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[Classic] Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Release Date: 03/13/2021

Links For April 2024 show art Links For April 2024

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

[I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]  

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Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 show art Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Many cities have regular Astral Codex Ten meetup groups. Twice a year, I try to advertise their upcoming meetups and make a bigger deal of it than usual so that irregular attendees can attend. This is one of those times. This year we have spring meetups planned in over eighty cities, from Tokyo, Japan to Seminyak, Indonesia. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen. You can find the list below, in the following order: Africa & Middle East  Asia-Pacific (including Australia) ...

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Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate show art Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Saar Wilf is an ex-Israeli entrepreneur. Since 2016, he’s been developing a new form of reasoning, meant to transcend normal human bias. His method - called Rootclaim - uses Bayesian reasoning, a branch of math that explains the right way to weigh evidence. This isn’t exactly new. Everyone supports Bayesian reasoning. The statisticians support it, I support it, Nate Silver wrote a whole book supporting it. But the joke goes that you do Bayesian reasoning by doing normal reasoning while muttering “Bayes, Bayes, Bayes” under your breath. Nobody - not the statisticians, not Nate Silver,...

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In Continued Defense Of Non-Frequentist Probabilities show art In Continued Defense Of Non-Frequentist Probabilities

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

It’s every blogger’s curse to return to the same arguments again and again. Matt Yglesias has to keep writing “maybe we should do popular things instead of unpopular ones”, Freddie de Boer has to keep writing “the way culture depicts mental illness is bad”, and for whatever reason, I keep getting in fights about whether you can have probabilities for non-repeating, hard-to-model events. For example: What is the probability that Joe Biden will win the 2024 election? What is the probability that people will land on Mars before 2050? What is the probability that AI will destroy...

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The Mystery Of Internet Survey IQs show art The Mystery Of Internet Survey IQs

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

I have data from two big Internet surveys, and . Both asked questions about IQ: The average LessWronger reported their IQ as 138. The average ClearerThinking user reported their IQ as 130. These are implausibly high. Only 1/200 people has an IQ of 138 or higher. 1/50 people have IQ 130, but the ClearerThinking survey used crowdworkers (eg Mechanical Turk) who should be totally average. Okay, fine, so people lie about their IQ (or foolishly trust fake Internet IQ tests). Big deal, right? But these don’t look like lies. Both surveys asked for SAT scores, which are known to correspond to...

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In Partial Grudging Defense Of Some Aspects Of Therapy Culture show art In Partial Grudging Defense Of Some Aspects Of Therapy Culture

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Both the Atlantic’s critique of polyamory and shared the same villain - “therapy culture”, the idea that you should prioritize “finding your true self” and make drastic changes if your current role doesn’t seem “authentically you”. A friend recently suggested a defense of this framework, which surprised me enough that I now relay it to you.  

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Verses On Five People Being Killed By A Falling Package Of Foreign Aid show art Verses On Five People Being Killed By A Falling Package Of Foreign Aid

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

(inspired by )  

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Mantic Monday 3/11/24 show art Mantic Monday 3/11/24

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Robots of prediction, predictions of robots  

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Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 - Call For Organizers show art Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 - Call For Organizers

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

There are ACX meetup groups all over the world. Lots of people are vaguely interested, but don't try them out until I make a big deal about it on the blog. Since learning that, I've tried to make a big deal about it on the blog twice annually, and it's that time of year again. If you're willing to organize a meetup for your city, please .  

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How Should We Think About Race And How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

The consensus says "biological race doesn't exist". But if race doesn't exist, how do we justify affirmative action, cultural appropriation, and all our other race-related practices? The consensus says that, although race doesn't exist biologically, it exists as a series of formative experiences. Black children are raised by black mothers in black communities, think of themselves as black, identify with black role models, and face anti-black prejudice. By the time they're grown up, they've had different experiences which give them a different perspective from white people. Therefore, it’s...

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https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/

 

Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences

I.

An article by Adam Grant called Differences Between Men And Women Are Vastly Exaggerated is going viral, thanks in part to a share by Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg. It’s a response to an email by a Google employee saying that he thought Google’s low female representation wasn’t a result of sexism, but a result of men and women having different interests long before either gender thinks about joining Google. Grant says that gender differences are small and irrelevant to the current issue. I disagree.

Grant writes:

It’s always precarious to make claims about how one half of the population differs from the other half—especially on something as complicated as technical skills and interests. But I think it’s a travesty when discussions about data devolve into name-calling and threats. As a social scientist, I prefer to look at the evidence.