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Post by millring on Jul 11, 2020 8:30:54 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 11, 2020 13:11:27 GMT -5
As I read the New Yorker piece, I kept flashing on one kind of guy (rarely women) common in science fiction fandom--smart, often oddball, often somewhere "on the spectrum," given to flights of unconventional thinking. That on-the-spectrum component seems to be as significant as the smart part--standard-issue social connection gets short shrift, and there is often a diminished understanding of the interior lives of others. What does make sense to these guys are processes that can be quantified or laid out as rule-sets or similarly mapped. Alexander doesn't come across as one of those guys, but the "rationalist" community that he's a part of seems to have more than a couple of them, as well, perhaps, as some less healthy types--the "fringe figures."
A side note: Alexander's Red/Blue Tribe distinction outlined toward the end of the piece is so clearly cartoonish that I wonder how seriously he could have taken it himself. (I'm just finally finishing--and loving--Burns' "Country Music," wishing I could have an arugula salad from the late Pazza Luna, hoping our Outback will last the full 200K miles, contemplating the upcoming 50th anniversary of marriage to my first and only wife, remaining hardcore and specifically agnostic, while getting along just fine with my practicing-Christian friends. And I think of myself as more-than-average rational. To pick up a topic from another thread, I'm too damn old to give a shit about most of that stuff, beyond being content with my own set of preferences and beliefs.)
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Post by millring on Jul 11, 2020 13:39:36 GMT -5
As I read the New Yorker piece, I kept flashing on one kind of guy (rarely women) common in science fiction fandom--smart, often oddball, often somewhere "on the spectrum," given to flights of unconventional thinking. That on-the-spectrum component seems to be as significant as the smart part--standard-issue social connection gets short shrift, and there is often a diminished understanding of the interior lives of others. What does make sense to these guys are processes that can be quantified or laid out as rule-sets or similarly mapped. Alexander doesn't come across as one of those guys, but the "rationalist" community that he's a part of seems to have more than a couple of them, as well, perhaps, as some less healthy types--the "fringe figures." A side note: Alexander's Red/Blue Tribe distinction outlined toward the end of the piece is so clearly cartoonish that I wonder how seriously he could have taken it himself. (I'm just finally finishing--and loving--Burns' "Country Music," wishing I could have an arugula salad from the late Pazza Luna, hoping our Outback will last the full 200K miles, contemplating the upcoming 50th anniversary of marriage to my first and only wife, remaining hardcore and specifically agnostic, while getting along just fine with my practicing-Christian friends. And I think of myself as more-than-average rational. To pick up a topic from another thread, I'm too damn old to give a shit about most of that stuff, beyond being content with my own set of preferences and beliefs.) I think your tolerance for the likes of me is due to your age. I don't think younger folks are anywhere near as broad-minded. And certainly not within the context of workplace and the public square.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 11, 2020 14:08:11 GMT -5
And the clarification, in the 9 July posting: In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less. It is apparent that many people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are asymptomatic or presymptomatic yet highly contagious and that these people account for a substantial fraction of all transmissions. Universal masking helps to prevent such people from spreading virus-laden secretions, whether they recognize that they are infected or not. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2020836
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Post by james on Jul 11, 2020 15:00:39 GMT -5
Hit paywall on New Yorker.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 11, 2020 15:12:08 GMT -5
I'm a subscriber. Don't tell the magazine. Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times. By Gideon Lewis-Kraus July 9, 2020 On edit: I've turned the post into a PM, so's not to attract unwanted attention from a right-holder robot. But here's a relevant snippet: On the blog, Alexander strives to set an example as a sensitive, respectful, and humane interlocutor, and even in its prolixity his work is never boring; the fiction is delightfully weird and the arguments are often counterintuitive and brilliant. He has frequently allowed that a previous position he’s taken is wrong—his views of trans people are a major example—and has contributed to the understanding, among people who like to be right about everything, that the gracious acceptance of one’s own error (or “failure mode”) ought to be regarded as a high-status move rather than something to be stigmatized. Alexander’s terminal commitment, he has said repeatedly, is to the “principle of charity,” a technical term he has borrowed, from the analytic philosophers W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson, and slightly repurposed to mean, as Alexander once put it, “if you don’t understand how someone could possibly believe something as stupid as they do, that this is more likely a failure of understanding on your part than a failure of reason on theirs.”
Many rationalist exchanges involve lively if donnish arguments about abstruse thought experiments; the most famous, and funniest, example, from LessWrong, led inexorably to the conclusion that anyone who read the post and did not immediately set to work to create a superintelligent A.I. would one day be subject to its torture. Others reflect a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given. A minority address issues that are contentious and at times offensive. These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders. Rationalists usually point out that these debates represent a tiny fraction of the community’s total activity, and that they are overrepresented in the comments section of S.S.C. by a small but loud and persistent cohort—one that includes, for example, Steve Sailer, a peddler of “scientific racism.”
<snip>
This new group, Alexander suggested in an earlier beloved essay, “I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup,” published in 2014, sits at an odd angle to America’s extant tensions. In the essay, he describes our tendency to conceal the degree to which our beliefs and actions are determined by tribal attitudes. It is obvious, Alexander writes, that America is split in recognizable ways. “The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting ‘USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!’, and listening to country music.” He notes that he himself knows basically none of these people, a sign of how comprehensive our national sorting project has become. “The Blue Tribe,” by contrast, “is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to ‘everything except country’.” What’s crucial, he emphasizes, is that these are cultural differences rather than political ones—an Ivy League professor might hold right-leaning beliefs, for example, but is nevertheless almost certainly a member of the Blue Tribe.
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Post by james on Jul 11, 2020 16:16:59 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Jul 13, 2020 18:26:33 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 13, 2020 18:56:53 GMT -5
If they were fixed, they wouldn't get sick, would they? Or maybe, having been sick and gotten fixed (or maybe just gotten well on their own), they wouldn't count. I know I can't count much higher than twenty without a yellow pad and a pencil. And our cats have all been fixed, which keeps the kitten count down.
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Post by david on Jul 13, 2020 23:50:30 GMT -5
My imaginary president (preferably Republican) would have encouraged people to use social distancing and wear a mask, at rallies or other areas when they are within 6 feet or less of others. He or she would not have been so conceited as to make this about how good he or she personally looks in a mask, would not have said mine is a "Zorro" mask (that does not cover the mouth and nose). he or she would not make mask wearing a party affiliation issue that divides the country.
I think people might have taken such a president's approach more seriously, would be more likely to follow the president's lead in the future, and not blamed the president for too high death totals. Maybe lead by example, be seen wearing a mask when appearing on camera when appearing less than 6 feet from others in interviews and photo shoots, direct the vice president to wear a mask when visiting hospitals and companies where masks were required.
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Post by aquaduct on Jul 14, 2020 5:16:44 GMT -5
My imaginary president (preferably Republican) would have encouraged people to use social distancing and wear a mask, at rallies or other areas when they are within 6 feet or less of others. He or she would not have been so conceited as to make this about how good he or she personally looks in a mask, would not have said mine is a "Zorro" mask (that does not cover the mouth and nose). he or she would not make mask wearing a party affiliation issue that divides the country. I think people might have taken such a president's approach more seriously, would be more likely to follow the president's lead in the future, and not blamed the president for too high death totals. Maybe lead by example, be seen wearing a mask when appearing on camera when appearing less than 6 feet from others in interviews and photo shoots, direct the vice president to wear a mask when visiting hospitals and companies where masks were required. The problem with that is that you've had that for a few decades. That's what got you Trump. Trying to undo the damage that that has done to the system. Good luck wishing the reckoning away.
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Post by millring on Jul 14, 2020 6:35:57 GMT -5
My imaginary president (preferably Republican) would have encouraged people to use social distancing and wear a mask, at rallies or other areas when they are within 6 feet or less of others. He or she would not have been so conceited as to make this about how good he or she personally looks in a mask, would not have said mine is a "Zorro" mask (that does not cover the mouth and nose). he or she would not make mask wearing a party affiliation issue that divides the country. I think people might have taken such a president's approach more seriously, would be more likely to follow the president's lead in the future, and not blamed the president for too high death totals. Maybe lead by example, be seen wearing a mask when appearing on camera when appearing less than 6 feet from others in interviews and photo shoots, direct the vice president to wear a mask when visiting hospitals and companies where masks were required. If he were a Republican the press would be against him and they would be the ones ridiculing mask wearing. And if the president were a typical Republican, as soon as the press ridiculed him, he would have acquiesced and stopped wearing a mask.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 14, 2020 12:41:55 GMT -5
Here's a lucid treatment of one of the COVID issues, airborne vs. droplet transmission. I post it here not only because it is lucid and comprehensive, but because it seems to me to be a model of good science/tech/medical reporting. www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/7/13/21315879/covid-19-airborne-who-aerosol-droplet-transmissionAnd the teacher in me started outlining what makes this piece effective, and by extension what might stand behind a careful, reasoned, informed approach to understanding COVID or any similar situation. My own toolkit starts with a bunch of vocabulary/conceptual terms that include distribution, range, threshold, aerosol, droplet, half-life, lab vs field/real world. Disease-specific items: infectious dose, viral load, viral shedding, asymptomatic carrier, incubation period, immune response. An awareness of a range of models based on other diseases, viral and bacterial: measles, chickenpox, TB, rabies, cat distemper. An awareness of the distinctions between and overlapping approaches of virologists and epidemiologists--and I see that "infection prevention" is another (quite pragmatic) specialty that applies. I don't have to put any of this on the final exam--the world will be designing that and assigning grades.
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Post by millring on Jul 14, 2020 13:38:10 GMT -5
My own toolkit starts with a bunch of vocabulary/conceptual terms that include distribution, range, threshold, aerosol, droplet, half-life, lab vs field/real world. Disease-specific items: infectious dose, viral load, viral shedding, asymptomatic carrier, incubation period, immune response. An awareness of a range of models based on other diseases, viral and bacterial: measles, chickenpox, TB, rabies, cat distemper. An awareness of the distinctions between and overlapping approaches of virologists and epidemiologists--and I see that "infection prevention" is another (quite pragmatic) specialty that applies. You shouldn't share your vulnerabilities with us Philistines.
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Post by millring on Jul 14, 2020 13:39:12 GMT -5
You're fooled by sciency words. Me, I like pictures.
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Post by theevan on Jul 14, 2020 13:45:18 GMT -5
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Post by aquaduct on Jul 14, 2020 13:57:48 GMT -5
Not sure. Math didn't seem to be included in the vocabulary/conceptual terms above. I have no idea how to categorize that.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 14, 2020 14:06:37 GMT -5
You shouldn't share your vulnerabilities with us Philistines. Philistines have nothing to fear until I pick up a rock.
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Post by millring on Jul 14, 2020 14:09:46 GMT -5
You shouldn't share your vulnerabilities with us Philistines. Philistines have nothing to fear until I pick up a rock. I was going to suggest that you might want to cover yourself, but if you still look like this as 70, let it all hang out (as the kids say).
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 14, 2020 14:18:42 GMT -5
Math didn't seem to be included in the vocabulary/conceptual terms above. Distribution, range, threshold, half-life, infectious dose, and viral load are all quantitative and/or statistical terms. The point of reporting on scientific, medical, or technological topics is not to fill the page with numbers but to explain what the numbers mean, how they fit together, how they are arrived at. Of course, I can't expect someone with no professional experience as a tech journalist to understand such arcane matters. No skin in the game (to misuse a phrase).
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