skeptical_lurker

Karma: 2,784

skeptical_lurker 7 Oct 2021 21:03 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Randomized, Controlled’s comment on: Dominic Cummings : Regime Change #2: A plea to Silicon Valley
>this comment is pretty introspective and open to criticism, which I think is even more LW-y than being “smart”.

Thanks.

I’m not going to delete my posts on second thoughts, it would not be fair to those who have replied to me. I sort of feel that all political posts should just be moved to a walled off area for cognitive hazards. I am however, committing to staying away from politics.

Perhaps I will create a new account.

skeptical_lurker 7 Oct 2021 20:55 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Randomized, Controlled’s comment on: Dominic Cummings : Regime Change #2: A plea to Silicon Valley
>Was she part of a crowd?

Yes, but they could only fit through the broken door slowly one at a time, so they couldn’t rush the officer.

Incidentally, I realise that my comment sounds pro-republican because I’m talking about what I see as a democrat executing a republican. But I’m sure many republicans would love to execute democrats too, its just that at the moment the democrats seem to have far more power, and so its far more likely that democrats start executing many republicans than vice versa. Either way, my point is that mass violence is an order of magnitude higher now than it was a few decades ago.

>Dan Carlin has often mentioned the numerous domestic bombings in the 70s; this Rand article says there were 1,470 domestic attacks in the US in the 70s.

Yes, and the US government might have collapsed in the 70s. I remember that the national guard shot some anti-war protestors. Did any major politicians or journalists condone this? (I genuinely don’t know the answer) Anyway, grassroots violence won’t collapse a government without elite support, and what I’m saying is that the elites seem to be endorsing violence now. Additionally I don’t think an election has been contested like this ever?

>I think if you’re going to redefine ‘execution’ to include some forms of police violence at protests or riots, the bet is going to become too vague to be likely decidable.

I’m not thinking of one or two rouges killing people, I’m thinking of a significant escalation. The riots would eventually become paramilitary death squads, I suppose.

This could be made precise by, say, specifying that the death toll per capita has to equal the French revolution. Speaking of which, I don’t think I would have been able to predict what would happen in the French revolution. Standing in 1789, a prediction of mass murder followed by a giant war would sound paranoid.

(I know I said I would stop talking about politics, but I thought I might as well continue this thread)

skeptical_lurker 7 Oct 2021 17:41 UTC
6 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Dominic Cummings : Regime Change #2: A plea to Silicon Valley
>If, as I contend, most of them weren’t, why should we take the shooting of Ashli Babbitt (in the course of committing a violent crime) as evidence that the US is headed into fascism and mass executions in the next few years, when we don’t draw any such conclusions from tens of thousands of other police killings?

Heading into mass executions with perhaps 5% probability is what I said.

The point is that the police make mistakes, but now it seems that whether an action is justified depends on political affiliation. If there were a similar event, of a republican killing a democrat and seeming to get away with it on pure political affiliation grounds, I would be similarly worried. BTW, events like the storming of the Bastille also involved very few deaths, but rapidly escalated in the next few years.

>(An aside: I was curious about where you were coming from, so to speak, so I had a quick look at your LW comment history. It seems that you post about pretty much nothing but politics (including under that heading highly-politicized topics such as race). I think we have different ideas about what LW is for.)

This comment depressed me. I’m not actually politically active, and I don’t think that I or others should be really. I have many points of disagreement with both parties. In many ways I’d rather no party had all that much power. I talk about politics because … its the impulse to tribal politics getting its hooks into my brain. If I think that there is a 5% chance of mass murder, I think for most of us the best thing to do is just… ignore it, unless it gets a lot worse, in which case the best thing to do is probably just leave, if you can.

Frankly you’re right, I have been using LW wrong (and so has everyone else that talks about politics).
Is there some way I can delete my account and all my posts?

skeptical_lurker 7 Oct 2021 17:11 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Randomized, Controlled’s comment on: Dominic Cummings : Regime Change #2: A plea to Silicon Valley
>If the police officer who shot Babbitt was tasked with defending the Capital, then, even if there was poor judgement on his part, it seems really unreasonable to call his actions an execution. An execution is carried out, generally by a state, as part of a deliberative, measured process of deploying force. This is a distinction I think most people would appreciate.

You are correct, this is an important distinction. My impression is that there was no grounds for the officer to think that his life was in danger—since he is a man he could have physically restrained the woman without a risk of her wrestling the gun from his hands—therefore he doesn’t really have a justification of panicking, and he could deliberate and decide to kill her. Furthermore, the legal system had time to deliberate and decide not to charge him, which greenlights lethal force in any future similar situation.

Suppose in 2024, there is an argument at a polling station over accusations of misconduct. An officer might reason that he can start shooting republicans, by the precedent jan 6th set.

Its not an execution in the sense of a deliberate sentence, its the judicial system deliberately turning a blind eye.

>Define “mass” and “a few years” I’ll consider taking the other side of this bet.

10 years, and at least 10% dead (of those who actually stepped foot inside the capitol) with the majority of the rest in some kinda gulag, or having fled the country, or in non-democrat controlled territory in a civil war. The deaths could follow a trial, or could be execution by mob or whatever.

If 5% seems high, there seems to be civil wars on average once every 200 years or so, and tensions seem very high now.

skeptical_lurker 7 Oct 2021 16:25 UTC
1 point
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Dominic Cummings : Regime Change #2: A plea to Silicon Valley
>If you weren’t trying to suggest that there’s debate about whether the people who stormed the Capitol should be executed without trial,

There isn’t debate: Ashli Babbitt was de facto executed without trial (unless there is an objective legal principle where a male police officer can shoot an unarmed woman for breaking into a government building) and the shooter is described as a hero by the main levers of power, with no debate. The mass execution of capitol rioters might occur within a few years, I give it perhaps a 5% chance.

Now this might seem like I’m trying to build sympathy for the Republican cause, but I am actually not. It is wiser to side with the winner than the loser, and I for one welcome America’s new fascist overlords.

skeptical_lurker 8 Sep 2021 20:37 UTC
11 points
on: I read “White Fragility” so you don’t have to (but maybe you should)
This tactic is called Kafkatrapping:
“A sophistical rhetorical device in which any denial by an accused person serves as evidence of guilt.”
Its also an idea I consider far more absurd than creationism, and to be frank I am shocked to see it taken seriously here.
1) If race is a social construct, then if we abandon this social construct, will a person who previously would have been conceptualised as Asian suddenly grow a few inches? If not, then this is an example of race having a physical meaning independent of mental states.
2) If differing outcomes are a matter of oppression, then shouldn’t Holocaust survivors, the city of Hiroshima, the whole of China etc all be doing really badly? Shouldn’t African Americans be doing worse than African Africans, as African Africans are distanced from White oppression?
3) Since Jewish people have more power than non-Jews on average, any logically consistent claim of the need to fight Whiteness also justifies anti-Semitism (to make it abundantly clear, I am attempting a reducto ad Hiterium argument, I am not trying to justify anti-Semitism)
I am quite curious as to whether anything like this (a group of people deciding to hate themselves) has ever happened before in recorded history. Does anybody know?

skeptical_lurker 8 Sep 2021 20:15 UTC
3 points
in reply to: RedMan’s comment on: I read “White Fragility” so you don’t have to (but maybe you should)
I can understand why a race realist would argue that beleiving the truth makes you racist, but why a vicious racist?

skeptical_lurker 30 Aug 2021 21:20 UTC
6 points
on: A Small Vacation
This is just blue-tribe signalling. I apologise for being rude, but I don’t know which is more absurd—the implication that only Europeans cared about gold/land/slaves (I think all non-tribal civilisation cared about the first two, and most cared about the third), or the idea that land has no value. I wonder what history would look like if the US had not expanded west? I think the most obvious change is that Germany and/or Japan would have won WWII. The US would have had little oil (as the Texan oil fields were not part of the initial colonies) no pacific naval bases, no empty land to test nuclear bombs on etc. Going further back in history, if no-one cared about land then we would all still be hunter-gathers.
Similarly the idea that Spain collapsed due to having too much gold sounds like nonsense—Spain traded with other countries, so any inflation caused wouldn’t just affect Spain.

The reason why immigrants often are beneficial to the host country is because barriers to immigration provide a very strong selective effect. But this does not apply to open borders or refugees, and also this brain drain is not sustainable.

skeptical_lurker 28 Oct 2017 11:50 UTC
4 points
on: Feedback on LW 2.0
I haven’t posted on LW for a while now, but after posting to LW2.0 I got banned (till 2021) very quickly. My posts were also deleted. I was not told why I was banned, although I assume it was because I entered a fake email (I was annoyed that the new site required an email and not just a username). I asked why I got banned, and received no response.

Well, I’m sorry for using a fake email. I wasn’t trying to spam, or sockpuppet or anything, but I think a 3 year ban without any sort of warning or explanation seems a little excessive. I’m happy to provide an email that works if required. I also considered setting up a new account with a real email, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m sockpuppetting.

skeptical_lurker 12 Apr 2017 20:28 UTC
6 points
in reply to: denimalpaca’s comment on: Open thread, Apr. 10 - Apr. 16, 2017
Facebook is full of bullshit because it is far quicker to share something then to fact-check it, not that anyone cares about facts anyway. A viral alarmist meme with no basis in truth will be shared more then a boring, balanced view that doesn’t go all out to fight the other tribe.

But Facebook has always been full of bullshit and no-one cared until after the US election when everyone decided to pin Trump’s victory on fake news. So its pretty clear that good epistemology is not the genuine concern here.

Not that I’m saying that Facebook is worse then any other social media—the problem isn’t Facebook, the problem is human nature.

skeptical_lurker 12 Apr 2017 20:21 UTC
3 points
in reply to: madhatter’s comment on: Open thread, Apr. 10 - Apr. 16, 2017
I’ve just been skimming the wiki page on Russian involvement in the US election.

SecureWorks stated that the actor group was operating from Russia on behalf of the Russian government with “moderate” confidence level

The other claims seem to just be that there was Russian propaganda. If propaganda and possible spying counts as “war” then we will always be at war, because there is always propaganda (as if the US doesn’t do the same thing!). The parallels with 1984 go without saying, but I really think that the risk of totalitarianism isn’t Trump, its people overreacting to Trump.

Also, there are similar allegations of corruption between Clinton and Saudi Arabia.

skeptical_lurker 10 Mar 2017 12:46 UTC
1 point
on: Against Belief-Labels
I generally agree, but...

George is a Perfect Bayesian Rationalist, and has recently come to the conclusion that everything Albert Camus says is correct with a probability of greater than 0.99999. Since his realization, George has called himself an absurdist.

One problem here could be that it might not the case that all beliefs and positions can be determined by Bayesian Rationalism. Does absurdism have an objective truth value? Perhaps not. Political positions, to give an example, seem to correlate more with personality traits than with intelligence: Einstein and Von Neumann are widely regarded as two of the smartest people in the 20th century, and yet Einstein campaigned for nuclear disarmament, while Von Neumann campaigned to preemptivly nuke the USSR.

“I’m a republican.” might not mean “I have rationally decided that republicanism is the best philosophy” it might mean “I have high enough ‘aversion to danger’ to want boarder controls and high military spending, low enough ‘openess to experience’ to be uncomfortable with unconventional lifestyles, and am rational enough to realise that free markets are more efficient”

Or it might mean something else. Either way, saying “I’m a republican.” gives object-level information quickly without going into the meta-level underpinnings to your beliefs.

skeptical_lurker 9 Mar 2017 21:50 UTC
1 point
on: Open Thread, March. 6 - March 12, 2017
I said a few weeks back that I would publically precommit to going a week without politics. Well, I partially succeeded, in that I did start reading for example an SSC article on politics because it popped up in my RSS feed, but I stopped when I remembered that I was ignoring politics. The main thing is I managed to avoid any long timewasting sessions of reading about politics on the net. And I think this has partially broken some bad habits of compulsive web browsing I was developing.

So next I think I shall avoid all stupid politics for a month. No facebook or reddit, but perhaps one reasonably short and high-quality article on politics per day. Speaking of which, can anyone recommend any short, intelligent, rational writings on feminism for instance? My average exposure to anti-feminist thought is fairly intelligent, while my average exposure to pro-feminist thought is “How can anyone disagree with me? Don’t they realise that their opinions are just wrong? Women can be firefighters and viking warriors! BTW, could you open this jar for me, I’m not strong enough.” And this imbalance is not good from a rationalist POV. I am especially interested whether feminists have tackled the argument that if feminists have fewer children, then all the genes that predispose one to being feminist (and to anything else that corrlates) will be selected against. I mean, this isn’t a concern for people who think that the singularity is near(tm) or who don’t care what happens a few generations in the future, but I doubt either of these apply to many feminists, or people in general.

skeptical_lurker 23 Feb 2017 0:25 UTC
2 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017

The impression I have—though of course I don’t know what your friends have been saying—is that the burn-their-houses-down brigade are much more upset about the kinda-fascist sort of right than the kinda-libertarian sort of right. Of course even if I’m right about that that doesn’t necessarily reduce the sense of alienation; your aliefs needn’t match your beliefs.

Except that I don’t think libertarian is incompatible with boarder controls—indeed, libertarians are generally enthusiastic about property rights, and controlling immigration is no different to locking your front door and vetting potential housemates.

I’m not saying that the boarder controls should be based around skin colour, but the definition of ‘Nazi’ seems to have expanded to anyone who believes in any form of boarder control.

Agree about first half; not fully convinced about second half. As you pointed out yourself, it’s not that long ago that we had actual Nazis and Stalinists in power in Europe, and bad though early-21st-century politics is it doesn’t seem like it’s got there just yet.

I certainly agree that globally its not as bad as 1930-1990. Nevertheless, things seem to have got dramatically worse in the last decade—in my personal experience it used to be that people could agree to disagree, now most political opinions seem to be in lockstep, almost like a cult. More generally, I remember people criticising Bush, but now there are very intelligent people, even the head of CFAR, saying that Trump could be the end of democracy. Either they are correct, in which case that is obviously a cause for concern, or they are wrong and a lot of very smart people, inc rationalists, are utterly mindkilled.

skeptical_lurker 22 Feb 2017 20:53 UTC
0 points
in reply to: satt’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017
You see, its one thing to advocate violence against a literal Neo-Nazi, but advocating violence against anyone who advocates reducing immigration, well, that shows a lot more liberal tribe loyalty. So much holier than thou.

Additionally, this comment was made IRL, possibly within earshot a person they were advocating violence against.

skeptical_lurker 22 Feb 2017 18:07 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017
I think people cluster into left and right because those are the tribes. However, it can be oversimplistic and I agree that there are many potential directions left and right progress can take—indeed, if a few more Islamic terrorists shoot up gay bars there could be a lot of LBGTs defecting to right-nationalism.

skeptical_lurker 22 Feb 2017 17:47 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017
I think communist beliefs, violent or not, are on the rise largely due to young angry people being too young to remember the cold war. Some friends and acquaintances from multiple disconnected freindship groups are communists, and too many of these advocate violence, although I think that they are still a tiny minority overall. I think the situation is, as you put it, “this person is broken”.

I’m not at all worried about actually being the victim of politically-motivated physical violence or of riots/revolutions etc in the near future. What worries me is general political polarisation leading to a situation where blue and red tribes hate each other and cannot interact, where politics is reduced to seeing who can shout ‘racist’ or ‘cuck’ loudest. My political beliefs have become increasingly right-wing, in a classically liberal sense as opposed to fascist, and it alienates me when friends advocate burning someone’s house down because they hold beliefs which are actually similar, perhaps even left of, mine. I’m not worried about them actually burning my house down, it’s just alienating on principle, and for fear of social exclusion.

WRT historical periods of political instability, I agree that such periods are infrequent, and given that we have seen the results of both Nazism and communism, I think it unlikely that those ideologies will gain power. But OTOH we are going to see certain events that are totally unprecedented in history, largely because of technology. We are already seeing levels of migration that I think exceeds anything in the past (due to better transport), which is leading to a rise in nationalism, and soon it is possible that we will see far more disruptive technologies such as human genetic engineering, large numbers of jobs being automated away, mass automated surveillance, and finally FAI. If safely navigating the problems these technologies pose requires a partially political solution, then we need sane politics. And yet political discourse has sunk to the point where political candidates are debating the size of their ‘hands’ and whether frogs are racist. Obama’s advisor seemed to think that the danger of AGI is that it might be programmed by white male autists.

We do not have the level of political sanity necessary to deal with disruptive technologies and its getting worse. Nick Bostrom thinks that genetically engineered IQ boosts of 100 points+ in a single generation might be possible, and soon. Nazism and communism are unlikely now, but how would society react to human genetically engineering? Many would try to ban it. Some would try to tax it. Countries where it was illegal might suffer massively reduced economic growth compared to those where it was allowed. Inequality might skyrocket. I’m not trying to suggest that we will specifically end up with ‘Gattaca’ or ‘Deux Ex: Mankind divided’ or any of the other specific science fiction explorations of these possibilities, I’m saying that I don’t know what will happen and political extremism/violence is certainly a possibility and it doesn’t help if extremism is increasing anyway!

skeptical_lurker 22 Feb 2017 13:31 UTC
0 points
in reply to: username2’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017

“The simplest explanation is probably correct” is true when we have a sufficient number of facts in front of us to make inference. In most things in life this is the case, but human behaviour is complex enough to make that not generally true.

However, I would say that even when dealing with high complexity and uncertainty, the simplest explanation is still usually the most probable hypothosis, even if it has <50% probability.

skeptical_lurker 22 Feb 2017 13:28 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017
The things I previously mentioned such as “Or that there is >50% probability that Brexit will literally lead to a neo nazi state in the UK within 10 years?” are mostly positions expressed by freinds. The group this person joined was advocating violent communist revolution and the murder of enemies of the people (as in it was an explicitly communist group, not a anti-Trump group that had been hijacked by communists), and so cannot be seen as a reaction to Trump or Brexit.

But, in the more general case, there are a lot of people, a lot of centeralists, who are opposed to Trump/Brexit. So people do not need to join forces with extremists to fight them.

(It’s not as if the rhetoric of the less-pleasant parts of the political right is any nicer or more sensible than that of the less-pleasant parts of the political left. Intelligent educated friendly right-leaning folk can find themselves with some regrettable—dare I say deplorable? -- bedfellows too.)

I agree with that, but I think that there is a difference in behaviour due to the fact that the left has been winning in all areas with the possible exception of economics for the last 50 years or more, but suddenly there have been some unexpected rightist victories. Firstly, this means that the left expects to be pushing back the right, and there is a general assumption that, for instance, rightists must disavow and sever all ties with white nationalists but the left can freely associate with extremists.

Secondly, given that the right has suddenly managed to win some victories, might the previous constant leftward march of history change, at least in some areas? In the same way that feminism and gay rights has made constant progress for the last 50 years, might nationalism make constant progress for the next 50 years?

I don’t know how much of the left are considering that as a possibility, but I can understand that they might be terrified and lashing out while they still have the ability to.

So yes, the right are not more sensible or nicer in general, its just that right now the left have a greater ability to justify violence. If that changes, then we might live in interesting times.

skeptical_lurker 22 Feb 2017 13:00 UTC
2 points
in reply to: satt’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb. 20 - Feb 26, 2017
Well, in one comment a friend was advocating violence against perhaps the most right wing 10-15% of the population.