Online activists are silencing us, scientists say • Hacker News Board

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#261

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

nathan_long wrote: post #235

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is significantly more genetic variety in the single black "race" than all others put together. You could try dividing blacks into three or twelve different races but those lines are quite difficult to draw. Not only that, people want to continue using the existing (extremely flawed) categories, and that's where it leads you to problems. "More genetic variety in a single race than between races" is a great arg…

> When you discover that some "race" is underrepresented in some field, it's completely possible that a major cause is that the median in that arbitrarily defined racial category is below the median in another arbitrarily defined racial category. It's possible, yes. It's also possible that perceptions of race influence the subjective decisions that drive those outcomes. How would you determine causality? Eg, you coul…

https://www.reddit.com/r/TiADiscussion/comments/5na1fr/that_...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-...

TL;DR: Original study used names that coded for socioeconomic status as well as race, and is older so people may have been more racist then than they are today. Newer study using names that ostensibly code for race and gender but not socioeconomic status shows no difference between race or gender coded names.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#262

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

nathan_long wrote: post #241

barry-cotter wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell the difference between German and Irish people at better than chance and you think people can’t tell the difference between Melanesians, Caucasians and Sub Saharan Africans? Bone structure, skin tone, hair colour and hair texture don’t give as much information as a whole genome sequence but telling the difference between an East Asian and a West Eurasian isn’t rocket surgery. By the same token it’s not har…

> You think people can’t tell the difference between Melanesians, Caucasians and Sub Saharan Africans? Get someone to show you pictures and have you identify them. I bet you'll make a lot of mistakes. Historically, not only can people not tell the difference objectively, they decide what the difference is subjectively. In the United States, the child of a white slave owner and a black slave, if their parentage was kn…

>> You think people can’t tell the difference between Melanesians, Caucasians and Sub Saharan Africans?

> Get someone to show you pictures and have you identify them. I bet you'll make a lot of mistakes.

I’m going to sleep now but if you find ten pictures of each I’ll be happy to do your survey. I’m sure many others would be too if you put it on surveymonkey.

The overlap in skin tone alone between Caucasians and the other two groups is ~0 so I doubt there would be any mistakes there. I’m sure there would be many more mistakes between Melanesians and Sub Saharan Africans but even just going on whether they have a broad nose or not you’d get pretty far distinguishing SSA from Melanesians. I’m not claiming perfect distinction. I’m claiming that doing better than chance is unremarkable. These groups are visibly different on average. Some groups the population values don’t even overlap. The shortest adult Maasai is taller than the tallest adult Pygmy.

> In the United States, the child of a white slave owner and a black slave was... black.

Who cares about the historical American caste system, with its one drop rule? The social construction of race is a real thing and so is the fact that different ancestry groups are different, and can be distinguished, on average and subject to error. Pretending ancestry is entirely socially constructed is crazy. If you get thirty pictures, 10 East Asian, 10 West Eurasian, and ten people who are first generation crosses from both populations, there is very unlikely to be any mislabelling of the base population individuals.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#263

Post by ethbro » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #219

ethbro wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes a level deeper than that. Learned from dating a very good massage therapist for awhile, our minds relatively commonly cause physical changes that lead to pain symptoms. E.g. you subconsciously favor your back, leading to overexertion of other muscles, leading to physical degradation and pain from those muscles Talking with her was eye opening on the amount of sub-major muscle "stuff" that is constantly subcon…

Is that considered psychosomatic, though? I don't think this fits the topic at hand.

It's a blurry line. If I've caused permanent damage to my back because I've been subconsciously holding it incorrectly for decades, is that damage psychosomatic?

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#264

Post by ativzzz » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #257

btilly wrote: post #246

Here is a simple rule. Any condition that can be improved with a placebo, has a possible psychological component that can either be a cause or a contributing factor. This is not to say that it is all in your head, or that all people with it have it due to psychological reasons. But some of the people have at least some of their symptoms worsened by psychological factors. Anyone who finds this controversial has psycho…

Curious, if put in practice, what is the reference group for the placebo group?

I don't think it exists outside of scientific trials. I can't imagine getting a prescription from your doctor only to find out it was a sugar pill to be accepted by society in any way.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#265

Post by kr4 » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

kmundnic wrote: post #140

SCdF wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so there is a dissenting reply about Sarno's book, I have chronic RSI and his book did not help me at all. I wish it did, I'm pretty over RSI in general, but after going through a variety of different ideas and experiments pretty much "don't use your hands" is all I've got :-(

Sarno’s book concludes with the idea that negative emotions cannot be changed, and I disagree. I _think_ this is due to the psychoanalysis framework he employs for his analysis. For me, it didn’t help either, but guided me to search how I could change my emotions. A mix of yoga and meditation plus techniques from “Code to Joy” by George Pratt helped me chronic headaches. Yoga helps you become more aware of your mind-…

It's difficult to put forward the science behind Kundalini Yoga / meditation to audience stuck in modern scientific mindset. There's a huge literature in India for holistic living that encompasses from Ayurveda, yoga to tantra written over thousands of years based on direct experience and experiments. If you’re curious to know more you can start with The Wellness Sense https://www.amazon.com/Wellness-Sense-practical-emotional-Ay...

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#266

Post by magduf » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #246

Here is a simple rule. Any condition that can be improved with a placebo, has a possible psychological component that can either be a cause or a contributing factor. This is not to say that it is all in your head, or that all people with it have it due to psychological reasons. But some of the people have at least some of their symptoms worsened by psychological factors. Anyone who finds this controversial has psycho…

>Anyone who finds this controversial has psychological issues with reality.

Isn't that something you can say about much of the population though? It seems to me that humans, in general, have psychological issues with reality.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#267

Post by jancsika » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #244

If you think it's bad now, wait until "activists" have easy access to AI that most people can't distinguish from real humans. It's simple: Just pick a target of your ire, be it someone with ideological, political, lifestyle differences, or just someone you don't like, point your AI bot to it, and watch it harass your victim and anyone associated with them, until they lose their job, reputation, friends, family, etc.…

> If you think it's bad now, wait until "activists" have easy access to AI that most people can't distinguish from real humans.

I'd bet you could experience this right now if you start researching and posting on topics like "Free Tibet" and the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine.

Edit: possibly with a paid human instead of an AI, but with a nation-state budget it's equivalent.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#268

Post by meej » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

NPR's Invisibilia podcast started their latest season with an episode about amplified pain. Looks like they got some backlash, too.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/06/700743108/the-fifth-vital-sig...

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#269

Post by sergiotapia » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

Twitter is a cesspool of degenerates and people with nothing to do with their lives except hunt for that dopamine hit. What do you possibly gain by having a social media presence? You have everything to lose.

People are harassing a scientist for crying out loud. Nobody has a chance.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#270

Post by magduf » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

vgoh1 wrote: post #188

nateberkopec wrote: post #10

Over the next 20 or so years, expect a lot of syndromes/conditions to be reclassified, as Michael Sharpe puts in the article, as "biological condition[s] that can be perpetuated by social and psychological factors.". I struggled with RSI for a couple of years until I read John Sarno's "The Mind-Body Connection" on the recommendation of someone from HN. Sarno's thesis is that many chronic pain conditions (those withou…

When I was a child, I would suffer from terrible muscle contractions in my calves. I would get a charlie horse in the middle of the night, and it would not go away completely for over a day. I couldn't put my foot flat to walk properly, and it was very painful. After about a dozen of these attacks, I noticed a pattern - they would occur on the night before something that I was dreading - a test I wasn't prepared for,…

I've had something similar, where I would get a massive cramp in the night while I was dreaming. It was definitely, IMO, caused by something going on in my mind. I had to learn to wake up immediately when this happened and exercise conscious control of the muscles to stop the cramping to prevent any further damage, as it could really cause me to have seriously sore leg muscles for a day or two afterwards.

I haven't had this happen for at least a year or so now, and it's quite likely this is linked to various major changes that have happened in my life since then.

But yes, I totally agree with you about your conclusion.