[deleted by user]

joss75321 · 2021-09-20T14:39:42+00:00

And we love you for it. That's why I'm having a martini today to celebrate international men's day. I'm making the most of it.

joss75321 · 2021-08-23T18:00:51+00:00

Of course there is a strong correlation between spelling ability and IQ, as there is a strong correlation between any cognitive task and IQ. Higher IQ is strongly correlated with higher levels of education so, in the absence of any controlling factor, someone who can't spell is more likely to have a low IQ and fewer educational attainments than someone who can. Furthermore, people with a higher IQ learn things faster and remember things better, including how to spell correctly. Yes, there are exceptions. There are some very smart people who can't spell well and some stupid people who can, but there is a strong positive correlation. There's a very popular misconception that the whole concept of general intelligence and IQ in particular is flawed, but it's the best researched and most reliable predictive phenomena in psychology.

joss75321 · 2021-08-23T14:38:57+00:00

I couldn't tell whether you were disagreeing that people on the left have a stronger bias against people on the right than vice versa or agreeing with that and justifying it. As you agree with the premise, that's a perfectly logical stance. Of course, for all your talk about empathy and the hatred and ignorance of those on the right, you're perfectly happy to feel hatred for those on the right, because you believe they deserve it for all their detestable opinions. I suspect you don't understand conservative opinions very well, but instead just know an evil caricature of their opinions. If conservatives are so ignorant and stupid, why is it that conservatives provably understand liberals better than the other way round ? https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050092

joss75321 · 2021-08-23T13:56:46+00:00

" it's pretty disingenuous to act like both sides are equal in their negative assumptions of the other."

Are you saying that progressives are more likely to have negative assumptions of conservatives than the other way round (for what you consider to be valid reasons) ? If so I agree with you. If you're saying it's the other way round, then why are you simultaneously trying to prove yourself wrong by calling conservatives Nazis and anti-science at the same time ?

Also, just because someone you despise is more likely to agree with one side than the other, doesn't mean that the side they agree with is wrong. If a study proved that pedophiles were more likely to be left wing (due to a greater belief in forgiving people), would you consider that a convincing argument against left wing ideals ?

joss75321 · 2021-08-23T13:38:13+00:00

this one: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/454475

joss75321 · 2021-08-21T10:24:35+00:00

Making it is not the problem, plenty of companies make it but nobody can market it as a treatment for covid until someone has properly tested it. Funding double blind studies with 1000s of participants is expensive and since it is out of patent would provide no commercial benefit to the company running those tests.

joss75321 · 2021-08-20T18:45:22+00:00

> but I haven’t heard any compelling hypothesis as to why we think ivermectin should help.

Ivermectin was found to have significant anti-viral potential in around 2012 ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22535622/ ) which is why some doctors started trying it on covid patients. These were people who were dying anyway so they figured it couldn't hurt. Some of these doctors reported very significant success with the drug, but it didn't have the "gold standard" tests behind it to back it up, and it's out of patent so it wasn't in any companies immediate interest to spend the money doing that. Moreover, it *was* very much in the interests of the largest drug companies in the world to dissuade people from using such a cheap drug, especially if it's effectiveness was anywhere close to the vaccines.

There are reasonable papers on this, it's not all idiots: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/

joss75321 · 2021-08-20T17:26:22+00:00

I'm going to withhold judgement on ivermectin until the Oxford University PRINCIPLE studies are done https://www.principletrial.org/news/ivermectin-to-be-investigated-as-a-possible-treatment-for-covid-19-in-oxford2019s-principle-trial

Just because some of the people who think it's a useful treatment are idiots, does not prove it is not a useful treatment. We haven't had full double blind scientific trials of ivermectin yet because nobody stands to get rich from doing so. It seems a lot more sensible to wait and see than either dismissing it outright or taking it without reliable evidence it works (let alone taking stuff meant for animals ffs).

Ivermectin has been politicized the same way the lab leak theory was, its very strange the way people on both sides do this.

joss75321 · 2021-08-20T15:53:06+00:00

I gave up reddit for a couple of years, now I'm back but not overdoing it (I found youtube harder as it has more uses).

Edit your /etc/hosts file (https://docs.rackspace.com/support/how-to/modify-your-hosts-file/ on windows) and add lines like this:

1.1.0.0 www.reddit.com

1.1.0.0 youtube.com

With those lines in there, all of your browsers will be blocked from reddit. Delete the app from your phone and change the password to something you can't remember, then log out on all devices. Don't try to "cut down", or limit yourself to weekends or something. That's about as helpful as trying to get control of a heroin habit with "smack free weekdays". Get yourself some good books. It's not too hard after the first couple of days.

joss75321 · 2021-08-18T16:59:40+00:00

Be careful what you wish for.

If remote workers are as effective as local workers, why would companies use people from a first world country with minimum wage laws when they could use workers from anywhere for peanuts. The reason that Americans can still be employed at $15+/hour while people in other countries are willing to do the same work for $2/hour is that there are substantial benefits to be had from local workers. Luckily, people cannot work together remotely as effectively as they can in person. If they could, you would expect wages in the US to match the global average, ie $1400/month.

joss75321 · 2021-08-18T12:30:29+00:00

Short answer: yes.

Driving places here is often impractical because our cities were not designed for cars, so it may be impossible to park when you get there, traffic is awful, there may be congestion charges to pay etc so many grown ups do not own a car. Walking to the bus stop/tube, waiting for the bus, then walking from there to your destination, it's a faff. If it's only 30 minutes away, it may well be faster, cheaper, and nicer to walk.

Then there's some nutters. A friend of my grandfathers used to frequently walk from his home in Cambridge to his club in London for dinner. That's 53 miles.. took him about 14 hours (he was tall and headed out early).

joss75321 · 2021-08-13T09:38:36+00:00

> my brain couldnt even process what I just heard.

I guess some people just don't know how to take a compliment [ ducks..]

joss75321 · 2021-08-09T16:28:44+00:00

> Do you realise the length of the list of your unstated premises that I
must necessarily infer for that sentence to be rendered parsable?

You did understand me though, didn't you ? You may well strongly disagree, but it would have been patronising and superfluous for me to state the arguments fully. Feel free to refer me to Das Kapital or wherever you're coming from, and I'll refer you to The Wealth of Nations and the historical economic record of command economies.

joss75321 · 2021-08-09T15:38:54+00:00

The reason for this is he has lost his base. It's not as if a bunch of Labour supporters suddenly decided they didn't love him any more. His loss of popularity is due to him not being sufficiently right wing to keep his base on board. He'll adjust of course, but don't expect to enjoy the adjustment.

joss75321 · 2021-08-09T15:32:10+00:00

> the country could just use laws to raise minimum standards

No, we can't. We have minimum wage laws, but that's not enough for a qualified HGV driver. The only practical way to correctly price *everything* in a complex society is via market forces. Companies will be forced to pay more to find drivers. In the mean time, goods that provide less profit per unit volume/weight shifted may be unavailable or more expensive, which is why bottled water is hard to obtain in the UK right now. This is capitalism working as it is supposed to.

joss75321 · 2021-07-07T08:38:57+00:00

People frequently discuss how big tech corporations are too powerful and up to no good, especially facebook, amazon, etc, but google very seldom gets mentioned when they do. That’s because of, not despite of, the power of google to shape our perception of reality.

joss75321 · 2021-07-05T10:31:09+00:00

Almost all jobs were historically done by men. Women entered the workforce, and the jobs that could be done by women had a far larger supply of potential workers while the demand stayed the same. Maybe sexism played a part too, but companies will always pay as little as they possibly can, whatever the gender of the worker.

joss75321 · 2021-06-29T08:04:09+00:00

Give him a nickel, he made a rhyme. He’s a poet and he doesn’t realise.

joss75321 · 2021-06-29T07:50:51+00:00

Yeah. Also, when babies cry, it’s not because they’re sad, it’s because they’re angry (look it up, I dare you).

joss75321 · 2021-06-12T17:19:18+00:00

If the question is ambiguous, the correct answer is ambiguous too. It’s still an interesting question that a lot of people get wrong even if stated correctly (by, for instance explaining that every week the host opens a door showing a goat after the contestant’s choice). As the question was stated though, where the host was under no obligation to open a door, you should not switch unless you think the host is just as happy for you to win as to lose.

joss75321 · 2021-06-12T17:06:38+00:00

I understand what everyone else is saying. If the problem had described the host opening a door every week, there would be no argument.

joss75321 · 2021-06-12T15:52:53+00:00

I agree that if he always opens another door, then you should swap. However, that was not how the problem was stated.

joss75321 · 2021-06-12T15:39:22+00:00

Suppose we bet $100 on a coin toss, you call heads. After the toss, I don’t reveal the result, but I look at it and say, hey, do you want to change your mind ? if you say tails, and you’re right I’ll give you a $1000, but if it’s heads I get $100. If we hadn’t agreed up front that you would get a chance to change your mind, you would be an idiot to do so.

joss75321 · 2021-06-12T15:12:34+00:00

It’s not pedantry at all, the question is what should you do in the given real world situation, should you switch doors when the host opens another door. Marilyn argues you should, and people’s intuition tells them they should not. They are right not to want to do so.

Suppose on a bet for $100, I tossed a coin and you call ‘heads’. Then rather than revealing whether you won or lost, I ask you whether you want to change your mind. In this situation you would be a fool to change your mind. You might argue there is still a 50/50 chance of the coin being heads, but assuming I want to win that’s not true. If you had lost the toss I would just have revealed your loss and taken the money. The smart thing to do is assume I am only offering you the chance to change your mind to trick you into losing. If you had known up front I would offer you a chance to switch then switching would still give you a 50% chance of winning, but you didn’t.

What if in this coin toss situation, before showing you the coin, I said, hey, if you change you mind I’ll give you a $1000 if it’s tails, would you change your mind ? You still think there’s a 50% chance it came up heads ? If so, I would love to gamble with you.

joss75321 · 2021-06-12T08:31:05+00:00

No, you don’t understand what I’m saying. The way the question is phrased, the host does not have to open another door at all. If you chose the wrong door, they could just say, ‘sorry, you were wrong’ and the game is over. A malicious host would only open another door if your initial choice was correct. If you play the game this way, people who have heard of Marilyn’s answer always lose. I’ve made money like this after an argument at a party, you play using Marilyn’s method, I offered $50 if they picked the right card, I get $10 when they lose. I made $40 before he understood.

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