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thoughtexplorer

538 karma · joined October 3, 2018

<3 tech, science and intellectually honest discussion. trying to cultivate all of the above.
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thoughtexplorer··on Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool
Thanks for the example. Let's break that down.

"It's a very rare woman who at the age of 30 doesn't consider having a child her primary desire."

Evidence shows this to be the case. It is rare.

"And the ones that don't consider that, generally in my observation there's something that isn't quite right in the way that they're constituted or looking at the world."

I see how that sounds sexist, but he says the same thing about men that don't want kids. It's also important to note that he qualifies the statement as "generally", not as a rule. Acknowledging there are exceptions. It's not the case for everyone.

He says that men are misguided for prioritizing work or money over kids. He actually makes the point that women are better at recognizing what leads to happiness, fulfillment and meaning. Which is family. That's his understanding based on decades of observation and research. But again generally speaking and there are exceptions.

thoughtexplorer··on Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool
He doesn't discriminate against men or women. There is no evidence of that in his hundreds of hours of lectures or interviews or books.

His wife and daughter would also disagree with the sexist claim. As well as his many female patients who he has helped with their careers.

> But please, tell me more about what goes on inside my own head.

I didn't mind read. You literally typed out a common dismissal. The sexist comment is also that.

thoughtexplorer··on Bitcoin Plunges to $3,738; Whole Crypto Scam Melts Down, Hedge Funds Stuck
True true. But can't you just keep using that logic all the way back?
thoughtexplorer··on We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
Obviously Google doesn't place values over profits. Let's be brutally honest here. Nor do the employees.

Are the employees that make $200,000/year donating the extra income to those in need or are they buying things to engage in lifestyle inflation like most people? Are they going to quit Google and work for a non-profit?

thoughtexplorer··on Who Will Fix Facebook?
Probably not Facebook. Just check out this interaction between a NYT journalist and them.

https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1065988154308538368

thoughtexplorer··on Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool
Ironically your comment indicates that you are in a bubble. You reflexively dismissed them by saying "red pill", which is precisely what your bubble tells you how to react to anything that says "Jordan Peterson".

That's not your own thought and it's not an honest or meaningful rebuttal to the OP. Take your own advice by watching some full length Peterson lectures with an open mind. You may find that you've been mislead.

thoughtexplorer··on Google pulls gender pronouns from Gmail Smart Compose to reduce bias
It makes sense to base things on probabilities, but it also makes sense to play it safe in some cases.

The upside of it predicting him/her is minor and doesn't outweigh the times that it gets it wrong.

"Do you want to meet [name || them]" or simply "Do you want to meet" works well enough usually.

thoughtexplorer··on We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly
What does that mean? What will they say or do to the family?
thoughtexplorer··on GM closing all operations in Oshawa, Ontario: sources
> Telling a laid-off auto worker to switch industries is not a very fair thing to do.

But we do that all the time and with good reason. Blockbuster employees and coal miners for example. At some point the jobs no longer make sense.

thoughtexplorer··on GM closing all operations in Oshawa, Ontario: sources
Too bad we didn't call their bluff, and especially that of the banks, and put the bailouts into infrastructure or new industry to replace those jobs and put us in a better position for the long term.
thoughtexplorer··on Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research
> HERE is a trivia question for you: what is the most profitable business in the world? You might think oil, or maybe banking. You would be wrong. The answer is academic publishing. Its profit margins are vast, reportedly in the region of 40 per cent.

Interesting. Does anyone know what the volume is like?

thoughtexplorer··on Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)
Make no mistake, anyone born into an advanced country is privileged. We are very privileged and lucky compared to someone born in the Congo.

Beyond that it seems rather meaningless to attribute success to privilege over a multitude of other factors. It helps, but it's not the main component. Indeed those with the most privilege tend not to do so well. Consider rich kids who turn into generally unsuccessful adults. Clogs to clogs in 3 generations. The opposite of success.

Meanwhile you have people like JayZ who started among the least privileged (relative to the country) becoming one of the most privileged.

As for Gates, he had the drive and interest to spend his time learning how to program and explore business while he was a kid. While most of his peers were likely using that time to watch TV or party. That's an essential difference and no amount of privilege is going to bridge that.

thoughtexplorer··on Dealing with past trauma may be the key to breaking addiction
To the OP's point, how does one scientifically determine that to be causal?
thoughtexplorer··on Dealing with past trauma may be the key to breaking addiction
> at which point a boatload of repressed childhood trauma began surfacing.

Can you describe this? How did they surface, how were you able to identify the repressed trauma?

thoughtexplorer··on The link between premarital sex and marriage stability
The claim is less reliably, not that they can't remember.
thoughtexplorer··on The link between premarital sex and marriage stability
> Lots of ways to subtly mislead with cherry-picked stats or the "men don't report reliably anyways, so we can't consider that" hand-waving this article does.

Yikes, let's not be misleading in turn. That's not why they don't have those stats. Here's the actual reason and context you conveniently left out:

"unfortunately, the NSFG doesn’t have full data on men’s premarital sexual behavior, and in any event they recall their own marital histories less reliably than do women)"

Demonstrate why they are incorrect or misleading as opposed to setting up a strawman.

thoughtexplorer··on The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities
Which is why there is the scientific method. Good science is reproducible and provable regardless of what your opinion is.

Facts are facts regardless.

thoughtexplorer··on Some Amazon employees bought NYC condos before news of HQ2 location emerged
Slow down there Critical Thinker. You can't consider such fundamental questions while creating clickbait.
thoughtexplorer··on Some Amazon employees bought NYC condos before news of HQ2 location emerged
Right. The only thing that's scandalous here is that the author didn't think of the most likely explanation. smh

Hopefully they display journalistic integrity and update the story.

thoughtexplorer··on The spread of low-credibility content by social bots
They're wrong unfortunately. Biological sex has a strong scientific basis. The existence of intersex doesn't change that.

This is a good primer on the subject from a liberal M.D. and source: https://www.playboy.com/read/the-difference-between-sex-and-...

"For 99 percent of us, our sex and anatomy dictate our gender; they are essentially the same thing. But for the one percent of the population who are transgender or intersex, their sex and gender don’t align. What has complicated this issue is that some outlets have replaced the word sex with gender when reporting on the memo, particularly when making any references to anatomy."

"But intersex people possess both female and male anatomy, which leads to having a gender identity that may be different from the way they appear to the outside world. To suggest that this group proves that gender is completely unrelated to anatomy, or that a person’s sense of gender in the brain somehow operates in a way that is distinct from the rest of their body, is foolish and erroneous."

thoughtexplorer··on The spread of low-credibility content by social bots
Because Nature is claiming that science is not science. That should concern everyone.

The fact is that anatomy predicts gender over 99% of the time.

https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1064937624329048064

https://www.playboy.com/read/the-difference-between-sex-and-...

thoughtexplorer··on The spread of low-credibility content by social bots
Stuff like this is scary. Check out this video about the caravan and migrants climbing the border wall. Strangely edited. Presented as breaking news. Music as though it's a suspenseful movie. Yet looking at the comments everyone seems to be buying into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GuuNzR_AZg

It has 2M+ views in just a few days.

thoughtexplorer··on The spread of low-credibility content by social bots
What % are bots?
thoughtexplorer··on Casey Neistat’s Viral Marketing Strategy
Well, maybe his strategies can be applied to getting XDP more attention. I think that's the driving interest here.

> I personally loathe sleazy marketing and the burlesque tonic people like Neistat feed to the public.

Can you expand on this? From what I've seen (which isn't much so could be missing something) it seems a lot more authentic than most.

thoughtexplorer··on The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities
I mean they aren't political by definition. They exist at a lower layer and are apolitical by default. They can be used or corrupted by politics - and are.
thoughtexplorer··on Casey Neistat’s Viral Marketing Strategy
Always someone with this shallow and dismissive explanation for someone's success.

You don't luck your way from the couch to being able to create such content and do so repeatedly. Clearly he put in his 10,000 hours to get there. The videos are very carefully edited and years of experience helps inform that. Even in the case of Dan, there was probably thousands of hours of poker that came before.

thoughtexplorer··on The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities
> At the end of the day, everything is political.

It only is if you view everything through a political lens. Science and psychology, for example, are not political.

Plus you can affect change without the political system. Starting with improving oneself. Then family members. Then local community. If enough people did that, that would be a societal change and maybe we wouldn't have such a crisis in the first place.

thoughtexplorer··on The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities
...has resulted in the lowest rate of poverty the world has ever seen.

Although certainly not a perfect system and could be improved, be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

thoughtexplorer··on The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities
SF can't even provide affordable housing for the working class. People with full time jobs.

It's a city where you need to be making >$100k/yr to even get a 1 bd apt.

thoughtexplorer··on Unicorns are setting up their own venture capital funds
Blockchain sure, but why do you think self-driving is a bubble?
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