hallole

The smartest aren't uniformly distributed across the Earth.

Our lead does not come from immigrants. The American people, who are a distinct people, have shown time and again a potential for great things.

Even if it were true, there are wider effects of immigration that you must consider. The purpose of life isn't to increase GDP. It reflects poorly on you that you must cast your opponents as being stupid and spiteful. Could it be that MAGA voters are humans with real motivations and rationales?

Good point, but the article does say

> "ideological imbalance occurs regardless of a user’s initial political interests"

But yeah, even in the absence of any kind of algorithmic bias, I'd still expect there to be an imbalance for the reason that you point out.

And for that reason, we'll never discover the soul. It will perpetually be that "something" that we are missing in our understanding of things. Assume for a minute that we have the basic picture correct, that there is no non-physical soul: your belief would have us searching for the rest of time! Isn't it best to suspend the question?

There probably isn't any simple causative explanation (as in the example you provide). The brain is the most complex structure we know of and "self" arises from that deep complexity; this is an answer that I'm content with, as anything more in-depth / closer to the "metal" would quickly exceed my ability to understand it.

I'm willing to bet most burglars aren't motivated to do crime due to suffering from starvation-level poverty; there is hardly ever a "need" to do crime -- i.e., a scenario wherein doing something criminal is the only way to survive. You totally neglect the moral angle and reduce it to a barebones cost/benefit sort of judgement, which is reflective of this popular view of criminals as hapless victims of fate or of society, and who are almost righteous in their choice to do crime. Oh, and the only solution is more welfare.

The same is true of all political movements when described dishonestly and over-simplistically, yes.

By "bad behavior," I mean robbing and murdering and the like, so no need for scare-quotes. Framing the average criminal as the victim of their own circumstances -- which seems to really be in vogue -- is entirely unconvincing to me.

> people STILL find reasons to burn to a crisp.

You make it sound as if turning to crime is less the criminal's decision and moreso nature's.

When I recognize this pattern (reducing one's beliefs to a line of common sense) in someone's writing, I usually take that to be evidence that they're not a quality thinker. I've skimmed the rest of the article you linked from Graeber, and I think my first impression holds up. Like, take this snippet:

> Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you?

Woah, mindblown! If you think about it, aren't you kind of a huge hypocrite and elitist for doubting that others can control themselves? Well, no! We know that plenty of people do, in fact, decide to act criminally and selfishly of their own accord. This line, and many others in Graeber's article, are goofy and I wouldn't take him seriously on this topic.

Even under our decidedly non-anarchic regime, people STILL find reasons to behave poorly. I can't imagine removing the disincentive of state punishment would benefit society very much.

That's one of those definitions that's so broad as to make the word being defined meaningless. It's always silly when one re-phrases their position into something trivial that no one would disagree with.

LMAO, good catch. And I was about to look into it further!

In what way have we "eliminated them systematically"? Maybe I haven't paid close enough attention, but it feels like those activities have (unfortunately) disappeared largely naturally.

> "Traditional marriage was primarily an economic contract."

I don't buy this. You can, for the purposes of your argument, reduce marriage to being something like an economic contract, that's fine; but, in reality, that's not what marriage is/has been primarily about.

Also, solving the burden of work for one sex isn't a solution. Granted, it's better than nothing.

I've wanted to do something like this for The Encyclopédie, a hugely relevant text to the Enlightenment. If you ever get around to adding a rough "How I (generally) Made This" section, that'd be appreciated! Site looks great :)

This was a good read. I'm obsessed with undersea cables. I consider them one of the wonders of the modern world. Wikipedia says 99% of all internet traffic gets delivered via these ocean-spanning wires, just sitting along the sea floor. Almost unbelievable.

I'm not sure I understand, as every word in the title is true.

One of the "requirements" you refer to is possessing an active subscription. The age-cutoff is 16, but Roblox has historically been based around kids making games for other kids, which isn't feasible if a subscription becomes required.

I've encountered AI contributions on Wikipedia, and, although I wonder how they'll enforce such a rule, I think this is the proper stance to take.

I think readers take for granted how concise Wikipedia's prose tends to be. AI, in comparison, seems built to ramble, being overly specific where it doesn't need to be and lacking specificity where it ought to have it.

When you think about it, "what should go on a thing's Wikipedia page?" is an interesting question; the answer certainly isn't "anything and everything." AI just doesn't have a good sense for what belongs, I feel.

I don't think I'd have the wherewithal to jump in and do something if I were a bystander. I'm not the sort to throw hands, I don't carry, and these disruptive types are already a bit feral.

I'm not sure it's contempt they're expressing, or if they're expressing anything at all. There really are people who enjoy and defend it, too; "it's just a guy playing music, mind your own business." Truly alien.

> Rural states and colonies become the new Indias and Philippines for outsourcing companies, depressing labor costs.

Depressing labor costs, but only to a point, no? They would be subject to American minimum wages; and, presumably, American labor, even at its cheapest, is more expensive than the offshore alternative.

And, assume there is no price differential... Would Americans not be better off if companies outsourced to other American (i.e., not foreign) companies? Thereby keeping currency within the U.S.? I've been hearing that remittances represent a substantial outward cash flow nationally.

I've never heard of such "Data Sovereignty Schemes," but they seem like far and away the best option. And thanks for writing this up, btw.

> we write the color associated with a spectral distribution as C[S] where C is the function that takes a distribution and outputs the corresponding color.

Unrelated, but can anyone tell me the purpose of using the square bracket notation here, instead of the usual parentheses?

It still looks like a big computer screen, I'm afraid. Although, making it seamless with the dash is a step up, you're right. That tiny paddle gear shift looks horrendous, though.

I would really like to have analog features back, buttons and all that, in an EV.

Yeah essentially this. In my mental model, tariffs give an advantage to domestic suppliers / penalize foreign suppliers, and thus encourage domestic production by making it more viable. And bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. has been a pretty big GOP selling point.

I think the freemasons are still around. Kinda awesome that it shares continuity with the freemasonry of some prominent figures, like Washington. Can't imagine joining now without it feeling like a massive larp, though.

Huh, that's neat. I've suspected that our political fervor is one of those things that we take to be uniquely NOW, of the present moment, but has actually been a staple. (Like how every generation believes its successors to be dumber, less respectful, ...) But, maybe that's not so!

> Jimmy Wales has been poked at with the question of whether he should call himself a founder or specifically co-founder

Not surprising! Are we setting aside how deceitful his answer his? Claiming all credit for a collaborative accomplishment -- which he does by adopting the "founder" title -- would rightfully provoke "poking" by interviewers. I can't imagine an interview not addressing a question that is so pertinent to Wales' notoriety. They literally cannot properly introduce him without confronting it! To say those interviewers are acting in "transparently bad-faith" comes across to me as plainly biased.

Sanger's politics don't change this, either. It might be the case that you have to concede on this to people you politically disagree with.

"So, who are you?" "Stupid question."

What an interview! I had never seen this clip before, it's really something. Facts and context are important for sure, but as someone who isn't clued in on the Sanger drama, Wales could not possibly have made himself look worse. And in under a minute!

As you said, the interviewer is in the right, carrying out the job of interviewing, by pushing Wales as he did. To call him a "jerk" is silly, I think.

Vegan D3 is derived from algae, I believe.

My vegan diet involves a lot of beans, rice, ..., which all require considerably less input than meat does. A bag of beans costs so very little, lasts so long, and is healthy. Meat and dairy are luxuries that come at the cost of pretty horrific treatment for a great number of animals.

Good stuff here. To add to your point: atherosclerosis actually begins development as early as childhood, but you only suffer 40 or 50 years down the line once you're hit with a stroke or a heart attack. Evolution didn't act on this!

Can you name which EXACT nutrients you "absolutely cannot get from vegan diets without it becoming a monotonous pain in the neck"? A daily multivitamin isn't hard.

That's unhealthy and honestly gross. Maybe you have the genes -- there are smokers who make it to 100! -- but you should adjust your diet for your own sake. I wouldn't bet on being an outlier.