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xenophon received

in thread "The Gay Question (Asylum Mag): homosociality vs sodomy":

Pretty sure homoerotic behavior (whether involving actual sex or not) does not contribute to, but poisons and degrades, male groups and friendships.... 3w ago received

Pretty sure homoerot received

You've given two examples of intense male friendships (Augustine & unnamed friend, Achilles & Patroclus). In neither passage is there any indication of sodomy in any form. In the case of Augustine, it seems extremely unlikely this was going on, or he would... 6d ago received

You've given two exa received

Yes, I think the strength and genuineness of love in friendship is an important theme. Aristotle treats this well in Nicomachean Ethics, book 9, where he describes the true friend as "another self." 6d ago received

Yes, I think the str received

in thread "To be an Alpinist":

Counterpoint: The spirit driving Leclerc was great and noble, but ultimately misdirected. The true hero, like Alexander or Napoleon or even Goethe, channels his greatness of soul in a direction that pulls his people forward. 1w ago received

Counterpoint: The sp received

A metaphor. Per Gnon, it might make sense to utterly dedicate your life to Truth. Does it make sense to utterly dedicate your life to a metaphor? 8d ago received

A metaphor. Per Gnon received

What? Alexander was inspired by Achilles, the great warrior who contributed enormously to the Greek victory over the Trojans, not by some guy who went off and climbed mountains for its own sake.... 7d ago received

What? Alexander was received

in thread "Medidation, Enlightenment, Dharma, and Sokushinbutsu":

Those three examples involve externally observable effects. We can see the incredible basketball jump shot. We can see and rank the winning chess game. We can see the battlefield outcome against a formidable opponent.... 2w ago received

Those three examples received

I have met many serious Christians who were admirable in their speech and actions. Hence, I consider this observable trait as non-distinctive of Buddhist practice. (I say this without regard to whether Christianity is, in any larger sense, true.)... 1w ago received

I have met many seri received

in thread "Race in America":

The guys at Aporia Magazine have pushed on this point, rejecting (2) without cultural or political polemics.... 2w ago received

The guys at Aporia M received

Stop thinking that any of this is about those arguments. That's my point. Progressives favor non-Europeans for psychological and cultural reasons, and the justifying political arguments are recruited later.... 2w ago received

Stop thinking that a received

in thread "Of Vitality":

Vitality is marker of health, not its cause nor its goal. The causes and goals of health, or more broadly flourishing, must be considered and pursued on their own. That's exactly what Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Politics are about. 3w ago received

Vitality is marker o received

Of course you ~can~. My argument is that such divergence is a symptom of misconstruing the terminal goals. When you identify proper terminal goals, even though they will be outside of pure vitality, they will not be contrary to it, and will harmonize with ... 2w ago received

Of course you ~can~. received

in thread "Life, Intelligence, and Consciousness are NP-Complete?":

There is indeed something interesting here about life and intelligence, but I don't think it has much to do with NP or BSAT.... 4w ago received

There is indeed some received

But it's not surprising, and it misunderstands the definitions to think it is.... 4w ago received

But it's not surpris received

Why should we believe that the cell is in fact solving this problem, as opposed to a very good approximation of it, analogous to the way in which industry usually employs fast approximation algorithms for Traveling Salesman rather than solve the strict pro... 3w ago received

Why should we believ received

One of the more rigorous approaches to the old logic-based AI is Answer Set Programming, which is a generalization of BSAT to the first-order case.... 3w ago received

One of the more rigo received

You're on to something, but I think B-SAT is the wrong problem to work with. If you want to apply modern deep learning to an NP-complete problem that can serve as general target for problem translations, you want a problem that has a natural metric on solu... 3w ago received

You're on to somethi received

in thread ""Cosmic Alignment" is almost right. Life is the answer":

I deny that naturalism is in fact a fallacy. The "naturalistic fallacy" is a tendentious label used its opponents. There is nothing fallacious about observing nature, including human nature specifically, but also biology and physics more broadly, and reaso... 1mo ago received

I deny that naturali received

I call this "faith in being." It is the primordial form of faith. One may or may not have more particular faith in particular things (revelations, ancestors, familial relations) but one must have faith in being, or one will be lost in nihilism. 4w ago received

I call this "faith i received

in thread "Elon Musks Reddit Retard Rebellion: parallels between White Russian political stupidity and the modern right":

Elon was never a rightist, even at the height of his MAGA engagement. He has consistently been a libertarian. He hopped onto the Trump train for a few months, mostly out of revulsion for Biden-Harris, but that does not a rightist make.... 4w ago received

Elon was never a rig received

I'd be happy to take the opposite side of that bet. A far more obvious explanation is that Elon is a bit autistic, and while very high IQ and high energy, he's also lacking in practical wisdom in many areas, including politics.... 4w ago received

I'd be happy to take received

in thread "BAP: The Right of the Stronger and the Better":

Singapore the year before Lee Kuan Yew took over was a shithole. El Salvador the year before Bukele took over was a shithole. A leader with proper skills can change a country.... 1mo ago received

Singapore the year b received

I agree with this, but I'll note that "in the blood" is just another way of saying "in accordance with our nature."... 4w ago received

I agree with this, b received

in thread "If it keeps going, we win; the implication of extreme alignment difficulty":

Mostly agree with this.... 1mo ago received

Mostly agree with th received

I see no reason to suppose that an ASI would be Buddha-like. That would require an argument that Buddha is a natural attractor in intelligence space, would doesn't seem likely.... 4w ago received

I see no reason to s received

in thread "Is Unitarianism the true religion of the coming civilization?":

For present purposes, I'll pass over theological debates about Christian revelation, and simply note the sociological fact that actually existing Unitarianism is pure shitlibery. In fact it's among the most shitlib of all Christian-adjacent configurations.... 3mo ago received

For present purposes received

Deist isn't the right word either. Deism is more specifically a thesis about God's interaction with the world, or more precisely his lack thereof. The short-hand characterization of deism is that it posits a "watchmaker" God who "winds up" the world and th... 2mo ago received

Deist isn't the righ received

So you really do mean the actually existing tradition of specifically American Unitarianism, not just first-principle theism without revelation. So much the worse, since it really is a maximally shitlib tradition.... 2mo ago received

So you really do mea received

This is the heart of the issue. I think an adequate answer will look more like a based variant of Teilhard de Chardin than like historical Unitarianism. 2mo ago received

This is the heart of received

Snarky but on point. Actually existing Unitarianism has none of the virtues of OP's merely theoretical Unitarianism, and many of the vices of the worst parts of America. 2mo ago received

Snarky but on point. received

I would welcome such a thread. (I'm the one who mentioned Teilhard.)... 2mo ago received

I would welcome such received

in thread "The Megaproject Economy":

Apollo was the last of the U.S. megaprojects, pushed by Kennedy, squeezed by Johnson's priorities, then killed under Nixon. 2mo ago received

Apollo was the last received

You're treating GRC as something different from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But the anon you were responding to (>3246) called out the Great Society, so I'm pretty sure he was including those programs in GRC. Granted, those programs aren't rac... 2mo ago received

You're treating GRC received

in thread "Definition of slavery":

I think the other way around. The example BAP gives is a traditional nanny, and that's clearly an oiketes. He also specifically states that it doesn't matter if the nanny is paid and legally free. It's the relationship that matters.... 2mo ago received

I think the other wa received

Although note that the Greeks chiefly enslaved fellow Greeks. (Often from other cities, but not always.) The basis of their slavery was not primarily ethnic. 2mo ago received

Although note that t received

in thread "Ancient homonid populations ?":

Consciousness has nothing to do with this story. It's a complete red herring. The issue is intelligence and other cognitive traits. Dogs and cats are conscious, but that's irrelevant to emergence of modern humans from earlier hominids. 2mo ago received

Consciousness has no received

Dog breeding provides an existence proof that morphology can change greatly over short periods of time. We have St. Bernards and Shipperkes (a tiny Belgian breed resembling a Chihuaha) whose common ancestor is only a few centuries back. QED. 2mo ago received

Dog breeding provide received

You guys have seen this paper? It claims modern human resulted from a hybridization with archaic hominids vastly older than Neanderthals or Denisovans.... 2mo ago received

You guys have seen t received

in thread "Pitching a pro-family culture":

There's an ambiguity here. Is the core product/service of the company something about family? Or is it something else, and you just want the company culture *for employees* to be pro-family?... 3mo ago received

There's an ambiguity received

The company must be quite small if the CEO's salary alone was enough to significantly increase that of the employees. Even for a highly paid CEO, a company does not need to be all that large before this would not be the case.... 3mo ago received

The company must be received

in thread "Imperium":

I believe that modern evolutionary biology is correct and rejecting it is a reactionary dead-end. That doesn't mean that it is complete, especially as understood by the median academic biologist. I also have no problem with talk of spirit, etc., which I in... 3mo ago received

I believe that moder received

Articles that go on about some reified "Darwinism," as if that were the issue, are almost always weak. The articles you link in particular do not refute evolutionary biology. The don't even try to. Rather, they point out some ways in which "it's more compl... 3mo ago received

Articles that go on received

in thread "What if the extended human phenotype is natural and convergent?":

I think this is only true given the human genome, not all viable genomes. Consider the octopus. Consider the advanced space octopus from Alpha Centauri. I have low confidence that it would converge on the "human" in as strong a sense as the above suggest.... 4mo ago received

I think this is only received

I don't think humanity is substrate-independent. I think the human genotype and phenotype are central to humanity. I also don't think human intelligence is "general" in the sense that people now usually mean this.... 4mo ago received

I don't think humani received

in thread "Kremlin's role in the creation of social media":

This rounds down to nothing. More precisely, it's no more than one could get through good open source intel, supplemented by a few guys hanging out in the Bay Area attending the right parties. It justifies none of the conspiratorial suggestion of OP. 4mo ago received

This rounds down to received

There's a failure of transitivity. Whether DST is under Russian influence isn't the important fact. In itself, that tells us nothing about Facebook, which is what people actually care about. You suggested that:... 4mo ago received

There's a failure of received

Lol that's not a argument. I'm invested in our best efforts to understand all the relevant bits of reality, and you narrative doesn't contribute to that. 4mo ago received

Lol that's not a arg received

in thread "Nines or zeroes of strong rationality?":

Is it even cancer? Spengler thought it was more like aging (and even "normal" aging eventually leaves you dead). 4mo ago received

Is it even cancer? S received

A service with "five nines" yields a downtime of about 5 minutes per year. Bugs with smaller probabilities are encountered all the time, given heavy enough usage. Smart fuzzers try to find such bugs, but by definition can never be perfect. 4mo ago received

A service with "five received

in thread "Not Superintelligence; Supercoordination":

This has some overlap with Balaji's Network State proposal, except that in your variant, the goal is not to carve out one or more bits of land for sovereignty, but rather to act as something like a fraternal society on steroids within an existing state. 7mo ago received

This has some overla received

This was the program of Ramon Llull (1232–1316) in his Ars Magna, which was an inspiration for Leibniz.... 6mo ago received

This was the program received

To the extent that one is looking for a formalism that is directly applicable to social science, I think the best starting point is Judea Pearl's Structural Causal Model (SCM), which is basically Bayesian statistics combined with explicit causal modeling. ... 6mo ago received

To the extent that o received

Eh, it's true that there's been lots of work in logics for modeling dynamic processes, but they're almost never used in practice, and there's good reason for that. Namely, that for practical applications, they're cumbersome beyond usability.... 6mo ago received

Eh, it's true that t received

Causal Inference in Statistics - A Primer, by Judea Pearl, Madelyn Glymour, Nicholas P. Jewell... 6mo ago received

Causal Inference in received

Many have spoken of "cloning Silicon Valley," although no one has successfully done so.... 6mo ago received

Many have spoken of received

in thread "Bad influences on my intellectual side":

Set yourself a reading program of great books to pursue at home. Each time you finish a book, if you didn't hate it and it's not too far outside the Overton window, bring it to your environment and leave it in sight. Be prepared to chat about it if anyone ... 6mo ago received

Set yourself a readi received

For sure. That's why I advised letting a book passively lie around, and the let the other person initiate. I would then casually pursue the chat only as far they seemed interested. 6mo ago received

For sure. That's why received

in thread "Accelerationism":

Is there a way to state this in terms of entropy / information theory that would hold across all these domains? 7mo ago received

Is there a way to st received

No one who's done work on this says "life is about increasing entropy," as if that were an explanation of life. The claim is that life is a dynamic structure that *decreases* entropy within a local boundary. This has the *effect* of increasing entropy more... 7mo ago received

No one who's done wo received

You're straw-manning. The claim is not that decreasing entropy is a sufficient condition, just a necessary one. Of course life has further requirements. That doesn't make the entropy consideration unimportant, especially if it can be related to intelligenc... 7mo ago received

You're straw-manning received

in thread "Is independent thinking still possible in an environment where escaping social media ecochamber is nearly impossible?":

A good reason to read old books is that, while their contents is not original in an absolute sense, it is far more independent of current trends than any current media. Bringing well-developed, independent thought to bear on current issues is a good path. 7mo ago received

A good reason to rea received

in thread "Ranking Socio-Economic Factors":

One thing I would say up front is to not get hung up on genetics vs. environment. There is a joke among behavioral geneticists that "every interesting behavioral trait has a heritability of about 0.5." This is not literally true. Some are 0.3. Some are 0.7... 7mo ago received

One thing I would sa received

More on arete:... 7mo ago received

More on arete:... received

in thread "Against 'State of Nature'":

"State of nature" is a speculative construct introduced by Hobbes and adopted by many subsequent Enlightenment thinkers to justify their favored political arrangements. It was used as recently as 1974 by Robert Nozick as the foundation of his work. It is m... 8mo ago received

"State of nature" is received

Right. We don't relax our rigor at all. We get even more precise in our use of critical thought, being careful about what to excise. Like a surgeon, we must not be afraid to cut tissue, but we must also be careful about which tissue we cut. As Buckaroo Ban... 7mo ago received

Right. We don't rela received

in thread "Introducing Sofiechan Prototype Tag System":

Alternative future direction: Tags can be algorithmically managed, in a way analogous to the advisory voting on posts, where admin makes ultimate calls but user input on tags provides the data for an algorithmic determination. 7mo ago received

Alternative future d received

The tricky bit is that new tags can easily be unintentionally duplicative or overlapping, as it can be hard for a user to do a full survey of content and the existing tags.... 7mo ago received

The tricky bit is th received

in thread "Physicalism and Questions of Identity":

Agree with the above.... 9mo ago received

Agree with the above received

Again, I agree with you on the physicalism.... 9mo ago received

Again, I agree with received

I agree that "explanations for consciousness" should go to their own thread, since that's not really needed for the OP topic.... 9mo ago received

I agree that "explan received

I would add, more generally, that many of the thought experiments invoked in recent analytic philosophy (e.g., p-zombies) have no argumentative force because it's far from clear that the thing imagined is actually possible. It's trivial to conjecture scena... 8mo ago received

I would add, more ge received

In the case of gravity, general relativity gives us a pretty credible account: matter determines how spacetime curves, and spacetime determines how matter moves. What we call "gravity" is strictly accounted for by the latter.... 8mo ago received

In the case of gravi received

Many things have philosophical implications. I don't read that as code for woo.... 7mo ago received

Many things have phi received

Yes, and it is precisely form that makes all the difference. The difference between a cell and a materially identical non-cell. This is true up and down the hierarchy of complexity. Form is a real principle of things, as much as matter. Further, it's the p... 7mo ago received

Yes, and it is preci received

This should be taken to another thread if there is interest, but there is no evidence that the Aryan invaders of the subcontinent were ever more than a small minority of the overall population.... 7mo ago received

This should be taken received

You're not going to reach greater clarity by yelling at people (even figuratively by stating things in a polarizing manner).... 7mo ago received

You're not going to received

Yes, this is what I meant.... 7mo ago received

Yes, this is what I received

in thread "Wokism Is Just Beginning":

One thing that 2024 demonstrated is the preference cascades are possible. Several years of intelligent, clever advocacy (which can range from serious pieces to good shitposting), even when strongly opposed by the mainstream, can lead to a sudden "breaking ... 8mo ago received

One thing that 2024 received

I don't think Russia's recent strength or weakness has much to do with the woke movement in the U.S.... 8mo ago received

I don't think Russia received

in thread "Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions by Eliezer Yudkowsky":

Sorry, not a fan. Yud's essay is just as mystery-bound and incoherent as what it's fighting.... 8mo ago received

Sorry, not a fan. Yu received

Yeah, sure, Yud gives his own definition of "mysterious." That's kind of bullshit. It's an English word that already has a meaning.... 8mo ago received

Yeah, sure, Yud give received

It's hard to say because there wasn't a uniform vitalist theory or hypothesis in the late 19th or early 20th century.... 8mo ago received

It's hard to say bec received

I agree with most of this, but I think we should be careful with language on this topic.... 8mo ago received

I agree with most of received

You seem to be taking "physicalism" as roughly synonymous with "materialism." I explicitly don't do that. When I speak of the "physical," I'm thinking of Aristotle's phusis, or nature. It's just how things are, which I don't presume to understand in advanc... 8mo ago received

You seem to be takin received

I agree, but I think this is more a fact about our usual heuristics than a fact about life.... 8mo ago received

I agree, but I think received

You don't know that. It could be that Gnon did need to create consciousness. It could be that not only do p-zombies not exist, but they could not exist. It could be that whenever you have a being that does all the things humans do, down to a fine-grained l... 8mo ago received

You don't know that. received

in thread "Physicalism vs "Existence"":

I fail to find any sense in which this question is meaningful. I think we correctly take the existence of the world –– no scare quotes needed –– as given.... 9mo ago received

I fail to find any s received

Simulation hypothesis and multiverse theories do not assert that the universe doesn't exist, but rather that it has a particular structure, even if one different from more typical intuitions. They do not bear on the question of "whether the world exists." 9mo ago received

Simulation hypothesi received

in thread ""Trump's America"":

I concur that Mystery Grove's article has some good, concrete ideas.... 9mo ago received

I concur that Myster received

Skepticism is warranted. Nixon in 1972 (and even Reagan in 1984) won with much larger landslides. Nixon was snuffed out by the deep state almost immediately, and one can rightly question what Reagan accomplished. When one asks "Exactly why will Trump in 20... 9mo ago received

Skepticism is warran received

To be clear, when I speak of continuing "to invest in efforts ... independent of electoral politics and formal government," that's in addition to the governmental efforts, not instead of. 9mo ago received

To be clear, when I received

in thread "Road Trip Week 2: Escape to San Francisco":

That doesn't seem so difficult if you can freely plan your route. The U.S. isn't that bad yet. Is there a state in the U.S. where you can't find someplace safe by driving 20 miles? 12mo ago received

That doesn't seem so received

I think that's right, but the original context was finding safe locations when freely planning travel in the U.S. In that context, prevention by location-management is the first-order bit. 11mo ago received

I think that's right received

in thread "Road Trip Week 4: The Soul of a New Taste Machine in San Francisco":

This is key. Another way to pose the matter is: what is a good information-governance protocol for a regime in the 21st century? It's not "free speech" as in the U.S. of 1990's. Nor is it "manual censorship" as in the Soviet Union.... 14mo ago received

This is key. Another received

It would be interesting to know how the use of these high-class markers played out during the COVID pandemic. Did they downgrade critical examination of vaccine efficacy and safety? Did they upgrade content on the benefits of lockdowns? 14mo ago received

It would be interest received

in thread "Towards an Illegible Computational Medium of Exchange":

I like the idea of building a solution to this problem, but I don't understand OP's proposed sketch.... 14mo ago received

I like the idea of b received

Again, I really like this general idea. That's why I'm motivated to press a bit on the technical details. Please take this pressing as entirely friendly.... 14mo ago received

Again, I really like received

in thread "How should we do startups to retain teleological independence and win real power?":

This is a great question. I suspect the answer is yes, but it would take a very strong and imaginative live player as CEO/owner to do it. Two data points as small hints:... 1y ago received

This is a great ques received

True, with the proviso that neither Silicon Valley nor the regime are unitary actors. They are both short-hand for distributed systems (like "the Cathedral"). That's important to keep in mind because it shapes what is possible and what kind of resistance o... 1y ago received

True, with the provi received

in thread "Clear guidance for women":

Excellent summary. We don't want a crude biological determinism, but neither do we want to ignore biology and nature. They are the basis for our pursuit of virtue, how complex and varied the latter may be. 1y ago received

Excellent summary. W received

This, a hundred times. If ambitious men should "quit their jobs" (to use Wolf Tivy's phrase) for the sake of something greater, it's even more important for ambitious women to "quit their jobs." The fact that "jobs" are the dominant archetype under manager... 1y ago received

This, a hundred time received

We need a modern, tech-aware version of Xenophon's Oikonomikos for women. 1y ago received

We need a modern, te received

in thread "Spenglerism with East Asian characteristics":

Agree, it seems very strange to conflate whatever the situation was in ~1912 with what it is today. Whatever one thinks of the CCP, one should give them at least that much. I don't know which will be the most powerful nation in the world in 50 years, but i... 1y ago received

Agree, it seems very received

Except the CCP doesn't need Tang anything to succeed. It just needs state capacity, sufficiently directed. For the past decade, it seems to have been doing better at this than the US. That's no guarantee of a given outcome, of course, but it seems more sal... 1y ago received

Except the CCP doesn received

in thread "Going to bat for "hard materialism"":

I believe there really are fundamental, deterministic physical laws. (At least, modulo the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics. However, I don't lean on the latter for higher-level conclusions, so I'm willing to bracket it for most further analysis.)... 1y ago received

I believe there real received

Separate "semantic" point, but adding to what I said above, I think "materialism" is just a horrible name for this position. It historically has more to do with early Enlightenment metaphysics than with science, and it's super misleading. Modern fundamenta... 1y ago received

Separate "semantic" received

Absolutely correct, on this hypothesis.... 1y ago received

Absolutely correct, received

A great way to confuse yourself is to try to jump between the highest and lowest levels of the system and see at one glance how they relate. That's not how science works. That's not how any rigorous thought works. You can't just pick out big-picture featur... 1y ago received

A great way to confu received

Yes, I agree that this is the key disagreement.... 1y ago received

Yes, I agree that th received

I agree it would be silly to define matter that way. But I think that much Enlightenment materialism, and much popular materialism today, pretty much does this. There is a prevalent, quasi-Newtonian view of matter as undifferentiated "stuff" with form as "... 1y ago received

I agree it would be received

Francis Bacon is pretty explicit about this and was widely followed, most immediately by Hobbes.... 1y ago received

Francis Bacon is pre received

If you look at the table of the Standard Model, and ask "How are these different entities characterized?," the answer has nothing to do with "matter" in any sense that Newton and his contemporaries would have understood (which was something like undifferen... 1y ago received

If you look at the t received

Yes, the precise structure of the interaction and composition are what is important, and this is what I mean by form. This is so true that if you keep drilling the analysis of form down, from the "monkey" down to the Standard Model, you finally arrive at a... 1y ago received

Yes, the precise str received

I think AGI is certainly possible.... 1y ago received

I think AGI is certa received

I have no objection to this hypothesis.... 1y ago received

I have no objection received

This is an important point. We see the results of failing to cultivate feedback from reality in certain dog breeds that become increasingly fragile and ridiculous. 1y ago received

This is an important received

I don't believe in "nature" in this modern, abstracted sense. There is only the world. Any world-spanning abstraction analogous to "the economy" is superfluous.... 1y ago received

I don't believe in " received

I agree that this notion is important for the delineation of life. I might call it "internal autopoiesis" rather than "basal," as I'm not sure the autopoesis has to be at the "bottom" of an organism. I'm not even sure that the "bottom" is well-defined. Why... 1y ago received

I agree that this no received

in thread "A pinpoint brain with less than a million neurons, somehow capable of mammalian-level problem-solving.":

Stephen Wolfram's result on the simplest Universal Turing Machine may be relevant to thinking about what's going on with spiders. Wolfram conjectured (later proven by Alex Smith in 2007) that a simple cellular automaton with only 2 states and 3 symbols was... 2y ago received

Stephen Wolfram's re received

Aristotle described animals as having souls* capable of knowledge derived from the senses and the capability to use that knowledge to support the movements characteristic of their species.... 1y ago received

Aristotle described received

in thread "Soil and Blood: A Defense of Magical Dirt Theory":

I agree with much of what you say, but I wish you hadn't called it "A Defense of Magical Dirt Theory." In my understanding, "magical dirt" specifically means all soil, no blood.... 1y ago received

I agree with much of received

BAP has said more than once that he considers some of Ray Peat's concrete advice to be bad. I never got into Peat, even to investigate beyond a glance.... 1y ago received

BAP has said more th received

Whitehead's heart was in the right place, but there's a problem of trying to jump to the desired end while skipping the intermediate steps. This always risks jumping to woo.... 1y ago received

Whitehead's heart wa received

Absolutely. Thermodynamics is definitely a major component. Two books I think contribute here:... 1y ago received

Absolutely. Thermody received

The problem isn't with speaking of the unknown. Man has always done so in poetry, for which I have the highest esteem. The problem is with conflating this with science. Speaking of the unknown is, by definition, not science. 1y ago received

The problem isn't wi received

This, and the discussion following in >>1663 of the mathematical vs. the quantitative, is exactly along the lines of what I meant.... 1y ago received

This, and the discus received

This is just false. It's a strawman. Only a mathematical physicist afflicted by bad philosophy, or a stupid one, would say such things. There are very simple explanations of all those common sense statements that are perfectly consistent with modern physic... 1y ago received

This is just false. received

To be clear, I'm not denying that there are hard materialists, some them quite loud. What I'm describing as false is that the bad conclusions actually follow from mathematical physics. I'm objecting to your attribution of them to... 1y ago received

To be clear, I'm not received

in thread "El Salvador Questions Thread":

Cooperation with the PRC is a sign in favor of, not against, Bukele being a live player. El Salvador is in the backyard not of China, but of the United States. Unlike Vietnam or Korea, El Salvador faces no threat of domination by China as a neighbor. Whate... 1y ago received

Cooperation with the received

Irrelevant object-level stuff.... 1y ago received

Irrelevant object-le received

OP's statement, to which you objected, was that El Salvador is a live player. I provided a simple and clear argument that Bukele is indeed a live player. That's the only aspect relevant to OP. Your stuff about the PRC obviously is not. 1y ago received

OP's statement, to w received

Would be great to have a sketch of an itinerary for someone visiting with an eye to checking out how Bukele's policies are working out on the ground, maybe writing a piece about it. 1y ago received

Would be great to ha received

One tidbit is that he came up through left-wing parties, which may have deactivated some the immune response against the early actions he took. 1y ago received

One tidbit is that h received

in thread "On Religion":

Good post. The decay of Western religion is key part of the broader Western breakdown.... 1y ago received

Good post. The decay received

This identity is explicit and well-articulated in Thomas Aquinas' account of natural law. I say this not to suggest that "we should RETVRN to thomism" but just to note that there are resources in philosophical sources that can be helpful, especially if we ... 1y ago received

This identity is exp received

The primary source is the so-called "Treatise on Law" in the Summa Theologiae (ST, I-II, q. 90-108). The core bit on natural law is q. 94. If you haven't read Thomas before, this can take some getting used to. He uses a formal scholastic format of question... 1y ago received

The primary source i received

in thread "Mapping the critical cohorts of the US":

I'd make a strong distinction between statesmen and the broader class of politicians. In particular, I'd define a statesman as a live player among politicians. In any given generation, the number of statesman is small (and at present, even smaller than usu... 1y ago received

I'd make a strong di received

What are these virtues? Would you consider Soros to exemplify them? I consider Soros to be effective in getting what he wants, but I also think his influence on governance has been hugely negative. Which raises a further question: are the techniques for sp... 1y ago received

What are these virtu received

The thing about Julius Caesar is that he did a whole lot of stuff prior to crossing the Rubicon that made the latter possible. Like, conquering all of Gaul against great odds. That's what put him in a position to dominate Rome. (And even then, he didn't do... 1y ago received

The thing about Juli received

This actually raises an interesting distinction. Has anyone done a study of immigrants to the U.S. that went on to become successful founders and looked at the type of visa or legal status with which they entered the country? What proportion were something... 1y ago received

This actually raises received

Ethnicity should not be a taboo subject. We just need to discuss it rationally. U.S. immigration law before 1965 specifically referred to ethnicity.... 1y ago received

Ethnicity should not received

I think the results of that experiment are pretty clearly in, and the answer is no. I'd argue the apparent early success was deceptively amplified by the U.S. having received a decades-long bonus for being the only major power, even among the victorious Al... 1y ago received

I think the results received

This was the project of German "conservative revolutionary" thought, derailed by World War II. 1y ago received

This was the project received

Indeed, among many others.... 1y ago received

Indeed, among many o received

Even the "colorblindness" of liberal, upperclass circles (say in the 1970-90's) included mandatory prohibitions on "noticing" many truths. At best, it required throwing out certain information about the world. In practice, it was already a kind of proto-wo... 1y ago received

Even the "colorblind received

Excellent discussion of ideology. I would summarize by saying ideology is necessary but not sufficient. It is not fake, but it is weak when not integrated with elite interests. Further, that integration, when successful, is bidirectional. It both shapes an... 1y ago received

Excellent discussion received

Yes, this is what I meant. It's not that we care what the masses think per se. The problem is that the elite is not a unified class. It has factions, and rhetorical weakness on our part will be exploited against us by competing factions. So it ends up matt... 1y ago received

Yes, this is what I received

"Material" need not mean "economic," certainly not in the sense of "for the good of the economy as a whole." Low-skill immigration is of immediate political benefit to elite factions who are the immigrants' patrons via welfare-state programs. These faction... 1y ago received

"Material" need not received

Cannot stress enough how common the sentiment expressed in this paragraph is. I have often spoken with high-IQ, well-educated liberal folks who speak exactly this way. Guys in our sphere look at the world at see huge dysfunctions. They look at the same phe... 1y ago received

Cannot stress enough received

in thread "Heredity and Character":

One factor that holds back psychometrics is that it's hard to quantify many of things we care about. After IQ, the next best validated factors may be the Big 5 factors of personality. They're not worthless, but they don't tell us everything one would want ... 1y ago received

One factor that hold received

This is an important point that I've emphasized in other threads. One can be a strong hereditarian (believing that key attributes have high heritability, maybe 0.7) AND still believe that culture matters enormously. It's only when you hold culture mostly c... 1y ago received

This is an important received

The clear contrast here is with the Hellenistic (not classical) Greeks, who had tremendous scientific and mathematical advances, up to an early version of calculus.... 1y ago received

The clear contrast h received

To be fair to Russo, the accent on wealth extraction was my gloss. I don't recall the extent to which Russo emphasizes that, though he definitely contrasts the Roman's strongly practical and less speculative orientation to that of the Hellenistic Greeks. H... 1y ago received

To be fair to Russo, received

in thread "Talent pool for the next regime":

I don't believe current elites are basically competent. I think we have strong reason to believe that the median Harvard graduate of 2024 is much less competent than that of 1940.... 1y ago received

I don't believe curr received

Why would one think DC is less powerful a vortex of conformity to local pressures than Silicon Valley? From the fact that "X is bad," it does not follow that "Y is better." 1y ago received

Why would one think received

Texas seems like it would be a great target for focused elite replacement. Its electorate is such as to make this plausible, and it's large enough that success would actually matter. 1y ago received

Texas seems like it received

The correct version of parallel institutions entails building those institutions now, not waiting for anything. The discernment centers on where and how that can most effectively be done.... 1y ago received

The correct version received

Doing excellent work, but preparing for remote rather than proximate regime change. (They would argue this is deliberate and necessarily so.)... 1y ago received

Doing excellent work received

This is an important role and voice. It's not regime-acceptable at present, but neither is it trolling and shitposting. It's a third thing, with more gravity than either. 1y ago received

This is an important received

In that same cycle, he also supported J.D. Vance, who did win. VC's are very comfortable placing multiple bets with the expectation that many will fail. I don't think his support for Masters was a blunder, just a bet that didn't work out. 1y ago received

In that same cycle, received

in thread "Silicon Valley's Military Fever Dream":

So we can defend trans rights in Ukraine?... 1y ago received

So we can defend tra received

I'm not at all against the young men in El Segundo. Some of them are smart guys doing good work.... 1y ago received

I'm not at all again received

That's exactly my concern. Capital needs to be attracted and directed well, not chased where it is being misdirected. 1y ago received

That's exactly my co received

I'm well aware of BAP's diagnosis of homosexuality. I'm not contesting it. I'm arguing that the regime that directs its military energies overseas to creating protected spaces for homosexuality, etc., is not the regime that we should be investing in.... 1y ago received

I'm well aware of BA received

In the spirit of "the purpose of a system is what it does," one could argue that U.S. has already tacitly conceded Taiwan to the PRC. U.S. elites are more interested in Ukraine, not out of any geopolitical strategy, but simply because this is what better m... 1y ago received

In the spirit of "th received

in thread "The power of the american empire":

Brief observation: power is not a scalar. It's more like a multi-dimensional vector. It's totally possible for it to be high in some dimensions and decaying in others. Likewise, it's not exercised by some unitary agent. There are many agents in the U.S. re... 1y ago received

Brief observation: p received

Samo Burja often emphasizes that the PRC is a highly Westernized regime. There's a reason why Xi is always seen in a Western business suit, not in distinctively Chinese dress. The main lines of thought pursued by the CCP are Western ideas, even if develope... 1y ago received

Samo Burja often emp received

in thread "bug reports and feature ideas thread. help us get this thing ready for primetime.":

If something like this is pursued, I would advocate using a curated set of tags that the reader can optionally filter by, rather than taxonomic boards.... 1y ago received

If something like th received

I like this idea a lot. 1y ago received

I like this idea a l received

in thread "Retrochronic. A primary literature review on the thesis that AI and capitalism are teleologically identical":

I would be more specific and say that it is the program of Francis Bacon. He didn't talk about AI in particular, but he laid out a (then) new approach to science and technology and its integration into a regime that we've been following ever since (cf. Nov... 1y ago received

I would be more spec received

As such works go, I would say that New Atlantis (and Bacon in general) is less on the esoteric side. Bacon is pretty clear about his program, and it aligns with the development of technology that actually unfolded, up to a Landian perspective on AI. 1y ago received

As such works go, I received

in thread "The lesson of Greta Thunberg":

I'm all for a regime in which the young are prepared to take power in a timely manner.... 1y ago received

I'm all for a regime received

The taxing of real estate in California (where the taxable property value is determined on purchase and not reassessed from scratch yearly) is unique due to Prop 13 in 1978.... 1y ago received

The taxing of real e received

in thread "The Biosingularity":

I'm both a hereditarian and an IQ-respecter.... 1y ago received

I'm both a hereditar received

The comparison I would make is with Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) of drugs. Even an effect with good statistical significance and effect size, more than enough for FDA approval, can be hard to discern in smaller, low-N studies, much less with N = 1. ... 1y ago received

The comparison I wou received

This is key. Aristotle might add, the human as specific form, i.e., form of a species.... 1y ago received

This is key. Aristot received

Absolutely key. As I've noted in another thread, no one, no matter their genes or how high their IQ, learns advanced mathematics, or great poetry, on their own. They need to be taught (at a bare minimum by exposure to books).... 1y ago received

Absolutely key. As I received

I contest the weak and reductive view of aesthetics as merely subjective and superstitious. There is good evidence, for example, that common views of human beauty, valuing symmetry and particular forms, track genetic fitness and health, and did so long bef... 1y ago received

I contest the weak a received

I'm a realist. I believe that reality should be (and ultimately will be, whether we like it or not) the test of our thought and action. This is why I think that judgments need to be checked against scientific, historical, and technological knowledge. I sim... 1y ago received

I'm a realist. I bel received

in thread "Degen communism: the only correct political ideology. Vitalik Buterin's new manifesto.":

There may be a slight April Fool's touch, at least as to the choice of title, but having read the piece, it seems to accord with things Vitalik has written in the past.... 1y ago received

There may be a sligh received

I agree with that. The welfare and quality of a society is upper-bounded by that of its best elements, and it's generally good to push that bound higher.... 1y ago received

I agree with that. T received

The index is not the actually existing self. It's something like: "the best possible realization of the self consistent with human nature," which is necessarily an inferred exemplar.... 1y ago received

The index is not the received

I would like to rephrase that as classical man living in a new kind of polis that uses computerized communication and governance mechanisms. 1y ago received

I would like to reph received

in thread "Nietzsche - Homer's Contest":

I agree on the importance of sublimation, but this mapping of it onto the relation of tyranny and philosophy does not correspond to Alamariu's thought. (Whether it accurately represents Nietzsche's thought, I will leave aside for the present).... 1y ago received

I agree on the impor received

Very fair.... 1y ago received

Very fair.... received

in thread "Who is Portugal For? (and what's the point of democracy anymore?)":

Salazar called his regime the New State. The "New" part meant that he was not appealing to any particular legacy ideology. He took for granted the elements of Portuguese culture that he deemed healthy and load-bearing, and nothing else.... 1y ago received

Salazar called his r received

1050 > It's hard to imagine the breakout.... 1y ago received

1050 > It's hard to received

in thread "Seven Heresies of "Rationality" ":

Excellent list. I concur with each item. I've personally focused on 5 (old books / liberal arts) in my critiques of rationalism, but 3 (thinking in terms of world optimization) is probably what has most spoiled their impact. 2y ago received

Excellent list. I co received

I should add that I find their self-description as "rationalist," made with a clear suggestion that other modes of thought are not rational, to be more than annoying. 2y ago received

I should add that I received

Just as a terminology thing: This isn't how "faith" is used in most Western traditions. There's a whole tradition of reasoning about the transcendent, e.g., in Aristotle, that aims to do so without faith. Whereas in Christianity, "faith" is specifically ab... 2y ago received

Just as a terminolog received

There may be some deep sense in which axioms "come from God" as the author of nature, including human nature.... 2y ago received

There may be some de received

Condensed summary:... 2y ago received

Condensed summary:.. received

in thread "Don't be a fat.":

Here's another tip for weight-control, especially useful as you pass ~30 years old: you can just stop eating. I mean that literally. You don't want to do it for too long, as you'll start to lose muscle, which is counterproductive.... 2y ago received

Here's another tip f received

A weird thing is that it can actually be easier to fast than to diet. Holding the line at zero can be psychologically easier than holding it at an arbitrary point while still eating. Obviously, you don't want to hold it at zero for too long. (As I said abo... 2y ago received

A weird thing is tha received