domain:papyrusrampant.substack.com
BahRamYou
21hr ago
That's my suspicion. Its like people have taken the prestige from the entire field of mathematics and awarded it all to this one guy, because they need a single person to be the face. No one cares about the number 2, even if he's also super smart and successful.
RenOS
something is wrong
21hr ago
I fear that in certain fields, the opposite might even be the case - that the science regresses one funeral at a time. It's not that the older scientists have no biases whatsoever, but it really isn't rare that younger academics (can't really call them scientists in good conscience, tbf) are much more strictly dogmatic and don't even pretend to be interested in the pursuit of truth if it goes against their beliefs.
BahRamYou
21hr ago
There's also the Mathew Effect, where people give credit to the most famous scientist just because it adds prestige. But can sometimes lead to people like Einstein getting solo credit for things he just briefly mentioned.
Dean
Flairless
21hr ago
You avoided the question, since you did not identify what free speech right is now being targeted by the government by the government not providing monetary grants.
The government was already- as in, for decades pre-Trump- using Title IX against universities for what individuals were doing. This has repeatedly withstood the scrutiny of courts, bipartisan elected official review, and even the approval of academics like Terence Tao. Your own citation concedes that 'Real discrimination deserves a real response,' it merely quibbles what [real discrimination] should be bounded at, while presenting a false dilemma that has already come to pass.
BahRamYou
21hr ago
See i see anecdotes like that, and I think "cool, what did he say that's so smart it made a highly respected professor feel awe? Can i see it too? Maybe I can't understand it but Id like to try. "
With Einstein, there's tons of famous quotes from him, and a ton of pop science designed to help regular people understand his work. Because he did interesting work that we want to understand. Scott Aaronson has a nifty blog helping regular people understand his own work in quantum computing. Ive never seen anyone try to do that for Terence Tao. It just seems like hyper abstract academic stuff that only mathematicians would care about.
That's a great way to go about it, but it still has an issue.
All epistemic methods I'm aware of have issues. I'm not aware of one with fewer issues than weighing evidence, making predictions, and tracking results. Certainly you have not presented an alternative, nor explained why that alternative is better.
I'll call it the "9/11 truther effect" because I see it in conspiracy theories a lot. People will have some sort of low evidence idea in their head that is disagreed with because of a personal bias or issue of theirs, and then update later with the claim of "Ahah, I was right all along. This proves 9/11 was manufactured!" because of course, the standards and biased thinking that led them to believing 9/11 was fake to begin with also lead them to judge they are proven correct later.
You are pointing out that peoples' assessment of evidence can be flawed, and their assessment of outcomes can also be flawed, and that correlation between these flaws can compromise their assessments. This is true. Unfortunately, there is no general solution to the epistemic problem, and all the evidence I've seen indicates that this is as good as it gets.
When I was much younger, I was a deep-blue progressive atheist deeply embedded in the Blue Tribe narrative machine. I believed that Bush did 9/11, that he was a fascist, and that he intended to overthrow American democracy, probably by conducting another false-flag terror attack and then using it as a pretext to suspend elections. This was a quite popular belief among Blues back then, and I bought it all hook, line and sinker. I believed it so firmly that I moved to Canada and seriously considered renouncing my American citizenship. Only, none of the things I believed would happen, the things the people I was listening to predicted would happen, actually happened. There never was another major terror attack anywhere close to the scale of 9/11, false-flag or otherwise. Bush was re-elected in an election I and most of my social circle was certain was rigged, but then four years later Obama trounced Romney, and power transferred as normal.
I had invested heavily in predictions that were decisively falsified. Much that I had theorized, much that I had assumed was true, came apart. I took a hard look at much of the information economy I'd been patronizing, and downgraded the voices who had clearly fed me bad data and bad predictions. I updated my model of how the world worked. Nor was there much room for ambiguity in these predictions.
In 2016, immediately following the election of Donald Trump, I had a considerable amount of savings, and wanted to invest it. I'd been reluctant to do so for years, due to distrust in the economy after living through both the dotcom crash and the housing crisis. Still, it seemed to me that my fear of economic conditions was increasingly irrational, and I thought I should probably bite the bullet and put my money to work. While researching the question online, I found Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman's post-election predictions that Trump was absolutely going to trash the market and destroy the American economy. I looked around and found plenty of other economic authorities offering the same line. Having spent well over a decade immersed in Blue Tribe culture, and having spent considerable time reading and discussing Rationalist literature, I had great respect for Credentialed Experts. I sat on my money, and missed out on one of the best stock market runs of my adult life.
Again, I had invested (or not invested, as it were) heavily in the predictions of a particular data stream. That data-stream's predictions were falsified very thoroughly. I noted this, and updated accordingly: I no longer listen to Paul Krugman, nor to people who employ or cite Paul Krugman, and I place significantly less weight on the opinions of economists generally. This has stood me in good stead ever since, from holding crypto to noting the presence of inflation that was officially denied, to refusal to accept the economic case against Trump in the 2024 election.
What predictions have you invested in? Where have you been wrong? What have you learned?
With your knowledge as a rational actor aware that this self perception bias is both extremely common to the point of being basically universal and it's hard to see one's own bias, what would you place the odds of the neutral alien reality knowing arbiter choosing your side being correct when they check reality?
I would place the odds of the reality-knowing alien agreeing with me fairly high. You are correct that all humans are biased, and that it is hard to see one's own bias. That does not mean it is impossible, and I have spent a long time testing my understanding in a fairly rigorous and notably adversarial environment, while going a fair distance out of my way to encounter and engage with contrary opinions and perspectives. I do my best to maintain epistemic humility, and to consider that I might be wrong, but at this point I do not think it is unreasonable to expect something more concrete than a looping claim of "maybe you're wrong even if you can't see how or why and no evidence has been presented". Yes, maybe I am wrong. Maybe all the evidence I've accumulated and all the predictions I've tracked and all the outcomes I've updated off were flawed in some subtle way. And if so, then the best way to know it is to see outcomes that falsify my expectations or evidence that contradicts my understanding, not to reject assessment and action due to endless, self-referential doubt.
But good news, the answer doesn't even matter anyway if you choose the option to have principles! If you stick up for freedom no matter when and who, the alien won't rule against you no matter what.
What is the alien in this model? You are familiar with the is/ought problem, yes? It seems that your scenario only makes sense if the alien is "ought", if the alien represents moral correctness, and you are asking "are you confident in your moral judgements". As it happens, I am reasonably confident in my moral judgements and, from the way you write, somewhat skeptical of yours, but I do agree that the best way to ensure one maintains the moral high ground is to stick to one's principles. Unfortunately, I have also learned that actual principles are exceedingly costly, and I find that I cannot afford to maintain very many of them. It has proved crucial to choose which to keep and which to discard, and while you have not even begun to adequately define this "freedom" you speak of, I am pretty sure that's not one of the ones I'm holding on to. "Freedom", as popularly understood and as taught to me in my youth, is a spook, a non-entity, a linguistic confusion. It seems to me there are some specific freedoms worth paying dearly for, but the model you appear to be appealing to here and certainly have appealed to elsewhere in the thread is, in my assessment, worthless, pointless and hopeless.
clo
22hr ago
Practical question.
How to tackle an insecure superior who is worried about his job and thinks he can retain it by forcing out the people under him?
I have been in this situation for a while, recently things sort of came to a head and made me realize that the situation is intolerable and requires some drastic changes for the sake of my own mental health. Current job market is not great and I don't relish fighting algorithms and corporate hiring websites for access.
Bonus points for any solution that allows me to escape the consequences of using physical violence in a white-collar setting, but I doubt it.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
22hr ago
· Edited 21hr ago
Huh. I rated that one Neutral, because I read it as an obvious metaphor for "raze the institution quickly, ignore the regrettable collateral damage, move on to the next head of the hydra", which is a solid - if bitter - policy prescription and doesn't go the "YOU WERE ALL GUILTY AND YOU WERE ALL LEGITIMATE TARGETS!" route of indiscriminately demonising whole groups.
On reflection, I can see that if one read it literally, or even as ambiguous, that puts a very different spin on things.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
22hr ago
For decades, our biggest strategic advantage has been that the smartest, most ambitious people from all over the world wanted to come here.
There's a relevant essay from Arctotherium on this, you don't have to have mass immigration to bring in the top Taiwanese semiconductor experts, or German nuclear scientists or post-Soviet Russian STEM experts. You can bring in a few hundred or a few thousand people on 10x wages, have them stay for a few years to teach locals the skills and then have them leave or retire into obscurity.
China for instance brought in South Korean shipbuilding experts on high wages, worked out how to build ships and now dominates the world shipping industry. They tried this with semiconductors too, Taiwan actually passed laws to stop Chinese companies poaching semiconductor talent with high pay. Meiji Japan did this too, alongside others he mentions. Targeted skill acquisition does not require mass immigration.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-169701612
The US is very wealthy, they could close the door to the median-wage immigrants and keep the top talent, even aggressively headhunt top talent with high payouts. Not 'I published a crappy paper in one of those journals that exists for resume packing' but 'I'm actually really smart and have these rare skills'.
Furthermore, there are all kinds of problems with relying on mass immigration.
There is indeed a large amount of Indian talent, I see Indian names on various AI papers regularly. So why isn't India rich or at least on par with China? There's no Indian Deepseek, Huawei, BYD, J-20. There may well be something wrong with Indian culture or society that impedes this kind of development. Mass immigration would likely import this problem to some extent.
Suppose there's a disaster in America, it's one of those situations where all hands need to be on deck for a massive crisis. Would the Indians, Chinese, Latin Americans perhaps think 'not my problem' and head back to their home countries rather than giving their utmost? If they leave their country for a better life once, they can do it again if the situation changes.
Whatever issues with unity there are in America, it's hardly going to be helped by mass immigration. More ethnicities and diversity increases the potential for conflict. There are also the more basic costs of unfiltered 'Fuck Trump' mass immigration of randoms who come in via Mexico: drugs, crime, welfare payments, gaming the electoral system, demographic replacement.
Now it's fairly reasonable that some truly elite people will be turned off by the administration's rhetoric, even if the Trump admin did go 'we want the super smart but not the mediocre'. They might not want to come to America because overseas mainstream media blares out FASCIST USA. But it's not clear that this would be that bad compared to mass immigration.
We can see the results: Australia, Canada and the UK have been doing mass immigration. Racism has been suppressed by hate speech laws. The economic results/innovation in these countries have been underwhelming at best. Canadian GDP per capita has stagnated over the last 10 years. Britain is mired in all kinds of problems.
The strongest argument against Trumpism IMO is that it puts these loudmouths in charge, who go around openly declaring their strategies and letting their opponents counter them: https://x.com/Jukanlosreve/status/1958334108989530207
They're simple and unsophisticated thinkers in a complex world.
But even there, you don't have to be loud and obnoxious to be dumb. The EU is full of sober, hard-working, reasonable and civilized leaders who do immense damage to Europe by constantly making terrible decisions.
Eupraxia
Of all words spoken, all things read / most true was that which went unsaid
22hr ago
Even if I want funding to these universities to be cut, I still don’t want some PhD student, writing their thesis on the inescapable legacy of white male oppression or whatever, to be unable to find a job, or to be unable to be treated for disease.
Why? Why is this belief more justifiable in your eyes than the notion that turnabout is fair play, or that the woke memeplex is an existential threat that must be suppressed by any means necessary, or that it's just funny to watch libs cry?
I largely oppose the above notions, but they are clearly memetically superior - more attractive, more consistent, more vital - than the desire for (")neutrality(") that still lives on in the vestiges of the liberal right. I sympathize with your view, but I'd bet that there will be no graceful ending to this conflict.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
23hr ago
a different third letter?
I believe it was actually this different, third letter - which was just misinformation that TracingWoodgrains boosted (and upon whom I lay all of the blame). But that first UCLA white supremacy statement also satisfies the requirements for my post, so I'm not particularly upset. The entire university system, his classroom included, is very much a part of the "white supremacy" that the letter seeks to dismantle or co-opt.
In the context of UCLA he is probably justified in not considering himself very political.
He wrote a private article about how Trump is bad and how he had trouble teaching classes after the 2016 election. You don't get to write about how awful and stupid the conservative presidential candidate is (and how his election is so terrible that it causes enough psychic damage to prevent you from working) then talk about how you're not very political.
He had it pulled because UCLA attracted Sauron's gaze.
And he was one of the voices who was shouting out and begging for Sauron's attention. Everyone else was doing it too, and I understand why he simply went along with it. But if he wanted to be apolitical, he could have been - sure, he might have faced some consequences for doing so, but he's now facing the consequences of not doing so.
I found some of the replies in Trace's thread frustrating.
I did too, but I'm now reconsidering it because I think some people were arguing against false claims that were boosted by Trace by mistake.
cartman
23hr ago
This is not a war and no one is participating in some holy revolution. This is not what war looks like. Social institutions do not function like militaries, nor is it wise/necessary to 'break' or 'level' the ones you don't like or which have issues. This is the same fallacy that leftists who want to defund the police engage in.
SkoomaDentist
23hr ago
Uh, ackshully, that's approximately where the state-of-the-art on anti-aging is heading.
That just means the currently foreseeable research is that way. There are a whole lot of factors in aging that by definition can't be cured by DNA repair because things in body that intentionally have no major maintenance mechanism after reaching adulthood keep deteriorating from plain physical stress and wear.
Ademonera
23hr ago
I've been chewing on an idea and wanted to try a steel-manning exercise.
The premise is this: If we grant that the cultural right is "winning" right now, what's the strongest possible argument that this is leading to some genuinely bad outcomes for the country?
I have a few specific angles in mind. How would you build the strongest case for these ideas?
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A more "gloves-off" approach to online speech is a win for free expression, but its most visible result has been the normalization of unapologetic racism. The core of this argument isn't just that it's unpleasant, but that it's actively corroding social trust and making it harder to have a unified country. Not sure if you’ve seen this too, but I see tons of ‘black fatigue’ and explicitly white nationalist people in my feed and there’s not much I or anybody else can do about it. What does the most persuasive version of this argument look like?
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It seems pretty clear that rhetoric from the top, especially from Trump, has pushed nativist ideas into the open. The strong version of this argument is that this has moved beyond simple policy disagreements (like border security) and has become a real cultural attitude of exclusion. How would you build the case that this isn't just a fringe phenomenon anymore, but a significant and growing force in American life?
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This flows from the last point. For decades, our biggest strategic advantage has been that the smartest, most ambitious people from all over the world wanted to come here. The argument to be steel-manned is that we're actively squandering that. Between the nativist vibe and a chaotic immigration system, we're sending a signal that the best and brightest should maybe look elsewhere. What's the most solid case that we're causing a real "brain drain" that will kneecap us economically and technologically for years to come?
What makes me think about this point is all of the talk about Indian people online. Like them or not, they are STRONG contributors in the workplace. If the rhetoric gets to a point where legal immigrants and contributors to our society feel unwelcome, there could be real brain drain effects that we’ve never experienced before. The Vivek backlash a few months ago also is probably related.
Again, knowing that ideas like these are losing right now, how you would argue them to the best of your ability? I’ll admit I kind of want to hear them outside a setting like X where communities are isolated and you’re mostly preaching to the choir / your ingroup
wemptronics
23hr ago
Well no one should accuse you of being an unprincipled hypocrite.
With Trump I was only pretty sure he would commit to immigration (good) and tariffs (bad). I thought tariffs were dumb and it turns out I still think they are dumb. I had little confidence what he'd do with universities, how real DOGE would be, and so on. I was reasonably certain he would more effectively exert his will compared to 45, but was uncertain what he'd choose.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
23hr ago
Ok, now imagine a leftist just said the exact same thing to me
Why imagine? I am a leftist and just said that to you. I'm opposed to the social justice movement because I think it is both bad, ineffective politics and morally wrong (poor white kids should not pay the price for the crimes of robber barons in years past), but I am still a left-winger. To make my perspective clear, I believe that the optimal move would have been for the left to not actually go on the long march through the institutions precisely because of the incredibly predictable blowback that is currently taking place.
That obviously reality is the right struck first and how absurd it is I suggest they could possibly exhibit an underdog bias.
I have seen it happen in my life time. There's no absurd conspiratorial thinking here - this was done in the open and people loudly spoke about it. The Long March Through the Institutions took place and we have the statistical evidence with regards to discrimination against conservatives. The discrimination wasn't just pervasive, it was openly celebrated - there's no point denying it now. You're going to need much more rigorous evidence if you want to make the case that the right wing has been in control of academia for the past 40 years.
Good news, the answer doesn't even matter anyway if you choose the option to have principles!
Ok, my principles are that if you try to politicise academia in order to purloin the social credibility it has for partisan aims you deserve to be punished badly and cast out into the wilderness for the real harm you're doing to legitimately important societal mechanisms. So I actually do get to support the current punishment - though admittedly I do have to switch back when the conservatives start deporting people or getting them fired for voicing mild criticisms of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Aging won't be cured by simply repairing damaged DNA
Uh, ackshully, that's approximately where the state-of-the-art on anti-aging is heading.
Sirtuins are involved in DNA repair, which allows cells to keep replicating accurately, which is what keeps you alive and minimizes the effects of 'age' as we understand it.
There's currently a LOT of research into Sirtuin activators for this reason.
This might be a part of the book that gets borne out really well in the end.
phailyoor
23hr ago
normie liberals - people don't like cancel culture or having to parrot meaningless diversity statements
Such people don't exist. The most "moderate" fringes of the enemy have still shown a voracious appetite for land acknowledgements, attaching black/brown/trans flags to everything, mandating everyone take the nlm loyalty oauth, cancelling nazis (everyone right of them), diversity quotas, and more of anything called "DEI".
There are no "normie liberals" who don't love all those things. If you think they do, then show me they exist.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
But yes I realize that's long ago, so I gave you a current example of something happening right now as we speak by a high level Trump executive.
I've lost count of how many times I asked you how what Trump did violates any of the principles you supposedly hold, and how many times you ignored the question.
But also if we're going about who started it, wouldn't the older examples be better?
Sure. So back then I was pro-Rowling, and helped the left as much as I could. Then the left went full-censor, and now Trump is in power and cutting their funding for practices that are illegal in the left's own framework. How am I the one that started it, and not them?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Right, so if funding withdrawals exist, they should at least be done in a fair and freedom maximizing manner. How is this not what happened in the discussed case?
magicalkittycat
1d ago
That's a funny example and something I knew from growing up as a fan of the books, not something I was sent. I live in a red rural area and remember stories of parents having freakouts about Harry Potter and Pokemon and stuff from some of the other children. One of my friends i would let play Pokemon on my Gameboy since he couldn't at home.
But yes I realize that's long ago, so I gave you a current example of something happening right now as we speak by a high level Trump executive.
But also if we're going about who started it, wouldn't the older examples be better? I don't think it matters who started it, but that seems like the proper thing to be focusing in on if it does matter.
magicalkittycat
1d ago
Conservatives lost on every one of those three though, which shows they did not have any power.
They didn't actually, in fact part of the private school voucher initiative is to get kids into funded religious schools, schools that use programs like A.C.E, like my Southern Baptist friend had when she was growing up.
I live in a red rural area, I can assure you many of them don't see the fight as lost yet.
And environmental science? Odd then that the leader of the country doesn't believe in climate change and has targeted lots of funding cuts to climate science, including the termination of satellite data and missions regarding carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
If they lost, someone forgot to tell the president of the United States that.
Actually, Dr. Tao signed a letter asking for the stick to be deployed against his classroom.
Do you mean the UCLA white supremacy statement, this letter that says punishing a fellow mathematics faculty member for speaking out against diversity statements is wrong, or a different third letter? Or, do you mean that signing the first white supremacy statement was detrimental to his classrooms because its ideas are terrible? If if it's the last one I agree.
In the context of UCLA he is probably justified in not considering himself very political. That is emblematic of the cultural dominance and the ensuing blindness that follows. It's why I say, "Stick, good." However, the guy had the rug pulled out from under him. He didn't have it pulled because of who he is, what he said, or what he did. He had it pulled because UCLA attracted Sauron's gaze. He issues a call to non-action: "the luxury of disengagement is no longer a viable option." Crying foul is not an ideal response to any behavioral correction, but this isn't the most direct, targeted, or deliberate discipline.
I found some of the replies in Trace's thread frustrating. Like getting in a discourse time machine: smart, good natured people carefully walking around that which still cannot be seen. A mutual understanding of university culture and recent history does not appear to be forthcoming. I do not expect academia to kiss the ring of Trump. For that reason I am glad TracingWoodgrain's criticism of Tao went viral. Tao's position and sentiment is common enough, so a public critique is positive even if it does not garner significant agreement.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Heck some examples are ironic, like a school that tried to ban Harry Potter due to depictions of witchcraft back in the 90s. That's of course a funny example, but there's plenty that aren't so funny.
And the fact that they had to go back 30 years for an example doesn't give you pause? Was the person sending you this even alive when it happened?
Sure. Principled liberals have battle scars from running into reality, and magicalkittycat is neither indicating or claiming any, while repeatedly rejecting other people's observations on sophistic grounds in ways that classical liberals aren't exactly known for, even as he denies or ignores historical dynamics that principled liberals were publicly conceding for decades.
MKC speaks as a leftist assuming the mantle of a liberal, which has been a standard dynamic for decades, not as a classical liberal.
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