justmotteingaround
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User ID: 2002
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
You might life Manguels Criminal Injustice which talks about, in part, the degree of discrimination we can achieve. One block in NYC might have a 10x difference in violent crime rate, stable for 50 years. The geography of crime is wild. I recall some reporting circa 9/11 about the violent death rate in Compton being higher than in Iraq or Baghdad during times of crisis (vague memories here) Even contemporary Chicago is a fairly safe city if you never go to the 10% of areas which accounts for 80% of the crime. It's good general knowledge to have.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Because it a SciFi concept come to life
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
No. If it helps clarify things, I'm under the impression that looking at race might be the most important factor, perhaps tied with zip code.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Its wild that an algorithm can predict crime before it happens.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Just posting "despite..." in the right context is a meme. Yglesias said "This precrime paper is kind of wild". Thinking this implies he had no idea about the demographics of crime is kind of wild. Google trends seems to indicate that since 2004 "black on black crime" is about a common a trend as the highly secret sport of "pingpong". Just searching "black crime", it's about a common as searching for "Ethiopian food". (Random aside: I like spicy indian food, and Ethiopian food is like a cousin, which I also like. They frequently offer a spiced raw beef dish (kitfo). Veggies are good, sometimes too oily. All dishes pair well with beer).
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
In spite of book like 'Weapons of Math Destruction', books like Criminal (In)Justice still get published. The former presents plausible arguments for algorithmic bias, the other presents data about who commits crime and where. Black crime has been a supposedly awkward talking point since the 1970's. Jesse Jackson's comments marked a turning point in political honesty, but Sowell was happily publishing Black Rednecks and White Liberals not long after (which I found quite convincing). All of this stuff can and has been said. It's not some secret knowledge.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Serena wasn't anywhere close to dominating her sport
You may want to look into this. She has numerous career and individual superlatives, and won nearly half of all grand slams for 10 years straight.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Do you have recommendations as far as recipes go, for making veggies taste good and making you actively want to eat them?
To maximize the taste/health/satiety/caloric density equation there are some general principles I adhere to. Low oil for low caloric density (non stick cookware and soups eliminate the need for lots of cooking oil). Easy digestibility for me (cauliflower is hard for me to digest, which sucks because cauliflower rice is otherwise great, ymmv). Also, perhaps I just love or have learned to love vegetables.
For me personally, here are some go-to's
Boiled frozen peas for 10 mins. Strain, rinse briefly, add salt. Possibly add butter spray or a small amount of butter to taste. Sweet and delicious and I literally look forward to it. Doesn't get much easier. Decent amount of slow carbs and protein.
Cut two heads of broccoli into large chunks. Place in large pan with 3cm boiling water. Steam for 10 mins, remove, let rest, and salt. I love broccoli.
Pan fried zucchini: cut length-wise, salt with favored spice mix (think Mrs Dash plus salt), on medium/ medium low heat place skin side down in 32cm. high-wall non-stick pan with spray, cover and let simmer for 10 mins, turn, cover, and cook for 10 more mins, remove and let rest (they should be browned, maybe blackened in some areas. It will take some experience to dial in your stoves heat level, the salt/spice level, and cooking time. Keep the temp below the smoke point of your oil. I'll do this is 2kg batches. They re-heat really well. I like them. Simple.
Bag of frozen veggies in the same cook pan. Spray with oil. Salt and season to taste. Let cook on medium heat uncovered until the water evaporates. Then cover, cook, stir occasionally until "aldente". Stop, remove from heat, let rest covered until desired tenderness. I do batches of 1kg. Again, super simple.
Peel carrots. Chop in half or quarters lengthwise. Place evenly spaced on cooking tray with parchment paper. Cover in cooking spray. Cover in salt and herbs. Place in pre-heated 180C oven for as many minutes as you like to get the tenderness you want. Pairs excellently with parsnips done the same way.
In a way, this is primal vegetable preparation with easy access to modern amenities (salt, able veggies, clean heat). I'm basically making large batches of veggies tender enough to eat, salty and seasoned enough where I like them. I also eat a few large carrots raw on most days.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
I desperately want to agree with you. My proposal for something fair looks nearly identical to yours. However, the impetus for jihadism (and the settlements) is not motivated by practical, worldly concerns. Jihadists (and settlers IME) frequently describe their motivations in religious terms. They claim certainty the creator of the universe, giver of eternal life, and sole reason for existing, would be pleased if they die for the cause of removing the Jews from Israel (provided the Jews don't pay the jizya).
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
I hit 235G P on 2045 Calories today. This is pretty common for me. It's all about habits, prep, and hacks.
Today the stores were closed so I defrosted a cabbage (carrot, onion, lentil, etc) and lean beef stew. I stirred in some lean yoghurt. I'll eat a can of sardines for dinner (I love quality sardines, esp piri-piri in olive oil).
I regularly pan fry a spice-rubbed chicken breast in minimal oil, and heat up a side of my homemade spicy white-bean, roast red-pepper puree. (Its basically an even leaner version of hummus). Store bought hummus is fine with only 140G protein and 2000 calories. Side of veggies. 80-100G protein for the meal. Low cal. Contains healthy fats.
I regularly make a lean beef burger patty (for me 500g package makes two patties). Add low fat cheese. Top with a low-cal spread (ie the above puree). 80-100G protein. 90G P, ~900 cals.
Scrambled eggs (with egg whites to meet protein goals), canned black beans, hot-sauce, side of low cal high fiber toast.
Minced chicken or turkey breast, a whole lot of veggies, aromatics, spices, sauteed wok style served over shirataki noodles/rice/barley. Dash of toasted sesame oil. Can be modified to fit into diet.
You've got huge margins. 140GP would be easy for me given how I cook. Tack stuff for a bit. I use LoseIt!. There are many others.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
This happens to me. I'm 40 and in great health. I have great energy and stress tolerance all day when my sleep, diet, and training are balanced. Otherwise, I'm in the same boat you are.
I'm naturally a poor sleeper unless I am strict about sleep hygiene. Recently, I quit nicotine pouches. Surprisingly this lead to a huge increase in my all day energy. So perhaps you're overstimulated. I get all my caffeine before 10am. For me, this is important for sleep. Sometimes I drink a lot (600mg), but this is now rare. I average less than 200mg per day at 95kg's. I try to cycle it (ie if I drink 400mg one day, I'll aim for just 100mg the next day). I cycle off completely for 10 or 20 days a year. I hate it. But I always feel more rested afterwards.
Glycine and magnesium on an empty stomach at night has helped my sleep. Could be placebo. Could be the fact that I stop eating sooner to the mag/glycine kick in better on a truly empty stomach. Cheap.
I love to work out vigorously, but I need to balance it so that I am always recovered.
On rare occasions I am still overwhelmed with tiredness at some point in the day, usually after 2pm, usually after a huge meal, usually during periods of high total stress, but sometimes for no reason I can see. When that occurs, I try to prioritize setting aside time to close my eyes and intentionally relax or have a 40 min nap if its early enough in the day.
Diet wise I eat almost exclusively whole foods, and an absurd amount of vegetables. Cucumbers, peppers, carrots, and roast veggies are my go to snacks / fillers. I probably eat 1kg+ a day. Sadly, drinking even small amounts of alcohol at night can throw everything out of whack for me.
All these various habits that are now somewhat second nature. My energy levels feel fantastic.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
Simple answers should ring alarm bells. Opinions framed as The Truth(tm) should have them blaring. Sachs' Ukraine comments seems to live in same epistemic universe as John Mearsheimer - expressed in his 2015 talk here, which subsequently went incredibly viral during the full invasion. So it's definitely an opinion and not The Truth. It's hard to understate the popular appeal of Mearsheimer's message (its arguably the most rapidly and widely circulated wonky political lecture in human history). Mearsheimer could be correct. I think his arguments about NATO expansion are best rebutted by the archives here, this article here, with a quick overview here
For a great steelman of Mearsheimer POV I highly recommend the rapid and very accessible 2018 book by contemporary Stephen M Walt: "The Hell of Good Intentions". I found it largely persuasive on many accounts. (FWIW, with regard specifically to "not one inch east" I think it's 60% myth, 80% rhetoric, and 100% irrelevant because no binding paperwork was ever signed, let alone with an extant entity. NATO expansion in general is more contentions IMO).
I also think those the Palestinians are animated by more than mere terrestrial concerns. Sachs stating that all Israel needs to do is assure peace and statehood is outrageous. Asserting such a wild opinion is True only redounds to my incredulity. AFAIK the intractability of the Israel / Palestine conflict is well earned.
justmotteingaround
1yr ago
This all sounds relatively banal and bog-standard for a protest, no? Its like the far left analogue of some right wing militias: masks, standing against gov't tyranny, large sense of importance, performative desire to get arrested (ie open carry audits), dubious legal and political theories (ie Bundy; The White horse Prophecy, etc), and, of course, their own flags! I think the militia folk go camping alot, and are probably way more fun to hang out with. But when either side actually goes to protest I can do little more than think "well okay, whatever floats your boat, but remember, your freedom ends where someone elses begins, have fun!"
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
I am optimistic, especially compared to what I gather is the median for themotte. I think institutional bias over fake racism claims is an issue, but Bayesian thinking leads me to think it cannot possibly be a primary concern (ie it cut the other direction for a long time so that is the initial given, and you update towards the current state with examples of it cutting the other direction. Sanity checking my guesswork seems to indicate that outcomes are in line with expectations, and have been for decades (given both the priors, and the explanatory assumptions of HBD). Each individual example of the current bias is infuriating, but I don't yet see dispassionate quantitative reasons to think it has large consequential effects (although I'm open to such reasons).
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
No I mean using that a explanation as a sorting or policy heuristic. Suboptimal imo. Take the analogy of gender differences and firefighters. Biology explains the difference. All else equal, males will make better firefighters in many circumstances. Is biology the best policy tool are political talking point. I'd argue no. Are there females who could make the cut? Sure. And hiring differences in firefighters has successfully defended against disparate impact (people will argue the test doesn't demonstrate a necessity, but I digress). There is prob a better analogy using evolution (explanatory) to sort or guide something is less optimal than extant sorting or guiding policies. Hope I'm clear enough. But yes, HBD is not a heuristic, but the OP opened that analogy.
If you want to say "HBD not racism or culture explains much of the disparate outcomes", then yeah, fine. I agree. Nevertheless, I'd argue that taking about it in political or policy debates is usually suboptimal imo because the flack (just and unjust), better tools, the fact that society is often sorted that way anyhow. HBD could really illuminate understanding of reality.
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
depend on either their outcomes being race-neutral
I may be wrong but I think this is explicitly untrue legally. AFAIK, if you can demonstrate a necessity of hiring in a way that causes a disparate impact, and your methods were not arbitrary (standardized tests are usually used as a defense), then it's perfectly legal.
Are there people making ignorant or bad faith cases about the arbitrariness of the standardized tests? Of course. But as far as I can tell, they lose in court.
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
I think this is where HBD is misapplied as a heuristic if the goal is a colorblind meritocratic society. There are 40M blacks in the US. Plenty have merit for various jobs, things get weird at the tails, but there is a skew is already roughly reflected in broad achievement. From a quora post "what is the IQ of blacks"
"It’s about one standard deviation lower than whites or about 85. In practice, this means that individuals at the upper end of the curve are massively underrepresented. Look at two rather meritocratic statistics: 1) about 1% of NIH grants are awarded to black scientists 2) about 1% of CPAs in America are black. In either of these examples, there isn’t a big push to have candidates get external support or preferences (e.g. medical school or Ivy undergrad) so blacks are underrepresented by about 10 fold, which is what would be expected by a bell curve shifted to the left by one standard deviation.
Tally for black achievements (14% of U.S. Population):
1% NIH Grants awarded 1% of CPAs 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs (19 out of 1,800 recorded over history) 1% of American billionaires 1.8% of Law firm partners (virtually zero 0% at big NYC law firms) 2% of U.S. Air Force pilots 0% of Nobel prizes in Physics, medicine, chemistry ~1% of Nobel prizes in Economics (1 in history, note some years multiple recipients creating fuzzy math) 0% of Fields Medalists (considered the closest to Nobel for math) Another way to look at the issue of black intelligence is to pick an IQ required for a demanding job and see how many individuals fall in that category. Some researchers have suggested it takes an IQ of 130 to become a professor, senior executive, physician, tech entrepreneur. One could argue this is a floor, not an average. In the general population, about 2.5% of people would have an IQ this high. If the distribution curve is shifted to the left one SD, only 0.13% or about 1/17th as much (1/17th of 2.5%) of the population reaches this level. This suggests only one out of 770 American blacks would likely be capable of such professions.
This is all explicitly legal (a non-arbitrary business necessity must be demonstrated for disparate achievement to be perfectly legal. Standardized tests are fine). So you'd want to build merit based coalitions which doesn't lump ill defined groups together. HBD is less useful because its too broad. Coleman Hughes has collected wildly disparate outcomes at the group level within the squishy race categories, and HBD misses all of that. There are certainly edge cases of unqualified candidates being pushed forward to everyones detriment (such as the Barpod sadfunny ATC episode), but such instances have been challenged in the courts repeatedly, with ruling which work with HBD anyhow (ie demonstrating the necessity of disparate outcomes for organizational functioning).
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
Would be a shame if we stopped using them because of incorrect beliefs about the root causes of group differences…
This is essentially what I am earnestly claiming, because I do see how we get back to equal protection without explicitly acknowledging point 1. The courts have been doing this since the 1970's, clarifying that disparate impacts are fine so long as a non-arbitrary business necessity can be demonstrated.
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
It is a defense to disparate impact along protected class lines if it can be shown that the discriminatory factor is a business necessity. I'm less confident in how this plays out in practiced, how many bullshit claims of prevailed since the CRA, and how much bullshit claims have trailed off since.
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
Oh I totally agree with this assessment. This was true when Murray published The Bell Curve, which is milquetoast compared to HBD (ie it was explicitly agnostic to genetic factors). The radioactivity remains. HBD is the path of most resistance, justly or otherwise, so the realpolitik renders it almost useless in practice. Any substitute is already superior. Moreover, I would argue that HBD has plenty of epistemic problems, which get only magnified in individualistic societies.
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
I think he is correct. I find HBD plausible in principle, but it's terrible political tool in practice. For one, its radioactive and attracts a high proportion of radioactive supporters. Second, many better tools already exist (standardized tests, colorblind policy, merit based immigration vetting). HBD is a worse substitute than existing policy frameworks. It purports to partially explain a wide variety of complex human behavior of ill defined groups. Interesting in principle; a bad policy tool for a nation that focuses so much on the individual (culturally and legally).
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
Drug deaths and related "deaths of despair" have been wildly underappreciated for at least a decade. They tend to kill prime age people, and for reference they dwarf US annual losses in Vietnam (the worst year -1968 - was about 17,000; average over 20 years was about 3,000).
Preventable drug deaths have been compounding YoY since at least 1998, when there were about 11,000 "preventable" deaths. About 80% of deaths are due to opiates. Max statewide variation is almost 10X, with Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Texas near the bottom (approx 14 deaths/100k), and West Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Kentucky at the top (about 60 deaths/100k). Cali, NY, Washington, Oregon are middling (about 27 deaths/100k). Large clusters are found in the rust and coal belt. Unsurprisingly, "manufacturing job loss predicts a substantial share of drug and opioid overdose deaths for women and men" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725949/).
Opioids probably are fantastic
In my experience, there is a threshold for enjoyment depending on the person. I simply didn't find opiates all that interesting (prescription, tincture, inhaled), even at highly inebriating levels. Nevertheless, vs other drugs, the likelihood for life-deranging enjoyment is probably unmatched.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
I really like Glenn and John but was shocked at their rapid credulity over a partisan documentary. TFOM is important, but my default is skepticism and alarm bells started ringing when (iirc) the doc started impugning a defense attorney for based praise of his (criminal underworld) clients. Also, as a viewer, I had to pause the sections covering the MRT manual and speculate why Chauvin allegedly/technically didn't use it. I guess I've come to expect to good faith steelmanning.
With high confidence, Chauvin meaningfully contributed to Floyd's death.
I'm camped in this epistemic ground but with low confidence because I see plenty of space for reasonable doubt (ie an unhealthy 47 y/o male with heart problems and plenty of drugs on board dying of a heart attack while stressed and recovering form covid is a reasonable explanation), and/or I think it's arguable that Chauvins actions were reasonable enough given the situation.
justmotteingaround
2yr ago
whether this was a fair ruling
Thats why I'm here, comments or links to well digested think pieces. I'd love to see the steelman of both sides. Ditto the Carroll case. Yet as someone who loathes Trump, I'm skeptical of both decisions after some light perusing of partisan hacks.
Indeed there are multiple things to track: the technology (precrime by ML) and the demographics which, according to you, "cannot be said". I commented exclusively on the latter - pointing out that it's a common enough topic of discourse to be memeified and reliably the subject of entire books.
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