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Or, as have been shown plenty of times, “the left”’s stance is more scientifically accurate, and a tool scraping many scientific results will thus lean towards

by kaba0 4y ago

Or, as have been shown plenty of times, “the left”’s stance is more scientifically accurate, and a tool scraping many scientific results will thus lean towards the data’s side. Also, ‘conservative’ in itself is not a real.. set of biases? It is location and time-dependent, so it makes sense that with a multi-cultural source of data (from multiple decades, centuries) its effects will be negated.

RhysU 4y ago
> It is location and time-dependent... Depends on whom you talk to. For example, just today one letter-writer gave a nicely time-and-space-independent definition: "Conservatism isn’t about halting progress but maintaining the freedom necessary to facilitate it. Conservatism, in the American political sense, represents the ideals of limited government, free markets, individual rights and the rule of law." https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-neglected-conservatism-republican-party-11670009243 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-neglected-conservatism-repu...
- Aeolos 4y ago
  > > It is location and time-dependent... > Conservatism, in the American political sense Which is exactly the parent's point.
  - RhysU 4y ago
    Hamburgers, in the GUI sense, are a UI element. I don't see how contextualizing an overloaded word ("conservatism") weakens what I quoted. Those principles are independent.
    - doctor_eval 4y ago
      You said, > one letter-writer gave a nicely time-and-space-independent definition But the quote you gave was specifically American, i.e. not independent of either space or (technically) time.
      - RhysU 4y ago
        Aye, but "classical liberalism" is another term for those principles that goes back hundreds of years on both sides of the Atlantic [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke
        doctor_eval 4y ago
        Ahh, that page says Burke was a conservative, and nothing about him reads to me as classical liberal. Indeed, > Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics; civil liberties under the rule of law with especial emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government [0] While your link says, > Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state. While not entirely orthogonal, these political positions are also not fully compatible. In particular, religion almost always impinges on individual liberties - especially bodily autonomy. And Burke clearly supported a state that classical liberals would have wanted to tear down. Anyway I think that’s enough responding to non-sequiturs for today. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
  - yodsanklai 4y ago
    A more universal definition would be > commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation (from Apple dictionary)
    - RhysU 4y ago
      From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservatism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservatism: "a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change. specifically : such a philosophy calling for lower taxes, limited government regulation of business and investing, a strong national defense, and individual financial responsibility for personal needs" No wonder the kids these days have knee-jerk reactions to "conservatism" when Apple hands out such balderdash and people accept Apple's word as gospel.
      - kaba0 4y ago
        > No wonder the kids these days have knee-jerk reactions to "conservatism" Is it really a surprise after taking away fundamental bodily autonomy from half of the population? That is a government overreach, if anything.
        dane-pgp 4y ago
        Depending on your philosophical leanings, banning abortion actually grants bodily autonomy to the entirety of the not-yet-born population. I'm not expecting you to accept that philosophical position, but I hope it explains how the governmental policy is only an overreach to the extent that a particular unprovable and unfalsifiable philosophical position is correct.
        kaba0 4y ago
        I don’t know, is an unborn fetus an American citizen? Because the mother definitely is, right now, without any doubt - and pregnancy is a very dangerous, sometimes even lethal state, with long-term serious health problems. I don’t see any defensible arguments to strip bodily autonomy from a current citizen, it’s not a zero sum game (I’m sure you can create some ad absurdum situation where stripping someone of their rights “for the greater good” turns out very nightmarish). These matters should only be discussed by the mother and her doctor, that’s it.
xen2xen1 4y ago
Or it was just trained on Reddit.
agomez314 4y ago
You know that not all scientific data is "accurate" right? Both in its actual and interpretive sense. Some experiments record bad results which are hopefully later corrected. This could take a long time. And the scientific method is an exploration of observations through which a conclusion is drawn -there's no left/right wing bias in that. Where the bias lies is in the _interpretation_ of results.
- Aachen 4y ago
  Better that than guessing and having faith, though. I think they're just saying that (I haven't verified this) opinions associated with "left" in the USA¹ are usually more in line with experimental results than religious faith as compared to opinions associated with the "right" wing. ¹ adding a cultural marker here because it's not universal. In NL, this would correspond to "center" if I'm understanding these general labels correctly.
passwordoops 4y ago
Firstly, to say any political belief is "scientifically accurate" is a gross misunderstanding of both science and political beliefs. Best definitions for both I have found are: -Science = the search for the best explanation given available information [1]. -Political belief = shared myths through which we agree society should be organized [2] Secondly, don't discount bias in science. Once a paradigm is established, good luck breaking it, especially for complex subjects. It usually takes decades (e.g., DNA is the genetic material, microbiomes are a thing, even relativity). A more appropriate framing to your statement is "The current paradigms trend what modern society considers left, providing the political lens throughout which researchers interpret their results. Therefore, this big statistical model we call an AI leans 'left'." [1] David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity [2] Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  Awesome calling it a "gross misunderstanding" and then using a book mostly considered fiction history as a source for the definition. (Sapiens is not highly regarded by anyone with a history background, its nice laymans reading though). I think you are ignoring the larger point he is making though. Lets say society agrees on "We want less crime". Scientifically we can make models of human behaviour, do analysis of what causes crime, what prevents it from becoming epidemic etc. We do have all that data. Poverty, lack of education and healthcare and punitive judiciary with little help for mental health and drug issues are the main causes. So if the left says "lets reduce poverty, do needle sharing programs, detox clinics, and defund the police in exchange for neighbourhood cops and mental health helpers at shelters and poorer schools" and the right says "lets give cops a tank and a more dangerous looking outfit". One is aligned with the scientific consensus on the solutions that would help, the other is just idealising violence as a solution to a complex problem. This is reproducible in other areas where there is social consensus on the problem (economy not growing, housing being expensive, cleaning the environment). Technocratic solutions aren't always the best and a number of opinions and plans are good, but it is quite crazy seeing people disregard solutions that work in every other country on the simple basis of ideology.
  - onos 4y ago
gdddddk 4y ago
Just in case anyone missed the joke this poster is making, "the left" is a political group that believes, for instance, there are more than two sexes.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Well, there are more than two sexes, XX, XY, XXY, XXX, plus several other chromosome variants. So your primary school-level biology argument falls apart quickly. But if you would have paid any attention to.. well, anything you would have known that it is not about sex, but gender, which usually correlates, but not always.
  - biologythowaway 4y ago
    If I recall correctly, the more formal definition, would be too say that all who do not have a Y chromosome are female, everyone else is male. Note that no human has ever survived with less then 1 X chromosome. The real interesting part begins with people who possess more then 1 set of genes, split between there body. The it become a more philosophical question.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      What if they do in fact have a Y chromosome, but their body fails to respond to it? Then they will grow up as if they were females. Also, due to chimerism (I guess that’s what you are getting at with your last two sentences) even genetic sex-determination is only probabilistic — they try to find several Y chromosomes to identify someone’s sex as male.
- CuriouslyC 4y ago
  That view is as universal on the left as the view that blacks are an inferior race is on the right.
hoseja 4y ago
the left stance extrapolates from current understanding the right stance extrapolates from current understanding plus history one has faith in the modern prosperous progressive society, the other has seen them fall to brutality and chaos countless times. but surely this time it will be different, we are after all educated civilized people. No seriously, this is the main thrust of conservatism. It perceives the thinness of the veil of polite society and does the only thing that has been seen working consistently so far.

by kaba0 4y ago

RhysU 4y ago

> It is location and time-dependent... Depends on whom you talk to. For example, just today one letter-writer gave a nicely time-and-space-independent definition: "Conservatism isn’t about halting progress but maintaining the freedom necessary to facilitate it. Conservatism, in the American political sense, represents the ideals of limited government, free markets, individual rights and the rule of law." https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-neglected-conservatism-republican-party-11670009243 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-neglected-conservatism-repu...

Aeolos 4y ago
> > It is location and time-dependent... > Conservatism, in the American political sense Which is exactly the parent's point.
- RhysU 4y ago
  Hamburgers, in the GUI sense, are a UI element. I don't see how contextualizing an overloaded word ("conservatism") weakens what I quoted. Those principles are independent.
  - doctor_eval 4y ago
    You said, > one letter-writer gave a nicely time-and-space-independent definition But the quote you gave was specifically American, i.e. not independent of either space or (technically) time.
    - RhysU 4y ago
      Aye, but "classical liberalism" is another term for those principles that goes back hundreds of years on both sides of the Atlantic [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke
      - doctor_eval 4y ago
        Ahh, that page says Burke was a conservative, and nothing about him reads to me as classical liberal. Indeed, > Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics; civil liberties under the rule of law with especial emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government [0] While your link says, > Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state. While not entirely orthogonal, these political positions are also not fully compatible. In particular, religion almost always impinges on individual liberties - especially bodily autonomy. And Burke clearly supported a state that classical liberals would have wanted to tear down. Anyway I think that’s enough responding to non-sequiturs for today. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  A more universal definition would be > commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation (from Apple dictionary)
  - RhysU 4y ago
    From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservatism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservatism: "a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change. specifically : such a philosophy calling for lower taxes, limited government regulation of business and investing, a strong national defense, and individual financial responsibility for personal needs" No wonder the kids these days have knee-jerk reactions to "conservatism" when Apple hands out such balderdash and people accept Apple's word as gospel.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      > No wonder the kids these days have knee-jerk reactions to "conservatism" Is it really a surprise after taking away fundamental bodily autonomy from half of the population? That is a government overreach, if anything.
      - dane-pgp 4y ago
        Depending on your philosophical leanings, banning abortion actually grants bodily autonomy to the entirety of the not-yet-born population. I'm not expecting you to accept that philosophical position, but I hope it explains how the governmental policy is only an overreach to the extent that a particular unprovable and unfalsifiable philosophical position is correct.
        kaba0 4y ago
        I don’t know, is an unborn fetus an American citizen? Because the mother definitely is, right now, without any doubt - and pregnancy is a very dangerous, sometimes even lethal state, with long-term serious health problems. I don’t see any defensible arguments to strip bodily autonomy from a current citizen, it’s not a zero sum game (I’m sure you can create some ad absurdum situation where stripping someone of their rights “for the greater good” turns out very nightmarish). These matters should only be discussed by the mother and her doctor, that’s it.

xen2xen1 4y ago

Or it was just trained on Reddit.

agomez314 4y ago

You know that not all scientific data is "accurate" right? Both in its actual and interpretive sense. Some experiments record bad results which are hopefully later corrected. This could take a long time. And the scientific method is an exploration of observations through which a conclusion is drawn -there's no left/right wing bias in that. Where the bias lies is in the _interpretation_ of results.

Aachen 4y ago
Better that than guessing and having faith, though. I think they're just saying that (I haven't verified this) opinions associated with "left" in the USA¹ are usually more in line with experimental results than religious faith as compared to opinions associated with the "right" wing. ¹ adding a cultural marker here because it's not universal. In NL, this would correspond to "center" if I'm understanding these general labels correctly.

passwordoops 4y ago

Firstly, to say any political belief is "scientifically accurate" is a gross misunderstanding of both science and political beliefs. Best definitions for both I have found are: -Science = the search for the best explanation given available information [1]. -Political belief = shared myths through which we agree society should be organized [2] Secondly, don't discount bias in science. Once a paradigm is established, good luck breaking it, especially for complex subjects. It usually takes decades (e.g., DNA is the genetic material, microbiomes are a thing, even relativity). A more appropriate framing to your statement is "The current paradigms trend what modern society considers left, providing the political lens throughout which researchers interpret their results. Therefore, this big statistical model we call an AI leans 'left'." [1] David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity [2] Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
Awesome calling it a "gross misunderstanding" and then using a book mostly considered fiction history as a source for the definition. (Sapiens is not highly regarded by anyone with a history background, its nice laymans reading though). I think you are ignoring the larger point he is making though. Lets say society agrees on "We want less crime". Scientifically we can make models of human behaviour, do analysis of what causes crime, what prevents it from becoming epidemic etc. We do have all that data. Poverty, lack of education and healthcare and punitive judiciary with little help for mental health and drug issues are the main causes. So if the left says "lets reduce poverty, do needle sharing programs, detox clinics, and defund the police in exchange for neighbourhood cops and mental health helpers at shelters and poorer schools" and the right says "lets give cops a tank and a more dangerous looking outfit". One is aligned with the scientific consensus on the solutions that would help, the other is just idealising violence as a solution to a complex problem. This is reproducible in other areas where there is social consensus on the problem (economy not growing, housing being expensive, cleaning the environment). Technocratic solutions aren't always the best and a number of opinions and plans are good, but it is quite crazy seeing people disregard solutions that work in every other country on the simple basis of ideology.
- onos 4y ago

gdddddk 4y ago

Just in case anyone missed the joke this poster is making, "the left" is a political group that believes, for instance, there are more than two sexes.

kaba0 4y ago
Well, there are more than two sexes, XX, XY, XXY, XXX, plus several other chromosome variants. So your primary school-level biology argument falls apart quickly. But if you would have paid any attention to.. well, anything you would have known that it is not about sex, but gender, which usually correlates, but not always.
- biologythowaway 4y ago
  If I recall correctly, the more formal definition, would be too say that all who do not have a Y chromosome are female, everyone else is male. Note that no human has ever survived with less then 1 X chromosome. The real interesting part begins with people who possess more then 1 set of genes, split between there body. The it become a more philosophical question.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    What if they do in fact have a Y chromosome, but their body fails to respond to it? Then they will grow up as if they were females. Also, due to chimerism (I guess that’s what you are getting at with your last two sentences) even genetic sex-determination is only probabilistic — they try to find several Y chromosomes to identify someone’s sex as male.
CuriouslyC 4y ago
That view is as universal on the left as the view that blacks are an inferior race is on the right.

hoseja 4y ago

the left stance extrapolates from current understanding the right stance extrapolates from current understanding plus history one has faith in the modern prosperous progressive society, the other has seen them fall to brutality and chaos countless times. but surely this time it will be different, we are after all educated civilized people. No seriously, this is the main thrust of conservatism. It perceives the thinness of the veil of polite society and does the only thing that has been seen working consistently so far.