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A List of Open Questions

gwern.net

31–40 of 89 posts

Re: A List of Open Questions

#31
post #2

"Why do so few people in the United States exercise their right and privilege to vote?"

"Why does nearly every political race for office in the United States come down to only two choices: turd sandwich or giant douche?"

That's easy, and the answer even has a googleable name: "first past the post".

Re: A List of Open Questions

#32
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory (at least for humans) is that this is due to better dental care.

Care to elaborate?

Oral hygiene has been improving over time, see:

https://fluoridefree.org.nz/fuoridation-status-countries/cou...

Perhaps people with the bad oral hygiene of the past had a different gut biome, had more stomach infections, or just had less pain when eating and this led to less calorie absorption.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#33
>Why did it take until the late 20th century for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to develop and the Gracie family crush almost all other unarmed martial arts at the start of MMA, when humans have engaged in unarmed combat for millions of years and every major country has long lineages of specialized competitive martial arts and tremendous incentive to find martial arts which worked and quick feedback loops?

I suspect the most obvious answer is the same as the issue with other forms of grappling and wrestling - they are very good in structured 1v1 combat where there is a guarantee that a friend of your foe won't come along while you are both on the ground and bash you over the head with a large rock.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#34

> Why do humans, pets, and even lab animals of many species kept in controlled lab conditions on standardized diets appear to be increasingly obese over the 20th century? What could possibly explain all of them simultaneously becoming obese? Because diet is only part of the equation. The other major factor being exercise/physical activity (and probably some genetics). If you eat 'well' but sit at a desk all day, calo…

I personally believe carbs are mostly to blame (as opposed to fats and protein). In the Western world there is this idea that fats are bad, carbs are good but somehow this idea coincidences with astronomic increase in obesity. We load everything with high-fructose corn syrup and kick fats out of our diet. There is not much research behind this and my claims aren't evidence based either. I'm more than happy to refuted if you can provide papers.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#35

> what and why are furries? You know how some kids like to pretend to be animals? Furries never quit doing that once they grew up. > When did furries become a thing? I have yet to run into a clear reference to them before the 1980s and they may primarily postdate even that If you want to be aggressively inclusive you can go all the way back to the earliest recorded myths about talking animals. If you want to limit yo…

Yeah furries are not rich. The majority of them are about 18 years old and have as much money as your typical highschool/uni student.

I also think its become a much more diversified group. Still a lot of furs working in tech but probably less than 40% of furs work in tech now.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#36
post #2

"Why do so few people in the United States exercise their right and privilege to vote?"

The more interesting question from an economics point of view is why does anyone bother voting. Since races almost never come down to one vote, your vote almost certainly doesn't matter. Nevermind the fact that more people voted for democrats for the senate and the presidency and still lost both.

The latest theory I've heard for why people vote is that being seen as a team player has social value.

https://eml.berkeley.edu//~sdellavi/wp/turnout13-11-13.pdf

The Freakonomics guys bring this up every so often.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/why-vote.html

Also I just wanted to let everyone know that I voted ;)

Re: A List of Open Questions

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that jiu jitsu makes UFC / MMA less interesting. I'm more interested in of the stand up combat sports like kickboxing. I reckon UFC is missing out by not having a pure standup division, without the wrestling/bjj. I know a former world champion kickboxer who says "Ground and pound? Where's the honor in that?". I thought about it a bit and realised he is right - where is the honor, sportsmanship in beating the h…

Why is there more honor in beating someone while standing? The reason to include wrestling is that it makes the contest more closely approximate a real fight. In a real fight your opponent does have the option to go to the ground.

Depends what you consider a "real fight". E.g. I remember a Taekwando instructor saying that BJJ would always beat Taekwando in a UFC match, but he'd never want to rely on their techniques in a bar fight where there might be broken glass on the floor.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably more likely than that it's a one on one fight where you both agree not to wrestle.

By definition, an unrestricted one-on-one fight is more likely than a specific subset of one-on-one fights, since the first possibility includes the second. But neither is likely at all. Also unlikely: picking a fight with someone who weighs about the same amount you do.

I don't think your logic follows. Unrestricted fights and restricted fights are both subsets of the set of fights, but restricted fights aren't a subset of unrestricted fights. By definition, unrestricted fights are distinct from restricted fights.

Either way, I regret pursuing this topic and won't comment on it further since I feel this is a discussion not worth having, reading, or writing. I don't write that to be rude, just as an attempt to hold myself to some standard for discourse.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#39
post #2

"Why do so few people in the United States exercise their right and privilege to vote?"

The more interesting question from an economics point of view is why does anyone bother voting. Since races almost never come down to one vote, your vote almost certainly doesn't matter. Nevermind the fact that more people voted for democrats for the senate and the presidency and still lost both. The latest theory I've heard for why people vote is that being seen as a team player has social value. https://eml.berkele…

From a mathematical perspective it's pretty silly to claim your vote doesn't matter just because it's not the tie breaking vote. You should give this a read: https://www.skishore.me/voting.html.

Frankly this viewpoint has always puzzled me. Your specific claim that a vote almost certainly doesn't matter because elections don't come down to a single vote seems...unsupported, to put it politely. It might be more intuitively attractive to say your vote doesn't matter if you're not in a swing election, but it's not rigorously defensible. It's incorrect.

It's like saying 4 and 5 are the same thing because they're both significantly smaller than 100,000. No, they're materially different quantities. If more people accepted this straightforward and uncontroversial truth - and acted on it - then more change might actually be effected. Instead this becomes a self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy with no rational basis. It's lazy cynicism, to put it bluntly.

Re: A List of Open Questions

#40

>Why did it take until the late 20th century for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to develop and the Gracie family crush almost all other unarmed martial arts at the start of MMA, when humans have engaged in unarmed combat for millions of years and every major country has long lineages of specialized competitive martial arts and tremendous incentive to find martial arts which worked and quick feedback loops? I suspect the most ob…

MMA is new, historically speaking.

BJJ is the best fighting style that fits the rules of MMA. Change the rules a bit and a different style will work better.

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