Live data from Hacker News

Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

towardsdatascience.com

71–80 of 84 posts

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So don’t do those things its not nice Advice like this makes the situation worse, because nice people will take your advice and not approach extremely attractive women, because they understand it is the nice thing to do, but assholes will approach extremely attractive women, because they don't care about being nice. So these women end up only being approached by bad actors.

I think there is a nuance to tell that nice people. If you approach someone, be honest with your intentions while also caring for them. What does that mean? Both attractive and un-attractive women like to date people and get attention. So it’s okay to approach an attractive women. However, when you do it, be honest with yourself that the reason you want to be around her is whatever (a good relationship) and then if s…

>Approaching to be a friend

>Approaching to be a friend because you want to have sexy time later

Some would argue that first almost always implies second

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#72
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also heard that since it's necessary to arc the shot a reasonable amount for the ball to go in (or else it will hit the rim and bounce away), being shorter than the hoop can actually be an advantage. If the hoop is above you, the ball already has to travel vertically to be able to get there in the first place, but if you're close to the same height, you have to throw it relatively higher to achieve a good arc. I…

And yet all those short good shooters jump. I know that sounds facetious, but like, there’s a reason no one jumps on a free throw. It’s easier if you don’t. But you have to jump to get your shot over a defender. If you are sufficiently tall, you could just… jump less, so that your release height is the same. I actually think the bigger reason is simply that there are more important skills for tall players to work on.…

Yeah most tall players are better shooters than in the past. But with the exception of Kevin Durant, none of them shoot like the short guys

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#73
post #58

Part of me wonders if these ideas are pushed by people because it's more convenient for them to push them. Like, if you're a 'brilliant' jerk, it's probably easier to stay employed if people think technical skills and people skills are something of a trade off. And if you're not some sort of genius, it can be comforting to think "well, at least I'm not a jerk/crazy/an awful person". Same with the dating situation. Mu…

>I also suspect people tend to think everything in life must have tradeoffs, D&D character points style. Like, you have X points to go around in total and if a percentage of that goes to intelligence/skill, there must be very little left over to put into charisma.

The truth is probably somewhere in between though. The time/energy constraint is what's most apparent to me since working full time.

As an adult you have to cram cooking, cleaning, hobbies, relationship building, etc all into your small limited evening windows and weekends.

If you want to be good at something you need to put time and energy into it. This means that you can't be good at everything.

So if you like to spend your time reading, maybe selecting nicer clothes (that often need ironing or handwashing, i.e. time) will maybe fall by the wayside, because you prefer reading books. Meaning that you look worse than you could, because you prefer your hobby.

Similarly somebody who spends a lot of time on their outward appearance might not have the time left to be as interesting as they could be.

In the end of course you may have talent or natural good looks. But as soon as you start needing to think about where to allocate time you will face tradeoffs.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#74
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to be what's affecting women most of the time. "You can't be hot and a security specialist!" Just because the average women takes more care of herself than the average man.

Quoted post unavailable.

Each of your two caricatures exhibit obsessive traits that should be disqualifications for any multivariate layered and strategic responsibility.

In my working life I've found, in balanced environments that your exception proves the rule, but I don't personally consider the start-up and tech capitalism economy balanced.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#75

An example I like is in basketball. A lot of tall players aren't good shooters. People wonder why, like are they launching the ball too high and messing up the angle? Are their hands too big to precisely control the ball? Are they lazy and not practicing? Seems more likely to be this same paradox - if you're short and can't shoot, you never make it to the NBA.

Because unless you're tall enough (and quick enough) to dunk like you're dropping it, lower angles give you more opportunity to underspin off the board getting the net more often.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#76
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also heard that since it's necessary to arc the shot a reasonable amount for the ball to go in (or else it will hit the rim and bounce away), being shorter than the hoop can actually be an advantage. If the hoop is above you, the ball already has to travel vertically to be able to get there in the first place, but if you're close to the same height, you have to throw it relatively higher to achieve a good arc. I…

And yet all those short good shooters jump. I know that sounds facetious, but like, there’s a reason no one jumps on a free throw. It’s easier if you don’t. But you have to jump to get your shot over a defender. If you are sufficiently tall, you could just… jump less, so that your release height is the same. I actually think the bigger reason is simply that there are more important skills for tall players to work on.…

As a short person who has been fairly decent at free throws in the past but would probably be completely unable to make even an easy shot with someone trying to block me, I always need to jump just to get enough force behind the ball to throw it in the right arc. Obviously I'm probably still shorter and definitely way less strong and and skilled than even the shorter NBA players, but I do wonder if jumping is more necessary for smaller people in general since it's less strenuous to generate the force from your legs compared to your arms.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#77
post #3

The phenomenon described in the article is well known as "Berkson's paradox": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

> people who are neither talented nor attractive do not typically become celebrities.

There are a fair few outliers to this rule! Usually as a result of car-crash TV, though not always.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen once heard of several concussions from rowing. Catch a crab and the oar comes back heaaavvy

In my experience catching a crab is entirely avoidable.

I mean I totally agree that an experienced rower will never catch a crab under normal circumstances, but as I type that I remember that the one I witnessed was due to a rower getting heat stroke in the tail end of a 5k - so, I guess there’s the counterexample.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#79
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can think of those percentages less like “there is only 10-30% left to explain” and more like “we can explain most of it we think but we have no idea how these complex factors interact” They basically look at fraternal and identical twins and assume (because their environments are otherwise probably close) that any differences in outcome are heritable. It’s a huge leap of faith.

> They basically look at fraternal and identical twins and assume (because their environments are otherwise probably close) that any differences in outcome are heritable. It’s a huge leap of faith. You’re making it sound like the researchers are idiots who have never thought about how their tools might not be measuring what they hope they are. As well as identical/fraternal twins you can also look at other sorts of r…

Depending on the twin study yes you can go into all kinds of sibling groups/measures too. However mapping it to something that must have had evolutionary pressure on it in ways we still don’t clearly understand is not at all straightforward, so yes, in a sense, I think most psychologists, who have no evolutionary training, are doing this very wrong.

You’re basically saying “some limits of cognition are heritable” which is so obvious as to be inarguable.

The huge qualifier in what you quoted is “reliably measured psychological traits.” They also have to be defined within psychological language and linked to genetics through behavior or biological indicators. There are exceedingly few of these, and schizophrenia, autism, etc, are not them.

Psychology as a whole without evolutionary considerations to articulate on is free-floating.

There is a long history of psychologists justifying their approach, but the reality is that reproducibility in psychology is still at something like 35%.

Re: Brilliant jerks, crazy hotties, and other artifacts of range restriction (2019)

#80
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They basically look at fraternal and identical twins and assume (because their environments are otherwise probably close) that any differences in outcome are heritable. It’s a huge leap of faith. You’re making it sound like the researchers are idiots who have never thought about how their tools might not be measuring what they hope they are. As well as identical/fraternal twins you can also look at other sorts of r…

Depending on the twin study yes you can go into all kinds of sibling groups/measures too. However mapping it to something that must have had evolutionary pressure on it in ways we still don’t clearly understand is not at all straightforward, so yes, in a sense, I think most psychologists, who have no evolutionary training, are doing this very wrong. You’re basically saying “some limits of cognition are heritable” whi…

Edit to say the second paper is interesting, but it seems to me to have a number of flaws.

If I understand this right, GWAS are capturing everything from the genome.

This includes any genetic determination of appearance, food preferences, etc.

Then the sample is only healthy twins from narrow genetic/cultural stock: England/Wales born over two years in the 90s.

This means that in addition to sweeping up genetic factors associated with brain development, you are capturing all visible/inherent-behavioral inputs to a multi-stage developmental process that includes interactions with technology, other people, school systems, etc.

Of course you can explain a majority of the outcome. It won’t replicate though, because it is dependent on that narrow time slice of culture, nutrition, parenting practices, technology, etc.

If this study replicates in Asia, South America, or Africa, with similar genetic components in the PCA, I’ll admit I’m wrong.

Heck if it even replicates in England with twins from the 1960s I’ll admit I’m wrong.

Post reply on HN