Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
Hello back frens
User ID: 2022
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7d ago
I will believe this is about defense against taxation and antitrust judgments
Elaborate?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7d ago
Nobody uses it of himself or herself.
They totally do. Recent example.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
8d ago
And I feel like I too am moving to a political philosophy of common goodism and the other ideas are just means to achieve the good... Perhaps this is just the standard libertarian to fascism pipeline... It’s easy to be a liberal-libertarian when society is broadly good/stable but in harder times more pragmatic ideas emerge.
I dont think these things really fit together. The "common good", at least as understood by the integralists who most talk like this, definitely includes some freedoms. Different ones, and not all of them as deontologically rigid, but it certainly isnt just consequentialism. Nor are the ideas which emerge in hard times generally more pragmatic. There are some specific rather unpragmatic things were doing now, that would stop, but there would also be the romantic and heroic. No atheists in foxholes etc, and youll see this even within historical fascism.
In a way, totalitarianism is an easy next step after liberalism, because you dont need any new ideas. You already know how to pursue the welfare of individuals, and when youre sick of that, you just model the whole state as one individual and pursue its welfare. Humans are not ants, nor should we have been.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
8d ago
Its entirely fair to disagree with the alien theories - I dont have enough confidence in anything anthropic to change my behaviour, much less to put it on a list like that - but I think you make it sound much worse than it is. This is not a typical aliens conspiracy theory, it doesnt turn on "sightings", and not really more "out there" than related work like eg Bostrom on the Fermi paradox.
Life could be so rare that it exists in one of every 1000 universes in a greater multiverse, and it would look the same with "we exist" in all those scenarios.
In line with above... that is one way you can do anthropics. Im not sure "the likelihood of life can get arbitrarily low, because I can always posit greater non-interacting multiverses" is really on so much more solid ground than what youre critising with it. All of anthropics is weird, and we shouldnt point and laugh at one because its weird in a way that reminds us of a popular conspiracy theory.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
8d ago
Youre the second religious person to say something like this, but thats not the surprising thing. If I thought these people had no selection beyond "nonreligious", I wouldnt have wondered to begin with. The problem is that my window into all this where the rat fora, but the in-person community is much less defined by self-selecting into that specifically, and much more by Bay-Area-diffusion.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
8d ago
Im a bit surprised noone talked about it last week, but a big post came out about the history of Leverage Research. It was a major organisation in the same social circles as early Rationalism, but fell into disgrace shortly before covid after thoroughly driving themselves insane with woo/cult adjacent stuff. I was somewhat familiar with the case from back then, but reading this some things really came together for me, and I feel I now understand much better why the in-person rats are like that.
Reading this, there where many times where people seemed to me stupidly impressed by something. What little Ive seen of Anders (the founder/leader) psychological theory, that convinced so many he was worth working with, was the same. Why did they fall for this?
I think its because many of the people who got into Rationalism/EA/etc, did it because they Fucking Love Science. There really arent many places now where people believe in the power of science to transform the world in a big way, beyond what you need to rattle off to secure grants/investments, and it makes total sense that these people would be enamoured with it. There was of course also methodological thinking going on in rationalism, but these people would variously: adopt something from it as their shiny new tool, learn others as a shibboleth only, or saw the issue in self-improvment rather than understanding. They didnt do a systematic evaluation of methods generally, and keep it as a going concern in the back of their head, the way someone else might have done, and might have expected more people to do, if they didnt have in-person contact.
I dont want to blame them for this too much; I didnt get deep into methodology because I saw it as necessary for my journey to science utopia, either. I like science and all, but I got into methodology because I find it interesting for its own sake; from the rationalist perspective, Im drastically lacking in agency/urgency, its just that this is less personally harmful and more socially normal than what happened to them.
Measuring from the other end, the only case I clearly know of who really did develop significant methodological understanding because he thought it was neccessary for his project, is Yud. What did it take to make him do that? He thought he had previously been on course to destroy the world. The defense rests its case.
The "scene" is also bigger than just Rationalism, and the people who got into Leverage very deep may not have had as much contact with it as we might think someone moving to SF for this would. Still, a lot of social pathologies in the ratsphere make far more sense to me with a weaker version of this mechanism in mind.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
Yes, this would run off of some democrat he bribed. I think thats an advantage: it means they can just entice one such guy to come clean, instead of having to really investigate. I think there likely are cases that implicate only one official, maybe one who wants to retire anyway, and then you just need to make him a good enough offer to flip. Including extensive immunity so nothing more in that vicinity will need to be investigated.
cc /u/HereAndGone2 sure, this is not the way things are done normally, but you only need one.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
If they tried getting him on real estate corruption, then they'd have to prosecute everyone in New York from the mayor's office on down.
Why? Whats forcing them to be fair about this?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
They certainly tried to get him for everything else in the book (some of which was fair, other stuff less so).
I always found it a bit weird that they didnt bring any corruption case from his real estate business. Its hard to imagine he hasnt done it, in places with lots of Dem politicos, who may feel differently about him now and can be promised immunity and something like hero status - but no, they went with obscure campaign finance law. I dont get it.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
but they didn't hate them because they were somehow preventing Christians from being moneylenders
I dont think that plays such a role in the latter ones either. I think very few of the people complaining about (((bankers))) and (((Hollywood))) where interested in careers there. And even if it did play a role, they are still clearly similar to each other relative to the full range of prosecutions experienced by ethnic groups in general, and the breadth in time and space of those prosecutions remains unusual. It would be a strange coincidence for these not to have a common mechanism, and just proposing that the first mechanism caused the second does not by itself reduce the coincidence. The evidential bar for this is a lot higher than "can tell a reasonable just so story", and data on jewish intelligence only supports one step.
Also, as a general rule, "Were worse off because were better than everyone else" is copium, doubly so if its "better" in a pragmatic sense.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
The phenomenon is not limited to christian lands. And many peoples have been barred from many things; most of them do not become the jews.
It also seems like you agree with me that the early versions of the pattern where not caused by intelligence; I think this suggests the later versions, seemingly following a very similar script, also werent. You seems to think youve countered my argument if the jews werent at fault, thats not the point.
Pretty good for having the handicap of being located in the Middle East. And having all those non-Ashkenazim around too.
Yeah, I dont think it works like that. For all the attention given to their security issues, they seem to have it pretty well under control, and money spent on it counts to GDP anyway. And the rest of the West has plenty bad demographics at this point, and the non-ashkenazi jews are still comparable to europeans. This should be more or less proportional. You can also see it in other measures, eg nobel prices to diaspora vs israelis vs born israelis - which would even be less affected by the lower percentiles, still collapse.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
Fair, for some reason the other jews are usually compared to western populations also. Still, the versions of selection Ive heard for central/eastern europe kick in late relative to the history of persecution - often, with parts of that persecution as a cause. And I would guess the MENA version went similarly.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
6mo ago
As an HBDer, this is easy to explain: there exists group differences in intelligence between the races, and Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence is very high. So you should expect Jews to be overrepresented in all positions of economic, scientific, or political prestige - even overrepresented within the institutions that are doing work that you hate.
This looks plausible when youre only looking at that one question, less so otherwise. For example, the pattern of jewish overrepresentation in certain jobs and the majority getting mad at it is found broadly in space and time, which cant be explained by Ashkenazi selection in the middle ages. And the state of Israel, while certainly better than its neighbours, doesnt seem especially impressive compared to other western countries.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
It was a zero-risk bet. She has her "career" here, her parents, her tangled web of dysfunction. She wasn't going to Glasgow. But by offering, I get to be the Savior. I get to be the "One That Got Away." I get the credit for the gesture without having to buy the extra plane ticket.
This may be the least Autistic thing Ive ever read on here.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
the effectiveness of the teasing relies on its plausibility
Nah, we used "gay" as a universal insult before we knew what it meant also.
or one of the girls would tell her friend to tell you that she liked your friend
That did happen a couple times. At least half those times I know the middle friend made it up to troll her. I do/did think some of them were "real" but... idk, the girls had a lot of vaguely romance-coded social activities, most of which obviously werent that serious. Also, no boy made an admission of any kind.
when you were a kid what internal response did you have when you happened upon risque images
I dont remember anything. Im sure it happended but it must not have had much impact.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
Let's say puberty begins around 12, that's plenty of time to pick up on the memeset around sexual attraction and compare it against what does and doesn't resonate with your own feelings.
Maybe you misunderstood the question. That doesnt explain why you think they already have those feelings.
All common behaviours in my experience
Huh. In my experience, elementary-school boys and girls rarely play with each other. We did tease each other over "liking" someone (in the later years), but those attributions where made up on the flimisiest of pretexts and really just exist for the sake of the teasing. I think that is just imitating the older kids where the first ones who do start to like are, understandably, made fun of.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
Yeah, I meant this in the sense of "doesnt especially promote", because if it did, that might explain why something weird shows up.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
How did that tweet end up sticking in your memory, o lorekeeper?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
Well, I dont have to imagine. I mean, I "knew" that I would like girls because thats how all the adults ended up, and I did, but it sure didnt feel that way at the time.
And I mean, in what sense would you "like" them? Social groups are a lot more sex segregated before puberty IME, which is not what Id expect if they liked each other to a significant extent. Is there any non-introspective observation that makes you expect that?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
Just semi-randomly encountered this:
Prior to that moment, the sin I wore on my sleeve was that of a lesbian: a label I had the courage to give myself at age 17. This label described an affection I noticed before I knew how to spell my name. When it happened on the playground, I didn’t know what it was.
Wut? I dont remember hearing any claims of sexual orientation manifesting pre-puberty. It doesnt seem like it would fit a christian narrative either. Is there some background I dont know?
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
I meant that the argument quoted in my first comment is weird, for the reasons Ive outlined. This doesnt really say anything about the sleeping beauty disagreements, except by pointing to the difficulty of establishing probabilities for "its Monday" and "its Tuesday" without indifference.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
if somebody had "a reason that applies", you can swap Monday/Tuesday in it and it would give the opposite result
That would be true if all your knowledge where symmetric about them. But you know that heads/Tuesday is impossible, that Tuesday comes after Monday, and much more. You only have that its subjectively indistiguishable which one youre in in the moment.
Im also a mathematician, and not arguing towards either result. The halfers dont even object here. I just thought this argument is weird.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
7mo ago
I know the principle of indifference, but youve talked about mathematicians who know what probability measures, and the indifference principle isnt a mathematical result, or obligatory to use them. Its something we use to come up with some probabilistic model when we dont have any better idea. It doesnt really make sense to use it to refute someone elses probability claims. Either they have a reason that applies, in which case indifference doesnt apply, or they dont have one, in which case that is what you need to argue.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
8mo ago
Im wondering if Im having a brainfart because noone else has pointed it out, but:
If the coin is tails, Sleeping Beauty can’t distinguish between Monday and Tuesday. So the probability of Monday/tails is the same as Tuesday/tails.
I dont think thats valid as stated. For example, if I throw a weighted coin and dont tell you the result, you also cant distinguish between the different outcomes, but it doesnt follow that the coin was fair.
I dont find it that surpirsing. Limited patience with people has always been part of her brand, and the accuser sure is a "come on man" character here.
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