domain:alakasa.substack.com
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
14m ago
You're skipping over the fact that they were engaging in ethnic cleansing in eastern Ukraine before the conflict heated up.
I have no doubts people like that would be persecuting Russian speakers using typical natsoc tactics if given power, and that's a far cry from standard nationalism. The other parties you cite didn't do that and don't have large paramilitary forces.
People don't want to contemplate this because Putin uses it to justify his geopolitical moves, but it was still a real thing.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
23m ago
So is that like a Quest thread on spacebattles or something, audience voting on what comes next?
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
34m ago
You, the invoker of IQ, need to prove the numbers work as numbers and aren't better being left as philosophical concepts or practical examples, or point to something well established that does.
Lewis Terman (of Stanford-Binet fame) and his many successors (and predecessors) have done that. IQ isn't some crank idea.
The simple, self-evident fact that IQ is fit to a normal curve and you yourself don't seem to believe that a symmetric 15 point gap is equal across the domain is in and of itself a tacit admission that IQ is the wrong tool.
The reason for this belief was explained; you've ignored the explanation. If you're just e.g. having casual conversation with someone, you may well not be able to detect someone at 100 from someone at 115, but could detect someone at 100 from someone at 85. This does not at all mean there's something unequal about IQ. It just means such casual conversation is not particularly intellectually taxing. The symmetry you claim must exist is not, in fact, a requirement.
As for "nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio", the Wikipedia page on that actually cites IQ as an example of an ordinal measurement, though I am not sure Terman would agree.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
34m ago
If you were a skilled artist, surely you could make such a film entertaining. Imagine a band of heroic scouts discovering some deception operation, that the enemy was trying to outflank them or that a seemingly huge army was actually just balloons and dummies. What about a duel between cyberpunk drone operators, scrabbling around a ruined megacity as their drones hunt eachother's weak flesh and blood body? That's just extending what we see in Ukraine a few steps.
What about using clever tactics to get around superior firepower by fighting in close quarters? Or basic things like fire and manoeuvre, characters working together?
Tanya the Evil was well-liked IIRC.
EverythingIsFine
48m ago
One total aside that I cannot cast out of my brain is how much sidewalk quality seems to set the vibe for a neighborhood. Why does the suburban crap side look so much worse than the other newer side? Is it simply newness? Do sidewalks simply need to be replaced after a certain period of time, or repaired, or can grass growing up through cracks in the sidewalk be prevented easily by design or maintenance or is it a losing battle? Does type of concrete matter to avoid the curb crumbling away, or is that also inevitable? Does the fact that the new side planted trees in tiny little cutouts mean that in 20-30 years the sidewalk will be broken up and destroyed by roots?
Another side note: these are awesome. I wish patios hadn't disappeared in so many parts of the country and construction styles.
EverythingIsFine
1hr ago
Simply using IQ necessitates that you grapple with these things. That's the nature of using numbers to describe something human. You, the invoker of IQ, need to prove the numbers work as numbers and aren't better being left as philosophical concepts or practical examples, or point to something well established that does. The simple, self-evident fact that IQ is fit to a normal curve and you yourself don't seem to believe that a symmetric 15 point gap is equal across the domain is in and of itself a tacit admission that IQ is the wrong tool. Are you familiar with the statistical notions of how an assigned number scale can be nominal, or ordinal, or interval, or ratio? It's not a perfect paradigm by any means, but it's one you must grapple with at least on some level, and happens to be incredibly relevant here in this case. See also OP's initial claim that the distribution has a weird asymmetric tail, also evidence (though more mild) against using IQ as the correct tool. Similarly, the fact that you dodge the 100-center question, which is a fundamentally important question to the use of IQ, is not acceptable.
I mean, I get the whole all models are wrong but some are useful, but these are just the very basics, the fundamentals, they are not nitpicks. An example of something that at least does attempt to address these issues and mostly succeeds is the Likert scale. You might be familiar with it. It's the classic 5 or 7 point scale in response to a question, with "strongly agree" and "slightly agree" and "not sure" and disagree options. There's a natural zero, and at least psychologists attempt to say that the distance between each point is "equal". I know forced normalization distorts this equal-distance formulation slightly, in terms of the math, but two properties that persist across the transformation are the aforementioned symmetry of responses, and also the center point of responses. These two decisions are non-negotiable and mandatory to make and cannot be hand-waved away. They are inherent to the math and the use of a numerical model.
Tanista
1hr ago
Anyone watching the new season of The Boys. Cause it feels...worse?
Like, the show was never really subtle. But it seems over the top now. I don't care about things like the Frenchie subplots already. But the show doesn't even seem to be able to keep a coherent continuity.
- Victoria Ocasio-Cortez is supposed to be deadset against Vought and Homelander. How can she be seen having even vaguely positive conversations with Homelander after what happened last season? Why is she at any Vought event at all?
- For that matter, how does she justify her opposition to muzzling supes giving her political positions? Are we just going to pretend they don't exist?
- "Schools that teach Critical Supe Theory"? When was this supposed to happen? The theme of the show has been Vought being in control of the super narrative for decades up until recently. Also: "Critical Supe Theory"? Fuck off.
- What's with this continuity breaking idea that all heroics are fake (raised by A-Train's brother)? Manipulated, yes. Used for Vought's gain? Sure. Not worth the cost in collateral? Probably not. But almost every supe thing we've seen mentioned involves choreography or lying.
TequilaMockingbird
1hr ago
Its a deep cut and i like it ;-)
Quantumfreakonomics
1hr ago
I think it's a mistake to consider the MCU to be porting in the global political situation as it actually exists. They use the same vocabulary because it is efficient from a storytelling perspective, but I thought it was clear that the "UN" in that movie was a stand-in for "political oversight, not otherwise specified".
A lot of the issues you are identifying are medium-specific. Cinema is very very effective at conveying emotional information about specific characters. It is less effective at communicating the intricacies of various philosophical viewpoints. Feature films have good guys and bad guys. That's the format that people expect to see when they pay money and walk into a theater.
To me, a much more satisfying conflict among good guys would be for good people to fight over complex issues and/or ideological divides, and do so rationally rather than emotionally.
I thought Oppenheimer did a pretty good job of this, but at the end of the day, audiences demand cinematic cues who to root for. Some people think Kitty Oppenheimer getting absolutely roasted on cross examination is an epic girlboss moment. It has to be because the music indicates that it is a heroic moment.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Bullshit. The US having a mandatory death penalty for drug dealers is exactly as likely as a national abortion ban- they have the same precondition(total red tribe political victory). Lax enforcement leads to meaningfully more drug use. California set the taxes way too high, but there's black market cigarettes literally everywhere, and California also has a large pre-existing problem with just not enforcing the law. It's not like cracking down on the illegal sellers wouldn't drive people back to paying taxes on the shit.
EverythingIsFine
1hr ago
Point 1 is a good point. Personally my philosophy is that we should be looking for disparate treatment more independently of results, though I understand and suppose I agree that a more thorough and complete understanding of underlying facts and mechanisms could be helpful to figuring things out, at least in theory. Fundamentally I don't like dismissing arguments simply because many make them in bad faith, you can use a true thing to make a bad faith argument. Still, it certainly seems to be true that a good chunk (certainly not all) of the HBD stuff seems to just be Eugenics 2: Electric Boogaloo rather than "let's just follow the science". Not that this is unique to one particular political group, of course. So I guess overall, I think looking at disparate treatment alone and independently is often sufficient, so it doesn't necessarily follow that we need to do a deep dive into HBD theory stuff. I'm open to being wrong. Do you have some examples where it wouldn't be?
I mean there are parts of point 2 that are I think fairly self-evident, and you summarize it well, but I think you overlook that sometimes we actually have a vested interest in fairness even if outcomes are objectively worse. I think these cases are actually few and far-between, rather than super common -- I'm not naive enough to say that diversity is always a strength. I think it often has hidden benefits. I think that sometimes a desire for societal fairness and respect is greater than the need for some super-optimized result, if the cost is introducing a disproportionate amount of stereotyping.
Of course you do make a good point that the equation isn't always immutable. As I myself said in a longer comment just barely, gathering other, better information is really the best case. We don't allow companies to provide IQ tests, but some other forms of testing are allowed. I do think some of the restrictions need to be loosened on what's allowed for recruiters. Jobs are important enough that I think a lot of people in power aren't giving them the policy care and attention they need.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
(assuming they actually have independent oppo programs and aren't just puppets of some dem "non-profit.")
While I doubt this, I also don't think the DNC would shy away from having their proxies couch anti-Trump arguments in anti-abortion language assuming they thought it would work. Maybe the porn stars were all on birth control(I'd assume that people who have sex for a living are).
EverythingIsFine
1hr ago
Just wanted to say I appreciate the polite, specific reply and am aware of some of these arguments but don't feel I have something very useful to add to the general conversation. :)
EverythingIsFine
1hr ago
Yeah, I thought it added something unique. Re: "I would like to see a similar voting breakdown focused only on cases with strong culture war salience":
Let’s look at the three cases from last term that were described as the most politically divisive that were decided along that ideological, x-axis.
The Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s student loan debt forgiveness plan. That was a 6-3 case that lined up ideologically and was by nearly any measure an important one. But if that case were decided only along the ideological axis, then why did five of those conservative justices uphold the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement plan? That decision held that states — in this case Texas and Louisiana — couldn’t sue to force the president to deport undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of crimes while in the United States? This was also considered a highly political case while it was pending before the court, but because it was decided 8-1 in favor of the Biden administration, it barely got any attention. If it had been decided 6-3 against the Biden administration, it no doubt would have been considered divisive — which just highlights the problem with the definition.
The Supreme Court also decided three cases about how to deal with the country’s history of racial discrimination last term. The court upheld section 2 of the Voting Rights Act which requires states to consider race in creating congressional districts. That was a 5-4 decision with the chief justice, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh and Jackson in the majority. The court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act which gave adoption placement preferences based on tribal status. That was 7-2. And it struck down Harvard and North Carolina’s race-based admissions policies by a 6-3 vote along ideological lines. Only the last case got major headlines. Why? Perhaps because the other two didn’t line up strictly on ideological lines, and therefore were not divisive.
I think they are making the case here that there's some very, very strong selection bias in play when we categorize things as "politically divisive", roughly analogous to "strong culture war salience". In other words, if we only ever describe whether a case is divisive based on the result, rather than the actual case, of course we are going to see a lot of divisive and partisan cases! It's - I think it's kind of like begging the question logical fallacy, yes?
Of course you probably could rate ideological controversy before cases are decided and then look at voting patterns. I think they didn't in this case because they wanted to focus on a time period where the 9 justices were also the current justices, and Jackson was only confirmed in 2022. I agree I would be interested if this type of analysis held up in other previous years with different justices, though it would lack the same generalizability.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
But scriptwriters aren't smart enough to write that or don't want to.
I could be wrong, but I believe that scriptwriters at the level of actually writing scripts are professionals who produce the script they're being told to produce by the person paying them to do it. The plot, characters, etc. are decided on by directors and producers.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
I think some of it is true belief, but some of it is also artsy people(the sorts who direct movies) having different tastes than the general public(source: visit an art museum), and DEI is a convenient way for those people to shield themselves from criticism.
When I was a youth the 'in' thing for artsy types was to look down their noses at Michael Bay movies, which nevertheless sold like hotcakes. The 'designated cool grownup' teacher when I was in high school explained to a group of these kids like thus- "I know, when I go to a Michael Bay movie, that I'm going to be entertained. It's going to have action, the plot might not be great but it'll be passable and at least a little bit compelling, there's going to be a lead who actually does something, etc. I'm a teacher trying to support a family and have to choose which movies I pay to go see and I don't know that Oscar-bait is going to entertain me, but a Michael Bay action movie will. Therefore, like many others facing that decision, I see Michael Bay movies." I'm paraphrasing a bit, but the truth is that the general public and art people have different preferences. And artsy types generally resent being expected to earn a return on investment for their employers, and employers famously at least claim to put DEI before profits, so telling an artsy story about black lesbians is a way for artsy types to make their movies art and not business.
EverythingIsFine
1hr ago
Do you think Gorsuch is his own group, or just happens to have a few "pet issues" that he individually feels strongly and deviantly about? I think the article pointed out he often goes his own way in Native American cases, for example.
EverythingIsFine
1hr ago
I find it hard to believe that your (implied) answer to 'not stereotyping is hard' is 'give up', much less 'give up on purpose'! Especially when it comes to something important. If you have something to say, say it. Don't imply it.
Obviously asking someone for lunch recs is much lower-stakes than deciding on a job hire. Obviously there's also a risk-reward component that I think is just common sense, but we need to be careful about how much we allow this to be stretched. Avoiding someone on the classic dark road, it's kinda no harm no foul, we don't have a duty to talk to strangers there. Avoiding someone in broad daylight in a crowd by blatantly deviating your course might be more legitimately offensive. I think the dark road example is an incredibly bad faith argument.
But sure, I'd ask all or several of my coworkers for recommendations. A fat coworker has eyes and also a brain, and might take a different driving route to work that drives past different restaurants. They also might go to restaurants more often than fit coworker. All very plausible reasons to ask, that could have good outcomes, that I'd rob myself of if I didn't ask. Plus, you know, the respect aspect.
I worked selling flooring for a while and I tried to make it a point when someone came in to not pigeonhole them into a certain price point. Of course this would vary, and of course (I spoke Spanish better than some of my theoretically native-speaker colleagues) you notice patterns, like who is more likely to be a renter vs owner vs businessperson vs tradesperson. But I will say that it wasn't uncommon for me to talk to someone like a neutral adult, and it turns out their financial or job status was far different than my initial guess would have been. I do feel like this helped build an overall environment of respect, and also 100% got me at least a few sales that if I had instantly stereotyped, I would have missed. I think even someone with a limited budget would appreciate me not talking down to them and giving them all the options, and we have a conversation for the literal and explicit purpose of narrowing it down and finding something for them. Use your words, gather data via a conversation, and base your opinions on that! Don't excessively allow background judgements to apply to individuals. It's hard, but not totally impossible, and a basic societal building-block of respect. I'm sure I wasn't perfect, but effort counts. How is that even a point of debate?
Besides, half your examples are not actually stereotyping. Negative stereotyping is when you make an assumption about someone based purely on physical appearance, rumor, etc. and act on that in such a way it impacts your treatment of them in a bad, disrespectful, etc way (as an individual). Asking an established-as-Japanese coworker about sushi is not a stereotype. Visible muscles are not a stereotype. Asking a known Spanish-speaker for help is not a stereotype and is fine. Pointing a customer toward a Hispanic-sounding name coworker in hopes they speak Spanish is bad. Asking said Hispanic-sounding-name coworker directly if they speak Spanish is probably fine and expected, but there are variants on how you ask that might be more or less respectful and don't overtly make the same assumptions.
That's kind of what politeness and respect is all about. No one ever said that you had to genuinely 100% have true respect for everyone around you, but you are obligated in a general social sense to play the game of respect and politeness, and eventually some of that actually bleeds through into actual attitudes. Like the Good Place book title, it's all about "What We Owe to Each Other", a phrase that really stuck with me. Golden-rule type shit. Treat others how you want to be treated!! Is that so strange?
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
1hr ago
Channeling the Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight:
I can't baby, because you're not!
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Weren't a lot of them half-caste? Seems to complicate things- would they have been treated as full community members had they stayed, or would they have been discriminated against? I'm sure it varied from community to community. Did they have an IQ advantage over their coethnics, or were the white men who impregnated aboriginal women an example of not sending our best? Etc, etc.
TequilaMockingbird
2hr ago
The first two seasons of Better Call Saul were a masterpiece of noir writing and film-making that was on par with or exceeded anying Breaking Bad had done, CMV.
haroldbkny
2hr ago
To me, a much more satisfying conflict among good guys would be for good people to fight over complex issues and/or ideological divides, and do so rationally rather than emotionally. But this is politically and culturally impossible, because you'd have to believe that there are good people on both sides (TM).
I hear really good things about Twelve Angry Men, though I haven't seen it yet. It's on my list.
somedude
2hr ago
AFAIK as IQ is deliberately intended to be normalized, the gap is exactly the same 85 to 100 as 100 to 115, and if you think that those two aren't the same, you are also inherently saying that IQ is the wrong tool for the job.
I'm not sure what you're even trying to get at here. A fifteen point gap at the higher end of the distribution isn't likely to be noticeable in everyday casual interaction, but at the lower end it can be the difference between someone who can at least tell you their own name and a total potato.
That's not even getting into the whole "what benchmark do we set 100 at", do we update it year to year or try to peg it to some historical benchmark (though this is not necessarily fatal to IQ as a metric in the same way the first is, it does present a question that must be addressed when using IQ).
The people who want to pooh-pooh the utility of IQ as a metric have had the reigns of society for generations now and their attempts at racial uplift have been a humiliating failure.
The question is, I think, a little bit misleading, because humans don't live in a vacuum - they have real desires and needs that require other humans, or some kind of human society, to meet. That's the real challenge, not questions of human worth so far abstracted away from the actual problems we face as to be irrelevant.
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