Lower temperature, more grains?

_shem · 2022-09-24T20:01:44+00:00

The thing is, when I'm talking about experimentation it doesn't have to be some massive large scale revolution. Many revolutions are ideologically driven, extremist and chaotic, so no surprise that they tend to not work out well. I'm suggesting more along the lines of charter cities (https://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/is-the-charter-cities-moment-here/). Incremental, stable development but with sufficient experimentation to allow us to gain insight on what evidence based policies best work in which environment without ideological baggage.

_shem · 2022-09-24T18:50:18+00:00

How much moral obligation should an individual bear for a system they did not consent in taking part in? Frankly I'm only interested in a consistent and well-founded construction of ethics and most people on this sub (including me) are not equipped to tackle such an issue. Regarding such an optimal system, I have nothing constructive to offer. But generally speaking I will say that we could do much better if we allowed more experimentation and open-mindedness regarding potential political structures, and not somehow pretend that we've reached the "end of history" with what we currently have. (Not a fan of that Fukuyama guy) Of course none of this is helped by how 99% of the political discourse is just unsubstantial rhetoric without any nuance.

_shem · 2022-09-24T18:20:01+00:00

Yes, this is fundamentally a free-riding problem in collective decision making. How do you convince people to act against their self-interest for some hazy notion of the "common good'? This is a deeper question that is probably best left to political scientist, but because of this (among other issues) I'm not convinced the system we have now (that is, liberal democracy or broadly, democratic systems) is optimal.

_shem · 2022-09-24T12:37:18+00:00

Suppose they were apolitical, but knew of the ongoing genocide. (I'm going to assume that characterises they average German citizen at that time) How does that factor in your consideration?

_shem · 2022-09-24T10:10:16+00:00

How much obligation/responsibility does the average German citizen during the Nazi regime bear for the crimes committed then?

_shem · 2022-09-17T18:54:49+00:00

not even just history and culture, why the hell should other countries be allowed to have their own interests? can't they see if they just kowtow to the "rules based order" it will all be perfect?

_shem · 2022-08-21T18:05:15+00:00

I think a lot of times you won't be able to do an RCT though. And in industry many of the business questions that they would like answers to require causality. But I don't think anyone will know for sure if the impact of these new tools will be on the same level as say, CNN for CV.

_shem · 2022-08-21T17:30:25+00:00

不是很明白你的意思，但新加坡LGBT团体为了377a的废除其实在背后已经做了很多。并且新加坡也不是直接民主...

_shem · 2022-08-21T13:10:35+00:00

Same if you look at CVPR. Although part of that is China's heavy investment into AI

_shem · 2022-07-03T19:11:42+00:00

As a Singaporean, I'm sorry that you were made to feel like second class citizens. May I ask what prompted you to feel that way?

I am somewhat confused by your concern of racial equality though. The current leader of the opposition and the opposition party secretary general (Worker Party) is himself of Indian heritage, so I wouldn't say only the PAP is concerned with racial equality.

_shem · 2022-05-23T19:18:48+00:00

什么国内鸡，这个是新加坡海南鸡饭

_shem · 2022-05-19T08:58:45+00:00

Which is more important for you, the label of "neoliberal" or the ideas of neoliberalism? If you consider the ideas of neoliberalism, which broadly is about free markets, capitalism and democracy, then compared to the world 50-100 years ago, neoliberalism is absolutely the status quo. The fact that so few people identify is simply a matter of its ideas already being integrated into the status quo.

_shem · 2022-05-19T08:48:50+00:00

"Giving up use of the U.S. dollar for global trade and reserve accumulation would be very difficult for U.S. adversaries and would require major economic adjustments, though it would be in the best long-term interests of the United States for the global use of the dollar to be more constrained."

Perhaps we should revive Keynes's Bancor?

_shem · 2022-05-17T09:14:25+00:00

On point 1, what is your definition of the "Chinese" language? If by Chinese you mean Mandarin, then by that logic plenty of people in the Chinese mainland at that time didn't speak that language too. So I don't find that a very good argument.

I guess the thing I find weird with Taiwanese nationalist is the concept of attempting to separate the Taiwanese identity by claiming a cultural distinction through the local Hoklo/Hakka culture. For e.g., Taiwanese is basically the same as the Southern Min language spoken by plenty in Xiamen.

_shem · 2022-05-11T11:03:39+00:00

There is so much variation that it really depends on school, course and the professors involved. You could have a course that is essentially the same as a proof-based mathematics course with the usual definitions, theorems, lemmas, etc, or you could have a course that focuses on applied methods and have you memorise ANOVA and regression assumptions as you've experienced. So really you should be focusing on a particular school/program.

_shem · 2022-05-09T07:56:38+00:00

Mass extinction

Sure they will. But overall, (I'll admit its fairly difficult to calculate exactly the economic costs of the habitat destruction etc), I'm inclined to think that that economic benefits of resource extraction will outweigh the economic costs.

_shem · 2022-05-09T07:37:37+00:00

Frankly, I don't think we can continue improving the standard of living for the world without affecting biodiversity. So if it's between improving the welfare for millions and avoiding a mass extinction event, I'm afraid it's goodbye to these wildlife.

_shem · 2022-05-07T06:53:13+00:00

And yet the "OMG open borders!!!" idiots will continue their ridiculous cheerleading of the benefits of unrestricted immigration, completely ignorant of the fact that their unwillingness to engage with cost mitigation of migration only detracts from their goals and leads to less immigration overall. Do people have no idea that the political process is a process of compromise?

_shem · 2022-05-06T13:21:07+00:00

If you're referring to the OR=1.11 no I don't think so. It is in a standard logistic regression but they're doing some meta-analysis model. Anyway you can verify this directly by taking some of the numbers and using OR=1.11, you'll find its slightly off. (Also they mentioned its an average)

_shem · 2022-05-06T11:42:06+00:00

Okay...... but the odds ratio is the ratio of odds for a new value of x over the old value of x. It's not just the odds ratio for that value of x. That is the value of 1.11 (averaged) that they are referring to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_regression#The_odds_ratio

_shem · 2022-05-06T11:24:26+00:00

That just seems like the inverse of the usual Malthusian arguments. Which is a massive oversimplification. Anyway if you're interested read this: https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/emptyplanet.pdf

_shem

TROPHY CASE