Val

Karma: 559

Val Feb 16, 2016, 6:04 PM
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Should we admit it when a person/group is “better” than another person/group?
Do you never consider yourself part of a group which is smaller than “all humans”? Would you lose nothing if that group became smaller and less powerful?

The fact that a nation disappear doesn’t mean that there aren’t any descendents of members of that nation.

Biological descendants, yes, but they were usually much worse off (usually enslaved, having a higher chance to be genocided, or just having fewer rights or fewer possibilities)

Is is an topic where you can argue both the pro-group selection and the contra-group selection position

If you define group selection as the theory that genetic traits in individuals develop for the main purpose of making the group fitter, then I was never talking about group selection at all.

As a result no argument that doesn’t cite any papers will convince me.

If you only consider hard sciences as being exclusively important, and believe that all we know about and can infer from history and culture to be completely useless, than I doubt we have much chance to speak the same language in this case. People before the last century or so didn’t write much scientific papers in the modern sense, but they did write down what they’ve seen happening, and while there might be inaccuracies, it would be a waste to throw away everything which was ever written down which is not an article in scientific journal. The information content of old historical documents (and even the information content of myths) is not zero.

Values can chance fast culturally in a way that has nothing to do with genes. A few hundred years in which a nation forms has creates little distinct genetics that produce long-term evolutionary effects.

Of course, I completely agree with that. But I was never talking about genetics in the first place. I used the term of evolution as … I can’t find a better word… not strictly as a metaphor, but you get the idea. Would you also attack the term “stellar evolution” as it is used in astronomy because evolution only means genetics? If not, than think about that my usage, while still distinct from the genetic meaning you were talking about, is still closer to it than the term of “stellar evolution”.

Val Feb 16, 2016, 5:20 PM
1 point
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Should we admit it when a person/group is “better” than another person/group?

without looking at empiric reality.

The empiric reality I’m looking at is that during the course of human history there were many groups, tribes, nations, civilizations which disappeared, and there are several in existence now, which might soon disappear if current trends continue. I doubt it would be too illogical to say that it was not only random chance, but it also played a role what values and goals those groups had, and how did those work out in comparison with the values and goals of other groups.

I’m not sure what “group” goes extinct is supposed to mean. Species go extinct or not.

Sorry for not being pedantic enough.

Val Feb 16, 2016, 5:08 PM
0 points
in reply to: Lyyce’s comment on: Should we admit it when a person/group is “better” than another person/group?

everyone would be better if everyone is cooperating

I agree with this view. And as I was not claiming that it would be good to be too much biased and always (or too often) defect. However, if there is a general tendency of how often / how likely do all the groups defect and cooperate, then one group who pledges to never ever defect no matter what, will see that the other groups will defect against it, solely because they know they will always win. The solution of the prisoner’s dilemma requires the possibility, or at least the ability for you to defect, even if you don’t choose it. Otherwise your opponent will always defect.

Val Feb 16, 2016, 4:51 PM
1 point
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Should we admit it when a person/group is “better” than another person/group?
Maybe we are not talking about the same thing in this case.

If I understood correctly, the evolutionary biologist’s criticism against group selection is that the group selection of individuals who sacrifice their own fitness for the fitness of the group, would not work, as their genes will quickly be out-competed by cheaters. This, however, views “group selection” as a theory where the group is responsible for developing biological traits in the individuals, and as a theory which tries to explain altruistic behavior inside the group. I was not claiming any of the above.

I was not talking about an evolutionary pressure on the individual caused by the so-called “group selection theory”. I was only talking about support for one’s own group in contrast with support for other groups, not in contrast with support for oneself.

Also, if “group selection”, as per definition, means that biological traits in individuals develop on the group level, then I was not supporting the group selection theory at all! I was talking about the competition between different groups. Where one group competes with another group.

Would you say this competition doesn’t exist, and that groups didn’t go extinct during the course of history because other groups were more successful?

Maybe I used the term “evolution” in a way which might be misunderstood? I’m not claiming that biological traits spread among the individuals of a group for the good of the group. I’m claiming that general cultural or social principles of one group might make the group more competitive against other groups, and we can see plenty of historical proof for it.

Val Feb 16, 2016, 4:01 PM
5 points
in reply to: Val’s comment on: Should we admit it when a person/group is “better” than another person/group?
I know the above statement might have unfortunate implications in the wrong context, but I would like to see it proven wrong instead of just dismissed, if you think you disagree with it. Do you disagree with the factual accuracy of the statement, or are you disagreeing because of the assumptions you made about my intent?

Val Feb 16, 2016, 3:26 PM
0 points
on: Should we admit it when a person/group is “better” than another person/group?
We should not forget that from an evolutionary perspective (if we regard groups as the players) it is advantageous to have at least some bias in favor of the group you belong to. Groups which don’t do this, are out-competed by groups who do.

Of course, too much bias leads to extremism. However, no bias at all might lead to the extinction of the group in question.

Val Feb 14, 2016, 7:36 PM
0 points
in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: Lesswrong Survey—invitation for suggestions

“Do you believe that immigration to your country threatens you, benefits you, or …?”

This question will not help much. Also, a very simple immigration-related question was included in the last survey, but it was just about “immigration” in general being good or not. And of course, most people here on LW, unless they want to identify themselves as some racist xenophobes, will answer to such a question with “yes, it’s a good thing”. There is a social pressure to answer like that, in case the word “immigration” is mentioned without being any more specific. So such a question will not get us any useful information about how the members of this community feel about the topic.

This is why it would be better to include a scale. Not just “immigration” but “how much immigration”?

No one but the utmost bigot will say that 5 people from a foreign culture coming to a town of 20000 will have negative consequences. However, no one but the most gullible would believe that 50000 people from a foreign culture coming to a town of 20000 in a very short time interval will not lead to any problems, or that they would integrate instead of forcing their own values on the population.

Val Feb 14, 2016, 10:45 AM
5 points
on: Cheerful one-liners and disjointed anecdotes
Such one-liners have the potential of leading us in the wrong direction if we are not careful. It’s been a common trend nowadays to have thousands upon thousands of blog posts advertising that a seemingly difficult task (learning to program, learning to play music, loosing a lot of weight) is incredibly easy to master in just a few days / few weeks if you just read “these 7 amazing tricks which will blow your mind”!

This seems to be a desire in most people’s minds: instead of recognizing in which area you have better affinity and in which you have less, and then investing a lot of effort in the area you have better chances to become good in, the temptation is there to believe that the world is at your fingertips and you could easily learn to do anything you wanted, if you just knew some “insider secrets”. This is why there is such a big market for such one-liners.

It might be harsh to say, but for me this seems like the remnants of a shamanistic culture, where people have the power fantasies that if they just learned a few magic phrases from the shaman / a guru, they will be capable of doing magic without expending any significant effort.

I would much sooner trust a scientific article relying on experiments and surveys, than sensationalist blog posts with nice-sounding one-liners, who claim that you can become instantly better at your chosen profession just by reading a few hints. Unless those hints are nothing more than to choose an area you have the better affinity to, and practice, practice, practice and practice.

Val Feb 11, 2016, 4:28 AM
1 point
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: Lesswrong Survey—invitation for suggestions
A valid concern. Do you have a better formulation in mind, which is still not too much specific?

Val Feb 10, 2016, 10:44 PM
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Religious and Rational?
I agree, but my point was not a comprehensive segmentation of the whole population, but the existence of the groups I mentioned. Also, the border between B and C might be blurry.

Val Feb 10, 2016, 10:39 PM
1 point
on: Lesswrong Survey—invitation for suggestions
Last time I felt the lack of questions about multiculturalism. It often correlates with political affiliation, but I don’t know how it holds in this community.

Two examples come to my mind:
1. What is your opinion of the regulation of people from a country with a non-Western culture immigrating into countries with a western culture? (I specified it because it both seems that the overwhelming majority of the community lives in a Western country, and that the topic of multiculturalism is most hotly debated in such countries) There could be around 5 or 6 answers between (and including) the extremes of “let absolutely everyone in without any selection criteria or any upper limit at all” and “close all borders, don’t let anyone in”, with several in-between answers like “allow them in, but only in amounts which wouldn’t completely change the ethnic and cultural majorities of the regions”,or “allow them in, but based on some selection criteria regarding education, social class, etc.”
2. In the case of immigrants from a non-Western culture into a country with Western culture, how would you like for the people to culturally adjust?
Possible answers, going through the whole scale between the two extremes:
- “The newcomers should completely embrace the culture of their new home”
- “The newcomers should mostly adopt to the culture of their new homes, while the natives should make at least a few small steps to accommodate them”
- “They both should move equal distances in the direction of each other”
- “The natives should mostly adopt to the culture of the newcomers, while the newcomers should make at least a few small steps to become acquainted with the cultural history of their new home ”
- “The natives should completely embrace the culture of the newcomers, so that they can freely live as they used to live in their old home, without being forced to abandon any of their values”
- (and to add an option outside of the scale of who should change:) “Neither should change anything in their culture, they should live in parallel societies among each other, each keeping their own cultural values and not interfering with the other”

Val Feb 10, 2016, 9:11 PM
−1 points
on: Religious and Rational?
When the topic of religion and rationality comes up, I think the classification atheist / theist might be a very flawed one in this topic. I propose a different classification:

Let’s consider group A to be people who are curious about whether there is much more to our world than what we can perceive with our organs and our instruments. They ask themselves whether there might be some higher meaning in this world, whether we are really just looking at shadows cast onto the wall in a cave, thinking that that’s our entire universe, while there might be something much more out there, something we can’t even imagine. And these people search for ways to experience this feeling, they seek to understand the concept most people call “God”. Some of them find it, and become theists. Some people don’t find it, or assign a different concept to it, or find other goals which they perceive to be more fulfilling, and become atheists/nontheists. But both of these know what they were searching for and don’t condemn those who reached a different conclusion.

Let’s consider group B to be people who wish to feel that they are better than other people, or at least that there are plenty of people who are worse then them. They want to belong to a group, to a community, where they are respected because they have similar opinions as others in the group. Another major motivation for joining that group is that they can now feel themselves to be superior to people outside of this group. To this group belong those atheists, whose main motivation for being an atheist is that they can feel themselves superior to people who they consider stupid, and also to this group belong those religious, whose main motivation for being religious is that they can feel themselves superior to people who they consider immoral.

I think the difference between the groups A and B are much bigger than the difference between atheists in A and theists in A, or between atheists in B and theists in B.

I admit that I’m basing these observations on my personal experiences, but as I’m eager to explore different communities with very varying value systems, I had the opportunity of meeting many people from all 4 groups of the above classification.

Val Feb 10, 2016, 8:48 PM
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Religious and Rational?
One of the objectives of LW is to fight against biases. I’ve seen several comments on this site in previous topics, which paint an almost strawman-like image of religious people (especially Christians—probably as they are the largest group in the countries where most LW readers live), and a strong disbelief against the possibility of faith and rationality co-existing. Therefore an article or a discussion about the compatibility of religion and rationalism might have its merits here.

Val Feb 5, 2016, 10:01 PM
1 point
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Upcoming LW Changes
There is an interesting article about how and why people are susceptible to such things.

It is also an interesting experiment in how many times one can include the word “bullshit” into a serious, peer-reviewed article.

Val Feb 1, 2016, 7:21 PM
3 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: [moderator action] The_Lion and The_Lion2 are banned
I remember having some arguments with him, and although he seems a bit more confrontational than the average, he did in fact had some well-formed arguments from time to time. So definitely not an unintelligent person.

Val Feb 1, 2016, 7:19 PM
4 points
0
in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: [moderator action] The_Lion and The_Lion2 are banned

… comments seem like optimized to offend. Such comments are “convincing for the already believing, and irritating for the unbelieving”. They don’t change anyone’s opinion.

This is a very beautiful and short summary of how a lot of political discussions actually look like. This concept is not new for me, but I’ve never seen it summarized this well before.

Val Jan 12, 2016, 6:22 PM
2 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: Are we failing the ideological Turing test in the case of ISIS? (a crazy ideas thread)
I’m not trying to do an ideological Turing Test here. I know what it is, I’ve seen quite a number of them here. As there are probably zero ISIS supporters (openly commenting as such) on this forum, such a test would not be feasible to do. The idea of a general theist/atheist ideological Turing Test was abandoned some time ago because it happens that this site is frequented by much more atheists than theists.

What I meant with the title is not that “hence with this article I shall conduct an ideological Turing Test”, but that we, as in Western society in general might be failing it because we don’t know enough about how they think.

Val Jan 12, 2016, 6:17 PM
−1 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Are we failing the ideological Turing test in the case of ISIS? (a crazy ideas thread)

that we should do things that would help make ISIS’s ideology more dominant in the world

I think this is where you misunderstood me. I never claimed, nor do I believe that European politicians / European media promote that “we should help make ISIS’s ideology more dominant”. I was only talking about general mainstream Muslim culture which is promoted. And of course, the ideology of ISIS is very different from the mainstream Muslim culture, but I would guess that from a utilitarian point of view it might benefit ISIS if Europe had a mainstream Muslim culture rather than a non-Muslim culture.

Val Jan 12, 2016, 2:55 PM
−1 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Are we failing the ideological Turing test in the case of ISIS? (a crazy ideas thread)
I was making the claim with full confidence because I see it confirmed by both sides. I’ve seen many cases of pro-multiculturalism speakers not denying that this thing happens, but actually being proud of it and claiming that it’s a good thing, and it would be wrong to “force” our way of life onto them.

I’m not shying away from discussion, and I’m happy to listen to and reply to comments, I just wanted to accentuate to not go too far off-topic.

Val Jan 10, 2016, 1:39 AM
0 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: Are we failing the ideological Turing test in the case of ISIS? (a crazy ideas thread)
Wow, that seems to be the most anvilicious support for conservatism I’ve ever seen! Still, I enjoyed reading it, thank you for linking to it. Just getting to know this story was worth writing the article.