hooser
6mo ago
I'm fine with accepting that Saul of Tarsus is not only a historical figure, but that the legends about him are sufficiently close to what happened to that figure in reality (+/- miracles). I am fine with having a high likelihood of a historical Jesus, and that this man was an object of a cult following, though I find it unlikely that the historical Jesus would match the Jesus of Christian mythology to any reasonable degree. I doubt the existence of a historical Judas, he's too convenient as a one-stop-scapegoat literary character.
For the purposes of the game hydroacetylene proposed, I am primarily interested in the literary characters of Jesus, Paul, and Judas, and I would consider their historicity only because it makes the read-the-Bible-as-if-it-has-unreliable-narrator more plausible. They can then write some "tell it like it really was" books.
hooser
8mo ago
I am skeptical that IQ tests measure what we think they measure in developing countries. Even those tests that pertain to be context-free and that don't require one to be able to read. It takes intelligence and cunning to hunt and forage, or to run a homestead farm, or to navigate life in a shanty-town. I think that an American with IQ of 70 and a Papua New Guinean with an IQ of 70 differ greatly in how well they can take care of themselves.
The US Army doesn't specify the IQ cutoff; some people estimate it at 83 (that's what I remember from McNamamara's Folly. Standard deviation of IQ is 15, mean 100, so below 83 is 11.5%.
The US Army by law restricts the employment of the next 20 percentiles (11th--31st) to be no higher than 20% of the applicant pool:
The number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in any armed force during any fiscal year whose score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the tenth percentile and below the thirty-first percentile may not exceed 20 percent of the total number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in such armed force during such fiscal year.
The corresponding IQs would be in the 83-93 range.
hooser
9mo ago
How about:
Among men, men get status through demonstrating situational-appropriate competence. When the group already has a clearly established hierarchy of competence, men defer along the hierarchical lines. If hierarchy is not yet established, or new evidence suggests that the established hierarchy is no longer deserved, men jostle for status primarily in confrontational style that calls into question the level of competence of the one who slipped up as compared to the challenger.
Do you agree with this generalization? If not, what part would you change?
hooser
9mo ago
Because none of the trivialities of my day mean anything to anyone here I'll get to the point.
I love hearing the trivialities, you tell them well and they provide a humanizing dimension to the rest of your post. And this particular post is all about the challenges people have in humanizing their professional interactions, so very apropos.
I see that HR gets little love here, so I will defend them. The purpose of HR is to protect the company from the heat of human friction (metaphorically speaking). That means defusing interpersonal conflict when it may get out of hand, not escalating it.
For the most part, employees deal with normal interpersonal conflicts themselves, as people do. But occasionally someone can't, and it helps to have a clear process an employee can turn to. That's what a complaint to HR does, it starts this process. Someone from HR then hears that employee out, then thanks the employee for bringing the matter to HR's attention and assures her that the matter is handled. (The manner of that handling is confidential, but they'll assure her it's appropriate and in line with the company policy.)
HR does not burn a valuable manager over one temp worker's complaint for what she sees as a deviation from professional behavior.
hooser
3mo ago
I would expect the modern-day equivalent to have more pop-psych, like "What doesn't kill you still gives you PTSD". Or maybe eco-friendly, like "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints".
hooser
4mo ago
I hear you and sympathize. Do feel free to rant, no matter what you decide to do. Sometimes a rant is just what's needed to realize that you're not happy with the way things are and are on your way to constructively consider your options.
hooser
4mo ago
But how would that even work, with a single stone in one throw? Does the stone ricochet off of the first-hit bird to the second-hit bird? Or does the stone go bullet-like through the first bird and hit the bird behind it?
hooser
5mo ago
If I use AI for critique and not for writing, would you still expect disclosure? Like, here's an example of AI use:
Me: I uploaded a draft of my thoughts on X. Give me a thoughtful critique.
Claude: What great thoughts on X! Now that ass-kissing is out of the way, here are some critiques. (Bullet points, bullet points.)
(Version A)
Me: I want to incorporate your ninth critique. I uploaded a revised draft. Give feedback that will help me improve on this point.
Claude: That's a unique take on the subject! Here are some ideas to strengthen your argument: (Bullet points, bullet points.)
(Version B)
Me: I want to incorporate your ninth critique. Rewrite my draft to do so.
Claude: I will rewrite your draft: (Writes an academic article in LaTeX.)
Version A is more like asking a buddy for feedback and then thinking some more about it, while Version B is like asking that buddy to do my thinking for me. Even in an academic setting, Version A is not only fine but encouraged (except on exams), while Version B is academic dishonesty.
I would like the norm on TheMotte to be against Version B, but fine with Version A. Would you agree? And would you still like a disclosure for Version A, and in what form? (E.g., "I used DeepSeek r1 for general feedback", or "OpenAI o3 gave me pointers on incorporating humor", or "Warning: this product was packaged in the same facility that asks AI for feedback".)
hooser
6mo ago
A quick cross-cultural comparison: Wife-beating is common in Eastern-European cultures (say, 1-in-10 couples). A stereotypical Russian phrase, uttered by a Russian wife about to get beaten, is "Just don't punch the stomach!". It's reasonable to suppose that, in the past, the rate at which pregnant women got beaten was higher than now.
I recon that the force experienced from a car deceleration is smaller than an occasional drunken punch on the womb.
hooser
6mo ago
Day 14 part 2 asked to find the first output configuration containing a christmas tree. This is essentially impossible to solve independently for an LLM since the problem didn't even specify what the christmas tree would look like and there are many plausible ways to draw a christmas tree with pixel art.
I thought about how to solve it in an automated way, and came out with the following approach. I figured that any recognizable pixel art of a christmas tree will have a lot of straight lines or filled-in spaces. So:
-
For a configuration of robots, count the number of robots that have two other robots right next to them in a straight line. (E.g., for a robot in position (x,y), are there also robots on (x-1,y-1) and (x+1,y+1)?)
-
Collect this measure for n-th move, for n from 0 to 10000.
-
Submit n with the highest measure.
(If that's not the answer: repeat for another 10000 moves, etc. Turned out this wasn't necessary.)
hooser
7mo ago
Oh I see. Yes, I think so. Many of the congregations around where I live are very welcoming of newcomers, and seem even more so with people who were never religious. The devout protestants I know seem especially susceptible to simple redemption narratives ("I grew up an atheist, but now..."), and would have fewer questions for someone like that who wants to join their congregation. With someone like me, they'd want to know how I came to grok that the denomination of my youth isn't the right Christian faith while theirs is.
hooser
7mo ago
and we have not managed to get past the standing quietly for two hours part of being to church with young children.
Huh, the Sunday service is only two hours now! I remember it being three. (I love being old enough to say "back in my day...")
Fortunately church people are very understanding of kid's limitations. I remember the parents taking their toddlers outside (and, discreetly, their tweens as well) once their progeny started fidgeting.
hooser
7mo ago
VA had a hiring spree last year, in large part because of the expanding benefits from the PACT Act.
Your impression of a hiring freeze remains partly correct, because VA has budget shortfalls and plans to lay off staff:
More recently, though, the VA told Congress it now expects to have about 5,000 more employees in VHA next year compared to this year. That's created a new problem, as the VA is warning it is facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall.
I suspect that VA tends to paint a bleak picture to Congress as a standard operating procedure, in hopes of getting more funding. Though my nephew assures me from his VA experience that more funding would not go amiss.
So back to my off-the-cuff idea of importing doctors: my point is that any VA hospital that finds it challenging to attract a decent US doctor ought to be able to do what the private sector does. Right now, the VA follows AMA's standards, which require any non-US-trained doctor to do 3+ years of residency (plus other things) before they can practice medicine in US. Residency slots are, apparently, the bottleneck for US doctor supply in the first place.
My question is: just how crucial is it for someone already practicing as a doctor in a French or German hospital to do 3+ years of residency in US?
hooser
7mo ago
I would love to know why you don't think it wouldn't help with the shortage. I figure that, having a shortage of doctors willing to work in VA, combined with doctors from other countries who are willing to work at VA because it will gain them the higher US pay + a path to US citizenship, would indeed alleviate shortage of doctors at VA. However, I am not a medical doctor, so what am I missing?
hooser
7mo ago
Thanks for sharing the study, it is really very good! Reading it was a Sunday well-spent.
The conclusions that the authors reach have a lot of nuance, and help explain both why so many people have negative impressions of NPs while others have positive impressions: the variability of the productivity[1] within each profession dwarfs the difference between the average NP and the average doctor.
The other useful estimate from the study: randomly pick an NP and a Doctor working for VA emergency department; 6 out of 10 times, the Doctor is more productive, 4 out of 10 times, the NP is.
I understand that VA hospitals have trouble attracting talented doctors, though I assume that they have similar problems attracting talent in other professions, NPs in particular.
If I were in charge of VA, I would make a rule that any doctor who got their license in any OECD country can work unsupervised (provisional on training on HIPPA or whatever other US-specific medical laws). Then get a whole bunch of H1 Visas for any doctor who wants to come work for VA for five years.
[1] "productivity" was operationalized as the total cost of care (negatively coded), including the cost for any avoidable hospitalization due to screwing up, which makes sense in the VA emergency department.
hooser
9mo ago
Yes, you are right. I agree that, because a field's goal is memetic potency, women are more likely to be drawn to it. Thanks for pointing that out.
On the other hand, there is a reinforcing factor at play, too. If someone falls ass-backwards into mathematics, one will still learn how to question assertions and demand proof. If someone gets steered into social studies, one will still learn how to test the waters with some friendlies--and to do it subtly, in I-came-across-this-thought kind of way--before publicizing it more broadly.
The reinforcing factor is more like a loop: E.g., because most mathematicians are disagreeable, the confrontational style of argumentation gets more highly prized in the field. E.g., because most social studies teachers are agreeable, consensus-building styles get more highly prized in the field.
hooser
9mo ago
And yes you have people malingering so hard they'll cut their dick off if given the option.
Maybe that's a win, in a sense. If a male with sufficient propensity for violence or anti-social behavior chooses to castrate himself, I'd be happy if that procedure was paid for with taxes. I would be OK with the additional tax burden there.
hooser
10mo ago
hooser
2yr ago
Oh, I agree with your premise! Where we disagree is on whether the casting already accomplished this goal. Luke MacFarlane is a hottie and played the role of conflicted boyfriend especially well. Billy Eichner is no Timothée Chalamet, but rom-coms frequently have the girl main protagonist not be conventionally beautiful. Which was important to the plot.
If I were in charge of marketing this movie... it would probably tank harder, because I don't know the first thing about marketing. But Monday-night arm-chair quarterbacking is as American as Apple Pie, so:
I would market it hard to young heterosexual women, with lots of hints to suggest that they can use this movie as a potential litmus test on whether their date is willing to signal openness to leftie liberal ideals regarding sexuality. Since the movie's ultimate morality lesson is about monogamous commitment, the date's response to that would also be useful.
I do not care that someone on the internet may actually bring to life the strawman assertion that "[A Song of Ice and Fire] is some kind of nihilistic, grimdark, pornographic deconstruction of all that is right and good in the world". Your essay remains a response to a strawman. For comparison, here's the whole text under the "Criticism" of GRR Martin's wikipedia page:
I have went through all five stages of grief and have come to accept the fact that the last two books in the series will likely never be written, with the HBO's crappy last two seasons will remain the one-and-only allowed fan-fiction. I am at peace now.
So I have to be honest with you: I did not read your essay past the first three paragraphs. The framing of your essay is I-will-put-on-full-armor-and-destroy-this-strawman, and it turned me off so badly from what you have to say about one of my favorite fantasy series that I don't want to read the rest--even as I recognize by skimming the headlines that you may have something interesting to say about ASoIaF.
And maybe that's just me, and other people here will find the strawman a delightful hook. However, if you do get similar complaints, please consider reposting a revised version of your essay, where instead of this-nobody-thinks-X-but-I-think-Y framing it's just Y. I will gladly read and engage with that essay then.
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