This post originated as an open letter to my own family this past June, later republished on a political community blog. It was born out of a dissatisfaction with how Love is popularly conceived of, as a vague positive force one pays lip service to, rather than a concrete and...
Thanks Zack!
It sounds like you're using very different expectations for those questions, as opposed to the very rigorous interrogation of base reality. 'Does Santa exist?' and 'does that chair exist?' are questions which (implicitly, at least) are part of a system of questions like 'what happens if I set trip mines in my chimney tonight?' and 'if I try to sit down, will I fall on my ass?' which have consequences in terms of sensory input and feedback. You can respond 'yes' to the former, if you're trying to preserve a child's belief in Santa (although I contend that's a lie) and you can truthfully answer 'no' to the latter if you want... (read more)
I had my first jab of the vaccine early yesterday, and last night had an extremely vivid, mystic dream. I recount the exact details here, but suffice it to say that holographic psychopomps led me through the underworld in a search for the archangel Raziel. I have no idea what to make of this.
Do any of you have firsthand experience or close anecdotal experience of strange dreams after the vaccine? I don't find it very likely, but a relative who heard this and referred to some secondhand anecdotal accounts, so I want to check.
Second, is there any value in the examination/interpretation of dreams? Does Internal Family Systems (with which I have very little familiarity) have anything to say on the matter?
I hadn't considered that angle. Still, that heuristic assumes
a) that the field is one where those differences are salient (I maintain mathematics at least is exempt) and
b) that the people you're inviting have sufficient background to make meaningful contributions, contra the orthodox intersectional considerations you mentioned before.
I'm tempted say that this heuristic (diversity of identity) is strictly less effective than diversity of thought/ideology, but that seems to be what Scott runs against. It would indicate that there are insights not available just through ideology but through (to use an abused phrase) lived experience.
As to how these cross over and whether they're intersectional, that's another can of worms I'm not going to open.
Good points. Perhaps 'intersectionality' isn't the right term. I also considered 'positionality,' trying to refer to ' ideology that emphasizes identity over reasoning.' Or maybe I'm thinking of the 'motte' form, so that [whatever the Scott quote represents] is a weaker form of motte!intersectionality is a weaker form of bailey!intersectionality.
Though I think the Scott quote represents something stronger than 'paying attention to identity X's perspective'. It looks more like 'identity X may provide information and insights in unpredictable ways.'
This is not compatible with reflexively applying a narrative to an identity group, as so often happens. If identity X's insights line up perfectly with your preexisting beliefs, there's something else going on.
Perhaps more... (read more)
I found a passage in James C Scott's Seeing Like a State that shifted me a little closer towards agreeing with intersectionality.
... (read more)I think that a "woman's eye," for lack of a better term, was essential to Jacobs's frame of reference. A good many men, to be sure, were insightful critics of high-modernist urban planning, and Jacobs refers to many of their writings. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine her argument being made in quite the same way by a man ... The eyes with which she sees the street are, by turns, those of shoppers running errands, mothers pushing baby carriages, children playing, friends having coffee or a bite to eat, lovers
Looking at the early section on motivational advice, I was reminded of Antifragile (my review, Scott's review). Motivational advice which assures success if one believes hard enough and encourages people to try for things despite long odds doesn't look like it helps those individuals. If this advice is widely spread and followed, who benefits? Possibly society as a whole. If individuals in general overestimate their chances of success, try, and largely fail, then there's a much larger pool to select from, and hopefully the best successes are better than they otherwise would be. Deceptive advice transfers antifragility from individuals to the system.
On the same subject, I've long felt a disdain for that sort of motivational rhetoric as trite, but I'm still not sure why. The connection to self deception provided by Galef is one possible explanation. Has anyone else experienced something similar, or have an explanation for why that might be the case?
Chapter 3: Why Truth Is More Valuable Than We Realize
Early in the chapter, Galef lays out examples of tradeoffs between Soldier and Scout mindset, most vivid for me in the anecdote of the charity president, who convinces himself that the budget is well spent, helping to gain donations but reducing actual effectiveness.
Two questions which occurred to me reading this: First, is it possible to compartmentalize the Soldier and Scout mindsets to a significant degree, such that one can be used when soliciting donations and the other when deciding which projects to cut?
Second, if it is possible, is it desirable? What consequences might come about from trying to separate these two processes? Maybe doing so requires an extreme psychology or ability to self-deceive, or the effort to separate them is just too tiring to maintain.
Cowen doesn't seem to have written his own thoughts on the matter, but has reported on it at the links below, and seems excited. Until recently the project has kept relatively quiet, as they were shopping around for big early investors. It's only recently they've opened themselves up to the public, and they're still focused mostly on attracting local Hondurans. I've known about the project for a few years, but only because I'm close to people who got in on the early stages. If I had to guess, I figure they want to have more built and have a solid local base before advertising to the foreign public. Just a guess though.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/03/charter-city-finally-in-honduras.html
Apologies... (read more)
This post originated as an open letter to my own family this past June, later republished on a political community blog. It was born out of a dissatisfaction with how Love is popularly conceived of, as a vague positive force one pays lip service to, rather than a concrete and potent phenomenon. Religious texts are cited, but are not in conflict with secular wisdom on the matter. Not especially original.
[Epistemic Status: Quotes of Ancient Wisdom + heartfelt speculation = ???]
Seneca the Younger wrote in a moral letter to Lucius Annaeus:
... (read 1363 more words →)If you ask how one can make oneself a friend quickly, I will tell you, provided we are agreed that I may pay
I try to avoid using the word 'really' for this sort of reason. Gets you into all sorts of trouble.
(a) JBlack is using a definition related to simulation theory, and I don't know enough about this to speculate too much, but it seems to rely on a hard discontinuity between base and sensory reality.
(b) Before I realized he was using it that way, I thought the phrase meant 'reality as expressed on the most basic level yet conceivable' which, if it is possible to understand it, explodes the abstractions of higher orders and possibly results in their dissolving into absurdity. This is a softer transition than the above.
(c) I figure most people... (read more)