Happy 3rd Pit Birthday!

[Scented Nectar]

Strawz, I know you are a man of the details, so I need to tell you that Meyers only wanted the Gelato Guy fucked "to the ground", not "into" it. Someone here recently pointed out that we had rewritten history by changing that modifier.

It may be a fussy detail, but it's a difference that can be measured in less years of jail time. Since it's unlikely that Gelato Guy would have consenting to PZ's fucking, it would have been a rape either way. BUT, he was only going to rape him, not rape AND bury him dead into the ground. Rape, yes, but not rape and murder. Although that other time, where he wanted to shank praying christians, that one could be murder if the shanked christian were to die from the wound.

Either way, online feminists would classify that as a rape threat.

Yep. And the shanking would be a death threat. It's only just an expression when they do it.

[Billy The Hillbilly]

We all know doxing is wrong, but Katharine, you were asking for it.

http://cdn.londonandpartners.com/asset/ ... 17e1f8.jpg

I feel sick with the shame.

[Easy J]

"Six-year-old transgender sparks conversation"

"KATY, TX (FOX 26) - A 6-year-old transgender student at a Katy daycare has sparked quite a discussion about how the school should address the issue with the child's classmates. Two employees who disagreed with the way the private school owners was handling the situation were fired.

But some are now discussing if a child at that age can actually know if they are transgender.

“I think there’s a strong indication that a lot of this is biological,” child psychologist Dr. Andrew Brams tells Fox-26.

Brams say gender dysphoria is the clinical name for it, with genetic science to back it up. He says there’s evidence in chromosomes that make that can make the individuals feel very different, even at that young age."

http://www.fox26houston.com/news/44590255-story

[Tribble]

Um...Yar DID die in the middle of the first season.

I thought it was later. I certainly seemed like FOREVER. Memory plays tricks with things like that. Probably didn't help she came back in a number of episodes. Once as Tasha Yar who went back in time. Then as the daughter of Tasha Yar (the one who went back in time) as a half-Romulan.

Anyway, she was my absolutely most hated Star Trek character. I even liked the bad guys better.

Worse than Wesley Crusher?

The thought that actor Wil Wheaton is now an SJWtard just makes watching the character all the more painful these days.

Who is the 'Wesley Crusher" of whom you speak? Never heard of him. Are you trying to gaslight me?


Seriously, I didn't hate him as much as Tasha Yar. My full list of ST:TNG main/substantial supporting characters I didn't care for:

Tasha Yar
Wesley Crusher
Dr. Pulaski
Deanna Troi
William Riker
Guinan

[Easy J]

BTW, Katy is a rather affluent suburb of Houston. This sort of thing doesn't happen around here in normal Texas towns like Cut And Shoot or Gun Barrel City. This is solidly an Austin sort of episode.

[deLurch]

"Six-year-old transgender sparks conversation"

"KATY, TX (FOX 26) - A 6-year-old transgender student at a Katy daycare has sparked quite a discussion about how the school should address the issue with the child's classmates. Two employees who disagreed with the way the private school owners was handling the situation were fired.

But some are now discussing if a child at that age can actually know if they are transgender.

“I think there’s a strong indication that a lot of this is biological,” child psychologist Dr. Andrew Brams tells Fox-26.

Brams say gender dysphoria is the clinical name for it, with genetic science to back it up. He says there’s evidence in chromosomes that make that can make the individuals feel very different, even at that young age."

http://www.fox26houston.com/news/44590255-story

I am calling it now. Schools are going to slowly shift over to mixed gender restrooms. Gym locker rooms might be the last big issue. The would require a draw curtain changing cube for every student, and then there are the issues of showers.

[deLurch]

Seriously, I didn't hate him as much as Tasha Yar.

I loved Tasha Yar. Or at least her initial character before she hit an early grave. (I can't speak for the later incarnations of her as I don't recall seeing those episodes. I must have been doing something better with my life back then).

At the time the original character was on, she was the only man of action in the cast. She was the only one with the balls to actually do anything beyond wussing around on the desk.

[ffs]

Where the future of sjw thought leads
[youtube]IT7LY5jEGTc[/youtube]

[ffs]

I thought it was later. I certainly seemed like FOREVER. Memory plays tricks with things like that. Probably didn't help she came back in a number of episodes. Once as Tasha Yar who went back in time. Then as the daughter of Tasha Yar (the one who went back in time) as a half-Romulan.

Anyway, she was my absolutely most hated Star Trek character. I even liked the bad guys better.

Worse than Wesley Crusher?

The thought that actor Wil Wheaton is now an SJWtard just makes watching the character all the more painful these days.

Who is the 'Wesley Crusher" of whom you speak? Never heard of him. Are you trying to gaslight me?


Seriously, I didn't hate him as much as Tasha Yar. My full list of ST:TNG main/substantial supporting characters I didn't care for:

Tasha Yar
Wesley Crusher
Dr. Pulaski
Deanna Troi
William Riker
Guinan

You take that back about dr pulaski you fuck, she was a goddess

a GODDESS

[tina]

About the only balance of power shift I see coming out of this is for the feminists to start thinking, "Oh, shit. If I go after someone's employment, they just might do the same back to me."

Quite. Plus BA in his letter was arguably going after TF's LIBERTY, as well as his employment. Sometimes you have to answer back in the language bullies understand. TF's retweet aside, it is trivially easy to find Bewildered Ape's ID from a Who Is search of the original domain registration data. If they want to play dirty while hiding behind anonymity they are going to need to get a whole lot better at it.

[deLurch]

Where the future of sjw thought leads
[youtube]IT7LY5jEGTc[/youtube]

Since that is Napa Valley, the kid may be correct that his recording is unlawful as all parties need to consent to recording of conversations in California.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/califor ... ording-law

I understand the parent's concern, but confronting them face to face was probably a poor choice. Recording his driving patters (legal as there is no recorded conversation), and forwarding that to the police and the school principal were smart choices.

The kid is young and dumb about his driving (I was like that too). Getting addressed by the school principal should have been warning enough. The kid should have kept the window up to avoid recording, and he should not have lied about being molested to a guy with a video camera. Now absolutely no one will believe a word he says edgewise.

In the long run, that parent with the video camera is doing that kid a huge favor.

[deLurch]

About the only balance of power shift I see coming out of this is for the feminists to start thinking, "Oh, shit. If I go after someone's employment, they just might do the same back to me."

Quite. Plus BA in his letter was arguably going after TF's LIBERTY, as well as his employment. Sometimes you have to answer back in the language bullies understand. TF's retweet aside, it is trivially easy to find Bewildered Ape's ID from a Who Is search of the original domain registration data. If they want to play dirty while hiding behind anonymity they are going to need to get a whole lot better at it.

And that is the thing. Some people get a scare, and so they simply get better about doing dirty shit to others. Where as if Bewildered Ape gets slammed down hard, it might wise him up fast enough that he won't play around that way again.

[Billie from Ockham]

She has to be trolling, surely? There's vast amounts of evidence to contradict her position across a wide range of sport including some like timed running events where the stopwatchdoesn't give a shit what gender you are. am in favor of integrating where it makes sense, but there are a lot of sports where it really doesn't. In worst cases, someone will get badly hurt or even killed.

If the stop-watch is controlled by a person, they unconsciously stop it early for men and late for women, due to internalized misogyny. When machines are used, the sensors are placed in locations that are biased in favor of men, such as when the tape is strung across the track at the best height for men and in a bad place for women. etc

Note, also, that any remaining evidence of sexual dimorphism effects on sport is due to such things as women self-handicapping. Therefore, for the first three or four decades of desegregated sport, we will need to employ a combination of affirmative action and penalties for being raised male. This, by the way, is why Caitlin Jenner does not have to return the medal: she always knew she was a woman, even back in the 1970s. That she won that medal while thinking she was a woman is why sport should be desegregated.

[Cunning Punt]

h/t @CathyYoung63

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.h ... ent-to-war

The focus is on islamic fundamentalism & the need to fight it; the headline and some selected quotes are below:

‘We are all on the front lines’: Canadian reportedly killed fighting ISIL wrote essay about why he went to war

...

Because of our beliefs, we live in the most racially inclusive, sexually liberated, and anti-imperialist society which has ever existed in human history, and to teach young people anything different is a criminal act of intellectual violence. ...

I was raised in a fundamentalist religious environment. If today I have any intellectual or spiritual existence worth fighting for, it is because it was impossible for the religious forces in my life to have their way and shield me from the assaults of reason and conscience. They could teach me that evolution was a lie, but they couldn’t prevent me from reading about it or prohibit the public schools from teaching it. They could tell me blasphemy was a sin, but they couldn’t prevent me from sneaking Monty Python and South Park. The mechanisms of society, in other words, gave me the tools by which I could make myself free. They saved my life. Who safeguards the social machinery now? Only an overbred political elite and intelligentsia who burble about the urgent need to never give offense. This is not only a disgraceful failure; it is a national emergency. ...

That some very powerful writing. I encourage everyone to read it.

[katamari Damassi]

Why is Thunderf00t retweeting a tweet doxing Bewildered Ape? Has he gone full Col Bill Kilgore?

Thunderf00t is not just a scientist, he's also an artist.

[katamari Damassi]

She has to be trolling, surely? There's vast amounts of evidence to contradict her position across a wide range of sport including some like timed running events where the stopwatchdoesn't give a shit what gender you are. am in favor of integrating where it makes sense, but there are a lot of sports where it really doesn't. In worst cases, someone will get badly hurt or even killed.

If the stop-watch is controlled by a person, they unconsciously stop it early for men and late for women, due to internalized misogyny. When machines are used, the sensors are placed in locations that are biased in favor of men, such as when the tape is strung across the track at the best height for men and in a bad place for women. etc

Note, also, that any remaining evidence of sexual dimorphism effects on sport is due to such things as women self-handicapping. Therefore, for the first three or four decades of desegregated sport, we will need to employ a combination of affirmative action and penalties for being raised male. This, by the way, is why Caitlin Jenner does not have to return the medal: she always knew she was a woman, even back in the 1970s. That she won that medal while thinking she was a woman is why sport should be desegregated.

Also, that watch and that tape were likely designed and manufactured by men and absorbing misogyny- chlorians.

[Guestus Aurelius]

[youtube]Dj5QmZPzvlQ[/youtube]

[deLurch]

Tasha Yar always had something good cooking.

https://veuwer.com/i/3cb4.jpg

[katamari Damassi]

About the only balance of power shift I see coming out of this is for the feminists to start thinking, "Oh, shit. If I go after someone's employment, they just might do the same back to me."

Quite. Plus BA in his letter was arguably going after TF's LIBERTY, as well as his employment. Sometimes you have to answer back in the language bullies understand. TF's retweet aside, it is trivially easy to find Bewildered Ape's ID from a Who Is search of the original domain registration data. If they want to play dirty while hiding behind anonymity they are going to need to get a whole lot better at it.

It'll never happen. Just like Adria Richads, they think they're on the side of the Angels and protected. That's why it comes as a sweet delicious shock when they are actually held accountable.

[katamari Damassi]

h/t @CathyYoung63

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.h ... ent-to-war

The focus is on islamic fundamentalism & the need to fight it; the headline and some selected quotes are below:

‘We are all on the front lines’: Canadian reportedly killed fighting ISIL wrote essay about why he went to war

...

Because of our beliefs, we live in the most racially inclusive, sexually liberated, and anti-imperialist society which has ever existed in human history, and to teach young people anything different is a criminal act of intellectual violence. ...

I was raised in a fundamentalist religious environment. If today I have any intellectual or spiritual existence worth fighting for, it is because it was impossible for the religious forces in my life to have their way and shield me from the assaults of reason and conscience. They could teach me that evolution was a lie, but they couldn’t prevent me from reading about it or prohibit the public schools from teaching it. They could tell me blasphemy was a sin, but they couldn’t prevent me from sneaking Monty Python and South Park. The mechanisms of society, in other words, gave me the tools by which I could make myself free. They saved my life. Who safeguards the social machinery now? Only an overbred political elite and intelligentsia who burble about the urgent need to never give offense. This is not only a disgraceful failure; it is a national emergency. ...

That some very powerful writing. I encourage everyone to read it.

Thanks for posting that Skep. Shared on my FB. That's a Canadian hero.

[mordacious1]

Where the future of sjw thought leads
[youtube]IT7LY5jEGTc[/youtube]

Clearly, that young man behind the wheel is the actual molester. He blew a stop sign even though the sign said, "STOP". That's such a moving violation.

[Shatterface]

She has to be trolling, surely? There's vast amounts of evidence to contradict her position across a wide range of sport including some like timed running events where the stopwatchdoesn't give a shit what gender you are. am in favor of integrating where it makes sense, but there are a lot of sports where it really doesn't. In worst cases, someone will get badly hurt or even killed.

If the stop-watch is controlled by a person, they unconsciously stop it early for men and late for women, due to internalized misogyny. When machines are used, the sensors are placed in locations that are biased in favor of men, such as when the tape is strung across the track at the best height for men and in a bad place for women. etc

Note, also, that any remaining evidence of sexual dimorphism effects on sport is due to such things as women self-handicapping. Therefore, for the first three or four decades of desegregated sport, we will need to employ a combination of affirmative action and penalties for being raised male. This, by the way, is why Caitlin Jenner does not have to return the medal: she always knew she was a woman, even back in the 1970s. That she won that medal while thinking she was a woman is why sport should be desegregated.

Feminists lobbied for years so that top women tennis players earn the same as top men.

Desegregate sport and top women tennis players will be earning as much as men seeded around 500 because that's who they'll be competing against.

We'd pretty much see the end of professional women in most sports. The prize money at that level is too low and nobody is going to sponsor them.

[Billie from Ockham]

Where the future of sjw thought leads
[youtube]IT7LY5jEGTc[/youtube]

Since that is Napa Valley, the kid may be correct that his recording is unlawful as all parties need to consent to recording of conversations in California.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/califor ... ording-law

You must have the reasonable belief that the conversation is private in order for that statute to protect you. If someone is standing in front of you with their phone out, pointing it at you, you'll have difficulty making that case.

[Billie from Ockham]

Where the future of sjw thought leads
[youtube]IT7LY5jEGTc[/youtube]

Clearly, that young man behind the wheel is the actual molester. He blew a stop sign even though the sign said, "STOP". That's such a moving violation.

Not to mention that the stop sign was probably red, which implies that the young man should not have approached it in the first place.

Later today, I will be painting my car red, so that no sign is allowed to talk to me, telling me what to do. In then past, every time that I see a DOT worker installing a new sign, it has been a male. Road-signs are clearly part of the patriarchy, especially those yield signs. Why not just install signs that say "lay back and try to enjoy it"?*

* nb. that was clearly meant to be metaphorical; I did not intend to deny the existence of those who rape in positions other than missionary

[Shatterface]

Comment is Free, natch:

Why I’m tweeting the taoiseach my periods
by Grainne Maguire

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ortion-law

[Sunder]

I am calling it now. Schools are going to slowly shift over to mixed gender restrooms. Gym locker rooms might be the last big issue. The would require a draw curtain changing cube for every student, and then there are the issues of showers.

I never took a shower on school grounds at any point in K-12, and I don't recall if anyone other than perhaps the high school football team did.

The place where I went to middle school though had actually once been a high school and there was a communal shower at the back of the gym that was just left unused.

[deLurch]

I never took a shower on school grounds at any point in K-12, and I don't recall if anyone other than perhaps the high school football team did.

The place where I went to middle school though had actually once been a high school and there was a communal shower at the back of the gym that was just left unused.

Mandatory at my school unless your gym class was in the last period of the day. Nobody wants to smell a bunch of rank sweaty teens all day.

[Service Dog]

I must be the only person in the history of showering at school... who found it a refreshing mid-day break... and found the awkwardness of other dudes changing-nearby to be trivial.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Mandatory showers too here. But since we're not a country seemingly struggling with its own sexuality, we had individual showers instead of moist teen gay orgy rooms...

[deLurch]

I must be the only person in the history of showering at school... who found it a refreshing mid-day break... and found the awkwardness of other dudes changing-nearby to be trivial.

Awkwardness gets over fast when you have mere minutes to show and change before the next class.

[Jan Steen]

Dr. Richard Carrier PhD: A Case Study in the Dunning-Kruger Effect

In a famous paper published in 1999, psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning described a phenomenon that has since become widely known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. These authors were not the first to be aware of this phenomenon. They cite Charles Darwin, who had observed more than a century earlier that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

As Kruger and Dunning describe it, the effect can be summarized as follows:

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.

In other words, the effect describes the situation where someone who is incompetent and insufficiently educated in a particular field believes that their judgement within that field trumps that of real experts. One sees this quite often, but perhaps nowhere more so than in the collected works of Dr. Richard Carrier PhD, the independent scholar.

Is there no limit to this person's delusional self-aggrandizement? Richard Carrier, who holds a Ph.D. in ancient history, ceaselessly makes authoritative-sounding pronouncements on such diverse topics as mathematics, artificial intelligence, physics, zoology, art, music and psychology.

Consider his assertions a propos the question "Is the brain a computer [that is, a piece of hardware that runs a programme]?" This question was answered in the negative by philosopher John R. Searle in an article in which he described the well-known Chinese Room argument. There is an extensive literature on this question and Searle's controversial thought experiment. It is not my intention to delve into this controversy here; I would just like to show how a comically incompetent dilettante like Dr. Carrier demonstrates the Dunning-Kruger effect.

If we are to believe Dr. Carrier, this John R. Searle, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is some kind of ignoramus, who "does not seem to know what he is talking about", who "doesn’t know what a computer is," who is "ignoring science, and ignorantly sitting in the armchair doing pseudoscience, " and who is "a terrible philosopher who doesn’t know jack about brain science."

On the other hand, the thinker who has settled this matter once and for all is no less a person than Dr. Carrier himself:

My argument against his is already in Sense and Goodness without God. That is, I there refute his claim that the mind cannot be a computer. My argument is conclusive on that point. There is nothing more to be said.

"There is nothing more to be said." Hahahahahaha.

Granted, it is not a priori impossible that an unemployed blogger who was trained in papyrology, ancient languages, and Roman history knows more about the theory of mind and artificial intelligence than a world famous philosopher who has made it his life's work to think and write about these things. It is possible that such a philosopher enjoys tenure at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and yet doesn't know shit about computers and neuroscience. Possible, but not likely.

Instead, it is far more likely that it is Dr. Richard Carrier PhD who is the bullshitting ignoramus who doesn't know what he is talking about. No, this is not an appeal to authority. That would be the case if I had written, "Dr. Searle must be correct, because he is a famous philosopher who works at a top tier university." I'm not saying that Searle is correct. I'm saying it is extremely unlikely that Carrier is better educated in this subject than a professional.

Carrier's book Sense and Goodness without God is best described as an attempt to do philosophy by someone who lacks the competence to do so. It is a litany of ill-defined concepts and apodictic statements. Someone who knows a bit about the subjects touched upon could read it to have a good laugh, but otherwise it is a worthless abomination. It's cargo-cult philosophy: Philosophy by an incompetent who believes he is more competent than the experts in the field. A textbook case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I could give many examples of laughably wrong statements in this book. Consider the following:

Many animals have unique personalities, memories, and mental abilities, and can be “conscious” of their surroundings, even to a certain extent themselves. But to be able to fully perceive themselves—as a mind, as a person—requires a special organ capable of such a computation, and an organ capable of perceiving a whole pattern of such a size and complexity would have to be vastly complex itself, far more than any other sensory organ like, say, the human eye.
It just so happens that we have one of these: a cerebral cortex, the most complex biological organ in the world—in fact, as far as we know, the most complex thing in the whole universe. Animal brains are simpler, lacking this organ.

So much wrong and so little time. Of course, all mammals have a cerebral cortex; this is not some kind of unique, independently evolved organ that is only found in humans, as Carrier seems to believe. Mice have a cerebral cortex. Chimps have one. There are dolphins with more neurons in their cerebral cortex than Richard Carrier.

What we see here are the over-confident statements of the person who lacks the knowledge to realize that he is spouting nonsense. A deluded sufferer from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

To return to the Searle controversy, in response to a comment by one of his readers,Carrier writes:

I don’t understand what you think you are arguing. You asked me to demonstrate Searle was wrong. I demonstrated Searle was wrong. That’s the end of that.

Of course, Carrier did not "demonstrate" that Searle was wrong; he just demonstrated his own ignorance. One final citation of Carrier's bullshit should make this apparent:

1. “A hurricane can be simulated on a computer. That does not imply that a hurricane is a computer.” Yes, it is. Computation theory entails that the most efficient computer for calculating the behavior of a system is the system itself (see Labyrinths of Reason). All systems are information processing computers. The only question is what the input and output are, i.e. what is being computed. In weather’s case, what is being computed is where atoms go. Given the inputs, you get the outputs. The laws of physics are just the software code, implemented in the hardware of the shape of spacetime (and perhaps particles moving in it, although even they might just be knots of spacetime). Searle does not know information theory (all thermodynamics analogs to information theory, for example…in other words, all of physics is just information theory played out on a computer made of spacetime and particles). He does not know computation theory (he does not know that analog computers are a thing, for example, or that a Turing computer is just one type of computer, and indeed just one type of digital computer, which is also in turn just one type of computer).

Again, there is so much wrong here that it would take far more words than I care to devote on the ramblings of Dr. Carrier PhD to show all the mistakes and misconceptions. Let me just point out that it is not true that a "Turing computer" (the proper term is Turing Machine) is "just one type of digital computer." Anyone who knows anything about computer science knows that this is not even wrong. Even more egregious is Carrier's shifting of the goal posts in his attempted refutation of Searle. Where Searle had explicitly defined a computer as a piece of hardware that carries out a certain specified programme, Carrier argues that in some very general sense [i[everything[/i] is a computer. So Searle was wrong, because if everything is a computer, than the brain is a computer. QED.

This is like "winning" a game of chess by vomiting over the pieces, so that your opponent gives up in disgust. It doesn't make Dr. Carrier PhD a brilliant chess player. Just a sad, deluded figure.

Returning to the original paper by Kruger and Dunning, it may be insightful to compare their predictions about incompetent people with an actual incompetent, Dr. Richard Carrier PhD.

They write:

These shards of empirical evidence suggest that incompetent individuals have more difficulty recognizing their true level of ability than do more competent individuals and that a lack of metacognitive skills may underlie this deficiency. Thus, we made four specific predictions about the links between competence, metacognitive ability, and inflated self-assessment.
Prediction 1. Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria. [Carrier: Check.]
Prediction 2. Incompetent individuals will suffer from deficient metacognitive skills, in that they will be less able than their more competent peers to recognize competence when they see it-be it their own or anyone else's. [Carrier: Check.]
Prediction 3. Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more competent peers to gain insight into their true level of performance by means of social comparison information. In particular, because of their difficulty recognizing competence in others, incompetent individuals will be unable to use information about the choices and performances of others to form more accurate impressions of their own ability. [Carrier: Check.]
Prediction 4. The incompetent can gain insight about their shortcomings, but this comes (paradoxically) by making them more competent, thus providing them the metacognitive skills necessary to be able to realize that they have performed poorly. [See my comments below, JS.]

I am not so sure about their Prediction 4. It seems to me that one of the character flaws that makes a person incompetent and yet willing to pretend to be competent outside their field of expertise is an unwillingness to confront reality. Educating themselves may be a painful confrontation with their incompetence. We see in Dr. Carrier that attempts by his commenters to correct him are simply dismissed in the rudest possible way. Like this:

Searle ignored the science then. And continued to do so, as I just showed here again, with your own ignorant example (you evidently don’t know the science either, as otherwise you’d have never imagined the article you sent me was any good).
That’s fundamentally bad philosophy.
End of story.

Instead of Kruger and Dunning's Prediction 4, I'd predict the following:

Prediction 5. The incompetent who are bold enough to make authoritative-sounding statements in subjects outside their area of competence will resist attempts to educate them.

Dr. Richard Carrier PhD is a case in point.

Reference

Kruger, J. & Dunning, D. 1999. Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77(6): 1121--1134 (PDF available here).

[katamari Damassi]

Mandatory showers too here. But since we're not a country seemingly struggling with its own sexuality, we had individual showers instead of moist teen gay orgy rooms...

You missed out. I only showered at my first school-a catholic all boys school-because they required it, and I got picked on for getting an erection. Second school I went to, well gym consisted of ping-pong and frisbee so nobody really showered. Third school, I just skipped gym all the time, nobody cared.

A friend of mine is faculty at a university and told me this experience he had a couple of years ago. He was showering at the uni's gym when a bunch of young(18-20?)men came in and proceeded to shower. He assumed they were on some kind of team. Half of them wore shorts and the other half showered with one hand and covered their junk with the other. Weird, isn't it? Why are young Americans so uncomfortable with nudity? In my experience Europeans seem much less body conscious than Americans. Any guesses why that is?

[Billie from Ockham]

Nice analysis, JS.

[deLurch]

A friend of mine is faculty at a university and told me this experience he had a couple of years ago. He was showering at the uni's gym when a bunch of young(18-20?)men came in and proceeded to shower. He assumed they were on some kind of team. Half of them wore shorts and the other half showered with one hand and covered their junk with the other. Weird, isn't it? Why are young Americans so uncomfortable with nudity? In my experience Europeans seem much less body conscious than Americans. Any guesses why that is?

That is weird. Perhaps they were younger that 18-20. That sounds like high school behavior to me.

Why are the young so uncomfortable with nudity?

Simple. Lack of exposure.

1. Probably because some of them are not forced to shower after gym class.
2. All the violence you want on TV, but don't show any bad body parts or say any bad words.
3. Public advertisements are similarly neutered.
4. Not enough boy scouts/camping trips/swim clubs
5. They saw your friend had his cellphone out taking pictures.

Maybe they were part of a religious group/outing which might be even more conservative when it comes to nudity.

[Really?]

Dr. Richard Carrier PhD: A Case Study in the Dunning-Kruger Effect

In a famous paper published in 1999, psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning described a phenomenon that has since become widely known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. These authors were not the first to be aware of this phenomenon. They cite Charles Darwin, who had observed more than a century earlier that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

As Kruger and Dunning describe it, the effect can be summarized as follows:

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.

I

snip of great analysis

Dr. Carrier PhD actually says this:

There is a reason that “Even rocks, hurricanes, and planetary systems — contrary to appearances — are computing systems. Pancomputationalism is quite popular among some philosophers and physicists.”

A rock is a "computing system?"

Turns out I have several dozen RockBooks for sale in my backyard. I am selling them at half the price of MacBooks. I will even include free shipping (A significant cost! These are heavy and powerful!).

PM if interested.

[Really?]

Dr. Richard Carrier PhD: A Case Study in the Dunning-Kruger Effect

In a famous paper published in 1999, psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning described a phenomenon that has since become widely known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. These authors were not the first to be aware of this phenomenon. They cite Charles Darwin, who had observed more than a century earlier that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

As Kruger and Dunning describe it, the effect can be summarized as follows:

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.

I

snip of great analysis

Dr. Carrier PhD actually says this:

There is a reason that “Even rocks, hurricanes, and planetary systems — contrary to appearances — are computing systems. Pancomputationalism is quite popular among some philosophers and physicists.”

A rock is a "computing system?"

Turns out I have several dozen RockBooks for sale in my backyard. I am selling them at half the price of MacBooks. I will even include free shipping (A significant cost! These are heavy and powerful!).

PM if interested.

[Really?]

Dr. Richard Carrier PhD: A Case Study in the Dunning-Kruger Effect

In a famous paper published in 1999, psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning described a phenomenon that has since become widely known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. These authors were not the first to be aware of this phenomenon. They cite Charles Darwin, who had observed more than a century earlier that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

As Kruger and Dunning describe it, the effect can be summarized as follows:

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.

I

snip of great analysis

Dr. Carrier PhD actually says this:

There is a reason that “Even rocks, hurricanes, and planetary systems — contrary to appearances — are computing systems. Pancomputationalism is quite popular among some philosophers and physicists.”

A rock is a "computing system?"

Turns out I have several dozen RockBooks for sale in my backyard. I am selling them at half the price of MacBooks. I will even include free shipping (A significant cost! These are heavy and powerful!).

PM if interested.

[Really?]

This just in: Carrier's verbose rat's-nest prose ends up in an unintentional funny:

He wrote a particularly silly piece about how "dictionary polyamory" is as unsatisfactory as "dictionary atheism." Because of course.

We like to have concurrent sexual relationships PLUS we fight global warming.
We have multiple boyfriends or girlfriends PLUS we believe that Black Lives Matter.



So at one point, Carrier says this (bolding mine):

The third confusion is easily dispatched by the core values argument. Indeed, technically polygamy is not even an open relationship, because the women aren’t allowed to have other partners. So whether it even meets the dictionary definition is a quibble. But certainly, as equality is fundamental to the polyamory movement and community, if you aren’t letting the girls do it, you aren’t poly. Or maybe at the most charitable, we’d say you are doing poly wrong. Note that this connects to one of the most common questions I get when I explain I do ethical nonmonogamy: “Do your girlfriends get to date other guys too?” (It rarely occurs to them to ask whether they date other girls too.)

A close competitor for my most asked question is, “And your girlfriends are okay with that?” (It rarely occurs to them to ask whether I have boyfriends who are okay with it.) The answer, of course, is yes. Which gets us to the second confusion. Often you’ll see 101s on polyamory insisting it’s not about sex, it’s about love (or at least implying it, like this brief definition from the Polyamory Society). That of course isn’t true.

Freudian slip, or was Carrier lying about his place on the Kinsey scale?

But seriously, this blog post makes the thought of polyamory sound exhausting.

http://web.archive.org/web/201511081804 ... hives/8863

[Billie from Ockham]

Premise 1: a computing system is anything that performs transformations via algorithms

Premise 2: due to global warming, the intensity of hurricanes is increasing

Premise 3: we were warned about these and other effects of global warming by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

Conclusion: hurricanes are computing systems, because they involve Al-Gore-isms

[philogloss]

Why is Thunderf00t retweeting a tweet doxing Bewildered Ape? Has he gone full Col Bill Kilgore?

Oh look, whining on the slymepit. Totally didn't see this coming.

What Bewildered Ape did was fucking horrendous and inexcusable, and he concealed his identity so poorly that it was publicly available. Fuck him.

[Billie from Ockham]

Why is Thunderf00t retweeting a tweet doxing Bewildered Ape? Has he gone full Col Bill Kilgore?

Oh look, whining on the slymepit. Totally didn't see this coming.

What Bewildered Ape did was fucking horrendous and inexcusable, and he concealed his identity so poorly that it was publicly available. Fuck him.

Thank you for posting this. Knowing that the ease of an act can remove any question of its morality is quite useful.

[philogloss]

Why is Thunderf00t retweeting a tweet doxing Bewildered Ape? Has he gone full Col Bill Kilgore?

Oh look, whining on the slymepit. Totally didn't see this coming.

What Bewildered Ape did was fucking horrendous and inexcusable, and he concealed his identity so poorly that it was publicly available. Fuck him.

Thank you for posting this. Knowing that the ease of an act can remove any question of its morality is quite useful.

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

[Billie from Ockham]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

One person who probably wishes that you were correct is Avicenna.

[Tigzy]

I could give many examples of laughably wrong statements in this book. Consider the following:

Many animals have unique personalities, memories, and mental abilities, and can be “conscious” of their surroundings, even to a certain extent themselves. But to be able to fully perceive themselves—as a mind, as a person—requires a special organ capable of such a computation, and an organ capable of perceiving a whole pattern of such a size and complexity would have to be vastly complex itself, far more than any other sensory organ like, say, the human eye.
It just so happens that we have one of these: a cerebral cortex, the most complex biological organ in the world—in fact, as far as we know, the most complex thing in the whole universe. Animal brains are simpler, lacking this organ.

So much wrong and so little time. Of course, all mammals have a cerebral cortex; this is not some kind of unique, independently evolved organ that is only found in humans, as Carrier seems to believe. Mice have a cerebral cortex. Chimps have one. There are dolphins with more neurons in their cerebral cortex than Richard Carrier.

He truly is the Frank Spencer of Atheism

From the Frank Spencer Wiki page:

"Ooh Betty ..." is not Frank's only catchphrase of the series. [...]He also sometimes complains about being "ha-RASSed!", or occasionally, "I've had a lot of ha-RASSments lately"
[...]
Frank's character changes noticeably in this series, becoming more self-aware and keen to make himself appear more educated and well-spoken. He develops an air of pomposity which is always best demonstrated when someone would approach and enquire "Mr Spencer?" to which he would always reply, "I am he." He also becomes more self-assured, and much more willing to argue back when criticised, and often wins arguments by leaving his opponents dumbfounded by the bizarreness of what he would say.

'Oooh...'
http://i.imgur.com/rNo2DdK.jpg
'...Poly.'

[Eskarina]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

Let's hear your suggestions for a more active 'pit, then!

[dog puke]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

Hey Mykeru!! Long time no see!

[Guest_0048cc29]

I don't mind it being claimed a rock or a hurricane is a computing system. They are in a sense, and it reminds me of various analog computing algorithms and how they can be much equivalent or faster than digital algorithms.

Sorting straws by lengths: slow by computer, fast by placing the straws in a glass, placing your open hand on top and choosing the first one to contact it.

Or how mold (?) can solve networking problems.

So perhaps a hurricane is a computing system to maximize entropy while minimizing the range of heat fluctuations on a global basis. Or something like that. (A tornado is a similar computational system whose domain is far more local).

The questions I have are:

1) how is it useful or insightful to consider a rock a computing system?
2) how does chaos affect the claim a hurricane is a computing system?

[philogloss]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

Let's hear your suggestions for a more active 'pit, then!

You guys can do whatever you want. Just don't bitch at me and pretend as if it doesn't just confirm everything I said.

[Guest_0048cc29]

Son, don't just sit there like a rock!

Dad, I am busy computing. Computing the effects of Scooby-Doo on adolescent brains.

[philogloss]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

Hey Mykeru!! Long time no see!

Heh, was waiting for that. Not him, although I have plenty of respect for the guy.

[dog puke]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

Let's hear your suggestions for a more active 'pit, then!

You guys can do whatever you want. Just don't bitch at me and pretend as if it doesn't just confirm everything I said.

Mea culpa. I now realize that you can't be Mykeru - only Dick Carrier PhD can logic like that.

[Eskarina]

Yeah, keep upholding the pit's impeccable reputation of doing nothing but bitching.

Hey Mykeru!! Long time no see!

Heh, was waiting for that. Not him, although I have plenty of respect for the guy.

You could join him over on twitter.

[philogloss]

Yeah, way to put me in my place, internet tough guys.

[Billie from Ockham]

I don't mind it being claimed a rock or a hurricane is a computing system. They are in a sense, and it reminds me of various analog computing algorithms and how they can be much equivalent or faster than digital algorithms.

Wow. I definitely need to start buying better weed because the claim that a rock or hurricane is a computing system does not remind me of the difference between analog and digital algorithms. I can't even come up with a sense in which a rock is a computing system. I suck.

[Oglebart]

'Oooh...'
http://i.imgur.com/rNo2DdK.jpg
'...Poly.'

Ha ha, very good Tigzy. Back of the net. :lol: :lol:

[Xenu]

So here's what Coughlin supposedly did.
He called a transwoman "Sweetie".

[youtube]qpyaT53ZtAg[/youtube]

[youtube]tlv0Zl6_8b0[/youtube]

Social Justice, not even once.

[Sunder]

Could Carrier out-Avi Avi?

[Jan Steen]

I could give many examples of laughably wrong statements in this book. Consider the following:

Many animals have unique personalities, memories, and mental abilities, and can be “conscious” of their surroundings, even to a certain extent themselves. But to be able to fully perceive themselves—as a mind, as a person—requires a special organ capable of such a computation, and an organ capable of perceiving a whole pattern of such a size and complexity would have to be vastly complex itself, far more than any other sensory organ like, say, the human eye.
It just so happens that we have one of these: a cerebral cortex, the most complex biological organ in the world—in fact, as far as we know, the most complex thing in the whole universe. Animal brains are simpler, lacking this organ.

So much wrong and so little time. Of course, all mammals have a cerebral cortex; this is not some kind of unique, independently evolved organ that is only found in humans, as Carrier seems to believe. Mice have a cerebral cortex. Chimps have one. There are dolphins with more neurons in their cerebral cortex than Richard Carrier.

He truly is the Frank Spencer of Atheism

From the Frank Spencer Wiki page:

"Ooh Betty ..." is not Frank's only catchphrase of the series. [...]He also sometimes complains about being "ha-RASSed!", or occasionally, "I've had a lot of ha-RASSments lately"
[...]
Frank's character changes noticeably in this series, becoming more self-aware and keen to make himself appear more educated and well-spoken. He develops an air of pomposity which is always best demonstrated when someone would approach and enquire "Mr Spencer?" to which he would always reply, "I am he." He also becomes more self-assured, and much more willing to argue back when criticised, and often wins arguments by leaving his opponents dumbfounded by the bizarreness of what he would say.

'Oooh...'
http://i.imgur.com/rNo2DdK.jpg
'...Poly.'

Richard Carrier: Some mothers do 'ave 'em. :lol:

[Guest_0048cc29]

I don't mind it being claimed a rock or a hurricane is a computing system. They are in a sense, and it reminds me of various analog computing algorithms and how they can be much equivalent or faster than digital algorithms.

Wow. I definitely need to start buying better weed because the claim that a rock or hurricane is a computing system does not remind me of the difference between analog and digital algorithms. I can't even come up with a sense in which a rock is a computing system. I suck.

Way to put me in my place, Internet Tough Guy

Place a small rock on a hillside, watch it figure out how to minimize potential energy.
Place a small rock in a water column, watch it solve problems of buoyancy.
Place a small rock at a Lagrange point, watch it solve differential equations in physics.

[Jan Steen]

Nothing better than a rock to compute what a rock would do.