Voyager
1yr ago
No it won't.
Now you're making an unsupported assumption about my character instead of an argument. Retract it and apologize.
Obvious circular reasoning. You believe X is false, and you say it's possible for you to be convinced that X is true if X were true, but X is false, because you believe X is false.
No, I proved X is false separately. "X is false, because I believe X is false" is not an argument I've made.
Do you accept the possibility that X may be true? Yes or no.
No. X is a mathematical claim, and it's proven false.
Note that if you make a new argument I will consider the possibility again while analyzing your argument.
Voyager
1yr ago
Either way 2+2=0 can be true.
Only because 4=0. So 2+2=4 is true, and the central claim of your substack post is wrong.
Correct?
No. Some basic mistakes:
-
Isomorphy requires preservation of structure, in our case the structure of respective additions. This is not the case: Addition in
{0,1,2,3}works different than inℤ/4ℤ. -
We don't say an element in a structure is isomorphic to one in another.
-
(ℤ/4ℤ)*is an entirely different structure. For starters, it contains only 3 elements. (The*signifies we're excluding the 0.)
Voyager
1yr ago
In your opinion, which isn't infallible.
Is that supposed to be a counterargument?
This is not enough.
Yes it is. Listening to your case and engaging with your argument will make me change my mind if your case is convincing enough.
Therefore it's impossible for you to be convinced of anything (about Alice and even less of Bob), and there's no point in me even trying.
No, it's still possible for me to be convinced of true things.
You'e right there's no point trying to convince me of a false statement about math. Instead you should let yourself be convinced by me.
The information in English is limited too. Information is always limited.
"Tomorrow is Monday" has limited information.
Exactly. And because the information is limited, relevant information is missing, and you can't make your argument. If you include the missing information, e.g. by saying "Tomorrow is monday, calendar week [current+1]", it becomes obvious that your claim is false, your example only appears to support your claim because information is omitted. It's evidently possible to include this information. Talking about "limited information" is nothing but a smokescreen to hide your attempt to deceive by strategic omission.
The case where the week ends in Saturday is included.
I was specifically addressing the other case (because "this doesn't change if the end of the week is saturday" is obviously irrelevant when the first part 'this' refers to is wrong.)
You claim the information is available because if the week ends in Sunday "we both know" when the week ends. No, we don't, because I don't. If you want to claim you know when the week ends from the phrase "tomorrow is Monday" go ahead, I do not know.
No, I claim I know when the week ends from the phrase "the week ends in sunday", which was included in your example. You're playing obtuse.
And it doesn't seem to me you are engaging with my argument.
That's because you're not understanding (or pretending to not understand) my critique thereof.
My example was crystal clear in explaining that the day the week ends does not matter in describing what day comes after Sunday.
And this claim is simply not true. It does matter if we are interested in what week it is. Your example doesn't show that because it's just colloquial speech where (relevant for us) information is omitted, which is the opposite of crystal clear.
I showed that by giving a counterexample, where it does matter.
Voyager
1yr ago
Wrong. Information by its very nature is limited. Nobody is "artificially" limiting the information that can fit in one bit, one bit can only fit one bit of information. Period.
That's a red herring. We're not talking about bits. We're talking about the information we have about your example, which was given in english.
No, we don't. You are assuming where the week starts.
Liar. The end of the week being sunday was included in your description of the example.
All information is incomplete.
Not all information is incomplete in the sense that reasoning from it leads to false conclusions. Stop defending your fallacious argument.
Voyager
1yr ago
If you're omitting the information of which week it is because it's not relevant, you're omitting information, and that means you can't use the result to support your argument, because it's missing information.
Voyager
1yr ago
But your clock would read 01:00.
We use this concept in programming all the time. If the week ends in Sunday we don't say that the day after that is Monday the next week, it's Monday
That's merely convention, omitting information that can be derived from context for brevity. If you want to make a formal argument, you need to include that information again. Everyone is aware monday is next week, that's why you don't spell it out if it isn't relevant, but if you're e.g. scheduling business on a weekly base, you might have to say "Tomorrow is monday, which is next calendar week".
Voyager
1yr ago
For what it's worth, as a horror story it's pretty good - it does a great job selling the mounting sense of dread as new information is presented.
Just that's not what The Motte is for.
Voyager
2mo ago
Yes, both of these are arguments against meritocracy in practice. The former is refuted by HBD, and while the latter is not, it's also weaker, because it relies on a moral axiom that is harder to defend and less shared in the mainstream.
Hence, HBD weakens the case.
Voyager
4mo ago
Again, no, that wasn't my argument.
Fair enough, but I take it you understand now how @SSCReader's unfairness test measures comparative advantage, you just think comparative advantage isn't relevant?
Voyager
5mo ago
Also, school forces children to sit down at a desk for a large part of their day. It seems reasonable that school also is responsible for counteracting the bad effects thereof.
Voyager
6mo ago
But there’s no logical incoherency there.
Yes, there is. It's exactly what logical incoherency is.
Having a rational strategic reason to employ flawed arguments doesn't make them any less flawed or the the self-contradicting position any less wrong.
We were talking about whether feminists were wrong, not about whether they were acting irrational in support of their goals, and you shouldn't confuse "logically inconsistent" with the latter.
Voyager
6mo ago
The latter, unlike the former, is going into the Dark Arts realm of treating people as manipulable
But people are manipulable, and pretending otherwise is not going to help you navigate politics. If you're worried about the signal of your vote being misunderstood by other people to bad effect, it's perfectly valid to account for that.
I also think the worry is less that a yes vote would by itself naturally lead to support for reparations, but rather that it would be used by proponents as an argument to make it seems to have more support that it actually does. In which case the proponents are the ones employing Dark Arts, and you're merely depriving them of their tools. That would just be recognizing Dark Arts and taking countermeasures, i.e. Defense against the Dark Arts.
prioritising optics over ground truth
The point of voting is to signal the will of the voters, not to figure out some sort of "ground truth". A vote is always a public signal, and it's entirely fair to think about what exactly you're signalling compared to what you want to signal.
Voyager
8mo ago
The reason may be some compromising material, military secrets, or, if he had confidence in the loyalty of his people, the threat of a second "march of justice" from the Wagner PMCs. The latter scenario is unlikely, further complicated by the death of Dmitry Utkin
It seems plausible that this is no coincidence - Putin was worried about Wagner trying to take revenge, and he thought this would be led by Utkin, and thus he struck when he saw the opportunity to take out Utkin together with Prigoshin, decapitating Wagner and thus preventing a coordinated response from them.
Voyager
11mo ago
I can't really begrudge women for not making that argument any more than I begrudge myself for not making the argument that all gyms should be banned so fewer guys are buffer than me so I can get more chicks. I would like it if they were but I can't make the argument.
But are you making the argument that gyms should be banned because of toxic masculinity or [insert made-up argument]? If so, that's unethical, if not, the comparison doesn't work out.
Voyager
11mo ago
If men wanting attractive women to sleep with them is a harmful notion of masculinity, I'm rather concerned about the future of humanity.
Voyager
1yr ago
Are we sure about that? The prompt just says "flight to another planet." It's consistent with the available information that the planet already has a self-sustaining human colony populated by carefully selected astronauts with all the expertise needed to keep it running.
This would explain why the list has no engineers, botanists or (fully-trained) doctors - it's not about giving humanity a chance, it already has one. Instead, they're trying to save some of humanity's "diversity", and our task is to decide what diversity is worth saving the most.
Voyager
1yr ago
you argued that (2+2=4) is always standard arithmetic
No, I didn't. If you believe otherwise, cite where I said it. Or stop misrepresenting me.
As I pointed out numerous times, by 2+2=4 in this context you meant in standard arithmetic
So you're "pointing out" to me what I meant. Have you considered that I can read my mind better than you can? After all, when someone talks about your position elsewhere , you're quick to call it out as assumptions. And when I offer clarification, you ignore it, only to repeat your strawman two posts later.
Obviously I meant "with unspecified context", because that was the example we were talking about. Yes, people don't know you're sneakily talking about modular arithmetic - but "2+2=4" is still true, so people are giving the correct answer, despite the confusion.
That was my clarification. I've had a lot of patience with you, but I can't really have a discussion with someone who talks to their own caricature of me and ignores what I actually say.
if 99.9999% of people think (2+2=4 in standard arithmetic) that does not equate to 99.9999% people thinking (2+2=4 (mod 4))
You weren't asking about 2+2 (mod 4) though. You were asking "2+2=" without context, and people answer "4", which is correct.
If they interpret the meaning of the string "2+2=" different than you, that's not anyone being wrong, that's just a misunderstanding caused by your bad communication. But luckily the misunderstanding doesn't matter, because the answer is correct in either interpretation.
Voyager
1yr ago
Really? Wasn't your entire argument relying on the fact that if the arithmetic wasn't specifically specified, then certain arithmetic was always assumed?
It has been specified beforehand:
in Z/4Z, 2+2=0 and 2+2=4 are the same statement.
If in response you talk about standard arithmetic without clearly denoting it, that's just you communicating badly again, which is why I made you add a clarification.
For the record, when I ask ChatGPT if it's always necessarily the case, it answers "no". It says that's not the case in other arithmetics. Weird that it interprets math like me, not like you.
You can get ChatGPT to tell you all sorts of bullshit, including self-contradictions. It's not an authority for anything.
it's standard arithmetic
That makes it a derail, since we were talking about modular arithmetics. But just for the record, the answer is no then.
Voyager
1yr ago
It's a badly posed question because it's not fully specified, namely, you're not stating where (2+2=4) lives.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem, because we can assume it's the default if not otherwise noted, but a) we'e explicitly discussing multiple number systems here and b) you have already proven you can't be trusted not to omit relevant information.
Your question is ambiguously stated. Normally it wouldn't be, but have earned a reputation of communicating badly. Define whether (2+2=4) in your question is integer arithmetics or (mod 4) (or something else) and I'll answer your question.
Voyager
1yr ago
It's a badly posed question. You have been weaponizing ambiguity the whole time, I'm not accepting your framework without adding context.
If you want a question answered, state it clearly.
Voyager
1yr ago
I'm not ignoring it, I'm rejecting it has any relevance. Everyone doesn't know a lot of things. This is hardly new or interesting.
But the existence of modular arithmetics doesn't make 2+2=4 incorrect. It merely makes 2+2=0 another representation of the same statement. So "most people" remain correct.
Voyager
1yr ago
But 0 is what we think, because 0 is 4. You're just changing the representation. It's like saying "You think 2+2 is '4', but it's actually 'four'".
Also, the claim in your post was
So there you have it: 2+2 is not necessarily 4.
which is wrong whether or not 2+2=0 can be true.
Voyager
1yr ago
Yes, but the premise of this line of thought is precisely the opposite: it's not easy to prove Bob isn't racist, other other hand it's extremely easy to prove Alice isn't racist.
That's my exact point. If you prove Alice isn't racist, you haven't proven anything relevant. You're just nitpicking. The actual relevant question of whether Bob is racist is unaddressed.
But discussing is not accepting. You are arguing that Bob is a racist, but you are nowhere near accepting the possibility that he might not be.
I'm accepting the possibility Bob might be racist to the degree I'm required to: I'm listening to the supporting case and engaging with your arguments.
Your arguments that Bob is racist just aren't convincing. You're mainly arguing he's as racist as Alice and I happen to know she isn't. And instead of leaving it at that until you make a better argument, which I could, I'm trying to work out why you think Alice is racist and how it applies to Bob, and arguing against that.
You are not willing to accept […]. Which proves my point.
No, I'm not accepting your point because it's false. You don't get to twist opposition to your argument into support for your point.
Nevertheless it is the case. We think 4, 4 is 0, therefore "0=not what you think" isn't true.
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