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PutAHelmetOn

Recovering Quokka

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joined 2022 September 06 21:20:34 UTC 

				
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PutAHelmetOn


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Recovering Quokka

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 21:20:34 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 890


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I originally engaged because your step 1 name drops Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager assumes the reward structure (God wants to be believed).


It seems the phrasing of your step 1 should be more like "We should avoid infinite punishments and seek out infinite rewards." Then, you introduce the reward structure all the way down in step 5 or 6, where it is awarded the position of Null Hypothesis on account of the scriptures.


This argument seems to me like a rhetorical device, and not reasoning. Nobody decides to think about infinite rewards and punishments, and then stumbles upon sacred texts. People read the sacred texts and then start thinking about the expected utility of infinite rewards and punishments. Someone doing reasoning would notice if the texts are just an incentive structure, and if so, discard the whole infinite reward business.


I guess this makes me not on board with 1, as this is clearly a rigged game with a pre-written Bottom Line.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If it's any consolation to you, I had already seen your post on religious "gish gallops" but didn't think much of it. As soon as I had noticed Nelson's long post (and I admit I did recognize his name) and the long reply, and skimming the posts showed certain words, I immediately thought, "hey this is like one of those religious posts that guy was talking about."


(Personally I think I got bored of the CW thread because all that's been said has been said, to a first approximation)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Step 1 seems very shaky to me, as it assumes the reward-structure of real, Earth theologies. These gods are likely to involve something like "Infinite reward for belief; Infinite punishment for disbelief."


If we assume God operates on the opposite payout, then Pascal's Wager clearly implies we need to be Atheist!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think "If the culture shifts" means in that world that gays, trannies, or whoever we are talking about, are no longer on the oppression scale


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Am I the only one who's noticed surprisingly high overlap between describing behavior as "sus" and vague gestures that someone is problematic? Like that entire cluster of person converged on using the same word? That kind of dark hinting has been a primary part of the progressive playbook for awhile, but what's with the word sus?


I first time I heard "sus" was when Among Us went viral. I'm not very good at these social deception games, so of course I was never a fan of playing them. I'm curious, are other average motte spergs similar?


Enjoying those games and applying that lense to everyday social/political interactions seems like the extreme right-tailed distribution version of the oversocialised, status-obsessed sociopath


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It would be different if we insisted that the cis-/trans-prefix and talking about sex chromosomes is verboten




The cis-/trans- prefix is already on the spectrum of verboten. Behold, the parts of woke subculture that insist on spelling transwoman as two words. This is to emphasize the woman-ness of transwomen and de-emphasizes the transness as a mere modifier, like brunette.


Similarly, if you hang around progressives and always refer to cis women as just "women" and always refer to trans women as "trans women" I am pretty sure you'd get a talking to, eventually. I hope nobody is silly enough to say, "Well that's just a couple crazy people on reddit." I know because my real-life woke friends don't actually mention that someone is trans unless it's to mention how fearful they are for their safety somewhere as a victim.


That you suggest to taboo the word "male" (not "man!") shows just how far down the slippery slope these language games have moved us this past decade. At first, progressives merely claimed the word "man," and left "male" around for us to talk about chromosomes. Sure enough in the current year, progressives act like man and male are synonyms again!


I predict that the ever-more-cumbersome phrases we retreat to, like "biological sex," will also get phased out. Make no mistake, the purpose of putting trans and cis into the same mental bucket is to push normative behaviors onto people. Someone saying "no, no I only date people with a biological sex of female, you see..." is told, "that's not a sexual orientation, that's just bigotry."


What the sequences actually say about defining a word any way you like is that it is a common misconception


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


These are the sort of moments, I've learned, where being a quokka doesn't quite pay off, and it would be useful to have the resources available to hit back hard enough to convince this person that it is indeed not worth the smoke but also doing it in such a way that you're not retroactively justifying the hit piece itself.




OK. Let's try to put our "recovering quokka" title to the test and say any response is on the table. Let's also pretend all resources are available to me. What's your solution?


It sounds to me like it's wishful thinking and cope.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think you're right, and I guess that means, technically, one of Libby or Sally is making fallacy of the converse.


It is an easy mistake for me to make since Hanson's formulation appears to be symmetrical (biconditional statement)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you familiar with the calculus concept of a limit? I will explain it, in case you aren't.


If you start with the number 1 and divide by 2, we get one-half. If we divide by 2 again, we get one-fourth. If we divide by 2 again, we get one-eighth, and so on. It should become apparent the following facts:


    

  1. No matter how many times we divide by two, the number will always be greater than 0.
    2. 

  2. No matter how small of a number you give me, e.g. 0.0000001, there is some way we get below it.
    3. 



On the subjective Bayesian view, collecting evidence is kind of like "dividing by two," and the resulting number is kind of like "the probability that I am wrong."


    

  1. No matter how much evidence I collect, there is always the possibility that I am wrong.
    2. 

  2. No matter how confident someone asks me to be, there is some amount of evidence I can collect to justify it.
    3. 



The blogpost seems to think (1) is a weakness. The standard LW Sequence reply would be 0 and 1 are not Probabilities


(Oh and to go back to calculus, we would say "the limit equals zero")


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
An example of this kind of misunderstanding happening is Robin Hanson on sexual redistribution. Hanson compares arguments for redistribution of sexual status & redistribution of wealth but notes the same people rarely are for both policies.


Libby Libertarian, a stout free-marketist, thinks Hanson is saying "sexual redistribution is bad."


Sally the Socialist, who lives in a commune, thinks Hanson is saying "sexual redistribution is good."


As other commenters have explained: A logical argument usually has two ways to take it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes. I've noticed this for awhile. Im mostly a lurker, and an occasional commenter. I've found the top level threads dreadfully uninteresting and way too long, for awhile now, maybe a year? You can tell when the post gives itself it's own b bold little title as if it'll get a place in the vault.


Lately I've found the small question thread and fun thread to be more, well, fun.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Since you bring up the Bible, I'm not really sure anyone can take the Bible seriously. I mean there are people who say they take it seriously, but generally they cherrypick the things they want to, in order to justify what they want to justify all along. The flip-side of this is, "ha but what about 'thou shalt not murder'" is the exact same tactic, but in the opposite direction: someone cherrypicking one part of the bible in order to justify what they want.


the Bible already sets a precedent that genocide and war is OK, especially if it's the in-group perpetrating it. The moral-scientific realization that humans are equal is not in the Bible and "thou shalt not murder" is not that realization, at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your analogy is missing details. In Island one, the media apparatus propagandizes that actually, no child was abducted. Anti-pedo conspiracy theorist rightwingers who don't shut up about pizza are shunned. The state investigates the keying of my car as a hate crime. I may or may not get a slap on the wrist once it comes out that I faked the hoax myself.


In case you didn't know: Scott has touched on how progressive policies can increase discrimination (by a rational actor). Ctrl + F "daycare" in Against Murderism


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Surprised nobody has mentioned the GDP increase!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Theory of Natural Selection is a tautology.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're right that there's no single "Theory of Evolution" - rather there is a "Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection" and also "Theory of Evolution by ..." and also... I call "Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection" just "Theory of Evolution" because I rarely hear anyone talk about the other theories.


And again, I'm afraid I don't understand the second half of your post about tautologies. How can you start from (only) a tautology and reach a non-tautological explanation? Your example with the math notation confused me too. Did you mean to give an example of an unsound implication? It seems to me that you're writing a lot of sentences, but I don't see any main idea in your post.


I feel like you didn't address my point about apples and velocity. Take a math equation that describes motion: speed = distance / time Isn't that tautological? Take the following claim: If I put 1 apple on a table and my friend puts 1 apple on the table, now there are 2 apples on the table because 1 + 1 = 2. Is there no value to these?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Theory of Natural Selection is a tautology.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree with the first half of your post mostly. For quite some time I've taken to saying "Law of Natural Selection" and "Theory of Evolution." You correctly explain that Natural Selection is tautological. But then you go on to use the phrase "Theory of Natural Selection" and criticize its consequences and adherents. Should I read this as "Law of Natural Selection" or "Theory of Evolution?"


It's true that as a tautology, Natural Selection is completely separate from evidence. Similarly, Peano Arithmetic (the mathematically smug way to say counting numbers) is a tautology, completely separate from evidence. It is only an empirical observation that apples and rocks and such obey the laws of arithmetic. That 2 applies placed next to 2 apples makes 4 apples. We could find out tomorrow that apples and rocks don't follow counting rules, but that should not shake our faith in counting rules: it just means reality works differently than intuition suggests. This is what happened when we discovered the cosmic speed limit and found that velocities do not combine using addition as we thought! Likewise, whether or not life on Earth was shaped by Natural Selection is simply an empirical matter, albeit not reproducible because we're talking about the past, so it's just guesswork.


As for what Natural Selection as a tautology explains, this gets into what I think the value of Darwin is. The second half of your post is completely incomprehensible to me - right about when you start to talk about "divine creation." Now i am not familiar with what people thought in 1800. I learned in school that Origin of Species was some kind of groundbreaking thing, and you seem to imply that when you say society worships Darwin. So, I am kind of guessing at  the value of Natural Selection.


The value of Natural Selection is exactly that it is a tautology, that it so obviously dissolves the mystery of how you can bootstrap so much complexity in an organism without an intelligent designer. Without understanding Natural Selection, someone who knows the complexity of biology could quite reasonably hypothesize a kind of intelligent creator. If we tell him, "No that's silly, there's no God, it's simply tautological that complex creatures come from nothing" he would laugh at us! Imagine these exchanges:




"Why do the fundamental constants seem so fine-tuned?"

"Well, it's tautological of course."






"Why is entropy always increasing with the arrow of time?"
"Well, it's tautological of course."




They are silly! If evidence is how you show your work in empirical matters, then tautologies (math theorems) are how you show your work in logical matters. We can immediately see how obvious Natural Selection is, but it's not immediately obvious to me that we should say there is an intelligent designer, or why the fundamental constants are the way they are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 29, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My read is: avoid a two-flavor pair if either flavor on its own would be good enough. This means the answer can't contain vanilla, since vanilla by itself is the tried and true.


The best answer would be something silly, like peanutbutter-pistaccio, but thats not an option.


If it doesn't contain vanilla, then between e and d the last problem is decide if mint or coffee will work best with the caramel.


The prompt only gives info about mint in the presence of chocolate chips (no info on whipped cream) and about coffee in the the presence of whipped cream (no info on chocolate chips)


At this point, I reread the prompt which says "what of" not "which of" so multi answers are allowed: e and d are tied.


If I had to tiebreak, I choose e because the word "sometimes" feels less frequent to me than "less commonly." But really the wording is ambiguous.


I must be missing something.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


a loose burger(literally just ground beef scooped out of a hot pan and spooned onto a hamburger bun)




Is this a questionable Dish? Just sounds like an incomplete sloppy joe. You were supposed to put condiments on it!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Could you speak more plainly? Are you saying in the future incels won't be allowed to own possessions (because of incarceration, for example)? Or that in general people will own nothing and be happy?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The scientific method rests on faith in God and Man.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be honest, I am a little put-off by your phrasing that science is what we are better off "believing."


When I think, "things we are better off believing," I think of a case where believing and not-believing make a difference. For example, maybe there is a self-fulfilling prophecy involving the prescription "You should be confident." In that case, I might say we are better of believing "I am confident." Science is not a self-fulfilling prophecy, because results of experiment do not depend on beliefs.


Science is stories about the world that we are better off acting on. This phrasing seems better to me. In this way, can't I argue against theism (whatever you mean by that) by saying "acting on theism doesn't make us better off"?


Actually, similarly to the old adage that theism is Not Even Wrong, in this new formulation of "true," theism is Not Even Actionable. I don't think this parallel is a coincidence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The scientific method rests on faith in God and Man.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, yes. Thinking our generalizations are universal would be equivalent to saying, "Science knows everything; we will not be amending our theories" which is not really how it works as far as I know? It seems anti-inductive to me, in fact, as so far science has only ever been wrong! So in the future I expect it to stay wrong! Obligatory link to a classic by Asimov.


I do wonder why people would be so obsessed with "Laws of nature," as you seem to be calling it the "Source code" of the universe. It seems (to me) more apt to describe scientific theories as working with some of the universe's internal APIs than working directly with source code. Still, there's a lot we can do with APIs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The scientific method rests on faith in God and Man.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I understand why no finite amount of evidence can give you a statistical confidence of 1, but you go on to say that




there is no statistical law that would justify belief in the law of universal gravitation with even one tenth of one percent of one percent confidence, based on any finite number of observations.




Is this just because gravitation is claimed to be "universal" e.g. for all we know, gravity could suddenly change to work differently tomorrow, or work differently as soon as we leave the solar system?




it is a miracle that the scientific method works




Is it? Maybe since I live in this world, I am corrupted by it and I can't imagine it any differently. But: I cannot imagine a world where the scientific method doesn't work.


I think the Sun rises every morning because so far it has, but even if it didn't rise every morning, there would be hidden order to it. Maybe it rises every other day. Maybe on some mornings it rises, and on other mornings it doesnt - maybe I never learn to predict whether the Sun rises on a particular morning, just like how we can't really predict the weather, or which way a leaf blows in the wind. But if I spend decades failing to predict the Sun's rise, then tomorrow I expect it to be difficult to predict. If the Sun did alternate between periods of "rising every day for 10 days in a row" and then "a period of complete unpredictability," I've still summarized it with some compression, so I'm not totally ignorant.


I suppose a world that doesn't have this hidden order would essentially have to be free of cause-and-effect. In that world, I'm not sure how I could exist as a lawful being within it. Maybe there's an anthropic argument here?


Overall, your post seems to be a weaker form of what a lot of philosophical skeptics claim. Skeptics say things like "you can't know things with 100% confidence" and your post seems to just zero in on "the laws of physics, the source code of the universe." I'll reply to you the same way I reply to philosophical skeptics, which is: while it would be nice to know what is True, I'd rather send rockets to the moon anyways.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think I understand. Someone having their cake and eating it too is someone who hypothetically would commit, or can commit, because they don't see sex as a toy. But they might try to abuse someone's infatuation to get sex without putting in commitment.


On the other hand, swingers view sex as a toy and keep that decoupled from their emotional attachment to their spouses or whatever.


What exactly is unethical about the first case though? It sounds like taken to it's logical conclusion, hookups and casual sex are unethical for normal monogamous non-swingers. Or is it only unethical when there's a "power imbalance" (which is really just an infatuation imbalance)? Clearly this cake-having cake-eater is capable of decoupling sex from commitment, because that's what hooking up is?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What, specifically is "having my cake" and "eating it" referring to here?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I googled "positive claim" and one of the first relevant things that came up was Burden of Proof, which speaks as if positive claim means existential qualifier, For example, "there exists a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere in the solar system." It contrasts that with a negative claim, which asserts the non-existence of something. Certainly, it is easier to prove a positive claim than a negative one.


The issue you're talking about seems to be more like "null hypothesis," which is definitely just cultural consensus and is essentially a rhetorical trick, and not very rigorous. When I took statistics class in school, I never liked null hypothesis as a concept, as I noticed that it didn't seem mathematical to me (although it was intuitive).


Science is not immune to this at least according to Yudkowsky. I've read attempts to formalize what burden of proof ought to be, and the ones that seem aesthetic to me are just having proof "in proportion to how complex the hypothesis is," which is in line with Occam (buzzword dump). This has the added benefit of ignoring the order that evidence is encountered.