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Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

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Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#451

Post by treeman79 »

pstuart wrote: post #299
benreesman wrote: post #279

The methodological flaw here is amusingly it’s own fascinating study: using some verbal sophistication proxy as a cognitive ability proxy to correlate political attitudes is arguably the key feature of modern hyper-polarized, Internet-speed news cycle politics. It’s difficult to watch a screen without hearing some version of “most people are stupid”. This is deeply wrong: most people are very smart , but this is diff…

I'm not sure about the policies bit. Sure, on the social front God, Guns, and Gays are powerful motivators to get those people to vote. But economic policies from the same side seem to be mainly about lowering the tax burden of the rich. What am I missing?

Your assumption is that government is good. Founders felt it was necessary evil. Without limits it would become tyrannical.

Most of the constitution is about Limiting the role of government. So people could have more freedom.

Look at China. Dozens of cities locked down. People not free to leave their building. Not possible here thanks to high gun ownership. Police can handle one offs here and their. But not a full cities.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#452

Post by WalterBright »

aeturnum wrote: post #409
WalterBright wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people are very smart Only half are above median intelligence. There's a difference between being smart and being well-educated. Wisdom is the combination of intelligence with knowledge. > coastal lefties are always befuddled Being well-educated in STEM is not indicative of being well-educated in history and/or economics, which most Americans seem very poorly educated in.

Not every measure follows a bell curve. The reason intelligence is seen as following a bell curve is at least partially that intelligence tests are designed with the assumption that it does - so every test that is accepted suggests that it's the case. Personally I think it's worthwhile to observe that what we call "intelligence" is also generally a self-driven and self-satisfying demonstration of socially-sourced mea…

> to feel confident that we know much about 'intelligence' at all

We both know smart people among our acquaintances. We can tell just by talking with them.

Everything else about humans follows a bell curve, why should intelligence be any different?

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#453

Post by slg »

remarkEon wrote: post #447
slg wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Florida doesn’t spell out an exact curriculum at the state level for sex Ed Another way to say that might be to say that no one knows what “in accordance with state standards” means because no state standards are defined. This comment is a great example of how to admit you are wrong without actually admitting you are wrong. Can you just admit that it is unclear to teachers what they can and can’t talk a about in ter…

Those are not the same things, and you’re either deliberately missing the point or insisting that something in the law exists when it doesn’t. There isn’t even a punishment attached to this language. I genuinely don’t understand how a law as simple as “can’t talk to kids about sex until third grade” has a bonafide conspiracy theory attached to it here. Is your worry that lots of gay teachers are talking about their h…

> I genuinely don’t understand how a law as simple as “can’t talk to kids about sex until third grade” has a bonafide conspiracy theory attached to it here. Is your worry that lots of gay teachers are talking about their home lives with very young children and now this law makes that, in your view, potentially out of bounds?

The passage I quoted isn’t about sex. It is about “sexual orientation or gender identity”. A person revealing the gender of their partner is discussing their sexual orientation and not sex.

It is completely natural for people to mention their home life in passing at work. Forbidding that is weird and inhumane. This law will also unfairly target gay people in a way that it won’t impact straight people because a woman mentioning her husband is viewed as normal but a women mentioning her wife is somehow an obscene form of indoctrination to some people.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#454

Post by slg »

salawat wrote: post #444
slg wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's interesting to me that implicit in your argument is that the corporation has some sort of "prime" speech right that users do not, No I'm not. Both have the same free speech. Except the corporations speech is being restricted by the government while the user's speech is being restricted by a private corporation. Only one of those is a First Amendment issue. >We already have tons of laws that restrict what busine…

>Except the corporations speech is being restricted by the government while the user's speech is being restricted by a private corporation. Government is of, by and for the People. That Corporation is composed of the People which the Government is of and for, and through which the legal fiction is granted legitimacy. As far as I'm concerned, corporations are de facto extensions of Government.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I don’t think this viewpoint is supported by any established law at least as far as I’m aware.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#455

Post by tsol »

isitmadeofglass wrote: post #307
benreesman wrote: post #279

The methodological flaw here is amusingly it’s own fascinating study: using some verbal sophistication proxy as a cognitive ability proxy to correlate political attitudes is arguably the key feature of modern hyper-polarized, Internet-speed news cycle politics. It’s difficult to watch a screen without hearing some version of “most people are stupid”. This is deeply wrong: most people are very smart , but this is diff…

> It’s difficult to watch a screen without hearing some version of “most people are stupid”. This is deeply wrong: most people are very smart, but this is difficult for the well-educated, because most people are inarticulate. This is all just balderdash. Depending on how people define “stupid” or “very smart” it’s correct or incorrect. It doesn’t really convey anything meaningful. The thing about our society that mos…

What does that mean though? How smart is the average person? Can dumb people not understand their best interests? How are we defining dumb-- would a village elder that's illiterate but has a lifetime of survival skills be considered smart or dumb? How about a brilliant academic that can't take care of their selves? The point I'm getting at is there are a lot of different types of intelligence. Calling people stupid is just a simplistic way to find an easy reason group to blame.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#457

Post by eyelidlessness »

WalterBright wrote: post #448
eyelidlessness wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. Generally alongside massive government-directed/-financed social programs, often much higher tax rates than we’ve seen for decades, alongside a powerful labor movement, and alongside substantial regulation like antitrust. To the extent the raised standard of living has been anything remotely…

Consider all those hundreds of thousands of people that tramp thousands of miles just for a chance to get into the US? What do they know that you don't, or are they just fools? Why is there not an exodus of hundreds of thousands of poor Americans tramping to other countries? > Generally alongside massive government-directed/-financed social programs, often much higher tax rates than we’ve seen for decades, alongside…

> Consider all those hundreds of thousands of people that tramp thousands of miles just for a chance to get into the US? What do they know that you don't, or are they just fools?

This feels like a strawman, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that it’s asked sincerely. Nothing I said was intended to suggest that the disparity across borders wouldn’t justify their journey. Many making that journey certainly do know something I do not, and I wouldn’t call anyone a fool for it. I’d add that my own response to myself below might better address this than the comment you’re responding to.

> Why is there not an exodus of hundreds of thousands of poor Americans tramping to other countries?

Last I checked, more people cross the southern US border to emigrate out of the US in recent years. Not sure what the numbers are, not going to dig them up to win at being right, I just think it bears mentioning that people migrate for a wide variety of reasons and I’ll leave it at that.

> Much of that occurred long before government social programs, high taxes, unions, anti-trust, etc. Take a look at things like height statistics for Americans throughout the 19th century. Height statistics are a good proxy for standard of living - people don't grow tall if they are malnourished as children.

Alright, I’ll grant that people got taller around the same time they were likely to die in factory fires. I won’t grant that being taller is an aspiration I care about as much as not dying in factory fires.

> Amazon has scores of millions of customers. They wouldn't be shopping at Amazon if Amazon was cheating them.

> Amazon turnover is such that the average employee works less than a year. This is incongruent with being forced to work there at subhuman conditions.

I’m not going to bother responding to these paragraphs, because I don’t understand your reasoning, other than I don’t think they say what I think you think they say.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#458

Post by timdev2 »

wyager wrote: post #440
timdev2 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read "cathedral" as being exclusive of the state. Reading it as inclusive confuses me even more, I think. If the state outsourcing censorship, then the state alone is culpable. I think we can have some legitimate and interesting arguments about where the line ought to be drawn. For instance, if a private entity asks the state for guidance about content moderation, is it (or ought it be) legal for the state to provi…

"Cathedral" is cf "The Cathedral and The Bazaar". > For instance, if a private entity asks the state for guidance This is not how it happens. There are many mechanisms for the cathedral to e.g. influence discourse on twitter. None of them involve Twitter overtly and formally asking the government for advice.

Sure. My point is that when you consider the range of such possible mechanisms, no matter where you draw the line between permissible and impermissible, we're still talking about what it's okay for the state (not private entities) to do.

It's probably my fault, but I find myself unable to read between your lines and tease out your point.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#459

Post by pstuart »

salawat wrote: post #439
pstuart wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of with you, specifically on the intolerance of intolerance. But actually making it illegal is worrisome -- because that goes both ways (cue "religious freedom"). The best compromise today seems to be deplatforming, which in a sense is nothing new as we've long had the saying "power of the press belongs to those that own it". The rabid hate speech of the right has done serious damage to the fabric of this co…

>power of the press belongs to those that own it The problem is, you're advocating for essentially the weaponization of the middle box. Networking works, because everyone in the middle cooperates to get messages from A to B. No one is wealthy enough to individually backbone their own network connection beyond much more than a local municipality. To hell with that in short. The General Purpose computer combined with d…

What exactly do you think I'm advocating for?

I'm certainly curious what rules you expect LE to enforce and to whom they would be applied.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#460

Post by tsol »

wincy wrote: post #282
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The news media are decidedly less pro-free speech than before. They could afford to promote free speech back when they had a monopoly on people's attention when it came to news. Now that Google can direct you to any number of independent sources, the news media feels threatened and wants to censor unapproved views so they can maintain the Overton Window. Noam Chomsky: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedien…

My wife is part of a focus group for public radio and she’s an avowed anarcho capitalist. She says things like “I suspect in 50 years the US will either not exist or be a much looser organization where the states rule” and the focus group woman says “that’s not going to happen!”, dismisses her out of hand, and refuses to write it down then moves on to the next person. I think at a certain point the Midwest will have…

To be honest most people on the coasts wouldn't agree with that statement either. It's a pretty big prediction with little evidence
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