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Harold and George Destroy the World

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Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#261

Post by padjo »

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?

To maintain access mostly

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#262

Post by js8 »

jrmg wrote: post #50
some_random wrote: post #39

I was totally with it until they started talking about the real world again. The Department of War was called that up until 1947 when it was renamed to the euphemistic Department of Defense (or more specifically merged with the Department of the Navy which was previously separate). It has nothing to do with the right to self defense, the undermining of which would make a great paragraph here comparing modern self def…

Just because something was done before doesn’t mean it’s good (obviously?) The purpose of the Department of Defense should be to defend America and Americans. Waging war is an unfortunate necessity that stems from this sometimes. War is not the only threat that can require a military response, and should never be a goal. No matter how you swing it, having a ‘Department of X’ definitely gives the impression - to peopl…

> The purpose of the Department of Defense should be to defend America and Americans.

Should be, but right now, it isn't. So the name is apt, I am afraid.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#263

Post by dgsii »

rayiner wrote: post #259
dgsii wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Likewise, the fact that people differ in their intellectual capabilities from birth

Yes, of course people differ in intellectual capabilities at birth. That is not the argument. The argument is how much that actually impacts IQ test score results.

Your point suggests that “science” supports the idea of IQ being predetermined at birth.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#264

Post by jrmg »

kjksf wrote: post #107
jrmg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because something was done before doesn’t mean it’s good (obviously?) The purpose of the Department of Defense should be to defend America and Americans. Waging war is an unfortunate necessity that stems from this sometimes. War is not the only threat that can require a military response, and should never be a goal. No matter how you swing it, having a ‘Department of X’ definitely gives the impression - to peopl…

Since 1947 US has been involved in 5 major wars (Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afganistan, Iraq). Which begs the question: do you think it's more "moral" to wage wars and lie to public that you're in the business of defense OR say things that are truthful? Spending trillion+ dollars on military is about the only thing that both political party agree on. Obama bombed more countries that most presidents. Since we're ta…

There is so much to reply to here. I feel like I’m being Gish Galloped.

You didn’t actually justify most of what you said and when you did the reasoning seems circular. Most of what you say just has the premise that what’s being done now is good and necessary, and that’s not something I agree with.

I did listen to the justifications for the ‘rename’ (Congress named the department and has not actually changed the name - but that’s a digression…), and disagree with much of the reasoning.

I think it would be ‘more moral’ to have a Department of Defense that operates and has the goals I described. I neither think it’s ‘moral’ to strive for war nor to lie to the public about it.

I agree the military should be well funded.

You invoke Obama, I can’t tell if you agree with what he did or not, and it’s anyway not relevant to what we’re discussing.

Since we're talking about adults thinking like children: your simplistic ideas about what military should be have no effect on what it is.

This sounds deep but is actually nonsense. Our society absolutely gets to choose everything about what our military is and how it’s used. Indeed, you even seem to be arguing that it isn’t (wasn’t) what you think it should be!

Iran and our response to it is a different thing than I was discussing (the name of the department, remember), but I think it would be both ‘more moral’ and probably more effective to actually think and plan deeply than whatever this is. The current administration seems to be all tactics, no strategy.

And I find it ironic that you list a bunch of conflicts that have had, at best, mixed results, then just assert that what’s currently underway, which seems to have less long term planning behind it than any of those, is just obviously going to have a great outcome.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#265

Post by xyzzyz »

snowwrestler wrote: post #205
rayiner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also true that IQ is both real and highly heritable. The military uses what’s essentially an IQ test to screen out the bottom 15% or so of the population: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201801... . The military has found that people with aptitude test scores below the cutoff can’t be trained to competently perform any job in the military. IQ is also highly heritable: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.n…

Genetic heritability, which is a subset of heritability, does not generally mean what people think it means, though. To the extent IQ can be attributed genetically to parents, it does not imply a "compounding" effect where smart people continuously have smarter kids and dumb people have dumber kids. This can understood by analogy to other personal traits like eyesight, height, weight, hair color, etc. which vary with…

Yes, but since the heritability is high, the average IQ of the children will be close to the average IQ of the parents, despite the fact that it will tend to regress towards the mean.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#266

Post by MidnightRider39 »

nradov wrote: post #185
MidnightRider39 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting the war with Iran was definitely a pretty stupid decision, even at this point of it. In a couple of years it will look like the beginning of the end for the US hegemony.

Starting the war with Iraq in 2003 was definitely a pretty stupid decision, and at the time some pundits predicted that it was the beginning of the end for US hegemony. But now a couple decades later the US is still looking pretty hegemonic. US hegemony will end some day, but we should be skeptical of predictions about timing.

Let’s revisit this comment in 2030. Iran is very different from Iraq in many ways.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#267

Post by hirvi74 »

rayiner wrote: post #260
hirvi74 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Results consistent with the existence of a construct are not sufficient evidence for the existence of a construct. We can talk about statistical correlations till the Sun goes down, and I will not dispute that this ethereal 'g-factor' can infer minor to moderate predictions in some domains of people's lives at a population level.

However, I have one question. What evidence is there that this 'g-factor' is actually representative of general intelligence? You may not use the correlation values used to derive the g-factor to support your argument. My understanding is that correlations cannot be used to explain the general factor because the general factor should be what explains the correlations.

If you are interested, I implore you to read this blog from the statistician, Cosma Shalizi, of CMU. His explanation is far better than anything I could attempt to make.

https://bactra.org/weblog/523.html

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#268

Post by readthenotes1 »

Complaining about called the former DoD the Department of War is like complaining about calling water wet. Just because the wars haven't been legitimately authorized by Congress as required in the Constitution doesn't mean that the US hasn't been waging war on someone for most of its existence.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_presidents_timeli...

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#269

Post by MidnightRider39 »

bengale wrote: post #208
MidnightRider39 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting the war with Iran was definitely a pretty stupid decision, even at this point of it. In a couple of years it will look like the beginning of the end for the US hegemony.

This take is extremely arrogant. You can make the argument that shuffling the deck like this will lead to unexpected outcomes but claiming one way or the other to know the outcome is just silly. If anyone feels sure they know what the next several years has in store regarding Iran they are just demonstrating their own ignorance. I’d expect more people here to be cognisant of the Dunning Kruger effect.

I obviously don’t know what the future has in store for us.

But I’m pretty sure that any imaginable outcome of this war will be bad for the US, at a time where they are withdrawing from global politics to concentrate on national politics.

IMO worst case this will lead to a massive civil war in the US and best case to a devaluation of US military might (aka their army will be less respected/feared). Or anything in between.

We can revisit this comment in a couple years and laugh about how wrong i was though

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#270

Post by xyzzyz »

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…

There's no debate on construct validity of IQ among the experts in the field. The consensus position is that IQ tests measure something real, that the tests enjoy extremely high measurement invariance (which implies construct validity), and that the results have extremely high predictive validity (relative to literally anything else in the entire field of psychology). The current debate is more along the lines, whether the contribution of genes to variance in IQ is closer to 30% or to 80%.
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