Steerzing in a New Direction...

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Lsuoma
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2521

Post by Lsuoma »

HunnyBunny wrote: Hi there, long time & all that. Just thought I'd pop this wee gem from Oolon in. Bless, he never forgets.



Hope all are as well & happy as can be. I'm now living in Europe, having left the sunny shoes of little China, aka Hong Kong, spend my time chainsawing up our forest, growing stuff, and avoiding the hordes of geriatric ex-Brits who pitched up looking for greener grass & like to pass their little remaining time bitching about Brexit. Have sent the other half off to make a living in the Middle East, he returns periodically to eat bacon and sausages. Life is good.
Hey Hun!

Whereabouts in Yurop are you?

Did everyone see the news about Lytton, BC? Town that burned down this summer (47C!) got the shit flooded out of (into?) it in the recent rains.

Maybe ever'one in BC like Ol' Steerzo is going to need a boat?

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2522

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

HunnyBunny wrote:
Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:13 am
HunnyBunny wrote: spend my time chainsawing up our forest
Since we're reminiscing, Stihl or Husqvarna?
Stihl all the way. We have 4, 3 petrol (I use an MS 400 petrol) and my MSA 160 battery, which is great for processing the fallen Douglas Fir branches & coppice logs (we have 3 mixed oak/hazel coppice woods and a douglas fir plantation). Husband was not keen on the battery idea, but it has gradually become the go-to for everyday light work even for him.
Does Hazel burn nice?

My workhorse is an MS 260. Thinking of getting a 462 for larger stuff, including all the Digger Pines dying of bark beetles. Also a Stihl pole saw and wicked brush cutter that'll take down 3" saplings. GF has a Milwaukee cordless saw, which I borrow often. Like you say, good for processing and limbing, very convenient, but strains at bucking. I also now have a 25-ton splitter, don't know how I lived without one before.

California just banned all two-stroke engines, i.e., everything mentioned above. Molon Labe.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2523

Post by Lsuoma »

All three convicted of murder in Arbery case.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... berations/

ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2524

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

Lsuoma wrote: All three convicted of murder in Arbery case.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... berations/
Expected. The judge ruled out the legality of the citizens arrest very late in the trial which was a bit unfair to the defendants seeing as they'd based their defence on it, which left them claiming that they had just wanted to talk to Arbery. Hard to convince a jury that they weren't provoking Arbery under the circumstances. Hard to know if it's the right verdict or not. Seems trials are a crap shoot unless you've got the events clearly covered on video with good audio.

Steersman
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2525

Post by Steersman »

HunnyBunny wrote: Hi there, long time & all that. Just thought I'd pop this wee gem from Oolon in. Bless, he never forgets.

https://twitter.com/oolon/status/146348 ... 51360?s=20

Hope all are as well & happy as can be. I'm now living in Europe, having left the sunny shoes of little China, aka Hong Kong, spend my time chainsawing up our forest, growing stuff, and avoiding the hordes of geriatric ex-Brits who pitched up looking for greener grass & like to pass their little remaining time bitching about Brexit. Have sent the other half off to make a living in the Middle East, he returns periodically to eat bacon and sausages. Life is good.
Well, well - long time no see indeed; a blast from the past. :)

Apart from you having finally blocked me on Twitter. And - probably - poisoning the well for me with Helen Joyce; not that I haven't, supposedly, added some fuel to that fire:

Tweets_HelenJoyce_JamesWatt_Worst_Female1A.jpg
(67.28 KiB) Downloaded 285 times

Though what's a few disagreements among friends ... ;)

But you might be interested to know that I've been suspended from Twitter for falling afoul of the "Trans Inquisition" - nobody ever expects ... And now likewise from Wikipedia for challenging the claim that Laurel Hubbard - in a Wikipedia article on "her" - had "transitioned to female". You might "enjoy" my latest essay at Medium on my travails on that score:



You might also be interested to learn, somewhat apropos of Oolon, that I had subsequently been contacted by one of the founders of the LGB Alliance [UK] for some pointers on what to do - and not do - when it came to editing Wikipedia articles. They seem rather bent out of shape - probably with some justification - that the article on them is not particularly accurate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGB_Alliance

The connection with Oolon being that - if I'm not mistaken - he's largely responsible for some variation of the LGB monicker designed to spoof, parody, or simply give a hard time to the LGB Alliance.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2526

Post by Steersman »

Lsuoma wrote:
Especially this bit:

Satire that does not affirm their viewpoint
:) Apropos of nothing much at all ... ;)

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2527

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: Seems trials are a crap shoot unless you've got the events clearly covered on video with good audio. only killed white guys.
FTFY

Steersman
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2528

Post by Steersman »

Lsuoma wrote:
HunnyBunny wrote: Hi there, long time & all that. Just thought I'd pop this wee gem from Oolon in. Bless, he never forgets.

<snip>

Life is good.
Hey Hun!

Whereabouts in Yurop are you?

Did everyone see the news about Lytton, BC? Town that burned down this summer (47C!) got the shit flooded out of (into?) it in the recent rains.

Maybe ever'one in BC like Ol' Steerzo is going to need a boat?
:-) Been a wet one. First fire, now flood - some apprehension that famine, pestilence, and war can't be far behind them.

But a staggering amount of devastation - at least several billion dollars of damage to repair. The BC Highways Department has a Flickr account that shows the scope of it:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc/with/51693304016/

A particularly stark example is a wash-out at "Tank Hill" on the highway through the Fraser Canyon at about Lytton:

51693304016_b4ba314c03_c.jpg
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Although maybe not quite as bad as it looks since much of the slope has apparently been removed - the portion under the railway tracks up in the air - after the wash-out presumably for "slope stabilization" reasons. Or maybe to redesign the highway under the railway bridge since it was a particularly bad corner.

Lsuoma
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2529

Post by Lsuoma »

The wokerati missed a trick there - they should have called it TransBC, not TranBC.

ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2530

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

Wow! Barnes wasn't wrong about Lin Wood, in fact he was positively restrained judging by this from Rittenhouse. Some heads are going to explode. Poor buggers know they're supposed to hate Rittenhouse but he supports BLM and craps on Lin Wood and his nutbaggery. What a dilemma!

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2531

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: Wow! Barnes wasn't wrong about Lin Wood, in fact he was positively restrained judging by this from Rittenhouse. Some heads are going to explode. Poor buggers know they're supposed to hate Rittenhouse but he supports BLM and craps on Lin Wood and his nutbaggery. What a dilemma!
Lin Wood was a sleazy ambulance chaser who hit the jackpot with Richard Jewell. He's a lifelong Democrat who likely conspired to take the 2020 election fraud legal actions into the whackadoodle zone. That, and you cannot trust a man with that hair.

His team did put out a persuasive video on Rittenhouse's evening in Kenosha, but then milked Kyle for notoriety and funds.

If Wood had watched the video he produced, he should've realized, don't fuck with Kyle.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2532

Post by Steersman »

fafnir wrote:
<snip>

Again... Pinker. If it was 2002 his opinions might be relevant.
An entirely unevidenced opinion. A couple of recent articles that suggest that you really don’t have much of a leg to stand on:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/book ... inker.html
https://reason.com/video/2021/10/15/ste ... ves-lives/
https://www.chronicle.com/article/steve ... nary-drift

Even if two out of the three are less than impressed. But that says more about them than about Pinker.
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

.... Sagan just isn't relevant.
Again, that is only your entirely unevidenced opinion. You seem to be of the view that those who are “the anti-thesis to the enlightenment” have a point; if not then Sagan is entirely relevant. Think you need to decide on which side of the fence you want to come down on – because you look to be wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote:
<snip>

But knowing that such distributions are typical – though not the only game in town – seems a useful point of reference. Models do have some value even if they’re not perfect. Which you seem reluctant to give much credence to.
Not at all, models can be useful.... but I don't see the point of using needlessly specific ones when we are almost just talking about mean and spread properties that primary school children understand.
Don’t think many “primary school children” are voting. It’s the adults who are and who are clueless about basic science that are the problem.

But maybe you could then explain how to get from that joint probability distribution on agreeableness to what percentage of “females” are more agreeable than “males”? Probably not terribly useful for that trait, but a great deal of evidence that such measures are substantially more useful and relevant for other traits.

You say “needlessly” but show no ability or willingness to prove or even justify that claim. Methinks your “anti-intellectual and anti-science sentiments” are showing again.
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

The Guardian, honestly? I'm trying to read through that and it's just a shotgun blast of vaguely statistical complaining. The aircon thing? .... I don't see the word "normal" in there. I don't think the normal distribution is necessary for any of these discussions. Somehow the Guardian manage without mentioning it.
No doubt the air conditioning thing is a bit of a stretch. But you seriously think that that is all there is to the issue? Quillette’s Claire Lehmann:
Consider the following fiasco. In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration announced it was slashing the recommended dosage of the sleeping pill Ambien in half—but only for women. The FDA had known for 20 years that women metabolized the active ingredient, zolpidem, more slowly than men, but the dosage for men and women had been exactly the same since the drug had been on the market.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/cla ... xx-factor/

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg, although Lehman herself is kinda clueless about the developing consensus that sex and gender are entirely different kettles of fish. But “strawmaning” your opponents’ arguments is rather intellectually dishonest or lazy at best and suggests one has an axe to grind.

In any case, are you touting the Guardian as any sort of exemplar? That they, including the author of that article, are clueless about normal distributions is no mark in their favour. No doubt they have their good points but, as they’ve been known for the transgendered calling too many shots there, we might reasonably view them with a skeptical eye.
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

Of course. Not all processes produce normally distributed output. Most don't.
And your evidence for that “most don’t” is what? Although I and many others have conceded that there are probably few processes that produce exactly “normally distributed output".

But that’s not really the point. The point is that that model is a reasonably accurate basis or yardstick for a rather large number of cases. Why many quite credible scientists and mathematicians argue, even if somewhat inaccurately, that “normal distributions are ubiquitous”:

https://ekamperi.github.io/mathematics/ ... itous.html

https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files ... tahl96.pdf
As the description of the precise use that Galton made of the normal curve would take us too far afield, we shall only discuss his explanation for the ubiquity of the normal distribution. .... This is, of course, an informal restatement of Laplace’s Central Limit Theorem. The same argument had been advanced by Herschel. Galton was fully aware that conditions (1-4) never actually occur in nature and tried to show that they were unnecessary.
You may wish to take up your objections with them.
fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote: [quote=fafnir post_id=506472
<snip>

As I’ve said before ..., ideologues are less of an issue than discrediting them in the eyes of the public, particularly the ignorant or uncommitted.
You think framing the argument in terms of your ideology will convince people currently being mislead by a different ideology? Wouldn't it be better to start where your audience currently are? Mislead by the opposing ideologues.
My “ideology”? What might that be? Science? Rather questionable, and very uncommon, to call science an ideology.

No doubt many, including many so-called scientists, are guilty of scientism, Pinker notwithstanding. And science is clearly predicated on a number of axioms, if not on some “faith”:
I have said that science is impossible without faith. By this I do not mean that the faith on which science depends is religious in nature or involves the acceptance of any of the dogmas of the ordinary religious creeds, yet without faith that nature is subject to law there can be no science. No amount of demonstration can ever prove that nature is subject to law.
http://asounder.org/resources/weiner_humanuse.pdf

But those are clearly, or often, framed as provisional, as working hypotheses; rather doubt that many of the religious or the woke would say the same about their articles of faith. Not sure that you recognize or appreciate the differences.

As for where my “audiences currently are”, you think my various Medium articles and conversations with wokeish editors at Wikipedia aren’t speaking to them? If you have any better ideas then I’m all ears. Maybe some examples of what you’ve done? ...
fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote: Such ideologues may well have something of a point when it comes to the issue of “equality of opportunity” – not just by sex but by race as well, and presumably by other measures.
They do not have a point, they are a malign cancer.
Sheesh. You’re almost just as bad as “them” for being narrow-minded and dogmatic: “4 legs good, 2 legs bad”. You seriously think that there are NO disparities in “equality of opportunity”, not just in the land of the free and the home of the brave but even in many other Western countries? Your own earlier comments about blacks in America suggested you recognized such disparities.
fafnir wrote:

<snip>

Of course they are deliberately distorting scientific facts. .... They just have an entirely different epistemology that doesn't believe in objective truth.
Glad you agree about “deliberately distorting”. And I’d largely agree with you about “entirely different epistemology”.

However, that “deliberately distorting” is rather too ubiquitous and hardly unique to those with that “different epistemology”. One might reasonably argue that those who refuse to accept the standard scientific definitions for the sexes – “gametes, baby!” – are just as guilty of that crime. One can’t very well, or very wisely, throw stones if one is living in a glass house ...

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2533

Post by fafnir »

Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

Again... Pinker. If it was 2002 his opinions might be relevant.
An entirely unevidenced opinion. A couple of recent articles that suggest that you really don’t have much of a leg to stand on:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/book ... inker.html
https://reason.com/video/2021/10/15/ste ... ves-lives/
https://www.chronicle.com/article/steve ... nary-drift

Even if two out of the three are less than impressed. But that says more about them than about Pinker.
Exactly, he is still pushing the same liberal, enlightenment vision of progress that those guys have been pushing for at least 3 decades. The world has changed. It isn't 1995 and the debate isn't between Dawkins and an evangelical who more or less accepts materialist notions of objective truth.
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

.... Sagan just isn't relevant.
Again, that is only your entirely unevidenced opinion. You seem to be of the view that those who are “the anti-thesis to the enlightenment” have a point; if not then Sagan is entirely relevant. Think you need to decide on which side of the fence you want to come down on – because you look to be wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
You can't just make the same argument regardless of the position, arguments and beliefs of the people you are arguing with. That is autistic. The arguments of the Sagans and Pinkers of this world were thought up to convince people who believed in objective truth.
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote:
<snip>

But knowing that such distributions are typical – though not the only game in town – seems a useful point of reference. Models do have some value even if they’re not perfect. Which you seem reluctant to give much credence to.
Not at all, models can be useful.... but I don't see the point of using needlessly specific ones when we are almost just talking about mean and spread properties that primary school children understand.
Don’t think many “primary school children” are voting. It’s the adults who are and who are clueless about basic science that are the problem.

But maybe you could then explain how to get from that joint probability distribution on agreeableness to what percentage of “females” are more agreeable than “males”? Probably not terribly useful for that trait, but a great deal of evidence that such measures are substantially more useful and relevant for other traits.
If you are interested in that, I imagine you would need to survey a bunch of people. Tricky to make them representative of the population at large, but that's the basic problem. Once you have the data, then you mostly just use the data rather than a model of the data.
Steersman wrote: You say “needlessly” but show no ability or willingness to prove or even justify that claim. Methinks your “anti-intellectual and anti-science sentiments” are showing again.
Read my posts. I'm not anti this stuff. I am saying that the debate is between people who believe in objective truth and people who don't. Arguing for objective truth with arguments that only convince people who believe in objective truth is foolish. Anyway, you still haven't offered any way that the normal distribution contributes to your claims.
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

The Guardian, honestly? I'm trying to read through that and it's just a shotgun blast of vaguely statistical complaining. The aircon thing? .... I don't see the word "normal" in there. I don't think the normal distribution is necessary for any of these discussions. Somehow the Guardian manage without mentioning it.
No doubt the air conditioning thing is a bit of a stretch. But you seriously think that that is all there is to the issue? Quillette’s Claire Lehmann:
Consider the following fiasco. In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration announced it was slashing the recommended dosage of the sleeping pill Ambien in half—but only for women. The FDA had known for 20 years that women metabolized the active ingredient, zolpidem, more slowly than men, but the dosage for men and women had been exactly the same since the drug had been on the market.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/cla ... xx-factor/

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg, although Lehman herself is kinda clueless about the developing consensus that sex and gender are entirely different kettles of fish. But “strawmaning” your opponents’ arguments is rather intellectually dishonest or lazy at best and suggests one has an axe to grind.
What has the now well known fact that men and women are phsyiologically different and can have different reactions to drugs got to do with anything?
Steersman wrote: In any case, are you touting the Guardian as any sort of exemplar? That they, including the author of that article, are clueless about normal distributions is no mark in their favour. No doubt they have their good points but, as they’ve been known for the transgendered calling too many shots there, we might reasonably view them with a skeptical eye.
The Guardian are the house newsletter of the UK liberal elite. The only time they get interesting is when some 2nd wave feminist is allowed to have a cry for understanding so the 2nd wave feminists who still read the Guardian can pretend they aren't now on the wrong side of history.
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
<snip>

Of course. Not all processes produce normally distributed output. Most don't.
And your evidence for that “most don’t” is what? Although I and many others have conceded that there are probably few processes that produce exactly “normally distributed output".
Well, anecdotally, the graphs you provided based on actual data haven't been normal. There was the one where the male distribution had two peaks for example.
Steersman wrote: But that’s not really the point. The point is that that model is a reasonably accurate basis or yardstick for a rather large number of cases. Why many quite credible scientists and mathematicians argue, even if somewhat inaccurately, that “normal distributions are ubiquitous”:

https://ekamperi.github.io/mathematics/ ... itous.html

https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files ... tahl96.pdf
Sure, I guess... The normal distribution is really easy to use, so people apply it all over the place. "Ideal processes" often produce normal distributions. But you haven't used them being normal as the basis for any of your arguments. I don't dispute that there are probably arguments out there that do depend on that assumption, I've just not seen you make any. Hence I'm baffled by you continually posting links to wikipedia articles on it. Your arguments mostly seem to come down to the mean of this population is lower and the mean in this population and similar claims. Talking about normal distrubutions just puts a veneer of maths on top of something that can readily be seen by eye.
Steersman wrote:
As the description of the precise use that Galton made of the normal curve would take us too far afield, we shall only discuss his explanation for the ubiquity of the normal distribution. .... This is, of course, an informal restatement of Laplace’s Central Limit Theorem. The same argument had been advanced by Herschel. Galton was fully aware that conditions (1-4) never actually occur in nature and tried to show that they were unnecessary.
You may wish to take up your objections with them.
I don't disagree with them because I don't disagree that when constructing models of ideal processes the normal distribution comes up quite a bit. We are discussing the properties of humans and society. Real behaviours of real humans in the real world tends not to follow idealised models quite so cleanly.
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote: [quote=fafnir post_id=506472
<snip>

As I’ve said before ..., ideologues are less of an issue than discrediting them in the eyes of the public, particularly the ignorant or uncommitted.
You think framing the argument in terms of your ideology will convince people currently being mislead by a different ideology? Wouldn't it be better to start where your audience currently are? Mislead by the opposing ideologues.
My “ideology”? What might that be? Science? Rather questionable, and very uncommon, to call science an ideology.
Apologies, there are no foundational assumptions about the world packed in to Science. :-)

The assumptions that underpin the enlightenment world view took thousands of years to develop. They are different from the medieval understanding of the world. They are different from the understanding of the world in the ancient world. That isn't simply a question of knowing more. I was reading The Republic yesterday, and nothing is convincing in it. It's coming from a completely different conception of almost everything. The people who believe in 57 genders and call everything whiteness have a completely different world view. A gradual rejection of the underpinings of enlightenment rationalism has been going on for at least a century now.
Steersman wrote: No doubt many, including many so-called scientists, are guilty of scientism, Pinker notwithstanding. And science is clearly predicated on a number of axioms, if not on some “faith”:
I have said that science is impossible without faith. By this I do not mean that the faith on which science depends is religious in nature or involves the acceptance of any of the dogmas of the ordinary religious creeds, yet without faith that nature is subject to law there can be no science. No amount of demonstration can ever prove that nature is subject to law.
I think it depends on a few more assumptions than that. Again, the world view that Pinker has been articulating has been under attack in the academy from the left for a century at least, and in popular philosophy for maybe half a century. Eventually we need to turn our attention away from the Church and onto this new enemy.
But those are clearly, or often, framed as provisional, as working hypotheses; rather doubt that many of the religious or the woke would say the same about their articles of faith. Not sure that you recognize or appreciate the differences.
Steersman wrote: As for where my “audiences currently are”, you think my various Medium articles and conversations with wokeish editors at Wikipedia aren’t speaking to them? If you have any better ideas then I’m all ears. Maybe some examples of what you’ve done? ...
I doubt it if they involve Pinker, Dawkins, Sagan....
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote: Such ideologues may well have something of a point when it comes to the issue of “equality of opportunity” – not just by sex but by race as well, and presumably by other measures.
They do not have a point, they are a malign cancer.
Sheesh. You’re almost just as bad as “them” for being narrow-minded and dogmatic: “4 legs good, 2 legs bad”. You seriously think that there are NO disparities in “equality of opportunity”, not just in the land of the free and the home of the brave but even in many other Western countries? Your own earlier comments about blacks in America suggested you recognized such disparities.
There are allways and will allways be differences in opportunity. It isn't a debate about equality of opportunity though. It is a debate about equality of outcome. Again, you are talking as if this was a debate in the 90s.
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote:

<snip>

Of course they are deliberately distorting scientific facts. .... They just have an entirely different epistemology that doesn't believe in objective truth.
Glad you agree about “deliberately distorting”. And I’d largely agree with you about “entirely different epistemology”.

However, that “deliberately distorting” is rather too ubiquitous and hardly unique to those with that “different epistemology”. One might reasonably argue that those who refuse to accept the standard scientific definitions for the sexes – “gametes, baby!” – are just as guilty of that crime. One can’t very well, or very wisely, throw stones if one is living in a glass house ...
They don't believe in objective truth. They believe in outcomes and don't care about whether the method of getting to those outcomes is fair. The people here who argue with you about gametes at generally believe in objective truth and discussion as a method of arriving at truth.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2534

Post by fafnir »

fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote:
fafnir wrote: <snip>

Again... Pinker. If it was 2002 his opinions might be relevant.
An entirely unevidenced opinion. A couple of recent articles that suggest that you really don’t have much of a leg to stand on:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/book ... inker.html
https://reason.com/video/2021/10/15/ste ... ves-lives/
https://www.chronicle.com/article/steve ... nary-drift

Even if two out of the three are less than impressed. But that says more about them than about Pinker.
Exactly, he is still pushing the same liberal, enlightenment vision of progress that those guys have been pushing for at least 3 decades. The world has changed. It isn't 1995 and the debate isn't between Dawkins and an evangelical who more or less accepts materialist notions of objective truth.
To expand on this slightly, I'd say you have a number of camps in this discussion.

1. You have the Pinker, Sagan.... camp. They generally have a progressive notion of history centred on the triumph of the enlightenment, science and humanism. Their assumptions about the world are the usual liberal, rationalist, materialist ones we are all familiar with. You are in this group. I would say that many people in this group see liberty and equality as, on some level, compatible.

2. Then you have a group who are generally sympathetic to parts of the enlightenment project, but think that it is fundamentally mistaken about the nature of man, and hence it's vision of progress is doomed. I am in this group.

3. You have the woke. Like Pinker, Sagan.... etc... they believe in progress, however they reject pretty much everything else. This is the ideology of media, HR departments and the academy. They see traditional liberty as being incompatible with equality, and choose equality. Liberty is redefined as something that only people with the right opinions who make the right choices can be trusted with.

Pinker is in the first group in my list, writing books for other people in the first group. It all seems pointless and self satisfied to me.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2535

Post by John D »

For what it is worth fafnir - I am in agreement with you. I am not sure why you engage with Steers who, IMHO, does not really engage in a dialog in good faith. He almost always argues a strawman... and puts words in other peoples mouths.

Happy thanksgiving to all the Mericans out there! Best of the holidays as far as I am concerned.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2536

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

fafnir wrote: 1. You have the Pinker, Sagan.... camp. They generally have a progressive notion of history centred on the triumph of the enlightenment, science and humanism. Their assumptions about the world are the usual liberal, rationalist, materialist ones we are all familiar with. You are in this group. I would say that many people in this group see liberty and equality as, on some level, compatible.

2. Then you have a group who are generally sympathetic to parts of the enlightenment project, but think that it is fundamentally mistaken about the nature of man, and hence it's vision of progress is doomed. I am in this group.

3. You have the woke. Like Pinker, Sagan.... etc... they believe in progress, however they reject pretty much everything else. This is the ideology of media, HR departments and the academy. They see traditional liberty as being incompatible with equality, and choose equality. Liberty is redefined as something that only people with the right opinions who make the right choices can be trusted with.

Pinker is in the first group in my list, writing books for other people in the first group. It all seems pointless and self satisfied to me.
It's notable that scratch the surface of these enlightened rationalists and revealed are believers in predestination and a teleological universe. 'The Arc of History always bends towards...' and all that nonsense.

The lauded March of Progress has been almost entirely in material objects, luxuries, etc. Globalization was touted as the magical way to accelerate the realization of this Utopia of Stuff. We were assured not to worry about sending all the manufacturing to China, because capitalism and affluence always turns every society into an enlightened, free one, donchaknow. Ditto for Russia, the Middle East, Africa. At best, that would've led to a banal Brave New World dystopia; at worst, the growing authoritarian kleptocracies we now have.

Pinker is overly sanguine about the power of the Enlightenment. Following its brief burst onto the scene -- primarily limited to the intellectual elite -- it got slammed by Romanticism. Ever since, the two Weltanschauunge have pulled at Western civilization, with Enlightenment usually relegated to hard science and technology. The lefties that Pinker, et al. consider their allies are in fact Romanticists, operating on Feelz B4 Realz. The atheists pleased by the growing trend of a decrease in religious affiliation in the West, ignore -- or are themselves caught up in -- the rise of quasi-religious belief and practice, e.g., the Church of Wokism, the Branch Covidian sect. As we are witnessing, not only have Enlightenment values spread out from their hard science bastions, wokism and covidian madness are in the process of conquering hard science fields.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2537

Post by fafnir »

John D wrote: For what it is worth fafnir - I am in agreement with you. I am not sure why you engage with Steers who, IMHO, does not really engage in a dialog in good faith. He almost always argues a strawman... and puts words in other peoples mouths.

Happy thanksgiving to all the Mericans out there! Best of the holidays as far as I am concerned.
Happy thanksgiving also.

Incidentally, I make these arguments for my own amusement and interests. The intentions of the person I'm arguing with mostly don't bother me. I know there isn't any winning to be had.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2538

Post by Steersman »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
fafnir wrote: 1. You have the Pinker, Sagan.... camp. They generally have a progressive notion of history centred on the triumph of the enlightenment, science and humanism. Their assumptions about the world are the usual liberal, rationalist, materialist ones we are all familiar with. You are in this group. I would say that many people in this group see liberty and equality as, on some level, compatible.

2. Then you have a group who are generally sympathetic to parts of the enlightenment project, but think that it is fundamentally mistaken about the nature of man, and hence it's vision of progress is doomed. I am in this group.

3. You have the woke. Like Pinker, Sagan.... etc... they believe in progress, however they reject pretty much everything else. This is the ideology of media, HR departments and the academy. They see traditional liberty as being incompatible with equality, and choose equality. Liberty is redefined as something that only people with the right opinions who make the right choices can be trusted with.

Pinker is in the first group in my list, writing books for other people in the first group. It all seems pointless and self satisfied to me.
It's notable that scratch the surface of these enlightened rationalists and revealed are believers in predestination and a teleological universe. 'The Arc of History always bends towards...' and all that nonsense.
No doubt that "always bends towards ..." probably qualifies as "nonsense". But not always:
The biologist J. B. S. Haldane observed that "Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology_in_biology

You might also read the linked Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic as it's a concept you seem rather reluctant to give much credence to:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleology-biology/

"Reality" is such that it tends to various localized self-regulating systems - homeostasis - the hallmarks of which are order and "purposes" of various types. No doubt that chaos is also an attribute or feature of "reality", but humans at least tend to flourish more on islands of stability than on storm tossed seas.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: The lauded March of Progress ... this Utopia of Stuff ... the growing authoritarian kleptocracies we now have.
Definitely been a case of two steps forward and one back - at best. Though those failures might reasonably be seen as due, in part, to a loss of vision, a repudiation of some of the essential principles of that Enlightement. Unless you want to insist that they're now "null and void"?
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: Pinker is overly sanguine about the power of the Enlightenment. Following its brief burst onto the scene -- primarily limited to the intellectual elite -- it got slammed by Romanticism. Ever since, the two Weltanschauunge have pulled at Western civilization, with Enlightenment usually relegated to hard science and technology. The lefties that Pinker, et al. consider their allies are in fact Romanticists, operating on Feelz B4 Realz. The atheists pleased by the growing trend of a decrease in religious affiliation in the West, ignore -- or are themselves caught up in -- the rise of quasi-religious belief and practice, e.g., the Church of Wokism, the Branch Covidian sect. As we are witnessing, not only have Enlightenment values spread out from their hard science bastions, wokism and covidian madness are in the process of conquering hard science fields.
One might reasonably argue or suggest that Pinker has something of an overly rosy - if not "Romantic" - view on the Enlightenment and on many of the principles which undergird it. And the "Feelz B4 Realz" cohort likewise contribute to the problems we face. Interestingly, Sagan - Himself - emphasized - in his Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle [enlightenment] in the Dark - that far too many of us are more concerned about what feels good than about what is "true":

https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709

However, many here are just as bad by refusing to accept the standard biological definitions for the sexes - "gametes, babies!" - largely because, apparently, they're more concerned about "women" being offended by challenges to their wooish dogma that "sex is immutable" (!!11!! :roll: ):

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And, not to throw stones just at Hunny Bunny - or not many, at least ;) - or put (much) salt on her tail, she exhibits the same wooish commitment to the same "mythic essence" to "female" and "woman" that "philosopher" Jane Clare Jones talked about:
[Hunny Bunny tweeted:] All the people who have ever been, or ever will be pregnant, are wildly diverse in the way they choose to express themselves, but are always women, immutably female.

If you hide the reality of the reproductive class you hide the oppression we experience because we belong to it.
Sure, "reproductive class" is an important concept. And there's some justification for a "political project" to rectify some of the attendant "oppression". But when that is at the cost of a "deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable" then, Houston, we have a problem.

Talk about repudiating the principles of the Enlightenment, about putting feelz B4 realz, about snuffing out that "candle". And, speaking of a "utopia of stuff", not just a problem with "them" ...

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2539

Post by fafnir »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: It's notable that scratch the surface of these enlightened rationalists and revealed are believers in predestination and a teleological universe. 'The Arc of History always bends towards...' and all that nonsense.

The lauded March of Progress has been almost entirely in material objects, luxuries, etc. Globalization was touted as the magical way to accelerate the realization of this Utopia of Stuff. We were assured not to worry about sending all the manufacturing to China, because capitalism and affluence always turns every society into an enlightened, free one, donchaknow. Ditto for Russia, the Middle East, Africa. At best, that would've led to a banal Brave New World dystopia; at worst, the growing authoritarian kleptocracies we now have.

Pinker is overly sanguine about the power of the Enlightenment. Following its brief burst onto the scene -- primarily limited to the intellectual elite -- it got slammed by Romanticism. Ever since, the two Weltanschauunge have pulled at Western civilization, with Enlightenment usually relegated to hard science and technology. The lefties that Pinker, et al. consider their allies are in fact Romanticists, operating on Feelz B4 Realz. The atheists pleased by the growing trend of a decrease in religious affiliation in the West, ignore -- or are themselves caught up in -- the rise of quasi-religious belief and practice, e.g., the Church of Wokism, the Branch Covidian sect. As we are witnessing, not only have Enlightenment values spread out from their hard science bastions, wokism and covidian madness are in the process of conquering hard science fields.
I think I disagree that the woke are Romantics. I would say that Romantics look at modernity and want to get back to some simpler time before factory chimneys, alarm clocks and iPhones. They do it tainted by the forbidden fruit of liberalism, but they are still looking back whistfully.

The difference is that the Hegelian utopia that the woke seek doesn't involve undoing or retreating from modernity. It involves embracing it, ramming it into it's anti-thesis and moving forward. They don't seek a return to the certainties of the past that were stripped away by modernity. They want to keep stripping away faster and faster and somehow paradise lies beyond and through all the destruction.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2540

Post by fafnir »

Steersman wrote: One might reasonably argue or suggest that Pinker has something of an overly rosy - if not "Romantic" - view on the Enlightenment and on many of the principles which undergird it. And the "Feelz B4 Realz" cohort likewise contribute to the problems we face. Interestingly, Sagan - Himself - emphasized - in his Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle [enlightenment] in the Dark - that far too many of us are more concerned about what feels good than about what is "true":

https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709
I think one of the questions of the day is what the implications are for a society who takes Science and rationalism as it's guide. I wonder if you don't inevitably turn Scientists into the new priest class. A priest class the believes in tradition, is a very different proposition to who that demands that tradition constantly justify itself or be thrown out.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2541

Post by fafnir »

Matt,

In Tolkien, doesn't Morgoth torture a bunch of elves to make orcs? I suppose I could buy the woke as being descendents of Romantics that fell under the spell of Marx? I don't know though. Are we saying Robespierre was a Romantic? Lenin?
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven!
Maybe.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2542

Post by Steersman »

fafnir wrote:
Steersman wrote: One might reasonably argue or suggest that Pinker has something of an overly rosy - if not "Romantic" - view on the Enlightenment and on many of the principles which undergird it. And the "Feelz B4 Realz" cohort likewise contribute to the problems we face. Interestingly, Sagan - Himself - emphasized - in his Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle [enlightenment] in the Dark - that far too many of us are more concerned about what feels good than about what is "true":

https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709
I think one of the questions of the day is what the implications are for a society who takes Science and rationalism as it's guide.
Some justification to argue that neither are a panacea, that each have their limitations and potential pitfalls. You may wish to read my further elaborations on that theme ;)



My "take off" there is from a Quillette article - by UK/US lawyer & philosophy prof, Elizabeth Finne - on the "tyranny of the subjective". Some cause to argue that there is also something of a tyranny of the objective - often rather difficult to stick handle between that Scylla and Charybdis.
fafnir wrote: I wonder if you don't inevitably turn Scientists into the new priest class. A priest class the believes in tradition, is a very different proposition to who that demands that tradition constantly justify itself or be thrown out.
Power corrupts and all that. But that's largely why I've often argued that the only thing that that keeps that "new priest class" in check is a well-informed public. Scientists are human too and are just as susceptible as the rest of us to various biases and tendencies to self-aggrandizement. Something of a relevant quote of Feynman - arguably a contender for one of science's patron saints - from that article of mine:
As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science. ….

Each generation that discovers something from its experience must pass that on, but it must pass that on with a delicate balance of respect and disrespect, so that the race … does not inflict its errors too rigidly on its youth, but it does pass on the accumulated wisdom plus the wisdom that it may not be wisdom. ….

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.
No shortage of scientism among so-called scientists - Pinker's suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding. And that no more evident than when it comes to sex and gender.

But y'all might be interested in a somewhat amusing, but rather illuminating, classic science-fiction story on the topic:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... 1204_604.x

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"quant suff", indeed.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2543

Post by Steersman »

John D wrote: For what it is worth fafnir - I am in agreement with you. I am not sure why you engage with Steers who, IMHO, does not really engage in a dialog in good faith. He almost always argues a strawman... and puts words in other peoples mouths.
A scurrilous accusation sir! ;)

Though I'd like to see your evidence for that. Maybe you're a bit careless and sloppy with your phrasing and it's an open question who you're accusing? For example, your more or less justified argument that sex is not a distribution. But that was in a comment to me so it's reasonable to infer that I was the target of it. Particularly since there was no one else that you were explicitly directing any accusation towards of having made a claim that it was.

Further, it's generally recommended to reiterate a paraphrase of the arguments of one's interlocutor as a way of indicating what is understood by it. Large part of the problem of communication is ensuring the message is received without errors. Which repeating it back tends to minimize.
John D wrote: Happy thanksgiving to all the Mericans out there! Best of the holidays as far as I am concerned.
Indeed. Particularly the progressives - and adjacents - who are thankful about having so much to complain about ... ;)

https://babylonbee.com/news/progressive ... -this-year

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2544

Post by MarcusAu »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: Pinker is overly sanguine about the power of the Enlightenment...
Notwithstanding that - I hope you find much to be grateful for in this season.

Boomshanka and all that.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2545

Post by John D »

Steersman wrote:
John D wrote: For what it is worth fafnir - I am in agreement with you. I am not sure why you engage with Steers who, IMHO, does not really engage in a dialog in good faith. He almost always argues a strawman... and puts words in other peoples mouths.
A scurrilous accusation sir! ;)
Let me try to tell you what my problems are.

Steers - I think you might enjoy fighting so much that you don't listen enough. This becomes frustrating to me. You like to rehash topics that I have tried to clarify... and then you seem to change the meaning of what we discussed. For example: I wrote that sex is not a distribution. I think you agree with this. I wrote this in a post that was not written to anyone in particular. But... you decided I was making a claim about you. When I clarified that this is just something I wanted to opine upon... and you suggested we were in agreement... you continued to bring up the topic strangely attacking me on my post. I think you just like to continue to shit on me even when we agree. I don't enjoy this kind of conversation.

I think you are also not sincere in trying to understand the opinion of others. Even when I clarify my opinion you go back to the original unclarified post and continue to attack it. This is not the way to have a good conversation. It is a way to have an argument for the sake of argument. But the conversation is low quality and quickly gets frustrating. Example: I started my convo about the normal distribution with a statement that it is a fantastic tool. I also suggested that it is often misapplied. Rather than try to understand my point you simply stated that I think the normal distribution is not useful. I never said this. I clarified that the normal distribution is great. I provided examples of how I have found it misapplied. But you continue to make strange claims about what I said. So, our convo quickly became boring and frustrating to me.

I have a theory that you would rather just have an argument instead of trying to understand what others really mean. You read into someone's comment in the least generous way you can. It reminds me of how people argue who are in a bad relationship... where couples continue to fight over old slights that have no meaning anymore... they just want to fight... bringing up old mistakes or old statements that have long been apologized for, or clarified. It is called "toxic". Are you being toxic Steers?


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2546

Post by Steersman »

John D wrote:
Steersman wrote:
John D wrote: For what it is worth fafnir - I am in agreement with you. I am not sure why you engage with Steers who, IMHO, does not really engage in a dialog in good faith. He almost always argues a strawman... and puts words in other peoples mouths.
A scurrilous accusation sir! ;)
Let me try to tell you what my problems are.

Steers - I think you might enjoy fighting so much that you don't listen enough.
I don't know that you also "enjoy fighting" - expect you get enough of that at home ... ;)

But you rather clearly aren't listening yourself. I've said several times that we agree that "sex is not a distribution" , that "normal distributions are great" but that many people "misapply" the principles. Not quite sure what you think I'm saying that is scientifically or mathematically unjustified or untenable.

No doubt the details get convoluted and they're easy to miss in conversations spread out over lengthy periods of time and distance. But you might want to pay closer attention to what I'm saying - a review of my various comments might help, this one in particular:
John D wrote: And has anyone seen actual large sample IQ data and tested it for normalcy? It doesn't look very normal to me. And how do these IQ testers get their population? So many questions.... so much bullshit.

<snip>
Kinda think you're missing the point. That some samples are not perfectly normal does not mean that the whole population is likewise not normal - sampling theorems and all that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_distribution

But that the samples - for say men's and women's heights or IQs - may be distorted or not be perfectly symmetrical like normal distributions does not mean that they are no longer useful or valuable. As you've more or less agreed.
I am NOT saying that IQ distributions - or those for heights or "agreeableness" - are actually normally distributed. I'm saying that the normal distribution is still a model that can still be used in such cases. But let's get down to brass tacks, to IQ distributions since you seem reluctant to consider the relevance of statistics and normal distributions to that psychological trait in particular and to psychological traits in general.

Consider this graph is a more or less accurate model for "joint probability distributions" for IQs by sex (nominally speaking):

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Would you agree - assuming that that is more or less accurate - that we could reasonably say that in the 33% of the population with IQs in the 113 to 150 range some 20% are "males" and that some 13% are "females"? About a 3 to 2 ratio in favour of "males"? Regardless of the cause for that discrepancy?

Maybe the cause for some of that is, as you've suggested, genetic. And maybe some of it is opportunities. Or biases in the various criteria tested - maybe a different set would emphasize or diminish such "disparities".

But maybe those disparities are relevant to which types of social policies we create in various circumstances. That's the crux of the whole clusterfuck over sex and gender. Which a better understanding of statistics among the general population might help to alleviate.

Sure, various "bumps" in the distributions may change those numbers slightly - 18% and 15%, or even 15% & 18% depending on particular tests and circumstances - different professions for example. But trying to throw out that tool, particularly in social sciences - as Fafnir seems bound and determined to do - doesn't seem particularly wise. Don't think he has a clue about even the most basic principles of science, statistics in particular, his various protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. You at least have, or should have, a better handle on that.

As something of a case in point, he suggested - if I'm not mistaken - that the two bumps - more like a plateau - in the "male" agreeableness distribution near the peak more or less justified rejecting any similarities with the normal distribution model:


However, some "bumps" are substantially more relevant - of higher significance - than others, although deciding on that seems something of a thorny issue or tricky question which I don't have a very good handle on myself.

But in the case of IQs, maybe some of the bumps are, as suggested, due to genetics. But maybe there's some value in that information, in tracking down which genes contribute to that? Maybe to motivate gene-replacement therapy? Or less invasive therapies? Analogously, maybe there are more "females" with bad eyesight due to genetics. Which might motivate gene-replacement therapy or easier access for "females" to glasses or to more thorough testing.

The point is that such "bumps" - such anomalies relative to the normal distribution model - often indicate underlying causes that we might find some profit in understanding. You in particular might appreciate or at least understand its broader relevance, particularly to particle physics:

https://blog.smu.edu/smucern/2010/09/21/bump-hunting/

See too:
This thesis investigates some problems related to the form and shape of statistical distributions with the main focus on goodness of fit and bump hunting. A bump is a distinctive characteristic of distributional shape. A search for bumps, or bump hunting, in a probability density function (PDF) has long been an important topic in statistical research.
https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/handle/11375/21462

Some "bumps" are more important or relevant than others; insisting that they're all the same - as so many do, though that may or may not exclude you - is profoundly "anti-scientific and anti-intellectual".
John D wrote: It reminds me of how people argue who are in a bad relationship... where couples continue to fight over old slights that have no meaning anymore... they just want to fight... bringing up old mistakes or old statements that have long been apologized for, or clarified. It is called "toxic". Are you being toxic Steers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k
:)

But I'm really NOT looking for an argument, at least just for the sake of arguing. I'm looking to reach something of a consensus - though eggs and omelettes.

But we can't possibly solve various social problems without it, without some common ground. And science, mathematics and statistics - and objectivity - generally seems a better bet than pretty much anything else on tap.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2547

Post by John D »

We should avoid using the normal distribution on data sets that are not normal. This will lead to mistakes in our conclusions… especially at the tails of the data. This is how we should use statistics… that is all. Over and out.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2548

Post by fafnir »

John D wrote: We should avoid using the normal distribution on data sets that are not normal. This will lead to mistakes in our conclusions… especially at the tails of the data. This is how we should use statistics… that is all. Over and out.

Is Steersman normally distributed? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2549

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

When white dudes in TX chimpout, they make sure to go through every stage of Stupid before the predicable finale:

https://www.kcbd.com/2021/11/24/attorne ... -shooting/

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2550

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

fafnir wrote: Is Steersman normally distributed? Inquiring minds want to know.
Steerz makes my head spin. Not sure whether clockwise or counterclockwise though.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2551

Post by Service Dog »

I've just returned from 4 long days of Thanksgiving, as a houseguest in the Hamptons. The host is a wealthy boomer jew deadhead, with Grateful Dead posters on every wall & above every toilet. And more drug paraphernalia spilling off every end-table & countertop-- than if you went-thru an entire issue of HIGH TIMES magazine, ordering the wares of every advertiser.

The guy has that autistic ashkenazi a.d.d. adderal vibe. He's basically James Altucher. https://youtu.be/bzmgkGWnyEg

He's a bad trip, a headache, exhausting. To describe him accurately-- is like scrolling thru an Anti-Defamation League list of stereotypes.

It's not enough that you must loooooove the Grateful Dead. You can't have your own opinions... his bigbrain take on every fucking thing must be bowed-down to. He was watching the new Beatles documentary. Invited me to sit & join him. I said, "Do you you like The Rutles?" His eyes flashed hate & he boomed "NO!" And I cruised right out of there & let him watch that with other people... the next 3 nights.

He asked about my experience with the Dead. I told a story: as a small child I thought the name sounded sinister. No one should be happy to die. And their album covers had skulls on them-- so I thought they were some kind of dark metal doom band. And the first time I heard them... A grade school kid had tape-traders in his family... so he brought a cassette & boombox on the school bus... and said "this is the Grateful Dead" and when I listened-- the tape was so worn-out and dub-of-a-dub-of-a-dub... and the bus was so noisy/ and the boombox was so shoddy... that all I heard was static and noise... which mistakenly confirmed my prior guess about this scary evil band. My punchline... was that I learned about the Grateful Dead like a kid learns about sex on the playground... from another kid who has no idea what he's talking about.

But this Boomer couldn't handle hearing my story... it wasn't properly reverential... so he freaked-out & stormed-off before the end. And that was Day 1 of a 4 day visit. What a looooong, strange turd has-been. (He stopped asking me questions & I stopped volunteering opinions.) He had his grown sons & a rotation of weed cronies to hang out with. I stuck with the womenfolk who had invited-me.

Also on display was some Trump Derangement Syndrome, Covid Derangement, and anti-Rittenhouse Derangement. I limited myself to arguing a single point (with a different person, the Hostess). After hearing a long, factually-impaired diatribe against Kyle... I took a stand that the problem was "poor parenting" by his mother. I said I didn't think his mother was a bad mother, or bad person, or a racist. The Hostess blew a gasket, but was too drunk for the conflict to go-anywhere. Should could monologue, but not talk back-and-forth. So the talk stopped there.

Yesterday was the thing I'd looked-forward to most... head out to a bar/restaurant on the docks with the ship-captain & wife from my seafood-selling job, for an end-of-year crew party. We had a great time. We goofed around on the rustbucket boat which feeds us. Complete with a FUCK BIDEN flag proudly flying. And we made fun of all the rich brain-dead-Democrats.

Dropping us off-- back at the Deadhead house... the Captain came in briefly to wish 'Happy Thanksgiving' to the Boomer Jew Deadhead. They played a game of foosball (I told ya: drug paraphernalia!). The Captain won 2-0. The Boomer was a poor loser. Captain & wife went home to relieve babysitter. Then, late into the night, the Boomer boomed to his wifey, and to no-one, and to The Beatles on the TV... "Did he come over here just to eat my cheese? I thought they went out to dinner?! Did you see how much of my cheese & crackers he ate?!" 9 minutes later, his impaired hypothalamus would lose more short term memory... and he'd start ranting about his cheese again. Oy vey.

Late at night, in the dark, in our bed, overhearing this nonsense... GF & agreed to rise early & GTFO... and not eat any of that guy's cheese.

I can't begin to guess what his actual unspoken complaint about the Captain is. I heard him spit-out a complaint that the captain is 'a catholic', and 'a german'. He also called him a nazi in my presence-- before he remembered that I'm not just an out-of-towner... I know the Capt & I work for him... and there's a chance I'd repeat that to him... so the Boomer mumbled a disclaimer 'he's not a nazi'.

One theory: the Boomer had this fire ring thing on his deck... he loved keeping it aflame for hours... even if no one was outside enjoying it. (Grateful Dead music also constantly piped onto the deck... for an audience of no one/passerby wild turkeys & deer/ the neighbor's dog.) But both of the Boomer's dogs stood to close to the fire... and their long hair was singed like burnt cotton candy. They dogs weren't hurt. They smelled like burnt hair, tho. When the captain arrived... he said "Happy Thanksgiving! Where are your dogs? I heard you set them on fire!" I think the undeniable truth of this... pissed-off the Boomer. Oopsie. i was the one who told the Captain about the burnt dogs.

Steersman
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2552

Post by Steersman »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
fafnir wrote: Is Steersman normally distributed? Inquiring minds want to know.
Steerz makes my head spin. Not sure whether clockwise or counterclockwise though.
:) "Edge of chaos"? Probably a good sign as it suggests something of a less dogmatic frame of mind than is characteristic of too many here ... ;)

Though that concept has some utility in understanding a wide range of phenomena, population dynamics and evolution in particular, something you seem to have something of a commendable interest in and affinity for:
The edge of chaos is a transition space between order and disorder that is hypothesized to exist within a wide variety of systems. This transition zone is a region of bounded instability that engenders a constant dynamic interplay between order and disorder.

Even though the idea of the edge of chaos is an abstract one, it has many applications in such fields as ecology, business management, psychology, political science, and other domains of the social sciences. Physicists have shown that adaptation to the edge of chaos occurs in almost all systems with feedback.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos

Though, as with many concepts, many tend to put more weight on them than is justified, if not investing them with egregious woo - QM & Deepak Chopra for example. And even Stuart Kauffman, to some degree, with his "Reinventing the Sacred".

Still, many in the field provide cogent - if convoluted or complicated - criticisms of overly-optimistic or rosy claims while still endorsing related principles:
The symmetry-breaking effects we described here may be similar to symmetry-breaking phenomena such as bilateral symmetry and handedness that emerge in biological evolution. It is our goal to develop a more rigorous framework for understanding these mechanisms in the context of evolving CA [cellular automata]. We believe that a deep understanding of these mechanisms in this relatively simple context can yield insights for understanding evolutionary processes in general and for successfully applying evolutionary-computation methods to complex problems.
https://melaniemitchell.me/PapersContent/rev-edge.pdf

You may be interested in a more or less painless introduction to the field by one of the authors of that study, Melanie Mitchell:



Interestingly and of some relevance to current "debates", she made some cogent observations relative to the process of defining our terms:
Any perusal of the history of science will show that the lack of a universally accepted definition of a central term is more common than not. …. Science often makes progress by inventing new terms to describe incompletely understood phenomena; these terms are gradually refined as the science matures and the phenomena become more completely understood.
That "refining" seems to be an essential element of most if not all sciences and scientists, at least any that are worthy of the name.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2553

Post by Service Dog »

GF calls the mandatory Grateful Dead Appreciation-moments "Chinese Re-Education Camp".




John D
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2554

Post by John D »

You know way more interesting people than I do Dog -

Spent the last few days in Delaware with my niece (white), her husband (black), their daughter (50/50), His mom and dad (black).... and of course my wife (white). So a perfect split... three whites, three blacks and one mixed. We leave on Monday.

We had enough food, all traditional, to feed about 20 people... haha. Beef, turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberries, mac and cheese, green beans, apples, 5 pies. It was all delicious. We are eating just leftovers today.

All went well. We didn't talk politics and stuff. We gave thanks to god. We ate. We watched the Lions loose again. I asked the dad at the start of the game if the players took a knee. I said "I didn't notice then take a knee." and he said... "Oh yeah... that protest is over." We talked about singing. His goto song is "One in a Million" and he sang a few bars. We complained about getting old and we talked about dogs.

Sandy and I watched "Dune". It was pretty good. Fairly faithful to the book... but... it didn't really move me for some reason. I just think I have seen so many modern CGI sci fi movies I am bored with the whole thing. The neat thing about "Dune", IMHO, is when it was written and how it framed its universe at that time. The technology, as presented, of the distant future really doesn't make sense anymore. I mean... they don't even have tape recorders... haha.

Steers is definitely +/- 6 sigma.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2555

Post by Brive1987 »

fafnir wrote: Matt,

In Tolkien, doesn't Morgoth torture a bunch of elves to make orcs? I suppose I could buy the woke as being descendents of Romantics that fell under the spell of Marx? I don't know though. Are we saying Robespierre was a Romantic? Lenin?
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven!
Maybe.
“ But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar.”

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2556

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Service Dog wrote: Grateful Dead posters ... above every toilet.
Perfect location.

I've found deadheads to be the most narcissistic, self-absorbed twats imaginable.

Brive1987
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2557

Post by Brive1987 »

Came across a new term (for me)

“Gender confirmation surgery”

Aka - cutting your dick off to appease the inner voices.

Seems sane. 😐

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2558

Post by Steersman »

Brive1987 wrote: Came across a new term (for me)

“Gender confirmation surgery”

Aka - cutting your dick off to appease the inner voices.

Seems sane. 😐
Monstrous, ain't it? Why I've argued on Twitter that that is turning dysphoric and - often - autistic children into sexless eunuchs. Putting a glitter-and-rainbows-and-unicorns gloss on that rather ugly fact helps no one. Bloody criminal in more ways than one. But probably a large part of the reason why I've been suspended from Twitter.

Why I've also argued - same consequence - that the euphemism "MtF (male to female) transitions" - sadly used even by more or less rational sites like Quillette - is egregiously anti and quite un-scientific. An outright fraud:

https://quillette.com/2021/04/02/when-s ... suffering/

Something of an analogous term is "gender-affirmation surgery" and "care" (??!!). ICYMI, quite a good essay at 4th Wave Now on the topic by Hacsi Horváth - "adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) ... expert in clinical epidemiology, particularly in systematic review methods, epidemiologic bias and evidence quality assessment":
For about 13 years, I also masqueraded “as a woman,” taking medical measures which suggest, shall we say, that I was completely committed to that lifestyle. Most men would have recoiled from this, but in my estrogen-drug-soaked stupor it seemed like a good idea. In 2013 I stopped taking estrogen for health reasons and very rapidly came back to my senses. I ceased all effort to convey the impression that I was a woman and carried on with life.
Maybe not surprising that he now has "a lot of anger at transgenderism and its enablers, as well as an 'inward bruise' (as Melville called it)", that he is "not a happy camper", has "been badly harmed", and "far angrier that thousands of young people are being irreversibly altered and sterilized as they are inducted into a drug-dependent and medically-maimed lifestyle":

https://4thwavenow.com/2018/12/19/the-t ... -identity/

Marginally acceptable that adults do that to themselves, but to trick kids into making that "choice" has to qualify as a medical scandal to rival Mengele and the Tuskegee syphilis study. Whole bunch of "doctors" who should lose their licenses if not be strung up by their nuts - if they still have them - and be left to twist in the wind.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2559

Post by John D »

Haha. and it had been going so well. During a game of "Stone Age" (which I won twice) Rittenhouse came up. I swear that I didn't start it. I was a bit drunk so I don't remember exactly how it started. My position has been that Rittenhouse was foolish... but did nothing illegal. This was not popular. My wife, who thought he shot three black men, decided he should do community service at least. I don't know how she came up with this. Rittenhouse already spent months in jail. I said that he was found to be not-guilty and asked how she proposed he be punished. There was no answer.... she just felt this would be right.

Niece and nephew both said he broke the law by crossing state lines with an illegal gun. Of course, it didn't help when I explained he legally crossed state lines and was carrying a legal rifle. My wife even looked up my claim and read the news article that supported my position. But then the discussion inevitably turned to the claim that no one should have a assault rifle. I had to go through the whole story that an AR-15 is just a hunting rifle with a handle that looks scary. It is a popular gun because it is fun to shoot. It was concluded by the others that this gun was just not acceptable... for reasons of fee-fees.

It was concluded that 17 year old kids should never be allowed to carry a rifle even though they can drive, be charged as an adult in crimes, etc. The solution is that if you are really hunting...well...then you can carry. I guess you have to prove you are hunting in some way.

Race came up when my black nephew-in-law asked me what would happen if Kyle was black. I said that if he was black he would not have been charged with a crime. He was NOT HAPPY with this answer. He went sideways by talking about all the publicized cases where he thought blacks were unfairly charged. I dodged and said I couldn't discuss the specifics of a case without looking into it.

It is clear that almost everyone in my life thinks Rittenhouse must be guilty of something cause of their fee-fees.

Anyway... I expect we will be able to agree to disagree. I am okay if they disagree with me. If they want to know what I think I will tell them. And if they don't ask I just stay quiet. I can live with this.


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2561

Post by Service Dog »

John D wrote: Race came up when my black nephew-in-law asked me what would happen if Kyle was black. I said that if he was black he would not have been charged with a crime.
Things I woulda tried to say. (And I surely woulda failed)...

1.) In both-- Kyle's interview with Tucker Carlsen & his interview with Ashleigh Banfield-- Kyle said that his case proves-true BLM's claims that prosecutorial misconduct is widespread.
--
2.) Kyle was already in Kenosha days-earlier, _before_ the protests were declared to be riots, and a curfew was imposed. 29 protesters charged with breaking curfew-- many of them armed & black... and the curfew charges were DROPPED in _all_ 29 cases. The same charges were held against Kyle for 14 months... until AFTER the jury had been told he had broken curfew. Only then did the prosecutors withdrew the charges.

-------

I know so many people have already experienced the Thanksgiving family political friction thing-- all through Trump, Impeachment, Covid, Masking & Lockdowns, Vaccination, BLM/kneeling, George Floyd Riots...

I was late to the party-- by having my first-such experience this year.

But my nerves are still tingling-- for all the houseguests eating turkey-- in a minefield. Yikes.

--
My last morning in that house-- was with TV blaring Good Morning America-- all this "Omicron Variant" news. The next wave of divisive stupidity.

I'm home, relaxed, and lacking in overt lasting-butthurt. But I'm VERY aware that the host's jewishness was a key factor in what an odious asshole he was...

and... for the 1st time in my life... I think the sad rightwing cranks who freak-out about jews are justified. I still think it's ugly & it weakens the complainer to dwell on it...

but I can't say their crackpot theory is wrong. This host guy would blather-away on speakerphone to his lawyer & say shit that was a combination of LARRY DAVID and JOE EXOTIC. Dialogue straight out of heavy-handed stormfront propaganda. Or Ferengi dialogue. At one point, he actually recited a monologue about who it is-and-isn't ok to Lend and Owe money to: (Borrowing-from "Family" and "our people", yes. Borrowing from mere "friends" and "banks" no.) (Lending-to? Anybody who you can make a buck. Even if it's a friend & they're gonna use the money to ruin their life with drugs & gambling.)

I don't think I'm gonna become a jew-hater... for vain reasons of hipster dignity. I think it's deeply uncool to be That Guy. But I'm gonna be oddly relieved... when I see (for example) some oaf stinking-up a MAGA forum with tired-old anti-jewish cliches. I'll be less-concerned about his bile. I'll think... 'well... he's not Making It Up.' Instead of questioning his motives... I'll think he might genuinely consider himself Paul Revere... warning his compatriots about a perceived threat.

--
I wanted to offer some message of solidarity-- to keep ya cool & sane-- if you're still in the minefield, John. But... I don't have any particular wise words.


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2563

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

My thanksgiving party was just me, the GF, and my parents, who I'd only seen twice before in the past two years thanks to the Dempanic. My folks must've either decided to roll the dice, or believe the not-really-a-vax protects them. My dad's had a booster, but more than two weeks ago, so .... As a precaution, I swallowed some more horse goop before their arrival.

The closest we came to a political discussion was when my folks made a passing comment on understaffing, and GF went on a wee rant about well maybe if the government stopped paying people to not work they might actually have to go out and work. She's been an 'essential worker' all this time, and has little tolerance for all this shit. But then the moment passed as we were drinking a very nice Loire white.

My dad rode in my new truck and wanted to pay to fill it up, but we were late getting back for Day Two dinner so I blew off the gas station. I said, 'that's okay dad -- you can just slip me an $85 dollar bill.' Oh and I told him how the county was going to hell, with Central American drug cartel moving in and stealing water from fire hydrants and shit, and how 80% of our LE calls are for the crazy homeless doing crazy homeless stupid shit. And how one of the four fires in my neighborhood this summer was a crazy homeless lady who decided she really needed a 72-hour purification fire, but the slightly less dreggy dregs of my hamlet caught her cuz she was dragging logs through the local dive bar, beat the living shit out of her and called 911 before the fire got out of hand. Because, as quoted in the paper, "we're community and we take care of each other." Of course, they'd called 911 on her the day before when she announced she really needed a 72-hour purification fire, but the sheriff had no ordinance on which to book her. And then I pointed out all the spots along the road where I'd called code compliance on the transients living in Winnebagos with expired Oregon plates. Then my dad asked if I had any cheery news to share but not really.

I anticipate some row or another at Xmas, when my sister will join us, as she usually makes some political statement then gets pissy if you refute it. Cuz, like John's extended family and Dog's social contacts, she only talks to like-minded people, who don't really discuss so much as share quasi-religious affirmations of faith.

Nevertheless, Thanksgiving was delightful, and I made my famous turkey ballotine.
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2564

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Service Dog wrote: eld. Yikes.
At one point, he actually recited a monologue about who it is-and-isn't ok to Lend and Owe money to: (Borrowing-from "Family" and "our people", yes. Borrowing from mere "friends" and "banks" no.) (Lending-to? Anybody who you can make a buck. Even if it's a friend & they're gonna use the money to ruin their life with drugs & gambling.)
In Boston, I worked in accounts receivable for an Eikk-owned wine importer. They had a seven-tiered pricing structure for commercial clients, depending on how Eikk-owned the business was. All these businesses had similar pricing schemes for each other -- that way, they all paid less in sales tax. Goyim were Tier One -- full price. Tier Seven was reserved for Massachusetts Envelope, who not only were Eikk, but had married into the family.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2565

Post by Steersman »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
Service Dog wrote: Grateful Dead posters ... above every toilet.
Perfect location.

I've found deadheads to be the most narcissistic, self-absorbed twats imaginable.
Guess we all have our "mono-manias" - of one sort or degree, or another. ;) Probably been years since I listened to much of them, but certainly enjoyed many of their songs - Truckin', Friend of the Devil, Sugar Magnolia: Skeletons from the Closet, indeed. Thanks for the memories ... :)

But somewhat apropos which and maybe of some more or less common ground, I just ran across this about a couple of your favourite people, David Sloane Wilson and Bret Weinstein ;) , in the context of the "group selection controversy":



Won't go into a lot of detail at the moment, but genuflecting a bit to SD's recent comments about "Da Jews", one might reasonably wonder whether you think that species - or groups or races - that are characterized by greater degrees of mutual assistance and support are more likely to survive than those that aren't. Group selection in a nutshell?

Likewise with this article in Quanta Magazine by Natalie Wolchover, she of the "How Accurate is Wikipedia?" essay:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/beyond-t ... w-20141015

Of particular note for others here is the title, "Beyond the Bell Curve" ... ;)

You probably won't be much interested in or familiar with some of the mathematical arcana - much of which is way outside my own salary range, but maybe more so with an analogy from population dynamics which serves as an entree to that arcana:
Imagine an archipelago where each island hosts a single tortoise species and all the islands are connected — say by rafts of flotsam. As the tortoises interact by dipping into one another’s food supplies, their populations fluctuate.

In 1972, the biologist Robert May devised a simple mathematical model that worked much like the archipelago. He wanted to figure out whether a complex ecosystem can ever be stable or whether interactions between species inevitably lead some to wipe out others. By indexing chance interactions between species as random numbers in a matrix, he calculated the critical “interaction strength” — a measure of the number of flotsam rafts, for example — needed to destabilize the ecosystem. Below this critical point, all species maintained steady populations. Above it, the populations shot toward zero or infinity.

Little did May know, the tipping point he discovered was one of the first glimpses of a curiously pervasive statistical law.
Maybe that "degree of interconnection" - both between and among species - is something of a minor detail. But maybe it's a point, a hinge on which the whole world turns. Or at least some profitable conversations here.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2566

Post by Steersman »

Service Dog wrote:
John D wrote: Race came up when my black nephew-in-law asked me what would happen if Kyle was black. I said that if he was black he would not have been charged with a crime.
Things I woulda tried to say. (And I surely woulda failed)...

<snip>

but I can't say their crackpot theory is wrong. This host guy would blather-away on speakerphone to his lawyer & say shit that was a combination of LARRY DAVID and JOE EXOTIC. Dialogue straight out of heavy-handed stormfront propaganda. Or Ferengi dialogue. At one point, he actually recited a monologue about who it is-and-isn't ok to Lend and Owe money to: (Borrowing-from "Family" and "our people", yes. Borrowing from mere "friends" and "banks" no.) (Lending-to? Anybody who you can make a buck. Even if it's a friend & they're gonna use the money to ruin their life with drugs & gambling.)

I don't think I'm gonna become a jew-hater... for vain reasons of hipster dignity. I think it's deeply uncool to be That Guy. But I'm gonna be oddly relieved... when I see (for example) some oaf stinking-up a MAGA forum with tired-old anti-jewish cliches. I'll be less-concerned about his bile. I'll think... 'well... he's not Making It Up.' Instead of questioning his motives... I'll think he might genuinely consider himself Paul Revere... warning his compatriots about a perceived threat.
Indeed. ICYMI, y'all - Matt in particular ;) - might like this essay by John Hartung who was quoted favourably in Dawkins' The God Delusion:
The world’s major religions espouse a moral code that includes injunctions against murder, theft, and lying – or so conventional 19th- and 20th-century Western wisdom would have it. Evidence put forth here argues that this convention is a conceit which does not apply to the West’s own religious foundations. In particular, rules against murder, theft, and lying codified by the Ten Commandments were intended to apply only within a cooperating group for the purpose of enabling that group to compete successfully against other groups. In addition, this in-group morality has functioned, both historically and by express intent, to create adverse circumstances between groups by actively promoting murder, theft, and lying as tools of competition. Contemporary efforts to present Judeo-Christian in-group morality as universal morality defy the plain meaning of the texts upon which Judaism and Christianity are based. Accordingly, that effort is ultimately hopeless
http://www.strugglesforexistence.com/re ... -morality/

Some snippets in the same vein from Philip Wylie's "Generation of Vipers", written about 1942, (pages 80-88; highly recommended):
Hitler explained to the people that they had not been beaten, but betrayed. This is everyman’s alibi-the foolish abuse of himself that keeps his eyes closed to truth, his brain unaware of blame, and his feet walking toward darkness. Because they had been beaten—and damn well beaten—by a somewhat, although not vastly, more honest and integrated group of nations, they liked to hear that they had not been beaten, but sold down the river. ....

Hitler rescued the German ego—which was, as we have seen, bound up in the idea of arms, destruction, and invincibility, and which had been frustrated. He told them that, because of their purity and integrity of motive, they had been the innocent victims of—the Jews! ....

To the glum and frustrated instincts of these people, this folly made sense. It takes a very detached man to admit he had got his arm chopped off because he was silly, or vain, or inordinately greedy. Men as groups have not yet evolved far enough ever to admit collective, contemporary viciousness. ....

The “factual case against the Jews,” upon investigation, crumbles away so completely that a man who was anti-Semitic (if he had intelligence—an impossibility, however, since being anti-Semitic precludes the attribute) would have to change his opinion at once, when confronted with the data. .... This is, of course, a suicide of all reason by the deliberate self-deceiver and represents the birth of a treacherous man—a man who, having seen the truth and recognized it, adheres nevertheless to a dishonesty.

Why?

That is the question which, for the last ten years, has racked the mind of every Jew—German, American, English, Spanish, Austrian, Russian, and probably Chinese, if any of them still know they are Jewish. One reason is simple. The so-called “case against the Jew” is the case against humanity. The fault of the Jew is the fault of mankind. But it happens that, in every large nation, there exists a minority of Jews who have carefully maintained their separate identity.

However, that is only part of the ferocious rot. Anti-Semitism has stained the centuries. There must have been, once, a reason for it, a point of origin. And there was— long ago. The Jews, sadly enough, have their religion, to blame for their now senseless predicament. ....

The Jews, beyond all men until the Nazis, carried that particular vanity to its outermost excess—the segregation of themselves from the rest of humanity, into a “superrace.” Their vainglorious beginnings are traceable in the Old Testament. Under Joshua, and others, they rolled over the Near East, burning cities, leveling them, sowing salt in the ruins, carrying away the woman for concubines, and putting the males to death. If you will take the trouble to read the Talmud, you will find that the orthodox Jews had a code (which they practice no more than we do the villainous codes of our Old Testament) whereby there was even a separate morality for Jews. It was necessary for them to be honest and decent only with each other. All the rest of mankind was cold turkey, to be preyed upon, cheated, lied to, swindled, and knocked on the head. No punishment for gutting a goy. Ten points and a gold star, rather-as in Mohammedanism.*
Wylie offered some qualifications to that rather damning portrait of the Jews - and humanity itself - in subsequent editions, but still seems a reasonably accurate one, on all accounts.

https://vultureofcritique.files.wordpre ... vipers.pdf
Service Dog wrote: --
I wanted to offer some message of solidarity-- to keep ya cool & sane-- if you're still in the minefield, John. But... I don't have any particular wise words.
Some justification for letting sleeping dogs lay - or lie as the case may be. But crunch time seems to be approaching rapidly, a population bottle-neck of sorts. Going to be necessary to call a spade a fucking shovel, to draw a line in the sand.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2567

Post by Service Dog »

Fuck it... I'm gonna skip right-past a jew-hating phase... and proceed directly to freaking-out about Reptilians...


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2568

Post by Steersman »

Service Dog wrote: Fuck it... I'm gonna skip right-past a jew-hating phase... and proceed directly to freaking-out about Reptilians...

https://youtu.be/nSAW1u2ZJ8I
Sounds reasonable. If you're going to go crazy then you might just as well go whole hog ... ;)

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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... nd/534231/

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2569

Post by Service Dog »

Steersman's Atlantic article is from 2017 & the laundry list of crazy conspiracy theories includes zero mention of 'Russia' 'pee tape' or 'Steele dossier'.

Zero mention of Hillary & the news networks' delusions about russian bots on facebook deciding the 2016 election.

The article claims 'fake news' is only Trump trying to deflect true things he doesn't want to hear-- not a real phenomenon of actual fakeness.

There's no mention of Deep State fuckery with FISA warrants, or selective prosecution, or cover-ups of wrongdoing by their field agents/ or cover-ups of mass domestic spying on US citizens-- by their topmost officials.

...the only reference to 'officials at the FBI, the CIA, and military intelligence agencies'-- refers to Vietnam-era surveilance & infiltration of leftwing protesters.

Also looking-back to the 1960's & 70's, the article claims "urban police departments, convinced themselves that peaceful antiwar protesters and campus lefties in general were dangerous militants" as-if that's an impossibility.

In hindsight, the worldview of the paranoid MAGA crowd has aged-better than the snarky-left media elite-- who wrote & published that link.


I didn't read the article thoroughly-- this time. Maybe I did, some previous time Steerzo spammed us with the same-old basket of lynx.

But I should read it-- to count how many things the author scoffed-at... which came true. I see a tidbit about a muscle-car owner who fears his gasoline powered vehicle will be outlawed. And, of course, that on the lawbooks as a goal in California-- with a deadline next-decade. Same in Biden's official agenda.

I'm sure there's many-more.

Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2570

Post by Service Dog »

Steersman’s Atlantic article, as seen from late-2021:


Begins by mocking George Dubya Bush— oh, but in 2021 Dubya is a wise statesman, for being anti-Trump!

And the Stephen Colbert is invoked— as someone who debunks political hacks. Not-yet a hack himself!

Namely— the concept of ‘truthiness’— things which aren’t literally true, but true-enough if someone wishes it were true.
Which was considered laughable, when attributed to Dubya circa 2003. Oh— but it’s the woke gospel today! Choose you own gender, using truthiness. Pulitizer for the 1619 Project, re-writing history to suit butthurt black fee-fees. And, of course, Big Tech censorship of ‘misinformation’ (aka that-which is literally true/ but contrary to NPC programming.

And I gotta laugh at Encyclopedia Britannica being lauded as a bastion of accuracy— in a Steersman link! tee hee!

Then the author makes a ‘facts not feelings’ argument. That wouldn’t fly today! That’s Ben Shapiro talk, now!


...aw fuck. I barely began. Then I ran out of give a fuck.


Steersman
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2572

Post by Steersman »

Service Dog wrote: Steersman’s Atlantic article, as seen from late-2021:


Begins by mocking George Dubya Bush— oh, but in 2021 Dubya is a wise statesman, for being anti-Trump!

And the Stephen Colbert is invoked— as someone who debunks political hacks. Not-yet a hack himself!

Namely— the concept of ‘truthiness’— things which aren’t literally true, but true-enough if someone wishes it were true.
Which was considered laughable, when attributed to Dubya circa 2003. Oh— but it’s the woke gospel today! Choose you own gender, using truthiness. Pulitizer for the 1619 Project, re-writing history to suit butthurt black fee-fees. And, of course, Big Tech censorship of ‘misinformation’ (aka that-which is literally true/ but contrary to NPC programming.

And I gotta laugh at Encyclopedia Britannica being lauded as a bastion of accuracy— in a Steersman link! tee hee!

Then the author makes a ‘facts not feelings’ argument. That wouldn’t fly today! That’s Ben Shapiro talk, now!


...aw fuck. I barely began. Then I ran out of give a fuck.
Glad you at least read portions of that article, although it seems not very closely nor with any sort of balance. You might try reading the book, even the Wikipedia article:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasyla ... nt_Haywire

For one thing, the book was published Sept 2017, barely 9 months after inauguration; expect author didn't finish it before early 2017, probably some time before "pee-gate" and "fake news" became topical.

But you look to have your thumbs - to the elbows - on the scales. You going to defend the nuttiness on the right? "Doctor" Sheri Tenpenny who insisted that covid vaccines were turning people into magnets?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7934660/magn ... ctor-ohio/

You look to be a classic case of saying, "four legs good, two legs bad" - plenty of blame to go around. You all ready to concede that the standard biological definitions for the sexes are based on having functional gonads of either of two types? "fantasy-prone true believers", "the irrational has become respectable", and "suspicion of science and reason and an embrace of magical thinking", indeed.

The author's shots at "truthiness" were hardly targeting just those on the right; he spends no small amount of time and effort taking well-aimed ones at the social constructionists on the left and in academia - although those two groups are more or less synonymous:
When a political-science professor attacks the idea “that there is some ‘public’ that shares a notion of reality, a concept of reason, and a set of criteria by which claims to reason and rationality are judged,” colleagues just nod and grant tenure. The old fringes have been folded into the new center. The irrational has become respectable and often unstoppable. ....

The [Esalen] institute wholly reinvented psychology, medicine, and philosophy, driven by a suspicion of science and reason and an embrace of magical thinking .... It was a headquarters for a new religion of no religion, and for “science” containing next to no science. ....

Roszak spends 270 pages glorying in the younger generation’s “brave” rejection of expertise and “all that our culture values as ‘reason’ and ‘reality.’ ” (Note the scare quotes.) So-called experts, after all, are “on the payroll of the state and/or corporate structure.” ....

During the ’60s, large swaths of academia made a turn away from reason and rationalism as they’d been understood. Many of the pioneers were thoughtful, their work fine antidotes to postwar complacency. The problem was the nature and extent of their influence at that particular time, when all premises and paradigms seemed up for grabs. That is, they inspired half-baked and perverse followers in the academy, whose arguments filtered out into the world at large: All approximations of truth, science as much as any fable or religion, are mere stories devised to serve people’s needs or interests. Reality itself is a purely social construction, a tableau of useful or wishful myths that members of a society or tribe have been persuaded to believe. The borders between fiction and nonfiction are permeable, maybe nonexistent. ....

A more extreme academic evangelist for the idea of all truths being equal was a UC Berkeley philosophy professor named Paul Feyerabend. His best-known book, published in 1975, was Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. “Rationalism,” it declared, “is a secularized form of the belief in the power of the word of God,” and science a “particular superstition.” ....

People on the left are by no means all scrupulously reasonable. Many give themselves over to the appealingly dubious and the untrue. But fantastical politics have become highly asymmetrical. ....
Methinks you may want to re-read that article, and try reading the book & Wikipedia essay, but after you first remove your blinders, your "conservative shaded glasses":

BelievingBrain_Shermer_Section_1A.JPG
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ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2573

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

This is almost funny. Poor Aussie woman has medical condition which means vaccination would be medically disastrous, her doctor won't write her an exemption because of legal liabilities but also wouldn't vaccinate her anyway for the same and medical reasons. Private and state resources to resolve the issue have a one to two year wait. In the meantime she can't work. WTF Australia. Vaccination is looking more and more like a religious rite of passage to personhood.

Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2574

Post by Service Dog »

Steersman wrote:
You going to defend the nuttiness on the right? "Doctor" Sheri Tenpenny who insisted that covid vaccines were turning people into magnets?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7934660/magn ... ctor-ohio/
The difference, Steers, is that-- unlike you & the Atlantic link you offered-- I never defended that magnet nonsense in the first place.

You ask whether I'm "going to defend the nuttiness on the right". I'm not! Your entire thesis-- that I blindly defend the nuttiness on the right-- is based on a false premise.

And then-- a complete non sequitur, but a surprise to no one-- you veer back into your Idée Fixe...
You all ready to concede that the standard biological definitions for the sexes are based on having functional gonads of either of two types?
You're so fired-up to rehash your same old tired shit... that you forget I CONCEDED THIS EXACT POINT AND TRIED TO AGREE WITH YOU earlier this year.

Yet you-- repeatedly!-- persist at falsely-attributing to me disagreement on this point, always followed by attacking my character with all sorts of cognitive bias claims.

You are synonymous with monotony.


Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2576

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: Vaccination is looking more and more like a religious rite of passage to personhood.
The Hebrew zelotes would go around the streets at night, grab a Hellenized Jew, draw their sicae, pull up his tunic, and if he was uncircumcised, give him the choice of getting cut down there or across the throat. On the spot.

Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2577

Post by Service Dog »

Service Dog wrote:
Service Dog wrote: I am not 100% sure Joe Biden is a pedophile.

I am 100% sure Joe Biden would nail the audition, if Law & Order SVU is casting a pedophile role.

The petting, staring at the boy's body, the salivating breathing.

Disagree?

CHANGE YOUR MIND:



Lsuoma
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2578

Post by Lsuoma »

Hey Threefer! What's the real story down in ZA?

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2579

Post by Keating »

I've started applying for Polish citizenship. My great grandfather was born in Prussia near (then) Danzig. I feel I need a contingency plan for a place to flee to from Australia.

ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#2580

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

Lsuoma wrote:
Mon Nov 29, 2021 11:55 am
Hey Threefer! What's the real story down in ZA?
General Dysfunction. Were you referring to anything in particular though? I tend not to follow the local news.

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