wonkaWonka

He's trolling. It's a useless tangential argument about something that does not affect intended conveyance.

He may be forum sliding, creating crufty noise, to dilute communication.

The title is:

  The Lovers & The Despot

  Lovers and Despot movies

In what way should that change my reaction?

What's your reason for believing it should?

I'm asking these questions rhetorically.

  ...if caffeine were a new drug, I wonder what 
  Schedule it would be in and if people might 
  be even more leery of it than modafinil.

  ...

  So I eventually got around to ordering another 
  thing of nicotine gum...

  A second dose was similar, and the third dose 
  was at 10 PM before playing Ninja Gaiden II 
  seemed to stop the usual exhaustion I feel after 
  playing through a level or so.

Yes, he writes very lengthy, detailed articles. Lovely. But they are anecdotes. And artisanal anecdotes at best.

To summarize gwern: A layman tries some stuff that is innately accessible to any layman, and writes haughtily aloof essays.

The premise of the experiment is akin to considering whether or not people are prone to being swindled by a three card monte con-game.

The premise of the example only demonstrates a susceptibility to a situation where the individual is not expecting to be judged based on technicalities.

Technically, in a three card monte game, on the street, you have no assurance that the dealer is operating the deck with integrity. Technically, on the street, you have no assurance that other players are not collaborating with the dealer.

Does this prove that humans are often innately irrational? Maybe insofar as any other parlour trick does.

The claim that a bystander should know that their own capacity for estimation of the likelihood that Linda's occupation may be bank teller shall be poor, is masked, in terms of relevance to the rest of the context of the presented scenario. A bystander's estimation of feminist alignment is anticipated and intended.

When the bystander chooses option (B), an assertion that they have no insight into whether Linda was a banker or not, suddenly becomes the defining aspect of the test.

So now we've proven that given an unexpected context, a bystander is surprised by a sudden ambush within that context.

While such nuances may be interesting on a much grander scale, in most cases, the experiment is not framed that way, as a design to misdirect the individual, and certainly, the authors of this op-ed article make the same mistake in pointing at the idea that a bystander should be expected to know that they have no way of knowing whether or not Linda might be a bank teller.

The article presents the following experimental premise:

  “Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken 
   and very bright. She majored in philosophy. 
   As a student, she was deeply concerned with 
   issues of discrimination and social justice, 
   and also participated in antinuclear 
   demonstrations.” 

  Then they asked the subjects which was more 
  probable: 

  (A) Linda is a bank teller 

  or 

  (B) Linda is a bank teller and 
      is active in the feminist 
      movement.

We have several known personality attributes provided in the example, and all of them relate to the subjective opinions of an individual and are designed to provide belief in the potential for associations with similar political alignments.

Then we're provided with 2 choices, and each choice couples a previously unknown detail to the individual described, regarding occupation, with no opportunity to exclude the occupation.

We are asked to make an assumption about the individual, based on previously provided information, and guide the formation of our assumption with intuition.

According to The Letter Of The Law, the example asks the respondent to parse probability ONLY, and then penalizes according to the transitive property of equality, because technical interpretations of probability state that, when information has not been previously presented, an individual trait in isolation, is more probable, than a coupling of rare traits.

  Which one is more probable? Oh wait, you're 
  wrong because you misinterpreted our 
  context-sensitive definition of the word 
  "probable." You lose.

  With the presentation of choice B, and
  based on other personal details about
  Linda, do you feel it likely that Linda 
  could be a feminist? Keep in mind that 
  we've offered clues to her political 
  alignment, and these may play a role 
  in the correct answer.

  Given: [0, A, 2, C, 4]

  Is [E] likely?

  or

  Does [E, 6] make more sense?

  Given: [0, A, 2, C, 4]

  Which is most probable?  

   > [$]

  or

   > [$, 99]

The example is like asking someone if they were happy about who won The World Series, and then telling them you're not inviting them to a soccer game, because of their opinions on baseball.

The example the authors have provided is designed to promote assumptions, without providing adequate context for expectations, and that is fucking stupid.

Oh, so much better. Thank you jesus!

In other communities, to circumvent asinine ploys at lock-in, someone would just brute force the pdf file with a burner facebook login, and repost it. But then, you'd still be stuck with a pdf.

Maybe he's a fan of The Far Side by Gary Larson?

https://www.amazon.com/Unnatural-Selections-Gary-Larson/dp/0...

  The photos

   > A plugin is needed to display this content.

So, translation is actually:

  blorp blorp! 

  money money! 

  blorp blorp! 

  feed me, seymour!

One could quickly argue that PR articles that skip the details, and make designs to produce the sensation of graphs that "go up and to the right," are a clear indicator that pleasing investors produces a bland gruel of profiteering corporations as ineffective at doing anything useful besides "making money," as is flatlander management, at providing direction to employees (read: millennials) who can't adjust to the sensation of not being subordinate to micro-managing overlords.

Dark patterns ask you to sit in a chair, without telling you that you can get paid to stand. (masking benefit without restricting access to the benefit; misdirection but without total erosion of trust)

This is about exploiting the exposure of unique identifiers (phone number mapped to email), and an interloping tattle-tale ratting out their correlation to the same owner.

It's something more akin to a Prisoner's Dilema, except people aren't cognizant that "They Are The Product" so no one thinks of themselves as prisoners ratting out conspirators.

At least it's supposed to be fiction.

Because everyone always has to be shipping and disrupting! Big Business! Product! Sales!

Who's to blame?!

Attention, Decision, Interest, Action. AIDA.

We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? (second prize is a set of steak knives.)

Third prize is you're fired.

These are The New Leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold. And you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for closers.

While we're referencing things from the 70's, including prog rock:

  You can choose a ready guide, 
  in some celestial voice.
  If you choose not to decide, 
  you still have made a choice.
  You can choose from phantom fears, 
  and kindness that can kill.
  I will choose a path that's clear.
  I will choose Free Will.

In side-by-side taste tests, and even when seltzer is free, I almost always choose water, and usually leave containers of seltzer unfinished, and sometimes wait until they go flat before finishing them off if I'm feeling extraordinarily patient.

We've had free will debates here on HN before, and the submitted story is usually quickly debunked as pompous and arrogant pseudo-intellectuallism. A flavour of jaded post college nihilism. Fatalistic points of view can jump off a cliff if they find their circumstances so constrained, and without option.

Telltale missing article. The. A. An.

I have quit and resumed coffee many times over the past decade, and abstained from caffeine during breaks for a month or more.

Migraines are a thing. Lasting up to a full day, but rarely longer.

Beyond that, quitting caffeine is unremarkable. The worst part about it, is trying to find other low calorie beverages that aren't water, and have no aspartame or sacharine, since I find all artificial sweeteners (including the new-school "natural" variety) as disgusting contaminants.

Getting back on coffee after a break is fun. Caffeine is always better after a tolerance break.

Tolerance, after which caffeine becomes the new, ineffective normal, creeps in at month number 2 or 3 of constant use. I've dosed on uninterrupted supplies off caffeine for blocks as long as 18 months. A solid gram of caffeine a day is probably not the best thing, but not debilitating or deleterious as far as I can tell.

I try to not drink caffeine, when incensed as a crutch for obligations at work. Then we're talking dependence and prostitution, of a sort, know what I mean?

The domain probably costs to much.

Squatters.

Oh, okay, yeah, we'll just MAKE people live however we want. We know best, so no one would ever resist.

  The Facebook family of companies 
  will still receive and use this 
  information for other purposes...

YOU DO NOT.

  HMMPH! AUSTRALOPITHECUS THINK HIM SO
  GOOD WITH ANIMAL PELT. ME SHOW HIM!
  ME IMPRESS CAVE LADY WITH SUCH SMOOTH
  ROCK. THEN HIM NOT THINK HIM SO GOOD 
  AS ME!

You can usually tell when people suck by the end of 30 days, through simple conversation, and not formal rituals. Certainly by 90 days. Unless, of course, you're the one that sucks.

When you find good people, certainly don't bog them down with the albatross of making them do the things that terrible people waste time on.

If you know terrible people are wasting time (and you will) and you know it's not fun to watch, why make a public display of it?

Management can suck as much as subordinates. Terrible people cut across all levels of employment. They are a fact of life. Rituals don't improve anything.

Know what you want. Your estimates will be destroyed if you don't. If you have to estimate, then you don't know what you're getting into. You are experimenting. Nothing will be precise.

Don't burden me with your stupid, pointless rituals, if you're going on adventures into uncharted territory. You're wasting time with rituals.

If you care about time, don't estimate. If you have to estimate, then stop caring about time.

Sometimes certain realities are often white-washed by the cordial etiquette that "The Crown's High Court" might demand of those dwelling in the workplace.

I'm not directing this sort of statement at any actual person, but if someone is asking me for advice and personal opinion, I'd always prefer to tell it like it is.

No way. Fuck that.

I have quit jobs over their idiotic daily meeting rituals. Continuous evaluation does nothing for team performance.

Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale.

Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale.

Forcing people who actually get shit done, to mire themselves in tedium and busy work, and engage garish displays of self-appraisal, not only interrupts actual work, distracting from things that count, but provides for a constant atmosphere of interrogation.

Playing the daily meeting, and weekly status game is shit. I won't do it. Never again. Not for any amount of money.

Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done. Don't ask me are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You child. Grow some patience. The car ride is over when I park the car.

Oh nothing is wrong with it, but that's a way different story. A desire to contribute to or fully take on child care should not be mocked.

But I really don't think the commonly observed imbalance of sympathy and empathy one sees, when comparing motherhood and fatherhood, is a freeloading type thing.

Freeloading how? By not doing what? When, and for how long?

I don't think perfect parity in childcare is worth some of the artificial contrivances that perfectly equitable circumstances might demand.

Modern society is not natural or normal, in a cosmic sense.

If you mean freeloading, as in skipping town and denying involvement in a pregnancy, your arguments hold water, inasmuch as putting a child up for adoption is a similar degree of freeloading.

If you mean father and mother both being equally in the child's continual presence for the first 24 months of life, I doubt humanity's general economic wealth, in aggregate, could support such practices.

Should children be raised by butlers and maids in the name of equitable career paths for parents?

Maybe we should all be raised in B.F. Skinner Boxes, and learn to walk through operant conditioning.

Try to modify my behavior some more.

I'm not sure you've correctly interpreted that quote.

  most of participants who were aware [...] 
  had been tested [...] in our lab.

They can test samples drawn expressly for the experiment, and not inform the individual, and then still use the lab-verified determination of infection status in the results. They can take blood, find out, and not tell the people if they are infected, even if they didn't know, and let them stay infected without knowing.

  Migrating to OSX or Linux is a big change.