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thomasThePaineEngine

Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

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joined 2022 September 11 16:24:53 UTC
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thomasThePaineEngine


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 11 16:24:53 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Coming from a place of curiosity: How are these duties managed? By which I mean: who defines them, where are they defined, and who is the judge/enforcer? How do decide to make tradeoffs, like for example in a situation where you would have to renege against your duty to your ancestors in order to fulfill your duty to your family?


In other words, what makes these duties concrete to you?


Christians and others of the Abrahamic faiths have their books that codify their duties, and they have their priests, that act as judge/enforcer and guide. I'm sure other religion provide similar frameworks. Humanism, especially of the EA kind, has their own version of this. So where does yours come from?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Surely there are people skilled in the dark arts of communication, advertising, and psychology which know how to translate* the sorts of things we discuss into a form consumable by the average person. Given that these disciplines are not new, surely there is a handbook of basic principles for crafting such messages? Do we have any practitioners of the dark arts that can provide such resources?




This assumes the problem is that the information is presented in a form that's too complicated for average people to consume. What if, instead, it's a matter of desire? In other words, what if people just don't care about this stuff? At the risk of steering into cynical territory, what if most people are happy to let a small minority fight over Big Questions and leave them free to eat waffles, watch a good movie, go on a date, etc.?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Because he exists? Your children and grandchildren might, but the coal miner is alive now and trying to live in the world today, and hopefully make any kind of world at all for his children and grandchildren.




Doesn't this argument justify all short-term thinking?


Also, why can't the coalminer find a different job? Yes, there's both a physical and mental cost to this. But does that justify forcing 330 million citizens to live under a worse energy policy so that 62 thousand of them don't have to re-educate themselves into a different profession? This is the USA--many people here have careers that span half a dozen professions.




Why are your children and grandchildren better than his?




I never said that, nor was it implied.




Also do you really think Trump would have been treated better if he'd backed out of Paris to ramp up nuclear?




Treated better--by whom? His enemies would be just as critical of him as they were always. His supporters would be just as supportive. A small handful of people who care about energy policy would be happy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But what they can do, in order to relieve this sense of pressure about being part of the problem but not part of the solution, is to participate in it. They are suffering too! They are thinking about poverty and injustice and feeling bad! They share all this to reassure each other, and be reassured, that they are in fact not the bad guys, they're one of the good ones.




I think you hit the nail on the head.


For many, I suspect there's also an element of selling out.


Nerd culture, especially the US flavor, has a strong countercultural streak to it. By talking about these topics, signaling support, and wearing a hoodie, it's probably possible to mask (from yourself) the fact that you're making a boatload of money, writing design documents, and talking about KPIs, quarterly goals, and securing wins.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What makes you afraid of the holy wards failing? Genuinely interested.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, totally! What I was getting at is that if this digital world feels foreign or "wrong" to you (or the author of that blog post), you might lock yourself out from all of this.


I'm an optimist. I see all of these amazing things happening. People finding each other, coming together, creating something cool and fun. Sometimes, even useful. I'm glad that many more people today find value in the Web compared to ten or twenty years ago.


So apparently there are many optimists out there, but perhaps we don't hear too much from them because they're busy modding, learning, sharing instead of ranting at how bad everything is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you! I always thought this phrase describes a single "bookend."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for December 23, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Merry Christmas!


It's sometimes difficult to notice the positive things that take place, us being drowned in the CW and all, so I salute your effort in bringing joy & merriment to the fore.


In a similar spirit, have other mottizens ever gotten a semi-random stranger to compliment them? It's an amazing feeling. It also feels good on the giving side. Give it a try, if you get a chance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 4, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How do you find the writing and style? From the bit about your husband it sounds engaging.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Technical question: why are you using log(monthly income)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Stop that! It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't see what calling these things infohazards or sociogenic illnesses adds.




I guess there's an element of choice in mimicry, but no choice when it comes to illness? It's not specified in the source whether the affected people decided to imitate a popular youtuber or just found themselves replaying the youtuber's behavior.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Some thoughts on the trajectory of Elon Musk
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not based on fact, but I see it as extremely likely given that:


    

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    SpaceX and Tesla both have a reputation of having people put in crazy weeks.
    

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    Musk recently warned Twitter employees to brace for 80h weeks soon.
    

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    The industry, as a whole, has extremely high variation in working hours. Some engineers get by working 20 or less hours per week, others work 80h+. In my own experience, I've seen a similar divide just between teams in the same company.
    

    • 



I'm happy to learn otherwise though. Working at a Musk company would allow me to make my work-time more productive rather than treating it as a paycheck machine that allows me to productively use my non-work time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


“I know of six critical systems (like ‘serving tweets’ levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers,” a former employee said. "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop.”




Just wanted to push against messages like this, because this sounds like something from "revenge of the nerds."


Big systems like Twitter's have accumulated multiple layers of redundancy in case of failure over the years. There's probably quite a bit of automation to take care of the steady stream of problems like faulty hard drives or network cards. It can probably keep on going for quite some time this way.


Also, the biggest source of incidents? Change.


If so many Twitter engineers have left/been fired, then I imagine the rate of changes introduced into the system is approaching the level of a code freeze--basically a ban on introducing changes to the system around the holidays because they want to minimize risk even though it carrier a very high cost.


In this state, I would expect a skeleton would be able to keep things running for months. Especially if you can get some really good ones to tackle the 'black swan' type incidents that actually do require some clever thinking to fix--but again, this is all about pushing the systems back into a stable state (less risky) rather than "fixing forward" (more risky).


What I would be worried about is sabotage that can fall under plausible denial. Stuff like setting a primary key on a database column to an int32, which will hit the limit in weeks/months and is annoyingly hard to fix. But maybe by then Musk will have a larger set of solid engineers working at Twitter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would add, though I cannot search for sources right now, that there's a meme in Russian culture that's been around for some low number of centuries at least, where Russians consider other slavs as "lesser slavs" and themselves as "higher slavs." It shows itself in a disdain for other slavic cultures as less sophisticated, and in elevating the Russian culture/science/history as the pinnacle of slavic culture.


(Big, unverified historical arc warning) Every time Russia annexed a place like Poland, whether it was during the Partitions or in the aftermath of WW2, it basically treated Poland like place from which to extract resources and human labor and nothing more.


I think the situation surrounding this meme is particularly poignant because Poland as well as many other Eastern European states lean strongly toward European culture. Not slavishly though--there is both a respect and awe of Western Europe, but it's mixed with (growing) respect and awe for slavic culture and a slight, often humorous dig at Western European culture as being "fancy." Kind of a "together, but separate" kind of deal.


Edit:


Also, over the past decade, for reasons I cannot untangle, Poland has been heavily revisiting it's 20th century history. Speeches are made, monuments built, streets renamed for WW2 or anti-communist heroes. Seriously, comparing Poland of the 00's to Poland of '22, there's monument upon monument dedicated to WW2 or people murdered by the communist regime. Big or small, prominently placed in the capitol or secluded on a forest side road, the country is awash with monuments remembering historical suffering. I suspect this country-sized load of historical anger is now finding an outlet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Interesting points.


Starting from the end, I think you oversimplify the economics & laws angle. If humans were simple optimizers, then yes, they would all behave in a set of uniform, most optimal behaviors. There would be no new businesses, no new music, no new books, etc. Everyone in New York would just run laundromats, irish pubs, and sell hot dogs, to name a few things. But that's not really the case in reality--the laws, in the city and in most places in the US at least, are liberal enough for individuals to tinker, try new ideas, and find new ways of expressing themselves whether it's through commerce or art or whatever.


That's where I see the beauty of liberalism--let it provide a minimal set of laws that ensure more or less stability and... leave the rest up to people. In practice, given zoning and licensing and bureaucracy, this doesn't exist, but even in the much faded, weaker version of it that we have, we still see a ton of creative destruction. Much of it is garbage, but that's the cost of having monkey brains hitting two stones together until they find just the right stones that give sparks. This process, though, is made stronger by a steady stream of immigrants--whether internal or external--even though yes, after some n number of generations, they will likely meld in. However, by then, they will have very likely left a mark on the place.


I'm not sure I get the argument about surface diversity. If I set aside the EU angle, I don't see why it matters for a country to be able to be against gay rights? Like, if you live in Liberaltopia, there's nothing stopping you from not associating with gay people. There's nothing stopping you from forming a group with other people and having each other promise that you will not do gay things or associate with gays. There's also no size limit imposed on your group--it could be just your friends or half the country. Why would you want the state to interfere and set up some laws against gay people's freedoms? Surely, if gayness is in anyway bad, well, then in the free market of ideas, gayness will fade away while your non-gay group will grow and prosper?


This applies to other topics around enforcing culture.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's a fair point. I admit I have an axe to grind with HR and that's skewing my perceptions. It's useful for me to air it out and get some pushback--thank you.


That said, can you describe what value HR brings to a company? I can think of a couple of things, such as managing the recruiting pipeline and on/off-boarding processes. Plus taking care of mandatory trainings and providing employees with an interface with the benefits & insurance. Also: tackling employee grievances. But that still means the ratio of HR-to-employee should be low. Perhaps something like 1:25 or even more, since you get economies of scale as the number of employees grow.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My post was partially inspired by having to sit through 2 hours of DEI training organized by HR.


Maybe it's me spending too much time here and getting used to good faith, high quality arguments, but those two hours felt like being schooled by teenagers who were giving it half their effort. It was painful. For example, we had a module about how diversity is a smart business choice because it gets more diverse ideas injected into the company, after which we had to get into groups of 3-4 and discuss how each of us would work toward increasing diversity in our specific roles.


My first thoughts were:


    

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    leading the question -> there's no room for discussion, even questions, but you're made to feel "as if" you have any choice or input. You're given a goal (diversity) and ordered to come up, in front of your peers (social pressure), with ways to achieve that goal.
    

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    motte and bailey -> basically arguing for an unfair, politically-motivated redistribution of wealth ("bad diversity") and hiding it behind a good, meaningful idea of diversity.
    

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At the end, I couldn't tell what's worse. The icky ways someone was trying to pressure people into doing/thinking what they wanted us to think OR the form it took, which was so poor, it would get you a C at most if you did that for a school project.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So for an article to gain top-shelf status it seems it has to use so many inside terms--and preferably inside terms that in turn require inside terms to understand--that only people on the inside could get, not the "normies".






So a "normie" article would just not cut it, regardless of useful the insight, especially if the insight is accesible by anyone (the plebs). I guess elitist is the word.




Can this be simply the case that what you're encountering is the intersection between novelty and community preferences?


For example:


    

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    blog post that satisfies the community's preferences and offers novel insights = much liked.
    

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    blog post that satisfies the community's preferences but offers no novel insights = mostly ignored.
    

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    blog post that does not satsify the community's preferences but offers novel insights = sometimes ignored, some times disliked.
    

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    blog post that does not satisfy the community's preferences and does not offer novel insights = disliked.
    

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Let's take your idea about Karl Popper's falsifiability principle:


    

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    if you post a description about it on LW, I would imagine it would mostly be ignored. It does not seem to satisfy LW preferences nor is it novel.
    

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    if you post a description about it on themotte, I would imagine it would be read, but would garner few replies/upvotes. It falls into themotte preferences, but is not novel.
    

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    if you post an interesting, novel take about it on LW, I would imagine it would mostly be ignored, although you have a chance to hook someone interested in this type of stuff.
    

    • 

  • 

    if you post an interesting, novel take about it on themotte, I would imagine you might get many replies and many upvotes.
    

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				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How are you finding Korzybski?


When I read some of his stuff, I found it mainly interesting from a historical point of view. Something like prehistoric cybernetics, which in itself seems like something of a pre-industrial age to our current information age.


Myself, I'm reading through some books on rhetoric.


I'm fascinated by the ways it lays out how to communicate with others. Even the simple ethos/pathos/logos framework has changed how I approach reading and writing. I'm confused why it's not being taught as part of the school curriculum. English classes seem to be subordinate to literature, to reading and analyzing, whereas rhetoric puts emphasis on producing and synthesizing. I think any country would be better of if its citizens went through a year or two of rhetoric training.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for December 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm not long enough into my career that I feel the need to "lock in" to a specific field. Also, economically, web dev is just about 10x more prevalent than Data Science.




How does the income distribution look like in Data Science?


In webdev, at least a few years ago, it was multi-modal with a huge deviation. You had webdevs making $30k/year and webdevs making $200k/year. That, and the lack of interesting challenges, were what eventually chased me out of that subgenre.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for December 9, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I gave it a go yesterday. Super fun, much easier than the classic interface. Would recommend it to most themottians.


I want to sink a few hours into it, but I think I'll have to wait for some holidays or something when I can let myself submerge in the game for a few hours.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Identity politics.


It doesn't matter what happened or why. It also doesn't matter what you think or what your friends think (and how they think "it"). The only thing that matters is what someone felt and who someone is. That's the goal of the interaction you interfered in, walked right in with your boots muddy with logic, and hands dripping with questions.


It's a branch of collectivism, of elevating the whole over the parts, and simply put: you were an individual interacting with a multi-bodied organism, which rejected you as any body does a foreign object.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Rationalists are too easily duped
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but I as a rational skeptic do not assume it is unbroken.




And yet you assume you have access to other people's mental models.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for sharing that. I understand a little bit more about where you're coming from.


It seems we're more or less aligned on the ends. I'm not sure about the means--for one, divvying people up into cities/states/nations doesn't appeal to me, since I'd rather do the categorization based on culture or at least "big ideas" such as "should the citizen be the property of the state?" But I guess it'll shake out in future discussions, which I'm looking forward to.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How familiar are you with Polish history and culture?


I recommend adjust your priors about this man to "slightly crazy." Not that that's the only thing about him--he's great at forging relationships and leading the group of people who voted for him, but this is a guy who, during an interview many years back, when asked what he sees his life's goal as, replied, in a non-joking manner, that he sees himself as "the redeemer of the nation."


I believe that, ultimately, remarks like this will destroy the thing he's building because they destroy the mask he's built up over the years--of a professional man, interested in one thing only: the good of the people.