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justmotteingaround


				

				

				
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joined 2022 December 21 06:05:47 UTC

				

User ID: 2002

justmotteingaround


				
				
				

				
1 follower   follows 0 users   joined 2022 December 21 06:05:47 UTC

					

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User ID: 2002

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).

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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).

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://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/drugoverdoses/data-details/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%2098%2C268%20people%20died,%2C%20homicide%2C%20and%20undetermined%20intents.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm

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.

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.

Oooof. That's rough. Yeah, I'd say you're at the theorycraft stage. Add some info to your post. I'm still unsure exactly what your symptoms are, how they present, your clinical history, and current status.

I'm stumped, and this is way beyond my pay grade anyhow. I perused the "The Mechanical Basis of ME/CFS" post. Interesting stuff from deep down a rabbit hole. And from your other comments its seems like you know how things work. Best of luck!

While I think your initiative is extremely laudable, just know that the path ahead of you is fraught. You may have a serious medical issue which forums could exacerbate. But keep documenting things, trying new things, and taking the initiative. I'd recommend a heavy bias towards experts who can see you in person, even if you have to shop around for the ones that work for you. Cautionary note: cascades of care, and incidentalomas.

Lastly, this reads like you're looking for a simple fix that has a clear mechanistic explanation. Generally speaking, I would not expect such specificity, but keep trying to make things better.

So, here is a layman speculation (without knowing your age, weight:height, mood, stability, aerobic capacity etc).

sorta-permanent emotional numbness and pleasure deficiency.

This sounds like anhedonia. It could be hormones (testosterone, free-T, T:E ratio, various thyroid hormones, medications you are taking, cortisol, micro or macro nutrient deficiency). These can all be looked at in one blood panel. I'd start with a full workup from a GP. (and the results will give us amateurs more to (possibly dangerously) speculate about!)

It may be a neurotransmitter imbalance. This can be an appealing thought, as it seems to promise a clear mechanistic solution. IME, it isn't nearly so cut and dry. If you can get through your day without chaos, I'd investigate this last.

For now:

Consider cutting caffeine. It isolates one variable and should improve sleep. I won't sugar coat this, this is awful for a week or two. However, you'll get back good data quickly. Sleep is a miracle drug.

Consider following a balanced diet of whole foods with a tiny caloric surplus. Whole foods and sufficient calories are the goal.

Supplements: vit-D+k, zinc, and magnesium are the most common deficiencies. Might want to wait until after the blood panel. Creatine 5g per day because almost no harm, many potential benefits. L-citrulline (malate is fine). May improve blood flow at 10g per day. Glycine for sleep. NAC works for some to clear brain fog. Can also allegedly cause anhedonia (did neither for me). Prob some others but the supplement world is waaaay overhyped imo.

One-crazy-thing: Carnivore diet. Never tried it. Seems insane. The good: It's simple (but not easy) to adhere to. It's an elimination diet so fewer variables. Its radically not the same, perhaps resulting in different outcomes. Wide anecdotal support. The bad: most support is anecdotal. Its wild. Diarrhea for a week.

Again: have a bias towards experts in person, but keep the initiative. Its your life you're free to experiment and deviate. Best of luck.

After I lift I'm always hungry for a smoothie: 2 scoops whey, 300g frozen fruit, 300ml soymilk, 200g topfen (aka quark, its like yoghurt but even higher proportion of protein). That alone is 80g protein, and its delicious. Im 100kgs, and my appetite is stronger than I'd like, so this only fills me up a little.

For the always preferable whole foods, I know how to make a chicken breast I really like (carbon-steel pan, spice rub, 10 mins a side with light browning (gotta know your stove for this one), rest for 5. Comes out juicy, tender, delicious. For grilling I might flay them, but I usually marinade, and always rest).

Usually 2 breasts come in a 550g package. Eating one of these in a sitting is easy for me. The rest of the plate might be some kind of veggie, a scoop of hummus, possibly potatoes. 80g protein.

For prepared stuff, lately I've been making a semi-asian minced meat, minimal-oil grain and fry medley. Saute 2kg semi-minced chicken breast (its a lot of knife work) in batches with salt/spices, sautee 2kg various chopped veggies in batches (peppers, spring onions, zucchini, etc) with salt/spices, combine in a large bowl with 500g barley (done in stock), 200g can lentils, rinsed). Put in glass containers in the fridge. This makes about 8-10 bowls. 80g protein each. Season with a touch of roasted sesame oil and soy sauce after reheating. I like mine spicy.

Split pea soup with a very lean cut of pork. 50g per bowl. Freezes well.

Pasta "bolognese" with an absurd over-abundance of lean ground beef (anchovies in the sauce really enhances flavor, but not so much I can taste the anchovies as anchovies). I buy handmade pasta/ ravioli because I'm already skimping of flavor by not using veal, but honestly it's delicious once you get the sauce right. 50-60g per bowl; sauces freezes well. The right chili recipe is a protein bomb as well.

Salads with lean cuts of meat. Easy to hit 50g per salad.

I'm always hungry. I love food. I like to cook, but it doesn't take me too much time because after years of learning, I can solve my own personal prep, cook, clean, scale, taste, and macro equation without any overhead in term of thought. Most of what I eat is "leftovers", and I look forward to all of it.

The analogy doesn't fit the premise, so the conclusion is... not even wrong??

Germany is a board of landlords who - rightly or wrongly - signed various contracts (citizenship, residency, asylum). So tough titties to them. They have to live up to the responsibilities they signed up for. If someone can convince the majority of the board to void certain contracts and "evict" people, then they'd run afoul of their responsibilities to various human rights charters aimed at preventing exactly this kind of "eviction". They're free to do that too, as far as I'm concerned, but "landlords remorse" doesn't make comparisons to other dubious evictions unreasonable.

Well, its sounds like a fairly normal story about burgeoning young(ish) love, which tends to arouse strong emotions. But for the sake of all that is good, somebody needs to point out that you painted a textbook picture of insecurity. This is not a pointed insult, but something you need to face head on. I suspect avoiding this label is part of why it lingers because "general thoughts of inadequacy that make me want to receive constant reassurance that I'm the best she's ever had" is practically the definition of insecurity. But at the end of the day... so what? So you feel insecure that you might not be the best lay your girlfriend ever had, and something about this causes you distress. This is not uncommon, but it is no reason to even entertain the idea of ending an intimate relationship with another human being. It is clearly not a 'her' problem. So maybe you are or maybe you aren't; maybe you will be or maybe you will never be the best sex she's ever had. Date her long enough, love her, and make her feel loved, and you probably will be, but that's besides the point. This is not important in the vast majority of long term relationships. As for solutions, the wisdom that comes with age will eventually dissolve your current concerns, but don't let that stop you from getting wiser faster than the rest. Self therapy, google, and philosophy can certainly help. Best of luck.

Small note on happiness surveys. I do they they can be useful in principle. I couldn't get the archived WaPo article to load so I found a 2017 longitudinal Gallup article, with some more granular data.

TLDR: since 1950 roughly 94% of of Americans said they were "very" or "fairly" happy. There was a slump and rebound centered around 1990 +/- 4 years. The final gradual slide to began around 2007, sinking to the 2019 all time low of 86%.

2007/08 seem to be where the interesting things began. People didn't get unhappy everywhere. Basically, post 2007 non-whites became far less happy (-13), HS or lower education (-10), and Democrats/Independents (-6).

Write a post-dated check to an organization you loathe for a sum large enough to sting. Give that check to someone you trust. If you don't weight 'x' with 'y' bodyfat on Jan 1 2025, they mail the check. This is a semi famous commitment device. YMMV.

But when it comes to diet, its really up to you and your habits. There is no end to dieting until your habits keep you at a healthy weight. You might be tempted to crash diet at the end following the above, but its an interesting idea.

I think it's me not pulling the slack out of the bar.

I was thinking something like that too, but I'm no expert. The straps are only to theoretically free up concentration on other body parts, and dial those in.

I usually "sit back" just before initiating the movement. My final cues are "big chest, chin neutral, sit back (this takes the slack out too), drive through the heeeeeeeeels". This keeps my hips low, makes for a better hip hinge for me, while accentuating leg drive. For practice I found that breaking up a set of 5ish into a set of "consecutive singles" to near failure (ie quickly re-set and fully re-cue after each rep) really helped me dial in my form and approach failure. My toes are mostly parallel, but I've been told this can come down to personal preference. Enjoy the trip!

I fly international a lot. My strategies work for me and I have my typical routes mastered. Timing your sleep/wake cycle on arrival is most important.

Melatonin is great on paper, doesn't seem to do much for me. I time caffeine, cardio, and sleep so I'll be most tired at the local bedtime on the first few nights. (Example: NYC to Switzerland takes off 6pm, so I get up at 3 am in NYC, binge coffee, work, take off 6PM, and I can sleep a few hours on the plane. Arrive 8am, caffeine around 10am and I'm fresh for the whole afternoon. I make sure to to push through to at least 8pm and then pass out for the night.)

Never stay up too late. Plan everything so you're tired as hell for bedtime the first few nights. Try to avoid caffeine after 12pmish the first few days after arrival so you can sleep well later. If you absolutely have to nap, do some math to calculate if you'll be tired that night, and set SEVERAL timers. Otherwise, just push through. Get on a regular schedule. Cardio/loooooong walks are great if you have too much energy and its getting late. You need pass out and sleep well at the normal bedtime for the first few nights!!!

As for the planes themselves, noise cancelling headphones if you got them. I drink at least 1L water every 2 hours minimum. I go to the back and have them refill my airport plastic bottle. Nobody else does this and its crazy. Planes are so dry. A good book or magazine is the best to pass the time. I have a kindle with 100's of books to read or re-read, and I'll put boring ones down in search of something that is great for long trips. Download any potentially interesting podcasts before takeoff. Series are great to binge. (I recommend alphabet boys, especially season 2). I've never had a 7 hour layover. The lounge might be worth it. Going into town might be worth it just to have a mini adventure, but you have to like random stuff like that (ie not find it stressful).

Nice deadlift! At ~23sec I saw your hips come up first. I don't use a belt, but I think I take a deeper breath and expand my stomach more to fill out my leverages, then brace. Perhaps something to play around with. You may want to mix in straps just to put more attention elsewhere (hips, leverages, whatever). Just some ideas.

The hypothetical choices are (doctor/ software engineer/ young educated person with needed skills) vs (native speaker of the primary language). I'd bet more social good come from the former over the latter. One virtually guarantees paying more than their fair share of tax, and their offspring are almost certain to be native speakers, and likely successful as well.

Everything is on the table for change, but its not equally wise or good to change any aspect. The US nearly wrecked itself to get rid of slavery. Legal slavery in perpetuity probably wasn't a stable solution, and the US paid dearly to change a fundamental aspect of its operation, deleting the 3/5 compromise and adding new lines to its "code". The Catholic Church moved away from Latin mass because that was probably a sub-optimal configuration. If, in the year 2300, society has determined that being anti gay is as bad as being pro slavery, I'd bet that the Catholic church will bless gay unions, or something similar (its unlikely, but possible). Solutions like "making killing legal to solve murder" are generally unstable solutions to law and order institutions.

Well, just as a quick sanity check, which sects of Christianity are flying the rainbow flag right now?

Oh, I have no idea. I wasn't raised with a religion, and haven't really chosen one.

"progress towards what?"

Kurt Vonnegut would sarcastically argue its to make more plastic. Ellul would argue 'technique' is progressing to separate us from nature for its own ends. Dawkins would argue for the successful propagation of replicators. Steven Pinker would argue its a move towards less violence and loger, healthier lifespans. I'm closest to the latter arguments.

Not all changes are good just because they're changes

Agreed! Chesterton is a very wise part of the conversation. The pride-flying sects are either blowing themselves up, or evolving to a more stable structure. I think the latter, but who knows. The ACLU is blowing itself up imo, but FIRE is filling the void. The reactionary and unwise BLM movement is blowing up racial progress imo, but they seem to be cashing out. There may or may not be some wise findings in the debris (for example, I'm in favor of skepticism to police power, training standards, and attitudes, and I hope these change at the institutional level).

Should Christianity endorse Satan worship, if it increased it's chances for survival? Should progressives endorse white supremacy?

This sounds like should X become not X to survive. Not sure it fits. But say in the rubble of WW3 might progressives become totalitarian to put society back together. Yeah, but they won't claim to be progressives anymore. Have to run, getting increasingly less thoughtful.

The Church has changed traditions over time in order to maintain itself, increase its robustness, promote antifragility, etc. As an institution, the Catholic Church probably isn't amenable to rapid, radical change. (hence the slow move away from a Latin mass, the gradual lack of condemnation for charging interest on loans (Islam has created a bizarre, less efficient workaround which probably cost them economically), and the explicit condemnation of slavery being late to the party). Dozens more I think, but I know very little about the history of religion.

At some point, it may be optimal for the continuance of the Church to bless gay unions. In a few decades to a few hundred years. But also maybe it will never be optimal. However, imagine a contemporary Church that continued to argue, as I think Acquanias did (and I'm not sure if he was Catholic, but just as an example), that owning people as slaves was fine so long as you treated them well. That would be bad for the institution today. I'm not chiding the Church for being "late to the party". It's the kind of institution that should change slowly, cautiously, and with much debate.

Why its relevant: As I said, I'm pretty ignorant of the history of religion (its by far my worst Jeopardy! category). Therefore, I don't know how democratic religious have fared compared to more top-down structures, and I can't analyze the causal factors in a religions outcomes as institutions (for example, Buddhism and Hinduism are about twice as old as Christianity, but I don't know their institutional structures).

"we must make a fundamental change to [institution] to appeal to more progressive audiences, and grow our membership" scenarios play out in a non-destructive way,

My view is that this debate is the long arc of history: how much progress, and how fast? A balance must be stuck according the function of the institution. The US got rid of slavery, let women vote, allowed for constitutional review by SCOTUS, etc. Perhaps its not as robust as everyone would like, but it has worked out pretty well by historical standards. Companies can change faster than governmental bodies, which can change faster than spiritual institutions. Change too fast, you blow it up. Change too slowly, society moves on.

Counterpoint: history is largely a one-way conversation of destroying traditions in favor of such progress. Preserving tradition is a balancing act for the more necessary goal of maintaining the the systems and institutions which beget the traditions. Its 60% compromise.

I don't think the Catholic Church is at a point where blessing gay unions is necessary to optimize the institution, but it's clearly now in their Overton window.

She's the mirror image of an ideal Republican candidate. Imagine 'Wayne Johnson' from Appalachia, graduate of UWV, who worked his way up at Koch Industries in Texas. Having done a decade of group organizing for gun rights, Johnson was elected President of a major Republican PAC in Nebraska, and is now being appointed as interim Senator from Texas. Makes sense.

Butler is 45, from a poor Mississippi town of 1,800 residents (currently). She graduated college and worked he way up to a solid position at AirBNB, having long taken leadership positions in union organizing, and is now President of a major PAC.

The only cynical thing I see is that skin color was mandatory for the latter candidate.