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PutAHelmetOn

Recovering Quokka

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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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				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.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem I see with group pointwise badness is it lets you tar saints. The problem I see with uniform badness is it lets you tar normal people. It seems to me that ever talking about groups is less fair than just dealing with pointwise bad people. This is made worse because often when people complain about groups, they gerrymander and redefine things to play games.


You used examples of criminals and human rights crimes, so when it comes to legal justice I would say generalizing is unfair - just punish pointwise bad people.


What's a more appropriate context for when we should generalize groups as being "bad" and ignoring individual differences?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
While people are answering the poll question, I've seen little commentary on the history. As I remember, NPC first became a term from a tweet that went viral in certain dissident right spaces (at least that's how I heard it).


It was a study about self-reported internal monologues, and how a surprising (to some) fraction of people report "not having an internal monologue." I think this tweet went viral among people with a certain personality trait, I would guess: unusually introspective, high verbal IQ people who have some sort of emotional baggage that make them feel scorn for their more ape-like peers.


The term NPC as opposed to sheeple or anything else probably resonated with this audience because it is a videogame term and lets the group bond. If a more general term was used then the meme would not have been as viral to this audience.


You still see viral tweets really similar to these ones, for example, one involving a survey and glass of water rotated, and something else i can't remember. These tweets usually have un-PC results, like clear differences between how men and women answer the questions.


This audience is anti-woke so naturally NPC would become applied to more partisan politics, especially with how the modern information landscape quickly changes mainstream narratives about COVID, protests, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're missing a key piece of the puzzle, which is that people who complain about and criticize women online are called incels. This includes well-adjusted, married conservative men on twitter. "Incel" does not really mean something about being alone, it really does mean immoral anti-feminist.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I immediately thought it was fake because it's structured way too closely to a female experience, which is to become hot and suddenly get a lot more matches - too many to manage. This is probably bait to get people thinking about double standards. Of course, there is no believable male analog to that experience.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baldur's Gate 3 thread (no spoilers outside of spoiler tags) - reviews, technical matters, griping etc.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I had the same experience with Divinity OS 2 (also by Larian). I got the game in 2017 and played quite a bit of coop and solo, but ultimately only got about half - 2/3rds through the game. I think whenever I am forced to go into a new unfamiliar area and act, I kind of lose a little bit of motivation, like I didn't get appropriately awarded for the accomplishment of finishing the old area. I think there's also a little bit of a pacing issue with unengaging writing.


I think, if acts are wrapped up with a boss fight that feels epic like I earned it / the story has a hook to keep me interesting, then I would keep at it.


I didn't finish divinity until we were stranded in our houses in 2020. We'll see how I fare with BG


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Baldur's Gate 3 thread (no spoilers outside of spoiler tags) - reviews, technical matters, griping etc.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was hoping that bonkers interaction would have been fixed from EA. I didn't actually test at launch. It's definitely a glitch.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For the longest time in Early Access (see this video) the "Identity" slider was simply called "Appearance." It apparently didn't use the term man, or male. People on the forums gave feedback during early access that it should be more woke, although I don't remember what the exact verbiage in the requests were: It could have been to use the words man or woman, or it could have been to add a pronoun slider, or it could have been to add a gender option.


When I booted the game up for the first time at launch, I did chuckle a little at the appearance slider being renamed "identity." It seemed like the least-development cost to satisfy an argument over words, that has no substance. Upon further reflection, BG's implementation of identity is probably the most woke-respecting it could be. Your, and my, initial response most likely reflects an inability to empathize with our opponents.


If I was given the task of changing the Early Access iteration to satisfy the feedback, I probably would have added a separate slider for identity or pronouns, because it fits (1) my model of reality and what I think is true, and (2) my model of gender ideology and what it thinks is true.


    

  1. I think biology is real, and pervasive. I would have kept a slider that determines physical aspects of the character, because in real life, things like bone structure, voice, muscles, and height tend to cluster.
    2. 

  2. I think wokeness talks about a gendered soul. I would have added a pronoun slider or something. It would be an additional fact about a person to appease the feedback.
    3. 



In my character creator, it would be feasible to create the woman from a post I made awhile back (A post I don't think many people understood?).


On the other hand, BG's character creator is pretty woke-respecting. All features of a person are uncorrelated with their identity: you can mix and match voices, looks, and genitals. If anything, the genital slider, being at the bottom of the appearance section, serves as a biological sex slider, an "additional fact" about a person that is basically inconsequential save for the intimate cutscenes.


To be honest though, one of the most woke things I hate in modern videogame character design is what I'll call the "boring and conformist way of creating exciting and nonconformist characters." This could probably warrant its own top-level post. Like Admiral Holdo from Star Wars, almost the entire cast of hero-shooters like Overwatch, Apex Legends, and Valorant feature quirky appearances that look straight out of well, the 2020s. There is an overuse of dyed hair and modern body jewelry. I suspect this is because the person who used to dress that way in high school - or whose theatre-kid friends did - became a journalist that complains about representation.


If 5e was actually transhuman escapism like some posters here claim, shouldn't there be some options like charmed limb prosthetics held together by magic?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you saying that the universe could have been different (it could have had 3 fewer stars), therefore it needs an explanation for why it is the way it is, and why it isn't another way? If this is not what you're saying, than I admit I cannot follow what you write.


In this post you discuss God's nature.




The changeless thing's nature is entirely, wholly, and simply to act, to bring into existence.




Why does God's nature (to act and bring into existence) not require explanation? Couldn't its nature have been different?


I am struggling to see what value or benefit the concept of God is giving: I will admit, my general strategy is to show the universe has God-like properties, or equivalently, that God has universe-like properties.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That there are real relationships within the universe itself, without which it would be something substantively different, indicates that this is not the answer.




I don't understand this. What's an example of a real relationship that makes the universe substantially different? How does this indicate that "time and causality are not relationships within the universe"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The analogy is between the universe and the film. The film isn't playing, because there's nothing to play it on. Verbs refer to actions within the movie and time refers to the movie's runtime. Are you implying that because movies are filmed in our world, it must mean the universe was created?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What if the universe just is, a timeless unchanging thing (unchanging from outside) and time and causality describe relationships within it and it's parts? As an analogy, a filmmaker shoots a reel and the reel itself is unchanging, but within it still seems to move.


To me, this has the advantage of only talking about observable things, and doesn't have the first cause problem. Am I making some elementary error?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But to the trans-ness being invisible. The platonic ideal of a trans man is someone who everyone looks at and says "yes, that is a man, I have no doubt in my mind", and then never thinks twice about. The "trans" part, ideally, vanishes




Could you elaborate on if the trans-ness going away is kind of like a mental category thing, where onlookers know they are trans but it is as unremarkable as knowing someone's blood type; or if trans-ness going away refers to empirical predictions, where onlookers can't tell if they are trans?


Defining sex and gender as separate implies that someone can be obviously male and obviously a woman, I think. And there is not a woke consensus that trans people should pass as cis gender.


As for your trans allegory, what about the Matrix, or plastic surgery, or dyeing ones hair? Are these too mundane to be trans allegories?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We used to have a space for that (Bare Link Repository) and that experiment ended specifically because it didn't fit the community's goals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I dont think people who bring up, "women are valuable" are doing it prescriptively, they are just explaining why human intuitions and memes value women.