241–250 of 322 posts
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Let’s not forget the kidnapping of Maduro, where we killed another ~80 people.
We killed a million people in Iraq, to overthrow a dictator that wasn’t funding cartels operating in the U.S.
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Sure, but what has that got to do with “IQ is also highly heritable?” which, in this context, suggests intelligence is something innate and biological, rather than recognizing an IQ test as a gauge skewed by culture and socioeconomic status.
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 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 no variance in human intelligence. There is a large range of variance in every human attribute. That is not the focus of the debate. Rather, most of the debate seems to be surrounding the construct validity of IQ. Statistical validity != construct validity.
No need to do a drive by on Predator Badlands like that, it's a perfectly enjoyable film in its own right. I agree with the author though, there's nothing nearly as emotionally deep or socio-politically engaging as One Battle After Another, and so it would make for poor choice as a double feature to run second in the pairing.
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Quite a bit wrong with it. From the beginning the threat level was exaggerated, especially considering the lack of threat to younger people. We are still paying the social and economic costs (including sky high cost of living, directly connected to it). It was also coincidentally very similar to the Event 201 table top exercise a mere six months before between Johns Hopkins, the World Economic Forum and the World Hea…
1 million excess deaths in the US alone, with an infection rate rapid enough to bring the hospital system to its knees. The threat level was judged perfectly. You can blame the cost of living directly on the corporations charging more for their products than required, and buying up housing to extort renters. Inflation-wise, you have the Trump administration to blame for writing stimulus checks with his name on them,…
So no, not worth the cost. The deaths were very much exaggerated. In fact, pretty much every death I heard of was "Covid plus X" not Covid alone. It didn't affect the lower age group much.
"You can blame the cost of living directly on the corporations charging more for their products"
It has everything to do with shutting down most of the global economy for most of two years, and destroying supply chains. In some places in Africa, the annual harvest was destroyed because of the hysteria.
Not to mention rampant economic warfare by centralised government. They could have stopped debt and mortgages being called in after they forced people to stop working. Not to mention taxation.
The idea that I can't talk to my neighbour over a fence but Amazon and Pizza delivery can go door to door is sheer lunacy and unscientific.
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No it won't, that's merely fantasy projection (a personal desire for the US to suffer for what it's doing). US hegemony ended with the rise of China's economy into superpower status over the past 10-15 years. There was no scenario where the relatively brief US hegemony from the late 1980s to the late 2000s was going to continue no matter what the US did. China was always going to build a military to match its economi…
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?
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.
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It’s impossible to make a serious argument while citing IQ as a useful measurement of someone’s cognitive potential. I also don’t need to prove anything. If you are claiming this phenomenon is real the onus is on you to prove it. I can link a dozen articles about the flawed argument people channel from Idiocracy but you should search it if it interests you.
If we can't agree that IQ is a useful predictor ("measurement") of cognitive performance and potential, perhaps the most supported and studied theory in all of psychology, then I'm afraid we have no common point of discussion.
See also: the "Everyone is Twelve now" theory of politics. https://www.fastcompany.com/91429448/everyone-is-12-twitter-... https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/everyone-is-12-now-theory-of-...
I think we hit "peak baby" around a decade ago, so this checks out.
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Sure, but what has that got to do with “IQ is also highly heritable?” which, in this context, suggests intelligence is something innate and biological, rather than recognizing an IQ test as a gauge skewed by culture and socioeconomic status.
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.
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 in a certain political light. How exactly does selectivity on the basis of IQ test results “enhance health outcomes for groups as a whole”? Maybe you could back up this argument with some historical context.
> “Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals.”
What data do you have to support this claim? And how much of this inherent intellect factors into IQ test results?
The effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is th…
I think it's kind of a good thing to learn how to not have to look literally everything up because that's a time suck. I speak 3 languages "decently." My native language, one I learned as an exchange student (it's rusty, but it's still in there and if I start speaking it regularly the words come back almost unbidden), and Spanish from several long-distance backpacking trips in Spain for months and months. I dabble in others as necessary. If I'm learning a new language for travel or something I find that memory alone is invaluable. A few months of using SRS and memorizing 1000 words and you are suddenly able to communicate with a millions of people. Sure you might speak caveman Italian or whatever, but read a little bit of grammar you're off to the races. You're no Dante, but you are able to get by - that's so useful, and I can't see why people eschew the practical advantages of learning how to memorize!
I'm taking some classes (perpetually, I don't know why I must hate myself) and I find I consistently do better learning new things if I just know some facts about a topic before I even learn all the connections between ideas. Let's say you are learning, I don't know, DC circuits? I'm taking that class for fun this semester because I'm mostly self-taught in hardware and wanted to fill in some of the gaps. If you need to know how to calculate the step response, sure you can do it from first principles if you've taken ODE. But imagine if you're taking this as your first "real" engineering class on the EE track as a 19 or 20 year old kid. At the university I went for undergrad and this university now, you wouldn't get exposed to ODE for another semester or 2. But if you can just memorize the formula now, you can absorb the material - the "why" can come later.
I mean, I can never remember some math things, so I just derive the math when I need it, sure, I assume everybody does this where they have to, but if I could remember the damn derivation I wouldn't have to. Same with some code. There are some things in this world like matplotlib - I have used it 1000s of times and somehow I've literally barely learned it beyond the basics and constantly end up looking up how do things. As soon as I get the chart I want, it falls out of my brain until I am forced to learn it again to make a chart for a slide a couple months later. But there's insane utility to just... knowing things. When I was a pilot for a living, there were certain emergency procedures and limitations that I was just... expected to know - down cold. I haven't turned a prop for money in almost 6 years now, and there's some emergency procedures and limitations that I still can recite from memory. What's a great way to learn those things? Well... memorizing them. Then there's the practical nature of things. You're not going to derive maneuvering speed from first principles when you encounter mountain wave, you just need to know what you've gotta slow down to.
That doesn't mean throw out your analytical brain, but having access to facts that you can use in furtherance of your cognition is super useful. And I don't really think that is the major "problem" with education in this day and age? I have 3 kids in school. They're great kids and all doing more or less well. From the outside looking in today, I'd say the biggest issues I'm aware of are:
1) A downright authoritarian environment in schools. No seriously, even the school my kids go to which is by the numbers a pretty good school seems a bit like incarceration.
2) The teaching to the lowest common denominator (which you mentioned and I think is a very good point).
3) The money is going to the wrong stuff and so quality is going down but costs are still rising.
4) Schools are basically viewed as babysitting places so that the parents can go and work and contribute to the economy, not hallowed halls of learning or some-such. It's viewed as "jobs training" from the bottom to the top. Even at the university level.
5) The incentives, both social and financial, that exist to become an educator suck and needing licenses and specialized university training to teach in some states means that an engineer with 20 years of experience isn't going to go to school for 2 years just be treated like garbage at some middle school or high school. We're not getting "the best of the best" in education.
6) The phones. I don't think a constant entertainment drip is really that good for young people.
7) Educational software is usually pretty bad? And the kids are forced into using a lot of these garbage tools day in and day out. This isn't really as big of a problem as the rest of the things, but it irritates me when I'm forced to interact with iReady or the absolute garbage (and insanely expensive) platforms the school uses to track grades.
Also, I mentioned this in another thread and got downvoted, but I honestly think that the reversal of the Flynn effect might have some environmental basis too? We go outside a lot less, indoor CO2 counts are higher, issues start occurring above 1000ppm - that's not uncommon, we eat terrible, are more likely to be obese, had COVID, and are filled with plastic, we spend a lot less time bored and are mostly overstimulated. I'm not a biologist, so I wouldn't say that any one of these sorts of things is the "gotcha" like lead or whatever, but yeah, I suspect that there are other environmental effects that are making us collectively make bad decisions more often. I don't know.
Is this an attack on Captain Underpants of the silly novels? Or are we arguing that the global leaders are immature and don't think through their decisions? I admit I've only just started reading Captain Underpants but it doesn't seem like George and Harold are willing to do pranks to the extent of harming anyone. I do recognize childness in leadership occasionally. When I directly have to interface with it I adapt m…
The author seems to like the books, but somewhat downplays the children's world and nature. From my understanding of the author's article, It's a nature he believes adults shouldn't have and yet powerful people do. So he's bringing this up, comparing the children in Captain Underpants with these powerful people. And also he's reflecting on how media is created with a "childish mind". Personally, I don't think there's…