KnotGodel
1yr ago
I didn’t claim they’re unbiased. I claimed this incident isn’t good evidence that they are biased.
But even if I had claimed that, this retort is not convincing when the entire evidence in favor is N=1 and had to be leaked.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
So do you think they’re unbiased? Or are they biased and you’re just defending them on this point anyway?
I truly don't have an opinion on whether they're biased. But, I thought decoupling was considered a virtue on this site, so I think its appropriate for me to push back on what I see as pure confirmation bias here: the CDC can be biased and this can be terrible evidence for that hypothesis.
Every individual piece of evidence is N=1, you can dismiss anything you want as long as you go one piece at a time. If you don’t see this as part of a broader trend then I question how much attention you’ve been paying.
I mean, all the evidence I've seen against the CDC has come from opponents. Any distribution can be skewed with a biased filter, and whatever I think about the CDC, I definitely do think the people this website is biased against the CDC in the sense that anti-CDC content gets attention, while pro-CDC content does not.
So, no, I don't think me noticing a bunch of anecdotes that are anti-CDC is good evidence the CDC is biased. I think the much stronger evidence is simply the prior based on their demographics (i.e. very educated).
Likewise, I think the fact this took months to resolve and only happened after boosting from the White House is evidence contrary to the "bias" interpretation being pushed here. That's not what I'd expect from an institution suffering extreme bias, and is, imo, stronger evidence than the HTML change itself.
And what on earth does its being leaked have to do with its evidential probity? If anything that makes it more reliable because people weren’t speaking guardedly.
No, I'm saying that we don't get many leaked emails from the CDC. If we had 10 and 2 of them show left-leaning bias and 0 show right-leaning bias, this is, in fact, not great evidence for bias or for right-leaning bias to not exist. It being leaked matters insofar as it means our sample size is tiny and even that sample is biased (someone had to be motivated to leak it).
KnotGodel
1yr ago
I don't object to the claim the evidence illustrates GVA is biased. I object to the claim that it provides convincing evidence the CDC is biased. In order to demonstrate that, I don't think what you showed is sufficient.
For instance, the fact the advocates were ignored by the CDC prior to getting support from the White House suggests that the CDC is not prioritizing leftwing advocates. Likewise, the fact this exchange took place over months suggests this isn't simple activism.
Moreover, the basic argument that this conversation caused the website to change doesn't indicate bias unless we take it as granted that the decision-making was bias. The more charitable explanation is that the advocates drew attention to a problem and the CDC eventually agreed in a neutral manner, at which point the only reasonable option was to change the website.
As I see it, the only way to demonstrate your preferred theory over the more charitable one is to demonstrate that the website change was, in fact, biased/unreasonable. IMO, you haven't done so.
to many people it seems like the desire to wipe the board and start again with new research coincides a) with the places with the greatest political disagreement, rather than disagreement with the merits, and b) where changes in political affiliation with likely researchers and with publications make it unlikely to see the same reads present, even if they were true.
What slate is being wiped clean? The CDC original reports are still publicly available. No research has been rescinded. I'd be shocked if future literature reviews just flat out ignored research from before year X.
Suppose someone had contacted them pointing out methodological flaws with the 60,000 number, and the CDC then made the change. Would you say the change was right-leaning?
If so, then you aren't evaluating the change - just the context.
If not, then it seems like you're assuming making a statement more abstract causes it to be more left-leaning? That, or that the original statement was right-leaning and the new statement is neutral?
[ Edit: where do they "pretend... that data doesn't exist"? They reference widely varied estimates and they host other reports that explicitly cite this research ]
KnotGodel
1yr ago
Can you point to where in the email chain a CDC representative say that was the reason they removed it?
KnotGodel
2mo ago
Allow me to paraphrase your complaints from the other side of the aisle:
Trump will tell his supporters that, of course he lost in 2020 - The Establishment is manipulating things behind the scenes - everyone knows that. But Trump literally won in 2016! The media makes much ado about Biden's "dementia"! What idiots those Republicans all are! Isn't it shocking that everyone confirms/affirms this explanation!?
And what about White kid Who Was Rejected By Harvard, because of affirmative action. He literally got into U Chicago! What about all the black kids Harvard rejected!? It truly boggles the minds.
If even Trump explains the world to himself this way, what is a normal Republican supposed to think? A poor white trash family in a trailer park? How can self-exculpatory models of the world be eradicated in people with somewhat credible claims to oppression when they are so popular even among the most privileged members of society?
You should've just said something like
I accept that as weak evidence against a Leviathan-shaped hole existing
,
Seeing as I find veterans insufferably obnoxious this isn't a surprise to me.
Those kinds of quips don't result in any Mod response and can net you quite a few upvotes! :D
KnotGodel
4mo ago
I wonder if the well funded caravans of migrants we see in some areas of the world have to some extend to do with funding related to EA.
I wonder if your wondering is done in good faith 🤔
Then there is Open A.I. and Chat GPT and effective altruists have been influential in Open A.I. Chat GPT has liberal bias. https://www.foxnews.com/media/chatgpt-faces-mounting-accusations-woke-liberal-bias
I think extremely few people (maybe even no one) pursue making LLMs liberally biased for EA reasons.
Climate change and veganism are two issues that could well lead to hardcore authoritarian policies and restrictions.
Since when has a group representing 3% of the population (vegans) taken enough power to implement "hardcore authoritarian policies and restrictions"?
Like with all identity movements, to elevate one group such as animals you end up reducing the position of another group, such as humans
Only for unhealthy minds, I think? Whether freeing slaves "reduced" the position of non-slaves is a question without an objective answer - only psychological interpretations. For instance, many Indians never eat meat and would tell you they don't feel "reduced" by this.
It does seem that at least a few of the people involved with effective altruism think that it fell victim to its coastal college demographics
That post is just describing regression to the mean, which every informal group encounters. Nothing unique to EA here.
My other conclusion related to the open A.I. incident as well is that the idea of these people that they are those who will put humanity first will lead to them ousting others and attempt to grab more power in the future too. When they do so, will they ever abandon it?
The same could be asked about any group with any large goal: companies, nonprofits, religious organizations. Nothing unique to EA here.
That this action is dishonorable matters
How do we know it is dishonorable?
This means that Sam Altman won't be the first.
won't be the last?
It also means that we got a movement very susceptible to the same problems of authoritarian far left movements in general of extreme self confidence to their own vision and will to power.
Do you have evidence EAs suffer from "extreme self confidence"?
This... encourages the power hungry to be part of it as well.
Again, this isn't unique to EA. Any group with money/power attracts the power hungry. What's your point?
KnotGodel
1yr ago
Do you have evidence the CDC will not include such studies in future literature reviews? If not, this seems like entirely circular reasoning: they're bad because they're going to ignore these studies in the future; I know they're going to ignore these studies in the future, because they're bad.
I just pointed out how important the distinction is between fist fights and unprovoked assaults.
Consider my previous comment as applying entirely to unprovoked assaults as well.
I just pointed out how important the distinction is between fist fights and unprovoked assaults. A world with fewer fist fights sounds nice to me, but to each their own.
Please don't imply I prefer a world with more fist fights, when I obviously don't.
A world with fewer unprovoked assaults, though, is one I'd really like to live in, even if that means I never get to blindside someone myself. Wouldn't you agree?
Sure? Though obviously the cost of achieving that world is important to consider.
Wouldn't "I can never safely give someone a black eye out of the blue" be a price so small that it's worth paying for even a slightly reduced risk of being punched and possibly even killed out of the blue?
Sure? Alas, that's not what we're considering.
Everything I'm reading about this case makes it sound like...
Good on you for being open minded. I personally don't really care about the specifics of a random particular case.
You're also ignoring the distinction between different dead bodies. Why?
Because when we're weighing pros and cons and you discussion partner ignores a 2-3 OOM factor, perseverating on a dramatically less important factor is not helpful.
If someone invents the "murder a little child" button, a magic device which can only be used once and has a fifty-fifty chance of working, would you kill them if that was the only way to stop them from pressing it?
To answer your question, I'm unsure if I would kill the button-pushing sociopath, but note that advocating killing him merely means accept a 2x decreased value of his life. Still far and away from the 2-3 OOM factor I've been harping on.
Moreover, in the minds of most people, there's an enormous difference between someone pushing a button with a specific probability of killing someone purely for the thrill of killing someone with a magic button and a drunkard throwing a punch at someone he views as disrespecting him. So even if you believe our button-pushing sociopath's life has 0 value, I don't know why you would infer the punch-throwing drunkard's life has no value. That's an enormous jump so, no, we have not "solved the problem" with your thought experiment - you've simply replaced the hard problem (is it acceptable to shoot drunks who punch people) with an easy problem (is it acceptable to shoot sociopaths who push magic buttons that kill people), all while refusing to actually grapple with the fact that you advocate cutting 10 years of life from someone in expectation because of one dumb drunk decision at a bar.
So, must we still treat attackers equally to victims?
No? You seem to think I am a blind utilitarian calculator. I'm not. But when utilitarianism says the costs outweigh the benefits by 10ish QALYs to ~0 QALYs and the benefit is a sense of fairness/justice in a brawl in a bar some random night... well, that seems like a pretty easy question for me to answer.
It seems silly to discount someone's life by 100x merely because the threw an unprovoked fist some night. It seems silly to think such a policy change would reduce fist fights by 2-3 OOM. It seems silly that fairness in a bar fight weighs more than 10 years of human life.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
I don't think I made that claim
It seems to me that if you believe the CDC revised its outreach due to poor arguments by liberals, there are a couple hypothesis
-
The CDC is leftward biased.
-
The CDC just bends to the administration in power.
-
The CDC just acts mostly randomly out of both scientific and political incompetence.
The fact you are accusing the CDC of "papering over" data suggests you don't believe #3. So, it seems to me you either believe #1 (despite apparently denying it here) or you believe #2. That is my perspective, but I apologize for putting words in your mouth and am open to being wrong here.
In a report that could not be recorded or presented to FOIA requests? Where none of these compelling arguments be summarized by any member? Where no 'expert' except the handful of the most bombastic gun control advocates were questioned, including the people the site had previously cited, about the matter?
Is it normal to archive arguments for a change to a single sentence on one of the CDC's many websites? Honest question.
Would you prefer I use the term 'buried' (or compare)?
Why would you expect the specific string "Armed resistance to crime" to appear on the CDC website? Or "defensive gun uses". There are myriad ways to discuss either topic that don't use those specific strings. The topic itself is discussed quite a bit by the CDC, and there must be something wrong with Google because even the literal phrase "defensive gun use" is used on the CDC website.
But more generally, the idea that it's buried, imo, rests on the assumption that the new wording specifically "buries" the unfavorable study (2.5 million) and not the favorable one (60,000). This seems not true to me, or at least not obvious.
I'm completely get how literature reviews can be biased, but when you use phrases like "wipe the board and start again" - that, to me, literally implies ignoring all studies before year XXXX - including favorable studies. If all you mean was that this specific study would be dropped or all right-leaning studies would be dropped.... then say that? Why use totalizing rhetoric? And then provide evidence this will actually happen when the CDC reviews the evidence.
Wrong.
I’m saying OP’s method of evaluating complaints is shit.
My point is that this method of reasoning is garbage that only seems useful when you are mind killed.
The specifics hardly matter.
KnotGodel
11mo ago
It's right at the top of the page:
Ahh, it's in each Culture War Post, not the rules page or side bar.
You don't like that I didn't mod a comment you think is bad. Duly noted.
I don' think that's a fair summary, but it's evident I'm annoying you and nothing will change, so I will continue to find little value here, because civil, thoughtful truth-seeking isn't really the goal of this forum. C'est la vie.
KnotGodel
11mo ago
You can't expect absolute neutrality from people at all times
I don't. I expect people to follow the rules such as
-
Be Kind
-
Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.
-
Be charitable.
-
Do not weakman in order to show how bad a group is
-
Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
The comment I was responding to violates these. The great grand parent violates these:
Noone needs to face anything, just increasingly automate weapon systems and let the peasants die. If they're not needed and can't use violence to effectively overthrow the system then why would anyone need to pay any attention to them whatsoever?
The forum is replete with obvious violations of the rules. The mods obviously won't mod comments like this, because then they'd be modding like 30% of all the comments here.
But that doesn't mean you should feel discouraged from commenting if you dissent from the consensus view.
Why not? I have better places to discuss topics like this where. I wish this place were better, because then I'd find much more value out of discussing things here, but c'est la vie. [edit: for instance, I found the /r/slatestarcodex threads much more pleasant and insightful]
KnotGodel
1yr ago
Essentially, there's no difference between Georgism and the government owning all the land outright.
This is so obviously wrong, it's hard for me to think you're serious.
That's like saying
Essentially, there's no difference between income taxes and you being the government's slave.
or
Essentially, there's no difference between capital gains taxes and communism
Like, yes there are. There are enormous, dramatic, obvious differences in all three cases.
KnotGodel
2mo ago
Past me: I got downvotes; what is wrong with my comment?
Present me: I got downvoted; what does that imply about the community doing the voting?
Let me make this very concrete for you
- Everyone complains about things holding them back that aren't there fault.
- It is common practice for this to be a social endeavor, and for people to avoid voicing disagreement, because that is considered anti-social, since people playing the game Poor Old Me generally don't want to play the game everyone here is addicted to: Debate Me
- If I complain I'm not X because I'm an A, and you reply that people who are not-A are also not-X, you haven't actually provided any evidence that the causal claim I was making is false.
- Even the most successful people can correctly point to things that held them back.
In other words, if we apply the standard of discourse used by the OP, we can validly whine about anyone's whining. That standard of discourse is, in a word, shit. It only appeals to people who have been mind-killed.
The specifics about Trump absolutely don't matter. I could point to any person or demographic, and there would be things they whine about holding them back. I could make a post exactly like the OPs regardless of whether those factors had any basis in reality.
I realize this forum is mostly a place to vibe/whine.
Sorry for killing the mood /s
KnotGodel
10mo ago
That was the response I expected, which is why I continued with:
What if it only had a 0.1% chance of working? We're now talking about multiple orders of magnitude, right?
Which I addressed with
there's an enormous difference between someone pushing a button with a specific probability of killing someone purely for the thrill of killing someone with a magic button and a drunkard throwing a punch at someone he views as disrespecting him. So even if you believe our button-pushing sociopath's life has 0 value, I don't know why you would infer the punch-throwing drunkard's life has no value...
You ignoring me grappling with an issue ≠ me not grappling with the issue. Motes and beams, indeed.
My position is that there's a level of unjustified lethal force, perhaps on the order of p=1-in-1000 risk, such that a victim reducing even similarly minimal subsequent risk is worth perhaps a q=1-in-10 risk of lethality against the aggressor....
Yes, I understand that, and you based this on your thought experiment of a sociopath with a magic button, which I addressed and rejected (see above).
I think "some ratio exists, it might even be as high as 100, and the more avoidable the aggression is the higher the ratio should be" is a more philosophically defensible position than deleting attempts to clarify a position. Fists kill people; the idea that a gun is qualitatively rather than quantitatively different is just philosophy-via-rounding-error.
to
0 QALYs
Would you have preferred 0.1 QALYs? I admit I feel like that is quibbling. Just replace my "0" with "0.1" and literally everything I say continues to follow through. The point is that the consequences of "don't escalate to guns" are far better than "do escalate to guns". Since the consequences are enormously better (e.g. 10 years of human life), I expect an argument for why escalation is commendable (or should be legal) to offer something of similar value. This "rounding" is not central to my argument in the least.
So, how high a percentage of the time would such attacks have to kill people before you'd stop rounding to zero? Or conversely, how low a percentage of the time would the response have to be lethal before you started?
I don't have a specific numerical answer, but I don't need one, because the answer is definitely not 2-3 OOM.
but "don't suddenly attack people" seems so much easier to turn into a bright line rule than "you can attack them, a little lethally, and they can attack you, but nobody start doing it too too lethally, if you get me".
How about just "try running away before shooting"? But, I don't concede that a brighter line outweighs the expected loss of life.
"if you're going to be violently dumb when drunk, teetotal" is the dead-body-minimizing solution
Agreed, but alas the framing of this conversation isn't what to do if you are omnipotent, but what actions / laws we should advocate for.
Doesn't nearly everybody? Suppose the killer in this case had been pissed off enough to brandish and aim his gun before even being provoked by an attack? It would be self-defense to kill him first, no? Would we want to forbid that because it would be cutting off his life from one dumb drunk decision?
Again, there is a gradient here. Most things in life are on a gradient. We can't just ignore the gradient, because it makes decision-making simpler.
Ignoring all the bits here and there, let me give you my own thought experiment that I think illuminates my intuition:
Suppose you have two sons: Bob and Dan. A genie comes before you and say
Bob got drunk and punched someone; Dan got drunk and got punched. You can choose one of two futures for your sons:
(1) Bob got shot by the guy he punched. Dan shot the guy he punched.
(2) Bob did not get shot by the guy he punched. Dan did not shoot the guy he punched.
Which would you wish for? Is Dan's honor/fairness/safety-from-fists more important to you than Bob getting shot? [Edit: Which society would you want children to grow up in? ]
KnotGodel
1yr ago
The email exchange lasted months. You see clear parts where the CDC pushes back. The CDC ignored the advocates until the White House signal-boosted them. All evidence the CDC isn't biased, and all evidence that literally everyone in this thread besides me is ignoring. It supports the obvious and charitable counter-hypothesis: that the CDC is neutral and, after long and careful deliberation, they believed the new wording is better at communicating the current state of the literature.
So, in order for this to be evidence of leftward bias, someone in this thread is going to need to explain why the change was unreasonable for a neutral CDC and reasonable for a left-biased CDC. I still don't see why this would be the case, so I still maintain this isn't evidence the CDC is left-leaning.
KnotGodel
1yr ago
This is an obvious sneer, please don't do that.
Only if you think its directed at someone in this conversation. The person I'm talking to hasn't indicated they hold such beliefs, and have, in fact, indicated the opposite with their strong visceral feeling of loyalty to those close to them. This makes my use of the phrase not a sneer, but a rhetorical usage similar to saying "Even a Nazi would agree Einstein is a genius."
Given that most people eat far too many calories and fat-free milk has 25% fewer calories than 2% milk, isn't it reasonable to advise against fatty milk? I know the jury is still out on saturated fats, but I thought trans fat was almost universally considered bad?
So, from my perspective, I see them batting 17.5/18, which seems pretty good
So, ignoring a word tweak here/or there, they basically replaced
with
I'm not sure how any of y'all are reading the new word as being notably more pro-gun-control. It seems like an accurate summary of a research area where estimates cover a 50x range.
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