So I was thinking about black holes some more, and I concluded that the nascent event horizon will indeed prevent its own formation...unless space is quantized. Infalling particles would jump directly from a region of finite time dilation to inside the event horizon. This gets interesting as Einstein's relativity is inconsistent with quantized space, so we'd need to update the theory of gravity, and quantized gravity may not have a black hole solution in the first place. Although if not, it is likely to have something similar, what with all those massive dark astral objects.
There's also some housekeeping regarding my previous post. I'm glad someone else has noticed that black holes should prevent themselves from forming. Truth is available to everyone, which means that independent discovery should happen with basically every true idea. Only lies can be truly creative and unique. (Indeed I just found an argument that the classical black hole would reverse its own time before an event horizon is formed...in short, nature abhors an infinity.)[1]
However, the large hadron collider is not dangerous. While Hawking's calculation may not be consistent with an actual unified quantum gravity, it is consistent with things like thermodynamics #2; even if Hawking is wrong in the details there is every reason to think that black holes decay. For example, using my ideas (or Pegrume's) the black hole is really a collection of almost-infinitely redshifted objects. Hawking relied on the sharp event horizon, but imagine instead that a virtual particle pair forms, one half annihilates a real particle, and the other tunnels out. Essentially this is a captured particle tunnelling out of the black hole, and thus a loss of mass, and thus, Hawking radiation, even though half of Hawking's assumptions were counter-assumed away. The result is robust like this in several ways.
Considering a micro black hole, I remember that matter is in fact mostly empty space, and that the thing which makes a black hole is gravitational gradient. So this micro black hole is basically a few massively redshifted particles very close together, but the dangerous volume they create is smaller than a proton; beyond this their fields appear completely normal, for example a black hole doesn't amplify gravity, so the gravitational attraction will be that of a few individual particles, exactly as they were before the atom smashing. Between small volumes and empty space, unless the phenomenon is completely stable, it will decay before it manages to grow enough to stabilize.
Using the maximum possible energy the LHC can produce, assuming all of the energy is captured by the black hole, it would have a Schwarzschild radius of less than a Planck length.
Let me say that again: less than a Planck length. A lot less, like ten orders of magnitude less. Don't forget that most neutrinos can make it through the entire Earth without touching anything. The cross section of a neutrino is way, way higher than a Planck length.
Further, virtual particles swarm around real particles; this phenomenon is responsible for shielding some of the naked charge of the electron, for example. Clouds of virtual particles should corrode the black holes.[2]
Similarly, the idea that the LHC will somehow do things not before seen in nature is preposterous human hubris. Every time before we thought we've been clever, we've been shown up, often by 'lowly' creatures like sea cucumbers, or random comets. While it's impossible to rule out total destruction, the correct odds for the LHC in particular are exactly those of any new technology, like internal combustion. Even assuming we do eventually manage global apocalypse, we're not going to know it might happen beforehand.
Every single factor is stacked against catastophe, even though consensus physics is wildly wrong about black holes.[3]
[1] Pegrume wants the index linked. First, he should say so on the individual pages, I was checking for crankishness when I found the request. (He certainly lacks a proofreader, as attested by a serious problem typing with 'none' instead of 'non.') Second, his request is unreasonable, but luckily he provided the reasons, so I'm interpreting it.
[2] Real black holes theoretically emit less Hawking radiation than they receive in cosmic radiation. They're big enough to have a noticeable cross section to catch radiation, and Hawking radiation drops with size.
[3] Physicists even suspect they're wrong, as in every other case a singularity is not a sign that nature breaks down, but rather a sign that the mathematical models break down, and are thus incomplete.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
"Compassionate" Politicians - Exactly Not
(HT) Just in case you were worried politicians might actually care about their constituents, someone ran the numbers.
Using investment rather than the welfare state bureaucracy, you can purchase an annuity of more than your annual income for the price of the social security tax you were paying anyway. Combining Murray's numbers with La Wik's, you can have private doctors for about the cost of public doctors, if that's what you are actually after. In other words, drop wait times, lose the bad attitude, and provide an incentive for smart students to become doctors, and in return get doctors for everyone.
We all know politicians are liars. But do you really get what that means? "Our new initiative will help the poor and the sick by...." Whatever the initiative will do, you can be sure it is not helping the poor or the sick.
I have no idea if the authors actually connected, but I first read a version of this idea on Unqualified Reservations; MM noted that simply giving every American a financial instrument equivalent to their legislative due would be vastly more effective at the stated goals than what's actually going on.
This is how you can tell that the stated goals are just noise. The solutions are generally practised elsewhere, simpler to design, not difficult to understand, and if ignorance is a barrier, then simply showing your representative Murray's article should sweep it away. Despite this, what's actually created are byzantine networks that both intentionally obfuscate and always seem to put lots of money in the pockets of politician's friends...
What's even more interesting to me is that it works. The golden goose never seriously questions the story that its egg is being sold to provide bread for poor children. It's even more remarkable if you consider how easy it is to draw a person into outrage at their governments, as long as you limit the discussion to concrete particulars.
(Just in case you're worried that the person does have good things to say about their government as well, check to see if they're using vague happy-speak or whether they can talk specifically of actual uncompromised benefits, without ignoring their downsides.)
Murray also touches on the real issue. "The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life." If socialism simply taxed the wallet, it would just be annoying. The real problem is that socialism taxes the soul. I was tempted to think this is a side effect, but I found out that the degradation of family and community greatly benefits the perpetrators of the welfare state, although I hesitate to say it is 'intentional.' For example, did Alfred Kinsey want to promote violent, jealous rages, or was he just out to prove his own impulses were morally sound? To the democratic state, however, all those warped children are sources of power. So, Kinsey's friends get funding and exposure, while his enemies, the opponents of human misery, perhaps equally oblivious of their sociological role, become persecuted.
Using investment rather than the welfare state bureaucracy, you can purchase an annuity of more than your annual income for the price of the social security tax you were paying anyway. Combining Murray's numbers with La Wik's, you can have private doctors for about the cost of public doctors, if that's what you are actually after. In other words, drop wait times, lose the bad attitude, and provide an incentive for smart students to become doctors, and in return get doctors for everyone.
We all know politicians are liars. But do you really get what that means? "Our new initiative will help the poor and the sick by...." Whatever the initiative will do, you can be sure it is not helping the poor or the sick.
I have no idea if the authors actually connected, but I first read a version of this idea on Unqualified Reservations; MM noted that simply giving every American a financial instrument equivalent to their legislative due would be vastly more effective at the stated goals than what's actually going on.
This is how you can tell that the stated goals are just noise. The solutions are generally practised elsewhere, simpler to design, not difficult to understand, and if ignorance is a barrier, then simply showing your representative Murray's article should sweep it away. Despite this, what's actually created are byzantine networks that both intentionally obfuscate and always seem to put lots of money in the pockets of politician's friends...
What's even more interesting to me is that it works. The golden goose never seriously questions the story that its egg is being sold to provide bread for poor children. It's even more remarkable if you consider how easy it is to draw a person into outrage at their governments, as long as you limit the discussion to concrete particulars.
(Just in case you're worried that the person does have good things to say about their government as well, check to see if they're using vague happy-speak or whether they can talk specifically of actual uncompromised benefits, without ignoring their downsides.)
Murray also touches on the real issue. "The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life." If socialism simply taxed the wallet, it would just be annoying. The real problem is that socialism taxes the soul. I was tempted to think this is a side effect, but I found out that the degradation of family and community greatly benefits the perpetrators of the welfare state, although I hesitate to say it is 'intentional.' For example, did Alfred Kinsey want to promote violent, jealous rages, or was he just out to prove his own impulses were morally sound? To the democratic state, however, all those warped children are sources of power. So, Kinsey's friends get funding and exposure, while his enemies, the opponents of human misery, perhaps equally oblivious of their sociological role, become persecuted.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Meta-science Dismissed
I was reading about some reasons to distrust meta-analysis, and when I went to evaluate the ideas' merits, I remembered a source of error that I'd read about recently. I enjoy Eades' epistemological takedowns, but this one basically amounts to, "Meta-analyses are usually done wrong."
Eades is correct to dismiss meta-analyses, though perhaps not for the reasons he thinks. (I suspect experience guided him.) Although he has good reasons; a meta-study including methodologically poor studies is going to be a poor meta-study, and a meta-study has to be very careful to include data fairly. If it fails to do either, I would call it a mistake, not a study; it's quite possible for a meta-analysis to do both properly.
This mainly impacts journalistic writing, as they'll happily write on any study that fits their agenda, and generally forget caveats and other subtleties. If you're in a position to read the actual paper, you're in a position to tell if they're cherry-picking data.
However, how many meta-studies do you suppose correct for the fact that neutral or negative studies don't result in papers? I'm not sure how I would check, but I'm going with negative zero. They can't even try to deal with cherry-picking that occurred before the paper is published.
It's a shame. Yesterday, the meta-study was my favourite kind of statistical study.
Eades is correct to dismiss meta-analyses, though perhaps not for the reasons he thinks. (I suspect experience guided him.) Although he has good reasons; a meta-study including methodologically poor studies is going to be a poor meta-study, and a meta-study has to be very careful to include data fairly. If it fails to do either, I would call it a mistake, not a study; it's quite possible for a meta-analysis to do both properly.
This mainly impacts journalistic writing, as they'll happily write on any study that fits their agenda, and generally forget caveats and other subtleties. If you're in a position to read the actual paper, you're in a position to tell if they're cherry-picking data.
However, how many meta-studies do you suppose correct for the fact that neutral or negative studies don't result in papers? I'm not sure how I would check, but I'm going with negative zero. They can't even try to deal with cherry-picking that occurred before the paper is published.
It's a shame. Yesterday, the meta-study was my favourite kind of statistical study.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Flynn Effect vs. Retards?
The clinical cutoff for the mental cripple is an IQ of 70. Flynn noticed that the average - normed to IQ 100 - is getting smarter. There's a qualitative cutoff at the mental cripple stage. Such a person is literally too stupid to support themselves, and require lifelong care. Basically, childcare extends across adulthood.
Setting aside edge cases (which can be statistically smoothed out) is the cutoff actually dropping, as the Flynn effect would predict?
Setting aside edge cases (which can be statistically smoothed out) is the cutoff actually dropping, as the Flynn effect would predict?
Saturday, April 10, 2010
An Obvious Dilemma?
Blogging and print journalism seem to share a dilemma.
Obvious thought is not necessary; the audience can figure it out on their own. The only real barrier is inclination, which can be overcome simply by vaguely gesturing in a particular direction.
Non-obvious thought is automatically more useful, but deters audiences, because it is difficult both to convey and to understand.
I'm not interested in reading or writing about the obvious, and you're reading this blog; you're probably the same way. There don't seem to be enough of us to fully support blogs that pursue non-obvious ideas.
This can somewhat be overturned by posting long enough to put forth a full explanation. Beyond generating complaints, I wonder what effects long posts actually have on readers. Books work; is there some no-mans-land in the middle?
I wonder if a compromise would work. Perhaps consistent posts on the obvious peppered with eyeball busting treatises, at say 10-1. I suspect there's a lot of intersection between readers who want to be in the choir and readers who want an uphill read.
I think this dilemma has defined the idea of 'news.' One way to be both simple and useful is to supply small updates to existing bodies of knowledge. Unfortunately for the purposes of discourse, small and obvious amounts to insignificant. Thus, neither actionable ideas nor mind-changing ideas are economically viable to share. My issues with journalism may stem from journalism bloating beyond areas like weather, where facts that are insignificant as ideas can have significant physical consequences.
The part about 'existing knowledge' seems like it would drive expectations in the wrong way, too. The existing knowledge is necessary to make the update obvious, but having been raised on a diet of the obvious, can you deal properly with the non-obvious? Isn't your first instinct going to be to treat it as obvious but wrong? It was certainly my first instinct, and it would rather neatly explain around 3/4 of blog comments.
This dilemma has probably shaped the idea of 'science' as well. Specialists cannot be economically sustained by selling the ideas they develop; hence grants. Given the abysmal efficiency we're seeing grants achieve, I hope this one is a false dilemma. Since selling to a journal-equivalent is not sufficient, science should find some other voluntary exchange which does supply enough wealth. (Indeed, science did not begin in the age of grants, though measuring science by number of papers began then.)
On the other hand, sharing ideas is something humans seem to do for free. From time to time. Experiments remain expensive, but I have to ask; is there demand for science? If grants weren't cornering the market, would there be efforts to find voluntary alternatives, or would science die out, as grant-proponents (naturally) say?
More importantly, is there actually a market for ideas per se? Funding thinkers certainly puts more ideas out there, and conversely, perverted and neglected IP rights suppress the idea market. But exceeding the actual demand inherently implies waste. If ideas cannot be sold above the cost of production, there are more ideas than people want. Perhaps neglecting the market is actually the good choice. Perhaps the only reason there are so many ideas out there is that one day long ago, a scholar was frustrated that their preferred leisure was unprofitable, and then, through the devil's own luck, came into power.
Obvious thought is not necessary; the audience can figure it out on their own. The only real barrier is inclination, which can be overcome simply by vaguely gesturing in a particular direction.
Non-obvious thought is automatically more useful, but deters audiences, because it is difficult both to convey and to understand.
I'm not interested in reading or writing about the obvious, and you're reading this blog; you're probably the same way. There don't seem to be enough of us to fully support blogs that pursue non-obvious ideas.
This can somewhat be overturned by posting long enough to put forth a full explanation. Beyond generating complaints, I wonder what effects long posts actually have on readers. Books work; is there some no-mans-land in the middle?
I wonder if a compromise would work. Perhaps consistent posts on the obvious peppered with eyeball busting treatises, at say 10-1. I suspect there's a lot of intersection between readers who want to be in the choir and readers who want an uphill read.
I think this dilemma has defined the idea of 'news.' One way to be both simple and useful is to supply small updates to existing bodies of knowledge. Unfortunately for the purposes of discourse, small and obvious amounts to insignificant. Thus, neither actionable ideas nor mind-changing ideas are economically viable to share. My issues with journalism may stem from journalism bloating beyond areas like weather, where facts that are insignificant as ideas can have significant physical consequences.
The part about 'existing knowledge' seems like it would drive expectations in the wrong way, too. The existing knowledge is necessary to make the update obvious, but having been raised on a diet of the obvious, can you deal properly with the non-obvious? Isn't your first instinct going to be to treat it as obvious but wrong? It was certainly my first instinct, and it would rather neatly explain around 3/4 of blog comments.
This dilemma has probably shaped the idea of 'science' as well. Specialists cannot be economically sustained by selling the ideas they develop; hence grants. Given the abysmal efficiency we're seeing grants achieve, I hope this one is a false dilemma. Since selling to a journal-equivalent is not sufficient, science should find some other voluntary exchange which does supply enough wealth. (Indeed, science did not begin in the age of grants, though measuring science by number of papers began then.)
On the other hand, sharing ideas is something humans seem to do for free. From time to time. Experiments remain expensive, but I have to ask; is there demand for science? If grants weren't cornering the market, would there be efforts to find voluntary alternatives, or would science die out, as grant-proponents (naturally) say?
More importantly, is there actually a market for ideas per se? Funding thinkers certainly puts more ideas out there, and conversely, perverted and neglected IP rights suppress the idea market. But exceeding the actual demand inherently implies waste. If ideas cannot be sold above the cost of production, there are more ideas than people want. Perhaps neglecting the market is actually the good choice. Perhaps the only reason there are so many ideas out there is that one day long ago, a scholar was frustrated that their preferred leisure was unprofitable, and then, through the devil's own luck, came into power.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Taxation versus Crime
I was surprised to discover how badly neglected the direct link between taxation and crime is.
Criminals commit crime because they perceive that crime pays. Conversely, the more rewarding legitimate work is, the more limited the rewards of sacrificing legitimacy are, in both quality and quantity. Anything that reduces that reward is going to directly stimulate crime. All this can be derived more or less a priori.
I've only found one place discussing this link, and the data look bad to me. Beyond the simple confirm/deny dichotomy, different types of crime will respond to variance in payoff differently.
This means a few things. Even setting aside anarcho-capitalist flavoured violations of property rights, raising taxes has an inescapable odour of immorality. Even setting aside corruption, government waste not only wastes the honest dollar, it creates new dishonest dollars. (Though I stress that rewards, both honest and dishonest, need not be financial.)
Finally, a patchwork would not end up taxing at the Laffer maximum, because a patch with lower taxation will inevitably have a lower crime rate, thus attracting immigration, all else equal. Competition implies market implies consumer goodies.
Criminals commit crime because they perceive that crime pays. Conversely, the more rewarding legitimate work is, the more limited the rewards of sacrificing legitimacy are, in both quality and quantity. Anything that reduces that reward is going to directly stimulate crime. All this can be derived more or less a priori.
I've only found one place discussing this link, and the data look bad to me. Beyond the simple confirm/deny dichotomy, different types of crime will respond to variance in payoff differently.
This means a few things. Even setting aside anarcho-capitalist flavoured violations of property rights, raising taxes has an inescapable odour of immorality. Even setting aside corruption, government waste not only wastes the honest dollar, it creates new dishonest dollars. (Though I stress that rewards, both honest and dishonest, need not be financial.)
Finally, a patchwork would not end up taxing at the Laffer maximum, because a patch with lower taxation will inevitably have a lower crime rate, thus attracting immigration, all else equal. Competition implies market implies consumer goodies.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Experiment Confirms Biased Decision-Making; Irritation
"Our fears were confirmed."It's not a statement that fills me with epistemological confidence.
I'm indeed interested in the long-term effects of short-term emotions, but the experiment design here doesn't help me. I strongly suspect that emotions have effects that last beyond their qualia, and I think ignoring or lacking this suspicion is what ruined this experiment.
The fear in question is that a bad decision made in the heat of the moment will echo in the future, and indeed I agree that bad decisions are habit-forming, as are all decisions.
The problem is that replicating the situation so closely is likely to consciously remind the subject of their bad mood. If I've been in a lab and played the economic ultimatum game once, and I was pretty annoyed at the time, no matter how long you wait, the second time I'm in a lab playing the ultimatum game, I'm going to remember how annoyed I was the first time around. Rightly or wrongly, I'm going to associate the annoyance with the game.
Andrade and Ariely did not test what they thought they tested.
"They were tapping the memory of the decisions they had made earlier, when they were responding under the influence of feeling annoyed."
False. They were being annoyed a second time around. They did not make a second bad decision while cool-headed.
"If you don’t, you may regret it. Many times over."
If indeed I'm saving time by re-using the result of a previous analysis, how important is it really if one of those times I have lost my cool? If I'm doing something for the thousandth time, instead of the first, and I happen to make a suboptimal decision due to stress, how likely is it that the thousandth-and-first time I'm going to reference only the bad decision?
For this particular example, I can't confirm I'm the best model, but I would actually improve my overall decision making as a result of this bad decision. Seeing first-hand what a bad decision looks like, I would be able to contrast the results directly to both my previous decisions, and my current decision. I would be able to recognize more subtle versions of stress effects on my decisions, because I would have essentially seen in magnified.
However, experiments cannot fail. You always learn something - even if it's just a way not to design experiments. In this case, it supports the idea that the all-important first impression is affected by 'rationally' irrelevant factors, such as overall mood that day.
I already knew this, but independent corroboration is always nice. When trying something for the first time, I start by making sure I'm in a good mood, and abort if something upsetting happens on the way there, unless I'm completely okay with a distorted assessment.
Psych. My conclusion makes the same mistake as Andrade and Ariely; the actual experiment is ambiguous. This experiment does falsify certain things, but not anything Andrade, Ariely, or I actually believe. As such, the only real conclusion is that you shouldn't design an experiment this way, and if we're going to have tax-funded science, it should at least spend some dough on experiments to pick apart why exactly this design does not work.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Weinburg Inspires Sailer to Flaunt Ignorance
The link has been sitting in my bookmarks for a while, taunting me. (And will remain there, as it's also useful.) I think the taunting is ultimately why I'm writing this post up, because as per the blog name, I should accept that most people are going to be ignorant of philosophy most of the time. I don't really think that there's much point in doing much more than pointing out that ignorance renders your opinion meaningless, and that the ignorant soul should study some philosophy if that bothers them. I would also warn that doing it properly is an incredible time sink.
Except there's a bit of paradox, as philosophy shows a clear trickle-down effect, where professional thoughts show up all unreferenced in the layman. Being totally without a philosophy is impossible, which means the total ignorance one can have on building suspension bridges doesn't obtain. I think that means I should say, "Ignorant of the philosophicalness of their philosophy," which captures both the ineptitude and the disdain.
There's a clear thread of anti-philosophy sentiment among the parts of the intelligentsia that consider themselves hard-headed.[1] A good bite-sized example is Feynman's quoted position. The people I meet express similar disdain when I ask them. I understand it even shows up in blog titles. Similarly, the other side is feeling some pressure.
Naturally, I feel I must rise to the defence, at least when the detractor is eloquent.
Setting aside Sturgeon, and the fact that Weinberg probably owes a great deal of his ideas to philosophers, there's still a good reason for Weinberg's perception that doesn't actually impugn philosophy at all. Weinberg gets one thing right; appreciating advanced philosophy, like appreciating advanced mathematics, takes training in the subject, and as such they're comparable. The constructs are programs which run on wetware, which means you have to install in your person the prerequisite libraries before they're meaningful. So...when did Weinberg install the philosophy libraries? The math he'd already done, as it's necessary to learn physics. The result is that Weinberg's statement, and by extension Sailer's, declares ignorance of philosophy, not the uselessness of it.
As I re-read that, I think Rorty actually means, "the category "female" is a meaningless category." He wants to make a point that treating women differently is unjust, or something along those lines. Almost all categories are 'mere' social convention - arbitrary and subjective. Even bowls. But, an entity being a member of 'bowl' is greatly meaningful, and far more meaningful is being part of the category 'woman.'
Frankly, if you have to deny a woman's femininity to prove that treating her badly is unjust, there's something wrong with you.
Yawn. One day, people will stop having an orgasm every time they mention 'the scientific method,' that fuzzy beast. Perhaps they'll even start referencing actual particulars with actual meaning. I'll greatly enjoy these as I sail around in my moon-yacht
First problem with this sentence; as far as there's such a thing as the scientific method, it's a result of epistemology. Second, Hume is already highly respected, while I've never seen Rorty referenced without making fun of him, to the point that I barely feel the need to join in. Final problem, "Philosophers who hold my philosophy are awesome, and the rest suck!" It's a form of Dunning-Kruger to fail to recognize craftmanship when the craft on display isn't one you personally have use for.
Stove was pretty cool. I'm not going to directly address the issues in the last sentence.
Universals are commonly used by scientists. Linnaean taxonomy, for example, groups multiple organisms under a single universal name, and then ascribes properties to the category, not individuals. The universal electronness of electrons is universally accepted. The questions that must be answered by philosophical history are; did Plato just write down what was already commonly known, or in fact is it commonly known because Plato wrote it down? Even were Plato simply justifying common knowledge, isn't that in itself valuable? Even if Plato were just writing down common knowledge, isn't that valuable if no one else had done so before?
Admittedly it would be pretty ironic if the task of writing down common sense naturally falls to philosophers. Though this gives me an idea; writing down common sense is an ideal task for philosophy apprentices. First, it gives a record of things that historians and archaeologists often lament as going unrecorded. Second, it helps the master find all the arrogant idiocies the apprentice absorbed growing up, and so can correct them more adroitly. Why, the master may even find a few they'd missed in themselves.
Bias: Sailer is awfully enamoured with statistics. ("Plumbing most important job to civilization, says plumber.") Yes, understanding statistics is important enough to understanding the world that you can tell that our society doesn't offer liberal educations because statistics isn't included.[3], [4] However, as per my previous paragraph, it is indeed an issue when philosophers don't understand statistical logic, unless they intend to dodge the field entirely. On the other hand, Sturgeon's second. Further, philosophers are not exactly alone in ignorance of statistical logic. Actual statisticians are often bad at it, let alone anyone else.
"I disagree with you, therefore, you're committing errors." I'm still not sure exactly what Sailer means by his 'verbal, abstract essences.' I'd like to make a good-faith check that his criticism doesn't apply to me, but I can't.
Indeed, what are screeds like Sailer's doing but replaying the Sophist drama once again, with 'philosophers' now taking the part of arrogant politickers and the 'scientists' the upstart asker of questions? It makes me wonder how much of the Sophist's reputation is deserved and how much was because Socrates won the smear campaign.
This brings me to my wild tangent.
"Mediterranean peoples such as Jews and Italians, who have been drinking wine for 10,000 years, have evolved impressive genetic and cultural defences against becoming alcoholics. In contrast, Northern Europeans, who first obtained alcohol only a few millennia ago, haven't fully adapted genetically to alcohol yet, and thus must often turn to cruder cultural responses like teetotalling, prohibition and the Betty Ford Clinic. Finally, those racial groups unfortunate enough not to taste alcohol and other sugar-based products until the last few centuries, such as the First Nations peoples of Canada and the Australian Aborigines, are currently being devastated by alcoholism, tooth decay and diabetes."
The Internet is the same. Specifically, comment sections. As technology has marched on, we seem to be progressively finding methods of communication further and further removed from the face-to-face. However, of those methods, only letters have developed conventions far different from those of face-to-face, producing the communication equivalent of tooth decay and diabetes. So, in a few centuries or millennia, I predict we'll have had time to adapt to this new technology. Until then, accept as inevitable the decay of your comment section into "FIRST!" semiliterate babbling, gay jokes, and spew from the fellow travellers of neonazis. At least, without drastic measures ("teetotalling") which most find do more harm than good.
[1] I don't care whether they're actually hard-headed; rather this self-evaluation looks to me to mark the group with good precision.
[2] I wanted a survey to try to direct my search. Eventually I concluded that osmosis is strong enough that if I've missed anything, reinventing the wheel is faster than trying to find it in places like Critique of Pure Reason.
[3] Also, things like how much life insurance you need. Here's the calculation: your income, times the years until your dependents aren't, plus your debts. What this means is that if you die the day your insurance goes through, your dependents will have the benefit of your support until they no longer need it, and won't be responsible for your debts. Also, buy term. It's ridiculously cheap, and isn't a ponzi scheme. Difficult, eh? Can you think of a class or two you'd have liked to replace with something useful, like life insurance?
[4] Unless you make the effort to specifically seek out statistics, and then you get the full technical details, instead of being taught to understand the stuff. No, I don't need to actually perform regression analysis or power transformations, nor do I need to memorize Bayes' formula, because I never need to actually perform these calculations. But I do need to understand what they mean and what they're about.
Except there's a bit of paradox, as philosophy shows a clear trickle-down effect, where professional thoughts show up all unreferenced in the layman. Being totally without a philosophy is impossible, which means the total ignorance one can have on building suspension bridges doesn't obtain. I think that means I should say, "Ignorant of the philosophicalness of their philosophy," which captures both the ineptitude and the disdain.
There's a clear thread of anti-philosophy sentiment among the parts of the intelligentsia that consider themselves hard-headed.[1] A good bite-sized example is Feynman's quoted position. The people I meet express similar disdain when I ask them. I understand it even shows up in blog titles. Similarly, the other side is feeling some pressure.
Naturally, I feel I must rise to the defence, at least when the detractor is eloquent.
"Is there a more prestigious job title than "philosopher"?"I'm going to go with 'yes' for $600, Jim. While I'm sure this was true recently, I've personally seen lots of screeds against the idea, and a whopping zero like the opposite. I'd write one myself, except that I think status should follow from your results, not your job or associations.
"Yet, in what other profession has more brainpower made less progress?"This does tidily sum up the essay, which makes it an excellent introduction.
"But the only value Weinberg ever found in reading philosophers was when they refuted other philosophers who had clouded his mind."I don't believe philosophy is immune to Sturgeon's second. Admittedly, I don't do much reading of philosophers either. Quickly glancing[2] over Kant's wikipedia yielded the thought "This guy's considered great and influential? All this is obvious!" Except I shortly realized that that's what influential means. His thought has influenced mine, all unawares.
Setting aside Sturgeon, and the fact that Weinberg probably owes a great deal of his ideas to philosophers, there's still a good reason for Weinberg's perception that doesn't actually impugn philosophy at all. Weinberg gets one thing right; appreciating advanced philosophy, like appreciating advanced mathematics, takes training in the subject, and as such they're comparable. The constructs are programs which run on wetware, which means you have to install in your person the prerequisite libraries before they're meaningful. So...when did Weinberg install the philosophy libraries? The math he'd already done, as it's necessary to learn physics. The result is that Weinberg's statement, and by extension Sailer's, declares ignorance of philosophy, not the uselessness of it.
"Even the most esoteric math has helped him describe the cosmos. But the only value Weinberg ever found in reading philosophers was when they refuted other philosophers who had clouded his mind.""My math-based job is helped by more math! But, this subject in which I have no training is totally useless to me!" In addition, I can't use lathes to create chairs. As above, while you can sit on a chair without even knowing lathes exist, philosophy has no such helpful external aides.
"While engineers or farmers or bartenders have all learned a trick or two over the years, philosophers mostly either rehash the same old mistakes or dream up new ones that are even more ridiculous."My ignorance hypothesis covers this neatly. Even if, having defeated ignorance, you still don't much care for classical philosophy, Anglosphere civilization still owes an enormous amount to one type of philosophy, Christian theology. For example, the vaunted egalitarianism is straight out of the Bible, which you can verify by noting its utter absence from non-Christian civilizations. It is one of the reasons African civilizations aren't resistant to democracy. That humans outside the tribe are people is not a belief that has major traction, worldwide.
"To this day, most philosophers suffer from Plato's disease: the assumption that reality fundamentally consists of abstract essences best described by words or geometry."Even Plato is on record for attacking the idea of Forms. Ignorance leads to strawmen.
"(In truth, reality is largely a probabilistic affair best described by statistics.)"So...Sailer thinks that even physics isn't quite sure what physics is? I won't deny our knowledge is often best described statistically.
"Today's postmodern philosophers[...]"You can stop right there. I haven't seen a respected postmodern apologia. You know, ever. They're defeated, and it's only a matter of time before their lack of proponents means their influence wanes even among the laymen.
"You have to be as eminent a philosopher as Rorty to believe that the category of "the female" is a mere social convention."Okay. Can you prove that it isn't? Otherwise, that's just your opinion, your prejudice. (And yes, I can.) As a matter of fact, philosophy often involves the cessation of belief in things that seem obvious, because 'it's obvious' is not an argument. All must be proven - one way, or the other. Though it does appear that this skill is tightly correlated with traits that add up to roughly 'eminent philosopher.'
As I re-read that, I think Rorty actually means, "the category "female" is a meaningless category." He wants to make a point that treating women differently is unjust, or something along those lines. Almost all categories are 'mere' social convention - arbitrary and subjective. Even bowls. But, an entity being a member of 'bowl' is greatly meaningful, and far more meaningful is being part of the category 'woman.'
Frankly, if you have to deny a woman's femininity to prove that treating her badly is unjust, there's something wrong with you.
"Fortunately, one school of philosophy has actually taught us some valuable lessons over the centuries: the anti-abstract British tradition of Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon and David Hume, with its emphasis on realism, common sense and the scientific method."
Yawn. One day, people will stop having an orgasm every time they mention 'the scientific method,' that fuzzy beast. Perhaps they'll even start referencing actual particulars with actual meaning. I'll greatly enjoy these as I sail around in my moon-yacht
First problem with this sentence; as far as there's such a thing as the scientific method, it's a result of epistemology. Second, Hume is already highly respected, while I've never seen Rorty referenced without making fun of him, to the point that I barely feel the need to join in. Final problem, "Philosophers who hold my philosophy are awesome, and the rest suck!" It's a form of Dunning-Kruger to fail to recognize craftmanship when the craft on display isn't one you personally have use for.
"Stove simply shreds his fellow philosophers. He turns his flamethrower on those "absolutely effortless pseudo-discoveries that philosophers make, and on which their fame rests." For instance, "Plato's discovery of 'universals' went as follows: 'It is possible for something to be a certain way and for something else to be the same way. So, there are universals!' (Tumultuous applause, which lasts 2,400 years.)""
Stove was pretty cool. I'm not going to directly address the issues in the last sentence.
Universals are commonly used by scientists. Linnaean taxonomy, for example, groups multiple organisms under a single universal name, and then ascribes properties to the category, not individuals. The universal electronness of electrons is universally accepted. The questions that must be answered by philosophical history are; did Plato just write down what was already commonly known, or in fact is it commonly known because Plato wrote it down? Even were Plato simply justifying common knowledge, isn't that in itself valuable? Even if Plato were just writing down common knowledge, isn't that valuable if no one else had done so before?
Admittedly it would be pretty ironic if the task of writing down common sense naturally falls to philosophers. Though this gives me an idea; writing down common sense is an ideal task for philosophy apprentices. First, it gives a record of things that historians and archaeologists often lament as going unrecorded. Second, it helps the master find all the arrogant idiocies the apprentice absorbed growing up, and so can correct them more adroitly. Why, the master may even find a few they'd missed in themselves.
"While his reasoning is impressive, it is also in the Grand Tradition of Western Philosophy: namely, almost 100% fact-free. (Elsewhere, Stove readily admits that philosophers "have no more knowledge of any matter that could serve as the premises of their reasonings than the next man has.")"I'm not sure how widespread is the knowledge that philosophy isn't supposed to deal with facts. The actual work of philosophy is in finding meaning using logic. It is not necessary for the meaning to actually match anything in the real world for it to be true, and thus good philosophy. As a matter of preference, I try to stick to ontologies that have a shot at being human meaningful, but matching the logical roots to actual data is not philosophical work, even if a philosopher does it.
"But even worse than ignoring statistical data, philosophers seldom understand statistical logic. In this case, for example, while the IQs of men and women are equal on average, men's IQ's are more variable. Thus, as any woman could testify, there are more really stupid men. But, there are also far more male geniuses."
Bias: Sailer is awfully enamoured with statistics. ("Plumbing most important job to civilization, says plumber.") Yes, understanding statistics is important enough to understanding the world that you can tell that our society doesn't offer liberal educations because statistics isn't included.[3], [4] However, as per my previous paragraph, it is indeed an issue when philosophers don't understand statistical logic, unless they intend to dodge the field entirely. On the other hand, Sturgeon's second. Further, philosophers are not exactly alone in ignorance of statistical logic. Actual statisticians are often bad at it, let alone anyone else.
"Stove flagrantly exhibits philosophers' worst trait -- emphasizing verbal abstractions over statistical tendencies -- when he ill-advisedly attacks the grandest offshoot of his own school of British empiricism, Darwinism, which he calls a "mere festering mass of errors.""
"I disagree with you, therefore, you're committing errors." I'm still not sure exactly what Sailer means by his 'verbal, abstract essences.' I'd like to make a good-faith check that his criticism doesn't apply to me, but I can't.
The idea that philosophy is useless is itself a philosophy. It's a thread of analytical philosophy in particular:
"Philosophers of the world, get real! You have nothing to lose but your irrelevance."
"Analytic philosophers are in revolt against the grand manner of traditional philosophy which claimed much and (in their view) established nothing."Seem familiar? Of course it's a bit worse than that. Socrates faced the exact same issue with the Sophists, the term philosophy created expressly to mock the Sophists and distance the new studies from them. It comes as no surprise to me that many philosophers have followed in the footsteps of the Sophists. The problem with the Sophists was never their tradition, customs, or incentive structure, but the fact that thinking professionally about logic, epistemology, and ontology comes with occupational hazards, such as arrogance and sophistry.
Indeed, what are screeds like Sailer's doing but replaying the Sophist drama once again, with 'philosophers' now taking the part of arrogant politickers and the 'scientists' the upstart asker of questions? It makes me wonder how much of the Sophist's reputation is deserved and how much was because Socrates won the smear campaign.
This brings me to my wild tangent.
"Mediterranean peoples such as Jews and Italians, who have been drinking wine for 10,000 years, have evolved impressive genetic and cultural defences against becoming alcoholics. In contrast, Northern Europeans, who first obtained alcohol only a few millennia ago, haven't fully adapted genetically to alcohol yet, and thus must often turn to cruder cultural responses like teetotalling, prohibition and the Betty Ford Clinic. Finally, those racial groups unfortunate enough not to taste alcohol and other sugar-based products until the last few centuries, such as the First Nations peoples of Canada and the Australian Aborigines, are currently being devastated by alcoholism, tooth decay and diabetes."
The Internet is the same. Specifically, comment sections. As technology has marched on, we seem to be progressively finding methods of communication further and further removed from the face-to-face. However, of those methods, only letters have developed conventions far different from those of face-to-face, producing the communication equivalent of tooth decay and diabetes. So, in a few centuries or millennia, I predict we'll have had time to adapt to this new technology. Until then, accept as inevitable the decay of your comment section into "FIRST!" semiliterate babbling, gay jokes, and spew from the fellow travellers of neonazis. At least, without drastic measures ("teetotalling") which most find do more harm than good.
[1] I don't care whether they're actually hard-headed; rather this self-evaluation looks to me to mark the group with good precision.
[2] I wanted a survey to try to direct my search. Eventually I concluded that osmosis is strong enough that if I've missed anything, reinventing the wheel is faster than trying to find it in places like Critique of Pure Reason.
[3] Also, things like how much life insurance you need. Here's the calculation: your income, times the years until your dependents aren't, plus your debts. What this means is that if you die the day your insurance goes through, your dependents will have the benefit of your support until they no longer need it, and won't be responsible for your debts. Also, buy term. It's ridiculously cheap, and isn't a ponzi scheme. Difficult, eh? Can you think of a class or two you'd have liked to replace with something useful, like life insurance?
[4] Unless you make the effort to specifically seek out statistics, and then you get the full technical details, instead of being taught to understand the stuff. No, I don't need to actually perform regression analysis or power transformations, nor do I need to memorize Bayes' formula, because I never need to actually perform these calculations. But I do need to understand what they mean and what they're about.
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