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Too Clever by Half

epsilontheory.com

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Re: Too Clever by Half

#171

Post by AlwaysRock »

mcv wrote: post #49
dibujante wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-five, fellow "burned by needing to do real work in university" high schooler :(

Same here. Once I figured out that I didn't really have to do any homework in high school, and wasn't even required to do so in university, I was doomed. I'm now trying to teach my son that just learning to do the work, even if it's boring, is the real skill you need. But he's too focused on winning every mini-game.

This. I found out if I showed up everyday in high school and focused in class I could get a B or A in every class without doing any work at home. I still did some homework but it was in school. My time outside of school was mine. It was great.

I had a very rude wake up call when I got to college.

I know high schoolers now and I encourage them to actually do the work. It's not that x,y,z topic may be important someday... It's the skill of doing the work, even when you don't want to, that will be important in life.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#172

Post by phendrenad2 »

leetcrew wrote: post #155
phendrenad2 wrote: post #118

I've long had the suspicion that in domesticating animals, we've dumbed them down severely. And I sometimes wonder if humans were smarter before civilization replaced evolution as the driving factor for intelligence.

> And I sometimes wonder if humans were smarter before civilization replaced evolution as the driving factor for intelligence. this is an odd proposition. evolution has not been replaced; rather, the evolutionary pressures have changed. in any case, civilization is not much more than 10,000 years old, which is pretty short in evolutionary timescales. and although we employ some measures (ie social services) to preven…

Well, if humans haven’t changed in 10,000 years then the author’s thought that domesticated animals are different is also false.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#173

Post by jv22222 »

leetcrew wrote: post #157
vpontis wrote: post #14

I really enjoyed this article. Summary Coyotes are too clever because they know that people shaking jars full of coins can’t hurt them. Thus the animal control patrol has to get called and when they don’t shoo, the animal control person who loves animals has to shoot the coyote. Coyotes are winning the mini-game of each human interaction, but they are losing the meta-game of what society will do if coyotes aren’t sca…

> But at some point I realized that most of the time you aren’t getting in trouble because you are breaking the rules. You are getting in trouble because you are making the rule makers unhappy. i had a similar realization in late high-school / early college, but worded a little differently. the rules themselves were never designed to be reasonable; they were designed to solve problems that the rule makers encountered…

The issue with all of this is most people are rule abiding citizens, that's why it's so easy to game the system and get away with it.

(Thinking about businesses & politicians)

Re: Too Clever by Half

#174

Post by pmoriarty »

dibujante wrote: post #46
Kiro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also realized this which made me game the whole schooling system. I didn't study and had a poor attendance but still got an award for the being the school's best student. Pretty crazy when I think about it. Suffice to say, my strategy didn't work very well in university.

High-five, fellow "burned by needing to do real work in university" high schooler :(

Schools are really failing their students by not helping them realize just how difficult university and "real life" can be.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#175

Post by kortex »

dgudkov wrote: post #128

If any animal has won the meta-game it's the cats. Yes, those adorable, cute, dumb bastards. They badly lose on any tactical level. But man, win on the strategical level so much.

We got some kibble from an aunt that the cat isn't keen on. She'll eat it if and only if she's starving and it's the only stuff around. Also we use a feed puzzle tower where she has to paw the kibble through holes to get it into the "bowl". We mixed the bunk kibble with the good stuff to try to coax her to eat it, but she sniffs each kibble and ignores the inferior stuff.

Well, the bunk kibble is round and likes to roll away. So in the course of getting at the good stuff, the round garbage unworthy for the princess scatters everywhere, gets stepped on, attracts ants, etc. Well, I'm left with a tupperware full of the mixed kibble that I have to use up, so I just pour it into the bowl so it doesn't scatter. Pesky poking has given way to the buffet.

I don't know if you knew you were playing, but good game, cat, good game.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#176

Post by justherefortart »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #163
justherefortart wrote: post #120

Oh no, poor finance jerkoffs got ripped off by their own cleverness. Nothing says dbag like Alabama man who now lives in Connecticut crying over dead asshole financial firms. We've had 4 (or more) of these banking/finance ripoffs in my fucking lifetime. Bankers and finance assholes are the scourge of mankind. I got a degree in Finance just so I could avoid the bullshit these fucking assholes use to rip everyone off.…

A local commercial bank and a New York investment bank are really different things. The financial industry has caused some large problems, but it's also a big part of why the modern world works as well as it does. I don't think you're being charitable in your criticism of the article.

The modern world works well for whom?

Laughable.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#177

Post by bhk »

csomar wrote: post #129

Okay. Let's slow down here: The OP says. >> And they’re not that smart. I’d put our barn cat up against a raccoon any day on any sort of cognitive test. We think raccoons are clever because they have those anthropomorphic paws and those cute little masks and even a Marvel superhero with its own toy line, but please. Raccoons are takers, not schemers. From Wikipedia >> Zoologist Clinton Hart Merriam described raccoons…

From what racoons do to evade capture in traps (while still making away with the bait), and the damage they can wreak, apparently driven by curiosity due to no apparent indication of a food reward, I gather that they are remarkably smart. They are also remarkably frustrating. And fierce when cornered.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#178

Post by kortex »

kemonocode wrote: post #114

I'm quite amused to see all that veiled scaremongering when it comes to crypto, even if it has a grain of truth. Yeah, truly the ones who get involved in it can be thought of as either coyotes or raccoons, but I think prohibition and "the war on drugs" only shows how much can something be made desirable by making it unfit for public consumption, and at that point the animal simile breaks down. Not to mention that, as…

I don't know if it's scaremongering because I'm not entirely sure what point the writer is getting at. The angle I chose to read is that, cryptos acting all "You can regulate us, because distributed blockchain! Muahaha!" is the 1st order game, akin to the coyote calling bluff on the noisy can.

Government types developing an ill will towards the defiant cryptos is the neighborhood moms getting pissed at the bold coyote.

The animal control is the 2nd order game. Regulators come in and crack down on cryptos. Put the squeeze on exchanges, make it hard to cash out to legal tender.

Re: Too Clever by Half

#180

Post by pbhjpbhj »

salvar wrote: post #91
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you think the dogs had a long term plan?

> not even in the desires of the humans who participated in most of the dog domestication Did you read the full text or just immediately jump to the snarky burn attempt?

It was "please can you indicate what specifically about the claims you think is unlikely; or your purpose in questioning and expectations for a response".

I mean you don't actually think there's documentary evidence from the time dogs became domesticated of either what the people, or the dogs, were specifically thinking, do you? It was my hope that, perhaps, by reflecting on that I might draw attention to the obvious futility of the direction of questioning.

And yes, snark.

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