SpectrumDT

[Question] Does the “an­cient wis­dom” ar­gu­ment have any val­idity? If a par­tic­u­lar teach­ing or tra­di­tion is old, to what ex­tent does this make it more trust­wor­thy?

[Question] What are the effec­tive util­i­tar­ian pros and cons of hav­ing chil­dren (in rich coun­tries)?

• SpectrumDT 28 Aug 2024 12:28 UTC

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  in reply to: AnthonyC’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  I also think that in any kind of complex system, monocultures are fragile.

  This is a valid point. But the world is far from a monoculture. Even if all currently endangered languages die out, we will have plenty of cultures left.

  If the world ends up with less than, say, 100 languages, then I agree it starts to make sense to preserve them. As it stands now, I think we have more than enough cultural diversity, and keeping tiny minority languages and cultures alive is not worth the opportunity cost.

• SpectrumDT 27 Aug 2024 8:10 UTC

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  in reply to: AnthonyC’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  It can be too slow to catch up to rapid change, but then in that case one of the things you want is a diversity of cultures for selection to act on.

  Is this the problem that you are trying to solve by preserving cultures? Make the human race as a whole more resilient in the face of rapid change?

  Is this really the reason why you think culture is important? Or is it a rationalization?

  I am skeptical for two reasons:

  1. Your argument about rapid change seems extremely different from your argument in the grandparent post where you talked about literature and philosophy, Aristotle and Chaucer.

  2. Do you think that preserving a bunch of tiny cultures of a few hundred people (many of whom probably live in poverty) is really going to help make the human race more resilient in the face of rapid change?

• SpectrumDT 22 Aug 2024 13:25 UTC

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  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  In those words it sounds like a bad thing, but look past the words and is it, really?

  In my opinion, yes. That is why I posted the question.

• SpectrumDT 22 Aug 2024 13:24 UTC

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  in reply to: AnthonyC’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  Why is culture so important, again?

• SpectrumDT 22 Aug 2024 13:18 UTC

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  in reply to: David Gross’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  I agree that the utility of preserving endangered languages is greater than zero. But how much greater.

  These alternative ways of conceptualizing… how useful are they? What can we achieve with them? As far as I can tell, they are fun and interesting, but insignificant compared to other problems we can help solve.

• SpectrumDT 21 Aug 2024 8:08 UTC

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  in reply to: mad’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  Preservation of endangered languages involves raising children bilingually in the majority and endangered language...

  Generally speaking, endangered languages are from a cultural minority and members of that minority culture enjoy being able to speak that language.

  If the minority cultures can fix the problem themselves by teaching their children, great! Far be it from me to stop them from that. And of course the dominant cultures should not actively oppress minority languages.

  But when outsiders are expected to put in extra effort to preserve minority languages—that is when I balk.

  Imagine if english went extinct. In a sense, we’d lose Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Steinbeck. … These “endangered” languages had culture too—songs and stories, maybe books and plays. That’s important.

  Important, sure. But other things are much more important, such as eradicating diseases and getting people basic education and preserving the environment.

  If I had the choice between saving just one (decent quality) human life and keeping an endangered language alive for another generation, I would sacrifice the language to save the human.

• SpectrumDT 21 Aug 2024 8:02 UTC

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  in reply to: mad’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  I was talking specifically about childhood language acquisition, where learning a new language doesn’t require you to forgo reading tvtropes or watching buffy the vampire slayer, it’s just part of your background acquisition the same way that children learn how gravity works and how to manipulate small objects as they grow up.

  It maybe easy for the child, but it can take a lot of effort and energy from the parents.

  I am the father of a sort-of bilingual child. I am Danish and we live in Denmark, but my wife is Chinese. Our 4-year-old son speaks good Danish, but his Chinese is very weak. My wife tries on-and-off to insist on speaking Chinese to him, but it is a struggle because he does not like it. So it is hard work for her, and she often does not have the energy and falls back to speaking Danish to him.

  I speak nary a word Chinese. I could of course study Chinese so I could contribute, but that would be a huge effort.

• SpectrumDT 21 Aug 2024 7:49 UTC

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  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

  To me this sound suspiciously like the “Fallacy of Grey”.

  The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”

  The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .”

  https://​​www.lesswrong.com/​​posts/​​dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/​​the-fallacy-of-gray

[Question] How great is the util­ity of “sav­ing” en­dan­gered lan­guages?

• SpectrumDT 28 Jun 2024 8:58 UTC

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  on: Lov­ing a world you don’t trust

  Is there any place in your sequence where you define what you mean by God? I have tried to read closely every time you mention the term, and I still do not understand what the term is supposed to refer to.

• SpectrumDT 28 Jun 2024 8:56 UTC

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  in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Lov­ing a world you don’t trust

  But my vague sense is that people mostly want frisbee and tea. I guess this isn’t that surprising either, there’s some kind of horror that’s related to a nerd staring at the media that is actually popular and realizing “it’s not bad [by nerd standards] by mistake. The people really did want Transformers 3.”

  I did not understand this. Could I get you to please explain it again?

  (It is worth noting that I am a nerd who enjoyed Transformers 3...)

• SpectrumDT 28 Jun 2024 8:52 UTC

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  in reply to: aysja’s comment on: Lov­ing a world you don’t trust

  the amount of awe I feel going into European churches feels like some evidence against this.

  This sounds to me like selection bias. Most people did not build churches. And I suspect you do not feel awestruck in every church. I suspect that you remember the new most awesome ones, built by exceptional people who felt exceptionally religious.

  It really seems like these rituals, the architecture, all of it, was built to instill the sort of existential intensity that taking God seriously requires, and I have to imagine that this was at least somewhat real for most people?

  It may have been built for that purpose. This does not mean that most people felt the existential intensity. It is conceivable that many people felt “wow, the church sure is rich and powerful; I’d better obey” whereas many others felt nothing and stayed quiet about it.

• SpectrumDT 26 Jun 2024 7:36 UTC

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  on: Notes on Piety

  Contemplation of the vastness of everything we know about, of the tremendous unplumbed chasm of the unknown, of the vertigo-inducing forever of infinity, of the mystery of why there is anything at all or any subjectivity with which to try to confront it… any of these things can induce a shudder of humble awe in the most dyed-in-the-wool atheist.

  Not me. At least, not reliably. When I contemplate the vastness of the universe I feel at most a very mild curiosity. When I contemplate philosophical problems such as “why there is anything at all” I mostly feel a mild frustration. Definitely not a shudder of awe.

• SpectrumDT 25 Jun 2024 5:34 UTC

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  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Ugh fields

  I would think that some kind of “yay field” plays a part in addiction. Even very mild addictions. I feel a “yay field” each time I go to eat a cookie or a bowl of ice cream or the like.

• SpectrumDT 11 Jun 2024 9:49 UTC

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  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Ms. Blue, meet Mr. Green

  I often use mystical language with phenomenal empiricism in mind.

  Could you please give some examples of this?

• SpectrumDT 11 Jun 2024 9:47 UTC

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  in reply to: habryka’s comment on: Ms. Blue, meet Mr. Green

  I am interested in evidence that there are large parts of society that have benefitted from mysticism in the way they benefited from quantitative reasoning (in the domain of getting things done, not in the domain of feeling good), or at least individuals who seem to have performed impressive feats I clearly care about.

  Does “being happier” count as a feat that you care about?

• SpectrumDT 7 Jun 2024 13:07 UTC

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  in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Ms. Blue, meet Mr. Green

  The point, if you like, is that if you’re asked to explain some “woo” or “mysticism” or whatever, and you find yourself sounding like Morpheus sounds in the movie, you’re doing it wrong.

  In my opinion this is true about most mentors in fiction. The mentoring we see on screen tends to be shitty mentoring, presumably because the writers or bosses believe that showing actual mentoring will lead to a less dramatic story.

  So mentors in fiction should not be used as role models.

[Question] Has any­one here writ­ten about re­li­gious fic­tion­al­ism?