Harold and George Destroy the World • Hacker News Board

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#251

Post by piloto_ciego » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #229

echelon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College and school are super suboptimal at dispensing education. We keep smart kids co-mingled with disruptive kids and bullies. We need to do what Asian countries do - entrance exams at every level. We don't let kids excel at their interest area. Math and science, obviously, but we lack programs for entrepreneurship and leadership that might be better for kids that aren't STEM-focused. Something like a scouts-type p…

> We keep smart kids co-mingled with disruptive kids and bullies. We need to do what Asian countries do - entrance exams at every level. When I was in about the 7th grade, our school switched to "Tracking": In each grade, the smart kids were in track 1, the next smartest were in track 2, all the way down to track 6 which were the kids who unfortunately needed so much remedial help that they were probably not even goi…

Worth mentioning that I also think bullying is less of a problem now? It's not gone, but when I was a kid I was bullied mercilessly on the playground and on my walks home for a few years (until I learned how to fight back, but that's a different story), my kids just do not have that sort of experience in school, I mean, it's "there" but it does not appear to be nearly as bad today as it was in the late 90's early 'oughts.

My kids were literally shocked to learn recently that people got made fun of for being gay when I was a kid, or that gay was a pejorative. They've never seen a fight on the playground etc. I only have n=3 as a sample size, so, maybe it's bad in other schools or other places, but yeah, at least for me, I think it's a lot less "Lord of the Flies" today than it was 25 years ago.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#252

Post by hirvi74 » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 6:06 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #198

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It loses its signal once you reach triple digits. You don't want someone with <80 but it tells you nothing about someone with 120 or 160.

I call BS. From my extensive anecdata: No amount of education, experience, and grit can turn a 100 IQ person into Einstein. IQ is a massive multiplier.

Do we even know what turns someone into an Einstein? The sheer reason you even mention Einstein is because he was beyond exceptional. There have been millions of people to walk the face of this planet with astronomical IQs, but there has only been a handful of Einsteins, von Neumanns, Eulers, Mozarts, etc.. So few that the uttering of the names of these individuals carries strong meaning.

It's also worth noting that none of these individuals ever took an IQ test. Their genius is entirely recognized through their work. Which again raises the question of what exactly IQ testing and what IQ is adding to our understanding of exceptional ability.

It appears that over a century of research in psychometrics has demonstrated nothing we already could not infer. We do not need some boring puzzle test to tell us someone with Down syndrome will not be a Nobel Prize winner. Nor do we need some boring puzzle test to tell us that von Neumann or Mozart had godlike childhood abilities and could maybe make large contributions for humanity.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#253

Post by rocmcd » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #30

Esophagus4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird analogy, but it feels similar to the way old music differed to new music. Old music had more variation in volume - volume rises and falls to add nuance to the piece. New music is produced differently and has a more “flat” sound due to everything being louder and variation being reduced by compression. Seems like some parallels to other forms of media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Music is interesting to me, because I've experienced the opposite. What I've encountered is if you get outside the top 100, a lot of like TikTok and SoundCloud famous people are actually doing some really interesting music. Things that play with the sound in ways you would never hear on the radio. I feel like music is the one area where I still genuinely find interesting modern stuff regularly.

I couldn't agree more. I think what has happened is that everything has become so fragmented due to the sheer volume of content being created that discovery is still a challenge. If you are someone who thinks that music, movies, novels, etc are in decline, then frankly you're just not looking hard enough.

For music, I'd recommend looking at Bandcamp Daily[0]. It's not all my cup of tea, but there are some amazing new artists out there spanning nearly every genre imaginable.

[0] https://daily.bandcamp.com/

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#254

Post by hirvi74 » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

throwaway384034 wrote: post #90

ACCount37 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of the problem education systems are solving is not "how do we get knowledge to children", but "how do we get masses of children to learn without coercion of the ugliest kind". Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 ou…

>Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 outliers. And education has to work with everyone. I worked as a teacher for a year. Children are innately motivated and curious (this is not just a cliche). If there was any laziness it us…

> fear of not being good enough

I believe that fear is not unwarranted. It's a learned behavior that helps one survive in their environment. I imagine many of those children were likely punished for mistakes or for not being good enough.

Don't ask me how I know...

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#255

Post by nradov » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 6:46 PM UTC

dbspin wrote: post #187

afavour wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t, though. In the decades that followed World War 2, creation of the UN etc, the number of people dying in warfare and civilian death due to war dropped dramatically. No, it wasn’t zero. But there was still a notable drop. I don’t think it’s coincidence that blowing up this world order has only become a cause now that those who suffered the horrors of WW2 have died.

They may have dropped from the level of death during the war itself. A transnational conflict that involved every continent on earth. But I'd be shocked if the numbers dead from war in the post war period did not exceed the median number of civilian victims of war pre-WW1 or in the post war period. The World Wars normalised the idea of total war, of death squads and killing fields and mechanised genocide. Those have…

Alas we're seeing a reversion to historical norms. The "civilized" world was a temporary and localized phenomenon. The usual pattern in conflicts between societies was always genocide: kill all the men, take the women and children as slaves, smash the cultural artifacts, and steal anything of value. Probably thousands of societies have been utterly erased that way. Hopefully we can arrest the gradual worldwide regression to barbarism but I'm not optimistic.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#256

Post by jadar » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 7:02 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #128

throw310822 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda Many other countries similarly changed the name of their respective ministries, reflecting the ideal (if not the fact) that war should not be pursued for gain or used to resolve international controversies. Actions trail behind ideals; ideals are se…

The millions of deaths are still happening, they just aren't our boys so we were all cool with it.

They are. They just are killed in utero instead of on the front lines.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#257

Post by nradov » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #245

nradov wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. China remains unable to project power much beyond the first island chain. They're building fast and that will change in a few years but as of today their conventional military capabilities remain very limited and defensive. When was the last time a Chinese carrier strike group deployed to the Middle East?

If US hegemony is total, why is there no oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz? Why does the US economy rely so heavily on chips manufactured in Taiwan, and on components, products, and services provided by China? The difference between the US and China is that China understands that carrier strike groups are not the modern definition of hegemony.

There has never been any such thing as "total" hegemony, so that's a strawman argument. The US doesn't get much oil from the Strait of Hormuz and so while starting another war with Iran was a stupid move, the consequences are largely someone else's problem. I agree that depending on other countries for strategically critical manufacturing was a bad move. Fortunately that's now being rectified but it will take some time.

https://www.semiconductors.org/chips/

China's attempts at hegemony have largely consisted of making loans on bad terms to corrupt developing countries and then trying to foreclose when they don't pay. This has not worked.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#258

Post by michaelteter » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 7:15 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #224

afavour wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries. …which is the bad thing being discussed, yes. I don’t really understand why “there used to be one” would be exonerative. Not to mention, they didn’t rename it, that requires an act of Congress. Instead they just told everyone to change which name they use. Lines up with the “adult children” theory. Skip…

> Not to mention, they didn’t rename it, that requires an act of Congress. Instead they just told everyone to change which name they use. It's wild how people are just going along with it, too. They didn't officially change the name of anything. Why are journalists and people outside of the administration's orbit using the "preferred" but fake name?

Hey, “Gulf of America”!

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#259

Post by rayiner » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 7:18 PM UTC

dgsii wrote: post #248

rayiner wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking IQ test is like vaccine denialism. People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals.

I don’t mean to suggest that an IQ test doesn’t have any value, only that they don’t account for many subtleties across (sub)cultural boundaries and are too heavily considered in determining one’s intellect, and often worth, by society. You’re using Motte-and-Bailey tactics to conflate IQ test results with vaccines denialism, on the basis that they are both “for the greater good”, which conveniently paints my point i…

> You’re using Motte-and-Bailey tactics to conflate IQ test results with vaccines denialism

No, I’m pointing out that in both cases people attack the science because the implications of the science are in tension with their ideological priors. The fact that top-down coercion is an effective response to pandemics is inconvenient for libertarian-conservatives. Likewise, the fact that people differ in their intellectual capabilities from birth is inconvenient for liberal egalitarians.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#260

Post by rayiner » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 7:34 PM UTC

hirvi74 wrote: post #242

rayiner wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking IQ test is like vaccine denialism. People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals.

> People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. I am not certain where you are deriving this claim from. > Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals. Nor this claim, as well. I have had many discussions on the topic of IQ, and I have never once seen anybody ever argue that there is…

> Statistical validity != construct validity.

Sure. But in science, we regularly postulate the existence of some construct, and confirm that construct by conducting many empirical tests that return results consistent with the existence of that construct. General intelligence is like that. We can’t see it directly. But we have myriad results that are statistically consistent with its existence.