guajalote
3mo ago
Declined, happy: saw the writing on the wall, jumped ship at the right time
I think "sour grapes" is more like "declined, regretted, doubled down." You're doubling down on the decision you regret by claiming you wouldn't have been happy if you'd done things differently, the grapes would have been sour anyway.
Similarly, for "invested, regretted, doubled down" you could use the term "throwing good money after bad" or "sunk cost fallacy."
guajalote
6mo ago
I think Sam Harris would say both sides' theologically motivated claims are bullshit, but that support for Israel nevertheless makes sense from a utilitarian perspective.
guajalote
2mo ago
It seems to me that secular Judaism is more of an ethnic or cultural identity than a religion. But I don't really know enough about the topic to have an informed opinion. And I doubt that secular Judaism is actually capable of succeeding at the goal you mentioned in your OP: "to take ground among the growing percentage of persons who do not believe in god." It doesn't evangelize and doesn't seem capable of "taking ground."
I think most of them actually do believe that adultery and murder are wrong, etc.
They may agree with these statements, but they don't give any weight to the fact that they're part of the 10 commandments. And there are a number of commandments that atheists explicitly reject, such as the first four.
The atheists basically already believe the underlying moral framework of Christianity but don't identify their beliefs and behaviors as such.
They agree with certain aspects of the Christian moral framework, but reject many other aspects. And most of the aspects of the Christian moral framework they agree with are not specific to Christianity and are common in most cultures all over the worlds (e.g. murder and theft are bad).
What I don't understand is how she thought this one random dude isn't "really" non-binary on the basis of his toxic mansplaining, but a trans woman who commits a violent crime (up to and including raping a female person) is still a woman.
I think if you gave her a specific example of a trans person committing a sex crime, she would likely use the "they're not really trans" argument. But because you quoted statistics she can't do that as easily; it would imply large numbers of people who claim to be trans aren't really trans.
Also, as @Pynewacket alludes to, statistics don't hit "the feels" the way anecdotes do, so she didn't have the same emotional reaction to the statistics that she had in the case of her male NB friend. If she doesn't feel the same way about both situations, she won't interpret them as analogous and therefore won't feel the need to be logically consistent. This is a pretty common way for normal, average IQ people to behave. For example, people like this will often reject arguments by analogy they disagree with by saying something like "those two situations are totally different" without being able to articulate why they are different in any relevant way. They simply feel differently about the two situations and therefore refuse to see them as analogous.
guajalote
1yr ago
I had the same reaction to this post. OP's experiences are extremely atypical. I'm 6'3", in good shape, and conventionally attractive. I'm married now but was always plenty romantically successful when I was single. Still, I've been approached romantically by no more than five or six women in my life (I'm 35). Even when I was approached, it was always indirect and more of a hint than an actual approach. One time a girl asked me out on a date, but even then she didn't call it a date and I didn't realize that's what it was until it was in progress (I thought she wanted to get coffee to discuss some things about an organization we were both members of). And these women who approached me were, to put it bluntly, not as good looking as the women I would normally date. If you're a man getting regularly approached by good looking women, you're an extremely rare outlier.
guajalote
5mo ago
There is nothing new about that. Even in the Bronze Age, it was true that a house made of wood was a lot more valuable than a bunch of logs lying by the side of the road.
The only thing that's new is the magnitude of the effect. Raw materials represent an ever dwindling fraction of the value of the good.
But I would argue that in a sense, the contract law is actually itself quite tangible because cops and their guns are very tangible.
Sure, but once you start counting the cops as tangible now you're agreeing with my point and negating the premise of the original argument I was responding to: people and the activities they engage in are far more important than natural resources to the wealth of a nation.
guajalote
7mo ago
I think it's a feature, not a bug, in more ways than you're giving it credit for. Saying stuff that makes the other person slightly uncomfortable is an important component of flirting for both sexes. It's a way of testing the other person a little to see how they perform.
It's similar to how a job interviewer might ask "what are your three greatest weaknesses?" That's a completely batshit insane thing to ask in the context of a normal conversation, but it's typical in an interview. The point is to see how the other person responds to an uncomfortable question - can they stay focused and give a socially appropriate response instead of getting flustered?
A woman saying "I hate your first date idea" is basically the same thing. It's (often) not a literal statement. It's about seeing the quality of the response from the other person and communicating that she isn't desperate for a date. "You're scared you'll lose" is basically the same thing. It's a little jab back designed to get a reaction and communicate a certain sense of aloofness. It's a delicate dance because you have to push a little but not push too much, and everyone will screw it up at some point given a long enough timeframe.
guajalote
1yr ago
Even if I thought there was a 99% chance of AI destroying humanity, creating a massive totalitarian world-state that tracks all private behavior and is willing to start nuclear wars to enforce its power doesn't seem like an improvement. What Yud is proposing is probably not possible, but if it is possible it's one of the worst futures I can imagine for the human race.
guajalote
9mo ago
I think this is the best way to keep politics out of gaming - just don't reference anything remotely political and let people do whatever they want.
Also, the game is based on 5th edition DnD, which is a fantasy setting where basically anything is possible. A high level wizard can easily change their gender or species if they so choose simply by casting a spell. A 20th level wizard can cast True Polymorph on himself and become a dragon (permanently if he so chooses). Or he can cast Magic Jar and inhabit someone else's body (permanently if he so chooses). Real-world concepts of gender identity barely even make sense in this sort of setting.
guajalote
1yr ago
All of the output I've ever seen from ChatGPT (for use cases such as this) just strikes me as... textbook. Not bad, but not revelatory. Eminently reasonable.
There was a post from Scott, can't recall which one at the moment, where he made a point along the lines of "maybe the reason therapy seems to help some people a great deal while not helping others at all is because some people benefit from hearing reasonable, common sense feedback, whereas that kind of feedback is completely obvious to other people." Sort of like how some people lack an internal monologue, others lack an internal voice of common sense and reason. I wonder if that's what's going on here.
guajalote
5mo ago
What kind of world do you imagine where cultural change doesn't happen? Even if all migration was completely halted worldwide, the internet is constantly transmitting culture worldwide. The kind of world you seem to want to live in would require a literal return to the dark ages. And of course cultural mixing was still happening back then too. The reason we're speaking a language without gendered nouns is because Viking settlers "corrupted" English. The reason I used the word "do" in the first sentence of this post is because Celtic languages "corrupted" English.
I doubt it contains many rare earths!
Most valuable things, including the examples you raised in your post (CPUs, GPUs, drugs, and surgical equipment) don't contain rare earth metals. Of course, rare earth metals are indeed important and I am not claiming otherwise. But you'll notice that the countries with large rare earth metal deposits aren't necessarily the richest countries on earth -- some of them are among the poorest. This seems to be in tension with your claim that the wealth of nations is derived from natural resources.
All kinds of 'coordinators', 'inspectors' and 'consultants' that didn't seem to be needed at all. What is the point of them, then? No real wealth is being produced from people who make others fill out forms, check paperwork and refuse approvals for other people to go and create wealth.
The jobs that are truly not needed are, by and large, jobs that exist as a result of useless government regulations. Either government jobs, or private sector "compliance" jobs. It's true that many of these specific types of "service sector" jobs are dead weight and serve no purpose. You have correctly observed that government regulations are often pointless or counterproductive.
It does not follow, however, that service sector jobs are generally useless or fail to create wealth. In fact, as I laid out above, the vast majority of the wealth of modern economies derives from service sector jobs. Just not the specific class of useless service sector jobs you have identified.
The EU couldn't manage to send a million artillery shells to Ukraine, North Korea could.
The simple reason is that NK has a bunch of artillery shells lying around, whereas the EU doesn't. This is a pretty extreme case of special pleading. If we're talking about literally anything other than artillery shells (cell phones, eggs, insulin, toilets, tractors, etc.) the EU has far more of it and far higher quality versions of it than NK. And if the EU wanted or needed to, it could surely close the artillery gap with NK as well. This has almost nothing to do with natural resources and everything to do with intangibles like human capital, rule of law, markets, etc.
guajalote
5mo ago
It exists on real physical machines that exist at specific places in the real world.
Add up the cost of all the raw materials present in those physical machines and you'll get something on the order of $10. All the additional value and wealth represented by those machines and the programs they contain comes from intangible things.
guajalote
1yr ago
That midjourney stuff is utter pabulum. It's only beautiful by the most shallow and insipid standards of beauty. The kind of "beauty" that would rank Thomas Kinkaide's paintings above Rembrandt's, because the former is bright and sparkly while the latter is brown and muddy. Or the kind of "beauty" that would consider N*SYNC's music superior to Bach's because the former's is free of dissonance and the later's is rife with it.
I don't particularly like the human art you linked either, but at least the artists are trying to do something interesting. We can do better than ugly modern art without resorting to saccharine crap and calling it beauty.
AI gives people what it gets positive feedback from. It gives people what they want.
Marvel movies and McDonalds chicken nuggets are examples of giving people what they want. Mass appeal produces boring hyperpalatability, not greatness.
guajalote
5mo ago
Completely true. Most animals, even monkeys, have a hard time understanding pointing because it requires a pretty sophisticated theory of mind. Dogs are one of the few species that can consistently understand pointing.
guajalote
3mo ago
I don’t see why you should agree. If you’re not a utilitarian you can say “people getting more of what they value” can be a bad thing if their values are confused, perverse or evil.
Right, this is why I said "generally tends towards."
For instance, let's say you're a deontologist and your morality consists of the maxim "obey the ten commandments." If someone is dirt poor, they have to do what it takes to survive, they have little freedom. Maybe they are forced to steal or kill to survive, thereby breaking the ten commandments. As people get wealthier and have more options, so they have more freedom to choose to follow the ten commandments. This doesn't mean they necessarily will do so, but it means that they are more able to do so. They have more capacity to be morally good actors under any moral system because they have more freedom of choice.
guajalote
1yr ago
Trump engenders hatred and revulsion unmatched by anyone in my lifetime, the source of that hatred is his 2016 election win, and that people like Bragg can't help themselves but act on it.
What's missing from your argument is an explanation of why Trump engenders unprecedented "hatred and revulsion." The explanation cannot be merely that he won the 2016 election, since many of the other people you mention (Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden) also won presidential elections.
The standard pro-Trump explanation for why he's hated is something like "he's the only one who isn't corrupt and won't do what the deep state wants." The standard anti-Trump explanation is something like "Trump has shown a unique willingness to violate democratic norms, such as by calling on Russia to release hacked emails or stating that both the 2016 and 2020 election results were rigged."
It seems like the whole argument pivots around this "why is he hated" question. If Trump is in fact uniquely willing to violate democratic norms, it seems reasonable for his opponents to take issue with that and to argue he has forfeited the right to avail himself of those norms for protection. You and VDH raise good arguments for why the norm of "don't prosecute former presidents" exists, but many similar arguments could be made for why the norm of "presidents gracefully concede elections and don't challenge the results" exists. In game theory terms, if Trump consistently choses the "defect" option, it may be the optimal strategic choice for his opponents to do the same.
I have to say I don't find this line of argument persuasive at all. Your arguments could just as easily used to justify and support youth transition. "Given all these massive biological and social differences between men and women, it's critical you socially transition your five-year-old as soon as possible and get them on blockers and hormones so you can minimize the mismatch between who they feel they are and how they are perceived by others."
To me it's the opposite argument that's far more persuasive: society today treats men and women pretty much equally and allows them to express themselves how they choose. Given this freedom and flexibility, there's no reason why a boy who wants to wear dresses and play with Barbies needs to become a girl. Just let him be a boy who wears dresses and plays with Barbies. Teach your son he can be as masculine or feminine as he wants to be without getting hung up on sex and gender.
guajalote
1yr ago
The problem with the nanobot argument isn't that it's impossible. I'm convinced a sufficiently smart AI could build and deploy nanobots in the manner Yud proposes. The problem with the argument is that there's no need to invoke nanobots to explain why super intelligent AI is dangerous. Some number of people will hear "nanobots" and think "sci-fi nonsense." Rather than try to change their minds, it's much easier to just talk about the many mundane and already-extant threats (like nukes, gain of function bioweapons, etc.) that a smart AI could make use of.
guajalote
6mo ago
Item 1 seems impossible to realistically enforce. If someone posts a selfie that has a pride flag in the background, is that political? If someone argues that the Bible forbids homosexuality, is that political?
guajalote
9mo ago
The system can tolerate a lot of corruption, but Hunter has just been so incredibly sloppy and his corruption is so undeniably blatant that it represents a bridge too far for a lot of people.
I think this is basically the same reason why Trump was and is subject to such extraordinary scrutiny. His level of corruption is in the same ballpark as other recent presidents, but he is too sloppy and is unable or unwilling to correctly play the plausible deniability game.
guajalote
2mo ago
Why do you care if Bob screws up? Obviously Charlie doesn't care, at least not enough to do anything. Just let Bob screw up. If it's clear that Bob "owns" a different set of responsibilities than you do, his screw ups should only reflect badly on him and might even make you look good by comparison. Either Charlie will wise up and do something about it or he won't. Either way not your problem.
Also I would consider looking for a new place to work, since poorly managed businesses usually don't do well in the long run.
guajalote
3mo ago
You are wrong about the medical spending
I think he is wrong about net tax revenue as well. Something like 60% of Americans receive more in transfers than they pay in taxes over their lifetimes, i.e. they are a net drain on government revenue. Plus, I would wager that lower income people are more likely to not wear seatbelts (and drive less safe cars in general) which would skew this even further.
guajalote
1yr ago
I wonder how Tibetans would respond on a survey if you showed them the video and asked them whether anything sexual is going on. I'm not sure what answer you would get, but it wouldn't surprise me if they overwhelmingly said "no."
I have been to Tibet, but I'm by no means any kind of expert on Tibetan culture. Still, it's extremely obvious to a casual observer that standards for platonic male behavior are way different over there. If you see two men or boys together they will almost certainly be holding hands or have their arms around each other. It was very unusual to see two males together not making physical contact with each other. It's clear that this is seen as completely normal and expected platonic behavior and not sexual or romantic at all.
Also the tongue thing, as you mention. Everybody sticks out their tongues at each other as a sign of greeting or (platonic) affection. I never saw any tongue sucking going on, but it wouldn't surprise me if the average Tibetan perceived this kind of thing as a form of "platonic goofing around" rather than the highly sexualized act we see it as in the west.
I clerked for a federal judge and I agree with your assessment, but it doesn't change the fact that a broad gag order has constitutional problems.
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