2019 December Links

Intelligence is Truth's Double Edged Sword

It might seem obvious that smarter people attain more truth. I don't think that's true. I see intellectual honesty as the prime driver of truth attainment, and intelligence is a stimulant to however much intellectual honesty one does or does not bring to the table.

Memecraft: Everything's Trying to Kill You

What's with Babylon Bee?

Good comedy transcends politics. It doesn't participate in it.

The Babylon Bee is a good example of this. It doesn't take much to figure out they're a Christian conservative organization - not a group I'd expect to make me laugh out loud. But man, their headlines are incredible. I think that's because someone in their organization has figured out how to transcend the culture war and write genuinely funny stuff.

Is My Penis Big Enough? And other important questions you search on the internet

Dozens of studies have been done on average penis size and they all come out to the same approximately the same thing. 99% of the people around you have a penis size anywhere from 13cm (5 inches) to 30cm (1 foot). They average at about 20cm, which is about as long as the typical remote control.

Does it matter? Researchers have looked at this too. Studies show penis size is the single most important determinant of male attractiveness. When shown figures of naked males, only 2% of women ranked any man with less than average penis size more than a 4 out of 10 in attractiveness. Basically, if you're not above average, it's impossible for the vast majority of women to find you attractive.

In Defense of Trivialization

I notice that, especially in the social media environment, if you do not exaggerate every problem to a 10 you can get called out for "trivializing" it. If by trivializing, they mean "make less important than the exaggerated claim" then good job. Trivialize away. If they mean, "make less important than appropriate", then that would be a serious mistake.

But the accusation of "trivializing" is a method of marking and swiping away anyone who does believe the problem is less than maximum. This dismissal ignores that one can trivialize from an exaggeration or from reality. If a claim is an exaggeration then trivializing it is good. If a claim is accurate then trivializing it is bad. Overrating or underrating problems is inferior to rating problems accurately. However, the accusation that one is trivializing expels all arguments without regard for the quality of the trivialization.

Parents: Make Norms not Rules

It is strange that parents will shut off the television running in the background because they don't want their child to pick up any bad language, but the same parents will also force their children to say please and thank you. For some reason, they seem to believe children will pick up bad language but need to be trained to use good language. I think this point of view especially prevalent among conservatives who think people start out evil and have to be fixed. But objectively, child language acquisition works the same way for bad words as for good.

"It only stops Unsafe Abortions"

Previously, I wrote that incentives almost always matter. The more interesting question is, how much do they matter?

Consider the argument, "making abortion illegal doesn't stop abortions, it only stops safe abortions."

2019 November Links

This is a post of links to research, blogs, articles, videos, etc. on topics I find interesting. I do this because I remember things better when I use them, and then I can better integrate them into my worldview. It also creates a stock of citations I can look back on, instead of struggling forever on google while I attempt to retrieve some study I read one time but can't remember where I found it.

Here we go...

Swearing Children

If my 5-year-old son told me, "it's a pretty damn beautiful day today" I wouldn't care. I would caution him against saying that word at school or around grandma, but if he wants to use the word damn in that way around daddy, then let the kid say damn.

If he told me the damn teacher wouldn't let him have candy, that would be a different situation.

Imagine the child who tugs at his mom's shirt and asks, "mommy? What does shit mean? The mother is aghast and tells her foul-mouthed spawn never to say that word. Or imagine the parent who shuts off the tv in the background because the children might hear a bad word. This kind of fretful inanity looks deeply superstitious to me. As if a mere utterance releases some literal toxin into the air. As if it casts a spell into the environment. These are situations where the parents appear just as juvenile as the children.

Incentives Matter (when I want them to)

When I listen to public discourse, I can't help but notice the tendency to argue incentives matter only when it's convenient for one's political positions.

Does taxing soda reduce sugar intake and obesity?

Will a carbon tax reduce driving?

Will a wealth tax reduce investment from the very rich?

Will longer sentencing reduce crime?

Will abortion restrictions increase at-home abortions?

Do seatbelt laws increase car accidents?

Do welfare programs increase unemployment?

Does minimum wage reduce hiring?

Does payment increase blood donation?

Do zoning regulations decrease the supply of housing?

Hijabs are just another socially enforced covering

If aliens came to earth, they'd probably be naked all the time. That's okay I don't mind. Alien culture is different from mine and when I visit the alien planet and see all the naked aliens I'll be accepting of their culture.

But I wonder if they'll be accepting of mine? In most human society acceptance, respect, dignity, employability, marriageability, physical safety, enfranchisement, social mobility, access to social institutions, freedom, and autonomy hinge upon our daily, unwavering, public adherence to clothing. We humans are told we absolutely must cover certain body parts. Rationalizations aside, this rule is actually quite arbitrary but the consequences of not complying so are severe.

An alien may object to such an oppressive norm. The aliens may form activist groups to free humans from the injustice of clothing. They may promote social media campaigns to liberate the humans from pants. They may share shameful pictures of parents dressing their babies in clothing and remark upon how these kids are being indoctrinated from their earliest ages. And honestly, they might be right, but so many cultures have so many rules like this. Just because as an outsider you can identify some of the arbitrary social rules of other cultures, that doesn't mean the ones you're absorbed in and unable to see aren't just as bad.

This is how I feel about Westerners criticizing Muslim cultures for enforcing Hijabs.