Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole • Hacker News Board

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#191

Post by js8 » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

kupiakos wrote: post #189

js8 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If a story is written about how a Japanese immigrant went through struggles coming to America, it would be disgraceful to have a white woman play that role." I disagree. For example, recently I was at a play about Jewish holocaust survivor. I don't know if the actor is Jewish, I think he is not, but I don't care. It doesn't retract from the experience in any way. Now, white woman playing an Asian woman could cause i…

Being trans isn't limited to the bedroom. It's not related to sexuality, although there are correlations. The sort of "human playing a human" argument is exactly what is talked about in the Riddle scale. Watching cis people play trans characters feels like watching Hackers, the terrible 90's movie.

I find the Riddle scale weird, because I am completely indifferent to somebody being gay. It must be an American thing, because I work in an office with 300 other people, so statistically, some of them are gay. But I have no clue and it makes no difference for me whatsoever.

It's almost as if when you're an atheist and people who believe in god say that you're a believer or that you had a bad experience with religion etc. No, it is simply an indifference.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#192

Post by metaphor » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #123

metaphor wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...we should work as hard as possible to reduce emissions. Which, incidentally, nobody is actually doing. You may wish to reassess your remark for accuracy after actually taking the time to digest the Clean Air Act codified in 42 U.S.C. Ch 85[1]. [1] https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2016-title42/html/USCOD...

Did you search through that document for "carbon dioxide"? Because it only appears in 10 places, and in none of those does it define any limits or reductions.

Did you search through the legislation for "greenhouse gas", whose definition is explicitly defined and includes carbon dioxide? This is federal code written by lawyers; it isn't exactly considered afternoon pleasure reading and generally requires a bit of effort to parse.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#193

Post by scythe » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

api wrote: post #170

antidesitter wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ambivalent about whether this article should have been censored in the way it was?

We have political movements that are committed to removing basic human rights from 50% of the population, so sure. Maybe when Roosh doesn't have millions of followers we can discuss this stuff openly. It's an argument for scientific guilds in areas like this. God I hate writing this. Ten years ago I would have totally had the opposite opinion. That was back when I thought we'd moved past these things. Recent outpouri…

>Such a paper could have a death toll in the hundreds.

That's a rather small death toll compared to the one associated with "Improvements in or relating to the transmutation of chemical elements" by Szilard in 1932. Are you suggesting he should have been excommunicated?

>A paper like that should not be published unless it's been replicated multiple times, and even then with profound qualifications front and center indicating precisely which vaccine it applies to, etc.

That is ridiculous. At most a statement by the authors in the frontmatter repudiating the relevant conspiracy theories should suffice.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#194

Post by yorwba » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

kupiakos wrote: post #189

js8 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If a story is written about how a Japanese immigrant went through struggles coming to America, it would be disgraceful to have a white woman play that role." I disagree. For example, recently I was at a play about Jewish holocaust survivor. I don't know if the actor is Jewish, I think he is not, but I don't care. It doesn't retract from the experience in any way. Now, white woman playing an Asian woman could cause i…

Being trans isn't limited to the bedroom. It's not related to sexuality, although there are correlations. The sort of "human playing a human" argument is exactly what is talked about in the Riddle scale. Watching cis people play trans characters feels like watching Hackers, the terrible 90's movie.

> Watching cis people play trans characters feels like watching Hackers, the terrible 90's movie.

I think that's a great analogy. But two questions come to mind:

1. Are there any movies that are not terrible for people who know enough to compare them to reality? Gell-Mann amnesia comes to mind. Most productions focus on telling a story and will happily ignore constraints of the setting if that allows for more dramatic scenes.

2. What about trans people playing cis people? Maybe they would be better suited for the role because of spending more time as their preferred gender, but otherwise the argument feels pretty transphobic if you simply switch cis and trans.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#195

Post by js8 » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #162

commandlinefan wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it is, though, there are only two competing theories on why there are fewer women in science than men - the first is that men dominate both ends of the bell curve, and the second is that men are just horrible people who can’t be nice to others. Are you a fan of the second? Or do you have a third explanation? The first seems like the _least_ controversial possibility.

Uhm...what? There are more than two theories. Here's one I've seen a few articles on within the past year or so. According to test data (SAT, PISA, and I believe others) on teens, girls who are at the top in science tend to also be at the top in other areas too [1]. Boys who are at the top in science tend to be more ordinary in other areas. People in general tend to to enjoy more and go into careers in areas they are…

But doesn't the fact that top girls are more well-rounded than top boys also follow from the GMVH? (I am not sure, genuine question.)

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#196

Post by jmmcd » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

My main problem with the paper is that it's about groups, not individuals. Groyp selection has been debunked. There are better ways to think about the wider variance that don't involve groups. Think instead about each individual "gambling" in its embryology and development.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#197

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 8:12 PM UTC

PeterStuer wrote: post #100

quotemstr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, reduce emissions and more seriously consider geoengineering. A lot of otherwise-reasonable climate researchers seem to have an unduly negative view of potential direct interventions in the climate.

A lot of otherwise-reasonable climate researchers seem to have an unduly negative view of potential direct interventions in the climate, and for good reason. Scientists know that theory and practice often are very different. You can't 'experiment' with global scale geo-engineering. To put it in HN terms: you're deploying untested code for a global scale life support system written by a first-project-junior in an expe…

[deleted]

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#198

Post by yorwba » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

jmmcd wrote: post #196

My main problem with the paper is that it's about groups, not individuals. Groyp selection has been debunked. There are better ways to think about the wider variance that don't involve groups. Think instead about each individual "gambling" in its embryology and development.

Selection in the paper operates at the individual level. The groups are only a convenient abstraction to determine outcomes at the population level. You can think of group membership being determined by carrying a specific allele. Then the number of individuals in a group is just the frequency of that allele.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#199

Post by antidesitter » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

api wrote: post #170

antidesitter wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ambivalent about whether this article should have been censored in the way it was?

We have political movements that are committed to removing basic human rights from 50% of the population, so sure. Maybe when Roosh doesn't have millions of followers we can discuss this stuff openly. It's an argument for scientific guilds in areas like this. God I hate writing this. Ten years ago I would have totally had the opposite opinion. That was back when I thought we'd moved past these things. Recent outpouri…

> We have political movements that are committed to removing basic human rights from 50% of the population, so sure.

Are you saying the publication of this paper will lead to the removal of basic human rights from 50% of the population? If not, what is the relevance of this?

> Maybe when Roosh doesn't have millions of followers we can discuss this stuff openly.

Who is Roosh and why does them having millions of followers mean we cannot discuss this stuff openly?

> Let me give you a different example. Let's say there's a study that shows a weak link between a vaccine and autism. If it were published, it would be amplified far out of proportion to its findings and used to convince millions of parents not to vaccinate their kids. Such a paper could have a death toll in the hundreds. A paper like that should not be published unless it's been replicated multiple times, and even then with profound qualifications front and center indicating precisely which vaccine it applies to, etc.

If your hypothetical paper followed proper scientific procedures, it absolutely should be published. I'm honestly astonished that you would think otherwise. This is how science works. A scientific paper should not be censored on ideological grounds, and trying to do so will backfire by creating public distrust of scientific institutions.

Re: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole

#200

Post by Zanni » Sat, Sep 08, 2018, 9:08 PM UTC

jnordwick wrote: post #140

Zanni wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weightlifting is an excellent example. It's not controversial in the least to say that men (on the whole) are stronger than women. And the strongest man will almost certainly be stronger than the strongest woman. But that doesn't mean a particular woman can't out lift a particular man. I see this all the time at my CrossFit box, where there are women who regularly put more weight on a barbell than I can manage. I'm n…

I'm proud of you for only mentioning CrossFit twice. That must have taken a lot of will power.

I mentioned CrossFit specifically because that's where I observed this. It's been a while since I've spent time in a traditional gym, but when I did, the men and women seemed largely (self-) segregated. Men on free weights, women on yoga mats and cycles, with some occasional crossover on some weight machines. I know women can get strong in traditional gyms, it's just not part of my experience. CrossFit has done a lot promote the idea of strength as a key component of fitness for women (as opposed to slimming). And if the price of that is having to suffer a few bros bragging about their WOD times on FB, I can live with that. Hope you can too.