domain:themotte.org
sarker
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
4hr ago
it also being somewhat difficult to do a mass-export of your original, full-quality photo data.
How is it difficult? I regularly takeout photos at original resolution and then compress the cloud copies.
I guess you won't respond since you blocked me, but perhaps someone else has context.
NullHypothesis
4hr ago
On the matter of public health there aren't any strong arguments I've seen in support that those lies that benefited the public on the matters of public health. Maybe someone could steelman their position because I can't think of any. I was thinking more in terms of geopolitical conflicts between nations.
Sachs' version of tell the truth isn't reveal all secrets, but to be honest about our past dealings and future intentions.
This better clarifies his position and I am in general agreement with that approach.
Honestly I barely read the rest of your post because it's the same arguments that got us here.
Honestly you don't have to mention this. I'm just asking questions to facilitate discussion and to better understand why governments behave the way they do, and if there is actually any value in doing so. You might not want to hear the reason, but I do, and I'm sure others do as well. Isn't that the point of this forum? To shed light and try to understand the opposition? Maybe there actually is some value in what they have to say. If not, then it better equips you (or anybody else reading) being able to point out the flaws in their reasoning.
I get your frustration, I really do. The government's fearmongering of and lies regarding Covid was an absolute disaster and I still feel the ramifications today. I feel like it robbed me of 4 years of my life, and that my life is worse today than it was at the start of 2020. But I still want to understand the line of reasoning and support of government lies (not necessarily of the response to Covid, but in general).
To fool your enemies, you must first fool your friends - this is a proverb for a reason. Now you may personally disagree with this as a matter of principle and refuse to engage with such an idea, but you cannot deny the utility it has. I think one could make a strong argument in support of such tactics in times of war. If one agrees with the argument, then it goes to reason there is some line where the cost to benefit justifies or denies it's usage. I don't think refusing to acknowledge its utility just because it can then lead to a discussion of where and when its justified is appropriate because most of the world is not black and white and most behavior of people isn't black and white.
Less lying. A whole lot less lying. From everyone, especially if you think it's for the common good, I don't believe you and don't want to hear it.
I'm trying to recall who said it but the general idea is that the most dangerous type of people who believe they are doing something for the good of humanity. I think there are people who would vote for or be in support of governments lying to the population if they believed it was for the common good. We see people defending the government's response to Covid to this day. Getting mad at these people won't get them to change their minds. The ones that do are just as susceptible to shifting their feelings back with an equally emotional response from the other side. I seek to hone my arguments so that I can at least convince those who are willing to listen.
But I'm not going to let the specter of the Orient let the lying fedgov off the hook for their lying ways.
Sure, let's hold the government accountable for their past actions. But we live in the reality we live in. What would be the best approach to China now? Personally, I think the US could benefit from not playing world police for a decade and just focusing on solving our internal problems. But what are the potential consequences of that?
My belief is that the world can only be mostly peaceful if there is a significantly powerful force that is so powerful that it makes it not worth it for a foreign nation to cause war. In that case, I'd rather that force be the US and not China. The reason we don't have wide-scale World War 1 and 2 style conflicts anymore is because of mutually assured destruction and the fact that most of the world is now aligned with US and US interests and values. But if human history teaches us anything, it's that if someone can bully someone else out of their resources, they will do that. On a micro-scale, the only reason we don't have large portions of the population stealing from each other is because society (with the use of physical force such as police) keeps us in check. As soon as we started defunding police crime went up. I believe the same applies to larger scales. Remove the US-aligned hegemony and we will start to see more international conflicts. This is a belief I haven't really honed, so I'm open to criticism and a better alternative theory regarding minimizing international conflicts.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
4hr ago
Yes, I would think so. You could replenish oxygen and reject CO2, which was the main difficulty as I recall. Maintaining a closed environment is not that hard if you can add and remove gasses, just look at nuclear subs.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
5hr ago
Which longtime posters were banned recently? I don't even know, there used to be a weekly thread about who got banned in the last week.
All I can think of was Hiynka and he's a far-out third (fourth?) positionist calling 80% of the political spectrum progressives.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
5hr ago
That also means that Ohio keeping Biden off the ballot doesn't actually bring any greater likelihood of secession/major consequences.
The problem there is that everyone's running 1.2-tits-for-tat and as such once the door's been opened it becomes more likely that somebody winds up doing it in a plausibly-in-play state.
KMC
5hr ago
I'm not sure I buy Sach's argument that if we "told the truth" about Ukraine or Israel there would be no war. Maybe less US intervention or involvement. Based on my limited knowledge and understanding maybe Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine to try to create proxy barrier, but Israel I doubt there could ever be a peaceful 2 state solution.
This is my take as well. I was surprised he mentioned Israel, because the conversation had been elsewhere. Some partition of Ukraine seems inevitable now, but Israel will fight to the last.
There is a question to be considered about if a government should actually tell the citizens 100% of the truth. It's easy to say we should always be truthful as a matter of principle, but there is a good reason lying exists.
Sachs' version of tell the truth isn't reveal all secrets, but to be honest about our past dealings and future intentions. In this he bemoans the obvious duplicity of western promises to the Soviet Union. Furthermore it's about public health, too. If you're going to tell me there's a good reason lying exists when it comes to the government telling me about public health, then I don't want to hear it. Honestly I barely read the rest of your post because it's the same arguments that got us here.
Less lying. A whole lot less lying. From everyone, especially if you think it's for the common good, I don't believe you and don't want to hear it.
As for China, the worst thing Nixon did was open China. The worst thing Clinton did was let them in WTO. Now we can't build ships for our navy any more than we can clothe ourselves, or furnish our homes, and everything is imported from elsewhere. But I'm not going to let the specter of the Orient let the lying fedgov off the hook for their lying ways.
BahRamYou
5hr ago
Their brand is nowhere near as strong as it was 10 years ago. Rivian is the new "cool" EV company, while Kia, Hyundai, Ford, and GM offer perfectly good normie alternatives. They had the dream of being apple, selling for twice the price of anyone else, but I don't see that happening.
jkf
5hr ago
Interesting comment -- so you think a BS3 could be made to work if 'import of any resource somewhat easily available on Mars' and 'throw whatever you want out the airlock' were allowed?
NullHypothesis
6hr ago
I agree with Sachs general sentiment that the US government has lied to the people far too much with disastrous consequences.
I'm not sure I buy Sach's argument that if we "told the truth" about Ukraine or Israel there would be no war. Maybe less US intervention or involvement. Based on my limited knowledge and understanding maybe Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine to try to create proxy barrier, but Israel I doubt there could ever be a peaceful 2 state solution. Pretty sure Israel has tried multiple times throughout it's history to do exactly that and each time it was rejected by the Palestinians.
There is a question to be considered about if a government should actually tell the citizens 100% of the truth. It's easy to say we should always be truthful as a matter of principle, but there is a good reason lying exists. Most people lie, or at least only tell the partial truth, to people close to them all the time, and sometimes that lying is done with good intentions. But you know what they say about good intentions.
Government lies of recent times have done a tremendous net negative to the population, but is that because they lied or because they lied about the wrong things? Could there exist information where lying about it or not releasing it would be to the benefit of the people of the country? One example could be that a nation is engaging in conflict with another nation and lies to its own citizens to prevent crucial information from being passed on to its adversaries. Is lying to the population acceptable in times of war or conflict? And the follow-up question, is a nation as powerful as the US ever not in conflict with a nation like China which holds radically different political and cultural views? Should the US allow China to grow even stronger and bigger, or should it engage in economic and political battles to check its growth?
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
6hr ago
I watched it, and I laughed my ass off. Thanks for the rec. I would say I don't really feel like I connected with the blue collar work angle you mentioned, but then again my blue collar background is farming so it's not exactly the same. But regardless, I really enjoyed it and look forward to a second season.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
6hr ago
Biosphere 2 is not a good model for a planetary colony, which would undoubtedly make use of planetary resources to supply themselves and dispose of waste likewise.
KMC
6hr ago
I don't get it is Sachs claiming he was first hand knowledge of this stuff or is he just talking his ass off like all of us here?
I will take that as a compliment. Sachs, unlike me, is, uh, accomplished. He is not talking his ass off like all of us here, even if he's talking his ass off. At least, I think.
You can always expect him to be against the USA and for whatever is popular among the far-left.
And does that follow for his discussion of distrust of the media, of Nature, of the institutions like the NIH? Does it follow for flippantly stating the CIA killed JFK and covered it up for sixty years? Sachs has been burned recently, and so I don't think he's changed his stripes but he's certainly informed by experiences in the last four years.
ulyssessword
6hr ago
Presidential Ballot Access: Ohio Edition
Semi-related: The date of the upcoming Canadian federal election.
By statute, Canadian elections are held on the third Monday of October, unless they aren't. Also, MPs only get a pension if they serve for six years. The problem? The third Monday of October 2019 (two elections ago) was the 21st, and the third Monday of October 2025 will be the 20th. The ruling Liberal party has put forward a bill to push it back by a week , to "not conflict with Diwali". Of course, 22 Liberal (and 58 other) members reaching eligibility would have nothing to do with that, particularly when the Liberals are expected to lose a devastating amount of seats.
Why didn't they see this coming in 2007, when they set the fixed dates? The pension rule was already 22 years old at that point, so it's not like it was unforeseeable.
NullHypothesis
6hr ago
Ignoring the whole Cyber Truck Fiasco, can the other EV cars be considered competitive with a Tesla from a branding perspective?
The biggest competitors seem to be Chinese EV cars which sell to a mostly Chinese market. I haven't looked into it much but I have seen several videos about the poor quality of Chinese EV cars. I don't think they will catch on in the Western market.
Factor out China and Tesla is still well far ahead of the competition as of last year.
NullHypothesis
6hr ago
So just a couple of thoughts I have.
There are many different methods of measuring IQ and intelligence, and IQ tests can break intelligence between crystallized and fluid. Are the people of the Ivory Coast averaging 70 IQ due to a lack of nutrition and education, or because they are genetically inferior and the 70 IQ is their genetically average potential? Or to put it another way, if we take a baby born to the average person in the Ivory Coast and raise them in a Western nation with Western nutrition and education, would they on average have 70 IQ?
Based on observations of the Flynn effect and the increase in average IQ over time for all populations, I'd say that they would likely have a much average IQ than 70 if they were raised in better conditions. In other words, I'm arguing that IQ scores between countries are not exactly the same and that a 70 IQ person from the Ivory Coast is not equivalent to a 70 IQ person in the USA. To Flynn's credit, I believe he does try to account for multi-country analysis by using the progressive Raven Matrixes version of the IQ test, which doesn't require reading, writing, or speaking, but it also means the range of intelligence being tested is limited. As highly correlated intelligence is across different types, it's not equivalent. Also, from what I recall from Flynn's work the data in Africa is quite limited and had to be extrapolated across various countries, Ivory Coast included. (Note that I am not arguing there aren't any genetical differences in average IQ, just that all the races have not had a chance to reach say their 90% potential in IQ distribution.).
IQ has much stronger predictive powers of income in the lower brackets than in the higher brackets. I find this to be strong evidence in support of my notion that IQ is a barrier to entry for being able to perform specific tasks. One Swedish study on intelligence and income finds that above 60,000 the predictive ability of intelligence drops and that the top 1% of earners score worse in cognitive ability than the bracket right below them. Once you reach an adequate amount of IQ, other factors about a person matter more.
I will concede that you could likely find a job for a 70-IQ person, but would they be able to keep that job, and would they be offered that job in lieu of a higher-IQ person? I argue most jobs have an "optimal" IQ where after a certain point having additional points of IQ would offer very little benefit. I will even go as far as to say that having a higher IQ could actually be a detriment since the job would be too simple for an extremely intelligent person and they would likely quit out of boredom and find a better job. I don't think there is a single job where 70 IQ is the optimal amount of intelligence for that job.
Hauser's Meritocracy, Cognitive Ability, and the Sources of Occupational Success" found that iq distribution of various jobs finds that only that "janitors and sextons", "construction laborers", "unpaid family workers", and "farmers and farm laborers" had at least someone with a less than 70iq in the 90th iq percentile distribution in people that work in those job categories between 1975-1977. The data from 1992-1994 shows there is not a single person in the 90th distribution of IQ that falls below 70 IQ. Most of this is explained by the Flynn effect, but as tools have become more complex it's more and more difficult for a low IQ person to be able to even do the lowest paying jobs. As I said, a 70 IQ person can not be trusted with something like a dishwasher because operating a dishwasher is actually quite a complex task compared to a task such as hammering an object in the same spot over and over. The economic output of workers in a modern nation must surpass the minimum wage, otherwise no business will hire such people except out of charity.
Gottfredson has a description of the ability of people at various IQ ranges in her paper Social Consequences of Group Differences in Cognitive Ability. There are descriptions for 2 cut off points of IQ I want to highlight - 75 IQ and 85 IQ:
IQ 75 signals the ability level below which individuals are not likely to master the elementary school curriculum or function independently in adulthood in modern societies. They are likely to be eligible for special educational services in school and for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) from the U.S. government, which is financial support provided to mentally and physically disabled adults. Of course, many do marry, hold a job, raise children, and otherwise function adequately as adults. However, their independence is precarious because they have difficulty getting and keeping jobs that pay a living wage. They are difficult to train except for the simplest tasks, so they are fortunate in industrialized nations to get any paying job at all. While only 1 out of 50 Asian-Americans faces such risk, Figure 3 shows that 1 out of 6 black-Americans does.
IQ 85 is a second important minimum threshold because the U.S. military sets its minimum enlistment standards at about this level. Although the military is often viewed as the employer of last resort, this minimum standard rules out almost half of blacks (44%) and a third of Hispanics (34%), but far fewer whites (13%) and Asians (8%). The U.S. military has twice experimented with recruiting men of IQ 80-85 (the first time on purpose and the second time by accident), but both times it found that such men could not master soldiering well enough to justify their costs. Individuals in this IQ range are not considered mentally retarded and they therefore receive no special educational or social services, but their poor learning and reasoning Social Consequences of Group Differences 29 abilities mean that they are not competitive for many jobs, if any, in the civilian economy. They live at the edge of unemployability in modern nations, and the jobs they do get are typically the least prestigious and lowest paying: for example, janitor, food service worker, hospital orderly, or parts assembler in a factory.
IQ 85 is also close to the upper boundary for Level 1 functional literacy, the lowest of five levels in the U.S. government’s 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). Adults at this literacy level are typically able to carry out only very simple tasks, such as locating the expiration date on a driver’s license or totaling a bank deposit slip, but they typically cannot perform more difficult tasks, such as locating two particular pieces of information in a sports article (Level 2), writing a brief letter explaining an error in a credit card bill (Level 3), determining correct change using information in a menu (Level 4), or determining shipping and total costs on an order form for items in a catalog (Level 5). Most routine communications with businesses and social service agencies, including job applications, are thus beyond the capabilities of persons with only Level 1 literacy. Their problem is not that they cannot read the words, but that they are not able to understand or use the ideas that the words convey.
The intellectual capability of the 70 IQ, or even 85 IQ population is made clear in these descriptions. These are significant ability barriers to entry to most jobs or functions and have a greater impact on a person than the additional gain in ability at the higher IQ tiers. To go back to my original point, a 100 iq racist arguing that an 85 iq population are 'animals' can construct a stronger argument than a 115 iq racist arguing that a 100 iq population are animals Both would be incorrect for reasons you already stated previously, but if they were trying to refine the definition of animal you get better arguments the lower the IQ goes.
We have seen IQ rise to match the jobs available, but I say that we are nearing our natural genetic potential in IQ for well-developed nations. Actually, we are seeing IQ points drop in developed nations due to the implementation of ludicrous and inane policies. Unless something like eugenics or gene editing becomes a reality I doubt the average level of intelligence will rise more than 5-10 IQ points for the developed nations.
We have no idea what a hypothetical society of a world where the average person's IQ is 130 will look like, but I still argue a 70 IQ person would struggle more in a society of 100 IQ individuals than a 100 IQ person in a world of people with 130 median IQ. There are almost no jobs for a 70 IQ person in a modern nation. Even if the hypothetical 130 iq society is able to automate away many existing job categories with robots and AI as @aardvark2 suggests, I doubt it would actually remove all all jobs where the barrier to be able to do the work requires a minimum level of IQ above 100. It's likely such a society could easily provide a luxurious peaceful life to the 100 IQ person and they wouldn't need to even work and could spend a life pursuing the arts or leisure.
Based on historical trends a lot of people would argue job availability will keep up but we actually don't know that! Historical trends don't always predict the future. @aardvark2 uses an example of a smartphone, and I'd like to point out Moore's law is no longer being met (the pace of development has slowed down). You can't assume past trends continue infinitely and there are good reasons to believe that there won't be enough new industries and jobs that are created where human labor is preferable to robot/AI labor, especially if robots and AI reach the point where it makes most current jobs obsolete.
KingOfTheBailey
6hr ago
Great post. I think many LWers and HPMOR readers were probably so starved for a single decent teacher in their entire schooling that they latched onto themselves as Harry and yearned for someone with Quirrel's attitude to BS.
Hyperion
6hr ago
I don't get it is Sachs claiming he was first hand knowledge of this stuff or is he just talking his ass off like all of us here? It sounds like he is just talking his ass off like he has about every other geo-political event in his lifetime. You can always expect him to be against the USA and for whatever is popular among the far-left. So his support of Palestine and Russia is no more surprising than his support of China and Venezuela.
What's somewhat interesting is the fact that these far-left and far-right voices have converged on so much, but you also saw stuff like this in the run up to WW2.
dr_analog
razorboy
7hr ago
Ha. Amusingly, I had a friend who was consistently betting against Tesla on short-term puts but he forgot to renew them at some point this last go-around and that was right before the recent huge collapse happened.
Still too hard to bet against Elon.
I guess I consider the odds that your online communications will be intercepted and used against you are much, much more unlikely than your house burning down or being in a car accident.
I think this is because in the back of my mind I don't expect to receive at any time a call that we must start pitching molotov cocktails at the courts and then escape the state's retribution, whereas I suspect deep down a lot of people harbor that feeling. Or some other fanciful counter-cultural notion. And in that case I will regret not having swung everything over to Signal several years prior.
dr_analog
razorboy
7hr ago
Sure, but there's a >99.999% chance the people worried about this don't do anything edgy or counter-culture enough for the FBI to look twice at.
Quantumfreakonomics
8hr ago
…what? I admit I don’t have a great model of the federal government in 1860, but this seems like an insane claim to me.
hydroacetylene
8hr ago
Yes. I mean girls usually don't, but adolescent males have a deep instinct to buck taboos. In the US that's anti-black racist rhetoric, in Germany that's flirting with national socialism.
Quantumfreakonomics
8hr ago
To preserve the illusion of federalism? Let the state legislatures feel in charge. Everybody knows the one thing Grill-Americans won’t tolerate is not having the D or R on the presidential ballot.
Jeffrey Sachs is an economist. Why should I regard his opinion on international relations or diplomacy? He doesn't make much of an argument; he just sort of assumes, as many people do, that the US has the ability to dictate terms to people.
I can't help but feel like Russia might have had something to do with it.
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