coffee_enjoyer
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User ID: 541
There are texts talking about “the big guy” and, most damningly, the following text —
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote Zhao, according to IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and another agency investigator who has remained anonymous. “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” the now-53-year-old went on. “And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”
https://nypost.com/2023/06/22/hunter-biden-used-joe-as-leverage-in-china-biz-deal-text/amp/
The solution was to allow the voter all information, so they can decide how to vote according to their own judgment. If they are fine with text messages showing that the candidate’s son admitted to or claimed to be influencing the policies of his father for the direct benefit of our geopolitical rival, well, so be it. I am personally more concerned about the fairness of reporting than the potential corruption. Hunter is just BS’ing? Very possible. But if the media had these texts from Trump’s son, they would have reported the information in catastrophic and dramatic way.
Giuliani was naively trusting an honest and traditional democratic system. He didn’t expect that the institutions and public forums would conspire together to thwart the democratic process from unfolding. This was the largest escalation of the culture war in history: information indicating that the Vice President’s own son took bribes from foreign adversaries to influence his father’s politics was hidden from the voter’s access through a cabal of anti-democratic figures behind the scenes at major tech companies and news websites.
This is why I don’t care at all if “Republicans lied about the election!” My response is, “brother, the Republicans should be out there telling the Public the most persuasive possible lies they can conceive”. That’s the natural response to the anti-Democratic manipulation we saw in 2020. It is morally permissible, in fact obligatory, to match your enemy’s escalation when that very escalation thwarted the democratic process and destroyed the fabric of American democracy. When you destroy the rules of conduct, we go back to millennia-old idea of just proportional response — this is the nature of “just [culture] war” theory. The Republicans ought to be treating Democrats like we treat Russia: you have violated the borders and agreements, we will do whatever we can to push you back and reestablish a rules-based national order.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
From the texts I’ve seen, he actually used psychological manipulation tactics and possibly illegal coercion to get the women to work for him. Then, he would get the girls to scam and lie to the men to get their money (claiming they will meet them, etc).
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
[the critique that this is a “just so” story and only simplistically explains things post-hoc]
Well, there are two ways to look at the pursuit of noble goals. The first way is to declare that there is no nobility in any goal pursuit, because in fact the pursuer just wants primitive satisfactions. The second way — my own way — is to instead say that the noble pursuit is comprised of primitive satisfactions. Nobility itself is constructed of less noble enjoyments, but this doesn’t mean that the noble pursuit is not real. Let me give a random example of a Kurdish woman dying for her home village against a radical Islamist invasion. This is noble, right? I would say so. So why would she do it? First, because she was raised in a tribal and traditional society with strict moral rules (eg infidelity means jail time), so various enjoyments in her life were seen as originating from her Kurd family and tribal ties, rather than her own individual actions and efforts. This naturally creates a love for her tribe and family. Second, something good for the Kurds is good for those whom she loves and who look like her and act like her and live like her and share her blood. We can call this a “selfish noble action” if we want: she sacrifices herself to make the lives of those she is most like better, because she was raised to learn that she herself is a part of a whole — and this learning required the tribe to exert control over individuals’ behaviors. Most selfishly, her actions benefit her siblings, cousins, and her children if applicable.
No one can seriously pursue some noble value as a goal [without reward]
The problem is that if we analyze the lives of the people who seriously pursue noble things, they always exist within an ecosystem of rewards. The architects, composers, authors, and scientists expect to get paid and be admired. They expect to earn accolades and compete over them. They take slights to their status — their worthiness of reward — extremely seriously. They might aim to have sex with groupies. At military academies, where noble behavior is essential, reward and punishment related to behavior and status are neurotically and systematically meted out. And if we ever have another D Day, there will be soldiers behind you with their guns loaded to ensure that your “selfless noble actions” are carried out. The rare exceptions, like that Russian mathematician, are visibly insane.
Or, what better look at noble actions than a ship crew during the Age of Sail? It just so happens that the crews which behaved most admirably were the ones that were rewarded more justly by their Admiral. Violation of the norms of the status hierarchy, which is a violation of the structure of reward, meant public flagellation or death. Doing a good job? More alcohol — a straight shot to the reward system. Not paying sailors? Suddenly there is no more nobility, we are pirates now. And when they are on land again, they expect a lot of respect from the public and especially women.
where the disdain for pursuing these things "manipulatively" comes from.
Because it’s bad for the community. Which is why, if an Andrew Tate existed in the Islamic World, he would not be bedding but beheaded. If he existed in the 19th century, he would go the way of Joseph Smith. I am interested in what is best for a community because that’s the fun game I play in my head when writing at places like themotte, and it’s a hobby I’ve had since a teen. Do I participate in it out of a desire to be superior to ideological competitors? Well, probably — I’m only human. To quote Pascal’s thoughts,
Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags, and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it
—
How can you claim to step outside of the game to deliver judgment?
But I am in a game to deliver the best judgment. If I’m wrong, and someone judges better, then I lose the match. This game doesn’t occur everywhere. Try to deliver the best judgment to the girl at the bar who asks if you like her tattoo, or your friend who is deep into crypto. Quickly you will lose your reward. I think with the right organization of competition, you can maximize truth-seeking. Men have an instinctive drive for competition which is most obvious looking at online gaming.
Why is everyone else assumed to follow shallow mechanistic signals like ants following the sugar, without ever having higher ideals in mind?
Because this is how everyone behaves unless they are in an intense competition of discourse. Polemics are the backbone of truth-seeking. Could we ever come to scientific truth if we didn’t make scientists compete over accolades and positions? And even this isn’t enough, right? Just recently the President of Stanford was found to have fabricated his results from his scientist days. Cheating and replication crises abound. Because scientists only compete over truth insofar as that truth is rewarded. If your reward is feeling superior to scientists, you don’t have to rely on the peer review process.
I can't tell you what the "real terminal values" are
I can give it a go. I 100% agree that some of those things are not terminal. I think what is terminal is novelty of instinctive pleasure, the vanity I mention above, and truly just sex. Sex with different beautiful women is surely a terminal reward. Being in a room with other men and sensing their respect and/or defeat is very likely an ingrained instinctual terminal reward, and maybe one day we’ll discover weird hormones that are released which affect our reward system (I’m sure of it). “Novel instinctive pleasure” means stuff like driving a really fast car; it’s interesting that even hamsters enjoy running on a wheel, and wild animals will play with swings and balls. This also allows us to make sense of addiction and how insanely terrifying it is, and how it can affect people of any social status. For an alcoholic, alcohol is just pure reward like sex and respect. It competes with the most primitive pleasures. Absurd anti-social risks are posed with alcohol and gambling because they are so damn primitive.
It seems to be a kind of fallacy to assume that evil is easy.
I don’t disagree here. Andrew Tate is clearly very intelligent and has great speaking skills. I would say that’s tangential to my main point.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Refining my views, finding interest views, getting criticism of my views.
Themotte works as fun training in “quick argument generation” because topics are variable, challenging, and diverse. Twitter doesn’t work like this because of character generation and the emphasis on low-information dunking and insults, Reddit used to be good but not much anymore, and there is no real life equivalent that occurs with frequency. If there were, like, 17th century coffeehouses, I’d just be chilling there instead
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Tate’s arrest came way too late, and it’s a house arrest right now. If he does go to jail for a long time, I think this would have an effect on reducing imitation of his lifestyle, but it’s hard to say how much. Because I think people recognize that his arrest is partially due to his popularity and that if he weren’t so popular he probably wouldn’t be pursued as he is. And being rich + getting laid for a decade or more and then going to jail is actually a bargain many men will take; it’s essentially the kernel of criminality.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
The key to understanding the “problem with men” today is to look at contingent rewards. Men are motivated toward behaviors by the rewards that follow most efficiently. The rewards are the same as always: sex, money, social status, and fun about sum up the most powerful rewards that men pursue socially. With contingent rewards in mind, consider Andrew Tate.
Andrew Tate made his money by manipulating women into his online prostitution ring, who then manipulated lonely men into sending them their money. He also, in the past couple years, has sat down for interviews with journalists like Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan; has won the admiration of millions of young men; has a number of attractive women profess interest in him; has riches and status symbols; and has even scored a date with Jordan Peterson’s daughter. This last one symbolically sums up the whole point to be made: the man who embodies moralizing to the public couldn’t even influence his own daughter to not spend time with a wealthy criminal. None of Peterson’s words had any influence on behavior. The men pursue their rewards, and his daughter pursues the rewarded man. What do men take away from this?
What matters are the rewards, and the behaviors that efficiently lead to the rewards. Andrew Tate, regardless his immorality, has obtained great rewards that are independent of any toothless “moral attack”. Because men want only rewards, they aren’t going care much for the complaining of random news writers and politicians and priests. What does that have to do with me becoming dominant and bedding attractive women, which is what I want? And so it’s no surprise that some men look up to Andrew Tate, without a care in the world for his crimes or immorality or the golden rule of morality or such things. There is no “moral police” to make any impact on his rewards!
Now you might say, “well hold it right there, buck-o, because I’ve see men on Twitter rail against Andrew Tate”. Yes, you do. And have you considered that railing against Tate is merely a way for them to rail Kate later that week? Have you not noticed that those men live in cities, that their tweets have a lot of engagement from women, that their public Spotify playlists contain Mazzy Star? Andrew Tate would travel all the way to Romania to obtain his social rewards, and you don’t think this guy’s lazy tweet isn’t in some mysterious way motivated by the same root interest? He’s not standing outside the Romanian embassy, he is expressing a view on a social media platform filled with women. He’s not writing this in the boy’s group chat. He’s not going over to 4chan to express his view to those “at-risk”. It’s performative. And yet, it’s not any more performative than all social expressions. All of it is behavior performed to obtain reward.
Now let’s look at the other extreme. Incels? Incels don’t exist in a quantity significant enough to warrant any care. “Incel” is the deactivation word that cues our mind to turn off from thinking deeply. (Apropos, it works by castigating a group of men as unable to obtain the most foundational reward.) The opposite of Andrew Tate is the sexless and wifeless. What’s going on with them?
In the case of the loveless men, there are a few major problems. First, there is an absurd amount of superstimuli accessible to mollify male energy: tik tok, porn, and video games. There is a clear association between hours spent on these and sexlessness whether or not any scientist has studied it. Second, we have eradicated what I will call the “foreplay” of social reward. There was a time where young men and young women would flirt at any opportunity in social “intercourse”, and where not complimenting a woman on her beauty was seen as faux pas. Women would have to be subtle about rejecting men flatly, so as to not ruin the delicate social gamification at play. This “social foreplay” incentivized prosocial behavior from both sexes. In its absence, women look for their required allotment of attention by posting lewds on social media, and men look for it by looking at said lewds and watching porn. Women, too, have their version of porn. It’s Mazzy Star songs and passively using dating apps.
The third issue for the loveless, as evidenced by the differential of female yearly sex versus male yearly sex, is dating apps. This is boring to dwell on, but the same men who watch the Andrew Tate content are mastering the art of manipulating women for easier sex on dating apps. Because it’s morally illegal today for fathers to control their daughters (see: the Petersons), women are routinely taken advantage of for easy sex. At the same time, some of them believe it’s fine to have short-term sexual flings, because they have no moral training and in any case there are no moral police. The moral result will be at lot of loveless men and women, a lot of old whores and old virgins, perhaps more assisted and unassisted suicides in the (not-)coming decades.
So we see neatly that social dysfunction springs out of perverse social reward structures. The only possible solution is to put order to social reward, which was the norm in human history. What do we make of religion? Here’s something to dwell on: religiosity across milieu perfectly tracks with how well the religion punishes immoral behavior and rewards good behavior. At the various heights of Christian practice, being a sinner meant ostracism or extreme loss of social capital. Being a “good Christian” meant men doing business with you and marrying their daughters to you. In current Hasidim, and current traditional Islam, we see the same phenomenon. A religion without intense judgment on behavior becomes weak, ineffectual, incapable of truly changing the nature of men.
When we talk about men in the past who lived for God, we forget that living for God just so happened to line up exactly with the efficient path to social reward. We forget that God was to them the justification for all social reinforcement and punishment. For the Amish, social status and marriageability are actually decided by righteousness — not with perfect accuracy, but more than 50%. Community participation is essential, and those who do not participate are completely excluded from the polis. These also happened to be the most fecund Americans.
Overall, I guess I totally disagree with the article’s framing of the issues. Masculinity, manliness, Incels? Red herrings. The issue is that men chase rewards, and the rewards today are disordered. In sum, there is less reward for marriage and honesty, there is more reward for pursuing entertainment alternatives, and there are less available women because they too choose disordered rewards. Whether men “behave like men” or whatever is completely erroneous and doesn’t matter.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Steelman: every librarian should be a wise old man who can tell you stories and has lists and lists of books for every possible personality type and interest. He should be on call throughout the day for anyone who wants to chat about a book or author. This would motivate children to read, and influence them toward good books!
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Tell me the most enjoyable day or moment you’ve had in 2023
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Just musing here, as I can’t offer personal experiences, but why not focus on all the (contingent) benefits and rewards that come with the “social game”? So, first, the pride in the mastery of the skill; the respect and/or envy of others; attention of the opposite sex. Secondly and secondarily, all of the things you can afford with more money; all the fun experiences you can afford with a great set of friends; all the boasting you can do on social media. I think if a man truly focuses on these things, his mind will naturally gravitate toward desiring them.
Perhaps, in actuality, social striving is exclusively for the superiority over others in social settings, and for boasting on social media, and that people genuinely seek these things with or without realizing (the fantasies run through the mind as second nature). An ultra-rationalist will have trouble here: observing his thoughts and inclinations, he sees these pursuits as immoral and neglects them — when in actuality they are essential to the “game” of living. Even if you were working in the most selfless charity trying to cure cancer, your real motivations will always be superiority over peers, the respect of others, the attention of beautiful prospective partners, and an assortment of contingent carnal pleasures. Why cure cancer if you won’t at least get to boast in front of some competitor or get the attention of some hot bald chick? Who would cure cancer without the possibility of commanding the attention of compatriots at a dinner party? The esteem of God is too far off to motivate us.
But anyway, if you’ve broken through the fourth wall of karmic contingencies, it’s hard to insert yourself back in. This is why societies used to distinguish the contemplative from the active life. I don’t think you can truly combine them.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Habit, mindset, and motivation are crucial skills that are not measured by standardized testing. I think it was June Huh who was picked up and mentored by a math genius simply because of these non-tested skills. And IIRC Scott has some article that mentions how the number 1 predictor of scientific output in the 19th century was whether they had met with another scientist.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Poor students as a cohort will be more helped by having the right stock of elites, who have had the best formative experiences in their formative years, than that 0.001% of them are chosen to attend an Ivy League
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
They only adjust for test scores. Higher income means you can afford expensive unpaid internships/experiences, have the connections for such things, can start businesses at a young age, more likely to pick up unique and interesting skills at a young age, etc. This study is really silly and pointless if not adjusting for this whole category of experience which makes an applicant more desirable. Are you telling me that a kid who spent three summers working with a noble prize winning scientist is less likely to be a good scientist? Doubt. Think of all the invisible habits and motivations learned from such experiences. Well, such things cost money. I know a family that sent three kids to Hotchkiss and then to Ivy League schools. That’s 50k a year. For Hotchkiss, in their “colleges listed in order of total number of matriculants”, Ivys are 5 of the top 8.
I guess “colleges are more likely to pick good applicants and good applicants cost money” is less interesting. The consequences of ignoring expensive experiences in accepting students is that wealthy parents will stop spending money on these experiences. Who does that help? I would at least prefer my rulers to have a lot of unique experiences.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Iran is sanctioned by the world, yet does have impressive scientific output: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20291-iran-is-top-of-the-world-in-science-growth.html
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Heaven is essentially defined as perfect felicity, though. And in any case you can imagine some post-life event which does make you feel better.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Counterpoint: Iran has iirc one of the highest levels of women in STEM
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Is religious faith necessary for maximizing happiness in a utilitarian framework? Consider these two thought experiments:
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Two people are on a deserted island without food or water. Logic tells them that they will surely die, and there is nothing they can do. One of them has faith, the other does not. The one with faith will believe in an ultimately good final destination, and may even believe (in the face of reason) that God will find a way to save him if He so pleases. Of the two dying men, only one man can maximize his happiness in his last days. The atheist, even the most poetic and nostalgic atheist, could not be as happy without a fully fleshed out and trained belief in a final ultimately good hereafter. Maybe he will remember the good in his life, but human happiness is optimal only with hope and desire (the happy man is the man desiring to meet his wife, not the man who remembers the wife who passed away).
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A man can bear extreme pain with positive feeling if he believes his pain is for a reason. For example, a soldier who knows that his death will save his loved ones and protect his community will die with a certain gladness, which exists in spite of and alongside the pain. Given this, consider a society in which everyone believes that all of their pain and misery is for an ultimate heroic purpose. This is a society in which everyone’s suffering is turned into something positive, and hence a society with greater sum total happiness.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Per the OP’s book, virtue signaling would not just be communicating a belief but communicating a positive value of yourself to others. And if this is done implicitly, then perhaps we can say that all morality hinges on signaling virtue. If that’s the case, our priority should be fleshing out good competitive parameters and norms for how we judge virtue to maximize moral actions.
In other words, it may be a bad idea to ignore the idea of signaling virtue (as an inherently virtue-less activity), and instead accept it as underlying all morality, in spite of what certain Christian teachings posit, and if develop a great criteria for judging real virtue from false, we would increase sum total virtue.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
It’s interesting to think that the Muslim world might be onto something by banning the female appearance competition spiral. If the thesis of the book is correct, then it’s never enough for a religion to say “don’t entertain vanity” — instead the religion must actively punish vanity and reinforce less vain competition. The fundamentalist Muslim world just says “every woman wears this plain garb, period”, and in one fell swoop they have immediately restore six hours a week of labor to every woman, billions of dollars kept in middle class pockets, improved grades, etc. Because now the marriage-driven and reputation-driven competition over appearances is eliminated, and women now are forced to look for other ways to compete against each other. An entire % of brain activity is redirected to something that is, at least in theory, better for everyone’s happiness.
Another question: is virtue signaling bad, or is it only bad when the signal lacks substance? If moral action is induced by a person displaying his own morality, then why not support that? Our concern then should just be ensuring that the “moral competition” has the correct exemplars and rules, so that the substance lines up with the competition. So a person who is being “Christ-like” by practicing humility would be, counterintuitively, obtaining reinforcement by his community which all believe in such a moral exemplar — and this would be good, and not bad, because it’s making the most of human nature.
So a lot of moral implications hinge on the question of this book: is human behavior, pessimistically and ultimately, always decided by what gives the most ”primal” rewards?
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
If we look at a wide cohort of “the socially deprived”, ie those who live in poverty and from single-parent homes, we see enormous differences in criminality according to ethnicity and subculture. If you compare two groups, both socially deprived, the Chinese immigrant or Indian immigrant is going to something like 1/50th as likely to be criminal than a Black American. They may be both socially deprived, they may live in the same neighborhood, but one group is going to be much more likely to be criminal, which means that “extent socially deprived” does not predict criminality. You can do this same analysis across nations. There are socially deprived teens in Japan and China; when you look at their criminality rate, it is nothing like Black American teens.
Next, we have to consider whether at-risk teens actually use the services offered to them such that we would expect if they desired improvement of character. This is surely not the case. The teens shooting each other in gangs do not take out books from the library or use any of the hundreds of thousands of resources they could access on a public library computer or device.
Finally, we can examine the actual soul of the criminal teens and young adults. Who are their idols and what do they value? Criminal rappers, and crime. No amount of “services offered” can change a culture that loves being criminals. Or rather, no one is willing to launch a real propaganda effort to manipulate the teens into hating crime / criminals and competing prosocially. I bet a Batman movie is going to be a better risk mitigation strategy than tens of millions of dollars in services the academics can cook up.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
How is Hinduism practiced in the day to day life of adherents? I see videos of Indians praying to certain gods. Is it like Greco Roman religion where they pray to request a favor, and offer a sacrifice if the favor is granted? Is it more like Islam where there is a reward in the afterlife?
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Originally, the priests of Catholicism were from the younger sons of families or the very poor. Only occasionally would someone who stood to inherit land become a priest, like Francis of Assisi. This made sense and was prosocial until (probably) the late Middle Ages.
Nowadays it’s not best for the religion, but at one point it was best for the religion.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
That’s supposed to be is, not isn’t. I’m mentioning because he is currently on trial for murders
It isn’t pulled for “violence” — mainstream rap with corporate sponsors has been about killing your enemies for decades and many of them have, in fact, killed their enemies, like “Melly” who is[*] currently on trial (the kids love him!). The problem is (1) the song supports the politically controversial right for conservatives to defend their community, (2) the music video highlights the 2020 riots that the Dems would like to totally sweep under the rug.
Which religion or culture do you think has the most satisfying solution to the Problem of Evil? Not just, “why does pain exist” but “why do diseases and catastrophes kill innocents”.
I don’t think Christianity nails it. A person is left either believing everything is God’s Will, or believing that a Perfect Being created Satan / disasters when he did not have to. It seems to me a much better alternative would be to state that there is a sovereign evil force, which does not originate from God, who is the cause of not just natural ills like disease and disaster but also ignorance, temptations, etc. This is more satisfying because we keep God purely good and wise, although we do this at the expense of his omnipotence. Ultimately any good explanation should be understood by a child, have a layer of complexity that an adult can appreciate, and allows a person to handle the existence of evil in an optimal way (either aversion or acceptance depending on scenario) while still loving God as before.
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