Why did many high IQ tech and science people vote for their own defunding? I’m not asking out of anger I genuinely don’t get it. Culture war issues like, idk, people becoming more brown by default in America, or a trans teenager participating in a game, they’re… they don’t seem as important as ensuring well funded science??
> Why did many high IQ tech and science people vote for their own defunding?
The list is long. First and foremost, it's never a good idea to forget that wherever there's intelligence there's always also stupidity. Then it's generally good advice not to confuse intelligence for wisdom. And between this and very long lists of cognitive biases, there's always the good old "Fuck ya, got mine!" Rule of Acquisition to remember. Et cetera.
current administration is guided by the looniest of the loons Claremont Institute, who truly believe that any dollar not spent on border defense or offensive military capability is wasted.
> Why did many high IQ tech and science people vote for their own defunding?
Because a high IQ and a science degree does not mean that those people make good political decisions. A lot of political decision making is driven by ideology and identity.
A lot of high IQ people may have strong mathematical and problem solving skills, but are morons in absolutely every other aspect of life.
There are many reasons. Many high IQ people don’t want to lose their jobs and favor stricter immigration policies. They would probably vote for Democrats if Democrats weren’t so lax on immigration.
And, many of my friends who were doing PHD they used to follow dems, but are now supporting republicans after they got citizenship....
Lots of voters didn't believe Trump would do the things he campaigned on. "I'll defund research" can be interpreted as "probably that other research, the stuff I don't like or think is useless" by some.
Nah men by and large do not experience the same levels of societal pressure than women do to be attractive, modulo getting into looksmaxxing and other stuff, and even that is mostly to show off masculinity traits to other men and not actually in being attractive to women.
It certainly is doxxing (although there is no legal definition of it that I'm aware of). I also wrote that X has the least censorship of any social media platform. If you have to dig down to elonjet, it just affirms my statement.
I disagree with you largely. The vast majority of people I know have interests that drive them beyond a work they dislike. They follow sports. They golf. They cook. They are foodies. They enjoy mixology. They raise their children. They enjoy taking 45 minute walks after every meal. They host parties with friends. They do a book club. They knit or crochet or craft with felt. All of these things do not resemble “purpose” in that they’re not really monetized. But in a world where you don’t have to make money to live I think there’s a hell of a lot of things that can give purpose.
I actually disagree, I think B people care a lot if a created work is an intended artistic thing vs produced by a machine. It’s like the difference between getting someone a generic hallmark cards vs actually writing something inside. Theres a place for the hallmarks but a plain one with no human touch is still considered tacky
Survey people about who created a given work, and you'll find a whole lot of people who like something without having the faintest clue who made it, or anything about why, before even considering the people who can even name the people involved. It's hard to believe that suggest people are so quick to care about the artistic merit.
As a concrete example relating to books, the success of the Stratemeyer Syndicate in packaging up book series ghostwritten by "nameless" authors under single pseudonyms is an example. Stratemeyer series like Nancy Drew has sold more than 80 million copies (for Nancy Drew alone). At one point 98% of American children listed a Stratemeyer title as their most popular books.
How many of those do you think saw those works - most sold as a work for hire for next to nothing and churned out by the hundreds - as "an intended artistic thing"?
People who care a lot about literature tends to seriously overestimate how readers engage with writing. As it stands it's hard to get people to care enough to read, much less to get them to care about artistic intent.
I think people who bet on people caring about that as a means to stem the tide of AI content will be very disappointed.
Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political?
I’m not trying to be contrarian this is simply my experiences running like a board game group or something. It’s easy to say no politics but then someone’s normal (eg. My name is Helen, where’s the woman’s restroom?) can cause someone to refuse (“that is clearly a man”!) and now you have a mess on your hands as an organizer.
Maybe it starts when some people start to apply some power on other people ? But all your examples are people talking about themselves : their own lives, their own choices, their own specifics, their own struggles. I would say people can have all this and mention it as long as it stays on the fringe and does not become a topic to debate. This would be outside the scope of the group.
Maybe other people should avoid commenting on peoples life / choices / specifics / struggles, and the atmosphere may stay nice.
Here’s the thing though: Helen is presenting herself to be called Helen. That’s inherently asking other people to call her Helen and imposing on people to allow a person they see as male to enter a female bathroom! For people who see being transgender as a political issue, being asked to call a trans person by their name is bringing politics into it because theyre being imposed on to recognize a trans woman as female for bathroom purposes.
Thats what I mean when i think “no politics” gets weirdly messy. Like to me it’s not political to let Helen use the female bathroom, but that’s not a given. I’ve also seen situations like, is it political if David brings his boyfriend to the DnD group and they role play a gay couple? What about if Emily, an IRL conservative, says she’s not being political when her lawful good paladin tries to break up the gay couple in the game, because being gay is evil in her DnD religion?
That actually sounds like a relatively simple one to resolve although the practicality might be a bit poor. The nonpolitical resolution is to use a space with 1 small unisex bathroom and insist that everyone keep it clean. If there isn't a consensus on who gets a special bathroom then there shouldn't be one.
So forcing everyone to change their meeting place to a venue with a unisex bathroom only is not political, but a trans woman using a woman’s bathroom is political?
Also, Helen still wants to be called Helen and still wants to be referred to as a she. By this logic, everyone must go by they/them? Or what?
> So forcing everyone to change their meeting place to a venue with a unisex bathroom only is not political, but a trans woman using a woman’s bathroom is political?
Nobody is calling for unisex bathrooms as far as I know, so it can't really be called a political choice. It is just practical - there isn't a consensus about who should get a special bathroom. How can there be a special bathroom if we don't know who is supposed to be using it?
> Also, Helen still wants to be called Helen and still wants to be referred to as a she. By this logic, everyone must go by they/them? Or what?
I don't see how to get away from that one, there is a fundamental rift between the people who think individuals control their identity and the people who think that identity is constructed by someone's peers (see also, shaking off an unwelcome nickname).
But that is an inescapable problem that has dogged humanity since before we were a species so good luck excluding it from any space. If it flares up and diplomacy can't smooth it out then some organiser is just going to have to make a call.
I think you’re missing my point here, which is that “no politics” is an impossible standard for any given social group even if the social group isn’t itself a political movement. There will need to be some measure of baseline politics, like trans people are welcome, jokes about Indian people being smelly are fine, gay people shouldn’t bring their partners around, “retarded” is/isn’t cool to use. Etc.
I did just write "that is an inescapable problem that has dogged humanity since before we were a species" you know. But nonetheless the trans bathroom one has a simple and nonpolitical resolution until the people who want segregation start making an argument about why some people need a special bathroom. At which point the gender thing probably doesn't matter.
This is a part of why people are hopeful that they can keep spaces focused. Many of the popular "political issues" are more theatre around identity than any real substance.
So you’re in agreement with me that “no politics” isn’t really a thing in a space? That’s all I’m saying. I’m using transgender issues as an example but my overall point is that there’s no such thing as a space that is focused around something and simply gets a no politics rule. There is always some kind of politics in play simply by nature of politics being an extension of acceptable and unacceptable community, e.g. a person who happens to be trans is the hot topic now, but within my parents generation probably the political act is enforcing a shared bathroom between whites and blacks!
> So you’re in agreement with me that “no politics” isn’t really a thing in a space?
Yeah, its a meaningless term. The people calling for it are clearly being inarticulately and are trying to say something else.
But the trans bathroom thing has an obvious resolution. The people fighting over it are more about wanting to pick a fight than that there is an actual issue; if the people around me wanted me to use the female bathroom or the male bathroom either is cool. It's a bathroom. They meet a unisex need. If segregation is an issue in the abstract then stop doing that until there is an objective standard to use instead of a subjective one.
That is generally how it works when people don't accept obvious resolutions. If you want to challenge its obviousness be my guest. It is pretty normal for a DnD/board game group to be meeting at someone's house where there is literally only one bathroom. It is hard to miss the fact that both genders can use it without complaint.
In a sporting context or similar where people are needing to change clothes then it isn't an easy one, but in this context it isn't much of a challenge.
Are you saying that a policy which works for invited guests in a private, one-bathroom home, should, based on its success there, be adopted at a societal scale?
I don’t see what you mean. It really isn’t considered civil to let men use the female restroom when a male restroom is available outside of circumstances like taking one’s young children to the restroom. If one sees a trans woman as a man, it is uncivil for “him” to parade at being a woman.
It is also super normal for couples to roleplay being couples, gay or not. What do you call civil here, to let a (in the mind of an Anti-homosexual conservative) illegitimate couple pretend as if it’s on the level of a legitimate one? Or it’s maybe uncivil for the illegitimate gay guy to come in and force the rest of the group to sit in discomfort with his sexuality?
In my opinion “maintain civility” is equally as fraught as “no politics” because different people have radically different opinions of what these mean. Often times when it comes to “identity politics” it’s mutually exclusive.
That’s incredibly messy, for example, a friend of mine was recently forced out of the country because her Ukrainian refugee visa was revoked. Are you saying this community member cannot be sad or angry about this, because that’s too political? We have to be like damn this is the last board game with Nancy but we can’t talk about why because that’s Polticial?
I think it’s the opposite of messy tbh. It’s clear cut. You might not like it but that’s a separate discussion.
Re your colleague: I wouldn’t want to talk about it other than showing empathy for the person. At your workplace… outside of work you can talk whatever you want.
Interesting, that none of those things have been an issue in the 90s. At least in my country. You just didn't have to think about this, because except gays (who were accepted by young, and frowned up by old), there were no discussion about any of that.
Someone made this into an issue, and politics. And things have got much worse, during all this.
Objectively we’ve only become smarter (IQs have increased), stronger (fitness records continue to be broken), etc. since infant mortality shrank. If you believe otherwise please provide evidence.
Is there a reason you expect IQ to be unbounded? Feels like there are physical constraints, at which point you're sampling from a truncated normal distribution (or similar).
Doesn’t one major fund reducing investment in fossil fuels and increasing investment in renewable energy precisely migrate towards the notion of helping solve demand and encourage technological breakthroughs and innovation?
I think the right way to go about this is to tax consumption. The most efficient one would just be a co2 tax, to not favoritize some emission over others. This is mostly fine in western rich countries, and we already do this to some extent by putting extra taxes and fees on petrol, carbon emissions and stuff.
Becoming reliant on countries you dont want to be reliant on, and pretending we dont desperately need this to get the wheels turning is a strategic blunder.
Higher global fossil fuels costs have strong negative effects on peoples welfare, especially in poorer countries. Whenever we get high oil/gas prices, we get price jumps on artificial fertilizer, food, transport and energy. Everything gets more expensive. Its straight up national emergency when something threatens supply of oil and gas in many of these countries when we get events like closing of the hormuz strait.
> I think the right way to go about this is to tax consumption. The most efficient one would just be a co2 tax, to not favoritize some emission over others.
I too thought this for a long time. But after watching taxes on consumption basically be a non-starter in the US for a long time, I’m not so sure anymore. Gas taxes are also regressive, which means the people who feel it the most are the ones least able to pay it. Raising the gas tax while retaining one’s elected position is challenging in the US to say the least. In most places in the US, driving is not a luxury.
To be clear, I think we need to move off of fossil fuels to the greatest extent possible as soon as possible. For those with means, it is a great moral failing to continue to drive a gas guzzler and heat one’s home with fossil fuels when there are better affordable alternatives. I’ve been driving an EV for nearly four years; it is now not just more affordable than a gas powered vehicle, it is more convenient. For me, the cherry on the top is that I also do not pay for electricity, because I took advantage of the pre-Trump II era solar tax subsidy and built a massive one.
The tax break was good for me, and it’s a shame that is gone (I paid off that panel in 5 MONTHS with the help of the subsidy), but tax breaks really only help the relatively wealthy. We need an investment in infrastructure for the masses to break their dependence on fossil fuels. I’m not really sure what that is.
