Because laws don’t do you much good when there is nobody around to enforce them. Relying on others to ensure your own life is fine, but being able to defend oneself has obvious advantages.
1,070 karma · joined February 12, 2021
They physical advantages of height are very apparent and simple to understand. Even animals recognize the larger you are the safer you are (generally). How is that inconsequential?
The alternative where the rich are sitting on piles of money because they can’t profit off loaning would quickly make apparent how they’re leaching off the labor of the people.
What kind of government allows their citizens to bear the brunt of the risk for pitiful gains?
Almost all businesses that fail do not take their customers life savings with them when they fail. That same life savings that’s being used to profit off interest bearing loans and risky investments at a disproportionate benefit to the bank.
> However the magic of the plasticity of the human brain is that it can, with effort, overcome virtually any impediment
That’s quite the claim depending on how you define impediment, but as is this statement is too vague to argue with.
> I’d also point out that the more homogeneous the genetic population the worse overall outcomes tend to be.
Again this is a very vague statement where the degree of variation matters. Hybrid vigor is poorly understood and when the differences are too great result in genetically worse offspring on some axis (mules are a perfect example of this).
> So, yes, I think science is total against the idea of racial superiority not just out of its repugnant but just false and furthermore given the homogeneity issue impossible.
I’ve made no claims of superiority and you’re taking a holier than though stance against the straw man you made up. Please leave the emotional appeals out.
> What makes a person better than another is how they live their life, not the circumstances of their birth.
Their genetics dictate how they live their life. Environment can have an affect, but genes dictate how you react to your environment (unless you believe in God etc).
> I would simply point to American history as an example of how the empire you seem to laud was built by mixing peoples relentlessly.
Compared to the last 50 years or so these immigrants were all very similar both in history and genetics. And even then it’s been a rough ride! I agree immigrants can be great as long as they are carefully selected for.
> I find it fascinating you think culture doesn’t change with time, but with the mixing of different people into a culture only.
Cultures absolutely change over time but the rate of change is much slower than if you introduce a new people from vastly different cultures. It’s the shearing force applied by the differences that’s the issue. If it’s too powerful something has to give.
Are you implying that non natives are inherently better than natives?
One of the hallmarks of declining empires is importing people - not to say those people are better or worse, but mixing diverse peoples together is extremely hard. It has to be done slowly and carefully.
> Changing populace doesn’t change a culture any more than time does
I don’t see how you can look at the history of anyone anywhere and believe this.
This has proved true countless times along with the age of an empire spanning roughly 250 years. Other signs also include glorification of entertainers (lack of heroes who actually improve the culture), political infighting, and desecration of the empires history/heroes.
> For example, America was only a symbol of freedom for those fled Europe, not much for those who were here before or shipped from Africa.
America’s 250th birthday is fast approaching.
People will come up with other justifications (it causes harm, it's wrong, it's not inclusive) for why they're doing the above, but as all morals are ultimately relative (and thus their reasons are relative), it's just a means to an end.
Data driven is great when you’re monitoring computer performance, but that’s a domain humans have nearly built from the ground up. And even then it can still be very hard to utilize that data. Trying to apply the same to systems we barely understand seems fraught with error.
I think free speech is a noble goal but can only really exist when we don’t live in a zero sum world. Until then:
> "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more or less." Alice responded to Humpty Dumpty, "The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things?" Humpty Dumpty retorted: "The question is, which is to be master? That's all."
Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as reliable as chatgpt (in the majority of cases). There’s too many devils in the details when it comes to complex issues like health. Find people who got results or find results yourself.
I think the majority of modern healthcare exists to make a profit and curing patients isn’t really a good business model. Unfortunately they can use those profits to create an army of experts and studies.
How do you determine what those targets should be? This implies the we can determine the correct % of X race/gender/etc.
Lawyers are an unfortunate necessity that extract value from society. Making them more efficient at their work (hopefully) creates less opportunity for work.
We’re subsidizing companies that create unhealthy addictive food and subsidizing companies to create drugs to counter the unhealthy addictive food. This is an enormous waste of resources.
This seems similar to adding an addictive drug to food. It will certainly appeal to a lot of people, but does it add value? Getting more consumers of your product should not be the end goal if we want a healthy, high trust society. Developing a good product should be.
> Only people already interested in the project on its own merits were following along
Isn't this what we want as a society?
Strange, I had the opposite encounter. I realized the only thing keeping me from doing things was myself. There are definitely real barriers (hiring quotas, affirmative action, etc.) but without artificial constraints the only thing stopping you is you. You might feel a little uncomfortable but that's something easily overcome - and almost like a superpower when you realize you can overcome an external locus of control.
Asking questions that chat GPT can easily answer gives 0 insight into problem solving ability.
The only way the above is logical is if there are no inherent differences between men and women. Otherwise, we have no way of determining how much disparity is from inherent factors and how much is from environmental. Put another way: if you believe female (or any race) under representation is caused by discrimination you should be able to define the correct level of representation if there was no discrimination (I have yet to see this number defined in any instance, which is concerning because there’s no way to measure impact or progress).
Given that we’re broadly implementing much policies is strong evidence that many believe there are no inherent differences.
Even more we don’t even remotely understand how those confounds work - much less be able to control for them. This is why most psych / sociological experiments are weak.
Most wars would not be fought if governments were trustworthy. And those that remain could be fought with full transparency.
Trust is everything in society. When you start making exceptions everything falls apart.
Governments are working with private corporations to promote misinformation and silence real information and you’re worried about…anti vaxxers?
I can maybe steel man a utilitarian stance for this position though I’m afraid it’s weak to “surely the lepers won’t eat my face”.
Without strict controls over who is and isn’t allowed in our culture we’re left with a “at your feet or at your throat” predicament. Subversive individuals are death to a culture (the thing Popper was referring to in the paradox of tolerance - you have to draw the line at life or death, not simply because you disagree). Trust is everything.
The performance gains from chatgpt are going to be amazing from a quality of life perspective but overall not a huge change (except maybe in some niche roles). Programmers are not spending much of their time figuring out code that chatgpt can generate.