Live data from Hacker News

E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

851–853 of 853 posts

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your hypothesis doesn't explain the data any better than mine. My "hypothesis" is that without trying to eliminate the cultural factors, we'll never be able to actually measure how strongly the alleged biological factors affect behavior. So no, my hypothesis doesn't explain anything, because it doesn't try to. > And our culture has changed a hell of a lot. Our academic scientific culture is barely 200 years old. Fe…

Before I go any further, just answer this one question. Is there literally any conceivable evidence that could convince you that you are wrong? That there are biological differences between men and women? This is a basic scientific question. It has nothing to do with politics. You accuse me of "having an agenda" just because I disagree with you. You accuse damore of being "alt right" and defend his firing, just becau…

> Is there literally any conceivable evidence that could convince you that you are wrong?

Oh, for sure, if it was proven beyond reasonable doubt culture is not a factor in decision making.

> That there are biological differences between men and women?

This is not what I am arguing. There's a huge difference between "there are differences between men and women" and "they comprehensibly explain the current gender ratio in the Tech industry".

> That seems pretty damning for your theory to me.

Not really, because for the fifth time: my "theory" (call it: my anti-theory) is we don't know the extent of how potential gender differences might affect career selection, as long as we have a culture that has embedded strong gender identities even before the first career decision is made. Even if you think girls should play with toy ovens while boys play with toy guns, you can just discount the effect such boxing will have long term.

----

For the rest of your post, let me draw an analogy:

Let's say that we are working out of the same office. At some point you are trying to load a website (say, Hacker News) and it doesn't load. You ask me if I know what might be going on:

Me: "Yeah, the WiFi has been terrible today, we called the management company to come and fix it".

You after trying to ping google.com, and getting about 50% packet loss: "I know what it is, it's the database they use to store the articles, it's broken and that's why Hacker News won't load".

Me: "Wait, but the internet is really bad"

You: "Yeah, but there's some connectivity, so it must be the database"

Me: "Have you tried pinging the host?"

You: "No, but I pinged google.com"

Me: "Have you tried loading google.com?"

You: "No, because I know it's the database"

Me: "But... how? Nobody else can't connect to anything because the internet sucks. Even if the internet worked perfectly, there's a bunch of other stuff besides the database that could be broken."

You: "Is there any piece of evidence that will convince you it's the database? Why are you so against it being the database? I know it's the database!"

That's pretty much the conversation we've been having over the last few days. If a coworker of yours did that, you'd think twice before asking for their next time you have to debug something, wouldn't you?

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#852
post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine in theory to criticise the ethics of the idea alone, but there can be a limit to that. If the CEO of a mining company has the "ingenious, un-PC idea" to increase mining profits by lobbying Congress and donating to sympathetic lawmakers to ease EPA regulations so he can dump mercury directly in the river, my ethical argument against the idea is that it damages the environment and the people in the communitie…

But can't you see the difference here? There is no argument that dumping mercury in a river is good for society, the environment or anything else. It's only "good" for this companies profits and even the real value there is a question given the impact on most people working there. But extending human life? Maybe it will be bad. Maybe people will keep having children at the same rate and with no one dying anymore the…

Sure, life-extension is a nuanced question, but the topic under question is whether we should ever criticize the person presenting an "outside-the-box, maybe un-PC" idea, rather than criticize the idea itself.

My mining company example was much closer to the kinds of ideas that are actually pushed by people in the real world, quite frequently, more so than the article's anecdote about life-extension being criticized.

I'm saying that some people seem to pursue profits in such a way that they clearly have a moral framework that doesn't match mine, and arguing over the ethics of the idea with them is fruitless.

Did whoever it was at Volkswagen who had the bright idea to make cars have a system to detect when they were being tested, and change their emissions accordingly, really need someone to debate with about the ethics of the idea? I don't think that was a case of someone with a simple lack of knowledge of the ethical arguments.

These are the kinds of "innovations" people are coming up with in the real world, more-so than life-extension. People are going to create new apps that allow microloans with Bitcoin, with usurious rates, and market them to poor people. People are going to create dolls that listen to your kids and use the info to market toys to them. People are going to create devices to allow you to monitor your health, and sell the info to drug companies, or even to employers. There are going to be plenty of Bad Ideas where the people peddling them know the ethical arguments against them. At some point, we get to criticize the people coming up with these ideas as well.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I go any further, just answer this one question. Is there literally any conceivable evidence that could convince you that you are wrong? That there are biological differences between men and women? This is a basic scientific question. It has nothing to do with politics. You accuse me of "having an agenda" just because I disagree with you. You accuse damore of being "alt right" and defend his firing, just becau…

> Is there literally any conceivable evidence that could convince you that you are wrong? Oh, for sure, if it was proven beyond reasonable doubt culture is not a factor in decision making. > That there are biological differences between men and women? This is not what I am arguing. There's a huge difference between "there are differences between men and women" and "they comprehensibly explain the current gender ratio…

Weird analogy. But from my point of view you are the guy screaming about the database. Replace "database" with "culture". You can't even consider the possibility it's not the database. No amount of tests or other possible explanations seem to have any effect on you.

You latch on to one tiny scrap of evidence that might point to a database issue. Say, the Russian site had a slightly better packet loss. And they have a different server over there, or something.

Then you make it political. And start ranting about how I'm a "database heretic" that should be fired for daring to question the database theory.

Post reply on HN