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DavidV

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Everything posted by DavidV

  1. "Socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. ...And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.... One socialist leader has been known seriously to demand that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its inhab...

  2. Richard Dawkins actually says that paying your taxes is moral because it's a rebellion against your "selfish genes". Booo!

  3. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck The older I get, the more true and universally applicable this statement becomes.

  4. I needed to lie down and take a nap today after spending a few hours walking around a museum. I am definitely not living up to the ideal primal lifestyle.

  5. Warning: relying on magic and anecdotes is bad for your health: In my post on evidence-based medicine, I said that “when valid scientific principles are not followed, no valid conclusion can be reached.” Why not? Why don’t anecdotal claims (such as personal experience) count as evidence? Here is an example of what I mean: A young woman who was a Christian Scientist told me that various relatives of hers have been healed by prayer. For example, her sister was revived from death by the prayer of her family. I have two comments about her story: The observations that she told me about (that her sister was physiological dead, that her family prayed for her, and that she was revived) are probably true. There was no dishonesty on her part: she sincerely believed her story Despite accepting her observation, I disagreed with her conclusion about the causal relationship between prayer and health. How could I know that interpretation is wrong? For one, I was not there. Furthermore, after I expressed skepticism at this story, the young woman gave me many more examples, all from her direct personal experience of various friends and family being healed by prayer. On what basis could I reject them all without any personal experience on my own?This was the essence of my reply: I cannot object to the events you observed, as I was not there. But this does not mean that I must accept your causal explanation for those events. I have three reasons for this: I have a certain understanding about the nature of the universe and of the means by which things happen. We call this cause and effect. In my experience, cause and effect happens according to certain rules, which we formally call the “laws of nature.” If someone presents an explanation that is inconsistent with my basic understanding of the laws of nature, they should have overwhelming evidence. Otherwise, I must conclude that their understanding of causality is wrong, even if their observations are true. This is especially true in observations regarding human health. There are good reasons for scientists to reject personal experience and informal observations as sufficient basis for conclusions. There are many forms of cognitive bias can we can honestly make unless we follow strict rules to eliminate errors. In many fields (such as fixing a car) trial and error is good enough. There are no lives depending on a car working perfectly. In others, such as human physiology anecdotal evidence cannot lead to correct conclusions no matter how honest or smart you are. The forms of error take many forms: availability bias, post hoc ergo propter hoc, hasty generalization, placebo effects, selection bias, regression to the mean, bias by prior beliefs, social influence, etc. Even if you are aware of the biases, you cannot fully escape their effects; only try to structure your research to minimize them. In other words, when trial and error is not good enough, there is no substitute for proper science. I categorize causal explanations into three kinds: true, false, and arbitrary. True explanations correspond with what I know. False explanations contradict what I know, but with further evidence may be proven true. Arbitrary explanations are neither true nor false because they do not refer to anything. They are “magical theories” because there is nothing that we can point to as the causal mechanism. How does prayer work? It just does – no mechanism is possible because it by definition exists outside of causality. Because arbitrary claims they cannot be proven or disproved, once identified as such, we can only dismiss them from consideration. We should be extremely skeptical of anyone who makes causal claims based on arbitrary/magical explanations. In the rare cause they point out a true causal connection, it is only by accident, and has no value to anyone as we have no more basis to believe that idea than any of their other claims. If personal anecdotes are not acceptable as evidence, what is? A good theory: is supported by many different kinds of observations is consistent with existing knowledge is possible to confirm by repeating the observations has high predictive value: it should predict what will happen as well as what will not happen “A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that has only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.” (Stephen Hawking)Further reading: The Role of Anecdotes in Science-Based Medicine How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results Original entry: See link at top of this post
  6. I want to make homemade cheese. Any way to get cheese cultures (or fresh buttermilk) in China? What is "cheese cultures" in Chinese?

  7. A good theory: * is supported by different kinds of observations * is consistent with pre-existing theories * has high predictive value: it accurately predicts what does happen as well as what will not happen * is possible to confirm by subsequent verification

  8. Daily affirmation: There is super-exciting and world-changing stuff happening in mobile.

  9. The more I learn, the more I'm humbled by the abilities of others. I've discovered people who can manipulate conceptual models several orders more complex than what I can - and far faster too. Frankly, it's discouraging because I have tried looking at the same inputs as they and feels like my IQ is just not powerful enough to parse the same data -- and there is nothing I can do about it. Others have told me that it's a matter of motivation and knowledge, but I think not. Also, the older I...

  10. Hold down cmd+v when rebooting your Mac.

  11. The popular notion that sexual acts should be performed in the dark and under the sheets is derived from the Judeo-Christian dogma that human beings and thus human sexuality are fundamentally corrupt, shameful, and evil. Because this dogma is still widespread throughout secularized Western societies and in secularized equivalents of original sin, it is now infecting and corrupting non-Western societies along with the positive elements on Western civilization. It's unfortunate that this is n...

  12. "Sous les nuages de la nuit je marche vers la clairière. D'un éclat argenté, je la vois: la lune. Elle porte les voiles de l'éternité son aureole embrasse les étoiles, ma lune."

  13. The following is a multiple-choice question on a career site in China: Political landscape: *Communist Party members (including a probationary member) *Member *The masses *Democratic parties *Personages without party affiliation *No comment

  14. Parasitism and intentionality: lessons from the cuckoo: Many species of the cuckoo and cowbird reproduce exclusively by sneaking their eggs into other birds nests, where their chicks kill or starve their nest-mates and so steal resources from the host mother, who often has to raise chicks bigger than her. So why doesn’t the host kick out the foreign eggs? In many cases, the parasitic eggs evolve to match those of the victim species. Yet in other species, the intruder egg is clearly different yet is left alone. Why? It has been experimentally observed that the mother cuckoo regularly monitors the nests she invades and completely destroys them if she sees that her egg was rejected. According to the “Mafia hypothesis”, it is cheaper for the host birds to allow their nests to be parasitized than to have them destroyed in response to rejecting the egg. Here is what I find interesting: neither the cuckoo nor the host bird have any notion of how to run a protection racket or make complex statistical calculations about whether it is worth rejecting the invader egg. Their minds are far too primitive for that. The host keeps the foreign egg because the gene for not rejecting the egg is reinforced by the higher survival probability of her chicks. And the cowbird destroys nests with rejected eggs because her gene for “revenge” behavior is reinforced by the higher reproductive success in the nests of victims who accept their fate. The two species interact by threats and bluffs through gene expression, without any real communication going on. The mechanism is imperfect – sometimes the parasite bird destroys innocent nests and sometimes the victim kicks the invader out and pays the price. Parasite and victim continually test each other to maximize their reproductive success. Does this behavioral pattern have any analog in human society? Of course humans don’t need to wait for the slow pace of genes to engage in Mafia-like behavior. But whether the threats are communicated consciously or not, the behavior itself is reinforced for the same reason: because it works. In human society, money, not reproductive success is the reward mechanism which rewards and punishes certain behavior. Money is not a guarantee of reproductive success, nor can be it be exchanged for just any values. But it is the best and most universally convertible proxy for value that we have. As with animals, activities which generate money are reinforced. And just as with animals, that reinforcement happens whether or not the participants are consciously aware of it. Socially, the majority of people disapprove of protection rackets. We teach our children to act morally and we spend resources to stop crime. Yet parasitism happens anyway, in many forms, in every society, and often without any conscious intent. It is a successful evolutionary tactic. Is all this to suggest that humans are powerless against parasitism? Certainly not. We are only powerless to stop parasitic relationships as long as we don’t recognize them for what they are. Once they are exposed, we can do what no other animal can: replace a short-run reinforcing behavior (grab the loot and run) with a long-run rewarding behavior (we’ll all have more loot if we don’t steal from each other). The point is this: There are two forms of parasitism: explicit and implicit. In explicit parasitism, both parties are aware of the parasitic behavior. So it is with crooks and invading armies. They know they are criminals, but they don’t care because one of them has superior firepower. Explicit parasitism can certainly be very destructive and expensive to stop, but it is unsustainable, as human beings get better at diplomacy and policing. But in implicit parasitism, one of the parties is not aware that they are the victim or aggressor. When our taxes pay for things such as farm aid or money to foreign countries or people on public aid or “social security”, or make-work schemes neither the parasite not the victim may be aware of the nature of their relationship. Or they may be aware, but believe that the parasitism is beneficial or morally justifiable. As we get better and better at stopping explicit parasitism, our peaceful and wealthy society becomes more and more ripe for implicit parasitism. That is the danger. But there is an upside: once implicit parasitism is recognized, it is much easier to stop than explicit parasitism, since the parasite is usually not able or willing to use superior force to continue the parasitism. As we become more educated and form large-scale social-economic-political units, we learn to recognize and stop petty parasitism and form social taboos and laws against it. We imagine that we twitter away less funds on miracle cures, mass delusions, and Ponzi schemes. But by eliminating “simple” parasitism, we “reward” large-scale, hidden, and entrenched parasitism. The remaining parasitic relationships are able to deter their own exposition by using survival “tactics” such as very large scales (the lower the cost to individual victims, the lower the benefit to organizing against them), the spread of ethical principles defending the parasitism, and by embedding deeply in the social fabric. Successful parasitic relationships in human society thus have two aspects: the physical act of redistributing values and the intellectual memes justifying that activity. As with evolutionary patterns, there is no need for there to be any direct causal connection between, the act of parasitism and the formation of social structures, memes and taboos that defend it. For example, wealthy people can support the redistribution of wealth to the poor even though it does not benefit them materially. It may in fact lead to more poverty, the discovery of which feeds altruistic memes and thus encourages more wealth distribution. (This is just a hypothetical example – the cause & effect and the spread of ideas can have much more complicated relationships.) Entrenchment in social-intellectual structures is key to parasitic relationships which display high evolutionary fitness. It’s hard for the victim of outright robbery and fraud to justify as morally proper or necessary. Parasitism engrained in basic social functions such as schools and roads is much harder to end. It may not be necessary for government schools to be run by parasitic (in the sense of demanding above-market-rate resources) teacher’s unions, but it is much harder to reorganize educational institutions than to stop gambling or seeking fortune tellers. I have here tried to use relevant but non-emotionally or politically laden examples, but it is impossible to speak of this topic without engaging the defensive mental mechanisms of my audience, as aspects of the parasitism tied to ethical memes and group identity politics trip mental circuit breaks as part of their defensive mechanism. As with the birds, without any grand conspiracy, malice or even conscious awareness, all of civilization organizes in a way that opposes both the anti-parasistical behavior and the very recognition that the relationships are parasitical. Even by writing these thoughts, I am acting against the parasitic memes and so both opposing my own social-educational worldview and alienating myself from the mainstream intellectual dialogue that enables the parasitic behavior. The evolved behavior+meme entities have done their job well: the chance that I or anyone will affect the mainstream is extremely slim. I hope the above does not sound too pessimistic. After all, as a global civilization, humanity is doing pretty well. Parasitism is bad in the sense that it a wasteful allocation of resources, but there are many other forms of inefficiency. If you want a simple takeaway, it is that destructive relationships can develop without any malicious intent, and that by examining all our relationships, including the “voluntary” ones and those that we see as “essential,” we might discover that many of the premises we held for granted are false. Original entry: See link at top of this post
  15. On Evolution: Evolution is not just a part of biology. It is the foundation which shapes our understanding of life. It is meaningless to speak of living things outside the context of evolution. It is like trying to learn about human civilization by iterating the appearance and sounds of individual people without any idea of history, leaders, movements, or ideas. This is not merely a condemnation of creationism. The vast majority of education material about life leaves out the evolutionary context. There is more to this than the influence of religion on science education. There are serious philosophical errors deep in our culture that are responsible for much more than scientific illiteracy. The concrete bound mentality, the mind-body dichotomy, the rejection of causality, and of identity itself are the common threads uniting many evils. Does that mean that teaching good philosophy will fix our ignorance and social ails? No, because philosophy is only the master plan by which we build the mental models of reality that become our worldview. We cannot build those models without a stream of experience and understanding to supply the raw materials. But equally so we cannot build valid mental models merely by supplying more raw materials if the master plan is corrupt. A properly functioning mind requires both a proper philosophical framework and a supply of facts to form a rational perspective of the universe. Original entry: See link at top of this post
  16. Evolution is not just a part of biology. It is the foundation which shapes our understanding of life. It is meaningless to speak of living things outside the context of evolution. It is like trying to learn about human civilization by iterating the appearance and sounds of individual people without any idea of history, leaders, movements, or ideas. This is not merely a condemnation of creationism. The vast majority of education material about life leaves out the evolutionary context. T...

  17. "The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously. A joyful life is an active life - it is not a dull static state of so-called happiness. Full of the burning fire of enthusiasm, anarchic, revolutionary, energetic, daemonic, Dionysian, filled to overflowing with the terrific urge to create - such is the life of the man who risks safety and happiness for the sake of growth and happiness." - Richard Dawkins ("A Devil's Chaplain")

  18. I just want to add that the best way to detect life on earth may be to measure the atmospheric spectra of our atmosphere. This would give you a bigger target than radio and give a pretty good indication both the presence of life and the level of industrial output. You could also measure nighttime luminosity with a big enough telescope.
  19. Ah, China, glorious bastion of freedom, where every Tylenol Cold has enough pseudoephedrine to make the room start spinning around, and I don't get treated like a potential drug dealer when I buy it.

  20. The number 0.999... is exactly equal to one. Confused? Consider that (1/3) * 3 = 1

  21. The word "referrer" has two r's, but the HTTP standard specifies the spelling "referer." There is therefore a mispelling at the very core of the HTTP protocol which is practically impossible to fix, as you would have to change every web-enabled program in the world. I suggest we change the English language instead.

  22. "In decades past the [mortality] curve looked like a ski slope, hitting zero around 114. But the fact that more people are living longer lifts the curve and pushes it to the right so it looks more like a cliff than a ski slope – and more like a rectangle."

  23. Add it to your circles: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/105379189620166717252/105379189620166717252
  24. "Comment reconnaître la [spoliation légale]? C'est bien simple. Il faut examiner si la Loi prend aux uns ce qui leur appartient pour donner aux autres ce qui ne leur appartient pas. Il faut examiner si la Loi accomplit, au profit d'un citoyen et au détriment des autres, un acte que ce citoyen ne pourrait accomplir lui-même sans crime. Hâtez-vous d'abroger cette Loi; elle n'est pas seulement une iniquité, elle est une source féconde d'iniquités; car elle appelle les représailles, et si vous n'...

  25. "The only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim." --Ayn Rand

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