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E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: E Pur Si Muove

#781

Post by stale2002 »

chasing wrote: post #639
stale2002 wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the controversial opinion you’re actually worried about expressing at work? The controversial opinion that free speech should apply to workplaces. Yes lots of people oppose free speech. Some of those people might be willing to fire people over it.

I don't believe you that normal people would fire an employee for saying "free speech should apply to workplaces." I believe there's some other idea that you're talking about expressing and then defending by saying "free speech should apply to workplaces." What is that idea?

The idea is free speech and that's it. Full stop.

Just because you wouldn't fire someone doesn't mean someone else wouldn't.

And free speech is a controversial opinion these days, depending on where you live.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#782

Post by Hattyflanagan »

beachy wrote: post #678
reitanqild wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is a joke and I also think American gun laws could need some adjustment. That said what I've always been told is to start with myself: maybe my "opponents" are dumb. That doesn't help anything but my ego. Instead I'd recommend looking into common ground or another way to present my arguments. I disagree deeply with a good number of you but still I think most of you don’t realize most of the time since I e…

Yeah, I probably phrased my post overly provocatively but I wasn't trying to be funny, just logical. And thank you for a reasoned and courteous response. My thoughts were: 1) Mass shootings are horrific, and it seems insane that anyone can own an assault rifle with such low barriers, but at the same time, death from gun violence is statistically low compared to, say, auto accidents. If being in favour of stricter gun…

If only those gun violence victims knew they were more likely to die in an auto accident, that would totally change things. Are you saying the effects of both should only be taken as death statistics?

The effects of mass shootings isn't just about the amount of people killed. It's about the anxiety it creates nationally or globally. That's basically what makes terrorism so powerful, but it's not as easy to measure those effects and what they can lead to.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#783

Post by ghostcluster »

bduerst wrote: post #774
ghostcluster wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is Stanford Medical school on the subject, from just this past Spring: http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-b... And a highly cited study from 2013 addressing Damore's topic directly: http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometri... The evidence is not 'cherry picked'. It is abundant, comprehensively researched, and well replicated. Take a trip to Google Scholar yourself. It…

Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology , not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some…

The first link is an article from Stanford Medicine on the overwhelming evidence for the evolved biological cognitive differences between men and women, how this shapes their interests and average cognitive strengths. It's not a paper, it's a comprehensive review of the research presented to inform the public. Did you even read it?

> There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive differences to ignore, Halpern says. For one thing, the animal-research findings resonated with sex-based differences ascribed to people. These findings continue to accrue. In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks. A much more recent study established that boys and girls 9 to 17 months old — an age when children show few if any signs of recognizing either their own or other children’s sex — nonetheless show marked differences in their preference for stereotypically male versus stereotypically female toys...

The second link is about the advantage men have in mechanical reasoning and how it likely contributes to their representation in STEM fields. It's the title of the paper.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#784

Post by Hattyflanagan »

ealexhudson wrote: post #6

I think this is a radical simplification of what is a complex problem. Genetic engineering as a whole is known to be an area strewn with moral hazards, and not least harks back to some of the darkest days of 20th century science. Having an ethical outlook isn't a form of heresy, it's a form of societal safety. We need to accept that some of these ideas (probably not all - it's always difficult to get on the right sid…

That's exactly what the blog post wasn't realizing. Throwing out ethics is like throwing out law and order because it inhibits you from doing whatever you'd like to do. Does anyone really think they can stand upright against the winds when the weather turns nasty?

Just like laws, ethics are there for a reason, and the social changes going on are happening for a reason.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#785

Post by xyzzyz »

bduerst wrote: post #774
ghostcluster wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is Stanford Medical school on the subject, from just this past Spring: http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-b... And a highly cited study from 2013 addressing Damore's topic directly: http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometri... The evidence is not 'cherry picked'. It is abundant, comprehensively researched, and well replicated. Take a trip to Google Scholar yourself. It…

Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology , not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some…

Damore didn't reference your [1] to quote that "women are neurotic", he used it to quote that "greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits".

Your [2] doesn't even cite [1], and in any case, [1] has almost 800 citations, while [2] is only cited by the author herself in her other papers. Seems like a stretch to call [1] "discredited".

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#786

Post by bduerst »

xyzzyz wrote: post #785
bduerst wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology , not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some…

Damore didn't reference your [1] to quote that "women are neurotic", he used it to quote that "greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits". Your [2] doesn't even cite [1], and in any case, [1] has almost 800 citations, while [2] is only cited by the author herself in her other papers. Seems like a stretch to call [1] "discredited".

[2] is the one of the most recent criticisms of the Big Five method, which is the crux used in [1]. If [2] cited every paper that used the Big Five method incorrectly as biological factor analysis, it would be in the hundreds.

Number of citations is terrible metric to defend a paper because the reason [2] has less citations is because [2] was published 3 years ago, while [1] was published almost a decade ago.

Appeals to popularity are logic fallacies for a reason.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#787

Post by bduerst »

ghostcluster wrote: post #783
bduerst wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology , not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some…

The first link is an article from Stanford Medicine on the overwhelming evidence for the evolved biological cognitive differences between men and women, how this shapes their interests and average cognitive strengths. It's not a paper, it's a comprehensive review of the research presented to inform the public. Did you even read it? > There was too much data pointing to the biological basis of sex-based cognitive diff…

Observational correlation != causation. If you had read the articles you'd posted, you see that neither of them claim attributable biological causes to differences in gender behavior and social biases.

From the Stanford article (which is not peer reviewed):

>Trying to assign exact percentages to the relative contributions of “culture” versus “biology” to the behavior of free-living human individuals in a complex social environment is tough at best. Halpern offers a succinct assessment: “The role of culture is not zero. The role of biology is not zero.”

Yet again, Damore's paper wasn't making the argument that observational biological differences exist, the point of which you've missed because you're eagerly still trying to prove it right now. Damore's diatribe was that Google's combating of social bias was wrong, and he cherry picked specific data and stretched evidence to falsely support his viewpoint. Which, in context to this thread, is still neither progressive nor conservative and continuing to be proven vague.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#788

Post by staunch »

tsjackson wrote: post #754
staunch wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some large percentage of people are filled with cynicism and pessimism? Every objective measure of society is better today than at any time in the past, and yet we have people calling for curtailing a core American value due to a supposed social emergency. These demoralized people need a hard reality check because there's nothing fact-based about the way they think or behave. There are orders of magnitude mor…

Techno-optimist drivel is at least as unsavory as the overly sensitive, anti-technological kneejerk reactions that this article is lamenting. It's absurd to write off real problems with technology because tech does good things as well. I am having trouble following your jump from shutting down trolls to sacrificing our souls. If you think the loudest person should get a platform, I encourage you to spend some more ti…

Techno-optimists created the modern world...

You say you want to shutdown "trolls" but you surely also want to modify the definition of troll on an on-going basis.

The pessimists think they can't win on ideas alone so they resort to using force against the "trolls" to ensure victory. Harassing, deplatforming, doxing, getting them fired, boycotting, etc.

The optimists (see: MLK Jr.) know humans are pretty great and, given sufficient time and information, the good ideas will win eventually.

If you actually care about your society you should be engaging "trolls" and trying to understand them. And you should be trying to convince them they're wrong, if you can. And if you can't, you should look to others that can.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#789

Post by xyzzyz »

bduerst wrote: post #786
xyzzyz wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore didn't reference your [1] to quote that "women are neurotic", he used it to quote that "greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits". Your [2] doesn't even cite [1], and in any case, [1] has almost 800 citations, while [2] is only cited by the author herself in her other papers. Seems like a stretch to call [1] "discredited".

[2] is the one of the most recent criticisms of the Big Five method, which is the crux used in [1]. If [2] cited every paper that used the Big Five method incorrectly as biological factor analysis, it would be in the hundreds. Number of citations is terrible metric to defend a paper because the reason [2] has less citations is because [2] was published 3 years ago, while [1] was published almost a decade ago. Appeals…

[1] had almost 100 citation in its first 3 years, while [2] still has no citation by anyone else other than its author. If [2] really had discredited an entire field of research, I'd imagine that anyone at all would talk about it even once.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#790

Post by Veelox »

bduerst wrote: post #774
ghostcluster wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is Stanford Medical school on the subject, from just this past Spring: http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-b... And a highly cited study from 2013 addressing Damore's topic directly: http://atavisionary.com/study-index/intelligence-psychometri... The evidence is not 'cherry picked'. It is abundant, comprehensively researched, and well replicated. Take a trip to Google Scholar yourself. It…

Neither of these links you provide have to do with Damore's rant, nor are they mentioned in his claims. Damore wasn't arguing that men's and women's bodies were different - he was taking papers about biological differences and stretching them to supporting his unfounded claims that social differences are based on biology , not social constructs, because he was upset at Google's programs that fight social biases. Some…

I really wish Silicon Valley was a place where a man's ideas could be critiqued without the need to attack the man.

You have the base for a really good argument that could sway people who are on the fence about the issue but when you say things like "vagueness of his diatribe" you alienate the people you want to change the most.

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