I read the title and assumed they were talking about the existence of a parasitic socio-economic class. Seems plausible...
I stopped reading when I realized they meant microbiology.
Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow - not only is this completely false, but it's also definitely not an idea that has popular consensus. It's easily proven: Singapore, South Korea - considerably 'more authoritarian' have successfully contained Coronavirus. America, UK, France - being devastated by Coronavirus. The intellectual arrogance is staggering. Literally, right in front of your eyes, you can see the central leadership of these places on ful…
It's a good thing there is no history before the coronavirus. Not to mention, the most authoritarian large country, China, is responsible for this whole thing.
> China, is responsible for this whole thing.
Please leave the racism at the door. China didn't develop or intentionally spread anything and this whole "chinese virus" meme just needs to die already. Even Fox seems to have abandoned it.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#43While this is all very interesting, there's a pretty deeply embedded bias on display here. "authoritarian governance is defined by highly concentrated power structures that repress dissent and emphasize submission to authority, social conformity, and hostility towards outgroups" ... is a very problematic way of articulating this - to the point of promoting ignorance, because it's frankly how someone with a Liberal De…
I think it's beyond reasonable dispute that freedom and democracy work better than authoritarianism on pretty much every dimension. If there's one thing that both right and left agree on, it's this.
Yeah slam that overton window shut, you never know what dangerous ideas are floating around these days
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It's a good thing there is no history before the coronavirus." There's plenty of history and plenty of examples. "China is responsible for this whole thing" This is actually pretty racist. More importantly, China's 'authoritarianism' has nothing to do with the origin of the outbreak.
> "China is responsible for this whole thing" This is actually pretty racist China is in fact responsible for the global pandemic. How is this racist?
Because it isn't a fact and is downright false. China isn't great for a number of reasons and their suppression of information may have made this worse but blaming them wholesale for this outbreak is just silly.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#45This is junk. Possibly even a case study exemplar of spurious correlations. Take a small set of units (high false positive rate, inter alia). Take some vaguely relevant sounding metrics (entry point for p-hacking). Does a bunch of regressions. Here's the next paper from the group: Distance from equator is predictive of authoritarianism. The more constant daily cycle causes a yearning for rigid routines, predisposing…
Whatever the specific case here, I think we're hitting some sort of epistemological point with after-the-fact data analysis. Pseudoscience, basically. I realise that the term is inflammatory but ultimately it comes down to some fundamentals.
There's a reason why science as a philosophy places so much value on experimentation that makes predictions and tests them. Testability is a fundamental. Untestable theories are not just wrong, they're nonsensical to science. Take Ostrom's "Simulation hypothesis." Is it pseudoscientific? Depends. Is it testable? Is a simulated universe different in a testable way? A theoretically testable simulation hypothesis makes predictions. One that isn't, doesn't. A simulation which is 100% unknowable cannot be a scientific theory. This doesn't strictly mean that it isn't true, it just means we can't gain scientific knowledge of it. If it's masquerading as a scientific theory, then it is pseudoscience.
On the "softer" level, there's a reason why science as a cultural, intellectual institution places so much value on eliminating observer effects. Scientists own bias has always been a major detriment to science. Often in the history of science, generations have had to die off before bias can be shed and science advanced in some area.
Basically and practically, the "double blind" designs of experiments are the heart of this. People's objectivity is not to be trusted, not even scientists, not even a little.
Economics, sociology and such have shifted from one flavour of pseudoscience to another. Back in Popper's day, they would create big untestable "theories" that explained everything and nothing. Today, they make micro-theories after they analyze the data.
I think this may be peaking though. The way machines do "data analysis" is starting to shift the way we think on the margins. Machines make predictions, but not theories. They don't care which way causality runs.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#46This is junk. Possibly even a case study exemplar of spurious correlations. Take a small set of units (high false positive rate, inter alia). Take some vaguely relevant sounding metrics (entry point for p-hacking). Does a bunch of regressions. Here's the next paper from the group: Distance from equator is predictive of authoritarianism. The more constant daily cycle causes a yearning for rigid routines, predisposing…
Yup, or maybe it's the same "Global North" vs "Global South" thing where the rich countries of the world are predominantly in the temperate north. There's just not that much land in the temperate south.
In the middle you have the Caribbean/Northern Latin America, Central Africa and then like Indonesia out in Asia. A lot of warm, wet places with lots of history of malaria, other parasites, and terrible economic development.
What's interesting and cuts the other way right now is the small evidence that warmer and wetter makes COVID less infectious/effective. Have yet to see a good reason 'why' that's the case here, but it would be the first time you kinda want to be near the equator in order to avoid an infectious disease.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#47This is junk. Possibly even a case study exemplar of spurious correlations. Take a small set of units (high false positive rate, inter alia). Take some vaguely relevant sounding metrics (entry point for p-hacking). Does a bunch of regressions. Here's the next paper from the group: Distance from equator is predictive of authoritarianism. The more constant daily cycle causes a yearning for rigid routines, predisposing…
Looks like the measures for authoritarianism are taken from various indices for present-day countries. I wonder how this would hold up if we ask historians to rank historical civilizations by "authoritarianism" and then see how this holds up when extrapolated there.
This study gets absolutely demolished by the fact that all the major old world democracies were trade/citizen empires in the tropics and sub-tropics; Athens, Rome, Carthage, the Malaccan states, Phoenician states, Swahili city states, etc. While Northern Europe and China were the kinds of totalitarian states that the DPRK would envy.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a good thing there is no history before the coronavirus. Not to mention, the most authoritarian large country, China, is responsible for this whole thing.
"It's a good thing there is no history before the coronavirus." There's plenty of history and plenty of examples. "China is responsible for this whole thing" This is actually pretty racist. More importantly, China's 'authoritarianism' has nothing to do with the origin of the outbreak.
China's regime has everything to do with the outbreak, mainly due to failing to crack down on those dirty ad hoc markets that trade in unsafe meat.
That deliberate inaction is directly linked to authoritarianism. The regime avoids taking action in order to appear to be lenient, which gives it leverage in taking other important freedoms away.
That creates a situation in which you can't speak critically of the government, but are able to sell a sick bird that starts a global pandemic.
We can readily identify this with the situation of the "proles" in George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty Four.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proles_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
The proles are a class who enjoys significant personal freedoms. Activities that would in fact be crimes if perpetrated by members of non-prole classes are permitted to the proles. Proles have access to pornography, and can practice religion, if they want. The regime plants moles among the proles who disseminate misinformation.
Orwell nailed it on the head.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
restating a prior sentiment: such dichotomies--left/right, authoritarian/libertarian--and their cross-products are cognitive traps. they inhibit understanding and obscure solution pathways. so don't worry about the axis affiliations and critique the ideas themselves (as you imply you already do by not judging a priori ). fear-driven decision environments (as with the current pandemic) are ripe for power seizures (eve…
>that force is held back by governmental units because of the threat of backlash by residents. this keeps their power in check. don't give that up. You seem to be implying that, absent such a threat, the government would be employing force against citizens regardless of their compliance, simply because they could get away with it. If so, is it not more likely that restraint is due to the purpose of the state's monopo…
for sure, it's the dynamic that matters to keep coercion in check, which is broader than any one constituency. but that constituency is important to the dynamic too.
Re: Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
#50I believe it's not just parasites -- it's also things like diseases and famine as well. The reason it's called "parasite-stress theory" is not because parasites are so important for the selection of government, but because it's a reference to parasite-stress theory in biology. It makes sense. If you don't even have basic healthcare or security, a strongman willing to swoop in and take decisive action does sound appea…
It would seem to me that if you are sick or your health is suffering, several things can result: 1) you dont have the time or energy to consider what the (authoritarian) leader is doing as carefully (cognitive) 2) you may just be too tired/sick to do anything about it (physical)
I would agree... Because in my opinion it is the same as religious belief. People in first world countries are getting more and more secular because they have more time, more willpower to decide about life on their own. If you are poor or sick you spend all mental energy on caring about here and now and you let "higher power" to lead everything else.