Slashdot Mirror

Yes and no.

First: Here's something that was written a few years ago when the shoe was on the other foot, but basically one of the things going on right now, is that libertarians are scared of being mistaken for Republicans. The two don't really have much in common, but the things they do have in common are extremely embarassing to appearances. Only bad people are Republicans right now (regardless of left/right views, the Republican party simply isn't for you, unless you're a criminal) so everyone who doesn't want to be thought of as evil is trying to inch away from anything that looks related. And while you're think 2016 would have been the election that Libertarians finally beat Republicans, that obviously didn't really happen. So Libertarians are going into hiding for right now, until the Republicans currently in government are removed from power and prosecuted.

Second, and this is more subtle, a lot of "socialist" things are really only socialist in an absolute sense, but proposed policies to amend them might look socialist but really not represent any significant change on the socialst-libertarian continuum.

Suppose you live in town and suddenly one day there's a new tax on bubble gum, and the tax goes to buy people coats. Outrageous! But what if the "town" is actually a wholly-government-created place (e.g. some place weird like McMurdo air base) and all the bubble gum and coats were brought in at taxpayer expense anyway. Looks socialist at first, but really: no change.

Even a move toward conservatism can look leftward. Let's say the government gives you millions of dollars in subsidies every year. This goes on for decades, and then one day the government stops. Instead of allowing you to pollute without paying for it, they say you have to start paying for it. "Socialism! Taxes!" everyone screams, but really all that's happening is the subsidy is going away.

Oh, we're going to have a "socialist" law that the ER is not allowed to turn people away, even if they can't pay? "No problem," says everyone. But then if you try to reduce the total amount that ERs subsidize people, by forcing them to pay their bills in advance (post a bond or buy insurance), suddenly it's "Obamacare is socialism!" despite it being a slight move to the right from how things had been before.

I think one thing that is happening, is that in situations where government is already neck-deep in highly regulating a thing, some libertarians are saying "well, if 95% of voters say we can't get out of this, then we can't get out of this, no matter how much we want to. So.. how can we make it better, given that we cannot possibly escape the socialist framework?" A libertarian can do that, and rationally. And with Republicans in power making changes purely based on corruption and optimizing the "wrong" things (i.e. changing the law to make it easier to steal from people) this invites optimizations from everyone. And without any representation in government, libertarians have nothing better to do than get involved some other way. So for anything we're not allowed to truly "fix," we "settle" for trying to make it better than it was. Libertarians are taking "good enough" because they can't get "perfect," especially right now.

When Democrats return to power, libertarians will rise again to fight them. For now, though, we're going to find ways to get along. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. And Republicans are everyone's enemy, whether you're authoritarian or libertarian, whether you're left or right. Republicans have unified everyone against them, making odd bedfellows.

Great, so now every tech startup has to have their very own IRB? And file yet another set of paperwork with the federal government? All so the politicians can forbid Youtube from making their videos autoplay "for the children"?

This is ridiculous. We're not the government's slaves, nor their children. We don't need them to make all of our decisions for us. They're supposed to be the servants of the people, not the other way around.

We'd tell you about such a place, but then all the trolls would just follow you over there.

Whether Obama said it or not, the sentiment has been around for a while.

A lot of people there were really optimistic that the solution to technological unemployment was to teach unemployed West Virginia truck drivers to code so they could participate in the AI revolution. I used to think this was a weird straw man occasionally trotted out by Freddie deBoer, but all these top economists were *super enthusiastic* about old white guys whose mill has fallen on hard times founding the next generation of nimble tech startups.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/06/notes-from-the-asilomar-conference-on-beneficial-ai/

It's a hard-hearted lack of sympathy. Working class stiffs from Middle America get told to fuck off and learn to code because the coasts are eliminating their jobs with globalism.

When I was young, most people in the upper half were perfectly willing to respect those in the bottom half, and some people (leftists) practically worshipped them. Today, it is vastly different. Remarks calling working class "deplorables" and worse have become quite common today on the left. Leftists say that working class are racist, misogynistic, intolerant, etc. In reality, they are the bigots and not middle America.

You just did it AGAIN. Stop strawmanning others' arguments, dammit! Don't tell other people what they believe!

Wow, way to create a ridiculous strawman that literally nobody believes. This is all part of the problem, the Left will simply invent something ridiculous, assign this ridiculous view to their enemies, and then hate their enemies for holding the view that they invented. Read more: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

...

Wow, way to create a ridiculous strawman that literally nobody believes. This is all part of the problem, the Left will simply invent something ridiculous, assign this ridiculous view to their enemies, and then hate their enemies for holding the view that they invented. Read more: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

Yeah! Because all a 54 year old father of three needs to do is move to New York City, call around to some friends, and get a job in publishing.

A lot of people there were really optimistic that the solution to technological unemployment was to teach unemployed West Virginia truck drivers to code so they could participate in the AI revolution. I used to think this was a weird straw man occasionally trotted out by Freddie deBoer, but all these top economists were *super enthusiastic* about old white guys whose mill has fallen on hard times founding the next generation of nimble tech startups.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

If the choice is between basic incomes and basic jobs, there are a number of massive problems with a basic jobs program which don't exist for a basic income program. Specifically:

1. Basic jobs don’t help the disabled
2. Basic jobs don’t help caretakers for sick family members, or parents of children
3. Jobs require massive personal expenses - transportation, rent in desirable areas with manageable commutes, babysitting for when you're away from home - wiping out much of the salary received
4. Basic jobs may not pay for themselves by doing useful work
5. Private industry deals with bad workers by firing them; nobody has a good plan for how basic jobs would replace this
6. Private employees deal with bad workplaces by quitting them; nobody has a good plan for how basic jobs would replace this
7. Basic income could make private jobs better to work in; basic jobs could make private jobs worse to work in
8. Basic income supports personal development; basic jobs prevent it
9. Work sucks, and basic jobs would make huge numbers of people's lives suck

Full discussion here

Claims with no citations? You're either an idiot or an outright troll/liar.

A small sampling of the citations linked in the post in question:
http://www.city-journal.org/20...
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
http://www.umass.edu/legal/Ben...
http://www.jstor.org/discover/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publ...
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub...
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abst...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abst...
http://www.jstor.org/discover/...
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinf...
http://www.jstor.org/discover/...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/abst...
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/...
http://www.sentencingproject.o...
http://online.wsj.com/articles...
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live...
That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short.

I guess mi technically asked you to tell him that, and you did.

But still, maybe read a little about Race and Justice in the U.S. before spouting off on it. For example:

New York City data suggests no bias of officers towards shooting black suspects compared with their representation among dangerous police encounters, and if anything the reverse effect. ... There is no support for the contention that white officers are more likely than officers of other races to shoot black suspects.

Compared to most countries, America is a paradise of opportunity, welcomes immigrants and foreign workers, and has non-existent issues with racism, sexism, historical inequities, etc... You probably also think Americans invented slavery...

Huh, I wonder what kind of treatment caused people to react like that?

So the vile assault on Palin wasn't misogyny? And calling Hillary a criminal was misogyny? You're just making my point for me, that when We The Good People engage in disgusting misogyny, it's OK because we're doing it to The Other. When The Other does it to us, it's wrong because they're not Us.

Remember the vile misogynistic assault on Sarah Palin? It was OK to do it to her, but as soon as Hillary ran, it was wrong.

It's not exactly an absurd set of characterizations to say that the American Left despises the working class. They voted for Trump! The Democrat strongholds of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin betrayed their Party and turned their coats to vote for the enemy. To better understand this attitude, let's look at this article that Twitter's CEO retweeted and commented "Great read".

The next time you call for bipartisan cooperation in America and long for Republicans and Democrats to work side by side, stop it.

The best way to understand politics in America today is to reframe it as closer to civil war.

They hate us. Remember when they encouraged the BLM riots and cheered as people were attacked and neighborhoods burned? They encouraged and paid thugs to attack Trump supporters at rallies? Yup. It's because the Left regards the Right as "The Other" and doesn't feel that the rules of civilized discourse apply.

Yeah. Scott Alexander recently did an in-depth post looking at this very issue, but the bottom line is that people's wants are virtually limitless and technological progress just means we can fill more of them.

Once everyone has their own solar system full of AI-managed robots doing whatever they want for them, then maybe we can start worrying about how no one will be much better off if some people want their own galaxy instead. In a future of super-cheap robot+AI labor, our current wealth levels and living standards will look like the dark ages do to us today.

Past performances may not be representative for future results. There's no guarantee that people will find ways to make money in the new world juste because it happened before; and we have never had fully autonomous machines before our times. In fact the number of jobs is already going down, and that decline is concentrated in the less paying, less qualified jobs. Technological unemployment: much more than you wanted to know

Your example of automobiles shows that new technology may have a huge impact in the amount of individuals who can survive in the post-adoption world: the number of horses and mules dropped to merely a 14% of the original amount during the first half of the 20th century, as there were no jobs where those beasts could be employed with at a price that sustained their existence. Are you OK with that happening to workers unable to adapt to jobs that pay enough?

-- I can tolerate anything except the outgroup

A ridiculously long read. But, absolutely worth it. Thank you for linking to it.

If I had to define "tolerance" it would be something like "respect and kindness toward members of an outgroup".

The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: "Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?"

Bodhidharma answers: "None at all".

The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why.

Bodhidharma asks: "Well, what do you think of gay people?"

The Emperor answers: "What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!"

And Bodhidharma answers: "Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!"

-- I can tolerate anything except the outgroup

If I had to define "tolerance" it would be something like "respect and kindness toward members of an outgroup".

The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: "Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?"

Bodhidharma answers: "None at all".

The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why.

Bodhidharma asks: "Well, what do you think of gay people?"

The Emperor answers: "What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!"

And Bodhidharma answers: "Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!"

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/

The Harvard MBA opens doors that would be forever closed to you with a Master's degree from State U. That's the value of Harvard, the ruling class sees it and immediately knows you're one of their own, not The Other. Middle class values education, ruling class values connections.

CGP Grey did a good video on why social media is bad. Basically in a world where clicks and comments and shares is the metric, people create content which makes people angry

This Video Will Make You Angry

Or as Andrew Klavan put it 'outrage is the Devil's cocaine'

See also

I can tolerate anything except the outgroup

Add in the fact that most social media platforms have a very strong bias because they are full of young, college educated people and that people who try to derail the continuous Three Minute Hate against the outgroup(them) get banned for 'hate speech' and you can see why it is cancer.

And the final insult is that the people who run these companies want regulation of the ISPs, aka Net Neutrality to stop them doing things like zero rating and then claiming it's about free speech. Even though the FCC didn't actually ban zero rating when T Mobile did it

https://www.engadget.com/2015/...

So a US ISP can do exactly what Portugal's MEO did even if Net Neutrality stays in place

http://www.telecomsense.com/20...

And of course Google and Facebook launched a non Net Neutral service with zero rating in India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I.e. they're lobbying for it because they think it will stop zero rating, which would might force them to pay ISPs to be zero rated, and it won't. We know that because even when it was in place the FCC had no problem with T Mobile's Binge On. They don't actually have a principled objection to zero rating, because they did it themselves.

Just read the article, OK? It does a better job laying out the arguments than I ever could. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

Doesn't matter how well laid out the argument it: it can never trump facts.

I've worked along side people who would count hunting and fishing in their hobbies, and those people had PhDs. No amount of column inches about outgroups will change that fact.

Just read the article, OK? It does a better job laying out the arguments than I ever could. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

Hunting and fishing are regarded as cruelty to animals and anyone who would do that is a psychopath. You wouldn't want to talk to such a person and definitely never work alongside one. Let's look at the attitude at Google:

"Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn't assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them."

The coastal people regard middle America as The Other. This didn't start yesterday and it's not going to end anytime soon. Oh, you have a degree from State U? How precious. Yeah, that don't count for shit.

You sound like you're making the error recently described by SSC:

Sometimes I can almost feel this happening. First I believe something is true, and say so. Then I realize it’s considered low-status and cringeworthy. Then I make a principled decision to avoid saying it – or say it only in a very careful way – in order to protect my reputation and ability to participate in society. Then when other people say it, I start looking down on them for being bad at public relations. Then I start looking down on them just for being low-status or cringeworthy. Finally the idea of “low-status” and “bad and wrong” have merged so fully in my mind that the idea seems terrible and ridiculous to me, and I only remember it’s true if I force myself to explicitly consider the question. And even then, it’s in a condescending way, where I feel like the people who say it’s true deserve low status for not being smart enough to remember not to say it. This is endemic, and I try to quash it when I notice it, but I don’t know how many times it’s slipped my notice all the way to the point where I can no longer remember the truth of the original statement.

Maybe Damore is one of the few unimpaired ones at Google.

Damore worded his essay in a way designed to make it look pro-diversity while cherry picking and exaggerating facts to cause an opposite impact.

Perhaps, but I'm not a expert, and I've yet to see an expert debunk his cherry picking. Some would claim he was just trying to present his evidence.

Some have suggested Damore's honesty and intentions should be questioned because of that. That's a reasonable thing to do.

That's a bit circular. They question his intent and then use that as justification to question his intent. I'm not sure why you need the rationalization. Seems the guy is mildly autistic, so the whole point is that he's probably hard to read. However, it's fine if you don't like what he wrote, and you can support that with arguments.

But... I'm not sure they're right. I think it's more a cause of an expert in one field (computing) thinking that makes him an expert in others and failing spectacularly trying to prove the real experts wrong.

He claims many experts support him. Also he has some background in these areas (PhD student.) Previous slashdot comments linked to a blogger that did a good job of defending him. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017... It's a bit long, but much better than any articles I found that attack his position. Again, I'm not an expert, and I could be swayed. In fact, the expert, Adam Grant, he debunks politely rebuts his comments. By the time I got the far, I was a bit drained, and I found Grant's arguments somewhat persuasive. However, the blogger did a sound job dismantling the points. (Though the blogger's reply was a bit rude which might have stopped a productive back and forth.)

Now you might wonder why few experts vocally supported Damore. (I think a few did.) However, it's not surprising that supporting experts did not want to get involved in this firestorm...

You see this on Slashdot all the time. How many people here disagree with the 97% or so of climate scientists on Climate Change, for example? It certainly is more than 3%. Are these people experts in climate change? Do they have all the figures available to them? Do they have insights that Michael Mann et al don't?

I think the is an interesting issue. For the most part, neither side of the slashdot debate are experts. How do they determine which experts to listen to. Why should they even believe that 97% of the climate scientists believe in climate change? What experts give them this information? If they are not listening to experts, how do they form their opinion?

The case for social science is even more complex. I think the most damning argument against Damore is not that he thinks he can beat the experts, it's that maybe there are no good experts in this area. I think this is the real danger; if all science is lumped together, questionable research can be used to weaken the strong work. Personally, I assume climate science fits in the strong camp, but I don't have the time to do extensive research myself, so I have to pick my experts.

I don't live in some kind of bubble. It doesn't pass the smell test

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

There are certain theories of dark matter where it barely interacts with the regular world at all, such that we could have a dark matter planet exactly co-incident with Earth and never know. Maybe dark matter people are walking all around us and through us, maybe my house is in the Times Square of a great dark matter city, maybe a few meters away from me a dark matter blogger is writing on his dark matter computer about how weird it would be if there was a light matter person he couldn't see right next to him.

This is sort of how I feel about conservatives.

I don't mean the sort of light-matter conservatives who go around complaining about Big Government and occasionally voting for Romney. I see those guys all the time. What I mean is - well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That's half the country.

And I don't have a single one of those people in my social circle. It's not because I'm deliberately avoiding them; I'm pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn't ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.

Yeah! Because all a 54 year old father of three needs to do is move to New York City, call around to some friends, and get a job in publishing.

A lot of people there were really optimistic that the solution to technological unemployment was to teach unemployed West Virginia truck drivers to code so they could participate in the AI revolution. I used to think this was a weird straw man occasionally trotted out by Freddie deBoer, but all these top economists were *super enthusiastic* about old white guys whose mill has fallen on hard times founding the next generation of nimble tech startups.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

Between improved health care and demographic changes, we have more old people around that need more treatment. That'll be part of it.

But probably the biggest part is cost disease, which affects the NHS just as much as it affects healthcare, and other industries, in other countries. Without all the cuts, spending would (...presumably?) have gone up even further.

In 1960, only a handful of low status people were arguing that âoesodomy lawsâ should be repealed, and they were all insisting that câ(TM)mon, obviously it would never go as far as *gay marriage*, weâ(TM)re just saying you shouldnâ(TM)t be put in jail for it. Meanwhile, fifty years later people are enforcing a rule that if youâ(TM)re not on board with gay marriage, you shouldnâ(TM)t be allowed to hold a high-status job.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014..."> http://slatestarcodex.com/2014...

Typically, the narrative would be about evil white male scientists, paving over the sacred native lands to install their phallic, oppressive astronomy instruments. But the last few times it's been on Slashdot, the general idea is "screw those indigenous assholes, I don't feel sorry for them so that makes them The Other, they may be safely oppressed because I like astronomy."

I mean, typically any outcome where white male scientists win would be loudly contested. Even if the badwhites did win in the end, poo-flinging and shitting in the punchbowl tactics would be engaged in, making them unable to enjoy their victory. But here it's precisely the opposite: the narrative is that the ignorant savages are obstructing the march of science and they must be crushed in the name of progress. Forward!

...and ridiculous beliefs like this are why the Right will be in power for the next 50 years. It's not the facts of the situation, it's the fact that to you, they are The Other. And you'd rather do anything than tolerate The Other.

The conservatives I know have a realistic understanding of human nature (i.e., it is fundamentally flawed) and set expectations accordingly; i.e., there will never be a Utopia.

It is the leftists who believe that human nature is basically good, and that people do bad things because of external forces (e.g., their living conditions); Therefore the goal of arranging those external forces so they no longer cause people to do bad things becomes the greatest moral imperative.

So, on one hand we have people who believe that Utopia is impossible, and on the other we have people who believe that creating Utopia is the highest (perhaps only) moral priority. The first group believes the second group is deluded in their belief that Utopia is possible; the second group believes the first group is immoral for opposing their efforts to create one at any cost.

Hitler very successfully made the very same arguments. He even quoted Darwin. IMO it all comes down to whether or not humans can rise above the fundamental urges that lead to tribal manifestations of these urges. A majority of the German population fell under this spell and we know it lead to WW11. It seems that America right now is undergoing the very same shift to an idiotic pseudo Darwin concept of survival of the meanest bastards, this is happening on a financial basis as well as a political one.

Tsar Putin is no dumb ass cookie. He knows that by putting small amounts of intel dollars into the already volatile American political system his sponsorship of the oligarchs and up and coming Russian elite will help him stay in power. Why you ask? Because the already established organized crime institutions in the US are ripe for take over and this is what is happening. Although Castro is dead and his brother still sorta runs the show there are still a great many who would like to have Cuba turn into a free for all of organized crime that sucks dollars from the US and this now includes the new up and coming Russian Mafia kingpins not just the native American ones.

Sadly the governments of both the US and Russia are now under the control of organized crime. What the Russians are doing in no different than the CIA secretly backing drug lord dictators while turning a blind eye to the Mafia king pin Santo Trafficane and his French connection heroine trade all the way back to Laos during the De Gaulle era in Indo China. And what is going on to this very day with the internal corruption of the so called "war on drugs". This secret economy and political actions of a key part of the US government has created a serious risk of division by corruption of the entire US political system. Left and Right, conservative and democrat in reality have nothing to do with it. We are all being taken for a ride by those who seek only to have a free ride at the public trough and rule by division and deception and could in reality, care less about the populace they have sworn to serve.

...and ridiculous beliefs like this are why the Right will be in power for the next 50 years. It's not the facts of the situation, it's the fact that to you, they are The Other. And you'd rather do anything than tolerate The Other.

The conservatives I know have a realistic understanding of human nature (i.e., it is fundamentally flawed) and set expectations accordingly; i.e., there will never be a Utopia.

It is the leftists who believe that human nature is basically good, and that people do bad things because of external forces (e.g., their living conditions); Therefore the goal of arranging those external forces so they no longer cause people to do bad things becomes the greatest moral imperative.

So, on one hand we have people who believe that Utopia is impossible, and on the other we have people who believe that creating Utopia is the highest (perhaps only) moral priority. The first group believes the second group is deluded in their belief that Utopia is possible; the second group believes the first group is immoral for opposing their efforts to create one at any cost.

Scott Alexander wrote an absolutely fantastic analysis of someone else's analysis of this:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

He did raise a key point that I hadn't seen mentioned elsewhere: After the educated skilled capable women have finished dominating law, medicine, vetting, accounting and other domains, just how many of them are left to pick up the programming jobs.

women do better in acceptance of open source code submissions when gender is not known.

And you know what? Men too! And actually, if I was as intellectually dishonest as the media who reported that study, I could focus on one graph, ignore the rest and say that it's even worse for men.

Look at the left graph of the first figure: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016...

Science proves that github is sexist against men!

Let's talk about medicine. Women make up roughly 47% of medical school graduates.

Yes, lets talk about medicine. Particularly the different specialties in medicine. And if we collect them based on if that specialty deals with the equipment and high risk, or if that specialty deals more with people. If you haven't read this paper, then you really should. The more egalitarian countries in the world show larger diversity, but places like China and Iran, have 50/50 split in gender for work.

Specialty --- M% --- F%
People Based
Obstetrics/Gynecology --- 15% --- 85%
Pediatrics --- 25% --- 75%
Psychiatry --- 43% --- 57%
Family Medicine --- 42% --- 58%
Thing Based
Internal Medicine --- 54% --- 46%
Radiology --- 72% --- 28%
Anesthesiology --- 63% --- 37%
Emergency Medicine --- 62% --- 38%
Surgery --- 59% --- 41%

You probably need to break the categories down further. I bet that men and women tend to choose different specialties within law and medicine. Also we don't know that in even more time that there won't be majority women in those fields.

This has already been done. It is shown as a chart in the document and I will type in the relevant percentages for the medical fields for people to see them directly.

Specialty --- M% --- F%

Obsetrics/Gynecology --- 15% --- 85%
Pediatrics --- 25% --- 75%
Psychiatry --- 43% --- 57%
Family Medicine --- 42% --- 58%

Internal Medicine --- 54% --- 46%
Radiology --- 72% --- 28%
Anesthesiology --- 63% --- 37%
Emergency Medicine --- 62% --- 38%
Surgery --- 59% --- 41%

Full disclosure, I posted in the comments section in the article you linked, but my comments are still being held in moderation because they are detected "spam" (this appears to happen any time you provide a lot of links for references with discus). In any event, you can see the thread here:

https://disqus.com/home/discus...

Regarding expert's opinions, the discussion at Quillete has been good and includes very good comments from David P Schmitt, who is one of the authors that James Damore quoted.

http://quillette.com/2017/08/0...

There's also been a very good meta-analysis of studies being performed at Sean Stevens heterodox academy:

https://heterodoxacademy.org/2...

And a very good back and forth between Adam Grant and Scott Alexander here:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

You should take a look at Scott Alexander's analysis: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017... He says it better than I think any of us could.

"Proceeds to make tons and tons of assumptions and assertions"

The original apparently had links to supporting sources for these assertions. Gizmodo chose to remove those links. I wonder why?

I don't know how accurate in general his assertions of fact are, but when it comes to gender differences in interests -- with men tending to be more "thing"-oriented, and women more people-oriented -- he is on very solid ground. I recommend that you read Scott Alexander's article discussing this:

Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due to Offensive Attitudes.

Pay particular attention to section II where he discusses Richard Lippa's research.

Scott Alexander, a center-left blogger, also argues against misguided attempts at gender balancing:

Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due to Offensive Attitudes

A general AI doesn't need immediate and total control to quickly wipe out humans. Consider for example that we're fast approaching the point where you can order specific proteins synthesized for you over the internet. An AI could make a deadly pathogen would be one option.

And a general AI doesn't even need to act suddenly in such a directly and obviously malicious fashion. It is highly plausible that an AI could slowly establish itself until it had functional control. http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/07/no-physical-substrate-no-problem/ is a decent essay which discusses examples of this.

Musk may be a visionary, but he's also a bit loony on some topics. Don't forget he believes it's a near certainty that we're all living inside a massive computer simulation.

So, this amounts to essentially an irrelevant ad hominem attack. At no point in my post did I say that Musk's expertise was important here. Moreover, there are a lot of people who take these sorts of issues seriously who aren't Musk and, if it is at all relevant, don't assign a high probability of us being in a simulation.

Frankly, I think that Musk and people like him probably overestimate the risks of artificial intelligence, but the reasons for that are substantially more subtle than these sort of very weak responses that don't grapple with their concerns and arguments. And even if one thinks as I do that they are overestimating the probability of a problem, it doesn't take a high probability for a substantial existential risk to be something that should be treated seriously. It makes more sense in this context to criticize the proposal of regulation as being a useful solution than anything else.

I would start out by assuming that each so-called 'race' has the same ability to succeed and thrive in a variety of environments and conditions.

Why would you assume that? Wouldn't evolutionary biology tell us that the 50,000 years of different selection pressures in different environments would produce different sorts of people with different abilities? I don't think Creationism is real, and man is not a magical animal immune to environmental selection.

Then I would examine the genetic variation in humans and look at test results related to genetics. I'd best my last dollar that what you would find is that either there is ~0 variance between different populations, or that different populations favor slight variations in approaches to problem solving.

Except people have done the experiments, over and over again, going out of their way to make tests as unbiased as possible. African tests for Africans designed by Africans given to Africans who have never seen a non-African. They get the same results as the "biased" western tests.

Different groups of people are different. There are reasons for these things. For instance, in much colder climates evolution selects against high time preference because if you eat your seed corn during the harsh winter you die. This tends to get rid of the people who can't plan ahead and develop abstract representations of the future. The ability to conceptualize the future, imagine different options and pick ones with good results over bad results is a pretty good definition of "intelligence." Certainly correlated with.

This is reality and we have to deal with it. You can do it while still maintaining leftist policies (Charles Murray's answer to human biodiversity is Universal Basic Income). What you cannot do is look at the differences in outcomes and blame the lower outcome for one group of genetically different people on evil oppression on the part of the more successful group without evidence of actual evil. Especially in America. If over-representation of an ethnic group in high income/prestige places in society is prima facie evidence of evil, then I'd expect you to join with the anti-Semites screaming at all the Jews who make up 43% of the top 1% of the wealthy in society while only being 2% of the population. I don't think this is true, that Jews are particularly more or less evil than any other group of people. It's more likely that peculiar breeding habits made Ashkenazi Jews super smart. For awhile anyway.

Take your pick. Either everyone is the same as one group doing better than another means they're evil and oppressed them and the Nazis are right and the Jews are screwing everyone, or different groups of people are more capable than others because evolutionary biology and genetics are real things and we have to deal with reality as it stands and not resort to blaming the successful for the woes of the unsuccessful. But you can't have it both ways.

Seriously ? You can't see it ? How did he NOT ?

I don't think he ever claimed anyone wasn't human. If we're specifically talking about the transgender bathroom issue, he did not claim the man in a dress was not human. Just sufficiently over-penised to be allowed in the girls' locker room. Look at the clip, look at what Milo said and how he said it, and the audience's reaction. Do you honestly think anyone there was motivated to do violence against that individual or others?

We have two conflicting interests: 1) a person with a penis who wants to go into the girls' locker room and 2) women who don't want penises in their locker room. This seems like the sort of issue one could discuss rationally and as far as I can tell, Milo is. But you're looking at Milo's speech (or perhaps rather not looking at it? Did you watch the video clip?) and saying that it's so far beyond the pale of rational discourse that he's attempting to turn humans into non-humans to the point that they're under serious threat of death, and therefore a rational and justified response to Milo is violence against people who want to hear him. Not buying it. Is it possible you just want to do violence against your political opponents, and are therefore seeking ways to justify it?

So I read the essay you linked. Again it seems like motivated reasoning. "Violence/denial of speech against 'the intolerant' is not just a necessary evil but a necessary good, I want to hurt/shut up my political opponents, therefore let me engage in motivated reasoning to declare them intolerant."

It seems pretty selective when the left is so tolerant of Islam. Islam is the most intolerant ideology, I'd argue in the history of the planet. I mean, I think Literally Hitler was more tolerant than Islam is (and Hitler was even tolerant of Islam...he rather liked it actually for the whole 'warrior spirit' and Jew-hating parts). In terms of suppression of dissent, different faiths, oppression of and violence against women and homosexuals, you're going to get way, way, way more of that from Islam than from Trumpism/Miloism. Yet I don't see the left organizing demonstrations against Imams spreading Islam. Instead I see the left bending over backwards to apologize for Muslims when they blow up little girls at a pop concert.

It sounds to me more like you can just tolerate anything except the outgroup, and the outgroup is conservatives/Republicans. Read that essay and let me know what you think of the author's ideas.

After all it was Racist-Misoginists who got him elected.

Wrong. Here is an astute analysis of the racism factor from someone who can't stand Trump but can still reason: You are still crying wolf

Except the left's definition of "tolerance" is more like "forced acceptance of." Not stopping gays from doing gay stuff is tolerant. Forcing Christians to bake gay wedding cakes is forced acceptance.

Relevant: I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup

They are only "tolerant" of things that they don't find disagreeable at all. That doesn't make them particularly tolerant, though. They have all sorts of intolerance, overt racism and sexism, prejudice and generalizations, and hate for people they perceive as being in the outgroup.

The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: “Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?”

Bodhidharma answers: “None at all”.

The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why.

Bodhidharma asks: “Well, what do you think of gay people?”

The Emperor answers: “What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!”

And Bodhidharma answers: “Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!”

You're playing the "my side is enlightened intellectuals and the other side is twits" game

[b]We[/b] are. We are playing the game. You're the one who started claiming the people reading Breitbart knows they are reading propaganda. All I'm doing is calling doubt on that claim. Repeat: all I'm doing is calling doubt on your claim. You started the game, I'm just joining.

Or are you also playing the "it's only ok when we do it" game?

To reiterate, I pointed out that spreading and believing in fake news is more prominent on the right. Note I use a relative term, not an absolute "my side is intellectual" like you tried to spin it. I guess I'm nowhere as proficient at this game as you are.

As for your comment about the black vote:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016...

Trump GAINED more black votes than Romney. So no, your implicit accusation that blacks are blindly devoted to one party is also inaccurate. You can even find a Breitbart article that talks about how much support from blacks Trump was getting.

Oh but what the hell am I doing, citing facts and making rational arguments. We're supposed to be playing the partisan game, right?

Whenever leftists talk about tolerance, they are never talking about themselves.

Millenials have fewer job prospects in general and are less wealthy than their parents were at the same age. This is true by a variety of different metrics. See e.g. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/13/millennials-falling-behind-boomer-parents/96530338/. In the last few years, something, it isn't clear what, has been drastically reducing the resources available to young people. This is combining with cost disease http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ in a way that is leaving many people in the young age bracket with far less effective purchasing power than their parents would have had for many things. It isn't completely the case; some goods such as computers and cell phones are far cheaper (and often weren't even available to their parents) but that's a relatively small fraction of their total goods. Some other trends are clear positive, such as the reduction in poverty in the US, and the overall trends throughout the world are mainly positive. See e.g. https://singularityhub.com/2016/06/27/why-the-world-is-better-than-you-think-in-10-powerful-charts/. But the US specific young people are clearly going through a bad time in general.

"Gender Dysphoria" is not a mental illness. Unless being gay is a mental illness too, which I guess it is by your definition...

Wrong on both counts. It is classified as a mental illness so that insurance companies pay out on gender reassignment surgery, the same cannot be said for homosexuality. I'm afraid you can't just say "I want the money but without the negative connotation".

That is, ultimately, what this is about. They want Gender Dysphoria to be in some sort of weird quantum state of illness and identity, where they can pick either one based on what is most beneficial to them at any given time.

Want to pick and choose what treatment you get? Then it's identity, and you don't "need" dysphoria to have it.

Want to get a shared insurance fund to pay for your SRS and Transitioning? Then it's a mental illness and coverage is required by law.

You don't understand what mental illness is. This isn't a case of picking and choosing, it's clear-cut diagnosis and treatment.

To understand this, you first have to realize that any given cluster of behavioral symptoms may or may not constitute mental illness. Two people can have exactly the same symptoms and one is diagnosed as sick and the other as healthy. What makes the difference? Whether or not the person is able to function in society.

A person with gender dysphoria (or any other out-of-norm behavior) is mentally ill if and only if their condition results in an inability to function in society. In societal contexts that accept them as they are and are willing to treat them as the gender identity they prefer, many are able to function and are therefore not sick. For others, even with social accommodations, they are still uncomfortable in their bodies and can't function and therefore are sick. This may look like "picking and choosing", but it's just a direct result of how severe their gender dysphoria is -- something that no one can know until the individual tries living one way for a while.

It's a form of the Motte and Bailey post-modernist fallacy, the same one that brings us "crybullying" -- aka, "I'm so oppressed that I'm going to ruin your life for upsetting me."

Oh, stop being such an asshole. People suffering from this condition aren't doing it just to inconvenience you, they really are struggling with problems, and the fact that you can't relate doesn't make them in any way less real. The same is true of people suffering from other mental and physical illnesses. That guy in the wheelchair doesn't refuse to get up and walk just because he thinks it's funny to make you pay for a wheelchair ramp, and the man who feels like he should have been a woman isn't doing it just to bug you either.