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"When this curve was compared with a curve showing changes in reproductive potential over the life cycle (a pattern calculated from Canadian demographic data), the correlation was fairly strong. But much stronger - nearly perfect, in fact - was the correlation between the grief curves of these modern Canadians and the reproductive-potential curve of a hunter-gatherer people, the !Kung of Africa."
Can someone clarify this? What is this? At first I thought that it'd be the expected number of kids one would have over the rest of their life, but I don't see how that could go ever go up.
Oh, I forgot to add that I think it kind of highlights the difference between people who have no room for magic in their worldview from people who still have room for magic, even if they don't call it magic and don't want to admit it. I don't understand how someone can hold this view...
It's pretty pathetic how weak Lanier's arguments were...
For someone who works in the field for Microsoft and who's a professor; it's bad how easy it was for me to spot the holes in his arguments (including the places where he really had none).
It seems like he's someone who it'd be really hard to have a reasonable discussion with. He just seemed really slippery in general, Eliezer being unable to pin him down at all, although I suspect he wasn't trying his hardest to, to be polite. There should really be another word for what he was doing other than slippery, but that's the best I can come up with...
I agree with some people above, you should do a bloggingheads with someone more intelligent or at least someone who's willing to say what they think instead of just sliding around being slippery the entire diavlog.