Zaine

Karma: 540

Zaine 4 May 2013 4:41 UTC
58 points
on: Seeking reliable evidence—claim that closing sweatshops leads to child prostitution
I will quote at length here.
3. The Argument
1. Most sweatshop workers choose to accept the conditions of their employ ment, even if their choice is made from among a severely constrained set of options.18
2. The fact that they choose the conditions of their employment from within a constrained set of options is strong evidence that they view it as their most-preferred option (within that set).
3. The fact that they view it as their most-preferred option is strong evidence that we will harm them by taking that option away.
4. It is also plausible that sweatshop workers’ choice to accept the condi tions of their employment is sufficiently autonomous that taking the option of sweatshop labor away from them would be a violation of their autonomy.
5. All else being equal, it is wrong to harm people or to violate their autonomy.
6. Therefore, all else being equal, it is wrong to take away the option of sweat shop labor from workers who would otherwise choose to engage in it.
5. Challenges to The Argument
I will discuss three potential vulnerabilities in The Argument. One potential vulnerability centers on premises 1, 2, and 4, and stems from possible failures of rationality and/or freedom (which I will group together as failures of voluntariness) in sweatshop workers’ consent. The second is located in premise 3, and derives from a possibly unwarranted assumption regarding the independence of a potential worker’s antecedent choice-set and the offer of employment by a sweatshop. A final criticism of The Argument is centered on the conclusion (6) and holds that even if everything in premises 1-5 is true, it nevertheless ignores a crucial moral consideration. That consideration is the wrongfulness of exploitation?for one can wrongfully exploit an individual even while one provides them with options better than any of their other available alternatives.
a. Failures of Voluntariness
The first premise states that sweatshop workers choose the conditions of their employment, even if that choice is made from among a severely constrained set of options. And undoubtedly, the set of options available to potential sweatshop workers is severely constrained indeed. Sweatshop workers are usually extremely poor and seeking employment to provide for the necessities of life, so prolonged unemploy ment is not an option. They lack the education necessary to obtain higher-paying jobs, and very often lack the resources to relocate to where better low-skill jobs are available. Given these dire economic circumstances, do sweatshop workers really make a “choice” in the relevant sense at all? Should we not say instead, with John Miller, that whatever “choice” sweatshop workers make is made only under the “coercion of economic necessity” (Miller, 2003: 97)? And would not such coercion undermine the morally transformative power of workers’ choices?
I do not think so.38 The mugging case discussed in section two shows that while coercion may undermine some sorts of moral transformation effected by choice, it does not undermine all sorts.39 Specifically, the presence of coercion does not license third parties to disregard the stated preferences of the coerced party by interfering with their activity. After all, one of the main reasons that coercion is bad is because it reduces our options. The mugger in the case above, for instance, takes away our option of continuing our life and keeping our money, and limits our choices to two — give up the money or die. Poverty can be regarded as coercive because it, too, reduces our options. Poverty reduces the options of many sweatshop workers, for instance, to a small list of poor options — prostitution, theft, sweatshop labor, or starvation. This is bad. But removing one option from that short list — indeed, removing the most preferred option — does not make things any better for the worker. The coercion of poverty reduces a worker’s options, but so long as he is still free to choose from among the set of options available to him, we will do him no favors by reducing his options still further. Indeed, to do so would be a further form of coercion, not a cure for the coercion of poverty.40

[C]40. See Radcliffe Richards, 1996: 382.
[Radcliffe Richards, Janet (1996). Nepharious goings on: Kidney sales and moral arguments. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 21 (4):375--416.]

[C]74. For instance, in 1992, the United States congress was considering legislation known as the “Child Labor Deterrence Act.” The purpose of this act was to prevent child labor by preventing the importation into the United States of any goods made, in whole or in part, by children under the age of 15. The Act never received enough support to pass, but while it was being debated, employers in several countries where child labor was widespread took preemptive action in order to maintain their ability to export to the lucrative U.S. market. One of these employers was the garment industry in Bangladesh. According to UNICEF’s 1997 “State of the World’s Children” report, approximately 50,000 children were laid off in 1993 in anticipation of the bill’s passage. Most of these children had little education, and few other opportunities to acquire one or to obtain alternative legal employment. As a result, many of these children turned to street hustling, stone crushing, and prostitution — all of which, the report notes, are much more hazardous and exploitative than garment production (UNICEF, 1997: 60).
[“Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation”
Matt Zwolinski
Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 2007), pp. 689-727
Published by: Philosophy Documentation Center
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27673206]
From the UNICEF report:

An Agreement In Bangledesh
An important initiative to protect child workers is unfolding in Bangladesh. The country’s powerful garment industry is committing itself to some dramatic new measures by an agreement signed in 1995. The country is one of the world’s major garment exporters, and the industry, which employs over a million workers, most of them women, also employed child labour. In 1992, between 50,000 and 75,000 of its workforce were children under 14, mainly girls. The children were illegally employed according to national law, but the situation captured little attention, in Bangladesh or elsewhere, until the garment factories began to hide the children from United States buyers or lay off the children, following the introduction of the Child Labor Deterrence Act in 1992 by US Senator Tom Harkin. The Bill would have prohibited the importation into the US of goods made using child labour. Then, when Senator Harkin reintroduced the Bill the following year, the impact was far more devastating:garment employers dismissed an estimated 50,000 children from their factories, approximately 75 per cent of all children in the industry. The consequences for the dismissedchildren and their parents were not anticipated. The children may have been freed, but at the same time they were trapped in a harsh environment with no skills, little or no education, and precious few alternatives. Schools were either inaccessible, useless or costly. A series of follow-up visits by UNICEF, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) discovered that children went looking for new sources of income, and found them in work such as stone-crushing, street hustling and prostitution — all of them more hazardous and exploitative than garment production. In several cases, the mothers of dismissed children had to leave their jobs in order to look after their children. Out of this unhappy situation and after two years of difficult negotiations, a formal Memorandum of Understanding was signed in July 1995 by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), and the UNICEF and ILO offices in Bangladesh. The resulting programme was to be funded by these three organizations. BGMEA alone has committed about $1 million towards the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding. Under the terms of the agreement, four key provisions were formulated:
• the removal of all under-age workers — those below 14 — within a period of four months;
• no further hiring of under-age children;
• the placement of those children removed from the garment factories in appropriate educational programmes with a monthly stipend;
• the offer of the children’s jobs to qualified adult family members.
The Memorandum of Understanding explicitly directed factory owners, in the best interests of these children, not to dismiss any child workers until a factory survey was completed and alternative arrangements could be made for the freed children....
[http://origin-www.unicef.org/spanish/publications/files/pub_sowc97_en.pdf. Panel 12; pg.60.]

Conclusion:
The argument that closing sweatshops leads to prostitution appears a valid one, as according to a 1997 report by UNICEF, it happened once in Bangladesh. According to that same report, provisions were established to prevent it from happening again (in Bangladesh).
(Personal opinion: There’s too little evidence to determine whether the argument is actually sound. It happened once, though, and I find little reason to assume conditions in other countries are so different than they were in Bangladesh. However, thus concluding that sweatshops are good would be a misstep. One should rather conclude that if one is to close a sweatshop, provide alternative employment or enable and equip the workers to find their own alternative employment.)
What links here?
- Zaine's comment on Seeking reliable evidence—claim that closing sweatshops leads to child prostitution by [deleted] (4 May 2013 4:10 UTC; 4 points)

Zaine 4 May 2012 8:29 UTC
20 points
on: Why do people ____?
Why are some females sometimes unreasonably mean to other females? Is this even the case?

For example, I recently asked a friend why she felt the need to buy a new dress for every ‘special event’ (galas, dances, etc.). After some thought, she said it’s most likely because she will be looked down upon by other females if she is seen wearing something that she has previously been known to wear. I asked why again, and she said that sort of judgement has probably been inculcated in the majority of females; she clarified that she only bought new dresses so as not to be thought of as low status, and has no qualms wearing the same things around family.

In other words, she thinks other females constantly judge each other based upon their wardrobe; she said the same judgement does not apply to men. I have heard that some females play relatively cruel psychological games with each other when compared to male culture. Is this true? Why do some do it?

I’ve always assumed it’s due to mere insecurity, in the same way some males often put each other down in order to be thought of as higher status.

Zaine 16 Apr 2013 6:12 UTC
17 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Help us name the Sequences ebook
It’s important to bring people in on a secret instead of making them feel deficient.

Zaine 11 May 2013 2:59 UTC
15 points
in reply to: maia’s comment on: Post ridiculous munchkin ideas!
I’ve done, recommended, and been recommended this before and am in wholehearted agreement. I would be remiss however if I did not share a word of caution: that model of pull up bar leaves black marks, and after extended use, will probably dent a wooden door frame. I do not know of a model of that type that does not share this design flaw.

Zaine 12 Oct 2013 14:15 UTC
13 points
in reply to: octopocta’s comment on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
If you wouldn’t mind, please share either your curricula or the method used to design it—whichever is most generally applicable.

Zaine 10 Oct 2013 22:04 UTC
11 points
in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
I’ll brainstorm suggestions, then.
- Ask him if there’s a language he’d like to learn. If there is, provide him materials to learn the basics (grammar, alphabet, fundamentals) and promise to send him to a language school that immerses you for x months during a break.
- Ask him if he’d like tutored instruction in a subject; if he would, then, as others suggest, enslave a grad student.
- Gift him a “Learn X the Hard Way” book. Alternatives include Real Python; I don’t know what else they include.
- Ask him if he has any life goals. If they are scientific in origin, take the goals seriously, lay out some milestones that might help in achieving them, and utilise Davidson’s resources for all they’re worth (including people).
- Ask if he’d like to learn an instrument and/or how to sing, with instruction in music theory being another option. Accommodate.
- Ask if he’d like to learn a martial art, and if he has any preferences. You could ask him this after taking him to a demonstration of the Shaolin Monks. If he has an interest in oriental languages, instruction in the language he’s learning offers a practical immersive environment.
- Have family writing competitions—everyone writes a brief story together by candlelight for a set period of time. Comment on the stories afterwards, and everyone can vote on a favourite should they have one.
- Offer instruction in Go.
- See if you can work out a way to direct all his instruction in the classes that bore him towards producing something of value. In the humanities, this could amount to historical fiction set in the learnt time period, limericks about the mechanics of Linguistics, or analytical essays (should he like that sort of thing). In maths, challenge him to derive established proofs himself without telling him the proof beforehand, or teach with the frame of covering the knowledge necessary for solving a current problem in mathematics. In science, tell a story of the scientist who ran a particularly important experiment, or set of experiments; inform him what the scientist observed, and ask him to design an experiment testing that observation with varying aims. You could also just tell the story, if the one teaching is a good enough storyteller (exempli gratia Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe, by Spielberg and Anderson—although it doesn’t actually teach the subjects).
- Give him a yet-to-be assembled computer with a completely empty drive, books on how computers work, books on how software communicates with computers, and let him play.
- Teach him skills known by the people he’s studying, but not us, concurrent with his studies of those people: calligraphy, perspective art, court decorum, honorifics, hunting for sustenance, foraging, needlework, thread and wool weaving, soap creation, candle creation, paper manufacture, eyeglass manufacture, architecture, sailing, letter-writing, mercury ingestion, plague avoidance, honour, swordsmanship, fear of the inquisition, etc.
I’m curious—Davidson markets itself as solving boring instruction; what about it does he find uninteresting?

Zaine 16 May 2013 13:24 UTC
10 points
in reply to: TsviBT’s comment on: Post ridiculous munchkin ideas!
Right, let’s get started. Ten years sounds like a nice round number, but is it optimal? To answer that first we need to consider what age children to admit. We want them young enough to become fluent in English quickly; all the high paying jobs are in English speaking countries, barring Asia—should we consider teaching Chinese as well? Maybe, but let’s think about that later.
To ensure they still have a wide range of pronounceable phonemes, they should be younger than seven. The younger the better, though, and we don’t want them to learn wrong things we’ll have to reteach, so before schooling age: at the maximum, five. Should we go younger, though?

Well, what do children learn from their families? Affection might be one, assuming they’re from an affectionate family. If they live in a culture where many children are the norm, then they may learn responsibility as well. They may also learn abuse, if that’s their family culture. Perhaps they’ll gain life experience? I’m not confident about that.
Well, if we go younger, then how young? Pre-bowel control training? Certainly not pre-solid foods; breast-feeding will contribute to their IQ. Children learn from anything and everything pre-four or so—this could be an advantage for language learning but also a waste of resources if they’ll be learning in their home environments anyway. I want to move on, so let’s settle on 3~5 for now.

How long to teach them for? Assuming efficient teaching and excellent recall of learnt material, from three to thirteen may be enough, but we have puberty to consider. Should we keep them in an environment with similarly aged children? I don’t think that’s the right question, as it assumes similarly aged children are naturally nasty to each other around puberty. This gets into teaching structure, but assuming curriculum can be ability gated rather than age gated, children of different ages will all work together; I don’t imagine an age gap of greater than three years, though, considering they should all be gifted—responsibility may not be an effect.*

Oh! In the absence of parents, the younger children might need emotional support. Older children can provide that! The school structure could accommodate this by rooming older children with younger children, or just naturally bringing them together for activities. The first generation will need adult role models in order to jumpstart the cycle.

The school should have a library—humanities will be included for pleasure reading. To promote easy bonding via shared interests, publicly listed clubs will be encouraged to the exclusion of the formation of cliques. An older child rearing younger child social dynamic may contribute to this atmosphere.

A caveat: beware the ‘utopian society’ experimental villages. We should look at cultures that have the desired values already, and use them as foundations.

* That was a bit of a tangent—sorry about that. So, if they won’t tear each other apart emotionally during puberty, should we still keep them? Teens started working when in their low teens in the past, but whether they can handle a present day adult job I’m unsure. Oh, right, I’ve been presuming we’ll teach them everything they’d learn at university plus possibly more. Social experiences must be included in that, so maybe they should stay on—if only just to work on original projects.

We could use some parents of the children for security—but must not allow them access to the kids as they are unnecessary confounds. I’m thinking of a large gated complex hundreds of acres in circumference for physical activities and to diminish any feeling of being trapped. I’m thinking a country without an armed militia, militant group, or bothersome government would be ideal. Eurasia might have some candidates, but I’m not sure how fertile the land is, and Russia and China have bothersome governments. South America, perhaps? Is there a governmentally stable African country with fertile, undeveloped land? PR of Congo comes to mind, but I don’t know much about their government’s politics.

That’s enough for now—if I come back to this, I’ll write below the line.

Zaine 17 May 2013 15:41 UTC
9 points
in reply to: someonewrongonthenet’s comment on: To Inspire People to Give, Be Public About Your Giving
Just have a place people can look as per Jeff Kaufman. Example conversation:

A: ”… [taxes | charity | income | giving back | etcetera].”
B: “Ho-ho! [Obligatory calculated utility vs. warm fuzzies preface], so I try to just pick a percentage and be done with it.”
C: “How much do you give?”
B: “I’d have to check to precise—I keep a log on [ ___ ] to keep track. I feel a lot better for example giving my falafel to a starving puppy on the street than picking my donation percentage, but knowing I do donate, and do so efficiently, helps me live with myself.”
A: “What percentage on average do you give?”
B: “Depends on the year, financial pressures, how much I want to spend on personal things—honestly, I’d have to check. (I do remember my first year I managed to donate around [ __%])”
C: “So you don’t really care about donating to charities, but do it anyway to make you feel better about yourself?”
A: “That sort of contradicts the whole spirit of giving-”
B: “Sorry, I should have been clearer. When I think about what I want to do with my life, the answer always comes back to: help as many people as much as I can. I’m not particularly suited to accomplish that goal in any means besides making money, so I make money and donate in order to satisfy my ambition. However, the whole act is remarkably lacking in emotional impact—I know I’m horrible for feeling this, but when I hear about others giving to pet causes they haven’t scrutinised, I feel like I’m better than them. That’s about the extent of the emotional impact of donating, for me. Help someone personally, though, and I feel like Superman.”
A: “Your said goal in life is to help a bunch of people a whole lot, right?”
B: “Essentially, yes.”
A: “But fulfilling that goal doesn’t make you happy—it just lets you get by; you do other ‘personal’ things to be happy, for which you spend money from time to time.”
B: “Pretty much.”
A: “And you feel like you’re better than other people because you think your cause(s) help(s) more people.”
B: “It’s still great they donate, but I get frustrated they don’t put more effort into it, and I feel good about myself for having done the effort.”
C: “Do you think you’re better than us?”
B: “I’m afraid the logical conclusion of this hypothetical would be yes. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned the superiority complex bit.”
A: “Yes, perhaps not.”
C: “We might have caught on, then.”
B: “Terribly sorry.”
A: “Quite alright.”
C: “Yes. Have a good night.”
A: “Yes.”
B: ”...(sigh)”

Zaine 10 Jul 2012 21:05 UTC
9 points
0
on: What Is Signaling, Really?
I had not heard of the less versus fewer distinction mentioned above, and so checked the dictionary; here is the usage note:

Usage note
Even though less has been used before plural nouns ( less words; less men ) since the time of King Alfred, many modern usage guides say that only fewer can be used in such contexts. Less, they say, should modify singular mass nouns ( less sugar; less money ) and singular abstract nouns ( less honesty; less love ). It should modify plural nouns only when they suggest combination into a unit, group, or aggregation: less than $50 (a sum of money); less than three miles (a unit of distance). With plural nouns specifying individuals or readily distinguishable units, the guides say that fewer is the only proper choice: fewer words; fewer men; no fewer than 31 of the 50 states.
Modern standard English practice does not reflect this distinction. When followed by than, less occurs at least as often as fewer in modifying plural nouns that are not units or groups, and the use of less in this construction is increasing in all varieties of English: less than eight million people; no less than 31 of the 50 states. When not followed by than, fewer is more frequent only in formal written English, and in this construction also the use of less is increasing: This year we have had less crimes, less accidents, and less fires than in any of the last five years.

Zaine 23 May 2013 19:10 UTC
8 points
in reply to: pscheyer’s comment on: Post ridiculous munchkin ideas!
You seem to have knowledge about how to do this effectively—please share that knowledge or the sources for it.

Zaine 1 May 2013 8:33 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Qiaochu_Yuan’s comment on: Privileging the Question
To make my argument clearer, I will use you as an example; please forgive me.

If you have a comparative advantage in maths, and decide to change your comparative advantage to medical, computer, or social science, as soon as you have caught up on the fundamentals of the field necessary to make an informed opinion you will already have a comparative advantage because of your background.

Your proficiency in maths lent you a comparative advantage in maths; your comparative advantage in maths lends you a comparative advantage in [economics]; your comparative advantage in maths and [economics] lends you a comparative advantage in [biochemistry], etcetera.

Zaine 22 Apr 2013 16:26 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: LW Women Entries- LW Meetups
That line of intervention holds for correcting a general social offence, however in this instance the competing goal of welcoming the first time attendee must be considered.

On the grand scale of things, perhaps Submitter C values correcting potential gender bias in favour of gender neutrality/awareness more than promoting welcoming behaviour; this interpretation conflicts with Submitter C’s explicitly stated intent for intervening and is not a charitable reading. I will only address Submitter C’s explicit objection of the implications, meant or not, of Guy’s inquiry of the first time attendee.

According to their submission, Submitter C wished to prioritise welcoming the first time attendee over chastising Guy; I will assume chastising Guy was a sub-goal considering the content of the exchange.

Wedrifid points out that having a public outburst introduces negativity and political signalling to the situation’s social dynamic; without firm knowledge of the first time attendee’s thoughts or emotions regarding Guy’s inquiry (an affect does not a credible signal make), a positive intervention would have the greater probability of welcoming the attendee.

GUY: “So, do you actually read Less Wrong, or did someone drag you here?”

SUBMITTER C (grinning/smiling): “That’s not a very welcoming phrasing, now is it?”

Guy’s social ineptitude, but innocent intent (actual intent becomes irrelevant) are signalled to the first time attendee; Guy is mildly nudged to think on their phrasing without feeling (too) victimised, and most importantly the first time attendee is welcomed with a signal of group care for kindness. More chastising can be given to Guy by Submitter C later and in privacy, where Guy will not have frets about status fettering an update.

Zaine 8 Apr 2013 21:57 UTC
8 points
on: LW Study Group Facebook Page
I feel bad saying this, as I’ve not a proper alternative in mind* - Facebook precludes anonymity of participants, which some may value enough to forgo participation.

*Can one participate in a Google group without a Google identity (G- mail, +, voice, talk)?

Zaine 30 Mar 2013 8:23 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Elithrion’s comment on: Is The Blood Thicker Near The Tropics? Trade-Offs Of Living In The Cold
Also consider the Mayans, Aztecs, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Indian regimes (exempli gratia Indus Valley, Mauryan), Carthaginians, Caliphates, Ottomans, etcetera.

Zaine 9 Oct 2013 23:16 UTC
7 points
on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
There’s the Davidson Academy.

If he hasn’t learned algebra yet, get him DragonBox; I’d be curious to learn whether he prefers explicit instruction.

Zaine 5 Jun 2013 1:16 UTC
7 points
in reply to: ygert’s comment on: June 2013 Media Thread

Madoka takes it seriously as the first option she for a wish that she came across. She decides against it, for obvious reasons, but her reaction wasn’t “that’s a silly wish, I can think of a hundred better ones”...

Perhaps your interpretation is correct—I don’t know. Keep in mind that one wouldn’t deny a another’s suggestion outright in Japanese culture; even if a suggestion were ridiculous, often one will show that they’ve considered it before offering some excuse to decline.

“Do you like cake? Wish for cake!”
″Hmm, I do like cake; some cake would be really nice right now. Maybe I should wait to hear other wishes first, though.”

Zaine 27 Jan 2013 21:01 UTC
7 points
on: Cryo and Social Obligations
… [I]t remains just a subculture of a couple of thousand people or so.

Is this an accurate estimation?

… [M]ost of the objections people raise to cryonics seem to be off enough that, even if those objections were solved, those particular people still wouldn’t sign up—that is, they feel some fundamental antipathy to the whole idea of cryonics, and unconsciously pick some rationalization that happens to sound reasonable to them to explain it.

Id est, “I observe that most people don’t have a truly considered rejection to cryonics.” Please correct me if I mis-paraphrase.

I have a strong hunch that one extremely strong reason people feel an emotional revulsion to cryo is, simply, that even if they do wake up in the future, they will have been cut off from all their social connections.

Condition one: the above is true. Condition two: the above is most people’s true rejection to cryonics. Again, correct me if my breakdown errs.

What could we do to help [revived cryonically preserved persons] integrate into modern life...?

The proposal so far:
- It is observed that most people do not have a true rejection to cryonics.
- This observation is an accurate reflection of reality.
- Most people have an emotion revulsion to permanent separation from all persons in their life especially when the demise of same is a reasonable assumption.
- This observation is an accurate reflection of reality.
- The above causes most people’s true rejection of cryonics
- Cryonics might work.
Thus:
- Brainstorming “[w]hat could we do to help [revived cryonically preserved persons] integrate into modern life...” is worthwhile.
Indeed, the conclusion does sound like a fun activity. In fact, I think a marketing campaign by cryonics companies would, from a Dark Arts perspective, either help the companies or simply pad the wallet of whoever pitches them the idea.

However, I broke down your post into its composite implied assertions and assumptions to illuminate how conditional the argument is. I’ve noticed in your other posts a tendency to take an idea and run with it, which is a wonderful tendency that often leads to fun ideas, but can also send you down a dead avenue of thought. I urge you to take care when conceiving possible worthwhile courses of action, and to duly consider the accuracy, veracity, and soundness of each observation, assertion, and conclusion in your argument or ‘thought matrix’ starting from the beginning (anyone have a better word for what I refer to?). Perhaps the thought process doesn’t matter so much as the conclusion—then by all means test the conclusion. I just wished to make you aware, if you weren’t already, of a tendency that could over time waste many productive hours.

Zaine 18 May 2013 17:17 UTC
6 points
on: Open thread, May 17-31 2013
Does anyone know how to view or expand the snippet of a google search result? One can lengthen their query to include what they know comes after or before an ellipsis, but even if one remembers, eventually the snippet stops expanding.

I’m trying to access a page of a site that has been deleted from the site’s servers (apparently), but when the right query is entered into google, text from the absent page is displayed in a snippet. The whole text appears to be somewhere—either hidden on the site or in google’s database—as modifying the query changes the snippet (but not to the critical part of the text which I’ve forgotten), but webcache.googleusercontent.com hasn’t saved the page url, and a search of site:webcache,googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:[site] yields no results.

It’s not just this particular case that bothers me; I’ve experienced this before and want to know how to access the whole of the snippet text. The Wayback machine does not creep extensively enough to solve this problem.
If you require specific site information please pm me. Thank you.

Zaine 16 Apr 2013 0:29 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Decius’s comment on: Help us name the Sequences ebook
[pollid:446]

Zaine 5 Apr 2013 10:22 UTC
6 points
in reply to: whpearson’s comment on: Call for participation—Centre for Organisational Rationality
Create a basic multi-player browser game (simpler than the MS Hearts interface), then ask for people to play it. Make the game robust enough to test your ideas, yet simple enough that participants can quickly learn the rules and play the game properly—a condition that still allows for great complexity, depending upon the participants.

Run many trials, contrast the results of the games with your predictions, and revise or discard your hypothesis as necessary. Slowly introduce confounds into your game to test its real-world viability. Ultimately run a long-term game (a couple of weeks or so) in a real world setting as a mock trial. Scale up from there.

In other words, experiment. Prove the feasibility of the idea then build around it. Perhaps the above isn’t even necessary; try your best to falsify the idea with the least possible amount of resources, I believe ’twas recommended. The above suggests one manner in which that may be accomplished.
What links here?
- Game for organizational structure testing by whpearson (6 Apr 2013 22:16 UTC; -2 points)