Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
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User ID: 551
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Howdy.
This is also most likely linked to a lack of mobility and a sedentary lifestyle.
The issue maddeningly confounded by reverse causality and feedback loops. As a running and biking enthusiast, I can say that approximately zero of my many friends that are into endurance sports suffer from chronic pain. Plenty of acute pain, even plenty of injuries that stick around and bug people for a long time, but none of fibromyalgia or long Covid or chronic Lyme style of diseases. All of the people that I know that suffer from the various mystery maladies that cause them suffering with no obvious cause or cure are thoroughly out of shape and have never put any real effort into improving their fitness. I can safely say that the circle of people that intentionally experience cardiovascular suffering from track intervals or hill sprints is completely non-overlapping with people that experience suffering while doing absolutely nothing.
Of course, the obvious retort is that the people with the chronic pain simply can't take up endurance sports, so it's a selective sample. This is pretty obviously at least part of what's going on, which makes it hard to draw any meaningful recommendation from the above other than the usual generic advice that you should avoid being fat and sedentary.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I might have a failure of empathy here, but I genuinely can't imagine watching this show and not immediately saying, "what the fuck, who came up with this?". Having a group defined by their bloodline be racially diverse is just so unfathomably stupid, so incredibly hamhanded, so current year that I just can't understand how it isn't wildly distracting to everyone watching. I do see some people on Twitter with the snarky "oh, you can accept dragons, but not a BLACK dragonmaster" kind of sentiment, but even that just feels incredibly forced. I greatly doubt that any of these people are stupid enough that they don't grasp that people are willing to sign up for fantasy concepts, but still want fantasy stories to have internal consistency and have vaguely legible rules of the road. Want to have some rival house with black dragonmasters? Sure, cool, it might wind up hamhanded, but it could also be pretty neat. This ain't it.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I wouldn't say that it rises to the level of an argument, but I enjoy meat, I feel better physically when I eat good quality meat, and I have no real qualms about killing animals. I haven't heard anything that would move the needle in the opposite direction for me, at least not near enough to actually change my behavior.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Do you not think animals have moral worth?
Not really, or at least not much. I'm against causing undue suffering, but a deer shot dead or a pasture raised cow humanely slaughtered have deaths that are significantly preferable to how the median animal dies. I spent a decade working in labs and plenty of mice died worse deaths than that from experiments I was conducting or approved.
So yeah, we bump into a collision of basic intuition. I would agree that people who feel that killing animals for pleasure is wrong probably shouldn't eat meat, or least not very much of it. In the absence of that intuition, most arguments tend to require Singeresque reasoning that I personally find incredibly strained.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I agree with much of what you said and want to add an additional layer - everywhere outside of "performance enhancing drugs", Americans are obsessed with pharmaceutical intervention to make their lives easier. This is true from psychoactive drugs of questionable efficacy to spamming statins and diabetes medications on every sedentary middle-aged patient that could probably fix their metabolic health through non-pharmaceutical means. People take medications for all sorts of things and don't feel even the slightest bit of shame that they've damaged their minds and bodies to the point that they require daily chemical alteration to avoid falling apart.
But if I wanted EPO simply because I think it would be neat to ride my bike up hills faster? Nope! Somehow that is where we draw the line and decide that this isn't just a bad idea, but downright unethical. I won't make a penny doing it, I'd be happy to pay for the drug out of my pocket, but somehow we've decided that there are classes of drugs that are simply beyond the pale. The same goes for various steroids that would improve my fitness and strength, effectively making me a better version of myself.
Can you imagine the absolute shitfit that would be thrown if anyone in a position of power suggested that all people who require psych meds should be thrown out of the military?
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I also see it as a bad thing, but think it's even worse that effective enhancements are seen as immoral while patching over bad behavior is seen as totally normal.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I have absolutely no idea. Good question.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Our wars are discretionary, our military is a jobs program (see the endless obsession with diversity), and the implementation matches general federal bureaucracy. It has been a long, long time since the United States military has prioritized war readiness above its other goals.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Economically, after the war it was easily surpassed by the US , and even more ironically, by Germany and Japan.
Open to another source if this is wrong, but it looks like the United Kingdom was already behind the United States by the turn of the century and stayed there.
Otherwise, I agree.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Is this being bad at compartmentalizing or good at pattern detection? I'd think that demonstrated cheating greatly increases the Bayesian priors on someone cheating in a future instance. Some people aren't cut out for engaging in social or moral transgressions and those that have demonstrated that they are cut out for it are going to get extra scrutiny and lose the benefit of the doubt.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
But this doesn't mean Niemann should have his career destroyed on suspicion.
There's some part of me that harkens back to the old "if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" adage when thinking about what the consequences should be for mere suspicion. I tend to have a gut instinct that's something in the ballpark of old school baseball ethics (or at least what I think of as old school baseball ethics). Basically, everyone expects that various forms of low-level cheating are ever present, and if you can't catch your opponent cheating, you don't really get to be much more than slightly mad at him. If Niemann cheated in a way that can't be detected, well, you're going to have to learn to deal with whatever he's doing by either improving cheating detection or adapting strategy. If you can't prove that he cheated, tough shit, basically.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
In addition to the hydration methods mentioned by the other folks, nothing works better for me than just good old fashion extra sleep. I don't know if that qualifies as "prevention", but just planning to have an additional hour or two available to sleep in makes me impervious to aftereffects from all but the most aggressive evenings.
Whatever residual fatigue I have also seems to shake out well with a run, but that's also my advice for pretty much everything, so take it with a grain of salt.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I still cannot believe that Trump picked Oz. Well, I suppose I can believe it very easily, given that the decision process seems to have mostly been, "I saw that guy on TV and he says nice things about me now", but it remains an unbelievably bad choice. I personally have no problem with mocking Fetterman's obesity, sloth, and the resultant health issues from his obesity and sloth, but it's just incredibly obvious that this is a poor political choice when you're running for office in a nation that consists primarily of fat, slothful people with poor health. Everything from Oz's ridiculous media persona to his divided loyalties makes him an atrocious candidate.
That said, Fetterman is somehow worse. As I said back over on the other place:
One thing I don't really see people talking about with Fetterman is that he has spent almost his entire life being a loser, a complete layabout, and a privileged waste of resources. Despite his blue-collar look, he's pretty well never had a real job, spent a huge amount of time and money getting graduate degrees that he had no real plan for, and living off his parents. As recently as 2015 he had almost no personal income and received over $50K in cash from his parents. His house was purchased from his sister for a dollar.
Taken in that context, the whole "I wear a hoodie and have tattoos" thing comes off less like being a hardworking everyman and much more like being the kind of failson trash that most people have contempt for. Seriously, guy was in his 40s, living off his parents, when he finally found a way to make money off politics.
I don't really understand how people can hear his life history and not write him off as a grifter that should be sent packing. Say what I will about Mehmet Oz and his grifting, at least he did have an actual profession that he apparently took seriously and excelled at. You don't become a hospital's chief of thoracic surgery by living life the way Fetterman has.
So we've got a slovenly, stroked out loser running against an elitist Turkish snake oil salesman. I intend to use this as an example any time someone suggests to me that democracy is particularly effective at choosing good leadership. I do expect any sharp interlocutor to retort that the people get what they deserve in their politicians.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Oh, that makes sense. Not much like sign-stealing then. I suppose this is why different games have different cultures.
In light of William McCaskill (who I find to be a pretty likeable guy!) being on Econtalk this week, my wife and I were talking a bit about longtermism this week and we share the same intuition that it's just not compelling at all. Part of this is probably just that I'm not a utilitarian, but there's something more there too - it just doesn't resonate emotionally with me in any way. Likewise, I just don't care about what happens in faraway lands very much. I don't actually think those people in the far future or off in Ukraine lack moral value; I think they have the same moral value that I or my neighbors have. The thing is, I want to live in the kind of neighborhood (and family, and city, and nation, and so on) where concentric loyalties far outstrip this sort of longtermist view. I could probably draw up some utiltarianish explanation for why I think this, but again, I'm not a utilitarian and I'm not even an egalitarian. I'm comfortable relying on the moral intuition that my neighbor is approximately infinitely more important to me than someone living on the Mongolian steppe in 2738 without feeling any real need to justify that position. On the bright side, I'm reasonably confident that the steppesman would think the same of me if he ever became aware of the history of my part of the world.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Old data at this point, but the Curse of 370 used to hold up pretty well for running backs.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
For most purposes, it probably suffices for a fantasy enthusiast to say, "Derrick Henry takes a lot of abuse, I will devalue him going forward relative to his past performance". Getting more data-oriented is fun, of course, but sample size issues will apply when there just aren't that many players with massive carry burdens.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
but will it be suspicious when I can't remember that really big thing happened 5/10/15 years ago?
Probably not. I have friends that picked up various sports more recently and it doesn't seem inauthentic when they just shrug at older stuff and say, "yeah, I didn't get into it until [insert event]". This is me with cycling.
Also should I support a big team or little team? I think supporting a little team makes me seem more authentic. The little team I'm thinking of is local as well. However I've noticed that peoples mood can be severely affected by their team winning or losing. So if I choose a big team who's doing well will I subconsciously gain more respect from peers because my team is probably always winning meaning I'm almost always more calm than them?
I don't know soccer well enough to know for sure, but picking one of the juggernauts is probably not going to win friends and influence people less they're very popular locally.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
If Scotland is a conquered nation, a notion that it completely and totally laughable, then we should all be so lucky as to be conquered, and become the beneficiaries of millions and millions of pounds of transfer from our supposed oppressors.
Sure, it beats the hell out of the alternative, but receiving an influx of subsidies doesn't really do that much to dull the resentment for rule-by-outsider. Speaking as someone that originally hails from a non-city part of the American state of New York, no amount of "well ackshually New York City sends you tax dollars" reduced our dislike for having laws created for metropolis applied to our irrelevant backwater. There would have been a pretty strong consensus for rejecting the bribe if it also came with the removal of onerous legislation.
I don't know the Scotland-England political dynamics to have any idea if that maps on at all, I'm just saying that the residents of a region that receives government subsidies will not necessarily reflect on this as being a fortunate arrangement.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Hasn't the official narrative for the past couple decades been that the reason schools in the U.S. underperform is due to lack of funding?
Yeah, but it's always been a ridiculous lie. The United States outspends almost every country in the world. The failures of American schools (such that they exist, I would argue that the failures are more with the local demographic stock than with the schools themselves) cannot plausibly be explained by funding at schools that are spending more than Germany, Japan, or our neighbor to the north.
I'm not trying to make any larger point with this besides noting how interesting it is that the NYT takes up a story which tacitly admits that funding is, itself, not the end-all be-all for improving education outcomes, as the state tends to measure such outcomes.
The good news for the NYT and the larger narrative regarding education spending is that no one really bothers to maintain much continuity of analysis between these points. Even better for narrative maintenance is that anyone who notices that Americans actually do very well on PISA testing relative to similar demographic groups (suggesting that there isn't much of a problem with the schools) can be countered with rhetoric around how this demonstrates that schools are racist.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
My wife has always shared your sensibility on this sort of thing (not between us, outside our relationship) and I've always had trouble understanding it. It's not that I receive gifts without an expectation of reciprocity, it's that I'm perfectly fine with keeping some rough ledger in my head of what's owed and received and would regard any friend I can't do that with as someone that I don't much trust at all and probably not even really a friend. That extends from small monetary things like buying a round of drinks to non-monetary effort like helping someone move. I don't even really care if the ledger actually ever evens out, just that there's some rough approximation of equal effort and money.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
I don't see a toggle for displaying the desired data in the direct link, I assumed people would be able to look at those pretty easily.
I am strongly against using percent of GDP rather than PPP or nominal dollars. The education sector isn't entitled to a fixed percentage of the overall economy.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Take a look at a hood in Philadelphia vs Juarez.
I gotta object that while Philly has genuinely terrible parts, it also has really nice places. My understanding is that it's worsened since I was last there (before Summer of George, I think roughly 2018), but I felt pretty comfortable walking around Philly. It's pretty easy to cherrypick parts of cities to make them look better or worse than they are in aggregate.
Yeah, but I think that's the problem - grand theories usually have a ton of exceptions, enough that using them in grand fashion will give you quite a few answers. In Tetlock's work on superforecasters, he found foxes beating hedgehogs (one summary here - https://www.themotte.org/post/1/smallscale-question-sunday-for-september-04/587?context=8#context). The grander the theory, the more likely that it's got flaws that will result in poor object-level predictions.
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