavior so I consider myself an opponent of NIMBYism in general. My core belief is that you don't own your neighbors land and even if you have been recieving a benefit from how he has chosen to use that land for a number of years you are not in any way entitled to continue recieving that benefit and any use of government action to coerce your neighbor to use his land in a certain way is effectively theft.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
This isn't true though. Blacks commit almost every crime at rates higher than whites. There might be a few exceptions but the general trend is certainly not that different races commit equal amounts of crime but just commit different crimes. The general trend is that blacks commit more crime.
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
there is no evidence that group engages in more tax evasion than others
So this statement is just a lie right? Like the kind of lie Scott spent thousands of words trying to tell us that the NYT doesn't tell.
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
Acknowledging the reality of HBD is important because if we don't acknowledge it we will end up with policies which are premised upon it being false (disparate impact doctrine for discrimination and affirmative action are the big ones, general distrust in IQ as you mention is another) and these policies are highly inefficient and unfair.
I don't want a world where people go "I know about HBD so I'm going to throw all the applications from black people away". I want a world where people go "I know about HBD so if after considering all the applications in a race blind manner I end up with 2% blacks in a highly technical field I won't be surprised or consider that problematic". And I'm not alone in this. Basically everyone I see talking about HBD feels the same. The first position is a strawman.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
What I'm suggesting is things like "evasive body language" and "baggy coat on a summer day" are far more indicative of "shoplifting" than any demographic quality,
That's not what you said. You said "demographically, no" when asked whether it was possible to reason probabilistically about who was more likely to shoplift. There is a huge difference between saying that behavioral data gives more information than demographic data and saying that demographic data gives no probabilistic information at all. It sounds like you're backtracking here.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
- As in the sense of using demographic data, it doesn’t appear so
Are you lying on purpose or are you actually this ignorant? The demographic data is quite clear. Blacks shoplift at drastically higher rates than whites or Asians.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
Demographically no
This is false. Some demographics shoplift at drastically higher rates than others. You can never be certain someone is or isn't a shoplifter demographically but you can definitely reason probabilistically.
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
In the USA in 2022 the vast majority of skin color based discrimination occurs under the guise of so called "affirmative action" programs. These programs pretend to be anti racist but at their core they are just racial discrimination against whites and Asians. So the question becomes, "what is the most effective way to fight affirmative action" and I think the answer is just spreading awareness of the extent of discrimination that goes on, especially in elite universities. Affirmative action already polls as quite unpopular but I find that in my own social circle many less online people are shocked to see the extent of discrimination that is going on. In public school I was fed lies about affirmative action, I was told it never meant picking a less qualified candidate it only meant considering the underrepresented candidate thoroughly or using race as a tie breaker for equally qualified candidates. A quick look at admission statistics disproves these lies quickly. Another pervasive lie is the idea that AA helps underprivileged students but at elite universities the main beneficiaries are wealthy blacks, not kids from the ghetto. I think if this knowledge was more widespread public support would collapse even further and hopefully the supreme court would be pressured to make a strong ruling.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
I actually think this is economically distinct from nepotism. With standard nepotism you have a principal agent problem. The hiring manager is supposed to be acting on behalf of the institution when he awards the position but he instead acts to benefit himself by hiring an underqualified family member. This is in essence the hiring manager stealing value from the institution that employs him and if that's a publicly funded instead he is in essence stealing from the tax payers.
But spousal hiring is different. The spousal hire is awarded as part of a negotiation in order to attract the superior researcher and thus it serves the interest of the institution by allowing them to attract better talent.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
If there's genuine medical uncertainty the only responsible choice for an expectant mother is total abstinence and an expectant father is completely justified in requesting that from his partner
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
That statistic is net gain in employment. If 100 whites are hired, 20 blacks are hired. 99 whites retire and 10 blacks retire. Then 10/11 or 91% of net jobs created went to blacks but the hiring situation isn't nearly so dire.
You should also try actually reading the book. He goes into detail about how it is not the plain reading of the laws that matters but a series of precedent setting cases and executive decisions that have shaped their enforcement.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
The term as a whole is stupid because almost every single person who operates a charity or is a large scale philanthropist sincerely believes they are engaged in “effective altruism”
I honestly don't think this is true. A lot of people who start charities choose a cause that has impacted them personally with little thought to whether this is a cause where dollars go the furthest. EA means more than just not actively trying to waste your donation. It means giving rigorous thought to the tradeoffs involved.
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
Exactly. She wasn't agreeable and submissive but that doesn't mean she did anything wrong
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
I would prefer it because it's more honest
I agree with you that, with a few exceptions, the current crop of Republicans are a bunch of clowns. But unfortunately my only alternative is voting for people who actively hate me for who I am and my beliefs. I say this as a white male who believes that racial disparities are primarily genetic and that many of the differences between men and women have a biological basis. These are scientific beliefs that in a sane world wouldn't be controversial. Sadly, in our world they mark me as scum to anyone on the left half of the country so I'm forced to throw my support to the other side. And if that other side is a bunch of clowns then I'm giving my support to a bunch of clowns because i sure as hell am not going to give it to the people who hate me.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
On a related note, has anyone else noticed how weird the scoring systems on graduate level admissions tests are? The GRE, for example, has 2 sections verbal and quantitative each section scores out of 170, except the minimum possible score is 130. So the score range is only 40 wide. Why didn't they just make it 0-40? Why 130-170? The MCAT is even weirder, each section scores from 118-132. Why not 0-14 or 1-15?
My hypothesis is that adding a constant to everyone's scores makes the scores appear artificially closer together which reduces the perceived unfairness of affirmative action admissions. I wonder if we'll see a reversal of this trend now that the Supreme Court has come down on AA.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
If the administration of airlines, air traffic control, pilot training and so on was ruthlessly meritocratic, then I'd agree with you that there'd be no difference in skill between black or female pilots and white male pilots, since they would all have passed the same tests and be above a certain benchmark
Actually, even with the same minimum standard for each race you would expect the white to be better on average.
If X is N(100,15) and Y is N(85,15) then E(X|X > 120) > E(Y|Y>120)
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
“The casting couch is just prostitution” Pro
The casting couch is much more immoral than prostitution because the resources that are being traded for sex often do not truly belong to the person trading them. When the director chooses to hire the actress who gives him sexual favors over the actress who refuses but would be better for the role he is essentially defrauding the production company and anyone who has financial interest in the film.
This is why issues like minimum wage get terrible traction— the only people who care are people who get paid hourly.
This doesn't seem true. Talking about raising the minimum wage and wealth inequality is popular amongst the nytimes reading PMC
Isomorphic_reasoning
2yr ago
Pretty much everyone knows that blacks victimize whites at far higher rates than vice versa across the board
I don't think this is true. Try talking to some normie lefties. They'll tell you that crime stats are biased and you're racist for even considering blacks might be more violent.
Isomorphic_reasoning
1yr ago
The choice isn't as obvious as either side is making it out to be.
Let n be the number of other pill takers. Let p1 be the probability that strictly less than half of the other pill takers choose blue, let p2 be the probability that exactly half of the other pill takers choose blue. Choosing blue accomplishes 2 things:
It kills you with probability p1
It saves n/2 people with probability p2
Is this a good trade off? Unless you don't care about other people at all or don't care about your own life at all the answer is: it depends on the ratio between p1 and p2. This ratio in turn depends upon a lot of factors, the specific population of pill takers, the specific formulation of the question, the amount of time alotted to discuss before a decision must be made etc.
The term "Sanctuary city" doesn't seem to imply "we accept a proportional share of migrants but get upset if we have to deal with more than that" (1) Instead it seems to imply "we welcome all migrants". If what they really mean is (1) then their proclamations of being a sanctuary city are empty virtue signalling and they deserve to be exposed by stunts like this.
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