Tretiak
1yr ago
I'm not sure why you believe Global Research .ca, an anti-globalization conspiracy website, represents the regime change wing of the State Department, but this would be both an incorrect citation and not a rebuttal to the post on hyper and hypo agency.
And where would you expect to see the other side that vested western interests have an interest in keeping suppressed? CNN? Fox? MSNBC? How about the world's foremost critic of US foreign policy? Or is he just a senile old man at this point?
Similarly, you seem to have missed that point that he was making fun of the argument structure, and not actually making a position that your argeement with would advance your position.
You're the one who obliged with the logic of that statement. Makes it difficult to argue against if you stand with it.
Tretiak
1yr ago
It doesn't seem you're interested in discussing anything history or policy related at this point. I see little value in further discussion. Be well.
Tretiak
1yr ago
Indeed; the automaton peasants (who lack agency) of Ukraine were told by their CIA handlers (who have agency) to riot and oust the hapless Yanukovych (who lacks agency) and was replaced by American puppet Zelensky (who has agency and should use it to sue for peace). This led noble leader Putin (who lacks agency; anyone in his shoes would do the same) to regretfully declare war.
Don't know why you're trying make a mess of history on the matter. Even the regime change wing of the State Department admits of their activities in Russia's backyard and the very thing I'm calling it out for.
Makes sense. As you say, they're beset by the same scenario and conditions. Anyone in their shoes would do the same.
And as such, Russia's response is reasonable in turn to US' operations in their sphere of influence.
You're engaging in some pretty strenuous intellectual acrobatics to preserve a conclusion you wouldn't accept if another actor adopted a similar justification. Judged by the standards of moral idealism, maybe both Russia and the US fall short. Judged by the standards of the world's only superpower, Russia isn't doing anything the US wouldn't approve of in it's own defense. If you want me to be more introspective then lead by example and check your own actions at the door first.
Alas, the Japanese-American alliance today does not remain an unconditional military occupation with overt censorship by the occupying authority.
Which wasn't the point I was making. If you think history is important, I encourage you to read it. If not, then that tells me everything I need to understand your position.
Tretiak
1yr ago
The Minsk Accords were many things- including the functional erosion of national sovereignty by legislating an external power's veto by proxy- but an amicable solution they were not.
Doesn't make for strange bedfellows when you understand the Minsk Accords mandated a similar relationship to Ukraine that the US imposed on Japan in the postwar period, which remains today.
Tretiak
1yr ago
If it wasn't Zelensky, any other Ukrainian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
Are we pretending Yanukovych wasn't overthrown?
If it wasn't Biden, any other American leader would be beset by the same scenario and conditions.
"Presidents come and go but the policies remain the same." - Vladimir Putin
Tretiak
1yr ago
That's quite the jump. But the latter is how it's always happened. Most nations live in the sphere of influence of their region's biggest power.
These unfortunately are the kind of replies you get from people who haven't been paying attention.
Tretiak
1yr ago
Because option 3 still sounds like Putin had plenty of agency to me.
And he tried exercising it to find more amicable solutions to the problem. That's what the Minsk Accords were.
Why was the west encouraging Ukraine behind the scenes to give Russia a run around, while the west poured arms into the country to bolster its strength so the government could betray the terms of their agreement?
Either way I think the most important development in all of this is that post-internet, nationalism cannot really be a thing.
It not only can, but is. Splinternets have been a thing for quite awhile now and all countries (including the US) engage in this sort of cyber balkanization. Russia does it quite successfully in service of their domestic, nationalistic goals. What we call "censhorship" when others do it we call "content moderation" when we do it.
Who on this website would go die in a trench for their government and under what circumstances? This is the first step to clear before allowing yourself to symbolically vote for somebody who wants to 'ear-mark' money for these foreign wars
Well since you asked, if we’re keeping with which side is morally in the right, it’s probably most justified to die for the Russian government on this one before you would the US, as a home grown American. The US has been the international bully on the world stage.
The pro-regulation argument depends on the highly unlikely belief that AI will soon reach a point where we cannot control it.
The worry though is that you only need to be wrong once. These technologies are going to continue to advance and only grow in complexity.
I think our experience with LLMs shows that alignment is actually pretty easy. The problem will not be AI that we can't get to understand exactly what we mean when we ask it to achieve some goal. The problem will be people deliberately designing AI to do bad things. The question of whether AI destroys us in the short to medium term will depend only on whether we can stop it. Only if AI makes destruction vastly easier than protection will it pose an existential risk of a kind.
Until you've got forks like DarkBERT or WormGPT cropping up. And this problem is only going to get worse overtime. All technology is ultimately dual use. Once that genie is out of the bottle, its very unlikely you'll be able to reverse course. AI already poses an existential risk.
The other thing those arguing for regulation don't understand is that regulation almost never works. The only thing it does reliably is to grind innovation and progress to a halt. AI is one of the few areas of technology that is progressing and it's in large part because of the lack of regulation. What regulation that has been rushed out so far has only proven this more concretely by banning many important uses of the technology and raising unnecessary barriers to entry. There is very little that is likely to reduce existential risk beyond the general stifling of the technology.
This is an incredibly ignorant statement.
The whole point of regulation is to solve collective action problems, and set the rules by which the market operates. Even if we entirely ignore the creation of the Internet via government intervention, the speed of the rate of change in innovation is hardly the sole or even most desirable instrument to measure the efficacy of government regulation. I would agree barriers to entry are one type of problem. But there's a reason airlines don't compete on safety as a cost saving measure when you buy your ticket. Government regulation demands and tries to ensure that they all meet a standard of safety. Clothing companies don't sell two sets of pajamas, with one costing $10 that's flammable, and another that costs $30 but is safe to wear. Regulation says you can't sell flammable pajamas. This prevents corporations from shifting the risk onto the customer when they buy something, and forces business to innovate to maintain a specific quality standard.
Lack of regulation certainly has its upsides. And it'll as quickly drive you off a cliff as your technology advances.
Tretiak
1yr ago
To some extent Youtube seems to actually do this. I've noticed it randomly recommends me some very low-view videos sometimes, like double-digit views with no comments. One time I reached out to the creator, and they replied back, and they became one of my very few Twitter followers who isn't a bot. I think something like that, on a larger scale, would help Social Media become more "social" instead of mindless passive celebrity worship.
As long as social media companies prioritize user engagement as their business model, there's little hope of this happening. I think the viability of something like this happening depends entirely on how you can pitch a way for corporations to profit off this idea.
Tretiak
1yr ago
You're splitting hairs at this point. It fundamentally doesn't make any relevant difference to the point if a smart but lazy person is indistinguishable from an motivated idiot. Many extremely intelligent people lack basic social skills. I'd say they're pretty stupid as far as acting out their plans go. Nikola Tesla gave us the modern world and couldn't get laid at the same time. He was pretty stupid as far as evolution goes. I think your objection is still a facile and misleading one at best.
Domain expertise can be taught to almost anyone. You have to be smart to be a doctor, but that doesn't mean you have to be a genius. Or even exceptional. As someone who works in healthcare, I've met some incredibly stupid doctors, when you catch them outside their field of expertise. "Dumb" is not synonymous with "retarded," and "smart" is not synonymous with "genius."
And it's actually quite funny that you mention tech since that’s been my primary focus as of late. You couldn't imagine how many idiots proliferate the field. Far from being the exception, most of those who work in it know first hand that it's the rule.
Yeah and likewise criminals have always existed as well. It doesn't mean mainstream society has to tolerate and be defined by it. He’s a piece of garbage and can remain as uninfluential and marginalized as he likes. Tate as civilization is the problem.
... and the men who associate with them voluntarily will always complain about them even though they choose those women, and will then judge all women by their behavior. What’s your point?
I'm guessing you don't read a lot of the opinion pieces that keep the news cycles running 24 hours a day. I'll let you in on something you apparently haven't noticed. These complaints are overwhelmingly written by women, not men. People not taking accountability for the poor quality of their own decisions is deeply rooted in humans in general, but if you’re willing to stomach and live with the consequences of your bad decisions and remain silent then you’ve at least got your personal integrity going for you.
You can find them here in America, willingly prostituting and giving themselves up on OnlyFans. Father’s have a very difficult job in today’s day and age and have been far too absent. If I had one, she’s obviously free to do as she likes at age 18, but not under my roof; and if I did my job as a father correctly, this wouldn't happen in the first place. If you want to engage in soft prostitution, that’s your free choice. Likewise I have a choice to not want to be associated with it.
Get out of my house.
Unless you think women are helping themselves by offering themselves up to men who would use, demean and then discard them, leaving them miserable and with a trail of baggage, then yes, they are being useful idiots for the kind of men Tate would advise his followers to become.
Tretiak
1yr ago
Not sure how you got that out of my statement.
Is it slavery when you get what you want?
In the view of his young male followers I believe the expression goes "don't care, had sex." They wouldn't see it as exploitation insofar as it gets them what they want. The real burden of exploitation taking place comes on the women who end up behaving as useful idiots and reward men for poor conduct and disreputable sexual norms.
Are you new here? Not only is there a nearly perfect correlation between IQ and income, there is no ceiling. A person with an IQ of 150 will (on average) be wealthier than a mere simpleton with an IQ of 120.
If this is going to be a discussion where we're simply hurling academic papers at each other that neither of us are going to read, then I see little point in continuing it.
You can argue about causation all you want, but how could higher IQ not be correlated with higher wealth?
Read the links provided and your question will likely be answered.
My entire point is that I reject your framing of the matter that IQ spells out an aristocracy as well as the proposition that we live in a meritocracy. My counter-narrative to that is that luck matters more than talent. Since you don't directly deny that outright or do much to address it, I suppose I'll take the concessions. But I'll add further on the matter for anyone who isn't satisfied with a dismissive sneer.
To reiterate again, when it comes to wealth, rich people simply aren’t that much smarter than poor people. Zagorsky pointed out that “people with above-average IQ scores are only 1.2 times as likely as individuals with below-average IQ scores to have a comparatively high net worth,” which means, “relatively large numbers” of people with low IQs are rich. And even to the extent that there are more rich people with high IQs than poor, this is 'entirely' explained by luck, not talent. Rich people are only that 1.2 times more likely to be smarter insofar as they were advantaged to develop more of their potential IQ by the fortunes of their environment (like “growing up rich” for example). Once you control for all that, no correlation remains.
Instead of a 1:1 correspondence, high IQ barely helps and the curve is pretty flat. So yes, there is 'some' correlation, but it’s weak. Zagorsky said “the average income difference between a person with an IQ score in the normal range (100) and someone in the top 2% of society (130) is currently between $6000 and $18,500 per year,” or roughly on average just $12,000. That isn't actually a lot. And he says, “the relationship is not very strong.” There is a stronger correlation at the highest incomes, few are so lucky, and the correlation is only notable for any IQ above average, after which more IQ makes little observable difference. “People with above-average IQ scores (> 100) are three times as likely as below-average IQ individuals to have a high (> $105,000) income,” that describes almost no one (only 10% of individuals earn so much), and all one needs to have so good a chance at that is any above-average IQ.
And so I'll reiterate again. Those who end up at the top will be mediocre or slightly above mediocre; not the best and brightest. Look at Zagorsky’s table. Look at how many high IQ people earn less than $30,000 a year, which is less than the U.S. national median. Look at how many earn less than $40,000, the national median for those holding a full time job. Almost all high-IQ people earn less than $60,000 a year, which is below the U.S. national median household income. And yet see how many low IQ people earn more than these amounts. Again, you'll see that luck matters more than IQ. We even know that skills matter more than intelligence (though even what skills you are taught is largely a function of luck, e.g. what social class you get born into, what schools you get sent to, what learning disabilities you're born with, etc) but when studied we find even skills are overwhelmed by luck in any correlation with success.
I think we can cherry pick the data and have it any way we want in picking our specific cases to compare that make our points. I'm not saying talent is irrelevant to success. What I'm saying here is that society-wide, resource distribution is the most important variable to what's being addressed here.
You can try and change the distribution of talents all you want. But that still doesn't override the effects of resource distribution. Whenever any misfortune befalls you, it's increasingly difficult to get back up; whereas if you have better luck as far as initial conditions go, you'll more quickly accumulate enough resources to be able to weather the effects of later misfortunes down the road. This fundamentally is why it's almost impossible to escape poverty no matter how talented you are or how hard you work, and consequently there's a lot that can be said about lazy and useless rich people.
And this phenomenon is pretty well attested to, especially amongst experienced investors. If you simply go and fund one business with a ton of money in hopes of leveraging profit from it, you're highly prone to losing your shirt, and that's because the average rate of business failure simply becomes your probability of losing everything. But if you fund ten businesses with a tenth of that same money each, you'll get ahead, even when several of those businesses fail; since then the average rate of business success simply becomes your return on investment. You have to invest in failure to increase your probability of success.
The same thing rings true when you have ideologues who hold up the failure of the solar panel manufacturers like Solyndra as a reason the government shouldn’t “pick winners and losers” with things like loan programs, and yet they ignore the fact that in this is what 'all' investors do, the net effect of the government’s investments can only be positive if several plays are bet. You expect to lose some, because that’s the only way you win some. People hold up Solyndra as proof of their ideology, by ignoring all the companies funded by the same program that didn’t fail. The government is making a profit on that program.
To your point about IQ, there's actually a respectable body of literature that shows that there is no causal relationship between IQ and wealth; and although there 'is' a correlation between IQ and annual income, the correlation is pretty small and flat. The truth is rich people aren't actually that much smarter than poor people. Once you control for factors like 'being raised in a wealthy household', there's no statistically significant correlation between IQ and wealth. The simple fact is, luck actually produces most of peoples fortunes.
Tretiak
1yr ago
Now we live in a meritocracy and things are much more brutal. Nowadays, the rich are actually much smarter and better looking and more talented than the poor. They studied hard, got into an Ivy, and then got the big job at the bulge bracket bank. Do you suck? It's not because you were born poor, it's because you actually suck. That's a bitter pill to swallow.
This is highly contentious. You've got a lot of work ahead of you still to think it's that easy to adduce the claim that we live in a meritocracy. Birthright status may not be a formal doctrine of our political thinking anymore, but informal relationships, connections and patronage networks still by 'far' play the largest role out of any single variable in success. And thinking Ivy League schools and large bank accounts are a sufficient proxy for merit leaves a lot unaccounted for. Even books like the Bell Curve couldn't adequately control for and factor out the importance of 'luck' as far as their analysis goes. And luck matters far more than talent.
Any ideologies that depend on any version of Just World Theory are false and should be abandoned.
Tretiak
1yr ago
Housing prices aren't a problem that exists in isolation. People's lifestyles and expectations have inflated at a rate that at a 'minimum' is inline with the increase in housing costs, and on average, vastly outstrips it. People tend to live to the maximum of their income. There's plenty of affordable housing all across the United States. It may not be what you're looking for, the jobs may not be as great, but they're absolutely affordable if you're willing to cut back on your spending habits, eating out 3-5 times a week, buying the latest smartphone and wearing expensive clothing; just to name a few. But you're not going to be living the lifestyle that you're told is attainable in celebrity magazines.
As far as concepts like continuity and identity overtime go, I think you may be interested in Dan Carlin's episode entitled Judgment at Nineveh that explores some interesting concepts surrounding this.
No I don't think many British would've fought for their country, if they knew what type of future it would've been captured by. Certainly there's also an atmosphere of apathy in the US as well that plays a role in people's silent retreat and resignation from participating in the broader society that has continued to recede from the territory it once possessed. It's not unlike what happened in the later Roman times, when the elite retreated to their villa's and saw themselves increasingly distant and isolated, and formed enclaves that separated themselves from the rest of the population and balkanized the empire. That was really when you saw the early stages of the Middle Ages begin to develop.
In the grand scheme of history though, these cycles are all par for the course and there's nothing uncommon about them. People of the 21st century just have a much greater visibility about them, to see the ways in which these historical motions occur and take place. I consider myself as belonging to an ideological wave that missed it's opportunity to have it's time in the sunlight when the broader umbrella that encompassed us still carried the day; and it's very unlikely that I'll live to see it revived again in my lifetime. But I think there is a pendulum effect that partially explains this general way of thinking.
I don't know how well read you are on the history of what happened...
Seems we both agree at the outset that he was democratically elected, do we not? His overthrow was explicitly supported by the US and it's allies. Are you not aware that there was even leaked audio of Victoria Nuland and the Ukraine's Ambassador that revealed deliberate planning of his overthrow? NATO was never a European alliance of 'peace', it's an alliance that's aimed at destabilizing Eastern Europe, with the intention to weaken Russia. Do forgive a homie for challenging American
imperialismunipolarity. This whole quagmire has absolutely zero to do with high minded moral idealism against the Next Hitler, who at the same time the media tells us is losing, running out of gas, is out of ammunition, is incompetent beyond belief; and simultaneously is preparing for world domination and his next target is going to be Poland or Scandinavia. It has everything to do with continued projecting of American and western geopolitical dominance across the planet.More options
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