prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I’m inclined to agree, but do you also agree that having a different racial makeup of these honors classes relative to baseline is a problem? If so, how do other ideologies (non-woke) solve it in a productive way?
The actual effects of these actions are: parents that can afford it remove their kids from the district and send them to private school or move the entire family to a new district.
Yes, it also occurred to me that motivated/resourced parents will get their kids in with better teachers at the same school (even though they are all non-honors now).
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Right, I am imagining that rather than having an explicit inequality (honors classes vs non-honors classes) you end up with a gray area where some teachers are better than others and then skillful/determined parents are the only ones that can get their kids in the right classes.
Love the koan, thanks for the thoughts.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube (and by extension twitch), and this idea (that bad content can generate good content) certainly fits the meta there.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Not trying to troll, just haven’t been a part of the community for very long. Don’t know the norms and can’t reproduce the normative top-level comment yet.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
They'd pretend it's all planned and go begging to China.
Which is particularly interesting, because I saw some commentators talking about how the war in Ukraine was causing big problems for many of the (relatively) poor debtors in china’s belt-and-road initiative, making china unhappy about the war and less likely to aid Russia.
I saw this idea (that belt-and-road debtors would be hard-hit by economic fallout from the war) floating around before the grain deal was struck, so maybe the state of the global economy is different now. There was that big showy meeting between Putin and Xi recently.
Also, isn’t it in China’s interest to have a weaker northern neighbor?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
That's fair, but plumbers aren't also public figures (usually). Part of being a pro athlete is becoming and being a public figure, and that's part of why they are paid so well and receive sponsorship offers, etc. Without the eyeballs of the masses being good at a sport would be far less valuable, and if athletes help people get invested in the team through their brand as a public figure they become more valuable and teams have more incentive to use them on the field (of course they have to be good as a prerequisite).
I'd say that a roster player in a sport like American football, where there are ~50 people on the team, can get away with not being a public figure. But that means they can't enjoy the benefits of being a public figure and have to keep a low profile, because they're a roster player and can easily be replaced.
Another factor that the sports media sometimes talks about is locker room dynamics. It's unclear to me if this is a real thing, ideally pro athletes would be consummate professionals and only care about their colleagues' athletic performance. But if it is a real thing, I'd imagine that sometimes players who rock the boat publicly may also do so privately. When it comes to the OP's example it seems unlikely that this is relevant, but maybe it's relevant more generally.
Are you suggesting that 0% of a player's off-the-field conduct should be considered in decisions about whether to play them (criminal misconduct aside)? In principle I agree, coaches who want to win a game should play their best-performing players. But coaches will bench good players for not attending weekly practices, so should that not count? Teams could make internal, social agreements about individual player conduct that could be broken, should that not be considered? I'd be comfortable saying that 2-5% of a pro player's social conduct can and should be a factor in their employment (with wiggle room for different sports and for stars/franchise players).
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
One problem is that all the current (human-rated) vehicles aren’t designed for affordable trips to space— they’re designed around constraints that will make them prohibitively expensive.
Dragon is for NASA (nuff said), New Shephard is boring (probably the closest to scaling into the vicinity of affordable though), and from my armchair virgin galactic seems like an expensive deathtrap (no in-flight abort? Manual controls?). Realistically, Starship won’t carry humans to orbit for many years (if ever) because of launch abort feasibility issues.
Maybe the next iteration of tourism vehicles will be more promising (for the less-wealthy among us). Something like a V2 of Dragon but built for tourism and cost from the beginning maybe. Flying humans reliably is wicked hard.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
You can notice my absence there; I've estimated that the expected marginal value of my input is below the cost of adding to the apparent dogpile, distressing OP and probably diminishing his willingness to read the already provided object-level advice charitably.
I don't blame you for not jumping on the dogpile, but it would be a shame if your views on the matter differ substantially from the other posters (or if you have ideas that haven't been expressed already). Please don't let your estimation of my feelings keep you from being critical in this case, though I can understand how a bias towards caution is warranted.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
This is great advice, thanks for the suggestions and the story.
I’ll consider this approach.
Why is ridicule an appropriate reaction in this case and not civil discourse? (this is an earnest question, not rhetorical. Would you lay out the case for this approach?)
Edit: clarify earnest-ness
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I don’t think that high schools sports is a good analogy for honors classes. And I meant middle of the bell curve within students who take honors classes. The smartest kids will need educational experiences tailored to their needs (arguably honors classes might not be the best for the smartest kids). But for most kids in honors classes I would guess that their motivation is not “I’m so smart I need honors classes.”
Aren’t honors classes purely opt-in (no analogy for tryouts and selection)?
I would guess that more students pick honors classes because their friends are taking them than any other (explicit) reason, which you can’t always say for someone who makes the varsity baseball team.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Interesting perspective, I love the idea that when there are strong "tribal" affiliations it can be a valid choice to explicitly have representation.
I'm going to have to think about that duality you mentioned-- maybe it's not just the american progressives, like the war in Afghanistan/Iraq come to mind, there's the justification for those invasions (both of which were arguably or factually bullshit) and the reality, which is taboo to mention
Someone down below mentioned "Orthopraxy" as opposed to "Orthodoxy" your point about the rabbi brings that to mind.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I was hoping that the culture war roundup would be that place (where current happenings get a little bit more wiggle room), but based on the feedback I’m getting it sounds like the community expects more effort out of top-level posts.
If you have any specific suggestions or some top-level posts you really like I’d love to hear/see them
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I apologize since you asked us to >be nice
No need to apologize, appreciate the criticism.
Not trying to troll, just looking to flesh out my own knowledge. Seems reasonable to expect more effort out of top-level posts, but what does that look like?
A timebox for research beforehand (you must spend 10 min researching and 10 min writing about the topic before posting)?
What are the characteristics of a good top-level post? Do you have some examples of your favorite top-level posts?
DSL seems to have a much >broader number of topics to >discuss.
What is DSL?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Small scale, huh?
Fair point, I looked it up, and the Vietnam war is much bigger in scale (so far).
If I recall correctly, NATO estimates casualties in the hundreds of thousands for either side in the Ukraine war (to be fair these claims aren’t necessarily accurate because there is an ongoing conflict)
On the other hand, the sum total of the American casualties for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (including 1991) are far lower than for either side in Ukraine.
Seems like materiel losses in those conflicts (excluding Vietnam) are similarly much lower. This indicates to me that whatever benefits were gleaned from those conflicts had a lower cost than whatever Russia will get out of invading Ukraine.
(Civilian casualties are another matter, I’m mostly interested in the military cost/benefit here)
I used this resource to estimate American casualties in all of the Middle East conflicts: https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
This does relate to story I told though. You could argue that because black people in the U.S. are statistically more likely to be criminals or have been convicted of a crime the extra scrutiny was warranted. While that may be true, that wasn't relevant in this case, and I believe that none of the passengers should have received extra scrutiny.
Can you provide examples of stereotypes that are "more reflective of reality than individual bias?" I'm especially interested in stereotypes that are accurate enough that individuals should be treated differently based on the stereotype.
Like one stereotype that comes to mind is "Tiger moms" or asian parents that are super invested in their kids' success. It's a good stereotype to make jokes about, but should communities/governments make specific policies around it other than just enforcing existing child-welfare policies?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I’ve never seen a black person treated worse than an equivalent white person.
My brother and 3 of his friends/roommates got pulled over for a traffic violation a couple years ago. It was a major interstate in the U.S. about an hour from a large metro area. There was a white guy driving and a white guy in the passenger seat and two black guys in the back seat. Culturally, they were all middle-class college kids. The cop/trooper asked for the driver’s ID and the ID of the two black guys, not the white passenger.
I’m cherry-picking a bit of your post that’s beside the point you’re trying to make, but it’s fair to say that sometimes people (including law enforcement) let stereotypes drive their actions.
Loyalty, in my opinion, is among the greatest virtues a human can hold, and I personally feel it acts as something like the metaphysical cousin to a sacrament the more irrational and unconditional it becomes. I believe that a person's relationship with his friends and family regardless of who they are should be treated as unimpeachable. The person in question may be in fact quite impeachable, as a matter of law or what have you, but the actual relationship itself should be held as sacrosanct. We, as a species, are way too messed up in the head to be able to either afford or justify easy dismissal of one another. Glass houses, and such.
I do worry a little bit about outing my friend(s) to this community, as in some sense I used our shared experience as fodder for internet clout. Hopefully I can make it up to them by having a great conversation about J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter.
Edit: plurality
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
First of all, I hope this poster has read https://www.themotte.org/post/195/what-to-do-when-you-get
Ah, cool, thanks for that-- I hadn't read it. There is some good advice in there.
Second of all, I'd like to express my disappointment in nearly every response I've seen them receive. The fact that their question, which appears to have been made in total good faith, is still getting dogpiled and drive by downvotes is vicariously embarrassing. This isn't a culture war issue.
Hearing this feels really good, and I can see how you feel that way. The replies were arguably kind of harsh. I am fine with the response I got, although in my ideal timeline the responses would have given me more intellectual ammunition, terms/ideas to google, and examples/stories of how to disagree with your friends.
Before posting I did, for a brief moment, wonder if I should post in the culture war thread instead of wellness wednesday but went ahead because it was clearly framed as a personal issue, and I was basically genuine.
One possible reading of my initial post (and some of the replies) is that I was trying to steel-man my friend's position (without knowing exactly what it was because I had avoided the subject), but in all honesty my views and position on the matter initially weren't all that well-defined beyond some misgivings, and I've refined my position a lot since then.
An uncharitable read might see some of the responses from prof xi o as sealioning.
Hadn't heard of this, I can see how it might fit some of my replies.
apparently this justifies an accusation of trolling, to the tune of a 45 [edit: 30, my back of the skull hangover sums aren't great] updoot difference
I did eventually notice the downvotes (maybe they don't show up on mobile or something? for some reason in some views I didn't see them) and my initial thought was, "that's odd, I should ignore that and consider it a sign of engagement with the content, I shouldn't let it discourage me from posting." I was more excited that I got some high-effort responses.
I also noticed that downvotes don't show up on people's profiles (comments do), and I think comments are a better signal of quality engagement (probably)
One problem with the downvotes is that it's not totally clear what they're about, here's my predictions about what they mean:
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30% Your position is stupid, I'm not going to argue, just downvote, go do some research
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30% I don't like trans people bossing around the internet
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20% This should have been in the culture war thread
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20% this is clearly a troll
P.S. I will be appropriately embarrassed if the OP turns out to be another d*rwin, until that point try leaving the internet at the door and treating everyone as if they are, in fact, sincere.
If my goal as a poster is to drive engagement with my post that aligns pretty well with the goals of a troll, is there an important distinction? I guess I also am interested in learning rather than just driving engagement/outrage, so that might be detectable.
I want to hear the d*rwin story
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
This is cool, I will keep it in mind and recommend it if the opportunity arises. Thanks!
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Back in 2019 Alex Byrne wrote one of my favorite essays on the incoherence of gender identity and as far as I can tell no one has managed to offer a solid refutation.
I love the part of this essay where he goes through the various definitions of gender identity. That is fascinating, and to me illustrates that they are indeed kind of incoherent (or minimally useful outside their specific context, like political/social activism, clinical care, etc). I'd be curious what those definitions are now (it's been a few years)-- perhaps they have evolved as the cultural battle lines shift.
Instead of using these shaky definitions as a basis for a half-assed mathematical (philosophical?) proof he should have gone on to look at formal definitions of male, female, man, and woman with the same rigor. I'd imagine that they are also riddled with inconsistency or context-specific bias. Humans are complicated and muddy (especially at the margins), and any comprehensive "truth" needs to reflect that reality.
Personally I think that some are threatened by the idea of trans people because their existence suggests that our closely-held ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman might be too simple. In the future, when the gender identity people have won (because reality is in fact complicated), we'll probably have more creative (or straightforward?) ways to signal "I can provide semen" or "I can bear a child" or "I can provide you your desired sexual experience."
In that future it wouldn't surprise me if we came to accept that people's "switches," as Byrne puts it, are often innate but also at times flexible and subject to change on a biological basis, whim, trauma, or desire. It's just that the current political/social climate can't accommodate that reality, and current medical technology can't support wearing a different gender to work every day of the week.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Interesting, @netstack expressed a similar sentiment below.
That makes sense to me (that the invasion was a miscalculation), but why continue the conflict now? If that were truly the case why wouldn’t Russia seek to de-escalate and extricate itself to rejoin the global economy?
Also, my recollection is that after 2014 Russia began saving up a rainy day fund of a few hundred billion dollars in foreign currency, which when combined with ongoing income from exporting natural resources meant they could withstand sanctions for a few years. Wouldn’t that indicate that they believed a prolonged sanctions regime was possible before they invaded?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Oooh, nice-- are there some examples of badness that stand out to you? Or do you have a link to a critique? I would not be surprised if there are some critiques out there, but I'm also wary of the elitist "she's not an academic so she can't do anything of value." On the other hand it seems like the number of responses she gets are sometimes huge, so presumably there are some tricks you can do with a big dataset?
To be fair, she has a unique perspective and is really weird. That on its own is enough to be interesting, but she's also (arguably) hot and talks about sex things, which I imagine is what you're referring to.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I've been seeing media reports (1) about ISPs asking for companies (especially companies that use a lot of bandwidth like Netflix) to pay for network infrastructure. A quick google led me to a number of articles (2,3,{1}) that read something like:
"Large corporate bandwidth user resists efforts by ISPs or governments to make them pay for bandwidth use" (this is a little bit flippant, but isn't all that far from the truth).
My intuitive response is that users of bandwidth should pay for it, including large companies. This seems fairly straightforward, right?
Another article (4) mentioned that "net neutrality" is the idea that prevents ISPs from charging their customers. How is this defensible?
Another quick google leads me to this article (5) which mentions that one advantage of net neutrality is freedom of speech (which the modal mottizen might be inclined to support), but this goes against the straightforward argument that customers (e.g., Netflix) of a service (network infra providers) should pay for it. What gives?
Sources:
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This week (mar-2023): https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/netflix-fights-attempt-to-make-streaming-firms-pay-for-isp-network-upgrades/
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More than a year ago (sep-2022): https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/google-fights-latest-attempt-to-have-big-tech-pay-for-isps-network-upgrades/
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More than 10 years ago (feb-2011): https://www.osnews.com/story/24357/internet-infrastructure-who-should-pay/
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-pays-internet-infrastructure-simon-dillsworth/
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https://www.itpro.com/strategy/28115/the-pros-and-cons-of-net-neutrality
Sure, I’ll admit that general intelligence is a factor for some students when they choose to take honors classes.
I’d argue that for most students (middle of the Bell curve) the choice is related to other factors like signaling to colleges, their work ethic, their family dynamics (pressure from family, support from family), and their desire to challenge themselves and not be bored.
Edit: I forgot to add that which class a students’ cohort takes is probably a huge driver as well
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