SSC - 2020-06-14 - OPEN THREAD 156 - Comments

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ONLY TEN MORE YEARS TILL THE TURCHIN CYCLE REVERSES! HANG IN THERE, PEOPLE!
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OPEN THREAD 156
PO ST ED ON JU NE 14 , 2020 BY S CO TT AL EX AN DER
This is the biweek-ly visible open thread (there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can
reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the page). Post about anything you want, but
please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit –
and also check out the SSC Podcast. Also:
1. Comment of the week: superkamiokande from the subreddit explains the structural and
computational differences between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas.
2. There’s another SSC virtual meetup next week, guest speaker Robin Hanson. More information
here.
3. As many areas reopen, local groups will have to decide whether or not to restart in-person
meetups. I can’t speak to other countries that may have things more under control, but in the US
context, I am against this. Just because it’s legal to hold medium-sized gatherings now doesn’t
mean it’s a good idea. I would feel really bad if anyone became sick or spread the pandemic
because of my blog. I don’t control local groups, and they can do what they want, but I won’t be
advertising meetups on the blogroll until I feel like they’re safe. Exceptions for East Asia, New
Zealand, and anyone else who can convince me that their country is in the clear.
4. Some people have noticed that my toxoplasma post seems disconfirmed by recent protests,
which reached national scale even though the incident was very clear-cut and uncontroversial. I
agree this is some negative evidence. The toxoplasma model was meant to be a tendency, not a
100% claim about things always work. Certainly it is still mysterious in general why some
outrageous incidents spark protests and other near-identical ones don’t. I think it’s relevant that
everyone is in a bad place right now because of coronavirus (remember, just two months ago
Marginal Revolution posted When Will The Riots Begin?), and that 2020 is the peak of Turchin’s
fifty-year cycle of conflict.
5. Speaking of protests, the open threads have been getting pretty intense lately. I realize some
awful stuff has been going on, and emotions are really high, but I want everyone to take a deep
breath and try to calm down a little bit before saying anything you’ll regret later. I will be enforcing
the usually-poorly-enforced ban on culture war topics in this thread with unrecorded deletions. I
may or may not suspend the next one or two hidden threads to give everyone a chance to calm
down. I hope everybody is staying safe and sane during these difficult times.
6. If you haven’t already taken last week’s nootropics survey, and you are an experienced user of
nootropics, you can take it now.
THIS ENTRY WAS POSTED IN UNCATEGORIZED AND TAGGED OPEN. BOOKMARK THE PERMALINK OR LINK WITHOUT
COMMENTS.
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1,210 RESPONSES TO OPEN THREAD 156
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1. Spwack says:
June 18, 2020 at 9:10 pm ~new~
Hi there! Are you finding yourself with a lot of free time and limited ways to spend it? Looking for a
somewhat-cerebral distraction from, you know, *gestures at the whole world vaguely*? Ever
wanted to try role-playing games, but never had the time/opportunity? Well, why not try the
Endless Dungeon
I’m looking for more players to bolster the ranks of an on-going play-by-post dungeon-exploration
game. It’s designed to be accessible for new players with little/no experience, without any hand-
holding or limitations to tactics or creativity. The commitment required is minimal, a single post per
day is plenty, and you’re welcome to give it a brief poke and abandon it as you like.
Log in to Reply Hide
2. Galle says:
June 18, 2020 at 5:44 pm ~new~
4. Some people have noticed that my toxoplasma post seems disconfirmed by recent protests, which
reached national scale even though the incident was very clear-cut and uncontroversial. I agree this
is some negative evidence. The toxoplasma model was meant to be a tendency, not a 100% claim
about things always work. Certainly it is still mysterious in general why some outrageous incidents
spark protests and other near-identical ones don’t. I think it’s relevant that everyone is in a bad place
right now because of coronavirus (remember, just two months ago Marginal Revolution posted
When Will The Riots Begin?), and that 2020 is the peak of Turchin’s fifty-year cycle of conflict.
My guess would be that the killing of George Floyd reached a national scale by piggy-backing on
the riots. Before the riots, it was something people might be vaguely aware of but wasn’t a national
conversation. But “city riots over unjust killing of citizen by police” is exactly the sort of
controversial issue that the toxoplasma model works with, with strong arguments in favor of both
sides. So the left and right both took strong positions on the riots (“justice for George Floyd”
versus “law and order”) and shouted at each other over them enough to make it a national issue,
and then people mostly stopped rioting but George Floyd didn’t stop being dead, so the clear-cut,
uncontroversial issue managed to become part of the national conversation.

3. noyann says:
June 17, 2020 at 1:19 am ~new~
Apropos’ed by DavidFriedman mentioning his Embedded Economics, here is a list of SciFi works
with remarks on their economics.

o Ventrue Capital says:
June 17, 2020 at 11:59 am ~new~
First, thank you extremely much for the list!
It’s awesome.
Second, I notice that most of the books are science fiction as opposed to fantasy, and anti-market
rather than pro-market.
I wish that both of those were the opposite.
FWIW I run an anarcho-capitalist D&D game online; and I intend to use the phrase “Capitalist
Sorcery” a lot, starting immediately.

Log in to Reply Hide ↑
 noyann says:
June 17, 2020 at 3:25 pm ~new~
You are welcome!
The makers of that page have some discussions, maybe you can ask there.
 Lambert says:
June 18, 2020 at 3:34 am ~new~
Reflected sound of underground spirits?

 DavidFriedman says:
June 18, 2020 at 1:32 pm ~new~
That book persuaded me that Pratchett was not worth reading.
Fortunately my son eventually persuaded me to try one of the Guards books.

4. Le Maistre Chat says:

June 16, 2020 at 11:57 am ~new~
The Sumerian King List survived to the present on baked cuneiform tablets. It often gives a terse
clarification of who a king was by stating “the [occupation]” or “the son of [predecessor]”. So when
it gets to the hegemony being in Kish for the third time (modern historians estimate the 2400s
BC), we get:
“Kug-Bau, the woman tavern-keeper, who made firm the foundations of Kish.”
So my question is, what’s the minimum population at which, even without specific evidence, we
can assume an ancient town had an inn where travelers could get liquid bread and lodging on the
free market rather than having to negotiate personal hospitality?
(Cf. the dynamic between the two strangers, Lot and the town square in Genesis 19:1-3)
o Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:07 pm ~new~
On an important enough trade route, I suspect you don’t need any more town than it takes to
support the inn.
(Source: am near 3 trade routes of varying levels of ancientness. Lots of pubs.)

 Le Maistre Chat says:

June 16, 2020 at 12:41 pm ~new~
Yeah, I didn’t want to complicate things by mentioning rural inns. I’ve read definitions of the
English word where it has rural connotations. If a petty merchant traveled by ox cart, they’d need
lodging every 12 miles.
Caravanserai is a Persian word and given what else we know about their economy, I wouldn’t be
surprised if they were well-established by the time of Cyrus or at least Darius.

o FLWAB says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:13 pm ~new~

“Kug-Bau, the woman tavern-keeper, who made firm the foundations of Kish.”
To be clear: was the King a woman who kept a tavern, or was the King a man who kept a tavern
for women? If the former, how many female kings are on that list? I wouldn’t have expected any.
 10240 says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:38 pm ~new~
According to the linked Wikipedia page, she was a woman, and she was the only queen on the list.
I’d ask: How small does a place have to be for a tavern keeper to become queen?
 bullseye says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:10 pm ~new~
A tavern keeper becoming a monarch strikes me as even stranger than a woman. Maybe tavern
keepers had higher status than we’d expect?


June 16, 2020 at 3:02 pm ~new~
Hard to say, because she was such an outlier that she was eventually worshiped as a goddess in
the Hittite Empire.
The relevant Sumerian nouns are not masculine, but specialists generally think she’s the only
woman on the King List. However, there’s the intriguing case of Enmebaragesi, whose son Aga of
Kish was defeated by Uruk. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, G. offers the forest monster Humbaba “my
sister, Enmebaragesi.” Not sure if literal or sexist joke.

Hide ↑
 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:06 pm ~new~
Tavern keepers often brewed too and brewers were wealthy and important in ancient societies. In
a society that primarily produces grain, people who manufacture products from that grain have a
lot of economic sway. And beer has the added advantage of being beer and also lasting a lot longer
than bread does.

Hide ↑
June 17, 2020 at 9:51 am ~new~
Maybe tavern keepers had higher status than we’d expect?
In ancient Ireland, a hospitaler, someone who offered hospitality to all comers, was high status — I
expect Deiseach could give more details.

Hide ↑

June 17, 2020 at 4:20 pm ~new~
@DavidFriedman: Yes, I need more details than “high status.” Was every Hospitaler knighted?
Hide ↑
June 17, 2020 at 10:19 pm ~new~
@Chat:
I don’t think knighthood existed in ancient Ireland.
A hospitaler had nemed status, roughly speaking “noble,” and I think that was the only way of
getting to that status in one generation.

Hide ↑
 noyann says:
June 18, 2020 at 1:47 am ~new~
@Le Maistre Chat
You may have had the Knights Hospitaller in mind.

Hide ↑
5. thepenforests says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:28 am ~new~
Just got laid off, looking for job advice.
Background: I have a PhD in physics with a focus on computational work (ie simulations). Since
then I have two years of experience working as a software engineer, mostly with Java, but some
C# and a tiny bit of Javascript as well. I’ve also picked up some of the usual ancillary skills: git,
jenkins, jira, etc.
To be honest though, I’m really looking for a job in anything but software development at this
point. I don’t really like the work, and I’m not that good at it either. I feel like my actual
comparative advantage lies more on the softer side of the skill spectrum: things like taking in large
quantities of information, synthesizing it, writing up summaries for audiences of varying levels of
technical sophistication, giving presentations to audiences of varying levels of technical
sophistication – or heck, even just explaining things to coworkers. I’m *really* good at those
things, and even on my best day I’m just a mediocre programmer.
That being said, it’s not like I’m opposed to technical work, or even all work that involves
programming. If it’s a job where I’m asked to *use* code in the course of doing my work, then
awesome, sign me up. But a job where my actual goal is to *produce* code, as a product that the
company will sell? No, not my thing.
In general I feel like I have a pretty valuable skillset, and I don’t really doubt that I could provide a
lot of value to a lot of companies. But I also don’t really know where to start looking. My pitch is
basically “well-rounded generically smart person with solid soft and technical skills”, and I don’t
know what you do with that. I’ve heard “data scientist” from some of my friends, but I don’t know,
that just seems like consigning myself to a life of using SQL to extract minute trends out of vast,
inscrutable datasets. Which, ugh. But maybe I have the wrong impression of data science – or
maybe working with vast, inscrutable datasets is more enjoyable than it sounds.
Anyway, all advice is appreciated, including straight-up job recommendations, outside-the-box
advice, or advice that basically says “you’re looking at all of this in entirely the wrong way you
idiot”.
(Oh, or just generic advice: stuff like how to write good resumes or LinkedIn profiles, what to
do/not do at interviews, how to negotiate a salary, etc)

o SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:34 am ~new~
Have you considered becoming an actuary? That is one of the many professions that could fit your
interests.
What kind of work/life balance and location are you looking for? I really dislike McKinsey, but you
sound like the kind of person they hire–and their alumni tend to do very well.
 thepenforests says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:03 pm ~new~
Right, good questions. I live in a small-ish Canadian city, which I know is going to heavily limit my
options. I’d prefer not to move if at all possible, but I won’t entirely rule it out (I’ll be staying in
Canada no matter what though, so in practice moving would likely entail either Toronto or
Vancouver).
Work/life balance: pretty damn important to me. Like anything, it’s negotiable to some degree, but
only to a point. Again, I know this might limit my options.

Yeah, I don’t really like McKinsey either. Probably not the way I want to go. But becoming an
actuary is an interesting idea, and one that I hadn’t considered before. That’s at least going on the
list – thanks.
 SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:12 pm ~new~
I am an actuary – but Canada is a very different market than the US for actuaries. I’m happy to
answer questions–this name at gmail.
I’d also say don’t overlook the trades: if you prefer smaller cities and staying in one place,
electricians and plumbers can make a good living–and being able to explain things clearly to
people, figure things out quickly, etc are valuable skills there too. (My brother is an electrician.)
o thisheavenlyconjugation says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:06 pm ~new~

Have you considered quant finance? I think it’s one obvious option based on physics PhD, with
having some ability to program being weak further evidence in its favour. Something else that
would probably fit your pitch is product management.

o anonymousskimmer says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:19 pm ~new~
Free-lance science journalism (Quanta, Nautilus, Science News, Science Daily, Wired, etc…)?
If your background was in the biological sciences I know of a person who works from home on
medical write-ups for https://primeglobalpeople.com/ , I don’t know if there are similar agencies
for people with a physics background.

o Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:37 pm ~new~
What do you want to do? There’s a distinct lack of a goal or objective in this post. As the saying
goes, if you don’t know where you’re going then every wind is bad.
o Statismagician says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:52 pm ~new~
Analytics management? Large companies have more data than they know what to do with, and
somehow the same technically clueless MBA-types get put in charge of managing the analysts who
do the actual coding with predictably silly results. Someone who knows enough programming to
talk to programmers and enough business to talk to internal/external clients can be very effective.
Data science is what you make of it – there are people doing Excel manipulation on the output
from a select *, and there are people writing ten thousand line nested-macro programs in R.
YMMV, though; I do like working with vast, inscrutable datasets but you really have to like figuring
out puzzles that could have been avoided in the first place with even ten seconds of critical thinking
in the system design phase.

o a real dog says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:06 pm ~new~
FWIW the data scientists I’ve known are more about R and machine learning than SQL.
Get a cozy position in some megacorp’s R&D department and hack away. I’ve never met a data
scientist who was good at programming, so aversion to that should not be an issue.
o AKL says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:55 pm ~new~

I know a few (mostly life sciences) PhDs who ended up as patent attorneys. My understanding is
that it’s a surprisingly interesting field to work in.

 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:20 pm ~new~
Some fields that are regarded as being hard:
Engineering, Law
But if you can manage it, I suppose there’s not too much competition.
 Belisaurus Rex says:

June 17, 2020 at 5:25 pm ~new~
Life sciences are highest demand, but physics is a second best because it is assumed that you’re
competent at everything else.

o souleater says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:12 pm ~new~
Hey! I’m a Mechanical Engineer/Data Scientist who uses SQL to extract minute trends
out of vast inscrutable datasets! AMA!
I LOVE data science!
You’re not in a client facing roll, so you’re working with professionals who value your time and
expertise.
Coworkers from the CEO on down come to you with questions about their data, you’re the expert
who is helping them. Its not just sitting in the dark at a computer, you need to understand your
coworker’s needs and be able to communicate well.
Being the Data Guy means that you have deep, intimate knowledge of your data. You are your
company’s expert, and, while I always had a boss, they can’t really micromanage me because what
I do is as much art as it is science. It requires spending a lot of time working with your data and
understanding it.
My job typically involves people coming to me with questions or problems they have, and its my
job to understand their technical background, figure out how to leverage my data to solve their
problem, or how we can get the data to solve their problem. Build a solution, Then I’ll use Power
Point, Excel, or MATLAB and present or deliver the results to them.
When you’re doing data work, you become really attached to your data set. You know its strengths
and weaknesses, you care about making sure good data is coming in, and you’re building your own
tools to extract the data in a clear and concise way. I think of my data the way someone else might
think of a potted plant, or sourdough starter… It takes on a character of its own.
Also, Data Science is a weird field in that you need technical skills, but having a background in
something other than CS is a real plus. For example, if I had a chemistry dataset, I would want to
hire a chemistry specialist with data experience over a CS major because understanding what the
data means is more important to the job than just technical skills.
o yodelyak says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:12 pm ~new~
I am currently unemployed, have found that doing food delivery for an hour a day helps get me out
of the house and feeling useful. Not sure if getting mopey/low-energy/straight-up depressed is an
issue for you, but I’d recommend being very proactive about keeping adventure in your near-term
future to ensure your overall health stays good. Unemployment can be a real drag otherwise.
o SolipsisticUtilitarian says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:32 pm ~new~
IT-Consulting is a field which is the perfect fit for people with both technical and social skills, but
who do not want get their hands too dirty with the actual work of implementing stuff (I am being a
bit cheeky here, but fundamentally it’s true).
Not every consultancy requires crazy work hours, at least in Europe 40 hours per week are
common, but travel is still required.
Regarding data science, your apprehension is not unfounded. The common saying is that 80% of
the work lies in data acquiring and preparation, which is fairly boring on a day to day basis.
6. proyas says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:09 am ~new~
In time travel fiction, often the plot revolves around killing Hitler, since it would save the lives of so
many people. However, this overlooks the fact that it would also butterfly away the births of many
different people. For example, if WWII never happens, then there is no Baby Boom. The 1950
world population might actually be LOWER than it was in OTL. So even something as purely good
as killing Hitler is a tradeoff.
If you wanted to maximize the utility of the human race, wouldn’t the smartest strategy be to use
your time machine to go back to 64 million BC, and to set up a human colony on Earth, complete
with all the knowledge and technology of the future? Knowing about the World Wars and other
catastrophes would make the colonists less likely to repeat those mistakes, and if they had medical
technology from the start, an inestimable amount of suffering and death will be prevented.
Returning to utility maximization, it might be the better choice to preemptively stop the 100 billion
humans who have ever lived from coming into existence and mostly led lives of suffering, and to
instead bring about an alternate reality where humans suffer little and don’t have holocausts or
world wars. By the time the alternate timeline returns to 2020 AD, well over 100 billion humans
will have lived and died, and in much greater comfort than those that have in OTL.
o cassander says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:14 am ~new~

Knowing about the World Wars and other catastrophes would make the colonists less likely to repeat
those mistakes
Have you met people? Since when do we learn from history?
 Matt M says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:20 am ~new~
Heh. Letting Germany know in advance how close they actually come to winning a war against the
entire world might not be for the best!

 baconbits9 says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:48 am ~new~
Overly enthusiastic time traveler: Hey, you are going to lose this war, don’t start it.
Hitler: Ze Blitz does not work? How could it fail?
OETT: Oh the blitz is wildly successful, it over runs almost all of Western Europe! But England holds
out until the US enters the war and eventually they land at Normandy and push to Berlin.
Hitler taking out notebook: So they land at Normandy huh?
OETT: Yeah, pretty big deal, lots of effort went into concealing that from you. You know it probably
wouldn’t even have happened if not for Dunkirk anyway.
Hitler: Dunkirk?
OETT: Oh yeah, after you smash through Beligium over 300,000 troops are trapped near Dunkirk
and it takes a massive operation by the British to save them. Without those troops a lot of
historians think Britain has to capitulate.
Hitler: So Britain holds out on her own?
OETT: Oh of course not, its your war with Russia that costs the most in lives and equipment.
Hitler: I see, I see, and what mistakes do historians say I make there?

June 17, 2020 at 5:28 pm ~new~
Not that Hitler was ever willing to take constructive criticism…

Hide ↑
 anonymousskimmer says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:58 pm ~new~
I found this hilarious.

Hide ↑
o matkoniecz says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:21 am ~new~

So even something as purely good as killing Hitler is a tradeoff.
Main risk in killing Hitler is risk of Nazism still appearing, but with more competent leader, resulting
in III Reich actually lasting for longer time.

 cassander says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:38 am ~new~
If Hitler had died in early 1941, he’d have gone down in history as one of the most skillful leaders
in history.
 Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:06 pm ~new~
Hitler sometimes seems to me like a kind of weird accidental savant. I think a rational leader in his
position and with his values (if they’d somehow got themselves into that spot in the first place)
would probably have made a lot of the same/similar risky, high variance, high upside (upside from
his perspective) decisions, because when you’re in a bad spot you have to play to your outs. But I
don’t get the impression that’s how Hitler thought about it at all. He really thought things were
going to pan out the way he wanted.

 cassander says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:50 pm ~new~
Sometimes I think hitler should get credit for realizing that if he wanted to achieve his goals, a high
risk high reward strategy was the only way out. Other times, I think he was just letting everything
ride on black, unable to really conceive that he could fail if he mustered sufficient will. However
much he was doing the former, he definitely shifted towards the latter as time went on, but in
fairness there, the fall of France would have gone to anyone’s head.
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 12:02 pm ~new~
Main risk in killing Hitler is risk of Nazism still appearing, but with more competent leader,
resulting in III Reich actually lasting for longer time.
The really powerful app would be to replace Nazism per se with a non-Communist militaristic
dictatorship that Jewish German scientists feel comfortable working for (too CW?).
o MisterA says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:22 am ~new~
The interesting thing about this is apart from the raw numbers, as you point out, killing Hitler
changes all the births after that point. So even if it turned out to result in an unquestionably better
universe, you’ve still wiped everyone who was conceived after that moment out of existence, and
replaced them with a whole different population of humans, for all of history following the moment
you changed things.
There’s an interesting (and borderline unplayable) tabletop RPG called Continuum where the
players are time travelers, that really tries to wrestle with the implications of the idea. One of the
things they point out is that even if you could change history without wiping out reality due to a
paradox, it would be the worst crime any being could commit – you’re eliminating every sentient
being in existence from that point in history forward, not just on Earth but in the entire universe,
committing a number of murders so large it needs to be expressed in scientific notation, in hopes
of saving a few million lives lost in a war or to prevent some personal tragedy.
As a result, a lot of what the player faction does is try to prevent changes to history, which is
pretty typical for a time travel game; it takes it to some unexpected places, though. Like the fact
that so many attempts to kill Hitler or prevent his birth have occurred that there is no actual
original Hitler – just time travelers from the future forced to have their appearance altered to fill
the role of Hitler in history, to ensure his atrocities are committed and that the past doesn’t
change. It’s a dangerous job, as other time travelers are constantly showing up and trying to kill
you. There’s a whole faction of time travelers called the Thespians whose job it is to fill the roles of
assassinated historical personages – whole guilds of professional Hitlers and Stalins and Ghengis
Khans ensuring that history occurs properly.

 Randy M says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:35 am ~new~
This is a subplot in the novel Pastwatch. The future society that invents time travel realizes that it
will wipe out everyone currently alive and everyone they’ve ever known personally. ultimately they
vote to go ahead and do it in order to make the past a better place; the ecological catastrophes
dooming their present world help make this plot a bit more convenient. They don’t choose Hitler,
however, but Columbus as the pivot point.
It’s interesting how the book supposes erasing slavery from the past would be a fixation of future.
The concept of the side effects of time travel is why I would oppose every chance to travel back in
time any more than 2012.

 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:00 pm ~new~
One of the things they point out is that even if you could change history without wiping out reality
due to a paradox, it would be the worst crime any being could commit – you’re eliminating every
sentient being in existence from that point in history forward, not just on Earth but in the entire
universe, committing a number of murders so large it needs to be expressed in scientific notation, in
hopes of saving a few million lives lost in a war or to prevent some personal tragedy.
I don’t understand how this is fundamentally different from someone deciding to do or not do
something in the present, culminating in lots of people not being born. Most choices aren’t going to
be on the same scale, but what if for instance, we could cause another baby boom by fighting a
world war right now? Basically anything we don’t do is wiping out possible futures, and I’m not sure
why time travel would change the moral calculus here.

 MisterA says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:16 pm ~new~
A lot of this depends on exactly how the time travel works, I guess. If there’s just one timeline,
that can be changed by time travel, then it sort of has all those choices ‘baked in’ already – all the
choices everyone in history ever made are already there, until someone with a time machine
comes along and reshuffles the whole deck.
Of course, if that were the way it worked then all the choices the time travelers could make should
really be baked in already too, so the idea that nobody has free will except for time travelers is
weird.
This is why the only version of time travel that actually makes sense is Bill and Ted’s Excellent
Predestination Paradox.
 tossrock says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:33 pm ~new~
There’s an interesting discussion of this in Ted Chiang’s Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom. The
story’s central premise is the existence of a technology to see into alternate branches of the
multiverse that forked at the time of the creation of the device.

Because the weather is a chaotic phenomenon where even single-atom changes can ultimately
propagate into radically different states, and because conception is a 1-in~300M effectively random
event sensitive to extremely minute variations, even a single forking event (ie, a single atom
difference) will ultimately lead to entirely different people (genetically speaking) being born in the
forked timelines.
So, even if the time travellers faithfully recreated all the historical roles, they would never be able
to fix history such that the same people were born.

 LesHapablap says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:41 pm ~new~
Somebody here on SSC, way back when I first started reading it, posted some math showing that
moving one gram of matter a distance of 1cm was enough to change the results of a lottery-ball-
drawing on the other side of the planet just from its gravitational effect. I thought that was pretty
cool.
o Dacyn says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:14 pm ~new~

For example, if WWII never happens, then there is no Baby Boom. The 1950 world population might
actually be LOWER than it was in OTL.
Plausibly, the Baby Boom did nothing except compensate for the fact that fewer children than
normal were born during the war. (I haven’t looked at the numbers though)
7. Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:53 am ~new~
Everybody likes to talk about going back in time and killing hitler/stalin/wilson.
But how many QALYs would you save if you just stated studying the relationship between smoking
and cancer several decades early?

o silver_swift says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:24 am ~new~
This only has data from 1990 until 2016, but with some very rough extrapolation based on global
population I got about 69 million deaths from lung cancer between 1960 and 2020.
The second world war caused between 70 and 85 million deaths, same order of magnitude.
However, understanding the relation between smoking and cancer will not eliminate lung cancer
altogether and the deaths from lung cancer will on average be much older people than the people
that died in WWII (which means you get fewer QALY’s by saving them), so my guess is that if
preventing the rise of Nazi Germany is on the table and doing so doesn’t cause significant other
disasters, that should still be the higher priority.

 Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:43 am ~new~
doing so doesn’t cause significant other disasters
I think this caveat is, uh, doing rather a lot of work. It’s pretty easy to imagine a no-Nazi world
involving a hot war between the USSR and the West, and if nukes are developed at a stage where
the outcome is still in question – or worse, before the outbreak of said war – that could be really
bad. We may well have got really quite lucky to live in a world where only two nukes were used in
anger and the prospect of more is limited.

Is there any plausible early-mid 20th Century intervention that could leave us with a better regime
in China, thus potentially alleviating both Mao’s lunacies and whatever nastiness the coming
decades may have in store?

 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:16 am ~new~
TIL that the KMT had soviet support till 1927. Chiang studied in Moscow.
Maybe weaken the Beiyang generals to make life easier for the KMT. I’m not a fan of one-party
nationalism, but Mao sets a pretty low bar.


June 16, 2020 at 12:19 pm ~new~
TIL that the KMT had soviet support till 1927. Chiang studied in Moscow.
Chiang had deep bipartisan support in the United States (he and his wife were Christians) starting
July 25, 1928. I guess that was a geopolitical turn away from the USSR?
Hide ↑
 citizencokane says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:46 pm ~new~
Soviet Marxists in the 1920s thought that China was nowhere near ready for a socialist revolution
at the time. According to the Soviet Marxists, the most realistic next step for China was a
bourgeois democratic, anti-imperialist revolution that would do away with the semi-feudal influence
of landlords and warlords, modernize the country, and achieve a progressive capitalist social-
democracy…eventually setting the stage for socialism. Soviet Marxists therefore supported Sun
Yat-sen’s “Three Principles of the People,” which included a plank that people have translated as
“welfare rights” or “social-democracy.”
That said, Soviet Marxists in the 1920s still supported Chinese communists, mainly because
experience ever since the revolutions of 1848 has shown that bourgeois liberal parties tend to
chicken out from fulfilling their own program at the last minute because usually, in order to
overcome their ancien regime on the right, the bourgeois liberals have to mobilize the masses as
allies, and the bourgeois liberals run the risk that the masses will, once mobilized, come forward
with their own demands that infringe on the classical liberals’ own program. So, classical liberals
will often make the revolution only halfway and find it preferable to reconcile with their former
enemies on the right in order to guard against their old footsoldiers/new enemies on the left. So,
the thinking goes, the left has to be organized to foreshadow to the liberals the futility of turning
on the left and to pressure the liberals to follow through all the way on achieving the goals of the
bourgeois revolution.
So, the official policy of the Soviet government in the 1920s was to support both the communists
and nationalists and demand that they both get along with each other. The Chinese communists
did not always share this view and had a more “ultra-left” adventurist view (influenced by Chinese
anarchism, which was a powerful influence at the time) that China was ready for socialist
revolution already in 1925, so you had the abortive Chinese revolution of 1925-1927 and the
counter-revolution from the KMT and the Long March exile afterwards.
Hide ↑
 Nancy Lebovitz says:

June 16, 2020 at 11:45 am ~new~
This would be earlier, but would eliminating Marx, or possibly Marx and Engels, be reasonably
expected to have a good effect?

 Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:28 pm ~new~
It doesn’t seem likely to me. The broad strokes of communism seem likely to be an inevitably
appealing idea in an industrialising world. Getting rid of Marx might eliminate the bonkers world
spirit stuff and various other specifics, but I doubt they change much about the overall thrust of
the 20th Century political movement – certainly not in a reliably good way.
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:42 pm ~new~
What if we sent Marx and Engels back to 1790, or 1646?

Hide ↑
 silver_swift says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:23 pm ~new~
I think this caveat is, uh, doing rather a lot of work.
Well, yes, but that gets you into the normal discussions on whether killing Hitler is actually a good
idea. Which I was trying to avoid.


June 16, 2020 at 10:44 am ~new~
People referred to cigarettes as coffin nails as early as the late 1800s, but a fast search doesn’t
turn up what specific damage cigarettes were believed to do.


June 16, 2020 at 10:56 am ~new~
King James I said smoke was “dangerous” to the lungs, even secondhand.
Jeremy Bentham cited A Counterblaste to Tobacco as the sort of irrational antipathy utilitarianism
opposes. Oops.
o ana53294 says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:11 am ~new~
I’d say that if you’re going back in time to fix a public health hazard, do the research on lead and
convince the government not* to use it in every critical piece of infrastructure.
At least the people who smoke do it to themselves; poor people in neighbourhoods full of lead pain
don’t choose it.
*EDIT
 Purplehermann says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:48 am ~new~
Convince them not to use..?


June 16, 2020 at 12:09 pm ~new~
Nah, go back in time and convince the Romans to use lead instead of something else cheap but
safer. Muwahaha!
o acertainidiot says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:14 am ~new~
Not many. The relationship was established back in the 1920s in Weimar Germany, ironically, and
they did wonders in suppressing smoking in the first anti-smoking campaign. But then the Nazis
took power and ended it.

The links were also brought up in the 1950s by the British. But that led to little action. (Worth
noting that the leadership of the UK during this period at this time were heavy smokers, which
certainly played a role)
The mistaking you make is assuming that exposing such a relationship through science by itself will
enable an increase in QALYs. It took many decades not because the science was missing, but the
political will was missing.

8. Nancy Lebovitz says:

June 16, 2020 at 9:25 am ~new~
Identical twins don’t have identical DNA.
I don’t know how much this means twin studies should be discounted.
o metacelsus says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:03 am ~new~
The only differences will be de novo variations that arise during embryonic development. These will
be a very small fraction of the variation expected between non-monozygotic twins. I do not expect
this to make any difference for twin studies of heritability.

o edmundgennings says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:14 am ~new~
metacelsus is correct, but to the extent that there are meaningful genetic differences between
twins, it means that genetic effects would be more extreme. If twins are only 99.5% the same
genetically, and previous some trait such as eye color variation is measured as being 99.5 due to
genetic variation, based on twin studies, we should instead treat it as being 100% genetic. And
similarly for other traits. But in practice, the differences are going to be small enough that that we
do not really need to do this. Measurement error in any trait is going to swamp this.
o Viliam says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:34 am ~new~
I would still expect that identical twins have much fewer differences between their DNA than two
siblings.
But of course, many people will take this as evidence that identical twins are a social construct and
genetics is pseudoscience.
9. Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:13 am ~new~
Is the empty Inter-Korean liason office getting exploded CW?

o Bobobob says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:14 am ~new~
You’ve got to admire their on-point messaging.

o Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:32 am ~new~
I realise I’ve lost track of the putative Kim Jong-un health issue story: is it significant that KYJ was
the one making the statement? Is the consensus that KJU’s health was and remains impaired, and
she’s taking a more prominent public role as a result?

June 16, 2020 at 7:01 am ~new~
I have a vague (and possibly wildly inaccurate) impression that authoritarian regimes often have a
high ranking person, but not the highest ranking person, make such pronouncements as they can
then be turned into a scapegoat later if (when) things go horribly wrong.

 John Schilling says:

June 16, 2020 at 7:12 am ~new~
Kim Jong Un is not going to throw his sister under the bus. Almost everybody in North Korea is
expendable, from the regime’s point of view, but KYJ isn’t.

 Matt M says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:19 am ~new~
Why not? Aren’t the vast majority of power struggles near the top of the NK hierarchy among
closely related members of the Kim family? Like didn’t KJI get his position by murdering his uncle?
Or am I misremembering here?
Hide ↑
 broblawsky says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:28 am ~new~
Based on my reading of The Great Successor, she’s the smart one, and KJU knows it. She has the
diplomatic chops, the strategic skills, and the PR expertise. She just can’t actually take over due to
her lack of a Y chromosome. That makes her invaluable.

Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 7:34 am ~new~
Why not? Aren’t the vast majority of power struggles near the top of the NK hierarchy among closely
related members of the Kim family?
No; those are just the ones you hear about, because “Kim Jong Un has random disloyal politician
purged” is not newsworthy.
And, the non-Hollywood version of the Game of Thrones is not won by the ruthless lone-wolf
psychopath what will kill anyone who gets in his way. In the land of Every Man for Himself, the
man with one good ally is king. Kim Jong Un has one good ally, and her name is Kim Yo Jong.
And a whole lot of less-good allies, as well. But you can’t generalize from “he killed his uncle” to
“he is a ruthless psychopath with no allies who will kill anyone”.

Hide ↑
 Matt M says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:42 am ~new~
I’ll trust ya’lls judgment on this, but just to be clear, my model is less “ruthless psychopath who
kills everyone” and more “calculated dude who will absolutely set up his most powerful rival/ally to
fail just in case he needs a good reason to purge them”

Hide ↑
 ana53294 says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:43 am ~new~
Kim Yo Jong is also married to the second son of the number two guy after Kim Jong Un, which
presumably makes the number two guy less likely to organize a coup.
Hide ↑
 Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:30 am ~new~
the non-Hollywood version of the Game of Thrones is not won by the ruthless lone-wolf psychopath
what will kill anyone who gets in his way.
In fact, I’d say that such prominent winners of the Westerosi Game of Thrones as Aegon I and
Jaeherys I were notable, among other things, for having unshakeable allies in the form of their
sisters.
Granted, they also tended to marry them…

Hide ↑
 cassander says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:55 am ~new~
@John Schilling says:

And a whole lot of less-good allies, as well. But you can’t generalize from “he killed his uncle” to “he is
a ruthless psychopath with no allies who will kill anyone”.
What about “He killed his uncle with an AA cannon” though?
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:31 am ~new~
Meh. East India Company was executing insurrectionists by canon over 150 years ago. And we’re
not even regarded as the Bad Guys™.

Hide ↑
 matkoniecz says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:36 am ~new~
Wait, there are people not considering East India Company as Bad Guys™?
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 4:11 pm ~new~
What about “He killed his uncle with an AA cannon” though?
Tyrion Lannister killed his own father; there were still plenty of Lannisters he would not have killed
(whether for sentiment or strategy) even if he had the chance. “Ally” and “relative” are not
synonyms.
And besides, it was only a quad-mount heavy machine gun. Stories grow in the telling.
Hide ↑
o John Schilling says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:10 am ~new~

Is the empty Inter-Korean liason office getting exploded CW?
No, that’s just the ordinary sort of war. Or at least a warning of such.
It’s a reminder that there’s still a whole lot of unfinished business between the Koreas. The Old
Normal, pre-2018, was that the North Korean economy staggered towards oblivion under crippling
sanctions, and everybody worried about whether the Kims would hold a nuke-fest in the final days
of their regime. The New Normal is that the North Korean economy staggered towards oblivion
under crippling sanctions, and everybody naively assumes that the Kims will negotiate away their
nuclear weapons before that happens. Or at least not hold the nuke-fest, because look at all the
happy fun openness since 2018, how could the North possibly nuke their cousins in the South?
North Korea, sensibly, prefers the Old Normal. If the happy fun openness of the New Normal isn’t
actually going to lead to a relaxation of sanctions, then what’s the point of the liason office? If
everybody assumes that North Korea is going to give up its nuclear weapons Real Soon Now, no
matter how many times they explicitly tell people that this will not happen, then what’s the point of
the liason office?
I wouldn’t read too much into KYJ being the one to make the announcement. There probably is a
secondary agenda of boosting her political profile in case she does need to take over. But she’s
effectively been House Kim’s minister of propaganda for nine years now, and she was the
diplomatic force and public face of the 2018 thaw in inter-Korean relations, so this was basically
her job.
10. taylor-gl says:

June 16, 2020 at 12:25 am ~new~
I have never posted to SSC before, though I do read SSC. I was told I should post this here by a
friend:
I recently rewrote the Enchiridion, the Stoic manual of life, in plain English. You can see it here. Is
this something people on here are interested in? And do you have any notes? Thanks.
o souleater says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:11 am ~new~
I don’t know if people in general would be interested in this, but I strongly suspect that people who
are also SSC readers would be interested in this.
I’m genuinely very excited to read this, thanks for sharing!

 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:18 am ~new~
If you’re very excited to read about stoicism then I think you’re doing it wrong.
 Conrad Honcho says:

June 16, 2020 at 5:34 am ~new~
That’s only because he hasn’t read it yet.

 souleater says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:02 am ~new~
I know you’re joking, but I’ve actually never quite understood this aspect of Stoicism.
Like… my sense of the philosophy is that you are in control of your own thoughts, and emotions, so
don’t let sad things or bad things get you down. I think that’s very insightful, and a useful tool in
building a good life.. but if you can choose to not be sad… why wouldn’t you chose to happy?
 Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:37 am ~new~
Linda Hamilton also wants to know.

Hide ↑
 Beans says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:20 am ~new~
I had always interpreted it not as being about choosing your emotions, but 1. being conscious of
your reactions, so that you are able to realize when they are unproductive or stupid and 2. be
aware of the instability of things and the fact that much of what happens is not in your control, in
order to result in 3: the understanding that a lot of your mental tumult is unjustified and does not
actually help with anything, which is a necessary prerequisite to 4: giving yourself permission to
lay down your anxieties and get into a less freaked out reality tunnel. We won’t put down the
burden until we see that we’re carrying it in the first place, and that it’s dumb and isn’t good for
anything. All these little thought exercises in stoic writing are invitations to try and get this into our
heads. But there’s no direct choosing of a target emotional state: rather, a choice of perspective
and reflection which, ideally, results in the desired emotional change naturally over time
Hide ↑
 Viliam says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:59 am ~new~
If you are overhyped about something, you will later be disappointed.
If you think something will make your life great, you may be sad when it is over.
…if you can be happy without making any of these mistakes, then of course, be happy.
Hide ↑
 taylor-gl says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:00 pm ~new~
Choosing to be happy is different than choosing to be excited. What is the point of being excited if
you already have everything you want? Letting your emotions run away with you like that is a sign
you’re doing something wrong, in my interpretation of Stoicism. If you’re too excited, you’re
allowing your emotions to depend too much on externals.

Hide ↑
11. johan_larson says:

June 15, 2020 at 9:19 pm ~new~
Do we actually need a COVID-19 vaccine long-term? It seems to me that there is a steady state
where COVID-19 is a pervasive disease. Most people catch it sometime during their lifetimes,
typically quite early in life. Fortunately the disease is not dangerous to the young. It sometimes
causes no symptoms at all, and other times has flu-like symptoms. So for most people it would just
register as a flu sometime in their youth, and they would then be immune. Sometimes someone
would catch a bad case of it, and would need hospital care. Very occasionally, someone would
manage to avoid catching the disease until old age, would need hospital care, and might die from
it.
If this is correct, then the problem with the disease is not that it is so dangerous in total, but that
we are seeing it for the first time and getting the infections (and potential deaths) all at once. And
in particular, old people are exposed to the disease without having had the opportunity to catch it
(and build immunity to it) earlier in life.

Is this right? I’m only an armchair epidemiologist.
o Nancy Lebovitz says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:21 pm ~new~
The other aspect is that a vaccine is less needed if more is known about how to treat COVID-19 so
that it’s a less serious disease.

o Clutzy says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:42 pm ~new~
Probably we do. Just like with chickenpox. I had it as a kid, but vaccinations are recommended as I
age in case of re-emergence. Strong B cell responses deteriorate over time for most viruses.
June 15, 2020 at 9:44 pm ~new~
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200521112613.htm
Studies have shown that antibody protection wanes over time. For seasonal coronaviruses where
disease is mild, there have even been reports of reinfection after as little as 80 days.
When we know more about these things, we will be better able to understand how SARS-CoV-2
infections will continue over time. However, vaccines are not infections, therefore it is likely that
some of the vaccines candidates will be better at inducing long lasting immunity and protection from
infection,” said Professor Kellam.
 johan_larson says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:41 am ~new~
It seems strange that a vaccine could provide a subject with better immunity than actually having
caught and fought off the disease. There’s not a lot of training that is better than actual
experience.
I suppose a vaccine could be better than catching the disease if we include costs. Getting a shot
every ten years for life might be cheaper than catching the disease once and dealing with the
effects and possible treatment.

 Matt M says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:53 am ~new~
That was my understanding as well. That if it’s true that immunity for this disease fades in a year,
that doesn’t mean “now we have to wait until an effective vaccine” so much as it means “there will
be no effective vaccine.”
 Cliff says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:11 am ~new~
Isn’t most training better than actual experience? If you want to learn to play a sport for example,
you don’t just go and play the sport over and over. You learn far more, faster with targeted
training. There’s a reason practice isn’t just scrimmage.

June 16, 2020 at 10:26 am ~new~
Various parts of a virus are more amenable to mutation without having loss-of-function. If your
native immune cells generate antibodies against an easily mutable viral motif then you will quickly
lose protection as the virus mutates in the population. Good vaccines consist of viral motifs that do
not easily mutate without rendering the virus non-dangerous.

June 16, 2020 at 10:39 am ~new~
caught and fought off the disease. There’s not a lot of training that is better than actual experience.
Well, if I want to avoid death by avalanche then learning about how to avoid them is better than
getting crushed under tons of snow and getting rescued.
From my poor understanding of vaccines – they deliver characteristic parts of infection, without
infecting (or with extremely weak infection). That may allow to deliver bigger dose of identifiable
material without going through infection.
This is my naive understanding, please yell at me if I am wrong.

 Gerry Quinn says:

June 16, 2020 at 2:07 pm ~new~
They may also include nasty toxins called adjuvants that stimulate a greater response.
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 4:06 pm ~new~
caught and fought off the disease.
If the vaccine is just an attenuated virus, then almost certainly recovering from the actual disease
would provide strong immunity (assuming it is a complete recovery, rather than one that leaves
you systemically weakened).
But both the actual disease and an attenuated-virus vaccine will result in a broad immune response
against any viral protein that the immune system can even recognize. A tailored vaccine, by any of
several modern techniques, might narrowly target a specific protein that testing has revealed to be
the most effective target. That could plausibly work better than natural immunity.
o Biater says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:50 pm ~new~
I guess it depends on your definition of “actually need a vaccine.” The world has survived with
much worse diseases for a long time (measles, mumps, rubella) and we have diseases that kill
more people than COVID will this year as well (malaria) that w haven’t beat.
It’s just that there will be a million fewer people this year without a vaccine while massive
quarantines affect much of the globe, and I am getting really sick of never leaving the house.
 albatross11 says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:51 am ~new~
+1
A vaccine means that a whole lot of the world can return to normal that isn’t going to return to
normal (no matter how many politicians or media types say they should) when there’s a disease
with maybe a 2-3% chance of killing them off. If you’re a healthy 70-year-old who’s retired and
enjoys travel, you’re probably not going to be taking a lot of trips, cruises, etc., until either you
confirm that you’ve had the virus and are immune, or you’ve gotten the vaccine.
My in-laws are pretty upset about this. They’re in their mid-70s, are still healthy and robust
enough to travel, and love traveling. They’re worried that by the time C19 has been resolved (say,
another two or three years if no vaccine comes out quickly), they will have burned through the last
few years that they’ll be able to do much traveling.

o Kaitian says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:21 pm ~new~
You’re talking about the far future, but right now we have millions of people at risk of dying from
Covid. They could be saved if a vaccine is developed soon.

Measles is about as deadly as Covid overall, although it kills more children and is more infectious.
No-one questions that we should vaccinate against it. Chickenpox is like Covid in that getting it as
a child is mostly harmless, although it can have long-term effects that cause pain. The vaccine can
prevent that.
So Covid seems in line with other things we vaccinate against. I guess there is a hope that we can
treat it like smallpox and mass vaccinate in areas where there are cases, so the illness will end up
eradicated and we won’t have to add it to the standard vaccine schedule.
Also dangerous coronaviruses have appeared a number of times in the last 20 years, if we manage
to vaccinate against this one that’s also good practice for the next one, which might well be worse.
o noyann says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:41 am ~new~
> Do we actually need a COVID-19 vaccine long-term?
Yes. Somebody will object to a 7-fold increase of apoplexy (the “7” if from another source I don’t
rememember) in young adults.
On the one hand, the base rate is low, no need to get agitated. On the other hand, this figure only
catches the immediately clinically visible lesions, while micro-lesions that lower local brain function
just a little have not been investigated (AFAIK).
No state worth its taxes / nobody aiming at reelection will tolerate a statistical dumb-down of their
people/electorate before/in their most productive life period. Or at least will not want to be seen to
do so.
 Harry Maurice Johnston says:

June 16, 2020 at 1:11 am ~new~
On an unrelated note, did anybody else find it jarring to have people in their 30s and 40s described
as “young adults”? Or is that normal nowadays?

 Kaitian says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:24 am ~new~
In the context of covid, and often in other medical contexts, young just means “non elderly / pre
menopause”. But even in other contexts, 30s and even 40s can be young, e.g. a 38 year old US
president would be young.

June 16, 2020 at 10:52 am ~new~
Hell, at this point, a 60 year old president would look pretty young.
Hide ↑
o Vitor says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:38 am ~new~

Fortunately the disease is not dangerous to the young.
This is not true, for reasons given by other commenters, but also because a substantial amount of
the population has prior chronic conditions that puts them at much greater risk.
At most, you could make the case that we don’t need a vaccine urgently (i.e., to solve the current
epidemic). But long-term, we need it at least as urgently as we need insulin, beta blockers, etc.
o DalisInferno says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:42 am ~new~
You make some good points. There are some countries, however – notably Australia and New
Zealand, that can/have eradicated the disease. It is doubtful these countries will fully open up to
the world without a vaccine coming, or total eradication (which seems unlikely).
June 16, 2020 at 2:22 pm ~new~
We have been assured here in NZ by our government that we definitely won’t open our borders to
any country that hasn’t also eradicated until there is a vaccine, whether it is 2 years or whenever,
because they don’t want the hard lockdown we went through to go to waste.
I think they need to be more flexible than that and not get attached to the sunk costs.
o Purplehermann says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:50 am ~new~
If immunity doesn’t last, then no. Elderly people will either stop being part of civilization or die.

June 16, 2020 at 9:08 am ~new~
I’m pretty sure that’s wrong– the death rate for elderly people would go up, but catching the virus
or dying from it isn’t 100%.

One thing we have no idea about yet– there hasn’t been enough time– is whether being exposed to
the virus and not catching it or not getting very sick from it means it will never give you serious
trouble.
 keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:12 am ~new~
My understanding is that with other coronaviruses, you have near total immunity for about a year,
but after a few years it fades to near total susceptibility.


June 16, 2020 at 10:02 am ~new~
For what little it’s worth, I don’t get nearly as many colds as I used to, but I used to get the same
cold (similar symptoms and duration) three or four times, and then probably not get it again.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 10:53 am ~new~
I think you lose sterilizing immunity (you can still get and pass along the virus), but you get less
sick in subsequent infections.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 3:18 pm ~new~
If you assume that you can get it again on something like a yearly basis, and it isn’t less server
after the first time, then I’d say both catching it and dying would be pretty much a given, barring
extreme measures.
The world isn’t going to keep social distancing forever, and with the infectiousness of covid19 it will
infect people way more often than the flu.
If you keep getting a sickness, where you have a 10% chance of dying every year (because you’re
older) you’re going to die sooner.


June 16, 2020 at 4:15 pm ~new~
the death rate for elderly people would go up, but catching the virus or dying from it isn’t 100%.
If death + serious disability is in the 5-10% range, and if participation in normal social life makes it
at all likely that one is going to contract COVID-19, that could well drive a norm that people retire
from normal social life at 70 or so. So much for looking forward to joyful years of playing with the
grandchildren post-retirement.
Or maybe the geezers fatalistically don’t care, or maybe it divides along tribal lines.
June 16, 2020 at 6:58 am ~new~

Do we actually need a COVID-19 vaccine long-term?
Yes. Society is fixed, biology is mutable. It will be much easier to develop a vaccine (or cure) for
COVID-19 than it will be to convince moderns that sometimes lots of people die of deadly infections
and there’s nothing you can do about it but that’s not reason to hide under the bed until the scary
germ goes away. I’m not sure the latter is really possible at all. You can convince half the moderns,
maybe two-thirds, but that way leads to really ugly culture-war issues.
 zero says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:12 am ~new~
Man it’s really going to suck when we run out of antibiotics for things not to be resistant to,
assuming we can’t get phage therapy going.

 Garrett says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:45 am ~new~
Indeed. As a libertarian, this is one of those few coordination problems where government
intervention makes sense as it doesn’t make a lot of market sense to develop a new effective
therapy and then almost never use it. They’d have to price it at a million dollars a dose or
something to recoup their expenses, and then would have almost no insurance company cover it.
 MisterA says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:16 am ~new~
It will be much easier to develop a vaccine (or cure) for COVID-19 than it will be to convince
moderns that sometimes lots of people die of deadly infections and there’s nothing you can do about
it but that’s not reason to hide under the bed until the scary germ goes away.
Maybe I am misunderstanding something here, but isn’t the fact that it’s easier to develop a
vaccine than to do that also evidence for the fact that there actually is something you can do about
it other than just let lots of people die, and in fact an argument for hiding under the bed until we
can make the scary germ go away?

June 16, 2020 at 12:13 pm ~new~
John Schilling:
Getting to herd immunity likely means 30% or so of the population doesn’t ever catch the virus.
There are ways of substantially reducing your personal risk of catching the virus that are actually
doable right now, for many of us, which give us a better chance of ending up in the other 30%.
That’s not “there’s nothing you can do about it.” Further, if a vaccine becomes available in a year
or so, then that’s another point at which people who avoid catching the virus for the next year can
avoid ever having to roll a saving throw against drowning in our own lungs. Even just better
treatments coming along over the next few months can improve our odds.
Now, I’ll acknowledge that our inept leadership and dysfunctional government means that we as a
country couldn’t do anything about C19, in much the same way that the Haitian government
couldn’t do anything about its cholera outbreak a few years back. I wish we were a more functional
society, and if I knew how to fix that, I would[1].
Still, I suspect I think of this the way people who are seriously into guns think about crime and
social disorder. Sure, you’d *like* to live in a society where violent crime was so rare it was silly to
feel the need for a gun, and where civil disorder/rioting/looting/arson just never happened. But
since you live in a society that *isn’t* able to prevent those things, you’ll take what steps you can
to protect yourself, recognizing that perfect safety isn’t available, but that you can avoid dangerous
parts of town, carry a gun concealed when necessary, put good locks and lights and maybe an
alarm in your house, etc.
In much the same way, I can avoid crowds, minimize my time spent indoors with possibly-
contagious people, wear a good mask (KN-95s are attainable at this point) in public, use curbside
pickup or delivery instead of going into stores, get carry out instead of eating in restaurants, etc.
And I will definitely be advising my high-risk relatives and friends to do the same, as best they can.
This isn’t some kind of inability to understand risk, it’s a recognition that there’s stuff I can do to
lower my risk, and an unwillingness to volunteer myself as a human sacrifice to the dysfunction
and ineptitude of my society.
And of course this will have broader social consequences. Just as an inability to get urban crime
under control led to white flight and all its attendant social damage, our inability to protect our
citizens from C19 will lead to a lot of businesses not surviving the next few years. The politically
connected ones have gotten and will keep getting bailouts, of course, but many of the others will
just collapse. But just as people in my parents’ generation saw the social damage but still moved to
the suburbs after the third time they got mugged in their neighborhood, I can see that this will
happen, be sad, and still not go risk my own life and health to support those businesses.
Or, I guess maybe I’m just hiding under my bed till the scary germ goes away because I don’t
understand risk. That’s probably it, really–what else could explain why someone wouldn’t do the
stuff that you wish they’d do?
[1] I think C19 is going to end up demonstrating, to anyone willing to look, how dysfunctional our
society has become relative to a whole bunch of other ones. Taiwan and New Zealand and Australia
and South Korea are all places that seem to have done very well with this virus, despite being
substantially free, democratic, wealthy first-world countries. But somehow, they could pull it
together whereas we couldn’t.

 Elementaldex says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:18 pm ~new~
I find it interesting that all* the countries you point to as being actually competent are islands.
Maybe that is the actual difference?
*I think its fair to treat S. Korea as an island given the impermeability of their boarder with N.
Korea and Australia despite being a continent has all the features of an island which seem relevant
to combating a pandemic.
June 16, 2020 at 2:52 pm ~new~
New Zealand was successful mostly because we had more notice than almost anyone else. We
reached 100 confirmed cases at least 10 days after almost every other country, and 20 days after
the US.
That 20 days made a huge difference: when the US hit 100 cases it was March 2nd and nobody
really knew what was going on. Italy was just in the news with 1800 confirmed cases.
March 23 NZ hit 100 cases, and Italy was all over the news with 64,000 cases and the hospitals
completely overrun. NYC had locked down on March 20th (with 5600 confirmed cases), so there
was now plenty of precedent for shelter-in-place. The NZ government announced on the 23rd that
the lockdown would start on the 25th.
That’s the big reason why NZ was more successful. But that’s not to say that the NZ government
doesn’t work a lot better than the USG: we aren’t anywhere near as rich, and we don’t have the
economies of scale, but we have a lot less regulatory bloat.


June 16, 2020 at 4:29 pm ~new~
That’s not “there’s nothing you can do about it.”
To the people insisting on e.g. lockdown until vaccine, it’s close enough to nothing as makes no
difference. All risks are either “Perfectly Safe” or “Intolerably Dangerous”, and private precautions
against COVID-19 are not seen as effective enough to move it into the “Perfectly Safe” category.
So they round to “nothing you can do about it”.

June 17, 2020 at 9:16 am ~new~
John:
I feel like you’re spending a lot of time responding to a weakman argument here.
Yes, there are pro-lockdown people who are innumerate. (Also anti-lockdown people.). Yes, the
phenomenon of some of my Facebook friends condemning the “covidiots” for protesting the
lockdowns/going to the beach one week, and cheering the BLM protesters for packing into big
crowds and chanting for hours the next, was kinda embarrassing to watch.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be done, or that sensible policies to slow or stop the
spread of the virus aren’t possible. It’s hard to the the US having the institutional competence and
coordination across administrative boundaries to handle this well, but it could be done. And if it’s
not done, there are still sensible things people can do to reduce their own risk, which aren’t magic
talismans anymore than carrying a concealed gun is a magic talisman against crime, but which are
prudent risk-reducing measures.

Hide ↑
o keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:13 am ~new~
If a single infection provides total immunity, or if catching it during the phase of fading immunity
from a previous infection means that one doesn’t experience bad effects, then we don’t long-term
need a vaccine. But if immunity fades, and reinfection as an old person is just as bad as first
infection as an old person, then yes, we need a vaccine.

12. bean says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:02 pm ~new~
Biweekly Naval Gazing links post:
First, I finished up my series on the Tomahawk cruise missile, with a look at the blocks which have
formed the mainstay of the US arsenal since the mid-90s.
Second, my series on coastal defenses continues with a look at the Third System, built by the US
from the early 1800s to the Civil War.
Third, my extremely long-running series on Soviet/Russian battleships continues with the only
ships to actually see metal on the slipway.
Fourth, merchant ships have returned, with a look at specialized tankers, most notably Liquid
Natural Gas tankers.
Lastly, my tutorial for Aurora is close to wrapping up. Start here if you’re interested.
o Dack says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:02 am ~new~

Second, my series on coastal defenses continues with a look at the Third System, built by the US from
the early 1800s to the Civil War.
That link directs me to this page.
 Aapje says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:59 am ~new~
Proper link
 bean says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:16 am ~new~
Aapje’s link is correct. I messed up when putting it together, I guess. Oops.


June 15, 2020 at 6:57 pm ~new~
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/health/virus-journals.html
One ot the themes of the article is journals saying that peer review shouldn’t be expected to detect
fraud.
However, fraud happens even if it’s plausibly much less common that mistakes. Should there be
forensic reviewers to check for fraud? What sort of knowledge, training, and temperament would
they need?
o MilesM says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:37 pm ~new~
I don’t think having “forensic reviewers” is feasible.
One of the reasons why you have peer review – rather than independent review – is because other
working scientists are the only ones who (if you’re lucky) actually understand new research well
enough to be of any use. (And even then, it can be really hard to find someone who’s a genuine
expert on the exact subject matter, especially if the research is in any way cross-discipline.)
And if a large group of people with such an eclectic breadth of knowledge that they could
conceivably carry out such a task actually existed, you’d probably want them putting their time to
better use. (also, you probably couldn’t afford them)
That said, the actual editor that is assigned to handling a particular paper and the reviewers should
be expected to perform basic sanity checks on what’s been placed in front of them. You should be
able to tell certain claims are really implausible/seem too good to be true if you really are a
qualified reviewer.
June 15, 2020 at 8:26 pm ~new~
The check for fraud is replication. Granted this can’t distinguish between fraud and a mere failure
to replicate, but scientifically this distinction is unimportant. If a big name has a bunch of papers
that fail to replicate they’ll hopefully become less of a big name.

 AlphaGamma says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:51 am ~new~
There is at least one journal which won’t publish results until an editor has replicated them. Of
course this is very labour-intensive and doesn’t work for every field- and the journal in question
has a very low impact factor.

 metacelsus says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:04 am ~new~
Orgsyn is very well-trusted and well-regarded in the chemistry community. Impact factor isn’t a
good measure of its impact.

o abystander says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:07 pm ~new~
Earlier rewrite provided link claiming the problem with peer review is the peers.
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:19 pm ~new~
Earlier rewrite provided link claiming the problem with peer review is the peers.
Sure. Peer review only works up to the standards in that particular field, it just means that your
article has survived exposure to that particular echo chamber. For many fields, you have certain
standards of evidence and reproducibility, and peer review will point out if you break them. Peer
review increases the quality of articles a lot and improves communication of results. Review is a big
effort, and often takes months or even years. I’m not sure it is worth it in general, and for cutting
edge work, it’s all unpublished (and thus not peer reviewed) papers on Arxiv these days. Maybe we
should spend our efforts on reviewing Arxiv papers with a certain number of citations?
o SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:34 am ~new~

I do not think that forensic reviewers would need much specific knowledge of the field. (I’m basing
this partly on having worked as an auditor in a financial services context.)
Peer review is designed to detect “this question is ill-formed/there’s an alternative explanation that
should be considered.” It seems to me that forensic review would be designed to detect “this data
is made up/this data and this analysis don’t produce the stated results.” That doesn’t require nearly
as much understanding of the specific field.

14. blacktrance says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:33 pm ~new~
I share a first name and initial with one of the people banned from SSC meetups. (I assume I’m
not actually banned, because the worst thing I’ve done is this.) Since I peripherally participate in
the in-person rationalist community, I’m mildly concerned about the reputational effects of being
mistaken for being on a list with some terrible people.

o souleater says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:16 am ~new~
It would be easy to include a hash of the individual’s last name, so as to prevent this sort of error
from damaging reputations

 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:21 am ~new~
What if you get a SHA256 of
9F542590100424C92A6AE40860F7017AC5DFBCFF3CB49B36EACE29B068E0D8E1 ?
15. Belisaurus Rex says:

June 15, 2020 at 5:25 pm ~new~
Since idioms change so often in real life, it is jarring to read modern phrases in some scifi/fantasy.
For example, one would not have a horseman “roll up” to a battlefield. (Or maybe you would; I was
surprised when first learning Latin that “circiter” -> “around” has both of the meanings it does in
English: literally surrounding, but also that one amount of X might be around the same as another.
Maybe a lot of phrases are older than I think).
Some authors do good in creating their own phrases. I like how GRRM uses “Bannermen” instead
of “Vassals”, and when a character “Calls his bannermen” it feels natural.
Compare with The Lensmen series, where the author for some reason thought that it would be
futuristic for people to replace “OK” with “QX”. See also anything with “cyber” in it.
People of SSC, do you have any examples of surprisingly old, good, or bad phrases or expressions?
o eyeballfrog says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:07 pm ~new~
I remember years ago looking at reviews of some fantasy book I was reading, and one was
complaining about how the words used were too modern for the sword and sorcery setting. The
one that stuck out to me was “backpedal”. That seemed like a perfectly natural word to me, but
apparently it’s quite new. It only rose to popular usage in the last ~50 years.
 pdbarnlsey says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:32 pm ~new~
Presumably it relies on the existence of semi-modern bicycles, which is pretty recent.

June 15, 2020 at 8:33 pm ~new~
“paddle” wheel ships have been around for at least 1500 years. An in-universe argument could be
made that the word derives from this usage.
But yes, the online etymology dictionary traces this word to bicycles in the late 1800s.
o m.alex.matt says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:37 pm ~new~
Bannermen/man is a pretty old word for more or less the same thing we use ‘vassal’ to mean, with
an emphasis on those vassals who provide strictly military service in return for land.
It’s also what we translate the term for soldiers of the Qing dynasty Eight Banners Armies into.
o Ninety-Three says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:38 pm ~new~
I’m still annoyed at pre-medieval fantasy Age of Decadence for using the phrase “carbon copy”,
which refers to a nineteenth century precursor to photocopiers (hell, carbon wasn’t even named
that until the late eighteenth century).
Every use of “quantum” everywhere ever is terrible. It’s the technobabble equivalent of those
people who treat the word “lol” like punctuation, it’s not just that it doesn’t have meaning but that
the text would be more readable if you deleted the word entirely, with no replacement.
 SystematizedLoser says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:27 pm ~new~
The setting details of Age of Decadence provide a plausible path for the people of its current time
to be saying “carbon copy”, but you do have to assume some degree of linguistic longevity for that
phrase.
 bullseye says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:48 am ~new~
Nineteenth century? I remember carbon copies! Still in use in the 1990s, and maybe the next
decade too.
o Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:55 pm ~new~
I was surprised to see the phrase “decked out” in Moby Dick. A ship was decked out in … I don’t
remember, whale bone or something.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:15 pm ~new~
I presume the phrase originally referred to ships with stuff out on the deck.
 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:20 am ~new~
I figured that might be it. We also have the song “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” whose
English lyrics were written about the same time as Moby Dick, so it’s possible the “deck” thing is
just a coincidence.
I’m sure there’s an easy internet search to find out for sure, but wild speculation is supposed to be
the point, isn’t it?

o sfoil says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:51 pm ~new~
In the American military you will quite frequently hear the phrase “smoking and joking” used to
refer to groups of soldiers loafing or “standing around bullshitting”. Imagine my surprise when I
found a contemporary account of a successful Union attack against a Confederate depot during the
Civil War where the author described the Federal soldiers as literally “smoking and joking as they
walked” onwards. This might even be where the phrase came from.
Not quite what you’re talking about but I was shocked at the similarity to modern tactical language
used in Antoine de Jomini’s Art of War from 1838 (though the definitive English translation, from
which the US Army ripped off all of its terms, was from 1854). I specifically remember the use of
the term “decisive point”, and the names of different troop formations were identical to modern
use.
Neither one of these is that old, I suppose, but they are older than I would have thought.
Telling archers to “fire” in settings where nobody has heard of gunpowder.

o AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:19 am ~new~
Funny thing is, though, that you don’t see this bent towards historical accuracy when it comes to
subtitle translations. Localisation for immediate audience understanding is so much higher priority
that replacement of idioms with local language versions is the norm, regardless of class/character
connotations. Like a Japanese or fantasy character saying “let’s bury the hatchet.”
o kenziegirl says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:31 am ~new~
Not fantasy, but there’s some wacky slang in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I seem to remember John
Hughes wanted to avoid using 80s or recognizable slang so the film wouldn’t feel dated. So they
made up their own. In my mind it makes it sound immediately dated, so I wouldn’t say he was
successful.
 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:35 am ~new~
Wow, it’s possible I watched it and assumed it was using actual period slang. I can’t recall any
examples though.
 A1987dM says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:44 am ~new~
See also: A Clockwork Orange.


June 16, 2020 at 3:54 pm ~new~
In my mind it makes it sound immediately dated, so I wouldn’t say he was successful.
Not even John Hughes could make “Fetch” happen. Gretchen Wieners never had a chance.

June 16, 2020 at 4:00 pm ~new~
Man, I love that movie.
“So, you’ve actually never been to a real school before? Shut up! Shut up!”
“I didn’t say anything.”

June 17, 2020 at 4:14 am ~new~
Tangentially related:
While most of Brandon Sandersons setting specific idioms are quite bad (Calamity, not every
rusting thing a culture does has to be related to the blustering local magic system in some starving
way!), but I’ve noticed that some of those idioms have slipped into my personal vocabulary.
Specifically, storms/storming as a replacement for fuck/fucking and not by a breeze or a
stormwind for ‘not nearly’.
Airsick lowlanders is also quite fun to say, but it hasn’t caught on to the point that I find myself
using/thinking it unintentionally like the other two.

16. GearRatio says:

June 15, 2020 at 5:17 pm ~new~
T-mobile outage prediction thread!
I’m officially abandoning my usual conspiracy-mindedness and going with “some guy hit a button
wrong, like that one time with the stock market”.

o Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:52 pm ~new~
I have no clue if anyone else is experiencing this bug, but apparently any text message sent within
a 10 minute window are being infinitely repeated.
I’ve received ~100 copies of the same 2 texts today. One is “cool beans” the other is “you
shouldn’t disrespect your aunt like that.” Ever 10 minutes. All day. To borrow a site metaphor,
imaging a boot stamping on a human face forever saying “COOL BEANS YOU SHOULDN’T”T
DISRESPECT YOUR AUNT LIKE THAT”

 GearRatio says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:03 am ~new~
This made me audibly laugh.

o m.alex.matt says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:44 pm ~new~
T-Mobile says they’re experiencing a widespread routing issue effecting their voice and text
services. What, specifically, that routing issue is? Who knows. But a particularly bad config can lead
to cascading problems just from the very nature of routing protocols. If it’s specifically their voice
and text networks, it might be some kind of problem in their MPLS-TE config.
 Edward Scizorhands says:

June 16, 2020 at 7:49 am ~new~
I’ve accidentally built circular networks, and they are hell on routing, and would have the result
you see here.

o rumham says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:25 am ~new~
I am worried about the state of the network as a whole. Wednesday we had national comcast
outages, servers from clients overseas not connecting, AT&T slowdowns (though these might be
local) and now T-mobile. Perhaps the BGP routing tables are getting too long? Any other ideas that
would account for all of this in such a short time?

o Nicholas Weininger says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:36 am ~new~
Matthew Prince (the Cloudflare guy) says that, like so many other complex distributed system
outages, this was a bad config push.
17. Aftagley says:

June 15, 2020 at 4:33 pm ~new~
I’ve spent my COVID getting into baking and had the same realization I did when I first started
home-brewing – I can make stuff with very little difficulty in my home that is roughly 100x better
than what I’d get in the grocery store for maybe 1/3rd the cost. It’s crazy. A loaf of bread that I’d
have to pay $5-$8 dollars for in a fancy bakery costs maybe $1 + around 45 minutes of work. I
find this shocking because I always assumed I was missing something, that there was some vast
chasm of experience or equipment between your average dude with an oven an a professional
baker, but (at least for bread) that’s apparently not the case.
So my current list of “High-Quality Stuff that’s Fun and Easy to Make at Home” so far consists of
Bread and Beer. What else, in your opinion, am I missing?

o caryatis says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:08 pm ~new~
Hummus. And face masks.

 Marlowe says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:51 pm ~new~
I read that as “Humans. And face masks,” and agreed. I agree about hummus, too.
 Don P. says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:35 am ~new~
Dave Barry has a book “Babies and Other Hazards of Sex: How to Make a Tiny Person in Only 9
Months, with Tools You Probably Have Around the Home “

o GearRatio says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:14 pm ~new~
The bread gap is really truly huge, and I can’t agree with you more on it. I’m doubly blessed in that
my wife does it, so for me it’s like magic perfect bread just appears on the counter every few days
in a way unassociated with covid free time I won’t always have.
If your bread-making skills follow the same improvement curve my wife’s did, then you are in for a
treat – it got to fantastic quick, and then kept mysteriously rising to this very day.
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:43 pm ~new~
This legitimately got me exited.

o meh says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:20 pm ~new~
$5 for 45 minutes of work does not sound like a deal


June 15, 2020 at 5:28 pm ~new~
You leave it in the oven and sit there reading a book/watching tv/work your actual job from
home/anything else?
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:43 pm ~new~
Right, what Belisaurus Rex said. It’s the most low effort 45 minutes of work I’ve ever done. I put
on a podcast, I weight out some flour, sourdough starter, salt and water and stir. Then I cover it
and wait for a while. Maybe I knead if if I’m feeling especially fancy.
All in all, the time investment of making a loaf is pretty equivalent to me getting in the car, driving
to a bakery, waiting in line then driving it home.

 drunkfish says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:54 pm ~new~
If you’re in the mood for jacking up the effort, I highly recommend trying this: Every half hour,
stretch and fold the bread in half four times. Do this ~6 times total. *much* better bread in my
experience.
(yes, I know this totally contradicts the point of it being low effort, but meh. I work from home
nowadays anyway, so getting up for 2 minutes every half hour doesn’t really bother me)
 meh says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:00 pm ~new~
ok, makes more sense. i wouldnt call that 45 minutes of work then. 10 minutes of work.
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:24 am ~new~
Huh, every time I do bread (usually steamed buns) I have to budget like 3 hours on a weekend.
But that’s always doing from scratch, I don’t have starter.
Your process sounds closer to the convenience of making rice.

 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:31 am ~new~
For weekday bread I use Jim Lahey’s No-Knead bread recipe (modified for a sourdough starter). It
is literally as easy as cooking rice, you just need to start 24 hours in advance to allow time for the
slow fermentation.
It doesn’t result in the best bread I’m capable of producing, but it’s up there with anything you
could buy in a bakery. Call this 95% perfect bread. For more complex bread preps, it can take up
to an hour or so of actual work.

usually steamed buns
You’ve got me interested, can you link me a good recipe?
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:50 pm ~new~
Er, so I’ve been using a recipe for my dough that was meant for baking, but it’s been fine steamed,
too. Worked with both sweet and savory fillings. I just use the steam basket accessory that came
with my rice/slow cooker.
I also tried this recipe, which worked out pretty well.
Otherwise, I have not actually tried this page yet, but it seems promising for a dough that’s a bit
more customized to the task.

Hide ↑
 keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:18 am ~new~
And I think this is why bread baking took off during the pandemic. The issue isn’t spending a lot of
your time doing the work – it’s spending a long period of time close enough to your kitchen to do
the 30 seconds of work that are needed once in a while.
When your social and work life used to involve going to different places at different times, the one-
time cost of going to the bakery on the way home is much less than the cost of being tied to the
home for several hours. But now that your social and work life take place on the computer at
home, the time in the kitchen is no longer a problem.

o SamChevre says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:27 pm ~new~
Marmalade: you can make incredibly good marmalade really easily.
Start in the evening. f you like the slightly bitter English-style marmalade, use 1 lemon, 3 oranges,
and 1 grapefruit (if you want it just sweet, leave out the grapefruit) . Take out the seeds (just cut
in half and squeeze with your hand), chop in a food processor or by hand the pieces are no bigger
than grains of rice. Add 2 parts water for each part fruit, soak overnight, bring to a boil in in the
morning and each morning for the next 2 days (3 boils altogether). Add equal parts sugar, boil
until it gels. You will have about 8 pints of the best marmalade you’ve ever eaten.
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:48 pm ~new~
bring to a boil in in the morning and each morning for the next 2 days (3 boils altogether).
Just so I’m clear (I’m totally doing this recipe) I boil it in the morning, then (I assume) put in a
container and refrigerate until the next morning whereupon I boil it again? Three questions:
1. Do I add any more water at any point? I assume not, but I’d like to be sure.
2. Do I bring to a boil, then immediately remove from heat or do I let it boil for a certain amount of
time?
3. Do I add the sugar before the third boil or do I boil it three times then add sugar and boil it
again?
 SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:43 am ~new~
You can refrigerate, although I don’t bother–I just leave it in the same covered pot (so the inside is
disinfected by the steam) the whole time and have never had any problem.
You do not need to add water at any point.
The third time you boil it, you can either let it sit again for up to 24 hours, or add the sugar once
it’s up to a boil. Unless you have a huge pot, though, I’d do final boil for half of it at a time.
Details of how I do it: I have a 10-quart stainless steel pasta pot (do NOT use an aluminum pot). I
generally grind the fruit Wednesday night, bring it to a boil every morning while making coffee, and
make the jam sometime on Saturday. For the final boiling with the sugar, I do about half of the
fruit and sugar at a time, in a 10-quart pot–it foams up quite a bit. I just ladle the boiling
marmalade into clean glass canning jars (widemouth pints) and put the lids on–I put the lids in a
bowl of and pour boiling water over them a few minutes before. It will keep for at least a couple
years that way.

 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:33 am ~new~
Thank you! I’ll make it and let you know how it turns out!
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 SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:41 am ~new~
Re-reading, I’m realizing that I’m assuming you’ve made jam or jelly before.
It isn’t hard, but a few tips in case that’s not the case:
The final boiling with sugar will take 10-20 minutes at a full rolling boil. You can stir or not–not
stirring lets the bottom layer caramelize slightly to make “amber marmalade”–I prefer to stir it. It
will foam wildly, so you want a pot that’s no more than 1/4 full when you start. When you stir there
will be a burst of steam and foam, so use a long spoon and don’t put your face nearby.
To test for doneness, put a spoonful on a plate–it should thicken.
Hide ↑
o Oldio says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:49 pm ~new~
Salsa. Throw some peppers, tomatoes, and onion and garlic if you want in a blender and blend it
up- better than from the grocery store. Use bell peppers for mild salsa, Anaheims for hot, and
Jalapenos for an in-between.
If you don’t have a blender than it is actually significantly more work.

 Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:06 pm ~new~
I started doing a drier kind of salsa in the food processor.
– 1/4 of a white onion
– 1 or 2 fresh jalapeno peppers
– a dozen sprigs of cilantro
– juice from half a lime
– salt to taste
(Scale that however you want)
I very coarsely chop the onion, peppers, and cilantro into pieces that are about an inch long so I
only have to do a few pulses in the food processor to get them down to finely chopped. That way it
doesn’t get soupy.
I make a bunch of this and just keep it in the fridge. I can take it out any time and dip chips and
stuff in it, or I can heat up a small buttered tortilla in a skillet, add shredded cheese and a spoonful
of the salsa to the tortilla, then fold it over and brown it on both sides for a quesadilla snack.
 Vitor says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:53 am ~new~
So basically pebre? You’re missing tomatoes and a dash of oil though. Garlic optional. vinegar
instead of lime is up to you.
You haven’t lived until you’ve tried this. Good on bread, with sausages, in soup, etc etc.
 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:26 am ~new~
I used to make it with tomato but decided it just made it soupy without adding much. Never made
it with garlic; not going for that kind of flavor profile.

Hide ↑
 Vitor says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:39 am ~new~
Well… you should only use the firm fleshy part of the tomato, and throw away the seeds and the
liquid.
Hide ↑
 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:22 am ~new~
My cheap self won’t let me throw away any significant quantity of something I know to be edible
under normal circumstances; if I must have tomatoes I just chop them separately and use them as
a garnish.
Hide ↑
 cassander says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:17 pm ~new~
Back when people did things, someone used to regularly bring tortilla chips to the DC meetup, but
not salsa. I was never able to find out who and punish them appropriately.
o Lord Nelson says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:03 pm ~new~
Cakes.
While wedding planning, I tried every cake within a 30 Mile radius, most of which were priced in
the 100+ dollar range. At least half of them were no better than a box mix, and another quarter
were no better than a good magazine recipe.
Edit to add: aside from the winning bakery (which cost close to 500 dollars), I did not find any
cakes that I liked better than my own apple spice recipe, stolen from a magazine a decade ago.
 cassander says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:15 pm ~new~
It’s shockingly difficult to buy decent baked goods for money. I bake, and when I do, people always
are surprised and usually say something like “You don’t seem like the sort of person who would like
baking.” I don’t like baking. I don’t mind it, but what I like good cake and it’s not that hard to
make.
June 16, 2020 at 5:27 am ~new~
Bakeries work on the principle of pleasing their regular customers (like almost every other
business), which means predictable, consistent production of a handful of high margin goods.
Standard cakes are incredibly high margin for their ingredients (flour, water, sugar, salt, leavening)
and skill level. If you want high quality baked goods you need to find a place that has high effort
high volume goods (a french bakery that makes it own croissants and doesn’t buy partially frozen
ones to bake toast every morning).
It is my opinion that almost all eating out and purchasing of cooked goods is to avoid cleaning up
after and has little to do with the time and effort of actually cooking.
 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:59 am ~new~
It is my opinion that almost all eating out and purchasing of cooked goods is to avoid cleaning up
after and has little to do with the time and effort of actually cooking.
I basically agree with you. The only things I don’t bother cooking are:
-Fried goods: just not worth it. Too much difficulty to do this on a stove top.
-Asian/African Ethnic Food: If i could buy single-use spices I would cook more, but I don’t need a
whole jar of say, star anise that I’ll only use once a month.
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 cassander says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:10 am ~new~
I don’t mind cooking and cleaning, I mind shopping for groceries and then watching them go bad. I
eat out to get variety that I can’t get in my home.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 7:18 am ~new~
I don’t mind cooking and cleaning, I mind shopping for groceries. I eat out to get variety that I can’t
get in my home.
Funnily enough the lockdowns have made me hate grocery shopping. I used to take the kids with
me so it was just an errand, but now its an errand that I have to use my kid free time to do.
Hide ↑
 ana53294 says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:28 am ~new~
The kind of sweet baked goods that I am willing to buy, because they are too much effort
(baklavas, layered cakes, etc.) tend to only be sold in specialized stores. The exception is in Russia
(at least, in Moscow), where you can buy really, really good complex cakes in any supermarket. I
always buy them when I visit.
Sadly, stores in the UK and Spain never have cakes more complex than simple spongecakes,
brownies or apple pie. And I can make a very good brownie myself, thankyouverymuch.
I only ever buy panettones, croissants and the Spanish King Cake (that one is quite laborious to
get right, and, since it’s only eaten once per year, totally not worth figuring out). They’re mostly
too much time and effort for comparable or even inferior results. Everything else, homemade is
better.
o Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:22 pm ~new~
Basically any food you can prepare well that isn’t a huge pain has the potential to be high-quality,
(at least somewhat) easy, and fun.
We’ve taken our recycling to the next level and now are filling those plastic bag recycling
containers in the front of supermarkets with stuff we would have thrown in the regular trash a year
ago.
We also discovered that a lot of products’ packaging can be very useful if repurposed. The biggest
winners are jars and plastic tubs for obvious reasons. Plastic milk jugs can be washed, cut, and
reused in a variety of ways, especially in the garden and garage.
“Easy” means different things to different people but I find woodworking both easy and hard at the
same time. I make and/or repair a lot of stuff around the house, and as my skills have improved so
has the quality of my work, in everything from bird feeders to furniture.
Along those lines, I don’t know if this counts as “making at home” but there’s a lot of DIY home &
auto maintenance and repair stuff that’s easy and fun, much of which people normally pay a lot of
money for someone else to do. (Though I do think there are some situations where calling a pro is
warranted, even for the brave and motivated individual who’s normally willing to learn to work on
his property by reading a forum or watching a Youtube video.)

o Clutzy says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:12 pm ~new~
Here’s an anti-recommendation: Chicken Paprikash.
My GF demanded we try this amazing new recipe she discovered. It was not very good.
o jewelersshop says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:13 pm ~new~
Pie crust. Use a recipe with vinegar in it; I think Pioneer Woman’s was the same as the one I’ve
been using for years.

o Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:18 pm ~new~

Beer bread.
I think the best one I made was with some brown Leffe I had lying around, but stouts work well
too.
o DavidFriedman says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:28 pm ~new~
If you want to make it even easier, take a look at the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.
The title is an exaggeration, but it really is a way of having fresh baked bread at very little cost in
time. And some of the breads are quite good — I’m particularly fond of the rye.
o LesHapablap says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:48 am ~new~
Pizza is the obvious next step. It’s easy to make truly awesome pizza. Two tips:
-if you’re using premade pasta sauce, there are lots of brands to choose from. Choose the one with
the least amount of added sugar.
-You may need to bake the crust by itself for a bit before putting toppings on unless you have a
wicked pizza oven.

 drunkfish says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:59 am ~new~
Even better, deep dish pizza! High effort, but SO good. I’m a chicago native who used to nearly
only eat deep dish when I visited because I missed it so much. Once I found my current deep dish
recipe, but competes with every real deep dish place and beats a lot of them, I no longer bother. I
follow this reddit post (not mine):
https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/272ycb/chicago_style_stuffed_pizza/
 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:24 am ~new~
This seriously borders on CW, but Detroit style is the best. And it’s easier to make than Chicago
style.
 drunkfish says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:50 pm ~new~
Definitely culture war and disgustingly wrong.
But I’d be interested in a recipe so that I can prove you’re so wrong.

Hide ↑
 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:59 pm ~new~
Food Wishes has it.
Hide ↑
 keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:20 am ~new~
Here’s the recipe of the year from King Arthur Flour. It is definitely a winner (at least when made
by my boyfriend).
 The Pachyderminator says:

June 16, 2020 at 2:24 pm ~new~
Link?
o Vitor says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:50 am ~new~
Pesto. Different types of chutney. I hear homemade ketchup is also miles better than any
commercial stuff, but I haven’t tried it since I am under the (possibly wrong) impression that all
ketchup is disgusting.
o A Definite Beta Guy says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:25 am ~new~
I have not had success with bread yet, but I have not tried very hard.
-Stocks, both chicken and especially beef. I do a lot of whole chicken, though, so I tend to have
leftovers.
-Home made tomato sauce
-Cakes, very easy to make at home, very good
-Simple cocktails
-Home-made pizza is pretty solid. It doesn’t beat every pizza, but it’s damn close for how little it
costs.
o AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:33 am ~new~
Hummus is surprisingly easy, so long as you have a food processor of some sort. I have an
immersion blender that came with a chamber accessory that turns it into a food processor. Bonus
points, adding white miso paste to my otherwise plain hummus made my tongue register it as
cheese spread.
You can also make tahini at home for super cheap, because it’s basically just sesame butter. Buy
sesame seeds in bulk from a grocery, toast them on the stove. Blend with oil in the proper ratio.
You can make fritatta in a slow cooker, though the texture may be unsatisfactory compared to
baking methods.
I’ve also used my slow cooker for braising, which is great. (And as per above, making stock.
Speaking of which, miso soup is fairly easy to make at home.)
Finally, use a slow cooker or stew pot thermos for hong/lu dou tang, a sweet mung bean soup,
which you basically can’t find in grocery stores at all (only the ingredients), and only higher end
Chinese restaurants offer at the end of a multi-course meal.

o mitv150 says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:21 am ~new~
Things I’ve made myself that are worth it:
Beer (although the explosion in the last two years of nano breweries has reduced some of the
variety advantage)
Bread – particularly sourdough
Mayonnaise – this is a 3 minute process, is very customizable, and is delicious. I’ve started making
an eggless version that is indistinguishable.
pizza dough – i live in an area with not great pizza, so this is worth it for me. wouldn’t be in other
places.
Traditional recipes that have been commodified, are superior when made at home, and are
relatively easy to make – caesar dressing, hollandaise, alfredo, buffalo wings,
Things I’ve made myself that are not worth it:
yogurt – turned out exactly like good whole milk greek yogurt from the store. No money saved
here.
Things I haven’t decided on yet:
kombucha (still brewing)

 SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:35 am ~new~
Strongly second mayonnaise and hollandaise. And with mayonnaise comes aioli, basil mayo, etc.
June 16, 2020 at 11:56 am ~new~
Granola.
I am currently on a low glycemic index diet, as one of the recommendations from Bredesen’s book.
I once got, I think from Whole Foods, a version of granola that had no grains and not much
carbohydrate, but I don’t think they always have it — and we have been quarantining since mid-
March, so I’m not shopping there or anywhere else, other than delivery.
My daughter in law pointed me at a webbed recipe for something similar. It’s easy to make and
very tasty. I modified it by adding coconut chips and omitting the Erythritol, which is a sweetener.
All of the ingredients can be ordered online for delivery.
It’s very good. I mix it into fruit salad as well as having it with fruit and milk.
o andrewflicker says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:21 pm ~new~
Fancy cocktails- it doesn’t take much work or expense to make cocktails better than what you’d get
in 95% of bars, for a fraction of the per-drink price. I often recommend people start with brandy
sidecars, fancified gin-and-tonics, and manhattans, depending on what they like- but if you have
more developed tastes already, just buy the bottles necessary to make the thing you like, save
tons of money compared to buying them out, plus you impress your house-guests.
If it’s that you like the “going out with a date / friends” experience, do dinner out and retire home
for the cocktails- impressive, classy, less worries about getting home tipsy, and so on.
 SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:34 pm ~new~
I’ll second this as well – pick a cocktail you like that’s not tiki, and you can probably buy everything
you need to make a dozen of them for what 3 of them would cost in a bar–and it’s easy to make
them serious cocktail bar quality rather than random neighborhood bar quality.
18. wearsshoes says:

June 15, 2020 at 2:34 pm ~new~
Regarding toxoplasma, I think that your thesis still holds up. Uncertain evidence about a dispute’s
flashpoint event is not the only thing that can create a toxoplasmic situation. Toxoplasma can also
happen about uncertain evidence over the validity of various responses. Here is how I would state
it: As you mentioned originally, in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases, the debates were
mostly over whether the killings were justified; clear-cut in one case and more dubious in the
other. You, and the public debate, found the debate focused around the killings, rather than their
aftermath. Mainstream opinion about appropriate response was fairly unanimous: have a debate,
allow nonviolent protests, condemn riots.
In the George Floyd case, the evidence is as clear-cut as the Eric Garner case. But now the public
debate centers more strongly on whether the protests are justifiable, whether police should be
employing tear gas and nonlethal ammunition to disperse them, whether ‘abolish the police’ is an
effective slogan. The right to protest has become more politicized because of COVID-19 and public
figures and institutions being inconsistent in their responses to anti-lockdown protests and Floyd
protests. More media time has been given to justifications of anti-state action, and an
abandonment of the unquestionability of nonviolent doctrines. All the same phenomena exist as
before: nuance-destroying incentive gradients, debatability being a logical precondition to debate,
the arms race nature of oppositional escalation. The sides are just fighting over different strategic
ground.
o Scott Alexander says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:15 pm ~new~
Yes, the fact the model failed to predict wasn’t “people are hotly debating the protests”, it’s “there
were lots and lots of protests over this”.

o Wency says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:48 am ~new~
I would think it’s still relevant to toxoplasma that Floyd was the centerpoint and not, say, Breonna
Taylor. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 7 reasons why she would be a more
sympathetic victim than Floyd, and none in his favor, yet Floyd was the one who triggered
everything.
Still, it would seem this case is mostly about the power of visual media, since we have a video with
Floyd and not with Taylor. But it’s absolutely true, and worth pointing out, that our controversy
cycle never does seem to highlight the most clear-cut cases, even if sometimes the cases it
highlights are more clear-cut than others.

 Dan L says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:10 pm ~new~
Still, it would seem this case is mostly about the power of visual media, since we have a video with
Floyd and not with Taylor.
+1. Toxoplasmic effects may be relevant at the margins, but having such an evocative primary
source available is going to drown out other factors even if most won’t watch it themselves.
 Matt M says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:37 pm ~new~
I’m also quickly coming to the conclusion that “chokehold deaths” are far more outrageous to the
public at large than shooting deaths.

It seems a little counter-intuitive… but in the case of every shooting death, the cops basically make
the following argument: We were entering a situation where it wasn’t clear if the person was going
to be violent or not, despite our warnings to the contrary, they made a sudden movement that, in
a split-second, we interpreted as a threat to us, so we fired. That “split-second decision” (or lack
thereof) is what’s key and what drives many people to sympathize with the officer, and therefore
produces less outrage.
Even in the worst shooting (say that of a fleeing, unarmed victim) a cop can nearly always
plausibly claim that the victim said or did something that caused the cop to momentarily feel
unsafe and choose to use lethal force. And I think even the most generally anti-police person can
empathize with that feeling. One split second bad decision. That sucks and we want to hold them
accountable, but it’s not necessarily deliberate and intentional.
However, in the case of a chokehold, it’s not one momentary split-second decision. It’s a continued
decision that plays out constantly over several minutes. Rather than “99% of this interaction I kept
peaceful and then in one moment used lethal force and even if in hindsight I wish I hadn’t it
seemed reasonable at the time,” the opposite is now true. 99% of the interaction is force and
violence and an intentional deprivation of oxygen from the victim. It would have taken a split-
second of the officer feeling differently to save George Floyd, not to kill him. This is what causes
the public to suspect a callous indifference to human life. Someone in a chokehold is already
incapacitated. There was nothing George Floyd could have conceivably done in minute two of being
choked that represented a threat to the officer such that continued application of the hold was
justified.
I don’t really know whether or not banning chokeholds makes officers less safe, or will reduce the
number of people killed by cops, but I do think it will probably lead to less rioting and unrest,
because of what I just described above. Even if we replace every chokehold death with a shooting
death, the public will be less outraged, IMO.

 Jaskologist says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:54 pm ~new~
Philando Castile and Justine Damond were both shot, and people were pretty upset about those.
Hide ↑
19. jonm says:

June 15, 2020 at 2:10 pm ~new~
In the last year or so, the internet has noticed that some people lack an inner voice (where you are
able to hear your thoughts literally vocalised in your mind) or a mind’s eye (where you are able to
literally see things that you imagine).

Does anyone have an inner nose or mind’s touch and taste? I certainly don’t but apparently we
shouldn’t assume that our experiences match those of other people. Do people with who are blind
and deaf have inner versions of these other senses?

June 15, 2020 at 2:19 pm ~new~
Taste and touch, yes, if I understand you correctly. Not so sure about smell, but my sense of smell
has never been particularly strong.

o noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:39 pm ~new~
I can call up smell, taste, touch, body position and tension.

o Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:48 pm ~new~
I can’t exactly imagine scents on command, but memories of scents can accompany other
memories or even strike unbidden.
Now, I’ll be impressed if anyone can imagine a smell they’ve never smelled before, the way one
might imagine a picture never seen.

 FLWAB says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:01 am ~new~
I can imagine any scent I’ve smelled, but am helpless to imagine a smell I’ve never smelled before.
However, I don’t think it’s comparable to imagining images. I can certainly imagine a scene I never
saw before, but I can’t imagine a color I’ve never seen before no matter how hard I try.
 Randy M says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:41 am ~new~
True, the senses are really not in any way symmetrical in their resolution.
o Pierrot Lunaire says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:26 pm ~new~

What do you mean by “hear”, exactly? I am very, very verbal inside my mind, but I don’t think I’m
hearing a voice as it would be if I was hearing someone talking. More the concept of words. Similar
to reading to myself.
o Beans says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:53 pm ~new~
I can definitely mentally simulate any sensory input that I haven’t forgotten about already, it just
tends to be a little “low definition”.

o Vitor says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:20 pm ~new~
Touch definitely yes. It’s pretty detailed as these things go, but not vivid. Maybe that has
something to do with the fact that it’s projected by default onto a sort of inner body map, which
just floats around wherever in my consciousness. The sensation only overlaps my actual body (in
“real” space, where my proprioception is) if I concentrate. I had never consciously thought about
that, so thanks!
My inner sight is very easy to call up but usually lacks detail and emotional impact. Very washed
out in a weird way, almost as if every visual pattern was replaced by an abstract marker for it until
I deliberately focus on it to “unpack” it. The “body map” I mentioned above is kind of visual if that
makes sense. For example, if I want to feel the touch of a steel knife against my palm, I’ll imagine
a hand and a knife (visually, free floating), and then make the knife touch the hand. But I have to
remember to place the sensation on my literal palm, or it’ll be somewhere else (in empty space
where I imagined the hand).

Smell and taste seem to be much weaker. I can recall my reactions to e.g. bad smells, but the
memory of the smell itself lacks any substance. Sound is a bit stronger, but still not as strong as
vision.
o Gerry Quinn says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:46 pm ~new~
I can easily pull up a smell or taste, but it’s not nearly as ‘real’ as an imagined sight or sound.
I think maybe vision and hearing carry a big linear bit-stream, and that data component is just as
real whether it’s coming in by way of the senses, or you conjure it from imagination or memory.
While the more subtle qualia of things like the scent of a rose, for example, have to stand by
themselves.
If you imagine the sound of your mother’s voice, maybe you can imagine it just as sound, but
there will be meaningful words attached to it as well in the imagined sound.

o Murphy says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:13 pm ~new~

mind’s touch and taste
If I’m thinking about what to cook for dinner and not really sure what I want I’ll run through the
imagined taste/feel of each option until I hit on one which seems to hit the spot.
That or when I’m cooking and a dish doesn’t seem quite right I’ll do similar tweaking it a bit with
each of the things I could add to it.
I can certainly do something similar with smell but typically don’t much.
Touch, a little but as others say, it’s not very vivid.
One I think is a bit unusual is my feel for numbers. I was a bit math obsessed as a small child and
one of the long term effects of that is a feeling of “wrongness” when numbers don’t add up or
make sense without having to apply conscious effort to it. Like a faint mental version of nails on a
chalk board.
o ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:32 pm ~new~
Which makes me wonder how the erotic fantasies of people who can’t visualize or imagine touch
look like. Or is it that people just watch porn instead of fantasyzing? Or they can’t fantasyze?
I can imagine all senses in my mind, although more weakly than when I’m really experiencing. The
one that is most vivid is proprioception: imagining myself standing, walking, etc.
o Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:33 pm ~new~
How well can y’all hear inner voices with different timbres and accents? Like for example if you’re
remembering lines spoken in a movie by a foreign character, or something a foreign coworker said,
or something your mom said, etc.

 noyann says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:04 am ~new~
Foreigner’s accents, or national dialects are very, ah, pronounced.

 Tarpitz says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:02 am ~new~
Pretty accurately, I think. I’m an actor, and generally fairly good at voices and accents even by the
standards of other professional actors (though not exceptional within that group). I’m guessing I’m
probably naturally better than most people at this – it’s not something I’ve ever really had to work
on.
 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:37 am ~new~
I’m good at doing accents too but I’m not sure this has anything to do with how well I can recall
them in my head (which I’d also call “pretty accurately”), since I can also pretty accurately
mentally recall the voices of people I cannot convincingly imitate out loud, like those of small kids,
most women, or Barry White.

 FLWAB says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:59 am ~new~
Very easily, as evidenced by the fact that as soon as I read “y’all” in your comment my mind read
the rest of it in a pronounced southern accent. And when I reached “timbres” I tried to change the
voice and it instantly became Larry the Cable Guy.

o Dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:52 pm ~new~
I have inner imaginative versions of all my senses. If I’m coming up with new cooking ideas I’ll call
up the smells and tastes of different ingredients and mentally combine them to see if they go
together. Oddly enough, I think I never even tried to imagine a smell until maybe 10 years ago
when I started cooking – it just never came up.

o DinoNerd says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:46 pm ~new~
I can imagine smell and touch, somewhere close to real. (Complete with mild physiological
responses.) I don’t have an inner voice at all, and have almost no mind’s eye. I do think with
words, but I can’t answer questions like “was the voice male or female” – the answer would be
“what voice?”. And it’s fairly easy for me to switch the language and continue the thought, so this
is not quite thinking in words.

o keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:22 am ~new~
I think I’m much better at touch than many of the others. I can barely imagine any scent, except
maybe some very strong and distinctive ones, like lemon, or skunk. Sometimes a scent comes to
my mind unbidden, but it’s hard to intentionally imagine.
The other thing I find is that I can’t imagine what pain feels like when I’m not currently feeling
pain.
20. Tatterdemalion says:

June 15, 2020 at 1:50 pm ~new~
I know that the third amendment has often been described as the “runt piglet” of the US
constitution, because it’s hardly ever litigated.
But if you were to rank the other amendments in order of importance/how much they matter to
you, what order would you put them in?
(I really want to phrase this as “if you were stranded on a desert island and could only take seven
amendments with you, which ones would they be”…)

o broblawsky says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:05 pm ~new~
Only Bill of Rights amendments, or everything?

 Eric Rall says:

June 15, 2020 at 2:22 pm ~new~
And does the 27th Amendment count as a Bill of Rights amendment, or are we only counting 1-10?
 Tatterdemalion says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:16 pm ~new~
The whole caboodle – 1 through 27. Although you can make 18 a special case if you want.
Incidentally, am I the only person who worries regularly that I’ll get 18 and 19 mixed up and say
something that implies that I support the repeal of womens’ suffrage?

 Dan L says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:23 pm ~new~
You can’t drink at 18, but you can at 21. …but glancing at state laws, that mnemonic was never as
broad as I thought while still losing steam by the day.

o eyeballfrog says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:25 pm ~new~
I would think the 3rd amendment is hardly ever litigated because it’s so clear about what it’s
proscribing. Its only case law, Engblom v. Carey, involved a very particular setup that caused the
NY government to violate the 3rd amendment in a non-obvious way. Still, I definitely wouldn’t
want the government to forcibly quarter soldiers in my house, so I like that it’s there.
 achenx says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:35 am ~new~
There was a 3rd amendment case a couple years ago in Nevada regarding police that had set up in
someone’s house in order to surveill some neighbors. The state court rejected that claim as
“despite what they look like, police don’t count as soldiers”. I get that line of thinking but I wonder
if it could theoretically go the other way.

o Trofim_Lysenko says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:06 pm ~new~
10th
2nd
13th
6th
4th
1st
5th
9th
14th
With importance dropping off sharply from there. That precedent has rendered the 10th a dead
letter pisses me off to no end, up there with the creep of “interstate commerce”
 Tatterdemalion says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:40 am ~new~
I’m struck by the absence of e.g the 15th and 19th amendments.
 Trofim_Lysenko says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:30 am ~new~
I still haven’t come down firmly on the topic one way or the other, so I’m OK defaulting to
universal suffrage by default, but I’m at least partially sympathetic to arguments for at something
like the conditional franchise of Heinlein’s Terran Federation. Under ye olde “disparate impact
doctrine” and arguments of the sort, any sort of preconditions or requirements for earning the
franchise are the next best thing to presumptively invalid per those sorts of amendments, thus I
bite the bullet and they get lower billing.

o Evan Þ says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:23 pm ~new~
First the Bill of Rights, from most important to less:
1, 13, 4, 6, 5, 9, 10, 2, 8, 7, 3. Juries have lost most of their importance IMO as they’ve lost most
of their original powers, so I rank those amendments further down.
14 is an oddball because it incorporates all the Bill of Rights. If pushed, I’d have to rank it really
near the top since it applies the great and glorious First Amendment against the states – but I
really don’t like having to put it in the same spectrum as the others.
Then the other beneficial amendments, still from more to less important: 15, 17, 19, 22, 21, 20,
25, 24
Then the ones I don’t really care about: 23, 27, 12, 11
Then for the actually harmful: 26 (the voting age should be slightly over the age of majority so
voters have some experience), 18 (a bad idea as well as invasive), 16 (drove the growth of
government power).
o chrisminor0008 says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:53 pm ~new~
Not that it’s the absolute most important or anything, but I think the 17th amendment was a
mistake and its impact drastically understated. It fundamentally changed the US from a federation
of states into a centralized government of the whole of the people. Now instead of the US federal
government having body representing the people and another body representing the states, we
have basically two houses of representatives, just with slightly different apportionments. And it led
to people today complaining that the president is not elected by popular vote.
 cassander says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:56 pm ~new~
I think the 17th is much more a symbol of that transition than a cause. The ability of state houses
elected every 2 years to control senators appointed every 6 was inherently minimal. Had the 17th
never been passed, the senate would look more like the supreme court today than it currently
does, but federal power wouldn’t be fundamentally altered.

 Evan Þ says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:21 pm ~new~
Perhaps, but it freed state legislators to be elected on the basis of state issues rather than on
national party affiliation. For decades, state legislators had campaigned prominently on the basis of
who they would support for Senate; the Seventeenth Amendment freed state legislatures from
those concerns.
 Konstantin says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:37 pm ~new~
Keep in mind that before the 17th Amendment, it wasn’t unusual for Senate seats to remain vacant
for years as a result of partisan gridlock in state legislatures. I think that problem would be even
worse today.
o Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:37 pm ~new~
What do you constitutional scholars think of the adage “The second amendment ensures all the
others?”
To me it seems intuitively correct but I don’t see that reflected in anyone else’s answers. What am
I missing?
June 15, 2020 at 9:04 pm ~new~
Why do you think I ranked it just under the 10th?

June 15, 2020 at 9:11 pm ~new~
It didn’t stop the North from ultimately preventing Southern secession.
And I didn’t see the British overturning the Magna Carta during the last 800 years (though
Cromwell was whatever).
Heck, the lack of a 2nd amendment didn’t prevent the colonists from successfully rebelling in the
first place. Much of that was thanks to alliances with European powers.
More recently, her boyfriend being armed didn’t prevent the police from illegitimately killing
Breonna Taylor (and likely did the opposite).
I think people taking rights seriously is what keeps rights as rights. Abolishing them is outside of
the Overton window. Guns may play a roll in keeping them out of the Overton window, but guns
are not the primary reason for this. Tradition is. Stare decisis is. Oaths taken and firmly believed in
to protect and defend the Constitution are.

June 15, 2020 at 9:29 pm ~new~
Your first and third points contradict each other, especially when you factor in that in fact English
Common Law laid out protections of the right to bear arms (which the 2nd Amendment is basically
just a stronger and more expansive version of) and the role that the culture and practice of firearm
ownership and use in the colonies had on the formation of American units, their employment of
skirmishers, and the early portions of the rebellion. I’m not going to say that it was decisive,
because it wasn’t, but it played a non-trivial role.
The fourth point is a pure non-sequitur.
If you’d like to take this up in the next CW thread, I’d be happy to oblige you.
June 15, 2020 at 9:51 pm ~new~
No. I don’t want to argue with you or anyone else about this. Just pointing out examples that seem
to me to show that the 2nd amendment does not “ensure” the others. Though it may *help*
support the continuing existence of the others (as does the 1st amendment).
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:30 am ~new~
You do know that most of the Magna Carta has been repealed and superceeded by newer laws?
June 16, 2020 at 9:39 am ~new~
The system works then? The fundamental limitation on the King did not revert.
I did not know of the early history of the Magna Carta, but it strikes me as not too different than
the overturning of the Articles of Confederation for the Constitution.
I concede that this is not a good example, as arms were ultimately used to help “ensure” the
Magna Carta (along with foreign allies).
I still think that my other four observations stand as indicators that the right to bear arms does not
“ensure” the other rights, but at most merely supports them.

Hide ↑
 keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:25 am ~new~
I would think that the 1st amendment and 4th amendment are far more important for actually
protecting other rights than the 2nd. At least, in recent years, it seems that far more rights have
been won by people assembling peaceably and speaking in public than by people using guns, and
far more rights have been threatened by authorities unreasonably searching and seizing than by
actions that would have been stopped by a gun.

 Well... says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:33 am ~new~
Speech and peaceful protests indeed have a greater history of expanding/securing new rights for
people who did not have them before. But I think that’s different from ensuring rights you already
have on the books.
Knowing that your populace is armed doesn’t make infringing on their rights impossible, but it
makes it very costly both politically/logistically/etc. and in terms of actual money. Yes,
unreasonable searches and seizures are a big thing, but I imagine they’d be much worse without a
2nd amendment.
June 16, 2020 at 12:56 pm ~new~
Yes, unreasonable searches and seizures are a big thing, but I imagine they’d be much worse without
a 2nd amendment.
I truly don’t know. I thought the major impediment to unreasonable searches and seizures is that
the judge throws out the evidence, and in extreme cases throws out the entire prosecution- with
prejudice. At the trial stage guns are definitely not involved.

Hide ↑
 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:04 pm ~new~
4th amendment could help you hide guns if the second goes away.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 3:15 pm ~new~
Speech and peaceful protests mostly work in two scenarios:
1) The government is unable to bring effective force to bear due to lack of political control. E.G.
liberal democracies with relatively robust civil rights norms and/or lack of popular political support
for the use of force to maintain the status quo. In other words, where you’re already most of the
way there, reform wise. E.G. 20th Century India, 20th Century US. 18th to mid 19th Century
Alternate Timeline Gandhi gets ignored or militarily crushed.
2) The protesters or third parties acting on their behalf can make a credible threat of force to check
an attempt to crush them outright. E.G. the threat of US or NATO reponse providing top cover for
the early stages of the Soviet Union’s breakup and the Color Revolutions, until it progressed to the
point where scenario 1 took over.

Hide ↑
o broblawsky says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:58 am ~new~
S-tier: 1st, 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, 26th
Freedom of speech\press and universal suffrage are the cornerstones of actual democracy. Without
those, everything else falls apart.
A-tier: 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th
Making sure that criminal and civil trials are implemented fairly is also essential. The 9th
amendment is just a good idea on the basis of future-proofing the Constitution.
B-tier: 16th
It’s almost impossible to implement a modern state without an income tax; there’s no other good
way to raise sufficient revenue.
C-tier: 12th, 17th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, 25th
Essential modernization for having a functional state. None of these are necessary, but they are
useful.
I’m not going to list what I consider F-tier to avoid CW issues.


June 16, 2020 at 12:33 pm ~new~
I interpreted these as the Support tiers from Fire Emblem games.
You can’t marry the 1st, 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th.
June 16, 2020 at 1:34 pm ~new~
I will take that fight straight to the Supreme Court.

21. Chalid says:

June 15, 2020 at 1:17 pm ~new~
When it comes to risk of coronavirus transmission, “outside” is better than “inside.”
One could imagine this being due to better air circulation, or the effect of UV in sunlight, or greater
spacing between people, or probably other things too. Any chance that we have any idea what
actually matters?
o noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:43 pm ~new~
Larger personal distance plus dilution through more, and more turbulent airflow would be my
guess.
22. Urstoff says:

June 15, 2020 at 1:05 pm ~new~
Anyone know where I could find a (preferably searchable) list of all books published by Penguin
Classics? Their website is pretty atrocious, and the closest thing I could find was a pdf catalog
that’s already several years old.

o noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:43 pm ~new~
Does the Congress Library allow a search by publisher?

o kupe says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:35 pm ~new~
There’s this: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/23770.Penguin_Classics
Although it’s fan-made so may not be exhaustive.

 Urstoff says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:04 am ~new~
Thanks! That’s certainly better than anything else I’ve found so far.
o littskad says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:43 pm ~new~
Penguin has a what they call a Complete Annotated Listing on their site.
23. Jon S says:

June 15, 2020 at 12:01 pm ~new~
@Well… a couple months ago I asked about the vulnerability of the power grid to intense solar
flares and you said you’d ask a contact who might know. Did you ever get an answer?
o AKL says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:12 pm ~new~

Sorry if this is a repost, but these posts at GiveWell (in particular the fourth in the series) may be
helpful.
 Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:35 pm ~new~
Thanks. That was also posted last time I asked and I thought the series was helpful.
o Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:40 pm ~new~
I did not get an answer. I gather that my contact was busy and I didn’t want to hassle him, and by
now he’s probably forgotten about it (as I admit I did until I found your OP) and we don’t have the
kind of relationship where I’d bug him about it again after all this time. I apologize.
 Jon S says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:56 am ~new~
No problem, thanks anyway

24. Forlorn Hopes says:

June 15, 2020 at 12:00 pm ~new~
I have a strange question, but this might be the place to ask it.
If I’m a 1950’s mad scientist, but specifically a mad sociologist. What popular 1950s ideas might I
base my inventions on?
Ideally they’d result in tangible creations. For example, one idea I had was town planning. Creating
an idealised white picket fence suburb that due to the power of mad science mentally influences
everyone living there until it turns into pure Stepford Wives; at least until some do-gooder comes
to thwart the mad scheme.

o Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:02 pm ~new~
Psychohistory, although not tangible, would be the ultimate pay-off.
Anyone have any info on whether Assimov considered that possible or just an interesting plot
device?
 Forlorn Hopes says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:12 pm ~new~
Psychohistory is a good idea. I wonder if there was a real world equivalent, some actual sociology
professor with some new method for future predictions I could crib terminologies from.
Any others? The more ideas the merrier.


June 15, 2020 at 12:40 pm ~new~
The Snowball Effect by Katherine MacLean (1952). A sociologist discovers what makes
organizations grow, and loads a small knitting club with maximum growth factors.
 Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:52 pm ~new~
Nice. This story occurred to me, but I couldn’t find it.

o Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:24 pm ~new~
Dr. Spock was a big deal in the 50s and 60s; there may be something you can do with some of his
childcare advice.
 Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:13 pm ~new~
Or any of the other more radical behavioralist psychologist, of the “give me a child…” school.
o Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:08 pm ~new~
A power-generating Hula Hoop.

o Ninety-Three says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:59 pm ~new~

It’s technically from the early sixties, but the Milgram experiment seems perfectly on-theme here.
Perform enough variations on the experiment that you discover exactly what components of
authority people respond to, and then the right tone of voice plus outfit will have people launching
nuclear missiles at your command just because you seem like you’re in charge.
 fibio says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:58 am ~new~
Though that might segway into a heist movie pretty quickly.

o Forlorn Hopes says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:54 am ~new~
Thank you everyone. Though the lack of ideas for tangible creations means I may have to go back
to the drawing board :/


June 15, 2020 at 11:57 am ~new~
More nominative determinism: for five years, the manager of German football club VfL Wolfsburg
was one Wolfgang Wolf.

26. Wrong Species says:

June 15, 2020 at 11:41 am ~new~
Consider three things:
1. Anatolia and Constantinople are very defensible territories
2. Gunpowder tilted the playing field away from nomadic horsemen and towards centralized states
3. The settling of Anatolia by the Turks led to the downfall of the Byzantine Empire
So if the Byzantines had won the Battle of Manzikert, then it’s not implausible that we could have
had a Rome well in to Modernity.
Imagine that they won and made a deal with the Sultan to keep Turks away from Anatolia and the
Caucasus. The emperor puts out all the other fires around the empire. If they can hold on for a bit,
the Seljuk Empire will decline in the next century. After that comes the Mongols. They don’t have a
chance in hell of beating them militarily but maybe they can survive by becoming vassals while the
Mongols deal with other matters. Wait for their empire to disintegrate. Then if they survive the
Timurid Empire and the Mamluks, maybe the Safavids as well, they get to the 15th century,
gunpowder becomes prominent and the threat of nomadic empires lessens dramatically. And then
after that, it’s hard to say, since it was the Ottomans that became key during this time. How
plausible does this sound to you? What other surprises would they have to watch out for? And if
they make it the early modern period intact, how much longer do you think they’ll survive?
June 15, 2020 at 12:16 pm ~new~
I thought that the actual Byzantine response to Mongols was to pay them to go away, which seems
to have worked tolerably well in lots of other places too. Constantinople is probably the most
fortified city anywhere on the planet across this whole time period and easily supplied by sea;
unless you’ve got heavy siege artillery or happen to be technically allied to the defenders taking it
isn’t really a viable option even if you are the Mongols.

 Wrong Species says:

June 15, 2020 at 1:08 pm ~new~
Sure, but if the Mongols overran Anatolia, then they have the exact same problem of nomads in
their backyard but with Mongols instead of Turks. To survive, they would need to prevent that from
happening. Constantinople is very defendable but not impregnable. If that is the only territory the
Romans have, then it’s only a matter of time before someone manages to take it. After all, that is
what happened.
 Statismagician says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:55 pm ~new~
Very true. I thought we were positing that Rome keeps Anatolia, Thrace, and Greece at least up
until the Mongols show up – I could be wrong about this, but my recollection was that the
Ilkhanate expansion stopped somewhere in eastern Anatolia rather than going all the way to the
Bosporus, so I’m picturing a stronger Empire keeping them at least that far away from the capital.
Possibly not if they end up having to fight the Golden Horde in Bulgaria at the same time, but this
Empire has more political and financial capital and might possibly be able to coordinate somewhat
with the rest of Eastern Europe.
What will be really interesting is what Russia and Northern Europe look like with significant
religious and cultural influence coming up from Constantinople, and how Constantinople no longer
being tied into the Indian Ocean trade networks so tightly changes the development of world trade
patterns. I could imagine Orthodox Baltic states and Egypt as the center of gravity for the Muslim
world.
I have no idea what happens when the colonial expeditions start up, my impression is that a lot of
that was down to basically chance – possibly some Italian adventurer ends up talking to Thomas
Palaiologos and South America speaks Greek in the new timeline, who knows?
June 15, 2020 at 5:12 pm ~new~
History could potentially diverge quite a bit during the modern period. With the Byzantines still
functioning as a bulwark against Middle Eastern expansion, you don’t have any groups like the
Ottomans conquering Eastern Europe and terrorizing Western Europe. I can’t imagine that the
Byzantines would end up powerful so its history could play out like a longer version of the Ottoman
later history. We could be talking about Rome as the sick man of Europe.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 12:04 pm ~new~
I don’t know about that – my read on the Ottoman decline is that they ran into the same problems
holding a multi-ethnic empire together in the face of proto-nationalist sentiment that Austra-
Hungary did, but sooner and more severely because there was even less common identity holding
things together (by design, which was very adaptive in the Renaissance and abysmally maladaptive
in the modern era). Byzantium will never reach the fantastical heights of wealth and power that the
Ottomans did, but I think they’d never get as low either – ‘literally the Roman Empire’ is a solid
cultural bedrock to build from. Plus they won’t have to deal with anything like as much territory,
which will help further.

Hide ↑
o Wency says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:45 am ~new~
The Byzantine political system and culture was broken. They were low in asabiyyah, and even by
medieval standards their transitions of power were extra messy. That seems to me like the reason
why they went away. Manzikert by itself wasn’t even that big a disaster; Anatolia was lost because
the internal response to Manzikert was to accelerate the internal chaos, instead of banding
together to defeat the common enemy. It would be like if the Romans had responded to Cannae by
starting a civil war, and Carthage consequently emerged victorious and rendered Rome a rump
state. Would it really be Cannae that won the war for Carthage?
So I really have to think that if Manzikert hadn’t done it, something else would have. Perhaps there
still would have been something like a Fourth Crusade. But I guess if the ERE lasted far enough
into the modern era, the terminally ill Byzantine state still would have been propped up by great
power political calculations, just like the Ottomans were.
But unlike the Ottomans, who were a real threat to Christian Europe in the 16th century, the ERE
would have already been a punching bag for Catholic Central Europe by this time, and I don’t know
that anyone (Russia, France) would have been able to prop them up. I have to think, amid one of
their civil wars, they basically end up getting partitioned.

27. drunkfish says:

June 15, 2020 at 10:25 am ~new~
Looking for an alternate-history or scifi book with a specific premise: What does the industrial
revolution look like on a planet without accessible fossil fuels?
I was talking to a friend about how industrialization might proceed under different assumptions,
and it occurred to us that there’s no obvious reason you need to have lots of coal underground,
and possibly no need for oil either. If a planet doesn’t have easily accessible energy-dense fuels,
my first instinct was “maybe you just never industrialize”, but that feels too pessimistic about
human creativity. I’m interested in reading a book (or essay or short story or whatever) that
explores how you might develop a ~modern society without coil/oil/gas. Thanks!
o nkurz says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:45 am ~new~
It probably doesn’t quite fit your request, but Paolo Bacigalupi’s work should probably be on your
radar: https://windupstories.com. I think he posits a post-fossil-fuel world rather than one that
never had them, but he creates an intriguing picture of a society based around the mechanical
storage of energy produced by caloric inputs to genetically modified animals.
Edit: Here’s a sample: http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/Sci-Tech-Society/WINDUP-STORIES.htm

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:51 am ~new~
Food is just a fancy kind of biofuel.
If you can feed it to your GM oxen, you can throw it in the recieving end of a fluidised bed gas
turbine.
 drunkfish says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:26 am ~new~
Cool thanks! I have a much easier time imagining post-fossil-fuels than never-fossil fuels (probably
because people often discuss the former), but that still sounds like an interesting question to
explore. And I could totally see biofuels being the answer to my original question anyway. I was
assuming no fossil fuels meant no energy-dense-things-to-burn, but biofuels totally fill that niche
too. Hell, maybe you can industrialize on wood alone.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:06 pm ~new~
You could probably get to 1750 or 1800 level England with charcoal instead of coal. Not sure
whether bessemer-smelted steel would make economic sense, so you might not get much of the
2nd industrial revolution.
I daresay forestry would be much more important. You’d see the Amazon and the Congo felled for
fuel. I’d not want to be any kind of whale in this timeline either.
 Tenacious D says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:54 am ~new~
“Harvesting the Biosphere” by Vaclav Smil has some stats on just how much wood would be
required for industrialization. To use charcoal (with modern conversion efficiencies) to make the
amount of steel used in 2010 would require doubling the amount of wood harvested annually.
Hide ↑
 cassander says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:43 am ~new~
I love the windup girl, it’s a wonderful novel, but the science is nonsensical. People seem to have
forgotten that nuclear power is a thing, and one of the main plots revolves around an algae that
somehow makes springs stronger. I also have a very hard time imagining that genetically modified
animals can power factories more efficiently (in terms of carbon emission per unit of power) than
small motors.
But it’s still a wonderful novel that everyone should read. I wish there was more stuff like it out
there, and I especially wish that Bacigalupi would spend less time on YA stuff and more time on
books for adults.


June 15, 2020 at 11:53 am ~new~
What’s wonderful about it? I was so pissed off at the stupidity of the concept (85% of what people
eat just produces heat) that I gave up on it.

 cassander says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:02 pm ~new~
I love the aesthetic even if it’s totally nonsense. The world building is internally consistent, and the
details are fun. I’ve read it a couple times, and have always found it compelling all the way
through, even if parts are patently silly.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 2:04 pm ~new~

What does the industrial revolution look like on a planet without accessible fossil fuels?
Slower and/or with more inequality, but probably about the same in the end. There’s nothing you
can do with coal and oil that you can’t do with biofuels, charcoal for metallurgy in particular. You
just can’t do as much of it, so the advantages (and disadvantages) of industrialization propagate
rapidly through the population.
The major industrialized nations might wind up looking, in this hypothetical world, like the colonial
possessions of the major industrial powers did in our own history – an elite with all the fancy toys,
defended by soldiers with all the fancy guns, but the rest of the population is still agrarian
peasants. Some of whom will be aggressively growing biofuels rather than food.
o matkoniecz says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:56 pm ~new~
I wonder how feasible would be to heave small scale metal processing (via charcoal), primarily for
military use. And limp till harnessing of a nuclear power.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:29 pm ~new~
That’s mostly how things were till they developed coking during the first industrial revolution. The
chinese even had blast furnaces relatively early.
Good luck separating the enriched uranium, boron-free graphite or heavy water needed to get a
reactor going.

June 16, 2020 at 6:54 am ~new~
Good luck separating the enriched uranium, boron-free graphite or heavy water needed to get a
reactor going.
Why would e.g. gas centrifuges require fossil fuels?
If you heard somewhere that the energy requirements are so massively immense that only a major
industrial power can dream of such things, that really only applies to first-generation enrichment
techniques like gaseous diffusion and (especially) electromagnetic separation. So the no-fossil-fuel
world might develop nuclear energy a technological generation or two after our own, but there’s no
reason they shouldn’t get there in the end.

o johan_larson says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:38 pm ~new~

What metals can be worked with wood-fired furnaces?
o fibio says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:06 am ~new~
Go read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Late in the novel it features a space program run
without access to fossil fuels reserves.

o eric23 says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:28 am ~new~
Windmills, hydroelectric dams, and concentrated solar power would still exist. Eventually nuclear
power and solar panels too.

o jmo says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:54 am ~new~
Iceland is the first nation to industrialize on the back of its geothermal resources? Or Japan? They
also have a ton of geothermal potential. There is even a town where you can cook your dinner in
the hot water that bubbles out of the ground.

28. AlesZiegler says:

June 15, 2020 at 10:09 am ~new~
Scott, I am surprised that you take Turchin seriously. My understanding of his theory is completely
based on your review, and based on that, I concluded that it is total bull§hit.
o bullseye says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:29 am ~new~
Do you mean his message at the top of the page? I thought he was joking.
 rocoulm says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:49 pm ~new~
He mentions it in the body of this post, too, under point 4.

…and that 2020 is the peak of Turchin’s fifty-year cycle of conflict.
29. rahien.din says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:04 am ~new~
The structure of the first amendment has always bugged me. It seems like a couple of disparate
concepts lassoed in together. I realized why it makes sense to group freedom of assembly in with
freedom of speech.
The sharing of information is necessarily an act of communion. If I decide to share information with
you, this is to form an association with you. To say that I may not associate with a person is to say
that I may not share information with them, and vice-versa. Therefore, freedom of association and
freedom of speech are inseparable.
This means that espionage is a form of unlawful involuntary association. It is not simply that one
has accessed privileged information – it is that the information-holder’s right to determine their
association has been violated.

o Logan says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:29 pm ~new~
Everything in the first amendment is about Freedom of Thought. It lists a variety of tools that 18th
century governments would use to control the beliefs of its citizens and bans them. Religion and
press are kind of obvious, speech and association are tools used by disorganized groups to
coordinate and signal-boost.
Suppose the government has laws against homosexuality, and a couple people think this is wrong.
In a democracy, the opinions of the citizenry should affect the laws (by definition), but what steps
lie between my thoughts and the law? First I need to be free to say that I believe what I do, and
others need to be free to hear me. Then other people who believe the same thing as me should
create a mailing list and then have weekly meetings and figure out how to advance our movement.
Then we should be able to tell the government what we believe and ask them to draft a law about
it, so that we can vote out the people who vote against it.
Everything in the first amendment is about making it legal for voters to decide for themselves how
they will vote.

o digbyforever says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:04 pm ~new~
It’s more poetic than legal, but Akhil Reed Amar’s book on the Bill of Rights describes the First
Amendment as a sort of roadmap for policy change: ideas and morals originate in houses of
worship, then the people can write or speak about the ideas, then get together, and petition the
government for those changes. (And he also notes that if the government fails, the next
amendment protects the right to “alter or abolish” the government through arms.)
o keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:26 am ~new~
The 14th amendment is in many ways even more varied. Birthright citizenship and the due process
clause in a single amendment?

30. Telomerase says:

June 15, 2020 at 9:41 am ~new~
So, SARS-CoV-2 has killed 8800 Indians, most of them over 65.
46,000 Indians, mostly young people, die every year from cobra bite.
Half a million people worldwide die from malaria.
1.6 million annually die from TB, mostly due to B3 deficiency.
At least in equatorial countries with young populations, I think at this point we’re seeing some
seriously Ineffective Altruism. Not sure what vitamin is good for cobra bite though.
o Space Hobo from Hobospace says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:45 am ~new~
I heard Thain hammer massage, also known as tok sen is effective against cobra bites, when
applied pre-emtively directly to a cobra.

o albatross11 says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:47 am ~new~
How much do you trust those numbers, though?

o Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:50 am ~new~

Wikipedia puts it at 11,000 fatalities per year from all snakes, but I understand there’s some
difficulty getting good estimates. That said this is ludicrously higher than I would have guessed.
The US has had 25 fatalities in the last 10 years. Several of those are exotic snake keepers or
religious snake handlers who refused treatment. I know we don’t have many venomous species
compared to India but still those numbers are ridiculous.

 Kaitian says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:31 am ~new~
Medical treatment is much worse in India than it is in the US. That and there’s more dangerous
snakes I guess?
That said, I’m pretty sure some of the Indian victims are handling snakes for religious or
entertainment purposes as well.

o Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:10 am ~new~

seriously Ineffective Altruism
This is a great phrase, and I intend to steal it from you and apply it liberally 😉
o Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:37 am ~new~

So, SARS-CoV-2 has killed 8800 Indians, most of them over 65.
Looks like the most recent numbers put this at 9.5k, and wikipedia’s conservative estimate of
snakebite deaths is only around 11k. I’m confident COVID will surpass this by the end of June.
Half a million people worldwide die from malaria.
Which is a number not too far off from how many people have died from COVID (450k). Again, in
only a few months.

1.6 million annually die from TB, mostly due to B3 deficiency.
You think we’re going to see less deaths than that internationally from COVID in 2020? I’ll take
that bet.
o Doesntliketocomment says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:04 pm ~new~
It’s not altruism though. If India becomes a reservoir of COVID-19, then it will eventually reinfect
other countries. Snakebites aren’t transmissible*, so no matter how many snakebites occur in
India, it doesn’t affect the first world.
*Unless the snakes themselves were inadvertently transported, say perhaps on a plane…
June 15, 2020 at 3:59 pm ~new~
Is there any hope of eliminating COVID-19 faster than for example polio?
 Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:49 pm ~new~
Yes!
Unlike polio, we have decades of experience working on sort-of similar viruses. In addition, there
are a lot of endpoints which would be acceptable which weren’t acceptable with polio. For example,
if we could mitigate the disease so that people who caught it “merely” felt lousy for a week or so, it
would no longer matter if large amounts of the population were exposed to it. Indeed, cutting
deaths down to “comparable to the flu” levels would probably do it.
Alternatively, a vaccine or treatment which drastically reduces transmission rates, even if individual
incidences of the disease remain as dangerous would also be acceptable.
Finally, should a vaccine with a good safety profile and even moderate effectiveness be
produced/certified, the mechanisms to quickly and widely distribute it already exist.
Hope abounds!
 eric23 says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:37 am ~new~
People still travel to countries where polio, yellow fever, etc are endemic. They just get
vaccinations first.
o keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:28 am ~new~
You have to look not at total deaths from each cause to estimate the effectiveness of the
measures, but rather at total deaths prevented divided by effort spent preventing said deaths.
Infectious diseases spread exponentially, so it’s quite plausible that a *lot* more deaths have been
prevented than the number that have occurred. Snake bites and lightning strikes and car crashes
spread linearly, so it’s not plausible that the number that have been prevented is hugely more than
the number that have occurred.

o Biater says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:06 am ~new~
Don’t look at the stock; look at the flow. Every day in India is worse than the day before. Wait 6
months and then you can tell if they over-reacted. If it does seem an over-reaction then, I will
literally take it as a miracle.
The first Italian died of Covid around Feb 28th, and by the last day of Feb, they had 1000 deaths a
day (near).
31. AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:09 am ~new~
So apparently there are Opinions on how to cut a sandwich?
It seems a little one-sided, that the diagonals are the ones preaching while the straight cuts don’t
care, but are there benefits to slicing a sandwich to begin with?

June 15, 2020 at 9:21 am ~new~
Yeah, I always ask Subway to refrain from cutting my foot-long in half. Cutting in half makes it
more difficult to eat when rolling the wrapper back while eating (though presumably it’s easier to
eat when taking the sub all the way out of the wrapper to begin with – given this is unhygienic in
that you have to touch the bun you’re going to eat with your bare hands, obviously I am right 😀 ),
as you suddenly have to deal with a cut off chunk that can easily fall out of the wrapper when you
get near the half-way point.

 noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:01 am ~new~
Cant’t they wrap the two halves separately?

June 15, 2020 at 10:21 am ~new~
If you asked them to, sure. But that would mean more effort for me in that I’d have to unwrap the
second one after finishing the first.
A secondary consideration to asking them not to cut it is that this avoids cross-contamination of
mayo or mustard from the knife (yes, you can ask them to use a fresh knife).
June 15, 2020 at 12:42 pm ~new~
Can’t you cut the paper so as to have two separate halves and eat them sequentially? Half a long
sandwich is easier to handle than all of one.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 12:50 pm ~new~
Half a long sandwich is easier to handle than all of one.
I have relatively large hands (~XL).
I concede that this is a better alternative for those with smaller hands.
Hide ↑
 Ventrue Capital says:

June 16, 2020 at 11:52 am ~new~
FWIW when I get a foot-long sandwich from Subway I ask them to cut it into four pieces (and
when a get a 6″ sub I ask them to cut that into two pieces) because it’s much more convenient for
me to hold and eat a smaller piece.

Hide ↑
o Beans says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:46 am ~new~

but are there benefits to slicing a sandwich to begin with?
I’ve never understood it. My mouth is not small enough for any sandwich to be too big to bite, and
the only way for one to be would be for it to be extremely thick, in which case slicing it will
definitely get an awkward result. Better to make normal sized sandwiches and not slice them,
because there’s no point.

 L (Zero) says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:04 am ~new~
If you don’t cut a sandwich, then the only way to start biting onto it is through the crusts. When
it’s sliced, you can start biting into what was originally the middle, and then perhaps even leave
behind crusts. I can totally understand why it wouldn’t be a big deal to some people to just start
eating from the crust, but the preference against crusts is pretty commonly attested.
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:38 am ~new~
+1
I want to have crusts be a supplemental feature to my sandwich bites, not have it be all crust right
away.
 Beans says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:00 pm ~new~
Are we talking about normal sliced bread sandwiches here? Not some fancy thing made with a
crusty loaf cut horizontally? In stereotypical sandwich-bread-made sandwiches, the crust is so
innocuous to me that I don’t even notice it, so it never came to my mind to try and avoid it.

June 15, 2020 at 5:23 pm ~new~
Depends whether you’re wanting to hold it with one hand or two, I guess. I find holding an uncut
sandwich in one hand awkward. The filling tends to want to escape.

o Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:55 am ~new~
I don’t care, so long as all three parts of the sandwich are divided equally by a single n-1
dimensional hyperplane.
o souleater says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:56 am ~new~
I’m a bit of a messy eater, and corner to corner cuts result in a triangle shaped sandwich.
The benefit of this is I can bite off each corner of the triangle sandwich, and this results in less
bite-cross section for food to drop out of.
You also tend to have a more horizontal bite profiles with a triangle sandwich, whereas with a
square sandwich you have a semicircle bite mark. the problems with this include less structural
integrity, and having to take many small bites instead of 3-4 regular ones.
My estimation, is that a triangle cut sandwich made on standard bread requires 6-8 bites, whereas
a square cut requires 12-16 bites.

 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:24 am ~new~
Doesn’t a straight cut have more corners, though? (Assuming a rectangle slice to begin with. For
an oblong-shaped slice straight cuts and diagonals alike would have the same number of
“corners.”)
 souleater says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:45 am ~new~
Yes, but I would need to either take an uncomfortable small bite of each corner, or take a normal
size bite and leave a tiny peninsula of sandwich that is likely to lose foor
o Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:23 am ~new~
I was going to take a break from SSC but dammit you had to go and write this.
You don’t have to be a messy eater or have a small mouth or hate crusts to find that if you bite
into one side of a squarish sandwich that the two flat sides on either side of your mouth have
touched your cheeks, and possibly deposited dabs of wet ingredients onto them.
A straight cut gives you crisp 90˚ corners to bite into, which is an improvement, but a diagonal cut
gives you 45˚ corners which is even better. Then, once you’ve made that first bite, you have
created more sharp corners you can bite into. Your cheeks stay clean.
But of course it’s also just aesthetically pleasing. Slicing a sandwich lets you see what awaits you
inside, and nothing can hide in the middle that way. And it looks nice. Easier to pick up with one
hand, etc.
PS. As for Subway, I imagine if you asked them to wrap the two halves separately they’d have to
charge you for two 6″ subs.

 souleater says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:46 am ~new~
Well… I sure feel called out!
Not liking the sides to touch my cheeks is also a good point

 Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:02 pm ~new~
[Edited to fix your being called out]

 souleater says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:01 pm ~new~
Well… To be honest I actually just wanted to use your name to start my comment, No actual
offense taken!
Hide ↑
 Beans says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:02 pm ~new~
You don’t have to be a messy eater or have a small mouth or hate crusts to find that if you bite into
one side of a squarish sandwich that the two flat sides on either side of your mouth have touched
your cheeks, and possibly deposited dabs of wet ingredients onto them.
A normal square sandwich gives you four inviting corners to bite, so you don’t have to mash your
face directly into one of the edges!

 Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:21 pm ~new~
I don’t want to know what kind of bread you’re using that comes with actual sharp corners.
 jeremybub says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:15 pm ~new~
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=slice+of+bread&t=i
Hide ↑
 Well... says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:26 pm ~new~
@jeremybub: I don’t report your comment only because I don’t want to waste anyone else’s time
with it.
Hide ↑
o thesilv3r says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:43 pm ~new~
I don’t know about sandwiches, but for my son’s toast I settled on triangles based on the overall
density of crust being more even. If you cut into squares you end up with a corner on each piece
that is all crust, reaching peak density of crust on presumably your final bite, which made him less
likely to eat all the toast. By going with triangles, the amount of “crust-per-surface area” is more
evenly distributed, making him less likely to give up at a given point based on getting a mouthful
that was entirely crust.
As for myself, I stick with no cuts unless it is a toasted sandwich, and then its usually a rectangle
cut to let a bit of heat out of the middle while minimizing spillage from things falling out of the
corners.
I honestly didn’t realise I had put this much thought into how I cut my bread…
32. Freddie deBoer says:

June 15, 2020 at 8:47 am ~new~
An admonition for no culture war posting and right near the beginning a large, anti-protester
thread.
o hnau says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:59 pm ~new~
Which one? Not jasmith79’s thread surely? Did it already get deleted?
o Scott Alexander says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:00 pm ~new~
Can you link this? I can’t find it.

 zero says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:04 pm ~new~
Think it was a thread started by blacktrance, and it seems to have been deleted.
June 15, 2020 at 4:00 pm ~new~
Probably got report-bombed.


June 15, 2020 at 7:46 am ~new~
Two quotes I’ve been trying to track down.
Criticism, at its best, is an effort to identify the qualities which accompany success.
I love this quote and I remember the shock of seeing it. The modesty is so good because it’s about
trying to understand what works rather than focusing on what’s wrong by whatever standard. It’s
also modest because it accepts that it may not be possible to fully understand success.
The other quote is approximately: A man should consider revolution as cautiously as he would
consider doing surgery on his father.
I thought this was Edmund Burke, but searching doesn’t turn anything up.
o episcience says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:28 am ~new~
I found a quote by Rashid al-Ghannushi online (can’t find the source, unfortunately) which reads:
Just like in medicine, when the normal medicine no longer works, one resorts to surgery. And the
revolutions is like the surgery: It’s painful, and it’s the last resort for nations.
Is this what you were thinking of?

June 15, 2020 at 8:45 am ~new~
Thanks, but I don’t think that’s it.
The image of a man doing surgery on his father is very vivid.

o SamChevre says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:07 am ~new~
If the first quote is not exact, it sounds like something from one of C S Lewis’ essays (not An
Experiment on Criticism, though) where he talks about the dramatic unities.
ETA: corrected the name of the essay.

June 15, 2020 at 9:41 am ~new~
The first quote is almost certainly not exact.
I’ve read a fair amount of Lewis and and strongly influenced by An Experiment in Criticism, so it
might be from Lewis.

 SamChevre says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:04 am ~new~
Thinking it over further and looking at my bookshelf–might it have been from Dorothy Sayers “A
Note on Creative Reading” (quoted by Alan Jacobs), or somewhere else where she made a similar
point.
Or if you read somewhere a reference to “Aristotle’s three Dramatic Unities — unity of time, unity of
place and unity of action”, do not (as some writers do who should know better) dismiss Aristotle as a
tedious old classic of two thousand years ago who tried to tie up dramatic form in red-tape of his
own manufacture. What he said was a statement of fact about the plays he had observed to be
successful, and he meant exactly what your favourite dramatic critic means when he says: “The
interest in this play is too much scattered, and confused with side-issues. There are far too many
scenes, and the story drags on over a period of three generations, so that we have to be continually
consulting the programme to know what year we have got to.”

June 15, 2020 at 11:17 am ~new~
Thanks. I’ve read a good bit of Sayers, including The Mind of the Maker.
34. caryatis says:

June 15, 2020 at 7:15 am ~new~
Scott, re: meetup timing, do you have any idea of what criteria you would use to determine that it
is safe to meet again? Seems to me we should make the decision based on local data, not country-
level (at least for a large country like the U.S.).

o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:28 am ~new~

I’m guessing that part of his assumption is that, although local data will diverge from national level
data, it is unlikely that any locality will reach a level deemed safe unless most other localities that
people can easily travel there from are also deemed safe.
35. Matt M says:

June 15, 2020 at 7:15 am ~new~
Card game update:
On the advice of some/many of you, I went out and purchased a Keyforge starter set. Played two
games this weekend with my fiance. First impressions are as follows:
Pros:
Was easier to learn than Magic, although still a little more difficult, complicated, and less intuitive
than I might have liked.
Fiance seemed to enjoy it more
I do like the “declare a house” gimmick and the fact that the multiple different houses sort of have
you in a “many different fantasy genres/settings collide” framework
Cons:
Our two decks are *very* unbalanced. I think you guys did properly warn me about this but I
didn’t fully appreciate the implications. Yes, I understand that chain bidding can partially mitigate
this, but one of the decks is simply not fun to play. It’s not the sort of deck any halfway intelligent
person would ever intentionally design, it has multiple cards that are basically useless (more
specifically, the cards themselves aren’t necessarily useless, I can see how they might be useful in
specific contexts or combinations… but the deck doesn’t have the right other cards to enable that).
In a normal CCG, we could mitigate this by taking like the 3-4 worst cards in the bad deck and
subbing in almost anything else, but in this game that isn’t allowed. I went ahead and ordered a
couple more decks in the hopes of getting something decent, but overall it strikes me as kind of
lame that there’s a decent possibility any particular deck is just bad. And by “bad” I don’t mean
“not fully optimized” but I mean “has combinations of cards that just don’t go together and that no
sane person would ever assemble.”

o Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:26 am ~new~
It’s not quite the money pit MtG is, but it does want to keep you buying more, for sure. IOW, the
easy solution is to buy another couple decks… hoping to get a more even power level. If that’s
within your budget and you don’t mind, great, but it’s understandable if it’s a turn-off.
And if you took out a couple cards from each deck, well, that’s not exactly playing as intended, but
it might do the trick.
Or it’s possible you need to understand the game better to see the nuances of the bad deck, but
I’m not doubtful of your ability to grok it quickly.

 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:29 am ~new~
And if you took out a couple cards from each deck, well, that’s not exactly playing as intended, but it
might do the trick.
Yeah, I’m definitely considering that as an option. Neither of us are ever going to play
competitively. So nothing’s really stopping us from treating this as a normal CCG and assembling
two custom-built decks from our common pool of cards…

o Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:29 am ~new~
I mean, that’s fine and all, but did you get a silly deck name?
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:30 am ~new~
None that hilarious!
My most interesting one is “Woewax of the Jailer’s Marsh”

 Act_II says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:16 am ~new~
Sadly, the naming process was modified to prevent this kind of thing after the first printing.
o a real dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:12 am ~new~
Note that some cards have non-obvious uses – pay special attention to the rule that you execute
as much as you can. E.g. a card that lets you “ready a creature and fight” can be used to ready a
creature and let it do whatever if it has no targets to attack. This can be your main aember engine
in e.g. some combat-heavy Brobnar deck. In general, the decks require some exploration to bring
out their strengths.
I haven’t played a deck without viable win conditions yet – the imbalance is mostly in how fast and
reliable the condition is, and how good the deck is in disrupting the opponent.
o FLWAB says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:09 am ~new~

One intersting thing you can do to divine bad decks from good ones is to use the Website Decks of
Keyforge. They’ve created an algorithm to judge Keyforge deck quality through a SAS (Synergy
and Anti-Synergy) score. It works surprisingly well in my experience. Plus if you find out you have
a deck that gets an 80+ SAS score then you should consider selling it online: tourney players will
pay big bucks for quality decks. 60ish is a normal deck, <50 is a bad deck, 70< is a great deck. If
your bad deck scores higher than 60, you might just not know how to play it. Some decks are
weird but powerful once you understand how they work.
You could also balance things out by playing with some of the tournament rules. For instance, you
play Adaptive rules where the first round you play with your deck, then you swap decks with your
opponent and play a second round, and if you need a tiebreaker round then you each bid chains for
which deck you want.

 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:15 am ~new~
Interesting. My “good deck” got a 63. My “bad deck” got a 50. Which is about in line with my
expectations. That the good deck is essentially a decently balanced normal starter sort of deck, but
that the other one is notably poor and lacking in many key areas.
36. philarete says:

June 15, 2020 at 7:03 am ~new~
I very rarely post to the comments on SSC, but some time back I asked for recommendations for
popular mathematics books with a good blend of mathematics and history of mathematics, in the
vein of John Derbyshire’s Prime Obsession and Unknown Quantity. I want to thank whoever
recommended Euler’s Gem, by David Richeson. I finally got around to reading it, and it was exactly
what I was looking for.
If anyone has any further recommendations, I’d love to have them. My level of mathematical
ability is probably at the level of 1-2 years of college mathematics.

o caryatis says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:09 am ~new~
Godel’s Proof, by Nagel and Newman

o Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:19 am ~new~

This book does a really good job of unpacking the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, though it lost
me toward the end when it got into some deep mathematics:
Elliptic Tales: Curves, Counting, and Number Theory
Also interesting (if a bit more philosophical):
Where Mathematics Comes From: How The Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being
There’s a well-written chapter toward the end where the authors unpack the Euler equation.
o flauschi says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:14 pm ~new~
You could try What is mathematics?. If I remember correctly it has only little history, but a lot of
nice mathematics…
o Logan says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:40 pm ~new~
I liked Poincare’s Prize by George Szpiro.
It made me very interested in algebraic topology, and then I took a class on it and found out
algebraic topology fucking sucks. To this day (despite 10 years of math education since), the only
algebraic topology I actually understand is what’s covered in this book, and yet still I am praised
for knowing more algebraic topology than most analysts. That’s either high praise for the book, or
a strong indictment of analysts. I choose to believe it’s both.

 Nicholas Weininger says:

June 15, 2020 at 3:34 pm ~new~
FWIW I also found algebraic topology extremely difficult to understand when I took a course in it,
until I read Allen Hatcher’s book on it on the recommendation of a friend; I found Hatcher’s
explanations much, much more intuitive than either the prof or text of the course.
To the OP’s question, I’d also recommend Ribenboim’s _Fermat’s Last Theorem for Amateurs_
(though you need to be an amateur who really likes number theory to enjoy it) and David
Bressoud’s _Proofs and Confirmations_, about a fascinating conjecture (now theorem) in algebraic
combinatorics.
o yodelyak says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:43 pm ~new~

Asimov’s “realm of numbers” is very readable, and nicely small and well-organized, and goes from
counting numbers through calculus and geometry and more, all at the readable English level. It’s
probably lighter on history than you want, if memory serves. Also good is “Indra’s Pearls: The
Vision of Felix Klein”–that’s great for number theory, again not so much history though.

June 15, 2020 at 6:46 am ~new~
If a vaccine against coronavirus comes out, how soon do you think you’ll try it, assuming
availability?
o Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:53 am ~new~
Not until well after it becomes officially mandatory and some sort of checking/verification process is
fully in place.
I can’t explain why without waging CW.

 rahien.din says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:26 am ~new~
Hopefully you are able to explain it soon, I would be interested to know. Would ‘t challenge you.

June 15, 2020 at 3:56 pm ~new~
I expect it to be rushed, perhaps for political reasons, and want some guinea pigs to try it first.
Things like thalidomide have happened before, and having millions of people get vaccinated with
something untested all at once is not ideal.

o philarete says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:07 am ~new~
Personally, I’d participate in a stage-3 trial if it were available in my area, and I’ll be first in line to
get a vaccine when it’s available.

o broblawsky says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:10 am ~new~
If the FDA approves it, and I don’t have good reason to believe the FDA’s process has been
corrupted, I’ll take it ASAP.

o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:19 am ~new~
I would think that I’m somewhere low down the priority list of people who need it (after people in
vulnerable medical groups and people who work in industries that require physical contact), and I
would treat that low priority as the main reason to delay, rather than prudential concerns about
unknown safety issues.

o Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:24 am ~new~
On one hand, I’d prefer to wait a year or two simply because it will be an unknown vaccine and
unknown process and the FDA etc., haven’t shown a large amount of competence recently. (I don’t
have a problem with the annual flu vaccine because the same process for the same virus family
has been used year after year).
OTOH, I’m immunocompromised and volunteer in healthcare so I’m at higher risk of exposure,
morbidity and mortality overall.

 Act_II says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:25 am ~new~
I thought the problem most people have with the FDA was that it puts too many barriers in the
way of drug approval. But wouldn’t that mean that an FDA-approved vaccine is highly likely to be
safe? The tradeoff they’ve made is that they leave more good drugs off the market to improve the
safety guarantee of the drugs they do approve.

 Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:07 pm ~new~
The usual complaint, is as you noted, is about the FDA delaying the approval of medications for
various reasons. This is especially maddening in cases where the approved treatments aren’t
effective for a condition and a drug has been approved for use elsewhere. At the same time, there
are very few proposed drugs which might be such a significant improvement over the existing
therapies as to be worth a huge amount of money. A drug which treats Alzheimer’s disease might
be one.
In this case the incentives swing the other way. The cost of the pandemic in the US is on the order
of a trillion dollars per year. I worry that in this case the FDA will be coerced into approving
something which otherwise wouldn’t meet its normal safety threshold while trading on its historical
reputation. And I have no idea what unknown-unknowns might be missed.

June 15, 2020 at 7:32 am ~new~
My feeling is that I’d wait two months just to get more information about safety and efficacy. This
is a feeling, not a thought-out position.
One of my friends said he wanted to wait three months, but he doubted he would actually wait that
long.
June 15, 2020 at 7:53 am ~new~
I’m at fairly low risk for either contracting or transmitting COVID-19, so I don’t feel any personal
urgency. Exactly how long I’d hold off is going to depend on the source and nature of the vaccine.
Several months, almost certainly.
But then, most of the people who are desperately eager to run out and get themselves vaccinated
are going to be waiting several months as well; it’s not like three hundred million doses are going
to poof themselves into existence just because the FDA issued an approval.
o 2irons says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:43 am ~new~
Is it ridiculous to say – given my age and health, I’d rather catch Covid-19 than be vaccinated
against it?
 zoozoc says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:45 am ~new~
I don’t think it is ridiculous at all. Depending on your age and health, the risks for COVID-19 are
extremely low. There are still unknowns regarding COVID-19 effects long-term, but the short term
effects are well known at this point. A vaccine potentially will have more short-term unknowns and
the same long-term unknowns as COVID-19.
So the choice is definitely getting the vaccine or maybe getting COVID-19. If the risks are equal,
then not vaccinating is better. It is only when the risk for COVID-19 is higher by some amount that
getting the vaccine is better.

 thisheavenlyconjugation says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:28 pm ~new~
What are some comparable cases where a vaccine was found to be worse than the disease?
 Garrett says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:32 am ~new~
Worse is hard to measure, but a vaccine for Dengue fever possibly caused the deaths of children.
It’s likely that’s a special case due to known complications of dengue itself.
Hide ↑
 cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:35 pm ~new~
I’m laying out my thinking here in a concrete way in case it’s helpful to see where your reasoning
might differ. I don’t presume to having any right answer about any of this.
My understanding is that the potential long-term effects of getting Covid-19 pertain to organ
damage as a result of the disease running its full course on the body. There’s no reason based on
what we understand about how vaccines work to imagine that a Covid-19 vaccine would pose
anything like an equal degree of risk of harm as that. The processes in the body are not the same.
Some small percentage of people do have out-sized reactions to vaccines that have been in
circulation for a long time and because this is going to be a rushed and very widely used brand-
new vaccine, we can imagine there will be a larger percentage of adverse events than say the flu
or tetanus vaccines.
But if the vaccine undergoes multiple tests for safety in a large number of people (which it will), it
seems unlikely that the percentage of adverse events will be anywhere near the proportion of harm
the disease itself can cause to people who are nonetheless young and healthy.
The CDC estimates broadly that one in a million vaccine doses will produce a severe adverse event.
A couple of large studies of Covid show that of people in their 20s-mid-40s, about 14% who get it
are hospitalized, 2% in the ICU, and 0.1% died.
A vaccine that produced death in a tenth of one percent of people given it, would not be approved
— that would mean the vaccine would kill 300,000 of people in the US, for instance.
Evidence so far seems to be that people who wind up in the ICU for Covid-19 do suffer long-term
health consequences, so that’s 2% in the younger age group compared to adverse vaccine events
of .0001%. Even if we multiplied that one in a million rate several times, it wouldn’t come close to
2%. We also don’t how many of the people in the 14% hospitalized who don’t go into the ICU also
suffer from long-term health consequences because we don’t have the research yet to tell us, but
we can imagine some of them likely will. I have also heard now a number of stories of young
healthy men who have gotten Covid-19 who were not hospitalized (ie, categorized as “mild” cases
by the statistics) but who months later cannot run or do other aerobic activities they previously
enjoyed. Maybe they will eventually recover 100%, but we don’t know that yet.
So if I imagine myself as say a healthy 30 year old, I think I have an over 2% risk of long-term
health damage if I get Covid and maybe 0.0002% chance of having a comparable degree of
adverse outcome from getting the vaccine. That’s a pretty big spread in risk difference.
If a Covid-19 vaccine has some totally other long-term mystery effect like causing permanent
organ damage in significant numbers, I think that would be a surprising result given what we know
about how vaccines work generally. But of course there’s a lot we don’t know.
 cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:45 pm ~new~
Another factor to weigh, however your own moral calculus weighs it, is that getting the vaccine
helps protect vulnerable people you come into contact with while just waiting to get the disease
eventually will likely entail you infecting other people who couldn’t yet get the vaccine.
In any population, there are a certain number of people who cannot get a vaccine at that time —
maybe because they’re going through chemo or radiation for cancer or have some other immune-
impairing condition. So there’s an important public health dimension to having as many people who
can get the vaccine get it, all else being equal (ie, if the risks of each path to you personally were
literally equal).
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 6:07 pm ~new~
There’s the risk (probably not large) of an adverse reaction, and the other risk of thinking you’re
protected when you’re not.

Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 8:05 am ~new~
The CDC estimates broadly that one in a million vaccine doses will produce a severe adverse event
I was going to complain that this was wrong, but I checked and the CDC does say that.
Some vaccines are more dangerous than others, but I think those are for really dangerous
diseases, like smallpox.

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 DeWitt says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:46 am ~new~
Yes.
I got infected with Covid-19 in April, as a healthy man in his mid-twenties with no risk factors at
all. It was still the nastiest cough in my lifetime, I developed shortness of breath, and I feel like my
actual stamina has taken a hit since then – I can’t cycle or run quite as far as I used to. If I had a
chance to retroactively make myself not catch it and get myself vaccinated within a year, I’d take it
for sure.
June 15, 2020 at 10:05 am ~new~
Note that if you are healthy man in his mid-twenties with no risk factors at all and you had so bad
reaction, then you are unusual.
The question of unusually bad side effects of that not-yet-created vaccine remains open.
 TomParks says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:31 am ~new~
For most who catch this, the effects are minimal, but the number of people who get it bad, even
those young and healthy, is nontrivial. (To be open, my feeling for the odds is influenced by a
couple of quite healthy people in my extended family who got it bad: A 20-something who ended
up in the hospital and a 50-something endurance athlete who said it was the worst lung disease
he’s ever had. Anecdata, of course, but I can’t unknow it.)

Hide ↑
 DeWitt says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:01 pm ~new~
I didn’t get hospitalised, and didn’t even quit working, but I definitely can’t recommend trying to
get the virus early just to ‘be done with it’. People my age getting hospitalised are rare, I agree,
but is it that rare for them to just have a bad case of symptoms?
Hide ↑
o Konstantin says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:16 am ~new~
Probably after there is a clear consensus among public health agencies and academic institutions
that it is safe and effective. I would be extremely suspicious of any vaccine approved by the FDA
this fall, as there is a strong incentive for Trump to push them to rush it out at that time.
o proyas says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:38 am ~new~
I’ll wait at least a year after the first million people are vaccinated. I am not an anti-vaxxer and get
my yearly flu shots religiously, but I’m not enthused by the notion of being injected with something
that will be the product of a rush job.
Fortunately, I have the luxury of doing this since my age and good health make me almost immune
to the worst effects of COVID-19, and because I have no old people in my social circle that I could
infect.
June 15, 2020 at 9:55 am ~new~
he product of a rush job
OTOH, whatever is eventually approved will probably be the product of the most closely-watched
vaccine trials since the polio vaccine. There are going to be a lot of eyes on this.
 cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:54 pm ~new~
I agree with this, that how much scrutiny there will be on this vaccine balances somewhat the
“rush job” aspect. Also, seems like there will be multiple versions of this vaccine made and
manufactured in multiple countries. It would be devastating for a pharma company that produces
one of the vaccines to wind up killing thousands of people, quite apart from what Trump wants.
o L (Zero) says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:11 am ~new~
I’m a tad anemic or something and always have a comedown when I get a regular flu shot. So in
this high risk case, I wouldn’t do it immediately. It would be nice if I could wait at least a month.
o TomParks says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:27 am ~new~
As soon as it’s easily available, I’d roll up my sleeve for the needle. (For example, I would not drive
or wait in line for hours. I would make an appointment or pay a few hundred dollars out of pocket,
per person in my immediate family.)

June 15, 2020 at 11:29 am ~new~
+1
 Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:17 pm ~new~
+1
June 15, 2020 at 12:40 pm ~new~
I’d probably do it as soon as I was asked, which would be after they had gotten all the (1)
necessary and (2) eager people out of the way first.

June 15, 2020 at 12:47 pm ~new~
I would probably give it at least a month, to see if any problems appear due to mass use.
o Doctor Mist says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:14 pm ~new~
I really don’t know. I’d really like immunity, but I was reading that the normal delay for something
like this would make it available in 2038. It makes me really nervous to think about accelerating
the process from eighteen years to one or so.

 cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:59 pm ~new~
The mumps vaccine took four years and this one is being tested and trialed by many different
entities at once, so it’s unique that way. In this case, multiple simultaneous trials replaces slower
sequential work over time. I hear you though, anytime a process has this much urgency behind it,
there’s reason to worry something important may get screwed up. Part of what time does is allow
problems to surface and get addressed one at a time and so it does seem like we can’t entirely
substitute for time.

o Murphy says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:28 pm ~new~
After looking at the approximate risk levels for typical phase 1 vaccine trials and comparing to risk
of death or serious lung injury from COVID should I contract it given my age, sex, weight etc even
phase 1 seem like a decent bet but wasn’t fully certain.
So definitely happy to get it from phase 3 onwards. Probably phase 2.
Serious adverse events are pretty rare to the point that even throwing in some cynical multipliers
for rushed projects it still looks like a decent payoff.

 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:46 pm ~new~
Serious adverse events are pretty rare
What exactly is “pretty rare?” Because if you’re young and healthy, serious damage from COVID
also seemingly qualifies as “pretty rare.”

38. hash872 says:

June 15, 2020 at 6:45 am ~new~
Are there any audio tools that I could use to capture pitch, word speed and tonality of an actor in a
movie, TV show, other recording etc.? Like, I’d be playing a movie on my computer, and the
application would capture that data for everyone speaking. I’m aware of basic pitch, speed
analyzing apps, but I think they’re typically meant to be handheld recorders for a person and
wouldn’t really track a recorded film. Is there anything out there? Preferably open source?
o AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:13 am ~new~
Word speed could be captured if you can get a hold of a closed-caption file that includes the time
stamps of each line, and do a basic word-count/time calculation.
Pitch could maybe be done with just a fourier transform analysis.
Tonality is completely subjective, so no idea there.

39. Bobobob says:

June 15, 2020 at 6:43 am ~new~
My wife and I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday, our first book-buying excursion in three months.
I’ve never been so glad to be in a large faceless corporate chain store.
It’s difficult to find science books that venture onto unfamiliar ground, but I was intrigued by The
True Creator of Everything: How the Human Brain Shaped the Universe as We Know It, by Miguel
Nicolelis (he’s a Duke University neuroscientist and the imprint is Yale University Press, which
satisfies my “not total bullshit” priors). Maybe if a bunch of other people here can read it, we can
compare notes a few weeks down the line. Heck, maybe even Scott can read it, and post an essay.
The Amazon blurb: “Renowned neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis introduces a revolutionary new
theory of how the human brain evolved to become an organic computer without rival in the known
universe. He undertakes the first attempt to explain the entirety of human history, culture, and
civilization based on a series of recently uncovered key principles of brain function. This new
cosmology is centered around three fundamental properties of the human brain: its insurmountable
malleability to adapt and learn; its exquisite ability to allow multiple individuals to synchronize their
minds around a task, goal, or belief; and its incomparable capacity for abstraction.”
o Anteros says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:54 am ~new~
Are you tempted to review it for Scott’s book review contest?

 Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:55 am ~new~
Actually, I hadn’t thought of that. Is there a specific deadline?

 CarlosRamirez says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:11 am ~new~
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/05/book-review-contest-call-for-entries/
Deadline is August 5th.

 Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:14 am ~new~
Awesome! I’m in.

Hide ↑
o CarlosRamirez says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:11 am ~new~
Reminds me a little of Prometheus Rising. The short version is that whatever anyone calls ‘reality’
is to a large extent constructed by themselves. Everything sentient is in a reality-tunnel, so to
speak, with the ‘rational’ (George Gurdjieff, who was quite influential in this book, calls what we
consider rationality the False Intellect) and ‘objective’ viewpoint being just another reality-tunnel.

June 15, 2020 at 4:00 pm ~new~
I like to imagine the ego tunnel as a sealed room, where instead of windows its all TV screens. You
have no way of knowing if what you’re looking at is what’s really out there, or how much it has
been edited.
o Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:10 am ~new~
I second Anteros’ request that you review it, because the second I see “revolutionary new theory”
on a pop science/pop anything book, I know to pull on the wellies because they’ll be slinging the
bullshit soon.
Blurbs are terrible at the best of times, but I am raising my eyebrows so high at “organic
computer” and “explain the entirety of human history, culture, and civilisation” that I’m getting a
free facelift. Not helped by the tendency to compare the human brain to Latest Snazzy New
Technology; had people been writing such blurbs back in the day, doubtless we’d have breathless
enthusiasm about how the human brain has evolved to become an organic abacus/wireless
telegraphy pole/punchcard sorter.
Three fundamental properties to explain the history of life, the universe and everything, huh? Tell
me more! Can I do it in yoga pants? Does it come in multi-flavoured smoothies? Somebody please
review this because I have a burning need for snark and anybody decent and civilised would do a
better job of being fair to this production 🙂

 Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:34 am ~new~
OK, now I am *definitely* going to review it, because I can’t let “yoga pants” and “smoothies” be
the last words about this guy’s life work.

 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:36 am ~new~
Excellent! My Evil Plan has worked! 😁

40. Purplehermann says:

June 15, 2020 at 4:05 am ~new~
I had a disagreement with a friend on intellectual property, and am looking for more perspectives.
Is intellectual property a good thing, a bad thing, a mixed bag?
Is it unethical to pirate books, videos, etc?

o a real dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:39 am ~new~
Intellectual property in the sense of attribution – very good thing.
Intellectual property in the sense of monetary rights – a fossil of a bygone era when information
could not spread freely. Between Patreon, Kickstarter and digital distribution platforms (where you
just pay for convenience and support for the authors) I think you could just axe most copyright
laws and the culture would adapt without much issue. Perhaps you’d get less AAA games and
blockbuster movies, but that doesn’t sound like much of a loss.

 JohnNV says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:54 am ~new~
I’m going to come down on the other side of this. The copyright/patent system isn’t perfect, but
creators and innovators deserve to be compensated for their innovations, and if you remove that
right, you’d remove a lot of the incentive to innovate which makes everybody worse off. And yes, I
think it’s wrong to pirate content same as stealing any tangible item. If it’s not worth the price to
you, don’t consume it.

June 15, 2020 at 6:22 am ~new~
Does your opinion change where the creator is dead for 90 years?
When stealing tangible objects, the other person now is worse off – they’ve lost that item. Content
doesn’t work like that. Why isn’t this an important distinction?

June 15, 2020 at 6:53 am ~new~
Why isn’t this an important distinction?
It is, that is why it is useful to distinguish “piracy” and “theft”.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 8:16 am ~new~
JohnNV seems to think there isn’t much of a difference, at least morally.

Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 9:09 am ~new~
I would sign up for a coalition whose mission it was to reduce the length of copyright, unless that
coalition was full of people who couldn’t stfu about wanting to end all copyright.
So I have not been able to find a coalition.

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 JohnNV says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:23 am ~new~
Yeah, I agree copyright is broken, but I don’t think the solution is no copyright at all, I fully agree
that 90 years beyond the death of the creator is too long. But on the second point, I’m not sure
that there is or should be a distinction. If I shoplift something from a store with a price tag of $10,
that’s what we say the amount of the theft was. Nobody asks how much it will cost to replace the
item, it’s not relevant. Even if the store got the item for free as part of a promotion with
manufacturer, it doesn’t mean it’s OK to take it, and I don’t think you’d find many people arguing
that it is.
Hide ↑
 DinoNerd says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:47 am ~new~
@Edward Scizorhands
I’d join your coalition.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 4:05 pm ~new~
@Edward Scizorhands
I’d join your coalition.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 9:10 am ~new~
The copyright/patent system isn’t perfect, but creators and innovators deserve to be compensated
for their innovations, and if you remove that right, you’d remove a lot of the incentive to innovate
which makes everybody worse off.
Not really because almost no innovations are once offs who are perfectly complete. IP laws serve to
protect first movers at the expense of people who would have improved on those works. In fact it
isn’t the innovators who typically benefit the most, its the management who does. Record labels
are advantaged more than musicians, the founders of Microsoft more than the coders, and the
owners of Marvel and not the actual writers and cartoonists making the comic books.
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:15 am ~new~
I’m not happy that the labels are taking such a big cut, but i’d rather the artists get something
rather than nothing.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 10:39 am ~new~
It is a false leap to go straight to ‘without copyright then artists make nothing’.

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 JohnNV says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:34 pm ~new~
They make nothing from selling their creation. Some people may choose to pay when they could
otherwise get it for free, but that’s charity, or tips. Look, I wrote a book – I get 15% of the sale
price of each book. The cost of printing and distributing it is (I’m guessing) another 40% so that
means the publisher is making more than me on each sale of the book. And you know what? I’m
OK with that. I have no idea how to print, market, and distribute a book. And it’s not like I could
find someone else to offer me a better rate on a debut book. If it sells well (it didn’t), I could
potentially negotiate a higher rate for subsequent books. With no copyright at all, I don’t bother
writing it, the publisher has nothing to publish, and the government loses out on the tax revenue
they would have gotten from my income. But honestly, if the instant I publish something, it could
legally be copied and pasted for free, people who do it as a hobby (like Scott) would be OK with
that, but people who do it to earn a living will find something else to do.
Hide ↑
 Aapje says:
June 16, 2020 at 5:25 am ~new~
@Lambert
Musicians make most of their money from live shows, festivals, etc. Without copyright, they would
still earn that money.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 5:38 am ~new~
They make nothing from selling their creation.
How? You have leaped from ‘I create something’ to ‘someone else has a copy of it and is
distributing it for free’, there are a whole bunch of steps in the middle you are skipping to get to
your assumed answer.

I’m OK with that. I have no idea how to print, market, and distribute a book
If it takes skills and knowledge to print, market and distribute a book how come it is the words on
the paper that deserve the copyright? ‘I wrote a book, I deserve money if someone wants to read
it’ completely falls apart if you say ‘someone only wants to read my book if it has been
professionally distributed’. Now it is not clear how much ‘value’ your book has because of the
quality of your writing vs the quality of everything else that went in.
Additionally how did the publisher get a copy of your transcript? Why are you giving it to them
without an agreement to get a portion of the sales?

Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 8:18 am ~new~
Without copyright, they would still earn that money.
You would still need some other IP right to stop me from performing my Billy Joel tour. And without
copyright I could sell all the Billy Joel T-Shirts and CDs live at the event.
“Artists make most of their money through live performances” strongly selects for artists whose
audiences are middle-aged empty nesters and have boatloads of disposable income to recapture
their youth.
Even Taylor Swift sold the rights to her world tour to Netflix and that would not have been possible
without copyright. Netflix could just film it themselves and broadcast it for free.
Hide ↑
 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:48 am ~new~
Musicians make most of their money from live shows, festivals, etc. Without copyright, they would
still earn that money.
… I think this is putting the cart before the horse.
Back in the 90s, before pirating music was widespread, musicians made the vast majority of their
money selling their music. Sure, they made some of it from live shows, but selling records was the
primary revenue source. Once it went away, basically nothing stepped up to replace it.
I think you’re trying to draw too much meaning from the hellscape that is the post-2000s music
industry. It’s not that touring is the primary revenue source, it’s arguably the only revenue source
unless you make it mega-big.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 9:58 am ~new~
Even Taylor Swift sold the rights to her world tour to Netflix and that would not have been possible
without copyright. Netflix could just film it themselves and broadcast it for free.
They could? They can tap into her mic feed and set up multiple cameras and perform sound
checks, etc, etc, etc at her concerts without her permission?

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 10:00 am ~new~
Back in the 90s, before pirating music was widespread, musicians made the vast majority of their
money selling their music. Sure, they made some of it from live shows, but selling records was the
primary revenue source. Once it went away, basically nothing stepped up to replace it.
Prior to the invention of vinyl almost 100% of an artists income came from avenues that were not
related to selling records. If someone is putting the cart before the horse it is those who are
starting in the 50s and extrapolating from then.

Hide ↑
 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:17 am ~new~
Ok, let me make sure I’m following you – so you’re claiming the horse was originally before the
cart, then the 1950s / recording era started and the cart was put in front of the horse. This cart ->
horse situation managed to hold on for a half century, but was eventually destabilized by music
piracy whereupon the natural horse/cart order reestablished itself?
Jokes aside – you’re probably correct here, but it certainly looked like that 50 year period had an
atypically high amount of amazing music.
Your system only rewards people who can both write great music and have the abilities/desire to
tour and perform music live. I’ve seen multiple artists I love either quit the music industry or fade
back into the more-stable nether world of production and ghost-writing because they don’t enjoy
touring. Is there any way to compensate people who enjoy creating, but not performing music in a
world with rampant piracy?

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 10:28 am ~new~
Your system only rewards people who can both write great music and have the abilities/desire to
tour and perform music live.
Why? You think people who write great music and people who can preform great music can’t come
to an understanding under normal contract law?

Jokes aside – you’re probably correct here, but it certainly looked like that 50 year period had an
atypically high amount of amazing music.
How do you distinguish this from survivor-ship bias due to the fact that way more music made it to
the present from that era than normally would have?

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 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:45 pm ~new~
Is there any way to compensate people who enjoy creating, but not performing music in a world
with rampant piracy?
UBI plus the ways any internet influencer makes their money off of un-copyrightable content?
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 Aapje says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:52 am ~new~
@Aftagley
Piracy is not a counter-argument, because we are discussing the merit of the current system
(which doesn’t stop all piracy), not the merit of a perfect system. If some consider the laws to be
unjust and they are broken, then this is just as much a consequence of the system you are
defending, as the actions of people who do follow the law.
People also don’t get to defend our current drug laws by arguing that zero drug use is the best
outcome. That is not actually the result of those drug laws.
Either you need to defend different drug laws/enforcement (and their consequences), or you have
to accept all the consequences of the current laws, including those that result from lawbreaking.
The same goes for copyright laws/enforcement.
Also, to what extent is the fairly low income from streaming and such, a result of increased
competition (not just in the music business, but all entertainment, of which there is now way more
available than in my youth)?

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June 15, 2020 at 6:11 am ~new~
I think you could just axe most copyright laws and the culture would adapt without much issue
Copyright around entertainment media may be the most visible but is not the only important part –
and may be the least important part.
For example, what about software? Losing AAA games is not so important but harming Windows
and Linux and MacOS and every single other OS not licensed under MIT/PD sounds dangerous.
o Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:52 am ~new~
I’d argue it’s too much of a good thing.
Copyright lasts too long and patents are too broad. Ceterum autem censeo DMCA esse delendam.
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:16 am ~new~
I’d argue it’s too much of a good thing.
+1. I’m strongly negative on tech/IT patents (lawsuits over round edges on a phone and a zillion
other idiot cases that stifle innovation and only benefit lawyers), agnostic on patents in general,
and for pharmaceuticals in particular, and moderately positive on trademarks.


June 15, 2020 at 4:09 pm ~new~
Trademarks is as close to a perfect system as you can get in the legal world. It’s not very exciting
though because the concepts are so fundamental/obvious.
The real problems with Trademarks are that the Trademark Office is underfunded and has to deal
with thousands (millions?) of bootleg Chinese application per day.
In my opinion, Copyrights are too easy to get for how much of a pain in the ass they can be to the
party on the other side. At least with patents and trademarks, you need to put in some effort to
get protection.
June 15, 2020 at 6:29 am ~new~
Why do you think copyright shouldn’t last forever?

 Cliff says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:46 am ~new~
There’s the huge, existing problem of orphan works. No one knows who the owner is now but
everyone is too scared to produce the work because if they do someone may pop up and claim
statutory damages of $150,000, attorney’s fees, etc.
Also the only reason copyright exists is to incentivize the production of artistic works. Infinite
copyright duration is certainly not necessary for that.

 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:30 am ~new~
Also the only reason copyright exists is to incentivize the production of artistic works. Infinite
copyright duration is certainly not necessary for that.
I don’t think this is true. Arguably, the thought that your grandchildren could benefit from
collecting royalties might be a motivating factor for an artist, but factoring in future extensions of
the copyright term is getting preposterous. Yet, time and time again copyright has been extended
retroactively to cover works by artists long dead and buried.

I think the main reason copyright exist – at least in their current form – is that powerful
organizations and individuals lobby in their favor.

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 bean says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:02 am ~new~
Arguably, the thought that your grandchildren could benefit from collecting royalties might be a
motivating factor for an artist
I really doubt this. Most people who create content for money are doing so so that they can get
paid. Unless you’re already massively successful, the chances of your grandchildren getting paid for
anything you do are minuscule, and if you want to benefit them, you’ll put some of the money you
get from immediate royalties in a savings bond or something.
The big issue with long copyrights is that nobody has the time horizon where they’ll write
something with 100-year copyright that they wouldn’t with 50-year copyright. Corporations
certainly don’t, and neither do individual human authors/artists/whatever. At which point, the long
copyright terms are just rent-seeking by Disney and others with holdings from long ago.
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June 15, 2020 at 9:12 am ~new~
If I buy and develop a piece of land, I assume that it will generate rents 50 years from now. Maybe
I won’t be alive for all 50, but my ability to sell it in 10 years depends on the next person being
able to generate rents as long as they want.
If there is a jubilee that undoes property ownership every 49 years, I’ll be less likely to develop
land. (Particularly close to the 49th year.)

(PS: I don’t like old copyrights being extended. And I think copyrights are too long.)
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 9:41 am ~new~
If I buy and develop a piece of land, I assume that it will generate rents 50 years from now. Maybe I
won’t be alive for all 50, but my ability to sell it in 10 years depends on the next person being able to
generate rents as long as they want.
This is a stereotypically masculine-centered understanding in that permanence of labor is assumed
(vs. the impermanence of stereotypically feminine-categorized labor).
People still decorate their homes and offices even though they know the work will be transitory.
Likewise various renters perform minor maintenance and major landscaping on their rental
properties. They do this despite not profiting at all when their tenancy ends (and possibly owing
money from their security deposit to undo the modifications they’ve made).
10 years from now the next person can pay the depreciated rate plus the underlying land value,
and you’ll still have made a profit from the 10 years of rent.
Even though patents expire, the unpublished research (e.g. all of the dead ends and promising
leads not followed) leading up to that patent are still valuable.

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 zoozoc says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:34 am ~new~
Also regarding land ownership vs. copyright
Land is a physical thing. The arguments for land do not follow for copyright. In fact, I would argue
that current copyright law decreases artistic output because people are not able to build off of
other’s works. It would be like if patents lasted 100 years. Instead of innovation building off of
other technology to the benefit of everyone, more stagnation would happen as only the original
inventors could build off of their innovations.

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 Doctor Mist says:

June 15, 2020 at 3:43 pm ~new~
Land is a physical thing. The arguments for land do not follow for copyright.
Edward Scizorhands was not talking about land. He was talking about developing land, which is
much more closely analogous.

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June 16, 2020 at 8:59 am ~new~
There are a few different questions going on.

1. Why do we need ownership for thought-stuff?
2. Why doesn’t ownership of thought-stuff last forever, like it does for land?
1 is because we want people to develop thought-stuff, the same way we want people to develop
land, and the regime of private property has been effing awesome for wealth creation so we go
with what we know works.
2 is because ownership of land is simpler than ownership of thought-stuff to discern.
Permanent land ownership is reasonable because if I want to build something on a particular piece
of land, it’s trivial to find out who owns it. If someone designed a system of “finding out who owns
this land?” 200 years ago there’s a good chance it would still be perfectly functional today. Lots of
developed land is still extremely valuable 50 or even hundreds of years later, and we reward
people who a good job at creating something long-lasting by letting them capture that value when
they sell it to others.
(And if land went “free” it would actually go to the government, not public domain for the public to
do whatever they want.)

Every state has a property tax so if someone abandons land you can easily buy it from the state.
And land is unlikely to be subdivided into thousands of tiny pieces such that you have to negotiate
with everyone to build something — and even then we have eminent domain.
Things built out of thought-stuff can be composed of things that were originally built by tens of
thousands of other people and we often have no idea who those people are, and IMO the only
significant downside that IP law has for innovation is that there can be major uncertainty about
someone showing up to claim ownership of one of those tens of thousands of pieces of thought-
stuff.
(So while I significantly support the concept of IP laws, but would like reforms. Ideas include
shorter copyright terms, compulsory licensing, a requirement to actively register works to get the
full length of terms, or safe-harbor provisions that allow someone to claim abandoned goods by
giving notice of their intent to use.)

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June 16, 2020 at 4:27 pm ~new~
2. Why doesn’t ownership of thought-stuff last forever, like it does for land?
Because ownership of thought-stuff is a contractual right, and contractual rights basically never
last forever even if you do trade them from one person to another. See e.g. stock options. The
right to buy 100 shares of XYZcorp for $50 a share any time prior to 1 January 2021 is a valuable
thing that you can own, buy, sell, sue people for defrauding you of, etc. It is property. And on 1
January 2021, it is worthless property that no court will bother with. So too with copyright. So too
with any private IP contract you might negotiate in place of the default copyright – you can
negotiate any terms you like, but courts won’t enforce “forever” or “until hell freezes over” or any
other such thing.
For that matter, even property ownership usually doesn’t last forever. It lasts for life and until
probate has been cleared up, then the heir has their own new and independent interest in the land,
independent of whatever interest their dead ancestor had. About the only eternal possessions are
real property and material goods owned by corporate entities, a special case that is much easier
and less disruptive to deal with than e.g. eternal copyright.

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o fibio says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:49 am ~new~
Intellectual property rights are a vital part of every modern economy and one of the cornerstones
of the innovation industry the Western World favors. That said it is a very broad term and it’s
enforcement is rather behind the times, with both patents and copyrights having long tail effects
that are neither beneficial to the world at large or the rights holder.
I personally believe that it is unethical to pirate media, especially these days when streaming is so
prevalent that it’s basically free. I’d put it in the same moral area as shoplifting. Technically wrong
but generally meaningless to both the victim and the perpetrator.


June 15, 2020 at 9:14 am ~new~
+1. The modern economy depends on people making thought-stuff. The amazing things that
happen over the next 50 years aren’t going to be people making socks or collecting bars of gold.
June 15, 2020 at 10:43 am ~new~
Then we shouldn’t be hamstringing 99.99999% of the population.

o matkoniecz says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:02 am ~new~

Depends.
If it is outright impossible to legally buy something in your country? I see no problem with piracy.
If you pirate just to avoid paying, while book/movie/whatever costs 0.4% of your monthly income?
Then it sounds like you should pay.
In between there is plenty of gray area for “author died 90 year ago, copyright is owned by
massive corporation” where piracy may be illegal but I see nothing clearly unethical. Or “Spotify
pays author basically nothing” where it may be legal but I am not convinced that it is ethical.
And there is plenty of fun legal cases where either legal or ethical status is not clear – see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_and_Wikimedia_Foundation_copyright_disp
ute or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute
Also, what you mean by “pirate”? For example in Poland AFAIK it is perfectly legal to download
copyrighted music, images, text – though sharing it is illegal.

Is intellectual property a good thing, a bad thing, a mixed bag?
Mixed bag as everything else. There is plenty of bad behavior (patent trolls, copyright extending
over 50 years past death of author (“The Mickey Mouse Protection Act”), absurd DMCA takedowns).
But someone copying a book that someone else made? And without any agreement or permission
selling it without giving anything to real author? That should be illegal. The same for images,
software, maps and other works.

There is additional problem of that rules are often hard to enforce against major corporations (for
example Facebook maps are breaking copyright due to insufficient attribution of real source of data
– and it is basically impossible to enforce that).

June 15, 2020 at 6:26 am ~new~
I’m specifically interested in personal download and usage.
If it’s actually property, why shouldn’t copyright extend forever?

June 15, 2020 at 6:43 am ~new~
I’m specifically interested in personal download and usage.
Legality depends on a country. In Canada “the downloading of a song for a person’s private use
does not constitute infringement.” https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/p2p-downloading-
is-it-legal/ (though it was state in 2009).

why shouldn’t copyright extend forever?
Is it a serious question? Also, why it should?
June 15, 2020 at 6:54 am ~new~
Yes, I would like an explicit reasoning.
If it is property, why should property last only so long? When I buy a painting I expect to own it
unless I sell it (or lose it etc).

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 6:59 am ~new~
In short: overall benefits of copyright depends on copyright length, and “infinity” is certainly not an
optimal position.
For start, have fun with deciding who owns copyright to original Bible text. Or works of Homer.
There is no benefit in this absurdity.

If it is property, why should property last only so long?
Because it is a special kind of property I see no problem with special rules for it.
Hide ↑
 zoozoc says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:22 am ~new~
As others have said, the issue with copyright is not the person is owning a concept or artistic
rendering of something. For example, it is against copyright to take the painting you bought and
upload a picture of it on the internet.

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 bean says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:11 am ~new~
If it’s actually property, why shouldn’t copyright extend forever?
Simple answer? It’s not property. The basic logic behind IP, at least in the US, is laid out in the
Constitution: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to
Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
We give people rights to their creations to encourage them to create more. That’s it. It’s a
utilitarian decision, because we want more books and movies and patentable innovations. It’s not
because of any moral right the creator has. And after we’ve given the creator long enough to pay
back their initial investment, if they can, we have whatever it is enter the public domain. The
patent system is the best at implementing this, while copyright has been grossly extended.
 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:19 am ~new~
Because the downloader has not taken the author’s property? They’ve duplicated it.
If you own a painting, and someone else creates a duplicate of it, you still own the original
painting.

June 15, 2020 at 4:14 pm ~new~
So if Edison copied your painting and then told everyone it was his, and started making merch and
selling T-shirts with your painting on it, you’d be ok with that because you still have the original?
Hide ↑
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:46 am ~new~
Yes? I don’t buy things just so I can sell them, I buy things so that I own them. I buy a DVD, I
don’t care if my neighbor buys the same copy of the DVD.

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 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:49 am ~new~
If it is outright impossible to legally buy something in your country? I see no problem with piracy.
If you pirate just to avoid paying, while book/movie/whatever costs 0.4% of your monthly income?
Then it sounds like you should pay.
What about pirating things you’ve already bought? For instance, I buy a show on Amazon Prime,
they let me stream it but not download it, I’d prefer to have my own copy, so I pirate it anyway.
Well, ok, maybe I never paid for the right to download it, so what if I bought it on iTunes, and now
I can download it, but can’t freely copy it to another device when I want?
Or what if I own a physical copy of a console game from 15 years ago, but today I can play the
same game on an emulator at higher resolution, perhaps with texture packs?
I find it increasingly common that a pirated version of something gives me more freedom or ease
of use than the paid-for version.

o nes1983 says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:03 am ~new~
My reading of I David D. Friedman’s book is that he would probably say that it’s a good thing, with
a lot of caveats. One caveat being that intellectual property grants a kind of monopoly, and so the
usual downsides of monopolies apply. Importantly, production of copies will be below the optimum
level (you’ll need to read the book to understand the terminology; sorry).
The other caveat is the practicality of enforcing the digital copyright. So, he might say that: if
intellectual property was enforceable at a reasonable cost, it would clearly be a good thing (with
some caveats, but still). But what’s the correct trade-off in a world where it can’t be enforced at a
reasonable cost? Well, that’s harder to answer.

o Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:34 am ~new~
I’ve read lots of impassioned arguments for abolishing intellectual property. They make a lot of
good points, but in my opinion none of them do a good job of explaining why anybody would
bother to make my favorite video game or write my favorite book. That’s a deal-breaker. That said
I am against the indefinite extension of copyright, where congress grants a ten-year extension
every ten years. The authors death +50 years standard seems more than reasonable to me, and I
have no ethical problem pirating anything outside that window.

June 15, 2020 at 6:57 am ~new~
Do you think differently on areas that will get created regardless, like philosophy, art, science etc?
June 15, 2020 at 7:02 am ~new~
science
Here anything funded by government should be obligated to be published on open license, in open
access journals.
Abolishing copyright is not needed to do that.

 Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:48 am ~new~
I don’t think “will get created regardless” is a boolean quantity. Some people will make art and
science without financial incentive, but more people will make more and better if someone is willing
to give them $1000 to do it.

 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:36 am ~new~
bother to make my favorite video game or write my favorite book
Because you hire someone to do it? While I’m as much a sucker for novelty as anyone, it’s not like
I can manage to hear/read/watch even one percent of one percent of the available
music/books/films that exist. I can’t even over my lifetime manage one thousandth of the books
that get published in a single year. Do we really need an artificial government monopoly to ensure
that we get more? And if yes, could we imagine other ways to ensure this?
 Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:56 am ~new~
The Witcher 3* had a budget of $81 million. I don’t have $81 million. If the answer is “Kickstarter
for everything” I’m on board, but even then there is a gap. The number of people willing to invest
money after seeing a proof of concept or some general ideas and then wait years before receiving
a product is pretty small. The most successful kickstarter ever was a little over $20 million, so at
best I would expect to get games 1/4 as good as Witcher 3. Generally I think there’s a lot of value
left in the model where people can create a thing and then sell it after it exists. I don’t see how
that works without some sort of intellectual property protection.
*My favorite game ever is not Witcher 3, but I couldn’t find budget numbers for Shadow of the
Colossus.
 anton says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:15 am ~new~
As with most everything there are trade-offs both ways. While witcher 3 may or may not have
been made without copyright protections, witcher 3 mods will for certain never be made with
copyright protections. While witcher 3 mods are not likely to be much good and maybe not worth
the risk of witcher 3 never being made in the first place, the same thing can’t be said (from what I
have heard) of steam engines. So it’s not clear to me on the balance which option is better.
Hide ↑
 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:52 am ~new~
The most successful kickstarter ever was a little over $20 million
That’s only because kickstarters have time limits. Crowdfunding can continue long after the initial
kickstarter page is over with.

Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 8:33 am ~new~
Star Citizen looks like a traditional on-going game that calls all its sales “crowdfunding” for PR
purposes, and I would do the same thing if I were in their boat and could get free headlines.
(It also seems to tilt the market in favor of established creators, but I’m not sure this is a good
argument because only established creators would be able to raise $85 million in venture capital.)
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 9:19 am ~new~
You can hire people, right now, to make your favorite video game or your favorite book.
IP regimes are not stopping you. Just like capitalism allows communism to exist within it. You can
create your project and pay for it and put it in the public domain to show others how it’s done.
I can’t even over my lifetime manage one thousandth of the books that get published in a single
year
You don’t want most of them, but other people do.

 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:28 am ~new~
why anybody would bother to make my favorite video game or write my favorite book
Because people already do even though IP law currently exists?
Cave Story. Cory Doctorow novels. Worm, Unsong, Northern Caves, etc. Fan films. Freeware. All
pop culture from before IP law was put into effect (the Iliad, operas, Shakespeare, folk mythology).
 Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:35 am ~new~
I think it’s great when someone is willing to spend thousands of hours producing something for my
enjoyment with no compensation, I just don’t think it’s very reasonable to expect it of them.
I also can’t help but notice how everybody is jumping on the book example without giving much
regard for video games, which frequently have 8 figure budgets.

 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:46 pm ~new~
See the freeware link.

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 Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:29 pm ~new~
@AG
I feel like the quality of the games on that list largely prove my point. CD Projekt Red spent $81
million and 3.5 years developing Witcher 3. Even if they did that out of the goodness of their
hearts, or because they thought it was fun, or for whatever reason Scott wrote Unsong, I still think
it would be unreasonable to expect them to.

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 Dan L says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:13 pm ~new~
I also can’t help but notice how everybody is jumping on the book example without giving much
regard for video games, which frequently have 8 figure budgets.
A glance at the Steam charts show they’re dominated by free-to-play multiplayer games. Epic is…
unlikely… to be different. IP is effectively a non-issue in those models.
Would IP protections disincentivize your Witchers? Undoubtedly, though now you’re talking about
what is (unfortunately*) an increasingly narrow market segment. Something will inevitably be lost
no matter what one does, though I bet your Stardew Valleys and maybe even Disco Elysiums will
be fine. Dwarf Fortress, of course, soldiers on regardless.
*For of all sad words/ of tongue or pen/ the saddest are these/ Freespace 3.// It might have been.
Hide ↑
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:49 am ~new~
Some of the greatest, most enduring, pieces of art of all time were created under the patron
system, before IP law was significantly implemented. Even today, opera houses making lavish
productions of entirely public domain works don’t make up their money in ticket sales, and so are
basically funded by patrons.

So it could also be how your big budget video game still gets made, because a billionaire simply
wants to play a big budget video game, or reap the status benefits of getting a big budget film
made.
The logic behind ad revenue/sponsorships still applies in a world without IP, so content would also
continue to be produced with that level of support. It would be easier for some kinds of content,
too, since said producers wouldn’t have to wrestle with copyright strikes anymore.
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:08 am ~new~
Most of ‘all time’ happened before IP law became a thing.
It’s unfair to compare 3500 years of literature before the Statute of Anne with the 300 years after.
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 9:17 am ~new~
We probably lost several works of Shakespeare because the lack of IP protection meant that he
kept his works hidden. People would try to memorize his plays and put on the same play at
competing theaters. It’s the same way guilds worked hard to keep their inventions secret and tried
to monetize them through second-order effects.
We want these things public! We want them published! We’ve probably lost some incredible things
because they were hidden and ultimately died with their creators.
The things we lost, or that were never created, are Bastiat’s unseen.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 9:55 am ~new~
@Edward Scizorhands
OTOH now that copyright (in the US, at least) is immediate with the creation of the work and
doesn’t require publishing anymore, works can still be lost by dint of never being published.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka
Kafka wrote: “Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me … in the way of diaries,
manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread”.[168][169]
Brod ignored this request and published the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935.
Today wouldn’t Brod have been breaking the law in publishing these works whose copyright was
still owned by Kafka’s estate?

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June 16, 2020 at 10:22 am ~new~
We probably lost several works of Shakespeare because the lack of IP protection meant that he kept
his works hidden. People would try to memorize his plays and put on the same play at competing
theaters. It’s the same way guilds worked hard to keep their inventions secret and tried to monetize
them through second-order effects.
Now you are assuming that the works we got would remain in a world where Shakespeare spends
decades in a legal battle with the heirs of Saxo Grammaticus over Hamlet. Likewise we wouldn’t
have the Iliad if Homer had to go back and get permission from every storyteller he had heard a
version from before preforming his variation.

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June 16, 2020 at 11:57 am ~new~
Today wouldn’t Brod have been breaking the law in publishing these works whose copyright was
still owned by Kafka’s estate?
A copyright violation, but, yes. He’d still be allowed to retain ownership of them, sell them, make
them available to others to study and describe, and once the copyright had lapsed they could be
openly published.
Or the estate could have been paid money. They don’t necessarily have Kafka’s same interests.
I think if someone wants their private unpublished writings destroyed, they ought to be destroyed.
We encourage creators to contribute to the public domain, and IMO this is more ethical than
forcing them to contribute to the public domain. But destroying all the copies should be something
Kafka took care of doing before he died. A will isn’t some magic computer program that you
unleash as a doomsday weapon after your death.
where Shakespeare spends decades in a legal battle with the heirs of Saxo Grammaticus over
Hamlet
Even the US copyright terms, which I think are too long, would not last for over 300 years.
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 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:56 pm ~new~
No, but Shakespeare would have to pay François de Belleforest, and the author of Ur-Hamlet.
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June 16, 2020 at 2:16 pm ~new~
Even the US copyright terms, which I think are too long, would not last for over 300 years.
The point is that almost all of Shakespeare’s works are derivative to some significant extent, you
can’t claim that copyright would give us more Shakespeare without considering this.
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June 16, 2020 at 3:58 pm ~new~
So it could also be how your big budget video game still gets made, because a billionaire simply
wants to play a big budget video game, or reap the status benefits of getting a big budget film made.
No billionaire wants to play a video game badly enough to pay serious video-game development
money just to make it happen. If he did, he wouldn’t be a billionaire.
Paying for propaganda wrapped in serious video-game production values, that’s another matter. I
don’t think it is an improvement if all big-budget video games are some billionaire’s professional
propaganda, even if the message is just “Billionaire X is high status”. Which it often won’t be.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 9:52 am ~new~
That said I am against the indefinite extension of copyright, where congress grants a ten-year
extension every ten years.
Now that Disney has leveraged their extended monopoly sufficient to purchase rights to Star Wars,
the Marvel cinematic universe, etc… they have no need to lobby to extend their mouse monopoly
anymore. The extensions therefore will probably end.

June 16, 2020 at 12:44 pm ~new~
but in my opinion none of them do a good job of explaining why anybody would bother to make my
favorite video game or write my favorite book.
We know that intellectual property can be created without IP laws because it has been. Consider all
the works written before copyright law existed. For current examples, consider fanfic, open source
software, and blogs. SSC is one example of very useful intellectual property whose creation does
not depend on IP law.
There are a lot of different ways it can happen. Some people write books for the fun of it, or to
spread their ideas, or for the resulting status, which can take pecuniary forms. One result of being
a novelist may be a job teaching at a university. One result of my books and articles is that people
pay my expenses to go to interesting places around the world and give speeches, and sometimes
pay for the speeches as well.
Historically, one way of supporting authors is patronage. English books from a few centuries back
sometimes start with a glowing tribute to some noble you have never heard of — who has probably
been feeding the author for the last few years. The Orlando Furioso, one of the great works of
Renaissance Italian poetry, includes a scene predicting what a wonderful person the descendant of
one of the characters will be. Her name will be Lucrecia Borgia — which suggests who Ariosto’s
patrons were.
One modern version is Patreon. Another possible one, that I don’t think I have seen, would be for a
firm such as Apple to sponsor the production of popular works — which would contain the artists’
thanks to the sponsor.

Another way is first mover advantages. Back before the U.S. had a copyright treaty with the U.K.,
British authors got substantial royalties for U.S. sales, in part because the fixed cost and time lags
in the printing technology of the time meant that the authorized publisher, who got the text from
the author long enough before the book came out in England to have type set and books printed
when it did, got all the early sales, which were typically most of the sales. If a pirate edition came
out, the authorized publisher, with its fixed costs already paid, could bring out a cut rate fighting
edition to keep the pirate from ever making enough to cover its fixed costs.
That approach doesn’t work with modern printing technology, but there are still advantages to
coming out first.
None of this implies that we wouldn’t have less IP without IP law, but it’s clear that we wouldn’t
have none at all.
And in some ways, IP law hinders the production of IP, because old IP is sometimes an input to
new. My current non-fiction book project is a collection of short works of literature that contain
interesting economic insights, each to be accompanied by an essay of mine exploring the
economics. It currently exists, in draft form with only some of the essays, as a web page.
I probably can’t produce it as a book, because that would require permission from a large number
of different copyright holders, requiring a lot of time and effort finding them and negotiating the
permission. I can do most of it as a webbed page because most of the works are already webbed.
One of my favorite pieces, a Poul Anderson story obviously written to make the economic point,
used to be webbed in full, is now webbed only in part. If the author were still alive I expect he
would be happy to give me permission to include it in my book for a proportional share of the
royalties, as two other authors I have communicated with were, but unfortunately he isn’t and I
haven’t had any luck with the agent who currently controls the rights.
The chapter on property in my Hidden Order discusses the tradeoff between property and
commons. One of the costs of treating something as property is the transaction cost of letting
someone other than the owner use it.
So that particular book would be easier for me to produce if there were no copyright law.

June 16, 2020 at 12:51 pm ~new~
The Orlando Furioso, one of the great works of Renaissance Italian poetry, includes a scene
predicting what a wonderful person the descendant of one of the characters will be. Her name will be
Lucrecia Borgia — which suggests who Ariosto’s patrons were.
Great Merlin’s ghost!
(For SSC readers who haven’t read the poem, the prophecy that Ariosto’s sponsors would be
amazing is put in the mouth of Merlin’s ghost. Having encountered it in his tomb, the warrior
woman Bradamante takes it as an order to convert Ruggiero to Christianity and marry him.)
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:00 pm ~new~
Another possible one, that I don’t think I have seen, would be for a firm such as Apple to sponsor the
production of popular works — which would contain the artists’ thanks to the sponsor.
We see this on the regular with public broadcasting and live performance contexts, like symphony
orchestras, operas, theater, and other large scale events. “This program was brought to you
by/made possible by generous support from…”

 nes1983 says:
June 19, 2020 at 5:15 am ~new~
Wait, but after all that — what’s your hunch? In balance, is intellectual property good for the world
or bad?
June 19, 2020 at 10:48 am ~new~
I don’t know. Levine and Boldrin make the argument for one side, and they could be right, but I
haven’t looked into the historical evidence myself, or seen any attempt by someone else to debunk
their account of it.
I think it’s clear, for reasons I explore in Law’s Order, that traditional copyright makes more sense
than either patent or the ways in which copyright has been expanded in recent years, because it
covers something that works better as property. But whether it works well enough so that, given
zero marginal cost, it is better as property than as commons I don’t know.
The answer probably depends on a lot of details of the setting, such as how large first mover
advantages are — hand set lead type vs photocopying, to take one example.
Hide ↑
o ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:40 am ~new~
I think that for scientific research, copyright is definitely a bad thing, and I think pirating is
ethically warranted.
The research would still be made, the papers still written and peer-reviewed, even if copyright on
the papers did not exist.
As for other forms of copyright, I favor a life + 25 years term.
For patents & miscellaneous, more flexibility on derivative work (EU plant variety laws allow a lot
more derivative breeding, whereas Americans patent a lot of plant varieties, thus making step
improvements impossible).
Thus, I think that substantial and significant improvements on somebody else’s patent should be
exempt from the previous patent, as long as the improvement is substantial enough.
June 15, 2020 at 10:01 am ~new~
As for other forms of copyright, I favor a life + 25 years term.
I want a solid term of years, not an amorphous “life +”.
Say X and Y marry. X works their butt off supporting Y through school and while writing their
novels, while going further and further into debt. Y finishes a novel that gets best seller status and
then dies immediately thereafter from a bus accident at the untimely age of 25, but not before
incurring even more medical debt. X uses the royalties to pay off the debt incurred by X and Y, but
then has nothing left. X spends the next 25 years treading water on the royalties and their
minimum wage jobs, but then at the age of 50 the royalties end when the copyright ends. X ends
up on the streets.
Make the copyright 50 years or 60 years flat and X has less of a problem.

June 15, 2020 at 10:04 am ~new~
+1. Making copyright length depend on the creator’s life is just weird. 50 years? Great, fine, let’s
do it..
 ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:05 am ~new~
Yeah, but with a solid 60 year term, you could get Y, who wrote a book, and at age 80+ is living in
a super expensive care home, while Warner Bros. makes a super-duper expensive blockbuster
based on their book while Y gets nothing.
I don’t see why X, who didn’t write the book, should be prioritised over Y, who did.
If you want to have a fixed number of years, make it an even 100 since publication. Then we won’t
get situations like that. Plus, it’s easy to calculate.

 Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:13 am ~new~
I learned recently that Beverly Cleary is still kicking, at 104! She’s been writing children’s books
since 1942. So yeah, 60 years really wouldn’t do it.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 10:16 am ~new~
If something is still quite valuable IP at year+60, it was very likely to have been quite valuable and
generating rents during the intervening years.

Hide ↑
 Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:19 am ~new~
Most 100+ year olds aren’t relying on their current income to support themselves. Is the point to
allow the creator to make maximum profit off the work or to have exclusive creative control during
their lifetime?
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 10:52 am ~new~
It’s not like Beverly Cleary will be 101 and then suddenly realize “oh, shoot, all my royalties
disappear today.”
(I mean, I assume if we made copyright length 50 or 60 years, we would do that going forward,
with some reasonable grandfathering for people who didn’t expect the expiration of their rights to
happen in the next few years.)

Hide ↑
 Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:06 am ~new~
This is reasonable, but I would amend it to “Life or 50 years, whichever is longer.” I don’t have a
very rational argument for this but it seems weird to me that under your system if Jane Austen had
lived long enough she’d have had no say in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Plus I doubt the
difference actually matters all that often.

June 15, 2020 at 10:25 am ~new~
Yeah, this seems a good compromise.
Though theoretically it could incentivize assassins, the copyright holder could avoid this by giving
up copyright, or making licenses available to nearly anyone for a nominal amount.

Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:48 am ~new~
Doesn’t need to be a traditional assassin, since you’re playing the long game.
You could bribe the chefs at the restraunts they like to add extra salt and saturated fat to their
meals. Or stand next to them while puffing on a cigar.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 10:56 am ~new~
Statistical assassination! I love it.

Hide ↑
 bean says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:41 am ~new~
In theory, I agree, but I think some form of “life +” is probably a political/PR necessity, to avoid old
and sympathetic authors whining about stuff. I’d go with 50 years or life + 5, whichever is longer.
 Thomas Jorgensen says:

June 15, 2020 at 12:25 pm ~new~
Let them whine?
Futureproofing! We really do not want copyrights to become perpetual again just because someone
cures aging, after all.
Books that still sell after 50-60 years have at that point made their author so much money that if
they have problems, that is on them. Actually, same goes for 20. Most books are pretty ephemeral,
and as far as actual earnings go, any term beyond a decade is almost entirely about making
Hollywood pay up when they do an adaption.
25 years would more than suffice

Hide ↑
 bean says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:05 pm ~new~
I’m rather skeptical on curing aging, but that’s a reasonable point. Less sure on 20 yrs vs 50.
There are lots of long-running series that are more than 20 years old, and where, because it’s a
long-running series, the author is still making money off the early books.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 11:33 pm ~new~
Books that still sell after 50-60 years have at that point made their author so much money that if
they have problems, that is on them.
Would that it were so.
My first book will be fifty in a few years. It still sells — 53 copies of the paperback in the past
month, a similar number of the audiobook, and I’m not sure about the kindle. But it never sold
enough to make me rich, or even come close to supporting me at the average U.S. salary.
And I expect there are a fair number of other books like that, selling something on the order of a
thousand copies a year for many years.

Hide ↑
o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:24 am ~new~
I think we tend to think of “intellectual property” in too monolithic a way. Even under current law,
there are important distinctions between trademark, copyright, and patents (in terms of both
duration and rights granted). It may well be natural to subdivide these further (perhaps software
should be classified differently from either copyright or patent? perhaps copyright in musical
melodies should be treated differently than copyright in text? perhaps visual trademarks should be
treated differently from slogans and brand names? perhaps pharmaceutical patents should be
treated differently from business processes?) And all of them could naturally have the set of rights
changed (the duration extended or reduced, mandatory licensing).
Some copyrights and patents could also naturally be replaced by automatic purchase by the
government at some fixed price (some people describe this in terms of prizes, like the one for the
invention of a means to measure longitude several centuries ago).
All of this is just to say that intellectual property can be just as heterogeneous as other kinds of
property, and could be subject to many modifications, just the way that real estate has easements
while chattel property like furniture and clothing generally doesn’t.

 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:45 am ~new~
Companies are using all forms of IP Law in coordination to prevent anyone from investigating the
software.
With regards to law enforcement software
“Such overlapping protection is problematic because it interferes with the carefully developed
doctrines that have evolved over time to balance the private property rights in intellectual creations
against public access to such creations”

o rahien.din says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:34 am ~new~
It is unethical to pirate books etc.
But it is not because the victim has lost physical property – they haven’t.
Nor is it because the pirate is withholding money that they definitely would have provided if not for
piracy – every person has first rights to their own mind. Empirically punishing thoughtcrime is a
gross violation of ethics.

Nor is it because of the downstream effects on the arts industries. It may be that art was in a state
of artificial scarcity, and the digital era has punctured a bubble. If people only value art to the
degree that they would pirate it but not purchase it, this may be unwise, but it is simply the
invisible hand moving.
Piracy is unethical because it is espionage.

June 15, 2020 at 8:21 am ~new~
Could you expound a bit more on exactly what makes piracy espionage?
June 15, 2020 at 9:22 am ~new~
Piracy is definitionally espionage : unlawful access to privileged or confidential information.
That is its only undeniable criminal aspect.
Any of its material effects may be imaginary, may be simple bubble deflation, and/or may be an
opportunity to compensate artists in a more risk-healthy fashion.

 Aapje says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:09 am ~new~
That is nonsense. Copyright protects the way in which something is expressed, not what is
expressed.
It’s perfectly legal to write a book that contains all the information contained in a copyrighted book,
if it is expressed differently.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 7:10 am ~new~
Writing a book that contains all the information of another book, just expressed differently, is
called plagiarism.
And it is certainly illegal according to copyright law.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 7:15 am ~new~
link text
Plagiarism is using someone else’s work or ideas without giving proper credit. In other words,
because you are not giving attribution to the owner of the original work or idea — you are
presenting the idea or thought as your own.
Plagiarism is a violation of academic norms but not illegal; copyright violation is illegal but quite
common in academia.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 9:37 am ~new~
I stand corrected about plagiarism vis-a-vis copyright law.
But you have helped to show how copyright law is essentially a legal framework for regulating
aesthetic, to the exclusion of ethical concerns regarding content. This means copyright law is
conceptually irrelevant to 1. the OP’s question of the ethics of piracy, rather than the legality
thereof, and 2. my idea that piracy is an informational crime, rather than an aesthetic crime.
If anything, this increases my certainty that our definition of and legal approach to piracy are
misguided.
Hide ↑
 Aapje says:
June 17, 2020 at 7:06 am ~new~
An example of a case where the difference was relevant was a court case about phone books. This
is publicly available information, but the claimant alleged their phone book was copied by the
accused. The evidence that was presented, was that there were the same errors in both books.
Therefor, the claim was upheld.
Hide ↑
June 17, 2020 at 10:50 am ~new~
Aapje,
This seems to indicate that copyright protects what was expressed, rather than how it is
expressed.
Hide ↑
 AlexanderTheGrand says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:27 am ~new~
People may value art enough to buy it, but they value having the art AND their money more than
having just the art, and thus pirate anyways. Rational buyers don’t always pay the price they think
an item is worth, they pay at most the price they think the item is worth.
June 15, 2020 at 9:10 am ~new~
That is true for some acts of piracy.
But there is a class of items that you would partake in or enjoy, but would not willingly pay for.
This is easy to see if you enlarge “enjoy but not pay for” beyond “piracy,” noting all the times we
all do this. For instance, I will never pay for the New Yorker, but I will read it in the dentist’s office.
And yet this is not piracy. Thus, for some acts of piracy, the pirate is fully justified in claiming “I
would not have paid for this, even though I would pirate it.”
You may contend that it is impossible to determine whether that is the case. It might even be
impossible for the pirate! But we are not allowed to say “Regardless of what the market says, this
work is worth $X, therefore the artist has a right to your money and your mind.” We are not
permitted to convict the pirate by a priori voiding their rights to their money and their mind.
Piracy is unethical, but the reason is not “The artist has not gotten sufficient material benefit,
therefore the consumers are delusional.”

o boylermaker says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:47 am ~new~
I don’t think that there is any moral reality to “intellectual property”–as someone points out
upthread, my having a recording of a song doesn’t keep someone else from having it, which is
different from tangible property where you either have it or you don’t (I can’t remember the
technical economics term for this).
You should still, however, not lie. So in the absence of laws, I would say:
1) Publishing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by boylermaker: wrong; this is a lie
2) Publishing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling (but not paying her royalties):
fine
3) Making a movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, based on the novel, again not paying J.K.
Rowling: fine
4) Publishing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: A reimagining, under my own name, a
reimagining that makes it clear it is a different book from the one J.K. Rowling wrote (think Harry
Potter and the Methods of Rationality): fine
5) Publishing 2 Harry 2 Potter, my sickkkk Harry Potter fan fiction, under my own name: fine
I think that piracy is wrong because laws have moral force even when their content is morally
neutral, and so I don’t do it.
I think that there probably should be some, maybe even a lot, of IP. It is a legal fiction that is
useful because giving people temporary monopolies over ideas incentivizes them to spend time
coming up with the ideas. But I think the position that maximizes the common good is probably
less IP than we have now.
Patents are great, but should probably be a bit shorter. I am confused by the situation with
patenting genes and bioprospected molecules and don’t have an opinion on that.
Copyright is a bit iffier. Authors should be able to copyright their works, and I’m willing to be talked
into the idea that the copyright should last past their lifetimes, but probably by only a couple of
decades. They should not be able to copyright their characters or worlds (i.e., for-profit fan fiction,
like The Aeneid or the works of Shakespeare, should be fine).
EDIT: I had forgotten about trademarks; my instinct is that using other people’s trademarks tends
to fall into the category of lying, so I am more favorable to trademark-protections than I am to
copyright or patent protections.

 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:55 am ~new~
I don’t think that there is any moral reality to “intellectual property”–as someone points out
upthread, my having a recording of a song doesn’t keep someone else from having it, which is
different from tangible property where you either have it or you don’t (I can’t remember the
technical economics term for this).
This isn’t really the moral argument though. IMO, the moral argument is thinking of it in terms of a
contract. The creator of a work makes said work available conditionally, and one such condition is
“you can consume it personally, you can even sell it or give it away, but you can’t copy it, retain
the original, and give the copy to someone else.”
Issues like whether it’s tangible or whether the person buying the copy would have bought an
original are completely beside the point. The person making the copy is violating their agreement
with the creator (or the creator’s agent). The person benefiting from that violation is in a moral
position roughly equivalent to someone buying stolen goods. Or purchasing blackmail secrets. Or
something like that. You are directly benefiting from someone else’s clear moral/legal violation.
 boylermaker says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:35 am ~new~
I find this to be a compelling argument that you shouldn’t pirate under the current legal regime.
I don’t think that in the absence of any IP law, the contract would be there by default, though. To
give an example of what I mean, I think that if there were no laws against taking physical
property, and you invited me to your house and left me alone in the room, it would be immoral for
me to take your stuff: there is an implied hey-don’t-wander-off-with-my-sofa that comes along
with your invitation to your house.
But in the absence of any IP law, if you sold me a book, or told me a story from your past, or
showed me a painting, and didn’t make me sign an explicit contract beforehand, I think I’m morally
in the clear to publish an edition of your book, or make a movie based on your story, or a copy of
your painting.
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:39 am ~new~
I dunno, I think in current western society, this part of the contract is pretty implicit and does not
need to be explicitly stated. But part of that is because in current western society, we generally
assume the law reflects commonly held social values.
I.e. in a society that was exactly like ours except IP law didn’t exist, you may be right. Except that
it’s a contradiction because a society exactly like ours would have IP law.
It’s like the classic libertarian philosophical question: In a world just like ours but Ron Paul
becomes President, can he solve all of our problems? No. On the other hand, any world in which
Ron Paul becomes President is a world that looks very different from ours and is well on the way to
solving most of the problems we’re currently complaining about…

Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 8:47 am ~new~
One more case: publishing HP by JKR, but with errors.

June 15, 2020 at 10:29 am ~new~
Hmm, well, if by “errors” you mean typos, then I guess I would say that if you are doing #2, you
should make a good-faith effort at error-correction. All editions have typos, though, so I wouldn’t
find their presence to be morally suspect.
If you mean things like changing Dumbledore’s opening speech to “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment!
Tweak! By the way I am straight as an arrow and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!” … I think I
would consider that to fall under #1 (it’s a lie to say that J.K. wrote that).

June 15, 2020 at 10:51 am ~new~
The obvious case is sloppy OCR.
The annoying example I know of is a Russian copy of Sheckley’s “Protection”, which unfortunately
damaged the last line by correcting the final word.
Decent news– that one didn’t turn up in a fast search.
Here’s a copy without that error:

https://lingualeo.com/es/jungle/robert-sheckley-protection-49722
Sheckley was a clever writer with some rationalit or rationalist-adjacent topics who seems to be
pretty much forgotten.
Some stories: the misfortune of getting therapy from a mind machine designed for aliens. Being
unable to sign a (grossly unfair colonialist) contract with aliens because their language changes so
fast. Dealing with a make-anything machine which won’t do duplicates.
He’s probably best remembered for “The Prize of Peril” a story about “reality” tv where the
contestant is being hunted.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 2:00 pm ~new~
Well, I definitely think there is some degree of sloppiness where it becomes immoral to present
OCRed text as that of the authors. I think there is probably some gray area, and it’s pretty context
dependent. So if you are presenting text as OCRed to people who know what OCR means and can
see the original images if necessary (like the Biodiversity Heritage Library project, say), I think you
can get away with a lot more garble than if you are doing OCR to print out a book for your
grandma.
It probably varies by text, too: the amount of garble needed to pervert the original meaning is
higher for Harry Potter than for a collection of epigrammatic poetry, which is higher than for a
calculus textbook.
Hide ↑
 Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:14 am ~new~
If you intend your list to be exhaustive, you should include translations, which are an interesting
case in themselves.
June 15, 2020 at 10:24 am ~new~
I tend to think that translation is so difficult that all translations fall under #4. But I don’t feel so
strongly about this that I would object to a separate category.

 Vitor says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:12 am ~new~
what about the following?

Occultist classics collection, volume 7:
The Satanic Bible, by A. LaVey
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
The Equinox of the Gods, by A. Crowley

June 15, 2020 at 10:43 am ~new~
I’m OK with it. What do you see as the potential problem? Is it that the publisher is making a
public statement that Harry Potter is occult? That doesn’t seem to be a problem, as it is a very
expensive way of making a statement that is so common and easy to make in other ways that
there is a whole wikipedia article about it:
Or am I missing the point?


June 15, 2020 at 4:19 pm ~new~
The “long” term of patents is actually quite short for drugs. Your R&D, FDA approval, building
factories, etc all eats into the patent term.

o kaelthas says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:36 am ~new~
I just wanted to mention the book “against intellectual monopoly” by Boldrin and Levine:
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
They argue that patents are not necessary for companies to make profit of their inventions,
because the inventing company has a massive first-mover advantage over the competition.

June 15, 2020 at 4:20 pm ~new~
Some call this the MySpace effect…

June 16, 2020 at 5:43 am ~new~
Myspace sold for $580 million dollars.

o Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:51 am ~new~
Yes, it’s unethical to pirate books, videos, etc. Perhaps not on the ultimate, fundamental level, but
in the time and place we currently inhabit it is illegal and immoral. Someone is harmed, indirectly
many more people are harmed, etc. You are effectively making an isolated demand for rigor to
justify theft. You don’t demand all rights hold up to the standard of strict ethical scrutiny on a
society-wide basis when it comes to (for example) your identity. You do so with intellectual
property because you expect to be in a position to steal it and unlikely to possess it.
The main virtue of intellectual property is that it incentivizes the creation of intellectual products. If
you take it away without substituting some other form of allowing workers to profit from their
intellectual labor in line with how much other people want it, then you have done a net negative
(plus or minus some fiddling on the edges). It does this at the expense of your right to freely use
knowledge but only with knowledge you would not have otherwise, so the harm is relatively
minimal (and you eventually get the right to use the knowledge after it expires).
The answers people have provided so far are intensely problematic. If it’s something people do for
love, you’ll get a loss less intellectual property and it will almost exclusively come from the rich. If
it’s something that requires people to purchase, then you’re going to see much greater control of
the wealthy over intellectual products and effectively a return to the patronage system. If it’s
something that only works with first mover advantage, then it can only be done by well resourced
companies and not individuals and opens a whole bunch of loopholes a well resourced company can
smash the little guy with. Intellectual property concentrates power in the hands of artists relative
to other systems. Even if they sell their rights to a corporation, at least they’re getting paid, and
they have the option of doing it on their own if they can.
There may be a better system but simply abolishing intellectual property would be a huge net
negative.
 Evan Þ says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:21 am ~new~
…and you eventually get the right to use the knowledge after it expires.
I would believe this a lot more if copyright terms weren’t already in the ballpark of the average
lifespan.
If it’s something people do for love, you’ll get a loss less intellectual property and it will almost
exclusively come from the rich.
In that case, how do you explain the plethora of fanfictions freely available online without any
compensation for their writers? Surely not every fanfiction writer is a member of “the rich” (except
perhaps by a global scale where we all qualify too).
Now, if you’re saying high-quality works, or works with higher startup costs than text, will almost
exclusively come from the rich – then I’ll believe you. The world without copyright will lose some
works, but let’s not overstate the case.
In my ideal world, copyright would last somewhere between ten and thirty years, and not prohibit
fanfic. In the current world, I don’t view fanfiction as unethical, and I don’t view it as unethical to
make copies of out-of-print works older than thirty years or so. It remains unethical IMO to make
copies of more modern works. Yes, there’re a lot of grey areas.

 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:31 am ~new~
I would believe this a lot more if copyright terms weren’t already in the ballpark of the average
lifespan.
What other property rights expire ever? Do you eventually get to live in a mansion because it
exists today? Can I eventually assume George Washington’s identity because it’s very old?
In that case, how do you explain the plethora of fanfictions freely available online without any
compensation for their writers? Surely not every fanfiction writer is a member of “the rich” (except
perhaps by a global scale where we all qualify too).
Now, if you’re saying high-quality works, or works with higher startup costs than text, will almost
exclusively come from the rich – then I’ll believe you. The world without copyright will lose some
works, but let’s not overstate the case.
You do realize that fanfiction relies on works that are produced under the intellectual copyright
regime by definition, don’t you? Citing works that only exist because of a system is a funny way to
criticize that system.
Yes, the copyright system does indeed encourage people to produce work and then eventually let
other people play with the characters after it runs out. That is a benefit of the system. And some
people get antsy and violate the law, meaning another benefit of the system is there’s plenty
around for them to use. How is that an argument against it?

In my ideal world, copyright would last somewhere between ten and thirty years, and not prohibit
fanfic. In the current world, I don’t view fanfiction as unethical, and I don’t view it as unethical to
make copies of out-of-print works older than thirty years or so. It remains unethical IMO to make
copies of more modern works. Yes, there’re a lot of grey areas.
That’s nice. Why? What’s your consistently applied moral/legal calculus and what would its effects
be.
 Aapje says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:32 am ~new~
Copyright is not property, but a monopoly right. That propagandists came up with the word
‘intellectual property,’ doesn’t mean that it is actual property. It means that they were good at
spreading their propaganda.
I don’t understand your comparison to the identity of George Washington. I can change my name
to George Washington. What I cannot do, is defraud people by misleading them, so they think that
they are dealing with the other George Washington. However, this has nothing to do copyright.
For example, imagine a world without copyright, where I voluntarily want to give the writer Hunter
S Grease Gun a billion dollars. It would still be illegal for someone else to mislead me into believing
that he is Mr Grease Gun, so I give my money to the wrong person.

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 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:23 am ~new~
Copyright is not property, but a monopoly right. That propagandists came up with the word
‘intellectual property,’ doesn’t mean that it is actual property. It means that they were good at
spreading their propaganda.
How is it not property?
I don’t understand your comparison to the identity of George Washington.
Do you own your identity or not?
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 Aapje says:
June 17, 2020 at 7:15 am ~new~
How is it not property?
I outsourced arguing it.
Do you own your identity or not?
No, identity is a set of (perceived) traits that I have, not something I own. I can’t buy the identity
from an old woman and then replace my identity with hers, collecting social security from the
government.
I think that you have an extremely weird and unworkable idea of what property is.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 10:51 am ~new~
Question for the people who argue for a right “to profit from their intellectual labor” that is more
than just a legal fiction:
I see the popularity of mousetraps, so I spend some time creating a better one. The patent allows
me to profit from my intellectual labor by preventing somebody else from coming around and using
my idea to make their own competing line of shiny-new-mousetraps just like mine. This is right
and just.
I see the popularity of coffeeshops, so I spend some time figuring out where exactly in my city is
the best place to open one. Why should anyone who likes be able to put a coffeeshop across the
street? This will reduce or even eliminate my ability to profit from my intellectual labor! And yet no
one (I think) argues that the second-coffeeshop-owners are in the wrong.
What is the distinction between the two types of intellectual labor such that one merits protection
and the other does not?
(I agree that there are lots of good consequentialist reasons, but some people on this thread seem
to be arguing for a moral basis for IP, and it’s their responses I’m mostly interested in.)
 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:10 pm ~new~
You’re responding to me so despite not arguing for a moral basis, I will point this out.
I see the popularity of mousetraps, so I spend some time creating a better one. The patent allows me
to profit from my intellectual labor by preventing somebody else from coming around and using my
idea to make their own competing line of shiny-new-mousetraps just like mine. This is right and just.
No, it can’t just be a better mousetrap to get a patent. It has to be something new and innovative.
You have to invent an entirely new way of trapping mice. You can get patents on specific devices in
the mousetrap instead, but not the whole mousetrap then. Because this doesn’t give you a right to
your intellectual labor but the product of your intellectual labor, which is the invention etc.
I see the popularity of coffeeshops, so I spend some time figuring out where exactly in my city is the
best place to open one. Why should anyone who likes be able to put a coffeeshop across the street?
This will reduce or even eliminate my ability to profit from my intellectual labor! And yet no one (I
think) argues that the second-coffeeshop-owners are in the wrong.
You have a right to the research. If they stole it, you have a case. But that’s not a patent. Further,
you have a right to the coffeeshop you designed in all its particulars. The person across the street
cannot copy your shop exactly. They must content themselves with supplying coffee of their own
recipe under a logo of their own design etc.
You do not have a right to coffee (which is a natural product) or buildings or the concept of a coffee
shop (which wouldn’t be patentable in the first place) or a location. And that gives them space to
compete. They still aren’t allowed to do something like call their coffee shop by a similar name or
steal your secret coffee recipe.
The proper analogy here is someone seeing a mousetrap in action and inventing one entirely
different. In which case they’ve created their own intellectual property.

What is the distinction between the two types of intellectual labor such that one merits protection
and the other does not?
None. Your position is a strawman. You have changed “a right to own the product of my intellectual
labor” to “a right to profit from the product of my intellectual labor.” You can put in the labor to
create Burrito On A Stick (real patent, look it up) but if no one buys it you have no right to make
money. Likewise, if you solve cancer and then the next day someone comes up with an entirely
unrelated cancer cure you both get patents and then get to compete with each other.
June 15, 2020 at 12:27 pm ~new~
Aha, maybe we’re getting down to the root of things!
I don’t understand what the difference is between “a right to own the product of my intellectual
labor” and “a right to profit from the product of my intellectual labor”.

If I own a car, and somebody takes my car, then I don’t have it any more. But if somebody
encounters my idea, or my research, or my new invention, so that now THEY have the
idea/knowledge/understanding/concept/etc, I still have that idea, or that research, or that new
invention; they just also have it now. Presumably it is OK for somebody to see my revolutionary
mousetrap and understand how it works, no? That isn’t theft in the way that their gaining my car
would be. What IP prevents is NOT them having the idea, it’s them to profiting off it.
So I don’t understand what it means to “own” an idea that is different from simply “monopolizing
profit from that idea”.

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 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:32 pm ~new~
What don’t you understand? I don’t understand your contention.
I can register a patent right now for an innovation no one wants. It will be mine and I will make no
money off of it, unless someone wants it in the future. Likewise, I can make a paper airplane right
now and it will be mine yet I will make no money off it unless someone comes and buys it.
Perhaps here’s a more intuitive way for you to think about it. Imagine I own a chicken. The chicken
lays an egg and it immediately grows into an identical chicken. Someone steals the new chicken.
Have I been robbed? How can I be robbed when I still have the chicken? I still have the chicken
they just have an identical chicken now.

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June 15, 2020 at 2:14 pm ~new~
To the chicken point, I think I would say that you have clearly been robbed because a moment ago
you had two chickens and now you had one.
Whereas if you have a great idea for a Specific Revolutionary Device which you patent (Your
Number of Specific Revolutionary Device Ideas = 1), and I come along and read your patent, Your
Number of Specific Revolutionary Device Ideas is still 1. But mine has gone from 0 to 1.
This isn’t just true of patents, it’s true of all mental concepts, whether they be inventions or ideas
or strategies or theses or whatnot. Your having it is independent from whether other people have
them. This isn’t true of chickens: two people can’t both eat the same chicken wing, for instance.
But only some small subset of the mental concepts count as Intellectual Property, for which we
award people with monopolies on the ability to profit from them. You’ve outlined pretty well what
the boundaries are between something-that-is-patentable and something-that-isn’t. But what I
want to know is more meta, I guess.
1) Does the difference between something-that-is-patentable and something-that-isn’t reflect a
moral difference between ideas-that-I-cannot-profit-from-without-permission-regardless-of-what-
the-law-says and ideas-that-I-can?
2a) If yes to 1, what is that moral difference?

2b) If no to 1, doesn’t that mean that we are doing an injustice to all the people who do intellectual
labor to produce non-IP-able ideas for which they have a right to a monopoly which the cannot
legally attain? Because our society certainly doesn’t act like it, if we do.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 4:12 pm ~new~
Whereas if you have a great idea for a Specific Revolutionary Device which you patent (Your
Number of Specific Revolutionary Device Ideas = 1), and I come along and read your patent, Your
Number of Specific Revolutionary Device Ideas is still 1. But mine has gone from 0 to 1.
Whereas if you have a great unique idea for a Specific Revolutionary Device which you patent
(Your Number of Unique Specific Revolutionary Device Ideas = 1), and I come along and read
your patent, Your Number of Specific Revolutionary Device Ideas is still 1 0.

Hide ↑
 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:07 pm ~new~
1) Does the difference between something-that-is-patentable and something-that-isn’t reflect a moral
difference between ideas-that-I-cannot-profit-from-without-permission-regardless-of-what-the-
law-says and ideas-that-I-can?
You seem to be confused. You can profit from the idea of the patent all you want. If someone
makes a bold new innovation and you read the patent and have a separate innovation, you can
profit from that. You simply cannot profit from their innovation. Further, I’m not sure what you
can’t patent if it’s a true innovation. I mean, technically it might be a copyright but I assume you
consider those species of the same bird. What would some examples be?
The key thing of a copyright/monopoly/whatever is that it needs to be an innovation, something
that would not exist if you had not done the intellectual labor. Indeed, this is why you cannot
patent things retroactively. You already created it and distributed it so the patent is not needed to
incentivize you to create it and distribute it. It’s also why you can’t patent things you discover, like
a plant. It already existed. I’m not sure if they’re morally different but they practically have an
obvious reason.
2b) If no to 1, doesn’t that mean that we are doing an injustice to all the people who do intellectual
labor to produce non-IP-able ideas for which they have a right to a monopoly which the cannot
legally attain? Because our society certainly doesn’t act like it, if we do.
Who does intellectual labor to produce non-IP-able innovations? If you write an original story you
automatically have the IP to it, for example.

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June 15, 2020 at 9:27 pm ~new~
@Erusian
Some things are non-patentable because based on prior art they are obvious, but possibly thanks
to the sheer amount of prior art no one thinks to try them.
I know of one instance of this at my workplace (from before my time). A person proposed a known
technique as a possible solution to a problem with using commercially available tools for a
particular important use case, this idea was tried, it worked, they published, and all of the
commercial companies thanked them very much for publishing the solution with respect to these
kinds of tools. The specific solution was already known as an idea though, and the particular
application to these particular tools was simply something no one at the companies making these
tools thought to try. As such it couldn’t be patented (though could have been retained as a trade
secret had my workplace been a private company and not a government agency).
Hide ↑
 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:40 pm ~new~
Some things are non-patentable because based on prior art they are obvious, but possibly thanks to
the sheer amount of prior art no one thinks to try them.
Techniques are patentable. The fact that no one had done it and it could be retained as a trade
secret is effective proof it was non-obvious.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 9:47 pm ~new~
Not according to the supervisor who told me about it. My agency would have patented and licensed
this if it was patentable.
This wasn’t invention of a new technique, this was a novel application (and testing) of a known
scientific fact.
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 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:55 pm ~new~
This wasn’t invention of a new technique, this was a novel application (and testing) of a known
scientific fact.
I see. So there was no innovation then. You were simply making use of what had already been
invented, so you were not doing labor that produces intellectual property. Similarly, someone who
discovers an unknown plant and then uses it to heal a disease cannot patent that.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 10:05 pm ~new~
1) There was no guarantee it would work.
2) You have to do labor to publish a paper. This involves expense and time.
This labor has simply been deemed non-patentable.

(This was application of scientific fact, not application of a prior invention. Scientific facts are non-
patentable.)
Similarly, someone who discovers an unknown plant and then uses it to heal a disease cannot patent
that.
Yes, even though this discovery took time, effort, and risk. It has been deemed non-patentable by
our system. Though at least in this medicinal case there is some protection of profit via the
expense of the FDA regulatory process.

Hide ↑
 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:21 pm ~new~
1) There was no guarantee it would work.
2) You have to do labor to publish a paper. This involves expense and time.
This labor has simply been deemed non-patentable.
(This was application of scientific fact, not application of a prior invention. Scientific facts are non-
patentable.)
Yes, even though this discovery took time, effort, and risk. It has been deemed non-patentable by our
system. Though at least in this medicinal case there is some protection of profit via the expense of the
FDA regulatory process.
Yes? I’m not sure what you’re gesturing towards here. Surely every effort isn’t worthy of a
monopoly.
Hide ↑
 Clutzy says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:53 pm ~new~
As a patent attorney I can tell you many things about this:
1) There are many things that have been done, but nobody does now because they were not
popular or industrially plausible at the time. An example is a rubber technology a client brought to
me that he thought would make a good tennis surface made from old tires. Done in the 50s,
abandoned, now prolly a good idea. Not patentable.
2) Things that were speculated about but never done. If the person speculating was right about
what your final product would do, you are often toast.
3) Things that are indeed new combinations of old products that happen to make the examiner
grumpy. So you don’t get a patent.
4) Which may be the example: Laws of nature/Abstract ideas. AKA Section 101. No patent attorney
can credibly claim to understand this jurisprudence.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 5:31 am ~new~
OK, I’m starting to understand.
So in a world without IP law, you would still say (it sounds like), that if you come up with a new
idea (invention/technique/short story, etc), that you have the right to profit from it (assuming the
idea is actually profitable, of course). If I see your invention/observe your technique in action/read
your short story, there is no IP law to prevent me from profiting from it myself by making
knockoffs/using your technique/adding your story to an anthology without consulting or
reimbursing you. But you would still say that it would be immoral for me to do so, correct?
Is that also the case if I independently come up with your idea? It seems very unlikely that I would
write the same short story, but history is lousy with people who invent the same device or
technique simultaneously. Does one of us have the moral standing to forbid the other to use the
independently-arrived-at idea, just because one of us had it a few minutes or days before the
other?
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 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:22 am ~new~
So in a world without IP law, you would still say (it sounds like), that if you come up with a new idea
(invention/technique/short story, etc), that you have the right to profit from it (assuming the idea is
actually profitable, of course). If I see your invention/observe your technique in action/read your
short story, there is no IP law to prevent me from profiting from it myself by making
knockoffs/using your technique/adding your story to an anthology without consulting or
reimbursing you. But you would still say that it would be immoral for me to do so, correct?
I suppose? I’m less dealing with morality than consequentialism. If you have a world without IP
and people can knock it off freely, you have a hugely reduced incentive to innovate.
Is that also the case if I independently come up with your idea? It seems very unlikely that I would
write the same short story, but history is lousy with people who invent the same device or technique
simultaneously. Does one of us have the moral standing to forbid the other to use the independently-
arrived-at idea, just because one of us had it a few minutes or days before the other?
If you invent the exact same thing? No. The chances of that happening simultaneously are tiny to
the point the default is to assume some form of theft. If you invent a different thing that has the
same effect? Yes, and in fact that is the case under current patent law. For example, we could both
invent devices that through separate mechanisms trap mice and get separate patents and then
compete with each other on the mouse-trapping market.

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June 16, 2020 at 10:20 am ~new~
@Erusian
Yes? I’m not sure what you’re gesturing towards here. Surely every effort isn’t worthy of a
monopoly.
boylermaker said:
Does the difference between something-that-is-patentable and something-that-isn’t reflect a moral
law-says and ideas-that-I-can?
Erusian said:
The key thing of a copyright/monopoly/whatever is that it needs to be an innovation, something that
would not exist if you had not done the intellectual labor.
I’m kind of gesturing toward this. Someone decided on the fundamental (but amorphous)
boundaries between protected art and non-protected art. Why is this division morally right when I
can show an example of unpatentable work that probably would have gone on for many years
being uncreated had it not been for the intellectual labor in linking a scientific fact to an
application? In terms of morality I think you’re limited to claiming a utilitarian balance between
restraining monopoly over every minor modification versus freedom to steal any idea. David
Friedman’s third type of morality.
So there is no moral difference between these ideas, the morality is focused solely on the expected
effect of a particular patent and copyright framework on the speed of generation of useful novelty.
Yep, there we are: Erusian said:

I’m less dealing with morality than consequentialism.
@boylermaker
Is that also the case if I independently come up with your idea? … Does one of us have the moral
standing to forbid the other to use the independently-arrived-at idea, just because one of us had it a
few minutes or days before the other?
Under current patent law I believe the second party/company has the right to personally use the
invention, but cannot sell or license the invention to other parties without a license from the holder
of the earlier patent application. OTOH simultaneous invention may be considered possible
evidence that an invention does not merit patent protection:
https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/14/simultaneous-invention-secondary-evidence-
obviousness/id=106272/
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 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:45 am ~new~
I’m kind of gesturing toward this. Someone decided on the fundamental (but amorphous) boundaries
between protected art and non-protected art. Why is this division morally right when I can show an
example of unpatentable work that probably would have gone on for many years being uncreated
had it not been for the intellectual labor in linking a scientific fact to an application? In terms of
morality I think you’re limited to claiming a utilitarian balance between restraining monopoly over
every minor modification versus freedom to steal any idea. David Friedman’s third type of morality.
So there is no moral difference between these ideas, the morality is focused solely on the expected
effect of a particular patent and copyright framework on the speed of generation of useful novelty.
What is non-protected art? We have one vague anecdote that the person said was just applying
known knowledge in a new way and which they admitted they could have kept as a trade secret
(another form of Intellectual Property!) if they wanted. Where is this boundary you have repeatedly
claimed exists but have not shown?
You have not proved the conclusion you state.

Yep, there we are: Erusian said:
This seems like you’re trying to use something I’ve openly said from the beginning and reiterated
multiple times as a “gotcha”. I’ve said that I am defending it in consequentialist terms. And
elsewhere I’ve argued property rights generally make mostly consequentialist sense.
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 12:04 pm ~new~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki%27s_Wager
Since you cannot precisely define where the neck is distinct from the head, you cannot take
someone’s head.
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June 16, 2020 at 12:37 pm ~new~
@Erusian
I didn’t quote you as a “gotcha”, just as an acknowledgement that I now understood where you are
coming from. This unfortunately means that you and boylermaker/me are talking at somewhat
cross-purposes.
I’ll state the non-patentable invention clearly (as clear as I can make it having heard this second-
hand): Single-cell DNA amplification (necessary for single-cell genomics) ran into an issue in that
trace DNA contamination of the enzymes used for DNA amplification overwhelmed the femtograms
of DNA present in the single-cell. Thus the preferentially amplified DNA was garbage: carryover
from the DNA amplification reagents.
Someone mentioned in a meeting that UV light is known to cross-link DNA, and that UV treatment
of the DNA amplification reagents might eliminate the contaminating DNA as substrates for
amplification. This turned out to be the case. The work was published, and Qiagen (the maker of
one of the phiX kits used for DNA amplification) thanked them for publishing this information, and
used that technological insight to make their REPLI-g single cell kit (as did other companies making
competing DNA amplification products, and presumably single-cell RNA amplification products as
well).
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 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:11 pm ~new~
@anonymousskimmer
What is your purpose then? As someone who basically thinks patent law is a net positive, I’d be
happy to talk on your terms. However, be warned we might get somewhat deep into what the
concept of “property” is.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 6:30 pm ~new~
@Erusian
My purpose was attempting to answer the question posed by boylermaker in the negative: “Does
the difference between something-that-is-patentable and something-that-isn’t reflect a moral
law-says and ideas-that-I-can?”
No, this does not reflect a moral difference between the ideas. It doesn’t necessarily even reflect
an “obviousness” difference. It merely reflects a handful of rules-of-thumb that law-makers decided
to codify into law in an attempt to crudely optimize between monopolies that hinder advancement
of the “useful arts”, monopolies that further advancement of the “useful arts”, and complete
freedom to use ideas however you want without compensating anyone for the ideas.
Hide ↑
June 17, 2020 at 7:08 am ~new~
I should say, I’m on board with the idea that patents are beneficial, and if that’s enough to give IP
moral weight, then great. What I was more interested in is the idea that maybe IP reflects some
moral reality independent of that. Getting somewhat deep into the meaning of what property is
was my hope, because it seems to me that our intuitions from physical property are useless, and I
don’t currently have any way of thinking about “IP” except in a legal positivist way.
But it sort of sounds like everybody on the thread thinks that respecting IP is moral mostly
(solely?) because of the beneficial effects of the laws that enact it.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 6:33 am ~new~
Re: “isolated demand of rigor”
Piracy is normal. Social convention seems to be that we treat thieves differently than pirates (of IP,
for personal consumption). Most humans seem to be pretty much ok with others who pirate.
“Theft” as understood intuitively by a lot of humans, isn’t normal or ok at all.
Driving 5 miles above the limit seems to be considered just fine, regardless of legality.
So based on societal norms, piracy looks more like going a bit above the speed limit than stealing.
The question is what piracy is morally more similar to.
It seems fair to say that calling (personal consumption, IP) pirates immoral is holding them to an
isolated demand to obey the law if anything.

 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:27 am ~new~
Piracy is normal. Social convention seems to be that we treat thieves differently than pirates (of IP,
for personal consumption). Most humans seem to be pretty much ok with others who pirate.
Social convention is not a rebuttal to an isolated demand for rigor. The specific example from the
article is someone who holds one standard of ownership of cows when it’s in their favor and
another when it isn’t. You can easily imagine a society doing so at scale that is still committing the
sin. Ancient Greece, for example, where stealing your cows was terrible but stealing other people’s
cows was heroic.

It seems fair to say that calling (personal consumption, IP) pirates immoral is holding them to an
isolated demand to obey the law if anything.
No. I require you not steal intellectual property or any other form of property. This is consistent.
You require that I not steal any form of property you possess but reserve the right to steal
intellectual property. This is inconsistent. It may be justifiable, but it’s not consistent.
June 16, 2020 at 11:41 am ~new~
You require that I keep the law in regards to pirating, but not (I am assuming) that I keep the law
with regards to the legal speed limit. This may be justified, but is inconsistent.
I require that you keep laws that are considered, by social convention, real laws, but not those
which aren’t. This is consistent.

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 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 11:49 am ~new~
You require that I keep the law in regards to pirating, but not (I am assuming) that I keep the law
with regards to the legal speed limit. This may be justified, but is inconsistent.
Ah, there we go. Your assumption is wrong. I require you not to go over the speed limit or else to
suffer the fine. That the law is often broken might be a reason to revisit whether the law should
exist but it is a law.

I require that you keep laws that are considered, by social convention, real laws, but not those which
aren’t. This is consistent.
No, it’s not. Saying, “I require X except for Y” means that Y creates an inconsistency. Doubly so
when Y is not a clear line but something as vague as social convention. That isn’t to say it can’t be
justified but it does need justifying.

Again, isolated demand for rigor. When you like a law or you (and there is no book of social
convention so it’s a personal judgment on your part) consider it “not real”, it’s real and everyone
should follow it. When you don’t like a law or decide it’s not “real”, you demand it be justified
extremely thoroughly.
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June 16, 2020 at 1:42 pm ~new~
“Or else to suffer the fine”
Only if a police officer sees and decides to enforce the law (which they generally don’t in this case).
When you write require, do you mean you consider it a moral imperative on my part?
‘I require X but not Y’ is more accurate and not inconsistent.
For example, i require you to eat apples but not oranges.
(Obey “real” laws but not “legal fiction” laws.)
This is not an isolated demand for rigor.
A personal judgement being required (though you could ask a few random people to get a feel for
societal opinion) to discern whether something belongs in category X or Y is orthogonal to an
isolated demand for rigor.
You’re operating from a premise that all laws are equal, despite the normative view being different
from yours, and because laws are based on what society thinks is right this seems like an odd
stance to me.
As for a consequentialist justification of differentiating between laws that are considered real and
those that aren’t:
Following the law is generally a good thing, as breaking the law can a) cause harm to you, if
indirectly and b) damage the general strength of law (because of others’ perceptions)
If a law isn’t considered real then your chances of a) go down a lot and because you didn’t break a
“real” law people don’t look at this and generalize to “real” laws that it’s ok to break the law.
(Schelling points I guess).

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 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:44 pm ~new~
No. I require you not steal intellectual property or any other form of property.
Piracy isn’t stealing though. It’s more like when Jesus fed 1000 people with 2 fish.
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 Erusian says:
June 16, 2020 at 6:09 pm ~new~
Only if a police officer sees and decides to enforce the law (which they generally don’t in this case).
Sure. And that probably means it’s a bad law but it’s a consistent position to say “follow the law”
whereas “follow the law except X, Y, and Z” is inconsistent. Now, it might be justified but it is
inconsistent.
You’re operating from a premise that all laws are equal, despite the normative view being different
from yours, and because laws are based on what society thinks is right this seems like an odd stance
to me.
Yes. I mean, obviously the punishments aren’t equal and you prioritize enforcement but all laws
are laws. Care to make the case they’re not? (Not being snarky, I’m actually curious to your
position.)
As for a consequentialist justification of differentiating between laws that are considered real and
those that aren’t:
You can make a broader case about the majesty and respect for the law, which I do. However,
rather than coming down on the police state perspective my feeling is there should be less law. I’d
like a world where every person who’s fined for dangerous driving has social sanction because that
only happens in severe cases. I absolutely do not like cops acting as arbitrary tax agents under the
aegis of law.
Piracy isn’t stealing though. It’s more like when Jesus fed 1000 people with 2 fish.
Do you wish to expand further on how it’s not stealing?
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 9:08 pm ~new~
Anything the state says is a law is a law technically, but that doesn’t say anything about whether
you should listen to the law.

If the moral case for following laws hinges on there being negative consequences to not following
the laws because they are laws, then where those consequences don’t exist then there is no
imperative to follow them (at least not due to their being law).
If it is based on a societal contract that everyone will keep a law, and society considers a law ok to
break, you don’t have to keep that law (at least not due to their being law).
Laws that are generally not taken seriously by society can be broken without the usual negatives
that come with breaking a law (due to its status as a law). These are “fake” laws. Technically a law,
but without the grounding of “real” laws.
If you accept this, then requiring justification of a law considered “fake” by society on its merits
before obeying it, while at the same time accepting a general case for “real” laws and obeying
them based on their being (real) laws is perfectly consistent (or justified if you prefer the term)
Hide ↑
o SamChevre says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:01 am ~new~
For those who support intellectual property/oppose piracy, does “can I get this otherwise” make a
difference?
For me it does: if it’s available on reasonable commercial terms, I will try to get it legally–but if the
producer won’t sell it to me, I have no objection to copying it.

 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:14 am ~new~
No, it doesn’t. The right to disallow people from accessing your property is part of owning property.
Whether the person continues to assert claim does matter, though. If it’s an out of print book and
the author gives up claim to their rights then it’s not theft. And I imagine it weakens it if they’ve
made mention they don’t mind, no matter what the legal technicalities are.
 Evan Þ says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:24 am ~new~
But copyright is to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts”; copyright-holders should
not have the right to impede that progress by refusing to make their works available.
What would you say about a politician who published a too-revealing book some time back, but
now wants to keep it out of the public discourse by asserting his copyright claim to keep it from
being reprinted or even excerpted?

 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:35 am ~new~
But copyright is to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts”; copyright-holders should
not have the right to impede that progress by refusing to make their works available.
Copyright justifies a government monopoly (which is otherwise forbidden) in order to promote the
progress of science and the useful arts. It’s not a system where whatever will in that specific
moment in the judgment of that specific judge will promote science or art best and it never has
been even intended that way. That standard would be far, far too arbitrary to be useful and
actually be counterproductive to its stated purpose.

What would you say about a politician who published a too-revealing book some time back, but now
wants to keep it out of the public discourse by asserting his copyright claim to keep it from being
reprinted or even excerpted?
I’d agree with it. I also don’t think being a public official means that I get the right to snoop around
Barrack Obama’s basement, looking for evidence about the IRS tax scandal.
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 9:38 am ~new~
Without IP protections, every distributor of thought-stuff has to homebrew their own crazy
enforcement system, or keep their best works hidden and try to profit off the second-order things
it can generate. This was the problem the founders wanted to deal with: guilds kept lots of things
secret for decades because that was the way they had to make money.
As comparison, we have “theft of services” where society has agreed to enforce a common and
simple set of rules instead of requiring everyone who makes a living providing services to bodge
together their own expensive way of stopping people from getting their labor for free.
Hide ↑
 Evan Þ says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:39 am ~new~
Copyright justifies a government monopoly (which is otherwise forbidden) in order to promote the
progress of science and the useful arts.
Yes, and I’m arguing that the government should delineate the borders of its monopoly to better
serve that end. You’re right that a case-by-case judgment would be arbitrary; Congress should
make this exception up front.

I’d agree with it.
I’m surprised. What if the book revealed political views which would be very pertinent to the
election? Suppose Wilson was running in 1916 on a platform of “Keep us out of European wars,”
but someone turned up a ten-year-old book where he’d written that the US joining European wars
was a wonderful idea and politicians should lie to get in office so that they could bring the country
into them – would you still be fine with letting Wilson ban people from reproducing or excerpting
that book then?

Hide ↑
 Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:21 pm ~new~
Yes, and I’m arguing that the government should delineate the borders of its monopoly to better
serve that end. You’re right that a case-by-case judgment would be arbitrary; Congress should make
this exception up front.
I’m not against specific reform, fully considered. For example, I believe this purpose is partly
served by the fact patents are public. But I’d be interesting in hearing the specific reforms before I
say I’m for or against them. I am certainly not arguing the system is perfect or couldn’t use
reform.
I’m surprised. What if the book revealed political views which would be very pertinent to the
election? Suppose Wilson was running in 1916 on a platform of “Keep us out of European wars,” but
someone turned up a ten-year-old book where he’d written that the US joining European wars was a
wonderful idea and politicians should lie to get in office so that they could bring the country into
them – would you still be fine with letting Wilson ban people from reproducing or excerpting that
book then?
Yes. I’d also be fine with arresting thieves that broke into his house to steal the manuscript.
Standards do not cease to be standards just because they are inconvenient. And a politician does
not lose their rights by stepping into the public arena.
I do not, as a voter, have a right to know anything I want to know about a candidate. Indeed, such
a standard is incredibly impossible. The moment Clinton stepped into the Presidential race did the
public gain the right to scrutinize every action of hers as Secretary of State? No, of course not, that
would have violated a fair number of laws. It would have presented huge practical issues too.
Certainly, I’d prefer candidates that didn’t lie and if a candidate lied I’d prefer to know. I’d prefer to
have Trump’s tax returns too. Alas, they have rights too. Perhaps we could carve such exceptions,
if we chose, but we have not.

Hide ↑
o salvorhardin says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:17 am ~new~
From a deontological perspective, I’d attach no moral weight to intellectual property claims.
People’s right to do what they want with information they know outweighs any moral interest a
creator might have in controlling their creation, and the contractual argument fails because do-not-
redistribute contracts are a class of antisocial and obnoxious contracts that shouldn’t be enforced,
like noncompetes.
From a consequentialist perspective, the evidence is mixed but suggestive that there’s significant
social welfare benefit to granting creators financial compensation to incentivize them to create
more. So the question is what’s the least restrictive way to do that. I would suggest it would be
something like making all IP rights have the character of standards essential patents: limited in
term to <= 20 years and must be licensed to all comers on fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory
terms. So you can demand uniform royalties from licensees during the patent/copyright term but
exert no other control over them. Note that this would remove one important current way in which
IP rights *decrease* innovation and creative work production, namely that rightsholders can use
their discretionary power to deny people licenses to remix, build on, adapt, etc their works.
June 15, 2020 at 12:51 pm ~new~
You might be interested in Against Intellectual Monopoly, a book arguing that both copyright and
patent are bad things. True to the authors’ principles, it’s available online for free.
o AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:51 pm ~new~

(I am not against IP Law entirely, but think that at this point burning it all down and make new
laws from scratch as situations arise would be more efficient)
For pro-IP people:
Why does IP Law not apply to food recipes, and should it?
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:12 pm ~new~
It’s the kind of thing that falls under patent law. It’s just that most recipes are unoriginal or
obvious. Also trade secrets are a thing.


June 15, 2020 at 4:22 pm ~new~
Coca-cola, KFC, etc are all trade secrets.
If Coke was patented, it would’ve expired by now.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:31 pm ~new~
But other things, like using vitamin C to make bread quickly from soft flour, were patented.
Hide ↑
 nkurz says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:29 pm ~new~
@Lambert:
While I do find a few patents for adding Vitamin C to bread, and while it is sometimes used as a
dough conditioner, I don’t think it ever was a big thing. Perhaps you are confusing “carbonic acid”
(CO2 in water) with “ascorbic acid” (Vitamin C)? Making “unfermented bread” by adding
pressurized CO2 to a special bread making apparatus was a big thing in the late 1800’s: Bread for
the million!.
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:09 pm ~new~
It’s added to at least 80% of bread in the UK, where wheat doesn’t produce much gluten for
whatever reason.
Hide ↑
 SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:05 am ~new~
For adding vitamin C to bread dough, the key thing to look for is “Chorleywood process”.
Hide ↑
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:57 am ~new~
But how is a recipe different from software code, which can be copyrighted?
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:37 am ~new~
Software IP is an utter mess.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 2:40 pm ~new~

In roughly the sense that it is unethical to purchase stolen property, yes. It is reasonable to
assume that whoever purchased the book or whatever in the first place, did so under at least an
implied contract to not put it up for downloading on a pirate site. Now on to the broader issues:
1. I think most of Team Abolish Copyright vastly overestimates the amount of high-quality
information that will be generated in the copyright-free utopia dystopia of their dreams. Books will
look like bad fanfiction, or late-period “too big to edit” Weber or Clancy, or be released on the
schedule of The Winds of Winter. Software will have the “user-friendliness” of the worst sort of
open source. And lots of stuff just won’t be made at all.
2. What is created, isn’t yours to do with as you please just because there’s no IP law. Some of it
will be trade secrets, never released to the public. What is released, will often be released under
very restrictive licenses. The first five pages of every book will be tear-sheet contracts for you to
sign in blood and send in to the publisher, when you buy the book and if you dare sell it on. Movies
may not be released outside of theaters for years. Most things digital will come with DRM From
Hell, will not run on general-purpose computers and will give the creator the ability to remotely
brick your expensive specialized hardware. Code will be obfuscated, and user interfaces cryptic
enough to require paying the creator for expert training.
3. Even with IP law, participation is voluntary. As a creator, you can make your work open source
or public domain, or you can negotiate whatever restrictive license you want with your customers.
As a consumer, you can go open source or try to negotiate a better deal with the creator. Or, you
can go with the standard contract. Mostly, it’s easier to go with the standard contract.
4. I don’t think any ethical system, or any legal system this side of anarchy, bars the government
from saying “most people who enter into contract X (say, buying a book) will if left to their own
devices come to an agreement something like Y. Negotiating that every time, and enforcing it using
kludgy private methods, imposes huge transaction costs, so we’re going to say that unless both
parties specify otherwise standard contract Y applies. And then use our reputation and our efficient
court system to enforce it so you all don’t have to bother with the DRM”. This leads to much better
results for most people.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the greatest surge of human innovation and creativity ever,
roughly coincides with the adoption and broad adherence to intellectual property law. If you break
it, you may not like what you find on the other side but you will definitely find it very difficult to
rebuild.
June 16, 2020 at 5:48 am ~new~
2. What is created, isn’t yours to do with as you please just because there’s no IP law. Some of it will
be trade secrets, never released to the public. What is released, will often be released under very
restrictive licenses. The first five pages of every book will be tear-sheet contracts for you to sign in
blood and send in to the publisher, when you buy the book and if you dare sell it on. Movies may not
be released outside of theaters for years. Most things digital will come with DRM From Hell, will not
run on general-purpose computers and will give the creator the ability to remotely brick your
expensive specialized hardware. Code will be obfuscated, and user interfaces cryptic enough to
require paying the creator for expert training.
Actually the exact opposite happens, we get long and drawn out periods from movies to DVDs now
because of copyright, without it the first mover advantage is to get your production into the hands
of as many people as quickly as possible to mitigate against the copiers.

 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:59 am ~new~
Did IP Law assist in the standardization of USB or headphone jacks at all?


June 16, 2020 at 9:11 am ~new~
Of USB? Definitely. You cannot put the USB logo on your own “looks like USB but isn’t” port.
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:15 pm ~new~
Every cell phone and music player had their own proprietary plugs and ports, and Apple continues
to defy USB standardization with their lightning connector nonsense. We also have a ridiculous
number of charging adapter tips.
That’s what I’m talking about.

Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:33 pm ~new~
A lot of the legwork for standardising on microUSB was done by the EU.
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:27 am ~new~
Headphone jacks are just a smaller variant of what Ma Bell used back in the day. The 1/4″ jack on
professional audio equipment is the same as what the operator would plug in when you asked to be
connected.
Standards like USB make sense because they let you commoditise your complement.
I suppose trademark law might stop people from passing off inferior technologies as USB or USB
compatible, but that’s a different thing from the core idea of IP law.
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:21 pm ~new~
As per the above wrt charging adapter tips, I can easily think of a world where every manufacturer
decided to force a monopoly on which cables were compatible with their specific
speakers/guitars/etc. Does IP Law help or hurt this kind of thing?

Hide ↑
o thesilv3r says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:44 pm ~new~
I’m okay with Patents as a concept, 20-25 years seems alright as an incentive to gain a short term
monopoly but there is a *lot* of screwing around which makes the system unhelpful (trolls,
patents which don’t actually give the information required to replicate, etc.). It definitely needs
some kind of reform, but not necessarily tearing down.
As to copyright, I think most of my thoughts are covered in comments above, but to add some
further nuance: 80 years after death is crazy, Inter Vivos Trusts in Australia and the UK have a
vesting date of maximum 80 years after creation. It seems weird to me that the business world can
deal with this artificial limitation on structures which often contain entire businesses and investing
strategies, but when it comes to the ownership rights of a creative work we have to factor in things
like lifespan, etc.
I will acknowledge, I’m not sure what trust vesting law looks like in the US and from a quick glance
it is managed at a state level so I’m too intimidated to be honest.

o Murphy says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:41 pm ~new~
Gonna go with mixed bag.
Some good, some bad, probably mostly good on average over the long term.
Copyright definitely 100% has an unreasonably, insanely long term.
Patents are definitely 100% badly implemented. In theory they’re supposed to be about revealing
how the invention works but if you ever try to implement something from a patent, they’re mostly
useless jibberish. If you could take 2 independent teams of engineers, 1 with access to the patent
and one without, tasked with re-implemting the thing and either the team without access
implement it very closely or the team with access cannot implement it, both cases should be strong
grounds to invalidate a patent entirely either for reasons of being obvious or reasons of the patent
itself being useless. but that doesn’t happen because they’ve just become a way for corps to
exercise speculative invoicing.
Also re: patents, there also needs to be some kind of system brought in to neuter people who pick
some popular app/product/item and wall in the real innovators with patents, the kind of companies
that pick a recent popular product then have a few people sit round for 20 minutes playing “what
would it be cool for this thing to also do” and lodge 50 patents on every vague idea they think of
without implementing it. I don’t mean “neuter” figuratively, I mean we need a system whereby
such people are abducted by sinister teams of people in dark vans, taken to dark sites and
physically neutered/spayed.
A little bit, sure, roughly on the level of letting someone into a pay bathroom without them paying
while you’re exiting.

June 16, 2020 at 6:53 am ~new~
Are you coming from a virtue ethics, deontological, consequential or other value system to reach
the conclusion that stopping these people from reproducing is the correct response?
 Murphy says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:57 am ~new~
Who said anything about the main point being to stop them reproducing?
it comes from a basis of detesting such parasites. for it’s own sake. It’s also acceptable if the
sinister teams of people in dark vans just never bring them back or just bring back enough to serve
as a warning to others.
o Logan says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:31 am ~new~
Intellectual property makes sense in general. Regarding the particular issue of “piracy,” no it’s not
immoral. Rather, current copyright law is immoral in the sense that it outlaws normal behavior.
The law doesn’t reflect reality, and laws that are as divorced from reality as current copyright law
serve only to turn regular citizens into criminals. Copyright law, in many particular facets of its
current form, lacks the consent of the governed. Remember, it’s not just books and movies, many
memes are illegal under current copyright law (many of them include copyrighted images used
without permission). Like half of youtube is illegal. Basically all technically feasible means of
watching movies with friends during the Coronavirus quarantine are illegal.
Consider the case of a copyright on the poem The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. “so
much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white /
chickens” That was the entire poem, and I may have broken the law by typing it here. In any case,
I wouldn’t pay money to read that poem, because I memorized it in high school. No law can
change that fact. It’s simply not a reasonable thing to charge money for. In a world where people
own computers and have the internet, very few copyrighted works make more sense to buy or sell
than The Red Wheelbarrow. The concept of buying and selling books and movies and music just
becomes untenable.
In many cases this can be overcome. Spotify saved the music industry, Netflix has saved TV and
Movies (and created entirely new categories of narrative moving image). These services offer a
better user experience than piracy, and they allow for the continued creation of content, which is
very good news. What if an industry can’t adapt? Consider the parable of the 4-hour movie. Many
artists want to make 4-hour movies, it’s a rich art form, but theaters won’t show them, and neither
will TV. It’s effectively impossible to monetize 4-hour movies, so very few people make them. We
don’t need a law requiring theaters to play 4-hour movies, and we don’t need a law requiring
people to pay for music instead of listening on youtube. Some formats aren’t economically viable,
and they die. If something is nearly viable, you can create laws to deal with rare edge cases, but
you shouldn’t use laws to prop up industries which don’t actually supply a product worth paying
for.
41. awalrus says:

June 15, 2020 at 4:00 am ~new~
I’m looking for sources on some half-remembered quotes, intensive googling was no help because
it apparently never is these days, so I’m hoping these happen to ring a bell for someone.
One is a paragraph I think was from a rationalist-adjacent source, along the lines of “when you
hear a rumor that someone you hate did something truly horrendous, and it turns out to be false,
ask yourself if you feel relieved or disappointed.”

The other, I saw quoted in some context about humanity’s long history of anthropomorphizing, an
ancient philosopher(?) saying that we like cats (or maybe animals in general) because we see them
as little versions of ourselves.

o Concavenator says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:15 am ~new~
I don’t know if it counts as rationalist-adjacent, but as for the first:

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up
suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first
feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and
even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as
bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed
to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If
we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as
black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included —
as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.
— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952
 awalrus says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:57 am ~new~
Ah, that’s it! Now that I have an exact quote, I found out that it was quoted in a post on the SSC
subreddit. I completely forgot the context aside from a vague association with SSC, but that idea
has been stuck in my head since then. Thanks!

42. ana53294 says:

June 15, 2020 at 3:37 am ~new~
We have quite a few discussions about time travel and what you would do if you wanted to change
history. Can anybody recommend fiction books on the topic?
Specifically, time travel with alternative history explorations. I quite like Eric Flint’s several book
series on that (although the quality of his 1632 series is quite uneven due to all the newbie
authors).
I prefer earlier than twentieth century, as I don’t want to read the different versions of world wars
re-fought over and over. Especially not if it involves saving comrade Stalin (this is a fascination of
the Russian self-publishing alt-history) or other morally dubious characters.

o Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:12 am ~new~
I really liked Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card.

 Dack says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:49 am ~new~
Seconded.
o Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:16 am ~new~
How do they save Comrade Stalin? He wasn’t assassinated, he died of a stroke. Do they travel
back in time 50 years and tell him not to eat so much pickled sturgeon?
 ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:38 am ~new~
Not save his life, but save him from Hitler’s betrayal and Zhukov’s incompetence. I’ve never read
one to the end, but that’s the general type of story.

 Evan Þ says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:26 am ~new~
Zhukov’s incompetence
Uh, just how was he supposedly incompetent?
 bean says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:37 am ~new~
These are basically Stalin fanfics. Do you really expect the authors to have any contact with reality
whatsoever?
Hide ↑
 ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:48 am ~new~
They tend to blame Russian losses during Operation Barbarossa on Zhukov’s incompetence,
basically.
Also, what bean said.

Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 4:25 pm ~new~
Who’s Timoshenko?
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 5:37 am ~new~
Poul Anderson’s The Man Who Came Early, set in Norse Iceland is interesting as a practical critique
of the concept of bringing modern technology to the past, and makes a very quick read.
o Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:40 am ~new~
Once upon a time Scott recommended Island on the Sea of Time and the Emberverse by SM
Stirling and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson.
 TaikoNerd says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:05 am ~new~
A strong ‘yes’ for The Years of Rice and Salt!. One of my favorite novels.
o eliasgoldberg says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:34 am ~new~
I remember The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O by Neil Stephenson and Nicole Galland being really good.

June 15, 2020 at 2:14 pm ~new~
Agreed, though it turns out very little history is actually changed due to the constraints of the
particular time travel method posited. It was a good example of the classic hard-SFnal problem of
“assume X is possible with constraints Y; what will people actually do with that?”
And it doesn’t ignore the issue of what happens when people in the past figure out that time-
travelling secret agents are meddling in their present trying to control their future. Which results in
things like N ohapu bs unvel anxrq 9gu-praghel Ivxvatf yrq ol n pyrire 12gu-praghel Inenatvna
thneqfzna fnpxvat n 21fg-praghel Jny-Zneg, naq abg ybbxvat sbe gur boivbhf fbegf bs ybbg.
o Clownfish says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:58 am ~new~

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, published in 1889 so you can probably
find a free copy

o Gwythyr says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:19 am ~new~
IMO as a Russian (who read only two of those time-travel thingies, so that O is based mostly on
the hearsay) there is one thing with which authors are even more obsessed than saving Stalin:
introducing an intermediate cartridge. Even True Communists who would like to overthrow Stalin
for not being True Scotsman Communist or Russia-that-we-lost Types who travel before the
Revolution to save the monarchy introduce intermediate cartridges.

 sfoil says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:03 pm ~new~
Harry Turtledove wrote a story (“The Guns of the South”) about time-traveling South Africans
supplying the Confederacy with AK-47s — which does use an intermediate cartridge! I haven’t read
it, only looked up the plot on Wikipedia after seeing the cover of Robert E. Lee clutching an AK
when I was a boy.

o Gerry Quinn says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:26 pm ~new~
IIRC, Silverberg’s _The Men Who Killed Mohammed_ is one part of an alternate history fix-up in
which the Roman Empire survives until the present day.

June 15, 2020 at 6:20 pm ~new~
There’s an Alfred Bester story called “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed”. Are You Sure you’re
got the title right?


June 16, 2020 at 12:26 pm ~new~
I must have substituted Bester’s more famous title. The Silverberg is called _A Hero of the Empire_
and is part of the _Roma Eterna_ collection.

43. clipmaker says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:09 am ~new~
I wonder if the explanation for the riots might be simpler: the collapse of a pluralistic ignorance.
Suddenly everyone realizes that it’s not just PoC who are afraid of the cops. The Wikipedia article
on no-knock warrants mentions:

Use of no-knock warrants has increased substantially over time. By one estimate, there were 1,500
in the early 1980s whereas there were 45,000 in 2010.[1]
So unlike a few decades ago, people who don’t think of themselves as already marginalized now
understand that what happened to George Floyd could happen to them. There is now a backlash
against police militarization, non-accountability, etc. It’s not just racism, it’s recognizing a condition
of police-vs-everyone else and realizing that affects us no matter who we are.

o Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:41 am ~new~

I wonder if the explanation for the riots might be simpler: the collapse of a pluralistic ignorance.
(CW?) But if not, what is your evidence for linking no-knock warrants to the riots? I would worry
about getting swat’ed too, and try not to offend, well, certain kinds of people. But Floyd didn’t die
in a no-knock raid, nor did the guy in Atlanta, nor any of the other high-visibility cases (as far as I
know). While there is clear opposition to police violence most of the slogans and other messages
seem to be racial. I don’t think we would have these protests at all if not for the widely held
perception that cops are racist, and that the System at large (from the prosecution and judges to
politicians to unions to hospital doctors forging autopsies) protects their transgressions.
 Andrew G. says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:27 am ~new~
This is the high-visibility case in question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Breonna_Taylor
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:19 am ~new~
Right, I forgot about that one – thanks for reminding me. I still think my main point stands – but
will leave discussion to a fractional OT.

 jeremybub says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:31 pm ~new~
Although not strictly falling under the “no-knock raid” definition, the other high profile case in the
same vein OP was talking about is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Atatiana_Jefferson
(and possibly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Philando_Castile, although it was in a car,
not house).
 clipmaker says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:40 am ~new~
Louisville (where Breonna Taylor was killed) has now passed “Breonna’s Law” banning no-knock
warrants, I think some other cities are working on similar things, and there is now a bill in congress
to ban them nationwide. Also, reading between the lines of the Wikipedia article, it looks like their
recent expansion may be a result of SCOTUS decisions from 1995 and 2006 weakening the
“exclusionary rule” against allowing illegally gathered evidence to be admitted in trials. That is,
they are part of an erosion of traditional civil rights.

June 15, 2020 at 4:46 am ~new~
Maybe good to move this discussion to the next fractional open thread.
44. Deiseach says:

June 15, 2020 at 3:06 am ~new~
Taking a deep breath and calming down – perfume recommendations.
I don’t wear perfume very often and I don’t know anything about brands or popular ones at the
moment, but this website has things I like. Link to American site here, for us Europeans here.
Right now I’m trying their Ceci n’est pas un flacon bleu No. 1.3 and I like it (so far). I don’t
ordinarily like patchouli as I find it too overpowering and musky in a bad way, but this formulation
while present is not flagrant.
You can get small tester samples at a reasonable price.

o DarkTigger says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:42 am ~new~
I have nothing to offer to your quest for an perfume, but think it’s funny you don’t like patchouli.
Around here saying a women “smells like patchouli” is code for “she’s an esoteric hippy type”.
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:36 am ~new~
I was a child to mid-teens during the 70s so yeah, patchouli did linger around from the hippy era
and it was that kind of person who wore it and I just found it objectionably strong. It’s described as
having a “musky, earthy aroma” and it was too much for me.
This one though is a lot better, however it’s blended; it’s got that woody, spicy notes but none of
the civet-cat muskiness I normally associate with patchouli.

 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:31 am ~new~
Right.
I don’t even know what Patchouli is or what it smells like, I just know it correlates to hippy-dom.
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:18 am ~new~
I don’t even know what Patchouli is or what it smells like
My own personal reaction is that it smells like a mommy cat and a daddy cat have been loving each
other very, very much, but that’s only my own olfactory reaction 😀
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:30 am ~new~
So… it’s perfume people wear to attract cats?
Awesome, that clears up all my confusion.

Hide ↑
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:45 am ~new~
I am feeling my responsibility as a teacher and guide very heavily right now. 🙁
Do not take me as an expert on anything (apart from being a cranky late middle-aged rural
Irishwoman).
A more better site describes it as such:

Patchouli oil has a strong, slightly sweet, intoxicating scent. It’s described as having a dark, musky-
earthy aroma profile, reminiscent of wet soil.
To me (and I strongly stress this is me only) it doesn’t have that wet-soil aroma (I adore petrichor)
but it does smell very heavily musky in an animalistic way. Plainly other people don’t find it so,
since it’s so popular, and that’s why this particular scent I’m trying now is a pleasant surprise to
me because it doesn’t have that animal musk but is spicy/earthy.

Hide ↑
 Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:02 am ~new~
@Deiseach
This doesn’t affect your point, but it doesn’t have to be only you who experiences patchouli like
that; with some such differences, it’s because you have different olfactory receptors, which is down
to genetics. It’s why some folks say cilantro tastes like soap.
Hide ↑
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:45 am ~new~
I am feeling my responsibility as a teacher and guide very heavily right now
Ha! I’m sorry, I should have properly marked my above post as being firmly sarcastic.
I have pretty much total anosmia, so I always find it funny and weirdly interesting when people try
to explain subtle smells. It’s just so far outside my normal sensory experience.
Hide ↑
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:45 pm ~new~
Nick, I do get the “soapy coriander” taste so it may well be something there.
Aftagley, don’t worry, I realised you were joking but I did want to clarify that this was idiosyncratic
on my part 😀
Hide ↑
o Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:44 am ~new~
I’m starting to wonder how hard it would be to build a steam still and formulate my own cologne
from various herbs and spices.
Looks like you can get myrrh for a not unreasonable price on Amazon.
45. a real dog says:

June 15, 2020 at 2:34 am ~new~
Regarding the increasing size of open threads, can the resident SSC PHP wizard consider creating
an alternative, mobile-friendly view with pagination?
Even reading the thread to the end is sometimes impossible on mobile as the tab may get evicted
from browser cache and you lose the place you scrolled to. Writing a response in those
megathreads has an input lag of literally 1 second between pressing a key and seeing the letter
appear on my iOS.
o Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:05 am ~new~
Agree. My work laptop also has issues loading the pages when they get too big.
I’d formally request Scott, that if you want to put the kibosh on CW for a bit, to still create the
fractional open threads, but just to add a “no CW on this one” rule to them, so as to prevent this
one OT from getting too huge.

46. Gwythyr says:

June 15, 2020 at 2:33 am ~new~
Long-time lurker, new poster here asking random people on the Internet for a mental health
advice. Or maybe a life advice.
I’m not sure how much background to include but I’ll try to list everything relevant. I’m from
Russia. since 2012 I am suffering from some sort of brain cooties (Depression/apathy/anxiety
surely, but some underlying issues are certainly present – but is it a personality disorder?
Asperger’s? Schizophrenia? State doctors disagree with private ones). It has negatively affected my
life in a major way. I’ve dropped out of the university, came back, dropped again, got a job, lost a
job, and finally for the last 2 years has gone pretty much full NEET. Therapy helps me to feel better
but not to be functional, drugs are either causing significant adverse effects or doing very little (ok,
there was one drug which helped a lot, but it is impossible to obtain). I’m losing the last shreds of
hope – especially since in the last 2 years I have trouble communicating with people and quickly
and coherently articulating my thoughts (worsening illness or merely lack of socialization? Who
knows).
I have also been interested in rationality since 2010, though rarely engaged in commenting or
discussion. Read the Sequences, some of the works which came after. Also knew about
transhumanusm and considered it a good thing even before that (though before LW it was on a
much more naive wow-basis). Again for the last two years I pretty much ignored everything
mentioned above.
Finally, after the brief engagement with Russian politics in 2010-2012 I have been mostly avoiding
local news wherever possible, because the course seem to be set, opposition is not able to do a
thing, and… it’s too fucking depressing. I have read, watched and played significantly more
English-language things than Russian-language things for the last 6 or 7 years

It seems that in the last 2 years or so I suddenly can’t handle much greater variety of depressing
topics. Well, not every depressing thing but a lot of stuff which causes me to believe a future would
be worse than I thought. A lot of it is CW (I’ll need to note that analysis or trying to comprehend
the tendencies myself hurts more than any single example of bad behaviour no matter how unjust
or destructive). But there is other stuff too – e.g. a lot of rational writing about Moloch and the like.
Trying to avoid information doesn’t seem to be working. It is weird for me – for all my formative
years I behaved as if there is no such thing as negative-value information, and while I
acknowledge it in theory to behave that way conflicts with my perception of myself. It also leads to
lost opportunities – e.g. had I not avoided news about China (because Chinese politics are
depressing) I would likely prepare much better in the masks-and-sanitizer sense. Even though I
never browse Twitter, Facebook, Imgur, Tumblr aimlessly anymore, nor do I follow anyone you still
find links there sometimes. Never reading anything from those platforms seems like overreaction.
Finally this stuff is out there to get you. Trying to get book recommendations on reddit this winter
often ended up with books which are nothing like what was requested but were recommended
nevertheless because how worthy they are in the eyes of redditors. A few days ago I tried to
reconnect with my Ukrainian friends – who were entirely understanding of the fact that I dropped
out of conversation for two months, but all they were talking about was current events un the
United States. I am not sure whether I can explain how insane this seems to me.
Would anyone here care to give some advice? It seems as if I have a choice between
desocialization and depression and this is not a good place to be.
P.S Maybe I should have waited till the fractional thread to post but this is the third time I try to
write this down, I should have posted that a week ago. I have tried to remove suspect stuff, but it
is necessary to mention it even when not discussing it.
P.P.S. If anyone is interested in discussing mental health beyond the posited problem of managing
my information intake I am open to further questions.

o a real dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:44 am ~new~
You probably want to fill your life with more positive interactions with people and your
environment. The mainstream position of “why are you depressed, go run a bit” is not exactly
helpful but has a grain of truth in it – you really, really need to be grounded in reality, otherwise
abstract scaremongering on the internet will eat you alive.
As a fellow Slav I certainly sympathize with the feeling that everyone around me is complaining all
the time, that’s just how our societies are built I’m afraid. Still, go ride a bike, visit some friend you
haven’t seen in a while, go camping as it’s finally summer. I believe the technical psychiatric term
is “behavioral activation”, and it works.

 Gwythyr says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:57 am ~new~
Positive interaction with environment I am trying to do though it feels hard. Positive interaction
with people boils down to “which people ?”. Even before the illness I have been pretty asocial (I got
along with people just fine but don’t really needed them all that much). Now it’s even hard to talk
with new people, and my old circle of the online interaction was somehow co-opted by Anglosphere
CW.
o Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:08 am ~new~
I feel the same way as you on most of the things you discuss, although it doesn’t seem to be
affecting me quite as badly.
My advice may feel like a cop-out, but it is this – find things to distract yourself. This won’t
necessarily be easy, especially as CW absorbs more and more hobbies that in theory should be
neutral distractions (don’t worry – soon the NFL will be back and you won’t have to think so much
about protests anymore, LOL!)
In a best case scenario, this probably involves religion (although I’m told finding a non-CW church
is increasingly difficult), friends, and family. The worst case scenario might be crippling videogame
addiction. But that’s probably still better than whatever you’re going through now. Find stuff that
can occupy your mind and spend as much of your mental energy on it as possible.
 Conrad Honcho says:

June 15, 2020 at 7:03 am ~new~
The worst best case scenario might be crippling videogame addiction.
FTFY.
 Gwythyr says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:49 am ~new~
In a best case scenario, this probably involves religion (although I’m told finding a non-CW church is
increasingly difficult), friends, and family.
Well, in Russia any CW in church would likely be coming from the other side than my Internet
bubble so it’s a nice balance, but… meh. As long as I can remember myself all that formal religion
stuff seemed silly to, and even on the fundamental question of existence of God I went straight
from not thinking about it to the full blown atheism (though later). I was exposed from the crib to
both Orthodoxy (I still can recite a few prayers in Church Slavonic) and sort of agnosticism, so it’s
not like I was either brainwashed into atheism or reacted with atheism to attempted religious
brainwashing.
Even though I feel that faith can be a great comfort (I am less sure about religion), I do not see
what could result in me getting one.

Family is one of significant stressors in fact, so no help there. Friends as I said are bombarding me
with CW, and I do not make friends easily – in fact the current group was acquired mostly because
one of them wanted to be friends with me and practically forced me to interact ( I am glad that he
did).
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:52 am ~new~
Videogame addiction it is, then!
I suggest MMOs. You can waste all kinds of hours on those!
Edit: On a more serious note, something like “constructive hobbies” is probably worth looking at.
Can you get into gardening? Or homebrew? Pretty much anything where you “make” something.
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:05 pm ~new~
As an avid homebrewer, I don’t recommend homebrew for people who want a hobby to occupy
their time. Home-brew will maybe fill 3-4 hours of your time maybe one Saturday a month. Less if
you invest early on in kegs.
I mean, it’s great in that it ends up with you having beer, but it really isn’t something you can
spend a bunch of time on.

Hide ↑
 Gwythyr says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:54 am ~new~
I probably will not go that way, but just in case – would anyone here care to recommend an MMO?
I never cared to spend more than a year in a single MMO, usually less. What I enjoyed in the past:
Lineage 2 (long time ago on weird heavily modified private servers), Rising Force Online, Granado
Espada (this one is probably the best), Aion, WarThunder. WarThunder and the like are right out
now – I do not think that session-based all-combat no-story would be right distraction. What I am
probably looking for is probably something to distinguish it from the others either stylistically or
gameplay-wise, preferably both. maybe some action elements. I do not think that I can remember
every game I installed and dropped within a week, but two of them are Perfect World and EVE.
Though I theoretically can swing a subscription, I would probably spend too much worrying about
money spent, so probably only f2p.

Hide ↑
 Matt M says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:57 am ~new~
I mean, World of Warcraft is almost certainly the biggest in terms of “most amount of stuff to do
overall” and “widest variety of stuff to do” and is the one I’m most familiar with, but is definitely
not free…
Hide ↑
 a real dog says:

June 16, 2020 at 11:06 am ~new~
@Gwythyr: Guild Wars 2 is pretty neat, should be right up your alley if you enjoyed Lineage 2. The
pros include an interesting combat system, pretty deep customization and no chasing exclamation
marked NPCs. The cons include atrocious crafting and said interesting combat turning into a chaotic
clusterfuck when more than 2-3 players are involved.
The base version without addons is f2p, too.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 5:24 am ~new~
A few thoughts.
1. “Never reading anything from those platforms” isn’t an overreaction in my opinion.
2. If politics gets you down, avoid it. It is rarely useful, and individuals rarely matter on the scales.
3. You don’t mention physical activities. Personally martial arts classes, hiking fore a few days, and
running up and down a staircase 10 times are all tools I use to feel more alive and generally better.
4. If you can find a chess club, martial arts class, or anything else where you will socialise around
non-depressing things that would be helpful. The hobby itself is also good.
5. I have a friend who went NEET for a while, getting a job that wasn’t too demanding (was part
time too) but did require him to go to work was helpful for him.
June 15, 2020 at 6:57 am ~new~
This is an observation and a request for advice rather than advice.
Feeling bad and having trouble with doing things are pretty separate even though they’re both filed
under depression.
I’m fairly capable of enjoying hobbies, but doing things– and especially doing useful things– has a
high risk of making me feel worse. The pattern of being able to take action, but not for taking care
of oneself (the level and type of dysfunction varies a lot) is pretty common in sf fandom.
Any ideas about what helps? I’m especially interested in what people have seen work rather than in
what sounds plausible.


June 15, 2020 at 7:06 am ~new~
Acquire a habit or hobby that involves physical exercise. We are machines of flesh, physical fitness
helps just about everything. Preferably something which you find fun, and is not solitary, because
having to expend will power to stick with it means it will fail, having it be part and parcel of your
recreation and socialization in some way means it persists much better.
If you have already done this, I.. am very much at a loss to what other broadly applicable tips I
can give. “First, clean your room”? That is from my mother, and also pretty solid.

June 15, 2020 at 8:16 am ~new~
It’s more that exercise falls into the category of things that are good for me which are difficult for
me to get myself to do.
Sometimes qi gong (which is movement but not exercise) is very hard for me to get to, even
though it reliably makes me feel better.


June 15, 2020 at 9:50 am ~new~
That is why I said “Not solitary”. Disappointing yourself by not sticking to your exercise routine is a
very weak motivator. The obligation to show up for a group or duo activity you have scheduled has
far more teeth, and if you enjoy it once you are doing it, you wont remove it from the calendar
either.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 1:03 pm ~new~
I’m not sure if it is relevant to your problems, but my solution to feelings of generic blah, many
years ago, was to assign myself two hours a day, seven days a week, of work on writing projects.
That’s enough so I feel I am doing something, enough to actually accomplish something, and little
enough to leave most of the day free for talking with people here, reading good books, etc.
All play and no work doesn’t work for me. But it doesn’t take much work to solve the problem.
That would be unnecessary for someone who had a regular eight hours a day job, but I didn’t, and
am now retired.
 Pierrot Lunaire says:

June 15, 2020 at 3:43 pm ~new~
For some reason reading “real nonfiction” was what did it for me. Not that I was avoiding pop-
science or pop-history, just stuff that I felt like I was learning at least a little bit from, even if I
didn’t know how the learning would ever be useful.

June 15, 2020 at 11:37 pm ~new~
Writing time, for me, includes research for writing. My most recent nonfiction book required a lot of
reading.
Hide ↑
 mtl1882 says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:46 pm ~new~
I experience something similar, and it has always seemed to me like a dissociative issue. When I’m
conscious of myself, and doing actions that require me to assess myself and my goals in reference
to the future, I develop an aversion to my own actions. This is because I now have trouble
imagining a future or experiencing strong preferences for what happens next or how to get there. I
don’t identify with my decisions. With hobbies, it feels like my self isn’t in play, and just the
intellectual part of myself is operating, and it requires less justification. Since I began experiencing
this, I can do really elaborate research projects and then fail to do the most basic stuff required of
daily living. It functions as a form of escapism. Not quite sure what caused the split between
myself and intellect, or how to fix it. If it is common in SF fandom, could it be related to having a
capacity for elaborate imagination? I definitely feel that plays a role in my case–it’s like ideas are
so fast and vivid in my mind, and actions disappointing and comparably meaningless when I go to
act them out. What I’ve personally experienced as helpful is structure—concrete tasks imposed
upon me, a schedule, etc., which I don’t have to justify. Something that turns off the
monitoring/deciding/optimizing part of my brain for a bit.

o Erusian says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:00 am ~new~
Where are you in Russia? To be frank, large swathes of Russian society are not socially healthy. I
know Slavs like to joke about this kind of thing but Russia, especially certain parts of Russia, suffer
from deep social pathologies that make the Ukrainians look downright functional. It might be good
to leave. I know a lot of happy Russian expats. Statistically, more middle class Russians live
outside Russia than inside it. Maybe you should join them.
More generally, I can only give broad advice. I’ve been in very, very dark places before and very,
very bad circumstances. My suggestion: set a goal, a modest goal, to do something that will
improve your life at least a little. And achieve it. It doesn’t have to be anything grand. Write a
diary. Learn how to make coffee and start making yourself really nice coffee each morning. Clean
your room. Doesn’t matter. The important thing is to regain a sense of potency: you will have
changed your world a little and for the better. Then do it again. And again, until you don’t feel as
bad. And then make a big goal. Something that would change everything for the better. And start
to make a plan of these little steps that can get you there. You can endure a lot, terrible jobs or
depressing news, if you know that just waiting it out and working hard tomorrow gets you closer to
your goals. It clarifies your decisions, including those about information intake. Is your goal to start
a coffee business? What does watching about Putin’s next move have to do with coffee? Is it to
leave? Then why are you reading domestic news at all? And so on.
I’m here if you want to talk.

 Beans says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:08 am ~new~
To be frank, large swathes of Russian society are not socially healthy. I know Slavs like to joke about
this kind of thing but Russia, especially certain parts of Russia, suffer from deep social pathologies…
It might be good to leave. I know a lot of happy Russian expats. Statistically, more middle class
Russians live outside Russia than inside it. Maybe you should join them.
I’ve had a great deal of contact with Russia and Russians, and I think this is unfortunately true.
Russians are fundamentally lovely people held back by widespread neurosis and fatalism stemming
from a bunch of complex and messed up events, and the happiest Russians I’ve known are the
ones who have left it! (Aside from a few who remained but are wealthy enough to have a great life
anyway.)
 Gwythyr says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:34 pm ~new~
Where are you in Russia
A small city (if for some reason precise information would be helpful – then not on the public
forum). Economically there is little promise but socially probably above the 50% for Russia as far
as both general public goodness and alignment with my values go.
Regarding emigration – yeah, that would be nice. In fact it is probably about the second position in
my Big Dreams. Doesn’t seem to be readily achievable from the current position (I am not merely
unable to see how to do it tomorrow or this year, but unable to formulate a concrete plan for any
length of time which would result in that).

My suggestion: set a goal, a modest goal, to do something that will improve your life at least a little.
That I am trying to do currently (with variable success).
And then make a big goal. Something that would change everything for the better. And start to make
a plan of these little steps that can get you there. You can endure a lot, terrible jobs or depressing
news, if you know that just waiting it out and working hard tomorrow gets you closer to your goals.
And that is where everything breaks down. I used to be very rational and efficient about this and
nowadays I feel like I cannot overcome momentary impulses at all. When I am to depressed to get
out of bed or, contrawise when I am enjoying a game (which is rare nowadays – I can have free
time and end up doing nothing with it, without doing anything at all for myself) I sometimes cannot
find any will (or strength. or energy. or spoons or whatever) to stop what I am (not) doing and do
what is necessary.
Then why are you reading domestic news at all?
As I said I in fact did mostly successfully avoided local news for 7-8years and retreated to
Anglosphere web (call it escapism, call it inner emigration, whatever). Now it is also not a good
place to be (specifically hobby\entertainment communities which seemed 10 years ago to be much
less politicized than Russian ones are more politicized nowadays).
Also planning. If you plan emigrating you kinda need to know where you see yourself in 5 years,
and for that you need to know how the place looks in 5 years. Again, I can see the idea “you’d
never emigrate if you continue to read toxoplasma and then going to bed to sulk”, but going in
blind is not going to succeed either. And distinguishing between useful and harmful information
before reading is in fact one of the aspects of my initial question.


June 16, 2020 at 1:14 am ~new~
Regarding emigration – yeah, that would be nice. In fact it is probably about the second position in
my Big Dreams.
Leaving Russia, I’d recommend that you emigrate to another big country like Canada, the US, or
Australia. You wouldn’t want to forget your Dreams.

 yevterentiev says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:07 am ~new~
I’ve spent some time researching emigration options and came to the conclusion that Canada is
marginally better than Australia wrt to the ease of getting a PR. Other consideration like proximity
to the US or the climate certainly add to that. I should mention that I have concerns and patterns
of behaviour very similar to those of the op (I’m younger and located in Ukraine, though).
Hide ↑
o ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:58 pm ~new~

there was one drug which helped a lot, but it is impossible to obtain
Could you maybe obtain it in the black market?
It seems like you’re going through some really bad times, so I would say if something helps, you
could try to get it outside normal channels. I’ve heard a lot of the nootropic community gets stuff
from India and whatnot, and it works for them.
Or is it that the drug is expensive?

 Gwythyr says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:05 pm ~new~
Expensive, yes, though not absolutely prohibitive. But you can go to jail for it now (and then never
have a chance to emigrate anywhere with narcotics conviction even though it’s not a narcotic
anywhere else).
Numerous online outlets do offer it. At least some of them are honeypots. I even suppose that you
can with sufficiently high probability make sure that supplier is genuine by collecting information
from people, but I was not able to get myself organized enough to do that research (and I really
did not want to self-medicate so idea of going outside of official channels occurred to me only in
the last couple of months).

o Elementaldex says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:27 pm ~new~
Some communities have far lower CW density than others. My main community is a group of adult
epee fencers and we have CW related conversations less than monthly despite spending ~10 hours
per week together. We spend a lot of time gossiping about fencers from other clubs and whining
about what good actions someone keeps beating us with. Maybe hunt for a better community?
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:39 pm ~new~
Hmm, so you’re saying your group of epee fencers is unconcerned about the right (of way)?
 Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:41 pm ~new~
That was a stretch. Almost a lunge, even.

 Elementaldex says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:30 pm ~new~
While that is an excellent guess. We actually spend untold hours complaining about how horrible
right (of way) is even though we are not personally subject to its whims.
June 15, 2020 at 11:39 pm ~new~
I see right of way as an attempt to make up for the fact that in fencing nobody minds dying.
It’s a problem I’m familiar with in SCA group combat, where we don’t have any equivalent rule. We
are all heroes, which eliminates a large part of real world tactics.
Hide ↑
 Lambert says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:38 am ~new~
From what I’ve heard, the transition from duelling with cut-and-thrust swords to rapiers ended up
with a lot of situations where two novices would run each other through at the same time and die.
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 6:50 am ~new~
two novices would run each other through at the same time and die.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Hide ↑
o mtl1882 says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:31 pm ~new~
I’ve experienced something that sounds similar over the last few years, getting suddenly sensitive
to negative information followed by worsening confusion and apathy. It definitely feels much
harder to socialize without getting pulled into a jarring current events-related discussion, in almost
any situation. I can’t tell if that’s true or if I just feel that way, but I also dropped a lot of current
events reading altogether and was surprised to find it didn’t help as much as I expected. I suspect
information intake in general is an issue for people who like learning, regardless of the type of
information–my brain can’t be running in that mode all the time, and the Internet makes that a
possibility. But I was a news junkie, so I figured the problem was mostly that I just paid too much
attention. Yet it seemed like around the same time, everyone else started talking about it more,
and I’m an introvert with few other topics to put forward. Increasingly, my family and extrovert
friends didn’t seem to have other topics, either, even though they have more exciting lives than I
do. It’s just constant talking points. I know socialization is key to improving, but it is so hard to
meet people who are not draining in this way, especially if you are introverted.
Some sort of structure is probably needed—is there some sort of activity where the conversation is
structured that you could do? For example, teaching somebody something? (or taking a course?)
Working on some sort of project? I find this helps a lot. As someone else said, I think restoring a
sense of being able to take action in in the world, in small ways, goes far. Assisting someone else
with a real task provides a ready topic of conversation and reason for interacting, as well as a
feeling of capability. And it provides its own momentum, whereas goals you set to help yourself are
easier to discard. I find that even giving directions to someone from out-of-town briefly stabilizes
me.
o James Banks says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:44 pm ~new~
I’m coming out of a similar place in life, and I have found pen pal sites to be helpful. The people
there (in my experience), are not that into politics or big events. People from around the world.
People who like writing emails. Different personality types and interests. People who want to be
friends, also people who just want to make small talk (asking me about how coronavirus is going
where I live, for instance).
I can recommend PenPal World (a logo like that may tend to banish CW). But the others might
work well for you too.

47. kotrfa says:

June 15, 2020 at 2:10 am ~new~
If you wanted to find the most effective education for your children (i.e. you are not saving the
world or trying to design for the whole population), which is neurotypical, parents are “rationalists”
with slightly above average income, how would it look like (from pre-K onwards)? (Full question
posted on LW)
o a real dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:51 am ~new~
I’ve heard good things about Montessori.

Probably any alternative education scheme that emphasizes individual interests and initiative,
instead of being optimized for creating an obedient 19th century Prussian factory worker, would
put your child far ahead of the mainstream.

 Cheese says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:28 am ~new~
Montessori and similiar styles can be great but can have pitfalls.
IMO, based solely on personal experience for myself and in the family, it can be great for earlier
stages of education. It allows kids to skip far ahead based on their abilities, stopping them getting
bored and allowing them to move at their own rate. However it has less of an emphasis on forcing
them to work on areas of deficiency, so you can end up in a position where they may need
remedial work in some area to catch up to their peers. I have seen this to be very teacher and
school philosophy dependent.

o Thomas Jorgensen says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:58 am ~new~
Option the first: “Move to Finland, send them to public school”.
Option the second. “send them to public school, spend money like water on one on one tuition”.
A lot of the usual things people advocate and do are just goddamn useless, or expensive in ways
people fail to count properly.
Homeschooling – assuming one partner has the qualifications to do a good job of it, is costing you
at least 40 grand a year in foregone earnings, and probably more.
Private schools generally do no better than public schools in the districts they exist in, once you
control for socio economic status – they just get to cherry pick a student body and fleece parents,
complete waste of money.
(and sending your kids to a distant private school imposes enormous time and social costs on
them, and likely on you, too. It is very, very inconvenient not to live near your kids school in all
sorts of ways)
But Finland genuinely appears to just.. have better schools. And spending money on tutors works.
Option 3, for the very cheap parent: Just damn well teach your kid how to use Anki.
 a real dog says:

June 15, 2020 at 3:43 am ~new~
Re #3, Anki seems way overhyped. For languages, I’m told that controlled exposure to living
examples of the language is considered superior. For anything else, like e.g. biology, you want to
understand what you’re talking about instead of regurgiating trigger-response pairs on demand.
I’ve seen some people use Anki to prepare for exams on bio/med topics and it just seems like a
more sophisticated way of cramming – even if they preserve the “knowledge” they can’t really use
it or reason about it. I also know people who spent years learning a language as an adult via
spaced repetition and they still suck at fluent speech or writing.


June 15, 2020 at 4:38 pm ~new~
I have friends who used Anki throughout undergrad, and they remember the topics much better
than I do just because their Anki cards still come up. The real question is whether memorizing any
of that stuff was useful to begin with.
However, I’ll agree that it isn’t sufficient for languages.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:05 am ~new~
Option between tutoring and homeschooling: Take an extremely active interest in their education.
I feel like my parents unschooled me on top of me going to actual school.

 Tarpitz says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:25 am ~new~
If your account of the benefits of private school doesn’t include the value of the social connections
made there, it’s very incomplete. This value may not be that great at a typical private school, but
at the elite ones it’s enormous. Even if you don’t think Eton offers a superior academic education
(or you think the direct benefits of such an education are not lasting) it would be foolish to
disregard the social networks formed there.


June 15, 2020 at 6:41 am ~new~
… You do realize you just entirely agreed with some of the very reddest critiques I have ever heard
of private schooling? That is, that they are no better at education than the public system, but are
effective transmission mechanisms of class privilege?
Or in other words, the argument you just made is not an argument for attending Eton, it is an
argument for legislating Eton out of existence.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:49 am ~new~
Why should you limit yourself to looking at schools that shouldn’t be regulated out of existance?
>(i.e. you are not saving the world or trying to design for the whole population)
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 6:51 am ~new~
Well, mostly I think those red critiques are just wrong. – that is, I do not think the course of your
life is actually set by who you were friends with in middle school, so I consider them wholly scams.
I am just.. a bit flabbergasted to see marxist analytics be taken for granted.

Hide ↑
 Tarpitz says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:12 am ~new~
I’m in no way, shape or form a Marxist, but I don’t think I need to accept any political theory of
any kind to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of my lying eyes that old boy network
nepotism is a source of career advantage in many fields, including my own (I am certainly a
beneficiary of it). The notion that who you know socially makes no difference to your professional
prospects seems so incredible to me that I can barely imagine an actual resident of this planet
holding it.
As it happens, I think most elite private schools actually do offer an appreciably superior education,
and selection effects, increased human capital and networking are all important factors in
explaining the success of their alumni. Most private schools are a waste of a ton of money. The top
few are excellent value for even more. See also universities.
Hide ↑
 Clutzy says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:40 pm ~new~
You do realize you just entirely agreed with some of the very reddest critiques I have ever heard of
private schooling? That is, that they are no better at education than the public system, but are
effective transmission mechanisms of class privilege?
Weird for this to be a private school critique when the current public school system does the same
thing on a wider scale.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 11:41 pm ~new~
but are effective transmission mechanisms of class privilege?
I think that describes at most expensive prep schools, which are a very small part of the total
world of private schools.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm ~new~
Homeschooling – assuming one partner has the qualifications to do a good job of it, is costing you at
least 40 grand a year in foregone earnings, and probably more.
That assumes it’s a full-time job. For couples with the traditional pattern, husband earning money
and wife running the household, it isn’t. Actual teaching doesn’t require much time spent by the
adult, although adults can choose to spend more — the main constraint is that there must be an
adult present in the house.
Also, there are some jobs that can be done from home and don’t suffer too much from being
interrupted from time to time.


June 15, 2020 at 1:55 pm ~new~
Homeschooling – assuming one partner has the qualifications to do a good job of it, is costing you at
least 40 grand a year in foregone earnings, and probably more.
Is that gross earnings, or net? We’ve discussed the two-income trap here before. If A: the
expenses associated with a second full-time wage-earner consume a significant fraction of the
gross income added, and B: what’s left goes mostly to buying a house in an expensive
neighborhood with good schools, then it’s quite possible that you come out financially ahead if you
home-school in a cheaper neighborhood.


June 15, 2020 at 3:04 pm ~new~
Taking ten years out of your career has long term costs rather exceeding the immediate calculus.
Further, money poured into the mortgage is not generally lost barring very bad luck. Not an
investment with a huge return, but you do get the money back on the back end assuming there is
still, well, an economy, when you retire.
Bailing on the good school district and extracting that premium value is one reason why people in
the US retire to points south, yes? (The European version is “To Spain”, which.. honestly, better
deal than Florida)


June 15, 2020 at 4:37 pm ~new~
Private schools generally do no better than public schools in the districts they exist in, once you
control for socio economic status – they just get to cherry pick a student body and fleece
parents, complete waste of money.
That’s…what we’re paying for…

June 15, 2020 at 5:18 pm ~new~
You are paying for an education. If the individuals who make up the student body of the private
school would have learned exactly as much scattered around n public schools instead, then you are
gaining nothing at a very high price. And that is the favorable case – sometimes they are simply
worse schools once you control for SES.
And I need to make this point again, if you are willing to spend this kind of dosh on your child’s
education, sending them to public school and hiring tutors would be vastly, ridiculously more
efficacious use of your funds. Tutoring damn well works, and ten thousand dollars worth of tutoring
per year through primary school and twenty thousand per year through high school is a whole lot
of tuition hours.
 cassander says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:36 pm ~new~
You’re paying for a better peer group for your kids, which almost certainly matters more than how
much they actually learn.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 7:46 am ~new~
You may also be paying for the school to teach your children according to your values (many
religious schools), or for a pleasant environment for your kids with a nice peer group.
June 15, 2020 at 5:33 am ~new~
I think a lot of it is being a household that actually values learning (the kids should notice their
parents learning new things at least occasionally, parents should indulge the kids’ interest in how
things work, there should be books in the house) and making learning accessible (show them how
to use Wikipedia themselves, find sites for them that will interest and teach them, etc).
Beyond that just send them where they’ll have good friends, make sure they can read and do basic
math.
 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:56 am ~new~
Yes, parental support is critical, since school isn’t going to do it. My parents sent us to more
technical summer camp/classes, but ones where we still got to pick the specific classes we wanted
to attend. Later, they wholeheartedly supported the extracurriculars we chose to pursue, both
financially and in transporting us where we needed to go (whether that be attended practices or
competitions).
Finally, our vacations were all oriented around museums, nature/hiking, and concerts, and I still
have zero interesting in shopping-oriented vacations or events.
It’s like enabling an unschooling environment outside of mandatory schooling.

June 16, 2020 at 7:48 am ~new~
Also, the ability to see that your kid is miserable or struggling in one environment and move him to
another is really valuable. Doing this at one point in my oldest son’s education made his life
enormously better and seems to have worked out well.

o Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:47 am ~new~
If you’re looking for a drastic alternative to mainstream education, Waldorf or Steiner schools. Due
to circumstances, my two nephews did their pre-school/junior infants schooling in one, then
integrated into mainstream schools at a later date with no difficulty (the elder is going on for an MA
in English and the younger is currently doing a B Sc, so I have an Arts Nephew and a Science
Nephew) 🙂
Pros: child-centred learning, at their own pace, a lot of arts and crafts as well as academic
subjects.
Cons: arose out of the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy, so depending on the
school it may be very hippy-dippy. If you’re a Richard Dawkins-type parent who would be
extremely uncomfortable about your kids making friends with the fairies at the bottom of the
garden, this is not for you!

 metacelsus says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:28 am ~new~
Secondary con: many Waldorf parents are anti-vaxxers, so there won’t be herd immunity there.
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:21 am ~new~
As I said, it depends on the school and parents; over here in Ireland they’re not that far gone, but
certainly in Germany/other places very much into the whole biodynamic ball of wax, that’s a risk.

June 15, 2020 at 5:40 pm ~new~
My sons went to a Waldorf school here in New Zealand, although this was mostly to keep them out
of the school my oldest son spent his first year at, which was a total nightmare. The Waldorf school
was excellent, we have nothing but good things to say about it.
o PhaedrusV says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:32 am ~new~
I’ve been trying to answer the same questions, and here’s where I am so far (mine are 3 and 1, so
plans are still in development. I was homeschooled, so I know that homeschooling works just fine).
Pre-K: I hear good things about Montessori as well, but I’m planning on just keeping the kids home
at this stage. We have a great support network of adult relatives around who are very active and
responsive, so we read to the kids, build things with them, engage them in conversation, answer
their questions, etc. My main focus right now is to make learning fun. I’m trying to answer
questions ‘bigly’ and not over-simplify, and if I can demonstrate the answer I do that before I talk
about it. Playing outdoors, building with legos, reading with them (and by myself, to show how
much I value it; great point earlier in the thread), exploring… We’re blending in some counting and
letter recognition but only with positive reinforcement, songs, games, that sort of thing. If I
weren’t so lucky in the support network my kids have then I would be looking at Montessori.
Post-K: Check out Acton Academy. I’m going through their on-boarding right now; they seem like a
great blend of Montessori principles updated with modern tools and informed by the lessons of the
past millennia or so of societal experience with ‘classical’ education. In stage 1 of their on-boarding
process they have a neat ‘recommended reading’ list; I read the entire list and recommend
everything on it as well. My current plan is to start a micro-school (think halfway between
homeschooling and private schooling: age-mixed classes of ~5-15 kids, semi-self-paced and
guided). I have a few concerns about Acton’s method I haven’t been able to address yet, but I’ll be
resolving those before I decide. The biggest one, as another comment in this thread noted, was
how to handle lack of interest in core subjects. I’m honestly not all that concerned about whether I
can handle that as the teacher; I’m a big believer in the importance of the “3 R’s” and I know how
to make them all compelling and fun until their value is self-reinforcing. I also know that it’s OK to
wait for the ‘teachable moment’, even if it doesn’t come in any given school year, because once
you find the right one the learning is self-reinforcing and occurs at light speed. I just need to figure
out how that might blend into the Acton system.
If any of this sounds compelling to anyone else, or other people are going through similar discovery
processes, PM me and I’d love to start a group discussion in a more suitable format.
 PhaedrusV says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:07 am ~new~
On reddit or keybase, that is.

June 15, 2020 at 1:32 pm ~new~
I don’t think there is anything beyond reading, writing or (nowadays) typing with a computer, and
possibly arithmetic, that everyone needs to learn in K-12. If a kid never gets interested in biology,
he can always learn it later if he finds he needs it. Similarly for physics, algebra, history,
economics, … . The important thing is that they are learning something interesting, not that they
learn some list of core subjects.
When our home unschooled kids approached college age and wanted to go to selective colleges,
they studied the things necessary to fill in holes before taking the relevant exams.
 SamChevre says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:57 pm ~new~
I would add from my experience very basic knowledge of the scientific method – not in the fully
worked out sense, but in the “observe, hypothesize, test with a control” sense.
 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:01 pm ~new~
I can kind of see a “Lottery of Passions/Interests” kind of reasoning behind mandatory subjects,
though. I wasn’t uninterested in STEM things, and can imagine a world where I pursued those
things with much more ambition than I did in my actual life, where my focus was often “waylaid”
by superstimulus arts and fandom things.
Or, it’s unpredictable what subjects someone might be interested in if they’ve never been exposed
to it. I had a classmate who was a total slacker until joining competitive debate on a whim, and
that lit a fire under them to research all sorts of things they had zero interest in before that
moment.
 PhaedrusV says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:56 am ~new~
Besides the 3 R’s, I think most of the best learning K-12 is meta-learning. Learning how to
research something, how to think critically about information, how to become an expert at
something useful, and how to grind out something that isn’t quite as exciting are all skills that will
serve you well throughout your life.
That’s why I like the unschool method, with the caveat you noted about the 3 R’s being necessary
for adulting. My plan is to focus on the 3 R’s regularly, and help the kids learn meta-learning
techniques on whatever other projects interest them.

June 16, 2020 at 1:04 pm ~new~
My old example of that was all the time my kids spent playing Pokemon on their Gameboys. The
skill they were learning was a useless one. But the skill of being dropped into a strange world and
figuring out how it worked and how to accomplish things in it was not.
Hide ↑
 PhaedrusV says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:00 am ~new~
That’s a good description of the benefit of video games in general, and any other interactive
creative media. I expect I’m going to work pretty hard to limit my kids screen time though, not
because things like Minecraft and Factorio are useless, but because of the opportunity cost.
My cousin & her husband are homeschooling/unschooling their kids and they are big gamers, and
they have pretty much allowed unfettered screen time as long as the stuff that has zero merit is
limited to an hour or so a day. In practice, the kids are glued to one game or another pretty much
constantly, and when I compare their capabilities, interests, and personalities to another
homeschooling friend’s kids they fall very short, having not developed any significant interests due
primarily to the low bar for access of mindless entertainment.
On the personal side, I’ve had a tough time breaking free of video games but no trouble with
avoiding TV and movies. TV and movies are too passive for my tastes, and we never even had a TV
in the house growing up. I’d binge at friends’ houses, but by the time I got to college I just had no
interest in it. Video games…. I’ve probably spent around 25-30,000 hours playing video games
over the past 30 years, and opportunity cost was high. I’m going to be trying really hard to figure
out a way to allow my kids access to games, but I’ll be working hard to minimize psychological
addiction pathways, and if they end up showing addictive behaviors I’ll be getting rid of the games
pretty quickly.
It’s not that video games are useless, it’s just that compared to other things kids can learn if they
don’t have dopamine-enhancing, stimulating escapism available at all times… the cost is too high.
Hide ↑
 AG says:
June 17, 2020 at 8:38 am ~new~
Yes. “the skill of being dropped into a strange world and figuring out how it worked and how to
accomplish things in it” is also something that could be accomplished by getting started early on
science fair projects or spelling bee competitions, or other things that could go on the resume. This
is also why I’m very unimpressed by the claims of English Majors that they learn/teach critical
thinking or other soft skills.
Our current college applications process rewards picking a “useful” passion early on and focusing
on it so as to have meaningful accomplishments in it. Playing Pokemon doesn’t get weighted as
much as being in the school band/choir, which doesn’t get weighted as much as doing an internship
somewhere. (But, ironically, no points for working blue collar part time jobs.)
Hide ↑
 Rebecca Friedman says:

June 16, 2020 at 3:36 pm ~new~
When our home unschooled kids approached college age and wanted to go to selective colleges, they
studied the things necessary to fill in holes before taking the relevant exams.
Insufficiently.
I enjoyed math, but I very much did not enjoy the way the SAT did it, and my final score was only
690 – even agreeing it was important, I don’t think self-directed learning is a good way to study
something you dislike. If I knew then what I know now, I suspect I would find a good SAT prep
place and see if I could get a set of classes/focused tutoring/whatever on just the math; that would
probably have gotten me a better score. Given how well Dad did, 690 was rather a disgrace. (Even
if, yes, the other sections were 800s. They don’t count; they weren’t holes.)
That said, it worked a lot better for the subject tests; I picked American History because it looked
easy to study for, read 2-3 test prep books, one lengthy and detailed history book, and the
wikipedia pages for all the presidents (with a bit of editing for typos along the way), and got 770.
Mind, I’m pretty sure I was also pulling answers out of general knowledge, historical novels, and at
least one folk song – American History was easier to study for than World History, but History-in-
general I picked because it fell under my interests.

 PhaedrusV says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:06 am ~new~
Are you still in college? Have you found that you have been limited by lack of early exposure to
things that build up a significant body of knowledge? Not so much for the SAT; I’m sure a 690 in
math and a few 800s got you into whatever school you wanted, but in other studies?
My cousin’s example: She was unschooled, and while very smart, she didn’t have the math
necessary to get into her first choice of veterinary school. She ended up studying chemistry and
doing well, but she felt held back by lack of early and regular schooling in math.
Hide ↑

June 17, 2020 at 3:11 pm ~new~
No and no; that was some time ago, but if anything I think I was better prepared than most of my
peers. The thing is, suppose you land in, say, an astronomy and astrophysics course which uses a
bit of trigonometry, and you never took trig. The course is giving you the formulas anyway, so you
just need to look up a couple concepts and you’re home free. Now that was a core class (a really
awesome core class), so it didn’t have very high math requirements, but in general I found that
being able to quick-research and supplement class materials if necessary for your own learning was
a really useful skill, and in my experience more valuable than having learned the standard
curriculum – given how I did vis-a-vis everyone else. (Either that, or everyone else just didn’t care,
in which case Thinking Learning Is Awesome is the key skill; I got that from homeschooling, too.)
Now, a couple of caveats: I didn’t actually have a very math-heavy discipline I wanted to go into, I
did find classes where most people had an extensive background and I had no background harder,
though not impossible (chemistry) and most of the classes I was taking were ones where I either
had a useful background* or where no background was needed since most people would first
encounter it at the college level anyway. (Geology, for example – though I did have some
background there. Or linguistics, where I had almost none.) The thing is, “writing effectively and
grammatically” “reading effectively and remembering what you read well” and, again, “genuinely
being interested” are skills with incredibly wide utility that my unschooling background supplied me
with in abundance. I was kind of horrified when other students’ reaction to a class** being
canceled was “oh good.” And I was much more willing to go to office hours/raise my hand and
speak in class than most other students, which definitely benefitted me, and in hindsight was
probably because I was raised to think teachers were not scary, and in fact, were on the same side
as me – the side of Knowledge and Learning!
The big things I found myself lacking were mostly practical things like “how to juggle four classes
at once of homework” (I’d previously taken college-level classes, but they were summer classes so
it was one intensive instead of four normal, which makes prioritization easier), and various things
about how I learned/did best in class, but I worked that out all right; the worst consequence was
one D. (Note to anyone reading this who has problems with procrastination: even if you get badly
sick in the middle of a semester, never never never let the kind professor tell you your deadline is
completely gone; you will not actually ever write the paper.) And it was in a 2-credit class, so I
don’t think it even ended up on my eventual transcript.
(Also “how to socialize with other students.” That one, uh, didn’t get fixed, but I’m not sure high
school would have helped; long story.)
… but yeah. I think avoiding bad habits, staying passionate, and developing writing/reading to the
extent I did was more use than the standard classes would have been. Also the independent study
skills thing.
Oh, and thanks for the compliment, but no; that SAT score, plus a 770 and an 800 on SAT subject
tests and some presumably glowing teacher recommendations from local university faculty (I took
Italian over the summer at SCU; the teachers liked me), got me waitlisted and then rejected from
my top choice, rejected from most of the others…
… except for two, both of which offered me merit scholarships. Not being able to submit high
school grades makes your results really swingy. It’s the big cost to unschooling, in terms of getting
into college; I might have done better with 800/800/800, but even then I’m not sure I would have.
I was prepared, but they could not tell I was.
* Singing in early music choir = having lots of memorized latin texts, which makes learning latin
much easier; it also provides memorized texts in a bunch of other languages, in case you want to
learn Italian or Spanish or German instead. And just being widely read gives you an effective
background in so many different things.
**OK, my favorite class that period. Still.

Hide ↑
 PhaedrusV says:
June 18, 2020 at 6:44 am ~new~
Interesting about the need for high school grades. Did you ever consider going to a junior college
first, or would you try that route if doing it all over? I also didn’t have any official high school
transcript due to homeschooling (I think my mom might have written a long list of the things I
studied and wrote “4.0” at the top of a page, but maybe not, it’s been awhile). I did get an AA in
liberal arts at the local JC, and then it was easy to get into my top choice as a transfer student with
a 3.85 GPA and 1470 on the SATs.

I’m not sure whether the JC grades or the time difference was more important though; my college
applications were back around 2002, and based on your dad’s blog it looks like yours were closer to
2010 and I heard things got rougher for college admissions in that intervening decade.
I agree entirely about the importance of developing a love of learning and ability to teach yourself;
no question that anyone who has those and a few basic academic skills at 18 will do just fine in
college and beyond.
I’m very much on the fence about how formal to make my kids’ education when the time comes.
The different facts I’m trying to balance are:
1) I know that formal math, reading and writing and informal everything else works great, and
renders the student completely capable of doing well in a demanding degree, because I
experienced that type of homeschooling and then sailed my way to a 3.3 in mechanical engineering
without needing to study outside of class.
2) I strongly suspect that unschooling with some effort to build a interest in learning important
math concepts like arithmetic and statistics would work just fine as well, based on several people I
know or have chatted with online
3) I’ve studied classical education a moderate amount, and I feel like it would be a mistake to
dismiss any of the parts I don’t really get the purpose for, like the early rote memorization, simply
because of the length of development and depth of the classical education system that we threw
out and replaced with the Prussian model in the late 19th century. It’s hard to argue against the
fact that some students brought up with the classical model had outcomes far superior to even our
modern home- and un-schoolers.
I’ve got some balancing to do. I expect I’m going to build a continuum reaching form unschooling
to classical, and let each kid find the place that they can learn the most on that continuum.
Hide ↑

June 19, 2020 at 12:40 am ~new~
Junior college… Like community college, an associate’s degree? I’d have to do more research, but
my instinctive reaction is negative; my first choice was Vassar, and I don’t think they would have
approved. Now, taking some classes at a local community college while I was high school age,
purely for the transcript, and not worrying about the Associate’s degree, sure; quite possible I
should have done that. But I would, perhaps naively, have expected a college like Vassar or
Stanford to turn up its nose at someone who got an Associate’s degree instead of applying at 18 –
think how snobbish Stanford already is about transfer students of any kind – unless they had an
obvious, sympathetic justification (ill family member, poverty, etc.), and I didn’t.
(Theoretically the grades from the classes at Santa Clara University should have helped, but
apparently not enough.)
As far as the general question of homeschooling goes, a few general thoughts:

– For encouraging an interest in statistics, may I recommend How To Lie With Statistics? The
companion volume, How To Take A Chance for probability theory, is also really fun.
– We didn’t have formal math, reading or writing. I was slightly disadvantaged in math, though I
think just leaning on it a bit more would have solved that – find some fun books of exercises and
offer to check them for the kid, or something. Maybe a good math-teaching game; those worked
wonderfully, but we didn’t have any for high-end math. Obviously would depend on the kid, but I
think that would have worked for me. I was extremely advantaged in writing and reading. I think
my reading lessons consisted of:
“Becca, would you like to do a reading project?”
“OK!”
Followed by going through several Dr. Seus books that I already had half-memorized (Mom read to
me a lot) with me typing the words into the computer (I was better at typing than writing at that
age), and then Mom making sentences with them and our names, for me to read. When I read the
sentences I got to color in the pictures that went with them. (I recently found a few of those,
they’re actually quite cute. Mom will claim she isn’t good at art, but she was very good at the
useful-skill-for-a-homeschooling-mother level.) For the fourth book she bought a new Dr. Seus
book that I had never read before, we started going through it the same way, and then she had to
go do something else, and when she got back I had finished the book. That was my last reading
lesson (although I did sometimes ask her how to pronounce words after that, especially when I
started reading Elizabeth Peters, who was doing historical mysteries and therefore had somewhat
archaic language.) And Mom did frequently hand me books – any time I asked, or had a cold, or of
course that was my default birthday present. And I think we sometimes talked about books,
though more as I got older – not a lot as a younger kid, not beyond “this book is great! Does the
author have any more?”
My writing lessons consisted of (at around the age of 15) “Hey Mom, look at this thing I wrote for
my game!”
“Hmm. Have you considered paragraph breaks?”
“… Ah-ha! I knew something was wrong! Thanks, Mom! <3"
… plus a whole lot of practice. It helped that I had a strong interest in writing, both stories and
essays, and I sometimes showed things to Mom for comment, but mostly not – I mostly just got
better by doing it.
So in terms of your 2) my experience would bear that out.
– I would be a bit wary of comparing "students brought up with the classical model" with "modern
home- and unschoolers" just because of the numbers involved, unless you're being careful not just
to notice the stand-outs. A method everyone is using is much more likely to provide exceptional,
well-known prodigies than a method very few people are using. That said, if you've controlled for
that, I'm certainly not in a position to tell you you're wrong. And "let each kid find the place that
works for them" sounds like a really, really good idea – kids are different and need different things,
and if you've figured that out and have a good idea of how to be flexible with it, you've already got
the most important insight and should be just fine.
Have you thought a lot about socializing? That was probably where our model had the most
trouble; I was painfully shy, so I'm not sure what we could have done better, and introverted
enough that just spending much less time than average with unrelated other children worked out
fine for me, but a more socially-inclined child might not have done as well with it. It's certainly
something I'm thinking a good deal about for when I have kids – how does one find a good
community for child-rearing?

Hide ↑
o Thomas Jorgensen says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:25 am ~new~
Okay, my first post buried the lede too deep. Most of the things people suggest, both here, and
basically, always, are very, very expensive. In the 10-40 thousand dollars per year range.
Potentially higher, if it is “have a university graduate homeschool the kids instead of working”.
Tutoring does not cost that much. So, before you go wait-list at “Fancy-pants wallet Vampire
Academy”, consider the alternative of spending that amount of money on one-on-one tuition
instead. Because the academy is not going to teach your kid more than twenty thousand dollars
worth of tutors per year. That level of hothousing is the kind of thing that lets you hammer 4 or
five languages into the vic.. childs head by graduation at the customary age, or gets them into an
ivy at 16.
 PhaedrusV says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:17 am ~new~
I’m really tempted by the idea of a small school with 4-5 students modeled on the “teacher on one
end of a log and student on the other” ideal. LOGos Academy? Something like that. Micro-schooling
is an under-developed concept, and obviously there are newly rediscovered benefits to reducing
overhead and indoor time.

June 17, 2020 at 10:12 am ~new~
George Stigler said that, after many years of teaching, he had concluded that it might be just as
effective to sit on the student and talk to the log.

 PhaedrusV says:
June 18, 2020 at 6:49 am ~new~
Yup, that’s the quote I was thinking of, thanks. Oliver DeMille’s series on leadership education
(beginning with “A Thomas Jefferson Education”) is focused on the classical system coupled with
great mentorship.
Hide ↑
o rahien.din says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:52 am ~new~
Mostly unschooled. Talk to them every day about what they learned from the day.
Lots of PE and team sports to develop social integration and physical health.
Long undirected periods aimed at making them bored and forcing them to master it.
Traveling around our country to see nature and history.
Chores, both in maintaining our home, but also giving them projects that require some persistence.
Intermittent tutored short courses or seminars in subjects that require directed instruction and
graded practice.
Require them to read broadly and to take notes on every single thing they read.
Ad hoc Stoicism.
In principle, I would want to teach them curiosity, self-mastery, and Rao-ian mediocrity.
June 15, 2020 at 10:13 am ~new~
Long undirected periods aimed at making them bored and forcing them to master it.
This seems like a good way of avoiding the modern-day attention-deficit that forced task-switching
can create.
o ksdale says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:41 am ~new~
We’re homeschooling our 4 kids, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and one thing that I
believe is drastically underrated is whether kids *want* to learn. Most discussion of education
systems focuses on what adults should do to kids day in and day out to get them to learn. But they
basically all assume that education happens for most of a day, for most of a week.
But, when the kids are younger, especially, a single weekend spent obsessively on a single topic
can cover as much ground as weeks or months of a school’s coverage of the same topic. This also
tracks with my recollection of my own education, where I would easily speed ahead of the class in
anything I was remotely interested in, and it wasn’t until college that the daily reading actually
reached the quantity of “things I’m interested in”.
And then there’s actual retention of material. My own mental model of this is something like if the
kids aren’t interested in something, but you teach it to them anyway, they’ll retain 20% (or less) of
it. It they are interested, they’ll retain 90%.
Combining the fact that kids can cover so much more ground on their own if they’re interested, and
the fact that they retain so much more when they’re interested, the vast majority of our
educational effort should be spent trying to make them more interested! And if they’re not
interested, we shouldn’t try so hard to teach them that we make them resentful, because it’s far
more important that they *eventually* become interested than it is that they learn any particular
thing *today*.
An oversimplified version of this is – If they never become interested in learning, they probably
won’t learn anything in school anyway. If they do become interested in learning, school will be
almost unnecessary.
Anecdotally, I work in an office with people whose kids are the same age as mine and in public
school, and I am surprised by both the quantity of work they do and how little ground they seem to
cover.
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:47 am ~new~
Yeah, I am becoming increasingly convinced that it is virtually impossible to teach anyone
(including adults) something that they don’t want to know.
You can sort of game the system by incentivizing them to want to know the things you want them
to know (i.e. your boss tells you to learn a new software system, you don’t really “want” to, but
you want to get fired even less, so you learn it), but this will only last for as long as the incentive
remains in place (i.e. you begin to forget everything you learned about Biology the second you
pass the final exam, unless you either really like Biology or will continue taking courses on it or
working in the field).

June 15, 2020 at 1:36 pm ~new~
and I am surprised by both the quantity of work they do and how little ground they seem to cover.
When our kids were in a very small private school on an unschooling model, before we switched to
home unschooling, some of the kids decided they wanted to learn math. The class started
assuming no knowledge at all, got into algebra by the end of the year.
 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:06 pm ~new~
This sounds like the culinary school model, or other “teaching professionals” classes. They
assuming zero preexisting knowledge, but the students are entirely self-selected (and with a clear
incentive+application structure of helping their careers), and that enables covering topics at a
greater density than primary or even secondary schooling.

 ksdale says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:18 am ~new~
Interesting! I’ve also often wondered something like – Assuming a person learned basic literacy
and arithmetic (or maybe assuming they didn’t?), and assuming they cared, how long would it take
to teach, say, a 16 year old, everything from each year of the average school curriculum.
Reading through the first grade curriculum when my oldest was that age, I just kept thinking “We
can work on that every day for a month…. or I can wait a few months until he’s older and teach it
to him in a few days…” And this has worked without fail, going on a few years.
I have this weird feeling in my gut that we could actual fit the whole 13 years of K-12 into a few
years between 15 and 18 (mostly because the vast majority of stuff that is taught for the first
several years could be learned in a couple weeks by an attentive young adult). And the reason this
*feels* like a bad idea is because the only experience we have with people who make it to that age
without completing that much school are almost perfectly selected to not be diligent learners.
But then everything is made much more complicated by our… privilege is the word that comes to
mind? Not all children have parents who are as attentive as my wife and I. I cannot imagine my
kids not being literate, even if I never made an effort to teach them anything, because it’s basically
impossible for a person to exist in our house without learning to read through osmosis. We just do
too many activities that require reading. The same goes for basic math, and numerous other
things, I’m sure. This makes a lot of schooling feel redundant because, “Why wouldn’t you learn to
do that anyway?” and that’s just not an option for a lot of people.

June 16, 2020 at 9:23 am ~new~
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/01/13/why-do-test-scores-plateau/
A twelfth-grader’s brain is more mature than a first-grader’s. Louis Benezet experimented with
teaching children no math until seventh grade, after which it took only a few months’ instruction to
get them to perform at a seventh grade level. It would sure be awkward if that was how
everything worked.
Hide ↑
 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:41 am ~new~
I remember in elementary-through-high school being constantly annoyed about how math concepts
I’d learned in lower grades were constantly being revealed as useless, incorrect or kind of harmful
to my current understanding of math.
I could normally adjust pretty easily, but I remember that starting in 8th grade or so, most of the
people who struggled to understand new concepts were mostly having trouble not because the new
concept was more difficult, but because it seemingly contradicted something they’d previously been
taught.
I think a significant number of people in my classes would have been substantially better off just
learning math from first principles at say, age 15, than they were having to trudge through 9 years
of traditional education.
Hide ↑
 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:43 am ~new~
I don’t remember anything in math through middle school or high school directly contradicting
anything that came before.
What are some examples?

Hide ↑
 Aftagley says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:56 am ~new~
Contradict might be a bad word, but it definitely established certain principles of understanding
that I saw people struggle to overcome.
Take for instance the basic math problem: 3 + X = 5; solve for X
I think I started seeing questions like this maybe in second or so grade. Definitely by fifth grade
they were pretty common, and had been applied to operations other than addition, and had even
moved past whole numbers so that you might see 4x=26, solve for X.
This created a pretty strong association in my classmates’ minds that X wasn’t really a variable so
much as a mask obscuring another number. Once you see an X, you use the rest of the equation to
figure out what X is. Even when you start getting into quadratic equations, it’s still all about trying
to solve for X.
Then, at a certain point, you get to algebra, it’s revealed that no, actually f(x) is a function, x can
be anything and it’s all about trying to model how the function behaves. Solving for f(x) = 0 is
somewhat useful, but the purpose is no longer to solve for x.
I know multiple non-stem people who basically never made that jump and “solve for x” comprises
their total understanding of math. I kind of feel like if they’d been taught from the very beginning
that variables can, and in fact do, stand for anything in functions they would have been much
better off.
Hide ↑
 Fahundo says:
June 16, 2020 at 10:29 am ~new~
Huh, I never noticed any confusion between those two uses of X.

Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 1:07 pm ~new~
because it’s basically impossible for a person to exist in our house without learning to read through
osmosis.
My wife taught our daughter to read, largely using Doctor Seuss books, in particular a subversive
text entitled “Hop on Pop.” Her brother, three years younger, observed the process and taught
himself.
Hide ↑
 Randy M says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:34 pm ~new~
Her brother, three years younger, observed the process and taught himself.
Hopping?
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 2:56 pm ~new~
@Randy: Hopping on his father, David Friedman. Like he said , it’s a subversive book.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 10:08 am ~new~
I would take my kids to at least a couple of educational psychologists (preferably with different
backgrounds and education themselves) and ask them to figure out what seems like the best ideas
for each of my particular children.
Periodically during their education I’d have them re-evaluated.

 PhaedrusV says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:26 am ~new~
You might end up disappointed with the quality of the educational psychologists’ insights.
Observing your kids yourself and just bothering to try to figure out stuff that works with them will
yield plenty of fruit.

June 15, 2020 at 11:27 am ~new~
We will probably end up doing public school for basically social interaction and reality-check
services, with actual learning handled by private tutors (there are lots of colleges in town to source
affordable tutors from) and our own efforts. Teaching the children to think about school as basically
a silly day-job and learning as what you do on your own when you’re interested in something or
want/need to master a skill will be the goal.
In an ideal world, some kind of group home/unschooling effort with other interested parents, but
I’m not sure how easy that would be to do here.

 PhaedrusV says:
June 17, 2020 at 6:29 am ~new~
Legal restrictions notwithstanding, most areas in the US have very active homeschooling co-ops
these days, and if there isn’t already one you might be surprised at how easy it is to start one if
you’re willing to reach out to people.

June 17, 2020 at 7:21 am ~new~
Thanks! I hadn’t looked at this as we don’t plan on having kids for a few years, but I have to say
the HSLDA website may actually be the most intuitively useful one I’ve come across recently.
 PhaedrusV says:
June 18, 2020 at 6:51 am ~new~
Yeah, they do great work. We’ll be getting a lifetime membership when the kids are of age. Their
research was also critical to my decision to move to Texas over Tennessee a few years ago.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 1:11 pm ~new~
In our case it was unschooling, with a lot of interaction of the kids with us. We alternated who put
each of the two of them to bed, generally spent half an hour doing it, telling stories, or reciting
poetry, or giving them simple math problems to solve in their head (two equations in two
unknowns rigged to have simple integer answers), or talking about something. Lots of conversation
at the dinner table. Encouraging them in what they found interesting. Unlimited internet access
when the web became available and interesting, unlimited computer use, subject to available
resources (initially only one computer in the household that all of us shared, later each of us had
one).
For more on the subject, see the articles on my blog.
Initially they were in a small private school run on Sudbury Valley lines (unschooling), then when
that developed problems done at home.

o Elementaldex says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:49 pm ~new~
If one happens to be *cough* unusually lucky *cough* have their retired grandparents who live 40
feet away, have homeschooled four children, both have masters degrees (one in education, and
desperately want to be involved in their education homeschool them.
That seems like it would work.

48. mikk14 says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:56 am ~new~
I’ve written a paper about how content policing on social media tends to penalize neutral and
unbiased news instead of extreme points of view and misinformation (at least the way it’s
implemented now): “News on Social Media: It’s not Real if I don’t Like it”
http://www.michelecoscia.com/?p=1816
Right now, Facebook uses this crowdsources flags: users flags and stuff that gets flagged a lot is
passed to expert fact checkers. From real Facebook data, I can see that most of the fact checkers
get handed mainstream information. So I built up a model that can explain the data, and uses a
mix of confirmation bias and homophily (= echo chambers). The model shows that extreme news
don’t get out of their bubbles, thus they don’t get flagged, while mainstream news can percolate
easily through the network, and so the extremists flag it.

o Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:38 am ~new~

The model shows that extreme news don’t get out of their bubbles, thus they don’t get flagged, while
mainstream news can percolate easily through the network, and so the extremists flag it.
I have only been censored once by Facebook, and it was for linking to inappropriate content, i.e.
factual information in a forum I would very much describe as an echo chamber. One of the more
enthusiastic participants also tried to cancel me by messaging my FB friends about how I was a
nazi troll or something like that.
So while N=1, I think the flagging method only serves to eliminate contrary or unpopular views,
and doesn’t serve any real purpose of eliminating false information.
(In this forum, I think the ‘Report’ button is mostly clicked by accident – hopefully in a uniformly
random fashion 🙂
 10240 says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:22 am ~new~
Were you censored by Facebook, or by the admins/moderators of a particular group?

 No One In Particular says:

June 18, 2020 at 8:25 pm ~new~
One can argue that if the admins censor using tools provided by Facebook, then Facebook is a
party to the censoring. It’s Facebook that ultimately decides what gets posted’ admins are just
advising Facebook what they want censored.

June 19, 2020 at 8:02 am ~new~
It seems to unnecessarily muddy difference between “content banned sitewide” and “content
banned in a specific group”.

Hide ↑

June 19, 2020 at 5:51 pm ~new~
@mathkoniecz
If you want to make that distinction, then I think you should ask “Was it banned sitewide or within
a specific group?”
Hide ↑
o No One In Particular says:
June 18, 2020 at 8:28 pm ~new~
Places like Facebook really need meta-moderation, where you can flag flags, and people who are
inappropriately flagging things get a timeout. And of course at some point actual Facebook
employees need to be involved; any peer system can be rigged.


June 15, 2020 at 12:49 am ~new~
I recently had to rewrite a message to a friend, because without thinking I’d written “thank you for
your concern”, but what I meant was “thank you for your concern”, not “fuck off and die in a fire”.
Internet-speak is weird.
o Trofim_Lysenko says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:26 pm ~new~
If I’ve parsed you correctly that predates the internet by decades, if not centuries and flourishes all
over.
“Thank you for your valuable feedback” from anyone in retail/customer service means either
exactly that or “For the love of god go away”, for example.
Or my favorite, the many and varied meanings of “Yes, sir.” in the military.
50. toastengineer says:

June 15, 2020 at 12:39 am ~new~
Hey Eric T:
If 40 years from now my kid asks me what the social justice movement was about, what should I
tell him?
o Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:43 am ~new~
I don’t see a decimal point in the thread number.

 toastengineer says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:35 am ~new~
Yeah, I’m specifically only asking for the pro side here. I think that makes it fall short of the line.
June 15, 2020 at 4:52 am ~new~
Post about anything you want, but please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics.
I figure the future of the social justice movement definitely counts as a hot-button topic and should
therefor go into the fractional threads.
Only asking for (and thereby allowing) one side of the discussion is incredibly frustrating for the
people on the other side of that discussion.

 Anteros says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:26 am ~new~
@toastengineer
It’s the topic that is CW. Scott specifically says

please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics
o eric23 says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:05 am ~new~
Interesting you say “was”

 Viliam says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:07 pm ~new~
There are two possible ways for that to happen. First, people will lose interest. Second, in my
opinion more likely, a newer variant will appear under a new name and young people will move
there. Either way, in 40 years words “social justice” will mean “what old people did back in 2020s”.
o Eric T says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:00 am ~new~
I’ll try to avoid any CW topics and just give a sort of generic answer:
It’s a bunch of people seeking for more equity in and fairness in a society we think is deeply lacking
in those things.
51. abystander says:

June 15, 2020 at 12:27 am ~new~
Another hypothesis as to why the stock market has been going up in the face of the pandemic is
that gamblers who normally bet on sports have put money in the stock market.
o Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:20 am ~new~
The always-excellent Matt Levine has coined the term Bored Markets Hypothesis for this theory,
particularly with respect to specific stocks/sectors (e.g. bankrupt stocks that are suddently worth
100’s of $millions again). “You could have a model of bored retail traders as the ultimate value
investors: When no one else ascribes any value to a company’s stock because it is literally
bankrupt, they will buy it for the lulz.”

 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:35 am ~new~
Can you toss a link to where he describes this?

 Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:41 am ~new~
That particular quote was from his June 9th column
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-09/the-bad-stocks-are-the-most-fun
I can’t find his first reference to BMH, but he’s talked about the theme a lot, e.g the first half of this
column: here https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-30/if-you-re-bored-you-can-
trade-stocks
 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:46 am ~new~
Thanks!
Hide ↑
o PhaedrusV says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:37 am ~new~
Turns out it looks like it’s some crazy reddit thread of day traders.
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:43 am ~new~
I’m still not sure whether wallstreetbets is serious and/or ironic.

 PhaedrusV says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:57 am ~new~
Well I think it’s safe to say it’s not serious.

o anon-e-moose says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:00 am ~new~
This is one of those stories that sounds plausible to a layman, but is absolutely laughable to
someone in the field. The premise that mom n pop retail investors are driving share prices of
anything but bottom-barrel/unlisted/pink sheet equities is insane, and can be discounted
immediately by looking at a depth of market book. “Volume” doesn’t get mentioned once, and
that’s about all you need to know.
A very, very brief explainer: When someone talks about “moving a market” they’re generally
referring to making a purchase so large that it gobbles up the existing float or liquidity and sends
the price higher. Simple concept. Moving the market in a (very) thinly traded security might be
$500k purchase. The percentage of (non-professional) investors who make $500k purchases is
really, really small. And that’s for a thinly traded security. “Moving the market” on something listed
on a major exchange is millions upon millions. A big pension buy might be $50m. And professionals
don’t trade like directly like that–you’re going to shop an order that large around to other dealers
and try to get that filled off market if you can–precisely to prevent running up the price.
TL:DR: This a bad analysis written by someone who’s never actually done the thing they’re writing
about. I can push $1mm lot though pretty much anything in the S&P500 and a market maker will
gobble that up with very little issue.

 Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:49 am ~new~
I agree that it’s mostly nonsense for this kind of retail flow to be driving the market as a whole. But
I think it’s pretty clear that collectively they are driving a few stocks like HTZ that they pile into en-
masse. Options also allow them to have outsize impact relative to their “investment”.
 anon-e-moose says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:54 am ~new~
Can you provide a link to that HTZ detail? I still haven’t see any evidence that retail is driving
anything except the usual retail shit, but I’ll admit I haven’t looked very hard. Not a big matt levine
guy, so very possible I’ve missed something.

 Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:27 pm ~new~
Matt’s article on HTZ is the only specific thing I’ve got handy to link to
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-12/if-you-want-hertz-have-some-hertz
Just in the last week, 96,000 people on the Robinhood investing app opened a position in Hertz
Global Holdings Inc. …
The stock is extremely hard to borrow and was up 10x off its lows after announcing their
bankruptcy plans.
I mean. Hertz filed for bankruptcy on May 22. It has about 142 million shares outstanding; at its
$5.53 post-bankruptcy high, the total market value of its stock was about $785 million. “Hertz’s
roughly $3 billion in corporate bonds were trading earlier this week at around 40 cents on the
dollar,”
So the debtors are asking permission to issue more shares and sell them in the open market (to
put the proceeds towards a larger recovery payment on the bonds).

Hide ↑
 anon-e-moose says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:24 pm ~new~
Beautiful, thanks! My prior comment reads more accusatory than I intended, so sorry for that. Part
of the reason I dislike Levine so much are PopFin stories like this one.
The logical question here is: what % of transactions in HTZ are from “small dollar” traders, vs
what’s being picked up on an big inst’l arb play vs what’s % distressed debt funds. He doesn’t even
try to go there, it’s just an article about what might be a wHaCky cApITAl StAck! What about the
96k open positions on RH, is that the common? weeklies or leaps? What’s the short float? Why is
there such a huge disconnect on the debt vs the equity pricing? (we know, but if you’re writing for
the general public, they might not)
He’s a good writer, but so half-ass.

Hide ↑

June 18, 2020 at 9:19 pm ~new~
You seem to be requiring that the market be moved by individual, large size orders, which is a
rather odd requirement.

52. noyann says:

June 15, 2020 at 12:23 am ~new~
Promising drugs against Covid-19 in a simulation? Sciencedaily, preprint
Abstract: [ … ] We applied a workflow of combined in silico methods (virtual drug screening,
molecular docking and supervised machine learning algorithms) to identify novel drug candidates
against COVID-19. We constructed chemical libraries consisting of FDA-approved drugs for drug
repositioning and of natural compound datasets from literature mining and the ZINC database to
select compounds interacting with SARS-CoV-2 target proteins (spike protein, nucleocapsid
protein, and 2’-o-ribose methyltransferase). Supported by the supercomputer MOGON II,
candidate compounds were predicted as presumable SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors. Interestingly, several
approved drugs against hepatitis C virus (HCV), another enveloped (-) ssRNA virus (paritaprevir,
simeprevir, grazoprevir, and velpatasvir) as well as drugs against transmissible diseases, against
cancer, or other diseases were identified as candidates against SARS-CoV-2. This result is
supported by reports that anti-HCV compounds are also active against Middle East Respiratory
Virus Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus. [ … ]
How are past experiences to give estimates that the found drugs will be effective in vitro and in
vivo? And if so, what would be a realistic time estimate for production increase, and deployment,
first to hospitals, critical personnel and vulnerable groups, later, given that some are already
approved and have passed the required safety testing? There will be no clear numbers, sure, but
still — any experts with a feeling of a well-trained gut? 🙂

o fibio says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:03 am ~new~
Drug development is a very difficult field to make any strong predictions for. Having a list of drugs
that might interact with the infection is a good start but it’s very much at the start of the process.
If nothing else you have little evidence from the discovery phase whether the drug will have a
positive or negative effect on the patient outcomes.
From all these drugs you’ll first have at least a initial trial to detect whether there’s an obviously
negative outcome, and hopefully it’ll be sensitive enough to also demonstrate a positive outcome.
A large percentage will fail this step, either by being harmful or not measurably beneficial, and be
dropped. However, these trials tend to be relatively cheep to run and can be performed
scattershot. Note that, if you’ve got a completely new molecule there will also need to be a number
of safety trials to prove that the drug is not harmful to animals or people, in that order.
Once a company has a molecule that looks to be effective in the initial trials, they’ll move on to a
full clinical trial. This will aim to demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in patient
outcomes over a wide population, generally hundreds to thousands of patients. A fair number
drugs will also drop at this step, failing to replicate the initial success and having no measurable
impact. This happens a lot in new drug development and a lot of these drugs will go on to be
candidates for other uses, but that’s getting off topic and not very helpful for specifically COVID-19
Finally, now that they drug has been proven, it has to be also cost effective. This is beyond my
knowledge as it’s getting into the production side, but the effect has to be greater than the cost to
procure. While this is rarely an issue with infectious diseases which tend to be quite binary whether
they help or don’t, it can still pose a limiter if you don’t have a good candidate. If survival is only
increased by 1% after a $30,000 dollar therapy then healthcare providers are going to be a lot less
keen to take up the final product.
The length of time this will all take is very elastic. Companies will be throwing bundles of money at
their infectious disease pipelines right now, so it’ll definitely be faster than normal, but that doesn’t
mean quick. Each trial takes a couple months to set up, run, analyse and then respond to. They
can be performed concurrently but there’s an upper limit based on staffing (note, generally it’s
nurses running clinical trials… they’re a little busy right now). If a drug breezes through all the
trials and has an accelerated regulatory filing due to the pandemic it might be as little as a year
from discovery to commercialization. If a company has to fall to the backup a few times, effect size
is hard to demonstrate and the FDA gets persnickety, then it could be five.
 Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:15 am ~new~
FWIW, I think that a number of these issues are what made hydroxychloroquine especially
appealing. It was a known drug with decades of widespread use, and it is cheap to manufacture
and administer. The only thing which really needed to be evaluated was effectiveness, where trials
could be performed very quickly.

 fibio says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:59 am ~new~
Yeah, it was a reasonable idea. It was just a shame it became famous. There’s really no point
talking up a drug on a national stage when the initial trials are still going on. The failure rate is so
high that you’re almost certain to look like an idiot by the time the actual results are in.
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:45 am ~new~
and it is cheap to manufacture and administer.
And this lovely little factoid is what we have to thank for the countless conspiracy theories
regarding how this drug is almost certainly super effective but they(big pharma and/or the
politicians whom they control) don’t want you to know it – because then they couldn’t sell a much
more expensive vaccine!

 fibio says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:30 am ~new~
I’m sure it’s just because conspiracy theories in your own area hurt more than those about
someone else’s, but every time I hear this one I just want to scream: “No they wouldn’t want you
to know. That is why the market is set up to stop people from doing it!”
Hide ↑
 Don P. says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:30 am ~new~
Right, because the people who own the one effective treatment/cure for COVID-19 would never
raise the price once they learned that’s what they had.
Hide ↑
 fibio says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:01 pm ~new~
Oh sure they will raise the label, but if its a reasonably well known generic then there will be
twenty companies in India making it within the month for half the original price. Gouging is a
serious problem in the Pharmaceutical world, but it is generally something that you only see in
narrow markets where the cost of entry is much higher than the potential profits. See Valiant and
Shkreli.
Hide ↑
o Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:12 am ~new~

Considering the whole ‘we ran computer simulations that show that spike proteins kinda sorta look
like they might bind to a haem group therefore SARS CoV 2 is obviously infiltrating red blood
corpuscules’ study, I’m not overly optimistic.

o mcpalenik says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:44 am ~new~
I have a little bit of experience with Autodock from about 6 years ago. Docking programs are pretty
hit or miss. Forget about whether this actually extends to in vivo. Even in the simple system that is
being modeled, which is drug/protein or drug/part of protein, the interactions are modeled with so
many approximations, that it’s not even clear that you’ll get a meaningful answer. So, basically
what we get out of a docking algorithm is a list of drugs that have a slightly higher probability than
average of doing something.
I also work with someone who is exploring machine learning for synthetic chemistry (not quite
what they’re doing here, but related). It’s riddled with problems, but you can certainly make it look
like it’s doing a good job.

o No One In Particular says:
June 18, 2020 at 9:22 pm ~new~
Does this raise the question of how likely we are currently in a COVID-treatment-simulation?
53. clipmaker says:

June 14, 2020 at 11:37 pm ~new~
I just read the the Turchin/”Ages of Discord” review, which I hadn’t seen before. Wow. The review
expresses a reasonable understanding of how things get worse in the downward part of a cycle,
and a lack of understanding of how they get better in the upward part. Pikkety is mentioned as a
possible explanation: events like wars decrease inequality by destroying existing wealth. There’s
another book I’ve been wanting to read, which seems to say something similar: The Great Leveller,
by Walter Scheidel. There is an author Q/A and some excerpts from the book in The Economist,
here, which begins:

IN AN age of widening inequality, Walter Scheidel believes he has cracked the code on how to
overcome it. In “The Great Leveler”, the Stanford professor posits that throughout history, economic
inequality has only been rectified by one of the “Four Horsemen of Leveling”: warfare, revolution,
state collapse and plague.
Scary stuff. And the current pandemic seems to be making inequality worse rather than better.
o MeaningIsCultivated says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:42 am ~new~
I don’t think I’ve read the review you’re referring to, but based off your comment you may be
interested in this? https://www.peterleeson.com/Human_Sacrifice.pdf
Praise be to george mason for this kind of thing

 clipmaker says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:00 am ~new~
I meant Scott’s review of Turchin’s book, that Scott linked at the beginning of the post. I should
have been more clear about that. I’ll look at the pdf you linked tomorrow, as it’s past my bedtime
right now. It sounds interesting–thanks!

o Jacobethan says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:52 am ~new~
I haven’t read Turchin. But my impression from Scott’s review is that his theory doesn’t necessarily
require some kind of exogenous wealth-destroying shock (e.g., a war) to reverse inequality; it’s
entirely possible for this to be something elites “choose” to do in a rationally self-interested way as
the tide of discontent rises. I gathered, at least, that that was basically Turchin’s explanation for
the post-1890s reversal: Progressive Era reforms enabling a more widely shared prosperity. The
problem is fitting that sort of homeostatic mechanism in with the other components of Turchin’s
theory, like the notion of elite overproduction.
The other thing to mention is that the interest in Turchin’s having predicted the US reaching a high
point of instability right now is tied to the “short” radicalism/moderation cycle, not the “long”
inequality/equality cycle. And the mechanism regulating the former is a lot easier to conceptualize
(whether you think it actually describes anything in reality or is just a neat model to play with).
As I understand it (again, from Scott’s review), in periods of relatively high consensus and low
conflict moderation starts to look like complacency and lack of imagination, and gradually
radicalism starts to win over more and more converts as people look to more extreme solutions to
society’s problems. Eventually this reaches a local maximum of instability, at which point people
start to associate radicalism more with its excesses and begin pulling back toward moderation as a
proactive, rather than merely passive or inertial, stance.
This dynamic is essentially the subject of the 1983 film The Big Chill, which concerns a group of
friends whose social life revolved around student radicalism in the years before 1970, but who now
reconvene to discover that they’ve all since become to varying degrees actively pro-status-quo.
And there’s a sort of quasi-Turchinian determinism to the way their attitude to this change is
universally like, “Huh? How the hell did that happen to us?”, rather than chilling out being
presented as a fully conscious decision at the individual level.

o 10240 says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:38 pm ~new~
There is a strong assumption here that inequality is a problem, and it should be rectified. In
particular, the view that the rich getting richer is a problem in and of itself, even if the poor is also
getting less poor (as implicitly espoused in that interview) drives me up the wall. What’s so scary
about the pie getting bigger and bigger, but the rich’s slice getting bigger faster than the poor’s?
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:53 pm ~new~
The core assumption is that most people care about relative wealth more than absolute wealth.
That is to say, that they’d oppose a plan where their neighbor gets $100 and they get $10 even if
the alternative plan was that both you and your neighbor get $5.
I’m not really sure if that’s right or not, but that’s the base logic underlying any and all complaints
about inequality.
 10240 says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:06 pm ~new~
That’s precisely what drives me up the wall. Especially when thoughtful middle-class
political/economic theorists endorse rather than condemn that approach.
The origin of why I’m annoyed by it so much is that I grew up in a post-communist country. It was
made very clear to me early on how capitalism works better for everyone (including the poor) than
socialism even though it has more inequality.
I guess the reason many people care about inequality and relative wealth is that for a fixed total,
more relative wealth translates to more absolute wealth, and less inequality translates to more
total utility due to the decreasing marginal utility of money. So people focus on (in)equality, and
sometimes they get so used to it that they forget that it was originally an instrumental value
(useful only to a point) towards the terminal value of welfare, rather than a terminal value.
For some of these people, increasing their relative wealth (if they are taking a personal view) or
equality (if taking a societal view) actually transforms into a terminal value, and they won’t go back
to using absolute welfare as the terminal value even if they recognize that relative wealth was
originally just a heuristic. For others, welfare (personal or overall) remains the terminal value, they
just got so used to thinking in relative terms that they say silly things like that the rich getting
richer is bad—but they may return to thinking in terms of absolute considerations if reminded that
when total wealth is not fixed, relative wealth is only an imperfect proxy for absolute wealth.
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:24 pm ~new~
I suppose it eventually reduces to ‘it’s a zero sum game’ but people complain about using money to
buy power in zero sum games e.g. megacorp lawyer armies, regulatory capture etc, which seems
like a different thing to people just wanting to keep up with the joneses.

June 15, 2020 at 4:49 pm ~new~
Yeah, but caring more about relative wealth means that you don’t really care about wealth at all,
you care about status.

 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:06 am ~new~
Or you don’t trust that your neighbor with their new $100 won’t use it to pay someone to kneecap
you, since you and your neighbor were competitors for something. One has to defend against other
people who care about relative wealth.
Equality is insurance against defection.

Hide ↑

June 17, 2020 at 5:52 pm ~new~
Here in America we have the Second Amendment for that.

Hide ↑

June 18, 2020 at 9:26 pm ~new~
If wealth is a synonym for utility, and people derive utility from status, then status is a component
of wealth.
Plus, status can be used to secure wealth.

Hide ↑
o thesilv3r says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:59 pm ~new~
Having read The Great Leveller, I will say that it’s argument is so well balanced that it doesn’t
really present a strong end position in the end. The main thing I got out of the book was “the
unending resilience of inequality”, sure the Black Death reduced inequality the first time it really hit
Europe hard, but inequality bounced back within a couple of generations and the second and third
time the plague hit the impacts weren’t nearly so pronounced. Similarly, China massively levelled
out inequality (in a bad way!) during the 20th century revolutions, but it has sprung back very
quickly.
June 15, 2020 at 11:46 pm ~new~
I would expect the pattern of inequality over time to be different in a society where income was
largely from property than a society where it was mostly from labor. In the U.S. at present, as I
understand it, income inequality is mostly driven not be wealthy people clipping coupons but by
doctors, lawyers, and other high priced professionals.
In that situation, inequality could increase relatively quickly if the relative payoff to uncommon
skills increased quickly, perhaps as common skills, physical strength, say, became more and more
replaceable by machinery.
It could also increase, perhaps more slowly, due to assortative mating.

54. ArbitraryRenaissance says:

June 14, 2020 at 10:34 pm ~new~
Does anyone know if there are any studies on an individual’s ability to read comprehensively and
quickly? I want to know if this skill is reliably measurable, and if so, if it’s permanently trainable,
and if so, what the best methods for training it are. Currently, my reading speed is about the same
as that of your typical third grader, which makes me kinda hate reading things. I’d be interested in
increasing this, but I also want to make sure I’m not wasting my time practicing methods or tactics
that won’t get me anywhere.

o Hyperfocus says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:08 pm ~new~
Studies: no. Anecdatum: yes! My brother and I are pretty similar in a lot of ways–and he doesn’t
have dyslexia, or anything similar like that–but I’m a way faster reader than he is. The difference
we’ve been able to suss out is that he pronounces each word in his head as he comes across it,
whereas I don’t. I basically treat each word as a hashcode that maps to a concept, and don’t need
to pronounce it in order to understand it.
This site (with which I have no affiliation) is a good way to practice reading without internal
vocalization. Just relax your eyes/mind and see the words. Once you can do that, the only
remaining trick is being able to do that by moving your eyes instead of letting the page do that for
you. At that point, you can blaze through paragraphs with ease.
 Templar15 says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:41 pm ~new~
I suddenly realize that, despite focusing a lot on my internal monologue, I must be doing
something close to hashcode reading, because had to force myself to mentally pronounce
everything while reading The Name of the Wind (I wanted to savor it. It’s a really good book).
On the other hand, I often get stuck writing things because I’m looping through pronouncing each
bit instead of actually writing.

 Hyperfocus says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:50 pm ~new~
Agreed! It blows my mind that the conversation about the moon in the Fae section of Wise Man’s
Fear is made up of rhyming couplets, yet the formatting of the text does not highlight this in any
way, and I didn’t even notice it on my first read.
I just hope to be able to read Doors of Stone before I die.


June 15, 2020 at 6:35 am ~new~
As I recall, Jo Walton has mentioned sneaking sonnets into her prose fiction.
A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson is set in a universe where everything Shakespeare wrote
is literally true. The chapters end with rhymed couplets. For all I know, there might be some
stealth sonnets.
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 7:03 am ~new~
A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson is set in a universe where everything Shakespeare wrote is
literally true.
That summary undersells the weirdness. Because everything Shakespeare wrote is true, including
the anachronisms, the Industrial Revolution is starting during the English Civil War and the Puritans
believe the English-speaking people in 13th century BC Athens were Israelites on their way to
Britain. These are the bad guys and the good guys are Catholic and High Anglican Luddites trying
to save the fairies.
There’s also a cameo by Holger Dankse in an interdimensional pub.

Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 2:39 am ~new~
This site (with which I have no affiliation) is a good way to practice reading without internal
vocalization. Just relax your eyes/mind and see the words.
Does that site actually help you read faster? I’ve always been told that reading fast means that (in
addition to not subvocalizing) you’re using information from surrounding sentences/paragraphs to
more quickly decipher the intended meaning of a word. Training to read word for word seems like it
would be harmful for that.
Also, I’m a pretty strong subvocalizer (I basically can’t read anything without hearing the words in
my head), but even at 400 words per minute, the maximum that site allows, I can easily follow
along with the text. So if the idea is to break you out of the habit of subvocalizing by forcing you to
read really quickly, it’s failing at least on me.

 GearRatio says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:01 am ~new~
It looks as if the underlying technology/app for that page (a program called spritz) allows for as
much as 1000 wpm, and that page itself seems to allow 800 wpm if someone is logged into spritz.
I was too lazy to actually verify this works, but if so 1000 wpm seems pretty respectable for
anybody.
 Hyperfocus says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:49 am ~new~
That’s the idea of the site, but I don’t know why they limited it to 400wpm. Could’ve sworn that it
let you do 800wpm before…
Regarding word-by-word, I’m not an expert on this by any means, but there are definitely limits on
how fast you can read if you do it that way. According to this paper, our eyes perform about 3
saccades per second, meaning that if comprehension time is not an issue, we max out at about
180wpm if reading each word one-by-one. Googling “average reading speed” gives 300wpm, so
quick readers definitely do not just look at each word in order, but chunk by chunk. This is evident
by the “Paris in the the springtime” phenomenon, where we skip the second “the” automatically;
anyone evaluating each word one-by-one would not make that mistake.

June 15, 2020 at 6:36 am ~new~
I just don’t see how I could read like that and still retain as much.

June 15, 2020 at 10:15 am ~new~
practice reading without internal vocalization.
I can do this fine. Until I realize I am doing it! Then I can’t stop vocalizing the words in my head!
o AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:05 am ~new~
A lot of the other comments are about learning to stop subvocalizing, but I say lean into it, and
simply work to read aloud faster. As a part of competitive debate, we had to learn to read evidence
excerpts as fast as possible, and that ended up making us able to read and think even faster.
So: Read aloud with a pen in your mouth. Read excerpts aloud backwards. Read excerpts aloud,
but only every other word. Read an excerpt but say a one-syllable filler word in between every
word. Do those two drills, but reading backwards. Do drills again but with a pen in your mouth.
And then a regular reading, just as fast as you possibly can.
This eventually forces you to be able to comprehend the next word while saying the current word.
55. Some Troll's Serious Discussion Alt says:

June 14, 2020 at 10:08 pm ~new~
How bad is just suppressing the hell out of bad memories/intrusive thoughts/bad emotions really?
The psychiatric establishment takes a dim view of it, but then they would wouldn’t they?
o Aapje says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:29 pm ~new~
The best seems to be to rewrite the memories in a way that neuters the emotional impact. The
second best to suppress them. The worst is to merely relive them, which is something that
psychiatry has historically favored over suppressing memories.

o Briefling says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:38 pm ~new~
I’ve always thought of emotional trauma as being analogous to physical injury. If it’s severe
enough, best to leave it alone for a while. Eventually it should be (gradually) exercised to aid
healing.
o [Thing] says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:42 pm ~new~

What does it even mean to suppress them, in practice? I don’t feel like I have any control over
when they arise, and while I have some ability to choose between giving in to the urge to reject
and fight them, and mindful acceptance, which is less painful but requires more metacognitive
awareness and effort, neither option feels like it’s successfully suppressing the intrusive thoughts,
in the sense of causing them to arise less often or go away faster.

 cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:04 pm ~new~
Therapist here, love this topic.
I would echo [Thing]’s question what does it mean to suppress them in practice? What we mean by
suppress tends to not be very precise and there’s an important distinction between traumatic re-
experiencing and ruminating on negative or obsessive thoughts.
There’s not really a one-size-fits-all answer to “what’s the best way to handle this icky stuff that
comes in”? Partly because the icky stuff has different origin stories and partly because we all vary a
bit in what forms of “handling” feel most possible for us.
A huge amount of the tools and tactics of therapy revolve around this question of what helps this
person deal with the icky content in their head? Very mainstream modes of therapy do sometimes
advocate for simple “thought-stopping” or “distraction” techniques in the face of chronic worrying
or self-critical thinking or other negative content that circles back and back. Those could be
considered suppression techniques.
There’s a world of tools beyond that — replacing thoughts and images, mindfulness practices,
working with the thoughts creatively, bringing other internal voices to speak back to the thoughts,
using body-based techniques to dismantle “rumination” as a self-protection habit, and on and on.
An important factor for many people it seems to me is awareness of what’s going on so that a
person’s default mode doesn’t just keep running in the same way. A person can have a self-
shaming thought running in the background (maybe triggered by something or not) and in
suppressing the thoughts, they simply become irritable and defensive in their interactions with
others, which leaves them feeling isolated and less capable, which makes the shame voices louder.
So in that case, suppression may be kind of like a person with a chronic headache taking Tylenol
over and over again when maybe they have really high blood pressure or are having a stroke. It’s
not getting to the source of the problem and the problem will just keep showing up and
proliferating adjacent problems.
A person who has brought their self-critical voice into awareness and sees what makes it louder
and quieter, how it plays out in their life, what kinds of expectations or beliefs feed it, and has
decided they don’t want that voice driving the bus of their life quite so much — when that person
hears the self-shaming get loud, they can say to themselves, “this voice isn’t helping me, I’m
choosing to ask it to be quiet, and I’m going to actively work to give it less real estate in my head.”
That person is more likely to notice when they are feeling more irritable or defensive with loved
ones and to ask whether that’s happening because they’ve been running a self-critical default
mode in the background more that day. They’re more likely to then ask why that’s happening —
tired, hungry, stressed, some recent difficulty? And they are more likely to opt to cut themselves
some slack as a result of that examination. And the practice of cutting themselves some slack (or
getting rest or food or whatever) is likely to quiet the negative thinking rather than to have it
amplified through unskillful interactions with others.
So a person’s degree of self-awareness when encountering unwanted thoughts has a big impact on
what suppression means and how it plays out.
Traumatic re-experiencing is related to but somewhat different from unwanted negative thoughts
we can ruminate on. In my own practice, I would say tending to traumatic re-experiencing requires
additional pieces of work and that suppressing painful memories without a larger treatment plan or
understanding about what this material is about is problematic.
In general, if a person is repeatedly re-living either the experience of or the painful emotions
associated with a trauma (and I would include things short of life-threatening, like school bullying
or experiences of humiliation in here), then just continuing to suppress the feelings when they re-
surface is not going to help them recover. There are tons of ways for a person to productively
“process” a traumatic memory so that it doesn’t keep intruding and none of them is inherently
better than another. But just “stuffing it” is more likely to lead to depression, substance abuse, and
other problems.
o Yug Gnirob says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:38 am ~new~
Pure guesswork, but I’d worry that once you start suppressing bad memories, you’ll get used to it
and start suppressing ever more trivial bad memories until you’re just ignoring any negative
information that comes in.
 cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:17 pm ~new~
Yes, and it also tends to cause emotional numbing at the other end as well and so tends to reduce
the capacity for joyful feelings.

o noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:40 am ~new~
There is a substantial cost in evasive behaviour, flashbacks, being permanently tense and cramped,
bad sleep, maybe more in the areas of relationship and work. Anxiety also has a tendency to
generalize.
No comparison to the serenity after shedding that burden though long and gentle and/or intense
moments of kathartic therapy, from before of which it is nearly impossible to imagine what the
difference will be. The psychiatric establishment position is a Chesterton’s fence.

56. Soy Lecithin says:

June 14, 2020 at 10:08 pm ~new~
In 2010, Santa Fe art dealer Forrest Fenn hid a treasure chest filled with gold somewhere in the
Rocky Mountains. He made a poem with clues leading to its location and, through a book and
various media appearances, invited people to hunt for it. About a week ago he announced that
someone had solved the clues and found the chest, ten years after the treasure hunt was started.
Since then things have gotten a bit crazy. There has been no word on who the finder was, or (more
interestingly) where it was, and Fenn himself has been unresponsive to requests for more info. Not
so much as a photo of the chest or of its location have been revealed. It’s only been a week, but
many people are warming up to the idea that the whole thing was a hoax. Various even wilder
theories have been proposed on the big forums about the treasure hunt. (And I mean wild. I think
people with crazy far-fetched ideas end up overrepresented in these online communities. Some
solutions to the poem I’ve seen over the time I’ve been following this are pretty bizarre.)
Since the treasure hunt was declared over, multiple people have claimed to be the finder, though
none particularly credibly. There is a woman suing Forrest Fenn and the anonymous finder because
she believes her computer was hacked and her correct solution was stolen. There’s also a
mysterious website claiming the treasure was found already in August and auctioned off in May.
I got into this too late, just a few months before it was found, but even now that it’s been found
I’m still enjoying following the rabbit hole. Any fellow Forrest Fenn treasure hunters here?
o Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:00 am ~new~

Any fellow Forrest Fenn treasure hunters here?
I’ve watched it from the sidelines, I never got involved.
I think people with crazy far-fetched ideas end up overrepresented in these online communities.
Some solutions to the poem I’ve seen over the time I’ve been following this are pretty bizarre.
Yeah, I’m not sure why, but the online portion of this crowd was really bizarre. My first exposure to
the site was a reddit thread where someone posted about how they knew their “solve” was correct
because they’d found a special message from Fenn while out looking. The message they’d found
was a particular pile of stones that couldn’t have formed naturally. The person posted a picture of
the stones, then said they’d cleared it to keep other’s off their tracks.
The picture the person posted was of a trail cairn; something that hikers leave for eachother to
mark a trail path that’s not super obvious. This person had not only not known what it was, but
had also destroyed it, potentially making the path harder for fellow hikers. That’s an extreme
example, but that same kind of basic ignorance when it came to the outdoors seemed to be
endemic in the community.

It’s only been a week, but many people are warming up to the idea that the whole thing was a hoax.
I am very confident it’s either a hoax, or that he fed the solution to a friend.
o Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:38 am ~new~
The question whether the whole thing is a hoax interests me; I’m reminded of a very different and
very similar puzzle, the epitaph from Umineko, which despite being cruelly geographically specific
did have a solution, and one person, apparently, hit very close to it. Gwern discusses the story on
his book reviews page, if your browser can handle it. The relevant quote is from fn. 1:
Apparently one Japanese who actually was living in Taiwan almost solved it; from a post-Umineko
interview:
KEIYA: I have heard and researched a little about that person who solved the epitaph, it seems it
was someone who did a homestay in Taiwan, right‽
Ryukishi07: It seems like that. I have a faint memory of reading something like “I am overbroad in
Taiwan right now”. But, even those this theory was basically the correct answer, it was still
following another popular main theory. It’s really like in Umineko itself, isn’t it‽ I thought to myself
that this was actually close to the final answer of the riddle that I wanted to give in the main
Episodes, but even though there are many followers, there were as many people who wouldn’t
believe it and kept searching for alternatives saying, “I don’t buy it, let’s look at it differently!”.
Gwern himself calls it “the equivalent of a Sherlock Holmes mystery.”
57. WoollyAI says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:05 pm ~new~
If you’re suffering from Gender Dysphoria or work with people that do, live in California, and are
trying to get insurance to approve related health care expenses, I recommend you look into
Independent Medical Reviews at the California Department of Managed Health Care.
An Independent Medical Review in CA is when you insurance does not approve a procedure, you
can appeal to the state and an independent group of state experts will review the case and either
uphold or overturn your insurance company’s decision. If they overturn it, the company is required
to pay for it. The state has provided a wonderful dataset on this for every case in the past 20
years, https://data.ca.gov/dataset/independent-medical-review-imr-determinations-trend1.
I was doing some unassociated research and was surprised to discover that Gender Dysphoria is
one of the best predictors of whether a decision will be overturned or not. There’s been 132 cases
regarding Gender Dysphoria and in 116 of those cases, ~88%, the insurance company’s refusal
was overturned. This means that people suffering from Gender Dysphoria looking to get insurance
to cover facial feminization surgery, mastectomy, breast augmentation, or other services have a
great likelihood of forcing their insurance to cover these procedures by appealing to the state.
I don’t have the background or connections to look further into this but I’m posting this in the hope
that someone with a personal or professional interest in this can get some utility and help some
people with this.

o cuke says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:43 pm ~new~
This is cool to know!

58. hash872 says:

June 14, 2020 at 9:38 pm ~new~
How’s everyone’s meditation practice going? Is it unusual if, after about 20 or 30 meditation
sessions, I don’t notice any difference in my day to day life at all? Everyone keeps saying that I will
notice benefits like greater focus or mindfulness outside of meditation and I…. haven’t, at all, even
a bit?
Overall I’ve gotten a bit better at focusing during the meditation itself, but not much better, and I
still have a ton of random thoughts bouncing around. And, if I’m worked up or excited about
something prior to meditation, I literally cannot do it at all and have to stop early. Is any of this
unusual? Would love to hear what benefits, if any, more experienced practitioners have gotten out
of it
o broblawsky says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:48 pm ~new~
Regular meditation has made me better at recognizing intrusive thoughts as intrusive in and of
themselves. I’m not sure it’s made me any better at dealing with them, but knowing they’re not
part of my normal, healthy internal monologue is a big step forward for me.
o Skeptic says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:04 pm ~new~
I’m sure I will get mocked endlessly for this specific admission…
I find the Headspace app programs moderately beneficial (I know, I’m sure there are better
options). I use the app maybe 85% successfully every morning as part of my wake up routine.
I don’t know if would say I’m more focused, but i would say that i am more able to be objective
and rational throughout the day

o janjanis says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:50 pm ~new~

Is it unusual if, after about 20 or 30 meditation sessions, I don’t notice any difference in my day to
day life at all?
Probably no.
For me it took about 6 months of daily practice before I felt any difference in my daily life. I
suggest learning to enjoy the process itself (as unpleasant as it is) and to be reallly fucking patient
with this.
As for benefits, for me personally they are fucking incredible
1)Pleasure from sensory inputs increases three times
2)Control over my thoughts and mental states
3)very heightened ability to focus in work and social situations
So it did wonders for me, but this isn’t controlled study so YMMV
o Liface says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:29 pm ~new~
I like to use the analogy of meditation as “internal weightlifting”. It’s very rare to see progress
after 20-30 actual weightlifting sessions — it takes months to see progress for many people. Now
imagine that weightlifting is invisible and going on inside your head — how long should it take?
 psmith says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:05 am ~new~
At 3x/week, 20-30 sessions is 7-10 weeks. I would expect to see noticeable progress in 7-10
weeks of focused lifting, particularly in someone who was also paying attention to diet and who
was new to lifting, coming back from a break, or ramping up to a peak.

o zapgun says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:24 am ~new~
hey, I’ve been meditating pretty regularly for the last 3 years, including a couple 10 days retreats.
I was meditating irregularly for many years before that.
I saw an impact of meditation on my life a few times, especially after periods of intensive practice
or when I pickup a practice after a break, but they quickly wear off and in general I don’t see any
sustained effect on my life. I think value of meditation (and many other things – psychotherapy,
psychedelics) is greatly exagerated. You will always find a few people who swear by it, but for most
people, if they have an average level of self-awareness to begin with, meditation will not change
much.
But neither will any other hobby, so I still meditate. I love the moments of deep peace of mind that
I find when I practice regularly. I think it’s better to sit on the cushion than to watch another netflix
show. I don’t hope for a radical betterment though.
To your question about focus during the session – 20 or 30 meditation sessions is really early,
especially if these sessions were shorter than an hours and spread through 20-30 days or longer.
The minds learns to settle if you allow it, but it takes time. My best sessions are usually on days
3/4/5 of an intensive retreat where I meditate for 8h a day.

o PhaedrusV says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:42 am ~new~
I meditated on my own for about 6-8 months and didn’t notice any real changes, and dropped the
practice.
Recently however I tried the “Waking Up” guided meditation app by Sam Harris, and it’s pretty
great. I’m about 24 days in and I’ve definitely noticed significant benefit. The first 6-7 days are
free and after that there’s an annual charge, but if you want a free month Keybase or Reddit-PM
me your email address; as a paid subscriber I can share a free month.

o andrewflicker says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:18 pm ~new~
Hmm. Call me an anecdote for the other side- I agree with the model of meditation as
internal/mental weightlifting, and just like weightlifting, you can see some results quite quickly if
you don’t have a great deal of strength built up already.
When I first started meditating (in high school), I noticed differences outside of active meditation
within about 1-2 months, but only when I made a deliberate effort to “exercise” the same mental
routines/skills/metaphorical-muscles that were used during active meditation. This was
encouraged- my meditation began from a martial arts instructor who was trying to get people to
take the mental attitude from meditation into sparring matches. Eventually, over longer periods of
time, some of the focus/clarity/acceptance benefits bled out into larger parts of my life, even
without deliberate attention to them.
A decade or two later, how much I can get that effect in the rest of my life correlates pretty well to
how much I’ve been meditating lately- it’s very frequent and noticeable in my day-to-day life if I’ve
been engaging in serious, regularly scheduled sessions (3-5 times a week). When I get lazy and
don’t do it, or do it for short, rarely scheduled sessions, I notice less day-to-day effect.
o SamChevre says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:29 pm ~new~

I try to pray a Rosary daily, which is a kind of meditative practice among other things.
What I find is that I can see the effects when I look back at my week, but am almost never aware
of them in the moment. It’s not “I feel more focused”–it’s “huh, I didn’t do {random impulsive
thing that I try to avoid} nearly as much as usual this week”, and “someone was rude and
aggressive and it didn’t leave me angry all day”.

59. Majuscule says:

June 14, 2020 at 9:13 pm ~new~
If you’re in Philly, we’ll be having an outdoor SSC solstice gathering at our home on June 20th. We
can host up to 10 individuals or households while remaining comfortably socially distant. Details on
our Groups page!
SSC Philadelphia
60. Writtenblade says:

June 14, 2020 at 9:05 pm ~new~
True or false: People have been heedlessly taking down Chesterton’s Fences for hundreds of years,
so they must be doing it for a good reason, and unless we know that reason, we shouldn’t try to
make them stop.

o ArbitraryRenaissance says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:32 pm ~new~
Interesting thought experiment. It reminds me of an objection to pragmatism I came up with when
I was an undergrad where it seemed to me that rejecting pragmatism as a theory of truth was a
useful belief for anyone who was interested in learning more about the real world.
I think Chesterton would argue that “heedlessly taking down Chesterton’s Fences” isn’t really a
fence, since nobody propped it up in the first place. It’s not a part of our societal creed that we
routinely take down fences that don’t serve an immediately apparent purpose: it’s just something
that naive people happen to do when they lose respect for their current societal creeds.
You could also argue that we actually don’t have a history of taking down Chesterton’s Fences. We
just have a history of people wanting to do it, then failing to do it when they can’t meet their
burden of proof. I’d need to think about this some more.

o broblawsky says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:51 pm ~new~

Like many philosophical principles, Chesterton’s Fence is just a more sophisticated defense of
‘common sense’, e.g. the stuff you thought was obviously true and correct when you were growing
up.
o Radu Floricica says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:38 pm ~new~
True in general, still need to beware in each individual case. The general argument against fences
in modernity is that things have changed dramatically, and since (for example) agriculture moved
from a 99% of population to under 4%, chances are good the bull is somewhere in a bull factory,
and not in front of you. This is true.
But when you find yourself in front of a fence, you still should ask yourself the question. Not
understanding the purpose of the fence is a potentially dangerous situation. Yes, if the fence looks
old the prior HAS changed to pushing it down, especially if you do it from a bulldozer. But don’t
forget, even at the height of modernity it still turned out AIDS was god’s punishment for
homosexuality.
There’s also another phenomenon here. Many of the bulls left are very slow running these days.
You could actually talk about a generic “bull debt”, akin to technical debt. You take down a fence
and cure disease, feed people, make them more free and happier. And 30 years later you have
depressed, fat, single unhappy people.
Was it worth taking the fence down? Hesitantly, yes. Should we strive to understand where the bull
was? Hell yes. And if we manage to catch the next ones before they slowly gore us, even better.
o original-internet-explorer says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:58 pm ~new~
10 points to Slytherin!
The changes in our culture layer rest on a base layer. The base layer is something about energy –
physical processes.
If you were to cook a food the choice of heat application could be yes or no at time points. The
business has a start – an end. There would be a bound – not too slow not too fast to prevent
poisoning or burning. Inside a range the process might be preference.
We’re trying to not give the Universe indigestion.

o Yug Gnirob says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:54 am ~new~

I’d say “heedlessly” and “for a good reason” are mutually exclusive. Also cows knock over fences
when they can, and they’re not smart enough to have good reasons.
We can also check historical revolutions, and compare the results of the ones with post-revolution
plans going in to the ones with “we’ll figure it out as we go” attitudes, see which ones work out well
and which ones turn into tyrannical bloodbaths, and extrapolate that into how important it is to
understand the purpose of the fence.

o alext says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:19 am ~new~

People have been heedlessly taking down Chesterton’s Fences for hundreds of years
I’m afraid you’ll have to prove this. Then, you’ll need to prove that things didn’t go wrong when
they have, as opposed to when they’ve been *carefully* taking down Ch’s Fences.
o GearRatio says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:27 am ~new~
I think the answer is hidden in the construction of your question and of the Chesterton’s Fence
thought problem itself.
Background assumptions:
A Chesterton’s Fence has implied knowability of purpose, and once someone knows that purpose
they are cleared of CF objections. The point is to fill out one’s knowledge of purpose, and to then
justify one’s taking down of the fence based on that knowledge. The point is to prevent good,
useful fences from being taken down and the risk of this is thought to be enough to justify the
increased responsibility of the reformer.
The fence in the thought problem is not the only fence in existence. Each fence has or lacks it’s
own justification for existing; defeating a single fence does not justify tearing down all fences. It’s
probable that the a foolish reformer actually sometimes comes into existence by seeing other
fences needfully taken down and creating a false algorithm of “fence tearing = good”, and that this
over-simplification is the failing of a reformer. On the obverse, a successful defense of a single
fence doesn’t defend all fences from knowledge-based destruction, and a “fences = good”
oversimplification is the failure mode of a conservative.
A Chesterton’s fence-taker-downer states that he “really doesn’t see the use of it” and wants to
pull it down. He doesn’t have implied knowability of purpose; we know his purpose, which is to
destroy things he doesn’t immediately see the use for.
Implications:
1. Your reformers aren’t the same as Chesterton’s reformers, or your question has already
answered itself.
If your reformer is “known heedless” and would answer as Chesterton’s does, we already know his
reasons; he likes tearing shit he doesn’t understand down. He thinks that’s a good idea under a
general algorithm. We are justified to block him from doing so if we deem his stated purpose to be
harmful against useful fences.
If your reformer is “assumed heedless”, and we don’t know his purpose in tearing down fences,
then we need to figure out if our assumption was right, but we also have a guy who doesn’t fall
under CF’s assertions in the first place.
2. Heedless Reformers are a monolith, Assumed Heedless Reformers are individuals.
All heedless reformers have the same motivation: they don’t like things like fences and unless they
are somehow forced to know a justification for a particular fence will, unchecked, wander around
tearing down all fences regardless of purpose. They are thus resisted as a group – if you run into a
heedless reformer, you don’t let him tear down fences at all until he proves himself heedfull.
Assumed heedless reformers cannot be assumed to be a group that can have done things for
“hundreds of years” as you state. Like fences, they each have a potentially unique purpose, and
like fences each reformer’s purpose is individually contained and is not necessarily justified or
condemned based on defeating the purpose of another reformer.
3. Reformer-defeaters have a lesser responsibility to ask the purpose of reformers, assumed-
heedless reformers have an greater responsibility to tell.
If I see a guy tearing down fences, I need to ask him why he’s doing that, but I’m justified in
stopping him until I can find this out if I’m currently using the fence or know that others are. The
fence already exists and might not be easily rebuilt; he is proposing the change. I can’t be justified
in resisting him forever if he turns out to have well-reasoned justifications for tearing down the
fence, but I get to know why he’s doing it before he causes irreparable damage. Building is
expensive; demolition is cheap. Wandering livestock cannot always be recovered.
On the flip, the reformer has to inform people of why he’s tearing down the fence unless his
purpose is self-evident and immediately necessary. If he doesn’t, anyone who knows or suspects
the fence has a purpose is justified in stopping him.
Stories:
Heedless:
“But you’ve already told me your purpose – you just don’t like fences you don’t understand!” said the
fence-owner. “Haha! Ha!” shouted the heedless reformer, mega-heedlessly from his bulldozer. “But
what if I have, like, a meta-reason I won’t tell you? What if that reason is shared among all
reformers for all history?”. “Do you?” asked the fence-owner, distraught. “Who knows? Maybe! The
part I enjoy is the part where I’m immune from all oversight or controls in a way fences aren’t!” The
reformer yelled, embarking on a campaign of unexplained terror.
Assumed Heedless, Justified, non-immediate:
“Oh, really? I didn’t know I had built the fence out of nuclear bombs that are, if left assembled, going
to destroy the whole of England.” said the fence-owner, now regretting his army-surplus bargain of
yesteryear. “Yeah, I guess I have to let you tear it down now, or else you will be able to convince
others to force me to, since you have undeniable justification”.
Assumed Heedless, justified, immediate
“Your fence is entirely about-to-escape Jeffrey Dahmers!” shouted the reformer. “Well, It’s more
complex than that, but I don’t have time to tell you that and also catch Dahmer-fence! I will explain
later, with the understanding that if my justification isn’t sufficient to sway outside observers I may
face consequences!”
Assumed Heedless, unjustified, unimmediate
“Listen, man – both slats and posts are, like, gross. I think you understand” said the reformer,
unconvincingly. “I don’t understand, and I’m glad I stopped you – I’m not against all fence-tearing,
understand, but you don’t appear to have an actual reasoning here.” said the fence-owner.
Assumed Heedless, unjustified, immediate:
“I’m glad you asked! I think you will find my reasoning compelling!” said the reformer, in his post-
fence destruction refractory period. “It’s this – fuck you, and fuck fences!”.
Assumed Heedless, non-informative:
“You won’t tell me why you want to tear down my fence, but I should still let you destroy my
property just in case you have a reason?” said
the fence-owner, doubtfully. “I know, I know,” said the reformer, oozing rebel charisma from every
cool-ass pore, “Everyone in the Chesterton’s fence thought problem either already had information
or had implied prospects of getting it, and it was never meant or implied to handle scenarios in
which information was impossible to get. But you wouldn’t want to stand in the way of progress,
would you?”. “Is this progress, though?” said the fence-owner, eagerly. “I’ll never tell!” shouted the
reformer, awesomely. “Just let me break your shit!”.
o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:29 am ~new~
I feel like Scott had a post with this thesis a few months ago? Or maybe it came up in the
comments?
This seems to be the center of the argument for and against the Enlightenment.
June 15, 2020 at 7:42 am ~new~

so they must be doing it for a good reason
You have misread Chesterton. There is sure to be (or have been) a reason, but there’s no
guarantee that it was a good one.

and unless we know that reason, we shouldn’t try to make them stop.
This is correct. We shouldn’t try to make them stop until we know why they are doing it.
Fortunately, we’ve known why they are doing it since at least Chesterton’s time. And it isn’t a good
reason. It’s wanting to think of themselves as cleverer than their parents, and wanting to change
the world without all that bothersome “due diligence” that keeps one from making the world worse.
Reason understood, determined not to be good, get on with tearing down that particular fence.
 Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:01 am ~new~
> without all that bothersome “due diligence”
One thing comes to mind is that the “due diligence” itself has a cost to perform. And it’s not
possible to compare the cost of the due diligence itself to the costs and benefits of the action being
taken. Sadly, it’s very possible for the due diligence costs to dwarf the net downside (or upside) of
tearing down a particular fence, and you won’t know until after that cost has been absorbed in the
first place. There’s probably an argument to be made here for exactly the opposite of Chesterton’s
Fence.
 GearRatio says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:31 pm ~new~
One thing comes to mind is that the “due diligence” itself has a cost to perform. And it’s not possible
to compare the cost of the due diligence itself to the costs and benefits of the action being taken.
This seems a little intense considering that the due diligence being asked for is “don’t merely
assume that anything you don’t understand is counterproductive”.
Chesterton’s fence doesn’t demand absolute proof that intervention X creates better results than
Status Quo Y; it demands and you at least sort of have any idea why Status Quo Y exists in the
first place before you burn it down because “old things are bad, new things are good” or similar.

June 15, 2020 at 4:14 pm ~new~
It’s called “Move fast and break things”.

o TheAncientGeekAKA1Z says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:16 pm ~new~
@ArbitraryRenaissance
Interesting thought experiment. It reminds me of an objection to pragmatism I came up with when I
was an undergrad where it seemed to me that rejecting pragmatism as a theory of truth was a useful
belief for anyone who was interested in learning more about the real world.
I find it useful to separate truth and usefulness.
61. Lambert says:

June 14, 2020 at 8:47 pm ~new~
Aristotle testifies that this is the case in his book Concerning the causes of the properties of the
elements (1), in which he says that mortality of races and the depopulation of kingdoms occur at the
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, for great events then arise, their nature depending on the trigon
in which the conjunction occurs.
the next one occurs December 21, 2020 (21:08 UT). At this time Jupiter is 0.1 degree south of Saturn.
The 2020 conjunction is the closest since 1623.
Well that explains everything.
Making the next couple of fractional threads CW-free might be an option. Though I’d understand
Scott not wanting the extra moderation burden.

June 14, 2020 at 10:13 pm ~new~

Making the next couple of fractional threads CW-free might be an option.
I’ve thought for some time that we would be better off splitting up the discussion a bit. Current
American politics, in particular, tends to bring out some of our most vehement posters, and it just
goes on and on. If we had one CW-allowed thread per week, and one non-CW thread per week,
both those of us who want the politics and those who don’t would always have a fairly current
thread to use for our discussions.
Or if we really don’t want to reduce the number of CW-allowed threads per cycle, we could switch
from 3+1 every two weeks to 3+2 every two weeks.
A third option would be to split the threads by topic area, rather than CW/non-CW. If we had four
areas (Politics&Philosophy, Science&Technology, Art&Entertainment, This&That), most of the “CW”
would be in Politics&Philosophy.
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:09 am ~new~
What exactly is the problem we are trying to fix? As far as I can tell, people have been generally
civil in these threads. Is it just volume? If so, isn’t it better to split threads by topic, so have one
fractional thread dealing with American politics, and another for everything else, for instance.

June 15, 2020 at 12:15 am ~new~
Is it just volume?
2,463 RESPONSES TO OPEN THREAD 155.75
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:47 am ~new~
I take that as a ‘yes’, and that you agree that having separate OTs for specific topics would solve
this?
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 4:14 am ~new~
@Ketil: I’m just amused by it. If it were me, I’d be happy to get so many comments. It’s Scott’s
call how he feels about getting 2,463 comments to hidden blog comment threads if and only if
people are allowed to discuss the CW.

Hide ↑
 Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:19 am ~new~
> 2,463 RESPONSES TO OPEN THREAD 155.75
Like you had anything better to do.

Hide ↑
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:00 am ~new~
2,463 RESPONSES TO OPEN THREAD 155.75

Chesterton, from “The Mildness of the Yellow Press” in the essay collection “Heretics”, 1905:
The whole modern world is pining for a genuinely sensational journalism. This has been discovered
by that very able and honest journalist, Mr. Blatchford, who started his campaign against
Christianity, warned on all sides, I believe, that it would ruin his paper, but who continued from an
honourable sense of intellectual responsibility. He discovered, however, that while he had
undoubtedly shocked his readers, he had also greatly advanced his newspaper. It was bought — first,
by all the people who agreed with him and wanted to read it; and secondly, by all the people who
disagreed with him, and wanted to write him letters. Those letters were voluminous (I helped, I am
glad to say, to swell their volume), and they were generally inserted with a generous fulness. Thus
was accidentally discovered (like the steam-engine) the great journalistic maxim — that if an editor
can only make people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing.
😀
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 3:43 am ~new~
There are three parts to the problem: volume, lack of selectivity, and tone.
Volume is simple: this is a very active forum, with a lot of posters saying many things. Lack of
selectivity is about the interface: this system makes it hard to read selectively. If you want to
follow along, you get exposed to pretty much everything that’s said. You don’t have to read every
post in detail, but you do see all the posts. Finally, there’s tone. There are some posters here who
seem to be angry all the time, and the topic of American cultural politics is where I see them at
their worst. There’s just no end to the perfidy of those darn leftists, is there? Wading through the
resulting vitriol just gets tiresome. It’s fine that they are saying what they are saying. I am not
calling for them to be kicked out. What they have to say is sometimes interesting. But I could
stand to see a lot less of it.
This combination of factors (volume, lack of selectivity, and tone) are why I am suggesting splitting
up the discussion somehow. This wouldn’t be a problem if we had an order of magnitude less
volume, or we were using a more sophisticated system that made it easy to read by thread, or the
discussion were being carried out a bit differently.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:08 am ~new~
>There are some posters here who seem to be angry all the time, and the topic of American
cultural politics is where I see them at their worst.
I’d argue that the problem is not the ones who are angry all the time. It’s the ones who are
perfectly pleasant so long as they stick to non-CW topics.

Hide ↑
 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:06 am ~new~
There’s just no end to the perfidy of those darn leftists, is there?
‘Tis yourself that said it! 🙂
Look, we are getting very nearly close to finally having a government in my country after the
election four months ago, and I don’t trust any of the three parties concerned, including my own.
I’m equal-opportunity perfidy, me!

Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 7:08 am ~new~
Look, we are getting very nearly close to finally having a government in my country after the
election four months ago, and I don’t trust any of the three parties concerned, including my own.
Y’all named a Party Fail.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 4:05 pm ~new~
In a satirical Irish TV program from decades ago (Hall’s Pictorial Weekly, on RTE) that party was
named “Feel and Fall” which is fairly close to the correct pronunciation.
Hide ↑
 Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:47 am ~new~
The volume of the open threads has become overwhelming, and I don’t have anything cogent to
say about policing or social justice. I would love science/technology and arts/entertainment threads
to further explore my own particular indulgences with intelligent people.

 Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:08 am ~new~
The volume is certainly voluminous, but the upside is that connections can be made between very
disparate ideas coming into conflict that lead to pleasing, intriguing and enjoyable rambles down
by-ways.
o DinoNerd says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:31 pm ~new~
If the problem is strictly volume, let’s have daily OT threads. (Yes, I mostly appreciate the CW
material, and prefer threads where I am free to discuss current events.)
OTOH, I can certainly understand people wanting at least the same proportion of non-CW threads
as currently (1 of 4). So Let’s say the Wedn and Sunday threads are non-CW every week, and all
the new threads are CW-OK.
Or some vaguely similar concept – 14 threads a week replacing 4 might be excessive, though with
3300 comments in a single thread, perhaps not ;-(
Or auto-spawn a new thread whenever the total comments on a single thread exceed some magic
number. With the same CW-properties as the parent.
Or – spawn a non-CW thread when a CW thread gets oversize, and vice versa (if the latter ever
happens), so those frustrated by the prior thread get some of what they want. (But don’t be
surprised if the folks having a nice CW discussion just stay in their thread, ignoring the fresh minty
non-CW thread.)
And automate the whole thing, because otherwise Scott will just laugh at all these propsals for
giving him extra work.

 Aftagley says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:57 pm ~new~
I would second this proposal, but I realize what my vote counts for.
62. Clutzy says:

June 14, 2020 at 8:21 pm ~new~
With HBO Max now launched, the streaming wars have reached a new level of complexity. No
reasonable person can pay for Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, ESPN +, and all the
others, so what is the stable state that shakes out? I don’t think that, in the end, there are going to
be 3/4 that everyone subscribes to, but I do think the current number is larger than is probably
sustainable. Some of the niche ones will stay, and some will die off. Based on their launches, I
think the CBS and HBO services are in a lot of trouble unless they rapidly adjust, for instance.
o sfoil says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:32 pm ~new~

what is the stable state that shakes out
the pirate bay dot org + a VPN
 cassander says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:34 pm ~new~
you don’t need a VPN if your neighbor has an easily guessable wifi password!
 North49 says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:42 pm ~new~
Exactly; this is a solved problem. Netflix had a huge impact on piracy rates because it was cheap,
convenient, and mostly has all the content. Media companies took exactly the wrong lesson in
thinking people paid for Netflix because it was a streaming service. Making the streaming market
as fragmented and expensive as cable tv is just forcing people to revert to well known and well
developed alternatives.
 Clutzy says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:46 pm ~new~
I think people on forums such as this overrate how much tech saavyness exists in the world. VPN +
Pirating is a personal solution for some 10-15% of the population. But there is a reason a bunch of
kids on Napster got tracked down and faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Most people,
even young people, are not tech savvy. Its distinctly not generational. I know a 70 year old with a
cracked firestick. I also know 20 year olds who don’t know to “try turning it on and off again”
before calling IT. My cousin is in IT for a hospital and its a disaster.
Young people use technology a lot. But they don’t KNOW technology in large numbers. In many
ways the evolution of computers since the smartphone was popularized has increased this problem.
It has definitely not expanded knowledge of tech. Kids know that Insta and Tik Tok are cooler than
Facebook, but they don’t (generally) know anything about how they work.
 HomarusSimpson says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:46 pm ~new~
If you did “try turning it on and off again” it’d still be off and not work.
Although yes. My youngest could use the internet before she could read (so getting to sites by
positional information of menus). Still say’s ‘the wifi doesn’t work’ if there’s no onward connection
and can’t sort out any IT at all.

Hide ↑
o Le Maistre Chat says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:37 pm ~new~
Amazon Prime streaming comes with faster shipping of products, the company’s core competency.
So that stays.
Disney+ and ESPN are both Disney. They’re not going away unless sports stay banned by law or
their own public health decision long enough. Hulu is also tied up in this (Disney became majority
shareholder upon the FOX buyout).
Netflix has first mover advantage, but that doesn’t mean Amazon and Disney couldn’t eat their
lunch in the future.
CBS and HBO are looking like dumpster fires.
Psychologically, I’d predict there’s room for 1-2 streaming service bills in anyone’s life. Most people
will only pay one general-interest streaming bill, and they might have Amazon Prime on top of that.
As sfoil noted, these companies are competing with piracy. Netflix was convenient moral salve
when it had everything.

 Clutzy says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:50 pm ~new~
I think I’d estimate there will be 2-3 that win rights for live events like sports. I know people pirate
live sports, but the quality is much lower than other content. There is a delay to rebroadcasts that
makes it lose something, and also there are huge stability issues with it.
OTOH, one thing live sports and the equivalent of might be able to do is live only on live ads. So
they could remain free?

 Garrett says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:23 am ~new~
It’s interesting. I got rid of my Amazon Prime subscription some months ago. And I’m buying off of
Amazon more than ever due to the pandemic.
I also got frustrated with their streaming video when they went out of their way to avoid
supporting the browser I was using.

o meh says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:48 pm ~new~
what is the total monthly cost of all of them combined, and how does that compare to premium
cable tv costs 25 years ago?

 Clutzy says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:00 pm ~new~
Netflix $13
Hulu $6
Disney $7
CBS $6
Apple $5
HBO $15 (this and starz, showtime, etc are actually similar to their costs if you wanted them added
to cable back in the day, so these are sustainable if they can keep the subspace of customers that
would have subbed to them with cable).
There is also the cost of internet, which here is $80 or so. Now, this isn’t 100% an entertainment
cost. I need it for work as well.
You’d have to tell me what old cable cost. I know my dad would, basically annually, see a change
in the price and then yell into the phone for 2 hours to get his cable price back down to whatever
“introductory rate” he had been at before.

 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:16 am ~new~
You’d have to tell me what old cable cost. I know my dad would, basically annually, see a change in
the price and then yell into the phone for 2 hours to get his cable price back down to whatever
“introductory rate” he had been at before.
You don’t even have to yell anymore, or threaten to cancel. This sort of thing has become so
routine you literally just call and say “My bill went up, can you move it back down?” and they do it.
That said, even the introductory rate is still pretty damn high…
 meh says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:57 am ~new~
No reasonable person can pay for
Like Matt M says below, the prices seam to be pretty reasonable compared to the cost of premium
cable.
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:15 am ~new~
Yeah, I’m paying over $100/month for cable TV and I already have about half of these services, so
I call BS on the “nobody can pay for this” notion.
Now “nobody will want to have to manage 10 different subscriptions and get 10 different bills just
to be able to watch a bunch of shows” is a different case entirely. Part of the reason I’m willing to
pay so much for TV is because it’s just one bill and just one thing I have to worry about and once I
pay it, I can watch basically whatever I want.

June 14, 2020 at 9:54 pm ~new~
Broadcast television eventually consolidated down to three big commercial networks (NBC, CBS,
ABC), one non-commercial network (PBS), and a bunch of independent stations here and there. I
seem to recall something similar happened during the heyday of radio. So maybe three is the
magic number.
Personally, I have Netflix and Prime Video, plus I sometimes use iTunes rentals if neither streaming
service has what I want. I would be reluctant to sign up for a third streaming service, but I tried
Disney+ for a while. I eventually concluded it’s too kid-oriented and cancelled.
 Clutzy says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:09 pm ~new~
Interesting theory. There are also 3 major Cable news channels, but Fox has also proven that a 4th
National Broadcast channel can be sustained. Amazon, Neflix, Disney, Comcast (with one taking
over CBS) might be a stable point. With some other niche offerings that know they will have way
less subscribers still being around.

o brownbat says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:24 pm ~new~
> what is the stable state that shakes out
Serial subscriptions?
A month here, binge, a month there, binge their stuff…
Maybe apps or reminders to help people pull this off.

o Radu Floricica says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:46 pm ~new~
What’s the cost for media? I’m not talking about simply making a copy, that’s bandwidth. But
couldn’t it be that Netflix was actually subsidizing this cost with VC money, and the real cost to
bring _all_ the media on a TV screen is closer to $100 than to $7?
Well, real problem being this “all” – I’m still pissed that the current streaming services seem to be
doing a lot of the choosing in our place. Spotify is a lot closer to what we want – searching for a
random song has much better outcomes than searching for a random movie on Netflixes.
June 15, 2020 at 2:31 am ~new~
AFAIK most of the cost is licensing media not delivery of data, so it is hard to talk about “real” cost.

June 15, 2020 at 6:01 pm ~new~
As a thought exercise, I wonder what it would cost for one individual or organization to buy out all
the major studios etc., so that you owned the copyright to pretty much everything?
Google tells me that Disney is worth $130b, so I guess that sets a lower bound.

June 15, 2020 at 8:20 pm ~new~
Warner Brothers is T (AT&T), which has a market cap of 217.3 billion (very similar to Disney, so I
don’t know where you found that low market cap). Comcast and Sony are then tied for third-
largest share of pop culture copyrights. Comcast has a market cap of 181.8 billion, while Sony… is
Japanese, so good luck buying them out from an American start. Maybe USG would let Sony buy
Disney. AT&T and Comcast? Its total assets are ~21 trillion yen, so only about 210 billion USD.
Speaking of Sony, there’s a lot of copyrighted pop culture outside of the major studios, the biggest
probably being video games. Gotta merge with Nintendo at the very least.
ViacomCBS is in a private holding company owned by the Redstone family, so not for sale. It owns
copyrights like everything by Nickelodeon and Star Trek.

o matkoniecz says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:30 am ~new~

No reasonable person can pay for Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, ESPN +, and all the
others
Rotate subscription over channels, mostly using free periods. Account sharing. Outright piracy.
o a real dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:57 am ~new~
The current solution practiced by my bubble is a bunch of subscriptions here and there, “family
plan” accounts among people who are not exactly family, and lots and lots of crimes on the high
seas.
This is a shame because Netflix could have easily been the Steam of TV series, their user
experience is really good compared to torrenting. Apparently the industry is too eager to divide the
pie to the point of unusability.

o Bobobob says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:52 am ~new~
We just switched to Google Fiber, which is about $130/month when you throw in the subscription
to YouTube TV. Before, we were paying Time Warner/Spectrum $200 per month for TV, internet,
and phone (the last of which we never used). So I feel like we have plenty of room to expand our
streaming options–we currently have Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
I’m sure next up will be Disney, because my kids will insist on seeing Hamilton.
o Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:59 am ~new~

In every new industry, the first wave of increased competition is viewed as a downside for the
consumer. This never pans out. I think people are underestimating how much a cable subscription
costs.
That said, my strategy has been to sign up for a month, watch the one or two shows I want, and
then cancel. Often I can get a one month free trial and do it for free, but if not I’m paying ten or
fifteen bucks for multiple seasons of a show, which is still a pretty good deal
o aristides says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:03 am ~new~
I think sharing passwords is going to be the new stable state, unless streaming companies try to
crackdown on it. It is too expensive to pay for all of them, but it is easy to pay for one, and trade
that password for the others. That’s how it works in my family. The four different households each
subscribe to a subset of services, share them around, and I have access to everyone of the ones
you listed. I’m expecting that to be the new norm.

o Don P. says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:37 am ~new~
Data point: I have all the services you named, although I don’t pay for “others”. I have Netflix for
the usual reasons, Prime as a side effect of of the delivery aspect (although the streaming was a
selling point as well), HBO Max because I have HBO and it comes automatically from most cable
companies, and the other 3 (Disney/Hulu/ESPN) in the Disney bundle, which turned out to be
useless on the ESPN end the last few months obviously. (I find that I’ve been watching a fair
amount of Hulu, though.) Oh, and Peacock, because it’s free with Comcast.
o Retsam says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:30 am ~new~
I’m a big believer that if we some how time-warped from 2005 to 2020 everyone would be amazed
at how much better things are in television – it’s an amazingly better service – you’re not at the
mercy of broadcast schedules and don’t have to watch ads – and even if you buy all of these
subscriptions and keep them going 24/7 it’s still cheaper than most introductory cable packages.
(And it not only replaces your cable subscription, but also largely replaces the habit of DVD buying,
which has dropped ~85% since 2007, IIRC, so it’s saving even more money than just a straight
“cable vs. streaming” comparison.)
Rip Van Winkle would be absolutely ecstatic about the state of television if he woke up today.
(Which is good, because frankly, he’s probably going to need the distraction from everything
else…)
But of course, the rest of us didn’t time warp from 2005, instead, everyone remembers the “golden
age of Netflix” where companies drastically undervalued their streaming rights and sold them to
Netflix for pennies on the dollar. That was never a sustainable model: eventually companies were
going to realize what they were essentially giving away, but it set people with sky-high
expectations about what streaming service “should” be priced at.
But given that recreating the “golden age of Netflix” just isn’t economically viable, I think people’s
sky-high expectations are going to have to cool over time, rather than expecting that somehow
companies are going to choose to not compete in a lucrative market just because letting some
other company have all the profits would be more convenient for the other company’s customers.
So to the point: I think the current model is much more sustainable than cable, and that seemed to
do okay, so I’m guessing it’s not going anywhere, in a broad sense, though we may still see some
shake-ups in which particular services survive and what price points settle on, of course.
June 15, 2020 at 11:36 am ~new~
This seems right.
My one modification is that I think eventually somebody will figure out how to package products for
streaming based on subject/style rather than who happens to own the copyright – a universal
documentary streaming service rather than Netflix and Hulu both having a documentary section,
say.

June 15, 2020 at 12:52 pm ~new~
What we had was cable TV, and a few premium things (HBO, Cinemax, Home Surgery Channel,
Showtime) were available as add-ons, and easy to add/subtract those when you wanted.
We had this same discussion about subscribing to newspapers for paywalls:
subscribing/unsubscribing is a major pain, because each are their own portal who want to be
reselling you other stuff and want you using their stuff. As much as we hated Cable TV, it’s
amazing that it really did bundle the stuff in a convenient way that made adding/subtracting
convenient.
June 15, 2020 at 1:03 pm ~new~
Fair point – everything old is new again.

Hide ↑
 Clutzy says:
June 15, 2020 at 2:51 pm ~new~
The thing I would point out is that, besides ESPN, none of the channels had carriage fees (aka what
cable paid to them) over $5. Most were much below $5, which seems to be the minimum price any
of these streaming services is trying to charge.

Hide ↑
63. ThaomasH says:

June 14, 2020 at 7:55 pm ~new~
Scott,
I think we should enjoin and wish that others “be safe” which implies not exposing others to risk,
rather than just “stay safe.”

64. [Thing] says:

June 14, 2020 at 7:10 pm ~new~
It seems like now matter how well educated and intelligent a native speaker of English is, they
can’t be relied upon to get the who/whom distinction right 100% of the time. (I mean, maybe
someone like Mary Norris does, but it’s striking how many smart anglophones don’t.) “Between you
and I” is another common mistake (Mary Norris even wrote a book called “Between You & Me”); so
it seems there is a more general difficulty with keeping track of the subject/object distinction. As a
typical monolingual American, I wonder whether this is particular to English speakers, because we
only have to do that for pronouns, or reflects some inherent difficulty with that feature of language
production. Do native speakers of languages where most nouns have distinct subject and object
forms make analogous mistakes all the time, or do they make such mistakes much less frequently
because they get more practice, like Guugu Yimithirr speakers developing a strong absolute sense
of direction, or speakers of tonal languages having perfect pitch?

Also curious if anyone has other good examples, English or otherwise, of language rules that
frequently trip up even very proficient speakers/writers (where there is an unambiguously right
answer; e.g. I wouldn’t fault someone for not using “whom” when they’re “supposed to,” because
it’s been falling into disuse for a long time, but using “whom” when “who” is correct is pretty
indefensible). I just think it’s interesting how language is such a basic, fundamental skill, but at the
same time complex enough that full mastery stretches us to the limit of our cognitive abilities.
o ThaomasH says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:15 pm ~new~
English dropped case markings for nouns except for possessive a long time ago. There is no reason
it could not do so for pronouns. It’s in the process of dropping gender markings
As for mistakes in other languages, I’ve noticed that people Spanish frequently “misspell” some of
the very few homonyms in the language. Since almost all words are spelled as they sound, they fail
to learn well the few exceptions. “Has,” “haz” “as” are all pronounced the same but mean different
things, “does” (familiar) “do” (as a familiar command) and “ace.”

 [Thing] says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:12 pm ~new~
Ah, the “has”/”haz”/”as” example is interesting! You do see people make analogous mistakes in
English, of course: your/you’re, its/it’s, their/they’re, etc. But certainly English speakers get a lot of
practice with differently spelled homophones, so maybe proportional to the increased number of
opportunities to mix them up, well-educated writers of English do so less often than those of
Spanish?
That reminds me of something I thought about adding just after posting my comment: Not only
does language mastery stretch us to our cognitive limits, it often does so not because of the
inherent complexity of the ideas we use language to express, but rather because of incidental
complexity built into our languages by historical accident. I don’t think it would be controversial to
say that, in the case of English, our only marginally phonetic and highly unpredictable orthography
is the primary example of this phenomenon, but it seems like every language has at least one
thing it does in an unnecessarily complicated way. In Spanish I guess it would be grammatical
gender, although that’s still not so bad compared to all the different declensions and conjugations
in Latin.
 ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:44 am ~new~
In Spanish I guess it would be grammatical gender, although that’s still not so bad compared to all
the different declensions and conjugations in Latin.
Nah, Native Spanish speakers don’t struggle with grammatical gender. Except for edge cases like
the heat and the sea (which are both male and female), most people don’t struggle with gender.
Because you just know by the sound of the word, in most cases (words that end in a are feminine,
words that end in o are masculine).
No, what Spanish people struggle with in spelling are the accents.
 Nuño says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:16 am ~new~
“Calor” and “mar” were feminine in Middle Age poetry, btw.

Hide ↑
 ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:48 am ~new~
Yes, I know, but I’ve met people who considered the feminine form incorrect. They were Latinos,
but I’m not sure that matters. In Spain, it’s very common to say la calor (mostly in the south), and
quite common to say la mar among sailors/fishermen.
Not sure which parts of Latin America it’s used in.
I don’t agree with the RAE that la calor is vulgar.
I think it’s like ships in English, which are obviously feminine, but many style guides are starting to
use it for ships. Which is obviously wrong.

Hide ↑
 JPNunez says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:35 am ~new~
I feel accent marks are 99% unnecessary.
Can’t even think of a counterexample right now so I am not putting it at 100% just in case.
Hide ↑
 ana53294 says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:24 am ~new~
@JPNunez
Accents are what make Spanish a more phonemic language. I.e., a language that’s pronounced
how it’s written, even if it doesn’t work the other way around.
Thus, in English, I frequently read a word and have no idea how to pronounce it. I never have a
doubt in Spanish, and it’s partly because of the accents. As soon as I read a word, I know how to
pronounce it, and I know on which syllable I should put an accent on.
In Russian dictionaries, for example, you will frequently have word – word with accent to tell you
how it’s pronounced. I don’t want to check the dictionary while I’m reading a book, and it does
make it more convenient to read.

Hide ↑
 JPNunez says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:03 pm ~new~
If you are reading a book, and meet a word you don’t know, you still gotta go to the dictionary
anyway, so Russian sounds fine to me.

Hide ↑
 Alejandro says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:19 pm ~new~
There are many words in Spanish which the accent mark is needed to distinguish meaning. For
example, “hable” is the verb hablar in the 3rd person subjunctive, so it means roughly “may/would
s/he speak”, but “hablé” is the 1st person past, so it means “I spoke”. Since it is acceptable in
Spanish to omit the noun/pronoun from a sentence, the accent mark can be the only way to
distinguish them even in context. Similar things happens for most verbs, not just this one.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 8:35 am ~new~
One interesting place this comes up is in songs. Ones that started out being written in Spanish
seem to line the accents up with the beat of the music in a way that sounds right; ones that were
translated usually don’t.

Hide ↑
 alext says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:44 am ~new~
incidental complexity built into our languages by historical accident
Redundance. You add stuff to the message, so that it’s easier to decrypt and error-correct on the
receiver’s end. The rules evolved through mass usage, over many years, so they seem chaotic.
When something seems stupid, but has been working for many years for many people, it’s not
stupid.

June 15, 2020 at 3:38 pm ~new~
T pt t nthr wy, y cld sy tht vwls r nt strctly ncssry – bt thy d mk txt mr rdbl.
Hide ↑

June 16, 2020 at 8:36 am ~new~
I rot13’d this.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 8:37 am ~new~
Yep, I think a lot of grammar and pronunciation works as a kind of error-correcting code–if you
mishear something, your brain corrects it to the nearest correct thing.

Hide ↑
 bullseye says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:39 am ~new~
I rot13’d this.
Same.
Hide ↑
 AG says:
June 16, 2020 at 1:38 pm ~new~
Say, you wouldn’t know how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton, would you?
Hide ↑
 SamChevre says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:09 am ~new~
English verb tenses are also very complicated. In my experience, they are the last thing speakers
of English as a foreign language master.
Try explaining, clearly, the difference between:
I lived in Richmond.
I have lived in Richmond.
I had lived in Richmond.
I was living in Richmond.
I have been living in Richmond.
I had been living in Richmond.
I used to live in Richmond.
And you will see what I mean.
Even native speakers often get the subjunctive wrong. It’s “If I were a millionaire”.
June 16, 2020 at 8:39 am ~new~
The subjunctive in English is weird because it exists, but we usually don’t think of it. And Spanish
verb tenses are similarly complex.

Hide ↑
 KieferO says:
June 16, 2020 at 3:59 pm ~new~
I have heard that the subjunctive used to be common in vernacular English, but if it were, it at
least had started to disappear sometime before 1963: the narrator of California Dreamin’ muses
about being “safe and warm if I was in LA.” I like the subjunctive, but if it’s too ancient to appear
in the pop music of my grandparents, I have no choice but to concede.

Hide ↑
 keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:20 pm ~new~
Just as a note of syntactic pedantry – nouns in English don’t get possessive case marking either.
The particle ” ‘s” that we use for possessive doesn’t attach to the *word* but rather to a whole
*phrase*. This isn’t often clear in writing, but in speech we often say things like “the guy next door
to me’s dog got out last night”, while we definitely *wouldn’t* say “the guy’s next door to me dog
got out last night”, which is how it works in languages with actual case marking.
There’s a weird thing that sometimes happens if a pronoun is conjoined with either another
pronoun or a noun, where it’s unclear whether we use the ” ‘s” on the phrase or put the pronoun in
the possessive case. Both “my mom and me’s dog” and “my mom’s and my dog” sound really
awkward to me. Something like “my and his dog” sounds like it refers to two separate dogs, while
“me and him’s dog” sounds like one dog belonging to both of us.
And as for gender, while English is in the process of replacing masculine and feminine gender with
a generic animate gender, there is no movement away from the distinction between animate and
inanimate gender. “He” and “she” are being supplemented by “they”, but “it” is in a clearly distinct
class. You can only refer to an *animate* being with singular “they”, where things like babies and
animals are sometimes ambiguous between animate and inanimate (so that you can refer to them
either by “he/she/they” or “it”). I’m not sure if anyone refers to boats with singular “they” the way
they used to refer to boats with “she”. Countries, which also sometimes got referred to as “she”,
would naturally be interpreted as plural “they” rather than singular animate “they”.
June 15, 2020 at 12:25 pm ~new~
I always mentally hyphenate those types of sentence-as-noun-stand-in – exactly like that, actually.
o hnau says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:55 pm ~new~
I occasionally notice that “whom” would be correct in a situation (spoken or written) and decide to
go with “who”. It’s passed the tipping point of common usage; “the wrong way” mostly sounds fine
to my ear and “the right way” often sounds highfalutin. Ditto for “they” where the last generation
would have used “he or she” (or just “he”). “Between you and I” on the other hand continues to
horrify me, as do all other I/me conclusions… except “it’s me” where I follow the “wrong way”.
Not sure what makes the difference. Maybe some combination of popularity and the degree to
which “the right way” would stick out in various constructions?
My favorite difficult rule in English (which I will fight for to my dying day) is the number/amount
distinction: we have less time, but fewer hours, because hours are things you can count.
 HomarusSimpson says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:00 pm ~new~
sounds highfalutin
There are quite a few that go the other way, wrong usage that is incorrectly thought to be more
formal, the obvious one is the use of myself/ yourself when it should be me/ you. Seems epidemic
amongst call centre workers here in UK – “we will send yourself the contract, sign it and send it
back to ourselves” (never quite that ridiculous)

June 15, 2020 at 2:03 pm ~new~
wrong usage that is incorrectly thought to be more formal
I interpret the use of “I” instead of “me” as in “He gave it to John and I” as coming from the idea
that “me” is often misused for “I” by the uneducated. So an attempt to signal education.
o Etoile says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:24 pm ~new~
I think the “between you and I” has been seeping into “acceptable usage” – and maybe even
promulgated on purpose. I’ve been seeing it in recent movies, and it really, really frustrates me.
o Kaitian says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:12 pm ~new~
In German, mixing up the non-nominative forms of nouns and pronouns (accusative, dative,
genitive) is relatively common. But it’s perceived as an expression of dialect (Berlin sometimes
uses dative for accusative), or of a low-class idiolect based on immigrant speech patterns. I think
everyone who “speaks good” and has a reasonable amount of formal language education knows
what the proper form should be in any case, there’s no confusion about the very concept of case
like there is in English. But some people choose to use the forms differently.
o BlindKungFuMaster says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:35 pm ~new~
A friend who came back from the US told me how one of his American acquaintances said to him in
amazement:”You don’t know x,y and z (words every American knows), but you use who/whom
correctly.”
I would say that the who/whom distinction is quite easy for speakers of languages with case
markings.
June 14, 2020 at 10:39 pm ~new~
One thing that often trips up foreigners is the placement of the dollar sign. It goes before the
number, unlike most unit markers.
I pointed out one such error on another forum, and got called a pedant’s pedant, an appellation I
will treasure for a long time.

 AlphaGamma says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:24 am ~new~
That’s an interesting point. The € sign goes after the number in almost every European language.
It goes before the number in English (as does the £ sign). Cyprus, Ireland and Malta also follow
British usage for understandable reasons.
For some reason, it also goes before the number in Dutch (as did the old ƒ symbol for the guilder).
This means that Greece and Cyprus, and Flanders and the Netherlands, put the Euro symbol in a
different place despite speaking the same language…
(The Greek drachma and Belgian franc abbreviations went after the number)
o ArbitraryRenaissance says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:58 pm ~new~
The subjunctive mood is oftentimes forgotten about by proficient speakers of the English language.
Hypothetical tenses augment the verb tense, changing things like, “if he was” to “if if were”.
There are small things in writing that trip up proficient writers. “Everyday” vs. “Every day”,
“oftentimes” and not “often times”, “altogether” vs. “all together”, etc.
The past perfect tense trips native speakers up a lot. It can be unclear when you should say “He
joined right after he had turned eight” or “He’d joined right after he had turned eight” or “he joined
right after he turned eight.” I would probably chalk this up to genuine language ambiguity, though:
sometimes two different options can both be considered correct.

 [Thing] says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:22 pm ~new~
I don’t think I’ve ever properly understood how the subjunctive mood is supposed to work in
English … I just play it by ear, but my impression is that most people don’t follow whatever the
rules are very consistently, so it feels like I’m learning from a corrupted data set.
 Andrew G. says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:16 am ~new~
I’m pretty sure that in the entirety of my ~11 years of English language classes in the English
school system, the term “subjunctive” was not once used by any teacher. (That was a good many
years ago now, so things may have changed, but at least at secondary level those teachers were
completely hostile to any attempt to even mention the existence of formal grammar let alone teach
any of it.)
 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:57 am ~new~
Most of my understanding of English formal grammar comes from reapplying what I’ve learnt in
foreign language classes.
Non native English speakers: do you get the same thing going on?
Hide ↑
 mcpalenik says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:59 am ~new~
The first time I heard that English had a subjunctive was in French class.
 Concavenator says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:39 am ~new~
I do get the impression — no idea whether it’s justified — that there’s a lot more confusion about
formal grammatical categories among native English speakers, e.g. what exactly is a pronoun, a
verb, etc. Maybe anglophone countries have a different method of teaching grammar? (Or maybe I
just read more content from there?)
The worst case is certainly the passive voice, which so many people hate with a fiery passion
despite not being able to recognize it at all.

 Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:07 pm ~new~
The worst case is certainly the passive voice, which so many people hate with a fiery passion despite
not being able to recognize it at all.
For those seeking quality entertainment this afternoon, linguist Geoffrey Pullum has several pieces
on this phenomenon, e.g. here.

Hide ↑
 [Thing] says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:51 pm ~new~
I do get the impression — no idea whether it’s justified — that there’s a lot more confusion about
formal grammatical categories among native English speakers
Could it be that the native English speakers in your sample are more likely to be monolingual?
Studying a foreign language would be one reason to learn something about formal grammar, but if
your native language is English there’s less pressing need to, since you already know the
international language of business, science, diplomacy etc.

Hide ↑
 Alejandro says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:46 am ~new~
I have the impression, though, that English speakers are taught especially little about the grammar
of their own language in school. I learnt how to analyze simple sentences in my own language
(Spanish) with parsing trees (actually a different, but equivalent, kind of visual representation) in
middle school, and I don’t think my school or my country were extraordinary in this, but I don’t
think this is taught to American kids.

Hide ↑
 Concavenator says:
June 16, 2020 at 7:01 am ~new~
Might be. I recall my lessons of (native) Italian grammar insisting heavily on definitions, tables,
formal sentence analysis, etc., though I suppose they could have been planned keeping in mind the
necessity to eventually learn other languages.

Hide ↑
 bullseye says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:34 am ~new~
I’m American, and I learned formal grammar (including “sentence diagrams” resembling parsing
trees) in English class. Maybe it depends on what school you go to? I went to a high-quality public
school.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 8:46 am ~new~
We did this in grade school and in high school. Also, I went to a rural high school that was not very
up-to-date on teaching methods and fads, where the English teachers required proper grammar on
assignments. At that time, I think many of the more up-to-date public schools had moved on from
worrying about grammar to whatever other thing they wanted to teac instead.
When I went to the state university, freshmen were given entrance placement exams. I was put in
the most advanced English class (the honors section of the sophomore-level composition class).
After the first assignment, the professor started reviewing basic rules of grammar because so many
of the students had turned in assignments full of incomplete sentences and such.
Hide ↑
 keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:36 pm ~new~
There are two things that are described as subjunctive in many languages. English definitely has
one and only sorta has the other. The one English definitely has occurs most commonly in
conditionals.
The indicative/subjunctive distinction is the distinction between the sentences “If Oswald didn’t
shoot Kennedy, then someone else did” and “If Oswald hadn’t shot Kennedy, then someone else
would have”. The former is indicative (and most of us accept it as plainly true), while the latter is
subjunctive (and one’s judgment of its truth value, and even well-formedness, depends on whether
one accepts various conspiracy theories – if one accepts that Oswald was part of a conspiracy that
was strongly aiming to get Kennedy, then one might accept it as true, but if one thinks that Oswald
wasn’t actually the one that shot, then one would reject the sentence as ill-formed). The indicative
conditional is used for expressing correlations among your uncertainties about what did happen,
while the subjunctive conditional is used for expressing one’s beliefs about the causal structure of
possibilities other than the real world. For most people a subjunctive past tense looks identical to
the pluperfect tense of the verb, though many people preserve a slightly older version where
“were” is used in places where “was” would normally be used. (You can also get a distinction
between indicative/subjunctive in the present/future tense of a verb: “what will you do if I sing out
of tune” vs “what would you do if I sang out of tune” – the former is an indicative that emphasizes
the possibility, while the latter is a subjunctive that makes it seem a bit more remote, and looks
identical to the past tense, again with the was/were distinction.)
The other thing that often gets called subjunctive is a construction like this: “he directed that the
land be sold after his death”, where we use the infinitive “be” rather than “is” when it occurs in
clauses with certain verbs of indirect speech, like “command”, “direct”, “require”, etc. I think this
one isn’t consistently used by a lot of people. In languages like German and French, this
construction is also used with verbs like “say”, which means that newspapers don’t have to use a
word like “allegedly”, and can just state things in the subjunctive, and readers know that this is
what someone is saying, and not necessarily what is actually true.
Both of these constructions mark a distinction between what is actual and what is counterfactual.
o sfoil says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:07 pm ~new~
While only relevant when writing, native speakers quite frequently use the wrong form of
blond/blonde — the latter is feminine.

June 15, 2020 at 1:14 pm ~new~
In theory, Italian makes a distinction between a “proximate past” tense for recent events, and a
“remote past” for distant ones (roughly equivalent to the English present perfect and simple past,
respectively; e.g. sono andato vs. andai for “I went”). In practice, people from Tuscany tend to be
the only one that do so out in colloquial speech; everyone from farther north uses only the
proximate past, and everyone from further south uses only the remote past, regardless from the
actual timing of the action. Written Italian is more likely to keep the distinction intact.
o KieferO says:
June 16, 2020 at 4:48 pm ~new~
I am not a professional linguist or editor of English, so epistemic status of everything here should
be “suspect” at best.
I have heard that English is somewhat particular because many of the people responsible for
determining the “prestige dialect” of English (in both the UK and the United States) had a great an
fetishistic fondness for all things Latin. These people decided to lift all sorts of rules, which were
real rules of Latin, and apply them to English regardless of whether this contradicted current
practice or made sense. The most famous of these is probably the spelling of “aisle,” (cf. Latin ala)
whose spelling was changed to match “isle” (cf. Latin insula). The grammar oddity that I can make
the best case for being improperly lifted from Latin is the rule against split infinitives. My 16th
edition of Chicago Manual of Style has this to say:

5.106 Split infinitive. Although from about 1850 to 1925 many grammarians stated otherwise, it is
now widely acknowledged that adverbs sometime justifiably separate an infinitive’s to form from its
principal verb {they expect to more than double their income next year}.
In Latin, splitting an infinitive is literally impossible because of how verbs are conjugated. I don’t
have good sourcing for this, but I assume that English has many more apparent traps for the
insufficiently educated because only English suffered a 75 year period where the best way to seem
educated was to speak and write in a grammar that didn’t quite follow the usual rules of human
language.
With another epistemic leap, I would further argue that Marry Norris is right and the correct form is
“between you and me.” I believe this to be true, because conjunctions in English seem to bind far
more tightly than is taught by grammarians. The usual advice of “pick the pronoun that would
make the sentence work if the rest of the conjunctive phrase were to be discarded” is wrong
because you can’t just discard the rest of the phrase. In particular, I think that “and” can
absolutely bind two subjects into one object and that’s what’s happening in the “between you and
X” utterances.
Regardless of exactly how far I get to walk on this particular epistemic tightrope, I feel confident in
claiming that English is by far the most advanced language at making it’s speakers feel incorrect
and dumb for following real and true vernacular rules that happen to contradict the preferences of
19th century necrophiliac grammarians.

June 17, 2020 at 9:08 am ~new~
Yeah, I didn’t understand where this rule came from at all until I learned Spanish.
65. Squirrel of Doom says:

June 14, 2020 at 7:01 pm ~new~
I’m interested in the “wokeness as secular religion/religion substitute” angle. I know Scott has
written about it, though I don’t remember which blog post. John McWhorter also brings it up on
occasion.
Are there other worthwhile texts on this?
Or, for that matter, any texts arguing against this concept, and/or how other ideologies are equally
affected.
o hnau says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:07 pm ~new~
It would be CW-ish to discuss in detail, but the post you’re thinking of is this one. See also here
with regard to your last point.

o MeaningIsCultivated says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:59 am ~new~
Here is a leftist perspective: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-
vampire-castle/.
June 15, 2020 at 6:15 am ~new~
If you’ll take a podcast, this discussion with an ex-Scientologist might be of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwXkXNd7yO4
The thing in it that was new to me is that one of the ways of hooking people into cults is telling
them that it’s their obligation to save the world, but this is impossible.
Actual discussion of the topic might be better in a CW thread, possibly 155.75.

66. MisterA says:

June 14, 2020 at 6:36 pm ~new~
Just thought folks here might find this interesting – the most recent episode of the Ezra Klein Show
is an interview with D.W. Pasulka, a professor of religion who decided to do an ethnography of UFO
believers as an emergent new religion.
Link: https://www.vox.com/ezra-klein-show-podcast
This is already a pretty interesting idea, but what made it much more interesting is that, as she
describes it, this process exposed her to enough evidence that there was something actually going
on with UFOs that she went through what she describes as an “epistemic shock” and revised her
own view of UFOs, even though someone in her position is generally not supposed to weigh in on
the truth claims of the believers she’s studying.
She wrote a book called American Cosmic based on all this, which has been getting a lot more
attention lately since the US Navy started just openly talking about all the UFOs their pilots keep
encountering.
I found the interview interesting enough to buy the book; I am still only in chapter 1, so I can’t say
much about that yet.
o Kaitian says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:16 pm ~new~
Maybe she just thinks the “there’s something going on with UFOs” angle is a better marketing pitch
for her book than ethnography alone.

 MisterA says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:01 pm ~new~
Very possible! And she must have been so jazzed when the government decided to go “Screw it,
UFOs are real. We have no idea what they are, but check these videos out!”
o noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:13 am ~new~
> “epistemic shock”
Is there something akin to an intellectual Stockholm syndrome, where you get captured by a
subject you study intensely? Investment (of time, energy, social costs,…) turning into belief and
identification?
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:20 am ~new~
I think it’s less investment and more that as you get exposed more frequently to basically decent
and reasonable people who happen to believe things that you think are purely outlandish, this
creates a certain cognitive dissonance, that can only be resolved one of two ways.
Method 1 is to update your views on the people – they simply aren’t decent and reasonable
because they believe this outlandish stuff.
Method 2, which seems nicer and easier, is to update your views on the beliefs – that even if you
don’t agree with them, there’s probably “something to it.”
I think this is how most agnostics and even less-extreme atheists view religion. Not that it’s right,
but that “well clearly some people benefit from it and sometimes it does some good” etc. Because
a worldview where lots of people that you know and like believe things that are completely and
utterly false and entirely without evidence or merit is unsustainable.

 Don P. says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:53 am ~new~
You’d think this would be baked into the job description of “Professor of Religion”, though. That
kind of person must study a lot of people who believe a lot of things, and they don’t all get
converted.
 keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:39 pm ~new~
I think this is the origin of the extreme anti-realist relativism that many people associate with
certain kinds of sociology/anthropology/humanities. If you’re studying a bunch of people who
believe different religions, and you don’t want to say they’re mostly mistaken, you end up saying
they’re all “the truth relative to this believer”.

Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 3:18 pm ~new~
Honestly, I’m okay with thinking that people can be both decent and reasonable and still believe
silly things. Even if I’m convinced that my own brand of reasoning can rule them out.
Or they could be trolling you for what they see as your own good…
 Ketil says:
June 16, 2020 at 2:18 am ~new~
Honestly, I’m okay with thinking that people can be both decent and reasonable and still believe silly
things.
This. I know many religious people, but their beliefs make very little sense to me. I’m sure they
feel the same way about my atheism. I’ve just had to accept this as a fact, and it doesn’t reduce
my respect for them as rational and reasonable people in general, nor does it make me think that
maybe there is something to supernatural or “spiritual” thought.
It also makes it easier to accept that other hold strong beliefs that I find nonsensical (typically
things I could list in a fractional thread).
I imagine Method 1 applies mostly to beliefs you are not exposed directly through, typically by
living in an in-group echo chamber. I suspect religious people who argue that without a belief in
God everybody would rape and pillage ad lib don’t know many atheists.
Hide ↑
June 16, 2020 at 8:49 am ~new~
You can find tons of people who believe weird things in every area of life, not just religion.
Hide ↑
June 15, 2020 at 5:53 am ~new~
Was “purgatory” originally a cave in Ireland where people would go for 24 hours of penitential
meditation?
Is it that easy to interpret St. Frances’ stigmata experience as a UFO encounter?
What would you do differently if you knew there would be overt contact with aliens in ten years?
My answer to that one surprised me. It was that I would learn to write poetry– the one thing I’m
sure of, assuming we survive, is that the contact will be poetry fodder.
 MisterA says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:03 pm ~new~
Yeah the Purgatory thing was fascinating, I had never heard of that before.
67. broblawsky says:

June 14, 2020 at 6:30 pm ~new~
I just started playing Deep Rock Galactic with some friends. If you enjoy co-op shooter games and
find the idea of a co-op shooter with a strong emphasis on terrain traversal and manipulation and
Space Dwarves appealing, you should give it a try.

o WoollyAI says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:03 pm ~new~
Seconded. Fun mix of exploration and shooting, good times.

68. cassander says:

June 14, 2020 at 6:29 pm ~new~
Some old friends and I are starting up a D&D game, and we’re experimenting with some higher
stakes rules. One of the open threads here had a great comment (or a link to an external article)
with a catch phrase along the lines of “make torches last 15 minutes and weigh 2 pounds” about
how getting characters to pay attention to some more mundane details of torches, henchmen,
animals, etc. heightened the tension in the games they were playing and forced more interaction
with the in universe world. I’d like to show it to my group, can anyone remember where it was and
link me to it? My google-fu is failing me.

o broblawsky says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:31 pm ~new~
Doesn’t the Light cantrip (and Continual Flame spell) make that rule almost pointless?

June 14, 2020 at 7:34 pm ~new~
Yes. 5E has no mundane resource management unless the players end up picking an unusual
combination of classes.
Cantrips like light, Goodberries (Druid), a Ranger’s existence making it impossible to ever get lost
or run out of food overland…

o MisterA says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:41 pm ~new~
What edition? I’m not trying to start an Edition War (especially not in a non-CW thread!) but this
kind of thing is a lot of what the Old School Renaissance has been about; I have been messing
around with it and have been surprised by how much I enjoy original-flavor D&D and its
retroclones like Labyrinth Lord. This sort of thing is a big part of it.
That said, 5E does go a long way to trying to recapture the old school feel in a way the last couple
versions didn’t, so I think this is totally doable with 5E. I can also strongly recommend Five Torches
Deep, which is a set of additional rules for resource management in 5E that make things like this
matter a lot, but which don’t add an insurmountable amount of bookkeeping.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/264584/Five-Torches-Deep
 Eric T says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:57 pm ~new~
Playing 5e with the extended rest rules (1 day = short rest, 1 week = long rest) is a lot of fun!
Combine with the Shadow Rules and Travel Rules from the Adventures in Middle Earth and a couple
house rules (like making the spell goodberry consume its material components) can make for a
really gritty resource-management/survival style game.

 cassander says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:03 pm ~new~
5e is the plan, largely by default. I’ll check out 5 torches deep, it looks interesting, but I’ll need the
post to sell them on the concept of counting torches.

 Bugmaster says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:13 am ~new~
I really, really hate 5e. Sorry 🙁 I understand what the system is designed to do — it’s designed to
let you quickly roll up a character and jump straight into roleplaying, without bothering with too
many details. It does achieve this goal, but in the process, it completely locks you into a specific
build based on your class selection. One Fighter is going to look pretty much the same as another
Fighter, etc. This makes things much easier for the GM, admittedly; but as a player, I find this
incredibly boring.
If you don’t care about combat mechanics and just want to do RP, there are other systems that are
way better at it, such as FATE (which is a lot of fun to play). If you want to play a more detailed
tactical simulation, then there are lots of other systems for that, such as Pathfinder 1e. But IMO
D&D 5e does neither of those things very well, and as the result, I just find it infuriating.
 Spookykou says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:18 pm ~new~
My fighter multi-classed warlock at level 2, whoa whats next! Less flippant, fighter gets a lot of it’s
play pattern from it’s subclass, a ranged battle master and a crit-fishing champion polearm
master/dual wielder have totally different play styles.

Also I disagree that Pathfinder 1e had more tactical depth, the problem with 5e is that the tactical
depth is hidden, in pathfinder and 3-3.5 system mastery lets you make OP characters(A serious
problem if you want to play any kind of tactical game actually), in 5e system mastery mostly
serves to increase your tactical options.
Those other systems also have a problem with, more choices means less choices, yes there are a
ton of feats, and that mostly cashes out as either stupid minor feats that do almost nothing, or a
math feat +1 to something, or a feat chain that heavily incentives you to do the exact same thing
every round and always use the same kind of weapon. (5e has this a bit, with polearm master
being too good 1-4, but in general it is not as bad, and polearm master does open up tactical
choices that you wouldn’t have without it, instead of just making you really really good at charging
every round)
Finally it seems like you offer two extremes and say 5e is not the best at both, (while I disagree
with oneboth actually(FATE and other ‘heavy RP’ systems A. Offer some sort of mechanical reward
for RPing your character, which never works because people don’t fail to RP their character for that
kind of reason, and 5e actually does that also. B. Have few rules so the rules don’t get in the way
of the RP! At which point you are mostly paying for a setting book for your improve nights, again I
feel that there is a value in restrictions for driving creativity and player interactions. A player who
needs to can lean more heavily on their character sheet in RP situations while others can go off
sheet and rule of cool with their DM.) and think it does offer one of the best tactical table top game
experiences) which still opens it up to be a happy middle ground, with support for RP and support
for a tactical combat here and there, in a way that at least FATE does not.
o Lambert says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:36 pm ~new~
Aren’t torches more a trope because they look good in films than because they’re the best pre-
edisonian way to light up a cave/castle at night etc?
If you let your eyes adjust, a candle or oil lamp throws out enough light. They were used in mines
before the invention of the davy lamp (which is really just a sort of oil lamp).

June 14, 2020 at 9:04 pm ~new~
Apparently olive oil burns ~90% as long as modern lamp oils. That works out to 16.5 ml for an
hour of light. (my Old School D&D players here: that’s 363 or 364 hours of light from a 6-liter jug)
o Spookykou says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:22 pm ~new~
You need to cut or change cantrips and some spells and a few class/background features (or
restrict class/background choices) to make 5e a resource tracking game.
You can also change the way rests work, but this should largely change the pace of the story you
are telling, not the pace of the action. The combat resource game is balanced around the
‘adventuring day’ which takes standard rests into account, and unlike the other resource
management aspects of 5e, the combat one actually is pretty tight, if you are hitting their
recommendations. If it works in story for your characters to only get into 5-7 fights then take a
week off before they fight again, then make long rests take a week, if it doesn’t, well, casters
become a bit of a trap choice. (Important to keep in mind that 5e caster to martial balance is very
good and you mostly do not need to nerf casters)

o a real dog says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:24 am ~new~
There’s a game built entirely around that concept called Torchbearer. Never played it but seems
like an interesting idea.
Personally I noticed that the mundane stuff – making camp, crafting consumables, hunting,
keeping watch – is great for both immersion and opportunities for roleplay/character interaction.
69. viceni says:
June 14, 2020 at 5:19 pm ~new~
What is the scientific view (or the full-fledged Scott view, or the rationalist view, or the informed-
person view) of the Turchin cycle theory (or similar theories about social cycles)? I have seen some
vague commentary about them being discredited. But then I keep seeing them referenced in
credible places like here (and also some economic stuff I admire).
Basically, has anyone reviewed the literature on this and can provide a shortcut?
o mtl1882 says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:24 pm ~new~
I don’t think they’re precise or scientific, in the sense you can’t use them to predict exactly what
will happen and in what year, but I think some of them identify actual recurring social patterns in
organized societies. I’m most familiar with Strauss and Howe, but have also read Turchin and
others. If you have specific questions, I can try to answer them.

 viceni says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:51 pm ~new~
Ok sure. Do the various cyclical models make similar predictions? For instance, i believe Strauss-
Howe suggest the 2020s are likely to be Very Bad. Do the other models say something similar?
 original-internet-explorer says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:17 pm ~new~
The Long Wave cycle. The down cycle is on the front cover of an old book I have and it starts
2020-2021.
 Tenacious D says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:50 am ~new~
Ray Dalio has been posting his cyclical view of super-powers on LinkedIn recently. His graphs of
power level give successive empires ~125 years on top, with a total length of 220 years including
time for their rise and decline. So by his theory, the US is on track to be eclipsed by China around
2040. And the years leading up to a transition like that are expected to have debt, political, and
other crises.
 mtl1882 says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:03 pm ~new~
Yes, many of them converge on the 2020s. I don’t know if their models were of exceptional quality
or if they just had a sense of this. I don’t think this is purely a generational/social cycle thing–there
are other major trends going on that accelerate the issue. But it’s related to it. A younger
generation reaches adulthood and slowly realizes things aren’t working as expected. As this
persists, it reveals the existing instability of the system (institutions/expectations etc.) that has
built up. The pendulum eventually swings. The overlooked incompatibility usually takes about 80
years to build up to this point.
Turchin’s model predicted that “social instability and political violence would peak in the 2020s.”
Strauss and Howe said around 2021, climaxing around 2025, and now Howe says “I think we
entered [the crisis era] in the time of the GFC [Great Financial Crisis] 2008-2009 and I think we’re
gonna be in it all the way until around the year 2030 right so that’s a good 22 years so we always
predicted that in the 2020s we’d see an acceleration.”
The Storm Before the Calm (George Friedman) also gets into this, but it was published earlier this
year–pre-COVID (this seems to be similar to economic historian J. Bradford DeLong’s argument

made years earlier). Looks more at institutional cycles, but it’s not unrelated—U.S. “regimes”
probably have shifted about every 80 years because that’s how long it takes for generations to lose
sight of the original trade-offs (which were crisis-induced and often don’t make intuitive sense in
more stable times, especially if tech and other things have evolved). They take the system for
granted, stop maintaining it, and try and optimize parts of it until it is out of balance–they treat the
parts discretely instead of systemically. This relates to elite overproduction.
The next generation then has to “rewire” everything so that it functions again. Post-WWII, we were
increasingly able to build particularly sophisticated and extensive systems, which are causing their
own problems and worsening the generational cycle issue. There’s less room to maneuver, and
everything is interconnected.
Howe recently said, “many others have written about this and that is the tendency of societies like
ours to have huge Civic and institutional turning points periods of
rapid transformation occur about the length of a long human lifetime about every 80 or 90 years
and and guess what here we are right we’re right back there again and and the basic insight there
and this would be Arnold Toynbee sort of generational forgetting thesis…”
I don’t know how scientific it is, and it certainly isn’t exact, but I definitely felt my understanding of
the world increased after I read the Fourth Turning and The Calm Before the Storm.
o hnau says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:14 pm ~new~
I took Scott’s reference to the cycles as tongue in cheek given his somewhat skeptical book review.
TL;DR: Turchin’s research seems sound, but given the shortage of data (especially clean data) and
the flexibility in defining cycles there’s a decent chance that he could just be picking up random
noise. Scott also mentions that his attempt at a literature review came up empty.
o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:44 pm ~new~
I think any vaguely plausible version of the theory is going to have to say exactly what the
possibility of external shocks to the system is. Something like the emergence of the coronavirus
pandemic doesn’t seem like it should be more or less likely at any point in the cycle (unless the
frequency of human interactions with animals reliably changes in a particular way along a cycle?)
and it seems like a big enough external shock to the system that it should disrupt the existing
cycle. If a shock like this happens to disrupt one in ten cycles, that’s not so bad for the theory, but
if external shocks of this magnitude are likely to occur within every cycle, then you should wonder
whether the cycles would have much explanatory power at all.

 mtl1882 says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:39 pm ~new~
Most claim there is a defining crisis in every cycle, because they are regular parts of human
experience. Big pandemics happen at least every 100 years—they just weren’t disruptive in the
same manner because living with high disease risk was considered part of life. Something
incredibly deadly like the plague no doubt generally disrupted things. Strauss & Howe said the Civil
War majorly warped the timeline on that cycle led to a generation archetype being skipped over—
that event was much more disruptive than disease, but I think most soldiers actually died of
disease in camp outbreaks. Soldiers not from the south were vulnerable to malaria.
Pandemics happened regularly at the time, and the attitude toward death was wildly different—if
you are used to having several kids die in childhood, a COVID-19 type illness is not going to be a
big shock. People didn’t live much past 60 on average–it would barely have been noticed among all
the other things that were killing people. I’m not sure COVID-19 will look like that big of a shock in
hindsight—it accelerated things that were already happening. To an extent, it was more of an
internal shock—the response and conditions/expectations in which it took place were very unusual
historically and unique to our system. It is impossible to know for sure, of course, and we still don’t
know how it will affect us in the next few years.
The value of the cycles is in explaining how people respond to the crises, and how societies change
as they move away from it.
In The Fourth Turning, they propose some possible crises for our time (writing in 1991):
Recall that a Crisis catalyst involves scenarios distinctly imaginable eight or ten years in advance.
Based on recent Unraveling-era trends, the following circa-2005 scenarios might seem
plausible:
…
*A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it possesses portable nuclear
weapons. The United States and its allies launch a preemptive strike. The terrorists threaten to
retaliate against an American city. Congress declares war and authorizes unlimited house-to-house
searches. Opponents charge that the president concocted the emergency for political
purposes. A nationwide strike is declared. Foreign capital flees the U.S.
*An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress
both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president
declares emergency powers.
*Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop
Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announce the spread of a new
communicable virus. The disease reaches densely populated areas, killing some.
Congress enacts mandatory quarantine measures. The president orders the National
Guard to throw prophylactic cordons around unsafe neighborhoods. Mayors resist.
Urban gangs battle suburban militias. Calls mount for the president to declare martial
law.
… It’s highly unlikely that any one of these scenarios will actually happen. What is
likely, however, is that the catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic
that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of
unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios
(debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst
will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way…At home and abroad, these events will reflect
the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability—problem areas where, during the
Unraveling, America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action…[while the situation will
likely stabilize prior to disaster] [d]istrustful of some things, individuals will feel that their survival
requires them to distrust more things. This behavior could cascade into a sudden downward
spiral, an implosion of societal trust…Aggressive individualism, institutional decay, and long-
term pessimism can proceed only so far before a society loses the level of dependability needed to
sustain the division of labor and long-term promises on which a market economy must rest.
Through the Unraveling, people will have preferred (or, at least, tolerated) the
exciting if bewildering trend toward social complexity. But as the Crisis mood congeals,
people will come to the jarring realization that they have grown helplessly dependent on a teetering
edifice of anonymous transactions and paper guarantees. Many Americans won’t know where their
savings are, who their employer is, what their pension is, or how their government works. The era
will have left the financial world arbitraged and tentacled: Debtors won’t know who holds their
notes…At about the same time, each generation’s approach to its new phase of life will
set off loud economic alarms, reminding people how weakly their Unraveling-era
nation prepared for the future…
 keaswaran says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:31 am ~new~
Did pandemics actually happen *regularly*, or just *frequently*? The difference is whether there’s
an actual period to the occurrence (which could then underlie part of a cycle), or if they’re just as
likely to recur after 10 years as after 110 years (by some sort of poisson process) so that they
would disrupt whatever process was occurring cyclically.

 mtl1882 says:
June 16, 2020 at 12:39 pm ~new~
They don’t happen regularly, but I’m not sure why they’re being singled out. Most pandemics aren’t
going to be the defining feature, or even have a huge influence on, a generational cycle. The 1918
flu, even combined with all the War deaths of young men, did not fundamentally warp the cycle,
and was less significant in social trends than the war itself. Other pandemics have also occurred at
times where more significant systemic changes, like wars. COVID-19 hitting even a few decades
ago would not have been a huge systemic shock—definitely not 100 years ago.
The cycles have to do, to a large extent, with social roles or scripts becoming incompatible with
existing resources, opportunities, values, etc. External shocks matter if they cause an internal crisis
under the circumstances. COVID-19 certainly will be a big deal internally, and could end up being
the defining crisis, but that will largely have to do with the fact that the system, and people’s
expectations and roles, are built based on an interconnected world without the threat of this kind of
contagious disease, and that the modern system is uniquely complex and fragile and has an active
older population. It’s likely a disruption would have come soon anyway, and it will accelerate it, but
IMO it is unlikely to fundamentally change the trajectory of things.

Hide ↑
70. nkurz says:

June 14, 2020 at 5:11 pm ~new~
I’m not sure if this is a deep question or a dumb one, but is there actually any “conservation of
value” when there are crashes in the financial markets? That is, there’s a general belief that stocks
and bonds are anti-correlated to some extent, such that when one does poorly the other does well.
And it’s often believed that precious metals tend to do well after a market collapse. Is it reasonable
to think that when stock market falls by some significant percentage in a short period, that there
exists some other asset that has increased in value over the same timeframe? Or does the
decrease in stock market value mostly just evaporate?
I ask because in most of the recent stock market downturns, it frequently seems like everything is
“down”, or at least, that nothing is “up” enough to offset the losses. But maybe this is because the
size of the market components is nowhere near equal? Perhaps a 1% increase in US Treasuries
does offset 10% drop in major indexes? Or maybe the “value of cash” has gone up, whatever that
might mean? Or perhaps in a major drop, there really is just a loss of value: anything salable is
liquidated to make margin calls, leading to lower prices for everything salable.
On a practical level, I’d wonder what practical investments for individuals might exist that would be
counter to another market crash like the one earlier this year. In that, it looked like basically
everything was down: stocks, bonds, REIT’s, treasuries, TIPS, gold, silver, other commodities, you
name it, it dropped. Different things recovered more quickly, some now showing overall gains, but
in the moment, I think everything was down. Besides short positions in stocks (and various options
strategies) is there anything that seems likely to anti-correlate to another similar drop if one
occurs?
o broblawsky says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:26 pm ~new~

Rotations (from stocks to bonds, or from one stock sector to another) conserve value. Panics, like
what we just saw this year, do not.

 nkurz says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:38 pm ~new~
Is there a named metric for the percentage of loss of different events? It seems like it would be
useful for distinguishing “panics” from “rotations”, but in the popular press I don’t feel like I’ve ever
seen this being discussed much less measured.

June 15, 2020 at 7:12 am ~new~
Not really; I’d argue that a correction (>10% from a new high) is at least partially panic-driven,
but like so many things in finance, these definitions are arbitrary.

o Erusian says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:02 pm ~new~
There’s no conservation, no. Everything can go down.
There are countercyclical assets, most famously gold, which is countercyclical largely because a
bunch of people put their money there in a downturn. This inflates the price but doesn’t increase
the return (it often decreases it). Also, US/Swiss/etc treasuries or secure bonds tend to go up in
bad times because if those governments stop paying their debts the world is basically ending.
(Gold had a very brief crash but is up, for example. US treasuries didn’t in this crisis because
people preferred corporate bonds, implying fears of inflation or the US debt.)

The issue is that countercyclical assets are countercyclical: they go down when everything else
goes up, so if you just sit in them you’ll be losing money. This is usually because they’re more
certain but have a lower yield, so volatility makes their value go up but in decent times there are
better investments.
You can tell the best place to put money if you know what sort of crash is going to happen. But
that’s predicting the future. If you knew the coronavirus crash was going to happen, the best place
to put your money would have been tech and pharmaceutical (PayPal is up like 50% since
January). If you just knew a crash was coming and not the kind, gold or other commodities would
still have worked. Most of them behaved normally.
If you’re just looking for a general long term strategy, the answer is largely to ride it out. Even if
you have a bad year, it’ll bounce back eventually. Usually in a few years at worst.
o viceni says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:05 pm ~new~
The short answer is no…there is not conservation of value.
To be really mathematical and precise, the value of a financial instrument is a function of only two
inputs: the estimate of future cash flows, and the required rate of return used to discount those
cash flows to the present. That’s all. End of story.
The cash flow for bonds are really predictable – you get set coupons. The cash flow for stocks are
are really volatile (you get only what’s left over). In a garden variety mild recession, two things
usually happen: the value of the cash flow for stocks goes down (because the economy tanks), and
the required rate of return declines (because the Fed lowers rates to stimulate). Lower required
returns equates to a higher price. Thus, in a garden variety recession, cash flow for bonds is
usually fine but rates go down, so bonds go up. For stocks, rates going down should push them up,
but the reduction in cash flow often more than offsets the rates, so they go down.
I’m a major crisis like the great financial crisis or the corona crisis, the cash flow for bonds is also
at risk (bankruptcies everywhere), so they can also go down. But more pertinently, when
uncertainty about cash flows gets very high, everyone just wants cash, so they liquidate, putting
pressure on prices of assets. This is why you see “correlations go to 1” as traders like to say.
Why is there not conservation of value? At a meta level it’s because cash flows for the entire
economy (ie GDP roughly) can and do permanently change. Also, required rates of return for the
economy can and do change.

o cheezecat says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:19 pm ~new~
I’ve never liked the “value has disappeared” story that comes with stock market drops. The value
might not be conserved in some other obvious stock-adjacent market, but surely every person that
doesn’t own stocks has had their purchasing power increase by some (small) amount?
Disclaimer: I believe most advanced economic principles are essentially witchcraft, and not to be
trusted.
 cassander says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:26 pm ~new~
When GDP declines, the decline has to come out of something. And even when it doesn’t, money
can move from investment to consumption.

 AlexanderRM says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:24 am ~new~
For the stereotypical day to day stock market shift when the president makes an unnerving remark
or whatever and speculators panic there’s a sort of conservation of value in that the number of
factories owned by each company or whatever hasn’t changed, it’s just that either speculators
overestimated the value before or now they underestimate the value; in that case the value of cash
absolutely does rise or fall when stocks drop or rise as you can buy more of a company with your
cash.
But it’s of course possible for the size of the entire economy to change, as in factories shutting
down during quarrantine or conversely new technologies being invented; after something like
COVID appears your dollar might buy a larger percentage of the world economy but not get you
any more value because the whole economy is slightly smaller.

o alef says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:47 pm ~new~
What a complex question! I’d say the answers are no/no/only-slighlty.
But we can imagine a situation in which the answer to the third question (does value just
evaporate?) is a clearer ‘yes’. At one time you had people willing to pay $X for a stake in the
market, but later now they will only pay, e.g., 0.9 $X. Has 10% of the value been lost? In each
case – IF the investors are wise and rational – the price is supposely some expection of future
(discounted) cash flow. But what if the change is due to coronavirus? People are out of work, the
economy is hurt, there’s lots of disruption, people are dying; it’s really reasonable to suspect that
mankind truly is worse off economically (not to ignore other ways) due to this virus. Perhaps
companies can be legimitately expected to earn less. And so perhaps a fall in price really reflects a
rational valuation of a _real_ loss in humankind’s expected wealth. If that’s what’s going on then –
at least in aggregate – no financial instrument can paper over this real loss of wealth.
To address your practical question for individuals: what’s wrong with just investing less in the
market in the first place? What do you have against shorting/options? Are you hoping to hedge
against the downside but still keep the upside if the market gains? Are there tax reasons? There’s
not going to be a reliable (i.e. robust against a wide-ish range of possible futures) hedge that
keeps give you most of the upside but limits the downside; at least not that anyone here knows or
that you would have access to. (Though even without these caveats: you can safely assume that
there’s not one.)

 nkurz says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:25 am ~new~
Thanks for your thoughts. Answering only the “practical” clarifications in the last paragraph:
> what’s wrong with just investing less in the market in the first place?
Selling and holding cash equivalents until things calm down is certainly a reasonable strategy. The
downside is that it’s hard to determine when to get back in, and in an inflationary environment you
might end up losing value over time. My guess is that the aftereffects of the COVID pandemic will
be short-term deflationary on paper as measured with CPI, but inflationary with regard to most
household expenses other than housing.

> What do you have against shorting/options?
Probably mostly lack of skill and knowledge, but I’d also like to avoid things that have unlimited
downside if unattended. Right now I’m interested in learning more about things like the “options
weaving” strategy described here: https://www.lynalden.com/precious-metals-investing/.
Essentially, chose something (like gold or silver) that you’d be happy enough owning on a price
drop and selling the upside gain in return for income.
> Are you hoping to hedge against the downside but still keep the upside if the market gains?
I’m happy to trade off most of the upside on a market surge in return for better performance
during an eventual market drop. I’m personally willing to bet that there will be some exceptionally
poor earnings reports over next couple years, but I lack confidence is the timing on which the
market will react to this, and on the time scale that will be involved. My guess is that at some point
in the next 18 months we’ll see further drops of the sort that happened in March, and I’m
wondering how to position for this.
> Are there tax reasons?
Sure, but not incredibly important. I sold my broad-market index mutual funds about half-way
down during the March drop in a way that leaves me with a significant percentage of short-term
losses that can offset most of what would otherwise be a poor tax-wise strategy.
> There’s not going to be a reliable (i.e. robust against a wide-ish range of possible futures) hedge
that keeps give you most of the upside but limits the downside; at least not that anyone here
knows
There’s a lot of smart people here, and a lot that I don’t know, so it seemed worth asking. There
may well be easy to access hedges that I don’t know about that others here do. For example, when
recently trying to learn about inflation protected bonds (TIPS), I accidentally found out about
Series EE Savings Bonds. As a public service notice, if you are an American less than 60 years old,
if you can afford it I think you should strongly consider the maximum limit of $10,000 per year:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4289926-ridiculous-fact-ee-bonds-are-now-stellar-long-term-
investment. It makes me suspect that other such hedges exist as well, but that I just don’t know
about them.
o HomarusSimpson says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:05 pm ~new~

nothing is “up”
My biotech fund has gone up massively. Might well prove to be transitory, when the ‘winner’
emerges (C19 vaccine) everyone else will drop back

o Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:31 am ~new~
The super-literal answer to your question is short-selling, or inverse-funds.

For every $1 the S&P goes up, an S&P inverse fund goes down $1, and vice-versa. Now that’s not a
“real investment” as such and it doesn’t really represent “market value” but it is a completely
100% anti-correlated thing that you can invest in.

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:52 am ~new~
> completely 100% anti-correlated
The cities are rubble and radioactive glass. Bands of humans roam the shattered landscape looking
for food. Warlords fund their activities using the infinity dollars they got from their inverse ETFs.
/snark
 Matt M says:
June 15, 2020 at 6:48 am ~new~
Hey, if “everything will be fine so long as you have infinity dollars” is considered a viable economic
policy when the fed does it, I’m not sure why it wouldn’t apply just as well to the warlords!
 Jake R says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:25 am ~new~
There are 3 types of anticipated economic collapse:
Buy Inverse ETFs
Buy Gold
Buy vegetable seeds and shotgun shells

 Lambert says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:38 am ~new~
Probably buy the seeds early.
All the mail order companies were utterly flooded back in march/april. Half the time I’d check their
websites and it’d just be a static page saying ‘please come back later’.
Hide ↑
 achenx says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:21 am ~new~
Yeah I’m glad I didn’t wait until March this year to get seeds, I grabbed everything in January. Also
got lucky with Internet service — Verizon did an equipment and bandwidth upgrade for me in
February; by the end of March I was hearing they were majorly backed up and new service
requests weren’t being scheduled until the fall. Also had a pound of yeast in the freezer already
too.
Some non-obvious things to think about keeping a supply of for the next plague, I guess.
Hide ↑
o eric23 says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:42 am ~new~
A market crash means that the value of stocks relative to dollars has gone down. But that also
means that the value of dollars relative to stocks has gone up. That’s the offset. Dollars are
relatively more desirable, and stocks less desirable.
If you want to anticorrelate, stick your money under the mattress, or less figuratively, in a bank
getting whatever low fixed interest rate they are willing to give you.
71. Alexandre Z says:

June 14, 2020 at 5:08 pm ~new~
Are prescription stimulants and SSRIs nootropics for the purpose of this survey? They certainly are
cognitive enhancers.
72. Rewrite says:

June 14, 2020 at 5:05 pm ~new~
This seems to be a pretty good discussion of the problems of peer review, especially in the ‘Social
Sciences’: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/06/11/bla-bla-bla-peer-review-bla-bla-bla/
73. theredsheep says:
June 14, 2020 at 5:00 pm ~new~
On a cheerier note, let’s talk about eccentrics. Does your metropolitan area have one? I’m talking
about Emperor Norton type figures, men and women who live outlandish lives in public view and
are generally adored for it.
I live in Bay County, Florida, and we have a man named Decaris Hunter. Mr. Hunter’s exact
background is not clear to me, but he spends a tremendous amount of time hanging out at busy
intersections holding up signs that say “Spread the Love” and getting people to honk. As in, hours
on end. I believe he treats it like a full-time job. We are not talking about a shoestring operation
with crappy signs here. He has a number of snazzy custom-printed shirts; I’ve heard that he has
corporate sponsors as well. He once pulled in behind me at a gas station, driving a big white Ford
pickup with a bunch of Spread the Love stuffed animals on the dash and deafening Gospel music
blasting out the open windows. He danced to the music while he was filling up, completely un-self-
conscious about the crowds staring.
When I tried to look it up, I found a news interview where he said he was an ex-con who wanted to
turn his life around. Whatever the case may be, Bay County is very much behind his Spread the
Love mission. Until COVID hit he did lots of selfies with random people. A year or so back a local
mall drove him away for “loitering.” They felt the wrath of God for that, and quickly backpedaled.
You do not accuse Decaris Hunter of loitering, he is a civic treasure.

o SamChevre says:
June 14, 2020 at 5:27 pm ~new~
Richmond Virginia has “Happy the Artist“; he gave hugs to anyone who asked, drove very oddly
decorated cars, and painted amazing murals.

o xved says:
June 14, 2020 at 5:51 pm ~new~
Present-day San Francisco has Frank Chu, although he’s less “adored” and more a curiosity.
 FLWAB says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:14 pm ~new~
He’s clearly a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. Sad.
I once encountered such a person over the phone when I was a receptionist for a government
agency. What he wanted was extremely unclear, though he was loud and passionate about it. He
kept insisting that I visit his website. After three calls I checked it out, and there he laid out the
whole story. Apparently he wanted to start a recycling plant and his many and varied enemies who
were afraid that his recycling plant would put them out of business had conspired with his
psychologist to falsely give him a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. The website went on for
many pages explaining in detail about how this diagnosis was just the cherry on top of a long
history of people in power conspiring against him. He seemed incapable of recognizing that his
paranoid ramblings did not help his case that his diagnosis was inaccurate.
o Placid Platypus says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:41 pm ~new~
Boston has Keytar Bear if that counts.

o ItsGiusto says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:52 pm ~new~
OrI had a few conversations once in central park in NY with Blackwolf the Dragonmaster (once
featured in humans of new york):
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/60121187995/last-week-i-sent-an-email-to-blackwolf-
the
He’s a super kind person, from my brief interactions. He dresses like a really old wizard, and has a
dragon puppet on his shoulder that he does ventriloquism for (though he doesn’t really try to make
it look like he’s not moving his own mouth)

 yodelyak says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:05 pm ~new~
Hm. The dragonmaster’s own site is down, his Facebook hasn’t been active since 2014 it looks like.
I feel sad to have missed this phenomenon.

o hnau says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:20 pm ~new~
Not my metro area, but Madison has Thong Cape Scooter Man.
o John Greer says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:50 pm ~new~
Have you seen Errol Morris’ “Vernon, Florida”?

o ltowel says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:53 pm ~new~
I recall seeing Matthew Lesko’s (the question mark suit guy) car a lot growing up. It’s unclear to
me how much is legitimate eccentricity and how much is marketing.


June 14, 2020 at 10:17 pm ~new~
I recall seeing Matthew Lesko’s (the question mark suit guy) car a lot growing up. It’s unclear to me
how much is legitimate eccentricity and how much is marketing.
It’s only legitimate eccentricity if the legal system institutionalizes him for fighting Batman.
o yodelyak says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:58 pm ~new~
Portland has the unipiper, who is frequently seen with his bagpipes (often with flames coming from
the pipes), a darth vader mask or other full-head mask, and a unicycle. On May 4th he always does
his conventional Vader mask and plays Star Wars songs, because (say it aloud) “May the 4th be
with you.”
He does other holiday-themed things, and event/news-related ones too, like this bit re: covid-19.
o yodelyak says:
June 14, 2020 at 11:08 pm ~new~
My older brother and I both wore an apple bucket with suspenders to cross-country meets in which
we (not having made the varsity team) didn’t compete. We did so in imitation and appreciation of
“The Barrel Man” –wearing a barrel somehow made his fandom feel wholesome and fun, rather
than the weird loser-fascist vibe that some mega sports fans give off.
So yeah, the barrel man was a Denver Broncos phenomenon until 2009.
o noyann says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:41 am ~new~
Not an answer (not metropolitan, mostly not contemporary) but maybe interesting for someone
who follow this subthread, the biographical sketches of British people with rather peculiar habits or
lifestyles in Tales of the Country Eccentrics.

o Ragged Clown says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:09 am ~new~
Bristol has a sixty-something who rides around and around the harbour on a bicycle fitted out to
look like an oversized Harley Davidson or Honda Gold Wing. He has an enormous speaker on the
back that belts out 70s rock so loud that you can hear him from several hundred yards away. He
does this all day and (as far as I can tell) every day.
o Jon S says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:36 am ~new~
Philly Jesus https://www.phillymag.com/tag/philly-jesus/

o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:52 pm ~new~
Los Angeles has Angelyne.
Berkeley has a whole listicle’s worth.
Many universities have Brother Jed, and I think there are other individuals that are a lot like him,
but are in fact distinct people. (The Wikipedia page doesn’t mention all the universities he hangs
out at, because Texas A&M is definitely on the list.)

 keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:52 pm ~new~
Although, on re-reading your description, I think Angelyne is the only one of these that is generally
loved for the eccentricity.

o ninjafetus says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:59 pm ~new~
Fellow Bay County, Floridian here, and I will confirm that the Love must Spread!
Before FL, I lived for a time in Albuquerque, NM, and one of the eccentrics was the naked thrifty
guy. He’d walk in front of the UNM campus all the time wearing next to nothing, pulling a radio
flyer red wagon with his stuff, holding up a sign that said something like, “I lived on $11,000 last
year, and you can too! Ask me how!” I never asked, I assumed his lifestyle and fulfillment was self-
evident.
o King_Awesome says:
June 15, 2020 at 3:56 pm ~new~
There is a guy in Jacksonville, NC (a military town that hosts US Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune)
who is known as the ‘Jacksonville Ninja’ who spends hours doing martial arts moves on the side of
the road. No links because of spam filters but the news did a segment on him because he has been
a local fixture for years and there is a video on youtube so you can see his moves yourself.
74. Dino says:

June 14, 2020 at 4:55 pm ~new~
This is pretty esoteric, but hoping there’s > 0 people here interested in this. I’m fascinated by the
theory of music scales, tuning systems, intervals/ratios, tempered vs non-tempered, etc. My
question concerns the birds (cuckoos as the canonical example) that sing 2 notes that are a
descending minor 3rd. Is it a tempered interval? or maybe using just intonation? Maybe some
scientists have measured the actual frequencies, but I don’t know how to search for that data. The
measurements would have to be pretty precise because the difference between a tempered minor
3rd (ratio = 1.1892…) and a just minor 3rd (ratio = 6/5 = 1.2) is pretty small (< 1%).
For those who share this interest, I've written a software app – a tool to explore scales, intervals,
ratios and intonations. You can use it to, for example, hear the difference between the 81/64 3-
limit ratio major 3rd and the 5/4 "just" major 3rd and the tempered major 3rd, or find out that the
"pure" 3/2 5th is 2 cents sharper than the tempered 5th, or that 60hz hum is 49 cents below a B.
You can download it from DropBox using this link –
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gfzvo9r0crgcobj/AAAKj1BcKMpUbMJyYecbfJioa?dl=0
o gdepasamonte says:
June 14, 2020 at 6:05 pm ~new~
I am not much of a musician, but it sounds from eg this recording that the upper note is not a
single pitch. To me it sounds like a slight downward glide, with the initial pitch higher than an
equal-tempered minor third. This site I just found has some interesting experiments with
transcribing birdsong, and the author seems pretty clear that birdsong is both microtonal and
liberally ornamented with glides.

o viceni says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:17 pm ~new~
I have one of my degrees in music theory. I used to have similar questions, but not this one
exactly. Can I ask why you got so intrigued by it.

My prior, based on everything I’ve read in the past, is that an interval occurring naturally (like with
birds) is likely to not be tempered. Tempering is something that happens artificially to
accommodate the chromaticism that developed in Baroque music. If you ask people to sing chants
from the Middle Ages, or if you look at some a cappella music today (barbershop quartet music
comes to mind), I’m thinking it might not be tempered (that’s how barbershop quartets can
achieve a really “ringing” quality that is fun and attractive).
Basically, my prior is that natural things are going to be untempered. But I’ll admit it’s been a long
time since I spent any time with it.

 Dino says:
June 14, 2020 at 9:46 pm ~new~
Barbershop quartets not only use non-tempered (whole number ratio) intervals, they use the 7th
harmonic (7/4 ratio) in their 7th chords. Famously dreaded by horn players, that’s 31 cents flat
from the tempered 7th.

 Lambert says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:42 pm ~new~
The problem with that is that choirs sometimes sing stuff that includes a comma pump.
 AG says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:17 am ~new~
Isn’t it the opposite? While musicians think in terms of untempered in order to read music, in
practice, they play D-flat and C-sharp in minutely different ways to harmonize with what they’re
hearing (if the instrument allows them to). Singing should have even more leeway to do that.
o Dog says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:53 pm ~new~
I’ve done some sampling and manipulation of bird calls while producing electronic music, and my
experience was that the birds were all really pitchy. So my guess is the question is not really
answerable because birds’ pitches are not that consistent.

o Lambert says:
June 14, 2020 at 8:40 pm ~new~
You got an audio file or a youtube video of the bird?
I’ll try and feed the samples through a fourier transform.

75. Plumber says:

June 14, 2020 at 4:54 pm ~new~
Because of @DavidFriedman’s recommendation I’ve been taking vitamin D3 pills, I’ve also seen
some recommendations for some flavor of vitamin B (which one? B2? B12? I’ve no idea).
Any other recommendations of supplements?
(Preferably those that can be bought brick and mortar, I loath shopping “on-line”).
o Monumental says:
June 14, 2020 at 7:53 pm ~new~

Vitamin B12 is commonly recommended for those that eat no or reduced quantities of animal
products. It is surprising how few vegetarians and vegans know about this, as the consequences of
vitamin B12 deficiency can hit fast, unexpectedly (often years after making dietary changes) and
cause serious long term consequences.
If the goal is to consume well-researched supplements that are safe, effective, promoting of long-
term health, and often lacking in developed diets, I would also look at magnesium, zinc, and
omega-3 – all of these are very easily to obtain.

 Kaitian says:
June 14, 2020 at 10:22 pm ~new~
Another benefit of B12, just like vitamin C and unlike vitamin D, is that nothing bad happens if you
supplement more than you need.

 abystander says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:07 am ~new~
At very high amounts over a lengthy period of time there can be some problems.
o Neike Taika-Tessaro says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:02 am ~new~
I’m the local B12 advocate. My gut is only reluctant to absorb it even from a meat-rich diet and I
made the mistake to try and go vegetarian to “help with my health issues” and skidded narrowly
past dementia (narrowly by my measure; I was still entirely functional, just utterly miserable and
palpably declining).
Since it’s over the counter I generally recommend people who have symptoms that are remotely
like mine were (sound sensitivity, light sensitivity, problems concentrating, poor sleep quality,
catastrophic memory issues, frequent constipation; severe depression thanks to all of the
preceding issues) to try B12 supplements for a week or two. For reference, I take about 20µg a
day, though I’m going to be upping it to 30µg a day because I’ve had to switch suppliers; but the
“ideal amount” I am trying to go for, personally, is 20µg.
If you do try this, dear reader, be careful not to get a vitamin B combo product, while B12 is next
to impossible to overdose on, the other B vitamins aren’t.
(Also, methylcobalamin may be better than cyanocobalamin, but I’m happy with latter.)
o albatross11 says:
June 16, 2020 at 8:57 am ~new~

I’ve heard the claim that it’s hard to get the required vitamin D from supplements and easier to get
it from sun, but I don’t know enough to be sure.

76. Eric T says:

June 14, 2020 at 4:53 pm ~new~
@DavidFriedman – Now that we’re not talking about Culture War stuff, do you want to have that
discussion about general Moral Philosophy?

June 14, 2020 at 8:08 pm ~new~
Sure. I think I sketched the problem earlier.
The starting question is what people deserve. One approach, the one that seems to me to be most
workable, is that the question is what this person as he is deserves. If you are a kind, honest,
honorable, productive person you deserve to have good things happen to you. If you are a cruel
person who goes around being nasty to people and lives by swindling people you deserve to have
bad things happen to you.
My point is not the specific list, and I’m not talking at this point about how a just society will work
— I don’t think institutions that reliably give people what they deserve are an option. My point is
that what you deserve is a statement about you as you now are.
The very tempting alternative is to ask whether you deserve to be as you now are. If the reason
you are a nasty, hostile person is that you were abused as a child then you don’t deserve to be
such a person, so don’t deserve to get worse outcomes than the person lucky enough to be reared
by loving parents to be a kind, generous, honest person.

One problem with this approach is that if you push it back far enough nobody deserves anything,
good or bad, since every characteristic of a person can be traced to things that are in some sense
not his fault, his genes as well as his environment. One could try to get out of this by introducing
free will and claiming that some things are the result of voluntary choice rather than causal chains
starting outside the individual, but it’s hard to know how to turn that approach into a coherent
moral theory.
What got me thinking about that was something you said about Asians, that (my summary from
memory) if their talents should give them a ten percent higher than average income but, due to
discrimination, they only ended up with a five percent higher income, things should somehow be
fixed to get them back up to ten percent.
So you were distinguishing between one subset of characteristics relevant to desert that people
were entitled to and another they were not. I didn’t see on what basis you did that, given what
seemed to be the logic of your r/Racism approach.

Two other and briefer points. First, my basis for moral philosophy is intuitionism. For a long
version, Michael Huemer has a book with that title. For a short version, see this draft chapter from
the third edition of my first book.
Second, an alternative criterion to desert, one that I think better suited for building a legal system
on, is entitlement, a distinction I borrow from Nozick. You are entitled to something if you got it by
a legitimate chain of transactions. Seen from that standpoint, one could argue that a current West
Coast Japanese with an above average income was entitled to transfers to compensate him for
property lost due to the imprisonment of his family during WWII, because such transfers undue a
past illegitimate transfer. That’s the line of argument sometimes offered to justify transfers to the
descendants of slaves.
My point here isn’t to argue for any particular application of the approaches. It is that there is a
fundamental difference between saying “someone should get something because he deserves it”
and “because he is entitled to it.” Both might be used to argue for the same conclusion, but they
are fundamentally different arguments.
And the “deserves” version raises the problems I described above.


June 15, 2020 at 12:07 am ~new~
on, is entitlement, a distinction I borrow from Nozick. You are entitled to something if you got it by a
legitimate chain of transactions.
What of the matter that these chains turn out to start with a conquest?
English property rights are a strong thing resting on Weberian legal-rational authority, which every
private party upholds because violations are punished in courtrooms.
A property owner might even be able to trace their legitimate chain of transfers to 1067, with the
decree of William the Conqueror that every acre of land was his property.
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:03 am ~new~
What of the matter that these chains turn out to start with a conquest?
William took the land from the Saxons, who took it from someone else (the Celts or something),
who surely took it from someone else.
I think every entitlement started out with conquest of some sort, so in a way. Turtles all the way
down, just like for deserts. I think the solution is how the system of justice usually deals with these
things: having an expiry date on claims¹.

For actual conquest (i.e. between states) we don’t really have that, so in principle, occupants like
Turkey, Morocco, China, Israel, Russia, etc should return the land they occupy. In practice, the
claims are only treated as nominal, except when vocal political factions keep them current.
¹ Or do we? Maybe this is only for criminal cases? I know that you have a much weaker case if you
complain about a transaction (buying a house, say) if you don’t field your claim as soon as you
become aware of the issue. Similar for things like trademarks, I’m pretty sure – if you don’t
maintain your claim, you lose it.

 DarkTigger says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:10 am ~new~
Re: Footnote
I recently looked up it up on Wikipedia, to learn how this is handeled in th US. Prescreption exists
in the US for both criminal as well as civil cases.

Hide ↑
 sclmlw says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:34 am ~new~
This is my understanding of the general rule for the US as it pertains to land:
For squatting to translate to actual ownership of the land, the Adverse Possession has to be ‘open
and notorious’. In other words, the owner of the land, if they were using that land in the first place,
should be able to tell that it’s happening. This is true, even if it’s a small infraction, even if it’s
unintentional, and even if the land owner does not – in fact – discover the adverse possession
during the time they could legally assert their claim. The idea is that if someone is relying on a
claim of possession – even an adverse one – for long enough, the law should treat that reliance as
actual fact if the claim goes unchallenged.
I seem to recall some case about a property owner building steps that encroached on a neighbor’s
property, going over the property line a few inches. It was there for years, but the neighbor didn’t
think anything of it, until for some reason they surveyed the land (wanted to pour a driveway, I
think? Sorry, it’s been over a decade since I studied the case) and discovered that the steps were
built too far over. They sued, thinking they could reclaim their property and build the driveway.
They lost. The court decided that the adverse possession was open and notorious, and that had the
legitimate land-owner wished he could have discovered the error any time in the intervening years,
but didn’t do the land survey and so tacitly accepted the adverse possession.
Hide ↑

June 15, 2020 at 5:09 pm ~new~
All land on the East Coast goes back to King George III iirc
 Guy in TN says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:07 am ~new~
legitimate chain of transactions.
I should point out that “legitimate chain of transactions” is just one theory of entitlement.
Alternative theories of entitlement are based off of distributive justice (i.e. the outcome, who ends
up with what) rather than procedural justice (i.e. the process, how transactions occur).
 Ketil says:
June 15, 2020 at 5:32 am ~new~
I should point out that “legitimate chain of transactions” is just one theory of entitlement. Alternative
theories of entitlement are based off of distributive justice (i.e. the outcome, who ends up with what)
rather than procedural justice (i.e. the process, how transactions occur).
Not sure I understand this. One problem is what constitutes a “legitimate transaction”. I think a
government deciding to collect tax and redistribute it would be considered legitimate (at least in as
much as the government itself is legitimate).
Entitlement based on distribution sounds like it would be fair for me to take some of your money if
you have more and I have less. While rarely explicitly stated, I think this is a common pattern,
many seem to contrast e.g. the wealth of Bezos with their own – it is “unfair” that he is rich (from
the work of others, even!) and they not. But aren’t this an argument from desert, that Bezos
doesn’t “deserve” to be so much richer than me, who after all am a hard working and competent
individual who by no means spends too much time in online forums doing philosophical
hairsplitting…
 sclmlw says:
June 15, 2020 at 7:41 am ~new~
As another meta-level hairsplitting aside:
Is it justified to treat income as synonymous with wealth in these calculations? Perhaps if we
treated all methods of monetary gain identically, we could make that distinction?
What of the multimillionaire who retired at thirty? That person is unemployed, according to labor
statistics. Depending on how you calculate ‘deserts’ they could be deserving of government aid
based on an income model*, while clearly being on the opposite side of the equation based on a
wealth model.
*You could calculate investment gains as income, but in a bad year for the millionaire’s
investments, they could post significant losses while still having their personal chef cook up steaks
every night. Could this same millionaire who loses money one year apply for – and receive –
significant government aid because the system inappropriately judges their income situation to
mean they’re deserving of assistance? (i.e. that they’re poor)

Hide ↑
 Guy in TN says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:27 am ~new~
@Ketil
But aren’t this an argument from desert, that Bezos doesn’t “deserve” to be so much richer than me,
who after all am a hard working and competent individual who by no means spends too much time
in online forums doing philosophical hairsplitting…
Arguments for redistributive taxation don’t have to be based on desert, although many people like
to go that rhetorical route. One immediate road-block for someone arguing for taxation/transfers
via work-based desert is that many people in our society just cannot or should not work (children,
the elderly, the disabled, ect). Desert-based justice leaves them out in the cold.
Entitlement based on distribution sounds like it would be fair for me to take some of your money if
you have more and I have less.
I was careful not to specify the details of a particular theory of distributive justice, since I wanted
to leave it open ended. Total wealth equalization is a theory of distributive justice, but certainly not
the only one. I mainly just want to draw a contrast between “things that are good because they
followed a certain process” vs. “things that are good because they achieved a certain outcome”.
Hide ↑
 Guy in TN says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:14 pm ~new~
@Zephalinda
But “everybody deserves to have an equal share, just because they’re human and all humans are
morally equal,” or “everybody should get enough to have their needs met, because human beings
deserve to have their needs met” are also based on a priori theories of desert, no? They’re just not
work-based theories.
I suppose you could phrase it that way. But the most common desert formulations involve a person
having completed some sort of choice or action in order to “earn” their just desert, with the desert
being a “reward” or (if negative) a “punishment”.
If you want to communicate that you think people should have things, but not because of any
choices or actions they take, I think it is more clearly communicated as they are “morally entitled”
to the things, rather than they “morally deserve” the things.

Hide ↑
 Aapje says:
June 15, 2020 at 4:21 am ~new~
@DavidFriedman & Eric T
A closely related problem is that what people can reasonably have from others depends at least in
part on what they do for others.
For example, let’s say that there are two hunter-gatherers who live in an environment with little
food: Mary and Bob. Mary is great at catching fish. Bob is great at cooking it. Alone, they would be
barely able to feed themselves if they spend all day on feeding themselves, because while Mary can
catch fish relatively quickly, her poor cooking means she can barely cook enough edible fish for
herself. The opposite is true of Bob, who can barely catch enough fish, but once he catches one, he
cooks it quickly and well.
If they work together, each specializing in what they are skilled at, they have time left over after
feeding themselves, that they can use for increased prosperity. Making a hovel, clothes, having
children, etc.
Now imagine that Bob gets into an accident that makes him unable to fish. One might argue that
Mary has an obligation to care for him, because she is relatively privileged by not having that
accident. However, even without caring for Bob her prosperity has been greatly reduced by Bob’s
accident. His ill fate made her much worse off.
If she does try to feed him, they will both die, as she alone can only feed one person.
So my point is that there is a feedback-loop. In the scenario without the accident, Mary can only
provide certain benefits to Bob, because he provides benefits to her (which he can only do,
because…).
The same is true if you look at modern society, although it is much less visible and direct. Still,
employers can only pay their workers as much as they do, because the workers do work for the
employer.
Another example. Scott smashes the car window of Alice, to steal her car radio, to sell for drugs.
The police catches Scott before he can sell the radio and it is returned to Alice. However, this
doesn’t undo the harm of her smashed car window. We now have the choice to:
– Let Alice pay for the car window, so she is still worse off than if the theft hadn’t happened
– Let Scott pay for the car window, so he is worse off than if he hadn’t done the theft
– Let a third party pay, so they are worse off than if the theft hadn’t happened
– A combination of the above
There is no option to undo the harm, so no one is worse off, compared to the situation without the
theft.
A key aspect here is that the harm that was done comes in two variants:
– reversible (taking and returning the car radio)
– irreversible (smashing the window)
Ultimately, if we have two possible realities, Utopia and Harm, where in the latter someone was
harmed, then the only way we can turn Harm back into Utopia is if the harm that was done, is
reversible. If that is not the case & it is almost never entirely the case, we can only redistribute the
harm that was done.
But at that point, we have an issue, because while many victims don’t deserve the harm that
happened to them, we often also don’t have others who (fully or at all) deserve that harm.
A third example. Hank and Anne have a loving relationship. Anne gets attacked by a drunk person
and suffers brain damage that makes her violent & that cannot be undone. Hank dislikes being
beaten (and having his children be beaten), so he wants to leave her.
If we only consider the harm that happened to Anne and want to make her as much whole as we
can, the logical thing to do is to force Hank to stay with Anne. For Anne, this is the closest we can
make her life to the situation where she wasn’t harmed.
Yet if we make that choice, it means that others will in turn be severely harmed.
So based on these examples, I would argue that you cannot just look at what people’s lives would
have been without harm. You have to figure out what is most fair in the situation where the harm
happened. If you want to go beyond merely undoing the harms that were done, which is only
possible to a very limited extent, you have to accept that you are throwing the switch in the trolley
problem. You are causing a harm to innocents, which you may consider the most fair (or least
unfair) solution, but it is not what they deserve to happen to them.

 sclmlw says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:34 pm ~new~
The ‘reversible/irreversible’ scheme you outline above is closely related to the legal principle in tort
law called ‘conversion’. If you steal my dog, you can still give it back. If you shoot my dog, you’ve
‘converted’ the possession in a way that it cannot be legally recovered through direct means. It has
to be converted into some other kind of compensation, which is often difficult to calculate. (And in
practice is based on statues and years of legal precedent about what it means to make the
situation right.)
The story of the addict brings in another legal principle. Once upon a time, if you were too poor to
pay when a legal judgement went against you, the person you owed money to could accept non-
payment in the form of prison time. This is what Jesus means when he says you’ll rot in jail if you
owe money you can’t pay back (Sermon on the Mount) or how the debtor’s debtor threw people in
prison for non-payment even after he got forbearance (parable). We abolished that practice years
ago, such that today the drug addict who is stealing to support their habit will not pay anything to
fix the car window. They are what we call ‘judgement-proof’; meaning that a judgement would not
be able to collect anything against them because they don’t make anything. And since we’re no
longer willing to throw people in prison for monetary damages (probably a good thing on balance,
given the history behind the practice) the law can’t do anything to recover the judgement. The
judgement becomes a piece of paper that conveys no promise of restitution by legal means. So
Alice’s insurance pays to fix the window. Not because we’ve decided she deserves to pay the price,
but because Scott is incapable of making restitution, and we’re unwilling to send him to a work
camp to make him pay for it.
This in turn creates interesting scenarios. OJ Simpson was acquitted of criminal charges for the
murders of his wife and Ron Goldman, but he lost the subsequent civil case brought by the
Goldman family. The criminal standard is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’, and the evidence didn’t
quite fit well enough to convict based on that requirement. But but the civil standard is a
‘preponderance of evidence’, so of course OJ lost (I want to say it was wrongful death?). Simpson
was loaded, but he declared the Goldman family would not get a dime of the judgement against
him. He moved to Florida, where the law prohibits recovery of damages from assets, only from
income. OJ stated he was purposefully NOT going to work so he didn’t have to pay anything to the
judgement. Despite his millions, he’d rendered himself judgement-proof.
Later, he was preparing to publish a book called “If I did it” where he all but confessed to the
murders. The Goldman family discovered this fact and successfully sued to have the book included
as part of the judgement – it was new ‘income’ from OJ. (I think it helped that the publishing house
was located outside Florida, but I can’t remember the details.) The Goldman family published it,
shrinking the word ‘if’ in the title down to insignificance, and added a lengthy foreword of their own
about their perspective of the murders.

June 15, 2020 at 1:27 pm ~new~
@David Friedman
Your description of moral nihilism seems like an outside-description of morality. My rebuttal of it
would be that when people are asking about moral philosophies, they are asking for internal (actor)
descriptions.
Is this adequate?
June 15, 2020 at 2:40 pm ~new~
It occurs to me, looking at the responses, that there is a third category of moral theory that
doesn’t fit either of the ones I described, a theory such as utilitarianism which hold that one should
do whatever best achieves some objective, such as maximizing total utility. It isn’t allocating on
the basis of either desert or entitlement, although I suppose one could cram it into the desert
category with enough effort.

 Eric T says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:13 am ~new~
I’d consider myself like 2/3ds consequentialist/utilitarian. I do think that giving people what they
“deserve” or maybe what they are “entitled to” is a net good on utility for a bunch of reasons.
-People feel much happier when they receive what they think they’ve earned
-Solving for inequalities increases efficiency
-It is more likely to help the least well off (marginal utility)
-When people believe justice will be done they act in a better way
Stuff like that.

 DinoNerd says:
June 15, 2020 at 11:26 pm ~new~
There’s yet another alternative here, that mostly turns up in a religious context. This is the idea
that everyone is of equal worth, and deserves the same good treatment.
This may be impractical – various arguments for this are obvious and well known.
But it returns again and again in religious argument. (As an example, to many Christians, all are
sinners, and deserving of ultimate bad, with small differences essentially irrelevant compared to
the goodness of God.)
It’s present in some versions of communist/socialist ideals, without the religious backing.
You can argue this is not moral philosophy per se, because it’s not providing moral context for the
recipient. But it’s telling all people, in their roles as givers/actors towards other people how they
ought to behave, so I think it qualifies.
I also think it’s lurking behind a lot of modern intuitions, just rarely stated as baldly except by a
few religious writers.
Also, FWIW, this can show up as entitlement – any time you hear “xyz is a right”, they’ve headed
down this path. You don’t earn rights; you have them simply because you exist.
It’s just that most people, unless they aspire to be or describe saints, stop before going all the way
down that path.

 Eric T says:
June 16, 2020 at 9:10 am ~new~
Sorry for not responding! Real life caught up for a bit 🙁

The very tempting alternative is to ask whether you deserve to be as you now are. If the reason you
are a nasty, hostile person is that you were abused as a child then you don’t deserve to be such a
person, so don’t deserve to get worse outcomes than the person lucky enough to be reared by loving
parents to be a kind, generous, honest person.
One problem with this approach is that if you push it back far enough nobody deserves anything,
good or bad, since every characteristic of a person can be traced to things that are in some sense not
his fault, his genes as well as his environment. One could try to get out of this by introducing free will
and claiming that some things are the result of voluntary choice rather than causal chains starting
outside the individual, but it’s hard to know how to turn that approach into a coherent moral theory.
I think I can “get out of this” in two ways: First I think we can all acknowledge, even me, that the
further back you go the less directly causal actions are on you as you are now. So probably like
100+ years ago we can only really discuss pretty major stuff, and even then I think the impact is
diminished. I tried to in my other posts stray away from reparations from say slavery because of
this very issue.
Second I think we can introduce a pragmatic element here. It is pragmatically good for society if
people have some degree of responsibility for their actions no matter what. I think if we offset
responsibility 100% that does breakdown stuff in a meaningful way.
Look – I’m a causal determinism. I don’t think that morally anything is anyone’s “fault” so to
speak, we’re all gears in a machine. But I do think adhering to the principals of justice makes
society better.
What got me thinking about that was something you said about Asians, that (my summary from
memory) if their talents should give them a ten percent higher than average income but, due to
discrimination, they only ended up with a five percent higher income, things should somehow be
fixed to get them back up to ten percent.
So you were distinguishing between one subset of characteristics relevant to desert that people were
entitled to and another they were not. I didn’t see on what basis you did that, given what seemed to
be the logic of your r/Racism approach.
I posted this earlier but I’ll repost it here, to breakdown what I think kind of broadly:
I think people should be given as much a fair shake as possible. My ideal world would probably be
one where everyone’s success and failure is based solely on their individual merit, but also one that
has a sizable security net so failure=/= death or misery.
In the context of race this would mean allowing each person of each race the ability to thrive. If we
could actually excise all racist bias and aftereffects of Racist policy from modern world and there
was unequal outcomes, I’d probably be fine with that. I understand that things like IQ are still part
of the lottery of birth, but I think the other stuff is at least solvable. I’m not sure if that one is solvable
in a way that doesn’t completely obliterate individuality.
Like perhaps if there was a way to ensure everyone was born exactly equally without massively
decreasing overall happiness, I’d be interested in it.

Two other and briefer points. First, my basis for moral philosophy is intuitionism. For a long
version, Michael Huemer has a book with that title. For a short version, see this draft chapter from
the third edition of my first book.
legitimate chain of transactions. Seen from that standpoint, one could argue that a current West
Coast Japanese with an above average income was entitled to transfers to compensate him for
property lost due to the imprisonment of his family during WWII, because such transfers undue a
past illegitimate transfer. That’s the line of argument sometimes offered to justify transfers to the
descendants of slaves.
My point here isn’t to argue for any particular application of the approaches. It is that there is a
fundamental difference between saying “someone should get something because he deserves it” and
“because he is entitled to it.” Both might be used to argue for the same conclusion, but they are
fundamentally different arguments.
This is a really cool distinction and I’d love to talk more about it, but I feel like I should read
Huemer or at least your draft chapter. Give me a bit, and I’ll circle back on this.
I guess to me it seems like you could always run into this infinite regression here too right:
couldn’t you go back far enough and find a transaction that is illegitimate. Below people brought up
conquest. Is conquest a legitimate means of transaction? Why is it ok, but stealing/mugging isn’t
for example?
June 16, 2020 at 1:22 pm ~new~
My ideal world would probably be one where everyone’s success and failure is based solely on their
individual merit
But is merit predicated on what they now are, the position I argued for, or on what they would be if
not for … ?
Does my nasty person who is nasty because of his terrible upbringing deserve failure on the basis
of his (present) merit?

couldn’t you go back far enough and find a transaction that is illegitimate.
That’s a potential problem. The best solution I can come up with is that it’s a matter of relative
entitlement. If one could actually find out who the property was stolen from (assuming an initial
just “mixing labor with the land” claim) a thousand years ago and trace his inheritance down, the
heir would have a legitimate claim against the current owner. But you can’t, and the current owner
got the land through a chain of legitimate transactions through people who continued to mix their
labor with the land in various ways, so has a much better claim than a random person.
You might be interested in my not very successful attempt to resolve the initial ownership problem
in another chapter of the same book.

June 16, 2020 at 3:35 pm ~new~
Among other things, the whole moral argument for outcomes based on merit got a lot less
convincing to me when I started understanding how much of intelligence is inherited.

Hide ↑
77. Aapje says:

June 14, 2020 at 4:53 pm ~new~
If you don’t get your dose of Dutch fixed expressions, send a ‘brandbrief’
‘Brandbrief’ = Fire letter
A letter with a strident request for help and/or a complaint about misdeeds. This used to mean a
letter that proved the damages caused by a fire, that one could give to the insurance company to
get paid. Later, the meaning broadened to any demand for help or change.
‘Ergens een broertje dood aan hebben’ = Having a dead little brother of it
Really disliking something. The sentence literally means that one’s little brother died of it, referring
to a time when many children died of diseases. So a common explanation why someone disliked
talking about a disease was that their little brother or sister died of it.
‘buigen of barsten/breken’ = Bending or bursting/breaking
It will happen, one way or the other.
‘Goedschiks of kwaadschiks’ = Well arranged or bad arranged
Same as the above. Either you cooperate or it will happen against your will, with force or other bad
means.
‘Buiten de pot piesen’ = Peeing next to the pot
Cheating on your partner or making a mistake. The former meaning seems on it’s way out. Goes
back to at least 1615.
‘Een slippertje maken’ = slipping
Cheating on your partner.

o DarkTigger says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:17 am ~new~
“Brandbrief” again exact same word in German.

78. johan_larson says:

June 14, 2020 at 4:34 pm ~new~
Welcome to our discussion of “The One I Love”, which is #40 in Rolling Stone’s Top 40 Sci-Fi
Movies of the 21st Century.
Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass play a bickering couple (Sophie and Ethan) who are sent to a
country retreat by their therapist. There they discover two copies of themselves. This is initially
intriguing, since the copies actually seem like better versions of their real spouses. Later they
discover that the therapist actually plans to replace them by their copies, while trapping them in
the retreat. The therapist has done this multiple times: he traps a couple at the retreat, transforms
them into better versions of another couple, who he in turn traps at the retreat, while sending the
replacement couple to take over their lives in the outside world. Later, Ethan and Sophie escape
from the estate, and it turns out Ethan actually escaped with the copy of Sophie rather than his
original wife.
You can find a more detailed plot summary here.
In the film, we see Ethan I (the original) return from the retreat with what turns out to be Sophie
II (the copy). Was this the therapist’s plan all along, or was that something he had not expected?
Also, Ethan I recognizes that he returned with Sophie II. And she knows she is Sophie II. Does she
know that he knows? Does the therapist?
The part that doesn’t make sense to me is why the therapist would set up this elaborate scheme.
He has one couple trapped in the country retreat. He physically transforms them into another
couple, and teaches them to behave like the other couple, in order to have them replace this other
couple in the real world. And he traps the other couple in the retreat, so he can keep repeating the
cycle. Why? What is he trying to accomplish?
If it was all a plan to find better matches for Ethan and Sophie, without having the couple visibly
spit up, he could have been much more straightforward. People divorce and remarry all the time.
He could just have told them they should both find other partners, and here are a selection to try.
Easy. No weird magic needed.
Bottom line, this film has a really cool concept. This notion of going somewhere to meet a slightly
better version of your spouse (and yourself) is really neat. But I don’t think the setup for the idea
quite makes sense. And the ending seemed a bit strange.
Finally, a question for y’all. Is this actually a science fiction film?
(Next week, we’ll be discussing Rolling Stone’s #39, “Another Earth”. )

o bullseye says:
June 14, 2020 at 4:46 pm ~new~
I haven’t seen the film, but I agree the plan doesn’t make sense. Why not turn each couple into a
better version of themselves? Wouldn’t that be easier, and also sort of what they signed up for?
o TomParks says:
June 14, 2020 at 5:17 pm ~new~
Based on the ranking, I’d consider watching the whole movie. {Spoiler alert: That opinion changes
by the end of this post. I am fickle.} My memory is that I got bored and went on to something
else. This may simply be a hazard of our modern streaming world, where I place a pretty high
value on the expected enjoyment I’ll get out of the average replacement movie or television show.
The positive (from what I remember): Watching Duplass and Moss perform variations on the same
characters and relationship. The negative: They were so good at playing low-level awful people
that I wasn’t invested in what happened to them.

Is it science fiction? Mmmmaybe. Speculative fiction can be pretty broad, and I’d hate to limit a
genre that’s given me so much enjoyment. That said, I thought the premise there to be forgotten
in service of letting the actors do interesting things. Worse, the premise wasn’t good enough to
make me ignore that I wasn’t into the story, and the story wasn’t good enough to make me ignore
that I wasn’t intrigued by the premise.
“Writing is a process of discovery,” I’ve heard and I believe. In writing this, I’ve discovered that I
won’t be attempting to fully watch this movie. I’ve also discovered that I’m grateful to
@johan_larson for shining a light on this list.

o digbyforever says:
June 14, 2020 at 5:26 pm ~new~
Question: are we 100% sure it’s Sophie II? I thought it was meant to be just slightly more
ambiguous, although I agree that’s the most obvious conclusion. But maybe I’m importing more
ambiguity than was meant.
Given that there is a scene where someone runs into, essentially, a force-field, I do think it is
science-fiction, although of the “let’s use tech as the justification for creating a thought-experiment
world” rather than “let’s use tech and explore the ramifications of the tech” sci-fi. I suppose your
mileage may vary about whether you think that’s sci-fi.
I thought it was a good movie; I’d say ignore the plot holes about the plan, and enjoy it for the
very solid Duplass and Moss lead / dual performances and the questions it raises about people and
relationships.
June 14, 2020 at 9:27 pm ~new~
I’m pretty sure it’s Sophie II. They made a big deal earlier in the movie about how Sophie I hates
making bacon and Sophie II being ok with it. And at the end of the movie the Sophie who escaped
is making bacon. Ethan certainly stops and highlights the significance of it. So I think it’s Sophie II.
 digbyforever says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:23 am ~new~
This makes total sense. I was trying to remember why I thought it was ambiguous, and finally
remembered: I read the scene as, Ethan hears about the bacon, and wonders if it’s Sophie or
Sophie II, and is uncertain as to which, but then realizes that either he doesn’t care or it doesn’t
matter (or both). (Again, I may be trying to force more ambiguity into it than is there in a
“Deckard–is he a replicant?” kind of way.)

 Nick says:
June 15, 2020 at 9:11 am ~new~
Given that there is a scene where someone runs into, essentially, a force-field, I do think it is science-
fiction, although of the “let’s use tech as the justification for creating a thought-experiment world”
rather than “let’s use tech and explore the ramifications of the tech” sci-fi. I suppose your mileage
may vary about whether you think that’s sci-fi.
Yeah, YMMV, but I agree this isn’t really exploring the ramifications of the tech. The therapist might
as well have been a wizard or puckish demon. Honestly, I think puckish demon might have
approached an explanation, since at least they have a history of this sort of thing. Drop hints at the
beginning that the therapist doesn’t really practice therapy and has strange tomes on the shelves
of his office.
 digbyforever says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:40 pm ~new~
I’m just realizing that since Ted Danson plays the therapist, in light of his current TV show,
“puckish demon” might well be the explanation!

o Deiseach says:
June 15, 2020 at 8:37 am ~new~
To me it sounds more like horror than science fiction (the way “Alien” was horror in space, not SF).
It’s “psychological thriller/horror”, the SF trappings make no sense other than to ‘explain’ how the
couple are trapped in the house (forcefields) and how strangers can be perfectly physically altered
into your doppelgänger.


June 15, 2020 at 9:44 am ~new~
It might be fun to do a ramble through horror-flavored sf. A lot of Egan, a lot of GRRM….
 Bugmaster says:
June 15, 2020 at 10:03 am ~new~
I recommend Blindsight, by Peter Watts.

o keaswaran says:
June 15, 2020 at 12:59 pm ~new~
Sounds to me more like Magical Realism than Science Fiction. Everything is just like the actual
world, except one weird thing that functions as a McGuffin, and that doesn’t need a magical or
scientific explanation. I think the genre term is usually associated with Latin American literature
(and also some other developing world literary writing, like Salman Rushdie) but it also seems to fit
things like this, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Invention of Lying, and so on.
 Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:17 pm ~new~
That’s a good name for a genre that I like.

June 15, 2020 at 3:19 pm ~new~
Every work of fiction get to have one improbable thing happen. In this one, that’s the therapist’s
ability to transform people. Transforming people is pretty standard stuff in the fantasy genre,
though I would be willing to call it Magical Realism since this film is set in contemporary times.
There’s a therapist (not a wizard) who turned people into other people (not frogs). Sure.
That still doesn’t explain why he did it. Was there some sort of hint? Did I miss something?
o Randy M says:
June 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm ~new~
Sounds faintly similar to the film Coherence, which is about a dinner party that gets shuffled
around to alternate dimensions in various combinations.

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23 Jun 2020 09:39:24 UTC

Slate Star Codex

uncontroversial issue managed to become part of the national conversation.

with remarks on their economics.

June 17, 2020 at 11:59 am ~new~

First, thank you extremely much for the list!

rather than pro-market.

I wish that both of those were the opposite.

Sorcery” a lot, starting immediately.

You are welcome!

Reflected sound of underground spirits?

That book persuaded me that Pratchett was not worth reading.

Fortunately my son eventually persuaded me to try one of the Guards books.

4. Le Maistre Chat says:

free market rather than having to negotiate personal hospitality?

June 16, 2020 at 12:07 pm ~new~

support the inn.

(Source: am near 3 trade routes of varying levels of ancientness. Lots of pubs.)

 Le Maistre Chat says:

lodging every 12 miles.

surprised if they were well-established by the time of Cyrus or at least Darius.

June 16, 2020 at 1:13 pm ~new~

keepers had higher status than we’d expect?

 Le Maistre Chat says:

the Hittite Empire.

sister, Enmebaragesi.” Not sure if literal or sexist joke.

than bread does.

expect Deiseach could give more details.

 Le Maistre Chat says:

I don’t think knighthood existed in ancient Ireland.

getting to that status in one generation.

@Le Maistre Chat

You may have had the Knights Hospitaller in mind.

Just got laid off, looking for job advice.

jenkins, jira, etc.

technical sophistication, giving presentations to audiences of varying levels of technical

things, and even on my best day I’m just a mediocre programmer.

company will sell? No, not my thing.

do/not do at interviews, how to negotiate a salary, etc)

June 16, 2020 at 11:34 am ~new~

only to a point. Again, I know this might limit my options.

answer questions–this name at gmail.

June 16, 2020 at 12:06 pm ~new~

would probably fit your pitch is product management.

June 16, 2020 at 12:19 pm ~new~

for people with a physics background.

June 16, 2020 at 12:37 pm ~new~

June 16, 2020 at 12:52 pm ~new~

in the system design phase.

o a real dog says:

June 16, 2020 at 1:06 pm ~new~

June 16, 2020 at 1:55 pm ~new~

that it’s a surprisingly interesting field to work in.

Some fields that are regarded as being hard:

 Belisaurus Rex says:

competent at everything else.

June 16, 2020 at 2:12 pm ~new~

out of vast inscrutable datasets! AMA!

I LOVE data science!

Point, Excel, or MATLAB and present or deliver the results to them.

think of a potted plant, or sourdough starter… It takes on a character of its own.

June 16, 2020 at 2:12 pm ~new~

June 16, 2020 at 2:32 pm ~new~

bit cheeky here, but fundamentally it’s true).