ProlificLurker
No bio...
User ID: 1519
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
There exist some evidence that IQ is correlated with good moral character.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16297-intelligent-soldiers-most-likely-to-die-in-battle/
There are also somewhat weak anti-correlation with crime, though I find it easier to argue for confounders there. Nonetheless, low IQ people being more impulsive should alone suffice to show that with equally bad internal character, they're more likely to actually try to do harm. I also have hope that high IQ people are easier to incentivize to do good if you manage to set up the right system.
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
I think universities should be required to choose their student body by setting a SAT cutoff, and having a lottery among applicants who meet the minimum score.
Depending on the cutoff, this might let this centuries' Einstein slip through the cracks.
Fair as far as it goes, but no system describes itself as based on bribes, kickbacks and ass-kissing.
You forgot "being related to the right people", which affirmative action often explicitly does. Sure, they will bring forth blank slate arguments and explain average differences in ability through intergroup oppression, but seeing how they blockade the scientific subfields that would settle this and their general trouble around distinguishing what would be aesthetically/ morally pleasing to them and what is true makes me doubt their sincerity.
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
The fact that japanese have better machines than pakis could just as well be explained by their stronger labour laws instead of the assertion that expensive machines only become economical with high quality workers. Only the flip flops are the hint of incompetent workers, the remaining bad conditions in the pakistani factory can all plausibly result from the owner investing as little as he can get away with and cheap wages (for whatever reason) allowing him to get away with less automation.
Especially together with the frequent assertions that people are unequal, IQ statistics for the countries would've been more rigorous evidence for the author's thesis.
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
In an perfect world, it would be. I guess if make the right tradeoffs in your partner, some approximation of this might even be true.
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
Not reflective of the world around us.
Because of the huge quantity of transpeople or because of them being the flavour of the month minority and therefore temporarily very culturally salient? If the latter, calling their "conspicuous" would be kind of circular.
Even if you mean the former, I would see leaving them out more like not mentioning people sick with leprosy in a medieval game, instead of leaving out knights. They exist in some quantity, but are very concentrated in specific areas.
When you aren't subsidising and heavily encouraging reproduction in said underclass, [...] you don't have to do anything particularly evil
How does one actually encourage reproduction? If you know any tricks, please share them and save the west.
The way you phrased it, the only way I can think of to stop encouraging the reproduction of an underclass is to literally let them starve. Humans will breed in incredibly destitute circumstances, I suspect the worse their lot the more fecund they become.
Or are you actually suggesting to make them so rich as to voluntarily stop breeding, the Gates gambit?
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
if zero of them say it's reasonable, then the probability of that happening is 0.08^5 or .000003
Drawing from your social contracts is not at all the same from randomly drawing from the general population. Just by polling people from here I'm certain I can create tons of impossibly unlikely results. (not that I disagree with your assessment that it's is implausible)
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
This assumes that IQ is correlated with energy expenditure of the brain, which is not obvious. Especially when we can easily observe that in times where energy is not of concern, high IQ is negatively correlated with fertility.
You extrapolate this correlation between IQ and brain calory expenditure from the fact that human brains are comparatively more energy intensive. But the difference in intelligence between an ape and a human is orders of magnitude larger than between the smartest and dumbest human currently alive. It is entirely plausible that our increased cost is mostly from qualitative difference that sets us apart from animals, not by the microoptimizations that distinguish humans from each other.
But even this relationship between intelligence and metabolic cost of the brain is not as straightforward as is popularly assumed, some animals which are much dumber than us devote a similar percentage of their total energy expenditure to their brains. Excerpt from the article:
Even the tiny quarter-pound pygmy marmoset, the world’s smallest monkey, devotes as much of its body energy to the brain as we do. Photo by Max Pixel.
For many other animals, it holds true though. That said, I can think of an alternative explanation why we devote so much energy to our brain: Maybe this isn't a tradeoff between intelligence and strength, instead the reason is that enough intelligence makes muscles partially redundant, allowing weak humans to outcompete strong humans at a certain IQ level. At this point it's not about feasibility of acquiring the necessary resources, just intra-species competition.
Of course this would raise the question why humans are the only animal on earth that became this intelligent, since the expensive brain-capabilities theory wouldn't explain it anymore. Maybe the path towards human-level cognition is not straight up the fitness curve and requires some unsusual environment to make it that way, like the Fischerian Runaway you mentioned. I have trouble to imagine other costs that higher intelligence would impose besides energy, maybe it takes longer for animals to mature, but this seems far fetched. Maybe intelligence isn't that useful, especially if you don't have the appendages to use tools. It didn't seem to help humanity very much until we discovered some key technologies a few hundred thousands years later until it really started to pay off.
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
I encourage you to calculate these numbers yourself:
Should've just done it in advance. Lesson learned, thanks for the correction
ProlificLurker
8mo ago
Assuming aptitude is normally distributed and doesn't contain any ceilings for some races, if you filter you applicants beforehand with a threshhold, race loses its predictive power. Of course this only works without concepts like affirmative action:
If the threshhold is 130 IQ, than the share of <140 IQ and >140 IQ will the same for blacks as for whites. The only difference willl be that whites will have a big positive multiplies for both sets.
Or phrased differently, P(130<IQ<135) / P(135<IQ) should be equal regardless of race
ProlificLurker
9mo ago
Our civilization is much more dependant on corporate sponsorship than gays are. 99% of people would die without it due to mass starvation, while the percentage of gays who'd die without meds would be much lower.
What's true is that gays are more dependant because they depend on the medical industry in addition to depending on modern agriculture/ logistics like everyone else. But it seems to be an arbitrary line to draw.
ProlificLurker
9mo ago
Because you actually want it to test your merits – namely, opportunism and ability to manipulate bureaucracies to your benefit? See, this is exactly whom people who are arguing for racial criteria would like to not let in.
You really can't resist the personal attacks can you.... This one I'm completely confused by, are you mixing me up with someone else?
I think this can also be interpreted as a general "you", somewhat awkwardly phrased. At least it didn't occur to me to be a personal attack until you wrote your reply, and as you observed, it would only make sense in a context where you'd be known as a beaurocratically savvy type.
ProlificLurker
10mo ago
To me, devil's advocacy, false flagging and lying are not synonymous. I often use it in my personal life if I'm genuinely undecided on an issue or want to make sure my understanding of my "enemy" does not amount to a strawman.
That said, from the other replies I gather trolls can use it to waste time. I don't understand the mechanisms completely but I'll just trust the more experienced posters for now. I also didn't know that it's fine to argue for anything as long as my real worldview is stated for context, which resolves any issue I have with this rule.
ProlificLurker
10mo ago
Noob question: Can someone explain to me why arguing for something you don't believe in can sometimes get you modded or at least warned? I've witnessed it a few times and don't understand what the personal beliefs of the author have to do with the quality of an argument.
Example:
https://www.themotte.org/post/530/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/108271?context=8#context
ProlificLurker
1yr ago
it comes to Social Justice Slacktivism
Is it still Slacktivism if they paid a substantial price due to the beliefs they advocated for?
ProlificLurker
1yr ago
Every longpost will get mocked in good spirit, but if it's good, jannies will occasionally pin them and it will also get serious engagement by the by the 5 other users who are into this format (but btf, they're also all on here)
ProlificLurker
1yr ago
I use midnight theme and can't see whether I upvoted posts/ comments since the color toggles from white to white. Did anybody already created some custom CSS for it or is a fix in the pipeline?
Indentation bars to indicate comment reply level also don't show on dark theme but I consider this low priority
ProlificLurker
1yr ago
Hedging against your own redundance in the face of increasing AI capabilities
More options
Context Copy link