sam0345

Karma: −668

sam0345 Sep 17, 2012, 8:21 AM
2 points
in reply to: Mitchell_Porter’s comment on: How about testing our ideas?

That’s just an approximation. Those situations (flat space, hyperbolic space) are really just asymptotically fixed—the form of the space-time in the infinite past or the infinite future is fixed. But in between, you can have topology change.

I don’t think string theory as it exists is capable of of describing a space time that undergoes topological change as a result of the dynamics of the strings. They talk about branes undergoing topological change, but they undergo topological change within a given background spacetime that acts without being acted upon.

And if it is capable of describing such an event, string theorists don’t really have any idea of how to make it do it.

People go into Quantum Gravity because it is the big unsolved problem, find they cannot solve it, but they have to publish papers anyway. And so they do, resulting in postmodern physics.

sam0345 Sep 17, 2012, 6:43 AM
−4 points
in reply to: Mitchell_Porter’s comment on: How about testing our ideas?

There was no such stagnation. This is the period which saw M-theory, the holographic principle, and the twistor revival,

I understand M theory sufficiently well to be seriously underwhelmed.

M theory and the holographic principle suspiciously resemble postmodernism: insiders talking to each other in ways that supposedly demonstrate their erudition, without any external check to verify that they are actually erudite, or even understand each other, or even understand what they themselves are saying. Twistors are valid and erudite mathematics, but don’t seem to get us any closer to anything interesting.

M theory is just string theory only more so. The trouble with string theory as a theory of spacetime is that it takes place in a fixed space time background, thus inherently makes no sense whatever. If you start with a contradiction, you can deduce anything you please. The central problem in any quantum theory of spacetime is that you have no fixed spacetime to stand upon, and string theory just blithely ignores the problem. That is not an advance in theoretical physics, that is finding weak excuses to publish meaningless papers.

sam0345 Sep 17, 2012, 3:12 AM
3 points
in reply to: V_V’s comment on: How about testing our ideas?

You seem to be under the impression that Einstein’s papers were not reviewed by professional physicists. That’s incorrect: They were reviewed by journal editors who were professional physicists.

But Einstein only needed one journal editor to decide that his paper was good stuff that would rock the boat, whereas under peer review, he would in practice need every peer reviewer to agree that his papers did not rock the boat.

Under the old system, he needed one of n to get published. Under the new system, it tends to be closer to n of n.

Consensus, as Galileo argued, produces bad science.

And, pretty obviously, we are getting bad science.

Recall the recent study reported in nature that only three of fifty results in cancer research were replicable.

The background to this replication study is that biomedical companies pick academic research to try to develop new medications—and they decided they needed to do some quality assurance.

sam0345 Sep 16, 2012, 6:04 AM
0 points
on: Under-acknowledged Value Differences

For example, when discussing gender-related problems, [edit] one solution may be generally better for men, while another solution may be generally better for women

Love is war.

All is fair in love and war.

Individually optimal behavior by each male doing what is best for himself, and each female doing what is best for herself, is unlikely to be optimal as for males and females as a whole, or even particular male/female couples.

Such prisoners dilemma problems are normally solved by coercion—chastity imposed on females, shotgun marriages and continued material support imposed on males.

However, I am fairly sure that were I to discuss the usual solutions in detail, the response would be strikingly lacking in rationality.

sam0345 Sep 16, 2012, 5:48 AM
3 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: How about testing our ideas?

The modern peer review system is something Einstein didn’t have to deal with for example.

Obviously none of his great papers could have survived peer review. Some people argue that this was merely because of trivial stylistic issues, and could have been fixed by giving citations in correct format, and so on and so forth, so that they read like modern peer reviewed papers.

Perhaps

But the fact that he got his degree with a boring trivial paper, when he had several of his greatest papers in hand, suggests that there was no fixing them. If they could not be submitted for a degree, probably could never pass peer review. Peer review is in a sense a form of committee, and committees tend to be dumber than their dumbest member. The primary job of a committee, whatever its ostensible job, is to make sure that no one rocks the boat, just as the primary job of a bureaucracy, whatever its ostensible job, is to breed red tape with red tape to generate more red tape.

Getting a group of people to function together so that their output is smarter than any one of them is hard, a deep and unsolved problem. The normal outcome is that their output is dumber than any one of them.

The scientific community solved this problem from the late seventeenth century to late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Although engineering continues to advance, and more powerful tools such as DNA readers continue to advance science, science itself seemed to run out of puff after Einstein.

sam0345 Sep 7, 2012, 7:36 PM
−8 points
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: Politics Discussion Thread September 2012

In feminist terms, the ‘personal is political’ refers to the theory that personal problems are political problems, which basically means that many of the personal problems women experience in their lives are not their fault, but are the result of systematic oppression. [...]

Women have a higher need than men to belong to small groups (in mean and distribution, but the difference is so great that there is not a lot of overlap) I am unaware of any statistics or studies on this topic, but everyone knows it, just as enthusiasts for diversity are reluctant to visit certain highly diverse parts of town, such as for example, all those diversity lovers at the Democratic Party Convention who found themselves assigned to residences in the wrong part of town and then immediately put John Derbyshire’s recommendations into effect. An infertile woman without a family is sarcastically called a cat lady. We have no similar jokes about men Women tend to hang out in small groups markedly more than men do.

At the same time, women have a higher propensity than males to break their groups up. The general cause of divorce (usually observed by relatives of the wife, but blissfully unseen by the husband) is that the wife is screwing a high status male, divorces her husband, perhaps in hopes that the high status male will spend more time with her, but instead, upon hearing the of the divorce, the high status male takes off like a startled jack rabbit, never to be seen again. A husband, on the other hand, will attempt to keep both the wife and the mistress, and if he cannot have both, will retain the mother of his children. The viciousness of women to other women is legendary. Most women who has had a female boss will tell you that she does not want to work with female bosses, something men cannot say for reasons of PC.

Thus female personal problems are indeed political in that they are frequently evidence for the seventeenth century view that females innately need male supervision over their lives: for example workplace problems and fatherless children.

And now here comes the part that will result in this post being massively voted down, and accused of making claims without evidence:

asking for it

2005 US Crime victimization survey, file cv0513.csv Rape/sexual assault rate for wife of male head of household 0.1 per 1000 (which is one in ten thousand, which zero within the margin of error)

Rape/sexual assault rate for children over 18 of male head of household 2.3 per thousand

Rape/sexual assault rate for female heads of households 1.6 per thousand.

Notice how quickly political correctness marches on. Today, using the survey category “wife of male head of household” is apt to cause outrage and indignation. Today, households supposedly have no heads. Indeed, for a household to have a head, and that head be male, is arguably criminal, something that is supposedly only practiced by rare extreme right wing fundamentalist extremists.

sam0345 Sep 7, 2012, 2:32 AM
1 point
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, September 1-15, 2012
I follow your comments, because you usually have something interesting to say—and usually something that gets a little close to the borders of what is permissible on less wrong.

Now, sorry to say, your recent comments have become boring. Has Less Wrong become even more repressive, or did you just run out of things to say?

sam0345 Sep 2, 2012, 2:54 AM
8 points
in reply to: Multiheaded’s comment on: Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012

Sorry, but it’s hardly possible to fake such a tremendous increase in such basic statistics.

And equally hard, no doubt to fake the very similar tremendous increase in the basic statistics for North Korea, Cuba, and Ethiopia.

I notice that in the case of Marxist Ethiopia, we saw a tremendous increase in basic statistics despite bloody and unending civil war, and the massive use of artificial famine to terrorize the peasants.

And when the Marxist Ethiopian regime was finally overthrown in that bloody and terrible civil war, and peace returned, their statistics abruptly fell back to African normal. Did everyone suddenly forget how to read? Perhaps capitalism caused the death rate to suddenly rise, but did it overnight erase all that wonderful education that the communists had so successfully done?

sam0345 Sep 1, 2012, 1:20 PM
0 points
in reply to: Multiheaded’s comment on: Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012

Under Mao, life expectancy literally doubled and the literacy rate went from 20-25% to 80%. And the increase in life expectancy is largely attributed to his vast state healthcare initiatives.

I have heard similarly glorious statistics for Cuba, and, until quite recently, for North Korea.

Visiting Cuba in 1992 it was obvious to me that living standards, literacy, and health, had collapsed since the revolution. People are living in the decayed remnants of what had been decently comfortable houses fifty years ago. People were hungry, frightened, and desperate.

It is clear that China suffered poverty and economic stagnation under Mao. You don’t double living standards and life expectancy while having massive famines and operating an economy based on slave labor. Taiwan unambiguously and obviously experienced dramatic growth. Kuomintang rule was competent, efficient, and successful. Communist rule was a disaster propped up by foreign intervention.

sam0345 Aug 17, 2012, 9:07 AM
−6 points
in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

Despite the fact that your claims are extraordinary and therefore in need of evidence to raise them to any probability worth consideration, you do not cite evidence for your claims.

Liar.

For example I never asserted that “that the design intent of cervical-cancer prevention programs is to cover up for the evils of male homosexuality.”

Rather, I produced evidence that might incline some people to draw the conclusion that was a factor in the design, without ever suggesting that conclusion myself.

So far from making an assertion without evidence, I have been producing evidence without assertions and letting that evidence speak for itself.

sam0345 Aug 17, 2012, 4:00 AM
−2 points
in reply to: siodine’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

And, seriously, when was the last time anyone was punished on LW for posting their contrarian thought

Plainly expressed contrarian posts are downvoted, or silently and furtively deleted. The likelihood of silent and furtive deletion discourages people from posting.

sam0345 Aug 17, 2012, 3:11 AM
1 point
in reply to: Tyrrell_McAllister’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

anyone arguing for those positions would have to make some cognitively demanding efforts to word their arguments so as to avoid poisoning the discourse.

Merely expressing certain thoughts in a clear way is deemed to poison the discourse on this forum, whereas expressing certain other thoughts, no matter how rudely, aggressively, childishly, and offensively, is not deemed to poison the discourse. The only way to get away with expressing these thoughts on this forum is to express them as Vlad does, in code that is largely impenetrable except to those that already share those ideas.

And as evidence for this proposition, observe that no one does express these thoughts plainly on this forum, not even me, while they are routinely expressed on other forums.

Lots of people argue that we are heading not for a technological singularity, but for a left political singularity, that will likely result in the collapse of western civilization. You could not possibly argue that on this forum.

Indeed it is arguably inadvisable to argue that even on a website located on a server within the USA or Europe, though Mencius Moldbug did.

sam0345 Aug 17, 2012, 1:59 AM
−3 points
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

But one thing that makes me more skeptical than usual is that you’re the only person I know who often makes claims like …

Observe that one of my previous replies to you have been silently deleted.

The reason you don’t see Vlad’s arguments is that you don’t hang out in the kind of forums where people such as Vlad are allowed to plainly state their arguments.

sam0345 Aug 16, 2012, 3:01 AM
3 points
in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

The mistakes you’re posting have already been corrected by myself and paper-machine over in this branch of the thread.

Your “correction” is that the purpose of the vaccination is not herd immunity, but individual and personal benefit—but the claim justifying compulsory and/or free vaccination is always herd immunity. If no substantial externality, no justification for compulsion and/or subsidy.

In fact, of course, the reason for compulsory HPV vaccination is to avoid stigmatization. If girls get to individually choose whether they want a vaccination against a sexually transmitted disease, those who so choose might be stigmatized.

sam0345 Aug 16, 2012, 2:02 AM
−8 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

quite a few countries with a two-digit prevalence of HIV makes me seriously doubt sam0345′s claim that “the main disease reservoir” “is adult male homosexuals”. There’s no way gay men comprise a major part of 26% of Swaziland’s population.)

AIDS in Africa is not spread by homosexuals, but by foreign aid: More precisely, by needle reuse in health facilities supported by foreign aid.

In the west, AIDS is, in its pattern of affliction and causation, wrath of God disease. In Africa, AIDS is, in its pattern of affliction and causation, wrath of progressivism disease.

The more AIDS patients you have, the more money you get, so no incentive to sterilize needles. And everyone feels a pleasant glow of progressive holiness and piety at the sight of non homosexuals and non drug users getting AIDS, so no one really wants to halt this display of holiness and sacredness.

The typical African AIDS victim is the faithful wife of a faithful husband who catches the disease because she attends a foreign aid funded clinic while pregnant. That will teach them to be married and faithful.

sam0345 Aug 15, 2012, 5:02 AM
−5 points
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

“I privately have better arguments but I can’t share them because they would be too inflammatory”.

Someone ask Vlad, “such as?”

He makes no real reply.

I reply “Such as, for example …”

Observe what happens.

sam0345 Aug 15, 2012, 4:35 AM
−2 points
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

I just think most new ideas are wrong and their proponents overconfident.

Then presumably you think that the entire progressive agenda must be wrong, seeing as for the last two thousand years it would have been perceived as evil and insane, seeing as pretty much every taken for granted progressive verity was, before it became an article of faith, dismissed by progressives as a slippery slope argument.

For example, until the mid nineteenth century, everyone knew that female sexuality was so powerful, irrational, destructive, and self destructive that women needed their sex lives supervised for their own good, and everyone else’s good. Everyone knew that democracy was stupid and evil because the masses would eventually try to vote themselves rich, and end up electing Caesar. Everyone knew that if you tried to tax more than five or ten percent, it would hose the economy, and you would wind up with less tax revenue. Everyone knew …

I expect you to agree with me that we went of the rails when we emancipated women and gave the vote to every adult male.

sam0345 Aug 15, 2012, 4:01 AM
2 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

They want to vaccinate vast numbers of people that are unlikely to need it at considerable expense

How much?

Last I heard, $400 for a course, $100 for a dose. If this did not involve sex, such a vaccine would be targeted at at risk populations.

A ten pack of combined tetanus and diptheria vaccine costs $20 and everyone is at roughly comparable risk, so it is reasonable to give the tet/dipth vaccine out like lollipops or McDonald’s toys. Maybe the HPV vaccination should be handed out free at the sex clinic, but it seems to me that the reason that they want to give it to schoolgirls is because they do not want to give it out free at the sex clinic.

sam0345 Aug 15, 2012, 3:40 AM
8 points
in reply to: Unnamed’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

Stigmatization is a concern with social norms about male homosexuality because gay men have, in fact, been heavily shunned/persecuted/stigmatized based on their sexuality.

Husbands, fathers, and capitalists, are either demonized or ridiculed on every television show. This is clearly having undesirable effects—less capital formation, less family formation, and less enterprise formation. Why is some people’s stigmatization horrid, shocking, and in fact sacrilegious, while other people’s stigmatization is no problem at all?

Imagine a public health campaign that told us that certain sexual behaviors were literally dirty, in that one was apt to catch a wide variety of diseases, and that people who engaged in these practices were apt to spread disease even to people who do not engage in them, so that people who engaged in these practices tended to be literally dirty..

Sacrilege

Now substitute “production” for “sex”, and perhaps “pollution” for “disease”. Absolutely no problem at all. In fact such a campaign would be pious, even if those condemned were plausibly innocent. Even if the campaign was totally untrue, it would be deemed truthy.

sam0345 Aug 14, 2012, 10:48 PM
−7 points
in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: What is moral foundation theory good for?

The controversy over vaccination of young women for “certain sexually transmitted diseases” was over HPV, which is the predominant cause of cervical cancer in the U.S. and does not have any particular connection with “adult male homosexuals”

Where do women catch it from?

They catch it, of course, from males. And males, mostly, catch it from males.

HPV causes the most deaths among heterosexual women, but is most common among males who engage in sex with males. Among women, it is a heterosexual disease. Among men, where it is considerably less deadly, it is primarily a homosexual disease. Homosexuals are the primary reservoir for HPV, just as bats and foxes are the primary reservoir for rabies.

The reason for free or compulsory vaccination is herd immunity, the externality of preventing people from harming others. If you are worried about unvaccinated people harming others, you should be targeting male homosexuals for free HPV vaccination. But that of course would stigmatize them.