Salemicus

• SalemicusJun 1, 2015, 1:02 PM

  11 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread June 2015

  When unsavvy observers see a nonprofit organization with dozens of people on its board, they think: “Look how many great people are committed to this organization! It must be extremely well run.” Actually, a huge board will exercise no effective oversight at all; it merely provides cover for whatever microdictator actually runs the organization.

  Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

• SalemicusJun 1, 2015, 1:01 PM

  2 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread June 2015

  When Baby Boomers grow up and write books to explain why one or another individual is successful, they point to the power of a particular individual’s context as determined by chance. But they miss the even bigger social context for their own preferred explanations: a whole generation learned from childhood to overrate the power of chance and underrate the importance of planning. Gladwell at first appears to be making a contrarian critique of the myth of the self-made businessman, but actually his own account encapsulates the conventional view of a generation.

  Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

• SalemicusMay 29, 2015, 3:58 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: A Challenge: Maps We Take For Granted

  Captain Cook did fine in Australia. It was Hawaii that got him.

• SalemicusMay 29, 2015, 8:39 AM

  7 points

  0

  on: A Challenge: Maps We Take For Granted

  The problem is that most of our modern methods rely on other technology that was also not available in the 13th century. So you need to be aware of disused practices, not modern ones. In your example, sterilisation would be useful, but also very expensive. Washing your hands would typically be counterproductive, because they often did not have access to clean water. Spreading cholera is bad! That is why people drank small beer rather than water.

  Useful maps:

  • Crops require nitrogen, legumes fix nitrogen. Do Dutch-style crop rotation and anticipate the Agricultural Revolution by centuries. Fritz-Haber is sadly a non-starter.

  • Royal authority and legitimate descent are highly resilient, and temporary assaults on them will be reverted. Don’t count out Henry III when he’s a small child and most of his kingdom is occupied by a foreign king with the backing of the English nobility. Don’t count him out later when he and his son are prisoners. Don’t back shooting stars (Langton, Louis, de Montfort, etc) against the majesty that doth hedge a king.

  • Penicillium is useful! Try and find some of that if you can!

  • Iron is less reactive than the other elements contained within it. Firing oxygen through it will remove the impurities much better than other methods then available, and allow you to make lots of cheap steel. Note: this was actually known in the 13th century, but not in England.

• SalemicusMay 28, 2015, 4:59 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread May 2015

  My own experience is in London and Cambridge.

  I think your intuitions are steering you wrong if you’d expect this kind of thing among the “undereducated” (your word). That might be true in the US, but in Britain most people from those social echelons simply don’t attend church, and haven’t for generations, as an effect of urbanisation. Of course, there are relatively poor and uneducated people with that relation to religion in the Black Country, but they aren’t Christians.

  If you want to find devout Christians, you need to find educated, middle class, small-c conservative types—HTB and the like aren’t filled with manual workers. Or else, recent immigrants—but they don’t normally attend CoE churches.

• SalemicusMay 28, 2015, 3:35 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread May 2015

  These pockets definitely exist in the UK. There are a fair number of devout Christians here, although they don’t shout about it because mainstream society is so hostile to Christianity. They are also easily the nicest people I’ve met.

• SalemicusMay 27, 2015, 10:37 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: passive_fist’s comment on: Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015

  [Peer review] rejects far more than implausible/​insane/​unworthy ideas.

  What else does it reject?

  I see papers get rejected all the time for methodological disagreements and failure to cite papers the referee thinks important. More broadly, ideas that are perfectly plausible but contrary to current thinking in a field have a much higher threshold to publication than ideas consonant with current thinking.

  But more generally, peer review is normally explicitly aimed at rejecting work judged to be non-novel or non-substantial. That boring replication attempts can’t get published should therefore be seen as a feature not a bug. The ability of academics to publish novel, counter-intuitive and false results should therefore also be seen as a feature not a bug.

  I think it’s important to look at this on a per-discipline basis.

  Oh, I’m sure some disciplines are worse than others. But as you seem to be tacitly conceding, “the vast majority of scientific output never undergoes real review,” and that’s true in all disciplines.

• SalemicusMay 26, 2015, 3:11 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: passive_fist’s comment on: Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015

  The purpose of peer review is just to make sure what’s in the paper is plausible and sane, and worth being presented to a wider audience. The purpose is to weed out obvious low-quality material such as perpetual motion machines or people who are duplicating other’s work as their own.

  Maybe, but this isn’t how actual peer review operates. It rejects far more than implausible/​insane/​unworthy ideas.

  Real review of one’s work begins after peer review is over and the work is examined by the scientific community at large.

  I agree with this, if you’ll concede that by your measure, the vast majority of scientific output never undergoes real review. Which is why most published results are false, and science is a cesspool.

• SalemicusMay 21, 2015, 3:05 PM

  4 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread May 2015

  Since a tradition of behaviour is not susceptible of the distinction between essence and accident), knowledge of it is unavoidably knowledge of its detail: to know only the gist is to know nothing.

  Michael Oakeshott, Political Education.

• SalemicusMay 20, 2015, 4:24 PM

  9 points

  in reply to: DanArmak’s comment on: [Link] A Dar­wi­nian Re­sponse to Sam Har­ris’s Mo­ral Land­scape Challenge

  Ah, but it is good to be light-hearted, light as a feather, floating on air, on cloud nine, to have a light touch, make light work or to tread lightly, whereas it is bad to be ponderous, heavy-footed, weighed down, find things heavy going, throw your weight around, make heavy weather, or to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.

  There is a great deal of linguistic tension between whether “heavy” or “light” is good, one that exists in many different languages. See also the lengthy discussion on “heavy” versus “light” at the start of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

• SalemicusMay 20, 2015, 3:16 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Why cap­i­tal­ism?

  Is your point that property can be trade-like? That it exists not only because either you or the government has enough guns to chase away trespassers, but also because a tit-for-tat trade-like “I won’t touch stuff you call yours if you promise the same” social agreement is seen as mutually beneficial, even without much of an enforcement?

  Kinda. I would de-emphasise the “mutually beneficial” and “promise” bits and emphasise the notion of self-reinforcing equilibrium. After all, you do have to defend your property, because theft does exist, but you don’t have to defend it very much, at least in normal times, because Hobbes was wrong; we do not have a constant ‘Will to contend by Battle.’ Similarly, international relations are fundamentally anarchical, so most countries judge that they need armies, but that doesn’t mean that they are constantly on a war footing, nor that “there is no place for industry, .. culture of the earth,” etc.

• SalemicusMay 20, 2015, 3:00 PM

  4 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Log-nor­mal Lamentations

  The problem is IMHO that you consider achievement a terminal value and a rather exclusionary or overriding one. If there are terminal values at all, happiness or inner piece is a better one. Why achieve for the sake of achievement?

  Achievement means taking actions in the real world. Inner peace is a fundamentally selfish pursuit. I could equally ask, why seek inner peace?

  This is why throwing ego into what you work on can be a huge problem. It anchors you.

  Anchors are good as well as bad, you know. A good ship is one that can both lift and drop the anchor, not one that doesn’t have one.

  Your internal/​external distinction is interesting. I would say, this type of very external attitude is small-ego. For example there are tennis players who care about winning and continuous improvement towards winning and nothing else and they are very critical with themselves, “I played really crappy today” because that is how you improve. They want to actually win, not feel like a winner. And it is a small ego thing, because their eyes are on the goal and not on themselves.

  See, it’s interesting, because I agree with you that this behaviour is ideal, but it seems to me to be the opposite of what you claim elsewhere. These people do not have inner peace. They are not “extremely content with [themselves] as people.” They are, as you say, intensely self-critical. Interestingly, they seem to be driven not so much by the desire to succeed as the desire not to lose—all the top professionals seem to talk about how physically painful it is to lose, and similar. Their focus is not on “living a happy life and generating social utility for others” it’s on achievement (and in a zero-sum game, to boot).

  In any sane description, these people have invested their ego in being the best at tennis. This isn’t keeping your ego small, in any sane description. Now, you are right that one possible problem mode is to redefine the terms of what it means to be “the best,” so as to excuse failure, but this is almost the definitional problem of the small-ego case, where you always “win” because there’s no way to declare your life a failure.

  We can draw up a 2*2 table:

  • Invest your ego in being the best, judge by external achievements—Roger Federer

  • Invest your ego in being the best, judge by internal processes—Harvard sociologist

  • Don’t invest your ego in being the best, judge by external achievements—Nepalese peasant

  • Don’t invest your ego in being the best, judge by internal processes—Jeffrey Lebowski

• SalemicusMay 20, 2015, 2:02 PM

  −1 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread May 2015

  If a scientific hypothesis were a self-generated bright idea which owed nothing to scientific activity, then empiricism governed by hypothesis could be considered to compose a self-contained manner of activity; but this certainly is not its character. The truth is that only a man who is already a scientist can formulate a scientific hypothesis; that is, an hypothesis is not an independent invention capable of guiding scientific inquiry, but a dependent supposition which arises as an abstraction from within already existing scientific activity. Moreover, even when the specific hypothesis has in this manner been formulated, it is inoperative as a guide to research without constant reference to the traditions of scientific inquiry from which it was abstracted… Or consider the example of cookery. It might be supposed that an ignorant man, some edible materials, and a cookery book compose together the necessities of a self-moved (or concrete) activity called cooking. But nothing is further from the truth. The cookery book is not an independently generated beginning from which cooking can spring; it is nothing more than an abstract of somebody’s knowledge of how to cook: it is the stepchild, not the parent of the activity. The book… speaks only to those who know already the kind of thing to expect from it and consequently how to interpret it.

  Michael Oakeshott, Political Education.

• SalemicusMay 20, 2015, 1:49 PM

  4 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Log-nor­mal Lamentations

  If having a “small ego” is counterproductive, then what makes it “healthy”?

  Yes, having a “big ego” will result in pain if you’re outgunned. But it will also result in working really hard to maintain that place. Maybe this just goes to the heart of my objections to Buddhism. In my view, a fixed sense of self is great. Desire is great. Inner peace is the enemy—once you achieve that, you won’t achieve anything else (as your friend points out).

  The problem with the people in your friend’s link is just the opposite to what he says it is. Their reference-frame is not external enough. They are too interested in looking like the smartest kid on the block to themselves, and not sufficiently interested in societally-approved measures of respect, such as money, power and reproductive success.

• SalemicusMay 19, 2015, 2:41 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Strate­gies and tools for get­ting through a break up

  The lesson here is to start and conduct relationships with a consciousness of impermanence so there are no nasty surprises

  To me, the whole purpose of a relationship (as opposed to a casual fling) is to make investments that will pay off down the road. This requires a sense of indefinite permanence. Yes, your direct relationship will end eventually (death) but your investments, such as the family you create, can continue forever—in that sense the relationship you have built need never end.

  If your lesson is truly a good one, why is it that all the successful marriages I’m aware of are based on absolute and indefinite commitment? Or is my sample non-representative? How many successful marriages do you know that are conducted with a consciousness of impermanence?

• SalemicusMay 14, 2015, 4:20 PM

  0 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Thread May 2015

  Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter.

  Admiral Collingwood.

• SalemicusMay 14, 2015, 3:47 PM

  4 points

  in reply to: skeptical_lurker’s comment on: How to come to a ra­tio­nal be­lieve about whether some­one has a crush on yo

  So, whatever you want, the other person wants the opposite?

  Nope. The rule is conditional on “wondering.” For the vast majority of people I meet, it doesn’t occur to me to wonder whether they have a crush on me. So if I’m wondering whether they like me, something unusual must have triggered it.

  Similarly, if I like someone and they like me too, most of the time I don’t wonder about it, I know. So if I’m still puzzled as to whether they like me, then it’s because they don’t like me, but I’m trying to read non-signals as signals.

• Salemicus 14 May 2015 13:28 UTC

  −1 points

  in reply to: sixes_and_sevens’s comment on: How to come to a ra­tio­nal be­lieve about whether some­one has a crush on yo

  People solve this problem by making bigger and bigger signals at each other, until either one side stops making the bigger signals or until the signals are so big you can’t ignore them, (also known as “flirting”).

  Unfortunately there is the common failure mode where Alex keeps making bigger and bigger signals, while Billy makes no signals at all, but A interprets everything B does as maybe some kind of signal. So this method still relies on being able to tell, at least to some extent.

  If you aren’t good at reading other people’s signals, then the following heuristic is a pretty good one:

  • If you like A, and you are wondering whether A likes you, the answer is no.

  • If you don’t like A, and you are wondering whether A likes you, the answer is yes.

• Salemicus 10 May 2015 9:38 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: buybuydandavis’s comment on: The File Drawer Effect and Con­for­mity Bias (Elec­tion Edi­tion)

  Yes, in the UK this is called the “Shy Tory” effect. I don’t think all the media here is biased against the Conservative Party (some are pro, some are con) but you are quite right that the BBC (which is easily the largest and most powerful media organisation) is hostile. It’s possible this is (part of) the cause of this effect, and it’s notable that the three general elections where the polls messed up all did so by underestimating the Conservatives and overestimating Labour.

  But I don’t know that this is a case of the polls getting it wrong. If this was a case of the “Shy Tory” effect, why did the exit poll (and the unpublished Survation poll) get it right? By comparison, in 1992 the exit poll was wrong.

The File Drawer Effect and Con­for­mity Bias (Elec­tion Edi­tion)