Isomorphic_reasoning
No bio...
User ID: 961
Isomorphic_reasoning
9mo 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
9mo 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
10mo ago
I would prefer it because it's more honest
Isomorphic_reasoning
5mo 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
10mo 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
5mo 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
7mo 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
11mo 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.
Isomorphic_reasoning
5mo 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
5mo 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
9mo 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.
Isomorphic_reasoning
5mo 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
5mo 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.
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
5mo 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
10mo ago
Whenever I've read about jobs displacement from AI, invariably experts have opined that "the creative stuff will go last"
This hasn't been a reasonable position for at least a couple years, anyone saying that is not a real expert and has an outdated conception of AI capabilities
Isomorphic_reasoning
4mo 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)
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
6mo ago
No. I was just speaking in shorthand. You don't have to say you would be hungry. "I probably still wouldn't be hungry even if i skipped breakfast because i often don't eat breakfast" is a perfectly fine answer as well. "Bad" answers are those that reveal that the person is incapable of embracing hypotheticals. Ie people who say things like "what are you talking about, i did eat breakfast"
Isomorphic_reasoning
7mo ago
This is Black History Month
No it's not. Black history month in America is February. Look it up
Isomorphic_reasoning
7mo ago
What "predictibly good" outcomes are you thinking of when it comes to affirmative action? From my perspective AA has been a massive failure. The acheivement gap on standardized tests is as big as ever despite 2 generations of institutionalized discrimination in favor of blacks at our nations universities. From my perspective this makes total sense. The reason for mean scores amongst blacks has never been lack of educational opportunity, it's genetics, so it can't be fixed by increasing educational opportunity. But i suspect you believe something else.
Isomorphic_reasoning
8mo ago
There are laws against taking certain types of anti union action. It varies by state but these laws give unions a lot more power than they would have in a true free market.
Isomorphic_reasoning
10mo ago
Which category? Most blacks in America are descendants of slaves. There has been relatively little migration from Africa since then
Isomorphic_reasoning
11mo ago
I would use the detroit example to go the exact opposite direction. There actually is a very strong signal to detroit when their trade balance is off. If detroit is consuming more than it's producing then on net dollars are flowing out of detroit and very quickly the citizens will run out of money and be forced to either start making detroit more productive or move somewhere else where they can be productive. The only way a city in decline can be sustained long term would be if somehow dollars were continually being injected into the local economy in a way that was completely disconnected from production. Oh wait, that's exactly what's happening. So now the prescription is clear, end the entitlements and redistribution and the city will be forced to come back to a trade balance.
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.
More options
Context Copy link