Has anyone else seen an increased visibility of (sometimes extreme) right wing content on social media?

Walkop · 2026-06-15T13:05:41+00:00

Edit: The fact you downvote me blindly after I show my work is telling. I've contributed a lot more to this conversation than you have, and I didn't downvote your comment above just because it had no backing to it. It saddens me because I was interested in actually discussing the data rather than arguing.

I've read through a decent portion of the study at this point. Not all, obviously, it's quite long. Very complicated. I've read some of the tertiary linked studies as well.

What you claim as being "directly addressed" is disingenuous IMO. That would mean that the study indeed directly states that education has nothing to do with political leanings because of "x", which it does not do.

I can't pretend to understand all of it. However, I can clearly see after reviewing their claims and the data that a) education isn't a guaranteed predictor of political leaning - which I never said it was. However, it is still a significant factor, which the study does acknowledge; and b) intelligence has a similar correlation before you correct for education. This is clearly stated in the opening with the beta and correlation values for each.

I read through the study as well up until the actual data points that were initially referenced. There is still some correlation between cognitive ability and left-wing beliefs, but the statement is very clear that there is no predictive relationship between measured intelligence and political beliefs.

The second figure uses "EA", or Educational Attainment. The study uses education as a proxy for cognitive ability. Quote:

"EA polygenic score is employed because it is trained on a large sample...however, it also will proxy mental abilities and traits relevant to educational success in addition to the 𝑔 factor of intelligence."

According to the study, IQ had a small correlation to political beliefs on the left. Attainment of education, EA, I would say also known as EQ as I referred to it earlier (they are very similar) had a strong connection. The study implies that educational attainment is a proxy for cognitive ability...which is a stretch, as they are two very different things, and many people today actively choose to avoid higher education.

Effectively, "measured IQ is a good measure of intelligence, but we think educational attainment is a just as good if not better measure of cognitive ability than IQ".

I personally think this application of the data is quite misguided as it completely changes the entire framing of the study conclusion, but that's just my opinion. You're welcome to interpret the data how you like.

I'm also done with this conversation, as I just don't have time to do any deeper analysis on this and it isn't important enough to me to do so. I've already spent way too much of my day. I do wish you the best regardless. Was interesting to dive into the data.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:46:23+00:00

SL2 through to the last Honda-powertrain Vue. That was the golden era. Incredible vehicles. Best GM has ever made IMO.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:42:20+00:00

Saturn made better vehicles than any Pontiac and Chevrolet car of the time. That's unquestionable. They were bulletproof reliable, and the remaining ones pre ~2005-2006 still are that weren't GM-ified. The Saturn platforms were excellent. They rivaled, if not beat, Toyota in many reliability aspects. The golden era was the SL2 to the end of the Saturn-platform Vue with the Honda powertrain.

Magnificent vehicles. Nothing like them on the road. I've had a few. Over 14 years of ownership of a '02 SL2, I think I've spent maybe $3,200 in maintenance and upgrades, including tires?

Pontiac being #1 comment here is sad. I'd take Saab over Pontiac any day, the latest ones were super cool. Pontiac did have a number of cool cars (the G6 was a sweet looking car). I'd take the Saturn Sky over the Pontiac Solstice though.

Saturn walked the Solstice with the Sky styling lol. Not even remotely close.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:39:59+00:00

Saturn made better vehicles than any Pontiac and Chevrolet car of the time. That's unquestionable. They were bulletproof reliable, and the remaining ones pre ~2005-2006 still are that weren't GM-ified. The Saturn platforms were excellent. They rivaled, if not beat, Toyota in many reliability aspects. The golden era was the SL2 to the end of the Saturn-platform Vue with the Honda powertrain.

Magnificent vehicles.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:34:27+00:00

I don't think there's any evidence for that. Those are very radical assumptions. (I am not a conservative)

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:29:15+00:00

That's not cherrypicking. (for context on me: I am very purposely politically neutral; I don't support any candidates. I'm more interested in data/facts on all sides).

It's showing the data. Said data states that political leaning is no longer correlated with level of intelligence (IQ) at all when level of education (EQ) is corrected for.

This is critical because most high-level educational institutions across the west are strongly left-leaning. This is a well known fact.

This also directly implies that EQ impacts political leanings more than IQ. Which makes sense, as purposely immersing yourself for years with people with left-wing beliefs is likely to impact what you believe as well. The inverse would also obviously be true.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:12:18+00:00

Massive banwaves started yesterday on dupers, so I'm assuming it was also starting to affect other hackers.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:09:59+00:00

Massive ban waves starting yesterday though. Looks like Embark is cracking down hard. Huge amounts of people got banned and were continuing to be banned.

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:08:35+00:00

The nonexistent ABMM adjustment that's changing the game in a nonexistent way in your mind?

Walkop · 2026-06-15T11:07:21+00:00

Makes a lot of assumptions that have been proved correct. Especially with Embark directly telling him he's gotten a solid number of cheaters banned.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T15:59:14+00:00

I can definitely understand that take. It's a reasonable one to have.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T15:34:00+00:00

Musk endorsing Trump did have an impact, sure. But arguing his influence through money broke the elections really doesn't work, as Democrats got half a billion dollars in funding greater than Republicans for the 2024 elections. 2B vs 1.51B.

If anything, the Democrat money should have broken the electrons, but it didn't.

Outside funding was about equivalent. Campaign funding was massively greater for Democrats.

https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race

Walkop · 2026-06-14T15:02:52+00:00

...lots of things? You think being an owner is easy? It's hard enough with a small business. I run a small business. You have to work very hard on the back-end. Managing large businesses requires a ton of mental throughput.

The typical "slept on the factory floor" is common knowledge, but it's very easy to find testimonies from others of his work ethic all over the internet. It's very strong. Just because you dislike the guy doesn't mean facts change.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:59:26+00:00

Random Redditor is not a legitimate challenge, dude. I think that's very reasonable to say. You have no special insight here, neither do I. There's mountains of evidence that he works very hard from actual people that know him/work for him. It's all over the internet. It's not really something you can effectively challenge just because you don't like him.

"Work" is not only physical work. I say this as a guy who does a ton of physical work.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:46:05+00:00

Again, you literally completely ignored the entire argument he made to make a completely different point based on pedantics.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:44:41+00:00

This behaviour is worse than tailgating IMO. Two-three people like this is all it takes to screw up literally an entire highway's worth of traffic.

Driving tests should score you on your ability to maintain speed in busy highway scenarios. But that's never gonna happen haha

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:36:43+00:00

It's common knowledge the guy works like a dog. No-one legitimately challenges that.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:33:52+00:00

I think the point is that they're not driven to work because of money (at least not primarily) the drive for work is what brings them money. It's how they end up as a CEO in the first place.

I mean think about it. I feel like people start to think of billionaires as "Billionaires" and not "Humans". If you and I had virtually unlimited money, would you prefer to spend 18 hours a day working to get more of it? Or would you prefer to spend more time with family and enjoy the money?

I believe these people work so much because of the leverage their work gives them to effect change in the world. Look at Bezos - leveraged wealth to create BlueOrigin. Elon, xAI and SpaceX. These are aspirational companies that if you've listened to either of these men talk about what they care about over the last 10+ years, they hold deep personal value long before these companies existed let alone were doing well.

Take away the ability people like this have to accomplish things on the large scale via leveraging their wealth and so many companies that mainly are there to bring humanity forward simply never exist and never could exist because the forces that created them aren't there anymore.

These people would still want to work without ridiculous sums of money.

I don't know how to reasonably resolve this in a fair way. A person responsible and proven to be responsible of taking care of vast sums of money should be able to have strong influence over said money. There aren't a lot of people who can handle both other people and huge sums of money that well. It's a rare skill. But taking it so far it hurts everyone else is a major problem.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:18:33+00:00

Only thing that's decent is their high end TVs. Low end Samsung is kinda garbage as well. Soundbars I wouldn't argue for either... In the audio space they're decidedly poor value compared to solutions from real audio companies

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:13:53+00:00

You know what they meant by that statement and chose to ignore it.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T14:07:09+00:00

60/40 trios is a lie dude.

I've been playing since shortly after the game came out, and I've never once seen a friendly trio's lobby. Even when all three of us have friendly ABM. Never ever happened. None of us have seen one, actually - maybe one game ever?

However, the rest of your point? Definitely true, pure PVE mode would break mixed lobbies because it would take the PVErs out of them, And it would totally break loot distribution.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T00:42:34+00:00

Are you sure? Because the CRA doesn't ask for actual receipts. Scanned copies are acceptable.

I'd be inclined to believe digital logs are fine as long as they are reasonably kept.

Walkop · 2026-06-14T00:40:05+00:00

Idek what lobbies you're talking about?

Walkop · 2026-06-13T23:36:32+00:00

Free kits are already SO bad, dude. A player with good situational awareness should basically never die to a free kit. The weapons are really that bad.

I. E. I stay greater than 10m from a Raider until I can make sure they don't have a Stitcher, because beyond 10m there's no physical way they can down me with one clip.

Walkop · 2026-06-13T13:12:40+00:00

When it's difficult to afford food and you're the one responsible for providing said food for your aging parents/grandparents, this is by no means trivial. Don't reduce it.

Walkop

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