georgioz
8mo ago
It may be statistically correct, but it doesn't justify restricting my liberty to make my own choices.
Of course it may justify it, there are situations where your choices are limited exactly on these grounds - like with myriads of other illegal drugs and many other illegal activities, that limit your liberty to make many choices. What are you talking about.
georgioz
9mo ago
Victimless crimes that harm no one should not be crimes.
This is just a slogan, not an argument. It is exactly what I mentioned with the first principles thinking. Plus it is interesting that you say this right after you talk about how jury can convict somebody who did something criminal under influence. Victimless crime, right?
There is something to the concept of the "woke right". To simplify, they accept all the woke theories, but just switch the morality on its head - sometimes trying to even to flip the narrative of oppression. Yes, men did form patriarchy to oppress women and it was is a good thing - just look how shit the world looks like when they rule now. We should go back and repeal the 19th. Yes white supremacy is the boogeyman that woke activists describe. And we can become powerful again and rule the world, even woke people envy that power and want to take it for themselves. Why give them that?
This was always the problem with any victim-victimized ideology, especially if it wins the culture war: why assume that people will sympathize with victims? It is just slave morality, embrace the narrative and reclaim the power from the rabble.
georgioz
1yr ago
Of course I do understand that what follows is a lot more complicated, but I think that in general medicine should always be driven by primum non nocere - first do no harm principle and I would be much more strict in enforcing this. So for instance transhumanist things like most forms of esthetic medicine such as breast implants, trans surgeries, contraception pills, sterilizations, euthanasia, abortion and other similar or procedures or drugs would be considered outside of core publicly funded medicine. It could still be provided but under different scope let's say akin to getting tattoo or going to nail saloon and thus it should be automatically clear to the customer that the primary goal is unrelated to certain standard of this no-harm principle and that he or she should accept the risks as well as costs associated with it.
As for the part where people do not follow the medical plan or even actively sabotage it, which then requires even more resources from the system, I think having a system of deductibles like let's say in Singapore can partially resolve the problem. So the principle is that state pays for your medical bills because it is a prosocial thing to do in order to have healthy population but only up to the point. A level up from that is to involve immediate family so for instance part of the costs will be coming from their savings so that the immediate family (children, spouse, parents) has incentive to pressure that person to do something about themselves or they will be at least partially held accountable.
Basically all the stereotypes about X or Y European culture being rude/unfriendly/etc. are false.
Interestingly enough, I have exactly the counter view of US culture, especially related to restaurant service. I find US waiters as rude. First they impose themselves upon me as if I care about their name or their stupid questions about where I am from or why am I in the US - as if I cannot tell that they don't give a shit. Then they constantly interrupt me and my friends with inane sales pitches - and if god forbid we go under some invisible sum of $spending per minute, then they actually slam the bill on the table and just kick me out as if I am some hobo. So much for friendliness. To me US waiters are bunch of fake stupid clowns putting on clownshow for US patrons, who for some reason like that shit.
Nevertheless despite this rant, I put up with it when I am overseas and act accordingly with fake smiles and everything - each country has its own thing and US people like their waiters to be clowns for some reason, it is what it is. I am not there to reeducate them about proper continental way of "invisible" manners of waiting staff. But it would be good to have some basic respect for other cultures as well and not take your own manners as the etalon everybody in the world should aspire to. For instance Japanese people are polite, they do not like to be touched and in general like their space. People in Brasil on the other hand love to touch each other, so if somebody comes to me and taps me on my back he means no disrespect or sexual assault or whatnot.
If you are such an expert, you know about Suwałki Gap. Russia could invade Poland using Ukrainian stormtrooperzz in order to protect the 40 miles gap while simultaneously marching into Baltics thus connnecting enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast with motherland, achieving its strategic goals. Exactly the reasoning why they invaded Ukraine to protect Crimea.
And what would be the response from NATO? Article 5 is weak,
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
So yeah, in alternative universe Russia gets Ukraine, invades Poland and Baltics in 2025 in order to protect Russian minority from “nazis”, and makes it fait accompli - just like with Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast and Zaporizhzhia oblast and Kherson oblast, that Russia already officially annexed. Germans would send helmets to Poland and US agonizes if sending Himars can cause WW3. Was not NATO expansion in 2002 grave mistake provoking Russians anyways? Nobody has to do anything.
georgioz
9mo ago
Sure, but this makes my point - it was an analogy. We do not legalize murder just looking at what murderers have to go through in prison. We look on societal impact and other things. So the question is again: what good will legalizing and normalizing weed bring to the country? To me there are no upsides and only downsides, like Scott and others now also admit.
georgioz
9mo ago
It's not such an easy to do thing as with breathalyzer, in fact legalization of marihuana makes drug testing for manufacturers very hard, as they can no longer have zero tolerance policy as it is hard to analyze if you had a dose an hour or a day ago.
But again, this is even besides the point. What are those incredible positives this legalization brings to the society?
georgioz
9mo ago
most Christians I've known are content to live and let live
I have no problem with live and let live, but they should keep their heresies outside of Catholic church. Catholics acknowledge three pillars of their faith: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Sacred Magisterium as opposed to protestant sola scriptura. Catholics accept the authority of the church, this free-for-all shit that is happening in constantly fracturing protestant churches so they can just vibe with Jesus on personal level does not fly.
georgioz
1yr ago
This pattern of reaction is disconcerting. We live in a world of complex issues that demand thoughtful consideration, yet it appears that a significant portion of discourse is reduced to emotional outbursts. It's really hard for me not to feel disheartened or even adopt a misanthropic view when I see things like this.
I just really want to know if you are aware of what you did here. You are against "emotional outbursts" because they make you "feel disheartened" and move you towards misanthropy AKA hatred of humans? Does it not "feel" a little bit too melodramatic and emotional to you, the supposed rationalist?
The "analysis" does not really depend on that single "sentence" - although I also think calling it just as a sentence is uncharitable. It is not some random sentence from Sequences, The OP called is as a credo, it is oneliner that is tied to rationalism and Yudkowsky especially.
What I was getting at was the overall tone of some of the rationalist writing that I think "the credo" shows very well: it is edgy sounding guru oneliners that are sometimes literally used in normal conversation - the credo in particular I think was for instance said by Aella in her interview with Lex Fridman unironically.
I also admit that I am maybe too harsh, maybe I am taking it all too uncharitably. It is just internet infotainment, there is not that much going on and rationalists do have also oneliners like "it all adds up to normalcy". And then one reminds himself that normalcy includes saving ants, or AI apocalyptic doomerism and then I am not as sure what charitable take on rationalist utilitarianism should look like when taken as an actual moral philosophy that is adopted up by the unwashed masses.
Also as a closing point, I thought in this manner due to the fact that the OP described how normal people including Marxists do not adhere to the credo. I found it paradoxical as I do not find rationalists strictly adhering to the credo either, in that sense they do have much more in common with Marxists: they do have materialist utilitarian moral philosophical system (or one can almost dare say theology) build up ground up from first principles with some transhumanist transformative project. It is a philosophy created outside of mainstream, a system created by outsider "basement dwelling" philosopher with prolific writing and slight ties to rich donors. I wanted to point out this myopia to OP.
"Dangerous information exists" isn't incompatible with the idea that you should try to believe true things
The credo is much stronger than that, it puts the Truth as ultimate value, not as just something aspiring or something one "tries" to adhere to but abandons for something else in presence of "dangerous" information. The credo is not "that which can be destroyed by the truth should be unless it is dangerous to do so". Of course you can argue what you do, but then there is no need for edgy sounding guru lines like the credo. You would then just have ordinary thing like "try to tell the truth whenever you can" - it almost sounds something people like Peterson could say actually.
Nothing you said here is even remotely like belief in untruth. Trust authority figures? Also a means of determining the truth, because the whole reason you're trusting them is that you think they're right!
Of course it does. I can say that I believe New York Times or Eliezer Yudkowsky or The Pope or I can trust the Science. If you pick up bundle of beliefs some of them are for sure going to be untrue. This is a common way how people get to believe untrue things. And this is also the way rationalists pick up their beliefs, unlike some scientific sounding first principles reasoning. So again, there is not that much of a difference between rationalists and just regular informed people, in fact from what I noticed rationalists are putting too much faith into their own thought leaders.
That's just common sense!
Slow down, we are talking about rationalists, I am not that sure how far the appeal to common sense can carry you here. Again, I am maybe too harsh as most rationalists are just normal people who actually have some common sense, except that the whole rationalist ethos is about overcoming commonsensical reasoning on many things and there really are some people over there that can take these things maybe too literally. That's my whole point.
Seriously though, there's whole reams of decision theory stuff about how you shouldn't lie!
Except if it is dangerous to tell the truth, we already covered that, right?
I think that all this language about how one is rationalist but one should also put numerical credences (ideally down to decimals) to one's beliefs and how one should be careful about context of information and source of my views and how in the end it should all kind of feel "normal" - it all is the usual way of how rationalists say a simple thing everybody knows in a complicated way. Man, practice some source hygiene, work on your thinking and trust your intuition a bit. On most beliefs one would be in line with majority of informed people.
Paradoxically it is always the weird shit where rationalists are touting their supposed first principle revolutionary approach, where they are espousing mantras like that which can be destroyed by the truth should be. I am talking about things like saving ants or taking drugs or defending some sexual deviancy or other defense of some weird shit that nerds really want to rationalize. Guess what, my intuition screams "red alert".
georgioz
1yr ago
I do not have interest going into technicalities. Leveraging my position and asking my employer to hire somebody I fuck is nepotism, period end of story. Arguments involving softening the language by euphemisms like "spousal hiring", defending it on the grounds of values of family formation like somebody above or digging up these other examples like remote work are unnecessary sophistry.
If he tries to secure larger paycheck, then I see nothing wrong. If he tries to secure hot assistant that will give him a blowjob whenever he feels like it or he requires that university signs contract with his brother's firm for security services or that the university hires his nephew for new research vacancy - then yes, I think those concessions are wrong. I hope I will not have to go into the weeds of why I see it as wrong.
What is stopping me is overall morality and being judged by peers, sometimes even written ethical rules. But what amazes me is that simple renaming of a thing gets so far: it is not bad nepotism what we are doing, we are only doing "spousal hiring". Renaming things seems like a really powerful social technology of how to render written rules moot, and judging by reactions here it also works on people. Awesome.
georgioz
2yr ago
It seems like a noble sentiment on the surface, but it does not seem that great when you are hiding in the bushes while the enemies behead your brothers and rape your sisters and aunts. This high-minded morality to me is just a sign of privilege, it is easy to pretend to be "moral" if one is not present with tough choices
Today most Ivy league educated lower elites have no moral framework and tend to waver between expediency and utilitarianism. Even when people claim to be deontologists, they rarely have the intellectual chops to justify their actions by a categorical imperative and are mostly going by gut.
I agree, however another point is how proud these people are for openly standing on one side of the conflict. It is seen as a moral and just thing to lie and decieve in order to "win". Or to be more precise and trying to walk in their shoes- in their minds it is not lying and decieving, nato really. They are doing the good work. In the past I had a thought experiment of insane Christian who decided to kill babies right after they were baptized. In mind of this Christian he is on a mission to fill the heaven with innocent souls and he is the only willing to pay the price of eternal damnation. He was the only "true" Christian who has the guts and moral chutzpah to pay the price unlike those other weakling wannabe Christians. He was willing to pay the ultimate price of his immortal soul to "do good". Of course the question is if he really is in the right or hopelessly in the wrong. For me it takes huge heaps of arrogance, narcissism and and of course also psychopathy to pull something like that off. Additionally it is a strategy that brings huge cost to oneself which makes it very hard to correct due to sunk cost fallacy coupled with consistency fallacy.
Only we now live in a society where instead of condemnation of similar despicable practices and as you say, willingness to throw away the whole game by failing to process ones behaviour through categorical imperative - we now have some new morality praising such destructive behavior. There are definitely some psychological, social and moral angles to process here and as I say I am not quite there yet to have some stable opinion on it.
I think this depends on what you view as "role model". Would you for instance say that Andrew Tate is a role model? Even if I disagree with his prescriptions, I would definitely agree that he is a role model for large number of young men, even though he is incessantly criticized from left and right, often more from especially socially conservative right. But in my eyes he is still a role model influencing millions of young men toward his vision of society, manhood and masculinity. It is the same here with what the OP talks about. A carefree hermit surfer/pineapple gatherer is in this case a role model for sizeable chunk of population despite the fact that people like you criticize it.
The key issue here is that it is hard to criticize any of this from the standpoint of prevailing culture that puts individual rights, personal and body autonomy on the pedestal. It is almost impossible to mount effective counteroffensive against these alternative lifestyles. What if somebody wants to work part time and pour his attention toward his hobbies and enjoying his life? He is just living his life and he can leverage the modern live and let live ehtos in the same way this ethos is used to defend all sorts of now normalized alternative lifestyles such as childlessness or DINK life.
georgioz
17d ago
Trucks still have legal limit of 45 seconds to overtake each other even in Germany. Which of course can seem like a lifetime for impatient people on the highway.
Also a bit related to #5, commercial trucks should not be cutting smaller vehicles off, with or without signaling, ever, and I do have a lot of sympathy for people who speed up into their spaces to avoid having stuff flung into their windshield from a poorly secured truck, even hay is pretty annoying, but the gravel trucks have big signs saying "not responsible for cracked windshields," and indeed it's pretty hard to prove to the police. I once had a crowbar fly off a truck and impale my windshield, nearly killing the front passenger.
This is a result of stupid regulation - at least in EU - where truck drivers are subject to constant surveillance where their telemetry is recorded an they have to show it to random inspection at any time. Also they have different speed limits depending on cargo, mostly between 80 to 90 km/h on highways. Additionally they have strict limits when it comes to maximum time they can drive and how much rest they need to have regularly. If you are a truck driver who is stuck behind another truck driving 6 miles per hour slower, in the end this may end up with you not reaching your destination today, meaning being stuck on a highway for extended time and not making it home.
Also I am not the truck driver, but have some respect for them. They make our society work especially in times of Amazon and international trade. I think it distasteful for people to get angry at them, when it is the rules that makes their lives shitty.
Also, a lot of this could be resolved by increasing stupid 70mph speed limit (113km/h) on highways to 80 or 85 as in Europe, so you can catch up if you are inconvenienced for 30 seconds behind a truck or other vehicle.
georgioz
1mo ago
It does not matter, the genie is out of the bottle and people will not believe the government. In fact I think that in this case your argument is completely the other way around. People advocating for lockdowns as an open policy is similar to somebody making apologetics for Nazis. Maybe their government has been wrong when it comes to Jews. Mistakes were made and German government apologized for it. But who knows. Maybe sometimes in the future there will be a need for government to lock some portion of the population into concentration camps. We do not want to have such a strict no more Holocaust policy. What if utilitarian calculation of government experts shows that locking people against their will and marking them as pariahs with martial laws and all that is necessary and will save a lot more people?
A VAT applies equally to foreign and domestic goods. It is not similar to a tariff.
It is similar to tariff, as VAT on foreign goods is used to subsidize domestic production. Revenue from VAT is used to subsidize domestic infrastructure, healthcare and other benefits for domestic workers and companies, or they can even provide direct subsidies. None of these are available for factories or workers from foreign manufacturers who get nothing from VAT imposed on goods they produce. So in the end domestic producers reap more advantage compared to what they pay as a tax.
Whether applying a retaliatory tariff (harming both sides) in order to kick the first side into dropping their tariff is a quantitative question that can easily differ from one situation to the next.
Okay, so what are these quantities and what are costs or benefits to that? If retaliatory tariffs are beneficial then under what conditions? What if these conditions are met when you are the one enacting the tariff as first mover - should you do it?
georgioz
8mo ago
Since you mentioned athlecisism, IQ is a score that takes several activities - imagine running, lifting weights, foot-rope drill and maybe throwing a stone. Then average it to some score hoping you captured something like athleticism.
For IQ test the aim is to measure this underlying intellectual ability, the famous psychometric g score/factor of "general intelligence". Individual tests like matrices or vocabulary or object assembly have correlation between 0.6-0.8 with g, but neither of them is perfect correlate. In fact it is harder to say what this general IQ is supposed to be, similarly if let's say professional weightlifter is more athletic than a professional marathon runner.
Maybe you reacted to dozens of "rude" cues of waiters who want to remove you from the table - after paying the tip of course - so they can sit down somebody else who will consume some more. If you ignore those hints, then the service can get really nasty. Try it sometimes.
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