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naraburns
nihil supernum
29d ago
Yeah, the comment was a bit longer (and from a fresh-rolled zero-karma account) but the quoted text is the gist of it.
A similar question was posed a couple months ago so I approved this comment because it wasn't obviously spam, but it did seem a little bait-y. That the user's apparent response was to delete the question strengthens my sense that something fishy was happening there.
NelsonRushton
29d ago
I think there's arguably a "descriptive" version of utilitarianism, and a "prescriptive" one... For an analogy, look at medicine... In the same way, economics as a field of the social sciences is "merely" the descriptive study of how economies work, but the reason we study economies is because we want stable, functioning economies that do a good job of allocating resources and have positive effects on well-being.
This all makes sense, but I do not believe it is right picture. As you suggest, there is a line between, say, the academic discipline of economics on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the role played in moral decisions by the findings of economics. But, also inherent in your description is the fact that the academic discipline of economics falls entirely on one side of that line. So economics as such does not, after all, have a normative component. Moreover, utilitarianism, as a theory of the moral good, lies on the other side of that line -- that is, it says, as a function of the findings of fact and causal law, what is moral and immoral, while remaining silent on those findings of fact and causal law (except as hypothetical illustrative examples). If it were otherwise, we would see whole chapters of the work of Mill, Bentham, and Harris (in The Moral Landscape) devoted to deep investigations of fact and causal law (but of course we do not).
The practice of medicine probably does span both sides of the line, but I think this is a special case, because doctors deal face to face with their patients, who in fact have widely varying degrees of compliance with medical advice. One common tool for increasing compliance is moral suasion (for example, when your doctor wags his finger at you and says you are a bad boy or girl for not taking your medicine, or getting your regular checkup, or whatever). Thus, genuinely moral suasion is part of the practice of medicine, and I conceded that utilitarian reasoning plays a major role, insofar as what physicians morally pressure people to do is a function of scientific findings of cause and effect. I will chalk that up in support of utilitarianism as one tool in our moral toolbox.
On the other hand, I do not believe this argument transfers from medicine to politics, or foreign policy, or individual ethics. The hard part of medicine is knowing what works and getting people to do it in spite of their stubbornness and lack of discipline. The hard part of economics, diplomacy, and life on the street is trading between the interests of various overlapping groups and coalitions engaged in zero-sum conflicts of interest. That is where the study of ethics really ought to help us, and where I claim utilitarianism does not.
SerialStateLineXer
29d ago
I think the reason for higher rates of comorbidities among low-IQ individuals from higher-IQ populations is that you're very unlikely to get an IQ two standard deviations below the mean purely because of additive genetic effects, so a large proportion of people with IQs this low are going to have some major developmental disorder causing the cognitive deficit. On the other hand, if an IQ of 70 is only one standard deviation below the population mean, then a sixth of the population is going to get there with additive genetic effects and a relatively small proportion will get there through some major developmental disorder.
I don't think it works the other way. The only way you get an IQ two standard deviations above the mean is with additive genetic effects. There's no anti-Down syndrome, where you can get an extra chromosome that gives you 30 extra IQ points.
However, it's worth noting that black students don't actually perform better in college than white students with the same test scores. They're just more likely to enroll and stick it out to the end. This is why I suspect that non-academic factors like higher family SES and athletics play a role. Unlike raw IQ, educational attainment has a substantial shared environment component in twin studies, probably due to a combination of cultural attitudes toward education and parents' ability to help pay for college.
Gaashk
29d ago
I think you meant to respond to @non_radical_centrist directly
throwaway-7742
29d ago
No, but I'm sure it doesn't help.
It saps/hijacks the motivation to exercise. Affects your neurological and endocrinological systems. Makes you lethargic. But obviously there're other factors at play: the sedentary lifestyles due to technological advances (automobile, internet, personal computer), the ubiquitousness of sugar and processed foods, the lack of quality sleep due to disrupted circadian rhythms (artificial light, eating/drinking too close to bedtime, working third shift), etc.
jeroboam
29d ago
He’s given lots of money to left causes, notably efforts to help democrats get out the vote in 2020.
hydroacetylene
29d ago
In direct quotes, generally yes, but it was suggested that students who were uncomfortable change it to ‘negro’, and teachers sometimes did.
jeroboam
29d ago
How so? It doesn’t seem to be reflected in either Facebook corporate actions or his personal philanthropy.
2rafa
29d ago
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
29d ago
Is there a web resource that tracks and catalogues the South African anti-white farm attacks/genocide?
Forgotpassword
29d ago
That is a cheque that medical science as it exists today simply can't cash. No amount of hormones, surgery or makeup will get you there. I still sympathize and empathize with them simply not being happy in their bodies, I think the correct solution is to change the body, when that's feasible.
This is essentially where I'm at with the Trans movement. I don't think it's wrong to want to be the other gender, and I feel that society should potentially be open to recognizing that. However, I think that modern surgical interventions fall way short of making somebody the other gender, and incur significant morbidity for essentially no gainful reason. I firmly believe that gender reassignment surgery will be viewed as akin to lobotomy in 50 years.
Hell if we all decided tomorrow that people wearing blue hats are men, and people wearing pink hats are women, implicitly, I'd have no problem with somebody deciding to switch hats.
No_one
29d ago
Bogged down in the poorest European country
1 ) Ukraine isn't the poorest. Moldova is, iirc.
- you are eliding that Ukraine gets all the surveillance and espionage data it needs to use the high tech weapons it got free of charge. Patriots, ATGMs, NASAMS, Himars, Storm Shadow, hundreds of quality artillery systems etc. Enough to equip a large EU/NATO army.
From less high tech weapons, it got ~1000 tanks, 1000s of IFVs, most of its artillery shells and so on.
Poorest country except it got military equipment on par with the French army, at least artillery wise.
Without that help and those supplies, it'd have been over for Ukraine by fall of '22 probably.
-
you're also eliding that it gets specialist foreign troops operating air defense and elint equipment. (no, they didn't train Ukes to operate it. It takes years of training just to get basic familiarity. )
-
but a failure by any objective observer. Yeah, the initial plan A (watch the bribed government scram) was a failure.
Plan B, grind down Ukrainian army to the point they can't go on is ongoing. Even Americans are now admitting it's unwinnable.
But it is also showing how faithless Americans are. Despite all their big words, they're unable to even provide Ukraine with something as basic as air defenses. Richest country in the world can't or won't give out thousands of radar guided missiles. Could it? (honestly don't know, but I suspect it has thousands of Aim-120 which should be adaptable for ground launch)
No_one
29d ago
By CNN metrics.
No, export models of Soviet and Western equipment armed with obsolete ammunition operated by Arabs whose average IQ is estimated to be 89. US army cutoff for recruitment back when there was a draft was 85. Anyone under that was just not worth having even in the rear echelon.
By CNN / newspaper chart metrics yes. By any actual metrics, no. It's a laughable claim.
Lazuli
29d ago
Don't be afraid of rejection. "No" is a just a word. How many times have you rejected something or someone?
2rafa
29d ago
Afriforum, which is the main lobbying group for Afrikaners, publishes an annual report in English that lists them. Here is the report for 2022. I imagine the one for 2023 is somewhere or has not yet been released.
For more detailed lists their normal website and forum will have more information but will be in Afrikaans, not English. Almost all white South African farmers are Afrikaners.
2rafa
29d ago
A related question is whether onanism has actually increased since the advent of online pornography.
non_radical_centrist
29d ago
If everyone was equal in ability and some groups were being discriminated against for no reason, I would hire them since they cost less money/are more desperate and I would crush the competition with my superior offerings.
There was a problem with racism in the Jim Crow era where, if you were to be colour blind with your hiring practices and what customers you let in in the South, you could get racists making a lot of trouble for you. I think we're well past that era, but that there was a time when things really were nastily racist needs to be kept in mind.
Crowstep
29d ago
I think it was pretty clear from the context that the first part was a summary of your views. Plus, I did literally quote you later on with a far stronger claim.
Your prediction isn't predicting all that much. Birth rates are plummeting and have been for decades. Global births peaked in 2016 and the world's TFR is about to fall below replacement. That the global population will shrink significantly is mathematically certain.
The second part is stronger (at least the 'absolute' part if not the 'relative' part), but seems very unlikely to me.
However, we weren't discussing whether or not the average human will be poorer in 2100 than they are now. The discussion was about the 'malicious, intelligent, competent agents'. Who are these agents? Where is your evidence for their existence and motives? What would you accept as falsification of these claims?
Gaashk
29d ago
That's interesting, though not directly related to the community I was thinking of.
One of the things I like least about the current BLM iteration of ethnic strife is the way it read ADOS Black/white dynamics into completely different ethnic histories and interactions in regions very far from the areas affected by slavery. Even entirely different countries are adopting it! European countries, with utterly different ethnic histories! But the American West Coast wasn't centrally racist against blacks more than, say, Chinese for much of its history.
Anyway, I guess I was thinking of crafts and community gardening as a stand in for the kind of traditionally human things that most people who are average for their own group really can do, the community is happy to have, and the government likes to encourage, but for Seeing like a State reasons once they are Jobs, or even just Volunteer Positions, they become administratively complex, such that the people who are perfectly able to do the thing itself cannot administer the permits and grants, where most of the money ends up going.
by the end of the century human population will be smaller than at the start of it
So you are predicting... Two billion dead by the hand of the cabal if they start today?
an overwhelming majority of the remaining humans will have far less access to energy, resources, and freedoms, both in absolute terms and relative to what those at the top will enjoy.
This is already the case, so it's not much of a prediction.
epohon
29d ago
Ordinary humans already have far less access to energy, resources, and freedoms in 2024 than in 2000? You and I have very different definitions of far less. We are not living in pods, eating bugs, and owning nothing yet.
No_one
29d ago
All this 'stealth doesn't work' smugposting to portend the sheer stupidity of NATO in developing a white elephant
Carriers are also obsolete against peer forces who are just going to launch a hundred supersonic missiles at them a salvo of strategic air above to give planes something to dodge & overwhelm point defense and simply sink them.
That doesn't prevent them being useful against people who don't have hundreds of good ASMs on hand. That's why Chinese are building two.
If you can make a plane stealthy at a reasonable cost, it's still worth it, because it's going to make it a harder target against simple radar systems.
spam is cope when GBAD all requires a first track to be established by a radar station
Multilateration aside which is kinda not talked about much but probably works...
You ever heard of IR sensors ? Yeah, sure, you say you can hide a MW level heat source against the cold sky. No, you can't. Even Yuropoor systems like the Eurofighter have IRST that detects planes up to 50 km from the front.. You think China's unable to manufacture similar sensors and stick one on a high pole in every square 100 kms and connect them by fibre? You think unless there's total overcast, a stealth plane with a 3 MW engine on cruise can just waltz through ?
Detecting IR is 1980s technology. Most air defence now comes with it. America is refitting such on its older warplanes.
Stealth works against countries with bad equipment. That doesn't mean it's going to work against a sophisticated enemy.
The past truly was a different country. The Marty McFly archetype didn't come into being for no reason.
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