domain:cafeamericainmag.com
SSCReader
3hr ago
Why should teachers be deprioritized for whiteness when they're going to be in high-risk environments, and spreading it to black kids who will then spread it to their higher-risk families?
This is a reasonable point! And indeed if you read Schmidt's paper his final recommendation is healthcare workers and essential workers who are likely to be exposed to and spread the disease to multiple people. While he discusses race as an impact his final recommendation doesn't actually suggest making the distribution race based directly at all.
Now part of that is because retail, grocery store workers and the like skew minority in the US in any case, but his final position in his paper does indeed seem to be there is no need to discriminate on race. I don't know whether the article only asked him about the race part or only used his answer for that part, but his papers recommendation does not suggest discriminating on race for vaccine distribution in the end.
Now having said that his recommendation turns out to be wrong anyway. There are 2 main vaccine pandemic responses 1) Vaccinate the most vulnerable (this directly reduces deaths) 2) Vaccinate the most likely people to spread the disease, workers who come into contact with many people. The 2nd saves lives indirectly by restricting spread even though you are primarily vaccinating people who individually are not at much risk of the disease.
However it has to be with a vaccine that is effective enough and taken up enough to get to herd immunity levels. Without that option 1) is generally your best shot. But Schmidt was making that recommendation before the vaccines were created so presumably we can't hold him responsible for the fact the vaccines were not as effective as option 2) requires, he didn't know that at the time.
phailyoor
3hr ago
I'm not fluent yet but the point where I could watch degenelate videos like this and just understand them fine kind of ruined my life.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
3hr ago
That's good when the numbers are directionally correct, not when they're completely wrong
Yes, surprisingly ChatGPT is better at translating wholesale than trying to revise a work or something. Asking it to translate directly actually gives a quite accurate result.
Unfortunately, as this situation shows, the user asked ChatGPT for revisions on the English work rather than translating the work from native language. I think this is a more typical use case because most people beyond beginners writing in English do not write in native language and then translate to English, but instead write directly in English. We are just fortunate enough to have the Japanese version as well, so we can see clearly where ChatGPT failed to capture the intention.
So we are in a world where "write English -> ask ChatGPT for revisions" is far far inferior to "write in native language (Japanese) -> use AI to translate to English" where translating directly gives a superior result. In this case the workflow that gives the best result involves the absolute least practice of English by the writer.
phailyoor
3hr ago
It should be illegal to ask ChatGPT to write something that would take you less than 2 minutes to write yourself. Especially if it's well within your abilities.
phailyoor
3hr ago
IDK if you specifically disagree, but I strongly prefer the original English, errors and all, over the ChatGPT output.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
3hr ago
Not sure this is proper grammar.
SecureSignals
Training the Aryan LLM
3hr ago
The FEMA logic is that BDS is intrinsically racist. They stated this directly in their tweet explaining their policy in reaction to the backlash.
SecureSignals
Training the Aryan LLM
3hr ago
You do not know any of that. The question is, whoever wrote it, were they influenced by pressure from Jewish interest groups? Of course they are.
Jewish organizations have been asking for this for a long long time and not getting their way.
Per wikipedia:
As of 2024, 38 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel.[6] Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support.[7] Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel.[8] Separately, the U.S. Congress has considered anti-boycott legislation in reaction to the BDS movement. The U.S. Senate passed S.1, which contained anti-boycott provisions, on 28 January 2019, by a vote of 74–19. The U.S. House passed a resolution condemning the boycott of Israel on 24 July 2019, by a vote of 398–17. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Mike Braun (R-IN), Rick Scott (R-FL), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Steve Daines (R-MT) reintroduced the Combating BDS Act of 2023.
This is about a cudgel for hitting democrats with.
No it is it not. It is about Israeli/Jewish influence in American politics and culture. Here's the ADL's stance on BDS which is now the official stance of FEMA- that BDS is intrinsically anti-semitic and therefore racist.
roystgnr
3hr ago
The list of countries Trump used was compiled during the Obama administration, four countries in the original "Terrorist Travel Prevention Act" and three more added by Obama's DHS. But, in Obama's term this was a "countries whose citizens and visitors can't travel to the US under the Visa Waiver Program instead of getting a visa first" list, and Trump turned it into a "countries whose citizens and visitors can't travel to the US at all" list.
All 7 countries listed were 95%+ Muslim, but there are another 19 or 20 95%-Muslim countries that didn't make the list.
On the one hand, the popular phrase "Trump's Muslim ban" seems like an inaccurate descriptor for a ban that applied to some non-Muslims and didn't apply to most Muslims based on a list from the Obama administration; he was pretty transparently trying to get as close to his promised "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on" as he could get legally, but the end result really wasn't very close. On the other hand, that transparency made the order still a pretty clear match to our "for mumblemumble reasons" hypothetical, which is part of why the courts kept shooting him down until he'd repeatedly watered down the order.
Throwaway05
3hr ago
- Therapy is better than you think.
I don't really want to write an entire novel on research and stuff but the short version is that medical research is hard and research on anything that involves people and society is also hard. This results in seemingly low effect sizes for therapy but that shit really does work. It's not necessarily going to work for every patient, situation, (and critically) or therapist.
Part of the problem is that we have a large number of low skill therapists, incorrect patient therapist/modality matches, incorrect indications, and the whole therapy culture thing.
CBT and DBT have excellent evidence bases for instance and are meant to be highly structured with clear end points. We also have a pretty good understanding of what patients and situations should use each of those therapy modalities.
PTSD treatment is done through therapy and can be quite effective.
For many common conditions you very much need both medication and therapy (and only using medication leading to poor efficacy is the other side of the psychiatric complaint coin).
However most presentations of therapy you see on the internet are people getting matched to a random low skill therapist they don't vibe with and indefinitely engaged in a process that is never explained to them which therefore feels like just venting.
That's not the real thing, in the same way paying your friend who is a college athlete to help you isn't the same as getting actual PT.
However low skill therapy is probably better to have around for society than nothing and high skill therapy can be extremely expensive so we are stuck with this.
- AI therapy is ASS (well, so is much of real therapy too).
The preliminary research seems pretty good but a lot of psychiatrists are essentially betting their careers that some of the usual business is happening: motivated research looking for the "right" conclusion, poor measures of improvement (patients may feel subjectively supported but don't have an improvement in functional status), and so on. Every time The New Thing comes out it looks great initially and then is found to be ass or a bit more sketchy.
The lack of existential fulfillment provided by AI, overly glazing behavior, and a surplus of Cluster-B users and the psychotic receiving delusion validation will lead to problems including likely a good number of patients who may end up actually dangerous and violent.
If the tools don't improve drastically quickly (which they probably will be) I'd expect a major terror event then STRONG guard rails.
You see some reports on social media of doctors finding their patients encouraged to do some really bad shit by a misfiring chatbot.
SkoomaDentist
4hr ago
Even Judas Priest wasn't metal until their second album, the 1976 Sad Wings of Destiny. That's six years between Black Sabbath releasing Paranoid and Judas Priest doing anything that could be called metal. I think much of it is Black Sabbath's influence being so ubiquituous in metal that people don't realize that it's all taken straight from Black Sabbath. Things like heavy power chord riffing, ubiquituous use of tritone as integral part of the riffs / melody, Geezer Butler's bass playing, down tuning etc.
It's a bit like people claiming The Beatles weren't that influential without realizing that the very concept of a rock band as we know it is based on their template.
Corvos
4hr ago
First thought: 'Oh, hey, I can understand this!'
Second thought: 'Oh, Christ, I can understand this.'
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4hr ago
I think the vibes of applying civil rights law to "white people" have changed drastically since the 1980s. Certainly not unanimously, but witness the Trump administration's consideration of refugee status for white South Africans (I'm going to choose not to express an opinion on that at this time).
But there have IIRC been a few instances of academic conferences having to walk back "International submissions encouraged. Israeli academics need not apply."
roystgnr
4hr ago
it’s still “no evidence” in a statistical sense
In a statistical sense, saying "datum D is no evidence for theory T" is "P(T|D) = P(D)". Here we have "P(T|D) > P(D)", which is "D is evidence".
It's not much evidence. It's not nearly enough evidence. It's outweighed by other evidence to the contrary. It's grossly outweighed by reasonable priors. But it's still evidence.
I hate to pick on anti-Trump folks about this, when Trump's own relationship with truth seems to intersect propositional logic only by random luck; forget about Bayesian statistics. But it's still a red flag to me.
Decades ago I waded into investigation of a controversial belief system, a "religion" or a "cult" depending on who you asked. I debated with folks about evidence for and evidence against many of the beliefs, and my eventual conclusion was basically "false religion" ... but the most memorable part of those discussions was, when one guy I'd been debating with was asked by another interlocutor whether there was any evidence against his religion, his answer was a flat "no". Not "yes, but there's more evidence for it", not "yes, but only if you consider evidence out of context", just "no, there's no evidence against it".
I still had lingering questions (of what I'd later start thinking of as "epistemic rationality") to resolve, but now more pragmatic ("instrumentally rational") concerns were screaming at me to be wary in a way that continuing abstract discussion of science or history couldn't have done. It might not have been his religious leaders' fault, but that guy was in a cult.
Such self-inflicted damage isn't worth it for any ideology. You might still end up at a correct belief, or a dozen, but only by random luck.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4hr ago
If you want to see this in action, the political arguments are practically reversed on the issue of the "Muslim ban" in Trump's first term: that one even included North Korea! IIRC the administration at the time claimed it was based on security cooperation agreements and just happened to hit mostly Muslim nations (but not all such nations) with poor recordkeeping.
I'm not sure I'm happy with that one either, for the record.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4hr ago
Knowledge of noun cases is bourgeois. You would be wise to forget it, comrade.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
4hr ago
Yes, because if the judges don't bellyfeel it, they won't make a useful ruling. Yes, the conservatives on the Supreme Court believe as an intellectual matter that anti-discrimination rules cut both ways and disallow discrimination against whites. But in their gut they know it's all about helping blacks and think that's the right thing, so they make sure to leave a hole any time they make a ruling against discriminating against other races. When it comes to Jews, though, their belly is firmly in line with anti-discrimination.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
4hr ago
Note that they've removed this already. It appears they've been adding the same anti-BDS language to various grant proposals; I would guess it's a result of pressure from the State Department, since Rubio is known to be strongly anti-BDS.
nomenym
4hr ago
Bulverism is about 50 percent of Marxism, so it's no surprise Freddie indulges. When you have an implicitly deterministic epistemology, you don't have to explain why an idea is wrong when you can explain how it came about by the wrong causes.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
5hr ago
I expressed my anger and still you replied; I appreciate that and will strive for a more even tone this exchange.
Perhaps you're right and I find the whole concept so odious that I am unable to extend charity that they deserve. I also think charity can be a trap when one extends it well past the point one should.
He even says it, the white populations are healthier so they live longer, so if you just take into account age, you will miss out on morbidity increasing factors
Age was by far the number one predictive factor in covid mortality; controlling for the most significant factor has some... questionable limits? I will extend enough charity to say that I'm saying this with years of hindsight instead of months, so perhaps Schmidt was merely misinformed.
I understand what you're saying about not focusing solely on age, and I agree other factors matter, but the way Schmidt and Lipsitch discuss it sticks in my craw.
The more I read back and rewrite this response, I am regretting introducing the metaphor because it's too one-dimensional, and the more I think about this the more it's the same old issue with intersectionality being nonfunctional. The "correct" matrix of ideal vaccine distribution would be horribly complicated and likely politically impossible.
Why should teachers be deprioritized for whiteness when they're going to be in high-risk environments, and spreading it to black kids who will then spread it to their higher-risk families? So one would assume given Lipsitch says most teachers are white. Excluding them is a strongly racist proposition if one is considering second and third order effects of vaccinations and spread.
The equity cartoon isn't a one to one description of how equity would work in the real world when carried out by real people, nor do people always mean the same thing when they say equity.
It is a notoriously slippery phrase from a notoriously slippery ideology. It means everything and nothing, and no one knows how the equity eschaton would be immanentized.
So is the phrase just useless, an applause/boo light? As a writer I think one should pin down whatever they think it means, and let the chips fall where they may in the degree to which that does or does not match sources they may be citing.
At worst they believe the boxes version of equity, while you believe the machete version of equity.
I know what you mean but I would still like to clarify I don't believe in equity at all; I think the concept is far too slippery, a la "true communism has never been tried."
I do not trust people that claim to believe the boxes version to not, whenever convenient, turn to the machete. That is the fundamental assumption of ideas rooted in disparate impact: it doesn't matter how you get to the same outcomes. There is more than one way to skin a cat, more than one way to equalize heights and health outcomes.
Or less violently and more realistically, they resort to indifference. That is, Schmidt has built a career on the 'marginalized,' and that seems to displace concerns about "how do we save the most lives" and "maybe age is the number one factor in covid mortality." He has chosen populations he cares about, and populations to which he is indifferent.
The vaccine is the boxes or ladders. If you didn't give them to anybody, the tall person would still be tall and the short person would still be short.
Hmm. Action/inaction questions are such a sticky problem. While withholding vaccines from a particularly sensitive group because of their race isn't as actively making them more vulnerable as, say, sending sick people to nursing homes or infecting them all with an autoimmune disease, I am less than confident it's a valuable moral distinction in this case.
The Equality vs Equity cartoon a woke person is likely to point to doesn't involve any machetes at all.
An actual woke believer will not choose the edited version of the cartoon, no. Mao thought the Great Leap Forward was a good thing, et cetera and so forth with history's other examples of horrors spawned by "good intentions."
What else does it exactly mean then to you, to be "predisposed to noticing a particular type of bad thing in his life"? Assuming that one needs to be predisposed in such a way in order to notice being beaten up by moustachioed Mexicans in middle school or encountering drunk Mexicans in the middle of the road at night?
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