All I can say is that actual studies’ results and science is the thing making it rationally possible to discern someone pulling a Semmelweis or being a quack. You can definitely do better than the outside view if you’re willing to expend at least some personal effort to investigate. Especially if a quick meta-glance (you can think of Hanson here, among others) on medicine suggests that governmental medical institutes and guidelines are a lot less trustworthy than what is usual in non-medical domains.
Yeah, they also tend to be inconsistent over time. Consider: butter or margarine? The mainstream view isn’t very solid, but the non-mainstream views don’t seem like they’re any better either. (If they were better, then why aren’t they mainstream yet?)
I think the butter thing, like a lot of very specific dietary concerns, is hard to settle popularly because the answer may not be the same for everyone. Carbohydrate intake is another good example of that phenomenon (I hestitate to even call it a “problem”—the problem is the alleged need for a universal answer). A lot of people who live relatively sedentary lifestyles take in a lot more carbs than they use, and might reasonably be advised to cut back. That does not make it good advice for, say, a bike commuter who’s actually getting a reasonable amount of cardiovascular exercise.
Mainstream: ‘correlation=causation’ (almost all of nutrition research); contrarian: ‘correlation!=causation’ (Taubes); meta-contrarian: ‘ah, but really, correlation~=causation!’
Computer chess: ‘AIs will never master tasks like chess because they lack a soul / the creative spark / understanding of analogies’ (laymen, Hofstadter etc); ‘AIs don’t need any of that to master tasks like chess but computing power and well-tuned search’ (most AI researchers); ‘but a human-computer combination will always be the best at task X because the human is more flexible and better at mega-cognition!’ (Kasparov, Tyler Cowen).
Even by 2007, it was hard for anyone to improve, and after 2013 or so, the
very best centaurs were reduced to basically just opening book preparation
(itself an extremely difficult skill involving compiling millions of games
and carefully tuning against the weakness of possible opponent engines), to
the point where official matches have mostly stopped (making it hard to
identify the exact point at which centaur ceased to be a thing at all).
The game is best known for its dark sense of humor and its graphic violence. Expect to see a lot of blood and guts. Your goal is to go far across each level without letting your character get hurt. The game is over even the smallest body part injuries. It takes much patience to finish the goal. Is this much challenging? Make your best efforts to survive in this glory and funny game. We can find a way to break through Even if we can’t find heaven, I’ll walk through hell with you.
http://happy-wheelsgames.com =>happy wheels
http://geometrydash-game.com =>geometry dash
I advocate majoritarianism on most topics related to science.
Including nutrition.
I’ll take Gary Taubes seriously when the NIH does.
All I can say is that actual studies’ results and science is the thing making it rationally possible to discern someone pulling a Semmelweis or being a quack. You can definitely do better than the outside view if you’re willing to expend at least some personal effort to investigate. Especially if a quick meta-glance (you can think of Hanson here, among others) on medicine suggests that governmental medical institutes and guidelines are a lot less trustworthy than what is usual in non-medical domains.
Yeah, they also tend to be inconsistent over time. Consider: butter or margarine? The mainstream view isn’t very solid, but the non-mainstream views don’t seem like they’re any better either. (If they were better, then why aren’t they mainstream yet?)
I think the butter thing, like a lot of very specific dietary concerns, is hard to settle popularly because the answer may not be the same for everyone. Carbohydrate intake is another good example of that phenomenon (I hestitate to even call it a “problem”—the problem is the alleged need for a universal answer). A lot of people who live relatively sedentary lifestyles take in a lot more carbs than they use, and might reasonably be advised to cut back. That does not make it good advice for, say, a bike commuter who’s actually getting a reasonable amount of cardiovascular exercise.
Mainstream: ‘correlation=causation’ (almost all of nutrition research); contrarian: ‘correlation!=causation’ (Taubes); meta-contrarian: ‘ah, but really, correlation~=causation!’
Computer chess: ‘AIs will never master tasks like chess because they lack a soul / the creative spark / understanding of analogies’ (laymen, Hofstadter etc); ‘AIs don’t need any of that to master tasks like chess but computing power and well-tuned search’ (most AI researchers); ‘but a human-computer combination will always be the best at task X because the human is more flexible and better at mega-cognition!’ (Kasparov, Tyler Cowen).
3 has been empirically disproven at this point, I believe?
gwern on “centaurs” (humans playing chess with computer assistance):
There will always be tasks at which better (Meta-)*Cognition is superior to the available amounts of computing power and tuning search protocols.
It becomes irrelevant if either humans aren’t better than easily created AI at that level of meta or AI go enough levels up to be a failure mode.
The game is best known for its dark sense of humor and its graphic violence. Expect to see a lot of blood and guts. Your goal is to go far across each level without letting your character get hurt. The game is over even the smallest body part injuries. It takes much patience to finish the goal. Is this much challenging? Make your best efforts to survive in this glory and funny game. We can find a way to break through Even if we can’t find heaven, I’ll walk through hell with you. http://happy-wheelsgames.com =>happy wheels http://geometrydash-game.com =>geometry dash