Posts
Comments
It's extremely weird that atomic weapons have not been used in anger since WW II, and we know that humanity got lucky on several occasions, UFOs seems to like to be around ships that have nuclear weapons and power so I assign some non-trivial probability to aliens having saved us from nuclear war.
Bird watchers also tend to see more birds.
I'd imagine there are more sensors and eyeballs looking in the skies at high security facilities, thus more UAP.
What is the name of this bias?
In America, many people are searching for the extreme versions of success, and we've been conditioned to see significantly above average levels of success as the baseline.
Drake meme:
- Working out, sleeping well, and eating reasonably to stay in shape = meh
- Having 8 pack abs, 20" biceps & being able to 360 dunk a basketball = YEAH, that's what I'm talkin' bout!
If you're going to have extreme success, I think it often takes some extreme variables in the equation. That might be extreme talent (or extreme wealth or extreme-ly valuable personal/professional networks), such that extreme work isn't required.
But sometimes extreme work and discipline is necessary if you want to achieve extreme results.
You may decide at some point you no longer value obtaining some extreme result enough to continue it's pursuit. I think that's wise, as I've found the cost is too high and life is too short.
Plenty of evidence.
Any that you find particularly clear and compelling?
Anyone following the role American football may play in long term brain injuries? Subconcussive hits to the head accumulating to cause problems?
Anyone have thoughts?
Fix RECENT ON RATIONALITY BLOGS.
I was criticising the criticism of this post.
I feel like you're taking all of this way too seriously.
Fix the "RECENT ON RATIONALITY BLOGS"
This answer has too many upvotes in my view.
I suspect it was here early in the discussion and people upvoted for whatever reason it is people upvote early comments.
Yes. LW's content is too good for this.
Okay. How do you do it?
Things you cannot control directly - what your metabolism actually does with the food you put in your mouth
Agreed. Some people have significantly higher metabolisms.
Things this model doesn't even mention - there are other important things about the food, not just calories
Agreed. I'm not talking about nutrition, just weight loss.
To the extent people yo-yo, I think the novelty wears off and old habits come back. You're often dealing with months or years of new diet versus decades of old habitual diet.
I mean you notice the differences more in the first phase of a diet. You may have some New Diet Energy! that gives you a boost and helps counter the differences.
After a while, you can get accustomed to less food.
Some random barely-edited thoughts on my experience with weight loss:
In the midst of a diet where I will lose 15 lbs (15.9lb, from 185.8 lb to 169.9, to be exact) in 40 days.
I have 95% certainty I will reach this goal in the appointed time. Even if I don't reach exactly 169.9lb, I'll be close, so whether or not I hit the exact number is arbitrary for my purposes. (I'm losing some weight to see if it helps a lingering back injury.)
I'm just eating a disciplined diet and working out according to a consistent schedule.
My diet is simple and not starvation-y at all. Most people wouldn't do it because it's repetitive (I literally eat the same thing nearly everyday so I can know my calorie intake without any counting.)
My workout isn't hard but most people wouldn't do it because...I don't know why, it's just my experience that people won't. It's 4-5 days per week of 30-60 minutes cardio and 30-60 minutes of weight training. I have a back injury that's limiting me, so it's nothing terribly rigorous.
...
In my years at health clubs, talking to health-club-going people, I've seen all the evidence I'll ever need to believe, basically, the Calories In / Calories Out model of weight loss is correct.
My opinion of the rationality community's view of weight loss is that it's bad. In fact, it is what I would consider anti-advice—the sort of thing you would introduce someone to if you wanted them to fail at weight loss. (Like in Mean Girls when Lindsey Lohan gives Rachel McAdams Swedish weight-gaining bars and tells her they are for weight loss.)
...
Some of my rough and random thoughts on managing weight:
- Lean muscle mass is responsible for ~65% of individual differences in BMR.
- People have significant differences in metabolism that are probably genetic predispositions. These differences can mean people who behave identically (same diet and exercise routine) will end up with very different weights.
- No one should be shamed for their weight anymore than someone should be shamed for their height. (This is obvious, but needs to be said 'cuz "fat shaming" is an applause light used by the crowd who thinks anything resembling a simple CICO model for weight loss is bad and cruel.)
- You shouldn't necessarily care about weight loss and our culture is fucked up for making people feel bad about their weight.
- Losing weight can be really hard.
- Diet is a central component to our lives, and changes in diet make people emotional, tired, etc.
- Weight is a very personal issue and body image's importance in our culture, for better or worse, can not be overstated.
- Exercising is a hard habit to adopt.
- People lie. Self-reporting of diet and exercise is full of inaccuracies.
- Changing your diet and exercise routine is akin to changing other habits and is subject to the same sorts of difficulties and failure modes.
- The first 2-5 weeks of big diet changes are fucking hard, but it gets easier like any habit change.
- Atkins, and other low carb diets, work because 'Murican diets are high calorie AND carb-centric. Cutting all carbs for a while means also cutting your total calories significantly. The published woo reasons why they work are mostly bullshit. It's just calorie cutting while giving you a shot at forming different long-term diet habits.
- There may be some foods that speed metabolism, some foods that are good to eat at certain times during the day, some food that satiate more than others for any given person, etc...
- But the Eat Less/Exercise More model is tried and true.
and sports
It is?
It's sort of silly to say that that means it should be called the "irrationality community." Tyler Cowen is implicitly putting himself at the vantage point of a more objective observer with the criticism, which I find ironic.
It did seem to be a pretty bold and frontal critique. And "irrationality community" is probably silly. But I agree LW, et al has at times a religious and dogmatic feel to it. In this way the RC becomes something like the opposite of the label it carries. That seems to be his point.
As an aside, I think Lumifer is a funny name. I always associate it with Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, and with Lucifer. Basically I always picture your posts as coming from a cross between a cartoon candle and Satan.
Yes. Yes.
If this wasn't exactly the mental image I had of Lumifer before, then it is now.
Susan Rice was involved in wiretapping Trump
Found Sean Hannity.
The tallest player to ever play in the NBA was Gheorghe Mureșan, who was 7'7". He was not very good.
He wasn't? He average 15 pts and 10 rebounds (and 2 blocks) as a 24 year old in the NBA. He had injuries, but was effective for a time when healthy.
I agree Ashton Kutcher doesn't pass my initial presidential smell test. But I'm not sure Trump did either, especially as a GOP candidate...
Thrice married. Foreign born trophy wife. Only recently pro life. Just fine with gay marriage. Not terribly fiscally conservative. Prone to vulgarity. Bromantic af with Putin. Proud adulterer & pussy grabber. Orange.
GOP: We'll take it!
Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Katy Perry, Rosie O'Donnell and Beyonce are on the list and seem to fit the criteria I'm curious about.
Acting skill seems as if it would be very helpful in a political campaign. And just general confidence in a public forum.
You don't need to actually know anything; you just need to convince people you know things.
Trump's last speech has been mostly praised as one of his most presidential. This is, in large part, because he read what other people wrote for him in a president-sounding voice and didn't deviate much from the script and ad lib like he normally does.
I would think Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep or DiCaprio could be pretty damned captivating from the podium or even in debates with a bit of a crash course in current affairs.
Agreed.
I was joking.
Sure. (Though he isn't U.S. born) Or Bill Gates.
(But) I'm most interested in considering the probability of people whose primary draw as a candidate is fame they gained through something like the entertainment industry, for example. Because the skill set necessary to succeed seems to have little to do with being an effective POTUS.
Trump is still a "business man", so Lumifer is right that it's reasonable to assume he's at least a competent manager. The same could be said of Musk or Gates.
Neither was Obama.
Well, timeframe & circumstances are important to note here.
In, say...2012, I think a 1% probability of Donald Trump being POTUS (elect) in Nov 2016 would have seemed far too high to most.
By Nov 1 of 2016, 20% seemed more reasonable.
The probability spikes dramatically after the candidate wins their party's nomination.
Ha. No.
I got that part.
The jokes, bro. I didn't get the jokes. You're typically kinda funny.
I guess probability says you're bound to miss the mark occasionally.
I don't get it.
How about Tom Hanks? Oprah? Mark Zuckerberg? George Clooney?
And I go through lots of apples if I'm still hungry (or I just have a not-hungry-but-want-to-eat mood going) after I'm done with dinner and it works for me in the same way people are describing below.
I think you got hung up on the name Beyonce. Don't.
Maybe experts-at-looking-in-the-rearview-mirror but those don't seem to be terribly useful.
Agreed. :)
Second point: the electorate does not care about "actual credentials" and has not been caring for many decades by now. I'm not sure what credentials would those be, anyway.
Well, you suggested having manager skills...
But we seem to agree that skills relevant to doing the job of POTUS aren't necessarily of primary importance in regard to being elected. Is this an accurate statement of your view?
Third point: social media has NOT demonstrated its ability to elect a president. Trump was not elected on the strength of his social media game.
It seems to be fairly non-controversial that Trump employed social media effectively and this helped him win... Can you elaborate on what you mean?
Being a celebrity is useful, but it's about as useful as, say, being tall.
This seems obviously false for lots of reasons and I assume you're kidding.
Citation needed. I do not think this is the case with Trump.
Admittedly tough to quantify.
these were not experts and their words are not credible.
Or, they were basing their predictions on outdated maps of the territory.
What would keep other celebs from doing that?
Can you explain, in your view, what Trump did to get a lot of attention that another huge celebrity could not do?
From my view, he seemed to get lots of headlines just for being a celebrity and running for POTUS simultaneously.
Not unlike OJ made headlines for being a celeb and being on trial for murder at the same time.
Thank you for the fair warning.
The question is more about celebrity and social media having the ability to get people elected regardless of that person's actual credentials to be the CEO of America.
You seem to be getting hung up on the particular names of the celebrities I am mentioning. Why?
Ronald Reagan was a shitty actor before his gov't career; Arnold Schwarzenegger was the same; Jesse Ventura was a wrestler/actor.
Trump seems to me to be more a result of the phenomenon whereby a celebrity uses their profile and name recognition as the overwhelming means for getting elected *, rather than displaying any "managerial competencies".
In the last two decades, the internet + millennials, yada, yada. Therefore, I'm asking about how much this phenomenon may have been accelerated...to the point where a pure mega celeb could win a November popularity/beauty contest in which there is no requisite IQ/current events awareness test given at the polls.
Again, we just elected Trump in the U.S. when such a thing had been considered virtually impossible according to most credible experts.
You're saying Trump's win was possible where other celebs' wins are not because manager skills.
And also because he wears suits, I presume?
Edit - * Along with a two party system that makes a roughly even split of the vote likely.
LOL
Like at the correspondents dinner where Obama, et al mocked Trump's chops for/chances of being president?
Or all through out the 18 months leading up to last Nov?
How'd that work out for the LOLers?
Competent Manager
Hm. What sort of skills do you think this involves? Confidence? The ability to motivate & communicate ideas clearly?
KIM KARDASHIAN FOR PRESIDENT!!!
I don't think this is as likely as somebody like Beyonce, Ellen, Justin Timberlake—someone who has displayed intelligence and charisma.
It's about the a) simplicity of voting, b1) the power of name recognition and b2) social media, c) the two party system that ensures a relatively close contest, and d) tribalism that kills minds and makes Evangelicals vote for a guy who brags about grabbing women by their genitals at 81%
I don't think he has the broad popularity to win.
Maybe Ellen Degeneres?
Given that you are not referencing any media article
It's Pew's data, if I recall. It was widely cited after the election.
This was just one instance of many I recall where non-alt-right/NRx types were found to vote for Trump in significant numbers.
Could a mega celeb win the U.S. Presidency?
Say, Beyonce in 2024?
I'm thinking someone with a huge active social media following, universal name recognition, attractive and charismatic, significant financial resources, history of political activism, strategic demographic appeal, progressive politics as a backlash to whatever Trump gets done over the next 8 years...
Is the probability non-negligible? More so now that Trump won, right?
At the same time there's a pretense in the media that Trump voters (who might be 100 as large in numbers) automatically belong to either of those categories.
This* seems obviously false. Do you have any evidence for this?
For instance, 81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump. From my background in that community and many discussions with current members, I can tell you there are many reasons they voted for Trump...almost none of them overlap with anything I know of the neoreactionary or alt-right movements.
Edit - The idea there is a "pretense in the media seems as false as the claim itself. Outlets I watch/read often note the Trump constituency is diverse.
"Stupidity" is a...word that we apply to different conditions which may be caused by deep subconscious conditioning (e.g., religion).
Wow.
Looks like the 'RECENT ON RATIONALITY BLOGS' section on the sidebar is still broken.
Is this a difficult fix?
I see like 10 posts there.
Perhaps you are looking at the "RECENT POSTS" section rather than the section I mentioned?
Maybe you should do some debiasing, practice being well-calibrated, read the sequences and try again later?
I'll work on this.
Maybe you could work on reading?
My "RECENT ON RATIONALITY BLOGS" section on the right sidebar is blank.
If this isn't just me, and remains this way for long, I predict LW traffic will drop markedly as I primarily use LW habitually as a way to access SSC, and I'd bet my experience is not unique in this way.
I think you are factually mistaken about whether life has a purpose.
What is life's purpose?
Evidence that reality is purposeless, for me, would be a reality where there are no tendencies.
What does this mean to you? And why are tendencies evidence of purpose?
I believe life has no absolute purpose. This is probably a costly belief compared to other, more rosy (i.e. religious) beliefs with which I am very familiar.
Nonetheless, I hold the belief I do, despite it's negative consequences (emotional, motivational, psychological, etc.), because I'm compelled to believe this way based on the evidence.
As I said, I don't see any reason someone couldn't believe in a non-honest god. I've talked to deists who don't consider "honesty" a characteristic that applies to the sort of hyper-powerful entity they believe created all things.
If our conscious experience is a simulation, then are the creators of that simulation (i.e. the gods) being "honest"?
I did not say that everyone believes that God is honest. I said no one believes in a dishonest God
Meh. Okay. It might depend on definition. You've offered no evidence anyway.
The reason people do not believe in a dishonest God is not cultural, but it is the same reason that no one believes in any skeptical scenario, namely that such beliefs cannot be useful for any purpose whatsoever.
I don't see any reason people can't believe things they also see as lacking purpose.
Further, I don't really know what you are talking about.
And that is clear from the fact that no one believes in a dishonest God
They don't? Says who?
I'm not opposed to the idea of some hyper-powerful creative entity, and I see no reason to believe it is honest or dishonest, or that such a classification would even apply.
The idea that "God must be honest" seems to be an ideal derived from culture and attached to a deity as a necessary condition.
You won't believe this life changing equation!
Interesting. You received lots of downvotes (-8) for confirming Eugine; MrMind is at -1 for doubting it was Eugine.
I'm down -7 for suggesting Eugine.
It's a pretty transparent, frontal strategy by this guy. DOWNVOTE MY PERCEIVED OPPONENTS!!! I like that.
It seems reasonable to conclude there is something like a "Good at Being President" rating composed of some mix of appropriate skills.
It also seems there is a "Good at Winning Elections" rating that overlaps with the "Good at Being President" rating in some ways.
And then there is a "Good at Being Popular and Having a Large Online Following" rating because of the ever-growing internet, which may be starting to overlap more and more with the "Good at Winning Elections" rating, and which itself has less overlap with the "Good at Being President" rating.
So then an Instagram chick with XXX million followers becomes POTUS because voting is so simple and no one knows anything and fake news is everywhere so everyone thinks all the "insider" candidates are corrupt and murderers and this Instagram chick probably has some good ideas and isn't a shill to special interests...but said Instagram chick, by all reasonable accounts, has a very low "Good at Being President", despite her incredible "Good at Being Popular and Having a Large Online Following" rating that allowed her to be elected.
Like I said, Trump winning isn't inconceivable and ostensibly he has some POTUS skill rating. But how low a POTUS skill rating could we possibly elect if there is a crazy cynical, troll-ish, populist swell? If Instagram chick or Taylor Swift or Beyonce become president, do we just say, "Welp, the people have spoken! Yay, democracy!"
Is user chron Eugine Nier?
Like everything else democracy has its failure modes. Neoreactionaries think they are a big deal (though their list of the failure modes of democracy is probably different from yours).
What is the list of neo-reactionary failure modes for democracy?