81–90 of 169 posts
Good writing advice says that each sentence has a single goal. The goal is to draw the reader in, and convince them to read the next sentence. This article does it masterfully. The title drew me in. The opening sentence finished the job. Well done.
I closed the tab at "cognitive engines." Overwrought balderdash masquerading as prose.
Good writing advice says that each sentence has a single goal. The goal is to draw the reader in, and convince them to read the next sentence. This article does it masterfully. The title drew me in. The opening sentence finished the job. Well done.
Myself I closed the tab at the second sentence, so I can't attest to that.
DINK life. I can’t understand why people consciously decide to have children. I really can’t.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> severed the procreative element of the sexual act So by that reading it was only wrong because the understood purpose is the whole arrangement was to give Tamar a chance to have a child, which she was entitled to expect when Onan married her? It therefore has no bearing on what consensual activities couples may engaged in where no such commitment has been made?
Well yes it's from literally biblical times. The social norms were rather different.
Allowing a couple to get divorced simply because both want to didn't become universal in the USA until about a decade ago. Laws treating the rape of a wife as a crime against her husband were common in the 1960s. Laws prohibiting doctors from helping married couples have access to birth control lasted into the 1960s.
All of these were based on the idea that marriage was an institution ensuring the continuity of future generations to the family and society. Because the broader family and society had a vested interest in the results of the marriage, the people involved had a responsibility to those around them. This was a widely accepted social norm just a few decades ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always feel like the goal of every Scott Alexander sentence is to show how he is smarter and/or more rational than other people.
I just feel like a genuinely smart and rational person would not want to describe his newborn kids as "engines" or robot AI's in training as OP does here. That's just ridiculously out of touch, it reads like satire of what some AI-obsessed founder or VC might post here to pitch their new startup. And OP has even written satire of his own about SV social attitudes, how could he possibly fail to see this?
Good writing advice says that each sentence has a single goal. The goal is to draw the reader in, and convince them to read the next sentence. This article does it masterfully. The title drew me in. The opening sentence finished the job. Well done.
I closed the tab at "cognitive engines." Overwrought balderdash masquerading as prose.
DINK life. I can’t understand why people consciously decide to have children. I really can’t.
In countries without social insurance people have children so the child will take care of them in their old age.
A title like that should set the expectation that it’s not _entirely_ serious and there might, just maybe, be a joke or two buried within.
Is it rational for a rationalist to want to be a parent, knowing that having a kid rewrite your utility function? (so said parent would accept sacrificing their life for saving the life of their child) It looks like the futurama brain slug parasites that someone explained me about last time I asked: https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Brain_Slug It's even less rational for a woman, given the many damages it causes to th…
You’re making an assumption that their desires (or, if you must, “utility function”) weren’t already in that direction to begin with.
As a personal anecdote, I can say that I remember myself wanting kids/a family as far back as elementary school. Now that I’m married and kids are plausibly on the horizon, I can’t say that’s really changed.
At the risk of speculating, I get the feeling you may not want kids, and are projecting those feelings onto other people.
I read of an inconsistent mindset. God this. God that. "Natural selection didn't design" which is contradictory. Evolved murder monkeys. Happy to have babies. Women are indeed saved by childbirth. Men too.
You haven't read Scott's blog enough :) He's an atheist psychiatrist. However, he enjoys how natural selection, social dynamics and reputation can also be modeled by the moral rules of most religions. For example, going to therapy isn't that different from practicing confessions in a church.