candybar

There's no evidence that Twitter removing stories about Hunter Biden (as opposed to the dick pics) was something that was either requested by the Biden campaign or even preferred. If anything, the only Democratic politician that shows up in his story told Twitter that he doesn't like the way Twitter decided to handle the story. It seems clear that the general political pressure was in the opposite direction as is claimed - Twitter had internally decided that these are against their own policy, but legislators on both sides (though for different reasons) thought Twitter should not done this.

When Twitter tried to just apply consistent content moderation policies and right-wing politicians ended up being banned for repeated violations of Twitter ToS, there was a ton of outrage, among much of the exact same group of people that are talking about how bad it is that politicians appear to have a direct line of communication with Twitter policy teams.

People aren't focusing on Hunter's nudes - that's what Matt Taibbi shared as an example of the requests made by the Biden campaign. If you actually look at the request, again, specifically chosen by Matt Taibbi as an example of a problematic conversation between the political campaign and Twitter, it was a request to remove Hunter Biden nudes. That's what Matt Taibbi specifically decided to share, despite presumably having access to all of this supposedly problematic interactions. That's pretty strong evidence that not much else was going on - if the Biden campaign was trying to suppress more problematic narratives that had to do with corruption, why wasn't this evidence presented?

Sure but you can turn a dump of emails into statistics easily. Or alternatively, you can release the dump of emails.

> This system wasn't balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.

Yet the fact that there's absolutely no attempt to even analyze the data for signs of bias, but have to resort to a complete non-sequitur, is quite telling. It likely means that the raw data doesn't support their narrative. You can also share a sample of tweets that were requested to reviewed by both parties and which ones got removed and which ones did not. If the Trump administration's requests were not honored despite the tweets clearly being in violation or the Biden campaign's requests being honored despite the tweets clearly not being in violation, well that would be something if there was a clear pattern, or internal discussions that explicitly suggest that they are making decisions like that specifically to favor one candidate. It still has nothing to do with the 1st amendment, but it would at least corroborate the claim that Twitter was biased.

Again, the standards need to be high because they are the party with all the information. This type of insinuation can be persuasive if you're the outside party that suspects bias and the other party controls the information. But claiming that there might be some bias, look at all this external information as to why it might have happened, tells the exact opposite story, when they are the ones that control the information. Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi literally have all this information at their disposal and clearly want to spread this narrative that Twitter was biased in the Democrats' favor. But they can't prove it - it seems ridiculous for them not to have looked into this, but they thought it was best not to release that information. Why not? Almost certainly because it detracts from the narrative.

This is a huge tell,. Matt Taibbi (or Elon Musk via him) is trying to paint a picture that this was heavily tilted in favor of Democrats. But he has access to the actual data - why not just publish that if he feels it's damning? Whatever mechanism he used to find these emails and also to conclude that both campaigns had access, could also have been used to determine the bias statistically. And the raw data could even have been shared for public consumption.

Instead, he talks about campaign contributions, which isn't even circumstantial evidence of bias. You don't have to contribute to a political campaign to process moderation requests from them. There's no plausible mechanism by which the volume of requests that can be processed is related the amount of money donated by Twitter employees. You just need one contact and again, no evidence exists - and not even clear accusations have been made - that Twitter employees involved were reluctant to process requests made by the Trump team.

If anything the fact that Matt Taibbi is dishonestly trying to make this connection is extremely strong circumstantial evidence that they couldn't find anything even remotely damning. Because if they could find something actually damning, they would've used that instead. Resorting to, ugh, Twitter employees are liberal, so I'm sure they weren't entirely being fair in processing requests from the Trump team and ugh, more contributions to the Democrats so like, must be able to process more requests, which is a complete non-sequitur, is highly damaging to whatever narrative that he's trying to push.

This is a very strange comment - the modern world is historically friendly to a single man approaching women. In fact prior to online dating, a lot of people would've pointed this out as a reason as to why dating is harder in the modern world, because people have too many choices. The same complaint that people have about online dating applies more generally to any situation where it's relatively easy for single men to approach women.

Historically, romantic relationships didn't rely on these cold approaches because a lot of people met their partners by introduction and/or through the romantic relationship evolving from acquaintance/friendship.

This is a complete non-sequitur - Krugman isn't here complaining about him being judged. And this is a strange reply given that you do not seem to have the ability to correctly judge Krugman. As I had mentioned, GBP/USD has hardly moved since Krugman's tweets, yet you came here to talk about how Krugman is consistently wrong.

You're being far too charitable here - the idea that Krugman has a history of being wrong has nothing to do with anyone trying to evaluate his track record in an objective manner, but everything to do with those who disagree with his political viewpoints trying to take him down a notch, especially to counter his stellar academic career. This is of course silly - Krugman is obviously highly knowledgeable about economics and his understanding of and ability to explain sophisticated economic phenomena are rivaled by few, but the nature of economy is such that anyone that makes lots of predictions publicly is going to have a long track record of being wrong.

GBP/USD hasn't moved substantially in either direction since Krugman's tweets.

No, it's not the correct read. My point here - this has already been made clear to you - is that at least one of the following appears to be true:

1) You misunderstand what people mean by "dysfunctional theory of mind" and in particular, may be misinterpreting "theory of mind" as some sort of deliberate analysis people do with regards to people, as opposed to being able to casually and effortlessly understand other people. What you wrote isn't clear enough to establish this but this is one possible way to read what you wrote[1].

2) You aren't wrong about what people mean by "dysfunctional theory of mind" and when you say you have "a pretty good theory mind" you're indeed talking about your own ability to effortlessly read people and situations. However, you're mistaken in your assessment of your own ability in this regard.

3) You're misdiagnosed.

Also, in case it's not obvious, the implication here is more that 1) or 2) seems to be true. And if that's the case, the point here is that your focus on "monotropism" as being more fundamental to autism may be because you understand what it means, whereas you're more skeptical about the "theory of mind" explanations because you either don't understand what that means or have trouble perceiving your own deficiencies in that regard.

[1] For example when you say "I have complex models for all the individuals I interact with and have no particular problems developing them for new people." - it's unclear what you mean. Most people generally do not perceive themselves having any sort of complex models for others, but under the hood, our intuitive ability to understand people and situations is powered by what effectively amounts to complex mental models for others. I don't know if that's what you're saying with regards to yourself or that this is explicitly how you perceive and function, which does support the diagnosis of autism, but amounts to a misunderstanding of the term "theory of mind" - needing to do this explicitly and saying that you have "a pretty good theory of mind" is similar to saying you're completely fluent in a foreign language when all you can do is describe various aspects of the language in English (in a sophisticated way that most native speakers of the language won't be able to) and translate sentences in that language to English and vice-versa with a ton of effort and time.

I don't know why you bothered to respond to literally part of a sentence without addressing the hypothetical that renders it meaningful. When you say you have a "good theory of mind" and have "complex models for all the individuals you interact with" are you saying that you have some kind of complex analytical models for people to compensate for the inability to intuit or that you are able to intuitively and effortlessly read people as neurotypicals naturally do?

If the latter is what you're saying and you're correct in your self-assessment, that likely means your autism diagnosis is highly questionable.

If the former is what you mean, then I think you misunderstand what people mean by "dysfunctional theory of mind" as it applies to autism.

> I'm autistic and I feel like I have pretty good theory of mind. I may have been somewhat late in developing its sophistication as a child but certainly not to the point where anyone ever flagged me as dysfunctional in that way. As an adult I struggle with overly empathizing with other people, getting too involved in what I imagine their thoughts and experiences and motivations to be. I have complex models for all the individuals I interact with and have no particular problems developing them for new people.

Are you saying you're well-above average in being able to read neurotypical people in ordinary social settings? If that's the case, I don't think "autistic" is the correct description for your deviation from neurotypical. It's unclear to me if you're saying you have some kind of complex analytical models for people (to compensate for the inability to intuit) or merely that you are able to intuitively read people naturally neurotypicals do, in which case I'm not sure what you mean when you say you're autistic.

I'm fairly monotropic (so this is something I've paid a fair amount of attention to when observing others) but not even the least bit autistic. I also know a bunch of people on the autism spectrum as well as those that have varying degrees of monotropism. I don't see any particular correlation between the two, other than the fact that those on the spectrum tend to pay less attention to certain aspects of reality, while paying more attention to other aspects of reality, which makes neurotypicals feel that they are unusually focused.

Ukraine isn't one of the former soviet states that are doing well and making Putin look bad though. That would be the Baltic states (Estonia/Lithuania/Latvia). Ukraine has a substantially lower GDP per capita than Russia, whether you look at nominal or PPP.

The oldest child definitely gets the most parental attention and investment in most families - this is pretty much a universal finding across cultures as well.

I don't agree with the GP either but your understanding of what it means to be a "psychopath" is even less correct. Psychopaths are highly impulsive and emotionally volatile. They would be far more likely to lash out in situations where they feel slighted than normal people would be.

There's this tendency (both among self-described high-functioning psychopaths and in the media) for people to think that psychopaths are highly rational and less emotional, but it's closer to the opposite - psychopaths are impulsively driven by the present emotions.

The main sense in which they are less emotional is that they react less emotionally than normal people to how other people feel and how they themselves would feel in the future. Because empathy generally acts as a check on your present impulses in most humans, this leads to more emotional, impulsive behavior, not less.

I don't think men want sex substantially more than women. What causes an imbalance, IMO, is that women value casual sex substantially less than men for a variety of cultural and biological reasons and women's value in the casual sex marketplace have a much flatter distribution and is also front-loaded when you look across the age spectrum. This means most women either can pretty much get casual sex whenever they want or at least have lived through a phase where they could. Meanwhile, most men will never live through a period where casual sex is as easy to get as it is for the median woman at her prime, which may permanently alter the perspective of many of them and cause them to consider casual sex more valuable, regardless of their actual level of sexual desire.

However you cut it, divorce rates are substantially higher among the working class. If you look at educational attainment:

% divorced among those married, by age 46:

Did not graduate from high school: 58.8

High school graduate, no college: 49.1

Some college or associate degree: 48.5

Bachelor's degree or higher: 29.8

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/pdf/marriage-and-d...

The point is that the types of problems you're referring to aren't considered algebra problems in math education, because students are expected to be able to solve them when they are introduced to subtraction, not when they are introduced to actual algebraic concepts. It's like saying when you learn to add integers, you're doing group theory because integers form a group under the operation addition. From a purely mathematical standpoint, sure, what you're doing could be explained using group theory, but from a pedagogical standpoint, it's nonsense, because you don't have to know anything about groups to be able to add integers or even to understand and utilize these specific properties of the set of integers.

It's entirely disingenuous, then, to refer to these word problems being solved by Russian students in 2nd grade, as though it has any relevance on whether it's appropriate to teach Algebra 1 in 9th grade. 2nd graders in the US are also expected to be able to solve these types of problems and it's not because they are taught any actual algebraic concepts.

This isn't how that problem was meant to be solved - it's meant to be a straightforward subtraction problem. For instance, this is a US 2nd grade subtraction word problem from Khan Academy:

Sparky the dragon was born with 28 spikes. He grew several more spikes as he got older. Now Sparky has 80 spikes. How many new spikes did Sparky grow?

Sure, this could be expressed as an algebra problem, 28 + X = 80, but the intention here is quite clearly for the student to see it as a subtraction problem.

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-2nd-grade-math/cc-2nd-ad...

The page you linked to doesn't have a single problem that requires "setting up equations with unknown variables and solving them." And as I mentioned, even in the US, "Algebra 1" isn't when Algebra in the sense of equations and variables is first introduced. Algebraic concepts are explicitly introduced around 5th grade (https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-fifth-grade-math/imp-alg...), but problems that could easily be considered algebraic (whether through word problems or explicit placeholders) may be introduced as early as 2nd/3rd grade.

This isn't that different from 2nd and 3rd grade math in the US. There's no algebra in your link, but either way, you're confusing algebraic concepts, which are typically introduced in grade school even in the US and Algebra 1, which is just a conveniently named part of the overall math curriculum, not one that introduces Algebraic concepts for the first time.

This is also taught in second grade in the US.

Edit:

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-2nd-grade-math/cc-2nd-ad...

Did you take standard high-school Algebra 1 in 7th grade? Algebraic concepts are often taught as early as 3rd grade, but much of it is considered pre-Algebra.

This isn't that different in the US. Algebra 1 to Algebra 2 to Precalculus to Calculus is a sequence that's taught over many years and there's no big dump. Geometry is the only exception from that sequence (unless you're counting Statistics or Computer Science, which are generally optional). Most students that are applying to competitive colleges are generally going to take a math course every year - there's no big dump that you seem to be envisioning.

Warcraft II is a bad example here - it's completely unplayable if you're used to any kind of modern RTS. Terrible unit AI (not computer AI), selection limits, no rally points or queuing. It also has just 2 factions. Starcraft, which only came out just over 2 years later, blows it away from gameplay perspective. Warcraft 3 came out in 2002 (6 and half years after Warcraft 2) and represents an even larger improvement in gameplay and a huge increase in complexity (all of the improvements from Starcraft carried over, 3D terrain, perspective and unit rendering, 4 factions). Arguably that's when things started to slow down in terms of improvements - the gap between Starcraft 2 (2010) and Warcraft 3 (2002) is much smaller than the gap between Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 1 (1998), which in turn is much smaller than the gap between Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 2 (1995).

Fertility is literally just a measure of how many people children people are having. Your data is largely capturing the fact the age at which your income tends to peak and the age at which people tend to have children are very far apart.

This isn't how things work - you pay income taxes on RSUs when they vest, not when you sell, and their cost basis is the price at the time of vesting. So it's entirely irrelevant from a tax perspective whether they come in cash or stock. If you want cash, you can sell the stock and if you want stock, you can buy - the tax consequences are exactly the same.

You're a borderline public figure in politics and your role in politics seems to have been your primary occupation over the past few years. Does that ever come up in your conversations with tech recruiters? Given these specifics, I'm not sure if your experience generalizes to other old engineers, though I'm sure ageism is a problem for older engineers in our industry.

Their counterparties are all sophisticated institutional investors and these things are generally traded on a buyer-beware basis. Sure there may have been some actual wrongdoing that went unpunished, but the nature of these transactions is that the cases are likely be civil rather than criminal.

The real reason for the lack of convictions is that there just weren't many cases of big bad wall street bankers defrauding ordinary people. That's typically what results in criminal convictions because 1) the law is far more protective of unsophisticated individuals than of institutional investors and 2) prosecutors have a much easier time winning cases and also benefitting politically from pursuing cases with relatable victims. And the reason why people wanted bankers to go to jail is because they thought wall street bankers did bad things to ordinary people. In reality though, the best cases against Wall Street folks are ones where the victims are also institutional investors (which is often included within the broader definition of Wall Street). The traders at Goldman Sachs outsmarting the traders at AIG just doesn't make for a particularly good fraud case, the same way Enron defrauding individual investors including their employees. And from the public's perspective, they are all part of the same class of people. And where ordinary people were directly involved, they were the ones defrauding lenders (and by extension, Wall Street and so on) by lying on their loan applications.

The pay cut mentioned for Connecticut is 15% and that likely doesn't cover the RSU, so the realistic cut in the pay rate may be more like 5-10%, depending on your function and level. NYC marginal tax rate for a typical Google employee is going to be around 10%. And that's before you take into account the actual cost of this scheme.