Before the experiment, the researchers ask you what the probability of the coin coming up heads is. What's the answer? 50%, obviously. So what if they ask you after waking you up what the probability of the coin coming up heads was? It's still 50%, isn't it?
No, it isn't. Being woken up is evidence for tails. So if they ask you after waking you up, you have additional evidence that you did not have when they asked you before the experiment.
(And if your reply is "well, didn't you know in advance that you would be awoken?" the answer is that "being awake" and "knowing that you will be awake" don't provide the same evidence, because they are distributed among the outcomes differently.)
Jiro
10d ago
The answer is tautologically the Indian programmer because of the phrase "to the degree that it matters". It is possible to think the Indian programmer should never be hired and still agree with that (the degree that it matters would then be zero).
Jiro
10d ago
It depends on the value of "mediocre". "Mediocre" could, for instance, mean "does equally good work, but demands an American salary", in which case yes. It could also mean "is slightly less efficient and the amount by which he is less efficient doesn't matter", in which case, also yes.
That argument shouldn't apply unless the US has full control over the other country's government. Otherwise the other country's government can mismanage it in such ways that people there are willing to work for very low wages, and then those people will work for low wages in our country and drive our salaries down. On the level of each individual laborer the laborer is working for peanuts in the US voluntarily, but on a level of incentives, most of them would not have done so if the other country's government had not made their country so poor.
And the other country's government, of course, is a government and as such not subject to market forces or economic efficiency.
Also, this assumes some sort of weird EA-variant. If it's economic efficiency to not hire Americans, I don't want economic efficiency. Why would I hold economic efficiency as an end in itself without regard of who gets to benefit from it? I don't treat all humans alike.
Jiro
12d ago
There is much more than just one video here.
Are all those videos from the same stream? It's easy to cherry-pick suspicious-looking things from thousands of videos.
If you started a company that could produce ten million dollars in goods, and nine other people did the same thing, but there was only room in the market for one company, it would be silly to say that one person produced 10 million and the other nine whose company failed are parasites. This should be counted as ten people producing 1 million each; if there's risk, everyone should get credit for the average amount, even if by luck some will produce more and some less.
Writing software for someone who doesn't do anything useful with it is similar. Making software, or anything that isn't a finished product, can in general be productive, yet any specific instance of it may lead to the end user producing a lot, or producing nothing at all. Which one you get depends on luck. So you should get credit for the amount of productivity that can be credited to developers like you, averaged over all possible customers, even if due to bad luck it so happens that your particular customer isn't producing anything.
(Of course, you have to be careful with reference classes. Maybe you're the only programmer who programs system X. That doesn't mean that since there's only one programmer, there's no average; you probably want to average among all programmers in some larger category.)
Jiro
13d ago
It is possible to underpolice and overpolice at the same time. It's the equivalent of anarcho-tyranny. You can underpolice against criminals and overpolice against basically innocent people (which is what "driving while black" means). You can even overpolice and underpolice against criminals at the same time if you don't catch enough of them but are brutal towards the ones you do catch.
Jiro
13d ago
Their contribution to reducing per-unit prices is a lot closer to growing one carrot than it is to inventing GMO rice.
They're contribution per unit is small, but there are a lot of units and the per unit contributions really add up. Just because it's hard to see the contribution because it's really spread out doesn't reduce the size of the contribution.
Jiro
13d ago
If the present value of their pension is 3 million and the total value of their government benefits is 5 million, that means that the value of their non-pension government benefits is 2 million. Unless a lot of those benefits are specific to them, that means that every similar retiree has $2 million of present value government benefits, which makes the claim "they have seven figures" useless to communicate information.
Jiro
14d ago
Someone making $50000 a year for 20 years will have made 7 figures, but we don't count that as "being worth seven figures". You have no reason to think they would be able to accumulate enough of that pension to reach seven figures.
Jiro
14d ago
Huge resources are thrown into shaming racists yet there are a lot of racists around.
Because it isn't aimed at actual racists.
People of the type who are really being shamed have lost a lot of influence as a result.
Though it's enraging, there is a perverse pleasure in giving that bastard the money. It tells you that you showed him that you are better than him.
This is like "I'm going to do nothing to my bully to show that I'm better than him", but worse. It's indistinguishable from "I am powerless to do anything against him, and I may be forced to actually help him, but I'm rationalizing it away".
Jiro
14d ago
This should have been a 2 minute long discussion with a pharmacist at most where I tell them what drugs I want, then half an hour at my local lab where they do a few tests for me, and that's it.
This doesn't work because 1) stupid people will ask for antibiotics when they don't have good reason to expect them to work, and 2) giving out unneeded antibiotics has bad externalities. And the pharmacist can't administer a stupidity test.
And even in your case, you say that one doctor gave you a useless antibiotic before the second doctor gave you a useful one. If you go to a pharmacist, how are either you or the pharmacist going to know which one is useful and which one isn't? How are either of you going to know that your condition needs antibiotics at all, aside from you getting lucky? ("It worked for my family member, so it should work for me", and that actually being true, is luck.)
Jiro
14d ago
An extra $15k-20k a year is NOT going to bankrupt anyone worth a low seven figures.
I don't see seven figures anywhere in this.
Jiro
16d ago
He used the same insulting words that would be used when mocking. Claiming that it isn't mockery because he said the same words with a different attitude is special pleading.
Jiro
17d ago
I do dread to think what they might copy from the shit-dumping.
Well, let's think of other things the left finds as unpleasant as shit dumping. Maybe they'll call him Hitler? Or just say they like when right-wingers are assassinated?
Jiro
17d ago
A shame, this level of crudity is self-defeating
Trump isn't running for office again, unless you're Scott Alexander. And even if he was, I really doubt this would lead someone to change their vote about him (or the Republicans). Exactly how is it self-defeating?
Jiro
17d ago
This only works if a lot of people really do oppose mining regulations, so spending millions of dollars is effective.
Jiro
20d ago
I doubt you came to the conclusion that Romney was called a fascist because you read that NPR article upon publication or were paying attention to what Dick Harpootlian was saying in 2012.
I assume that he came to that conclusion because there were a lot of things said like that, rather than because he saw those specific examples.
Obviously it would make no sense to track down the exact examples that he had actually seen.
Jiro
20d ago
The answer is "get enough out so that the ones with female values don't dominate". She's one person, not a group big enough to dominate, and she may not necessarily have female values.
If progressive white males can complain about white males (presumably excluding themselves), women can say this.
Jiro
21d ago
for example one can easily construe mass immigration, soft-on-crime and other progressive policies as inherently riskier and ‘less safe’ than just not doing them
Changing it from "risk" to "personal risk" may be more accurate. I'm pretty sure that the people who are most involved in promoting such policies are the least personally affected by them. The risk to themselves is low.
Jiro
22d ago
Sure so why that particular verse in that particular version of that particular song?
Because a zillion people used a zillion verses from a zillion songs, and that particular one was somewhere in there, and someone found it. Do you think that was the only song anyone ever sang?
Then they think it doesn't matter, so it's still true.
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