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Suspicious Discontinuities

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Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#301

Post by smnrchrds »

thu2111 wrote: post #296
lonelappde wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience with libraries is 20years behind the times. My local library has a 3D printer.

Maybe so. But is it still a library if its primary cited uses isn't reading books? Why not just rename it to what it really is, some sort of community/maker centre?

1. Books are still one of the primary uses of libraries. It's just that they no longer are their only use.

2. Why do we call our smartphones phones at all? I mean, sure, they can make phone calls. But most people use them mostly for things that are not phone calls or phone-related at all.

That's how language works. Look at the etymology of any word you like. More likely than not, the literal meaning refers to something historical that may or may not apply or exist anymore. For example, software developers are called engineers. Does that mean they are experts when it comes to engines? And not just software. Civil engineers don't know much about engines either. Yet for hundreds of years, they have been called engineers and for thousands to come, they will be. This is not a bug. This is the natural life of words in human languages.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#302

Post by MarkMc »

DavidVoid wrote: post #25
lkbm wrote: post #12

OKCupid has a graph of reported height for men[0]. It's both shifted 2 inches to the right of average, but also slightly flattened at the normal peak of 5'10". It's not nearly as pronounced as the graphs in this post, but it's still notable. [0] https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...

Slightly off-topic but this reminded me of what is perhaps their most depressing pair of graphs. Look at "A woman's age vs. the age of the men sho look best to her" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617... and then compare that with "A man's age vs. the age of the women who look best to him" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617...

Somewhat similar is the effect of income on a man's popularity: https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*N0OGjZ9WDff4gOrf.png

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#303

Post by perl4ever »

PaulHoule wrote: post #253
jchrisa wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are good at paperwork, but it’s worth remembering that even Google sometimes biffs a domain name renewal. Why put artificial hurdles in front of people who need help?

If you want to remove those hurdles you might want to see some more diversity (e.g. not lawyers) in Congress.

You may not like nuclear engineers designing nuclear power plants, because they are too beholden to the establishment, but is it a good idea to have some other sort of person do it?

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#304

Post by perl4ever »

Robotbeat wrote: post #227
lostmsu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it depressing? Biologically this must be tuned to the best age for having kids, and men's age hardly matters.

You would think so, but this is not accurate. Graphs for proportional rate of preterm birth vs mother's age: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?id=10... And rate of infant mortality vs mother's age: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/hua_hsu/cohen_i... Both have a minimum in the early 30s, a decade off from these numbers. Granted, there's likely some confounding due to poverty rates vs a…

Men are biased because of the discrepancy in risk between men and women. Men prefer younger women because male reproductive capacity is not at stake if something goes wrong. I think the empirical situation you're noting should be inferrable from theoretical consideration of evolutionary psychology and knowing that peoples' assumptions tend to be based on male prejudices.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#305

Post by alexis_fr »

nl wrote: post #46
alexis_fr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason being is they were nearly a year older than other kids they were paired with. I’m amused that the kids who did worse are absolutely necessary for the kids who do better. They end up getting wasted by the process, demotivated, but they are a necessary brick to step upon. It’s the same consideration when talking about male suicide. Are they necessary for others to feel good? We could solve a good part of i…

It’s the same consideration when talking about male suicide. Are they necessary for others to feel good? No. There's no evidence at all to support this view. In fact there is evidence to support the view that people who feel good when others feel bad are more likely to have suicidal tendencies.

Then... why don’t we act against it? Isn’t it, then, more urgent than other topics? It doesn’t seem like we care, given we always treat male complaints as crybabies.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#306

Post by streb-lo »

apta wrote: post #284
streb-lo wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are you going to take a grown man, whose physical traits are obviously different from a woman (broader shoulders, taller, more muscle mass, deep voice, not to mention his reproductive system, and other documented differences in other organs), and turn him into a woman? This is physically impossible and is akin to changing a banana into a fly. Well, the spectrum of bone sizes / muscle mass do have crossovers bet…

> Obviously you're not going to turn a 6'5'' 300lb man into a believable woman So now there's a notion of "believable" and "unbelievable" changing of men into women? That kind of completely brings down this entire house of cards now doesn't it? Think of it from another way. If there's an earthquake and a man pretending to be a woman dies in the rubble, and they discover his remains 50 years from now, do you honestly…

> So now there's a notion of "believable" and "unbelievable" changing of men into women? That kind of completely brings down this entire house of cards now doesn't it?

How so?

> Think of it from another way. If there's an earthquake and a man pretending to be a woman dies in the rubble, and they discover his remains 50 years from now, do you honestly think that they'll classify him as female? His skeletal structure is masculine, and no amount of pretending or hormones or surgery is going to change it.

You're too hung up on the 'essence' of someone. It's not relevant in any practical way. If someone told you your spouse had a different set of chromosomes would you suddenly stop loving them?

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities

#307

Post by kbenson »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #129
peteretep wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else would you see this working, exactly? You've got to make sure people who need the benefits and can't work get supported, you need to not discourage people from working (and most people _do_ want to work), and you also can't just (afford to) unilaterally extend benefits to a whole bunch of people who don't currently get them. So, concrete proposal on how you'd structure this?

The exact same way as the new system, except instead of 63% it's a much smaller number. Edit: Why are people downvoting this? I don't understand what's so confusing about SilasX's argument. Removing cliffs and changing it to a smooth dropoff is good. But that dropoff doesn't have to be £.63 in benefits per £1 earned. That's a pretty big effective marginal tax rate! Why not £.50 or £.30? It should be extremely easy to…

The drop off corresponds to the benefit. If you reduce the amount less you make from making more money, you are reducing the benefit people are getting.

As an example, you can reword this just as accurately to say that for every dollar less the person makes, they actually only make $0.27 less because benefits kick in for $0.63 of it. You can reduce that 63%, but when phrased that way, do you want to?

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