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Finished Meditations. Important to remember that a man I admire to some extent could note that it was meritorious that he did not focus excessively on natural science, when that is to a large extent my raison d’etre. Now reading Stanislas Dehaene’s Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. This is part of my conscious attempt to refresh my familiarity with domains of science outside of genetics, a major oversight since I began graduate school. At some point I’ll branch out to physics, as Sean Carroll’s From Eternity to Here is in my stack, but I’m always worried that I’m really missing most of the essential aspects of a science the further I go out from my own area of core competency.
I will be traveling a bit before Christmas. Today I am in Austin, meeting up with a few people, mostly hanging around downtown.
Camille Paglia has resurfaced to attack Taylor Swift and her “obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine.” I can still remember seeing her speak extemporaneously on C-SPAN circa 1994. I was captivated, and pretty much immediately read Sexual Personae and Vamps & Tramps. Honestly I am not sure if I agree with her argument, but she was awfully entertaining, and skewered the people who I already instinctively detested. In hindsight her ethnic animus toward icy cold blonde women grates on me, but at least she’s transparent and honest about this bias. Sexual Personae is heavy going from what I recall, but Vamps & Tramps is an easy and entertaining read. Recommended if you aren’t familiar with her oeuvre.
Nearly two years ago I read an article in Rolling Stone, Love and Death In the House of Prayer. The piece strongly implied that Tyler Deaton, a gay man (in that his sexual attraction is toward his own sex) who led an evangelical Christian group was somehow involved in the death of his wife. More precisely, he may have precipitated her murder by a follower. I was curious what happened to this case…and I stumbled onto the original Rolling Stone piece. There is now an update which totally exculpates Deaton of any wrongdoing, and admits that his wife almost certainly committed suicide. So for years people were led to assume that Tyler Deaton was involved in a murder, which resulted in an inability to obtain work. Now, it turns out that he’s totally innocent, not just legally, but perhaps ethically and morally as well. I invite you to read the Rolling Stone update, because I suspect very few of those who originally read the story will do so.
There’s a lot of hatred on my Twitter toward Abigail Fisher from liberals who I follow. That’s fine I suppose, but it is sad that many liberals now think that any opposition to affirmative action is ipso facto evidence of racist intent. Yes, people tend to be ideologically insulated, both on the Left and Right, but at some point it will come back and bite people in the ass. Abigail Fisher isn’t the world’s worst monster; she happens to represent a substantial proportion of the electorate who hold different policy positions than the regnant liberal dispensation.
The New York Times has an op-ed about Canada welcoming refugees. Look, even Germany and Sweden’s efforts are drops in the ocean. I have a friend who works between Turkey and the United States. He has seen the impact of a mass inflow of refugees on the streets of Ankara, and it’s not a pretty picture. If humanitarianism is the ultimate end, then the gusher of money needs to be unleashed on the millions of refugees in Turkey and Lebanon. The ones who make it to the West tend to be more privileged on average for various reasons. Also, it should be noted that the lauded Canadian refugee policy is discriminatory; I happen to agree with discrimination in this case, but I’m not one to make a big fuss in general about filters of this sort. But some might ask why we’re discriminating. It’s 2015.
Pew has lots of data on opinions of Muslims. One of the major problems that Left and Right in the West have is that they have their own simple stylized conceptions, and don’t engage with the data. For example, there isn’t a dichotomy between moderate and extremist/radical/jihadi Muslims. Islam is a diverse religion with many factions, sects, and positions along the spectrum. On the whole radical extremists are a minority, but a non-trivial one. Additionally, a substantial number of Muslims are not violent radicals, but harbor views broadly in sympathy with their aims. Then, there is the genuinely liberal minority, not in relation to their view of Islam as much as their attitude toward the role of religion in a polity and the balance between collective and individual rights.
I plan to be at the spring Evolution Meeting in Austin this year. Very excited.
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I second Caroll’s book, which is very thorough discussion of the state (well, 2010’s state) of knowledge about the fundamental assymetry of the universe regarding time. Not too much equations, but clean and concise descriptions, including the weird thought experiments on entropy, like the Boltzman Brains (which Caroll doesn’t believe in).
I also enjoyed his other book on the Higgs, but it didn’t feel as instructive (to me) as the first one. But I’m looking forward to his next book in 2016.
The BBC production of Bernard Cornwell’s “Last Kingdom” has been very well done. (I know Razib is a fan of Cornwell’s Warlord Series). Lots of attention to historic details (Danes are properly equipped with short swords, etc.) and well-paced storyline. For readers of the book, really the only sin is that the first half of the book is covered in one episode, so as to concentrate on the rest. But this requires some story elements being shifted in less than ideal fashion.
“If humanitarianism is the ultimate end, then the gusher of money needs to be unleashed on the millions of refugees in Turkey and Lebanon.”
True, but I don’t believe it’s really about humanitarianism for many of the “refugees welcome” crowd. It’s about reconstructing their own societies, with a multiculturalist utopia as the end goal, and about delegitimising any opposition to this project (which predictably is leading to serious polarization in Sweden and Germany; read an article yesterday about Sweden in which a member of the Sweden Democrats was cited as saying “It feels to me like there are two kinds of Sweden; they don’t want to live in our Sweden, and we don’t want to live in theirs” – that’s exactly how I feel about my own country).
When I read “obnoxious Nazi Barbie routine.” I thought she meant Klaus Barbie.
I like Paglia, but while she talks in this article about women supporting each other, in fact she is using feminism to pull down another woman.
Women tend to be egalitarian in their relations with other women and that means they usually act like crabs in a bucket.
True, but I don't believe it's really about humanitarianism for many of the "refugees welcome" crowd. It's about reconstructing their own societies, with a multiculturalist utopia as the end goal, and about delegitimising any opposition to this project (which predictably is leading to serious polarization in Sweden and Germany; read an article yesterday about Sweden in which a member of the Sweden Democrats was cited as saying "It feels to me like there are two kinds of Sweden; they don't want to live in our Sweden, and we don't want to live in theirs" - that's exactly how I feel about my own country).Replies: @endrebak
Tangentially related to your post, interesting interview with Kurdish Iranian economist and immigrant to Sweden, Tino Sanandaji:
IKEAmerica: Should the US really be more like Sweden?http://www.aei.org/publication/ikeamerica-should-the-us-really-be-more-like-sweden-a-qa-with-economist-tino-sanandaji/
His view of current Sweden: First of all, understand Sweden is experiencing as we speak arguably its biggest crisis since World War II. Or maybe ever, since we weren’t part of World War II.
I think what's been going on in Sweden for the last few decades is just pure hubris..."humanitarian superpower", how can you come up with something that stupid?
Interesting though that according to Sanandaji FDR spoke admiringly of Sweden during the 1936 election, I didn't know that Sweden had the status as a model supposedly to be emulated already back then.
Interesting interview, thanks.
I think what’s been going on in Sweden for the last few decades is just pure hubris…”humanitarian superpower”, how can you come up with something that stupid?
Interesting though that according to Sanandaji FDR spoke admiringly of Sweden during the 1936 election, I didn’t know that Sweden had the status as a model supposedly to be emulated already back then.
If you want to learn about modern physics, the best book to read to really get a feel for what it is about in an accurate and practical way is QED by Richard Feynman. It is a short book and not terribly recent but provides the most solid foundation available regarding quantum mechanics for an educated layman. It will inform, in a positive way, everything else you could read about modern physics and really should come first before broad survey texts that are full of “lies for children.” Almost everything in the book except the last few pages (which contains some predictions that have since been superseded by actual results) remains valid today, and it demonstrates by example how amazingly successful modern physics is.
I thought you liked Taylor Swift.
“There is now an update which totally exculpates Deaton of any wrongdoing..”
Well, they haven’t exonerated Haven Monahan yet – one’s non-existence is not a valid defence.
Razib, what do you think of this?
The same point is made a bit more politely by Nettelbeck:
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/nettlebeck2014.pdfReplies: @Hippopotamusdrome
If their IQ had been that high a century ago about one in seven should have been eligible for today's Mensa. Does not compute.
Re: Physics:
http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses
A self-contained modern physics course by Leonard Susskind.
Pro-tip: use the “speed” settings on Youtube video. I find that the lectures are very understandable at 1.5x speed.
Mrs Merkel said that those refugees who are allowed to stay in Germany would have to integrate.
“Whoever seeks refuge with us, must respect our laws and traditions and must learn German,” she said. “Multiculturalism creates parallel societies, multiculturalism is a lie,” she said.
Telegraph
There seems tpo be great value in viewing the current White/Black as a result of us leaving the “melting pot” which insisted on cultural integration, to the current “multi-cultural” mish-mosh of today. We have allowed, encouraged exactly the parallel societies Merkel warns against.
There is an opinion column in NYTimes today by Frank Bruni.The Lie About College Diversity which correctly questions the reality of actual diversity on campus. Bruni realizes that college “diversity” is in fact a series of those parallel societies.That and the questions in the SOCTUS rehearing of UT admission policies gives hope that finally real world gives the lie to the benefits of multiculturalism.
“homosexual”
scans a whole lot better than
“gay man (in that his sexual attraction is toward his own sex)”
Razib -Just FYI, I think your link on Canadian refugee policy is a bit out of date. There’s no ban on single men coming here as refugees. At the time that article was published, that wasn’t yet clear.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/single-syrian-men-will-be-coming-top-official-says-1.2675869
I’ll confess I haven’t 100% followed where exactly this was left, but I believe the 25,000 government-sponsored refugees are from “priority groups” (basically everyone except young straight men), but the other 10,000 privately sponsored refugees are whomever those groups decide to sponsor (provided they pass screening). So not as extreme as the initial reports suggested.
They’re bringing over people from camps in Lebanon and Jordan and from everything I’ve heard this is not some sort of upper crust in any way shape or form. Yes, it’s just a drop in the bucket, but one drop is better than none, and at least it’s coming from the right source. Taking in refugees shouldn’t detract from helping those still left behind either. I’d suggest that doing the former increases the chances of doing the latter quite a bit. So does showing basic compassion to these refugees:
I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at re: discrimination and re “It’s 2015” so rather than me assume something, maybe you could explain further? Thanks.
“Arbitrary comparison of ‘reaction times’ across different apparatuses and incompletely described protocols give the result that we want. Therefore we should totally ignore the documented massive increase in actual test scores, using the exact same tests over decades. So there.”
The same point is made a bit more politely by Nettelbeck:
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/nettlebeck2014.pdf
See Sailer's The Flynn Effect: IQ Testing Across Space and Time.WISC Subtest -- IQ gains 1947-2002 -- Sample Question
Information 2 On what continent is Argentina?
Arithmetic 2 If a toy costs $6, how much do 7 cost?
Picture Arrangement 24 Reorder a set of scrambled picture cards to tell a story.
Conventional ideas of intelligence like knowing where countries are and addition haven't increased much.
Are ancesters weren't all retarded, they could find Argentina on a map and do the maths just as well. It's just that the idea that being good at geography and math indicates intelligence is a culturally biased Eurocentric viewpoint, so we added a puzzle game and gave it weight to the total score, and that is the source of most of the increase.
Being good at laying out cards with pictures to tell a story is a kind of intelligence too, you know.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome
Here https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/the-ionian-mission/ G. Cochran discusses an alternate way of testing your hypothesis. (I wonder if he did not mean that it will become feasible in one to two decades, rather than years…)
If their IQ had been that high a century ago about one in seven should have been eligible for today’s Mensa. Does not compute.
Re: “fascist blondes who ruled the social scene during my youth”,
“The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”
-Orwell
I believe "Fascist" refers to those who openly satisfy their power needs openly in aggrandizing their own name. As opposed in the 20th Century by left totalitarians who use the figleaf of covering thier power under some noble banner. ISIS is a such a fig leaf totalitarianism. As is political correctness.
But the central point is missed.There are a few websites where amateur authors post. One frequent theme is playing out High School fantasies. An overwhelming number of these stories describe a school where Football players are given free rein to bully other students. And protests are unheeded by the local power structure. Their counterpart are the Cheer Leaders who are allowed equal free rein in the exercise of personal power. There certainly seems to be truth to the Fascist Blond statement.
Football rather then Academics seem to be the guiding principle in High Schools in the Fly-Over states.And Democracy is taught in one boring class. And the Fascist mentality which this system fosters, is one repressed part of the American Consciousness. It has now emerged for all to see in the Republican school-yard level "debates" where exercise of raw power is the norm.Replies: @notanon, @RCB, @j mct
"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.'"
-OrwellReplies: @aeolius
Re: Re: “fascist blondes who ruled the social scene during my youth”,
I believe “Fascist” refers to those who openly satisfy their power needs openly in aggrandizing their own name. As opposed in the 20th Century by left totalitarians who use the figleaf of covering thier power under some noble banner. ISIS is a such a fig leaf totalitarianism. As is political correctness.
But the central point is missed.There are a few websites where amateur authors post. One frequent theme is playing out High School fantasies. An overwhelming number of these stories describe a school where Football players are given free rein to bully other students. And protests are unheeded by the local power structure. Their counterpart are the Cheer Leaders who are allowed equal free rein in the exercise of personal power. There certainly seems to be truth to the Fascist Blond statement.
Football rather then Academics seem to be the guiding principle in High Schools in the Fly-Over states.And Democracy is taught in one boring class. And the Fascist mentality which this system fosters, is one repressed part of the American Consciousness. It has now emerged for all to see in the Republican school-yard level “debates” where exercise of raw power is the norm.
"even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come."
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
Using bully as a synonym makes a lot of sense in this context. "Bully blondes" is pretty clearly what the author meant, unless some weird shit was going on in her high school.
I believe "Fascist" refers to those who openly satisfy their power needs openly in aggrandizing their own name. As opposed in the 20th Century by left totalitarians who use the figleaf of covering thier power under some noble banner. ISIS is a such a fig leaf totalitarianism. As is political correctness.
But the central point is missed.There are a few websites where amateur authors post. One frequent theme is playing out High School fantasies. An overwhelming number of these stories describe a school where Football players are given free rein to bully other students. And protests are unheeded by the local power structure. Their counterpart are the Cheer Leaders who are allowed equal free rein in the exercise of personal power. There certainly seems to be truth to the Fascist Blond statement.
Football rather then Academics seem to be the guiding principle in High Schools in the Fly-Over states.And Democracy is taught in one boring class. And the Fascist mentality which this system fosters, is one repressed part of the American Consciousness. It has now emerged for all to see in the Republican school-yard level "debates" where exercise of raw power is the norm.Replies: @notanon, @RCB, @j mct
Only if the writers are Fascist Blondes and not people who have sub-dom fantasies about being dominated by Fascist Blondes – Camille Paglia excluded of course.
I believe "Fascist" refers to those who openly satisfy their power needs openly in aggrandizing their own name. As opposed in the 20th Century by left totalitarians who use the figleaf of covering thier power under some noble banner. ISIS is a such a fig leaf totalitarianism. As is political correctness.
But the central point is missed.There are a few websites where amateur authors post. One frequent theme is playing out High School fantasies. An overwhelming number of these stories describe a school where Football players are given free rein to bully other students. And protests are unheeded by the local power structure. Their counterpart are the Cheer Leaders who are allowed equal free rein in the exercise of personal power. There certainly seems to be truth to the Fascist Blond statement.
Football rather then Academics seem to be the guiding principle in High Schools in the Fly-Over states.And Democracy is taught in one boring class. And the Fascist mentality which this system fosters, is one repressed part of the American Consciousness. It has now emerged for all to see in the Republican school-yard level "debates" where exercise of raw power is the norm.Replies: @notanon, @RCB, @j mct
More Orwell:
“even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.”
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
Using bully as a synonym makes a lot of sense in this context. “Bully blondes” is pretty clearly what the author meant, unless some weird shit was going on in her high school.
The same point is made a bit more politely by Nettelbeck:
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/nettlebeck2014.pdfReplies: @Hippopotamusdrome
But they’re not the exact same tests. They added Raven’s Matrices in the 30’s in order to be less “culturally biased”. Most of the Flynn effect is from higher Raven’s Matrices scores.
See Sailer’s The Flynn Effect: IQ Testing Across Space and Time.
WISC Subtest — IQ gains 1947-2002 — Sample Question
Information 2 On what continent is Argentina?
Arithmetic 2 If a toy costs $6, how much do 7 cost?
Picture Arrangement 24 Reorder a set of scrambled picture cards to tell a story.
Conventional ideas of intelligence like knowing where countries are and addition haven’t increased much.
Are ancesters weren’t all retarded, they could find Argentina on a map and do the maths just as well. It’s just that the idea that being good at geography and math indicates intelligence is a culturally biased Eurocentric viewpoint, so we added a puzzle game and gave it weight to the total score, and that is the source of most of the increase.
Being good at laying out cards with pictures to tell a story is a kind of intelligence too, you know.
What happened to edit?Replies: @Tobus
See Sailer's The Flynn Effect: IQ Testing Across Space and Time.WISC Subtest -- IQ gains 1947-2002 -- Sample Question
Information 2 On what continent is Argentina?
Arithmetic 2 If a toy costs $6, how much do 7 cost?
Picture Arrangement 24 Reorder a set of scrambled picture cards to tell a story.
Conventional ideas of intelligence like knowing where countries are and addition haven't increased much.
Are ancesters weren't all retarded, they could find Argentina on a map and do the maths just as well. It's just that the idea that being good at geography and math indicates intelligence is a culturally biased Eurocentric viewpoint, so we added a puzzle game and gave it weight to the total score, and that is the source of most of the increase.
Being good at laying out cards with pictures to tell a story is a kind of intelligence too, you know.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome
Are ancesters = Our ancesters
What happened to edit?
I believe "Fascist" refers to those who openly satisfy their power needs openly in aggrandizing their own name. As opposed in the 20th Century by left totalitarians who use the figleaf of covering thier power under some noble banner. ISIS is a such a fig leaf totalitarianism. As is political correctness.
But the central point is missed.There are a few websites where amateur authors post. One frequent theme is playing out High School fantasies. An overwhelming number of these stories describe a school where Football players are given free rein to bully other students. And protests are unheeded by the local power structure. Their counterpart are the Cheer Leaders who are allowed equal free rein in the exercise of personal power. There certainly seems to be truth to the Fascist Blond statement.
Football rather then Academics seem to be the guiding principle in High Schools in the Fly-Over states.And Democracy is taught in one boring class. And the Fascist mentality which this system fosters, is one repressed part of the American Consciousness. It has now emerged for all to see in the Republican school-yard level "debates" where exercise of raw power is the norm.Replies: @notanon, @RCB, @j mct
Per the real definition of fascism, as how people who use the word today do so, I guess now if we had to make a list of ‘stuff aeolius does not like’ we’d know what to put on it.
What happened to edit?Replies: @Tobus
..and “Our ancesters” = “Our ancestors”?
There’s a “Click to Edit” button under your post, but only for the first 5 minutes after you post it.
Frank Salter
-Humanitarian Costs of Western Multiculturalism
A nice perspective.
On affirmative action. Excellent article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal:
“How Colleges Make Racial Disparities Worse: Affirmative action sets up unprepared students for failure. Yet schools ignore this ‘mismatch’ evidence.” By Richard Sander • Dec. 17, 2015
Mr. Sander is an economist and law professor at UCLA and the author, with Stuart Taylor Jr., of “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It” (Basic Books, 2012).