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[-]Elo210

This week on the slack: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mpq/lesswrong_real_time_chat/

  • AI - pet peeves of dealing with people who don't understand AI
  • Effective altruism - what do people think about charities spending money to fundraise. I think that if someone knew that $100 out of the $120 they donated was spent on getting the last $20 out of them, before the rest of the overhead, I think they’d quite rightly feel that that wasn’t quite what they had signed up for.
  • finance - investing in local or distant markets
  • goals of lesswrong - setting community standards, routines or rituals.
  • human relationships - poly strategies, innovation vs conformity, long distance relationships
  • lingustics - optimising information transfer is about making it easy to record information and easy to absorb information from a recorded source. Have we done that yet? Can we make technology do that easier for us?
  • objectivish - don't know how it got there but, "when instincts go wrong; like when birds fly into windows"
  • open - philosphical boogeyman, http://www.rationalitycardinality.com/, debating IRL: the topic of is it ethical to profit off war?, meta:slack, paying out philosophy...
  • Parentin
... (read more)
4Gunnar_Zarncke
Note for the curious: You have to private message him with your email to get invited.
[-][anonymous]70

I recently laid myself out on train tracks but chickened out on getting struck by a train out of concern that train might be designed to mangle trespasses without killing them. My new antidepressants don't seem to be doing particularly anything, I don't enjoy basically anything and I feel hollow constantly. I just want to feel. And the thought that motivates most things I do creeps up and says: 'why don't you try something new? maybe it will change things?'. And I blindly follow that thought into a new dilemma. Later that night (incidentally, bi awareness ... (read more)

2Houshalter
Is it just my browser, or does this site not allow keyboard input? I can't scroll the page with arrow keys or pg up/down.
2iceman
It's not just you. I can't use the arrow keys either. Chrome 45 on Windows 8.
0matt
Anyone else having trouble with keyboard input on Lesswrong? (Arrow keys and page up & down work for me on OSX Chrome, Firefox & Safari.)
0[anonymous]
I can.

Where can one find information on the underlying causes of phenomena? I have noticed that most educational resources discuss superficial occurrences and trends but not their underlying causes. For example, this Wikipedia article discusses the happenings in the Somali Civil War but hardly discusses the underlying motivations of each side and why the war turned out how it did. Of course, such discussions are often opinionated and have no clear-cut answers, perhaps making Wikipedia a sub-optimal place for them.

I know LW might not be the best place to ask thi... (read more)

5IlyaShpitser
Read about causal inference.
2G0W51
I don't see how this would really help unless I am trying to do original research.
2IlyaShpitser
What are you trying to do? There are a lot of gotchas w/ causality. Lots of wikipedia info is wrong, etc. If your thought process is "I want to learn about causes of things, but this seems like an awful lot of math..." consider that you may need to internalize some (not all!) of this math before you can talk about causes properly at all. It's like physics. Physics is handy, but there's some math. It's probably a good idea to learn a bit of physics if you are interested in the physical world, even if you aren't interested in doing original physics research. ---------------------------------------- I can generally point you in the right direction, but this will take some work from you, also.
2G0W51
Don't worry, I don't mind math. Alas, I mainly have difficulty understanding why people act how they do, so I doubt mathematics will help much with that. I think I'm going to take the suggestion someone gave of reading more textbooks. A psychology course should also help.
5Dahlen
What kind of phenomena are we talking about? You should specify if you're referring more narrowly to social and historical phenomena, because that's where the biggest gaps between what one can say on the surface about them and what actually drove them are. It's also a very murky area in regards to specifying causality. The only reasonably effective method I've tried for this is to first read the Wikipedia article, to get an overview of the objective facts, events, numbers and so on, then try to find press articles about the topic, which are less objective but include more details.
3Lumifer
In social sciences the "causes" depend on your preferred analysis framework and are often highly contentious. For a "deeper-level understanding" I'd recommend reading many viewpoints which disagree with each other.
1Dagon
Typically academic books and papers are the only places that really try to identify cause and effect at a level of abstraction that makes you think you understand. Be aware, of course, that neither they nor you can actually understand it - human behavior is complex enough that we can't model individual choices very well, let alone the sum of billions of individual choices that add up to societal "phenomena" like wars and demographic shifts and stock market blips.

Possibly the most enthusiastic / impressive endorsement I've ever seen for a rationality-type book:

Every country should scrap a year or two of math education and require all citizens to read this book instead.

Jonathan Haidt praising Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking by Richard Nisbett

Anybody read the book? Do you agree with Haidt?

5NancyLebovitz
It doesn't pass my first test for self-help books-- none of the amazon reviewers really said that following the advice made their life better. (One or two of the reviews might be interpreted that way, but they were marginal.) Admittedly, it's only been out for a month, so if should probably be given be given some more time/
1[anonymous]
Yes, it's too early to say one way or another at this point.

Very interesting paper: Eric Schwitzgebel, 1% Skepticism. What's the probability that some form of radical skepticism is correct? And can that have any practical ramifications?

Some interesting information about omega-3 in the diet: it seems that the Inuit (whose traditional diet includes huge amounts of omega-3) have genetic adaptations in their fatty acid metabolism.

[Link] Scott Adams' The Persuasion Reading List

Scott Adams' apparently has a his own version of the sequences and even has structured it into steps that bridge the inferential gap to the points he wants to get across. I notice that there is some self-promotion but overall it seems like a sensible list. What do you think?

1ChristianKl
The list is quite long. There probably no good reason to simply read every book on Scotts list. As a person who has hypnosis training this sentiments seems very strange to me. You don't choose books based on the title. Erickson was a great hypnotist but that doesn't make anybody who claims to follow his methods to be knowledgeable. The list also contains books where Scott explictely menitons that he hasn't read them. That's not a good basis for book recomendations.
1JoshuaZ
Considering he claims a 98% probability of Donald Trump becoming the next US President, I'll bother paying attention to what he says to say if/when that turned out to be accurate.

What literature is available on who will be given moral consideration in a superintelligence's coherent extrapolated volition (CEV), and how much weight each agent will be given?

Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence mentions that it is an open problem as to whether AIs, non-human animals, currently deceased people, etc should be given moral consideration, and whether the values of those who aid in creating the superintelligence should be given more weight than that of others. However, Bostrom does not actually answer these questions, other than slightly advoca... (read more)

How Soylent and Oculus Could Fix The Prison System

here’s one way we could rebuild the prison system:

Step 1: Soylent

Step 2: Oculus Rift

Step 3: Health and hygiene

Step 4: A simulation that rewards good behavior

Step 5: Administration

Excerpt:

Prisoners have cellmates and gym time and free time in the prison yard because solitary confinement makes you go nuts. You need human contact if you don’t want to pop out of prison a crazy person. The problem is these places are where all the violence happens.

However, you could take the fear factor out of prisons by s

... (read more)
-2Lumifer
LOL. You don't often see proposals that far removed from reality.
7gjm
Your comment could mean "obviously this wouldn't work" or "obviously this is politically infeasible" or even "I find it convenient to be vaguely derisive at you for some reason". Would you care to be more specific? (I think it is fairly obviously politically infeasible and probably wouldn't work; my objection to what you wrote isn't that I think it's terribly wrong.)
3Lumifer
All of the above :-) It would neither work, nor is politically feasible. I am vaguely derisive because one doesn't spend too much time disproving claims that a rainbow-producing perpetuum mobile strapped to a unicorn will convert the entire world into a happy place.
4[anonymous]
I'll bet you 10$ that within 5 years there will be a test for virtual reality in prisons, and that it will have some statistically significant positive effects.
1JoshuaZ
I don't know about Lumifer, but I'd certainly be willing to take that bet.
0Lumifer
I am not sure what that means. In any case the my point is a bit different. I am rather amazed at the suggestion that locking someone up in a solitary cell so that she sees no human beings, not even a patch of sky or a blade of grass for her entire sentence can be compensated by a pair of VR goggles.
1[anonymous]
I mean, right now, no. But that's not really the point the post is trying to make (I think). The point is that in 50 years when VR has gone through the adoption curve and become ubiquitous, when as many people are on a metaverse as are one facebook, when haptics are mainstream and computing power has improved enough that we can render near photoreal experiences, then maybe, a proposal like the one in the post will be feasible. The point of my bet (which, after reflection, was probably overconfident), is that there are dozens of steps to the future above, and that just because the end results seems unimaginable, it's not hard to imagine other, smaller things that are likely, and which when added up will lead to the unimaginable future of the post.
0Lumifer
I think the OP wasn't trying to make a point. I think he is afraid of prisons (and specifically afraid of prison rape), so he decided to design a prison system which he, personally, would find tolerable. The only solution to his fears that he found was full isolation -- and the rest follows from there. None of what you list will make this proposal feasible.
1[anonymous]
This seems non-obvious to me (obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have said it). What's needed to make the proposal feasible is that VR is seen as a plausible substitue for in-person interaction, and that the cost of VR for every prisoner is less than the cost of the correspending physical actions. All of what I mentioned in the post goes towards those two things.
0Lumifer
Not "seen", but "is". Do you think photorealistic VR can be a full and complete substitute for human interaction? Is it a problem that can be solved by pushing more pixels through the goggles? Don't forget that your prison population isn't particularly smart, tends to have mental health issues, and you would like them to adequately function in the real world after release.
0[anonymous]
Why? All that it takes for policy change is perception, not reality.
0Lumifer
What do you mean?
1[anonymous]
I mean, if a buerecrat thinks that VR is as good as normal social interaction for prisoners, and they think that it's cheaper, and they think that they'll get public support for this, they'll implement it as a policy. It doesn't matter whether VR is actually as good as normal social interaction, only the perception of it.
0Lumifer
So are you arguing that it's a good idea, or are you just arguing that this passes the very low threshold of being an idea that some idiot will try once?
1[anonymous]
The latter. The former I wouldn't rule out, but we don't really have enough data on VR's psychological effects right now to know either way.
3gjm
Come now, it's not that bad. I mean, it might be politically possible to get it done at least as a small experimental project, and it might at least achieve some of the things it says it would. Admittedly, I wouldn't be much more optimistic than that about it. (It was not I who downvoted you.)
1Gram_Stone
This isn't far off from how Nordic prisons work. And they have amazing crime statistics.
6Lumifer
This is VERY far from Nordic prisons. For example, note that the proposal puts everyone into permanent solitary confinement and assumes that playing a MMORG in VR glasses is sufficient to satisfy all needs for human interaction.
0Gram_Stone
Given this: it seemed like you were scoffing at not punishing prisoners as opposed to scoffing at the VR; that's what I was addressing.
-3Lumifer
I was scoffing at the OP's map being hilariously far away from territory -- in more than one aspect.
0Gram_Stone
That seems unnecessarily cryptic. Are you really a retributive justice kind of guy? Do you really think punishment is the way to go? How do you fit the Nordic example into your map?
-2Lumifer
I did not intend to be cryptic and I don't see what any of that has to do with punishment. The proposal is funny stoopid not because it picks a particular approach to incarceration -- but because it makes assumptions that are very far away from reality. It's like attempting to deal with poverty in Africa by air-dropping an iPad for everyone and going "now that they are plugged into the global information economy, they would rapidly lift themselves to the first-world level".
1[anonymous]
It would be hilarious if it weren't serious.
-2Lumifer
The best lulz are produced by very very serious people :-D

All y'all should like this.

I'm curious which of the two major political parties in the US (and left wing vs. right wing parties more generally) people think is most likely to reduce existential risk. My current view is that the Democrats (and parties of the left) are since they're more likely to favor policies which reduce the threat of climate change (a tail end existential risk and a potential destabilizing force) and are more likely to favor nuclear non-proliferation. However, I know my own opinions might be biased by the fact that I agree with left wing parties on most other less important issues. Which party do you think would do the most to reduce existential risk and how substantial do you think the difference is?

the two major political parties in the US (...) people think is most likely to reduce existential risk

No comment on the main question, but if you really care about an issue you should try like hell to prevent it from becoming a wedge issue. There's no longer any meaningful discussion of AGW in the US, because it's now a wedge issue. Even if you observe a huge correlation between political tribal affiliation and getting the "right answer", you should never point this out. Once people start to absorb their position on a topic into their self-image, they will never change their minds about it.

3ChristianKl
It's worth noting the success of reducing Mercury pollution without much media coverage in the Obama administration while at the same time the administration didn't went far on climate change.
3[anonymous]
more to the point, it gets to be used in an endless good cop bad cop routine in which political groups hang it over the heads if captive constituencies who get threatened with 'vote for us, the other guy is WORSE', and then nobody does anything since they can always claim tbat the other guy would have done worse or they would have done better.
[-]gjm160

Answers to this are going to have to depend on politically sensitive judgements, I think, because most of the impact of politicians on existential risk will be indirect and involve things like the overall prosperity of the nation they're leading. Let's look at some classes of existential risk:

  • Asteroids and other spaceborne hazards: prefer whichever party will lead to more technological progress in, say, the next 50 years. That will depend on science and education funding (probably prefer the Democrats), on overall national prosperity (prefer whichever party you think will handle the economy better), perhaps in complicated ways on involvement in major wars (maybe too complicated to call even if you think you know which party will lead to fewer wars).
  • War (nuclear catastrophe, out-of-control biological warfare): prefer whichever party you think will lead to fewer really big wars in, say, the next 50 years. That's a very political question, and partisans of either party will surely claim that their preferred policies will produce less war.
  • Terrorism (ditto): probably not actually a credible existential threat (I'm not even sure war really is).
  • Societal collapse: well, what would cau
... (read more)
4skeptical_lurker
I would say generally Democrats, since the evangelicals are mostly Republicans and I somehow doubt that they could think clearly about AGI, instead getting stuck in arguments about "AGI is impossible, because it wouldn't have a soul". However, there is more to the Republicans than religion, and this criticism wouldn't apply to a business-focused Republican. The right-wing would argue that immigration is a destabilizing force, and there are rationalists who believe that most of western society is likely to collapse within 50 years, perhaps to the point of a new dark age, analogous to the dark age after the fall of the Roman empire. I think this is rather paranoid, but given Aumann's agreement theorem its worrying. Generally, its too early for any policies to impact existential risk directly, except for preventing nuclear war, and so in general it is best to just pursue good government.
4James_Miller
Strongly disagree. Both parties verbally oppose nuclear proliferation, but Republicans are willing to go to war to stop it (the last President Bush reasonably thought Iraq was developing nuclear weapons) whereas Democrats are not. (Clinton let North Korea get nuclear weapons and Obama has been unwilling to attack Iran's nuclear program.) Which party is better comes down to if you most fear a WWI (where everyone acting tough caused war) or WWII (where the failure of the good guys to act tough caused war) type failure.

I would also add the Cuban Missile Crisis to the list of things to fear, where (as I perceive it) the Soviets thought the Americans would fold, and then the Americans escalated. Being tough but not being perceived as tough is a serious failure mode!

5James_Miller
Yes, and it's a common failure mode because people who are not tough often try to convince others that they are tough.
6username2
In 2002-2006?
1James_Miller
See http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2015/07/15/flashback-networks-hailed-clintons-1994-nuclear-deal-north-korea#.VacSsFXdXck.facebook?NV:.v5gom7:Qd0P
9satt
I made a grab for some low-hanging knowledge on the counterfactual question by looking at the first couple of pages of a Google Scholar search for articles I could access which offered background on the topic. (I don't have the time or the interest to do anything like a real literature review, but I expect even a cursory Google Scholar search to be more reliable than a lone NewsBusters article.) Ignoring the books and paywalled Foreign Affairs articles I can't read, I got * Michael J. Mazarr's 1995 "Going Just a Little Nuclear: Nonproliferation Lessons from North Korea" in International Security * Larry A. Niksch's 2005 Congressional report "North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program" * Stephen M. Walt's 2000 "Two Cheers for Clinton's Foreign Policy" in Foreign Affairs (accessible only because Walt mirrors it on his Harvard website) * Andrew Mack's "A Nuclear North Korea: The Choices Are Narrowing" in the summer 1994 issue of World Policy Journal * The 1999 "Review of United States Policy Toward North Korea: Findings and Recommendations", by a "North Korea policy review team, led by Dr William J. Perry" I haven't perused these from start to finish, and even if I had I couldn't discuss them comprehensively in a blog comment. So I have to give a radically compressed (hence necessarily selective) digest of the bits I saw which shed light on the counterfactual question. First, Mazarr's essay. It summarizes itself, but even the summary won't fit here, so I skip to its p. 104, where Mazarr referred to NK's "alleged one or two nuclear weapons" (fitting NBC's report that NK had a nuclear weapon), and quote a longer block from the same page: Mazarr adds that, in practice, the US "always resorts" to the softer approach "in cases of hard-core proliferation", having "accepted ambiguous proliferation in India and Israel for many years", and likewise didn't pursue an all-out approach against India & Pakistan. Further along, on p. 110, in the section on sanctions: The sec
8username2
The argument here seems to be: North Korea built nuclear weapons, the 1994 treaty was supposed to prevent that, therefore let's blame the guy who was President in 1994 for North Korea building nuclear weapons. Similar reasoning could just as easily place the blame on the Reagan administration. Unless I'm missing something, and there is some reason why that 1994 treaty left the US in a hopeless position in 2002, unable to intervene while North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors, unsealed its fuel rods, and built nuclear weapons.
5satt
The linked article does an OK job of documenting that contemporary news reports were too optimistic about how much Clinton's 1994 deal would constrain North Korea's bomb seeking. However, I don't think that's an adequate basis for "Clinton let North Korea get nuclear weapons" — not least because the article itself echoes, in apparent agreement, NBC's contemporary claim that NK already had a nuclear bomb. Even setting aside that claim, I wouldn't be confident in inferring that "Clinton let North Korea get nuclear weapons" merely because Clinton made a deal and 12 years later (and 6 years after Clinton left office) NK set off a nuke. Given my original state of ignorance (I didn't know anything about this 1994 deal before this thread), I can't rule out the possibilities that (1) Clinton actually made smart moves which were later vitiated by Bush or a lower-ranked politician, or that (2) Clinton made the best of a bad hand, there being no reasonable counterfactual where a US president in 1994 could've ensured, without triggering some patently worse consequence, that NK's first nuclear explosion happened substantially after 2006. (1/2)
5polymathwannabe
Rather, he tried to make everyone think that.
2Lumifer
Can we please not regurgitate the zombie soldiers from old political battles onto LW..?
1ChristianKl
Bush did manage to get North Korea nuclear under his tenure by not engaging in dialog with the North Korean leadership the way the late administration of Clinton did. The actual record of his actions matters more than an intention to go to war to stop nuclear weapons.
1MrMind
Not directly, true, but it's highly probable that it was his administration which greenlighted Stuxnet and its successors. It's still a subject of debate how much that worm was able to slow down Iran's program, but it was nonetheless an act of aggression (and the first salvo in the incoming cyber-war).
6Lumifer
Stuxnet was developed and launched under Bush. Obama just continued with the program (that is, if the three-letter agencies even bothered to tell him).
0MrMind
Well, that's weird. Yesterday I would have sweared to have read in Wikipedia that Stuxnet was developed in 2010. Now in the Stuxnet page it's written "under Bush administration". I guess my sources were incorrect.
2Sherincall
FYI: There was indeed a 30 minute period on 2015-09-21 where it said " during the administration of George W. Bush and Barrack Obama", you're not crazy. Though 2010 is the year it was discovered, the development is assumed to have been as early as 2005, it never said "developed in 2010"
0MrMind
Thank you, both for the precision and for confirming my sanity!
3ChristianKl
What kind of scenario are you thinking of when you argue that climate change is an existential risk? How do you think it might kill all or even 90% of the population? While the Obama administration did a few symbolic actions for climate change it didn't move significantly on the issue. I don't think there good reason to assume that things would be different under another Clinton. Nixon went to China and the Obama administration waged it's war against whistleblowers. There might be more political room for a Republican government to make substantial action on climate change than for a Democrat government.
2Torgo
Some Climatologists, such as James Hanson, believe that a runaway greenhouse effect large enough to potentially distinguish all life on earth is possible Obviously this is not a likely extinction event, but I believe it is still worth considerable resources to reduce its probability. While little has been done legislatively to combat climate change, the Obama administration is pursuing regulatory action through the EPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that will make the construction of new coal fire power plants very difficult. Additionally, the administration has benefited alternative energy industries through subsidies (in large part through the initial stimulus). Some Republicans do support such subsidies, so admittedly the difference between parties isn't as stark on this point (though this may change with increasing polarization as described below). Additionally polarization on climate change has increased in recent years. It's less and less likely that a Republican president would pursue policy aimed at substantially reducing green house gasses. They might also appoint a supreme court member who would rule against the regulations the EPA is attempting to implement now. I don't think that the party who holds the presidency is the most important factor in whether we reduce carbon emissions, but it likely contributes.
0ChristianKl
The question is not whether they are persuing action but whether they are engaging in action that has a significant effect given the scale of the problem.
0Lumifer
The second part of that sentence oh so does not follow from the first part.
3[anonymous]
That's very hard to say without quantifying "likely" and "considerable". One could say the same about most extinction events, for certain definitions of those two words.
0Lumifer
I find mood affiliation to be a much more convincing explanation than convoluted definitions of "not likely" and "considerable".
2[anonymous]
Convincing explanation for what? I thought we were discussing whether or not it was worth spending resources to prevent global extinction from global warming... which is more of a question than an explanation. How is putting a numerical amount to "not likely" and "considerable" convuluted. That's the basis of any decision probelm.
0Lumifer
For Torgo's belief. He didn't ask a question, he stated his belief upfront.
2tut
That's why they are separated by the word "but". If I were to say "it rained yesterday, but today it looks like it will be sunny", would you object that "sun today doesn't follow from rain yesterday"?
0Torgo
I believe we should be spending resources to avoid many unlikely existential risks, even those I believe are less likely to be existential risks than climate change (eg. tracking asteroids).
1username2
Methane bursts
2ChristianKl
Could you specify how human caused climate change would lead to such a result?
2Lumifer
None.

This is signalling and not an actual attempt to answer.

Two more ways of saying the same thing:

  • The success of a particular mainstream political party in the US is not a variable that noticeably affects existential risk. None of the parties would do much anything to reduce the existential risk.

  • Mu

2NancyLebovitz
Would any of them tend to increase existential risk more than the others?
0gjm
Surely not if
1MrMind
I haven't seen "mu" in a while and I find it to be often one of the most useful answers. Upvoted.
3drethelin
The correct answer is: If you care about existential risk you should not pay any attention to politics.
4username2
A lot of attempts to avert existential risks will require a lot of resources and no company or charity have as much resources as US government and US military (or governments of other large countries).
6drethelin
Yes, but political campaigning is not how the government pays attention to existential risks. Whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the oval office has little bearing on whether NORAD is getting re-purposed to track asteroids.

Brave New World, Chapter 17:

ART, SCIENCE–you seem to have paid a fairly high price for your happiness," said the Savage, when they were alone. "Anything else?"

"Well, religion, of course," replied the Controller. "There used to be something called God–before the Nine Years' War. But I was forgetting; you know all about God, I suppose."

"Well …" The Savage hesitated. He would have liked to say something about solitude, about night, about the mesa lying pale under the moon, about the precipice, the plunge into shado... (read more)

I have a casual interest in religious conversion as an empirical psychological phenomenon. The philosopher William James makes the case for studying religious experience empirically in one of his books published over a century ago - The Varieties of Religious Experience - so the idea has circulated for quite a while.

I think we might have an example of an internet figure undergoing an Augustinian sort of spiritual crisis documented online, namely the pickup artist Roosh Valizadeh. Roosh has posted and said lately that he doesn't enjoy his sexual conquests a... (read more)

3Lumifer
Are there any indications that Roosh is interested in religion or high-end spirituality? If anything, I'd expect him to go not Augustine, but Ecclesiastes.
-2advancedatheist
Roosh has posted essays about the classical literature he has read and thought about, which shows an openness to a philosophical view of life. That can overlap with spiritual thinking to some extent.
5ChristianKl
Reading books is a quite different activity than seeking spirtual experience.
1bogus
Yup, that's pretty normal. People tend to pursue casual flings out of a desire for sheer novelty, and plenty of them start pursuing longer-term goals after that desire is fulfilled. This is one reason why the widespread fear that casual sex might "ruin" folks and deprive them of any enjoyment of long-term relationships is almost certainly misguided.
-3advancedatheist
Actually we have empirical evidence that women's premarital sexual adventures damage their ability to form stable marriages: http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/08/defining-slut.html When our allegedly unenlightened ancestors shamed sluts, shunned bastard kids and married their daughters off as young virgins, it turns out that they knew their business after all. BTW, I find it curious that at least some of us consider paleonutrition a guide towards a modern healthy diet, but then turn around and call paleocognition bad names like "cognitive biases."

we have empirical evidence

No, we have only some correlations where obvious third factors (e.g. IQ) are involved. If you want to take this approach, just being black strongly "damages ... ability to form stable marriages".

It seems that "correlation != causation" hasn't been repeated enough X-/

P.S. Not to mention that "stable marriages" doesn't look like a terminal goal to me. If that's all you want, just forbid divorce.

-2VoiceOfRa
There's evidence for that as well, but notice that ~60 years ago blacks were much better at forming stable marriages than today. And it used to be forbidden, or at least much harder. Once widespread premarital sex started undermining marriage, pressure was exerted that made divorce no longer forbidden.
5Lumifer
Yep. I have no wish to go back to those times.
-1VoiceOfRa
Any particular reason? General belief that all change is progress and hence good? A dislike of stable marriages?
8Lumifer
I'm a very big fan of freedom defined as "ability to make meaningful choices". Specifically with respect to divorce, I think that its absence makes for stable marriages where two people hate each other. Sometimes loudly and violently, sometimes subtly and poisonously.
-1VoiceOfRa
Even if those choices ultimately lead to less freedom as society is forced to deal with the resulting mess?
1Lumifer
I am also a big fan of NOT black-and-white worlds. "Ultimately lead to less freedom" -- how do you know that? Can you show me some probability distribution of outcomes? How certain are you of it? What is the probability that you are making a sign error? At the moment all I see is mood affiliation.
-3VoiceOfRa
Broken homes means the government winds up having to resolve issues that should have been dealt with in-family, e.g., now the government must decide a lot more child custody disputes. Not to mention that children growing up in broken homes are likely to wind up on welfare and other government assistance.
3Lumifer
I am entirely unconvinced. Is that true for normal-IQ reasonably financially successful (former) families? I don't think so.
-5VoiceOfRa
6gjm
"were doing something that, according to some evidence, has one positive consequence" is not the same as "knew their business".

Oh, I forgot to add to the post below another source of my science-fictional view of sexual relationships: Robert Ettinger's nonfiction book Man Into Superman, which I read at the impressionable age of 14 in 1974. Scroll down to page 68, "Transsex and Supersex":

http://www.cryonics.org/images/uploads/misc/ManIntoSuperman.pdf