Yeah. I just love these "plug all this data into the computer and see what comes out" studies. In the end, it's only as good as your model. And how good is the model? To answer that, we've got a big fat: "Who knows?"
The laws of physics don't just stop working. More likely, we just aren't observing the phenomenon correctly.
That is a beautiful point of view. If Newton had shared it, we'd still be doing Physics Aristotle's way.
Kerry2004 is online...
[Kerry2004]Guess I'm here a bit early.
[Kerry2004]....
[Kerry2004]Sure is quiet. Reminds me of Nam. I fought there, you know. Won 3 Pur-- Bush2004 is online...
[Bush2004]whoa! so this is the internet huh
[Kerry2004]Hello, Mr. President.
[Bush2004]howdy howdy
[Kerry2004]I was just telling everybody about the 4 med--
[Bush2004]hey john, how do you spell 'seneter'?
[Bush2004]never mind johns all right isnt it?
[Bush2004]you went to Veitnam didnt you john? were you in the shit?
[Kerry2004]Senator Kerry. Yes I was "in the shit." In fact, I won 5--
[Bush2004]bet that stunk! lololol
[Bush2004]so n-e-way lets get sireis about forein policy for a bit. what do you think about nuking Canada?
[Kerry2004]That's insane! You're joking, right? I would like to assure everyone that if you elect me instead of this nutcase, we will get America back on the track of a rational foreign policy. I think that my character has been proven by the 6--
[Bush2004]uh...i got to go make a phone call
[Bush2004]damn it, the neos said that it would impress everyone with my leadership. Bush2004 has quit (Abort! Abort!)
I hope that this is a lesson to companies who let themselves be run by their legal departments. Just like you don't let your engineers run your company, it doesn't make sense to let your lawyers run your company. Sadly, while many companies have learned the first lesson, too few have learned the second.
Here is what they can learn from this case: Go to court for a tiny piece and you can wind up losing the whole enchilada.
Actually, it is doubtful that this technique will work on those who are born blind. Through a number of experiments with eye-patches, electrodes, and kittens (it's not the prettiest side of science) we have found that the nerve connections that are formed in the first few weeks after birth are necessary to vision. So much so that if a patch is put over a kitten's eye for those first few weeks, it will never be able to see out of that eye even once the patch is removed.
I suppose that it would be possible to make electronic connections deep into the brain (past the optic nerve) to get around this. But I would still be skeptical that the brain would ever be able to adjust to processing the new information.
The idea that pornography is a protected class of speech is rather new and depends on a radical interpretation of the Constitution that is completely alien to the founder's intent.
Racism is the Great Satan of our age. There are a lot of worse things in life. But public indoctrination against racism starts very early, and is accomplished more thoroughly than most other government propaganda efforts (in the West).
The races of man exist, and there is substantial evidence they differ in things like intelligence, athleticism, temperament, and a number of other mostly genetic characteristics, as well as there being substantial - and mostly immutable by public policy - differences in cultures.
Sure, hatred and incivility are to be regretted, but all modern liberal democracies get along with substantial amounts of them. If you are American, canvas your neighborhood for opinions on Republicans (or Democrats) to see what I am talking about. Hatred is not the Great Satan you think it is.
If, like me, you are a product of Western culture, you probably have a substantial disgust-reaction to anything even slightly tainted by racism. And if try to reason to yourself about it, you will find that you have that degree of an adverse reaction to very few other things - probably only rape, child pornography, and other evil acts. That is not the most natural thing in the world. It does not have much historical pedigree. The only thing that I can compare modern anti-racism to is beliefs that originate through religious conditioning. The average person's indoctrination in anti-racism - from schools, media, and parents - is highly similar to the experience of being indoctrinated in a religion from childhood on.
People need to reevaluate their reflexive anti-racism. It deserves a far lower priority in most people's public policy views.
Certainly there are people without college degrees who are smarter than many people with college degrees. But as a statistical matter, it generally isn't true.
"It is not always fair, nor is it always effective, but it's easy and convenient for employers to use to do some initial screening." And that is exactly the truth. What is being used is a crude and wasteful method compared to what is available (i.e. IQ tests).
Re:Another "Beyond the Limits"
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 1
No, the market does not always find a solution to the elimination of a basic resource. Think Easter Island after they ran out of trees. Technology may find a reasonable alternative to oil, but we've been looking for a long time. I would be surprised if we find oil's equal in the next 50-100 years.
I appreciate your comment, but I will be honest and say that your statements strike me as products of wishful thinking about equality rather than facts based upon experience.
If you have the information available on any normal resume, skin colour tells you nothing more than you know already.
I wish that were true, but I think that first you overestimate the value of the information on a resume. It is useful, to be sure, but it is a long way from adequate for job performance predictive value.
Second, I think that you underestimate the achievement gap between the races in the United States. Unfortunately, that's easy to do. The reaction to hard figures is generally shock. For example, try looking up the figures for how many black students in the United States got above a 1400 on their SATs. You will not be pleasantly surprised, I guarantee. The current IQ offset between blacks and whites is around 15 points, which does not sound too bad. (The presence of the IQ gap is not currently argued. What tends to get debated are the validity of IQ tests and how much of the performance gap is genetic rather than cultural. In my opinion, the validity aspect is usually argued by those people who don't like to be dragged down by facts. The evidence lies firmly on the side of IQ being a good measure of general intelligence across cultures.) So 15 points difference. But recall that IQ follows a bell curve distribution. Which means an exponential drop off. If you are talking about a professional career which probably requires an IQ of 120 at the minimum, you are looking at a small tail. That is just smart blacks. The "brilliant blacks" will be few and far between.
Really? They no longer commit half of America's violent crime (despite making up 10% of the population), no longer have stratospheric rates of out-of-wedlock birth, and no longer represent an out-sized portion of the welfare role? Thanks for clueing me in on that. Amazing news. Where can I subscribe to your newsletter?
Did black America suddenly turn around and get its shit together while I wasn't looking? But I agree with you on the socially corrosive and individually unfair part. Unfortunately economically effective follows them on the list.
There are plenty of methods of sorting people that work better, but they have mostly become illegal in the past 50 years. Race and background are still reasonably good indicators. IQ testing is a tremendous indicator of future job performance -- far better than degrees -- but the Supreme Court made IQ testing for employment illegal 35 years ago.
What you have to understand is that the "signal to potential employeers that you have the determination to achive something difficult" speech is code. What college degrees actually do is tell employers that the person holding the degree is more likely to come from such and such an economic background (hence the outsized importance of ivy league diplomas) and is more likely to be white, Jewish, or Asian. It also tells employers that the holder of the diploma is likely have an IQ above some threshold.
This is stupid marketing. If you want to make a game with adult content, sell a PG-13 kiddie version that everybody under 5 can buy, and release the hardcore porn in a patch.
Helps if you don't have a soul, but big entertainment has proved that lack often enough.
Travel time sunk Morrowind for me. That and the lousy combat system. And the uninspired magic system. And especially the tedious skill system. Then there were the miniscule dungeons. And the flat NPC characters. Also, every single feature implementation seemed half-assed, leaving something to be desired. But out of all of Morrowind's flaws, the boredom of excessive travel time stands out.
"smaller [PC-developing] companies often can't handle the loss of revenues from lowered prices, so too dramatic a drop might jeopardize their existence"
Review of Econ 101 for those slashdotters that need it:
Lowering the price of a product does not inevitably lead to lower profits. Nor does raising the price lead to higher profits. The higher priced that a product is, the fewer people willing to pay for it, and vice-versa. Theoretically, there is an optimum price that will bring in the most profit for a company.
There should be NO loss of revenue from a price drop made to bring the price closer to the optimum. So unless the argument is that game companies have lowered prices for reasons of insanity, then there should not be much to worry about simply from the fact of lower prices. They are just adjusting closer to the optimum profit point.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. I just love these "plug all this data into the computer and see what comes out" studies. In the end, it's only as good as your model. And how good is the model? To answer that, we've got a big fat: "Who knows?"
Huge selection and $0.10 a track, and they'd get a lot of money from me, as opposed to no money right now.
The laws of physics don't just stop working. More likely, we just aren't observing the phenomenon correctly. That is a beautiful point of view. If Newton had shared it, we'd still be doing Physics Aristotle's way.
Not to mention mass imigration and racial preferences. I'm with you.
I'm a Conservative, but here goes:
Kerry2004 is online...
[Kerry2004]Guess I'm here a bit early.
[Kerry2004]....
[Kerry2004]Sure is quiet. Reminds me of Nam. I fought there, you know. Won 3 Pur--
Bush2004 is online...
[Bush2004]whoa! so this is the internet huh
[Kerry2004]Hello, Mr. President.
[Bush2004]howdy howdy
[Kerry2004]I was just telling everybody about the 4 med--
[Bush2004]hey john, how do you spell 'seneter'?
[Bush2004]never mind johns all right isnt it?
[Bush2004]you went to Veitnam didnt you john? were you in the shit?
[Kerry2004]Senator Kerry. Yes I was "in the shit." In fact, I won 5--
[Bush2004]bet that stunk! lololol
[Bush2004]so n-e-way lets get sireis about forein policy for a bit. what do you think about nuking Canada?
[Kerry2004]That's insane! You're joking, right? I would like to assure everyone that if you elect me instead of this nutcase, we will get America back on the track of a rational foreign policy. I think that my character has been proven by the 6--
[Bush2004]uh...i got to go make a phone call
[Bush2004]damn it, the neos said that it would impress everyone with my leadership.
Bush2004 has quit (Abort! Abort!)
I hope that this is a lesson to companies who let themselves be run by their legal departments. Just like you don't let your engineers run your company, it doesn't make sense to let your lawyers run your company. Sadly, while many companies have learned the first lesson, too few have learned the second.
Here is what they can learn from this case: Go to court for a tiny piece and you can wind up losing the whole enchilada.
The evidence suggests IQ as the most likely explanation.
So what you are saying is that all religions are equal, except for those fundamentalist religions that you disagree with?
Actually, it is doubtful that this technique will work on those who are born blind. Through a number of experiments with eye-patches, electrodes, and kittens (it's not the prettiest side of science) we have found that the nerve connections that are formed in the first few weeks after birth are necessary to vision. So much so that if a patch is put over a kitten's eye for those first few weeks, it will never be able to see out of that eye even once the patch is removed.
I suppose that it would be possible to make electronic connections deep into the brain (past the optic nerve) to get around this. But I would still be skeptical that the brain would ever be able to adjust to processing the new information.
The idea that pornography is a protected class of speech is rather new and depends on a radical interpretation of the Constitution that is completely alien to the founder's intent.
Racism is the Great Satan of our age. There are a lot of worse things in life. But public indoctrination against racism starts very early, and is accomplished more thoroughly than most other government propaganda efforts (in the West).
The races of man exist, and there is substantial evidence they differ in things like intelligence, athleticism, temperament, and a number of other mostly genetic characteristics, as well as there being substantial - and mostly immutable by public policy - differences in cultures.
Sure, hatred and incivility are to be regretted, but all modern liberal democracies get along with substantial amounts of them. If you are American, canvas your neighborhood for opinions on Republicans (or Democrats) to see what I am talking about. Hatred is not the Great Satan you think it is.
If, like me, you are a product of Western culture, you probably have a substantial disgust-reaction to anything even slightly tainted by racism. And if try to reason to yourself about it, you will find that you have that degree of an adverse reaction to very few other things - probably only rape, child pornography, and other evil acts. That is not the most natural thing in the world. It does not have much historical pedigree. The only thing that I can compare modern anti-racism to is beliefs that originate through religious conditioning. The average person's indoctrination in anti-racism - from schools, media, and parents - is highly similar to the experience of being indoctrinated in a religion from childhood on.
People need to reevaluate their reflexive anti-racism. It deserves a far lower priority in most people's public policy views.
Certainly there are people without college degrees who are smarter than many people with college degrees. But as a statistical matter, it generally isn't true.
"It is not always fair, nor is it always effective, but it's easy and convenient for employers to use to do some initial screening." And that is exactly the truth. What is being used is a crude and wasteful method compared to what is available (i.e. IQ tests).
No, the market does not always find a solution to the elimination of a basic resource. Think Easter Island after they ran out of trees. Technology may find a reasonable alternative to oil, but we've been looking for a long time. I would be surprised if we find oil's equal in the next 50-100 years.
I appreciate your comment, but I will be honest and say that your statements strike me as products of wishful thinking about equality rather than facts based upon experience.
If you have the information available on any normal resume, skin colour tells you nothing more than you know already.
I wish that were true, but I think that first you overestimate the value of the information on a resume. It is useful, to be sure, but it is a long way from adequate for job performance predictive value.
Second, I think that you underestimate the achievement gap between the races in the United States. Unfortunately, that's easy to do. The reaction to hard figures is generally shock. For example, try looking up the figures for how many black students in the United States got above a 1400 on their SATs. You will not be pleasantly surprised, I guarantee. The current IQ offset between blacks and whites is around 15 points, which does not sound too bad. (The presence of the IQ gap is not currently argued. What tends to get debated are the validity of IQ tests and how much of the performance gap is genetic rather than cultural. In my opinion, the validity aspect is usually argued by those people who don't like to be dragged down by facts. The evidence lies firmly on the side of IQ being a good measure of general intelligence across cultures.) So 15 points difference. But recall that IQ follows a bell curve distribution. Which means an exponential drop off. If you are talking about a professional career which probably requires an IQ of 120 at the minimum, you are looking at a small tail. That is just smart blacks. The "brilliant blacks" will be few and far between.
Really? They no longer commit half of America's violent crime (despite making up 10% of the population), no longer have stratospheric rates of out-of-wedlock birth, and no longer represent an out-sized portion of the welfare role? Thanks for clueing me in on that. Amazing news. Where can I subscribe to your newsletter?
Did black America suddenly turn around and get its shit together while I wasn't looking? But I agree with you on the socially corrosive and individually unfair part. Unfortunately economically effective follows them on the list.
There are plenty of methods of sorting people that work better, but they have mostly become illegal in the past 50 years. Race and background are still reasonably good indicators. IQ testing is a tremendous indicator of future job performance -- far better than degrees -- but the Supreme Court made IQ testing for employment illegal 35 years ago.
What you have to understand is that the "signal to potential employeers that you have the determination to achive something difficult" speech is code. What college degrees actually do is tell employers that the person holding the degree is more likely to come from such and such an economic background (hence the outsized importance of ivy league diplomas) and is more likely to be white, Jewish, or Asian. It also tells employers that the holder of the diploma is likely have an IQ above some threshold.
This is stupid marketing. If you want to make a game with adult content, sell a PG-13 kiddie version that everybody under 5 can buy, and release the hardcore porn in a patch.
Helps if you don't have a soul, but big entertainment has proved that lack often enough.
Please don't code anything in C++ after learning it "fast." It's not that kind of language.
I'm afraid that I have to correct you on that. One player works even better.
Yes, I'm an American.
Travel time sunk Morrowind for me. That and the lousy combat system. And the uninspired magic system. And especially the tedious skill system. Then there were the miniscule dungeons. And the flat NPC characters. Also, every single feature implementation seemed half-assed, leaving something to be desired. But out of all of Morrowind's flaws, the boredom of excessive travel time stands out.
Hard games? Nothing has ever compared to the baseball diamond puzzle in Zork II...
from as few (or fewer) postulates
Unless GR is an oversimplification (read: hack). Can't say that would be a first as theories of gravity go.
GR is perhaps the most well-tested physical theory yet developed...
It just doesn't pass the Galaxy-Shape test. Oops. Well, maybe there is a bunch of imaginary matter out there that no one can see.
"smaller [PC-developing] companies often can't handle the loss of revenues from lowered prices, so too dramatic a drop might jeopardize their existence"
Review of Econ 101 for those slashdotters that need it:
Lowering the price of a product does not inevitably lead to lower profits. Nor does raising the price lead to higher profits. The higher priced that a product is, the fewer people willing to pay for it, and vice-versa. Theoretically, there is an optimum price that will bring in the most profit for a company.
There should be NO loss of revenue from a price drop made to bring the price closer to the optimum. So unless the argument is that game companies have lowered prices for reasons of insanity, then there should not be much to worry about simply from the fact of lower prices. They are just adjusting closer to the optimum profit point.