future babble

Future Babble: Why Pundits Are Hedgehogs and Foxes Know Best

The bigger the media profile of an expert, the less accurate his predictions are.

неплохое review в NYT. еще On Confidence - хороший обзор, много интересных примеров.

во второй главе сказано brain is a kludge, это сказал Marvin Minsky. вот статья об этом, с разных точек зрения: Is the Brain Good at What It Does?

ну и дальше в третьей главе - про эксперимент с фотографией в потерянном кошельке, If you lose your wallet, this might determine if you get it back, довольно неожиданно. в четвертой - про illusion of control (непосредственно связано с предсказаниями).

pattern recognition, superstition, Skinner... cognitive biases - объясняет ошибки экспертов. про Тойнби интересно: он ошибался не потому что не знал, а потому что знал слишком много.

упоминается Божественная комедия, где разные предсказатели в аду в качестве наказания ходят с головой, повернутой назад.

Gardner looks at the bigger picture. “Leave aside who called what for a moment and focus on what is true of every person in these clips, Schiff included. Without exception, they are confident. The message they give to their audiences is that they know what will happen; they are sure of it.”

He notes that none were the least bit speculative in their comments. No one hedged by saying “It’s very probable but not certain.”

He goes on, “They often see things through a single analytical lens, which helps them come up with simple, clear, conclusive, and compelling explanations for what is happening and what will happen.

“They do not suffer doubts. They do not acknowledge mistakes. And they never say, ‘I don’t know.’”

в пятой и шестой главе он подробно пишет про кризис 2008-го и про Питера Шиффа, который его предсказал, и как над ним смеялись. еще интересно про Paul Ehrlich, тоже был провидец 🤡

breathless hype

Chutzpah rules

"It is undeniable that...Ashkenazi Jews have high general intelligence. It is also undeniable that they are successful. But the level of Jewish financial, political and cultural success cannot be explained solely by their exceptional cognitive ability." @Bo Winegard

this links to Aporia article Does IQ alone explain Jewish success?, where they say with commendable candor

So it could be that some sort of self-deceptive positivity (e.g., chutzpah) is behind the difference, or that in rating their own personality Jews and gentiles use different reference groups. Either of these alternative interpretations would also be interesting. However, there are reasons to believe that the GFP reflects social effectiveness, and that Jews are especially socially effective.

нет ли тут...

Existential malaise

Existential malaise — the feeling that everything is bullshit — might be the price of peace. - это из substack с хорошим названием Everything Is Bullshit одного David Pinsof (@DavidPinsof).

забавная статья, много интересных ссылок. вот, к примеру, The Execution Hypothesis for the Evolution of a Morality of Fairness - это тот же Wrangham, что написал The Goodness Paradox. там упоминается ‘reverse dominance hierarchy’, и вот Reverse Dominance Hierarchies - review by Rob Henderson.

еще Morality and other weapons - необъятное количество примеров и ссылок (часто на самого автора, Rob Kurzban). начинается с хорошей шутки (в которой есть небольшая доля шутки):

Cynics will tell you that the Golden Rule is that whoever has the gold makes the rules.

кстати о доле шутки - это приводит на память stereotype accuracy

он написал книжку Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. еще в своей статье он приводит ссылку на Extract from the Speech by Adolf Hitler, January 30, 1939

Lombroso and Tolstoy

Hollywood casting directors are still practical Lombrosoians.

--Lombroso and Tolstoy by Steve Sailer

ну а я что говорю

rational after all

Can Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Change Our Minds? The theory behind C.B.T. rests on an unlikely idea—that we can be rational after all.

Cognitive behavioral therapy had an advantage, she recalled, because therapists and researchers liked its organized approach: exercises, worksheets, and even the flow of a therapy session were standardized. “You could more easily codify it and put it in a study with a control, and see whether it was effective,” she recalled.

попалась на глаза статейка в New Yorker. дочитал до середины, очень смешно. комментировать тоже невозможно, смех один. надо же, за столько лет ни хера нового не изобрели. прогресс закончился. not with a bang, but with a whimper. дедушка Фройд - тот хоть скандал знатный устроил.

концепции

. Simulation theory is intelligent design for atheists

. Impostor syndrome

strong moral character

People who self-report a strong moral character have a tendency to hypocrisy. @DegenRolf

frightening situations enjoyable

People with psychopathic tendencies find frightening situations enjoyable rather than threatening

empirically correct v. morally desirable

"men are relatively more interested in advancing what is empirically correct, and women are relatively more interested in advancing what is morally desirable." On average! @hoovlet

это из Sex and the Academy

Age of Endarkenment

A psychology graduate student at a major university recently told me that every other psychology graduate student in her cohort believes the only biological difference between males and females is average height. @SwipeWright

Every day I'm more convinced we are going through the Age of Endarkenment @stuartf100

There’s like.. an entire chromosome of difference? Are they insane?! @MsMelChen

еще из twitter:

My favorite critique of Musk is that he lacks the ‘expertise’ or ‘experience’ to weigh in. How has the State Department’s experience/expertise worked out here, and for several decades? Experience isn’t value in itself. Some experience is bad experience, and hobbles a person. @FischerKing64

и еще:

"Stendhal refused to belong to any club that accepted him as a member. He decried authoritarianism & defended liberalism, but he also defended his right not to have anything to do with those who most benefitted from liberalism" @clairlemon

belief in astrology

Study Finds People Who Believe In Astrology Are Less Intelligent And More Narcissistic @JackPosobiec

от себя добавлю: i would imagine both this study & astrology are junk

картинку они там хорошую подобрали. нет ли здесь мизогинии

см. также астрология и секс

category errors

There may be only one way out of this dilemma: To disarm mentalism and turn the study of (human) nature into a science. We thus first have to effectively dissolve the ancient body-mind hierarchy problem and thus avoid continued commission to catastrophic Rylean category errors by neglectfully mixing mental and material phenomena as if they were equals in the description or explanation.

...

Despite its enormous subjective appeal and an almost desperate search for it, neither have philosophy nor modern (brain) sciences ever evidenced the slightest trace of consciousness in the human brain or, for that sake, anywhere else in the world.

-- Helmut Nyborg, Molecular Man in a Molecular World, pg. 461

жж

The eye and the mind

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
― Robertson Davies

anatomical signs of criminality

A belief in anatomical signs of criminality can be detected in Egyptian writings 4,000 years old, in Homer's epics, in the Hippocratic and Galenic doctrines of ancient medicine, and in the Bible. Socrates was charged by a physiognomist with having a face that betrayed brutality. - @Biorealism

Whether crime was caused by biology or environment, Lombroso believed crime was often caused, it was not an expression of free & malicious intent...Lombroso and his school were allied with the reformatory movement...prisoners, whom they saw as victims of bad biology or society.

Crime & Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime by James Q. Wilson, Richard J. Herrnstein

see also ломброзо / lombroso and Et tu, Cassius

а вот Tania Lombrozo, Department of Psychology, Prinston Uniersity - ain't it funny

Perceptual and judgment creep

Do we think that a problem persists even when it has become less frequent? Levari et al. show experimentally that when the “signal” a person is searching for becomes rare, the person naturally responds by broadening his or her definition of the signal—and therefore continues to find it even when it is not there.

In a series of experiments, we show that people often respond to decreases in the prevalence of a stimulus by expanding their concept of it. - Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment

via

sexual coercion fantasies

Any good evopsych theories why? @Aella_Girl

множество ответов, но одного достаточно от @primalpoly:

These results are consistent with most research on sexual coercion fantasies.

Lots of ideas from ev psych & ev bio are relevant here, such as hypergamy, patrilocality, tribal warfare, resistance-as-screening, mate choice for dominance, adaptive self-deception....

see also this thread and dismay and disgust

Coming War over Intelligence

“And I don’t want her thinking cleverness buys her the right to tell other people what to do.”

...

The Bell Curve has become irreducibly associated with average IQ differences between racial groups (more accurately, populations), and the extent to which intellectual differences are heritable for everyone, regardless of race.

- The Coming War over Intelligence by Helen Dale

у дамы IQ 148, и это чувствуется

перевод

интересно, что там упоминается GATTACA - фильм вышел в 1997-м, и меня в свое время Миша Р. убеждал, какой это серьезный и познавательный фильм. я тогда его посмотрел половину, не выдержал дешевки и пошлости и бросил, но недавно пересмотрел его уже полностью, моя выносливость нынче гораздо выше, особенно когда интерес культурный и антропологический.

забавно, что еще один Миша Р. - это уже Michael Roland в Мюнхене - убедил (скорее - заставил) пойти с ним на Матрицу (фильм вышел в 1999-м). это все забавным образом связано. надо бы и матрицу пересмотреть при случае.

по результатам внимательного прочтения - дама несколько поверхностная, и ее умозаключения оставляют желать.

самый восхитительный из поцелуев

-- Негодяй! Это ты его убил, а он не был моим любовником. Я не знала его... никогда не видала этого человека... Каков он был собою? Наверно, молод, красив?.. И ведь он ни в чем неповинен!.. А ты убил его, негодяй! Негодяй!

    Она лишилась сознания. Но и в обмороке, так походившем на смерть, она почувствовала, как вместе с ужасом ее заливает страсть. Она наполовину пришла в себя: из-под отяжелевших век показались белки глаз, грудь вздымалась, бессильные повисшие руки искали любовника. Она сжала его в своих объятиях, впилась ему в тело ногтями и, прильнув судорожно раскрытым ртом, запечатлела на его губах самый немой, самый глухой, самый долгий, самый скорбный и самый восхитительный из поцелуев.

    Она тянулась к нему всем телом, и чем ужаснее, беспощадней и свирепей он ей казался, чем больше обагрял он себя кровью своих жертв, тем сильнее жаждала она его.

-- Боги жаждут

Анатоль Франс - еще один несносный наблюдатель

см. также gratifying and passionate

вообще книжка познавательная, пусть в художественном отношении и не особенно. вот еще несколько цитат:

Я предложил Наблюдательному комитету не выдавать свидетельства о гражданской благонадежности тем, кто не подпишет петиции.

"Свидетельство о гражданской благонадежности, -- прибавил он, -- выдается только тем, кто доказал свой патриотизм в эти дни.

Мы завалены доносами: они поступают отовсюду и в таком изобилии, что мы не знаем, за кого раньше приняться.

-- Доносы стекаются и к нам, в Наблюдательный комитет, -- не без гордости ответил Бовизаж. -- Одни доносят из чувства гражданского долга, другие -- ради награды в сто су. Есть много детей, которые доносят на родителей, зарясь на наследство.

Sneaky Fuckers theory

I like stereotypes because they’re usually (not always) accurate. And the stereotype of the Woke beta being a sexual predator, the Sneaky Fuckers theory, is accurate. @antihero_kate

see Sneaky Fuckers and Harem (zoology)

Trumpian ordeal of incivility

With this framework in place, we can finally understand the Trumpian ordeal of incivility. Trump is, as Collins observes, fundamentally pre-modern. While ethnically Scottish and German, Trump's personality was forged in the Ellis Island crucible of New York real estate where parasitic pariah capitalism is the norm. Trump is lecherous for eastern European women, regularly bilks contractors and consumers, has a predilection for the gaudy and kitsch, eats like a prole, constantly makes a scene among the well-bred and people of good taste, and cynically manipulates the legal system with a mob affiliated legal team. In other words, he feels at home and secure among incivil company where the stifling affective censorship of civil society is absent.

- Trump And The Return Of Pre-Modern Incivility by Hoyt Thorpe

Hoyt Thorpe - ясное дело псевдоним. про Трампа очень смешно. и абсолютно точно. перед этим в эссе несколько абзацев содержат отличное резюме Испытания вежливостью Каддихи

Commentators like Williamson, O'Connor, and Keillor only seem capable of perceiving Trump's incivility from the perspective of the establishment, failing to fully to grasp how it is experienced by Trump supporters. For his part, Trump clearly understands, even if only intuitively, the democratic emotional energy that can be summoned by engaging in spite rituals against elite decorum.

...
Indeed, in his National Review article, Jonah Goldberg astutely observed that Trump regularly uses the rhetorical technique of apophasis - raising a forbidden topic but ironically condemning it - to great effect among his supporters. Goldberg points to the following Trump tweet as an example:

"I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!"

...

Hatch and Kennedy had no problem respecting each other and breaking bread because they became social equals on Capitol Hill, calling to mind Aristotle's old formulation that equality always only means equality for equals and inequality for non-equals.

...

It's impossible, for instance, to argue with a straight face that mocking vulgar unemployed Appalachians as mediocre whites is "punching up" and therefore an acceptable form of incivility, while mocking vulgar Mexican or Muslim immigrants is not.

...

Like homosexuality, feminism, and black nationalism, white nationalism is an ideology that bundles substantiated and unsubstantiated grievances with a constructed group identity.

блистательное эссе, его бы перевести, но уж очень большая работа.