I learned this around various DEI claims. Every single one I investigated more deeply fell apart (interruptions, benefits of diversity, women on the board, insignificant differences in interests, implicit bias test, growth mindset, pay gap, names on resumes) and sadly just about anything in relation to historical women in tech (Lovelace first algorithm, Hopper creating Cobol, women 'used to be the majority of computer scientists' ("programmers" in a historical, different sense, yes), Margaret Hamilton wrote all this code, etc. Most of the women involved were plenty awesome without inflating their claims to fame!)
It's sadly at the point that my first instinct is to disbelieve pretty much any psych or sociology 'study', especially if it points in a way the current narrative wants.
alchemist
1yr ago
Yeah, that shocked me to read. I consider fare-skipping and other crimes that don't cause any obvious negativity much better than littering, which makes everything shitty, just because you're a lazy shit.
I find it depressing when I visit areas with a lot of garbage around. It's like animals shitting in their own cage.
alchemist
1yr ago
I think you're missing the sweet grift factor. By doing this, you can get rewarded quite a bit, moreso than if you weren't special status.
Recently the "first 'first Nations' provincial Supreme Court Justice in Canada (for Saskatchewan) was revealed to be 'trans-racial'".
Canada has a bunch of juicy jobs only available to particular minorities. Get rid of those, or introduce mandatory DNA tests.
alchemist
1yr ago
Our company keeps hiring DEI folks, and it worries me -- they seem a net negative, beyond just their salary.
alchemist
1yr ago
"Confidence - 100% - I don't get these things wrong"
Do you know that saying something like that makes me lose confidence in you? No one should be 100% confident about vague future things, and not realizing that is a pretty big strike against you.
(FWIW, I agree that any housing drop won't be that big -- I think also because there's a global move to finding 'safe assets' (still) and real estate is a pretty good one, at least in bigger cities. I'm only about 60% confident though, because I really don't do much in that economic space.)
alchemist
1yr ago
So, first off, thank you for posting, and apologies in advance if the criticism I'll give comes across as too harsh. You seem to be trying to get more seen and read, so I'm going to try to help.
First -- your writing style doesn't work well for me. It's too abstract, and you don't clearly state your point. For example, your point #1 "Heritability simply does not mean what a lot of HBDers want it to mean - because of the phenotypic null hypothesis." What is your point here? What do you think "HBDs want it to mean"? What is the "phenotypic null hypothesis"? It's not good writing to make me chase down you thoughts, especially on other sites, especially before you've proven you're worth the work. I went to that site, and am not much more enlightened. You seem to somewhere make the point "Things influenced by genes often go though non-biological channels". Or maybe "things that look inherited aren't always". Sure, I'd say both are fairly non-controversial. A classic example of the second is, e.g. "speaking French" which looks inherited on the surface, but is clearly not biological. And yes, our environment and society mediate all kinds of things, we live in a complex interconnected world.
Do you have more of a point? I couldn't really tell (of course, that can be on me, but ... I've read and understood a fair number of others on this topic, but not your writing...) I really don't know what your code and diagrams at the end are supposed to show. Summarize your cool conclusion! E.g. "Even though X is not directly responsible, in a naive analysis it looks like it is, exactly like QQQ, which actually is directly responsible. Here's how that can play out ...". I think you're saying something like that, but you don't bother actually saying it (or I missed it).
In any case you sort of seem to be saying "we can't figure anything out" which both seems wrong, and kind of useless. Do you apply this to all such studies? Maybe we should -- I admit, I tend to write off almost of all psychological and sociological studies these days, because they seem so ideologically captured. On the other hand, between statistics, twin studies (and separated twin studies), and sibling studies, we seem to be able to do a pretty good job on some things.
Second -- you seem to be coming at this from a place of significant bias. "Rightist inclined people want to preserve racial inequality of outcomes," is an incredibly weak straw-man, it's basically "Everyone I disagree with is a racist". Is that really the best you can do, in terms of extending charity to the people you disagree with? I personally, like most of the others here, see the acknowledgement of group differences (and for what it's worth, I don't really care much if it's culture or biology, and both seem taboo anyway) as primarily an alternative for differing outcomes, without discrimination being the ONLY explanation.
I'm in tech. There aren't many women, nor many black people. This is ascribed to sexism and racism, which doesn't match what I've seen, experienced, or heard from the affected people (from women at least; I haven't asked many black colleagues about racism). I see my company following policy to massively privilege both groups, and to blame white cis-men for all the problems, and those both seem wrong, and even damaging to me (and to a number of people in the targeted groups, e.g. women who just want to be SWEs, and not feel they got their role because of their sex, and no, I'm not concern trolling, the suspicion around the privileging is real). I see differing interests (and maybe ability at the margins) and degrees as the main reasons for the differing representation, but we're not allowed to notice that, as "It's not the pipeline". James Damore got fired for trying to make this point.
You also see this censorship of blasphemy in the US, especially around crime, where apparently pointing out some choice statistics around violent crime is considered a hate crime. (Again, FWIW, I'd consider those stats more a cultural issue, but it's a pretty important one, upstream of the 'getting shot by police' issue).
So anyway, what I'd like from you, and I think would benefit you, is to tighten up your writing -- make your point first, then provide an explanation of it (it's a classic academic / systemic thinker error to do it the other way around). Make things more concrete. Work from a specific example and tie your points back to it. People are reluctant to trust generic models, as they are often used to lie (see Abigail Thompson's dissection of Hong-Page's "mathematical proof that diversity trumps ability". There's a nice discussion of it here
Also, try to be more charitable to your outgroup.
Also, as per the community rules, "don't attempt to build consensus", as you do when you write "... which claimed to find that effort does not matter for IQ scores. This obviously massively contradicts common sense,"
No, this doesn't "obviously massively contradict" my common sense, and I think many would disagree. In fact, I thought one of the main points of IQ tests, rather than "effort tests", is that neither effort nor prep makes much of a difference to them. Otherwise, for example, they wouldn't stay very stable over time (which I understand they do). Prep courses would also have more value, which I don't think do. Do you think when people can't make intellectual leaps others do, they just aren't trying hard enough in that particular moment? I think most would agree effort plays some role -- if I don't care or try at all on an IQ tests, and answer at random, I'll have a low score. If I try to be fast and disciplined, and use all my test-taking savvy, I'll probably (?) do better than if I just breeze through (although I wonder). But basically, once you're trying to do well, it's not really clear what "trying harder" even means on IQ test. It's not like pushing on a bar (and honestly, even for that the range where trying, vs training and genes and drugs, makes a difference, is pretty small in that moment. If I can barely do one pull-up, trying really hard might mean I do one, or two, but I'm generally not going to be able to do 10). So anyway, stop claiming consensus on things people will disagree on (especially things where your "consensus" seems to go against standard definitions).
I can't really comment on your main article, because I don't understand it beyond "assigning causation back to genes is tricky", which, I agree with, but, if that is your point, isn't a very exciting one, nor is the the pwn you seem to think it is. But if you have a different point, please state it clearly and simply, with a concrete example, and I'll try to address it.
I guess you're trying to be generous, but it feels like you're taking it too far. I think you really overdo it -- not being obese shouldn't get people big points. Most women don't need to wear much make-up, if any, to still look okay. I don't think applying basic make-up is particularly hard, but perhaps I'm missing the complexity. Hair back in a pony-tail, halfway healthy, and you will be attractive to most men.
Most late teen girls basically can eat crap food and still not get fat (at least according to the older people I talk to now who talk about how they used to be able to eat anything).
(I think women do have a hard time finding someone who values them for more than just their sexual attractiveness, I don't want to downplay that at all, I just want to say in terms of easily getting attention, young women are generally "playing on easy mode" (much as I hate that phrase).)
alchemist
10mo ago
For what it's worth, when I last saw this, the gap had grown immensely in the last 10 or 15 years. It was quite surprising, as I haven't really noticed it in German society (where I live, but I'm in a rich city).
Although I think I saw income inequality. The hope would be that it's somewhat reversible, as I think (too much) inequality is bad for a society. OTOH, I pay quite a lot in taxes already, so it's not too clear to me how thing will improve. Higher minimum wage / whatever Harz-4 is called now?
It is so tiring. And then combined with people saying things like "women dominated early programming and computer science". Agh. I'm sure there were a number of important and talented women in computer science. I'm also pretty sure, from what I know of history, interests by sex, and the breakdown by sex over the 30 years I've been in the field, that it's pretty likely there were more men than women. (Yes, I know much of the original 'programming' work, which was like connecting cables in a telephone switchboard was mainly done by women, as were many of the clerical calculations. That's something different).
The Lovelace one is particularly annoying, since it appears both Babbage and someone else had made algorithms (a word from Arabic from waaay back) before her. But sure, all of the credit is hers, and men have just been stealing the idea from her.
Grace Hopper seems to have been pretty kick-ass. Ada Lovelace too. We don't need to make up shit so that they are even more kick-ass. It's deceptive and sad.
alchemist
1yr ago
My view from continental Europe -- Brexit has been pretty horrible for Britain, and the lies to sell it (buses claiming 400 million a week were being sent to the EU) have been unravelling, so people were pissed at Boris, which meant the small-but-insulting blunders -- e.g. having big parties while other people couldn't visit grandma -- were enough to oust him.
Truss came in and made stupid destructive tax cut promises that even people in favor of tax cuts thought were stupid, and no one had her back, so apparently she's on the way out too.
Is there a summary of that anywhere? I seem to have missed it. Was it something in the SciFi community?
*Thanks y'all, that was a wild ride.
alchemist
1yr ago
So now I'm feeling smug for seeing the first poorly written paragraph and then the monstrous wall of text and then skipping the post entirely.
Life is too short for shittily written monster posts.
Make your point clearly, and succinctly, meeting your readers where they are, and not clothing it in unnecessarily verbosity in an attempt to sound learned.
Or don't, but I'm not going to bother reading it otherwise, nor will most others.
[I know it's not your post, but I'm tired of poorly written posts]
Sorry, didn't check your Twitter, as I'm not on it, and don't like it (and don't like following links just to know what someone's talking about; I do like them for references).
I guess if you stated clearly what you think contributes to IQ scores then perhaps we'd mostly agree. As I think you say, accounting for 8% variance would be not too far from noise. That still seems quite a bit too high to me, and I don't really see how you clearly quantify 'effort' but would think to myself -- "whatever, if you want to believe that, go ahead it doesn't seem wrong enough to be worth fighting over". What I read from your initial post is that effort was more important than everything else, which seemed clearly wrong. You gave this impression by not specifying how much effect you thought that it had, and by saying people claiming it didn't have an effect "obviously massively contradicts common sense," which is a very strong formulation.
FWIW, I expect a very asymptotic-type curve, that rises extremely sharply from [answered questions at random without reading them] to [did test pretty normally], and then is pretty flat. It's like (but not quite as extreme) saying the kind of pen you use matters, because if yours is broken, or breaks half-way through, you'll get a lower score. So effort is not very interesting. But sure somehow accounting for 4% of the variance is plausible (sorry, to me 8% really seems too high, I'd think how well I slept, the questions I got, my mood, time of day, my pencil, and a bunch of other things would play a larger role than nebulous 'effort'). You seemed to be implying that means IQ tests are meaningless (and apologies if I misread it, again, please stately plainly your point so that doesn't happen as often), which that doesn't seem like a strong argument for. If that's not what you're implying, what is your point in bringing up effort?
alchemist
1yr ago
Why not?
They can get some points, but not big points, because most of the world manages it (especially, as you note, when you're under 30, and even slightly active). I also don't give big points out for brushing your teeth, combing your hair, or cleaning your ass after shitting. I don't think I'm setting that high a bar, although I recognize obesity does seem to be getting ever-harder to fight. (I also have some sympathy for people who's parents screwed them on the eating habits and metabolism front).
alchemist
1yr ago
Is that a thing in the South of the US? I never saw it growing up fairly poor in Canada, nor did I see it in when I lived in California.
This frustrates me a lot, as someone who has watched Wheel of Time (absolute shit) and Rings of Power (kinda meh, but visually impressive).
I don't mind black elf -- he's in the army, army draws from all over the place, and he's kinda elven (vs most of the other elves, who look like roman senators in a cheap community drama, but with pointy ears). Black dwarf lady is potentially okay -- we can imagine different kingdoms, although that's not what they said, and we haven't seen the kids. The storyline for the dwarves is more engaging, which helps.
But the black hobbits (Harfeet) just doesn't make sense. Do genetics not hold any more? Do children not look like their parents? Do no men worry about cuckolding then? This changes a huge dynamic in the whole species! If genetics don't hold, can Harfeet have elves for kids? Dwarves, humans, sheep? I would say, even if we don't know genetics deeply, we have an intuitive sense (likely at least somewhat honed by the whole cuckolding thing) about kids looking like parents. "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" "Oh, you're the spitting image of your grandfather at that age". Apparently it's true across almost all cultures for there to be more comments made about how a kid looks like the dad than the mom (presumably to soothe fears). We've been breeding animals for longer. We know something is up if a kid doesn't look like either parent.
Or if genetics still hold (doesn't really work in RoP, where the mother with very broad black features has a very fair Irish child), does that mean that in isolated communities (like in Wheel of Time) the Maori family has been inbreeding for hundreds of generations? (As have the Chinese, Nigerian, Spanish and Celtic families?)
It just requires throwing out a whole lot, and you can't just say, "oh, you accept dragons, but not X" because it means the world doesn't make any sense. A big part of fantasy and science fictions, is asking "what if?" and following where it takes you. If you don't do that (or it immediately makes no sense), it's not a convincing story, it's just a stream of words or scenes (which kinda describes Rings of Power).
It's a bit like modern stories where a single phone call with a cell phone would solve the problem (often they are problems normal people have encountered). The story needs to address why that phone call wasn't made, or it won't be an engaging story. You're not a 'techno-fetishist' or something if you ask why a character didn't use their cell phone, you just want a somewhat consistent world!
alchemist
1yr ago
Yes! My company wants to increase the representation of "Indigenous+" in Europe, and make no effort to explain what that means. I'm in Germany, so I assume they want more Neanderthals....
alchemist
1yr ago
Jesus, on r/ comics there are regular comics that I guess are intended to be "slice of life" from a woman and there is nothing funny or enlightening about them at all. It's "wow airplane food sucks" level stuff, and it keeps getting upvoted, and I don't understand that at all. Even on reddit, I really don't understand it -- there's just nothing remotely funny.
(Seriously, if someone likes them, I'd be interested to know why, each time I read one I just kind of shake my head, and feel incredibly out of touch.)
alchemist
1yr ago
The image on the login screen seems quite large -- I have a decent connection normally, but spent 20+s seeing it incrementally load.
Usually you can shrink images signficantly without much quality loss just be encoding differently, e.g. lower quality. I used imagemagick's convert with the following parameters quite successfully (to make 1920px wide image)
convert -quality 65 -resize 1920x> -strip -interlace Plane -sampling-factor 4:2:0
alchemist
11mo ago
I thought that had to be intentional, and snuck in by the one competent writer on the crew. It was so blatant.
alchemist
11mo ago
While I mostly agree with you, I think there are also tipping points that are bad -- things like the great depression, which fucked up the whole world for a decade, the oil crisis in the 70s, and the financial crisis in 2008. It does seem like we've gotten better at handling things, but part of me worries that we've been lulled into a false sense of security.
Minor related note -- I'd say only now, a good year after the initial Ukraine invasion, has the product offering in supermarkets mostly levelled out. Until recently, it seemed like there was always something out -- sunflower oil, catfood, dijon senf (that was something else), what have you. So my sense is that we are more connected, and have less resilience, so an unexpected shock can have surprising ripples.
I still tend towards optimism, but I don't think we can just rely on things working out.
alchemist
1yr ago
I mean, it's mono sodium glutamate. That's like, one sodium.
(But seriously, I fail to see how MSG is saltier than salt, or has more sodium. Given glutamate is fairly complex / heavy vs Chlorine, I would assume that it has less Na than NaCl by weight. (But I haven't checked the math))
So, I watched the first two episodes of the Rings of Power -- and it wasn't that bad.
For the record, I thought Wheel of Time was pretty horrible, and while it was far from the only problem, the woke aspects (forced diversity, all men have to suck, all women have to rock) was definitely a big part of the issue. RoP has some forced diversity as well, but it's somehow not as bad. The black elf is one of the few elves who actually seems attractive and somehow beyond human -- the others come across as Roman Senator types.
Galadriel is a Mary Sue, but I guess she is in the books too. We'll see how her story develops.
I'm not happy with the proto-hobbits, and of course, the one who pushes the rules and is clever and daring is a woman, but that's mostly okay.
Dwarves -- well, of course the woman gives wise council to her buffoon husband, but it was still fairly well done I thought.
The visuals were great, and you did somehow get a sense of fleshed out, interesting and complex world. I'm very cautiously optimistic. Miles and miles ahead of Wheel of Time.
For the record, I'm /u/The-WideningGyre on reddit, but felt like grabbing one of the more common usernames I use on the new Motte.
I'm really disappointed by the weird groupthink shitshow I feel like 'normal' reddit has become, so I will do what I can to support this new Motte. Thanks /u/ZorbaTHut and other creators!
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